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spongek-squidge · 2 months

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My Headcannons for which bachelor(ette) is the most intimidating on first meeting

90% self indulgent headcanons 10% canon, let me have my fun~

#1 Shane

We all expected this one

Gruff old alcoholic man is not a very trustworthy or comforting persona

Also he’s rude when first meeting people so that doesn’t helps

Only reason he doesn’t completely scare people off is cause he’s baby faced (this fact annoys him greatly)

#2 Sebastian

Emo boy who lives in his mums basement, smokes and owns a motorcycle?

He’s literally the kid everyone’s parents told them to avoid

No matter if you love that bad boy persona or not there’s still that intimidation around it, ya gotta admit!

#3 Haley

She’s very mean

Literally comes off as everyone’s Highschool bully when you first meet her

She’s also just intimidatingly pretty on top of that so…

Pretty much a tie with Sebastian tho, I only put her lower because pritty gurl

#4 Alex

He a buff mysoginstic boi!

He’s like chill when you meet him but the bias leaks off him like the sweat when he’s exercising in his bedroom

Literally just a highschool jock, you move into town and think Haley and Alex are gonna be the biggest asshat powercouple

In reality they’re just some confused queers with dual mummy and daddy issues

#5 Abigail

Goth gfs are inherently a bit intimidating ngl

Also she just has a lot of energy and an urge to fight, that’s a fairly intimating combination-

Also if she could drive a car she would have biggest road rage, she got those vibes about her

#6 Harvey

Okokok hear me out

Ik he’s a big sad wholesome man but he’s also a doctor and anyone who sticks with the education system that long is a bit intimidating ngl

Also he’s a very tall boi and if you combine that with my head canon of him being dad-shaped it can give off an unintentionally intimidating aura!

Also people just don’t like going to the doctors so that won’t help

#7 Leah

She works out and it shows

It’s hot af but also a bit intimidating ngl

But she’s too chill for that to put her further up the list so here she be!

#8 Elliott

He uses big person words that I don’t understand

Big people words intimidate me

Words are powerful

But also I could easily beat him in a fight so he’s lower down than Leah

#9 Maru

One of her favourite objects is radioactive ingots

Need I say more?

Most of her intimidation comes from Demetrius being an overprotective cockblock tho, so it’s not as much her as her father

#10 Emily

She gives off chill aunt/cousin vibes

However she is also high as a kite 24/7 and that level of zoned out can be a bit freaky, especially when she zones out staring at you

She’s fine tho, would never take drugs that make her act up in a negative way

#11 Sam

He is a golden retriever and you can tell from the second you meet him

Big smile constantly and no thoughts behind those eyes

Only intimidation he could ever possibly have is the skater boy stereotypes, but other then that he’s got no negative vibes whatsoever

#12 Penny

I’m sure we all saw this coming, but she’s really not intimidating at all

She’s a shy woman that just wants to teach kids and read her romance novels and I love that for her

If she needed to intimidate someone she’d have to summon her mum to do it for her, no chance she’s scaring anyone herself

#stardew valley #sdv #stardew valley headcanons #sdv harvey #sdv penny #sdv haley #sdv leah #shane sdv #doctor who #sdv alex #sdv elliott #sdv sebastian #sdv maru #sdv bachelorettes #sdv bachelors

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ctitan98official · 4 months

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@weepingwerewolfssombretuden-blog : what about the ladies from RE8 with a SO who is as loyal as a dog, but also a women magnet

Ooh, that’s a good question! Let’s find out!

Alcina:

An accurate representation of the Alci pout. She is very dramatic, people. If she’s got to suffer, so does Y/N. She’ll say she’s not pissed, but we all know better than that. Constantly fluctuates between insecurity and full out rage. She’s not proud of it, but she has sent her daughters on a few hunts where the targets were women who had been shamelessly flirting with Y/N. Of course, now that Y/N and Alcina are in a committed relationship she is a lot less possessive. However, there are still times where her jealousy gets the best of her and she decides to have an “extra snack” every now and again.

Donna:

As precious and cute as Donna is when she’s giving Y/N the evil eye… Never mind it’s actually pretty terrifying. You best believe the doll maker would not hesitate to throw hands at anyone, however, she does tend to prefer to use her brain to outsmart an opponent. Her effortless charm, her quick wit, and a complete command of all of the dolls and hallucinogenic spores on her property, pretty much keep people from wanting to get on her bad side. She’s only once actually given a flirty woman a bad vision, but like, that’s honestly on Y/N. Donna was having a bad week and Y/N forgot to fill her Trintellix prescription. It happens, okay?

Miranda:

Listen y'all, it should come as no surprise that Miranda can be fucking scary when she wants to be. She’s also very calculated. She is not necessarily a jealous type, but if she feels, or has evidence, that something that belongs to her (Like Y/N) is trying to be taken away… Let’s just say Miranda is literally an evil genius and the sky is the limit with how horrific she could make the punishment. Just don’t come for Y/N and you won’t have your eyeballs scooped out. Seems like a reasonable request to her.

Bela:

So, Bela likes to think of herself as refined and sophisticated just like her mother. The only problem is that Bela is eternally petty. Like, to the bone. She still brings up the time when Dani borrowed her hairbrush and didn’t put it back in the right spot. (She literally said that she wanted it put back at a crisp 45 degree angle on her dresser. Like, ma'am? We doing math now??) If she thinks that a woman from the village or a maid in the castle likes Y/N, they are immediately dead to her… No joke, she’ll just off them right there.

Cassandra:

Out of all of the RE8 ladies, Cass is the most physically violent, possessive, territorial, lovesick, etc. You get the picture. Typically, all it takes for a woman who’s flirting with Y/N to back down is a demonstration of how skilled she is with bladed weapons… If that doesn’t work, she can’t be held responsible for what she does next. I could definitely see her parading Y/N around the castle and the village like they’re some sort of prize and telling everybody that Y/N belongs to HER… She warned ya. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Daniela:

Dani can’t imagine a world where her and Y/N aren’t together… In fact, she refuses to even entertain the thought. Y/N means everything to her. I think it’s safe to say that she is definitely the most romantic of the sisters, however, she can be a little over the top sometimes. Also, reading these epic romance novels where characters are so in love that it’s literally most of their personality, isn’t really helping the situation. She can go psycho-cuckoo-bananas at the drop of a hat if she sees ANYONE getting too cute and friendly with Y/N. Rest assured, she will bring the drama and intensity if she feels a need to.

Masterlist

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stesierra · 10 months

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Writeblr ReIntro!

I'm posting a new intro because now that I've been on Writeblr a little while, I realize how much information I left out! Hi, I'm Stephanie, I live in the desert with my husband and baby and three cats, and I'm an ace, bipolar fantasy writer! When I was a kid, they said I had ADHD but then I got my Masters degree in biology, so they claim I can't have it. Online tests say I'm probably autistic.

I used to write sci fi twelve years ago but only low tech sci fi about weird aliens, which nobody likes. Now I write fantasy novels! Lots of fantasy novels! I am beginning to post them on my website so if you want to read them, please keep an eye on this post.

My books often but not always have some romance (either m/f or f/f because I prefer female protagonists.) Since I'm ace (and demiromantic), my interpretation of romance and attraction is not exactly what you'd expect from, say, a romance novel.

I am not going to tell you about all my books! I've written eighteen! Four of them are shelved forever! Here's some recent ones (written or revised since 2018) that I haven't given up on. Please ask me questions about them! I LOVE talking about my books! Also, if you want to be added to my taglist for writing samples let me know! Please also tell me if you're interested in alpha or beta reading and for which book! Mutuals only, please!

