#new years book tag

[ofswordsandpens]

"so you think that a society that functions around a child military instead of the entire city of literal adults might be indicative that their attitudes and ideals are a bit off ? and that by moving to New Rome Percy is not actually escaping his life as a demigod but instead is just giving himself a whole new set of problems to deal with? "

[jeanmoreaue]

Are Jean and Neil the same age?

yep which is wild!! they’re both 19 turning 20 in the next year. i think Jean’s technically about 3-4 months older if you consider Nathaniel Wesisinski’s actual birthday (January 19th, 1988) not Neil Josten’s birthday (March 31st, 1987 - since that makes him a year older lol) and the foxhole court takes place in 2006-2007 year

Jean is 19 in tsc and nora said that Jean is a scorpio on twitter so that means his birthday is somewhere in October/November (my stab in the dark is October 29th, 1987, right before halloween seems to fit the vibe) meaning that jean will probably turn 20 in the next book

[diaruchann]

I think for most people it went:

Percy Jackson -> Greek Mythology -> Epic: The Musical

But somehow for me it was:

Epic: The Musical -> Percy Jackson -> Greek Mythology

[chiropteracupola]

FINALLY! AT LAST! GRANDDAD’S HORNBLOWER BOOK COLLECTION!!

[mllenugget]

Hey remember when Baghera adopted Dapper like 8 months ago or did I make that up ? ────────────────────────────────────────── Support all the admins that spoke out (& do your daily click) ──────────────────────────────────────────

[mmvalentine]

Lucky | Feysand

It was a throw away comment and Feyre knows it.

“Stop leaving glasses out!” Rhys had said, half laughing, tugging the end of her ponytail and dropping two cups and a mug into the sink.

Rhys makes her a cup of tea every evening, and it’s one of the hundred little ways that Feyre feels spoiled. She does like to keep a glass of water on the night stand, and where Tamlin hated it when she worked, Rhys has always supported her career. So they both leave early in the morning and more often than not, there’s a small collection of glassware in their bedroom.

It's completely fair that Rhys would prefer that she take them to the kitchen in the morning.

So why is it that the comment unsteadies her?

“I’m sorry,” Feyre says, and rushes to the sink. Her hands shake on the sponge. “My brain doesn’t function in the morning, I’ll remember to wash up before bed.” She goes for casual but it comes out breathless, and the Rhys looks over with a frown.

Maybe it’s because she’s been here for four weeks but doesn’t trust this yet.

Not Rhys- he’s been nothing but gorgeous, and patient, and kind. He’s so completely sure about her and in some ways that’s the most wonderful thing about him. And in some ways, it’s a lot of fucking pressure.

Rhys comes to stand behind her and puts his nose on her neck. Closes his fingers over her wrists until she stops moving, and wraps his arms around her waist.

“That’s fair,” he murmurs. “It’s not a real gripe.”

Some nights, Feyre lies awake in the dark, long after Rhys has fallen asleep, and tries to deep-breathe the fear away. It never works. But how can she tell him? It’s not his fault. The problems are all in her head.

“I’m sorry,” Feyre whispers, and she doesn’t mean the glasses.

She knows it’s not realistic, but it’s hard to fight the urge to be as perfect as possible, because she’s never had it so good, and the fact that it could break any day now is more than enough to keep her guts in permanent knots. She’s been holding her lips closed over the anxiety. She’s been trying so hard. She’s brittle enough that the shallow criticism lands like failure in her stomach.

“It’s okay,” Rhys murmurs. He picks up a tea towel and dries her hands, dragging her waist away from the sink. “You’re safe, honey.”

Sometimes Feyre forgets that Rhys does know. Knows better than most- after all, he’s known Tamlin longer than she has. Still, she’s both embarrassed and relieved that he can read her so easily.

“I didn’t mean it,” Rhys says. “Please leave cups in the room. It means you live here and that is so wonderful, to me.”

Rhys sits down on the couch and pulls her into his lap. Feyre hides her face in his chest and wishes, for the thousandth time, that she was better than this. That her fear of Tamlin’s anger would not be an unwelcome third in her and Rhys’s house.

“Hey,” Rhys whispers. “Don’t be sad, beautiful girl.” He slides his hand under her hair, and touches their foreheads together. “You’re okay.”

