character saturday: getting the band back together

Well, after a couple of months of being separated, the band is finally back together. So I thought I'd celebrate by grouping them all together in a single image. Complete with a slight make over for Oldy McOldface that happened a while back in game.

And I'll get into it later... but I may have some opinions about the disappearance of our little green friend, for various reasons.

There might be some minor tweaking to the paladin's fit in the next couple of weeks, depending on what happens with that character and the treasure we just found. We'll see what happens.

Anyway...

Soup this week was... not exactly the Lasagne Soup... mostly because it was a little thicker that that generally ends up due to me using noodles over the lasagne sheets. Good, but quite thick.

This week's Mini Media Review... the second anime I've actually loved, Sasaki and Miyano. The first being 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team. And not at all weirdly, they're both predominantly an all male cast. But Sasaki and Miyano is my first proper experience with BL (or Boy Love) anime. There was some mild flavouring of that to the Volleyball show, but it wasn't a direct theme. More accidental queerbaiting.

But Sasaki and Miyano is excellent. Incredibly well done, not least of all because it's as much a comedy as a romance and also because it's a BL anime about boys who love BL manga, so there's some meta explanations in there that I found helpful as someone new to the genre.

I will also say that I am 100% a Dubs stan for this particular anime. And you can lay that at the feat of Kellen Goff who does the voice for Sasaki. His character choices and line readings, exceptional.

I knew enough about most BL anime to know that we were headed into the realm of the 1950's screwball comedy... I could expect one or two chaste kisses before the end of the show and anything else would happen off screen after the show was over.

And that's what I got... and, honestly, given how much this whole show really hit a lot of those early gay relationship vibes, I was grinning like an idiot quite frequently, but never more so than in the final episode where they shared one chaste kiss that was essentially off screen and a second one that was essentially filmed from two neighbourhoods over. Still not mad at it.

The crochet blanket proceeds. I will say that I had some creeping doubts about whether the choice of stitch was the right one and if the yarn was too rough as a result. Weirdly, how scratchy that yarn feels seems to change on the daily. So I'm just going to keep going and then investigate some of the common remedies to dealing with less soft yarn. So there's that.

Friday Night DnD was me being foiled from enacting a plan by DM "interference". Admittedly fully understandable interference. But from my character's perspective, interference. I do, however, now have access to 3rd level spells, and hence Sending, so I can be all up in everybody's business all the time. Well, at least twice a day currently.

Yeah... that spell is going to be a problem. Not for me. For everybody else. 

Anyway...

No grand excitement for today... really just the usual supermarket wander. 

character saturday: stormcloud

Taking another dip back into the Existing Character Redesign box for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book. This time all the way back to one of my very nearly characters, Masika El-Borak.

She last showed up, pre Face Customiser, a couple of years ago. And while this still isn't The Perfect Jacket, this is a much better version of the Staff of Thunder and Lightning. And while I probably could go in and do minor tweaks on her face until the end of time, I feel like the attitude is absolutely correct here.

And much more on brand with what I said last time...

If Masika El-Borak is looking at you like that, you should already be running... because you've clearly annoyed her and now it's time for lightning. Or thunder. Or both.

Because she will fuck you up.

I do wish the knee armor disappeared when you put high boots on... but you can't have everything.

Anyway...

This week was... all over the place.

Soup this week was Beef, Vegetable and Rice. Decent, although honestly, the beef that I used really needed a longer, slower cook. Also possibly everything needed to be chopped a little larger.

I did start the new crochet project... firstly by winding all the yarn into cakes, then having massive indecision about exactly what the hell I was doing. And then lastly doing the thing. Of course, given that hindsight is somewhat 20/20, are there other things I could have done? Absolutely. But I'm happy with how it's coming together right now.

There's no Mini Media Reviews for this week... mostly because I didn't have anything to watch, at least partially because I was working on crochet and ended up just putting nonsense on so there was colour and movement in the background.

Otherwise, the Gentlemen of the Gentlemen's Apps were, essentially, spending entirely too much time on my last actual nerve. Also absolutely my own fault for getting into a mood I would best describe by Wednesday as "feral". I did get over it though.

Friday was Chiro Day. Hence the going into town and wandering around at all the usual places I wander around.

