character saturday: dapper man in blue

You know what I love in a DnD campaign? When you actually get to update your outfit. And less a "Hero Forge released a new piece that is actually better than the existing piece, so I'm changing the art but the outfit is basically the same" and more "this is a new outfit".

So this week's DnD Character Colouring Book is my boy Whisper in his new, slightly more revealing, striped navy blue fit.

But it's also what happens when your boy who may or may not be part of a criminal organisation gets the standard outfit for that criminal organisation recognised by people.

Time for at least a new shirt. Also, he got a new magic item, so I wanted to include that. Did I choose to pull the magic item art from an existing image instead of just picking something basic from Hero Forge.

Is it the look I would personally have chosen? Probably not. But it is a little extra, so I'm not completely mad at it.

Also, having him show more skin makes so much more sense now that I've actually played him at the table.

Anyway...

There was much crochet this week. Did it turn out that the two sides of the hexagon cardigan are actually slightly too big and I need to frog the current colour back to half the number of rows. Yes.

This poor yarn. It's been made, frogged, made again and will be at least partially frogged again.

But I should also be able to knock this one over much more quickly than the one I made for myself, which is good. Also, I now know how to actually make ribbing, so I'll be able to finish it properly.

In soup news... I made my lasagne soup. Which, for something I mostly made up, works pretty damn well every single time. Because, really, it's just bolognese pasta sauce made with more stock and with broken up lasagne noodles thrown in.

Not exactly rocket science.

In Mini Media Reviews... in my ongoing adventures with anime, and I don't quite remember whether or not this was something I heard about from a person or just something I saw on the list of things that the library had... I watched the first (and currently only) season of 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team. Why does it have the numbers in the front? Because the regulation men's volleyball net height is 7 feet, 11 ⅝ inches or 2.43 meters. I mean, obviously.

And, even though I don't much care about volleyball, and I don't much care about sport, and I don't, in any way, get as enthusiastic about literally anything as these boys get about volleyball, I really, really fucking loved this show.

Is part of the appeal a very obvious homoromatic relationship between the two lead characters, two of the supporting characters and two of the characters on the opposing "villain" team, where they're substituting talking about volleyball for talking about kissing, etc? Yes. Absolutely. Is part of the appeal that they actually don't make the "villain team" a bunch of assholes? Yes. Absolutely. I would have been completely happy if the season had ended in a draw between the two teams.

Is this also a show where you just want one character to tell another character "hey, you're being kind of an asshole, maybe you don't do that and just talk to the rest of us like we're actual human people with feelings and thoughts"? Yes. Absolutely. 

But I loved it all the same. I would kind of liked a little more fleshing out of the rest of the main team, most of them are relegated down at most a single character trait, if they get anything at all. Mostly they are kind of just a hair colour that differentiates them from everyone else.

I also attempted to watch a TV show called Van Helsing from 2016. I made it all the way through the first episode, I then made it 10 minutes into the second episode before the combination of horrifically bad acting and very confused story telling made me pull the pin. The two leads have all the acting ability and chemistry of a toothache, and the story wants to both be Post Apocalypse Zombie Vampires AND Secret Vampire Society With Terrible Accents.

But mostly it was the horrific fucking acting.

Friday was Chiro Day... also some expected and accidental errands.

Friday Night DnD was... later than usual. As in we left my place later. But honestly, our amount of actual playing time, about the same.

Did we nearly have a TPK? Yes. Did I realise this afternoon that I was fucking up my AC the entire session and it was actually much higher? Also yes. But we survived, and did the thing we came there to do.

So, all good.

Anyway...

Today was a minor exercise in frustration.

Mostly because it seemed like tomorrow being Mother's Day brought a bunch of randos to the supermarket.

Afterwards, I did a fitting on Ma's cardigan. As mentioned earlier.

Then we did a trip to Spotlight to pick up another skein of yarn. Only to not find the yarn, have one of the staff say they would find it out the back, ask us to wait because it was "very high up" and then not only not go get the yarn but also not come find us and tell us they weren't going to get the yarn. So, you know, slightly annoyed. If you can't get to it safely, fine. However, you said you would do a thing. Either do the thing or tell me you're not doing it without me having to come find you again.

On the plus side I did teach one of the (non craft section) staff members about yarn dye lots... because for some fucking reason I had "please talk to me, I love random human interaction" tattooed on my forehead all day. And the person who was ordering three skeins of that purple yarn over the internet... you're absolutely fucking welcome that you got three from the same dye lot because of me.

So we left there without the thing we came for.

And then went to Haighs for the second week running. Forgetting, of course, that it is Mother's Day tomorrow. And most of the people there where, in fact, fathers and sons. We also didn't manage to find dark chocolate broken Easter Egg, but we did find broken Milk Chocolate Hot Cross Bun Crunch Egg. So, you know, absolutely not mad about that.

character saturday: big dumb boy

I didn't realise that I hadn't ever posted an updated version of Khurg after the first one. Which is a shame, because a lot of those original ones now fill me with deep shame LOL.

But he makes a reappearance for today's DnD Character Colouring Book because Hero Forge dropped their new Body Customiser this week. And what Khurg has desperately been needing for a good long while now is just giant meaty hands. Also feet.

