litany

I just noticed how beautiful the E10 arena is, very unfortunate it's (rather raids and trials as a whole) is not available in explorer mode.

shadar-kai

I went to Anime North few weekends ago, it was my second time attending and first time staying for the whole weekend. The good: I didn't spend too much money on merch (since prints were off-limit as we ran out of wall space). the bad: I feel so old in terms of lack of energy ahaha. 

I did score a great deal on 3 dice via pay-what-you-roll, but I made a die as well! We've been interested in dice making for a bit and thought doing a workshop was a good way to see if we want to commit to the hobby. The first die, made without a pressure pot, is pretty ugly with all the bubbles rip. Polishing it by hand is also very time consuming. But hey now I have a die in Lethe's theme!

lilith

I spent about 3 weeks catching up to Circle of Inevitability, the second book in LotM trilogy. Feels good to binge this series, enjoying the cast of characters and their antics. It's rough recognizing characters names but not actually remember what they did in the first book, spent a while reviewing the wiki afterwards. 

This is to set up the fact that I have now become an Planter, praise be The Source of Life and The Mother of All Things.

This is one of the first blooms on our balcony trellis. We also planted basil, dill and chives, with plans for some strawberries (and others) in 2 more planter boxes. 

koji

Warmer weather eats, have yet to eat on a patio tho :(

• First gelato of the season at Mizzica
• Filipino breakfast for dinner with microwave garlic chips
• The chonkiest sandwich at Grandma Loves You
• The most savory and juicy chicken at Richmond Station, spring in a dish
• Finally trying Gus Taco now that they opened at The Well

Next food update probably when I get the first bingsu of the season.

dotty

Ever since I switched to a windows laptop and can't airdrop photos from my phone to computer, I've been really procrastinating on posting to the blog. Here are some very belated Usagi Shima screenshots of my finished island. It's a pretty cozy idle game, buns be cute.

I had the intent of stitching the screenshots together, but too painful without photoshop. When am I going to start getting the cloud subscription...

pendant

I came across an amazing comic from the ascians (mainly ES) perspective during the sundering and it brought up too much Shadowbringer feels. So here is Kiku also processing emotions in her crystarium inn room:

capsule

A very bad photo of a very good dish, in fact I think this is one of the best dishes I ever made. Got the elusive wok-hei and crisp-tender texture in a napa cabbage stir dry. All it took was smoke bombing the house by preheating the pan for like 30min and making sure there is absolutely no water at all on the cabbage. The joys of trying to overcome a low power home stove ;o; 

pied

Did part 2 of my seasonal closet switchover today, including cleaning my winter boots. Year 1 of the RM Williams with Year 10 of the Crockett & Jones.

external affairs

Do I need 3 different versions of Kiku looking tired? Yes because I can't pick between the shaders (higher contrast, warm, cool) but also its the most relatable she's been. 

utopia

Trying to recreate my commission from starstray was somewhat successful. Amaurot has the worst lighting "orz

Did another one for my only other whm glam:

lavender

More getting use to Anamnesis and (new) Ktisis posing controls, featuring looking away from camera:

kelesis

 

Getting this pose to work taught me the lesson that it's way easier to start with animations in game and rotate/move limbs than to use a downloaded pose and try to fix the couple of weird nodes "orz

highland potting fence

I still can't wait for the 7.0 graphics update so my wisteria trees will look gorgeous. Am also super ready for the housing item increase, prayge for enough slots to make a wine/jazz bar in my basement.

diadema

I procrastinated so hard on getting anamnesis, I can finally eat grapes now. 

Moving limbs is hard tho

star anise

Updated egg cooking parameters for soy marinated eggs:

• Boil water per usual, add eggs only after water is vigorously boiling
• 6 mins gets you firm whites and liquid yolk
• Into ice bath, the temperature shock also really helps with peeling
• Overnight marinade (I just use 鹵水)
• Profit 

I would still do 6:30 for just set yolks if I'm eating the eggs boiled. 

peel

Hair is one area of my appearance that's had minimal continuous improvement, mostly because I don't want to throw additional time / effort into my daily routine for it. I've not changed anything aside from adding in a hyaluronic acid serum for my scalp (drastically reduced flakes) and changing up my washing & drying routine (drying before applying conditioner and letting hair air dry before applying oil then heat drying). 

