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 ✨ feb 2026

- the favorites by layne fargo

-

☔️🕯

🕯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

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

[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

[fiction-heals]

Some first lines do set the tone.

Once I was satisfied, I handed him the knife.

[fiction-heals]

✨ january reads ✨

- kiss her once for me (alison cochrun) - el día que dejó de nevar en alaska (alice kellen) - bound (ali hazelwood 🎵) - dragões também comem cheesecake (laura arroz)-

🌸 february reads 🌸

- heated rivalry (rachel reid 🎵) - the correspondent (virginia evans) -

🌼 march reads 🌼

- sky daddy (kate folk) - fable for the end of the world (ava reid 🎵) - common goal (rachel reid 🎵)

🌷 april reads 🌷

- an academic affair (jodi mcalister 🎵)

🪻may reads🪻

- a song to drown rivers (ann liang 🎵) - if you could see the sun (ann liang 🎵) - role model (rachel reid 🎵) - the long game (rachel reid 🎵) - thornhedge (t. kingfisher 🎵) -

🌈 june readings 🌈

#leituras 2026

[fiction-heals]

"i will concede that you said a pretty mean thing to your sister

but you've spent fifteen years saying mean things to me and i have loved you every second of them anyway"

[metamorphesque]

"Do you know what a poem is, Esther?"

"No, what?", I would say.

"A piece of dust."

Then, just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, 'So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you're curing. They're dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.'

And of course Buddy wouldn't have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn't see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick or couldn't sleep.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

[fiction-heals]

15/2026 readinggg

I've been a lot on audiobooks lately and it feels like i lost the ability to read words on paper lmao which isn't true, i'm mostly down the x-stitching rabbit hole lately as well which keeps my eyes and hands very busy and so i don't find myself reaching for physical books or ebooks as often c: i am however readings fanfiction so that still rules somewhere heheh

This was a soft and unexpected reading! Idk if soft is the best word though i feel like toadling is so full of love and respect that it just fits her a lot. I was surprised it was a retelling in a different magical twist and i absolutely enjoyed my way through it, the fae being evil and down to mischief or utter cruelty everywhere and just, on the other side, so capable of love as the greenteeth (pardon if i misheard something, i'm just writing the names from memory). I love that toadling's magic is connected to water, wow, yeah omgosh. And how much magic she could actually unravel even if she felt herself such an incapable, small toadling being. It was a lovely adventure 🩵✨

[fiction-heals]

to finish reading one book series and then one awesome fanfiction on the same day is not for the soft hearted 😭

[the-emerald-wyrm]

I’ve noticed a LOT of dragon books are usually the start of a series, so could I get some book recommendations for STANDALONE dragon books?

[metamorphesque]

John Muir, from a letter to his sister (1873)

[fiction-heals]

[fiction-heals]

It's too late. The past is permanent.

if you could see the sun by ann liang

[metamorphesque]

― Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

[fiction-heals]

"well, one cannot save the world and live in peace, that's not how these things work."

a song to drown rivers by ann liang

[fiction-heals]

"I felt a strange roaring in my blood, a kind of drifting away from my own body until i was not blood and flesh, but the things that mountain, soil and river water and starlight are made of. Something ancient and eternal."

a song to drown rivers by ann liang

[fiction-heals]

ilya you're such a delight lmao