ALNA Perera

Writing fantasy, mystery, or a mixture of the two, maybe with sci-fi elements if I feel like it. Likes worldbuilding way too much.

[alnaperera]

WIP intro

I've mentioned my WIP before, but this will be a comprehensive intro post.

My current WIP is an episodic epic fantasy. There is no title yet (I'm trying to decide between two titles at the moment).

Theme: What you can control (power of decisions and choices I guess) vs what you can't (circumstance). There's also a lot of friendship (the good and the bad).

It's episodic, as mentioned, so I'll publish about a chapter every week or every two weeks, starting around the middle of this year.

The story follows Lastak (on the right, back to the audience) who has just turned fifteen. She has been on the run from her home country for a while and fully expects to be assasinated by them some day. As a result, she's using a fake name.

The world has magic, and ~10% of the population has the ability to use magic. The best of these mages use magic to do various jobs. In the country where the story takes place, Aweflim, this is done through large companies (like big organizations in our world), small business often run by mages, or sort of agencies.

Lastak's objective is to join one of the big companies, but it gets derailed by her financial situation, and she ends up joining a place called Ekastem Skai, a ragtag bunch of misfits who call themselves an 'agency'.

Hijinks ensue, and in the meantime, real trouble in brewing, both in Aweflim and in Lastak's home country. Trouble that could cost Lastak her new friends, her life, and/or the lives of everyone else she cares about. And also maybe the freedom, livelihoods, and maybe even lives of a few million people.

(there are several intersecting storylines all feeding into each other, but Lastak is just trying to stay alive and make sure no one goes through the hell she went through)

(Also the villain isn't even a villain until halfway through the story and I absolutely love the villain. There's also a deuteroganist that I also absolutely love but I can't tell you too much about either of them yet. Also, delicious corruption arc potential!)

(Also Lastak is simultaneously the best and the worst protagonist to write)

(I have to stop these or I will discover the maximum length of a blog soon)

Will update with a post raving about all the side characters soon. The title will probably come within the next month.

(Ask me anything about it I can't wait to talk about it to anyone who would listen)

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[sistersorrow]

For anyone wondering: it's called Hyalinobatrachium dianae, and Kermit Frog is one of its actual recognised names (alongside Diane's bare-hearted glass frog)

This however isn't a recent discovery as it was first found back in 2015

[phantomrose96]

Kind of funny to me when humans are saddled with instincts which, historically over millions of years, offered a net-benefit to survival. And yet now in certain circumstances of modern day living just result in a doctor going, "yeah, so don't do that."

[phantomrose96]

As hairless and warm-blooded creatures, we surely, I imagine, have been highly susceptible to parasites attached to our skin.

As creatures with dexterous opposable digits and fine-tuned motor skills, we surely, I imagine, have been able to fight back against this parasite blight by detecting the parasites on our skin and picking them entirely off.

And yet. When there is a highly unauthorized blemish. On skin. You """"shouldn't"""" """"pick at it"""" because that's """not the way to deal with acne""". Which is advice from someone who just sounds like they're jealous because their ancestors weren't nearly as skilled at skin parasite eradication.

[best-of-inspirobot]

[tearlessrain]

this is in perfect iambic meter and sounds like the first line of a weird poem

[tearlessrain]

Rule #2

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you see one on the street,

For decorum is essential when a lobster you must greet.

You may comment on the weather, compliment his choice of hat,

But crustaceans like their space if one should stop them for a chat.

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you’re strolling down the coast,

Simply nod and give a greeting, or a handshake at the most,

For a lobster’s first priority is formal social graces,

And one seemes over-familiar if a lobster one embraces.

Don’t ever hug a lobster when you meet one in the sea,

For a lobster’s spines and chitin make it difficult, you see,

And he might become self-conscious if you bring that fact to light,

So don’t ever hug a lobster, simply put, it’s impolite.

[valtsv]

the thing about growing up with siblings in an abusive household is that ultimately you're each other's jail wardens and whipping boys and that does things to you no matter how much you sincerely love each other and understand why it happened the way it did and wish you could have been big and strong enough to save both of you

[valtsv]

it's just inevitably going to be difficult to reconcile the love you feel for the other half of a bear trap clamped around both your legs. is the thing.

[thememedaddy]

[gremlinservant]

Just vaccinated three kids and got kicked thank GOD I am selling them today

Edit:

THIS IS A POST ABOUT GOATS!!

[unyieldingsilence]

‎

[ominous-signs]

🐐

[gremlinservant]

TWO GIMMICK BLOGS??

[ominous-signs]

Yeah you’re right there should be more

[reggiemess]

Profanity filters on single-player games are just so... incredibly performative. They don't 'protect' the player from seeing the word (you have to type it in order to activate the filter), the only thing they do is scold the player.

