Monthly Rewind: April 2023

Monthly Rewind: April 2023

B O O K S

For April, I ended up reading 4 novellas. I’ve mentioned multiple times before how finding a full-time job has been my priority for the last few months, which has left my blog quite lacking in content. (As you can see, my last post was my Monthly Rewind for March) I have quite a packed Netgalley TBR, and a few ARCs I had requested still need to be read and reviewed, so it made me really overwhelmed. Back when my blog was at its most active, I was actually working part-time, attending university, and blogging altogether. I thought with all this free time, I would be able to catch up, but it’s quite hard at the moment because I do this blog stuff as a side-project for fun; I’ve somehow internally convinced myself that I can’t do any “fun” stuff until I’ve got a steady job which has turned into this messy, horrible book slump right now. I’m trying really hard to get through this slump, but unemployment is beating my ass right now. So I thought reading Novellas would be a great way to ease myself back into the comfort of reading and blogging. And it’s kind of working? I’ve adored each and every book I’ve read this month.

  • Artificial Condition/ Rogue Protocol/ Exit Strategy – I plan to write a more thorough review of myself gushing over the Murderbot Diaries because it’s so good. I did not think I would find myself relating to a hacked SecUnit, but here we are.
  • The Lies of the Ajungo – I found this one by being nosy on Twitter and saw a mutual request for recommendations, and someone else suggested this. I will have to scour through my feed to see if I can find it again, but perhaps it has been lost to the Musk void. In such a short number of pages, the world-building was amazing. I thought I won the jackpot when I thought the sequel (set 100 years later) was already released, but then I realised I looked at the number wrong, and it was, in fact, slated for a 2024 release. OTL.

A R T

Update from Twitch: I’ve reached affiliate status! If you’re not aware of Twitch, it’s a streaming site that I’ve been on for the last few months, streaming while I play games like Genshin Impact and Horizon Zero Dawn. More recently, I’ve been playing Celeste and Honkai: Star Rail! The main appeal of getting an affiliate role is, essentially, streamers can earn a share of the revenue generated from any video ads played on their channel. I personally wanted the interactive aspects of having affiliate status, which were channel points. I’ve mentioned before that I used a PNG model to stream, and I use Channel Points as a way to allow anyone who watched me to redeem points (earned by watching) to redeem different outfits I’ve made.

One of the major parts of Twitch Affiliate is emotes! Any affiliate or partner on Twitch can essentially have their own personalised emotes, which can be used for those who subscribed to the channel. At the moment, I’m not interested in asking people to sub the channel; while it’s appreciated, I don’t want anyone to feel like they should give some of their money to me. This is why you can redeem any of my emotes for 24-hour use using channel points. The redemption amount is lower than usual because I want everyone to be able to use them! I drew my emotes on stream and using an emote base pack by miffurin. I did design the whole pack, but they’ll just be sitting in my Twitch inventory until I can unlock the rest.

If you happen to be reading this post on the date of its release (May 2nd), I’m going to live today at around 9PM UK time (BST) playing Genshin Impact and pulling for one of my long-awaited characters, Baizhu. (almost three years of waiting is finally over omggg) Come follow me on Twitch for some bad gameplay and good times.

P O S T S

A feature section to highlight my favourite posts from my fellow bloggers that were posted this month. 

That’s it for this month! Tell me what went on in YOUR life this month! What sort of things was important for you this month? New obsessions? New TV shows? Or book? Any new song recs (I’m always open to new music!)? Best books you read this month?

Monthly Rewind: March 2023

Monthly Rewind: March 2023

B O O K S

March was a busy month for me – turning 25, preparing for Ramadan, and the ever-so-tiring process of job hunting made it very difficult to really pick up many books this month. I managed to get 3 in and ended up enjoying all of them! Expect reviews for everything!

  • Arthur and Teddy are Coming Out – Super wholesome and super sweet. It is a tale about a grandfather and grandson coming out simultaneously and learning to deal with the reactions of their community. Teddy was kind of an arsehole for most of the story, but his grandfather Arthur’s story was so good.
  • All Systems Red – I looove finding books through my mutuals on Twitter, and the Murderbot Diaries just kept cropping up over the past few months, so I just knew I had to start this series. The hype was definitely worth it.
  • Infinity Gate – I requested this ARC a while ago and never found the time to finish it. This one certainly surprised me and had me gasping at many moments as well.

A R T

March is also my birthday month, and since last year, I’ve made it an art tradition to make a birthday art piece with myself and Kamisato Ayato (from Genshin Impact) – since we share the same birthday! I drew this live on Twitch – I like doing art streams occasionally when Im not playing games – come check it out! I did draw a lot more, but I haven’t finished them yet since I tend

P O S T S

A feature section to highlight my favourite posts from my fellow bloggers that were posted this month. 

That’s it for this month! Tell me what went on in YOUR life this month! What sort of things was important for you this month? New obsessions? New TV shows? Or book? Any new song recs (I’m always open to new music!)? Best books you read this month?

