#i didn't know if i'd even finish one book this month tbh

[devitalise]

Omg I really thought this would be the month I'd beat you to the punch with a check-in but once again time has evaded me & May is, in fact, over in a mere few days 🤥 I think I need to start keeping a physical calendar again to avoid these jumpscares BUT ANYWAY!!! MAY READS!!!! END OF SUCCESSION THOUGHTS!!! WHAT ON EARTH IS IMO GONNA WATCH & READ NEXT!!! 🎤

maybe next month you'll get me.. answering this a lil early so excuse any thoughts that aren't Fully Developed i'll just be away from my laptop and you know how much i love these

may book wrap up

in cold blood by truman capote

i can't remember what i said about this last month. maybe i'm the only person in the world who didn't know this was a "true crime novel" i thought i just picked up a fictional crime genre book. my mistake! general personal thoughts on the gross peversive nature of true crime aside, i think this as investigative journalism (with a questionable bias, fictionalised events, general capote tendecy to lie and gossip) i didn't hate reading it. i could absolutely tell how taken Capote was with Perry Smith in this, he kept coming back to reiterate details about his upbringing and i had to skim parts just because they were of little interest to me. i haven't read anything where the author has managed to so completely remove themselves from their writing like this before. took me a while to read it was a kindle choice and i struggled with reading this month.

podcast: overdue (really enjoyed this podcast set up, actually.) music: red dead redemption 2 soundtrack and this playlist

the piano teacher by elfriede jelinek

unlikable loathsome woman in Austria, this time. really dislike books like this, and this was barely any different. i think Jelinek as an author is neat, i see why she won a nobel peace prize, i'd love to be able to read German to get what was lost in translation. didn't love the story at all here. menacing and gross. what i found most interesting (and hated reading in equal parts) was erica's fucked up relationship with her mother. hate your mother hate the part of her that lives within you, etc etc. i thought this would be sexier, or at least just have more sex like the blurb promised, but other than a few voyeuristic encounters it lacked it completely. sexless and stale. a lot of men dislike this book, though, so if anyone asks then i absolutely loved it.

i read two reviews about this, both with opposing views to my own but interesting to read. music: this soundtrack that almost sent me to sleep. won't be watching the movie

heatwave by victor jestin

it got hot towards the end of last week and i could finally crack open this short little book. i didn't hate it, wasn't blown away by it either. apparently i don't read blurbs - another shock here! i think because these are books that i bought so many months ago when it comes to reading them it's like oh?? well. i was distracted and tanning and drinking gin & tonics whilst reading, and i think this needed more of my attention than i could give. or maybe that's just me being generous.

no links for this one. pending.

i'm currently reading bonjour tristesse by francoise sagan. i've actually finished it but there's two stories in one so i'm on A Certain Smile now. more french books, they're the only books i have set in the summer at the moment. i started reading it on the beach, too.

i bought some new books: season of migration to the north by tayeb smith, the thief's journal by jean genet, my father's diet by adrian nathan west, and diary of a film by niven govinden. i've been reading some really hard books this year (and have bought four more) so i'm gonna switch lanes to some easier reads. the atlas six and nightbitch are probably the easiest of the ones i own at the moment.

AHHHH SUCCESSION.

kendall roy....

i have mixed thoughts about the ending i think it makes perfect sense what went down with the siblings, it doesn't mean that kendall being betrayed hurts me any less. i'm emotionally exhausted after finishing it so i've been watching cooking competitions on netflix. next is the sopranos as my Drama of Choice

also i've been listening to the once upon a time at bennington college podcast you recommended! really enjoying it so far

[sout999]

adhd talk

the third truly unsung project alongside my film and dissertation was the weird amount of targeted effort i had to put into Completing Anything Big As A Neurodivergent Person Whose Brain Is A Crazy Off The Rails Train Staffed and Patronised Entirely By Multiple Exact Copies Of The Squirrel From Ice Age

which is a description like 99/100 people reading this can relate to, but i think a sentiment i see less often and therefore feel kind of stupid and stubborn and lonesome about is "adhd is innate but is also exasperated by hectic lifestyle/modern instant gratification machines so if i fix my habits around those i can cure myself forever". which is silly and wrong but also i feel abit disconnected from adhd social media culture and cant cope just relating to it (which is all it seems to be sometimes) but learning to harness or tame it to do the things that are really important to me

i felt really cringe tbh having to look up youtube videos of HARVARD STUDENT REVEALS PRO STUDY TRICK and then narrowing it down to specifically adhd-focused study videos and keeping a planner and setting aside specific time to study studying and practising anti-academic meltdown journaling techniques and reading fucking atomic habits but i really didn't want to contribute to my abhorrent academic record following me all through undergrad. in fact i wish i had done this sooner but i was not self aware enough to consider the fact

probably the best change i made was severely cutting down or being mindful of social media time, i don't backread my tl anymore and have more moments of awareness when i find myself dumbly scrolling and realize i dont want to be doing this, and then wondering what i actually Do want to be doing. i keep a book nearby to read, and have also swapped a lot of social media time to sketching-off-pinterest time. reading about the psychology behind social media apps is also super interesting, although i always feel like a paranoid wacko conspiracy theorist talking about it. stuff like how negativity and judgemental behaviour is good for engagement (and therefore ad revenue), and how if all posts on your tl were interesting you wouldn't be as addicted to social media as you are, therefore microblogging employs a slot machine/gacha system where you "roll" for posts by logging on and hope to get a good one. it's a little full on but the more i think of it as a revolting and evil machine the more incentive i have to do something else with my time ^q^

a harder thing to do was, in the late stages of the project, the real crunch time month, avoid everything that could become a huge hyperfixation, and then eventually even minor distractions or fixations. because i know if i got super obsessed with something i'd just be up posting about it or drawing fanart. i had to bar myself from persona 3 remake and elden ring dlc and all these other shiny new releases, and the mobile games i was playing... i look forward to catching up on them now. i took up reading books a lot more because unfortunately thats just not as exciting. in the last month of film work i stopped listening to music on my computer so i wouldnt get drawing or animation ideas to distract me from film work. as of writing this i havent listened to music in like 40 days guys 😱 at the same time i am the kind of person who needs background noise to work, so i have:

watched novum's four hour hereditary video essay three times

watched novum's seven hour midsomar video essay three times

watched that one five hour bojack horseman retrospective twice

listened to audiobooks of the Britney Spears biography, Jennette McCurdy biography, three Playboy Bunny biographies (i was on some sort of lady bopgraphy kick i guess), and a few fiction books

rewatched all of bojack horseman

started on House MD and got a few seasons in before i finished the project, amazingly the perfect show to look away from bc of all the medical stuff, how many lumbar punctures do you need to show like seriously

honorable mention to the learned skill of communication and being honest and picking your battles and killing your darlings which is a larger part of managing mental illness than i cared to admit but one of the hardest ones because it involved confronting things and making big painful drastic changes and then having to tell the faculty about them. sometimes i'd be stuck on a piece of animation work for weeks/months, then go back and change the underlying idea to one i'm actually passionate about, and do the animation work in one day using newly found magical hyperfocus passion power. it's crazy! but being able to be confident about taking those steps rather than keeping on with what you're "supposed" to do went a long way.

i very much look forward to listening to a music and playing some video games properly now and being pulverized like a small victorian child from the sheer amount of fun i'm having. i'd say it was all worth it and a fun experiment in channeling the magical humours of passion and boredom and i hope it will help me with future projects too. i Am super burnt out though x__ x thanks for reading and for all your support up until now!

[sea-changed]

hey hi how bout that directors cut commentary on the sources behind your liebgott fic. open ended q would love to hear literally anything abt your process. uhh eyes emoji

<3 <3 This is a completely delightful but also extremely dangerous message to receive; that fic occupied my whole mind for a while there and I have so (too!) many thoughts about it.

