Go Asterisk Yourself

When you're about to write a word but you think it's objectionable and needs an asterisk or a dash in place of one of the letters, how about picking another word? If you don't have the guts to say "fuck," instead of "f*ck," you should just shut the fuck up.

Random Dreams

I dreamed last night that I was at Carnage and I had already missed my D&D adventure and had nothing done on my Defenders adventure. Of course, I also dreamed about having a hideout in these weird secret tunnels, and a horror LARP in some snowy place in Wisconsin that turned into real supernatural horror in the middle.

Out of Order

I was suddenly hit by the inspiration to do a couple of chapters from the perspective of one of the villains (well, a sort-of-villain, anyway -- it's complicated) so now I've got this thing going on where I'm writing stuff out of order and I have three chapters-in-progress instead of one. Thank Grodd for Scrivener.

Whatever

I didn't go to Gen Con this year because of dayjob bullshit and an extra trip I had to take. I didn't want to cancel and I missed seeing all the people I usually hang out with there, but it turned out to be kind of nice skipping all the hassles. I'm not sure I even want bother with it next year. Or ever.

I know, I know, I've said this before and still ended up back in Indy. Whatever. It's Monday.

Praising or Burying The Scrap Pile

Not long ago, my long-running Icons campaign came to a good stopping place. I decided to run a D&D adventure and then have everybody come back with new characters. (Much as I love the original characters, their dynamic was getting a little stale, despite a few fun shake-ups.) The other day, I proposed that, before we start, I do a one-shot to test out my Defenders adventure for this year's Carnage convention. Some talk of spinning that into a whole campaign followed, after which a couple of players suggested that this would mean the death of The Scrap Pile.

I have some cool plans to kick off the next phase of the campaign but, if it is over, I'm okay with that. I'm really proud of what we did there and I'm satisfied with the ending we've got. There are a few things that were never resolved, of course. They never really found out much about Covenant, and some plans I had for The Unbeholden, one of the first villain groups they went up against, never really took shape. That's just how it goes, though. There are always gonna be loose ends. I tended to leave them on purpose, anyway, so I'd always have ideas for the next adventure.

The Scrap Pile came from a team Tom and I created on the City of Heroes MMO. Later, I wrote a couple of stories about characters from the group. Even later, when I started my Icons campaign, I set it in the same world and the group, at a loss for a name, decided to just go with Scrap Pile. The game took a new, somewhat appalling, direction with the addition of Disco, and off we went.

The Scrap Pile campaign survived at least two long breaks and the departure of one of its founding members. It gave us four giant-sized annuals, an anniversary crossover event, and a Christmas Special.

The team went to outer space, other dimensions, Atlantis, and even Canada.

They fought a bunch of villains I made up, but they also fought Deathbird, Blastaar, The Destroyer, The Headmen, Man-Wolf, and Baron Karza, among others.

One of the players is writing a novella about his character (I'd link to his web page if he had one).

So, will I pick this back up and return to Beta City with these guys if that's the way the wind blows? Hell yeah, in a heartbeat. If it's over, though, I'll celebrate its glorious end with the same enthusiasm.

Thena

 

 

 

There's No Coke

I wanna see a commercial for Coca-Cola that starts with Gabriel Byrne frantically searching a ship for something. Everywhere he looks, there's just a bunch of Pepsi. Stephen Baldwin shows up.

Byrne: There's no Coke!

Baldwin: What?

Byrne: You heard me, you dumb fuck! I said there's no Coke! I've looked in every fucking fridge! I've looked in every fucking cabinet! THERE'S NO -- FUCKING -- COKE!

Baldwin: I'm outta here.

Cut to Kevin Spacey, daytime, walking down the street. Pete Postlethwaite shows up to offer him a ride and and an ice cold Coca-Cola. Spacey smiles as he pops the can open and takes a drink. He holds it up to the camera like he's proposing a toast.

Cut with the sound of a blaring boat horn to the harbor, where a charred corpse floats, surrounded by mangled Pepsi cans, which somehow also float. Coca-Cola logo appears.

Voiceover: If they don't have Coke, get the fuck out.

... but that might not be the image they're going for.