tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145850432024-03-26T00:37:22.785+10:30yaniismexcessively talkative in a rambling roundabout manner, especially about trivial mattersyanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.comBlogger4272125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-68389027678620537212024-03-23T15:33:00.006+10:302024-03-23T15:33:45.312+10:30photo saturday: punk rock halfling<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgEI2GYeC-tp01g9_0zwAlyJJ9fMeBVTL0SUh1O_SA9FNZ-feihNnbukPj_vZuLfWIBfxdI5G4oZFy6U-bCRKfgJzWaKpAeuts5sAeFjV9ICxd-uEYhOAU3KiAOIgrHzfh9JKPkS-bBio1jcqXJESnhVaDzAxfYoPWeujuFmYYLM3sGpIENK-/s1024/dnd-Inky-Inkfoot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="inky inkfoot - tattooist, traveller, cleric" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgEI2GYeC-tp01g9_0zwAlyJJ9fMeBVTL0SUh1O_SA9FNZ-feihNnbukPj_vZuLfWIBfxdI5G4oZFy6U-bCRKfgJzWaKpAeuts5sAeFjV9ICxd-uEYhOAU3KiAOIgrHzfh9JKPkS-bBio1jcqXJESnhVaDzAxfYoPWeujuFmYYLM3sGpIENK-/w400-h400/dnd-Inky-Inkfoot.jpg" title="inky inkfoot - tattooist, traveller, cleric" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>There are some characters who are minimalists... you put them in an outfit, you look at that outfit, you go "yeah, that works" (although the last time we had one of those on the blog was back in early February with the elderly halfling barbarian) and some of them are decidedly maximalists.</p><p>Because they require a lot of fussing around in Photoshop, and then once you have done, you realise something about it needs tweaking, and so you start from the beginning again.... and then you do that a second time. And then you keep seeing things you could tweak, and you keep adding to things and before you know it you've done three versions of the character and the Photoshop file has over 75 layers.</p><p>And it all started with the hand.</p><p>Well, technically it started <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/photo-saturday-path-not-chosen.html">back in 2021</a> when Inky was one of my potential backup characters for our Avernus game.<br /></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Firstly we have Thaddeus "Inky" Oakfoot, halfling tattoo artist, monk and cleric to one of the more obscure halfling goddesses. The selection and addition of his tattoos was fun, but I will say that I enjoyed coming up with the history of his tattoos even more, and the fact that he'd basically been in or around all the major cities in Faerun right before the events of the major adventures. That his halfling luck told him that he really needed to head somewhere else before everything went to shit. Also, I do really want to play a Trickery Cleric at some stage.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>But I was going through and deleting or updating some older characters and I looked at him and figured he might as well get a new face. And a new staff, new hair, new pants, a new pouch... basically a do-over. And I was playing around with the new hand poses when I tried the "devil horns" and, suddenly we were off to the races. He suddenly became much more "punk" in my head.</p><p>So first the tattoos got some updates. And the idea that he had perhaps avoided the events of major adventures kind of morphed into the idea that he was there for most of them, just at a different time and doing different things that the adventure as written. Which meant that some of his tattoos got upgraded to cover books the old ones didn't. And the largest tattoo, which covers his whole chest is of Yondalla, the matriarch of the halfling pantheon.<br /></p><p>Then I decided to give him the same brooch as <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/10/photo-saturday-miss-jamjar.html">Miss Jamjar</a>, because it's Yondalla's holy symbol. Which triggered the idea of punks and badges... or just badges in general.</p><p>And I started adding various "in world" badges. Things he definitely could have gotten his hands on, things he probably couldn't have. Things that tell a story.</p><p>Then I realised he should always have been an Inkfoot and not an Oakfoot.</p><p>And in looking up details for the goddess Dallah Thaun and saw that prayers to her start off with "If only...". So that became the repeated motto on the metal parts of his staff in various in-game (and not) fonts. Which then led to the "graffiti" on the staff. And the invention of a partner or lover or something with a first name starting with M. I haven't even decided on a gender for them to be honest. There are also some definite "crossing into other fictional universes" references across his whole deal.</p><p>One of the last additions was taking some existing items (much larger items like chain-whips and a giant padlock) and turning them into his padlock necklace. </p><p>Also, not that you can see it but just because it amuses me and is it's own in-joke, he only wears pink socks.<br /></p><p>Maybe some version of him should just be my perpetual back-up character. He would also work well as a different idea for the first character from the 2024 PHB, which is kind of what this version is. And a character that would start out at Level 10.</p><p>On the plus side, now that he's been posted to the blog, I can, hopefully, stop making changes LOL.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>We seem to have reached that point that comes around every March where I start the week in shorts and potentially end in a hoodie... although perhaps not as cleanly as that since it's going to shoot back up to over 30 at the end of this week, but the nights have gotten cold, so I'm very much on board for that.</p><p>That also means that it's very nearly the start of soup season... depending on how the weather goes next week.</p><p>Thursday Night DnD actually happened. And was... a lot of fumbling around on a very confusing map. But, you know, one step closer to getting to the end of this adventure.</p><p>Friday Night DnD, by contrast, did not happen. For all the usual reasons.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Today was the usual supermarketry... but afterwards I managed to cross a few things off my to-do list when we took a trip to Big W.</p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-43735811405367258172024-03-16T18:53:00.002+10:302024-03-16T18:53:31.749+10:30photo friday: birthday boy and purple pal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Bf1OgxywwTSWma-_Z99t2edrdwmmoVNGiWAxQtSPQqHq4xlXIvCxLt3EZ7pXxnf9UTmCSg1D-hMMlzD75ZDDIDsYYfCnwdyWO-asmF8PboopiG17TOsLV4br3JZM0vmmhZ6UwiX_JzHKTXYID9t0cATvjNpHwWpg-0S05TUesK4m52SfT0TQ/s1024/dnd-Liberty.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="liberty - sailor, swordsman, sweet-talker" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Bf1OgxywwTSWma-_Z99t2edrdwmmoVNGiWAxQtSPQqHq4xlXIvCxLt3EZ7pXxnf9UTmCSg1D-hMMlzD75ZDDIDsYYfCnwdyWO-asmF8PboopiG17TOsLV4br3JZM0vmmhZ6UwiX_JzHKTXYID9t0cATvjNpHwWpg-0S05TUesK4m52SfT0TQ/w400-h400/dnd-Liberty.jpg" title="liberty - sailor, swordsman, sweet-talker" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>Let's get a little weird... in any number of ways. So the idea of what the first character I might make from the 2024 version of the PHB has been floating around in my head for the last little while, and the one new subrace that they floated that really caught my eye was the Chthonic tiefling.</p><p>Which led me to this week's DnD Character Colouring Book... Liberty, Chthonic Tiefling Sailor, Great Old One Warlock and Swashbuckler Rogue.<br /></p><p>I know what you're thinking... because, literally, it was what I was thinking up until about 75 seconds ago when I googled "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic">chthonic</a>"... it's less about Lovecraft and Cthulhu and literally just means "underworld". Which, honestly, makes it make a lot more sense. And had I realised that at the time, might have altered my theming... but instead I discovered the <a href="https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Piscoloth">Piscoloth</a>, which is one of the possible Neutral Evil fiendish ancestors.<br /></p><p>So, why wouldn't I lean into the cool, purple, aquatic, nightmare lobster and make it more people-like. Also, leaning into that idea meant being able to make a hornless (bald) tiefling. Which I dig. Originally he didn't have a tail, because I wanted to lean away from a number of the regular Infernal tiefling visuals. But he just ended up looking like a purple dude... so, sometimes you can't get rid of all the tropes.</p><p>The tattoo is a combination of a "Great Old One" sketch I found, two lots of "Lovecraftian" text (keeping in mind that Lovecraft was a racist asshole) at 90 degrees to each other, pulled from the Dagon short story (specifically the passage describing the titular creature) and a symbol for same. The idea would be that it's less of a tattoo and more something his patron inflicted on him.</p><p>I also, mostly for my own benefit, I included screen shots of the specific Warlock Eldritch Invocations he would have with six levels of Warlock and four levels of Rogue. I'm not convinced about the Gift of the Depths option, it would be one of those there I'd have to have a conversation with the DM and ask "is this a thing that's actually going to come up or be useful at all?". Because if there's like, one room in one dungeon in the whole adventure where this might be useful and nowhere else... then I'll just take Eldritch Smite (maybe).</p><p>The tail cuff was originally three rings, but the more I looked at it, the more I went... "that would just be uncomfortable and impractical", so instead I defaulted to the singular cuff. And engraved it with the name of three ships he's served on. One of which might just be a Spelljammer ship (probably a Damselfly Ship). Because as much as I probably don't ever want to PLAY Spelljammer, tying him into that idea might be fun. I also just realised that two of the three ship names I came up with are alliterative... so either I need to change the one that isn't so that they're all like that, or change one of the ones that are.</p><p>In my head, he would also have light, silk robe/jacket that would go over the armor... but that's not a thing that would work in Hero Forge. Think something that's kinda Burning Man, kinda Coachella, very dramatic, big wide sleeves (or no sleeves)... something you could get a good "King Thranduil" shablam moment out of before a battle... yeah. That.<br /></p><p>And lastly, because he has Mask of Many Faces, I also mocked up his... default disguise. Because as much as the playtest information says "thanks to the victories and sacrifices of these legends, tieflings throughout the multiverse enjoy widespread acceptance", widespread isn't total and there's going to be times when it's much easier to pass as a brown skinned gentleman with a relatively normal tattoo than it would be to be a very distinctive purple gentleman with a tail. The names of the ships appear up in the tattoo also.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggBBgJpY0QO67fqPaQ6Ppu6FqCvFda6CIhILXEipYmbNYiVhiPKrvmqJHor3mGIgpArV-694h1Wm6VCz9d6T2aYN40uzy6ECKE8k6k-eMlkyPsGoLpX5adJNEUIpAQiFsrTESI3Ujs48NXG7NhgytnTTTjq8ubYV0AC9pDnQ0hKFsT-jd0GuLk/s1024/dnd-Liberty-Jones.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="liberty jones - sailor, swordsman, sweet-talker" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggBBgJpY0QO67fqPaQ6Ppu6FqCvFda6CIhILXEipYmbNYiVhiPKrvmqJHor3mGIgpArV-694h1Wm6VCz9d6T2aYN40uzy6ECKE8k6k-eMlkyPsGoLpX5adJNEUIpAQiFsrTESI3Ujs48NXG7NhgytnTTTjq8ubYV0AC9pDnQ0hKFsT-jd0GuLk/w400-h400/dnd-Liberty-Jones.jpg" title="liberty jones - sailor, swordsman, sweet-talker" width="400" /></a></div><p>Anyway.</p><p>This week was Birthday Week.</p><p>But before we get to that...</p><p>I'm not going into this too deeply, but my landlord is literally the most awkward man to ever live. Also, I finally got my stovetop fixed. Because it kept fucking up... but nobody actually seemed to bother investigating what the issue WAS, the electrician just upgraded the fuse that the oven and stovetop runs on. So we'll assume that fixes the issue. I guess. But also, because electricians can't ever give you a time, he was supposedly coming "mid afternoon" and it was basically 4pm by the time he showed up. So that ended up being most of my Wednesday, at least from a "taking up space in my brain" perspective.<br /></p><p>Most of the week was me hiding in the aircon, because fuck the last throws of Summer, which always thrashes around like a dying octopus before it disappears out the door.</p><p>Thursday was my actual birthday... and I just realised that I did not do my annual "it's my [number] birthday and also [insert male celeb's name who shares my birthday]" image... because, frankly, I completely forgot about it. Also, I'm basically recycling celebs at this point. So... maybe we skip this year? Maybe. Which is sad is the only other time I skipped it was 2021... and, honestly, yeah, I was clearly in a mood for the entirety of 2021.</p><p>And did I just take a detour and go and do a search to see if anybody new or interesting had popped up? Yes, yes I did. But I also don't know that I want to go, create an image and then backdate a post. Seems like, honestly, too much work. I forgot, so maybe we'll pick it back up next year, maybe it's a meme that had it's day. Which is something of a shame this year, given that it's my 50th. Also, I'm 50, who the fuck let that happen.<br /></p><p>So, getting back to Thursday.</p><p>I started off with a message followed by a phonecall from Ma wishing me Happy Birthday. Then I did my usual visit to Boost Juice and Baker's Delight in order to collect the free shit both of those places give you when it's your birthday.</p><p>Thursday Night DnD is... as Fluffy and I have remarked on many occasions, cursed beyond the telling of it. So, that fell over and died, because our host wasn't well. Which meant that I had a nice quiet evening.</p><p>Friday was Chiro Day... so I went and did my usual wandering around town after getting my back sorted out. I did spend a while pottering around Dymocks considering potential books to buy with the money left over from last birthday's gift voucher. But I have two issues when it comes to books right now. Stuff that I have read and enjoyed... I'm not sure that, for most of it, I actually need to own it or, for right now, wouldn't really be that bothered going back and rereading (mostly because, right now, I'm enjoying just cycling through all kinds of new and exciting books)... and when it comes to things I haven't read yet... well, why wouldn't I borrow it from the library first to ensure I'm actually going to enjoy it? Which then turns into the first issue.</p><p>And the one book that I did think that I might buy just so that I actually own it... they didn't have. But wandering around books was an enjoyable way to spend a little while.</p><p>Then we get to Friday Night DnD...</p><p>And it turns out that directly after I have everybody a "hey, important birthday coming up, but I don't really need STUFF, but I also don't know what I want... you figure it out and don't ask me things..." just after Valentine's Day, they commenced Planning Things.</p><p>Some of that planning came to fruition when Fluffy asked me "a quick question about a totally fictionalised situation that will have no bearing on actual events". Which turned out to be a question about cake. And that I initially said I didn't have a lot of strong opinions about, and then proceeded to have several strong opinions about. Because marzipan, white chocolate and baked cheesecakes are all, in fact, literally The Devil.</p><p>So it wasn't a great surprise when Fluffy messaged me when he got here on Friday to say "could you get the door for me and spare some room in your fridge". Because you have to put hypothetical cheesecake in the fridge, obviously.</p><p>Then when we got there, it turned out that they'd been plotting and scheming and working together. But due to circumstances, the plan didn't quite work as it might have done... but that was okay, because for the plan to work, time travel would have needed to be involved. So we dealt with the timeline we're currently in.</p><p>Because, honestly, you don't want to give me the power to mess around with the timelines at this point. Not least of all because I'll just go and buy a bunch of Apple stock and several copies of Action Comics #1 featuring the first appearance of Superman. Or something.</p><p>Where was I? Oh, yeah, presents. There was a set of group presents... that's a confusing sentence. There were three presents, from the group. A present "to celebrate", a present "to remember" and a present "to inspire". Yeah, like I said, they'd been plotting and planning.</p><p>Celebrate was a... well, I don't know what the official name of it would be... a diadem or a corolla, maybe a coronet... not a tiara though, because it's a full circle... essentially it's a tiny crown. Which is made of some kind of metal and has little fake gemstones and repeating fleur-de-lis... which is funny because my first tattoo was, in fact, a fleur-de-lis.</p><p>And why... because, I am, in fact a Pretty Pretty Princess.</p><p>Does it fit my oblong head? Not remotely. Is it clearly designed to be worn by a bride with a veil and connection points where you attach it to a hairstyle with bobby pins? Yes. Is it very cute? Also yes.</p><p>Remember was a very lovely <a href="https://www.sketchgoblin.co.nz/">Sketchgoblin</a> portrait of my girl Nightingale. Is it the version of my girl that I would have designed if I'd been dealing with the artist directly? No, but I think they were working from <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2020/08/photo-saturday-bad-girls-have-more-fun.html">the 2020 version</a> of my girl... and I think I've slightly redesigned her several times since then, and, honestly, she's about to go through another slightly update next week when they drop some new jacket pieces. Also, I'd possibly be a nightmare dealing with an artist. Or else send them a full terrabyte of reference images.<br /></p><p>But, again, this is "remember". So, basing it around the version of her that finished the game is entirely appropriate. And I'm also perfectly happy for this to be... "fan art" of my girl. Also, just so we're clear, it is quite lovely. And the perfect group gift from this group of people. Because that was the first character I played with them when we started doing our Friday thing back at <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/photo-saturday-sky-blue-details.html">the end of October 2019</a>.</p><p>Entirely fitting.</p><p>Inspire was scarlet yarn. Several balls thereof. Half of which was acrylic and half of which was merino wool. Weirdly, if you'd showed me the acrylic yarn and asked if that was my preferred colour of red, I would have said "absolutely", right up until I looked at the merino wool, which is slightly darked and a less orange leaning scarlet.</p><p>What am I going to make with it? Not a fucking Scooby. Scooby Doo. Clue. You got that, right? Cockney Rhyming Slang.</p><p>And then we have some very delightful tropical/passionfruit cheesecake from the Cheesecake Shop and played a game of Sheriff of Nottingham and a game of Sushi Go (both of which Fluffy won, because I goaded him into not playing Sheriff the way he normally plays it, and none of us really ended up challenging each other when we were clearly all lying). But it was a pleasant evening.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>Today was also pleasant.</p><p>We did the supermarket thing, came back here and watched more of the UK Portrait Artist of the Year only to discover that the episode marked as Episode 4 was actually just Episode 3 again (nobody cares, I understand)... also that the last episode that seems to appear online is like a month ago... so that train may have run out of steam. Then we watched Canadian Pottery Throw Down, which is just Great British Bake Off but for pottery (well, actually it's the Canadian version of The Great Pottery Throw Down, which is just GBBO for pottery... again, nobody cares)... only to discover that the Totally Legal and Absolutely Autorised Version that we were watching cut out literally two seconds before they announced who was going home this week. Rude.