i spent a good portion of my march in japan: visiting family in chūbu, roadtripping around the kansai, shikoku, and chūgoku regions, then winding down in tokyo. everywhere i went, advertised on illuminated signs and menus and flags, was soft serve ice cream, each locale offering regional flavors unique to their area. i didn't have a soft serve every day, but i very well could have. join me on my ice cream journey…
Tofu soft serve (Ise, Mie)
this little tofu shop was selling soy milk donuts and tofu ice cream, which was lightly flavored and had only a hint of sweetness (perfect!). the store interior was really nice, with aged wooden block flooring and a window to view the donut making process.
i was going to translate this to "plum", but apparently ume are actually apricots. my worldview is upended.
i also just learned that wakayama is japan's top producer of ume, so it's no surprise that this was good. anything ume-flavored is. i had this at nachi falls, the tallest waterfall (with a single uninterrupted drop) in japan.
Mikan soft serve (Wakayama City, Wakayama)
wakayama is well-known for its mikan and other oranges, so i had to give this a try. unfortunately this was a bit of a disappointment, only because it was a sorbet and i expected more of a creamsicle. i was happy with the waffle cone, though—a break from those styrofoam-textured wafer cones, yay!
this was in wakayama marina city, near a fish market and curious european theme park.
Wakame soft serve (Naruto, Tokushima)
definitely the most out-there ice cream flavor of my trip, and what a pleasant surprise it was! i had this near the �naruto bridge, where natural whirlpools form underneath.
the ice cream was a very pale green and the subtly-salty kelp flavor was incredible. i assume the minuscule flecks of dark green were actual bits of kelp. my favorite of the trip!
Sea salt soft serve (Hakata Island, Imabari, Ehime)
my reward for cycling over a third of the shimanami kaid�, a popular island-hopping route for cyclists. a definite highlight of my trip—the scenery from those towering bridges was stunning!
this vanilla soft serve was mixed with local sea salt. a nice treat to go with a nice view.
Hassaku soft serve (Onomichi, Hiroshima)
hassaku is a hybrid between pomelo and mandarin, and was one of the many citrus varieties i saw throughout my trip. the southern areas of japan have so much fresh citrus.
this was the kind of flavor and texture i was expecting of the previous mikan soft serve: citrusy without losing the cream/milk flavor. this was a sweet end to a bittersweet day, since this was the end of my roadtrip. onward to tokyo…!
Cherry blossom soft serve (Meguro, Tokyo)
picked this up while strolling through the cherry blossom-lined meguro river, dappled with food stalls and live performances. i love floral flavored stuff. the chocolate wafer thing was my favorite bit.
i think this is my first time in japan during peak cherry blossom season (and i didn't plan it that way—it was entirely by chance!). the famous clusters of cherry trees are nice, of course, but happening upon lone flowering trees in random areas was like magic.
Seki milk soft serve (Chiyoda, Tokyo)
i was so happy to stumble upon this little shop while wandering around one of tokyo's many under-the-train-overpass shopping areas. this ice cream is from an antenna shop1 for gifu prefecture, where my family's from—and, more specifically, they're from seki city, where this soft serve's milk comes from. it was rich and creamy and felt a little like being welcome back home after a few overwhelming days in tokyo. a really lovely surprise to end on.
1antenna shops are stores in tokyo that promote tourism and local products from specific regions outside of tokyo. here's a list!
as always, you can leave a comment on any blog post. thanks for reading!
Title: A Spring Morning in the Garden Fandoms: Sherlock Holmes (ACD) - Retirement era Ratings: G Pairings: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson Prompts from the Dancing with Daffodils section: Landscape, Replete, Hunter Morn, Fulfilment
Last week's Poetry Fishbowl went well. I am still writing.
The weather has been variable here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, two turkey vultures, two blue jays, a brown-headed cowbird, a male cardinal, a male goldfinch,and a fox squirrel. Red-winged blackbirds have been singing overhead. Leafing out: maple, hackberry, mulberry, mayapple, Dutchman's breeches, trillium, yellow trout lily, Asiatic lilies. Currently blooming: daffodils, violets, grape hyacinths, tulips, anemone, leucojum, yellow violet, bluebells, Solomon's seal, pansies, violas, sweet alyssum. Flower buds: peonies, alliums.
For starters, I finally settled on the proportions for her legs—I'm trying to make her thighs, calves, and feet about the same size since that's what looks nicest to me and I think it does a lot to emphasize her speed. She also looks like she has proper "hair" now! The original way I drew her 'do was not only difficult to draw, but also kinda made it look like she had a bunch of paint brushes attached to her head, so I'm happy to finally give her a style that looks like something a human would cut their hair in while still maintaining the general shape.
