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mandolinSo, busy weekend. Took me three days to put this post together, so the week's shaping up to be about the same.
Dept. picnic was fun and about as insane as the pre-picnic games predicted; DASSD won the trophy and things devolved into a water balloon assault that I nearly missed out on (but forgot my jacket, so I caught the tail end of it when I came back). I work with crazy people. It's fun.
Friday night, I went to see Serenity and was quite pleased to see that the theater in Westview was more than half full. I will now ramble -
Big damn spoilers commence, don't say I didn't warn you. I avoided spoilers for the movie like the plague.
It was nice to actually see how Simon broke River out of the Alliance facility in the first place, although it was more than a little jarring. I could buy Simon's confidence - as awkward as he's been in situations with the Serenity crew where he's had to think on his feet, I could imagine he'd spent HOURS preparing for the break-out. He seemed calm and composed in the flashback because he'd probably rehearsed his cover and his responses ad nauseam beforehand. Remember the constant rehearsal of the lines Jayne had to remember in "Ariel?" If Simon's going to be as anal about preparing for that job, he'd have planned meticulously to break River out. Besides, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dotsomething pointed out, he's a trauma surgeon - he works best under pressure, and if you want extreme circumstances, busting his sister out of a high-security Alliance facility qualifies.
What did throw me, however, was the amount of data dump in that scene. The doctor went on and on about his "star pupil," and gave Simon WAY more information than I thought he had. His speech made it clear (to me, anyway) that they were trying to unlock psychic abilities in River, but I don't think that even occurred to Simon until the episode "Safe." At least, given how lost Simon was in the series trying to figure out what they did to her, I thought he learned too much there.
I liked the Operative, although his character didn't particularly jump out at me, so to speak. He was an effective villain, complicated enough to keep me watching, and (mostly) smart enough to give Mal a challenge.
River's first fight scene IMMEDIATELY brought Buffy to mind. The fight choreography, the suddenness of it, the fact that it was in a bar... I kept superimposing a Season 3 fight scene from the Bronze onto it. (The aftermath was great, especially Wash's comments about Jayne being beat up by a 90-pound girl never getting old.)
LOVED the Inara/Mal conversation: Mal shirtless, the awkwardness of it, the rest of the crew watching like it was a soap opera, and how easily Mal figured it out - "Did you see us fight?" "No." "Trap."
Inara keeps spare flash bombs around with the incense? Well, a few months on Serenity must have rubbed off on her.
Aside from the trap, Inara seemed kind of... wasted for the rest of the movie, and now that I think about it, people who'd never seen the show would have no idea what she was - she's only mentioned as a "Companion" once, and the non-Firefly fans would have figured her to be some kind of priestess. Heh. I suppose she didn't have much to do because there WASN'T much else she could do without deviating heavily from the plot. Still, I was surprised she was the only one guarding the corridor at the end who appeared to not even have a scratch.
So the Alliance created the Reavers. Ha. Figured. Who else was quoting Galaxy Quest the minute the Reaver ships Mal was dragging appeared? Better than mines, if you ask me.
I saw Book coming. I should have seen Wash coming. Zoe wanted kids, they were happily married, he was probably the happiest and most stable person on the ship, and dammit, it's Joss - he was doomed. The whole theater screamed along with us. I think even the people who'd never seen the show had grown to love Wash throughout the course of the movie.
I'm going to re-watch my DVDs and live in denial. I may write AU post-Serenity stories where Wash and Book (okay, Wash mostly) didn't die to feed the denial, but I don't know if I'd post them.
After Simon finally telling Kaylee how he felt and Kaylee's absolutely wonderful reaction, I hoped Joss didn't kill her off - Kaylee was the person I initially thought would bite it. So I was glad when they actually survived. After THAT conversation, if Joss had killed either Kaylee or Simon off, I would have probably walked out of the theater. Fortunately, he knows where to draw the line to keep fans from killing him.
...And let's leave a little more space here to block the spoilers off from the rest of the post.
