Number6's Journal

First, I might as well get it out of the way. No NaNo for me this year, not even my usual "I'll try to meet 50,000 words as a total of various short story writings). For the longest time I've been in a big writing slump with nothing really exciting me, storywise, and it'd just be painful to try to do NaNo with it. I will be trying to keep up with my normal slog of timed writing, of course. I have at least had a couple ideas recently that interest me enough to want to explore them, but I'm still not sure what I want to do with them and I don't want to burn myself out on them with NaNo style forced writing.

In life, nothing's happening.

So let's go to books.

Finished: The Waste Lands (Dark Tower Book III, by Stephen King (reread)
Started: Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower Book IV, by Stephen King (reread)

Still enjoying it, but not as much as first read. Of course, the Waste Lands is one of my favorites, because the scenes with Jake in New York call out to me. Especially this passage:
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Finished: The Temporal Void, by Peter Hamilton
Started: Tesseracts 4 (short story collection)

Temporal Void was okay. A sequel to The Dreaming Void, at least to some extent I'm satisfied one one of my problems from the last book. On the other hand, I'm still not really feeling attached to any of the characters. It's decent fun, some cool ideas, but I'm not invested really. Some spoilers. ( Read more... )

Now, moving away from books... What's been on TV?

I'm pretty much given up on The Event. I just don't care from episode to episode. I don't care about any of the characters. I don't even care about what the mission of the detainees was. Again, I'll watch it, but only because nothing else is worth watching at that time (on a channel I get).

No Ordinary Family, the other new show, I'm still watching, but... I don't know, it sort of rings hollow. Like, it's an ABC show, but it feels more like a Disney show where minor characters occasionally die. Everybody learns valuable life lessons from their powers and nothing really edgy ever happens. And, unfortunately, in many ways, that makes it really predictable. (Some spoilers for recent episodes). ( Read more... )

Again, I'm still watching it, but mostly I want Speedy-Mom's Geeky Kitty-Pryde-Fangirl-Sidekick to dose herself with whatever's causing the powers and then do her own superhero stuff without everybody else.

What else... well, in bad news, Caprica is officially cancelled. Supposedly Canada is airing the remaining episodes in the next few weeks, but thus far they have not shown up via... "magic" yet so I've been unable to watch it.

It really is a shame, because in many ways it's one of the very few really good attempts at a "pure" SF show that's not space-based. It plausibly invents a whole new society similar to our own but with enough differences to be fascinating, and deals with a lot of big SF concepts and yet where the story is still driven by the characters. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I'm really disappointed it's being axed and replaced with "BSG: Blood and Iron" (set during the first Cylon War, with a young Adama and Battlestar Galactica again, fighting cylons). More action-war-explodey stuff. Which is fine. I'll almost certainly watch it and enjoy it. But it's "more of the same". Caprica was something special and is going away. I almost think Caprica was hurt by the BSG association, because a) I'm not sure it REALLY fits with any of the canon (and for once, I don't care one bit, it works as a solo piece), and b) it gave people some false expectations. On the other hand, it probably would never be made without those associations. I tip my hat to you, Caprica. You're no Firefly, and I probably won't even miss you as much as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I think you could have done some great things if given the chance.

It's former sister show, Stargate Universe, is still ongoing, and still doing pretty well, in terms of enjoyability, although ratings-wise it's still struggling. The last episode "Trial and Error" was a little weaker than most, but it surprised me in a couple good ways, too. I will go into spoilers behind the cut, but mainly because it edged onto a story idea I had way back when I first heard of the concept. It didn't really do anything THAT similar, but it hit the point where I can't see them ever doing both what they did in this episode AND my idea, so I might as well reveal my story idea. So, spoilers and a plot-idea-I-might-have-done-if-I-wrote-for-Stargate (and I should totally write for Stargate!) behind the cut. ( Read more... )

The other big TV thing recently was "The Walking Dead"'s premiere. And it seems to have done very well in the ratings, beating even Mad Men for AMC, and that may be just because it was on Halloween and everyone was in a horror mood. And of course not all those viewers might stick around. But it's a good sign and gives me hope for a S2 with characters like Michonne (I totally nominate Gina Torres as Michonne). The episode itself? I actually got a look at the script many months ago. And the show episode matched the script, so really, there were no surprises for me in this episode. However, it was well-put together, well acted, and the zombies looked suitabley creepy. Very much looking forward to more.

