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Notes on the Journal:
1. Generally, I don't use trigger warnings. I save trigger warnings for content that is in the upper echelon of disturbing--mentioning the topic briefly doesn't get them, graphic detailed material would. So if you do a trigger warning, take it very seriously. I am open to changing this policy, but I've followed this guideline for nine years and no one's ever requested I do differently.
2. There are three filters: general access, high access, and fiction. General access is where I say stuff that I don’t want showing up on a Google search engine or being found by someone I know in real life. Quite a lot of stuff falls under here, since a lot of what I say could be traced back to me. It’s also where I talk about things I don’t feel completely comfortable sticking up for all the world to see. If I've given you access, that basically means I think you won't dox me and you won't act like a dick to me because of my beliefs and identity.
High access is where I put things that I really don’t feel comfortable about, such as various mental trauma that I’ve had to deal with and refuse to go into detail about here, or the nasty details of my head. If you want to be added to the filter, message me, and if I know you well enough I’ll probably add you.
Fiction is where I stick fiction. It is almost never used, because usually I forget to stick fiction under it. Message me to be added, and you will be.
3. Please ask before posting fiction or essays I've written elsewhere. I generally don't mind, but I still prefer that you ask.
4. I follow pretty freely--if you seem like an interesting person to talk to, and don't seem like a dick, I'll subscribe to your journal. If I know you decently enough that I'm comfortable giving you some basic details about my meatspace life, I'll grant you access.
Notes on me:
1. I have social anxieties. I don't know if I have social anxiety disorder, but I am certainly anxious in social situations. Related to this, I have issues with interpersonal relationships. These issues are worst when things are left unsaid. So, if something does come between us, please spell it out for me. This aids with resolving the issue and in my own piece of mind.
2. I am most definitely a flawed person. I am on occasion brutally honest, have an unfortunate tendency to be a dick when being argumentative, and have difficulty engaging in normal social interaction. I am working on these issues and I have improved on these issues, but they are still a part of me. I don't believe they'll be issues here, but I believe in being honest about my own flaws.
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Sticky: Bookshelf: 2026 Edition
Jul. 8th, 2026 05:16 pmBetter late with this than never, I guess. Current book count: 13.
Fiction:
Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Latest in the Children of... series. After feeling that Children of Memory was lackluster, I enjoyed this book much more. We got more of a look at nonhuman psychology than we did for Children of Memory, though
Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Imagine made a solarpunk dystopia. That is basically this book. Humans enjoy beautiful ecologically friendly cities that effortlessly blend the built environment and greenery. All their needs are fulfilled. The needs of the "uplifted" animals who support them, however, are not--they are literally collared by what corporation owns them and have to work themselves to the bones just to afford the drugs they're dependent on. You could read this as a reference to modern class issues, though I don't think it was particularly intended as allegorical. Either way I enjoyed it.
Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher -- The second of Kingfisher's books I read this year (I started Wolf Worm, but didn't have the time to finish it and felt kind of squeamish about it). While I preferred Snake-Eater, I liked this one a lot too. Kingfisher is always good at creating very original fantasy, with compelling characters, and this was no exception.
River of Bones and Other Stories by Rebecca Roanhorse -- Enjoyable, but kind of one note at times. I like Roanhorse's longer works better.
Rosewater by Tade Thompson -- Been meaning to read this one forever--it's apparently a classic of Nigerian science fiction. Having read it, I found it... a bit middling, to be honest. It's well-written, it's just grittier than I tend to like. I didn't really get into it for the same reason I don't really tend to like cyberpunk.
Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar -- Excellent imagery and metaphor. The stories are short, so while not all of them were my cup of tea it wasn't too hard to read them all.
Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher -- Really liked this one. This is the first novel by T. Kingfisher I've read that does much with the Southwest, so it was interesting to later read Hemlock and Silver and see what's clearly a fantastical Southwest.
The Fox Hunt by Caitlin Breeze -- One of my favorite books so far of the year. I'm a sucker for anything involving characters getting a little more feral, and the transformation of the main character into a vulpine fae was well done. The ending set up for the expected sequel well, so I'm looking forward to that.
The Rose Field by Philip Pullman -- Difficult to follow at times. There were dropped plot points and plot points that were never fully explained. The end of the book is not conclusive. But in retrospect I believe that was part of the point, because an important part of the book is the importance of the imagination and unsolved mysteries to the psyche.
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman -- An extremely depressing eco-dystopia where killing species is as simple as paying a modest fine that can be neatly priced into a corporation's operating expenses. Reading it wasn't fun, but it was a good book that hits a whole lot harder after hearing about how in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster, Exxon tried to make sure that payouts for environmental damages would be easily predictable, relatively low, and easily factored into their budgets.
Non-Fiction:
Coyote at the Kitchen Door: Living with Wildlife in Suburbia by Stephen DeStefano -- Probably a good book for beginners, but not particularly interesting for someone like me who has a background in science. The illustrations were pretty nice, though.
In Amazonia: A Natural History by Hugh Raffles -- For a long time, I've been interested in pre-Columbian Amazonian civilizations. Unfortunately, this book is not about that. It's about post-Columbian ecological change, mostly due to hydraulic engineering, in one community. Undoubtedly a good book but not what I wanted.
