The Walking Dead needs some new writers

Dear producers of The Walking Dead,

You have got to get a better writing staff.

[For those of you reading this not a producer, FYI there are WALKING DEAD SEASON THREE SPOILERS AHEAD]

Season Two obviously dragged on, but the first half of season three was showing us that all bets were off and that there will be high paced action.  It delivered a new dangerous setting, new characters, and even a new danger--other people.  

I should've known that when the second black guy in a row dies only to be replaced by a new black character, things were only going to get worse.  (And no, I definitely wasn't the only one who noticed that.)

I don't know what it is, but your minority and female character writing is hit or miss.  Michonne is still awesome, Carol has grown incredibly, Maggie is a solid part of the front line.  But what the hell did you think you could with Lori after you dragged on the love triangle through half that previous season like a roadkill stuck on the grill of a truck?  Of course you had to kill her off.  There was no redemption possible with a character as inconsistent as Lori.

And now you've gone and done the same thing to Andrea.  She got hypnotized by Governor dick and only in the second to last episode in the season does she realize that this dude has serious issues.  Oh my god, hasn't she figured out she's attracted to the crazies?  Forget the tanks full of heads or the locked up zombie daughter or the farming and entertainment of keeping walkers in a town you promised to protect or lying to you about attacking your friends... but you find a make-shift torture chair that Milton decided to show you and now suddenly you want to leave?  You couldn't trust the woman who saved your life multiple times when she told you that the place is shady?  This could've been a more captivating story of friends with different survival structures, but instead you made Andrea a confused symbol of whatever the hell the writer wanted to exemplify for 10 minutes of the episode.  I did not mourn her death because even in death, she needlessly hesitated over some bullshit!

My conclusion is not that you can't write female characters, you just don't know who to write conflicted characters well.  Ever.  Look at Rick's wavering in the second and third season, which is suppose to show how hard it is for him to be good.  NO IT'S NOT!  It's just when he thinks more than five seconds is when people die, but when he uses his conscious do things work out they way they should for his group.  Well, at least this season, but let's not talk about how you tried to present Shane as crazy in season two when he was just angry and adaptive to his environment.  

Did your writers not know what to do with all these new characters?  Why introduce the holed-up inmates if you end up killing ALL of them?  Why only have Tyreese for four episodes of the season?  Why wait until right before the finale to have us empathize with the Governor's henchmen?  Why develop Milton that late on as well?  Gah!  Too many whys that only distance me from the show and it's world, not make me any more interested.  

This finale definitely left me as a fan on a down note.  There was a lot of wasted potential, especially for those of us who actually read the goddamn comic.  Below I'm going to list everything that disappointed me, partly as a fan and partly as a writer.  

-Tyreese and Sasha were ridiculously under-utilized.  We need their moral sanity to balance the crazy Rick bought to the table.  Herschel is more spiritual, Tyreese is more practical.  More of him and Sasha.

-Even with the Governor surprising everyone, he cannot gun down twenty people by himself!  Especially when half of them have guns!  

-It was way too late to introduce the Carl rebellion subplot.  Should've done that episodes ago, even if it won't blow up until next season

-Am I really suppose to believe there were enough people who just decided to immigrate from Woodbury with the enemy they were told to avoid?

-HOLY CRAP YOU LEAD US TO BELIEVE SHIT WAS GOING DOWN AND WE ONLY GOT FIVE MINUTES OF ACTUAL CONFLICT?!?!?!?!

What a cop-out.  And now that Rick has even more people to be responsible for, how the hell are we going to start next season?  They're stuck in the jail with these children and old fogies to protect now?  Rick is suddenly just letting any old person into the group?  As much as Carl is on the path to being a murderous dick he has a point--you can't just trust people these days anymore.  So we're going to let half a town of strangers in a compound that you can't secure? And now others are going to think you're going to have open arms to accept them?  Word is going to fucking spread and you know it, you dumbasses.

I'm afraid next season, I may find myself not giving a shit.  I'll probably still watch it because it's zombies, and if zombies are involved I'm interested.  But I imagine instead of one in thousands, I'll be one in dozens.  Until you get some writers who can do something inspiring with this setting.  Because right now, you're story is begging for an actual story to tell.  

Sincerely

d20 Sapphire

P.S.  What would I write to save you?  Nuh-uh, no freebies.  Let's sign a contract and I'll give you some pointers.  The only tip you're getting is that if you haven't read World War Z already, you should and be ashamed that it took you this long.  

Indie Game Wednesdays--You Will Be Missed

For the last few months I was gaming with a great group of guys in Chicago which expanded my gaming knowledge.  Now I have a promotion starting Friday and I don't know if my schedule will align with typical gaming on weeknights, since right now I don't live that close to the city.  But I would like to thank the guys for introducing me to some great games, some of which include:

Apocalypse World: First game I played with them, and I knew I was in for a great time.  The system is simple and flexible, and we were able to create RIDICULOUS characters that had fantastic interactions.  I suggest this game to anyone who's interested in something a little of the standard path.

