A couple of weeks ago I shared my blue dragonflight themed paladin transmog. Here’s a warrior set for the red dragonflight. This shield doesn’t breathe fire, but it is pleasingly dragony.
Image: World of Warcraft screencap
Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.
Willow is joining the 1980s franchise reboots. The new incarnation bears the same name as the 1988 movie, but this time it’s going to be an 8-episode series. Here is the official teaser trailer:
Willow | Official Teaser Trailer | Disney+ by Lucasfilm on YouTube
And the official trailer:
Willow | Official Trailer | Disney+ by Lucasfilm on YouTube
At first is looks like the only returning characters are Warwick Davies’ Willow Ufgood and Joanne Whalley’s Sorsha. However, at least one of the two pixies—Rool and Franjean in the original—sounds awfully familiar. Their actors aren’t listed in IMDB, however, but the cast listing is very cursory overall at this writing, so who knows.
I am of the generation who grew up with Willow. In fact, we recently re-watched it for nostalgia’s sake. (Little did I know that there would be more soon!) It’ll be fascinating to see what they’re going to do effects-wise, since the old Willow was already a trailblazer: it was the first time we saw successful, computer-animated morphing on the big screen. (Some other effects looked clumsy now, but the morphing was spot-on.)
Anyway, it’s hard to say anything definite on the basis of the short teaser, except there’s great potential for learning to work together. I saw comments elsewhere to the effect of this series looking like a bargain-basement version of Shannara, or a copy of the new Wheel of Time series. The full teaser looks a lot better, however.
Still, not knowing two of the three listed writers (John Bickerstaff and Hannah Friedman; Jonathan Kasdan I only know from Solo and an episode of Freaks and Geeks) I just don’t know if this is worth investing my time in, 80s nostalgia or not.
Willow the series is scheduled to premiere on November 30, 2022.
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I must’ve been quite absorbed in something—like grinding my last toons through Shadowlands, I think—to not notice until now(!) that at the Seat of the Primus in Maldraxxus there’s an innkeeper called Tapani Nightwish.
It immediately caught my eye because of two things: Tapani is a Finnish male name, and Nightwish is a world-famous Finnish symphonic metal band.
Not being a fan, per se, despite having osmotically absorbed some of their music over the years, I had to immediately look up the band members. It isn’t a case of direct homage, but likely refers to an ex-bassist of theirs, Marko Tapani Hietala.
Woot! LOL! 😀
Image: screencap from World of Warcraft
Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.
The gloomily hilarious Knives Out is getting a sequel. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is also both written and directed by Rian Johnson, and the first trailer is now out:
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Official Teaser Trailer | Netflix on YouTube
The cast seems great, but otherwise it’s a little difficult to say what exactly to expect, except it feels like a cross between an escape room and the Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None. Although, for my mysteries, I could completely do without the gratuitous gunplay, thank you very much; I’ll go to action movies for that.
At this writing, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is expected on December 23, 2022.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
With Dragonflight on the horizon, I’ve been messing around with some dragon-themed transmogs. Hopefully the next expansion will give us some great new dragony appearances, but in the meantime, here’s my set for a paladin of the blue dragonflight.
The shield even breathes fire! Here’s the Wowhead dressing room link if you want to look up any of the pieces.
Image: World of Warcraft screencap
Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.
The precise construction of ancient textiles is often a matter of educated guesswork, since fibers—if they survive in the first place—tend to rot in most soil types. Now we have a little more to go on: in March 2022, a study was published on the technical details of fabric and finishing techniques of eight wool garments, including a spectacular pair of pants, belonging to a rider buried ca. 1200-1000 BCE.
One of the oldest preserved pairs of trousers in the world, the garment was found at Yanghai, Turfan (also known as Turpan), in the Xinjiang area in Northwest China. It’s an area with a long history and multiple tombs, as befits a stop on the Silk Road.
The breeches were made from three pieces: one for each leg and one for the crotch to combine the two sides.
All three pieces included some woven patterning. Besides striping, the leg pieces also had a decorative band in a T-hook pattern (a kind of geometric design) around the knees.
Interestingly, it seems that the pant pieces were woven on a loom into the final size and shape; no cutting from a longer length of cloth was involved. A combination of multiple techniques was also discovered: regular twill weave on the majority of the work, the weave on the knees, and a third method on the upper areas to create a thick waistband.
All this means a high skill level was needed in gauging not just the size of the future wearer, but also the amount of yarn required, plus naturally the various weaving techniques.
In the course of studying these clothes, reproductions were made. The outfit consists of the trousers, a poncho with belt, two pairs of braided bands (one below the knees and another at the ankles), and a wool headband.
I’ve recently done some reading on recreating prehistorical clothing from scratch, and let me tell you, all of the shearing, washing, sorting, carding, spinning, dyeing, and—only at the very end—weaving plus sewing was no mean feat. The gorgeous (pre)historic garments we have managed to find must have taken a simply enormous amount of work to create. Even with a little weaving and band making plus a lot of sewing under my belt (pun intended—sorry, not sorry) I have a hard time imagining the magnitude of effort required in textile production before modern machinery.
Found and images via Helsingin Sanomat. (NB. Finnish only.) In English, you can read more at Science News.
How It Happens is an occasional feature looking at the inner workings of various creative efforts.
