#But I'd definitely like to post some introductory writings for them

[gingermintpepper]

In honour of finishing my hellish academic semester, I present to thee:

A Brief Introduction to 'In Pursuit of Daybreak'

First things first: What is In Pursuit of Daybreak?

A post-apocalyptic fantasy reimagining of the story of Hyacinthus and Apollo! Set in a world thrown into chaos after the sudden disappearance of The Radiant God, it follows three sons of the Radiant as they try their best to bring light back to the world.

Sons of the Radiant? Meet the leading men!

Aristaeus: A pastoral god and eldest of the brothers. Due to having a strained relationship with his venerated father, he is not exactly eager to track him down and have him return to clean up his mess. After being tricked by Asclepius however, he has only one choice: protect his brothers at all costs.

Orpheus: The grieving bard and second son; with the wounds of losing Eurydice still fresh, all his songs have become bitter sorrow. Coaxed by Asclepius to help restore the beautiful world Eurydice loved, Orpheus embarks on this journey in the hopes of rediscovering himself after his greatest loss.

Asclepius: The world's best healer and the youngest son; he is intent on healing the world of its ailment for the sake of his wife and children. Though others might curse his father for abandoning the world to the beasts of Erebus, Asclepius knows better and he will cure this malady even if it costs him his life.

(Hyacinthus: The long-dead lover. Slain by The Radiant's hand, he is a vengeful wraith brought back by Asclepius' dark medical rites. He too wishes to find the Radiant - not for love's sake but for the sake of his burning wrath.)

Genre?

In Pursuit of Daybreak is a fantasy/drama piece with strong romantic themes. It also has themes of family, sacrifice, self-discovery and death.

Production Status

I've been working on this project seriously for about two years! Despite not being historical fiction, I worked very hard on research and development of the concept and characters to retain an authentic feel of the mythology and traditions they come from. I'm still in the process of writing the novel but I also want to get in the habit of speaking openly and confidently about my work, so I definitely also want to talk more and more about my children and their adventures.

Thank you very much for reading this :D Any questions or comments about the concept or my interpretations of these characters is warmly welcomed. Have a wonderful day <33

[chipped-chimera]

WIP WEDNESDAY - 21/06/23

(I mean it’s technically Friday now between timezones and spoons but have this otherwise I’ll keep forgetting) My first WIP Wednesday! Thanks @theviridianbunny​ for the tag! I’ve been really getting stuck into modding - as well as falling into my usual mod habit of ‘start like six project at once and end up with a million WIP files' but I guess I’ll talk about the major ones.

Graphic design is my passion ...

(Long) rambling about mods I'm making + things I've learned below the cut~

My V’s tatt project is still ongoing, and I’ve (somewhat begrudgingly) been trying out Substance Painter to work on bits of it, mainly polishing seams between UV maps. It’s definitely got a lot of benefits, especially for graphic placement in really tricky areas (like anywhere in the entire head mesh region for example) but I still think a lot of the heavy work will still be done in Photoshop so I’ll probably be writing up both experiences with them when I do that tutorial I keep hinting at for complex tatt work. I’ve started drafting a tumblr tutorial but I wonder if that’s the best format, maybe a PDF? Google doc? Github wikis look cool? (tho I think I need to pay for that) - if y’all got suggestions for tutorial formats pls let me know!

As for the other arguably overly-ambitious-project-where-I-bit-off-more-than-I-could-chew ...

H A I R.

Hair has been the bane of my existence for about the past week( ... weeks? Maybe two?), most of it involving cursing, a lot of reverse-engineering game meshes and smashing my head against blender. But if not already evident from my monowire post - I am a stubborn bitch with too much time on my hands so even though there were at least two moments where I wanted to curl up on the floor under my desk and just stay there - we got there.

This all started because my favourite hair mod which I cannot split from my V’s identity was acting funky and the shape of it had been altered since a physics update. It wasn’t her anymore. So I needed new hair. I tried editing the existing hair. I tried importing the old hair mesh. I tried so many things and they didn’t work out one way or they threw a million errors or there were an obnoxious amount of verts.

I even tried looking for replacement mod hair. None of them fit, all of them felt too ‘clean’ for my V. So I just concluded: FINE. I’ll make my own damn hair. From scratch. At least then I’ll actually KNOW what’s going on with the mesh, right?

Problem with hair is tutorials are very limited in respect to Cyberpunk, so I had to learn a lot of this by myself and looking at other processes used for building game hair. I’ve had a previous stint in game design at uni but it was very introductory and more broad-strokes concepts not specific stuff like what ‘real time hair’ is and how you actually go about placing hair-cards (there’s a million different ways btw) but after another 3 days smashing my head against blender I finally got shit to work to a satisfactory level using hair tools for blender and the particle hair grooming system (not the 3.5 blender system, maybe more on that at some point).

