Reading

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art,
photos

Pen and Ink

TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen and Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Fountain Pen Ink

TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen
Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Fountain Pen Ink

It might not be a good thing that I’m signed up for JetPens emails, as I can be easily tempted. Sure enough, their weekly newsletter waved an addition to their stock of TWSBI Diamond 580ALR Fountain Pens before me, and I had to go look. Up until then, I wasn’t familiar with TWSBI pens.

JetPens is a wealth of information, and of course there’s a feature: Which TWSBI Fountain Pen Should I Buy? I read the entire article. While the Diamond 580ALR pens come is all sorts of wonderful colors, I shied away from the texture on their aluminum grips. So I looked into the TWSBI Diamond 580AL model, which has a smooth aluminum grip. (Actually, it’s very faintly textured, which is what I preferred.) The drawback is that it comes in only two colors – Silver and Iceberg Blue. I decided to get the blue one.

Ink was a no-brainer. I got a nice, large (50ml) bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Ink. The price was pretty good, too.

I placed the order last Wednesday, and the kit arrived in the mail on Saturday. Unfortunately, I am packing up my office and workspace, so there’s no way I have the time nor place to play with the new items. Playtime will have to wait until October.

Current Mood: accomplished

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(no subject)

Friday was my last working day. I was able to schedule a therapy session for this afternoon (because no work!) and I feel good after it. I usually want to snack on something after therapy because being vulnerable expends energy or something, idk. I had cinnamon biscuits on hand, they were nice. I talked about how I'd felt shitty after finishing Project Fang, and I've slowly come to realise why. It's because my writing is not how it used to be. The quality of prose in my debut novel is not the quality of prose I can achieve now, because the debut novel was written before the bookstore debacle and subsequent cognitive changes in myself. But as I talked to my therapist I also slowly realised that I want to write self-indulgently and prioritise pleasure, rather than artistic achievement. It helps that the readership I'm writing for has mostly similar priorities. So it's okay that I'm not the writer I used to be. I'm still improving and will get back up there eventually.

My workplace added my replacement to the work WhatsApp group and welcomed her. They'd forgotten to remove me from the group. So they removed me after adding her instead of before, lol. They also deleted my work email over the weekend. Both these things felt sudden to me. I emailed them from my regular email asking them if I could have access to my work email to save some things I'd worked on to my portfolio. If they say no, then perhaps that's a sign I'm not meant to return to this line of work lol. They've been nice to me though. They might say yes.

In writing news, I've opened ARC signups for Bloodhunt Academy. Its working title was Project Fang, so that's how I've been referring to it, but now it's got its final title. It's all feeling so real! Especially as I have the final cover. I'll do a cover reveal on Instagram soon but I'm revealing it here first because I love it here. Look! SO pretty isn't it!
( Cover reveal! )

Every time our vampire heroine menstruates, she has to drink the blood of men to replenish herself. Things are complicated by Society Frowning Upon This. Things are further complicated when she falls in love with a human girl who rebels against their dystopian regime. Things are even further complicated when she falls in love with a boy who has been trained all his life to become a vampire hunter.

If this sounds like something you or someone you know would enjoy, but don't want to support Amazon (the book will be KU-exclusive after release because this is apparently my livelihood now), you can bypass Amazon by getting an advance reader copy before its release. Here's the ARC signup form: Link! No worries if this is not your thing! I would be delighted if it's someone else's thing and you point them to it.

Here's the complete blurb, for the curious:
( Read more... )

I'm so nervous about doing the steps in the process of launching this book. I have to start recruiting ARC readers from Instagram and Threads and goddess knows where else. I have a simple website in the works and I need to figure out my author newsletter and... AAAAAH I'm doing just the basics for my pen name launch but it feels like a LOT. I'm glad I'm posting the cover reveal and ARC signup form and everything here first because everything just feels less scary on Dreamwidth, lol.

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Library Update #7: Stuff and More Stuff

Photography Studio Equipment Awaiting Teardown
August 29, 2025
Nikon Z6 • NIKKOR Z MC 50mm f/2.8
f/4 @ 50mm • 1/60s • ISO 1600

Fighting despair while sorting, packing and moving... I’m failing at emptying the big room by the end of the month. There are so many little tasks that pop up, forcing reorganization while packing. While some things are bound for trash/giveaway, there is still way too much stuff that must be moved and stored, and I don’t know where it will go.

While in the garage, I saw that I have 12 more boxes of books (mostly SF but also old classics and tech books). There is no way 70 boxes of books will fit into the new bookwall, and there will be a Grand Culling when the books are shelved. There will also be a fair amount of double-stacking on the shelves, I’m sure.

In the garage I also found several reams of specialty paper. (I had wondered where the Conqueror Lightspeck (sky blue color) went to.) I don’t think all the paper will fit into the storage cabinet currently slated to hold those items.