But now I'm forced to change since my favourite shampoo (and its corresponding conditioner) has been discontinued by Aveda. Contrary to my expectations, my current litres still haven't ran out and I continue to dread the day that it finally does. Unfortunately the new product line that directly replaced this one doesn't give my hair the same experience / effect. So I've been looking for:

• Has litre size or refill packs
• Shampoo won't leave my hair feeling crunchy 
• Preferably herbal smell 
• Preferably locally available 

Surprisingly the first criteria eliminates like 90% of all choices. I do see other categories of cosmetics adding more and more refillable packaging, hopefully this hits mainstream sooner. But the remaining 10% are generally the more expensive options, and so I've spent about $100 on 3 sets of samples which is ouch. Will report back maybe at the end of the year and see if I found a new favourite.

一刀刀的割下所有記憶的畫面

Another work week done, another song that carried me through it:

But also a Tablo song I can sing?? I appreciate the official music video having simplified Chinese, but guess I better learn the traditional characters if I want to read the lyrics off during karaoke.

I've been losin' it
Feelin' low and high
'Cause I'm down all-day
But I'm up all night
落了空
獨自一人受
那是多麼痛

I'm all alone
Feelin' overdosed, singin' love songs
Runnin' out of lies
Runnin' out of time
When all I wanted was to run to you, girl
Run into your arms
傷太重
獨自一人受
那是多麼痛
早就註定
一敗塗地
求求你, baby

We dreamed about fancy houses
Thought we had at least a thousand years
Memories we got, they call us
And now they're all drowned out by tears
Help me
這根本沒道理


Baby, please don't let go
怎麼都變了
若選擇要切割
Then just take it slow
一刀刀的割下所有記憶的畫面, oh, girl
如果已走到了最後的分岔路口
If you wanna leave, baby, I'll let you go
該走就讓你走

Your memories got me so sick
那清晰的記憶重演
But I'd do it again, you were my best friend
Evеn bad times, they werе worth it
那些從前
那些大半夜
閑晃的街
都帶著你的甜
Late-night drives, hands up high
Speakers bumpin' lofi

We dreamed about fancy houses
Thought we had at least a thousand years
Memories we got, they call us
And now they're all drowned out by tears
Help me
這根本沒道理


Baby, please don't let go
怎麼都變了
若選擇要切割
Then just take it slow
一刀刀的割下所有記憶的畫面, oh, girl
如果已走到了最後的分岔路口
If you wanna leave, baby, I'll let you go
該走就讓你走

I'll miss you
Miss you for a thousand years
I'll miss you
Miss you for a thousand years
I'll miss you
Miss you for a thousand years
I'll love you
Love you for a thousand years
Love you for a thousand years
Love you for a thousand years

I'll be with you
With you for a thousand years

Mima of the Forest

I'm making a generalization here, but there's a way that some korean web comics that just perfectly depicts the raw feeling of loss. It's not like Murakami who wraps the sensation in whimsy that helps the reader contemplates the feeling. It just lets the loss take up the whole room. 

Like Muse on Fame in the previous post, and like whichever this series is.

So I don't make the mistake of not mentioning the series like before, this is the last chapter of Mima of the Forest.

arcadia

I thought the first arc of Muse on Fame hits hard, but oh boy Director Cheon's backstory is a sucker punch.

her love, the type; that makes you dedicate your life

 Thank you Porter for carrying me through this week:

Porter Robinson · Cheerleader

diadema

Finally finished all the EW fates, why did no one tell me you get the bestest head gear in game for it??

lakeland

I sure am glad I installed gposingway a while back which fixed my reshade compilation errors...so presets's autofocus for shallow depths of field is working properly \o/

Now to wait for the graphic updated grass...because I tried installing a texture upscale but don't see a different at all "orz

I did also finally install anamnesis but haven't opened it...

lunar

I thought I had a nice sge glam but it turns out there was a mod involved "orz

Still very happy with how this looks:

The ktiseos weapon series is probably my favourite non-crafted series, I'd like to make a set of glam for each of them in the future.