My favorite solution to people who get offended at the things they themselves typed is a disclaimer on a puzzle page that said "If you type profanity you will see it."

[reggiemess]

Out: Can you pet the dog?

In: Can you name yourself Fuckface McShitass?

[reggiemess]

It's really funny and jarring when you encounter a profanity filter in a single-player m-rated grown-up game for adults, but I don't think they even make sense in kid's games. If anything I think "If you tell the computer to call you FuckNugget it will do that" is exactly the sort of obvious, low-stakes 'actions have consequences' lesson that's perfect for kids.

[reggiemess]

"This impacts nobody but yourself, and even then it does not alter gameplay or the intended experience, however we cannot allow it and you need to know we disapprove of offensive language. Anyway have fun in Gorequest 4: The Tittening."

[mtf-the-gathering]

more games could benefit from brutal legend's profanity filter setting I think

[foone]

the thing that bugs me most about this sort of thing is that it's not even like there's a bunch of conservative-christian CEOs of media companies who demand that every game they make be free of Cursed Words Lest Your Ears Be Damned To Hell (if I could, that would be in fraktur)

because I grew up around those sort of Jesus-lovin' people! And they don't make fucking video games and social media platforms!

The fucks who DO make video games and social media platforms just censor their users out of worrying that the swearing will make them less able to sell ads to those Jesus-lovin' people who don't like swearing.

Like, that's worse, right? They're not doing this out of a belief this is Wrong because God Says or even because it'll "corrupt the youth" or something, they're solely doing it out of wanting to make a few dollars more by selling their product to a prudish religious minority.

(Obviously it'd still be a problem if they just did this out of Believing, but I think it's fundamentally a more respectable position to be like "My god says these words are bad". I disagree that that means you should censor the rest of us, or that you should be allowed to, but I'm not going to say you can't believe that. Doing it just to sell to those people? Bullshit)

[viralfrog]

[dragongirlbunny]

[pissvortex]

[smoke-in-the-winds]

“Wow, yeah, I’ve never heard of that, it sounds really fucked up. Bet those perverts south of here would do it though”

[lezbianz]

this is for a part-time job as a barista

[inactiveaccount082024]

on an application to work the front desk of a hotel

[chasetriesagain]

If minimum wage you'd like to make, This ancient quiz you'll have to take.

Step right up, but be prepared. Those who fail are poverty-snared. Question One! If your labor proves most fruitful, Raking quarters by the bootful, Who should excess profits reap, Me the wolf or you the sheep? Question Two! If, by merit, you're made pope, What will be your fervent hope? Law and order justly paired? Or mercy and the guilty spared?

Question Three! If a train should leave Topeka Driven by a solar squeaker, How then should the cat behave? Give it milk or give it grave? Question Four! Do you have a criminal record?

[apatheticfluorescence]

some hyper famous artists like Van Gogh transcend overratedness and become underrated because they're so normalized. Like I'll look at a van Gogh and I'm like wait this really is amazing you guys don't get it

[headspace-hotel]

Shakespeare is like this

[kaibaseto-official]

Prev please I beg of you why should we all have a burning appreciation for Vivaldi

[sturionic]

AHHAHA well I also got another message asking for the Vivaldi freakout so. y'all brought this on yourselves <3 <3

FIRST THING TO UNDERSTAND: Baroque music is really really fucking cool. You could see it as a reaction to more constrained medieval/renaissance music, which was often obsessive about certain musical rules. Baroque comes from the Portuguese barroco, "an irregularly-shaped pearl", and was actually used as a criticism meaning something very weird, dissonant, overly extravagant, etc. It's seen as very structured but is in fact a collection of big ol' "fuck yous" to the previous era of musical structure. SECOND THING TO UNDERSTAND: Vivaldi was really really fucking cool. He was nicknamed "The Red Priest" as a young spicey ginger, and for many years he was the violin maestro at a combo orphanage/music school for girls. He wrote a zillion works specifically for the girls to perform, coached them in music theory and instruments, and helped many of them launch esteemed careers abroad. Also the board of directors hated him and kept firing him and then realizing they needed him and bringing him back, for reasons completely lost to history, but probably related to his spiciness. THIRD THING TO UNDERSTAND: "The Four Seasons" is really really fucking cool. It's written to accompany four sonnets with super vivid imagery including sudden spring/summer storms ("Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven!"), mad drunken revelry, the chase of hunting dogs, slipping on ice and eating shit, etc. When you hear it played properly it's very much not "this pretty song kinda reminds me of spring" but "oh wow I can hear dogs barking in the viola section, chirping birds in the violins, a summer storm wrecking the fuck out of my grain, and dangerously crackling ice!" FOURTH THING TO UNDERSTAND: "The Four Seasons" is rarely played in the spirit of its time. This is Mozart's fault. Well, not really, he didn't tell anyone to play it wrong. But he did give rise to a cult of strings players who play in a very "Mozartian" style - light, pretty, clean, effortless. And for some reason (ahem. some reason i won't go into as this is long enough), this playing style has become the predominant mode for The Four Seasons. Which makes it sound like light, pretty, clean, fancy music.

As we covered above, it is baroque music, so it is not any those things! It's weird and crunchy and extravagant, with musical affectations that would have been considered revolutionary at the time. If you're playing it in the baroque tradition you're also going to be adding your own ornamentations and expressions. Bringing your own weirdness is encouraged in baroque music.

Basically, it's a crime that everyone sees Four Seasons as "fancy music that plays in movies when rich people are onscreen" when it was written by The Red Priest Who Ran A Girls School For Orphans When That Was Very Much Not The Done Thing And Pissed Off the Board At Every Opportunity, and written during a musical period that history has classified specifically as a fuck-you to "pretty and clean and fancy."

For some real crunchy Four Seasons, I will always recommend Adrian Chandler & the Serenissima. BUCKLE UP TO GET YOUR SHIT WRECKED AND YOUR WHEAT CROPS MURDERED BY A SUMMER STORM!!

[pangur-and-grim]

Queer Books and Authors are at a Breaking Point

Authors, agents, publishers: every part of the industry is seeing the strain of five years of escalating anti-LGBTQ censorship.

[pangur-and-grim]

if you'd like to show support, here are some upcoming queer books:

When Life Gives You Corpses is a brilliant YA about a cursed praying mantis who falls for a young witch. Yield Under Great Persuasion is a raunchy, but surprisingly sweet story about two men repairing their relationship. Fabulous Bodies is a horror story about a queer rockstar rising from the dead.

This is Where the Future Bleeds is a fantasy set in a vividly imagined land, where two women (who happen to kiss) are the key to healing the broken sky. You're No Better is a story about a teen struggling in the shadow of his murderous parent. Oil on Canvas is about a woman who finds disturbing paintings in the home of her dead mother.

and then here's a list of 26 queer books by Black authors set to publish this year, and a 10 upcoming books by trans authors. if you want to fight back against queer censorship, use your wallet! or (if that's not an option) you can contact your local library and ask them to stock a copy.

[natalieironside]

It's fascinating (and infuriating) to live in an age where almost everyone I know is languishing in Dickensian poverty but social media is slap full of professional-managerial computer-touchers who've never known hunger insisting that the economy is fine because their metrics say rich people are still rich.

[natalieironside]

A bad economist and a bad engineer are often bad in the same way; they're both people who, when reality doesn't conform to the model, decide to get mad at reality instead of adjusting the model

[no-sharks-on-the-sun]

"only a poor artisan blames his tools" is such bullshit, in almost every imaginable line of work the quality of the tools you have access to plays a massive role in the quality of the end product, sometimes in excess of the role played by individual skill! For example, some people have to code in javascript

[cipheramnesia]

I need a polite way to email multiple people in a business environment that says, "Are you having an AI chat write your email replies? Because these are incoherent sentences and if it's a chatbot, I need you to stop."

[cipheramnesia]

I'm not trying to accuse anyone of communicating like an angry toddler with zero sense of object permanence, but I have received an awful lot of communications which ask for help with "it" while not specifying what "it" is, or asking me to send something while telling me they have it in the same sentence.

[cipheramnesia]

some mixed signals

[theprofessional-amateur]

I have a growing desire to return emails like teacher feedback on an assignment

"Thesis unclear and supporting arguments contradict leaving reader confused."

and in one particularly memorable and annoying case "You email lacks even one complete sentence or verb. Your audience is forced to wildly speculate what you are asking or proposing."

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

"Please send me the prompt you put into ChatGPT to generate this email so I can work out what you're actually asking"

[thebibliosphere]

Every so often I catch a glimpse of the book drama going on over on the Insta/Threads sphere of the Internet, and it makes me so glad I’m considered too Tumblrina to sit at their tables.

What do you mean an author is railing against people using libraries/the Libby app because it’s “free” (it’s not. you as the author get money from the library purchasing the digital lending license) and meanwhile their book is on Amazon for free to try and get readers??? Hello????

[thebibliosphere]

“But if people read it for free they might like it want to buy the rest of my work!”

You mean like how people read books at libraries, and end up buying them if they like them?

“That’s not the same 😡”

Correct! Because again, libraries pay us. You putting your books up on Amazon for free means you get nothing.