The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird by Bruce Barcott -- An informative look at the struggle around a hydroelectric dam in Belize. Raises some interesting questions about colonialism, but also how anti-colonial rhetoric sometimes gets used to shove through developmental projects that are sweetheart deals for foreign corporations even over substantial local opposition.
Fiction:
Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Latest in the Children of... series. After feeling that Children of Memory was lackluster, I enjoyed this book much more. We got more of a look at nonhuman psychology than we did for Children of Memory, though
Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Imagine made a solarpunk dystopia. That is basically this book. Humans enjoy beautiful ecologically friendly cities that effortlessly blend the built environment and greenery. All their needs are fulfilled. The needs of the "uplifted" animals who support them, however, are not--they are literally collared by what corporation owns them and have to work themselves to the bones just to afford the drugs they're dependent on. You could read this as a reference to modern class issues, though I don't think it was particularly intended as allegorical. Either way I enjoyed it.
Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher -- The second of Kingfisher's books I read this year (I started Wolf Worm, but didn't have the time to finish it and felt kind of squeamish about it). While I preferred Snake-Eater, I liked this one a lot too. Kingfisher is always good at creating very original fantasy, with compelling characters, and this was no exception.
River of Bones and Other Stories by Rebecca Roanhorse -- Enjoyable, but kind of one note at times. I like Roanhorse's longer works better.
Rosewater by Tade Thompson -- Been meaning to read this one forever--it's apparently a classic of Nigerian science fiction. Having read it, I found it... a bit middling, to be honest. It's well-written, it's just grittier than I tend to like. I didn't really get into it for the same reason I don't really tend to like cyberpunk.
Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar -- Excellent imagery and metaphor. The stories are short, so while not all of them were my cup of tea it wasn't too hard to read them all.
Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher -- Really liked this one. This is the first novel by T. Kingfisher I've read that does much with the Southwest, so it was interesting to later read Hemlock and Silver and see what's clearly a fantastical Southwest.
The Fox Hunt by Caitlin Breeze -- One of my favorite books so far of the year. I'm a sucker for anything involving characters getting a little more feral, and the transformation of the main character into a vulpine fae was well done. The ending set up for the expected sequel well, so I'm looking forward to that.
The Rose Field by Philip Pullman -- Difficult to follow at times. There were dropped plot points and plot points that were never fully explained. The end of the book is not conclusive. But in retrospect I believe that was part of the point, because an important part of the book is the importance of the imagination and unsolved mysteries to the psyche.
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman -- An extremely depressing eco-dystopia where killing species is as simple as paying a modest fine that can be neatly priced into a corporation's operating expenses. Reading it wasn't fun, but it was a good book that hits a whole lot harder after hearing about how in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster, Exxon tried to make sure that payouts for environmental damages would be easily predictable, relatively low, and easily factored into their budgets.
Non-Fiction:
Coyote at the Kitchen Door: Living with Wildlife in Suburbia by Stephen DeStefano -- Probably a good book for beginners, but not particularly interesting for someone like me who has a background in science. The illustrations were pretty nice, though.
In Amazonia: A Natural History by Hugh Raffles -- For a long time, I've been interested in pre-Columbian Amazonian civilizations. Unfortunately, this book is not about that. It's about post-Columbian ecological change, mostly due to hydraulic engineering, in one community. Undoubtedly a good book but not what I wanted.
The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird by Bruce Barcott -- An informative look at the struggle around a hydroelectric dam in Belize. Raises some interesting questions about colonialism, but also how anti-colonial rhetoric sometimes gets used to shove through developmental projects that are sweetheart deals for foreign corporations even over substantial local opposition.
Yellowstone and Heat Waves, and Paper
Jul. 31st, 2026 04:44 pmMuch has happened over the past month. Mostly good, though some bad.
Yellowstone was never really the national park in the USA I most wanted to go to--that was more the Channel Islands and Saguaro (and I've been to both, and loved both). But it's been on my list for a while. Earlier this month, I finally got to go. First time I've ever been in the region, and I'm not really the type to travel that far just to visit a park (I did drive a long time to get there, but I draw the line at traveling across half the country), so this was the first time that was really convenient.
It was interesting! Yellowstone is an odd park. The parks I went to before had no real development other than visitors centers and campsites. There might be some roads, but there weren't many. Channel Islands didn't have any, at least not any paved ones that I saw. Saguaro had one loop and one that went through the park, but most places could only be reached by walking. Yellowstone, on the other hand?
Yellowstone had restaurants and hotels. I'd known beforehand that Yellowstone was from an earlier generation of national parks, but I only really appreciated just how different it was when I was getting dinner at a nice sit-down restaurant in the middle of a national park, then headed in to sleep at a nice hotel. While there were longer trails, quite a lot was right next to the road. I have mixed feelings about it, honestly. I'm not immune to the lure of luxury, but it feels kinda wrong. And as convenient as being able to drive places might be for a park the size of Yellowstone, the noise pollution and risk of roadkill can't be unproblematic for the wildlife.
