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#have you read any of these titles?

macrolit · 5 months

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NYT's Notable Books of 2023

Each year, we pore over thousands of new books, seeking out the best novels, memoirs, biographies, poetry collections, stories and more. Here are the standouts, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

AFTER SAPPHO by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Inspired by Sappho’s work, Schwartz’s debut novel offers an alternate history of creativity at the turn of the 20th century, one that centers queer women artists, writers and intellectuals who refused to accept society’s boundaries.

ALL THE SINNERS BLEED by S.A. Cosby

In his earlier thrillers, Cosby worked the outlaw side of the crime genre. In his new one — about a Black sheriff in a rural Southern town, searching for a serial killer who tortures Black children — he’s written a crackling good police procedural.

THE BEE STING by Paul Murray

In Murray’s boisterous tragicomic novel, a once wealthy Irish family struggles with both the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash and their own inner demons.

BIOGRAPHY OF X by Catherine Lacey

Lacey rewrites 20th-century U.S. history through the audacious fictional life story of X, a polarizing female performance artist who made her way from the South to New York City’s downtown art scene.

BIRNAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton

In this action-packed novel from a Booker Prize winner, a collective of activist gardeners crosses paths with a billionaire doomsday prepper on land they each want for different purposes.

BLACKOUTS by Justin Torres

This lyrical, genre-defying novel — winner of the 2023 National Book Award — explores what it means to be erased and how to persist after being wiped away.

BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN by Jessica Knoll

In her third and most assured novel, Knoll shifts readers’ attention away from a notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, and onto the lives — and deaths — of the women he killed. Perhaps for the first time in fiction, Knoll pooh-poohs Bundy's much ballyhooed intelligence, celebrating the promise and perspicacity of his victims instead.

CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

This satire — in which prison inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom — makes readers complicit with the bloodthirsty fans sitting ringside. The fight scenes are so well written they demonstrate how easy it might be to accept a world this sick.

THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese

Verghese’s first novel since “Cutting for Stone” follows generations of a family across 77 years in southwestern India as they contend with political strife and other troubles — capped by a shocking discovery made by the matriarch’s granddaughter, a doctor.

CROOK MANIFESTO by Colson Whitehead

Returning to the world of his novel “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead again uses a crime story to illuminate a singular neighborhood at a tipping point — here, Harlem in the 1970s.

THE DELUGE by Stephen Markley

Markley’s second novel confronts the scale and gravity of climate change, tracking a cadre of scientists and activists from the gathering storm of the Obama years to the super-typhoons of future decades. Immersive and ambitious, the book shows the range of its author’s gifts: polyphonic narration, silken sentences and elaborate world-building.

EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal

In de Kerangal’s brief, lyrical novel, translated by Jessica Moore, a young Russian soldier on a trans-Siberian train decides to desert and turns to a civilian passenger, a Frenchwoman, for help.

EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett

The world-building in this tale of a woman documenting a new kind of faerie is exquisite, and the characters are just as textured and richly drawn. This is the kind of folkloric fantasy that remembers the old, blood-ribboned source material about sacrifices and stolen children, but adds a modern gloss.

ENTER GHOST by Isabella Hammad

In Hammad’s second novel, a British Palestinian actor returns to her hometown in Israel to recover from a breakup and spend time with her family. Instead, she’s talked into joining a staging of “Hamlet” in the West Bank, where she has a political awakening.

FORBIDDEN NOTEBOOK by Alba de Céspedes

A best-selling novelist and prominent anti-Fascist in her native Italy, de Céspedes has lately fallen into unjust obscurity. Translated by Ann Goldstein, this elegant novel from the 1950s tells the story of a married mother, Valeria, whose life is transformed when she begins keeping a secret diary.

THE FRAUD by Zadie Smith

Based on a celebrated 19th-century trial in which the defendant was accused of impersonating a nobleman, Smith’s novel offers a vast panoply of London and the English countryside, and successfully locates the social controversies of an era in a handful of characters.

FROM FROM by Monica Youn

In her fourth book of verse, a svelte, intrepid foray into American racism, Youn turns a knowing eye on society’s love-hate relationship with what it sees as the “other.”

A GUEST IN THE HOUSE by Emily Carroll

After a lonely young woman marries a mild-mannered widower and moves into his home, she begins to wonder how his first wife actually died. This graphic novel alternates between black-and-white and overwhelming colors as it explores the mundane and the horrific.

THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride

McBride’s latest, an intimate, big-hearted tale of community, opens with a human skeleton found in a well in the 1970s, and then flashes back to the past, to the ’20s and ’30s, to explore the town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history.

HELLO BEAUTIFUL by Ann Napolitano

In her radiant fourth novel, Napolitano puts a fresh spin on the classic tale of four sisters and the man who joins their family. Take “Little Women,” move it to modern-day Chicago, add more intrigue, lots of basketball and a different kind of boy next door and you’ve got the bones of this thoroughly original story.

A HISTORY OF BURNING by Janika Oza

This remarkable debut novel tells the story of an extended Indo-Ugandan family that is displaced, settled and displaced again.

HOLLY by Stephen King

The scrappy private detective Holly Gibney (who appeared in “The Outsider” and several other novels) returns, this time taking on a missing-persons case that — in typical King fashion — unfolds into a tale of Dickensian proportions.

A HOUSE FOR ALICE by Diana Evans

This polyphonic novel traces one family’s reckoning after the patriarch dies in a fire, as his widow, a Nigerian immigrant, considers returning to her home country and the entire family re-examines the circumstances of their lives.

THE ILIAD by Homer

Emily Wilson’s propulsive new translation of the “Iliad” is buoyant and expressive; she wants this version to be read aloud, and it would certainly be fun to perform.

INK BLOOD SISTER SCRIBE by Emma Törzs

The sisters in Törzs's delightful debut have been raised to protect a collection of magic books that allow their keepers to do incredible things. Their story accelerates like a fugue, ably conducted to a tender conclusion.

KAIROS by Jenny Erpenbeck

This tale of a torrid, yearslong relationship between a young woman and a much older married man — translated from the German by Michael Hofmann — is both profound and moving.

KANTIKA by Elizabeth Graver

Inspired by the life of Graver’s maternal grandmother, this exquisitely imagined family saga spans cultures and continents as it traces the migrations of a Sephardic Jewish girl from turn-of-the-20th-century Constantinople to Barcelona, Havana and, finally, Queens, N.Y.

LAND OF MILK AND HONEY by C Pam Zhang

Zhang’s lush, keenly intelligent novel follows a chef who’s hired to cook for an “elite research community” in the Italian Alps, in a not-so-distant future where industrial-agricultural experiments in America’s heartland have blanketed the globe in a crop-smothering smog.

LONE WOMEN by Victor LaValle

The year is 1915, and the narrator of LaValle’s horror-tinged western has arrived in Montana to cultivate an unforgiving homestead. She’s looking for a fresh start as a single Black woman in a sparsely populated state, but the locked trunk she has in stow holds a terrifying secret.