Monthly Rewind: February 2023

Monthly Rewind: February 2023

B O O K S

  • The Candles are Burning – I did a full review of the Amazon Into Shadow Kindle collection a few weeks ago. This was the final book I had got around to reading, and I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this one, considering that a lot of the short stories in this collection are disappointing. (Not you, Six Deaths, this isn’t about you)
  • A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon – We all need an Ozroth in our lives who is willing to fight our shitty family members. 8/10. Would’ve been 10/10 if it wasn’t for that annoying third-act miscommunication trope I hate. But I did draw fanart because Mariel is hilarious.
  • Blink – A creepy graphic novel about a woman discovering a cryptic website streaming an abandoned house which reminds her of her forgotten past. It’s great, but the publisher did the book a huge disservice by marketing it as found footage when the art doesn’t present itself like that but rather what the main character discovers.
  • The Moonlight Blade – I read this manuscript back when I was an intern at Entangled, and I love the newly edited version all the same! I’m a part of the blog tour later this month, so expect a review and fanart!!

A R T

Outside of my usual stream time, I like to also do impromptu drawing streams, which are usually a lot more low-key and low-energy. These streams are usually at around 11pm whenever I can’t sleep, so I draw until I feel sleepy. And during these streams, I work on fanart or new PNG outfits. My newest PNG model outfit was one I’d been planning for a long time, which was a clown outfit. Funnily enough, this is the first time I’m showing it since I’ll be using this outfit tomorrow (March 1st) for my Genshin stream while I pull for Dehya. (Yes, this is me shamelessly promoting my twitch – come over, it’s fun, and I’m usually live around 6pm GMT)

P O S T S

A feature section to highlight my favourite posts from my fellow bloggers that were posted this month. 

That’s it for this month! Tell me what went on in YOUR life this month! What sort of things was important for you this month? New obsessions? New TV shows? Or book? Any new song recs (I’m always open to new music!)? Best books you read this month?

Monthly Rewind: June 2022

Monthly Rewind: June 2022

A R T

Okay, okay! A very busy month for my iPad. I did a ton of drawing this month, partly because I was procrastinating and putting off re-apply to jobs again. Cannot believe I have three months left on my contract. I am not looking forward to the process again…. 😢 But I did a lot of fun art this month, practising new styles and more (as always..) Genshin Impact fanart!

Heizou is an upcoming Genshin character who I am obsessed with. I adore the way Genshin drops hints in the story about new characters and I knew a detective Anemo user would be my style. I rarely colour my lineart so this was a new experience that I hope to practise more with.

The second picture was inspired by @lgbtanime on twitter! They posted a picture of Namjoon and Loid and I was just inspired to try my own take on the idea, and do something that wasn’t Genshin related for once in my life.

This final picture is probably my favourite work I’ve done so far. Last year, my friend, Sheila, streamed and instead of a no-cam stream, she used a png artwork of herself and I loved the idea so I made my own. This one was a process that started back in December 2021. This is the third version of my PNG self-insert. You can see the design process on twitter! The first two versions were definitely not my best work, but I like that they showed my improvement because this version was a lot better. I designed four outfits, two from Genshin, one from Demon Slayer and the final one is based on a salwar kameez that I wear all the time. I’ve also animated mouth movements so I hope to use these in my own streams one day. (That is if I ever get the courage to start…🤫)

Continue reading “Monthly Rewind: June 2022”

Monthly Rewind: January 2022

Monthly Rewind: January 2022

A R T

Oh, hello! I’m introducing a new segment to the monthly rewind where I showcase any art + sketches I’ve made in the month. I find myself drawing a lot before my shift at work while having my coffee. (I basically rinse that £20 monthly sub from Pret) So there’s a lot of art. Some good, most bad. But I want to share the ones I liked the most.

B O O K S

I read 2 books this month! I’m still slowly making my way out of that reading slump that was caused by pandemic blues and general dissatisfaction with my life. I’ve slowly begun to make more time now to read and hopefully, I can stick to a routine that won’t cause me to burn out again.

Sisters of the Snake – I requested this arc last year and I’m glad I finally got to read it! It was a fun pick-me-up to get me back to reading. A great fun start to a fantasy series. Very quick to read as well. Read my review here!

Our Violent Ends – Another ARC that I sadly reglected. It was fun to see the conclusion of the duology. My thoughts on this are the same as it was with TVD. I was never really compelled to finished this story for Juliette or Roma because I actually found them rather boring. The side characters and background plot really carry the story. Chloe Gong writes in a way that makes the story digestable and quick to read. I’m actually very excited to read the spin-off because it follows one of the better (in my opinion) characters.

M U S I C

SURFACE PRESSURE | NUMB LITTLE BUG | SMILEY | DEVASTATION AND REDEMPTION | AKUMA NO KO

That’s it for this month! Tell me what went on in YOUR life this month! What sort of things was important for you this month? New obsessions? New TV shows? Or book? Any new song recs (I’m always open to new music!)? Best books you read this month?

#Maysia Final Wrap-Up!

#Maysia Final Wrap-Up!

Hello! I know I disappeared for quite some time, with lockdown restrictions lifting here in the UK, it meant that I had to return to work which means life is basically one big mess at the moment. While I enjoy waitressing at my current place, I’m trying to look for post-graduation jobs. I’ve been looking for full-time work since last summer and this whole year of job searching has taken a toll on me mentally. But I think I’m starting to feel a lot better and it completely slipped my mind to update my #Maysia progress on here! If you need a refresher on #Maysia, I’ve included the original Twitter thread below!

Start from the beginning! If you haven’t seen Day 1 – 21 yet, you can check out the beginning of the twitter thread here! or see their blogs posts, week 1, week 2 and week 3!

Continue reading “#Maysia Final Wrap-Up!”