My Encounter With a Comicsgater

by on August 27, 2019 at 3:45 pm
Posted In: Blog

(A version of this originally appeared on my tumblr)

A couple of weeks ago had a guy come up to my table at Coulee Con and told me how great he thought comicsgate was, and I honestly had to work so hard not to yell at him. And I mean, this guy had terrible opinions, and I pointed out that comics have always been political (like have these people never read Captain America or the X-men?) but a couple of things struck me.

Like this was a pretty sociable guy, but he showed no indication of seeing how uncomfortable I was. Like my whole body language changed. He just didn’t give a shit. It never occurred to him that I might disagree with him.

(I mean, he saw me as another straight guy at a con – most people outside the LGBTQ+ community aren’t going to recognize the genderqueer pride flag that was plastered across my shirt)

What was weird about the experience though was that he was telling me about some comics he liked. It wasn’t like dealing with the trolls you usually end up with online. He wasn’t trying to be a bad dude. He wasn’t into this stuff because he knew it would piss off “SJWs.” I don’t think that thought ever even occurred to him.

He was just into some comics that happen to be made by some gross and awful people. But since he’s not the target of those people’s hate, he just dismisses it.

It’s literally privilege in action.

He can sit out “politics” because his very existence isn’t politicized.

And I told him that. I hoped he’d listen.

He did not.

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My Quantum Leap Reboot/Revival Pitch

by on June 15, 2019 at 12:33 pm
Posted In: Blog

I just had a dream where I was pitching a reboot of/sequel to Quantum Leap.

I need to share the concept.

Our lead is Samantha Beckett, and the year is roughly nowish. She’s the daughter of Scott Bakula’s Sam Beckett (obviously), and we can just retcon that in as never being mentioned (we’ll say she was at boarding school in 1999 during The Leap Back or something). We all remember that her father, Bakula’s Sam, never came home — but because he’s been time traveling for so long, he’s irrevocably altered the timeline. In the new one that exists, there was no time accelerator built, no project. It’s our world technologically and Bakula’s Sam just vanished one day.

Samantha became a quantum physicist, and is a brilliant one at that. One day though, she finds a mysterious package. It’s the handlink left in 1945 in the episode The Leap Back. When she touches it, her childhood memories of seeing her father’s Quantum Leap project in construction flood back from the other timeline.

She remembers being told her father was lost in time.

Samantha is on a mission. She’s going to find her father and bring him home. She knows the science well enough (having already co-authored several papers on “the self repairing timeline theory”) and now remembers some key pieces from her father’s project to build a functional Quantum accelerator. She reaches out to her grad school mentor (who didn’t have a name in the dream, but I’ll call Ed here) for help. He’s gruff, cantankerous, but emotionally supportive.

He thinks she’s nuts until she shows him the math.

He’s going to be her Al.

If the show can afford it (which was being debated in the dream) they find actual Al too. He’s a retired Navy Admiral who has no idea what’s going on until he touches the handlink. Then, like Samantha, he regains his memory. Al uses his Navy connections to find funding for the project — and signs on to save the best friend he forgot he had. Al will remain back at the accelerator, rarely be in episodes, and mostly stay off screen.

And Samantha Beckett steps into the quantum accelerator, to set right what once went wrong, and (budget permitting a Scott Bakula appearance) save her father.

—

Whoever owns the rights, call me.

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Have You Checked Out Stormwood & Associates Yet?

by on May 22, 2019 at 9:07 pm
Posted In: Blog

Stormwood & Associates


So I know I haven’t posted much lately, but that’s largely because I’ve been spending a lot of my time producing a new Actual Play roleplaying game podcast Stormwood & Associates for Nerd & Tie.

Long time readers of my blog (the few of you who still exist) will immediately notice that Stormwood & Associates is using the Super Awesome Action Heroes rules I came up with over a decade ago. It’s a modern fantasy campaign, and I’m honestly really excited about it so far. Besides myself, the game features Nick, Gen, and my good friend Kyle Johnson. GM duties kind of rotate among us (though I’m doing a little more often just because my sessions are driving the main story).

We’re putting out new episodes of the show every Friday, and you can (of course) find us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or anything that can accept an RSS feed.

Please consider listening, it’s super fun.

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Convention Eve

by on March 28, 2019 at 4:21 pm
Posted In: Blog

Right now I’m sitting in a Burger King, waiting to move.

I was in a small car accident a few weeks ago (no injuries, just vehicle damage). Because the auto shops in town were all backed up, the earliest I could get it in was today – the day before No Brand Con.

Which I help run.

Anywho, I arranged a rental car, but while I dropped off my Versa at 9am, I can’t pick up the rental until noon, because the car rental place wanted to charge me like fifty bucks to move the time earlier even by two hours.

Which I am not about to pay for.

So here I sit, waiting. I have a lot to do, but I can’t really get started. I don’t have a car to load things in yet. I can’t do steps seven through twelve when I’m stalling on step one. So here I sit, anxiously waiting, unable to do anything yet.

Ugh.

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