I also have to take down all my photography studio equipment – tripods, cameras, lights and light stands – and find some place to store the gear temporarily. There is a surprising amount. I’m tagging heads to match their legs, as I doubt I’d remember which head goes on which light stand. (They’re all different.) It will be nice at the end for all the equipment to be stored in one place, as historically they’ve been scattered and stashed in various locations around the house – wherever I could find space.

My packing and moving is currently complicated by scheduled volunteer work for my church, currently in progress, and that work continues through Saturday. This weekend, I’m making a concerted push to vacate the big room, including moving my office into my bedroom. The project remains daunting.

Current Mood: excited

(no subject)

Re: bookish things. There's a sale of indie books happening: Narratess Indie August Sale. A lot of $0.99 books with a few free ones and $1.99 books thrown in. I picked up a dozen books because there were quite a few cozy & queer books among them. I've started tracking my reading on Pagebound, it's an anti-AI alternative to Goodreads and it's really cute. I love the colours. I kind of wish I'd tracked my reading before, but it makes more sense to do so now than ever before, because I actually have a goal: to 'progress' in my enjoyment for reading, cognitively and emotionally. Maybe it won't feel like it used to, but I know I've improved a lot until now, so I'd like to keep more detailed track of how I improve from here on. It'll be useful to see which books help me do that.

Re: life/work. Several client projects have wrapped up, so my workplace shortened my notice period to the end of this month. I won't have to drag it on until mid-September, yay! This is my last week at work here. I can't wait to move on.

Re: fandom. CIX are having a comeback in September! It's my first CIX comeback so I'm very excited, especially after seeing the teaser pictures. The members all opened individual instagram accounts, which makes instagram a better place lol. Yonghee's VERY SECOND POST on instagram basically brought me salvation: tumblr link so that you don't have to visit a meta site. ISN'T THAT THE MOST BEAUTY YOU'VE EVER SEEN?

So, yeah, I'm on tumblr now, with the username consciousferality (because I'm hungry to partake in CIX fandom somehow). Unfortunately most CIX fandom seems to be happening on twitter, which I am only dipping into now and then because I remember the last time I was on stan twitter. It was Bad for my Mental Health. On the other hand, fangirling over k-pop is Great for my Mental Health, so ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

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Alien: Earth, Ep 1 - Climate Report Card

I enjoyed episode 1 of Alien: Earth. It seems a pretty good show, but for this post I'm just going to evaluate its performance on addressing climate breakdown. I've only seen this ep. once and wasn't taking notes, so feel free to chime in with what I missed.

Baseline: the show is set in 2120, about 100 years from now, i.e. in the middle of dealing with either a) voluntary radical change in how civilization lives on the Earth and/or b) involuntary climate breakdown, with much of the Earth being uninhabitable. How is the show doing with that reality?

* Handicap point: It's trying to maintain continuity with Alien's timeline, which is from the 1970s. (+1)

* Massive technological advancement with no sign of climate impacts on industrial infrastructure, etc.: -1

* Paradisal, verdant island forested with mature trees many of which are probably over 100 and no signs of climate damage or commentary (that I caught) on how this can be: -1

* Community that looks like it has adjusted to significant sea-level rise: +1

* Metropolis with flawless skyscrapers, greenery and no sign of climate damage or slowdown in materials extraction. (To match physical reality, it must have one or the other.): -1

* Massive department stores with many aisles of clothing and splashy ads suggesting that marketing-driven, fast-fashion culture has persisted unchanged for over 100 years without resulting in biophysical ruin for much of the Earth. -3 (This is projection grotesquely out of step with all realistic projections.)

TOTAL: -4

For research I'm drawing on, see the first two sections especially of this bibliography.

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books

Humble Bundle - Murderbot and More

Humble Bundle is offering a Murderbot and More Bundle, which includes all seven Murderbot books, two Murderbot stories, and five other books by Martha Wells. A minimum payment of $18 gets all 14 items. $10 gets three items. $1 gets All Systems Red, the first Murderbot book.

Humble Bundle - Martha Wells Books

I own all seven of the Murderbot novels – as well as Witch King – in hardback. But I like to have electronic versions of books for when I’m on the road. I don’t mind paying a little for the ePub copies for my iPad. Plus a portion of the payment goes to World Central Kitchen. As usual, I gave more than a minimal amount and allocated $10 to World Central Kitchen. For now, I’m at the top of the Leaderboard.

The bundle ends in a shade under three weeks.

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Space Opera

Yesterday, after something of a short binge watch, I finished season one of Foundation on Apple TV+ – and continued until I finished episode 3 of season two. I’ve definitely been watching a lot more than I had planned. I have something of a schedule problem, though, as last week was filled with activities, and I’ve made little progress on vacating the warehouse room I live in – and I need to be done by the end of the month. So I think for now, I’d better set Foundation aside – or at the very least, limit viewing again to partial episodes at bedtime.

At any rate, I think Foundation is a fine space opera – better than the books, actually. The production values are impressive, and the characters are engaging. I don’t mind at all that the series has strayed quite a ways from the books – but the books are fairly average space opera. Warping and embellishing is totally suitable for space opera.