Mixed feelings aside, Yellowstone was beautiful. Grand Prismatic Spring was even more incredible in person than it looks on aerial photography. There's a boardwalk that goes along it, and you can see the microbial mats that grow in its waters. Better yet, the steam above it is blue! And not a light blue, but a startling vivid cerulean. Take a look. And here's a photo of the microbial mats. I saw other hydrothermal features too, but Grand Prismatic Spring was by far the best. And because it's non-sulfuric, it didn't smell bad.
Though it was not peak wildflower season, I did see plenty--mostly paintbrushes, lupines, and buckwheat. Unfortunately, there were no vast fields of wildflowers, at least not when I went there and not in the places I visited. Most were along the roadside, with a few scattered in fields or in forests. Wildlife was less profuse. There were some birds and some insects--dragonflies, tiger beetles, bees, smaller butterflies. I did see lots of bison, including some enjoying a nice sauna, but no wolves or bears, let alone mountain lions.
Yellowstone was a nice refuge from the heat, which has been absolutely awful out here, especially since I work outside during the heat of the day. Temperatures are regularly cracking 100°F. More problematically, it turns out that the AC in the house I'm staying at is not built to handle this kind of heat. It froze over. We got yelled at by the landlord. Now standard temperatures indoors are 85°F. It's not
But, in better news, my first paper is going to get published! It's not quite in press yet, but all but a few minor details have been worked out. Won't say more here for privacy reasons, but I'm proud of it. Already thinking of potential new projects.
Yellowstone was never really the national park in the USA I most wanted to go to--that was more the Channel Islands and Saguaro (and I've been to both, and loved both). But it's been on my list for a while. Earlier this month, I finally got to go. First time I've ever been in the region, and I'm not really the type to travel that far just to visit a park (I did drive a long time to get there, but I draw the line at traveling across half the country), so this was the first time that was really convenient.
It was interesting! Yellowstone is an odd park. The parks I went to before had no real development other than visitors centers and campsites. There might be some roads, but there weren't many. Channel Islands didn't have any, at least not any paved ones that I saw. Saguaro had one loop and one that went through the park, but most places could only be reached by walking. Yellowstone, on the other hand?
Yellowstone had restaurants and hotels. I'd known beforehand that Yellowstone was from an earlier generation of national parks, but I only really appreciated just how different it was when I was getting dinner at a nice sit-down restaurant in the middle of a national park, then headed in to sleep at a nice hotel. While there were longer trails, quite a lot was right next to the road. I have mixed feelings about it, honestly. I'm not immune to the lure of luxury, but it feels kinda wrong. And as convenient as being able to drive places might be for a park the size of Yellowstone, the noise pollution and risk of roadkill can't be unproblematic for the wildlife.
Mixed feelings aside, Yellowstone was beautiful. Grand Prismatic Spring was even more incredible in person than it looks on aerial photography. There's a boardwalk that goes along it, and you can see the microbial mats that grow in its waters. Better yet, the steam above it is blue! And not a light blue, but a startling vivid cerulean. Take a look. And here's a photo of the microbial mats. I saw other hydrothermal features too, but Grand Prismatic Spring was by far the best. And because it's non-sulfuric, it didn't smell bad.
Though it was not peak wildflower season, I did see plenty--mostly paintbrushes, lupines, and buckwheat. Unfortunately, there were no vast fields of wildflowers, at least not when I went there and not in the places I visited. Most were along the roadside, with a few scattered in fields or in forests. Wildlife was less profuse. There were some birds and some insects--dragonflies, tiger beetles, bees, smaller butterflies. I did see lots of bison, including some enjoying a nice sauna, but no wolves or bears, let alone mountain lions.
Yellowstone was a nice refuge from the heat, which has been absolutely awful out here, especially since I work outside during the heat of the day. Temperatures are regularly cracking 100°F. More problematically, it turns out that the AC in the house I'm staying at is not built to handle this kind of heat. It froze over. We got yelled at by the landlord. Now standard temperatures indoors are 85°F. It's not
But, in better news, my first paper is going to get published! It's not quite in press yet, but all but a few minor details have been worked out. Won't say more here for privacy reasons, but I'm proud of it. Already thinking of potential new projects.
Well, That Went Well
May. 4th, 2026 10:32 pmI came out to my parents as non-binary yesterday, after hiding it for over a year. Understand, I was never afraid my parents would take it badly. But I was afraid of the attention. I've never been one who wanted to stick out very much, and so while I never feared rejection I feared it becoming A Big DealTM. For similar reasons, I avoided telling even much of my social circle online, who I am far more intimate with, for a long time as well.
What actually happened, though, was that when I told my mother I was non-binary she said she'd pretty much figured it out already.
Go figure.
I had tried to allude to it last year, mostly by complaining about body hair and male pattern baldness, though I'm still pretty sure she didn't really pick up on that. I guess she noticed other stuff, though.
Anyway, now I need to paint some carnations or something for Mother's Day.
What actually happened, though, was that when I told my mother I was non-binary she said she'd pretty much figured it out already.
Go figure.
I had tried to allude to it last year, mostly by complaining about body hair and male pattern baldness, though I'm still pretty sure she didn't really pick up on that. I guess she noticed other stuff, though.
Anyway, now I need to paint some carnations or something for Mother's Day.
Weather and Sleep
Apr. 24th, 2026 10:37 pmFor reasons that I suspect had something to do with a temporary loss of sanity, I agreed to spend my weekend driving a rental car across the state back to work. And yeah, I do mean my entire weekend, because it was a seven hour drive one way so I had to stay overnight in a cheap motel.
