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bisexual-book-worm · 1 year

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One Last Stop by Casey Mcquiston

Summary: (via goodreads)

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

Rating: 5/5

Hours spent listening: 13 hours, 36 minutes

Finished reading on: November 7th, 2022

Thoughts: I love love loved this book! Casey is so brilliant and such a masterful writer. I will never stop reading her books. I loved August and Jane's love story so much, but I ADORED the whole cast of characters in this book as well! All of August's friends are so lovely, and exactly the sort of queer friendship circle I wish I had! So many times I wished I could jump in the book and hangout at Pancake Billy's with August, Jane, and the whole gang. You will not regret reading this very fun sapphic contemporary romcom! It'll make you feel a lot of emotions too, with Jane's backstory and the things she lived through in the 1970s.

#one last stop #novel #audiobook #november 2022 #review #book review #2022 #2022 books #2022 reads

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heartyearning · 9 months

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has anyone here read hawk mountain by conner habib? i really didnt like it but i cant figure out if its just due to the narration

#its narrated by the author who apparently is a podcast host which is wild to me #because theres a lot of like. stops in the middle of sentences.#im usually a bit against letting authors narrate their own books anyway just because even neil gaiman is a good speaker #but narration is a craft (to give him his due neil gaiman does tend to do alright)#then again what i do enjoy about author narrated audiobooks is that they know exactly how to bring the text #but that wasnt the case in this one i feel like there was this one part where he was speaking a sentence that continued on a following page #and like. thought it was going one way and then flipped the page and had to tack on that last word that didnt fit the rhythm of his speech #either way that shouldve been a retake but no i didnt like it i also frankly thought this book said nothing and did nothing and was overly #repetitive and flowery in a way that grated in a way that didnt match the tone #like i like larocca's books because they are SO saccharine and grating but it fits with the obsessive quality of his characters #this was like... idk. i also didnt get a read on todd at all #i say this cause i was gonna say 'this was like the most dry dad-character in the world but then his musings are so flowery'#but like i dont even know if thats true #idk. let me know if you read this i'd love to hear some other thoughts !!! goodreads is goodreads so yk #recently read

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applejuicebegood · 1 month

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The Softest of Jason Todd HCs

Fem!Reader A/N: Some of these were originally conceived for the lovely, talented, wonderful @midnightorchids. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FALLOW HER RIGHT NOW

Masterlist

Jason fell for you slowly. It was the kinda falling that took on the form of severe distraction and confusion during his patrol time. The only spot in his second life he had crafted into hours of precise control and expectancy. He hated how, as he was clicking a mag into his handgun, his mind would flash to your smiling, blushed face. He hated how you would unintentionally make him trip and stumble over the roof-tops of Gotham. He hated how recalling the chime of your laugh made his hands sweaty under his leather gloves. He hated how he had to take off his helmet in the seclusion of an abandoned wear-house because recalling how his hand slipped in to your on your last date made his face heat up to the point where he felt like he would pass out.

Once he realised that the nervous pounding in his gut whenever your shoulders brushed was in-fact caused from a growing crush on you, he panicked. The eventual confession was awkward and stumbled, him making it clear that he needed time and room to figure it out. He took your smaller hands into his, promising that no matter what, for now he would figure it out with you at his side. Of course you agreed, squeezing his hands in confirmation.

Ya'll are soulmates, period. Very big 'he is half of my soul' energy. Your bodies fit together like puzzle pieces. Your words have already been said by the other before you can string them together in your head. You share in each-others grief and rage. Five years into the relationship, Jason knew you so well (and being raised in a family of detectives) that you would never have to explain your frustration or annoyance - and on days like that he would always be ready to wrap you up in a weighted blanket, forcing a cup of raspberry tea into your cold hands and his headphones over your ears with one of his audiobooks already playing. Carrying you to your shared bed for you to fall asleep leaned up against his chest, his thick arms wrapped tightly around you.

