#if we follow booktok rules

[two-sheep-in-one-wolfs-clothing]

booooo why has no one drawn astrid in goalie gear BOOOOOO

[sarafangirlart]

Out of all the Olympians in modern retellings I believe that Hestia is horribly under utilitized. Her depictions are frankly boring, it's just a sea of kind old granny Hestias

She is a god whos more interesting then her pop culture representations make her out to be, but admittedly because shes one with very little "myths" and narratives and far more prevelent in the actual religious practices.

I feel like there could be more done with her, she wasn't just the goddess of the home it was the city and community as a whole, especially more prevalent with her Roman equivalent Vesta. Very Patriotic in my mind, ones country, town and home. She's the eldest daughter of Kronos. She's the goddess of the sacrificial hearth, she has a portion of every sacrifice made to the gods - she's wealthy as duck boys! She's a spoiled lass you eats all your treats

I feel like she has a lot of potential, she is the hearth but that is still a flame. The hearth without a home is just a fire and it will burn down everything until there's nothing left.

She's only the kindest and least problematic of the Olympian gods because we don't have anything about her, hell Leto is said to be the most gentle and mild and even she has her wrath myths, which is why I find Hestias depiction in Hades 2 refreshing. But at the same time I'm glad there aren't any retellings of her because knowing booktok they might butcher her - she has potential but I'm scared

Yeah it’s a shame ppl don’t try to explore her character more, unlike the other Olympians she doesn’t have any solid characterization in mythology so ppl could go absolutely wild with her instead of mischaracterizing the characters/figures who do have personalities.

I’m thinking back to Stray Gods where Athena is the control freak who would do anything to keep the family afloat, even tho in mythology she’s cunning with a mischievous edge, she isn’t usually in a position of leadership, instead she follows Hera and Zeus (unless she chooses to disobey them which she can and does) so killing off the elder Olympians and making Athena in charge could be interesting but… they chose the most boring way to go about it. She wouldn’t be a boomer who can’t get with the times, she wouldn’t be a control freak who follows rules and expects everyone to do the same, hell she wouldn’t be so sloppy in murdering Calliope (and don’t bullshit me about “these aren’t the same characters tho” that’s the worst way you can adapt myths) so I’m thinking….

What if Hestia was the antagonist instead? She’s warm and caring maybe a little too nice, she cares about her family but she’s shouldering more responsibility than ever after her brothers and sisters are gone, imagine her going to Apollo and asking him for a prophecy, hearing the prophecy about Calliope, she’d be horrified she wouldn’t want to hurt her niece but for the sake of the family she feels like she has to, she’s the goddess of the home and the state, often these two ideas contradict each other, what if you need to betray your family for the state? What if you need to betray the state for your family?

I’m so sorry you probably weren’t expecting me to be complaining about Stray Gods yet here I am lmao

[blankcest]

just dropping into your inbox to tell you that i read happy pills bc of your endless (delightful and VERY correct) posting about how hot andy is. i feel like you should get an award for being the number one propagandaist for this fic bc man. man. your love for it is contagious.

why is andy so goddamn hot tho. like. i mean stan is always so goddamn hot but this is next level. it's not fair <3

Join me in the madness... Btw I LOVE being the Happy Pills [REDACTED] like I am CRAZY about Frog's writing. I highly suggest their other work too, Say What You Mean! It's what made me obsessed with 30s era Stans and Sex-Worker Stanley like it's a fucking classic to me. I will also give a obligatory DevilsPedicure Mention because THEIR fics are also deeply wonderful and classics to me. If you want a easy one of theirs to digest I suggest Tu sei il mio tramonto ! I love their use of the temperature metaphors and their use of locations always wow me. OKAY, ENOUGH FIC RECS. I GOT THEORIES DAMNIT !! I've literally been walking around my house trying to figure out how to answer this ask because I have Theories about why Andy is so hot. I PROMISE, I am also figuring out that Character Analysis Essay SO THIS IS JUST A LITTLE TASTE OF THAT. Analysis under the cut

SO, Grunkle Stan is attractive. Like that's already well established and I assume a lot of stancesties have similar tastes as me when it comes to what Makes Stan attractive. Stan is attractive for multiple reasons. The writing of Gravity Falls did extremely well when it came to writing his character both on a surface level and on a deeper level. On the surface hes a grumpy old Crook who's willing to do anything for a buck, but when you get to know him deeper. When you actually understand his motivations, that persona becomes charming in of itself. The core of Stan's character, to me at least, is his kindness and relatability. That is what is endearing and in turn, attractive about him. His genuine love for people he considers family, his willingness to do anything for them, his relatability when it comes to his struggles and even dedication to the people around him. I could go on for why Stan is attractive, this is JUST the main idea. By extension, this also applies to Andy. So, what is the actual difference between Andrew and Stanley? You'd think I'd say their outward charm right? However, I am not convinced that's what's actually different. Because like, look at Cannon Stan. He's run multiple successful cons (to be any kind of sales person takes the genuine ability to charm people, I should know I lived with a sales person for my entire life lol), the citizens of gravity falls goes to all his events (which could be small town syndrome, but also why does everyone still hang out there when they Know Stan? Cause they like him! Ignore the memory gun for the love of god), and so on. Like! He's genuinely endearing to people when he isn't trying super hard. So, AGAIN, i ask, what is actually different? It's ruthlessness.