Putting together the hair cards I was 120% convinced this was going to blow up in my face, primarily through vert count. But this hair tool plugin? Alarmingly efficient. I was frequently checking my work against Alt's hair mesh (one I was planning on rigging to) and here's the final-ish stats -

This is with only Alt's hair mesh selected (no cap) and then only my mesh(s - lots of layering to build it up), and by comparison I felt I'd built up the density of a chinchilla. This is not a brag, this is mostly genuine confusion over how efficient this plugin is, all I did was smack around hair curves. It did all the UV mapping junk on the fly.

Although structurally complete, I still consider this a WIP (yes I know there's a reeeeal fun vert funkiness in that second render, it's been fixed) since I'm having to go back and fine-tune some of the UV's the plugins mapped that I'm not happy with and generally figuring out my density problem because if anything, after putting it in-game it felt too dense.

Because yes, somehow I got it in game.

WITH. PHYSICS.

This may have driven me absolutely up the wall between having to learn blender from scratch then what the heck real time hair is and how that works etc. etc. but ... god, seeing her move back from the mirror and just feeling that instant catharsis of 'IT'S HER!' made it so. Damn. Worth it.

It looks too thick - this might be because I chucked in the 'doubled' feature Wolvenkit comes with because I hadn't spent any time doing backfaces. But it also might be because it's black? That's going to need investigating.

The physics need a lot of work too, I did a pretty rushed weight painting job last night on a merged version of the mesh because I was worried whether it was even viable and I'd already dumped an insane amount of hours into this between trying to salvage the old hair and building a new one (with some more bells and whistles. Mainly - curly). That wasn't without it's issues -

This almost fucking cracked me, given this was one of the issues I was experiencing before trying to fix an existing mesh mod. Turns out I was just being dumb and forgetting to export the armature, which I'd thought I wasn't supposed to do after having blender throw a bunch of errors on other hair attempts. I gave it a try after one last shot and boom. Worked. (I dunno what those errors were about man but now I know armature? very important).

Will I release this hair? no damn clue, depends on if I can get it to a level I feel is 'releasable'. I already know what I'm calling it though - Venatrix her side-handle I've decided on.

I look forward to adapting it into maybe a comb-back version, as well as a tied up version, so I can show off both her undercut + have the option of NOT hiding every damn tatt I've obsessed over placing on her neck haha.

In other news -

My much-needed wacom tablet replacement arrived (as well as other things I was looking forward to 👀) meaning my Wacom Cintiq, workhorse of ten years can finally enjoy her retirement. Her controls were getting funky, she had a few dead pixels but man. I'm convinced they won't make them like her ever again. Either way she's done unfortunately - upgrading my monitor to 2k made this painfully obvious. I don't think it's even running in full HD, it's that old. And with Phantom Liberty coming out this year? I'm probably going to need a new videocard and DVI compatibility isn't really a thing anymore.

So for future I think I'll just stick to the basic tablet set up, invest in screens. Also now I FINALLY know what her hair is gonna look like and with the tablet here, I can get back to work on the tattoo bodysuit.

Anyways, that's it for now! (Jesus Christ did you really read all of this? If you did you're a fucking trooper). Sorry for the extended ramble but MAN I did a lot, I needed to yell.

Till next time Chooms! Thanks again @theviridianbunny for the tag~ <3

Oh shit wait, have the blender renders before I forget because hahah I figured out how to do that too lol -

[project-wildcard]

My inspirations!

My biggest inspiration, by far, is Just Roll With It. It's a TTRPG podcast that is just so good at every aspect of story telling! Every single campaign they've done I've cried out of some kind of emotion that they make me feel. The characters are all incredible! Gillion Tidestrider is probably my favourite and everyone after that is just a close second and they're all tied with each other because they're all so amazing in their own ways.

Wildcard specifically was actually inspired most The Trickster from Prime Defenders. The story of exactly how that came to happen is a little silly and for another time. You'd think with the multiple forms and changing personality gimmick that I'd have been most inspired by Vyncent and yes there's a lot of similarities but I want to make the distinction here and now that every form Wildcard takes is still Charlie at heart. They do not become a completely different person, it just changes the way their emotions work. At their core it's still the same person.

Thank you Mutants and Masterminds for being the system I used to create Wildcard's character sheet back when I was in denial and thought I'd just play them as a character in a campaign despite having no friends available at the time to DM such a campaign. I also use those character sheets to get a good idea of building and balancing all the heroes and villains in the world (although there will be plenty of leniency based on what I think is cool and fits the story).