Despite his availability of wealth and status, he keeps your date-night very low-key and personal. On his off days from Red-Hooding, both of you would have cooking nights. Where you would sway and giggle with the slow drift of music coming from the kitchen radio. You would make something hearty and filling. You wanting to see Jason sigh in the comfort of good food. You both would curl up with your steaming bowls on your couch, probably watching Tangled (at your request). It's all extremely cozy, Jason smiling into your skin as gratitude blooms in his chest for you. For having created this safe, hidden expanse of reassurance. All while the harsh Gotham wind whipped just outside your window.

This man is smitten- he worships you entirely. His is in awe of you, even as both of you grow old, his love and his care for you never relents or dwindles.

Ya'll would go to museums and art galleries and he would point at statues and paintings of goddess and queens and say 'you', under his breath. It's so horribly corny but it makes you hold his arm just a bit tighter every time.

After you both moved in together, he developed a habit of making your coffee alongside his and bringing it to you in bed in the mornings. This eventually just became your routine on weekends when you both had enough time to bask in the slow creeping of sunlight over each-others skin.

He's a romantic at heart, a part of him you had to slowly unearth under years of torment and blood. You were the one to force him out of his cave of isolation and into the reality of him deserving softness and joy. It's a dept you have assured him he doesn't need to pay back. That doesn't stop him from trying.

Giggles and smiles like a little boy if you kiss his forehead, specifically at the roots of his white streak. You think it's one of the prettiest things about him.

Unintentional scary dog when you guys are out together. He's got his hand laced with yours or floating somewhere on your hip or lower back. It's mostly due to his anxiety, constantly having his head on a swivel. It's all heightened due to the fact that he has the most precious, important individual standing next to him. Whether it's at one of his Dad's galla's or trips to the local library, he likes to have you near him.

Bitch has multiple playlists made about/for you (a lot of Noah Kahn and TV Girl)

Example:

A/N: I may be gay but I have a very special place for sappy Jason in my heart. Please send in any requests regarding our boy (or any of the bat boys or girls)- I really love writing for the people in this fandom.

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emotionalsupportdman · 5 months

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listening to the one last stop audiobook while i tear apart my room looking for my portable dvd player while i pack for the long weekend

#adhd babey #i found the box for the dvd player but NOT the ACTUAL dvd player!!!!!#one last stop #one last stop casey mcquiston #one last stop audiobook #wtf dima

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nanamis-princess · 18 days

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✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

Your their passenger princess

Synopsis: just head canons about being their passenger princess:)

Genre: fluff

T/w: mentions of shoko smoking, bad driving lol, possibly oc geto? And misspellings

Nanami, gojo, geto, shoko, megumi, yuji & nobara (separately) X reader

Nanami

-he always has his free hand on your thigh or holding your hand. His thumb brushes over your thigh/thumb gently but if it annoys you he stops.

-steals glances at you while at red lights, giving you a soft smile as the light turns green

-he cant help but laugh if you guys miss an exit because you thought it was a bit further down.

-he doesn’t mind listening to what you pick, he’s kinda the type to listen to a podcast while driving tho. Or an audiobook.

-when you type in the location in his maps you see his favorite places saved. Your favorite stores & restaurants are saved, along with his favorite bakery ofc.

-he’s a very safe driver but you can’t tell me his not putting across you if the car has to come to a abrupt stop.

-he has beach scented air fresheners in his car.

-has a photo of you at the beach holding up a seashell, clipped to a photo of Haibara in his visor.

-keeps mints/ gum in his car at all times along with a lint roller (he’s a cat dad)

Gojo

-his free hand is always on your thigh

-asks you to feed him while he’s driving, he accidentally bit your finger before and offered to kiss it to make it feel better.

-he’s a safe driver for the most part but he has his moments. He’s like a 100% positive there was never a stop sign there.

-he misses his exits a lot. Like a lot, a lot.

-his car smells like his cologne.

-has an extra pair of his iconic glasses on his visor along with a photo of you and Megumi sitting at his favorite ice cream spot.

-likes driving to beautiful nature areas with you after making a snack run.

-needs music on at all times, he requests song but then just ends up making a bunch of playlist for you guys. But don’t worry you are still his DJ.

-always has a hoodie or jacket in his backseat that you probably end up stealing.

Geto

-always holds your hand while driving, he also brings your hand up to his lips and places a soft kiss.

-his car smells like black cherry and his windows are tinted.

