#casey x jess

[jerzwriter]

Happy Pride! 🌈

If y'all haven't been to the Pride Parade or the Dyke March in Philly, you haven't really lived. Both are amazing events! So there was no way my Philly native MC, Casey, was going to miss out on them. Especially during her Med School years in her hometown.

I was so excited to get my first Casey x Jessica commission from @/artbyainna, and (as is usually the case with Ainna) it exceeded all expectations! It's so beautiful and brought back so many good memories for me! I'm still squealing!

I have some fics for them coming up later this week, but I was just entirely too excited to put off sharing this! Happy Pride 🌈

Book: Open Heart (pre-series)

Pairing: Casey x Jess (F!MC x F!OC)

Casey x Jess Masterlist

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanart

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Renee Rapp Edits ✤ Casey Boone x Jess Mariano

Everything To Everyone ✤ In The Kitchen: Strangers to lovers to enemies

Tag List: @airwolf92 – want to be added?

[userlaylivia]

I'm not including steroline because in my mind they are endgame same with jax/tara and merder because whenever meredith dies she'll be with derek!! I didn't include barchie or bhva because all were endgame imo and didn't include klamille or klayley or haylijah because I ship all three and didn't want competing ships lol and spuffy was endgame in the comic books lol in my mind karamel is endgame because she can go where he is anytime but I included them anyway lol and handon is endgame in my mind as well because they would've been!! I included brylan because even though I consider them endgame because they were supposed to be and now luke/shannen are gone I consider them to be but I needed to fill a space lol

@makeyouminemp3, @nikkiruncks, @bellamyblake, @okmcintyre, @stydixa

[chenfordsbee]

brettsey + Molly’s

[a-flappy-bat]

I filled a whole sketchbook page with terrible Alan Wake/ Control quick studies!

[userkatz]

[babyboyxandy]

Happy Birthday Jesse Spencer! I hope your special day is as amazing as you are! Love you and miss you!

[toppersjeep]

Chapter 12- I Miss You

The One -[Jay Halstead X Matt Casey]

link to master list with previous chapters

Elle’s POV

“So have you spoken to Jay” Stella asked. “Why would I” I said. “I mean maybe he’s sorry” Stella said. “Elena we have a call at the police headquarters ” Kelly said. “The police headquarters” I asked. “Yeah something about a bomb threat they need our expertise” Kelly said. “Alright” I said. “We can take my car” Kelly said.

“So just us” I said. “Yeah we are the only two who actually took the courses” Kelly said. “This should be fun” I said. We drove to the police headquarters and then went up to some meeting room. As soon as we turned the corner I saw my Dad. So I knew Jay would be there too. “Great” I said.

“Look put whatever you have aside okay we aren’t doing drama” Kelly said. “Copy that” I said. We walked in through the doors. “Ah there they are some of the city’s finest firefighters” Dad said. “Nice to meet you” the director said. “This is my daughter Elena Voight and her boss Kelly Severide” Dad said.

“Your daughter wow she grew up” the man said. “That she did” he said I smiled. “So what do you need our help with” Kelly asked. “Well we found a bomb earlier today and we think they are planning more attacks” he said.

“We do know what they already did one earlier today at a festival” Jay added. “Was anyone else hurt” I said looking at my dad. “We do have a missing police officer” Kim said. “He was working detail with Kim and disappeared” Adam said. “Maybe he’s a part of this” I said.

“No I know him he’d never do this” Kim said. “Sometimes people aren’t as them seem” I said looking at Jay. “So why do you need us” Kelly said. “Your experts in this stuff tell us what’s in it and how it was made” the director added. “Maybe we can figure out how to stop the next one” he said.

“Well one of them can work on it we do need backup” Adam said. “I’ll stay Elena” Kelly said. “Kelly” I said. “No you’ve got a better handle on the police thing so” Kelly said. “Elena go with Halstead” Dad said. “Dad” I said. “No complaints go” Dad said.

We then walked downstairs to the parking garage. Of course I had to be stuck with him.

“Come on”Jay said. “For the record I hate this idea” I said walking in front of him. “Elena I’ve told you I’m sorry multiple times” Jay said. “I don’t wanna hear this” I said getting into the passenger seat of his car.

(Crystal Reed as Elena Voight)

“You know your one of the most stubborn people I know” Jay said. “Just drive Jay” I said. “I’m just saying you are” he said stopping at a red light. “God why do I get roped into these things” I said. “Elle did you ever stop and think it’s because your good at what you do” Jay said.

“Jay” I said softly. “You are Elena you made Squad despite everyone at the academy telling you aren’t good enough” Jay said stopping the car. “Your an amazing firefighter Elena you’ve saved so many lives” Jay said putting a hand on mine.

“Yeah and what about the ones I didn’t Jay how do you cope with that” I said. “Think about the people you will save and the lives you’ll change” he said. I teared up. “I just” I said he hugged me tightly. “I know” Jay said. “Hey Halstead we got something” Adam said over the radio.

“Yeah what do you got” Jay said back. “We found the guy Atwater is bringing him in” Adam said. “Copy that” Jay said. “Sorry” I said. “No don’t apologize Elle just know I’m here for you” Jay said. “I appreciate that” I said he smiled.

“Want me to drop you back off at the firehouse” Jay asked. “Yeah that’s fine” I said. We drove back to the firehouse. He parked off to the side in the driveway. “Maybe we can talk later about everything tonight” Jay said. “Ummm.. yeah I’d like that” I said. “So I’ll see you tonight” Jay said. “I’ll see you” I said getting out. I watched as he drove off.

I then walked into the firehouse to see Matt talking to Otis.

“Hey how’d it go” Matt said. “Good I think” I said. “Well you were the right person for it” Matt said. “I’ll go over there I can feel the weirdness” Otis said walking over to the Squad table.

“He’s right there is a weirdness” I said. “Well we did kiss so” Matt said. “Yeah I know but” I said. “There’s always a but” Matt said. “I can’t do that Matt I wouldn’t to Gabby” I said. “And you still love him” Matt said. “I just” I said sighing. “No it’s alright you don’t have to explain yourself” Matt said.

“Well I gotta go take care of some stuff” I said. “Yeah so I’ll see you tonight at Mollys” Matt asked. “Rain check I got somewhere to be” I said. “Holding you to it Voight” Matt said.

Later…

Before I went to see Jay I stopped by the cemetery to see Jimmy. It had been almost seven months since he passed away. So I had brought flowers. Even though it had just began to snow. I knew I had to see him.

I got out of my car and walked over to his grave. They buried him beside his older brother.

“I don’t know how these things work” I said setting the flowers down on his headstone. “But I do know that I forgive you for everything” I said. “And I’ve been trying to forgive myself and it’s hard” I said tearing up. “Everyday I wonder if there was more I could’ve done to protect you” I said.

“You were one of my closest friends and I let you go down this path” I said wiping my tear. “I know I should’ve done more and I’m sorry” I said putting a hand on the headstone. “If your out there somewhere I hope your happier just know I miss you” I said softly. “And that the firehouse isn’t the same without you” I said.

“I really am sorry for being a shitty friend” I said. “Well I should be going but say hi to Justin for me” I said. I then drove away and drove to Jays. I walked up to his apartment and knocked on the door.