</p><p>Then we went down to the Parade, avoided the insanity going on today at the Irish pub on the other corner for St Paddy's Day tomorrow, and went to the same cafe we went to for Ma's birthday last year.</p><p>Should I have gotten the focaccia/baguette instead of the chicken burger? Probably. And when the problem with the chicken burger is... the chicken. Well, what are you going to do really? It wasn't bad... just... highly underwhelming.</p><p>So, Happy Birthday to me I guess. On the plus side, I do have half a cheesecake in the fridge right now.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-64957468118165680742024-03-09T14:32:00.002+10:302024-03-09T14:32:34.186+10:30photo saturday: grumpy ghosthunter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNsfTQit42MgWg4dvKs0WzdUl48y2pjJgNdh4yKlM8syZCQQ4pYxm3nwcEo3L5v8qP54uFj9S1GMrwvbWHZJocRYxij8ONhJUXhxdEhocr5JqvC9d2J5HN8qCOF_Qsf4sirwe3DHhsLwq55rwxDG9t4av8pMgYQJ1beT4Ub0npohZrycaRzkik/s1024/dnd-Orryn-Silverthread.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="orryn silverthread - addict, ghosthunter, grump" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNsfTQit42MgWg4dvKs0WzdUl48y2pjJgNdh4yKlM8syZCQQ4pYxm3nwcEo3L5v8qP54uFj9S1GMrwvbWHZJocRYxij8ONhJUXhxdEhocr5JqvC9d2J5HN8qCOF_Qsf4sirwe3DHhsLwq55rwxDG9t4av8pMgYQJ1beT4Ub0npohZrycaRzkik/w400-h400/dnd-Orryn-Silverthread.jpg" title="orryn silverthread - addict, ghosthunter, grump" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>I've said it a few times of late, but the difference between some of my earlier Hero Forge models and what it's capable of now is pretty much night and day...</p><p> In fact, Orryn, who appeared in a DnD Character Colouring Book <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2020/10/photo-saturday-old-blood-new-blood.html">after the post-Kickstarter HF 2.0 dropped</a> now looks like the action figure version of this character. Part of that is the Face Customiser, part of that is the newer items being much less chunky than the older ones, part of it is just the many, many, many hours experience I've had posing the little fuckers.</p><p>I'll be honest, I do still want an updated (and two armed) version of Orryn's original jacket (also, more short katanas, technically wakizashi I guess) because I love that thing, but I also love the single armored arm. And the very grumpy face.<br /></p><p></p><blockquote><i>Orryn was my first gnome character (they're a race I just don't much care for, especially when comparing them with my preferred halflings), who I made for a one-shot back at the end of March... who is a class from the world of Critical Role, who took part in a solo adventure (one DM, one player) that was mostly The Witcher but with more than a little of the Mandalorian thrown in. Neither of which I have seen/played. But it wasn't bad. </i></blockquote><p></p><p>I didn't realise it until I was looking back through Discord messages that he was very much an "early days of lockdown" character, where we did the one on one session entirely through voice chat. And that that was so long ago while also feeling like it was literally five minutes ago.</p><p>Also yes, I liked the name so much that when it came time to design my first gnome who would survive beyond a single game, I <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2020/10/photo-saturday-future-self.html">reused it for Quillamina</a>. An alternate universe branch of the family perhaps.<br /></p><p>While this version is still a Critical Role Bloodhunter, I did think about re-imagining him as a Psi Warrior Fighter... or, as I mentioned at the time, possibly a Phantom Rogue (but as much as I love Rogues, I'm not sure that Phantom necessarily vibes for me without a very strong hook). But I'm also kind of feeling the need for a more close up melee character. It's not generally my thing, but there's some character with a sword sitting in the back of my brain and banging on various bits of grey matter. And I think it's definitely a sword... rather than any other weapon.</p><p>We'll have to see what happens when the new 2024 rule books drop towards the end of the year.</p><p>But part of the reason Orryn got a do-over was I was going through and clearing out some of the Hero Forge models I don't need anymore (mostly the old versions of character who now have updated faces), and one thing led to another.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>So, at some point, I think I've brought up seeing the <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/index.shtml">Indigenous weather calendars</a> for various places around Australia, and the fact that while some places (mostly on the east coast) have up to 6 different seasons, and some places have as few as 2, the <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/kaurna.shtml">Kaurna calendar</a> is more or less the same as the regular calendar, but just offset by a month. So Summer is January thru March, etc.<br /></p><p>And honestly, that's my new calendar. Because we're at the start of March and having a heatwave as we speak.</p><p>Fun times. Although, honestly, much less stressful that it was back in the days when I had no aircon.<br /></p><p>Otherwise, not much to report.</p><p>Not Thursday Night DnD because of reasons... the reason mostly being that the game is mostly cursed and it's going to take us for-fucking-ever to finally finish up the campaign.</p><p>Friday Night DnD was good... did I perhaps slightly stretch the capacity of what I was supposed to be able to do in a turn of combat... yeah, yeah, I did. But not on purpose. I just perhaps got a little over excited in the moment. It also didn't help because we were playing without a battlemap. And that always fucks me over.</p><p>But no harm, no foul.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Given the aforementioned heatwave, we did the supermarket slightly earlier (not THAT much earlier, but early enough that it seemed like the clowns had all escaped from the circus. Or, alternatively, the people who would normally go to the supermarket later went much earlier because of the heat.</p><p>But we did the shopping thing and then came back here and watched some YubTubs for a while before I sent Ma off into the world/home.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-5752434901658435892024-03-02T18:42:00.007+10:302024-03-02T18:42:47.348+10:30photo saturday: undead druid boy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-3vYqophxqYDgXZyq3DRd5wgW7_mm37-Eeo2ReJHbcHjaVCkBPWapcAZ_MYYkUNCY__IB0ZBU80G0-EXJqp25GRj1mFbggKVZt0nds7IFuW72THsOhWUuv-J5cbcKf8c6kbtCGE5-HY4JXcRcZ2IE_wo_jowuU3fm5RyTfkHRWb_yZO-tuXV/s1024/dnd-Dal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="dal - guardian, shapeshifter, druid" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-3vYqophxqYDgXZyq3DRd5wgW7_mm37-Eeo2ReJHbcHjaVCkBPWapcAZ_MYYkUNCY__IB0ZBU80G0-EXJqp25GRj1mFbggKVZt0nds7IFuW72THsOhWUuv-J5cbcKf8c6kbtCGE5-HY4JXcRcZ2IE_wo_jowuU3fm5RyTfkHRWb_yZO-tuXV/w400-h400/dnd-Dal.jpg" title="dal - guardian, shapeshifter, druid" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>There are times when I look back on the "hand coloured" minis I made back before Hero Forge did colour and I go... the fuck was I thinking? There are also characters where I go... awww, you poor bastard, you didn't stand a chance.</p><p>Dal is both of those things. Also, a halfling, because we know how I feel about halflings. He was, if memory serves, my second ever halfling.<br /></p><p></p><blockquote><i>Dal has been through some stuff. He spent a lot of time running around as a dinosaur defeating undead pirates. And as of the last time I played him, he's sitting out in the jungles of Chult on the edge of a ruined city with a ruby in his forehead, technically an undead creature. I kinda need to play another Moon Druid. I like the Circle of the Moon... changing into big dangerous animals is fun. Changing into dinosaurs, even more fun. And being a Ghostwise halfling and having the ability to communicate telepathically while in animal form. </i></blockquote><p></p><p>The <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2021/02/photo-saturday-nature-boys.html">original</a> DnD Character Colouring Book with him in it is from three years ago now, and the poor character didn't last beyond 2017 if I remember my timeline correctly. But I do like this version. The "octopus armor" is a magic item he got before he got fucked over by an adventure that was later changed. And I like this version with just one big embroidered octopus.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Very minor catastrophe this week... I was showering when I heard an almighty crash and the breaking of glass and I thought "well, that can't be in my house, I have all the windows wide open, surely that was from outside somewhere"... but I had to check, so I peaked around the corner into the living room only to discover that the big framed artwork that has sat, perfectly fine, on the chest of drawers, had done a 270° rotation swan dive off the top, landing face up on the floor, broken glass, thankfully, mostly still contained in and around the frame.</p><p>So, I did the only sensible thing and got back in the shower.</p><p>And then got dressed and put shoes on and spent about the next half an hour picking up thin shards of glass from atop the artwork and the surrounding floor.</p><p>Not a fun way to start a day really.</p><p>I also don't have any idea HOW it fell. Did I slightly nudge it when I put my book on it, was it already in the danger zone and the wind whipped through the house (see aforementioned windows) and nudged it past the point of no return.</p><p>Thankfully the artwork itself was predominantly unharmed, a couple of very minor nicks, but the frame is toast.</p><p>Thursday Night DnD was good... weirdly, this session made me more interested in reading the adventure when we're done with it, mostly because I want to read what the book outlines as the reasoning and ideas behind some of the elements. I've definitely formed a particular opinion about certain elements, and I'm not sure if they're because of the way things are written, the way DM Fluffy is running/playing them, who my character is or some combination of all of the above.</p><p>We're definitely in the final act though.</p><p>Friday Night DnD was... something different. Fluffy was off doing Fluffy Things, but we'd reached a point in the story where the other two characters were going off to do something without his character, so, we had a session anyway.</p><p>And... it was weird, right up until the point we actually started playing. It was weird not having Fluffy roll up on my doorstep, it was weird not having him in the passenger seat on the way there (and the way back), it was weird rocking up at the door sans Fluffy... it was just weird.</p><p>The session itself went... well. It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be, and that's fine... with any D&D game, choices are made and those choices lead to situations and events. And in this case, that was a left when I'd assumed a right, but overall it was good. And, Fluffy, I told you I wasn't telling you anything... so go away now.</p><p>It was good to have some one on one time with Mr's character though.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Insert the Saturday Mix Tape... Supermarket, etc.</p><p>Although after that, we went on a little side trip to IKEA. Originally there had been a plan for looking at new armchairs and, obviously, frames. What ended up happing was that I decided that a frame I already had would serve for the time being... or, potentially, I'm considering going through some of my existing artwork and seeing if there's something I want to swap over to.</p><p>And as for armchairs, honestly, the issue is getting new chairs up the stairs and getting old chairs down the stairs... so, I'm going to try the "dye chair covers to a colour that isn't beige" trick that I attempted with varying degrees of success back in late 2019/early 2020. But I'm also not going to rush it this time around.</p><p>I'll also be honest, after reading the fucking instructions for dyeing things, I'm bordering on not giving a fucking shit because the whole "do it on the stove top" for items that are essentially 55% cotton and 45% polyester was something of a nightmare at the old house, and potentially even more of a nightmare here with a different stove top.</p><p>But like I said, I'm not going to rush into it... I'll give it some thought beforehand. And maybe this time, we don't try for bright red, since I don't know that that's going to happen anyway after last time. We'll see.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-16553707305515647902024-02-24T17:51:00.001+10:302024-02-24T17:51:58.950+10:30photo saturday: man in saffron<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Tp_zrLjj6ATn2io3YGrv6tlqsu4OAZRQckgB87lsASBueibkhPFjl_dYb8V9eei9ukqFQA0mF00Q-f7VD8uN7CcJqR3m0eIb6CuOoSjYgthWAohYflzJHJlKQGgnwptQ0y1TDgO_tORgYdFYuwRjAReqHHMpOu2wKJyKX54_njwPjr4FKzir/s1024/dnd-Brother-Dilmah.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="brother dilmah - sweeper, agent, monk" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Tp_zrLjj6ATn2io3YGrv6tlqsu4OAZRQckgB87lsASBueibkhPFjl_dYb8V9eei9ukqFQA0mF00Q-f7VD8uN7CcJqR3m0eIb6CuOoSjYgthWAohYflzJHJlKQGgnwptQ0y1TDgO_tORgYdFYuwRjAReqHHMpOu2wKJyKX54_njwPjr4FKzir/w400-h400/dnd-Brother-Dilmah.jpg" title="brother dilmah - sweeper, agent, monk" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is the last of the Old Folks Who Will Fuck You Up trilogy. Brother Dilmah, named after the brand of tea, obviously, was my take on the History Monks from Terry Pratchett's Discworld. </p><p>I don't know if he would actually be a Shadow Monk at the table, but it made sense at the time. A little like last week, I might veer in the general direction of Way of Mercy.</p><p>I did enjoy this face though.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>So, there are times when a thing happens and then there are consequences and you look at those consequences and go... "totally worth it".</p><p>That's been me for all of last week, although the amount of "totally" has varied through the week.</p><p>Because shortly after I finished up the blog post for last week I had a young gentleman caller. Which was unexpected, because it kind of came out of nowhere and he was very much my preferred flavour of young gentleman... and... that... sounded better in my head, I swear. But he was very sweet and we spent an enjoyable couple of hours rolling around on my bed.</p><p>It was only when I woke up on Sunday morning that I realised that my entire body was broken. And my back was definitely complaining. So I did spend a chunk of the week laying on my bed again and made prodigious use of an ice pack.<br /></p><p>But totally worth it. Even when Wednesday rolled around and I had to do a second run at cleaning the apartment for my rental inspection... again.</p><p>I managed to beat my vacuum into submission... by which I mean, given that the power button wouldn't stay on unless I basically stood on it, without intending to, I reversed that situation and set it permanently to on. Which works better, because I can just switch it on and off at the plug end.</p><p>It was also not a full clean, I basically just cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed and mopped without moving ALL of the furniture. But I also didn't rush, because fuck it... I was broken.</p><p>That also meant that I went and basically did the exact same thing I did during the last, aborted inspection. A stop off at Officeworks where I actually got a replacement remote for my TV, a wander around Spotlight looking at things. and then I went and hung out at the library. Also, before I left, I did do a last pass of the vacuum over the bedroom carpet just to ensure they didn't Have Opinions about the fluff magnet that is that carpet.<br /></p><p>And unlike last time, the land agent managed to work out how to unlock a door. And I got good marks across the board. So, you know, woo or whatever.</p><p>There was no Thursday Night DnD because nobody wants gastro... and also, it made more sense for me to resume the horizontal position given that I'd spent a couple of hours sitting in a weird chair at the library.</p><p>Friday Night DnD took a while to get going and we mostly did roleplay honestly.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Basically we just did the supermarket... there were things we could have done, but also, we'd futzed around my place for a while too long, so there wasn't much point doing anything. So we didn't.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-31684580299114429152024-02-17T16:02:00.005+10:302024-02-17T16:03:04.249+10:30photo saturday: swamp witch reprise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKcnERrzxrGNjsST1TkCagpJ8FZDrBLxpwcw-858mijvndYKQKE335nlwO1AlpiMR2TAjVChfh8-y4RO1m8SlxDPJKs8SLx7hoAP1nnzHHAmNA21boE9aB8umFZvEze_FqkPMyXEc81jv9CkBUqLNxXw7u2fkPvUT_c0z3njU8F8UiknY6Qyjb/s1024/dnd-Verna-Blackwater.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="verna blackwater - hexblood, swamp witch, druid" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKcnERrzxrGNjsST1TkCagpJ8FZDrBLxpwcw-858mijvndYKQKE335nlwO1AlpiMR2TAjVChfh8-y4RO1m8SlxDPJKs8SLx7hoAP1nnzHHAmNA21boE9aB8umFZvEze_FqkPMyXEc81jv9CkBUqLNxXw7u2fkPvUT_c0z3njU8F8UiknY6Qyjb/w400-h400/dnd-Verna-Blackwater.jpg" title="verna blackwater - hexblood, swamp witch, druid" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>As happens a lot with... well, most things really... but I've found it very specifically with Hero Forge things, the more time passes, the more bells and whistles they add, the more experience I have with the tool, the more I end up loving the minis, even when I really loved the first iteration of the design quite a lot. Also, add in another character to the Badass Older Person list.<br /></p><p>So today's DnD Character Colouring Book is a revisit of the Swamp Witch character that just hasn't completely let go of my brain, Verna Blackwater. And the addition of the Face Customiser really bumped her up the list of my favourite post-FC designs.</p><p>I've also been pondering an idea of what I might play in a game that went from Level 10 to Level 20, because an adventure that does that is coming out shortly... and while the first thought was a Swashbuckler/Hexblade, the idea of turning Verna it a Circle of Spores Druid/Way of Mercy Monk also kind of appeals. Especially since she doesn't look like she should be a front line melee fighter, but the Spores Druid does kind of nicely synergise with it. Although I'd kind of need to work out how many of each level made the most sense for Level 10. My default idea might be a 50/50 split, but I could also see leaning a little more into Monk.</p><p>I also like the idea of her rejecting the lore for the Monk subclass and having her never wear the mask that it talks about, and never hiding her face under a hood. Because sometimes I 100% love to fall deeply into the subclass lore and sometimes I like to throw it out and go my own way. I could also absolutely see an updated version where she's carrying the very plain mask that's essentially just a slab of wood with eye holes on her belt.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>The Hexagon Cardigan Project has hit... a speedbump. And we call that speedbump "ribbing", also "cuffs". Because, I'll be honest, the cuffs I want to do is HARD. Or at least harder when dealing with black yarn. And possibly harder than my current skill level. And I ended up having to frog/undo the other style of cuffs that I managed to wrangle through when two pieces of yarn in the previous row that should have been securely knotted together (and I swear they were), but for whatever reason, in the process of trying to wrangle the stitches the knot came undone in the previous row. So... I threw my proverbial hands up in the air and frogged the whole couple of rows and till try it again using a completely fresh skein of yarn.</p><p>I'm also currently plotting ideas for a semi-matching scarf to the cardigan... not intended to be worn WITH the cardigan, you understand, but worn all the times I'm NOT wearing the cardigan. Because this version of the cardigan is potentially not one for wearing out amongst the general populace. There might be a later project for that.<br /></p><p>I revisited an old favourite for dinners this week... <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/toona-noodle-doo.html">Tuna Noodle Do</a> (also, what the hell was going on with that photo, I know we were barely past the Potato Camera stage, but also, that's clearly too much cheese and I still don't get why it looks that way). I did make it too many times last summer, and was very over it by the time Soup Season rolled around again, but it was good to revisit it.</p><p>Thursday Night DnD actually happened... so that's a development. Although I did share with the group my decision to step out after we finish this campaign, at least for whatever the next campaign is. Because, sometimes, as much as you enjoy spending time with people, little niggles build up over time and... well... essentially I've reached the point where my feeling when we play and my feeling when we don't play are basically the same.</p><p>So, yeah, a break is necessary I think.</p><p>There was no Friday Night DnD this week. Because the DnD Gods giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other. Friday was also where the majority of the aforementioned cardigan cuff business took place.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Today was yet another Not Much Going On Saturday. We did the Supermarket thing... and then, because we really didn't have anything we wanted to do, there was some YubTubs, and that was it really.</p><p>Also, I just have to say that I got distracted while typing this by the 2024 Maison Margiela Artisanal Collection fashion show, which I am now completely obsessed with and want to watch a movie set in whatever world that is... or, you know, live in that world... or something.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-825637921037568912024-02-10T14:52:00.000+10:302024-02-10T14:52:01.609+10:30photo saturday: unexpected old lady
