movies: luca

Let me just start this off by saying that Luca is an amazing movie. But at the same time, fuck you Disney for not releasing this into cinemas. Not allowing this movie to be seen full sized on a movie screen is a crime against cinema.

You can tell that parts of this movie are a love letter to, well, the Italian Riviera first and foremost, but also to Studio Ghibli movies. The skies in this movie are absolutely Ghibli skies... and the town in the movie is called Portorosso... giving a tip of the hat to my personal favourite Ghibli movie, Porco Rosso, also set on the Riviera. It also reminded me, visually, of both Call Me By Your Name and The Talented Mr Ripley, which is unsurprising since they both take place on the Italian coast.

It's also, oddly enough, a movie set in the 1950's. I mean, you wouldn't know beyond a couple of movie posters in the background, because the movie itself is timeless. Also, the music is pretty 50's (he says as he types this review while listening to the soundtrack). Italian 50's music... but very 50's.

I wasn't sure if I was going to love the movie during the first 15 minutes or so... because, well, the first 15 minutes are basically a riff on The Little Mermaid. Just with the titular Luca taking the place of Ariel. And, for all intents and purposes, the other main character, Alberto, filling in the Prince Eric role, by which I mean being the catalyst that gets Luca up on land.

Once they are on land though, it becomes it's own thing.

Let me do my usual trick and gush about the visuals in this movie. I've already said that this movie has Ghibli skies... actually, it has Ghibli grass too... which is a massive compliment. It's clear that they pulled in all of the Pixar expertise from previous movies... because everything about this movie is visually STUNNING. The town, the underwater sequences, the very Ghibli inspired dream sequence... the food.

There's less food in this movie than there was in Ratatouille, but without any doubt the food in this movie is leap and bounds more beautiful. And when there's basil on top of a dish of pasta and you know it's definitely basil because of the little creases in the leaves and you know that it's also covered in oil because it's shiny... when you can taste it just by looking at it. That's amazing looking food.

I may have also had a moment over the other main character, Giulia, because she wears a knitted hat. A cable knitted hat. Where you can see the individual stiches. I mean, I had a moment. Add to that moment that when I learned after the movie that she's basically dressed identically to Tombo in Kiki's Delivery Service (sans the hat), which is a Ghibli movie I also love.

It's not really surprising to me that the writer/director of this movie, Enrico Casarosa, also wrote and directed the La Luna short a decade ago... they share a sweetness and a visual style that I adore... and that makes me really glad they gave him a movie to make his own.

Now, let's circle around to the story.

Casarosa's sweetness shines through here, and, if the little bits I've seen about the making of the movie in the last 24 hours are any indication, it seems like the story is based around similar experiences he had with a childhood friend. I mean, clearly Enrico isn't a "sea monster" (as far as we're aware anyway), but the friendship between Luca and Alberto is what makes this movie a stand out.

It was also one of the best representations I've seen for a "disabled" character in a movie... a character with one arm, who just says that it's the way he came into the world (and that's the one and only time it's talked about), it's not a massive plot point about him not having the arm or how he deals without it and it's also not the only defining thing about his character, it's just yet another thing to add to the list along with fisherman, father, fabulous moustache owner and respected member of the community.

And while I get why they wanted to have dangers to Luca and Alberto's adventures coming from both the land and the sea, the weakest parts of the story for me are the douchebag teenager in the village (because why none of the adults have told him to shut up and sit down I don't get... I'm assuming in my head canon that he's the son of the mayor or the richest person in town or something... he's clearly borrowing clout he doesn't have himself) and Luca's parents from the ocean. Mostly because both antagonists are played very broadly for the laughs and Luca's parents are kind of stereotypes (although, at least he has one of each, this is a Disney movie after all).

While we're on the subject... I'm still not sure how I feel about Luca's colour scheme when he's in his sea monster form... something about it was a little too much for me... maybe it's the fact that his face is blue and green, his hair his kind of purple and his eyes are red and yellow. Too many colours going on. Whereas Alberto is blue and purple with green and yellow eyes. That worked better for me. But honestly, I'd rather have had them shoot for the fences and use all the pencils in the pencil box than not have that riot of colours in other places.

Now, we come to the proverbial elephant... well, possibly the proverbial sea monster in the room.

Is the movie Luca queer? Is it queerbaiting? Has Disney accidentally made a movie by a straight writer/director that resonates massively with a queer audience by talking about a fundamental human/sea monster experience of feeling like you don't belong and finding a person who expands your world more than you thought possible who then also leads you to people who love you for who you are and that found family is very often more important than the family that you're born into. And then released it during US Pride month.

Short version. No to the first, no to the second, FUCK YES THEY DID to the third.

