shaonsim

[shaonsim]

After combing through a ton of posts on Instagram and Pinterest, this is probably my first mandala with the Mahabharata as its inspiration. How? You ask, well, here is an explanation of the above attempt.

Character explored: Draupadi

I've always associated two women in the Mahabharata being associated with the lotus, one is Satyavati, and, the other is Draupadi. I had initially planned to colour the lotus in shades of red, yellow, and orange, but, then I chanced upon this little factoid in Bibek Debroy's translation of the Epic (which, I'm given to understand, is pretty close to "canon" provided the bibliography he provides in the introduction). He says, that she smelt of "blue lotuses" when she emerged from the fire, and hence the blue. So, while the yellow, red (speckles) and orange stand for the fire, which sired her, the blue, stands for her aura.

And of course, the colours in the paisley are just my imagination of an extension of her being. I've always imagined The Panchala Princess to be vibrant and exuberant in all her happiness (yeah, yeah, I know I've gone overboard with the colours).

And yeah, red and pink are my favourites.

Tagging: @chaanv , @ambidextrousarcher , @vidhurvrika , @bleedinknight , @raat-jaaga-paakhi , @melancholicmonody @demonkidpliz , @alwaysthesideofwonder , @herawell , @avani008 , @shaonsim , @paneerlajwanti and @fyeahhindumythology for feedback.

#awesome people doing awesome things

[shaonsim]

Since my laptop is was completely out of order for the past weekend, hence tried doodling this with colours this time, with of course, reds, and pinks being paramount

And here's the skeleton:

And here's the mandatory taglist:

@chaanv @vidhurvrika @bleedinknight @shaonsim @ambidextrousarcher @melancholicmonody @paneerlajwanti

#awesome people doing awesome things #enqueue | q tag

[shaonsim]

This somehow turned out to be really really inspired, albeit, extremely inadvertently. Again, el esta un doodle para mi fin de semana (pardon me showing off my terrible Espanol (again, your resident dreamer, trying a lot of different things)).

A YouTube channel comprising of three of the people I've literally adored and followed through the years started today, as a rebellious force, speaking truth to power in this day and age. The channel, is named 'The Red Mike' l 'लाल माईक (in Hindi, since it is primarily, a Hindi news channel) '. Red being a symbol of the previous news organisation they hail from, and being a symbol for the following, so beautifully spoken by them:

"लाल रंग है, इंकलाब का,

लाल रंग है, उम्मीदों का,

लाल रंग है, प्रेम का,

लाल रंग है, जीवन का,

लाल रंग है, मेरी मां की बिंदी का।"

It goes like this,

" Red stands for revolution,

Red stands for hope,

Red stands for love,

Red stands for life,

Red is the colour of the vermillion that adorns my mother, in all her maternal glory"

Ugh! The mandatory taglist remains:

@chaanv @vidhurvrika @melancholicmonody @bleedinknight @shaonsim @ambidextrousarcher @carminavulcana @demonkidpliz @paneerlajwanti

Also, here's the skeleton:

#awesome people doing awesome things #♥️

[shaonsim]

So after literally harassing @paneerlajwanti yesterday, I've decided to torture everyone with my amateur atrocity in art (since I haven't been able to write in the past week)

So here it is:

The skeleton:

And the final doodle:

The mandatory taglist remains to be tortured:

@vidhurvrika @bleedinknight @carminavulcana @chaanv @alwaysthesideofwonder @ambidextrousarcher @raat-jaaga-paakhi @melancholicmonody

Would so love to know what y'all think, since this only the third time I've done anything like this in my life.

Also note: Drawn by free hand. Rather doodled by free hand.

#awesome people doing awesome things

[shaonsim]

"But you already wrote that trope."

#| writing is a cocktail of frustration; daydreams and satisfaction writing tag #@shaonsim approves #it's our happy thing #let's do it a thousand times #and more #enqueue | q

[shaonsim]

I hope something good happens to you. Good news, a good day, a good result, a crafting/art project you are proud of. Whatever it is, I hope it's good, and that you are happy.

#;hugs and blankets and soft toys - support tag #enqueue | q #cheaty 1000th post #♥️

[shaonsim]

love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do touch me like you do to-to-touch me like you do

GU WON & CHEON SA RANG KING THE LAND (2023) dir. Im Hyun-wook and Choi Sun-min

#awesome people doing awesome things #love the style of this #so even if I have no context #reblogging because it is pretty #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

In among ferns

(c) riverwindphotography

#এ তোমার খেলাঘর * nature tag #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

Reblog if you understand and have felt the pain of your glasses never being clean no matter how many times you wipe them

#;|shaon #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

Carrbridge in the Highlands

lochgmarcp

#এ তোমার খেলাঘর * nature tag #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

Something pretty for you... (P7)

#এ তোমার খেলাঘর * nature tag #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

Pine and Moon

(c) riverwindphotography, August 2023

#এ তোমার খেলাঘর * nature tag #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

Electric Power Lines

Fu Baoshi

1954

#awesome people doing awesome things #art; #not only is this really good #this is something I'll never think about #and that's beautiful #how to an artist #everything is deserving of becoming art #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

FOREIGN BIRDS: WIP INTRO

its finally here. the new wip. i haven't made a wip intro since i started ested in like june 2021 and i honestly forgot how this works but i'll try my best to make it coherent.

first thing i should clarify for those of you who didn't see this post, this used to be @/rowansghost, but i started using the name silas instead, so that's why my url looks shitty now.

