Author: Tiffany Jablonowski

March 17, 2025

Fantasy Fight Club: Wile E. Coyote vs. Captain Boomerang

Welcome to another rendition of Fictional Fight Club, where two random characters FIGHT TO THE DEATH! We have some fun fights coming up between two different character pairs who may have more in common than you think. Before we get into the main event, let’s start off with a battle of villains that rely on weapons. For the opening fight, we introduce Wile E. Coyote from Looney Tunes and Captain Boomerang from The Flash! 

Both fighters are known for chasing speedsters using weapons, yet they always fail. To start, Wile E. Coyote uses various ACME products to attempt to catch the Roadrunner. From hydration boulders to jet-fueled skates, these weapons should be able to nab a single speedy bird. But for some reason, no matter what Wile E. Coyote tries, the traps always blow up in his face. It’s surprising that he hasn’t sued for false advertising yet.

In the other corner, we have Captain Boomerang. Also known as George “Digger” Harkness, Captain Boomerang’s main goal is has been to commit a heist while taking down the Flash in the process. The Australian uses boomerangs to his advantage and has come very close to killing the Flash and Batman. Time after time, he has failed on his one goal, usually caused by his boomerangs.

You’d think this would be an easy win for Captain Boomerang, right? Well, Wile E. Coyote has one more trick up his sleeve that can cause the tides to turn — defying gravity.

The Coyote has the magical ability to bend the laws of physics. Every time he runs off a cliff, he can hang out in the air for a long period of time. He eventually hits the ground, but miraculously survives. From what we have seen, Wile E. Coyote has faced death and survived on multiple occasions. Captain Boomerang, on the other hand, has died before at the hands of various rogues. He has seen the other side, only to come back and then die again.

Due to the fact that Wile E. Coyote seemingly cannot die at all, we are going to give him the win to him. It doesn’t mean that Captain Boomerang won’t put up a fight. I think that the two of them should team up with ACME and create a device to finally capture and kill the Flash and the Roadrunner.

Speaking of which, let’s go on to the main event. Give it up for the Roadrunner and the Flash!

March 17, 2025

Fantasy Fight Club: The Flash vs. Roadrunner

Are you ready to rumble? This week’s headline fight has two of the fastest folks in fantasy put head-to-head, or rather, head-to-beak. That’s because this week, we have something a little more cartoony, something a little more looney-toons.

Standing at 6’1” and 175 lbs, we have The Flash, or when he’s investigating the latest crime scene, Barry Allen. He has various speed-related powers, such as super speed, incredibly quick thinking, and even the ability to vibrate fast enough to pass through matter. While this does make him a rather formidable opponent, his challenger has been known to outwit many a foe.

Now, in the blue corner, we have an absolute icon of speed, smarts, and silliness. Beep! Beep! It’s the Roadrunner! Now, you may be wondering, shouldn’t this bird be foiling a coyote’s plan somewhere? Don’t worry, he did, and then he zoomed so fast he tore a hole in the fabric of space and time and ended up here.

While this lone bird may be powerless, it always seems that any plans to do it harm backfire in some way. This is exactly what happened to The Flash as he attempted to take on this devious bird. He first attempted to simply rush the bird, but it dashed out of the way. Barry attempted to back it into a corner, and it escaped between his legs. As The Flash stood there, panting and out of breath, he tried to think of a more clever solution, and then it hit him. He’s probably faster than this bird.

He started to run circles around the ring, trapping the bird, but then the outside of his foot landed on a stray feather causing him to slip, fall, and hit his head. He was unconscious the second he hit the mat. Our victor of today’s battle is the Roadrunner!

March 17, 2025

Fantasy Fight Club: D&D Version!

In this edition of The Quill, we are seeing a big fight happening between two iconic speedsters, The Road Runner from Looney Tunes and The Flash. These characters have extreme feats of agility in their original media, but how would you translate that into a playable Dungeons and Dragons character? Sit down, grab your dice, and pull up a character sheet, because you might just have your next joke character with today’s edition of Fight Club: D&D Version!

Character Name: The Road Runner

If you are trying to make a Road Runner-inspired chara

cter, you’ll have to take some liberties from the typical D&D rules. For your character’s race, you may want to pick a bird-like race like Aarakocra (see photo above), which is a handy choice — especially since you naturally get +2 for dexterity! Speaking of dexterity, that’s the stat you’ll want to dump all your points into. Whether you’re playing with point buy or rolling for stats, you’ll want to make sure to pick the highest possible stats for dexterity. Typically, a playable D&D character maxes out their stats at 20 points, but that won’t be nearly enough to portray the amount of speed your Road Runner has. You’ll want to get the very rare item, the Manual of Quickness of Action to boost your dexterity all the way to 22!

Besides stats, however, there are a few complications when playing a character based on the Road Runner. You can only speak in “beep beeps!” meaning that you are not allowed to speak any language. This creates a few complications without homebrew intervention, as that means you aren’t allowed to play any spell-casting class. At least you’ll be the most dangerous and speediest rogue this world has ever seen!

The Flash is a legendary speedster who warps the very fabric of reality with how fast he moves — so how do we put that into a D&D character? Well, first, you’d want to pick the human race, which gives you a +1 stat increase in your ability scores, as well as options for feats like Charger. The Charger feat lets you make a melee attack during the dash action, which will represent the lightning-quick attacks The Flash is able to make. Similar to the Road Runner, you’ll want to focus heavily on your dexterity stat and related skills. Just having high dexterity doesn’t quite exemplify being The Flash, though, which is why you’ll want to pick a sensible class. For The Flash, you might want to go with a class that has access to electricity-based spells, or you might want to go with Monk (see photo above) for the ability to deliver rapid punches. You’ll also want to continue picking out feats that increase mobility, like Mobile, which lets you dash on tough terrain as well as increasing your speed. With all this in mind, you’ll be able to create a character who can run and punch all over the place!

March 17, 2025

D&D, Why? The Open-Gaming License Controversy

The popular tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is taking advantage of the tail end of what many are calling the “Golden Age of TTRPGs” by releasing a new suite of books. It would seem, however, that not much has changed with the more controversial elements of the publisher’s business model.

Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of D&D, has been accused of questionable market practices in the past. Its most recent scandal has been the attempted revocation of a previous version of what’s called the Open Game License (OGL). OGL 1.0 enabled fans to create and sell their own content based on WotC’s intellectual properties that would normally fall under copyright. This allowed fans to publish their own “homebrew” content as full-fledged supplements to the game. The OGL is sometimes credited as starting the Golden Age of TTRPGs, as new content was released at a steady rate, including even entire new systems based off of the fundamental rules of D&D.

Proposed changes to the OGL centralized derivative content under Wizards of the Coast, requiring publishers to provide WotC a full 25% of revenue if the company was above a certain threshold. The proposed license, OGL 1.1, would also require all content published under the license to be clearly marked. Most importantly to the controversy, however, is that any content made under OGL 1.1 would be property of Wizards of the Coast and could be used for official products without the creator’s consent or even notification, and without payment.

In the aftermath, OGL 1.1 was struck down, and OGL 1.0 would not be revoked. However, no further product produced by Wizards of the Coast will fall under OGL 1.0’s license. The new suite of books are the first not to use the OGL since the controversy. The revisions are mostly rules many players had already used in practice, and WotC has been accused by some as quickly getting the new content under the new SRD license and pushing players away from the previous books still under OGL 1.0.

March 17, 2025

The Angie Hammond Case

Unsolved mysteries are fascinating because they often leave so many questions unanswered. Our case this week embodies that perfectly. Coming out of Clinton, Missouri, this spine-chilling case involves a young woman who is abducted from a payphone by an unknown assailant and is never seen nor heard from again.

On the evening of Thursday, April 4, 1991, 20-year-old Angela “Angie” Hammond and her fiancé, Robert “Rob” Schafer made plans to meet up once Rob’s parents came home from a night out. In the meantime, Angie wanted to spend some time with her close friend, Kyla Angerman. She picked Kyla up from her home, and the two drove together around downtown Clinton. They spent a little more than an hour together before Angie decided to call it a night and dropped Kyla off at her home at approximately 11:15 p.m. Feeling exhausted, Angie wanted to head home to relax but knew she’d have to cancel her plans with Rob first. She didn’t have a cell phone, nor did she have a landline at home, so she stopped at one of two payphones located outside a nearby supermarket on 210 South 2nd St. At 11:23 p.m., Angie called Rob and talked to him for at least 15 minutes.

As the couple spoke, Angie began to express concern over a truck she saw circling the area around the gas station. She told Rob that she didn’t recognize it and couldn’t get a good look at the driver. When asked to describe the vehicle, Angie said it was a green 1960s-70s Ford pickup truck, with a decal of a fish jumping out of water covering the rear window. After giving this description to Rob, Angie saw the truck drive away, and the two went back to their conversation. However, it quickly returned, and this time, it pulled into the lot, causing Angie to express even more concern. A man got out and walked into the phone booth right next to her. A short time later, the man walked back to his truck and produced a flashlight, appearing to look for something inside the vehicle.

At this point, Angie described the man to Robas a dirty, Caucasian man with a beard and a mustache who wore overalls, a dark baseball-style hat, and black-rimmed glasses. After getting this description from Angie, Rob heard a sharp scream and shouted out to Angie  but got no response. Instinctually, Rob bolted out of the house and into his truck before speeding to the phone booth. On the way to the payphone, he saw the headlights of a pickup truck coming towards him and heard a female’s voice scream “Robbie!!” as it passed him. Running on adrenaline, Rob quickly spun his truck around and slammed on the gas pedal to catch up to the truck. He was able to pursue the vehicle for approximately two miles, until his own truck stalled due to a damaged transmission. All he could do then was watch in horror as the truck and Angie disappeared into the night. Rob quickly notified the Clinton police, who later contacted the FBI for help after making no progress in their own investigation to find Angela. Thirty-four years have passed since her abduction, and the FBI has yet to locate Angela Hammond.

For more information on this case, refer to episode #61 of the Trace Evidence podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

If you have any information on the whereabouts of Angela Hammond, contact the Clinton Police Department at (800) 877-3452 or FBI at (800) 225-5324

March 17, 2025

Ecological Footprints or,Today, We are Giants 

An ecological footprint is a way of visualizing how what we choose to consume impacts our environment. Basically, our ecological footprint illustrates how much land is needed to sustain our current level(s) of consumption. Often, nearly every aspect of our daily lives is taken into account.

Ecological footprints include our choices in diet, transportation, consumption of goods, and use of appliances. For each section of our ecological footprints, land has to be added to create the things we use (pasture and farmland for food, for instance). Then, more land has to be added to show the ecosystems around us that provide clean air and water and suck carbon back out of the atmosphere. The more we consume, the larger our ecological footprint.

Ecological footprints can be calculated at any level. Individual people can calculate or find a website to calculate their ecological footprint, but similar calculations can and have been done for regions, countries, and the world. As a general rule, the more developed a country, the larger its ecological footprint. Developed countries use more fossil fuels for farming, transportation, heating, cooling, etc. The U.S. has one of the largest ecological footprints in the world; to supply everyone in the world with enough resources to match the lifestyle of someone in the U.S. or Europe, we would need about six Earths.

Calculating your own ecological footprint is a great starting place to find ways to lower your individual impact. To get you started, try this Ecological Footprint Calculator. One thing I’ve discovered, however, is that a large part of my ecological footprint as a Wisconsin citizen comes from my use of electricity — not because I use too much electricity, but because Wisconsin relies heavily on coal as a source of electrical power.

Keep in mind that you can only do so much as an individual and be kind to yourself. Personally, I know that while I don’t really eat meat, giving up cheese and butter is not something I have the willpower to do. Look for the things that you can do something about and don’t feel guilty about things you can’t or aren’t ready to tackle yet.

March 3, 2025

Dawn By Octavia E. Butler

March 3, 2025

Calamity
by Constance Fay

When I first picked up Constance Fay’s Calamity, it wouldn’t be a lie to say it was because I was actively judging a book by its cover. I wasn’t super into the sci-fi genre last year, but Calamity‘s topic caught my attention and seemed interesting enough to read. It turned out to be a thrilling romance that blended intergalactic adventure with a touch of space-mafia politics. Being a huge Star Wars fan, the space-mafia side of the book was exactly what I needed to stay engaged. If you’re into sci-fi with a romantic subplot and fun, witty banter, Calamity is up your alley.

The story follows a girl named Temperance Reed, otherwise known as Temper. I’ll admit, when I first saw the strange names, I was a bit thrown off, but they grew on me after a while. Temper is an “exile” from one of the wealthiest and most powerful family groups that control everything in the galaxy. She’s the captain of an inherited scout ship named Quest and is fiercely loyal to her crew. Temper’s life takes a turn when she receives an offer from the Escajedas, one of the top five families, to scout a desert planet called Herschel 2. 

The catch? She has to take one of their sons, Arcadio Escajeda, with them for security. The two travelers face strange cultists, erupting volcanoes, and a spicy bond that starts to form between them. The book is written in almost a “Wattpad-ish” way, which I always find easy to read since those stories don’t make things too complicated.

I finished the book in a single day, so it can definitely keep you hooked! Calamity centers around exactly what the title describes — a catastrophic event. It isn’t a one-trick pony either, as the Uncharted Hearts series has a currently available second book, Fiasco, with the third one, Chaos, planned for release in March. These sequels focus on different characters from Temper’s crew, who you learn to love just as much. If you’re looking for a book to get you into the sci-fi genre, Calamity could be an awesome choice!

March 3, 2025

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

One movie remake that I really love and think was well done is the live-action Beauty and the Beast. And I’m not just saying that because of the good memories of seeing the live action in the theater with my best friend. Belle has always been one of my favorite Disney princesses, and when the remake came out in 2017, that reawakened my fondness for the story.

There were several things that this adaptation of Beauty and the Beast added onto the original. For example, the set design and costumes brought life into the film with more detail than what was able to be done in the original animation. They did particularly well with Belle’s iconic yellow gown.

The writers also developed more of the Beast’s character in the live-action remake. This starts in the opening scene where it is revealed more detail on how the prince became the Beast. In the original film we are only shown this scene through a sequence of illustrations on stained glass windows. The remake acts out this same introduction scene at a ball and gives us more detail on some of the cruel actions the Beast had done to his kingdom prior to being cursed.

This adds on to the original story by giving us more background information that helps us to better understand certain elements of his character. Another addition that I enjoy was when he got his own song, “Evermore.” This is one of the major differences from the original animation that I love. By writing a new song for the Beast, we can better see how his feelings have developed throughout the film. These additions to the original story are what make the updated Beauty and the Beast a good adaptation. 

Available on Disney+. 

—Clover Cicha

March 3, 2025

The Color Purple (2023) 

The Color Purple (2023) stars Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, and Danielle Brooks. It is based on Alice Walker’s fictional novel by the same name. The 2023 adaptation is a dramatic musical that, according to IMDB, earned 109 award nominations and 28 wins! This motion picture has been filmed and taken to the big screen twice; once in 1985 with Steven Spielberg and again in 2023 with director Blitz Bazawule.

This film takes viewers on an emotional journey through the years of the main character Miss Celie’s life. We meet teenage Celie in the early 1900s, on the coast of rural Georgia, and then tag along with her through her years in adulthood. While accompanying Miss Celie on her odyssey through life, viewers are forced to feel her pains, empathize with her struggles and tribulations, and celebrate her victories. While watching, you will certainly feel a full spectrum of emotions: anger and hatred for her father, as well as empathy, sadness, despair, hope, and happiness. You will want to jump out of your seat and roar, “Hell No!” along with the song of that title, and then sit back down, curl up, and cry.

The Color Purple will captivate you through to the end and leave you feeling happy that you stayed. In my opinion, this movie is a win; even for those who don’t favor musicals.