Why a "Combat Wheelchair" does NOT fit with Dungeons And Dragons or fantasy TTRPGs...

"Hey, DM, I want a Combat Wheelchair - my Monte Cook contract says I can demand it..."

 

 For reference to how this works ...

 

 

 

George Alexopoulos - image - used with permission!

 

TL/DR - it's pure bullshit by so-called "Woke" tourists out to WRECK Dungeons and Dragons and the TTRPG hobby in general.

It's also proof of how uncaring they are about the game, the hobby, the source material and how vain they are with their "Identity Politics".

I've waited a while to type this - they want anger and angry reactions so they can scream "Hallp!  I'm being oppressed!"  And why NOT allow such in a game of high fantasy that superficially at least resembles our ideal past and romantic dreams of them?

Several reasons and I'll put them here:

FIRST - it just doesn't FIT.

Ever see the first D&D movie where they had Beholder monsters that were used as Guard Dogs but had seemingly a 10 degree field of vision and the ones leading them seemed to have a 30 degree vision?  If you don't get that you are a TOURIST.  This isn't "Rules Lawyer" stuff.  It's "Maan, this is PAINFUL to watch!" or "Cringe" as the "Woke" tourists call it when something hurts their Fee Fees...

SECOND - "If they can make it they don't need it"

The best way to explain it is that like a "Difference Engine" in real life - if you can build it you don't need it.

They technically can be made now and I think a few have.  Oh, back to the Abacus and that set of gears found in a Greek shipwreck from antiquity we've had them forever.  I mean the equivalent of a computer we are using today or early 70s home computer - it has memory, it can take instructions, it can run programs, it can change what it does based on memory and instructions.  The program can do anything from "Hello World" stamped out on paper or etched on plates or displays via a complex set of flapping cards on a plaque for an analog but digital screen or sent to an automata hand with a quill that writes in elegant Victorian Cursive writing...?

Babbage never finished it during his lifetime.  There were some issues with the man I won't get into but one of the big technical details was that even in the industrial revolution he simply could not get enough parts made to the precision required.  The tiny brass gears he needed were either way too expensive at the scale he needed them AND/OR they were NOT made to the level of precision. The modern age it's been 3D modeled and simulated, it would have worked though note his first device was to print tables for businesses so clerks and conductors who couldn't READ but could do numbers could gauge time, weights, prices...

Still - in today the information age, rather decades ago the Nuclear/Diesel age we had the technology.  And we had better fuel than coal and reliable electronics.  The technology to make a one ton nightmare of delicate gears that pulled more power than a dishwasher and oven to work at 1/10th the speed of an Apple 1 allows modern computers which are a fraction of the price and thousands of times the speed and memory.

It simply is not practical - I've even looked into tech to make it at the "Nanoscale".  

If we get to nanotech and are there to a point, we could make a HUGE but TINY computer of endless gears and rotary belts that could work as a computer.  It would take in energy and information and use the energy to process the information put into it.  It would be many thousands of times faster than modern computers even many supercomputer setups and fit in an inch or two.  The "Square Cube" law would make the gears and pulleys made out of hundreds of atoms (vs billions/trillions at smallest) be almost indestructible in their environment which also would be perfect, clean and sealed.  Square cube again only a tiny amount of energy would be needed to run the thing.

HOWEVER - to make it you need nanotech of a very fast and accurate control but able to sculpt at insane rates of speed at the macroscopic scale.  We are getting there...

BUT - and this is the sad spoiler to the "Steampunk" fans;  IF you can make that you can make an "Atomic Spin Computer".  Excuse me, I'm feeling like a kid again reading old OMNI magazines... We call them "Quantum Computers" these days and at last are making them.  

The difference?  Easier to construct and imagine an Apple 1 compared to today's best super-computers.  Not a "Cray" of the 80s we have that on our desktop in the 2020s if not our phones...  A supercomputer of today worth billions compared to a 1970s DIY kit with kilobytes and kilahertz clock speed...switches to program binary... At least...!

That's the difference in raw speed even if the Quantum one spends 99% of it's time error correcting.  Now imagine an AI working that out and figuring out an algorithm to eliminate some of the 99% of time needed...?  Then, the AI works out ways to use the Quantum Foam and stuff just under or outside what we see as reality.  It might help answer a last question...  Anyone get that last bit?

Going to the TTRPG world of the "Draconic" game - well you might hear how Tolkien fans complain it stole from him.  They had to name Hobbits into Halflings among other issues.  However the Tolkien stuff is the paint job.  The grand castle comes from many giants not the least of which is Jack Vance.  Read his Dying Earth especially Mazarian the Magician stories.  It sounds like someone put their D&D session to a story.  Except it was 20 years before the first D&D!

Vance's world (and Wells, Hodgkin, Clark Ashton Smith) is our world but the far, far future.  The sun is either gigantic in the sky and Earth has been moved outwards or it's a dim red ember.  Somehow humanity survives this far out and is on the surface the same.  However while many cycles have come and gone it seems on the surface a mystical medieval world.  How does it have "magic" if in the real world?  And not some rich drug addict more trying to summon Priapus than some angel or demon in a mansion but only really summoning scandal?  The Magic works, wizards can do many incredible things...  How?  Clarke's third law - "Any technology, sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic"

 

The setting of the world is that there is a REAL working magic and the "Gods" are real and thus clerical spells can heal people.  Sure you could get Gnomes to make a wheelchair that might somehow handle rough terrain and go through a dungeon with kooky devices to bypass simple pit traps and goblins sneaking up from behind...  BUT it would cost at least TWENTY times the Gold Coin it would take to go to a temple of a "Greater God" and get a healing of major wounds and restoration done.  And NO they aren't cursed or "special" not to be healed.  They can go to an EVIL god and at least pay a fortune (or promise dark deeds) if they PO'd a "Good" god.

A more fitting item would be at a low level campaign some pre-rolled "Wretched" zero level characters have various flaws to overcome like a prostitute who's face got slashed by a rich client with a magical dagger or a desperate peasant who has a sick daughter who needs healing magic so they will go into the dark dungeons that are ruins from up to many thousands of years ago to try to find coin.  That could start them to the path of adventure and make the players feel more for their sacrificial zero level characters in the "Meat Grinder" mission to get them into the game and flush out the snowflake 'woke' tourists.