MONICA by Daniel Clowes

In Clowes’s luminous new work, the titular character, abandoned by her mother as a child, endures a life of calamities before resolving to learn about her origins and track down her parents.

THE MOST SECRET MEMORY OF MEN by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Based on a true story and translated by Lara Vergnaud, Sarr’s novel — about a Senegalese writer brought low by a plagiarism scandal — asks sharp questions about the state of African literature in the West.

THE NEW NATURALS by Gabriel Bump

In Bump’s engrossing new novel, a young Black couple, mourning the loss of their newborn daughter and disillusioned with the world, start a utopian society — but tensions both internal and external soon threaten their dreams.

NORTH WOODS by Daniel Mason

Mason’s novel looks at the occupants of a single house in Massachusetts over several centuries, from colonial times to present day. An apple farmer, an abolitionist, a wealthy manufacturer: The book follows these lives and many others, with detours into natural history and crime reportage.

NOT EVEN THE DEAD by Juan Gómez Bárcena

An ex-conquistador in Spanish-ruled, 16th-century Mexico is asked to hunt down an Indigenous prophet in this novel by a leading writer in Spain, splendidly translated by Katie Whittemore. The epic search stretches across much of the continent and, as the author bends time and history, lasts centuries.

THE NURSERY by Szilvia Molnar

“I used to be a translator and now I am a milk bar.” So begins Molnar’s brilliant novel about a new mother falling apart within the four walls of her apartment.

OUR SHARE OF NIGHT by Mariana Enriquez

This dazzling, epic narrative, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a bewitching brew of mystery and myth, peopled by mediums who can summon “the Darkness” for a secret society of wealthy occultists seeking to preserve consciousness after death.

PINEAPPLE STREET by Jenny Jackson

Jackson’s smart, dishy debut novel embeds readers in an upper-crust Brooklyn Heights family — its real estate, its secrets, its just-like-you-and-me problems. Does money buy happiness? “Pineapple Street” asks a better question: Does it buy honesty?

THE REFORMATORY by Tananarive Due

Due’s latest — about a Black boy, Robert, who is wrongfully sentenced to a fictionalized version of Florida’s infamous and brutal Dozier School — is both an incisive examination of the lingering traumas of racism and a gripping, ghost-filled horror novel. “The novel’s extended, layered denouement is so heart-smashingly good, it made me late for work,” Randy Boyagoda wrote in his review. “I couldn’t stop reading.”

THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS by Vajra Chandrasekera

Trained to kill by his mother and able to see demons, the protagonist of Chandrasekera’s stunning and lyrical novel flees his destiny as an assassin and winds up in a politically volatile metropolis.

SAME BED DIFFERENT DREAMS by Ed Park

Double agents, sinister corporations, slasher films, U.F.O.s — Park’s long-awaited second novel is packed to the gills with creative elements that enliven his acerbic, comedic and lyrical odyssey into Korean history and American paranoia.

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED by Idra Novey

This elegant novel resonates with implication beyond the taut contours of its central story line. In Novey’s deft hands, the complex relationship between a young woman and her former stepmother hints at the manifold divisions within America itself.

THIS OTHER EDEN by Paul Harding

In his latest novel, inspired by the true story of a devastating 1912 eviction in Maine that displaced an entire mixed-race fishing community, Harding turns that history into a lyrical tale about the fictional Apple Island on the cusp of destruction.

TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett

Locked down on the family’s northern Michigan cherry orchard, three sisters and their mother, a former actress whose long-ago summer fling went on to become a movie star, reflect on love and regret in Patchett’s quiet and reassuring Chekhovian novel.

THE UNSETTLED by Ayana Mathis

This novel follows three generations across time and place: a young mother trying to create a home for herself and her son in 1980s Philadelphia, and her mother, who is trying to save their Alabama hometown from white supremacists seeking to displace her from her land.

VICTORY CITY by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie’s new novel recounts the long life of Pampa Kampana, who creates an empire from magic seeds in 14th-century India. Her world is one of peace, where men and women are equal and all faiths welcome, but the story Rushdie tells is of a state that forever fails to live up to its ideals.

WE COULD BE SO GOOD by Cat Sebastian

This queer midcentury romance — about reporters who meet at work, become friends, move in together and fall in love — lingers on small, everyday acts like bringing home flowers with the groceries, things that loom large because they’re how we connect with others.

WESTERN LANE by Chetna Maroo

In this polished and disciplined debut novel, an 11-year-old Jain girl in London who has just lost her mother turns her attention to the game of squash — which in Maroo’s graceful telling becomes a way into the girl’s grief.

WITNESS by Jamel Brinkley

Set in Brooklyn, and featuring animal rescue workers, florists, volunteers, ghosts and UPS workers, Brinkley’s new collection meditates on what it means to see and be seen.

Y/N by Esther Yi

In this weird and wondrous novel, a bored young woman in thrall to a boy band buys a one-way ticket to Seoul.

YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang

Kuang’s first foray outside of the fantasy genre is a breezy and propulsive tale about a white woman who achieves tremendous literary success by stealing a manuscript from a recently deceased Asian friend and passing it off as her own.

#new york times #100 books #reading list #2023 #books #reading #have you read any of these titles?

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ctrl-alt-cel · 1 year

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when i was 13 i wrote an essay explaining the rationale of puppyshipping to some guy in a skype chatroom. found the essay again. wanted to rewrite it. without further ado:

HERE’S HOW PUPPYSHIPPING CAN STILL WIN: THE SEQUEL: 2 PUPPY 2 SHIPPING (4.3k words)

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kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship stands at an awkwardly undefinable place in canon: they're not on good terms, but they're not enemies either. they know each other too well to be called passing acquaintances, but kaiba hardly acknowledges jounouchi as a duelist, let alone a potential rival. at best? they're mutual nuisances.

or, that's how jounouchi and kaiba choose to define it. both of them would love if their dynamic were that simple, nothing more than a back-and-forth of petty insults—but that’s not the truth. and they'll dance around the truth for five whole seasons, purposefully downplaying why they’re so obsessed with provoking each other whenever they’re in the same place.

they're foils.

—but the term "foils" is so dulled within fandom lexicon now that it can mean literally anything from two guys who just disagree with each other sometimes, so i'll sharpen this further. jounouchi and kaiba see their counterpart less as an individual person but more a representation of who they could have become if they had respectively, in their eyes, never learned the lessons they needed to. they project their own ideals onto the other and come away thinking they already know how the other operates, and the fun thing is, even when working from conjecture, their assumptions of one another happen to hit far closer to home than they have any right to.

so really, they can't leave each other alone because they can't stop seeing their failures reflected back at them. the other is a defective version of themselves that they need to correct because they can't stand constantly acknowledging who they used to be, so they try to bend the other to be more like their own image—an "i can fix him (by dragging him down to my level)".

