character saturday: scarlet trickster

I could legitimately make a whole cast of characters out of the thieves guild that my boy Whisper is a part of. I already have him as a sorcerer, there's the NPC that turned into a rogue PC, Hark/Herald. But after what happened to Whisper's graph paper fuckbuddy, we probably needed a cleric, just in case.

And of course the easiest way to introduce a potential cleric is to lean on The Crimson Gentlemen. Because Trickery Clerics exist.

Originally he had a slightly different name, pulled from the list of Timelord names. But I realised as I was putting the finishing touches on the image earlier that a title that indicates that he's a sailor or pirate or privateer doesn't really match up with his general vibe. So I went looking at religious titles.

And of course The Cardinal works on a couple of levels. Because Cardinals are clergy who dress in red. Also they act as an advisor, which would work for this character also.

Now, is The Cardinal kind of a recycled pose/mini based on a previous NPC. Yes. As I've said previously, why not recycle things I've already made if they aren't really going to see an active life as a character.

My thought process is also that he's actually wearing Glamored Studded Leather to stand in for the usual Crimson Gentlemen uniform.

Have I complained any time recently that we need better buckler shields from Hero Forge. Because this is the only one we currently have.

Anyway...

This week's soup was Tomato, Chicken and Rice. Always a good option.

The Mini Media Reviews start off with acknowledging that I've been playing Red Dead Redemption 2 for a full two months at this point. I'm very near the end of the epilogue story and honestly having a great time encountering all of the locations that I semi remember from the first game. Certain locations just stuck in my mind, and once I saw them again I had such a nostalgia rush.

I still have major issues with the fact that the game narrative and the game's open world are at odds with each other. Because the story wants to believe that John, the epilogue character, is desperate for cash because you no longer have access to Arthur's money and have taken out a bunch of loans to buy land and build a house... but with very little effort just bopping around the map I could pay off all of those loans instantly. And the game narrative does not care. It has very specific ideas about how and when I can do things that will pay back those loans and the amount of disposable income in my pocket matters not one bit.

Likewise, because you're running around the main main from the first game, just in an earlier timeframe, there really aren't story missions or things that you can really do. Narratively it also doesn't make that much sense that you're already running around the location that you then "discover" in the first game.

Now, do I want them to actually remaster the old game with the engine from this game? Yes, yes I fucking do. Because I'd play the shit out of it.

Do I want an offshoot game about Sadie Adler, a side character from this game... fuck yes. Honestly that would have made brilliant DLC. Because she's doing a bunch of bounty stuff in the background, and shows up occasionally in the post game... and it would be so easy to do a couple of storyline chains with her, maybe add a large number of bounty targets... stuff like that.

In other media...

I watched Cyrano from 2021 with the ever talented Peter Dinklage. Don't get me wrong, it's a terrible movie. It's a musical that absolutely should not be a musical. Not least of all because every single song is instantly forgettable. But it would have been such a good straight drama. Also, I had a specific issue when the trailer for it first came out... Dinklage was 52 when this was made. Bennett, who plays Roxannne, was 33... an age gap of 19 years. The character's are canonically "childhood friends". Ummm... what? He was a full adult when she was a child. At no point were they ever children at the same time. Even worse when the other lead is 27.

I followed that up with another viewing of The Wild Robot. God that's such a good movie. I will also say that the point in the movie where I loose it isn't actually the end. It's the flight training montage. Yup. It was also interesting seeing it again now having read the books.

I rounded out the week with the first season of Versaille. Having recently watched The Serpent Queen... I was very on board for more royal French hijinks. Even if there's about 100 years difference between the two kings.

But it's very bitchy and full of court intrigue and sexy fun and all the good stuff. I already have the second season to watch this week and the third season is on it's way. Plus it doesn't hurt that the actor playing the king is real damn hot.

Otherwise this week was... odd. And tiring. Less so Monday, because public holiday.

But Tuesday and Wednesday I had to go Do A Thing. Which admittedly took less time each day than I was expecting, but was also just borderline annoying enough to be a capital t Thing. Sadly it will keep being A Thing for several weeks.

As a result, I gave myself a little reward on Wednesday night and let Slut Winter (as I'm now calling it for at least the foreseeable future) continue with a trip to the sauna. Which, if mentions on the blog are to be believed, I haven't been to since 2016. Which is entirely plausible. I think there might have been a visit in mid 2017, but nothing since then.

Partly I went because it was the twice a month Bear Night... which I used to attend when it was on Sunday afternoons/evenings... the Wednesday thing is a little less chill, and in this particular instance a little more sparsely populated. Did I have fun? I did. I ran into the guy who told me about it, who it turns out I'd hooked up with at some point at Portrush Road... and have literally no memory of. Whoops... I'mma bad slut. He didn't much seem to care honestly, and we had an enjoyable little play session... it was also nice to have somebody I could circle back to and gossip with at various points.

