#* a.

cheat answer:

THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER / QUEEN OF AMERICA by luis alberto urrea. kind of a cheating answer and kind of not. is not a series but there are two books following the same story. it's the fictional retelling of teresita urrea "la santa de cabora" who's a historic figure and a saint from mexico's 1800s. It uses magic realism and a lot of irony to touch on themes of race, revolution, oppression of indigenous people, and just the very complicated life of a girl who was turn into a saint basically, but it still never takes itself too seriously. it's just hilarious and brutally unapologetic (and at times just brutal). i love urrea as a writer in general. i picked up the first book because i wanted a western and instead was completely blown away.

actual answer:

THE REALMS OF THE ELDERLINGS SERIES by robin hobb. i got personal beef with robin hobb but i still devoured this 9 books series and sobbed all through it. fitz just can't catch a break. it's a fantasy series following the story of fitzchilvarly farseer, the bastard son of a king who's raised as a royal assassin to kind of justify not killing him. he carries a forbidden magic that bonds him to animals and a wolf named nighteyes. it's a lot to get into because it is a lot of books. but the main focus is his bond with his wolf companion nighteyes and their soulmate called beloved, and their nonending will they won't they decades long affair that just absolutely guts you. the best in the series are definitely the tawny man trilogy because beloved just completely steals the show. no one cares about fitz its fine.

HOUSE OF LEAVES by mark danielewski. i regret to say i am one of those weirdos obsessed with house of leaves, i publicly apologize to my peers💀. i don't know what exactly means a book that made me scream, i don't know if a book made me scream but house of leaves definitely drove me into obsessed insanity. i got literally dizzy reading the labyrinth and ended up scribbling all over my copy trying to connect the dots. the book is VERY basically a mixed media telling of a film called navidson's record about a house that is not a house and changes and shifts and grows doors or corridors seemingly out of nowhere. and it's told from the perspective of johnny truant, a very traumatized and mentally ill mess of a man. i'm being very reductive here. it's its own particular brand of weird horror but for me it was more emotional than anything, like when it lands on you it really just guts you.

enjoy my mad man scribbles also here's some snapshots of me reading this book:

DEAD ASTRONAUTS by jeff vandermeer. trippy non-linear books is my thing. i cannot begin to explain this book except they are astronauts and they are dead and they are not and they are repeating the same things over and over in new versions. it reads more like a dream than poetry but also like poetry. got so obsessed with the name moss i stole it :)

MONSTRILIO by gerardo sámano córdova. a grieving mother grows a little monstrilio from the lung of her dead son. it's actually a very touching story about identity and grief. of growing up with the burden of a grieving parent, of becoming something else than that inherited pain. i can't remember who or where it was rec but it blew my mind.

SILENTLY AND VERY FAST by catherynne m. valente. (actually a short story within THE MELANCHOLY OF MECHAGIRL) a story about a sentient ai named elefsis that has grown from from a house into a kind of inheritance within a family. the story takes place within the journey they and their current carer neva make to escape some unknown danger. i just really love how it feels so incorporeal, no one has a body, they just exist as a conciousness. it's very magical and is very interestingly narrated from elefsis perspective as they think back on their own past, how they are seen, what they are what it means to be sentient, to love and to grieve.

THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND OTHER STORIES by angela carter. gothic retelling of fairy tales like bluebeard's wife and the beauty and the beast, the earl king among others. it's just written in a very pleasing "purple prose" that for my taste is not really purple prose it's just poetic writing. i chew on her writing style.

THE GONE WORLD by tom sweterlitsch. is it cheating if it's also a sci fi? the book rec of this book said something like true detective meets sm sm sci fi and they nailed it. I went in completely blind and it was the best experience. the first chapter immediately has you hooked and then you're scrambling to figure out what is happening. think murder investigation but where time is constantly manipulated, shifted. i won't say more because its a TRIP but i really loved that book and the writing style and also i love weird trippy books. 

DRIVE by james sallis. not really a thriller but honorary mention because i love that novella so much. driven is also good but not as good. I could recite whole scenes by heart of how much i've read drive over the years. it's not superior writing by any means but idk what about it is so dear to me, the way it's written in a non-linear way like a stream of consciousness and how this one incident in his childhood and the memory of his mother keeps haunting the narrative of what should be a very straight forward hard boiled action car chaces kinda book. I LOVE DRIVE (i scream from the top of every building).

