Owen K.C. Stephens's Blog

Heya folks.

As I fight cancer, I have to shepherd every single erg of energy I have. It turns out, posting my blog posts both here and at my Patreon is an erg too far.

New content is coming out regularly still, but it’s over on https://www.patreon.com/OwenKCStephens. A lot of it is for “members,” but that base membership is free. Only a few things are for paying members only, just likes some posts were only there and not here back in the “old days” when I had energy.

This site isn’t going anywhere. Thanks for your support.

I’ve seen 4 cancer-related doctors in the past few days, and have more appointments coming. Frank the MRI shows what the doctor who reads the scan is convinced is remaining cancer. Some of my doctors agree with that assessment, others aren’t sure. More than half my doctors want my colorectal surgeon to do a biopsy. (Due to the probably-remaining-tumor’s size and location it has to be a surgeon, not just a GI.) The shadowy tumor board hasn’t weighed in yet, and if I AM getting a biopsy they likely won’t until we have those results.

If it’s not cancer, everyone agrees I killed the little fucker and we just send me to Frank every few months to make sure it doesn’t come back. (“Sometimes They Come Back.”) But if it IS a tiny tumor of terror, there’s no consensus at the moment about a long-term plan of cancer care for me. One option is to just take on wait-and-watch, to see if it is trapped or dies on its own. Not all of my team is happy with that idea, and there are a lot of steps left before we decide to just wait-and-see with any cancer I have remaining.

Even so, it’s increasingly clear to me that what focus and energy I have now may be as good as things get. We had at one point thought I could be fully recovered from chemoradiation as soon as October, but that’s been pushed back to April 2025. My body seems to be having a lot of trouble keeping my electrolytes balanced, and while I am no longer at dangerously low levels, even supplements aren’t bringing it up to where my team wants me to be. We may find a fix for that over the next 9 months, or it may fix itself. Or… it may not.

Truth is, this may be as good as I ever feel again, and even if it’s not it’s likely I‘ll never have the levels of energy and focus. There’s also a risk (not yet a BIG risk, but a risk) that the decision will be made to put me on chemo again. But it won’t be the chemo I tolerated for 10 months over the past year-plus. No, this would be a much harsher chemo, that has as possible side effects things like permanent neurological damage.

So not only may this be as good as I ever feel, in the long-term its possible my productivity and even quality of life will be lower than it is now. That means I can’t keep putting things off until my cancer is gone, especially with my career. I need to manage to do more work. And, yes, friends, fans, and colleagues have gone to great lengths to make sure I know everyone understands my limitations. Tons of folks have done what they can to help me make ends meet, but the bundles and kickstarters and charity products only go so far. Unless someone steps up every couple of months to put together a new mega-bundle for me, I have to manage some income on my own.

Not only is cancer treatment itself expensive, I’ve now been mostly or entirely out of work for 18 months. Any further recovery is in a timeline of months, and may never be better than now. I need to move forward with plans for ongoing income, and that means working. I have seen what happens to ttRPG designers if they can’t work for too long. They drop out, and for the most part never return. Some drop out of this industry intentionally, and I can’t blame them.

Some burnout, and just never want to try design work again. But some just can’t find the job, fanbase, or opportunities they need to stay in, and fade away. Many of those people are great designers, and their departure is a real loss for the rest of us. I don’t hold myself in their ranks, but I have things I still want to get done

When I was diagnosed with cancer, several survivors and medical professionals told me fighting it would be a full-time job, and it’s been all of that and more. But I can’t let that be a full focus anymore. With luck, I will recover more or even entirely to pre-cancer levels. But that’s not the most likely outcome. I am 100% going to beat this thing, but I can’t pretend the battle may not leave some pretty nasty scars. And not the cool through-one-eye-that-turns-white-and-lets-you-see-the-spirit-world kind of scars. Man, it’s like every heroic story I ever read lied to me about how likely you are to get superpowers when you are exposed to radiation during a lightning storm.

For now, “more work” has to be projects of my own, or very short pieces of work. Until I have a better idea what my remaining health issues are and how we’re going to treat them, it’s not fair or ethical for me to take on big projects that involve other companies or people. I can’t be sure I can see a 20,000 words freelance project through, and given how public I am about my cancer and mental health, it seems super unlikely anyone would hire me on-staff atm. (I have tried, but no one even gives me an interview or non-form-letter response these days.)

