#When the Moon was ours

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

goodreads

To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this book yet, but I do enjoy McLemore's writing style, so I am planning to check it out at some point.

[4uru]

Artist brain : *drawing a trans femme character* OOHHH YOU MEAN BIRTH OF VENUS REIMAGINATION!!! GOTCHA!!!!

[desdasiwrites]

–Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours

[transbookoftheday]

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Samir are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Samir is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town.

As odd as everyone considers Miel and Samir, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. But now the sisters want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up - including Samir's past.

[armedbirds]

I would love to read more sapphic/queer sci/fiction that is fun and also ridiculous im taking begging on my hands and knees for recommendations

[galaxyhazbin]

[deviousdayz]

[finding-plott]

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore; a lovely first [physical/paperback] read this year. one of my favorite lines: “Tonight, though, he wanted to feel every part of his own body, and know it could not name him. It could not force him into a life that had never been his.” a very ethereal and sensory heavy read;

[jeagerism]

my top 2022 books

i read a good few this year, but these are the ones that continued to stick with me, so. my books and my favorite quotes from em!

the cruel prince (holly black)

[enemies to lovers W.]

- "most of all, i hate you because i think of you. often. it's disgusting, and i can't stop."

- "but i will not stand in front of your happiness. i will not even stand in front of misery that you choose for yourself."

- "i hate him more than all the others. i hate him so much that sometimes when i look at him, i can hardly breathe."

- "what if the way i am is the way i am? what if, when everything else is different, i’m not?"

- "it occurs to me that if i kill him, i can finally stop thinking about him. if i kill him, i won't have to feel like this anymore."

the wicked king (holly black)

[my favorite out of the entire series]

- "kiss me again,” he says, drunk and foolish. “kiss me until i am sick of it."

- "if you’re the sickness, i suppose you can’t also be the cure."

- "yes, my great villan, my darling god. i will be as sober as a stone carving, just as soon as i can."

- "and the single last thing in my head: that i like him better than i’ve ever liked anyone and that of all the things he’s ever done to me, making me like him so much is by far the worst."

the queen of nothing (holly black)

[enemies to unfortunate allies to lovers to enemies to lovers comes into fruition. i love this series with my whole heart.]

- "come home and shout at me. come home and fight with me. come home and break my heart, if you must. just come home."

- "by you, i am forever undone."

- "it’s you i love,” he says. “i spent much of my life guarding my heart. i guarded it so well that i could behave as though i didn’t have one at all. even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. but it is yours.” he walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. “you probably guessed as much,” he says. “but just in case you didn’t."

turtles all the way down (john green)

[this book is so incredibly important to me. i relate to it a great deal, and john green has always been a favorite of mine. his words are ones that stick with you, and there's absolutely nothing that could stop that. this is probably my favorite book i read this year.]

- "your now is not your forever."

- "you're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. you're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. you're the storyteller and the story told. you are somebody's something, but you are also your you."

- "i was so good at being a kid, and so terrible at being whatever i was now."

- "i wanted to tell her that i was getting better, because that was supposed to be the narrative of illness: it was a hurdle you jumped over, or a battle you won. illness is a story told in the past tense."

- "she noted, more than once, that the meteor shower was happening, beyond the overcast sky, even if we could not see it. who cares if she can kiss? she can see through the clouds."

- "i thought, lying there, that i might love him for the rest of my life. we did love each other—maybe we never said it, and maybe love was never something we were in, but it was something i felt. i loved him, and i thought, maybe i will never see him again, and i'll be stuck missing him, and isn't that so terrible."

- "but what i want to know is, is there a you independent of circumstances? is there a way-down-deep me who is an actual, real person, the same person if she has money or not, the same if she goes to this school or that school? or am i only a set of circumstances?"

- "dr. singh told me once that if you have a perfectly tuned guitar and a perfectly tuned violin in the same room, and you pluck the d string of a guitar, then all the way across the room, the string on the guitar will also vibrate. i could always feel my mother's vibrating strings."

- "when observation fails to align with a truth, what do you trust--your senses or your truth? the greeks didn't even have a word for blue. the color didn't exist to them. couldn't see it without a word for it.

i think about her all the time. my stomach flips when i see her. but is it love, or just something we don't have a word for?"

the girls i've been (tess sharpe)

[it's hard to find quotes from this book, as it's just the act of reading it in general and experiencing it that's so inherently special, so emotionally impacting, that you've got to read it to know. it's a story about girlhood and being a mother and being a daughter to a mother who doesn't know how to be one. it's so good.]

- "practically everyone thinks they’re smarter than a teenage girl. it’s what makes being one so powerful, if you know how to use that giant mistake of an assumption."

love on the brain (ali hazelwood)

[oh god yeah i'm a romance novel gal now.]

- "you don't even have to admit to yourself that you love me, bee. god knows i love you enough for the both of us."