⠀

jounouchi and kaiba’s parallels run down to their origins, both set up against abysmal family situations they have no choice but to make the best of. seto and mokuba are orphaned at a young age until seto gets them adopted, while katsuya is separated from his sister and stuck with a deadbeat father who can't carry his own weight. trapped in an environment where nobody expects anything worthwhile from him, katsuya joins a gang and lives out a self-admittedly miserable existence before befriending yugi, while seto is in a battlefield of his own, faced with protecting mokuba while enduring against the nightmare that is gozaburo kaiba’s parenting.

what they do to survive those conditions determines the outlooks they carry for the rest of their lives: jounouchi learns that losing is inescapable and the best you can do is learn how to cope with it, whereas kaiba learns that losing is something you must protect yourself from because there's only so much you can afford to lose.

jounouchi is positioned as the underdog, fighting tooth-and-nail for every victory he can manage, while kaiba has power in excess and holds to the belief that it’s all he really needs. one would argue that they have the perspective the other lacks—they argue that they have the perspective the other lacks. but in my opinion? it doesn't actually matter. what interests me is how they treat each other as a result.

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side: seto kaiba

kaiba degrades jounouchi a lot. like, to an uncomfortable extent. you know that one post that’s like “why does bullying exist? why are you mad that i’m ugly?” why is kaiba so mad over the fact that jounouchi loses so much?

it’s projection. he’s just holding jounouchi to the same standard he holds himself to. you need to be powerful if you want to play the same games as kaiba, and seeing jounouchi so openly lean on his friends, ask for help, and have the audacity to lose sets kaiba off because he’s not playing the way he’s supposed to. kaiba rubs jounouchi's losses in his face because he believes that's what loss is supposed to look like, and that it’s jounouchi’s fault for not understanding that yet. kaiba is trying to teach him. to kaiba, this degradation might as well be an act of generosity.

while kaiba stayed true to his own ambitions, seizing kaibacorp from gozaburo and turning it into a children's entertainment company, he beat gozaburo at his own game not by inventing new rules but by playing it better than his adoptive father ever could. and as impressive as that is, it’s not sustainable. gozaburo kills himself when faced with his own defeat, and kaiba internalizes this lesson: that all losses are final, and it’s better to die than adapt to the consequences of a defeat. gozaburo’s death was a suicide, but in the context of their game, kaiba might as well have killed him regardless.

he mirrors this when he threatens to kill himself in duelist kingdom, his heightened emotions catastrophizing losing the duel to immediately equal failing mokuba and coming to the conclusion that if he loses mokuba he’d rather be dead. being someone so fervently self-reliant, any alternate solution, a possibility that he can lose here and still find a different way to rescue mokuba never crosses his mind. and, look, this isn’t his fault. this is the only way of living he’s ever been taught. he’s never learned how to cope in the event of failure because he’s never had the luxury to fail to begin with.

he's burned and rebuilt himself over and over again to survive in the world he operates in, and that’s why jounouchi pisses kaiba off so personally. jounouchi loses so much and so messily, and kaiba tries to show him that if he doesn’t start reinventing himself from the broken pieces of his defeats until all that’s left of him are jagged edges the same way he has, he’s never going to win. but jounouchi…does win. and keeps winning. and even when he does lose, it’s as if he creates new victories for himself, like there’s still value to playing a game with someone when you don’t win it—power of friendship bullshit and whatever. jounouchi is still here, a competitor that kaiba can no longer write off as much as he desperately wants to. (and, yeah, it is pretty ironic how jounouchi will jump through a million hoops to get kaiba to look at him, but he doesn't realize that he doesn't need to do anything to keep kaiba’s attention, only continue being himself.)

jounouchi refuses to compromise who he is and still manages to get far when in kaiba’s mind, that shouldn’t be possible; he’s supposed to be punished the way kaiba was. jounouchi is proof that you can take a devastating blow and move on from it, that even when you do fuck up spectacularly, there’s still something worthwhile in starting again tomorrow.

so kaiba constantly needs to prove that he’s better than jounouchi, that jounouchi isn’t even worth his time in order to justify his worldview. because if kaiba isn’t right, then he'll have no choice but to confront the fact that the war is over. that his circumstances aren’t instant life or death anymore and that even though he’s freed himself from gozaburo’s influence, there’s still further growth as a person he could stand to undergo, now divorced from the harsh conditions of his upbringing. jounouchi is a testament to how it’s possible to make peace and move on from the past without constantly bleeding for closure, that maybe, kaiba’s headlong quest to get the last word on his rivalry with yami yugi may not actually be as fulfilling as he thinks.

but admitting that you might need to change the way you live feels like a defeat in and of itself—it’s infuriating to hear that after everything you’ve had to learn, the way you live now isn’t good enough. that surviving insurmountable trauma doesn’t inherently make you better or more worthy than other people—it just traumatizes you, and is something you must heal from. so, instead of reflecting on these revelations, it’s so much easier for kaiba to tell himself that jounouchi is only ever graceful when he’s dead.

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side: katsuya jounouchi

jounouchi is very stuck on this idea that he needs to be useful. his dad is an alcoholic with a gambling addiction and he believes it's not only his duty to pay his father's debts, but to be the household's sole source of income. his sister needs eye surgery and he believes it's his responsibility as an older brother not only to pay for it, but to act as her primary emotional support to get the surgery and throughout her recovery process. haga throws yugi's exodia into the ocean and jounouchi blames himself for not stopping it. jounouchi gets mind-controlled by malik and blames himself for causing his friends anguish from it. mai literally gets jounounchi’s soul stolen and he apologizes to her for messing up and making her sad. it's habitual, jounouchi doesn't know how to stop taking on the burdens of other people.

if you live with the mentality that you’re inevitably going to fail for long enough, you’ll come away with the belief that caring about your own wellbeing isn’t worth the effort. it depends on how pessimistic you want to read it, if it’s just his love language or jounouchi compensating for the damning act of being himself, but jounouchi quantifies his worth by how much he provides for other people. he’s always jumping in the line of fire for the sake of others because if you constantly undervalue your own wellbeing, you always have less to lose. as the underdog, he may not be as overtly powerful as kaiba or yugi, but he can still give himself away, and he’s convinced himself that it’s what he’s supposed to do. jounouchi is still new to this whole friendship thing. after a lifetime of supporting himself by himself, he doesn't know when he's allowed to ask for help yet—he’s supposed to be the help, dammit.