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEUh46eflsbPzZ6ED2E0kEldDOedWQTKIdQO7BNy1zRZsaRTkSX_p0SGOb2tJv-cLBQOXgbC9twE88pRGgC-2JCNh-EecOow61Z_ZvyV0Fh-6kZwnjPdJbYa5DEwtVT_CzoyAeU_AhGuXu6E3HUYGgjSRwLNiep1YbsFi3mCGcC_tjJ5Budym/s1024/dnd-Beilyn-Porridgepot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="beilyn porridgepot - swordcaptain, retired, focused" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEUh46eflsbPzZ6ED2E0kEldDOedWQTKIdQO7BNy1zRZsaRTkSX_p0SGOb2tJv-cLBQOXgbC9twE88pRGgC-2JCNh-EecOow61Z_ZvyV0Fh-6kZwnjPdJbYa5DEwtVT_CzoyAeU_AhGuXu6E3HUYGgjSRwLNiep1YbsFi3mCGcC_tjJ5Budym/w400-h400/dnd-Beilyn-Porridgepot.jpg" title="beilyn porridgepot - swordcaptain, retired, focused" width="400" /></a></div><p>I swear that I'd featured Beilyn Porridgepot previously.... but scrolling through old posts, there's not a single sign of her anywhere... so she definitely gets a place in this week's DnD Character Colouring Book.</p><p>So Beilyn came from a number of places... firstly, halfling, but also because I love a small barbarian. And I also wanted to play in the "unexpected old lady" character space. Of course, the Hero Forge model never looked appropriately old until the face customiser let us age up characters.</p><p>Secondly, she was intended for adventures set in Waterdeep, so I wanted to make her a retired Swordcaptain from the Waterdeep City Watch (at least I think that was her rank, it's the one that makes the most sense to me looking at the list now). It also let me lean into the "focus" over "rage" idea for a barbarian.</p><p>But I also wanted to mess around with the idea of "Ancestral Guardian" and lean into the idea that the Guardian Spirits she called upon weren't from her family, but were former members of the City Watch, because that just made sense to me. I did at one stage have a whole group of characters designed for that, but they fell by the wayside long ago.</p><p>The axe was a magic item that I got as a DM Reward in Adventurers League, but in-game it was left to her in the will of her former Captain, who was a dwarf.<br /></p><p>And yes, I did definitely remix her name from Lin Beifong, the Chief of Police in Republic City from The Legend of Korra. Because there was also a definite Lin vibe to the character.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>This week was... a lot. <br /></p><p>Which is what happens when I need to do a full clean for a rental inspection. And also, because I split the clean over two days so I'm not completely broken afterwards. So Monday I cleaned the kitchen including the oven, straightened up and got everything ready to go, then used to stove and had to give it a once over again.</p><p>Then Tuesday there was a full bathroom clean, full vacuum and floor mopping... and when I went to switch the vacuum on again, it wouldn't stay on. So I had to finish the last of the vacuuming with one foot holding down the on button. Not what you would call ergonomic. But I essentially got the job done.<br /></p><p>I also managed to get all of that in the morning, so basically collapsed for the afternoon.</p><p>Then on Wednesday I cleared out because I hate being here for an inspection. It also let me go drop some old printer ink cartridges off at Officeworks, wandered around Spotlight, and then went and poked around the library at Burnside and caught up on some reading before heading home.</p><p>When I got home, it was a little strange because I'd left a note for the real estate agent, and it was still on the counter, but I'd had that happen before and it wasn't too strange. Until I checked my email.</p><p>Yeah, the land agent couldn't work out how keys work and hence didn't actually get inside. They sent me a message saying that they didn't have a key for one of the two locks on my door, to which my reply was "I'm confused, there is only one key".</p><p>Turns out that they just didn't try hard enough, and they didn't bother calling me, so, they just emailed me after the inspection window was done and rescheduled. In two weeks.</p><p><i>*cue me flipping a very tiny table*</i></p><p>So I didn't even get to enjoy the feeling of coming home to a totally clean house and no looming inspection. Dagnabbit.</p><p>No Thursday Night DnD...</p><p>Friday was also Chiro Day... which was good, given that I needed a tune up.</p><p>The Hexagon Cardigan Project continues... I've gotten to the point where I've sewed the sleeves along the top seam, and I'm working on extending the back. But...</p><p>I should have known better. It was a bad decision on top of a bad decision. I'd run through most of a ball of black yarn. And thought "I'll just wind it into a ball"... first mistake. But then I made it worse... because I thought "Let me wind it around my hand so that I can start the ball from the other end of the yarn". Second mistake.</p><p>So now what I have is a giant tangle of yarn, with both ends being wound around a couple of highlighters and just a mass of black fluff in the middle. And I spent basically two hours yesterday trying to untangle it, and then a little time this morning, and I'm still determined to get it all untangled. So that will be... a thing that happens.</p><p>Friday Night DnD was good... although we did spend a bunch of time talking about other things, as we occasionally do. But otherwise it was a lot of "busywork" moving from one location to another, which I'm fine with.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Today was... average. We did the supermarket thing, and did a run to Spotlight because they're having a sale, and also I needed more black yarn for the Hexagon Cardigan.</p><p>And that was it really.</p><p>If you'll excuse me, I need too try and untangle some more yarn... </p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-14521296910492166042024-02-03T17:49:00.006+10:302024-02-03T17:49:57.440+10:30photo saturday: holy paramour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf3Eb8M_c8Qc7S911EE9edWDy6OF0mTaOtr_9acWogRRplegv_XTrzJ2ePwdRgrIYPr0syoayht0cDbfVCedIyb8tmw5FkCtDwFo5wFNWYFDPuwUGauy1RmAKvDBWZLto9URRLvA9oHzIPO3JEhArFhCByLNTls8RPxHrix12Xten7UhM58-2T/s1024/dnd-Andir.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="andir - paramour, dancer, son" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf3Eb8M_c8Qc7S911EE9edWDy6OF0mTaOtr_9acWogRRplegv_XTrzJ2ePwdRgrIYPr0syoayht0cDbfVCedIyb8tmw5FkCtDwFo5wFNWYFDPuwUGauy1RmAKvDBWZLto9URRLvA9oHzIPO3JEhArFhCByLNTls8RPxHrix12Xten7UhM58-2T/w400-h400/dnd-Andir.jpg" title="andir - paramour, dancer, son" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is a makeover/reboot... Andir, son of Nightingale. He <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/photo-saturday-my-boys.html">first showed up</a> with my other "son of a former character" Bo, who, in comparison, has had about <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2021/10/photo-saturday-three-stages-of-bo.html">eleventy</a> <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2022/07/photo-saturday-bafflestone-redux.html">thousand</a> <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/photo-saturday-my-gnome-boy.html">variations</a>... Andir just kind of took up space until this particular outfit set dropped. And, yes, I've used it before... and parts of it show up in a bunch of different models, but this one is pretty much a straight use of the whole outfit.</p><p>But I love the white and gold look. Part of which came from actually looking up pre-existing lore on their vestments... <i> </i></p><p><i>Paramours wear golden robes sprinkled with gold dust, and they wear their hair long and unbound without any covering</i>. <br /></p><p>Admittedly, the "gold dust" part is... a little extra, even for me. So, maybe the gold dust robes are for special occasions.<br /></p><p>The other half was from fooling around with the new irises and worked out that the galaxy iris looks really good in white, and sometimes you just have to lean into an existing colour scheme.</p><p>Oh, also, I made sure that he had both the symbol of his own goddess and the symbol of his father's goddess. Because, sometimes you're a half-drow aasimar whose father was a goliath that got turned into an angel. Because DnD. <br /></p><p>Also, that hairstyle is definitely in my Top Five currently.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>The Rainbow Hexagon Cardigan Project continues... I'm 60+ hours in and maybe 75-80% done. Of course, part of that remaining percent is doing cuffs and ribbing... which is completely outside my current knowledge base. So there will be a lot of referencing of tutorials when we get there.</p><p>After Fluffy saw it in person for the first time yesterday, he described it as "Disco Trash, but Good Disco Trash"... and, you know what, yeah, story checks out.</p><p>No Thursday Night DnD... </p><p>And Friday Night DnD for the first time in... I dunno... since the middle of January I think.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Pretty much shopping as usual today... except there was just a random fire alarm in the middle. Turns out someone pressed something they shouldn't have near the bathrooms. So, you know, fun. Or, what's the opposite, oh, yeah... annoying. It is just really, really weird leaving your trolley full of shopping in the middle of the supermarket and leaving the building for ten minutes.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-16823180943705955532024-01-27T17:26:00.001+10:302024-01-27T17:26:58.328+10:30photo saturday: monochromia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2SN3_LdZFeJA-d_87blLccvOsZxbsZh6wl312ALIV4X6mA_X6CXvxzAEOEQy8a9x3-1at2dm1fjE7KRAlydKkYrhMjszmlJOlv2QVkayWZvMa6-1Q-7wam5IqvIuBFrhf_D2gWt8mH2T3e3aHoo2O_mblVGwFN30TBx4UjXqLhv06hsXBnvfh/s1024/dnd-The-Amazing-Seraphina.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="the amazing seraphina - prestidigitator, warlock, charmer" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2SN3_LdZFeJA-d_87blLccvOsZxbsZh6wl312ALIV4X6mA_X6CXvxzAEOEQy8a9x3-1at2dm1fjE7KRAlydKkYrhMjszmlJOlv2QVkayWZvMa6-1Q-7wam5IqvIuBFrhf_D2gWt8mH2T3e3aHoo2O_mblVGwFN30TBx4UjXqLhv06hsXBnvfh/w400-h400/dnd-The-Amazing-Seraphina.jpg" title="the amazing seraphina - prestidigitator, warlock, charmer" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>Well, The Amazing Seraphina had opinions over the course of about a week. Also, she was one of those DnD Character Colouring Book characters that wouldn't have come together without Photoshop.</p><p>Initially she was in black and green, with green eyes, with the pseudodragon on her wrist and the cane held higher in her hand with the standard sphere on the top. And then I started looking at the list of Great Old Ones by renowned white supremacist H. P. Lovecraft for inspiration for a patron... although, honestly, I think the more unknowable an unknowable eldritch horror is, the better... </p><p>But it resulted in a black and white aesthetic with a can with an "octopus" topper and a Lovecraft quote in runes... which is how she encountered her Great Old One and how she taps into it's/her powers.</p><p>Normally I would have ended up with a white pseudodragon, I couldn't refind the same pose, or it didn't come out as strong as this little buddy. If she was a Warlock under the playtest rules, the "Aberration (knot of tentacles)" familiar from an old playtest would have been good... or the slaad tadpole...but, honestly, I just want to, as I've said about 100 times already, have a pseudodragon familiar at some point.</p><p>I'm kind of into the idea that it is normally a pseudodragon and then at certain points, it just transforms into a tiny eldritch abomination. Tiny eyes all over it's body or a whole body split or too many tentacles. Something weird and messed up. Or even going down a Flerken from the Marvel Universe route... although that kind of comes under a "too many tentacles" heading. And having just looked up when the Flerken inside the cat looks like... yeah, that'd work.</p><p>Also, did I name the familiar in order to be able to have a "Hey Presto" joke every time she summons it or asks it to do something... yes, yes I did. And of course, it appears from and disappears into it's pocket dimension by going into the hat. Because of course it does.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>This week has been the poster child for What The Fuck Is Weather. Over 40C, high humidity, heavy rain, chilly evening... not all at once you understand, but, mostly individually, over the course of the week. Blah.</p><p>Humidity is the one that does my head in. I just can't.</p><p>The Hexagon Cardigan Project continues... I have done 48 rows (rounds?) across both sides of the cardigan... and would have done one more earlier today had I not gotten to the start of the round only to discover that, like an idiot, I forgot to do the corner properly, so had to frog (undo) the entire round. So, fuck my drag I guess. I mean, it kept my hands occupied while watching a movie, so it's not the worst thing in the world to have to do it over. And at least I noticed it before I started a second row.</p><p>With that hour and a half long screw up, I'm at a little over 34.5 hours for the cardigan thus far.<br /></p><p>And as proud as I am of the <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/crochet-secret-granny-square-blanket.html">Granny Square Blanket</a>... the literally chasm between that project and this one is enough to drop small countries into. It's amazing what using a slightly smaller hook than you need can do vs picking a hook because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Granted if I'd done the blanket with a smaller hook it would have been a much smaller blanket. Or I would have needed to make a lot more squares. Or, you know, both.</p><p>Friday Night DnD was cancelled due to the Friday public holiday... and Thursday Night DnD... would have been better had it been cancelled.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Something something supermarket, something something unpacking... and then we watched Mrs Harris Goes To Paris. Because it was a movie I saw the poster for ages ago, and then I discovered it was based on a book, and read said book... and then borrowed the movie from the library.</p><p>A mini review... it adds things that weren't in the book that kinda mess with the vibes of the original story, although I like the ending of the movie more than the book. But it is very sweet... not as good as <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/miss-pettigrew-lives-for-day.html">Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day</a> (also, sometimes I look back on my early movie reviews and cringe), but I'd put them in roughly the same category.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-51456526934449065062024-01-20T15:36:00.001+10:302024-01-20T15:36:20.435+10:30photo saturday: fan-atic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhnl70K8TKysnTznRC3h8_3FicvidvnITu4mQWoc5HueXu8StdnqMH8BZebhtwVKKJD51RWMmUIOmpcJseULmTffWQbkjEr9EfXmOWFGmIS9vSuhSaaCuUzYyRnbdTuDfLqdAYHrNDupEx-uaR49pBOwrdm88jnE9Fjme-oEoq-UY-Qp2lEXeN/s1024/dnd-Whipmaster-Demyan-Fan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="demyan - whipmaster, noble, cleric" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhnl70K8TKysnTznRC3h8_3FicvidvnITu4mQWoc5HueXu8StdnqMH8BZebhtwVKKJD51RWMmUIOmpcJseULmTffWQbkjEr9EfXmOWFGmIS9vSuhSaaCuUzYyRnbdTuDfLqdAYHrNDupEx-uaR49pBOwrdm88jnE9Fjme-oEoq-UY-Qp2lEXeN/w400-h400/dnd-Whipmaster-Demyan-Fan.jpg" title="demyan - whipmaster, noble, cleric" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>I did mention when the fan item came up during the Hero Forge Advent Calendar that I needed to redo/had redone my trashfire cleric, Whipmaster Demyan, formerly <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2022/06/rainbow-character-template-redux.html">Paingiver Demyan</a>, in line with what he always should have looked like...</p><p>And if I'd been thinking about it clearly back when I was playing him, I would have reflavoured his fan as his shield all the way back then... because it never completely made sense that he was walking around carrying a shield. And I always had a fan on hand when playing him, because it just became his aesthetic after I brought a fan to a game when the aircon in the gaming shop was questionable that summer.</p><p>Demyan is also one of the models that are first in line to get a makeover when major new content happens. He was one of the first to get <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2021/03/photo-saturday-pride-cleric.html">coloured by me</a>, then one of the first to get official Hero Forge colouring, he was one of the first to get a new face... plus he's been updated when the dropped new whips and the breastplates. The downside is that to actually get him to look the way I want him to, there's a non-zero amount of Photoshop involved to take the high collar from one set of armour, the sleeves from a different shirt and the breastplate and then get him where he needs to be.</p><p>Although if he ever went up to his final position in the church, then I'd have to do a version in white... which, now that I've mentioned it again, might have to happen. If only for me. I've had different versions in my head of what that final outfit would be... the same black but with white accents, etc... but I kinda wanna do a full white version. Hmmm... yeah, that doesn't quite work... let's shove that on the back burner.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>This week has been... fucking weird.</p><p>My stove did a weird on Monday night... and I've been avoiding both the stove and also reporting it to the land agent all week... I'm mostly mentioning it here to hold myself accountable... must do that over the weekend.</p><p>Also, do you know how sometimes you have those friends who are the literal definition of Golden Retriever? And sometimes they give themselves a ball... but then they're torn between the ball they have and the ball they could have and they just stand there with the ball in their mouth looking at the ball they could have and whining. Yeah, that... for basically the whole week. I mean, I love this idiot very much... but also, they need a literal slap sometimes.