And, I have work that’s long overdue, and work I owe people. So, I’ll try to focus on short projects and getting old things off my embarrassing overdue list, and see if I can make enough money to keep the lights on. And, as my medical situation clarifies—which should just be a couple of weeks, but I have said that before and had it be months—I’ll re-assess and re-plan.

meanwhile, every little but of support helps.

https://www.gofundme.com/manage/help-owen-kc-stephens-fight-cancer

I don’t want it to be too grim, so here’s an #OwenCat pic to go with.

We’re live!
And we funded in 90 seconds!
And we hit our first stretch goal in 15 minutes!
And our second in 45 minutes!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owenkcstephens/damn-it-owen-cartoons-that-refused-to-not-be-drawn

I try to be entirely honest in my online posts. While I don’t talk about every aspect of my life (there’s a reason y’all don’t get pictures of my meals unless I have flavored with Mtn Dew something that should *not* be flavored with Mtn Dew); I am often open about my mental health struggles, my ongoing battle with cancer, self-doubt, obesity, finances, and a number of other topics I know aren’t common fodder when talking about oneself.

This is a conscious decision, for many reasons. I find being open about my struggles a useful therapeutic tool. Writing about my issues is a great way for me to put them in an ordered context within my mind, and gives me a sense of control over them. (The Pen is mightier than the Social Anxiety!) And, more than once, I have had someone share with my that what I wrote on some issue was helpful to them — often someone in a pretty bad place, who could use all the help they could get.

As a result, I’m used to my posts worrying a friend or two when I am in a bad place mentally, physically, or financially. Especially when I make a post while in a pretty bad place myself, and I can’t mentally find a way to add an upbeat closer, or sprinkle some humor throughout. (“Self Awareness and Despair, now with sprinkles! And try our new Existential Dread, in both Chocolate and Spoiled Rotting Apple flavors!”)

But I have apparently, recently, worried a LOT more than 1 or 2 friends. Well, that’s fair, I’m more worried than usual myself. Even without considering issues such as politics, global climate change, total lack of a retirement plan… have a lot of negative pressures on me atm, and many of my coping mechanisms have been curtailed due to my weakened immune system turning me into a shut-in atm.

So, yes, shit sucks. But, let me be clear.

I am not in danger of giving up the fight.

I am absolutely not in danger of self-harm.

I have a vast, strong, wonderful support network, and I will and do lean on it as needed.

I will beat this cancer, and I will continue to create games.

Even when the brain weasels are eating my cognition like pecan brittle, and I am incapable of seeing how any of those are possible, I know that in clearly moments I have decided they are. No matter how dark things get, I am aware it’s not as bad as it looks. (Okay, bad mixed metaphor — if it’s so farging dark it can’t look THAT bad because I can’t see anything! But you get my point.)

All kind words and well wishing and prayers and ritual sacrifices of fried chicken in a gravy circle of protection are very much appreciated.

And you are welcome to worry. they are your feelings, and they are valid.

But I’ll get through the worst parts of this journey. I may be limping, covered in mosquito bites, dehydrated, and have blisters on my feet, but I will make it through.
…
I may be grumpy about it, though. Where’s my blanket…PS: If you want to help, *and* have the means, you can always donate to my GoFundMe. Every little bit helps.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-owen-kc-stephens-fight-cancer

This is my effort to bring people up to speed on how my fight with cancer is going.

So, let’s try to do a quick rundown and then tell people where we are now.

(Takes a deep breath)

The best guess of my medical team is that I got colorectal cancer in 2015, though we did not detect it at the time. We even checked for cancer at the time, because I began to get sick and hospitalized regularly, and then began suffering incapacitating fatigue. But apparently my hateflesh blob had levels in rogue, because it made its Stealth check and we missed it.

The fucker.

So it leaches my energy and focus from 2015 to 2023, when it decides to put in the extra hours and causes a deep vein thrombosis in my thigh (a ‘DVT’ – a potentially deadly bloodclot). The DVT causes a pulmonary embolism, which makes it nearly impossible for me to breath, and some nice firemen end up carrying me out of my bedroom to an ambulance to rush me to the E.R. I stay there for nearly a weekk and we ID the embolism and DVT, but not yet the cancer.

But I AM put on blood thinners.

