Nazi science sneers at my idea of sixteen comics for the price of one!

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(From Irregular Webcomic! Click for full-sized Nazi grammar.)

Irregular Webcomic! has lured me back to reading it on a regular basis, and indeed has made it all the way to my RSS reader for the first time.

For this development you can thank – or blame, depending on your point of view – the fact that David Morgan-Mar has started tying his themes into a compelling, coherent story, a sort of “Crisis on Infinite Themes”, with a minimum of actual crossovers. To some extent, it begins with strip 2045, when Steve (of the “Steve and Terry” theme) discovers that the Loch Ness Monster has been the Lovecraftian horror Cthulhu all along, with another strand beginning five strips later, when the Mythbusters decide to take on the idea of time travel. (Although it could be backdated to 2033, when a future Hermione travels back in time to warn “present” Hermione of some dastardly future events in the Harry Potter fanfic of the Shakespeare theme’s eponymous Will. But that doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on now… as far as we know.)

I swear all of that makes sense if you’re familiar with Irregular Webcomic!

All that was at the very start of September, so I can’t help but wonder if I myself had a hand in it when I suggested back in June that Irregular Webcomic was in fact a fitting title if it was seen as multiple webcomics, one for each theme, themselves updated irregularly. Did Morgan-Mar start subsequently thinking about tying his themes closer together as a result?

No wait, of course not. Because the groundwork for this story has been slowly laid over the course of well over a year.

It goes all the way back to August 20, 2007, when Morgan-Mar announced that “a major…character” would be killed off “before the end of the year. No ghosts. No witty banter with the Head Death before returning. Dead.” No wait, it goes back even further: strip 1610, dated June 24, 2007 (a full year before my observation, let alone the start of this mess), where the imprisoned Serron and Iki Piki (of the Space theme) find themselves joined by… future versions of themselves. Those “doubles” of Serron and Iki Piki are still around, trying to prevent catastrophic changes to the timeline.

In a nutshell, the character slated for death turned out to be Morgan-Mar himself, or at least his “me” character. After a lengthy sequence of bargaining with the Head Death, Morgan-Mar gets taken away by “Death of Inhaling Hatmaking Chemicals”, upon which we finally learn the culprit for his murder: Morgan-Mar himself again. We also learn that, apparently because he is the first person to be killed by a time-travelling version of himself, he is now “Death of Going Back in Time and Murdering Yourself”, and is charged with, well, going back in time and murdering himself. The last strip in this conversation ends ominously:

1 Me: What if I refuse to kill myself in the past?
2 Death of Inhaling Hatmaking Chemicals: CHOO’D CAUSE A PARADOX, SEEINGS WOT CHOO’VE ALREADY DONE IT.
3 Death of Inhaling Hatmaking Chemicals: AND THE HEAD DEFF DON’T LIKE PARADOXES.
4 Me: Oh… doesn’t he now…?

Neither the Death or Me themes show up again for almost a hundred strips, but sure enough, by the 2050s the strip gets afflicted by… strange… things, notably a time-travel theme. In strip 2055 the Fantasy crew, having been sent through a teleport gate from Footcrag to Cragfoot, find out that they’ve also gone back in time two weeks, and decide to go back on foot (which they’ve been doing for almost a thousand strips) and meet their past selves. The Mythbusters’ attempt to travel to the Jurrasic land them in the 80s instead and bring them face-to-face with their wackily-haired younger selves. Spanners suggests that the presence of time-travellers may threaten the entire universe (and I should mention that by this point, the Space travellers have been joined by a mysteriously-alive Paris).

While all this is going on, Cthulhu is entering the presidential race and challenging IWC’s in-universe US president, an Allosaurus… and might not have been Nessie all along after all, which might suggest he has something to do with this. Oh, and weird things start happening to the strips themselves.

It’s at this point that the Head Death gets involved, and we’re not done with the time travel yet, because the Pirates are tasked to track down Long Tom Short’s dead-in-their-time father, Medium Tom Short, and (through the use of a time-travel device right out of Doctor Who) wind up in the Nigerian Finance Ministry. So in sum, we’re looking at five themes (Fantasy, Space, Mythbusters, Pirates, and Nigerian Finance Ministry) dealing with time travel in some way, and the only other regularly-updating themes are Cliffhangers, Espionage (which, being an almost-verbatim retelling of the James Bond movies, has only ever crossed over with Death and Imperial Rome, the latter barely), Martians, Shakespeare, and Steve and Terry (and maybe Death). That’s either half or just under half – and Death’s investigating the whole mess.

