Writing Is Not An Alibi

Hello there! Just in case somebody were wondering whether I’d been kidnapped by aliens or something lately, here’s what I occupied myself today: stretching a pair of shoes with SCIENCE, and starting playing Skyrim again.

Some other news:
- my job obliterated my free time again during May, and I’m only catching my breath now
- I’ve been eating a probably unhealthy quantity of sushi lately and when me and The Guy come in, the sushi cook makes a worried face and goes fishing
- I want to keep baking on weekends but spring is actually kicking in now and it’s hot to play with the oven
- I still have recipes to post and I will post them
- I will let you know if I manage to stretch the stupid shoes because they’re awfully cute but they hurt like a dickens and even I’m not that hardcore
- I decided to take part in the Homestuck Shipping World Cup with Team Eridan/Feferi/Sollux! So yeah, I guess you could say I was actually kidnapped by aliens, only in a dorky and entertaining way.

Until soon!

savagedamsel:

nightwingdragoness:

ooh so i think i may have found a shoutout that doesn’t appear on the tvtropes page

hey there sollux

BEETH!

#attn tumblr user dasteroad

You called?

In other news

Yesterday I finally got around to seeing “the Hobbit” and now I’m having FEELINGS.

Like, I-want-to-reread-the-book-for-the-10th-time feelings.

Eeep.

parmesanfair said:

Faurel is still performing some plastic surgery on Karel’s cheekbones.

Faurel had his share of being bossed around as the youngest brother when he was a kid, let him have a fair vengeance now that he’s an adult AND he’s gotten that tall.

parmesanfair said:

The Matriarch looks like she’s made of pure evil with those eyes O_O Anyway, well done! I love the outfits and the motifs. What colour are Faurel’s eyes?

Faurel’s eyes are ruby red, like Karel’s and the Matriarch’s. Other siblings have purple eyes, taken from their father.

And yes, the Matriarch is all about serious business. Try and tell her “no mom I don’t want to eat the broccoli tonight”. Just try. See what happens.

The reference sheet for the Arvelsen bloodline (the part of it that’s actually plot relevant, that is) for “the Path of Blood” is finally done! Here’s a couple tidbits about their role.

Faurel: the other main point of view in the novel. Yes, he’s tall (but who’s really freakishly tall is actually Erthel that is more or less his same height). Faurel is the youngest of the Arvelsen bloodline, the noble family of Gifted in charge of keeping the World of Crimson at bay in the city and surrounding areas. He closed his Path of Blood -the mandatory training of all Gifted- around one year ago and he’s still learning the ropes of the trade and trying to find his way in life. When Erthel’s mother mysteriously disappears in a Crimson storm, Faurel is given the task of taking care of the investigations, as an obvious test of his skills and maturity in the eyes of the rest of the bloodline. Faurel has a total of 7 older siblings, most of which he hasn’t seen in a while since they have married elsewhere.
Karel: Faurel’s older brother and eldest sibling. They have over 15 years of difference in age, and yes, he’s kind of short (he takes after their father, who died of a stroke around 10 years ago). Karel is a powerful Gifted with a great experience in studying and working on the World of Crimson phenomena, and while he has a tendency to act condescending to Faurel, he genuinely wants to help him and trusts his qualities. He has two young daughters and his wife is expecting a third child at the time of the story; being the oldest living parent among his siblings, upon the Matriarch’s death he will become the Patriarch of the Arvelsen.
Ilyon: Faurel and Karel’s mother, Ilyon is the Matriarch, the oldest living parent in the Arvelsen bloodline. This makes her the highest figure of authority and the most powerful Gifted of the bloodline, in charge of the large scale defense systems and ultimately responsible of the safety of the people in the territory against the World of Crimson. She’s a very intelligent, experienced woman with a cold, stern demeanor, addressed both by the Commons and her offspring as “my lady”.

Here’s a refresher about the book in general if you need one.

New progress snapshot for the Arvelsen family character sheet from “the Path of Blood”, aka the Evil Novel. I really, really like how this is turning out, and I can’t wait to work on the Matriarch and her gorgeous robe. Designing outfits is usually a pain for me as I have a hard time imagining them realistically, but I’m having fun and enjoying the results, and this is what matters. I tried making the three of them stand out as high class, hence the use of deep, strong colours such as crimson and maroon, fancy embroidery and patterns, and Karel’s gadgets resembling jewels. It’s a stark contrast to the practical outfits and more dull colours in Erthel’s bourgeois family picture.

As my twitter homies already know, I made brownies yesterday, so it’s only fair to share the recipe (originally from here).

Brownies!

Ingredients for a 20x28 cm pan (8x11 in):

2 eggs
175 g butter (2/5 lbs)
200 g dark chocolate (1/2 lbs)
from 150 g (1/3 lbs) to 200 g (1/2 lbs) sugar *
100 g flour (1/4 lbs)
20 g unsweetened cocoa (1/25 lbs)
50 g nuts (1/10 lbs)
5 g yeast (1/100 lbs, or 3 teaspoons, more or less, but it depends on what kind of teaspoon you’re using? I dunno. These units are weird)

* NOTE ON THE SUGAR: this one depends on how sweet or bitter your variety of dark chocolate is. If it’s average dark chocolate, you’re probably fine with 150, while if it’s one of those extra pure bitter brands, starting with 200 is your best bet. If you’re unsure, start with 150 g and add sugar at the end if needed.