That'll do.
I stuck around and went to Frederick in the Streets with the gang on Saturday - it was fun and we ate too much and I picked up some Christmas gifts. Jen also discovered that the British imports store had Maynards sours! *does the dance of joy* I haven't been able to find those since I was in Dublin. In the Streets was fun, but it seemed smaller than the last few times I'd been to it, probably because they still had the Carroll Creek park walkways cordoned off. I seem to remember the street vendors extending their reach down along the creek on both sides of Market Street at the end. With that blocked off, the south end of Market seemed kind of packed in.
Then we played D&D, and, well... I didn't expect our campaign to end like THAT.
We had almost the entire party playing for once: the half-elf druid, the elven paladin, the barbarian, the Good cleric, the Evil cleric, the minotaur, and my halfling thief. We were only missing one of our three fighters and the mage, so we figured we could handle it.
Riiiight.
First problem: At the very beginning of the skirmish, a fireball hit the lookout tower the minotaur was occupying. He had to roll a 19 or lower to survive; he rolled a 20. Yeah. So as the two mages, cleric, two archers and seven fighters attacked the mining camp, we were already down our strongest fighter right off the bat.
Second problem: the mages could go invisible. And stay that way for several rounds.
So the barbarian went right for the cleric commanding the attackers. In character, but problematic since he had to fight through the cleric's spells and put himself as far as possible from anyone in our party who could heal him. Jen hid herself behind a wall with me and the paladin covering her so she could try to cast Hold Person. It worked - on only one of her three targets. Meanwhile, one of the archers figured out there were people firing from that wall corner and moved out of our range and sight. The druid got smart and hopped the wall on the far side of the camp, intending to get the drop on another one of the archers. She succeeded, but then one of the mages appeared beside her and took half her hit points. She failed to climb over the wall, and rolled to play dead for two rounds.
Meanwhile, the barbarian was down, the human cleric was fighting the front line, so Jen decided to cast Entangle on a space that would encompass almost all the enemies. It worked, but it missed both mages and both archers - and that damn archer who had moved out of sight hopped the wall and started firing on us from above.
The Entangle spell that suddenly engulfed almost all the attackers (and the barbarian) was enough to get the mage and the archer who were inspecting the druid to turn around and go, "What the hell?" (the DM's words) So the druid tried to make a break for the wall - but the one time she needed to roll a low number, she rolled a 20. So the mage spotted her, fired three Magic Missiles and took her out.
Then the unaccounted-for mage appeared right next to our paladin and blasted away half her hit points, and the archer and mage started attacking us on both fronts. Deb had to run upstairs and ended up having to repair one of the computers, and in her absence her paladin was killed off by the mage. We didn't even manage to get to the next round of our attacks before the paladin's hit points were gone.
Ordinarily, Jen's cleric would have tried to heal her had she not invested so many rounds in the Entangle spell, and we were still flanked on two sides by the archer and the mage. There were two reasons my thief still had more than half of her hit points: 1) she had a 19 dexterity, was three feet tall and was a pain to hit, and 2) the paladin was a more viable target. With her down, my halfling thief was the only cover left. Naturally, Jen rolled to levitate herself over the wall and run for the forest. She rolled well enough to get over the wall and run out of sight.
Well, I wasn't Chaotic Evil, but nor was my character stupid. I couldn't possibly carry the paladin anywhere, and was not going to be able to take down the mage and the archer - and the mage near me hadn't even used Magic Missile yet. (A 19 dex does NOTHING against a magical attack that never misses.) There was no way in hell I could have hoisted my three-foot halfling self over a seven-foot wall without getting hit, but there was a river at the other end of the camp fast enough for boats but smooth enough to make floating downstream possible.
So I decided to run for the river - screaming for the remaining cleric to run, since my character owed him for sticking up for me in the beginning.
