Day 5 of 107: Two Wolves
Apr. 25th, 2023 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebeYesterday I started an audit of my saved passwords, which isn't the most exciting thing ever but needed to be done. I want to take the time and double-check the accounts I have online, figure out whether I really need them, and deactivate the ones I won't be using anymore.
It turns out that's easier said than done. There are so many accounts where deletion isn't even an option! I haven't quite decided what to do there; perhaps when I'm migrating the passwords from LastPass to 1Password I'll erase as much information as I can and let those accounts lie fallow. It feels illegal to me, but I'm not going to make it my personal mission to be removed from online-quiz-games.com or anything.
Migrating my passwords to a different manager is something I've been needing to do for a while now. LastPass has had two data breaches last year (I think?) and a number of my passwords -- especially the older ones -- have been flagged as vulnerable. I've updated when needed, but it's also clear that I should head to a different service that's a bit more secure.
Lunch was a Blue Apron meal; flank steaks with marinated tomatoes, sauteed green beans and a cheesy scallion biscuit. It turned out all right! The biscuits could have come out a minute earlier and the cast-iron skillet could have been a little hotter to get a nice char on the steaks. The green beans though? Turned out great. Nice and blistered, good texture, flavored with salt, pepper, and a bit of Worcestershire sauce added to the pan in the last minute.
The afternoon was something of a blur. Lunch took a bit longer than anticipated, and we watched another episode of Doctor Who: Flux while we ate. It was the penultimate episode, where the Doctor had been turned into a Weeping Angel and transported to the headquarters of the Division. Meanwhile, Yaz and Dan were stuck in 1904 putting pieces of the mystery together: who would try to take over the Earth in the future as a result of the Flux event, and when would they make their move?
We finished later that night after the first Witchlight game. I think I'll have to save my overall retrospective for another day, but after seeing the whole thing I...am not sure I could accurately relay the plot back to you. I know it left me appreciating the ambition of it, and overall I liked it a bit better than Moffatt's convoluted plotting. It feels like the pieces were set up well and with precise intention so that all the pieces come together for the Doctor to save the day. Like, if I were to read a plot synopsis or go over each character's part in the story one-by-one, it'd make sense. But something gets lost in the translation to the screen and you end up asking yourself why folks are where they are and who the fuck is that old man more often than you should.
It's difficult to make a story with that many moving pieces, and with that many complicated rules. Ultimately the battle between Time and Space didn't have the philosophical underpinnings to make it interesting, so the root of the conflict is understood but not *felt*. I just know that these dudes (Swarm and Azure?) have been enemies of the Doctor since before her memory wipe and they really enjoy playing with her. The stakes were constantly shifted back and forth, so that one episode's cliffhanger would be resolved by the doctor leaping back away from Swarm's death touch immediately in the next episode. It was exciting, but ultimately the story didn't have the weight it felt like it should have.
I worked on laundry and the Unlicensed Adventurers game in the afternoon. I'm using the Lazy DM's method to build each session, but I changed the way I'm working on the Character check. Instead of pointing out where the players are from session to session, I'm writing a blurb describing their character's place in their personal arc. Then, I'm adding a condition that would make progress along that arc as a marker for Inspiration; if the character does something that feels like a step back, then I'll subtly add a condition I've called Karma for lack of a better term. It means I'll raise the difficulty of one check by 5 or add an extra bit of lemon to their next critical failure. I think it'll be a fun mechanic as long as I make sure Karma is balanced as well as Inspiration.
After that, the first Witchlight game! I'm playing a Beasthide Shifter named Alexei who recently learned about a family's Shadow Magic birthright. The other characters are a Leonin, Dragonborn, Kitsune, and Tiefling Bard. It's a very furry party, and I'm not playing a complete furry!
The first session took a little while for the characters to loosen up, but once they did it was great fun. There was a carousel puzzle, a cupcake-eating contest that was surprisingly fun, and the first little hints of the larger story.
The module has a prologue of each character trying to sneak into the Witchlight Carnival as children. They're caught, of course, and lose random things as punishment. The Dragonborn lost several inches of height; I lost my sense of fashion; the Tiefling lost his sense of direction; the Kitsune's writing is now hopelessly illegible. Now, as adults, each of us received a free ticket into the Carnival from an anonymous benefactor. We learned that our missing traits were stolen by one of three hags associated with the Carnival, where each hag lived, and a random fact about her.
I get the feeling that everyone involved in the Carnival is there against their will, forced into service by these hags. After the carnival portion of the module has ended, all signs point to us fighting the hags and freeing the Carnival. It honestly sounds like a fun time.