a key distinction between jounouchi and kaiba’s upbringings is that while kaiba’s biological parents died in an accident, jounouchi’s parents are still alive and they choose not to be responsible for him. jounouchi is conditioned to fend for himself by himself because having a parental figure actually present in his life isn’t a luxury he gets to have. to jounouchi, there has to be a reason why his mother only takes shizuka and never goes back for him in the six years he’s left with his father, and he rationalizes this with his notions of masculinity: he’s a strong man who can handle it. jounouchi is not delicate, he can endure it. men are responsible for their own circumstances. kaiba is hyperindependent out of a mixture of spite, paranoia, and self-defense. jounouchi is hyperindependent because he believes he deserves it. it’s the reason why he believes he’ll finally have a good relationship with his father if he just wins enough money to pay off his gambling debts—jounouchi can fix everything if only he were man enough to, and he can get people to stay if he demonstrates himself useful enough.

so death doesn’t carry nearly as much weight to jounouchi as it does to kaiba. in kaiba’s eyes, death is the punishment for failure, but to jounouchi, death is just the natural consequence for the kind of life he leads. he can't stop himself from fighting for the people he loves until he’s spent everything and forced to stop (read: dies), so during the several times jounouchi is confronted with his own death, he meets it with a solemn acceptance. like, yeah, it sucks, but he doesn’t regret the actions he took to end up here—he’d do it all over again, frankly. it’s better to die than not give everything he can, and at least he was able to give his life in service to someone else. it’s not necessarily good to die, but it doesn’t matter as much if he does.

so where kaiba is afraid of losing, jounouchi is afraid of outliving his usefulness (and being abandoned as a result), and kaiba disrupts jounouchi’s worldview specifically because he puts his ideology on the defensive. to jounouchi, kaiba’s presence never demands a question of “what can you do for me?” (nothing, kaiba doesn’t want jounouchi to do anything for him, and frankly, he’d be insulted if jounouchi even tried) but “what makes you worthy of standing on the same level as me?”, and jounouchi can’t sacrificial lamb get set on fire die a billion times into getting kaiba into seeing it his way (rather, that would only prove him right: kaiba would love nothing more than for jounouchi to lose the ability to fight and finally align with his preconceived notions of how the world works), and he can’t argue that his value is in how much he provides for others because that’s a non-answer. kaiba doesn’t care.

kaiba’s presence forces jounouchi into a position of self-reflection: jounouchi works so hard to preserve the friendships he’s created, but who is he—what does he value about himself in the absence of it? jounouchi needs to acknowledge something inherently valuable about himself if he wants to counter kaiba in any meaningful way, and it’s not like he doesn’t have valuable qualities either: he’s tenacious, he’s resourceful, he’s a quick learner—it takes intelligence to rank as high as he does in tournaments, but he undervalues all of it. these traits are all to be expected, they don’t actually count as extraordinary when it’s him. they’re only remarkable when they’re being applied to something greater. jounouchi believes he has the potential to become strong (and valuable by extension), only with the stipulation that he’s never actually there yet. he focuses too much on his inadequacies, constantly pontificating on how he needs to become a “true duelist”, but by the way he speaks about the title, the only way to be a true duelist is be named yugi muto, i guess.

so it’s very jounouchi-esque for him to miss this point with near deliberate precision and try to make himself useful to kaiba anyway. while kaiba is bent on seeing jounouchi fail to prove that his cynicism is superior to jounouchi’s altruism, the inverse is that jounouchi sees his old self in kaiba and he’s dying to teach kaiba a lesson. during battle for bronze, jounouchi states that they used to be the same, people who only relied on themselves and thought they’d be fine living like that. the argument jounouchi makes is that living that way is fucking miserable. he calls kaiba out: you’re supposed to be having fun. why are you playing duel monsters if you’re not having fun? he’s trying to show kaiba that he can be useful and teach kaiba things if kaiba would just let him, but for reasons mentioned in both of their sections, kaiba isn’t interested in being taught anything.

while less malicious in display, it's important to note that jounouchi’s method of trying to teach kaiba doesn't make him the better person here. jounouchi isn’t coming from a place of understanding when he lectures kaiba, he’s coming from a place of misdirected self-flagellation. and from kaiba's perspective, jounouchi is just dispensing unwarranted advice for the sake of his own ego. the most egregious example is when jounouchi picks a fight with kaiba in duelist kingdom, demanding they duel when kaiba is clearly not in the mood, busy with more pressing matters like, i don’t know, trying to rescue his abducted brother? so, okay, maybe a little bit inconsiderate on jounouchi’s part.

they're two ideological extremes: kaiba lashes out at the world while jounouchi gives himself to it, and jounouchi will keep barging in on kaiba with his life lessons because it’s the only way he wants to engage with kaiba’s arguments otherwise. jounouchi interprets kaiba’s rejection of his ideals as the equivalent of the stubbornness jounouchi had before befriending yugi, and he uses it as a reason to keep pushing, not understanding that while he may have found the most honorable path for himself, you can imagine how constantly burning yourself for others isn’t very…appealing. or sustainable. and that maybe it’s something you need to work on, actually.

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conclusion: how i WIN

what’s fun about jounouchi and kaiba is how wrong they are. they genuinely can't live the way the other demands them to, their respective environments won’t allow it. if jounouchi chased victory with the same cutthroat relentlessness as kaiba, he probably never would have left his gang. or, at least, he’d lose the selfless devotion and consideration he has for others, traits that helped him build his support system, and he never would have found the friendships he values in his life—his willingness to change and start again was how he was able to befriend yugi to begin with. (and if you wanted to get really extreme with hypotheticals, his self-destructive tendencies could have grown so severe in the absence of a support system that he probably would wind up getting himself killed somewhere. lol.) inversely, if kaiba granted himself the freedom to worry less about the outcome as long as he enjoyed himself, he’d put mokuba’s safety at constant risk. kaiba’s guarded nature isn’t without reason, there are powerful corporate executives who would love to see him fail, and there are very real consequences if kaiba slips up for even a second and gives his opposition any leeway. the way they live works for them because it’s theirs. it’s not so much that either of their lifestyles are in dire need of correction, but that the other represents the possibility that they could be living better.

and this is fantastic because it means that, despite what they think, neither of them are in the “wrong” and must learn to change their idiot ways or that the solution is to strong-arm each other into some kind of compromise. it’s a battle of perceived weakness. they need to, naturally and individually, accept that the traits they’ve always deemed immature and beneath them can be just as vital for survival, even when it’s not necessarily their own.

jounouchi and kaiba are essentially the most extreme example of two people who want what’s best for each other (gone wrong!) and puppyshipping is appealing because them getting together requires that they stop punishing themselves for who they used to be. they expect too much out of themselves and then inflict those demands onto each other, but if they’re not wrong for the ways they’ve overcome the circumstances they were left in, then it’s equally true that the ideals they abandoned to survive weren’t inherently naïve just because they weren’t given the space to utilize them. sometimes life will push you to your limits in the hope that you fail, and there’s no deeper meaning to it. it’s not life’s way of teaching you a necessary lesson to make you stronger or a test to see if you deserve to live, or that it’s your fault when it breaks you. sometimes there’s no great meaning to suffering. things happen, and you will adjust to it in order to live. when kaiba and jounouchi believe they know each other as much as they know themselves, pairing them is the hope that they’ll respect themselves enough to respect each other, that they’ll one day be able to embrace the parts of themselves they’re the most ashamed of.

