u/itokro

So, today I've learned that DMC recently announced a number of officially licensed Harry Potter kits, and I'm deeply disappointed & quite upset by this. In case you're unaware, Rowling has in recent years been using her vast wealth to fund a number of legal cases challenging the rights of trans people and attacking trans-friendly organisations. Women's organisations in this country that have been happily including trans women for years or decades, with the full consent of their general membership, are now being forced to exclude those women, get sued, or close down entirely. I have loved ones afraid to stay hydrated in public places for fear of the consequences if they enter a gendered toilet. Trans kids are being used as a political football and having their medical care removed; Wales has already moved on to removing medical care from trans adults too. And the money made from the Harry Potter franchise is funding all of this.

If you, like me, don't want your money to go towards the erosion of trans rights, please don't buy anything from this collab. If you want to go a step further and not buy from DMC at all, at least while this is ongoing, then great--I'll be doing that too. I'll also be emailing their customer care department, hello@dmc.com, to let them know why I'm not buying and to ask them to end this collaboration: if you've got the spoons to send a similar email yourself, then please do. I'd love nothing more than to see them cut ties with Rowling, so that I can return to supporting a brand I've previously loved.

In the meantime, if you've got DMC threads that are close to running out and want to replace them with something non-DMC when they do, Lord Libidan's Thread Conversion Table can help with finding similar colours. Note that DMC now own Anchor, so if you're planning to fully boycott you'll need to avoid Anchor threads as well. And if you have specific recommendations for non-DMC-owned floss brands, or for patterns/kits from trans designers, please share them.

My group decided to play recent recruits to the City Watch, and I love the characters they've come up with:

• Corporal (H)Andy Punishment, a Thieves' Guild dropout who now specialises in CSI. That's "Crime Scene Instigation", of course.
• Constable Elizabeth Bonnet (assumed name), a distant cousin of the Ramkins who ran away from her noble family to pursue an exciting career in the big city. She brought her pet wowhawk with her - its tendency to faint at the sight of blood makes it surprisingly helpful in forensic work.
• Constable Kayleigh Gee, possibly the Disc's first Food Hygiene inspector. Currently engaged in a solo crusade to protect the citizens of Ankh-Morpork from putrid pies, suspect sausages, and anything else you might find on Dibbler's cart. (Her name is also a convoluted pun - the initials K.G. sound like the Japanese word for "police officer", or so I am informed.)

We spent the first hour or so on character & party creation, then jumped into "The Mystery of the Missing McGuffin", where the party were called upon to solve an art heist made more complicated by the fact that nobody has ever seen the artwork in question. Andy managed to offend the owners of the missing artwork with his poor grasp of upper-class etiquette; Elizabeth tried very hard to pretend she'd never heard of the artist because she's just a totally ordinary commoner, honest; while Kaylee wanted to know all the details of the dinner that preceded the theft & is intent on interviewing the chef. Their current theories include "it was an inside job for the inn-sewer-ants money" and "the artist himself was so ashamed of the work that he decided to remove or destroy it".

It was a very different GMing experience from my usual D&D, and knowing when to call for a role vs when to just narrate was something I struggled with, but will hopefully get a better feel for as we keep playing. I felt like I was flailing a little, but my players claim they had fun! I'm also quite pleased with my selection of snacks. (Not pictured because they were still in the oven when I was taking photos: "sausage-inna-bun (with named meat)", the non-vegetarian counterpart to "sausage-inna-bun (with no meat)".)

I may no longer be unaccountably peckish, but I can't shake the feeling that a certain influence remains. What is the number?

Stopped to sink one of Hell's own ships on the way; still made it to Wayland's Teeth with zero Troubled Waters. Sometimes I love having a zubmarine & a friendly false-star.