character saturday: grey watchers

So, last week was the roll out of my next character for the Thursday game... but there was a lot of potential DnD Character Colouring Book energy that got expended before we got to Dax...

This week is two of those cast offs. I doubt I'll keep either of them even as a back up character, but I don't hate the designs, or parts of the designs anyway.

Firstly there's Grey'baste, who's name translates to "ghost path" if I'm reading my source material correctly. Which makes sense given that he's a Reborn, and I used the potential origin from the book of "your body hosts a possessing spirit that shares its memories and replaces your missing appendages with phantasmal limbs"... which seemed cool to me. Grey is a little too "I'm dark and brooding" for me though... I am also obsessed with those tiny sunglasses though.

Rukh went through some gender changes, and honestly, looking at the face, I don't honestly remember where I landed. Is it just "orc dude with too much eye makeup and a little bit of lipstick"? Is it "butch female"? Is it "they/them pronouns? I have no idea.

The tattoos and the face are the parts I like the most though, especially given that I've used a variation of, or this exact outfit on like three dozen characters at this stage.

Honestly, I have no fucking clue who my backup character is... I mean, I have the easy option of making it somebody connected to Dax... but I guess it will depend on where we are and how I feel. I'll probably keep messing around with ideas... after all, there are a ton of other rogue subclasses I haven't explored, not to mention other classes entirely.

Anyway...

Soup this week was of the minestrone variety... and, honestly, pretty damn good. I could have done with cooking the carrots (I think) a little more, but overall, one of my better efforts.

Thursday night DnD was technically not actual DnD. It was a full on Session Zero for the new campaign which lasted... almost as long as a lot of our DnD games. It was good though. We got a bunch of stuff out on the table, that, honestly, after five years of playing together (for the most part), included some stuff that we should have done way before now.

But it was all good productive stuff. And I'll be honest, I think any of the issues I'm currently having with where we ended up are squarely based on the way the adventure is written and designed to be played. And having a character with a foot on both sides of two civilisations currently at war was not my intent... but honestly where we've ended up.

I also know that in order to get to the main adventure, DM Fluffy needs to get us across that border... so it shouldn't be THAT hard.

And if we get to the end of the adventure and my character hasn't spent any time in a jail cell, then we've done vey well indeed.

Oh, and it turns out that I'm (very probably) the only one with (very limited) healing magic... so that's going to... be something.

Friday was Chiro Day... basically the usual, rinse and repeat... although I did do a big wander in town afterwards, which was nice.

Friday night DnD was great.

Not the most original title, but I'm calling this week's session "Welcome to Thither"... because, unsurprisingly, it was their first session in Thither.

But I got to traumatise them with imaginary pies, give them golden magic items, reintroduce them to an old (four-legged) friend and then just sparked off a bunch of roleplay where I got to sit back and metaphorically prop my chin on my hands and look at them all with big sparkly anime eyes.

Because they properly got into it during his session. I've said it before that some of my favourite moments in playing DnD are when you pretty much ignore the DM and just riff on roleplaying with the other characters. Turns out, that's my favourite moment as a DM too... who woulda guessed? Yes, I also get that the correct answer is "everyone"... everyone would have guessed that.

I'm very much looking forward to next week's session though. Which I think I've said every time, and, you know, that's a good sign.

Today was another non-event. I mean, we did the supermarket as usual, but that was basically it.

Current mood:

character saturday: private eye

Honestly, I thought my inspiration was all dried up... I just needed a better reason to create this weeks DnD Character Colouring Book.

So... Lucky has gone back in the toy box. He will come out at some point, I want to play a character who is deeply connected to the Feywild quite a lot, plus there are a lot of things about him I still love.

But I also knew that the rest of the Thursday group would, very likely, not bother creating a backstory that is connected to the world. Which is fair, they're not as connected to the world we'll be playing in as much as I am. However, that left me with an issue. As much as I loved Lucky, he also wasn't connected to the world.

And I wondered what my version of that character would look like. I'd messed around with a couple of ideas previously, but none of those were sticking in my head.

Which brings us to Dax Oreva, an Eye of the Raven.

I also still really want to play a half-orc... it's the only race out of the Player's Handbook that I haven't played (as I've mentioned before), so I'd like to get them all in at least once before the new edition of DnD comes out in 2024.

He also had to be a rogue, because I still want to revisit a rogue with this next character. And the Inquisitive Rogue is interesting.

The rest of him kind of came out of putting his costume together. Using the top that has the raven skull baked in led me down a particular path, which resulted in the pauldrons (which is an element I ignore pretty much 80% of the time), and then led to changing his colour scheme from dark brown to dark blue.

One of the issues I have with half-orc characters, even with the general softening of all things orc in recent years is having that human parent/orc parent thing... so I did what I've done in the past with half-elves. A half-elf as a product of two half-orcs. At some point in his lineage there was a human and an orc... but for some time it's been half-orcs. Which nicely sidesteps the whole issue.