But... and this is a very big but. While it's perfectly reasonably to read this as a queer movie and absolutely ship the two Nonnas (you'll know what I mean if you've seen it), it isn't a love story... even accidentally. It's about two boys who don't fit in because they're different no matter where they go learning to show the world exactly who they are and finding that the world loves them because they're good people and doesn't care about the ways that they're different.

And at the same time, that doesn't have to be read as a queer story. Stories about boys who care for each other, aren't afraid to show affection with each other, both physically and emotionally, and support each other are important in their own right, irrespective of anybody's current or future sexual orientation. And I want those movies to exist in the world without everybody pointing at every single one of them and screaming "GAY" like they're an extra in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie.

Because movies like this are important for little boys to watch. Little queer boys and little straight boys both. Because finding the weirdos who are your kind of weirdo and love you for it is an important thing to have in your life. For everyone.

It should be unsurprising to anyone who's ever read one of my Pixar movie reviews... I absolutely cried at the end of this movie. Even though I knew how the movie was going to end, I still cried. Because while I knew the destination, I didn't know exactly how they were going to get us there.

And I'll be honest, Luca is kind of all about the journey. A sweet, sweet Summer journey I'm very enthusiastic to take again.

yani's rating: 4 goatfish out of 5

character saturday: going three-d

So... the best way to describe this is as a "group project". This is the mini for Quill, my druid in Friday's DnD games. Designed by me using Hero Forge, 3D printed for me by one of the Thursday DnD boys, and given a first go at a paint job, and then refined and finished off by Mrs from the Friday group.

And then photographed by me... at a scale you'd never, ever be able to see the mini itself, because it's tiny... 30mm tall more or less.

There is a second mini, which I tried to photograph, but it just didn't work because it's darkly painted and covered in glitter... it looks amazing in person though, and exactly what I wanted.

I'm honestly in awe of anyone who can paint miniatures... it takes a degree of skill, talent and eyesight I simply don't have.

Anyway.

I made possibly the best tomato soup I've made thus far, and unsurprisingly, it's a halfling recipe from the DnD cookbook. I also made the prettiest looking (and tastiest) toasted cheese sandwich ever. So, I will absolutely be going back to the recipe at some point.

And having cheese toasties all week wasn't the worst thing in the world either... even if that first one was the best by far.

Thursday was an odd DnD session... if only because it was an episode of When Worlds Collide. Since we're doing a rotating DM thing, Fluffy (Friday's DM) offered to come and meet the reprobates I play with. Which was fun... having a new energy in the room... and also seeing him interacting with the rest of the group was interesting.

And it was also a much more chill session all around, which basically just depends on the mood of the room on any given day. Not just that room specifically, but just DnD tables as a whole in my experience.

Then before Friday's game, Fluffy had asked whether I wanted to watch Luca with him. And I did. So we did. More on that later.

Friday night's game was very much a case of "And Then". We were basically going from A to B, exploring a little along the way. Which is stuff you gotta do at the beginning of a campaign and something I enjoy in and of itself. Lots of mysteries for us to come back and solve later.

Today we did some actual stuff.

I'm attempting the chilli from the DnD cookbook, although, honestly, fuck the background fluff for that particular recipe, but I still wanna try it.

So I got the ingredients for that... increased my spice rack by about a third... which just goes to show you how anaemic my spice rack is currently.

After the supermarket and coming back here for the YubTubs, we headed off to Mitcham Shopping Centre to poke around Cheap as Chips and also visit the Portuguese custard tart shop that Mrs told us about yesterday. So damn good.

But we just picked up a few bits of things otherwise... I finally got another silicon whisk and actually found another storage box for my dice... basically the duplicate of the one I have now. Definitely not sure how I'm going to put it to use, but I couldn't leave it on the shelf, especially as it was the last one there.

And that was it really.

Current mood:

character saturday: excited flame

So we have Character Inception for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book... a fictional character made up by a fictional character.

My current bard character, Harland Honeypot's tiefling muse, Nancy Drew adult's only stand-in, archaeologist and rogue, Euphoria Phlox. And I'm more amused because while I knew that Phlox was the name of a type of purple, and the name of a type of flower, it also comes from the Greek word for flame. Which works as a tiefling.

I've said before that I love when a name accidentally becomes more relevant. Like when Peregrin's name turned out to be a combination "in the original halfling" of Pery, meaning "flower, love, loyal, romance" and Gren, meaning "baker, cook, feast, green, plenty"... at least according to books from previous editions of DnD. And, honestly, combining most translations of both words together makes sense for the character he ended up being.

Anyway...

I included a little mini "minor illusion" version of this model in the Harland model, but I kinda wanted to show off the full version. Plus, I'm otherwise running out of images of any kind.

I think probably in the reality of his books, Harland would probably write her with a much more low cut or otherwise slightly revealing top... but with a (purple) leather jacket to go over the top. My original concept was doing her with purple skin... but honestly, that just looked weird when I was putting the model together. Plus I feel like he would be able to find a lot more "sexy" adjectives for skin in human tones as opposed to purple tones. Plus that way all the accessories including her neckerchief, belt buckle and crossbow bolt fletching can all be purple.

