---

It’s been a while since I last posted here, but at least I can share this post to show I’m alive, in case you don’t follow me on Twitter. Though, to be honest I haven’t really been on Twitter much either.

I was supposed to post this before June, but it’s been sitting in my drafts since end of May. It already covered so much, I decided to just update it even more to cover all of June as well.

WIPs

Since last time, I’ve been working on a few different projects. One of them is *checks notes* one with the project “code” Secret Project #8. As with any of my “secret” projects, it’s something I talk about from time to time. The thing with these projects is that I just kind of mention working on it and small details, but don’t give any context. Or very little context. Now, I guess I’ll be giving some information, though.

It’s also known as Epic WIP #2, which I know isn’t a fully unfamiliar title my and Erika’s Discord server.

Originally, I was planning on integrating it into something else, like having it as a side story in When the World Falls, I’ll be Safe from the Wrath of God, but I opted for making it its own story. I call it epic, because much like my Epic WIP #1, WWFSFG, it involves a lot of travel and is going to be long. Also much like WWFSFG, it is in its very own world, and doesn’t happen in my fantastical alternate history universe, where my stories predominantly do happen, including the ones you might not think are in that universe.

It’s written with the gameplay system of a video game with bosses in mind, I’ll admit. I have written out the entire story in a draft which I’m currently expanding a bit, but when I start writing it “ for real”, meaning in more detail, I’ll likely make a lot of decision and fill in many gaps using dice, a deck of playing cards and a deck of tarot cards. I guess it’s a bit like a structured solo-RPG and the story written is the journal of it.

I suppose that, in case anyone would like to read that as I work on it and read my very rough early stage writing that can have both too many and too few details, I could post it as I finished writing through each chapter.

But speaking of not happening in the main world I’ve built, I’ve also worked on the WIP with the incredibly descriptive title I Summoned a Demon, Who Made Me Sign a Contract. I don’t have a abbreviation for this. ISaDWMMSaC is very long too and isn’t as easy to type as WWFSFG. I just call it a mix of things, like “Demon WIP” and “Summoning WIP” or “that WIP” and “Jasper and Orion”.

This WIP is half a guilty pleasure to work on (no, it’s not really one), because it’s likely the only omegaverse title I’ll write. I’ve already mentioned at least on Tumblr that I’m in my omegaverse era. And I’m obviously not thinking of the “sexy” straight, western stuff. I honestly find it quite fascinating, the more I read anything set in omegaverses. Putting aside the fact that the alpha-omega theory in wolves is absolute bs that has been admitted to be wrong and the original researcher even spent time afterward just to prove his own observations to be wrong, the way ABO dynamics can say a lot about our own society and people’s views of society are incredibly interesting aspects.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that I would introduce a cultural clash in Demon WIP with the summoning thing, is it? People dealing with differences in culture is a running theme in my stories, I think. Not always, but often, even if the culture might be on a small scale. Culture, see, is something that can be both within a group of people, and a large population, and cultural clash is an excellent possibility to make a character think and grow. Answard in WWFSFG comes across this a lot. He also literally travels across the world he’s in, so he’s bound to come across many new schools of thoughts, ways of life, religious believs, social structues and so on. Culture is a literal theme in that story, together with loneliness and trauma.

In any case, I’ve been working on Demon WIP, especially at the end of May. I’m slowly crawling out of a really depressed state after having spent months upon months getting sick and then having had to deal with Mini’s school. I love that one, because Jasper, the protagonist, has a lot of chaotic energy. It’s a multi-POV story where all chapters except the prologue and epilogue are written in first person and Jasper’s POV is a lot of fun because of his internal commentary and thoughts. Orion’s POV is much calmer and more collected and he tries to rationalise everything, so it can even be a bit jarring. Their POVs are also written in vastly different ways because they’re very different individuals with different linguistic quirks and backgrounds.

Don’t think it’s all fluff and fun. It’s supposed to be comedic, but would it really be my work if I didn’t make them suffer a bit, both in their backstories and their current life? Well, perhaps play with language and finding your place in the world makes it more my story than the suffering, who knows?

Aside from Demon WIP and Epic WIP #2, though, I’ve also worked on Blood of Destinies Rewritten a little, but a large part of the first two thirds of June actually went to writing a 6 page essay to Mini’s school, and after that I suffered slight burn out, I think. However, in the last past 2 weeks I’ve also worked a little on Beyond the Horizon and the next part of the story, and as July began I also took upon myself to work on a piece of anon fanfic, which I will say absolutely nothing about because it’s anon for a reason. I have other fanfic I’ll likely get to as well… eventually. When I do, I might link to those, maybe.

I do think that sums up most of my WIP work.

WIP Quote

But isn’t your twenty-first birthday just the best day to give demon summoning a try?

Others go out drinking, so who can blame me? This is probably safer for my health.

A summoning circle needed a considerable amount of space, I figured, so I started to move desks out of the way. I was doing this very much on the fly, so I would just use the whiteboard markers.

This way, I could also try if demon summoning could be done with minimal tools, or if I would need more of them.

I must have run on adrenaline, because I kept moving desks as if I lifted regularly, but I hadn’t even been able to run up a few steps.

A quarter to nine I had my space. I calculated that it gave me about an hour to draw out the summoning circle. I took out the book, opening the page on what I had picked and looked at the circle.

It shouldn’t too complex, but I had to do it on a larger scale, free-hand, and on the floor.

Great.