“Hey Elena thought we were meeting at Mollys” Jay said. “No I just wanted to stay in if that’s okay” I said. “Sure yeah” he said I walked into his apartment. “Before we talk or say anything I need to tell you something” I said he shut the door.

“What’s up” he said sitting on his couch. “Matt kissed me the other night” I said. “As in Matt Casey” he asked. “Yeah and I don’t feel anything for him I guess seeing you today made me realize” I said. “I’m telling you because I want this to work ,I want us to trust each other” I said.

“I do trust you Elle” he said cupping my cheek. “You know I love you right” I said. “I know” he said. “And Elena… I love you” Jay said. “Yeah” I said. “Yeah I do” he said I kissed him. “So movie night and pizza” Jay said.

“I’m so down for that” I said. “Good and wings I guess because you love them” he said I smiled. “You know me so well” I said.

[grande-caps]

Chicago Fire 12.06 - Port in the Storm

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[tvshowscouples]

Reblog if you are Team Brettsey

[jerzwriter]

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and I felt the need for more art for my precious Casey and Jessica. I'd like to thank the lovely @callmebeem for working with me on such short notice and creating this beautiful art! It's exactly what I wanted, and I love it to bits! ❤️Here's a little fic about their day. 😊

Any Other Day

Book: Open Heart (Prequel - Casey's Med School Years) Pairing: Casey MacTavish (F!MC) x Jessica Philips (F!OC) Words: 1440 Rating: Teen Summary: Jessica's not a fan of Valentine's Day, and she's made that pretty clear, but now that the day's up on them, Casey realizes there's more to it than meets the eye. A/N1: Participating in @choicesfebruary2024, Eros

Valentine’s Day was proving to be a challenge.

Just weeks before, Jessica declared her feelings about the holiday after a particularly long night of studying, and they weren’t pretty.   It was ridiculous, a Hallmark holiday steeped in capitalism, and she wanted no part of it. The intensity and randomness of her girlfriend’s declaration left Casey bewildered. It was so far out of left field she thought delirium may have finally gotten its grips on Jess; after all, sleep deprivation practically had her there, too. But she was tired and eager to move on, so she nodded in agreement, and Jessica seemed pleased to find them on the same page, which would have been great... except they weren’t.

Casey loved Valentine’s Day; she loved every single thing about it. A holiday where she could lavish love and attention on her girlfriend? Where was the problem with that? She agreed such things shouldn’t be limited to a designated day, and she ensured Jess knew how much she meant on any day ending in -y. But now that Cupid’s holiday was here, Casey was conflicted. How could she be expected not to acknowledge it? It seemed cruel, but... she had promised... didn’t she? She heaved out a sigh; perhaps their exceptionally hectic schedules would be her saving grace. She didn’t have to worry about celebrating... or not... if they didn’t see each other.

Jessica was assisting first-year students in distributing breakers in the lab. She was TA for an extra class today, as her professor wanted to take the day off to spend with their wife, and Jess felt a twinge of guilt when she agreed to cover. But she and Casey weren’t celebrating; they agreed to that...didn’t they? Casey said she was on board, but Jess would have to be blind to see how blue her normally effervescent girlfriend was this morning, and she couldn’t fight the feeling that she was the reason why.

The truth was, Jessica didn’t hate Valentine’s Day. She didn’t hate it at all. She hated the memories it dredged up and the feelings of insecurity that followed. She hated the ambiguity of the present and her apprehension about the future. The last time she celebrated was three years before, spending the night gazing at the stars in Ammarah’s arms. She never knew that kind of joy, and when Ammarah promised forever, Jess felt her world falling into place. A blissful dream previously unimagined coming to fruition, only to be crushed in quick succession. When Jess’s competition became the hallowed halls of Oxford, those promises were quickly forgotten, leaving Jess heartbroken when she realized she had never stood a chance.

She promised then and there that she wouldn’t fall in love again, at least no time soon. Ammarah prioritized her career, and now Jess would do the same. Love and other silly notions could wait. And that worked for a while, until that fateful day when an adorable giggle pulled her head from her textbook, and she looked up to find a beguiling smile that made her heart skip a beat. They’d only be friends, Jess insisted. That’s all they could be. But then their conversations lasted into the early morning hours, and the more they learned about each other, the more they needed to know. It's hard to be just friends when they're the first thing you think of each morning and the last thing you think of each night. So she had another idea...we’ll just be friends... with benefits, perhaps, but nothing more. Residency was on the horizon, and both women had been hurt before. They couldn’t let it happen again.  

But in the end, they stepped onto the rollercoaster hand-in-hand and fastened their seatbelts with all their might. Within weeks, “I love yous” were exchanged, both knowing they had an expiration date set from the start. It seemed easy when that date was on the distant horizon, but the closer it came, the more that old familiar pain began to seep in. Valentine’s Day: candles, kisses, and promises made again... Jess couldn’t allow it. But when the bell rang, it only took a student hand a rose to another to make her heart ache for Casey.  

She pulled out her phone and smiled at the sound of her voice. Lunch. She offered. She’d like to take her to lunch. Nothing fancy, nothing special, just grabbing a meal together like any other day, but she needed to see her. No matter how much Jessica studied the human heart, she couldn't see how hard hers was working to protect itself. But Casey was on her way, and that was all that mattered.

Casey hadn’t expected to hear from Jess, and it was easy to see her delight as she rushed down the hall. Nothing made her smile more than Jessica’s melodious laugh, and the closer it became, the more her smile grew.  She couldn’t wait to see the radiant smile that accompanied it, and as she stepped into Jess’s classroom, her wish was granted for just a second before Jess’s face fell.

“What... what the hell is that?” she asked, motioning furiously in Casey’s direction.

Casey looked down, perplexed, rubbing her hands along her torso to see if she had spilled something, but nothing seemed amiss.

“What’s what?”

“Your sweater! Why are you wearing that sweater?”

Casey appeared offended as she caressed her favorite cashmere sweater.

“But... I love this sweater! You love this sweater!”

“I do,” Jess sighed. “But not today!"

“It’s the same sweater as yesterday... the same sweater it will be tomorrow...”

“Yes! But yesterday or tomorrow won’t be Valentine’s Day.”

Casey followed the last student to exit the classroom and shut the door behind her, turning on her heel with crossed arms as soon as they were alone.

“All right,” she demanded. “This level of crazy is usually reserved for me, not you... so what gives?”

“We said no Valentine’s Day, Casey!”

“And besides me wearing a pink sweater, inadvertently, I might add... I haven’t so much as said Happy Valentine’s Day to you.  The holiday isn't causing a problem for us, Jess... but your hang-ups about it might be.  What’s going on?” 

Jess took a deep breath and leaned back against her desk, attempting to put her thoughts into words. “To me... in the past... Valentine’s Day was about promises.  Promises I believed in, even if the person making them took them with a grain of salt.”

“Ammarah?” Casey asked as Jess nodded softly.

“It’s scary, Case. It’s scary to know how fleeting love can be, and it's frightening... it’s frightening to think about what the future holds for us. You’ll still be here next year, but I don’t even know where I’ll be... and that... that just....”

Her words trailed as her head tilted forward. She was proud of herself for being strong enough to stop the tears pooling in her eyes from falling, but she could do nothing to stop herself from trembling.