Okay, temporary loss of sanity is overselling it a bit. I did it because they pay through the nose for overtime hours. Still, I regret my choice in retrospect, especially since on the way back, I encountered a snowstorm with near white-out conditions. Made driving a lot harder, I'll tell you that, and it was slick enough in patches to fishtail the car.
Combined with working overtime every single day (an average shift lasts over nine hours, though that includes commuting), I haven't had that much time for myself. Which makes it rather ironic that over the past couple weeks I've managed to do a decent amount of writing and painting despite my workload. Time crunches, it appears, are good for my focus.
I also changed my schedule, which I think helped a lot. Early this month I'd been working a lot of morning shifts, which had me waking up at 4:30 AM. The result was that I was tired all the time, and about a week in I'd started developing sleeping issues. Every two hours, I'd wake up. I could go back to sleep, but the result was that I wasn't getting proper REM sleep (far as I can tell, anyway, I'm not a sleep doctor) which mean that even if I had eight hours of sleep I felt exhausted and had neck pain and headaches the next day.
But since shifting to evening shifts, that's solved. It does harm my social life, since I like to socialize online and my free hours are when most people are working weekdays, but I've been managing. Tomorrow I'll be GMing some stuff on Kaerwyn in the mornings--I work in the afternoon and evening, but since it's the weekend other people won't be.
Okay, temporary loss of sanity is overselling it a bit. I did it because they pay through the nose for overtime hours. Still, I regret my choice in retrospect, especially since on the way back, I encountered a snowstorm with near white-out conditions. Made driving a lot harder, I'll tell you that, and it was slick enough in patches to fishtail the car.
Combined with working overtime every single day (an average shift lasts over nine hours, though that includes commuting), I haven't had that much time for myself. Which makes it rather ironic that over the past couple weeks I've managed to do a decent amount of writing and painting despite my workload. Time crunches, it appears, are good for my focus.
I also changed my schedule, which I think helped a lot. Early this month I'd been working a lot of morning shifts, which had me waking up at 4:30 AM. The result was that I was tired all the time, and about a week in I'd started developing sleeping issues. Every two hours, I'd wake up. I could go back to sleep, but the result was that I wasn't getting proper REM sleep (far as I can tell, anyway, I'm not a sleep doctor) which mean that even if I had eight hours of sleep I felt exhausted and had neck pain and headaches the next day.
But since shifting to evening shifts, that's solved. It does harm my social life, since I like to socialize online and my free hours are when most people are working weekdays, but I've been managing. Tomorrow I'll be GMing some stuff on Kaerwyn in the mornings--I work in the afternoon and evening, but since it's the weekend other people won't be.
Wildflowers!
Apr. 8th, 2026 07:39 pmI've been complaining (not here, but other places) about where I live not having any wildflowers blooming for a couple weeks now. Despite the grass being green for at least that long, there was not really any sign of anything else which made me worry that there was some sort of drought so there'd be almost no wildflowers all year, or at least all spring. Today, I was proven wrong. While it's pretty minimal so far and I doubt anything like the superbloom I once got to experience in the Sonoran Desert is going to happen, we're getting some blooms.
They're all pretty small low-lying wildflowers so far. Some yellow violets, some other small yellow flowers, phlox. But they're pretty. And I've been hearing more songbirds around, horned larks and western meadowlarks. Their songs are beautiful, and when I get to see them so's their plumage.
I also saw a tiger beetle. Second one I've seen so far around here. They tried to bite me, but I managed to grab them at an angle where they couldn't do more than ineffectively thrash their massive jaws. Seriously, look at a photo of them up close. They look painful. They're not that painful, or at least the one I caught before this one wasn't, but I might've just gotten lucky due to the angle.
( Photos beneath the cut. )
They're all pretty small low-lying wildflowers so far. Some yellow violets, some other small yellow flowers, phlox. But they're pretty. And I've been hearing more songbirds around, horned larks and western meadowlarks. Their songs are beautiful, and when I get to see them so's their plumage.
I also saw a tiger beetle. Second one I've seen so far around here. They tried to bite me, but I managed to grab them at an angle where they couldn't do more than ineffectively thrash their massive jaws. Seriously, look at a photo of them up close. They look painful. They're not that painful, or at least the one I caught before this one wasn't, but I might've just gotten lucky due to the angle.
( Photos beneath the cut. )
This Year's Watercolors and Other Art
Mar. 31st, 2026 08:47 pmBeen a while since I've posted these here. I've made a lot of them, but I'll only post a couple. I've not been able to do as many lately due to my job.
So here's Mt. Rainier and the Ravelwoods (the latter are constantly shifting forests, first created for the Wanderer's Library)--I've been branching into fantastical landscapes rather than just normal landscapes. It also provides me the opportunity to stretch my skills outside the confines of tutorials, while still using some of the techniques I learned in them.
Currently I'm working on a watercolor of a fox, and after that I don't know what I'm going to do art of. Probably a couple more tutorials.
I also commissioned some art from Kisota of my roleplay character and Jeri's (a very close friend). Go look at it, they look adorable.