Friday Night DnD was... one long combat. Like two and a half hours worth. Did things go according to plan? No. Did we get 90% of the things we needed to get by the end? Yes. Is the one thing we don't have the one thing I want us to have? Also yes. Are we done yet? Not on your nelly. Wheels are still in motion.

Anyway...

Today wasn't overly exciting. Supermarket as usual. And that was it really. 

character saturday: lionhearted fighter

This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is another revisit to an old character.

So, the Face Customiser really improved Dembe Himayat Chiamaka Khamari. As I said previously, he's a character who never really got a proper go. But he was supposed to be an older character, in his mid 40's. And as much as I liked the previous gold "tattoos/makeup", it didn't necessarily match this vibe.

I also made good use of the lionfolk mini in order to give him a more fitting emblem on his armor. The outfit is still not fully correct, but again, this character isn't going anywhere.

Anyway...

This week's soup was a pretty basic Chicken Noodle Soup, but thanks mostly to very good seasoning, it was highly successful.

This week actually has a Mini Media Review... the first season of Black Sails. I've been describing it as Game of Thrones Meets Treasure Island. Although, honestly, it's more Treasure Island Prequel. Because a number of the characters are there, we're clearly setting up some of the ideas that became Treasure Island. Whether the idea is that they will actually get to the plot of Treasure Island or not, I don't know. Or whether they've taken characters and ideas as a jumping off point and are doing their own thing, I don't know.

But I'm excited to find out. I'm just waiting for Season 2 to show up. 

Also, I'm not going to say that there isn't an element of Hot Men In Pirate Drag in my appreciation, but it's also a well written show.

The weather this week has been... batshit. We swung hard into Spring at a certain point, then it seems that somebody decided that update had been released too early and rolled the weather back to actual Winter. With torrential rain and gusty wind.

Friday Night DnD happened. We continued on through the dungeon, did a little combat, avoided combat with a critter who had lost their marbles and a grumpy ghost. And then ended when I Did The Dumb Thing and attacked the Bad Guy Connected With My Backstory. We'll see how we all go with that decision next Friday.

The fact that I will be updating my Back Up Character this week has nothing to do with that decision. 

Anyway...

Today was a fairly standard Saturday. While also being an exercise in everybody having taken stupid pills. Mostly around the supermarket. Yes, please, leave your trolley at a 45 degree angle across the entire aisle.

But mostly it was fine.

Afterwards we took another trip to Spotlight, because I there's a project underway. I made some very strong choices about colour. For something that will be a gift. So, cross your fingers for me.

Otherwise that was it. 

character saturday: demon twink goes shopping

Okay, so this week's DnD Character Colouring Book is kind of an accident. I mean it was certainly unintentional.

After I posted Riddle last week, I was thinking about what he would look like later on in his adventures. Because the farmboy drag is definitely his Level 1 thru Level 3 or 4 look. At a certain point he would definitely be exposed to some more.... interesting fashion choices. And like all twinks, he would definitely want to update his look.

And this just kind of happened after I futzed around a little. 

The fun bit is that the top half of this outfit is one that I've tried to make work previously, but just never did. And yet, somehow, it kind of does on my boy here. I think it's partially due to body shape, but also due to the bent arms and the choice to color the sleeves of the under top to look like sleeves on the jacket.

I will say that he probably uses a wand, but I like the "grabbing my coat" aesthetic for this image.

Anyway...

I had something of an attack of the Mean Reds in the early point of this week. If you know, you know. Mostly I just acknowledged it was happening and removed my brain from the world for a couple of days til it passed.

One of the things that somewhat helped was realising that the crochet cardigan I've been avoiding finishing for a while now was something I no longer liked and wasn't enjoying and probably wouldn't wear. So I frogged the whole thing. Which was definitely cathartic. And took longer than expected because I had to separate out all the sections where I'd used two different strands of yarn together, and that shit gets twisted. But now it's all just sitting by the bookcase and lurking. I have no idea what I'm doing with it, but I also potentially have at least six months to make a decision and start over, since I'm kind of past the point of needing it this year.

This week's soup... Minestrone. Well, my version anyway. And it was pretty good honestly.