—from I Summoned a Demon, Who Made Me Sign a Contract

Behind the Scenes

On the life side of things, I have ordered all the colours for Mini’s blanket and they have been approved by him. I hadn’t worked on it for a while, but picked it up again in June, I think. Now we got 125 out of 300 squares done, with a border that will make me able to attach them to each other on 33 of them. I’m waiting for the enxt time Mini will be here so he can decide on which colour I’ll work on next. So far we got yellow, light green, navy, cerise, and red, with the borders being white.

I admit I really look forward to seeing how he’ll use his 300 squares, as he can decide the placement of them, as long as the blanket is 15 x 20 squares.

Additionally, school is obviously over for the term, which means it’s summer vacation and I suppose I’m actually busier again. I hope to get a review or two up before the end of this season, but I’m quite slow due to my current mental health situation and needing to heal and balance everything. Having something to do and having a goal with it, like posting a review does help, though. I just need to push myself a bit more. And I don’t mean that as pushing myself past my limits, but pushing myself out of inertia.

I do have a series of posts I’m working on. Because of CORONA EX, I wanted to make a post about AI in translation, and Cas sent me a link to an article that related to AI in writing, which made me want to expand the topic. And yet I’m currently working on an AI generated images post and when it’s fine to use it and when it’s not. Controversial, I know, but I think it’s important to recognise tools for what they are, and that just because not everyone needs a crutch to move about, that doesn’t mean we should get rid of all crutches in the world. Well, that summed up my future post quite well. All of them, probably. And ironically, it’s Disability Pride Month too, so that crutch analogy was just… yeah.

Anyway, up until summer vacation I usually spent my mornings drinking chocolate and tea and eating something while my partner worked on his schoolwork. We could have long discussion on (generative) AI when it came up. We still can when we happen to be in the same room and don’t need to stare at our ADHD son. I guess that’s what should be expected when one is an artist/writer and the other is a programmer who plans on going into AI and machine learning once finished with his degree. We just in general talk about it, not just generative AI, though, so my insight is somewhat different than if all you think of is like generative AI and something from films or the like.

We also talked about other things, like how the kids did at school, how it’ll go after the summer, how to support them better, how we’re feeling, and stuff like that. You know, basic communication between spouses with children.

These talks were basically my inspiration and motivation for the afternoon. He also kind of made sure I actually got a nap in the middle of the day. So my day was basically divided in “chill time” before nap time and “do stuff” after it.

Now that’s much more difficult, because I don’t have that same routine, but I’m trying to make sure to somewhat divide it similarly, and, in particular, I’ve been working on trying to actually sleep at night. Sleeping is especially difficult for me in summer because the sun never fully sets, but at the very least I had a good night’s sleep last night. So, win!

As an aside, A month and a half ago I ordered a bunch of books, but the tracking never got it scanned. After 11 days (on May 21), I contacted the place I order my books at, and they sent my order again for free a few days later. Some things needed to be backordered, because they weren’t in stock, so they sent it all in four packages. Ironically three of those were sent on the same day and the fourth one the morning after. You can find which books I got on my Instagram, where I usually post when I get new books.

I also have got my Roubao Tarot package, which was a fan merchandise project with a tarot deck, fanfic book, and additionally also a bookmark. It was originally in Sweden in January, but I got sick, so it got sent back. I contacted the people who had worked on it and asked, with literally no expectations, if they would send it again if it returned. They would, if it returned. Not the if. It did return, and I paid the shipping for it to be sent once more after it being essentially lost after like 4 months. So that was a thing too.

I haven’t done much else, and now it’s already July. I wanted to make a master list of all the LGBTQ+ works I had reviewed for June because of Pride Month, but that didn’t happen, and now it’s July, which I already mentioned is Disability Pride Month. That doesn’t really constitute much of a master list at this time, because I don’t have that much to offer in terms of suggestions on what to read, but I’ll still take this moment to randomly plug Golden Terrace, because Fu Shen is such a badass disabled general.

I’ll try to get soem reviews up. First ought to be Peach Blossom Debt, I think, but I might end up taking some other book up as my main read, because I’ve been reading PBD on and off since March. It’s not bad, I’m just bad at reading it. I’m leaning toward just reading Case File Compendium 1 and Guardian 2. But for a while my focus will be Final Fantasy XI. Yes, XI, not XIV. I can’t afford XIV at the moment, and it’s been at least 15 years since I played XI, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to start over since I lost my access to my original account and I needed to get the ultimate edition f I wanted to pay all of it later anyway. I will probably give you my thoughts on FFXI after I’ve played the trial.

That’s it for this post, I suppose. I’d like to hear what you’ve been up to through April, May and June, so share a comment below if anything interesting happened in your life during these months.

Currently…

Reading

• Peach Blossom Debt
• Remnants of Filth vol 1
• Case Files of Jeweler Richard vol 1
• Case File Compendium vol 1
• Case File Compendium (JJWXC)
• The Husky and His White Cat Shizun vol 1
• Hello, I am a Witch and My Crush Wants Me to Make a Love Potion vol 1
• Magi (VIZ Manga)
• Komi Can’t Communicate (VIZ Manga)
• Heaven Official’s Blessing vol 1 (Re-read)
• Golden Terrace vol 2 (Re-read)
• A lot of fan translations
• No webcomics

Watching

• Ouran High School Host Club
• Tiger and Bunny
• Dead Boy Detectives
• Ojamajo Doremi

Playing

• Tales of Zestiria
• Persona 5
• DRAMAtical Murder
• Boyfriend Dungeon

Recently dropped

 N/A

Recently finished

N/A