Hunstanton

The last couple of days, after spending a weekend in the peak district with Liv and my family, and spending a couple of days with her in her little during-the-week flat, and visiting illusive_shell for catch-up and dnd, I took a bnb for one night in Hunstanton.

It was lovely, I love just watching the sea.

Both days, I walked along the sea front in opposite directions, and alternated walking with watching with sitting and reading Saga or Ms Marvel and texting people.

I also went to the Sea Life Sanctuary. Seals look sooooooo cuddly, I think I'd never seen them actually close up before. I hadn't realised their tails are actually back legs and tail all tessellated together, but can be separate as well. And that they don't paddle, they just whoosh forward by magic (presumably, wiggling). And often they float vertically and poke their heads out of the water, or up out of the water like meerkats, or leap out of the water to flop onto the beach. And then do it backwards.

Even cats couldn't teach them much about lying sleeping, though! And their chubby, cuddly short wet fur looks soooooooooo beautiful. And their little whiskery faces twitching expressively.

And wow, teeny sharks are ominous and cute. And rays are just, as always, unearthly and look like some sort of ghost-demon.

Recent comics

I'm still loving Saga vol 3. I love how it follows all the characters, even the antagonists. And how each volume adds to what was going on, but also closes things off and opens things fresh.

I was reflecting, Saga is about a horrible, misogynistic universe, even though the point is deconstructing and criticising it. And that's good, because it raises lots of interesting thoughts, but bad, because it means the comic is full of things which are a bit nasty to read about.

But after reading vol 3, I felt things fell more into place, I reread the first two volumes and was satisfied I'd followed all the flashbacks, etc, etc.

And it does the thing lots of starwars-ish universes do, it has lots of cool details -- alien worlds, ghosts, teleportation, healing spells, etc, thrown in which give an overall impression of the world. But that means you kind of pick at it -- if healing spells, teleportation, etc, exist at all, what's the limiting factor that stops it being commodified? (OK, the "wilt plants" spell, it makes sense is fairly niche :))

And I read vol 3 of Kamala Khan as Ms Marvel. Yay! Nothing can be as cute as Kamala with Wolverine, and as giant cuddly teleporting dog Lockjaw in Vol 2. But it has Loki, and it creates antagonists who are relevant to Kamala's own identity and to her superhero identity. And it goes on checking off good implicit messages without being preachy.