Reading

Episode 2696: It’s All in the Execution

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2696.html

Episode 2696: It’s All in the Execution

The bamboozle. If you're up against it, with no chance of escape, but you have time to talk to your enemy, go for the bamboozle. Change the subject. Appear not to care about your imminent doom. Talk about something irrelevant and somewhat annoying.

With any luck you'll distract and confuse your captor enough to come up with something.

Or if not, at least it'll be amusing.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

General Pryde seems to be on the ball. Intruders somehow managed to sneak in and free a prisoner? And they only got caught on the way out? Unless there's reason to suspect the intruders aren't the masterminds for that operation, getting rid of them as soon as possible is the smartest move. The First Order's probably still got a lot of troops and materiel in spite of all the set-backs; who cares how this one mistake happened exactly!

Obviously, the main characters don't die here. But this also looks like the sort of situation where they're not getting out on their own, like Finn and Rose last episode. So what sort of unforeseen thing is going to happen to help them escape? Another spaceship collision feels very unlikely. Perhaps a Force Explosion of some kind? Rey pulled Force Lightning out of who knows where just a little bit ago, and Sally just asked what happens if Kylo or Rey gets hit. That seems like the sort of thing that would be hard to explain in the movie, so it'd be great to have the comic touch on that. Or it could even be as simple as Rey swinging the lightsaber around into the walls of whatever room this actually happens to be and that causes all sorts of equipment failures.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2696.html

Episode 2695: You Never Can Tell

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2695.html

Episode 2695: You Never Can Tell

Symbolism is a great thing to use. Screenwriters and film directors use it all the time. They show things that have significant meanings or allusions and we pick up them, sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously. Symbolism and how to use it is a thing that is actually taught in film school, it's considered so essential to telling a compelling story on film. Some examples:

The red coat in Schindler’s List.
The spinning top in Inception.
The unicorn in Blade Runner.
The deserted playground where Harry sits in The Order of the Phoenix.
The exploding mirror in Carrie.

What does this have to do with roleplaying games?

Use symbolism in your games. For example:

A raven appears and calls just before any confrontation where combat could be expected.
Neon lighting in the city shifts from blue to red dominated as the heroes move to grungier districts.
The old king's crown has started to corrode.
Grim stone effigies of dwarven lords of the past stand covered in the dust of centuries.
Recurring grafitti or street art tags echo themes present in the current campaign.
A lone tree stands in the heart of a great city, but is slowly dying.
Rain washes the blood from a vast battlefield after a decisive battle.
The shimmering mirror-like lake that reflects the distant mountains turns ripply and distorted.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Okay, so I knew little things could teleport across space with the Force. Luke may or may not have been able to teleport himself as well. Now we've got large things teleporting between places as well? I'm starting to suspect that a lot of these instances, including this bit with the red berries, might just all be Force Illusions or Visions only. It would be really weird to have that consistent over all three episodes, but that would explain a lot of the weirdness here and there, like this white room. Plus, while it wouldn't be good writing, it would be a good catch-all for any inconsistencies between scenes.

I bet the fight still looks pretty cool though, so it's a little bit of a shame I'm getting this as a series of stills.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2695.html

1335: A Righteous Mushroom

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1335.html

Gone Solar

Finally, after a variety of delays, we had the official building inspection for the solar system today. Inspection passed (including the retrospective inspections for the water heater replacement and the electrical panel). Mind you, I've already been receiving the benefits of the solar for a couple months, with my monthly savings over $100.

Since having to be home for the inspection disrupted my usual routine, I decided to tackle processing the quinces, which is now complete. Or rather, they've been processed to puree and now I have to decide whether to do something further or just freeze that.

In the anticipation of possible trick-or-treaters, I did some pruning and tying up of the roses that flank the front gate. I usually get one or two visitors, unless I decide it isn't worth it and go dark. The neighborhood logistics don't really make my street worthwhile for trick-or-treating, but I try to have something available just in case.

Notes from the bicycle seat

On my coffeeshop/writing bike ride (trust me, it makes sense) this morning I passed a whole flock of meadowlarks right by the Concord airport. They must be migratory because I don't think I've seen one in town before. Also an acorn woodpecker darted out to grab an acorn from the path right in front of me then dodge out of the way of the wheels. (I would have stopped, really I would.) I sometimes fantasize about the birds and critters layout acorns out on the path so that passing humans will step-on/run-over them and crack them, but the truth is that there are just a lot of oak trees along the rec paths.

I'd been avoiding the trail that goes past the airport for a while because they were doing various bits of road work. I spend a lot more time on surface streets for that route than the others, but drivers are incredibly courteous about waiting to pass until they can swing wide. I think it always amazes me because drivers were never that courteous in the east bay.