</p><p>Wednesday I went to buy more printer ink. Because also, fuck printer manufacturers and the cost of printer ink. So I was going to get the off-brand, eco printer ink, which is half the price of the on-brand ink. But when I got to Officeworks they didn't have any on the shelves... because it may or may not be online only now... because fuck my life I guess. And they didn't even have the other, non-eco off-brand ink... and I wasn't about to pay $128 for printer ink.</p><p>So I bought a $40 printer.</p><p>And it would LITERALLY be cheaper to go and buy a new printer every time I run out of ink rather than buy new ink. The FUCK is wrong with the world?</p><p>Given that I repeatedly looked at printers when I first moved into this place and couldn't come to a decision, it's amazing all it took was literally a minor inconvenience in order to make me buy a new printer.</p><p>And it's all fancy and prints over the Wi-fi and stuff. Which I know has been a thing for a hot minute, but I <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-rampant-spending-saturday.html">bought my old printer in 2009</a>... so... it's been a minute. Granted, I think it spent several years just sitting under the bed and only being used once a year... but it's had more work to do in recent years. But at least now I don't have to drag the laptop across the room in order to print.</p><p>So there was minor ARGH while I set it up, just because it's always that way until things actually work... but it was no fuss no muss.</p><p>Thursday, after a couple of failed attempts, I started my Hexagon Cardigan project. I also finally got around to stitching together my second attempt at my little voodoo doll and he's adorable. He's also doing actual duty as a pincushion for my crochet needle.</p><p>But the cardigan is going to be both very soft and quite light I think. Basically it's going to be about on par with some of my lightweight hoodies I think. And that's fine, but it's not going to replace my thicker Winter old man cardigan like I thought it might.</p><p>Thursday Night DnD was... a lot of nothing. And very much one of those times when I really wish we played with less people than we do. Because it's difficult to herd cats. And I wasn't even the one doing the herding.<br /></p><p>Most of the work I've done so far on the cardigan happened on Friday... because Friday Night DnD was a no-go due to visiting visitors.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Today was basically just the supermarket. Because the weather has been all over the place and today took a turn for the warm.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-19676030389937624002024-01-13T16:48:00.004+10:302024-01-13T16:48:38.356+10:30photo saturday: sea fae<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN00MhNhAgnlUeNZUJE84RlHYcgixxt09gn6E1Y-Dpp6Cq0nB9PE8kP5Bv-drs1V0mqO5mg-DnsnrecenpiRUln9LfZ3EPN-WYrsZjAN91TrX86eqYYyzA6EjZnbKPuszrS9kcAKaEyHZUYGCAgNATeHTmJTmvxD_r5lj5TloWe0SSOsFQD7dt/s1024/dnd-Marinus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN00MhNhAgnlUeNZUJE84RlHYcgixxt09gn6E1Y-Dpp6Cq0nB9PE8kP5Bv-drs1V0mqO5mg-DnsnrecenpiRUln9LfZ3EPN-WYrsZjAN91TrX86eqYYyzA6EjZnbKPuszrS9kcAKaEyHZUYGCAgNATeHTmJTmvxD_r5lj5TloWe0SSOsFQD7dt/w400-h400/dnd-Marinus.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>This is what happens when you make a <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/photo-saturday-miss-magnolia.html">character sketch</a> and your brain says "well, yeah, that's an idea certainly... but you'd never play THAT version... how about we make a version you WOULD play?"...</p><p>And then, when you've made that version you think... "yes, but what if also sea themed?"... and then when that versions done, somebody drops a blank pose on Reddit and you think "well... now I just need to redo the whole thing again from scratch and lean into the vibes more"...</p><p>Of course then you fuck around with textures and tattoos and Photoshop edits... and by the time you're finished, you really, really want to play this character. But you also know that the likelihood that that feeling will last long enough to actually make it to a new campaign is... slim.</p><p>So, say hello to Marinus... he's currently the obsession, until the next one comes along. <br /></p><p>Welcome to DnD Character Colouring Book... that's basically what happens here.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>The first half of the week is something of a blur... given that the latter half of the week was more weighted with activities.</p><p>Oh, I did make some chutney... only a small batch, because I didn't have a ton of ingredients, but needed to use up some peaches and plums that were starting to go soft. Which is always my preferred way of using them up.</p><p>And for once, because it was such a small batch, I'm keeping the majority of it for me.</p><p>Our first Thursday DnD game of the year actually happened. And we definitely entered the Third Act. Well, we will be next week. Granted, I almost derailed us into the Third Act early, because it made more sense to me to go straight there rather than doing what seemed like busywork.</p><p>But it was good to be back, and to be getting on with things.</p><p>Friday was Chiro Day...</p><p>Which also meant that it was also Return The Christmas Presents That Were Slightly Borked. Which were both books. Because Saga had some weird pink printer ink marks on the first few pages, and The 99% Invisible City had an issue with the binding and was basically going to pull itself apart over time.</p><p>But it was no muss, no fuss, and I got them changed over.</p><p>Friday Night DnD, we kicked a cat's ass... well, that cat was also a murderous, jewel thief druid... so... you know... she had it coming.</p><p>Oh, and we found a magic carpet. Well, I found it.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Today was pretty much just shopping. Because, honestly, the weather isn't really conducive to going anywhere and going things.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-14693719937889157752024-01-06T16:52:00.007+10:302024-01-06T16:52:58.104+10:30photo saturday: miss magnolia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC5MfwSSOsnO0SyZ3ZIwHyW33WBMPRUWYwDLkv66hMvBtlK5StFC8v-oyyj9CaKAARoPUvGrtteQk3vki2ojyQmZC2BM_tBhIK70-VG_i2b72W5gYdYQcFwmXK61dF0W7iRcDG1-HxO8Culky2rTI-wA2y0YfvUCrDGwfnNTdXEdq26eL-Wiex/s1024/dnd-Magnolia.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="magnolia - captain, fairy, rager" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC5MfwSSOsnO0SyZ3ZIwHyW33WBMPRUWYwDLkv66hMvBtlK5StFC8v-oyyj9CaKAARoPUvGrtteQk3vki2ojyQmZC2BM_tBhIK70-VG_i2b72W5gYdYQcFwmXK61dF0W7iRcDG1-HxO8Culky2rTI-wA2y0YfvUCrDGwfnNTdXEdq26eL-Wiex/w400-h400/dnd-Magnolia.jpg" title="magnolia - captain, fairy, rager" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>The one thing I like about Monks and Barbarians is that you can put them in all sorts of ridiculous outfits. And today's DnD Character Colour Book also makes use of the cropped corset top and boots from the Hero Forge Advent Calendar.</p><p>This was one of those "character drops into your head" moments though, based on something I was watching. <br /></p><p>I do need to make a fairy character though. And I always like the idea of making small barbarians... plus I need to play another barbarian sometime soon. But I've said that about a lot of things.</p><p>And speaking of the 2023 Hero Forge Advent Calendar...</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlsntdX8Fn-g4dlgiy7Z30sNOYJkGKagFJ4myl2iaZRiZ3tPf6ZdTm6pYdzdVhkI9KXqBfjTO1enR3enrV37Bct7rtfJaSwqpU7nAebU9tAX7YjHcnr8MK_efUcTWSTmC7ObiN5u5Icsmn9mpEMl_mvQ4F3rlpOqZ8oZBFYSBtiafCXL65APa/s1024/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-5.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week 5" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlsntdX8Fn-g4dlgiy7Z30sNOYJkGKagFJ4myl2iaZRiZ3tPf6ZdTm6pYdzdVhkI9KXqBfjTO1enR3enrV37Bct7rtfJaSwqpU7nAebU9tAX7YjHcnr8MK_efUcTWSTmC7ObiN5u5Icsmn9mpEMl_mvQ4F3rlpOqZ8oZBFYSBtiafCXL65APa/w320-h320/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-5.jpg" title="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week 5" width="320" /></a></div>
<p>The main reason that I'm including the last two items is that they're such a study in contrasts.</p><p>Because the two handed sword is... honestly, the worst modelled item from the whole month. It's lacking in details in all the important areas and it's just kinda ugly.</p><p>By comparison, the final day's staff was not a real surprise to anyone since it was pretty clear in the promo silhouette, but it's beautifully modelled.</p><p>Will I use either of them? Well, definitely not the sword. Maybe the staff. Although I can more see myself taking the owl motif off the top and turning it into a necklace or something with some Photoshop.</p><p>What I will say is that we could have done with less shields, more pants and at least one new hairstyle. But also, it was a whole month of free items, so I'm not complaining too hard.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>We covered <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/2024.html">New Years Eve and Day</a> already... <br /></p><p>The rest of the week was something of a non-event. Mostly because the weather took a turn for the hot and humid and I mostly wanted to hibernate. Because I am that rare animal, the Summer Hibernator.</p><p>Thursday Night DnD isn't back until next week.</p><p>Friday Night DnD was called off on account of a mild case of heat exhaustion and an additional case of "not feeling quite right"... which was honestly fine, because I wasn't necessarily feeling that up for it myself.<br /></p><p>I did finally restart one of the crochet projects I messed up before Christmas. Still not perfect, but considerable better. I still have trouble with things that involve counting stitches... but I'm getting there.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Today was... hot, wet, humid... in that order.</p><p>We did the supermarket thing, and might have done something else, but the weather went from hot and cloudy to full on rain and has now settled into humid. Which is my least favourite flavour.</p><p>But it decided to rain right at the point we might have gone out and run an errand, so we didn't bother.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-11563748332349942962024-01-02T16:26:00.001+10:302024-01-02T16:28:14.218+10:30my 2023 in books<p>At the end of January, I wrote the immortal line in my <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/photo-saturday-hot-boy-sorcerer.html">weekly roundup</a>...</p>
<blockquote> <i>...libraries are very much going to define my 2023...</i></blockquote>
<p>And that was because I'd read 9 books in a month. I had no fucking idea how accurate that was going to become.</p>
<p>So... because I can... here is the parade of everything I read in 2023, presented in reverse chronological order (mostly, Goodreads occasionally gets confused when you finish more than one thing on the same day).</p>
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<p>At the end of 2023, I'd officially read 198 books. Which is more books than I read in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 combined. I'll be honest, it might be the most books I've read in a year since I was a teenager.</p>
<p>Even when I did a montage for the <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/one-hundredth-book.html">first hundred</a> and then <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/two-hundredth-book.html">second hundred</a> books I read when I first started adding them to the blog sidebar back in 2006, those still took about 18 months.</p>
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<p>But this giant up-tick in books is entirely thanks to the aforementioned Libraries SA and their One Card system where you can borrow books from any library in the state and have them sent to your local library to pick up. In fact, of those 198 books, 177 (89%) were from the library.</p>
<p>Also, yes, beyond just logging them all into my Goodreads through the year (and reading 825% of the 24 books I said I was going to read during the year as part of their yearly Reading Challenge), I also might have made a spreadsheet for some end of the year math. Shush.</p>
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<p>Digging into the numbers a little more... just over half of them (52%) were books and just under half (48%) were graphic novels. I also stepped my queer reading up, because a quarter of everything I read this year had gay themes.</p>
<p>My average rating for everything I read was 3.3 out of 5. According to Goodread's star ratings, that puts it somewhere between "Liked it" and "Really Liked It". And that sounds about right given that about 60% of the books I read were one of those two ratings.</p>
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<p>It wasn't all smooth sailing though. I "Hate Completed" a few titles, pushing myself to finish things that I mostly wasn't enjoying. But I only abandoned 9 books, for a myriad of reasons, mostly because I just wasn't feeling whatever it was or it wasn't grabbing my attention... but sometimes because it was just abjectly terrible. Throughout the year I developed a "100 page" cut off. If I wasn't enjoying the book by 100 pages, I would (and should) just give up on it.</p>
<p>That didn't always work, especially when someone had recommended a book to me, or, like in October, Fluffy and I did a Halloween Book (well, two books by the same author)... and they both sucked.</p>
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<p>I discovered (rediscovered? realised?) throughout the year that, for the most part, I love Urban Fantasy, Fantastical Realism or Low Fantasy much more than High Fantasy. Given that I have friends who love to read giant, foot-crushing High Fantasy tomes and every time they talk about them, my eyes glaze over and I'm just not interested. This shouldn't really have been a revelation, thinking back, even to when I was a kid, I'm not sure I ever was. I love High Fantasy movies. Clearly, these days, I love DnD. But I much prefer something more grounded with fantastical elements. Who knew?</p>
<p>That may also have something to do with the fact that my average page count for the books I read was 244 (from a total of 48258 pages read). Honestly, I can't really be bothered with big long books at the moment (with some exceptions)... and it definitely indicates that I read a lot of graphic novels. But, yeah, over the year, I've kind of decided that I prefer books in the 250-300 page range.</p>
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<p>I dipped my toes into some Japanese fiction throughout the year, both regular novels that had been translated, but also some manga for the first time. Like, real manga, that you have to read from right to left and from the back.</p>
<p>I went through a cozy mystery phase, specifically a number of ones that were bakery themed. I'll be honest, a lot of them aren't very good. Or that if the book starts out with cozy baking, it will end with somebody being involved in a car chase or being shot at or otherwise one step away from being murdered. I also got sucked into a number of series (both novels and graphic novels) as the year progressed. More on those shortly.</p>
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<p>While the majority of stuff that I read was published after 2000, the oldest thing I read all year was from 1884. And was a science fiction/mathematical fiction book that was half social satire, half dimensional geometry. Very strange, and a little dry, but at least I can say that I've read it.</p>
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<p>That was one of the fun things about all the reading I did this year, to be honest. If I saw a book that looked interesting, whether that was online, or in the library or because somebody mentioned it to me, I could just borrow it. That included things that have been on my To Read list for several years, things by authors I already liked, or stuff I'd never heard of before. And then, when I was done, whether it was good, bad or indifferent, back to the library it could go.</p>
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<p>I also tend to lean towards fiction over non-fiction. Although two of the non-fiction books I read through the year were about working in bookshops. Make of that what you will.</p>
<p>So, taking a leaf out of my <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/my-2015-at-movies.html">yearly movie round up</a>, let's cover some of the best books I read this year...</p>
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<p>Before we get there... a brief list of honourable mentions... <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54869217-project-hail-mary">Project Hail Mary</a> by Andy Weir, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55200663-the-darkness-outside-us">The Darkness Outside Us</a> by Eliot Schrefer, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62879860-sins-of-the-black-flamingo">Sins of the Black Flamingo</a> by Andrew Wheeler and Travis Moore, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63836013-baking-yesteryear">Baking Yesteryear</a> by B. Dylan Hollis, the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3217221-locke-key-vol-1">Locke and Key series</a> by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez, and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60035241-station-eternity">Station Eternity</a> by Mur Lafferty... interestingly, there are several sci-fi titles there.</p>
<p>These following titles are not really in any particular order than mostly chronologically the order I read them... along with except from my Goodread reviews at the time.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63277682-legends-lattes">Legends and Lattes</a></b><br /><b>Travis Baldree</b></p>
<blockquote><i>I don't know that I've fallen in love with a book like this in... a good long while. Or ploughed through something quite so quickly.</i></blockquote>
<p>This was a very early read, but one that stuck with me through the year. I recommended it to other people, and even thinking back on it now gives me warm fuzzy feelings.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34211804-the-travelling-cat-chronicles">The Travelling Cat Chronicles</a></b><br /><b>Hiro Arikawa</b></p>
<blockquote><i>It's beautiful, heartfelt, well written (which, also in this case, means well translated by Philip Gabriel) and just... delightful.</i></blockquote>
<p>Another early read, and not my first book translated from Japanese, but possible the first one I've read narrated by a cat.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45047384-the-house-in-the-cerulean-sea">The House in the Cerulean Sea</a></b><br /><b>T.J. Klune</b></p>
<blockquote><i>This book is... exceptional. It made me smile, it made me cry, it made me angry (in a good way, at the people who deserved it), and it just made me very, very happy.</i></blockquote>
<p>I had something of a rollercoaster ride with Klune this year, reading four of his books, and loving three of them. This was the first, and although it has become a little controversial or problematic since, I still love it very much.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35216509-they-both-die-at-the-end">They Both Die at the End</a></b><br /><b>Adam Silvera</b></p>
<blockquote><i>This book is... sensational. I wasn't sure about it at the start, I wasn't sure I was going to like either of the main characters, but once they meet, the book finds its wings and soars.</i></blockquote>
<p>This is how you tell a story. And one where Silvera states the end of the book right on the cover, and it still manages to keep you guessing right until the very end.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54369251-a-wizard-s-guide-to-defensive-baking">A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking</a></b><br /><b>T. Kingfisher</b></p>
<blockquote><i>Is this exactly the kind of book I would have read when I was in my teens? Oh, definitely that. Is it because it takes place in a universe that has a magic system that I desperately want to explore more of? Hell yeah.</i></blockquote>