I've also, definitely taken a lot of inspiration from the Spiderverse films, which might come across more once the first part of the story is released. Those movies are perfection the characters are incredible the story they're telling is innovative and fresh while still falling into the feeling of a Spiderman story. I love Gwen I love Miles I love Pav I love Mayday I love Peter I love the Spot I love Miguel and I LOVE LOVE LOVE Hobie! One of the characters in my story that I'm yet to speak about yet is very similar to Hobie and I'm so excited and I love the parallels and as I write them I'm definitely gonna be pulling so much from Spiderverse Hobie's personality. Spiderman in general (most versions of them) is my favourite superhero so there will probably be a lot in my head that I don't recognise I'm taking from Spider people stories but I'm just gonna make the sweeping statement now that there will likely be similarities. I will not, however, be going into multiverse or time travel stories, at least not in the main canon story, maybe I'll do a weird little "what if" after I finish telling my story where a "balanced" and fused Wildcard meets a "corrupted" and vibrant Wildcard.

Shout-out to Marvel in general, comics and movies, I've seen a lot of that stuff so again, it'll probably just leak in without me realising.

This helps me when I'm struggling to let myself write

Finally, a big thank you to all my friends who encourage/enable (in the bad way) me. I am on my shit and my shit is telling an intricate story that I am very passionate about with characters who I love and care for. Namely, all 3 of my friends on that one discord server where I first infodumped about Wildcard, Hazel, for helping me build the character sheet and helping me come up with names and also letting me info dump to you, and Mimi, for basically the same reasons as Hazel, as well as being the first person I made a superhero story for (we did an introductory session of DnD in a superhero setting. Her character will be making a cameo at some point most likely). Also everyone who's tried to help me learn how to draw because I'm not gonna lie, my only motivation there was drawing characters for this story.

[incomingalbatross]

Week Five (week before last) of Commute Radio!

Pretty podcast-heavy this time, because I started taking the train more and found that instrumental music doesn't work as well for me on the train. (It's easier to get completely distracted from the music if I'm a passenger, for some reason, and also the volume variation in classical music does not get along well with my headphones or train noises.)

Sibelius symphonies 1 and 2. As said above, a little hard to listen to on the train, but I think I liked them.

The Good List (listed on Spotify as A Drink With A Friend because they changed their name at some point). An episode about morning routines that I surprisingly didn't hate. (Morning routines are a hard sell for me. :P) Also another episode on Father Brown which... I don't think told me anything new, but was nice. Think I like this podcast.

Sacred and Profane Love. This episode was on Walt Whitman and... I think love of country? See, this is why I should make these posts in a more timely fashion. But what I remember of it was good!

My Writing Sucks. This continues to be entertaining and a fun time, as I listen to loving yet mocking commentary on the host's fourteen-year-old writing. Probably won't have anything new to say about it going forward - I'll just enjoy it. :P

Pints With Aquinas. This one was on the Sacraments! Good stuff. I'd relisten for sure if I wanted more on this topic.

Stravinsky's Firebird. Very dramatic... probably a bit too dramatic for my tastes, though not bad.

An album of assorted classical music by Wieniawski. Good! Didn't become an insta-fave, but I'd listen again.

Very Best of Stan Rogers album. Very good, and definitely furthered my education.

Stuff You Should Know: 6-minute episode on lame ducks. Still deciding whether to keep this one in rotation, just because I have an embarrassment of riches at this point.

Presidential: Jefferson episode. Good! This man had some deep-running issues, is the confirmation I got from this. Looking forward to moving beyond the First Three in the next ep, though!

Artifexian: This is always fun and entertaining to listen to - the hosts have a good presence and rapport - but I'm finding that there is definitely not a consistent focus on worldbuilding. Might start skipping around a bit in the episode list, to find the ones that look more worldbuilding-centered.

Art of Manliness: An episode on "Primal Living" that had the unintended effect of turning me from "moderately pro-paleo" to "you will pry my bread and staple carb crops from my COLD DEAD HANDS" for the length of time it took to listen to it. There is a balance in all things, guys. If you start talking like agriculture was a mistake I am very quickly tuning you out.

Being Human: This podcast is still in its introductory phases in the second episode, but I'm still invested in the subject matter so I'll be sticking around! Catholic psychiatry is an important thing.

Tchaikovsky Symphony 4: I didn't like this quite as much as Swan Lake but it was good.

[theartfulmegalodon]

Well dang it, I've had a nibble of engagement, and I'm finally letting it tempt me. Wanna read my comic scripts? I'm really hoping you do!

It is planned as a 30-issue comic series. I have chosen to write the entire thing and make it as good as I can before I attempt to draw any of the actual pages. Partly this is perfectionism, and partly it is because I know how long it would take me to attempt to draw it, and how unlikely I'd be to ever complete it. I wanted to focus on completing something, and I've chosen the writing.

I have written 15 (half!) of the 30 issues, and they have already seen many, many revisions. (Much thanks to the three people who have read them and given me feedback!) I am quite confident that these first 15 issues are very close to their final forms, and they are definitely good enough for me to share with you all.

I have also done a few sketches and bits of standalone art for the characters*, so while I have no comic pages drawn yet, I will occasionally include some of these sketches in with the script, just to give your optic nerves more of a workout. It's the least I can do! I'm thinking I can post one issue script per week? That's 15 weeks of new content for ya, with more to eventually follow!

*All designs subject to small changes down the line.

I post these issues mainly to share them. My experience has been that people almost never want to read a comic script, but sadly, the writing is as much as I can do right now, and I am in fact proud of what I've done so far, and very much looking forward to tackling the second half. However, I am always looking for feedback, and I will be WIDE OPEN for questions, critique and suggestions. Not saying I'll necessarily change things based on your feedback, but I do welcome it! Also, of course, I'd love it if you shared these around, talked them up to your friends, if you like them!

Read on for more about the story itself!

River & Ash is a slow-burn supernatural gay romance, set in an alternate version of our real world. The material is treated maturely (I like to think) but with only about a PG-13 rating. (No smut, no super-strong language.) There is angst in parts of it, but there is also a lot of wholesome shmoop. And while the focus is mostly on the evolution of the relationship between the two main characters, there is also plot, and mini-arcs, with minor superheroics, alternate history pop culture, and an original mythology and history that is teased and then slowly revealed over the course of the story. It also happens to have a very proactive, driven individual for a main character (River). I say this just in case, like me, you don't love when magic/the supernatural just sort of happens to the protagonist to kick off a story.

Ripped from the introductory page that begins every issue…

"Once, the world was full of magic… because humanity once shared the world with demons. History tells that for thousands of years they coexisted, sometimes happily, sometimes not, but one truth never changed: any human who made a deal with a demon would be granted incredible power of their own… for a price.

But in the Middle Ages, during the rise of the Catholic church, a small pocket of humanity attempted to purge these magical beings from existence. The details were lost to time, but what is known is that the demons who survived collectively renounced mankind and disappeared, removing themselves and their influence. 1101 became known as the year magic vanished from the world.

Centuries later, on the same day he suffers a horrifying loss, River McAllister is given what appears to be a real demon book. These rare, indestructible relics have been mostly hoarded away, and there hasn't been a confirmed demon sighting in over a thousand years. It seems impossible. He knows it probably won't work. But if he can find a way to translate it, he might just be able to summon the demon that belongs to it… and maybe make a deal of his own."

The first will be posted forthwith. Thank you in advance so very much!

[aliceinclockland]

HI

my name is Sonata.

this will serve as my introductory post since i want to replace the damn intro i have. it's cringey to me now 😆

i thought of doing this but a bit better this time so people who want to follow me for some reason can brace on what's about to come in their following feed 😅

here's my persona in picrews (close-up and full body) if you want to see, and another picrew of my persona in comparison to what i look like irl 😅

anyways, I'm

a Filipino (unfortunately), my time zone is GMT+8:00

a '01 liner (meaning my birthyear is 2001)

afab, a bisexual and prefers she/her & they/them pronouns

not consistent. consistency does NOT exist in my dictionary, so if you follow me and expect consistency with my posts (meaning the posts i do, not the reblogs), lower your expectations bc i wing it most of the time 😆

multifandom. like literally multifandom. I'd stan anything as long as it interests me— no matter how much of an opposite those medias are or their fandoms are.

wanna see which fandoms I'm in? it's really... diverse 😆

Cardcaptor Sakura (or most CLAMP works in general)

LOONA (yes THAT kpop group with 12 members)

Kpop GIRL GROUPS in general 😆

Percy Jackson series (of course the book series, Heroes of Olympus & Trials of Apollo included)

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir (aka Miraculous Ladybug)

Ascendance of a Bookworm: I'll do anything to be a Librarian! (Anime, Manga, Light Novel & Web Novel. Hannelore's Royal Academy Fifth Year included)

Spy x Family

Cookie Run (those running cookies/Ovenbreak and fighting cookies/Kingdom)

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Yumeiro patisserie

mermaid melody pichi pichi pitch

sailor moon

my little pony: friendship is magic (and equestria girls)

mainly slice of life/shoujo manga etc

barbie movies

five nights at freddy's (i hate horror & suspense but it's the lore that got me in 😭)

Taylor Swift (and a lot more western artists)

Cimorelli (an indie & self-made band that has helped me through a lot)

kpop survival shows

Stardew Valley

dream team (those darn minecraft youtubers whose leader loves to clown me on twitter 🙄)

and a lot more that I can't name on the top of my head

I also have various interests, but my main ones are

writing

music (specifically singing— i can sing)

photography

dancing (i can memorize choreos but can never execute them right

editing

clowning (basically analyzing stuff or putting different things and relating them with each other 😅

Right now I've been reblogging and posting stuff (mostly related to Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc) and if you're interested, the tags I use for them are:

memecaptor sakura (for the memes)

blabbcaptor (for the blabbers and not-so-deep analysis)

clipcaptor (for the clips I'd like to shine the spotlight on... though it's coming soon for now)

askcaptor (when people do asks, but again the naming is ccs-heavy but it can be any ask 😭)

I guess that's everything I can think of...? I'll definitely edit this the more I learn about how this app works, but until then, you can find me in these socials:

twitter: reveriewastaken & alicesclockland

tiktok: sonamoons

twitch: sonamoons

youtube: reveriewastaken

curiouscat: smiletwt

:)

[multilingual-mess]

Sup.

New Year, New Project:

✨ a language blog ✨

And I am definitely not making this post at midnight, while playing Genshin Impact.

aNyways here's some info about me and this blog!

Who I am:

The name's Valor, and I go by they/them pronouns

I'm from Europe (mainly). More specific than that and it gets... complicated. Especially when it comes to languages. (I am part latino, technically, but I don't really care much for that side of me? so. yeah. european.)

I'm a teen with a burning passion for learning and a burning hatred for school

Diagnosed with ADHD in 2022 😎

Apart from learning languages, I also enjoy reading, voice acting, art and listening to music

I'm also a little obsessed with Genshin Impact right now. Just a little. You might see me messing with the languages there.

My languages:

🇺🇸 English: Native (sort of). Recently did the C1 test and I got a C2 grade. My main language, especially online. Not much to say tbh.

🇪🇸 Spanish: Native. Haven't done a test for it though, unlike English. Might in the distant future, but I don't really see a need to.

🇳🇴 Norwegian: A2-B1 I'd say? The main language I'm learning. I'm studying bokmål Norwegian, so that's how I write, but speaking is a mixture of bokmål and whatever form of nynorsk that my family speaks.

🇯🇵 Japanese: A0. I can read kana, for the most part. Barely understand any Kanji. I'm hoping to advance my level this year, though I gotta make a plan for how I'm gonna study Japanese. I don't know how to study.

Other languages: I'm not really trying to dive into any other languages right now. I'm a high school student, and my plate is already full as it is. I can understand a bit of French, since I studied it in school for 3 years. If I were to study another language, I'd... honestly struggle choosing which one. There's too many that seem so interesting to learn.

The blog:

I don't really have much experience in langblr. I follow a few langblrs, but that's it. So I don't really know what to post. Don't expect consistency from me.

I might post some multilingual shenanigans of mine, like voice acting in other languages I guess? Or that one time I decided to sing "We Don't Talk About Bruno", but each character was a different language. Random stuff like that.

I was also considering doing a weekly or monthly recap of what I've done for Norwegian and Japanese, just to see my progress. Also a plan of what to study, otherwise I'm running around like a headless chicken.

This is all hypothetical. I'll probably update this in the future, depending on how this blog goes. Who knows?

Anyways, with that out of the way (and considering how late it is for me right now), that's that for this introductory post. I'm not really sure how to end this, so...

Ha det!

[libraryofnika]

⋆˙⊹ August Reads (2)⊹˙⋆

My August reading is definitely not good 🙈 All of these are gonna be full reviews, so if you're interested, keep reading :) 4 books are on this post 📍

⋆˙⊹ Love Not Qualified (Workplace Romance)

Date Released: August 10, 2024 Date Read and Reviewed: August 13, 2024 Ratings: 3⭐️ ° What to expect📍 .𖥔 ݁ workplace romance .𖥔 ݁ forced proximity .𖥔 ݁ hidden identity .𖥔 ݁ dual pov .𖥔 ݁ family problems .𖥔 ݁ miscommunication .𖥔 ݁ eating disorder, grief, addiction, abuse .𖥔 ݁ spice ° First things first, I'd like to mention that I prefer this non cartoon art cover more than the one with a cartoon character cover. It's very appealing to me. Alright, on to the review, I would say tha this is quite an okay read for me even after that email that kind of made me feel constricting and more like 'reading this and liking it is a must'. And considering this was my first book of the author's, it was quite disheartening. The author apologised, tho so I guess it's now fine? Anyway, the writing is quite good, I admit, there's potential and it's quite appealing as well. The concept or the introductory chapters held promise, so I was really looking forward to it. However, as the strong progress, reading this felt really tiring because I believe it could have been shorter than what it was. Adding the miscommunication plot device that made it bothersome for me or more like the execution of this part was something I didn't like. The pairing had chemistry, and was really hoping for their romance to be even better, and I was quite pleased that Haelyn had more spine however the MMC didn't really grovel that long so I didn't like that. Overall, this could have been better. Thank you, author, for the e-arc opportunity.

⋆˙⊹ Mistress of Lies (Fantasy, Adult, Vampires, Poly, Queer)

Date Released: August 13 (US) August 15 (UK) 2024 Date Read and Reviewed: August 16, 2024 Ratings: 2⭐️ ౨ৎ This might be one of my disappointing reads of 2024 in terms of my most anticipated releases. Don't get me wrong, the concept or premise really is promising and something that I really want to read. However, the execution is just not it. The plot progress is almost nonexistent to me? It feels that it just stayed the same, and nothing really happened at all because instead of SHOWING, it stuck to TELLING us. It's quite frustrating because the whole vampire or magic system is something I find really interesting, and as a reader who likes to have an in-depth showing of the fantasy elements, it is indeed a let down. Other than that, the writing I'm so sorry to say that the writing is lacking as well. It was very slow to my liking. I feel so bad not liking this 😭 On the character developments, another let down for me. I find them superficial at all, quite pretentious in many ways. Especially for Shan, considering the characters was supposed to be some kind of cunning, the character seemed to be not at all. There's nothing really endearing about her, and it's just sad because the start really was promising to me. Sam and Isaak, as well. Honestly, I could not connect to them. There's nothing really happening in the pairing. The developments aren't there at all. Another thing, Aberforth?? REALLY? I just couldn't take this name seriously. I'm not even going to talk about the ending. Overall, I wish the execution was much better. More showing. The plot is more consistent. Writing more captivating. Characters are more dimensional and likeable. Thank you, Orbit books, for the e-arc opportunity via Netgalley.

⋆˙⊹ Of Glass and Gold (Fantasy. Retelling (Cinderella))

Release Date: August 14, 2024 Date Read: August 18, 2024 Ratings: 2⭐️ ⋆˙⊹ I'm not sure what's going on, but this is the 3rd one. I've rated a novel a 2⭐️ after rating 2 novels (fantasy and a magical realism one) a 4⭐️. Anyway, reading this felt tedious. I feel like this could have been shorter. In all honesty, I enjoyed the first one of this series more than this. The characters are interesting however it failed to immersed me in the story. It lacks the intrigued pull I've always wanted in a fantasy novel. I just couldn't connect to the story or the characters. This probably might be because my last 4 ⭐️ reads were really captivating, and the writing was not engaging at all. Thank you, author, for the e-arc opportunity.

⋆˙⊹ Fated (Magical Realism, Contemporary Romance)

The premise reminds me of that other book I read last month, if I'm not mistaken. Honestly, I really love the idea of it. Like that other book I read, this was a miss for me. The writing definitely made a major impression on me, and it's not good at all. The characters feel bland at all, and I barely feel the romance. The idea is there, but the execution is poorly done. I was approved of the next one, and I'm kind of hesitant for it, but I still probably gonna read it. I'm just hoping that it's gonna be better. It wasn't the worst one. It could have been better if the writing was more engaging and characters aren't bland.

I'm really hoping for my next reads to be much better 🤧

[lucy--studies]

hi im lucy :) ⎻ Intro Post

Hello and welcome to my new studyblr!

☽ my name is Lucy, I'm almost 20 years old, and this is my studyblr! ☾

About me:

I am almost 20 years old

From Midwest America

I am going into my third year of college, majoring in graphic design

INFP, Gryffindor, Type 4

Leo sun, Aquarius moon, Gemini rising

Neurodivergent

I have been on tumblr since I was 12 and have really been lurking ever since

Constantly stuck between wanting to homestead and wanting to be a big time city gal lol

Why am I starting this blog?

I have always admired the study community, but never felt that I quite fit in with it. My life is definitely not very aesthetically pleasing and each day is a battle with keeping up with a routine because of my ADHD. Therefore, there are a few reasons as to why I am starting this blog:

Keep myself disciplined and motivated: I want to build a stronger routine in my life.

To be a relatable presence: I want to be a blog you can relate to, to show people that life isn't always perfect, social media is fake, and you don't always have to have everything together because I sure as hell don't

To be honest with myself: This will also serve as a place where I can journal and put out all of the thoughts in my head, because I feel like i'm going crazy if I don't get them out. I am creating a safe space for myself to be honest.

Hobbies:

I LOVE anything art related, whether it be art history, or anything else. My favorite period of art is impressionism/post impressionism

I'm picking up on film photography and I LOVE it sm. My university actually has a darkroom and it is my favorite thing ever.

I play the trumpet in my school's marching band

I love alternative/indie music

Im trying to get back intro reading but finding time is hard lol

I used to do a lot of theater in HS and I still love it :)

Makeup

Baking

Academics:

The past 2 years I have already taken some introductory art courses, art history courses and basic classes on adobe software and typography as well as the general education courses for my school.

This upcoming fall semester I will be taking:

Typography II

History of Graphic Design

Design Processes II

Physics

Physics Lab

Marketing

On top of this I will also be memorizing music for the marching band and I will be picking up the Korean Language again. I tried learning it a couple years back and have always admired the culture and language, but then my mental health got in the way and covid happened and so I kinda fell behind and eventually didn't have time. I got to about the intermediate stage I'd say?

Goals:

My idea is to keep each of these attainable because I have a habit of overwhelming myself lol. I have ADHD so routine is very hard for me but I am starting this blog to keep myself motivated so hopefully it helps :)

Keep a journal

Work out at least 5 times a week

finish the korean duolingo tree

(This is a bit more long-term lol) graduate Summa Cum Laude

I will also be writing down a more solid routine once I get the hang of it.

If you've made it this far here are some study buddies I admire :)

@studyquill @studylou @aquariusstudying @featheredstudies

[autistic-lalli]

I dont know how to properly frame my question, but autistic!lalli has always been a headcanon I readily claimed as canon in my heart because it MAKES PERFECT SENSE in my brain. But besides me, what I'd like to ask is what traits/habits/behaviors Lalli has that immediately clicked to you that he was autistic? Or showed that he was? Like, gush to me about them

(this is mainly so I can get better at writing him and also because I'm curious to know! Actually, SLAP me with EVERYTHING about Lalli, if you can 😂 I'd love to actually know everything)

This topic was also requested by @the-story-isnt-over-yet ! This post is for both y’all :)

I’m going to try to keep this organized, but we’ll see how successful I am. First up, I’ll talk through Lalli’s general traits, then the traits I picked out quickly and resonated with, and then I’ll touch on a couple other things that stand out to me!

Sensory Experience

Lalli repeatedly displays sensory-avoiding and sensory-seeking behaviors. He likes soft textures and sweets—he picks himself up a big ol’ fluffy cloak in Adventure 2, and his mind conjures him a nice and soft one in his dreamspace, and we all know how he feels about pastries. He’s always willing to eat sweets and breads, which suggests that Lalli has samefoods as well (samefoods are like a comfort food, but taken up to eleven; foods that always sound good, sometimes to the point that they’re the only thing an autistic person can eat.) It’s just a single line, but where Lalli tells Emil that he hates blueberries, it makes me think of a very specific picture (I’ll link it later if I can find it.) Blueberries, and other fruit, don’t taste the same every time! Some are sweet, some are sour, some are mushy, some are grainy, and some are juicy. When you don’t know what to expect from a food, this makes it hard to want to eat it, even if some aspect of the flavor is good.

But I digress! One thing that I resonated with right away with Lalli is that he clearly has sensitive proprioceptive awareness. That just means the sense of where your body is in space. When Lalli sleeps or hides under a bunk or table, he’s reducing his sensory input. Being in a small space is comforting because there’s less space to be aware of.

Lalli is also sensitive to touch, which is a fairly easy trait to spot. He doesn’t like the friendly punches the crew delivers, and even balks at Emil’s touch when he’s upset. There are exceptions, but those exceptions come at times when Lalli is calm and expecting the touch to occur.

And sound! Lalli doesn’t like loud sounds, in particular loud people (sorry, Sigrun.) This is a great place to talk about Lalli’s shutdowns. We don’t see Lalli experience meltdowns, but he does have a shutdown a couple times. Shutdowns are a response to stress and sensory overload. It looks different for everyone, and since it’s internal, it’s hard to tell how exactly Lalli’s shutdowns run. However, we see him cover his ears to block out sound and hum (“mrr!”) in order to calm himself down. He’s just trying to regulate his sensory experience. His humming is also an example of vocal stimming.

Social Difficulties

Lalli definitely has social difficulties, but it can be hard to tell which difficulties are due to the language barrier and which are due to his brain chemistry. But! Paying attention to the first part of the story, when he’s with all Finnish-speakers, as well as the dream sequences can really help us hone in on those traits.

Lalli, in general, doesn’t understand other people beyond what they say. He doesn’t understand body language or sarcasm—he doesn’t get why everyone’s punching him, he doesn’t know when Tuuri’s joking and when she’s serious, and he stares at Emil because he’s curious about him and doesn’t realize it’s impolite. He doesn’t notice when Emil is rude and doesn’t understand social scripts like saying “thank you” and “you’re welcome.” When he wants to express approval or comfort, he gives a soft pat to the other person. More touch than that might be too much for him, but he does want to express something, and pats are an excellent tool in that way.

Lalli’s inability and/or refusal to learn or use the crew member’s names also gives us insight to how Lalli faces social conundrums. To him, everyone else is more distinguishable by the epithets he gives them—their names don’t mean anything. It’s like naming someone “flower delivery guy” in your phone contacts instead of “Greg.”

Lalli also isn’t easily frightened. The only times we see him be really afraid is when someone he loves is in immediate mortal danger. The everyday stuff like trolls and omens don’t scare him, which is certainly in part just because he’s used to these things. Trolls and spirits are an everyday part of his life. But an unusual lack of fear is a common autistic experience as well, so I suspect it goes beyond Lalli’s accustomation.

Other Traits

A couple other things that didn’t fit into either of the former categories! First of all, the rubik's cube. That’s just autistic solidarity. Emil picked up a stim toy for his bf, we love to see it.

But also, Lalli relies a lot on his routine. That’s probably why the military, and scouting in particular, suited him. He has his own personal routine that is the same day in and day out. He tries to keep a routine on the expedition, but isn’t able to, which increases the amount of stress he’s under. Nothing is predictable, which automatically makes everything more stressful.

Relationships

I also think the dynamics of Lalli’s different relationships are super interesting and really highlight some things that aren’t often covered in media with autistic characters. It’s super heartbreaking the way Onni and Tuuri don’t seem to understand Lalli. Tuuri especially doesn’t understand why Lalli does the things he does, and doesn’t seem to make any effort to understand, which is sadly a common experience for many autistic people.

On the other hand, Emil’s reactions are the complete opposite. As I put it to a friend once, Emil often makes mistakes with Lalli, but he never crosses the same boundary twice. He lets Lalli have agency in their relationship. If Lalli has a boundary that inconveniences Emil, he doesn’t complain about it, he simply adapts. Lalli has very specific needs in his relationships, needs that are both unusual and difficult for him to communicate, so it’s far easier for him to just default to being a loner.

Me & Lalli

On a personal level, I have a whole lot of these traits. I stim with soft things, I’m sensitive to sound, I tend to be hypersensitive with my proprioceptive sense, I had to intentionally teach myself to read body language (I work as a theatre artist, which helped a lot,) I’m not easily frightened, I’m sensitive to touch and sound, and I certainly struggle socially. Furthermore, I actually had an untreated sleep disorder until about a year and a half ago, so I deeply resonated with Lalli’s chronic exhaustion.

Truth be told, I headcanoned Lalli as autistic from his introductory card, and I knew he was autistic within ten pages. Chronically exhausted and doesn’t know what’s going on? Mine now.

The Autism Metaphor

I talk about this some in my autism and superpowers post, but I really love that Lalli is both autistic and is living an autistic metaphor. It’s not uncommon for characters who can see or sense other things (ghosts, spirits, emotions, danger, etc.) to read as autistic, because that’s what autism often feels like. Our sensory experience is so distinct and we are so aware of it that it can feel like a superpower at times--in a good way and in a bad way. We’re living in a sensory world that a lot of neurotypical people don’t understand. Furthermore, these kinds of powers or sensitivities usually come with an isolating social impact in these stories, which only strengthens the metaphor for autism.

But Lalli has both actual autism and is a mage. He sees spirits and omens and can sense when trolls are near, and also is sensitive to sounds and doesn’t like to be touched. These things aren’t related to one another, but they all read as being in the same category, which both deepens the metaphor and makes him really interesting as an autistic character.

This is also why Onni readily reads as autistic as well. We don’t have as much direct evidence for him, and in many ways his trauma seems to run much deeper than it does in Lalli and Tuuri, so it’s hard to separate out what’s a trauma response and what’s an autistic response. Overall, I’m quite a fan of “no Hatakoinen is neurotypical,” but that’s a post for another day ;)

I’ll also be posting a panel or two of an instance where Lalli is displaying an autistic trait each day for the month of April!