A lot of the research I did for this fic I did without knowing I was doing research for it; stuff that ended up in it came from a whole patchwork of sources. Books, fiction and non-! Documentaries! Museum exhibits! TV shows! Movies! My goal for the fic was for it to be as nearly structureless as possible, to capture something of the recursive, time-is-out-of-joint-ness of PTSD; this did not fully succeed but it did allow me to be almost modular in putting it together. I didn't structure it out at all until I was over halfway through the writing process; before that I was just writing section after section in a doc, and so I could incorporate ideas pretty much as I had them, without worrying about how a segment was going to fit into the overall structure. There was no structure! So if it fit the themes, it was allowed in.

The format itself was inspired by a few different things: in rough order of when they entered into the process, they were a) my memory of Slaughterhouse-Five (I didn't actually reread it until I was nearly finished writing, and it had been many years, so it was very much the memory rather than the thing itself.) (At first, semi-jokingly, the summary of the fic was going to be "Joe Liebgott has come unstuck in time." And I still might write that fic, tbh.) b) quigonejinn's Marvel fic, which I also have not reread in many years but had a huge impact on me and how I think about writing and structuring fiction (the dream segments throughout the fic are a complete homage) and c) reading Catch-22. The high of experiencing Heller's ability to control and corral the chaos of his timeline, while letting that chaos be integral and indeed inextricable to the story he's telling, is what launched me back into writing this fic when I had more or less fizzled out on it for a couple of months.

In terms of more concrete sources, of course you're well aware of the reverberating influence of Studs Terkel, both very directly and more nebulously. (I even followed him as a style guide! That's why "army" and "kraut" aren't capitalized.) The PBS documentary GI Jews I found fascinating and valuable in reinforcing some things I'd already been thinking about regarding Liebgott and introducing new facets to my thinking. The part about the USO workers handing out comic books and candybars to returning soldiers (and the soldiers' reactions to that) is something Michael C. C. Adams mentions in The Best War Ever; the section with Skinny's letter was inspired by Ambrose (loath as I am to give him credit for anything).

A lot of other stuff was, as I said above, pretty piecemeal. The scene where he punches the man at the drugstore is from The Best Years of Our Lives; the part about him reading comic books at the drugstore is from an oral history; I got part of my Kaddish transliteration from Angels in America; the part about transferring to a segregated train is from a story my grandma told me; I did a whole deep-dive figuring out where his family might live in San Francisco and discovered that in the early to mid-20th century the Jewish neighborhood and (one of) the Japanese neighborhood(s) were in fact right next to each other, which inspired a couple of lines. &c. &c.

[justmybookthots]

Legendborn

Um??????????

I put this book off for so long because a) I heard the next book in the series only comes out in 2025 and I didn't want to be left hanging, and b) I wasn't the biggest fan when I heard there was a (sigh) love triangle in there. And yet here I am, having finished it at long last.

Confession: I was/am in the middle of something like a reading slump. February has not been kind to me with my reads. When the Ann Liang book I was anticipating for months let me down horrifically, ALL the books that followed either fell flat too or were just… middling. I went through book after book feeling empty, and then I told myself: you know what. Legendborn has been on EVERYONE and their mother's radar, and their responses are the same—near unanimous acclaim. It's honestly quite insane.

So I took a gamble. I got the book and started reading it. 

You can TELL. You can just TELL when a book hits right for you, unlike the ones I read before it. I was hooked. Engaged. Totally captivated. I'd read and DNFed another fantasy book just weeks ago, which also utilised King Arthur lore (titled Silver in the Bone), but somehow Legendborn succeeded where that story failed (for me). Maybe I'm just a basic bitch who's a sucker for the typical storyline of a normal girl finding herself entangled with a group of monster slayers and doing tournaments to become one of them. (Is this why… I was instantly enthralled with the Infernal Devices??? Or why I love Demon Slayer—the anime—so much????? I am finding out new things about myself.)

But sure… the beginning isn't anything too different from traditional YA structures. But as you get going, and you continue down the road, you start to see new grounds being tread, and it deviates from anything I've personally read as a teen.

As usual, even though I loved this book, I'm going to do what I almost always do and explore the dichotomy of what I liked and didn't.

Spoilers abound. 

Didn't like:

It was predictable… up to a point (and then I was GOBSMACKED but we'll get to that later). Like, I knew pretty quickly which characters were going to make it to Squires and which weren't. You could just tell from how the author treated certain Pages (the folks trying to be Squires) in a more favourable light. The nice ones win, the not-nice ones don't. I'd have liked more nuance in their characterisation, TBH.

Speaking of which, however, Bree's characterisation at the start was rough. Like, she'd do stupid shit and get in trouble and continue being irresponsible. I wasn't surprised Alice was mad at her, and I don't think that the trouble she faced stemmed solely from her race but rather her irresponsible behaviour (going off-campus when she already knows that's grounds for expulsion and she STILL gets mad when the dean, who decides to let her off, is churlish with her. Seriously?). That said, I am NOT Black, and I can't speak for the quotidian prejudices they face, so take my perception of it with a grain of salt. In any case, Bree changed and this was no longer an issue for me later on.

Nick. And his whole romance with Bree. Like, I really did NOT care. And Nick was pretty much a white boy-damsel in distress the entire story. Every time screen time was devoted to their romance, my eyes would glaze over and I'd start skimming all the kissing and stuff. 

There were a lot of characters. Like, a lot. Too many. My brain was scrambling trying to remember and place everyone in their different roles. And aside from a few (bless William), they didn't have very distinct voices. Greer had, like, ZERO distinctive voice other than being non-binary, which should not be the only thing to define a character. Whitty was… nice, is all? Everyone kinda just melded in my brain, which is probably why none of the character deaths really hit me. 

I'm not a huge fan of Chosen One tropes. But this does play on the trope in a VERY interesting way. 

WHAT I LIKED (!!!!!!!!!!!):

The whole concept of Root and Bloodcraft. I LOVED how the author used magic to convey the colonisation of white men. The idea that Legendborns forcefully TAKE their power, while non-Bloodcraft users only borrow their power, speaks volumes to me. It was such a good way to portray real life.

Also??? The ending twist about Bree????? All along, I was convinced she was secretly the Scion of Lancelot, but I wasn't sure HOW, because all the knights are obviously white. And then the author pulls a fast one on me and she's actually fucking Arthur. The reasoning is so good. I loved how the White Man's own cruelty and their disgusting ownership of Black people led them to this predicament. I think THIS was the part that truly sold me on how terrific and unique this book was.

Characters-wise… William. Like, I adore the fuck out of him. In another world, in an even less conventional book, William would have been the hero for me. He's exactly my type with how calm and confident he was without needing to be overbearing about it. In fact, he was so gentle. (Makes me think of Jem Carstairs, but obviously Jem is THE published blueprint for types like this.)

Sel. Yes, I know I just talked about how I didn't like overbearing characters, and I initially went into this book expecting to hate him, but… :) I thought he was quite justified in his hatred / distrust towards Bree at first, knowing what he knew about how the mesmer and Oaths didn't take. I'll see if my opinion of him changes in the sequel. 

I  really, really liked how for once, King Arthur wasn't depicted as just some hero. He actually seemed almost villainous in this book, especially in the moments when Bree was possessed by him. What happened to her supposedly getting wisdom when she Awakened, though? This man does not sound wise at all. I am intrigued.

I am so glad I read this book. SO GLAD. I was down in the dumps for a bit and finally reading a good fantasy made me feel a thousand times better. I'm a bit nervous reading the sequel because some things often don't live up to their predecessor, so I shall see.

- 28 Feb 2024

[hellolulu]

Thinking about how Hunter probably thought he'd just live in the human realm forever.

He was probably looking at how everyone treated Vee in relation to her traumatic history and thinking "hey, maybe they'll understand that I'd rather come back here after we defeat The Collector." He was helping them finish the portal so he could help them all get back, help them defeat the collector, but thinking of spending his time after that living in the human world.