Beyond that, it's mostly just minor tweaks. She no longer has a dagger attached to her thigh, but that's because A) I was getting sick of drawing it there and B) it's instead strapped her backpack, which I plan to make a separate reference sheet for and her other alien gear/tech. I still struggle with making her gauntlets look like actual gauntlets, but thickening the sleeve/cuff part is a start at least XD
When making this, I was testing out a new pen I downloaded off Clip Studio Assets called the O-Pen by a user named Oyunorka... I definitely like it as a potential lineart pen, although I'm still getting used to it. (I'm trying to get out of my comfort zone and use textured brushes rather than round ones. Does so much to make the lineart look more natural.)
Tunes:I Remain (David Johnson Kim feat. Johnny Gioeli)
Respect. I just did my own repair of this song last week:
There was an Internet Archive link to both the released Windows version and some Amiga prototypes of Moon Child, and that same Internet Archive link contained some gameplay footage of Moon Child with the song in it. But the song skipped and stuttered, so I downloaded the gameplay footage and did some surgery to repair it and remove the skipping and stuttering.
There's some satisfaction in realizing that between the canned tomatoes, canned beans, rice, frozen vegetables, garlic, herbs, and spices around my apartment, dinner's something I can throw together for the next couple of nights while working around a couple of obligations keeping me from investing the usual amount of time into cooking the evening meals.
I don't mind the obligations - I'm genuinely looking forward to some of them - but the timing would have me choose between cooking into the evening or working on writing, and I'm pleased I won't have to make that call.
In scholastic philosophy, "quiddity" was another term for the essence of an object, literally its "whatness" or "what it is." It's the quality that makes something what it is.
My partner Doug mentioned it tonight, and I had only seen it in Scrabble dictionaries. Try to lay that one over a triple word score. It's 8 letters but you can build it onto quid, id, dit, or it.
Seriously though, I'm currently working on a new model sheet for Iseult and I am extremely happy with how the lineart is turning out. It looks so nice and it's giving me a huge boost of confidence that I still got it in me despite how little I drew this past winter.
Writing is still proving to be the tricky one. The big hurdle I have to overcome is just sitting down, focusing, and just doing it? But I think I am slowly but surely starting to ween myself off my perfectionism, which is the main reason why it's been so difficult to convince myself to write more than a paragraph even when I do manage to get myself to do a session. (The first draft is going to just be word vomit! Get it out, then go back and make the necessary edits!)
I'm just... glad to be creating again. I missed this. I really did, and I wanna keep drawing and writing more and more until I can barely stop. It's comforting.
Vibes:happy
Tunes:I Remain (David Johnson Kim feat. Johnny Gioeli)
When cities expand their boundaries, they aren’t just adding land, they’re taking on decades of financial obligations that short-term metrics fail to capture.
When the Takeda Ayano book was announced for a live-action film adaptation, I was quite intrigued. The release date also coincided with my three-month stay in Japan, so I decided to spend my Saturday afternoon watching the movie.
This is the first Takeda Ayano live-action film adaptation. While she is no stranger to adaptations, I feel like there's some prestige in having a live-action movie screening in theaters everywhere. And it's an interesting choice for an adaptation too: as I wrote earlier, the book is rather critical about Japanese family structures and presents a compelling aromantic relationship between a woman repulsed by sexual intimacy and a sexual assault survivor. Perhaps, there's a demand for films that interrogate the fundamental assumptions of Japanese society. While watching this film I can't help but be reminded of Koreeda Hirokazu's Shoplifters, which it topped the Japanese charts for that year.
The movie follows the plot very closely -- not necessarily an ideal trait for bloggers trying to say something meaningful about movie adaptations. But in this case, the film's strengths hinges entirely on the strength of the original writing, character dynamics, and set design. Every scene was filmed the way I imagined when reading the book, depicting the world in which these characters live. The shots of Enaga's apartment and aquarium made it seem like the director and cinematographer had peeked into my brain. The performances are also meaningfully subdued to match the tone of the writing. I found myself sinking back into Miyata's depressing worldview as she looked around her apartment in silence, thinking about how much time and money she had devoted to caring for her mother.
I thought this was impressive because much of the book deals with Miyata's intoxicating narration, which is absent in the movie. Readers (myself included) will dearly miss this omission, but as a movie adaptation I think it's quite effective. The audience needs to connect the dots and understand the subtext behind each action and dialog. As a result, the movie doesn't feel jarring and remains consistently somber. The slow, lingering pace also makes the already quiet movie feel like a meditation.