The blood thinner cause me to start bleeding out my butt, my reaction to which is well represented by this animated short. That obviously caused immediate and massive concern. My wife and I tried not to panic, confident that doctors would break speed records figuring out why. I mean, you’d think getting to the bottom of that situation would be a priority for any medical professional. And… it kinda was? It only took about three weeks. Okay, nearly four. Turns out that’s par for the course for the rest of this story.

Anyway, it was cancer. Boo, hiss. But, at least I knew what had been wrong with me for nearly a decade. I got very, very angry at the blob of hateflesh, and still ma. I’ve been using that anger to get through the past year of treatments.

So, I am sent to see a colorectal surgeon in March of 2023, and was told we absolutely had to remove a length of my intestine and we needed to get it done by the end of May 2023. (I’ll note, here in May of 2024, that I still have not had that surgery.) Instead, I got bounced to a different colorectal surgeon, got denied for surgery, got a kidney infection, got a infusion port for chemo surgically implanted, had my insurance (which paid for the port surgery) refuse to pay for those chemo infusions so I had to do 12 oral pills every day instead which became 10 months of chemo, had my insurance cancelled mid-2023 (they went bankrupt) got new insurance (along with a new out-of-pocket total, so I had to meet my out-of-pocket twice for 2023), did a series of MRIs, cat scans, and colonoscopies, renewed my insurance for 2024 only for it to stop covering some of my medications, discovered that out-of-pocket maximums don’t count or cover amounts above what your insurance agrees to pay for (so if you are in-network and have pre-approval for a $30,000 procedure and have met your deductible and out-of-pocket max for the year, but your insurance company decides they only want to pay $20,000 for the procedure you are responsible for the other $10,000, no matter how often that happens and despite state and federal laws that say you shouldn’t ever face surprise medical billing), had a tumor board decide to go off the standard of care because of numerous factors like my blood thinners and instead added 7 weeks of radiation (which I consider to have been lovingly applied by Ylva the Radioactive Valkyrie, because that sounds better than “strapped to a linear accelerator wearing nothing but a t-shirt and socks).

(Oh, you’re for sure going to see more of Ylva. Art by Jacob Blackmon.)

Phew.

So, what’s next?

Well, in another week or so, my radiation oncologist will call to confirm I am recovering from 7 weeks of treating my gut like leftover pizza in a microwave. And, despite still facing fatigue and issues like my Atomic Taint Burn (which *isn’t* the name of a punk band, but sure *ought* to be), I am recovering. Slowly, and grumpily. At that call, we’ll set a time for an MRI and colonoscopy, which will look to see if we’ve actually killed my tumor. But that won’t actually be done until two months later, because until then my innards are too burned, swollen, and irritated to be able to distinguish between a hateflesh blob and a just-pissed-off-but-not-trying-to-kill-me-flesh blob.

If the answer is yes, I’ll finally be able to celebrate, after 19 months of fighting this fight. I won’t actually fully recover until October at the earliest, and we’ll have to set a schedule of MRIS and colonoscopies… for the rest of my life. That’s because for the first 5 years, there’s a chance the tumor would return even if we killed it. And after 5 years, there’s a risk that the radiation we used to try to kill it will give me a *new* cancer tumor. So, the BEST case scenario is that I’ll be getting probed at least annually for the rest of my life.

If the answer is that no, we didn’t kill the tumor, things get tough. We can’t try radiation again — I’m at max safe rads for that section of my insides. We might be in a place where the tumor board decides trying surgery is better than risking letting the tumor grow wild. We also might decide to find a level of chemo I can tolerate, and just put me on chemo… forever. In any of these cases, I won’t be recovered by October, and might never be able to risk airplane travel or public crowd ever again, becoming a permanent medical shut-in.

An what are the odds? Well, doctors (for good and understandable reasons) don’t like trying to give you hard numbers on such things. They especially don’t want to do so when you are off the standard of care. My complications have caused us to take the path less travelled for trying to beat my hateflesh blob, which means we have less support, and fewer case studies to draw from. But with some research, probing questions, and telling medical professions I understood all I could get was their best guess, I have multiple sources all telling me the same thing.

My odds are about 50/50.