<p>Magical baked good. Gingerbread warriors. Sentient dough. Do I need to say anymore?</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42730332-the-starless-sea">The Starless Sea</a></b><br /><b>Erin Morgenstern</b></p>
<blockquote><i>This book is deep and layered and interwoven and intense. It smells of old books and long closed up spaces... it tastes of honey and lemon and spice.</i></blockquote>
<p>I adored Morgenstern's previous novel, The Night Circus... I adore this. But differently. And I'm perfectly find with that.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39073387-bloom">Bloom</a></b><br /><b>Kevin Panetta</b></p>
<blockquote><i>Books about people who bake is so my thing right now. And this is a beautiful self contained story with a great art style. Honestly, there's something really lovely about single-colour tonal colouring in graphic novels.</i></blockquote>
<p>The sole graphic novel on the list. Not because there weren't other good ones (see also the Honorable Mentions list), but this one just did everything right.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40864002-a-psalm-for-the-wild-built">A Psalm for the Wild-Built</a>/<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58724593-a-prayer-for-the-crown-shy">A Prayer for the Crown-Shy</a></b><br /><b>Becky Chambers</b></p>
<blockquote><i><p>Chambers manages to create a world with a full and rich history in less pages than other books use to say nothing at all. It's a world that I would desperately like to visit, if only for a little while.</p></i><p><i>And while I want both of the Monk and Robot books to be made into one book so that I can press a copy of it into everyone's hand and say "just... read this... then come find me when you're done", I also get why they're two different books. Because they're telling two completely different, yet equally valid stories... or maybe asking two different questions.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>There were only a small handful of books this year that went onto the list of "I'd like my own copy of this eventually". These were two of them. They might also need a re-read.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53255694-white-trash-warlock">White Trash Warlock</a>/<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56914971-trailer-park-trickster">Trailer Park Trickster</a>/<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60093989-deadbeat-druid">Deadbeat Druid</a></b><br /><b>David R. Slayton</b></p>
<blockquote><i>What I didn't expect this book to be was possibly the single best version of the Urban Fantasy/Magic aesthetic I've ever read. Because this book is flat out amazing. The world building and mythology/fantasy is top notch, the writing is excellent, the mystery that runs through this book ended in a way that I absolutely did NOT see coming. Plus, gay male, magic using protagonist. Not a thing you find every day.</i></blockquote>
<p>I picked this up because the title was too good not to... I then fell in love with Slayton's world.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32758901-all-systems-red">The Murderbot Series</a></b><br /><b>Martha Wells</b></p>
<blockquote><i>This is also another one of those books that manages to create a whole world in very few pages. Sure, it doesn't really flesh out many of the characters other than the titular Murderbot, but I also don't think it needs to, given that they are our point of view character.</i></blockquote>
<p>One of the best sci-fi series I've read. Partially, I think, because it's often less about the sci and more about the people. They're also short and sharply written and I will keep reading them for as long as Wells keeps writing them.</p>
<p><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61427937-wolfsong">Wolfsong</a></b><br /><b>T.J. Klune</b></p>
<blockquote><i>There are a handful of books that I count as being Important To Me. This is very much on that list.</i></blockquote>
<p>So... this feels like cheating. Because as I said in my review, this book speaks to me in a very, very personal way. Which means that recommending it to other people to read feels... weird. It's like saying "here's a piece of my brain, please read and enjoy". I fully intend to read the rest of that series... but I'm almost afraid to.</p>
yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-31038099381348056572024-01-01T10:57:00.001+10:302024-01-01T10:57:33.193+10:302024<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiniUNTVKs1-FceUw8Cf11xTE6YvewQ8PglhndbknrqYoTH3QFTz_-5m_pP0aJ5o6wI_Xfu6uQqPJpuhLQ1PdzwSlxcKPD0VlccxjuCHCHEZEw0m1jSbuENoO3phLF-Cs598kWJjNSfa7CksoSxJlwbWEk6_niDMgFVbW3EJP0fvukdzcKgI8Ct/s640/2024.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="2024 international year of camelids" border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiniUNTVKs1-FceUw8Cf11xTE6YvewQ8PglhndbknrqYoTH3QFTz_-5m_pP0aJ5o6wI_Xfu6uQqPJpuhLQ1PdzwSlxcKPD0VlccxjuCHCHEZEw0m1jSbuENoO3phLF-Cs598kWJjNSfa7CksoSxJlwbWEk6_niDMgFVbW3EJP0fvukdzcKgI8Ct/w400-h400/2024.jpg" title="2024 international year of camelids" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>Hello 2024!</p><p>Also, hello to the <a href="https://www.fao.org/camelids-2024/en">International Year of Camelids</a>... which includes camels, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and guanacos.</p><p>It also led to me discovering the batshit crazy image that graces the top of this post... which, just this morning, I discovered was from an even more <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT4okDhL6rE">batshit crazy commercial</a> for a Norwegian "acupressure" product that... doesn't seem to exist under that name anymore.</p><p>Also, there is "no reliable evidence for the effectiveness of acupressure", according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupressure">Wikipedia</a> and anybody with any sense. The image is still great though.<br /></p><p>So that was my morning. How did you start your 2024?</p><p>The thing about traditions... or just a day where you do things because it's that day... is that just traditions... I'm very good with words and thinking and making sense of things this morning... wait, where was I...</p><p>Oh, traditions... the thing about them, given that we're talking about ones that only come up once a year, is that they don't tend to change very much from year to year.</p><p>My New Years Eve is very that. The only major thing that tends to change is what day it's happening on, which changes some of the minor details.</p><p>Yesterday was very much both an average Sunday and also an average New Years Eve.</p><p>I did my usual porridge and coffee breakfast, I had pizza for a late lunch/early dinner. I'd already taken down my Christmas decorations (such as they were) on Saturday night, I did some cleaning up, I vacuumed the floors, mostly because they needed it anyway and less specifically because it was New Years.<br /></p><p>I changed my bedding from the festive green IKEA swirly quilt cover with the red fitted sheet that I make from a combination of two different regular sets of bedding with the exact same pattern of quilt cover, but in all black and white (which are the other halves of the Christmas sets)... and every year the monochrome version is so very restful to the eyes in a way that I don't think about until it changes over. Also, I think that's the most awkward version of that sentence from any of the New Years posts in recent memory. Like I said... I do words good today.</p><p>And then Fluffy came over so we could do what is fast becoming our New Years Eve tradition, which is just the New Years Tradition I was already doing, just with another person. Essentially, watch movies until New Year happens.<br /></p><p>I did make little tiny pizza scrolls though, which were successful for the low effort it took to make them.</p><p>We also have fallen into a pattern where I show Fluffy a vintage movie he hasn't seen, and then we watch either a movie he's seen and I haven't or something new that neither of us have seen.</p><p>This year we started off with <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045810/">Gentlemen Prefer Blondes</a>, ticking "Marilyn Monroe" off on his Movie Education Bingo Card... and then we did <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7979580">The Mitchells vs The Machines</a>. Which is... decent. It feels a little too... "I've seen this story 9000 times already" and also "This movie is clearly not aimed at me" and also "LOL, wut, random" or whatever the current generation version of that is. But, to be fair, it's less of that as the movie goes along. I don't think I have enough to say about it to make a whole review though.</p><p>We had decided to wander down the road a little to see if we could watch the fireworks down one of the side streets, so we killed the little bit of time before midnight with a frankly terrible episode of the David Suchet Poirot series that was very short and full of very bad acting. And I realised, about halfway through, that the story had also been part of the Anime Poirot and Miss Marple series I watched a bunch of last year.</p><p>Was the "watch the fireworks" plan successful? I swear that last year, I saw the fireworks very clearly as I was driving home from having dropped Fluffy home... but, I guess... trees grow in a year. So... we saw what can best be described as both diddly and squat. But we did head people yell "Happy New Year" in literal surround sound as people in the houses around us all yelled it at midnight. So that was novel.</p><p>And then I drove him home. I think maybe next year, we just go for three full movies.</p><p>This morning, being a Monday, started with my morning walk. And now we're here. So, 2024 definitely has some built in chaos energy already, we'll see how things progress.<br /></p><p></p><p></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-88159886710307910332023-12-31T15:23:00.001+10:302023-12-31T15:23:17.107+10:30two thousand and twenty three in review <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTZx0O5aj32QFeRhKYHMO3nR9WGUvDKEPNVqjUQVc6BNQ__uvdjVEpRD_DRDQhno1JJYmrG4A6Kr-_tWpHPYmUmY_NJNFrCb7QFfu1bPOEG0w-L8FhmLm8V0i1T_sJuzQrn0XIBk6ye9Yp_YHwwWJrga9_UsiViULPP72haZu9bS0RaZ1YOMp/s528/review-2023.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="2023 year of the rabbit" border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="370" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTZx0O5aj32QFeRhKYHMO3nR9WGUvDKEPNVqjUQVc6BNQ__uvdjVEpRD_DRDQhno1JJYmrG4A6Kr-_tWpHPYmUmY_NJNFrCb7QFfu1bPOEG0w-L8FhmLm8V0i1T_sJuzQrn0XIBk6ye9Yp_YHwwWJrga9_UsiViULPP72haZu9bS0RaZ1YOMp/w224-h320/review-2023.png" title="2023 year of the rabbit" width="224" /></a></div>
<p>Here we are... we made it all the way to the last day of 2023. Well done us.<br /></p><p>This year started out with me having tweaked my back, and having gotten a library card again for the first time in two decades... so, suffice to say, reading featured really heavily in my overall year initially because I could do it while laying down, but later because I just kept going. But that's getting it's own post later.</p><p>Also, brief sidebar... Australia Post have started doing weird things to the images of the stamps they put online (understandable, I guess)... so that's less fun. I might need to revisit the whole stamp idea come the end of next year. Because that's not aesthetic.<br /></p><p>After skimming through a year's worth of blog posts, there wasn't a huge amount of anything hugely exciting. So you'll have to deal with the stuff that did stand out to me. </p><p>Also, my life is mostly boring... but the 35 of you who seem to stick around must enjoy it or something. Hi, but the way... thanks for being here. Otherwise I'm just basically prattling on into the void for my own amusement. And so that when I have a "when did that thing happen in my life", I can come here and look it up.</p><p>So... like I was saying... prattling into the void. <br /></p><p></p>
<p><b>January:</b> I finished the <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/photo-saturday-elf-mama.html">Friday Night DnD campaign</a> I was running. We <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/photo-saturday-hot-boy-sorcerer.html">played Hero Quest</a> as a breather between my campaign and the next campaign.</p>
<p><b>February:</b> I <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/photo-saturday-valour-vs-thorns.html">started walking in the mornings</a> again (I did extend the walk at some point, I can't find a post about it). I got to <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/photo-saturday-fish-town-girl.html">meet Baby Owlgirl</a>. I got my <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/photo-saturday-bang-bang-my-blacksmith.html">fifth booster shot</a>.</p>
<p><b>March:</b> We went down to Port Adelaide to see <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/photo-saturday-wonderwalls-pre-birthday.html">Wonderwalls street art</a>. Also, <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/its-my-49th-birthday.html">birthday</a>. I ended the month with a <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/04/photo-saturday-cerulean-humps.html">rental inspection</a>.</p>
<p><b>April:</b> I started playing Horizon Forbidden West (sadly my PS4 is old and annoying and I haven't been able to finish it). <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/04/photo-saturday-port-roker.html">Ma wasn't well</a>. I reset the <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/04/photo-saturday-artificial-paladin.html">Fall Down Go Boom</a> counter.</p>
<p><b>May:</b> We <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/photo-saturday-decopunk-valet.html">finished</a> the short Friday Night Hero Quest campaign and started a <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/photo-saturday-big-tigger-energy.html">new DnD campaign</a>.</p>
<p><b>June:</b> <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/photo-saturday-sixty-ish-percent-of.html">Ma's birthday</a> and a movie. I <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/photo-friday-hot-boy-warlock.html">bought (big monster feet) slippers</a> and an enormous fleece-lined, knee-length hoodie, amongst the best decisions I made all year.</p>
<p><b>July:</b> We're <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/07/photo-saturday-hello-lover.html">counting this</a> as the point that my back finally started to be officially on the mend after six months of giving me (a lot of) trouble. Another <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/07/photo-saturday-call-him-mister-flint.html">inspection</a>.</p>
<p><b>August:</b> I got to <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/08/photo-saturday-professing-professor.html">hold a very small baby</a> through a whole game of DnD. What? Not a lot else happened.</p>
<p><b>September:</b> I started <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/09/photo-saturday-jack-woods.html">learning to crochet</a>, although was keeping it on the down-low. Which turned into <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/09/photo-saturday-pie-in-face.html">The Secret Project</a>. I got my sixth booster shot the same week.</p>
<p><b>October:</b> Fluffy went on his Grand Adventure for three weeks. I missed his stupid face. There was too much <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/10/photo-saturday-new-faces.html">Going To See Doctors And Getting Tests Done</a>.</p>
<p><b>November:</b> I <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/rainbow-character-template-revist.html">updated</a> my blog template again. I <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/photo-saturday-boo.html">finished the Secret Project</a>, but wasn't able to reveal it until after Christmas. I accidentally <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/photo-saturday-speedy-floof-boi.html">broke my "gentleman drought"</a>. Fluffy came home again.</p>
<p><b>December:</b> Friday Night DnD became <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/photo-saturday-adventing-2023-part-three.html">Friday Night Board Game Christmas</a>. I got to reveal the <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/crochet-secret-granny-square-blanket.html">Secret Project</a>, finally. <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/post-christmas-round-up-2023.html">Christmas happened</a> and was the coldest Christmas in 17 years.</p><p>And... that's a wrap.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-50453101771576943172023-12-30T16:04:00.001+10:302023-12-30T16:04:17.324+10:30photo saturday: adventing 2023, part four<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMAXFRs7eBKi1fkmAuXLaKczLI0GacxpKW7umaqYnNH65KBlMmH5Ao3sQs8xKS6fLI46wWeZbsfS21qKwQSsw_2g0oyM5wLCbYIqvcgdlW-SO1bt_ndzTcMGkuj5cBTx2en9_xE7J_-cV_SiazJ62qahiLVtZ0dN1QGBeMjqsp0oQD7C9yBg0_/s1024/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week 4" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMAXFRs7eBKi1fkmAuXLaKczLI0GacxpKW7umaqYnNH65KBlMmH5Ao3sQs8xKS6fLI46wWeZbsfS21qKwQSsw_2g0oyM5wLCbYIqvcgdlW-SO1bt_ndzTcMGkuj5cBTx2en9_xE7J_-cV_SiazJ62qahiLVtZ0dN1QGBeMjqsp0oQD7C9yBg0_/w400-h400/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-4.jpg" title="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week 4" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>The last full week of the 2023 Hero Forge Advent Calendar brings with it a white and gold theme... because it felt appropriately festive... and I kind of did some red and green at the beginning of the month.</p><p>I do have some thoughts and feelings about the offerings for this week. Firstly, as interesting as "damaged" items are, I do wish they would also add "undamaged" versions at the same time. Because they added a simpler version of the ornate metal-bound round shield, so it's not like they're not thinking about it.</p><p>Also, a little like previous years, the catfolk head is standing in for a much wider array of cat themed items from Christmas Day... hence the "Oops, All Cats" label.</p><p>I realised that I hadn't actually been doing the Current Item Count vs Item's I'd actually use like I did last year... so let's sum up real quick...</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Current item count:</b> 30 + some duplicates between hand held and worn or base items, plus 6 cat related creatures.</li><li><b>Current item's I'd actually use count:</b> 14 plus potential cat related things.</li></ul><p>So, about half, which isn't bad. But we were at more overall items this time last year somehow. I don't remember how I did the math on that last year though, so, who knows.<br /></p><p>Of this week, I feel like it's mostly going to be the boots and the simpler version of the metal-bound shield. There are two more days to go (because we're a day in front of the US), but I don't know what I'm going to do with those, it depends on what they end up being I guess.</p><p>Also, we never got hair this year. But I would take new hair over a shield any day of the week.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p><a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/post-christmas-round-up-2023.html">Christmas happened</a>.</p><p>I've said it before and I will continue to say it until the Heat Death of the Universe. The week between Christmas and New Year is weird for many, many, many reasons. Not least of all because I somehow end up eating very random things... or basically just consuming Christmas left overs in various forms. This week was basically leftover Christmas salad reheated with an egg thrown in and vaguely scrambled in it on Tuesday, and then potato salad and leftover turkey and sausage meat for the rest of the week.</p><p>I also did some work on End of Year posts, or at least started the process on them. Including the <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/crochet-secret-granny-square-blanket.html">Secret Project Blanket</a> post. And started plotting my Rainbow Hexagon Cardigan Project. More on that in the New Year. Because while I only have two days left, I very much have to resist the urge to just start it immediately.