My books are beneath the cut! As I add WIP intros, I'll update this list with links.

Cast Out

YA fantasy! On her sixteenth birthday, Zisha is cast out of the Plenary Cities for the crime of being born deaf, like her grandmother before her. In the wastelands, she meets Thesil, a depressed and bitter young woman. Zisha wants nothing to do with her — until she sees Thesil's face in a vision. But before she can find out what the visions mean or reach her grandmother's holdings in the wastes, the plague returns to the Plenary Cities. If the disabled really caused the plague thirty years ago, and were cast out to stop the spread, how can it be back when all of them are outcast?

Status: Finished. Being serialized.

WIP intro here.

Now being serialized here. First five chapters up, one posted weekly.

The Bone Queen

This is my NA fantasy about the aftermath of freeing an undead queen and her skeleton army. They take over the kingdom, of course! The main character, Elise, is trapped in Bandrum palace by Aubrey, the ghost who tricked her into falling in love and freeing him (plus everyone else.) He's an animated skeleton now with plans to marry Elise and force her to carry his children. The bone queen has promised him she'll make it happen. Too bad no one cares what Elise wants. If only she had magic of her own...

Status: undergoing a rewrite after developmental edit. Was 109k before revisions. Not available for beta reading.

Draft number? Hahahaha. It has two complete sequels (The Spellbound King (106k) and The Matriarch's Daughter (96k)) I must also rewrite. This series is going to kill me but I love it. My mom, who loves everything I write, complained that it was weird. I'm very proud.

WIP intro here.

First chapter here.

School of Souls

This is my YA contemporary fantasy about a boarding school in the Bighorn Mountains! It's supposed to be a place parents can send "bad" teens to have their problems sorted out, but secretly the founder is using it to train the kids as sorcerers. Even more secretly, the school devours the souls of the students sent there, and the teenagers who graduate aren't the same as the ones who arrived... Warning: does include teenage addiction to sleeping pills and ghosts and and parental death. It's going to have sequels but I haven't written them yet.

Status: Complete first draft. 83k. Available for alpha reading.

WIP intro here.

First chapter here.

The Many-faced Princess

This is YA fantasy with a historical vibe but set in a made up world. Vaguely inspired by ancient Phoenicia. It's about Princess Ameryi, who was blessed by the genderless trickster god, Akihel, to be able to change her face. If her father the king ever found out, he'd have to execute her, of course. Akihel is just plain evil. All the other gods say so. A daughter who's their champion? Impossible. An abomination. So Ameryi will just have to make sure her father never finds out. That was easier to do before the Asirtinsa Empire threatened to invade and her father sent her to secure an alliance with a neighboring king. She's supposed to marry him. Not steal his face and frame him for murder. But sometimes plans just don't work out.

This book was supposed to be about two lesbian princesses who frame the king for murder so they can elope, but both princesses decided to be ace and there was nothing I could do.

Status: Complete first draft. 83k. It's going to have sequels but I haven't written them yet. Available for alpha reading.

First chapter here.

Map here.

Court Phoenix

This is my NA fantasy! Kerra is a blacksmith's apprentice. Not because she wants the job, but because her mother sold her future to him when she was still a toddler who crawled into live fires and giggled as the flames consumed her clothes. Now she's a woman, trapped by the expectations of her family and her village. Until one day, a phoenix crash-lands and dies in her arms. When it's reborn, it chooses Kerra as its keeper. Soon, her dreary future is swept away. A princess from Skyfire, the moving city, offers her a job in the royal court. How could Kerra refuse? Her family's claims that she'll die if she ever leaves the village are just manipulative lies. Aren't they?

Status: Complete third draft. 104k. Available for beta reading.

First chapter here.

The Revenant Trilogy

Adult fantasy. Solving a murder should bring good fortune, but all it brings Mindral Thideet is disaster. Her fame and peaceful life as head researcher at the city of knowledge end abruptly. In retaliation for her investigation into his crimes, Payar Cheref, the head of the powerful Cheref family, burns her beloved cousins alive and scars her face. The scar marks her as a revenant, a body possessed by a godkin, one of the gods' evil children. Her life as a researcher is over. All that's left is revenge.

No one believes her when she denies that godkins have any power over her. But godkins, real ones, are far closer than she realizes. Tearing down Payar Cheref could destroy Mindral, her family, and the nation itself.

-The Halfway Revenant (rewriting draft 4) 120k. Not available for beta reading.

-The Soul-Seer (draft 2) - 130k

-The Godkin's Gambit (draft 2) 121k

First chapter here.

As Immortality Fades

Adult fantasy. Five hundred years ago, one of the immortal and unpredictable Valteifur visited the kingdom of Kathild and granted the young queen Nelone immortality. But there was a catch. She'd live forever, youthful and strong, just so long as her subjects were happy. For centuries, she's met her part of the deal. But when the Valteifur returns to check on her progress, he grants her a new gift: the resurrection of every single person in Kathild who's died in the last two hundred years. Then he disappears.

There aren't enough houses for them all. There's not enough food. And winter is here.

Status: Complete first draft. 98k. Available for alpha reading.

Bi MC, enemies to lovers.

First chapter here.

Stitches and Memories

This one's adult fantasy. Antea's father ripped her mind apart, left her for dead, and vanished twelve years ago, and she's going to find out why. But when constables try to kill her and strange truth magic grows inside of her, hunting her father starts to look like suicide. Too bad going home isn't an option.

Status: I exchanged this with a critique partner and now it embarrasses me. Fourth draft. 122k. Available for beta reading.

Trigger warning: magic seizures

First chapter here.

WIP intro here.

Triangle Park

Contemporary Fantasy. I have no idea who it's for. An elf exiled to the middle of nowhere ends up stuck with an unexpected child. It's about reluctant parenting and protecting the needy. And elves and faeries slumming it in a mobile home.

Status: Complete first draft. 86k. Available for alpha reading.

First chapter here.

Mud-Child

Adult fantasy. Rebeka has always heard that a woman who goes through menopause loses her spark (the magic that lets her create children). If she's had children, it just makes the neighbors a little more fertile. But Rebeka never wanted a man, and she never wanted to raise a child. Not since her twin sister died and her beloved Suza left her for a man. The problem is, the spark leaves a childless woman differently, everyone says. A bitter hag? She'll curse her neighbors. A sweet dim biddie? She'll give her spark to inanimate objects and create a monster. Rebeka doesn't know which she is, but she believes it's a myth.

That was before the clay in her clay pit woke up and called her mother.

Status: Third draft. 109k. Needs a rewrite! Not available for beta reading.

First chapter here.

WIP intro here.

I GUESS I'M WRITING A NEW BOOK

The Giant's Gamble

First chapter here.

I started writing this on Friday the 13th, 2023. LET'S SEE HOW LONG IT TAKES TO WRITE WITH A BABY.

Short stories

The Unfamous Dead

VERY OLD CRAP

The Scribe and the Sphinx

Adult historical fantasy

Status: second draft. Shelved for good. 85k.

The Adrift series

The River's Drift. 100k.

The Waking Mountain. 106k.

Low-tech alien sci fi. Shelved for good.

My first book whose name I forget. About 50k. Exists only as a hard copy in my parents' house.

