Wings Over the Pyre

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Judas Priest - Devil's Child (Squid's Redoubt)

This is the sort of reason I adore Guild Wars. Their writers have a finely tuned sense of humour.

Wekehsa: All of these drakes can't be a coincidence. I've heard that Lord Yama the Vengeful is fond of employing unusual means to destory his enemies. This must be his work.

Koss: Lord Yama the Vengeful? Wekehsa, in the future, you might want to refrain from stealing things belonging to anyone with "the Vengeful" in their name.

Koss: You should also add "the cruel" and "the bloody" to that list.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Psychocharger / Curse of the Psycho / Ghoulfriend

You know, I just had a minor freak-out about the whole novel issue. A little poking around the net showed a lot of authors being a bit disapproving of the idea of a fantasy novel coming in at anything under 120k words. Mysteries and some romances were acceptable at a mere 60k, but you could tell the authors were saying so with one hand firmly pinching their nostrils shut.

I ran the word-count on my Universalis post from earlier today.

2,356 words.

Those weren't straight-ahead balls-out prose-writing words. Those were carefully weighted, heavily edited with mark-up, influenced by mechanics and structure words, probably the slowest kinds of words to write. And yet, easily topped 2,000 words when all was said and done. I didn't break much of a sweat when I was putting it together, either; I IM'd with folks, poked at other things, and generally goofed off without breaking it down too hard.

I'm finding myself looking forward, in a strange way, to November. If I just devote a few hours a day to straight-ahead balls-out writing, I'm fairly sure I can burst on through whatever count I feel I need to tell the story, because that, and not someone else's idea of what makes for a good word-count is what I need to do to be a successful novelist.

I like Men's Adventure novels. Give me some of the ol' Remo Williams, the Destroyer, or any of that trashy, action-filled wonder. I love pulp. I love the cast of the cinematic. I love dialogue.

I just finished reading Fred Saberhagen's Berserker Fury last night. I adore Saberhagen's work, and the Berserker Saga is one of the series that truly has an epic feel and reach, as the life-hating machines which seek to wipe out mankind rampage against a succession of heroes. But, and I say this with all due love, Berserker Fury was tired, the text dragged on and fell flat a lot of the time, the exchanges between characters took place in a lot of third-person talking about what was said instead of simply showing me as the reader what was said, and ultimately even the combat between the Berserker fleet and the Solarians was kind of hollow. The one part which seemed to fit into the more open, more active form of the previous novels was that which took place once Nifty Gift was onboard the Famine, dealing with the goodlife who brought him there.

It is actively painful to critique Saberhagen because I know that in twenty years I'll not be half the writer he is, but Berserker Fury would have been better had it been cut by a quarter of its length.

Much of the talk of writers saying novels need to be 100k words or longer sounds like buggy whip makers trying to preserve the strands of their product while the market moved on. There can only be so many Robert Jordans, a fact for which the trees on the planet are thankful. I'll be thankful to be Will Murray.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: Bullet for My Valentine - Curses

A few notes on discussion and disputation in online fora:

• If you find yourself responding to a multi-paragraph section with a single line ... you've lost. Concede the field gracefully and conserve what egoboo you've got left for a later engagement.
• If you find yourself doing a point-by-point Fisking of someone else's piece, make sure you're right, but moreover make sure you look right.
• While the guy with the most words isn't necessarily right, that's the way the audience will lean.
• If you complain about the words your opponent is using, you'll prove he's got the better ones, and you lose.
• • Corollary: Arguing semantics is a fool's game.
  • Second Corollary: If you're going to argue semantics, be right.
  • Third Corollary: If you're going to argue semantics and you're not right, be good at it.
  • Fourth Corollary: A spelling flame will automatically contain one misspelling. Plus, you lose.
• Emotion is the enemy, but passion sways an audience. It's a hard line to walk, but the key is to keep your arguments passionate and lure your enemy into emotion.
• Remember that whatever argument you engage with paints you in the same muck. Choose your engagements carefully. There are many times a casual, short, simple reference with an implied shrug is a far better weapon than a Fisking.
• A clever turn of phrase is better than the truth.
• Once your enemy makes a misstep, you don't have to do anything. Doing nothing draws attention to their mistake, doing something makes it yours.
• • Corollary: The wise man keeps his mouth shut and is thought a fool. The idiot opens his mouth and removes all doubt. As true today as it ever was.
• The single best winning move is not to care.
• If your enemy is of the opposite sex, you can just assume you've lost up front. It's faster and puts you in the right mindset.
• If, by mistake, you actually do care, your only hope is to produce more substance than your enemy. Run them out of substance and they'll retreat to one of the above failure modes. Then you win.
• Winning requires no announcement. You decide when you win. The audience decides when you lose.
• When in doubt, say something useful and practical.
• The audience doesn't care, either.

