#like why did i see in a book review the other day that the author provided trigger warnings but 'should've provided more' lmfao

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

If I See You Again Tomorrow

YA contemporary/light sci-fi

follows a boy almost a year into a time loop, who has almost given up on finding a way out

until a new boy shows up at his school - which has never happened before - and he’s motivated to step out of his monotony and maybe find a way out

exploring loneliness and social isolation

[livingformintyoongi]

BTS fic recs

I wanted to do this a while ago, but felt like I hadn't read enough, until I checked my likes and got a shock to the face lol. I wanted to give some recommendations of some fics (and a series) that I quite enjoyed reading, plus leave a small review because I feel like it's very underrated to comment on what you like something (people, comment more, I swear it makes a writer feel so much better than a like). There's the occasional spoiler in the reviews, so I recommend you read it carefully or just skip the comment ^^.

Dawning by @wintaerbaer JJK

summary: He’s never invited into your world during these late night sessions. You always push him away or ignore him. This is new. warnings: heavy depictions of depression and panic attacks, a brief line where taehyung worries oc is s**cidal. I really loved this fic. For a moment I thought it was some kind of two shot or something, but it only has this one part. Still, I felt the author captured the emotions very well. It felt so realistic that even I was worried when Y/N disappeared lol.

Bottle up old love by @wintaerbaer KTH

summary: Jungkook may have broken up with you a year ago, but that's not going to stop him from coming to your rescue when he sees you being cornered by a creep. warnings: language, a short harassment scene at the beginning (nothing too intense), explicit content including: unprotected sex (DO NOT), fingering, praise kink, biting, marking, spanking, cum eating (sort of?), big cawk soft dom jk, cowgirl (yeehaw), creampie, cockwarming. This fic made me remember why I love the exes to lovers trope. I loved seeing Jungkook as a tattoo artist, it's like, I don't know, so him, anyway, I loved it. I just found this account yesterday in the wee hours of the morning and I'm already loving it <3.

Cat-astrophe & Cat-enaries by @dumpywrites MYG

Summary: Your pet cat keeps going to your neighbor’s apartment and it’s a problem.  I fell in love with this Yoongi like you have no idea. When I just read the first part I was so eager to keep reading, seriously, I loved it, it deserves so much love.

Two Days by @dumpywrites JJK

Summary: He just wants you to give him two days. He'll take you on a few dates and you'll decided if you actually like him? Or not? I live for Jungkook being simp of the reader, I feel it's so real lol. This fic made me feel so warm inside, it was too cute to read. It's kind of like my comfort fic.

S'more than friends by @borathae MYG

Warnings: subby!Yoongi, switchy!Reader, consumption of beer, so much awkward tension, jealousy, sex in a tent, mutual masturbation, handjob, fingering, making out aye, Yoongi loves her boobs and she loves his butt it’s a win-win, sex while other people are sleeping, public sex, she has a thing for his hands (but what’s new lmao), fluffy post-orgasm talks because I’m soft. I read it a while ago now, but I remember when I did I felt so soft. This Yoongi is just too cute.

Please don't go by @httpjungkookcom JJK

Summary | Jungkook’s never kept anything from you, ever. Not even the time where he tripped and accidentally kicked your dog, or when he fucked the most popular girl in high school and couldn’t make himself cum (poor guy was embarrassed for weeks), or when he accidentally rubbed all of his acceptance letters in your face without realizing. To put it short, Jungkook is an open book to you. So when he suddenly disappears, there’s a lot to question. Even more to question when he finally gets back and won’t tell you anything, going as far to avoid you. You’re on a mission to figure it out, even if it kills you. Index | Jungkook is so smart, but so stupid at the same time. Jungkook is not sly in the slightest. Kind of angst, fighting, arguing, bickering, etc. Criminal activity, it’s a Spider-Man fic. Injuries and mention of blood. College setting and age, reader and Kook share the same major. Some cute fluffy moments in between all of the action. Aunt Yoon is essentially Aunt May in the Marvel story line.  Spiderkook, is more needed to read this fic? It was the first one I read about this au and I was WONDERED. God, you can't imagine how much I loved it. I thought it was so cute the way Jk approached reader being in his suit….

Accidental roommates by @jjkeverlast JJK

summary: moving apartments is stressful and difficult enough as it is. all the planning and packing and multiple moments of rearranging furniture; all you crave is peace. yet it seemed like peace was far within reach as the owner of the apartment had left out one tiny crucial detail from the ad — a ripped tattooed adonis, coupled, with a tiny baby daughter will come as your roommate. warnings: second hand embarrassment | jungkook's abs | annoying antics | suppressed feelings | both of them are stubborn and petty (it's gets tiring lmfao) | mentions of past relationships | a lot of time stamps | sexual tension | ft. namjoon 👀 | !constant change of perspective between reader and jungkook. I have a tremendous weakness with dilf, no matter who it is, I just love them. I think this was the first one I read by Jungkook. It was so fun and easy to read that the 14.7k words flew by for me.

Silk & Stones by @taegularities KTH

Summary: “Taehyung was a writer… he was a writer indeed.” Kim Taehyung knows his way around words – they cast a spell on your heart and mind, leave you gasping dangerously fast. Until the mystery behind his persona unveils and his touch, along with his words, becomes a vivid memory. warnings: writer + violinist tae 🥺 who’s a gentleman in the 19th century, brief mention of injuries/a mental institution, misunderstandings, heartbreak, secrets, grief, much poetry (and my attempt at writing a poem, pls spot), much disgoosting fluff, flirting and lots of sexual tension; explicit sexual content: 2 sex(y) scenes, fingering on a boat, choking, teasing, begging, praising, soft dom!tae, big dick!tae, tiddie fondling/sucking, some manhandling, dirty talk, they’re just so cute :((, oral (f. and m. receiving), some masturbation, oc is into neck kisses, some biting, fingering, hair pulling, asking for permission :(, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex (it’s the 19th century...), aftercare; there’s quite some angst ok; lmk if i forgot smth !! This was a work of art for me. I felt so immersed in the story, so confused by the time changes and everything surrounding Taehyung, but I loved it, one of the best stories I've read of Taehyung since I joined tumblr.

17 going on 27 by @hansolmates JJK

summary; one second, you’re sobbing at prom because the most popular guy in school dumps you due to your relationship being a little prank to break your heart. the next? you’re a creative editor at Ego, the hottest young adult fashion magazine. as you try to figure out what’s the deal with this sudden time skip into adulthood, you come across relationships and friendships that are made to be cherished and made to be broken. genre/warnings; fluff, crack, future enemies to lovers, teenage and adulthood angst, time skips from high school!au to late twenties!au, 13 going on 30!au, all your romantic movie tropes come to life! a really big mess honestly, various movie and music references, mentions of sex, use of alcohol, everyone give jin and jimin a big ol hug, language, a surprise guest from the queen of england. I love adaptations, especially ones that add their own touch, and the writer did it so well. She made me hate Jungkook, and then love him, and then hate him again, in the end I ended up resenting him, I wanted reader to stay with Jin lol, but I still loved it. Definitely my favorite part was having Jimin as a best friend, I loved watching him take on Jungkook in the car. We all need a friend like him.

Hot Bot by @httpjeon JJK/PJM/KTH/JHS

JJK: You order a sex robot online after getting a coupon for half off. however, there’s something strange about yours. PJM: Fear is primal and causes one to make stupid decisions. KTH: Your parents have a gift for you, however, there’s been a mistake. JHS: As a product tester, you have one of the most sought after temporary positions in Hot Bot Inc. This is a series that has smut, I think the name gives it away. It's rather sad that the writer is on hiatus, but he left the gems of his works open to the public. The series is pretty good, I fell in love with Jungkook (and Yoongi kskjdsksjds). Highly recommended.

The proposal by @hansolmates JJK

summary; Jeon’s the editor-in-chief for Big Hit Publishings, a closet romantic with a penchant for antagonizing his assistant on the reg. When his work visa is in the process of being renewed and he takes a trip to Norway, his eligibility to stay in America is on the line. However Jeon Jungkook doesn’t go without a fight, and in order to save his job he offers you a proposal you can't refuse. genre/warnings; the proposal!au, fake marriage au, enemies to friends(!!!), friends to lovers, bouts of flangst, dry humping, slight blood but not too bad, lang, alcohol, poor jjk discovers he has the ability to feel emotion, poor y/n is in the middle as always. I was looking for an adaptation of this movie for so long that when I found this one I almost cried with emotion. I LOVED the movie and the concept it had, and I was so happy to read this fic that captures that very romcom essence that the movie has. I loved it.

Marshmallows and report cards by @untaemedqueen KTH

Warnings: Impreg Kink, Marking, Cunnilingus, Fingering, Birthday Sex, Spitting, Begging, Praise, Fellatio, Face Fucking, Big Dick!Tae, Multiple Orgasms, Unprotected Sex, Possessive!Tae, Cock Warming, Creampie. I already confessed, this kind of fics get to me. I remember reading it and melting with the ending. I read it a long time ago, so I can't give a longer opinion, but I do remember that I loved it and came out internally squealing after I finished it.

Orange tulips by @kainks JJK

Summary: You’d remember Jungkook with every life you lived. Only he’d never remember you, never recall how your fates were written in the stars since the beginning of time. Genre: Angst. Fluff. Light Smut. The anxiety and helplessness I felt reading this fic are on another level. This scarred me, I read it once and I was never the same person again. It was wonderful, I felt so many things and I was so nervous during the whole reading that I almost didn't even realize when it was over. It is a very enjoyable fic.

What if I love you too much? by @taleasnewastime

Summary: Jungkook. It’s only a name you learn after your son kicks his ball over the fence. Before that you only knew him as the hot new neighbour who mows his lawn topless. And though you have no intention of getting to know him anymore than that, inevitably you do. You don’t necessarily fall, it’s too slow for that, but you definitely develop feelings you don’t intend to feel. Because you know men like him, and you know that whatever you’re feeling, he’s probably not feeling the same. All the same, however hard you try, you can’t help yourself. Warnings: Single mum, small fights, explicit sexual content, oral (f receiving), safe penetrative sex, reader thinks Jungkook is cheating/playing the field, angst, but also fluff, child gets injured (though not seriously), talks of cuts and a small amount of blood. This fic left me feeling bad, it even made me question some future decisions regarding my relationship with my future partner and the necessary communication that must be had in a relationship from the beginning, especially if there is a child in the middle. It was something I really enjoyed reading, and even though I had my internal dilemmas with Jungkook, the drabbles in the story helped me a lot to let go of my grudge (I swear I have nothing personal with him sksjkajskajsj).

[rainybubbles]

How do you meet COD men ?

Price, Soap, Rudy, Ghost, Gaz, Keegan

(Sorry in advance for my mistakes, English is not my mother tongue. So sorry if it's badly written or if they're OOC. )

P R I C E :

-"I'm going to die," you say to your friend.

-"What ? Why would you die ?"

-"I sent a pregnant Shrek cake to a military base."

-"Why would you do that ?!"

-"This guy ordered a cake for his soldier's birthday, but I also had the order for a prank and...

-"You mixed up the two boxes."

-"Yes."

-"So, actually,....a soldier is opening his box and..."

-"And he will see a pregnant Shrek cake."

-"...It was good to know you when you were alive."

-"You're supposed to reassure me !"

-"Oh sorry. You will die fast, don't worry. It's their job"

-"Fuck you."

-"How was the guy who ordered ?"

-"Like he could crash my head between his arms"

-"Shit."

-"But he was handsome, I guess."

-"Guess your last view will be nice, at least."

-"Shit, how do I even excuse myself for that ? I can't go to the base and say "sorry I sent a Shrek cake, but it was a mistake can you let me in ?"

-"I guess you just say it," a man says.

-You gulp when you recognize the Captain who ordered you the cake.

-"Sir, I'm so sorry, I swear it's not on purpose, I just mixed two orders and..."

-"And you made my boys laugh after a rough mission."

-"oh."

-"So thanks. Of course, it was not what I planned for a birthday, but seeing them happy was nice."

-"You're..welcome, I guess ?"

-He smiles.

-"But don't ever do another pregnant Shrek when I order from you, next time, please."

-"Next time ?"you say surprised.

-"It was delicious, I don't plan to change a good baker," he smiles.

And that's how you gain a regular after offering a pregnant Shrek cake. (even though each time he sees green on your hand, he seems scared when he takes the box.)

S O A P :

- He drew you like Gollum.

- I know, it sounds horrible, let me explain.

- You needed money, and you offered your services as a model for art classes.

- Soap was one of the students.

- During his leaves, he often took art classes to relax.

- And usually it goes well.

- But when he saw you....he thought he could never do justice to your face.

- He felt so self-conscious about his skills that he ended up doing a horrible portrait of you.

- And it could have ended up here, but the teacher decided to show everyone's pieces of art to analyze them

- So you saw Soap's piece where you looked like Gollum.

- And you knew it was from him.

- Everyone has a smile, while he was terrified.

- Usually, he's self-confident, but it's on the battlefield, in his life. The art was the only place where he was not sure he belonged too.

- At the end of the classes, he decided to talk to you.

- "I'm sorry for what happened today, I felt anxious and I ended up doing a bad portrait. It doesn't look like you at all."

- You looked up at him and smiled.

- "Why do you apologize? It was fun to see me like this, plus you need to start somewhere, no? You can't be a fucking Leonardo Da Vinci from the first day."

- He was too stunned to speak.

- "John or Johnny," he said.

- You looked at him confused.

- "Name's John, sorry, it seems you really blew my mind."

- You chuckled. "Nice to meet you, John. Hope next time your mind will be more confused for the next class."

- He nodded.

- Wait, did you say the next class? But it was nude models…

- Hope he won't draw a stick figure this time.

R U D Y

- You were an author.

- Well, it was not your main job since you only sold four books this year, but you considered yourself an author.

- And you had a hater. Someone who left a hateful review on each of your books.

- You knew that the next day after publishing your book, he would leave a bad review.

- So when your boss at the library told you that someone was regularly buying your books, you knew it could only be this hater, since the other person who bought your books was your mom.

- And you had had a bad day. So when your boss told you he was there, you were about to confront this hater.

- Maybe to understand what he didn't like or to know if he was just a coward.

- So you strode towards the spot your boss pointed at.

- "Hey, you," you said, not sure what to add after. When the man raised his head, he looked fit, and you knew you couldn't stand a chance in a fight if he decided to fight.

- "Wait, are you the author Y/N?" Rudy asked, with a sparkle in his eyes.

- Wait... A sparkle?

- "Hm, yeah, it's me," you answered, not sure what was happening.

- "I love your work. Your last book was really amazing. I have followed you since your debut."

- Your mouth was open, because :

1. one, your mom had lied to you when she told you she had bought three copies of your book.

2. And second, you had your first fan in front of you.

- "Thanks," you almost said, tears of joy welling up. "Sorry if I sound harsh. I thought you were that hater."

- "Oh yeah, I saw those reviews on your page. He's always there, but don't worry, I'll leave positive reviews to balance it. I'm Rudy, by the way."

- "Nice to meet you, and thanks for loving my work."

- "No need to thank me. I just appreciate good books."

- "What's your favorite, if I may ask?"