And since we finished on zombies, that feels like a nice segue to dreams, because I had a couple zombie dreams in the past couple weeks. Except, they weren't traditional zombie dreams.

Basically, they were zombie ROLEPLAYING dreams.

I had one dream where I was playing a MUSH (with several old people from XET), that was basically a zombie apocalypse theme as a special limited run dream for Halloween. Which I'm sure has at least been suggested and probably done before, and I'm not all that sure I'd want to play it, but it was amusing. Specifically, the dream was a lot of text-based roleplaying. It was a big scene so I kept trying (and failing, because the text kept changing) to make sure what I was about to pose made sense with what was posed by other people.

The other one was different... it was sort of a LIVE ACTIONG Zombie RPG. Everybody was out in some closed-off town-looking area, and I guess we were all there to play a zombie RPG. ( Read more... ) Sadly most of my other dreams have just been dull or unmemorable, much like my life. Ah well.

In my dream, at least. (Ha, got ya).

Anyway, it was mildly amusing except one part which was rageworthy. (No spoilers, unless I happen to be prophetic, but cut for your sanity anyway)
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Anyway, I think the chances of it being a prophetic dream are pretty slim. Of course, if I was in the RTD era, the chances of a prophetic dream would have been quite good. In fact, it still would have been a prophetic dream, somehow, even if it occured many thousands of years AFTER the first episode aired.

And while I'm here, had some other dreams that were kinda cool lately.

A dream where I was my old favorite MU*ing character, and I teamed up either with, or to find, my friend who was the X-Men Evolution version of the Scarlet Witch. ( Read more... ) Woke up really missing that character of mine. Twas fun being him.

There was a zombie dream, but I can't recall the specifics. I think at one point we were in a car taking out zombies while we drove.

Another dream where all I remember was that I was stuck in an area I wasn't supposed to be in, pinned in by authorities who would have arrested/killed me. I got out by exploiting a break in their security perimeter, and walking backwards... so even though I was caught, since I was sneaking around facing the place I wasn't supposed to be in, they thought I was just some guy who was trying to sneak in, instead of the person who was sneaking out with whatever I was trying to smuggle out, and let me go.

Okay, I've been MUSHless for too long. And despite my earlier vow never to admin a MU* again, I've decided the only way to get the kind of MUSH I want to play in is to run one. It's just gone on too long where I see a MU* that's sort of promising but then one big thing ticks me off and I have to back off it.

I'll probably run it off XET's former site. I've not yet settled on a theme, but I've narrowed it down to a few options:
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Okay, and as the last (planned) edition of the XET diaries, I’m going to do a few random plots ideas left out of the other posts and couple of my own ideas for XETized versions of other Marvel concepts. These aren't really 'plans' so much, because unless I was prepared to app the characters it was likely they'd never come to pass, and some of them would be impossible in a group RP session, even though they might be cool if XET were, say, an X-Men Alternate Universe comic series. But hey, since I was doing this big series of posts anyways, I decided I’d throw them in as a capper. Also, some of my ideas for ‘rehabilitating’ (or just doing cool things with) certain existing characters by using our One Year Gap at our rebirth.

Behind the cut… XET Runaways! Warlock! The Punisher! And More!
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And that’s it. My complete Plot Book for XET (again, barring something I remember way down the line and decide to post later). I hope at least some of you enjoyed it because, well, otherwise I did a whole lot of typing for nothing! Well, not for nothing… even if nobody cared, I wanted to have a record to look back on someday and smile.

Anyway, at this point I’d like to invite anyone else who wants to, to use this post (or the previous ones if its more relevant) to include their own memories of plots left undone, secrets known only to a few people that never made it to public knowledge, characters you almost apped for, or hell, even just random memories. You can either post them yourself as comments, or post links to posts elsewhere. I personally’d love to read them, even if I know them already.