-a decent driver but does speed, not always while your in the car tho. Unless you like that kinda thing;)

-has a necklace of yours around his rear view mirror that you gave him

-loves doing those cute fast food date ideas where you pick the appetizer, he picks the main meal and you pick the dessert.

-likes to make out with you at red lights until it turns green and gets honked at.

-while he lets you pick the music you find a playlist with your name as the title its songs that remind him of you. He has another one of music you’ve played before.

-has a case of water on the floor in the backseat along with a blanket.

Yuji

-he most likely keeps his hands on the wheel or tweaking with something as he drives but likes holding your hand while driving. Sometimes puts his hand on your thigh.

-always has your favorite candy or gum in his glove compartment.

-requests like two different songs at once but tells you which order to play them in. “They just pair together well” he laughs as you type all that in.

-like Gojo always has a hoodie in his backseat along with a pair of sneakers and a water bottle he forgets about.

-also has random papers in the backseat that he keeps forgetting to look at

-he’s also a decent driver, but when your in the car he’s more aware. Not that he’s less likely to be careful but the last thing he wants his to hurt you or someone else.

-has a group photo of you, him, Nobara and Megumi in his visor.

-his car keys have a matching keychain that he shares with you.

Megumi

-it’s a small gesture but he loves holding your hand while he’s driving. Gives it a gentle little squeeze from time to time along with a kiss on the back of your hand.

-has LED lights at the bottom of the car that he keeps red for most of the time but lets you change the color.

-before dating you he didn’t really use air fresheners but he found one that reminded him of your perfume/cologne.

-gives you full control of the music

-relies on your directions more than the map because up he always misses the exit.

-there is a little dog hair in his backseat that he tries his best to get out lol, he didn’t keep a hoodie or blanket back there until he started dating you.

-has a car charm with your first initial around his rear view mirror.

-doesn’t mind if you eat from his food as he drives, he will give you his last fry, or chicken nuggets.

Nobara

-holds your hand while driving but doesn’t mind if you put your hand on her thigh.

-loves driving around listening to music with you if you don’t have a set destination. If you have a set destination (and she hasn’t been there before) she needs the music on low to focus.

-you guys have a playlist you add songs together

-has one of those mini trash cans that’s hooked to the backseat

-also has leather seat covers that matches her steering wheel

-going shopping with you and then getting a sweet treat after is her favorite thing to do on her day off, she’ll spoil you and herself until her backseat is full of shopping bags.

-she’s a good driver, no accidents and no tickets. But that curb is her enemy.

-her glove compartment has an extra hairbrush and lip gloss. She keeps things you use on the go too.

-keeps two hoodies in her backseat if you both get cold

Shoko

-she prefers having her hand on your thigh when she drives if she isn’t smoking

- likes to tease you by rubbing her hand up your thigh and gives it a little squeeze. She chuckles with a small smile at the effect that it has on you.

-has hair ties around her shifter and in the middle compartment she keeps a pack of cigarettes

-her car smells like caramel with a hint of nicotine

-she also wont smoke in the car if it bothers you or as a matter of fact around you in general

-she’s a very good driver but has parking tickets

-got you a head rest pillow in your favorite color to put on your seat

-also keeps a blanket that’s your favorite color in her backseat along with a bag hook if hanging on the pack of your seat A/N: hello cuties:3 it’s been a minute. This took me two weeks to write lolll, I’m in a bit of a rut & lacking motivation. More stuff is on the way tho 💕🌸

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millermenapologist · 9 days

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IMPORTANT NOTICE: the app has been pulled, and the creator issued an "apology." All videos advertising it are now gone too.

Fandom friends, we once again got hit by the tech bros.

In the past few days, TikTok "creator" unravel.me.now has been advertising their new app to "transform all fics into audiobooks." Fics will be fed into the app, and an AI will churn out a text-to-speech version of it.

As per the app's creator's word, this is an opt-out situation: if you're an author and don't want your work to be used this way, you have to email them ([email protected]), provide proof of your ownership of the Ao3 account you are asking them not to use, and sternly demand to not be included in this shitshow. If you don't do this, you are giving blanket permission to the app's creator and to its users to do of your work whatever they please.

