C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 4

Call of Cthulhu: Motes in the Eye of a God

WELL.

In my absence 2 weeks ago, the crew went out to the Evil Overlord’s plantation, where things were going well until they very suddenly weren’t (apparently there was a massive Disguise failure, among other things), and they ended the session with the Evil Overlord ritually killing himself so he could rise again at a time of his own convienence, while also cursing Caliope (whose name, it turns out, is spelled that way, and not how I’ve been spelling it all along) to die within a month if we l...

Murphy Lawless Shifter Universe – reading order

I was basically just doing this for somebody and decided that it would be fun to actually do it. :D

As those of you who are reading them have presumably figured out by now, all of my shifter romances are in the same universe, so if for some reason you were moved to read the entire universe in order, this is how it currently stands (all links are Amazon affiliate!). :)

RAVEN HEART (Alaska Totem Shifters)

POLAR HEART (Alaska Totem Shifters)

GLADIATOR BEAR (Gladiator Shifters)

GLADIATOR CHEETAH (Gl...

Call of Cthulhu: Below & Above (the sand)

We are in the Ceremony Room of Doom. Calliope and Evelyn, being unavailable this week, have mysteriously disappeared (although they’re technically there). Summerset, being available this week, has appeared in their places (and technically always was). :)

Alice: Is there anything in this room that draws me to it? Any images of my queen?

Summerset: WHEN DID ALICE BEGIN TO REFER TO HER AS ‘MY’ QUEEN?

Me: In the past session or so?

Summerset: THIS SEEMS VERY BAD.

DM: There is something that draws yo...

art project: hours 1-7

I’ve finished the first 7 lessons in this YOU CAN DRAW IN 30 DAYS book, which has taken me through basic shapes and basic shading, and I’ve done some of the line work exercises from my Udemy drawing course. The next section in the “Learn to Draw in 100 Hours” project is basically… “practice that,” followed by some basic perspective stuff.

According to my very rough breakdown of the project, hours 10-20 on this thing are shading & basic perspective, so I’m going to kind of aim for a combination o...

thoughts about this art project

I’m having a lot of thoughts about this art project thing, thoughts which are currently full of enthusiasm, vim, and vigor, because I’ve only done two days of it and am not yet bored with having to work on my fucking perspective again, which is an attitude I expect to smash up against Quite Soon.

But. Like. It occurred to me to ask myself, last night, “What is it I want to get out of this project?” which you have to admit is probably a pretty good question. And the answer is a sort of vague ball...

Recent Reads: Fluke

Recent Reads: Fluke by Brian Klaas – an interesting nonfiction book about the power of chance in our lives which does itself a considerable disservice in the final (pre-conclusion) chapter.

The basic premise of this book isn’t one the author had to sell me on: that the entire world functions on more sheer chance than most of us want to admit. He makes a good case for this, then discusses the flaws of the social sciences in how they dismiss it, though with thoughtful and non-accusatory commentary...

Call of Cthulhu: Down in the Underground

When last we saw our heroes, they were returning from a side trip to Memphis. In our absence, Teddy, Freddy, Evelyn and Calliope had a side adventure and then went out and got properly smashed at a drag king club, the name of which is escaping me, somewhere in Cairo. This all went as well as you could possibly imagine, and they returned incredibly hung over.

Teddy and Dr Willie Preston met for the first time. It was most excellent. Tragically, they then parted ways, Teddy to nurse a headache and...

Recent Reads: Bitterburn

Recent Reads: Bitterburn by Ann Aguirre – I loved this, too.

BITTERBURN is another Beauty and the Beast retelling, and look if I can find one more to read* in the next week or so I’ll be feeling a trifecta of joy over BatB stories. :D

This one’s purely fantasy, not modern at all, and has multiple twists I ADORED, not the least of which is that our Beauty takes herself to the Beast under her own volition, which is always a thing I like to see in BatB stories. I don’t want to spoil anything, but t...

Art Blog: 100 hours setup

I’m having a stupidly good time doing this art class thing, probably because I haven’t started doing anything boring yet. I am, however, FULLY MAKING IT HARDER FOR MYSELF because, to paraphrase Bette Davis, “The hard way is the only way to do it.”

So I did the opening challenge to draw a book on a table, a coffee cup, a doughnut & a house (using no references), and for some fricking reason I did 3/4ths of it as a frickin’ still life…

…followed by drawing my house. Or part of my house. I clearly...

Picoreview: F1

Picoreview: F1 – unexpectedly good, but also hoo boy.

I’d been wibbling about going to see F1, because Brad Pitt is Problematic and I’m not much of a car race fan, but also…I like movies, and it looked like it might be decent. Somebody whose film opinions I frequently agree with saw it and said it was, in fact, a terrific underdog story (a thing I’m a sucker for), but also that Pitt was “uncannily flat” in it. So I became kind of more interested in seeing it, because it took me half a decade or ...