Oh, and the meta-changes continue with four straight strips (and seven out of nine) including the line “I have a really bad feeling about this” (including the Martians, Cliffhangers, and Shakespeare themes, as well as a look-in on the Allosaurus’ ongoing race for president, filed under Martians. Incidentially, isn’t it well past time for the Allosaurus to have his own theme? All his/her/its earliest appearances are filed under Miscellaneous until the first Martian invasion, so you can’t follow his/her/its story by following one theme alone, and at this point the Allosaurus and the Martians are basically two different plots within one theme.). Something similar happens later with various conjugations of the word “curious”.

And more culprits/problems arise, including a time loop at the Large Hadron Collider, which ropes Shakespeare and Martians into the whole time-travel mess (not to mention creating more of a hassle for Death), so that’s eight themes involved and three not. Not to mention the re-introduction of Me/Going Back In Time and Murdering Yourself as an interrogatee in Stared At Angrily By a Giant Frog’s investigation.

(Do I even need to mention the coming confluence of at least three different Deaths in the Mythbusters theme?)

Oh, and as of today’s strip the time travel is seeping into the Cliffhangers theme now.

And Lambert starts coughing “Gollum!” a lot, which leads to him getting almost killed by his own party members, which – given the interpretation some of the fans have given to that – suggests this has been in the works as far back as May of 2007. Not to mention the first appearance of Gollum in late 2006…

Look, can I take a timeout here? I just want to say I am astounded by the amount of long-term planning – or at least the appearance of it – that has gone into Irregular Webcomic! This isn’t an Order of the Stick situation where David Morgan-Mar started the strip intending to develop it into what it’s become, either. In his 2000th strip’s annotation, Morgan-Mar proclaimed shock at reaching a mark only really reached by the giants of webcomics, legends like PVP, Sluggy Freelance, and User Friendly. Morgan-Mar has never made any money on Irregular Webcomic, never sold any T-shirts or books, never even taken donations. As he put it,

I was just bored one day and thought, ‘Hey, this newfangled idea of putting comics on the web looks cool. I might try it.’ Five and a half years later, here I am typing this….I make comics because I enjoy making them. (If I didn’t, I would have given up ages ago!) I try to make them enjoyable for you. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t – I don’t let it bother me much.

And by all appearances, that’s entirely true. In Morgan-Mar’s first couple of strips, he literally has nothing to do. It’s evident he basically decided to throw up a small web site and put up a comic whenever it struck the mood (hence the “irregular” name). Eventually he starts throwing in tales from his role-playing games, the precursor to the Fantasy theme. That’s sprinkled in with other slice-of-life stories he felt like putting in comic form. Then he started doing a couple of parodies of Steve Irwin, using LEGO figures for the first time, and decided to throw a reference to that in the fantasy story. And threw more LEGO figures into the fantasy story as well. And (by this point already settling into a daily routine) started doing tales from his “science fiction game” as well, and while he’s doing sci-fi, why not throw in a Jar-Jar joke as well? And the Steve Irwin parodies become a fairly consistent feature, the spacefarers join the Star Wars conversation again, and then he decided to throw in an Indiana Jones parody, and gave him a name that wouldn’t invite lawsuits down the line, and the fantasy story starts seeing its members get more character development, and strips start referring to previous strips that aren’t adjacent…

That was all in 2003. In those first 50 or so strips contain the beginning of no fewer than six themes. There are 16 now, all started within the first 1000 strips, although some (Miscellaneous, Supers, Imperial Rome, arguably Harry Potter and Nigerian Finance Minister) have comparitively very few strips. Generally, IWC switches between plots in the Fantasy, Steve and Terry, Space, Cliffhangers, Pirates, Shakespeare, Espionage, Mythbusters, and often Martians themes. Many of these use discrete story arcs, but not all. The Fantasy people have been going on a quest pretty much constantly since strip 510, all the way back in 2004, before some of the themes had even started – in response to even older ongoing plotlines, especially in Cliffhangers, which has had some sort of plot since almost the beginning – I haven’t read the whole thing but I think the Indiana Jones parodies have been on an ongoing plot since strip 63! Obviously most of these have been made up as they went along, but once Morgan-Mar started working on megaplots like these, it was only a matter of time before he started pacing them out – or at least connecting them so seamlessly it gave the appearance of a unified vision.

