#so I'm a bit rusty

[ferngle]

seeing as you reblogged shadow fanart earlier how abt A2 for him >:)

he's such a silly guy

[kosotree]

Tell me one day missing you

will not be moon orbiting the sun,

will not be bauble manifesting itself the star of the christmas tree,

will not be about 50% of my personality.

Look, I have dreamt of your voice so often it has become my own;

quiet murmur melts memories until morning,

Tom chases Jerry

again, and again, and again,

this skin of mine keeps shedding and regrowing

subpar shelter in a storm of emotion.

This is my truth untold: I still think of you as a part of my life I could regain, somehow.

[gatheryepens]

Red, White & Royal Blue book review

Warning: small spoilers

“Thinking about history makes me wonder how I’ll fit into it one day, I guess. And you too. I kinda wish people still wrote like that. History, huh? Bet we could make some.”

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.

As President Claremont kicks off her re-election bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

Author: Casey McQuinston

Rating: 5/5 ✨

Funny story, I had actually planned on reading this book a lot earlier than intended. About a year ago, for my school newspaper I had actually planned to do a book review on a popular BookTok book. My plan was to do Red White & Royal Blue, however seconds after buying the book I immediately got a refund and email saying the book was out of stock - so I reviewed The Love Hypothesis instead. I am glad that a year later I decided to read the book but at the same time very sad that I didn’t discover it sooner - a true oxymoron! This book was excellent. The book starts off with Alex Claremont-Diaz attending the royal wedding between Prince Philip (Henry’s older sibling) and Princess Martha. During the wedding, Henry and Alex get into a little spat which leaves them ending up in the cake  on the floor. This creates a commotion, which results in several news outlets reporting the matter because of this some serious damage control is required resulting in a fast friendship that ends up being more.

What I really liked about the book is how long it took for the relationship to develop. Although the relationship started fairly fast, the build-up to it as well as what followed afterwards was executed well. Before Henry Kissed Alex, they had formed a nice camaraderie from the emails and the phone calls - I don’t know if I will ever get over the turkey prank. Even after the kiss, the relationship continued to develop with more emails and secret rendezvous. I think what was really beautiful were the individual characters growing and becoming more comfortable with one another. Henry first comes off as surly and standoffish, however we find out (along with Alex) that Henry is a funny person and has a big heart. I am a sucker for enemies to lovers/rivals to lovers and McQuinston did a fabulous job showing the stages  it took to go from rivals to lovers - which made it a good read. 

The writing style, in my opinion, was very simplistic. I don’t mean this in a bad way, I really liked how it was written - it was simple but engaging. This writing style made the book very nice, easy and enjoyable to keep on reading. I also liked the chapter to chapter length ratio, a lot of the times chapters can either be too few or too many or they can be very long or short. Obviously to find the perfect chapter number to chapter length ratio it depends entirely on the book, however McQuinston found the perfect balance. The chapters weren’t too long or too many. I loved the diversity of vocabulary that the author used. Whenever Henry said something really British I would chuckle for a while, a lot of the times anything Alex referred to I would have to look up for example LSAT. McQuinston did a really great job writing this book and showing the chemistry between Alex and Henry.

I really enjoyed reading from Alex’s perspective as I enjoyed going through the self discovery journey with him. Alex’s journey of discovering who he is and what he wants to be was really interesting to see. When we are younger, for some people it can be really hard to decide what you want to do in your future and to also not be swayed and pushed into a career path by other people like family. Alex first wants to go down the politics route (he wants to become a Senator), his main motivation is to help people and to do good in the world. Afterwards, he considers going into law after June convinces him to take the LSAT. Rediscovering yourself and changing your mind on something you're certain about is hard but it makes you a very brave person. One thing I admire a lot about Alex is how open he is to change and how throughout the book considers as well as explores different aspects of himself, whether it be deciding on a new career path or coming to terms and accepting his sexuality. Given that his mother is the President of the United States, approaching certain topics like sexuality or career paths would be challenging - as throughout the book there is a strong emphasis on all members of the family to be involved in the campaign and politics, so to divert/take a step back from politics would be surprising. There is also the issue of when he wants his mother to comfort and give advice as mother she probably lectures him as the President not as his mother and vice versa.

The only negative I have for the book is that I felt like the pacing was inconsistent. At the start, I felt that things happened really fast for example Alex and Henry’s relationship - I counted it from when they kissed. Then near the end it started to slow down a lot which is mainly due to the fact that both conflicts were resolved pretty quickly and  the only thing left to resolve was the politics. I do think that the book was heavy on the politics, which at times made it hard to read/understand - the amount of times I would reread or have to google certain phrases. Despite the amount of politics, I enjoyed having that side plot as when I read romances I really like when there are other things going on besides the romance as it helps us to understand the characters and their motivation a lot better. To conclude if you are interested in enemies to lovers and unlikely relationships, I would definitely recommend Red White & Royal Blue. It was a fun read and had loveable characters which made it an enjoyable experience.

my last review, it was a long time....

[startgamc]

Trick or Treat! (Surprise me!) - @epitomees

[ I hope you like it!! ]

[crimsonrebel]

Doodles of my favorite ladies from DRV3

[azems-familiar]

*starts writing*

*immediately falls back into the "i have no grasp on anyone's voices or characters or anything and i cannot write aaaaaa"*

[ralith]

Finally managed to sit down and play MW2 for a few hours.

I'm terrible at FPS games. I failed the first team mission immediately bc I accidentally lobbed a grenade at ghost while figuring out the controls.

[khytal]

liar, liar

[say-hi-intrepid-heroes]

rewatching acofaf to prepare for DM-ing again (for the first time in over a year), and i think we as a community don't talk enough about how Aabria just runs with whatever the players say. Brennan is the one who said "i think there are truly some goblins that are five inches tall and stealing salt shakers, and there are others..." as a passing description But Aabria named them Salt Goblins and basically said great, i hear you, i like that idea, now make a dexterity saving throw to prevent these goblins you created from fucking with you

definitely hoping to bring that chaos and energy into my game

[archrui]

如果爱像微风  和你一起吹过

连空气味道都变成甜的

[vongole-biankou]

Boundaries are important 😌

[can-of-slorgs]

Completed the Shenkuu Stamp collection some time ago, so it was only fair to draw my girl Mirsha

[helluva-artblog]

Move aside, Fizz! It's Blitzo time!

Bonus:

[pumpkinpiedano]

The Batman (2022), dir. Matt Reeves

[wingfooted]

Kuroshitsuji -Public School Arc- OP ➺The Parade of Battlers, 音羽-otoha-

[thotinos]

This has been playing in my mind on a loop for the last 24 hours now