#if we follow booktok rules

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

booooo why has no one drawn astrid in goalie gear BOOOOOO

[guessthatrec-poll]

Welcome to the Guess That Rec tournament!

Do you like enemies-to-lovers? Non-stereotypical queer rep? A cyberpunk setting with dragons in space about friendship, family, and the dangers of capitalism?

Well, this isn't any of those things! This is Guess That Rec, a tournament by the mod of @besttropeveershowdown where we'll be voting on media based entirely on bad, Booktok-style recommendations. Inspired by @guess-that-ship and this post, the rules of the tournament are simple: submit a recommendation for your favorite piece of media, and we'll vote on which ones we like best, BUT, here's the kicker: You may not mention anything about the actual plot of the story. Instead, we will be voting based on promo-post-style recommendations, which can include tropes, representation, setting, genre, very general theme, and anything else, as long as it doesn't describe anything that actually happens in the story!

Round 1 is currently out - check the #gtr polls tag to find it! Guesses are encouraged, but I'd prefer you post them in the replies rather than the tags so your followers don't see the guess before they read the recs.

Example:

Do you want a high school story about a neurodivergent protagonist working through their trauma by going on adventures in the big city? Queer-coded side characters? Male characters breaking through their toxic masculinity and expressing their feelings? Wholesome sibling relationships?

Then you'll love Catcher in the Rye!

The tournament will work similarly to the way @guess-that-ship does. Each rec will be assigned a number for the poll with the rec itself going in the body of the post, and each round, there will be a poll pitting 2 recs against each other. Vote for whichever piece of media sounds most appealing based on the rec alone. At the end of each round, I will reveal the identity of the loser. Guessing what work each rec is for in the comments is encouraged!

THE RULES:

Any type of media is permitted. Both fiction and nonfiction are allowed, but everything must be presented as if it's fiction.

You may NOT mention anything to do with the actual plot or premise of the story. You may, however, mention:

Tropes (ex. enemies-to-lovers, fake dating, unreliable narrator)

Representation (ex. disabled protagonist, gay side character)

Character dynamics and relationships (ex. dysfunctional siblings, grumpy x sunshine lesbians)

Setting (ex. in space, in the Old West)

Genre and subgenre (ex. historical fiction, whodunnit, workplace comedy)

Comparisons to other media (ex. if you liked Avengers you'll love this, it's Twilight meets Hunger Games)

General themes (ex. love, grief, family)

General elements (ex. murders, adventures, road trips)

Anything else that has NOTHING TO DO with what the story is actually about!

3. You may NOT make anything up: everything must be technically true, or at least up for interpretation. So, in my Catcher in the Rye example, I can't say that there are "canonically gay characters" because there aren't, but I CAN say that there are queer-coded characters. Similarly, if there's a character in your piece of media who exhibits autistic traits but has never been confirmed autistic, you can't call them "autistic", but you can call them "autistic-coded" or mention their specific traits. The use of weasel words (ex. describing a mentally ill serial killer stereotype as "neurodivergent", or a gay villain as a "major queer character") is allowed and encouraged.

4. Do not include any identifying details (ex. title, character names, identifying place names) in your rec.

5. Funnier submissions will be given higher priority. Submissions are funnier if A) they're of media that most people have heard of, and B) they are technically true while not at all capturing the vibe of the media.

5a. Additionally, remember that this is meant to be BAD recs: don't just use this as an excuse to recommend your favorite media! If a Booktok-style rec actually provides a good picture of what your media is, consider either rewriting or not submitting it.

6. Should the same media be submitted by two different people with different recs, priority will generally be given to the first submission, unless a later submission was significantly funnier by the guidelines stipulated in rule #5.

7. There is no banned media: go nuts!

Tagging @tournament-announcer!

[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

[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.

[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

[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:

[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 :]

[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

[bereft-of-frogs]

Favorite Books of 2022:

Okay here's the positivity, I've split my list into New vs Rereads.

New:

Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir - not over it, obvious answer, what more is there to say?

In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado - really clever and creative memoir, I'm currently rereading Her Body and Other Parties because I just love Machado's writing so much.

This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone - fun fact I originally read this because I'd gotten it for my friend as a late Christmas present last year but then read it before giving it to her, so it was the only one of my top 5 that I didn't own. Until this Christmas when I got it from my brother who, and I quote, 'googled what you should read if you like that lesbian space necromancer series' which is also 100% how I picked it out for my friend and also 100% true.