The film also features excellent performances of some of the work's iconic lines. The title drop is as subtle and jarring as I remember; it's delivered as an offhand remark. I'm glad the staff understood there was no need to escalate the scene's stakes. Anyone paying attention will notice how important the title is.
The movie has flaws, some of which stem from the book. While the relationship between the two protagonists feels real, it doesn't feel developed because there isn't much screen time of them just hanging out together. Instead, they're always doing something. The last third of the movie really suffers because there's no breathing room for the two. They keep getting one problem after another, so their life becomes too hectic for the audience to understand their dynamic during calm moments.
I also found the cinematography and editing awkward at times. There are many dolly shots that don't add any value to the scene and are very distracting. This conflicts with how plain and functional many of these shots are. In fact, I wish it were more minimalist.
But in the end, the movie is a solid adaptation that not only understands the source text's quirks but embraces them. As I left the theater, I overheard a het couple raving about how wonderful the movie was and how much they couold relate to the characters. I think the movie and the book speak to the feelings that everyone young and thinking about familial love is feeling right now.
I would recommend this movie to fans of the book and and to those are interested in the work but can't read Japanese yet (I assume this will be subtitled in English soon). It's a good adaptation that introduces readers to the non-Euphonium world Takeda is thriving in.
I would love for more people to read or watch this work. Its message, I think, is so important. Watching this movie reaffirmed my belief that it might be one of the best contemporary works of fiction I've read. Takeda Ayano is a very talented write, and I hope more of her works are adapted for the big screen soon.
When I joined DW, I knew this was the right place for me. I am a long-form yapper first and foremost, so out of all social networks I've ever been on, this has been the best for me and remains so.
I did mention in a previous post that I joined Pillowfort as well. That was a short lived moment. As it turns out, my main desire was not to join a mirror of Tumblr, it was really to find the space for me that feels the most natural to post on, and that place remains DW. As my wife says, Tumblr is for shower thoughts, and I don't do shower thoughts. I don't even think in the shower! Shower is the place I either don't think at all or think of the next step in the washing routine. It's where thoughts go down the drain, never to resurface again. Thoughts right before sleep though... I digress.
I haven't deleted my PF account yet. I don't know if I will, it might be useful to keep, but I'm not present at all on it. I might delete it later on though.
All this to say, my only online "priority" is DW. This is where I feel the most at ease, so I have no reason to be anywhere else. Besides, I have no fear of losing any of my writing through a disappearance of the website since I meticulously copy and paste all my writing in a word doc (well, libre office doc) monthly. At most, I might lose my most recent posts, but I also keep all the drafts on Obsidian where I write everything first, so the fear is moot. Decentralization is good practice, but turns out it's not the practice for me. And if DW does die one day, I'll figure out where to go from there, if I go anywhere at all.
When I was in a polyamorous relationship, I heard of the term poly-saturated, which pretty much changed the way that I view relationships in general. As it turns out, I get saturated really fast in any kind of relationships. I prefer monogamy, and keeping my friend groups small, and that is reflected in how I like to be online as well. I should've honestly known, considering I only follow less than 30 blogs on Tumblr, and around 6 of them are my wife's sideblogs XD. Like most good things in my life, I like things slow and steady. That applies to reading and writing as well as everything else. And it's really hard to keep in mind when the rest of the world is so fast. But I'm getting there.
Keeping DW as my only social network also means I have chosen to be more conscientious of how long my reading list is. I've had a moment earlier last month when I felt somewhat paralyzed by the amount of posts waiting for me. Communities went out first, and I have also now unsubscribed to friending communities so I can focus first and foremost on the people I'm already subscribed to and want to maintain contact with. For now, I just go with the flow, aware that the people that I think are right for me might not feel the same way about me and vice versa. I'm learning not to take it personally, to feel comfortable in the occasional disappointments that might produce. And I'm learning to welcome life with patience. Slow and steady. That's the mantra. Some good things in life are meant to rattle our world with a bang. But most of them follow the rhythm of the seasons, years in the making. This is the rhythm I want to follow in my own life.
All this to say, I'm done playing the social media hopping game. I'm here now. That's where it feels the most natural for me to be. Turns out I'm social media monogamous too XD.
This missed being five stars by this much. Really just a sweet, cozy read from start to finish. Princess Tanadelle of the Widdenmar is the spare 'prince' (being the title of the heir to the throne regardless of gender in this world) and as such, she is content to not have to worry about ruling. Her royal duties are more in line with diplomacy, ribbon cutting and generally being a rural presence in Widdenmar which is how she ends up in Little Pepperidge with her friend (practically her only one) who is also her handler more or less, Honeyrose.