“Jess,” Casey placed a loving hand on her shoulder. “I know you’ve been hurt, and I have, too... but we can’t live in the past, nor can we live in the future.”

“But, Casey...”

“But nothing! Don’t you see what you’re doing? The past was painful, and the future’s unknown, but you know what we have?” She lifted Jess’s chin until she was looking into her big, brown eyes. “We have today. Today is real, and the only thing that can steal it from us... is us... if we let it.  Come on, Jess,” she smiled, placing a gentle kiss on her lips. “Let’s not waste today."

Jess's head tilted, a crooked smile on her lips. She knew Casey was right, but her stubbornness couldn't be destroyed that easily.

“I still hate the commercialism,” Jess insisted, to Casey’s amusement.

“So do I! Come on, I can spoil you a little bit without turning into a corporate overlord, you know!”

Jess peeked up from under her lashes. “You promise?”

“I promise. Now, can we enjoy the day, please?”

Jess hopped to her feet, a bright grin on her face as she fell into Casey’s arms and a warm, lingering embrace. “Well, I invited you to lunch first... so technically, I started the celebration.”

“Oh, no,” Casey chuckled. “You are not getting the credit here! I think your exact words were, ‘It’s lunch, just lunch, don’t get excited or anything!”  

“Yeah, those were the words,” Jess laughed. “But if I’m being honest... I just really needed to see you. I needed to see you so badly.”

“Well, I’m here.  Can we call it a Valentine’s Day date, now?”

“Sure,” Jess blushed. “But I have to stop upstairs to see the Dean before we go.”

“That works for me,” Casey replied. “I have to put my things in my locker anyway.  Can we meet in front of the building in fifteen minutes?”

