yours in calendrical heresy

lauren ren | she/they | sff books + art | icon by @exmakina

[saintmercymorn]

photography blog @ren78787 / photography IG

book reviews

goodreads / storygraph

letterboxd 

art blog @llysande

[ren78787]

Japanese temple cats

Nov 2025

[ren78787]

28/10/2025

[pngzoid]

The Dance - Florenza Art (Elena Fiorenza Gatti)

[lleyksie]

let’s be primitive horses with mama

[ren78787]

Sun Moon Lake, Nantou County, Taiwan (2025)

[ren78787]

Yuguang Island, Tainan, Taiwan (2025)

[ren78787]

Sun Moon Lake, Nantou County, Taiwan (2025)

[ren78787]

sunrise in Shanghai with some cute friends

[saintmercymorn]

mini life update from me as I took a long break from tumblr to focus on my studies but I’m happy to say I’ve finally graduated from med school (hooray!). I spent a lovely month and a bit travelling through japan, china and taiwan to celebrate. I also picked up photography recently which I’m loving and will probably share some snaps here now and then. lastly still reading and watching stuff can hopefully share more of what I’m enjoying now that I theoretically have more time

[reaper-of-phobos]

look at this triumvirate bro, we ain't making it out of the institute

[andieburky]

The Reaper x The Morning Knight

Darrow of Lykos & Cassius au Bellona

don’t look too closely if you haven’t finished Dark Age……..

*Do not steal/copy/print or reupload to any other platforms without permission. Reblogs appreciated!

[art-wallpapers]

Maxfield Parrish (1870 - 1966)

Reveries

Contentment

The Lantern Bearers

The Old White Birch

The Dinky Bird

Daybreak

[saintmercymorn]

Review: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

3.5/5 not an instant classic like First Law and definitely not as quotable but its nice to see an author experiment and make it largely successful. a very fun bloody romp across alternate history europe (rome never existed, magic is real, carthage and its witch engineers were swallowed by hell, jesus was a woman and the pope is a 10 year old girl) where a ragtag group of morally damned people ferry across the world's most unconvincing empress to her throne. probably one of the most dysfunctional groups ever to become a found family. loved the ending, it was very abercrombie-esque - just when you believe the characters have grown and become better people it all comes crashing down in one regrettable mistake. vigga (and the vigga-wolf) steals the spotlight joe really cooked when he said what if a woman was a buff himbo and also a beserk werewolf

[saintmercymorn]

partially reviving this blog as i reminisce on reviews that i believe didn't get enough love on my goodreads

Exordia - Seth Dickinson 5/5

When a book begins by quoting Obama joking about his war crimes you know it’s gonna slay.

Jokes aside there is so much to say once I read it again for the third time, I will die defending this book against its haters.

Wind and Truth - Brandon Sanderson 3/5

I’m a bit sad this used to be one of my favourite series but now I’m pretty ambivalent towards the cosmere on the whole. The scope has exploded and this book really suffers the weight. I loved the ending but it needed rigorous editing, I genuinely think 600 pages could’ve been cut from this book and nothing lost from the overall story. Kaladin, Dalinar and Adolin have always been the standout characters for me and this continues to be so in Wind and Truth. I’ve come to realise that Sanderson’s storytelling priorities have diverged from mine as a reader a long time ago - there’s a lack of interrogation over the structures of society in the worlds he creates and the sociopolitical effects of his plot choices, and thereby his stories lose the enrichment they could’ve had.

Intermezzo - Sally Rooney 4/5

A wonderful dissection about the complexities of human relationships and the idea of what being a ‘normal’ person is - my favourite one to read about was between the brothers and the way their recent grief brings up unaddressed transgressions from the past that overtly destabilises their relationship

Fractal Noise - Christopher Paolini 2/5

I am the number 1 unlikable protagonist/character defender (Rin poppy war get behind me) but these characters all sucked - not just unlikable but uninteresting to the max. If you have unlikable characters they must instead be compelling or funny and none of them were that. All these people did was argue with each other it was incredibly exhausting. Honestly what's worse is I'm pretty sure we're supposed to be sympathetic to them but none of the characters had any depth apart from debating theology and philosophy (I cheered and clapped when Talia and Pushkin finally died). I can't even fault Alex for being suicidal, I would to if I was grieving and had to be stuck with Talia and Pushkin, in fact I'm impressed he put up with it for so long. Chen was such a non-entity, his only interesting part was the exorcism which was never brought up again.

The last 15% of the book was the best and even included and element of horror but I wish paolini leaned even more into it, especially as it's about a group of isolated people in conflict who are slowly going insane.

One thing I will praise is the audiobook production, the added sound effects were cool.

[pears-palette]

Not me blasting Promise by Laufey the entire time working on this piece.

[ID in Alt]

[pansen1802]

High house dark, knight of darkness.

————————

If I have this amount of patience at work, I shall already get out of poverty. 

And thank you all for those advices! They are all very helpful. I am working on the deck right now, hopefully I could show you some progress next week.