And so, 2016 is almost coming to an end. Odds are, we
will be celebrating New Year in the USA, where I will not be able to regularly
access the Internet, most likely, so first, let me wish everyone a happy New
Year beforehand.
Secondly, let us wish good luck and good riddance to
2016. With less than a week to go, we had a major airplane crush in Russia, (no
survivors), death of George Michael in the U.K., and the fallout between U.S.
and Israel in the U.N. The last is particularly WTF-worthy: throughout its
existence, Obama’s administration, (and the man himself), was very slow-mo.
Now, with less than a month left, it, including Obama itself, is trying to
compensate for 8 years of missed chances and opportunities, by running around
like some crazy chicken making one mess after another. (The only thing
different between now and then is that now Obama is making his usual snafus at
a breakneck speed, rather than slowly, as he did back then). Either way, I feel
sorry for Obama; I am not the biggest fan of the Donald, but I can see why the
Americans have voted for the latter: the man is an unknown entity, while
Hillary would have just continued Obama’s plotlines and strategies, and the
Americans had enough of this for the last 8 years.
…The problems is that Obama himself just continued the
strategies of the Republican president George Bush Jr. in those last 8 years,
so regardless of what the president-elect has promised has electorate, there is
no guarantee that things will be fundamentally different after January 20th,
2017. People want variety, but they also want stability, and democracy is not
very stable, (just ask the ancient Greeks – in Sparta they invented communism
instead). With the election of Trump, the American society has once again put
the plebeians/proletariat against the patricians/elite, and now both sides must
figure out where to go from here. In Ancient Rome, it can be seen even in plays
of Shakespeare – ‘Coriolanus’, ‘Julius Caesar’, ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ – this conflict
brought the end to the Republic, and paved way to the Empire. George Lucas,
your Star Wars franchise says hi to the real world…maybe.
SW, incidentally, have developed its own issues: they do
not know how to move forwards, now that the old canon has been declared
apocrypha and redubbed ‘Star Wars: Legends’ instead. SW7 was very good, but it
heavily relied on SW4 in terms of the script; ‘Rogue One’ is even better, but
it is still set in the past, in the realm of the movies 4 through 6, (and it
isn’t much different from some SW novels set in the ‘Legends’ universe. Still
better than the real life U.S. politics, though).
Back in real life, there are not any breakthroughs or
major shifts of the happy variety; in my own life…ditto. The TV and the like?
Well, we have to look forwards the rest of ‘The Librarians’ S3. They seem to
have conflated Horus and Ra – or confused him, but so did the ancient
Egyptians. Ra was a sun god and the creator of the ancient Egyptian world.
Horus was the brother and/or son of Isis and Osiris, (and just a brother of
several other Egyptian gods); he was more of a war god instead. But! Both of
them had the falcon as their sacred animal. Both of them had solar qualities in
their divine portfolios. And! For a while, the ancient Egyptians worshipped
both of them in the figure of Ra-Horakhty, so the differences between Ra and
Horus are not important. What is important, (relatively speaking), that in S3, ‘The
Librarians’ are faced with Apep, a snake-demon of darkness and night, and they
are bringing a magical artefact of a sun god, (or the sun as a god) to challenge
him. Frankly, they could have done the Greek version with Apollo and Python
instead – it would be really similar, and as the S3 episode with the oracle has
shown, they are keeping/have kept it in mind already.
…But still, this cavalier attitude towards the
Egyptian mythology is grating. Rick Riordan and his novels were able to keep it
straight; this really bad movie, ‘Gods of Egypt’, was able to keep it straight;
so why ‘The Librarians’ cannot? Who knows…?
Then we have ‘For Honor’ game, by Ubisoft. It had
appeared earlier in 2016, very exciting, but with flaws. Yet it continues to develop,
and so far, it has appeared better than even before – not just with the new
characters, but even a new game plan, that of Apollyon the warlord, who has to
be stopped with plenty of melee fighting, maybe ranged too.
No, seriously, so far in all the game simulations, the
combat was melee – but in the Apollyon promo, there are bows and arrows too, as
well as combat-trained animals, maybe? Wolves and at least one war elephant…
This game is shaping up to be really exciting, believe it!
The mention of war elephants reminds me of DW – I have
been rewatching some of its episodes, the last one being ‘Ming Warrior vs.
Musketeer’, which showed DW at its best. The hosts were unprejudiced; the tests
showed the relative weaknesses and strengths of the various weapons, and the
combat simulation was well orchestrated and interesting. The lack of prejudice
really showed, too, as opposed to such S3 episode as ‘Hernan Cortez vs. Ivan
the Terrible’, for example. For the first two seasons, DW was a good show, and
then in S3 it went downhill so rapidly, that DW got cancelled – no funding, no
staff, no anything. Even AoS has done better than DW – it is in its’ fourth
season, remember?
…Mind you, for a while probably the entire MCU had
problems: not only Luke Mitchell had left, but Jaimie Alexander (Sif) and
Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter) did, as well as who knows whom else. However, MCU –
including AoS – survived. ‘Agent Carter’ did not…
Speaking of TW, a new show – ‘Riverdale’ – is coming
to the screens in 2017. It is based on the characters from ‘Archie’ comics,
but-
On one hand, Archie and his friends are very flexible.
There were crossovers with the Predator movie franchise, the Walking Dead TV
series, the Ramones’ music group, the Marvel comics (such as the Punisher, who
might be getting his own TV series in MCU, BTW), etc. The ‘Riverdale’ adaptation
– a soap opera/drama/mystery/etc. – is not very different. But-
On the other hand, ‘Archie’ was very demanding and
particular when it came to its’ mark/brand/whatever. It generally took down the
smaller folk who tried to use them for its’ own game, but when it came to
someone more powerful – like the Marvel comics – it generally backed down
first. Now, when faced with the CW and the ‘Archie’-based show, it seems to
have reached a compromise with them: ‘Riverdale’ will keep the ‘Archie’-based
character names, but the trademarks and everything else? It will probably
something separate from ‘Archie’ comics instead. This is how ‘the Cursed Child’
works, after all. It is still a fanfic, but Ms. Rowling endorsed it at least to
a point, for a part of the profits at least. Everyone got happy and we will have
to see how ‘Riverdale’ works in 2017.
This is the end of this rant, and for now? Have a
happy 2017!
PS: Here is a pallid vector ogrekin based on the new ‘Villain
Codex’ rules:
OGREKIN (HALF-OGRE) CR 4
XP 600
Male human ogrekin fighter 2
CE Medium humanoid (giant)
DEFENSE
AC 16, touch
11, flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +6 natural)
hp 25
(2d10+10)
Fort +7, Ref +1, Will +1
Defensive Abilities bravery +1,
pale rebirth
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee shortspear
+7 (1d6+9 plus disease), bite +2 (1d4+4 plus disease)
Special Attacks disease
STATISTICS
Str 23, Dex 13, Con 22, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 6
Base Atk +2; CMB +7; CMD 18
Languages Giant
SQ deformities
(oversized maw, weak mind)
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary or
family (2–6)
Treasure NPC gear
(spear, other treasure)
