#a third (even just 4 pages) would've been too much for me i think

[monstermonger]

Micro comic Summer is back!

Here's my tiny tale from last year, of some kiddos finding a hurt baby dragon, and taking care of it until the dragons return next spring.

[letorip]

can you write something short and fluffy :( like jenna or wednesday being tired or something

j's lullaby

"darlin' i'd wait for you, even if you didn't ask me to"

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pairing: jenna ortega x reader

summary: jenna comes home incredibly late and can't wait to collapse into your arms after a long day

warnings: nada, entirely just fluff and comforting someone's exhaustion

word count: 1.2k

A/N: sorry for getting to this now, it was requested months and months ago. feels good to write something sweet for once, and without somewhere to branch off to. i like writing my stories, but it's fun to leave so much up to the reader. maybe i'll do more of these.

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Even from inside the warmth of your apartment, it was impossible to be unaware of the raging storm outside. You could hear the pattering of raindrops upon the stucco roof in small thuds that had faded gently into the background a good thirty minutes ago and given no indication of letting up anytime soon, either.

Not that it would have mattered. You stood in the kitchen with the kettle going on the stove, attempting to read a rather enthralling chapter of your book in the dim, warm light that hung over your microwave, and then rereading it for a third or fourth time when the words became an unintelligible mess in your head, whether it be from the lack of light or sluggish ability to think.

It was a little too late to turn the kitchen light on, not that you were a big fan of the overhead light, but it would've brought a crude harshness to the drowsiness you were attempting to fight off.

Even night owls had their limitations. Sleep snuck up on you at the wispy edges, pulling down on your eyelashes. The clock on your microwave ticked to 4:28, and you turned the page in your book, hearing the kettle's whistle begin to take frequency, one you were sure the neighbours could hear.

In retrospect the somewhat thin walls were the only thing imperfect about the place, with giant windows and warm, teakwood floors. That and your kitchen's tile floor being kind of cold in the morning, but even then, both you and Jenna wore socks in the house, so it wasn't much of a drawback. You would only live there for a few weeks more anyhow, before you both went back to Los Angeles. In the meantime you could cope with the plush floor rug that Natalie had sent.

With one thumb on the thin page of your beaten up novel and the rest of that hand pinning it to the countertop, you lifted the kettle gently towards your old ceramic mug with the chip in the corner and a teabag’s string hanging over the side. The hot water steamed and gently wafted over the apples of your cheeks, and it added a further weight, the room filling with a flowery smell.

As you grabbed a small spoon from the drawer, the front door’s knob audibly turned, creaking open on its hinges and letting some of the nighttime noise flood in, if only for a moment. You grinned at the noise with an excitement that would’ve been impossible to mask, stirring your drink and calling over your shoulder, down the hall. “Hey, in here.”

The door swung shut behind her and a few, tired steps later, Jenna stood in the doorway. You stayed focused on the task at hand, stirring your tea, but you could feel her eyes stay locked upon your face. She wandered over, coming up behind you where you stood and wrapping her arms around your torso, pressing the plane of her cheek against your shoulder blade.

She held you tightly, as if she wanted to melt together. “You didn’t have to wait up for me. It’s almost 5 in the morning.”

“I know I didn’t have to,” you shrugged. “I wanted to.” Her arms wrapped around you just a bit tighter, holding you there and sighing into the soft, worn fabric of your old shirt.

“I made tea,” you hummed. “Do you want any?” She shook her head into your back, almost purring in contentment.

“‘M too tired,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, you got back late,” you said, pushing the tea mug away and turning around to get a good look at her. She was beautiful, that was a given, but she also looked exhausted, with thick, dark eye bags and the tips of her dark bangs a little bit wet from the rain outside.

“Tim wanted to talk about the big scene we have coming up,” she whispered. You hummed again, watching her with a little bit of concern and she looked back at you with a fondness.

“Come on, off to bed with you,” you straightened up, holding out your hand for her to take, and grabbing your book with a finger left between the binding to hold your spot.

