two thousand and twenty two in review

This year started off with me being a giant ball of stress.

Moving house. It sucks at the best of times. This wasn't the best of times.

But I got through it. And the new place is... adequate for requirements. It's certainly much quieter than the old place.

I also got to dip my toes back into DMing, and actually DMing a full hardcover adventure for the first time. Which was actually super satisfying.

There were a few post-moving projects, including changing all my DVD covers over to Penguin Book themed covers. And then there was a lot of pre DMing prep.

So, for what it's worth, here's this year's roundup.

January: This month was one long moving related freak out. Up until securing a new place. Then it was just packing. And then I got a new iPhone, because the old one was on the bring of failure.

February: I lost a DnD character and gained a new one. I moved house with the help of Ma and Fluffy. Then did all the things that come after a move. And we got Ma a new iPhone also.

March: We had a tiny, tiny earthquake. I spent too much time printing things at Officeworks. Birthday.

April: I unpacked the last of the moving company boxes. We finished the current Friday Night DnD adventure.

May: I started DMing for Friday Night DnD.

June: I redid my blog banner. Got my flu vax. I got a new drivers license.

July: Got my fourth vax booster.

August: I got sick (just regular, normal sick) for the first time since 2019. The Thursday Night DnD group finally finished our non-campaign campaign after a little over a year.

September: Thursday Night DnD started our new Critial Role campaign with DM Fluffy. I got a new laptop. And then had to make it behave.

October: I had to go and get a second new driving license (thanks Optus). Third anniversary of the Friday Night DnD game.

November: After something like 25 years, I rejoined the library. I had the first proper rental inspection since moving in (the mid year one was cancelled). I put my Christmas decorations up and tweaked my back in the process (although that didn't become apparent until later).

December: Like I said... tweaked my back. I've spent most of the month laying on the bed and seeing my Chiro more than usual. No Christmas Tree decorating at Ma's place this year tho. Boardgame Christmas still happened followed by Movie Night with Fluffy. Also Regular Christmas.

So there's that.

As far as movies go... this year wasn't great for movies. The highlights being The Tragedy of Macbeth (surprising no-one) and Everything Everywhere All At Once. The movie that annoyed me most this year was No Time To Die (and yes, it came out last year, I didn't see it until late March).... fuck that movie.

Current mood:

photo saturday: adventing part five

Remind me next year to definitely keep a colour theme through the whole of the Hero Forge Advent Calendar. I like the look of the items cross the weeks.

And I almost got away with a single model this week... but pauldrons don't really go with shoulderless shirts.

Also, because we're a day ahead in the future here in Australia, I don't get to add tomorrow's final item. Depending on what it is, I might use it as the basis for an outfit. Or not, we'll see. 

• Current item count: 35 + a ton of new familiars and mounts (everything else was a one off this week)
  
• Current item's I'd actually use count: 18 + (I'm not sold on the hat or the "beard", everything else is nice... and the animals will definitely show up in various things as we go)

So, we're roughly in the "about half" zone for things I'd use. Which is pretty good. I guess time will tell.

I do like the way these random collections of items start to suggest a character. Some kind of spellcasting, armoured sea captain with a rabbit familiar.

Anyway.

As always tends to be the case, there isn't a lot to report on in the week between Christmas and New Year. And even more so because I spent pretty much all of it horizontal. 

It's also why I'm typing this while standing up. Because there's not a lot of point spending a chunk of time laying down or walking around and then fucking up all that goodwill by sitting. I'll get there. I mean, I am getting there, I just want to try and sidestep some of the setbacks.

So I put most of my Christmas presents away early in the week... still gotta find a permanent home for Sharky McSharkington though... I reorganised my dice collection... I made salads with leftover turkey and sausage meat for most of the week (until it ran out)... it was mostly just a chill old time.

And then we get to Friday night DnD. They very nearly finished the campaign in the middle of the session... LOL. So I very definitely did that video game thing of saying "You're entering the final element, please ensure you've completed all quests you want to before proceeding"... or, that, but better written.

But we got to the big "twist/reveal"... and everyone's reaction was essentially the same as mine when I first read it.

"Huh... sure, okay... didn't see that coming. But why though?"

I also didn't drag it out. Once they had one of the big reveals in hand, I spelled it out for them, because otherwise it's just confusing. Because you don't see it coming or expect it.

But I think we have maybe a couple of sessions left if they want to go fight all the bad guys before triggering the end of the game. I need to give some thought to what happens there too. I just had a thought... I'll have to pull on that thread and see where it leads me.

I did also get to reveal Fluffy's warlock Patron to him finally. And of course, because his Patron was also his favourite magic item in the game, he was very happy.

Which is all I ever want really. For my players to be happy after a reveal. Even if the characters aren't.

Anyway.

Today was all about errands.

Supermarket to start, then off to Kmart and Big W looking for various bits and pieces. Most notably a new iPhone cord for me because the old one developed that "clearly broken unless you put it just so once it's plugged in" and fuck that game.

So that was it really. Then it was back here to do pre-New-Years things before Fluffy comes over for Movie Night.

Current mood:

post christmas round-up 2022

So Kris actually belongs to the Jingle Bros (Part 1 and Part 2) from last year. But I ran out of time to add him to the roster, so, you know what, he can be part of today. And he's just as I made him last year, I didn't bother remaking him.

And of course he's a halfling.

Merry Christmas to the, like, handful of people who still bother reading my blog. Essentially it's just a diary I shout into the void these days. But I'm still grateful for anybody who has stuck around.

So, indulge me for a little bit if you will. I'm feeling a little... garrulous.

The observant amongst you would have noticed that there was no traditional putting up of the Christmas Tree this year. No scantily clad Christmas hunk posted earlier on Christmas Day.

Yeah, I wasn't, and am still not, feeling it.

What I am feeling is more pain than I would like. And the sentence that has been whirling around in my head all day, and was originally going to be the opening line for this post is thus.

Surprising nobody, pain changes your brain chemistry. Regular pain more so. And for at least the last month, my brain has been dealing with intermittent pain from my back. Or, weirdly, pain that SHOULD be in my back, but is often on the sides of my calves, because nervous systems are fucked up little monkeys.

So, the last thing I wanted, or was physically able, to do at the start of the month, was drive down to Ma's place and put the Christmas Tree up. And so, left to her own devices, and under strict instructions that if she attempted to construct and dress the whole Christmas Tree I would be Very Angry With Her, the image above was the result.

It's not great, it also doesn't suck. It's the top third of the regular tree, inserted into the base of the regular tree. And had I been involved I might have attempted something with the Christmas Lights, it's not terrible.

But, going back to... well, my back. I can't sit for long. Not in most places. When I do, the aforementioned pain starts to creep in around the edges. And then all I want to do is go lie down. But after I've been lying down on and off for almost a month, that also fucks with my brain.

So, clearly, given this little story, I'm in a weird place this Christmas. Last Christmas was pre-moving stress. This is... less intense. But, honestly, I didn't much care about Christmas this year. And, yeah, I know, if you go back through the last few years, I've been saying some version of that for the last several years. But it's still true.

I still went through all the motions. But it was mostly for other people. And while I had fun along the way, I wasn't feeling it. Which brings us to today. Let's just say that left to my own devices, I probably wouldn't have bothered much.

I woke up about as early as I have been of late, which is a little too early for my tastes. And I'd already told Ma there wasn't much of a point in me being down at hers super early. So I wasn't in any kind of rush. I faffed around, watched some YouTube stuff, and finally got my ass into gear, before having a shower, loading up the car with what little there was to load it with, closed up the house with the aircon on so I'd come home to a nice cool house and toddling up the road to Ma's place at about 8:45 or so.

We had our usual breakfast of croissants, and I'll be honest, as much as Ma always asks what I want on/with them, generally speaking I just want a little butter and that good, good warm pastry.