I rolled a good enough score to make my escape totally successful. (DM: "In your panic, you run at three times your normal speed, and are out of sight before the mage can even think of a spell." Someone else: "Yeah, she ran right between his legs." Me: "Shut up.") The other cleric heeded my warning and got away too, heading in the same direction I did. And that pretty much ended the campaign, since most of the party was dead and because Mark had been working on a campaign he wanted to run next. Even the DM couldn't believe it: "I only intended to kill off one or two of you guys, not wipe almost everyone out!"
With that said and done, we decided to create new characters for the next campaign. Bob decided to keep his cleric, and I decided to keep my thief in reserve - if Gary still wanted to play his old character, I didn't want to play my thief because he'd still be trying to kill me. So I tried to put together a fairly standard fighter character - an elf this time, just for the hell of it. Unfortunately, I forgot how damn complicated it is to compile and roll for all your character's stats. I'd had help creating my thief because I created her mid-campaign and the DM wanted to keep things rolling. I gave up when it was past midnight and I hadn't figured out her proficiencies yet. I originally considered creating a dual-classed character like Jen did, but I think I'd have given up with the sheer complexity of creating it and assigning experience to both classes. I also thought about playing a bard, but I think I need to get a little quicker with my creativity in D&D before I try that character type. Besides, like I said, I was holding my thief in reserve.
This is my one problem with D&D: the sheer amount of complexity and stats that go into creating a character type and having to roll for everything. I understand why it's done that way - even the most skilled fighter has a chance of missing in the heat of battle - but sometimes it gets on my nerves. Eh, it's still fun just for the tangents.
Still on the quest for electrical estimates. Electrician #1 is currently winning. Electrician #2 quoted me a much higher total price (and I've been trying to get a breakdown from him), and Electrician #3 got the wrong time his first try getting out to my place, and was supposed to e-mail me an estimate on Friday - but despite me politely calling him to remind him on Monday (and ensure that he had the correct e-mail address), I still haven't gotten anything from him. Electrician #4 will be by on Friday. *sigh* Well, at least I know all the ins and outs of how to potentially get to the wiring in my house now.
Hm. Baby in the next aisle of cubicles over. I think I'll go investigate...
Dept. picnic was fun and about as insane as the pre-picnic games predicted; DASSD won the trophy and things devolved into a water balloon assault that I nearly missed out on (but forgot my jacket, so I caught the tail end of it when I came back). I work with crazy people. It's fun.
Friday night, I went to see Serenity and was quite pleased to see that the theater in Westview was more than half full. I will now ramble -
Big damn spoilers commence, don't say I didn't warn you. I avoided spoilers for the movie like the plague.
It was nice to actually see how Simon broke River out of the Alliance facility in the first place, although it was more than a little jarring. I could buy Simon's confidence - as awkward as he's been in situations with the Serenity crew where he's had to think on his feet, I could imagine he'd spent HOURS preparing for the break-out. He seemed calm and composed in the flashback because he'd probably rehearsed his cover and his responses ad nauseam beforehand. Remember the constant rehearsal of the lines Jayne had to remember in "Ariel?" If Simon's going to be as anal about preparing for that job, he'd have planned meticulously to break River out. Besides, as
dotsomething pointed out, he's a trauma surgeon - he works best under pressure, and if you want extreme circumstances, busting his sister out of a high-security Alliance facility qualifies.What did throw me, however, was the amount of data dump in that scene. The doctor went on and on about his "star pupil," and gave Simon WAY more information than I thought he had. His speech made it clear (to me, anyway) that they were trying to unlock psychic abilities in River, but I don't think that even occurred to Simon until the episode "Safe." At least, given how lost Simon was in the series trying to figure out what they did to her, I thought he learned too much there.
I liked the Operative, although his character didn't particularly jump out at me, so to speak. He was an effective villain, complicated enough to keep me watching, and (mostly) smart enough to give Mal a challenge.
River's first fight scene IMMEDIATELY brought Buffy to mind. The fight choreography, the suddenness of it, the fact that it was in a bar... I kept superimposing a Season 3 fight scene from the Bronze onto it. (The aftermath was great, especially Wash's comments about Jayne being beat up by a 90-pound girl never getting old.)