Weirdly, the personality really came into focus when I started playing around with the posing and tried to find a "hands resting in front" pose. When I got that right, I got more of who he was. Talking to DM Fluffy about him on Friday brought more of him into focus.

And, of course, a PC's personality never survives first contact with the table, but I see him as someone who never completely fit in anywhere... not in his family, not in the wider religion of his people, not in his country, and then when he left that, not even if the path he thought he wanted to follow. But now he's found a place, has made himself comfortable there, so now it's time to start thinking about the next step.

But of course, because story and drama, he has to go back to his country for this adventure.

I feel like he's quite dry and a little deadpan/sarcastic in his humour. But not unintentionally. He's just dry. That's going to be harder to do in the moment, although I can be a little deadpan at times.

I also went a slightly different path with the name this time... rather than an existing name that just means something, I went for words in another language that mean what I wanted them to mean, and then followed that up with his parents' and sister's names. All similarly related terms.

I'll do the final polish on him after next week when we do our Session Zero (more on that shortly), but I'm liking this new direction.

Anyway.

I made a pretty decent tuna mornay this week. Spicy without being obnoxious... and I discovered that dill is an excellent addition.

Tuesday was something different... Everything Everywhere All At Once is back in theatres for a limited run, and I wanted to see it on the big screen, plus I wanted Ma to see it. But it was only screening in the afternoons and evening for the most part. So, instead of doing it on Saturday, Ma came down on Tuesday morning and we went to a lunchtime session.

I was more aware of the length of the movie this time around, honestly... and maybe the end part is a little long... but it still made me cry and I still love it.

Thursday DnD we finally finished off the book/series of adventures that we started back in May last year. So, 1 year, 2 months, 20 days. If you discount the two months between Christmas and February that we didn't play because of my moving drama. And the weeks we've missed because people were sick, or otherwise engaged or somebody was a close contact or something.

Basically for the most part, the adventures have taken us two weeks to complete, and there are 17 adventures. So out of just over 63 weeks, there were 34 weeks-ish of actual game play.

We bid farewell, for now, to Canadia, the guy who joined us from my former Monday group, which brings us back to a more sensible six players. And to Dax. Given that he's the character for the new campaign. And, provided nobody gets sick or has to change plans at the last minute, we're doing Session Zero for that next week. 

Friday night DnD was... somewhat short and sweet. And I'm subtitling this one "Bargains with Bavlorna".

I wasn't sure how long things were going to actually go... they were at a potential crossroads, but they rolled well and made short work of things. So, they got to bargain with Hag #1, she also gave them a little bit of information... and a little bit of prevarication... and a little bit of obfuscation. Because, obviously, hag.

It was also fun giving them little bits of information and then watching them wildly theorise possible outcomes and narratives.

They also got some respite at a travelling inn (with feet), before we ended the session with a round of dreams for everyone (not going to lie... it's some of the most fun stuff... especially Fluffy's "lucid dreams") and then they got to the next major location and levelled up. Again. After levelling up last week.

Yeah, the levelling scheme in this book is weird. But I wasn't sure how much fluffing around they were going to do, so I thought that possibly I might have been able to make another session out of it. But no.

I'm actually pretty excited about this next area. It will mean a bunch more prep this week, but it's something very different from where they were.

Anyway...

Today we went to the supermarket. 

Then I made fun of the Royal Show magazine that we picked up at said supermarket for... entirely too long. Seriously, though, it was so very badly written.

And then Ma went home. Full stop.

Current mood:

character saturday: fancy boy

Am I obsessed with tall boys in high heeled boots? Maybe. Shut up.

Also, I've never played a male tiefling. In fact, to date I've only played one tiefling. Although I've had ideas for a few others. Once again though, Rasim is me fucking around with the idea of different rogues.

I need to play an Inquisitive Rogue at some point, I really do. And, probably, an over-the-top male tiefling. Generally speaking I like the "virtue names" for tieflings... 

And some younger tieflings, striving to find a place in the world, adopt a name that signifies a virtue or other concept and then try to embody that concept.

But, this guy felt like a tiefling from a line of tieflings, to whom his birth name was more important than some random name he'd pulled out of a hat.

I didn't dig into his history very much, beyond an idea that he was from a noble family who were winemakers and/or winegrowers... basically the entire business from grape to bottle.

Also, fun fact, in a very "mashing the words together" kind of way, the surname Dhu'Deneb means "possessor of tail", which seemed like a cute tiefling surname. And his first name means "planner". Which is also apt.

I do kind of get the gist of his personality just from the way I posed the character and how he's dressed. He feels about 50% The Scarlet Pimpernell and 50% The Man in Black from Princess Bride.

Anyway...

First up, I'm much improved from this time last week. I still have a little bit of a stuffy nose, but at least it's not the sinus-y thing that absolutely reduces my brain to mush.

