character saturday: sixty-ish percent of thirty percent

Am I going to get in some amount of trouble for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book? We'll see I guess. But also this is what happens when you're in a DnD group and people make their characters in Hero Forge and you think... well, you think that clearly they don't spend as much time in Hero Forge as you. Also that bad design hurts your eyes and your brain. And also, they're straight men, what do they know from fashion.

But also, you think, well, that's your character, you do your own thing, they look however you want them to look.

So then maybe you just get inspired to Fuck Around And Find Out what your own version of their characters might look like, for your own, you know, edification. And just purely as an experiment, because, you know, why not. And maybe that will be the way that you'll proceed to see said characters in your own head, because nobody lives there other than you (well, you and all the voices... hey guys) and you can have whatever head canon you like.

Also, yes... I like knee boots. What of it. I actually didn't completely realise they both had similar lengths of boots until after both of the models were done.

This is also why names have been changed to protect the innocent... or possibly the guilty. Or maybe me, or just because it's funny.

So we have Mr Grumpypants, a tiefling fighter with Some Definite Issues™ and a big old sword. Which has a name, because of course it does. But, issues. Because, I mean, a tiefling who makes it look like his broken horns are perpetually on fire. Yeah. That screams maybe Daddy Issues, maybe Dead Wife Issues, maybe Betrayed by Everyone He Trusted Issues. Maybe Impulse Control Issues. Who knows. We're filing that one under "Issues". And who is definitely a criminal, no matter what he tells you. Definitely a criminal. 100%.

And then we have Huntress, which is the first Gender Swap character for that particular player, so that's new and exciting. As is the "Sounds a bit French, is it German, could it just be getting late and the accent is sliding around" accent. But also, when it says that a wood elf has "copper skin", they don't mean that literally. Like the "copper dragonborn" skin tone in Hero Forge, which is also fucking terrible BTW. They mean, "medium brown skin tone with a very, very slight hint of a reddish caramel" that is "commonly found among those with Middle Eastern and South Asian heritage". But, you know, that's fine too. Is my version a little dark... maybe.

But when you combine these two with my Bird Boy... well, you've got the 30 Percenters. Which isn't so much an "In Universe" name as a "Meta Universe" name.

Yeah, I'm going to get in so much trouble.

Do I care? Not so much.

Anyway.

I have, several times this week, considered collecting two of every type of animal, possibly in some kind of ark like structure, you know, just in case. Because of all the rain. Of which there as been a considerable amount, but also like, quite heavy versions of same.

What I will say, is that I'm actually glad I'm no longer in the Portrush Road apartment with the occasionally and intermittently leaking roof. Because that would have sucked.

This week's soup was... Chicken and Barley... essentially. Although it was one of those soups where I changed the way I was slicing the vegetables up about halfway through... so most of it was kind of julienned, but the first few not so much.

It was overall decent though.

Thursday Night DnD actually happened and everyone was in attendance. Which is a rarity these last few weeks.

Friday Night DnD was good... well, our first real kind of exploration of a full on combat/dungeon. It went... interestingly. See also Tiefling With Issues. But it did end up being something of a late night, since we were deep in the combat and it made more sense to finish it than try and pick up mid-fight next week.

Anyway.

Today was first supermarketry... then we went to the movies and followed it up with some lunch on The Parade to celebrate Ma's birthday this week.

Also, note to self. Yes, you are correct that there is a reason that you're not a huge fan of the movie theatre on the Parade. Not the cinema itself, that's fine. But the fact that our visit coincided with a birthday party of about 15 preteen boys.... all jacked up on sugar on a Saturday morning. And going to the same movie as us. No bueno.

Afterwards lunch was good, then Ma toddled off home.

Oh, also, and for reasons I don't quite understand, the place where some of my blog images used to be is no longer there, the work around I tried for my "current moods" didn't work... so that's the end of that I guess. At some point I'll summon up the interest to actually modify the blog layout.

photo saturday: peacocking it

Some left over Wonderwalls content this week... so, behold, some weirdly angled flying peacock action. And if you've never seen a peacock flying, you're missing out. How much, I don't know exactly, but some at the very least.