InSpectres: Only did a one shot, but having an rpg about managing a spy franchise is fun and new.  Also, using confessionals as a saving grace in a pinch is a fantastic mechanic.

Final Girl: Playing multiple characters in a horror story to see who may have a chance to be the final survivor is something so much more exciting (and hilarious) to play than it sounds, and it already sounds awesome!

Everything is Dolphins: A college friend sent this to me (long story) and the group was very willing to try.  Simple but easy to have a light-hearted fun time, because eff it, you're all dolphins!

And so many more I'm not thinking about right now but were super fun (guys if you read this please add if you like!).

So although I am sure I shall game with them again, thank you guys for introducing me to these fantastic games.  I don't think I would have ever had a chance to try out any of the things we played without your help.

I've been cheating on this blog with backstory!

So the real reason I haven't written since November of last year (seriously?  I can't believe I did that but that happened) is because I have been caught up in the excitement that my LARP group has for our next chronicle.

What's the next chronicle?  Well our national LARP group, Mind's Eye Society, resets the setting (aka pseudo end of the world stuff) and begins anew so that characters and the cities don't stagnate into an old boys club, among many other reasons (rules resetting are also kind of a factor).  Many of us take this opportunity to make new characters.  I am continuing my writing and research that I originally did for this blog and making a character for next chronicle, which will start officially in June.  Her name is Anahita McGregor.

I don't want to reveal too much about her out in the open right now, but I can give you a taste of her nuances in this soundtrack I made:


I am hoping to find time to sit down and write about the last couple of months nerd adventures.  We have a lot of catching up to do. 

NaNoWriMo update: Life is such a distraction

At first I was not writing in the blog because of the fact I was actually making a lot of headway with NaNoWriMo, and didn't want to suffer burn out.

And then out of nowhere, I did.

I think it was a combination of factors--I volunteered to do extra things for my LARP (will be posting about that soon), I had a whole weekend of friends when I usually work, and my schedule is now topsy-turvy with the holidays and scrambling to get ever last paid vacation day off.  Yeah, those can sneak up on you, at least until you kids from what I see.

On top of that I have a lot of things I would like to write about here, and at a point I was feeling guilty since I should be working on my NaNoWriMo story.  But I've decided that's a silly thing--I love the blog and I love my readers I have gathered the short time I've been doing it, so I can't abandon you!

Right now I'm right under 8,000 but I'm not going to give up.  I want to finish this story and I also want to get to the goal, but the first is a little more important than the second.  I will have a lot of time off around Thanksgiving, I'm hoping to catch up then, but we'll see.

I should be able to do this, anybody who went to college is able to write 50,000 words, right?

Happy Halloween or NanoWriMo Eve!

Readers, I've been having a serious case of writer's block, but it is actually a good time to do it--I'm going to try National Novel Writing Month again.

I need to.  Certain habits of mine have died down, and I think if I force myself to write more, they;ll come back, and I'll be a happier person and better writer for it.

Please feel free to read my twitter, @d20sapphire, as I update.  I'm trying to do the 1667/day goal, or possibly more when I have more time.  The thing is this will force me to make more time, and if I get into that habit, I'll finally be able to chuck out some of these stories that have been floating in my head for years, over a decade for some.

Wish me luck!  And those of you joining me, all the luck to you as well!

P.S. no Halloween Costume, but tonight I'll be joining nerdy friends for a game of either Microscope, Final Girl or Zombie Cinema.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Finally watched season 2 of The Walking Dead

In fact I finished the season a little over a week ago but I just didn't get a moment to sit down and compose my thoughts.  I wanted to do it before Season 3 premiered.  Oops!

Season two of The Walking Dead did not kick nearly as much ass as the first season did.  In fact, a recent photoplasty from Cracked.com explains a good half of the problem.

I was so excited to see crazy situations that would push survivors to brink.  I was excited to see who was going to bite the dust, and who was not.  I was excited to see what fucked up situation would involve creativity and strength and endurance.

Less than half the season was about that.

The first two and the last two episodes had a lot of the same things I loved in the first season.  Starting with the scene of people hiding under the cars, and ending with Rick announcing to everyone that this whole group was no longer a democracy, that was the kind of drama in an apocalyptic setting.  But instead what we got was a lot of people yelling at each other.  Or even worse, just nagging back and fourth.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I don't get how many times the writers thought they should talk about life questions: "opting out" of the harsh existence, continuing the human race despite this horrible setting, the treatment of those who have wronged and been wronged.  But in this type of drama, you really only need to devote 30 minutes of conversation to it before you have to put some serious action in.  You don't need 3 suicide moments, you don't need a love triangle that lasts almost the ENTIRE FUCKING SEASON and seems to be one sided.  You can only have the character you hate be right so many times until the audience says "Hey you stupid characters!  He's crazy but he's going to save you're life!  Shut up this time!"