And then he kisses her, and it helps.

Feyre takes a deep breath, and kisses him back. It’s difficult to be here, it’s difficult to let herself be loved like this. But touching Rhys is always easy, and soon her fingers find his collar and his jaw and the raven curls at the back of his head. And she can feel him smile against her mouth when she tugs him closer.

“Does this help?” he asks. Feyre just nods, and kisses him again. The rough of Rhys’s palms walk up her back, under her shirt, until his hand rests behind her neck.

“I have less anxiety when you’re touching me,” she admits, and Rhys chuckles softly.

“That’s good,” he says, and in the next moment he’s lifted her up out of his lap and laid her back down on the couch cushions. He settles easily between her legs, and every time it’s a thrill to Feyre that he’s hard because of her. His mouth wanders from her lips to her throat to her collar bone and back up.

“I’m not mad,” he says, because that’s always what she’s afraid of and he knows it. “Of course I’m not, you’re such a good girl, how could I be?”

And like clockwork those two words make her brain slide, and her eyes close as his tongue travels the indent that runs from under her sternum to her navel.

“Please,” Feyre breathes. Rhys just looks up at her from under the ink of his eyelashes, and continues kissing down her stomach. “Please,” she says again, and this time he leans up and kisses her heavy on the mouth.

“That’s such a pretty word on your tongue,” he tells her. Feyre doesn’t respond, she’s concentrating on Rhys’s belt buckle and the button beneath it. He glances down, and then gives her a pitying look. “My poor darling,” he says. His teeth graze the corner of her jaw. “You need this, huh?”

Feyre wins her battle with Rhys’s zipper and slides her hand down the front of his jeans. She’s rewarded with a shudder that rips across his shoulders, and it only makes her melt further into the couch.

“Yes,” she whispers.

“You need it?” Rhys asks again. He grinds against her palm and she loves how even when he’s in control, he comes undone a little under her hands. “You need me to fuck it better?”

“Yes,” Feyre says again, and now she shoves his jeans the rest of the way off him, and Rhys pulls his shirt over his head in one motion. He gets his mouth on her throat and his hand on her breast, and Feyre’s limbs reach up and around him to pull him closer than skin. He drags her tights off, agonizingly slow, and then her shirt, and every inch that’s exposed is immediately pressed up against the warmth of him, searing but sweet.

“Tell me how much,” Rhys says, and it’s only the cotton of her underwear that’s between them when he rolls his hips against hers. Feyre closes her eyes, speaks against the slant of his cheek.

“Too much,” she says. He hooks her leg over his shoulder and Feyre’s back arches up off the couch. “And too often. You have no idea…” she trails off, trying to press up against Rhys as he moves all too slowly.

“Too often?” he asks. His fingers drift down, toying with the waistband of her panties.

“All the time,” she gasps. Her hands scrabble on his shoulders as he drags the elastic down over her hips.

“I wish you’d tell me.” He starts to kiss down over her breasts, but Feyre pulls him back up to her lips and slide her tongue against his. He groans softly in her mouth, and she pulls her knees up the sides of his ribcage, digs her heels into base of his back. “I wish you’d lean over, while we’re watching TV, and tell me how bad…” here Rhys pauses to draw a shaky breath because Feyre is wet against his naked cock, “…you need to be fucked.”

“I’m telling you now,” Feyre argues, and lifts her hips to prove her point.

“You are,” Rhys concedes, and presses up against heat of her. “And you’re doing such a good job.” He pushes inside her, and Feyre’s head drops back against the cushions. She breathes in, and it feels like a long time she’s been holding her breath. “Look at me,” Rhys says, and when she opens her eyes he’s watching her face change when he moves out and back in. His hips punch forward when she meets the violet of his gaze, and Feyre gasps.

“That’s it baby,” Rhys murmurs. “Keep looking at me.”

It’s easier said than done- Rhys’s eyes scald her and every time their hips touch her mind slides.

“Come on honey, you can do it.”

Feyre’s eyes snap open, but somehow there’s five hundred years in that stare and it’s a lot to bear. She tips her head back and throws her arm over her face.

