Birthday!

DVDs! CDs! Books! Cake! Ice Cream! A gig tomorrow (unrelated but still nice)!

(Ready Or Not 2! Interview With The Vampire 2! Nine Inch Nails! Horror novels!)

And balloons from Google...

250 years

Happy Independence Day, US friends!

All the best for your national future.

July

Happy Canada Day to anyone it's relevant to!

Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows animated series? Maybe.

Designs by Abigail Larson? YES NOW PLEASE

Up to date

YES

The Hunger by Annie Wu

Catherine Deneuve as Miriam Blaylock, by Annie Wu

Midsummer

Midsummer! Hence only wearing three layers.

Disclosure Day

Disclosure Day: Steven Spielberg comes back to aliens and UFO lore, the result is a fun ride, like if The X Files didn't have to worry about making more stories later but that's not a bad thing, and there's one of his fantastic big action bits.

Anthony Head

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

June

It's June, so happy Pride Is A Riot Month!

Vampire: The Masquerade V?

Vampire: The Masquerade 5.5 or maybe 6 on the way, depending how playtests go.

Panel video, wobbly camera, timestamped at The Question

Cue the fandom panic!

J: I really liked V5, but I'm sure it'll go the way of Requiem

WGD 2026

So I spent World Goth Day seeing Baby Yoda's Big Day Out, which was not the most relevant option but was a lot of fun.

My favourite TTRPG classes

My favourite TTRPG classes:

1: Angsty Vampire

2: Princess

3: Protective Hero

4: Spooky

5: Comedy Sidekick

World Goth Day

And just like that, caught up on four years of reverse engineered blogging

The WOD MMO looks like a game I'd have loved some of

Justin Achilli on social conflict in the WOD MMO

Ha ha ha, out of nowhere this reminded me of the WoD MMO. Early prototyping had the combat system in place (of course) and an source of endless disagreement was how the game would systemically model social conflict, which always just defaulted to combat but with reskinned actions (BOO TO THAT).

At one point we were having an off-site and each little teambuilding group had to do a skit in front of the other groups. The skit with the Programming Director was a mission with a quest-giver requesting the PC, "I need you to kill OR SEDUCE 20 victims."

That version of the game eventually gave way to better iterations, but the thing that got me was the fungible nature of the quest; hey, player, go inflict yourself on 20 different interactibles, and it's not really important how.

We had some UI problems during preproduction as well. Total Wild West situation, just stick whatever feedbacks or hotbars you needed wherever; it’s all good. One of the engineers doodled up this sticky by way of comment and I still have it, 15+ years later.

Erin LeCount

Don't You See Me Trying?

Hell yes

Mage: The Ascension Action Figures! (not really)

Mage: The Ascension group photo led to ST making fake toys with computer... and then spending hours making the packs match and the accessories scale together.

Yes I want the whole set.

And the followup Halloween Formal fashion dolls.

Set 1, based on the photoshoot

Didi comes with different hair and higher heeled boots because I couldn't think of anything.

Didi's mischievous / evil smile fits the group photo but not the figure set, so a variant with a more neutral expression. Still adorably life-ruining but maybe 30% less obvious about it.

--

Set 2: Halloween Formal

And like many real toy lines the accessories aren't 100% episode accurate. Nobody used the weapons included - Cara had to fight wrathful spirits with a hairpin - but we did use the wraps and purses and Simon definitely looked in a book.

Sunset City photoshoot

Mage: The Ascension: Sunset City

The visual references for the player characters from Mage: The Ascension - Sunset City
Michael (Luke Grimes), Didi (Ksenia Solo), Cara (Holland Roden), Alissa (Paris Berelc) and Simon (Rupert Evans)
together by the power of photomanipulation

My background-selecting hand hurts

And the Halloween formal last season. Should have thought "hey, don't have a background that matches somebody's hair"...

And for the Goth gig 4.19