It was interesting seeing the changes they've made, although the ones upstairs, not really a fan... the ones downstairs, fan... except for all the big screen playing porn everywhere... gay men at a sauna are like Mogwai... we no like bright light. Big porn TV... bright light, bright light.

It's also slightly strange to me that the silver hair I now have added to the scruff beard I've been sporting since 2017 plus the fact it was Bear Night might have helped fill out my dance card a little more than usual. Or it was just me having no fucks left to give. Or both.

It did lead to some interesting instances.

But the following day I was wandering through the Gentlemen's Apps and noticed not one, not two, but three of the guys I'd interacted with the previous night... one of whom I immediately messaged because I wanted me some more of that thank you. Which might happen. We'll see. It was very much one of those instances where the guy says something about himself in conversation and you think "yeah, that explains those four or five things I was wondering about... makes perfect fucking sense".

But suffice to say, Slut Winter continues. Hopefully to transition into the much more alliterative Slut Spring.

Friday Night DnD was... the third dungeon in a row. Yep, another big map full of corridors and grey rooms of various sizes. So just combat after combat after combat... my least favourite part.

It wasn't terrible, it's just gotten a little bit samey... but thus is the prewritten adventure.

Anyway...

Today... rain. Honestly, we had all the rain a week ago, then it was actually really pleasant this week. Today. Rain. All morning. So basically it was just a supermarket morning, and I sent Ma home in between bouts of rain. 

character saturday: gentleman bandit

So almost immediately after posting last week's "sketch" of my Red Dead 2 Dragonborn, I fully revised him and came up with something much more appropriate to both my actual RD2 look for Arthur as well as being less of just a mash up of two previous characters.

There would probably be a big heavy leather coat that went over this to count as "armour" though. It would also be nice if Hero Forge had better jackets... And also the ability to have more than two layers. But that's a problem for another day.

And the shirt isn't perfect, but the number of shirts that actually work with that necklace is a very short list.

I also realised that he was definitely a Ranger/Rogue hybrid. Or maybe even just a ranger.  

Anyway...

This week's soup was actually tuna mornay... perhaps not the spiciest version. And it always starts out spicy and then mellows out during the week.

Mini Media Reviews for this week...

Red Dead 2 continues in the post game content. Did I get a little emotional at certain points when John encounters people that had a connection with Arthur... yes, yes I did. Mostly notably the woman who Arthur encounters in the late game and teaches how to survive. Just seeing her thriving was almost enough.

Otherwise... I finished the second season of The Alienist. Much of what I said last week followed through the last couple of episodes. Honestly, the whole season would have benefited from a little condensing, because I was kind of over it a little the end.

Speaking of things that were... questionable. The Legend of Hercules. Now, I knew going in that that was going to be questionable. But it managed to sink to even lower than I expected.

Followed by Legion of Super-Heroes. Which was... okay. The character of Kara/Supergirl was slightly annoying, and the whole beginning section was kind of unnecessary set up. But it was fine.

It wasn't a good run because next up was High Society. Now, I absolutely adore The Philadelphia Story, love it. And this is the exact same story. Allegedly. It's the same story with all the joy and fun sucked out of it. Because they really just cram a bunch of songs in that don't actually have anything to do with the plot and don't advance the story in any way. It also refocuses the plot around the two men.

Fortunately I got to A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. Which was actually really lovely. I spent the first half an hour with a big dumb smile on my face, and the ending got surprisingly emotional based on where we started out.

Last up I watched Sabrina, the original 1954 version. As as much as I like Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, I wanted to slap every single character. Because everybody acts dumb in that movie. Plus the age gap love story thing is always weird.

In the TMI section of the blog... the slutty phase somewhat continued. Not to quite the degree as last week. And the universe is clearly up to something, because I also managed to hook up with somebody who I've seen around online for a very long time.

It was a weird week generally all things considered. Winter just appeared, and with it large amounts of rain.

There was no Friday Night DnD this week, which I knew was happening, but had forgotten until midway through the week. And because Fluffy has the constitution of a frail Victorian orphan, and the weather was as previously indicated, we didn't to movies either.

Anyway...

Today was Ma's pre birthday... As in, it's her birthday tomorrow.

So we did the supermarket thing, and then afterwards we went to San Churro for brunch. Which turned out to be a good choice because today is also National Churro Day, which meant that the first 1000 customers got an order of free churros. But mostly I was there for the Spanish Hot Chocolate.

