Run, Barry. Run.

Have to say, did not quite see that last sentence coming. Knew something was up but did not see what. And it makes the whole series make different sense, and fits together, so fair play to them.

Unfortunately ( Read more... )

John Constantine as a character has a lot of precedent to work with so they've got a lot that is already compelling and they can just give him a showcase and watch him go. So you get a man who they keep calling arrogant, which he is, but he keeps solving things by finding the other people who can do what he cannot and encouraging them to believe in themselves, which isn't arrogant at all. Only turn that around and look at it the other way and you've got a con artist who talks other people into sticking their necks out for him over and over again. He'll risk his life over and over, especially for children, but you can never actually trust him, because he'll do what *he* thinks is right and damn the consequences. He believes he is damned with no hope of a way out, he keeps saying he'll pay when it's his time, but he'll do... so many things to put that time off. And he is *angry*. So angry. He thinks evil needs to be punished. Including his.

Fascinating and compelling character, who got more room to breathe on the other show.



Every wiki I read says that folding John into the Arrowverse retcons this series into the Arrowverse too, but I remain unconvinced. It could be a step sideways of all that.
Plus with the Crisis in the middle we see at least two versions of everyone anyway.

There were a lot of loose threads but they needed to do a Lot better at a great many things before I'd want this particular iteration of the story to be the one to tie them off.

Flawed stories with fascinating character in them.

Watched another Constantine.
Had to do a bit of staring and thinking when the episode ended.
Which is a win for a horror show, and this was a good subtle one.

( Read more... )


Good episode that made me sit and think for a while.



Also made me think about John's domain on Legends, the mansion and what he did with it. It was such a convenient trick of the budget I didn't think about it much, but when it was after this... a house in the dark vs a house in the fire. But so many more people to visit it.


My only other note is the subtitlers need to learn how to spell
barmy
not with an l.


I do not want to run out of this series but I am going to soon.

I watched both parts of Saint of Last Resort today.
Constantine is a compelling character and all the character stuff for him is fascinating, but this show is doing Not Great at the racism of, like where the evil comes from. ( Read more... )

John Constantine is the story's favourite chew toy.

I will be watching these again later to watch him get chewed on.



I am not however as impressed by the plot or how the story treats other characters.

Makes me want to write about what the Hellblazer in my head was about and how I feel like these evils are missing the mark, but I haven't read the comic for decades so the version in my head is likely to be somewhat tenuously extrapolated by now.

Still. Making me think plot bunnies.
Even if it is in reaction to.

I bought the Book of Many Things and as with many rpg books I haven't so much read it as flicked through and got distracted by specific sections repeatedly.

Harrowhall, the castle setting you get if you draw the Throne card, actually really annoys me.

For one, they say Keep to mean a whole castle with an outer wall and a courtyard. The Keep is the bit in the middle, not the whole thing. That's what the word means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep

For another, the art work, the map, and the description, are not a good match for each other. ( Read more... )

It's sloppy, is all, just a lack of joined up thinking, and I don't know if it is keywording correctly for a DnD 5e product but in Pathfinder it is implying game mechanical features the map does not provide.

The map annoys me too. The shape of the castle is not one that you would design for a defensive structure.
( Read more... )


I do like the size of the library. Even using Stronghold Builder Guide units there's room for 12 stronghold spaces in there, at least. That's room for 24 to 36 book lots, which is at least 8 comprehensive book lots for +4s in those rules, maybe 12. Which is all the knowledges covered. Only six master lots at 6 book lots space for +6 each in SBG terms. But the description says it covers all sorts, so a +4 may be implied by space constraints. Though you can also argue 15 stronghold spaces for even more Knowledges covered.
1, 3, 6 book lots for +2 +4 +6.
The description does mention speculative fiction though. Personal experience says you can fill a lot of shelves with spec fic.

In Pathfinder terms though a Book Repository is 4 to 12 squares, and there are... four times as many four square sections as there are stronghold spaces. Even 12 squares is smaller than the 16 squares in a Space. +3 to all Knowledges and a Magical Repository made of the previous owner's specialist collection is therefore supported by the text. With shelves a plenty to spare. Four squares does only mean shelves down the outside of a 10 foot corridor, the drawings only make it look like the shelves are five foot deep. All these ten foot gaps are so Large beings can browse without squeezing. Which is polite and accessible.
A +3 bonus is between the +2 one lot and +4 3 lots so I guess it has to be 2 book lots. Meaning you'd need 3 of it to be +6 sized. Meaning it would fit in the 12 squares not the 4.
... I am getting deja vu and probably wrote this down earlier.

All these bonuses are for one hour of study though. The number of books has to be pretty limited to get exactly the relevant stuff in one hour. And/Or theres an excellent card catalogue.