Next up, this week's soup of choice was, unsurprisingly, chicken noodle soup... that I may have put a tiny bit too much pepper in... but then, it was probably useful for clearing out the sinuses.

Otherwise, big news... we actually had a Thursday D&D session. And started the final adventure of the book. So fingers crossed it doesn't take another month and a half in order for us to actually finish it.

I will say though, and it's no reflection on DM Fluffy... but I don't like the way the adventure is put together. Because throwing a bunch of status conditions at players and debuffing them or just inflicting damage on them arbitrarily is a poor substitute for making an adventure that's actually challenging or interesting.

So, I'm just gritting my teeth and waiting until the end of the adventure/we actually get to something interesting.

Not really the way I wanted to finish this particular series, but, it is what it is.

Friday night's DnD was fun. And I'm calling this session "Hello Bavlorna", because they finally met one third of the antagonists in the book... and I think it went better than they were expecting it to go. I mean, they took on a sentient tube of goo and survived.

It's also been fun that for the last two games, I've been able to end on a cliff hanger.

Anyway...

Today was much of a muchness.

Supermarket, then we did a little trip to Spotlight so Ma could get more wool for things. And I could look over the Halloween decorations that I don't much care about as Halloween, but they're otherwise my vibe. Or at least bits of them are.

And that was it really.

Current mood:

character saturday: hogweed

At some point there will be an Artificer character that actually sticks with me and that I really want to make. And I'm fairly sure that that character will be an Alchemist. But it hasn't really happened yet.

It doesn't stop me from making the characters... they just don't seem to latch onto my psyche in the way other characters do.

Which brings us to Professor Hogweed... a very smart goblin. with very big boots. And possibly not a real professor... but don't tell anyone.

He'd also be a character for a specific campaign in a specific place. That's about all I have, honestly... like I said, none of these characters really dig into my brain enough to get past the surface level or the opening idea.

Anyway...

Fun fact: The last time I was "sick" (at least enough that I referenced it in the blog) was May 2019. Which makes sense, given the world, and all the masks and hand washing and staying away from people.

Which may indeed be why I went down like the proverbial bag of shit this week. Yeah. But backing up a second...

Ma mentioned she'd had "a cold" last week, and while it was front of mind when she mentioned it, I didn't think about it when we shared snacks at the movies. So, when I started feeling a little flat on Sunday as I was making a functional if uninspiring vegetable soup, I didn't really think much of it... but by Monday, yeah, I was sick.

And I always know that I'm definitely sick if I go and nap. Because there was definitely fully clothed napping.

Just to be completely sure, I went and got a PCR test on Tuesday morning. In my car... because, honestly, that's just easier. And I think that I spent more time giving my details to the woman with the iPad than I did waiting for the test itself. Got the results back later in the afternoon... negative. Which was as expected, but I just wanted to be sure.

So, instead, I went down to the chemist on the corner and bought a big box of Codral. Because that always makes things better.

Otherwise, I cancelled the rest of the week, so no DnD for anybody this week. And then my back decided to really play up (which may well have been from the fully clothed napping or else from dozing more than once in my chair), which made a couple of the mornings more of a challenge than they should have been.

But otherwise, I'm on the mend, each day is a little better than the previous day, and at least today I'm the least sinus-ey that I have been all week.

Today we literally went to the supermarket, came back here... and then Ma headed home.

So there's that.

Current mood:

movies: lightyear

So, fun fact, Lightyear isn't a kid's movie. It's that movie that seems to be a rare beast these days. A family movie. It's not a little kid's movie, even though it seems like it might be. But, then, honestly, when was the last time that a Pixar movie was "for kids".

You want something that's going to hypnotise small children into an hour and a half of shutting the hell up, go to whatever small, yellow, overall wearing fart joke movie is currently showing.

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect from Lightyear. I knew it was "about Buzz Lightyear" and I knew that Chris Evans was playing the titular Buzz. Which was a good choice. Tim Allen is great in the Toy Story movies, but I'm always here for Evans.

And it kind of makes sense that the action figures for a movie would have a slightly off-brand voice.

Without spoiling it too much, because it's basically the opening of the movie, in the universe of "Toy Story", this movie is the movie that Andy went to see in 1995 (presumably a live action movie) which became his favourite movie and inspired his transition from cowboy stuff to space stuff.

I won't lie, that opening nearly got me. All of the feels. From like a dozen words of text.

Also, writer/director Angus MacLane really dotted his I's and crossed his T's in this movie. There's a whole bunch of references to the toy version of Buzz and things from the movies. Again, without giving too much away (because it's the first two minutes of the movie), Lightyear's first words in this movie are the same as Buzz's first words in the first Toy Story movie.

It's also a beautiful looking movie. They've gone for the "Pixar version" of photo real. I mean, you can see it in the poster. And the cat looks like it looks for specific reasons.