She rolled her eyes with a gentle huff but did not protest, letting you lead her gently into your bedroom. There were still a few candles you had lit for just in case during the storm, filling your room with a yellowish, warm glow, and you blew them out while Jenna got changed into her pyjamas.

“Oh, your mum called, by the way,” you said with a gentle smile, pulling the sheets back to sit on the edge. You pulled your woollen, thick socks off and flung them towards the far wall; you could pick them up tomorrow.

She gave you a sleepy nod, wandering towards the bathroom and sliding the door open. “Just checking in?”

“Yeah, wants you to call her tomorrow… which I guess is now today. She wants to her all about work.” You thumbed open your book while you waited for her to finish brushing her teeth, reading a few lines before she reappeared about a minute later, flicking off the light.

Jenna walked right over, pulling the sheets back and then practically collapsing on top of you, her head nuzzling into your neck. You could feel the cold edge of her nose pressing gently against the edge of your jaw, and it sent a small shiver down your spine. You put the book on your bedside table, sliding your eyeglasses off of your weary ears and stacking it on top, along with clicking the lamp off.

You would’ve planted a kiss upon her forehead, but she seemed all too comfortable for you to shift your position, and you were quite certain— though you couldn’t actually see— that her eyes were already closed and she was letting her exhaustion take over.

“I missed you, today,” she whispered.

“I missed you too.”

“Hm.” You both sat in silence for a minute, and you were convinced she had dozed off until she spoke again, even quieter than before. “Tell me about your day, love?”

“Well, let’s see,” you sighed. “Got up around 10, maybe? Did laundry—”

“Thank you for that, by the way,” she mumbled, nuzzling her face further into you.

“Mhm. Went to the shops. Made dinner. Watched that show I told you about.”

“Did you write, today?” The words were sluggish and slow, and you could tell she was lulling to sleep more and more.

“Nope,” you said with a small chuckle, and you felt Jenna smile against your neck. “I’m still waiting for that burst of creativity, y’know? I’ll find it when I find it. What about you? How was your day?”

But she didn’t answer, and you were perfectly fine with that. You could ask her in the morning, after all. And you could drink the cold tea you had completely forgotten about then, too.

short, sweet, and pretty cute. i'm happy with it. i think oneshots are incredibly fun. also calm yourself, i'm still finishing kiss with a fist [iv] i cannot stress enough how much i'm excited for it but it is NOT ready yet

[fnafslinky]

Fazbear Frights 1-9 review.

Into The Pit:

Slow and meandering during the first half but picks up speed after Spring Bonnie shows up. Good message and good idea, but the execution could be better. 6/10

To Be Beautiful:

This story is so full of fluff, you can cut out like 60% of it and lose nothing. I know it's going for a fairy tale thing with the repetition and all, but fairy tales do that because it's made for children. Repetition is to train a child's brain to remember better. These books are aimed at teenagers, so this narrative device is not needed. On top of that, it has unfortunate implications of "Not like other girls" memes that we don't need to revisit. Only saved by its creepy af ending. 3/10

Count The Ways:

Legitimately my favorite story out of FNAF and one of my favorites of all time. It fixed the previous story's Not Like Other Girls problems by having the goth main character hate the pretty blonde and being called out for not even knowing her and being shallow. It is actually surprising to have these two stories be back to back.

The narrative device of switching back and forth between the MC facing her death and how she got up to that point means it keeps your interest throughout that the previous two stories had problems with. It makes for great drama and tension.

The main reason I love this story in particular is because of this exchange near the end:

“Silly Millie, for someone who doesn’t want to die you sure spent a lot of time talking about it,” the voice surrounding her said. “But that’s the way of things, isn’t it? Talk is always easier than action.”

“I think,” Millie said, sniffling, “that when I said I wanted to die, what I really wanted was to escape. I didn’t want death. I just wanted my life to be different.”

“Oh, but that really takes action, doesn’t it?”

And, if I can be real for a minute: I feel like that kinda changed my life. Or very least, my point of view.

As someone who has made attempts on his life before and frequently battles depression- It made my problems so much less overwhelming. Of course I didn't want to die. I wanted my life my life to improve. And now whenever the thought of suicide passes through my head, I just remember this phrase and it helps me keep it together and calm down.

And also F.Freddy's follow up with having to work for happiness is spot on too. Misery is comfortable, that's why so many people prefer it. Happiness takes effort. 10/10

Fetch:

I'm in the minority for not caring for this one. I felt like there wasn't any direction or character arc, I didn't find Fetch particularly scary or interesting, and the MC makes a lot of dumb decisions in it.

That being said, I love how it jumps right into the action instead of taking awhile to get to it like the other stories did. The stories tend to play out like a different book and then FNAF characters are slapped in at the end. This one gets right to it and makes it integral to its plot. 6/10

Lonely Freddy:

Another one I really love. The Frights series has a good traction with its tragedies and this one is no exception. I really connected with the feeling of being pitted against your siblings, usually by accident and circumstance with your parents. Particularly this line:

“Maybe you’ve made them what they are,” Aunt Gigi said, pausing for a moment before adding: “Hazel’s the easy one. Alec is the hard one. It’s like you put them on their own little islands.”

I wasn't Alec, but Hazel in this situation. And it made me realize what my sibling went through because of it.

And this is another story where Freddy's is more integral to the plot too, and one of the few times it's not already abandoned.

I really like how well done Alec's back and forth he had with himself whether to befriend his sister or not. It's a believable character arc when he realizes his mistake at the end unlike another story that we'll get to.

And the fact they made a God damn teddy bear legitimately creepy is a mastery of horror writing that I can only ever hope to strive for. Definitely the scariest in Frights 2. 9/10

Out Of Stock:

I agree with Dawko that this one feels best to make a 30 minute special out of. It feels like a Halloween special or creepypasta you would watch/read as a preteen. Old enough to want to explore more mature stuff, but young enough to still have more cartoony stuff be familiar. And I mean that as 100% a positive.

I also like how this one is a bit more comedy based. Like the scene where the MC gets thrown across the room after electrocuting himself and his friends dont even notice. I can picture that bit so clearly.

The climax is the best part of having a dire game of Red Light, Green Light with the Plushtrap Chaser. It's very energized and exciting that the other stories don't have as often because the subject matter doesn't lend itself to it.

The trend in these stories of kids learning to appreciate their parents, and they're parents realizing they have to sacrifice some stuff to make their child happy is very sweet. And it's no different here. 8/10

1:35 AM

What I like about this series is that you never know where its gonna go from story to story. I though for certain this story was about how the doll was gonna have an evil spirit possessing it.

But no, what actually happened is that it's never made clear if the MC is losing her mind, being haunted, or just seeing stuff because she's sleep deprived. That ambiguity makes the book a lot creepier and sadder because you don't know how this poor woman should be helped. And it ends without any clarification. That's great and a perfect idea for horror story.

That being said, Scott's writing quirks (and it's definitely Scott doing it, I can tell) of front loading info, constantly stopping the flow to have backstory and over explaining things that don't need makes it frustrating to read after several books of it. And we're not done with that either. 9/10

Room For One More:

I skipped over all the dream sequences because it adds nothing to the story. Its great you remember Sister Location, but it feels like you don't trust your audience to read a FNAF story if there isn't animatronics every couple pages. And honestly? Understandable.

I do know based on my own FNAF comic, pages featuring humans is a lot less popular than the ones featuring animatronics. And I get it, you're a bunch of furries it's more interesting to visualize. And you can go in the opposite direction and have very little FNAF stuff when they're needs to be more. The New Kid doesn't even bring it up til the last third.

But I digress. The strongest qualities in Room For One More is three points.

The location is very vividly described. The underground security office with steel walls, the radiation disposals, the musky scent. It paints a clear and unique picture.

The main character's fallen arc of self care and distrust of others is a well done cautionary tale. It goes hand in hand with the speech before of having to work for happiness, and the difficulties there are from even trying. But you still need to do it.