... or there's not much to know so it's easy to be brilliant...

Also Harrowhall states the whole group and bonus help together can find a specific book in 10 minutes.
I think maybe this is incompatible with the one hour knowledge, or maybe the book was mis shelved or deliberately concealed.


The Harrowhall also has an Observatory ( Read more... )

Also, there are big windows in the chapel and the throne room.
Or, bonus doors with bonus expensive vandalism.

Wait the Throne Room is on the ground floor and states its ceilings are 20 feet tall.
How? There's no gap above it, and the intro says rooms in Harrowhall have ten foot ceilings.
There's no steps down into the Throne Room, there's no steps up in the area above it.
This is a geometrically impossible feature that redesigns the whole ground floor of Harrowhall in contradiction to the written description.

I mean it helps for the illustration but it's explicitly said two contradictory things here.



I've been writing this for over an hour now and it's just me grouching about things no one else is reading.

But it is Sloppy. Three components of one physical description and the writing can't agree with the writing let alone the map and illustrations.

In a hardback fully illustrated in color Book I would hope for better.

Today I relistened to
Torchwood The Conspiracy and
Torchwood Forgotten Lives

The Conspiracy starts the Comittee of Erebus, which is honestly a bit boring even if you throw in the possible crossover opportunities with Pathfinder's name for a layer of Hell. I don't think we really need aliens in our conspiracy theories, people trying to get rich seems like sufficient motivation of itself. The misinformation bit where they tell patchwork truth in amongst the mess so nobody will believe it later? *sigh* little bit depressing.

Forgotten Lives I relistened to because I'd started wondering if Jack in this one was actually Jack. I think he's meant to be but it's also possible Gwen got tricksed, the story Jack started as such a simplified version and then Gwen and Rhys kept adding details. So there's one spin where it wasn't actually him but snogging everyone was a good enough impression he could get Gwen to unlock classified Torchwood stashes. And there's the other one, more interesting I think, where a Jack who says he lost track of his age after the first couple of thousand is stuck in the body of an ill old man and suffering his mental decline. Nightmare time. And then at the end it is implied he's going to get swapped around between bodies being all sorts of people for an unknown length of time. But still trying to act like Jack. And the new bodies are not immortal but he got reloaded into one after the old body died, so does he reset to his own body when he gets killed and then get sent out again? He says it'll be torture but it's a story mine and a half.

I'm not sure how they think it'll work though, the redistributing society thing. I mean sure that body was in charge yesterday but why would hierarchy depend on body? I can see it being incentive to make every body live in reasonable conditions, like environmental laws and free healthcare stuff, but I don't see how it would be much different from remote working in the end.

... which is another weird comment now I think about it and a Story again.




I miss when Jack could be in the stories and I would be Deeply Displeased if they cast another actor, but they have left themselves a story loophole with this and other body swap stories.


I want the Torchwood range to keep going for as close to forever as possible, but we are not getting that kind of luck. Last few coming out. I liked how it could be stories from any time Torchwood existed, a hundred years and change of the past and thousands of years of future so far. And without the Doctor there the range of endings got really broad. It's interesting.

But to be fair it does not give the range a strong through line or specific characters to get emotionally attached to, and the characters going away was the fandom's basic problem with Miracle Day, so, I can see why it doesn't have the same draw as the Doctor Who ranges.

... if I win the lottery i shall clearly have to do something about that...


But relistening now is good.


... especially as I am avoiding listening to the last few ones on account of then they are over. Boo...

Have watched first disc of Constantine.
Want to watch them all in a row but unfortunately then I will have watched them.

The theology of the horror story is still deeply screwed
but
I can entirely believe the character John Constantine believes the things that lead him to choose as he does.

Also if anyone turned up preaching happy shiny forgiveness better way to him he would be *angry* angry.
Where were the alternatives when he was looking?
... in Legends of Tomorrow, sometimes, maybe, but not here on his own show.

The way horror tragedy constructs the story to lock the ever so sympathetic main character into
Hard Choices
is a great big Thing.

Of course there should be a better way, but then we wouldn't be in this genre, so you get a story that believes in the Fall but is at best equivocal about redemption.

Interesting enough stories, compelling as ever character.

Torchwood is back on the radio and therefore on Sounds again.
Lost Souls and Asylum now, Golden Age and Dead Line in a bit.
And searching for them I found the scripts page

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lskw2
https://www.bbc.co.uk/writers/scripts/whoniverse/torchwood/radio-plays

The episodes that went out as Drama on 4 are harder to search up and do not appear to be scheduled again yet:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012fbw8
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012fcym
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012fqsz

I always recommend listening to House of the Dead in broadcast date order and without spoilers, but at the moment that do seem to mean buying it. Worth it though.