A Separation

I found some lost quotations from a book I've read last year:

People say that when you are grieving, when you have experienced a profound loss, you are impaled beneath it, hardly in a condition to express your sorrow.

In my case, I thought, that feeling was increasingly ill-defined, as my life with Christopher began to recede into the past, everything that I learned about him a meaningless detail from his new life, a revelation from his past one was a source of potential discomfort, causing a pang of greater or lesser pain, or even occasional indifference. This was the process by which two lives were dis-entangled, eventually the dread and discomfort would fade and be replaced by unbroken indifference, I would see him in the street by chance, and it would be like seeing an old photograph of yourself: you recognize the image but are unable to remember quite what it was to be that person.

bambimou

 Another period when I am into bags...who knows if I'll actually end up buying any,

Also just combining images in paint is so painful...especially since Acne's product shots are not a pure white background kmn. 

In other news, found some nice donegal wool sweaters at Ecologyst.

A Little Life

The shortest summary I can provide this book is that it will absolutely destroy you. 

My longer impression is that the cruelty suffered by a particular character and the trauma that it induces in him will destroy you; the tenderness of the good relationships that the character develops will still break your heart. I was basically ugly crying for the middle third of the book, and less ugly crying for the last third, haven't continuously cried this much since playing through Endwalker. This story has help me viscerally understand and expand my imagination on the depth of friendship and platonic love. Either of those points alone would quality this as one of my favourites. Also helps that the writing is quite beautiful at times. 

My favourite quotations:

He'd watch that kind light suffuse the car like syrup, watch it smudge furrows from foreheads, slick gray hairs into gold, gentle the aggressive shine from cheap fabrics into something lustrous and fine. And then the sun would drift, the car rattling uncaringly away from it, and the world would return to its normal sad shapes and colors, the people to their normal sad state, a shift as cruel and abrupt as if it had been made by a sorcerer's wand.

The first is that it doesn't matter how old that child is, or when or how he became yours. Once you decide to think of someone as your child, something changes, and everything you have previously enjoyed about them, everything you have previously felt for them, is preceded first by that fear. It's not biological; it's something extra-biological, less a determination to ensure the survival of one's genetic code, and more a desire to prove oneself inviolable to the universe's feints and challenges, to triumph over the things that want to destroy what's yours.

It would have been too melodramatic, too final, to say that after this JB was forever diminished for him. But it was true that for the first time, he was able to comprehend that the people he had grown to trust might someday betray him anyway, and that as disappointing as it might be, it was inevitable as well, and that life would keep propelling him steadily forward, because for everyone who might fail him in some way, there was at least one person who never would.

The thing he hadn't realized about success was that success made people boring. Failure also made people boring, but in a different way: failing people were constantly striving for one thing— success. But successful people were also only striving to maintain their success. It was the difference between running and running in place, and although running was boring no matter what, at least the person running was moving, through different scenery and past different vistas. And yet here again, it seemed that Jude and Willem had something he didn't, something that was protecting them from the suffocating ennui of being successful, from the tedium of waking up and realizing that you were a success and that every day you had to keep doing whatever it was that made you a success, because once you stopped, you were no longer a success, you were becoming a failure.

"The axiom of the empty set is the axiom of zero. It states that there must be a concept of nothingness, that there must be the concept of zero: zero value, zero items. Math assumes there's a concept of nothingness, but is it proven? No. But it must exist. "And if we are being philosophical-which we today are—we can say that life itself is the axiom of the empty set. It begins in zero and ends in zero. We know that both states exist, but we will not be conscious of either experience: they are states that are necessary parts of life, even as they cannot be experienced as life. We assume the concept of nothingness, but we cannot prove it. But it must exist. So I prefer to think that Walter has not died but has instead proven for himself the axiom of the empty set, that he has proven the concept of zero. I know nothing else would have made him happier. An elegant mind wants elegant endings, and Walter had the most elegant mind. So I wish him goodbye; I wish him the answer to the axiom he so loved."