He was probably thinking of his future for the first time in his life, thinking he might have one among humans, who have no magic ability, like him. In the human realm where book-smarts and theoretical knowledge are the standard, where he can excel as a lover of learning.

Sure he had a couple things that would have made him want to go back, too - but those things are people. And although being with the people you love (and who love you back) is good for you, I'm sure even he knows it's best to just hope they can visit each other (especially knowing they would if they could). The human world offered him a safe place, a home, and a mother who had spent months being able to prove to him he's worthy of parental affection.

Now, everyone says the death of flapjack means he won't see the human world as a home anymore, but I very strongly disagree. I think he's spent all this time thinking and realising Belos is the root of all his issues, and Belos killing flap only serves to teach him that the Boiling Isles aren't a bad place, and that he has a choice for his future in either world, so long as Belos is gone.

He didn't say "time to go home, Flap" because he no longer sees the human realm as a home, but rather because the Boiling Isles are also his home. He's probably going to go on a revenge mission and act a little off (I'd like to see him taking that route just for once and for the others to be on board tbh) - but Flap's murder isn't something that'll paint the human world as unsafe or not-home, the problem is Belos. His home is wherever Belos is not, and Belos evidently won't leave him alone. So, simply, once Belos is gone For Good, he can rest, find a home, and maybe even travel around, maybe recreate portal technology that's ethical and usable so he can explore even more because the whole universe can be his home (he spent his childhood practically locked up in his room, why wouldn't he want to go exploring? Maybe even with Lilith, his fellow nerd/historian! Actually I really love this idea and I'm going to think about it so much: not dadrius or camumla, but a secret third thing; cool aunt Lilith)

Sure, the little guy may choose to become an ambassador for humans/witches along with Luz and Gus in future, but first: he gets to finish school and carve a palisman and be part of a cool sports team and do all the dumb kid stuff he wasn't allowed to do. And he can do all that before he even has to think of a future, because I think actually he'd be able to see anywhere as home so long as Belos isn't around to hurt him. A boy whose world was so small, becoming a boy whose home becomes the whole universe. That's my take, at least!

[ritzcrackee]

april tbr post yayy

rereads are marked by a ☆, new reads are marked by a ♡, and new acquisitions are bolded

physical tbr: 20

what moves the dead - t. kingfisher ♡

an education in malice - s. t. gibson ♡

juilet takes a breath - gabby rivera ♡

stories of people and civilization, greek ancient origins - lindsay powell, j. k. jackson ♡

rebel girls - elizabeth keenan ♡

the silent stars go by - dan abbet ♡

touched by an angel - johnathan morris ♡

dracula - bram stoker ♡

dune - frank herbert ♡

dune messiah - frank herbert ♡

frankenstein - mary shelley ♡

sense and sensibility - jane austen ♡

hippie - barry miles ♡

evernight - claudia gray ☆

stargazer - claudia gray ♡

the handmaids tale - margaret atwood ☆

the testaments - margaret atwood ♡

aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the

universe - benjamin alire sáenz ☆

would-be witch - kimberly frost ☆

the ballad of songbirds and snakes - suzanne collins ☆

digital tbr: 2

pandora's jar: women in the greek myths - natalie haynes ♡

wild is the witch - rachel griffin ♡

read: 7

a million kisses in your lifetime - monica murphy - dnf

i got like 80 pages in and then just,,, could not continue. no shade if u liked this book it was just solidly, solidly not my thing.

my monster valentine - various authors - 3/5

debated putting this on here for obvious reasons but i neeeeed to be accurate i guess. i only read about half of the stories in this collection and they were pretty hit or miss. it was free though so yk. vibes.

high spirits - camille gomera-tavarez - 2.5/5

this book was pretty alright! i don't have much to say about it (hence the middling rating) but i would reccomend it if you're looking for a fast read :D

the coldest touch - isabel sterling - 4/5

THIS WAS SO CUUUUTTTTTEEEEE!!! i liked the way the author portrayed the genuine hell that being stuck at 17 would be. please get me out of here i want a fully developed frontal lobe. AW and all of the characters were super likable. truly so adorable i was squealing the whole time.

im knocking a point off for the romance being a littttllllleeeee rushed and the character descriptions feeling off (it felt odd that both pov characters categorized every single person into a specific race? i think its good practice to make a characters race clear, but idk if that applies to a random teacher with no dialogue). to be so real though i loved this book enough that it didn't bother me too much.

beastly & bookish - catrina bell - 5/5

did i finish this book in one sitting? yes. did i stay up until 1am doing that? ...mind your business. honestly, im maybeee being a little bit generous giving this 5 stars but !! i really liked it!!! rom was soo mecore. i'm excited to read the rest of the books in this collection (even though they're all christmasy), and i can't wait for my physical copy to get here!!

holly's unjolly christmas - lark green - 2/5

this book was truly just fine. like, the definition of pretty alright. the tropes weren't my thing and the romance felt wildly rushed, but the writing style was easy to read and there were some funny bits. i also felt like the demon characters fell pretty flat? idk felt mid overall. (tbh the highlights of this book were when rom and noelle showed up. my babiesssss)

holidays ablaze - lucy limon - 3/5

v cute 👍 i love samite he's so autistic 💗

last months goal: finish dune

hmm ok. so i did not finish dune. i don't know why i thought i could. whatever possessed me to believe i could finish an 800 page sci-fi book in one month was truly of the devil herself. what the fuck. that was a blatant temptation towards hubris and I FELL FOR IT. anyways i hit 300 pages. everyone clap.

this months goal: finish a re-read

i have a lot of books i'd like to re-read but!!! i just never get around to it!!!! there r always newer shinier books that grab my attention!! i'd also like to carve away a more sizable chunk of my physical tbr this month because i have officially run out of space on my bookshelf TwT. everything is so so crammed in there, i truly cannot afford any more physical books. public library here i come!!

[erintoknow]

Hello !

I'm sorry if you arleady answered this (I don't know how to use tumblr frankly), but I would like to know if you have any ither writting project ? I really like your stories and how you write, and since I spend too much time on fallen hero: retribution (the reason I'm back on tumblr tbh) I started my annual reading of the Aria-serie (btw I was the anon who asked if she could "print your story for personnal use" and I only realised later than it sound more "kinky" than "I-won't-print-them-to-sell-them-or-idk-do-so-capitalist-stuff-with-it"

hello reading friend, I remember you! c:

it never once occurred to interpret what you said in a sexual way, don't worry haha.

i do have another writing project now but it's unfortunately not one available for reading at the moment though i do post about it on my tumblr here from time to time.

towards the end of working on the Aria fanfic series I was getting really itchy to get back to working on something wholly my own and with my life getting busier, that's why i decided to give that series the little capstone it currently has and start exploring other ideas.

i toyed around with a couple different ideas and writing sketches before settling on that were a couple of character archetypes from the fanfic and plotbeats that i didn't feel 'done' with yet and wanted to explore more on my terms. so i started working on something in june and now like, uh, 8 months later i'm 47k words into my second draft of a novel project i'm currently calling Soul Rebel (i used that for a fanfic title first i know, but it's a good title okay, it stuck with me).

whenever i post about it on tumblr, that's i've been tagging it as too. sometimes i post draft snippets or thoughts or dump a bunch of vibes screenshots, i've got a concept playlist that i keep meaning to finalize and post at some point too because of course it's not my writing if i don't have music associations going on.

i don't have a good succinct elevator pitch for Soul Rebel's concept yet, but basically the core thrust for it comes from a pretty personal pondering of mine which is: when i first came out, i had a choice. i could have a roof over my head, or i could be true to myself. i chose to have a roof over my head, and i always wondered about how things would have worked out the other way. beyond that i've been throwing pretty much a whole bunch of stuff that interests or terrifies me: the effects of climate change and sea level rise on daily life, the totality of the surveillance state, how the advancement in medical care in a capitalist society only widens the gap between the poor and rich, cool superhuman powers (and their not-so-cool side-effects), queer community, being a neurodivergent little weirdo(affectionate), and the essential value of being kind to others in a cruel uncaring world

i could happily keep infodumping about what i've got so far, but this posting is getting long enough that i'll leave it there for now, haha.

