Today would’ve been the birthday of Leslie Fish, folk musician and filker. She passed away at the end of November 2025.
Decades ago when I first discovered filk, Fish was one of the names I started to soon recognize. Some of the songs I still remember include “Carmen Miranda’s Ghost”, “Signy Mallory” with Mercedes Lackey, “Space Hero” and “One Last Battle” with Vic Tyler (I believe), and “Wind’s Four Quarters” with Mercedes Lackey and Heather Alexander.
“Hope Eyrie” is the only one of hers I’ve sung in a crowd, the last time at a filk worshop at Ropecon 2024 or 2025 (or maybe both), which is an indication of her enduring influence.
RIP, Ms. Fish.
An occasional feature on music and sound-related notions.
Odysseus was a well-received Finnish-style larp (or live-action role-playing game) for 104 players organized first in 2019 and again in 2024 by Illusia ry and a team of dozens of volunteers. It was set in an original world drawing heavily from Battlestar Galactica, but also inspired by Star Trek and The Expanse.
Three runs of the game were held each year, and large space ship sets were built in a rented school building, where the game area provided a 24/7 immersive experience for the players over 48 hours, followed by a debrief / end party.
Now a number of the crew are attempting to create a commercially viable version of the game. They’re setting up a business entity, Ellarion Tales, and are prepping an improved version to be known as Odysseus – First Light.
To provide a background to the project, Laura Kröger, the lead producer and narrative designer, talks with Adrian Hon at MSSV about the thought process and challenges, including what commercial game running in Finland requires.
At this writing, their goal is 10 runs, starting from October 2026 and continuing until summer 2027, with the possibility of more if stretch goals for the crowdfunding are reached. Two of these 10 initial runs will be so-called local runs (materials will still be in English but the spoken language will be either Finnish or Swedish).
The Odysseus – First Light Indiegogo page prelaunched in late January. (Meaning, you can read about the project but cannot back it yet.) The campaign proper will start on March 6 and end on April 12th, 2026.
(Note that they are still finalizing the project; details might change before the campaign actually launches.)
I haven’t played in Odysseus myself, but I know several people who have—some more than once, in fact—and everyone has been bursting with praise. (And some thought-out criticism as well, sure, but overwhelmingly the comments have been good things.) In addition, Erik and I were able to tour the set during their July 2024 visiting hours, and can testify first hand to the quality of the propping and environments, including soundscapes. It was truly extraordinary! If the folks at Ellarion Tales are indeed able to improve on Odysseus, their larp(s) should continue to provide legitimately memorable gaming experiences.
Legos are known for their versatility. Even so, sometimes people’s ingenuity stops me short.
For example, Finnish Lego enthusiast Satu Aaltonen created a wearable bridal outfit. Her project is called Bride of the Frozen Crown and it garnered her an invitation to the Lego House Masterpiece Gallery in Denmark.
The Masterpiece Gallery is entirely devoted to fan-built artistry. Apparently, only about a hundred makers have been invited to participate during the Gallery’s existence. Aaltonen is the second Finn and the first Finnish woman to gain an invitation.
Modeling the gown in these photos is Aaltonen’s daughter Nelli Turunen. The build contains no glue—of course—and took thousands of bricks to complete. Very appropriately, the Legos make a slight rustly, rattly noise reminiscent of walking on ice, says Aaltonen.
Wow…! And I mean WOW!
The colors and the details are staggering. It must take a thorough knowledge of the variety of blocks to make something as delicate as this dress and its accessories. And, as if the intricate design is not enough, the dress is fully wearable. (Apparently one side is openable for putting the dress on.)
Well, now. This is clearly an origin story. I’m hazy on how—and why—would little Adam be sent to Earth to hide and what, exactly, there is at Castle Grayskull to protect in this version of the story. Perhaps that’ll become clearer in future trailers.
The protagonist is played by Nicholas Galitzine, a complete unknown to me, but the supporting cast has some very big names like Morena Baccarin, Idris Elba, Jared Leto, James Purefoy, and Kristen Wiig, and smaller familiar ones like Alison Brie, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson.
