Pathfinder & real life - Aug 24

Real life sucks. In this particular instance, the suckage began when we were finally wrapping up our Pathfinder adventure path – the giants’ one – when one of our members proclaimed that Pathfinder the franchise was undergoing a reboot.

That is nothing new in the world of RPG; D&D, for example, has went through at least five reboots/editions, and does not appear to be stopping, not yet. For Pathfinder to go through a second, or a third, reboot is not unnatural or anything like that, it is only the question of whether we will continue to play it. We are going through the official playtest manuals/adventures/etc., and it does not feel as good as the previous edition, so maybe we will tone down our involvement with Pathfinder in the future.

…And don’t try to talk about loyalty; all too often, for various RPG franchises, loyalty is translated into sinking money into their property – whether it’s D&D, Pathfinder, SW, (yes, that one), or something much more obscure, such as ‘space 1889’ (or whatever it is called). As long as people are investing money, time and effort into an RPG, they are loyal to it, the end. When they stop, they are not loyal apparently anymore. Also the end and it is very hard to make a debate about an RPG, even if you do not have much of a life, (as I do).

Anything else? Apparently, there’s a petition going around about not making Zendaya the next ‘Little Mermaid’ in case Disney will a make a live adaptation of that animated classic too. Sigh.

Listen, when it comes to race in the movies, ‘nose goes’, as says Aru Shah. Everyone is singing accolades for the LJ Netflix movie, and no one cares that Lana Condor, who plays LJ, is Korean-American, whereas in the novels LJ was half-Korean half-American instead. Vietnam and Korea are as different as, say, U.S.A. and France are, yet no one is making a big stink about it in regards to the LJ film, while KMT, Rose Tico, another Vietnamese-American actress, was dragged through the mud… How is this for (in) consistency?

…Now while we are talking about Zendaya, let us talk about ‘Spider-Man’ and the rest of the MCU. It isn’t surprising that with Spidey away, Zendaya cannot play the role of Michelle Johnson in MCU, (and yes, Marvel has blinked there, it’s a different MJ, cough), so she is potentially free for other roles, even ones associated with Disney – and this brings us to the A:IW film.

Let us take a brief look at the roster of the dusted characters there. Bucky Barnes – a divisive, controversial character: some people love him, some hate him, and all are vocal. Wanda the Scarlet Witch – ditto. Black Panther… he was championed as some sort of an African champion and was this amazing movie milestone, until people began to proclaim him to be instead, an idealized Afro-American stereotype, an appeaser, and a conformist…basically, what Killmonger was accusing him of being. The hype died quickly after that. Ditto for ‘Asians’ – now they are proclaimed mainly as a movie success and nothing more, which is fairer for them, but still… And Spider-Man, who is already divisive – and not as a character. Rather, the rights to his franchise are owned, co-owned, by both Sony and Marvel, and even as the ‘Homecoming’ film was being made, people learned that Sony and Marvel do not get along all the time. Now, the ‘Venom’ film is coming in 2019, and even trailers it is said that the film is made in association with Marvel, not as a part of it. Odds are, before Spidey returns to the big screen, Sony and Marvel will need to work their issues first.

As for divisive, controversial characters… Disney/MCU is quietly getting rid of it all controversial elements, whether it is something more vague, like Hydra, or characters, such as Bucky and Wanda, or real life people, such as James Gunn. He was supposed to produce ‘GotG Vol 3’ movie, but then got fired because of ‘me too’ related reasons, and… the cast, (and maybe the crew) of GotG franchise rebelled, and it all…ended in nothing: James Gunn is still gone, (there were negotiations, but apparently they didn’t work), but the movie too is put on hold, and it is shaping to be a lengthy one: how it will affect the next ‘Avengers’ movie, (which also features the GotG), is anyone’s guess.

Now it is still a better approach than the opposite number that had been executed in the SW enterprise by the Disney/SW team – ignoring the criticisms, and calling the fan-critics retrogrades, obscurantists, idiots, trolls and the like. Only now the Disney/SW team discovered that these retrogrades, obscurantists, idiots, trolls and the like are also the SW fan base, and as it falls apart into pieces, there are fewer people who want to give their money for tickets for a SW movie. Disney hates losing money, so again, it is anyone’s guess as to what the SW9 movie will look like. KMT/Rose Tico is going to appear in it, but in what capacity and how exactly is another question.

Anything else? We are trying some of the Pathfinder playtest adventures and do not exactly love it; it feels rather like D&D 5 ed. adventures with a slightly different layout & format. We got into Pathfinder because we did not like D&D 5 ed. in the first place, and now that it is no longer the case, we might have to rethink it, our RPG strategy – but that is life for you.

This is it for this time, see you all soon!

KMT and co. - Aug 22

Sigh. Firstly, real life sucks, when you least expect it to do so… or when you see it coming, (sort of), but it is equally bad in both cases. And then the Americans have Hollywood.