Of note, this won't stop the wrongful usage of your works either: if a reader of yours were to upload the file of one of your stories to the app, the app will churn out an audiobook version of it anyway.

If you email them, they will get back to you saying that what they're doing is perfectly within legality and that you have no recourse against them. Do not listen to them: they are purposefully trying to intimidate you. If you were to discover that your work has been used by this app, you can easily DMCA it, on the basis that they are using content you created in a non-transformative way and are doing so without your permission.

As a last point, it should be noted that this app was created by the same business who is making money off of AI stories. The reason why they're so interested in this project is because they are scraping material and feeding it into other AI apps, and do so under the guise of accessibility, as they know it'll give them considerably much less backlash. So far, the woman who is the face of this mess has pinky-promised no material will be scraped, but considering how hollow the rest of her promises are, there is simply no way this isn't one too.

#ao3 #archive of our own #fics #fanfics #pedro pascal fandom #fandom

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months

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Kickstarting “The Bezzle” audiobook, sequel to Red Team Blues

I'm heading to Berlin! On January 29, I'll be delivering Transmediale's Marshall McLuhan Lecture, and on January 30, I'll be at Otherland Books (tickets are limited! They'll have exclusive early access to the English edition of The Bezzle and the German edition of Red Team Blues!).

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to last year's Red Team Blues, featuring Marty Hench, a hard-charging, two-fisted forensic accountant who spent 40 years in Silicon Valley, busting every finance scam hatched by tech bros' feverish imaginations:

http://thebezzle.org

Marty Hench is a great character to write. His career in high-tech scambusting starts in the early 1980s with the first PCs and stretches all the way to the cryptocurrency era, the most target-rich environment for scamhunting tech has ever seen. Hench is the Zelig of tech scams, and I'm having so much fun using him to probe the seamy underbelly of the tech economy.

Enter The Bezzle, which will be published by Tor Books and Head of Zeus on Feb 20: this adventure finds Marty in the company of Scott Warms, one of the many bright technologists whose great startup was bought and destroyed by Yahoo! (yes, they really used that asinine exclamation mark). Scott is shackled to the Punctuation Factory by golden handcuffs, and he's determined to get fired without cause, so he can collect his shares and move onto the next thing.

That's how Scott and Marty find themselves on Catalina island, the redoubt of the Wrigley family, where bison roam the hills, yachts bob in the habor and fast food is banned. Scott invites Marty on a series of luxury vacations on Catalina, which end abruptly when they discover – and implode – a hamburger-related Ponzi scheme run by a real-estate millionaire who is destroying the personal finances of the Island's working-class townies out of sheer sadism.

Scott's victory is bittersweet: sure, he blew up the Ponzi scheme, but he's also made powerful enemies – the kinds of enemies who can pull strings with the notoriously corrupt LA County Sheriff's Deputies who are the only law on Catalina, and after taking a pair of felony plea deals, Scott gets the message and never visits Catalina Island again.

That could have been the end of it, but California's three-strikes law – since rescinded – means that when Scott picks up one more felony conviction for some drugs discovered during a traffic stop, he's facing life in prison.

That's where The Bezzle really gets into gear.

At its core, The Bezzle is a novel about the "shitty technology adoption curve": the idea that our worst technological schemes are sanded smooth on the bodies of prisoners, mental patients, kids and refugees before they work their way up the privilege gradient and are inflicted on all of us:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

America's prisons are vicious, brutal places, and technology has only made them worse. When Scott's prison swaps out in-person visits, the prison library, and phone calls for a "free" tablet that offers all these services as janky apps that cost ten times more than they would on the outside, the cruelty finds a business model.

Working inside and outside the prison Marty Hench and Scott Warms figure out the full nature of the scam that the captive audience of prisoners are involuntary beta-testers for, and they discover a sprawling web of real-estate fraud, tech scams, and offshore finance that is extracting fortunes from the hides of America's prisoners and their families. The criminals who run that kind of enterprise aren't shy about fighting for what they've got, and they're more than happy to cut some of LA County's notorious deputy gangs in for a cut in exchange for providing some kinetic support for the project.