Andrew is kind, but its more selective. He is genuinely willing to ruin people's lives if it means he gets what he wants. He has soft spots, but it's protected. Less on his sleeve when compared to Stanley. And it's because he is willing to actually hurt people if it means success. Time and Time again we see Stan be willing to bend his rules if it means allowing the people in his circle to be happy. Andrew is well, Not willing to bend. He is willing to be the worst of mankind if it means he gets to be successful. If it means he gets to live as he wants. And that my friend, is what makes him so attractive. You can see a similar pattern of how Ruthlessness, and in a softer version ambition, is attractive in fictional characters. Like take the Dark Fiction of Booktok. Often times it follows the trope of "Super powerful/Dangerous man is really really really into the main character", and Andy fits right into that. He has all the things that make Stan interesting and enjoyable, on top of fulfilling the fanatasy of someone who is Willing to kill for a single person. Willing to do the worst things known to man for a single human being and will do it again if it means keeping that person happy and safe. He loves Ford, obsessed with him even, and the idea of putting that onto yourself? The idea of being the center of the world of a Man who will kill and harm anyone who dares even looks at you wrong. Yeah, that's hot!

[justforbooks]

She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark

A bona-fide queen of body horror delves into fears and illicit desires in this engrossing short-story debut

Disgust and delight, it has been said, live in close proximity; in Eliza Clark’s debut collection, they share a home and a bed. These 11 stories revolve around food, sex, gender, power and the body; they veer from realism to sci-fi, fairytale, horror and post-apocalyptic dystopia. This is a book that seems crafted from the stuff of our deepest fears and our most illicit desires. You read on, by turns engrossed and grossed out, as though in the thrall of some demonic power.

In one story, a tapeworm finds a happy home in the narrator’s belly, eating her dinners and keeping her weight in check (“Find me deliciously thin at a Michelin star restaurant, devouring a tasting menu with a wasp waist, never loosening my belt”). Another narrator’s pubescent face, blighted with acne, melts and scabs over after an aggressive treatment found on the dark web. “I feel like I’m touching raw meat and I pull my hands away.” In the sci-fi story Hollow Bones, a rip in the spacesuit of a scientist studying alien cultures allows a luminescent parasite to burrow into her thigh; bizarrely, she eats her own finger as it breaks off after prodding the wound (“The skin of that finger was so thin, it fell apart like stewed meat and slid down her throat just as easily, gristle collapsing with a press of her tongue, and the bone crumbling between her teeth”). The tale ends in her leg and forearm being amputated by a surgical team of fanged and furry creatures. Clark is a bona-fide queen of body horror, sadistic in her choice of imagery, and cussedly attentive to that most mundane and yet consequential of facts: that we have and are a body and, as a result, are always at risk of injury and mutation.

Boy Parts, Clark’s debut novel, was a BookTok sensation. A darkly hilarious study of gender archetypes and the treacherous schism between art and porn, consent and coercion, it featured a Geordie dominatrix and fetish photographer who, in the name of her vocation, groomed, snapped and possibly also bludgeoned and killed men she picked up from the streets. Her follow-up, Penance, turned a sly gaze on true crime, reconstructing the immolation of a teenager by three of her schoolmates. The preoccupations and self-awareness of these novels percolate into the story collection, but it is also very much its own thing: the tales ranging from quiet and murky to freaky, surreal and outright absurd, the work of a writer both dealing in and surpassing abjection and taboos.

Goth GF, a workplace comedy with sub-dom elements, reads like a winking recapitulation of Boy Parts, while The Problem Solver, about a rape survivor who confides in a male friend, engages themes of women’s testimony, male saviorism and sexual gaslighting. As ever, Clark manages to draw blood with a prop knife. After the woman half-jokes about the point of the Sex Offenders Register, the friend earnestly proposes the following course of action: “You wouldn’t have to call him out on your account,” he says. “In fact, we could do it like … more like a whisper network. Or I could message my friend from that feminist book club, the one with all the Instagram followers. Get them to name and shame him.”

The title story, set within a matriarchal community with strict rules for its men – fishers vulnerable to the dark call of the sea – is a delectable, code-scrambled mermaid tale that plays with ideas about male and female power (“The machinations of men had done so little for this place, and for the world outside of here”) and adds a mischievous twist to notions of communal safety and female self-sacrifice. It comes swaddled in influences, from Andersen’s fairytale to Orkney folklore and Lovecraftian mythos (there’s a Lovecraftian nod, too, in the following tale The Shadow Over Little Chitaly, composed entirely of reviews of a mysterious Chinese-Italian fusion takeaway).

The King satirises the “femgore” subgenre with which Clark has been identified, dramatising its excesses while relishing its cliches. Told from the uproarious viewpoint of a cannibal goddess who rises to power after the apocalypse, ruling over a settlement she christens Dad City in honour of the father she has killed and devoured, the story is a litany of horrors leavened by sick humour. She says of a man who offers himself up to be eaten: “He wants me to cut off his dick and balls before he goes. The dick-and-balls thing – they never enjoy that as much as they think they will. It’s always such a let-down for them. It’s a little sad.”