(or, you know, for the alternative crowd, they most definitely can make each other worse.)

for two men who claim to be so self-assured in their own lifestyles, jounouchi and kaiba are fascinating because there’s so many layers of denial at play: the denial that they see anything in each other, denial that there may be aspects of the other that they’ve come to envy, denial that they even care, and it's so tempting to imagine if all of it was forced open. jounouchi and kaiba choose to maintain this delicate equilibrium where they never actually confront anything because the idea of admitting vulnerability viscerally disgusts them, and it begs what would happen if the balance irrevocably tipped for once. watching them is like watching a pencil teetering on the edge of a desk, always this close to some kind of breakthrough. i won’t even lie to you puppyshipping pisses me off half the time because i just want to shake them around until something metaphorically breaks.

kaiba and jounouchi never let each other become complacent in their pasts: whenever their personal tragedies and childhoods are brought up in the context of one another, it’s never because they are being vindicated for continuing to dwell in them, but because they are being contested on how much the mindsets they’ve carried over from their pasts should be allowed to determine their futures.

returning to canon, kaijou operates through the language of competition. jounouchi tries to prove himself as a competitor so remarkable that kaiba can no longer deny him, while kaiba already knows he’s remarkable, and that is precisely why acknowledging it pisses him off so much. so they’ll play their game: jounouchi will provoke kaiba into fighting him because he enjoys going up against challenging opponents in the hopes of becoming stronger, whereas kaiba keeps trying to set up situations where jounouchi will lose to the point of letting him die because he wants so badly to believe that losing does equal death and jounouchi’s existence is the most inconvenient counterargument of all. and obviously, jounouchi keeps not dying. and it's endlessly infuriating—almost slapstick at this point, that much to kaiba's frustration, no matter what he does, he can never make jounouchi submit for very long.

jounouchi and kaiba spur each other on to a ridiculous extent: kaiba enjoys pushing jounouchi past the breaking point, whereas jounouchi enjoys getting pushed to his limits to test his own capabilities. whether that’s necessarily a good thing though is…well…hmm. anyways.

their dynamic is the type of messiness only two prideful high schoolers can get up to. maybe it’s just kaiba's repression and jounouchi's recklessness, but there is a fascination with each other that they’re incapable of leaving alone. there’s intimacy in knowing someone so well and fearing that fact, but kaiba and jounouchi never respond to this fear by avoiding it—they’re engaging with it time and time again. they infuriate each other with a passion that never sits still. kaiba and jounouchi seek a validation from their counterpart while simultaneously denying each other from it, and it’s mean, but invigoratingly so.

at some point, it’s not even about wanting validation anymore, but point-blank wanting its keeper by any capacity: wanting a visible reaction to their effort as proof of reciprocation, proof that says “i’ve finally affected you just as much as you affect me.” because kaiba and jounouchi want to leave a mark on each other, they want their counterpart to fully understand how much they’ve affected them, and they want to witness that reaction themselves. it’s no longer this big, nebulous ideological debate with a reflection: the pull between them is made both physical and personal. so, like, not to go the trite route of arguing that two men who can’t stand each other were ~secretly attracted to each other this whole time~, but how else are you supposed to word this?

in some hypothetical universe where they do come together, even the ways they love manage to compliment each other in its own clumsy way. seto kaiba never does anything in moderation: if he hates something he will destroy it, if he loves something he will possess it, and if he is obsessed with something, he will single-mindedly pursue it at the expense of everything else. his repression manifests itself in a passion so pressurized it’s all-consuming against everything it comes to contact with. inversely, katsuya jounouchi loves freely and transparently: showing affection comes as naturally as breathing to him. he embodies the belief that love is not only about the grand gestures, but the day-to-day acts of warmth and casual acknowledgments that it's there. a man who wants to be wanted by someone so badly it aches paired with someone who makes no reservations as to what he's committed to, capable of a love so overwhelmingly insatiable that it is neither fickle nor delicate, and a man who finds the act of trusting others with his affection so unthinkably humiliating that he’s convinced himself it’s something beneath him paired with someone who makes it look infuriatingly easy. they are going to invent a new language to love each other with. i believe in them. i would not write two separate essays titled “here’s how puppyshipping can still win” if i did not believe in them.

ultimately, it feels cheap to build kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship off what life lessons they could "teach" each other reformation-style when they already have a legitimate dynamic in play. they can be good for each other, or they can tear into each other in ways they’d never expect to be capable of. there’s something exhilarating in knowing there’s someone who has that kind of power and wanting to keep them within your reach, a buzzing excitement in knowing someone who can not only withstand you at your worst, but fight back at you with twice as much vigor. sure, there’s potential for growth here, but that’s because there’s potential for literally anything.

kaiba and jounouchi inspire reinvention and self-determination from each other at the best of times and enable each other’s most self-destructive tendencies at their worst. so i think. puppyshipping is the most fun. when you ship them the same way you leave a fork in the microwave to watch it explode. the end.

TL;DR: me x the guy who keeps breaking my worldview and forces me to reevaluate myself every time i see him which i hate so much that i just want him to DIE

#puppyshipping #violetshipping #seto kaiba #joey wheeler #ship analysis #character study #not intended to convince anyone of anything this was a silly project to do on the side for MEEE #also i genuinely dont think any of the points i make are new #in my quest to be as holistic as possible and read every puppyshipping-adjacent meta analysis i could get my hands on #defense essays. criticism. livejournal blogposts #ive found several times that every point i make has already been made before in some kaijou 200k longfic posted in like 2011 #so if this essay is for ANYONE who isnt me.#its for the kaijou fic authors who have put in the work. god's strongest soldiers etc etc #actually. might reblog with an actual afterword citing my favorite ygo analysis i read in prep for this lol #i allude to a few of them in certain sections but i think youd have to be REALLY chronically online to notice #(coughing)#anyways special thanks to the friends who kindly beta read a document titled 'YAOI THESIS FINAL.docx'#fer + voski + cherry + sully + eric + cleo + gabby + chris + clover + vio #dear god i have inflicted this essay onto so many people #i love you.#you have enabled me and now we're all paying the price #yugioh

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boyfridged · 2 days

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in your fic “paint it over” is that how you imagine jason making it out of the explosion at the end of utrh? not exactly the events that follow, but the preferable characterization of bruce digging jay out of the rubble and carrying him to help. and how do you think jason made it out canonically (without the help of bruce) also!!! what are your thoughts on the specifics of jason’s scar and how he’d behave toward it. i liked the part of your fic where jason was temporarily unable to speak due to the trauma his neck received. i think the scar is something that rests on the junction of his shoulder/neck, and that can be hidden with whatever clothes he wears -> no one knows he has it (or how he got it) either. i like to imagine while bruce knows his batarang made contact with jason’s throat it’s never fully registered to him that it scarred until he sees it for himself (and while i believe bruce would turn the moment in head over and over again until it’s engraved in his brain, his delayed realization—to me—is due to his repression of the occurrence)

oh i adore this whole ask. some of it i explained in my notes, but this fanfic is quite dear to me, so i will elaborate.

