ehyde | Entries tagged with life

❧ I'm jumping on the bandwagon of moving my fic to a personal archive in addition to ao3 - I don't intend to remove my fic from ao3 at this time, but as a backup and as a different option. I got myself a neocities site back in November when everyone started looking for twitter alternatives, but I hadn't done much with it until now. I'm doing this by a combination of melannen's guide, looking at the code of other neocities pages that look nice, and adapting my defunct personal site from a decade ago. Right now my writing page is the most complete - I'm not completely happy with it but it's going in a direction I like (the links just go to the basic html as downloaded from ao3 - I plan to update that eventually too - and I also need to figure out how to make it work on mobile).

❧ Speaking of everyone looking for twitter alternatives, my partner's brother has been building sift, which is more of a recommendation and content sharing tool (for links posted from anywhere) than a social site, but might be interesting to some people.

❧ And speaking of my partner's brother, we flew to California last weekend for his wedding, which was lovely (outdoors in a park with redwoods). Flying cross country with three small kids is always a challenge but it went a lot better this time than the last time.

❧ Some bookbinding projects since I last posted (wow it's been a while since I last posted): Restoration by Ritualist, Impossible to Stay Away, Impossible to Stay by dragongirlG (alternate version), I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall, They All Say I've Met a Ghost by Cyan Wings, and a new version of Pluck the Stars by exoscopy. Of these, I had the most fun making Ghost - modeled after a very haunted notebook bound in human skin, about which our oblivious protagonist only thinks "oh, what a nice heirloom."

❧ Bookbinding discord is doing a Tiny Book Bang, for which I'm taking the opportunity to typeset a couple of shorter fics, and having fun with typography. One I'm doing in imitation of William Morris' Kelmscott Press (I would not have the patience to do this for anything longer than 20k lol) and another I'm doing in the style of Aldus Manutius (Italian Renaissance printer, and it's completely appropriate to the MDZS fic I'm typesetting, I'm technically supposed to keep the fics I'm typesetting for the event secret but if you know you know).

❧ Finally, a fic rec: The Scarlet Lotus by rainbowninja167, a canonverse wangxian Scarlet Pimpernel au. I will admit that my first thought was "why would you make WWX the Scarlet Pimpernel analogue when Nie Huaisang is right there?" but it really works. The author has put a lot of thought into writing the characters in a way that works for the AU but still feels like them. This is a wip but there are only two chapters left and the author seems to be updating weekly.

Reading:
- when I started reading Lie Huo Jiao Chou the translation seemed to be updating at a reasonable pace of 1-2 chapters a month. Since I caught up, it hasn't updated since the end of November, and just as it was getting into some really juicy backstory bits.
- I started another ongoing translation, Married Thrice to Salted Fish, which is a transmigration story from the pov of the transmigrator's love interest. The transmigrator is an unapologetic villainfucker (or, he would like to be, but this is incredibly slow burn) and the pov character is his problematic fave. I LOVE the characters and the unfolding relationship but it doesn't have a plot that really grabs me, so I don't mind taking it slow and waiting for updates.
- My ebook hold for A Memory Called Empire came in and like a fool, I waited till there were only a few days left on the loan to start reading it (I'm not far enough into it to know if it's going to grab me in the "finish it in two days" way or not).

Admiring:
- this William Morris gift wrap paper pack from Pepin Press. They would be great for endpapers in the right book.

Working on:
- Renegade Bindery does "binderary" in February, which is kinda like inktober but in a different month--basically the idea is just, make as much as you can, and also people can give online talks or workshops if they want. I don't know if I'll be able to attend any scheduled events but there's going to be at least one marbling demo so I'm hoping I can make it. Anyway, I just finished a late gift for my dad, and the rest of this month I'm going to spend prepping for hopefully finishing a lot of books in February! I typeset They All Say I've Met a Ghost and I'm finishing up typesets for a few more fics, and I've spent Too Much on supplies and I'm going to start decorating some fabrics for covers.
- Some furniture rearranging at home: we got a bunk bed for 4yo and 2yo and moved them from 4yo's smallish room into me & husband's slightly bigger room. Husband and I are temporarily in the smallish room, we're going to move to the downstairs bedroom eventually but at this point 2yo still wakes up enough at night that I want to be on the same floor as him. I don't know how long 4yo and 2yo are going to want to share a room, but for now they love it.

The local bubble tea shop's seasonal offering is green tea with honey, ginger, and citron, and when I ordered it last week I missed the part of the description saying it was a "seasonal hot tea" and ordered it iced. I liked it enough that I wanted to try it as intended, so today I ordered it hot, and I think I like it better iced. I hope it stays on the menu for a while!

6yo has been sick this week so I haven't done as much as I'd wanted to, but we did still manage to pick up a dresser I found on craigslist--a kids' wooden dresser that the previous owner had painted purple, teal, and what I thought in the picture was brown but turned out to be a dark green. It has greenish-purple crystal knobs, too. It's a welcome change from furniture painted gray, and 6yo loves it.
( bookbinding thoughts )

I went ahead and deleted twitter from my phone, which means I'm spending very little time there now. It's nice actually. I'm not planning on deleting my account and I'm still checking in from time to time on my computer but now it's not this thing I automatically look at when I think "now, what was I looking for?" anymore and I think training my brain out of doing that is good, actually.

