photo saturday: one slippery boy

Sometimes at a DnD table there's a dumb joke that becomes another dumb joke that turns into the idea of an NPC that turns into what could be a potential character.

So a conversation about a "dry sense of humor" turned into somebody asking whether or not another character was "moist", as in "not dry", but because that player had been sitting there at the table the whole time, listening to the earlier conversation even though their character wasn't there, they shot back with "no, I know Moist, they're a [insert euphemism for sex worker here]"... I don't remember exactly what term was used, but we both pretended not to understand what they were referring to, and it was all a bit silly.

And then, the following day, as is his want, Fluffy sent me his Hero Forge idea of the character... which... I mean... we've already covered how I mostly feel about that... so, naturally, I sidetracked during last week's post and threw together a better version and sent it to Fluffy. But, of course, we never accept a first draft. And bits of it weren't sitting right. So there was a slight redesign. Mostly a recolour to be fair. And some Photoshop fuckery. And about 300 minor tweaks, and a couple of slightly larger ones.

Thus, we find ourselves at Moist. Non-binary bisexual disaster. Or at least that's the version in my head.

Whether or not his subrace, background, class or subclass are correct or not I can't say. I could also see him as a College of Dance Bard. I also don't feel like he's my character to play. To redesign, yes. To reshape, yes. But I feel like this might be Fluffy's particular dumpster fire.

Mostly though, I'm very pleased with his face. Which was very much a part of the redesign. And might have been mildly inspired by somebody from the gay end of Twitter. Or at least the tongue thing was. It totally works though.

Anyway...

This week was Tuna Mornay... and not a bad one. Instead of rolling the dice and adding random amounts of spices, I made a spice mix first... which reduced some of the "rip the back of your head off" that often happens... but also, maybe I was a little too cautious. It was still tasty though.

This week's Mini Movie Reviews are two thirds "movies I've already seen", being the two Spider-verse movies (Into and Across). It's been a minute since I've seen either of them, and never watched them back to back. And while I love both of them, I think I like the second one more visually, and the first one more for the fact that it tells a complete story and doesn't stop halfway through with a "To Be Continued" title card.

Then it was the "thematic sequel" to Murder By Death... The Cheap Detective. It's not actually a sequel, because while it has a number of the same actors, the same writer and the same director, and Peter Falk is playing a parody version of Humphrey Bogart, they're not exactly the same character.

But this movie is what happens when you take The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and Chinatown and throw them in a blender. And then tone down the racism in Murder By Death to negligible levels. I mean, there's still not none, but there isn't a character in yellow-face.

I then rounded out the week by revisiting the first season of Westworld with the intent to then watch the other three seasons, since I've never seen them. It's a very different experience rewatching a series with an element of mystery to it, even if you don't remember all the details, given you know where it ends.

So that's potentially going to be all I'm watching (instead of movies) for the next couple of weeks.

Friday Night DnD was slightly unexpected. Because that happens sometimes when you get to a roleplay moment as a character and instead of zigging left you suddenly zag right. Made for an interesting scene though.

Anyway...

Today wasn't really all that different from last week... we did the supermarket, then we went back to Big W, this time to replace my busted vacuum cleaner, because I have a rental inspection at the end of the month. Is it a known brand? No. Will it last as long as the old one? Absolutely not. Will it get me through? Yes.

The other question I don't 100% know the answer to is "will it fit in the wardrobe where I kept the old one? No idea. But probably.

And that's it really.

photo saturday: smiling assassin

We're dipping back into the Potential 2024 DnD Character Colouring Book this week. Because I fucking love a dragonborn. I've only played a couple, but they've both ended up as characters that I really enjoyed. And, of all the D&D dragons, the copper dragon has always been my favourite. So I really want to play a copper dragonborn in the new rules.

And given that Hero Forge hasn't converted the dragonborn head over to the Face Customiser, but she still came out looking pretty good considering.

I also like an atypical rogue. So a friendly, charlatan assassin is right in my wheelhouse. And this post absolutely came together in a way that made me instantly get a sense of who she is.

Because I have friends, associates and contacts in the lowest of places, I may have gotten an look at the 2024 Players Handbook before the book is released to all of the great unwashed, and discovered that rogues can now use whips. And what is more ridiculous than an assassin with a whip. So dumb. So Raali absolutely uses a whip. Will I actually end up doing that if I made this character, I dunno, but it would be real damn tempting.