Like Molly Templeton said at Reactor magazine, so far it “looks like the generic version of Thor: Ragnarok, as ordered from a questionable website.” Agreed! Also, some clips and effects look almost like they’re copy-pasted from other Marvel Cinematic Universe content.
I haven’t bothered to dig up the MCU cinematographers or visual effects companies for comparison, to see whether there is a real overlap or whether this could be a case of a visual language being increasingly adopted within the genre movie industry in general. (It could also be a blatant case of stylistic copying to try and lure in MCU fans, of course.)
But I do have to wonder, if visuals across big productions are starting to resemble each other to this extent, what does it forebode for future genre action movies? I’ve gotten quite tired of the stagnant action movie structure, to be honest. For a while the larger story arc across the separate MCU movies was interesting, since it had never been done before on that scale. (In fact, MCU reminds me of Babylon 5, the first to introduce really extensive story arcs for SFFnal tv shows.) But is there going to be anything interesting that’ll define action franchises anymore? Thematic differences like fast custom cars (vroom vroom!) or superpowered individuals or big monsters will remain, sure, but anything worth caring about? I guess I’m hankering after a paradigm shift in action movies, really.
Annnyway. 🙂
Travis Knight is directing a script by Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, and Dave Callaham. Callaham at least I recognize from the 2014 Godzilla, Wonder Woman 1984, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
The release date for the U.S. and U.K. for MotU is listed as June 05, 2026.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
My first thought was: I wonder what has changed that Marvel has disrupted their pattern of marketing? Then I saw the plot synopsis on IMDB: “Plot under wraps.”
Ah. Likely they’re after hype, probably spurred on by the less than stellar performance overall of phases four and five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
As the teasers are really short, we obviously don’t get much detail, however. It’s intriguing and refreshing that so much of the Steve Rogers trailer concentrates on him smiling and just holding (presumably) his baby. An interesting choice for such a short clip.
It’s also refershing that an uber-masculine franchise such as MCU is now mature enough to discuss not just fathers and sons from the perspective of being the son, but also becoming the father. We had a version already in Avengers: Endgame and a glimpse in Thor: Love and Thunder, but it seems it may now get a somewhat larger share of attention.
What does baffle me is why we see so many fewer women on screen than, say, in Avengers: Endgame. The current cast listing on IMDB is also very, very man-heavy. It’s like someone suddenly developed an overwhelming case of cooties…
We’ll have to see how many of my impressions change in the coming months as more trailers are released, as I’m sure they will be.
At this writing, the release date for Avengers: Doomsday is either December 17 or 18, 2026, depending on location.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
We all know that everyday tasks aren’t really made lighter by having eye-pleasing tools to work with. But there clearly is some innate yearning in humanity to not just modify but also to decorate our environment.
Here’s one more case in point: Iranian spindle whorls from the early islamic period c. 700s-900s CE. They are made from incised bone and carved with intricate designs.
A spindle is a hand tool for making yarn, basically a long thin stick around which the freshly formed yarn can be wound. A spindle whorl is a weight attached to the bottom of a spindle. Whorls provide more torque and a longer spin time—purely functional, in other words.
Many, many spindle whorls found around the world have been carefully shaped, which is to be expected—you do want your tools not just to work, but work well for the purpose. In addition, so many of extant spindle whorls are also beautifully decorated.
You could perhaps argue that the small surface makes for a quick and easy art project. However, most whorls are round or spherical, which makes for a more challenging surface to decorate.
Spinning must have been an unending task for our predecessors. Spindles—and, by extension, spindle whorls—were the most basic, utilitarian tool you could imagine. And yet, we find innumerable people throughout history wanting to decorate their whorls. Little details like this make me love humanity all over again, despite all the awful we’re also capable of.
Oh, I had not come across this—a new Robin Hood adaptation is coming to the big screen. It involves an old, wounded Robin, and they’ve scored quite a big name for the titular role: Hugh Jackman.