Two stories, Extinction Event and Nightstalkers, may feel like interlopers. The first is a miniature eco-thriller about an alien species of air- and sea-purifying starfish, and the second a hallucinogenic portrait of queer longing in 1970s California. Clark, you realise, isn’t a writer who will keep very long to any one path. This collection, full of shock and surprises, filth and wonder, is occasionally hard to reckon with, but harder still to forget.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[iantimony]

duesday

listening: idk, stuff on my phone on shuffle. some more coral bones youthemism i guess. friends at the table sangfielle, episode 3; i might not actually relisten to the rest of the arcs i already did and just skim the transcripts.

no children (ska remix) by sad snack: im back in my ska era. really funny song to have an upbeat ska tone.

the mountain goats deserters fan album: have not listened to the whole album yet but god, what a cool and unique thing that i don't think could really exist for most other bands. Five Fucking Hours

reading: Polynesian Tattooing Tools, linked from Fairhaven comic

why gen z is obsessed with point-and-shoot digital cameras: it's funny because a few months ago i was considering getting a cheap point-and-shoot to fuck around with. looks like i am not the only one who was thinkin about it.

i'm working my way through le guin's 'the left hand of darkness'! i bounced off it the first time i tried reading it a few years ago but last year i read a le guin short story anthology that had some stories set on karhide and i think that gave me a good enough primer on the world/her writing style to get it to stick this time. i'm enjoying it! it's a good book!

watching: mina le - booktok & the hotgirlification of reading: some good background video for crochet etc. bernadette banner - hand sewing regency stays should be quick...right?: oughhhhh so pretty. bernadette banner - this regency court gown is probably my favorite project ever: i won't lie i got a little misty-eyed at the artisans getting to sign their names on the robe.

rewatched the gay and wondrous life of caleb gallo. i forgot how good it is, it really holds up and is still funny

also, continued doctor who watch/rewatch. i'm ngl i think the way rory and amy were shoved off screen was...really stupid. "he can't go back to that specific year in ny :(" ok, before amy gets zapped back you just go "yo go to new jersey in a few days" and go pick them up. really silly imo

playing: fallow. did buy miserichord, omori, and slay the princess in the steam summer sale. i have signalis, voyager 19, and a short hike in my cart as we speak. more games that i haven't played to feed the steam library let's goooo

making: crocheted some granny squares.

pattern for the yellow one is this lantana square...if anyone has any interesting looking granny square patterns that would be good in one solid color send em my way!

thinking of getting this pattern too.

i realized this past week that my urge to Make has been very stale and derivative the past few years, if that makes sense. like i don't feel Creative, i see something and mimic it - i do paintings based on photos i took, i follow knitting patterns, i come across something ceramic and decide to make one of my own, i find reference images to copy. but no actual, like, Inventing on my own end. i think that's why i haven't done a lot of fanart or fanfiction as well, just no ideas. i know that's just part of the cycle of creativity and i'm just in a "hunter-gatherer" period of amassing skills and references but idk. i'm tired of it. i want to create more meaningful things but i have no actual ideas, the well feels dry, and i'm not sure how to fix that.

eating: fallow

misc: stares at my mom and brother doing politics doomerism re: supereme court ruling in the family group chat. looks away. chants 'nothing ever happens' to myself like a mantra.

[krakenbird]

Booktok and Hockey Players

Alexander Wennbergs wife has clapped back at booktok but mostly at the corner of booktok that seems to congregrate around Kierra Lewis (if you dont know her count yourself lucky.)

We are all here simping for one player or another but for the most part we all follow the rule of "what happens on tumblr stays on tumblr" but to go to games or into the comment sections of teams and players to then lob obscenities at them is ... not okay.

Hockey romance is fine but there is fiction and then there is reality and these women have gone completely delulu!

And here is an example:

[volkswagonblues]

polished off a few books from my "to read in 2025" list recently and jotted down my thoughts under the keep reading line

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

This one has been all over social media, to the point that even I (booktok averse) have heard about it. It’s originally in French but I read the English translation. The premise is that the main character is a young woman locked up with 39 other women in a cage, kept prisoners by male guards who won’t acknowledge their presence (hence, the “I” who’ve never known men). It’s never explained why they’re being kept prisoner. The plot also steadily gets weirder and weirder. By the end I was like, are we in…space?? Are we on Earth or is this another planet?

Didn’t have a good time reading it, but it’s precisely because I couldn’t decide if I enjoyed it or not that makes the book haunting. Gonna say something so pretentious here but I think the book is so incredibly French feminism (tm). Like Helene Cixous’s essay on Medusa, about the idea that women’s bodies are imprisoned by masculine, patriarchal language. Can women “escape” via the creation of a female literary genre that lets them define their own identities? Or something like that…I who have never known French post-structural feminism am too dumb to go any deeper. 8/10⭐️

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

Here’s the set-up that made me pick it up: there’s a village situated inside a valley. Go east, and you walk into the same valley 20 years in the future. Go west, and you walk 20 years into the past. The valleys extend in both directions, forever.

The premise is so good that I’m sad the story doesn’t live up to it. The main character (Odile) is a schoolgirl whose future is derailed by an ominous encounter with some visitors from the eastern valley (ie. from the future) + a sudden tragedy. Needless to say, since she’s in a novel with a time-travel element, she uses time travel to change her own past. Which is fine. I guess.

I just have a million questions about the book: What happens if you keep on walking through all the valleys indefinitely into the past/future? If the village people have cars, where do they put the heavy industrial plants (the valley doesn’t seem to contain any)? Why does Odile go through no character growth? What’s up with the authoritarian government that rules the valleys? Most importantly, why is the aesthetic of the village vaguely so…French? (the author is not French) 7/10⭐️

Curiosities by Anne Fleming

Huge chunks of this is written in pseudo-1600s English (think Robert Eggers’s The Witch with the thees and thous) which I found delightful. I can’t talk about the story without spoiling the plot, but it’s a genderqueer romance (set in 1600s, yes) set in an pre-modern England where witchcraft is on everyone’s minds and science is a sort of eccentric hobby. There’s a long segment about Arctic exploration. I kinda loved it. 9/10⭐️

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh This wasn't on my list but it's a spur of the moment pick when I saw the cover in a bookstore.