TW: suicide, addiction, death, grief, manslaughter, ghosts

disclaimer: this is my original work. plagiarism of any kind will not be tolerated.

genre: literary fiction

time period/setting: 1970s, somewhere in canada, small coastal town

projected word count: 50k

pov: first person retrospective referral (with shifts into present)

plot/concept: foreign birds follows 22-year-old martin, who drops out of college and decides to move back to his hometown after accidentally killing his best friend, gabriel. he never wanted to go back to his hometown again, but decides to stay when he meets rainey, who he ends up moving in with, while all the time he's harbouring his secret and hoping he doesn't become a suspect for gabriel's death. the story is told from the pov of his ghost after he kills himself, when he returns to haunt rainey's house. it is his apology to her, where he tells her all the things he never said and all the things he'll never be able to.

aesthetics/vibes: dusky blue light, house parties, smoking a cigarette in the bathtub, neon lights, bruises, ceramic dishes, a quiet apartment, a damask carpet, tv static, soft yellow porch light, playing records, medication bottles, the halo of a streetlight, rosary beads, humming powerlines, a box of matches, a living room full of birds in cages, red wine, thinking you see an angel, neon diner signs, pulpy orange juice, a buzzing ceiling fan, disco light, the orange cast of a lampshade, empty church pews, the scent of a lit match, pale yellow kitchen tiles, blue veins, jittery radio voices, sitting at the kitchen table at 2am, motel rooms, laundromats, cigarette burns, refrigerator light

CHARACTERS

i have several characters planned for this book but i'm not quite sure how they'll play into the story yet, so i'm just going to include the most relevant three for the sake of your attention span.

martin

22

intj, enneagram 3w4

photographer

slightly long dark brown hair, light brown eyes, 5'11, very skinny, pale, fashionable, wears sunglasses a lot

kind of narcissistic, will manipulate people for his own gain

actually cares a lot about rainey and struggles between choosing her or choosing himself, like he's used to

charming, emotionally detached, manipulative, secretive, obsessive, independent, intelligent, loyal only to a few specific people

burnt out gifted kid, has been called a waste of potential

likes going to parties despite being very introverted

considers himself above other people due to their neglect for him growing up, feels like he deserves better and especially did when he was a child, and that he doesn’t need them because he’s grown superior and now he can retaliate by using them before they use him

in a downward spiral that eventually ends in his suicide

rainey

23

entp, enneagram 8w7

journalist

long red hair with bangs, dark brown eyes, 5'3, dresses like she's richer than she is

assertive, innovative, outgoing, autonomous, outspoken, stubborn, passive-aggressive, confrontational

a lot more successful than martin

trying to support martin and help him get better, knows he doesn't tell her as much as he pretends to, doesn't find out his secrets until the night before his suicide

obsessed with tropical birds, has several birds in cages in her living room, cares for them more than she cares for most people

also has a cat

gabriel

22

martin's best friend/boyfriend (but its the 70s so no one knows about that) who he accidentally killed

infp, enneagram 4w5

art student

dead in the fictive present, but is a very prominent character in flashbacks

curly black hair, dark skin, light brown eyes, 5'9

not very developed yet, i'll probably get more details for his character when i start writing his scenes

and that's what i have for this so far! i actually started writing this book a few days ago, and am ~1000 words in wish me luck. i still haven't decided if i'm going to do writing updates for this book, but i think i will since it's not supposed to be that long, so i can maybe post one every 5-10k words. that is as long as i remember to, which is unlikely based on my history of promising writing updates that never arrive.

the end

— silas

wip taglist (i just have one for all my wips, ask to be added/removed): @flip-phones @chewingthescenery @ghostsofmemories @dallonwrites @wildswrites @annlillyjose @letsgetsquiggly @strangerays @mel-writes-with-her-dragons @teaandtypewriters @kahaaniyaa @coffeeandcalligraphy @47crayons @writing-is-a-martial-art @childhoodlovers @zoya-writes @pepperdee @oceancold @unorganisedbookshelf @musingsbycaitlin @sunstone-iolite @femmeniism @raywritesstories @rodentwrites @cheerfulmelancholies @these-starrynights

