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mt07131 · 6 months ago

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book recommendation tag game!!

rules: recommend as many books as you like. please include genre and some basic information on it (either your words or a copy+paste synopsis). feel free to include cover art, a personal review, trigger warnings, and anything else! just don’t spoil the book!

tagged by @dekarios and hmmmm if anyone sees this and wants to do it, consider yourself tagged by me <3

Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Sci-Fi)

The Emperor of the Nine Houses has invited the necromantic heirs of each house to participate in a test to join him in immortality. Every necromancer needs a cavalier, however, and the only way Gideon Nav will earn her freedom from the Ninth House is to pick up a sword.

I want to say more about GtN SO BAD but I can’t because spoilers. This book quite literally fundamentally changed me, I think about it at least once a week. This was the book that got me back into reading more consistently so take that as you will.

A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson (True Crime)

Five years ago, Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend Sal Singh, and everyone knows it. At least, everyone thinks they know it. When Pippa Fitz-Amobi decides to investigate the case as part of her senior project, she begins to unravel dark secrets that will change the case- and her life- forever.

Another one of of my absolute favorite books and favorite series that I will always recommend. I really love how AGGGTM dives into the collective obsession with true crime and how it actually affects people who are involved.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Sci-Fi)

Being a Chrysalis pilot in Huaxia is a boy’s dream and a girl’s death sentence. But when Wu Zetian kills the pilot responsible for her sister’s death through the Chrysalis’ mental link, she is labeled an Iron Widow and paired up with the strongest yet most controversial male pilot to tame her. She will not give up her power so easily though.

I was excited for this book and it more than exceeded my expectations. I love Zetian as a character, and the worldbuilding is excellent. I won’t lie when I say I’m foaming at the mouth for Heavenly Tyrant.

Six Of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (Fantasy)

Kaz Brekker has the chance to pull off the heist of a lifetime that will make him rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, but he can’t do it alone. He must gather a crew of Ketterdam’s most talented to succeed- as long as they don’t kill each other first.

The crows!!!! I love them!!!! I liked the grisha trilogy set in the same world, but I loved the crows duology SO much more. All of the characters are fantastic but Kaz and Inej will always have my heart.

We Are Watching Eliza Bright by A.E. Osworth (Thriller)

Eliza Bright is living her dream as a coder at Fancy Dog Games. When a workplace harassment incident goes unresolved, Eliza takes her story to a journalist to bring light to her situation. Unfortunately, this also makes Eliza a target for the violent collective of male video game players, who threaten her life not only online, but in real life.

I am not normally one to read straight up thrillers, but this one was disturbing yet fascinating enough that I read it all in one day. While it is a fictionalized dramatization of Gamergate, what Eliza faces can feel all too real to someone who knows how game fans can be.

Warcross by Marie Lu (Sci-Fi)

Teenage hacker Emika Chen, desperate for cash, takes a chance and hacks into the international Warcross Championships, accidentally glitching herself into the action and becoming a sensation. When Warcross’ creator offers her an official place in this year’s championship to uncover a security issue, she uncovers a sinister plot that could bring Warcross as the world knows it to its knees.

I’ve read quite a few of Marie Lu’s books, but the Warcross duology was SO GOOD. Another book with stunning worldbuilding that also doesn’t feel so far off from our current technology, I’d highly recommend to anyone who loves sci-fi.

#maeve.txt #tag game #person on tumblr has read tlt fork found in kitchen #I need to talk about the books I’ve read more this was fun!!!!!!!#I also need to get back to consistently reading I have been slacking on my goodreads challenge #me when I had to edit bc I straight up forgot genre don’t worry about it

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dangermousie · 4 years ago

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Out of two het Meatbun novels on jjwxc, one has the very first (!!!) chapter of it locked.

I am unironically in awe. (I started on another one whose heroine is a tough MFer and I like even chapter in. It also has locked chapters but I can find those elsewhere.)

In general, jjwxc account and chrome auto translation is a great great invention since I discovered the author of Mistakenly Saving the Villain has a bunch of other novels (alas all modern) and the author of Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine does too and they are period!!! I am going to check some out (tho elsewhere since I prefer deepl to google translate and I can’t paste jjwxc text and also they have locked chapters.) I can see where my paycheck will be going haha.

Oh and I read the Mistakenly Saving the Villain extra and eeeee!!!! Some favorite bits:

1. Memory wiped An Long showing up at Yue Wuhuan’s house going “ugh this is so boring you were busy so you didn’t make the wine I normally drink and then I can’t even drag you out for our customary fun brawl since your spouse is just there.”