That makes the next 9-10 weeks a particularly stressful wait. My radiation treatment (and things like the more-than-30 CAT scans that went with it) had a pre-insurance cost of over $650,000. Given how much medical debt we took out of 2023, thankfully my share of that is a relatively small percentage. But wow, does it bother me that all that time, expertise, and resource may have gone for naught. I’d really like to know NOW if I’m cancer-free or not, and if not what our Plan B (okay… more like Plan N at this point) looks like. Add to that things like preparing to move to a new house, a beloved pet who won’t be with us much longer, the aforementioned massive debt load… my stressors are numerous, considerable, and growing.

But, that’s not how it works. So, instead, I get to deal with the fragile nature of my body post-radiation. My fingernails, which I used to be able to use in place of screwdrivers, now fold and tear at the slightest pressure. My entire digestive system is still fragile, volatile, unreliable, and acidic. My skin is so thin that I managed to scrub through it on a knuckle while cleaning dishes with a sponge.

NOT steel wool. Not a scrubbing pad. Not even a dry, hard sponge or while using an abrasive cleanser. Just a soft sponge and liquid dish soap, and I managed to abrade my paper-thin skin so a flap of it pealed up. I was shocked. I had my wife take a picture. CW -ah… picture of an abraded knuckle.

(It is the ouch.)

And, that brings everyone up-to-date. I have a long recovery coming as the best-case scenario, and won’t know how I’m actually doing for more than two months yet. But I am going to proceed under the assumption that, one way or another, I will get back to my full health and energy–if not this year, then the next, or the next.

I’ll be around, folks.

Support: If you want to help with medical costs, there are lots of options, including a ton of products friends and colleagues have put together to help me when you buy them. If not, I get it, I promise. Even just liking and sharing my blog posts and social media posts, sending me good vibes, funny memes, and distracting pictures, and wishing me well is a huge help, and greatly appreciated.

GoFundMe -Every bit helps.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-owen-kc-stephens-fight-cancer

My Ko-Fi goes directly to me, if you prefer that.

https://ko-fi.com/owenkcstephens

Patreon – Being a subscriber is great. Becoming a paid subscriber is awesome.

https://www.patreon.com/OwenKCStephens

Charity Bundle (through April Only) — $1,100+ worth of game material for $30

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473197/owen-kc-stephens-is-rad-bundle

Charity Product — Like A Boss – A Book of Boss Encounters

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/433500/like-a-boss-a-book-of-boss-encounters

Charity Product — The Traveler’s Guide to the Darklands

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/455409/the-traveler-s-guide-to-the-darklands

Charity Product — Publisher’s Choice Stock Art: Owen KC Stephens

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473298/publisher-s-choice-stock-art-owen-kc-stephens

Contributing Product — Knight of the Grave

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/472160/knight-of-the-grave

(And if I missed something, let me know! My chemo-addled brain forgets things easily atm.)

The doctor’s best estimate is that in mid 2014, I developed cancer. We didn’t catch it (despite testing for it) until early 2023.

For nine years I faced growing fatigue, waning focus, and exponentially growing inability to do as much as I had the year before.

Of course, I moved to Seattle in early 2014 to work for Paizo Inc. I was, at the time, already a developer for Green Ronin Publishing, publisher for Rogue Genius Games, blogger, and a freelance writer, developer, and consultant. I often worked 80-to-100-hour weeks. People told me it was impossible to maintain. I felt it wasn’t. I’d already done it for a decade at that point.

And, for a few more years, I maintained it. From 2015 forward it got harder and harder, and I grew more and more frustrated, but I did it. I even added work for other companies. I brought late publishing lines back on schedule. I helped friends with disasters on their hands. I contributed to award-winning products. I put out Anachronistic Adventures and the Feat Reference Document. I helped create Starfinder.

All the while, the cancer grew, sapped my strength and focus, and made absolutely everything in my life — professional and personal — much more difficult. I thought it was burnout. And, yes, I may well have hit burnout. But I was also being slowly killed by a monster born of my own flesh.

I began to get sick more and more often. Hospitalized with staph infections. Pneumonia every couple of years. Flu every few months, Con crud after every convention. No doctor could tell me why. I was not diabetic. My weight was going down. I was exercising more, eating better, and getting weaker, and sicker, and less reliable.

People kept telling me and telling me I was taking on too much. That I just wasn’t 35 anymore. I knew something was wrong, but I did not know what. I came to believe it was either my environment, something in the Pacific Northwest, or my job, that was draining me. I did not want to believe either, as I loved both, but what more was there to blame> So, in 2019, I left Paizo and the work I loved there, and my wife and I moved to Indiana for what looked like an opportunity to have great careers doing less work.