Moving on...

This week's soup was not from the DnD cookbook and it was... acceptable. It was beef and vegetable with tomato... and not anywhere near as good as the version I made the other week. But, like I said, acceptable.

Thursday's DnD was... frustrating. For very specific and personal reasons that I'm not going to bother going into... suffice to say... just occasionally, and for a limited period of time... I kinda hate my friends. Urgh. It's fine, I know it's a series of factors, and I'll live. But just sometimes...

Anyway...

Friday was much better. We met our "sidekick"... an overly timid polar bear that I accidentally named Pepper because a) everybody else's potential names were slightly ridiculous and b) I rolled on a table of imaginary plant names and came up with Royal Pepper as a plant name... so, we just shortened it to the second part.

And I met more of my character's druid circle pals.... and they were alive this time... although, I will say, thus far I've met two, found one dead, discovered that a second one died a couple of months ago and one might have gone crazy and be the problem. So, out of a group of ten druids, she's at 20% dead and 20% met.

Plus we met Lassie. Well, not actually... but basically a dog ran up to us when we entered one of the towns and made Lassie whining at us until we followed it home to discover that, in fact, one of it's owners had gotten himself lost down a non-literal well, and we need to go and see if we can find him.

So, thus far, we're a party of three gnomes, a polar bear and a husky. We have not, as yet, walked into a bar. But it's only a matter of time.

Also, it was Mr's pre-birthday Friday, so I made olive bread (which I don't normally make because Mrs doesn't like olives) and Fluffy also gave everyone a present of a blind bag semi-prescious stone d6... and while they were both blind bags and we picked them in a totally random order as well, but of the four dice, they all worked really well for who ended up with them... for example, I'm playing a druid and I got one with a tree. So everybody was really happy, which is always good.

Today wasn't much of anything really.

We did supermarketing. I'm planning on making halfling tomato soup this week from the DnD cookbook. So we'll see how I feel about that by the end of the week.

Then, we came back here and did the unpackery and feel down a YubTubs hole... because, honestly, it's too cold to go out for no specific reason. And we didn't have a reason. So we didn't.

Thus endeth this week.

Current mood:

character saturday: family ties

And so it begins...

I'll circle back around to this, but Friday DnD started our new campaign this week. And for the first time in a proper campaign, I'm going in with a character with an actual family. Not a found family or a nebulous case of "parents and siblings". A husband and a son.

So, this week's DnD Character Colouring Book is Quillamina Silverthread (in her "at home" gown"), her husband Wrenn Bafflestone and their boy, Kipper.

I hadn't thought until just now that I decided to put Quill in blue, a primary colour, but the boys are both in secondary colours, orange and green respectively. Not sure if that was an unconscious choice because primary vs secondary characters... or I was just trying not to have them all in the same/similar colours.

Anyway...

Dwarven potato and leek soup this week. From the Heroes Feast DnD Cookbook once again. And while I've made many, many, many pots of potato and (something) soup in the recent past, this may be one of the thickest soups I've made in a while. And pretty good overall. Definitely something I'll revisit in some way, shape or form.

Tuesday I watched all seven hours of the final episode of the second Critical Role campaign. It's the very definition of being sad that it's over and happy that it happened. And very much proof of how amazing DnD can be when you have a great DM and the players really lean into their characters.

And I absolutely cried.

Thursday's DnD was great. Good character moments... and I discovered things about my character that are definitely a problem, but that gives me something to work through. And not something I've explored before. So that's fun.

But, as I said, we started a new campaign in the Friday DnD game.

The introduction of Session Zeros for this game, which means that we've all had an experience in the world before we came together as a group, have added an interesting dynamic. And it seems as though Fluffy, in his role as DM has seemed to have decided to bolt my backstory to the main narrative at this point. Which is not great for some of the characters connected to my backstory right now.

It definitely gives my character a reason to join up with the group though, which I appreciate. Because, on the surface, I hadn't found one on my own throughout that session.

It's also interesting because this is the first time in... well, a while anyway... where I feel like my choices about a character's personality has come more from the accent I'm choosing to use. The only other time I feel like this happened was with my elven wizard with the hideous French accent... and he just wouldn't shut up. But this is very different experience. And she's turning into a much calmer and thoughtful character because I'm using a softly spoken "Southern US" accent.

Which is kind of fascinating.

I am very interested to see where this particular group of characters goes throughout this story though. And how Quill's goal of going back to her routine and her life pans out in the end.

Today was good.

We did the supermarket thing... I decided to put the DnD cookbook to one side for this week and just make up my own soup this time. Then maybe dip back in next week for either the Halfling Tomato Soup or the Gnomish Lamb Stew... since the characters I'm playing on the regular at the moment are a halfling and a gnome. So there's that.