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt - the seminal dark academia text, I read 300 pages in a single day and I am already planning on going as Murdered Vermont Farmer using things already found in my closet for next Halloween.

The Fifth Season, by NK Jemisin - oh my god this was so good. Both an excellent example of how good second person narration can be and how satisfying good plot twists can be. I 'guessed' this one early and was so gratified as it developed.

Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - what an unexpected delight for a book I essentially read because of BookTok drama. In case you'd already forgotten, the routine Classics vs YA drama took an unexpected turn in January when the first shot about how the booktok girlies should read Crime and Punishment was parried with 'um Crime and Punishment is a YA novel actually', and lead to 1) at least one Booktokker trying to read it and gifting us with their angry annotations like 'omg why is this book so bleak and depressing' (it's Russian Lit, there are so many memes about this) and 'um is this book really about him murdering an old lady' (yes that's the plot that's on the cover what did you think the 'crime' was), 2) a solid year of jokes, 3) me reading it sincerely and really enjoying it. So thanks booktok!

Ok, now onto the Rereads:

1. & 2. Gideon and Harrow - yup I read these both twice this year, still faves, still cry every time, not over them either.

3. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman - always a favorite.

4. Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel - This one for sure hit different after COVID, but is still so, so good.

5. Lord of the Rings - I really like my new 3 in 1 copy, it’s so pretty and drives home that these are really one extended story spread across 6 volumes rather than a true trilogy, so yeah I recommend a 3-in-1 edition if you are in the market for LotR books. It does make it rather heavy to carry around, but at least it’s paperback and I found this one wasn’t too hard to physically read.

Honorable Mentions: Dracula (Dracula Daily was THE MOST fun I had all year), The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (takes place in the What We Do In the Shadows Universe you cannot take that headcanon away from me, Dracula is the #Drama, no notes, a worthy successor), The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (excellent), The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (the amount of hate this book gets on Tiktok is unnecessary and kind of toxic, imo), Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover (Stover, why are you Like This? Why?)

If anyone has StoryGraph and would like to follow me/be friends, I’m on there under bereft_of_frogs, so please feel free to friend me!

The #Salt (aka my bottom 5 books of 2022 and a little mini rant on each) under the cut:

2. Rule of Wolves, by Leigh Bardugo - Another really disappointing sequel that made me wish I’d stayed a Six of Crows duology-only girlie. Though I did really like King of Scars, specifically for the continuation of Nina becoming a necromancer and infiltrating Fjerda. That part really fell apart in this book. A lot of things fell apart. It honestly felt sort of like Bardugo just wanted to be finished with this universe? Because a lot of things were resolved in really weird ways and really quickly. It also felt like it lost some of the interesting nuance in the worldbuilding that SoC had. And of course, she really showed off how bad she is at portraying the passage of time in her writing with this one. I was given the impression by King of Scars that it was taking place months at most after the events of Crooked Kingdom, and then out of nowhere it’s actually been 2 years so Nina can totally move on! But it still never felt like it had been 2 years and I feel like the end of the grief narrative was really abrupt and I just…couldn’t get into the romance because of how rushed that resolution was. I hope she’s done with this universe, aside from whatever extra writing/retconning goes on with the TV series - or at least, I’m done with this universe aside from the TV series. In future rereads, I’ll likely stick to my unofficial trilogy of Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom/King of Scars.

2. Rule of Wolves, by Leigh Bardugo - Another really disappointing sequel that made me wish I’d stayed a Six of Crows duology-only girlie. Though I did really like King of Scars, specifically for the continuation of Nina becoming a necromancer and infiltrating Fjerda. That part really fell apart in this book. A lot of things fell apart. It honestly felt sort of like Bardugo just wanted to be finished with this universe? Because a lot of things were resolved in really weird ways and really quickly. It also felt like it lost some of the interesting nuance in the worldbuilding that SoC had. And of course, she really showed off how bad she is at portraying the passage of time in her writing with this one. I was given the impression by King of Scars that it was taking place months at most after the events of Crooked Kingdom, and then out of nowhere it’s actually been 2 years so Nina can totally move on! But it still never felt like it had been 2 years and I feel like the end of the grief narrative was really abrupt and I just…couldn’t get into the romance because of how rushed that resolution was. I hope she’s done with this universe, aside from whatever extra writing/retconning goes on with the TV series - or at least, I’m done with this universe aside from the TV series. In future rereads, I’ll likely stick to my unofficial trilogy of Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom/King of Scars.

3. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by VE Schwab - This book is SO HYPED and for WHAT? I’m a big fan of lyrical, plotless writing, but that means actually having lyrical writing and no plot. This book just decided to do all the plot in the last 30 pages. So it was like 70% meandering, 30% rushed weird romance plot? And I’m sorry, I will NEVER be over the ‘not like other girls’ feminism of the main character. You cannot convince me that she would not have been in favor of the French Revolution. She’s an anti-clerical feminist but as soon as the Revolution happens it’s like ‘ew those peasant women are too violent, fuck all of them, I’m getting out of here.’ It’s a prime example of the hollow historical feminist archetype that is luckily starting to get some critique, where the main character fits perfectly with modern ideas of feminism, without the author actually having to put that much thought into their actual principles and how that fits into the historical context.

4. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, by Eric LaRocca - This one was just bad. Read like a first draft. Went nowhere, said nothing.

5. Nothing But Blackened Teeth, by Cassandra Khaw - I almost put this together with the above, because I think they had similar problems. Really under-developed, but at least this one had good writing. It was beautifully written, it just…went nowhere. The characters and their relationships were really surface level, and the intriguing premise just…never really went anywhere. Both I think get more hype than warranted because they’re rather short and they have striking covers. Both I compared to short films that a young/student horror director would send around to short film circuits or use as film school theses while they were working on developing and funding the feature-length project, but unfortunately that’s just not how book publishing works so we’re not going to get to see the fully developed works.

Dishonorable Mentions: Dead Space by Kali Wallace (just finished it, the flattest characters I think I’ve ever encountered in fiction), If We Were Villains by ML Rio (I had this rated higher and then I actually read The Secret History and was like…oh my God, this is so much worse, what a poor imitation), Winter’s Orbit (I feel real bad about this one but…maybe I just don’t like romance, but I could not stand how 50% of the book was just miscommunication), Lost Stars by Claudia Gray (still got 3 stars, but I think this one is just overhyped. If you want to know what reading this book is like, just watch the original trilogy, pause at any major plot point, watch the ‘are we the baddies?’ Sketch and then continue on), What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher (I also gave this one 3 stars, and I think it’s…really not that bad but I can’t stop thinking about the hubris of saying that you’re going to write a more fully fleshed out version of The Fall of the House of Usher and then add on a whole sub genre, 4 extra characters, another whole plot, and barely make it any longer)

[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.

[pebblysand]

[JANUARY ‘22] - THE LIFE/WRITING UPDATE NO ONE ASKED FOR (AND SOME QUICK LINKS)

happy new year everyone! without getting into too much detail, i hope you had much, much better celebrations than mine, and that for all of us, this year is warmer and kinder than 2021 was. i feel a bit bad for breaking my rule of always posting these monthly updates on the first of the month, but i was in such a shit mood yesterday that i don’t think i would have been very conducive to hopeful new years’ thoughts haha. today’s better :).

Anyway, before diving into more life/writing updates, here are some quick links to different blog pages you might not see on mobile :

to financially support my writing endeavours (thank you!)

to read my fics

to read my original work

fic recs [updated]

to read my tumblr rants about stuff

[NOTE: i am currently not accepting prompts]

Castles (chap 11) ETA: probably march.

links extended a/n-s: chapter v ; chapter vi & vii ; chapter viii ; chapter ix ; chapter x

[more life/writing updates under the cut]

what i’m reading:

books:

i have a sin to admit: i read seven books in 2021. that’s it. here’s the list.

i used to average around 20 prior to the pandemic, managed 13 in 2020 (but 4 of those were just me re-reading hp from gof to dh) but this year’s just been… hard. i wasn’t going to say anything but then if you’re anything like me, you’re all over booktok and bookstagram with all of these people who are like ‘oh, i only read 48 books this year, i’m so bad,’ with their reading trackers, and notebooks, and all that shite, and… reading is supposed to be a hobby but it sometimes just feels like another chore to tick off the list.

so, if you’re also on that boat of: you’d like to read more and you love to read but you’re just not in that headspace, just know that you’re not alone. i used to do most of my reading while travelling pre-pandemic and i just haven’t found a new routine that works for me. now, i spend so many evenings and weekends tied to my desk writing that the last thing i want to do as a hobby is to pick up more words. it’s also just hard not to compare myself to the things i read. so, anyway, while i would love to say i intend to read more in 2022, we will see. i’m trying to not beat myself up about it - there are already too many things to beat myself up about haha.

this being said, i did make some progress and am about halfway through enfant de salaud, which i already talked about here. it delivers on everything i hoped for and more and definitely confirms sorj chalandon as one of my all time favourite authors. i’m taking a week off to go skiing next week so i’m hoping that in the evenings, i’ll maybe feel like picking up a book to chill. who knows?

fics:

i’m still reading: knowing where to look by ala_baguette and still loving it. apart from that i’ve mostly been re-reading this past month, in order to make this rec list i published a few days ago. the response has been fab and i’m so glad all of you are enjoying my top ten for 2021. let’s hope that 2022 brings even more hidden gems. but tbh, even with fics, i haven’t been reading as much as i’d like to this year. and, you know what? let’s cut ourselves some slack lol. whatever.

.

what i’m watching:

having not had the brainspace to read much lately, i have however watched quite a bit of tv to unwind. i would definitely recommend the following three shows:

aisling bea’s this way up. i adooooored this series. it’s hilarious comedy, gave me a lot of fleabag vibes, but without the awful cringey-ness of fleabag which, tbh, isn’t quite my jam. it hits such a fantastic note between happy and sad, comedy and drama, and laughing at the good and bad things that happen in life. the show is, to put it simply, a comedy about depression, but aisling bea is so funny as well as heartwarming in it (the actors are all absolutely stellar, actually), that it is just so right - i absolutely loved it. although the show is set in london, i do think it has a very irish tone in that way that irish people have of finding the bright side of any situation, i just felt all warm and fuzzy watching it.

.

talking about warm and fuzzy, a show that was very much not so was flesh and bone. it’s been a couple weeks now since i finished this series, and i still don’t really know what i think of it. i started watching it because i do enjoy a good ballet mystery thriller which… is that what it was? it’s got me thinking a lot about that americanah quote: ‘why did people ask: “what is it about?” as if a novel had to be about only one thing.’ is this show about sexual assault and incest? is it about ballet? is it about the mafia? i don’t fucking know. it’s about a little bit of everything but it definitely got me hooked - i watched the whole eight episodes in a single day. it was a bit disturbing though. man, i don’t know, watch at your own risk, i reckon.

.

dexter, new blood is out!!!!! full disclosure, i was a massive fan of the original dexter as a teenager but i stopped watching around the time when debra/dexter became a thing. i just never really bought into it and although i know they weren’t real brother and sister is just felt incestuous and wrong. so, i hadn’t seen the end and i was so hesitant to watch this reboot ‘cause i’m getting a bit annoyed at the current tendency to bring back old shows - it feels rather lazy on the part of the writers to not write new things, you know? The Boy kept telling me to watch it and i finally caved when i got home to france and it turned out my mum had also started watching it. and man… i love it. it’s so good! it’s giving me a lot of early dexter vibes where the main concern was: omggg, is he going to get arrested or not??? i swear, if that’s how this season ends, i’m going to be so mad. i absolutely love the relationship with harrison, the ambiguity of: did harrison inherit dex’s dark passenger, or is he just an angry teenager? i love how they’re also not making dexter into an ideal father but rather a shit one, and how his actions have had huge consequences on his son’s life. the break they took in the show was clearly a fantastic idea and this season is of the very highest quality. if you watched the og dexter, please don’t hesitate to watch cause this won’t disappoint. also don’t feel like you had to watch the entire og show to see this. as i said, i never watched past series 6 of the original show and i’m totally fine following new blood.

and, no, i haven’t watched the hp reunion yet. i’ve seen some clips on tiktok, i’m hoping that i’ll find the time to watch it soon!

.

what i’m hearing:

i’ve been very much enjoying my spotify 2021 wrapped this month. it’s bizarre how much my top music this year is related to fic haha. i can look at all of the items on that list and point to a particular piece i was writing at the time haha. this also very much dates me as a millennial but hey, that is what i am, after all.