THIRD - It's brutal brainwashing out of 1984

 

"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston Smith?"

I think the ONLY book they for real read in the Debt Factory aka a modern "College" that excretes the so-called "Woke" social justice warriors or whatever...  1984 by George Orwell.  They see it as UTOPIA, just as long as the BOOT in the FACE of humanity forever is RAINBOW colored from ethically sourced materials...  Dripping sarcasm here.

The "Woke" corporate backed fake Culture War is based around hammering their party line in one form or another until it becomes truth.  It is forcing by various means such as threats of being seen as racist, sexist, ablest ... whatever - to accept one of their stupid, ill thought out inserts.  It is a means of controlling the argument.  It is a means of trying to force a set of legacy on future players who try to pick up the pieces once the corporate behemoths move on to feed elsewhere.

The reaction against "Combat Wheelchair" and other madness like full flying PCs at Level 1, forced insertion of various mental and physical disorders is about keeping the hobby something that people will play on their own without a corporation saying its popular for a few years then shelving it.  These "Woke" will be gone soon, leaving some very ugly legacies and the true hobbyists will have to try to rebuild. 

So resisting the "Sparkle Troll" lies and agitprop is critical to us who want our freedom and expression in our games (and comics, video games, etc.) by denying their stupid ideas.  Sure there probably ARE "Combat Wheelchairs" somewhere or DMs that let a first level character FLY but somehow didn't wreck the campaign balance.  Fine.  It's still sane to resist the base game having this garbage meant to ram in their stupid fake ideals so they can virtue signal to their friends.  They are just adult babies and cry-bullies who want to break another's toys with some parent or elite corporate figure protecting them. 

No - that's not a call for violence - rather ever hear of "The List"?  For bad RPGs that are ruined by them?  Going to get it expanded (or an alt list made) that follows the so-called Writers and some of the Illustrators who have helped the corporate pigs wreck a decade of entertainment and hobbies.  When their Parents are gone aka the Corporation - well they'd better hope there is room for them to publish and stock RPG books (and comics, games) in some Seattle Coffeshop next to the college they went to.  Except woke don't buy their own "Change!" products - that tip jar is NOT that big.  Any company that wants to make MONEY will hear tons of complaints about them - no lies just "There are lots of other options, this person did this - proof - so I won't buy unless you dump them." - and they'll talk to them "There are a MILLION other artists, writers, managers out there all better than you and that's not even counting AIs.  Bye." 

Considering they openly try to "Cancel" anyone they don't like and have indeed tried to cancel me and my friends and things I like - it's only fitting.

---So - in your OWN campaigns have all the ridiculous sh-t you want.  But let's not let these sparkle troll vandals wreck our hobbies by turning it into a Cauldron of rainbow Monty-Haul and sparkle troll coffeshop university!

Maxx Feral

Gamergate 2.0 - a new Sh-tshow but different

Gamergate 2 is here...  Sweet Cheebuz...

 

 Ladies and Gentleman, Children of all Ages - I present you with "Sweet Baby".

Serious - as a person who was an adult for Gamergate 1.0 I'll brief you.  Not on 'facts' written mostly by the 'journalists' but as I experienced it.

I missed it, most of it.  At the time I'd uninstalled all games from my computers and those were mostly older games or late 90s/early 00s ones that ran super on my newer computer.  I was trying to complete some projects in between increasing work and family and  I'd of course play games all night while smutmining dirty pics on Usenet such as classic Penthouse and Hustler pics. 

However I still went to Software Etc (now Gamestop, ugg...) to buy older retro games, my local branch had tons of NES/Sega cartridges at various prices.  And I saw all the things people bought new high $ computers for and some soaked the boards in liquid nitrogen so they could overclock to speeds we'd have issues with today...  I'm glad I'm more a casual, retro gamer but I salute those who always push the envelope.  Lots of definition of gamers - I'm a lifetime player, kid during early arcade, Atari 2600 age, early computer games - etc .  See pic - this was "RPG Maker" way back - also programmed in code from magazines at the library in an Atari computer.

From them and my own late night usenet (remember that?) and various /chan lurking I got filled in.  I checked it out and put this through a huge personal filter.  However the Software Etc people informed me what was going on as it happened.  I feel I'm quite informed.  Was once a person with journalist aspirations but now it's a "Post-Truth" world so no one trusts any "Source" though they demand it then deny it or insult you as a fool they got to waste time looking it up.  So take it or leave it but I speak what is best to my ears, eyes and research the truth.

Long Form but broken into steps:

1 - Games had become a super huge business, rivalling or in some ways surpassing the gaming boom of the late 70s to early 80s.  Different world, the computers were SO much more powerful, it was easier to program and the colleges excreted tons of kids with 'degrees' in game design.

2 - There was huge competition which translated to brutal pressure on those doing the legit work.  They worked 80 hour weeks on slack time but sometimes health destroying 100+ hour weeks just to get fired in time for Christmas.  They'd been lured in by the dreams of the 80s where the designers of Pac-Man and ET for the 2600 got checks in the millions.  That was because they'd fought hard for a sane share of royalties AND there was about 25 people in the WORLD who could program a game for the 2600.

2a - for "Source!?" screamers try a book called "Racing the Beam" which gives you an idea of what it is like to program for an Atari 2600.  Rememeber it next time you want to complain a Unity tutorial or kit is too hard.  You are a FLEA on the shoulders of Giants.  Oh, and those giants - they stood on the shoulders of the NASA guys who made the equivalent of an Apple II with magnetic core memory by hand and troubleshooted it on the way to the MOON.

3 - Huge pressure by companies, middle managers on game devs.  The essence was "We'll pay you this BUT if you get that level of ratings and initial sales we'll pay you enough you might earn good money so when you lay off these suckers doing the work you can run to Tahiti with millions."