I had also promised Ma I'd make her sausage rolls for her birthday (because neither of us thought of it in time last week), so we got the supplies for that also.

We also took a side trip to Kmart to investigate sparkly silver nail polish for DnD purposes. Yes, actually.

And then we came back here, put a movie on and I made sausage rolls. Now with fresh thyme and some lemon zest, just, because why the fuck not.

Then, as they say, that was that. I sent Ma on home with half of the leftover sausage rolls and called it a day.

Current mood:

character saturday: arrows and ice

And so we reach the last of the Disney Princess Adventurers in DnD Character Colouring Book.

Merida is basically already a DnD character to be honest... but I decided to make her an Arcane Archer, imbuing her arrows with magic... as well as giving her the Sharpshooter feat... because, well, Merida. And she's already an Outlander, finding food to feed her and her mother in the wilderness and finding her way in the world.

If I hadn't already gone with a Ranger for Snow White, I would have made Merida a Beast Master with a bear companion, because that makes sense too.

And as much as I would have liked Elsa to have been one of the characters for last week when Fluffy forced me to watch Frozen 2... she's here now... day late and a dollar short.

I absolutely took liberties with her costume... because, well... the cold never bothered her anyway. And given that she runs across a frozen ocean barefoot in the second movie, clearly that's a thing.

So that's why she has the the Elemental Adept (cold damage) feat... which doesn't give her resistance to cold unfortunately, but does mean she does a little more damage with cold/ice spells and doesn't care if the thing she's attacking is resistant to cold.

She's a hermit for obvious reasons, and Wizard just made the most sense... as did the fact that wizards have access to the most cold damage spells in the game, and those spells are mostly the School of Evocation.

So that's the end of that little diversion.

I did do a deep dive into the DnD Heroes' Feast cookbook this week... with Halfling Everything Soup (basically chicken and vegetable, but very tasty), Dwarven Flat Bread (decent, but not sure I completely got the hang of it),Halfling Oatmeal Sweet Nibbles (cookies)... which were amazing still warm from the oven... and were descended on as through by wild animals by the Thursday DnD crew.

Rolling back a second...

Thursday should have been excellent... I made cookies, we were finishing the second half of the first adventure in the series we're doing... and all of that was fine. What wasn't fine was when I powered on through a yellow light and had a little bit of a bumper bump with the guy in front of me who stopped sooner than I expected.

Thankfully all that really happened was his towbar pierced my bumper in a way that's hardly worth bothering about. So at least that was a bonus. But not a great way to start my Thursday night excursion.

Friday was Chiro Day... and technically also Haircut Day... in so much as I reshaved my head for this month.

And then we had our Session Zero for the new campaign... which mostly consisted of eating bread stuffed with cheese, chatting about what our expectations are for the new campaign... and then I retired to Mrs' study to read graphic novels while the others did their intro to the adventure. And then we played the first board game from the folks at Critical Role, Uk'otoa, which is a super fun game.

Today was the usual.

I'm attempting another recipe from the DnD cookbook this week... which is basically potato and leek soup, which I can make anyway, but I'm interested to try a different take on the genre.

But we did the supermarket thing... came back here, did the usual and then took a little trip to Haighs. Because, why not.

Current mood:

character saturday: guardians

So there's something of the "the idea works in my head" about this week's entry in the DnD Character Colouring Book.

Firstly we have the Frog Princess herself, Tiana... and in my head, at some point, Tiana takes over from Mama Odie as guardian/druid of the swamp, which is why her look is more reminiscent of Odie rather than anything Tiana ever wore. But with some armour, because Tiana's nobody's fool. And of course she has the Chef feat, and of course she's part of the Cooks and Baker's Guild. Weirdly, I thought I'd made her a Circle of the Land (Swamp) druid... because that makes sense. But looks like I settled on Circle of Dreams... which I guess makes more sense thinking about the movie as a whole. Honestly, Circle of Shepherds would also work. Talking animals and such.

Likewise, I can't remember whether this is an idea I had on my own or if I was it referenced somewhere... I think very probably the latter. But Rapunzel is and always has been a Light Domain Cleric... I don't make the rules, facts are facts. And being cooped up in that tower working on her skills gives her the Skilled Feat. Technically the Cloistered Scholar background isn't a perfect fit... but for some reason I tend to think of "cloistered" in the sense of "kept away from the outside world" rather than "being part of a convent or monastery". And in that sense it fits. You also have to imagine her hair being longer... there isn't a very long hair option in HeroForge that doesn't look like a disaster.

Also, at some point I kinda wanna play a version of this Rapunzel cleric... because I haven't ever played a Light Cleric.

Anyway...

