#2020 wrap ups

[logarithmicpanda]

I've been looking at the past few years of reviews I've done and I thought I'd compile a list 👀

Crossed out are the ones I wouldn't actually reread lmao, bolded are the ones I kinda want to reread in 2024, in italics the ones I've reread recently

Best books of 2015:

If I Stay

The Well of Ascension

All the Bright Places

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Hero of Ages

The Wrath and the Dawn

Queen of Shadows

Alloy of Law

A Monster Calls

Emperor's Soul

Best books of 2016:

Drrr!!x2

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Uprooted

Ancillary Justice

Ancillary Sword

The Princess Saves Herself in That One

A Court of Mist and Fury

The Night Circus

Ancillary Mercy

This is Where It Ends

The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince

Equal Rites

Best books of 2017:

Truthwitch

Binti

Binti: Home

The Bone Witch

The Hate You Give

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

Strange the Dreamer

A Close and Common Orbit

Elantris

The Way of Kings

Wintersong

Soulless

Provenance

Best books of 2018:

The Cruel Prince

Binti: The Night Maskerade

The Fate of the Tearling

The Heart Forger

Starfish

The Poppy War

The Stars are Legion

Spinning Silver

The Queen of Blood

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

My Sister, The Serial Killer

The Fifth Season

Best books of 2019:

Maskerade

House of Many Ways

Alice Isn't Dead

Geekerella

In an Absent Dream

Ninefox Gambit

The Princess and the Fangirl

Summer Bird Blue

Night Flights

The Calculating Stars

Revenant Gun

The Fated Sky

Best books of 2020:

Starless Sea

Velocity Weapon

Upside Down

The Wolf of Oren Yaro

The Midnight Lie

Network Effect

A Song Below Water

Loveless

Piranesi

A Deadly Education

The Winter of the Witch

Witchmark

Legendborn

Watch Over Me

Burning Roses

The Ikessar Falcon

Night Watch

[poetryincostume]

The Madwoman

Aesthetic wrapper, 2020

Original gothic-inspired design , styled here with bra by Karolina Laskowska

Upholstery damask, silk ribbon, petersham ribbon, silk/steel yarn

[delurkr]

"Factum fieri infectum non potest" = "It is impossible for a deed to be undone" (popular translation) and I mean. Abraham. My man. THANK YOU FOR DYING AND HAVING THAT ON YOUR GRAVESTONE.

It goes two ways: think before you act, and you can't change the past. Excuse me while I grab some tissues and go scream into a pillow.

In the one sense, it's yet another warning from the game to lead your characters toward personal improvement, because their actions will permanently doom them otherwise. And THE OTHER WAY. The other way is what I LOVE about the hallucination interpretation. What's done is done, get past the fantasy, nobody wins, I mean I am obsessed with that element in stories, and the WAY that statement is just sitting there??? all cute and subtle??? on that gravestone??? THE DETAILS. Bro when I TELL you it feels like they made LH just for me.

[louismygf]

girls when they just finished watching aotv

[teddy-bear-naps-and-random-snaps]

[doyeons]

and for the third (or fourth..?) year in a row, she’s found her way somewhere into the top 10

[marciliedonato]

I honestly want to see my wrapped asap if anything just to see exactly how much I beat that health song like a dead horse despite it being out with maybe a month or less left on the countdown I want to see the magnitude of my nonsense this time show me the data

[mantisgodsdomain]

Speaking of tragedies, our personal favourite tragedy for the past three and a half years has just wrapped up! The ending is already inevitable, but there is no way through but forward, nothing left but to continue the cycle and allow your own mistakes to consume you! We can't wait to read it.

[heironymus-lex]

2023, 2022, 2021. Went a whole year without headphones so "minutes spent romanticizing bus rides" was not an included factor this year.

The Walls has changed my brain and heart and soul forever. If Rodger Waters could hear the passion in my rendition of The Trail he'd put me in his suitcase and take me on tour with him.

Addendum.

[neverendingford]

.

[cleolinda]

AITA for banning my husband and father in law from the delivery room due to their intensely stressful/creepy behavior during my pregnancy?

There’s a famous Reddit post from 2020 where a pregnant woman wrote that her husband and father-in-law were a little too comfortable with their certainty that she was absolutely going to die in childbirth just like her husband’s late mother. It was to the point where her FIL was insisting that she go ahead and put all her clothes into storage, because she was obviously going to die in the hospital and it would save them the grief of packing up her things afterwards. Like. It was WILD.

When I tell my husband [that she feels suspicious of her FIL], he calls me paranoid, but I feel like my FIL WANTS me to die; his whole life identity for the past 35 years has been “amazing single dad” (never dated or had close friends or even hobbies really), and it seems like he’s looking forward to being able to guide my husband through what he went through. At this point, I’d honestly be happy to never see my FIL again, and I certainly don’t want him in the delivery room, especially since he told me he was “putting [his] foot down” about me not being “allowed” to have an epidural…. My husband, in addition to backing his dad on everything, acts like my due date is my death date, and has completely pulled away from me.

The commenters (and me, honestly) were convinced that the husband and FIL were either going to kill her outright to fulfill this expectation, or just make decisions about her care that might conveniently let her die.

And then she never posted again.

Over the last four years, people have frequently mentioned that post, always leading to a thread of people saying, “Oh god, I still worry about that woman.” I did too. It became one of those famous unresolved posts that people always wondered about.

Until yesterday, when someone on r/BestOfRedditorUpdates dug up a 2022 update she had posted on a different account:

TLDR; I had a beautiful and healthy baby girl, and I divorced my ex-husband. I lived, obviously.

She writes that she put her foot down about having her own mother in the delivery room rather than her FIL (!), and she WOULD be getting an epidural. Her husband lost his shit. And in his outburst, he let slip--

I admittedly lost my temper, and told him that I wasn’t going to die- it wasn’t my fault his father’s trauma wormed it’s way into his head, and that he needed to fix it without taking it out on me. He yelled at me that he didn’t need therapy. That caught me a little off guard; I asked him why he went to his therapist and was given advice about my death if he felt he didn’t need it. His expression gave it away, and he caved not long after. It turns out there was no therapist. It was just his dad. During the times he was supposed to be at therapy, he was with his dad. I’m still fuming.

And that was when she got the fuck out.

I’ll wrap this up- I’ve got an adorable little toddler tugging at my leg atm. I’m alive, I’m happy, and I’ve got my baby in my arms. Life is good.

I truly never thought we'd see a resolution to this, and I feel like there's probably a good number of people who remember it, so I thought you might want to know.

ETA: Brilliantly, I put the link in at the top; here it is again for convenience.

[imblocking-you]

Reading Lovesick Dog manhwa and something about it just...resonates

[keepthetension]

for the prompt game, here's my character list:

1 ten (cooking crush) 2 xue yang (the untamed) 3 top (only friends) 4 wen (moonlight chicken) 5 phaya (the sign) 6 cher (a boss and a babe) 7 guy (bake me please) 8 mhok (last twilight) 9 xie lian (heaven official's blessing) 10 babe (pit babe)

numbers i rolled in blue, prompts in pink

2 3 - the actors or characters are put together in a serious show. what's the plot/setting/vibe?

haoxuan and force in a serious show together????? goodness! THOSE CHEEKBONES AND EYELASHES IN ONE FRAME NOBODY WOULD SURVIVE

i am, always have been, always will be, an absolute SUCKER for monster of the week/mystery of the week type shows. i think the x files, buffy, and xena did something to my brain chemistry as a child. so you know what i want?

force as the i'm just a dude trying to pay my bills and WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S MONSTERS AND I HAVE TO FIGHT THEM??? guy. he wears glasses. because i said so

and haoxuan as the punch first ask questions later monster hunter guy

and if there's erotically charged fight training sequences, maybe a we're-bleeding-and-covered-in-monster-guts-but-we're-alive makeout or two, i'm 10000% on board for that

7 1 10 - the actors or characters are put together in a fluffy show. what's the plot/setting/vibe?

guy, ten, and babe in a fluffy show together! hmm!

you know what, i was thinking earlier about the pottery throw down, SO i'm going to say: they're in the pottery clubs at rival universities

and they all have VERY different styles. ten is very precise, and likes making delicate things. guy likes making very finely detailed things, especially tea sets but there's some asshole in the club who makes better tea sets and guy has a complex about it. and babe makes whatever the fuck he feels like making, and it never looks like it's going to work out, but it somehow always comes out perfect

and they all think the things the other two make are very shitty. but they're forced to work together for plot reasons, and learn to appreciate each other's techniques and style, etc etc, and fall in love along the way~

look, i just want them all to do that scene from ghost, okay?

8 2 10 - mhok, xue yang, and babe hanging out but one of them feels left out. why?

wheezing

ngl i kinda love these three together. not up to date with pit babe, but i feel like mhok is the least shady of these three somehow. maybe mhok and xue yang compare notes on their prison time and babe can't join in? maybe mhok talks about rung and babe talks about way, and xue yang's like… wait, you guys had supportive relationships?

seriously, though, i adore the idea of these three as drinking buddies! also they all need more friends

9 6 5 - xie lian, phaya, and cher doing a sport/activity together

man, i would pay to see this. phaya and cher bring the competitiveness, xie lian and phaya bring the physical prowess, all of them bring the Here To Have A Good Time! vibe. tempted to put them in something like an egg and spoon race, tbh, because it would be very funny to see them take it incredibly seriously

5 4 - each of them has a crush on a character from the other show/s. who is it?

phaya and wen??? honestly, i could see it for them. mix and billy are both SO GODDAMN GOOD at doing flirty face, can you imagine them making bedroom eyes at each other??? plus, if they made out i would like to see it

[teddy-bear-naps-and-random-snaps]

Merry Christmas, Everybody!~

[whitneyavalon]

Grateful to have collaborated with so many brilliant people this year:

🎭 Live musical “A New Brain” at Celebration Theatre all summer with this glorious cast and crew!

🛠 National commercial starring Anisa Khamvongsa and me!

🧜‍♀️ Original villainous song and music video “The Ocean Will Be Mine” performed with Garrett Clayton and written with Ryan O’Connell!

👗 Premiered a new project on the big screen at Buffer Festival and filmed with Ryan George & Julie Nolke while in Toronto!

🦷 Released dark comedy short film “Moment of Tooth” starring Noah Bean!

🏆 “WTF 2020s” (my original song performed with Thomas Lennon) won an award at Cordillera International Film Festival and screened at multiple Academy Award-qualifying fests!

🐙 Duetted with a purple Alyssa Preston in our Adele parody “Ruling in the Deep”!

🐲 Released “Dragonfare,” an original fairy tale with magical music by Hildegard von Blingin’!

🎤 Voice over work included dubbing for a top-3 Netflix series (thanks Joe Fria!), playing Dorothy Parker in a narrative podcast (thanks Shipwrecked Comedy!), and singing on a musical concept album (thanks Stephen Kramer Glickman!)

Lots in the works for you to enjoy in 2024. In the meanwhile, if you need a laugh this holiday season, add my videos and/or music to your playlists. 💖

[koifishanonymous]

character growth (ascent into madness)