That… did not work out as planned.

So when those jobs dried up mere months after moving, I decided to launch an ambitious subscription plan for 2020.

That… did not work out as planned. I still owe people a ton of that material, 4 years later. At least it wasn’t a Kickstarter.

Then we had to move back to Oklahoma mid 2020, during the pandemic. Here, at least, was my original support base. My close family. My dear friends of decades. And once I was here, I got sicker, and sicker. More infections. More pneumonia. More fatigue. More depression. I was, in fact, ready to give up.

When I was hospitalized early last year, my life was in danger. Then, a month later, we got the diagnosis. Cancer. A tumor finally big enough to localize. I’ve been fighting it ever since.

If we’d caught it a decade ago, maybe things would have been different. Fewer people let down. More opportunities taken. Less beloved jobs let and friends moved away from. But I can’t change any of that.

In roughly 3 months, I’ll get to find out if the tumor is dead now. If so, another 3 months after that I’ll likely be fully recovered, though ‘ll be monitoring for a return of the tumor (or new cancer, caused by the radiation to kill this one).

If not, my list of options grows thin.

I’m not sure where I will go, from here. I don’t have the reputation I used to, or the opportunities I once did. Full-time ttRPG jobs with benefits are incredibly rare. I lost 1 in 2001, and walked away from another in 2019. Even regular gigs with contracts and monthly paychecks are rare, and I’ve screwed up 3 of those in just the past 3 years. No reason to think anyone will give me a shot at those rare positions again.

Also, the tabletop industry is changing fast, and right now I simply lack the exergy to keep up. In three or six months, who knows what it’ll be like, or how I’ll find a place in it again. And with the cost of chemo, radiation, MRIs, ultrasounds, CAT scans, scopes, probes, and the machine that goes “ping” I may be looking at debt for decades to come.

But I will be here, fighting when I must, creating what I can, advising if I’m asked and able, regardless. It might not be the path I’d prefer, and I may need to sit at regular intervals along the way, but I’ll keep walking it as long as I’m able.

-Owen

Support: If you want to help with medical costs, there are lots of options, including a ton of products friends and colleagues have put together to help me when you buy them. If not, I get it, I promise. Even just liking and sharing my blog posts and social media posts, sending me good vibes, funny memes, and distracting pictures, and wishing me well is a huge help, and greatly appreciated.

GoFundMe -Ever bit helps.

https://www.patreon.com/OwenKCStephens

Ko-Fi – If you prefer it to GFM, or want to set up regular donations.

https://ko-fi.com/owenkcstephens

Patreon – Being a subscriber is great. Becoming a paid subscriber is awesome.

https://www.patreon.com/OwenKCStephens

Charity Bundle (through April Only) — $1,100+ worth of game material for $30

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473197/owen-kc-stephens-is-rad-bundle

Charity Product — Like A Boss – A Book of Boss Encounters

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/433500/like-a-boss-a-book-of-boss-encounters

Charity Product — The Traveler’s Guide to the Darklands

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/455409/the-traveler-s-guide-to-the-darklands

Charity Product — Publisher’s Choice Stock Art: Owen KC Stephens

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473298/publisher-s-choice-stock-art-owen-kc-stephens

Contributing Product — Knight of the Grave

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/472160/knight-of-the-grave

(And if I missed something, let me know! My chemo-addled brain forgets things easily atm.)

The dividing line between a “Terrible Idea” and an “Awesome Idea” can be bent, blurred, and razor-thin. For these ideas in particular, I both would not recommend any investor spend money on such a movie hoping for a return, nor any actor hope it be a career-making role to be in one… but I’d cheer their creation and watch the heck out of them, popcorn in hand!

10. Terminator vs. Crow: “One is an unstoppable killing machine. The other already died. The battle for the Afterlife starts now.”

9. Ghostbusters vs. RIPD: “NOW Who Ya Gonna Call?” It’s a breakout of spirits from the afterlife, but the Ghostbusters tend to use unlicensed nuclear accelerators first, and ask for undead IDs never.