No Mini Media Reviews this week. I did restart Horizon: Forbidden West... I have no idea how long I'll actually play it, because restarting it I suddenly remembered all the parts of it. But it can just sit in the background if I want it I guess.

Also no Friday Night DnD because people who aren't me weren't feeling well. 

Anyway...

A pretty normal Saturday also. We did the supermarket thing, then afterwards we did a run to to Big W because Ma was looking for new perfume... but just something to tide her over until she finds something she actually likes. Which is why my arms currently smell like a low budget perfume factory blew up on them.

It also doesn't help because Ma doesn't have a great sense of smell. So we found something inoffensive and went with that.

I also found a new mug... which I technically don't really need, but it was cute and relatively cheap and stoneware (which I like) and had a big enough handle for my fingers (which is a requirement)... plus it had cats on it.

That was it really though.

character saturday: demon twink farmboy

So, I have to half blame this week's DnD Character Colouring Book on the book I'm currently not really all that interested in reading (and will definitely pull the plug on, probably later today), Queer as Folklore. I mean, as a book, it's fine, it's just a little blah... but this isn't where we review the books.

One of the upcoming chapters is called Demon Twinks... which, naturally enough, got me thinking about a potential new tiefling character. Because, honestly, I haven't designed anything new in a hot minute.

It was also one of those character where the choices I made in the outfit definitely changed some of the rough ideas I had. The base model is Moist, the once mentioned "NPC", but given that we have the Body Modifier now, I made a number of tweaks in order to get him to be closer to late teenage skinny twink rather than mid-20's skinny.

And the overalls just segued him from potential Fiend Patron Fancy Twink into Celestial Patron Country Twink. Also, the synergy between having a sphinx patron and a Sphinx of Wonder familiar just worked for me.

Does it make a huge amount of sense that a farmboy is wearing three inch heeled boots? Probably not, no. And I feel like if I was actually making this character, I might go with the overall top that has both straps fastened, it just looks a little cleaner. Because there just seems to be too much empty space on the right side of his shirt. I just kinda liked his vibes though.

Anyway...

This week's soup was... Tuna Mornay. What is amusing is that I've only recently realised that technically to be a true "mornay", there's supposed to be cheese added to the sauce. And I always forget. Except this time. Where I just grated half a block of cheese that had been sitting in the fridge for a while straight into the pot. I don't know that you could overly taste it in the final product, but I did it anyway.

Likewise, I got the rice thing right this time, because I cooked a couple of cups of rice and threw it in the bottom of the casserole dish, then mixed it through with everything else. It was a good call. I probably could have gone harder to be honest.

Mini Media Reviews... firstly, Hundreds of Beavers is a movie that both exists and that I have watched. I'll be honest, it would make a good 15 minute short. I'm not sure it needed to be a 108 minute movie. I don't know that I'd say it was bad, but I did start to doze off at a certain point.

The other thing I watched this week was the first season of the Murderbot show. Now, I adore the books, and they were amongst the top books I read in 2023. I have thoughts on the show though. Now it's been a hot minute, and I need to reread the first book, because some of my opinion is definitely coloured by what happens in the series later.

But the flaw in the show is mainly the humans. My memory of the book is that the human characters are much more in the background and we're mostly focused on Murderbot and care about them. Which is harder to do in a TV show, where you can't just employ six actors and have them stand around in the background doing nothing. But there is just a high level of awkward and cringe to all those characters that I wasn't really a fan of. And in some ways, I feel like it works against the general awkward vibe of the Murderbot character. Likewise, there's a point where a character is acting incredibly suspect and awkward and cringe, but nobody picks up on them being clearly a problem because everyone else is acting suspect and awkward. Also, that character isn't in the book.

The production design, set design, wardrobe and effects are exceptional though. As is Alexander Skarsgård as the aforementioned Murderbot.

And I would watch a second season.

Friday Night DnD happened. And was DnD. And involved entirely too much quoting of song lyrics. And much wandering through a dungeon. Not a literal one. But essentially.

Anyway.

Today was something of a weird shopping adventure. Because I swear based on what we had that the total should have been much higher than it was. So, don't get me wrong, it's a good problem to have, it's just slightly odd.

