#4 books recommendations

[077891st]

What secrets could this book hold?

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Saw Sniff's handmade (!!!) Lexica Botania and this image engraved itself onto my eyelids then my internet died lmao

[alienssstufff]

do you have any advice on how to draw more body types and break up silhouettes? my characters basically have the same body type and whenever i try to draw varied body types it ends up looking wrong :( i love the shapes and motifs and how unique each design is in your art, and i really want to learn how to make a design more unique, like yours! sorry if this is too much ;v;

I'veee gots to be honest im not the best person for advice/starting point in that regard ToT when the direction i go in is heavily stylized i still trying to figure how to explain that myself wwhwhw If something looks off to you I'd recommend practicing from irl references then stressing over the flair factor later

Tho (contradictory to what i said above) I am going to use this ask to promote this awesome pdf book on character design that just came out! I look up to Ini loads on multiple aspects and would say our thought processes are very similar when it comes to chara design. [ LINK ]

[itsmariejanel]

is this how it happens? is this how you make friends as an adult? you stumble upon someone wonderful, and all of a sudden, you’re close? - cakle, rachel harrison

[bonicedemandarina]

My piece for the @infinitytrainbigbang !!!!

I really missed drawing my guy Ryan, also I wanted to do that thing where there's like a comic or something going on in the frame(?) Of the drawing bc I saw it on pinterest once and thought it looked cool

[entropyvoid]

Golden Hour (+ lineart below cut)

I took a picture of the lines for once and did some basic crappy photo editing on my phone, so you could probably print this out and use it as a coloring page or something if you so wish lol. Do with it what you will.

[kousanosgf]

honestly so jealous of girls who grew up with the witcher and most of all with ciri

i only discovered the franchise when i was 18 already and i just imagine going from a little girl to a woman in her 20s-30s with this amazing fictional girl

[bonefall]

Tbh I never read that far in DOTC but I heard so much about star flower from fandom that now hearing about it directly from you I feel so cheated. I was promised a femme fatale.. tho in hindsight considering how much these writers hate women I probably shouldn't have gotten my hopes up

I WISH we got a femme fatale. It would have been incredibly cathartic for her to make herself alluring to Clear Sky, turning his worst traits against him and getting both power and revenge. For Thunder to bond to her over it, reaching the conclusion in the end that they both had terrible parents that they need to reject.

but, knowing the Erins, they would have just had Clear Sky kill her violently and gratuitously for ever tricking him. Like how he gouged Willow Tail's eyes out. So... I guess we were doomed either way.

Anyway im cooking

[murasaki-cha]

I KNEW IT!!! I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT!!!! I FREAKING KNEW IT!!! I TOLD YOU I KNEW IT I-

I BEG YOUR MOST FINEST PARDON??????????

[superbellsubways]

i finished Uzumaki anime

just read the book .please

[crowpickingss]

love your fics <3 do you have any request for other ror writers

sure here are some of my fav dror writers

@w4w4lycsss (hook, morgie, hades)

@hurts2think (lots of ror characters)

@giveityourworst (lots of ror characters)

@lowkeyrobin (hook, morgie)

@mylifesjustacarousel (hook)

@skellseerwriting (hook, morgie)

hope you enjoy there fics

[cultivating-wildflowers]

tagged by @thejonderettegirl to share six books I want to read in 2025 (and Gigi, your six books are all EXCELLENT choices 👏🏻)

tagging @eddis-not-eeddis, @rubyintheskywithdiamonds, @stormsouls, and anyone else who wants to join (yes, that means you!)

[thetypedwriter]

Solitaire Book Review

Solitaire Book Review by Alice Oseman 

I’ve loved every book I’ve ever read by Alice Oseman. Granted, that’s only been Loveless and Radio Silence, but both of those books were fantastic. I never read Oseman’s infinitely popular graphic novel series Hearstopper, but I did watch the first season on Netflix and really enjoyed that too. 

So going into Oseman’s book Solitaire, had me filled with high expectations and eager anticipation. Unfortunately those expectations and excitement dwindled to something I’ve never experienced with Oseman before: disappointment. 

Apparently, Alice Oseman wrote Solitaire when she was seventeen-years-old. I’m a little confused on the history, but I’m assuming she wrote Heartstopper first and then Solitaire as a follow-up side novel.