Anyway.

This week's soup was kinda sorta minestrone. By which I mean that I start with the idea of minestrone and just stick whatever I happen to feel like/have bought that week. Mostly this week that was broccolini. But I also put some baby spinach in, which worked pretty well.

Thursday Night DnD actually happened. But it was only four of us plus DM Fluffy... which is, you know, always more chill, but something we can only do a limited number of times when there isn't actively plot happening. But there was some weirdness and some interesting moments.

Friday Night DnD was more fun. We also leveled up between last game and this one... and again after this game... but that's a feature, we level up pretty fast for the first few levels, then it tapers off. Also, the Big Tigger Energy continues. With a side order of Talking Too Much and Talking Too Fast.

Essentially I'm kind of exploring the idea of "what does a high intelligence, average/low wisdom and charisma character feel like?"... So he gets ideas and needs to run all the way to the end of the idea before he can put that idea to one side and pick up a new one.

What I've also noticed is that I end up leaning forward and kind of hunching as a way to get into the roleplay headspace... which is less good for my actual spine. So we might need to adjust that going forward. I think it's essentially part of the earnestness that he seems to have, but also, in-world, I feel like maybe it's because he's spent the last several years living and working with people a couple of feet shorter than himself, so he's used to crouching and leaning down to talk to people.

Also, the group vibe is just different from anything we've done before. We'll have to see how that pans out as we move forward.

Anyway.

Today was basically just the supermarket. We originally had other plans, but the vibe wasn't really there.

So we'll potentially do things next week.

Oh, and it turns out that the old blog mood images are very dead. Which is just great. So, let's try a whole other way of doing it that might just annoy the hell out of me.

Current mood:

character saturday: big tigger energy

So... I'm only slightly making Last Week Yani a liar... because while this is a DnD Character Colouring Book... this is only a slightly altered version of a character that has already appeared. And it's not so much a revisit as it is me having finished the character and finally debuted him at the Friday Night table this week.

And not much about him changed really, beyond the accessories and his character background.

But more on that in a bit.

Anyway...

The issue with essentially making up soup every week is that when it's really, really good... it's very hard to replicate, because I never make exactly the same soup ever again. Which is not a problem I had this week, but potentially a problem that Future Me is going to have when trying to replicate this week's Potato, Bacon and Leek soup.

Because it was pretty damn good.

Thursday Night DnD is... cursed. No game again this week because of reasons.

Friday Night DnD was actually DnD again. And the start of a new campaign, with Mrs in the DM chair again. It was also the debut of Hali. I've said before that sometimes I don't really, properly know who the hell a character is until I sit down at the table and open my mouth and they come roaring out.

Hali was one of those. It was also "helped" by the fact that I sat out for the first part of the game while the others finished up some last minute Session Zero stuff... and while I couldn't hear most of what went on (predominantly through the ongoing conversation with a cat), I did hear Fluffy using the accent I'd been toying around with... so that went out the window and I had no idea what I was going to do for a voice or anything. And then I sat down at the table, opened my mouth and basically Big Tigger Energy came tumbling out. Not quite as much of the slight himbo vibe of Tigger, but definitely the bounce. Very... this...

He is cheerful, outgoing, competitive in a friendly way, and has complete confidence in himself.

He has the bounce. And there's a little bit of darkness there too, which is fun. Fluffy is the one who called out the Tigger connecting which is good, because now I have a go-to for getting to his personality and a benchmark to aim for.

The group dynamic seems interesting. And Mr is playing his first female character which was a surprise, given I kind of expected it to be a little bit of a Sausage Fest.

Of course, I couldn't roll for SHIT last night. I think the dice were sulking because they're the ones I bought for myself for Christmas and they've been sitting in my fancy dice container since then. So I think my first... three rolls were all under 10 and three fairly important rolls later were also sub 10. Doesn't bode well really.

It's also fun that I'm the weirdest race in the group... or, you know, I'm just the only non Players Handbook race.

So we'll see what happens I guess.

Anyway.

Today wasn't especially exciting... the usual supermarketry and that was it really.