Man, a lifetime of dealing with people online, and the core of it can be summed up in a page of bullet points.

The key issues are all about engagement. Whenever possible, pick the field. Whenever necessary, pick the weapon. Joshua was right, the only winning move is not to play, 99.9965% of the time. If you're going to play, know what you're doing and why. Before you engage, know where you'll disengage.

Blogs have actually made things a lot more reasonable in many ways. I don't have to allow comments on my postings. If I choose not to respond to commenters, it's seen as my prerogative, not an abdication of the position. In many ways, blog-mediated discourse is much more civil.

Just stay out of communities and fora and you'll be fine.

This has been a Public Service Announcement.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Kid Rock - Motherfucker Quite Like Me

Source: Heather

Source interest: belly dancing

I've been meaning to use octaNe for something for quite a while. I love it when a plan comes together. The best part of octaNe is coming up with fun skills and descriptors for stats. Possibly of equal fun is it's in the rules that you describe your character with only three details, the rest can be filled in as you go in play.

Mmm, minimalist design.

Igora Massive

Description: Built like a brick shithouse, with cold green eyes that stare right through you, and hips that just won't quit.

Role: Bad-ass Mofo'

Mode: Psychotronic

Stamping Grounds: The Wasteland, Lost Vegas

Styles: Daring (2), Charm (1)

Gear: Golden sword (major), veils and clinky skimpy outfits

Skills: Pretty Face, Mad Kung-Fu Skillz, Gunning Down Poor Bastards, Pure Goddamn Coolness, Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture (Belly Dance), Acrobatic Like a Jumping Snake, Could Seduce a Priest

Background: She left the village in the wastes with little more than some shiny panties, a big golden sword (sometimes carried on her head), and good genes, but now she's looking for action in Lost Vegas and God-forbid you get in this girl's way! She'll give you a hard fuckin', and seldom in the way you were looking forward to!

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Genitorturers - One Who Feeds

Source: Theodora

Source Interest: drag queens

I'm running out of simple RPGs, here. Seriously, it gets harder to do one of these every time. Next system: Risus, the Anything RPG.

Yes, I'm going to Hell with the PC contingent for this one.

Ralph "Randi" Humbert
Vampire Drag Queen

Tall, redheaded, and just a bit on the lanky side, Randi has made a name for herself on the drag queen circuit, belting out old favourites from musical theatre with more gusto than the old broads had, themselves. Less known is that Randi uses these same tours as a mobile feeding platform, sating her terrible thirst for blood on the fag hags and cruisers in the audience. Randi isn't gay, but she's certainly not above playing the part for a juicy young morsel.

Drag Queen (4), Vampire (3), Singer (3)

Hook: Randi's just finished her rousing Lisa Minelli set when Victor Van Helsing, great great grandson of the legendary Van Helsing comes in the caberet's door. And Victor's wearing the same dress!

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Psychocharger - Psycho Woman

Source: The Guy That Wrote This

Source interest: tarot

Because it's obscure ... this is a character for Don't Rest Your Head. Because this isn't something I've blurbed before, let me reference a bit from its website:

You can't sleep. It started like that for all of us, back when we were garden variety insomniacs. Maybe you had nightmares (God knows we all do now), or maybe you just had problems that wouldn't let you sleep. Hell, maybe you were just over-caffienated. But then something clicked.

That was when you took a long walk down the streets of the Mad City, stopped being a Sleeper, and started being Awake. But that click you heard wasn't from the secret world snapping into place. It was the sound of the Nightmares flicking off the safety and pointing a gun at your head.