Jess reached over and stuck her fingers through the belt loops in Casey’s jeans, pulling her close. “And Casey?” she whispered, her breath tickling Casey’s ear.  “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

~~~~~

A/N: In my mind, Casey tossed her things in her locker and hightailed it to the corner gift shop. Poor Jess was wondering if Casey had a change of heart as she waited outside when two arms grabbed her from behind. Casey handed Jess the bouquet and yelled Happy Valentine's Day. After a cozy lunch at their favorite local diner, they decided they could skip their afternoon classes and headed back to Jess's place for a much more productive afternoon. 😏

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Tagging others separately.

[ummm-okay]

like when sylvie and casey were playing heads-up on her couch and jesse goes australian

I would kill for a scene where the 118 is joking around and doing mock British accents and then Oliver just speaks in his regular voice

And everyone’s just like

That definitely doesn’t sound British

[corrodedcoffins-blog]

Award Night

luke hughes x actress!reader

note: this was just some fun for myself before i queue my asmr videos for tonight 😀 well ig last night for y'all since im posting this tomorrow.. unless your in like Australia but in that case why are you reading an nhl fic? it must suck to be an abroad fan.. not me (im canadian) but y'all stay safe tho

also giving Priscilla Oscar noms cause this is my au and i get to decide what happens.

also just pretend Luke would be able to go given his schedule thx <3

lily

@/huggy_43

Y/n brought Luke to the OSCARS??!!!?!

taylor @/longlive_ replying to @/huggy_43 she's absolutely gorgeous, and he's.. there

isla @/dunn.29 replying to @/huggy_43 he's so awkward.. i love him

Emma @/draisaitl.29 replying to @/dunn.29 our awkward king!!

jess @/taytayy.89 replying to @/huggy_43 Y/n got lukey a stylist!!

casey @/KCundercover1 replying to @/huggy_43 she's everything and he's just ken

margot @/RobbieShapiro_ replying to @/huggy_43 how even is this man??

sadie @/everythingandthe_sink replying to @/longlive_ lol.

-

casey

@/KCundercover1

she is EVERYTHING.

-

lily

@/huggy_43

LOOK AT THEM!!!

jaden @/iamatwitteruser replying to @/huggy_43 luke is so out of place lol

jamie @/mynameisjamie replying to @/huggy_43 how is it that y/n can be that gorgeous while doing nothing???

julie @/julieandthephantoms replying to @/huggy_43 luke with his arms crossed like a gentlemen 🥰🥰

jessica @/iamjessicabutnotarabbit replying to @/huggy_43 beyond jealous luke gets to sit next to jacob elordi

james @/betty_ily replying to @/iamjessicabutnotarabbit THAT SHOULD BE ME

june @/mynameisamonth replying to @/huggy_43 y/n the perfect side profile comfirmed.

-

lily

@/huggy_43

Y/N WON BEST ACTRESS FOR PRISCILLA!!!!!!

emma @/emmastoneisme replying to @/huggy_43 and she mentioned lily in her speech!!

haley @/bestDunphy replying to @/emmastoneisme what did she say??

emma @/emmastoneisme replying to @/bestDunphy she said "Lily, i share this with you. I share this with all the women in this category

christina @/cardio.god replying to @/huggy_43 she even looks gorgeous when she cries!!!

lavendar @/wonwon_ replying to @/cardio.god the Rachel McAdams of this generation.

ginny @/iopenedthechamber replying to @/huggy_43 what i would give to have been a fly on the wall when jack and quinn found out their little brother pulled Y/N L/N!!!

frankie @/zegras_hughes_11 replying to @/huggy_43 her thanking luke 😭😭

beth @/myrealnameiselizabeth replying to @/zegras_hughes_11 and when the camera showed him 😭😭

tonya @/it_ony_a_movie replying to @/huggy_43 SHE'S AN OSCAR WINNER!!!

jo @/noonewillforgetme replying to @/it_ony_a_movie ...she was already an oscar winner... she got best supporting actress for little women

[lyneyswife]

GHOSTFACE BRAINROT

I know I said I’d write Wriotheslay smut next but I was rewatching my favorite franchise and got a bit carried away~

Ghostface x f! reader

{synopsis} Home alone and you get a call from Daddy Ghostie.

Word count: 1.7k

{content warning} 18+, NSFW, phone sex, masturbation, stalking and obsessive behavior,pet names.,

__________________________________________________

You had just turned off the shower.

The water's soft dripping filled your ears in the silent steamy bathroom.

As you step out wrapping a towel around yourself, you can’t help but notice the slight crack in the bathroom door.

You were home alone, parents were out on a ‘anniversary date night’ but still you could have sworn you left it closed, nonetheless, you brushed it off assuming it was nothing.

There have been recent reports of murders in town lately, some film student freak is trying to replicate the ‘stab’ movies again. Even managed to kill off a few of your classmates, a high school jock and some dumb cheerleader.

Not like it was any important loss for anyone, it wasn’t like you were trying to be unsympathetic yet you figured maybe everyone might have a better time at school now that, they aren’t running the lunchroom with their dumb clique, returning to reality. Wiping a small space in the steamy mirror to see yourself dry off as you ran the towel down your wet, warm skin that still had still lingering steam dancing off it.

{RING—-}

It was the house phone.

It caught you off guard, nearly jumping you out of your skin., Glancing over at the clock it was just past a little past 12.

Who could be calling at this hour?

Keeping the towel wrapped firmly around yourself you creep out of the bathroom over to the landline on your dresser.

“Hello?”

You answer the phone, it's stupid really to answer a phone call this late.

“Hello..”

“Uh-, hello? Who’s calling-“

“You tell me, scary night, isn’t it? With all the murders and all, it seems like it’s right out of a horror movie or something.”

“Funny, you gave yourself away Jess nice go to sleep you whore-“

{BEEP—}

You joke hanging up the phone and placing it just next to the receiver, a small laugh leaving your lips as you walk back over to the bathroom and finish slipping into your nightwear.

It’s simple really, just a simple pair of pj shorts and a little tank top.

In reality, it was nothing but the average pajamas for you but to him, You knew what you were doing.

Jess and you were both in the same class as the two recent murders, ‘Casey Richards and ‘Chad Anthony.’

They both were very sweet people, you and Casey even talked on occasion. Jess was probably just trying to scare you and get a reaction out of you, she knew how much you were getting anxious and paranoid about these killings.

Laying back onto your bed growing lost in thought until-,

{RING—}

Again? Seriously— you were gonna beat her ass.,

“Jess I thought I told you-“

“What if I told you this wasn’t Jess?”

You pause,

“Well then who is this..?”

You couldn’t help the small chill that ran down your spine and you subconsciously glanced around the room at all the dark empty windows.

You sit back down on your bed, leaning back against one of your hands as one holds the other snugly against your ears, why not entertain yourself with this for a bit, not to mention his voice was pretty sexy?

“Not Jess,”

He reiterated and you couldn't help but chuckle softly to yourself, biting your bottom lip slightly at the sound of his voice.

It caused you to rub your thighs together a bit,

those shorts sat perfectly against those plush thighs of yours.

God did he love blue on you-,

“You always answer the phone for strangers this late?”

“I don’t know, do you always ring unsuspecting girls this late..?”

“Maybe, or maybe just the cute ones who are dumb enough to answer.”

You paused, swallowing nervously as you sat up Straight, Was this a subtle insult or flirt? You couldn’t tell-,

“I like blue on you sweetheart it brings out your complexion.,”

You immediately looked to the window by your bed, was he looking in right now? Could he see you..? The phone was still in a tight hold you slowly leaned towards it looking out it until the sound of a static voice snapped you back to the fact that he was still on the line.

“I wouldn’t look out there baby, you never know.. could be a monster or something out there..”

He teased, his voice sending a throb between your legs your hand slowly reaching down to the aching excitement between your legs as you lay slowly onto your back.

“Y-you can see me right now..?”

A soft groan could be heard from the other end of the phone, and heavy breathing. Was he..?

You were going to take advantage of this-

“Keep touching yourself doll.,”

He stated in a firm tone seemingly ignoring your question as you slipped your eager little hands into the rim of your shorts underneath the flimsy lace of your panties.

“Just like that.”

As your hand reached your wet slick folds you gently and shyly ran your finger along them bringing a soft low moan to escape those pretty lips, god were you just perfect, and all for him.,

Pushing down and probing your fingers at the tight entrance of your eager little hole, drawing out a louder whimper as you tried to tuck the phone into your shoulder-,

“Don’t do that. I want to hear you, lift the phone back up.”

A small Whimper leaves your lips as you shyly raise it, a dark hue across your face. What were you doing? Are you really touching yourself just to the sound of his voice? The same man that killed your friends.,

Groans and heavy breathing fill your ears from his line. Along with the sound of wind and leaves rusting, oh he was watching you, and not only was he watching you he was getting off to you. But-, why did this turn you on so much more?

Running your delicate little fingers along the slicked excitement of your pussy as you ran a finger against your throbbing clit, this felt so so wrong but so good at the same time. God did you look good too, laying in your pretty little bed as your legs twitched and spasmed to the sensation of you playing with yourself to his voice.

He wished it was him too, to replace those fingers of yours with his own, he would watch as the slick would practically bathe his own pointing the tip of his blade against the plush of your thigh, not enough to draw blood but enough to dent the skin. Watching as you would writhe and squirm desperate to pleasure yourself against his long digits all while trying to avoid that pretty little skin from being cut.

Fuck you were just perfect, he wanted— no needed to have you.

A sharp moan of yours snapped him out of these fantasies, his eyes locked onto you through that little bedroom window you conveniently left open every night. You were just asking for it weren't you? Fisting his cock at the sight of this wasn't enough, but it would do for now., admiring the stiffness in his hand from his hard member before he continued to pump his hand around it, only imagining you wrapped around him instead of his stupid hand.

“F-fuck..So eager, bet you wish it was my cock instead of those pretty little fingers huh? Stuffing your cunt full while you scream, while I hold my knife to that pretty little throat of yours—s-shit...Do you want that baby? Want me to stuff you full of my cum?”

A loud Mewl left your lips as you pumped your index and middle finger out of you quickly, wet noises along with the sounds of your moans and whimpers filled the room, desperate to please yourself to the sound of his voice. God did you wish it was him, this total stranger— you have never wanted to be fucked more in your life.

“I-m gonna—”

You whimper, your orgasm building in your lower abdomen, an almost burning sensation that sends shocks and racks of pleasure through your body

Legs twitching and trembling., as your eyes flutter shut, hand shaking around the phone.

“Don’t.”

He grunted into the phone, his strong demeanor slipping as it was quite apparent that he was close, losing his grip.

That was until sudden headlights shined through the house, music from your parents' car blaring in the driveway as you immediately gasped and dropped the phone. Pulling your hands from your aching cunt, the feeling of your climax ripped roughly away from you as you sat up.

“S-shit..”

You mutter before a soft chuckle leaves your lips, snapping you back to reality as you run a free hand through your hair before looking at the phone you dropped picking it back up and slowly raising it to your ear.

“Hello?”

The line was dead, he must’ve hung up.,

You hope at least as you hope so.

Your parents come inside and you of course greet them after cleaning yourself up quickly, asking about their date and how it went before heading back up to your room for a bed, as you walk into your room you can’t help but notice a Polaroid photo sitting on your bed next to your slightly open, blinds obviously pushed around and shuffled from someone climbing in.

It sent a small chill down your spine as you remember for certain that you didn’t leave that there nor do you even own a Polaroid.

Reluctantly creeping over to pick it up, it was a picture of the prettiest cock you had ever laid your eyes on. The tip was pink and slightly swollen from obvious friction, soft cum leaking from the tip trickling down that girthy shaft, at the base sat a gloved hand that wrapped around it firmly, glistening with his own fluids., You could only imagine how that could and would feel inside you.,

Then the sound of a voice from the phone caught your attention, the same phone that you left on your bed earlier.

Raising it slowly to your ear all you hear is—

“That's just a teaser for what's to come, baby, don't worry I'll make you more than just cum next time.,”

Before you could even respond he hung up cutting the line, a small chill ran down your spine, reality setting in as you finally realized the seriousness of this situation. This wasn't just a creepy stalker, this was a killer, a slasher, a psychopath.

One who couldn’t wait to get his hands on you next time., just wait.

(If anyone has any pointers, suggestions or things you’d like to see me write pls do lmk !! ^~^)

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Squash's Reading List Year In Review 2024

(I've also posted this on WordPress here, where it might be more readable: https://jesuisgourde.wordpress.com/.../30/readinglist2024/)

Last year I read 92 books. I didn't plan on trying to surpass that number but I did, quite easily. This year I read 116 books. I didn't start off with any specific reading goal, but early on I decided to make it my goal to read more books by not-cis-men (women, trans/nonbinary people, etc) than by cis men. I hit that goal with 72 books. I did want to reread a number of books; I reread 7 books, but not all were the ones I listed in my last yearly reading review. I read 89 fiction books and 27 nonfiction. Of the nonfiction, the genres were mainly biography/autobiography, essay, science, and history. I read 45 books from small press publishers. I read 39 books by and/or about queer people. I don't have a super nice photo spread this year because I read a lot of books at work; I was going to screenshot my goodreads grid but unfortunately they have (frustratingly) changed the format from grid to list in the past week.

Here's a photo of the books I read that I do own, which isn't a whole lot, since I read most of the books at work this year:

I'll do superlatives at the end, here is the list of what I read this year, in chronological order. (Apologies for the random line breaks in the middle of the list, tumblr doesn't like it when you have 50+ lines without breaks)

-The Sorrows Of Young Werther by Johann von Goethe -The Changeling by Joy Williams -Child of God by Cormac McCarthy -Pierrot Mon Ami by Raymond Queneau -The Ghost Network by Kate Disabato -The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan -Richard III by William Shakespeare (reread) -The Recognitions by William Gaddis -A Kestrel For A Knave by Barry Hines -Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter -Bluets by Maggie Nelson -The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March -The Hospital by Ahmed Bouanani -I Love Dick by Chris Kraus -Minor Detail by Adiana Shibli -Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson -Rent Boy by Gary Indiana -One Or Several Deserts by Carter St Hogan -Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball -Norma Jean Baker of Troy by Anne Carson -Die My Love by Ariana Harwicz -Missing Person by Patrick Modiano -Petite Fleur by Iosi Havilio -Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi -The Address Book by Sophie Calle -In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado -Plastic Jesus by Poppy Z Brite -New Animal by Ella Baxter -The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel (play) -Green Girl by Kate Zambrino -Death In Spring by Merce Rodoreda -Harold's End by JT LeRoy (reread) -Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto -Stranger To The Moon by Evelio Rosero -H of H Playbook by Anne Carson -When The Sick Rule The World by Dodie Bellamy -Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson -Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector -Not One Day by Anne Garreta -Mauve Desert by Nicole Brossard -Binary Star by Sarah Gerard -Slug and other stories by Megan Milks -Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block (reread) -The Deer by Dashiel Carrera -Mean by Myriam Gurba -Humiliation by Wayne Koestenbaum -The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites -Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts by Claire Donato -Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

-Notes on Thoughts and Vision & The Wise Sappho by H.D. -Harrow by Joy Williams -A Feast Of Snakes by Harry Crews -Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York by Lucy Sante -Milkshake by Travis Dahlke -Little Fish by Casey Plett -Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor -Sex Goblin by Lauren Cook -Biography of X by Catherine Lacey -Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller -Hir by Taylor Mac (play) -Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney -Notes On Camp by Susan Sontag -Transformer: A Story of Glitter, Glam Rock, and Loving Lou Reed by Simon Doonan -Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo -Acid Snow by Larry Mitchell (reread) -33 1/3 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott -The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides -red doc> by Anne Carson -Darryl by Jackie Ess -A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan -The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain -Body by Harry Crews -St Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber -The Quick & The Dead by Joy Williams (reread) -Don't Think Twice: Adventure and Healing at 100 Miles Per Hour by Barbara Schoichet -Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer -Timbuktu by Paul Auster -Nevada by Imogen Binnie -The End We Start From by Megan Hunte -Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang -Like Flies From Afar by K. Ferraro -Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe -Bestiary by K-Ming Chang -Playboy by Constance Debre -Red Dragon by Thomas Harris -Parting Gifts for Losing Contestants by Jessica Mooney -The Outline of My Lover by Douglas A Martin -Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova -Essex County by Jeff Lemire (reread) -Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have To Offer by Rax King -The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter -Lover Man by Alston Anderson -Cecilia by K-Ming Chang -The Employees by Olga Ravn -It Lasts Forever And Then It's Over by Anne De Marcken -Mercy Killing by Alandra Hileman (play) -Tentacle by Rita Indiana

-Nox by Anne Carson -What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami -McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh (reread) -Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin -John by Annie Baker (play) -Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement -All Down Darkness Wide by Sean Hewitt -The Blue Books by Nicole Brossard -The Book Of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender and Unruly by Kate Lebo -Blood Of The Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jimenez -The Balloonists by Eula Biss -Ravage: An Astonishment Of Fire by MacGillivray/Kirsten Norrie -Gods Of Want: Stories by K-Ming Chang -Fem by Magda Carneci -Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and Toshio Merino -Mr Parker by Michael McKeever (play) -Fucking A by Suzan-Lori Parks (play) -Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha -Otherspace, a Martian Ty/opography by Brad Freeman and Johanna Drucker

I DNF'ed a few books, but all were put down with the intention of finishing them at some point. Mostly they were books I needed to read when I was less busy/in a different headspace. I DNF'ed: Soldiers Don't Go Mad: A true story of friendship, poetry and mental illness during the first world war by Charles Glass, a reread of Her by HD, and The Apple In The Dark by Clarice Lispector. The Lispector and HD are both modernist novels that need 100% attention, and the Glass book is a nonfiction book (very good so far) that I put down in favor of something that at the time was more interesting.