- "i know what she smells like. this little freckle on her neck when she pulls up her hair. her upper lip is a little plumper than the lower. the curve of her wrist, when she holds a pen. it’s wrong, really wrong, but i know the shape of her. i go to sleep thinking about it, and then i wake up, go to work, and she is there, and it’s impossible. i tell her stuff i know she’ll agree to, just to hear her hum back at me. it’s like hot water down my fucking spine. she’s married. she’s brilliant. she trusts me... and i want to tell her. i want to tell her that she’s luminous, she’s so bright in my mind, sometimes i can’t focus. sometimes i forget why i came into the room. i’m distracted. i want to buy her flowers, food, books. i want to hold her hand, and i want to lock her in my bedroom. she’s everything i ever wanted and i want to inject her into my veins and also to never see her again. there’s nothing like her and these feelings, they are fucking intolerable. they were half-asleep while she was gone, but now she’s here and my body thinks it’s a fucking teenager and i don’t know what to do. i don’t know what to do. there is nothing i can do, so i’ll just . . . not."

- "here’s the honesty: i’m in love with you. but that’s not news. not to me, and not to you, i don’t think. not if you’re honest with yourself—which you say you are, right?"

when the moon was ours (anna-marie mclemore)

[this is a book about growing up trans and as a poc in a town full of white cis people. it's so good, it leaves me endlessly undone. it's so special to me. it's about teenage love and family and culture, and it's just the best. this whole book is poetry.]

- "the difference between baptism and drowning is a few faithless breaths."

- "the way he loved her was his, even if she wasn’t."

- "we don't get to become who we are for nothing. it costs something. you're fighting for every little piece of yourself. and maybe i got all of me at once but i lost everything else. don't you dare think there's any water in the world that makes this easy."

[zephyrchama]

Vampire MC part III - with Leviathan

heads up - this is suggestive

(intro/vampire MC masterlist can be found here)

It was no surprise you hadn’t run into Leviathan since your transformation. He was more elusive than most demons.

You didn’t have a chance to see him until there was a commotion out in the hall. You peeked your head out from behind the bedroom door just in time to see Leviathan trip and fall, splendidly faceplanting on the hallway floor. Hard enough to make you wince. Mammon cackled as he ran around a corner, seizing his chance to escape.

“You have twenty four hours, you deadbeat!” Leviathan shouted, punching the floor and rubbing his fist into the ground. He was absolutely seething. His tail trailed out behind him, thrashing to and fro and bumping against the walls.

You opened the door a little wider. “Did Mammon forget to pay you back again?”

“Gah!” Leviathan, in the midst of picking himself up, stumbled and almost fell down again. “H-how long have you been there? No, uh, nevermind. Ughh. How uncool of me…”

He went to wipe his nose with a sleeve. That’s when you caught a whiff of something delectable.

”Levi, are you injured?”

“Huh? No? Oh, wait…” It was hard to see on the black fabric covering his hand, but you clearly spied a thin red line dripping out his nose. It was hard to ignore.

You gripped the door tightly, shying back behind it so Levi couldn’t see your face. “Come in here a second.”

---

The two of you sat on your bed as you fiddled with the latch of a first aid kit. The alluring scent of blood had a grip on your concentration and the more you tried to focus on the kit, the less your fingers seemed to work. Leviathan draped his tail over the footboard where it anxiously thudded against the hardwood every few seconds.

“So, um. I guess we both have a reason to avoid the sun now, huh? Ha…” he awkwardly trailed off. Leviathan looked concerned, like there was something more important to say, but he couldn’t quite find the words. He watched you with pity. All he could manage was, “are you okay? I know you’ve been through a lot, probably.”

As he spoke, another drop of blood slid down his face which he tried to cover with his hand. Your posture stiffened as you fought to ignore it. Leviathan was wholly ignorant of how much you were holding back. After all, vampires are supposed to attack humans. Who ever saw a vampire go after a demon?

The first aid kit finally popped open with a loud crack, spilling bandages and gauze over the sheets. You both jumped. In the scramble to help put everything back, Leviathan leaned in a little too close. Your pupils thinned and instinct took over, a burning urge to take care of the blood before it dried up.

You grabbed Leviathan by the shoulder. Not strongly, but enough for him to pause and give you a questioning look. Enough time to quickly close the distance between you.

Leviathan froze in place as you dragged your tongue over his lips and under his nose, cleaning up the traces of nosebleed. He was completely still, save for the quiver of his lips when your fangs lightly pressed down on them. Your hands moved to his chest as you snaked your tongue down his chin, lapping across the bare skin on the front of his neck, and prepared for a juicy bite. He held his breath. However, the sensation of something hard and cold on your teeth jolted you out of the fog.