4 - This led to desperate game designers in a glutted market doign desperate and underhanded things like PAYING so-called Journalists aka "Game Journalists" for good reviews of their upcoming games.  These were published in the remaining game magazines most kids and some adults had grown up reading and the emerging virtual online versions.  Sadly these had been bought out early 00s but they still had "Street Cred"

5 - I've worked for Corporate America and one thing you learn the hard way;  "Today's bonus is tomorrow's METRIC."  aka "Ok,  you lazy scum.  You worked that hard to earn that gift card and a promise of a raise?  That means you CAN work that hard and  you'll do it to keep your job.  And we'll not give you a raise and TAKE BACK your bonuses.  We dare you to walk out, we got the colleges churning out more suckers.  And we are automating so Indians and other third world people can SCAB.  We hate you you SCUM."  

5a - I'm almost quoting some employers,but keeping the language more polite, btw...

6 - The cycle feed itself for a few years and for less and less money all these "AAA" titles were essentially shovelware.  The big $ people behind them had flooded the market, cut $ they put into games, cut more $ in between with them locked in contracts so they could back out but lose all the $ and be bankrupt.  The $ and time put into the games suffered but if they got to that finish line with a barely workable product they'd get just enough to break even.

7 - This destroyed the quality of the products.  Master of the Obvious.  So we had lots of AAA titles rated 95% etc. that were shovelware.  IF they worked at all.  Some hardcore gamers had release parties ruined or their day off from their job(s) waiting all day for the ENTIRE DVD-ROM to be downloaded from a website not setup for it.  I had this pleasure on an overhyped but not prepared release of some pro end 3D software  - I won't tell their name not wanting to promote them now that they help the "Subscription racket"...

8 - The fuel of this industry, the hardcore Gamers started comparing notes on boards the big business didn't control - the /Chan sites and such and boy were they getting MAD.  You spend $70-$140, take a day off from your job(s) and get shovelware at best but it was rated super big in that magazine you trusted as a kid or college kid...  Then you start comparing notes and find out these "Game Journalists" are dunderheads.  And they SOLD good reviews.  When you work the jobs you hate the stuff you buy you don't need had better be GOOD, eh?

9 - The notes started generating negative vibes so the "Journalists" panicked.  They of all people knew how easily they could be replaced.  The programmers at least while not as scarce as early Atari days still needed skills not everyone had and the foreigner slave labor force was not near their level yet.

10 - So the "Games Journalists" used their undeserved power to smear their critics.  Incels.  Nerds.  Neckbeards.  Haters.  Racist, sexist, misogynist...  And yeah they claimed they threatened them in dramatic ways.  My favorite was some diversity hire claiming that someone had hired a "Darknet Hitman" on her and she was looking out the window in fear since he'd EMAILED her about it while she waited for a ride to a safe house.  Excuse me - if there were hitman that legit let anonymous 3rd parties hire them to kill anyone...  Whoops, no cops, judges, officials. Curious - that means they are con-men since a hit contract is fraud at worst unless an official which it becomes a federal crime...  Or Fed Fuzz wanting an easy target.

10a - "Toxic Gamers" did and do some shit - but it's things like SWATting people.  Why didn't the "Diversity Hire" SWAT herself?  Because she a non-white with lots of non-white friends would have been shot Robocop style.  Sick, ugly and wrong but true and very sadly true.  Also if it was a fake it'd be easy to debunk.  Call the fuzz in her city, ask if on that date that time they got a report - simple yes/no as public record territory.  But a "Darknet Hitman" has NO record of it or its not Darknet.  Thus I think - "One man's opinion" she LIED.  My opinion for legal CMA of course.

 

TL/DR

Desperate game devs paid so-called 'journalists' for good reviews.  Eventually too many games came out shovelware but were rated AAA by people who obviously didn't buy or play them.  The hardcore gamers got sick of paying top dollar for that and compared notes hoping to bring change.  The so-called "Journalists" panicked and made up tons of lies and insulted the Gamers to cover their worthless lying asses.

.....

Anyways it devolved as there was a mini gaming recession not talked about.  Big sharks ate up smaller ones and continued.  Anita Sarkesian was funded overnight for her "Tropes" garbage.  Games got gradually more politically correct and bland.   The internet expanded ability to bypass big stores and retail chains.  Steam in desperation allowed adult games even some "Loli" content ones for a while.

Gradually the games got back but there were too many people being excreted by colleges hoping to make games and more foreign competition.  The Debt Factories, formerly colleges seemed to teach some toxic corporate form of social activism first, identity politics second and maybe they paid top dollar to learn 101 level Toon Boom or how to make simple programs.  They then got in the door (especially if non-white, women, some other victim/minority card) and sat around bullying the MEN mostly white but plenty of Asian/Real Indians and even some black/latinos who did the WORK at these companies.  Glad I missed that, they had cushions, arcades, delis to eat at - AND  - if you were one of the MALES that did the work and used them you got fired quickly.  Grind and grind and grind and be on guard all times while the "Diversity" hires lorded the place, added to your burden and did Yoga with free lattes all day while working on who to backstab next.  The level of burn out these places caused anyone expected to work to actually make games...

 

So now we are in GamerGate 2.0.

Where it's open that they legit EXTORTED game companies, already G-Rated corporate politically correct chowder - to twist games so they'd be less and less playable by Males, mostly straight and white ones.  How they'd force Fugly females and lectures on how "Da Patriarchy" is ruining everything...  I could post pictures of the "Forced Change" but they'd probably hit the flag for "Racism" even though these were approved by the SweetBaby people.

And it blew up on Steam with a utility to detect them - along with Google and here's a list of similar Woke-Stortion companies.

 

 

 Now here's my solution:

They want "Politics"?  Let's GIVE it to them.

But NOT like they think...!

Get some pens, papers, stamps.  Oh, you can use Google and a a word processor -but you need to make REAL letters.  Sign and date them.  The people you will be talking to are your reps in Congress and the Senate.

Write letters - polite, concise, to the point.  Sign and date.