The Bezzle is exactly the kind of book I was hoping I'd get to write when I kicked off the Hench series – one that decodes the scam economy, from music royalties to prison videoconferencing, real estate investment trusts to Big Four accounting firm bogus audits. It's both a fast-moving, two-fisted crime novel and a masterclass on how the rich and powerful get away with both literal and figurative murder.

It's getting a big push from both my publishers and I'll be touring western Canada and the US with it. The early reviews are spectacular. But despite all of this, I had to make my own audiobook for it, which I'm pre-selling on Kickstarter:

http://thebezzle.org

Why? Because Audible – Amazon's monopoly gatekeeper to the audiobook world, with more than 90% of the market – refuses to carry my work.

Audible uses Digital Rights Management to lock every audiobook they sell to their platform. Legally, only an Audible-authorized app can decrypt and play the audiobooks they sell you. Distributing a tool that removes Audible DRM is a felony under Section 1201 of the 1998 DMCA.

That means that if you break up with Audible – delete your Audible apps – you will lose your entire audiobook library. And the fact that you're Audible's hostage makes the writers you love into their hostages, too. Writers understand that if they leave the Audible platform, their audience will have to choose between following them, or losing all their audiobooks.

That's how Audible gets away with abusing its performers and writers, up to and including the $100m Audiblegate wage-theft scandal:

https://www.audiblegate.com/

Audible can steal $100m from its writers…and the writers still continue to sell on the platform, because leaving will cost them their audience.

This is canonical enshittification: lock in users, then screw suppliers. Lots of companies abuse DRM to do this, but none can hold a candle to Amazon, who understand that the DMCA is a copyright law that protects corporations at the expense of creators.

Under DMCA 1201 commercial distribution of a "circumvention device" carries a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. That means that if I write a book, pay to have it recorded, and then sell it to you through Audible, I am criminally prohibited from giving you the tool to take it from Audible to another platform. Even though I hold the copyright to that work, I would face a harsher sentence than you would if you simply pirated the audiobook from some darknet site. Not only that: if you shoplifted the audiobook in CD form, you'd get a lighter sentence than I, the copyright holder, would receive for giving you a tool to unlock it from Amazon's platform! Hell, if you hijacked the truck that delivered the CD, you'd get off lighter than I would. This is a scam straight out of a Marty Hench novel.

This is batshit. I won't allow it. My books are licensed on the condition that they must not be sold with DRM. Which means that Audible won't sell my books, which means that my publishers are thoroughly disinterested in paying thousands of dollars to produce audiobooks of my titles. A book that isn't sold in the one store than accounts for 90% of all sales is unlikely to do well.

That's where you come in. Since 2020, I've used Kickstarter to pre-sell five of my audiobooks (I wrote nine books during lockdown!). All told, I've raised over $750,000 (gross! but still!) on these crowdfunders. More than 20,000 backers have pitched in! The last two of these books – The Internet Con and The Lost Cause – were national bestsellers.

This isn't just a way for me to pay off a lot of bills and put away something for retirement – it's proof that readers care about supporting writers and don't want to be locked in by a giant monopolist that depends on its drivers pissing in bottles to make quota.

It's a powerful message about the desire for something better than Amazon. It's part of the current that is driving the FTC to haul Amazon into court for being a monopolist, and also part of the inspiration for other authors to try treating Amazon as damage and routing around it, with spectacular results:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonsteel/surprise-four-secret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson

And I'm doing it again. Last December, I went into Skyboat Media's studios where Gabrielle De Cuir directed @wilwheaton, who reprised his role as Marty Hench for the audiobook of The Bezzle. It came out amazing:

https://archive.org/details/bezzle-sample

Now I'm pre-selling this audiobook, as well as the ebook and hardcover for The Bezzle. I'm also offering bundles with the ebook and audiobook for Red Team Blues (naturally these are all DRM-free). You can get your books signed and personalized and shipped anywhere in the world, courtesy of Book Soup, and I've partnered with Libro.fm to deliver DRM-free audiobooks with an app for people who don't want to mess around with sideloading.

I've also got some spendy options for high rollers. There's three chances to name a character in the next Hench novel (Picks and Shovels, Feb 2025). There's also five chances to commission a Hench short story about your favorite tech scam, and get credited when the story is published.