We fucked around a bit after, I complained, as I do every year, that none of the TV stations just digs into their stock of shitty (or not shitty) Christmas movies and just runs them end to end all day. There are enough channels these days, they could totally do that. I don't want to WATCH them, you understand, but I like some, as we call it, colour and movement going on in the background, since it's just Ma and I.

I never keep track of time on Christmas Day at the best of times, and it somehow tends to just flow through my brain like water anyway, so who the fuck knows when anything happened... 

But between mostly ignoring and quite often going "Hey, it's that person who was in that other thing", we put the original 1947 Miracle on 34th Street (it does kinda fall over a bit when you realise that Santa is also Captain Wiles from my favourite Hitchcock movie, The Trouble With Harry) and at some point in the process it was time for presents, such as it was.

And I say that only because a lot of my presents are what happens when you say "oh, that thing I need, or that thing we just bought, that can go away for Christmas". For... like the last four months. So it's all some combination of kinda from Ma, kinda from me to me.

But it also includes the presents from Mr, Mrs and Fluffy from Board Game Christmas.

So, starting there...

• LEGO Horizon Forbidden West: Tallneck
  (from Fluffy... nearly made me cry because reasons)
• IKEA BLÅHAJ Baby Shark
  (again, Fluffy... because we got slightly obsessed with some stupid IKEA Japan videos and the sharks in general)
• Here to Sleigh expansion deck (from Mr and Mrs... they bought me the original game a couple of years back)
• Q Workshop 2022 Advent Dice Calendar (from Mr and Mrs at the end of November)
• IKEA PIPSTÄKRA quilt cover (which also has an associated fitted sheet and a couple of pillowcases for other pillows, but I didn't bother including them)
• IKEA VINTERFINT Apple scented candle in metal tin
  
• Bonds Essentials Move Pullover Hoodie (plus a couple of Bonds tees, also not included)
• Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes sourcebook
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold by  Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell
• LEGO Minifigure Series 23 Cardboard Robot (the one problem with blind box things is sometimes you get the one you're wildly ambivalent about instead of one of the 11 you really, really like)
• Chessex Polyhedral Dice Sets in Translucent Orange, Translucent Yellow and Light Blue

Oh, and some Bundaberg Spiced Ginger Beer, which is not so much a present, as something I was definitely taking home.

I took some photos, moved some stuff around, and then we started on lunch prep. Which went about the same as always, albeit slightly smoother than some years.

We put the potatoes in with the turkey and the sausage meat, so they got all good and crispy. But mostly it was switching between half watching The Holiday and doing prep.

And I'm just now remembering that I forgot to steal both the last of the mango salad dressing AND the mince pie ice cream from Ma's place. Oh well.

I have no idea when we sat down to eat. Sometime after 2pm maybe. No clue.

It was pretty good though. And some combination of the pepper I put on the tomatoes, the chili in the salad dressing and the ginger in the ginger beer definitely made it nice and tasty.

The intent was probably to play some Here to Slay, but, I'll be honest, I wasn't in the mood.

We tidied up, we watched a good chunk of Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which it seems like Ma hasn't seen before, and she groaned through all of the groan-worthy parts.

And then I threw together some Eton Mess with mince pie ice cream, lemon meringues and fresh berries. It's a good Christmas dessert. Even if, traditionally, we have it about three hours after dinner.

Then, honestly, by that point, I'd kind of had enough. Mostly of sitting and standing.

So I packed up the car with more stuff than I arrived with and headed back up the road. And other than the heat, it wasn't a bad run. I think it was around 6pm when I got home, and after unpacking all the stuff, threw myself into a quick shower and then had a lie down until I felt able to tackle this post.

Which is done now.

So, for another year, Merry Christmas, and thanks for listening to me unpack my internal monologue as part of the post-Christmas round up. It's becoming a tradition at this point.

Current mood:

photo saturday: adventing part four

Of course, this week had to feature three pieces of headgear... leading to a little picture in picture action.

Much more of a blah week for this week's Hero Forge Advent Calendar, but some nicely rendered pieces again.

• Current item count: 29 (including two versions of the helmet, some handheld snowballs and two sizes of the arcane lantern)
• Current item's I'd actually use count: 14 (although it's a big maybe on the helmet, circlet, lantern and axe honestly)

Favourite item? Visually, the axe. Although I don't make a lot of heavy weapon wielding characters.

So, we have one more week to go, because this Advent Calendar runs for the whole month and doesn't end on Christmas Eve. Tomorrow does tend to be the big one though. All I'm really hoping for is less hats.

Anyway...

Sunday was Rocky Road Day. As in, the day I made this year's batch of Rocky Road. Which I ended up making in two batches, because I don't have bowls big enough. All while watching the 1970's version of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge. Which is free on YouTube and nobody seems to have noticed or cared that it's there.

Originally it was just for "colour and movement" while I was doing other things, but, I'll be honest, it's actually really, really good. It's also a musical and none of the child actors can really hold a tune. But it does some interesting things with something that is so overdone and I've seen so many versions of at this point.

As I've said to a number of people, it's the best version of the story that doesn't include Muppets.

Monday was Board Game Christmas Day.

And it was a good day. We played a bunch of games. A little L.L.A.M.A, followed by some Uk'atoa, then the adorable Calico (which was the only game I actually won, by a single point) and then finishing up with Shadows over Camelot, which was a co-operative game that we lost as a group. Well, except for Mrs, because it turned out she was the traitor, and because we all lost, she won.

We also did presents (which I well detail tomorrow), but suffice to say, Fluffy got me a little emotional, for reasons I can't quite explain, with his choice of gift.

I just threw home made tomato and onion relish (the food item I mentioned last week) and big boxes of Rocky Road at everyone.

After Board Game Christmas, Fluffy and I came back here and watched Hackers (which he'd never seen, which is a crime), and the aforementioned Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. And between the movies, I made a quick pizza with stuff I had in the fridge.

So, quite a long day, in fact, from when he arrived to when I dropped him home, Fluffy and I hung out for over 12 hours. A good day though.

The rest of the week was pretty much nothing much, but a lot of me laying down to help my back out. Because it's getting there, but it's not there yet.

Fast forward to Friday for Chiro Day. As in the actual day I was intended to go to the chiro, not one of the several other times I've been this month.

And then it was Friday Night DnD.

I finally understand why many people said that the final area of this adventure was problematic. And doesn't make a ton of sense. Because while I'd prepped it, it seemed okay. But then the map showed me something that the text seemed to contradict and then suddenly I was in the realm of WTF. So I'm going to tweak some of the bit and pieces and see where we end up.

Because the "as written" instructions are actually kinda dumb.

But we'll get there.

And I don't really care because the stuff that I layered in which was more interesting is still paying dividends in ways I didn't forsee. And I still have some tricks up my sleeve even now.

But there are some spots in this final area I'm excited for them to get to, even if they're not super involved.

Anyway.

Why is it that when Christmas Eve DOESN'T fall on a day we would normally go shopping, the supermarket is insane and crammed full of people. And on the year that it DOES, the supermarket was... still busy, but not insanely so.

We did get there a little earlier than usual, and yes, the fruit and veg section was a little nuts, as it usually is. But I got served instantly at the deli counter (because they had a ton of staff on) and in a minor Christmas miracle, I just randomly picked a checkout because the person being served was about to leave, and it turned out to be the lovely girl we tend to gravitate towards on a normal week, because she's efficient, knows how to pack a bag and seems nice.

But it was actually fairly easy overall.

Ma didn't stick around for long afterwards, which is fine because I'm seeing her most of the day tomorrow, and it gives her more time to prep at her end.

So that's that about that.

Current mood:

movies: guillermo del toro's pinocchio

Many times in recent years, two movies that have basically identical premises are released essentially back to back, and there's always a clear winner. 

Bug's Life vs Antz. Armageddon vs Deep Impact. The Prestige vs The Illusionist. Finding Nemo vs Shark Tale. Happy Feet vs Surf’s Up.

