Into the Maelstrom

1.
I'm far enough from the coast that the blizzard spinning up to hit the Northeastern USA tomorrow/monday is ~only~ going to be a major storm, but still, man. Forecast of another foot of snow when not all the snow from the last big storm has been cleared? And this time wet snow and wind? It isn't going to be fun! I don't expect a power outage but it sure is a possibility, and I expect work to be cancelled on Monday because of this. (I wistfully hope for Tuesday as well but it doesn't seem likely in this industry; so long as the roads are clear-ish and the parking lot and site are plowed enough to get in, it'll be open.)


2.
Went to the other local dojo (not mine, but our cousin dojo; they're about the same distance from where I live now, but that was not always the case) this past Thursday out of "I have Energy right now and also god I miss people and the practice." Absolutely delighted all of them by showing up, and when I was like "yeah Thursday evening fits my schedule better right now" they were all "soooo you're gonna keep coming then?"

And, well, yeah. I will! I like those people! Also I'm going to be taking nidan in a few months and I should be taking class once a week at least in the lead-up to that, just to keep the practice in my body even if it isn't practice dedicated to that test. The sensei there will kindly give me some opportunities to practice with an eye towards the test, especially since his own yudansha like training with me, but it isn't something he needs to do. Neither is the yundansha offering to stick around after class to do specific training with me; that's out of the kindness of their hearts and friendship, and it is truly lovely.


3.
Sometimes I think about what "being good at X" means to me and then sigh about how yeah okay I am generally comparing myself to people who I personally perceive as being "good at X", which tends to mean "better than I am", which means that it is going to be a skewed perspective.

This brought to you by thoughts about cooking. xD.

Thought A: going "...wait if you're asking about salt because you normally salt your rice, please eat some before you do because I salt the rice water (a thing I hadn't realised you don't remember to do)" at a friend last night.

Thought B: ...yeah okay the ability to eyeball pancake ingredients and their ratios and make proper pancakes without needing to keep adding more wet/dry ingredients is a learned skill and speaks to Knowing Things About Cooking. (didn't add enough leavening agent but also I do not actually care if I eat flat pancakes xD they don't need to be fluffy so long as they're Good Flavor.)

Thought C: my belief that if I cook something I will like the thing I cooked even if I was going "idk this is probably a good combination of flavors/stuff" rather than following a recipe, and that the main thing keeping me from being better at cooking is "having more kitchen gadgets" and "bothering to look up recipes to follow instructions" and not "an inability to pull that off", is not a mindset that a lot of people have? I think? Which seems odd to me but I do just Like Cooking, even if it isn't a Major Hobby the way it is for some folk I know.


4.
I spent like all of Tuesday dead of migraine and didn't feel human until maaaaybe Wednesday evening but realistically Thursday morning when I woke up and was like "oh wow I was Out Of It". I am dearly hoping that this nor'easter blizzard isn't going to lead to something similar, but, well. It's the sort of thing that likely will anyway.


5.
Relatedly, I have not written much this past week because of brain being melty and also Doing Things With People. Weird.

But people are good, and I like hanging out with them once I get myself to actually Do That. Initiation/activation energy is the harder part than socialising, and I usually remember this consciously but that doesn't make it easier to apply that knowledge consistently.


6.
hafnia started running the short-form airship heist Eberron campaign I've been hyped about for like six months. xD Finally got to play my Warforged Cleric last weekend! And started getting a sense of the Eberron as it's interpreted for this campaign world, which also means starting to have feelings about what I want to do for the long-form campaign that'll happen after. (Half-Elf, wings, Mark of Detection. Normal stuff! Probably a soulknife rogue or a circle of the moon druid, possibly a bard of some sort; depends on LORE and also if I can bear to part from skillmonkey nonsense.)

The Warforged Cleric is a fun character, though, and it's always a joy to start playing a character and see them start turning into a Person rather than a Vague Concept. I hear that some people can plan things more? But nah, I write a sketch of backstory and a few prominent character traits and the rest can develop through play and interaction.

Conduit (it/its) is a Cleric who, like pretty much all Warforged, served in the Last War. Since the war ended, it and its squadmates have been building a Warforged enclave/outpost in the lower reaches of Sharn, and have recently been going "wait fuck there are organics who want to live here too because we've made a safe place" and realising that this requires More Money than they have. So Conduit, as one of the community leaders and someone oriented towards healing/caretaking anyway, is very willing to take a moderately sketchy job stealing an airship when it's offered.

This surely will not have Consequences!

The next session (for my group; this is being run for a few different sets of players) is tomorrow, in a feat of "wow everyone has two weeks in a row free?" that is rarely managed xD The Consequences will begin coming to roost then, I'm sure, and force all of the PCs (who have no particular attachment to each other) to interact more and give a shit about something other than the coin and their personal lives.


7.
In utterly unrelated fannish things, I am excited for the Witch Hat Atelier anime! It has a full trailer and an air-date now! It is making me want to reread the manga, especially since I think I'd have an even better time with it going in with expectations of "slow-burn story about insular mage cults" rather than "cute slice-of-life mentorship story". (It is both of these things. I like both of these things. Only hearing about the latter when the former begins taking a greater share of the plot is a very ??? thing to experience when one binge-reads manga.)

anyway here's the trailer!