#my f.t.!

[pigeon-princess]

I'm very excited to finally share the alternative dust jacket designs I did for dazzlingbookishshop's FT Lukens set! I absolutely adore these books and they were such a pleasure to illustrate covers for. Check out their site for details if you're interested in grabbing the set!

https://dazzlingbookishshop.com

[themelodyofspring]

06-May-2024 || Currently Reading

So This is Ever After - F.T. Lukens

I made another bookmark ✨ (after more than a year)

[dailyfrank]

[hurglewurm]

critical lack of fanart for so this is ever after by ft lukens!! might draw the rest of the crew but for now here's my designs for arek (terminally bisexual and secretly in love with his mage) and matt (the mage, who is exhausted). they are both incredibly stupid. i gave them gay earrings btw

[id: a digital bust drawing of arek and matt standing side by side, facing forward and eyeing each other. arek has reddish brown hair swept back from his head, greyish eyes, and has a slit in one eyebrow. he is wearing a lace-up white shirt under a red vest with gold trim. matt has wavy brown hair that falls across his forehead, dark brown eyes, and medium brown skin with faint freckles. he is wearing a blue shirt with silvery trim and a darker blue jacket. end id.]

[abrandnewshadow]

The FT Willz saga of knowledge you've gone through and continue to will endlessly fascinate me, and I don't even care about MCR or Frank that much, I just find the deep dives to be utterly fascinating and I am on the edge of my seat whenever you post about it.

🖤🖤🖤

OH MY GODD wow thank you so much anon! this encouragement/compliment means a lot to me. I would never have imagined someone getting into this. I thought I seemed delusional and/or not making sense at all lolllll its something I always come back to and really go into this mode. i'm not trying to crack the case lol I just know there's some stone unturned out there. will definitely coming back to it. I know @0-0baybay0-0 was wanting a further look into the poems and writing style similarities. I do have some ideas about comparing ft willz digital signatures. some of the fishier screenshots don't match. ft willz is "FT WillZ" and this is exactly how frank typed it in this case and everything in an official skeleton crew news post.

but i'll stop the fire here lmao thank you with all my heart!

[thatdisasterauthor]

I haven't done an Art & Review in YEARS. Done a fair amount of fanart, including of Lukens' work, and done a fair amount of reviews, but for whatever reason I haven't combined them in ages.

I just HAD to draw this scene from Lukens' new book, Spell Bound, though, and I started it immediately after I finished the book so I figured it would be a great time to bring back Art & Review! No idea if I'll keep doing them, it'll depend on time, but they are fun.

Anywho. Onto the review.

Spell Bound is a standalone YA fantasy about Sun (left, they/them) and Rook (right, he/him) and, as I usually would for Lukens' main duos, I would die for both of them. Rook, forced to live cut off from the world of magic after the death of his grandmother, makes a desperate gamble to find his way back in by working for the most powerful, and feared, sorcerer of the age. When he meets Sun, the apprentice of another sorcerer in the city (while battling a cursed doll), he finds himself a little smitten with the grouchy, gender-queer apprentice. The two of them keep getting entangled as Rook falls deeper and deeper back into the world of magic, legalities be damned, until suddenly both their mentors vanish, forcing Sun and Rook to work together to find a way to get their mentors back.

If you've ever wanted a modern book full of magic where the magic isn't a secret, this is the one for you. The magic is wonderfully infused throughout the world and everyone knows about it, even if only a few can wield it. It's also for you if you love Golden-Retriever-Energy falls for Grumpy-Cat-Energy duos.

As usual with Lukens' work, the book is just cozy. The characters are comfortable in themselves, even if there are still things they're figuring out. There's multiple queer characters and not a drop of homophobia or questioning of their genders/sexualities. Sun asks Rook to use they/them pronouns and Rook does it without a second thought, and never slips up. When Rook starts to fall for Sun, he never has some crisis about Sun's gender presentation. Sun's siblings tease them, but never about their gender. It's a queer book that isn't about being queer in any way; it just trusts the reader to get it without shoving in some sort of coming out or crisis plot line.

And it's not just queer issues that the book handles incredibly well. Sun is also shown to be touch averse and suffer from anxiety, and again Rook steps up to the plate and just goes with it. He accepts Sun's limits without questioning them and actively asks Sun for consent when he does need to reach out and touch Sun for any reason, and always works to figure out the right way to help when Sun's anxiety flares up for some reason. It's never made into a thing, it just is.

Another thing I always appreciate about Lukens' work is that the teenagers actually feel like teenagers, and the adults feel like adults. Rook and Sun both heavily rely on their adult mentors and reach out to them frequently. In turn, their mentors step up to the plate to take charge when things get serious (doesn't always work, but they at least make the attempt). Their mentors still have flaws and don't always get things right, but they're there. Sun and Rook know they're teenagers and that sometimes you just need an adultier adult.

Spell Bound is one of those books I wish I had when I was a teenager, as cliche as that can sometimes sound. It would have done me a lot of good not only to see queer rep that wasn't part of the plot, just a single facet of multi-faceted characters, but also to see teenagers who had healthy relationships with adults. But I have it now as an adult and it is still oh so delightful. There aren't enough good, cozy queer fantasy books out there, not like this. It's nice to be able to just fall into a comfortable little world for the span of a single book and know that in the end it will be wrapped up and happy.

Also...pretty sure there was a Death Note reference in there. :P

[pinkchaosart]

Another piece of fan art for the book Spell Bound by F.T. Lukens! My favourite character, Sun 🩷 I took inspiration from the cover art of the book with the colour palette and I really like how this turned out! I'm also sort of new to drawing animals generally, and I want to get better at it soon. It'll just involve my sitting down and doing it, you know? I'm also planning a companion piece to go with this for the other main character Rook, but I'm not entirely sure what to do for his, so it could be a while.

What's your favourite book? Have you read Spell Bound too? If you have, who was your favourite?

If you enjoyed this, consider leaving a like,, a comment, and following me :)

Constructive feedback welcome!

[lgbtqreads]

YA eBooks on Sale for Under $4

[novaalexanderwrites]

Book Recs: Spellbound - F.T. Lukens

I read Luken's newest book Spellbound and it was so good. It's a YA novel about a pair of rivals-to-lovers in a magical, modern-day city. One is magic, one isn't, but they both have magical bosses. Lots of trouble happens, they have to go on the run, and there's a cat involved in there somewhere.

I feel a little called out by this book because the two main characters are a golden retriever non-magical white boy and a aesthetically-dark magical Asian they/them. You know. Like two of my characters are. Granted, Rosalind isn't Korean like Sun is, but Sun (the Korean magic baby) very much reads like a young Rosalind (though they were much older when they figured out their gender stuff). But I really enjoyed the two characters, their banter, their relationship, and I wish Lukens would write a sequel (though I'm fairly confident they don't really do that. This one definitely reads as a complete story, which is nice!).

Definitely recommend reading this if you're into fun, easy, queer reads with a bit of adventure and romantic tension. 💖 Also, if I write fanfiction for it, mind your business. Or read it. You do you.

[rhysdoesstuff]

Arek!

I haven’t seen enough people talking about So This Is Ever After, so I thought I would draw Arek!

[sasa-chan]

I woke up feeling so very nostalgic.

Here's a random fact about me: I can't sleep without music, so I always pick a random playlist before I go to sleep. Last night's playlist just happened to be one I've had since I was a teenager. It is filled with the J-Pop & K-Pop groups I was a huge fan of when I first became a J-Pop & K-Pop fan. Most of which groups are on hiatus, disbanded or have lost members for various reasons.

And right now, I just really, really miss them. So I'll be spending the next few (read: several) hours watching old YouTube videos of them.

[themelodyofspring]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge

March 29 - Freebie

Update on F.T. Lukens - I finished their book and liked it (a lot)! It was so cute and cosy ✨

[thepixiediaries]

gay teenagers.

[starfocks]

read my fic for this incredibly obscure book fandom i swear its good

late valentines fic! Rook goes shopping to find a gift for Sun. They have a dinner date and cuddle. And kiss.

[abrandnewshadow]

alt press ft willz mention

"Your label, Skeleton Crew, recently signed the Architects. Are you planning anything else for the rest of the year?

Yeah. There’s a New Tomorrow record coming in February called We’re Counting On The Youth. That record’s amazing. I can’t speak enough great things about that band. They’re a phenomenal band and they wrote an amazing record. The Architects will probably be recording around February, so hopefully that record comes out soon. This year we also have a book coming out by F.T. Willz, so I’m really excited for that as well."

10/29/2009

[anxietyfrappuccino]

i own three more books 📚