- Rudy smiled, and you both started chatting about books that afternoon. Maybe your reviews would improve after this, not just because of your writing, but also because he found you stunning.

G H O S T :

- Ghost scared people on the battlefield.

- However, the people who were most scared of him were the mechanics on the base.

- Ghost was a horrible driver, and everyone knew that.

- So, each time he went to the mechanics, they knew it was because he had done horrible damage to the cars.

- A game was organized whenever Ghost approached �� you played rock, paper, scissors, and the loser had to fix his car.

- However, you were new to the base.

- When you saw this guy standing and waiting, you went to him without realizing all this.

- But when you saw his car, you understood why no one else was coming.

- He had a bowling ball in the trunk, the roof was broken, all the windows were shattered, and one tire was burnt.

- "...did you take this on the battlefield?" you asked.

- "No." He said shortly.

- You blinked. "Then why is it in this condition?"

- "There was a grandma on the road."

- "...so, because of a grandma, you have a bowling ball in your trunk?"

- "Because I swerved to avoid her and ended up hitting a bowling alley."

- "How did you even get a driver's license?"

- "The examiner was too sick to see me again for the ninth time, so he just gave it to me."

- "I guess I'll fix your car, but please don't drive if you don't need to, sir."

- "Sure."

- The next day, he was there again with a hole in the car because of a bird. How ? You didn't know.

-But it seemed you had become his official mechanic without even knowing it.

G A Z :

- When he hears your voice in a café, he recognizes you.

- The problem is, he can't come to you.

- Because if he knows your voice, it's because of your streams.

- Your ASMR streams.

- Being a soldier means your sleep schedule isn't really regular, and to help himself sleep, Gaz discovered ASMR.

- He found out about your streams, then your Patreon, and... let's just say your ASMR is spicy.

- So yes, if he says he's a fan of yours, it implies he has to reveal he listens to that in front of his teammates.

- And he's not ashamed of it.

- But he doesn't want Price to know he likes spicy ASMR, just like he wouldn't want to know what Price's fantasies are, or what Ghost likes in bed.

- (He wants to forget Soap's idea about Ghost in pink lingerie and a thong, and the day Price wore latex pants.)

- It's a line he doesn't want to cross.

- But he's also your biggest fan.

- So he tries to walk near you.

- But you're with a friend.

- And he doesn't know if your friend knows about this.

- So he ends up just glancing at you.

- Shit, how does he approach someone who does +18 things, without saying he knows they do this?

- Maybe if he waves... or just says hello? Or maybe if he asks for a selfie or…

- "Are you trying to imitate Ghost?" Soap asks.

- "What? No. Why do you say that?!" Gaz says, looking away.

- "Because you're staring at this person like they killed your dad and ate your mom, then burned your house and kidnapped your dog."

- "...it was really detailed for a scenario," Gaz says, confused.

- "So?"

- "I just know them, but I don't want to disturb them." Gaz says, trying to lie and tell the truth at the same time.

- If Soap finds out the truth, he'll never hear the end of it.

- "Do you want me to call them?"

- "NO. Absolutely not, don't do this, mate."

- "Why not?"

- Because they'll think you listen to their spicy ASMR audios, he wants to say, but he remains quiet.

- God, he feels like a teenager.

- But suddenly, he sees you walking towards them.

- You sit next to them, and... you wink at him, pointing to his key ring on his bag.

- It's your merch.

- Meaning... you know he's a fan.

- "Thanks for supporting me," you whisper before returning to your friend.

- Gaz doesn't speak until he gets back to base, too embarrassed but also too happy.

K E E G A N :

- You were tired.

- The rush had finally ended. It was now 11 PM, and there was this one client who had just ordered 10 Happy Meals.

- You wanted to slap him. He had ordered at 22:57, and the fast food closed at 23:00.

- So you didn't have a choice but to serve him.

- You looked at your colleague, who was sighing, and you nodded.

- You were preparing the trays, ready to see 10 kids running around and getting everything dirty, but…

- It was only one man with a mask.

- When you saw him, you were ready to raise your hands and give him money. Why the heck would a man with a gun and a mask be at a McDonald's at 23:00 buying 10 Happy Meals?

- But he just took them and ate.

- One after another.

- In silence.

- In five minutes.

- And then he left.

- You looked at your colleague.

- "Guess it's as weird as people who order a burger without buns," your colleague said.

- You nodded and thought it was just the one weird client of the day.

- But every Wednesday, he was there, in silence.

- Maybe he hated Ronald McDonald, so he planned to run out of your stock of Happy Meals?

- Or maybe he collected the toys?

- You didn't know, but he was there.

- And you saw him eating those nuggets and fries without sauce.

- He didn't touch his drinks. My, how dry it must be.

- But one Wednesday you took a day off. So when you came back the next day, you joked with your colleague about the Happy Meal guy.

- But they didn't laugh.

- "Who?" they asked.

- And just like that, you realized that when you weren't there, the Happy Meal guy wasn't there either.

- You were scared.

- Maybe he thought buying Happy Meals seduced you, or it was his way of warning you before he would kill you, like a threat, "You'll end up like those nuggets."

- So, when you saw him enter, you sent your colleague.

- However, your manager decided to give you your break at that moment, meaning it would be only you and him in the place.

- You tried to act normally, but you noticed how he seemed not to like his food yet still ate it.

- You sighed and sat next to him, offering him some sauces.

- "It's better with these. You know, you can have them for free in the menu next time."

- He looked at you and nodded.

- He then tried it and smiled.

- That's when you noticed his dog tags.

- "We have a discount for military personnel, so you could take a real meal instead of a Happy Meal if you want to."

- He looked surprised and nodded.

- Next time, he ordered 2 Happy Meals and two regular menus.

- So you smiled.

- Until his other masked colleagues ordered 20 Happy Meals because they liked the skull toys in them.

- Maybe it was just military men who had a problem with Happy Meals.

If you want more : my COD masterlist

And my masterlist

[ash-and-starlight]

Hello, I saw you say in your 2024 short book review that Iron Widow sucked? May I ask your reasons? I've had this book in my hands multiple times and thought of buying but never did, and by what you said, and accounting for us seemingly having similar tastes, I think you might give me a good idea about what to expect from the book and whether I'd like it?

So yes just. Your thoughts on Iron Widow and why it sucked would be awesome if you could find time for it

Have a nice day!

udhghh ok honestly the reasons are so many and i cant even string them together correctly so i really just recommend going on the goodreads page and reading the one star reviews bc they all illustrate point for point why i think it sucked so much. like ok reason one is that its simply not well written. like its marvel level jokey "oh he's right behind me isn't he" kinda writing. Reason 2 is that the plot is just all over the place nonsensical, there are in-universe things that you're just supposed to accept at face value but just make zero sense once u think about them for longer than 5 seconds. It professes itself to be a girlboss feminist narrative and its the furthest thing from feminist u could ever find. wu zetian sees herself (and is framed by the narrative) as the only hashtag woke hashtag empowered woman that exists and goes on thinking every other girl she meets is a dumb whore. this never gets disproved. she never changes her mind. (which is not WRONG per se but at least dont market it as a #feminist book just for clout). Also like. i was expecting for the heroine's story to bear some resemblance to the hystorical wu zetian's story and uhh idk if this changes later on but so far their stories dont rlly have a thing in common. AND i like the author a lot i think they're super knowledgeable & must've done a ton of research for this so why,,, did they decide to basically discard all of it,, and also it should've gone through a few more drafts,,, one beta reader at least- anyway the things that i DID like were the qi based mecha system. that was conceptually rlly cool and i always love a mecha situation. and the fact that the love triangle got resolved in an ot3 (..... not that i liked any of the characters enough to care...)

[mediumgayitalian]

fic rec friday 17

hi!! welcome to fic rec friday. every week, i pick five fics i have bookmarked and rec them with a little review. check them out!

Drew Tanaka's True Love Connections by @buoyantsaturn

Will smiled. "I have an appointment next door with the, uh… Matchmaker lady?” He winced at his own awkwardness, trying to bite back the embarrassment he felt. “Well, actually my friend set it up for me, but-- Sorry, do you know anything about her? The matchmaker lady, not my friend, I mean. I’m just not sure what to expect, you know? I’ve never, uh, done something like this before.” 

THIS WAS SO SICK I LOVED IT!!!!!! flowershop au with a twist oh yes ma’am. also im so pumped drew was in this every time i see her im like hello my love how are you

2. just desserts by @thegoldenappleofdiscord

It’s just a cupcake, Nico reminds himself. Surely that justifies breaking into the infirmary at the break of dawn. or: nico's love language is baking and will solace gets a lot of cake as a result.

end note hate me GIGGGGLIIING. also i am OBSESSED with this author but i haven’t read the solangelo book yet so i haven’t read a lot of her stuff and i’m DYING to. this was as sweet as nico's baking fr!! i'm writing less of a note on this fic (altho i love it) bc the WORDS i have to say about the next one,,,

3. caught in the river of tears that i cried by @thegoldenappleofdiscord*

In all honesty, it was really for the best that Will didn’t think about all the strange things that sometimes happened around him. After all, his mama had more than enough on her plate already. He was a good kid, and it was best everything stayed as it were. (Though admittedly, the flock of flesh-eating maniac pigeons, men with hooves, and the growing darkness in his veins might just make this a tiny bit more difficult than he anticipated) or: will can only push down a part of him for so long (will has plague powers, but he's known it from the very start.)

UPDATE WHEN UPDATE WHEN UPDATE WHEN REESE PLEASE 😭😭i am genuinely so obsessed with this fic and the WAY everything is woven together....like fear is a driving force!! you can feel it!! this is one of those starred fics fr bc it Changed the way i wrote and characterized will. he is fr a character who has been controlled by fear his Whole life actually. of the world and what it takes from him. of the Fates that do not care for your fragile love. of the things they are forced to do. of the precarity of life. and perhaps most intimately and ardently Himself, and the abilities he does not want to have, the life he does not want to live. the parts of himself that do not fit in the mold he has Built for himself and Forced himself into. and this fic shows that so so beautifully like this story is Woven.....i think about it literally all the time it's insane

4. a handful of almosts by @thegoldenappleofdiscord

He’d said it so easily: “Best friends don’t do that to each other, Will.” It had been a throwaway comment after Will decimated him in a card game, which was usually Nico’s forte. Following that had been a furious, “Besides, it’s war. Entirely luck-based. Winning this game doesn’t mean anything. Stop laughing – why the hell are you laughing?” He’d mostly been laughing because of Nico’s expression – eyebrows drawn tight, mouth twisted in an adorable scowl – but also because of the sudden elation pumped into him like helium. They were best friends – and maybe someone else would be hopeful for more, and maybe one day he'll pursue it (he did want it, had wanted it for a long time) but for now, he’s content where they are, sitting in Nico’s room and cursing at each other through a deck of cards. or: 5+1 of will solace being a pining loser

A HANDFUL OF ALMOSTS!!! WHAT!!! every once and a while u just hit a title that Hits u u know. like a handful of almosts. yeah. what a deeply poignant and tragic thing. how fitting for the pjoverse, a universe of people who are haunted by their almosts. god. and then to turn around and make this story FLUFFY?? MAKE IT THE CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD??? "will solace and his rose coloured glasses" REESE!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!

5. Damage Control by @nikkira

“I couldn’t save Lee. I couldn’t save Michael. I couldn’t save Silena.” “You saved Annabeth when she was stabbed, right? And Annabeth was kind of imperative to the whole saving the world effort. The people you save go on to do things and help people and save people. When you lose someone, you lose them. But when you save someone, you save a dozen more people.”

"i dream of the people i could not save. they're mad at me." oh i am UNWELL. ill i tell you. i read this line and had to sit down for a little while like actually. one thing about will solace is that he never stops punishing himself and no one got that like this fic nine years ago

thank you for joining me this friday!! happy reading!!

[gunkreads]

I haven't had a chance to read Absolution yet, but I did just finish Acceptance, the third book of the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer, the other day.

Here's my review: Whew! Wow! Yowza! Holy fucking shit! Gosh golly!

Southern Reach is something special, that's for sure. I understand why it's been often placed in a genre called "The New Weird", though I can't claim to have had any experience with the Old Weird. It's fuckin' weird. I don't mean that in the sense that the events, settings, or characters in the story are weird (though they are); no, the technique is Weird.

I wrote a bit of my thoughts on Annihilation when I finished that book, and one thing I said there rang true for the next two books just as strongly: Vandermeer is fucking with you, the reader. Much of the story's plot hinges on subjective experiences of reality based on varying assemblages of information; a person with facts #1-#55 sees an entirely different world than someone with facts #2-#56. This is the general nature of Area X, the focal setting of the story, and informs every character relationship on the page.

There's too much to say about this story and too little of it can be explained without heavy spoilers, so I'm going to keep this short and just discuss the part of Southern Reach that made me rethink what a story is.

I've never seen another author write a book that seems so completely bulletproof in its execution. Where many authors will allow events to follow a path, complete it, and turn around to go back the way they came, Vandermeer always loops them back to the core on a brand-new path. Every new avenue he explores is linked to the ever-growing whole of the story, which ends up defined more by the connections between things than the things themselves.

This is evidenced most clearly by the fact that, a few dozen pages from the end of Acceptance, Vandermeer explains--explicitly and in full--exactly what has been happening the entire time. He does this in the space of a single paragraph, and it offers no closure, progress, or revelations to any characters. In fact, none of them even care. Their own stories and lives are too dense to have any single element at their core, so the realization of what Area X truly is means literally nothing to them. Vandermeer is fucking with you.

One other thing Vandermeer does that flies head and shoulders above other things I've read is set characters on differing levels of narrative "realness". Some of you might remember my deranged posts about Gawyn from Wheel of Time several years ago; Vandermeer does the thing I was joking about there, but he pulls it off while playing it straight.

Control, the perspective character of Authority, is a great example of this. If you picked a random page from Authority or Acceptance that mentions his name, you might find that he's being presented as a protagonist, a hero, an antihero, a villain, a reader self-insert, an author self-insert, a simplified archetype, a literary device, or even being reduced to just a word. His nickname, Control, sounds silly. Because Vandermeer is fucking with you.

Because of all this, I can confidently say that if it's possible to read Southern Reach too closely, I'm not capable of it. With the conflicting perspectives and web of misunderstandings, the coherence of every element into an interwoven whole, and the constantly-shifting levels of "realness" each of the story's elements exhibit, I think the story approaches or reaches a critical mass of informational density. Vandermeer amplifies the significance of all his facts by using the links between the facts as a megaphone; he demands that you interrogate the relationship between every pair of ideas and rewards your effort every single time.

I'm going to be realizing shit about these books for the rest of my fucking life, mark my words. If you like Thinkin' Books, I cannot recommend these enough. If you like Craft Books--ones that explore the potential of the medium of the written word--I cannot recommend these enough. Let Jeff Vandermeer fuck with you.

[rainydayandmondays]

Thanksgiving Potluck

Summary: It’s time for the annual Thanksgiving potluck at work. Andy wants to make sure that he brings something special for you. You worked so hard, you deserve it.

Pairing: Andy Barber X Reader, Jake Jensen

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: 18+ only. Explicit language, explicit sexual content, male masturbation, slight non-con

Author's Note: This came about after seeing a challenge to write a spicy Thanksgiving story. With the blessing of @georgiapeach30513 to use Andy Barber, this is what I got.

You had been planning the department’s Thanksgiving potluck for weeks. Running around, trying to get everyone to sign up to bring in something, even if it was just silverware and napkins. Andy never participated in these get-togethers. They were some weird kind of team building bullshit that he had never really subscribed to. Why play nice that one day, while all the remaining days everyone was trying to one up each other. Comparing their win-loss ratios like they were some goddamn a-list athletes. The fucking Red Sox, they were not.

But you had started earlier this year, right around Valentine’s day. He remembered your first day, you wore your pink button down shirt the first two buttons undone and your simple gold necklace nestled in the crux of your shirt. Your pencil skirt was knee-length but seemed to hug from your waist to your hips. He imagined his hands could skim down the sides of it as if it was a second skin. Then your sensible flats, all that up top and did you finish with three-inch heels? No, just sensible flats. The red nail polish on your fingers with a small heart decals on each ring finger, let him know that you enjoyed celebrating holidays.

He watched you as you grew into the department, quickly planting roots and befriending each person you met. You were easy to get along with, never really asked for much, but always willing to give. He had spent most of October working with you. You were assisting on the research for his latest case, spending nights in the conference room with law books spread out in front of the two of you and boxes of half-eaten Chinese in each of your laps. You had asked about his story as you took a break from the mind-numbing reading of passage after passage. He had given you the cliff-notes version. The “everything is pretty on the outside” story. Loving wife at home and kid excelling in school. It was easier that way. Even if he could tell you didn’t totally buy it, you let him lie.

You on the other hand, were open. Told him everything. You were a paralegal, barely starting out with dreams of making it to law school one day. A sick mother at home had meant your law school dreams had taken the back burner. Your mom had been part of the last of the baby boomers and their idealized version of marriage. She had taken care of the household, you and your dad. With her bedbound, your dad was completely lost. You took over and everything else had been pushed aside. No sign of any romantic partners or life outside of work and home. But the glint in your eye talking about becoming lawyer, let him know you had more to offer. You had told him how you had aced your LSATS, spent every night up until 4 in the morning studying for them. You were younger then, could handle the late nights. Shit, you are younger now. Just barely hitting your late 20s, if he had to guess.

After those nights spent over cold takeaway dinners and finishing the McDonald v. City of Newton case, he realized that family dinners with little more than polite conversation paled in contrast to those talks and stale fast food. He had tried to get you on his next case, but Neal had snatched you up the moment you were free. He remembered the apologetic look you gave him when he swung by your desk with some briefs to review.

“Sorry Mr. Barber. I’m already working with Mr. Longudice. But you can leave those here and I’ll look at them when I get a chance.” You fidgeted with your pen, twirling it between your fingers. It was your nervous tick, he had noticed it the first night when you had found a passage that completely derailed his current case plan.

He nodded and walked away, noticing Neal looking on from the corner smirking. Fuck him, he wasn’t going to just use you to improve his standing in the department. He watched as the month progressed and Neal worked you into the ground. He found you more and more frequently in the break room, loading up on coffee. You were up to four glasses a day. That couldn’t be good for you. Not if you still had to go home and get your mom ready for bed.

He started to stay later and later, just to make sure someone was still here when you left. Neal took most of his case work home, leaving you with a list of readings to cover and present the next day. He watched as you flipped through pages, making notes in the growing stack of legal pads, and only the small desk lamp providing any light. He told Laurie that he had a big case he was finishing up. It was easier to keep working at his desk, instead of making the trip home, only to end up in his study. It didn’t take much to persuade her. He was pretty sure she preferred having the time to herself, she barely moved when he finally made it home to bed.

One night, he had timed it just right to meet you at the elevators at the end of the night. He walked up behind you, watching as you raised your right foot to scratch at the back of your left calf. Your pencil skirt rippled around your hips as you ran your foot down your leg. The sensible flats, the same ones you had worn that first day skimmed down the back of your left calf and he wondered what it would be like to have you run those sensible flats down his pant leg. He could feel himself twitch in his dress pants. This was a first. Up until this point, he had found you endearing, wanting to help you as much as you helped everyone else. But now, right now, he could imagine grabbing onto your hips, dipping his head into the crook of you neck as he ground against your pert ass. He felt his cock harden that bit more at the image, starting to push against the fly of his dress pants. Using his overcoat from that day’s chilly morning, he covertly covered the front of his slacks.

It wasn’t until the chime announced the elevator’s arrival and you turned around, that he came out of his brief stupor. You smiled and waved him into the waiting lift. That smile did nothing to help him, he shoved his hand into pocket to discreetly adjust himself before walking towards you. Standing next to you, he could smell those last remnants of your perfume. Was it your perfume? It had been a 12 hour work day, maybe that smell was just you. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? You chatted with him, promising that you were going to get to those briefs he left. It would be the first thing you would work on the next day. He listened and tried his best to feign interest, but you then looked up at him as you made your promise to him, and all his brainpower was immediately redirected to willing away his excitement. His hand still in his pocket, it brushed against his tip and he cleared his throat to cover the small groan that wanted to escape.

Reaching the garage, he offered to walk you to your car. You had gestured to the nearly empty lot, but he only uttered, “Better to be safe.”

You only nodded, leading him to your small late 2000s sedan. Reaching the car, you opened the squeaky driver’s door and threw in your workbag and handbag, before easing yourself into the seat. Andy held the door open for you, only to close it once you had settled. Lowering your window, you gave him a smile, thanking him for the escort, “You really didn’t have to do that. You’re a good man, Mr. Barber.”

He leaned down into your window, sighing before bidding you a good night, “You get home safe, sweetheart.”

He hadn’t meant to let the term of endearment slip, but your bashful smile was all it took to let him know he would be using that name again. Watching as you drove off, he made his way to his car. Popping the trunk on the Audi and throwing in the coat and briefcase, he hustled back to front of the car. Giving one more look around the lot, he noticed the security cam pointed at the opposite corner of the garage. Slipping into the driver’s seat, he only took a second to think through his next action. Closing his eyes, he remembered your big eyes looking up at him in the elevator, promising him something and his hand reached down to his pants.

He hadn’t gone down, no matter how he tried to calm himself, his coat had been his only saving grace, hiding away his reaction to you. Wrestling with his belt and button of his pants, he shoved his fly open, grabbing onto himself through his boxer briefs. He had already been steadily growing a nice wet spot on the front side of his briefs. Admittedly, bumping against himself with his hand in his pocket as he walked with you, might have gone a long way to making that spot. A couple of strokes, he reached in and pulled himself out.

Fuck, his hands were still cold from outside. It made his cock jump in his hold and he imagined your little hand taking him. You would apologize to him about your cold hands.

“Sorry Mr. Barber. Let me warm up my hands.”  The imaginary you whispered to him.

“Andy. Call me Andy, sweetheart.” He mumbled into the empty car.

He spit into the palm of his hand, before wrapping it around himself. He could feel you next to him, cuddling as much as possible against him, reaching across the console. Your hand stoking up and down, making sure to twist around the head of his cock. He dribbled onto your fingers and you took your thumb rubbing it along the tip urging more to come out.

“Fuck sweetheart. That feels so good. You’re making me feel so good.” He grunted, his head falling back against the headrest.

He could hear you giggle at that, pressing hard against the vein on the underside of his cock, causing it to throb in your hold.

“Ah shit, sweetheart, squeeze me. I know your hand is so little but try my sweet girl. Come on, try for me.” You would hum at that, reaching between his legs and grabbing onto his sack. Rolling his balls in one hand as you steadily stroked him with the other, giving a squeeze to his cock before a squeeze to his sack.

“What do you need Andy? Whatever you need, I promise I’ll give it to you. Please Andy, tell me what you need.” The imaginary you nipped at his neck, murmuring another promise into his neck.

“Fuck me, sweet girl. Look at me, watch me cum for you. Just for you, sweet girl. Just for you…” He reached for the empty coffee tumbler in his console, placing it under the tip of his cock as he let go. Groaning he pulsed a couple times, continuing to stroke himself until he drained himself fully, because that’s what you would do. You would never do a half ass job.

Sitting back, he looked into the tumbler, seeing a layer of his cum coating the bottom of the cup. He hadn’t cum that hard in a long time. But he supposed a sexless marriage would leave him with a lot of pent-up energy. Remembering Laurie, he grabbed a couple of napkins from the glove compartment, wiping himself before shoving them into the tumbler. After buckling his pants, he started the car, backing out lot and turning onto the freeway for home.

That night had been a couple of weeks ago and he found himself hovering around your desk as much as possible, asking for help finding a text. He would time your coffee breaks and bump into you in the breakroom to make small talk with you. Each time he saw you, he tried to get you to smile. Even on your most stressful days, your shoulders hunch, he would make quick jabs at Neal which would inevitably cause a small giggle to pass your lips. He liked those times, the sound of your laugh would get stored away in his mind, coming out only in the shower as he painted the walls for you.

When you came by with the potluck sign up sheet earlier this week, you mentioned that there were still a few sides left that no one had chosen. Looking at the list, he saw the mashed potatoes listed and quickly jotted his name down beside it. He could probably get Laurie to make it for him. She had been in a better mood recently. Had waited up for him when he worked late. She would welcome him to bed and curl into his side, rubbing circles along his chest. He wasn’t sure what had changed, but if it meant not having to deal with a moody Laurie daily, he would take it.

The day of the potluck, he walked in finding most of the office milling about. It didn’t look like much would be getting done today. With Thanksgiving tomorrow, most had spent the last few days easing into their vacation. He looked at the conference room to see the spread already laid out, you were flitting around making sure everything was set up just right.

“Here you go, sweetheart,” you jumped a little as he came up behind you, placing the dish of mashed potatoes in front of you.

“This will be perfect,” you took the dish moving it next to someone’s version of cornbread stuffing.

Turning around, you smiled at him. He thought about stepping back from you, but instead stood still. Reaching up to his arm, you grabbed his elbow and let out small breath, “I should let everyone know it’s ready.”

Slipping from around him, you walked out to the bull pin area, inviting everyone to come and dig in. He watched as everyone hustled to the conference room as he stepped out of the other door. Making his way towards his desk, he settled down, starting up his computer to check some late correspondence. He needed to spend time with you but not with everyone around. He placed his coffee tumbler on the clay coaster that Jacob had made him back in 4th grade. Sighing, he would wait to talk with you later.

The din in the conference room started to slowly die down and looking at the clock he saw that it was nearly half past 2. Most of the office should be heading out for their holiday and he figured, now would be his best bet. Grabbing his stuff together, he headed back out to find the room mostly empty. He couldn’t possibly have missed you, could he? Staring out to the row of desks, he spotted your workbag and handbag still on your desk. So, you were here, just not in the conference room.

Walking into the breakroom, he saw you at the sink scrapping off food into the trash and rinsing off dishes. Standing in the doorway, he watched this small glimpse into the domestic side of you and fuck, if it didn’t do something for him. Imagining coming home to you in the kitchen, prepping dinner for the two of you. You would still have your work clothes on but only now you would be barefoot. You would relax into him as he came up behind you, arms circling your waist.

He let out a quick breath, shaking himself from his daydream, before setting down his bag on the small table in the room. Coffee tumbler in hand, he approached you, quietly interrupting your dishwashing, “I bet you haven’t even made yourself a plate.”

Looking down, followed by a small bashful smile, you nodded, “There was so much to do.”

Grabbing onto his mashed potatoes, he looked for a spoon before starting to serve a portion onto a plate, “Come on. It’s your potluck too. You should get to enjoy it too. Besides, you got to at least try these mashed potatoes. A lot of effort went into making them. Go on now, sit down.”

Watching you sit down, he turns back to the counter, grabbing the gravy boat beside the sink. Taking the coffee tumbler, he had set down, he carefully removed the lid before emptying the contents into the remaining gravy. He stared as the viscous liquid drizzled out. With the spoon, he quickly mixed the gravy with the new ingredient together before pouring out the mixture on the mashed potatoes.

Turning back towards you, you sat at the table patiently waiting for him as he set the plate in front you. Quickly thanking him, you dug in, spooning a generous amount, gravy and all, onto your utensil and bringing to your mouth.

“Mmm, that’s really good Mr. Barber. Kind of earthy tasting. Are there mushrooms in the gravy?” You looked at him, a small amount of gravy stuck to the side of your mouth.

“Something like that,” he whispered, eyeing that speck of gravy and reaching out to clean it from your lip.

“Oh, I’m a mess,” your cheeks heated as you grabbed a napkin to clean the corner of your mouth.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he replied, taking his thumb with gravy still on it and licking it clean, “Go ahead, finish it all.”

You followed his direction, cleaning your plate, your spoon making a sound as you laid it down. You had eaten it all. Enjoying it, if he were to go by the little happy noises you made as you ate. He knew you would love it.

“Here, let me put this up for you,” he took the plate and spoon back the sink and as he rinsed the plate, he asked over his shoulder, “Did you like it, sweetheart?”

“Yes, Mr. Barber. I promise.”

He gulped, steadying himself against the counter at your promise.

“You know, what, why don’t you take the rest home? There’s still a little bit of mashed potatoes and gravy left,” he asked already reaching for the lid of the Tupperware Laurie had used when packing it this morning.

“I couldn’t do that. You made it, you should take it home,” you answered next to him, and he realized that you must have gotten up from the table.

Locking the lid on the dish, he turned to you, already handing over the remaining potatoes covered in his gravy, “I insist.”

He had made that gravy just for you. After stroking another one out in the front seat of his car in the courthouse parking garage, he had sprayed another load into his tumbler. Looking at the cup again, he swore each session’s load was getting bigger even though this was a daily occurrence at this point. It had ended with a particularly bountiful finish, as he imagined you between his legs. Head bobbing on this cock, tits hanging from your top, before you had spit onto his cock, trapping it between your breasts and finishing him with a hard snuck to just the mushroom head of his cock.

It hit him then what a waste it was to rinse out his tumbler every night when he got home. You would love the taste of him. He knew would. Over the next few days, he collected each load, storing it in his coffee tumbler on the top shelf of his fridge at home. He had a couple of close calls when Laurie asked why he was keeping his coffee cold. He brushed it off, saying it was just water. He was trying to stop drinking so much coffee. Bad for his health. She had just nodded, leaving the tumbler alone.

“Thank you, Mr. Barber,” you nodded taking the dish with a smile.

“You can call me Andy. Promise you will?” He asked, shoving his hands into his pockets, giving himself room in the suddenly tight pants.

“I promise. Thank you, Andy,” smiling up at him, he swore you could feel what he did. He swore you knew exactly what he had given you. Swore that you were happy and willing to take it. His sweet girl would take anything he gave her.

“You almost done, Ace?”

Andy was interrupted from his trance, hearing a male voice enter the room.

“Jake!” You called to the blonde man walking into the room. His shirt was untucked and his tie not quite knotted straight.

“I’m supposed to take you out for a Friendsgiving dinner today, remember?” Jake moved towards you, wrapping an arm around your waist.

Who in the ever-loving fuck is this guy? Andy watched as you hugged Jake around the waist, shaking your head, ready to apologize, “I’m sorry Jake. My day got away from me. Oh, this my kind of boss, Andy. Andy Barber.”

Jake reached out a hand to him to shake while his other still stayed slung along your waist, “Jake. Nice to meet you.”

Andy looked at the hand in front of him, before nodding and giving this fucker a firm handshake. If he squeezed a little harder than he should, well that wasn’t on him.

“Go get your stuff together and then we’ll head out,” Jake whispered down at you, to which you just nodded and flitted out the room.

Stuck with just Jake in the room, Andy leaning back against the sink giving this other guy a once over. He wouldn’t be an issue. No way did this guy have the prowess or charm to lure you away. You were his sweet girl. This fucker wouldn’t change that.

“I’m only going to say this once, leave her alone.”

Andy looked back at Jake, eyebrow raised, before scoffing, “And who are you exactly?”

“I’m guy who knows how to download the feed from the parking garage’s cameras.” Andy swallowed hard as Jake stared him down. He refused to nod, instead crossing his arms and looking down.

“I’m ready Jake!” You came back in, your handbag slung over your shoulder and the mashed potatoes in your arms as Jake took your workbag from you.

“Let’s shake a leg then, Ace,” you giggled at Jake and Andy frowned. When did that giggle change from just being his?

“Bye Andy. I’ll see you next week. Happy Thanksgiving!”

Waving goodbye to the two of you, Andy waited to hear the ding of the elevator before grabbing the tumbler and throwing it across the room. It clanked against the wall before rolling back towards his feet.

Hands on hips, he looked down at the cup. It was okay. Jake couldn’t do anything to him. He had checked to make sure the cameras were never pointed at him. But you, his sweet girl, he needed a new plan. Grabbing the cup from the floor, he rinsed it before setting it next to the empty coffee maker.

It hit Andy then. You did love your coffee. And you always made sure to have cream with it.

@buckybarnesisdaddy, @theinheriteddutchess, @sarahdonald87

[sweetkpopmusings]

long for you (interlude) | h. hyunjin <3

a/n: here's the interlude! only one more part of the fic left after this </3 this one is angsty, but i hope you enjoy it nevertheless >.< currently at work so i might make edits to it later lol if you want to be added to the tag list, you can reply to this post or send me an ask! pics not mine <3

♡ find all parts here ♡

content: fluff, romance, fake dating, angst, a happy ending | wc: 3.7k | warnings: mentions of food/eating, lots of crying | pairing: nonbinary!painter!hyunjin x gn!writer!reader | requests: open

synopsis: y/n is a writer with a long-awaited, well-deserved career opportunity. despite the excitement, there’s one major problem: the publisher expects a modern love story, equally romcom-like and authentic, but y/n lacks the inspiration to write something worth reading. through a chance meeting with mutual friends, y/n and hyunjin bond over upcoming deadlines and creative blocks. before the conversation ends, they discover that the ridiculous plot of fake dating might just work to solve their inspirational dry spell.

interlude: love untold

“y/n!”

a familiar voice calls your name. you look around the crowd, searching for anyone you recognize, not quite sure what you’re trying to find. when you see his face, you understand why the way he called your name sounded so much like home.

chan hurries over the second you wave to him, and you instinctively smile at his lopsided curls bouncing with each step he takes. you melt into his bear hug, warmed by the contact and the closeness of his bright smile. it’s only once you realize that he has run into you here that you feel a tiny wave of shock roll over you.

“wait, chan,” you tilt your head, “how are you…why are you here?”

he laughs, “i’m just as surprised to see you, y/n. i’m here interviewing for a new job.”

“oh wow! that’s great! how did it go?”

“i have the interview tomorrow, actually. i figured i’d get in a day early to feel out the area and make sure i like it.”

“and? what’s your review so far?”

chan’s excited grin is replaced by a soft smile, “seeing you makes it perfect.”

with a simple sentence, chan has you blushing the way you did as a teenager. it didn’t take much to fall into the old rhythm with him: easy conversation, light touches, inside jokes suddenly at the front of your mind despite not having been uttered in years. you two could have lost yourselves in each other’s presence anywhere, but chan suggests you migrate into a coffee shop to continue the conversation. as your agenda for the rest of the day is empty, you lead chan to a nearby coffee shop, relaxing into your seat with your favorite drink and the comfort of an old companion.

“so, tell me everything that’s been going on with you!”

you laugh, “chan. we haven’t seen each other in what, two, three years now? i hardly think telling you everything is possible.”

“i thought you said you had the rest of the night free?”

you roll your eyes, and chan giggles at his own joke. quietly, you prioritize what information to share, careful not to spiral and think about how much has changed since your last conversation with chan.

“i guess i can start with the fact that i got a book deal.”

chan just about drops his drink, “no way, y/n! that’s amazing! wow! i knew you’d do it one day. i know it has been your dream for ages. i’m so proud of you!”

“thank you, chan,” you pause to ensure he knows the depth of your gratitude, “it is a ghostwriting contract, so my name won’t be on it, but it feels surreal that someone’s paying me to write a book.”

“do you know when it’ll come out? i need to be first in line to buy it.”

“i honestly have no idea, but i’m turning in the manuscript tomorrow. the first draft of it, anyway.”

“wooooow,” chan leans back in his chair, “i’m so impressed. you’re like a big-time author now.”

“okay, don’t get ahead of yourself,” you scoff, still complimented by his pride in you, “but what about you? what brings you here for a new job?”

“eh, nothing as exciting as your news. i just want something new. i haven’t been feeling inspired with the work i do now, and i need a change of scenery. i moved back home after we…you know. it was great to go back to my roots. it’s time for me to move forward, turn a new page, start a life where no one knows me. at least that was the plan until i ran into you.”

you both laugh, and you reply, “if your interview tomorrow goes well, i can act like i don’t know you, so things can go according to plan.”

chan laughs boyishly, the way you always remembered it, “i appreciate your support, but i’d hate nothing more than for you to forget about me.”

you nod. you’d often caught yourself wondering whether chan still thought about you, whether he remembered any details of you and your life together. the space between you two was never supposed to grow this vast, but you figure that’s just how these things go sometimes. you feel a pang in your chest, sitting across from him, aware of how much he still means to you, despite it all.

“not to draw attention to the elephant in the room,” chan starts, feigning confidence over the redness in his ears, “are you seeing anyone?”

“please,” you laugh dryly, “you know i’m not.”

chan hums, observing you for a few extra seconds, “something’s going on in your love life.”

“chan!” you gape at him with disbelief, “based on what evidence?”

he leans closer to you, elbows on the table and eyes focused, “come on. i know you better than most people, especially when it comes to this stuff. who is it?”

you frown, hoping you can get him to believe that nothing is happening. predictably, even after years of separation, chan waits patiently. silent, stubborn, supportive.

“fine,” you sigh, spinning your cup a few times to delay your admission, “i was involved–well, not really involved, per se. there was…someone. we had something. at least, i thought we did, and i thought they thought so too. then, they ended things without warning. i can’t say they were in the wrong because being able to end things was a part of our…agreement…but it still hurt. i felt–feel–blindsided and delusional and stupid for getting my hopes up. i don’t think there’s anything to do now except move on, which sucks because it felt special. but hey,” you laugh sordidly, “i’ve been wrong about that before.”

chan smiles, some sadness peeking through, “we both have been wrong about that before.”

you nod, coming up empty on what to say next. chan watches you to ensure you’ve shared everything you wanted to before he speaks again.

“i’m sorry, y/n. i don’t know what they were thinking, and i won’t ask you to dredge up every detail, but i don’t need to know the whole situation to know that they made a mistake. you are so special. loving and being loved by you is the greatest gift i’ve ever known. you deserve someone who recognizes that, and i’m sorry that they weren’t smart enough to.”

you clear your throat, overwhelmed by chan’s words, “thanks, chan.”

“of course,” he smiles, “i’m what you could call an expert on this subject.”

you both laugh again, and chan continues, “all i wanted to do was give you the best. i still want to. i always thought if we saw each other again…” chan pauses to ensure he’s caught your gaze, “i would love to be the person that gives you what you deserve, if you’d let me.”

oh. 

“chan…”

“you don’t have to answer right now. besides, i wouldn’t ask for your time if we still lived as far apart as we do now. i just mean that, one way or another, i’d love to be back in your life. i still love you, and i always will, regardless of what that love looks like.”

a smile spreads across your face. chan, as you always remembered, never fails to surround you with warmth. you tell him so as you both say your goodbyes. you promise to call, much to chan’s excitement. he promises to tell you how the interview goes, and you can’t help but hope that he gets the job in the city, this city, your city. 

later, while you muscle through the final edits of your first manuscript, jisung stops by to confirm that you’re eating and drinking enough. against your best efforts, you mention chan right away.

“chan’s here?” jisung’s eyes are wide, though you can’t tell with which emotion.

you nod, “yeah, he’s interviewing for a job tomorrow.”

“oh wow, good for him!” jisung pauses his celebration for chan to ask the inevitable, “how did it feel to see him after…everything?”

you sigh, wondering how far down memory lane you were willing to travel, “it felt…good. we were comfortable right away, and, though it was clear time had passed, we were as connected as we had always been. he actually…i think, if he moves here, he wants to give us another shot.”

“whoa,” jisung looks arguably more shocked than you were when chan made his abrupt confession.

“yeah. i was surprised too. but i don’t know…i felt surprised in a good way, i think. obviously the whole hyunjin situation is fresh, and i’d be lying if i said i was over it. yet running into chan randomly for him to admit that he still wants to be with me, in some capacity at least, maybe that’s happening for a reason. i’ve felt so cynical about love for a long time. what if chan is the happy ending i’ve been craving all along?”

“i’m glad that seeing him went so well,” jisung chuckles, “i know when you two were with each other, you constantly talked about building a future together. you were happy with chan, there’s no denying that. but…”

“i know, i know,” you cut him off, so he doesn’t have to be the one to bring up the uncomfortable reminder, “he was my first love, and my first heartbreak. i can’t forget that he ended things because i distanced myself from him. i was scared, jisung. even though, or perhaps because, we were so young, our relationship was so idyllic. everything seemed to line up perfectly, and yet there was a pit in my stomach because i always worried that something was missing. could it have been that i found what was missing by growing up?”

“you sound like me,” he teases, a bit impressed, “it genuinely could be that you needed time apart to figure yourselves out before you could make it work. you and chan were great together; anyone could see that. if giving that relationship another, more mature try, is the right move, then you have my full support. but y/n…is chan the one you want to be with?”

“i…” you glance over at the poem hanging on your fridge, briefly feeling the way hyunjin’s words had moved you that night not so far in the past, “i’ve been feeling cynical about love and relationships for a long time. seeing chan made me feel hopeful again.”

“was it really chan that changed your mind?”

you roll your eyes and scoff, “whatever hyunjin made me feel doesn’t count. we weren’t even together anyway.”

jisung sighs, “just because you weren’t technically together doesn’t mean you didn’t build a relationship. the way you felt about hyunjin is what changed your mind on love, if you ask me. and, as we’ve already established, i have earned my wisdom when it comes to love.” 

you both laugh, relieving the tension. jisung definitely knew what he was talking about, and you know that he wouldn’t say anything regarding your love life if it weren’t important.

“what do you think i should do?”

a sweet and sympathetic smile appears on jisung’s face, “you know i can’t answer that. what i can say is i hope you chase after what’s right for you now. the younger version of you deserved real love, and who you are now deserves real love. that love might look different, whether it comes from the same person or not. it’s probably the romantic in me, but i think you’ll know if you’ve found that love. i hope you trust your gut, and i’ll support you no matter who or what you choose.”

with that, you thank him and remind him that you have a novel to finish, which means you don’t quite have the time for an existential crisis about love tonight. he laughs, wishes you luck, and heads home. you sit at the table for a while, quietly thinking to yourself about the events of the day. you never thought you’d be in a position like this, but you guess that signing up to live out one fanfic trope makes you more susceptible to living out other ones too. with that in mind, after finishing your edits, you decide to add one last line to the ending.

after all that had happened to us, and in spite of whatever would come, the center of everything was this: i have longed for you since the moment i met you; therefore, i will always love you. 

before you can second guess yourself, you send it to your publisher and close your laptop. unable to resist the tears, you sit at your kitchen table, full of relief and sadness, and cry. regardless of what tomorrow brings, one love story has ended. in chasing toward your tomorrow, you have to live with saying goodbye. 

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

“hyunjin!” jeongin looks up from his desk, face composed but eyes wide with surprise, “i wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.”

hyunjin approximates a smile to the best of their abilities, “i figured i should hand the final piece in directly.”

“as always, i appreciate the personal touch,” jeongin grins and points to the large canvas leaning against hyunjin’s body, “is that it?”

“yes,” they gaze down, peeking at the image, “i finally finished it.”

quiet, hyunjin places the painting on a work table in front of jeongin. jeongin examines it, thoroughly dedicated to appreciating every brushstroke. the compliments on his artistic choices are personal and detailed, but hyunjin barely registers them. they’re sure they will be able to hear the precise, sincere feedback a different night, maybe when the exhibition opens, so hyunjin only feels a twinge of regret at being spaced out yet again. jeongin must have been able to tell that hyunjin was only half there because he quickly transitions his praise into a goodbye. hyunjin gratefully accepts the exit plan.

“oh, and hyunjin?”

hyunjin pauses near the door, facing their friend with their full attention, “yeah?”

“take care of yourself, yeah?”

“of course.”

hyunjin makes it only a block before the tears start streaming. hearing those words from jeongin, the type of friend to refrain from casual sentimentality, breaks hyunjin’s thinly veiled detachment. the facade they barely maintained in the past few weeks lacked resilience. how could there be any solidity to him when hyunjin spent the recent past floating away?

they walk aimlessly for some amount of time, landing at a park bench. the afternoon sun would usually deter them from this spot, but the overcast sky makes the place feel less visible, less connected to the rest of the outside world. hyunjin hadn’t been outside for more than a few minutes at a time since the conversation at the restaurant, so they melt into the bench with hopes that vitamin d will cure them of their self-inflicted heartbreak. cure is perhaps too strong of a hope. hyunjin doesn’t believe anything could undo the hurt he caused, but he wants to believe that the suffering won’t last forever. 

in case the sunshine can’t clear all their problems away, hyunjin calls minho. they feel selfish and stupid and hate that they could be interrupting someone else’s good day, but he can’t think of anything useful on his own. all the time in the studio, all the distancing from friends, all the nights spent writing in their journals couldn’t remove the pit in their stomach, the rock in their chest. the guilt weighed so much more because your name was written all over it.

“hyunjin,” minho answers on the third ring, “how can i help you?”

they laugh through the tears, sniffling, “your customer service knows no bounds.”

“i expect a tip.”

hyunjin laughs again, grateful for a fleeting lightness in his chest before confronting everything that’s crashing down, “minho, i messed up.” 

minho sighs on the other side of the line, “do you want to talk about it?”

thankfully, minho doesn’t rush hyunjin to respond. hyunjin, overcome with just about every emotion they’ve felt in the past few weeks, feels another wave of tears emerge in the presence of his friend’s patience and understanding. they’re not sure what they’re looking for, but being able to admit their mistakes feels like the right place to start.