Not very exciting, but enjoyable. 

character saturday: dragonborn cowboy

We can blame Fluffy once again for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book. Admittedly, I did just smush together Professor Jhar from 2023 and Roscoe Brushgather from last year... I even pinched Roscoe's background.

Any why, you ask, did I need a dragonborn cowboy?

Because I finished the main story in Red Dead Redemption 2 on Friday. And I cried. Oh, how I cried. Fully on chin quiver cry. Damn it's a good game. That I've been playing since at least April 11 based on the first achievement I got. I did a White Hat run, and I could consider trying to play a Black Hat run at some point. But it would be a long while. And I'd probably just run the story missions straight through without wandering off as I'm want to do.

The main character, Arthur is so well written, well acted, such a good character that while Fluffy and I agreed last night that he would be almost impossible to really do as a DnD character, there is certainly a vibe your could bring across, as well as some of the minor details.

And when a sad, mournful song came on the supermarket playlist this morning, I did idly wonder how you would put together that character. What race works... I mean human is too obvious. What races say that kind of complicated but honorable man that Arthur is... gotta be dragonborn.

I will admit, that this is probably not the final version of the idea. The costume isn't completely working for me, but it worked well enough for a proof of concept for the time being. So our boy Anthar might be back. Especially since I just realised he should have the Criminal background, not the Outlander one.

Anyway...

Chicken noodle soup this week. Good, not overly memorable, and I was a little distracted while making it, but it was nice and brothy, which is always nice.

This week's Mini Media Reviews.

Firstly, let's circle back to Red Dead Redemption 2. A game that absolutely fights with itself between the wonderful story elements and the actual gameplay. Oh, there's a cut scene featuring a massive confrontation between two characters? Oh, I can't actually talk to either of them about it except in the most generic terms? Oh, there are story threads left all over the place? Oh, there was so much care and attention put into this one random event, but these other 9 things are largely thrown away without much care or thought? Oh, there is very clearly another 25 hours of gameplay that got cut at some point and never saw the light of day. Dangling threads a plenty.

The game really comes into it's own in the third act honestly. Once something specific happens to Arthur, it changes his complete outlook, and potentially that of many players, that's where I feel like the game really hits it's stride. So much incredible writing.

It just needs to occasionally get out of it's own way.

I watched Morbius. I don't necessarily get the problem everybody had with it at the time. It's not amazing, sure, but it's mostly servicable. And the effects are pretty decent. The problems generally tend to be when you hire Jared Leto, and to a lesser degree, Matt Smith, I just spend the whole time just seeing the actors. Not that, honestly, many of the Marvel movies manage that in any great way. But it was kind of prevalent here. So perfectly watchable.

Next up, Red Sparrow. Goddamn, Jennifer Lawrence is just amazing. If there's a weak point here, it's absolutely Joel Edgerton, but as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. Long, but brilliantly acted and still managed to slightly surprise me at the end.

Then there was The House With A Clock In Its Walls. Entirely too long a title... and honestly, barely really even a clock. But a very decent family movie. Jack Black doesn't Jack Black too hard and Cate Blanchett meets him on a level playing field. Decent.

I got most of the way through the second season of The Alienist, which it turns out that I have actually read, but have absolutely no memory of. This season is decent though. I still think that Fanning is absolutely the weak link in the cast, much like the first season. She just has one singular expression regardless of what is going on.

Moving along somewhat...

I did the big rental inspection clean up on Sunday and Monday and then took myself out of the apartment on Tuesday morning, first to Kmart, where I found the Waffle Pants. Can I just pontificate about the Waffle Pants from Kmart for a second please? They're technically "sleep pants" and they have a matching long sleeved top, but I knew of the pants from a guy on Twitter, and when I felt how ridiculously soft and amazing they were, I had to buy them immediately. Best decision I've made in a minute. Literally do yourself a favour.

Also, remember how I said last week that I was "going through a very slutty phase right now"... yeah, Last Week's Yani did not know the literal half of it. Usual TMI rules apply.

I may hosted several different gentlemen this week, hooked up with the same guy three different times, had one of the guys from last week back for a return visit, and a second return visitor from a while back over at the end of the week. I may have had to start making a list to keep the order of things sorted in my head.

Did I wear myself out a little by the end of the week? Yes. Did I have a hell of a good time? Also yes.

Friday Night DnD happened... it was a near miss, but we got there.

It was supposed to be a quick wrap up with the secondary group of characters and then back to the main group... turned out to be the opposite. But we got there eventually. My boy Whisper now runs a town. And my girl Molly's new terrifying flesh wings are... good for hovering. Which, honestly, is about what I expected.

Anyway...

Today was somewhat dodging between buckets of rain.