Sci-fi YA set in a space colony following the complete annihilation of Earth. The story’s fun, but idk, it’s sometimes frustrating to read YA and just…perceive how hard the author is working to 1) present a radically different world with different value systems, and 2) hold the hands of YA-level readers to be like yes, the characters are being PURPOSEFULLY un-feminist and these values are Bad and Not Okay. Anyways, it’s a page turner and the action sequences are fine. No contrived love triangle but there’s a contrived last-minute lesbian romance, so that’s something. 6/10⭐️

A few re-reads I also enjoyed recently

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv

[mermaidsirennikita]

I think what's often missed in the "why can't we play with genre and not write romance with an HEA?" conversation is that a lot of people defending the HEA are heavy romance readers who are very aware of the amount of money involved, and how the authors who pop off about wanting to be able to label their non-romance books romance are in fact... thinking of money.

Not solely money, of course. And that's not meant to be a critique--I'm a writer, I'd love to write books for a living someday. Money is important. I'm all about getting money for your work, and I've never begrudged anyone for writing to market, writing to catch a trend, whatever. Sometimes it can turn out badly, but if you want to make money it does have to happen (and often writers write to market, get big, and then write what they want... see Ali Hazelwood's Bride) and as long as you are writing a good product and enjoying yourself... I don't see the issue.

BUT. Romance is extremely commercially viable, and it has been especially for the last few years (though that hype has to die down at some point, dude--and I think the shift to romantasy is probably like, the last breath of the current boom, and romance will go back to its normal levels of popularity, which are still more commercially viable than many other genres). So when people (like me) see writers going "but why CAN'T I label my love story that doesn't have an HEA 'romance?"...

I mean. We know why lol. We aren't idiots. Why is it so important that your fantasy novel is placed on the romance shelves, in the romance categories on Amazon? Is it because these authors have a deep and abiding love of romance and just want to sit with the cool kids? Is it because their hearts beat for romance, and even though they wrote something that is not a romance (the thing their hearts beat for) they just are desperate for it to be there? Is it because they are SO DEDICATED TO THE CRAFT OF WRITING and SO EDGY that they MUST change genres, they MUST break CHAINS!!!!

No lol. It's because when you write a romance, you are much more likely to be recommended by the BookTok girlies reading ACOTAR (and say what you will.... those books do by and large, I believe, have HEAs for pretty much all of the core couples). You want that Fourth Wing bread. You are more likely to have access to an audience that spends more than other audiences do. You want access to an audience that also is, let us be real, less likely to be real misogynistic about your book than certain subsets of the fantasy readership.

And the thing is--sure. A lot of readers sincerely don't care. And good for you, why did your book need to be labeled a romance the--oh, wait. I see!

But the readers who do care and spend like, anywhere from $1.99-$35.00 on your book (look dude, I'm thinking about preordering a pretty copy of the next Kerri Mansicalco, and I feel a LOT BETTER about spending that money because she specifically referencing HEA's when announcing her adult titles, and I APPRECIATE THAT A LOT ACTUALLY) only to find out that it's not the thing they expected... It doesn't follow the ONE RULE you expected it to follow because of how it was marketed...

The only time I've kinda come close to having that happen is actually when I read that book the new Anne Hathaway Harry Styles fanfic movie is based on. I was verrrry new to going back into the romance genre, and I read it expecting, based off the premise, that this was a fun, maybe a little silly, sexy book about a woman falling in love with fake Harry Styles. And she does. And guess what? At the end they rather randomly and suddenly break up.

And it kinda sucked.

It's also going to suck to see that book marketed as a romance as the movie comes out, but there you go, I've spoiled you, HORROR OF HORRORS I let you know that the thing you think is gonna be a fun little romance with a happy ending.... is not.

But yeah dude, imagine if I'd spent ACOTAR or Fourth Wing or Princes of Envy money on that book. I already felt kinda dumb for spending what was probably $8ish? It was a kindle copy. I could've gotten a fry-less sandwich with that money, back then!

So yeah. I just think that a lot of people want to be very condescendingly high-minded about PUSHING GENRE BOUNDARIES. And it's like... dude. Do you not think I would get my head bitten off if I went "well, I want to write a fantasy novel, but I don't want there to be magic... I actually want it to be revealed that everything is just run by computers the whole time, and the magical spell was actually a hologram, and I want that to be shelved and sold as fantasy"?

Yeah. Because I'm basically tricking people out of their money, lmao.

[stereax]

I'm not very aware of hockey booktok but like what's going on over there?! It seems awful

not well-versed on it either. I think @hard4softthings knows more than I do. but tl;dr FROM WHAT I KNOW -

Seattle Kraken find out about BookTok that they seem to interpret is promoting their players. They ask one influential BookToker if she wants to have an all-expenses paid trip to a Kraken game (presumably to grow the Kraken's following among the new generation). Problem with BookTok is that, unlike HockeyBlr and Ao3, BookTok has very little understanding of a fourth wall. BookTokers went to games with signs like "krak my back Wennberg" (one of the players) which. Yikes.

So Felicia Wennberg, wife of Alex Wennberg, writes an Insta story post that's like "we love our fans but like please don't do this, Alex is a married man and it's making us uncomfortable, not to mention that if he were a woman and the people doing this stuff were men this would be clearly viewed as sexual harassment". Alex later posts a similar story. BookTok does NOT receive this well and begins attacking the Wennbergs for... asking people to not catcall Alex while he's working??? I guess??? And posting nasty comments on their Instagram posts dating back a while...

I also think there was something about Felicia being a racist because the BookToker she called out was Black? Which, I don't buy that she's racist for asking a Black person not to do something bordering on sexual harassment, but again, I don't know all the details here.

Just don't go on TikTok ever for any reason ever and you'll be fine. That's the general rule I stick to in life and it serves me well.