</p><p>And I managed to find my way into a potential trio of characters for the Planescape adventure Fluffy aims to run... actually probably not before mid 2025 at this point. So a lot of things could change before then. It's more important that I found my way into an idea rather than the actual idea. I have no doubt the details will change between now and then, but the framework will serve me well regardless. And if it never actually happens because something far more interesting comes along (also very likely), then they'll just join the giant pile of discarded ideas that have come and gone.<br /></p><p>Friday Night DnD can be filed under "The Flaming Feathers Detective Agency Solve The Case of the Bloody Toebeans"... because when DM Mrs waves a murder mystery under our noses and my character rolls two Nat 20's to investigate the murder scene... we get all Sherlock/Poirot up in this biz.</p><p>Also, I was already convinced we were dealing with a murderer who shapeshifted into a cat, but we confirmed it this week.</p><p>We were also all a little bit crazed. In the best possible way.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Today was something of a Post Christmas Shopping Fail...</p><p>But the supermarket portion of the morning was fine.</p><p>It was more when we went to see if there was any leftover Christmas products at Haighs and took a trip to Target to see if the shorts I wanted were on sale.</p><p>Turns out that Haighs totally cleared out all of their Christmas products as soon as Christmas was over... assuming that they did just sell out before Christmas (which is plausible I guess). And it turned out that the vibe for shorts in general this year, at Target anyway, is elasticated waists... and... no, I don't think so. Also, the Target that we went to is kinda tiny and it did look a little like the locusts had been through and literally stripped shelves completely bare.</p><p>So that was that about that.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-89000128430113514802023-12-26T13:42:00.000+10:302023-12-26T13:42:15.274+10:30crochet: secret granny square blanket project<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwh74X0TiSPhGoPojZo-MVgjy2rOOs5cu0kHTq288zHqgZ3fnVC0DLufTGb1jZg4UL0uMlyZw8t8m_RqifJidD6r_No2RYTsHITl9mSd1svDgsE7vOBiz7e4oWzwMFPPouuwK1ViX7oY0Y4LgvlO3ZOAOdqL-pZK7gp1hyaY61i8PODdEgpc3/s1024/crochet000.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwh74X0TiSPhGoPojZo-MVgjy2rOOs5cu0kHTq288zHqgZ3fnVC0DLufTGb1jZg4UL0uMlyZw8t8m_RqifJidD6r_No2RYTsHITl9mSd1svDgsE7vOBiz7e4oWzwMFPPouuwK1ViX7oY0Y4LgvlO3ZOAOdqL-pZK7gp1hyaY61i8PODdEgpc3/w400-h400/crochet000.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>Remember those <i>[clandestine references to secret project]</i> that started showing up in mid September?</p><p>Yep, I learned how to crochet and made a whole blanket. As a Christmas gift for Fluffy (who reads the blog on occasion, hence the mystery).</p><p>It started out, as many things do, with a YouTube recommendation. I like watching people make things. The "thing" itself doesn't matter all that much, I just like to see the process of somebody making a thing. Or occasionally completely fail to make a thing, but schadenfreude exists.<br /></p><p>I'd also looked up some crochet tutorials for Ma at certain points. So these two things combined in the middle of August when YouTube sent me in the direction of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@michelle_jasek/videos">Michelle Jasek</a>, crochet enthusiast, thrifter and all around late 70's, early 80's viber. And her whole yellow, orange and brown aesthetic is very much Fluffy's vibe.</p><p>Because Fluffy is, definitively, an Autumn.</p><p>But I watched a number of Jasek's videos, and the idea of crochet kind of got under my skin.</p><p>Weirdly though, it's one of those things that I've watched videos about and it just looked like literal witchcraft to me. Those tutorials for Ma... yeah, I watched those and went "WTF... and also, how?". I also thought, well, it can't be THAT hard. And Ma knows how to do it.</p><p>So, on September 9, after shopping, she taught me how.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>I'd asked Ma to teach me how to do a thing... which, you know, is both dangerous and turnabout is, in fact, fair play. It went... about as well as I expected it to go initially, which is completely badly, and rather than being frustrated, I kind of lost my mind a tiny bit.</i></p><p><i>But I kinda got it. And then I didn't... and then I really didn't... and it was a very amusing disaster.</i></p><p><i>And then we went to Spotlight and bought things so it can be a disaster
later. Or I can practice it being less of a disaster. I don't know.</i></p></blockquote><p>Which is very true. I couldn't get my head around it at first. But it was also hilarious instead of frustrating, which was good. When we went to Spotlight I found what I've come to call "Swamp Trash" yarn (it's actually, I discovered later, Red Heart Super Saver Yarn in the colour "Fall"). And the plan started to form to make A Thing For Fluffy. With "blanket" being the top contender.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLSpXtkLF6DbnWJGcnyzydciGYdFYdE-R2p8Hso6mzIFMkpdUT_mY2KtWPj1KgGdmlYJhHklMFFxB1-EIJNMLBodWdYk0ciXxWv8mjw8RC_JpjWz5pP0R7XyekzMLlmHPIBjjh0bMGEXyvkBlb-WYUUIxvKHnJok34LZU2vgHPhm3hQw0tTS5h/s1024/crochet001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLSpXtkLF6DbnWJGcnyzydciGYdFYdE-R2p8Hso6mzIFMkpdUT_mY2KtWPj1KgGdmlYJhHklMFFxB1-EIJNMLBodWdYk0ciXxWv8mjw8RC_JpjWz5pP0R7XyekzMLlmHPIBjjh0bMGEXyvkBlb-WYUUIxvKHnJok34LZU2vgHPhm3hQw0tTS5h/w400-h400/crochet001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>It didn't start out... spectacularly. After Ma left, I messed around a little, just trying to get the feel of things without having to actually worry about making anything that was, you know, functional. It was more getting my brain and my hands used to the movements and how to hold the yarn and all of that.</p><p>They're very... "freeform expressionist crochet".<br /></p><p>The upside is that you can just pull on the yarn and unravel (or, as I learned, "frog", which is an unofficial term that comes from the idea of "ribbit" and "rip it" sounding similar) the whole thing and start over.</p><p>I will say, if I knew then what I know now, I would have played around with different yarn, because this stuff was the hardest to work with of all the yarn I used.</p>
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<p>That Sunday I tried a little swatch of single crochet and ended up with the wonky ass thing on the left... then found a tutorial on Moss Stitch, which is really beautiful. But as my very first project, and with that particular yarn... not great. Not terrible, but I think there are only about three places where the Moss Stitch actually looks like it's supposed to.</p><p>That ended up getting frogged eventually too, because I needed the yarn.</p><p>But by then I had other yarn and started looking up actual tutorials, which lead me to this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GALGQdP_POw">Bella Coco tutorial</a> on granny squares. Ma had attempted to get me to granny squares in our initial training session, but it was too much too soon, but the tutorial walked me there.</p>
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<p>The very first attempt is on the left. After I did that one, I watched a couple of other tutorials and refined my technique, so on September 17 I set up a spreadsheet, and started on the first of what would be a LOT of granny squares.</p><p>It took a while before I got my eye in. I did the first dozen in the yellow before switching over to the Swamp Trash yarn, then switching back to the yellow. On the right up there is one of my original squares at the bottom and one of the last yellow squares I made once I knew what I was doing at the top. There's a mild size discrepancy... that comes into play later.<br /></p><p>But I had a plan... well, technically I had six plans and a couple of possible plans...</p>
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<p>Because what's better than working out how you're going to arrange your solid colour granny squares than a Google docs spreadsheet.</p><p>Once again, in a perfect world, and if I knew then what I know now, I might have done The X, but I don't know if the actual blanket would have had the same slight optical illusion to it that the plan has. I also really liked the randomness of The Random. Which I know isn't completely random, but I like it anyway.<br /></p><p>Of course, in a perfect world, I would have used a slightly smaller hook size and also made a 12 by 12 blanket and not an 11 by 13... but I also was limited by the amount of Swamp Trash yarn and I also wanted a "centre square" to the pattern. <br /></p><p>There were a variation of The Flow and The Stripe where two colours went left to right and the other two colours went right to left. But I never liked those as much.<br /></p><p>So, by that point I had five different colours of yarn. I did consider doing squares in the final grey colour, but decided that it would look better if they were fastened together with it.</p><p>I also got a lot faster as time went on. My first two squares took about 75 minutes per square. By the time I finished a month later (a little over 94 consecutive hours of crochet), I was down to just under 30 minutes per square.</p><p>And I had 145 finished squares. Plus I'd also unpicked 17 of my original squares and redone them so they were the better size. I came out of that with a bag of leftover yarn ends.</p>
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<p>There they all are. And you can very clearly see the difference in the thickness of the yarn I was using, which is what happens when you pick your yarn out of the remnants bin because it's essentially cheaper than regular yarn and comes in great big fat skeins.<br /></p><p>I think the green was the nicest to work with. Plus that colour of green is very much my kinda green.</p><p>I started out with 400g of each yarn (because that's the way the big bags of remnant yarn comes), which amounted to four skeins each of the yellow, beige and green and three of the Swamp Trash. Because that's slightly heavier. And at the end of the granny squares I essentially had a leftover skein of the other three colours. Which makes sense.</p><p>I also had been doing, at a minimum, three squares per night. But I averaged about five. Basically, as I got better at it and it took less time, I did more per night.<br /></p>
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<p>By this point, I wasn't sure how I was going to fasten them together, but I had decided on The Spiral design, because if I didn't have enough of the grey yarn (spoiler alert, I didn't, it didn't matter, I got more), that was a pattern that was still a pattern but wouldn't be ruined if I skipped the last row.</p><p>I could have tried a couple of the other patterns, but, honestly, when I laid The Spiral out on my bed, I was pretty much sold. What's funny is that I didn't actually realise when I originally made it was that it's just The Diamond with the last quarter changed.</p><p>I also didn't feel completely comfortable stitching it together or doing a single crochet or doing slip stitching or any of the other common blanket joining options I kept finding.</p><p>Because there had to be a join method out there that was basically just the same thing I already knew how to do, namely, more granny clusters. And then I found Roz over at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEidKhhiTew">Play Hooky With Me</a>. She had the answer I'd been looking for.</p><p>So I stared putting the blanket together. I'll be honest, for most of the first row I was back to "you know nothing Jon Snow" territory... <br /></p><p>We started with the World's Most Tragic Scarf (above right)...</p>
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<p>And then it kept growing and growing and growing and growing...</p><p>It's also fun, because Fluffy is on Fluffy's Grand Adventure right now and he touches base occasionally with photos or updates... so I know that the very first row of the blanket took place while he was at Disneyland and sending me photos of it.<br /></p><p>It took about three hours total to crochet each row of granny squares then crochet along the bottom edge to seal them all in. And after every row I would lay it out on my bed and go... "I did a thing", be vaguely impressed with myself, then fold it up and put it away for the night.<br /></p><p>Also, it was about this time, as they say, that our intrepid hero (dat's me!) realised something... I kept looking at the colours and thinking "I really like this, they're really nice colours..." and then early one morning it occurred to me...</p>
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<p>I was basically making a Wordle themed blanket by accident. Well, Wordle plus Swamp Trash.<br /></p><p>Which, honestly, it's not the worst thing in the world, because Fluffy and I have been playing Wordle and messaging each other our daily results since January of 2022 (well, right up until he went travelling).</p><p>So... we'll file that under "happy little accident".</p><p>Speaking of accidents...<br /></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSY_GcJRb2ZYkVbuGYRLnqmHDK3kI2W_W6W3hK_jA3oNY-ETlWp2hHCpuZbgaH-PI4oSCH8uE9J2HhE6SH8F1KhmenaFTbmUfsk6DzulgqtLc-8mCYdOGMipBjFFbcC7u_KoAsuHUhxUUQ1LGikt7VHQ0dq1TSBksKtstAy9OWlS8KIAtw1H55/s800/crochet013.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSY_GcJRb2ZYkVbuGYRLnqmHDK3kI2W_W6W3hK_jA3oNY-ETlWp2hHCpuZbgaH-PI4oSCH8uE9J2HhE6SH8F1KhmenaFTbmUfsk6DzulgqtLc-8mCYdOGMipBjFFbcC7u_KoAsuHUhxUUQ1LGikt7VHQ0dq1TSBksKtstAy9OWlS8KIAtw1H55/s320/crochet013.jpg" width="240" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-bR8CsgJ_0KwiYeJcUXR2DPPR-3c494UYb9uVHU0RdIwUysd3AI3HsUzxQIqZi2zbgFn6kBHHiBxFrSDly83p7CkJifPdXhk-sNay5vieuvNboyKrfIpE6DoQX4NjHTaLwyKcIC0irKaBBcv8VIq09-XKLQG94grAr8hHbR9DrA8gUW8cVEp9/s800/crochet014.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-bR8CsgJ_0KwiYeJcUXR2DPPR-3c494UYb9uVHU0RdIwUysd3AI3HsUzxQIqZi2zbgFn6kBHHiBxFrSDly83p7CkJifPdXhk-sNay5vieuvNboyKrfIpE6DoQX4NjHTaLwyKcIC0irKaBBcv8VIq09-XKLQG94grAr8hHbR9DrA8gUW8cVEp9/s320/crochet014.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<p>The day after I had finished the row in the previous set of photos, I did a whole row, got to the end, was going to join it to the previous row and saw the corner in the photo on the left. Which is bad. Because there should be two clusters in that corner, just like the outer yellow row.</p><p>Somehow I missed it and only put one in.</p><p>But I'd already attached the whole entire next row... so I thought to myself... "well, fuck... but, you know, it's fine, just attach it together and move on. So I finished the bottom of that row, laid the blanket out on the bed, looked at it and went... "oh, it'll do" and folded it up for the night.</p><p>And couldn't stop thinking about it.</p><p>Cue the following day where I did the frog thing. Because I couldn't leave it like that.</p><p>The thing about crochet, the base, fundamental thing, is that it's basically just really artistically tangled string. String that untangles really easily if you pull on a loose thread. It's literally that cartoon trope that we all remember where somebody gets their sweater caught on a nail and the entire thing unravels in seconds.</p><p>That.</p><p>So it took literal seconds to undo over three hours of work. The shot on the right is the aftermath.</p><p>Also, when I got to the end of second to last row, and went to attach a green square, I discovered that it had a small fuck up in it (I did a single stitch instead of three stitches in one of the clusters for... some unknown reason). So, I grabbed a different square, put that one aside and later that night I unpicked the last row of the green square and redid it. Because I'd come THIS far, I wasn't going to accept random fixable errors that late in the game. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyyIbic4rw8P7Jf_-V3RgoV5uzzOfyZH9aoOR5qlkrdg9W4YD2bukytep_auq6v8IazA5cJaRjSCtBO1f9dAJwo6iSlXB7F4lug26-XENw-XkLwF1aSHkIybCHJnOYVEyucF0P80OfeBPwZcAlaNOH8LsHVF73mpoGBHtd1ZNR-6LCga280DLX/s800/crochet015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyyIbic4rw8P7Jf_-V3RgoV5uzzOfyZH9aoOR5qlkrdg9W4YD2bukytep_auq6v8IazA5cJaRjSCtBO1f9dAJwo6iSlXB7F4lug26-XENw-XkLwF1aSHkIybCHJnOYVEyucF0P80OfeBPwZcAlaNOH8LsHVF73mpoGBHtd1ZNR-6LCga280DLX/s320/crochet015.jpg" width="240" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguEE9SXypW_FxU7HXl9zvvew6s0WCa6ONXdsLWpBqosuVSFYZIxoacSwOk52X-avf_wzAICSiNPVQ6SVijoEkoHuS7vy4HitmzzmvUG6bPC6GIKkeukyl3VHm1vo8Ju-4LlvN70xa5P4bWD0EtnTbYdFPsudRLITnOpKzp-9NZHU6CkQbZZIs_/s800/crochet016.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguEE9SXypW_FxU7HXl9zvvew6s0WCa6ONXdsLWpBqosuVSFYZIxoacSwOk52X-avf_wzAICSiNPVQ6SVijoEkoHuS7vy4HitmzzmvUG6bPC6GIKkeukyl3VHm1vo8Ju-4LlvN70xa5P4bWD0EtnTbYdFPsudRLITnOpKzp-9NZHU6CkQbZZIs_/s320/crochet016.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<p>The putting together phase took 14 days... or 48 consequent hours.<br /></p><p>And that includes finishing the unfinished side and doing a second row of stitches around the whole border of the blanket to make the edge the same width as the line between squares.</p><p>Thus, after 145 consecutive hours, I had a whole-ass blanket.</p><p>I did have a moment where I looked at the finished product and said, aloud, to my empty apartment and/or the blanket... "who am I to just go and make a whole-ass blanket... who the hell do I think I am?", but, you know, in a joyfully incredulous way.</p><p>I made a blanket. A big blanket too. It's not quite the same size as my Queen size quilt, but it's not far off. It's maybe somewhere between Double and Queen sized. And it looks damn good.</p><p>There's a couple of small errors, but nothing egregious. I'm also really happy with the results. And because I'm writing this up the day after I finished it (3 November), I now have to wait until Board Game Christmas before I can give it to him.</p><p>And I have to find another project...</p><p><i>[Post Christmas Update]</i><br /></p><p>It was <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/photo-saturday-adventing-2023-part-three.html">a great success</a>. And I worked on presents for other people too including amigurumi octopuses, a dice bag, cat toys, stress toys and a pair of earrings. Which were all also great successes.<br /></p><p>And my next major project is going to be a cardigan for me, which I got a whole lot of yarn for at Christmas.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-59343379366676745332023-12-25T21:54:00.004+10:302023-12-25T21:54:58.826+10:30post christmas round-up 2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidU_ApRXzGd45kUH_PaMl9tMXSBlnCXD7vAPgfNvFExlwV0yA_5sGG48jEBOhCuX2NWMfNzYup3oz8caS_u8Li6dRpIihPG7xtkAihNTIlGvprj-LPSftroJPDOVeC8dAIS3rEOfZNQb_nONPsVXb_NP5atxe6Ppsjux4MixJnbWVITEDWpzef/s1329/xmas_caducado.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="sexy christmas tree man" border="0" data-original-height="1329" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidU_ApRXzGd45kUH_PaMl9tMXSBlnCXD7vAPgfNvFExlwV0yA_5sGG48jEBOhCuX2NWMfNzYup3oz8caS_u8Li6dRpIihPG7xtkAihNTIlGvprj-LPSftroJPDOVeC8dAIS3rEOfZNQb_nONPsVXb_NP5atxe6Ppsjux4MixJnbWVITEDWpzef/w260-h320/xmas_caducado.jpg" title="sexy christmas tree man" width="260" /></a></div>