And without me saying it, you already know which movie in each of those pairs is the winner. Because it's obvious.

So I don't even need to SEE the other movie (also, fuck Disney's toxic trend of remaking their animated movies in live action, but worse) to know that Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is the absolute winner in the 2022 Pinocchio Movie Battle.

And sidebar, I don't normally talk about the movie posters over on the right there, I just normally pick the "primary" poster. But this absolute artwork exists, so, yes, I'm picking that one.

This movie is absolutely the most Guillermo del Toro movie imaginable. It's (from what I understand) the longest ever (thus far) stop motion movie, it's based on a piece of children's literature yet is probably not for children. And it features both fascists, World War II and angel/spirit characters that wouldn't be out of place in Hellboy.

It's also very much part of a trilogy with The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. A fantastical story set against war and fascism.

And it's very, very cleverly done. While the main character is still a wooden boy brought to life by magic, there's no talking, bipedal fox and cat, no Pleasure Island turning boys into donkeys, and several of the characters who are kind of "blink and you'll miss it" are essentially rolled into one.

Plus it has a cast that includes Ewan McGregor as the Cricket, David Bradley as Geppetto, Tilda Swinton as the angels/wood sprites, Ron Perlman as the head fascist, Christoph Waltz as the human fox/circus owner and Cate Blanchett as Spazzatura the monkey who has maybe three fucking lines and mostly just makes noises. And who is quoted as saying that she would have been happy to "play a pencil" in the movie for del Toro.

I mean, story checks out really. 

Oh, and I do also need to shout out del Toro's co-director, Mark Gustafson, who was clearly all about the animation process.

I also did tear up at the end. Because the end is sweet and sad and lovely and... doesn't go where you expect it to go.

Actually that's kind of the movie as a whole... or at least it doesn't go the WAY you expect it to go, even if it covers the same ground. Because the original stories of Pinocchio do a lot more stuff (and include, it seems, a lot more talking animals), most of the current interpretations cover the same three or four dot points.

Tricked into joining the circus, separated from Geppetto, ends up with a bunch of other boys, seeks out his father at sea, giant whale/sea monster, happy ending.

This movie takes those elements and tweaks a number of them just enough.

Having said that...

Pinocchio, the character, voiced by Gregory Mann, is... kind of obnoxious. And I know that's the point at the start of the movie, but he never quite lost that for me, even at the end. Added to that is the fact that although all of the stop motion puppets are stunning, Pinocchio doesn't look like he's made of wood... he looks more like... wax or, honestly, what he probably is, some kind of resin. Specifically his head, and definitely from the back.

And... it's a musical. And the songs are... mostly terrible/forgettable/could have been cut. I mean, definitely anything that doesn't come from Pinocchio being on stage and performing.

Which would probably bring the running time of the movie down, which is also a little bit of an issue. It was a bit too long.

But it's still lovely.

yani's rating: 4 angelic hourglasses out of 5

photo saturday: adventing part three

Well... that's more like it... other than, you know, that nasty-ass tail.

This week's Hero Forge Advent items are much more useful. And, honestly, a lot more interesting, and kind of go together, at least a bit.

• Current item count: 19 (including a heeled and flat pair of boots)
• Current items I'd actually use: 10 (this week was a good week, although I'm a little iffy on whether I'll actually ever use the hoodie and the skulldrons)

Do I have a favourite item from this week... yes, the Archery Gauntlets. Followed closely by the books and the bodice. And yes, I probably could have squeezed everything this week onto the same model as last week, but honestly, it all got a bit much.

Anyway...

This week has also been predominantly horizontal. But much improved.

I did spend about three hours on my feet on Sunday making a certain food based item for certain people's Christmas presents (I'll be less vague about it next week since the deed will be done by then). It was a different version than I've made previously, but I'm very pleased with the results.

My Monday chiro appointment was rescheduled on Monday morning to Tuesday morning, because, you know, chaos is always an option. But I was feeling a lot better generally by Monday, and even more so by Tuesday, although I couldn't really sit for all that long without it being a problem. Hence the previously mentioned horizontanality. Which isn't a word. But should be.

Then Wednesday I finished up the books I was reading and returned them to two different libraries. Which meant firstly a wander down the street to what I am henceforth going to refer to as The Postage Stamp Library. Like, I love it, but fuck it's small. Where I grabbed something else from my "to read" list. And then a quick trip to the Burnside Library where I mostly just Wandered Around and Looked At Things.

Also, I'm enjoying this library thing because it means I can read new books and not have to rearrange my living room every time.

Friday Night DnD was... amazing.

I finally, finally, finally got to drop the reveal on Fluffy's character that I've been waiting to do since May. And it went as amazingly as I could have hoped. It was one of the things I was worried about from the additional stuff I added, whether or not it would stick the landing. Whether the build up he had in his head as a player matched what the reveal was.

And I know it was good because as we left, after we waved goodbye to Mr and Mrs, he just said quietly "Fuck you". Which as every DM knows is the international love language of a player who loves what you just did but knows that it will cause mental trauma for their character.

But it does mean that we are entering end-game.

Today was much the same as last week. A pre-Christmas "We bought too much stuff because of reasons" supermarket trip followed by not a lot of anything. Because, really, why would we want to be doing anything involving shops this close to Christmas.

Also, you know, sitting for long periods, bad.

Current mood:

photo saturday: adventing part two

Behold the terrifying spider person that happens when you try and display all the Hero Forge Advent Calendar items on one mini...

• Current item count: 11 (including two hairstyles and the soccer ball as handheld or base item)
• Current items I'll actually ever use: 3 (the feather dagger and the hairstyles)

 Granted, I think I've only used about three of the items from last year's Advent Calendar.

But I was worried for a little while there that we were going to be getting nothing other than (mostly useless to me) handheld items.

I will say, the modelling on some of these items is amazing. Especially compared with even last year's efforts.

Anyway.

This week has been... predominately horizontal.

Basically my back kinda gave up after last Saturday. And I went to see my chiro on Monday, she put everything back where it was supposed to be, but none of it liked that and made it's displeasure well known.

So I've basically been going back and forth between laying on the bed, struggling to get up again, using my cane, wandering around the apartment and only really sitting when I absolutely had to... like when eating. Or you know, right now. Because typing sideways is fucking hard.

And that's mostly been the key to it I think.

But my week basically boils down to going to the chiro on Monday, hobbling down the street to visit the library on Tuesday, and DnD on Thursday and Friday, mostly done from the standing position. I was supposed to go see my chiro again on Friday, but she had to cancel and now I'm going back on Monday instead.

Speaking of Thursday DnD... well... yeah, remember how I said things went south last week. We continued in a southerly direction for our last game of the year. So much so that one of the PCs died. And, my character, who is the closest thing we have to a cleric, let them die and left them behind.

I also invoked a secret that I, honestly, hadn't intended to. And I'm wondering if I actually needed to. I mean, I did in the moment, in order to get something done. But it's now going to be "a thing". I will, however, be very happy when the focus points at someone else and less at my... things.

But who would have guessed that when you make a character entirely out of secrets and lies, sometimes those things will come back to bite you in the ass. Who knew? 

Friday night DnD was a little delayed due to Other People's Plans, but it was a good session overall. And it looks like my pre-Christmas present/task will be prepping the final location.

Anyway...

Today was a big old pre-Christmas/Christmas prep supermarket shopping adventure. And that was it, because, honestly, see the earlier part of the post. And, seemingly out of nowhere, it was going to be over 30 degrees today, so fuck that.

That's it, basically.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go lie down again.

Current mood:

photo saturday: adventing part one

It may be a brief one this week...

First up, the Hero Forge Advent Calendar started this week. And like the last few years, I tend to make a mannequin in order to display all the items, just so I can see what's what and also play around with colouring them, without having to build a whole character around each one.