Taglist so far (tell me if you want to be added or removed)

Tag list for everything

@harleyacoincidence

@anonymousfoz

@moremysteriesthantragedies

@elizababie

@sm-writes-chaos

@bellascarousel

@the-dragon-chronicler

@teacupsandstarlight

@vorskra

@wrenofthewords

@amostdelectablescribbler

@mysticstarlightduck

@phantommill

@gracewritesbooks

@aziz-reads

@owlsandwich

@symbioticsimplicity

@squarebracket-trick

@koala2all

@rmgrey-author

@atomatowriter

@cheerfulmelancholies

@delusionisaplace

@janec23

@writing-is-a-martial-art

@authortango

Just chapters and snippets

@da-na-hae

For The Many-faced Princess

@deadlyessencewhispers

@serenanymph

The Halfway Revenant

@acertainmoshke

For Stitches and Memories

@space-writes

@acertainmoshke

The Bone Queen

@janec23

@holdmyteaplease

@digital-chance

@thecrookedwriterspath

@tea-and-mercury

@coven-archives

I love you all!

#writeblr intro #oh my god this is long #why did I write so much #why did I do this to myself #writeblr #writing #writing community #creative writing #fantasy #writers of tumblr

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geek-fashionista · 25 days

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A Business Proposal

A little while ago, I posted an interest poll for a series I'm planning. Since many of you responded that you were at least curious, I come today with... limited information. Limited, because the novel version of this series is currently being read by a literary agent.

But I've always felt that this story was too big to be contained in book format. Under a traditional publisher, I would lose the rights to my own property, so if they didn't want to see more of it, that's that for myself and the characters and the readers who fall in love with the characters. Self-publishing is harder. It needs to be a collaborative effort between writer and readers if it's going to succeed. Thus, I turn to the only audience I have with my "business proposal."

(Note: If you've been around long enough, you might recognize some of these characters from posts that have since been deleted.)

~*~

Working Title: Trainwrecks Length of Series: 8 seasons Length of Seasons: 24 episodes, 12 main and 12 bonus, posted biweekly. (Each season will last three months.) Episode Length: 1000-2000 words Setting: Seattle, Washington and its surrounding towns, between the years 2004-2015 Genre: Contemporary, YA to New Adult

Trainwrecks follows a diverse group of six best friends from high school to their mid-twenties, with all the romance, heartache, college and career decisions, and confusion that entails. Our main cast:

A bubbly, fat Puerto Rican girl with a passion for art and matchmaking (Ages: 14-25)

Her adopted, Argentinian brother, who is adept at music and pretty much nothing else (Ages: 16-27)

Their childhood best friend, an Asian/British/American guy who hides years of trauma behind a flamboyant and overbearing personality (Ages: 19-30)

His ill-tempered younger sister, who has just moved back to the United States from London after their parents divorced fifteen years ago (Ages: 14-25)

An equally bad-tempered Hawaiian/French guy with a love of photography and a hatred of bullies (Ages: 14-25)

The coolest, most beautiful Chinese girl you'll ever meet, who is fighting a sex addiction after a history of abuse (Ages: 16-27)

Main episodes will be written in story format. Bonus episodes will be in epistolary format: MSN chats, text messages, letters, blog posts, and eventually Twitter posts. Y'know, cuz Twitter didn't exist in 2004.

The main series (8 seasons, 24 episodes each) will be completely free to read and delivered directly to your email inbox. There will be character artwork, a bio page to keep track of everyone, a tie-in Tumblr account for memes, Spotify playlists for each character, and helpful things like family trees and relationship charts as well. Each season will have its own key artwork---cover art, if you will.

In addition to the completely free story, there will be extra content for paid subscribers and Patreon patrons, including but not limited to:

Sneak previews/early updates

Side stories

Back stories

Character and universe development notes

Entire AUs with different relationships or different genres

Money raised will either go towards paying artists or towards my student loans. And if the series gets really popular, I intend to launch a Kickstarter for physical copies that will include all the artwork and maybe some bonus items as well.

That's my business proposal. If you like it or have questions, comment on this post, scream in my inbox, chat me---do whatever but do it vocally because I need to know you're out there. And then, feel free to follow my Substack for updates.

#original fiction #writing #writeblr #original characters #writing community #writers on tumblr

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ebonysplendor · 7 days

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A Date with Death 💀💻💬

TL;DR: What's totally hot is that we are chatting with this major edge lord who is cosplaying as the Grim Reaper. What's even hotter is that this major edge lord actually is the Grim Reaper...pfft, yeah right.

Game Link: https://twoandahalfstudios.itch.io/a-date-with-death

Notable Features: Customizable MC (pronouns, appearance, name, etc.), Customizable bedroom, Internet romance, Supernatural LI Spiciness: 2/5 -- It can get a little suggestive, but nothing unholy...unfortunately T_T LI Red Flags: 0.5/5 -- The guy's trying to kill us but I mean...it's kinda his job so...? Also! This isn't even a yandere LI so, just a heads up! We're changing gears a bit

Wanna know more? I didn't see a rating on it, but I wouldn't suggest anyone under 16 play this. But if you are over 16 or simply don't give a rat's ass about my warning, I can't effectively police ya, so let's get into it!

(Unrelated, but peep the additions and new section marker...thingies. Ahhhh~! <3 Okay anyways...)

I found it. I finally found it.

I found a game that has me raving harder than Perfect Love, and those of you that read that review (or even some of my follow up posts) know how much I absolutely \ that game!

Even still, so far, Perfect Love is still my favorite visual novel with a yandere LI; in this one, the LI isn't a yandere. Admittedly, this was a totally foreign experience to me, because I honestly (and clearly) gravitate towards the yandere stories, not to mention just simply favoring and have a preference for them. Like I've mentioned in other reviews, it is just something about a man with an ungodly obsession for me that just draws me in...

Anyways, that's not featured in this game, but it was still just as good! I loved this! The story, the dialogue, the art, the little quirky features, the customization!! Gods, the customization. I loved that! The customization didn't even hugely matter, but it was just the fact that it was included and that I knew that that was what the MC looked like.

As a POC, it is so refreshing to know that my love interest "knows" that I have dark skin. Like, ahhhhh, my heart. Representation really does make a difference, even in adulthood. I love the games with the custom pronouns, or just straight gender neutral language, or even when they draw the character to be bald, grey, and faceless so it represents everyone. I honestly love it so much, and I do feel included, not gonna lie, and it's exciting that others can, too.

Anyways, I'll rant and rave and rant some more during the review. I've really gotta get into the amazingness that is this game, and I'm definitely going to keep the spoilers extremely light (like always) to ensure that you can play with a vague idea of what's going on but not knowing exactly what's going down.

So, oh my Gods, boom.

The game kicks off with a little exposition on how we're pretty much living life final destination style. Some way, some how, death seems to always linger around us, but it just never seems to connect. Just picture a situation where we 112% should've died, but we somehow come out damn-near unscathed. No injuries, no long term scaring, no broken bones, nothing. Like...we're Gucci, and just straight up living our best life.

So, we're chilling at home one day when our laptop keeps going off. Consistently and incessantly. It gets pretty annoying pretty fast, because:

Who the hell is trying to get ahold of us that damn bad?

What app do we even have on our computer that's making all of that ruckus?

So, naturally, we go investigate, and it's this weird ass messaging app on there. Never seen it before, never used it, and have no idea where it came from because we didn't download it. Delete. Immediately delete. Only issue is that, when we delete it, it comes right back, and we can't delete it anymore. Okay...what the hell?

Not having much of a choice, and just out of curiosity, we click on this app, and we just see a wall of text from what is likely either a bot or a scammer.

Having nothing better to do, we confront this scammer bot, and we go back and forth with this totally not a scammer bot...thing...for a hot second. Basically the whole of it was that this basement creep was trying to convince us that he was the Grim Reaper and that he was after our soul. No, like, no lie. I have receipts. This man deadass said that he was the Grim Reaper and that he was coming for our soul.

See? I wasn't joking.