And then Rhys’s fingers close over her throat, and it’s strange that this makes her feel safer, that it always makes her feel safer when he’s holding her down because every other moment she’s on the verge of floating away altogether.

“Is that better?” Rhys asks. His eyes darken above her, and she loves knowing that he likes her like this.

“Yes,” she breathes, and his grip tightens.

“You’re so good,” he tells her. “My good girl.”

Feyre can’t help it, she moans at the praise and the sound pushes Rhys’s pace up. This time when her eyes squeeze shut he lets her. Sits up on his heels to get a deeper angle and puts his teeth on her ankle.

“You want to be good for me, don’t you?” Rhys asks. He slides his thumb against her tongue for a second, before touching it to her clit. She can’t answer, because he keeps his rhythm while he talks to her and it’s knocking the breath from her lungs. “You look so pretty like this, baby.” His eyes rake over her, hooded and muddled, and there’s nothing quite so intoxicating as watching him look at her.

Rhys leans his forearms on either side of her face and leans down over her. Feyre’s hands come up automatically to follow the muscles of his back. She thinks he’ll kiss her, but when she tilts her face up he just flicks his eyes down to her mouth and then back up. He slows down now, moves in long, languid strokes that make Feyre feel like she’s drowning.

“You know,” he murmurs. “You can always tell me if you need this.” This time he does kiss her, and the next time he speaks it’s right next to her ear. “I’d drop everything and bend you over. Empty your head just like you like.”

Feyre‘s nails dig into Rhys��s shoulders and he shifts again, moving fast now and breathing shallow.

“Come on baby,” he says, and she can hear the strain in his voice. “Feel good for me.”

She doesn’t need to be told, he always feels good and today is no exception. Not when the snap of his hips makes a steady undertow that she is fast being dragged in by, not when the smell of him this close is enough to drive her to distraction, not when she can feel him start to chase his own release and knows that she’s the one making him feel like this.

“Give it to me,” she whispers. “I want it, want to feel you…”

But Rhys just laughs and shakes his head. “You first, angel.”

Feyre is tempted to see if she can make him lose control, but the way he moves is too good to ignore. And, she’s never one to pass up an opportunity to show him how good she can be.

“Right now,” Rhys says, under her ear, and honestly it’s so easy with him. Feyre breaks in between one breath and the next, and it’s a thing that wrings her out over and over in the cage of Rhys’s arms. It’s somewhere in the aftershocks that Rhys comes too, and she hasn’t told him but this is the part to Feyre that feels so intense she never quite feels like she’ll survive it. But of course she does, and minutes later the world filters back in and the couch cushions are scratchy against her back and there is sweat in Rhys’s hair and her heart is still beating painfully hard in her chest.

And Feyre feels calm, in this moment, which is rare but increasing. She presses her nose against Rhys’s forehead, where he’s half dozing on her chest, and tries to remember the feeling of it, because there will be a next time that she feels anxious and afraid, but if she’s very lucky, and she has been very lucky, there will also be a next time for this part right here, and that makes everything worthwhile.  

****

Well hello there angels! It's been a hot minute, I'm rusty don't laugh at me!

But seriously a lot of things have happened and I still kinda feel a little lost (read: completely out of control)- and not all in bad ways. I've been meaning to post some one shot type things and to talk about my book but man it is HARD. So for now here is a little angsty thing that may or may not be just be T-Swifting it about my current sitch and my book links: UK and international US eBook Australia

And ummm this feels like I am too irrelevant to pull this anymore and I'm sorry if you do not want to be on this but,

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST: @ghostlyrose2 @highladysith @stardelia @feysand-loml @tillyrubes10 @ratabrasileira @live-the-fangirl-life @maybekindasortaace @annejulianneh111 @thebonecarver @rowaelinismyotp @loosingdreams @pitrsattabhaadmeinjao @achernarlight @swankii-art-teacher @sjmships @courtofjurdan @teddytdr @positivewitch @thalia-2-rose @darling-archeron @rapunzel1523 @fairchildjace @hopefulacademia @story-scribbler @fandomstalker27 @realbookloverproblems @dealfea @s-tormwitch @cretaceous-therapod @whenyadoesntcutit @scatterbrainedgirl @whoever-you-choose-to-love @endlessdaydream @elentiya-whitethorn @rarephloxes @timesconvert @mis-lil-red @alerialumina