“i really cared about y/n. like…deeply. more than i’ve cared about someone in a long time, if ever. i miss them, and it’s my fault. it’s like a sick joke. this whole arrangement was built around us finding inspiration for our work, and now, because i got scared, i learned what yearning actually feels like. i feel it in my body, like the urge to reach out for something–someone–that isn’t there anymore. it’s so cliché, and i used to make fun of people for saying it when they went through a breakup, but i look for y/n in everything i see. they’re gone. the feeling of them beside me is like a phantom limb, but i am responsible for the amputation. i feel like i can’t even be sad about it because i’m the one who left. i can’t even say i don’t know what went wrong because i ruined it. i regret it. minho, i don’t know what to do.”

“hyunjin,” minho sighs, “you need to be kinder to yourself. yes, you made a mistake, but you don’t deserve to tear yourself apart for it.”

“don’t i though? what i have–had–with y/n was so special. they deserve so much more than what i gave them, what i was giving them and then immaturely ripped away. they were so kind to me, so honest. and i threw that all away without so much as an explanation.”

“okay,” minho lets out a breath with a hint of frustration, “i really think you’re taking this self-flagellation thing way too far, but i won’t waste time arguing with you if you don’t want to believe me–”

“where did you learn ‘self-flagellation’?”

“hyunjin, seriously?” minho deadpans.

hyunjin can perfectly picture the annoyed look on minho’s face, and he laughs, “sorry, you’re right. we were being serious and vulnerable. i shouldn’t have interrupted with a joke.”

“exactly, you shouldn’t have interrupted the vulnerability.”

“are you talking about you or y/n now?”

“a little bit of both, but mostly y/n. you got scared because you two were so open with each other. you felt seen in a way you hadn’t before. that’s rare. all of us would be or have been intimidated by something like that.”

“not everyone runs away though,” hyunjin frowns, kicking a rock by their foot, “i did the thing you’re not supposed to do when you find someone as…perfect as y/n.”

“do you want them back?”

hyunjin bites his lip, scared even now to be honest about their desire, “it’s not like they would give me a second chance. they’re smarter than that.”

“that’s not the question i asked,” minho replies, kind yet firm.

panicking, they reply, “you know, even though it was a fake relationship, we kissed once. it was my idea, sort of as a joke. we did it anyway, ‘for the plot,’” hyunjin chuckles, “there was this clarity, in the seconds after we kissed. i realized then and there that i was far more tied to y/n than i ever expected or could have hoped. i know it sounds dramatic, but it’s like, with them, my heart and soul were…now they’re…life isn’t…i just thought that things would have turned out a completely different way, and maybe i was romanticizing things–i probably was, i always do–but that doesn’t change the fact that…” 

hyunjin pauses their rambling to take a deep breath, knowing there are only a few words left to say, “i want to be with y/n.”

for a brief second, the weight of everything falls away into sweet certainty. hyunjin wants to be with you, plain and simple. their stomach twists at the fact that you weren’t together because they ran away, but his heart leaps in hope that maybe things could still change.

“do you feel better now that you’ve said it?”

hyunjin sighs, relief rather than regret, “yeah. i do.”

“good,” minho pauses, and hyunjin imagines he’s cracking his knuckles in preparation for the nitty gritty advice he’s about to drop, “i think it’s important to point out that, just because you were fake dating each other doesn’t mean that you two didn’t have a relationship at all. you shared a connection, and the bond you built together was real, even if you weren’t earnestly trying to be romantic partners.”

oh.

hyunjin stays silent, so minho continues, “like i said, running away from someone, something special, because you’re scared of how much they mean to you is a mistake we all have or will make. don’t keep beating yourself up for it. also, don’t keep being dumb by avoiding y/n. if you feel the way you say you feel, then you owe it to yourself and to them to be honest, even if it’s coming a little late. take a chance. you’re already hurt, and you’ve already hurt them. what else do you have to lose?”

“i can’t believe you called me dumb while giving me the most insightful advice i’ve ever heard.”

minho laughs, “life’s about balance, hyunjin.”

hyunjin rolls their eyes, ���i guess you’re right. about both things.”

“mhm. i usually am.”

hyunjin scoffs, “okay, if you’re going to gloat about being wise, i’m going to hang up.”

“good!” minho sighs the way one does after a long day’s work, “it’ll give you time to figure out how you’re going to get your person back.”

“you’re so annoying,” hyunjin huffs, “thank you. i’ll tell you how it goes.”

minho hums in agreement, rushing out a don’t forget to stop being dumb! as hyunjin ends the call. hyunjin sets their phone down next to them on the bench and takes a deep breath. the late afternoon is already melting its way into the evening. as hyunjin stares at the setting sun in the distance, they think about the beloved painting above their desk. out there, somewhere in the same city, there’s a chance you are at your bedroom window, saying goodbye to another day with hyunjin on the outside, a part of the world not welcomed into your home. what they wouldn’t give to change that.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

tag list: @velvetmoonlght @tirena1 (<333 tysm)

[deke-rivers-1957]

King Creole Review

There's a lot of history with this movie. Based on the Harold Robbins book A Stone for Danny Fisher, Hal Wallis bought the rights to make a movie with the intent on casting James Dean in 1955. However, with the death of James Dean in that same year, this movie was initially canceled. It wasn't until Hal heard of the successful off-Broadway version in 1957 that Elvis was considered for the lead role. Production was very troubled due to Elvis getting his draft notice a month before filming began. To avoid losing money that was already invested, Elvis had to get a 60 day deferment.

With Elvis officially able to film, the plot had to be retooled to fit Elvis' southern roots including changing the setting to New Orleans as well as making him a singer instead of a Jewish boxer. This movie has the luxury of being filmed in New Orleans' French Quarter with the Fisher family living right on the infamous Bourbon Street. Given the nature of the original story, famous director Micheal Curtiz was selected in addition to well experienced cast. Once filming was completed, Elvis was officially inducted into the army only two weeks later. Considered by fans as the most cinematic Elvis movie, does it deserve the title as the best Elvis movie or is this movie overrated and a complete rush job to cash in on Elvis astronomical rise to fame? Let's find out.

We are immediately greeted by pure New Orleans aesthetics with various black street vendors singing about their wares. I know it's not on the official soundtrack so I'm lumping it in with "Crawfish" as it marks the first time we ever get a duet in an Elvis movie. When I think about that song, I actually don't think about Elvis. I think about Kitty White and all of the vendors vocals. I was impressed that we emphasize the history of New Orleans by focusing on the French Quarter as that's the oldest neighborhood in the city. I couldn't think of a better way to start the film off.

Danny and his family are introduced and we're told that both Danny as well as his sister Mimi have to work. Ever since their mother died, Mr. Fisher couldn't keep a job to save his life. You can tell this is a dated movie because programs that would've at least slightly helped this family wouldn't exist until the 1960s. Heck food stamps wouldn't even exist until 1964. While there were programs meant for unemployment and dependent children, it's obvious that they don't qualify for that. Even if they did, the apartment they live in is all they can afford. It's a very bad place to be in so of course you understand why Danny wants to graduate and start working full time.

Before going to school, Danny works a couple hours at a nightclub as a bus boy. We see based on the sign outside as Danny walks in that it's interestingly enough called the Gilded Cage. The name as we'll find out is more than fitting. Some men are completely drunk and one of them wants to dance with a woman named Ronnie. The interaction makes you feel very uncomfortable because you know that while Danny can just keep his head down to avoid trouble, the situation was getting wildly out of hand. So to avoid having to listen to Ronnie getting beat, he decides to sing. It's incredible how right off the bat, this movie doesn't hesitate to build off the gritty nature Jailhouse Rock tried to develop.

"Steadfast, Loyal And True" feels like a moment of irony. Danny is being made fun of for going to school. Ironically it also represents Danny's innocence. It still doesn't stop the man from hitting Ronnie again and we see Danny directly get himself involved so the situation doesn't continue to escalate. He makes sure that Ronnie is safe on his way back to school. Yet when he does get in trouble for getting into a fight, the teacher decides to fail him. The principal goes along with it as if there was no other alternative and he has no authority to overrule her judgement since they didn't even hear Danny's side yet. Danny wouldn't have gotten into that fight, if he didn't get Ronnie out of there. And now he's being punished by a system that's meant to keep kids off the streets. Had Danny been allowed to graduate, none of this would've happened. But because it didn't, we are seeing Danny come to a point in life where he's questioning if doing the right thing is worth it anymore.

Deciding to quit school, Danny runs into Shark's gang. Shark gets mad because Danny punched his brother. We get introduced to his two lackeys, Sal and Dummy. Naturally there's a lot wrong with a man being called Dummy when he's very clearly mute (or at the very least has severe issues with speaking), but this is 1958. People with disabilities were treated poorly on a regular basis to the point of it being normalized. While Shark wants to get even for what Danny did to his brother, Danny doesn't mess around by immediately pinning Shark against the wall. Having a certain amount of respect, Shark offers to let Danny in with the gang about a possible job. Danny still wanting to have a good moral standing of course says no and heads home.

As soon as he gets home, everyone's disappointed to hear that he wouldn't graduate. Somehow Mr. Fisher makes an agreement with the principal that Danny can graduate after one semester if he can get the job at the pharmacy. That's right his dad's a pharmacist and you really start to question what on earth he did with his life if they fell on hard times that fast. I know that they lived in the French Quarter for 3 years because he went into a depressive state and couldn't work, but you seriously have to question on how someone can go to medical school to get a pharmaceutical degree and not have any kind of nest egg saved up. Even back in the 1950s, people in the medical field would've been comfortably well off. But regardless, I get why you have this since you need to have Danny make it very clear why he's so aggressive. Mr. Fisher has no backbone or self respect that even when he gets punched in the face, he didn't do anything about it.

To prove his point that he'll never end up spineless like his father, Danny decides to join Shark's gang. While he doesn't actually steal anything, he does sing "Lover Doll" to distract the crowd. I have no idea why the entire store gets distracted by this but it works. I also have no idea why a nickel and dime store would have anything expensive like watches or jewelry but at that point you just have to say "whatever". So to avoid suspicion, Danny hangs around the counter where he meets Nellie. For some reason, she says that she knew he was in on it, but doesn't do anything about it. I admit this whole scene is just weird but we have so much movie left that you kind of forget about this. I'm also just realizing that if Nellie is just now meeting Danny for the first time, yet we see that she's in walking distance from her house, she's older than Danny. The Fisher's lived in that apartment for 3 years and that school looks small enough where everybody knows everybody. For all we know she could be Mimi's age.

Meanwhile we get a very blatant case of ageism in the workforce. Mr. Fisher goes to the pharmacy for a job and if it wasn't for the head pharmacist's boss saying if he's qualified he should get the job, he wouldn't have gotten the job. Mr. Primont outright says that he wanted a younger man to Mr. Fisher's face. Throughout the movie we see that Mr. Primont only wants a younger man so he can train them to do it his way. It's pretty progressive to not pull any punches when showing this. They do not hesitate to make it clear that Mr. Fisher is being discriminated because of his age as opposed to a genuine display of incompetence. In fact, Mr. Primont's boss makes it a point to say that Mr. Fisher shouldn't be judged by his age or by the quality of his suit but his competence and that they've gone through a lot of younger pharmacists that couldn't cut it. So Mr. Primont begrudgingly hires him.

Later that night Danny runs into Ronnie again but also finally meets his boss, Maxie Fields. Maxie being the jealous type, thought she was cheating on him with Danny. She tries to make it clear that things were innocent as she heard him sing and Danny of course goes along with it. After all, any decent human being who already saw someone like Ronnie getting abused would do what it takes to make sure it doesn't happen again. Calling his bluff, Maxie wants Danny to sing right on stage. I genuinely think "Trouble" has one of the most natural build ups in an Elvis movie. It's a character defining song as you get the idea that Danny is singing it directly to Maxie. The black jazz musicians also showcases the sense of scale where people of color aren't just used as window dressing to fill in the shot. If Danny was asked to sing a capella or with the Blue Moon Boys cameoing as his back up band, it wouldn't work. It would feel like an Elvis song. But because we did get black jazz musicians to reflect the New Orleans setting, this is no longer an Elvis song but Danny's. And he makes his point loud and clear.

He gets introduced to Charlie LeGrand who owns the King Creole and offers Danny a job. In an act of foreshadowing, Maxie comes in and says that even if Danny leaves he'll always get what he wants. Knowing that Danny can sing, Maxie of course would want him too. Danny leaves the club as he doesn't want to make a rash decision and we see more of Shark's gang as well as a blatant case of ableism. Shark doesn't want to give Dummy (which I'm not calling him for the rest of this review) his equal share of the money made from their theft and that he should be thankful to be getting anything. But that's where we get Danny making the decision to step up and take the money out of Shark's hand so he can give it to the man. This is where Danny shines as a character since we see that even when he does something wrong, he still has some morality to him. While he did participate in the larceny, he also made sure that the money was distributed fairly even though he knew this would put him in Shark's bad graces. There will be times when he very easily could've made a bad moral decision if it benefited him, but instead tried to keep kind.

Danny picks up Nellie after work and we get another instance of him making a bad decision but still keep kind. When he takes her to the motel, he pays the man at the front desk to get a room. Obviously his intention was to bed her, but Nellie starts getting nervous. Once he sees that she while she does like him, she isn't ready for that type of relationship he backs off. Even though he just paid for the room and there's even images of a deleted shot of them in the room, they leave. This is when we see Danny realize that despite his reputation of being a hoodlum, he really doesn't act like one.

When Ronnie shows up, even when he kisses her, I don't take it as him actually being interested. He just thinks he is because he thinks this is the type of girl that he deserves. A good girl like Nellie would just be wishful thinking since he was only minutes if not seconds away from bringing her down with him. Of course, Danny still has his moments of morality as he's willing to stick up for his father. After checking in on him at the pharmacy, he sees Mr. Fisher getting berated by Mr. Primont. While he doesn't reveal that he's Mr. Fisher's son, he does stick up for him by saying that his father saved his life after getting a bad prescription. Sure it's a lie, but he needs Mr. Primont to see that even though Mr. Fisher isn't a young man, he's competent. All he needs to do now is to get a spine.

Once he talks with Mr. LeGrand, Danny invites him to dinner so he can try to convince Mr. Fisher to let Danny work. Then we get a weird scene where he expresses interest in Mimi. If we're assuming she's in her 20s that's fine, but Mr. LeGrand looks way older than 40. I know people back then didn't put that much thought in preventing wrinkles, but it visually looks weird to have this man want to date a woman young enough to be his daughter. I don't hate it though since if Danny makes his club a success and Mr. LeGrand marries Mimi, she'll be able to stop working. Since we don't know exactly what she does, we can assume that she's really only working so they don't starve as opposed to genuinely being interested in it.

Despite his father's wishes, Danny has his first show at the King Creole. But first we're treated to Forty Nina in Hollywood's tribute to Josephine Baker. It's so on the nose that not only is she French, but her song is literally called "Banana" and she has that same strip tease outfit with bananas on it. I highly recommend looking up Josephine's story as she did a lot more than just work as an erotic dancer. My personal favorite factoid was that she was a prominent black figure who aided the French Resistance during WWII. Anyway, Danny has his first performance at the King Creole. At first the crowd sits on their hands, but after "Dixieland Rock" it's hard not to get the club buzzing.

With Danny being a success, he tries to take things a little further with Nellie. He goes on a ferry ride with her so he can show her the old house his family used to live in. You really get the idea that this house is his motivation to work so hard. He wants to be a success so one day he can buy that house back. And this to me also confirms that whatever feelings he has for Ronnie aren't that serious. He never opens up to her about this the way he does with Nellie. If anything this is a tieback to the mindset people had where good girls are for serious relationships. Bad girls were for fooling around and with how they parallel Nellie and Ronnie it's obvious that both represent the two paths Danny can take. At his second show he sings "Young Dreams" and I love how it fits into what we've seen about Danny so far. The songs really add to the narrative as they reflect Danny's emotional state.

After getting an update on his father and seeing that nothing changed about Mr. Primont, he runs into Shark again. No harsh words this time, but a way to get Danny in with Maxie. Shark proposes that if Danny comes with him, he'll help Danny take care of Primont. This goes about as well as you think as Maxie turns Danny off with every sentence he utters. The way he has Ronnie show off her legs makes him feel uncomfortable and I get why. The objectification of her when she clearly hates it, is enough to make anyone feel gross. Even if he did have feelings for her, watching her do this knowing it's because Maxie is baiting him makes him feel sick inside. Leaving the apartment with no deal made, Danny sings "New Orleans" and I just love how with every song, the atmosphere around him seems to get darker. That indicates that while things might look good, we're actually being led to something more sinister.

That something sinister very quickly comes as Danny leaves ahead of his next show to call the plot off with Shark. As angry as he was with Mr. Primont, he knew that he couldn't go through with it. He realized that if this success lasts, he can get his father out of this trouble on his own. Things go from bad to worse when we see that instead of Mr. Primont, Mr. Fisher goes to take the money to the bank. Even though they saw that it was Mr. Fisher, they still go through with it. They were already in too deep to quit and knowing Maxie and Danny, this is exactly what they need to get Danny under his thumb. Danny meanwhile just runs away feeling guilty about it. Mimi sends Nellie to get Danny and bring him to the hospital where they find out there's a lot of pressure in his brain. To save his life, a specialized surgeon will have to be brought in and it's very expensive. I'm well aware that insurance exists and it would've covered a good portion of it since this was a life or death situation, but even then the bill for his eventual recovery would still be a lot more than what they can afford.

Enter the surgeon courtesy of Maxie Fields who is willing to pay for everything. Naturally Mr. Fisher lives and we get the most vulnerable acting in any Elvis movie. Danny reminds us all that he's only 19. While men were expected to be mature by then, from a modern perspective you get the idea that this is a boy. Danny age wise might be an adult, but experience wise and emotionally speaking he's still a boy. He very much does his best to act like an adult, but this was his breaking point. I wouldn't be surprised if he actually fainted because of how stressful it was to wait all those hours. Thankfully he's able to go to another show and sing "Hard Headed woman". It's amazing how light everything is now reflecting how Danny thinks everything will be ok. We're treated to the titular song, "King Creole" and Danny's on top of the world.

That is until Shark shows up. Knowing Danny's in debt to him, Maxie asks for him to be sent to the apartment. That's when we see the trap being laid up when Ronnie is shown in an attractive dress and Maxie's dead asleep. She even makes it clear that her job is to seduce Danny so Maxie can then present him with a bill for using her "services". Every scene with Ronnie is sad since it's obvious that she's being abused. This clearly isn't a situation where she can go to the police. She does fight back against Maxie, so fear isn't the reason behind her silence. Maxie wouldn't be doing this without fear of being punished if he genuinely thought the police would do anything.

Danny of course empathizes with her since she was once a singer like him and tries to give her some affection in spite of it being a trap. And of course, Maxie wakes up in time to see Danny. While Danny does evade the bill trap, Maxie succeeds in trapping him via blackmail. I mean if it was just "sign with me or I'll tell your dad about your involvement with the robbery" Danny himself made it clear that he doesn't care about it. However, Maxie ups the ante by saying "sign with me or Charlie's place'll be filled with stink bombs. Maybe even real bombs. Anything can be made into an accident after all". That's right we got a threat of terrorist attack if Danny doesn't sign. Even if it is a bluff, you don't mess around with innocent lives like that. The meme above summarizes my thoughts on the matter since no rational human being would be able to make a good decision in that situation either.

We return to the dark scenery as Danny makes his final appearance at the King Creole. "Don't Ask Me Why" indeed. I don't think Danny telling anyone now would be any good. All it would do is drag them all down. Can you imagine having to look your sister in the eye as she chews you out for betraying everyone? Insanity. And yet Danny does this because he doesn't want anyone else getting hurt.

This includes Nellie. He breaks things off with her but can't tell her why. You just feel bad because as much as it's a self sabotage, you can't really blame him for doing this. Things continue to get worse as his mute friend writes a note saying Mr. Fisher is talking with Maxie. While he doesn't know the situation, he at least tries to support Danny's career by pleading for Maxie to let him stay. He's worried that the loss of Danny would result in LeGrand's club closing. That would mean his daughter's future would be in danger too. After seeing Shark come in, Mr. Fisher says that he's going to go to the police. That's when Maxie let it slip that Danny was in on the robbery.

The outcome is when things officially get out of hand. The look on Mr. Fisher's face when he found out Danny would sink so low. He's so angry that he doesn't even say anything. He basically disowns Danny for this. With the agreement being broken, Danny has nothing to lose. He attacks Maxie with such a ferocity, that you think he could actually kill Maxie if he didn't get hit in the head with a chair. Interesting fact, that chair was real. It was simply made of balsa wood so it wouldn't be as painful. Walter Matthau who played Maxie once said in an interview that during a practice shot, Elvis actually vomited after being hit because he just had lunch. And when you hear the sound of him hitting Danny with the chair, it sounds so real that you forget you're watching a movie.

Danny of course recovers long enough to take out Maxie so he and Ronnie can escape. Maxie meanwhile, notifies Shark and his gang to attack Danny. Knowing that he's being followed, Danny tries to hide long enough for him to knock one of them out. Biding his time until Shark appears, the two scuffle with a knife. In a scene where you genuinely worry that Danny might die in this fight, the tension is through the roof. It gets so serious that while Danny does succeed in not dying but letting Shark stab himself in the chest by accident, the damage was done. Danny had been stabbed himself in the arm.

The cinematography of Danny trying to get back home is so beautiful. You know things are looking bad with how he stumbles just getting up the stairs. I was in total shock to see blood running down Danny's arm after Mr. Fisher turned him away. Based on the blood flow being that heavy that you see it already dripping down to his hand, you just know a major vein was severed. With the adrenaline waning, Danny starts to faint from blood loss. This is when you know if it wasn't clear earlier that this movie has teeth. It's not afraid to show someone die and also isn't afraid to show Danny almost die too. But this is when we get to see his fate turn around where as bad as things are, him choosing to be kind is being rewarded. Because we clearly saw that he wasn't completely uneducated, Danny's mute friend communicated to Ronnie that Danny was in trouble. If he didn't do that, Danny would've bled to death right in that alley because she wouldn't have known to look for him.

I don't fault Ronnie at all for not taking Danny to the hospital. While it was a big risk to not address his wounds as you have no idea how long Danny would last after passing out, going to the hospital would've made him an easy target for Maxie. Maxie already had one doctor in his back pocket, so he would've been untouchable and "made it look like an accident" when he would kill Danny. In Ronnie's mind, going to her hideaway was her best shot at saving him and giving them both enough time to recover. Danny was in no position to function so quickly after losing blood. We even get a cinematic shot that once they make it to her hiding place, he's sweating bullets and is so dizzy that he can't even see straight before passing out again.

After waking up, Danny realizes that Ronnie saved his life. They fool around for a while and at this point you just know that she's going to die. Every scene where she's talking about Maxie's abusive nature, you know that this story isn't going to end well. So I don't mind at all to have what feels like a moment of peace here because it serves a purpose. Ronnie and Danny would never get together even if she did live. She just wanted to know what it was like to have someone give her genuine affection. Even though Danny does feel conflicted, I don't think it's because he genuinely feels attracted to Ronnie. It's because he feels bad that she was in that situation and wants to comfort her.

Of course you have Maxie eventually find them. As confusing as that is, we just have to assume he had people follow her since it would've been very suspicious to have her disappear that long. She did say after that Danny was in and out of consciousness for the past 2 days. You know ahead of time that they couldn't just stay in that shack forever. Maxie with full intent on killing both of them brings a gun and starts to shoot at them. Danny's kindness is once again rewarded in a way as if his mute friend didn't warn him the best he could about Maxie, both him and Ronnie would've died. He even goes as far as to go up to Maxie to try wrestling the gun away. While he did try Ronnie gets shot in the process, but thanks to Danny's friend getting into the scuffle, Maxie fatally shoots himself by accident. Danny might have been saved but it was too late for Ronnie as she dies in his arms happy to know that at least for one brief moment she was loved again.

After Ronnie's tragic demise and Maxie's downfall, Danny is free to go back to the King Creole. Even though we don't know how much time passes, we don't need to for us to figure out that things have gotten better. Normally I would criticize something like that being resolved in a way that the audience doesn't get to see, but that isn't the case in this movie. Danny breaking things off with Nellie so he can keep her safe from Maxie is a justifiable action that she would easily understand. Her agreeing to wait for Danny to recover from the traumatic events shows that she's a level-headed woman. As for his father, Mr. Fisher almost had his son die. That's enough to erase anything that he didn't agree with. Unless he's inhumanly unreasonable, I don't think Danny explaining that if didn't sign with Maxie, actual acts of terrorism would've been committed would result in Mr. Fisher saying that he could've done anything different. Any normal human being would understand that this was a horrible situation that Danny had no way of preventing without completely throwing away his core values.

The bittersweet ending is very well balanced. Danny singing Ronnie's song "As Long As I Have You" makes for a nice tribute. I appreciate that the movie doesn't just time skip to Danny singing a musical number about how great everything is. It would be a severe case of emotional whiplash and would have gone against what the tone of the movie was. Danny went through a traumatic event most people can't even fathom happening. He should be allowed to grieve while also getting closure. Singing Ronnie's song on stage does both as it's making it so her song is heard and never forgotten. That being said, I wish we got to see what happened with Danny's mute friend. Knowing that he was only working for Maxie because he had nowhere else together really makes you wonder what will happen to him now that Maxie's gone. Either way, seeing Danny squint through the dark room as his father steps into the light is so beautiful. It shows that all was forgiven and his father finally approves of what Danny wants to do in life. Danny can finally have peace now that he has a support system who loves him.

This is the most emotionally complex Elvis movie I've seen that perfectly executed its vision. I have been waiting a full year since my Wild In The Country review to talk about why I didn't like Glenn's character arc. Danny is what Glenn tried to be. Danny is that troubled youth who makes bad decisions because there is no good decision to be made. There wasn't a single path Danny could take that didn't involve suffering. Even as far back as Danny sticking up for Ronnie wasn't an obvious choice to make. Sure not getting involved would've meant Danny wouldn't get into it with Maxie, it also would've meant that Ronnie would continue to be abused without ever getting a bone thrown to her. It wasn't until later on that he realized Maxie had an insane amount of power. Based on how Maxie operated, you already know that he's got the entire bureaucracy and law enforcement of New Orleans in his back pocket. Shark's gang being able to do as they please without a significant fear of getting caught under Maxie's command shows how Danny going to the authorities for help is completely off the table.

I know I had some complaints about some scenes not really making sense, but those are so easy to fix that I'm giving this movie my first 10/10. Those plot holes don't take away from the emotional impact of what we saw. The amount of songs felt natural as you can't have Danny working at night clubs without having him sing. The character interactions were perfect as you understand exactly what their motives are and have their actions reflect that. Shark looking like he's 35 doesn't matter either since the movie already introduced him as being an older brother of a boy Danny went to school with. Shark said he smokes and since we know smoking can cause premature wrinkling, I'll give him the benefit that he isn't more than 10 years older than Danny. I highly recommend watching it, but surprisingly to some as the last Elvis movie you watch for the first time. To me having it be first would give you an insanely high expectation for an Elvis movie. This movie best serves as leaving it for last as it perfectly captures why fans always talk about what could've been.

AN: Happy Birthday Elvis and RIP! Also shout out to @vintagepresley for writing a companion review of the book. I usually don't talk about the book when talking about the movie so it's nice to have the opinion of someone who read it. I can't wait for it to come out.

Tagging: @codalysssssworld, @presleysweetheart, @smokeymountainboy, @arrolyn1114, @peaceloveelvis,

@mercsandmonsters, @eapep, @atleastpleasetelephone, @without-him, @lucy114505,

@blighted-star, @rjmartin11, @elvisbdoll, @dragonkingsdaughter, @ifyouloveweedletsgosmoke,

@ilovequeen978, @fuzzymusic94, @halieghhh, @tacozebra051, @hooked-on-elvis,

@lola-1013, @father-of-2cats, @southcarolinawoman, @elvisflowerchild, @elviscinema,

@i-r-i-n-a-a, @jadeeloveselviss, @xanatenshi, and @thelonelyheart.

[reyreadersblog]

RECKLESS REVIEW (SORT OF)

I reread some parts from Reckless by Lauren Roberts and oh my god, i'm just realizing how bad the book is. Which is shame bcs i really liked Powerless, i finished it in a day, Reckless is not it though. Back when i read it in july, i knew i didn't like something, something was lacking..it turns it's a plot that's lacking. And i MEAN it. It is literally nonexsistent, because tell me why i just read (reread but whatever) 400+ pages and..nothing happened. SAME. CONVERSATION. EVERY. CHAPTER. it was basically romance novel, bcs there was barely any fantasy elements in the book. The banter i loved in powerless, even though i thought it was a little too much, but the "banter" in reckless just made me cry. So many cringey scenes...atp i don't think Paedyn and Kai have any kind emotianal connection whatsoever, Lauren rlly wants us to believe they have, but respectfully, all i see and sense is lust, they're lusting for each other. I mean i get it they're both attractive, they're teenagers with increased hormomes..BUT IT MADE PHYSICALLY ILL, to watch them edge over each other every single chapter, i was like atp just fuck. Also..the amount of times words "sticky" and "pretend" were used..i could tell the author REALLY liked those words, because for the love of god use some kind of synonym please.

Everyone hated Kitt's pov, for it was opposite, whenever i saw Kitt's chapter, i jumped from happiness because he was the only who coukd save me from the second hand embarrasments i got from Kai and Paedyn's chapters.

Somewhat i felt bad for Kai, but it was just like..he was literally taking this girl to the king..what did he expect..? That Kitt would be like "omg you brought me Paedyn, the killer of my father, you can runaway with her now, marry, have kids, hea" WHAT.

Also i've seen many Kitt haters, but i personally think he is the only interesting character in the book. His hater don't even want to understand his position, and where he is coming from. (I find his sitauation kind of similar to Ezran's from tdp) they be like "oh he never let Kai be happy with Paedyn and he made her his betrothed i hate him sm..yadayadyara"...he was manipulated and betrayed, why is everyone ignoring that fact? He trusted Paedyn, literally opened up to her, and she used him and killed his father, i understand the whole situation with Edric and Paedyn's father, but still, HE DOESN'T KNOW THE TRUTH, and srsly how do you expect 18-19 years old to react to what happened by the end of powerless?? He is really misunderstood.

Oh and Paedyn, i rlly didn't care about her. In powerless i felt connecter to her character and my heart broke for her at the end of the book. In reckless i couldn't care less about her. No character growth whatsoever.. she was suppose to hate Kai..but at the same time she wanted to fuck him..(which same but..)

[ninja-muse]

2024 Year-End Reading Wrap-Up

Reading-wise, I think 2024 was about diligence. I kept reading even when I felt slumpy. I managed my goals of minimum one book off my physical TBR per month, minimum 20 non-fiction titles, and 75 of the books I wanted to get to. I didn’t do so great at keeping my book acquisition down, but at least I got rid of as many as I took in (and a lot of the books I bought were used or cheap). I even took in fewer reading copies and managed to pass on a fair number of them! I didn’t quite get to my 2023 total of 128 books and I didn’t quite manage 45,000 pages, only 44,865, but that’s okay. They’re kind of wild goals and I got darn close. Of the 126 books I did read, 29 were off my TBR and 38 were reading copies. That means that 59 were library books, which, thank goodness for libraries! This is why I donate to mine every year.

What I didn’t do so well on were most of my other goals. (2023 for comparison.) I’m still steadyish on Canadian and female authors, steadyish on classics, up on authors of colour (!), but sadly way down on gender-diverse authors. I’m going to have to find more enbies and genderqueer folks I want to read, but that’s hard as it still seems like most non-binary fiction goes towards the dark and grim and realistic and most of my reading choices goes towards the light and hopeful. I will happily take suggestions.

I’m most bummed, though, about breaking my StoryGraph reading streak of 567 days. I went home for Christmas on a late-night flight and the next day, I was just not awake enough to read dense non-fiction. I am looking forward to outdoing myself on this new round.

Yearly total: 126, excluding rereads and picture books Queer books: 37 (29%) Authors of colour: 19.5 (15.4%) Books by women: 77.5 (61.5%) Authors outside the binary: 3 (2%) Canadian authors: 12 (9.5%) Classics: 7 (5.5%) Off the TBR shelves: 29 (23%) Books hauled: 47 Books unhauled: 47 ARCs acquired: 40 ARCs unhauled: 46.5 DNFs: 10 Rereads: 3 Picture Books: 11

Outside of the stats and goals, I think my choice to mostly leave Tumblr was a good one. I’m feeling a lot less pressure to read The Right Things or whatever everyone else is, and less pressure to be constantly posting, though I do miss seeing what you all are reading. Please, please, feel free to tag me in reading wrap-ups and reviews, especially if you think it’s a book I’d be interested in. I do check my mentions regularly. (Friendly reminder that I’m ninjamuse on Storygraph and LibraryThing, if you’d like to follow me there.) And not posting as much as helped me get more writing done. I’m not quite finished the first draft of the cozy fantasy WIP, but I’m within sight of it, if I manage to get my mojo back after Extreme Retail Season.

My goals are 2025 are fairly reasonable and predictable. 126 books and 40,000 pages, and I've set up StoryGraph challenges to encourage myself to read 50 new releases and 50 backlist titles. I'm going to try for 20 non-fiction again too, though this year that was very much by the skin of my teeth. And of course, the enby author thing. And I'm going to finish the dang WIP and restart an old one. Wish me luck?

Click through for more book recs and breakdowns:

Books Reviewed Eve - Cat Bohannon I Love Russia - Elena Kostyuchenko The Briar Club - Kate Quinn Evelina - Frances Burney How to Become a Dark Lord (and Die Trying) - Django Wexler The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport - Amit Basu The Disenchantment - Celia Bell The Dollmakers - Lynn Buchanan Submerged - Hillel Levin A History of Ancient Egypt - John Romer

And if anyone’s interested, here are the rest of my year’s highlights: Top Five Fiction (not ranked) Rose/House - Arkady Martine How to Become a Dark Lord and Die Trying - Django Wexler The Briar Club - Kate Quinn Navola - Paolo Bacigalupi The Disenchantment - Celia Bell Top Five Non-Fiction (not ranked) History of Ancient Egypt, Volume 3 - John Romer Malady of the Mind - Jeffrey A. Lieberman Sociopath - Patric Gagne I Love Russia - Elena Kostyuchenko The Demon of Unrest - Erik Larson Most Impressed By: I Love Russia - Elena Kostyuchenko The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport - Amit Basu Evelina - Frances Burney Nicked - M.T. Anderson

Most Disappointing: Wordhunter - Stella Sands Bad Glass - Richard E. Gropp The Black Bird of Chernobyl - Ann McMan The Dishonest Miss Take - Faye Murphy The Voyage of the Damned - Frances White Longest Book: A History of Ancient Egypt, Volume 3 - John Romer Best Queer Book: A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine

Did I beat 2023? No, but 126 is really close to 128. Did I beat my Best Year Ever? No. That would be 2021. Did I read more classics? Yes Did I read more Canadians? No Did I whittle my TBR shelves down any? No. Was it a good reading year? Average. Breakdowns by month:

January February March April May June July August September October November December

[littledeadpotato]

Blue period 11

I didn't think I'd be reviewing manga, and I probably won't, but this one I have to do.

(If the art doesn't have credits underneath, its by the author; Tsubasa Yamaguchi)

In case you don't know, Blue period (1) is a manga by Tsubasa Yamaguchi about Yatora Yaguchi, a highschool student, who gets inspired and finds passion for art. He wants to get into one of the best art schools in Japan, since it's one of the few school (if not the only one) that's not private.

In volume 11 tho, We're at a part where Yaguchi is in uni but needs money, so he gets a job at a community art class with kids.

(I rate comics/graphic novels/manga a bit differently. Enjoyability > actual quality. Shitty way to rate ik but who cares🤷‍♀️)

Rating: 5/5⭐

(For the God of me i cannot find who made this art, but there's a chance it's Official since I can't find any post that's not reposted and its also used for fake merch. If you know who the artist is, please let me know so I can Credit them)

Spoilers ahead!!!

What makes this volume so special? Well it's not in a school setting. The whole art uni thing is very stressful to both the reader and the characters. Since it's spring(?) break, Yaguchi doesn't have to do any art. But this is still a manga about art. But this one focuses more on one's relationship with their art and others' art. And any artist has experience with that. Alot of people hate their art, and honestly I do too.

Since I like parting things, the book has 2 parts, each is focused on one kid in the art class.

Shoya

Shoya is bored in the class. He has trouble finishing his assignments, he's mean towards his classmates (and Yaguchi) and violent. Yaguchi tries his best to make Shoya interested but it just doesn't work. One day Shoya's mother comes to pick Shoya up from the class, when she sees Shoya's painting, she says:

,,What's so great about this painting? It doesn't look like he did that good of a job to me..."

Which is, you know, Something to say to a 5 year old. Shoya is understandibly not happy about that. But one day, Yaguchi finds him playing some games while walking home. And Yaguchi finds out Shoya is really good at drawing mechs. He talks to the teacher, and Shoya can draw whatever he wants to in class! Yayyy. He also makes this football game for their exhibition. Shoya's thing is that he doesn't enjoy art because he knows what he likes. No one enjoys drawing everything.

Sae

Sae has alot of passion for art. But she has alot of other classes. Even though Sae has barely any time to play with her friends, she still paints at home. And I mean this girl loooves painting. Well until her dad points at another painting (which as far as i know, wasn't even made by a child) and says:

,,Oh, that kid's painting is really good! How about trying to do something like that?"

We're back to this point, where the kids' confidence and how they think about themselves and their art is very much connected to how other people see it.

She starts comparing herself to the other kids. Hashida (who also works there now lol) also notices her painting has changed. When he says he likes her painting, she says:

,,Thank you, Hashida-sensei! But it's not good at all. Im worse than Shikahara-san. Ahhh. Why am I so bad...? I want to get better. I've been practicing so much, too..."

AND I HAVE NEVER RELATED TO A 5 YEAR OLD MORE. Like this young girl is already at this part of making art. Me and my art teacher actually talked about this, and she said this change from having fun with art to being critical of it happens around/after the age of 10.

The kids will have an exhibition! And one day in class, they present their art to the class. When they're presenting, Shoya compliments her painting. And I'll just write down the whole presentation.

,,My painting... is bad because the subjects are small. The colours are dull, too. And the bear looks messed up. It's creepy, crappy and just awful. Why is it... that I can only make something like this? Shoya-kun went out of his way to say something nice about my work... but... he can do that because he's better than me. How nice! How nice that everyone's great at art. [...] I dont wanna do this anymore! [...] My colours are messier than Miku-chan's! I can't draw mechs like Shoya-kun! I can't make cute paintings like Yuichi-kun! I cant paint like Shikahara-san! How nice that everyone's great at art!"

And after that I took a 20sec break ;P!

As far as i know, there are 2 ways people can react to making art around others. You either envy their work and take it as a learning experience to appreciate their art. But I, someone who's about to do entrance exams into art school, cant afford to do that. Or you can just fall apart under the pressure of "everyone is better than me". And it's easy to do that when you have a goal and everyone could be your enemy. You cant appreciate their art and love art together. Because they're better than you and you have to get better. Art isn't about how much you study. Art is about how passionate you are. How much you want to make art. If you hate everything you make, is there a reason to keep doing art? For some yes. For some no.

Sae quit the art class.

Before she does, Hashida asks her to do a collab. They just paint random things. React to the other's painting. Hashida says this (I'm sorry for so many quotes but they really stuck with me srryyy):

,,I'm actually bad at making art. I love art. I love people who make art and i make art myself, but the more I get to know other people who make art... the more is makes me think I can't go as far as them. I respect people who can keep their brush moving with tears in their eyes. I think you're truly amazing for jumping into painting like you did. Even when you feel miserable or think you have no reason to praise your own work."

Which again. SAME. Back to parents, when Sae shows the painting to her dad, he tears it in the half to give half to Hashida. They stick it back together. But you know...

SOMEWHERE IN THE BOOK HASHIDA ASKS YAGUCHI TO GO TO SWITZERLAND, ITALY AND GERMANY WITH HIM AND I HOPE HE ACCEPTS CUZ I LOVE HASHIDA AND HES SO INTERESTING. PLEASEEEEEEE.

If I read this volume without the other 10, I'd probably think it was just kids and being whinny about art. But when you read through so much of the stuff these people go through just to make art. And how they struggle. When out of nowhere, its like 'I fucking hate this'. This book just keeps you think 'Why? Why? Why? Why do they do that? Why dont they just quit?'. And your relationship with your art and art overall is important. It's not like you can look past the fact that you fucking hate what you just did and hate that you're only capable of such a bad thing. Art you create is often hard to love, especially when its competitive.

But art is still art. And it's such a pity that people who would love art and creating it crumble under the pressure of others.

Be gentle and loving to yourself and your art.

Art by: https://x.com/pplaksana

[callireads]

Review 1: Guards, Guards!

I first read this book in my second year of undergrad, somewhere in 2009 or 2010. I was severely depressed, nineteen, from the United States, nearly a cultural illiterate, and almost a complete science illiterate at the time, and I made the faux pas of reading all of the books in publication order, essentially just because I knew I wasn't supposed to. In light of all that, I am...amazed I even kept going to the end of the series, really, much less ever looked back at the Discworld again....

I did finish the series and look back upon some entries quite fondly, though. Guards, Guards! did not make the cut for that list; I didn't react to most of it that much at all, I didn't read it again, and it was one of the books where, by the beginning of this year, I retained only a confused jumble of images. Two of my favorite Discworld novels, however, are Night Watch and Thud!, which are at the end of the City Watch 'sub-series', so I decided to give the first book in the sequence another go and see if I could figure out how we got from Point A to Point B, and if the plot was really as disjointed as my vague impression of anything beyond the two (2) scenes I knew for sure I remembered from it.

It wasn't. In fact, this book's got a pretty solid plot. All the windows and doors lead pretty much to the correct places, no real spatial anomalies to report. If it were anyone other than the likes of Pratchett writing it, I daresay it might be a little too normal to really work; what the man could do with words and characters does far more to make it worth reading than the storyline does, though there's nothing wrong with the storyline. It's still Pratchett, even still clearly enough Pratchett that I imagine it would be hard to mistake it for anything else, but it's still not quite Pratchett at the peak of his powers; he was still feeling out, I suppose, what exactly this thing he was writing in and about was at the time. So why did I remember it as such a jumble?

A few speculative answers:

I first read it in 2009 or 2010. I have a really good memory for anything written down except numbers, but that's still been a minute.

In reasons for reason 1 - I was severely depressed when I first read it. My brain was running at half-speed on a good day. I don't really remember much about that entire academic year except for the very end of it.

I was nineteen, from the United States, virtually culturally illiterate, and almost completely scientifically illiterate. Reading Pratchett under those conditions is a bit like trying to read Alice in Wonderland or Flatland with no knowledge of math or the finer points of nineteenth century culture; the occasional joke might still make its way through, but mostly, it just seems...weird, and you have no idea why the author did most of the things you see happening in the book. That 'virtually culturally illiterate' bit? Yeah, I didn't even know what noir was when I first read this thing. I had picked up just enough via cultural osmosis that I think I heard more or less the correct music in my head when the camera cuts to that first scene of Vimes attempting to drunkenly monologue about the city, but that was pretty much it.

Besides my shortcomings, there is a certain...je ne sais quoi...there, something that makes it feel just a little extra unreal in a way I'm not sure was intentional....

I really don't know exactly what that thing I don't know what is might be, but it's there. My best guess is that the characters had started, at least in a few cases (inc. Vimes and Vetinari, of course, but also the Librarian and, of all people, sometimes Nobby), becoming more 'grounded' and fleshed out, more like individuals than archetypes, at this point in the Great Pterry's career, and they therefore were a little bit like Carrot's sword: just a touch realer than the rest of their surroundings. The Disc didn't yet feel quite like a real setting, it still felt like only a mirror of worlds instead of like a world in itself, but it was beginning to be populated by real-ish individuals*. I'd need to read a few more of the books from this early part of the series to confirm that suspicion, but it feels like a good hunch. The dedication, too, may lend to a feeling of...confusion; it would lead one to expect a Hero, possibly Carrot, to end up fighting and killing the rest of the City Watch single-handed and with a lot of comedic lampshade hanging, but there we got those too-real other people in the story. You rarely create something like Vimes just to kill him off in the same book, not unless it's one heck of a book, a magnum opus running toward a thousand pages long, not part of a series, and probably French. Pratchett could have done it in a later book, especially a stand-alone, but it would have been really disorienting here. Plus, he's clearly a detective, not the sort of guardsman described in the dedication. One of the early things, too, that happens is the bonding between the Watchmen: the first thing we learn about everyone except Carrot is that they're feeling the loss of a colleague, and it's not long before one gets the feeling they care something about Carrot. We see them collectively have a pet together. It would've, by the climax of the book, been a gut-wrenching tragedy if they ended up filling the role of "evil man's obedient mooks" and got killed as part of Carrot's heroic arc; Pratchett managed to make an endearing character out of Death itself, which is no mean feat, but I don't know if even he could have made that funny. I read once that Pratchett struggled to make Carrot the main character at first, but then Vimes vetoed that idea, along with the idea that he should be a one-dimensional bit character, at which point the story assumed its own momentum. Three separate types of story - the heroic fantasy, the mystery/noir, and the police procedural, to an extent - ended up being mixed together, and didn't quite gel together as the type of satirical look at heroic fantasy tropes that the dedication seemed to indicate that the book was supposed to be. It felt...a bit -ental of some kind - experimental or developmental. The dedication is an interesting bit of writing, but the book might have come out better without it. In my most nitpicky criticism yet, I think I would have swapped the last two scenes with major characters in them, so that we begin with Vimes thinking about the city being a woman and then we end with Vimes thinking of the woman as a city. Just a minor cosmetic adjustment, really.

That said, I enjoyed it very much, now that I was clearer-headed and have read a lot more of TVTropes, and was surprised to find little moments that I remembered from the series generally were part of this book, since I knew they were Discworldisms, but not specifically where from. "Thunder rolled; it rolled a six?" That one's straight from Guards, Guards!, right at the beginning. That Vetinarism about how there are only always ever bad people, but some of them are on different sides, which kind of sums up the philosophical question of the City Watch books? Yep, that was Vetinari's parting wisdom for Vimes at the end of this book. The Librarian's dangerous journey to his own past through L-Space? Ditto, though I can't say for sure if it was introduced here or not, by virtue of see-all-that-above. A lot of scenes had a cinematic clarity to them that I never would have expected based on my decade-old vague memories, and of course there's the bits I did remember, because they're just that iconic. Good book, will read it again.

*I think the Librarian would fit into the category of 'persons,' but probably best to avoid words that can seem too affiliated with the human species.

[ash-and-starlight]

Books of 2023

the list nobody asked for <3

My reading habits had gone a bit stagnant in the past couple of years so this year i made the effort to engage in reading again and wow books really are good!! who would have thought! Sharing this year's book log with the small reviews i did while reading yeah i am That kind of list lover if u feel like being nosy, (and maybe even help mi crowdsource reading recs based on my likes 👀🤲?)

The left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula i Need to know your thoughts on omegaver- [gunshot] THAT ASIDE yeah. mrs Le Guin you've done it again. I can see why everyone got their brain chemistry altered by this book.

The Membranes - Chi Ta-Wei another brain chemistry altering book. would love to discuss it with a gender studies major lmao

Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie its a v atmospheric and poignant story, I know I would have loved it more if I was familiar with the rich religious/cultural background it draws from

The Masquerade Series - Seth Dickinson Crazy insane in the membrane about this series. one of the most compelling worldbuildings I've ever seen, and most importantly it features one of the most crazy wet pathetic scrunkly meow meow protagonists i've ever had the pleasure of reading about.

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides i liked the writing style of this book a lot! idk how well it holds up re: intersexuality topic, but its a very engaging read.

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power - Jude Ellison, Sady Doyle The title says it all honestly, its a beautiful, thought provoking and engaging essay, spanning eras, pop culture phenomenons, and real life events on the topic of women and horror.

The cat who saved books - Sōsuke Natsukawa this was so cute and heartfelt, it will really make you go Ah Yes, this is Why we Love Books <333

The Locked Tomb Series - Tamsyn Muir now when people say there is a girl who is the cursed sacrifice of 2000 infants who falls in love with the sleeping embodiment of the soul of the Earth (barbie) and also another girl who is the only survivor of the aforementioned sacrifice and is. a Jesus metaphor? and also the two girls become one at some point. and every book is a different genre. and god is bisexual. and memes survived the nuclear apocalypse. I can just nod and say so true.

The Area X Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer Rotating this series in the microwave of my mind at the speed of light it's soSO GOOD!! the movie doesn't even come close honestly u NEED to read the books. and then go touch grass and be aware of every strand in a completely new way.

The Dawn of Yangchen - F. C. Yee nice read! I was more invested in the worldbuilding crumbs than in the actual story lmao, I will forever think about the HEATED airball rivalry between the air temples and about the swt greetings / bethrotal armbands.

Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth: Gender, Shamanism, and the Third Sex - Bernard Saladin d'Anglure starting w a disclaimer bc I feel like the topic of native colonization was ignored when it should have been way more prominent when talking about the context of where and when these testimonies were collected?? That aside it was very interesting and well put together, with first account testimonies of Inuit elders about their myths, lifestyles and beliefs.

Pachinko - Min Jin Lee i read the book after having seen the tv series (which i also rlly recommend). Very moving story about a family and its generations, from Korea under Japanese colonization to modern day America.

Her body and other parties - Carmen Maria Marchado sometimes I go about my day then I remember this book exists and stare at the wall for 30 minutes.

Dictionnaire de l'impossible - Didier Van Cauwelaert big miss. this collection of articles about "strange impossible phenomenons" sounded so quirky and interesting but i sure would have loved if the author hadnt so clearly picked a side. and also way too much church for my tastes.

He who Drowned the World - Shelley Parker Chan Im not even gonna speak about this one if you've followed me since july you know what pits of insanity and despair i'm in

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin Sometimes!! the book with pretty covers put in the "famous on socials" bookstore section!! are good!! It's about being othered it's about connection it's about diaspora it's about love and friendship and most of all it's about viddy games.

Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel reading this post-covid and learning it was written in 2017 was A TRIP. Psychic damage at every page. still feeling very normla.

The Mask of Apollo - Mary Renault Ugh i desperately wanted to like this book because the setup is so interesting and full of potential, but the end result was just. flat. flat story flat characters the plot focusing on the wrong things at the wrong times i was so DONE when i reached the end otz.

Babel - R. F. Kuang LOVED the worldbuilding in this, the "lost in translation" system of magic is one of the most interesting things ive ever read. I think theres something about the writing in general that didn't win me over completely?? but all in all a very good

Red Ocean - Han Song This sure is a Book. That i've Read. its so profundly strange and unlike anything ive come across that i dont even know what to feel about it. i think 90% of my confusion comes from Not Getting Cultural References so if someone has a "red ocean explained" essay plz send it my way bc i couldnt find one.

[monstersinthecosmos]

🔥 + kink in VC

(also thinking like in comparison to Anne's other books like CoSB and realizing VC is so fucking mild and antis have no business being in Anne Rice fandom)

Dsjgkalsdg comrade why are you asking me this you know I’m about to launch into a TED Talk.

So like, if we compare Anne’s Sleeping Beauty books to VC, I feel like the kink is meta in two completely different ways, like opposite ends of the spectrum. In SB, the BDSM is meta in the sense that it’s built into the universe. They are not books ABOUT BDSM, they are books about fantasy and the kinks just get to exist. It’s an immersive fantasy that takes all the ways people play IRL and makes it canon. And a lot of people who dislike them (based on like bad GoodReads reviews LOL) ONLY see them as rape books and don’t really understand the way it’s giving BDSM a space to breathe.

What vanilla folks don’t understand is that IRL BDSM is also fiction a lot of the time. Even tame shit like spanking and talking dirty—do these people actually want their partners to hit them in their day-to-day lives? Do they want to be catcalled and lewded outside of the scene? Probably not! And even going to more in depth scenes like, do you actually think you’re someone’s kitty? Do you actually want an assailant to tie you up? Do you actually want to be trafficked?

No! You dont’! You want to play pretend with your partner, with whom you’ve consented.

And I think this attitude in the bad reviews is also the attitude that fanfic writers get from conservatives/radfems/swerfs/fancops in fandom, that somehow writing noncon fic or darkfic in general is somehow making these atrocious things literal, when in fact THEIR EXISTENCE WITHIN A WORK OF FICTION AUTOMATICALLY MAKES THEM NOT LITERAL. And people need to understand that the consent for stories like this is not about the fictional people involved who do not exist and therefore cannot consent, but between the reader and the author when you open the book.

Anyway I bring that up because these books tell me a lot about Anne’s sensibility for kink. SHE GETS IT MAN. She wasn’t shy about it. So I think it speaks very broadly to the way power dynamics and monsterfuckery are expressed within VC, as well, even though these are two very opposite ends of the spectrum with her writing, I think that same confidence and kink positivity still exists. There's also a foreward to the copy of SB that I read, I think she added in 2012, and it was SO insightful about her process and her intention writing the kink & porn the way she did and I just think she really fucking understood what she was doing. And it's so telling to me because like, she mentions she used the pen name when she first wrote them because her father was alive and she was embarrassed, and one of the first scenes in SB is Beauty being stripped naked and paraded around IN FRONT OF HER FATHER LOL. So like WITHOUT GOING OFF ON A SIDE TANGENT something else vanilla folks don't understand is that so often kink is about the thing being transgressive and gross and uncomfortable; IT'S HOT BECAUSE IT'S UNCOMFORTABLE. It's not something that anyone literally wants, it's just hot because it's WRONG. And I think often about how this is like, the sex equivalent of trying not to laugh at an off-color joke, and how it's not that the joke is funny but that it's so off-putting that you laugh at the absurdity of it.

I feel like the kink in VC is meta in an opposite way, in the way it’s so symbolic and understated. Also because the vampires are asexual it gives a whole layer of like non-sexual BDSM dynamics are it’s SO GOOD. 

So I think coming from an author was not squeamish about writing immersive BDSM, a lot of those themes are in VC and I wonder if they come from the same place, even if it’s subliminal on her part. Like the power dynamics, consent around biting, THE CONSTANT MONSTERFUCKING & FLIRTING WITH DEATH AKA “THE SWOON”. And even later in TVA with the introduction of the whipping scene and all Armand’s comments about getting tied up and having his fuckin, pit hair tugged on or whatever. 

And it has some of those like sort of dubcon romance tropes that I think we can’t discard; being TAKEN! Being OVERPOWERED! It ties into vampire fiction in general with like, vampires historically being a symbol of sexuality, going back to like Dracula comin in ur window and everything. 

But VC never makes it “about” kink, it’s just like SB, just baked into the themes. And like a lot of the more obvious BDSM themes in VC are also not consensual, they’re just built into the universe. Like Armand stalking/abusing Daniel, like Marius whipping Armand without negotiating first, like Akasha’s femdom murder bender. And even how often biting gets used as a symbol for sex, and how often noncon biting gets called rape! And the characters know it! And they do it anyway! (Also I cannot neglect to mention obvious tropes like Marius/Armand just being a teacher/student trope. IT'S A PORN TROPE! Or what about Gabrielle as Mommy!Dom? PORN TROPE! Quinn/Goblin twincest? PORN TROPE! The exhibitionism/public humiliation on the TDV stage hello???? That's like an Upper Floor party come on LOL. [this type of dynamic is also SO SO prevalent in SB.])

I’m not really sure what my conclusion here is because like, I just think this is all here in the books and it’s really excellent fodder to talk about kink and character dynamics. Power dynamics is so huge in BDSM and it’s so so huge in VC, not just like, vampires being old and powerful and having that as a status symbol over one another, but even emotionally speaking like. TELL ME THAT ARMAND & LESTAT AREN’T ABSOLTUELY SOAKED IN HUMILIATION AND BEGGING. Taking inventory of VC ships like there’s ALWAYS a dominant and a submissive, it’s so rare that people are just equals with each other, and it’s always part of the appeal! 

There’s this psychologist Esther Perel, I think she’s brilliant and she’s very kink positive and has a bunch of podcasts and stuff. I read her book Mating in Captivity and she brought up this whole thing about kink and power dynamics and how like, it’s not always clear who’s in charge, and you can’t judge relationships based on who’s older, who makes more money, who’s larger, etc, because power dynamics are so much more complicated than that. She uses the example that if you’ve ever been in public with a screaming toddler, which of you is really the dominant? I think about this constantly!

And like speaking about real life kink being so deeply about CONSENT means so much to me with this conversation about VC, too, because like even looking at a relationship like Marius & Human!Armand or Armand and Human!Daniel, it doesn’t matter that one is a powerful vampire if they also feel so tenderly towards their fragile little human. TVA was very explicit about this when they have that conversation about which one of them is the other’s slave. So in BDSM even though we look at the dom as being the one in control, the consent is the thing in control and ultimately the SUB is in control by permitting all of it! 

So I just feel very strongly about all of this, it’s all over VC, and even when it’s less obvious (relationships like Loustat, like Lestat/Armand, even Louis/Claudia) there are so many of these power elements to examine. Even if it’s not written TO BE KINKY they’re still there and I think it’s all connected, because I’m kink positive and I love unpacking this stuff. 

AND ALSO LIKE ON THE ASEXUAL FRONT, I love it so much because like as a kinky ace, and knowing as many kinky aces as I know, there’s SO MUCH KINK out there that is NOT SEXUAL so I think it just translates so nicely to VC vampires being asexual, like it all makes so much fucking sense to me and it’s so fun and I adore it so much!!! 

THIS WAS PURE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IM GONNA POST IT BEFORE I GET WORRIED THAT IM NOT COHESIVE, ENJOY!!! 

[mermaidsirennikita]

Any more historical romances with spanking? 👀 It seems to me that maybe it’s not as prevalent in HR which is funny considering it was more normal (maybe?) back in the day

I mean, it was definitely more normal for men to spank their wives societally back in the day... but as true punishment versus consensual funishment, you know?

One issue with historical romance (and one of the reasons, though there are many, why I think it hasn't been selling very well lately) is that the subgenre has essentially kowtowed to a vocal readership that doesn't represent the whole, imo, and certainly doesn't represent the number of readers who COULD be captured, that want "Austen After Dark", essentially. They want explicit sex on the page (to an extent). But they want that sex to be vanilla. The heroine has to be a virgin, the hero has to be experienced, you want as much heteronormativity as possible, la la la.

I think there are honestly a lot of authors who would have and do write kinkier historicals, but they were prevented from really going there as much as they wanted to because tradpub wished to please an audience they perceived as being super white, super cis, super het, fairly conservative and obsessed with a fantasy version of history, and incapable of growing beyond that. And in doing so, they basically created this self-fulfilling prophecy because other readers perceived that, and did not think there was anything interesting or diverse in historicals for them. Which isn't true. But you can see how they got that impression. Read the reviews for The Earl's Mistress on Goodreads and you'll see what I mean. None of that FILTHY KINK in my HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVEL!!! THAT'S FOR THE WHORISH 50 SHADES READERS!!!!!

Anyway I digress

Sierra Simone has written some historicals—her Ivy Leavold and Molly O'Flaherty books have spanking for sure. S.M. LaViolette's books don't always have it, but are more likely than not if you read her Victorian Decadence novels.

People will probably recommend you Golden Angel for this, and I'm here to tell you that I find those books horribly written and would recommend against. I don't often do that, but like.... yeah. Try it if you please, but don't expect much.

The Earl I Ruined by Scarlett Peckham has some spanking, I think, though the kink is a bit more on the psychological/toy-based level.

I think there's a bit in Olivia and The Masked Duke by Grace Callaway, though her books are a bit bigger on the light bondage, voyeurism, good girl-ism etc than spanking.

There's a teeny bit in Heartbreaker by Sarah MacLean!

It's been a while, but I think there may be some in Adrian Herrera's The Bootlegger's Bounty, which is an MMF historical.

Oh, I totally forgot that Io by S.M. LaViolette, which I loooooved, has this. Like, literally within the first few pages.