We continue to go back and forth with this weirdo about how all of this is fake and ask him is this a cry for help, and he gets all pissy and says that we have a small and smooth brain and all of that jazz before it finally gets to a head. Mr. Edgy over here finally decides that he's had enough of our shit, and he sends us a request for a video chat. Still having nothing better to do, we enter the call, and well....

....okay, definitely not how I'd imagine some incel living in his parents' basement that reeks of constant rejection and a middle school boys' locker room to look like. He do be kinda fine. Fake as hell and a major edge lord, but kinda fine. Hella fine, actually. Deathly fine, amiright? Ha, ha....haaaaaa. Okay, moving on...

So, now that we're in this call, admittedly, we're a little taken aback because, well for one, he's actually pretty damned attractive, and for two, he is still insisting that he's the Grim Reaper. Like, yeah, okay...

It gets to a point where we finally cave and start to play along, and we're just like "Okay, if you're really the Grim Reaper, then you should have no issue with reaping my soul before the week is up right? If you can get it, you can have it. No questions asked."

Upon hearing this, he is clearly intrigued, and he arrogantly says "Lmao I only need an hour" and we're like "Lmao then why haven't you already taken it?"

Silence. Exactly what I thought, "Grimmy".

Anyways, he agrees to being "honour bound" to the bet or whatever the hell his edgy ass said. Before the bet gets solidified, though, we establish what our winnings would be should we win, and you already know that we asked for...

THAT MAN'S HAND IN MARRIAGE.

I mean, come on: his own house, stable work, hot as hell -- this man is the full package. Fuck a soul, I'm trying to fuck him.

I mean, he...didn't really, like...agree to that, so we opted for his soul instead. Fair is fair, but apparently our soul is on the line so we can't screw this up. Oh noes! The big scawy weaper is gwonna come gwet mwe! Lol.

Unless...

...this is a very real bet with very real consequences, and we made a very stupid mistake.

Where do I even begin?!

I loved this game! It made me laugh, it made me cry (not joking, it really did), it made me feel things.

Like, holy shit, I'm so used to the yandere games where you're essentially like "This man is hot, but he is fucking nuts, and I need to get away from him", that it really starstruck me when I was like "...I want to marry this man and live happily ever after". Like...there was nothing toxic this time around it and it was...huh? Kindness? Positivity? Boundaries? What is this?

It was deadass like being in a string of toxic relationships and finally finding the one. Not even just the one, but a legitimate healthy relationship. Like, I have no idea how to react to this, but it's such a fuzzy feeling. Grim literally got me over here giggling and kickin' my feet and shit.

Anyways, this visual novel was really, really good and an absolute chef's kiss. The pacing, the story, the humour, the customization, the art, the UI, the everything! Everything was so good! Like, if you couldn't tell, my favorite thing was by far the customizations. Let me show you what I mean:

Like, how cool is that? The screenshots doesn't do it full justice, but from looking at the characters that I made, you can tell that you can customize quite a bit. Granted, it doesn't play a huge role, and there's not side sprite or CGs with the character that you customized, but I still like that there was an option so that it's like "Fuck yeah, he knows I'm Black" ya know? Not to mention, you can also customize...

...your room and your household companion! You can even have a snake as your pet, if you choose to do so!

I'm sorry, I was just absolutely geeked about the customization options. Honestly, the overall art in the game was just absolutely stunning; however, I did wish that there were more CGs, but that's more of a personal thing versus a flaw of the game. I just wanted to see more of this sleek ass art, because, as I've mention, I am an absolute slut for CGs.

Anyways, much like the Perfect Love game, I could definitely ramble on and on and on and on some more about this game, but I'm going to demand -- not ask but politely, yet forcefully demand -- that you play this game and enjoy it so that you can see how edgy yet sweet this man can be. And like I said, the dialogue is so funny. Admittedly, my humour is kind've broken, so I laugh at just about anything, but I think the dialogue was legit funny this time around. And again, the way that it just switches over from being a total meme to something kind've serious to super sentimental and sweet and it's...like what? The transition was just so damned smooth. Like, the dev(s) absolutely killed that shit. No debate, and don't at me because outside opinions that oppose this idea will be ignored.

That being said, I cannot stress enough how much this game needs to be played. It's so good. It's so funny. It's so sweet. It's so sleek. It's so everything. Like, just play it. You'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't. Okay, okay, but that's enough gushing and rambling. Here's a link for when -- not if when, because I demanded it, remember? -- you play the game for yourself, and drop those supportive words of "This game is fire as fuck, dude" and maybe some monetary support if you can.

Anywho, I'm not the dev(s), so my transition to the end won't be as smooth, but I'm going to go ahead and end it here!

As always: Don't forget to drink water, don't be dumb, and hope to see you around~!

A Date with Death

#visual novel review #vn review #visual novel #a date with death #adwd #adwd casper #adwd grim #a date with death vn #a death with death visual novel #a date with death vn review #a date with death visual novel review #a date with death casper #a date with death grim

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zwoelffarben · 1 year

Text

Not derailing this post which is having a very serious conversation about sex, sexnormativity, and such. There's a quote I want to talk about in that @curlicuecal in the conversation says and relate it to the culture surrounding the adoption of new media:

...if you spend some time talking to people with different experiences or learning about even one culture other than your own ... It just opens your eyes to perspectives and options you never even knew existed. And suddenly you have more colors to paint with.

I believe that the major success of homestuck and (unfortunately) harry potter as well as the major failure of Jame Cameron's Avatar, and minor failure of most YA dytopia novels wit harry potter houses correlate to this New Colors Principle: If you give people new colors to paint wit, they will paint with them.

let's skip over homestuck (we'll get back to it) and (unfortunately) talk about harry potter for a moment. The four houses are arguably the biggest part of potterhead culture, and that's more than just marketing. A lot of words have been written on how the houses function in canon, forming the basis for a bad positive feedback loop that ultimately radicalizes snape, voldemort, and other syltherins to bibotry; as well as other problems with their in canon implimentations. But, the thing that made harry potter so fucking popular, aside from the factors of success largely unrelated to the book itself, was that it gave people some fancy new astrology signs by way of the hogwarts houses. They were new colors to paint with, and its unfortunately what makes it so fucking difficult to kill too, because people don't want to lose access to those colors they found meaning in (I still internally identify wit a house, cringing as I do, because I painted myself with that color, and cutting that part of myself away, despite my acceptance of its necessity is a hard and painful process I'm probably never gonna completely manage.)

By contrast, the failure of James Cameron's Avatar to form a cultural splash is because He doesn't spend enough time really rexploring the blue people's culture in a way that's understandable to a human audience. A lot of the blue people's culture exists only as either a plot device or the mystical native trope, which kinda betrays his opinions on the real-life indiginous peoples his blue people are coded as. He had the opprotunity to create some truly fascinating colors, and had he done so by cooperating with the native people he believes are a "dead end society", and all he made was puce blue.

And now back to the other end of the spectrum, to quote myself, "Homestuck is a now concluded long running web comic series written by Andrew Hussie centering around the paradox inducing shenanagains of ten humans, twenty-four trolls, a number of cerebum, and several other species; as they all quest both for personal growth and to herald the birth of a new cosmic frog multiverse which the surviviors of the narative can settle into: It’s a glorious mess." That quote comes from an essay in which I use huusian troll romance to analysize the romantic-sexual attraction of a character from a completely unrelated media.

The popularity of homestuck stems, I argue here in part, from the absolutely unhinged pallette of new colors it created. You've got astrology^2 in the classpects; you've got the trolls with their lexusi, blood heirarchy, and romance quadrants; the leprechaun have their charms (which is itself taking the piss out of troll romance quadrants), the dichotomy of the prospit and derse dreaming, the cherbum, all the various ways to conceptualize the self brought about by shenanagains in paradox spacetime. Homestuck offers some 40+ new colors to fuck around painting wit, and cringe though the execution might have sometimes been, people did enfact fuck around and paint wit 'em.