Need to try and get Southern Basin concept art at some point. I want to find someone who can do good art of a Basin settlement or their technology.
So here's Mt. Rainier and the Ravelwoods (the latter are constantly shifting forests, first created for the Wanderer's Library)--I've been branching into fantastical landscapes rather than just normal landscapes. It also provides me the opportunity to stretch my skills outside the confines of tutorials, while still using some of the techniques I learned in them.
Currently I'm working on a watercolor of a fox, and after that I don't know what I'm going to do art of. Probably a couple more tutorials.
I also commissioned some art from Kisota of my roleplay character and Jeri's (a very close friend). Go look at it, they look adorable.
Need to try and get Southern Basin concept art at some point. I want to find someone who can do good art of a Basin settlement or their technology.
Weather and Foxes
Mar. 7th, 2026 07:06 pmA lot of the country is very cold, but where I am right now we're having unseasonably warm weather for March. Still cold in the mornings, but it starts to feel actually kind of hot in the afternoons. It's still snowing, but temperatures are spiking into the sixties on a pretty regular basis and a few people have told me how unusually warm it's been. I'm going to blame it on global warming. There's still snow misting the top of nearby mountains but none where I work and live.
Some of the birds are out here already. We're not really getting spring flowers or anything start to emerge... I'm not actually sure we get spring flowers in this part of North America, but regardless the trees aren't putting out buds.
Finished Venomous Lumpsucker. It's very bleak and depressing, which are emotions that it's fair to have about the sixth mass extinction but make for a downer when reading. It was a good book, though. I've never seen anyone write about self-hatred induced by complicity in ecocide that well before. I'd intended to then read In Amazonia, and then after that read Annihilation, but it looks like I'll probably read The Fox Hunt instead, despite the latter not being a library book and so not being time-limited like the others.
Foxes have been on my mind a lot. I'm trying to paint a gray fox but keep putting it off. Maybe writing about it here will mean I actually get on it, though I'd originally intended to start tonight and now it's too late in the evening. It'll be a gift, when I'm done. Someone I've grown close to over the past couple years is very foxy, though not a fox therian.
Perhaps that's why I've grown so fond of foxes, lately.
Some of the birds are out here already. We're not really getting spring flowers or anything start to emerge... I'm not actually sure we get spring flowers in this part of North America, but regardless the trees aren't putting out buds.
Finished Venomous Lumpsucker. It's very bleak and depressing, which are emotions that it's fair to have about the sixth mass extinction but make for a downer when reading. It was a good book, though. I've never seen anyone write about self-hatred induced by complicity in ecocide that well before. I'd intended to then read In Amazonia, and then after that read Annihilation, but it looks like I'll probably read The Fox Hunt instead, despite the latter not being a library book and so not being time-limited like the others.
Foxes have been on my mind a lot. I'm trying to paint a gray fox but keep putting it off. Maybe writing about it here will mean I actually get on it, though I'd originally intended to start tonight and now it's too late in the evening. It'll be a gift, when I'm done. Someone I've grown close to over the past couple years is very foxy, though not a fox therian.
Perhaps that's why I've grown so fond of foxes, lately.
Book Review: The Rose Field
Feb. 21st, 2026 08:08 pmAdapting this from a Werelist post.
I liked The Rose Field. It's one I had to think about to properly appreciate, though.
It's an interesting novel. Pullman's a good writer and the feeling of the characters and setting is beautiful. The true antagonists to the book come off as appropriately clinical and materialistic, to the detriment of all other parts to their being; the narrative feels like something out of myth; daemons come off as a little more animalistic in this latest set of novels than they did in His Dark Materials--they hunt, they eat, they leave corpses. Yet upon a closer inspection, a lot of people think it's a mess.
And they're not without reason. There's dropped plot points. Pullman retcons things, even within the book itself; they're warned against going someplace because of they will surely fall victim to a sickness, but when the protagonists go there there's no indication of danger from it. Many of the events that happen within the book are never properly explained. People are killed and we never find out who's responsible. The book doesn't really resolve the main plot line at all. At the end, the Magisterium is still turning Britain into a police state and their power is unbroken even if their leader is dead.
But thinking about it more, I think that actually helps the book. The biggest enemy in The Rose Field is an all-consuming materialism that breaks all relationships, seeing everything as interchangeable numbers on a spreadsheet. The necessity of imagination and unexplained things to the psyche is emphasized over and over again. Taking this into account, that "messiness" seems purposeful. It might not actually be, since apparently Pullman had to rewrite the ending. But if you have a book where a theme is "imagination is necessary and it's not psychologically healthy to obsessively try to pin everything down," having plot points that aren't fully explained works.
This is the first novel I've read in the past couple years that actually made me sit down and think about its themes. It's something I've thought about before--working in the sciences, I have an interesting relationship to the unknown. I want to expand the boundaries of knowledge, but don't want to know everything, because if we did, science would cease. The material effects of science are all well and good (well, usually--I could go without Agent Orange), especially in my field. But part of what makes science wondrous is that it's an attempt to understand what we don't know. And for that, we need an unknown.
What would happen, if we knew everything? It would be a horrible fate for any scientist, because there would be nothing more to study. We could teach the subject, we could have people memorize facts, we could consult, but it would be the spiritual death of our discipline.