Brief sidebar... I don't know if the place that hosts my mood images is completely dead or just currently down. And, honestly, the idea of going back through 4000+ posts and fixing them is too much to consider right now, so if they stay down I might have to upload them to Google, but if they're gone in old posts, they might just have to stay gone.

Current mood:

character saturday: lord shadow

So, first off... I really want to play a Shadow Sorcerer at some stage. But this was more a tone poem for DnD Character Colouring Book while playing with particular outfits in Hero Forge.

But I like the combination of the outfit in black and grey and the magic in blue and purple.

Beyond that, as I said, it's mostly a thought experiment.

Secondly, this might be the last Colouring Book entry for a hot minute. At least until Hero Forge releases the Face Customiser and I loose my tiny mind redoing everyone's faces. Of course, I also reserve the right to go back on that idea if they release something cool I want to do a character for.

Anyway...

I had a red hot go at Lasagne Soup again this week. I did try it once before, last year I think, and it was a success. Although this time I kind of made it up as I went and didn't follow a specific recipe. So, mostly it was kind of just pasta sauce with broken up lasagne noodles. Tasty as hell though.

We'll file the rest of this week under "Flat".

Thursday Night DnD and Friday Night Probably Not DnD were both cancelled.

But Friday was also Chiro Day... so I did my monthly trek into town and the associated Wandering Around Looking At Things that comes afterwards.

Anyway...

Today was basically just the supermarket because the weather decided that we needed All The Rain this morning.

Oh, and brief rant. Remember how a couple of weeks ago I lost the ticket for the car park and had to pay for a replacement. Just to add insult to injury, last week, as I approached the barrier it just raised up on it's own before I scanned the ticket, which it does from time to time. And then today it also just opened on it's own. Which I just call rude. You couldn't have done the day I lost my ticket?

Granted it was too late by that point. And would I have been even more annoyed if I'd paid for a replacement ticket, gotten up to the gate and it had just opened, yes. But it's the principle of the thing.

Anyway...

Current mood:

character saturday: decopunk valet

Is this week's DnD Character Colouring Book pure fantasy? Is it Steampunk? Is it Decopunk? Is it Rococopunk? Is it all of those things and also slightly none of them? Is it a ceramic Warforged who is decorated in some form of blue and white china patterning? Do I imagine that the face would look like actual pottery painting that I couldn't find a way to appropriately replicate? The answer to all of these things is possibly yes.

But here we have Six. Thus called because they are marked somewhere on their body as either 1/6 or 6/6, as in either the first or the sixth from a set of six. I haven't really decided yet. And I'm also not sure if they're actually a limited edition piece, or something weird happened and their ceramic body was actually repurposed/reformed from limited edition tea service set. Likewise, I think if I followed this idea all the way to the end, the markings would be different across the body. Maybe filling out more of a limb or being more delicate or something. I don't know.

I also kind of dig the idea that they only have a face when they need one. When they're in combat for example, the face goes completely blank. And afterwards the markings on the side of the head swim across the face (a little like Rorschach from Watchmen) and create a simple face.

However, I feel like he's a much more High Magic kind of character. As in, from a time when magic was basically modern science. And he was somebody's personal valet and bodyguard. Like, he could prepare and serve you high tea and also murder a whole room full of people if necessary.

And I like that.

Anyway.

This week's soup of choice was Boring Vegetable Soup. It wasn't great, it wasn't terrible, it was just boring. But it was also filling, so I'm not really going to complain.

Thursday Night DnD was... [insert travelling montage]. Which is never the most exciting of sessions, but I also don't hate them.

Friday Night Not DnD was the last of the HeroQuest adventures for now. And we won. Which, really, surprised nobody. Given that we've been mostly walking through the adventures. Not to say that they weren't enjoyable or interesting, but I'm not sure we've been overly challenged by any of them since maybe the first couple. We also totally geared ourselves up and did all the "correct" things in order to kick the ass of every single adventure.

Team KillBox for the win!

Whether or not we actually start the new DnD campaign next week depends on the DM, but if not, we'll just pick something from the extensive selection of board games.

Anyway.

Not really much excitement today... basically just the supermarket run.