People love having new colors to play with, and culture is driven by the desire to paint, but also to discover new colors to paint with. What an excellent metaphor, that I should note was made by a person who, at time of writing, has a homestuck icon.

#homestuck #(unfortunately) harry potter #(unfortunately) Avatar #identity

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garykingz · 1 year

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The smoke from the soccer boy.

You hated lectures, and you knew all too well that you could get that studying done better alone. So, whilst hiding under the university's bleachers, you try to do so. That studying becomes null when you notice the loud, cocky goalkeeper on the field across from you... and you were smitten.

Fluffy shit.

(AN: This is movie!Warren. Not the real life guy.)

—

Welp. Here you were again. You watched between the chairs of the bleachers as the Kentucky university students played their usual soccer – they were sure as shit serious every time you sat here and watched. You never watched in a creepy way; you were merely just bored each time you came here to skip a certain lesson. Or more, skip a seminar that lasted like two hours.

But since the boys gave you some little entertainment as you skipped, you supposed it wasn't so bad. Sometimes you'd bring a book. Or text your friends on your flip phone with a cute heart charm that hung from the bottom.

It'd been a few weeks since you started doing this and you wanted to feel guilty. You did a little. But you would've rather read or studied in peace under the bleachers in that time rather than listen to a lecture.

As you pulled your phone from your pocket to check the time, you smiled. Two hours was good. Placing your phone on the seat in front of you and pulling out a book you'd been reading the last couple of days, you leaned against a pole that kept up the seats. You hummed softly as you flicked the pages with grace; your eyes dancing across the words. This was better. Much–

"Fuck you, Warren!"

"You wish you could, Jake!"

Well, fuck. There went your damn peace. You let out a soft sigh before going back to your book. You were sure they would pack up soon. They had to. Right? They usually did already but you assumed this was taking longer for some reason.

"Lipka, aggressive touch!"

You could only make out chuckling after hearing what you assumed was the couch yell out. God, just leave.

"And that's a win for me~"

"Why you cryin' for, huh?!"

"Ooooh! Look at that, gorgeous catch. By me."

Whoever that was talking the most was the one who kept pulling you away from your book. You finally had enough and closed the book with an annoyed expression pressured into your face. As you stepped a little closer to the bleachers to see, you glanced up and down the field until–

"Warren, good catch!"

Him? Oh. Oh, he was pretty. He was taller than the rest of the boys but that wasn't the only thing that made him stand out. He had his brown curls pulled back into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck while wearing the most arrogant smirk across his face. It should've looked that way at least. But it didn't. He looked… like he was the main character to your favourite romance YA novels.

Your hands reached out a little as your fingertips pressed against the inside of the bleacher seats as you peered through them. This Warren was playing goalkeeper. Before you knew it, you kept your eyes on him the majority of their play. You watched as every now and then he would pull his white gloves tighter onto his hands and then wipe dirt from his face with them. You watched in awe as his shirt would lift just that little every time he jumped and stopped the ball. And he was good at that too. Really good.

You didn't know that you ever cared for sports this much. But with your eyes dancing over Warren's every move – you sure as hell liked whatever this sport was. …If you even remembered half the time what you were watching.

When you heard a bell ring and the boys finally stopped playing, your eyes widened. Oh, shit. Had you actually wasted your whole time watching this damn game for a cute boy? That wasn't unlike you to get smitten but the whole damn lesson? Reality check – you were supposed to be studying.

As you pulled your flip phone from the seat and placed your book into your bag, you turned to walk away when you noticed Warren with two other boys, talking and laughing together. His smile was… really beautiful. You were surprised you hadn't seen him on campus before. Well, you were glad to know your hiding spot was going to shed a little entertainment now at least.

And it did. A whole two weeks passed and you kept up your streak. The Tuesday and the Thursday, you skipped that damn same lecture. You did get some studying in – you weren't going to slack off completely… but you sure did abandon your book more than a few times to watch Warren between the bleacher seats again. Damn it. You hated how charming you thought this guy was. Sure, you hadn't breathed one word to the man but… you were just as sure you were going to at some point. …Right?

When you heard the bell ring for next classes; you picked up your book that had only been flipped a few pages since sitting down. Oops. You made sure you were going to read more next time. When you placed them into your bag, your eyes looked between the bleacher seats once more. And when you did…

"Warren, come on, man!"

You felt your heart race in your chest as you had your back against one of the beams that held up the seats. You held your bag to your chest as you clutched it tightly. He was looking over to you. No – he was looking at you.

Those seats weren't making you completely invisible and you knew that. But you knew they wouldn't notice you while playing their games. …That wasn't until that bell rang and your eyes met with his. "Oh, God," you whispered under your breath. You couldn't move now. You couldn't leave when they were now leaving so quickly.

The way he pushed his brown curls back out of his face with his gloves fingers; his smirk on his face for that small moment before he turned to you. He looked so serious when you met eyes with him. He didn't see you… He couldn't have. It was Warren; he would've smirked or given you a wave at least. It was Warren Lipka, afterall.

Ten minutes must've passed as you stayed there. You had to make sure they finally left. Sure, you were going to be late for your next class but you had to know they– he was gone.

Now; when that Thursday came around, you questioned whether or not to go back to your usual hiding spot while you ditched. You knew you were bunking off under there way before you even noticed Warren so, it shouldn't have stopped you. But somehow, you were hesitant. You were hesitant to be caught. …And then… as you drew closer to the bleachers and the soccer field was empty of players, you held your bag under both your arms in front of you.

"Look at you, that's some moves you got there."

His voice rang in your head and, annoyingly enough, it caused you to bring a small flustered smile to your face. God, were you smitten.

Fine.

You said to yourself before walking over to those same seats. Your shoes grazed against the grass and you made your way over. As you finally walked under as you have done many times before, you pulled your bag from your shoulder and dug around inside for your book. When you took it out and placed the bag on the floor, you were surely enough ready to actually get some studying in.

So, you thought.

When you looked up from taking your book out, you noticed a boy on the other side of the seats. He stood facing the field, back to you as he held one hand in his pocket and his other to his face. Your eyes danced up his body, from his jeans, to his red plaid jacket that hung over his shoulders to his– …His dark brown curls that blew in the wind every now and then.

Warren?

As the wind blew his hair, you noticed there was smoke spurring out into the breeze from his face. That smell… Was that weed? You almost doubted it was Warren for a moment before you heard him sigh.

"Enough of this, hm."

That voice. That deep, husky sounding voice. It was Warren Lipka, alright. What the hell was he doing? Wasn't there practise today?

You couldn't help but look through the bleachers at him, your fingertips pressed against the back of one of the seat rows. He was quiet. It was unlike him – from what you'd seen he was so enthusiastic on the playing field. But right there, it seemed as though, for what you could tell, was a sense of sadness looming over him. Sadness? Lost in thought? Something.

Watching him take a puff from his joint and pull it away between his index finger and thumb, your eyes seemed fixated on him. That man you'd been admiring from afar on the soccer field seemed very different from the man you were longing at right now. Like, somehow, you noticed a puzzle piece was missing from his usual charismatic front you'd been so fond of.

When you leaned in a little closer, Warren blew the smoke from between his lips.

Cough. Cough, cough.

Oh, no.

You quickly covered your mouth and took a step back, your eyes narrowing now as you tried to keep as quiet as possible.

"Oh, and here I thought you were gonna stay quiet."