LOVED the Inara/Mal conversation: Mal shirtless, the awkwardness of it, the rest of the crew watching like it was a soap opera, and how easily Mal figured it out - "Did you see us fight?" "No." "Trap."
Inara keeps spare flash bombs around with the incense? Well, a few months on Serenity must have rubbed off on her.
Aside from the trap, Inara seemed kind of... wasted for the rest of the movie, and now that I think about it, people who'd never seen the show would have no idea what she was - she's only mentioned as a "Companion" once, and the non-Firefly fans would have figured her to be some kind of priestess. Heh. I suppose she didn't have much to do because there WASN'T much else she could do without deviating heavily from the plot. Still, I was surprised she was the only one guarding the corridor at the end who appeared to not even have a scratch.
So the Alliance created the Reavers. Ha. Figured. Who else was quoting Galaxy Quest the minute the Reaver ships Mal was dragging appeared? Better than mines, if you ask me.
I saw Book coming. I should have seen Wash coming. Zoe wanted kids, they were happily married, he was probably the happiest and most stable person on the ship, and dammit, it's Joss - he was doomed. The whole theater screamed along with us. I think even the people who'd never seen the show had grown to love Wash throughout the course of the movie.
I'm going to re-watch my DVDs and live in denial. I may write AU post-Serenity stories where Wash and Book (okay, Wash mostly) didn't die to feed the denial, but I don't know if I'd post them.
After Simon finally telling Kaylee how he felt and Kaylee's absolutely wonderful reaction, I hoped Joss didn't kill her off - Kaylee was the person I initially thought would bite it. So I was glad when they actually survived. After THAT conversation, if Joss had killed either Kaylee or Simon off, I would have probably walked out of the theater. Fortunately, he knows where to draw the line to keep fans from killing him.
...And let's leave a little more space here to block the spoilers off from the rest of the post.
That'll do.
I stuck around and went to Frederick in the Streets with the gang on Saturday - it was fun and we ate too much and I picked up some Christmas gifts. Jen also discovered that the British imports store had Maynards sours! *does the dance of joy* I haven't been able to find those since I was in Dublin. In the Streets was fun, but it seemed smaller than the last few times I'd been to it, probably because they still had the Carroll Creek park walkways cordoned off. I seem to remember the street vendors extending their reach down along the creek on both sides of Market Street at the end. With that blocked off, the south end of Market seemed kind of packed in.
Then we played D&D, and, well... I didn't expect our campaign to end like THAT.
We had almost the entire party playing for once: the half-elf druid, the elven paladin, the barbarian, the Good cleric, the Evil cleric, the minotaur, and my halfling thief. We were only missing one of our three fighters and the mage, so we figured we could handle it.
Riiiight.
First problem: At the very beginning of the skirmish, a fireball hit the lookout tower the minotaur was occupying. He had to roll a 19 or lower to survive; he rolled a 20. Yeah. So as the two mages, cleric, two archers and seven fighters attacked the mining camp, we were already down our strongest fighter right off the bat.
Second problem: the mages could go invisible. And stay that way for several rounds.
So the barbarian went right for the cleric commanding the attackers. In character, but problematic since he had to fight through the cleric's spells and put himself as far as possible from anyone in our party who could heal him. Jen hid herself behind a wall with me and the paladin covering her so she could try to cast Hold Person. It worked - on only one of her three targets. Meanwhile, one of the archers figured out there were people firing from that wall corner and moved out of our range and sight. The druid got smart and hopped the wall on the far side of the camp, intending to get the drop on another one of the archers. She succeeded, but then one of the mages appeared beside her and took half her hit points. She failed to climb over the wall, and rolled to play dead for two rounds.
Meanwhile, the barbarian was down, the human cleric was fighting the front line, so Jen decided to cast Entangle on a space that would encompass almost all the enemies. It worked, but it missed both mages and both archers - and that damn archer who had moved out of sight hopped the wall and started firing on us from above.