Stuff you need:

A big ceramic bowl fit for the oven.
The aforementioned 20x28 cm (or 8x11 in) cake pan, or I have no idea what you think you’re doing, really.
A baking blender can help.
Some non-stick oven paper can help.
A working oven can also help.

How to do the yummy:

This recipe begins with a scary step: we need to melt the chocolate. If you’ve read on baking, you’ll know why this is problematic. So if you’re like me, you’ll take the easy way out. In a big ceramic bowl, cut up the butter in chunks, then turn on the oven up to 100 °C (212 °F) and put the bowl in to melt the butter. While it heats up, cut up or grind the nuts, depending on how crunchy you want your brownies to feel, and break up the chocolate into chunks. From time to time check on the butter: once it looks like it’s almost all molten, add the chocolate chunks to the bowl.
In the meanwhile, in another bowl cream the eggs one at a time with the sugar and about half the required flour and cocoa. From time to time, check on the chocolate: we want it to melt but not to risk burning it.
Once the chocolate looks melted, take out the bowl and set the oven temperature to 180 °C (365 °F).
At this point it’s a good idea to pour the butter and chocolate mixture into a clean ceramic bowl (NOT the main one you’re preparing the batter in!), since the bowl from the oven is probably too hot at the moment and you need to be able to handle it.
The hot butter and chocolate probably look lumpy and clearly separated. Add a spoonful of flour and/or cocoa and stir gently with a spatula, then you’ll see the lumpy, oily mixture just magically HOLY SHIT, turn into a smooth cream like in the pic. Resist the urge to drink it because it’s probably too hot and oily and I don’t need you guys on my conscience.
Add the yeast to the remaining flour and cocoa, and bit by bit, stir in the powder ingredients and the molten chocolate with the batter, alternating between the two. The batter will gradually become dry and hard to work at this point, so a baking blender is probably a good idea.
It is NOT a good idea to add milk to the batter to make it more fluid. I’m not a baking scientist, but I’m told molten chocolate does funny things with water based fluids, so I wouldn’t risk it, unless you’re more experienced than me and you know better, in which case you’re free to laugh at my shit anytime.
It is instead a very good idea to taste the batter and check if it needs more sugar. Depending on the variety of dark chocolate you’re using, or depending on your tastes, you might need to add some sugar at this stage.
As a last thing, stir in the nut chunks.
Cover the inside of the pan with non-stick oven paper and spoon the batter in, carefully spreading it so it covers all the pan surface with more or less the same height everywhere.
Put the pan in the oven for 35 minutes. In this case, the toothpick test is more or less useless since the brownie cake is supposed to stay a little spongy and moist inside. You can use it anyway to judge if the surface is compact enough, but I don’t recommend leaving the brownie cake in the oven for more than 40 minutes as you risk overcooking, especially on the borders, and overcooked brownie cake has a tendency to become hard like old bread and just as pleasant to eat.
As usual, remember it’s a BAD IDEA to open the oven door before the required time has passed, since even if it uses just a little yeast, this is still a leavened cake, and leavened cake means, you guessed it, evil yeast gnomes eager to screw up your day.
Take the pan out of the oven and wait around 10 minutes before removing the cake, since when it’s hot the brownie cake is moist and breaks easily.
TURN OFF THE OVEN IN THE MEANWHILE YOU ENERGY-SQUANDERING DOPE.
Take the cake out of the pan, cut it into squares and EAT THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF THAT SHIT.

THE END.

Another WIP of the Arvelsen family character sheet. Inks and adjustments done (save for Faurel’s feet that really asdklajlskfjalkja I don’t even know, sorry), colour on tomorrow.

Here’s the current progress for the Arvelsen family character sheet for “the Path of Blood”, AKA the evil novel. I sharpened Karel’s sketch on the left and started inking Faurel and his mom. Also it occurred to me that it would be pretty fitting for the Matriarch to don a veil, similarly to Erthel’s mom, since the family and their culture in general makes a pretty big deal of mourning, so I added it.

Karel is shaping up to look like The Practical Guy Who Gets Shit Done, while Faurel is more along the lines of Confused Youngster Trying To Play It Cool And Failing Spectacularly, and the Matriarch instead looks Thoroughly Unimpressed By Your Bullshit Young Men - which is pretty much what they are, really. Hence, it’s awesome.

I’ll be making some adjustments to Faurel’s shoulders and the Matriarch’s tiara, which do not look quite right, and also thicken his eyebrows and add his beard-goatee thingy. Please disregard the alien blobs in place of Faurel’s feet, it’s apparently the only way I can draw them.

I have no idea what I did for the moka pot to hate me so, but it’s apparently hellbent to make my life miserable by spilling the coffee from the middle with horrible noises to boot. I’m scared.

(Also still mildly amused by how Instagram seems to think disabling “save as” options and sharing buttons would actually prevent me from saving my own pictures to my hard drive. Oh, Instagram, you’re so cute when you try.)