Khurg really is one of my favourites who I didn't get to play as much as I would have liked. Every time I remember that he canonically met Santa who also him the snowflake pin, and that it was one of the elves that embroidered his overalls, it just makes me smile.

Suffice to say I really like this version of him.

Anyway...

This week's soup was my version of Minestrone... and quite good. I could perhaps have forgone the potato, but I also ending up picking through each bowl and eating the potato first... so, you know, whatever works I guess.

And this week's Mini Media Reviews are the two Addams Family animated movies.

I was absolutely not a fan. They really just didn't understand how The Addams Family should work and what makes them unique. Cramming a generic "my parents don't understand me" plotline for Wednesday is the last thing that should be in an Addams Family movie. And the fact that they doubled down on that in the sequel and made Wednesday's whole plotline a "I don't fit into this family" one is... breathtakingly dumb.

But I did realise that there isn't an Addams Family movie that actually has any idea what the hell to do with Pugsley. This does not break that trend.

In crochet news, I finished the squares I was making... I'm just not sure how I'm going to join them together. So they're currently a problem for another day. I also tried to put something together with the other red yarn the Friday folks got me for my birthday last year. And, honestly, I just can't do it. There's something about yarn that I just don't enjoy working with. I tried and subsequently frogged three different starting points, because nothing was working the way I wanted it to. So I've now put it away.

Friday Night DnD was good. Should we have gone left before we went right, oh absolutely, I knew that. I don't think it would have overly mattered in the scheme of things, but I at least had the idea that left was important.

But otherwise we did a lot of going from A to B to C.

Anyway...

Thank all that's holy that we did not, in fact, have to go vote today. Having said that, it might legitimately have been easier and less bothersome than doing it last weekend. Which is somewhat annoying. Because by the time we were leaving the supermarket, there was no line at the polling place and very few assholes standing outside taking up space and oxygen. Lessons learned I guess.

But, we did the supermarket thing, then detoured off to Haighs for broken Easter Egg. Now... I've said this before, and I will say it once again. For the last few years, they have said that they had "broken Easter Egg" when what they actually have is "broken Easter chick/duckling", which, while similar, is not actually the same thing. We also got some actual Easter Egg which had bits of macadamia nut in it.

So good times all around.

And I'd asked Ma to bring the Thneed that I made back down, because, honestly, while finishing off the squares this week I realised that I could absolutely have used that yarn to make a hexagon cardigan rather than the slightly useless thing that I made.

Which meant that I spent a couple of hours frogging the whole blanket thing into it's original seven balls of yarn. And will now turn it into something that is actually usable.

character saturday: halfling scout

So, this week's DnD Character Colouring Book is slightly related to last week's... after finishing up the TableTopNotch mini campaign I went back and started their Low Magic Western Themed long running campaign.

And the fact that the five people are the table are playing either elves or humans was just... I don't wanna say boring. Imma say boring. But I also have no idea what any of them played in their very first campaign and also I'm not actually playing the game, so they can do what the hell they like.

But of course I started thinking about what I would play in that game. And, honestly, the immediate response to a low magic campaign is... "I wanna be a spellcaster", because I'm a messy bitch.

Outside of that though, that group feels like they need somebody who knows more about nature. And given the early stages that I'm up to, somebody who knows more about goblins.

And we all know how I feel about halflings.

Essentially I tried to make a rifleman in a world without rifles. And a scout who has a connection with perhaps not the local goblin tribes, but goblin tribes in other places. And whose leather armor is a mismash of animal hides that he himself has killed.

I also really need Hero Forge to make some new sideburns. I love the ones we have, but I can't just exclusively use those ones on every halfling model that I want some facial hair for.

But otherwise I'm quite happy with our friend Rosco here.

Anyway...

This week's soup was... decent but questionable. My problem mostly was buying kransky because it was cheaper than chorizo, but also falls apart more easily, so while trying to fry it up at the start it kind of all went to mush and I threw in everything else instead of taking it out to reintroduce it again at the end...

Oh, pea and "ham" by the way. Serviceable, but kind of boring honestly.

I also decided to cook the soup on Monday night instead of Sunday. I don't know if that's going to be a regular thing, I might play with it a bit for a few weeks, see how I go.

There really wasn't any Mini Media Reviews this week, I mostly ended up watching video game content on YouTube while crocheting.

Speaking of... after I finished the hexagon cardigan I had a bunch of questionable quality yarn left over, so I started making little granny squares with the intention of making a mosaic blanket with all the little squares.

The thing that I realised after making 28 little squares, making little squares is absolutely a pain in the ass. And after making the Thing That Didn't Work for Ma my hands were still needing to do something. So I broke out the little squares and began the process of turning them into slightly larger squares with the next colour in the chain. That took me all week, and I am now going to make them into slightly larger squares again with the original yarn.

What will I do with those squares once I'm finished? Literally fucked if I know. The intent was originally to make a blanket, I just need to work out how the hell to join them together. And that's a problem for Future Me.

Sorry my guy.

Friday Night DnD... remember that? The thing we haven't done since... the end of March? Yeah, that happened. We absolutely struggled to remember what was going on. I absolutely forgot my character voice for a hot fucking second. But we mostly took care of a bunch of loose ends from the last game. Which was not, perhaps, what the DM was expecting us to do... but we did it anyway.

Did I finally remember that there was a creepy little fiend following my character around and then murderise him? Yes, yes I did. If I'd been planning on taking a few levels in Warlock, he might have been useful, but mostly he just needed to die.

It was also very weird that the actual amount of time that has passed in game between the middle of March and now is... less than 24 hours.

It was a good game though.

Anyway...

Today was... something of an exercise in frustration.

The supermarket was just fine. I did end up just being the person that Gets Involved because not only was there a liquid spill I went to report, but right after that I found a prescription paper that somebody had dropped on the floor.

After that and the ritual unpacking of things, we went to Haighs to see how they were situated for broken Easter Eggs. Turns out, not well. And after a quick chat with a lovely lady that works there, we decided to give it up for the day and try again next week when there should be more.

Then we went to do early voting. Because fuck voting on voting day.

But because the powers that be decided to throw out the rules about canvassing and advertising, we might as fucking well have gone on the actual election day.

Did I lose my shit slightly at the Clearly Racist Dog Whistle Party woman who was the first person waiting to hand out pamphlets when we got outside? Oh you fucking bet I did. Did I tell her she should die in a fire? You bet. You want to spruik for the Modern Nazi Party, I will absolutely tell you you're a racist to your face. And not feel even remotely conflicted about it.

And then loudly announcing to the LITERALLY 40 people standing along the pathway trying to give out advertising for whatever other party they were here for that I did not want it, they did not need to bother and I was not interested. Also, there were absolutely NOT 40 parties. So I don't know what the fuck all those people were there for.

I don't want your printed bullshit, I don't like your printed bullshit, even from the party I'm actually going to vote for, you're literally harassing me in public and wasting both paper, ink, my time and yours. Go do something constructive. Go volunteer at a fucking homeless shelter or something. Be fucking absent from outside the polling booth you assholes. Do not make me say "no thank you" politely 90 times. You're the problem here.

Can you tell I had Feelings About This?

And then I had a chat with the nice lady who let me slip in line in front of her because of Ma about how much the people outside suck and how I was all shaky from the adrenaline LOL.

I also love that the nice people at the polling place say "are you eligible to early vote?" and you say "yes" and there are no follow up questions. They don't care. Am I eligible? Sure, because I can't be bothered doing it on the day with everybody else, it takes too long, and it's easier if I take Ma early, even if she has to go through the Absentee/Out of Zone voting. So, yes, I'm fucking eligible.

This was also the first time in a minute where I literally struggled to find the numbers 1 thru 6 on the top of the big sheet. Normally I number all the numbers, but I could absolutely not be bothered this time. But once I'd removed all the Clearly Racist And Homophobic Dogwhistle Parties, I had to pick a couple of what I generally think of as the Single Issue Looney Fringe parties just to make up the numbers.

The whole thing was a fucking shitshow. And the most annoying thing is, the main two parties, they're essentially identical, as they've always been, so literally nothing will change for most people regardless of who gets in. They'll just waste money on something different that the other group.

And that, ladies, gentlemen, those inbetween and those who have yet to make up their minds, is why I never talk about fucking politics here. Because is mostly all bullshit and almost everyone who wants to be a politician is absolutely not someone who should ever be allowed to be one.

At least it's done now, I just have to suffer through another week of the dumbest fucking adverts ever.

[deep cleansing breath... deep cleansing breath... deep cleansing breath...]

character saturday: time unravellers

A different DnD Character Colouring Book this week... Fluffy suggested this DnD Actual Play campaign by TableTopNotch on YouTube and, given that I was kind of out of other long form things to watch, I ended up just running through this over the last few weeks.

It's a mini campaign, only going for about 25 episodes, and is very... not "Dungeon of the Week" exactly, but it's clearly modelled around five different dungeon crawls.

I was hugely disappointed by the final episode though. Because for reasons that just don't make any sense to me, they decided to not really include the four main characters above in the final episode, instead concentrating on the guest stars they'd had at various points (well, apart from one who couldn't attend, so one of the cast filled in)... all of whom I found irritating and tiresome. So, well done on removing any actual emotional catharsis or joy from your finale folks.

But they use a VTT (Virtual Tabletop) for their maps, which is interesting, so they use Hero Forge minis for their character (and various NPC) models. And... we already know how I feel about Other People's Hero Forge Models most of the time. So... we'll be nice and call these Fan Art.

Yeah, fan art, that totally works.

Also because I have Particular Opinions About Tabaxi. Most notably that they should be based on big cats with some kind of spots. I mean, do what you want, I just have Opinions about it. I also wouldn't normally give a tabaxi eyebrows... but, honestly, Gus needs eyebrows.

Anyway...

This week has been... annoying.

Firstly, the weather. I should not be having to run the aircon in April because the weather is over 30. I just shouldn't. It's dumb and I hate it.

Secondly, I continued on with the amorphous crochet project. And as much as I enjoyed doing it, the end product, while well made, was not Fit For Purpose. Had I been thinking about it at all I could probably have managed to make a hexagon cardigan from the yarn that I had. Or at least most of one. Probably a whole one, let's be fair.