Then we just went to take a wander around Spotlight. Not for any real reason, just because we haven't gone anywhere the last few weeks and the intent was just to do a lap. But we did go later than we usually do...

Only to find... the carpark was full, so we had to break out Ma's pass to park in the handicap spot, then the elevator wasn't working, but we just took it slow and took up all the space, only to discover that, for some reason (Book Week? The fact that it was after 12? Some other reason?) the place was full of people. So we mostly just did a lap, looked at the Halloween decor, looked at the yarn, looked at the mostly ugly bedding on sale, and then called it a day. 

character saturday: desert explorer

Revisiting an old friend again for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book.

And by "old friend", I mean a character I never really got to play enough back in the Adventurer's League days. He hasn't shown up on the blog since 2020 though, back in the Photoshop colouring days... and let's just steal the blurb from then.

The Morning Star was my desire to go completely the other way and was my first (and to this point, only) full elf character (well, surface elf anyway). He comes along with a ridiculously crappy French accent, and while many of my characters are verbose, he takes the cake even within the Venn diagram. He was also the first design I did where I really properly played around with patterns, something I've done a ton of since then. 

While I did like his old braids, I do like the natural hair poof also. I feel like that makes the most sense for him. At least until a more interesting "natural hair" style comes along. I will say that "crappy French accent" really is an accent that I should revisit. I probably could have revisited it for my boy Whisper honestly. 

I am also slightly annoyed that HF doesn't give us even basic body controls for the familiars. Just give me the ability to adjust the head, please, without having to go all the way to Kitbashing. That would be lovely.

And I feel like he has more than one vest in his load out. Because I still feel like there needs to be a purple/green toned one as well.

Anyway...

I'm going to file this week under A Number Of Minor, Meaningless Inconveniences That Added Up To General Malaise.

Let's start at the beginning.

This week's soup was Mexican Chicken Soup. And it was... fine. But also just... 20% Not Right. And I honestly don't know why. I think it was probably the packet of taco seasoning that I used. Well, possibly that and the combination of Mexican bean mix, corn and rice. Or maybe the coriander (cilantro) I added. I don't know. I just know that I got sick of it throughout the week and basically left some of it in the bottom of the bowl each time.

Next up... Mini Media Reviews. And this is less of reviews and more.... "Anime really doesn't work for me", Chapter 37. So, I tried to watch Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and then Vinland Saga. I got further with Vinland, but I still "noped" out of both of them. 

Frieren was just too melodramatic, although I will give it credit for sewing the idea of a potential future DnD character (interestingly enough, an elf, much like Morning Star... in fact he would be a character that I could see it working for), an elf that forgets that shorter lived races don't view time in the same way and going off "wandering" for 80 years means that the humans or shorter lived folks you used to know are all dead or so old they've retired. But regardless, I didn't get far enough into Frieren to even meet the third "main character" on the box art.

Vinland, as I said, I liked more. But the longer it went on the more I disliked the main character. Which is always a problem. Bits of it were definitely good though. 

But in both cases I found myself falling asleep during episodes.

So for anybody keeping tabs, the only anime I've really enjoyed was 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team. And I don't really care about sport, I just really liked that story.

It did mean that instead of a week full of things to watch, I found myself flailing around and ended up going to bed early several times just to fuck around on my phone.

Moving on.

The ear doctor. I headed out for my appointment on Tuesday, caught the landlord outside and mentioned a couple of things that needed a minor looking at, and trundled down the road. Thankfully it wasn't far. Thankfully, that is, because it was the wrong day and I was in the wrong location. The wrong day, because it was actually supposed to be Wednesday. I still don't know where the fuck up came about. I mean, it was definitely the doctor's fault. I just don't know why he screwed it up.

And the place thing... that was 50% me, 50% the practice. Because why you gotta have two locations, essentially 100 metres apart on the same road, with essentially the same name. Urgh.

But come Wednesday, I got to the right place at the right time. However, because he's a travelling doctor and, honestly, I think he's just gone out on his own and has started his own little practice, nobody at any of the surgeries really know who he is. Because the receptionist at the second location just looked at me like I was nuts when I said who I was there. It was only because the ear doctor was on his way down the corridor for other reasons that it didn't turn into a Abbot and Costello sketch.