We did the supermarket thing, came back to mine, big rain. Went off to Kmart to get a second set of the Waffle Pants, big rain. And it's been doing big rain on an off all afternoon. 

 

character saturday: breezy boy

The other half of the NPCs turned PCs from last week. And this one I honestly had more of a take on creating. Plus I was very pleased by the results.

To tell the truth, this is just a tweak of Havoc. Because I have so many nicely posed and detailed characters that it just makes sense to use those as a starting point for new characters. Especially when the character probably won't otherwise see the light of day.

The result of this though was that this character just spoke to Fluffy (even if he missed some of the details)... which I was pleased by since I also made up the character sheet mostly out of nothing.

Anyway...

Lasagne soup this week... and a very good version of same.

This week's Mini Media Reviews...

I started with the miniseries The Line Of Beauty, based on the book of the same name by Alan Hollinghurst. Now I've never read the book, but I have read The Swimming Pool Library, a couple of times I think. And the issue generally with Hollinghurst that while he's writing about a specific time, place and social group in gay British history, his books are often very fucking depressing mixed with some fairly graphic sex scenes. This was very much that. A lot of horrible people being horrible to each other and the occasional sex scene. Kinda hard to watch, especially at the end when everything goes to hell. 

Next up on the Hard To Watch scale, the second season of In The Flesh. Still very good. Still a very clear queer allegory. But also an allegory to the general rise of conservatism. Kinda sad that they never got the third season that they were setting up for, because there's a whole secondary plotline in this season that really goes nowhere without it.

Lastly, Lovecraft Country. Which was fascinating, but I will fully admit, is a full 80% less Lovecraftian than I was perhaps expecting. It's also very Racism is Bad M'kay... again, not a bad thing, it's just occasionally a little heavy handed with the 1950's of it all. Narratively it is a little bit of a mess, it's based on what is essentially a book of interconnected short stories, so the story does swing around wildly from one thing to another. I also don't particularly like how it treated the small amount of queer content, based on the time period and the character involved.

I've reached that point in Red Dead Redemption 2 where the rollercoaster has started the long descent into terror and grief and badness. And it's kind of amazing. The disconnect between the actual story beats and the open world stuff is still staggering to me though. Major story events will happen and nobody around you really seems to react all that much.

I will say that some of the best side story missions are happening currently. Ones that have an actual emotional impact. Whereas I really don't want to do the main story quests at the moment. Especially because the game likes to mark a certain NPC as the one to talk to and they don't get a whole sentence out before somebody else comes up to talk to you and gives you a whole different mission. It gets annoying.

I also supposedly still have 30% of the game left to play.

Speaking of rollercoasters... This is your TMI warning... feel free to skip over this next bit.

I'm going through a very slutty phase right now hehe. I'm basically had more gentleman callers since Mother's Day than I've had for like several months previous. Admittedly, I didn't really have many callers before that. But I did host a very sexy straight boy who was half my age last Saturday night. And yesterday I finally got to hook up with a guy I've been lusting after for a very long time (I don't even want to say how long honestly). We've chatted back and forth several times, but he's about half an hour away from me, so it just never came together. Until yesterday. Damn but he was worth the wait and the slightly terrifying drive on the freeway. 

Interestingly a couple of the other guys who came to play have expressed an interest in a return visit. So, fingers crossed.

Thus endeth the TMI.

There was no Friday Night DnD this week... for reasons. I was a little wiped out after the fun morning honestly, so an early night didn't hurt. 

Anyway...

Not much to report from today. Just the supermarket really.

movies: the sheep detectives

The trailer to The Sheep Detectives basically sold this movie to me back when it first dropped. I didn't expect it to, but it was actually really charming and looked like a good time.

The movie itself ends up being much more rounded and deeper than I was expecting it to be. I thought it was mostly going to be a big broad comedy, and there are parts of that, but it's also thoughtful and emotive.

The cast, both live action and voice acting are mostly strong. I will say that Hugh Jackman who plays the shepherd has kind of fallen a little our of favour with me of late, for no real reason beyond perhaps movie choices I have no interest in. But his role, though not extensive is good.

I did think that the character of the police officer, played by Nicholas Braun was a little cringy at the beginning, but once they get past the "police man doesn't know how to police" thing, he gets significantly better.

I think the weakest element might be Molly Gordon. She just kind of... exists in the scenes that she's in.  

There are a few loose threads in the story that don't really get properly picked up or resolved properly, I assume they're leftover elements from the original book this is based on where they spent more time. And I have to say that the "gotcha" clue at the end that reveals the killer is so legitimately wrong and ridiculous and absolutely does do the thing the movie says that it did. It's literally impossible. Which is kind of annoying that nobody picked up on that at any point during the adaptation and went "this is just impossible". But it's not enough to ruin the movie for me. But enough for a raised eyebrow in the general direction of the director, screenwriter and the original author.