And yet he sometimes wondered if he could ever love anyone as much as he loved Jude. It was the fact of him, of course, but also the utter comfort of life with him, of having someone who had known him for so long and who could be relied upon to always take him as exactly who he was on that particular day. His work, his very life, was one of disguises and charades. Everything about him and his context was constantly changing: his hair, his body, where he would sleep that night. He often felt he was made of something liquid, something that was being continually poured from bright-colored bottle to bright-colored bottle, with a little being lost or left behind with each transfer. But his friendship with Jude made him feel that there was something real and immutable about who he was, that despite his life of guises, there was something elemental about him, something that Jude saw even when he could not, as if Jude's very witness of him made him real.

He likes both types of conversations with Willem, but he appreciates the mundane ones more than he'd imagined he would. He had always felt bound to Willem by the big things-love; trust— but he likes being bound to him by the small things as well: bills and taxes and dental checkups. […] it had seemed to him the ideal expression of an adult relationship, to have someone with whom you could discuss the mechanics of a shared existence.

"What does Malcolm have to worry about?" JB would ask them when Malcolm was anxious about something, but he knew: he was worried because to be alive was to worry. Life was scary; it was unknowable. Even Malcolm's money wouldn't immunize him completely. Life would happen to him, and he would have to try to answer it, just like the rest of them. They all-Malcolm with his houses, Willem with his girlfriends, JB with his paints, he with his razors-sought comfort, something that was theirs alone, something to hold off the terrifying largeness, the impossibility, of the world, of the relentlessness of its minutes, its hours, its days.

-a sadness, he might have called it, but it wasn't a pitying sadness; it was a larger sadness, one that seemed to encompass all the poor striving people, the billions he didn't know, all living their lives, a sadness that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tried to live, even when their days were so very difficult, even when their circumstances were so wretched. Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It's so sad, and yet we all do it. We all cling to it; we all search for something to give us solace.

Remiel

I'm just realizing now that Remi is an interesting contrast (albeit not quite a foil) to Urielle:

Remiel could have had a lovely childhood, her parents were present and their family business well off. Both of her parents were respected undertakers that prominent lineages of Neverwinter relied on. Naught is amiss except for her usual but beautiful lavender eyes and the dreams that plague her. Well the dreams don’t actually bother her, for she always feels such warmth and tenderness from them. But it’s the content of these dreams, always featuring an elf with dark purple hair and molten gold eyes. Hundreds of different dreams where she adventures with this elf: bantering for amusement, sharing a drink in taverns, battling side by side, listening to tales by the campfires, and most of all just gazing fondly at her companion. For these dreams feel so immediate must be memories of a lived experience, her own lived experience.

But that’s preposterous for she was a child of barely 6 summers when these dreams started. She has rarely ventured out of her own home let alone go on adventures beyond her city. And as a child with loving parents do, she confides in them each time she has these dreams, sometimes even confusing them for reality. This obviously caused great alarm for Remiel’s parents, for it happens almost every night. They soon sought help to rid Remiel of her dreams, although discreetly as they had a reputation to maintain for the sake of business. Magical items were brought, expert spellcasters were invited, clerics of many domains were petitioned, all to no avail.

This whole process also drove a wedge between Remiel and her parents. For she didn’t want these dreams to stop, only to understand why she is having them, and most importantly, how to find this elf for she is absolutely certain that she must do so. Her parents, exasperated at both the unwillingness of their daughter and lack of results of their efforts, started retreat into their work. This left Remiel plenty of time to take things into her own hands, studying all sorts of magic and divinity that the hired spellcasters and clerics performed. It’s through this that she came across Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead, and felt an instinctive call towards his domain of death and the crucial role it will play once she finds her elf.

Excited that she finally has a lead, albeit a completely baseless one, Remiel appealed to her parents to let her leave home to become a cleric at Kelemvor's temple in Ormpetarr. Her parents mistook this enthusiasm as Remiel finally becoming grounded in reality and wanting to follow in their footsteps of honoring death. They eagerly agreed and sent the now 13 summers Remiel off across Faerun with hopes that she returns a level-headed mortarch to take over the family business. Remiel would indeed return to Sword Coast North after a long journey across the continents, but her destination would turn out to be a small village ruin to the southeast where she would finally find whom she searches for.

...

Saving her epilogue for another time because it involves a character whose name I have yet to decide. I'm still surprised I wrote and edited all of these (one more character and others) in anxiety fueled sleeplessness. Some parts are quite cliche and obviously stolen plot points, but I'm happy with the web of stories that I've manage to weave. Maybe some other time I'll find the inspiration to write some more.