The body horror is not as visually disgusting as it could've been, and more conceptually horrifying. But if you have a fear of bugs in your skin or crawling in your mouth, prepare for something so much worse! And no, that's not a spoiler, it's pretty obvious where its going from the beginning. 7/10

The New Kid:

This one was disappointing. This is not the way to do a tragedy, because I don't care about the MC.

Throughout the entire story, the main character has literal sociopath tendencies. He is controlling of other people, he doesn't have any empathy, he sees other people as tools to use, he kills a bird and doesn't care- So at the end when he accidentally kills someone, I don't believe him feeling bad about it. And I sure as shit don't care about his death after him leaving his victim to die, while he was still breathing, and not coming back for a week.

Also the twist at the end makes no God damn sense and I'm not even gonna dignify it.

A better tragedy would've been his friend, Mick, getting into trouble for the murder after refusing to ever stand up to the MC. Or even the MC being betrayed by him last minute for him to learn how his shit behavior really screwed him over. But the end result ended up being an unsatisfying mess. 2/10

I'll review the 4th's books with 5 and 6, since I'm sticking with a three at a time theme and because I haven't read 4 yet.

[wondereads]

Personal Review (05/22/22)

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Why am I reviewing this book?

This was the most recent book club book I read, so I figured I'd share my opinion. Also, this had been on my TBR for a while.

Plot 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

Gen is a thief, one who stole from the king, boasted about it, then was promptly thrown in jail. He receives a chance at freedom when the country's magus recruits him for his skill. The magus is after a mythical treasure, one that might not even exist, and retrieving it will force Gen to steal from the gods themselves.

When I say this plot was slow, I mean slow. This book is around 280 pages, and you can rest assured that nothing happens in the first 250. It is literally just Gen, the magus, his two apprentices, and a guard traveling for chapters on end and occasionally telling a fun worldbuilding story. I will say, the buildup to the plot twist is pretty good, and the plot twist itself is amazing. However, it does not make up for the absolute boredom I had to sit through. If you don't mind the plot moving at a snail's pace and around 200 pages of eating, talking, horse-riding, and bathing, this is the book for you!

Characters 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

I will say the characters are done pretty well. Because pretty much nothing happens for a good portion of the book, it leaves a lot of room for character work. Gen is somewhat of an unreliable narrator, and I think it's done pretty well without losing any of his actual personality. His snark is fun, and I liked that he was a Kaz-type character who is genuinely ahead of everyone, not just someone who thinks they are.

The magus was someone I loved to hate—while I liked him more by the end of the book, his motivations irked me, so I was all too pleased that Gen kept messing with him. The other three major characters, the magus' two apprentices and the guard, were likable, but a bit forgettable.

Something notable about this book, especially being YA, is the lack of romance. Looking at the characters' ages and the situation they're in, especially how things turn out by the end, it makes a lot of sense to have an absence of romance. I know there can be a lot of pressure to add a romantic subplot, so I appreciated the decision to keep that out.

Writing Style 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

As I mentioned before, Gen is an unreliable narrator. It's played out well enough that the reader can catch on (his ego shows) rather than it feeling like it comes out of nowhere. The choice to make him, our main character, unreliable, adds a little bit of extra charm to this story, and it desperately needs it.

The pacing in this book was woefully off. Like I've mentioned many times, the traveling bit drags on and on for hundreds of pages until the action finally picks up only to be crammed into the last fifty or so pages. If I hadn't been reading this book for my book club, I would've put it down halfway through. I'm a big fan of worldbuilding, but not so much that I'll entertain a book where it takes up a good two-thirds.

Overall 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

While I liked the characters and definitely appreciated that plot twist, this book was boring. The plot dragged on for infinity, and I had to force myself to continue, even though it was on the shorter side! There were good parts, but it was so hard to get to them. I think my enjoyment was brought up a bit by the fact that I read this alongside friends, so that helped a little, but I would not have finished this book if it were not for my book club. Great writing, bad plot.

The Author

Megan Whalen Turner: 56, American, also wrote Instead of Three Wishes

The Reviewer

My name is Wonderose; I try to post a review every two weeks, sometimes once a week, usually over vacations. I take recommendations! Check out my about me post for more!