It is definitely a Pixar movie though. And it's a sci-fi/drama... it's not a comedy. Just because it's animated, doesn't mean it has to be a dumb comedy. See also, the entirety of Pixar's back catalogue.

Also, let me have a controversial opinion for a second. I'm very quickly approaching being over Taika Waititi. He's fine as a director. I just maybe don't need to see/hear him as an actor anymore. Because, he's only ever himself. And as soon as I hear his voice, it's just so obviously him. And it throws me out of the movie. Add to that the fact that the character is just supposed to be comic relief, but, you know, isn't actually funny and gets annoying really quickly.

And, since we're talking about a Disney/Pixar movie... let's talk about "Disney/Pixar's Gay Problem".

So... we have a gay character in the movie. Cool. However, if they actually self identify as gay in the movie, they have to be a lesbian. And they can have a partner, but that partner can't be a character, have any lines or be a person. And then you have to kill off your gay character. Or have them leave the movie. For a perfectly understandable reason within the movie. But the end result is the same. Dead gay.

It could not be any more a Bury Your Gay trope if it tried.

Is there a single, chaste lesbian kiss? Alleged. I didn't actually notice. Because it's such a non-moment between one person we've known for about five minutes and one person who isn't actually a character.

Disney/Pixar, please note, you don't get any fucking kudos for this. Because, once again, a gay woman of colour's story is only really important if it impacts the story of your white, straight, male protagonist.

You wanna make an actual lesbian character... cool. Make it woman who is actually in more than three minutes of the movie.

Was it one of the great Pixar movies? No. But it's solidly mid-tier.

yani's rating: 3 zurgs out of 5

character saturday: bafflestone redux

Yeah, I know, this is possibly the character who has appeared the most and had the most potential versions and redesigns. I think we're at 6 appearances and about four redesigns, including one that I don't think made it to the blog. But we're calling this one the final version. Or at least final_final_final_v6_final.jpg.

And yes, he's still missing his left leg from the knee and he's missing two fingers on his left hand, but he has more refined prosthetics for both now, and I figured that those elements were more interesting as a reveal while playing the character (which I still really want to do, both from a character and a class/subclass perspective). And he still has additional tattoos under the shirt.

But I like this version. I've been playing a lot with the colour/texture of the leather, and I'm very much getting it to a place that I like. Plus, they added a new crossbow that didn't look quite as huge or lumpy as the old ones.

One day he'll see table time. One day.

Anyway...

I made chowder this week. Quite a bit of it. It wasn't bad.

Also, I was supposed to have a rental inspection this week, but my land agent sent me an email saying she was sick and saying that we're going to skip rescheduling and just do the next one in November. Yep, not going to argue with you there.

However, I had already mentally partitioned by brain to do my usual inspection clean. So I did it anyway. Because, you know, it needed doing, and now it's done.

Granted, I did it over two days.

No Thursday DnD this week... because, we're still cursed. In theory, back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. To at the very least start the final adventure from the book.

Friday was also Chiro Day... which was good, given that it was rescheduled from last week, and I'd done a big old clean. Again, needed to be done.

Friday's DnD... was... wow.

First, the players had been having a group chat and discussing plans behind my back. COLLUSION! By which I mean, yeah, that's totally fine, and we've done it in every campaign thus far "behind the DM's back".

I think this week's episode is best titled as "Best Laid Plans"... because those plans definitely crumbled into a heap after about twelve seconds.

All they had to do was find a boat and go visit the villain for this area. But, what, like I'm gunna make that easy for them. So I threw distractions at them. Which resulted in an extended conversation with a fire spirit who didn't speak a language that the party understood. Cue me jabbering in nonsense for an extended period of time.

But, they ended up brute forcing the puzzle, so they got a potion. And then Mr's character just straight up drank the potion. Because, sure. And turned into a giant dragonfly.

Yep, we're officially off the rails boys and girls.

So instead of having to access the villain's lair by using, you know, the stairs... they flew up to the top and basically shortcutted their way past half the lair. But I can't be mad at it. I gave them the tools, they just used them against me.

Does that mean I'm not going to punish them with those same tools later? Of course not. I also called the session to a halt right at a cliffhanger moment. Because, honestly, I need the extra week to work out what's going to happen next.

It was good though.

And proves the old adage that no DnD plan survives first contact with the PCs.

Anyway...

Today was short and simple.

Supermarket... same old same old... unpacking.... then we went to the movies. More on that later.

But yeah, that's the week that was.

Current mood:

character saturday: silver slide

Yeah, we're talking a little bit of a right turn this week. Not as a new rabbit hole to go down on-goingly, more of just a one-off experiment.

Blades in the Dark is "a tabletop role-playing game about a crew of daring scoundrels seeking their fortunes on the haunted streets of an industrial-fantasy city"... basically, it's a game about heists. And one that I'd be interested in maybe having a go at one day.