Current mood:

character saturday: reprise boys

A little reprise for our return to DnD Character Colouring Book... 

This is Macabe's third appearance, and as much as I liked the high collared previous version, that didn't come sleeveless as standard, but I like this version of the tattoos more. Would I still like a high necked undershirt under the armour? Yes, yes I would. But I'll live with this version for now.

Likewise this is Fenris's third showing, although the outfit mostly remained the same. This new version is the vest, gloves and boots from a new set... and an older set of pants.

Also, it's very weird going back and looking at the self colouring versions I was so very proud of at the time and thinking "well, that looks like absolute trash".

Anyway...

This week's soup was a not too bad chowDAH... although there ended up being a lot of it.

Oh, and for the first time since I bought them, I had to finally charge my Bluetooth headphones this week. Which is fairly impressive, even if I'm not using them all the time.

This week's Thursday night DnD... actually happened, so that's unusual. We're still in the early stages of Getting The Plot Happening, but it's good overall.

Friday night Not DnD also happened. We're nearly at the end of this little between campaign diversion, and it's been fun, if, you know, a little overly simple once we all tricked ourselves out with weapons that can do damage diagonally and every possible piece of armour we could get our hands on.

Anyway...

Today was basically just the supermarket, followed by a brief to Haighs afterwards.

Current mood:

character saturday: artificial paladin

So... I have a complicated relationship with AI generated art. I understand why artists find it problematic, and I agree with them. For further reading on the subject (based on a quick Google search)...

• AI Art and the Ethical Concerns of Artists 
• AI-Generated Art Controversy: The Future of Creativity or a Replacement for Human Talent?
• The Ethical Pros and Cons of AI Art Generation
• Why some artists see AI-generated art as a threat to their livelihood
• ‘It’s the opposite of art’: why illustrators are furious about AI

It very often makes nightmare images where people don't have the correct amount of fingers or have extra hands in places hands shouldn't be, or very much likes to, you know, blend things in weird ways or otherwise make you go... "no... none of that... kill it with fire".

It is also capable of making beautiful images. But it's hard to make a very specific, very detailed, very exact image right now. The generic idea of something, yes. A very specific, "I want exactly these elements, arranged in exactly this way" detailed in a "just so" way, then you go see an actual artist and commission something.

But, of course, I was going to try my favourite loveable lying little shit... my halfling paladin/rogue, Peregrin. Is it perfect? No, of course not. The armour is completely all over the place, the hair is entirely too blonde, it refused to give me an eyebrow piercing, the eyes are the wrong colour and I think the face should kind of be about half-way between these two options.

It's what happens when you ask for "art nouveau" on the left and "photo realistic" on the right... and when you use "jewel tones" as a descriptor. Also, there's a healthy portion of Magic The Gathering art in the DNA of the left image.

Do I like them? Absolutely.

Anyway...

A short run down for this week.

Speaking of halflings, Halfling Tomato Soup continues to be the best tomato soup recipe ever.

As of Tuesday, we can reset the "Yani Fall Down Go Boom" counter at 0. It's been a hot minute, but there we are.

I tripped over one of the many, many uneven paving stones on my morning walk and went down like the proverbial bag of potatoes. Mostly I was fine, although I skinned my knee quite spectacularly based on sliding across the rough pavers. So yay for that. Weirdly I didn't end up with the giant bruises I thought I would on the heel of my hands, so that's a plus. And I didn't break my fancy new headphones when they came flying off my head either.

 I then spent a large chunk of Tuesday's public holiday making a lot of very small jars of apple and plum (plus tomato, obviously) relish. It came out pretty good honestly. The issue now is distribution.

Otherwise, no Thursday Night DnD because of headaches and coughs and such.

Likewise, no Friday Night Not DnD because of head colds.

Pfft.

Anyway.

Today was basically just the supermarket. With the added bonus that I discovered that if you lose your ticket for the parking garage, it costs $25 to get your car out. Where did the ticket go? I hear you ask... If I knew that, I would not have needed to pay $25 to get a lost ticket ticket.

However, if I just happen to find it randomly in the next week I will be very unhappy.

And that's about it really.

