#queer desire is only comfortable when it's funny | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

qveerthe0ry · 7 months

Text

Lions Ain't the Kind - Part One

Summary: Frankie hasn't dated in years, but now he knows what he's looking for. He's just not so good at asking for what he wants, and you're willing to help him work on it. Word Count: 8,156 Pairing: Frankie Morales x NB/Gender-fluid! AFAB! Reader Rating: 18+ Explicit Warnings: 18+ mdni, subby!Frankie, soft dom! reader, talks about gender non-conformity, sickening fluff, Frankie is way too cute and sweet for his own good, kissing, making out, handjob (m receiving), anal fingering (m receiving), dirty talk, Frankie has a praise kink, no use of y/n, no physical descriptions of reader Beta: @perotovar (my angel ilysm) A/N: Sorry for talking about this for a month straight without posting it lol! The title is from the song (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear by Elvis Presley which I admittedly haven't listened to but I saw the lyrics and knew immediately it was my Frankie. I hope you enjoy, and I'm always open to criticism and thoughts and thots!

Frankie hasn’t dated in years. He hasn’t really had the time, between his first child being born and navigating co-parenting with his ex, along with healing some very deep trauma and getting and staying clean.

It just hasn’t been on his mind, if he’s honest. He’s been busy finding himself, as Pope calls it. And he’s not wrong. It’s taken a long while for him to be comfortable in his own skin, to come to terms with the things he’s done and the baggage he can now store in an overhead bin, rather than carry it around with him at all times.

But now, he’s ready. He knows himself, and as a result, he knows what he’s looking for.

Someone kind-hearted and down to earth. Someone who’s independent and established, but not just looking for a hookup. Someone with a sweet smile and a desire for enjoying the little things in life.

Someone like you.

He’d swiped right and left dozens of times on men and women alike, but as soon as he saw your profile on whatever dating app he’d downloaded, he was hooked.

You were gorgeous. He felt the heat from your smile through his phone screen, so happy and genuine and sweet.

You were funny, the answers to those weird icebreaker questions full of witty remarks.

You were smart, clearly, from your shoutout to your alma matter and the ‘boring’ job you mentioned in your profile.

He honestly figured he had no chance at all. His face is only getting more wrinkly, and his hair more gray, and he’s never been the sharpest or funniest guy in the room.

So when he swiped left and you matched, he was stunned. He was even more shocked when you messaged him before he could even think of what to say to you.

Hi cutie 🥰

Despite the fact that he was home alone on his couch, he had the sudden urge to look behind him, as if you’d be talking to someone else. The back of his neck got so warm, and your boldness only made him more into you.

So he messaged you back

Hi :) how are you?

I’m surprised we matched, honestly. Pleasantly surprised 😊

Same here :) Why the surprise though? I’m sure you match with everyone

Not at all, it’s hard to find people whose type I am on here. I usually use the queer dating apps but I opened this one out of boredom. What are the chances?

What are the chances, indeed, Frankie thinks, as he gives your profile another look over. Frankie doesn’t understand how you aren’t everyone’s type. He feels a little bit like he’s talking to a celebrity, looking at your pictures and just a snippet of who you are on this reductive dating app.

I like the odds :)

——

As your conversation continues normally over the next few days, Frankie learns a lot about you. He also learns a lot about himself.

It’s been so long since he’s played the field, so to speak, that he’s rusty as all hell and a bit awkward. He’s afraid to flirt too much, every message deleted and re-written at the risk of sounding too cheesy or too forward or too much.

You aren’t afraid to flirt. You send ‘good morning, handsome’ and ‘sweet dreams, pretty boy’ texts every day and night. You tell him your day would be better if you could cuddle someone, you tell him when you’re taking a relaxing bath that you wished he were there to join you.

And to say that Frankie likes it is a massive fucking understatement.

He adores it, he thinks about you constantly, all day long while he works without access to his phone, all evening long while he waits on your replies, all night long, when you’ve bid each other goodnight out of nothing but courtesy for each other’s sleep schedules.

You lead him along like a timid puppy on a leash, showing him new things with patience and care and it drives him insane. He wants to meet up with you so bad, or even just call you on the phone to hear your voice. He thinks about it, late at night, if it’s higher or lower in register, if it’s smooth or raspy. He wants to learn everything about you.

That being said, he’s not sure if he’s ever met someone who’s ‘non-binary/gender-fluid’ before. He doesn’t get out much, he hardly talks to anyone who he hasn’t known for years.

So he googles. It doesn’t really help. He understands what it means, but he doesn’t know what it means to you. He wants to ask you a million questions, but is afraid to bring up even one, and ruin the moment, or sound like an idiot.

You’re so kind though. So he bites the bullet.

Can I ask you a question?

Your response comes almost immediately, now that it’s evening time, both finished with dinner— his takeout vs. your leftover spaghetti.

Of course, pretty boy ❤️

He still flushes deep when you call him that, heat spreading all throughout his face and neck and chest.

How did you know you were non-binary/ gender-fluid?

He frets over the text a bunch before he sends it, making sure he worded it the same way you did in your profile. His heart pounds as he waits for your response.

I’ve always just kind of known I didn’t feel like a man or a woman. I used to think everyone felt somewhere in between, and it was just normal to not feel like I checked either box, but then I realized no one else around me felt the way I did. And then I learned all the terms and whatnot, later on, and knew that’s what I am. Just kinda in between, neither and both, sometimes one and sometimes the other. If that makes sense?

His smile splits his cheeks as he reads your in-depth response, eating up every bit of information you’re willing to give him.

That makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for sharing :)

It doesn’t scare you off?

Frankie scoffs, as if anything about you could scare him off. At this point, you could show up on his doorstep with a dead body in a bag, and he’d throw it in his trunk, dispose of it, and then ask if he could maybe kiss you.

Not at all. Nothing about you scares me :)

——

It’s a few more days before Frankie works up the courage to ask for your phone number. You tell him you were wondering when he was going to finally ask for it. It makes him itchy to think about you waiting for him to ask, making him be the one to do it. In a good way. In a way that kind of makes him stiffen up in his briefs if he thinks about it for too long.

But now, as he settles in from a long day at work, his grin splits his face from ear to ear as he reads your text.

Can I take you out tomorrow night?

He likes it… a lot. He feels so fucking new to all this, like a fumbling newborn calf taking its first steps, and how forward you are eases him so thoroughly.

I’d love that :)

Meet me here at 5 for dinner. Casual dress, but I’m sure you’ll be handsome in anything 😘

It’s the longest 22 hours of his life, and it’s the shortest, all at the same time. Texting you, making funny jokes like his bones aren’t about to creep right out from under his skin with all the nerves buzzing his body. Thinking about you, dreaming about you, one right after the other. When he wakes in the morning it’s like he didn’t get a wink of sleep, his anxiety drumming up a million different scenarios of how it could go right and wrong.

Calling Santi mid-morning on a Saturday when he knows he’s spending time with his family, because if he doesn’t talk to someone about this he may just float off into the ether.

“I’m so fucking nervous, Pope, what do I do? How do I act? Can you just stake out at the bar and feed me lines through an earpiece?”

“Pendejo, fucking— grow a pair man. You’re cute and funny, you’ve got this.”

Reading your texts with pupils shaped like hearts:

I can’t wait to see you tonight, cutie ❤️

and

I finally settled on an outfit

and

Is it weird that I’m not even nervous? I’m just excited to finally meet you

It is weird, Frankie thinks, but doesn’t dare tell you. It’s weird how he can’t even eat the plain toast he made for lunch without feeling bile rise in the back of his throat, and you’re just excited. It’s weird how he’s never, ever felt so gone over someone, and you haven’t even met yet.

It’s not weird, it’s sweet :) I’m excited too <3

It’s not a lie, but he’s omitting the truth a bit. He’s excited but he’s nervous, picking meticulously through his closet to find something casual but not too casual, something he likes the look of himself in, something he thinks you’ll like the look of.

It only gets worse as he stares at google maps. The restaurant is 2.6 miles away, 11 minutes from his house. It’s 4:30, and he wants to leave already, but thinks maybe it’s better to deal with the anxiety in the comfort of his home rather than the parking lot, in case you’re there early too, and you can see how much of a fucking wreck he is.

He watches the minutes tick up in the corner of his phone screen. At 4:36, he gets up, fusses in the mirror one last time, and leaves.

When he parks in the lot in front of the bar & grill, you’ve already texted him.

I’m here a little early, got all green lights. Saved us a table near the back. See you soon!

It’s 4:52.

He takes a deep breath through his nose, closes his eyes as he lets it out gently, counting just like his therapist taught him. And again. And one more time, and finally that anxious tingling in his fingertips is muted a bit and his heart rate is only slightly above normal.

4:54.

He pulls the key from the ignition, gets out of the car, and makes his way to the door.

He finds you instantly.

You’re looking at him, and you’re smiling, and getting up from your chair as he approaches you. He barely even hears you greet him with all his blood rushing in his ears.

“Hi, Frankie,” you say, and your arms stretch out to invite him in for a hug.

He melts into your arms, his strained “hi” muffled in the crook of your neck. You squeeze him tight to you, and he hears you chuckle next to his ear.

“Knew you’d be even cuter in person.”

He huffs out a laugh as you release him, and the tips of his ears burn. But you’re smiling so sweetly at him that it eases his nervous bones.

“You look— can I call you handsome?”

Fuck, he thinks, so fucking awkward.

But your grin gets even wider.

“Only if you mean it.”

“I do,” he sighs, “like straight out of the cologne ads I’d rip out of my older sister’s magazines.”

He holds his breath as you react, the flutter of your eyelashes and the quivering of your lips and your laugh, bubbly and bright and soothing.

And he isn’t lying, not even a little. You’re rugged but soft, romantic and alluring, and he can’t take his eyes off you.

