photo saturday: witch season

This isn't the first time I've taken inspiration from the Witches of Discworld... it's not even the second time. Admittedly, the first time was literally working out how to make Granny Weatherwax in DnD. Which is how I got to Bard. Because Discworld Witches are Bards.

They don't play musical instruments (for the most part), they don't sing (excluding Nanny Ogg), they don't dance around, especially not at midnight with no clothes on (see also the exclusion of Nanny Ogg, also "the question of stones, thistles, and sudden hedgehogs"). But they do, the best ones anyway, do Headology. And the Bard spell list in DnD does lean in the general direction of Headology.

So to me, mechanically, Granny Weatherwax is a Bard. Narratively, of course, she's a witch.

But mostly this happened because last Sunday I was attempting some crocheting (which I subsequently frogged because it wasn't doing what I wanted it to do) and had run out of things to watch/listen to, so I just stuck on the audiobook for Witches Abroad and let it chug away merrily in the background.

And of course because my brain was just chugging along I started thinking about attempting a Discworld witch in Hero Forge. Thus Granny Thornback was born.

To be fair, the name was the bit that probably took the longest time. But I came back around to Thornback, which is, in general terms, a term for an unmarried woman over the age of about 25, it's what comes after spinster and before old maid I believe. Or all three were used somewhat interchangeably.

And while it's supposed to be a pejorative term, it's also completely badass, and, honestly fitting for a character inspired by Granny Weatherwax. The first name went around and around and around. And eventually, given that all the other possible names had some other pop culture association I wasn't looking for, I ended up accidentally pulling from one of my favourite movies, What's Up Doc. And if I needed a shortened version like Esmeralda to Esme, then Una is right there.

This was also one of those instances where the Hero Forge design itself is incredibly simple (although I had a lot of fun with the face), but I went in and applied additional textures and some additional Photoshop edits (mostly making the hat look like it actually fits on her head properly) and adding the brooch.

Will I ever play her? Probably not. I'm very over Bards. Even the 2024 Bards. But I like her being in the catalogue anyway.

Anyway...

This week's soup was essentially Minestrone. My version, naturally. But with a tiny amount of paprika, which just elevated it.

It was also a very Movie forward week. 

Firstly, I attempted Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Saturday. And I made it all the way through the first three episodes and no power in the universe could have compelled me to watch more. I didn't realise you needed some familiarity with Discovery in order to understand why you're supposed to care about a group of very clear war criminals out ignoring the Prime Directive left, right and centre. Pretty much the majority of the characters in that show should be kicked out of Starfleet immediately.

I found every person in that show completely charmless, mostly smug and incredibly unlikable. I absolutely do not care about Star Trek: The Original Series, and even less so about cobbling together a bunch of characters from the pilot episode and mixing in TOS characters. Also, the needless callbacks to things I either didn't get or didn't care about.

Honestly, just make new things. Stop regurgitating nostalgia.

Monday was better. I watched the miniseries of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None miniseries from 2015. Which is very good. Also possibly the only version of that story that I've seen where the people being killed off seem like the deserve it. Which certainly adds to the vibes. And they definitely made a few changes, as they often do, and I quite liked the ones that I noticed. Particularly (no spoilers) what they did with the ending. Because it's no surprise in these modern interpretations that they like to change things up.

Tuesday was an actual movie at the movies.

Wednesday was Godzilla Minus One. I have some general issues with the few Japanese Godzilla movies that I've seen. They're, generally speaking, about everything other than Godzilla. Which is fine, the problem comes in when the lead actor you're supposed to care about is a bit of a damp squib and you generally dislike his character. I will say that Shin Godzilla, even with it's weird and fucked up monster, does this idea better. There are also some issues with the effects (Godzilla walking through incredibly deep water for no in-universe reason for example). Not a huge fan.

Then Thursday was Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga... I'm on record as being ambivalent towards Fury Road. Although I appreciated it more on a second viewing. I have also said since the beginning that Anya Taylor Joy is incredibly miscast as the younger version of Furiosa. Because in no universe does a woman whose face is 35% eyes grow up to be Charlize. Especially when you essentially cover all of her face but her eyes and only let her act with them. And you give her some of the worst wigs I've seen in a minute. Maybe next time we don't employ the woman who is contractually unable to cut her hair to play a character who should have short hair.

Also, Chris Hemsworth is... from a different movie. He's from Mad Max: A Wasteland Musical Comedy. He's not BAD, he's just... Doing Too Much. And much like Fury Road was a movie about Furiosa and did not need to have the title character of Mad Max in it at all, so the Furiosa movie mostly isn't about and doesn't really require Furiosa.

If I didn't already know that this movie was written before Fury Road and was nearly made before it, I would have assumed that this was a cheap cash grab sequel mandated by the studio.

It's also, compared to Fury Road, mostly an ugly movie. The effects are often really bad and stick out like a sore thumb. And a lot more things seem to have been done in CGI rather than practically. Or they're more obvious when they are.

I am not a fan.

There was no Friday Night DnD or Movie Night with Fluffy this week due to People Taking Interstate Trips. So instead I watched The Amazing Maurice, based on the Terry Pratchett book of (mostly) the same name.

It's not, perhaps, one of the better Pratchett books... it's solidly fine. And the movie adaptation is... solidly mid. The voice cast is solid, although the problem I have when you use well known English actors is all I can hear are the well known English actors. But it's hard to elevate an adaptation of a book that wasn't great to begin with. And the art style isn't doing anyone any favours.

Anyway...

Today wasn't really much of anything. Really just the supermarket.

movies: the wild robot

There are movies that just make me cry. Like, every time I see them.

And a non-zero number of those movies involve Chris Sanders, who is responsible for my favourite Disney movie, Lilo and Stitch as well as previous Dreamworks movies How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods, the former two alongside Dean DuBlois (who directed the later HTTYD movies).

Sanders is also the director and writer of The Wild Robot, based on the book by Peter Brown. And DuBlois acts as Executive Producer for this movie. Did that fact make me tear up at the end of the movie? Yes, yes it did. But honestly, I was a complete mess at that point.

The Wild Robot is the story of a service robot lost in the wilderness who, through a series of incidents, ends up raising a baby goose.

As far as story tropes go, it's some well worn territory. And it hits most of the required beats for the story that you expect.

However, Sanders has such an ability to drill directly into the heart of a story and hit everything just right. You know those moments when you're crying not really from your eyes, but it's coming from your whole chest/torso and your entire body is vibrating because you have all this crying trapped on the inside that needs to be on the outside...

There are at least three times during this movie I was at that point.

Do I have issues with some parts of the story? Sure. Is the beginning a little too much slapstick and people falling down the sides of mountains? Absolutely. Do I often wish in this kind of movie that they would actually just let the "kid character" actually end up looking like everybody else in his species? I do. I have the same issue with Happy Feet honestly... there's not reason the grown up penguin needs to look like the immature version of the character by the end. I understand the why of it, I just don't think it's particularly necessary all the time. Was I expecting a very different ending? Yes. But, I feel like that's a result of the fact that this is based on a book that is the first in a trilogy, and maybe the book itself is leaving the story more open for what comes next.

Also, did I immediately order in the book from the library, even though I know that they're not going to be the same? Yes.

But the important question is, do I actually care about the majority of those problems. No, no I do not.

It's a story about found family, about parents and children but more specifically about mothers and sons... it's a story about love.

This movie also gets... dark. Like dead creatures dark. There is a shot lasting several seconds, I believe, of the decapitated head of a bird. And another of the wing of a dead goose. Creatures die. It's literally a plot point in the movie. And it's handled appropriately. I also appreciate that the movie flirts very, very briefly with the idea of a "female love interest" for the goose and doesn't do anything with it because it's not the point of the story. In fact she never shows up again.

The voice acting is outstanding. With Lupita Nyong'o as the robot, Pedro Pascal as a fox, Kit Connor as the goose... they're all brilliant. And I enjoyed that I didn't actually recognise any of them instantly, which prevents me from being pulled out of the movie momentarily. Speaking of which, I did recognise Bill Nighy as the leader of the geese and Catherine O'Hara as an opossum mother, but Nighy's performance particularly is one of the points where I sobbed. Honestly both of them are great.

Visually the movie is... unlike anything I've seen. I don't even have a name for the style of the animation... it's kind of watercolour, kind of pastels, kind of digital painting, but everything has a loose, stylised, textured look to it in the world, so when you get up close on things it's soft and blurry, but everything still reads. And the characters keep the texture but less of the softness but still fully integrate into the world.

It is stunning. And I cannot recommend this highly enough.

yani's rating: 5 detachable hands out of 5

photo saturday: forest protector

Before there was Oren, there was Rowan. Playing around with possible 2024 PHB concepts for DnD Character Colour Book, I very much gravitated towards the Path of the World Tree Barbarian, and I've always like the idea of an elf barbarian, and meshing the concept of a Wood Elf and the tree themed barbarian seemed appropriate.

Plus, I had the idea that she carried around some powdered ash from Big Important Tree and that's what she uses to decorate her face each day, paying homage to the tree that she calls upon for her power.

But then Oren happened, and I loved the grumpy little green gnome guy, so I put Rowan on the back burner. Until I was trying to fill out the classes and didn't really have an interesting fit for Paladin.

Did I basically just change her outfit a little, give her a slight haircut and juggle around her background concept a little? Yes, yes I did. I will admit that I don't know if she is 100% the Paladin concept I would actually end up going with if I did play a paladin, but I like her for now.

And the ash thing still totally works.

Anyway...

This week has been kind of all over the place.

We start with CHOWDAH. Yep, this week's soup of choice was potato, chicken and sausage chowder. My estimates of how much stuff I will need for soup still varies wildly. So this one came out to be a lot, mostly because of veggies.

This week was also a full week of Mini Movie Reviews.

Saturday - Blue Beetle. It's solidly mid. Once again, it's DC trying to crack the Marvel formula and failing real, real hard. Doesn't help that their lead has about as much charisma as a cardboard box. What I will say is that the "love interest", played by Bruna Marquezine is actually much better than the lead. I could also have done without the comedy relief familly.

Monday -  The Night Owl. South Korean period drama about a blind acupuncturist who finds himself in the middle of murder and mystery in the royal palace. What can I say, I have a weakness for Korean period movies.

Tuesday - Bullet Train. Why did nobody tell me this was fucking amazing? It's fucking amazing. Farce, action, a stellar cast. If you haven't seen it, see it immediately.

Wednesday - Robin Hood (2018 edition). My bar for how fucking terrible a movie can be was somewhat reset by this movie. It also made other things I saw not look as bad by comparison. This movie is a mess. The editing is horrible. Honestly, the premise is workable, but they didn't commit enough to turning Robin Hood into a period/modern/futuristic story. Instead they tried to have their cake and eat it to. When you're pulling story ideas from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, you know that your movie is in trouble. And I will never find Ben Mendelsohn even slightly intimidating, because I remember him from too many terrible Aussie TV shows from the 80's. Also, they absolutely did my boy Will Scarlett dirty.

Thursday - Mortal Kombat (2021 edition). If I had not watched Robin Hood, this would have been the worst thing I saw this week. Honestly, the 1995 one looks good in comparison. Again, the supposed lead has all the acting chops/personality of a wet cardboard box, the accents waver between Actually American and Australian Pretending to be American to Will Somebody Please Kill Kano Now. It also manages to be about the Mortal Kombat tournament without actually taking place AT said tournament. I also spend most of the final fight between Sub Zero and Wet Cardboard just marvelling at how the set had very clearly just been wrapped in plastic to simulate ice... and looked like plastic.

Also on Monday, my back was Having Issues. Not the usual issues either, more muscle spasm issues. Less good really. I still went for my walk, but I spend a chunk of the day laying on the bed to try and get things to settle down. Which mostly seemed to work. I also knew that I had a chiro appointment on Friday, which was good.

So, of course, Friday was Chiro Day... which meant chiro followed by random wandering of places.

Friday Night DnD was... not DnD. To be honest, it wasn't much of anything. For various reasons we just ended up sitting around the table and talking random crap for a couple of hours. So not unpleasant.

Anyway...

Today had two possible plans... we went with Plan B... but Plan A will return during the week.

So the usual supermarket stuff, then I had to finish up the crochet cuffs/arm warmers for Ma, which I had hoped was just closing them up, but turned out that they needed a couple more rows each before I did. But they came together pretty nicely. And Ma was pleased, so that's the main thing.

Then I needed to go to Spotlight because my body pillow is literally falling apart. Like the shitty cotton fabric it's made out of has degraded to the point where I grabbed it when I was changing my bed and my fingers went right through it. Stupid cheap crap.

And that was it really...