The Kickstarter runs for the next three weeks, which should give me time to get the hardcopy books signed and shipped to arrive around the on-sale date. What's more, I've finally worked out all the post-Brexit kinks with shipping my UK publisher's books to EU backers. I'm working with Otherland Books to fulfill those EU orders, and it looks like I'm going to be able to sign a giant stack of those when I'm in Berlin later this month to give the annual Marshall McLuhan lecture at the Canadian embassy:

https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024

Red Team Blues and its sequels are some of the most fun – and informative – work I've done in my quarter-century career. I love how they blend technical explanations of the scam economy with high-intensity technothrillers. That's the the same mix as my bestselling YA series Little Brother series – but these are firmly adult novels.

The Bezzle came out great. I hope you'll give it a try – and that you'll come out to see me in late February when I hit the road with the book! Here's that Kickstarter link again:

http://thebezzle.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/10/the-bezzle/#marty-hench

#pluralistic #kickstarter #audible #the bezzle #bezzles #prison tech #disciplinary technology #crowdfunding #wilw #wil wheaton #audiobooks #publishing #science fiction #marty hench #martin hench #red team blues #shitty technology adoption curve #reits

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lovelytsunoda · 4 months

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sunday in heaven // jake "hangman" seresin

warm afternoons spent under blankets with hot drinks and paperbacks

jake’s favourite afternoons were spent with his fiancée and his dog, with hot drinks and a good book. nice and calm, different from his every day. but tell anybody that and he’d have to kill you.

pairing: jake seresin x fiancee reader

author's note: i bet this man is the biggest jack reacher fan on the goddamn planet. he will lie to your face about his book collection and then go home and stay up until 5am because 'babe, reacher's about to beat up like eight dudes and then fling one of them out a helicopter.'

"babe, the package is here!"

jake's shout echoes around the small house as he parades into the living room, shaking the amazon box in his hands. their dachshund, roxy, follows behind him, entranced by the cardboard box.

y/n stopped what she was doing, drying her hands off on the dish towel before turning to her fiancee with a giddy look on her face.

"what are you waiting for? let's open it!"

“hold your horses, sweet thing.” jake crooned, placing the box on the kitchen island before sitting down on the barstool, hefting roxy into his arms.

that was the first major misconception about lieutenant jake seresin. everyone who met him assumed he was a german shepherd kind of man, a golden retriever at the least. a large, energetic guard dog. but roxy was the most spoilt little dog in all of fightertown. he loved that dog more than he loved his truck, which was saying something.

roxy sat in his lap, standing up on her hind legs as she licked at his face, his fingers scratching behind her ears. y/n reached over the counter to run her hand over the dog's back a few times, before she pressed a kiss to jake’s cheek, and slipped a knife out of the block to slice the box open.

the small 'j' shaped pendant around her neck glittered as she leaned over to pull the paperbacks out of their box, a wide, giddy smile crossing her face as she flipped through the pages of the wife stalker by liv constantine, inhaling the smell of a brand new, unread book.

across the island, jake smiled at her, a lovesick expression in his eyes. they say that when you know, you know, and the first time she took him to a book store, he knew. he knew when she fangirled over emily henry and her written rom coms, and he knew when she admitted her love for the domestic thriller.

"look at this bad boy." he grinned, reaching for the smaller stack of books that he had picked out for himself, the silhouette of alan ritchson's iteration of jack reacher looking up at him from the cover of bad luck and trouble.

"this is great timing, actually. i finished fool me once while you were working late last night, and i've been waiting for something new to read." y/n giggled, dishes forgotten in the sink as she thumbed through the stack that she had ordered.

the worst thing she could have done for her bank acocunt was date someone who supported her book buying addiction, but some days, when there was a new military or action thriller on the shelves, jake was even worse than she was.

in fact, she seemed to remember waiting in line at barnes and noble for three hours just so that jake could get his hands on a copy of heat 2, based on the film starring, you guessed it, al pacino.

oh, yeah. that was the second misconception about jake seresin: he really liked to read. and he didn't just say that to placate his fiancée. he really did love a good book. he even went as far as to listen to audiobooks when he was at the gym, and had been known to stay up late when he was in the thick of a lee child novel, even if he did have to go to work in the morning.

