Repilot

I'd like to course correct. I've always liked making things. I get bored and, yes, occasionally, I shirk from the least engaging, most repetitive aspects of projects I'm working on. A long time ago, I used to always have piles of folders so that no matter what, I'd be working on something in a nod to constant progress, not never actual completion.

Well, "rarely." The Battletech 3087 stuff got wrapped up nicely just a bit after I finished up with Battletech itself. 

I am, at long last, done with keeping up with new Magic developments. I still keep a finger on the spoilers for new sets, but my big Magic to-do items for the next few years are on the drawing board and end with building and playtesting a few cubes, then parting with everything that's not in them. 

Star Trek--I know there was a whole Morning Perfect Base about this--is getting a Section 31 series so, y'know, fuck Star Trek. The obvious non-Star Trek replacement is The Orville, which is like choosing a bologna sandwich over a delicious hamburger with beach sand as a condiment.

Marvel movies are done and I'll just be angry if you ask "what about DC movies"?  BoJack Horseman and The Good Place are gonna get some new seasons soon, so there's that to look forward to. Mean, I guess they're both going to end with the leads dying, so that's some synergy.

Roleplaying has been dead on arrival. It requires a lot of listening and talking to folks and "yes and"-ing them and while I'm working on it that skill has been in short supply lately. I've wanted to do a tighter, more improv version, but improv is actually harder than the snide jokes about improv--and also every improv performance you've ever seen--makes it look. Weirdly, I loathe the strong, central power of the Storyteller in roleplaying games, but it's also the only source of getting motherfuckers on the same page. But honestly, I just don't have the energy to deal with adult children who regularly want to break the rules because they want to feel special and then also bitch about the distribution of magical swords.

Trust me, if they were doing a Monty Python bit, I'd allow it, but they aren't. They're being annoying.

But hey, I've been making these YouTube videos and talkin' about stuff. Minecraft seems like a constant companion and Slay the Spire has the kind of longevity that's really all I ask for in a game (although I might have to start looking up some tutorials for The Silent. For fuckssake, I've dealt these motherfuckers hundreds of poison damage but I can't get--doesn't matter. doesn't matter).

That does raise the question; what is all this about? I've got two youtube channels, like, three twitter accounts, two podcasts I make, a stuttering YouTube series, and a hankerin' to do a daily one to work on my delivery a bit more (I won't want to do that once The Beige and The Bold starts back up though). Actually, make that three podcasts now that I'm remastering 17 to 01 for the Patreon.

Derek and I periodically ask, "What IS Star Trek?" I think I'm past my due date when I ask, "Who IS VanVelding?"

I've got projects comin' out o' my notebooks. I've thought about twisting The Denver 5 into a set of episodic morality tales targeted at a post-apocalyptic human civilization. Or really, any public domain characters or ersatz versions of not-so-public-domain-characters.

Circle back round and the YT version of that is 3D printed versions of broad characters engaging in stories with animation provided by 3D models (or attachments) swapped out like animation frames. Hell, you could probably do that with a deck of playing cards and you might not even have to sharpie the cards up too much.

A Lair Somewhere, an original Magic: the Gathering-styled story with an original format was cool (not penetrable or popular, but cool). It follows on from the old tournament commentary podcast Terry did with me a few years back.

A branded 'television style' of YouTube, which isn't a practicable project by any means, but imagine being able to pull up a playlist of complimentary youtube videos once a week--any time during a week--and get some programming you know you're going to like.

I know that Andy Daly kinda did it already, but a review show for unreviewable stuff. I mean, you choose stupid items as the "basic brain" version of the idea, but the alternative is that you write the script then find the thing to review that lets you do the jokes.

The Campaign is something I think about doing every four years. I think there was already a Hulu series by that name and the BBC's In the Thick of It may have already covered this. I dunno. I never have the resources or the knowledge to make it so it passes by every four years.

The Influence, which is The Campaign, but for social media bullshit. With The Campaign, failure is a certainty, but with The Influence, you'd have to succeed on some level to keep the show going. Eh.

Meme news. This one is news told exclusively in the form of memes. I know Mark Zuckerberg already made this, exhibiting both its merits and flaws, but I dunno. I could do same thing, but with irony and intelligence.

Ultimately, people like novel twists on what they've seen before. I might as well run a MUGEN tournament with Invader Zim and Sonic the Fucking Hedgehog. Or maybe a last man standing match for Trump administration officials with Democratic leaders available to play, but they have zero attacks until January of 2021. 

There's always my prized idea. The MMF. The Magic Magic Federation, which is the WWF or WWE or whatever the, well it's not wrestling. Let's call it Reality Television Punch Gymnastics. Whatever the Reality Television Punch Gymnastics are called these days. It has all of the same things as RTPG; tournaments and fights and dirty plays and big, bombastic characters and feuds and that bullshit, but the nerds I know aren't into that and the nerds I know who are into that I generally don't want to spend too much time with. 

I don't like RTPG and could not, therefore, write for it, but since I can't find seven other Magic players in my area to take part, it's irrelevant anyway.

Erotica. I could always write some erotica, but I don't. I should, actually.

One thing I've noticed is that I notice how things work and I'm interested when they don't work that way. Maybe something like the morality tales from the top of this list illustrating that would be a good idea. I mean, I can all the consistent principles of the universe that I want and I can say true things into a well all day, but it all seems a bit self-serving if I can't do anything with it. 

I've never seen a universal truth stop a bullet in flight. Looking around the world, I see a lot of bullets in flight and no amount of incisive analysis seems to stop them. One of the old Rules of Life is that "the things in my head are not the things in my hands," and that's usually a bit of a purifying statement; separating one's worser impulses from the actions of indulging them.

Now it feels reversed. I feel like it's pulling from the same lessons of Hamlet debating the intersection of caution and action, but all the same. These good ideas aren't manifest if they don't lead to an action that can be done.