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↪  🍻 A drunk confession by my muse to yours

ƸӜƷ — “your team is really cool.”

it’s not really that deep of a confession, but it counts as one. right? when her path had first crossed with his, she had teased him. well, all of them, really. but it was lighthearted. and most of the things she said came from a place of genuine care. she knows, like many others, how hard it is in this industry to just keep your head above water. but right now, she knows they’re doing well. and she’s happy for him. for his team.

she’s always thought that there are members within his group that hold a lot of potential, but they’re all so young. it leaves a visible gap between her and them. it makes it hard for her to really relate, but she can appreciate them all the same. they’ve gone through a lot of struggles. she knows that.

soju’s managed to make her a little sentimental.

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↪ 🍻 A drunk confession by my muse to yours

ƸӜƷ — "sometimes i still want to go back to america.”

maybe it’s not that shocking. maybe not to him, anyway. maybe he’ll understand where she’s coming from. maybe he understands the struggle of trying to stay afloat in such a tough industry, trying to find solid footing on a path that’s far too rocky. not maybe, but definitely. she thinks that he has to understand - right? everyone has to start somewhere. she feels like she’s been driving a sports car with too smooth tires up a steep hill surfaced with a thin layer of ice during winter. it’s so hard to make progress, and even if the car manages to inch forward, it slides backwards and threatens to crash into the wall behind. to completely flip over and land upside down. 

her journey has been so different from his, but she still feels as if there’s some relation. or maybe it’s the booze. or loneliness? that’d be quite the confession. but no, she’s not that drunk. not yet, anyway.

no, it’s the shackles of her past around her wrists and ankles, the power of an entertainment industry that leaves her powerless, and the striking blow left by the situation to her ego.

“but i want to stay here more than i want to leave,” after a few dragging seconds, she feels the need to make that clear. as if there’s some sort of guilt bubbling in her chest and up her throat from her hasty statement only seconds before. liquor is strong enough that it dictates her already obvious accent to run boldly with each syllable that leaves her lips, but she doesn’t care - assumes he’ll understand what she’s saying, even when english words run into korean. “i don’t want to give up, but it’s- it’s hard all the fucking time, you know? but if i give up, then i’ve wasted my entire…” she trails off with an exhausted sigh, eyes fixed upon the half empty bottle safe in her hands.

“i don’t want people to be able to say that i gave up. ‘jessi gave up and went back to america’, i don’t want anyone to be able to say that,” halfway through her words, she’s managed to end up leaning against him, head rested against his shoulder as she exhales another sigh; softer this time.

Send in one of those for… ► open!!

↪  🍻 A drunk confession by my muse to yours

ƸӜƷ — "i’ve kissed a girl before-”

it comes out quickly, almost like word vomit, and it’s entirely in english and it’s only too late when she realizes that it doesn’t matter that her words managed to transfer into her native language. hyesoo understands english.

jessi, what are you doing. drink some water.

she’s convinced that most certainly, even with hinted slurring, they’ve understood her words. but it’s really not that big of a deal, at least not in her mind. even with her attraction being solely to men, she can’t say that she hasn’t had a bit of an adventurous past brought on by intense partying.

but this is korea. it’s things like this that always manage to get her into trouble. these sort of misunderstandings always find some way to bite her. and then she has to explain herself, like every other time anything she’s done has been brought to public attention. and even her explanations tend to be picked apart. it’s not that she expects hyesoo to run off and start telling everyone, of course not, but her instinct to back peddle and defend herself is something that’s triggered naturally. instantly. it’s an instinct. a habit that she still holds and likely always will.

and it only takes her a few seconds to switch into that mode after being appalled by her own confession originally brought on by the playful atmosphere.

really long but categorized ask meme: accepting!

going out and about finding out human food’s names (and tastes) had been such a fun activity aurae just decided to keep trying these things with selene. it’s a funny thing, friendship–and for the second star, the fairy did not expect to hear some gossip from this one friend. you know, you don’t really have much to gossip about when only 1/3 of the people understand what you’re saying, and the other 2/3 couldn’t care about anything other than their own stuff.

“they have those here too?” she gasps. obviously she doesn’t understand the human concept of an orgy differs only a little bit from older fairies getting drunk together. “do you think they can still swim after that? woah.”