They can smell you. The Paper Boys are closing in, and you'd better pray you don't become a headline. You're chum in the water, my friend, and it's time you got ready for it... before the clock chimes thirteen again. Now that you're one of us, there's just one simple rule left that must dominate your life.

Stay Awake. Don't Rest Your Head.

Don't Rest Your Head is a sleek, dangerous little game, where your players are all insomniac protagonists with superpowers, fighting -- and using -- exhaustion and madness to stay alive, and awake for just one more night, in a reality gone way wrong called the Mad City. It features its own system, and is contained entirely within one book.

My name is Vykos Allen.

And I am a con man on the run.

What's been keeping you awake?

I've been running a successful series of scams on little old ladies and vulnerable young ones, and taking whatever I want of them whenever I can. But its starting to get to me, and there are a few people after me, looking for blood. Hard to sleep looking over your shoulder.

What just happened to you?

The husband of a woman I gave some sweet, sweet boning to after a seance where I "channeled" her dead kid shot me dead in the face with a shotgun. And I'm still here, unscratched.

What's on the surface?

People think I dress impeccably, with the finest Saville row suits and a charming little affected straight cane. The English accent's fake, but suckers lap it up. People look at me and think "money" and erudition. The tarot cards and crystal balls lead people to trust me.

What lies beneath?

I was born in the Bronx downhill from the ghetto, and learned Three Card Monty at the same age. I've been scamming since my teens, and I don't give a rat's about other people so much as my own sweet ass. Real knowledge of the mysteries of life give me a bigger boner than crying women, though; finding out the secrets of the universe would be the life.

What's your path?

What I really want is to be a true font of knowledge, but I don't admit it, even to myself. Finding out secrets is worth risking my life for, and the Truth about what it really all means is far better than money.

Responses:

Fight

Flight [] [] []

Talents:

Exhaustion Talent: Cold Reading People

Vykos is an expert at reading peoples' intent, their body language, and making incredibly astute guesses based on very little information, as well as vaguing up responses so they believe he's said more than he really did.

Madness Talent: Cartomancy

When the Mad City comes calling and Vykos is Awake, he really can tell the future, accurately, with the cards. Any cards, be it poker decks or Hallmark, just so long as they can be shuffled and pulled randomly.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Scooter - I Was Made For Lovin' You

Source: Stormy Weather

Source interest: "the fairness doctrine," serial killers

Premise:

The protagonists are members of The Fairness Doctrine, a secret ad hoc organization of serial killer survivors and the family of victims. Their self-appointed job is to hunt down and stop serial killers before the authorities can get there, engaging in thematically appropriate vigilante justice.

5 episode season, one pilot episode.

Setting Conventions:

Modern US eastern seaboard. Violence will be extremely graphic and occasionally gratuitous, while sex will be mainly off-screen. The seedy underbelly of suburban society should always be forefront, while the Authorities are portrayed as blue-collar heroes doing their jobs, just at odds with the needs and desires of the protagonists.

Tone:

Dark, gritty, and realistic. Dark humour is certainly applicable, but silly or cartoonish humour is not. Characters are generally average folk from all walks of life caught in bad situations.

The Cast:

Concept:

All the protagonists are people touched by serial killers in some way, either having survived an attack or having a family member / loved one killed by a serial killer.

The central protagonist starts as Bunny Ramiz, a PI whose sister was murdered by a killer called "Teeth."

---

Bunny Ramiz
Vengeful Detective

Issue: Vengeance on "Teeth" and, by extension, all serial killers, everywhere.

Traits:

Private Dick: Bunny is the epitome of the hard-bitten private dick. She knows bad people in bad places, knows how to dig up the dirt, and run a stake-out. With a phone call, she can wheedle info from the police or the local crime boss.

Trey Vander: Oldest friend of Bunny that she still stays in contact with, Trey bartends at a club called "The Barrier" in Virginia. Because FBI and other federal types frequent the club, Trey often has inside info.

Wolf Ramiz: Bunny's young nephew (14), Wolf was left to Bunny's custody after her sister's murder. Wolf considers himself "old enough" for pretty much anything, and Bunny has to ballance her quest for revenge against the need to be Wolf's guardian.