I made what is possibly the best beef stew/soup of my life this week. I don't know whether it was because I put extra beef stock in or due to the big spoonful of Vegemite I added or what... but it was thick and hearty and delicious.

What was Wednesday DnD is now Officially Thursday night DnD... so there's that. And we started our new "campaign"... by which I mean a new set of characters doing an ongoing series of adventures.

And it's the first time in a while I've played instead of run with this group... so that's... an adjustment. But we're all feeling our way with new characters. And the "how do we all know each other" stuff worked out fairly well overall. I mean, not going to lie, I've thrown half of my original relationships out the window and just kept the bits I liked. And then proceeded to do what I wanted to anyway, which was let my character forge the relationship foundations I wanted based on the characters present.

So there's that.

Speaking of DnD character relationships... the trauma I was having last week I solved in one 20 minute Discord video call. Yay to having adult conversations about pretend people.

We didn't do Friday DnD this week... people were unwell and we just called it off. Which again, adult decisions and stuff. But I wasn't really in the mood for more of my own company, so I asked Fluffy if he wanted to come over anyway, help me eat the loaf of bread that was already underway and we'd just watch a movie.

Which was a good call... from the perspective of his company and just hanging out. I will take my revenge on him at some point though for the fact he made me watch Frozen 2 because a) he wanted to see my reaction to it and b) it is the only modern animated Disney movie I haven't seen.

Put a pin in that... I'm coming back to it.

Through circumstances too wordy to go into, we had discovered earlier that day that the movie Flesh Gordon exists in the world. And yes, it's about as bad as it sounds... however, the visual effects/stop motion effects were done by a bunch of very talented people who went on to be titans of the industry. So all of those parts, while being super horny, are also so fucking good. And for the most part, shaped like a cock.

Sadly, the only version I could find online had someone "doing comedy" (and, admittedly trivia) over the top of it, so that was annoying.

But special effects A+, acting F. Is F- a thing... because I think it should be in this case. And, because it's a sexy movie from the 1970's they let just about anybody take their clothes off... so... yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, don't watch it, under no circumstances watch it, it's a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck. But if you happened to look up the explicit trailer online... I mean, I'm not the boss of you.

Remove pin... I'm not doing a full review post on F2, because it was... acceptable. And a full movie, with something of a plot, even if the last ten minutes just handwaves a bunch of stuff or rushes through it in a way that shows they clearly didn't give a shit. Which was also very, very, very pretty. But I realised how little I care about those characters, how much the fucking snowman gets on my tits and I wish he would just melt... and how much there's always one song that just rubs me the wrong way.

In the original it was That Number Everyone Knows for being a massive oversimplification of mental health and in this one it's "The Next Right Thing" for... well, actually... for being pretty much the same thing and/or a song about co-dependency. Doubly so, having just looked at Wikipedia, to discover that it's the song writers mining the tragedy of one the directors having lost a child. Yes, I'm sure they were fine with it, but once again, it leaves the bad taste in my mouth.

Otherwise the songs are COMPLETELY forgettable... in fact, I had to look up the name of the song in the previous paragraph. And I remember exactly none of the songs right now, even though I saw it less than 24 hours ago. I mean at least from the first one there was the "it's everywhere" number and D'yawannabildasnoman. This one is, musically speaking... blah.

But the fire lizard was super cute, Kristoff should ditch Anna and totally fuck the Reindeer Boy from the woods, and the amount of actual lesbian subtext in this movie is less than one quarter of one half of one percent. And no power on earth will make me watch a third outing if there is one. Unless they subtitle it "Olaf dies in the first minute"... then probably not, but, you know, maybe.

Quick plot prediction for the third one though... Kristoff gets turned to ice.

So that was our evening. 1970's sexploitation and a Disney movie. Because we're grown ass adults and can do whatever we like, thank you very much.

Moving on.

Today... well, today I bought way too much stuff in preparation for making various things from the DnD cookbook, Heroes' Feast. Yes, that is a thing that exists in the world. And there are a number of cool recipes in it. So we'll try some of those out this week I think. Specifically some halfling recipes, because we all know how I feel about halflings.

Also, some of it was stuff that I kinda needed anyway and will definitely use for other things. So that's good.

But we did the supermarket, did the YubTubs (well, mostly I just played things for Ma while I was putting Things Into Jars... which is what I do often after the supermarket, because jars are great and look way nicer than plastic containers/bags), and called it a day there really. Because we're boring.

So, yeah, that was this week.

Current mood:

character saturday: kick ass ladies

The ladies who will kick your butt for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book... Fa Mulan and Kidagakash.

And of course Mulan is a Oath of the Crown Paladin, who is sworn to protect a city or country or nation... and has the actor feat, because they get a bonus to deception checks while disguised as somebody else. Sadly paladins don't get access to the Find Familiar spell... so we'll call her little dragon pal a... sidekick. I will say that this is just basically a pre-set collection of Hero Forge armour and there really wasn't much in the way of design choices from my perspective... but it is a set of armour I like... particularly the breastplate (and the pauldrons).