Another reason for sticking to the canal trail recently is that too many things have gotten in the way of a daily ride, so when I do ride I want to do the Walnut Creek loop (Canal Trail + Iron Horse). If I'm going that far, I'd rather avoid excess surface streets.

I seem to have solved the "tire slowly going soft" issue by means of getting another puncture that clearly required repair. The new tube is holding pressure solidly, so my worry that there was a hidden thorn or wire that I hadn't discovered yet seems to have not panned out. Or if there was one, then maybe it worked itself out. The other option is that that particular tube had a manufacturer's defect and I should have just replaced it immediately. Thus do we second-guess ourselves.

This morning the airtag hidden in the bike seat cheeped sadly at me that it needed a new battery, so I've taken care of that. As far as I can tell, placing airtags is simply a magic charm against things getting stolen because over the decades I've had bikes, cars, and bags stolen but never since I've started using airtags. Or maybe I've just gotten generally more paranoid. (Although I'll note that the one time I used Find My to locate a stolen iPad, the police literally said, "So what do you expect us to do about it?" I think I'll stick to the magic charm theory.)

Episode 2694: The NeverEnding Backstory

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2694.html

Episode 2694: The NeverEnding Backstory

Want to bring something new and interesting to fights? Interrupt them!

Have someone's phone ring. And then it rings again. Whoever is calling doesn't want to just leave a message.
It begins pouring rain. A tree nearby is split by lightning with a deafening crack of thunder.
A terrified NPC runs through the middle of the battle, screaming for help.
A strange horn blast echoes — reinforcements, monsters, or something worse?
Bats! So many bats.
A nearby building collapses.
Local authorities (police, town guards, security bots) arrive and order everyone to stop fighting.
A panicked horse pulls a cart at top speed through the battle, spilling barrels of fruit.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Hehehehehahhah, okay. That's an excellent joke for the end of the comic.

Anyway, fighting with the weird dagger is certainly a decision for Rey. I would be shocked if it turns out to be made of Cortisol—I mean Cortosis—and that's what all of the fighting over it has been about. Okay, maybe not that shocked. It'd probably get another raised eyebrow at most like a number of the other plot decisions so far. But that would be kinda neat to see that material show up again.

So now that we've seen that there's more to this flashback scene now, anyone want to bet that there's even more to it that hasn't been shown yet?

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2694.html

Episode 2693: How You Gonna Call?

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2693.html

Episode 2693: How You Gonna Call?

Characters can, like real people, have all sorts of different bonds. They can be related by blood or by marriage. They could have grown up together or worked together. They might be master and apprentice, or liege and servant. They may have been through a shared experience together, either traumatic or enjoyable.

Or they may be connected by weird circumstances. Successive hosts of the same brain-manipulating parasite. Linked by Fate to die together. Haunted by the same spirit for crimes against it. Cursed by the same malignant item. Mutual reincarnations of each other in a time loop. Two parts of a hive mind.

Find interesting and unusual ways to link characters. Either PCs to each other, or PCs to significant NPCs in your campaign. Don't overdo it though - not everyone needs to be a long-lost brother to the king or a magical clone of an evil wizard.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

A Force Phone call is like a Force Vision right? It's a little weird to have it be Kylo yet again, but perhaps some info drop about the knife or the helmet will happen during the fight. Actually, thinking about it, almost every Force Vision has involved Kylo somehow. I wonder if I'm just reading into things because Kylo's the only other Force User that's actually active and doing things, or if it's a mostly intentional thing by the writers.

Having a surprise lightsaber fight like this is certainly a choice here. Especially since it's likely just as confusing in the movie if Rey started this fight or if Kylo did. Also interesting is that Kylo seems to be completely on the Steadfast now as that is definitely a parry with no Kijimi in the background. Force Teleport or whatever it was like Luke in the last movie? Or is this some other kind of Force power doing things this time?

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2693.html

Episode 2692: One Big Stabby Family

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2692.html

Episode 2692: One Big Stabby Family

Strange juxtapositions are the bread and butter of unfamiliarity and weirdness. If you want to communicate an aura of unearthliness or a feeling of unease, take two things that are normally not associated—in fact it would be weird if they were associated—and associate them.