And I was planning on showing them off last year, but then the Jingle Bros happens... and took up basically the whole of the month (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), so I'm doing it this year. With a possible exception for Christmas weekend.

I will say that my problem with the last couple of Advent Calendars is that they've been... oddly specific at times or less useful to me specifically. This year we kick off with the same problem. I get the addition of the dice, but I can't see myself really getting much use out of the cane.

I also don't know that Hero Forge necessarily understands how a cane works. Since they don't tend to have such a large handle, owing to the fact that you really need to have your hand over the centre of gravity of the cane.

Ask me how I know in a minute.

Anyway.

This week has been... problematic.

We start with the fact that I need to stop trying to make chilli. Because I never get it right. Or at least I haven't done so in quite a while. This week being no exception. There was too much of it, it wasn't great and I've had to eat it the whole week.

Next up is the fact that it seems like I'm allergic to the apartment. That sounds extreme. I think it's just hayfever really, really, really kicking my ass. But it's hayfever that is specifically related to the apartment. Because if I go elsewhere I'm fine. It's weird. So I've been sneezy and runny nosey for a lot of the week. Unless I go somewhere else.

Add in the fact that the Vroom Go Faster Car Race got moved to this week rather than late February, which is great, because then it doesn't go Vroom all over Fringe, but the stupid helicopter doing laps of the race did my head in on Wednesday. Currently the big planes are going Whuzz overhead. And by Whuzz I mean "the fuq, I'm deaf now", as one of them went zoomies literally over my apartment block. I will say, that was one thing I didn't miss when I lived at the Portrush Road apartment.

Then at a certain point this week I tweaked my back. Because it's December, and clearly that's what I do in December. It was mostly just "getting up out of bed is a problem" and I was dealing with it. Then I had the two DnD sessions at the end of the week, and, honestly, the combination of driving and sitting on hard wooden chairs really did a number on me.

Honestly, more so the Friday game. I was feeling much improved on Friday, even if I did go lie down at a certain point.

And yes, I should have called my chiro and tried to get an appointment on Friday, but as I said, I thought I was doing okay. I'm calling them on Monday morning.

Which is why I'm very much on board with how canes work, since, after I took some time earlier to lay down, realised that getting up is the issue, and so broke out the cane I haven't actually used since I originally did my back in back in 2012.

So fuck everything. Specifically my body and it's penchant for falling apart.

Having said all of that, I did take a trip to the Burnside Library at the start of the week, after I finished the two books I'd borrowed from the library down on the Parade (that's the size of a postage stamp). And picked up a book that I'm thoroughly enjoying. Which also makes me wish that I'd gotten on the Library train again back when I lived within walking distance of the Burnside Library.

Other things may have happened... but probably didn't.

I did also start the Q Workshop Dice Advent Calendar this week. What is very, very strange is that Fluffy and I have gotten the same design of dice all three days thus far, although for the first two days they were different colour variants. However, Mrs also bought herself a copy of the calendar after she bought ours and her dice are completely different. It's very weird.

We'll have to see what happens tomorrow.

Speaking of DnD...

Thursday's game was... a disaster... a dumpster fire... a fuckup of the highest order... problematic. We were two players down but decided to play anyway. This was, unsurprisingly, a mistake. I mean, not really, but we certainly made our lives difficult.

Let's just say that we started the adventure ready to see what adventures awaited us and ended the adventure wanted for murder and espionage. Yeah, it didn't go well.

And I will say that it was something of a record in that pretty much every single decision we made was the wrong one.

Friday night's game was, by comparison, much more successful. Well, except for the fact that the first door they encountered was magically locked and the sorcerer couldn't roll anything higher than a 3 on their Dispel Magic roll. So, they tried all manner of other options, I gave them a couple of hints, but they just weren't getting it. I think they spent at least... 10 real world minutes trying to get past it, and they just weren't getting anywhere.

They did, thanks to a lucky NPC roll, find the Magical McGuffin they've been looking for a while, which also meant that I could break out a prop I've had prepared since... shortly after I moved house I think. So that was fun.

Anyway...

Today was... urgh.

When I got up my back was worse than it had been at any point in the week. And I needed to carry heavy things and walk around the supermarket. And to make it worse, the fire alarm went off while we were at the register and we had to leave our stuff, go outside, wait for the fire department to turn up, find out it was a false alarm or some other thing that didn't involve an actual fire.

Yeah, totally what I didn't need this morning.

And there wasn't much point in going anywhere or doing anything. So we didn't.

It also means that there isn't going to be a "putting the Christmas Tree up at Ma's post this year". Because we're not. I mean, Ma might put up the top third of the tree, but we're not doing a whole thing. Which is actually fine by me, because I don't actually care if Ma is okay with it. But I'm also definitely NOT driving all the way down to her place and attempting to do any kind of tree business right now.

Current mood:

photo saturday: how many feathers

At some point I want to play another tabaxi character. I've played a couple, albeit one of those for a very short period of time. And when we were potentially playing a different adventure on Friday after I finish DMing, I had a different idea for the type of character I wanted to play.

So this week's DnD Character Colouring Book was a potential version of that character. Nine Feathers, the tabaxi archaeologist who was also a warlock.

Because if the game you're going to be playing involves a very powerful undead creature, why would you not accidentally either link yourself to that creature OR to some other force that is in opposition to that creature.

And if you're going to be wandering through abandoned buildings and ruins, why wouldn't you be an archaeologist.

But then the adventure changed, so poor old Nine Feathers just sits in the tray of abandoned characters for the rest of time.

Anyway.

Dinner for this week was tuna mornay. I still don't think that I've completely found the balance between "very spicy" on the day it's made vs "does this actually have spice in it" by about the middle of the week. It's a hard nut to crack.

However, everything about it was pretty much perfect. I do need to buy some breadcrumbs before next time though. Or abandon the crust altogether.

Hey, guess what. We finally had Thursday DnD. After not having had it for a month. And it wasn't bad. We are headed off to all points "not my backstory", which is something of a relief. Right up until the other half of my backstory rears it's ugly head. Because it will.

It's also interesting that various bits of my boy Dax's personality became clearer to me this game. Well, more so after the game when I was thinking through some of the "why". But that's the case with real actual people also. It also became very clear that he's something of a horndog. Not overtly, but definitely at his core.

Friday was... much.

Because the Norwood Christmas Pageant blocked my access to the supermarket (without going all the way around), I did my shopping at 7:30 on Friday morning. Which was actually a good time to do it and I got everything done in under half an hour.

Then it was back here to unpack, have actual breakfast and then kill some time before heading out for this month's chiro appointment. And thankfully my appointment was 15 minutes later than usual, so I had enough time to go to Greenlight Comics for their Black Friday sale, where they had 50% off DnD book and dice. So I grabbed one of the books and three sets of $3 dice. Woo. Because I'm a dice goblin. Shut up.

Friday night DnD was good... not least of all because, just like last year, Mrs (and Mr) gave Fluffy and I the same dice advent calendar she got us last year. I will admit, I'd looked at it earlier in the week, and I'd wondered. With no expectations you understand. But when we walked in and I saw two identically wrapped boxes on the dining table, I knew.

So, yay! And this year I don't need to hook one piece of technology up to a different piece of technology every day in order to actually get the photos of the dice onto my Instagram. Which is nice. So look forward for that daily update Instagram followers.

They've just made it to the final section of this chapter. I mean, there's enough content left to keep them occupied for at least a couple of weeks, but I feel like we're definitely going to be done by February. Probably.

Depends on how much they screw around I guess.

I did pause the game right before the third and final hag made her entrance. Well, her speaking entrance. Because it gives me an extra week to work out what the voice is ACTUALLY going to be (I mean, how do you voice someone who looks like dried out beef jerky in a veil and a big skirt?) and how I'm going to handle them. I have a plan, but I don't want it to be... too easy for them.