Urielle

I haven't thought about my various DnD character backstories until a few days ago since posting Sariel and Raph's last May. Here's Urielle today, whom I have a good bit of sympathy for currently due to also being sick. I did not create a good life for her.

...

Commoner children always envy the children of nobles, for they always have delicious food to eat and the newest toys to play with. But the children of nobles certainly don’t live enviable lives. Most of them, with rare exceptions, live as pawns in an intergenerational chess game of power and wealth. Ones value is directly associated with how much benefit one can bring to their family. For those with talent, the benefits can be earned. For most of the children, however, it’s through their marriage prospects. Urielle is not talented, or at least no one knew since she’s been sickly from birth, so her marriage has been set as the singular most important event in her life.

Urielle silently suffered through her childhood in Neverwinter, until her parents saw fit to send her away to Conyberry as the pastoral setting was said to help with chronic illness. Indeed her health did improve after almost a year of residency there, after which she was swiftly retrieved back to meet with prospective marriage candidates. They never even suspected that the real reason why Urielle’s health improved was that she met and fell in love with a local boy.

After finally finished with the weeks and weeks of meetings which Urielle obediently attended, she begged to go back to the village. Her parents granted her silly wish since they were busy with selecting the most suitable husband and wanted her out of the way. But since Urielle has never made a request before, much less a passionate plea, her parents were rightly suspicious and warned the servants to watch her closely. After all they had to maintain the value of their investment.

Urielle’s parents quickly selected a candidate and began negotiations with the opposing family. In the midst, they receive an alarming message from the servants. Apparently the fiance made a surprise visit to their daughter (“ha his passion surely gives us an advantage” commented Urielle’s father with a smirk), but there was also a village boy whom the daughter was fraternizing with (the mother promptly threw her teacup at the servant relying the message when she heard this). Turns out a servant caught the boy knocking on the daughters bedroom window, and coaxed the full story of their relationship from the panicking girl afterwards. Urielle’s parents sent back a simple reply after cooling down their initial rage, it said: “you will marry the husband of our choosing and the boy will be unharmed. Cut off contact with him immediately.”

And Urielle’s wedding came and went without any other interruptions or problems. Urielle being consistently nauseous with the guilt of abandoning her love did not count as a problem of course. The benefit of being a sickly child is that you learn how to hide your discomfort. Her health did rapidly deteriorate after the wedding, leaving her once again bed ridden in a different lavishly decorated mansion. Her illness also obviously prevented her from birthing a heir, and soon her husband stopped even giving excuses for his absence. That left her plenty of time to read and be consumed by her guilt. She often fantasized that he was happily married to a girl from the same village and they were living an idyllic life full of love.

This fantasy sustained her through dark times, until a day when she overheard the servants talking. She was waking from her nap as the servants who has been with her in the village walked in. They didn’t notice that she was already awake, and continued their conversation in hushed tones. Apparently one of the servants saw the boy a few times in squalor around the slums quarters, his lavender eyes being such a striking feature that the servant was certain it was the same boy despite only seeing his face once.

Urielle is pretty sure something shattered within her on the day she heard he was also subsiding in Neverwinter. Or maybe the cracks were there from the very beginning. Whatever it is, she can’t bear to be trapped where she is anymore. Or trapped at all, for her life was never her own. The brief respite in Conyberry with Raphael was a dream turned nightmare. Although what could she do? She’s been a fragile little flower sheltered in a greenhouse all her life.

But being in the pits has the distinct advantage of feeling like she has nothing to lose. So whenever Urielle wasn’t consumed by her anxiety and fear, she had her servants bring large number of tomes to read. Of any and all subjects. She slowly learned of the world outside her greenhouse and discovered an affinity for the arcane. Turns out that she was actually one of those talented children.

Then Urielle plotted. She had longer and longer periods of focus, but maintained a facade of sickness. It turns out deciphering the arcane is an effective coping mechanism. She requested more difficult arcane texts, but also of other subjects to misdirect. She read and researched with a fever, but she didn’t know if it was more motivated by reaching for a better future or simply trying to run away from her past.