A cave lit by bioluminescent fungi that hums melodically, shifting pitch as creatures move through the tunnels.
A golem made from wet paper that weeps ink when wounded.
Villagers who bury themselves in the ground each night to sleep. (They're not undead.)
Giant bees whose wings are made of stained glass; they repair any damage with wax.
A cathedral built entirely from coral, with fish swimming through the walls.
A place where precipitation is fluttering pieces of paper, handwritten with text in a language no one understands.
A lich with flowers growing out of its ribcage.
Rivers that flow towards the moon, reversing direction with its movements in the sky.
Elves who eat stones as delicacies, saying they “taste of memory.”

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

What?? A room that's actually nicely lit? And it's not just black, red, and/or blue? This can happen in a First Order ship? That is so different I'm half wondering if this is really the Steadfast!

And oh hey, that thing. I guess it'd make sense that Rey would sense that and wander off to see what the Force feeling is and it turns out to be the helmet. And getting Chewbacca's things is a good bonus for actually wandering off. Is this Kylo's storage room? It feels too white for something he'd want to use though. And there's not enough other stuff here for it to really be storage, so there's probably something else going on.

A feeling of family for Ochi's dagger? That is weird. The runes on it were faked, but the rest of it could still be legitimate. For whatever it's actually meant to be for. There's just nothing that gives the PCs a clue about where it's used now I suppose. Time for Rey to have a Force Vision?

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2692.html

Episode 2691: The Fistfight Show

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2691.html

Episode 2691: The Fistfight Show

For some players, even overwhelming odds looks like a cool challenge. There are two ways out of this.

Have other players talk sense into them. Or let them try and find out.

The second is more fun, but the first is more conducive to an ongoing adventure.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Oh, huh. I guess I didn't think that getting hit like that would slow the group down enough for them to get caught. Sure, Chewie or Finn would have needed to pick Poe up from prone, but that wouldn't have stopped the other from continuing to shoot troopers showing up. 30+ troopers would be a little difficult to win against though, so..... I guess this would be the same result in the end.

Poor Chewie. Briefly relieved from his prison, only to be caught a minute later and then told he's part of a comedy program again. At least Rey is still running around and can break them out again later? If that Force Distraction isn't too enticing I suppose.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2691.html

Knitting and me

One of my retirement to-do items is "learn to knit socks; knit socks." Now "learn to knit" might seem an odd part of that equation, given that I've been knitting since I was 10 years old. (I.e., for well over 50 years.) The thing is, I never learned to follow patterns. I'm like a musician who can learn tunes by listening, improvise music, and put on a great performance, but who never learned to read notation. I have, in fact, knitted a pair of socks before by sort of reverse-engineering how to make yarn look like that. But I figured it was time to actually learn "by the book" as it were.

My first step was to learn to read patterns via a book on blanket squares, making a (cotton) baby blanket for my grand-niece, where each of the 16 squares has a different pattern. That way I could learn cabling, lace knitting, and all sorts of other variants. I won't say that I can remember all the individual stitch instructions by heart, but I can do them and know how to look them up. (And I can remember them during the course of a particular project--they just don't necessarily stick permanently.)

As part of the sock goal, I've been picking up some lovely hand-dyed, fancy fiber sock yarns. But I don't want to do my beginner learning on those! So I went to my local yarn store...oops, the last LYS I went to (in Piedmont) has closed OH NOES! Search...search...search...ok there's another LYS in the Elmwood district. (These are both over on the bay side of the hills.) Explain my goals "a nice boring plain-color sock yarn that I might not mind frogging a lot." Turns out the Piedmont store closed because the proprietor wanted to retire...but she's now part-timing at the Elmwood store. So that feels like a happy story.

Now I'm swatching. Swatching! Me! Seat-of-the-pants me! I had picked up a lovely (expensive) interchangeable needle+cable set. Should be good for all my knitting needs, right? Uh...the smallest needles in the set are size 3, which is definitely too large for socks. And doing online research, not only does that brand not do smaller needle tips for the interchangeable set-up, nobody does smaller needles for interchangeable cable sets. This probably has to do with the problem of the minimum size of the little screw-in thingy connecting the cable and needle.

OK, back to the store, and not knowing what size is going to turn out to be optimal, I went ahead and got circular needles in sizes 2, 1, 0, and 00. (I have some even smaller double-points from back when I was doing some medieval silk knitting.) I wanted the circulars because I want to do the thing where you knit both socks at the same time on the same circular needle. This may possibly be over-ambitious at this point in my learning curve, but when have I not been over-ambitious?

Back to swatching. At this point I've done size 2 and size 1 and we're approaching the target stitch gauge, so I have hopes that I'll hit it before I run out of needle sizes.

ETA: The sock book I'm working from is "Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Sock Book." It has vast amounts of theory alongside the specific patterns, which warms my scientist's heart, but makes for boring reading when I'm still figuring out how all the theory fits in with the practice.