Don't waste their time with this "Gate" crap.  It's crap and a distraction.  Also free speech, free press, free markets.  They want to make games for rainbow unicorn snowflakes from some debt factory "Safe Space" well let that market support them then.  I only want to be able to vote with my $ to NOT buy their crud and find or make stuff that I enjoy even if they'd not buy it.

So demand (politely)

1 - NO bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies to any Luxury or Media company.  We don't need to EAT Disney Star Wars or the latest "Woke" shovelware game.  Therefore they have near absolute freedom and we have the freedom not to support it.  This is not grain, corn, fuel...

2 - monopolies - there are a handful of big companies that cooperate instead of competing.  This is a financial conspiracy.  Our government has known about it and tolerated it for years but now we have "Shrink-Flation" and "Because we Can-Flation" for necessities (food, housewares, everything...) and various payment processors and HedgeFunds (like Blackrock) are abusing their power to "Force Change".  This needs to END.  They need to have huge competition and not have a share of the market they can force prices or content without facing the possibility of a backlash and competitors doing what they refuse.

3 - Financial Crimes.  I'll say "One Man's Opinion" for a legal CMA but I think Blackrock and others literally WANT these things to fail.  I've seen more BRICKS of unsold comics since  the end of the "Comic book boom" and they are crud that no way did any legit pro authorize.  I've seen piles of "Woke" books, magazines, etc. piling to the shelves or in 2nd end (like Big Lots) toy stores in less than six months after release.  These things keep failing yet they don't change:

--Thus (One Man's Opinion) I think they use a process called "Short-Selling" where they buy into something and set it up to fail then bet against it.  They used to do this to retail stores, I had the misfortune of working for one and saw it sabotaged step by step.  Per #1 the huge retail stores were major employers so the Government was about to get in but they jumped to fictions and franchises or hobbies.

Thus the SEC needs to investigate for Short-Sell and lock them up until a dollar buys a dime via inflation.  They can do this.  Normally a SEC agent can send a stockbroker into dry heaves even if at the same line at the Starbucks with no other association.  It's time they USED that power or be fired since they missed Madoff despite being warned twice and all the Sub-Prime and other sabotage.

4 - restore FREE MARKETS.  It's not so much about forcing this or that player out - we need to cut the chains between distributor, payment processor, publisher and creator.  There are too many gatekeepers that exist to protect themselves and they choke out the chance of independent creators rising or falling on their own merit and protect their own stagnated collection of properties that actively suppress new voices.

Mind you keep it simple - "I don't want luxury or media companies to have tax breaks, short-sell against their products or have monopolies.  I don't have to eat that Disney garbage these days I don't want to pay for it.  I wonder what we'll have if they face real competition again."

NO rants, threats, etc.  These are elected officials and basic respect is expected.

Stuff like that - consider a small donation also.

 

 Yes - it's a "Stagnant Swamp" - but most of it operates in the dark.  A lobbyist earns $70K for every $1 he spends.  That is when no one is watching.  More letters the Congress/Senate will act and even the corrupt ones will charge more.  Easily $1K a letter.  "This person will VOTE.  This person will influence dozens of others.   He wants your head.  $1K for each of these letters.  To . do . NOTHING.  Much more if you want me to turn him down..." - the corrupt ones can get $ from them and if they refuse they'll hurt them and pretend to be righteous.  That, IMO, is behind one Senator fighting a "Mouse" - IMO they didn't pay him enough years back.  Just opinion and keeping it abstract for legal CMA of course!

So let's break the monopoly so we get more stuff like THIS....!

Still here!?  Good!

We need to demand from companies if they want our MONEY that they turn back the clock to the late 90s and 00s.  I'm not going to force "Bewbs" in Candy Crush and the so-called "Woke" people's pathetic "Art" games.  It'd be fair's fair but vengeance or being the "New Norm" is just as bad.  We need to make sure they've just wasted a decade and from their rotted SOY minds have only made things WORSE and they'll hide and whimper the rest of their lives fearing people will go "So, you are the scum that wasted a TRILLION dollars and made the mid 10s to mid 20 boring with lousy preachy entertainment!?  I'm going to talk to your manager and make dead sure he replaces you with an AI maidbot or he loses my and my friend's regular patronage!"

Demand game companies make these changes or you won't buy or even STEAL their games.  Spread the word.  Spread lists of "Woke" SJW whatevers as "Don't Hire them" lists.  No threats save you will NOT support the company and will let investors know, will write  your Congress and Senate reps to stop bailouts...  Real quick they'll go back to making what sells.  Sex, damsels in distress, even worse "Feminine" women you'd want to have not fugly bitchy harpies of hate you get for free any visit to the Debt Factory aka College.

See?  Wench chained to wall.  Needs rescue.  Will reward you or you make $ selling her at the slave auction.  No my testicles do not drag that bad - but we need more of this for a while to purge the "Woke" virus.

 

For any game company demand a sane standard of NOT complying with Woke and RESPECTING the people who PAY their wages.  Likewise BUY what you like.  VOTE with your DOLLARS.  It's easy now, there are SO many Fugly Social justice games and so few cool ones out there you can go "Take my money NOW!" even if you are broke.

Maxx Feral

Fantasy Miniatures and Omega Crusade modelling

This is an ongoing work which I shall update over a number of posts.

This blogpost is my progress on painting plastic miniatures - not 35mm but the larger scale 70mm range aka "Fantasy Toy Soldiers" - there is an AWESOME blog on that subject - again a NSFW warning but not for naughty content like a buddy but rather for the W as in WALLET...

 

Lordy, I want to suck up all the Dragonriders of the Styx - but not at F-ing $400 range on ebay...  F-it, we need to buy up that property and re-issue it.  I do have cool stuff like the Dinosaurs with cavemen set and rock/cave background.  My Dragonman action figure even out of case goes for big $ on ebay...!?  So again I'd like this to return, for someone to reissue it.

Well, I am doing this to a point...