Also, lock your fics, lock your tumblrs, and generally work to keep the fourth wall intact because people will be ANGRY and posting nasty stuff on whatever they can find. Which, you should be doing this anyway because NHLers generally don't want to look up their name casually and find posts thirsting over them, fics about them boning their teammates, and whatever else have you. Except maybe Tyler Seguin but that drama is a WHOLE other can of worms.

Again, I might be wrong about this but this is just what I understood from the posts I've seen about it. If I am wrong, please feel free to correct me.

Good luck. o7

[subterranean-heartsick-blues]

Fox of Fox Hall by by R. Cooper book review

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You been a good old wagon, you got me there in style / Oh, but you left me here to walk a ragged mile (The New SF Blues – Hurray for the Riff Raff).

This is probably obvious by now, but I’m actually not all that great at expressing my emotions. I kind of try to make up for it by using an exuberant amount of exclamation points, but I sometimes wonder if that’s enough, you know? This is why I’d be a terrible BookTok or YouTube book reviewer, because I’d be on there saying shit like “Ahhhhh this was the best book I’ve ever read in my life!!!!!!” with zero inflection in my voice, sitting there with my “:|” face, all neutral-like. When I finished this book a little bit ago, all you really need to know is that I kind of just stood up from my chair and then sat back down in repeated succession like some kind of Sim. This book was good though. Really good! And I’m not even lying when I say that it’s probably going to win my own personal award of “Best Fantasy of 2024!” It’s a highly esteemed honor, if you didn’t know. This novel reads like a folk song, as pretty as can be. Which felt like a breath of fresh air in my endless and continuous reading journey, because the fact is, I kind of dipped on the fantasy genre a little bit ago. I abandoned my boy! I don't know, I guess things were getting a little too samey for my taste. I mean, all these books with the same overindulgence on world building, the same weird worship of royalty and “man’s divine right to rule,” and the same cookie-cutter, doe-eyed main character starring opposite the resident “bad boy” in order to satisfy some kind of algorithmic “enemies-to-lovers” formula, I can see in perfect hindsight why I dropped off. But hey, no worries! I can solely put the blame on Fox of Fox Hall for pulling my ass back into the fold. And I’m glad I’m saying all this in writing, because now you can just imagine the all of the vast excitement in my voice rather than me having to act it out. “Yoo~oou’ve got me feeling emotions” and all that. Anyway, we follow Fox, a beautiful and clever bard who also happened to be the king’s favorite until recently falling out of favor, as he tactfully maneuvers, with knots in his stomach, through the complicated machinations of court-life. At court, he’s constantly being subjected to subtle and not so subtle mockery from the high-class nobles who think lowly of him and feel threatened by his presence due to his “commoner” status and the fact that he was able to move up in the world despite that fact. Being justifiably afraid that his new precarious standing with the king will lead straight back to him living on the streets, Fox has to find some kind of lifeline. The only problem being that he’s utterly alone… that is, until during one particularly public humiliation from these rich jerks too many, a knight in shining armor by the name and title of Byr Conall comes to the rescue and defends him. This catches Fox’s attention immediately and he spends the rest of the story wondering what the shape of his cock is like. That’s what they call a learning curve! Badum tssss.

Okay, but really, I was captivated by this book. A lot of “Cinderella” type stories get so caught up in the extravagance, the flash, and the excess of the whole new world and lifestyle that Cinderella finds herself in, that they don’t really take the time to properly explore what such an upheaval would actually do to someone. What I think this book does masterfully in this respect is closely examine that journey and more realistically depicts what would actually happen when a kind man with a predilection for justice tries to romance a strong, but wounded person who believes that their only purpose in life is being useful. They’d take a while to get used to the idea that they can be happy, no? How can a person with severe (and justified) trust issues learn to love and trust wholly and completely? That’s what this book is; a patient and caring love letter to those who need a little more time than most. That’s why Fox of Fox Hall affected me so much, because it’s nice when a story takes the time to take care of the characters, and doesn’t just try to move past the natural conflict too quickly by stamping a big old “happily-ever-after” at the end and calling it a day. But you know, Fox and Conall aren’t the only main characters of this book, the third most important dude here is the King, Domvoda. And yeah, he sucks, but the way he’s written doesn’t suck, that’s for sure. I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I think the scenes with just him and Fox conversing, meaning when they were verbally sparring, ended up being some of my favorite chapters in the whole book. It’s not the easiest thing to write awkward and tense stand offs without the writer eventually bailing on the scene and writing in some kind of physical altercation, but R. Cooper let the tension lie. Every. Single. Time. They made casual dinner conversations into nail-biting thrillers. The simmering rage, the quiet judgments, the pearl-clutching. It’s great stuff! Seriously, I literally leaned forward from my very comfortable reading position several times whenever they were going at it. It was like I was watching [enter sport name here]! And I liked the way that none of the conflict in the story was directly life-threatening, because the “uncomfortable dinner party” vibes actually helped to highlight the king and his court’s petty and childish nature. I may have hated Domvoda, but I was always happy to see him show up. Really though, fuck him. Well, maybe not, because he was totally going to win my own personal award of “Least Fuckable Man on the Planet – 2024," but El*n Musk’s already won the top spot in that category from now going on until forever. Anyway, it turns out that the ingredients of a beautiful love story combined with beautiful prose will concoct a beautiful potion that’s sole purpose is to enrapture me. I don’t recommend books often (because I’m terrified of somehow doing it wrong haha), but I don’t think it’s too tall an order to ask everyone to read Fox of Fox Hall. Come join me in feeling all the feels! I don’t say it enough, but I do so love it when a book manages to gut-punch me. Oof.