The actual doctoring itself was fine. What I will say is that technology is great and all, but being able to see inside your own ear is perhaps a bridge too far. I don't need to see that shit, just fix it for me, please.

Also there was more than one point where I wanted to tell the doctor "dude, I've had this done multiple times before, I understand how it works, you don't need to keep either reassuring me or checking in with me. If there's an issue, you'll know about it, I'm good.

Of course, I would also have appreciated it if you'd bothered to get your new payment machine out of the box over the previous two days and checked that it was actually charged. I mean, admittedly, plugging in the base station and putting the machine in that cradle should absolutely have meant that it ignored any "low battery" warnings and just worked.

Thankfully we did fix the issue. As much as this issue can actually be fixed for any length of time. But the immediate crisis has passed.

Afterwards I went and did the rounds at Burnside Village, just because I haven't been there since they finished the renovations. And by "finished", I mean "the area is open, some shops are open, but we're still a good six months away from it feeling finished". And, while it's all... you know... acceptable looking... it's also all just blah. I mean Burnside Village was never super useful to me when I lived next door to it. It's mostly just women's fashion and... well... honestly, it's essentially just that. And, you know, associated industries.

There is a JB HiFi there now. A JB that stocks no physical movie media. Because I assume JB still does that... hang on... [furtive Googling in the background]... okay good, they still do.

But honestly, the whole thing was very... [slow, sad, deflating balloon sound]. 

Friday was Chiro Day. Followed by the usual Wandering Around Looking At Things that always comes after.

And then Friday Night DnD wasn't. Because Fluffy's house came down with actual influenza. So, very much "Get away from me Unclean Thing". Thus, no Friday.

Anyway...

Nothing of much import for today. Just the Supermarketry really.

character saturday: underwater dad energy

Weirdly, if you'd asked me, I would have said that I absolutely already posted this do-over. And yet, it doesn't seem to be anywhere on the blog. I know there was a different version before I swapped over the hair, and maybe that one was on the docket. I have no idea.

The only version of Oceanus that I can find is from back in 2020 when I was doing janky Photoshop colouring. But pulling his bio from when he appeared in the header image for a while...

Oceanus (Oh-see-ann-us... not any other variation of how you might pronounce that particular name, thank you very much) is Southern. My accept repertoire isn't enormous... I can do a decent accent from the American south though. And by decent, I mean often terrible, but a bad real world accent makes for a workable DnD accent. It also makes him often more laid back than I might otherwise play characters. He's also had a little bit of Big Dad Energy. I didn't want to play him that way, but maybe because I play him mostly with people roughly two decades younger than me, it's just what happens.

Yep, that about sums him up. He is also absolutely a character that, if I was going to update him for the 2024 rules, would become a Circle of the Sea Druid. Because that is perfectly his vibe.

Also, screw you "new" version of the Water Genasi that gives them Acid Splash as their racial cantrip instead of Shape Water. It makes literally zero sense. Grrr. 

Hero Forge really does need to do a new version of a pirate coat though. Because the current one suffers from the "everything's too bulky" that a lot of the older pieces do. Hence the switch to the slimmer fit coat.

I am really proud of his new face though. Oh, and Photoshopping an existing item to turn into his focus on his belt.

Anyway.

This week has been something of a ride.

Sunday the power just randomly went out in the neighbourhood for a little over two hours. No idea why. The storms/rain the previous couple of days most likely. 

Next up, the issue that has plagued me on and off for a long time has raised it's head again. Some combination of otitis externa and ear wax means that my right ear has been dicey for a while, but finally gave up the ghost and got blocked last Friday.

And knowing that last time I went to my GP about this, he sent me off to a ENT doctor who charged a ridiculous amount of money (which, weirdly, I don't know that I complained about at the time on the blog)... and so I went looking for a different solution.

Long story, mostly dull, after a 20 minute car ride, a set of fortunate happenstances, including but not limited to the choice of direction of that car ride, a young Asian doctor who was in the right place at the right time and me just being lucky, I have an appointment with what seems like a lovely ENT doctor at the beginning of the week just up the road from my previous apartment.