Personal Set:

An old, creased picture of her sister. Bunny pulls it out when she needs reassurance or focus.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Lionhead - Big bad bud

Source: Max

Source interest: entropy

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Harry and the Potters - Follow the Spiders

Source: Elephant Sack

Source Interest: steampunk

Iron Fist
Cybernetic Aristocrat

Wilhelm van Morgenstern was born to a wealthy Prussian family and given the best education a Prussian nobleman could hope to receive. By the time he was ten, he had mastered the forms of saber fencing his grandfather had nearly beaten into him since birth and his family's wealth was on the rise due to their investments in steam-weaponry. The Great War was looming on the horizon and the cunning could turn that to their advantage. Unfortunately for Wilhelm, an accident during a match against an older rival left him without a left arm, his dominant. The Morgenstern family could not be dishonoured by having a crippled son, so their fortune and technological contacts were pressed into forging a new left arm for him. Now given a powerful weapon and fueled by the desire to be seen as competent, Wilhelm devoted himself to representing his family's interest in the economic centers of Europe, while carving a swath through the fencing circles, fairly and not.

Drives

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Tragically Hip, The - Yawning Or Snarling

Source: Gen Lang

Source Interest: waifs

Kid Venture
Street-Smart Waif

Born on the street and raring to take a bite out of the Big Apple, Kid Venture got his start by hanging around with Doc Ravage and his crew of adventurers after his exposure to nuclear fall-out from the Trinity tests, as side-kick and scrappy youngster. After a few years, however, Venture decided that his personal bugaboo was crime on the streets and the men who made it happen. Barely 16, the Kid came back to New York and started assembling a group of savvy street-punks who shared his distaste for criminals.

Traits:

Street-Savvy 5

A child of the streets from the age of five, Kid Venture knows how to fight dirty, work the underworld, and understands who's the lynchpins in the grit.

Atomic Speedster 5

Fallout from Trinity gave Kid Venture the ability to move as fast as radiation! He often uses this power to dodge punches, zip across town, or other feats.

Fifth-Street Irregulars 3

The Fifth-Street Irregulars are an ad hoc bunch of street kids who Kid Venture can call on at need. They can provide muscle, eyes and ears, or just a wall of young flesh.

Investigation 3

Venture knows how to shake down adults for their spare info, put it together, and make solid deductions.

"Just a Kid" 1

If you con't know him, odds are you don't respect him.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Tragically Hip, The - Nautical Disaster

Lifted bodily (and mutated slightly) from Elephant Sack, because I've been slack on writing lately.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Tragically Hip, The / Hipeponymous / It's A Good Life if You Don't

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk,
As someone who has purchased books by Alex Williams, you might like to know that The Best Sex Positions Ever will be released on July 3, 2006. You can pre-order your copy for just GBP 9.89 ( 34% off the RRP) by following the link below.

The Best Sex Positions Ever
by Alex Williams
List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £9.89
You Save: £5.10(34%)

And, hey, if you want the US edition of The Best Sex Positions Ever, its certainly possible.

Well, I suppose I'd know.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Scooter - Dancing in the Moonlight

I've been tinkering with doing a bit of a fan expansion for Capes, pushing things out into the fantasy realm. Notably, I also have played too much World of Warcraft and know entirely too much about the tried-and-true D&D Classes. So it was inevitable the first-pass prototype of the layout would look much like this:

Armour Click and Lock Module prototype page.

I'll likely break things down by type of template at some point, too, as well as stick in some explanatory text, so ... Its really just a prototype.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: They Might Be Giants - Santa's Beard

At least of writing and directing a decent porn with a real (if laughable) plot and effects. The Penultimate Genius tells us about Pirates:

So, based soley on the fact that it is supposedly the most expensive porn movie ever made, I bought Pirates, no trench coat and baseball hat required, thanks to on-line outlets. Just click the link already and buy your own copy. I had to own a copy of it just because of what I'd read about it, and I'm glad I did. If only for historical purposes...