“Come here.” Fox affected a shocked look. “With me like this?” “With you however you please.”

[mlemedt]

Powerless- Lauren Roberts

💛💛💛💛🤍(4/5)

This was one of those books where you fall so fervently in love that nothing can stop you turning the page, but every part of you aches because you're closer to finishing it.

I have put off writing this review for so long, because words fail to encapsulate how I felt reading it.

⚔

This was my first taste of 'booktok' and I'm surprised to say it didn't disappoint. It was well-written and perfectly paced, with convincing protagonists and compelling world building. The only area of literary facet that it perhaps lacked, was in that deeper commentary, but as I've said before this isn't necessary or even fitting in every book.

---------------------------------Discussion---------------------------------

My love for this book is inexplicable. I can't explain why I loved it so much. It hardly followed any of my usual interests and didn't have the commentary of 'In Memoriam,' which is the last book that made me feel like this. I shouldn't have liked it. Yet I craved it.

My only critique of this book was that some side characters felt a little one dimensional. Particularly Blair. She's immediately introduced as a bitch with little explanation why other than her cold demeanour. I think we're meant to dislike her because she is a rival love interest, but this portrayal is just so typical I couldn't hate her for it. She also has some unexplainable vendetta against Paedyn, which presumably is to do with Kai's attentions, but she just failed to be an interesting and believable character. I thought this was quite intriguing because Roberts actually displayed a pretty high level of emotional intelligence regarding the main protagonists. They were multi-faceted and had human motivations and emotional responses in all the appropriate situations that made them really convincing. I think that's why I liked this book so much. The complex to and fro of emotion that some authors can spend decades trying to imitate.

⚔

This was certainly the quickest I read half a thousand pages and immediately bought the next book, however I noticed some of the reviews when I did.

Some wanted greater attention on the resistance and the trials rather than the love story, and I'd agree to an extent. My initial opinion on this book was that it was very 'Hunger Games -esque,' but whereas in the Hunger Games the threat of the Games and the Capitol constantly looms, the Trials felt a lot less intimidating. The rules of the Trials weren't properly established clearly and concisely, whereas in the Hunger Games we always knew only one could survive which made the story incredibly compelling. The Second Trial too, was also a little underwhelming with little happening for the magnitude of the event. I also think Roberts could've benefited in escalating the threat of the Trials by adding more competitors, then also, more characters can be injured, with little consequence to the story, during the Trials and properly highlight the brutality of this system and how dangerous this event actually is. Very quickly the Trials were reduced to all familiar characters, which took away some of the mystery of the event. With a large group of allies there isn't as much danger, and I could tell they weren't going to turn on each other. The impact of the Trials simply simmered out quite quickly. However, the Trials weren't actually a huge part of the novel and I wasn't upset about it. I think it definitely would've elevated the novel if the Trials held a greater impact, but I was reading for the romance and simply the existence of the Trials helped elevate the emotions in that relationship.

⚔

--------------------------------Conclusions--------------------------------

To summarise, I understand the complaints surrounding this book, and I agree it could've been better, but it was already incredibly emotionally in tune, and that was what kept me reading.

♥♥♥

-Gaia

(I'm slightly concerned this series is about to become my new personality.)

⚠Content Warnings⚠

-Mild language

-Violence (Rarely graphic)

[natdrinkstea]

tagged by @chiropteracupola and @dxppercxdxver :3 time for you all to judge my taste in books!

rules: list ten books that have stayed with you in some way, don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard - they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

putting this under a cut because I hate making long posts. the rules up there say "don't take but a few minutes and don't think too hard" but I don't know how to do Either of those things. this post is Long. you've been warned.

1. is, of course, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making by Cat Valente. It's a wonderful, clever story that absolutely ruined the way I view fantasy, devotion, and girlhood at a young age. It's beautiful and magical and devastating AND I LOVE IT!!!!

2. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. I post about this series all the time but I never really express how much it means to me? It's about a friendship that's so strong it defies all odds, it's about finding magic in the mundane, it's about being a weird little guy with anxiety who's trying to be braver.

3. The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under The Whispering Door by TJ Klune (they are tied). SORRY FOR THE BOOKTOK MOMENT LOL but these novels are about finding love at an older age in an unexpected place!!! about relishing little moments with people you care about in a world that's beautiful! and the way klune writes introspection really feels like how I Think. it's like a magnifying glass into my brain

4. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. another one I post a lot about that seems very out of left field considering the rest of the list! but it was recommended to me at a hard time by one of my closest friends, and the incredibly intelligent and thoughtful way it uses Words and Language to express both Horror and Humanity has had SO MUCH influence on how I want to write

5. Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White. This novel captures queer rage in a way that feels deeply personal and wildly cathartic, and the desperation and passion with which Benji views the world and the people he cares about feels the same. Also it helped me get over my fear of meat 👍hooray, meat!

6. Now this is getting hard. um. Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir <3 sorry to put a popular book again but listen. it's about humanity and how ugly and brutal and full of love we are. it's about being so painfully Normal and Alive in a world that's trying to keep what you love from you. It's about eating breakfast and petting a dog and swimming in the sea and it's UNAPOLOGETIC IN IT'S HONESTY. IT'S SO HEALING TO THE INNER CHILD TO SEE NONA LOVE SO FIERCELY

7. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. listen. it's not a great book. it's stereotype-y and gross and kind of boring but. when you're in fifth grade and very neurodivergent but trying very, very hard not to let yourself show it, reading about a girl who is proudly Weird and Impulsive and Kind and Creative is like finally getting to see what you could be if you were a little less afraid. she was a manic pixie dream girl but she was mine, y'know?

8. (at this point I'm getting up to look at my bookshelf)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Again, hugely different from the rest of this list, but probably the book I read in high school that I felt was most worth my time. Stunning, earnest writing and a deeply human story. I could go on for probably an hour about how clever Ellison's imagery is, and how powerful a choice as small as leaving your protagonist nameless can be. If anything on this terrible list is required reading, it's this

9. similarly, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I read this book for school, but by choice, and I kind of hated it! Not gonna lie! But something about how batshit insane it is left a huge impression on me. While it's wildly unrealistic and often frustrating, there are little bits of earnest grief and uncomfortably close-to-home interactions that make it feel like it Could happen. The way it describes parent-child relationships makes me want to escape my mortal flesh due to feeling Too Seen.

IF YOU READ ALL OF THAT WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!!!!!! anyway @haijinks @neonphoenix @human-sweater-vest @lasaraleen @samwisegamwise I'd love to see your ten books but there is No Pressure :3 love u !

10. FINALLY THE END! FUCK YOU! PERCY JACKSON!!! it's so funny and clever and diverse and ACCURATE! twelve year olds are little shits who want desperately to run away from their parents and make friends and have adventures! it made my sense of humor what it is, it introduced me to a blonde female protagonist who was INTELLIGENT AND BRAVE (things I always thought I was but was afraid to be)!!!!! and, most importantly, my first thought upon receiving my adhd diagnosis a week ago (it's been about five years since I last read pjo), was "wow. I'm one step closer to being a half-blood".

EDIT: there are bonus books in the replies that my dumb brain forgot ab until rn if u wanna see :]

[mythsocial]

How the Right Hashtags Can Turn Your TikTok into a Follower Magnet

You’ve probably heard that hashtags are “important” for TikTok growth. But let’s be real—throwing #viral on every video feels like shouting into a void. So, do hashtags actually help you gain followers, or is it just hype? The truth is, strategic hashtags work like magic… if you understand the psychology and algorithms driving them. Let’s break down how tags fuel follower growth, three key theories to master, and how tools like MythSocial can simplify the process (no PhD required).

Why Hashtags = TikTok’s Secret Traffic Lights

Imagine TikTok’s algorithm as a GPS: hashtags are the road signs telling it where to send your video. Use the right ones, and your content lands on the For You Page (FYP) of users who actually care. Use the wrong ones, and you’re stuck in a digital traffic jam.

Here’s the science:

Social Proof Theory: When users see a video with a popular hashtag (like #BookTok), they think, “Oh, this is trending—I should check it out!” It’s like choosing the busy ice cream shop over the empty one.

Long-Tail Keyword Effect: Niche tags (#PlantMomHacks vs. #Plants) attract super-specific audiences. These viewers are way more likely to follow you because you’re solving their exact problem.

Algorithm Trust: TikTok rewards videos that use relevant hashtags by pushing them to more users. Consistency here builds “trust” with the algorithm—like a teacher noticing you always do your homework.

3 Hashtag Hacks Backed by Science

1. Ride the Wave of “Cultural Capital” (But Don’t Drown in It)

Big trends (#CapCutTemplates) have massive reach, but everyone uses them. To stand out:

Mix trending + niche tags: #SummerOutfitIdeas + #ThriftStoreFinds.

Check MythSocial’s Trend Dashboard: It analyzes which tags are rising before they peak, so you’re ahead of the curve.

2. The 3-Second Rule of Hashtag Relevance

If your video shows a cat wearing sunglasses, but you use #FinancialFreedom, TikTok’s algorithm will ghost you. Keep tags hyper-relevant to:

Your content (what’s literally happening on screen).

Your audience’s identity (e.g., #ADHDLife for relatable humor).

Your niche’s language (e.g., gamers use #GG or #PCMasterRace).

3. The “Honeycomb Effect” for Community Building

Tags like #SmallArtistsSupport or #IndieAuthors connect creators and fans into tight-knit communities. These groups actively comment, share, and follow—because they want to belong.

MythSocial: Your Hashtag Lab Assistant (No Lab Coat Needed)

Let’s face it—manually tracking hashtags is like doing math homework without a calculator. MythSocial’s AI tools (which we tested) act like a cheat sheet for growth:

Tag Generator: Paste your video idea, and it suggests high-impact hashtags + explains why they work.

Engagement Analyzer: Shows which tags actually brought followers vs. just views.

Competitor Spy Mode: Peek at the tags similar creators are using successfully (ethically, of course!).

Example: A baking creator used MythSocial to find #CakeFail (a rising tag in food comedy) and gained 2K followers in a week by laughing at kitchen disasters.

[beekeeperhank]

I have a lot of thoughts on all of these "dark fantasy" hardcore-snuff-porn-disguised-as-books abominations, but I think my main issue boils down to three things.

First of all, it's ruining the literary market. So-called booktok girlies are out here flocking to the most putrid, poorly written smut imaginable just because it's somehow less taboo to read an actual book than it is to find dead dove do not eat fics on ao3. The problem with this is that, even though there are still a fair few authors like this that are self publishing, publishers are starting to pick up more and more books like these simply because of a perceived audience, while abandoning actual quality literature that's being produced. Seriously. I don't fundamentally take issue with smut, but girl. Fanfiction sites still exist. Deviantart still has a thriving community of writers and artists producing all manner of whatever fucked up depravity you crave. Ao3 is still an actively used website. Keep your freak ass bullshit out of the mainstream publishing industry!!! I don't care that reading real books makes you look smart. Go search up NBC Hannibal erotica on google like a normal person and STOP TRYING TO GET THIS SLOP PUBLISHED.

Secondly, it's normalising things that should NOT be normalised. I'm not talking about weird kinks. [In the voice of your Republican uncle] I myself have read my fair share of Hannibal erotica on the interwebs. The issue lies in the fact that these books, which, by the way, are mostly written by women, at least from what I've seen, are not just normalising but FULLY ROMANTICIZING domestic abuse. When I talk about dark romance I'm not talking about those self published books about fucking gingerbread men or sentient doorknobs. Those are just a natural byproduct of the internet. The ones that concern me are these books where women are going back to their abusers, romanticising super toxic relationships, and putting the female characters in situations where genuinely horrific things happen to their bodies. I've seen videos of women promoting books with snippets of writing that are worse than the most deranged and morally questionable parts of Berserk. And what it feels like to me is a continuation of this new narrative that women are meant to be perceived through the male gaze. This isn't sex positive feminism or whatever else you want to call it. This is women writing books and sexualising situations which are so fundamentally steeped in the idea of male domination that it genuinely doesn't even make sense that women enjoy them. And the fact that these books are being actively promoted and have a significant following is deeply worrying. We should all be entitled to our own weird freak kinks, but it seems to me that these "kinks" are deeply and inherently tied to a very concerning and rapidly growing narrative.

Finally, I think that the expansion of this "booktok" niche, and really its existence at all, is a fundamental violation of one of the cardinal rules of kink: to not involve the public or any unwilling parties in the performance of said kink. I'm obviously not going to get into any of the kink at pride discourse, or talk about whatever the fuck is going on over on kinktok. But I feel like regardless of your opinions on that, there's a huge difference between seeing a dude in leather dog ears and a ball gag at a pride parade and being algorithmically recommended a video with 25k likes of a woman describing her "dark romance" book where a dude yoinks out a woman's eyeball and sticks his bald-headed giggle stick in the cavity. Like damn girl! Hell yeah, recommend me thirty video of starseed cults after this, I'll take that over whatever the deep fried fuck that was! I genuinely do not care what kinks you have or why, but there's a gigantic difference between reading those books in private and actively promoting them on public accounts. I get that they want to gain traction but like, I guarantee there are better and much more target-audience specific places to post these things than on fucking TikTok and instagram. Please, refrain from this. You're going to give my grandma a heart attack one of these days. It's not cool.

[lynnie-bear]

Today I finished “Convenience Store Woman” by Sayaka Murata. “Murata is a Japanese writer. She has won the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the Mishima Yukio Prize, the Noma Literary New Face Prize, and the Akutagawa Prize.” - Wikipedia. She is also a Vogue Japan woman of the year. The basic plot of the book is as follows, “The heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action” -Amazon. You have most likely heard of this book if you are reading my review, whether that be from booktok, where I have seen it listed as a short read or a “Japanese feminist fiction for Murakami lovers that dislike the way he writes woman” - @sisiliareads on TikTok.

As a person who has an equal fear of repetition as well as a sense of loss without it I was not able to put this book down. Keiko is a character I am afraid to say I relate to. Keiko is content in her position. Her life is only complicated by the people and society around her. “Will you ever be cured Keiko…?” pg. 131. You can interpret this book in many ways however no matter your interpretation you will be a different person when you finish, I highly recommend getting the version pictured above which contains an essay from the author the adds further depth to the story. It felt like a slice of life as I read it similar to the works of Haruki Murakami as stated above. Keiko is told she is not normal whereas I feel as if I am not, however we both have in common that we shut down and mimic others in situations where the real me would be perceived as strange or out of the ordinary. This book also speaks to me as it portrays what I don’t want, and complicates what I actually want with my life, which can only be described as chaotic repetition. I wish to live as steadily as Keiko however I still wish to live. The book touches of the concept that society and societal expectations have not changed, we have just been taught that they have. In other words “same words, different font”. I rate this book a 9/10 as it has also gotten me out of a reading slump and made me really rethink what I should be doing and wanting to take action.

-lynnie-bear

[spacexfucker]

God yes this was reflected on a post I saw a few days ago in which people were actually saying that "booktok should go to a library" implying the stuff they're reading to be no good and that theyd benefit from going to the library instead. As if the library doesn't go out of its way to carry the books they're making fun of. Carrying well-liked romance/smut is very much something libraries do.

It's so strange for people to act as if a library is above carrying a smutty book that's popular on tiktok. I've followed librarians on tiktok. Anecdotally, they're buying several copies of those "trashy" books people are making fun of because having them on shelves brings in foot traffic. And because reading is reading.

It feels like even just a few years ago, we would talk about religious deconstruction in leftist spaces. Specifically Christian deconstruction in the US bc our whole system and social rules are built on puritan Christian ideology. You dont have to ever have been Christian to have absorbed the bare bones of the belief system. Moralizing a book because it contains things that you find beneath you or bad is just purity culture. People throw that around a lot but it's really important to pass your judgements through the lense of "is this actually bad or was I told that it's bad"?

People have been making fun of what women read for as long as women and the poor were allowed to read.

It's not exactly socially acceptable to keep women for reading outright, so people manufacture moral panic about what they do read. The right does this with children who use the library (typically lower income children) by claiming pornography in books that talk frankly about the human body and its processes. Moralizing knowledge and entertainment is a method of control.

can I be so real with you. can I be honest. totally aside from the moral panic about women on booktok being """porn addicts""" because they're reading erotica, I think it's so fucking goofy when people act as if there needs to be some kind of societal reckoning with how tiktok books "aren't very good." like, okay? they're commercial products mass produced for entertainment. tiktok didn't invent that; you're going to have to take it up with pulp magazines and dime novels and comic books. you guys would throw up if you found out about Fanny Hill.