We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

So I saw a few people talking about their favourite books of 2025, and I decided to see if I could actually come up with a (short) list since I generally don’t even try to name favourites.

This excludes rereads and fanfiction, which would about double the list. * indicates books published within the last two years, ~ indicates the last of a trilogy where I also recommend the rest. Listed in order of reading.

• ~Blood and Ember by Isabel Cooper
• The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor by Shaenon K. Garrity and Christopher Baldwin (comic)
• Dionysos by Richard Seaford (nonfiction)
• ~*Viscounts & Villainy by Allie Therin
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• The Adventures of Harlequin by Francis Bickley
• *Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy (comments here)

So 12 Word Searches. I’m so mad about this.

I mean. Five stars. God, I’m furious. It’s so well done. I finished it on my second try, after carefully glancing at non-spoilery discussion, and I’m so angry. Oh my god.

This by the same designer is easier and does not make me want to set them on fire.

So in July I got married, which is sufficient excuse for having completely forgotten to mention any of the fics I've posted since February here.

First the weird one. Well, one of the weird ones.

Title: Manifested Under Human Flesh
Rating: M
Fandom: The Great God Pan - Arthur Machen
Characters: Helen Vaughan, various test subjects
Warnings/Enticements: Amorality, Dubious Consent, Mpreg, Fpreg, Non-Consensual Pregnancy, Body Horror, Pretentious Classical References, Suicide, Human Experimentation, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat
Summary: Helen Vaughan is very disappointed in the quality of her materials.
Wordcount: 1355 words

On AO3

Title: That’s What I Fucking Want
Rating: E
Fandom: Red, White, and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Characters: Alex Claremont-Diaz, Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Warnings/Enticements: Post-Canon, Praise Kink, Dirty Talk, mild degradation kink, Frottage, Face-Fucking, Explicit Sexual Content, Kink Exploration
Summary: “My praise kink?” Alex shoves himself up on one hand and considers hitting Henry with a pillow. “What? That’s not a thing.”
Wordcount: 2011 words

On AO3

And another little RWRB missing scene: Marshmallow Cream

And just now for Keep Fandom Weird:

Title: Allium flavum subsp. anaphrodisium
Rating: G
Fandom: Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Characters: Mademoiselle De Lafontaine and basically everyone else, briefly
Warnings/Enticements: Canon Divergence, Anticlimax, Libido-killing Pollen, Paternalism, Unhappy Ending, Happier Than the Original Though
Summary: Mademoiselle De Lafontaine saves the day.
Wordcount: 1628 words

On AO3

AO3 meme borrowed from castiron.

1. Most Hits: Let Me, as always, with 43,564.

2. Second Most Kudos: Witness and Testimony, also as always, with 2,325.

3. Third Most Comments: Tinsel Show with 72, being a multichapter and also my longest work.

4. Fourth Most Bookmarks: One Turf Shall Serve with 73, which might be higher on the other metrics too if it hadn't been first posted elsewhere for an exchange.

5. Fifth Most Words: Where Both Deliberate, which is the end of a series, with 11,923.

6. Fic With Second Fewest Words (That's Not a Drabble): Rouges Gallery with 105.

7. Seventh Most Common Relationship: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, tied with 8 works.

8. Eighth Drabble Posted: Excluding drabble collections, Your Stare Was Holding.

9. Ninth Most Common Character: Lestrade (Sherlock Holmes), tied with 9 works.

10. Tenth Mature and/or Explicit Fic: Tenth posted? We'll go with that. Just How This Would End.

11. Eleventh Most Recent Completed Fic: Blossoms in Ashes, for Yuletide 2023.

12. Twelfth Most Recent Story in Your Sixth Most Common Tag: Where Both Deliberate again, because I used to write a lot of case fic but haven't in a while.

Not looking for my favourite title because seriously, I've had to come up with 293 titles, it's a miracle I haven't repeated any. Also, I suspect I appreciate my puns more than anyone else will.

A one page RPG about avoiding people at a Regency party

It is one of the most anticipated nights of the London Season. You are at a fine ball, surrounded by the wealthy and titled, wearing a gorgeous (and extremely expensive) outfit. Hundreds of candles light the room, and a small orchestra is playing a minuet.

You hate it and you want to leave.

Let us be frank: some gentlepersons simply would not enjoy the glittering spectacle of a grand Society occasion—or at least not every night. This game envisions an unwilling, unimpressed, somewhat grumpy participant at the sort of grand rout one sees in hundreds of Regency romance novels, as many of us who read them must admit we sometimes would be.

It is hot, it is loud, it is unpleasant, and someone has just stepped on your foot. Can you find a single moment of privacy at this event?

You will need: A standard deck of 52 cards and a six-sided die.

Free PDF available here!

This is not actually the game I expected to post first. The first game I wrote was The Haunted Ruin, currently in playtesting, but that is somewhat large and I will be charging for it and playtesting and editing take time. And then I had an idea for something a lot smaller, so I accidentally wrote a one-page RPG to test uploading things to itch.io before the large project. So that worked out well.

candyheartsex authors have been revealed, so here is the gift I wrote for VanaTuivana:

Title: the eldritch light of sundown
Rating: T
Fandom: Original
Characters: Superhero, Supervillain
Warnings/Enticements: Injury, Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss
Summary: “Look, Nick? Can I call you Nick? Or Nicholas? I swear this isn’t a trap or something, I don’t know what you’re afraid of, but can you at least give me a Tylenol before the interrogation? And maybe do something about the stab wound, I don’t know? It feels serious. I can talk while you’re stitching it up or whatever.”
Wordcount: 2830 words

On AO3

I had a lot of fun with the characters and worldbuilding for this one (basically putting the X-Men and a warlock of the Great Old One in a jar and shaking).

And I received if I need your help by goseaward which is a great Band Sinister AU, it is exactly what I wanted and I really love how it's done, highly recommended.

threesentenceficathon is still running, but I wrote one (1) fic and one (1) prompt and then stopped. I'm not sure why, writing in general has been going well, but oh well. Here it is.

( Narnia )

Recs, all about cats:

Narnia, any, "self portrait"

And my prompt: Any, Any cat, starving!!

So the problem with using New Year’s as a time to take stock and make plans or to set a pattern for the year to come is that generally I spend New Year’s celebrating Christmas with whichever part of my family I didn’t see earlier in the month. So I’m not in a familiar space and often I don’t even have my laptop with me, which has, for example, the .txt file where I keep track of my reading.

Luckily this month that wasn’t complicated.

Recent: I listened to the audiobooks of Allie Therin’s Roaring Twenties Magic series again, while sewing. This was exactly what I needed and I enjoyed it very much.

That’s it, that’s all I finished this month.

I did reread “Christabel” on the subway one day, and I bought waayyy too many books and read some scholarly introductions to 18th century literature.

Current: I’m almost done rereading The Ironmaster’s Tale.

I am about halfway through Isabel Cooper’s Blood and Ember, which is the conclusion to a fantasy trilogy. I’m enjoying it, but I won’t finish it before I need to renew it.

But at least I can renew it, while The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper and Freya Marske’s Swordcrossed (both of which I’ve just started) have holds on them and I also probably won’t finish them before they have to go back. Oh well, I can put more holds on.

Future: I might just reread Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots. That sounds like it’d be great right now. Also there was an excellent Yuletide fic for it.

Beyond that I might try to space things out a bit more. I may be hitting a point where I can only focus on one or two books at once, which would be weird.

Posted later here because like hell was I dealing with html tags on a touchscreen keyboard. But also I have now given my sister her Christmas present so I have posted quilt pictures on tumblr!

Post delayed by a vacation and then PMS. More thoughts than usual, though, and anyway it's definitely in time for Reading Wednesday.

Recent: Finally finished My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, but fast enough that things did not really sink in, or not all at once. It was good, interesting cultural differences and similarities, probably won't read the sequels.

Reread Steadfast, by Mercedes Lackey. This is not a good book, people. I knew that when I started it. In terms of pacing and plotting and unnecessary digressions and historical accuracy and giving agency to characters it is very very badly done. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Which is maybe what I need, given how much I get tied into knots about the free fanfic I write for fun needing its theme to be supported by a coherent narrative arc.

I read some of T. Kingfisher's commentary on fairy tales in The Halcyon Fairy Book and most of Lace Making by Eunice Close (published by a tiny Canadian press in 1975, don't go looking for it). I tried to reread The Bacchae for catharsis purposes, but it was a not-great Victorian translation and I didn't get very far. I did find out that Alan Cumming played Dionysus twenty or so years ago and the trailer for that is on Youtube.

Read A Phantom Lover by Vernon Lee, which was good for what it was but I did have to force myself to it. On the drive with consultingpiskies I finally managed to articulate that I am just not up to unfamiliar fiction right now, and maybe that's okay.

I read all of May Morris: Arts & Crafts Designer at the library, which is the book of an exhibition of her work and was absolutely gorgeous and also gave me feelings about her relationship with her father, so that was great. And on the theme of the English Arts and Crafts movement, English Embroidered Bookbindings by Cyril Davenport, which might have been improved with more practical knowledge of embroidery but was generally good.

Also read Meet Me on the Other Side by Sparklepocalypse, RWRB 1890s cowboy AU. I could be nitpicky about a couple historical attitudes but basically this is just a really good romance novel and I liked it.

Current: Rereading Swordheart by T. Kingfisher. I really want to know more about the Temple of the White Rat's embroiderer(s). Like, maybe Zale does their own embroidery, but in that case I would have expected them to take a project along for the wagon ride. For a while I was carrying this around with me everywhere, but now that I am getting to the climax things are going more slowly.

Just gave 3/5 of my library books back unstarted due to the fiction realization above. I have two digital craft books to flip through, and also some from the Antique Pattern Library, and Chats on Old Lace and Needlework by Mrs. Lowes. Look, basically what I want to do right now is get overwhelmingly caught up in craft projects and never talk to anyone ever again. I won't, because there is Christmas shopping to do and people I am trying to make friends with and so forth, but that's probably where my head's going to be all month.

Various RWRB fanfics going on still. Oh, and there's been more Madame C—. Thank god for Madame C—.

Future: I still have The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor by Shaenon K. Garrity and Christopher Baldwin out from the library, which really does seem fun but I don't know if I have the brain for it. I would also like to get through more of my AO3 Marked for Later list before Yuletide adds a bunch to it, but, well. (I didn't sign up for Yuletide this year, not because I didn't think I could manage it but because I suspected I would hate the process, and that was a good decision.)

If all else fails I will relisten to the Roaring Twenties Magic audiobooks while sewing.

I've been having trouble sitting down to actually write this. It's almost as if I'm under a lot of stress right now. I wonder what uncontrollable near-future political event that could be about.

Recent: I reread a horror novel at the start of the month which will become evident after Trick or Treat author reveals.

Finished How To by Randall Munroe and Unmarriages by Ruth Mazo Karras. Also Biggles Buries a Hatchet, all basically good, discussed in last post.

Got a lot of knitting done while reading M. R. James on The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts, which was perhaps not the M. R. James I would expect to read in October, but nonfiction is easier right now. It's very affected by being written immediately post-WWI.

On which note, just now finished The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by K. J. Charles, right under the wire before it has to go back to the library. Enjoyed it and also very much appreciate the list of referenced Victorian ghost stories in the Acknowledgements.

Also lots of Kinktober.

Current: Still skimming through Painting Nature in Watercolour with Cathy Johnson, whose style I like. Writing style, I mean, but also the watercolors.

I read a third of The Silvered by Tanya Huff and liked it enough to put it on hold again even though my ability to focus on new long fiction isn't really there.

Rereading Steadfast by Mercedes Lackey. Mrs. Pollifax is still continuing slowly.

Have I made any progress on the paper books I have out from the library? No.

Oh, I skimmed the beginning of The Blue Castle recently because I had a fic idea, and I will need to read some Victorian medievalism to get a voice for that.

Future: The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher will probably come in soon. I also want to find another nonfiction book to read at North York Central library to distract from jobsearching. I have a giant list of options, which doesn't necessarily help.

Otherwise not sure whether I will be fine reading normally or want lots of comfort reading. I am looking forward to starting a long RWRB historical AU.