Req For @hawkepockets !

I'm a unicorn! I'm a unicorn!!

Do you know this queer character?

Tonkee is transgender and wlw, and uses she/her pronouns!

soooo, on a vacation trip a week ago, I stumbled over @xiranjayzhao's Iron Widow in a book shop in Copenhagen and devoured it last weekend. It was quite the fun read. (And I am not that inclined to mechs 😄 but the rage filled female power fantasy and the setting felt rather refreshing to me) And after finishing the book I had to get at least some art out of my system. As usual it didn't end up what I really intended it to be in my head initially, but also, as usual it has to suffice for now or I'll never post it.

Old comic page I did, depicting the beginning of Rebirth. Something in Chen staring back at Sidestep through the crowd always stuck out to me.

🧍book ask. 2 + 6 + 20 :^)

2. top 5 books of all time

ok i’m going with non-childrens lit novels 🤨 so

the tombs of atuan (ursula leguin)

annihilation (jeff vandermeer)

east of eden (john steinbeck)

royal assassin (robin hobb)

parable of the sower (octavia butler)

6. read this month

the golden compass (philip pullman)

powers (ursula leguin)

20. what i look for in a book

for getting into a book, i want “disappearing” prose that doesn’t distract me from the scene with unnatural rhythm or silly word choice, dialogue that’s either naturalist or theatrical but NOT forced to set up stupid lil quips, place descriptions that take me away, a feeling of promise that smth will happen.

for remembering & loving it after i’m done reading—a striking turn & sudden illumination towards the end of the book about what it all meant (even if the answer is “nothing” or “we don’t get to know”), a main character who got to be selfish, magnetic, and cunning, a world that felt wider & deeper than what was seen in this story, an ending that satisfied. doesn’t have to be uplifting or unpredictable as long as i hear the door click shut behind me on my way out yk.

i finished retribution :-)

2023

One Art - Elizabeth Bishop // October - Louise Gluck // On Reading An Anthology of Postwar German Poetry - Lisel Mueller // Fairy-tale Logic - A. E. Stallings // Introduction to Space Opera - Brian Aldiss // Yellow Glove - Naomi Shihab Nye // Hammond B3 Organ Cistern - Gabrielle Calvocoressi

The tide comes in. The Throne’s man watches her, waiting for her to lift her eyes and make a census of the birds.