jake had proposed with a collection of miss marple books and a pink string that had the ring on it. and for his birthday, she had bought him the latest jason bourne novel.

it seemed that the written word had quickly become their love language, a hobby she never thought she would ever share with her significant other. he was also known to read the occasional romance novel, and wasn't shy about making that known when they shared time together in the bedroom.

but if you told anybody on the dagger squad that he had even read one single novel, jake would skin you alive. he was almost mortified when mickey found jake's well-worn copy of the godfather in his locker, but this was before mickey had admitted that he had also read the cult classic.

and when rooster caught jake listening to the audiobook version of one of the original james bond books? they swore never to speak of it again.

when he first confessed this to y/n, she had laughed. not at him, per say, but because he shared the same book taste as her grandfather.

"i've got like, a hundred pages left in the night agent, but i might have to postpone that to a later date now that reacher has arrived." jake hummed, scratching roxy behind the ears, the small dog trying to sniff the three paperbacks that he held.

"you know what that means?"

"fuck yeah i do."

and that's how they found themselves curling up next to each other on the sectional sofa, two warm mugs on the coffee table (black coffee for jake, and a caramel/whipped cream hot chocolate for y/n.) and a plush blanket from coscto.

she snuggled into jake's side, absorbing his body heat as she fluffed the blanket around them. he kissed her on the forehead as she rested her head against his shoulder, glasses perched on the edge of her nose.

true to his word, jake abandoned the night agent on the side table, cracking open his new jack reacher.

this was something that irked y/n.

jake could read three or four books at a time, his attention span and mood reading tendencies sometimes meaning that it took him six months to get through a book that should have taken four days. there was no end to the dog eared paperbacks that jake would leave lying around.

"jake?" she hummed, halfway down the first page of her book as roxy jumped onto the couch, nestling in between their bodies.

"yeah, pretty girl?" he chuckled, breathing in the smell of her shampoo. the most treasured, comforting scent had had ever encountered.

"i love you."

"more than your book boyfriends?" he teased, poking her in the side.

she laughed heartily, kepping a tight grip on her paperback as she pressed a delicate kiss to his lips, trying to keep things chaste. if she even hinted at all that she wanted jake in her bed, neither of them would be starting a book that afternoon. "of course, jackass."

"i love you too, pretty girl. i can't wait to waste the rest of my sundays reading in bed with you."

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#hangman x reader #jake seresin x reader #top gun maverick #top gun x reader #top gun imagine #jake seresin imagine #jake seresin oneshot #jake hangman seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin #fools in love! event #Spotify #top gun hangman

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books · 9 months

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Writer Spotlight: Elise Hu

We recently met with Elise Hu (@elisegoeseast) to discuss her illuminating title, Flawless—Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. Elise is a journalist, podcaster, and media start-up founder. She’s the host of TED Talks Daily and host-at-large at NPR, where she spent nearly a decade as a reporter. As an international correspondent, she has reported stories from more than a dozen countries and opened NPR’s first-ever Seoul bureau in 2015. Previously, Elise helped found The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit digital start-up, after stops at many stations as a television news reporter. Her journalism work has won the national Edward R. Murrow and duPont Columbia awards, among others. An honors graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, she lives in Los Angeles.

Can you begin by telling us a little bit about how Flawless came to be and what made you want to write about K-beauty?

It’s my unfinished business from my time in Seoul. Especially in the last year I spent living in Korea, I was constantly chasing the latest geopolitical headlines (namely, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s big moves that year). It meant I didn’t get to delve into my nagging frustrations of feeling second-class as an Asian woman in Korea and the under-reported experiences of South Korean women at the time. They were staging record-setting women’s rights rallies during my time abroad in response to a stark gender divide in Korea. It is one of the world’s most influential countries (and the 10th largest economy) and ranks shockingly low on gender equality metrics. That imbalance really shows up in what’s expected of how women should look and behave. Flawless explores the intersection of gender politics and beauty standards.

Flawless punctuates reportage with life writing, anchoring the research within your subjective context as someone who lived in the middle of it but also had an outside eye on it. Was this a conscious decision before you began writing?