short answer to whether this is how i imagine jay making it out of the explosion: not exactly?

the premise that i wanted to explore with paint it over is almost the opposite of a fix-it, and definitely not what i believe it should be in canon.

what i wished to explore there is, however, the part of utrh that is perhaps the most shocking to many readers: that bruce leaves jason to die.

in-universe, i think the answer why it happens is surprisingly simple enough: bruce does not come because he is just... not there. my understanding is, that in a way, the events of under the red hood did not happen. there is nothing to follow. that purple mist in the finale of the utrh, that is often read as a force resurrecting jason (not technically wrong, either)- i believe that is the timeline already rewriting itself, making the whole story into something that was not.

and the reason for the above is the infinite crisis. if i'm not wrong, it's also the inifinite crisis miniseries where bruce meets dick right after the explosions in (or of) bludhaven-- that in batman clearly happens in the background of his confrontation with jay. however, in infinite crisis (#4, just checked it now), bruce tells dick: "i wanted to make sure...you're alright... i was in new york when it hit. got here as soon as i could." which could be a lie or a matter of the editorial not being synced enough- but i'm willing to give them a benefit of the doubt given how it ties with that sudden, stunted ending of utrh.

this makes sense for canon for several reasons. in the animated movie, since it spares us the infinite crisis tie-in, bruce says of the whole incident: this changes nothing. it changes nothing because although aditf isn't, utrh is a tragedy; it changes nothing because since his death, jason is necessarily always pushed at the peripheries of the narrative, no matter how much the fate itself tries to fix it, becoming a tragic footnote. the dead have one right and it's the right to remain silent. and that is ironically ensured on a cosmic level, with his violent attempt at being seen hidden in the folds of the timeline. you can also see it clearly in canon -- i believe it was not until the infinite frontier that the events of utrh got just tangentially mentioned (before that, even lobdell barely touched upon it). other than that, they have no consequences; they are barely ever spoken of; they seem to slip out even from jay's solo comics.

this move was necessary for batman, as a character and as a title: let's say bruce does hold red hood as he does in the alt cover of annual 25 (and the cover of the deluxe edition of utrh.) that would implore a reckoning with his failure and his (suddenly non-productive) grief that would either reconstruct the whole myth or lead to some terrifying implications. these terrifying implications are, essentially, what paint it over is about. it's about the worst happening and about there being no way back from it. and jason, in receiving what he wanted (his father's love and care) wants to deny that reality. they both want to. yet even jay cannot ignore it completely -- and i chose to use the batarang injury to emphasize it.

and about the scar: i mentioned it briefly before, but in the au jason aggravates the wounds on purpose, hence it will scar worse and cause long-term issues for his voice. it's a theme i also keep in some of my other stories (to come...) and i very much think this is what would happen in canon if he had to take care of that injury. yet as it healed, i believe he'd take to hiding it, mostly. still, as it stands, my primary take might be that in canon (if it was to follow the interference into the timeline from the crisis at least) jason would simply end up with no scar at all, and only memories for evidence of what happened, which is perhaps worse for him too (but of course better for bruce. and as it happens, this is bruce wayne's story and everyone else is just living in it- or dies in it- for better or worse. and if we're ignoring that metaphysical timeline bullshit, as you said, i believe bruce would repress it all anyway.)

#this is probably a mess but it's 3am and i should go to sleep so #sorry if it does not make sense/i did not properly reply to everything. i might follow up...#and i'm very curious if you have any more thoughts on jay's scar!!#+ most importantly <3 thank you for reading my work. this makes me so happy.#outbox #yutro writes #btw. i had another post in which i said that i consider what was said in annual 25 about jay's initial resurrection being an attempt ->#of “fate” to fix things to be central to my view on canon. i guess in that case the utrh becoming half erased is another attempt at it ->#when universe loves you so much it rids of the evidence of your trauma...#also i forgot to mention. i am very much for jay's storyline challenging the status quo of batman as a title #-> but that would make him literally the main character<3 and i don't think most people are ready for it or want it

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silentiumdelirium · 3 months

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Part 1 | Part 2

***

It‘s Dustin. Of course it is. This kid has been cockblocking him since he met him. Although Dustin hadn‘t really cockedblocked him right now had he? I mean Steve didn‘t want to go any further with Eddie, the kiss was just an experiment right? And well the feeling he just had was proof to his theorey, that it doesn‘t matter who‘s gender it is, kissing is kissing. And Steve likes kissing so of course it also felt good with Eddie. He apparently also likes when someone grabs his ass which he hadn‘t know until yet. No girl has ever done that. Also if Dustins knocking hadn‘t interrupted him he would‘ve kept kissing Eddie. But that doesn‘t mean anything it just proofs that Eddie is a good kisser and his mouth is like any mouth right? Oh god why has Steve done this? He feels like he hadn‘t proofed anything to Robin but maybe she has to him?

‚Steve?‘ He lifts his head from his hand and looks up to see Dustin‘s excited face. ‚Oh my god you guys keep hanging out without me! I told you you have to invite me next time‘ Dustin screams and Steve rolls his eyes. He has been a bit clingy since the whole upside down thing happenend again which is probably fair because Eddie almost died in his arms.

‚Nightmare 3 is finally out on video so we‘re gonna make a horror movie night! And i‘m just here to invite Eddie and oh Steve can we use your house? You‘re obviously also invited!‘

‚Oh thank you what an honor to be invited to a movie night which also happens at my house. I guess I also have to provide the movies since I work at the video store?‘

‚Yes exactly thank you‘ Dustins grins ignoring Steve‘s sarcastic tone.

Eddie grins as well. ‚well thank you for inviting me kid! I would be honored to join.‘

Steve rolls his eyes and puts his hand to his hips in the typical babysitter (or mum like Max always says) way.

‚But I‘m not gonna give them to you if they‘re too dark okay? You lot already have enough stuff to fill your nightmares with we don‘t have to add more!‘

Dustin groans and says: ,Relax Steve it‘s not that dark it‘s funny and we‘re sixteen now so we are legally allowed to watch it!‘

Right Steve forgot that they are already fucking sixteen now! Soon they‘re gonna go to party, drink, smoke weed…wait maybe they already doing that? Oh my god what if Eddie and the whole hellfire club is bad influence? I mean Eddie sells drugs so what if he also solds to Dustin and the others? He had to ask Eddie as soon as they were alone again. But as long as they are doing stuff at Steve‘s house he could at least watch them not do anything too stupid.

