Monthly Archives: June 2019

American Hippo

Posted on June 27, 2019 by Basheer Ghouse

In 1910, America suffered a meat shortage. The price of beef skyrocketed, while beef stocks were plummeting, and people across the country searched for a solution to the impending crisis. One man, one absolute legend, by the name of Broussard suggested the Hippo Bill of 1910. Though it never passed, if successful the Hippo Bill would have funded 250,000$ of hippo imports into Louisiana for meat consumption and to eat water hyacinth.

Fortunately, the bill never passed and Louisiana was never plagued by herds of angry hippopotami.

Even more Fortunately, American Hippo by Sarah Gailey imagines a world where it had.

Image result for american hippo

And it is glorious

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An Offering of Scares

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Basheer Ghouse

Netflix has been attempting to become a studio as well as a streaming service and have been pushing ever-more netflix-produced content to the fore as well. The quality’s varied wildly, with a few gems of filmmaking and television mixed into an enormous amount of false starts.

Personally, I’ve been on a horror binge lately. I am an absolute coward and used to be terrified of the genre, but a few friends have eased me into it and now I can’t get enough of the stuff. Netflix’s regular trickle of new horror pieces is a great source of new scares, and I find myself revisiting it regularly.

So with that in mind let’s talk about some of Netflix’s horror entries. Korean television drama Kingdom, creature feature The Monster, and Final Destination-esque black comedy Velvet Buzzsaw.

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The Next Steps

Posted on June 13, 2019 by Basheer Ghouse

In November of 2018 I wrote a post called Into the Breach around the circumstances of my return to wordpress, and my initial goals for the site. Those initial goals have been met, the Ko-Fi has met minor success, I’ve managed a decent array of articles, and both of my RPGs are in playtest-ready form. I had some off periods and long stretches where work on the RPGs meant that I wasn’t writing Eliph or Fear the Swarth articles, but by and large I’ve proven to myself that I can maintain consistent writing output.

So the next step is monetizing that output. The Ko-Fi works for one-off donations, but in terms of a revenue stream I need something more consistent. As such, I’ve started a patreon.

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A War of Personalities

Posted on June 8, 2019 by Basheer Ghouse

I am rivals with Yuan Shao, but we tolerate each other, play at alliance, for there is long personal history between us. To betray that history would risk the wrath of mutual allies and old friends, and do terrible things to our reputation. So we glare, and tensions rise, and we race to take valuable territory from mutual foes, but we remain peaceful and our alliance strong enough.

But Yuan Shao dies, fighting bandits in the north, and his sons have no such compunctions. The Yuans vassalize their old foes and, as I march upon Dong Zhou, declare war. Now I’m at war on three fronts, against the Yuan in the east, Dong Zhou in the west, and a variety of vassal states to my north. I strike deals and manipulate some smaller states into fighting the Yuans, distracting his armies and giving me time and space to plan my next move. It would not have worked against Yuan Shao, too well loved by many of the men and women who now besiege his border territories, but his son has no such reputation.

This is the diplomatic world of Three Kingdoms: Total War, and it has helped turn Three Kingdoms into the best game in the series.

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Benioff, Weiss, and the Illusion of Writing

Posted on June 2, 2019 by Basheer Ghouse

Nothing in a work of fiction happens because “that’s the character’s personality” or “that’s the way the world works” or “it’s just logical”, it happens because the writer chose for it to happen. The writer’s trick is disguising this. In presenting a story that is seamless enough that the truth is not realized or does not matter. This illusion is verisimilitude and it requires significant investment to maintain.

George RR Martin was a master of it. Ned’s death, the Red Wedding, the ever more racist narrative of Essos all clearly fit in the world. Plot developments might surprise but are clear results of the actions and motivations of the characters. Regardless of what you thought of the content, the events seem to be the clear consequences of actions taken rather than Martin just deciding what was going to happen next.

Benioff and Weiss (Occasionally called D&D) are not. And that gap in their skillset torpedoed the final season of Game of Thrones. It disappointed millions and ruined the reputation of a series previously considered the height of prestige TV.

But for us, that failure is a great learning opportunity. One that’ll involve spoilers, but if that bothers you, consider this your warning. Read the rest of this entry →

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