8. S.W.O.R.D. vs. Godzilla: While the big league superheroes are dealing with other issue’s Marvel’s worldwide defense agency discovers aliens are trying to awaken ancient kaiju to destroy the Earth. And, yes, I was a huge fan of the SHIELD vs. Godzilla comics of the late 1970s. This perfectly well ought to feature Devil Dinosaur, Red Ronin, the Shogun Warriors, and Jet Jaguar in addition to Godzilla.

7. Scanners vs. Trancers: “Heads Will Explode!” Though I’d be sad if it didn’t have Tim Thomerson in it, and he seems to have retired from acting.

6. Robocop vs. Robocop vs. Terminator: As Skynet sends another Terminator to the past to eliminate the potential threat of OCP-tech creating a *different* human-conquering AI, it creates an alternate timeline, resulting in both the 1987 Robocop and 2014 Robocop fighting against it (and each other, as they try to protect their own timelines).

5. Supernatural vs. the Evil Dead: The Winchester Boys find the notes of a long-retired (and often thought fictional) hunter names Ash, which warns there’s a wave of Evil Dead about to be released if they don’t stop it. Hilarity ensues.

4. BattleStarGate:
INT. THE GALACTICA’S BRIDGE – NIGHT

GAETA
DRADIS jump complete.

DEE
Commander, I’m being hailed by an unknown source from the third planet in this system.

ADAMA
On speaker.

RADIO VOICE
…peat, unknown vessel entering Sol space, this is Stargate Control. Identify yourselves.

3. The Blobs: Lots of movies title their sequel just by pluralizing the title. So for “The Blob,” that gives us… The Blobs! So, it’s the plot of The Blob, but with more teenagers, more small towns, and more Blobs! (1988 Blob is set up well for this.)

Oh, this isn’t a mashup, you say?! Okay, make the *exact* same movie, but title it The Blob vs. The Stuff vs. X the Unknown.

2. CVA (Chucky Vs. Anderson): So, sure, This is just an attempt to get a sequel made to the 2014 Dredd, but starring Judge Anderson (with Dredd as her back-up). But think about it! Bored civvies perform an occult ritual, summoning the long-lost spirit of serial killer Charles Lee Ray and placing it in… a souped-up high-tech weaponized Good Guy doll. Enraged they didn’t just place him in a human body, Chucky guns them down, then flees to make mischief while he gets used to this far future. Meanwhile Judge Anderson, having been tracking the cultists, realizes what they’ve done and takes steps to catch Chucky and banish his soul forever. Dredd assists, wryly.

1. Terminator vs Highlander: “One is an unfightable killing machine from the future. The other is an unkillable fighting machine from the past. The battle for the present starts now.”

Want to Support Me?

I’m fighting cancer. Have been for more than a year, now. I’m currently undergoing radiation therapy. Colleagues have put together a charity bundle to help me cover costs and expenses. It’s got more than $1,100 worth of games from multiple publishers, all for less than $30. Check it out – https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473197/Owen-KC-Stephens-is-RAD-BUNDLE

Doctor Dungeon Demands You By It!

(Or, of course, you can donate directly through my GoFundMe or Ko-Fi, or if you haven’t yet, become a paid member of my Patreon.)

Okay, before we get to the funny list – I’m fighting cancer. Have been for more than a year, now. I’m currently undergoing radiation therapy. Colleagues have put together a charity bundle to help me cover costs and expenses. It’s got more than $1,100 worth of games from multiple publishers, all for less than $30. Check it out – https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473197/Owen-KC-Stephens-is-RAD-BUNDLE

(Or, of course, you can donate directly through my GoFundMe or Ko-Fi, or if you haven’t yet, become a paid member of my Patreon.)

Okay, on to the (attempted) humor.

Top Ten Worst Ideas For Sequels

Just because you can think of an idea for a follow-up movie doesn’t mean you should make it! Here are ten of the worst ideas for sequels I could think of… all based on the kind of sequels that have really gotten made.

10. Plan 10 From Outer Space: Okay, here’s the pitch to the producer “There’s NO chance this will be worse than the original!”

9. Babe — Baa Slash You: Yep, it’s the adorable sheep-herding pig from “Babe,” starring in the cheap bloody horror movie no one asked for and, to be honest, upon hearing about it most people asked for it to specifically not get made.

8. First Voyage of the Demeter: Spoiler —nothing interesting happens. WHY do people keep making prequels?

7. Grease III: I’m torn between “Grease Fire!” as the tagline for an action movie version or “Grease *Stain*” for a horror movie version. … Or maybe “Grease Gun” if they all get shipped out to the Vietnam Nam War.