Overall it's quite good and got me a bit emotional by the end.

yani's rating: 4 nighttime books out of 5

character saturday: in memorium

A moment of silence for an imaginary fallen soldier... fallen imaginary soldier... whatever. This was not actually the plan for today's DnD Character Colouring Book. There were two characters, I planned on doing the other one. But then this one died during the game.

I will say that the problem with putting a character in chainmail and her not having any hair does lead to a slightly less interesting look overall. It just feels... not unfinished exactly, just slightly lacking somehow. Maybe it's the blonde. I don't know that I had originally envisaged her as a blonde, but I wanted something to contrast with my boy Whisper. Guess it doesn't really matter one way or another now.

More on her untimely demise later...

Anyway...

This week's soup was another go at Minestrone. A more successful one, but still not perfect. Possibly because I didn't drain the kidney beans.

Mini Media Reviews for this week goeth thusly.

Buddy Daddies. An anime about two absolutely Not Gay No Homo assassins who live together and raise the child of one of their victims together as co-parents. It's The Odd Couple meets Three Men and a Baby meets something with assassins in it.

Robot Dreams. This is SO DAMN GOOD. You wouldn't think a Spanish movie over 100 minutes long with no dialogue about an anthropomorphic dog in 1980's New York who builds a robot and becomes best friends with it and then loses said robot would be as damn good as it is. Just a 100 minute movie with no dialogue could be a stretch. But I was enthralled the whole time. And the end kinda wrecked me.

The Serpent Queen. Season 1 anyway. The tale of Catherine de Medici, but with a slightly modern spin. With some breaking of the fourth wall and very clearly taking some liberties with history. And while I knew the name, I don't think I really knew who she actually was. Or where she actually fit into history. Which was interesting. Some great performances too, especially from the younger Catherine.

Also, much Red Deading was done. I am still only 49% of the way through the story, and 60% overall done. Mostly because I did a bunch of sidequest stuff this week.

This week's Friday Night DnD was a little bit different. We did a "meanwhile" adventure. We left the usual party and went back to my original character Whisper and had him go on a sidequest with a bunch of low level NPCs played by the party.

Honestly, they probably should have been a little bit higher level than they actually were.

Given that both of the Level 1 characters got one shotted by the creature we were fighting and then Süthen (who I was running alongside Whisper, and who Whisper had been having a Friends With Benefits relationship with... because he is my Disaster Bisexual character) got charmed, couldn't do anything, rolled a Nat 1 on her first death save (meaning two failures) and then rolled below the level she needed on the second save after two of us failed on a Medicine check to stablise her.

And I'm just now remembering that Whisper has the ability to reroll a failed save and because I haven't played him in weeks I totally forgot... so that's not going to haunt him later. Honestly, it will probably haunt me more than him.

Interestingly, while I kind of wasn't really on board for the idea of doing this "meanwhile" adventure, not least of all because it meant that me, as a Level 8 character was running around with two Level 1s and a Level 2. It seemed a little... unfair. But it turns out the others were very much on board. So we might revisit them. I still don't really see the point, if we choose not to go back to the hub town with the main characters, then we just don't get any of that story. And I'm fine with that. But we'll see what happens.

Anyway...

Today was very On Task, because we had things we needed to do after the supermarket. Nothing much to report for the start of the day, but afterwards we tootled down the road to the movies. More on that shortly.

It was a nice change of pace though. 

character saturday: poison lady

This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is what happens when Fluffy says words on the drive home after Friday Night DnD (last week... or maybe the week before, I forget).

I don't remember how we got there, but we were talking about Noble characters, and that I would do something outside the box with one. Which I've already done with both Lady Ovelia and Whipmaster Demyan, and, honestly, when we were talking about it, I'm pretty sure we were both thinking about a male character. It was only later that I realised that it would definitely be a female character. And then I remembered about the Fire Knives, "a syndicate of noble-born assassins, extortionists, enforcers, and spies based out of Westgate". Sounds pretty much perfect, honestly.

The top is one that I normally wouldn't use, but it just worked for her. Especially when I used the leather texture. She definitely has a collection of hidden blades about her person, but I can't decide whether the gold accent on her chest is actually a hidden blade or the handle of a whip, probably with a metal thong... and yes, I just looked it up, that's what the main flexible part of a whip is called.

But, you know, mostly poison. Which works perfectly with the 2024 Assassin subclass.

Will she ever show up in a game, probably not. But it was a fun exercise.