I also have... A Series Of Opinions About Some Of The Choices In The New Players Handbook. Which I won't go into, but I definitely have them about certain elements. Mostly the things I have opinions about are easily handwaved or ignored, but still.

There is also a lot of stuff that I am Very Excited About. Which, mostly, outweighs the other stuff.

Anyway...

This week's soup was me mashing together the idea of ragu and my lasagne soup. Or, you know, making lasagne soup but with diced beef instead of mince. In any case, it was fucking delicious, even if I did accidentally give myself minor third degree burns when a very hot piece of noodle came into contact with my lip. Owie.

You know what's fun... when you have eight books that have been "In Transit" from the library for about a week and a half and only two of them show up by the end of the week. Urgh. So, that's why this week's Mini Movie Review is only two movies. Because I kept expecting other things to show up, and nothing had done before Friday.

What we did have was Murder By Death from 1976. It's a weird movie that often doesn't make a lot of sense, but is doing so intentionally. Also, some egregious Yellow Face makeup/performance from Peter Sellers, which is an incredibly yikesy. Otherwise, it's silly, fun, nonsense with an amazing cast.

The other movie was the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Did I previously say "fuck Guardians" because it was the only Marvel movie I hadn't caught up on and didn't intend to? Yes, yes I did. However I picked it up when I was at the library a week ago because nothing else I'd ordered had some in and it was just sitting there. And I was planning to watch it on Monday... didn't watch it. Planned to watch it on Tuesday... didn't watch it. Finally just gave up and watched it on Wednesday night.

I have... Thoughts, Feelings and Opinions. Firstly, I didn't see (and now won't both) the Guardians Christmas Special, so it turns out that I missed out on a little context for this movie. But not enough for it to matter. 

Did I spend the first part of this movie siding with Will Poulter's Adam Warlock and enjoyed watching him smack the living shit out of the Guardians as a group? Yes, yes I did. Did I want to shove Chris Pratt AND Starlord's fucking entitled asses into the nearest airlock and eject him into space for full 90% of this movie? Yes, yes I did. Did I fail to really give a shit about Rocket and his Tragic Backstory? Yes, I really did. Do I only know about some of these new characters because of my continued obsession with Marvel Snap? Yes, absolutely. Did the movie slightly win me over by the end, and I'm okay with most of how it ended? Slightly. 

Would I have been unhappy to see Starlord die at the end, no. But at least they didn't get him and Gamora back together, because then I would have lobbed my remote at the TV. Making her come around to him even a tiny bit was bad enough, because that was some White Straight Male Privilege Bullshit right there. Sure, you loved the other version of Gamora, but she died. Think of this Gamora as her identical twin sister who you have literally never met before and who doesn't like you. Now relook at all your behaviour and understand what as asshole you are.

But now I am absolutely officially done with Guardians movies. We closed out the storyline, resolved all the stuff that needed to get resolved, I don't need to revisit these characters unless they happen to show up in somebody else's better movie, and then I will roll my eyes and move on.

So that was movies.

Otherwise, Friday was Chiro Day. So I did my usual wander around town, looked at a few things or rather looked for some things that aren't available yet, and came home.

Friday Night DnD was not exactly what I was expecting. I had thought we were going to go dashing off to have important conversations in far off places, and what we actually did was solve a bunch of riddles (thankfully, easily... or at least one of the three of us knew the answer, even when the other two were stumped). And finding out that when your BBEG has access to a future predicting oracle, you were always preordained to be the ones to get in the way of her plans.

So, you know, that was novel.

Anyway...

Today was relatively chill. But it always feels like I haven't really bought very much when I decide to make something like Tuna Morney instead of soup. Mostly because I buy minimal vegetables.

After unpacking and futzing around a little, we went to Big W to find me a replacement for my hair/beard trimmer which is currently dying. I had looked in the city, but they were more than I really wanted to pay. Will this not last anywhere near as long as one of those? Probably. But so long as it does what I need it to do for now, it's fine.

We also poked around the Christmas decorations, because, yes, as I have said before, I am Part of the Problem. But, honestly, it was all pretty fucking ugly.

So that was it really.