On the other side, Kida (who is and always will be a Disney Princess in my mind, even if they've casually shuffled her off to one side... she's a Disney character, she's a literal princess... fight me) has no armour but can still kick your butt. And thanks to the new Astral Self Monk, I love the idea of her calling on the powers of the Heart of Atlantis to give her a secondary set of "crystal" arms. I have a theory that the top I put her in may have been "somewhat based" on Kida's actual top... since that twist in the middle is very distinctive. But otherwise, I just went for the closest approximation. Sadly I'm not a huge fan of the way this hairstyle sits... it's an early one, and it could probably do with a little redo.

Otherwise though, while these aren't the most thrilling designs, I like the DnD characters for these princesses... the designs are a little blah.

In other news.

I made pea and ham... but which I mean pea and kransky... also with other vegetables for body, bulk and flavour, but since it's all blended up, you couldn't tell. Decent though.

And early in the week I made a loaf of bread just for me, which lasted me most of the week, which was nice. Plus the great thing about my bread is that throwing it in the sandwich press warms/toasts it back to perfection.

I know I mentioned it last week... but I finished watching Season 1 of The Longest Day In Chang'an this week... and damn it's good. Frustrating as hell, but great. And I mean frustrating as in several of the characters have made or are making decisions where I'm like... no, don't do that, because you're wrong, that's wrong what you just said, so stop being wrong. Like I said, so very good. Highly recommend.

This week's DnD games were... atypical. Wednesday (which is now Thursday, but we did it on Wednesday because... reasons I guess) we did something we've never done before, and spent the whole session working out character relationships.

It did result in some interesting things... but, generally, I don't think I'm a fan. I've done that before, had a predefined relationship going into a game and I don't feel like it ever improves my experience... I much prefer those things happening organically at the table. I think maybe it helps people who don't really know who their characters are before sitting down at the table... but that's generally not an issue I have. They change, sure, but I generally have a sense on how they're going to be.

I won't lie, it is slightly better than "you're all in a tavern"... and time will tell as to whether it really works for me. I think, perhaps, I haven't yet had a DM or an adventure where there was room for us to just be individuals in a tavern and let us as characters come together naturally. It does make me want to do that when I run something for the Friday crew in... oh, eighteen months or so.

A plan is already starting to take shape. Which I might need to write down. Because 18 months.

Somebody remind me around August or September 2022 if you wouldn't mind.

Getting back to the point... it was otherwise an interesting session. And I'm trying to keep an open mind about the whole rigmarole.

Anyway.

Friday night was likewise different... Fluffy and I did a Session Zero, in that we did a solo DM/player session just getting my character settled in the world. Now THAT I'm a huge fan of. It was fun. Nothing much really happened, although the few rolls I did, I don't think that I rolled lower than maybe a 12... so clearly, the first full session we have is going to be nothing by rolls under 5. Maybe.

Then we finished up our bits and pieces for the "breather" campaign. Which still took us... what... 15 weeks. And while we didn't "finalise" any of our storylines, really, we did leave them all in a good place... by which I mean they'd just opened their pub, they all have storylines in progress, but we were all happy to leave them there. I mean, we might come back at some point for a few little bits and pieces, but at the same time I kind of doubt it... but I've been wrong before.

Afterwards we talked about character relationships with this new group... and, honestly, this one I need to revisit. Because we kind of ended up in a place I'm not really happy with. No, not happy... not comfortable with. It's nothing bad... it's just gunna sit in my brain and fester if I don't say something.

So, there's that...

Today was fine... we did the usual supermarketry, I'm planning on making some sort of stew this week... I mean, beef stew, with a bunch of veg... but like most of my soups these days I'm just going to make it up as I go along.

Then after the general unpackery and YubTubs and whatnot we headed off to IKEA. Which we haven't been to since last October (and weirdly enough that's the post that includes the Friday night character I just finished playing and the one I'm about to start playing).

We ended up doing a bunch of backtracking because we kind of assumed everything we were looking for would be on the ground floor... by which I mean, one of the two things we actually came to look for. But no, while one of them was upstairs, they didn't have anything that actually matched the other thing.

But we still left with about half a dozen things... because IKEA.

It did mean we did a bunch of walking, so that was good.

Current mood:

character saturday: the beast and the thief

We're now fully in the 1990's for this week's Disney Princess DnD Character Colouring Book Adventures. And while Snow White was the first character model I put together, Belle la Bête was the one who kinda kicked off me putting the rest of the list together.

Because one of the newest Barbarian classes is Path of the Beast... and if you think that maybe The Beast was actually a lycanthrope, and maybe Gaston killed him actually at the end of the story and maybe now Belle is the new Beast. And that pretty yellow dress is kind of falling apart these days and all the formerly magical furniture in the castle is just furniture now.