Which is possibly the only thing that kept me somewhat sane the rest of the week. Then of course the weird air pressure bubble in my ear popped on it's own on Friday while I yawned on my walk. Because naturally. The ear is still definitely an issue though, but at least it's slightly more comfortable now.

Good times.

This week's soup. Lasagne. It's always a banger. No notes.

Mini Media Reviews for this week... first up, Flow. Flow won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film in 2025. Against The Wild Robot. Which, if I didn't already know that the Oscars were 100% cooked, this would totally confirm it.

It's not bad. But at the same time it looks like an extended cut scene from a video game from 2010. And it doesn't really bother to tell a story that goes anywhere or has a satisfying ending. Bits of it are lovely. I don't have an issue with there being no dialogue. It was made by a very small crew and is primarily the passion project of one guy, and that should be commended.

That doesn't make it good unfortunately.

But this is absolutely one of those movies that people are going to be pretentious about the meaning of for some time to come.

Next up was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. A movie that would be significantly better if the majority of the cast were 10% better actors than they are. And the boys were about 35% hotter. Not you, Douglas Booth, you're going the Lord's work, carry on. But Elizabeth and Darcy specifically... they're just not at the level to make this the camp masterpiece it could have been. Especially if the IMDB trivia that says that Natalie Portman was originally attached to the project is true.

It wasn't terrible, bits of it were quite good, it just was a very, very solid C when it could have been at least a B+. 

That was the majority of the week honestly. Everything else was attempting to not to lose my mind due the aforementioned ear.

Friday was not, in fact, Friday Night DnD. It was a return to the land of Hero Quest due to a birthday. And you know what sucks... going back to the beginning of that game without all the cool shit we had previously. LOL

Seriously though, it was fun. It was an expansion pack, and we only did the first map, so it wasn't too strenuous.

Anyway...

Nothing much to report of interest for today. We went, we shopped, we came back, we poke YouTube for a bit, I sent Ma home.

character saturday: muscle mommy

Today's DnD Character Colouring Book is from the "Let's explore 9000 different variations of Barbarian" playbook. I believe what I was roughly aiming for was the idea of Muscle Mommy Karlach vibes from Baldurs Gate 3. A game, I will add, in which I find every single companion character deeply unattractive. Admittedly, I also haven't played the game, but going purely off the game art and vibes... no, absolutely not, you're all terrible, get in the bin.

However, this was out starting point. I think the scar and the tattoo kind of came as a package deal, but I do know that the hair was blonde for a good chunk of time until I was looking for something that pushed it a little bit more interesting. And I realised that the whole pink/green combo was working overall. 

Zahri was also one of those characters where I realised I do often make a slightly masculine female character. Not always, and some of it is what works for the character, or the specific look of some of the facial elements in Hero Forge.

I'm not 100% convinced that the Berserker subclass fits her. But, you know, it'll do till something better comes along.

Anyway...

So, chicken soup with alphabet noodles and just enough cayenne pepper to make it interesting. It's just simple and clean and tasty. I'm a fan.

In Mini Media Review news... sometimes just randomly grabbing something off the shelf at the library just because it's there and none of the things you ordered had come in actually works. Like, unbelievably well.

First up was Mickey 17. I don't know that I knew it was by Bong Joon Ho going in. I did know it had Robert Pattinson, but honestly, beyond that I really didn't know anything. And it was absolutely amazing. Big, big fan. It's very, very dark black dystopian humour. But damn it's incredibly well done. No notes.

I followed that up with The Dead Don't Die. Again, I had literally no idea what I was getting into, except for the fact that the cast list for it was ridiculous and it was clearly about zombies. I was a little concerned when the name Jim Jarmusch popped up as the director. The only experience I'd had with Jarmusch movies was Dead Man back in the 90's, and I absolutely hated that.

However Dead Don't Die is just the right kind of unhinged. I mean, it gets a little bit "Old Man Yells At Cloud" at the end, because Jarmusch clearly has some Very Specific Opinions About Capitalism. And you know, it does kind of end with a whimper rather than a bang. But I was never bored or not completely entertained by the level of ridiculousness.

I've been slightly dragging my feet on the crochet cardigan... partially because I'm just not feeling it. And also today I realised that I'd been decreasing too much on the second sleeve, because I just randomly did it on the first one, and I got a little too focused on doing it. So that got frogged and I restarted that bit.

We got to actually do Friday Night DnD this week. Which was good. Also, Fuck you Fluffy. You know why. With your replacement character and your fucking backstory clues. And me being entirely concerned with the literal wrong parts of said clues [sigh]. Fuck you.

This was also definitely one of our "come back to town, do random conversations with people" episodes.

The drive up there and the drive back were... challenging. Because it had been raining pretty much all day, we were up in the hills with either fog or very low cloud, depending on your opinion I guess, and a car with no working windshield demister. Good times. We only nearly died like three times. Not really, but kind of.

Anyway...

Not a exciting day today.

Basically we did the usual supermarket circuit. Not really anything else to report. 

character saturday: tiny ginger menace

I'll be honest... for a variety of reasons, I haven't been making many new Hero Forge DnD Character Coloring Book of late. I don't know exactly when I made this one, but he's kind of a remake of the very first character I played, Belben. You can tell I made it a while ago though, because young Tobias uses the pointy halfling ears that I've stopped using.

And once again, because I've never played a redheaded character, for reasons that just baffle me.

I'm not sold on the name, to be honest, but that's really the easiest thing to change. I also don't know that I'd want to revisit the halfling + criminal + rogue character. I do like his cute little haircut with the stars though.

Anyway...

This week has been... pfffffffffft.

So Saturday evening I just started feeling a little bit off. Not fully terrible, just off. And either a little bit fevery or else I had just left my very warm blanket hoodie on with the hood up and felt a little overheated.

But in that weird, "I have a mild fever and feel bad, so I'm going to cook whatever is wrong with me out of my system" kind of way. 

Which also feeds into this week's Mini Media Review... which was the first season of Titans. Because I was trying to watch the first three or four episodes while also not really feeling right, and feeling a little sleepy. Still not sure if the sleepy was because I bored senseless or slightly sick.

Because the original New Teen Titans comic books were the thing that really got me into superhero comics way back in the day. And I still own a giant box full of Teen Titans/Titans comics. It was my literal jam for the longest time, and the main reason why I consider myself a DC comics boy.

And Titans is... in a word... shit. The show absolutely did not understand a single one of the characters, or their history or their lore. And yes, trying to pin down any superhero character down to one version of their lore is like trying to nail Jello to a tree.

But in the comics, Raven is my girl. No other version of Raven gets her right. Well... I liked the AU version from the Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo comic books. Which is like the decent version of these characters.

If I can give future creators a piece of advice... stop treating Raven like Wednesday Addams. 

They don't get Raven right, they don't get Starfire right, they don't get Robin right. I didn't stick around long enough to see what they did to Changeling (not Beast Boy, thank you). They just fell into the "We Are DC, We Must Have The Angst" issue that is what I generally hate about almost all of the DC properties I've watched as part of this little ongoing experiment. 

And I'll fully admit that I'd been slightly falling asleep through what I believe was the third episode I watched. That's fully on me. But do you want to know the point where I 100% pulled the pin, where I noped all the way out?

The Doom Patrol crossover. Because, no. I mean, yes, great that they remembered/used the fact that Changeling first appeared in the Doom Patrol comic, and he was part of the line up there before he moved over to Teen Titans and was adopted by characters from the Doom Patrol.

Characters that I know are not together in the TV show, since I saw them both in the first season.

And it wasn't even when the Doom Patrol mansion showed up, I could technically have lived with that. No, it was when they had one of the DP characters show up that I literally went "nope... nope nope noppity nope" and stopped the show.

No.

On the plus side, I did end up going to bed pretty early for the rest of the week, so at least I was free to do that.

Soup this week was... Disappointment. I was supposed to be making a potato and leek thing. With sausage. And, to be fair, I did do that. But for whatever reason, I was just underwhelmed by it the whole week, and never finished a full bowl of it outside of maybe once. Of course, a non-zero amount of that could very likely be a lack of appetite from being sick. So... you know.

It was also the first time in a good long while where something caught on the bottom of the pot and I had to resort to baking soda and vinegar.

I was never hugely sick thankfully... just kind of borderline mildly sick. With a number of early nights.

Which should have meant I was okay for Friday Night DnD. And I mostly would have been I believe, but I was going to mention it, but before I did, it turns out that Mr had also been sick all week, so we decided to call it off.

And that meant that I finished reading my book last night instead. Which was enjoyable.

Anyway...

Today really wasn't much. We did the supermarket thing, I bought the things I would have bought last week if I'd known I was going to be sick (most notably the makings for chicken soup and Nippy's Lemon Drink).

And I pulled out my mask for the first time in a good long while, just because I didn't want to share my germs with the wider populace. I also sent Ma home relatively early for the same reason.

But Ma did bring the extra ball of grey yarn we went looking for last week, so that's a bonus. 

character saturday: drowned diva

So, in the last few weeks I've done a couple of "redesign character who was one thing into another thing". And much like Silence before her, this one had a gender flip and also became a Trickery Cleric. But not a rename.

Let's be real... I need to play a cleric sometimes soon.

But in this case, this is another one of those where I like to disregard the recommendations of matching cleric domains with individual gods and just... make something up that works for me.

In the case of Umberlee, aka The Bitch Queen, it was mostly due to this line from the blurb about her clergy...

When there are no worshipers present, Umberlant priests then remove the offerings from the stone block altars at Umberlee's shrines and sluice the altars with buckets of sea water containing seaweed to signify that the Sea Queen has come for what is rightfully hers. 

And she's an evil goddess... who doesn't really care why people worship, only that they do.

So it all tracks in my head.

Also, I do love a slightly sassy woman who used to be a sailor. 

Anyway...

This week's soup was beef, barley and vegetable. I might switch up some of the vegetables next time, but overall it was good.

The Mini Media Review for this week was the "follow up" series to Penny Dreadful, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.

And I don't think anybody has absolutely failed to stick the landing on a follow up as hard as City of Angels did. The original series is small and intimate and full of characters from the aforementioned genre of Penny Dreadful novels.

City of Angels is sprawling and bloated and instead of the idea of these characters and storylines from Victorian Gothic literature being given a new life. And because they only got one season, the story has no conclusion, it just ends.

There are some amazing performances, there are some great moments, but also, leaning into the Los Angeles late 1930's of it all with racism, Nazis, Jews and police corruption. It was all... a bit much. It also really ham fists the "supernatural elements"... but then really does nothing with them.

I almost didn't bother after the first couple of episodes, but I really wanted to see where they went with it. And I'm kind of glad I did, even if it was mostly a disappointment.

I will also give full kudos to Natalie Dormer, who works her ass off. Likewise Nathan Lane, who is always excellent.

Otherwise, it's always slightly strange when you don't realise you've entered a competition and you get a call early in the week telling you that you've won a $500 gift card just for scanning a loyalty card. I mean, yes, thank you very much, I'm not going to complain. So that was a nice surprise.

As was the Gentleman Caller who swung by early on Thursday morning. 

Friday was Chiro Day... and I absolutely needed it, my back has been whinging for several weeks now in varying degrees.

It was also Friday Night DnD for the first time in a month basically. Which is currently as much Dealing With Kittens as it is Playing DnD. Which I'm not particularly mad about.

The session itself was... one of those ones where you realise that if you'd gone left instead of right in the previous session, it would have been an entirely different outcome. But it all worked out in the end.

Anyway...

Today wasn't hugely exciting. We did the usual supermarket thing, and then we took a trip to Spotlight to look for some more yarn for the random cardigan I'm still working on. 

And, of course, the Spotlight we generally go to has their stockroom organised by... I dunno... circus animals. Because the last two times we've been in and I've had to ask about yarn, they've either not been able to find the yarn that their system tells them exists or find it but it was in some precarious place they couldn't get to.

Thankfully they supposedly have "loads" at the store near Ma, so she's going to take a look this week.

Also, there was a very random moment after I'd been waiting for the shop assistant but Ma had been asked by a couple of women about picking the right crochet hook... so, of course, while she did tell them what was what, she asked me to talk to them about it (like I'm the damn expert LOL), so I did a little bit of song and dance with them and they left happy.

You're welcome Spotlight. Have the fucking yarn I need next time please.

But that's it really.