#hey I don't know if you remember me #silent follower then and now #but this sounds so interesting !!!! #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

@userdramas event 08: heat ↳ sarang & won (king the land) + 2pm's RED

#feels so weird to reblog this #since I don't know what it is about #but it's so pretty #I scrolled past ― twice #then came back wanting to reblog #so here we go #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

Rock Salt – WIP Intro

hello again! on today’s news, your girl has a new wip aka something to fixate on and mould her life around for the next couple of months (or years). and because i cannot keep any exciting news to myself, here’s a wip intro.

but before we head into that, here’s a little backstory to how it happened. i finished writing dairy whiskey, i worried about my brain being incapable of forming new book ideas, two to three days after i get this new book idea that i’m totally hooked on, struggles to find a name, names it, decides to go forward with it, so again, here it is – rock salt!

here are the specifics:

disclaimer: this is an original work of fiction. plagiarism of any kind will not be tolerated. don’t be a pathetic loser.

genre: literary fiction

pov: first person retrospective

structure: probably going to be just full-length chapters

projected word count: 50k

concept: identical twins rain and norah move out of their family home for college where they purse two different degrees, live with different people in separate homes, and fall in troubles of their own. these begin to affect each other and they grow apart, being forced to navigate the the most confusing part of their lives – their shared existence as twins.

aesthetics/vibes: indigo skies, the beach, moths, seawater, salty breeze, chopping off one’s hair because existential crisis and queerness, lesbian relationships, house parties, fire, gloomy days where you feel like it’s going to rain but it doesn’t, cheap housing, bad grades, rotten food in the fridge, the moon, hanging plants, weed and local flowers

CHARACTERS

if you’ve heard these names before, no you haven’t, but again, they’re from twinepathy – the short story i wrote nearly three years back and scrapped afterwards. i tried to create new characters for this book but they feel like the perfect fit, so here they are.

norah

18

lesbian, she/they

her real name is eleanor

the protagonist and the narrator

studies political science

shoulder-length black hair, dark brown eyes, 5'3, skinny, wheat-coloured skin

always wears basic t-shirts or sweatshirts with a pair of mom jeans

distant, secretive, in constant disapproval of everything

strives on academic validation (and is being too hard on herself to bring in good grades)

rain

also 18

aroace, she/her

her real name is lorraine

studies painting and the applied arts

long black hair, dark brown eyes, 5'3, skinny, wheat-coloured skin

is a goofball, sunshine and rainbows, has a lot of friends, is extremely talented in her art, golden retriever energy with some drama to be unleashed

cannot keep her mouth shut so ends up in trouble with norah

don’t want to introduce them officially, because they’re not key characters, but here’s a little info on their older sisters –

harper

23

is called harp

is a high school geography teacher

engaged to her college boyfriend

oldest child in an asian household (i guess that’s saying enough)

violet

21

is called viv

the neglected middle child

in her last year of a nursing degree

wanted to study music but was too scared to bring it up to her parents and ended up being stuck at a hospital

plans to go abroad and marry a rich guy

well, that’s all i’ve got for you today. i haven’t started writing this book yet and i think i won’t until i finish editing dairy whiskey in august. i think i’ll start in september and then hopefully do nanowrimo for it in november. i’m super excited to work on it because it’s so different from dairy whiskey in a lot of aspects. but i’m discovery writing (as always) and we’ll just have to see where it goes. but until i come back with an update for this book, you take care, stay hydrated, water your plants, and eat a second dessert tonight.

– ann

general taglist (ask to be added or removed)

@shaonsim @heartfullkings @vnsmiles @dallonwrites @wannabeauthorclive @sienna-writes @violetpeso @flip-phones @silassghost @ambidextrousarcher @zoe-louvre @writing-with-l @magic-is-something-we-create @femmeniism @frozenstillicide @wizardfromthesea @rose-bookblood @coffeeandcalligraphy @rodentwrites @saltwaterbells @snehithiye @at-thezenith

#eeee #congratulations ann !!! #so happy for you #both because you have something new to obsess over #and because this sounds amazing #looking forward to it #(as always; love love how you make steady progress; it's inspiring) #;|shaon #enqueue (q)

[shaonsim]

HELP what are y'alls go to ways to actually brainstorm and be excited about your books <333

#;fake text conversations #;thinking about imaginary scenarios and dialogues in my head #;rereading what I have got so far #;talking about it with someone who will listen & show interest #;rewriting notes and biographies with information I have now <- great way to nail their voice #;music and coming up with scenarios that fit #<- you pick a song and figure out a scenario where it applies to so and so #;trying (and failing) to come up with a proper timeline detailing their entire lives #;what-if scenarios that will never happen #;if nothing else works then I force myself to be happy and inspired and actually sitting down to write works (sometimes) #;|shaon #enqueue (q)