Take Loren Ipsum. Introduced in strip 1144, in the Shakespeare theme (in early 2006), rather unexpectedly for some fans who were used to Shakespeare characters being the names used for people in the Shakespeare theme, until her last name and the accompanying pun were revealed. Pretty much every appearance in the Shakespeare theme for a long time involves either her project to “make the US constitution ISO 9001 compliant“, or Will’s crush on her, and over the course of these strips it becomes obvious that Loren knows basically nothing about the world around, chalked up to “not leaving the government offices much”. Finally, in strip 1324, we learn Loren’s mother’s maiden name, and Morgan-Mar attempts not-so-subtly to bury a bit of spoilerage in the annotation: “In fact, Loren is a Martian. This will be revealed in strip #1500.”

Yes, Morgan-Mar, assuming this was in the annotation all along, is planning these sorts of things out 175 strips in advance, or half a year… and arguably, all the way back in those early appearances. Ipsum summarily gets reassigned and that’s all we hear of her for a while.

As promised, she returns in the Martians theme in strip 1500, as the Martians’ “sleeper agent in the US government”, and this kicks off arguably the second-biggest crossover in IWC history, involving not only the Martians and Shakespeare themes, but the Nigerian Finance Minister and Mythbusters themes as well. It’s also epic in length as well, spanning 175 strips, another half year extending into mid-2007, with the Martians eventually leaving rather than dealing with the paperwork.

They haven’t given up on Earth yet, though, in a plot that dates back to December 2007, this time involving a plot to smash the planet with an asteroid. (Minor nitpick: If it was going to smash the planet at the end of the presidential campaign, why hasn’t it hit yet? Oh, that’s probably more time fluctuations…). So now Ishmael and Loren Ipsum are joined forces on the team to deflect the asteroid… and Ishmael just became the first Earthling to realize she’s not what she seems.

Now, it’s possible that this current subplot wasn’t in the cards during the last Martian plot, or even that its role in the current madness wasn’t planned when the Allosaurus apparently ate Loren. But given the other evidence it’s far from impossible. And with the epic nature of this story, with the tentacles reaching back so far it makes “Loren the sleeper-agent” look like child’s play, and the fact it’s roping in just about every theme on the books, makes it feel like the entire post-Cerebus Syndrome IWC has been leading up to this storyline, which in turn suggests it could end up threatening the end of the entire strip. Morgan-Mar, after all, did say he wasn’t messing around with his “someone will die” guarantee, suggesting even if the strip goes on the “me” character is going to be a Death for a long time. And that, in turn, makes me intrigued enough to go on, to press on even through the slow moments, to get interested in themes I didn’t know a damn thing about before, to find out if IWC really is coming to an end or how the comic, at least in the case of some themes, can even continue.

Wait, Morgan-Mar is on record as saying he wants to at least match Bill Watterson’s mark of 3,160 strips of Calvin and Hobbes. He still has over a thousand comics to go. Well, it’s an entertaining, thrilling patch along the way anyway.

I’ve always had a problem with this sort of thing. It used to be computer games, not that you’d know from reading Sandsday.

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So what have I been doing today?

Working on my college football schedule or rankings? Working on tomorrow’s webcomic post? Even taking some time out to plug in the scores and generate the rankings?

Working on one of the very few assignments I actually have to do for my microeconomics class that’s overdue anyway?

Checking on the status on my USB drive that I haven’t heard about for almost two months? Actually working on getting a real paying job?

None of the above. In fact I haven’t done a single productive thing today.

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life indeed.

Something everyone missed in the BCS-ESPN thing…

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I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read about how cable networks have the advantage of subscriber fees, which have driven rights fees to the point where most sports are loss leaders for broadcast networks anymore…

…wait, Fox actually turned a profit on the BCS? Why does this get a single sentence in a single story?