I gave out a lot of 5 stars this year. The books I rated as 5 stars were: The Changeling by Joy Williams, The Recognitions by William Gaddis, Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield, 33 1/3 Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott, Transformer by Simon Doonan, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Body by Harry Crews, Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, and Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.

~Superlatives~

Like last year, I'm going to do runners-up because I read so many books.

Favorite book: The Recognitions by William Gaddis. I have to pick this one as my favorite for the year, because reading it was a journey, and because it was a book that was exactly everything I love in a book: fascinating, very human characters, weird formatting, great dialogue, metaphors galore, and most importantly, hundreds of cultural, artistic, historical, biblical and literary references. I started this book on January 4 and I finished it February 22. It was so unbelievably dense, probably the densest novel I've ever read, and I absolutely loved it. So much is going on in this novel that it's hard for me to summarize. In the very shortest version of a summary, it is a novel about counterfeits (specifically paintings, but counterfeits in all and any forms) and Catholicism in 1930s/40s New York. The main character is a young man named Wyatt Gwyon, a talented artist who instead of painting for himself, becomes a skilled counterfeiter-- not because he wants to make money, but because he's obsessed with the perfection of making exact interpretations of other people's art. He also struggles with religion and belief due to his strange religious upbringing. Many, many other characters are also focal points throughout the novel. The book is unique in that it doesn't use quotation marks when characters speak and rarely uses "he said"/"she said" or any similar phrase. But Gaddis is incredibly talented at writing dialogue so that each character's voice comes through, and it's obvious (except when he doesn't want it to be) who is speaking. Gaddis is also wonderfully scathing, and much of the novel is incredibly witty and intelligent observations about the Modernist art world and artistic spaces in general. The characters are all fascinating, there is a lot of mirroring and metaphors. I say this book is about counterfeits in every form, because it constantly highlights different ways in which each character is faking something, or lying, or pretending to be/know/do/think something they are not. This book was incredible, I annotated every single page and had so much fun reading it, even though or perhaps because it was so unbelievably dense.

Just for a bit of reference, here are a few of the more annotated pages in my copy of The Recognitions:

Runner up: Body by Harry Crews (more on this one further down)

Least favorite book: Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. I was so disappointed by this book. The blurb on the back made it sound like it was going to be really beautiful and interesting and unique. It wasn't. It was all tell and no show. It follows Ada, a person who is born with one foot in the spirit world. A traumatic experience at university causes her to develop split personalities as the spirits from the other side step forward to protect her from trauma. Unfortunately, the spirits who now control her body have darker, more dangerous desires. Sadly, there was almost no plot, just description after description of Ada's unhealthy relationships and erratic behavior. But because the narrative is so distanced from said relationships and from Ada, the high stakes of this behavior is not felt, not really. Interesting characters can easily save 'all tell and no show type' books, but none of the characters get delved into with any depth, even Ada. The show rather than tell narrative also seriously undermines the poetic prose that crops up almost at random. This book felt flat. No plot, little stakes felt, no interesting characters, tell rather than showing everything, and it's not compelling at all.

Runner up: Playboy by Constance Debre. The back of this book describes it as a memoir detailing the writer's "decision, at age forty-three, to abandon her marriage, her legal career, and her bourgeois Parisian life to become a lesbian and a writer." Which sounds amazing! But it isn't! It's unbelievably pretentious and quite boring. It's mostly just complaining hidden by a facade of faux-philosophical meandering and directionless autobiographical vignettes. The author is a lawyer and she spends most of the time complaining about poor people and about women. It's so hilariously misogynistic. It's just various vignettes of her relationships with various women (who she dislikes and disparages for being femme or having bad bodies or for having lowbrow/uncultured interests etc etc) and then her going and visiting her ex-husband and teenage son, and then complaining that she has nothing. There's little to no emotion in the book, she is not charming, and her pseudo-philosophical musings are boring.

Most surprising/unexpected book: Body by Harry Crews. This book crept up on me in terms of a favorite. Crews' writing is not for everyone, but it's absolutely for me. The book follows bodybuilder Shereel Dupont and her trainer, Russell, who are at the world bodybuilding competition. Shereel has left home to compete over the past year and is now one of the most likely to win. Unfortunately, her family, who are "corpulent rednecks" with odd habits, show up to cheer her on, causing disruption and chaos throughout the hotel at which the competition is held and turmoil for Shereel herself. This book blew me away completely. Every time I thought it had reached a plateau of weirdness and chaos and insanity, it ratcheted that all up even higher, culminating in the most perfectly fucked up ending.

Runner up: Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. A mother trapped in the liminal space between life and death is made by an unfamiliar changeling child to retell the events of the recent past, desperately trying to pinpoint the moment she can reverse the environmental poisoning of herself and her daughter. I picked this book up because it sounded interesting, and then it ended up being an amazingly written short horror novel. It had a lot of interesting thoughts on motherhood and the horror of being a parent - not in a negative way, but the horror of wanting to protect and keep your child safe and the inability to do so.

Most fun book: Like Flies From Afar by K Ferrari. I fully judged a book by its cover with this one, and it did not disappoint. Small-time criminal/oligarch Mr Machi thinks he's hot shit, until he pops a tire on the way to an appointment and discovers an unidentifiable corpse in his trunk. As he scrambles to deal with the body, his paranoia grows as he tries to calculate who out of all his enemies and employees might be responsible, and who is trying to frame him, and who the body might be, and his life slowly transforms into a nightmare. Everyone in this book is loathsome, but in a way that is so fun to hate. The whole novel is a romp of panic and paranoia, people who think they're so cool and hard exposing how uncool they are, and a mystery that's so fun because watching the protagonist panic is a kind of schadenfreude.

Runner up: Transformer by Simon Doonan. This is a book for people who love Lou Reed, by a man who loves Lou Reed. It's just a wonderfully written biography that focuses mainly on the album Transformer, but also gives Lou Reed's history and is interspersed with stories about Doonan's own thoughts and experiences with Reed. The whole book is really passionate and vivid, and fun to read even if you don't have the album immediately to hand.

Best queer book: Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield. Leah, a marine biologist, has returned from a deep-sea voyage that went wrong. Her wife Miri begins to realize that something is wrong, and Leah came back changed. The narrative switches between Miri's point of view as she tries to reach Leah and struggles help her despite not knowing what's happening to her wife, and Leah's point of view as she remembers and recounts what happened to her during her submarine voyage. I started this book at work and brought it home. In the middle of reading it, I stopped to finish some task (I think it might have been to make dinner), and ended up having to cut the task short because I needed so badly to keep reading. The most compelling part of the book is the very different ways the two characters' love for each other shines through, even in the darkest moments of the novel.

Runner up: Darryl by Jackie Ess. The titular narrator of this novel discovers that he genuinely enjoys a cuckolding lifestyle, watching men have sex with his wife. But then he realizes that part of the reason he likes it so much, is that maybe he wants to be the wife. His explorations with sex and gender and relationships (and basketball) begin to unravel his marriage and his friendships and his own mind. Then he learns more about one of the men his wife has been sleeping with, and things get dangerous. I loved this book because despite it being written by a trans woman, the story doesn't at all go where you'd expect regarding gender or sexuality. It's satirical, it's witty, it's got some cool things to say about kink and about gender, and it's totally original.

Saddest book: Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. This is a classic I'd been meaning to read for a long time. The narrator is an American WWI soldier named Joe who was hit by an artillery shell and has woken in the hospital having had his arms and legs amputated, as well as most of his facial features mutilated beyond use/recognition. Trapped in his body, he drifts through memories and musings on life and war and philosophy as he tries to keep track of the days and to figure out some way to communicate with the hospital staff. It's no wonder this book is a classic. The writing is incredible, the imagery vivid and the plot totally gripping, even as it switches between the peaceful past and the horrible present. The end is completely gut-wrenching.

Runner up: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli. This novel explores what in history is a minor detail, and what impact that little moment might have on someone in the future. The first part of the novel opens in Palestine in 1949, in a military camp, where a group of Israeli soldiers (led by a captain suffering from a bite-induced hallucinogenic fever) kidnap, rape, and murder an unnamed Palestinian woman and bury her body in the desert. Fifty-odd years later, a Palestinian writer learns about this "small" moment in history, which occurred 25 years to the day before her birth, and becomes obsessed with learning more. She obtains an illegal pass to the Zone in which the woman died, determined to go there and find more information. I don't want to summarize much more because I don't want to give away any of the hard-hitting plot points. But Minor Detail was published in 2020, and it explores the cycles of violence and the ways in which oppression has not changed for the Palestinian people. It's a book that I wish I had read twice because (as the title suggests) there were a lot of small details that repeated themselves or were less noticeable at first but slowly grew or became important later in the story, and I'm sure I would have noticed more.

Weirdest book: The Changeling by Joy Williams. I love Joy Williams! I love everything she writes! Her themes are always so interesting and her writing style is so unique. The main character, a young woman named Pearl, escapes her terrible marriage by joining a rich older man and in doing so ends up living with him on an island that is populated by children he has taken under his wing. Pearl wants little to do with them and spends most of her days getting drunk by the pool -- the children are eerily smart and her son has joined their games and lessons, and they all want her attention. But her son is less and less her son as time goes on, and the children are not always the children, and the adults in the house are all bizarre and half-mad. I wish I could give a better summary, but Joy Williams books are always difficult to summarize, because so much of the stories are less about the plot and more about the characters just feeling things at the reader, and the plot is often built on or around odd occurrences and philosophical musings. This book blew me away with its imagery and its metaphors. I want to reread it, because it was just so amazing. My absolutely favorite thing about Joy Williams (and this is true for all of her books) is the way she writes these incredibly profound and philosophical phrases like they're nothing at all, like they're so easy, just breezes on by them even though she's just punched you in the chest. It's amazing.

Runner up: Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.

Most gripping book: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. This book is an absolute masterclass in pacing. It tells just a few fragments out of the whole history of the Irish Troubles, but the fragments that are focused on are woven together with brilliant timing, humanizing and vivid portrayals, fantastic analysis and contextualization, and altogether excellent writing. Every time I put this book down I wanted to keep reading, to know what was going to happen next. The book has 3 focal points: Gerry Adams, (alleged) leader of the IRA; Dolors Price, a member of the IRA; and the family of Jean McConville, a woman kidnapped by the IRA. At first, all three storylines are disparate, but Keefe slowly weaves them together, pulling all the threads of context and action and years in prison or government or delinquent schools together slowly but steadily. The book reads like a thriller, and I adored it completely. (Yes, I do know about the miniseries. I haven't finished watching it yet!)

Runner up: Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield.

Book that taught me the most: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Runner up: The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites. This could also go under weirdest book, easily. As a graduate art school project, Thwaites decided to attempt to build the simplest (and cheapest) appliance he could think of - a toaster - fully from scratch. Quite literally, starting with mining the elements to make the right kinds of metal and figuring out how to make the right kind of plastic. Half of the book is Thwaites' attempts to build various elements of a toaster - and how they go wrong, or right, and why it's so hard. The other half discusses all the processes that go in to making all these elements in a more manufactured setting, their impact on the environment and the economy, and the difference between cheap mass-produced products that break down vs more expensive products that last longer. The writing was fun and included photos and diagrams and interviews with various industry professionals Thwaites contacted to learn more.

Most interesting/thought provoking book: The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Runner up: Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang. I've now read everything this author has published and this is by far her best book. Her narrative style is so unique and so poetic, and the themes she always comes back to are so interesting, and they culminate in this amazing novel. This magical realist novel centers around two best friends, Anita and Rainie, who are both first generation Taiwanese-American. The story opens when they are adolescents, and Anita has recently learned that they come from generations of dog-headed women and women-headed dogs. They vow to become dogs together, tying a string around each other's throats as collars and playing at dogs in the empty lot near their apartment complex. But Anita's dreamlike imagination and obsessively loyal personality starts to clash with Rainie's more reserved nature, and when it becomes too much, Rainie's family moves away. Rainie grows up, while unbeknownst to her, Anita has sunk into a dreamworld and her body has begun to rot. She narrates her family's past and her mother's bloodline because she cannot narrate her own present. When she returns to the town she grew up in, Rainie discovers Anita's condition, and knows that she is the only one who can save her. This novel is beautiful, incredibly poetic, and experiments with formatting and narration in really unique ways. Its exploration of friendship and queerness and obsession and tradition and folklore is absolutely fascinating. I often write in my books and underline sentences or paragraphs that I really love. I didn't write in this one, because I would have ended up underlining the entire novel.

Longest/shortest book: My longest book was The Recognitions by William Gaddis at 952 pages, and my shortest was Notes On Camp by Susan Sontag at 57 pages.

General thoughts on all the other books that didn't get superlatives:

-Child of God by Cormac McCarthy. This is the first McCarthy book I've ever read (I know, I know) and I really enjoyed it. You just watch a horrible guy walk around in the rural countryside of a small town, doing increasingly fucked up things and committing various awful crimes. Which is exactly up my alley in terms of literature. The main character, Ballard, is someone who is so weird and pathetic that he becomes turned inside out into evilness. You feel sorry for him but you also hate him and he's also fascinating because he's so fucking weird. It's a great book.

-The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato. This book was so much fun to read while living in Chicago. It's a rock n roll mystery novel that riffs on Situationism and the L tracks and maps. A rock star disappears, and the main character who is a fan of her's is determined to find out what happened to her. What she uncovers is a series of clues based on defunct lines and stations of the Chicago transit system, and the Situationist concept of detournment, which lead her towards finding out what actually happened to the rock star. This book was so much fun, and so much of it was based on real life defunct train lines and the actual Situationists, both of which I found really interesting. The ending was also just so good! Somehow I managed to have read everything I needed to in order to get every single reference in the book, which was really surprising to me, because they all came from different places.

-New Animal by Ella Baxter. This book baffled me. It is about a woman who works as a makeup-artist at her family's morgue. When her mother dies unexpectedly, she skips the funeral and goes to stay at her estranged father's house. While there, trying to figure out how to vent her grief, she decides to try out the local kink scene. Her first experience is with a dom who is a manipulative, horrible asshole. She has a bad time, but wants to try again, so she goes to a place that hosts scenes. She acts like she knows what she's doing when she doesn't, no one gives her any instruction, so she fucks up massively, and everyone has a bad time. It's the worst portrayal of the kink scene I think I've ever encountered. The author said she did a lot of research but it just seems like a lot of terrible assumptions and misinterpretations. I thought it was going to be a book that positively portrayed kink and people who like the kink scene, but it's very much not. It didn't even feel like the author was doing this so the character would learn that she can't run from her grief. It seemed more like the author had one bad experience due to poor communication or shitty individuals, and then decided that's what the whole scene was like.

-Harold's End by JT LeRoy. I read this book in high school (or perhaps just after graduating) and totally fell in love with it, and then never saw another copy until recently. It was so good to reread it, to re-experience the gorgeous watercolor portraits that come with it. The novel follows a young street kid/hustler who lives with other street kids; all his friends have pets but he doesn't. A john takes a liking to him and buys him a snail as a pet, who he names Harold. The book follows him as he lives on the streets and as his relationship with the john develops. The book is classic JT LeRoy, and the end is LeRoy's usual style of characters experiencing a life lesson and growth but not necessarily in a happy way. It definitely holds up!

-Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson. This was such a fun and weird book and I really enjoyed it. Markson's idea for the novel was "what if someone actually lived the way that Wittgenstein's Tractatus suggests?". What we get is a woman who believes she is the last person on earth (it is never confirmed whether this is true or not). She muses on life, culture, art, philosophy, and her past, and discusses her trips across the world despite its emptiness. But her story changes constantly; she's always referencing things she said before and editing herself. It's a weird, fun, fascinating novel with a lovably weird main character.

-A Feast Of Snakes by Harry Crews. Yet another fucked up book that I loved. It follows Joe Lon Mackey, a former high school football star that now lives a dead-end life in his hometown in Georgia. Each year the town hosts the Rattlesnake Roundup, where people come from many states away to try and catch as many rattlesnakes as they can in order to win a competition. Joe Lon is in charge of the event now that his father is too old and ill. He's uncomfortably self-aware of his own personal failings and his inadequacy and his abusive relationship with his wife; he'd rather not think about any of it and is incapable of figuring out how to change things. But his old girlfriend is returning for the event, and his father's attempts to control the goings-on from afar mean he's unable to stop thinking about where his life has ended up and where it's going. All this drives him slowly crazy with desperation until the insane ending. Crews is incredibly talented at writing characters that are likeable despite being so flawed and fairly awful people. This book is no exception.

-Milkshake by Travis Dahlke. What a weird novel! In a near-future dystopian heatwave, an 11 year old girl escapes the environmental catastrophe by traveling back in time to her past life as a fertilizer salesman whose marriage is slowly collapsing. I really enjoyed it, because it was just so odd. Now that I'm thinking about it, I feel as though it would have been really interesting to read just before or just after reading Tentacle; both books focus specifically on time travel and on environmental disaster.

-Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor. At the opening of the box, a Witch has been murdered in a small village in Mexico called La Matosa. The rest of the chapters are narrated by different characters, who all have some small or large hand in the death of the Witch, who was a woman who the whole town visited in secret for medicine, fortune-tellings, and advice. The narrating characters include a schoolgirl, a drug dealer, a prostitute, a hapless husband who wants to make something of himself, and a teenager in love with his young girlfriend. With each narration we learn more about the Witch, and her mother who was a Witch before her. Slowly, we get inklings of the nature of the murder, and the revelation at the end is brutal. Melchor's writing is incredibly vivid, and the characters are all caught in the cycle of poverty, driven by superstition and fear and hardship. None of the characters are likeable, but they're all so human.

-Biography Of X by Catherine Lacey. In a dystopic alternate-universe US, where the Southern Territory split from the North after WWII and established a fascist theocracy, a woman named CM grieves her recently deceased wife X, who was a famous artist. Despite X's wishes, CM decides to delve into her wife's past, researching her history before they met and before she was known as X. She uses her credentials and privileges as a journalist to cross into the Southern Territory and learn about X's family and the communities from which she came, her activism and her hidden lives, and begins to realize that maybe learning all this about the woman she loved won't benefit her in the long run and that maybe their relationship wasn't as rosy as she thought. This novel combined fiction and real life in really fascinating ways, and includes both real and fake sources in its footnotes.

-The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. A famous and successful painter murders her husband and then refuses to speak. A psychologist who is also a fan of her work is determined to get her to speak again. Obsessed with uncovering the truth, he ends up taking risks that threaten himself and his patient. A fun mystery that went down easy. It didn't attempt to be too realistic from the start, so suspension of disbelief wasn't hard. I do think the book could have done without the entire last part. Leaving it on the realization of what had happened and allowing the reader to sit with that realization (especially with how creatively the twist is presented) would have had more impact I think than the slower and less engaging denouement of the last 3 chapters, which were far weaker than the rest of the book.

-Acid Snow by Larry Mitchell. I reread this book for the first time since about 2009 and really enjoyed it. It's a very sad novel about a man living in NYC during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Most of his friends and lovers have died and he's scared and sad about his own life and cynical about love, but he's attracted to the man who owns the shop below his apartment. It's a dark book, sad and scared and jaded. I think the main character's anxiety and grief that slowly escalates into paranoia is an amazingly surreal way to portray all the emotions that consumed the queer community at that time. I also loved the sort of lack of closure at the end - because many people didn't get that.

-Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. I don't generally go for science fiction novels, but I read this one because so many people said they had liked it. I really enjoyed it. The unnamed narrator, a biologist, is part of an all-female expedition into a harsh, unknown territory that has appeared adjacent to the US. The suspense and strangeness of the novel had excellent pacing. The descriptions were also so vivid and clear, which made the story's weirdness so compelling. I loved watching the main character struggle to remain objective the whole time while knowing that she's failing. Her growing fascination and terror is so fun to read as each feeling tries to overtake the other. I also think it was great as a standalone and I feel no interest in reading the other books in the same universe.

-Nevada by Imogen Binnie. I'm a bad queer person, I hated this book. In it, the narrator, a trans woman, is frustrated with her life and has just broken up with her girlfriend, so she steals her ex's car and drives away, ending up in a small town where she spends the night with a department store employee. I just really don't like books that are meandering tell and no show without characters or a plot that are interesting. This entire book felt like someone recounting their weekend over breakfast, complete with casual informal language and overuse of the word "like". Which would be fine if any of the characters were compelling, or if the plot was really interesting and went somewhere, but it didn't. A good portion of it is just musings on New York City, but without the creativity or vividness that other portrayals of NYC have to offer. After I read it, I learned this book was kind of the catalyst for a specific style of trans writing. Which also explains why I hated Detransition, Baby when I read it a couple years ago, as it's a sort of literary descendant of this. I'm happy to read books that are tell rather than show....so long as something interesting happens or at least one of the characters is unique and compelling. This book sadly has neither.

-Essex County by Jeff Lemire. I read this for an English class in university, so this was a reread and I really enjoyed reading it a second time! All the stories in this collection are so beautiful and compelling, all the characters are so real. And the art style is fantastic. The stories revolve around characters living in the titular Essex County in Canada, across a number of generations. It weaves together their relationships and their lives, much of which revolves around hockey. There were some storylines I remembered quite well and others I didn't remember at all, so it was really nice to revisit this one.

-Ravage: An Astonishment of Fire by MacGillivray. Man, this book had so much potential. This novel is a fake biography of a fake poet who disappeared from a Scottish island in the 1960s after falling into delusions that he has become a demon. The fascinating thing about this book (at first), is that it's completely convinced that it is an actual nonfiction book. It gives no hints that it's fake, and the first 50 pages are convincingly written with an academic, nonfiction voice as the novel is utterly convinced of its own delusion of factualness. The novel claims to be an analysis of found papers: first, the poetry and written tracts of Tristjan Norge, a Norwegian poet, then the analysis of his works by MacGillivray, and finally, the diary of his companion Luce Montcrieff. Unfortunately, it is fairly repetitive in a way that bogs the reader down quite a bit. Even so, I think I would have enjoyed much, much more if the ending did not abruptly switch genres to a supernatural/fantasy novel in a way that was startling and had no previous indications of earlier in the book. Up to the last 20 pages I thought it was interesting, even when it was dense, but the end felt like the author didn't know how to end the novel and just used the deus ex machina of supernatural occurrences.

My goal for 2025 is to read majority nonfiction. I don't know if I'm going to actually meet that goal, but I'll try. I don't have any goals for how many books I want to read, especially because I tend to read nonfiction quite a bit slower than fiction, so I don't have a good idea of what my reading amount goal should actually be. This year I also forgot entirely about my attempt to read all of Jean Genet's (translated) works, so I will hopefully actually meet that goal in 2025, since I only have one or two books left to read. But my first three books of the year are going to be Soldiers Don't Go Mad by Charles Glass, which I started this year but didn't finish, The Declared Enemy: Texts and Interviews by Jean Genet, and Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe.

[babyboyxandy]

A new chapter of my story The Journey Of 3 To 81 has been posted. You can find a link below.

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 HAPPY PRIDE MONTH🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

You all already know that I am Autistic and have been so amazingly supportive. So I feel safe letting you all know I'm Gay. Maybe that was already obvious, if you were aware I'm in fact a guy.

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Thank you for always supporting my story, and just me in general. I have the most amazing reader in the world. I love you!

💕💖❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💖💕

I love you all just the way you are! Be yourself and proud of that! You are not alone! Hugs!

💙 Xandy

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38237734/chapters/121545883