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. 

character saturday: moth kitty

So, we're still in Icewind Dale Rangers territory for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book. And I'm not gunna lie, for the most part with Tabaxi characters, I just keep reusing existing versions and tweaking them, because why remake the wheel. And this remake of Cuts Like A Knife is very much a remake of a character I made for something else. I just changed some of the details and accessories.

And then added a fuckton of lunar moths. Because Swarmkeeper Rangers live in my brain rent free. And what's better as a swarm for someone who lives in a location where the run doesn't really shine than a bunch of moths. Honestly, I do kind of wish that the subclass had thought more about the implications of the line... "While you're alive, the swarm remains in your space, crawling on you or flying and skittering around you within your space."

So, just all the time. Always. Pooping. Swarm. Having sex. Swarm. Swimming. Swarm.

I do kind of prefer there being an activation trigger of some kind. Because I've always thought of this subclass in terms of Mushizō from Ninja Scroll... like, the most horrifying version of this idea. But not a constant swarm at all times.

Anyway...

Normally in March there is a week where it goes very specifically from Summer to Autumn. That week seems to have only really happened this week. 

Vegetable soup with brown rice this week. Tasty, but ugly as fuck.

The Mini Media Reviews for this week are something of a mixed bag.

We start with The Garden of Words. I'm not completely sure that this anime counts as "a movie". Because it's literally only 46 minutes long. Also, Japan... can we not make movies about teenagers and adults "falling in love"? Can we just manage that? As, like, a bare minimum. And having the adult be a literal teacher at the boy's school (albeit one he doesn't recognise for some reason). Like, you could have done literally anything else other than that. Do better. And it's disappointing because it's a beautiful looking "movie".

Doubly annoying because it's the same creator who did Your Name and Suzume, both of which were amazing.

After that, I can really only blame myself. Fant4Stic. And I refuse to call it anything else. Wow... even if the studio took this off Trank and recut it and reshot a bunch of it, I find it incredibly hard to believe that this shit show was ever good. Because the script and the performances are just awful. Not even the raw charisma of Michael B Jordan can save this dumpster fire.

Last up was Lady Jane, which is a movie from 1986 that I've been aware of for a long time but never seen. And a very early movie for both Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes. Is it very melodramatic and not at all historically accurate in a lot of the details? Yes on both counts. But still enjoyable.

Friday was Chiro Day... and also Doing A Lot Of Things In Town Day.

I swapped out one of the video games Fluffy got me for my birthday for two other games. Bonus. I also wandered around the library in town and picked up a bunch of stuff, then grabbed a couple of things in Kmart.

Friday Night DnD was another big fight followed by a lot of Seeing Terrifying Things. Good times.

Anyway.

We've reached the weekend where they just choose to block off a bunch of roads in Norwood so that people can go eat food on a medium strip in order to celebrate football or some bullshit. Fuck literally all the way off.

So basically we did the supermarket and called it a day.

character saturday: fey wanderer

Happy Easter or whatever.

Another Icewind Dale Ranger for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book. The fairy ranger Thorn Ravenwood. And, of course, a Fey Wanderer Ranger. And much improved over the previous version.

Anyway...

Lasagne Soup again this week. A little more liquidy this time, but still great. It's never not good honestly.

Mini Media Reviews for this week include finishing off Season 2 of Alex Rider. It is fascinating to see their version of the Stormbreaker story, since I remember that probably the best, since the movie is also based on the same plot. Still decent though.

I did attempt to watch Assassin's Guild. I literally gave up after about 7 minutes. Because while they had a decent budget they spent none of it on the actors and very little on the script. Also this is one of a collection of movies written, directed and starring the same guy. And that never ends well.

Next up was something I picked up at the library just based on vibes (and the fact that Gillian Anderson was in it), The Crimson Petal and the White. Quite good, a little intense at times... and there were weirdly a few plot threads that seemed like they were going to go somewhere and just never got picked up. But still enjoyable.

Lastly, Tales from the Loop. Based on the artwork by Simon Stålenhag of the same name. Oh my god. So damn good. Like, somewhat depressing, very much a meditation on sadness, very slow, very thoughtful, and some of it (especially episode 2) was very, very hard to watch, but in a good way. There were many times where I thought "oh, the happy ending version of this would be X" and then that ending never happens. And yes, I actively sobbed through the last episode. Very strong recommendation. Keep tissues handy.

Sadly, after trying all the tips and tricks for getting God of War Ragnarok to load on my PS4, I had to admit defeat. I might try again with the only other copy in the library network once it's back on the shelf since that library isn't that far away.

Friday Night DnD was... a late scratching. Like literally Fluffy had walked in my house but hadn't yet sat down late. So we just did a movie night instead. A Very Cary Grant movie night. Bringing Up Baby, which I realised What's Up Doc really stole a lot of their playbook from. And then To Catch A Thief, expanding Fluffy's Hitchcock repertoire.

Anyway...

I say this every year. People just be losing their damn minds in the supermarket on Easter Saturday. Sure, maybe you actually give a shit about Easter Sunday and do something. But the shops have been closed for a single day, why you all crazed?

We did survive though.

And that was it really.