[deanmarywinchester]

previous years: 2022, 2021 / list of worst sf/f/horror

the bangers were BANGING this year, I kept mentally readjusting my top 5 list every time I read something good so the honorable mentions are extremely honorable this year. I hope you read anything that sounds good from this list and tell me about it!

top 5:

chain gang all stars by nana kwame adjei-brenyah: when I say that this book is like the hunger games for adults, I’m not making a glib comparison between two books about fighting to the death, I’m saying that I haven’t felt so intensely about a book since I stayed up late to tear through the hunger games and sob about it when I was thirteen. this book is satire as real and devastating as I’ve ever read, with action scenes that feel like they’re being dripped directly into my hindbrain and a unique and believable love story. put it on hold at your library literally RIGHT now.

the actual star by monica byrne: about a post-climate catastrophe utopian society built around a religion started by a teenage girl in 2012 based on mayan traditions, and also about the teenage girl, and also about the maya. this book made me crazy because the future society felt real enough to touch, with its radical openness and collectivity solving problems that exist today but causing new ones that are totally novel and meaty and interesting to dig into. read it if you’re interested in different ways of being.

the spear cuts through water by simon jiménez: really, REALLY good, fresh, original epic fantasy. jimenez picks a few perspectives to stick to but hops fluidly into bystanders’ brains to give you their perspectives, so even background characters feel fleshed-out and no one’s pain is dismissed as a side effect of heroic battles or whatever. highly recommended if you like framing narratives and stories about stories, and like epic fantasy but wish it wasn’t mostly about finding acceptable enemies to slaughter with cool swords

the dispossessed by ursula k. le guin: I love how much this book is about hope as clear-eyed commitment to the boring and difficult work of a brighter and necessary future. sometimes the work of the glorious anarcho-communist revolution is leaving your university post and romantic partner for months at a time to dig irrigation ditches so nobody starves when there’s a drought. read this book for diplomatic conniving, a clash of values between a capitalist planet and its dissident moon, and hope.

imperial radch trilogy and its spinoffs by ann leckie: what if you were built to be a weapon of the empire, a serene sentient battleship with thousands of human bodies all containing your consciousness, and you lost all bodies but one and had to figure out how to be a person, singular and alone? what if you were a 19th century british military officer and you slept for a thousand years into the decline of the empire? what if you were grown in a vat to be a facsimile of human and then told off for eating all your siblings even though eating them was SO interesting? what then. leckie’s prose is incisive and funny, her unreliable narrators are wonderful, and her stories are intimate even though the backdrops are insanely huge. 👍.

honorable mentions:

house of leaves by mark z. danielewski: guys? anyone hearda this one? anyway. Something Is Wrong With This House horror with themes of storytelling and grief. recommending that you slam this book as fast as possible like I did so you can hold all its layers in your head at once.

the lathe of heaven by ursula k le guin: i thought I didn’t like ursula k le guin, and then I read this book, went OH and immediately devoured the hainish cycle. im so sorry miss ursula. this book about a hapless pacific northwesterner whose therapist is making him dream different realities into being is so sharp and sly and funny. themes of choices, ends and means.

he who drowned the world by shelley parker-chan: I liked the prequel to this addition to the radiant emperor duology. I LOVED this book. parker-chan has invented new and exciting modes of fucked-up codependency and im obsessed. historical light-fantasy with themes of ideals vs what it takes to reach them, gender, and regret.

babel by r. f. kuang: found the didacticism of this book annoying, but i really loved the concept of this novel and the way it slowly ratchets up the stakes. this novel is for people who want to smash the fun of the magic school genre against the reality of universities’ complicity in the imperial machine.

piranesi by susannah clarke: im late to this book but it’s such a weird little gem. peaceful yet unsettling. a man takes care of an endless house with an ocean inside it until he realizes the house is stealing his memories. themes of memory and devotion.

hell follows with us by andrew joseph white: I can only read YA these days if it’s a reread or if it’s genuinely good and really really strange. this is that. weird gory fantasy about a trans teen who escapes his militarized post-apocalyptic christian cult and finds himself turning into something Different. my only gripe is that he uses 2023-perfect language to describe transness and I think he should be inventing genders weve never even thought of. such is YA.

