#& Stubborn as stone

[mirensiart]

Some innes (feat ephraim) doodles

[gothearts]

Trying to figure out how to draw his God damn face in a way that I actually like.

I was looking at screenshots of Donatello, and the way he's just pouting on some level in every single one is so funny to me.

[fuckedupwizard]

speaking of the scum villain fandom and top/bottom. this wasn't discourse at all just personal preference but it hurt my heart so bad that the few times i wanted to try out jiuyuan/shencest/scumcum whatever, it was almost always sj topping... when the only way i like it is the other way around :(

[thelightsandtheroses]

what colour is your aura?

I was tagged by the lovely @undercoverpena - thank you, this was fun! 🩷

Chiffon

stone walls, sweaters, moths, dusty lace, animal tracks, incense, throw pillows. your essence is chiffon: your soft heart disarms those who meet you. you willingly swallow your feelings for everyone else; it is easier to hide your sensitivity. you may be a mirror, reflecting the best back at others, and not knowing quite who you are inside. you are the compromiser. you are the recaster. you find kinship in like-minded individuals of ashen, hickory, brown, and grey, who act with patience. you are also drawn to the cheerful orchid and honey, who will help you grow and discover what actually makes you happy. however, you may struggle to get along with the wild-hearted personalities of mauve and terracotta who act on their whims.

No pressure tags: @iamskyereads @wildemaven @gnpwdrnwhiskey @trulybetty @joelsgreys @secretelephanttattoo @perotovar @morning-star-joy

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

tonsil stones my beloathed

[gracefullou]

.

[snotsloth]

August Reading Log

My August was full of political machinations, capricious gods, trauma recovery, and outrageous amounts of slow-burn mutual pining, yes even in the smutty books. I finished seven books this month and DNFed one. Overall, I had a great time and I’m excited to continue several of the series that I started. 

First off, I finished Godkiller by Hannah Kanner. This is book one of The Fallen Gods series and it was a fun fantasy adventure with good characters and an interesting world. Kissin, one of the main characters has very strong Geralt from The Witcher vibes, and she, along with Skedi, a minor god of white lies were my two favorite characters. It was quite short for an adult fantasy, so in some ways, it felt more like a teaser than a full novel, but it still packed in some cool world-building details and set up a larger quest for our protagonists along with a mystery to solve. So I’m invested enough to keep reading the series. I’ve already purchased the second book, Sunbringer.

Meanwhile, I listened to The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky, written by N. K. Jemisin and narrated by Robin Miles. These are the second and third books in The Broken Earth trilogy that started with The Fifth Season. I had previously listened to the first few chapters of The Obelisk Gate but then lost steam and set it aside. This time I was determined to finish the whole series and god, it was so worth it. 

Some people will tell you that The Fifth Season can function as a standalone and while they are technically correct, the first book is just the tip of the iceberg. You don’t understand even half of what is actually going on until you are at least a few chapters into The Obelisk Gate, and most of the real answers and resolutions don’t come until The Stone Sky. This series as a whole is a masterpiece of narrative structure, world-building, and character-building. It is so worth the effort it takes to finish all three books. 

After Godkiller and The Obelisk Gate, I was in the mood for something more romantic, so I picked up A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows. This is one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever read. Val is possibly the most sympathetic, multi-dimensional, nuanced depiction of a sexual assault victim I’ve ever seen. And it’s within a larger story about slowly becoming a happier, healthier, kinder, and braver version of yourself when you are suddenly removed from a hostile environment and placed in one where you can thrive in the open. I think one of my favorite quotes from Val sums it up really well, “I have lived a cramped life, it seems. So shy of having my greatest indiscretion discovered that I seldom dared indulge in the simpler ones.” 

Moving directly from such a tender love story to a filthy monsterfucker romance might seem unhinged. But the heart wants what the heart wants and I wanted A Bone in His Teeth by Kellen Graves. I went in expecting eerie atmospheric coastal settings, a smattering of the kind of delicious body horror only non-cis people seem able to write, and lots and lots of freaky genderfucker monster smut, and boy howdy this book delivered on all that, and then some. What I was not expecting was a surprisingly tender love story about two people who could never quite fit right into the unjust systems they were born into and chose to burn it all down for the chance of finding a way to fit all their jagged, broken edges together. Alba is my favorite protagonist of any book I’ve read this year, and Eridanys is a literal force of nature with two dicks and a thirst for human flesh in more ways than one. This is Graves’ best book yet and I cannot wait to read what they publish next. 

Riding the high of several delightful books in a row, I started Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco with confidence that I had another banger on my hands. With vampires, body horror, a gloomy atmosphere, and a poly romance, this book had a lot of elements that I expected to love. However, the clunky prose, sloppy world-building, and meandering plot so drastically reduced my enjoyment of the book that I abandoned my read at 70%. 

Needing a palette cleanser after that, I turned to a guaranteed hit and picked up A Restless Truth by Freya Marske. And Marske did not miss! This is the sequel to A Marvelous Light which I read earlier this year and loved, so I was excited to pick it up. Marske is a master of character-driven smut, a.k.a. Sex scenes that serve a purpose to the story and reveal aspects of the characters we would not otherwise know. The setting and core murder mystery were also excellent and kept the plot moving at a decent clip. Maude had been one of my favorite side characters from the first book, so having her as one of the main characters really worked for me. Her love interest, Violet was charismatic and brought her own interesting baggage both to the plot and to her romance with Maude.  On the craft level, Marske is one of my favorite authors working today. Her prose is so bright and evocative in both its emotional and physical details. Her settings are lush and full of historical easter eggs. And her characters breathe with multi-dimensional life. I have one book left in The Last Binding series and I will probably devour it this month, seeing as it just arrived in the mail this week.

My final read of the month didn’t quite measure up to A Restless Truth, but I still had a fun time with Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell. This was another arranged marriage romance set against a backdrop of courtly intrigue, espionage, and a fantastical setting, except this time it was a space opera instead of a historical fantasy. I thought Maxwell struck a good balance between romance elements and space opera elements. The settings were appropriately grand and gorgeous in scale and the political web was an effective tangle of different conflicting interests with no clear immediate solution. However, I felt that the two main characters lacked dimension and uniqueness. I fear part of the problem was that I had so recently read A Strange and Stubborn Endurance, and Winter’s Orbit just could not stand up to the inevitable comparison. Still, it was an easy, entertaining read that kept me engaged while stuck in bed on a sick day. Maxwell has a second book set in this universe and I think I will probably pick it up at some point.

Overall, it was a great reading month with only one dud. For September, I have a few books I know that I want to get through. While I don’t keep a strict order to my TBR, I know I want to finish The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri for my local book club (I’m about ⅓ of the way through at the moment). I am also still listening to A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, which is really starting to pick up in the second half. One of my most anticipated reads of the year, Reclaimed by Seth Haddon arrived in the mail this week, along with the conclusion to The Last Binding trilogy, A Power Unbound by Freya Marske. So, while I’m not certain of what I’ll finish this month, I have a few suspicions of what I will gravitate towards. 

Hope you all had as good of a reading month as I did. Let me know what your best book of the month was and what you thought of any of the books I read this month. If you pick up any of the books I recommended, please let me know your thoughts. I’m especially excited to talk to anyone else who reads A Bone In His Teeth. It was such a unique read!

[nico-di-genova]

Thinking about ALiB Alex in relation to Ethel Cain again.

[the-whispers-of-death]

sadly for everyone the pregnant Romanas was just a mishappening and is not canon

Romanas is very asexual and not the biggest fan of kids

rip Kali better luck with someone else

Kali: What does God have against me to not give me children???

Kali is this close to getting a surrogate. He doesn't care that he's single and would be a single father. He wants children.

[saltycharacters]

Can I be livid for a sec? Ive spent all these years in the pandemic being one of the few doin my part, vaccinating as much as possible and social distancing and wearing masks everywhere and not even leaving the house unless absolutely necessary. A sisyphean attempt to do literally anything about the spread of covid, because so few even care to do the bare minimum at this point. So I have to sit and watch while this small group of people on this godforsaken Earth are giving up opportunities and funtimes left and right to protect our loved ones, and the immunocompromised, and ourselves and everyone else, while the selfish majority don't give a shit and literally do whatever they want, passing strains of covid amongst themselves like its a game of hot potato and. Usually I can ignore any pings of jealousy and reassure myself that at LEAST. There's one less vector to spread the illness, and that keeps at least those around me safe, and I continue finding enjoyment in safe and quarantine-approved ways, but.

Today I got a text message from my dad, which is not unusal in itself, but opening it I realized it was a photo of my abuela. Sitting across the table from my dad in her rustic little house in spain, in the rustic little village that I've visited every summer for most of my childhood. The place I've considered my favorite on earth for most of my life and that I've held in my heart so fondly that nearly every night, I dream about being there again. The place I haven't been to in years as part of the many sacrifices I've taken to combat the pandemic. And yet my dad, part of the selfish and skeptical majority, took the risk without a second thought and unceremoniously come into contact with the disease-spreading, equally uncatious masses at the airport, sat in a largely un-masked airplane for 11 hours and is now having supper with family I've been trying to protect this whole tine. He doesn't consider whether he'll bring covid to them first before bringing it to his family back in the US, he doesn't think about the likleyhood of grandma, nearing her 90's, being able to survive such an ailment, and I just know that he will not give the fact that he couldve spread covid more to the hundreds of other people a second thought. He'll sleep soundly in my favorite room, he'll have fun in my favorite places, and he'll see my favorite people all while being so in-denial about the pandemic that his conciousness will remain clean the entire trip. And this time I'm dizzy with jealousy and rage, I'm sad and homesick and frustrated and worst of all, I can't express any of my feelings to my dad or mom or any family because they'll just laugh at me for being so paranoid and tell me to come over anyway. I'm not sure I'll ever see my beloved Requena ever again, nor any of my family nor resident friends because it seems that almost everyone in the world has forgotten that we're still in a pandemic, yet those self-entitled enough to participate in this collective amnesia can have fun and do whatever without a thought for the consequences they bring. I'll be huddled at home with thise large, gaping, emotional hole in my chest while people like Dad continue on like nothing's ever happened and we all have to suffer for it. It's not fair. I'm so close to tears, I'm just. So devistated and heartbroken. If you don't do your part to quarantine to the best of your ability and practice basic pandemic saftey when out, I hate you. You're awful and I hate you.

[wilsons-journey]

After every high, comes a low.

---

Valefor’s and Kying’s Relationship had a very rocky start. Well,... actually it was never meant to be a relationship. It was just a game - a thrilling exchange. But nothing more.

But Kying developed feelings. And Valefor, too. 

But it was just to early for the red Charr, to warm up to this idea. So when Kying told him,... that he might like that snarky asshole,... things took a bad turn.

From that day, Kying never saw a trace from Valefor again. But the Assassion sure kept an eye on the Man he not dare to love.

---

Some “live” lore I mentioned in this Post.

So for upcoming ask, keep in mind that they avoid each other.

[lifeintheworldtocome]

god i dont give a single shit about lovejoy but concrete goes SO fucking hard

[xx-vergil-xx]

For weeks now I’ve wanted to ask for the rules of that drinking game Morpheus and Deanna play in Hounds

hi!! it’s a game called king’s cup or ring of fire (depending on where you’re from), and it’s quite fun :) basically you lay out a ring of cards around a big cup in the middle of the table, and everyone takes turns drawing cards. each card has a specific associated rule (ex. seven’s are “heaven” — everyone has to point quickly upward and the last person to do so has to drink, things like that) and basically you go until you run out of cards or perish or something. the big fun thing is that throughout the game people who tap out dump their drinks into the big middle cup so by the end it’s the cocktail from hell and whoever draws the last king has to drink the whole thing! it’s very dumb and very fun :)

[amethyst-halo]

Do all the main protagonist got crushes,when yes who are they? (Four stones)

uhhh! spottedpath and yellowheart are too busy with other things at least at the start, but ashflower really likes his boyfriend turtlespots and rustmask has a crush on fishleap but will never ever admit it

[tj-crochets]

Hey y’all! I had a, uh, moderate-to-severe allergic reaction* yesterday. I ended up having to take a few benadryl and slept like twelve hours because the migraine was intense, and now I am mostly better but my brain is Not Making Decisions (well. I am still functioning enough for work but that’s different braining). What plushies should I sew next? Should I make the mammoth his baby tusks, or should I start sewing doll clothes for the 14.5″ doll (aka the AG WellieWishers line) that should be arriving in the mail today? Or should I make something else entirely? I guess I could try to design a new plushie pattern, but last time I tried to design something post-allergic-reaction I ended up with The Hamster Pattern Where I Forgot Hamsters Had Limbs Or Ears lol

*I have no idea what the scale is for people without weird mast cell issues but it wasn’t anaphylaxis? probably**? **sometimes when I tell doctors my allergic reactions affect blood pressure they are like “that only happens with anaphylaxis” but I am pretty sure that’s not necessarily true. That said, if you don’t have a history of Weird Allergies maybe go to a doctor if your allergic reactions start affecting your cardiovascular system. I am both not a doctor and an outlier who should not have been counted lol

[the-whispers-of-death]

saira and a troublemaker? like reader doesn't commit any crime, but he's loud. and annoying. and teachers hate him. he probably just wasn't expelled because his family's rich.

but. then. he and saira get paired up for a project. and she's so pissed, because reader doesn't do a shit in classes, he just annoys people. and she knows the project will be all done by her.

until the day where they have to meet (maybe in saira's house? stone scaring reader is funny to me) and... wow. this guy is smarter than she thought. like maybe the project is about something he really likes and he knows a little too much about it so he's actually useful?

and hey, he is a brat. considered a player, but he's not that much of a asshole to be honest, just a little bit annoying.

Saira was actually very iffy about whether you two should meet at her house or at a park, simply because Stone has very low tolerance for those who are disrespectful, even if they're kids. But Auntie Ashok is there and he's great at calming Stone down, so she brings you over and hopes you don't also piss off Auntie Ashok.

You two got paired up for an English project, you two having do to a literary analysis on Romeo & Juliet, one having to write on Juliet's character while the other writes on Romeo's character. It's boring and she almost expects you to slack off, but little does she know that you actually LOVE Romeo & Juliet, your mother read it to you a lot as a child.

So she's pleasantly surprised that you're doing work on the project with her and enjoys writing the paper with you. She comes to steady conclusion that you're not all that you seem, but her father on the other hand...

Stone makes you two sit out in the living room instead of her bedroom, simply so he can hear in case you try and get his daughter into doing some criminal activities. Yes, you've never committed a crime but in Stone's eyes that could be just that you weren't caught doing a crime. And he does not take it well when Saira tells him she'll be hanging out with you even after the project is done.

"Baba," Saira says, sounding exasperated as she watches her father pace around the kitchen. "He's a good guy, despite his reputation. He was actually a huge help during the project, he's really smart. It's just that the material the teachers give isn't what he wants to learn about."

Stone huffs and puffs. "You said it yourself that he doesn't do classwork, I don't want him around you."

Saira is on her last straw, the two of them having been on this topic for a half of hour. "Baba, I love you, but you don't get to choose who I hang out with. Not anymore. Now, I know you know that, so get off your high horse," she replies, glowering up at her father.

It's one of the few times that Stone giving Saira so much freedom backfired and it was a huge fight. The next time you came over to her house, Stone wasn't there and only Auntie Ashok was there to supervise the hang-out (and by supervise, I mean Kali only popped his head out of the kitchen to make sure you two were still on task every so often.)

Don't worry though, Stone only sulked for a few days before apologizing and admitting that he trusts Saira's judgement. Saira apologized too, knowing that her father was just making sure she was safe. He still doesn't like you much yet though.