2. Qing Luan x Min Hong!!!! My one het otp in this one. The bit where MH finally discovers QL didn’t seal her memories after all.

3. The whole BZH x Peacock thing aka who knew this novel would give me an awesome secondary otp! Where Peacock is all “I don’t want to come back to heaven I finally got a spouse!” And YWH is all “fine here is a permit for coming and going from small world and power upgrade for BZH so he can also run around.” And also since all his feathers are out, Peacock is hiding at home and refusing to peek out or even do his usual lady clothes etc so he just basically hangs around BZH all day and the rumors become that BZH locks up some beauty in a dungeon for kinky times and BZH who is long used to all this insanity is just rolling his eyes.

Honestly, BZH storyline is one of my fave things about this novel because it’s such an inversion of genre stereotypes about bed roles corresponding to externalities so to speak - Peacock literally dresses and acts like a girl to such an extent most those not close to them don’t even know he’s not a woman. And BZH is the reserved, tough, tragic past head of assassin/bounty hunter sect who at the end is the freaking ruler of the Imperishable Peak aka he runs the world. And he’s the shou. (Also I will never be over the fact that while enough time passed, people don’t even know it was him, the vague story of his origins is around but the past got distorted enough that the abuser rapist in chief Jin Feiren is portrayed as an unfortunate victim killed by his cruel terrifying faithless spouse BZH. BZH doesn’t give two hoots - even if Peacock does and commissions books where BZH is an innocent victim rescued by a beauty aka him and BZH still doesn’t give two hoots - but the reason I love it so much is that it basically tramples JFR into dust so much further - to be “remembered” as a hapless little victim and his perfect toy BZH as some sort of sinister monster is the most humiliating reversal and I love it.)

4. All the OTP stuff!!! I saved the best for last. The fact that Yue Wuhuan saw SQS when he was still a stone and he’s always been obsessed with collecting beautiful stones so he asked the Heavenly Emperor for it and HE was all “it’s getting infused with spiritual power when it’s done sure” and then SQS actually turns into a person and HE is all “sorry YWH oops” and YWH goes “he’s a person? But why do I still want to take him home?” Awwww!!! That is why he used to fly by his window every day before the calamity!!!! Awww.

SQS still being a super big research nerd. He adopts that snake in human form and is all “I won’t be picky just one PhD will do!”

I like that a lot of YWH’s issues are fixed once he’s in his proper body/environment since he’s all “my actual body didn’t get get touched/I have a ton and ton of normal not horrible memories to balance the horrors out” but it’s not fully 100% fixed tho it probably will sometime be. Hi there realism!

Those two have a swinging sex life heh. My fave bit is it turns out the blood mole pops back out at some point and he hates it so he wants to figure out how to remove it but SQS is all “scientific research! Let’s see what makes it pop out and go away!” And it turns out it’s if he’s feeling particularly hmmm and if SQS and he have a really good time in bed it goes away again. And SQS is all “don’t need to figure out some insane ways of removal, I am willing to assist any time!” Hahahaha

They build some sort of replica of medicine valley because YWH is all “ugh my palace is too freaking large it takes me forever to track you down and even the bed is way too large.” Heh. I wish I had those problems.

Ok, this is just hilarious but at some point SQS gets so engrossed in his research he forgets to bang his spouse on the reg and when that finally ends YWH drags him into some sort of harem simulation where everyone is various avatars of YWH and afterwards SQS is all “omg I must never neglect him again for long because I can’t do this again I am too exhausted!!!”

5. Lady Nian Nian is 100% lesbian. Fight me.

#cnovel #mistakenly saving the villain

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saturatethe-written-whitewa-blog · 8 years ago

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oikawa week 2017, day 7.

oikawa week 2017, day 7: pride/humility

pairing: oikawa tooru & iwaizumi hajime

both prompts were used for the very last day of oikawa week (aah this was a blast!) because i'm decidedly indecisive :P also this was just an excuse for me to write about demon king oikawa because i've always wanted to

❝Welcome to the end of eras, Ice has melted back to life, Done my time and served my sentence, Dress me up and watch me die.❞ —Emperor's New Clothes, Panic! At the Disco.

Oikawa Tooru has cultivated his patience, as endless as the somber dark that never fails to not catch his eye. He waits only for the things that entertain him, like a face that dare challenges him, or a succubus that leave their wings behind them and their advantages by a pillar somewhere, for it was Oikawa who could reduce them to their knees with a simple 'pop' of his lips.

After all, existing- existing, not living, for a time long enough the advances of humankind have no term for the times he's curled and flavored, allowed him practice that he could sit and lose himself in his own head for days at a time until an air that brings only crispy heat reminds him he's got no better things to do. Humans were particular with the things they involve themselves in, and finely-aged things of wither and nonexistence were shoved away rather harshly, like the time Oikawa came to existence from nothing but soot and the first dirt; he had driven the earth to its first falling, its first division, seeded the first concepts of anger and spite so deeply into the creation of God that no caress of His holy hand could dare uproot something that has grown into viciousness.

Oikawa decides he's proud of the things he's ruined.

He has seen the first bloodshed that began and ended from creatures that aren't the haughty gods that make an empire out of the sky and beat the heavenly stars so cruelly the earth is only left remnants of its true brilliance. Now, Oikawa is in a place where he can neither see the stars or the products of human imperfections, but he can imagine that the stars blink, still as weakly as he had first seen them when he tries mortal living. He can imagine that there is still blood that paints in poetic lines and vivid horrors, though he never yearns for the day he sees the invading light of the surface ever again.

What Oikawa can see are faces. Faces of people that would have been the crème de la crème if the seed of spite had really been a vulnerable seed left nothing but a shell and soft, wet dirt. He would have harvested them, pulled out another universe of purposes, of possibilities from where the sleeve of his robes fall under his wrist. Their ages change, their clothes change, but the way they turn their lips at the slightest tip of a rock is all the same: a brash scowl- the heaviest guilt left out only for the criminals that do not follow the golden rule, 'Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.'

Oikawa thinks he would have liked these people, if he had met them alive. Alas, they are in Oikawa's own special place in the Underworld, where mercy is brought to extinction and the dead run rampant and even the most unrecognizable: headless, heartless, mindless, have the common sense to thieve what they don't have themselves. A crueler duplication of themselves, without the penetrable skin, the multicolored vision and poetic mouths never put to better use but to lock and tighten and utter falseness under pressures of zeniths.

Oikawa Tooru counts his days, they are plenty, and often, he does not know what to do with them. The times he remembers actually enjoying himself are sparse enough he could keep them awkward and unfolded and still fit them into the pockets at his sides.

Oikawa Tooru does not count the faces that come to pass, for he forgets them rather easily; the faces that do matter smile as infrequently as Oikawa does, and he only gets to remember them in the mythical event that Oikawa can see moonlight between the foul decay and the haze cast upon haze by the sin.

Oikawa does not recall the last time a human has ever come to see him in person, for the ones who did have gone insane from denial or far too wrongly attached to the materials left so curtly behind to ever possibly let go. They are far too silent entering his kingdom to ever match his gaze in a battle of condescending judgment and Oikawa lassos a thought that maybe he's far too alike the monarchs up above that he would have been assumed as one if not for the strange way he dresses, the even stranger tongue he speaks in, and the animalistic brown of horns that curl forth the same direction as the ends of his hair.

The humans never shriek, never falter, never stutter at the sight of Oikawa's majesty, nor at the sound of his robes fluttering somewhere behind him, less dignified and less noticed, as if the smoke of death grounded them to the same level as a bashful seedling. There truly is nothing that measures up to death everyone is granted; Oikawa agrees, but does not sympathize.

This one is a man with a face as if he's seen all the worst the world can birth, as expressionless as the dead that blend so well Oikawa only spots them if they twitch a limb or curse their eternities. He has his hands behind his back, Oikawa holds his head high; one of the leaders of death, unkillable. Any imagination with blood gushing like heaven was incorrect, as impossible as a moon tinted blue. The man looks like he doesn't know whether to bow his head or take a knee, Oikawa's next breath is one that exudes amusement.

Oikawa stands prouder, taller, and all the grimness of the Underworld gather behind him in patterns that resemble embroidery; Oikawa liked a show, something fitting for him. The man recognizes he's the lesser in the windowless throne room.

The man doesn't speak even when Oikawa urges him to with a change of expression that reverses when he realizes he isn't even looking at him, only at the floor Oikawa doesn't have to imagine to know that the grey wobble that peers back at you reminds you of where you are; the only beauty in the Underworld was the kind only the truly sinister could admire, the kind of sinister Oikawa kept as friends or pets.

Oikawa picks himself back up with a breath the man doesn't hear. He's made himself known, and the man's demeanor: hiding behind a shell he doesn't realize isn't there gives Oikawa one more reason to fill his empty grin with smugness.

"You seem rather put-together, more intact," Oikawa says, and his voice echoes in the emptiness of the chamber, all plain pillars that glorify nothing but the heights they can grasp at their highest and an unrefined floor that reflects nothing but the colorlessness that Oikawa's hours feel like; "do you know your purpose?"

Oikawa sweeps the ends of his robe behind him as he turns around, looking as if he'd just fluttered. He takes his footsteps to get to his throne, that echo too, feeling more unusual now that he isn't alone. The very throne looked like petrified plants and sharp points Oikawa likes to poke and imagine what pain would feel like, stone and yet so ironically fragile, that all of a hellhound's reckless charge could drive the often-spoke-about throne apart and scattered for Oikawa to suddenly feel more disinterested about. The Underworld was a melting pot of all the things the gods decided they didn't like, Oikawa called it home, never in his eternity felt any sticky fondness for it, but he stares at the rock formations outside his palace and realize he'd rather stare at this, the groaning dead, the officials torpid whether the hellblazes trumpet or slumber, rather than evergreens and pinkish skies.

"Yes," the man- Oikawa's checked enough times, it's a man and not a banshee that's lived many nights tearing out hair in its lament- standing far away enough that if Oikawa wanted to intimidate him now, he'd have to maintain his stare for four seconds, four seconds too plenty.

Oikawa rests his chin on his palm. The man was unafraid of him, even when the passing event of his curly smile peeks a glimpse of his tongue, with something unreadable branded on it. Oikawa himself doesn't know what it says. Convulated? Probably. Derogatory? Definitely. He was unwilling to thrash his body about and dirty his robes just to read it, his tongue could only stretch so far, enough to arouse a she-demon and disgust Kuroo Tetsurou with an unscripted flick.

"Name it," Oikawa demands. Oikawa hopes his eyes remain the brown of tamarinds, that they do not flare nor color in the excitement he believed he'd forgotten in the evolving ages.

"I'd like to make a deal with you, arrange something, Demon King, if you may allow me to address you that way," the man says, dipping his head humbly, voice low enough that it does not echo in the vacancy of the room.

"Yes, yes," Oikawa murmurs to himself, "I would like for you to continue addressing me as such. Tell me your name, and how exactly you've managed to sneak right past the three unsurpassed noses of my Cerberus."

"My name is Iwaizumi Hajime," he says with a flat tone and a flat line drawn across his lips, "and if there was a Cerberus I was supposed to meet, then I am certain I have not encountered it."

The man does not lie, does not appear that he has ever told a lie in his life unless there was a blade to his throat and a promise death to his bones. A hellhound bellows in the distance, neither of them turn to the noise, but the man flinches at the hideous sound. Oikawa's chosen to snicker at him.

Oikawa's mouth twitches at the right end of it, and Iwaizumi notices, winces fearfully, as if he'd been bitten.

"I really do need to reevaluate the usefulness of that lazy hound," Oikawa continues to say to himself, before adding: "perhaps that was why that sly Kuroo seemed so eager to gift me his pet."

"Anyway," Oikawa amends, voice booming, Hajime startling himself on a tiny crack on the floor. "Put forth your demands, Iwaizumi, and I shall mine."

Iwaizumi seems to recognize that the kindness of the Demon King is something supposed to be well-spent. It shows in the way his eyes open a fragment wider, like the words clamber through his throat and stop in the middle of it for a second.

"I would like to serve you, for the remainder of eternity, even, o Demon King." And Iwaizumi says no more, bowing his head once again, as if honored to be receiving the judging, contemplative glance Oikawa rests on the back of his hair. (Iwaizumi truly is honored, for any other member of the dead would have been sent away with a burst of flame and a clap of Oikawa's hands. A singular demonstration of the bite force of a starving hellhound, if Oikawa was impatient and the dead were rude and stubborn.)

"I will consider your offer, Iwaizumi," Oikawa says without much thought, because the years are growing boring and yawning to himself was not how he would have liked to choose to spend the rest of eternity doing. "If," he adds, boldly, "sincerely, you will decide, at this very moment, to solemnly pledge yourself to servicing me- to risk your life, lay it down, sacrifice it, all of this done willingly, for the sake of my well-being. Do so, and become my valiant knight."

And so, without much thought either, Iwaizumi does.

(Perhaps this fairytale should end in the mentions of a happily ever after, although that would birth a great irony for the fact remains that their eternities are embedded deep in the Underworld. Though, Iwaizumi does well to make merry the slow moving of their days, and Oikawa could not have dreamed of a more fitting companion. Gently, carefully, gradually, the Underworld becomes more bearable, even if only to the pompous king and his meek knight, who forever bows his head like the humble creature he often denies to be- which, too, is done out of a modesty that Oikawa sometimes thinks earns not a spot in the Underworld, and by the side of the Demon King himself, no less.)

#Oikawa Week 2017 #haikyuu!!#haikyuu

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