some desperate glory by emily tesch: a rolickin’ good space opera time with terrible women <3. a thriller about how the golden child of her isolated human-supremacist space station cult deprograms and the consequences of it. this feels like a grown-up SPOP until the theoretical physics gets involved. big fan

the library of mount char by scott hawkins: this book is harrow the ninth in suburbia until it becomes a more macabre version of the absurdity of the gomens apocalypse. God raises his children, sometimes brutally, to hone their powers in a neighborhood that mysteriously keeps out outsiders. came for the dysfunctional mess of the god-children and now I can never look at a grill the same way

runners up:

bunny by mona awad: books that make you WISH you were in mona awad’s MFA program where she must have been having a terrible time. the weird one out in an MFA program accepts overtures into the unbearable rich-girls’ clique to find out what they’re Up To. themes of aimlessness and the intersection of class with the art world

camp damascus by chuck tingle: have you ever wished that you were simply too autistic to be successfully demonically brainwashed into not having gay thoughts? horror-flavored thriller that was just fun

light from uncommon stars by ryka aoki: this author put a bunch of genres in a blender and came up with something fun and surprisingly cozy. an immortal woman must sell violinists’ souls to the devil in exchange for their fame, or he’ll drag her to damnation instead. there might be aliens and coffeeshop romance involved. definitely a blender.

the fragile threads of power by v. e. schwab: if you haven’t read a darker shade of magic and you like tightly paced high fantasy and historical fantasy elements, political intrigue, and pirates, read that first. if you have, there’s more now! lila bard are you free on thursday when I am free

the library of the dead & our lady of mysterious ailments by t. l. huchu: a teenage girl provides for her family in soft-apocalypse magic edinburgh with a job carrying messages from ghosts to their living relatives. an ongoing mystery series about the intrigues she uncovers among the dead.

severance by ling ma: this books is on the list of media that is the terror to me: it's about an apocalyptic disease that makes people reenact their routines mindlessly until they collapse. intimate apocalypse novel with themes of late capitalist malaise.

ocean’s echo by everina maxwell: i didn't really like winter's orbit because i'm just not a romance guy, but this second novel stands alone and the romance is more insane and less of the entire point of the novel. (also it's between essentially Discworld's Carrot and Moist Von Lipwig, which is. really something.) in the Space Military, a buttoned-up mind controller must pretend to bend a socialite with illegal mind-reading powers to his will. what if fake relationship but the relationship they have to fake is "brain linked master/servant pair."

the murderbot diaries by martha wells: novellas about a misanthropic security android who jailbroke itself in order to watch tv. the name "murderbot" is a joke but it very much did kill people <3 themes of paranoia and outsiderhood, corporate wrongdoing, repentance, and trust

black water sister by zen cho: zen cho is good at any kind of fantasy she writes, including this, her first modern fantasy novel. a closeted lesbian has to move in with her family in malaysia after college in the US, only to discover that her dead grandmother has some unfinished business involving a local goddess and a conniving real estate developer. themes of family, gender, and place.

the way inn by will wiles: a man who’s paid to pretend he’s other people to attend conferences in their place gets trapped in an endless Marriott. has the sharp humor of a colson whitehead corporate satire until it becomes more straightforwardly horror-flavored.

[getbreaded]

Inspired by other blogs, here are the books I've read this year 💛

I sort of shied away from reading goals, and I just read when/what I felt like reading.

It was a good year filled with great reads all the same 🌻

[myenterpriseisparked]

Okay I understand where people are coming from with the "emotional suppression in Vulcans is learned not genetic" talk re: "Charades" but, consider......... the emotional suppression is muscle memory, and the aliens took away the mental muscles that remembered how to do it. It's a crude metaphor on my part, but that was the way I saw it.

Also consider: it's a sci fi show using extremely high-concept bullcrap science on a weekly basis and maybe nitpicking it is a fruitless endeavor because none of it is going to make sense otherwise and enjoying the ride for what it is is a much more enjoyable way to engage with this franchise. Sometimes you need to shrug and let dumb things happen and laugh.