 Not going to dig up whoever owns the "Dragonriders of the Styx" property and pay to have the 'rights' - going to make my own.  This is as much inspired by MOTU - how I loathe Kevin Smith and what he's done to it.  I don't live in Florida so I can't make an effigy of him and shoot it in the backyard in a mock execution - and if the neighbors scream as long as I've made a barrier of stone and dirt...Again don't live in Florida so no backyard rifle range in a city sadly.  Good Castle/Gun laws otherwise.

Still more constructive to make my own.

Now for all the pandering and relying on Batman to get them $ I do like DC comics (of the PAST) for one big thing among many.  Taking Mattel to court over copyright/trademark and WINNING.  See they decided to get into the "Over-muscled barbarian scifi fantasy" toy market and Mattel tried to claim they copyrighted it - didn't want cheap competing figures.

A Judge sanely decided he did NOT want to deal with that or 1000 other lawsuits over who's sci-fi fantasy barbarian warlord infringed on whoever's copyWRONG so they could fight competition not legit have issues.  So he ruled that as long as they didn't bootleg aka literally copy 1:1 the "Fantasy barbarian scifi warlord" type of action figure was GENERIC - too generic to be copyright/trademark save exact names, exact figures.

I really, REALLY thank DC comics for this.  Most of the time it's the smaller one not having enough $ to begin the paperwork to fight and capitulating or a larger one deciding fighting isn't worth the $ and pandering.  DC ponied up the $, took 'em to court, brutally GUTTED Mattel and unleashed a FLOOD of fantasy action figures to compete with other fantasy toys and action figures.

As a kid I simply saw tons of knock-offs that were CHEAP so I could have an ARMY on a kid's $ and they'd all be different weird creatures that'd fit with MOTU.

As an adult who does his own sci-fi/fantasy and would like toys made from them I like the freedom from pointless copyright trolling.  I can make my OWN "Scifi fantasy barbarian in the distant past of the future far far away" just no cloning existing figures.

 

THAT - gentle reader - is exactly what I'm doing.

Omega Crusade - the final battle between Good and Evil at the end of time.  The last sun in the eternal cold, dark universe, immortals from eons past and future emerge from stasis to fight in the final conflict!  It'll be a few neat stories and comics and the springboard for a possible animation old school "Saturday morning cartoon" style.  Also TOYS.

 

For now I'm going to go "Fantasy Toy Solider" and more as a personal art project make my own mini toys and sets!

 

So I'm designing toys - but per "Dragonriders of the Styx" they'll be "fantasy toy soldiers".  Reason - IF I make toys on my own I can make many FTS vs Action figures and sell them to my fans of my stories much cheaper.  THEN if some big studio picks it up my fans will be rewarded by these becoming HYPER collectible!

I'm getting the technology - some decent injection machine and some melting equipment - I can hand cast aluminum and copy models I make via impression/lost wax into tools that is double sided clamshells to force the melted plastic into.

While I'll charge more than Temu or Chinese made FTS it'll be supporting an indie Storyteller/Artist - AND be made in the USA.  Ever notice how the Chinese COPY everything?  Well they could buy my sets and bootleg those, but 1000x easier if someone sends the models to them to get them made there to cheat the American his ability to barter with his labor, time and skills.  No offense to the Chinese - makes total sense what they do - what is OUR excuse tolerating it?

My buddy who does X rated stuff actually almost wants to send some of his work there to get made cheaply KNOWING they'll copy the models.  Think sexy Women in Prison like Corman's Grindhouse, sleazy sci-fi with tentacles and nude space babes...  Really funny if some of those show up in dollar store toy bags, eh?

Not me - if the Chinese have people BUY my toys and make new tools and copy them and re-sell them...  Well I'd be flattered.  Serious.

I do reserve the right to compromise and send stuff to INDIA.  I've been there, plan to go back.  I know lots of people there.  They like us, they don't want to kill us. Unlike...  However they'd NOT make my buddy's sexy figures - I can imagine it - "you need help.  This is wrong, Sir!  It is a toy.  Imagine if a CHILD saw.  What is wrong with  you?" 

But as it is it'll be "Made in the USA" by my own burned hands and I'll be open if I ship it to India!

So - the big priority is to write the stories and get the initial comic done!  And online to sell - likely RedRoom and other non DriveThru unless the latter focuses on $ not politics even though if it was animated Omega Crusade would be Saturday Morning Cartoon stuff.

However here is how I'll make the toys.

First I'm painting mini figures - then I'll work with Green Stuff to make my OWN characters;

Omega Crusade - also perhaps Dominick Wytchburner, Shah-Azir, Rexx Rhyder.

Then I'll work out ways to copy them.

By then I should have gotten my injection machine and crucible/melting/casting setup.  That'd make me feel like a high school kid in shop class.  Don't know what baby stuff today's "Woke" world has but I handled melted metal and welded, had some nice pock burns from slag on my arms for years as a point of pride...

Thus - I begin by painting figures and then working with Green stuff along the way - progress will be updated separately, painting at first -

SECTION ONE - PAINTING EXISTING MODELS

FIRST:

I get two figures - a fairy from a generic $1 art thing for cutesy things - and an Indian brave from a classic but still sold Cowboys and Indian sets - and some paints.

Drilled the fairy's hair with a jewelry bit so I put a hole the wire could fit into.  Drop of hot melt glue on the brave.  

SECOND:

Got some primer paint and applied a base.  Rigged up a foamcore photography lightbox to photograph these things easier.  Nice grey basecoat.

THIRD - Got some other figures - a Wizard and Dragon from my Amazon ordered Fantasy Toy Soldier sets - Monster Scary Good - text opens in new window on Fantasy Toy Soldier blog - these are for purchase on Amazon and they are AWESOME!  These are 70mm but they also have generic and cheap but good quality 35MM for TTRPG play with them on the map.

These I added the primer coat with a spray primer for the miniatures hobby.  Drop of hot melt glue on wood block again - I added a cut paper skirt to protect the blocks but they'll get covered in drops of paint anyways...oh well...

FOURTH - I got to painting them at last!  So many IRL interruptions...  This is just the first stage and major colors.  It is not to be a tutorial on how but progress blog for personal goals.

 

FIFTH - I added another major layer of paint.  Feels 80% done already though I'll need to add a few more details and garnishments - such as Indian's black hair, gold stars on Wizard's robe, etc.