Last-Minute Remarks on SNF Week 14 picks

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Week 14 (December 7):

  • Tentative game: New England @ Seattle
  • Prospects: The Seahawks are just too terrible for this game to keep its spot. 7-4 v. 2-9? Please.
  • Likely protections: Cowboys-Steelers (FOX) and if anything, Jags-Bears (CBS). Accurate according to this.
  • Other possible games mentioned on Wednesday’s Watch and their records: Redskins (7-4)-Ravens (7-4), Eagles (5-5-1)-Giants (10-1), Falcons (7-4)-Saints (5-5), Dolphins (6-5)-Bills (6-5), Titans (10-1)-Browns (4-7).
  • Impact of Monday Night Football: Saints can move up or down, but it probably doesn’t matter.
  • Analysis: I said on Wednesday that this was Redskins-Ravens’ to lose, and both teams won. If NBC wanted to swerve us it would probably take a Saints victory on Monday night to produce a game only a half-game worse, but even then it’s unlikely. If it’s playoff battles NBC wants, the Redskins are in the thick of a wild card battle and the Ravens have a shot at the AFC North, yet are also far from secure for the wild card. If NBC wants to hold on to the possibility of flexing in either team later, the only real flexible game either team has the rest of the way, including Week 17, is next week when Giants-Cowboys will likely keep its spot, and neither team is anywhere near the limit anyway. If NBC keeps a godawful Patriots-Seahawks matchup (“hey, we get to see Matt Cassel!”) with a game like Redskins-Ravens on the table (and I’m a Seattlite), I might just give up. The fact I’m even considering the possibility and building such an ironclad case for flexing should tell you a lot. (Go on. The flex button won’t hurt you.)
  • Final prediction: Washington Redskins @ Baltimore Ravens.

Sports Watcher for the Weekend of 11/22-23

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All times PST.

Saturday
9-12:30 PM: College football, Yale @ Harvard (VS). You know how, when a week of college football is crap all around, “College Gameday” will sometimes go to a I-AA or lower matchup? In the early time slot, this is one of those weeks.

12:30-4 PM: College football, Michigan State @ Penn State (ABC/ESPN). Oh wait, everyone hates the Big Ten.

5-8:30 PM: College football, defending Princeton-Yale titleholder Texas Tech @ Oklahoma (ABC). The latest Game of the Century just to come out of the Big 12. And the Title Game – which could have more impact on the BCS than any of the other Games – is still a couple weeks off.

Sunday
9:30-12 PM: NBA Basketball, Celtics @ Raptors (CBC). This will probably fill our NBA quota on weekends until college football season ends, and maybe after.

12:30-2:30 PM: MLS Soccer, MLS Cup (ABC). Sadly, the main reason I’ve been ignoring the MLS is because their weekend games have been on eminently-ignorable Fox Soccer Channel. My soccer-crazed dad has asked me to include this paragraph: “To borrow a theme from John McCain, David Beckham is one of the biggest celebrities in the world. He is not, however the best player in MLS. That honor will go to either the Columbus Crew’s brilliant Argentinian Guillermo Schelotto – who led Boca Jumiors to several Argentine Championships between 1997 and 2007 – and The New York Red Bulls Juan Pablo Angel – who comes to MLS from Columbia. So this might not be ABC’s “Marquee matchup,” of say, Beckham’s Galaxy against Cuahtemoc Blanco’s Chicago Fire. It is, though, an intriguing matchup of two hot teams with brilliant star players. I will be watching.”

5:15-8:30 PM: NFL Football, Colts @ Chargers (NBC). Because the MLS Cup knocks out both of the regular doubleheader spots. At least it’s a lineal title defense.

College Football Schedule: Week 13

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Better late than never. As with a previous week, includes results for games already played. All times Eastern.