‚Alright alright you can do your stupid horrormovie night at my house but you have to provide the snacks and everything, I will only provide the videos.‘

‚Yes!‘ Dustins screams triumphant and high fives Eddie. ‚Can you also drive me to Mike now Steve? I mean you have to drive to work anyway right?‘ Dustin asks and Steve looks at his watch. Right work he had to go now so he wouldn‘t be late. He sighs ‚Jesus alright but hurry up don‘t want to be late again!‘ Dustin is already half out the door when Steve looks to Eddie who is standing at the kitchen counter again. Right where they were kissing just minutes ago. ‚Right so I see you tomorrow?‘ Steve asks suddenly very uncomfortable with the whole sitaution. Eddie smiles nervously and avoids looking at him. ‚Sure man see ya.‘ Steve grabs his jackets and moves to the door with one final glance to Eddie who is fidgeting with his rings. Steve tries not to think about how those hands with the rings had felt on his ass and quickly leaves out the door. He definitely has to discuss what just happenend with Robin!

***

Yay managed to write a next part so now you know who‘s at the door @stevesbipanic also you‘re username fits very well here because Steve Bi panic is incoming!!!

#steddie ficlet #steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #dustin henderson #robin buckley #okay I really have to think of a title for this fic #but I‘m bad with titles #if you have suggestions #tell me please!#also again sorry for any mistakes!#im writing this in one go and don‘t really proof read it #because then I would question myself too much if it‘s good enough to post #my writing

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thedevillionaire · 4 months

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Hi, I hope this is all right asking like this. I found your blog and fics recently and they're amazing, I love them. I was wondering, do you have a meet cute for Ceberus and Kia, and if you don't is that something you would maybe consider writing some time? Thank you!

Hey, anon, and thank you back for the lovely compliment! ❤️ So...I do have a meet cute - well, a meet, anyway; you get to decide whether it's cute or not, I guess 😅 - but it's vanilla, I'm afraid. This is not the first time I've been asked about how they met, though, so I'm finally activating the "vanilla fic holding place" sideblog I've thought about activating for, uh...quite a while. Anyhow, if you've got any interest in that at all, I actually have a whole series of this stuff and if you still want to check it out you can find the fic of first time they meet here.

#i'm not going to use this sideblog for anything other than a place to put vanilla fics #i'm not after a wider non-snz audience for this #but anyway if you'd like to take a further step into my ridiculous world i'd be fucking honoured and delighted #the crimson charisma is the 'official' title of my supernatural soap opera #not that it matters really because it's not a proper novel or anything and is almost certainly never going to be one #but it has a name nonetheless so...there it is #A few of you have read this already and I love every single one of you 💗💗💗#i'll put links to any further vanilla postings in my masterlist and make a post about it being there #so i'll just post on the sideblog and post directions to it here #because i have more of this stuff but i don't want to post a bunch of vanilla stuff on snzblr #also not that it's likely but please don't reblog the vanilla stuff outside of snzblr #not snz

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iamyounicorn · 10 days

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actually I will say this. it fucking SUCKS that the devil to pay in the backlands only ever got the one very mediocre translation. it's a really good book, and a big part of why it was so groundbreaking is that it's written like the main character (a now old "cowboy") is talking to you, with all the slang and the colloquialism and even the made up words. and then this translation just fucking. NOT does that???

for example the very first word in the book is "nonada", a made up word meant as a mash of "não é nada" (it's nothing) all into one word. in the very first word you can see that this is a guy with a strong accent and very little formality in how he speaks to the listener/reader. in the translation, it's just "it's nothing". no localization, no informality, no effort in translating the experience. sure you got the literal meaning translated right, but you threw away an entire side of the narrator's characterization!!

also it literally skipped a sentence where the narrator says he thought about holding and kissing his (guy) best friend when they were arguing. mediocre AND homophobic

#(disclaimer to any brazilians who find this post: eu não sou gringo eu só posto em inglês)#youni originals #the devil to pay in the backlands #grande sertão veredas #fuckit tagging the original title as well. who care #i have NOT read the entire translation I only read the bits I want to see if I can post. and man. why is it so bad!!#i'm glad they didn't do the shitty bad phonetic spelling books n posts do to indicate a cowboy accent. but fuck man #you could've at least tried. even 'it ain't nothing' would've been better than just plain fucking 'it's nothing'

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littlekingbergara · 7 months

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just learned that Steven Lim is CEO - which explains why he’s been mostly behind the camera. Shane is CCO, and Ryan isn’t in any technical leadership role beyond co-founder. hoping this isn’t reason for concern

yeah steven's busy behind the scenes! he handles most of the financial stuff too i believe. he's on camera when he wants to be but he's also said it's really time consuming when he could be doing other things. i'm glad we'll be seeing more of him soon though!

not sure why that would be cause for concern. ryan's still a co-founder and the creator and face of their most popular shows. he's not going anywhere. and iirc he hated being a manager at buzzfeed so he probably didn't want to take on a managerial role at his own company.

#anon #ahtw #💌#ryan could also have a c role that isn't in the description you read.#im really stuck on the last part. what are you implying?? he's not leaving 😭 he put like everything he has into watcher.#also aren't the try guys all co-ceos? they're on camera plenty. i don't know that the title has tons to do with it.#anyway i'm not pretending to know what goes on in the c-suite at watcher or any company.

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kalaidosnail · 1 year

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When they were 8 years old, Jonathan Sims watched one of their bullies die at the hands of the Leitner known as Mr. Spider. They found themselves unable to share their experience with his grandmother, instead delving into whatever books he could find to soothe their mind. This led them down a path which eventually found them with a small notebook in his hands, scribbling down notes as he scrambled through abandoned buildings, poking Artifacts with sticks. After being saved once or twice by a disgruntled Gertrude Robinson, they continued to investigate, becoming a sort of ward of many of the Avatars of London. He observed the process of skin burning on many afternoons spent with Jude Perry, trembling but ultimately standing still, wide eyed, drinking it all in. They learned how to spin a baton and balance on a tightrope while Nikola Orsinov clapped delightedly at his efforts. Annabelle Cain herself helped him find closure and peace after they confided in her what had happened with the Leitner. Many others would ask after his well-being, sending them birthday gifts and dropping by with treats the one time they became sick with the flu. Gertrude, reluctant as she was to let a child be claimed by a Fear, helped him forge a connection to the Eye, and taught them how to hide from James Wright, then from Elias Bouchard. Now, they have found a position as her replacement, the Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.

How will they manage to handle their grief for Gertrude, evade Bouchard’s schemes, diffuse political tensions between the Avatars, and wrangle their trio of disconcertingly attractive and devastatingly mischievous assistants?

Well, for once in his life, he really just doesn’t Know. Should be interesting, at least.

In other words, I've decided to do a chatfic. Kinda. Jon knows how to use a phone, that's it that's the premise.