Even as you take your seats across from each other, and the waiter comes to take your drink orders, and as your gorgeous eyes flit across the pages of the menu. He can’t stop looking, watching your mouth curve into a smile as you talk about your week and ask him about his.

It’s pathetic, really, when the waiter asks if you’re ready to order, and you ask if he knows what he wants, because he hasn’t taken a single glance at the menu himself. He just hopes to god the dim lighting of the bar hides his flushed face and tells you to order first while he skims the menu.

He ends up ordering exactly what you got, and floundering when your hand finds his on the tabletop. He watches your fingers trace his own from his nails to his knuckles, and flips his palm up for you to rest your hand in his.

“I’m glad you came out with me tonight,” you tell him.

His eyes flicker up from your joined hands to your smiling face, and his nerves completely melt away from the heat of your gaze.

“Thank you for asking me,” he says.

“Would you have asked me, if I hadn’t asked you?”

He bites the inside of his cheek, and there’s a teasing glint in your eyes.

“Eventually,” he nods, “I mean… probably.”

Your eyebrows turn up in question, and he realizes how that sounds, jumping to backtrack.

“Not like that! I just mean— You know… You’re uh… well, I feel like you’re way out of my league. And so maybe I’m a little… intimidated.”

You smile, then, and sigh, and squeeze his hand as you call him a sweet boy. It makes the room feel like it’s a hundred degrees warmer, like Frankie’s clothes are suddenly two sizes too small.

“You aren’t so good at asking for what you want, are you?”

He laughs then, and shakes his head.

“Not really, no.”

“We’ll have to work on that, then.”

He clears his throat, and tugs at his collar with his free hand, breaking his gaze away from your face as you chuckle. He looks to find a waiter, or maybe an HVAC guy that could crank the AC to sub-zero temps for the remainder of the date.

No luck.

The rest of the date goes well. Surprisingly well. Frankie was worried that he’d be so out of practice that he’d freeze up, or say something stupid, or do something stupid, like knock over a drink or get food stuck in his teeth.

But you’re just so easy to talk to, to click with. Of course, you’re the one who facilitates the conversation, asking him about his favorites— movies, TV shows, music, time of year.

But he likes to think that he keeps the ball rolling well enough, is aware enough to remember to ask for some of your favorites— holiday, food, cocktails.

By the time the check comes, he hardly realizes you’ve both had empty plates in front of you for a while, talking and laughing through your meals like you’re just catching up with an old friend.

He protests when you grab the check, because of course he does. You’ve given him this incredible night, your comfortable company, your sweet smiles, and he feels like his offerings pale in comparison.

“I asked you out, Francisco,” you tease him, having just learned his full name a mere 20 minutes ago.

And he can’t really protest anymore, what with the shiver that’s tingling his spine and the goosebumps he tries to hide by gripping the chair underneath him. So he lets you pay, and thanks the waiter, and feels a rush of sadness when they come back with the check to sign. He really doesn’t want this evening to end.

The apprehension falls second to the sensation of your hand on the small of his back, leading him out to the parking lot.

“Where’s your car? I’ll walk you there,” you say, your thumb pressing a soothing circle into the base of his spine.

So he walks to his truck, a little self-conscious about the out-of-dateness of it, and how he didn’t think to run it through a car wash before this. But mostly he’s just nervous about ending this date on a good note.

“This is me,” he says, barely above a whisper, stopping at his driver’s side door.

You smile at him when he turns to you.

“Thanks again for coming out with me. I really did have a great time.”

This makes him smile through the unease, even as your hand drops from the small of his back.

“I did too. Would you uh… wanna hang out again soon?”

Your face lights up, and Frankie wants to capture it in a bottle and take it home with him. Keep it at his bedside to use as a nightlight.

“Are you asking me on a date?”

He chuckles and looks down to his feet like maybe it’ll redirect the flush in his face. You grab his hand, hanging by his side, and luckily you don’t make him speak again because he doesn’t know if he’s even able.

“I’d love to. Really.”

He smiles when he looks back up at you, only briefly, because you drop his hand and take a half step back.

“Call me about it.”

“Wait!”

Your brow arches at him, because you weren’t really going anywhere, but Frankie’s mind is running a thousand miles a second. He thinks back to all the times you’ve goaded him into asking for what he wants, so far, and how it hasn’t bit him in the rear yet.

“Can we— I… Can I kiss you goodnight?”

Your smile softens, and you take that little half-step back closer to him, and he feels all the tension leak from his shoulders.

“Yes, you can. Thank you for asking.”

He huffs, and smiles at you, and you’re reaching out to cup his jaw and grab his hip, and Frankie closes his eyes far too early, but it’s okay, because he feels your body heat and then your lips.

He can’t hold back the hum that rumbles from deep in his chest, or the way that he goes a little boneless in your grasp. He finds your forearm and squeezes it, and your bicep too, anything to ground himself as your lips part and your tongue teases the seam of his lips.

But then you’re pulling back, and it’s over far too quickly, and Frankie is also acutely aware of how tight his jeans feel. His face feels like it could melt right off of his skull.

“Call me soon, Pretty Boy.”

He nods, speechless, and watches you disappear between the cars of the parking lot. On his way home, he’s already fretting over whether or not he should text you tonight, and what kind of date he should plan, and if his breath was okay when you let him kiss you.

——

Frankie is perfect.

You’re still not sure how you found this diamond in the rough that is Tinder. You thank every god you know the name of that you got bored and opened the app on auto-pilot that night.

First of all, he’s so cute. He’s handsome in such a boyish way, with his dimples and unruly curls and patchy beard.

But he’s also so kind, the way he talks to you like it’s a privilege, the way he asks careful and curious questions about you like he truly wants to know the parts of you that are deeper than what’s on the surface.

Every simple text from him makes you smile, the way he always tries to make you laugh or cheer you up when you’re overwhelmed with the demands of life, as you often are.

And meeting him in person solidified everything you thought about him.

He seems like the textbook definition of a golden retriever boyfriend, if you ever get to call him that much. You hope you do.

In fact, it seems like it’s moving quite quickly in that direction when Frankie asks if you’d be down for a movie night. Some blockbuster he missed in theaters is finally streaming, and he thinks you’ll like it.

You don’t tell him that you didn’t miss it in theaters, or that you thought it was just okay.

You do tell him you’d be down to watch it, only if he came to your place, where the walls are thin and your surrounding neighbors all know you and watch out for you. Just in case he’s really good at acting like a sweet, safe guy.

You find yourself giddy as the weekend approaches, daydreaming at work about how the night will turn out. You tell him to come in comfy clothes, because you’ll be damned if you wear jeans in your own home, even for this sweet man. He doesn’t seem to mind one bit, that’s my favorite kind of outfit :) is his cute response.

You get everything ready the day of; your coziest blankets hang off the arms of your sofa, your fridge is stocked with fresh fruits and your pantry with candy and microwave popcorn and chips (I’ll eat whatever you get :) his answer to your questioning of his favorite movie snacks, of course.)

And then you sit around and wait, excited nerves coaxing your body to straighten things up that have been straightened up a million times already. When Frankie texts you his ETA, you park yourself on the couch by the door and stare at it until there’s a knock on it.

You may count to ten before you get up to open it, just to hide how eager you’ve been to see him again.

Your throat does get a little dry when you answer it to find him in a dark blue t-shirt that hugs his arms and light gray joggers that hug… Other things.

“Hi handsome,” you smile, pushing down all the nerves and the less-than-PG thoughts.

“Hi. I um… I brought these. I noticed you ordered them on our uh– well, at the restaurant, and I didn’t want to show up empty handed.”

You watch a flush break out on his face, and his neck, and wonder how far under his collar it actually spreads.

He’s holding up a six pack of your favorite beers, and he’s smiling so shyly, and you have to crowd in closer to him to press a kiss to his heated cheek.

“That’s so thoughtful, thank you.”

He giggles— giggles, Jesus Christ— and you take them from his hand to let him come through the door.

You set the beers in your fridge to let them chill as he kicks off his shoes. You watch him from the kitchen as he takes in your place with his pretty brown eyes.

“It’s really cozy in here,” he tells you as he fiddles with his own hands.

“Snuggle up, get comfy, I’ll bring us some snacks.”

He nods, so obedient, and hovers by the couch before settling on the seat in the middle.

Sly move, you think, and you can’t hide your stupid grin as you gather some snacks.

When you turn off all but one lamp and deposit the junk food on the coffee table, you notice he’s inched himself closer to the arm of the couch, like he was second-guessing himself. That just won’t do, you think, as you settle in right next to him, so close that the length of your body is pressed against his.

He doesn’t look at you, just stares at the Roku City scrolling across your flat screen. For a second you think he might be uncomfortable, but the way his breathing is uneven clues you in on his nerves.

You reach over him to grab the blanket in the arm of the couch, and you feel his muscles tense up when you press against him.

“Frankie?”

“Huh? Sorry, yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head and sighs, heavy and long, before looking at you.

“I’m so nervous.”

He smiles in spite of it, lopsided, dimples so cute that your lips quiver with the urge to kiss them.

You smile back, and drape the blanket over both of you, patting his leg through it.

“Nothing to be nervous about, Francisco.”

It gets a laugh out of him, a huff through his nose, and his shoulders lower the tiniest bit. You slowly reach up to cradle his jaw in your palm, careful not to spook this little baby deer of a man, but his face leans into your touch.

“If it helps, I think it’s really sweet that you’re nervous.”

“Thank you… I think?”

You laugh at him, and watch as your reaction makes his eyes brighten. You want to kiss him. You want to smooch the absolute daylights out of him, but there’s still 3 hours of a pretentious movie to watch, and there will be plenty of time, if he’s amenable.

So you just pinch his cheek before you let go, and try not to look so smug at the heat that consumes his face as you get the movie up and running.

Fifteen or so minutes into the film, Frankie has relaxed into the couch, though he’s stock-still beside you with his arms glued to his own sides. You just want to cuddle, at least. You’ve been thinking about it for weeks— getting his warm, solid but soft body against your own.

You’re certain he won’t be the one to initiate it, but that’s all fine and dandy. You rearrange yourself a bit, and sling an arm over his shoulders. He looks away from the movie towards you, and you give him a smile that must be comforting.

He sinks lower on the couch, and leans against you, his messy curls pressed against your shoulder while his arm drapes over your lap. You think you hear his satisfied hum under the dialogue of the characters, and you let your head rest against his.

This is nice. Frankie’s so warm against you, the most comforting weight all lax against your side. Your hand creeps up from his shoulder to his head, and his hair is so silky when you finally work up the gall to run your fingers through it.

You can feel the way it affects him when he shivers and presses even closer into you. You watch the movie like that for a while, snacks untouched, fingertips stroking his scalp as his soft curls slip through your digits. Every once in a while his head tilts to look up at you, piercing brown, and each time you smile back down and ruffle his hair.

It’s just after the first big conflict of the film when you feel Frankie shift against you. His arm moves in your lap, and you watch his thick fingers grab your thigh over the blanket.

It shocks you how such a simple gesture makes your temperature rise. You hum and let your nails scratch more firmly against his head. You can hear him gasp, and feel him move impossibly closer, like he’s trying to fuse the two of you together. You glance down at him, past the curls you’ve lost yourself in, and his eyes are closed. Further, the curve of his nose and pout of his lips, his chest that’s heaving with his excited breaths, you notice a suspicious tent in the blanket, and you don’t want to assume, but the context clues are all there.

Frankie is hard.

You can’t blame him. You’ve been aroused since you pressed his body against yours, a slow simmering underneath the surface that’s made you feel so comfortably warm and relaxed.

You shift, and you swear you hear a barely-there whine leave his lips. You move just enough so you can press your free hand to his chest. Under your palm, you can feel his heart beating, a pace that’s concerningly higher than appropriate for sitting and watching dialogue in a movie.

His head turns toward you, his hair slipping through the grasp of your knuckles. He looks up at you with those puppy eyes and his pupils are so dilated that it makes you take a deep breath. He turns his body toward you next and there it is the hard line of his cock pressed against the outside of your thigh. You see him shudder at the friction, watch his eyes grow droopy as they flicker down to glance at your lips.

“Can I kiss you again?”

And he asks so sweetly, voice a little hoarse from the silence, that you couldn’t dream of denying him.

“Yes, Frankie.”

His lips tremble until they meet yours, so soft and chaste, a stark contrast to his scruffy beard and mustache. His breath hitches; you can hear it and feel it. His chest shudders under your palm and pushes air out to gust against your cheeks. You feel his prick, too, twitching against your thigh as your tongue peeks out to tease his pouty bottom lip.

He pulls back so much quicker than you want him to, but it’s also such a reward to look at him this close. His lips shiny, his cheeks flushed, his irises completely usurped by his pupils. His mouth hangs open and you can’t help yourself as you slide your hand from his chest to his jaw and pull him into you once again.

A surprised little noise works its way out of his throat, and his hips jerk forward, and then he’s groaning as his cock throbs against the outside of your thigh. The noise makes that feeling in your gut draw deeper, lower, and you make one of your own in response.

His hand rests dutifully still on your thigh, but you can feel his fingers twitching as your taste buds rub against his– a friction that has no right to be as delicious as it is. You want him to feel you up, to touch you all over, to give in to the desire that’s blatantly pressed against you. You want to hear these noises he seems to be holding back, the whimpers that just barely make it past his vocal chords before he cuts them off.

You pull away this time. Pride swells in your chest as you look at what you’ve already done to him. His curls are even messier now that you’ve run your fingers through them over and over. His eyes are all glassy when he looks at you, pouty lips slick and red.

He sits so still, aside from his heaving breaths, like he’s waiting for your command.

“Tell me what you want, Frankie.”

His eyes widen and christ, if they get any wider they’re going to suck you in like a supermassive black hole.

“I– I’m okay, I like this.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. He nods, trying to convince you, as he not-so-subtly pulls his erection free from its trap between his body and your thigh. His eyes cast downward, but you swiftly grab his chin in your hands to bring them back to you.

“Francisco,” you mumble, “ask for what you want.”

He gasps and bites his plush bottom lip, hard enough that there’s little indents when he opens his mouth. He shuts it again, and squirms against you, and finally opens it once more.

“I want you to touch me.”

His request comes out hardly above a whisper, all broken and breathy, and his gaze settles somewhere behind you.

“Is that all?”

He nods quickly, eyes snapping back to you.

“I swear– I just wanna feel your hands on me.”

Your smile widens as his face gets so serious, eyebrows knitting together.

“That’s good, that’s really good,” you mumble.

The shudder that visibly rolls through him is like a shockwave, sending every one of your nerve endings on-edge. You huff, an amazed little breath at this fucking guy in front of you, so responsive and timid and utterly fuckable.

“You like that? Like being good for me?”

He nods again, more apprehensive this time, but he can’t hold back his whine when his hips press against you. The possibilities of all the things you could do to this man stretch far and wide; it’s entirely overwhelming.

“Sweet boy,” you whisper, because he is, “c’mere.”

You pull the blanket off of you both, and Frankie reaches down to adjust himself so it isn’t so obvious, like you haven’t felt his cock twitching against you this entire time. It’s so endearing you think you could cry, but you’re much too turned on for sentiment at the moment. Instead, you guide him to straddle you, hands on his slender hips until his thighs cage your own.

For a moment you just watch as he sits patiently, obediently, waiting for your next words like his cock isn’t leaking a pretty little damp patch into his sweatpants. His chest heaves with every breath, and his tongue licks and bites at his swollen lips, and his eyes stay trained on your mouth in anticipation.

“So pretty,” you whisper.

His long eyelashes flutter at your compliment, and he turns his head to try and hide his reaction, but it doesn’t mask the way his prick twitches under gray fabric. Your hands find his waistband and tease the edge and you delight in the way he shivers.

You need to feel more, so you press your hands under his shirt and hum at what you find. A soft tummy and smooth skin that makes way for a small trail of wiry hairs. It’s all revealed to you a moment later when you hike his shirt higher, reach for pecs that are more solid than you imagined, and the smallest nipples you think you’ve ever had your hands on.

You look back up to his face for permission with a quirked brow, and he nods eagerly, grabbing the back of his collar to shed the material and bare himself and it’s so lovely. There’s so much tan skin, hardly any of it is obstructed by hair, just the errant freckle here or there. And you can’t help it, you have to lean forward and take one of his nipples into your mouth.

He gasps your name, but one of his hands finds the back of your head to keep you in place. You hum around the little nub, so small you have trouble getting your teeth to bite down on it, but you do and then he groans, his hips jerking in your hold on them.

“Is this how you wanted me to touch you?”

You lean your head back to look him in the eyes, to watch a pained expression flit over his face as he tries to come up with an answer he thinks you’ll like.

“I like this too,” he nods, “but I, um… fuck–”

He cuts himself off to hide his face in his hands. He is so cute and so sexy at the same time, it’s making your brain go haywire.

“Tell me, Frankie. Be good for me, Pretty Boy.”

He shifts on top of you as he looks up at your ceiling. You soothe your hands up and down his flanks and wait patiently for him to find the words.

He drops his hand from his face, fists clenching down by his sides, but he finally looks down at you and smiles, shy and sweet, just a hint of that dimple you adore rearing its head.

“Touch my cock? You got me so hard.”

You smile bright at his request, and nod, and press a kiss to his sternum.

“Anything you want,” you mumble, “just gotta ask. Just like that.”

He looks pretty proud of himself. There’s a twinkle in his eyes as you look up at him, and you take a playful bite of his skin and savor the gasp it coaxes out of him.

“Let’s get these off, yeah?”

Your fingers sneak under his waistband and his skin is so hot under there, searing. You only have a few moments to bask in the warmth before he stands up to remove his pants and briefs in one bashful move.

Jesus.

He’s so gorgeous, bare for you, vulnerable, excited. His foreskin is all pulled back, revealing a delicious looking string of pre-cum from his slit. You desperately want to lean forward and taste— but he didn’t ask for that, and you won’t give it to him unless he does.

Stunned a bit silent, you pat your lap, urging him to settle back over it. Much to your delight, he does, quick and obedient. An approving hum bubbles up out of your chest, and he preens as he sits on your thighs.

There’s a very wicked feeling in you as you stare at him, completely naked, while you haven’t shed a single layer of clothing. Control, and trust, and power. It’s overwhelming in a way that makes your lungs feel too inflated for your rib cage, to know you could take advantage of it, and to know you never ever would.

“Good boy,” you whisper, finally, testing those waters.

Frankie’s dick twitches between you two, and you huff and smile and wonder how something so perfect and precious has literally landed right in your lap.

He’s been more than good, and so with one hand you grab his hip to steady him, and the other takes his cock as gentle as ever. A sharp inhale inflates his chest as you stroke the smooth skin, a teasing, feather-light touch that makes his legs tense up in your lap. You watch him disappear and reappear through the loose circle of your hand, watch another clear droplet bead from his slit when you squeeze him tighter.

“Does this feel good?”

He’s watching your hand work when you look back up to his face. He nods, a jerky movement that seems to shake his entire body, and he’s so on-edge. You feel it in the way he shifts his weight on top of you.

“Words, Frankie,” you urge, a soft smile on your face.

“So good.”

You hum, taking in the way his eyes flutter open and closed, the way his adam’s apple pokes out when he leans his head back.

You reward him by speeding up your strokes. You squeeze his hip with your free hand, kneading at the soft flesh there, while you lean forward to press kisses into his virtually hairless chest. His skin is so hot it feels like it could burn you, flushed such a pretty color, just like you knew it would be.

He whines when you gather up more pre cum with your thumb and gently massage it into his frenulum. You look up to find him staring down at you with glassy eyes, bottom lip tucked tight between his teeth.

“Can we kiss more?”

His voice is breathy, and you nod, and a fresh wave of arousal flushed through your system when his lips eagerly meet yours.

It’s sloppier, this time. Noisier, too, as you tighten your grip on his cock and begin to properly work your hand up and down his length. You steal his breath and his noises straight from his lungs, feel every shudder he pushes out when you twist your wrist just right or squeeze tighter.

His hips start to meet your thrusts, rutting into your hand, such a desperate little thing on top of you, all for you. You want to encourage him to take his pleasure from you, and so you slip your hand back from his waist, find the perfectly pert globe of his ass with your palm.

“Haa— shit.”

His words muffle into your kiss as his hips stutter in rhythm and you lean forward to smirk into the bald patch of his beard.

“Yeah?”

A gasp wrecks through his heaving chest as he nods.

“Please, fuck— please.”

You hum into his jaw and squeeze his cock and his ass respectively.

“Please what, Pretty Boy?”

He leans back. You watch him squeeze his eyes shut and shake his head from left to right.

“Tell me what you want, Frankie. Know you can.”

A big gulp of air, and then he opens his eyes to look at you, then blinks them shut again as his head lolls back in his shoulders.

“Touch me there. I— I can’t—”

“Shhh,” you take mercy on him, bringing your hand up from his backside to cradle his jaw in your palm. He tilts his head into your touch and opens his eyes.

“I got you, sweet boy,” you remind him.

He nods in understanding, shifting to kiss the heel of your palm. You let him rest his lips there as he catches his breath, feel them quivering every other upstroke of your hand on his prick.

But as he makes to move, you hold his jaw steady in your hand. His eyes flicker back to your face, and you wonder if you look as wrecked as you feel, if he can tell how beside yourself you really are.

Slowly, so he can pull away if he wants, you trace the pad of your middle finger along the seam of his lips. You’re awestruck at how they instantly fall open for you, greedy, something you’re definitely looking forward to exploring more later.

For now, you watch with hooded eyes as he takes it into his mouth, tongue curling and lapping at it. You briefly wonder if fingers are erogenous zones, beyond turned on at how warm and wet the inside of his mouth feels, how he suckles and releases, bobs his head over and over until you snap out of it.

“Good boy. Fucking perfect,” you sigh.

He gets a cocky little goofy grin on his face at the praise, but his prick twitches against your grasp. You squeeze it for good measure, and more of his pre-cum dribbles over your knuckles.

You lean into him again, and he leans into you, holding each other up. Your mouth finds his pebbled nipple once again as his prick drags across your shirt and saturates it. He hisses at the friction, then gasps when your hand grabs his ass cheek again.

You pull it as best as you can with one hand. It isn’t too difficult with how it fits so perfectly round in your palm. You squeeze it, massage it, note how the littlest hint of peach fuzz feels against your clammy hand. You wonder how it would feel under your tongue, too, how it would taste, how the fatty flesh would feel between your teeth.

His hips stutter forward when your finger, slick with his saliva, strokes the very top of his crack. And you don’t mean to tease too much, but his jerky movements and satisfied sounds when you do are like music to your ears.

Finally you find his hole, fluttering around nothing, so little and tight, all for you.

“Ohmygod.”

Frankie sounds pained, so much so that you look up from nuzzling his chest to watch his face. His brows are drawn tight with how his eyes are squeezed shut, and his mouth is hung open, slick with a little drool around the corners of his lips. Without context, maybe he would look pained, too, but the way his cock throbs and dribbles in your hand paints a completely different picture.

And what a pretty picture he is, gulping for air above you, thrusting his hips back into your finger and forward through your fist, like he’s so out of his mind that he can’t even make it up.

You apply more pressure to his impossibly tight pucker and sink your teeth into his skin at the way he whines for you. You do it again, and again, a patient little rhythm until it relaxes and the very tip of your finger slips into his warmth.

He groans, clenching tight around you.

“Okay, Frankie?”

He laughs, a little puff of air, and you feel it where you’re inside him.

“Gonna make me come,” he chokes.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, don’t— fuck— please don’t stop.”

You hum into his chest, squeeze your hand tighter around his prick as you speed up your strokes. He’s groaning now, deep and low and constant, like he couldn’t hold it back if he tried.

You wiggle your finger against his rim, tugging him open for you, toying with the elastic muscle. He’s so pliable everywhere, opening up to you, happily taking what you give him.

In a stiff moment you think he isn’t into it, because he freezes up and goes silent. You make to slip out of him, but his warmth just drags you in.

And then his cock jumps in your grasp, and his hole clamps around your finger as he gasps your name, and he’s coming.

He shakes with it as he soaks your shirt and drips over your hand. You stroke him through it and marvel at the way he feels in your grasp and around you, violent waves of pleasure that you can sense where you touch him.

You look up to watch him tremble through it and he’s gorgeous. Sweat drips from his messy curls at his temple and paints a glimmer down his neck, all pulled taught as his head hangs back. His chest tastes salty under your tongue where it heaves, you can’t get enough of the flavor, or the wicked beating of his heart under your lips.

And his noises, fucking delicious, wrung-out curses that just keep tumbling from his red lips. His stomach trembles with his shaky breaths, and he sounds so wrecked as the last bit of his orgasm tricked down the back of your hand.

His whispered chants of “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” slow to a stop just as his joints unlock and his muscles relax. You take it as a sign to loosen your grip on his spent cock and carefully slip your finger back out of him. It earns you one last whimper before he sags into you, a boneless little heap in your lap.

You unhand him to hold him against you, wipe your hand on the discarded blanket beside you so you can stroke his back with one hand and his fuzzy little buttcheek with the other.

You tell him how good he was for you, how pretty he is when he comes, how much you loved getting to do that to him.

It takes a while for him to catch his breath, and his huffs tickle that sensitive spot on your neck just below your ear.

“Holy shit,” he sighs.

You nod, because he’s correct. Holy shit, indeed.

His voice is a little hoarse, and you’re conflicted. You want to hold him as long as he’ll let you, but you know you should get him some water and at least a towel.

You shift under him and he whimpers, wraps his arms tighter around your shoulders.

There goes that idea.

You hold him closer, and smirk at the contented sigh that leaves him.

“I think… I think I just imprinted on you.”

It startles a laugh out of you, and he chuckles too, a tiny happy sound against your collar bone. You turn to kiss his heated cheek, and he lets you, before he turns his own head to fuse his lips to yours.

This kiss is lazy, unhurried, and the adrenaline from making him fall apart is slowly making way for more of that sticky-sweet arousal from earlier.

“I wanna make you come,” he mumbles against your lips.

You shake your head, but kiss him some more, as to not give him the wrong idea.

“Another night, Pretty Boy.”

He makes a disappointed sound, but continues to kiss you until you have to part for air. His brow is turned upward in question when you pull away.

“Did I do something wrong?”

You’re shaking your head before he even finishes his question.

“Not a single thing, Frankie. Just wanted to take care of you tonight.”

His shoulders relax at that, but his face is still confused. It’s a cute look on him, with his pouty lips and big brown eyes.

“You’d tell me right? If I made you uncomfortable? You can tell me. I don’t wanna upset you.”

And christ, you feel your heart melting and oozing through your rib cage at how earnest his voice is.

“I promise, I’ll tell you.”

That seems to quell his nerves, as he sinks back into you again with his sweaty curls pressed against your shoulder.

You’re sticky in more ways than one, and Frankie’s only getting heavier in your lap the sleepier he gets, but a giggle bubbles up out of you when you realize you’ve never been more comfortable than you are right now.

Frankie huffs in response, and you press him even tighter against you.

You don’t know where one-and-a-half dates and one sickeningly hot orgasm places the two of you. And maybe it’s greedy to think about with a handsome, sweet man in your arms, but you can’t push down the overwhelming feeling of wanting more.

next part

#x reader #sub! frankie morales #frankie morales x reader #nb reader #gender-fluid reader #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #frankie morales #frankie morales fanfiction #ppcu fanfiction #pedro pascal cinematic universe #frankie morales smut #triple frontier fanfiction

123 notes · View notes

perfectlyripeclementine · 10 months

Text

queer novel masterlist: Palestine edition

Found this list via @evereadssapphic on Instagram.

You Exist Too Much, Zaina Arafat

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter.

Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East--from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine--Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as "love addiction." In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.

Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings--for love, and a place to call home.

Haifa Fragments, Khulud Khamis

As a designer of jewelry, Maisoon wants an ordinary extraordinary life, which isn't easy for a tradition-defying activist and Palestinian citizen of Israel who refuses to be crushed by the feeling that she is an unwelcome guest in the land of her ancestors. She volunteers for the Machsom Watch, an organization that helps children in the Occupied Territories cross the border to receive medical care. Frustrated by her boyfriend Ziyad and her father, who both want her to get on with life and forget those in the Occupied Territories, she lashes out only to discover her father isn't the man she thought he was. Raised a Christian, in a relationship with a Muslim man and enamored with a Palestinian woman from the Occupied Territories, Maisoon must decide her own path.

A Map Of Home, Randa Jarrar

In this fresh, funny, and fearless debut novel, Randa Jarrar chronicles the coming-of-age of Nidali, one of the most unique and irrepressible narrators in contemporary fiction. Born in 1970s Boston to an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, the rebellious Nidali--whose name is a feminization of the word "struggle"--soon moves to a very different life in Kuwait. There the family leads a mildly eccentric middle-class existence until the Iraqi invasion drives them first to Egypt and then to Texas. This critically acclaimed debut novel is set to capture the hearts of everyone who has ever wondered what their own map of home might look like.