All with singing, of course.

6. Highlander II: Take Highlander, but add some weird scifi stuff that claims the immortals were all reincarnated alien spirits and part of some rebellion and bring back Ramirez with no real explanation and… aren’t we glad there was no sequel to Highland, since there CoUld bE ONly oNe?

5. Nopes: Lots of movies title their sequel just by pluralizing the title. So for “Nope,” that gives us… Nopes! So, it’s the plot of Nope, but with more of all the things that are in that movie. … And… commandos, maybe? Or a secret US military kill squad?

4. Lifeboat, Bermuda Bugaloo: A sequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 “Lifeboat,” it picks up right where the original ends. Then the boat and its occupants drift into the Bermuda Triangle, and end up facing dinosaurs, aliens, and time-traveling Nazis. Ends in a dance-off. But no worries, no one would ever think of making a scifi version of Lifeboat, right?!

3. Star Wars II — Star Warser: Often sequels decide to ignore everything after the first movie in a series, and just do a new sequel to that original. So, go back to Star Wars (even before they slapped “A New Hope” onto the opening crawl), and do a sequel that ignores EVERYTHING else. Fans will handle that okay, right?!

2. Oppenheimest: “What’s more Oppenheimer than Oppenheimer? Oppenheimest!” Once you decide to make this movie, the plot doesn’t matter.

1. Buttercup, Princess in the City: What’s an even worse idea than a Princess Bride remake? A soulless sequel! To keep costs down it’s moved to a modern setting, filmed in Vancouver, and while Fred Savage’s “The Grandson” character appears in it (trying to save Buttercup from being married off to “the Garbage King of Jersey”), a different actors plays the role.

I was about to close up the shop and see if I could manage some last-minute holiday shopping at the thrift store, when the front door dinged and I heard hard boots clicking on the floor in the front of the shop. Suppressing a curse, I plastered a smile on my face and popped through the door separating my office from the front counter.

“Happy Holidays. I’m sorry but we’re about to clos…”

My voice faltered.

The woman standing in my tiny customer lobby had an air of self-assurance and class, despite the wild dichotomy of her attire. She had not bothered to plaster on a smile, and her serious gaze and black leather outerwear were somehow not at odds with the Santa hat perched atop her head and the ugly Xmas sweater peeking out from her trench coat. A thick silver belt buckle depicting a set of antlers set off the badge and holster riding the same belt near her hip. Her voice was melodic, but extremely firm.

“I have some questions about your chimney cleaning services, and your availability on Noelnacht. You’d need to be available on standby for 24 hours, but the pay would be commiserate with that inconvenience.”

Her gloved hands produced a bright green business card with raised silver ink, though I didn’t see from where. She pressed one corner of it one the glass counter, then released it so the card slapped onto the smudged surface with aloud “click.”

Most years, if some weirdo walked in on December 23rd with that routine, I’d have just told them I was unavailable. But on this night I was coming off a long series of financial strains and however odd her outfit was, it also spoke of money and professionalism. I really needed the money half of that equation.

I picked up the card and read it. Twice. It had just a single line of text, with a wreath-and-antler badge icon after it.

“Holly Jolly. Chief of Security, North Pole.”

“Well, Mister Scringe?” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Shall we talk business?”

A number of spells (such as haste) in d20-derrivitive games have a “targets” entry that is a number of creatures (often 1 creature/level), no two of which may be more than 30 feet apart.

I have seen that last part cause a lot of confusion among games.

Now, I get that the phrasing is done that way because the spell entry is “targets” rather than “area,” but can anyone think of a case where “one creature/level, no two of which may be more than 30 feet apart” is different from “one creature/level, all within a 35-foot diameter”?

(If I was changing it in an actual product, I’d likely go with “one creature/level, all within a 20-foot radius,” but that does produce a slightly larger range… which I think is fine and weirdly easier to parse.)

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I’ve been fighting cancer, recovering from a pulmonary embolism, and suffering through constant infections for most of 2023. Eventual surgery is the only way to remove the cancer… but that isn’t even scheduled yet, for various medical reasons. This fight takes money, bills are mounting, and my resources (of energy and money) are running thin. You can donate to my ko-fi, if you want to help.

There are cat pics there, too.