#polyarchives #tma #jonathan sims #the magnus archives #also im titleing it using tom cardys mixed messages #also i dont care if this doesnt make sense fuck you theyre friends #but also #crack treated seriously is my favorite genre #this is so serious #rip to anyone who knows anything about any other wip ive alluded to or said i would work on #but #ive been having a Day alright #my brain tends to take on the thinking that fits whatever im reading or watching #and ive been watching hannibal while reading john dies at the end #so go ahead and imagine the gorey cannaballistic completely detached from real life circumstance hellscape my brain looks like right now #dunk that in glowstick fluid #then tell it to fight for its life with the nails on its hands and the teeth in its mouth #and leave it alone in a house for three days with a grade determining paper due in a few days #also another thing is going on but yall dont need to hear about that #im not sorry #psa if a teacher asks if you want to do a competition to demonstrate natural selection #they probably dont intend for you to fight your classmates hand to hand no holds barred #and you should not begin mentally preparing to keep getting back up no matter how much it hurts #but i did a great job at fishing for junk food with a makeshift lasso made of old coats and i have a pack of doublestuff oreos now #and its all mine #so get fucked kyle

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national-hockey-lesbian · 9 months

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do you have any poetry collection recommendations/poet recommendations in general just to like Read?

boy do i ever!!!

okay i have two all time top favorite poets (not ranked in a particular order):

1. Louise Glück: There was actually an anthology published of all the books so published from the start of her career to 2012.

(Poems 1962-2012 is 600+ pages of incredible poetry and relatively cheap, especially for its size and considering poetry tends to cost more than fiction books)

Glück’s poetry is actually the reason I started reading more poetry in the first place. She writes both long form and short form poetry (with her more recent working being longer than a lot of her previous poems), and her language level tends to be pretty accessible.

She writes about hundreds of different topics, but reading from the anthology you get a large mix of themes about motherhood, love, and nature and she also has collections that focus on greek mythology as well as jewish religion.

She has won a Nobel Prize for her poetry, which I consider to be a pretty good way to gauge the caliber of her work!

Highly, highly recommend her work!!

2. Ocean Vuong.

I’ve read his three most recent works: Night Sky With Exit Wounds, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and Time is a Mother.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is actually a novel rather than a poetry collection but it reads a lot like poetry and I consider it to be an must-read.

A lot of his works center around his his experience as a queer, Vietnamese American and his relationship with his own intrapersonal identity as well as with his mother. I cant think of a single poem of his that isn’t absolutely incredible, and I think if you’re going to talk about the best poets of our age he’s a crucial mention.

I highly recommend reading his works in publishing order (which is the way I listed them above). His poetry is genuinely life-changing and I cannot stress how much I recommend his writing.

Outside of my two favorite authors I also recommend:

–Amanda Gorman, who is the youngest inaugural poet in U. S. history and is shaping the voice of modern poetry.

You can watch her recite her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb” here!

She also has published a collection of her poetry, Call Us What We Carry, which I read all in the same day I bought it because it’s brilliant and captivating.

—The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, which is a fiction novel but the main character narrates the story through her own poetry, making it a poetry collection and a novel all in one. I read this for the first time when I was 13 and I pick it up again every single year.

(I do also highly recommend looking up trigger warnings for this book before you read it, because there are a couple scenes that can be intense!)

—The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi. It’s likely you’re familiar with this quote from it (which i see circulating tumblr and pinterest all the time):

“Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in.

I want an excuse to change my life.”

And I can guarantee the rest of this poetry collection is just as poignant and beautiful! Highly recommend, 10/10 stars always.

—Pablo Neruda is also one of my favorite poets! I own a large collection of his poetry, The Poems of Pablo Neruda, which places the original poem, written in Spanish, next to the English translation, which I enjoy a lot. He also has a lot of well-known quotes that float around tumblr a lot, so that sense of familiarity can be fun, especially when you’re not expecting it!

Hope you enjoy these recommendations!

#this is actually a funny request right now because whenever i recommend poetry i go through my own personal book collection #and i’m moving to college in less than a week (and flying with a limited amount of bag) so a lot of my favorite books are going #to be left behind and every single book on this list owns a well loved place in my collection #so i have DECISIONS to make #especially because i can’t guarantee that what i leave behind will ever come back into my possession #but anyways!! i am always down to discuss poetry #my sister also just gifted me a collection of all the poems she’s ever written and i wish i could just telepathically communicate it to you #but alas she has not yet taken my advice to publish any of her poetry anywhere😔 (except for in my personal library ofc)#i also donated a lot of my books recently and there was a really good poetry book in there i can’t remember the title or author of😭😭#ask #poetry #recs #me re-reading this list realizing how american it is clearly i have a bias

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jamiesfootball · 10 months

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I feel greedy asking for more when you’ve already posted so many snippets, but if you’re okay with it…🌧️

🌧��Share something angsty from your WIP.

The pasta hit the water with a satisfying sizzle. Even though it'd been two years since Roy had been personally victimized by a meal plan, the novelty of eating pasta was one he'd learned to treasure. He turned down the heat. As the bubbles dispersed, the sound of Jamie's voice again picked up from the living room, where from the sound of it Matilda's parents owned quite a nice house. Roy snorted as Jamie pitched his voice higher. He was really going for it now, trying to sell the dialogue of the little girl and landing somewhere in the vicinity of Rebecca Welton with a sore throat: "'I don't see how sawdust can help you to sell second-hand cars, Daddy.'" The next voice was gruff, sloped lower as if it were stolen from Roy's own vocal chords, "'That's because-'" The voice ground to a halt. Roy opened his eyes curiously. Before him, the water simmered in a contented roil. From the living room, the rustling of someone adjusting themselves on the couch. Jamie cleared his throat, and it was uncomfortable, strangled sound. "You alright there, Phoebe?" "I'm fine," Phoebe answered. A question mark lingered under her words. "We can keep going." "Right. Right," Jamie agreed. He cleared his throat again. Coughed. When he picked back up, his voice was flat and matter-of-fact: "'That's because you're an ignorant little twit.'" He stopped again, or Roy thought he did. It was hard to tell over the sudden ringing in his ears. "Matilda's dad's a bit of a prick, ain't he, Phoebe?" "He's awful," Phoebe agreed eagerly. "Didn't you see the movie?"

#ask box #ask game #[redacted title] post season three fic #boy howdy do things um. get worse #get worse while getting better?#i'm quite excited with the amount of unofficial book club going on in this fic #because that is certainly a Topic #how the Richmond coaching staff is primarily made up of people who are big into books (albeit in different ways)#and how that comes across to the players on the team - for better and worse #and so you have someone like Jamie who is eager to please and twisting himself in knots trying to read a book Ted gave him *three years ago #which isn't the densest book but isn't light by any means #and jamie does not like being bad at things he reacts poorly he lashes out he turns into a massive twit #(our boy has issues)#meanwhile Roy is sitting there. with his Ted-recommended kids book.#wondering how it is that he's taken up the responsibility of fixing this #roy kent #jamie tartt #phoebe kent #ted lasso fic

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