With your hands over your mouth, you felt your heart race in your chest as you took a step back away from the seats. Away from Warren.

As you keep stepping back, the heel of your foot catches your bag and you fall back, landing on the grass. "Ah! S– Shit…"

As you wince a little and collect yourself again, your eyes notice sneakers now facing you on the opposite side of the bleachers. When your eyes drifted up, one seat, two seats, three seats…

Warren was looking down at you, pulling the joint away from his lips again let out a small chuckle. "You're good but no ninja."

You're silent – like everything you might've ever planned out to say to him had been thrown into the trash. Into the landfill. You had your chance and now it was ruined. You felt your eyes water a little as you pulled yourself up, bringing your bag with you now.

"I… wasn't hiding," you finally replied.

"Hm?" the man hummed, raising an eyebrow. "Really? 'Cause it sure as shit looked like you were."

You felt your chest tighten and your eyes flicker away from the man you'd been admiring over the weeks. When you gulp, you grip the strap of your bag over your shoulder now and turn around to walk away. You'd never felt so embarrassed.

"What's your name?"

You suddenly stopped when Warren's deep voice perked your ears.

"Don't tell me you're gonna walk away and not give me a name."

With your brows furrowing more and more in a pondering state, you part your lips. Maybe it was stupid to just answer on the spot. Or maybe it wasn't. But he finally acknowledged you. After all this time, he…

"Y/N… My name is Y/N," you finally spoke; your back still turned to Warren.

"You like hiding under here, Y/N?"

You turn around a little when you hear his feet shuffle on the ground; walking around the bleachers now to stand a small distance away from you to your left. "There's better places to ditch on campus, y'know."

"It was quiet here usually," you replied softly. With your hand still around the strap of your bag, you bring yourself to turn to him fully now. "Not until recently."

"Soccer fields are pretty loud spaces. Not great for reading n' shit," Warren explained, his voice calm and collected; but that almost made you more nervous.

"Not usually. Only when… certain players are there." Your eyes finally meet his and he offers you another smirk.

"You didn't enjoy my play?" he asked with a teasing tone.

You were quiet for a moment before speaking up again, "You're… e– entertaining, for sure."

"Oh, I'm real entertaining," Warren replied, his brows lifting a little as he kept his gaze on you. It was intense enough to make you turn away, afraid he might notice the flushed expression on your face.

"So, what class?" he asked, taking another puff from his joint.

"What…?" you asked, your eyes flickering to him for a moment.

"What class have you been ditchin'?"

You swallow before taking in a small, sharp exhale through your nose. "Art 1800s history. It's nothing I can't learn on my own time. It's just a lecture class."

"...Art, huh?"

You noticed the shift of tone in his voice when you finally turned back to him; your hand not leaving the strap of your messenger bag. "Yeah," you confirmed.

"Well, how about we hang out not under the bleachers on Saturday," he said; more being a statement than a question.

"Are you… asking me out?" you asked, almost as if you were making sure of what he was saying.

A small chuckle leaves his lips which causes your eyes to widen. Oh, no. He wasn't. He wasn't at all. You're so–

"Yeah, Y/N. Art student to soccer student. Sound good?"

When your eyes search his face; your attention falls to his lips when he smirks again, pulling the joint to them once more before flicking it to the ground.

"You don't–"

"Y– Yes. Sure… I'd like that," you replied, almost too quickly as your words kept going.

Warren's cocky smirk turned into a playful smile as his hands made their way into the pockets of his worn jeans. "'Aight, then."

"Wait," you muttered softly. "Why'd… you ask? I mean…"

"These seats aren't an invisible cloak, sweetheart. It was nice to have a cute audience every time I played," he explained. As his brown curls blew with the slight breeze, you felt your brows raise a little. Gosh, he really was… beautiful.

"I see," you replied, your voice seemingly more soft than before.

"Art. So, you know Spencer, right?" Warren asked, his voice perking up a little.

"Spencer… Reinhard?" you pondered, wondering why he's asking about that boy so randomly.

"Mhm. Get him to give my number to you. I'll text you later."

When he gave you one last smile, he turned around and began to walk away. As your eyes were about to turn away from him, you heard his footsteps stop.

"I hope I'll see you Tuesday still, though, yeah?" he perked up, turning his head back to you.

You let out a small breathy laugh and nodded with a smile, "Of course."

#rambles #american animals #movies #fic #evan peters #warren lipka

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 10 months

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reading update: july 2023

I don't have a cool and witty opening for this one. I read a fuck of a lot of books this month and I want to tell you about them LET'S GO

Black Water Sister (Zen Cho, 2021) - Black Water Sister has a very fun premise: a closeted lesbian and unemployed recent graduate moves back to Malaysia with her parents and is already having a bad enough time when she starts hearing the voice of her dead grandmother, who turns out to have been deeply involved in supernatural organized crime. our hapless protagonist becomes a medium against her will, and has to navigate to world of Malaysian spirits and superstition to lay her grandma to rest. unfortunately the actual style of the story wasn't more me; although definitely adult fiction, the prose is breezy in a way I affiliate strongly with YA, which is not to my personal taste but is still so hashtag valid. if you're one of the countless people trying to make that jump from YA to adult fiction and you like queer urban fantasy then Black Water Sister might be a great fit for you, although I should provide a warning for a pretty surprisingly graphic near-rape in the book's climax that really took me by surprise in a story that's otherwise pretty zany in its violence.

The Bride Test (Helen Hoang, 2019) - I think I said last month that Alexis Hall's A Lady for a Duke was the best so far of the romance-novel-every-month scheme I'm trying to pull off this year. the Bride Test has pretty swiftly displaced it; have I finally discovered the really good romance novels? (worry not; I know what I'm reading for August and my hopes are. low.) our two protagonists, Mỹ/Esme (her chosen American/English name) and Khai, are both genuinely charming and are pretty strong characters independent of each other, which cannot be said for A Lot of romance protags. despite the absolute insanity of how they met (yes, Khai's mother went to Vietnam and offered, uneducated a poor single mother a tourist visa in exchange for trying to seduce her autistic son. yes, that's shady. don't think about it too hard) and Esme waiting until WAY too late in the game to reveal the existence of HER LIVING HUMAN CHILD, I liked this book a lot. it's silly and heartfelt and I had fun; what else do you need? 5/5 eggplant emojis.

Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin, 1956) - there's probably nothing I can say about Giovanni's Room that I could say that someone smarter and gayer hasn't already said, but god. it really is breathtaking. I so often see this book talked about as a gay tragedy, and honestly that feels like almost too glib of a description. it's a really meticulous dissection of white male masculinity and the claustrophobic constraints there of, and our narrator's claustrophobic fear of divesting himself from the power that he's entitled to by virtue of being a white American man perceived as a heterosexual. this man would rather live in repressed misery for his entire life than risk being like those effeminate faggots at the gay club, but spoiler alert! being miserable doesn't make you better than your fellow fags; it just means you're miserable AND a fag. sharp and painful and so so so smart. also I'm going to summon @zaricats because I was supposed to tell you what I thought about this book. oops!

Lone Women (Victor LaValle, 2023) - okay so listen. did I just say Black Water Sister wasn't really for me because of the simplistic prose? yes. did I really enjoy the very sparse, straightforward style of Lone Women? also yes. leave me alone, I contain contradictions. anyway, Lone Women is a ripping piece of historical fiction spliced with supernatural secrets, based on LaValle's research into 19th century Black women homesteaders who made their lives in Montana. LaValle opens on a scene of irresistible intrigue - Adelaide Henry, lone woman, sets out for Montana with a mysteriously heavy trunk after burning down her family's California farm with her parents' mutilated corpses inside. and boy, does it escalate from there! it's a story about isolation and community and the people who are failed by so-called close knit small towns, and the ways in which vulnerable people band together to protect one another. it also makes the compelling point that maybe, just maybe, the real monsters were your local transphobe and her husband's lynch mob all along.

