I’m Leaving Twitter

I don't give a shit about Elon Musk. He's not the reason I'm leaving Twitter fandom. For so long, I've felt like something was missing; I've been dissatisfied, bored, and disillusioned by the whole experience. I even left fandom for a long time, three years. I returned because I missed it; I missed writing fanfiction.

New Beginnings

Welcome to Xenodike.com. It’s a merger of my fandom LiveJournal, which I started in 2005, and a book blog I started here on WordPress in 2017. That’s why, despite this being my first official post here, you’ll find entries going back almost seventeen years.

Santa Paula: The Road So Far # 5

It's been two and half months since my last update, and I still haven't completed the first draft. But, I do have a complete second draft of the first three acts—the finished story will have four acts. With the way Santa Paula is structured, I wanted to get a good grasp of the character's journeys and the major plot developments before I start writing the final act.

Santa Paula — The Road so Far # 2

Draft: 1 Months in Progress: 4,5 Word Count: 50K-ish Estimated Final Word Count: 120K 130K (ish) Named Characters: 5 State-of-Mind: Fine. I give up. Let's suck the joy out of everything and embrace the angst. Currently Researching: Dissociation. Vining vegetables. Squash Tunnels. Chicken breeds. Cover Crops. Bohemian Clothing. Silk Robes. Mexican food. Pig Breeds. Tequila … Continue reading Santa Paula — The Road so Far # 2

Book Review: The Binding

THE FACTS Title: The Binding Author: Bridget Collins Published: 2019 BLURB Imagine you could erase grief.Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret.Forever. Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and … Continue reading Book Review: The Binding

The Witcher Reviews: The Lady of the Lake

The Lady of the Lake, the last book in The Witcher Saga, is a novel focused on concluding this intricate story. It’s one of the things I genuinely love about this series: The End isn’t hastily handled in a few short pages: it’s an entire book. All of the conflicts, schemes, confrontations, battles, and fights that have been plotted and foreshadowed will come to a close.

Why I’ll Never Write a One-Star Review

Despite having a pretty good idea about what kind of books I gravitate to, occasionally, I come across books that I think I'll enjoy but don't. Other times I tell myself I'm missing out on great books because I'm so set in my ways with what genres I like, and I should try something new; sometimes it works other times it doesn't.

So, you loved Good Omens. Now what?

The recently premiered mini-series, Good Omens, on Amazon Prime is currently all the rage on my twitter feed. The series is an adaptation of the thirty-year-old cult novel, written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. At the moment, it seems like it's either being reviewed, analyzed, raved about, or involved in hilarious misunderstandings instigated by Evangelicals Christians. 

The Witcher Reviews: Time of Contempt

Aretuza will also be the place of a large political gathering, The Mages Conference, where most of the more powerful and influential sorcerers and sorceresses will gather. What occurs there will have harsh, long-lasting consequences and set the main characters on paths that will last throughout the series.

Book Review: Good Omens

What happens next includes prophecies by a slightly unhinged, seventeen-century witch, self-proclaimed witch hunters, the Four Horsemen (on motorcycles), Angels being bureaucratic assholes, and demons who overreact when you've accidentally misplaced the Antichrist. There are also Satanic nuns, patriotic Americans, and Hellhounds. Oh, and the Antichrist is an eleven-year-old boy.

Book Review: No Tomorrow – Killing Eve 2

One thing I really enjoy about the writing is that, because of the very different personalities and lives these two women lead, it never feels repetitive. For example, a part of the book takes place in Venice, you have chapters from Villanelle's POV, and then you have Eve retracing her steps, and yet it feels new.

Book-to-TV Adaptations: American Gods

American Gods is a much-acclaimed novel by Neil Gaiman released in 2001. The book is a unique blend of Americana, folklore, world mythology, and contemporary fantasy. It follows the character Shadow Moon as he, after a prison sentence and the death of his wife Laura, takes a job as a driver and errand-boy to a man calling himself Mr. Wednesday.