Then a video wandered across my YubTubs feed of someone putting together a Blades character... which made be wonder... what kind of Blades character would I play. Which sent me down a brief, but predictable rabbit hole of character creation.

And dumped me out on the doorstep of the Slide. Which is a Playbook, the Blades version of DnD classes.

Talk your way into trouble, then talk your way out again. Pretend to be someone you’re not. Bluff, lie, and manipulate to get your way. Every problem is ultimately a problem because of people - and people are the instrument upon which you play your music.

Or, if you prefer... the shorter version...

Slides are good at social situations and subterfuge. Play a Slide if you want to manipulate and deceive people.

Yeah, that sounds pretty much up my alley. Honestly, there were a few I liked the sound on... the Lurk, the Spider, the Whisper (honestly, the names for the "classes" are great)... but I kept coming back to the Slide.

So, without going through all the minutia of character creation, I ended up with the scion of a fallen noble house, who knows any time he's being lied to and whose vice is pleasure, specifically gratification from lovers... specifically male brothel workers. Because why the fuck not. Which is what the dots on the map are... providers of his particular vice (although technically you only choose one location, so in reality it's probably the one at the top).

Top that off with an alias where you give yourself a title that you, quite likely, don't have... or that other people have given you because you're clearly a fancy fucker showing up in less fancy places.

I'm not unhappy with the results. I particularly like the way the design elements of the image came together. Whether he would work in an actual game or not, I have no idea.

Anyway.

Halfling Tomato Soup this week. It's, honestly, the perfect tomato soup. The one downside being the general faffing about that needs to happen alongside said soup, because a grilled cheese/cheese toastie is a definite must. But I also got that pretty right each time too.

Wednesday it was time for my booster shot. Fourth times the charm and all that.

The shot itself was quick and easy. In fact it took them longer to find/print out the paperwork than it did for me to get the shot and fill out said paperwork.

The downside, I felt like shite for two days. And my arm still feels sore in the spot I got the shot. But it's a small price to pay and, honestly, it's better than the alternative. It did put a bit of a crimp in my mood/ability to give a shit for the rest of the week.

Thursday DnD is cursed until further notice.

Friday was supposed to be Chiro Day... but that got cancelled... which was probably a good thing, given the aforementioned. I rescheduled for next Friday.

Friday night's DnD was... interesting. And I mean that literally. It's infinitely interesting watching the player's reactions to certain NPCs and situations, and also hearing them theorise things and how more or less accurate they are.

And we finished up with a character lore drop from Fluffy... which I wasn't expecting... and honestly, I don't think he was either. It also resulted in him putting together two pieces of information he hadn't put together before thanks to questions from Mister. So that was fun.

Anyway...

Today... supermarket.

We followed that up by wandering back down the road to the bookstore on the Parade. And spent a good chunk of time in there. It's a good bookstore, even if we didn't end up buying any actual books.

And that's that about that.

Current mood:

movies: the sea beast

So... The Sea Beast. Is a movie.

If this was a live action movie, I would say that the costume and set design departments deserve all of the accolades. So, that, for the people who designed the character's outfits, the boats, and every single asset in this movie that wasn't a human face or the titular beast.

Other than that, this movie is, at best, mostly very pretty looking but a hot fucking mess.

It's also a much, much, much shittier version of How To Train Your Dragon. If you took that movie, misunderstood the assignment and tried to switch lanes in the last ten minutes in the most illogical way.

This movie is, perhaps, an abject lesson in why you don't employ a stage musical lyricist as your co-writer in a movie that doesn't have any songs.

And, that sometimes, there might be a reason why you've never been given the opportunity to direct something on your own.

Sorry, Chris Williams, I've very much enjoyed other projects you've been involved with, but I think perhaps it was in spite of your involvement, not because of it.

Because the things that are wrong with this movie are... as follows: 

• The entire script, especially your understanding of how the world you created actually works and your need to put in a last minute reveal that undercuts the previous 100 minutes of movie.
• The performance of your female lead. 
• The design of your titular beast.

Let's start with the last one and work backwards, shall we.

Maybe making a big, red, mostly smooth, featureless creature that looks, at certain points, either like a thumb or a penis, is perhaps NOT where you want to go with that design in a children's movie. I'm doubly annoyed because the concept art for that creature is gorgeous by comparison. And fixes pretty much all of the problems I have with the beast. 

Maybe also understand how underwater air-breathing creatures and their nostrils work. Just a thought. Because I'm like 80% sure that even a sea monster doesn't work that way.

Also, next time (hahaha, what am I saying, like there will ever be a next time, unless Netflix wants to waste some money), don't take Toothless from HTTYD, paint it red, remove the wings, add flippers and call it job done. Or slam the back of a whale onto the front of a seal and then give it a lizard head.