[findher-ogg]

Assassin's Apprentice is a good book so far I see why you all like loser gay boy Fitz so much now

[crypticpatterns]

I'm seeing Moash discourse and because I hate peace I'm going to chime in with my own two cents since I think everyone is wrong.

On one side you've got the Moash defenders who want to genuinely advocate for him or say he's misunderstood or shouldn't be held accountable for his actions because he's under the control of Odium or was a slave or a victim or whathaveyou, which I think is pretty short sighted and ignorant because regardless Moash still made the choices he did of his own volition and he did decide to be put under Odium's emotional control in the first place. I do think Moash is a sympathetic and complex figure because of his background and the way he's been made a victim, but it's wrong to erase his culpability or try to say he's right when he just absolutely is not.

On the other side you've got Moash haters who are also just wrong. Because even if Moash is a bad person, he's not actually a person, but a character written by a human being with political and moral views. And regardless of your opinion on Moash as a moral figure, its inarguable that he is written as a lower class person who is driven by hate and revenge to become a monster and he's villainized beyond the point of other characters who are more privileged than him but committed just as if not even more horrific actions. Moash is "problematic" if you will, because he's a caricature that paints all forms of revolutions of violent rebellion as especially evil and dangerous. He is an example of the kind of media that portrays the leftist revolutionaries who have a point as the villains because they kill people. His writing results from those same neoliberal politics.

And on the topic of redemption, I don't think Brandon is against Moash being redeemed or thinks he's "worse" than other characters like a lot of people have tried to claim based on those WOB about him not being interested and having farther to go than Dalinar. Brandon is simply saying that redemption is a choice and right now Moash isn't interested in that choice, so that journey is going to be a lot more difficult for him as things stand now.

I do think there are problems with the way Moash is written but I think people are identifying those problems and then trying to defend Moash in the wrong ways. Whether he was justified in his actions is completely irrelevant to the issue of how he was written to commit those actions in the first place. And that's where the problem actually lies. Moash's writing is problematic because it paints the victims of oppressive systems as "just as bad" as the oppressors and villainizes genuine revolution because it's "too dangerous."

As for my personal feelings toward Moash the character, I don't hate him like a lot of people seem to. I sympathize with him too strongly to hate him. I honestly mostly feel bad for him and find his particular character conflict incredibly compelling, especially in ROW after he's made the decision to imprison himself and is attempting to imprison Kaladin. I do find the hatred towards Moash from the fandom a bit concerning, especially when Stormlight is full of characters who have committed similar atrocities who are much more liked. People don't have the sympathy towards his circumstances that I think they should.

[jackbox-blog-4-me]

almost ended - iyowa

i never played ydkj full stream but based on what ive seen yeah. this song probably fits him pretty well. also i wanted an excuse to draw @k1stune's cookie design bc their jackbox designs are sooooo good HOLY WOW

[mommy-mystic]

Cannot believe my 3 cover buys this spring turned out to be my favorite reads of the year so far lol!

[natkhat-sa-shyam]

make more art. write bad poetry. paint and make a mess. take pictures of your friends, your dog, nature, everything. make art and love it; not because it's good but because it makes you happy.

[igotsnothing]

2024

Thank you for thinking of me, creative friends: @lilamausmaus, @agena87, and @eljeebee! ❤️

What’s your resolution for your Simblr?

To continue writing and creating: stories, screenshots, etc.

To keep up with all the people I enjoy here!

To tag @greighish in as many tag games as I can.

What do you want from the Sims Franchise?

Storytelling mode.

Removing and adding cc while the game is running.

Any other New Year resolutions?

Get more sleep

Eat healthier

Get rid of stuff I don't use anymore.

Read more books (conflicts with 'Get more sleep')

Who am I tagging? WHO, INDEED? @moonfromearth, @m0n0lithical, @silentsundown, @alinelie, @pralinesims, @thebramblewood, @lynzishell, @mlady-mimsy, and everybody break out the applause for @greighish! *confetti 🎊 confetti 🎊 confetti* (Look at me, sticking to my resolution!) Totally optional and guilt-free.

[steelycunt]

the books i got for christmas and my pigeon mug!! a mug with pigeons on it can we hear a little commotion for the mug!!