Black Disability Politics (Sami Schalk, 2022) - what a cool book! Schalk's argument begins with the idea that Black disability politics are distinct from predominantly white mainstream disability politics, and are therefore often overlooked in conversation, activism, and academia. Schalk analyzes the historical work of the Black Panthers and the National Black Women's Health Project to showcase what she describes as Black disability politics in action. in Schalk's conception, Black disability politics take a much more holistic approach to disability, conceptualizing as just one form (and, frequently, as a result of) of oppression tangled up with a myriad of others that cannot be meaningfully addressed when they're treated as separate issues. the book concludes in interviews with contemporary Black disability activists and organizers that shed light on ways in which the wider movement is often unwelcoming to folks of color, and an exhortation from Schalk for readers to continue the conversation well beyond the confines of the book. in a killer show of praxis, the entire book has been made available to read in PDF form, and I strongly recommend giving it a look!

The River of Silver (S.A. Chakraborty, 2022) - mentally I am kicking myself a little for waiting so long to read this continuation of my beloved Daevabad trilogy, because it did take me a minute to get back into the swing and mythology of the world and that did make me feel unpleasantly like I wasn't appreciating these character-focused short stories as much as I could be. but even having said that - man! fuck I love the world of Daevabad, and I adore these characters so much. getting to see them again, even briefly, was a delight, and I am once again congratulating Nahri and Ali on being the invention of heterosexual romance. (also, on a related note, but I ADORE the way Chakraborty writes her characters having crushes. they crush SO hard and it's very sweet. these books are such big drama all the way down.)

Men We Reaped (Jesmyn Ward, 2013) - an absolute powerhouse of a memoir, and devastating the whole way down. in Men We Reaped Ward attempts to make sense of a series of tragedies that befell her community when five young Black men - beginning with Ward's younger brother - died between 2000 and 2004. the word 'unflinching' is hopelessly played out, but it's difficult to figure out how to describe the head-on way Ward explores each young man's life and ultimate end and her own upbringing. the men in Ward's history - her brother, the friends she lost, her father and other male relatives - are never idealized; their demons, miseries, infidelities, addictions, and violence are placed on full display. but Ward is also insistent on displaying these men with dignity, compassion, empathy; showing them at their best and, most importantly, as men who were loved and deserved better than the violence that poverty and racism wrought on them. it's a furious memoir, one that will leave you mourning too.

Nimona (ND Stevenson, 2015) - did I only read this so I can make more informed complaints if/when I end up watching the netflix movie with my wife? YES. but listen, it wasn't JUST petty hater behavior. Nimona is just really good, and I think I got a lot more out of it this time around that I did when I first read it years ago. this comic is wild and unfettered and so spectacularly weird; I wish more things felt the way Nimona does. I also with more things starred small girls begging to kill cops and stage a violent overthrow of the government, that rules hard. also man I love Ballister, he's SUCH a good protagonist. he's curmudgeonly, he's deeply principled, he's held a grudge for years, he's paternal, he's even gay. what a guy!

#reading updates

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galactic-pirates · 2 months

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Romance Tropes Bracket

@purlturtle is doing this really cool thing and they said I could ramble about it too! And how could I resist talking story? Do you know me? Hahaha.

Anyway they made this spreadsheet and screenshot and you can check them out on their post (clicky here).

So in the BLUE CORNER

Bodyguard vs Love Triangle

Workplace vs High School

Second Chances vs. Made A Bet (90s style)

Sibling's Best Friend vs Nanny/Governess

Rocking that RED we have

Grumpy/Sunshine vs Someone Else's SO

Accidental Pregnancy vs Just To Get It Out Of Our Systems

Family Feud (Romeo&Juliet style) vs Holiday Romance

Billionaire vs Soulmates

The sun shines down on YELLOW

Mistaken Identity vs Age Gap

Love Potion/Aphrodisiac vs Only One Bed

Amnesia vs Kissing Lessons

Forced Proximity (road trip etc.) vs Secretly a celeb/royal

Aaaaaand finally working that GREEN

Marriage of Convenience vs Fake Dating

Snowed In vs Friends To Lovers

Bad Boy/Girl vs Sworn Off Love

Supernatural (vampires etc.) vs Enemies To Lovers

Under the cut for my picks and rambles!

Bodyguard vs Love Triangle I don't do Love Triangle, either pick one and then let everyone move on or all be together as a trio. My very first real 'ship' had a sort of love triangle (the lady dated one guy, then the other, then back to the first etc.) but I only shipped her with the first guy (it was Jack Malone and Sam Spade from Without a Trace). So the whole 'love triangle' aspect was lost on me as I just did not care.

Bodyguard though... that has serious potential. So much so I have some vague concepts for an original novel trilogy based around it. Bodyguard is sort of what Eve Baird does on the Librarians (Guardian) but also not. I mean it can depend a little bit. I like the whole protective part to a point, but not if it takes the protectees agency away. I'm not fond of 'damsel', I would rather they kick butt together.

WINNER: Bodyguard

Workplace vs High School This one is super easy - has to be Workplace because High School = kids. I have no interest in teenagers. Teachers maybe but that would be a workplace. Even when I was a kid I didn't write about kids. I skipped the whole YA thing completely.

WINNER: Workplace

Second Chances vs. Made a Bet (90's Style) I had to ask what 'Made a Bet' was because I didn't know. @purlturtle suggested it was like a '10 things I hate about you' thing, where they date on a bet and then catch real feelings. Now catching feels - that's cool, but the whole bet thing? I don't know...

I did write a fic prompt once where they were in a bar and two characters were challenging each other to see who could pull the guy they picked out. I suppose that's ok as a concept. I didn't develop it so it clearly didn't grab me that much though.

Second Chances though - this I like. I mean I suppose there's the whole "if it didn't work out before, why would it work now?" question, as in their relationship failed for a reason. But maybe that's because they needed to work on themselves. Sometimes people are just idiots and make assumptions and don't communicate properly. I'm actually writing a serial at the moment with a second chance romance in it (divorced ex-wives have to work together). So this does grab me.

WINNER: Second Chances

Sibling's Best Friend vs Nanny/Governess Got to be honest neither of these jump out at me as being something I'm really drawn to. Although I am sniggering a little bit as I think Nanny/Governess is a favourite of Janeway's (wasn't that her preferred holonovel?). So I'm tempted to vote for Janeway but ehhh. It has a bit of a power dynamic vibe I don't like.

Sibling's Best Friend is very... cute I guess. I don't really have much to say about it to be honest. I'm going to make it win on default but meh.

WINNER: Sibling's Best Friend

------------------------------

Mistaken Identity vs Age Gap I have written Age Gap - obviously, as I wrote a hell of a lot of Rumbelle (Rumple and Belle, Once Upon a Time) back in the day. Only... I got to be honest I never really saw it as an age gap thing. It totally was and by a LOT because Rumple was semi-immortal as the dark one. He was a couple of centuries old when they met but... age gap romances usually make me uncomfortable because of the inherent power dynamic. Rumple had so little self-confidence that just wasn't an issue.

Mistaken Identity - "do you let them hate the real you, or love the fake you" - HELL YES! Quote from Sophie Devereaux there and the espionage/heist fan in me is compelled. Also superheroes I guess ala Supercorp. Give me all the stories about masks people wear and just wanting to be loved for who they really are.

