Kistaro Windrider @kistaro@dragon.style

I genuinely feel weird using binary pronouns for people at this point

my gender is, and remains, 🐉

This seems like as good a time as any to remind folks that I'm otherkin. I don't need to preface this with some explanation about how identity is all in your head and is whatever you make it; my cosmology allows for past and parallel incarnations, a universe that we can only begin to glimpse at from over here while physically incarnate on earth, and allows souls to acquire a form - which does not have to match their incarnation. I am a dragon, I have been a dragon for aeons, and I will continue to be a dragon after this planet's star burns no more.

None of us are bound to any one place or time forever. Incarnation is transitory, but souls are eternal; a consciousness is an indivisible spark of will and experience, but it has no power to act or experience anything on its own; incarnation is the only way out of an insensate hell. (Or an insensate nirvana, if you are better at keeping company with only yourself than I am.) Incarnation is, to a first approximation, recursive; I am a soul, incarnated as a complicated crystalline being of fractal nature that exists alongside itself in a multitude of places and times, which again incarnates to experience and explore forms of the universe that it cannot exist in, which incarnate and reincarnate subject to local forces and whatever passes for "metaphysics" (or just plain physics) wherever it happens to be. What else is there to do, but unwind the mysteries of the universe? We're here, we might as well figure out what "here" is.

Most of the time, I incarnate in something that at least resembles a dragon, for reasons of comfort and personal preference. This was *supposed* to be a sapient lizard planet but apparently my copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide was sixty-five million years out of date, so I've made do with the species that at least has smartphones. I can exfiltrate some brilliant works of engineering, electronics, and reinventing the process of logic for the benefit of machines - pure machines, with no souls, engaging in reasoning! Few places have laws of physics so strict that there's no easier way to do it, leading to spectacular development in large-scale mathematics and hyperminiaturized electronics, all of which can be re-applied to places that don't *need* it so didn't develop it, but could use it.

So perhaps I'm a little "old-school" by local standards, because not a word of this is figurative. I have beliefs that I freely agree are unusual, and a self-consistent and unusual cosmology to match. I read Tarot (although I'm badly out of practice) and am reasonably convinced that it works, when applied well. My consciousness is not primarily local, although it's running on a monkey meat computer that I'm not entirely happy with (but who is?) but I make it work and I know it's doing its best.

I neither require nor expect people around me to believe that my view of the universe, and my place in it, and my nature, is accurate. I believe it to be accurate, however, and I will not make psychological excuses for why; it is a reflection of the sum of what I am and have experienced and perceived; it is not abstract.

I like my local pharmacy, except for the part where I call them for same-day delivery (a thing they offer) because I just took the last of a medication I need every morning, they call back to confirm, I confirm, and then I don't realize until after they close that I never got my fucking meds and tomorrow is going to suck

Obviously, I only use my professional notebook and associated craft-y tools and embellishments in professional ways.

attn. kobolds: authentic artisanal dragon headpats available

Update: it's my _pen_ that mildewed somehow. ugh. Sorry for the false accusation, Colorverse. At least it was a cheap pen

also I just tried Colorverse Einstein Ring and it's beautiful magenta and DAMN it's stanky, this weird sweaty sour smell, is that normal for this variety? ugh.

I am starting to develop Distinct Opinions about fountain pen ink brands. I know it's at least partially different from the conclusions @Metaph and @Phoenix_Borealis have drawn, based on inks they said they liked, and I'm curious how different!

My top choice for bright, saturated ink if awful dry time is acceptable (as in, ink can be easily smudged after _days_) is Colorverse. Beautiful, saturated colors, nice sheens, creative concepts - but definitely not the right choice for pages I'll write on again, because the ink is very easy to smear. Good for journaling and letter-writing, not great for notetaking.

Organics Studio is famous for extremely saturated, extremely heavily sheening inks. I agree with this. They're also incredibly badly behaved, making Colorverse look downright practical and convenient. I refuse to use any Organics Studio ink at this point, they _love_ to just dry up on the nib of whatever pen I try them in and then they come out as a dark pink sheen that hides any other color the ink might theoretically have; they've kind of overdone it. It also smears forever, it quite literally never dries. Apparently they have some varieties that are notorious for being acidic enough to burn right through paper and pens in a disturbingly short amount of time, which I find plausible.