My biggest worry as we start to enter endgame territory is just sticking the landing. I want the things that I've added (and the things that are part of the actual game) to be impactful or interesting or mean something to the characters. The worst case scenario is for me to go "hey, a thing" and the table to go "oh... ok I guess".

I mean, I very much doubt that will be the case, but I also hope I haven't built things up too much. Especially with Fluffy's character.

Time will tell.

Anyway...

Today was... weird.

Because I didn't do anything. No going shopping super early. No Ma coming down first thing (she came down in the afternoon to drop some stuff off/pick some stuff up though). No anything. And I got to relax and have actual breakfast with last night's leftover bread. So that was nice.

And then listened to that one bagpipe band that is in every single Christmas Pageant ever. I mean, sometimes there's more than one, but there always has to be at least one.

And then I put my Christmas decorations up. By which I mean I tried and failed to put the big red glittery bow on the screen door and ended up tearing the, admittedly cheap and old, plastic. And then I put up my Not Lego wreath on top of the bookcase by the door and put out my "Oh my god, how the fuck has it lasted for this many years and nobody tell it how old it is or it might stop working" Neon Christmas Tree and hung up the ribbon that has my Christmas Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore hanging from it.

Oh, and I put the vibrating pull toy reindeer on the table behind my chair and then I called it a day.

Because why would you want more than four Christmas decorations?

Current mood:

photo saturday: twosome

One of the very first instances of DnD Character Colouring book was this post... when we finished our Out of the Abyss campaign with the Thursday group. Back when I was still colouring things by hand in Photoshop.

A lot of both literal and figurative water have passed under the bridge since February 2020, but this week Hero Forge released their "two figure" models to everyone. They've been available to premium members for a while now, but this is the first time I've gotten to dig into it.

And while this isn't the first couple pose I made, I did very quickly circle back to my favourite charming little shit, Peregrin and the half-elf husband he picked up in the epilogue. Hubby (aka Nathaniel... I have no idea if I had a different name for him at some point, but really, the only viable answers were either Nathaniel or Jack, because of reasons) got a makeover... I'd designed a version back when we finished, but looking at it again, it looked clunky, so I just did it over. 

And the Pery model got a bit of a redo of the colours, because back when I made it I hadn't quite got my head around the colour options in the way I feel like I do these days.

What's interesting is that some of the choices I made in reposing Pery led to unintended consequences. There seems to be a slight nervousness or a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop in the way his left hand sits on Nate's shoulder. I mean, I mostly did that because there's no open hand pose where the hand didn't actually clip through the shoulder, so I settled on that as an appropriate compromise, but it also fits. Because I think that there was always a sense with Pery of "waiting for the other shoe to drop". Good things happened, sure, but he was always waiting for the universe to balance out and drop a bad thing on his head to make up for the happiness he was feeling. And I don't know that that ever completely went away.

It's also very probably me reading way to much into it, but I just get a sense of how he feels from this, you know. It is very sweet though, and everything I could want for my favourite little charlatan.

I also realised that the only possible name for Nate's tavern is "The End of the Road". Because of course it is.

Anyway...

I made shit up for this week's dinners. I have vague memories of being a kid and having something we just called "savoury mince"... which was about as complicated as it sounds. So I made my own version this week. And it wasn't bad. Weirdly, I could kind of tell that I'd used the cheaper cut of mince than I usually buy, but at the same time, there was more of it because of that.

It was good tho.

One to keep in the back pocket for sure.

Otherwise, this week was all kind of me in a holding pattern for the rental inspection on Friday. I did the minor clearing up earlier in the week, hit the kitchen on Wednesday and then did the bathroom and the floors on Thursday. And, I'll be honest, it doesn't look THAT different. But at least I know I've given everything a big old clean.

The annoying thing was the inspection itself was between 3pm and 5pm on Friday. I mean, rude. But, as usual, I cleared out, went down the road to the Burnside Library and did my DnD prep. Mostly because the Norwood Library down the street is too fucking small and doesn't really have space for hanging out for two hours.

I also had to go back to that library earlier in the week when I discovered that a) the book I borrowed last week wasn't as interesting as I thought it was going to be (I expected biography, I got self-help), and for some reason it was also showing up as "overdue". Turns out the woman at the library hadn't ticked a box in the computer, so my card expired on the day she gave it to me.

Firstly, why is that even a feature? I'm very confused. Also, why doesn't the computer just do that shit automatically when it's a new number/card?

But we got it all fixed with pretty much no fuss. And I wandered around the three or four shelves in there and found a couple of more interesting novels.

Going back to Friday... of course the time when I needed to leave the house was the time it started to pour with rain. But it was all good.

I do need to remember that since my land agent sends me an email when she's finished with the inspection, I can just check my email on my phone to see when she's gone. In this case, she was out by 3:30. It's not like I was wasting time given that I was doing DnD prep, but it's still good to remember that for the future.

No Thursday DnD... we were all good to go until someone else reported the spicy cough. So, we're officially cursed. And we generally end up taking a break over Christmas, so at this rate it's going to be January before we come back together.

Granted I can't be too salty about it give that I was the one who pulled the plug last year due to moving related mental trauma.

Friday night DnD was good... our first time back in... three weeks.

No great developments... they're just getting where they're going. The real stuff is going to happen when they get to the main area in this region. We'll see how that all goes.

Anyway...

Today was... a non-event.

We did the supermarket thing, we came back here, Ma had a thing to go to this afternoon, so we didn't really bother doing anything, she just toddled off home.

Also... just for the record... and not that I'm complaining... but why the fuck am I deciding whether or not I should put a jacket on in the middle of November? Again, better than the alternative, and we definitely need the rain... but still.

I just hope that March isn't going to be a little punk ass bitch and drop a heatwave on is.

Anyway...

Current mood:

photo saturday: the friendly skies

You know how they say that time is a flat circle? Yeah, I have no fucking idea what that really means either. But I do know that at a certain point in DnD character creation, I got all the way around and start coming back the way I first approached things...

Which is why today's DnD Character Colouring Book is a return to the idea of an artillerist artificer. But instead of a smart little goblin raised by dwarves, I started playing around with an aarakocra... or bird person. This one based around a number of different sea eagles. Which is where the name comes from, because it's the Latin name for the group. Only without the apostrophe in it. But more specifically, a mix of the White-bellied Sea Eagle and the African Fish Eagle. Or as close as I could get with the Hero Forge colouring options.

I've played with the idea of aarakocra before... and also owlin, the owl version, but never for very long because, honestly, the original version can be a little overpowered and Adventurer's League didn't allow flying races up until recently.

I'm not completely settled on "sage" for his background. That's one of the issues I generally have with artificers... there are like three "good" backgrounds for them. Sage, Cloistered Scholar (which is basically "librarian" and Guild Artisan. I mean, there are others, like Clan Crafter, Noble, Acolyte... but it always feels to me like you're not going to make a sailor artificer or an urchin artificer. I mean, maybe you can... I just can't find my way there easily. So the background is the thing most likely to change.

And yes, that's the same armour set I've used for about... 3 dozen characters at this point. Including a previous artificer and two other characters sitting on my desktop. It had all those straps and details and it just looks really fucking cool.

What I do know about Hali is that he is more of a hermit/loner than the previous artificers. He's much more going to have been somewhere isolated, with only a small collection of other people. Maybe a temple, maybe a monastery or something small, high on a mountain somewhere. I don't have a full backstory worked out yet, but he's brewing in my back brain as we speak.

I also like the idea of him using the hand held Eldritch Cannon from above, or swooping down, dropping the larger walking version into battle and then flying out of range. I just wish that Hero Forge had more things that were interesting enough to stand in for the cannons. That aren't just, you know, guns. Because that's boring.

Anyway.

Can I just ask a quick question? What the actual fuck was up with the weather this week? Last weekend was thunder and potential hail and rain and whatnot. Then it was all hot and ick and then we got massive thunderstorms and rain and whatnot in the middle of the week... and we're back to thunder and storms and the like now. And it's November. What the fuck?

