photo saturday: dapper man

This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is the start of the new Friday Campaign. And the return of Whisper. Both versions of Whisper.

Because one of the weird things about a lot of the DnD I've played is that with the exception of a few story requirements, the characters spend... six months, maybe a year, in the same damn outfit. While also being shot at, stabbed, magically set on fire, camping in the great outdoors, being sprayed with acid, falling off things, being tied up, travelling through a variety of environments... and doing it all in the same pair of pants and same shirt that you started the adventure in. Sometimes you'll get new armor or a magic item that is also a piece of clothing. But for a lot of character, even that doesn't necessarily happen.

And this had been wandering through my head for another character recently, but I decided that, given how fancy Whisper normally dresses, he would probably have an outfit for the travelling we were doing at the start of the adventure. So, this above is his travel outfit. Complete with perhaps a couple of days of unshaven scruff.

It was also fun because this was how I debuted him, but I also got to do the reveal before the end of the first session...

To Whisper as a Fancy Lad. And, really, it's only the shirt and boots (and hat) that got changed from the previous outfit. It does give a very different vibe though.

More on the first session later though.

Anyway...

This week I made a pretty good quiche and entirely forgettable potato salad. Which is disappointing, because usually I'm pretty good with potato salad.

Also this week, some Mini Media Reviews...

So, when I first saw the trailer for Transformers One, I was like "what actual hot hot garbage is this?", because it looked, in a word, terrible. And you know what... I was wrong. It's not actually terrible. If I had to rank it in the oeuvre of Transformers movies, it goes after Bumblebee (which is at the top) and the original Michael Bay movie (because it's not perfect, but I still really like it), but before all the other sequels.

It's heart is in the right place, even if I absolutely see this as sitting inside it's own continuity separate from everything else. I don't know that I would have paid money to see it. But borrowing it from the library worked just fine.

Next up is the absolute dumpster fire that is Wolf Pack. This show should have been a slam dunk. A show about werewolves, with the same show runner as Teen Wolf, and with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Rodrigo Santoro in the Responsible Adult roles.

But it is just... a mess. The story is bananas, the four lead teen actors are doing as good as they can with the material, but the writing is not on their side. Likewise for everybody really. There are some of the minor characters that are questionable actors, but mostly it's the writing. Also, I'm all for not having gay characters in things always be perfect, but literally every gay character in this is a thundering asshole.

And almost every adult character who isn't SMG or Santoro is, likewise, a thundering asshole.

I also need Makeup Department Head, Shawna Maharaj, to explain why, at various times, all the women in the show had foundation that was absolutely the wrong colour for their skin tone. Was it a post production colour correction thing? Did somebody not order in the right shade? What happened? Because it was so blatantly obvious in one episode that I couldn't focus on anything else.

Actually, I did wonder what they were doing to the women at various points, because while the men had, you know, skin texture and detail, the women looked either like they're been dipped in full coverage liquid latex or had some sort of post production smoothing done to them.

Also, I very much appreciate Teen Wolf completing a storyline inside of a season. Because Wolf Pack did not do that. And was them promptly cancelled because, I assume, it was terrible.

It was slightly surreal though, watching a show in which wildfires in California are a major plot point while actual wildfires rampage through California.

Last and absolutely best... Season 1 of The Umbrella Academy. I know, I know, I'm late to the party. But I got here eventually. And I absolutely loved it. I mean, it's completely messed up, and often I wanted to punch various characters (honestly, mostly Luther... occasionally Diego), but mostly I just loved everything about it.

Favourite character, absolutely Number Five. The combination of the way he's written and Aidan Gallagher's performance... love, love, love. But everybody is doing good work. I have the second season ready to start tonight too.

So, as I said, Friday Night DnD was the start of the new campaign. Which is always a little strange, because you never quite know how a party will come together. And this is the first time since back in Adventurers League at Greenlight that Fluffy, Mrs and I have been a party together. We played Hero Quest back in 2023, but it's very much not the same.

Stupidly, both Fluffy and I chose to make characters who don't talk much. I mean, my previous character did All The Talking. I did have slightly more of an idea of who this character was before I hit the table though, so a definite step up from Hali.

And most of it stuck the landing. He felt like the character.

Granted, he is very nearly the only one who survived the ambush that started out the adventure, and I already got too dip into some fun foreshadowing stuff while Whisper was the only one conscious. Which also, fortunately, worked.

It was a fun session though.

Anyway.

Not a lot to report. Mostly because the weekend weather has been tending to warmer for a while, so there isn't much point in doing any longer excursions.

So we just did the supermarket, came back here for a while and then I sent Ma on her way. Nothing thrilling.