i have no idea what i'll do with this novel once it's finished. i mean, obviously i have some vague ideas for another plot line after it that i want to explore, but i mean like, it terms of putting it out there. i can't imagine ever getting to publish it. the publishing industry is a nightmare to navigate, and while this technically won't be my first finished novel (those fanfics get that honor, i guess?) it's still statistically unlikely to go anywhere. would any printing press out there even be interested in a sci-fi novel with a bunch of queer characters and focused on a neurodivergent trans woman and an in-denial Ace enby?? i've been stuck reading a bunch of YA for my job so maybe there's some book i'm missing, but we seem pretty thin on the ground in publishing rep.

my other thought would be to set up a website and post it online serial fiction style, though i'd want to have the whole thing finished first. i value my ability to revise and rework way too much to give that up again, haha!

so... yeah, that's what i've been fixated and working on a lot in my free time. at least, when i'm not spending time with my partner, playing dnd, or reading. and now i have a second job which means even less writing time, tears.

some day i want to go back and give the fanfic a proper conclusion arc, but right now Soul Rebel's got my creative energy fixation

oh geeze, i went on for way too long, sorry about that! it's uh, it's pretty easy to get me talking about this at a drop of a hat rn. anyway, thank you so much for liking the fanfic!!

it means the world to me that people actually like what i write. i went to college for creative writing and it kind of sucked really. i ended up switching to poetry for awhile because a least people weren't tearing me down for it. anyway, it's been incredibly weird in a good way to get, and to continue getting two years on, positive comments on the fanfiction. i never imagined anyone would care or even like what i put out there. i just wrote it solely for myself and threw it on ao3 in a 'eh why not' gesture, so...... thank you!!!!!!!!!

[zibbienibbles]

🩷 Thought dump 🩷

Holy shit, I just started reading Only the Brave by Solmussa and I'm so excited!!!! I read You Signed Up For This earlier this summer, like maybe two months ago? And I had no idea that it was by the same author! I've heard OTB's title before, like mentioned in lists of the best/it marauders fics, but I hadn't actually heard much about it? Like I knew it was dark, sad, and dramatic, but I didn't realize that it's set in canon... like not really bc everyone lives and the plot points are different... but like, the death eaters, war, hogwarts, it's all based in canon material!

I've just stopped reading All the Young Dudes (for now, I'll explain). I got through 151 out of 188 chapters before I just couldn't do it anymore :( It was getting too depressing... Life in general has been pretty depressing this summer, and reading is my escape from all of that. I had so much fun with ATYD until they finished at Hogwarts. Well, it had kind of been creeping in through their 6th and 7th years too, to be honest. ATYD is beautifully, and more importantly, realistically written. Literally cannot praise MsKingBean89 enough bc wow. But, the war is just depressing, not exciting. There're no action packed fight scenes, no one having illicit love affairs, it's just... real. Reading ATYD was making me more depressed tbh. The sense of unease, that sinking feeling of dread... it wasn't really an escape for me anymore. I'd really like to go back to it one day, though! I'm super invested in the story and the characters within the context of the narrative, and I know tragedy is coming but it's worth it for the story, right? It will be, but not right now! I'm moving on to something with a bit more life :))

I'm excited for OTB because it's got Hogwarts, the war, etc., but also everyone's getting down w each other and the relationships are written as dramatically as in Crimson Rivers. Or at least I assume that's what it'll be like... As I said, I read YSUFT a couple months ago and loved it. It was infused with crack I stg. It was super light hearted for the most part, but it still had this larger than (real) life soap drama feel? If that makes sense??? So, a story that's super dramatic with life or death consequences and real danger? Oh, this is gonna be so good.

Also, one of the biggest selling points for me, Regulus is the main character!!! He's so me. Even though we're totally nothing alike, but no, no, we're the same person actually. Regulus is my favourite character, not just out of marauders era characters, but for the past four months he's been my favourite ever. I love him. I love him. And I really loved the way that Solmussa wrote him in YSUFT. I think this is part of the reason I'm moving on from ATYD, bc Regulus is for the most part not in it at all :(. And I totally get that! ATYD stays (mostly) really close to the original canon lore outlined in the Harry Potter books, and in that, Regulus is a magical nazi. Like, he sucks fr. It's still great and mildly redeeming that he sacrifices himself to destroy a horcrux, but I'm not going to pretend that he didn't subscribe to the death eater's values for the majority of his life. I don't believe for a second that he actually hated being a Black and a death eater for his entire life. Like yes, tons, heaps of trauma, and he didn't have a way out like Sirius did with James, but I don't think that changes the fact that in canon Regulus wasn't a good person. Not evil, either, but I acknowledge his wrongdoings. Fanon Regulus on the other hand... our souls are one and the same, argue with the wall. So, I'm moving onto a story that's still kinda set in the canon environment, but with Regulus as the mc and lots of dramatics.

I'm so excited lol

[michaelmyersofficial]

21/06/2024 Friday Morning

It probably won't be morning anymore by the time I finish typing this out and post but. . . It was when I started. Got rejected for disability again. I managed to get in contact with a lawyer who is going to help, though I am a little afraid of fees. I know if we win, they get paid through my disability back pay, but I don't really understand what happens if we don't. Still, this is probably my best chance. I'm filling out the paperwork for this currently, so we'll see where it goes from there. I need to make copies of my rejection letter as well. I also need to make a doctor's appointment. I'll try to do that today. I realise also that I never wrote about getting a boyfriend, because I feel like when I talk about romantic relationships I get judged for them. But I made a mistake and fell asleep during an important conversation last night. I know it wasn't my fault but it was still important, and I still upset him. I am so guilt ridden over it because I just wanted him to know how grateful I am that he is in my life. I think about it a lot, how I'm not worth his affection. He says that's not true but. . . I still believe it myself. This has just been another thing that makes me feel like I'm a shit boyfriend. Like I can't or don't do enough.

Honestly, thinking about talking about people in my life I should probably use an emoji key but it would have to be unicode emoji, since I type these up on pc. I went to the pride event in the city with Kaitlyn. She's very kind and sweet, but largely I don't think we have much in common. Still, she liked the band, so I'm glad for that. She also said that I could go to one of the pubs in town with her and her friend Ethan and he could teach me to play pool when he's back in town. So I do think that would be nice, but as I said I don't know if I really have anything in common with her. Mother also took me to the city for a several hour costco bonanza. I don't mean to say that was unenjoyable because I don't hate costco. I also managed to convince her to buy me some books from the bookshop. To be fair I have enough of a tbr that I probably don't need them, but I like being organised about it well in advance. I also missed my hair cut appointment, or rather I had to cancel because for the past week I have been sick out of my mind. I even went to the local hospital about it. I had a fever of 103F / 39C / 312K. I was very convinced I was dying. Unfortunately the local hospital is run by nuns so they just told me to go home and pray as there is nothing they can do. Horrific medical treatment tbh. The thing is I'm not opposed to things like natural treatments or prayer (though I don't pray personally, I do meditate) because natural treatments often have some basis and things like prayer usually help a person's mood which can improve their chances of healing, but I don't think these are cure all solutions and I don't think they do anything for a 103F fever.

I have to reschedule the hair appointment but I'll probably call on that on monday rather than today because it's not relevant to my legal paperwork. I also signed up for the fable reading tracking app. I talked to my cousin about books, but she seemed upset that I didn't share her opinions on the ones I'd read. I'll talk about that more in the reading update post, of course but my reading goals have not gone as planned this month.