So, food was weird this week also. I made a quiche, I also made what might be one of the best potato salads I've ever made... and because I had eggs and milk left over at the end of the week, I made pancrepes. Of course, that means that many eggs were consumed during the week.

Otherwise, the week was about as much of a non-starter as last week. In that there was no DnD. Because of Fluffy and the Spicy Cough.

I did go and pick up the book I requested from the local library. Which, it turns out, is fucking tiny. It's cute and sweet, but really, really tiny. And, now I have officially borrowed a book from the library for the first time in more than 20 years. Woo.

And it turns out that certain libraries also have an arrangement with certain websites to let you access movies for free using your library card. So, there's also that. If only I'd done this shit earlier.

Anyway...

Today wasn't much of anything.

We did the supermarket thing... bought a metric fuckton of Bundaberg's Spiced Ginger Beer because a) that stuff is liquid fucking Christmas, and b) it was on special.

And we were possibly going to do other things... but then the big black clouds rolled in and then it started raining... and we kinda didn't bother even attempting to go anywhere.

So that's that about that.

Current mood:

photo saturday: fugitive recovery agent

Remember how I said that I was only going to be making a single backup character for the Thursday game...yeah... that didn't last.

I mean, it's partly the fact that we already have two arcane casters in the group, both of whom took Find Familiar, so adding a third familiar to the group just feels like overkill. And the fact that I've been musing about the setting specific Pallid Elves with their pale skin, white blonde hair and totally black eyes for a while now... even before I realised that they got advantage on two skills that I like using a lot.

So... today's DnD Character Colouring Book is my (mostly final) Thursday backup character, Ranya Duskgrove. And I have a way to link her into things if it comes to that... or at least a number of hooks that I can present to DM Fluffy and say "these are all possibilities, tell me which one you wanna work with". The easiest of which is "she's a bounty hunter, who has she been told to track down?".

Also, I really do want to play a rogue. Even if my current rogue dies. There is also a secondary Cleric character somewhere in the background, depending on how dire things get along the way, given that we don't actually HAVE a cleric. And she does have a hook... I'm just not quite as in love with her as I am with Ranya right now.

It's weird, there's often just something about the visual of a character that clicks for me. It then helps if the character build speaks to me, but if the visual isn't there, I often don't get much further than that these days. Oddly enough, she did start life as a tiefling. And I liked the tiefling version but something just wasn't clicking. So I tried out a pallid elf. That was, as they say, a bingo. I did pay slight homage to that aspect by putting a male tiefling in as part of her backstory.

Fingers crossed I never need to actually bust her out. But it's good to be prepared.

Anyway.

I made chicken cacciatore for the first time ever this week. I mean, I've made it out of a jar before, but that's not the same thing at all. And it was really, really good. Definitely a possibility of turning it into one of those rice based soups next winter, or just a soup in general really.

I did manage, somehow, to slice my finger open while chopping onions. I don't even really know how, because the cut is on the hand I was using to hold the knife... I think I dropped the knife or the knife slipped out of my hand or something, and I went to grab what I assumed was the handle, only to have it turn out to be the bottom of the blade.

On the plus side, it was a very shallow flesh wound. Which did mean that it bled like a motherfucker. But at least a small collection of band aids sorted me out, and while it's still visible, it's closed up and on the mend (barring the edge of the flap of skin, which will wear away eventually, it's just not there yet).

It could, however, have been worse.

Anyway.

This week was... a non-starter.

The weather was predominantly Wintery. And both DnD games got cancelled. Thursday through a missing player, Friday because Fluffy finally caught the spicy cough. Granted, he found out Thursday, so if Thursday hadn't been cancelled for other reasons, it would have been cancelled because of that.

So, yeah... nothing really to report on for the whole week.

Anyway.

Today was fine. Given that the weather is going to be warm I kind of ended up getting ingredients to make about four different things. I don't necessarily know what I will be making, I think I'm going to just see what happens during the week, and what I feel like. Which, of course, will mean that I have to cook on more than one day. And that's why I much prefer soup season. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

After that we finished the errand we started a couple of weeks ago and took something back to IKEA to exchange for the same item that Ma hadn't fucked up by not following the instructions.

So that was it really.

Current mood:

photo saturday: pumpkin jack

I do enjoy making some odd stuff for certain holidays and then being able to tie it back to DnD.

In this case, it's a little something for Halloween... Hans Kurbis... or to translate his name from the German, Jack Pumpkin.

I'm also slightly kicking myself, because last weekend I went though all my saved builds on Hero Forge and deleted a bunch of models that I didn't need anymore, including an original version of a scarecrow character... which I think was basically the same model, but I think the colour scheme on that one was better.

And yes, that is a marshmallow stuck on his wand.

Anyway...

Relatively speaking, I made goop this week for dinner. By which I mean I added vegetables and meat to a jar of a vaguely Asian style sauce. And it reminded me that... actually... I don't like goop that much. Which led to some slight improvisation later in the week.

Also on Monday the final episode of the current iteration of Doctor Who aired. And while I have had many opinions about Doctor Who in the past, I will admit that I'd mostly given up on the most recent Doctor because the writer/showrunner is supremely untalented, except on those rare instances when he pulls something out of his butt or is basically copying ("paying homage") the work of previous parts of the show.

His run has also been the most disliked and the least cohesive (partly affected by things beyond his control... like 2020) of the modern era. And while I think that the actress portraying the Doctor is a good actress, I don't think she's the RIGHT actress to play the Doctor. Part of that is the writing. Part of that is her. And not because she's a woman, because the other "Doctor" portrayed during this run is also a woman, and she commands attention every time she steps on screen.

Having said all of that, the season finale was uneven, rushed, disjointed but at the same time, there were elements relating to Doctors from years past that were actually pretty good. Including the Doctor that I consider to be MY Doctor (being the very first Doctor I really watched... if you don't count Tom Baker, because I think, somehow, everybody's first Doctor is technically Tom Baker, but that might just be because they used to repeat his episodes more than anyone else's), being Sylvester McCoy and his companion Ace.

Would I have preferred that they'd shown up in an episode/season written by a good writer? Yes. Was it overly emotionally manipulative? Yes, but I teared up anyway. Did it completely ignore pretty much every unanswered question that has been posed in the entirety of this Doctor's tenure and raise a few new ones that it likewise didn't bother answering? Yes, but also some of those questions were intensely stupid and didn't make any sense, I was okay with that. I'm just glad that the "lesbian kiss" that's been being hinted at in the last few episodes, after literally materialising out of fucking nowhere, didn't happen. Because literally nobody needed that.

Sadly though, just after that episode aired, the news broke that Disney had acquired the "worldwide" streaming rights to Doctor Who, which includes Australia, where the show has been airing on free-to-air TV since 1967, only three years after it first started airing, although it did screen at the same time across the whole country until 1978. But 54 years of history don't mean fuck all when you're staring at Disney money... so now Doctor Who will be behind a paywall.

In a word. Fuck that, fuck you Disney.

And even if a former showrunner is taking over and even if they're brining back my favourite Doctor briefly for the 60th Anniversary Special, leading into the regeneration of the next Doctor... I could also just leave it here. We'll see what happens, but let's just say I'm not pleased about the fact that Disney has very deep pockets, very long arms and no apparent conscience.

Anyway...

Thursday night's DnD was accidentally All About Me... by which I mean my character. Like I said last week, we're deep in part of my character's backstory at present... wasn't intending it... didn't expect it to go like this... but here we are. I also manufactured some moments so that my character wasn't around for certain things, to give everyone else a chance and not to totally hog the spotlight.

I've also already talked to DM Fluffy about having a one-on-one session to cover some private conversations my character wants to have with people so that I don't eat into the next game with stuff that only concerns my boy.