Not so long ago, an IGN member made a brief speech on YouTube, which conflated ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, ‘To All The Boys that I Have Loved’, and – KMT, also known as Rose Tico on SW, the current trilogy. So what is the problem?

In fact, the IGN member has conflated – as the rest of U.S. may have done – a number of social groups. There are Asians who live in Asia, and whose relationship with Americans, as well as Asian-Americans is one thing. There are Asian immigrants to the U.S. as well as their direct descendants, the Asian-Americans: them and their social position in the greater American society is another thing. The third is the power struggle between the Asian-American actors (and that includes celebrities) in Hollywood and the rest of the American entertainment industry and the other power groups, including Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans. It is very possible that there are other groups lumped with those three, but let us put them outside the brackets for the moment.

Now, KMT. The fact that she was driven from Twitter, (or Tumblr, or some other social media platform) by Internet trolls (or whoever) is abominable, no human deserves this, but-

But KMT is not just some average Asian-American citizen, (unlike the IGN member who spoke up in her defense on YouTube recently); she is a celebrity, actually. She is famous, she is talented, and she is certainly not an average person. As such, she is not just ‘a face in the crowd’ and should expect unusual treatment, both good and bad. This is the essence of free will: everyone judges everyone else freely and expresses this judgement freely. No one can be liked by everyone else, not even a deity: just read the New Testament as to what happened when the Savior played with the free will of people – it really went horribly wrong, or horribly right, but horrible either way. Judaism, and Islam, and in a different way – Buddhism – do not go this way: it is either God’s way or the highway, and you do not want to go there.

…Or maybe you do, for this is how free will works: once Moses got the Jews out of Egypt and they started their travels through the desert, the man had to have his Levites make several bloodbaths to ‘tame’ the newly liberated 12 tribes and to stop them from rebelling and returning the fleshpots of Egypt. Since the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is full of tales when the Israelis turned their back on God and went to worship other gods, idols, Moses was not really successful, though he tried hard and implemented truly draconian tactics – but we have digressed.

On a less epic note, what happened to KMT was wrong, but it was not unexpected, because a famous person always draws attention both good and bad. At that time, KMT got hit with more bad than good attention, apparently, but it had nothing to do with her race, but with the fact that Disney/SW merger went on in an unexpected direction and seems to have split its’ fan base, or at least – diminished it to a point where ‘Solo’ made only tens of millions of dollars, and not hundreds, as Disney expected it to. Now, it is not known where SW movies will go, in what direction: there is vague information about the SW9 movie, an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie, but nothing concrete, no indication of how the audiences will react to the future SW movies. The merged Disney/SW team might have wanted something new, progressive and radical…well, so did the Netflix-allied folks behind ‘Insatiable’, (though again, Debbie Ryan doesn’t appear to be associating with Disney anymore), and we know how that went down instead.

To rephrase it. The IGN member, who is an Asian-American, somehow conflated KMT, who is a single person, a real life individual and so on, with ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, a good, solid, American romantic comedy that got hyped so much that it strove to achieve a status of international importance – and failed, and now all the hype is dying down quickly, leaving behind nothing more than a romantic comedy of a movie; and with ‘To All The Boys that I Have Loved’, which is also a romantic comedy movie, a young adult one, and one that is less hyped. It also is different from ‘Asians’; and in the original novels, the racial angle wasn’t too important; in the last novel, the father of the family married a Ms. Rothschild, who was certainly not Korean or even Asian.

Listen: even as this article was wrote, ‘Scientific American’ has released an article online about female climatologists being sexually harassed in a manner that looks similar to what KMT went through, a woman herself – but it isn’t about race. Not primarily. Such trolls are angry at what KMT and other progressive people are doing – and they are using free will to express their anger, whether it is wrong or right.

The catch of course, that this is to be expected; if KMT expected only accolades to have come her way post the SW8 movie…then it genuinely sucks to be her, and maybe she should star in something less controversial: a romantic comedy, maybe. (Note that for a variety of reasons she apparently was not considered to be a ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ material). She is going to replay Rose Tico in the upcoming SW9 movie, but again, until it is actually aired, this can go in any direction.

Seriously, look at ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’. There was supposed to be a scene that depicted Zia in coming out as a same-sex person, but it got cut and there is no indication that it will be revealed, or play a role in the next JW film. So where does it leave the actress and the JW franchise? The latter was trying to be progressive itself…until it did not. What will happen to SW now that ‘Solo’ has indicated that even a Disney/SW juggernaut can start feeling the hits if they accumulate. Will they pull a Riordan and leave all the progressive values behind to salvage the financial situation? And either way, where will it leave KMT and the other actors?

…And keep in mind, that none of the above matters either to ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ or to the adventures of LJ and friends, regardless of whether they will have sequels or not. LJ and friends did not really try to be politically progressive, more like mundanely romantic, and neither did ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ within their movie-verse. Their real life cast and crew did, and now there’s some backlash as well, and with the Donald still at the helm this is something ‘Asians’ and the real life U.S. don’t need – but that is another story.

…Well, this is for now – see you all soon!