character saturday: proto captain

You know when we're close to starting a new campaign,when I start overthinking and iterating on character ideas. Which is why we have yet another version of Captain Finn Halyward. Because I suddenly realised that we would be starting as Level 3 and then very shortly progressing on to Level 10 to begin the actual adventure.

And it makes very little sense that my boy would have the same outfit for that prolonged a period of time. So a Level 3 version was required. And I leaned into the idea that the Level 3 version had just come back for a prolonged period on an island after having been shipwrecked and came back to civilisation with very little to his name.

It did mean that I needed to fuck around with the tattoo... and I'm not 1000% content with it. The problem is mostly that it's not quite what I want, and the things closer to what I do want only currently exist as photos of actual tattoos and thus not useful for my purposes. We'll just call that one a placeholder for now. But I may very well go back in this afternoon and fiddle around with it some more.

[cue me getting distracted for a good twenty minutes looking at things]

Yeah... that might need some concerted time and effort.

Anyway...

Soup this week as Lasagne Soup without the lasagne noodles. So basically it just kind of ended up as... pasta? We'll still call it soup. It was pretty good overall.

In Mini Media Reviews... I finished the first season of Preacher... I think that might be one of the ones that I don't bother continuing. It wasn't quite my thing.

Next up, Victor Frankenstein... which wasn't 100% what I was expecting, but pretty good. The fact that it ended up being [mild spoiler] the event that happens before the actual event we already know about but basically identical was a little... dumb. They also didn't pull the trigger on a story beat that I thought it was building towards.

But Radcliffe is excellent, as is McAvoy.

Then, we had something a little different... The Man Who Fell To Earth. I don't specifically remember what triggered me to borrow it. Whether it was mentioned in something I was listening to/watching or it just showed up on the library list... but I figured, why the hell not.

My takeaways? Firstly, everyone involved was doing a hell of a lot of drugs during every single element of this movie. Secondly, the first half is interesting, if confusing and the second half is pretty fucking boring and terrible. Also, seeing David Bowie fully naked and the overwhelming emotion being "well that whole scene is a bit sad" wasn't really on my bingo card for the movie. I didn't love it.

Then we had the second season of Classroom of the Elite. After I watched the first one a couple of weeks ago. Now the first season was entirely too much pervy jiggle physics and for my liking. And the story was a bit... m'eh. The second season is... problematic in it's own unique way. The writing is a hell of a lot better generally. It feels less superficial. Possibly because the main female character from the first season is essentially relegated to the background.

However when the main storyline is mostly about psychologically tormenting a girl by allowing others to torture her in various ways until she's broken enough to be useful to you... it makes it hard to watch at times. I also still have difficulty believing some of these clearly 35 year old men are supposed to be high school students.

And lastly, because Friday Night DnD got cancelled at the last minute, I grabbed an extra movie from the library in the city, and finished out the week with Children of the Sea. It started out really well... a slightly different visual style from a lot of other anime that I've watched... but the ending got... real fucking weird. Not a bad watch, but a little too esoteric for a Friday evening.

Otherwise, not much to report. I had an appointment in town on Wednesday, Friday was Chiro Day. 

Anyway...

Yesterday was pleasant, sunny and warm, today has been rainy and cold the whole day. So we did the supermarket and pretty much called it a day.

character saturday: updated luck

So... I started reading a book last week (that I later abandoned), which made me think about Lucky... and i realised that I'd updated Lucky at least once before on the site, but never reposted him. And I just kinda god the itch to revise him. Even though he's one of those characters that isn't going to see the light of day.

Weirdly, the overhaul gave me a little bit more of an edge than he previously had. The shadows under his eyes possibly shouldn't be there, but I kind of like the way they came out. Likewise I decided after reading through his backstory that he would probably have cut off all that long luxurious hair when he left the Feywild as an form of protest. Himself. With a dagger. And probably no mirror. 

I also fully admit that the bow string definitely defies all the laws of physics and definitely would not work that way, I probably should have run it across the top of his arm. But that looked goofy too. Let's just pretend that the angle is correct.

But I like having an updated version of him, even if, as I said, he'll never see table time.

Anyway.

First up.... had a fucking cold all week. Thankfully one that I mostly managed to murder with cold and flu tablets, but I've just got a mild case of the sniffles left over.

This week's soup was Chicken Pot Pie Soup... yeah, I know, the name is both accurate and dumb. And honestly, the finished product wasn't that far off from various chowders I've made. I did make more than I'd intended, and also some of the veg ended up a little firmer than I would like just because of the way it cooked. But a good result overall. And yes, with less liquid this is definitely one that could be turned into pie filling.

Mini Media Reviews for this week goeth thusly...

Dracula: A Love Tale (or just Dracula, depending on where you are) from 2025 is... a mess. It's a movie that is so fucking obviously stealing Bram Stoker's Dracula's homework from 1992. I will say that it's very strange in parts, things are absolutely never explained (Why are the little gargoyles there? Why do they turn into children at the end?), the movie is also unaware that it's like 30% a comedy. Or maybe it doesn't realise that it's very stupid. Possibly both. Caleb Landry Jones is amazing whenever Dracula is under heavy prosthetic makeup and terrible any time it's just him. It just does not work.

Next up was Shangri-La Frontier.Well, the first half of the first season anyway. I hate when they do that with anime. Stop splitting the season into two releases. On the plus side, it was reasonably enjoyable and much less pervy than some of the other things that I've watched. On the down side, it's a little repetitive (given that they're 20 minute episodes and most of them include at least a portion of the ending of the previous episode at the start), and some of the voice acting is Doing Too Much. There's at least one character who literally makes my ears hurt every time they talk. I did get the second half of the season in, so I'll finish that at least.

I rounded out the week working through the first season of Preacher, but I'm not done with that yet. I have thoughts, but I'll reserve those for next week.

This week was one where I'd ordered in a large number of things from the library and about half of them just showed up on the same day, most of them movies and such... so we'll see how we go this week.

Friday Night DnD was a brief sojourn back to Whisper's crew, then the start of the final arc with Molly's crew.

Anyway...

Nothing hugely different for today... just the usual supermarket wander, followed by doing what basically amounts to admin for Ma.

And then sending her on her merry way. Because while I did have an errand to run, turns out they didn't have the thing I needed, so why bother.

character saturday: dwarfin' about

Sometimes a character ends up different than how you imagined her... but you're okay with that. This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is the third character that I'm playing in Friday Night DnD... who is actually an NPC, and I really shouldn't actually be running her, but we're here now, and it is what it is.

Welcome to the stage the woman keeping us all alive, Forgesmith Gwyn Oresong.

I do enjoy putting muttonchops on a female dwarf, it always just adds a little something. Now, once again, this isn't the first time we've seen the base of this character. But the previous version was very much covered head to toe in armor. Whereas, our dear Gwyn is wearing plate armour we happened to find in an abandoned dwarven mine. And I chose to ditch a helmet in order to show off her pretty hair.

Is the outfit perfect? No, but the armor is supposed to be somewhat ceremonial, and for a god of mining and underground exploration. And not Gwyn's actual deity. 

Amusingly, because Fluffy had made it canon before I took Gwyn over that his third character for the campaign and her had dated, it lets me poke his character in all kinds of fun ways. Does she want to get back together? Does she just miss that half-elf strange? Is this just a matter of trauma bonding and she'll be over it when the adventure is done? Who can say? Mostly I can't say, because I'm making it up as I go.

It's also fun for me because very often my girl Molly doesn't really pay attention to things going on that she doesn't care about. But I can always switch to Gwyn for those moments.

Is running basically two characters all the time problematic and something I tell people not to do? Absolutely. But we're here now. 

Anyway...

Soup this week was a play on the Halfling Everything Soup in the D&D cookbook from a couple of years ago. Given my propensity for halflings, and also soup, I decided to take the Everything part of Halfling Everything Soup literally. And using the idea of the soup as a base, I messed around with some different ingredients, including some mushrooms and tarragon instead of thyme. Because why not. I also added a bit of cayenne pepper just for a bit of a kick. Worked out really well overall.

The Mini Media Reviews for this week were something of a rollercoaster.

Firstly, The Kid Who Would Be King. I honestly wasn't expecting a hell of a lot, but it was actually pretty damn good. Sure, it's kind of Nepo Baby: The Movie, because the lead kid is Andy Serkis's son and the guy who plays Merlin is Celia Imbrie's son. So, just kind of those two really. They're both very good though. And the movie has more heart than I was expecting.

Next up, the low point for the week, the very last of the Peter Ustinov movies where he played Poirot, Appointment with Death. Which is borderline unwatchable. I absolutely blame the director, because he has to be the one telling all the actors to overact the shit out of the material, but also he's the one making the choice to score the thing with 80's sitcom music. The whole thing was terrible, which I kind of knew going in... but it didn't even rise to meet my very low expectations.

Last up was Classroom of the Elite. Not an intentional pick, but it happened to be on the shelf when I was looking for something to round out my week. Does the description call this a "high school"? Yes. Are some of these male students clearly 35 years old? Also yes. Is the Japanese obsession with inappropriately aged female animated people on full display? Hell yes. Is the only sensible explanation that this is some kind of higher learning institution and not a place for young teens? Yes.

Having said all of that, and removing the very gratuitous objectification of essentially every single female character (and none of the male characters)... the story is fairly interesting. Now that may just be because they're obfuscating the story behind a bunch of mystery... we'll have to see, because I have ordered the second season in.

In other news, you know that feeling when you both want to yell "why did nobody bother to fucking tell me in the correct amount of detail" as well as "how can it possibly make any fucking difference" and also "I mean, sure, I guess so". That was my Wednesday afternoon, when I went back to get a second vaccine, only to be told that it needed to be "at least 28 days" between the shots and that I was at "27 days". Sure, it's supposed to be 28 days for the body to build up a resistance. But also, seriously? Do all the little vaccine cells have their Google Calendars out checking that it's been the right amount of days? Or should the "four weeks" I was originally told have been fine.

Urgh.

So now I'm going back in a couple of weeks. Which is fine, because I wanted to go back for something else anyway.

See, that's the problem, you go see a medical professional once for one thing, suddenly you have to keep going back repeatedly.

Friday Night DnD was very much a case of Come Up With A Plan, Execute A Plan, Collect Reward. Granted, executing the plan took pretty much the whole session, but we got there.

Anyway...

Not much to report for today... just the usual supermarketry. Although I do wish that they'd stop moving certain shelves around in the back half of the store. Especially since there really doesn't seem to be much of a reasoning behind it all, given that they're not adding new things to the vacated shelves, they're just temporarily bulking it out with additional stock. I did ponder today whether they're not trying to condense certain things in order to remove a whole aisle and widen some of the other ones.

Time will tell I guess.

character saturday: finn revised

"Hey" I hear you say... "didn't we see this guy last week?". To which I would reply, yes, yes you did... but a thing happened that happens more than I would like in some cases... the day after posting it, I suddenly realised that his tattoo needed to be completely different and also that I wanted to lean into the full monochromatic costume a little more.

So now his tattoo has an in-universe reason for being there and a significance beyond "sailor". And I'm much happier with the outfit. Again, in-universe I think there is probably a long coat that goes with it. I had a vague idea about a big wolf fur coat, but all the jackets in Hero Forge are a dumpster fire, plus we don't have any fur coats for some reason. But I'm imagining something big and warm and fluffy and grey. And possibly with a hood.

I'm still pondering. There is definitely a jacket tho.

I also had a further conversation with Fluffy about certain details, and some thoughts I'd had during the week... so I'm definitely finding my way closer to the Finn of it all. The gender swap was definitely the right call.

Anyway...

Soup this week was tuna mornay. So, not actually soup. Once again, I forgot to buy cheese specifically to make the sauce into a mornay, but had half a block in the fridge, so just used that instead. Generally it was pretty good, I could still go harder on the spices honestly.

In Mini Media Reviews we start off with Fackham Hall, which honestly could have gone either way. It could have been one of those very stupid, run the joke into the ground comedies, and it is that on occasion, but they also know when enough is enough, so we got back to a joke only a couple of times instead of repeating it til it's no longer funny. And while a lot of the humor is very, very dumb, some of it manages to be smart at the same time. It was much better than I was expecting and quite enjoyed it.

Next up was Diamonds (or Diamanti in the original Italian). Honestly, the blurb for this absolutely does not do it justice. A beautiful movie within a movie about a group of women who makes costumes for movies. I also didn't realise until later that I'd seen one of this director's movies before... back in GayMovieFest 2012. Specifically The Turkish Bath. This is a much better movie overall.

Then the rest of the week was taken up with Lost in Space, the 2018 Netflix Original show. The first season anyway. I don't know that I'd bother with the rest of the show, which is good because not only does the library not have it, other reviews I've seen say it gets worse... and the first season is already a little confused about what it wants to be.

Because it spends the entire first season kind of getting to the "lost" part of the title. I mean, yeah, they're lost, but so is half the ship, on the same planet with them, it's only at the end that they get lost from everybody else.

And the show is not completely sure what it wants to be. You employ Parker Posey as Dr Smith, then make the character fucking horrible and the camp that Posey brings to it doesn't line up with the rest of the tone of the show. Then you make the characters often make really dumb decisions for people who supposedly went through a lot of fucking training to end up on another planet. And people do the dumb thing instead of, I dunno, talking to the other members of their family. 

Visually it's stunning. They spent that Netflix money well. But they clearly didn't really spend enough of it on good writers. Everybody, acting wise, is doing the best that they can with what they're given, it's just that what they've been given is... not great.

So it was entertaining, but I'm not sad I only saw the first season.

I did, also, give up on Stray. I never went back to it, and then the library reminded me it couldn't be extended and I realised I didn't care. So it went back unfinished. Which is okay, I've seen other people play it.

Wednesday ended up being a complete waste of time because I had a doctor's appointment over the phone at 11:20am... guess what time they actually called me. Yep, you guessed it. 4:30pm. And, of course, it's not like the doctor actually apologised when he called. Just plowed straight on like this was the correct time. The assholery. The audacity. The disrespect.

But it was all basically fine, and we just put the issue off for another six months.

Otherwise it was something of a quite week... definitely compared with the last few.

Friday Night DnD was yet more wandering through passageways til we find thing to murder. What I'm finding amusing is everybody else at the table is having these wild reactions too the weird fucked up critters we're encountering, and my general reaction is "oh, yeah, that's cool". The body horror is neither bodying nor is it horroring. Which I'm fine with.

I will say that the latter half of this adventure just devolving into "enter this underground space, kill this monster, enter next underground space, kill that monster, repeat until heat death of the universe" is... kinda dull.

But at least we're getting the real fucked up critters now.

Anyway...

You know it's been a cold morning in a sequence of cold mornings when I go to the supermarket in a full hoodie and leave it on the whole time.

After the supermarket and the associated whatever, we did the Big W and Kmart run, partially because the sun was out and it was a nice day for it.... and the back window has been collecting condensation overnight a bit the last few days, so I wanted to really give it some proper sun.

We ended up getting the fitted sheets I've been looking for from Kmart. Meaning I can replace the one I ripped and I have one that matches the new bedding.

So a good run in general.

After Ma left I did end up having an unexpected gentleman caller... mostly unexpected because we'd arranged for him to swing by Sunday night... but he said he had to go past this afternoon, so why the fuck not. Will he also swing by Sunday... possibly. So yes, Slutty Winter 2026 continues.

On a slightly related note, it's always funny to me when, if you spend enough time on the right gentlemen's apps, you will eventually get to see the people you were friends with essentially three decades ago at this point fully bare ass naked. And you think to yourself... well, I definitely would have then, and I still definitely would, even though, or possibly because you're less skinny twink and more filled out dad bod... but also, that's a nice penis. It did, in fact, take large amounts of self control to not message him immediately. Will I if he shows up again? Well, it's not out of the question. Because why the fuck not. Will it actually lead to anything? Highly doubtful... but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

character saturday: genderswap swashbuckler

So there are some characters where you just need to make an adjustment and then instantly realise that it was the right choice.

Thus was the case with Pearl. Now I'd already updated her hair after I posted that previous version, because the white dreads weren't working for me, so she ended up with red hair with a white streak, potentially that streak was going to widen over time.

But part of the reason that I was leaning towards a female barbarian was firstly, female barbarian, but secondly, because I was working on that idea while playing my, at the time, male character. Then Molly happened. So I started wondering about rejigging Pearl somewhat. And while I considered playing around with the background and maybe the subclass, I just wanted to see what Pearl might look like as a man. But then the skin tone was bothering me, and he needed new hair... 

Weirdly the face didn't get much of an update, but somehow (possibly because of the skin tone) Finn came out looking less harsh. It could also be the eyes. 

Thus Finn was born. The name took a minute. He went through a couple of iterations of name, and yes, he's fully aware that as somebody who grew up on a fishing boat and then became a sailor, the name Finn has inherent comedy value. But if you think you've got a joke he hasn't already heard, give it your best shot.

I think this is also the first character I've made with a hairy chest (at least a visible one). Well, other than Wrath from forever ago, but he was more an idea than a fully fledged character. But it's mostly because we still don't have body hair decals in Hero Forge (because clearly we need yet another set of shitty swords instead). So I fudged this in Photoshop. And once I'd done it, he stopped looking right without it. Now, sure, he should actually have hairy arms too, but I couldn't really be bothered with that specific level of detail.

But once I'd finished fussing with the details, before I even settled on a name, I realised that he was the correct answer. I liked Pearl, she could have been fun to play, but I think I instantly got Finn. And yes, some of the things I got are perhaps details pulled from other elements of pop culture. Finn wants to remind you he's a captain, even if he's currently sans ship. Finn doesn't get angry when he rages, he gets a little crazed, laughing into battle.

DM Fluffy also gave me a couple of little tidbits on Friday night when I mentioned the change that will probably factor into the Finn of it all. I honestly can't remember a time when I've just gender swapped a character like this without also essentially rebuilding them. And nothing about Pearl's build or backstory changed with the switch to Finn, just the cosmetic details.

Anyway...

It was yet another various of minestrone for soup this week. They're always just a little different, but generally good.

The Mini Media Reviews for this week should have included Stray, the video game about a little orange cat and it's robot buddy... but I just don't enjoy the "combat" sections of the game, so I don't think I'm going to finish it. It's not like I don't know how it ends, I've seen videos of people playing the whole game, so I'm not really missing out on anything. It just turns out it's not really my thing.

Otherwise it was The Batman earlier in the week. Quite possibly the worst movie I've seen in a while. And definitively the worst Batman movie ever. When you have your Batman just walking through the front door or places, or just wandering around following Jim Gordon around a crime scene you've absolutely fucked up. Also the editing and cinematography are awful... and if I actually notice, they're real bad. Basically every single decision was the wrong answer on a multiple choice quiz. Emo Bruce Wayne? No. Wayne Manor being an unused set from Harry Potter? No. Andy Serkis as Alfred? No. Batman continually taking his outfit off to motorbike through the streets? No. Disguising The Riddler's identity with no actual payoff? No. Actually, The Riddler in general? No. Also, the movie being 3 hours long and literally nothing happening the whole time? No.

Actually that last one might be one of the more egregious ones. It barely has anything I would classify as "an action scene", or at least an actual scene that isn't unintentionally a comedy. Because this Batman has never heard of a window or a skylight and only walks through the front doors of locations.

Also, RPatz does his very best with the terrible material he's been given, and he is good, but he Zoe Kravitz somehow have negative chemistry... they're both very charismatic people, they just somehow repel each other.

Otherwise I finished The Nevers. The lack of Whedon (problematic as he may be) did make itself felt between the first and second halves, I'll be honest. It was still good, don't get me wrong. It just occasionally lacked some... sparkle. Some of the characters just felt a little flat. But because they knew they were only getting a single season, they did manage to wrap up the story in a way that did leave room for the possibility of continuing while still feeling narratively satisfying.

There was a fair bit of running around earlier in the week, as has been the norm for the past few weeks, so I decided to bookend that with another trip to the sauna for Bear Night. Not quite as successful a night as the last time, and I think it will be a minute before I go again. Maybe on a special occasion.

Friday Night DnD featured a brief crossover to the "other party", and Molly managed to develop a third eye. Because why not.

Anyway...

Not a lot to report from today, it decided to start raining just after we finished at the supermarket, so there wasn't much incentive to go anywhere.

character saturday: fashionable lady

There are some characters I can't help going back to and tinkering with. Especially when new Hero Forge items appear that are much more in line with how I actually envisaged the character. Or just put a new spin on somebody.

Especially since I always described this character as "if dwarves had fashion models, she would be one". 

So this week's DnD Character Colouring Book is a return to Lady Ovelia Opalfist... a character who is dead and gone, but even so, deserved a new outfit. This is the third version... the first being back in the actual hand (Photoshop) colouring days. The second version I was very happy with at the time. And I still like it, but then they dropped the new "Strappy Corset" and the Victorian/Edwardian inspired "Sleeved Fitted Shirt", and here we are. The colour zones on the shirt aren't perfect, but I had absolutely pictured her wearing a corset not dissimilar to this ones, so the overall look definitely works. Even if I did have to slightly cheat the long sleeves with a set of gloves.

There may also be some backstage tinkering to add a brooch to the neck of her shirt, just because that feels right to me... and I'd need to look it up, but her trinket might have been a Dwarven made brooch.

Anyway...

There are times when I really shouldn't follow a soup recipe I find on Instagram. It wasn't bad, per say. It wasn't a disaster... it was just... really fucking boring. Which is kind of what happens when you make the thing I've basically been referring to as chowder, but you leave out either chicken or chorizo or both. It was an experiment that I won't be repeating.

The Mini Media Reviews for this week start with Ammonite. A movie that is somewhat the lesbian equivalent of The History of Sound from the week before... but slightly worse in that the two main characters are actually real people this time but the lesbianism and their relationship are all an invention of writer/director Francis Lee... which kind of deflated the movie somewhat for me. But both Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan are excellent.

Next up was the first half of the first and only season of The Nevers. A very Joss Whedon show. Good though, as his stuff very often is. This is also the last show he worked on before all the allegations about him came to light, and I don't think he worked on the second half at all. But a number of other familiar behind the scenes names from Buffy and other projects were also on this, and the sixth (and possibly best of the first half arc) episode is fully written by Jane Espenson, which doesn't surprise me in the slightest. So we'll see how the second half arc works out, given that it was made a couple of years later. Hopefully they manage to wrap up some of the ideas since they knew it wasn't going ahead.

Just as a sidebar, and for various reasons, I've spent entirely too much time this week in healthcare professional's offices, getting poked and prodded and tested and stabbed with needles. With at least one more to come next week.

Speaking of, Friday was also Chiro Day.

Friday Night DnD was... slightly weird, because it turns out that last week's guest star wasn't all she appeared to be. And most of the dungeon felt strangely empty, partially because we avoided a couple of combat encounters that we really didn't have to do. So we're definitely in the final act. 

Anyway...

Not much to report from the Supermarket Safari, although the nice folks who make the coffee I like have made a refill so I don't have to keep buying big glass jars, since I have so fucking many of them at this point it's getting ridiculous. Although, for unexplained reasons, the coffee comes in jars that are either 200g or 400g... the refill was 300g... [confused face].

Afterwards we did a trip to Kmart to look at fitted sheets... but the problem with having looked online is when the colour on the website doesn't actually match the colour the item is in person. So I might still end up with it, because it's the best option without spending entirely too much money, but it does come back to my general complaint with bedding manufacturers who don't seem to believe that colour exists. And strong colours exist. And some of us actually want strong colours and not neutral on neutral on neutral. Because that's fucking boring.

But I've complained about that a number of times. 

character saturday: mutant molly

Once upon a time, Molly was a crazy, loner hermit who hid from the goblin tribe she was raised in and only really talked to the voices in her head. Oh, and her cranium rat familiar.

Now Molly has weird flesh wings (that only make her hover right now), can kind of see backwards in time a little bit, if she gives herself a bit of a headache and is technically leader/queen of the aforementioned goblin tribe... even if she has to beat them into submission when she goes back. 

Hero Forge doesn't quite have the tools to make the weird subdermal bone lumps that go along the border of her face and jaw... so I had to make do with the spider eye lumps.

I do love her. She's very different to a lot of the other character's I've played, especially with the Friday Night gang. She just takes things at face value for the most part, and isn't easily insulted, mostly because she really isn't paying attention, and also it doesn't bother her anyway. She has her friends, she has her purpose, she's content.

It's also fun because my original intent for this campaign was to lean into the body horror of this campaign with my boy Whisper. For him it would have been definite body horror, he wouldn't have been enjoying the changes... whereas Molly is running at these changes full force with her whole ass, because she wants the power that goes along with them, for several different reasons. Not least of all because she will be a Goblin Queen.

Anyway...

This week was Lasagne Soup. Always a very good choice. As well as being one that really comes together relatively quickly.

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

Kung Fu Panda 4. Wow...  you really know something has gone downhill when the majority of the supporting cast from the previous three movies are just not around. But this is... just a pale intimidation of the previous three movies. The villain never really feels like much of a character, the whole thing just feels very first draft.

By comparison, The History of Sound is... spectacular. Well... it's soft and slow and sad and very much a lamentation on both a gay relationship and a particular time and place in America (New England in the 1910's). I definitely cried, but it was such a beautiful movie, I was very happy I watched it.

And lastly, the final season of Versailles.  Damn it's a good show. At times frustrating, because the characters are very clearly making bad decisions, but that's also the nature of the beast... and definitely shows that all of the actors are incredibly good. You can also very much see the money on the screen.

There was very little Red Dead 2 this week. I wandered around doing some bits and pieces I hadn't gotten around to up until that point, and there are still a couple of things I wanna do that are somewhat tedious. But I'm generally as done as I'm gunna be.

I did order something short in from the library just to give me something else to play... I might also fuck around with Two Point Hospital after that. I think it's gunna be a minute before I attempt Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which is currently sitting under Red Dead 2 by the TV.

I bought some new jeans this week. Nothing fancy, but the jeans I generally wear just around the house are too big and thus not comfortable. So I stopped into Target on Monday and picked up just a very basic pair. Which, also, are a size smaller than all my current jeans. Go me.

I also, for various reasons, stopped by the Sexual Health Clinic and got tested, as well as getting my first Mpox shot. So there's currently a sore spot on my arm and I'm patiently waiting for my results.

Friday Night DnD had a guest star. A friend of Mr's... and it was mostly innocuous. We did finally meet our first mindflayer though... and nearly killed it... if only I'd gone straight for the Wand of Magic Missiles and not tried to get fancy in the first round of combat. Ah well, there will be other opportunities.

Anyway...

Today was a bit of a later start. Which was fine.

After the supermarket, we trundled down the road to Spotlight, because I'm real fucking tired of the cheap bedding I bought that turned out to be completely polyester and thus not real nice to sleep in often times. I did spot a decent enough one on special that is poly/cotton, so I grabbed that. I just need a trip to Big W to grab a fitted sheet... even if those ones only come in very boring colours. Better than the shitty and cheap or stupidly expensive ones at Spotlight.

I also grabbed a new body pillow, because the foam in mine is clearly deteriorating at a rate of knots.

character saturday: crazy eyes

You know what's weird... in all this time I've never even made a model of this character. I've made models of other characters from this group, but never her. I get why... 

This is Masika's boo-thing. And literal psycho. And also not my character.

She seemed perfectly reasonable until the first major combat we ever did, when afterwards she went around and collected eyes from the dead bodies. Which none of us saw thanks to a sandstorm.

She became Masika's boo-thing almost by accident. It's a long story, but Masika warned her not to get in her way... because that's who Masika is. If you cross her, it's gunna go bad for you. But our girl chose to smile and kiss Maskia on the cheek. And it slightly rewired Masika's brain a little bit.

So there was a session that we both missed. I don't know why, it was a thousand years ago. But I had a conversation with the other player about whether or not the two of them were hooking up while the others were away. To which, of course, the answer was yes.

The two of us didn't tell the others, we just would occasionally add in details hinting that we were hooking up, generally when most folks weren't paying attention. It did eventually come out though, but after a much longer period of time than I expected.

And from that point on, they were just together. Masika was something of an anchor to stop her from floating off into really weird spaces. But eventually the phrase "make good choices" became the default saying between them. Their relationship was... complicated and often dramatic. As you would expect from the two most dramatic people at the table.

I did realise when I came to fill out the details of this that I have either forgotten the details or else never knew the details of her character. Which would make sense given the player.

Anyway...

It's been a weird week. I'mma just say that. It will cover a multitude of sins.

This week was Beef Soup. Basically what it says on the tin. A very broth forward soup with some beef. It was good. I do like a very brothy soup every now and then.

The Mini Media Reviews for this week goeth thusly.

Sometimes you watch a thing you know you know is going to be questionable, because it's going to be questionable. And, honestly, it's not that bad.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is a Very Guy Ritchie Movie. It's Arthur as a gangster. It's Arthur raised by sex workers in London. It's also a movie where the first ten minutes are literally a fucking Lord of the Dreams Fever Dream that does not in any way match up with the rest of the movie.

It was amusing to me to see Charlie Hunnam and Aiden Gillan on screen together again. Since they haven't been on screen together since the original UK version of Queer As Folk.

The rest of the week was basically the second season of Versaille. Which is still very good. Very twisty and turny. And I know it's not going to happen, because monarchy... but sometimes I just want the king to get over himself.

Due to lack of Friday, I watched Gods of Egypt on Friday night. And yes, I did watch a YouTube video about "Shitty Mythology Movies" recently and that explains a lot about a number of my movie choices of late. 

As I said to Fluffy after I was done...

Welp... that was... not anywhere near as much of a dumpster fire as I was expecting... 

It's very "standard 80's fantasy movie" bad

Because it really is. It's trying something, it does that thing mostly successfully. However that thing is not to be culturally sensitive or have a movie that takes place in an actual historical setting. This is another planet... a planet called Egypt. And yes, some of the CGI is m'eh... but a lot of it is just fine. Also, the likelihood that there is an extensive amount of Rule 34 content about interactions between Horus and the human thief Bek is... essentially 100%. Because giant god, tiny human porn literally has to exist. Especially considering the Brenton Thwaites of it all.

I can now officially announce that I have finished Red Dead Redemption 2. I mean, I've completed 100% of the story. There's still game there. So I'm not necessarily going anywhere immediately. And I might work on an overall review in the background for a bit... because I have many thoughts about the game generally. But I was still surprised to find myself getting emotionally effected during the final mission.

As I said earlier, no Friday Night DnD this week.

Anyway...

Ma wasn't feeling well this week, so she called this morning and asked me to go up to her place to do the shopping. So that wasn't how I expected the morning to go.

Also there's nothing weirder than walking around a different branch of the same supermarket you always go to and discovering that 90% of the stuff is just in a completely different place for no well explained reason.

So a short morning overall... because I just did the things I needed to do and then came home. 

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.