Again, I didn’t look into the details. All I know is that she wrote this book twelve years ago, that it was her debut novel, and that it shows. 

Instead of focusing on Nick and Charlie, Solitaire focuses on Charlie’s sister, Victoria Spring. The best way I can describe Tori is that she is Wednesday Addams embodied, which is ironic seeing as Tori dresses up like Wednesday for Halloween in the novel (very on the nose, Alice). 

However, people seem to like Wednesday Addams’ despondent and cynical attitude (I don’t get it, for the record). I abhor Tori Spring. Maybe abhor is too strong of a word, but she was not a likable narrator. She’s pessimistic, apathetic, rude, judgmental, callous, and mean. 

Her whole schtick is that she thinks other people are “fake” and dislikes that people don’t act in the world, allowing the world to happen to them and only being bystanders to violence, hate, and toxicity. 

And yet…Tori does nothing? The entire novel? The person she supposedly hates the most describes the person Tori is herself.

Which I guess is fitting because Tori seems to despise herself more than anyone. You think as a reader that Tori will grow out of her depression by the end of the novel and come to some sort of understanding or epiphany. 

Spoiler alert: she doesn't. 

If anything, she spirals worse and worse, becoming increasingly sleep-deprived, paranoid, despondent, and obsessive. I get that Oseman wanted a more realistic portrayal of mental health perhaps, or maybe she didn’t think it was realistic for Tori to have a happy ending. 

However, she didn't really get any ending at all. 

Before I get to the conclusion of the story, I guess I should actually explain what the novel is about. 

Tori’s childhood best friend, Lucas, suddenly reappears in her life years later. Around the same time, mysterious pranks start occurring around Higgs, Tori’s school.

Harmless at first, the pranks pulled by the anonymous group Solitaire continuously grow in popularity and in danger, eventually leading to a boy getting beat up, Tori getting hurt by a firework exploding near her, and then, at the end of the novel, Higgs burning down. 

You might ask: why did the school burn down?

I wish I could tell you, but I have no idea. 

Apparently, Lucas was in charge of Solitaire and was doing it all to impress Tori and to bring some “joy” back into her life before the jokes spiraled out of control.

However, Lucas comes to understand that Tori is no longer the girl he knew back in primary school and that she’s drastically changed. He did it because he was in “love” with her, but then admits at the end that he was more in love with the idea of her. 

Okayyyyyy. 

Then, for some inexplicable reason, other people are at Higgs at 5am, including one Michael Holden, Tori’s new fiend and resident “weirdo.”

The ending of the novel then churns out nonsense after nonsense. Tori and her ex-best friend Becky confront Solitaire and persuade them to not burn down the school.

But then, inexplicably, Tori walks out of the room and a classroom is on fire. How? Why? I don’t know. 

I’m unsure if the insinuation is that Michael did it or if Lucas or Solitaire still managed to do it, but all I know is that I was confused. 

Instead of getting better it gets decidedly worse. 

Somehow, Tori thinks she’s going to put out a raging inferno with a single fire extinguisher and chooses now to act instead of evacating a burning building, is lead to believe that Michael is dead from the fire, and then decides to go up to the roof to contemplate suicide. 

Somehow, though, her brother Charlie, Nick, and some other people are outside telling her not to jump. Why are they out there? Some kind of reason.

Apparently Lucas tweeted about it or blogged about the fire so the whole student body is there at 5am to witness the school burning down and see Tori standing on the roof. 

But no fire trucks, police, or authority were there originally, because that would be too logical. 

Alas, Michael is not dead and shows up on the roof to tell Tori that she’s his best friend, they kiss out of left-field, and Tori is convinced not to kill herself. 

The novel ends with them driving to the hospital and with Tori realizing she’s not alone. 

….what? 

The ending was such a jumbled catastrophe that I don’t understand what really happened. It was too climactic and intense in a way that was completely at odds with the tone and plot of the story.

You don’t get any kind of meaningful resolution with Tori other than realizing that she needs a lot of help and care. 

This book was a mess. 

Tori was unlikeable, has no discernible growth as a character, and other people weren incomprehensibly drawn to her and wanted to be friends with her, despite her flat out ignoring them, blowing them off, or being uncommunicative. 

The plot involving Solitaire was ridiculous and uninteresting, culminating in an ending that made no discernible sense and lacked purpose and logic. 

I know people love Heartstopper and Alice Oseman (myself included), but this book is not it. If they decided to publish this novel written twelve years ago simply because the show is popular and they said, “Hey, why not?” they chose wrong. 

I know publishers these days have the mentality of milking a series for all its worth, but this book didn’t add anything of substance, purpose, or heart. 

If anything, it detracts from the Heartstopper universe and makes me appreciate how much Oseman has grown as a writer. The Heartstopper universe is doing just fine on its own. It doesn't need side novels about Tori or about any other character.

Leave it alone, please, I beg of you. 

Recommendation: Solitaire is a poor man’s crappy version of Catcher in the Rye—a book Alice Oseman herself mentions at the end of the novel, stating that none of her characters have read it. Well, they probably should have. It’s a much better story than Solitaire.

Score: 4/10

[foldingfittedsheets]

I’ve got some friends and my betrothed doing a little book club. It started with one friend and we’d leave a comment in discord with the percent we were at and then our thought under a spoiler. When we read that far we’d go back to read the spoiler and respond. Then their hubby wanted an excuse to read more, and my betrothed heard about it and wanted in.

At which point I slid forward The Scholomance series, which I’d been pressuring my betrothed into starting and so everyone took it up. It’s been like crack. I have always loved this series and my betrothed was like, “This sounds like a horrifying depressing setting why do you like it?”

But now they’re all voraciously consuming it and I’m living my absolute best life. I try not to comment much as I don’t want to color their perception but these books are so fucking good and now I get to share thoughts with several other people who are having a wonderful time.

[nepholog]

A list of all the interactive fiction WIPs I loved/unreleased WIPs I'm hyped for so I could keep track of them:

Released Demos:

Apartment 502 (Dashington) by @/apt502-if

Our Life: Now and Forever (Steam, itch.io) by @/gb-patch

Infamous (Dashington) by @/infamous-if

Chop Shop (Twine) by @/losergames

Eyes of Shan (Dashington) by @/eyesofshan-if

Checkmate in 3 Moves (Dashington) by @/checkmatein3moves

Honor Amongst Thieves (Dashington) by @/leoneliterary

Court of the Guilded Roses (Dashington) by @/crazerk

Summer of Love (Twine) by @/summeroflove-if

Body Count (Twine) by @/bodycountgame

Seven Days in Purgatory (Dashington) by @/sevendaysinpurgatory-if

The Night Market Book 2 (Twine) by @/night-market-if

Gods and Villains (Dashington) by @/godsandvillains-if

Vendetta (Dashington) by @/vendetta-if

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - An affair of the heart (Dashington) by @/doriana-gray-games

Fields of Asphodel (Steam) by @/chrysanthemumgames

Breach: Chicago War Zone (Dashington) by @/breachverse

SLAUGHTER SQUAD (Twine) by @/harlequinoccult

The Haunting Shadows (Twine) by @/thehauntingshadows-if

Drink Your Villain Juice (Dashington) by @/drinkyourvillainjuice

Press Play (Dashington) by @/pressplay-if (@/girlfromthecrypt)

Unreleased Demos:

Stardoomed by @/stardoomed-if

Riptide by @/riptide-if

Death Looks Good On You by @/deathlooksgoodonyou-if

Zombie Kombi by @/zombiekombi-if

The Muse by @/themuse-if

Alistar: Ascendance by @/alistarascendance

Elysium Circus by @/elysiumcircusif

[yourfavebooklrsfavebooklr]

4.25 stars

This was really, really good. Binsa’s descent toward villainy was so fun to read, she’s a really compelling character. As more and more was revealed about her demon I just got more invested. I can’t wait for the sequel to come out. I liked the multiple magic systems and the reveal about the gods. And that ending??????? Perfect, no notes. Her relationship with her brother was so messy and interesting too, and it’s always fun to read fantasy with little to no romance. I loved this book, it was enjoyable with a strong emotional core and a good understanding of what it was trying to do.

[shadowhaert]

dog motifs. lesbians. trans people. circus performers. bondage as an art form. weird teenage girls with weird teenage thoughts.

out september 4, 2024