Anyway...

Chicken and Rice soup this week. Always a strong addition to the rotation.

This week's Mini Media Reviews... we start off with William Tell from 2024. Haven't heard of it? Yeah, there is definitely a reason for that. It's beautifully shot, but a lot of the actors aren't great. It definitely gave a lot of attractive young men a paycheck and an IMDB credit though. It's not terrible, it's just lacking.

Next up was the "second season" of Ranking of Kings. Because it's not really a second season, it's not a continuation of the story, it's basically just a season full of things that feel like they were cut out of the original season for time/story purposes. Or just that people involved had a bunch of ideas left over that they wanted to do things with. Strange. Not bad, just strange.

Red Dead Redemption 2 continues. I'm about 45% through the story, not rushing it, just enjoying doing whatever I feel like doing at the time. And because I was still fucking around with it when Fluffy got to my place of Friday, we solved an issue that I'd been having with the Legendary Fish (basically I was equipping the bait not the lure, thinking that having the lure visible on screen was the same thing). After we workshopped the issue, I caught three of the Legendary Fish within 10 minutes.

Friday was Chiro Day. Always good for a monthly tune-up. Afterwards I did some wandering around and did some Looking At Things. Stopped off at the library briefly to return something.

Friday Night DnD didn't happen. Mr had something come up last minute. So Fluffy and I did movies instead. He inflicted Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island on me. Let me be controversial yet brave... I know that's considered "one of the good ones", but yeah, it wasn't doing it for me.

We did follow that up with The African Queen. Because I love to expand Fluffy's experience with the classics. Also, it's just a damn good movie.

Anyway...

The usual Supermarket Saturday. Then we took a trip down to Kmart because I wanted to look at their candles again. Because candles. I got a popcorn/butter scented candle.

And that's that.

character saturday: the fledgling

The last of the supporting cast of Icewind Dale Rangers for today's DnD Character Colouring Book... the reason that Brother Ardu was trapped outside the region, the new apprentice that he went to collect in Luskan, Swift. Now, I know that I had an earlier design of this character, but he looked totally different and I'm pretty sure had a different name. And I don't think that I ever actually posted that version. Or if I did, I can't remember what his name was.

I made this version a member of the Emerald Enclave, because that seems like a thing that the Rangers probably need on staff.

This is also of those models that I might recycle later for other things, because I quite like the way the face came out.

Anyway...

Last Sunday's trip to the supermarket was... somewhat excruciating. With the combination of people who definitely would have been in the supermarket on Saturday, the people that actually shop on a Sunday, and just the general chaos of it all, I was very glad when it was over.

This week's soup, likewise, suffered slightly from the chaos of Sunday. Because I had intended to make minestrone... and functionally made minestrone, but picked up a soup pack which has extra veg that I generally don't add to minestrone, so by the time I was done with it on Monday night and sat down to a bowl of it, it was just not quite doing it for me for a number of reasons. So I blended the whole thing... noodles, bacon, veg, the lot. It wasn't stunning, but it was much improved.

The Mini Media Reviews for this week goeth thusly...

First the anime series Ranking of Kings. The first season thereof anyway. It was interesting. But it was one of those things where, as soon as I stopped watching it, I mostly forgot about the majority of the details. It was interesting enough, and the fact that it didn't really settle on any of the villains being just villains, instead making them complex, was certainly interesting. And I have the second season to watch, just for completeness sake.

Next up, In The Flesh, which ended up being a three part mini series rather than a full season of TV. But very, very, very good. Very nuanced and full of allegory. The fact that it didn't get much love before I saw some clips from it on Instagram is something of a shame.

The Red Dead Redemptioning has continued. I'm still only 35% of the way through the story, but I'm essentially making my own fun and doing all of the side missions. The list of Quality of Life issues continues to mount. It's almost like they created a living breathing world to surround the player and then forgot that the player is actually supposed to then interact with the things that are happening, rather than just passively watch 90% of the interactions happen without even being able to comment on them to the participants afterwards.

Also the fact that there is no way to sell guns that you pick up off the ground doesn't make a lot of sense. Either don't make them able to be picked up, or make the gun merchants buy them for parts or something.

I also miss just finding some wacky missions while roaming around the wilderness like in the first game. This game takes itself entirely too seriously. To it's own detriment, honestly.

But the fun I'm making for myself I'm enjoying.

Friday Night DnD was... transformative. Literally. My girl Molly got herself somewhat transformed after choosing to absorb some power from a giant green emerald. Because of course she did. The entire point either of my characters in this adventure was to access the Body Horror Table that I know was in the book when I glanced at it when it first came out. With Whisper it would have been much harder to do, or required a different approach. Molly both has no impulse control but also really only altruistic motives, at the same time as having a desire to go off and be Queen of the Goblins when this adventuring thing is all over.