It was easy to forget that Leviathan had scales on the side of his neck when in demon form. You pulled away with a “sorry,” mortified to have licked his face like that, but Leviathan started trembling in excitement. He was panting.

“That was just like Scarlet Moon! Even the way your eyes changed color! Do they do that when you’re hungry? It was just like my favorite scene from the spin-off manga when Kyuu and Ki-chan are locked in the forbidden tower and need to feed to restore their magic and escape.” His leg and tail bounced and his face was flushed. He kept talking on about the series and you couldn’t tell if his cheeks were red from being in such close proximity to you or from being so excited about his anime. Maybe both.

That paltry sample only made you more hungry though, like a light appetizer before the main course. You pushed the medical kit aside.

“Levi, you taste really good.” You parted your lips and breathed slowly, trying to pick up the scent again. It lingered on his gloves. “Can I have some more?” you asked. It wasn’t your intention to sound needy, the words just so happened to come out that way.

“Me? You really want some of me?” He could see the truthfulness in your body language, in how your eyes were now a deep crimson. Leviathan was not used to being craved. He covered his face again and wrapped his tail tightly around the bedpost, as if to anchor himself. As if he was the one losing control instead of you.

“I’m going to get eaten by a vampire? By you?” he stammered. “ I don’t think my heart is ready yet, do I need a bath? No, don’t run. That's pathetic. I’d do anything for you. I can do this! I’m just like Kyuu, I’m ready!”

You were gearing up while he rambled and pounced as soon as Leviathan gave the go-ahead. He yelped, not expecting you to literally jump on him and push him back against the footboard. Your fingers dug into his hoodie while your lips searched the bare side of his neck. The sound of his blood rushing a mile a minute made finding a prime vein easy.

His fanboy heart was too overwhelmed thinking about how cool this was - something he always fantasized of! - to fully notice your body melding against his as your thirst was satiated. He'd realize it when trying to relive the memory later. His hoodie made for a comfortable head rest.

Leviathan wondered, would it be too weird to ask you to do this again while you watched Scarlet Moon together?

[viceandmature]

The Yagami Team in KOF 96 / The Yagami Team in KOF XV

[naffeclipse]

I've been musing over a few thoughts inspired by this ask about a mafia-ish style of Apex Polarity without it being too close to Pearl Eye, and after watching a few videos of Orcas hunting their prey (which included dolphins), landed on a sort of Mafia inspired Apex Polarity AU

Also not to add another Y/N to Orclipse's growing collection but this Y/N is a white-beaked dolphin. Look! They're so beautiful!

Sirens are cunning, brutal, and take everything with teeth and claws. The strongest kill and maim at a whim. As a siren who's not particularly strong, though incredibly agile, with a tail streamlined and dark gray with white patches, fins curved and mostly black, you're somewhere at the bottom. You're doing your best to survive and avoid trouble. You pick your battles and you pick your escapes, and most importantly, you stay alive.

But then you do something really stupid: you venture where you shouldn't have.

You don't usually swim so far up north but you're hungry, and the thought of a few tasty squids distracts you from the silent waters and vast, blue emptiness. You realize a bit too late that you're not the only one hunting.

You catch the first orca siren in the distance as a dark figure, and then another. Two who immediately cut through the water, charging straight for you like shadows. Though you turn tail and bolt, you quickly spot them in the corner of your vision. They easily keep pace, their size and strength overwhelming as they flank you on both sides, wide grins flashing their deadly teeth. You can hardly look at the mismatched color of their eyes as you dodge and weave, diving down only to be cut off by one with midnight blue colors at the tip of his flukes, and shooting off to the left just to almost be snatched by the black-bone claws of a siren with bright yellow fins framing his head.

They're toying with you. You know that for a fact in how they just barely keep back, corraling you onwards, draining your already spent energy, and picking at your panicking pulse. You have no choice but to avoid the edges of their jaws and the tips of their talons, and swim in the direction they want.

You near a field of ice floes floating on the water, and though you cut into the jagged structures dipping into the sea, the orca sirens never lose you. A desperate need for air pushes you onward. One small drop of hope still burns in your chest. Despite the aching of your muscles, you steal a gulp of oxygen and dip back down once more, charging away—

Only to run smack into a third orca siren.

This one grabs you, his burning red and orange colors filling your vision. The other two orcas join to help their kin keep you in place long enough for you to truly regret ever venturing here. Between the three of what you can only assume are brothers, hands hooked over you shoulders, claws clutching your wrists, and palms pressing into your hips, you're a fish caught in a net.

You brace for a voilent end. It never arrives. Instead of digging into your sweet meat, the sirens offer you a deal. The tips of sharp fingertips trace your jawline and the soft inside of your arms and down your slick tail while they explain.

You keep watch for human ships and report back when they're getting close, and in exchange, you get the best food you can imagine, the entire Arctic Ocean to swim, and anything else you'd like. The best benefit? You're under their protection. Of course, they expect utter loyalty from you. You are no one else's. Failure to devote yourself to this work and the brothers would mean a grisly fate, but hey, you're nothing if not eager to not be torn apart. So you agree.

You have a few questions about this whole arrangement, struggling to understand why they, powerful orca sirens, bother with a smaller fish like you when they could rip you limb from limb and be done. What's with the human ships? Why task you to this? Are you just fodder so they can keep their fins nice and unscabbed? They reassure you that they'll explain in due time (the sunny one booping your nose, much to your chagrin), but for now, all you know to know is that the human ships are a problem, and you are their solution for it. You've never really encountered humans before, but they've never really encountered sirens, or so you thought.

The burning red one lets you go, but you don't slip away too far before he tugs on your flukes and tells you to follow him. It's not a request. The darker blue one leaves for a moment, jetting away as the other two guide you to a nice resting place on an icy shore. They introduce themselves, and then their brother reappears with a squid in hand, half dead, and an insistence that you eat—they could tell during the chase that you didn't have all your energy.

And that's how you unwittingly join a very powerful pod of orca brothers who may or may not be teasing and taunting you simultaneously.

[zytes]

9.16.24 / 9.17.24 - september supermoon

[nanaosaki3940]

My Fav Korean Manhwa Recommendation List

For the last few days, I've been reading Korean manhwa/webtoon series non-stop and man, they're just so great!!! 😍😍😍

These are some of my fav manhwa I've read so far... All the stories are of modern setting btw... (I may do a separate recommendation list for historical/magical/isekai genre manhwa later on...)

Something About Us - (Childhood best friends turned lovers) Status: Completed.

Positively Yours - (Strangers met for one night stand to lovers) Status: Completed.

Seasons Of Blossom - (High school friends to lovers) Status: Completed.

Please Take Care Of Me In This Life As Well - (Childhood friends to lovers) Status: On-going.

Fly Me To The Moon - (Strangers met through unusual circumstances to lovers) Status: On-going.

The Reason I Wanted To Die - (High school sweethearts to Exes to again lovers) Status: On-going.

Revelation Of Youth - (High school friends to lovers) Status: On-going.

The Odd One Next Door - (Frenemy neighbors to lovers) Status: On-going.

Free In Dreams - (Strangers met through lucid dreams to lovers) Status: On-going.

Operation Name Pure Love - (High school friends to lovers) Status: On-going.

Just Twilight - (High school classmates to lovers) Status: On-going.

King The Land - (Childhood friends to lovers) Status: On-going.

Confession Attack - (Childhood best friends to lovers) Status: On-going.

Our Secret Alliance - (Childhood best friends to lovers) Status: Completed.

Ooh La La!! - (Complete strangers to sudden lovers) Status: Completed.

Match Made In Heaven By Chance - (Childhood friends to sudden married couple) Status: On-going.

Love Class - (Former high school Teacher X Former high school Student love story) Status: On-going.

The Man's Games - (Childhood frenemies to lovers) Status: Completed.

My Introverted Boy - (Introverted boy X introverted girl love story) Status: On-going.

The Dilettante - (Enemies to lovers) Status: On-going.

Olgami - (Enemies to toxic lovers) Status: On-going.

The Law Of Being Friends With A Male - (Classmates to friends to lovers) Status: On-going.

My Three Annoying Brothers - (Separate love stories of 4 beautiful yet chaotic siblings) Status: On-going.

Divorce Is Easy, But Love Is Hard - (College Senpai-kouhai to office colleagues in love) Status: On-going.

Marry My Husband - (Office senpai-kouhai to lovers) Status: Completed.

The Boss's Proposal - (Office senpai-kouhai to lovers) Status: On-going.

When You're Targeted By The Bully - (Enemies to friends to lovers) Status: Completed.

The ones I haven't read yet, but intend to read them later in the future...

Love Of Mine.

A Guide To Proper Dating.

Act Like You Love Me!

The Couple Breaker.

There Must Be Happy Endings/Surely a Happy Ending.

Love For Hire.

Daytime Star.

First Love, Lasting Hate.

Extroversion Of An Immortal.

True Beauty.

Wedding Delusion.

Even If It's Not.

Only Hope.

Meet In The Middle.

Situationship.

My Sweet Dark Hero.

Dating My Best Friend's Sister.

Undercover! Chaebol High School.

Dear First Love.

Melt Me With Your Voice.

Yeon Woo’s Innocence.

My Messy Marriage.

As If Love Doesn’t Exist.

Let’s Meet After Work.

Please Teach Me, Senior.

[cupophrogs]

Hey DD. How have you been. You’ve been quiet.

“Thankfully, most of the vending machines are intact and full, so we won’t be starving while Cherub’s leg heals. Thing has caught him trying to sneak out far too many times.”