.

what i’m writing:

i hope you all enjoyed the tenth chapter of castles. as i said in the extended a/n, it was a chapter i very much enjoyed writing. i’ll admit that with christmas and new year’s, although i initially intended to write more, i’ve just taken the last couple of weeks off writing to chill and do a lot of life admin type things i procrastinated on for the last couple of months.

in the short term (i.e. january): i would like to finish one of the two one shots i’ve been trying to finish for months, as part of the ROAR series. one is based on seamus, and one on hermione - kind of character study pieces like the two one shots already part of the series. this being said, i’ve been feeling very exhausted and brain dead lately so i’m also just kind of taking it slow, at least for january, not beating myself up if it doesn’t happen. on top of other life stuff (see below), i wrote probably 50,000 words altogether in november and december - when i landed home this christmas i just felt like i could have slept for a whole week. i’m slowly recovering but honestly, i’m staying in france until the end of january and i might not write again until i get back to ireland. a bit like this summer, i think i’m just going to chill for the next couple of weeks and write only if i really feel like it.

in the long term (i.e. for 2022): man, i don’t know. obviously, i’ll keep writing fanfic and i would love to finish castles by the end of 2022. i think it’s possible, but we shall see. there’s still probably six or eight chapters to go, but i would also love to do more original writing this year, which might take time away from fanfic. just know that i do intend to keep working on castles and bring it to an end either by end of 2022 or early 2023. we shall see.

i’ve also signed up to creative writing classes with my local uni (starting early feb - i think i mentioned this before) which i’m hoping will help me reconnect myself with my non-fanfic creativity streak. not that i don’t like writing fanfic, but i do like both and haven’t done much original writing for the past while. i know a lot of you have asked me at some point or other if i would ever consider writing original content, and the answer is yes - it’s just that time hasn’t always been on my side. also, as a general rule, original content gets less traction than fanfic, which is hard in staying motivated, haha.

if i do succeed in producing more original content this year, i’m still sort of struggling to figure out how to share it with you all. on the one hand, i’m not very interested in old school professional publication (at least not at the moment) and would much rather just put my writing online for free for you guys to enjoy if you want to. i also love the idea of having your feedback, comments, chats, etc. on the other hand, i don’t want to post it publicly on tumblr/ao3 because if i ever change my mind about professional publication, that means that i wouldn’t be able to ever use anything i’d previously posted, which is a bit of a bummer. to me, the perfect middle ground would be a subscription, something like patreon, but i have ethical problems about putting content behind a paywall. i’m okay with you guys giving me cash if you want to (see below) but i don’t like the idea that someone who couldn’t afford the subscription couldn’t see my content, you know? it sounds a bit dick-ish. also, i’m not sure what monthly benefits i could offer? anyway, at this point, i’m still thinking about it, and will for sure keep you posted as things happen throughout the year.

lastly, as you might have seen above, i created a tippee. at this stage, the point of it is an attempt at justifying the insane amount of hours i spend on writing. to give you an idea, i would say that a single chapter of castles is probably around 150/200 hours alone. even if it was legal, i would never ever condition access to fanfic to payment, but it just takes a lot of time and a lot of coffees that i buy out of my own pocket, so let’s say that it would literally be you offering me coffee while i work, haha. additionally, it’s sort of related to the patreon idea as well, to see if anyone would even be interested in giving. to be honest, i will write and keep writing (and keep sharing with you) regardless of money cause that’s just a hobby i absolutely love, but if one of you was to give me five bucks as a token of appreciation every once in a while, it would be… very nice, haha.

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what i’m doing:

i won’t lie, personally, this has been a very stressful, intense end of year. as explained above, i wrote a lot. i’m also looking for a new job, super busy at my current one, doing interview after interview, one of my best friends is stuck in an abusive relationship i’m trying to get her out of, i got covid, my own relationship stuff and anxiety about turning thirty soon-ish, and i’m tired. i’m hopeful for the new year and excited about the future change i might see happen, but i won’t lie - i’m not sorry to see 2021 go, like i’m sure most of you. on the plus side, castles is insanely close to hitting a very big “hits” milestone, which has be baffled and ecstatic at the same time. so let’s just say: here’s to 2022! i hope it brings you what you’re hoping for :).

lots of love,

pebblysand.