The Skin And Its Girl, Sarah Cypher

In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family's ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns vibrantly, permanently cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis' centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of their lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening back to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love.

Decades later, Betty returns to Aunt Nuha's gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she's ever known, or should she follow her heart and the woman she loves, perpetuating her family's cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt's complex life and struggle with her own sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family immigrate to the United States. But, as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that.The Skin and Its Girl is a searing, poetic tale about desire and identity, and a provocative exploration of how we let stories divide, unite, and define us--and wield even the power to restore a broken family. Sarah Cypher is that rare debut novelist who writes with the mastery and flair of a seasoned storyteller.

The Philistine, Leila Marshy

Nadia Eid doesn't know it yet, but she's about to change her life. It's the end of the ‘80s and she hasn’t seen her Palestinian father since he left Montreal years ago to take a job in Egypt, promising to bring her with him. But now she’s twenty-five and he’s missing in action, so she takes matters into her own hands. Booking a short vacation from her boring job and Québecois boyfriend, she calls her father from the Nile Hilton in downtown Cairo. But nothing goes as planned and, stumbling around, Nadia wanders into an art gallery where she meets Manal, a young Egyptian artist who becomes first her guide and then her lover.

Through this unexpected relationship, Nadia rediscovers her roots, her language, and her ambitions, as her father demonstrates the unavoidable destiny of becoming a Philistine – the Arabic word for Palestinian. With Manal’s career poised to take off and her father’s secret life revealed, the First Intifada erupts across the border.

The Twenty-Ninth Year, Hala Alyan

For Hala Alyan, twenty-nine is a year of transformation and upheaval, a year in which the past--memories of family members, old friends and past lovers, the heat of another land, another language, a different faith--winds itself around the present.

Hala's ever-shifting, subversive verse sifts together and through different forms of forced displacement and the tolls they take on mind and body. Poems leap from war-torn cities in the Middle East, to an Oklahoma Olive Garden, a Brooklyn brownstone; from alcoholism to recovery; from a single woman to a wife. This collection summons breathtaking chaos, one that seeps into the bones of these odes, the shape of these elegies.

A vivid catalog of heartache, loneliness, love and joy, The Twenty-Ninth Year is an education in looking for home and self in the space between disparate identities.

Between Banat, Mejdulene Bernard Shomali

In Between Banat Mejdulene Bernard Shomali examines homoeroticism and nonnormative sexualities between Arab women in transnational Arab literature, art, and film. Moving from The Thousand and One Nights and the Golden Era of Egyptian cinema to contemporary novels, autobiographical writing, and prints and graphic novels that imagine queer Arab futures, Shomali uses what she calls queer Arab critique to locate queer desire amid heteronormative imperatives. Showing how systems of heteropatriarchy and Arab nationalisms foreclose queer Arab women's futures, she draws on the transliterated term "banat"--the Arabic word for girls--to refer to women, femmes, and nonbinary people who disrupt stereotypical and Orientalist representations of the "Arab woman." By attending to Arab women's narration of desire and identity, queer Arab critique substantiates queer Arab histories while challenging Orientalist and Arab national paradigms that erase queer subjects. In this way, Shomali frames queerness and Arabness as relational and transnational subject formations and contends that prioritizing transnational collectivity over politics of authenticity, respectability, and inclusion can help lead toward queer freedom.

Belladonna, Anbara Salam

Isabella is beautiful, inscrutable, and popular. Her best friend, Bridget, keeps quietly to the fringes of their Connecticut Catholic school, watching everything and everyone, but most especially Isabella.

In 1957, when the girls graduate, they land coveted spots at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Pentila in northern Italy, a prestigious art history school on the grounds of a silent convent. There, free of her claustrophobic home and the town that will always see her and her Egyptian mother as outsiders, Bridget discovers she can reinvent herself as anyone she desires... perhaps even someone Isabella could desire in return.

But as that glittering year goes on, Bridget begins to suspect Isabella is keeping a secret from her, one that will change the course of their lives forever. (I believe this book is by a Palestinian author but not actually set in or about Palestine.)

#read palestine #qlit #queer literature #queer reading list #tbr #palestinian authors #SWANA authors #arab authors #qtpoc writers #qtpoc authors

66 notes · View notes

varian212 · 2 months

Text

{Books read from July 8 to July 13.}

Author's Name: Erich Maria Remarque

Number of Pages: 250

Summary:

War breaks out in Germany in 1914. Paul Bäumer and his classmates quickly enlist in the army to serve their fatherland. No sooner are they drafted than the first images from the battlefield show them the reality of war.

My favorite quotes:

“Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”

''It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men.''

(The word "queer" means here strange, unusual, or odd.)

''We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.''

''We had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.''

“Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child - why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang short, boy's trouser - it is such a little time ago, why is it over?”

Thoughts on It:

The scenes where Paul returns home on leave for a short time were the hardest for me. Paul knew the place so well, yet everything seemed strange and meaningless to him. The books he had spent so much time studying for school seemed like a joke after his experience in the war.

Back home,the desire of people, especially men, to know more about the war seemed annoying to him. He had to lie to his mother that things were fine in the war, that he was safe, and that they had enough food. When the reality was exactly the opposite, there were scenes where Paul and the other soldiers had to hide their food from rats, where they had to stay buried underground until the barrage of shells stopped (the sound of which was loud and painful—a technique often used in war to keep the enemy awake as long as possible, rendering them incapable of fighting).

I think the most horrifying thing about this book is how Paul, along with the other soldiers, are made to join the army under the pretense that they are the "golden generation" that will save Germany. Of course, an idiotic phrase said just to make as many boys as possible join the army. No one prepared them for what was to come, and no one told them that they might not return home.

Next is a story about the author of the book, not a very funny one; you can skip to the next book title - City of Thieves.

Here is the quote from the beginning of the novel:

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”

Erich Maria Remarque personally met Adolf Hitler in World War I, where both fought on the German side. Over time, it is said that their relationship (which was almost nonexistent, with them exchanging only a few words) fell apart.

The war ended, and Erich Maria Remarque returned to writing. He wrote his first book, which was not very successful (titled The Dream Room). He did not become famous until 1929, after his book All Quiet on the Western Front immediately caught the public's attention with many copies sold.

What further changed the situation was an adaptation of the novel, the first adaptation (there are now three films), released in 1930.

After this first adaptation, the authorities heard about the novel, and of course, they did not like it. Remarque's work presented exactly what they were trying to hide—that war is grotesque, irrelevant to ordinary people, and that once you leave the war (if you are lucky enough to do so), your life will never return to what it was.

Remember, this was 1930, nine years before the start of World War II.

By 1933, the Nazi regime made it a national crime to own a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front. All copies had to be handed over to the authorities.

Joseph Goebbels (chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and later Reich Minister of Propaganda) along with Hitler planned to go to Erich's house and kill him, considering him and his works a "threat to the ideology of the entire Nazi Party."

Fortunately, Erich was warned by his acquaintances of this murder attempt and left for the United States via Switzerland in 1939. The Nazis were not happy when they found out. But Erich lived his life continuing to write books, far from his homeland. The saddest part of this story is what happened to his younger sister, who remained in Germany.

Elfriede Scholz had to answer for her crimes as well as her brother's. Her crimes consisted of being overheard by her landlord saying that the Nazi-driven war was a lost cause, and his for writing this book.

Elfriede was judged and found guilty, and on December 16, 1943, she was beheaded, just four years after Remarque’s departure from Germany.

Erich did not know about his younger sister's death until after the war. He would dedicate his 1952 novel Spark of Life to her. The dedication was omitted in the German version of the book, reportedly because he was still seen as a traitor by some Germans.

I think the story behind this book makes it a million times more powerful, and I am sorry I did not give the book a chance until now.

Please give it a try, I don't think you'll regret it! And, of course, the latest adaptation of the film (2022) can be seen on Netflix, almost as good as the book.

Trigger Warnings!!!

Animal,death,death,gore,hospitalization,surgery,violence,war.

Author's Name: David Benioff

Number of Pages: 258

Sumamry:

The plot revolves around two Russian youths; a looter and a deserter. Both crimes have the death penalty, but a high ranking colonel makes them an offer. The city is starving, but he wants a dozen eggs to make a cake. If the two of them can find these within 72 hours, he'll spare their lives.

My favorite quotes:

''You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen. If you opened the door even a centimeter, you would smell the rot outside and hear the screams. You did not open the door. You kept your mind on the tasks of the day, the hunt for food and water and something to burn, and you saved the rest for the end of the war.''

“I never understood people who said their greatest fear was public speaking, or spiders, or any of the other minor terrors. How could you fear anything more than death? Everything else offered moments of escape: a paralyzed man could still read Dickens; a man in the grips of dementia might have flashes of the must absurd beauty.”

“You don't like the girl. You don't know what color eyes she has, you don't like her.”

“You're a writer. Make it up.

-What's the good news?

-Pardon?

-You said the bad news is we're going the wrong way.

-There isn't any good news. Just because there's bad news doesn't mean there's good news, too.”

“Those words you want to say right now? Don't say them.' He smiled and cuffed my cheek with something close to real affection. 'And that, my friend, is the secret to living a long life'.”

Thoughts on It:

I know some of you might not have high expectations just because it's a book written by the guy who also did Game of Thrones. That's what I thought too, until I read it and found that the atmosphere and characters he created are worth reading about and you'll find them interesting.

Kolya, who is somewhat of a playboy, a semi-intellectual from the Soviet Union, and Lev, the protagonist, are set to spend 2 days together searching for eggs so that one of the leaders can make a cake for his daughter's wedding. (This creates a discrepancy, a sort of "let them eat cake" irony, because people are starving to death, yet this leader is thinking about a cake to please his daughter.)

Kolya and Lev form an iconic duo, and finding eggs should be easy under normal circumstances. However, not in Leningrad, amidst a military conflict.

By the way, to be honest, I thought until the end that these guys would develop a romantic relationship. Things were becoming quite sus between them.

Although this book and All Quiet on the Western Front have much in common, City of Thieves seemed to me to be a couple of notches lighter than All Quiet On The Western Front.

I remember when I read All Quiet On The Western Front, I had that initial feeling where I thought about how horrifying it would be for me to go through what the protagonist had experienced. Throughout the book, there are only one or two happier moments, although to say happy is an exaggeration.

All Quiet on the Western Front makes you feel powerless, it makes you believe that there is no hope left, that nothing is worth fighting for anymore.

In City of Thieves, although the atmosphere is equally brutal, equally grim, there are still some interesting moments that make you almost forget what kind of book you're reading.

I recommend reading All Quiet on the Western Front first, and then reading this one as a sort of solace.

Trigger Warnings!!!

Gun violence, Child death, Cannibalism, Blood, War, Sexual violence, Death, and Gore

Author's Name: Donna Tartt

Number of Pages: 771 pages

Summary:

Theodore Decker was 13 years old when his mother was killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The tragedy changes the course of his life, sending him on a stirring odyssey of grief and guilt, reinvention and redemption, and even love. Through it all, he holds on to one tangible piece of hope from that terrible day -- a painting of a tiny bird chained to its perch.

My favorite quotes:

“Every new event—everything I did for the rest of my life—would only separate us more and more: days she was no longer a part of, an ever-growing distance between us. Every single day for the rest of my life, she would only be further away.”

“We looked at each other. And it occurred to me that despite his faults, which were numerous and spectacular, the reason I’d liked Boris and felt happy around him from almost the moment I’d met him was that he was never afraid. You didn’t meet many people who moved freely through the world with such a vigorous contempt for it and at the same time such oddball and unthwartable faith in what, in childhood, he had liked to call “the Planet of Earth.”

“There had been nights in the desert where I was so sick with laughter, convulsed and doubled over with aching stomach for hours on end, I would happily have thrown myself in front of a car to make it stop.”

Thoughts on It:

At first read, I loved it immediately -I felt like each part of the book had its own vibe, completely different from the rest of the story. I enjoyed Theo's life in Las Vegas; it seemed so dream-ish and reminded me somewhat and only a little bit of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses.

Theo's character seems complex, easy to understand and relate to in some moments, but impossible in others. The way he suffered, how one moment in his life spent in the wrong room managed to drastically change his life. Some would call it destiny; I think it's something much scarier and surprising than that. I don't think I managed to fully identify with him, though. And I don't think I would do the same things he did in the book. Sometimes I think about how insignificant his life was, how he spent all these years obsessed with that painting.

I honestly think that Donna has a thing for obsessions, how they can take over your entire life, change you into someone else.

The relationship between him and Boris seemed a bit confusing, and in the end, I concluded that they were just two quite lonely people, two teenagers who needed each other when no adult was concerned about them. I liked Boris as a character; I liked how he was brought back, although his departure from the book was rather random.

I expected him to continue with Theo.

Poor Andy, though. Sometimes I read about characters and think how terrible it would be to be in their place. Andy was hurt by the thing he hated most - the irony of it all.

Another character I liked was Hobie. Reminding me of Harold Stein from A Little Life, Hobie falls into that category of super chill characters who help the main character heal, become better, even if with a small, almost insignificant fragment. I really think Hobie managed to make Theo's life better and was one of the few normal adults in the book.

Pippa, I don't have much to say about her. An okay character, although the interactions between her and Theo seemed cringy (I think because of Theo). I found it interesting that even though Theo grows up and is no longer the same 13-year-old boy from the beginning, his life seems not to have moved on. He still thinks about Pippa and has a connection to the ring he took from Hobie's partner, and most importantly, Theo continues to think about the painting all those years - as if Theo never left the explosion, and he relives it over and over.

Of course, there are a few things in the book that were a bit dragged out and made me give it only 3,5 stars. Some descriptions were too long and unnecessary, to the point where I forgot what was happening and had to go back a few pages.

Here I'm referring to everything except the description of the work Hobie,(and then Theo too) did. Reading all those descriptions reminded me of another book that you might like if you enjoyed this one, namely The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr. It's about a lost and found painting, about all the beautiful work of restoring them (take notes, Theodore Decker ).

On the other hand, I wish some aspects were explained more. There's that contrast again between the multitude of descriptions of insignificant things and the aspects the author doesn’t address but should.

For example, I would have liked the dynamic between Hobie and Welty to be discussed more, but I understand that the events are narrated from Theo's perspective, who is too preoccupied with his own dramas and experiences.

One scene that left me confused is this one;

“Tell Hobie to get out of the store,” he (Welty) said thickly.

In disbelief, I watched the blood trickling bright from the corner of his mouth. He’d loosened his tie by yanking at it; “here,” I said, reaching over to help, but he batted my hands away.

“He’s got to close the register and get out!” he rasped. “His father’s sending some guys to beat him up—”

-Page 44

Why is there no further mention of this throughout the book, and why doesn’t Theo tell Hobie what Welty told him, that his father had sent some boys to beat him up? I want to believe that maybe Welty was just in too much pain and not fully aware of what he was saying, maybe some flashbacks from the past?

Anyway,another issue I had with the book was the ending, which felt a bit too Hollywood movie-like for me.

I think it could have ended differently and better, without the final section of the book feeling like a Russian mafia x Depressed and obsessed after a painting boy fanfiction with the tag "dead dove do not eat" and "hurt/comfort."

The book seemed so perfect to me until then that I probably would have given it 5 stars (and so far, I've only given one book 5 stars in my entire life). I've seen other opinions saying they found it interesting, I couldn't swallow it.

I plan to wait a few years before reading the book again; I'm pretty sure my opinion will dramatically change, and this is just my immediate reaction to it all.

Overall, this book had the premise to be a masterpiece, but it turned out to be just a very good book.

Trigger Warnings!!!

Death,depression,drug abuse (heavy),suicidal thoughts,attempted suicide,terrorism

Author's Name: John Edward Williams

Number of Pages: 278

Summary :

The novel follows the life of William Stoner, his career as an academic teacher in literature, the relationship with his wife, Edith, the affair with his work colleague, Katherine, and his relationship with his daughter, Grace.

My favorite quotes :

"He carried this feeling of loss with him throughout the graduation exercises."

"She continued to talk, and after a while he began to hear what she was saying. Years later it was to occur to him that in that hour and a half on that December evening of their first extended time together, she told him more about herself than she ever told him again. And when it was over, he felt that they were strangers in a way that he had not thought they would be, and he knew that he was in love."

“He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.”

“He listened to his words fall as if from the mouth of another, and watched his father’s face, which received those words as a stone receives the repeated blows of a fist.”

“Because in the long run' Stoner said, 'it isn't Edith or even Grace, or the certainty of losing Grace, that keeps me here; it isn't the scandal or the hurt to you or me; it isn't the hardship we would have to go through, or even the loss of love we might have to face. It's simply the destruction of ourselves, of what we would do'.”

Thoughts on It:

You don’t need much information before starting the novel, only that it is good enough to deserve everyone’s attention.

The summary doesn’t quite do the book justice, it is simply about the life of Stoner, first a student, then a university professor. In essence, not much happens, and most scenes are predictable. I think this is what makes the book so good—it presents the life of a man. Not a very happy life, not much, but still a life.

Stoner's relationship with Edith, his wife, is complex and difficult to understand. Certain behaviors of Edith suggest she might suffer from some mental illnesses, but these are never addressed further in the book, likely due to the period in which the book is set (pre-WWI to a few years after WWII).

Their relationship seemed sad to me, one that no one would want to have. Stoner tried, I believe, to be a good husband and father. I’m not sure how well he succeeded, nor how much he actually tried.

If I were to recommend just one book out of these four, it would definitely be Stoner, as seen in the rating.

Although I just finished the book, I am sure I will reread it soon. Now I understand what people mean when they say they have a comfort book.

Trigger Warnings!!!

Themes of sexual violence, ableism and alcoholism

Moderate ones : Abandonment, War, Body shaming, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, and Gaslighting.

#books #what i read #long reads #writing #all quiet on the western front #paul bäumer #city of thieves #david benioff #the goldfinch #theo decker #stoner #john williams

6 notes · View notes

reiviluola · 4 months

Text

i've had a complicated history w/ labels, knowing from a very young age that i liked girls. i learned about the term bisexual from media and thought clearly that had to be it. liking boys was just something every girl did. the next day i ran to tell kids at school, feeling excited to share such a cool secret with everyone but was immediately met with "ew gross" and kids running away. i was 8-9 years old.

so i decided from then on that i was straight and never brought it up again. in my teens i just became a ~really good ally~ and stood up for queer people. acceptance of queerness overall was a lot higher than when i was younger, but i'd already pushed that part of myself away.

at 18 i met a girl who brought the feelings back, but i was convinced still that i was straight, and even in a serious (poly) relationship with a man. i told her that maybe i was actually heteroromantic but bisexual, but i knew that wasn't right. eventually, digging deeper into my feelings about her, it turned into just bisexual and we briefly dated.

some time later i started to unpack my feelings and attraction to men. i realised i spent so many years desperate for attention and validation, that i had relationships or slept with men because it was just easier. fictional men and celebrities appealed to me more, and as i got further into my journey with accepting my "bisexuality", i'd only look for women and feminine people on dating apps, and never had the same feelings or desires about men.

now at 27 i'm spending my very first pride as a lesbian (and my second pride as some sort of nonbinary womanlike creature) and i finally feel like i have a label that really feels comfortable. no more pretending, no more "well i just have a really strong preference for women". i can just be a lesbian and live my little cottagecore life with my girlfriend and it just feels good. shoutout to her for being the only thing keeping me attached to the bisexual label, and then surprise, she's actually a woman! funny how that turned out @egexe

happy pride to everyone who's still figuring things out, who have switched labels multiple times, for those who feel like they'll never really figure it out, and to those who feel like they finally did. 🧡🤍🩷

#pride #pride month #lesbian #sapphic #lesbian pride #lgbtq #queer #wlw pride #sapphic pride

3 notes · View notes

gayredmage · 2 years

Text

Genesis makes no f---ing sense as a character.

I know, shocking coming from the guy whose comfort character is the redheaded asshole from Banora, but I can fully acknowledge bad and stereotyped writing. So I'm going to say it:

Genesis is an inconsistent and poorly written villain.

Fandom really has to work overdrive to get him to make sense. But hey, at least he cute. It's funny though because HCs of him tend to be more consistent than in game.

As a child of adoptive parents myself, his whole adoption arc is a harmful stereotype + doesn't make sense. Why would he kill his parents and then the game tell us he loved them and they loved him? It reeks of the stupid belief that blood relations are the only ones worth having.

And then you have the very weird friendship/rivalry which doesn't get explained in any way so people just assume he's a narcissistic jealous prick, but I wouldn't be surprised if actually it's because he's set up to always be in Sephiroth's shadow no matter what he accomplishes. So we're left with this weird friendship that doesn't make sense and why on Earth would Genesis and Sephiroth even consider each other friends when we don't have anything to demonstrate that?

There could have been a really good political story there about the popularity contest that SOLDIER is (which is mentioned in game), but no it's just classic Disney-style queer coded villain who acts in ways that don't make sense and that's why he's a 'bad guy'.

But then we get turned around again because people in SOLDIER did actually respect him and like him. We get told he's actually a really great guy and everyone is confused by his actions, and we the audience are too because SURPRISE the motive is thin at best

Then they say that Genesis comes back as a good guy after Dirge? And what were we meant to take with the whole G-Files nonsense? Are we lead to believe that Genesis is meant to lead the WRO? What the fuck is going on with this character? How? I thought he was a murderous asshat?

The only way I can make sense of it all is to have several HCs that are somewhat able to glue this all together. And the biggest one is that CC is told through Zack's eyes - an unreliable narrator.

We don't ever see Genesis murder his family or Banora, we are told that he did so. We don't see that he is jealous, we are told that his desire to be seen as Sephiroth's equal is 'petty' so we just assumed he hasn't got what it takes - that somehow he is inferior (although Apocalypse is the most OP limit break) and again, we aren't shown why. We're made to assume a lot about his character and the poor writing just gets poorer to try to reinforce something that doesn't make sense.

Huge missed opportunity to have any discourse on the corruption of the Shinra corporation and how they saw them as pawns in some game (lol), and instead we get this very weird lone-wolf villain who actually turned out to be right about wanting to destroy Shinra. It's weird.

Also Genesis' new VA isn't a great fit and reduces him down to being an arrogant Disney villain. The original VA gave him a lot more nuance, softness and humanity, now he's just a bit of a um, grating caricature? I don't know, it was a CHOICE that really contributed to his incongruent character.

So the headcanons I need to maintain in order to make sense of him (and so it doesn't just sound like people in a room just threw crap on the drawing board to make him sound villainy when they realised he didn't come across as 'evil' enough which contradicts the whole- you get my point by now I think):

Zack is an unreliable narrator who doesn't know Genesis at all, and because of that we have someone who can only utilise propaganda and very limited info that he has learned of him. He has no first-hand experience of Genesis at all, and when he does, Genesis doesn't feel the need to show any side of him except what Zack wants to see.

Genesis is not considered popular by Shinra standards (perhaps a scandal?) or potentially threatens the image they created of Sephiroth, so they attribute many of his achievements to Sephiroth.

Sephiroth is tired of Genesis being mad at him for not getting recognition for his work, and Sephiroth doesn't help much by poking the fire here and there.

If Angeal is considered to be somewhat Lawful Good, he wouldn't join Genesis if the guy was the maniac we were led to believe.

Genesis did not murder his parents. I know someone will say that some murderers do show love towards their victims, but nothing about Genesis suggests he would behave in such a way. This is the weirdest outlier in his behaviour.

The people who joined him did so willingly, and not out of a sense of duty to SOLDIER, but a sense of duty to him.

And the most important headcanon of all:

7. He's gay and has a daddy kink.

#genesis rhapsodos #crisis core #headcanons #vent post

43 notes · View notes

22degreehalo · 11 months

Text

One of the interesting things about Andy in terms of like shitty parent situation flavour and all is that, he really seems to crave the approval of his mum and dad, and definitely recognises that they love his brother more than him, but they like... actually don't even seem to have any expectations for him at all anymore from what we see

Like his whole family deal was of course sorta infamously all over the place based on what the writers thought was funny in any given moment (like if not for secretaries he wouldn't have a step mom, but then likes this other place because it's where his parents decided not to get divorced), but the most consistent vibe I get is just that they like. Already gave up on him and treat him as at best a family embarrassment they'd rather not acknowledge. And he MOSTLY seems to understand that and tries to prove them wrong and win them back over in his endlessly optimistic sort of way but Garden Party proves that they just. don't even seem to care anymore? At all? And all of Andy's like valorisation of his family history and desires to prove himself to them only really matter in his head.

It's just interesting from the perspective of like, him being queer. Because on the one hand yeah, it would conflict with his own sorta Self Image that he has both painstakingly and not entirely consciously concocted? The one he ruthlessly maintains at all times despite not seeming to have any particularly great intellectual self-awareness of? Which is a thing in itself: Andy isn't exactly the greatest character for like... self-reflection. To put it mildly. So it's hard to imagine how he'd navigate that kind of personal discovery and integrating it into his general behaviour, self-identity etc. And ultimately yes, his mum and dad wouldn't be too fond of having an openly bi son. Especially in the late 00s slash early 10s.

But also, in Gossip, he actually... does seem to question whether or not he's queer!! And try to pursue and evaluate it earnestly!! (Of course in fitting with the above, it's not because of any PERSONAL feelings or discoveries, just...... other people have said it. So maybe it HAS to be true??) Like, he doesn't seem THAT far down into the 'haha that couldn't POSSIBLY be true!' self-denial or whatever. And he doesn't seem THAT freaked out or upset by the possibility, either: just really, really confused!

Maybe that's it: he just feels this intense, constant desire to act however other people expect him to act. (Which....... relatable as dude lmaooo.) If other people keep thinking he's gay, then well: guess he's gotta have to act like a gay dude. But he has to get Oscar's guidance, of course, and then ultimately demands Michael just tell him. Maybe it's just a chameleon thing, and if his parents came by in this episode for some reason he'd be immediately like pshhht no way would the Nard-dog ever be up for that! He's a Cornell grad, equals a CATCH, and he is totally prepared for marrying a sufficiently classy lady to match! (Cue Oscar giving him the stink-eye in the background.)

So. Would there be a fear of like, parental disapproval...? Because while they wouldn't approve... I can't see them disapproving much more than they already do. It seems more likely that it would just bolster the view of him that they already have. But I don't think Andy is THAT pessimistic about it. And maybe that's it: it's almost comforting to think that they wouldn't want him to be queer, because that'd mean they actually care on some level about him. It's harder to admit that he could tell them anything and they'd just sigh and roll their eyes and keep going as they are.

IDK man. I'm working on another fic (my annual Christmas fic~~) and when it came to fill out the obligatory internalised homophobia subthemes I realised it was actually kinda a lot more complicated than I first assumed, lol.

#The Office #Andy bernard #andy is such. an nd icon tbh #once again im showing my hand that the internalised homophobia I write is like #80% me projecting my internalised ableism bullshit through The Other #god the way Andy just perpetually mimics whoever's in authority around him #in a way that almost always just reads as annoying and sad rather than flattering #is so. autistic failing at social norms tbh!!!!!!!!!!

5 notes · View notes

anonymous-harpy · 6 months

Text

So as a totally random post I finally feel comfortable/confident in saying that I'm most likely at least A e g o s e x u a l and I currently feel like L i t h r o m a n t i c covers my feelings on romance

And in my queer moment of "It all makes sense now" I actually understand why when I first got into fanfiction and fanfiction-adjacent content why I made OCs to ship with characters I liked

And also why when it came to reading fanfiction I never was able to actually visualize myself as the "Reader" insert. I would always read the (Y/n) [Your name] ect as LITERALLY being "Your name walked/did/said" sure the eye color, skin color and hair color i might mentally match to myself

But like

Hear me out

Depending on the personality the "Reader" character would have even those superficial details would change in my head to fit the personality.

And even when I used to write Insert Readers I always viewed the "Reader" as an actual character that fit the character I was simping for

ALSO THIS FREAKING EXPLAINS WHY WITH ONE CHARACTER there was a vicious drought of content so I broke down and read a OC/cannon and guess what? Aside from the writing being better than the average "written by a teenager" garbage I was accustomed to I just REALLY enjoyed it because it wasn't another "Reader" but a genuinely fleshed out character

So like... I used to write Insert Readers and then started drifting back to OCs. And now with the fanfiction I've been writing all did one "Reader" character in a non-romantic fic and I think I was halfway through it when I realized "i don't like reader characters" and I was so confused but I finished it because damnit I liked that fic (never again, not even for non-romance. There's just going to be an "Alex" for every situation now) As far as reading Insert Readers i just do the same thing I used to- I don't REALLY envision myself there, I don't even try and guess guess what? I enjoy them even more now!