Top 25 Games
The Citadel @ *Florida 1:30 Gameplan
*Texas Tech @ Oklahoma 8 PM ABC
Michigan State @ Penn State 3:30 ABC/ESPN
Boise State @ Nevada 4 PM ESPN2
Michigan @ Ohio State Noon ABC
Ball State 31-24 Central Michigan Final WE ESPN2
BYU @ #12 *Utah 6 PM mtn.
Air Force @ TCU 3:30 VS.
NC State @ #14 North Carolina Noon Raycom
#18 Iowa @ Minnesota 7 PM BTN
#19 Mississippi @ LSU 3:30 CBS
#20 West Virginia @ Louisville Noon ESPN
#22 Oregon State @ Arizona 7 PM VS.
Tulane @ #23 Tulsa 3 PM CBSCS XXL
UTEP @ Houston 3:30 CBSCS XXL
This Week’s Other HD Games
Miami (FL) 23-41 Georgia Tech Final TH ESPN
Fresno State @ San Jose State 9:30 FR ESPN2
Clemson @ Virginia Noon Raycom
Indiana @ Purdue Noon ESPN2
Tennessee @ #25 Vanderbilt 12:30 Raycom
Colorado State @ Wyoming 2 PM mtn.
Syracuse @ Notre Dame 2:30 NBC
Washington @ Washington State 3 PM FSN
Boston College @ Wake Forest 3:30 ABC/ESPN
Cal Poly @ Wisconsin 3:30 BTN
Illinois @ Northwestern 3:30 BTN
Duke @ Virginia Tech 5:30 ESPNU
Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati 7 PM ESPN2
Florida State @ Maryland 7:45 ESPN
Connecticut @ South Florida 8 PM SU ESPN
SEC
Arkansas @ Mississippi State 2:30
Big 12
Iowa State @ Kansas State 3:30 FCS
MAC
Northern Illinois 42-14 Kent State Final TU CSD.TV
Buffalo @ Bowling Green 6 PM FR CSD.TV
Miami (OH) @ Toledo 7 PM FR CSD.TV
Eastern Michigan @ Temple 1 PM CSD.TV
Akron @ Ohio 3:30 CSD.TV
Mountain West
UNLV @ San Diego State 8 PM CBS CS
WAC
Louisiana Tech @ New Mexico State 4 PM ESPN+
Idaho @ Hawaii 8 PT Gameplan
C-USA
Central Florida @ Memphis 2 PM CBSCS XXL
Marshall @ Rice 3:30 CBS CS
East Carolina @ UAB 7 PM CSS
Pac-10
Stanford @ California 3:30 ABC
Sun Belt
Florida Atlantic @ Arkansas State 3 PM ESPN+
North Texas @ Middle Tenn. St. 3:30
Louisiana-Lafayette @ Troy 7 PM CSD.TV
Louisiana-Monroe @ Florida International 7 PM
Bowl Subdivision
Army @ Rutgers Noon BEN (ESPN+)

The new college football rankings, more than a few days late

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…and hindered by my hibernation problem rearing its ugly head again, wiping out what I had written for the first 14 spots or so. But it’s up now on the web site, and IF I decide to put up the schedule it won’t be until tomorrow.

Update: The lineal titles are updated now as well.

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 11

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NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with last season in mind):

  • Begins Sunday of Week 11
  • In effect during Weeks 11-17
  • Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
  • The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET. (Note: Last year, NBC listed a tentative game for Week 17; they are not doing so this year.)
  • The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
  • The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
  • The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night. (Note: Again, excluding Week 17.)
  • Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
  • NFL schedules all games.
  • Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
  • Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and could not protect any games Week 17 last year. Unless I find out otherwise, I’m assuming that’s still the case this year, especially with no tentative game listed Week 17, and that protections were scheduled after Week 4.
  • Three teams can appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 4 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 16):

  • Selected game: Dallas @ Washington.

Week 12 (November 23):

  • Selected game: Indianapolis @ San Diego.

Week 13 (November 30):

  • Selected game: Chicago @ Minnesota.

Week 14 (December 7):