[castle-dominion]

6x1 valkyrie

It has been a while since I liveblogged. I want to finish watching castle before summer is over.

She got a job ok, they got engaged ok.

Lol love the yes/no/yes/no "most serious thing I've ever done"

RC: You do know how this works, right? his twelve hundred names lol (& yeah that is HUGE gem)

Ah NOW it has been two months no longer sayong "nypd" must have been a change.

I remember when I first saw this I thought "oh it must be this gif with the sexy bra" but it wasn't. & then she got hit so hard she fell back like that?

"or worse: me"

Ew she doesn't have her plans anymore?

I love the music dskljfsdlkfj "he's best with rhetorical questions"

Alexis is pretty. Oh yeah. Pi. I love him so much. Spelling is a construct anyway bro. RC: Uh … make sure you put some blankets out on the couch for Pi if he’s staying? (his meaning is not subtle) Want him to be comfortable. (his phone rings) And visible. I mean like yeah boy sleeps on the couch.

Meh won't clip

Poor them, not seeing each other.

Lol what are you smiling about to the castle cutout.

Is that still her mom's ring? How did Castle get here? You want me to leave? Immediately *starts kissing him*

Castle mr nosey man.

Wow they're good! she looks a lot like castle tbh CASTLE NO SHE'S LITERALLY NOT EVEN IN THE CAR YET YOU CAN CATCH HER

the baby sdkfljslkdjklj (clipping) Halo nights, new trivi fact "well since you offered"

could clip the part where ryan tosses the baby doll on esposito Yay Tory Ellis "isn't that beckett's backyard?" jf ey tunnel shdgy cal.l d*lat.er when i ^bet1er

*castle is already at the golf course*

"it better be on a book jacket" unless he is at home when you drop beckett off bro

"I didn't think I'd get caught"

Yes the old haunt! Mccord is also getting the same info I'm sure.

Oh no phtos of Castle.

Oh no r they tattling on becks?

Picked up a guy, talked in my sleep, let out info about Scoffield. What if you get the license plate when he opened his trunk? Really you have a match off of THAT?

Infiltration? Yeah this fellow def going into a building.

Her voice cracked hella when she said "clear" Also wow these folks are hot in their vests. Her phone is on ring mode? She just went into a building with guns, what if she got in trouble? What if they needed to be quiet?

"the kind that makes me feel all" *ooh*

RC: I have salmon that needs to be refrigerated He's so right RC: that's a read THAT'S A RED!

My man has been shot or smth.. At least castle grabbed the gun. "10 & 2, 10 & 2" XD

Castle getting checked for a concussion lmao *waves at her*

Castle say "I had salmon to refrigerate-- would I have bought that if I was planning on getting abducted?"

"Given your fiance's history.." yk what so valid bestie Her little "I'm sorry" through the screen.

Glad they are doing 70% match not more bc yeah, people can change what they look like.

KB: Maybe it’ll be better. This way when we come home at the end of each day we’ll have something to talk about like normal couples. RC: Only your day will be classified. Like that one physicist who insisted that his wife get classification access so that he could talk to her abou this work day & rubber duck to her. At least castle has the money to fly around visiting his wife all the time.

Pi my beloved. Isn't fruitarian like "I don't eat fruit unless it has fallen from the tree. Those carrots were brutally murdered."

My man lives in amsterdam? Pi has his sixth sense I love pi sm. "you're absolutely right" *walks away*

RmC: You want to talk about it? KB: No RmC: Good

of course she wasn't taking a direct route

Aww castle talking to rysposito about it

KR: You know, I don’t think Jenny and I have been apart for more than two days since we met. It’s gotta be rough. (HOLY CRAP WAIT WHAT?) RC: I just feel like we’re so out of sync I don’t know how to get back. I guess I was just … trying to make it feel like us again. JE: Yeah, by playing me and Ryan for chumps. (KR nods, but it’s not in anger) You should have known that we were going to figure out this case was real. RC: Well, you’ll be happy to know for my sins I was abducted by a maniac at gunpoint and nearly killed. But at least I didn’t get Beckett fired. [They’re both surprised.] JE: Whoa, whoa, abducted? (RC pauses) By who? RC: realizes he might have said too much and tries to evade. RC: Look guys, I really shouldn’t be talking about this. [They don’t let him off so easily.] KR: C’mon, Castle. It’s us. JE: And thanks to you, we’re already involved. KR: nods. RC: Okay, but this goes no further, all right? (at KR’S nod) So I’m walking down the street and this guy that they’re looking for grabs me, shoves me into a car, starts talking crazy, starts asking me all these questions. JE: What kind of questions? RC: Something about Valkyrie, how much the feds knew, and then I thought he was going to pass out, because he was talking about going off to dream world. (JE freezes & looks off with his eyes) But he didn’t pass out. He dropped dead. JE: Uh … this guy? Was he, uh, was he military?

RC: Why? Is Valkyrie a military term? JE: I don’t know about Valkyrie, but Dream World? It’s a highly classified special operations base in the Gulf. It’s a ghost base. The government’s never confirmed its existence, but I – I met a guy who knew a guy who was stationed there. (everyone knows someone who knows someone) RC: (intrigued) Where is it? JE: It’s – it’s a ghost base, Castle. You think it’s going to say where it is? KR and RC share a look, then look to JE. They both shake their head. JE: No. But I will tell you this, if Beckett’s case has anything to do with this base, well, then she’s into something way bigger than she realizes. (won't clip, not even the double shale heads of rystle)

Oh no they lost her, beckett's instincts screwed them up. Or not nvm. If you've never seen it then why were you running away with evasion tactics? Is this the same interrogation room as the precinct & they just dolled it up differently?

GOLF COURSE I expected rachel mccord to slam the table & yell "he's dead" to scare this jeanette girl into talking. KB: Well, people do crazy things when they’re in love. RmC: I've noticed

Well you have the encryption system so you don't need to find the Bad Guy. Stop looking for the thing they REALLY stole. Ah! Genetics lab, classified floor, etc. lmao you would SO get results for dreamworld, even if it is all BS.

Castle chill & cut pi some slack. But also alexis is so pretty really really pretty. RC: how would they know? MR: Richard, these federal agents are here for you...

Ah yes, the military Why would Jack Bronson die if they were trying to set him up? How badly was he exposed? A few days & castle is still mostly fine? ngl I expected it to be more like "a few months before it ruins your systems, but we have a few days to flush it from your system so that you can go back to living your normal life" or smth

Ok I got a few clips, I'm happy.

[doingthewritethings]

i really liked 'been living on a fault line.' would u be willing to go more in depth on what made u decide to write it? Your writing was beautiful and I added a bunch of lines to my quote book.

[cw: implied csa]

hoo buddy this is an ASK.

fault line is probably my favorite thing i've ever written. it did exactly what i needed it to do -- give me a place to process out the overwhelming amount of thoughts and feelings i was having at the time.

the idea for it was first written on a post note (that i still have! it was supposed to be a direct sequel to 'brokenness as a form of art', and in some ways it still is) in january of 2021, when i first joined the fandom. i read the dog teeth series (still fucking incredible) and then i looked at ctommy and i was like. oh god this is about to become a PROBLEM isn't it

anyway! fault line means so much to me probably because i can see the ways i changed while writing it. i posted the first chapter in the beginning of 2021, and then i didn't know how to finish it -- because i didn't know how to write a happy ending. because i didn't know what that looked like. because everything hurt very badly all the time.

