(no subject)

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.

I know this isn't the point of the game but the building of castles is fun

I am looking at the prices in the Stronghold Builder's Guide again
and I don't know what they were thinking
but it's hilarious to try and imagine
just how much Basic Bedroom Suite I could afford
for 800gp.

I think 1gp may have made it to £1,000gbp the other day, with the gold price gone so up.

I am trying to imagine how to spend £800,000 in a bedroom.

That room comes with spectacular amenities, and probably specialist staff...



Actually useful: all these bedrooms and bedroom suites specify the existence of a privy even if they don't draw one on any map anywhere. Seriously, there isn't a symbol for it that I could see. What is it with game map makers pretending the loo doesn't exist.
But it means other DnD products that specify 'bedroom' can be read to also mean 'and privy' because this book defines it so.

... I am once again trying to translate DnD suggested Throne card keeps into Pathfinder useful maps and costs and definitions. Pathfinder lets you buy toilets, so if they're not listed they don't exist, but DnD is giving bundled definitions.

Pathfinder also has the possibility of running water plumbing through the whole town (if you install some Decanters of Endless Water) and has magic item baths (clean water you can specify the temperature of) and toilets (also self cleaning).

Both settings have routine adventures set in sewers *but map nothing that connects to a sewer*.

It's ridiculous.

Pathfinder at least has sewer connection as a buyable option. It just doesn't draw it.

And yet I find forum jokes about The Obligatory Dungeon Toilet
as if that is commonly drawn at all
and like
yes?
if you are mapping every five foot square
one at least will explain the waste disposal situation
or lack thereof.

But these are maps that commonly imply a bed is a minimum of five feet wide and ten feet long.

Torchwood Big Finish Monthly range early ones revisited

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...