It probably helps that all this is happening at a time when I'm moving on, a bit, from MDZS fandom, and not really feeling deep in any fandom at the moment. (I mean, I would be deep in Tai Sui fandom if there was a bigger fandom, sigh). I mean I'm not actively trying to distance myself from MDZS fandom like I know some people have done--I still think it's great--it's just that it's not catching my imagination as much as it used to. But I'm pretty sure it's always going to be one of those back-of-my-mind favorites.

So yeah, I've made a mastodon account (

ehyde@wandering.shop) but I'm not really spending much time there and I don't know if I will start. I think I'm better off without twitter-style social media.

I finally picked up and read Network Effect, which I've had since it came out but never read, and I enjoyed it so much that I went back and read three of the first Murderbot novellas and also read Fugitive Telemetry. Fandom brain is going "SecUnit should meet [crossover character from x canon]" quickly followed by "come on now, SecUnit doesn't want to be forced to socialize with new people!" (it's Wen Ning. the person I want him to meet is Wen Ning).

Now I'm reading "How to Survive as a Villain" which was recommended to me a couple of years ago, back when the english translation wasn't very far along. I wasn't up for reading an ongoing translation then but I remembered it was a thing and checked back and it's fully translated now. On the surface it has a similar premise to Scum Villain: the main character transmigrates into the villain of a novel and has to make nice with the male lead to avoid getting brutally killed. But it feels pretty different. The comedic aspects are almost slapstick and the main character really doesn't give a shit about preserving the original storyline, aside from the romance between the male and female lead (his OTP) (guess how well that's going). I'm less than a quarter into the book and he's already told the male lead that he's a transmigrator, so I'm excited to see where that goes.

6yo's friend's girl scout troop had a cookie booth at the skating rink today (6yo may be joining said friend's troop soon) so we decided to go skating and get cookies. I'm pretty wobbly on ice skates and I think after a few more afternoons like this, 6yo will be better at it than I am. Still had fun though! 4yo had to hold hands the whole time he was on the ice but he had fun too. 2yo was excited about the whole concept but alas, they didn't have any rental skates small enough for him. He had fun going for a lap in my arms but kept asking if he could be on the ice "with my feet".

❧ Black Friday deals -- Cricut vs Silhouette -- I've been intending all year to get a cutting machine this holiday season, and now's the time to do it, but I'm still undecided between a Cricut or a Silhouette. Cricut has slightly more functions (although possibly with not quite as much customization?) -- mainly it does embossing/debossing, which I would like to explore for book design. Its downside is needing an internet connection to cut--iffy in my craft room--and potential software shadiness from the company (they planned to go to a paid subscription model, backed off when literally no one supported this, but the threat is there). I think I'm still leaning towards the Cricut? But I'd like to hear what other people think, if you've used either one.

❧ WIP Wednesday -- I've been working on another typeset for @renegadepublishing's exchange, so I can't share details, but I can share fonts! I'm using Newt Serif for the body text (a serif font with a bit of a whimsical, fantastical vibe). I loved this font when I first saw it but it wasn't suitable for the book I was working on then, and I kept it in the back of my mind till now. And I'm using Son of Time by Pia Frauss for the titles--no special reasoning here, but I knew I wanted something handwritten, old-fashioned vibes, but upright, and I recalled this site had some possibilities. I've used the same designer's Tycho's Elegy (based on the handwriting of Tycho Brahe) in a different typeset before.

❧ I've been reading Priest's Lie Huo Jiao Chou (danmei, urban fantasy) and in theory I like it a lot, but I've been kind of bouncing off it, and I can't point to any particular reason why (as opposed to Mr Melancholy Wants To Live A Peaceful Life, which I didn't finish, where I could point out exactly why it wasn't clicking for me). I might just not be in a reading mood; I haven't been reading any fic lately either. I don't think the fact that it's an unfinished translation is helping, either, knowing that I'm going to have to stop somewhere and not binge the whole thing whether I "get into it" or not.

Wow, the beta version of the create entries page really is a lot better for mobile (if I just want to post plain text, at least).

I've got a couple of sick kids this week who've been taking turns waking up all night and my creative energy feels very low. But maybe I'll come back here later and post about some current projects.

Current Mood: tired

I used to be that kid who'd check out twenty books from the library at a time and read them all before they were due. Now I can check out one book, get too busy to read it, and then get caught in a loop of "if I return it without reading it I'm a failure/if I keep it I'll rack up a fine" and then eventually the library sticks a lost book fee on it and the book, which I still haven't read, will be forever associated with feelings of shame and failure, and I probably won't ever read it.

So I've been buying more books, whether it be used or new. I can afford to do that these days and even if it takes me years to get to them, they're mine. The other day I bought Noumenon, a new space opera that I've seen getting hyped up on twitter, and Ninefox Gambit, which I already own on kindle, but decided to buy in paper because I've been having a hard time reading digital books without distraction. If I continue to remember that this blog exists, I may come back and post my thoughts on them.

...I only made one post and then disappeared.

It suddenly got very hot today. I walked with baby to the shop to pick up our car (finally, after it sat there for two months) and we had to wait an hour just for them to sort out paperwork. Fortunately the garage was semi-air-conditioned (ie, it was air-conditioned, but had a giant open door). All the mechanics were super excited to see a baby. Do not let anyone tell you that excitement at seeing babies is a gendered thing. Anyway, this is like...the fifth time the car has been in the shop for the same problem, and I hope it's really solved this time. If not, I give up.

Baby had a hard time falling asleep because of the heat. After she went to bed we installed one of the window AC units; we should be able to get the other one in this weekend.