I liked The Rose Field. It's one I had to think about to properly appreciate, though.
It's an interesting novel. Pullman's a good writer and the feeling of the characters and setting is beautiful. The true antagonists to the book come off as appropriately clinical and materialistic, to the detriment of all other parts to their being; the narrative feels like something out of myth; daemons come off as a little more animalistic in this latest set of novels than they did in His Dark Materials--they hunt, they eat, they leave corpses. Yet upon a closer inspection, a lot of people think it's a mess.
And they're not without reason. There's dropped plot points. Pullman retcons things, even within the book itself; they're warned against going someplace because of they will surely fall victim to a sickness, but when the protagonists go there there's no indication of danger from it. Many of the events that happen within the book are never properly explained. People are killed and we never find out who's responsible. The book doesn't really resolve the main plot line at all. At the end, the Magisterium is still turning Britain into a police state and their power is unbroken even if their leader is dead.
But thinking about it more, I think that actually helps the book. The biggest enemy in The Rose Field is an all-consuming materialism that breaks all relationships, seeing everything as interchangeable numbers on a spreadsheet. The necessity of imagination and unexplained things to the psyche is emphasized over and over again. Taking this into account, that "messiness" seems purposeful. It might not actually be, since apparently Pullman had to rewrite the ending. But if you have a book where a theme is "imagination is necessary and it's not psychologically healthy to obsessively try to pin everything down," having plot points that aren't fully explained works.
This is the first novel I've read in the past couple years that actually made me sit down and think about its themes. It's something I've thought about before--working in the sciences, I have an interesting relationship to the unknown. I want to expand the boundaries of knowledge, but don't want to know everything, because if we did, science would cease. The material effects of science are all well and good (well, usually--I could go without Agent Orange), especially in my field. But part of what makes science wondrous is that it's an attempt to understand what we don't know. And for that, we need an unknown.
What would happen, if we knew everything? It would be a horrible fate for any scientist, because there would be nothing more to study. We could teach the subject, we could have people memorize facts, we could consult, but it would be the spiritual death of our discipline.
Ran across this recently and thought people here might find it interesting. I've been watching a lot of "sealed biosphere" videos on YouTube, recently, where someone takes pond water or dirt and plants and puts them into a terrarium, then never opens the jar. It's kind of interesting to see how species like ostrocods or springtails handle living in isolation.
This is probably the biggest and most complicated set-up I've seen, though. I've got a bit of mixed feelings regarding having a fish or a hermit crab in there... but also he's apparently still going to remove or add species as needed, and they've apparently done well so far.
He's got a website set up about the project, and apparently one day it'll have details about the set-up and live cameras for watching the environments.
Wrote this for the Wanderer's Library's art exchange (I got a picture of a pride of Ethiopian lava cats) and told ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redsixwing that I'd post it to my journal later. So here it is. It's a little unpolished and the ending is a little blunt, so I might go back later and revise it. I've never written for the Journal of the Walk before, but still enjoyed this.
Oh, and since it was for the Wanderer's Library this is under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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( The Journal of the Walk, Thursday, October 11th )
redsixwing that I'd post it to my journal later. So here it is. It's a little unpolished and the ending is a little blunt, so I might go back later and revise it. I've never written for the Journal of the Walk before, but still enjoyed this.Oh, and since it was for the Wanderer's Library this is under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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( The Journal of the Walk, Thursday, October 11th )
The last month has been eventful. In multiple ways, good and bad.
As some of you may be aware, I had a job. And the emphasis is on had, because I don't have it any longer. It didn't work out. I was able to handle my job just fine when I was working ordinary hours and things were quieter. But over the past few weeks, this had started to change. Working conditions generally were getting worse. I was working overtime every week, I was having to work with particularly nasty chemicals, and I had to clean up after small children, which was gross and stressful because I don't like small children. While I tried to hide my distaste, I was less successful than I thought and my boss offered to shift my hours.
I'd have accepted that without much thought... if the changed hours weren't from 7:30 PM to 2:00 AM, except one day when I'd be working 11:00 AM to 7:30 PM (except actually usually around 9:00 PM). And I didn't have to shift to that new schedule in two days.
For a while I angsted over what this meant for my work ethic, but after talking to some people I've decided that I just am not good at emotionally handling that kind of work and it's better I left, because if I didn't things would have gradually gotten worse and I might have lost the job anyway, but on worse terms. Multiple people I know, offline and online, have said that they could tell the job was making my mental stability decline.
So now I'm job searching again. Hardly a worse time for it, though I'm hoping that I might be able to sell my art (and possibly writing) to--I won't say make ends meet, because I am nowhere near that good, but at least make it so my debt from graduate school doesn't grow as quickly. Or let me occasionally get new supplies. One or the other, most likely.
Other than that... well, there's some stuff that's private enough I only want to talk about it in an access list entry, but in this public one I will say that I missed leaf peeping season. Pretty much all of them have turned already and I didn't get to go to any of the nice woods I know where you can admire all the pretty colors. Perhaps next year. One of my orchids is starting to form buds, so there's at least that. I'll post photos if and when they fully
I also wrote something for a contest on the SCP wiki and it did adequately. Go check it out here, if you like that sort of thing.
Lastly, I got to rejoin one of my RPG groups. We're going to be starting Wildsea--it's a game where your PCs sail a vessel over a planet-spanning ocean of trees--and have designed this awesome living manta ray-esque research vessel together. Really looking forward to making my character and getting to play.
As some of you may be aware, I had a job. And the emphasis is on had, because I don't have it any longer. It didn't work out. I was able to handle my job just fine when I was working ordinary hours and things were quieter. But over the past few weeks, this had started to change. Working conditions generally were getting worse. I was working overtime every week, I was having to work with particularly nasty chemicals, and I had to clean up after small children, which was gross and stressful because I don't like small children. While I tried to hide my distaste, I was less successful than I thought and my boss offered to shift my hours.
I'd have accepted that without much thought... if the changed hours weren't from 7:30 PM to 2:00 AM, except one day when I'd be working 11:00 AM to 7:30 PM (except actually usually around 9:00 PM). And I didn't have to shift to that new schedule in two days.
For a while I angsted over what this meant for my work ethic, but after talking to some people I've decided that I just am not good at emotionally handling that kind of work and it's better I left, because if I didn't things would have gradually gotten worse and I might have lost the job anyway, but on worse terms. Multiple people I know, offline and online, have said that they could tell the job was making my mental stability decline.
So now I'm job searching again. Hardly a worse time for it, though I'm hoping that I might be able to sell my art (and possibly writing) to--I won't say make ends meet, because I am nowhere near that good, but at least make it so my debt from graduate school doesn't grow as quickly. Or let me occasionally get new supplies. One or the other, most likely.
Other than that... well, there's some stuff that's private enough I only want to talk about it in an access list entry, but in this public one I will say that I missed leaf peeping season. Pretty much all of them have turned already and I didn't get to go to any of the nice woods I know where you can admire all the pretty colors. Perhaps next year. One of my orchids is starting to form buds, so there's at least that. I'll post photos if and when they fully
I also wrote something for a contest on the SCP wiki and it did adequately. Go check it out here, if you like that sort of thing.
Lastly, I got to rejoin one of my RPG groups. We're going to be starting Wildsea--it's a game where your PCs sail a vessel over a planet-spanning ocean of trees--and have designed this awesome living manta ray-esque research vessel together. Really looking forward to making my character and getting to play.
Me: *is reading Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane, comes across the following passage*
Me: *hands passage to relatives*
Relatives: "No, Citra."
Seriously, though, this man is an inspiration to us all. And the book is really good.
Yuvan's apartment is a dangerous place to be.
'It's best if you don't go onto the balcony, Rob.'
'Oh. Why's that?'
'Well, there are paper wasps nesting there on the ixora plant, you see, and they can become quite prickly if disturbed. They've been living with us for three years now.'
'Ah, I understand.' I really don't understand.
'The paper wasps used to nest inside the vacuum-cleaner cover on the balcony, but interestingly, after Cyclone Mandous in December, the majority of them moved to the ixora. I don't know why.'
'How many are there now?'
'Oh, I think about forty wasps. I recently had to apologize to two people who visited to do some work in the apartment. Though I had clearly warned them about the ixora, they nevertheless disturbed the nest and one of them was stung rather badly on the hand. It was necessary to explain to them that they must not blame the wasps.'
'How did that go?'
'Better than you might imagine. [...] Last week, by the way, I picked up my towel to reveal two paper wasps resting there. Understandably they both stung me, and I was grateful to them for this because their stings caused me to realize that I wanted to write my next book on insects.
Me: *hands passage to relatives*
Relatives: "No, Citra."
Seriously, though, this man is an inspiration to us all. And the book is really good.
Update on Health, and Other Things
Jun. 10th, 2025 07:52 pmSo, I am now better. Mostly. My arm is still fractured, but it's out of its sling and its splint. I can't put too much weight on it and not all of its range of motion is back yet, but other than that I'm good to use it as I normally do and it can almost extend fully like it used to. My hand is another matter. It aches a lot, and I wonder if the splint was on too tight or if a tendon or something got damaged in the fall. I'm waiting to hear back from the doctor as to if I should come in to get it looked at again. It's only sometime an issue, though, so I'm still able to type and paint and stuff.]
The concussion symptoms are almost entirely gone. I got a headache when I worked for an entire day, until late evening, but other than that no issues and the headache vanished by morning. And yes, I'm back at work despite my arm, albeit irregularly. A relief, since I need the money; I want to keep my student loans from ballooning.
Other than that things have been mostly boring. It's been raining a lot around here and I've been working on art and writing projects.
The concussion symptoms are almost entirely gone. I got a headache when I worked for an entire day, until late evening, but other than that no issues and the headache vanished by morning. And yes, I'm back at work despite my arm, albeit irregularly. A relief, since I need the money; I want to keep my student loans from ballooning.
Other than that things have been mostly boring. It's been raining a lot around here and I've been working on art and writing projects.
Citra's Bad Health Month
May. 27th, 2025 07:28 pmFull body poison ivy plus a concussion plus a broken arm suck. And no, they weren't all at once.
I'll probably update this later with more information when I don't have a headache.
EDIT: Okay, the medium length version.
I attempted to ride a bike in the rain. Normally this would be fine and it wasn't raining heavily. Unfortunately, someone had, in an attempt to fix a pothole, put up a road plate covering the entire lane that stood up an inch off asphalt. I hit it and went flying. Next thing I knew people were standing over me and I was being loaded into an ambulance.
I'm mostly fine--got off lucky, really. The concussion is mostly healed a few days later though occasional brain fog and tiredness are concerning issues. I'm not sure when those will go away fully and it does give me anxiety. The arm is out of the sling though I still need to wear a splint due to a potential finger injury.
Can't go to work for at least a couple weeks and I don't know when brain fog late evenings will vanish. That's the concerning bit.
I'll probably update this later with more information when I don't have a headache.
EDIT: Okay, the medium length version.
I attempted to ride a bike in the rain. Normally this would be fine and it wasn't raining heavily. Unfortunately, someone had, in an attempt to fix a pothole, put up a road plate covering the entire lane that stood up an inch off asphalt. I hit it and went flying. Next thing I knew people were standing over me and I was being loaded into an ambulance.
I'm mostly fine--got off lucky, really. The concussion is mostly healed a few days later though occasional brain fog and tiredness are concerning issues. I'm not sure when those will go away fully and it does give me anxiety. The arm is out of the sling though I still need to wear a splint due to a potential finger injury.
Can't go to work for at least a couple weeks and I don't know when brain fog late evenings will vanish. That's the concerning bit.
How Tetesh Made the World
May. 10th, 2025 10:43 pmAbout a month or so ago, the Wanderer's Library--a collaborative writing site I'm a member of--created a sword and sorcery setting revolving around a caravan that travels the desert and the four species that live in the desert. Then we made some fiction for it, which is all collected (along with the setting information) here. My contribution, in addition to a very short in-setting herbal, was this myth. It's on the website here but I thought I'd post it here as well.
For reference, the yaka are a species of hexapodal foxlike beings. In the modern day, they're silver, though in this myth they aren't--yet.
( Cut for length. )
For reference, the yaka are a species of hexapodal foxlike beings. In the modern day, they're silver, though in this myth they aren't--yet.
( Cut for length. )
Latest Watercolors
Apr. 25th, 2025 09:44 pmAs always, feedback and critique are welcome.
( Pictures below the cut. )
More Watercolors
Mar. 27th, 2025 03:52 pmSince January, I've been quite busy, so have a look at what I've gotten up to since. Artistic critique is appreciated, if anyone has it. If you want a picture to get bigger, just click on it; they function as hyperlinks.
( Pictures below the cut. )
( Pictures below the cut. )
Escaping the Box
Feb. 22nd, 2025 06:18 pmFor the longest time, I viewed myself as "masculine by way of inertia." It wasn't like "man" was something I clung to strongly, but it was what everyone else said I was and I was fine enough with it that, despite growing up knowing many trans and nonbinary people, I didn't feel that I was one. But in my interpersonal interactions online, I came off as androgynous enough (or at least my name did) that people would assume I was a woman. I have usually found this hilarious and rather liked people not being able to tell.
There was always some part of me that wasn't fully comfortable with masculinity, or at least its stereotypical format. I liked jewelry and shaving. Despite having progressive parents I stopped wearing jewelry; I kept shaving my face but only shaved my legs once. It wasn't even over any harassment. I was masculine because of inertia, I therefore did masculine things, and I didn't feel strongly enough about those to keep it up.
But as I've gotten older, what started out as an inoffensive box has grown more cramped as I find that I have a certain affinity for appearing androgynous. I like the pointed, narrow features. While I wouldn't mind fur I don't like body hair (it's too curly). I can't really pull off the appearance (I have too much body hair and not enough normal hair), unfortunately.
Being nonbinary would be the obvious conclusion. The problem is that when I look back, a large part of my discomfort wasn't just because I was put in the wrong box, it was because I was put in a box at all. And I'm not sure how to integrate a desire to escape this framework entirely. I like the idea of appearing androgynous, but while online that's as easy as using my theriotype as a profile picture and not specifying gender, offline that's done through fitting into people's ideas of what a stereotypical nonbinary person looks like. And while I don't entirely mind that image, it's still a box.
There was always some part of me that wasn't fully comfortable with masculinity, or at least its stereotypical format. I liked jewelry and shaving. Despite having progressive parents I stopped wearing jewelry; I kept shaving my face but only shaved my legs once. It wasn't even over any harassment. I was masculine because of inertia, I therefore did masculine things, and I didn't feel strongly enough about those to keep it up.
But as I've gotten older, what started out as an inoffensive box has grown more cramped as I find that I have a certain affinity for appearing androgynous. I like the pointed, narrow features. While I wouldn't mind fur I don't like body hair (it's too curly). I can't really pull off the appearance (I have too much body hair and not enough normal hair), unfortunately.
Being nonbinary would be the obvious conclusion. The problem is that when I look back, a large part of my discomfort wasn't just because I was put in the wrong box, it was because I was put in a box at all. And I'm not sure how to integrate a desire to escape this framework entirely. I like the idea of appearing androgynous, but while online that's as easy as using my theriotype as a profile picture and not specifying gender, offline that's done through fitting into people's ideas of what a stereotypical nonbinary person looks like. And while I don't entirely mind that image, it's still a box.