Current mood:

photo saturday: complementary colours

Did we see Sofles lovely purple and yellow art already? Yes. Is it lovely enough that we can revisit it for some close up detail shots? Also yes.

Anyway...

I got a little philosophical about soup in my Insta post for this week's take on Halfling Everything Soup...

• Step 1. Make soup according to recipe
• Step 2. Modify recipe slightly to fit your tastes 
• Step 3. Make soup based on your vague memory of the recipe

Which is more or less what I did this week. I bought the ingredients as specified, more or less, but then didn't look at the recipe once. Because, honestly, it's "Everything Soup", so I can put whatever I want in it... and the recipe was always slightly tedious.

And, I stand by that for soup in general.

Otherwise, not much of note this week...

I rage-quit the book I was reading, so had to go to the library on Thursday. I'm currently two books away from reading more books in a year than I've read since I started tracking them on Goodreads. And it's only April. Libraries, man, they're the best.

There was no Thursday Night DnD. And no Friday Night Not DnD. But we're doing Friday Night Not DnD tonight, because of... reasons. I think Mr and Mrs had a thing, I don't honestly remember. It did make the whole week slightly weird tho. No anything on Thursday or Friday. But Friday was also Chiro Day. And I didn't make bread on Thursday but on Friday night instead. And today is Saturday but also Friday Night Not DnD Day.

Yeah. It's all very weird.

Anyway.

Today wasn't much of anything... or at least, not yet anyway.

Basically, just the supermarket and then that's your lot... at least until I need to do things before going out later. So there's that.

Current mood:

photo saturday: brewery art

Some big old brewery vats as this week's photos with various artist's work.

Anyway...

It's been a while since I made pea and ham soup... but the one I made this week was really quite good. I don't know whether it was the mint I added or the ricotta I used in place of cream... or the fact that I bought new mushroom based stock. Yeah, it sounded weird to me too... but it definitely added to the flavour.

In other news, Ma is vastly improved over last week... or as vastly improved as you get while still using a walking stick... but honestly, she probably should have been using a stick for a while, so if there's any positive that came out of last week, it's that she went from "I don't like sticks" to "Gimme that blue stick" without much of a fuss.

So that's a plus.

In other pointless news...

Thursday night DnD was good... although, let me just say, DnD adventure writers, stop putting "chase/races" in your adventures, when you hamstring the classes that can move faster than everyone else. That is not a "chase/race"... and it's irritating. Or better yet, don't call it a "chase/race". Because it's not. And it works both ways, when you do let people go the speed they're supposed to, the "chase" finishes after about a round. 

So, just stop doing it. It's dumb and it doesn't work within the rules.

I did get a fancy magic thing though, so that's nice.

Friday night Not DnD was also good... less challenging than the session a couple of weeks ago, but still enjoyable.

Anyway...

Today was basically the supermarket followed by a trip to Haighs for post-Easter broken egg... so nothing exciting, but I do now have Haighs in my fridge, so, yay.

Current mood:

photo saturday: port roker

We all love a good Pawn Roker...

There are still a few Wonderwalls images, but these were just general Port Adelaide images that I really liked, and that seemed to match, at least a little. It was also kind of amazing how quickly they packed all the stuff away when the pawn broker closed for the day. I didn't think that we were gone all that long, but suddenly the footpath was completely clear.

Back to actual street art next week.

Anyway...

Some minestrone soup this week... pretty good actually... lots of bacon, some Chinese cabbage that just kind of bulked it out a bit but didn't really affect the taste or the texture... and some bonus stock powder that really boosted the taste.

In other news...

It's been a rough week. I'm not going into details, I just want to mark this as a line in the sand. For future reasons. Ma wasn't well this week... and that just stresses me the fuck out because of reasons. I mean, she's feeling better, but still, it stresses me out.

Otherwise, not a lot of anything this week... no Thursday DnD, no Friday DnD... 

There has been some Horizon Forbidden West though.

Anyway...

Today was... see earlier comment about stress. But overall, perfectly fine. Just, you know, residual stress. We did the supermarket... we ran some errands... it wasn't much of anything.

So, yeah. That was this week.

Current mood: