#shaylin

[beetle-oxart]

I made a plushie for a furry friend ^^

[nansmenagerie]

I joined a MineCraft server with Bori and I've been having a blast. First pic doesn't have everyone, but it's a basic rundown.

[waddler13]

Shaylin is an absolute sweetheart, and I love causing her problems 💚

[fortheloveofsweat-take2]

[bookishfreedom]

“I’ve been cursed twice in my life. Once when I was born. And again when I met you.”

HAPPY PUB DAY to Once Charmed Twice Cursed!! 🎉

I made the mistake of picking up this book during my lunch break yesterday, and I pretty much didn’t put it back down after that until I’d devoured the whole thing 🫢🫢 Review below the cut

Once Charmed Twice Cursed follows Bria, a young woman blessed by the goddess of fortune with unnatural good luck. Her family has decided it’s time for her to marry. The problem? The one man she wants is the one man she cannot have: Weston, her brothers best friend, and also a Null: cursed by the goddess Fortuna with BAD luck. When they’re together, their luck cancels out. But if they were to touch? They’d both lose their luck forever.

This book had me engaged from page one. I really loved Bria’s voice, and of course fell head over heels for Weston. (blonde mmc haters DNI - I love this man)

Once Charmed Twice Cursed had Princess Brode vibes, but with the angst cranked up to 100, and I was so here for it. I am a sucker for any story with some good pining, and this one delivers. To love and want someone who you can never touch? Absolutely feral in the best way.

I don’t usually love short books (this one is only about 250 pages) but the pacing honestly made it work for me. Although I would’ve liked to see a bit more of Bria’s personal growth - the hints of it that we got were delightful and I think it would’ve been fun to play around more with how life would be different when she’s around Weston and their luck cancels out.

All of this to say, if you’re looking for a quick but satisfying romance with a hint of fantasy, this might just be your book.

Side note: every time Weston calls Bria by her nickname “Birdie” I just hear the tiktok sesame street thing in my head over and over 😂😭 “it’s okay birdie, I’m gonna take care of you birdie” …. totally works for them tbh

One million thank you’s to Shaylin Gandhi for the free arc in exchange for an honest review. It was so worth the wait! ❤️

[floral-grunge]

Shaylin Wallace

[lizanneyoung97]

BOOK REVIEW: SONG OF THE HUNDRED-YEAR SUMMER BY SHAYLIN GANDHI

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I started my week with a Beauty and the Beast retelling. It was a fun twist ending on the story, and I enjoyed the theming about seeing someone for who they really are and not just for their beauty, or perceived lack of. 

What stood out to me the most about the story was that, in order to save her people from starvation in a heavy drought, Naia has to consider the ramifications of her actions and if they’re worth it to her. Because she grew up with birthmarks that were considered unsightly to others, this isn’t necessarily a difficult decision for her. However, it made me think more about the person who chose before her, since it seems like they didn’t know about the ramifications. While it may not change their decision, it’s still interesting to consider if it changed their perspective on life at all.

[arcdotio]

and the best part is i feel like ive found a friend group if i vibe with amira’s boy/friends. and they play magic, which is really just yugioh for nerds, so im sure we’ll end up drawing intricate stories with sticks together in no time.

idk intrinsically I’m just the weird kid who sits in the corner of the sandpit drawing intricate stories with sticks

[ladyfogg]

Meet Shaylin, my new ranger Wood Elf who's ready for some hot vampire lovin'.

[lebojohnb]

Shaylin Michelle L

[kuwdora]

for all the art i've made and sold and received lovely photos of my art on other people's walls, I have historically had a hard time getting things up on my own wall. but a few weeks ago I managed to do it! so I gotta share and celebrate my win.

This is my gallery wall above my desk. I designed the layout around @andordean 's fiber art heart. I'm so happy with how this space turned out.

left wall

top left: Cumulus Cat by Shaylin Wallice whose work makes me 😍

top right: one of my own acrylic pour paintings

bottom left: empty frame, TBD what goes there

bottom right: @perseruna 's wonderful yennefer/jaskier art

bottom right: unicorn art by autistic mixed media artist and illustrator Vyara Brennan (closeup beneath the readmore).

right wall

first column:

Sleep, Adam by Sunny Jin Smith

Forest Fiber art Heart by @andordean

Yennefer & Geralt art by @llorithaine (Inprnt shop here)

second column:

empty frame, TBD !!

small green 6x6 acrylic pour art that i made in 2022

a sketch of a deer in a field by @aurumcalendula

a photo of several large boulders in the shade, a thoughtful card sent to me by my friend destina

third column:

an illustration of a hummingbird, a thriftstore treasure, artist unknown

a photo of a tree during the autumn, taken by a friend in scotland

a woman in a glittery monarch butterfly-esque skirt. Art by Bella Pilar. This was another card from destina.

fourth column:

empty frame, TBD!! hopefully some @sassaffrassa art

art by local neighborhood child named Ronon

empty frame, TBD!

the Thor Love and Thunder poster is Jane wielding the hammer and part of @elipie's current roster of Marvel posters. I decided to put Ronon's art right next to it because I liked the swirl of red and blue together.

beneath the cut: some closeups of my thriftstore frames and the art I couldn't find online.

The bottom art here in the purple flower frame is Vyara Brennan's unicorn illustration. She's a mixed media artist and illustrator. I met her at an art festival and was captivated by all the texture and colors her work displayed. She and her friend seemed confused and surprised that I had stopped to make small talk. I had asked about her use of felt in the designs and her original characters which were quite varied and I misgendered several of them along the way with my questions but was happily corrected. It was a great conversation. I think a lot of people walked by without stopping to check out her table. She and her friend were extra surprised when I said I had to run to the ATM to get cash and I actually came back. So many her collages were so varied and complex with her original characters and chunky felt and other very tactile things that made my brain go happy. I got a number of art postcards of her various characters. She's loaded up her Etsy shop since I last checked, so you can have a look and see what's available. SHOP LINK. Also I really love this thriftstore frame with it!!

this is art by @aurumcalendula who sends me the most wonderful nature art. I have a ton aurum's colorful birds and other sketches in scrapbooks right now but I pulled this one out after noticing a green and nature theme from my layout design. I found this frame during one of my many excursions to thrift stores in the area. I love thrift store frames so much and was so happy to finally use this one.

art by Bella Pilar whose cards are so beautiful. I placed this specifically on the wall so it would catch the mid/late afternoon light and glitter nicely when I'm sitting at my desk. The words destina wrote me inside I have treasured for years, just like I have been treasuring destina's words since I read her Stargate fic a million years ago.

There was an art festival nearby a few months ago and I was heading over to check it out. I came across Ronon and his mom set up on a corner several blocks away and he had his own art out for sale. He couldn't have been more than 10 or 11. He and his mom were so surprised that I had stopped at all, let alone started asking him questions about what he had been making and being excited about it. In addition to some abstract watercolory pieces, he had this amazing 16x20 canvas featuring characters Among Us. He had such a strong figurative skills, I was really impressed. I didn't really have good wallspace for a canvas that big. I opted for two smaller abstract canvases and gave him a $20. By the look on his face I think I might have been his first ever sale. His mom was also so shocked that I bought something. I gave her my old art instagram to connect with me, I told them I could offer up some of my old art supplies if he ever ran out. I haven't heard back but that's alright. There had been a moderate amount of foot traffic of the neighborhood coming and going to the art festival but I got the impression that they had been ignored by everyone all morning. Which was sad because he was a cool little guy and his art was great.

so that is the art on my wall! I have many feelings about the art and managing to get!! it! UP!

art ❤️❤️❤️

[ruindunburnit]

And not to mention, but is Erik not still teaching at the school as well as Tracking, and an adult vampyre, while Shaylin is a recently Marked fledgling? Most people would assume that there wouldn't be a reason for an adult/substitute teacher to get involved in a relationship between two teens... right?

Aphrodite notices Erik approaching and that he seems to have seen the kiss. They all look forward to watching the drama unfold.

I wanna take this moment to point out that, once again, moments between queer characters in this series ultimately aren't about thr queer characters. That's why we get them from the perspective of people outside the relationship and why those onlookers always give commentary. It happened when Jack and Damien met, when Damien and Adam met, when Damien and Adam exchanged phone numbers, and now it's happened with Shaylin and Nicole.

Queerness is a spectacle for straight people to be entertained by.

[cuttoncandyhair]

thoughts on some (canon) HoN couples

Zoey and Stark: I never really understood what their connection was supposed to be. She thought he was hot and he for some reason decided to be eternally loyal to her for... what reason again? So I guess they will be together forever. Should they be? Probably not. They fight an awful lot. I consider them the kind of couple that'll come to resent each other but won't break up. Fun! Aphrodite and Darius: I think they'll last. I just don't like them together. Their relationship is almost too perfect. It's like the authors brain stormed about what kind of relationship they wanted to give to Aphrodite, picked an idea, but never developed it further. They also didn't really give Darius much of a personality. He is a perfect warrior and a perfect lover for Aphrodite. Period. Considering how big of a role Aphrodite has in these books, her man is considerably underdeveloped as a character. They are just not interesting to me. Stevie Rae and Rephaim: Love them. Love them to death. Definitly an otp of my childhood. Will they last? I don't know, and I hate that. A lot of their relationship is based on novelty, I feel. They have very strong feelings for each other, but how will they work 20 or more years down the line? What do they have when the initial passion mellows out a bit? What do they have in common? What will they talk about? I will never forgive the Casts for not developing them further. Their relationship was such a big part of the middle of the story and then they were practically abandoned for the sake of making room for more Zoey-drama. Too bad. I really wanted to see at least glimpses of their relationship getting long-term-development. Damien and Jack: Cute, but once again drastically underdeveloped. Also, what's with all the gay stereotypes? I could write up a whole wall of text about those, but whatever. They got significantly more development in the Other World series. One of the few, and I really mean FEW, good things about it. They got a little more of an edge and personality and I must say, it suits them. I even started to care about them. Shaunee and Erik: In all honesty, what the fuck? That felt so forced! Why are the Casts so afraid of letting their characters be single pringles? I appreciated them trying to redeem Erik, but that sure as hell wasn't it, fam. In the Other World series they didn't seem like they would last either. I think they are gonna break up on amicable terms soon. All in all, I couldn't care less about them. Shaylin and Nicole: Umm... Where did they come from, again? I never saw that coming? They too just felt forced to me. Also, that thing they did in the sequel? What in the everlasting fuck? Was that supposed to be funny? I found it terrifying. Did anyone else find that funny? Maybe I just didn't get it? Frankly, I found it offensive, but I'm not a lesbian so what do I know... Kalona and Nyx: I'm happy for them. I don't get it, but good for them. As in, good for Kalona. He's got the love of his life back. How did Nyx forgive him again, though? Like, she knows of everything he did. Damn, she probably welcomed the people he abused and killed in her realm and had to calm their souls and reincarnated them. I take her for an empath, so she probably felt their pain with them. I can somewhat understand she loves the good side of Kalona, but how she forgave him for all he's done is beyond me. I wish her reacceptance of him would say something about her as an immortal entity and how she preceives the death and pain of mortals, but there is no way in hell the Casts would have thought that far. In the end Kalona definitly changed but his sacrifice doesn't make up for everything he's done by a long shot. What a mess! Travis and Lenobia: Darling! So cute! The only thing that hurts me is that he will die before her again. It must be so hard for Lenobia to think about losing him again. But all in all I think they were fun to read about.

[semper-legens]

25. Destined, by PC and Kristin Cast

Owned: No, library Page count: 325 My summary: Neferet's plans have ramped up. Killing Zoey's mother to make her perfect vessel, Aurox, wasn't enough. She wants to destroy Zoey and her friends, and she's going to need power to do it. The Darkness is calling...meanwhile, Zoey's friends face trouble amongst themselves. Rephaim is still settling in, and Erin and Shaunee have started to separate themselves. And Zoey is grieving her mother's death. Can they get it together long enough to find out what really happened? My rating: 1/5 My commentary:

Back at it again with the House of Night and hoo boy folks, this one's a doozy. I'm so close to the endgame now - only three more to go after this! And as soon as they come into the library, I swear, I'm speedrunning this shit. But this post is going to be the opposite of speedrunning. Turns out I have a lot to say about this continued train wreck, and I'm gonna spill a lot of digital ink in so doing! So without further ado, let's get down to it.

Right off the bat, we have a healthy dose of ableism! Yep, this book introduces Shaylin, who became blind as a child and is Marked by Erik. But she's Marked as a red vampire, and immediately regains her sight - and is gifted an aura-sensing True Sight. And of course, she goes on and on and on about how great it is that she's not blind anymore, and how bad being blind was, and it's just enough to make me cringe. Because all blind people need is to magically get their sight back! Not, like, better accommodations to help them live in a world that hasn't been built for them, or to be treated like actual adults or something. Nope. Magical sight, that's the best thing. It carries forward that unhealthy idea that vampires in this world are physically 'perfect' - before, we've seen the kids whose bodies reject the Change being portrayed as fat, greasy, and unfit. Now, it seems that disabled kids aren't allowed to be vampires while retaining their disability. Gross!

Nefert has a new boytoy, and his name is Aurox. Get it, because he's a werebull. Sort of - he was gifted by the white bull of Darkness, and he can turn into a bull involuntarily. But because Neferet botched the summoning, Aurox has a soul and stuff. Specifically, Heath's. Remember Heath? Zoey's human boyfriend, got necksnapped by Kalona? Yeah, the book treats it like it's a big mystery, but it's so obvious that it's Heath. Aurox knows things about Zoey he shouldn't, calls Zoey by Heath's pet name for her, has his mannerisms…it's one thing for a book for teenagers to be simpler than I, an adult, expect, it's another for it to be so obvious that a toddler could realise what's going on. And yet again, we've got another topless teen badboy who angsts about being evil and is gonna get a redemption arc. Christ alive, how many of those are there? Stark, Kalona, Rephaim, now Aurox…we get it, Casts, you got a kink. Can you please come up with another male character?

Speaking of male characters, in order to sew some chaos, Neferet's invited humans to come work at the House of Night, which means we're introduced to Lenobia's cowboy, Travis. He's a cowboy. Who works at the stables. And Lenobia, running minor character and horsemaster at the House of Night, is falling hard for him. What does this relationship do, plotwise, other than add a sexy cowboy to the cast? Even though I've criticised things like Stevie Rae and Rephaim or Zoey and…most male characters…I can at least acknowledge that they serve a function. Introducing or adding to the theme of redemption, giving those characters conflicts and secrets, furthering the plot somehow. But this? I guess it's giving us an insight into Lenobia, but so far all I've gathered is that she has a thing for cowboys and doesn't want to be romantically involved with anyone but oh no this guy's too sexy. It drags the book down and takes up valuable page time - not to mention that Travis himself has less depth than a Mills and Boon cowboy. He's just…charming and folksy and respectful to Lenobia and loves horses. Exactly the sexy cowboy archetype. Bleh. Lenobia seems like she might have been an interesting character, but the new context we learn about her is entirely about her love life, or lack thereof, and nothing to do with who she is as a person. It's lacklustre, is what I'm getting at here.

Neferet continues to be the big bad, evilly doing evil things because she's evil. She's escalated to human sacrifice and gives blood to the Darkness to drink whenever she needs something. As if she wasn't enough of a cackling supervillain already. My biggest problem with Neferet is that there's no depth to her. Why is she doing what she's doing? Sure, she wants power, she wants to rule the world and become a goddess, but why? I don't need a Disney-live-action-movie backstory for her, just something other than her hatred for Zoey and lust for power! Has this always been a facet of her from before Zoey? Was she striving towards this goal before Zoey? And, of course, for all that the Casts seem to think they're clever for making the evil bull the white one, we have the Darkness demanding blood in order to do Neferet's bidding. Not at all an overdone trope. And the way they take it from her is uncomfortably sexual - almost like the Casts haven't gotten over their whole 'slutshame the villainous female character' thing. Above all, though, Neferet falls into the biggest trap for her character archetype - she's not camp enough. If you want to have a cackling balls-to-the-wall Evil Bitch as a main villain, she needs to own it. Think Maleficent! Think Ursula! Neferet just isn't interesting enough or ridiculous enough, that's my problem.

Meanwhile, there's trouble in Zoey's inner circle. Erin and Shaunee, the Twins, have started to un-twin themselves, separating from each other to become their own people. This would be a perfectly fine plot point, but for three things. One, Erin and Shaunee aren't well-developed in general - literally, their only character trait is that they are Twins. This would be a good time to give them more character, except that this mostly unfolds with people standing around and telling Shaunee how much nicer she is now, rather than us being shown it really. Two, it seems to come right out of nowhere? There's no particular reason it happens. And three, none of the other characters seem to care about Erin after it happens. They're obviously setting up for Erin to become more of an antagonistic character later, but as soon as the split occurs, all Zoey and her friends seem to care about and check in on is Shaunee - nobody ever checks in on Erin or seems to give much of a shit about her as a person. Which is…really fucking weird? Like, if Zoey et al had checked in on Erin and been yelled at or something, that'd make sense. But it's like this girl wasn't their friend at all, so quickly is she dumped. And that's just lazy writing. It's a clear signal to the reader that Shaunee is the 'good one' and Erin is the 'bad one', despite it being a particularly cold and uncaring thing for the characters to do in-universe. There's no reason why Zoey can't be like 'hey are you okay' to Erin at least once. It'd give a chance to show how Erin is changing! But nope. Subtext is for cowards. Let's just spell it all out to the audience. Wouldn't want them to start thinking.

And yet, for all that seems to be going on here, that's actually a negative. Because it makes the book so unfocused. You can hardly concentrate on one plot thread, so much is being brought up and juggled and dropped. And a lot of it isn't resolved - sure, this is a series and there's three more books after this, but it just feels like the Casts are throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what will stick. It strikes me as a series that hasn't been tightly planned, that was loosely improvisational, and it really shows. New conflicts come out of nowhere and aren't properly foreshadowed in anyone's behaviour. New twists are set up that are predictable from the moment they are introduced. Characters are sort of fleshed out, but only in very limited ways. Characters stick to one-dimensional archetypes. There's a lot going on, but it's all as thin as paper. And it's just as bad as all the books that came before it.

Next up, time travelling meets a pirate tale.

[archeracy]

Help me get my cat treatment!

I never expected to make one of these, but my precious kitty may need surgery! At the very least, she’ll be needing a vet visit, bloodwork, and possibly sedation to run specific tests.

Nellie has carpal hyperextension and we don’t know why. In the best case scenario, it’s temporary, but that still requires testing. In the worse scenario, she’ll need surgery.

I’ve made a gofundme to help support the cost of care for my darling girl. She’s my childhood cat and she means everything to me.