In trying to help old Mrs Gooch, bookseller, Tandy gets cursed. She's unable to leave the bookstore. Honey goes off back to the palace to get help. And at first it does feel like a curse because the place is a cluttered wreck and the only food is from the courtyard garden which basically only grows turnips and no one ever visits the store.
Until the gothy dragon-kin girl Sasha shows up because the book store is her refuge and moping spot. They strike up an unlikely friendship while Tandy tries to figure out how to get uncursed which is her true heart's desire.
What she knows - as she and Sasha reclaim this store as usable space and making a place they want to be - is that the normal remedy for curse breaking isn't going to work. That said, Tandy knows that her parents will try that route and she has to wait out the arrival of the seven princes of the realm to give her true love's kiss. On top of that a cursed pirate, Bash, has entered the store and the annoying, incredibly handsome man just won't go away (because of course not, couldn't have a romantasy without him)
I liked that it didn't lean too heavy on romance tropes (or at least ones I personally don't care for which is a lot of them). Tandy, Sasha, Bash and some of the princes are really fun characters (as they show up one by one). Of course it doesn't take much to realize what her truest desire is but that's not why it missed the five star rating from me.
The ending had me torn. Yes I thought it was a little too easy. On the other hand it's exactly the ending I wanted so go figure. Also it's open ended enough that we could easily drop back in on these characters in the future.
No the reason I was annoyed (okay it's a minor spoiler, nothing earth shattering but you can look away if you want zero spoilers) and knocked off half a star is everyone in town knows Tandy can't leave the store, literally physically can't cross the threshold. Sasha is there daily and her mom is the town mayor. They know she has little in the way of clothing (not really a problem) and has no access to food! No one feeds her. She's there eating magicked turnips every night and drinking turnip leaf tea. Not one person brings her food (other than Bash once in 6 months). This bugged the heck out of me. Other than that, this charming story is a delight.
Step into a tropical forest, and something feels different right away. The air feels rich, the ground feels alive, and every plant seems part of a bigger system.
This sense of connection is not just your imagination. Science now shows that trees in these forests actively support one another, creating a strong and balanced ecosystem.
From grim everyday dread to barely contained panic, and finally to the completely bizarre, Peeling Back The Skin is a collection of 25 astonishing tales of horror. The proceeds from the book benefit Scares That Care, a 501(c)(3) charity that has raised and donated over $300,000 to organizations and families with women and children affected by illnesses such as breast cancer.
It continues to impress the contest judges just how unbelievably creative the entries for this contest were. Seeing so many different types of stories–and some downright disturbing innovative ways of tapping into our deepest fears–makes our job both challenging and wonderful. Many thanks to all who entered, and to the #tldrwriters and #tldrterrors communities for their support. We hope everyone enjoys these stories as much as we did.
Thanks and congratulations to our winners: Alex Atkins: Tinnitus Irritatus, in Eggshell. Or Maybe Ecru Jack Lennon: Sigma W. M. Chan: Second Shot Stella Jay: Rat King Sam Logan: Space Junk Alyssa Beatty: B Ward Heather Santo: A Star That Bites Back Jay Remmick: The Collection Charlie Rogers: Improviser Ash Egan: In the Pines Gavin Rankin: Executive Function Jane Stecyk: Flight Delay MM Schreier: Hand-Picked, Hand-Delivered Steven Huff: Katabasis Arwyn Sherman: Deals Such as These Madeleine Pelletier: Hungry Eyes MJ McElhaney: One Person’s Trash Is Another’s Treasure Rory Clark: Just a Job Anne Wilkins: Developing Images in a Dark Room Martini Lynne: Tales From Mars Ryan Walraven: Corrupted Data Linda M. Bayley: The Ghost in the Glass J.I. Locatelli: Don’t Shoot the Dog Stephen James: The Average Human Lives 28,950 Days Natalie Minaker: First Man
And a huge thank you to our judges, Callum Rowland, Joe Butler, Penfold, Jenna Harvie, Mia V. Moss, Hannah Hulbert, Alex Laurel Lanz, and our overseer, Marie Kelly.
I sometimes hand write posts on a TCL NXTPAPER tablet that uses an AI Large Language Model (LLM) to convert my handwriting to text.
I do not intentionally use generative AI in anything that I make but note that I use apps (Microsoft Office, Canva, etc) that have integrated AI. These may have hidden AI 'features' operating in the background or offer assets that may be AI generated and not labelled as such.
To the best of my knowledge any content made by other people that I use or link to does not use generative AI.
Acknowledgement
Written and published on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. Sovereignty was never ceded.
Style and theme derived from Hibiscus by branchandroot
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Stay for a Spell by Amy Coombe