The problem as well is that the beast that we see at the start of the movie is 1000% better designed than the beast that's our "third lead". In fact, every single other beast in this movie is designed better than Red.

And, it's very weird, the little blue weirdo creature, Blue (yeah, this movie and naming things)... I feel like I've seen almost exactly that character in something before. A slightly chubby, voiceless character who eats random things and is just generally weird. I have such a strong sense memory of having seen it in something, but I can't place where or what right now. Maybe, much like this movie, it's a combination of a bunch of different things, all recycled into something "new".

Next, part of the problem with your female lead is the god-awful script. However, the combination of the dialogue and Zaris-Angel Hator's performance makes the character of Maisie come of as so horrible precocious that I never really liked her at any point in the movie. She just comes off as annoying or dumb for the entire movie and so I didn't care about anything she was doing.

Karl Urban does pretty well as the other lead, Jacob, but I do feel like his accent is slightly all over the place throughout the movie.

My favourite character had to be Sarah Sharp, voiced by the wonderful Marianne Jean-Baptiste (who seems like I've seen her in a million things, but I think I mostly know her from a TV show from 20 years ago). If you want to pay someone good to write the script for a spin off movie starring her, I'd be here for it.

Let's move on to the script.

If you've seen How To Train Your Dragon, you've seen the good version of this story. Because, honestly, this movie is mostly that, but without the finesse and talent required to make the story effective and interesting.

It's also a painfully obvious script right up until the point that the movie totally shoots itself in it's own narrative foot.

And because it's bad and because it doesn't make any sense and because it's just most of the plot of a good movie that is twelve years old at this point, I don't actually care about spoiling it. So here we go.

The movie uses the same plot as HTTYD in that there are sea monsters (dragons), and hunters (vikings), and the hunters hunt and kill the sea monsters because the sea monsters attack their ships every time they go out. And also that it gets them a bunch of money, and, maybe, possibly, makes their kingdom a lot of money (it's unclear honestly).

And, of course, the fight has been going on for generations and generations.

Then annoying girl and white blond protagonist man (who, between them make up about one third of Hiccup), encounter The Worst Monster Of Them All (in this instance, Red... in essence, Toothless) and, what do you know, turns out that it's not bad after all. And it's not a mindless beast. It's... dude... it's fucking Toothless. The Sea Beast is 1000% just a shitter, female, bright red version of Toothless. From looks to demeanour, the whole nine yards.

And it seems like the movie is saying "yeah, both sides did bad things, nobody knows how this fight started, maybe it was the monsters, maybe it was the people, nobody can actually say, war is hell"... which is... How To Train Your Dragon. But, you know, not the world idea.

But then, in the last ten or fifteen minutes of the movie, the story takes a hard left into Crazy Town.

Because suddenly, Maisie makes the leap in logic (and it is a leap and it makes no fucking sense), that because the books that tell stories about the monsters attacking humans has the crest of the empire on them, that somehow the king and queen are... making a big conspiracy. Sorry, what the actual fuck movie.

Maybe the books all have the crest of them because they're PRINTED IN THE FUCKING KINGDOM. And even if the empire is printing those books, that doesn't mean that they know anything about how the war started or what the monsters are like. It just means that, in the way of empires everywhere, they will keep conflict going if it suits them. Although it's never made explicitly clear HOW... unless you're just supposed to assume that because the castle is a gold and pearl encrusted nightmare and the king and queen are likewise wearing All The Gold, that somehow killing the monsters make them rich?

At the end of the day... the problem is that the movie presents a (somewhat weak) "both sides are to blame" argument in relation to the plot, but then, without presenting any actual evidence or information or proof, makes a radical leap in (not) logic and suddenly decides that the empire is to blame.

Yep, sorry guys, no. You just ruined your entire movie. Well done.

So, know that the rating I give this movie is based entirely on how pretty a lot of it looks. And... that's it.

yani's rating: 2 dumb but pretty storybooks out of 5

character saturday: that fey warlock vibe

Let's call today's DnD Character Colouring Book something of a thought experiment. Two interpretations of basically the same character build.

On the left, we have Mama Lullaby, my... second ever character (I think.. if not second, then third, but pretty sure she was number two). A tiefling Archfey Warlock, who I always described as being 45% Oprah, 45% Moana's grandmother and 10% Mama Odie from Princess and the Frog. And whose horns keep getting more and more elaborate as new options become available.

In her "in game" description, she wears a big long embroidered coat over the top of that outfit that has a lot of pockets and, basically, functions as her component pouch. She also always had pockets full of dried fruit and nuts and chocolate in the jacket, which I let function as the herbalism kit she was also proficient in.

Since I couldn't do the kind of coat I wanted in Hero Forge, I added a little embroidered detail to her skirt as a nod to it. I also really like the way that particular armour top works on a fuller figured lady.

There was also something fun about playing a character where the (predominately) grown men around the table (in that they were predominantly men, not predominantly grown) end up calling you Mama for four hours LOL.