Today, the plan is to exercise, write, read, learn SQL and French, and shave. I've fallen off a little bit with my skin care routine, so I'd like to get back to that today.
It turns out that's easier said than done. There are so many accounts where deletion isn't even an option! I haven't quite decided what to do there; perhaps when I'm migrating the passwords from LastPass to 1Password I'll erase as much information as I can and let those accounts lie fallow. It feels illegal to me, but I'm not going to make it my personal mission to be removed from online-quiz-games.com or anything.
Migrating my passwords to a different manager is something I've been needing to do for a while now. LastPass has had two data breaches last year (I think?) and a number of my passwords -- especially the older ones -- have been flagged as vulnerable. I've updated when needed, but it's also clear that I should head to a different service that's a bit more secure.
Lunch was a Blue Apron meal; flank steaks with marinated tomatoes, sauteed green beans and a cheesy scallion biscuit. It turned out all right! The biscuits could have come out a minute earlier and the cast-iron skillet could have been a little hotter to get a nice char on the steaks. The green beans though? Turned out great. Nice and blistered, good texture, flavored with salt, pepper, and a bit of Worcestershire sauce added to the pan in the last minute.
The afternoon was something of a blur. Lunch took a bit longer than anticipated, and we watched another episode of Doctor Who: Flux while we ate. It was the penultimate episode, where the Doctor had been turned into a Weeping Angel and transported to the headquarters of the Division. Meanwhile, Yaz and Dan were stuck in 1904 putting pieces of the mystery together: who would try to take over the Earth in the future as a result of the Flux event, and when would they make their move?
We finished later that night after the first Witchlight game. I think I'll have to save my overall retrospective for another day, but after seeing the whole thing I...am not sure I could accurately relay the plot back to you. I know it left me appreciating the ambition of it, and overall I liked it a bit better than Moffatt's convoluted plotting. It feels like the pieces were set up well and with precise intention so that all the pieces come together for the Doctor to save the day. Like, if I were to read a plot synopsis or go over each character's part in the story one-by-one, it'd make sense. But something gets lost in the translation to the screen and you end up asking yourself why folks are where they are and who the fuck is that old man more often than you should.
It's difficult to make a story with that many moving pieces, and with that many complicated rules. Ultimately the battle between Time and Space didn't have the philosophical underpinnings to make it interesting, so the root of the conflict is understood but not *felt*. I just know that these dudes (Swarm and Azure?) have been enemies of the Doctor since before her memory wipe and they really enjoy playing with her. The stakes were constantly shifted back and forth, so that one episode's cliffhanger would be resolved by the doctor leaping back away from Swarm's death touch immediately in the next episode. It was exciting, but ultimately the story didn't have the weight it felt like it should have.
I worked on laundry and the Unlicensed Adventurers game in the afternoon. I'm using the Lazy DM's method to build each session, but I changed the way I'm working on the Character check. Instead of pointing out where the players are from session to session, I'm writing a blurb describing their character's place in their personal arc. Then, I'm adding a condition that would make progress along that arc as a marker for Inspiration; if the character does something that feels like a step back, then I'll subtly add a condition I've called Karma for lack of a better term. It means I'll raise the difficulty of one check by 5 or add an extra bit of lemon to their next critical failure. I think it'll be a fun mechanic as long as I make sure Karma is balanced as well as Inspiration.
After that, the first Witchlight game! I'm playing a Beasthide Shifter named Alexei who recently learned about a family's Shadow Magic birthright. The other characters are a Leonin, Dragonborn, Kitsune, and Tiefling Bard. It's a very furry party, and I'm not playing a complete furry!
The first session took a little while for the characters to loosen up, but once they did it was great fun. There was a carousel puzzle, a cupcake-eating contest that was surprisingly fun, and the first little hints of the larger story.
The module has a prologue of each character trying to sneak into the Witchlight Carnival as children. They're caught, of course, and lose random things as punishment. The Dragonborn lost several inches of height; I lost my sense of fashion; the Tiefling lost his sense of direction; the Kitsune's writing is now hopelessly illegible. Now, as adults, each of us received a free ticket into the Carnival from an anonymous benefactor. We learned that our missing traits were stolen by one of three hags associated with the Carnival, where each hag lived, and a random fact about her.
I get the feeling that everyone involved in the Carnival is there against their will, forced into service by these hags. After the carnival portion of the module has ended, all signs point to us fighting the hags and freeing the Carnival. It honestly sounds like a fun time.
Today, the plan is to exercise, write, read, learn SQL and French, and shave. I've fallen off a little bit with my skin care routine, so I'd like to get back to that today.