It's the simple things.

Anyway...

Today, fingers, toes, eyes and intentions crossed, we finally had the break to actual Autumn weather, although I did think this before. We may also slide straight out of Autumn and into Winter without passing Go honestly.

So we didn't do much more than shopping, calm, sparsely populated shopping. Oh, the joys.

And that was it really.

character saturday: lonely ranger

Ahhh... Brother Ardu. The accidental love interest of my actual player character, Leif. And the existing Icewind Dale Ranger who wasn't in Icewind Dale during the campaign. He also didn't show up in the group shot for that reason, but got his own post.

Honestly, his makeover was mostly the horns and a slight muting of the colour scheme. Plus some very drastic guyliner and freckles. It's funny looking back on the previous post where I talk about what I thought the relationship was between Leif and Ardu, and the fact that having been separated for two or more years and just having that realisation slam into Leif at a certain point. That they'd both been dancing around the idea of being a couple of an unspecified amount of time before that, and after everything Leif had been through, he had no more time for that.

Anyway...

Whoever put this order in for Summer 2: Electric Boogaloo needs to get a refund immediately. Supposedly the issue is that high pressure systems that should be moving through and bringing colder weather along behind them are... getting stuck... for some reason. Not a fan. This shit should have been going on in mid March, not late April. I want long pants and getting cozy... I don't want this.

Soup this week... yeah, I still made soup, even though the weather is not soup orientated at all... chicken noodle. So basically chicken soup, but I've taken to adding broken up spaghetti to it, gives you those big thick noodles rather than the little titchy ones you usually get in chicken noodle. Strong recommend.

This week's Mini Media Reviews...

Marlowe is... an exercise in wasted potential. You have actual Raymond Chandler novels you could have based this one. Instead you base it on somebody copying his style. So we're already at an interpretation of an interpretation. I have to assume the novel this is based on was bad. Because this is just bad. By the time the movie is wrapping up I was like "wait, that's it, that's the whole story?". It just plods along without really every rising above workmanlike.

Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins... is a serviceable action movie. I don't really care about any of the GI Joe of it all, it's literally the least interesting part. But as a generic action movie, this kinda slaps.

Now... it's time to be controversial yet brave once again. I finally got around to watching The Mighty Nein, the animated series very, very, very loosely based on Critical Role's second season, and, without doubt, the best of the Critical Role campaigns. The series is... bad. Well, kinda. For someone who loves the campaign, it's bad. I fully understand that, especially in the beginning, M9 were really just bumbling along and accidentally getting involved in things without meaning to. Which doesn't make for great narrative television. So they've basically reimagined the entire foundation of the show. Characters arcs are showing up in the first season that don't show up until much later in the series. But the first season of the show is 8 episodes and takes in the first 13 episodes of the campaign. Which is... insane. If Amazon is just throwing money at them, they're still going to have to cull major story arcs in order to not have this thing run for 30 seasons.

But the end of the eight episodes, I just ended up mad at the show. The animation is beautiful, of course, much more anime themed than Vox Machina. But the story is just... not what I want.

I've also been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2. But, not really the actual story. I don't much care about the story right now. I'm busy doing the things I want to do. Which mostly revolves around hunting right now.

And occasionally trying to squeeze my horse, full of perfect quality hides, between two other horse riders on a very narrow trail, clipping one of the horses, being launched off my horse over the two riders, getting up, having them start to shoot me, hearing cougar growl offscreen and then having a cougar literally launch themself at my face, and then die... not from the cougar but from being shot in the head.

The game looked me dead in the eye and went "fuck your whole deal".

Friday Night DnD was good... we managed to softshoe, sidestep or otherwise obfuscate our way through a few encounters (by design) thanks to some smart thinking on my part, not to toot my own insane goblin horn or anything. Wow, that's a sentence that doesn't make any sense out of context.

Anyway...

So... today was cancelled on account of public holiday. I went and did a mini shop on Friday to get me through today, and Ma is coming down tomorrow morning to do the actual shopping.

character saturday: gnomic greasemonkey

So, Brocc Ironhide has been through a number of iterations. I'm not sure this is his final form, although he's a Icewind Dale Ranger ongoingly. The vest isn't 100% correct though. We'll get there... the right item will drop eventually.

I also, once again, lament the lack of art for Steel Defenders in general. I'm also not 100% sold on what form his Defender is. Sure, the animal idea is fun and all, but I also go... but why would you replicate an animal when you could make something weird. And then I remember the Horizon video games exist. But also, The Wrong Trousers from Wallace and Grommit exist. But also, just a big metal dude.