I planned to have fewer of my personal stories in the book, actually. Originally, I wanted to be embedded with South Korean women and girls who would illustrate the social issues I was investigating, but I wound up being the narrative thread because of the pandemic. The lockdowns and two years of long, mandatory quarantines in South Korea meant that traveling there and staying for a while to report and build on-the-ground relationships was nearly impossible. I also have three small children in LA, so the embedding plan was scuttled real fast.

One of the central questions the book asks of globalized society at large, corporations, and various communities is, “What is beauty for?” How has your response to this question changed while producing Flawless?

I think I’ve gotten simultaneously more optimistic and cynical about it. More cynical in that the more I researched beauty, the more I understood physical beauty as a class performance—humans have long used it to get into rooms—more power in relationships, social communities, economically, or all of the above at once. And, as a class performance, those with the most resources usually have the most access to doing the work it takes (spending the money) to look the part, which is marginalizing for everyone else and keeps lower classes in a cycle of wanting and reaching. On the flip side, I’m more optimistic about what beauty is for, in that I have learned to separate beauty from appearance: I think of beauty in the way I think about love or truth, these universal—and largely spiritual—ideas that we all seek, that feed our souls. And that’s a way to frame beauty that isn’t tied in with overt consumerism or having to modify ourselves at all.

This is your first book—has anything surprised you in the publishing or publicity process for Flawless?

I was most surprised by how much I enjoyed recording my own audiobook! I felt most in flow and joyful doing that more than anything else. Each sentence I read aloud was exactly the way I heard it in my head when I wrote it, which is such a privilege to have been able to do as an author.

Do you have a favorite reaction from a reader?

I don’t know if it’s the favorite, but recency bias is a factor—I just got a DM this week from a woman writing about how the book helped put into words so much of what she felt and experienced, despite the fact she is not ethnically Korean, or in Korea, which is the setting of most of the book. It means a lot to me that reporting or art can connect us and illuminate shared experiences…in this case, learning to be more embodied and okay with however we look.

As a writer, journalist, and mother—how did you practice self-care when juggling work commitments, social life, and the creative processes of writing and editing?

I juggled by relying on my loved ones. I don’t think self-care can exist without caring for one another, and that means asking people in our circles for help. A lot of boba dates, long walks, laughter-filled phone calls, and random weekend trips really got me through the arduous project of book writing (more painful than childbirth, emotionally speaking).

What is your writing routine like, and how did the process differ from your other reporting work? Did you pick up any habits that you’ve held on to?

My book writing routine was very meandering, whereas my broadcast reporting and writing are quite linear. I have tight deadlines for news, so it’s wham, bam, and the piece is out. With the book, I had two years to turn in a manuscript. I spent the year of lockdowns in “incubation mode,” where I consumed a lot of books, white papers, articles, and some films and podcasts, just taking in a lot of ideas to see where they might collide with each other and raise questions worth reporting on, letting them swim around in the swamp of my brain. When I was ready to write, I had a freelance editor, the indefatigable Carrie Frye, break my book outline into chunks so I could focus on smaller objectives and specific deadlines. Chunking the book so it didn’t seem like such a massive undertaking helped a lot. As for the writing, I never got to do a writer’s retreat or some idyllic cabin getaway to write. I wrote in the in-between moments—a one or two hour window when I had a break from the TED conference (which I attend every year as a TED host) or in those moments after the kids’ bedtime and before my own. One good habit I got into was getting away from my computer at midday. I’m really good about making lunch dates or going for a run to break up the monotony of staring at my screen all day long.

What’s good advice you’ve received about journalism that you would pass on to anyone just starting out?

All good reporting comes from great questions. Start with a clear question you seek to answer in your story, project, or book, and stay true to it and your quest to answer it. Once you are clear on what the thing is about, you won’t risk wandering too far from your focal point.

Thanks to Elise for answering our questions! You can follow her over at @elisegoeseast and check out her book Flawless here!

#writer spotlight #elise hu #flawless #k-beauty #beauty #beauty industry #feminism #gender politics #seoul #south korea #journalism #writing advice #reportage #flawlessthebook

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