Here’s a trailer:
The Death of Robin Hood | Official Trailer HD | A24 by A24 on YouTube
There are some impressive locations and cinematic beauty, like when the little girl (who sounds like one of the protagonists) and Robin meet in the woods and he promises to make her a bow. Sadly, though, I find the trailer a bit too vague; too many flashbacks to Robin’s past, perhaps? Also, some of the scenes are too dark to see. While that’s a benefit for me when really graphic violence is depicted, I can’t say I really care for either. (I wish the movie business would get out of the if-it’s-fantasy-it-must-be-explicitly-violent-because-Game-of-Thrones-was-and-that-did-great rut already!)
It seems that Jackman is the only name I know from the cast. Even the writer-director Michael Sarnoski is completely unknown to me, so I can’t even guess at the style of story this might be. I do like what I see of the adult and young female protagonists, though (played by Jodie Comer and Faith Delaney, it looks like).
While there is something to be said for a tale where a man and a girl form a meaningful connection, this doesn’t look like a movie for me. (Like I implied in my post about the 2025 Red Sonja reboot, there is no longer a need to see absolutely everything SFFnal if you want to see anything, since the selection has grown so much.) We’ll see if that changes with further trailers.
According to IMDB, The Death of Robin Hood has only two release dates at this writing: one for Mexico on May 28, 2026, and merely 2026 for United States.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
The next World of Warcraft expansion, Midnight, will be released at the beginning of March, but one of the new features—player housing—was made available already at the beginning of December 2025.
This early access has been hyped quite a bit in some circles—we were certainly excited about it, and followed various news items. A lovely feature I stumbled upon is the Midnight beta gallery of user-submitted builds at Wowhead.
There are so many inspiring houses and rooms at the gallery, with inventive uses of items and decorative elements—not surprising from gamers, right? 🙂 However, I want to especially highlight one: a Winter Sauna Cottage by CottageWizard.
In real life, little cottages like this are quite popular here in Finland, and typically contain a multipurpose room (or two) plus a sauna room with washing facilities in a corner.
CottageWizard describes the idea like this: “Winter sauna cottage built on the Midnight Beta. Tried to create the illusion of a snowy environment without snowy housing items! This was created at house level 3.”
The whole is really, really impressive. I absolutely love it! And, having messed about in the housing editor, I can see how much effort went into the build. The facade. The snow. (Snow!) The covered firewood storage. Towels on their pegs in the hallway. Creating the wood panels and benches in the sauna. The added platforms and beams in the room (e.g. as molding in the kitchen area). The kitchen backsplash.
What I don’t get is how the snow outside is achieved. I wish CottageWizard had included a little more detail; I’ll have to ponder that a bit.
But the sauna is absolutely perfect! The heater (kiuas) is protected with railings, as it should. Wood paneling throuhgout, ditto. Buckets (barrels) of water and ladles. A couple of levels of seating to adjust your bathing experience when it gets too hot or cool. A window is a bonus. (But HOW does it look snowy outside?!?! HOW?!?) There even is a sauna whisk (vihta or vasta, depending where you’re from) and a thermometer on the wall!
LOVE. IT!!! 😀
Images: screencaps from World of Warcraft: Midnight beta release by CottageWizard via Wowhead, mashup by Eppu Jensen
The other day I was browsing a random blog. Seeing a post title “101 Things to Do When Bored at Home” or something to that effect, I turned to Erik and said: “I don’t understand the concept.”
I truly don’t, not for my part!
We’re both introverts who love our home. Home is where our books are. Where we can watch tv in comfort. Play games. Craft, sew, write. Go nap or lie down with a blanket to think about things. Heck, even clean or mend things—it’s something to do, and we do enjoy a well-functioning home (even if cleaning and mending aren’t favorite pastimes themselves).
I literally can’t remember the last time I’ve been bored at home.
I can—and do—give my brain rest breaks. Idling is important to creativity, which is important to all of life, if you ask me. But boredom…? Nope. It just doesn’t happen, there’s so much to do.
I’m actually looking forward to the time when I’m old enough to need less sleep—more time to enjoy being conscious! 🙂
Co-Geeking 
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