Anyway, the wife and I sat down and pressed play around 11 p.m., poured some Captain Morgan's into some glasses (hey, it's a pirate movie) and watched. First off, there are actual sets, not your normal warehousey-looking "sets." That is, this movie does not in any way have the look of any of the porn movies I've seen in my life, and I'm going to guess I've seen maybe 40-50 in my life, 37-47 of them in college after dinner in the frat house, when Daddy-O [real nickname] used to fast forward through the exposition so we could only just watch the sex scenes. And then in reverse.

This movie looks like a real movie, albeit a B-movie, but, still, that's a plus.

Then, there's attempted acting. You have to give them that, too, because in most porn movies the "acting" is little more than five minutes of lame set-up between sex scenes, with tons of innuendo and overture. Some of the actors can, actually, act, especially Evan Stone, who has a sense of comic timing perfect for the role of Capt. Edward Reynolds. And Steven St. Croix does a good job of acting, too, in the role of Marco, the man who lost the love of his life, who just happens to be sex-crazed sex-addict first mate of Reynold's ship, Jules, played by porn-starlet-of-the-moment Jesse Jane. Sadly, most of the females can't act anywhere near the level of the men, which is odd, since you'd think in the porn business, it'd be the girls who are better at faking it. But, then, it's the men have to deliver the goods at the end of a scene, so...

I hate it when other people do things I've been meaning to do, half my life. I mean, as a screenwriter and film geek, porn is pretty much the holy grail of production. Scripts get largely ignored, cheap sets are the norm, and acting skills are secondary to a mostly decent attractiveness rating. If, like me, you never intend to be anywhere near the front end of a camera, its the lowest stress film-making experience ever.

So, yes, a high-budget porn film with real effects. Fear my brain and my ability to find the perverse.

Speaking of perverse, the film info site actually provides a sex act breakdown by type.

( Sex Acts Within: Open With Care )

Alright, so, having looked at that fairly impressive list ... what qualifies as fetish? You've just got to wonder.

I wonder.

(I also wonder.)

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: Sudden Death - State Of The Art (Squid's Redoubt)

You know, I should never be allowed to write porn. I've completely and utterly lost the ability to write straight up smut, and instead end up with some thing with a complex implicit backstory, a blind protagonist, and both quotes from the Bible and obscure Latin term references.

Don't ask if you can see it. Its not done, and frankly its too bizarre for the usual suspects to be really into it. Maybe if I ever bring it to some kind of completion, I'll let the public have access.

There is something wrong with me, I swear.

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Metallica - Wherever I May Roam (S&M) (Squid's Redoubt)

I suppose there's something wrong with me, in truth. I get my Dawn of War: Winter Assault box home today, and the first thing I start doing is putting together some kind of demented fanfic to accompany the pics I'm shooting in-game.

The truly scary part is that its actually pretty good alternate-timeline fanfic. I scare me sometimes.

For instance, this is the piece that connects to the pic to the right:

The crash landing of the Space Hulk "Dominatrix" in the northernmost reaches of Nunuvit in the summer of '54 delivered an unexpected technological bounty to the hands of the Canadian government. Carefully picking it apart, they constituted the first Canadian Guard unit in '84. Subsequent research into the genetic and cybernetic augmentation technologies brought the Canadian Marines and their powered armour to light in '05.

Just in time to face the second off-world invasion force of Eldar. (The first was successfully repelled in secret, as a group of Orks burst from the depths of the unexplored Dominatrix not long after the Guard were constituted.)

I mean, the implications are disturbingly mighty. I'm horribly tempted to write up the setting and start converting units to, say, Dirtside II or some other modern combat wargame.

Like I said, fear me.

Current Mood: embarrassed
Current Music: Rammstein - Alter Mann (Squid's Redoubt)

Well, it was worth a shot.

Earlier today, I dropped a line to Anime Weekend Atlanta, to see if they had any more Guest slots available for this year. Hey, I'm fairly well-studied on the subject, right? I co-wrote the book on shoujo, in any case; figured it might be fun to try and slip on to a couple panels on the subject.

I just received a pleasantly polite response that says they booked their Guest limit three months ago, but would be happy to have me at next year's show. Classy, if denied, but the part that struck me is that they finalized their Guest list three months ago, and have stuck to it even in the face of local talent willing to attend for a badge and a sammich.