And of course she'd have the Fighting Initiate feat so she could take the unarmed fighting style, because Barbarians don't get a fighting style... for some reason (because they're OP enough as it is, in the best possible way) and of course she's a sage, given the fact she's nuts about books and she now has the castle library at her disposal.

Jasmin is... the one I'm the least pleased with, honestly. I needed a rogue to round out the 12 characters... and Aladdin is basically a rogue. So this is kind of a gender flipped Aladdin where Jasmin is the Streetrat and Aladdin is the feisty prince kept locked inside the palace. If I hadn't been going for one of every class, then, yes, Jasmin would 100% have been a Genie Patron Warlock.

As it is, she's a Charlatan, she has a feat that lets her hide better and she's an Inquisitive Rogue, which, honestly, I really want to play but still haven't. Somewhere she has a protective jacket that goes over the top of that very skimpy top. And the less said about her the better.

Moving on.

I made potato, leek and bacon this week. And put a bunch of cheese in it before I blended it up... which made for a tasty, tasty, tasty soup.

Sidebar. I started watching the Chinese historical detective thriller from 2019, The Longest Day In Chang'an, which is 50% Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and 50% the TV show 24. And very, very, very good. I'm only just halfway through the first season and I'm loving it. Also, the fucking costumes. SO GOOD.

This week's Wednesday/Thursday... and the DnD thereof... yeah, fucked if I know. There was talk of a plan last week. Then there was general radio silence. And nobody said we weren't doing anything and nobody said we were doing anything... and I didn't ask, because I shouldn't have to. I'm also assuming nobody got their head out of the ass long enough to organise anything, or we just called this week off on account of disinterest.

All good... this week we should finally be back to our regularly scheduled programming... so there's that.

Anyway.

Friday I made cheesy bread... because what was the point of this week if not cheese. Cheese bread is always good. No matter whether I stick grated cheese into the dry mix, wait and fold it into the dough or stick cubes of cheese in... bread plus cheese plus oven equals good times.

As for Friday night DnD... we... technically finished the little mini campaign we've been doing as a palette cleanser. I mean, we've gone as far as we can really go. We still have some roleplay things to finish up next week... depending on how much we want to dig into that. And by "we", I kinda me mostly me, since I'm the one with the most dangling story threads.

So we'll see... either it will be two or three hours of roleplay or it'll be about an hour of roleplay followed by board games. So, good either way.

It does mean we're on the edge of starting the new campaign however... so insert usual new campaign nerve vibes. Or whatever.

Today... well, Ma overslept this morning, which led to some lowkey panic first thing... and us getting to the supermarket like an hour late... so... there's that.

Then after the supermarket and all the rest of the usual, we headed to Officeworks to pick up some printer ink and I discovered that Officeworks no longer seems to stock the Kokuyo Novita Alpha Pocket File folders I used for all of my DnD needs.

Grrrrrr.

I mean it's not like the company went away... Officeworks just doesn't seem to stock them any more.

First my favourite ice-cream gets discontinued 20 years ago, now this. Life is hard.

I am of course being facetious... and it's not like I don't have about 30 of those folders, but they don't last forever and they're perfect for DnD. So, I'm a little bit annoyed.

That's really it though.

Current mood:

character saturday: bad princess

Week Two of the DnD Princess Adventure experiment.

These two are definitely characters that rely on their villainesses for their powers... and not really surprisingly because the two villains in questions, Maleficent and Ursula are my two personal favourite Disney villains.

So Mistress Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty) is a Fey Touched Noble, because while I could have made most of the princesses into Nobles, Aurora seemed like the right choice. And Fey Touched, because of the faerie blessings, which gives her a little more magic. There also wasn't any other choice for her but as a Draconic Bloodline sorceress. Because imagine if instead of Prince Phillip showing up and killing the dragon with a magic sword and shield, Aurora drew on the power of the curse and Maleficent's own magic to fight her after the dragon transformation. Plus it gives her cool scales down on arm and dragon eyes.

On the other hand, I love the idea that after Ursula's defeat, Ariel gives Eric the flick, becomes a Sea Witch herself and can give herself legs whenever she likes. But she also learns to sail... because why not. So the Fathomless Warlock was the obvious choice. And not just because it gives her some Ursula-like tentacles to do some damage. Plus a swim speed and the ability to breath underwater. I did originally think about making her a half sea-elf, but that was mostly just for the swimming, but if her class gives it to her, why not.

Not to mention the big weird "sea staff" in Hero Forge... clearly she had to have that. And probably a familiar... you know, like a crab or something, I dunno *grin*.

Moving on...