  • Tentative game: New England @ Seattle
  • Prospects: The Seahawks are just too terrible for this game to keep its spot. 6-4 v. 2-8? Please.
  • On the protected games front, we have chaos. A commenter on this post gave a complete list of protections but it was “unofficial” and was “heading into the season” when every source I’ve read, even those not giving a specific week, has said CBS and Fox protect their games in “October”, obviously when the season is already underway. So I’m keeping my own protection speculation while adding the commenter’s thoughts.
  • Likely protections: Cowboys-Steelers (FOX) and if anything, Jags-Bears (CBS).
  • “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it”‘s protections: Cowboys-Steelers (FOX) and Jags-Bears (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Forget what I said about looking at Cowboys-Steelers’ prospects in the face of Redskins-Ravens being protected, as the AA post in question itself would seem to indicate the Cowboys will stay on Fox. At 6-4 v. 6-4, Redskins-Ravens is the bar by which all other games are judged this week. Eagles-Giants would have looked lopsided even with an Eagles win, but if that didn’t matter even the tie gives it a higher average record. Jags-Bears is out, but Falcons-Saints is very much alive. Throw Dolphins-Bills in the conversation as well as a dark horse. I’d been ignoring it in weeks past and AA does in its post, but it has the exact same pair of records as Falcons-Saints. Titans-Browns could be a masochistic dark horse if the Titans win this week.
  • Analysis: This is Redskins-Ravens’ to lose. But if even one team loses – very possible with the Ravens playing the Eagles this week – it opens the door for Falcons-Saints or Dolphins-Bills. The latter is not my impression of a marquee game, improved teams or no, and it would lose a tiebreaker to either of the other two. Note that the Saints don’t play until Monday night. Those three are the major contenders but there are still two potential curveballs as well. The Eagles absolutely positively have to beat the Ravens for their game’s slim chances to remain alive, though, as must the Titans beat the Jets.

Week 15 (December 14):

  • Tentative game: NY Giants @ Dallas
  • Prospects: This is why I had Fox protect Bears-Packers Week 11 (as did TMS&ISTI): so they could leave this week protection-free and maximize their chances of getting a marquee NFC East matchup back. And this game might be alive again. A lot depends on what the Cowboys do with Tony Romo back, and that’s off to a good start.
  • Likely protections: Steelers-Ravens, Broncos-Panthers, Bills-Jets, or nothing (CBS).
  • “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it”‘s protections: None.
  • Other possible games: Bucs-Falcons looks great, but they’re running in a dead heat with Steelers-Ravens if that game isn’t protected. Bills-Jets and Broncos-Panthers both trail those two, and the former may be becoming lopsided. Vikings-Cardinals may be closer than Bills-Jets and Broncos-Panthers anyway. Titans-Texans could be a masochistic dark horse if the Titans keep winning. If the pick was made today, Giants-Cowboys’ main advantage may well be its name value, because it’s still a little lopsided.

Week 16 (December 21):

  • Tentative game: San Diego @ Tampa Bay
  • Prospects: AA doesn’t see this changing. What? It’s 4-6 @ 7-3! That’s after a Chargers loss, so they’re going the wrong way! Don’t JUST look at Steelers-Titans being protected!
  • Likely protections: Panthers-Giants or Eagles-Redskins (FOX) and Steelers-Titans (CBS).
  • “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it”‘s protections: Eagles-Redskins (FOX) and Steelers-Titans (CBS)
  • Other possible games: Cardinals-Patriots is still strong and Bills-Broncos may well be out, while Falcons-Vikings faltered this week. If TMS&ISTI is right all this is moot because the Panthers and Giants would have to collapse to give up the spot, but if it was Panthers-Giants protected Eagles-Redskins probably wouldn’t have a chance.

Week 17 (December 28 Playoff Positioning Watch):

  • Note that not only is there no longer an NBC tentative game, there’s no NFL Network game. Apparently the league learned their lesson from last year’s Patriots-Giants debacle.
  • AFC East: Anyone’s game. All four teams within two games of one another, with the Bills trailing the field and the Jets leading. The Pats and Bills play each other, as do the Dolphins and Jets.
  • AFC North: Every team is theoretically in it, but the Bengals are hanging by half a game. The Steelers and Ravens are running away with it, with the Steelers holding the one-game edge. The Steelers play the Browns while the Ravens play the Jags.
  • AFC South: The Titans are running away with it. No matter the standings, if the Titans remain undefeated Titans-Colts could be a lock. The Texans are out; the Jags are out by way of having already lost to the Titans both times.
  • AFC West: Every team is theoretically in it. Broncos and Chargers the main contenders, and play each other. Hmm. However, the gap is two games, advantage Broncos.
  • AFC Wild Card: Any two of the Dolphins, Patriots, Ravens, and Colts would get the nod if the season ended today. The Bills are a game back, with the Browns, Jags, and Chargers waiting in the wings, adding luster to both East games, Titans-Colts, Browns-Steelers, Jags-Ravens, and Broncos-Chargers. Every team is mathematically in it.
  • NFC East: Every team within 3.5 games, but the Giants have a three-game lead over everyone, another half-game back to the Eagles. The Giants play the Vikings but the Redskins play the 49ers.
  • NFC North: Bears-Vikings-Packers three-way tie. The Bears play the Texans and the Packers play the Lions, but the Vikings play the Giants. The Lions are mathematically still in it.
  • NFC South: Every team within three games, with the Panthers leading and the Bucs one game behind, the Falcons two, the Saints three. The Panthers play the Saints, but Tampa Bay plays the Raiders and the Falcons play the Rams.
  • NFC West: Every team mathematically still in it but the Cardinals are running away with it. They play the Seahawks. Hardly must-see TV.
  • NFC Wild Card: The Bucs and either the Redskins, Cowboys, or Falcons would get the nod if the season ended today. Eagles a half-game back; the NFC North losers and Saints a full game back; no one exactly two games back. Despite all but four teams being within a game of the playoffs, the only real interesting NFC games are Giants-Vikings, Cowboys-Eagles, and Panthers-Saints. Those could be competitive games for the NBC pick, especially the first two, but the AFC holds the overall edge right now. The NFL may have done too much to ensure the best game for NBC, creating an overabundance of choices.

If this post is full of the HTML code for an ampersand in hyperlinks that get broken as a result, blame Blogger’s “draft” post editor.

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(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized lingering resentment.)

I’m here to talk about a serious malady sweeping the nation. It’s called OOTS Gamer Theory Syndrome, or OGTS.

The malady is restricted to readers and fans of the popular webcomic Order of the Stick, and is caused by falling under the perception that the strip is actually a chronicle of a D&D campaign, rather than merely being set in a universe that runs on D&D rules. Symptoms are generally only manifest on the OOTS forums, and include referring to “_____’s player” and “the DM” (which may or may not actually be a representation of Rich Burlew), and interpreting characters’ actions through the lens of the “player” supposedly carrying those actions out.

It’s reasonable to fall under this perception anytime (I myself once proposed that the strip would end with just such a revelation), as the distinction can be hard to grasp for new readers (especially those already immersed in D&D), and to some extent Rich has played with the notion of a GM being present from time to time, but for whatever reason it has become particularly common recently, with virtually every strip’s thread (and a few others as well) eventually including some post that looks at what’s happening from a “game” point of view, despite Rich being on record in stating that there are no “players” at all, and despite evidence ranging from NPCs as fleshed out as any PCs (especially the main villains) to the very existence of the prequel books. Rich even made reference to the phenomenon in a recent strip.

One result has been a mere shift in terminology: “_____’s hypothetical player, if there was a player…”

It’s hard to figure out what’s causing this sudden move to proclaim it merely a game. Perhaps it’s a result of a few people happening upon and reading too much Darths and Droids for whatever reason. Perhaps it’s a result of impatience with the seeming abandonment of the megaplot.

Or perhaps it has something to do with the specific content. At least one forum member recently complained that the strip had traded in being “consistently funny” for “player motivated drama”. More than a few people, including one thread I linked to above, have compared the current state of the OOTS to a gaming party in disarray, with everyone upset at the DM and the DM himself slowly losing control of everything. (Oddly, although the interpretation of OOTS-as-campaign has become popular, the exact nature varies: some see the split as partly player-driven – possibly as a means of filibustering a main plot they didn’t sign up for – some see it as the DM railroading the players and wasting everyone’s time, and some even see it as being the victim of circumstances.)

That may at first be just a variant of the megaplot being abandoned, but consider:

  • Celia has effectively slid into Roy’s role in the Order, if only in filling out the Order’s nominal six members.
  • Within the current book, we have seen what has been happening with Team Evil for exactly one stint. We haven’t seen the Linear Guild at all. Not since the first book has any book been so Order-centric.
  • Similarly, Vaarsuvius appears to be the only member of the Order that cares that much about the gates anymore. (Well, and Roy.) Durkon and Elan don’t even seem concerned about reuniting the Order, and Haley, Celia, and Belkar (and for that matter, V) are powerless to do anything about it, and are a bit distracted at the moment.
  • The whole sequence with Roy’s pseudo-ghost seems more pointless than the sidequest itself. Roy can’t affect the material plane, the use of his looking down on the mortal world as a framing device has mostly been abandoned, etc. This strip may be the most pivotal strip of his time as a ghost.
  • Vaarsuvius’ behavior has been seen as out-of-character by many fans. Either V’s player is sending a not-so-subtle message to the DM to get the plot moving, or he’s been taken over by someone else. (This is undermined both by V’s decision to splinter the group further, and by considerable evidence in earlier strips that, if not un-Good, V’s certainly not Lawful.)
  • Previously, there was a fairly straight line, with only a slight diversion for the climactic confrontation with the Linear Guild, from the revelation of the nature of the gates to the Battle of Azure City. (As I may have mentioned in the past, the end of the Azure City arc could well, had it ended slightly differently, been a potential stopping point for the whole strip.) The tone of the strip now is actually quite similar to what it was prior to that revelation, and could be seen as a reaction to the considerable darkening of the strip/campaign that didn’t come that long before.
  • The OOTS has been split for nearly a quarter of the strip’s entire existence, and Roy has been dead for more than a quarter. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Rich has never been shy about shaking up the status quo, but this shake-up is literally blocking the plot from moving. If you don’t have faith in the relevancy of all this to the main plot – and that faith has been waning with every strip, especially those focusing on the Therkla and Thieves’ Guild subplots – you might think Rich had written himself into a corner, intending a fairly brief diversion to cool down from the ramped-into-gear main plot and going out of control. Forget a breather episode, this is an entire breather book and most of the forum-bound fandom thinks it’s overstayed its welcome.

Last time I wrote about OOTS, I said that “this section of the OOTS’ story is going to have far-ranging consequences that could prevent some of those goals from ever being completely fulfilled.” I was referring to V’s decision to leave the Durkon/Elan branch of the OOTS in #599, which I suspected could result in the de facto permanent removal of Durkon and Elan from the OOTS. That’s one far-ranging consequence that may be being set up, but what about everything else? What was the point of introducing Kubota and fleshing him out just to abruptly kill him? What was the point of the whole Therkla thing? What’s the point of what’s happening now with the Thieves’ Guild? What’s the point of stretching out the split itself this long?

Not only is the fandom starting to get restless about their ability to believe that this will all matter in the end, it’s starting to take several leaps of faith to link this to the main plot. Kubota was just a feint to introduce Qarr; Elan and Haley’s relationship is going to be strained; the Thieves’ Guild is going to become a recurring villain group; by the time the OOTS get back together Team Evil is already at Girard’s Gate. The mere fact I’m making these leaps of faith rather than treating it as a diversion is a sign of how it’s gone longer than most people would probably have expected or liked.

The OOTS has drifted off the beaten path before, of course. Their lengthy encounter with the bandits has had zero impact on anything that’s happened since then, but it came before the Order met Miko, let alone learned about the Snarl, and can be excused by the strip still being at least partially a gag strip then. All their encounters with the Linear Guild have of course had next to nothing to do with the gates (so far, but that will almost certainly end the next time they show up, given evidence here and here), but the encounter in War and XPs, besides tying up a loose end from the pre-Snarl era, leads to Haley getting her voice back and keeps the OOTS distracted enough not to run off to the wrong gate – which in fact, given some of what we know about Girard’s Gate and the potential of the Oracle’s prophecy to be twisted, could well be what’s happening here. (More on how the Linear Guild’s encounters with the OOTS has really affected them in a later post.) So far, it’s far from clear even if this will have any long-term impact.

It’s possible that Rich had over-emphasized the plot from about #275 (or even #200) onward, and that the plot has only ever been incidential to the humor. In this theory, people who are complaining about the pace at which the plot is moving are misinterpreting the nature of the entire strip. But if so, it’s a widespread enough misconception that at least some of the blame has to be heaped at the feet of Rich Burlew, because he created the circumstances that are now ruining people’s enjoyment of what might be, beyond the surface, actually a fairly entertaining part of the strip’s history. And if it’s not a misconception, and Rich really is taking a long time on what might be a comparatively small plot point, it may well be the most major blemish on the Giant’s record. (The first snag in a new fabric of reality, perhaps?)

None of the people complaining, to my knowledge, have ditched the strip. And I’m not among those who isn’t appreciating the strip for what it is at the moment. I’m not one of the players complaining to the GM. But it’s clear that the player mutiny is growing to disturbing levels, and it’s something the GM may have to address with more than a wink and a nod soon. Ultimately, the spread of OGTS may be most directly attributable to Rich Burlew himself.