character saturday: drowned diva

So, in the last few weeks I've done a couple of "redesign character who was one thing into another thing". And much like Silence before her, this one had a gender flip and also became a Trickery Cleric. But not a rename.

Let's be real... I need to play a cleric sometimes soon.

But in this case, this is another one of those where I like to disregard the recommendations of matching cleric domains with individual gods and just... make something up that works for me.

In the case of Umberlee, aka The Bitch Queen, it was mostly due to this line from the blurb about her clergy...

When there are no worshipers present, Umberlant priests then remove the offerings from the stone block altars at Umberlee's shrines and sluice the altars with buckets of sea water containing seaweed to signify that the Sea Queen has come for what is rightfully hers. 

And she's an evil goddess... who doesn't really care why people worship, only that they do.

So it all tracks in my head.

Also, I do love a slightly sassy woman who used to be a sailor. 

Anyway...

This week's soup was beef, barley and vegetable. I might switch up some of the vegetables next time, but overall it was good.

The Mini Media Review for this week was the "follow up" series to Penny Dreadful, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.

And I don't think anybody has absolutely failed to stick the landing on a follow up as hard as City of Angels did. The original series is small and intimate and full of characters from the aforementioned genre of Penny Dreadful novels.

City of Angels is sprawling and bloated and instead of the idea of these characters and storylines from Victorian Gothic literature being given a new life. And because they only got one season, the story has no conclusion, it just ends.

There are some amazing performances, there are some great moments, but also, leaning into the Los Angeles late 1930's of it all with racism, Nazis, Jews and police corruption. It was all... a bit much. It also really ham fists the "supernatural elements"... but then really does nothing with them.

I almost didn't bother after the first couple of episodes, but I really wanted to see where they went with it. And I'm kind of glad I did, even if it was mostly a disappointment.

I will also give full kudos to Natalie Dormer, who works her ass off. Likewise Nathan Lane, who is always excellent.

Otherwise, it's always slightly strange when you don't realise you've entered a competition and you get a call early in the week telling you that you've won a $500 gift card just for scanning a loyalty card. I mean, yes, thank you very much, I'm not going to complain. So that was a nice surprise.

As was the Gentleman Caller who swung by early on Thursday morning. 

Friday was Chiro Day... and I absolutely needed it, my back has been whinging for several weeks now in varying degrees.

It was also Friday Night DnD for the first time in a month basically. Which is currently as much Dealing With Kittens as it is Playing DnD. Which I'm not particularly mad about.

The session itself was... one of those ones where you realise that if you'd gone left instead of right in the previous session, it would have been an entirely different outcome. But it all worked out in the end.

Anyway...

Today wasn't hugely exciting. We did the usual supermarket thing, and then we took a trip to Spotlight to look for some more yarn for the random cardigan I'm still working on. 

And, of course, the Spotlight we generally go to has their stockroom organised by... I dunno... circus animals. Because the last two times we've been in and I've had to ask about yarn, they've either not been able to find the yarn that their system tells them exists or find it but it was in some precarious place they couldn't get to.

Thankfully they supposedly have "loads" at the store near Ma, so she's going to take a look this week.

Also, there was a very random moment after I'd been waiting for the shop assistant but Ma had been asked by a couple of women about picking the right crochet hook... so, of course, while she did tell them what was what, she asked me to talk to them about it (like I'm the damn expert LOL), so I did a little bit of song and dance with them and they left happy.

You're welcome Spotlight. Have the fucking yarn I need next time please.

But that's it really.