And one day she was just gone from her bedroom. There was a brief uproar, followed by a lacklustre search effort, but getting away was much easier than Urielle thought. But just how little her own family and husband cares about her once she’s deemed used up or useless still comes as a bitter surprise to her. Urielle sets out to run away as far as possible.

...

One by one Urielle’s senses slowly return to her. The cooling sensation of mud on her skin, the eery quite, the faint scent of smoke, the taste of blood inside her mouth, and the brilliant night sky that stretches as far as her eyes can see. She tries to move her limbs and twist her body, but could not summon any strength to do so. Ah, she realizes, it’s finally her turn at death’s door.

It’s a door that she is quite familiar with, having blamed herself countless times for leading her party members to it. On better days she lets herself be convinced that it’s not her fault. On the best of days she even believes that abandoning Raphael wasn’t her fault. She was a naive girl that didn’t have the power to protect him (or herself) in any better way.

Urielle is no longer that girl. She became a powerful wizard that travelled the planes, meeting and parting with so many people. Some of them fleeting and inconsequential, a few (maybe one in particular) that made her feel cared for and at home.

But neither the nightmares or respites matter now. Or maybe the totality of their meaning is in this brief moment before death takes her. Does it really matter whether she was a victim or perpetrator, whether her life was a tragedy or comedy? It’s all just absurdity. What purpose does this final desperate search for meaning serve? Urielle manages a faint smile as her thoughts fade away and the her eyes close under the endless expanse of the sky.

fairy

I forget when I started gposing but it took then until now for me to finally start playing around with other presets. I'll get to Anamnesis eventually.

Trying out Fairy Gentle Goth in my garden compared to my usual Project Crystal - gameplay.

buzz

 Insights from being sick for 2 weeks:

• I swear being very angry over the compensation presentation was the primary reason why I got worse mid-last week.
• Real interesting that my symptoms began to alleviate as soon as the stress of having to get better for my work trip ended. I was not well enough to go and it took Kimani hearing how awful I sounded to overturn my decision to go. Did I know I was foolish to press on, yes because I mostly wanted the loyalty points but also it feels bad letting coworkers down. 
• Caffeine is the most miracle of drugs. I went from drifting off on the sofa at 7pm and going to sleep at 8 or 9pm (after waking up at 11am) to being nicely awake typing this at 10pm. 

Meanwhile I finished reading Babel (rough read) and started reading Guts (bowel movement is actually quite fascinating).

crystal tower - 3

Previous progress.

It has been a while since I updated, mostly because I made no progress (did finish the main dome a while ago). I just decided to embroider during a webinar instead of multitasking on work today. Also discovered that waiting for PF to fill is also excellent time to embroider. 

Still have to redo the walkway...and the french knot hell for all the trees welp.

shine

Some cooking from a while ago. Rashik made starlight dodo (roast duck) from the FFXIV cookbook and the leftovers went to great use as duck fat, duck fat roux, thicccc duck stock that went great with thin noodles, and the fanciest indomie.

Also zhajiangmian:

rokkon

I've been mostly working and playing FFXIV, seems like I've recovered by motivation to play following the JP fanfest. 

Finished the second variant dungeon and Eureka Orthos (much thanks to the 2 PF folks for carrying) recently:

stumble

I might have forgotten to show off this commission, but this is definitely the best reaction to it and I am immensely happy.

Thanks to the amazing Tang again <3

...

I'm very excited for all the art commissions I can get once 7.0 is out, maybe I'll eventually do a series of the 72 (okay maybe just 12?) seasons of Eorzea

refulgence

A shiva inspired drk glam I forgot to post, mostly unmodded!

2023 books

I did not read as much as I wanted to in 2023, gots to find a good place to fit it into my new daily routine.

Nevertheless, I've read:

1. Why We're Polarized
2. Intimacies
3. Caliban's War
4. A Court of Thorns and Roses
5. Things Fall Apart
6. Klara and the SUn
7. Abaddon's Gate
8. Cibola Burn
9. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
10. Nemesis Games
11. Free Food for Millionaires
12. Tatouine
13. Anxious People
14. Babylon's Ashes
15. How to be Perfect
16. The Problem of Pain
17. I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying
18. A Separation
19. Heads in Beds
20. The Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day

There is one quotation that I do like despite my general dislike of the style: