be poetic today 🪸🫐✨

A place for my readings and thoughts; For quotations, words, moments i’ve stumbled upon in my adventures around literary worlds. I’m just a mere admirer. @autumnian’s side blog

[fiction-heals]

It is a light morning today ✨

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Hi there~

I’m Aster, I like to read. 🌸

Fantasy and sci-fi reader mainly, though I go through a variety of genres, and always be back to fantasy. Long time langblr, I read in more languages and the posts may vary (not necessarily well written). I share pics and stuff too ^^

✨ some of my favorites ✨

I love C S Pacat. Yes. Cornelia Funke was my entryway into the reading world and her magic still holds. Sanderson drives me nuts with so many words and I keep wanting to read more. Bring me dragons, bring me magic, bring me gays queer folk. Bring me love too ~ yes I read all Ali Hazelwood books too! Hdkshdjf

✨ Currently reading ✨ july 2026

- guerra do velho de john scalzi

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☔️🕯

🕯currently avoiding / lost interest 🕯

- die Farbe der Rache von Cornelia Funke (was für ein nerviger Charakter wtf)

📚 the pile:

- a trama da vida de merlin sheldrake - the dollmakers - tress of the emerald sea - no coração da floresta - o livro de baladas e sagas - a paixão segundo gh - jade city - três e querida tia da valerie perrin - os 7 maridos de evelyn hugo - n k jemisin - before the coffee gets cold

Tags:

#leituras 2026 for this year readings (book list / posts)

#leituras 2025 for last year's (book list soon / posts)

#gah its mine contains my photos heh

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I mean, all of us. The exact relationships may change and people may fall in and out of touch but the love that connects us will never break. We built it and it built us.

Tao in Heartstopper forever.

Crisp?

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Little project i did, drawn on flosscross.com. saving my other projects under the cut 🥰

Little rats as a gift for my friendddd, that's noc, theo and umi ^~^

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Now there is a chance that I might not do badly. That all the time I threw into this, all those study sessions might not be for nothing.

Basic economics, really. The greater the investment the more desperate you are for returns.

i could give you the moon by ann liang

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Now this is starting to get interesting. At first i was very annoyed lol not getting much into the story, not caring enough. But the fact that she doesn't consider her interpretations to be... At least possibly wrong, if not completely wrong, baffles me hahahahaha yet i like that about how the story is told. I like that Ares has a depth to him, has a deeper need and something to chase. I like that he's a bad boy but not quite lmao quite the perfect pair in an imperfect way, they are, opening each other's worlds. I'm curious to finish it now c:

Also the colors of this cover? Very much yes, yes 💕

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This is by far my favorite book by her. It took me on a wild grieving ride at 2am that was completely unaccounted for (pfff the book starts with a funeral, what was i really expecting lmao), and i really like the emotional development and chaos in this one. I like that they are both in their forties and retired from hockey. I loved the Nova Scotia small town vibe, Riley having a simple life and treating his mental health. I love his dad too omg.

I just felt very warmly welcomed in that scenario with the whole community and gosh i wish there was more of it. I devoured this book like I haven't done in a while and i love it. Maybe i also wanted some deeper talks or more actual emotional processing time shown on the page for what they were going through. It feels quick or I just read it quickly and it didn't feel as well developed as it could be.

Yet it was a lovely reading time. 🌈💛✨

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05-july-2026

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This cover is so captivating omg i love the colors and the composition. Also now at half the book i can see how representative it is too. Though the story, narrative and flow is not aaaaas good as it could be. I like the world (the universe) building of it, humans in space and spatial stations and all, research, how the situation came to be. But then Morgan Anni is just so very lucky, the things come so easily to her. It's her luck, obviously. I feel like the conflict is not as convincing or deep as it could be to be more enticing and the reflections she goes through are... Too fast, too easy. The decisions are made too easily, in my opinion.

I'll likely finish this one though right now i'm struggling to concentrate, yet i like the tone of the story very much.

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so i got myself a suspicious non-kodak thumbcamera and the quality of the pics is lowwww, very old timey feels but the experience is so much fun hahahah the photos do look okay when small tho!

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On a bad day, books offer a language to your pain. And on a good day, books remind you just how precious your life is.

never thought i'd end up here by ann liang

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First John Scalzi book: old man's war

this is going somewhere i didn't imagine o.o

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Some first lines do set the tone.

Once I was satisfied, I handed him the knife.

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"i keep picturing that little knife we used to carve our names into your headboard slipping between my ribs, hollowing me out"

that's visceral

Their love (shaw & rocha) is so visceral, so intense, potent, that when it meets ice dance, it changes the whole thing. It erupts.

I was so enraptured by this book like i haven't been with stories for a loooong while. I didn't want to stop reading and i also needed breaks cause wow dude so much to process and so much pain but so smartly written?? They are so human i miss them ;_; i wish i could have seen them competing, wasn't this a fictional couple.

I super recommend this book omg it brought me back to reading 🥰

June-2026

[elexuscal]

also on the topic of Cozy Fantasy: I feel like the Circle of Magic books by Tamora Pierce are criminally neglected in this conversation. Like that series has so Many of the popular hallmarks: found fantasy! A magic system based on crafting! Psychic soul bonds! The two main mentor figures are literal cottage core lesbians.

But, crucially, the books manage all of this while having stakes. There are the relationship, personal level ones-- will these orphaned kids become friends? Will they learn to overcome the traumas of their respective backstories? Will they learn to master their magic?

And then there are Larger, life-threatening stakes... but crucially, not 'save-the-world' level. Pierce made the excellent choice for the first quartet (when the kids are like ~10-12 ish) to generally have the threats be natural. An earthquake, a forest fire, a pandemic; there's a pirate raid, but even then the framing feels more like a force of nature. As the kids age, the threats do become more human, but remain generally localized. A crime syndicate, a serial killer. The focus of the story remains what can we do to improve things, here, now, where we are?

They really are such delightful reads and I think they could offer a lot of insight into how stakes don't need to be End of the World to still be tense and impactful.

[sheakspeare]

― f. scott fitzgerald, the beautiful and damned