Heck I used to L O V E shipping fics the best! I still do! And this just EXPLAINS everything for me! At least with fanfiction

So am I mourning that I'll probably not have a "typical" relationship if any?

Well kinda. It is a little saddening to think I'll probably be alone since I'd always be told "Maybe one day you'll find someone to be your partner like us" my parents always referring to one another as a team, but at the same time I'd already crossed this bridge before when I first believed I was possibly Demi-sexual, then gray-sexual- and I doubted that anyone I'd meet would tolerate a spiceless romance

Besides, I realize barely have the energy and desire for maintain friendships let alone a romantic one!

I'm up for a queer platonic relationship, just... No smooches or romance. Only fanfiction and garlic bread in this house ZD

And I noticed the majority of this post is focused on my Ace status

Welp, the romantic thing is just... Idk a work friend just moved out of her plumb full family home and into an apartment and no more than a week had passed before she got a boyfriend. I don't know or care if they're doing any funny business (i don't ever want to know either), but just the idea that he's spending the night at her apartment- because she told me that's happening- and theb that they've seen each other EVERYDAY since they made themselves an official couple- I cringe. It's insane. I cannot fathom it and yet it's... Normal for people to start dating a month or two after MEETING each other? Sleeping together on the third date (haha, old fashioned and such a lie I don't believe anymore 😐)?

Maybe I am just old fashioned but... Fuck I don't even feel comfortable letting a "damn" slip from my mouth until I've interacted with another human being for a month.

That's why I like my fanfiction and Roman novels. I'll buy the speed dating there, but no in real life.

In other news- I've set a personal commitment to myself to keep writing layered romances and queer platonic relationships (I don't think I've written the ladder but I intend to goshdarnit) both in my fanfiction and in my novels! I don't care how I have to present it to a publisher I'll eventually take the to to go "Oh! This is an ace romance, this person is actually Aromantic, ect"

I want more awareness of Ace and Aro spectrum individuals! You are all valid! You are not broken! You are human and have a right to not be pressured to conform to the expectations placed on you. And just because your on the spectrum and maybe feel a desire for romance or intimacy, that doesn't means you're not stil Aro or Ace, it's a spectrum after all. I know what a crush feels like, but I don't want the feelings reciprocated. That doesn't invalidate me from being on the Aromantic spectrum though.

#anonymous_h #pride #asexual #asexual awareness #Aromantic #aegosexual #lithromantic #i will take no criticism #fite me

4 notes · View notes

redgoldsparks · 2 years

Photo

December reading and reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon.

The Savage Beard of She Dwarf by Kyle Latino

She Dwarf might be the last of her kind, but this only fuels her desire for adventure, danger, and travel. Her famous warrior mother died before she could lead She Dwarf though the final coming of age trials, so our hero is on a quest to find the lost kingdom of Dwarves to see what knowledge she can gain from the ruins. A long the way she battles and befriends a whimsical cast of misfits who end up tagging along for the journey for reasons of their own. This story is action packed, fun, beautifully drawn and extremely aesthetically queer though there are no outright discussions of anyone's gender or sexuality. I highly recommend this comic for fantasy comic fans of all ages, it was released during covid and never got the promotion or attention it deserved. Buy this book for someone for the holidays!

Under a Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire, read by Michelle Dockrey

This third book is the series is more whimsical and light than the first two, which I suppose makes sense as it takes place primarily in a nonsense world. It introduces a few new characters, as well as bringing back Christopher and Kane from book 1. A group of these teens sets out together on a quest, but not all of them return to Earth at the end of it. I'm definitely planning to continue with the audio books of this series.

Batcat by Meggie Ramm

This magical, brightly-colored tale follows Batcat, a creature of comfort, who is driven out of their cozy home by an annoyingly friendly ghost. On their quest, Batcat is forced to face some of their deepest fears (the dark, being eaten) and some of their biggest questions: are they more a bat, or more a cat? Readers of all ages who have wondered about their own place in a world keen on dividing things into categories will relate to this quandary, and delight in the playful ways that Batcat defines themself outside of the binary. I got to read an advanced copy of this adorable book because it was written by a dear friend. Yes, I am biased, but I loved this story and highly recommend people check it out when it is released in March of 2023, or preorder it now!

Funny Planet: How Comedy Ruined Everything by Ken Jennings

This is a conversational, light, easy to read nonfiction that traces the way comedy and humor have spread their roots into almost every aspect of American life. Advertisements are now expected to be funny, as are politicians, the news, the modern art world and some types of avant-garde fashion and food. Also, social media, particularly twitter, which (even in its crumbling perhaps final days) is a near constant stream of jokes and jibes at every current happening, large or small, including very horrific tragedies that probably shouldn't be made light of. And things that were already funny, like sitcoms, have nearly doubled their joke density in the past 50 years. The author explores the historical development of comedy in these different fields, and also wonders what it is doing to our brains to be fed such a constant stream of jokes. I missed a lot of the references by virtue of having seen almost none of the TV shows or comedy specials the author was referring to, yet still found this a quick and lively read.

¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico by Christine Suggs

Suggs' debut memoir is a complete delight. The themes of language, translation, family, queerness, fatness, and being biracial are beautifully woven together into a rich and authentic whole. Nothing is overstated, simply presented as it was lived, and illustrated in a lovely palette of warm browns, bright golds, and smoothing blues. I loved the tiny avatar of the author's internal thoughts and how it interacted with the text and images on the page. This book uses all of the visual tools of comics to tell a wonderful coming of age story and the result is as sweet as pan dulce. I had the chance to read this book ahead of it's review and I can't recommend it more! Pre-order it now or look for it on shelves in April 2023.

The Box In The Woods by Maureen Johnson read by Kate Rudd

This fourth book in the Truly Devious YA murder mystery series introduces a new cold case for anxious teen detective Stevie Bell to bang her head against. This one, a quadruple murder from 1978 which took place in the woods outside a summer camp, was mishandled from the beginning. Dubbed 'The Box in the Woods' murders, the police at the time initially thought it was a drug deal gone wrong, then thought it might be the work of a contemporary serial killer. Stevie is hired by the new owner of the summer camp, who wants to make a podcast about the crime. Stevie doesn't care about the podcast, but she does love getting to bring her friends with her to a camp and getting her hands on a difficult case. This book continues to develop Stevie's friendships and romantic relationship in satisfying ways. I remain very delighted by and impressed with this series, and I'm excited there's a fifth book coming out before the end of the year!

Buzzing by Samuel Sattin and Rye Hickman

]The power of a supportive role playing group can't fix everything, but it goes a long way. Isaac is a teen with OCD, who suffers from near constant intrusive thoughts, cleverly visualized here as bees with mean voices. Over the story he builds confidence and community by leaning into his love of fantasy and drawing; as a former fellow misfit teen artist, it was wonderful to watch him grow. This is a nuanced and diverse coming of age story, I'm so excited for all of the readers who will discover it and see themselves in it. The art is excellent, both in the real world day to day parts of the story and the D&D fantasy parts of the story. I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of this book because I am friends with both of the authors- pre order it now, or look for it on shelves in July 2023!

Falcon written and read by Helen Macdonald

This was my second book this year by Helen MacDonald. Shorter and more traditionally nonfiction that H is for Hawk, this book is a collection of facts and anecdotes about the relationship of falcons and humans across many centuries and cultures. Human have long anthropomorphized falcons, attributing to them traits such as nobility, cunning, and martial prowess. Humans have been training and hunting with falcons for at least 3,000 years; lately, we have driven many species to near extinction, and created involved and wide ranging programs to try and rehabilitate the dwindling populations. I listened to this entire four hour audiobook during one long car ride and was well entertained the whole time.

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni

Chris, Jo, Elise, and Alex bonded over being the only queer waiters at a restaurant, but their friendship long outlasted their stint at the job. Ten years on, the crew, now in their mid and late thirties, face a whole slew of new challenges: parenting, vying for promotions, balancing partying and work, being judged by baby gays at the club, and scariest of all, drifting apart. Fans of Bongiovanni's Grease Bats will enjoy the familiar flavors of a messy, horny, queer and trans friend squad but paired with a more nuanced slice-of-life narrative. These characters are trying to stay true to themselves, invest in their communities, get laid, and support each other. But it's not so easy to balance all of those conflicting needs, and they frequently fall short. I was left hoping that the characters could forgive each other's deeply human failings. I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of the book- it's available for pre-order now, or check it out when it's released in March 2023!

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker Chan

What a wonderful book to end the year with! This one came highly recommended by many friends and did not disappoint. Epic in scale, with fantasy rooted in Chinese history, this story is set in an alternate mid-1300s with Mongols attempting to control all of mainland China, but resisted by a rebel force. The book opens with Zhu, the only daughter of a peasant family struggling to survive during a famine. A fortune teller predicted a great destiny for Zhu's one brother, and nothing for her. But when her brother dies, Zhu decides she will inhabit his destiny instead. She disguises herself as a boy to seek shelter and education in a monastery, a story trope I have always enjoyed, but especially here because this book takes the narrative in a explicitly trans/genderqueer direction by the end. Elsewhere in the story, a eunuch general in the Mongol army hides a bitter desire for revenge from his dearest friend; the rebel leaders battle each other for power, doing nearly as much damage to their cause as they do to their enemies; and a daughter of a rebel commander despairs over the constant bloodshed and death of the seemingly endless war. This is a complicated conflict, in which neither side is morally superior to the other; I was equally compelled by the personalities on each side and also certain that all of them were on a path towards destruction that they could not escape.

#reading #book reviews #comic book reviews #books #audiobooks

19 notes · View notes