SECTION TWO - GREEN STUFF MODELLING

My ultimate goal is to do Pulsarion in his Halo chariot as a concept toy for Omega Crusade.

However, baby steps, I'll start with one of the bad guy faction leaders - Nihilanth aka "The Rusting Regret" very scary person you'd NOT want to meet.  

A Beksinski painting would be a happy Bob Ross on his world.  At the end of the Stelliferous era (age of Stars) they waged a war in desperation to try to secure their posterity into the eternal darkness but it backfired and caused at least a thousand worlds to be blackened and their essential memories lost.  Their world was cast into a void to drift forever until perhaps a new universe forms.  Their technology is Entropy based so they were able to survive it and somehow got connected to the OMNEX probe that created the final natural star and world of the same name and so joined the outer planets for the last Drama.  Nihilanth is their leader and indeed regrets his actions but sees no way other than to continue struggling for resources and power.

Aside from backstory they are horrific mutant techo zombies on a cold world - but now enriched by the light of the last sun can move around and open space/time gates to nearby worlds.

I figure this is the best first place to start since if I botch I'll make horrible mutant zombies and - WIN!

First I bought some Green Stuff and Blue Stuff and a few tools I didn't have, had Nitrile gloves and wire and corks already - watched a bunch of YouTube videos.  Even got a smaller digital scale so I can make sure I get the proportion right when cutting to mix the stuff...

Then I planned out some of the characters ---Pending Update for upload images and then Green Stuff.

 

 

 

Books that should be made into movies - Part 1

  

Books that need to be made into movies!

 This will likely start out with little traffic but please anybody that comes across this - as long as constructive - I'd like you to add books and discussion on books that should be made into movies.  Bonus points for anyone that makes storyboards or with AI pictures from neverworks...!

As I titled this I want suggestions for books that should be made into movies.  I'll put some criteria

The last 10 ish years have been a hell of horrible remakes of great classics and being a "Scifi/fantasy geek" with an eclectic reading list it has been exceptionally painful for I know they could have made TEN "Battle Beyond the Stars" for one of these modern Woke-bustiers.

When it comes down to it we have a wealth of exceptional scifi and fantasy that has not been turned into movies.  From the mid 40s to the mid 80s, my opinion, are the best.  Note that Star Wars and to a lesser bit Star Trek are not that original but rather a tribute to the long standing literary world of sci-fi and fantasy.  Conan was at least a direct adaptation of one of the best of its genre, namely REH's Conan though seen through the comics and later Carter/DeCamp adaptations as much.

I love fantasy, scifi and adventure fiction and have all my life.  I do not enshrine the past but grew up reading novels, magazines, comics from 2+ decades ago due to my city (small town to most of you) having limited "new" stuff but lots in many used bookstores and an excellent library.  New to me.  So I read what was the greatest eras, from the classics like HG Wells to the late/mid 80s and was so into that I didn't notice the shift of the late 80s into the 90s.  When I was a young adult and able to be a "Tycoon" and buy new books it was a shock the "Woke" or what we called "Political Correctness" had been forced into them.

The Damage Disney has Done

 

---disclaimer - I cite "Fair Use and Parody" for limited use of images - fonts can NOT be copyright or trademark protected - this is used to express myself not to make $ or steal any $ by decieving anyone I'm making a Disney product or affiliated with them -- 

---------------------------------

 So, folks, as we should all know by now Steamboat Willie is in the Public Domain.  Already the Deconstruction has started with a few horror and a retro toon gangster game and movies made in the spirit of "Blood and Honey".

Deconstruction is a necessary evil sometimes.  Comic books had things like Batman: The Dark Knight returns and Marshall Law when the code weakened further and the direct market expanded to later become the "Comic Boom".  The result was good that while the bubble crashed it established comics as a medium for everyone including adult (non x rated, but that also) serious storytelling.  It had to break the mold the horrid Comics Code had forced it in for decades.

With Disney it's more a necessary social justice revenge.

I hate to use that term - "Social Justice" but that is what it is and what is needed.

No - I won't have Rexx Rhyder encounter an evil studio that grinds children into black magic ink to make hideous toon characters.  I won't have Shah-Azir face an ancient evil that looks like Steamboat Willie.  Likewise my friends in my circle are far more busy with our own projects while trying to survive in this despairing, doomed society to waste our talents on a public domain character.

Not when we've gotten used to a public domain that is "Penny Dreadful" era ...  I'll get to that later...

-----First, I LOVE Disney, up to the mid 2000s----

When I was a child my Father (who passed recently) took me to Disneyland in California.  I think I was one of the last people to ride the "Mighty Microscope" as it was a few years before they tore it up to make "Star Tours" then "Captain EO".  I also got that incredible jungle ride with the fearsome animals, hippos that had to be shot and savage filed teeth cannibal Africans peering out from the jungle.  I loved the Penny Arcade and played tons of pre-electronics videogames, then their "Starcade" with newer ones...  I dined in the Enchanted Tiki Room the "Tiki Bar" was dying but to me it was new and fantastic and I liked that adult men would get to paw and grope and stare at cute girls serving them very sweet alcohol drinks while wearing grass skirts...

So long ago and I can almost retrace my steps.  I loved all the Disney movies I saw on tv, including tons of forgotten ones and ones its now "Fashionably Radical" to hate.

I could type a long essay on that - but let's get to the point...

 

Disney is DEAD,  not "Frozen" - and that's about when his ideas ran out...

I'm not saying it'd be different that much on what I'm going to say if he was in a freezer tube and they cure lung cancer and revive him.  Well the current staff would be in dry heaving panic and he'd make beyond excellent movies, crowdfunded if need be, to recapture the magic.  But he'd be throwing them into some fantasy but real dungeon over their loss of copyright, not another extension...  He was a creative and business genius - he also hired Von Braun to create what would have been "Space: 1959" with trips to the Moon and back.  Said man made V2 rockets for the Germans and used slave labor, regularly shooting the slower workers "Perhaps I can find ways to motivate them..." brought here under Project Paperclip and a fan of his old boss...