I made soup this week. It was definitely soup. It had vegetables in it. And sausage. And tomato. It was soup. It was very good, don't get me wrong, even if I put a tiny bit too much chilli in it... which shouldn't have been a problem. I mean, less than a teaspoon in a minimum of four cups of stock plus vegetables plus a tin of tomato... it should have been mild. It was not. It wasn't bad though.

I also trimmed my hair again... not quite a month between trims I believe, but my beard needed doing, so I just did the whole thing.

There was no Wednesday/Thursday this week. I mean, there was. Both Wednesday and Thursday existed. And my Wed/Thurs group did a thing, they just did it without me. With my full blessing I hasten to add.

Friday was Chiro Day... so I headed into the city for the usual curative poking of spine. Ahhhh, spine.

Then I finally (two months later) headed into the comic book shop to pick up a Monster Manual. So now my D&D book collection has gone from two books last December to sitting at six books. Yay, books.

I also had a chat with the shop girly who used to be in when were played DnD on Wednesdays, who I haven't really seen since March last year, other than the one trip I made in to pick up another DnD book before Christmas last year. So that was nice.

And I resisted buying another set of dice for the upcoming campaign. I say resisted, by which I mean, didn't take like $4 extra in with me. Annoying, but at the same time, I honestly don't need another set of dice. Want, yes. Need, no.

Then we had Friday Night DnD. And it was one of those sessions where stuff just happens. Which sounds weird. But sometimes you can decide to do things and with the best of intentions everyone just goes "before we do that, just let me..." and before you know it four hours have gone past, you've had three conversations and a shopping trip but only really an hour of in game time has passed.

This wasn't one of those. I mean, technically I think an hour of in game passed, but we went to the place to get the MacGuffin, fought a cranky merman, killed a rat in a backpack (as in the rat had the backpack), got the MacGuffin, hung out with a talking dog, talked to a stone and considered our future life choices. So, all in all, a useful session.

And if nothing else proves that it was said useful session, the fact that we played until midnight without thinking about it pretty much does.

It did mean I didn't get home until after 1am, but totally worth it.

Today was... you guessed it, rinse and repeat. We did get started a little earlier than the last couple of weeks... mostly because Ma rocked up early and I was actually ready when she did.

The supermarket was...the supermarket. I'm planning on doing tatty soup... by which I mean po-tattys... you know, po-tay-toes. Those.

Then after the usual "came back here, did a thing", we just had a wander around the Village, mostly to stretch the old legs than anything else.

And that was that.

Current mood:

character saturday: princess adventurers

Disney Princesses as DnD characters... I'm not the first, I won't be the last... I don't even think this is one of the very best version of this idea... but that does exist (even if they're technically more original fairy tales than Disney).

But this version started with a thought about the new Swarmkeeper Ranger... and the fact that their swarm can be anything... which led to a thought about my favourite scene from Shrek 3 (when it turns into the Immigrant Song... actually, the only good thing to come out of that movie honestly).

Which then led me to thinking about combining the Princesses with other elements of their story/movie and making use of DnD concepts to come up with something I liked.

So Huntress Snow can now poison people, as a Clan Crafter she's accepted by dwarves wherever she goes, and as a Swarmkeeper ranger she's at home in the forest and can get the forest animals... in her specific case the little blue songbirds... to fuck you right up.

Cinders on the other hand can endure a little more hardship, she's a Folk Hero, so the common people love her and will assist her if they can... but as a Creation bard she can now make her own coach out of a pumpkin... and if needed create her own dancing prince.

And yes, I did find screenshots from locations in the movies and add them behind the characters.

For any number of reasons, these are two of my favourites from the set of 12 I made... whereas others are a little more generic... but we'll see those later. Maybe.

Brief sidebar... what the fuck is with the weather where I am right now... I went from wearing a hoodie with the hood up... to wearing shorts. Which I should have also worn yesterday, but I didn't realise it was quite as hot as it was until I ended up with a headache. And then the rest of the week it will go down to 20°C... all week. So fuck everything.

Anyway...

I made tuna mornay this week... and I wasn't going to over spice it like usual... and then it just ended up over spiced anyway... because, of course it did. It wasn't bad though.

Wednesday's DnD was actually Thursday. Yes, after fuck knows how long, we've moved the Thursday game back to Thursday. Which is fine, except now it means that I have DnD on Thursday and Friday... so we'll see how that goes.

But anyway... Thursday's game was fine... we finally finished off the Tier 1 adventures... which is great, because, honestly, I need a break. Both from these adventures specifically but DMing generally. Not because of any particular thing... but when you have a party that wipes everything you throw at them seemingly without breaking a sweat, it's definitely a thing.

Friday we did boardgames instead of DnD... which was fine. I mean, the second game we played was fine, but not my favourite.

Today... copy paste, rinse and repeat.

Supermarket... ingredients for soup... unpack... YubTubs. And once again, we didn't have anything to go and do... so we didn't.

And that's that... 

Current mood: