#2024 will be my year of Animorphs.

[uglygirlstatus]

despite the fact that the pdfs are literally available for free online I’ve spent the last two ish years trying to collect every single Animorphs book through finding them by chance at thrift stores and bookshops and only then will I allow myself to indulge in the series from beginning to end. I only have 15 books left please clap

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: THE MESSAGE by K.A. Applegate, adapted by Chris Grine.

The original ANIMORPHS books were a hugely formative influence on....My Entire Life, Writerly and Otherwise, so I've been collecting the graphic novels as they come out, too!

[gcantread]

August 2024 reads

[loved liked ok nope dnf bookclub*]

My Lady Jane • The Wild Robot • Our Hideous Progeny • The Hero and the Crown • The Screwtape Letters • The Seventh Veil of Salome • Our Shouts Echo • Villette • The Lies of Alma Blackwell • The Mercy of Gods • Mistress of Lies • Lady Macbeth • Go to Hell • Lucy Undying

I read 14 books in August! (Well, ok, I'm on track to finish the last two today.) It was a busy reading month for me due to tons of ARCs and new releases (8/14 of this list!), which resulted in an "all my library holds are ready at once ougsfshfh" situation. I also once again checked out a few books in order to see if they're worth reading in future years of @bellasbookclub.

My Lady Jane ★★★☆☆ - A very silly time that often reads more like upper-middle-grade than YA. A skip for TV show fans, but the tween furry community should be overjoyed.

The Wild Robot ★★★★★ - An adorable (and yet surprisingly death-y) kids' book that (🤞) should make a fantastic movie. The illustrations alone bump this one up a few stars.

Our Hideous Progeny ★★★★☆ - The last (?) of my BBC Summer Reading Challenge 2024 picks! Has a slow start but man, if you give me an undead abomination plesiosaur who is also a cute little guy, I am seated. Could have been a five star read if it were just a lil gayer and more Creature-forward!

The Hero and the Crown ★★★☆☆ - Read this one to screen it for @bellasbookclub, so I shan't say any details (yet.)

The Screwtape Letters ★★★☆☆ - Another BBC screening but nope nah I'm not gonna make us read The Christianity Book. Did not make me repent of my godless Jezebel ways even a little bit, but gets three stars because it's nevertheless a fascinating glimpse of C.S. Lewis as a person. Next time I'll stick to The Good Place though.

The Seventh Veil of Salome ★★★★1/2 - Speaking of godless Jezebels: Silvia Moreno-Garcia and I have the same biblical blorbo!! I haven't loved any of Moreno-Garcia's work since Mexican Gothic, but finally, this one was another slam dunk for me! As a Salome (1893) enjoyer and understander I'm so glad SMG is one of us. The main (Hollywood Golden Age) parts were also deftly rendered—this was the first truly well-executed Karen Villain I've encountered.

Our Shouts Echo ★★★★☆ - A really sweet and enjoyable contemporary YA coming-of-age + romance that somehow pulled off its nuanced optimism without being preachy or precious. Dare I say...actual hopepunk? An ARC from ALA Annual.

Villette ★★★☆☆ - Another book club screening. [Helga voice] I hated this book but I loved this book but I hated this book but I loved this book. Dammit, it's just so memeable. See you in hell 2025 probably

The Lies of Alma Blackwell ★★★1/2☆ - A decent YA ghost story with immaculate creepy, witchy, & haunted house vibes and some fun tropey romance (sure, why not?) Another ARC.

The Mercy of Gods ★★★★☆ - Ensemble-driven alien invasion story in which a team of wet babygirl science geeks must prove their worth to their new Giant Fucked Up Bug overlords and also one of them is a parasitic hivemind but we don't know which. Unsinkable concept but the writing makes it even better. One for the grown up Animorphs kids (Yes I know I rated it less than Wild Robot, but Wild Robot is a 5-star quality kids' book, while Mercy of Gods is an imperfect but riveting adult novel that I connected with on a more personal level.)

Mistress of Lies ★★★☆☆ - 2nd-to-last in my self-imposed (Review-) Bombed Books Week Challenge. A generous rounding up to three stars because I like the concept and it had a strong start before...plateauing for 200 pages. (Where were the titular LIES?) Very little actually happened and yet my laconic review is somehow "do less."

Lady Macbeth ★★★★☆ - More of an original story with some names in common than a retelling (Macbeth fans be forewarned. Y'all remember the dragon? You know, the dragon that's in Macbeth?) I tired of how repetitive the assault-as-motif became, but there were some very cool plot choices and Ava Reid's prose is gorgeous as ever. Kind of Green Knight vibes!

Go to Hell ★★★1/2☆ - Another ARC, this one a nonfiction travel guide to IRL destinations that are either associated with Hell/underworld mythology or just hellish places in general. Taught me a lot more folklore and history than your average travel guide!