I loved Disney's works but learned long ago any excellent writer, artist or other great achiever has a dark side and he was master of both creativity, animation and business...

I'm not going to join the deconstruction bandwagon.  Oh, a buddy might include a swearing steamboat captain mouse as a buddy to his Goblin character if he revives his webcomic from the 90s and 00s, but I'm working on finishing a lot of works that I've had on the burner too long and making more.  I don't want to invest in old cartoons I still might get issues over and have that define me.

I mean if I could do it and it'd take a year to get shut down (vs a DAY) I might somehow get the $ to buy up a "Liminal Space Nightmare Fuel" shopping mall and make a daycare center + restaurant + arcade and make some new fiberglass "Steamboat Willie" - call it Steamboat Willie's Fun Center...  So kids could run all over a huge empty mall but have guards there to keep them inside and pervos out and then we'd sell toys, food, etc.  These empty malls could really be used to help rebuild society - but that's another blog post somewhere. 

Don't worry, Disney, I won't DO that.  They already have "Dismal Land" as a parody, so it'd be redundant also.

BTW - Mickey with gloves + red shorts IS public domain now also - LINK

All joking aside I'm sure Disney will do fine despite years of flops forcing "Identity Politics" instead of not trying to fix what wasn't broken.  And they'll make sure they dominate the G-rated/family friendly use of their characters.  If a snuff sadist in a Red Room wears a Mickey Mouse Mask he is worried about the Fed Fuzz tracking him down not Disney suing him (in jail on Death Row later...) for abusing their copyright.  Much less some deconstructionist movies made or at last "Air Pirates Funnies" getting published again?  IMO due to "Streisand Effect" I doubt they'll try to stop it this time, at worst demanding a Disclaimer on the cover.

----OK, my issue with Disney and the Damage it has Done----

The thing I hate about Disney is the damage to popular culture by taking from then coveting the Public Domain and the abuse of our wisdom tales aka "Fairy Tales".  The latter is that the Disney model of making them have happy endings and being G-rated is that we needed the dark and "Grimm" ones.  Fairy tales are meant to ram in critical wisdom to kids and keep with them as adults the most basic of common sense that they'll ignore if its just another lesson or tutelage thing.  The Red Riding hood for example is to get kids to internalize how a Bandit might pretend to be friendly to them to get them talking to get an idea who lives where and what kind of target they might be.

Nowadays, thanks to Disney, you might insult an adult fool as "Do you still believe in fairy tales?" whereas in the past it was "Didn't ya listen when they told fairy tales!?"  I think there'd be far less fodder for Dr Phil if the "Grimm" scared kids to bed and Classical education was beat in during the day.  Just "One Man's Opinion"...

However for the damage on Folk Wisdom the larger damage is to culture and creativity by locking in "Their" rights - even again to things sourced from the Public Domain.

Yes, they have a right to Copyright and Trademark for their own original creations and their expansions on public domain.  But they extended copyright multiple times.

Our copyright system is a tangled mess of edits, exceptions and unfairness and it is due to Disney and his company.  Yes it is on his and his company's shoulders. Without him we'd have had at worst a weakened version of the 1976 extension and probably better clarity.  The 1998 act was unforgivable.

We need a public domain that will have things we liked as children enter into it in our lifetimes.  Those of us who become artists and storytellers need to be able to imitate - the greatest form of flattery - to help make our own works.

Look at the wasteland of film and tv we have now - almost every single product is a re-make, sometimes a re-re-remake of an existing work of decades past.  God help anyone trying to sneak in anything new.  God help anyone with NEW ideas such as living writers, artists...

This is because Disney extended copyright well past an expected lifetime.  There is no need to risk on new products when you can just buy into and re-make older ones.  The government protects big companies and helps them beat out fair competition.  Independent acts find themselves forced to margins and blocked from any retail chain even with an internet where there should be few if any barriers.

So what - make your own work, at least it'll live on after you die because they rip off your relatives after you die and make it... sarcasm...

There's also trouble with existing works and how you express things especially with stories set in the here and now or recent past and future.

The third iteration of this is that Disney was so Covetous of its properties it made the "Fair use and copyright" options dangerous to use even when clearly fair.

Even with strong copyright laws there is a need for "Fair use and Parody" in which as long as its not real plagiarism or outright trademark/copyright theft.  Mad Magazine fought for years  - and won - to allow this.  They often published parodies of movies the second they came out - say "SuperDuperMan" - and it only helped the main properties as proved they were popular enough to be worth it.  They won, in court, the right to do so.

Disney has reversed much of it.  Say the Underground Comic Air Pirates Funnies which they should have just ignored even when they were stupid.  Or the day care with Disney characters painted on the wall.

Again it's not that I want to use Disney characters - it's that I want to make a reference to ANY characters at all.  I don't care about not using Mickey Mouse as a main character - I care about having a story set in the 1980s and not being able to have characters talk about or refer to Mickey Mouse or if I put stock photos (even AI) have to scrub through them lest something that's copyrighted by someone somewhere poke through and some slithering snake comes out of the gutter to SUE me.  Not because a picture of a character in Times Square or Miami or LosAngeles city has a 10x10 pixel image of their logo and it damages them but because they want MONEY and so can use the threat of a lawsuit to extort it. There are even squatters, trolls and fraudsters who abuse the trademark/patent system to threaten to sue for extortion and when its found out they have no reasonable claim nothing happens to them.

We can thank DISNEY for that.

There's also creative abuse where "Estates" and again sometimes fraudsters attempt to abuse trademark to extend a literary copyright.  You'd think with two acts they rammed through they'd have thought of that...  Perhaps because they have big lawyers so can beat these down but this helps hinder and ruin anyone who might be competition someday?  Just "One Man's Opinion"...

This allows the threat of a lawsuit which will create a loss even in a win to allow all sorts of abuse.

For instance:

The "Burroughs" Estate harassing anyone who makes a Jungle Hero even though Tarzan is clearly in the Public Domain.  Most notable is Taito's "Jungle King" which was forced to reskin into "Jungle Hunt" by threats from the Burroughs people.

