We didn't know this when we started

Hallmark Christmas movies of the year include a time travel romance with Holland Roden (Cara) as a lady from a hundred and ten years ago.

Not a hundred and forty years but you can't have everything.

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Maybe Talk Like A Pirate Day has gotten too commercialised but I try to keep its spirit alive.

Important news

Posh supermarket has its Halloween candy in. They've gone with the cheese puff vampire fangs for the third year in a row, and the chocolate skull has peanut butter filling, ew.

The Muppet Show

The Muppet Show started 50 years ago, making life a little weirder in a good way

Cassie Workman Is Witchy AF

Cassie Workman is Witchy AF, a comedy history of the occult, coming September 16

Via EP Lilly Wachowski

Update:

8o

Mage: The Ascension - Sunrise City

Mage: The Ascension - Sunrise City

The further adventures of a circle of mages in San Francisco

Sunset City 1 (not yet called that)

Sunset City 2

Sunset City 3

Sunset City 4

Cara Lawson, Akashayana

In every generation there is a chosen one

Simon Donovan, Hermetic

May have consulted on the new season of The Librarians

Alissa Kwan, Ecstatic

All the pretty girls and all the pretty boys they get dressed up and go out dancing

Michael Lang, Verbena

Cowboy Druid

And last but definitely least:

Didi Duvall, Hollow One

Wants to be Agatha Harkness when she grows up

4A.01: Into The Portal

26/07

Our heroes (and Didi) have been enjoying relative peace and quiet - cut to Cara kicking a ghoul in the face and Simon casting out a demon - when Martin, the master of Time magic who pressed them into rewriting history to save his wife a while back, approaches them seeming tense.

Someone is planning to launch an attack on the city's Tradition Library, the base of the mages on the west coast.

When it was built.

Over a century ago.

It's been well enough concealed that he just detected it.

We go to try and stop the time warping ritual before it activates.

But it's too late.

Whiteout, hard to look at.

So Martin throws us back in time to stop it.

At least this time he tells us that's all he can do and gives us a moment to nod before he widens the portal and in we go.

Promising a soft landing.

--

Didi wakes to find herself in a nice bed. In a nice room.

With a couple of women in old-fashioned maid uniforms coming to help her get ready for the day.

II's 1883.

Surprise! Mage: The Ascension - Victorian Age

Didi tries not to look too stoked about getting a wardrobe full of Victorian dresses in mourning colours.

Miss Didi Duvall

Pride And Prejudice And Panic

Writer and cartoonist Trang Le Nguyen reads Pride And Prejudice and Bluskey-s along. A LOT.

Collected doc thanks to Benjamin

Mrs B: Jane is unwell! We must go to her!

Mr B: Yes, certainly. 

Mrs B: And I’m bringing all the girls. 

Mr B: Oh, this is a You project.

1-2-3-4-5-6-6-6

When you want the team to win but you're also wholly supportive of the sermons of Caine and smashing the corruption of the antediluvians (art by Emma Beatrez)

Justin Achilli on Bluesky

Well it took 35 years but I finally have a Sabbat character idea

Me

In this blistering heat

Thanks to World Goth Day

"Summer is actually the gothest time of the year because it is the time that we goths suffer the most, which is goth"

Gig guide: The Vampire Lestat, Death Valley

Like a lot of people, I was really looking forward to The Vampire Lestat's first live appearance, and I have to say I was severely disappointed.

The crowd was a good one (and while star-spotting I think I saw the lead from Type O Negative there, as well as Paul McGann!) although with all the walking around I missed the support band completely. I don't know who they even were.

But anyway, it started great with the man (ahem, "vampire") himself flying down from the rafters (nice bit of wireflying) and launching into Slept So Long, but then after like forty seconds of the second song, a bunch of other "vampires" flew up to the stage and there was a big wire-fu stunt scene. Cleverly done, granted - unseen wires, probably some back projection, and having the band run off in a panic was a clever touch - but then some half-naked chick bursts out of the stage and pulls Lestat to her and they fly off.

And no matter how much we clapped, they wouldn't play an encore.

My advice: wait for the Unplugged video.

The Vampire Lestat Live

The Vampire Lestat Live

Better show than last time in Death Valley when he only got through two songs before he flew off to avoid a stage invasion.

(Reviving this gig review from Queen Of The Damned)

J: They were a good two songs though

Me: Yeah, but getting our parking validated after, yeesh

Reuel: You got your parking validated? #NotARealFan

Me: 8O

My favourite TTRPG classes

My favourite TTRPG classes:

1: Angsty Vampire

2: Princess

3: Protective Hero

4: Spooky

5: Comedy Sidekick

Josie And The Pussycats!

Happy 25th anniversary to the best movie ever

Funny VTM AP?

Funny VTM AP? Eh.

16/4

Have now seen the first minute. That was plenty.

Ready Or Not (2) Here I Come

Ready Or Not (2) Here I Come is pretty fun, though it makes a big retcon its emotional core and can't match the "wait, what?" original. And one scene that really made me wince, intercut with a funny one. But it has Sarah Michelle Gellar as a surprisingly un-comedic villain along with some funny ones.

Snow Art Art

"My local park is full of hundreds of snow sculptures and someone has been adding museum labels"

2025

Okay, I think the Old Year is leaving, everybody make sure the exits are clear and - OH SHIT HE'S GOT A SCYTHE

Tales From Black Friday 2025

#talesfromblackfriday

You arrive at the mall with time to spare.

Everyone seems to be lining up patiently, chatting amiably, sharing snacks.

This is WRONG.

You hear people discussing which stores have the things they're after. Offering advice and even directions.

Mall staff dispending warm drinks.

You ask what's going on, and a clerk explains "This is the chosen mall. Every year one mall gets properly supplied."

Really? Huh.

"The tricky part is that we only have a limited time before staff and customers from the other malls hear about it. So no need to rush for bargains... but we do need to be quick about this." She smiles, but her eyes dart to the food court clock.

It's all quite orderly, for the first hour or so. A band plays shopping classics, and the PA includes regular assurances that the security watch teams haven't spotted any approaching convoys so far.

But then the alarm goes up. Delivery trucks from West Harbor. And they're high on the axle, empty in back. Looking to be filled.

Mall security hold the line, knowing this is their best chance of an extra bonus.

And the new tablet you got is SO light, you agree to help shore up the shieldwall for half an hour. If you make it out it'll be so worth it.

Wake Up Dead Man

Wake Up Dead Man is nearly a serious movie that still has Benoit Blanc in it.

Character plans

Found my next player character.

No idea which game for but I can make it work.

A.R.: I'm feeling changling or mage

J: Gangrel. They all count as one Famulus