I’ll bet an Apple TV+ series for Doc Smith’s Lensman series would be great fun to watch. I mean, the Lensman books are anything but high art – they are the quintessential pulpy space opera – cheesy but fun. I wouldn’t mind a TV series for Eric Frank Russell’s Men, Martians, and Machines, either.

Nearly all my old SF books are in boxes in the garage – and have been for a couple of decades – and I’m motivated to re-read them once the new library is in place. I’m guessing I’ll have a nostalgic time come 2026.

Also: This week Apple Increased the Monthly Cost for Apple TV+, going from $10/month to $13/month. According to the article, I should get one more renewal at $10 and then see the new price one month after that. So the plan is to do the $10 renewal mid September and finish all three seasons of Foundation before canceling. I don’t want to commit to a year subscription ($99) nor do I want to pay $13/mo. Also, the Apple One bundles are a big fail for me. I guess I’m not Apple’s target audience.

Entry tags:

personal

went on a vacay

We decided to go to Otakuthon, which was in Montreal~

It was a lot of fun, and much better laid out than getting squished like sardines at FanExpo.

We saw Cirque du Soleil, ate crepes, visited a waterpark, and almost got cooked out in the sun.

One negative is that almost all the most interesting panels were only in french 😔

Originally we were going to take a train, but then train prices went up, and so we ended up driving. I think I liked wandering around using the Metro, just bip and bop around town.

I filled out quite a few squares in my bingo too.

I was going to upload pics here from tumbles but I got lazy, anyway they're hosted there so link, of things I bought. I don't think I regret anything, except maybe the singular noah and mio, because I found the flute one afterward and it was very cute. It also had a lot more variety but still not extreme. A lot of LADS(surprisingly), and Hoyoverse. Barely saw any Metaphor, but I did find a Basilio charm so that made me happy. I guess people need to balance what will sell, but still would have been nice to see more things.

I saw no owasera, I skipped the sword place though, b/c I don't need that. I did see a Yuu in the art alley one day, my sis saw a Krul, and we saw a Mikaela across the subway while leaving on the last day.

www.tumblr.com/redasherah/792373143189815296/convention-haul

Ahem between buying everything and paying for dinners and accommodations everything was a lot xD Well I suppose I'm not used to being the one paying for it. Also we ate breakfast at the hotel (it's was an included one) so that saved some moolah, and we don't usually eat lunch either so I hate to see what a 'normal' person's eat out food bill would have been.
Oh we even went to a yaki-niku grill, that was fun! It kinda made dinner a cooking timed puzzle xD ATe wayy too much there, but it was a one price style so we could try everything.

But we haven't been on an extended trip in years so it's fine.

And we ended up going to IKEA so I bought some shelves! Yay so I can finally get some space for my books, and then my other items and then maybe get some pinboards to put on top. So I can decorate my walls the way I want to.

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Library Update #6: Eviction

Specialty Paper

Every day I am packing up items from my office/library. If I can trash items, I route them to the trash pile. But most things, like the reams of paper above, I can’t bear to part with.

This room needs to be vacated by the end of the month – and there is a lot of stuff to deal with. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all the boxes of stuff that have no home for the next couple of months.

( Hard to Let Go, Below the Cut )

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Local Amenities

The Sky Over Cooper Mountain Nature Park
iPhone 13 mini photo

Until a heat wave hits here on Friday, we’re having a week of very nice weather in the Willamette Valley, with highs in the 70s and low 80s °F. On Sunday, the high temperature was 75°F. I had to run an errand in Tigard on Hwy 99W and decided to take the long way home. I hadn’t been on SW Bull Mountain Rd. in a very long time, so I decided to take it from 99W to SW Roy Rogers Rd. Then I took Roy Rogers Rd / SW 175th to SW Kemmer Rd and Cooper Mountain Nature Park. On a sunny and temperate day, the park is a nice place to look out over the Tualatin River Valley. Very pretty. I don’t come here often enough, even though the park is not far from my house.

I considered visiting Jenkins Estate, which is nearby, but I didn’t have enough time. I made a mental note to make a separate trip to Jenkins Estate before the summer ends.

Current Mood: nice

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life: moontime

🌙

Moontime began around noon today. Cramps were significantly less than last time, so the ayurvedic medicine I've been taking (a combination of ashokarishta and lodhrasava) is doing its thing. Last month I was obsessing over Nushu period panties. I've been pimping the Nushu Hiphugger to anyone and everyone when the topic of periods comes up, and someone I recced it to has become as much of a fan as I am:

I replied with my original post saying I'm the one who recced it, and this was her response (she @/ed me and I redacted my full name although you'll know it if you know my debut novel/have been around my blog long enough lol)

I'm not being dramatic when I say my life has changed. I could never wear a period product for four to six hours in one go without overflowing, before. My life has changed so much that I went out with Bella (who is here briefly) for brunch. We had congee and pancakes! And after we came back to my house to spend the day coworking. I even dropped her back home, despite that taking a couple of hours. I used to never be able to go out on my period.