(reading back over this, i think this ask may have also meant 'do you mind sharing your story', which i for sure don't mind at all! there's nothing shameful or dirty or indecent about surviving sexual assault. but i don't love to do it on the public forum of this hellsite. slide into my dms at any point and i'd be honored to talk to you.)

i posted the final chapter in august of 2022, shortly after moving out -- and things were good. there were a lot of chapters i thought about writing - the final montage of scenes was supposed to be a lot more fleshed out, but it just wasn't WORKING. because the fic was done. and that's sort of a revelation i had while writing it -- for the fic to have a happy ending, the ending CANNOT FUCKING BE ABOUT DREAM.

god, the response to this fic has been fucking stellar. i still can't believe i wrote some of those lines tbh. and at the core of it all, it's a ranboo and tommy character study: there's just something SO fucking devastating about the way they function as parallels of each other even though they've gone through the same thing, and the way they think about and process their trauma makes them diametrically opposed at first.

ough. those BOYS. anyway.

i could talk about this fic for years. i wasn't sure how ranboo's arc was going to be received -- it's one of the most vulnerable things i've written ever ever ever, for sure -- and the feedback has just been ... unreal. there's a lot to be said about the survivor experience of not being able to trust your own brain, of Not Knowing, of feeling like maybe if the trauma happened again in The Right Way you would earn the right to be hurt by it. (spoiler: you would always find a way to make yourself unworthy.)

and i think that's the heart of the story! ranboo goes to see his abuser. tommy never wants to see him again. ranboo wants so badly to talk about it but doesn't feel like he can. tommy never ever wants to think about it again but he has to. ranboo doesn't remember enough. tommy remembers too much.

and that's the thing -- it's a catch 22. they will NEVER be able to do enough. they can't be the perfect victim, because that doesn't fucking exist. all that exists is the way you feel and what you do with it.

IN CONCLUSION! every few months i get a wrecked dm from someone who just finished fault line and that's how i know i've done it right. thanks to everyone who's come on this journey with me :)

[justmybookthots]

A Study in Drowning

Was this the book to break me out of a 1.5-month slump? Yes!

Did I enjoy it? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Let's just put it this way: this book did not work for me. If you're expecting this post to be filled with praises and you expect nothing less, please click away. This is not for you.

And I'm sad it wasn't for me, either, because I went into it with... well, not high hopes, but hopes, nonetheless.

(Spoilers ahead.)

Now, to start with pros: the writing is absolutely beautiful. I kept picking up the dictionary because I wanted to hang onto every word. The similes were a little overdone (more than a little, tbh), but I didn't mind because the choice of similes was pretty and very, very atmospheric. There are very few books where the writing wows me as a separate entity from the plot (this tells me my reading choices need work, lol), and this was one of them. 

Also, even with how lush the prose is, the story was very easy to follow and get into. Even until the very end, despite how bored and disinterested I was, it was easy to continue to follow it without feeling confused.

By all rights, I should be invested in the plot because it covers my favourite themes (?): rivals to lovers, the topic of misogyny, etc. But I don't love how the execution was done:

1) I really didn't care for the rivals to lovers plot here. I didn't care for Preston. He was all right. He was... a'ight. His inability to tell lies and perform simple flattery to get what he wants is a personal pet peeve / turn-off for me because it tells me he doesn't have a very high EQ. It's a common trait for male leads in a lot of fiction, one I'm tired of (this reminds me why I adored the subversion of Bambleby from Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Fairies). And I've seen men like that in real life, and they are unlikeable, weird, and unempathetic. Granted, Preston can be very empathetic when the time calls for it, but it's still... weird. In this alternative universe where everyone is RAISED to view men as superior to women, I don't understand how he was a feminist right from the start. I wish his way of thinking wasn't just "YEAH I'M A FEMINIST TOO" right away - it felt too much like wish-fulfilment and I'd prefer to see his views change over time. 

2) Also when the heroine found his thesis (which was to expose her favourite author as a fraud) and she was enraged and he persuaded her to not just not report him but also JOIN him, and it worked, I was like............... 🤦 Sure, we, the reader, know he's trustworthy because it's a romance novel (or rather, a novel with a romance subplot), but the heroine is such an IDIOT TO TRUST HIM WHEN HE COULD HAVE DONE IT JUST TO MAKE SURE HE WASN'T REPORTED. Moreover, I didn't find her transition to frothing over his thesis to joining him believable. 

3) Speaking of the heroine, her ability to quote excerpts of her favourite book verbatim doesn't make her a good literature student. I can't count how many times I've cringed every time she does it. It feels pretentious and a lazy way of telling, not showing. Being a good literature student isn't just about memorising text verbatim. I mean, sure they can, and it's great, but it's their interpretation of the work that matters.

4) Stop with the romanticisation of smoking, I beg. Smoking is a HUGE deal-breaker and turn-off for me and I hated every word of it. 

5) During their sex scene. Did.... only Preston finish? I CAN'T, this is hilarious.

6) Again, I didn't like how the misogyny was written. It was very cartoonish: man = all bad, woman = all good and victimised. I KNOW that's the case for some scenarios in reality, but somehow the attempt at feminism just didn't work for me. To be honest, I still can't say exactly why this book didn't work for me in its depiction of misogyny. I've praised thriller books for covering this issue (like The Maid's Diary), but just not this one. I think I just wasn't very convinced by the worldbuilding, and how it conveyed their roots of misogyny. This is more a personal issue for me, and regardless, I'm glad it managed to successfully depict institutional sexism in academia for some.

7) Also, I was expecting a bigger plot twist in the end but nope, Iantho was the Fairy King just as I thought (I mean... it was so obvious), and his mother's role was also obvious. There was really nothing special or surprising - it was predictable to the very end.

- 16 Oct 2023

[zealoussy]

2023 Midyear Freakout Book Tag

It is time to look back to all of the books I've read for the past 6 months (!!!). I just want to do this for myself but anyone who wants to join, consider yourself tagged!

Best book you've read so far in 2023. This is a difficult one because I have never been not indecisive all my life. But. I think I will settle with No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. I love how Dazai slowly working through Oba Yozo's mental deterioration. Obviously he's not likeable, but you'll be able to empathize with him from following the turbulence that is his mind. This book is the best way to show people the "ugly" side of mental illness. People need to realize that mental illness isn't only about the most instragammable things you can do, but it is also being the worst version of yourself. Other than that, how the narrative makes its way to connect to the title is cleverly done. It feels so seamless.

Best sequel you've read so far in 2023. I'm not a series reader, tbh. So I will go with The Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman. Although not my favorite of the series, I did enjoy reading that. In this volume, we meet Barbie! Turns out she's a princess some lifetime ago?? It's really interesting and surprisingly poignant.

Favourite re-read. Easy question, it's White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky. How is it still heartbreaking, even though I know what comes next in the story? That's Dostoevsky's specialty, I think. Making stories that's so painful no matter how much you reread it, it still gives you pain.

Genre you've been loving/reading the most. I've been having a lot of fun reading graphic novels this year so far! Reading graphic novels is the most magical form of experiencing work of literature. For fantasy especially, it feels like I forget I ever existed on Earth when reading them. Most of them are fast-paced and medium-paced so I'd recommend anyone to pick any title up if you want to read when waiting something, or not in the mood to digest books slowly.

New release you haven't read yet, but want to. Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova. It just came out last month so I still have a lot of time to read it. The summary sounds intriguing and I've seen a few of my book-ish friends wanting to read it too. Hopefully I can read that before the year ends!

Most anticipated release for the second half of the year. I don't have one, honestly. I'm not the type of person that follows news release that much, so yeah that's my answer.

Biggest disappointment. The Stranger - Albert Camus. I was so excited for this book. I have been saving that title since last year. Thank god I didn't buy the physical copy. Like, I get the book. But its' SO boring. I don't enjoy it.

Biggest surprise. Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin. Oh, this is an interesting one. Because I started this book last year impulsively, but then it was kinda rotting in my piles of CRs. But one day I decided, you know what, let's finished this book. And I was surprised that I like it. I even teared up a little at the end. I never thought it will be a profound book that shines light to what religious trauma can do to a person. The story is told in ironic and darkly humorous way, which is very funny if you're mentally ill. Yet it's also crushing, how the main character describe her despair. Such a marvelous read.

Favorite new author (debut/new to you). Oliver Jeffers. He's an author, illustrator for picture book fiction. Last year I read The Heart and The Bottle, which absolutely broke me to pieces, and this week I read What We'll Build and it makes me want to cry a river. So I'll definitely check out his other books.

Newest Favorite Character. Oh, God. I have two answer to this but I think I'll pick Jean-Baptiste Grenouille from Das Parfum for this one. Reason? Because he's a sopping wet little meow meow.

Book that made you cry. Uhh I don't know how it happened, but it's The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger got me sobbing???? The last part of the book, yeah. Just. I don't know. I'm just so fond of Holden Caulfield, I want to give him a hug, the best hug, making him soup if he's sick, staying all night if he want to talk, like I want to protect him at all cost.

Books that made you happy. My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonders by Nie Jun. It's free time travel to my childhood and free therapy. I need that child-like wonders and excitement dose if I want to survive this year.

Most beautiful book you've bought so far this year. Most of my reads are digital, but I'll mention Mamo by Sas Milledge as one of the most beautiful book I've read this year so far. The art style is so breathtaking. It added the whimsical story line even more alive.

What books do you need to read by the end of the year? So much books, so little time. I'll be happy with myself if I can manage to read any of Toni Morrison's books. I've been wanting to read her books but I'm just kinda intimidated lol.

[meimae]

01/07/21

I'm finally on time for my June Immersion Overview! ...Well, at least in a different timezone I am! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

June was a weird month I suppose. I knew what I wanted to immerse in in terms of listening, but I was so indicisive for reading material. Everything seemed either too hard or too boring, so I just ended up dipping my toes in a variety of stuff until I ended falling back into the stuff I put on hold and have been dilly-dallying with.

It's really not for a lack of media, which makes immersion learning really good for Japanese since there's tons of it to consume all the time, I've just been kind of all over the place, not knowing if I like something enough to continue. Ahh, I miss the days when I could finish entire books and manga series in a month.

Anyway, overview time!

ANIME

Not feeling too good about anime. Maybe I'm not looking into seasonals enough, but I also dislike waiting for new episodes, because the immersion method really requires you to binge media to get better at comprehending the language faster.

HUNTERXHUNTER S2

I'm sorry, but that season was boring. The issues weren't even issues to begin with. I know that there are particularly outstanding arcs in HXH, but I'm not about to skip seasons because every minute counts as immersion.

GREAT PRETENDER

Club pick. I only ended up watching a few episodes. Wasn't really into it. I thought I'd like it because people were really into the animation and art style, but it's kind of meh.

DRAMAS

JDramas saved my entire immersion this month! I know a lot of people feel that the quality falls flat compared to what Korea has been producing, but there really are some gems here that I feel like people keep missing out on because they won't give it a chance.

恋はつづくよどこまでも

Unsubbed rewatch. Okay, I was dumb and included this last month, but I actually watched it very early in June. Anyway, this was 70% romance/drama, 30% medical drama so anything that I missed were mostly related to medical stuff that I wouldn't understand well in English either, so it didn't feel too bad of a watch.

ミス・シャーロック

Excuse me, there's a female Sherlock Holmes? Yes, please! I looove Sherlock Holmes, it's one of my favorite books and characters of all time, and the fact that Japan made a genderbent remake is giving me life. Love that they took inspiration from BBC Sherlock, too, which is one of my most favorite tv adaptations.

The portrayal of fem!Sherlock was very interesting and made perfect sense, really classy and very snooty and almost condencending, but now with realistic female perspective emotions. Ah, so good!

Watson or Wato, however, felt a little flat unfortunately. It did take a good look into the effects of PTSD, and mental health is always good for people to discuss, but it almost seemed that was all that Watson is, which s/he is not. The original Watson is brave and clever in a more human aspect, and would put a lot on the line to help Sherlock, regardless of his physical or mental state. It just didn't translate well, which is unfortunate. I guess the TV Drama Elementary version of Watson was what I was looking for, but it didn't end up that way.

5時から9時まで

Unsubbed rewatch. Kind of a filler drama, and just wanted to watch it to count as active immersion. The three guys in this show are cringe tbh: protag is a guy who can't take no for an answer, friend is a "nice guy" who thinks he's entitled to her because they've been friends for a while, and boss guy thinks it's fine to withhold the truth of him once being married. Female protagonist's personality started okay, but kinda broke down towards the end, and I'm not sure if the ending was to make up for that.

私たちはどうかしている

Uh, hello? New favorite drama! ヽ(^v^)ノ

Between the spicy family drama, beautiful garments and traditional 和菓子屋 in a modern setting, and the electric chemistry between the two main characters, which I'm not gonna lie was kinda toxic too, but for some reason I could not put this down and watched it in two days.

It's a combination of genres I love: "historical" fiction, romance, drama, mystery, and suspense. I'm not even going to discuss it anymore. Just go watch this show!

リコカツ

Interesting concept: two people meet, had a whirlwind wedding with many guests, and almost immediately after decide to divorce, but is too embarrased to admit it to everyone who wished their marriage the best, so they try to work things out while dancing around their feelings even though they are still married. Pretty cute, kind of frustrating at times, but you can't help but root for them anyway.

MOVIES

Why are these movies an 8 on MDL? lmao

君と100回目の恋

Interesting concept that got flushed down the drain in the first 20 minutes. Nobody even explained why the recording can do what it does, and the male protagonist also just gave up on his research just like that. It's implied that he redid things a hundred times, but bro, did you even try as hard as you think you did?

カノジョは嘘を愛しすぎてる

Another one of those standard template romance movies but now with a band as a costume. It's fine, not the greatest.

NOVELS

君の膵臓をたべたい

Finally finished! See stats and 感想 here!

本好きの下剋上 司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません

Was able to wrap up 第一部 兵士の娘I along with the audiobook! Stats and 感想 here!

Also started 第一部 兵士の娘II, but got both distracted and indecisive with my reading material. Also this thing is close to 200k 文字 what the heck. That's a chunky light novel, and if it's going to be like the first one, it's going to talk a lot about the process of making stuff - both interesting and tedious to read about.

三日間の幸福

This is turning out to be another "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" moment where I just inch forward everytime but never finish, but I'll get there. I'm starting to form an opinion about this protagonist and it's turning out pretty sour, so it's kinda hard to read with that in the back of my mind.

コンビニ人間

Started towards the end of the month, so I haven't actually made a dent in it, but I heard that people in the immersion community usually pick this up as one of their first reads. It's actually really short (60k 文字), so if it's as good as people say, I hope I can sit down and finish it in a few days. Wishful thinking maybe.

VISUAL NOVELS

ファタモルガーナの館

Look man, I'm halfway through this, and between that and the fact that this is an unvoiced 敬語 filled VN which is interesting to read in, makes this really hard to drop even though every door so far has been the standard historical fiction tragedy. And yes, even the "big secret" about the white haired girl is nothing surprising given how heavily hinted it was. Even Morgana's story is what you would expect to happen given the setting and timeline.

Anyway, I'm gonna trudge on because again, it's not like I'm not gaining any language skill from reading this. It's just painfully predictable, which makes it really disappointing coming from a huge historical fiction fan.

白昼夢の青写真

Just trying this out because I'm tired of being held back by unintresting reads, and although the first case feels like it's gonna turn out cringey, I'm keeping my hopes up for the rest. Also, the art for this is really cute?

-☆-

That's it for June!

I also technically read a few chapters of 名探偵コナン, but didn't include it in my overview, because I felt kind of detached from reading it. Like, was I really about to reread something I read (English fan translated) 900+ chapters of for most of my life, well, because I now can read it in Japanese? So I put it on hold only because I don't know if I should reread all of it, because you know, Japanese gains, or just pick up where I left off even though this manga is my childhood favorite and my heart was already crying just rereading the very first case.