Instead I made it way too fucking wide to start with, which means that the whole thing is not going to do what I intended it to do. When Ma was here we made an attempt to turn it into the same kind of shrug cardigan I made myself. And it just did not work. For various reasons. So in the end Ma took that one home and we're just calling it a blanket. I might add to it at some point if she wants me to.

It did keep my hands occupied throughout the week though.

And I ended up just giving her the one I made myself. Because I tried it on the other week and just... wasn't feeling it. A shame because I really love the multicoloured yarn, but also, makes more sense to actually have somebody make use of it than it just sit in a box in a cupboard the whole time.

As far as Mini Media Reviews... mostly nothing showed up at the library last week... so not really anything much this week.

The one thing I will shout out is Tale of Tales. I don't specifically remember where I heard about it. I feel like it was in some YouTube video about a different movie entirely. But it's very much a movie in the Grimms Fairy Tale oeuvre. It's very weird and often more than a little dark, but it is entertaining, the performances are strong throughout and it's visually stunning.

Otherwise not a lot to report.

Anyway...

There are two days of the year that shopping is literally Hell on Earth. Both of those days also coincide with a major secular/religious holiday. Go figure.

Every year since... forever, I have complained about Easter Saturday shopping. The shops have been closed one day. They will be closed for two more days. Are all of you people usually shopping on a Friday, Sunday or Monday? Or do you just lose your minds because the shops are going to close briefly?

Urgh.

And do not talk to me about the confectionery aisle.

We came back here, tried to make the Thneed do something and gave up and then just kind of fluffed around for a bit because there was no way I was going to anywhere that was a shop. And I sent Ma off on her merry way.

character saturday: bronze elements

One of the species I've been slightly ignoring in the new 2024 book is the dragonborn, and I think that's honestly because it's harder to make an interesting dragonborn in Hero Forge than anything else. Mostly because the dragon face is still working under the old system and not the new Face Customizer. And the dragon body is... slightly clunky. Plus I like to make my dragonborn look like their respective dragon equivalents.

And there just aren't a ton of options for that. Visually the copper dragons are my favourites, but the bronzes are pretty close runners up. This did very much end up based on the 2014 dragon rather than the 2024 dragon though.

I was also playing around with the idea of a Monk, specifically the updated Elements Monk, which never seemed to be worth the price of admission in the 2014 rules. So it's not exactly breaking the mould here, but at least now I have a base bronze dragonborn in the bucket. 

Which also means that there really isn't much of a story for the character this week.

Anyway...

Yes, I made soup. Yes, the weather also veered back into the ridiculously hot for April and continues thusly this week, but fortunately because I put a little too much rice in said soup, it actually worked pretty okay cold.

Mini Media Reviews...

Doom Patrol... sucks. I borrowed the first three seasons from the library, watched the first one and returned the other two unwatched. None of the characters are interesting or likable... I mean, I've never liked Cyborg in any iteration I've seen him in. I didn't like him back when I used to read Teen Titans comics, and this version absolutely did not make me like him. I really only saw the season out to see if it could recover and win me over. It did not.

So instead I finished watching Miss S. I enjoyed that more overall. I think it does suffer from the fact that the subtitles on SBS On Demand are absolutely fucking awful, but mostly it suffers from the lead actress being out performed by literally every single other person on screen. It also suffers because they took what were hour long episodes and stretched them out to an hour and a half. And it very often shows the gap between the source material and the additions.

But overall it was watchable.

Otherwise I spent a chunk of time working on the crochet "thneed" for Ma. And it's very much that, because I have no idea how it's going to come together. Which is what comes of making something up with literally no pattern or plan and just winging it.

What I did realise is that the piece I started last Saturday was just not right for a number of reasons, so I tied that one off and called it a scarf. And then started over and have had a much more enjoyable time.

Friday was Chiro Day... rescheduled Chiro Day from last week. And my usual Wandering Around Stores. I finally got some kind of clarity from Dymocks about the new PHB... turns out the company they get those books from requires a minimum order and they're not actually at the minimum order yet. To which I say... just order more stuff. But at least I know that wheels are in motion. Mostly thanks to the woman from last month who never called me like she said she was going to, but still.

There was no Friday Night DnD this week, as previously discussed.

Anyway...

Today was... one of those two days a year that are very annoying because they close roads that shouldn't be fucking closed.

Granted it still wasn't hugely disruptive to the trip to the supermarket, it was more irritating and Ma had to detour on her way home which isn't ideal.

But we also managed to both spend more than usual and save a lot. Partially because I think we bought things we might not otherwise have bought had they not already been on special. So there's that.

Afterwards, neither of us really wanted to deal with the road closures, so I pulled up something on YouTube again, and we just hung out for a bit. I did also end up working on the crochet project just a little.

And that was that really.

character saturday: wicked fairy warlock

This is a DnD Character Colouring Book story that starts back with this purple fellow... and ends with me spending too much time making our friend Malevolence here. Because when I started thinking about the first character I wanted to play with the 2024 rules, Warlock was definitely up there. As was tiefling. But then I went, as I've also done a few times recently... hey, aasimar also exists.

So I did a different warlock that was an aasimar. And was essentially the Level 10 version of Mal, but with blonde hair and regular coloured skin. Once I added the pseudodragon (because, yes, I will have a pseudodragon familiar at some point eventually), I realised the colouring was absolutely giving me Maleficent coding. And as much as I loved the idea of an aasimar, what really made more sense was to go fully into my second favourite Disney villain coding (behind Ursula... because, of course).

Because what had just been plain old Mal the aasimar became Malevolence the tiefling. And yes, the psuedodragon is called Carabosse aka Cara, which is the name of the "wicked fairy" in some versions of Sleeping Beauty. Because that's exactly the kind of nerd I am.

There were also a number of Photoshop versions, because the spear doesn't exist as is in Hero Forge, it's actually cobbled together from three different items. And getting Carabosse right took a minute, since you can't pose familiars on the shoulder like that.

I also started playing around with other thoughts, because if we were starting these characters out at Level 3 for an intro story, then doing a jump to Level 10 for the main adventure, that would be a large period of time... and, honestly, my DnD characters don't actually swap out to a new outfit as often as I'd like. So I set about designing the Level 3 version. Also because the original design had the Henley shirt, but editing out the sleeves was a pain, so I just swapped it out. And I'm vaguely obsessed with that shoulder harness. As evidenced here and here. Plus I just liked the idea that Cara used it to perch on if she wasn't on his shoulder.

Plus because of the badge which exists for story reasons, the vibe did kind of come across as police detective, which I'm absolutely not mad at.

And that led me his backstory... where I also developed a bunch of NPC characters to potentially furnish DM Fluffy with when we got there. Which of course lead to Hero Forge models of not just them, but also the early teen version of Mal.

And of course I had to include halfling twins... and have Bingo be deaf so that I had an excuse for Mal to know sign language, which is a new language in the 2024 rules. I've also mentioned before that I'm obsessed with the skirt on Sunny, I've used it so many times before I'm not even going to start putting links in. But then the combination of that with the new sleeveless turtleneck, double obsessed. I will have to reuse it for something at some point.

So, yeah, all that work and then I really just went "but I'm playing a Charisma based caster currently, do I really want to play another Charisma caster in the next one"... to which the answer is, seemingly, barbarian.

Anyway...

This week was slightly a mess.

Let's start with Mini Media Reviews. I started off with Venom The Last Dance. Which, admittedly, made be tear up at the end. But it was also infinitely better than the second one. But as with basically all three movies, I'm seldom really that invested in the overarching villain plot, because they're all a bit... m'eh. I am, however, deeply invested in Venom and Eddie and their relationship. And this one definitely has more of that.

And then, because I'd been considering it for the last couple of weeks, and didn't have anything else I was desperate to watch, stared on Miss S. Which is set in China in the 1930's and is a series of murder mysteries. The thing that it immediately reminded me of was Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, although I never watched any of that show. But after I'd watched a bunch of episodes of Miss S, I looked up Miss Fisher, only to discover that the plots were basically identical. Turns out it was an actual remake, not just a rip off, and the people behind the Miss Fisher series acted as creative consultants with Miss S.

I will say that the acting and either the scripts or the subtitles are occasionally a little questionable. The original shows were an hour long, and they've stretched these out to two hours. So sometimes the additional are incredibly obvious. Most of the cast is excellent but the weakest link, weirdly, is the titular Miss S.

I am slightly obsessed with the costuming and the set design/backlot they're filming on. The costumes because they're absolutely trying for a 1930's look, but most of the time (especially in the menswear) using slightly fashion forward modern items that have a vague 1930's style. And I'm obsessed, as I said.

I went out to replace my hair clippers after discovering that the guard was broken. So I went out to Big W, found the one that I'd looked up online, left and literally on the way back to the car discovered that it was one you had to plug in, despite none of the images on the box appearing that way. I could have taken it back into the store, but I also literally couldn't be bothered, given that the clippers were everything else I wanted. And it worked out fine, it's just a little bit more of a rigamarole that involves and extension cord.

Friday Night DnD was not actually DnD. Fluffy is off Doing Things And Having Experiences, so he'll be out the next two weeks, but I still went down to Mr and Mrs on Friday. We played some DnD themed Clue, which was my first instance of actually playing Clue. It's... a slightly weirder game mechanic than I was expecting, but interesting. I did not solve the mystery, but I had a good time.

After that Mrs and I watched the last two episodes of Season 6A of Teen Wolf. Which was fun. And ended up taking about the same amount of time as DnD and I got home after midnight.

Anyway...

Well, we're here. It's gunna be soup season this week.

I'm mostly making something up that involves chicken and rice and vegetables and tomato. But it will at least be soup. Yay.

Otherwise we just did the usual supermarketry, then came back here an puttered around. I promised Ma I would make her a version of the folded shrug thing I made at the end of last winter using left over yarn that she just had sitting around, so I told her to bring it down this week. And I just ended up throwing an old Miss Marple miniseries on that happened to live on YouTube for colour and movement and ended up starting the shrug thing.

So there's that.

character saturday: barbarian buttons

A character sometimes starts with a single thought. In this case, the thought was... "what if Barbarian, but old lady". Not an original thought, I grant you. But I wanted to make more of an unexpected Barbarian after a lot of... let's be frank, very obvious ones.

So, for the last DnD Character Colouring Book Barbarian March we have Kordela "Dela" Buttons. Pronounced "day-la". An aasimar, a travelling merchant who sells ribbons and buttons and threads and... things. Notions, basically. Or the equivalent of a haberdasher in other places. Which is also why I added in the backpack, which I wouldn't normally do, but I figure that's mostly her wares.

I also revisited Granny Thornback for the general idea around the costume. But then Hero Forge dropped some cute straw hats and that kind of cemented the character a little more.

Dela is married to a tiefling, Mr Buttons (I'm still workshopping the full name), and the idea that if they had any children, those children were just 100% human, having either inherited none of their parent's unique heritage, or just having the aasimar and tiefling genes cancel each other out.

I'm playing around with the idea of her encountering either the actual Norns or just three creatures standing in for Norns. Worshippers of the Norns maybe? And they tell her fortune or otherwise provide her with information about needing to be at a certain place at a certain time. And they give her the axe in return for her sharing her fire and food and campsite.

Am I also cribbing minor ideas from The Wicked + The Divine and American Gods? Absolutely.

She's also very much the frontrunner right now. Tied with the tiefling from a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway.

This week's Mini Media Review is basically American Gods Season 3. And it's a huge shame that they're not going to be doing a final season. That's happened twice now. Westworld and this both missed out on a final season that would have tied all the threads together.

But I liked the third season. Favourite character definitely Technical Boy. But I like what they were doing with Bilquis this season. Honestly, the least interesting bits are actually the main Mr Wednesday plotline.

I managed to stumble my way through a matching hat to go with the scarf I made for Fluffy last week. I'm... less good at hats. It's fine. It's definitely a beanie.

And he has them both now, and was very happy, so that's the main thing.

Friday Night DnD happened. It won't be happening for the next two weeks, and then the next week will be Good Friday, so who knows.

It was very much a tale of two halves. My boy was going perfect normal things in a perfectly normal village talking to perfectly normal people...

And the other two were absolutely falling into weird holes and talking to gods and being big, big weirdos.

On the plus side, I stopped half the town burning down. And am not currently having emotional PTSD.  So there's that. Plus I'm absolutely claiming the abandoned building that I prevented from burning down as a headquarters.

Anyway...

Today wasn't hugely exciting. The usual supermarketry. Although, after having searched literally anywhere for the older style of Sodastream bottles, suddenly they were back on the shelf. And for some reason they didn't have a price in their system, so they gave them to us for WAY cheaper than they should have been. Woo.

But because the Universe must balance, nobody had the pizza bases I like.

After that, while we didn't really want anything, I just wanted to get out the house and do a good solid Looking At Things. So we did the Big W/Kmart loop. And that was it really.

character saturday: barbarian bear

Because I've been doing a lot of what I like to call Character Sketches of late for my potential first 2024 character, this week's DnD Character Colouring Book Barbarian March has been through some iterations.

Originally the design was done for one of the former DnD Thursday friend, Samwise, while he was having Character Indecision. The original pose wasn't mine, but I did tweak it because the original wasn't quite working for me.

So I made a dual bladed wizard for Samwise. And then when he moved on to other ideas, because, honestly, I love him but he's a poster child for distraction, I ended up revisiting that character and turning it into yet another Aasimar Barbarian. But I was also reaching a limit on Aasimar. So I went back to my first loves. Halflings.

 I changed the whole head, and the weapon (because as much as I liked the spear/pike that the Aasimar version was holding, there's something about a big ass axe), and swapped the shoes out for the same leg wraps as Havok had. And there was a little Photoshop fuckery to increase the size of the head of the axe.

The roses that tied the initial character to Chauntea, tie this one to her halfling equivalent, Sheela Peryroyl.

And he's one of those characters who I don't necessarily have a handle on a specific backstory, but I absolutely have a handle on a general vibe and I don't think it would take much to turn that into a backstory.

His parents were druids or clerics (probably druids, honestly, given his background feat provides him with knowledge of a couple of druid cantrips and a spell) of Peryroyl, he grew up in a temple in the wilderness, and while he felt no specific pull to follow the family calling, he did feel drawn to the wilder aspects of the goddess, the wild untamed lands and wild beasts. He started acting as an escort and guard for various halfling worshippers who came to the temple and travelled to many places.

And that's basically just me thinking on my feet. I'm not sure that Chasing-Bear is his original surname, so I might need to come up with an origin for that. Or, just lean into it.

I've also done the 2014 version of the Wild Heart Barbarian, so I'm not sure that this would actually be my choice for a 2024 character, I'm just very much enjoying his whole vibe right now.

Anyway...

Was this week something of a hot mess? A little.

Mini Media Reviews to begin. I tried to start with The Boy And The Heron. I put it on on Saturday night...  and promptly succumbed to Ghibli Nap. I don't fully understand why, but a lot of Ghibli movies just start lulling me to sleep. And I realised about halfway through that I hadn't been paying attention for about ten minutes and had instead been reading the insides of my eyelids.

As soon as I turned it off and started doing other things, I was perfectly fine. So I gave up for the evening.

Next up was the 2019 version of Charlie's Angels. A movie that doesn't know how to either Charlie nor Angel properly. The script is laughably bad, there is literally no dramatic tension in working out who the bad guy is. Because it's so very clear from the first 5 minutes. The movie does try to pull a "it's not X, instead it's Y", but that also feels incredibly fucking obvious also.

In the 2000 movie inside of the first 3 minutes you know the names of all the women, you know what their history is, how they got to be who they are and what their whole deal is. In this movie... I know one of the characters was called Jane. Because it's the most boring name ever. I remember neither of the other characters. The movie wants to be both About Serious Things and also comedic. It fails at both. It's trying very hard to be Misogyny Is Bad: The Motion Picture, because the only "good" male characters are ineffectual idiots that contribute nothing to the plot.

Monday I managed to actually stay awake through The Boy And The Heron. Mostly because I was crocheting at the same time. More on that in a second.

Later in the week I watched Shin Ultraman. I haven't interacted with Ultraman previously, although I did watch the Shin Godzilla movie, which is part of the same collaborative project, if not the same cinematic universe. In much the same way that Shin Godzilla was a comedy without actually being a comedy, I didn't really understand the vibe this movie was going for. Especially since you have one character, Asami, who is absolutely an insane person. Not least of all because she keeps grabbing her own ass.

And because Friday was cancelled (more on that later), I did a double header of Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person and The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales. Both delightful in their own way.

HVSCSP is a dark comedy that is very French, but in a... suburban French way that I don't often come across in movies. If you'd told me this was a French Canadian movie I would have believed you, which isn't a dig at either country. Also, the male lead is definitely French Tom Holland, so I'm not mad about that. As much as I was slightly frustrated by the titular vampire for not wanting to bite people, I also realise that's the point of the movie. I did very much like the end though.

The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales is incredibly sweet. It's three animated stories that were originally intended to be half-hour TV specials, but were grouped together with a very loose framing device. Of the three stories, I think they potentially decrease as they go. I liked the first story very much, the second (and titular) story is sweet but a little repetitive, and the third one... well, that one would be good in December.

Monday I started working on a ribbing scarf for Fluffy that I told him I'd make him if he bought the yarn for it. He only did that about a month ago. So I was working on that on and off during the week. And started it on the same day that Fluffy went to get another tattoo that he didn't tell me about until he was literally in the chair. Which is an improvement on last time when he didn't tell me for literally weeks afterwards. Is there a requirement that he tells me? I mean, no... but also yes, so that I can both share in the excitement of upcoming tattoo and also live vicariously through him. And, also... not telling when it's MY BIRTHDAY WEEK... jail. Straight to jail.

Back to the scarf... It came out well. I still haven't 100% mastered the art of stitch it together in a way that looks good to me. And this should have. I married up all the stitches and did a ladder stitch between them all... and yet, it's still slightly on wonk somehow. And I did it three fucking times. The last was the best of the three, and yet still not 100%.

But now I have my Ketchup Red scarf and Fluffy will have his Mustard Yellow scarf... and if we go anywhere wearing them together (which mostly will be to Friday Night DnD), we will be Condiment Scarf Twins. Which I'm fine with.

I am planning to attempt a beanie with the remaining ball. The last attempt at a beanie was... questionable. I'm sure this attempt will also be... questionable. But at least then I've made him a beanie.

I also reorganised my books a little in order to get the books Fluffy gave me for my birthday, and all the other books that were currently sitting on top of other books, actually on a shelf properly. I ended up pulling out the three book safes that were mostly just taking up space.

There was no Friday Night DnD this week due to small people problems, but Fluffy and I also didn't do anything because he was sick... so DnD wouldn't have happened regardless.

Anyway...

Today wasn't much of anything. We did the usual Supermarket thing, came back here and I ended up putting on The Big Bad Fox. And that was that really.

character saturday: barbarian berseker

Back in 2020 [makes sign against the Evil Eye], before one of the previous sourcebooks came out, I was dabbling in ideas and came up with Wrath, Path of the Beast Barbarian. Consider Havoc to be the 2025 evolution of that idea. And also today's entry for Week 3 of DnD Character Colouring Book Barbarian March.

I don't know exactly what the allure of an angry albino tiefling barbarian is, but I'm absolutely here for it.

Havoc's backstory is still a little vague... the original idea was some sort of mash up of The Count of Monte Cristo... but, honestly, when you start to pick apart the inciting incident to that story, it gets very complicated. So right now I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with his backstory.

The other interesting thing about Havoc is that I could very easily switch up his subclass to any of the ones from the new PHB with very little tweaking.

Patience, his greatsword, is the result of a little bit of Photoshop fuckery, plus somewhere in that idea that is a catchphrase about "trying his patience" or "running out of patience" or something similar. I don't know exactly what it is yet, but it's in there somewhere.

I was also very proud of myself with his posing too. It's not hugely complex, but it came together just right.

Anyway...

This week's Mini Movie Reviews are definitely a mixed bag... I started out with Season 2 of American Gods, still loving Mad Sweeney but also definitely coming around on Technology Boy.

Next up, I took a little detour after having recommended the 2002 version of The Importance of Being Earnest to Fluffy, and watched it later that night. It's still very good.

And lastly I did Paris Police 1905, which I actually liked more than 1900 season. Whether that was because this was much less anti-Semitism and much more sex workers and homosexuals. Everything is still incredibly terrible for everybody concerned, but I enjoyed it more overall.

This week was My Birthday Week... but honestly, it essentially boiled down to Friday and today.

Friday I did my usual loop to Baker's Delight and Boost Juice to get my free stuff and make people in shops wish me Happy Birthday. So I came home with a nice cheese and chive scone and a King William Chocolate Boost.

Yes please and thank you for free stuff.

Fluffy got me both the Wolfsong book that was Very Important To Me in 2023, along with it's sequel, Ravensong, which I haven't gotten to yet, because it was, and I quote, "annoying me that you didn't have a copy of it".

And then there might have been a brief but deep conversation that followed.

Then it was off to Friday Night DnD. Small child of the Mr and Mrs house had felt compelled to make me "a card", which was very sweet. I also got another Dymocks voucher, so I'll put that to good use eventually.

Actual Friday Night DnD was... slightly less chaotic than I was expecting it to perhaps be. We dispatched the last of the bad guys and cashed in some quests, which was good.

It did lead to my boy perhaps revealing more of his backstory than I'd expected to this early.

We do now need to forcibly extract Mrs character's backstory... since she's the only one still sitting on secrets.

Anyway...

Today started like it always does, with the supermarket. Then we killed some time before heading out to Spotlight to actually do the thing we tried to do last week. This time successfully.

And then we went to The Republic Norwood for Birthday Lunch. I had the fried chicken burger, Ma had the fried halloumi burger. Should I have gone with my original plan to get a schnitzel? Very possibly. Did I only learn just now that they have a much more reasonably priced lunch menu that only exists from Monday to Friday? Also yes. 

Was it still very tasty? Absolutely. And the service was excellent.

character saturday: barbarian barmaid

Welcome to Week 2 of DnD Character Colouring Book Barbarian March. So, in my explorations for potential new characters I've had to narrow down my race/species choices given that I've already played a drow, a gnome, a dwarf and a human in Friday Night DnD.

But also the only one that I've never played is the Aasimar. So there's been a lot of poking around that idea. Which brings us to Agnetha Aledaughter, or Aggie. Much like last week, she's an Aasimar Zealot Barbarian. I did originally have her as just a dwarf and a World Tree Barbarian, but then I stumbled across Hanseath, Dwarven god of carousing, brewery, and singing... who also happens to be a war god.

The single line in the info about him that sold me was... "Hanseath's herald was a celestial dwarf, this servant also being an unimaginably powerful barbarian."

So after about half a dozen versions, all of which required a lot of messing around in Photoshop, I circled back around to more or less where I started. Just the minor details changed. Weirdly, any time I took the muttonchop sideburns off her she looked wrong.

And the pewter tankard acts as her shield for the purposes of mechanics.

Anyway...

This week's Mini Media Reviews where accidentally good choices. Mostly I was looking for something to fill in the gaps until Season 2 of American Gods showed up.

First up was Three Star Bar (aka Three Star Bar in Nishi Ogikubo aka Nishiogikubo Mitsuboshi Youshudou). A short, six episode series where the episodes are only about half an hour long. But it's SO good. Turns out it's adapted from a manga, which makes perfect sense, and it made me cry. It's very much one of those "person stumbles into a store/bar exactly at the point they need to" stories.

But I really enjoyed it.

I followed that up with Paris Police 1900. Which was... much more intense. It's all based on real world people and events involved with the fallout from the Dreyfus Affair. Basically it's a lot of terrible people doing terrible things. There's a second season which takes place 5 years later, and I will probably watch that at some point. It's very well made, full of fantastic performances, but is occasionally hard to watch because of the aforementioned terrible people doing terrible things. Even the supposed hero isn't immune to that and becomes more of a schmuck as the show progresses.

I also tried watching the 1994 miniseries of The Stand. Which is nearly unwatchable. I got maybe 4 hours into the 6 hour miniseries and just noped out of the last part because I just couldn't do it anymore. I can't tell if the issue was King's writing, the direction or the actor, but it was bad.

We can also reset the Yani Fall Down counter. It's a long story, it's mostly dull... but it wasn't on my walk this time. It was because while I remembered that there is a section around the back of the apartment complex that it at a different level to the rest of it, I then forgot that fact 37 seconds later and fell up the step. Which is, admittedly, better than falling down the step. But also, fucking hell.

Thankfully this week was also Chiro Day... so at the very least everything that got shaken up got put back in the right place.

Friday Night DnD was a slight comedy of terrible rolls. But also managing to shank the miniboss of the area in one surprise round.

Do I regret giving our DM ammunition that allowed him to tie my backstory to a later story boss... slightly. But at the same time, I was much less tied into the villains in the previous campaign, so at least it's something different.

We're also essentially past the only bits of the story that I was previously aware of thanks to a couple of Adventurers League games back in the day.

However we do keep ending games with my character up to his nipples in trouble. Which I don't hate.

Anyway.

Today was not terribly exciting. The usual supermarket nonsense, then we made a brief run to Spotlight, but that was it really.