Lucy Undying ★☆☆☆☆ - Hilarious of me to read two retellings in a row. Unlike Macbeth, I feel deep personal affection for Dracula, which meant this book wold have made me silver_linings_playbook.gif it out the window if I hadn't been reading on my phone. If I had never read Dracula, I miiiight have liked this? (jk I finished it and can now definitively say I would not have.) The prose was decent and I liked Lucy's modern-day love interest, Iris, but this author clearly graduated from the "lesbians must hate and deride all men all the time and be proven right in this view when every single man tries to harm them" school of writing sapphic characters, and since the book was basically encouraging me to paranoid-read, it set off both my "clumsy writing" and "...is this a t3rf?" alarms. tl;dr Mina and Jonathan and Van Helsing and Seward and Arthur and Quincey and Berserker the wolf and even Mr. Swales (slandering Mr. Swales?? Is nothing sacred??) deserved SO much better. Now I'll have to reread Dracula to cleanse myself

DNFs: None! Although Lucy Undying certainly tried my patience.

August superlatives

Next up:

September is another new release-filled month! I'm on track to finish my Bombed Books Week Challenge with The Empire Wars by Akana Phenix and then the unreleased Crown of Starlight itself, so I can satisfy my intellectual curiosity of how it compares to the books its author tried to sabotage. (Which attempted sabotage was an abhorrent action I 100% condemn. Toss aside those large rocks, I've been supporting the targeted authors at my local bookstore and library.)

In less dramatic goals, I've got an ARC of Ruin Road by Lamar Giles I'm eager to check out, and I can't wait for Long Live Evil to be ready at the library. We've also got our first official Bella's Book Club read of Season 3, which should be fun (hint: it's an Austen!)

previous months:

july

[talenlee]

Talen's Birthday, 2024

Somehow this one feels less of a big deal than last year. I dunno, maybe it’s because turning forty has been a big monument in my mind, turning forty-one feels just like turning forty again.

I had a fanciful idea that I could do something with the fact that 41 is a prime age; that I have turned 1, 3, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37 and now 41, and then I thought it’d be interesting to see if I ever turned a prime age in a prime year. Now, if you’re at all good at math you’d be able to point out that by being born in 1983, every year I turn an odd age, the year is even and vice versa, meaning that for roughly half the population at any time, they’re never a prime age on a prime year, since no even number is a prime.

It’s not a complicated math puzzle here.

Making a birthday post on my birthday doesn’t feel that special now. It’s not a milestone, it’s not important. Comically, because City of Heroes is burned into my brain, I do think of 41 as a level where you used to get access to your first Epic Power Pool choice (except now you get them at level 35, which is cool). It’s good though: This was a good way to fight the anxiety of the birthday. I remember when I turned 35 I had a real horrible moment thinking I was done, that I had wasted my entire life up to that point. I remember part of what made it okay was seeing Adam Savidan on Youtube, playing Magic: The Gathering and saying ‘I’m thirty five or thirty four years old and I don’t need this.’

A thing about Loading Ready Run that makes me feel a tiny bit bad is that it’s this big long project that a bunch of friends have been making and running for twenty years, as an ongoing hobby that became a job and then became an institution managing multiple people creating things. Sometimes I get sad thinking about how what got that big project to happen was, in part, two dudes with supportive parents and supportive school supplies in the late 90s were able to work on a project, together, for long enough to become very good at it.

How do you do something for twenty years?

Well, you start.

You start, and you keep working on it while you work on things.

The internet of today is poisoned. The internet of today demands you create for it, it wants you to produce Content. Your status updates, your pictures, your everyday drama, your existence, they are all things that are being fed into advertising machine to space out the ads in the name of being ‘content.’ It isn’t how it used to be. It used to be people had websites for their special interests, the interest being the primary thing. My first website I can remember was an Animorphs fanfiction space, and I remembered how when I stopped trying to host other people’s fanfiction, and instead just hosted my own, the one author I took down got sad at me. She was probably also like, fourteen like I was.

It used to be that people made things because they wanted to share them. It used to be that people were making websites and stories and web-novels and web-comics and diaries and blogs and vlogs and microgames and RPGs and they were making stuff. It was stuff. It was not for consuming in its own continual sense, it was not being part of a pipe of things that were fed to you, it was not content, it was a lot of different stuff and that difference gave everyone a reason to do things.

But now, it’s Content.

Now, your effort, your creative material, is being pushed into a single tube for four companies who suck and you know they suck and you don’t like them and yet you make things for them anyway. Because that’s where it is. That’s where the habit forms.

Arbor Day - The Lads // Arbor Day

Watch this video on YouTube

I’m fond of this song, Arbor Day by a band that can be politely described as ‘pretty good, for a Church choir.’ The song, very simply, is that hey, do you need a reason to make a change in your life? Well, today is Arbor day, that’s a good enough reason.’ It’s been an idea bubbling around in my head that yeah, Arbor Day is a nearly arbitary reason to make a big change in your life, but that may be all you need. Sometimes you just need something, anything to mark the psychological change between ‘before I tried this’ to ‘after I tried this.’

Here’s my request for you, on my birthday.

There is something you want to make. There is something you care about. There is something you are interested in trying. Today is a day to do that. Today is a day to even just describe a plan, or a hope. Do you want to write a book? Write a description of what that book is about. A series of books? Describe all of them! Do you want to make games? Start, download one of the programs you need to use today.

Don’t waste money on things for this post’s sake, but you know there are steps you can take to make things, and I want you to make them. I believe in a world where people make things because we like making things, I believe in a world of creative people playing with creativity, and I believe that the important thing of online spaces ie being able to share them.

So please, make something, and show it to me.

No matter how small it is, no matter how little progress on it you get to make. Just spend a little time today starting something, continuing something or finishing something.

I’ll be proud of you, no matter what.

I promise.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[ownedbybooks]

I can't remember the last time i was VERY active over here but i feel this is going to be a good time to comeback because I have so many things to read and study this new year!

I didn't reach my reading goal in 2023, but i'm quite sure i'm going to hit my 2024 goals of 41 books since i've started doing a Animorphs series buddy read with some online friends :)

Apart from that, I've finished the Endgame series, read a bit more of the shadowhunter series (loved both the Clockwork Prince and Princess). I have some series to finish and others to continue, that i've started last year so… I expect to read a lot, in a way. Also this month I've joined so many readathons lmao please cheer for me because I won't be finishing them on the wright time, and that makes me read more books but heeeey i'm going to try and focus more on my personal TBR when choosing the books to read for these events!

How are you guys? Have you accomplished your 2023 goals? Do you already have plans for 2024?

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

EVERY WEEK I WILL POST VARIOUS REVIEWS I’VE WRITTEN SO FAR IN 2024. YOU CAN CHECK OUT MY GOODREADS FOR MORE UP-TO-DATE REVIEWS HERE.

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42. Identity by Nora Roberts--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of the best things I did for myself with this book was going into the story without reading the synopsis. I legitimately knew absolutely nothing about this book and man, when that first twist happened I was HOOKED.

The familial relationships in this book were everything and I loved that there weren't any of the usual tropes in this one when it came to the romance. It was a thriller first and a romance/familial story second. I did love how all of the characters communicated and worked together, even if their dialogue was sometimes a little awkward--especially when discussing intimate things. I know all families are different, but I wouldn't confess to my mom and grandma that I just came back from a night of pure sex LOL. But hey, to each their own.

The love interest was interesting. I really liked him and his blunt delivery, but sometimes he DID push that line of like "Alright, I guess we're just going with this." It was funny watching these two come together and I'll be honest, when he was a certain way (which I know is just his personality), I thought "wow, our standards are flat against the floor." While the relationship sometimes felt stilted, it didn't detract too much from the story for me.

Now the villain was something else. He was creepy and horrendous. I actually pictured his face changing from when he first meets the MC to when he sees her sick friend. It's horrendous and he was so well written--especially when we get to see his steady decline into even more madness.

Overall, this was FUN and had some very disturbing moments. Roberts is a little too good at writing someone who thinks so horrendously and does some horrible things to his victims. I recommend this for the sweetness of the family and a character who loves her job, but also for the creepy POV of the serial killer.

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43. The Unknown by Katherine Applegate--⭐️⭐️

It's been a few weeks since I've read an Animorphs book because the library holds time is sometimes brutal. Why am I mentioning this? Because this was one of the rare books in this series that I didn't feel any urgency to read. I'll be super honest: This one felt like a weird dream. Half the time I was confused about how the characters got to certain points in the story.

I'll still be reading the rest of the series, of course, but this one was just okay. I do love these adventures, but this felt almost like a filler book?

Anyway, onto the next one!

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44. The Titan's Bride Vol. 1 by ITKZ--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I will admit that while this storyline was actually sweet and pretty intriguing, this book is...nearly all porn. Had me blushing through the whole thing. I'm intrigued by where the story is going and I'm kicking myself for not having ordered the rest of the books yet, but yeah, this was basically porn with a sprinkling of a sweet and fantastical storyline.

I will say that the artwork is stunning!

Sigh. LOL.

___

45. Once There Was by Kiyash Monsef--⭐️⭐️⭐️

ONCE THERE WAS would have been better as an adult fantasy book. Why? Because so many things in this book felt like an adult fantasy book--there weren't any adult themes, but a lot of the circumstances were a bit of a stretch. I think I, as a reader, wouldn't have had to suspend my disbelief so much if this had simply been an adult.

I mean, a fifteen year-old inherits her dad's Vet practice and and lives alone?

By the end of the book, I had forgotten this was YA.

Moving on from that, this book had a really cool concept. I loved the idea that there's a vet out there destined to take care of mythological monsters. I also loved that it was such a diverse set of characters too, including the MC. We get to see more about her culture and her father and what happens when Western society stamps out that aspect of an identity. For example: food, language barriers, and culture.

While the book felt a little all over the place, I really liked seeing the MC in action when it came to these magical beings. I also really liked how Monsef explored the concept of grief and how important it can be to just feel the emotions.

Overall, this book was OKAY. There were points where I was a little bored and a little confused as to why this was YA, but I can also see why so many people might love it. This was like Dr. Doolittle for mythological creatures.

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46. Raiders of the Lost Heart by Jo Segura-- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I didn't know what to expect from RAIDERS OF THE LOST HEART, but I had a pretty good time with what Segura gave us. From the badass FMC to the stuttering and himbo of a MMC.

I think with books like this one, I need to not take the storylines too seriously so I can fully enjoy it (which I did). The romance, tension, and spice were great. The adventuring was fun (even though I would have loved to see a bit more). I think reading the author's note also helped in realizing how much leeway was given to the characters' adventuring, since it isn't really like this in real life.

This really felt like I was watching a movie. It was a quick and addicting read and had me hooked from the very beginning.

There is one character, however, who is clearly Pansexual and I do wish they had said that instead of having the FMC confused as to how one person could like more than one gender. I do like that this character explains it, but I do wish Segura had gone the extra step of saying the term.

Anyway, I enjoyed this for what it was and I'm glad I didn't pay attention to the rating!

___

47. Olive Harvest in Palestine by Wafa Shami & Shaima Farouki (Illustrator)--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don't normally rate or talk a lot about the storybooks I come across. But I came across OLIVE HARVEST IN PALESTINE while scrolling Instagram and I knew I immediately wanted it on my shelves. It's beautifully illustrated and the story it tells of an event that was a yearly tradition of harvesting and pressing olives in such a beautiful place like Palestine was both eye-opening and heartbreaking.

It breaks my heart to know that all of that beauty is now only on pages of storybooks, memories, photographs, and videos taken in passing. My heart ached while reading this important book. My heart cries for those olive trees that were hundreds of years old.

If there is a storybook you pick up this year, let it be this one.

___

48. Block Shot by Kennedy Ryan--⭐️⭐️

When I read the first book in this series, I was hooked. I thought it was powerful, heartbreaking, and incredibly addicting.

And I don't know if it's because I spent yesterday sick in bed, but BLOCK SHOT was the last thing I wanted to finish (even though I only had like 4 hours left in the audiobook). I finally finished it earlier today but because I knew I wanted to finish it so I could get to the third book. Normally, I tell friends to DNF books but sue me, I wanted to give this book a shot.

All of that being said, I WAS intrigued at the beginning. I loved how these two knew each other from way back when and how, even years later, they still couldn't fight the chemistry between them. Call me wild, but I personally don't know how I would have reacted if I the FMC and the events of the first part of the book happened. On one hand, I get it because being a fat girl has always been my identity. Being the butt of fat girl jokes? Been there, done that. But on the other hand, I found that this FMC had a massive chip on her shoulder that she carried for the majority of the book, which she then moulded into a slightly unhealthy thing.

I'll admit, I found the portrayal of her body and how even the MMC referred to it (like being fat is a horrendous thing) really icky. I know that this was written a few years ago, but it made me so uncomfortable that the fat girl's humiliation was one of the big motivations for the FMC to "better" herself, as if her intelligence and already existent beauty wasn't enough. Don't get me wrong: wanting to feel a certain way and looking a certain way isn't a bad thing, I think the phrasing of it was just not it.

Which leads me to saying that...the FMC was one of those characters who supposedly had a powerful presence and was touted as this saint, but LOL, let's be real. She wasn't. Sure, she could put her business face on, but man, she was someone who was so easily manipulated. There were so many instances where I wanted to shake some sense into her. Like, we KNOW the MMC was an asshole, but at least he admits it? He was honest about who he was, while she was the one play acting.

I won't even touch on the fact that there's cheating in this and it's not like in the first book, where it felt like a glimmer of hope and fear. Here it was all pure selfishness. And I don't think we should always like the main characters in books, but like...at least make them consistent. I don't know, the FMC annoyed me and again, while I didn't like the MMC, at least he was honest.

Also, that twist. I saw it coming, but it added a whole other level of ick to everything and the FMC.

I'm disappointed with this book, but I'll still be picking up book 3.

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49. My Love Mix-Up! Vol. 1 by Wataru Hinekure (writer), Aruko(illustrator), & Jan Cash (Translator)--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved MY LOVE MIX-UP! and how much fun it was. The storyline was entertaining and while I think things happened a little too quickly in this first volume, I did love the antics and honesty the MC had for his situation. I can never tire of these kinds of stories where kids are just casually living their lives and falling in love with the unexpected person.

This reminded me a lot of BLUE FLAG, which was one of my favourite reads a couple of years ago. I loved the friendship aspect and how, even though things have the potential to be messy, that friendship perseveres.

I also laughed quite a bit at that twist at the end. Will definitely be aiming to get this entire series!

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50. Happy Place by Emily Henry--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I think I always kind of know what to expect from an Emily Henry novel, so while I went into HAPPY PLACE with a bit of nerves, I also knew I would probably enjoy it. I didn't read the synopsis, as per usual, and I was (unsurprisingly) hooked from the beginning. This book was a shot of melancholy, heartbreak, and that magic feeling that summer sometimes brings out in us that anything is possible.

At first, I was put off by the going back and forth with the past and present. Mainly, I've always found these kinds of stories feel a little abrupt when they have a flashback chapter every so often and I become impatient for the present day story. But as the story progressed, I realized it was impatience mingling with anxiety. I was afraid to see what broke these two up; what had the power to come in between these proclamations of forever I-love-you's and soulmate-y kind of love stories. I was worried and while I had to force myself to face it, I'm glad I did. I obviously won't say what it was, but I will say that it felt like a very real reason, even though these two would heavily benefit from couple's therapy.

I also appreciated the friendships and how this book isn't just about the romance that broke, but the relationship between friends. There are different kinds of happy places in this book and many of them include these amazing friends who are guilty of a huge crime: growing up. I find that I related a lot to the one friend who spent her time chasing that high of youth caught in a summer breeze. I remember summers long past full of memories that will never be replicated, but growing up means knowing that those memories exist, even if life and time changes everything.

Much like many other Henry books, this delves into deeper topics as well, like familial trauma, grief, mental health, and abandonment issues. Those were palpable on the pages as the characters faced these very real parts of themselves.

I'm not giving this a full five stars because of the flashbacks and how messy the MC and her love interest were. Communication is a golden rule I wish more romances adopted, but I also can understand that in order to have diverse characters, we need to be mindful of the ones who genuinely have a hard time communicating--usually because of mental health and traumatic responses. All of that being said, I still stand by this couple being chaotic--even if they were probably my second or third favourite couple in the Henryverse.

ALSO, DID EVERYONE PEEP THE BEACH READ EASTER EGG?? Hell yeah.

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Have you read any of these books? What were your thoughts?

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Happy reading!

[literarywizard]

Reading The Animorphs For The First Time: Part 2

I'm two and a half months deeper into reading all of the Animorphs books and while I've enjoyed my time reading them, not a lot has actually changed since the last time I wrote about my decision to read all of The Animorphs during 2024.

I wrote previously about how I started reading The Animorphs in the year 2024, but that was over two months ago and we’re many books further into the series. I feel like we should be approaching the halfway point soon, but that’s still almost two full months away. Right now, even though I’m a week ahead (as of writing this, anyway–I’m on schedule as this gets posted since I’ll be taking a week…

[crmsnmth]

Update/Note 4/25/2024

Hey, how goes it? So, September Sky is getting close to where I'm at in the editing process, so soon enough it will slow down on how often parts are being uploaded. Don't worry, I started posting it here, and I'll finish off the story here. Second, I've slowed down a bit on my attempts at poetry. This is just because well, life is life, and there's quite a bit to do this time of year. With work, my youngest brother graduating, and trying to find a place I can call my own (that won't push me back into being completely broke again), I just don't really have the energy. The writing hasn't stopped, because anyone that sees my thumbprints knows that this isn't just writing for attention and that my fingers on the keys, or wrapped around a pen, is a type of medicine for me that keeps me stable and able to face my emotions. There's still hundreds of notes in my doc app, and there's notebooks being chiseled in every single day. It's the idea of fixing them and rearranging lines and breaks that takes a lot of energy. Don't worry, there's an infinite supply always on its way. I couldn't stop if I tried. And finally, I'm going to be starting to add yet another fictional story I've been working on for going on three years, and I think I'm ready for it to start being seen by others. it's on its eighth draft, and if I don't start sharing it, it'll end up with 100 drafts, and as obsessively as I write, that's past the point of making it better and into making something mechanical. It's horror/dark romance, which probably shouldn't surprise anyone who enjoys or reads my work. Right now, it's under the working title "The Horror of Our Love" (which will be changed once I actually think of something better) which is actually the title of a Ludo song that is amazing, and one of those songs that means the world to me, mainly from where I first heard it, and who had posted it to an old Facebook wall. The whole inspiration for the story came from that song and being unreasonably angry at the Twilight series completely destroying and making fun of the vampire mythos. So, think Twilight, with more blood, gore, violence, and anger. Twilight for horror purists and a much more mature audience. Maybe if Edward had ripped out someone's throat, it'd would been more of my kind of story. (And if you happen to like the Twilight books, I'm not interested in changing your opinion of the series. Love what you love. Especially when it comes to art, music, and the written word. You're allowed to like and love whatever it is you find, and don't let anyone ever take that away from you. I still read the Animorphs series every so often. And I fucking love it. And Goosebumps too. And if you don't like Goosebumps, what the hell are you doing with your life?) If none of this stuff interests you in anyway, and your own here because it's fun to watch a train wreck of a human being crash and see inside the head of a delusional and depressed functioning adult, that's cool too. Hope you're getting you're psych research done. Just include my name in the footnotes please. I deserve some credit for being batshit insane, right? I think that's it for now. Have a good one. -Chris (crmsnmth)

[uglygirlstatus]

okay. Maybe 2023 I reread tlt and then finally reread warrior cats again. Then 2024 can be my year of Animorphs assuming that alecto the ninth comes out when it’s supposed to

[midnightkirito007]

2024 Life Update things

Welcome to the blog! Happy New Year and all of the good things <3

I'm now MidnightKirito007!! Formerly: thelegendofxavio but I figured it was time for a change. I've started a WishTender as well that you can check out, and if you contribute to anything there ever, huge thanks!! And much love :3

I've also started co-streaming this year with @medipack666, and so some things in the wishtender will contribute towards helping making that stream better and more improved over time (for example, the switch things because I would totally stream Switch games, but it needs that add-on tech that I don't have right now).

Other things that I'll probably add on to the WT in the future would be to fund other random stuff like: gym clothes/ protein powder/ gym membership (those things are all expensive for what reason?? but allegedly good for my body and mental health, and my dreams of being short but built like superman a truck) ; potentially stuff to make my drawing life easier (eg. ipad case, stand, pencil grip, brushes etc); subscription apps maybe; and other general things in my life to make living not a struggle. Oh I also want to try getting into app/ game software development, so it might help with that too idk.

PS. if you followed me for my animorphs read through and posts, I'm still doing that and plan to continue that this year, so fear not!!

[bermudianabroad]

Fun(ish) resolution

Each week in 2024 I'm going to listen to one whole album from start to finish.

No other criteria other than it must be an album I have never heard from start to finish before.

Book Resolution: well since I have a fabulous habit of completely undermining whatever resolution I make, I am hesitant to make a Declaration. But since it's me and I am fond of making Declarations, I hereby Delcare that 2024 will be the year of revisiting the books of childhood. This seems like a safe declaration because I have already read six books this year, all of which are Animorphs, and the Phantom Tollbooth. A good start!

In that vein, I never finished the Narnia books, so I'll read them (only got up to Prince Caspian); Harry Potter since I've not reread them as an adult and I'm... curious. The neverending story was one I came to when I was a young teen, but I think that deserves a reread too. Plus all the animorphs.

And my unsustainable declaration is to actually read the books on my TBR pile.

Other resolutions?: fewer grocery related impulse purchases. I've gotten bad for that. Less time doing the time kill internet browse. I've gotten bad for that too.

And one weird medieval activity. In 2023 I managed to silversmith myself a ring, and I gilded a bunch of ceiling panels. A day of falconry? Embroidery? They could be fun. Somehow embroider myself a falcon?

[televinita]

Retail Therapy Day

I went to a town I've never been to before, which turned out to be FULL of well-stocked Little Free Libraries, and made out like a BANDIT at them:

(yes we are going to ignore the fact that literally 24 hours ago I made a post about the dozens of books I already don't have room for)

-Happy Place by Emily Henry, paperback edition ('23 release, the paperback is from this year!)

-The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (paperback edition) -- they also had A Flicker in the Dark, but I'm not really interested in that one and if I change my mind, it's at the library w/ no waitlist.

-It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover in like-new condition paperback (I'm sorry, I'm vaguely curious, and there is still a waitlist at the library despite them owning 17 copies)

-The Orphanage By The Lake (2024), an indie thriller I was JUST looking at on Goodreads and sad my library didn't have

-Still Here by Rowan Blanchard, whom I didn't realize was the titular girl from Girl Meets World until later. It's a pretty cool facsimile of a filled-out blank book and I'm always looking for that, even when I'm not that interested in the content (I think it will serve best as inspiration for making my own, better). It's not in great shape, ex-library and the front cover has a crease where it was heavily bent back/the corners are as ruffled as you'd expect from a library paperback, but I'll at least borrow it long enough to look through.

-Another one had two later-in-the-series Animorphs books, including #52, but their edges were so filthy I didn't really want to take them home.

And THEN I capped my trip by stopping at Goodwill, where I immediately found my favorite Mimi Matthews book, Fair As A Star!!! In perfect shape, and a book I love so much that I was pretty set on buying it within a year because I Need It and didn't think I'd find it anywhere in person.

I also found the special paperback edition of More Happy Than Not, by Adam Silvera, with the new ending chapter, which wasn't REALLY a book I was that interested in reading compared to History Is All You Left Me (I want the bonus-content version of that one so bad!), but again…where else am I going to find that version for $2.15, especially in like new condition.

-AND the Happiness Project version of a 5-year-diary, brand new, which seems fun enough that I might try restarting this habit.

And! AND!!!! One of the places I went to before that was an antique store, where I found two My Little Ponies for $3.50 and $5 each, respectively?? A baby (baby North Star) and the typical wingless Flutter pony (Honeysuckle), they're both very much in played-with condition and need cleaning, but what good prices!

AND there were some Taylor Swift-themed stickers, of the kind I am always looking dreamily at on Etsy, being sold at 3/$1. Which is still definitely a higher per-unit price than Etsy, but it was a fun little treat to add three of those on top and not have to splash a full $10-15 out at once.

[talenlee]

February 2024 Wrapup

Hey hang on, this month normally fits nicely into the schedule with standard numbers! Who put an extra day in this Smooch Month? I guess that means that this year, the year is just a little extra smoochy! But those four weeks and an extra, they are past us and now it is time to reflect on what happened this month, and what I wrote.

If you check this blog periodically, you might have missed all sorts of interesting articles just because, you know, discoverability is hard.

For once I wasn’t completely hosed trying to come up with smoochy games for Smooch Month! I actually had other things that I think I’m going to bump to next year’s Smooch Month and they’ll be, like, still relevant, how cool is that?

Dream Crush, a voting board game that makes that venerable game mechanic really interesting.

Ouendan (Video), a video article on my beloved videogame Ouendan. This is an update and expansion of an older article. I made a flag transition in this one!

Thirsty Sword Lesbians, a TTRPG about inclusivity that made me feel alienated in how reads and presents its player actions.

Hinedere Beat, a lovely little parkour platformer that made me think about a lot of words I don’t use. This one winds up talking about the Nazis!

That’s not all though, because if you check the Talen and Fox playlist, you’ll find that we also played through The Secret of Monkey Island! We selected that one because, even as a 90s point and clicker, it still represented an interesting take on a character relationship, and a girl who is interested in a boy and it’s clear why.

There were also a bunch of story pile articles, talking about smoochy movies and anime!

D.E.B.S., part of our Positronic Collection viewing. It’s a movie about silly spies, and it’s also actually factually about a queer couple!

Tomo-Chan is a Girl, an extremely mid anime that I appreciate because of how much better it made other mediocre anime look!

A Tail of Love, a Hallmark movie, with Fox as guest spot, which we’re happy to watch this time because it’s just boring and doesn’t feature dog theft.

Insomniacs After School, an anime I really love about two people with a common, down to earth problem, and the way the world looks when you can share it with just one person.

That’s not all the articles you can read (or watch, or listen to!) here on press dot exe! I also wrote about a whole range of other topics, and I think these articles are worth a second look if you missed them!

As it was Smooch month, I wrote about a bunch of stuff relating to romance. I checked out some old media’s examples of that, like in the Transformers episode The Girl Who Loved Powerglide, or the Animorphs shipping couple of Tobias and Rachel in Can A Bird Love a Falcon. I feel like that joke is a little too subtle. I also reflected on a romantic anime of my youth, and how modern discourse are replicating old conversations with The Ranma 1/2 Subreddit is Repeating History, and that then built out idea space for a consideration of the commonality between Homestuck and Ranma 1/2 with Homestuck 1/2. And since we’re talking anime I reflected on how much I liked the anime Shikimori’s Not Just A Cutie because of how it represented non-het, non-mono romance even though it absolutely does represent that with The Unhinged Performative Heteronormativity of Shikimori’s Not Just A Cutie.

Rounding that out and with a slightly darker take, I also wrote about my experience observing fundamentalist churches interacting with some of the hardest experiences couples have with Fundie Divorce, and then reflected on the way we’ve been ‘told’ relationships should work with an article about the history of Remote Romance.

Finally, I spent some time on D&D related stuff, looking at Sanders and Danube from Cobrin’Seil as places who could represent Yuri, and the strange commonality of Love Potions as purchaseable devices and what that meant about the world and its economy. I also wrote 4e for Two, as an article about how you might want to arrange the game for a two player experience.

Also, if you’re a fan of my custom magic cards, I put out two articles about this year’s Magic The Gathering set Vox Maxima: cards and story.

This month I made a shirt that tried to wed my familiarity with overly ornate stained glass from Wealthy Church Members’ doors and high-up windows, and also my love for easy geometry.

If you want, you can get this design on a sticker, or a shirt!

February is the last month of summer here, and the weather has become more extreme. Hot days are hotter, and then they’re punctuated with heavy, rainy days. The humidity in my area is a constant part of summer days, because I’m near two bodies of water. The sun hits the water, the water fills the air and the temperature can’t get too high because of that. Means the weather report says ‘oh yeah it’s like 29 degrees’ and that’s not so bad but then you check and it’s 80-90% humidity. The result is now that weather forecasts in my area include the stat ‘feels like’ and that has hovered around the mid 30s pretty consistently.

It’s not like it’s the hottest place in the world — I can just imagine people assering ‘well it’s over 40 in’ — and I don’t care. What I care about is how not being able to sleep has messed with my everything. Sleeping and eating are the two things that I keep thinking about when it comes to this time – I don’t do things that involve cooking heavily in the oven, because of the weather and all, and sometimes I’m up until 3 in the morning just because I can’t sleep and then I spend that time being unhappily watching biblical documentaries. I guess in the context of food I’ve been eating a lot of lentils? I got that point where I stopped buying canned lentils and started buying dried lentils (in a mix) and just keeping a little tub of them in the fridge soaking in water so any time I want to make A Food, I will just grab some of the lentil mix and use that instead of like, minced meat or chicken.

I have however, spent every week of this month aggressively getting words into my literature review, which I glibly call to my friends ‘The Word Pit.’ Every week has had a section drafted, with the attempt to make a schedule that gets my production up to pace for when the semester starts. I feel good about this pace of change, and I feel good about getting this kind of progress going, but it does also mean that every day I feel like I wake up and I have to generate two piles of words and this blog is the much easier one to generate.

Friends have gone through some rough stuff this month. Not putting their stuff on the streets, but it’s happened and I’ve been trying to be there for my friends while also acknowledging that I need to generate a few thousand words a day for an incredibly important project.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[animorphs-duhve]

Welcome (the girl who's reading this)

Hi :> I am reading Animorphs for the first time and I realized I need to get my thoughts down. This silly series from the 90s that I am reading in 2024 has really put me through it all. And I need to talk about it. Please join me in my insane (best way to describe it) analysis through reading this entire series!

For the record, I am blind to the Animorphs series. My experience, like everyone else, is judging the books by their cover and going, "wow, what the hell?" But I have a bit more. On Netflix, I watched the show around 12 years ago and I have found an Animorphs book with an anteater on the cover. I can only remember bits and pieces from both the show and book.

So what even gave me the idea to read Animorphs? Well reader, I am really interested in transformation :> Truly. My favorite series from my childhood was Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. The idea of being a human turned pokémon and going on this adventure with other pokemon is awesome to me. Getting used to your new body and powers to save the world is interesting to me. IDK how I got into transformation in the first place, but I tend to gravitate towards those stories. Stuff like Roald Dahl's "The Witches" and certain movies like "The Swan Princess" have persisted in my brain and has altered my brain chemistry. The concept of transformation is so interesting to me and thinking about it, Animorphs is THE transformation novel. So I was gravitated to it too.

So as I have been reading, This series has got me bubbling with thoughts, theories, and comments on the story that is unfolding. It is rather exciting to be so wrapped in a series all over again. So stick around and enjoy! :>

[tinx-methinks]

I read a lot of books in 2023!

Update to this post.

I am super pumped to report that in the last little bit I read two more Animorphs (The Illusion and The Prophecy). I read the Great Gatsby for the first time. Finished Around the World in 80 Days. I also read Junji Ito's Lovesickness, and Erin Kelly's The Skeleton Key.

Which means my final total for books was a whopping 80 read over the year! Wowza.

Add to that that I read two more short stories (not counting the ones in the Ito collection I included as a book above).

Meaning I read a total of 50 short stories this year too!

It's really cool to see it in numbers. I've never really bothered to keep track before... but I think Luke was right. When someone says I read a lot I tend to demure, but it seems like they're simply correct. This was a lot of books. Sure it would be a lot less if I were employed but I always made time for some reading when I was working so it wasn't like it was none. It would also be less if I were reading full size books over the Animorphs, but still I feel like even if the number of novels were halved it'd still be a sizable amount.

Wild!

I probably won't keep track in 2024. I'm getting married this year and probably won't have time for the first hunk. But I will still talk about any particularly good ones I read in the tag Tinx Reads 2024. I'll probably wanna at least talk about my Animorph feels once I'm done with that. And who knows. Bec wants me to read Warrior Cats after.

[pa-pa-plasma]

For the ask game G D Z💖

owo fanfic ask meme?? assuming this is that one xD the search function doesn't work very well, so this is the one im doing

G: Care to share a favourite crack fic? every fic that includes Danny revealing his identity, but no one believes him because of Wes asdfghjkl plus that post about Vlad claiming to be Phantom's dad, so Danny claims Vlad killed him in retaliation. I really hope that gets turned into a whole series cuz im fucking dyying lmao specifics though?? Things I (Cannot) Do In Amity Park An Experiment in Absurdity It's uh...Formal Tuesday? are some that i can remember off the top of my head!

D: Is there a song or playlist to associate with [insert fic]? i make playlists for my fics if that's what you mean xD my two biggest playlists that i listen to the most (when writing, when reading) are: Flying Over the Pit of Death Hand On My Stupid Heart (Implode Alright my beloved)

Z: Major character deathーdo you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can't tolerate? i actually hate reading major character death fics ;-; especially ones with the trio (Danny, Tucker, Sam). i just can't handle it very well. i very vividly remember reading the fics "stop the world i wanna get off" and "mars" a long time ago, and i still think about them sometimes. they're good fics, but i get too sad thinking about it. plus fics where Danny is immortal or somehow gets hero of timed and ends up very far into the future with no way home, and everyone he knows is either dying or dead. hate that. im okay with hurt/comfort, & can handle stuff like PoT/SoaD, and all those infamous fics, but i like to read more relaxed fics now also this fic: One Thousand Years

for writing, i personally like to use other means of traumatizing my characters, and don't usually write character death all too often. i usually write in threats of death, threats of vivisection (as one does, naturally), and like. psychological torture stuff, ya know? maybe a broken bone they have to hide here, a little bad parenting there. sprinkle in anxiety disorder. have the cap accidentally pop off and spill anxiety all over everything. fuck. shit. everyone's severely anxious now. they have PTSD. oh god. the usual closest i did recently at least was an off-screen minor character death in Black Dog, and the guy never got a name (they just call him "that werewolf" & "that guy"). idk if im gonna kill anyone else. runner up for getting killed is Vlad, though. havent decided how to deal with him yet in this au also killed people in my old fic Phantom (rip ricky marsh) but never got that far into posting it. got like, a bit through the first "arc" and then stopped for some reason. might just throw the rest of Phantom up on ao3 when i get the chance, but i'm working on fotpod, homsh, and black dog atm so idk when that'll be uwu