Friday night's DnD was pretty good. New area, new companions, new vibes. And I'm always very pleased when the group reacts to certain things in ways above and beyond how I anticipated. Usually when they see things as creepy... because, honestly, I'm so deep in this story now that I don't necessarily see any of it as that creepy. Plus, you know, I'm a little twisted.

Anyway...

Today wasn't much of anything.

Basically supermarket and that was it.

Current mood:

photo saturday: poisoned apple

There have been three times where I've created a DnD character with the noble background, and, honestly, somehow they all kinda ended up being assholes. In varying degrees anyway.

I mean, I can't say for certain with Hemlock... since he's this week's Artificer DnD Character Colouring Book entry... but, honestly, the more I started to build him in my head, the more of an asshole he seemed.

Or at least a problematic yet lovable asshole. In my head if nobody else.

I mean, that's what happens when you combine a noble background, the alchemist subclass and the poisoner feat. And then give them an outfit in black leather and my favourite colour of acid green. Plus a homunculus made from a potion bottle (well, once he's able to make one anyway).

I'll be honest, I think he's probably in second place behind last week's Battlesmith.

His backstory details will really depend on the game we're actually playing and where we start out... but it would be a different vibe than any of the others. But he's from Waterdeep, and I actually picked a name from a list of Waterdavian noble families, one of the ones that is very light on details to give me all the leeway I want.

Anyway...

I think we're kind done with soup season, which is sad, because it's so much easier than the alternative. But this week I made a big old pot of bolognese pasta sauce which was totally just me making shit up. But it was actually pretty tasty and simmered for like three hours.

I basically lost all of Tuesday because Ma dropped her car in for a service, and rather than her plan, which was to just sit in the dealership for what would have turned out to be six hours, I went and picked her up, we went to breakfast, wandered around the bookstore on the Parade and then came back here and... basically sat around for like five hours essentially. But it was better than her just hanging around on her own.

Thursday night DnD actually existed... which was an improvement on the last two weeks where there was none.

And my character fell face first into elements of his backstory, and, honestly, not mad about it. Because I did tell DM Fluffy that basically he's Fate's bitch... but it's interesting, initially I thought that meant that he would do things that he was fated to do without complaint. No, because that's so not him (or me), he will absolutely object to the things fate has in store, but at the end of the day does them anyway. I mean, right now it seems like his overall vibe is just headbutting elements of fate without realising what he's doing, which is also fun.

I also very much had to tell the rest of the party off (in character) for wanting to stick their noses in his business. Will Dax do that when other people's backstories pop up, oh absolutely, but this is the first instance of that we've really had, so everyone kind of just got very over excited.

Friday was Chiro Day... so, the usual journey into town, complete with Wandering About and Looking At Things.

Then Friday Night DnD was very good. I got to spring some things on the party that I've been waiting to do for a while, but otherwise it was mostly one of those "mopping up loose ends and having big conversations" kind of sessions. I also got to leave them on a cliffhanger (and also they levelled up)... and I love that shit.

Plus I didn't have to drive Fluffy home, as he drove himself to my place... so bonuses all around.

Anyway...

Today was... not much of anything really.

We did the supermarket thing, and then we did an errand that resulted in a big fat nothing and basically did a wander and called the whole thing a day. So, yeah, nothing to report really.

Current mood:

photo saturday: making a friend

Remember a little while back where I posted about 67 different variations of rogues while I was trying to find my next character.

Yeah, we're doing that, but for Artificers right now. Or at least for the three Artificer subclasses I actually like (the first of which was Orval from a couple of weeks back). And it might just be three characters total. I'll have to see how I go.

I'll admit, it's a class I struggle with concepts for, because it seems very specific and generally speaking feels less "fantasy" and more something else. Not "steampunk" per say, although that's very much how people seem to think of it. But it's definitely one that probably fits better within the world of Eberron, which is more pulp detective novels meets "non-traditional fantasy technologies" like magically powered trains and skyships. So I kinda went around and around on some of these.

But we ended up with Hasim... also known as Haze. Honestly, the name is the most likely to change. It's a place holder right now, but I do definitely want a Persian/Arabian style name for him.

I've also never played a male tiefling. And I've only ever played one other tiefling, Mama Lullaby, who was my... second ever character I think. Which is odd. You'd think I would have played a bunch of them, since I really do enjoy tieflings... and I've made a few, they just never made it through to a table at any point.

And for some reason I have a tendency to gravitate towards tieflings with human coloured skin rather than the traditional red or the very internet popular tones of purple. I did go back to the official tiefling description though and saw that their eyes can just be white, which is not a direction I would normally go, but felt right.

What's interesting is that at a certain point Hasim actually had a completely different colour pallet and name. He was originally Knack and the colours were all shades of blue. But then I went looking for some kind of art for a Steel Defender (since you really can't make those in Hero Forge right now) and ended up finding this amazing looking "Automata Quad" by Graey Erb. 

After that the colour pallet got a bit of a tweak to bring it more into like with the Quad's colours (I might, at some point, go in and make the armour metal a little closer of a match to the illustration). And I very much dig it right now. There's always a hierarchy to these things, and I think that Hasim is in the lead of the three designs I'm currently toying with. I think, very possibly, the Defender is what pushed him over the edge. I love the slightly non-specific big cat/sabre-tooth creature/jewellery vibe of it along with what is very clearly an artisan's eye.

I don't really have a backstory for him yet, although I did suddenly realise that there are probably more tieflings working as blacksmiths that you might otherwise expect, if only because they're resistant to fire, so, to paraphrase, the heat wouldn't bother them anyway.

Anyway...

I made Toona Noodle Doo this week... I don't know why, but sometimes it's amazing and sometimes it's... m'eh. This time around it was just fairly average. And I never quite know what makes the difference. Should I have thrown in an extra can of soup? Should I just not bother adding in boiled egg? No idea. If was fine though.

Otherwise... this week was kinda m'eh.

No urgent trips to Service SA, no issues with anybody's internet... and no DnD. Yeah, there wasn't supposed to be a Thursday game, that I already knew, but Friday's game got pulled at roughly 4:15pm on Friday. And Fluffy had stuff going on at his end... so... yeah, nothing there either.

So that's it really.

The weather was fucking nuts, but otherwise, nothing to report.

Anyway...

Today became a semi-Christmas related excursion.

We started with the usual supermarketry... and then headed off to look for some specific bits and pieces, which led us to both Big W and Kmart... and mostly their Christmas stuff. It should also have included more of their Halloween stuff, but the stuff I liked was either too expensive for what it was, or they just didn't have what I was looking for.

But a good trip overall.

Current mood:

photo saturday: spooky boy

It seems that I'm somewhat slightly obsessed with the Undead Patron Warlock at present. Which is something of a shame, because it's going to be a hot minute before I get the chance to actually play one. If that ever actually eventuates.

But given we've entered the Spooky Month, it seemed like a vibe for today's DnD Character Colouring Book... even if the colour is basically black.

It also came together nicely with a number of pieces from the outfit that was released the week before last. Which I quite like, but they're a little specific or at least have a less general vibe, at least when it comes to the spiked kneepad. At some point it would be nice if they got really modular with some of the stuff, but I suppose that's a little hard to do with everything.

Zherne started out as a redhead with stubble. And then I basically covered his face and head, so it didn't seem like there was a ton of point to it all. But the stubble kind of stuck around. It's probably something I would ditch if I was really going to play him.

I also really dig the armoured glove. And his dead, yet functional, eye.

I haven't quite pieced together a backstory for him... I feel like he was a member of a cult of one of the evil gods of death, but was sacrificed, probably against his will. Or maybe not, he certainly didn't expect to come back. And suffice to say, it's less pleased about the cult he used to be a part of.

So I don't quite know who his Patron actually is, but he does take on a bleeding, gaunt, rotting visage for his Form of Dread. And his is covered in healed scars in his day to day existence, they just start to ooze thick dark ichor when he transforms.