On the flip side is Flynn Callahan. Flynn is based on the answer to a Reddit question. Which was "how do you make a non-rogue steal character"... to which I replied with an answer about social stealth. Basically, making a character that could look like they belonged somewhere. Blending in.

And for that we need an Variant Human (with the Actor feat and the Charlatan Background) Archfey Warlock... with a familiar that can communicate and go invisible, so I chose the Sprite, since it's the most fey of the familiars.

Also... for all that I have a... fondness (we won't call it a fetish, because I don't like the connotations of making a particular type of person into a fetish) for redheaded gentlemen. Doubly so for redheaded gentlemen with freckles. And yet I've never played one. Neither male nor female actually... although the original idea for Quillamina was that she'd be a redhead, before I realised she needed to have silver hair.

I haven't bothered coming up with a name for the sprite as yet. It will be something plant or tree based and either short or easy to turn into a short nickname. The name floating to the front of my brain right now is Bramble. But Rowan also keeps coming to mind.

Not that it really matters, since this was more giving form to an idea flitting around in my head than a character I ever intended to play.

It's also fun to try a different take on the same build.

Anyway.

I made... interesting soup. I hadn't bought quite as much vegetable stuff as I maybe needed for soup last Saturday, so I wanted to bulk it out a little and decided to add a bunch of rice. Which worked out really, really well honestly. Maybe next time, like 10% less rice, but overall, definitely one to revisit. Otherwise, it was just vegetable, tomato and bacon soup.

Monday I had to go and get a refund on some socks that were the wrong kind. Thrilling, I know. Honestly, though, the whole process took fifty times longer than it otherwise should have, just because there were about three staff in the whole store and the customer in front of my was buying All The Things while contending with two small children.

Tuesday I figured, given my experience with the flu vaccine, I could just wander down the road and get my fourth booster shot, maybe I'd have to wait until the following day, but, yeah, definitely in a day or two.

Nope, two weeks. I mean, I didn't check anywhere else, I just went to the chemist down the road, but still... two weeks. Well, a week and a half now.

No Thursday DnD this week, which we knew about, because Fluffy, who's running the adventure, the last adventure in the book, was busy on Thursday. But then yesterday we discovered that another member of the group has tested positive, so there goes next week.

Friday night before DnD Fluffy came down early and we watch a movie... more on that in a bit... but then Friday night DnD was pretty good actually.

They dealt with what could have been a TPK (total party kill) encounter with minimal problems and found a completely different way to deal with it than the way the book assumed... but it also made sense for it to work, so I totally allowed it.

And now they're in the main area for this first part... in a city full of frog people, when one of the characters is terrified of frogs. Fun times.

It's also interesting to see what they've fixated on as characters (and as players I guess).

I will admit to some trepidation about running the big bad of this area. Just because I'm not sure how it's going to go... but I also haven't actually done any planning for it yet. It'll be fine.

Anyway.

Today... wasn't the original plan. I mean, we did the supermarket and everything as usual. But there was a market we were intending to check out, but I didn't realise until late in the week that it was an indoor market, in a not huge space, and that it may or may not have had an entry fee.

But mostly because it was an indoor market, in a confined space, we decided against it.

Instead we took a little trip down to Big W. Not thrilling, but useful.

And that's that about that.

Current mood:

movies: thor - love and thunder

It's been a hot minute since we last went to the movies, but I absolutely wanted to go and see Thor: Love and Thunder on the big screen. 

And not just because Chris Hemsworth shows his butt in this one. It is a nice butt though.

This movie definitely went places I wasn't expecting. Good places for the most part.

Let me get this out of the way first off, because I talk about all the good things in this movie.

I could absolutely have done with at least 15-20% less of the Taika Waititi-ness in this movie. Especially a lot of the overly cringe humour at the start of the movie. And, sorry, but I needed one to two short cameos from the character of Korg, voiced by Waititi, not to have him be in, essentially, the entire movie. 

He was funny in small doses, but as a constant presence, he's very grating. Keep the narration though, the narration is probably his best dialogue, even though, for the most part, it's fairly unnecessary.

That was part of the problem in general, there were a lot of "Hey, hey, hey, you remember that really smart or funny thing we did in the last movie? Well, what if we did it AGAIN, basically the same, but just added MORE of it? Would that be good, would you like that". And, for the most part, the answer is "No, not really".

Waititi wrote this script with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and, I feel like it shows. There are parts of this movie that are 100% Waititi... and then there are parts of this movie that I would have to say, by contrast, are all Robinson. Honestly, I like the Robinson parts much more.

I also, kinda didn't need the Guardians of the Galaxy cameo at the beginning. Partially because it was so full of the cringy humour I previously mentioned. Also, because I'm kind of over Chris Pratt in general. And he looked weird in this movie. Shlubbier. I don't know how else to describe it, other than to say that he looked like he was being played by a Chris Pratt impersonator. And not a great one either.

If they had dumped a lot of the cringy, pointless and, mostly unfunny "comedy" in the first part, then maybe they could have put more energy and attention into the part of the story that was actually important. The relationship between Thor (Hemsworth) and Dr Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). With, you know, 15-20% less of the TV sitcom "my ex and my other ex are now a couple" of it all.

I like Thor being slightly dumb. I don't know that I like Thor being THIS dumb.

It would also have meant we could have had a little more Tessa Thompson. Because she's always amazing, but she kind of got the sidekick who's not the comedic sidekick edit. Which, also, knowing what we know about the character of Valkyrie is very much the Gay Best Friend trope.

Also... didn't they promise... way back when they first announced this movie that they were going to let her gay it up properly in this one? Yeah, that didn't fucking happen either. To the surprising of exactly nobody. 

Moving on to the good things.

Despite my quibbles, I liked a lot of this movie. 

I really liked seeing Portman back. But then, I just generally like Natalie Portman. Seeing her get to kick ass, take names and be a big old superhero this time around was great.

I'm very, very tangentially aware of the plotline from The Mighty Thor comic books, where Jane Foster takes up Mjölnir and becomes a female version of Thor. And, limited spoilers for both the movie and the comic book series, has cancer. But that's literally all I knew.

Honestly, that's pretty much about as far as the movie dives into it. Not quite, but almost.

And she looked great in the outfit. With her... muscle suit? I couldn't tell, but I assume, if they can give Hemsworth a giant gut in the previous Avengers movie, then giving Portman a set of buff arms and shoulders wouldn't be that hard. Or else, you know, they pulled some Reverse Captain America CGI on her.

The one thing I didn't really dig was the helmet. I kinda assume it was a completely CGI helmet, it just sat on her face strangely. And it made her NOT look like Natalie Portman somehow. It was weird.

I will say, that for most of the movie, Thor is possibly the least interesting character. But there are moments when the script actually allows him to take things more seriously that he becomes the character that I love. Hemsworth is good though. And he and Portman have good chemistry.

Let's talk about Christian Bale for a moment. Until last night, because I've stopped watching any trailers for movies I actually care about, I had no idea he was even in this movie. And boy is he IN this movie.

Well, it would be more accurate to say that he's in the part of this movie that Robinson wrote. He also disappears for large chunks of this movie so that it can do bad comedy.

The character he plays, The God Butcher (or Gorr... although honestly, I don't actually know how anybody knew that other name, if the movie mentioned it, I don't remember), has, for most of the movie, the same issue that I've felt with most of the Marvel villains and definitely with the Thor villains, with the possible exception of Hel. Because Hel was great.

He's... mostly ineffectual. He doesn't REALLY feel like a threat.

The design of the character is cool, Bale puts in a great performance, and yes, he kills a bunch of gods... off-screen. And then fails to kill Thor for the remainder of the movie. Also, you know, something something plot... something something manipulating him not killing him. But still.

And I worked out what his arc was probably going to be about a third of the way into the movie. With the exception of one piece of information I didn't have at the time, I was basically right.

What I will say is that the sequence in the Shadow Realm is possibly the best overall sequence in the whole movie. Because, who knew that a modern Marvel movie in black and white was a thing that I wanted/needed. But it absolutely was. And given that Thor movies made by Waititi are made of technicolour psychedelic rainbows (albeit very beautiful ones), it was a nice contrast.

Honestly, for me, the best parts of the movie in general are from the Shadow Realm onwards.

Well, that and the visit to the Omnipotent City. Once I got over the shock of seeing Russell Crowe pretending to be Greek, but not pretending to have gotten old and chonky. 

Of course that scene also contained both Thor's naked ass as well as the two, delightfully named, Zeus Pretty Boys... Josh Heuston and Adam Todd... who are both very much unspeaking background actors but also very pretty. 

The whole scene was the right kind of comedic (for the most part).

Breaking down this plot in my head now... there's actually not very much to it. And once again, that's partly because they waste so much time at the start of the movie just being "funny".

What I didn't expect was that the scene in the movie that I found the most emotionally effecting would include... mild spoilers... Thor marshalling a bunch of kids to fight a bunch of shadow monsters. And, most especially, one small girl and a stuffed rabbit.

As I said at the beginning though, the end of this movie surprised me. Not completely, like I said, I'd mostly worked out where the villain's story was going, but I wasn't expecting the reveal of the true meaning of the title of the movie. And the final, final post credit scene... yeah, that one got me.

If I had to rank the Thor movies, I think this would come in a solid second place. With Ragnarok in first place (or at least, from my memory of it), the original movie in Third and Dark World in a dark and gritty fourth.

All in all though, an enjoyable time, when it got out of it's own way.

yani's rating: 4 thunder bunnies out of 5