JibJab - a popular political act having to pay huge amounts of money for the use of the Gutherie "This land" song which ended up costing millions but it turned out to be a copyright troll who vanished.  And it didn't matter that Woodie Gutherie is on recording many times saying he was OK with others using his songs.

The "Happy Birthday" racket - any public performance got a lawsuit or threat of it.  It's why Chuck E Cheese had to make up an alternative.  Recently it was proven that said song was at least public domain in the 90s but likely was NEVER copyright or at least was published officially in the 1890s.  Again the racket dissapeared with the $ despite a legion of lawsuits ready that should have gotten a billion $ back easily...

The Conan Doyle "Estate" over Sherlock Holmes.  These people crippled the use of Sherlock Holmes despite him being well into the Public Domain.  It's one of the main reason League of Extraordinary Gentleman the movie SUCKED so bad - they changed things just enough to defy the threat of a lawsuit for the comics but in a movie form it would have cost as much to make - or Sean Connery's wages - to license...   At least recently a Judge rammed their A--- Caligula style with their claims that the character was "Perfected" in 1965 and copyright should begin there versus ending about that time.

Conan the Barbarian - the people who marginalized REH when he lived - at best leaving him to struggle to find work and help his aging and sick mother with lousy low paying jobs and needing to turn to writing to make ends meet.  The damage to the character was they took a nice fee for big companies to make anything with Conan then viciously attacked any independent acts so no individual can pay $20K or more for a short story - even absolutely not using any Marvel or in copyright references.  Even now nothing gets through without paying them, so even new works claiming to be as raw and blood and thunder as the stories have to cut out explicit things and smooth over non-pc things to get into big markets to maybe make up the toll.

But even these aren't the whole damage done by Disney...

The real damage is what we don't know about and will NEVER see - thanks to Disney.

There's a huge wealth of pulp fictions, odd stories, magazine fictions, obscure books and characters that never made it big in their times.  There are things that were popular but then got forgotten after a while and sit dusty on used bookstore shelves.  There's also always people who read anything and everything and discover these works - especially new writers...

 

This is the real torment here - as a writer of fictions I don't want to make a living off of another's work or have my legacy being only imitating other's works.  Mind you writing for $ is a fool's game, you write because it is in you and if you are really, really lucky you make some $.  Most of the time it's a sad waste of your life and your friends/family pity you - if only you did 'contracting' work or sat in a boring office working out new ways to lay off workers to ship their jobs to China or have a robot do it...  I just want to write my own stories and hopefully be remembered by them - but also I am indebted to the many stories I read as a kid and into adulthood not caring if "That crumbling trashy pulp is 60+ years old...!" new to me.  I want to make some careful but clever and loving tributes but that is a minefield even for obscure things very few people know about...

Absolutely you shouldn't be able to publish "Walden" by "your name here" that's plagiarism.  Do your own work even if others don't get it - "If dolphins are so smart, why do they live in Igloos...?"

Or copy Disney Vinyl toys and sell them, that's trademark/copyright infringement.

My little AI fantasy above of a "Dismal Land" mall converted into a large spaced lord of the flies daycare would fall under the second... I'd do it if Disney would take over the "Dead Mall" and just put their characters there so kids had a nice big daycare and then they opened the mall, fixed it up and got more stores in...  But nope, the property owner would show up with Mickey Mouse ears and thank me for being able to retire to Mexico when the dead property was bankrupting him - just by selling it full value to demolish it and here's 99% of the $ for the lease back.  And hey, Disney would be in the right there.

 

BUT you should be able to use and reference other published characters without paying $30K for even an obscure one and trying for years to find the heirs, the estate, the "Rights".  It could be argued you do NOT damage the character, even if its a merciless parody though most of these are loving tributes and they should pay you money if anything not that it should happen.

I'd love to be able to make references and use limited real examples of many characters, products, etc. in my fictions.  Not in any way to "Steal" - rather there are tons of novels I've read that I love and would like to have a character appear as a tribute.  These are things from the 40s or earlier and the 60s-mid 80s scifi and fantasy I've read.  I could list dozens if I let myself think but this is already depressing to type.  Wouldn't it be cool to have Sledgehammer come in for a few pages in my "A better 1980s" world?  Or a buddy has an ...adult oriented.... scifi he's working on and would like to have just in name reference one of the late Jo Clayton's characters referenced just to see if anyone else read said book?  And a Dominick Wytchburner story I'm working on has references to a cartoon I watched based on Eastern European small forest creatures - up to 3 apples high.

But nope, nope, nope and be very very VERY careful despite public domain mythology...

Too easy to get SUED.  Not because I'd do any damage in any way to anyone else's property.  No care that again most are Public Domain and mild use is within fair use. 

Disney has done this

They have drank from the Public Domain but then blocked it for others to defend their largely Public Domain based properties.

They have wrecked critical cultural lessons by sanitizing fairytales to make money.

They have abused lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits to expand their rights even beyond the law and any real need to defend money or property.

In doing the former they enabled most/all of the Patent and Copyright trolls and even the false claim fraudsters by making it too easy to defend a claim of ownership with no criminal penalties for false claims or frivolous legal actions.

They now have a grotesque monopoly that should be broken up.

And that's only some of their crimes - for instance look up how workers have to wear each other's underwear and the laundry service is bad so it's often wet and sh-tty when it comes back...

BTW - the image above - Citing this article here - it seems that this was a poster published just after Steamboat Willie but within DAYS.  That means the red pants and Yellow/White gloves ARE Public Domain also...

Time for people to do to Mickey Mouse what Disney done did to the Brother's Grimm...!

AND for us all to keep alert and support by $ by letters - by letters to Congressmen and Senators - by communicating with the ACLU, EFF and CBLDF to defend users of Public Domain from Disney...  And to EXPAND Public Domain a bit and the protections.  Penalties (civil and criminal) for false filings, a quick "Motion to Dismiss" for reasonable fair use and parody and a "You don't use it you LOSE it" for things like videogames no longer for sale.

---Maxx Feral