And yes, his name is a variation of Chernobog, the Slavic god of misfortune.

Anyway.

This week's soup was yet another minestrone I made up based on what I remembered to buy last week. And it was pretty good... with the bacon and chorizo goodness and whatnot.

Otherwise, we're mostly filing this week under "unexpected problems".

The least of which was the fact the fucking weather couldn't make up it's mind all week... first it's going to be sunny and warm, then it's going to be cold and windy, then it's going to be temperate with a lot of rain.

So Thursday, I got an email from the nice folk at Optus, following up from the previous "yeah, sorry, your data definitely got leaked" email with a "yep, definitely leaked, and it was definitely your drivers license, so now you have to go get a new one".

Which we can now file under "things I didn't expect to be doing at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon"... driving to Service SA to get a new license number.

On the plus side, while a large amount of the people who were there were also in the same boat, I think I was there for a grand total of maybe 15-20 minutes, tops. And the line was longer when I left than when I got there, which is always the correct state of affairs.

But now I have no license until they get around to sending out the new one. Well... no physical card. Me and the other trillion people who were making their way through Service SA that day.

There was also no Thursday night DnD. Because something something people had other things happening. And no Thursday night DnD next week either, for similarly associated reasons.

Then Friday, my internet just cut out for no well explained reason. I think it might have been a more localised neighbourhood issue rather than just being me specifically, but I still called the ISP and got them looking into it, but fortunately, it came back about half an hour later while I was busy doing other things.

And then Friday night DnD was also cancelled, because Mrs was interstate. We also didn't end up doing board games, so Fluffy and I just did movie night instead. Which was pleasant. Nothing particularly to write home about, we watched the Great Mouse Detective and then I introduced Fluffy to Empire Records, which went over very well.

Because of course it did, it's a great fucking movie #DamnTheMan.

But that was our evening. Finishing up much earlier than normal.

Today was mostly about average, supermarketry, then back here to do some bits and pieces and then off to Bunnings for pick up various things, including some more potting mix for my, inexplicably, twenty year old parlour palm, after I realised how much the soil had compacted/disappeared while putting the supportive plastic cage around it last Saturday night.

And a couple of other stops, all in the general neighbourhood, but again, nothing exciting.

There was another brief moment of panic this afternoon though when the electricity went out... just what I didn't need after the internet outage earlier in the week. Fortunately it only lasted a few minutes and then came back up.

But that's it for the week really. Nothing groundbreaking, but a lot of "really?".

Current mood:

photo saturday: professor

So what do you do when it turns out that the next DM for the Friday game doesn't want to run Adventure A, as assumed by last week's DnD Character Colouring Book, but instead, wants to run Adventure B.

You make a different character.

And I figured, if I'm doing this... why not actually play the one character class that I've never actually played before, albeit, one that I've struggled to actually get a handle on making an interesting character for.

And this is also not one of the subclasses I thought I would ever want to play. But somehow little Orval just fell into my brain pretty much fully formed. And he kinda knew who he wanted to be. So those are the characters I just run with, because, as a wise woman (by which I mean Barbra Streisand in What's Up Doc) once said... "Listen, kiddo. You can't fight a tidal wave."

So I don't try.

And yes, the look and the outfit are basically a mashup of two previous characters that I will never actually play, but I liked the look then, and I like the look now. I did try out a blue variant, but, honesty, the orange/golden yellow and purple combo is pretty much where it's at.

Like I said, he dropped in pretty fully formed, so I know a bunch of things about him, but there's also other stuff that will depend on where we start out and you know, other stuff. But I'm kind of digging it. And it should be a different kind of character to play, so that'll be good.

I mean, between now and then I fully expect to change his outfit 12 times based on what new gear appears on Hero Forge, but the core will remain.

Anyway.

This week I tried out a new soup recipe, for Easy Creamy Chicken Rice Soup, and mine came out pretty much the same as the photos with the recipe, which is always nice. Although I think I had more celery than carrot in mine, which is fine, because I like celery more than carrot anyway.

But it worked really well. And while I might not lean into this specific recipe again, I will definitely adapt some of techniques to my own soups in the future. And this soup actually taught me the proper way to use cornflour, so that was nice.

I spent various portions of the week sorting out my whole external hard drive situation... copying things across, deleting things, getting shit organised. And then I realised that when I was taking things off my laptop last week, I actually forgot to pull all of my photos from my digital cameras off the laptop. I thought I had, but then I couldn't find the folder... and realised I had been "saving it until last" and then forgot to get to "last".

Tuesday Ma lost her mind. Well, she had a stress out because her internet wasn't working, and I walked her through the things I knew that might do something (switch it on/off, stick a thingy in the reset hole, etc) but it turned out it was the NBN box and she would have to call the ISP and get them to look into it. And she just worked herself up into a tizzy about it.

I thought she'd be fine, but then I didn't hear from her for a while, so I called her back, only to find that we'd hit Peak Tizzy.

So I spent a while talking her down off that particular ledge, and basically got her in a state where she could call and have a coherent conversation with them.

Of course the upshot was, she called, they couldn't fix it over the phone, they arranged to send out an NBN tech on Thursday, he was basically there for like five minutes and it turned out that some previous work on the junction box or whatever had fucked up the connection.

So a whole storm in a teacup in order to get him there, he was there for like 10 minutes and it was all fixed before 9am.

Bless her little cotton socks.

It did partially stress me out during the week, not knowing if the problem was an easy fix. Although assuming that it probably was.

But, once again... Storm. In teacup. I will admit though, it's my preferred kind of storm. Both in size and location.

I also made apple cake... the downside is that I ended up looking at a bunch of different recipes trying to find one I'd seen the week before, and so now I can't find it. But it used oil and Greek yogurt and it was really fucking good. Admittedly, I went off the rails a little on the butter, sugar and cinnamon topping that was supposed to form like a crust on the top... too much butter, which soaked into the cake as it was cooling and was not in any way bad, it did just make the cake fall apart a little and end up kinda sticky and very sweet... although less greasy than I was expecting. It was pretty good actually. Especially with a little vanilla ice-cream.

If I can hunt down the recipe (and remember to bookmark it this time), I'm definitely going to try it again.

Thursday night DnD was good... we lost a drinking contest and therefore lost being able to rub our victory in the face of the shitty NPCs we kept encountering before that. But my boy did manage to hook up with the lovely elven NPC, so that was nice.

But now we're on the road, finding out things about each other... keeping secrets and feeling each other out. And having prolonged dream sequences. And discovering that you're having a shared dream sequence with another character... which is a bit of a shock when there was no pre-existing relationship established between the two characters.

Good though. Fun though. Something to dig into later though.

Friday night DnD was equally good. Not least of all because I got to drop the needle on various things that I've been waiting to do for a while. And finally got to reveal to them what happened to the things they'd lost. And reveal to Fluffy's character what his mother looks like. And retell a story I'd already told from a different perspective now that they know that it's important and to pay attention to it.

What's interesting is how much stuff just rolls off my tongue without pre-planning it. There are whole chunks of this adventure that go a little off book that have just gone straight from brain to mouth. And I very much dig that. Even just pivoting in the moment based on dice rolls and things they do.

It's also all very good fun.

Next session will be a little more back-tracky as they head back to see the first hag, not knowing whether or not she knows that the second hag is dead.

So that'll be a fun time.

Anyway...

Today wasn't much of anything yet again.

We did the supermarket thing, didn't buy a huge amount, but then afterwards we were basically going to call it a day until we decided to head down to see if we could find some kind of trellis/support for my twenty year old parlor palm... yeah, that bitch is old. And a touch top heavy these days. So we'll see how this goes.

There were a few other things we grabbed, nothing overly exciting, just useful stuff. But we then discovered that they'd overcharged us on a couple of items. So back in I went to make them sort it out. Yes, it was less than $10 but it was the principle of the thing.

And that's about it really.

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