The Entangle spell that suddenly engulfed almost all the attackers (and the barbarian) was enough to get the mage and the archer who were inspecting the druid to turn around and go, "What the hell?" (the DM's words) So the druid tried to make a break for the wall - but the one time she needed to roll a low number, she rolled a 20. So the mage spotted her, fired three Magic Missiles and took her out.
Then the unaccounted-for mage appeared right next to our paladin and blasted away half her hit points, and the archer and mage started attacking us on both fronts. Deb had to run upstairs and ended up having to repair one of the computers, and in her absence her paladin was killed off by the mage. We didn't even manage to get to the next round of our attacks before the paladin's hit points were gone.
Ordinarily, Jen's cleric would have tried to heal her had she not invested so many rounds in the Entangle spell, and we were still flanked on two sides by the archer and the mage. There were two reasons my thief still had more than half of her hit points: 1) she had a 19 dexterity, was three feet tall and was a pain to hit, and 2) the paladin was a more viable target. With her down, my halfling thief was the only cover left. Naturally, Jen rolled to levitate herself over the wall and run for the forest. She rolled well enough to get over the wall and run out of sight.
Well, I wasn't Chaotic Evil, but nor was my character stupid. I couldn't possibly carry the paladin anywhere, and was not going to be able to take down the mage and the archer - and the mage near me hadn't even used Magic Missile yet. (A 19 dex does NOTHING against a magical attack that never misses.) There was no way in hell I could have hoisted my three-foot halfling self over a seven-foot wall without getting hit, but there was a river at the other end of the camp fast enough for boats but smooth enough to make floating downstream possible.
So I decided to run for the river - screaming for the remaining cleric to run, since my character owed him for sticking up for me in the beginning.
I rolled a good enough score to make my escape totally successful. (DM: "In your panic, you run at three times your normal speed, and are out of sight before the mage can even think of a spell." Someone else: "Yeah, she ran right between his legs." Me: "Shut up.") The other cleric heeded my warning and got away too, heading in the same direction I did. And that pretty much ended the campaign, since most of the party was dead and because Mark had been working on a campaign he wanted to run next. Even the DM couldn't believe it: "I only intended to kill off one or two of you guys, not wipe almost everyone out!"
With that said and done, we decided to create new characters for the next campaign. Bob decided to keep his cleric, and I decided to keep my thief in reserve - if Gary still wanted to play his old character, I didn't want to play my thief because he'd still be trying to kill me. So I tried to put together a fairly standard fighter character - an elf this time, just for the hell of it. Unfortunately, I forgot how damn complicated it is to compile and roll for all your character's stats. I'd had help creating my thief because I created her mid-campaign and the DM wanted to keep things rolling. I gave up when it was past midnight and I hadn't figured out her proficiencies yet. I originally considered creating a dual-classed character like Jen did, but I think I'd have given up with the sheer complexity of creating it and assigning experience to both classes. I also thought about playing a bard, but I think I need to get a little quicker with my creativity in D&D before I try that character type. Besides, like I said, I was holding my thief in reserve.
This is my one problem with D&D: the sheer amount of complexity and stats that go into creating a character type and having to roll for everything. I understand why it's done that way - even the most skilled fighter has a chance of missing in the heat of battle - but sometimes it gets on my nerves. Eh, it's still fun just for the tangents.
Still on the quest for electrical estimates. Electrician #1 is currently winning. Electrician #2 quoted me a much higher total price (and I've been trying to get a breakdown from him), and Electrician #3 got the wrong time his first try getting out to my place, and was supposed to e-mail me an estimate on Friday - but despite me politely calling him to remind him on Monday (and ensure that he had the correct e-mail address), I still haven't gotten anything from him. Electrician #4 will be by on Friday. *sigh* Well, at least I know all the ins and outs of how to potentially get to the wiring in my house now.
Hm. Baby in the next aisle of cubicles over. I think I'll go investigate...