It seems like the writers were forced to think about character development and hit a brick wall.  And another one.  And then another one with a piano falling on their heads.  Shane was a great example.  He could've been there to show us that survival was harsh and cruel in this new zombie world, that you can be complexly conflicted with what you have to do to live and who you want to be.  Instead, Shane was just vilified left and right.  Every chance they had to redeem him got swept away by him being a huge asshole, and most of the time for no damn reason.  We see the main characters make horrible survival choices, romantic endeavors prioritized in the story over other interesting lines, characters good points written poorly and bad points overemphasized.  I still watched all of it because I loved the characters from the last season, but Angie's angst, Daryl's whining, and the disgraceful inconsistencies in Lori's every action in every episode had me pulling my hair out.  And to top it off, the women were poorly written for this season, except Maggie, who wasn't great but just okay.

The setting being stuck on Herschel's farm also slowed everything down, which must have been intentional on the writer's part to use it as a place to station half the season as monologue central.  And that was a huge contribution to it dragging.  Notice how the episodes that were best for the season consistently mostly either off the farm or getting off the farm.  The magic, idyllic famrhouse was not the best place to really progress the story or the characters, they stagnated.  The zombie drama does best with the idea that NOWHERE is safe for even a significant amount of time.  You must keep alert and keep struggling if you want to live.  We lost that appeal early on.

The end of the last episode really did save it for me.  We see Rick struggle over doing the right thing (and almost fuck up royally every single time) and never get any gratitude .  It is about time for him to tell everyone to either put up or shut up.  So I'm excited to see where season 3 takes us (and again, not waiting as long as I did for Season 2) but they better learn from their mistakes from season 2.  If they don't, I will not be watching this next season through.

Fantastic nerdy birthday haul!

I would've posted on Friday if it wasn't for me having a joint my birthday slash my mother's CPA party.  Oh yeah, by the way my mother is a CPA!  She passed every test!

Since Friday was the party I didn't get some  of my awesome nerdy swag until later.  It includes:

-A poster of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Super-Heroes! comic, when they first fought Loki, God of Evil.  I need to frame it.

-A couple of puny That's What She Said beer glasses.  If you know me in person you know it's one of my favorite jokes to pull.  Granted not every five seconds like a teenager.

-A bottle of Stark Raving Red, which looks like it has a picture of a mad steampunk scientist on it.  I love me some red wine.

-A Twilight card from friends who were amused to annoy me.

-Dice from Mystic, because he knows that d20s are a girl's best friend.

A very decent nerdy hall this year.

Once Upon A Time: Something I should've written about months ago

Around the same time I was giving Grimm a chance was the same time that Once Upon a Time came out on the scene.  I was more excited about Grimm just because of how one friend had described the premises of both shows.  I was also afraid that it would be too close to Fable, the comic book series that I read a bit of when a friend lent it to me in college.  By the way, what I read was also pretty good if you're into non-superhero based comic series.

But then you may remember when I decided not to go back to Grimm, and at that point a different friend was telling me about how amazing Once Upon a Time is.  I went on hulu and I decided to catch up.

The first season is probably one of the best written dramas on television I have ever seen.  I sincerely mean that, as someone who appreciates a lot of great shows from the past and present.  Recently comedies have been getting a lot of the writing talent, with a few dramas surviving the test of time.  Lost and a couple others have been able to survive, but very few have been able to.  Oh my god, I don't  remember if I ever told you about the time I tried to keep up with The Event, but that was painful.  Very painful!

Once Upon a Time's first season revolves around the strange happenings in Storybrooke, which happen around the time Emma, our hero who is unaware of her fate, turns 28.  Henry, her son she gave up for adoption ten years before, finds her and lures her back.  He is convinced that the people of Storybrooke are fairy-tale characters that have been cursed to this little town, and that his adoptive mother, Regina, is the evil queen that sent them there.  Emma writes this off as a child who's very attached to this book he just read.

But Henry is right.  And as the child of Snow White and Prince Charming, Emma is the only way to break the curse.

Through season one you don't only see the fairy-tale characters coping with these new lives they don't realize they've been stuck in for the last 28 years, you see who they were before and the kinds of characters they were.  And because ABC is able to play with the Disney universe, you see references to  your favorite interpretations to the lore you grew up with.  Each episode shows the background of a character and their present situation.  I was so impressed that almost every episode had a twist that I did not see coming.  You get totally invested in the characters you love and the characters you hate.  Both are written with great depth and thought.  Hearkening back to Grimm, there was not a "Hitler is a Werewolf" moment. The cast is also fantastic.  They are definitely great at portraying their characters consistently through the show, which is vital.  My personal favorite is Rumpelstiltskin as played by Robert Carlyle.  He gets down the mischief concealing his power plays pretty well.   All around it was a great package.

Here is my suggestion to you if you haven't done so already: watch all of Season One.  Netflix has it now, and if you have hulu plus you may be able to get it there too.  Watch it IN ORDER because the season is soooo well written that you have to watch it in order to appreciate the universe in it's entirety.

I just saw the first episode of season two, and it has taken the show into some dark places pretty fast.  I am sure they've got an idea on how they want to do this, it's just not where I expected it to go.  After you're caught up on season one, watch season two.  Please feel free to let me know what you think of it.  Seriously, shoot me an email about it!  It's the kind of show that's great watching it on your own, but even better if you have someone to chat about.