<p>Rain on Christmas? Clouds and cold weather?<br /></p><p>Yeah... "Adelaide recorded its coldest Christmas Day since 2006 (17.9 degrees recorded at the Kent Town observation site)". Although I do love how difficult it is to find any reliable reporting on the temperature at Christmas, other than the Bureau of Meteorology, because media outlets are always screaming about it being the hottest, coldest, wettest, cloudiest, humidest, blah di blah di blah Christmas since [insert random year].</p><p>But otherwise, it was actually a pretty good day overall. I both didn't take a lot of photos, and the photos I did take weren't what we would consider my best work, so I did find this great retro pin-up Caducado piece that can serve in place of the usual Christmas tree photo (also, we've kind of stopped doing full on Christmas tree-ness, but Ma does have little tiny trees that she can take down without assistance come January.</p><p>I didn't do anything particular festive last night... I made pizza, which fulfilled my Christmas Eve Pizza requirements, packed up some stuff that I was taking to Ma's place but that was about it.</p><p>This morning I did my morning walk. And it was odd, because I only started doing this again in January (and <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/photo-saturday-valour-vs-thorns.html">mentioned it briefly</a> at the start of February), so it was interesting doing the Christmas Morning Walk, which I haven't done since the old days of North Adelaide. There are always a couple of folks out and about, although I did see more folks out walking their dogs (we get a lot of that in Norwood) when I was driving to Ma's.</p><p>Anyway, I got back, got ready and, as I said, headed down the road and got to Ma's shortly after 9.</p><p>Note to self: If we buy croissants a day early, check if they're in those bags that are designed to not make bread products go soft. Because that's great for certain things, but not for croissants. But the insides were mostly good.</p><p>So, yeah, our usual croissant breakfast. After I pre-breakfasted on some of the ham hearts Ma was literally pulling out of the oven when I got there.</p><p>The weird thing is, because we do basically the same thing every year, and, honestly, not much of anything really happens, I always end up not really remembering the order in which we did anything.</p><p>I think we did presents next.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcfxMF40NXN7sYcc0FsRXm6OFPOh6hcq5FCBvHCURR-0iqoLBQR-E88MnUWRLw0UnqkvX5jhERI4zhUGttv9YyHQvpCnER8UZXcoJ95Fb04tJ9EY-6E0ysY5spLQmJoOZRMR4Cv3YkxXHZInkmgxy8yaaLXSBovcgYmAVtQYTCU42UAMK2dN3D/s800/xmas2023_presents.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="presents 2023" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcfxMF40NXN7sYcc0FsRXm6OFPOh6hcq5FCBvHCURR-0iqoLBQR-E88MnUWRLw0UnqkvX5jhERI4zhUGttv9YyHQvpCnER8UZXcoJ95Fb04tJ9EY-6E0ysY5spLQmJoOZRMR4Cv3YkxXHZInkmgxy8yaaLXSBovcgYmAVtQYTCU42UAMK2dN3D/w320-h240/xmas2023_presents.jpg" title="presents 2023" width="320" /></a></div>
<p>So, we have...</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Yarn in 7 colours (you know, basically a jewel-tone rainbow) plus black for my 2024 Hexagon Granny Square Cardigan project (there's also more black yarn not shown)<br /></li><li><a href="https://q-workshop.com/en/">Dice Advent Calendar</a> (from Mr and Mrs)</li><li>Haighs Milk Chocolate Baubles (from Mr and Mrs)</li><li><a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/book/">The 99% Invisible City</a> book (from Fluffy)</li><li>Pink and Orange Skull Dice (from Fluffy)</li><li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/29237226">Saga, Volume 11</a></li><li>Lego + Disney 100 Wicked Queen and Robin Hood minifigs<br /></li><li>Bundaberg Christmas Spiced Ginger Beer</li><li>Chocolate Crackle Candle</li><li>Black Body Pillowcase</li><li>Mossimo Mens Canvas Slip-On Shoes (not shown... I forgot to put them in shot)</li></ul><p>See what I mean... I forgot to put shoes in the shot... and I only realised afterwards that I had put the Dice Advent Calendar down upside down.</p><p>I was also pleased with my Lego + Disney minifigs... especially given that they were the last two in the box when we bought them. Would it have been perfect if I'd gotten Cruella, Stitch or Baymax? Yes, but at least I got my Wicked Queen.</p><p>I'd also brought my laptop up to Ma's, so at a certain point I hooked it up to Ma's TV (which she can't do with her laptop because it's a little old and crusty) and just stuck some Christmas Lofi on while we did other things.</p><p>There was a hiccup when we went out to light the Webber. Well, more so when we went out to check on it after lighting it. Because of the wind, it wasn't catching the way it needed to and the coals weren't heating up like they needed to.</p><p>So, we basically gave up on that, came inside and cranked up the oven. Thankfully it was, as previously discussed, the coldest Christmas Day in 17 years, so that wasn't really an issue.</p><p>It was also slightly odd... because we only do this whole thing once a year, it's kind of easier to track the changes to our routine... and this year, I ended up doing a lot of the cooking and organising and prepping and whatnot. Which let Ma relax. In previous years we've mostly been sharing it all, but I just got on with it.</p><p>And for the most part, shoving it all in the oven worked out. It was a little more crowded, and I probably didn't need to microwave the potatoes first since they were in the oven the whole time (they were fine, just a little too crispy).</p><p>While things were cooking, I put on the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066344/">Scrooge</a> musical that I'd watched last year, because it's colour and movement and takes up time and is still pretty good. It also meant that I could walk away from it to do Christmas Lunch prep and not actually be missing anything.</p><p>I did swap back to Christmas Lofi Beats when we were eating dinner though.</p><p>And, like I said, other than slightly overly crispy potatoes, it was pretty well done. I mean, it isn't going to the top of the list of our Christmas Salads, but it was tasty.</p><p>It also really doesn't matter how early we try to get organised or how
early we intend to have Christmas Lunch... it always ends up being about
2:30. <br /></p><p>Then we finished lunch, we finished Scrooge and then tidied up from lunch. And I threw together some Eton Mess, as we usually do.</p><p>We continued in the Christmas Carol vein with A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong (also on YouTube), which is always fun.</p><p>Then we packed up my stuff and the leftover food I was taking home and I toddled off home... and it rained most of the way home. And by rain, it wasn't exactly bucketing down.</p><p>So... that's it for Christmas 2023.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-88487942709838842922023-12-23T14:52:00.002+10:302023-12-23T17:15:14.011+10:30photo saturday: adventing 2023, part three<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvsjiJnso51HnakezlchfFm3VYbwGnNVrSSKkzXhfvcw5ykimpMMMRbdyFc-ogw162XPBkr1G2iJ_sx4zL5pBLMuGiaV8VIUrsqRZ1CxMJ6-jmg6uCSlh5Adof-o0F_Qnx0qp5qdoVSwi5VdTCyaHndQfnOgJ7fwdGz8GpmNNApwJh832BwHNa/s1024/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week three" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvsjiJnso51HnakezlchfFm3VYbwGnNVrSSKkzXhfvcw5ykimpMMMRbdyFc-ogw162XPBkr1G2iJ_sx4zL5pBLMuGiaV8VIUrsqRZ1CxMJ6-jmg6uCSlh5Adof-o0F_Qnx0qp5qdoVSwi5VdTCyaHndQfnOgJ7fwdGz8GpmNNApwJh832BwHNa/w400-h400/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-3.jpg" title="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week three" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>It's odd how these colour stories come together. Week Three of the Hero Forge Advent Calendar took on a very brown and purple vibe. And we can mostly blame the Nautilus Spear for that one. Because, of course I was going to do purple tentacles. That was one of the items that was definitely better in the silhouette and/or my imagination... it's a little... clunky.<br /></p><p>I will say that I quite like the axe, the corset top will probably see some use, but the folding fan! I've already redone my pain themed cleric, <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2022/05/photo-saturday-whip-it-good-redux.html">Whipmaster Demyan</a>. Because as much as I liked the shield and whip combo, and he did in fact carry a whip in game, he also very much carried a fan. Because in one of the early games I played him in, the aircon at the gaming store was... questionable at best, so I brought a fan in with me for my own comfort, which then became my go-to Demyan prop.</p><p>But he'll probably be showing up as a Character Colouring Book in January.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>This has felt like a very long week. Mostly because at the end of it (last night) was Friday Night D&D Board Game Christmas. And the final reveal of The Secret Project.</p><p>But I started off with a much better quiche for this week. My biggest hurdle right now is trying to cut the thing into 5 roughly even pieces.</p><p>On Tuesday I wrapped presents. And was very thankful that I'd completely incidentally watched a couple of videos about wrapping presents in the last week or so. Which meant, when I cut the wrapping paper too small for the giant box I had to wrap, I didn't freak out, I just turned the paper about 45 degrees and did probably a 7 out of 10 on the wrapping, because the sides were not even and the paper was a little loose in spots, but I got there. It looked reasonable. And when you mostly have a random pattern on the paper with no stripes or directional details, it definitely helps.</p><p>Wednesday I made <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/rocky-road-for-christmas.html">Rocky Road</a>. Only the one. But then, of course, it turned out that the container I used was almost the size of the two disposable foil trays I've used in the past. Or it took up about the same amount of space in the fridge.</p><p>Thursday was a new Christmas recipe... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BRQ7vVSw06o">Christmas Crack</a> from my favourite internet baker, B Dylan Hollis (other cracks are available). And, honestly, my most successful attempt at something from his cookbook (The #1 New York Times Bestselling Cookbook <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/baking-yesteryear-9780744080049">Baking Yesteryear</a>) to date. It was wildly successful. And super easy.</p><p>Friday started out with trips to two different libraries, because I noticed one of the new books that I had on hold was just casually sitting on a shelf at the library near my old house. So I jumped in the car, headed down the road, snatched it up and came back to hit up my library for the second time this week (I'd run out of books on Thursday and things were waiting for me, but then something else came in on Friday, and given they'll be closed for part of next week, I headed off to get it.</p><p>I'll fully admit that I've spent all week in a state of... anticipation, I guess. Because, as I said, yesterday was FNDnDBGC, but I only really realised what I was feeling and why on Friday morning. Because giving people presents is part of my love language (along with Physical Touch... honestly, looking at the five love language options, are there any of those that aren't at least partially me... hmmm... maybe not Acts of Service) and it's been a hot minute since I've been able to actually have present people with... well, presents. And I was kind of riding that high especially on Thursday and Friday.</p><p>Also, any day I can emotionally torture Fluffy is a good day. Because I'm evil.</p><p>I also hid the giant box in the boot of the car so that he only saw it when we got to Mr and Mrs' place. </p><p><i>[evil grin]</i></p><p>And of course, I made sure I went last. Because DUR. I will mention it again later, but I'm very excited by the copy of <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/book/">The 99% Invisible City</a> Fluffy got for me after I introduced him to the podcast this year. Or, rather, he finally paid attention to me after recommending it to him about five other times. It will definitely be one of my first reads of 2024.</p><p>But I finally got to reveal what was behind all those <i>[clandestine reference to ongoing secret project]</i> mentions. I learned to crochet and made Fluffy a big granny square blanket. There will be a whole post on it, probably in the week between Christmas and New Year, but soon anyway. And not to toot my own horn, but I did good. And I know that by the number of times he said "how dare you" to me when we left and were headed back to the car.</p><p><i>[does Snoopy Happy Dance for an extended period of time]</i></p><p>I also made a dice bag for Mrs, an Emotional Support Mind Flayer (basically an octopus, but he's planning on running a DnD adventure for us that has a lot of mind flayers in it, so it seemed appropriate), plus small things for the twins and also cat toys for the cats. Basically, many crocheted things.</p><p><i>[contented sigh]</i></p><p>And then what better to get us all in the mood for Christmas than a nice game of <a href="https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/mansions-of-madness-second-edition/products/mansions-madness-second-edition/">Mansions of Madness</a> that was very "big snek energy" coded. Or, to use the appropriate Lovecraft reference, very "<a href="https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Yig">Yig</a>". Which we absolutely should have won, but lost one turn before victory, even though we had all four idols, had prevented a bunch of folks from turning into big snek monsters. But sadly, we did not and now all our investigators are also snek monsters.</p><p>Pour one out for "Ashcan" Pete the Drifter, Ursula Downs the Explorer, Rita Young the Athlete and Diana Stanley the Redeemed Cultist.</p><p>Doubly so because we finished up at 1am. It was a good night though.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Fuck the supermarket on the Saturday before Christmas. Because we do this on Saturday every week... you're just taking up space and getting in everyone's way. And, for the record, deciding to go first thing when the supermarket opens is... the exact same idea that everybody else has had, so maybe stay home, go later.</p><p>Actually, it wasn't that bad. I mean, the deli counter and the fruit and veg section was a shitshow and there were people taking up space everywhere, but I think we managed to time it a little between People Who Showed Up When The Store Opened and People Who Showed Up Later To Avoid Those People.</p><p>We didn't do anything else, because, no, absolutely not. Y'all lose your tiny minds the weekend before Christmas, doubly so when Christmas is directly after that weekend. So, no shops for us.</p><p>That it.</p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-851242464253004502023-12-16T16:17:00.005+10:302023-12-16T16:17:23.631+10:30movies: the boy and the heron<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSuPxrA110tAMVt2444oqr3nXxP6fyDJJuYMzAqMfg6B2MqrL0-cvd2xtXZX4ymsNEEzKTGosWo7Fg__VAlxO9VaQaD82p2bW-Lo9iok5EWGZWN0FEBohjWAnf0gDJbJC1_YUN6vezfRGWhtjGjUqrAx6lM-PBFYepqN3JewKQIC26BH4YZEeT/s366/boy_and_the_heron.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="the boy and the heron" border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSuPxrA110tAMVt2444oqr3nXxP6fyDJJuYMzAqMfg6B2MqrL0-cvd2xtXZX4ymsNEEzKTGosWo7Fg__VAlxO9VaQaD82p2bW-Lo9iok5EWGZWN0FEBohjWAnf0gDJbJC1_YUN6vezfRGWhtjGjUqrAx6lM-PBFYepqN3JewKQIC26BH4YZEeT/s16000/boy_and_the_heron.jpg" title="the boy and the heron" /></a></div>
<p>It's been just under a decade since the last Studio Ghibli movie by Hayao Miyazaki
came out... <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2013293/">The Wind Rises</a>... which I never fully reviewed because I fell asleep part way through (I still maintain that was because I was in the <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/photo-friday-shell-like.html">early stages of a massive ear infection</a>). Good times.<br /></p><p>But that does bring me around, quite nicely, to the new one... <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6587046/">The Boy and the Heron</a>... because, I'll be honest, it's been a little over three hours since I got out of the movie, and the whole thing still feels a little bit like an extended fever dream. Whether that was my fever dream or Miyazaki's I'm not entirely sure.<br /></p><p>Which, in this case, isn't a bad thing. It's just a very, very, very strange movie. And not really what I was expecting.</p><p>Firstly though, as one would fully expect, it is stunningly beautiful. And there is a lot of animation, especially at the beginning, that feels a little different to previous Ghibli and Miyazaki's movies. It does kind of revert to the animation style we all know and love by the end, which I don't have an issue with, but seeing something new definitely caught my eye.</p><p>Completely by accident, we went to see the subtitled version rather than the dubbed version (so none of the names on the poster are remotely relevant), but it's not a dialogue heavy movie anyway, which was good.</p><p>It's just so incredibly... strange. The official blurb calls is "<span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation">semi-autobiographical fantasy", but, honestly, when was a Miyazaki movie not semi-autobiographical in some way. And I can very much see the parts that would fit the bill here. But the rest of it, like I said, feels like some sort of bird related fever dream.</span></p><p><span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation">Also, a lot of the character motivations are muddy at best. There are certain things that our lead character of Mahito does that I don't completely understand the reasons for, or, I have theories, but the movie doesn't confirm or deny them. Likewise with his aunt who is also his new stepmother (the internet tells me that that's called levirate marriage, but it also doesn't seem to be something that is widely done in modern Japan). But the issue is that... I didn't like his aunt/stepmother very much, she seemed a little odd/pushy, and I actually thought she might be the villain of the piece. Turns out no. But I also wasn't emotionally invested in her when she became important to the plot.</span></p><p><span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation">Honestly though, everybody could have done with having a little more motivation and a little more of their character explored.</span></p><p><span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation">Favourite character? </span><span class="sc-bfec09a1-4 kvTUwN">Kiriko</span>, absolutely.<span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation"> </span></p><p><span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation">Also, without spoiling anything... there's a lot of birds in this movie. Like, a lot. Anyone who has issues with birds should be fully warned.</span></p><p><span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation">There are also moments that feel very much like they were drawing inspiration or paying homage to some of Miyazaki's previous movies or Ghibli movies in general. But, again, that might just be because he and the studio have a visual style that they stick to, so things just look like My Neighbour Totoro or The Wind Rises or even Ponyo... but the Ghibliness of things like Arrietty also shine through.</span></p><p><span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation">Don't get me wrong though, none of this adds up to a bad movie. An incredibly confusing one at times, yes... bad, no. Did it also make me succumb to "just resting my eyes for a few moments" more than once? Absolutely... but they're very slow and hypnotic movies, so that's just a thing that's going to happen. Did it manage to stick the landing, which other Ghibli movies have sometimes failed to do? Yes, it did.</span></p><p><span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation">Do I want to see it again? Absolutely. Possibly the dubbed version, because I just want to see how they're different. And maybe just unpack the movie a little more.</span></p><p><span class="sc-466bb6c-2 chnFO" data-testid="plot-xl" role="presentation"><b>yani's rating:</b> <i>3 pelicans out of 5<br /></i></span></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-1222581447809587982023-12-16T14:56:00.001+10:302023-12-16T14:56:44.444+10:30photo saturday: adventing 2023, part two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJTfGFgp7Fl1_a63qPpYUtDn3ULcwYl2Sba_RLJfthzV4EwzTxwkO6_MiERj76WYHPcgaIcK6SyrQBgqWQCizFjHZaIinQgR2JRrp8adWv96GhN-MqC0sedbel3oVI5KjpsPQQAJ-j8q3HaU1yPRGNj1NMehQlQD-XeKkQoq-fssp-8IeNcJU/s1024/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week two" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJTfGFgp7Fl1_a63qPpYUtDn3ULcwYl2Sba_RLJfthzV4EwzTxwkO6_MiERj76WYHPcgaIcK6SyrQBgqWQCizFjHZaIinQgR2JRrp8adWv96GhN-MqC0sedbel3oVI5KjpsPQQAJ-j8q3HaU1yPRGNj1NMehQlQD-XeKkQoq-fssp-8IeNcJU/w400-h400/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-2.jpg" title="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week two" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>Week Two of the Hero Forge Advent Calendar... and I went a little themed for my colouring. I have to say... I am completely obsessed with Day 14's bow... because, I mean, look at it! I instantly started designing archer characters in my head for it.