Honestly, I didn't know what I was expecting from June. I thought I would have been able to read more, but I just played catchup with some stuff and drowned in the JDrama pit. No regrets though, I ended up loving a lot of my picks this month.

Still hoping to balance out my reading and listening though, as I really feel quite behind with my reading skill. It's just so hard to find something I like so I keep dawdling about. Eh, I'll figure it out.

Thanks for reading! Updates in the future as always.

[goldenlie]

hi there, it's been a while since last time I sent an ask so I was just wondering how are you doing? :D for me it's been a lot of things going on at once but I'm somewhat managing and I hope you are doing well. I wanted to send an ask around time qnf vlogs came out but I didn't have much time and then after my brain decided to remind me of and reignite my interest in bbc sherlock lmao so I didn't keep up with what was happening in the fandom that much anymore. I hope you don't find this stressful or intrusive or anything like that, I just wondered how are you doing these days but don't feel obligated to answer if you don't want to! - qnf enjoyer ^_^

Qnf enjoyer!!! Hi!! ^-^ Always good to hear from you so don't worry, I actually logged on for the first time since January the other day so great timing. Being kept busy always makes time fly, I hope it's not too stressful or overwhelming all the same though! Don't worry at all about not having time, I'm in a similar situation, started an internship early January and I've never felt more active in my life (going well tho!! Thankfully). I actually owe you such an apology for never getting back to your well thought out, well spoken asks after all this time 😭 I have written answers that aren't even fleshed out enough for me to get my point across (as you can see I do like to use 5 lines to describe something instead of 1 😍), I'm a shambles and I'm deeply sorry for it.

Ok I'm not even gonna lie to you I was thinking about rewatching Sherlock like two weeks ago, that show was my fave years ago. They definitely (in my opinion, potentially wildly popular I never actually was in the fandom space) dropped the ball on it as soon as s3? Maybe? When they gave us no explanation for the big s2 finale (spoiler free even though we've both seen it, I don't know why 😭). Kind of maybe in the mood to perhaps read the Sherlock books instead, but it will be to the faces of Benedict and whatever johns real name is, I think it actually is John right? I'm actually finishing off Breaking bad (after like 6 months I'd be quicker make my own spin off show, it all started because I wanted to get Qnfs references and now watch the upload with Mr man who's name escapes me) so everything's coming after that. My friend recommended the walking dead, so I'll share that rec with u lmk if you've seen or if it's worth? She said she watched it like 9 years ago and is just picking up where she left off 😳 my memory would not be on the same wave of that idea ngl. Alsoo on the anime front (who can relate) started watching Mirai Nikki and also Sonic X 🥴 (that's literally the most self describing sentance I've ever wrote).

I'm the exact same as you with not being involved in this fandom space anymore it's so bad I hadn't seen one stream since like January, but I stopped in of course for Qnf bowling blog (really enjoyed it tbh) and I was like wow I miss them only for quackity to fly to England the following week. However comma despite being excited for it out of nowhere the vibes were not as fun as I would've expected ngl. Idk if you keep up with like dtqk updates on Twitter but that's where I read the cliff notes summary of what they've been at every so often but dearly beloved dream went publically blabbing about George feeling depressed in England??? King,, what? What are you doing talking about your friends personal life like this 😭 so I think that probably put a little damper on things for me. I enjoyed the stream where snf shared a mouse / keyboard, and Quackitys stream was good energy but I haven't been able to sit through Karl's / Tina's streams without turning it off as soon as i start. So if you need recs this is all I've got (so sorry) or if you've watched any of these do let me know your thoughts!! I honestly think this might be it for me (I think I might be hate watching at this point), mcc was my shining star in the dark for reigniting my enjoyment and George is not partaking amen I'll get the hint king. Side note, but I've been much more into hermitcraft lately 😳 big grian and scar enjoyer, I've been watching for a while but s9, last life, and grians hardcore series is v worth, you've probs seen but if not, they're v entertaining but chill.

I'm so sorry for the monstrosity this became, why stop now let me copy in Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock (idk what he called the book) on here while I'm at it, wouldn't even look long next to this. Feel free to stop into my ask box whenever legend, update me on anything you want I'm always down for a chat (even if my history doesn't showcase that well)

[scpercyjackson]

How much the PJO books mean to me as someone with ADHD

Hi I feel like no one has had a post like this so I'm gonna post one kinda long story and if anyone wants to add on saying what the PJO world means to them please feel free to reblog with your stories or you can message me with your story cuz I'd love to know:

So when I was in the seventh grade I had an english teacher (who was absolutely amazing btw) who assigned the class to all pick a fiction book to read and write a report on. She took us down to the library and I remember looking at all the books not having a single clue what book I wanted to pick. I despised reading. I was extremely slow and I could never comprehend what was on the page. I could read 5 pages of something and not tell you a single thing of what I just read. I walked around the library aimlessly trying to get away with just picking up a short book and getting the hell out of there when I saw the first book of the Percy Jackson series "The Lightning Thief." I remembered I had just seen the movie a couple weeks before and my friend had complained loudly that the movie was horrible compared to the book and she told me to read the books instead. I didn't know what she meant cuz I actually quite liked the movie. I decided to take her word for it and I picked up the book, not knowing what I was getting myself into. In the first few pages Percy had explained how he had ADHD and Dyslexia and how those learning disabilities had affected his academic life and social life. The more I read the book, the more I realized that, other than flipping letters and words around and not being able to read, his personality, traits and behaviors, the way he talked without thinking of consequences, the way he had trouble focusing on reading, the way he realized, as a demigod with ADHD, he saw too much, not too little, and how he was so fidgety and restless, constantly moving all the time just to pay attention, all of those things were basically describing my whole life. I started to recall memories of times my teachers told me to stop wiggling in my seat or to be quiet and pay attention, or how they would look in sympathy at me when they saw that I had trouble understanding and recalling what I read even though I definitely could read. I remembered that I was always frustrated when I couldn't understand something the first time I tried it. My sister excelled at piano when we were little and then I would get frustrated, slam the keys, and cry because I couldn't get it as fast. I remembered always being the "slow reader" and finishing last on readings when everybody had already moved on. My room (and my life tbh) was a disorganized mess. I realized while reading the book that I might have ADHD. I was 99% certain. I ended up doing so much research on it that I was convinced. I was even more convinced when I had basically devoured the first PJO series in two months, quicker than I ever read before and the most books Ive ever read in that amount of time. My parents were shocked at how I was all of sudden reading all the time. Finally in 11th grade when I became so overwhelmed with the amount of reading junior year required, I told my parents I wanted to get fully tested for ADHD. Thankfully they understood and told me they've suspected for a while I might have ADHD. When the psychologist who tested me finally told me I definitely was ADHD I almost cried. Not meaning to sound dramatic, but I felt like my whole life finally made sense. I was able to get accommodations in high school and now college. I finally knew that I wasn't dumber than my peers. In fact, the psychologist actually told me my IQ was slightly higher for someone my age which was actually common among kids with ADHD. This all became possible because I had picked up "The Lightning Thief" in 7th grade because my teacher forced me to. Since then, the PJO world has grown so much with so much representation for so many different kinds of kids from LGBT kids to people of color and to the disabled (I grew up with gay relatives and friends and it was nice for Rick to depict my type of family as normal. I also grew up as a mixed race girl with a physical disability and, unknowingly a mental one too so it was amazing to finally see people like me be main characters in his stories). I found myself relating to Percy, to Annabeth, to Thalia, Nico, Reyna (as a puerto rican who had trouble keeping friends), Leo(who was hispanic and super ADHD and loved cracking jokes to hide pain), Sadie Kane (as a semi white passing colored girl), and so many of his other characters. I finally found a world where I belonged and I'm never gonna give that up. I hope other kids like me have found themselves in these books as I know I definitely have.

Thanks for reading : ) I'd love to hear your stories so please reblog with them or message me or follow me and I'll be posting a lot more about my thoughts and theories on the PJO world.