Edit: Links to other XET-based log-entries as they come in: ( Read more... )

Time for another edition of the XET Diaries. Looks like this’ll probably be the second to last, so I’m going to go even more self-indulgent than usual on this one…

Of all the plots we’ve done, I think my favorites were the Hastur related plots, based on the modified Hastur mythos in Delta Green (specifically, the sourcebook Countdown). We did a number of plots where the Columbia Branch got involved with them.
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And so now I present, for the first time anywhere, the Hastur Plot Musical Homage to ‘Once More With Feeling’, Once More With Hastur!
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Aside from the Buffy musical homage in the Hastur plot, I’ve done a bunch of other filkish songs celebrating XET over the years. The first few were done as a dubious treat for the XETty awards, or hidden in secret commands on the game as an easter egg, but a couple never made it anywhere but in my own files. So, behind the cut, the full song parodies of XET!
( Magneto as the Modern Mutant General! Xavier’s private Copacabana! Under Da Sea (Cthulhu Lies Dreaming)! and more! )
Next up is our final planned entry, where I’ll just throw out a bunch of loose character concepts and plots that didn’t fit in any other entry.

This time around, we're dealing mostly with plots surrounding various organizations. Delta Green. The Office of Metahuman Affairs. Brotherhood Splinters. Weapon X. Excelsior!
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Next time around, what’s the penultimate post (at least, in terms of planned posts… there’s always the chance that months from now I’ll remember something and decide to post it)… the remains of the Hastur Plots, and the complete Songs of XET. Yes, there is a connection between the two topics. Be afraid.

Well, I finally finished Planescape Torment. Pretty good game overall. A little too linear at times and I would have liked to have explore more. Tiny bit buggy and annoying too. But overall good.

Specific thoughts:
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Some rambling thoughts about the Planescape setting itself and where thoughts like it takes me...:( Read more... )

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, back when I was... I dunno, youngish (probably around 15?), I was running a Planescape RPG for my brother and a couple other people. It wasn't great but I did come up with what I thought was a great adventure, involving the PCs suddenly finding themselves on a Baatezu (demon) mobile fortress, on a suicide mission in the middle of the Blood War. I found the file, and since I was in the spirit of the setting, decided to clean it up a little and put it online. It's called The Charge of the Dark Brigade. Still a little rough and sketchy in parts, and there are a couple winceworthy things like names and bits of dialog, but still I think the main plot holds up remarkably well.

It’s time for another edition of the XET Diaries. This time, the Dreamlands, and Mojo Mayhem. Plus a few other isolated plots

We had a couple different plots abrew for the Dreamlands. Some of them might have eventually combined into one big plot, of course, but we always wanted to open the Dreamlands up to more regular exploration by the player characters.

Just as a quick recap for those who don’t know, the Dreamlands are a sort of a parallel dimension that some (though not all) people can access when they dream, in Lovecraft’s work. It’s formed from the collective unconscious and typically is at a level about 500 years in the past, at least on average. More generally it’s a ‘high fantasy’ world, with monsters and gods and mysterious cities, etc.

The Dreamlands of course, is the XET-canon origin of Lockheed’s species (along with, at least in our plans, canon Shatterstar's swords metal but we never actually established that firmly), and where the portal that Weapon Xers got lost in (and that eventually got shifted to another dimension in the Rutland incident) originally lead. It’s also where Goblyn was when Laura Dean was in our world, and vice versa, and where Catseye roamed.
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In the next entry, more on XET and Delta Green and the Secret Life of Groundskeeper Willie, plus the Government and Excelsior.

Welcome to yet another edition of The XET Diaries. This time, we’re stepping into the wayback machine… both right back to the beginning of the game, and way back into the past of XET itself. I’ll also discuss a bit of the Karotechia, and What’s Hiding in Xavier’s Brain?

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That’s enough for this post, I think. In the next one, I’ll be talking about the plots we had for the Dreamlands, and a little something I like to call Mojo Madness! Plus a few other assorted plots.

Okay, I think it’s about time to do another edition of the XET Diaries. Last time I talked about the drug plot. Well, in the back of my mind I had a second plot that would spring off that and lead into a wacky, time-travel adventure. In this edition, I’ll be tackling that, as well as discussing some of the ideas we had for the Ultimates. So, let’s get started behind the cut.
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In the next XET Diaries post, Secrets of XET’s past! Plus, what do you get when you cross a nazi with a cannibal? And some of the longer term ongoing plots and what was going on behind them…