</p><p>Everything else... m'eh. Thankfully there's a non creepy face version of the shield. Everything else it beautifully modelled, but I'm not sure it's going to ever get used. With the possible exception of the treasure chest, but I don't use that many base items. And the twiddly corner bits I don't love.</p><p>And I'm fine with that... not everything has to be useful to me, especially when we're getting over 30 new items this month. I do have an issue with "directional shields" though. Like, I know that the arm is supposed to be bent, and that's not the case here, but you don't always want the shield covering the whole body either. But it does look a little like the shield is sniffing our friend's armpit there.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>This week continued to be... wet.</p><p>But also occasionally humid, and just... no.</p><p>Did I also end up with what I'm called a mild case of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) because the weather was so weird at the beginning of the week. Kinda. </p><p>I also learned not to put grated carrot and zucchini in my quiche recipe. Not good. Although, weirdly, it was better in the days after than it was on Monday when I actually made it. Still not great... but better.</p><p>We called Time of Death on Thursday Night DnD for 2023 for this week. People were busy, people were sick, and it probably would have been called off at the last minute anyway.</p><p>Friday was also my final Chiro Day for the year. And I took my Chiro a little something just because it's what I do... or have done in the past. Which she really loved, so that was nice.</p><p>Friday Night DnD was more Talking To People About Things. And Failing Upwards.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Today we bought too many things at the supermarket. And then we went to the movies. More on that in a second.</p><p>But yeah, that was it really.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-56363620075410560212023-12-09T15:54:00.001+10:302023-12-09T15:54:05.953+10:30photo saturday: adventing 2023, part one<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhg1iVU1L3f1IKLmcAl6iic4PhlvZfxISqHrHA9eOOSxD9ihcsIn2Tfw8Pyl8jClJVUjPIB4Tny2fQFSnbWTAHHn3zVE0acwpywsxMo_OWxauskpRjipQUbRyFvUe9wfCx4DpaEtm0fL_So5fLK2Jll4sMnyvKozxcilUqf0PTyI2mARPHU3-5/s1024/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week one" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhg1iVU1L3f1IKLmcAl6iic4PhlvZfxISqHrHA9eOOSxD9ihcsIn2Tfw8Pyl8jClJVUjPIB4Tny2fQFSnbWTAHHn3zVE0acwpywsxMo_OWxauskpRjipQUbRyFvUe9wfCx4DpaEtm0fL_So5fLK2Jll4sMnyvKozxcilUqf0PTyI2mARPHU3-5/w400-h400/dnd-2023-Advent-Week-1.jpg" title="2023 hero forge advent calendar - week one" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>Yes, it's that time again... when everybody is very eager to throw content at you 7 days a week, before it all goes back to normal in January. Or more specifically, the Hero Forge Advent Calendar items for 2023.</p><p>But I'm also working my way through the 2023 <a href="https://q-workshop.com/en/">Q Workshop</a> Dice Advent Calendar over on Instagram, which, slightly disappointingly, of the three versions we have between me, Fluffy and Mrs, they're all basically identical. Which is somewhat disappointing. But they're still pretty dice, so I'm not complaining that much.</p><p>Getting back to the Hero Forge of it all... this week was a lot of very large items. With varying degrees of interest to me. Basically, I'm good with the whole right side... and while I like the top and the mask, those are going to be very specific use cases. The shield also isn't terrible. But the hammer and the basket are essentially useless to me. The hammer is the latest in a very long line of "too ridiculous to even consider" weapons.</p><p>But it's a new free item every day for a month, so I'm not complaining.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>Surprising nobody, ditching the zucchini slice in favor of <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/quick-quiche.html">quiche</a> was the correct answer. Much, much better results.</p><p>Thursday Night DnD was... both not very much and also The Most Possible. Which is what happens when one of the players is missing and you get to talk about the revelation that was revealed about that character in the last session. And then your character confesses to their feelings for said character. And everyone at the table essentially screams "WHAT!" at you.</p><p>Those are literally the moments I live for.</p><p>Friday Night DnD... at some point we might actually interact with the actual story again and not just be caught in a travel montage. But I suspect that that may not be any time soon.</p><p>But I did suggest a possible group name, not really seriously, and it kind of derailed everyone's brains for a hot minute.</p><p>And I'll be honest, I don't even care about a party name. Firstly because we're bad at it, and also because we never come by one naturally, it's always a long walk and feels very forced. <br /></p><p>Anyway...</p><p> Today was.. wet.</p><p>After a week of warm weather, the rain is back today. And probably tomorrow. So it's been wet all day.</p><p>We did the supermarket thing. We weren't going to do anything else because of the weather, but it didn't seem that bad, but we ran some errands for specific items and found none of those items. We did, however, find some things that we've been looking for in other places and failing to find thus far. So, not the worst trip ever.</p><p>We did get a bit wet though.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-91227498985895034892023-12-02T18:18:00.006+10:302023-12-02T18:18:56.885+10:30photo saturday: good healing boy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXhz1h4gIAOmCwQdTpwP041alWJ7LIEyj1bGTiYCgqDJGRdU8GxX0jdRh2sP8lSwGcaVUagwV9NJLqrHv9qWJEkc44E7A4ZiL1wg8Dn-J69OmWAjoj2j4yF1JowfwnrrPSSNejTiP9es9wleX9CH064-aRsww9qoefosu5YC1TzloyL8fvRMeH/s1024/dnd-Alby-Abeowan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="alby - warlock, orphan, healer" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXhz1h4gIAOmCwQdTpwP041alWJ7LIEyj1bGTiYCgqDJGRdU8GxX0jdRh2sP8lSwGcaVUagwV9NJLqrHv9qWJEkc44E7A4ZiL1wg8Dn-J69OmWAjoj2j4yF1JowfwnrrPSSNejTiP9es9wleX9CH064-aRsww9qoefosu5YC1TzloyL8fvRMeH/w400-h400/dnd-Alby-Abeowan.jpg" title="alby - warlock, orphan, healer" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is a revisit of a character I made and intended to play before the wheels fell off the Universe in 2020. Alby Abeowan came to be after I invented "The Potion Man" as the reason why Adventurer's League games gave everyone a free healing potion for every adventure. It started out as a dumb joke, but then Fluffy started using it, and then I came up with the idea of making The Potion Man a Warlock Patron, and Alby was born. He was probably also going to multiclass into Divine Soul Sorcerer at some point, because more spell slots and things.<br /></p><p>The fascinating thing, though, is to look back at <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/photo-saturday-boots-house-down.html">my original Photoshop-coloured version</a> of the art from 2020 and compare it with this version. Because it's like night and day. Especially given that the core of the outfit is exactly the same.</p><p>He is still on the list of Maybe One Day characters though. Even if I end up tweaking the origin story.</p><p>Because one day I will play a warlock with a pseudodragon familiar!</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>I tried the veggie slice recipe again this week... I don't think it works completely for me. So this week I'm going to break out my quiche recipe, go with something I know works even when I mess with it.</p><p>Tuesday I started building an ark, because the rain was ridiculous.</p><p>No Thursday Night DnD this week, which turned out to be good, because somebody also came down with the plague for the third time. So we dodged a bullet there.</p><p>Friday Night DnD was another "setting the scene/travel/roleplay episode"... and it's interesting, I wrote the smallest backstory for this character, but I got peppered with a bunch of questions about his past last night and somehow all the answers were just there. And some of it was stuff I hadn't even considered. I was just riffing. But clearly he just exists in my head. It's always a combination of weird and interesting when that happens.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>So... I noticed something today, which I maybe have subconsciously noted previously, but given that we've hit December, items at the supermarket that have previously been on special and are on special again... are more expensively on special, if that makes sense. Which might just be the couple of things I noticed today... but it wouldn't surprise me.</p><p>Also, Egg Nog appeared in the supermarket. Which means I bought some, and will drink it and then wonder why I bought it, but possibly buy it again before it goes away this Christmas and definitely again next Christmas. Because I like it... but it's honestly not that special LOL. But I get sucked in, every year.</p><p>I did resist all the wonderfully flavoured custards though. This week anyway.</p><p>Afterwards we ran a completely pointless errand. My favourite kind. And by pointless, I mean, we went to a place and came away with none of the things we went to the place for. Mostly because they didn't have any of them. Because fuck last stage capitalism.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-25492442329157354912023-11-25T16:12:00.007+10:302023-11-25T16:14:05.107+10:30photo saturday: my gnome boy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQqcP3xgZ5ZcigdRUQk2PYShpzHjOEK9ZV38nIhptm7KhPWEw6xCjfd_do81tXON284a8v2QQlbbjoGyCjzdQ3vohczfwQyNtTRp5rNpkVpVdfo5-Zfj8u8iYm2RkciM5CcO3gb2sa6xfXEvmXl8yBf7y8WdyzywbGdOsRp5ZQ3PSICCpg8YZ/s1750/dnd-Phases-Bo-Bafflestone.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="kipper aka bo - son, ranger, drakewarden" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1750" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQqcP3xgZ5ZcigdRUQk2PYShpzHjOEK9ZV38nIhptm7KhPWEw6xCjfd_do81tXON284a8v2QQlbbjoGyCjzdQ3vohczfwQyNtTRp5rNpkVpVdfo5-Zfj8u8iYm2RkciM5CcO3gb2sa6xfXEvmXl8yBf7y8WdyzywbGdOsRp5ZQ3PSICCpg8YZ/w400-h234/dnd-Phases-Bo-Bafflestone.jpg" title="kipper aka bo - son, ranger, drakewarden" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>Say hello to the character who has had possibly the most iterations created and yet zero hours played (by me anyway.... he's been an NPC though), Quillamina's son Bo (aka Kipper). I've also done <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2021/10/photo-saturday-three-stages-of-bo.html">the three stages</a> thing before. And then the earlier iteration of his <a href="https://yaniblog.blogspot.com/2022/07/photo-saturday-bafflestone-redux.html">potential final form</a>.</p><p>But I'd messed around giving his final form a new face, and then walked it back for the child version after being inspired by last week, when I said "the 3 NPCs who were all children of characters I've played (Pery, Quill and Nightingale)". That was going to be the original DnD Character Colouring Book this week... we might revisit that at a later stage.</p><p>But that, obviously, led to me realising that I didn't have the "My Dad died and my Mum is an ice-cube" emo phase. Technically, I don't think that stage completely last until he was 20... I can't remember how long Quill was frozen. But, he had a bit of a time, between losing a leg from the knee down, losing two fingers from his left hand, losing his dad, being brought back from the dead and then having his mum frozen by the Goddess of Winter... I think he's entitled to a few years being a little bit dark and not making eye contact with people.</p><p>And yes, he's still missing the leg in the final image, he just got a better prosthetic by then and can wear a boot as normal. I would have used the blade style prosthetic, just because that makes sense for someone who is trying to move at speed (potentially), but Hero Forge refuses to have the pants stop at the top of those so that it doesn't look completely ridiculous. I think I complained about this previously. But it's still true.</p><p>Anyway...</p><p>I tried a new recipe for this weeks dinners... and, as always, I kinda sorta followed the recipe, and it was... serviceable. I am intending to have another crack at it this week and see whether I can get a better version of this zucchini slice.</p><p>No Thursday Night DnD this week... which we knew about. Of course, the December curse reared it's ugly little head, and we can't play at our usual venue next week, plus nobody has said "oh, this" yet... so next week might also be off. If we actually get a game in this December, I will be slightly surprised.</p><p>Friday Night DnD was good... another one of those lore dump episodes... but, also, it's good when you're the only character who isn't full of secrets, and everyone else gets their dirty laundry aired. It's also fun playing a high Intelligence, low/average Wisdom character who doesn't really remember to filter what they're saying or asking and sometimes just accidentally hit on the crux of something just because they're running through all of the possible options in their head and, mostly, saying them all out loud.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>Fuck motor racing. And double fuck the need for the RAAF F-35A Lightning II fighter jet to basically try and break the sound barrier while flying past my apartment. And triple fuck the need for doing it again tomorrow.</p><p>Otherwise, today was fairly standard.</p><p>Supermarket. Back here for fucking about. Then running an errand where about half the things were currently unavailable. Fun times.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14585043.post-23507452723361801222023-11-18T12:17:00.008+10:302023-11-18T12:17:40.616+10:30photo saturday: mysterious lady<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjET7zRZAaSol9Ukew1V8iGoRuR6tJQjNEyMfr7T5JgtyNPcL6qYB4SbNZ3wLOXx4oA1Zwzwu97bz2c_z8QeOxku6y7WGUalBnw9RRcY834kBs5y_0UZ8umkmcRZs4mhT8Kdb6YD_Tp7JrIYZerpvx_elZmdavo8fkpXbMX8vnkWXE2ORUZ3FaI/s1024/dnd-Dusk-Owl.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="the dusk owl - antagonist, widowed, mob-boss" border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjET7zRZAaSol9Ukew1V8iGoRuR6tJQjNEyMfr7T5JgtyNPcL6qYB4SbNZ3wLOXx4oA1Zwzwu97bz2c_z8QeOxku6y7WGUalBnw9RRcY834kBs5y_0UZ8umkmcRZs4mhT8Kdb6YD_Tp7JrIYZerpvx_elZmdavo8fkpXbMX8vnkWXE2ORUZ3FaI/w400-h400/dnd-Dusk-Owl.jpg" title="the dusk owl - antagonist, widowed, mob-boss" width="400" /></a></div>
<p>This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is what happens when I make a headcanon of an NPC that we haven't met in DM Fluffy's game that is, basically, a Multiverse version of one of the existing PCs in the game.</p><p></p><p>And that also happened to coincide with Hero Forge dropping a new outfit that is pretty appropriate for the city the NPC is located in.</p><p>So we end up with The Dusk Owl.</p><p>And knowing now who she is very much takes my character from a "this person/organisation must die/be destroyed" to "well... let's not be hasty" in about eleventy seconds. </p><p>Should she probably be wearing red because of story reasons... yes. Do I
care? Not in the least. Also, what's the point of being the boss of an
organisation if you can't ignore the uniform.</p><p>I think I've said it before, but whoever is currently doing the 3d modelling for the new outfits in Hero Forge is absolutely killing it, and this is no exception. Bits of this, particularly the boots and gloves, will definitely show up on other characters going forward.</p><p>I'm still slightly salty about the new posing on the familiars. I like that there are more than one pose for most of them, but at the same time, the poses make literally NO sense. They're basically all turned away from the camera or looking in some weird direction. Urgh.<br /></p><p>Anyway.</p><p>This week was Tuna Mornay. Pretty good, the spice mix as a little off, but that always settles after a couple of days anyway.</p><p>There was no Thursday Night DnD this week because we were down two folks. Likewise next week.</p><p>Friday was... a lot.</p><p>So, today is the Norwood Christmas Pageant, the bane of my existence for the last... decade give or take. But it requires some juggling around of other things.</p><p>Which meant that Friday I went for my walk super early (which was nice), came back, got ready, went out to do my supermarket shopping, came back, unpacked, had breakfast, then went into town for my Chiro appointment.</p><p>After Chiro, I had to go back to the Doctor to follow up on the previous appointment and tests and whatever. So, that's gunna be a process for a minute. Urgh. But I'm putting wheels in motion, which is positive.</p><p>Then I came home, and went to the library for the second time this week.</p><p>And then we had Friday Night DnD.</p><p>Where we kicked a Fire Giant's ass... theorised about things... and basically fast travelled to the bring of the next location.</p><p>In other Friday night news, we've been talking about What Happens Next. As in, what the next campaign is. And Mr wants to run his first campaign for us. Not his first campaign ever, but he hasn't run one for us yet, so that's exciting.</p><p>But Fluffy and I had talked about that campaign at one point, so I already have a character idea reserved for that one.</p><p>After that, not only will we probably be in the 2024 5e DnD of it all, with whole new rules and subclasses and whatnot, but Fluffy wants to run an adventure where you essentially make three characters who are the Multiverse versions of each other.</p><p>And, as much as I love that idea... I have incredible, severe decision paralysis for that one. Or, rather, I have so many possible paths to go down, I cannot make any one decision.</p><p>Because this would be a great reason to use some of the characters I've already made that will never otherwise see the light of day. But I could also create three completely new characters. So, do I go down the 3 races I wouldn't otherwise get to play route (Plasmoid, Dhampir, Fairy) or the 3 subclasses I really want to play but haven't (Wild Magic Barbarian, Soulknife Rogue, Swarmkeeper Ranger)? Do I go with 3 characters who were my backups for other games? The 3 NPCs who were all children of characters I've played (Pery, Quill and Nightingale)? Do I lean into a subclass theme... Grave Cleric, Undead Warlock, Phantom Rogue? Do I pick a support class, a melee class and a magic class? Do I lean into the Planar nature of it all and create/repurpose characters who have a strong planar vibe?<br /></p><p>Arrrggghhh.</p><p>Too many fucking decisions. </p><p>And also, knowing that I won't need to make any of these decisions concrete for at least... a year and a half... makes it 1000 times worse. I know there will be like half a bazillion possible character trios between now and then. Then, even if I DO make a decision before the 2024 books officially drop, all bets are potentially off because, who knows what new subclasses I'll want to dive into. Also, mix and matching between the 2014 and 2024 rules is... a thing that's potentially going to happen.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>So, given that shopping happened yesterday and the parade was taking up space this morning, today was officially cancelled. In so much as Ma didn't come down and we just skipped this week entirely.</p><p>Which meant I got to do my own thing this morning. A rarity for a Saturday. Hence why this post is up just after noon.<br /></p>yanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12485651711046974936noreply@blogger.com0