Pilot (including Iroshizuku) is my primary choice for well-behaved wet ink, which often displays shading and sheening but not at the expense of the practicality of the ink. They're slightly more subdued than Colorverse - which is fine, hypersaturated inks get fatiguing to look at as my primary text color after several hours of work, taking paper notes all the while - but dramatically better behaved, with at least reasonable dry times. They're also extremely wet; usually my wetter nibs bring out sheen rather than feathering, but they do depend on either a dry nib or fairly resistant paper. Pilot nibs themselves are fairly dry, so it makes sense their ink is wet to make up for it. At this point, Iroshizuku is my general "colorful well-behaved ink" choice, and Pilot Blue is my Generic Blue Ink when I need one.

Honorable mention to De Atramentis, which is more saturated and dryer. It doesn't show the same shading, but it does Just Work and the colors come through well on just about anything. I especially like Atlantic Blue. I'm using their Archive Black for my obligatory waterproof lightfast Srs Bznss ink.

I don't get the love for Diamine. It's colorful ink, but it has been kind of finicky for me so far. It's fine, I'm not impressed either way.

Every Noodler's ink I've tried has been catastrophically defective in some way. Either it smells so solvent-y my office smells like a Sharpie after an hour of writing and it sets off my asthma, or it manages to feather and bleed on Tomoe River, or it jams up in the pen after an hour. It seems to be a very polarizing brand. They have a lot of very interesting and diverse ink concepts, but it seems to be something of a crapshoot at best if the ink actually works as ink while doing whatever it's trying to do.

Sailor Ink Studio has had no shortage of really neat effects and colors. Also no shortage of "smells like a Sharpie and makes me feel kind of not great". Which is disappointing, because the polychromatic result of Sailor 123 is awesome and I want to keep using it, but I can't get everything I want.

Private Reserve is a special-purpose ink: it's for when I really, really want to soak through the paper, no matter how ink-resistant that paper is supposed to be. Really vivid! Really saturated! So wet I feel like the ink is pouring uncontrollably onto the page! Probably useful to have on hand when I find myself with a pen I want to like but is overall impractically dry.

I've been using Robert Oster inks lately. They're a little dry, which combines badly with the preference for Pilot pens I've developed, but, c'mon, they have a dark desaturated shading purple-blue named Dragon's Night, how can I _not_ make that my primary ink, seriously. NG Special 16 is like a better-behaved version of Noodler's Apache Sunset, IMO. I really like the shading and sheen on Fire & Ice when I can get it, but my dryer pens _really_ don't like it and it can gunk up if I'm not rigorous enough with pen maintenance.

Overall, I think Pilot/Iroshizuku is my best choice for being lazy with pen maintenance, and everything else has specific uses, advantages, and limitations. I'm having fun with the experimentation! Even though my fingers have been perpetually ink-stained for the last several months.

Life pro tip: laboratory glassware is often cheaper than tableware. There’s a reason my water glasses are gradiated beakers. (Temperature-safe, too; they’re borosilicate glass.)

need heat rock and/or warm kobold this morning

Ohhh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
PAUL! BLART! MALL! COP!

today is absolutely a day I want to be encased in a tight latex drone-suit and mind-controlled into being a rubber creature’s sensual plaything

I really hope my employer’s policies don’t continue to effectively ban public transport and carpooling by the time returning to the office is mandatory or I’m just completely hosed

It’s fun to see the local Steller’s jays shifting from “clearly nervous but hopeful about peanuts” to “obviously happy to see me, because I have peanuts”. It takes a while, but they do start to decide I’m probably harmless.

For the last week, my cannabis use has been "the minimum amount the PAX Era can meter, every third day", and I got comfortable with that.

There is no reasonable taper level below that, so I have thrown away my PAX Era.

This frozen pizza would only be a better metaphor for US wealth distribution if all the pepperoni was balanced on top of each other and the cheese and sauce were missing from half of it