Thus, right now, he has Schrodinger's Defender. It exists in all possible forms in potentia.

Also, he's definitely the one responsible for everybody in the Rangers having their own personalised cup/mug. Definitely Potter's Tools proficiency. His being his name in Common and Dwarvish.

Anyway...

Potato and Kransky soup this week. I think I ended up defaulting back to old quantities, because I definitely made a little too much. Tasty as hell though.

This week's Mini Media Reviews...

Firstly, know that if I was doing a fully review of the first two movies from this week (either together or individually), it would be one of those long and ranty ones.

I'm going to try and keep this concise.

Wicked and Wicked: For Good. It's incredibly stupid that the first movie's title card says Wicked: Part 1 and the second one is Wicked: For Good. That about coveys the level of... just not paying attention to the overall details. Secondly, this should not have been two movies.

A lot of the issues I have with it exist in the original book. You're going to do a prequel for an existing well loved classic. Sure, you were one of the first to do this in the modern era, but then you don't really pick a lane between the version from the movie and the version from the book. So you do neither successfully.

Every character in this is a full asshole. Up to and including Elphaba, who, admittedly, has reasons for being an asshole, and is the least asshole out of everybody, but still. Nobody comes out of this being unproblematic. Well, except maybe the goat.

Grande and Erivo are amazing singers. But a lot of the music is decidedly mid. The only good songs are What Is This Feeling, Popular and For Good. And the movies don't understand that the reason that there is a five minute music break at this point is the story is to allow the production of a stage show to happen. People need to change costumes, sets need to be moved around, things need to happen. We can absolutely trim that fat in a movie.

The first 19 or so minutes of the first movie is one musical number. Excessive.

I have made my feelings about Grande's cold dead shark eyes well known over time. Very little about this movie changed those feelings. But both of them do well in the last 20 minutes of the movie. Basically from For Good onwards.

The first movie is entirely too Patriarchy Bad and leans entirely too hard on the current politican climate. The second movie is too busy trying to cram in Wizard of Oz references and making [spoiler alert] Elphaba literally the origin of all three of Dorothy's companions. Stupid.

I spent almost all of the first movie just being mad at the movie. I'm not going to say that it was bad, just that I was mad at it the entire time. So much so that my jaw was sore by the end from clenching it the whole time.

The second movie more made me roll my eyes at how stupid all the decisions were.

Also, Goldblum and Yeoh are horrifically miscast and I will never understand why anybody finds Bailey anything other than a very basic white man.

Thus endeth the rant.

Next up, I rewatched both Into and Across the Spider-verse. Both of which I have already reviewed on the blog.

Lastly Lost Illusions, based on a novel by Honoré de Balzac. I do love a good historical French drama. Especially starring hot French boys. So that was fun.

I also played quite a bit of Red Dead Redemption 2 this week. Yeah... the game that that game thinks it is is not the game that I actually want to play. And it wasn't until I had a conversation with Fluffy last night that I realised that this game WANTS to be Western Grand Theft Auto, but somehow managed to make being bad not actually enjoyable in game. Because as soon as you're bad it costs you money to clear your bounty.

Also, there are so many quality of life things that just bug me. NPC collision detection. Especially once you're actively talking to that NPC. I was walking along talking to a dude after he asked me to accompany him back to town and he walked into my horse, screamed and ran off. My guy... I did literally nothing, you terrified yourself. Also, when somebody else rams their horse directly into my horse and then gets mad at me for it. So I'm just pottering around, doing the things I want to do, being very good, and just absolutely hating Dutch the whole time because I know how the first game started and what a piece of trash he actually is.

For what the game wants to be, I dislike it, but I am enjoying just wandering around (albeit incredibly slowly, because moving around is likewise stupid) doing the things I want to do and enjoying the pretty scenery.

Friday I finally got to see Owl Girl and the new baby after a number of false starts on both of our parts. And also take her the blanket I crocheted for him. Which she loved, obvs. It was a pleasant, if short, meet up.

Friday night was also DnD Night, and I kept being vaguely surprised that the crypt we were exploring kept having coffins in every room. But only for like a fraction of a second each time.

Anyway...

Today was... more stressful than it needed to be, for a variety of reasons. However, we did the supermarketing, noting that next week being Anzac Day means the shops are closed on Saturday (boo), so we might need to do it on Sunday instead. We also dropped into Haighs for broken Easter Egg right after the supermarket, and got some first try. Bonus.

Afterwards I had to upgrade the iOS on Ma's phone, not a difficult job but one that just takes for fucking ever.

And afterwards to went to Spotlight to poke around the special they have on yarn at the moment.