I had completely missed the news that there was a big budget D&D movie in the making! On the basis of this trailer, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves looks kinda bad, but fun kind of bad. Take a look yourself:
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – Official Trailer | Comic Con 2022 by IGN on YouTube
I’ve been playing so much World of Warcraft in recent years that I’m woefully out of date with D&D, but I think I spotted familiar things in the trailer. Also handsome, at least on a quick view; they sure churn out decent special effects these days.
At this writing, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is expected to release in theaters on March 03, 2023.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
We recently rewatched the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s been a fair few years since we last saw it, which is long enough to forget a lot of details, so there was pleasure in rediscovering some of what made the show so good. A few random thoughts inspired by our rewatch.
To begin with, we can’t avoid the fact that Joss Whedon has now been exposed as an entitled sex pest who created a hostile and unsafe working environment on his shows. This knowledge casts a pall over our enjoyment of the show and gives an ugly tint to some of the character interactions. Xander’s puerile lusting after Buffy or Buffy’s teen crush on a two-century-old vampire are harder to stomach knowing what Whedon was up to behind the scenes. It’s not impossible to enjoy the show now, but we have more than the usual amount of disbelief to suspend.
There are other things that require a little indulgence as well. The series is twenty years old, and it shows. The special effects don’t hold up particularly well, the stunts are a bit obvious, and the pop culture references have not all aged gracefully. Still, that’s par for the course when going back to something older, and we can’t hold it against the show.
Other things date the series, too. It is a clear product of third-wave feminism, with its insistence that girly girls can be strong and don’t need boyish boys to protect them, but the series still can’t fathom the idea that girls don’t need to be girly or boys boyish at all. The overwhelming whiteness of the cast is also hard to ignore—it takes seven seasons before we get a person of color as even a side member of the cast. The show was notable at the time for showing a happy, loving queer relationship; it is notable now for crushing that relationship for the sake of drama.
Those things being said, though, Buffy is much better than I remember. The early seasons hold up quite well. The characters are well developed, the dialogue snaps, and the jokes mostly land. The central conceit of taking the challenges and frustrations of young adulthood and turning them into literal demons is just as much fun to watch now as it was then. The idea of a young woman who needs no saving but can kick monster butt all on her own is not as revolutionary now as when the series first aired, but it’s still satisfying to see a woman whose heroism is not the product of overcoming weakness but of embracing strength.
I find it hard to remember how good the first few seasons are because my memory of the show is tainted by the failings of the last few seasons. The show lost something when it turned away from the monster-of-the-week-as-coming-of-age-metaphor formula in season five and went hard into dramatic arc territory with the mystery of Dawn, Glory, and Ben. Season six has its good and bad points: the good point is the musical episode “Once More With Feeling;” the bad points are everything else. The early episodes of season seven recover some of the magic of the early series by focusing on the friendships of the main cast, but those are soon sacrificed to the First Evil arc that drags on for most of the season.
Many fans have their own personal cutoff points where they choose to mentally end the series. The end of season three is a popular one and makes sense; there is great satisfaction in watching the senior class of Sunnydale High School pull together to slay a powerful demon, and the end of high school makes a natural end point for the show. The end of season five is also a popular contender, with Buffy sacrificing herself to save her sister and the world. For myself, I choose the end of season four. The season has its weaknesses, but I enjoy the early episodes that take the monster-of-the-week approach to adjusting to college life. The ending that sees Buffy and the Scoobies tap into the primal power of the slayer brings a nice conclusion to the themes of friendship, courage in the face of life’s horrors, and Buffy’s ambivalence about her calling that animated the early seasons. In fact, I now wish that the geek trio of season six had been the villains of season four instead of Adam and the Initiative. The trio’s overt goofiness was always an odd fit in the bleak season six, and their refusal to grow up could have made for an interesting counterpoint to Buffy and the gang’s rocky but earnest transition into adulthood. Ah well—these are such things as fanfic is made of.
When we were packing up our house for our big transatlantic move last year, I was considering getting rid of our Buffy DVDs. Now I’m glad we didn’t. It was a pleasure to rediscover the joys of the early seasons, despite all the show’s other problems.
Image: Buffy cast photo via IMDb
In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.
We all know interesting mashups of genre characters, but this R2-D2 / Captain America mashup really takes the cake:
When you think about it, R2-D2 is very like the Cap: starts small (although R2 never gets larger), doesn’t talk all that much, embodies persistence, can often jury-rig vehicles, kicks (space) Nazi butt, and despite modest beginnings turns out to be one of the most competent characters in the story. I’m all in with this one, LOL!
Image via Daniel_Logan on Twitter.
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The first official trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has now been out for a few weeks:
Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever | Official Teaser by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube
OMG, what a different choice of music for the trailer—at first just a neat, atypical choice, then getting more and more sinister when juxtaposed with the imagery. Brr!
The underwater events and Mesoamericans scenes completely took me by surprise. (Seems surprisingly similar to the Avatar sequel about to be released this year, doesn’t it, or am I the only one to make the connection?) Looks awesome, though, and has so much potential for very inventive storytelling.
On the other hand, the tribute to Chadwick Boseman I did expect—or would’ve been surprised to see omitted. RIP; the world lost a huge talent.
Director and co-writer Ryan Coogler did such a fantastic job with the first Black Panther that I’ve no doubt that this sequel will be amazing. (Finally, FINALLY, there are A LOT of serious, powerful, purposeful roles for women!) I can’t wait!
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
Co-Geeking 
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