Someone else might be annoyed by that, but I'm impressed. If Dragon*coN had that kind of spinal fortitude, I might not be trying to suggest an entirely new Directorate.

(Incidently, is anyone else vaguely creeped-out to see that a book I've had input into can be bought through Wal-Mart? Its one thing to be in your Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks, but Wal-Mart? I'm not sure what to think.)

Current Mood: creative

(incandescens, this one's for you. Hat-tip to Mike for sending the image that inspired this madness.)

My friends send me the most pleasantly amusing things. In this case, its a lovely massaged image of Harry Potter and his pod of freaks from an alternate world in which goth is the new black ... or something like that.

But these things give me pause to think, and this is a bad thing to be thinking about. In fact, it made me wish I wrote Potterverse fanfic, because then I might could do this setting premise justice:

Lord Potter and the Blood-Spilled Prince

In this "what if?" alternaverse, Harry Potter is born to wizarding parents and during the ongoing attempt to subdue the wizarding world. Lord Voldemort attempts to destroy the Boy Who Lived ... giving rise to the inevitable nickname. Burned with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead which itches and twitches at the most inconvenient times, Harry is shipped off to live with the Dursleys.

Its at this point that the universe diverges. In response to the Dursleys' ongoing abuse and eternal disdain, Potter learns to cope not by becoming a limp dishrag of a door-mat, but fuels an immense internal hatred of those who would opress him and draws in emotionally on himself, fueling random supernatural outbursts which aren't directly attributable to Harry and which correspond to very traditional haunting phenomenon. The night before Potter is spirited away to Hogwart's, the Durleys attempt to have Harry exorcised ... with nearly fatal results as the poltergeist and pyromantic activity crescendos.

Arriving at Hogwart's and feeling freer than he has in years, Harry makes the immediate friendship of Hermione, muggle-blood daughter of dentists who's decided the best rebellion she can make against the established wizarding order is to simultaneously embrace her muggle-heritage and out-sorcerer even the most hardcore of her classmates, and Ron Weasley, whose family of wizards has emasculated him for years for not being the best, or brightest, or strongest, leaving him finally to turn to only belief in himself for support.

Inevitably, Potter, Granger, and Ron are sorted by the Hat into Slytherin House, because of their slyness, ambition, or aggressive drive. Draco Malfoy, child of Death Eaters and all too aware of the machinations of Voldemort's historic plans and brutality, turns his back on the service of the One Who Must Not Be Named and is sorted to Hufflepuff, along with Crab and Goyle, though it's a near thing. Draco maintains his utter arrogance and disdain for muggle-blood, even while clinging to the steady loyalty of his friends and housemates.

Voldemort's continued awareness of Potter and his friends, plus the prophecies which precede him, convinces Riddle that the boy must be eliminated before Potter usurps Tom's place at the head of the Death Eaters, and possibly the entire wizarding world if Voldemort is as successful as he dreams. For Harry's part, its enough to revel in the freedoms of Slytherin to explore the darker aspects of potions and black sorcery, but it is Ron who finds a certain calling in the Dark Arts, rapidly outpacing even Hermione in the nocturnal aspects of the Ars Magicae. Granger throws herself, body and soul, into the most arcane and mind-warping of researches in an attempt to shock and appall others with her recklessness, but despite her exceedingly precise machinations, it is Ron who begins to incite whispers and outright fear among the House when he passes, which both angers and excites the girl. The toll on Granger's mind mounts as she reaches for ever more excessively abstracted places, fighting both with Ron and for his attention.

Dumbledore recognizes the inherent danger represented by Potter and company, but sees the necessity of forging such a powerful weapon against the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters. Betting on Potter's self-involvement to keep him from actually replacing Riddle or taking over the world, he sets Malfoy and his company at direct odds with Potter and his to monitor Potter's progress and act as a continual reminder that things could have been different. Draco is only too happy to oppose Harry, and the rest of Hufflepuff are disturbed at their exemplar's clear antagonism and elitism, but buoyed by the fact that he leads them to success and even moral victory more often than not.

The rest, I leave up to you ...