forestsofpine

Original reading of the month was All of Us Murderers, by KJ Charles, some fun Gothic m/m.

And here is one of the fics I enjoyed this month:

Heated Rivalry Fic Recs

Epistolary continues to be my favorite genre in this fandom. Via unfitforsociety, thanks for the rec!

Influential, Ilya Rozanov/Shane Hollander, 6k, general audiences


Happy reading!

I didn't do a ton of reading of any sort in February, and the only published book I finished was nonfiction: Here Comes the Sun, by Bill McKibben, about the solar tech revolution. I try to stay away from politics in this journal, but suffice to say that it's very dark times right now as an American, and I wanted something to feel a little optimistic about. I also read a bunch of articles from this website and McKibben's blog - both cover a lot of the same ground as the book.

And here is one of the fics I enjoyed this month:

Heated Rivalry Fic Recs

Just a cute, short epistolary fic. This fandom seems good at them.

text me when you see this, Ilya Rozanov/Shane Hollander, 1k, general audiences

Happy reading!

I use a spreadsheet to track my fanfic reading, and here are my 2025 stats! ( Wordcount, top fandoms, top ships, top tags )

Q1 | Q2 | Q3

Here's what I've been listening to this quarter!

Youtube embeds behind the cut. Videos may contain physical triggers such as rapid cuts, flashes, etc. - feel free to ask for details!( Read more... )

I had another slow year both for new fics and rereads, but here's some of the fics I returned to most often in 2025:( Read more... )

Here's some of what I read in October and November.( Read more... )

I had another slow reading month, both in fanfic and books. I finished only three fics in September, including:

• an Only Friends Sand/Ray/Boeing threesome fic (3k, explicit)
• a Seventeen RPF Seungcheol/Jeonghan/Mingyu omegaverse threesome fic (16k, explicit)
• a Devil Judge omegaverse Yo-han/Ga-on fic (6k, explicit)

At least this little collection has a pleasing Venn diagram-like quality to it, even if the quantity is disappointing.

Happy reading!

I didn't manage a ton of reading, original or fanfic, this month, in between a trip to visit my sister at the beginning of the month and a bout of illness later. The Agatha Christie of the month, since she continues to be the persistent theme of my reading in original fic this year, was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which I know I read as a teenager but could remember nothing about, to the point that it was like reading it for the first time again.

I also did a bit of rereading, including Rowhome (Word of Honor, Ye Baiyi/Xie Wang, 47k, explicit), which I originally recced back in August 2021, poked around the Jaime/Sansa tag as part of one of my periodic attempts to get more into Game of Thrones fic (I never made it past the 4th book of ASOIAF or the 4th season of the show, but I am envious of the quantity of canon divergence in the fandom), and found a hot bottom!Minho fic among the new fics posted for Summer of SHINee 2025:( Read more... )

I'm still on my Agatha Christie kick. This month it was Murder in Mesopotamia, which is set on an archaeological dig in Iraq. I'm pretty sure it's one I never read before, nor have I seen the David Suchet episode. Christie was interested in archaeology and participated in digs, so it had some interesting details about the work and day-to-day life of archaeologists in that era. It featured a different narrator than most Poirot books: a woman hired as nurse to the eventual victim about a week before her death. The nurse was both opinionated and unreliable, which was a fun combo in some regards since you could see how her prejudices for or against certain characters were affecting her judgement and blinding her to some of the realities of the case, but unpleasant when her opinions involved racism against the local Arab workers at the dig, which they frequently did.

As for the mystery itself, perhaps the easiest explanation of my feelings is that I enjoyed the setup, but not the solution. One hopes for a satisfying answer to all three of the questions of Who, Why, and How, and the ending was so improbable on one of those counts that it destroyed my suspension of disbelief. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the classic Christie twists and turns and it's a light, fast read, so I wouldn't describe it as wasted time.

And here are some of the fics I enjoyed in July!( MDZS, Beyond Evil, K-pop RPF )