WINNER: Mistaken Identity

Love Potion/Aphrodisiac vs Only One Bed *cough* show me a person who wasn't read a few sex pollen fics in their time in fandom, and I'll show you a liar. I jest, I jest but also not really. It's not a bad setup for a PWP so long as consent is clearly established and we know before they are under the influence that they are into one another. I suppose there could be a fair bit of plot in terms of consequences but I have no wish personally to write about consent issues.

Only One Bed though - CLASSIC! I mean it's iconic. It's two people pining like idiots, putting up pillow walls between them, the inevitable cuddling in the night and then awkward aroused awakenings. I wrote this in my Conspiracy Afloat fanfic and I'm sure I'll write it again. It's the classic and you can't go wrong with a classic.

WINNER: Only One Bed

Amnesia vs Kissing Lessons Kissing Lessons? This is a new one on me but not hard to figure out. It feels quite juvenile, like maybe a good match for the teenagers in High School?

Amnesia though - oh yes! I don't know if I first loved this trope when I saw the Harrison Ford movie Regarding Henry, or if I saw the trope elsewhere first, but it's very good. The "I'm sorry who are you?" "I'm your wife" and not remembering, having to fall in love again. The agony of the lost shared memories, of not recalling the life they had together, of making new memories. Hell yeah!

WINNER: Amnesia

Forced Proximity (road trip etc.) vs Secretly a celeb/royal Forced Proximity has it's place as a supplement. Like I talked earlier about the Second Chance divorced exes who had to work together. They are getting that Second Chance because of the forced proximity. As a trope on it's own though? Ehhh.

The Secretly a Celeb/Royal... depends if you can expand that. I have long loved the idea of some super rich person being incognito because 'Rich people wear expensive clothes and drive posh cars and go fancy places' and so seeing Joe or Jane Regular, they think 'oh you look like X' rather than thinking they are actually X. I planned out a Rumbelle fic to this premise that I never wrote, but I swear I will write this someway, someday. It partly goes back to the Mistaken Identity and masks, and do they love the real you. With money, meeting someone and them not knowing you are rich is perhaps one of the few ways to be sure about that. But at what point do you tell the truth? The longer it goes on the more feelings of betrayal there are - very similar trope really. Now obviously royal is a whole thing on it's own but put the 'secretly' in front of it and it becomes something else.

WINNER: Secretly a celeb/royal

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Grumpy/Sunshine vs Someone Else's SO Someone Else's SO sounds like cheating/infidelity and I'm not interested in that. Just pick a side and then be honest about it.

I think Grumpy/Sunshine... I'm trying to think of an example. I suppose perhaps I tend to interpret it more as somebody who is reserved vs. someone who is social. Or possibly someone who is cynical/snarky/sarcastic vs. someone who is optimistic/positive/kind. I have definitely written this and will definitely write more of it. It definitely has it's place but equality works too.

WINNER: Grumpy/Sunshine

Accidental Pregnancy vs Just To Get It Out Of Our Systems Honestly not a fan of either, but definitely not a fan of oops pregnancy. It's just not a conflict I am interested in. It doesn't compel me. To be honest neither does the 'Get it out of our systems' because... well it seems odd. Like if you like one another then why is it a one and done? This wins by default but meh.

WINNER: Just To Get It Out Of Our Systems

Family Feud (Romeo & Juliet style) vs Holiday Romance A feud does have potential, the whole 'forbidden love' aspect. I have written this. I have a daughter of politically powerful parents falling in love with a rebel in my Steampunk AU. That's not a family feud, more of a civil class war thing.

Holiday Romance is pretty cool. The whole 'we really click but there is a time limit on it' thing. I did write this once (a Rushbelle fic). As a standard trope it's not something that interests me that much. Now a romance developing during the holidays as like a mutually pining idiots friends to lovers type thing - that's more what I like. I planned and never wrote 2 Bering and Wells christmas fics. First was a fake dating AU where Myka claims Helena is her girlfriend to shut up her sister only to have to invite Helena for the holidays (I know, it's cliche but fun). The other was canon-divergent off season 3 I guess where Helena rejoined the Warehouse and Myka invited her as a 'friend' for Christmas so she wasn't alone at the B&B. Only there was a mix-up and they went to Myka's parents, who weren't home (at the sisters) and they get snowed in, power cuts (huddling together for warmth), only one bed - basically every trope you can think of and hey - Forced Proximity lol - and it gets them to admit feelings. The holidays can add an intensity but neither of these two were technically holiday romance.

WINNER: Holiday Romance

Billionaire vs Soulmates I wrote Soulmates!! It was a Sanctuary fic (Time Will Tell) and it started off as a thought experiment/self-challenge. I don't like the idea of fate and then everything being happy because you have found your 'one' (or in my OT3 case, two). So I really pushed hard on the 'love is a choice' angle, and that lots of soulmate relationships failed because relationships take work. The 'this could be your future but only if you choose it, only if you work for it'. Made me love it. It was fun to explore how having this ticking timer could affect people's personalities, the development of the relationship (having the certainty could be paradoxically paralysing). What that did to society and prejudices etc.

Now of course Billionaire does sort of go back to what I described earlier with the 'Secret Celeb' trope. Having money is kind of a fantasy and it makes for a fun world. You can have them sail around in a yacht, go skiing and sit by the fire in a wood lodge, private jet travel etc. but I don't know. Apart from the 'do you like me or just my money' conflict, having a ton of money is just like so what? It removes worry about paying bills and buying food and that's awesome, takes those stresses off a relationship, but if you don't have to be a billionaire for that, and that as the sole trope... where's the story?

WINNER: Soulmates

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Marriage of Convenience vs Fake Dating OH NO YOU DIDN'T?!?! I have to choose? I suppose they are very similar. It's the pretend relationship and then the 'oh no I caught feelings' and that like Only One Bed is a complete classic.

I'm going to go with Fake Dating purely because it's likely to come up more. Although I can think of so many ideas for Marriage of Convenience. They are both so good! They are both winners in my heart.

WINNER: Fake Dating

Snowed In vs Friends To Lovers This is like a situation vs. a dynamic. Snowed In is quite specific. I talked about it earlier with the Bering and Wells christmas fic. It's not something that will happen in a lot of stories because some places don't have snow, or it's not set in winter etc.

Whereas Friends to Lovers is basically everything I write ever. How can people be lovers if they aren't friends? If they don't like one another. Friendship is the foundation. Even when I wrote Enemies to Lovers (Timeless, Flynn and Lucy) there was a loooooong stop off at friends in the middle.

WINNER: Friends to Lovers

Bad Boy/Girl vs Sworn Off Love Ok this feels like an unpopular opinion but if they are actually a 'bad boy/girl' then no, just no. If they are misunderstood, they have a heart of gold etc. then they aren't really 'bad' and so it's just aesthetics or something? Like pretending to be a rebel but not really. I don't get it to be honest.

Sworn Off Love though... so much yes. Think about Helena who didn't want to love, who intended their heart to be frozen, to no longer really beat because it belonged to Christina, their daughter who was gone. But Helena hadn't reckoned on Myka who found a way in anyway, and it was agony, but that love saved the world.

WINNER: Sworn Off Love

Supernatural (vampires etc.) vs Enemies To Lovers Ok my previous mention of Flynn and Lucy aside I really don't go in for Enemies to Lovers. If people are enemies they hate each other - hate is the opposite of love. Yes it's an extreme emotion but I don't get how it works except with a very long stop-off in friends first, and then that feels like not really Enemies to Lovers anymore.

Supernatural though can be fun. I have a long fascination with immortality. One partner living forever and the other one getting older, dying. I hate it, I hate it so much because it hurts, and yet it is compelling. I want to fix it. That's probably it. Carol and Maria from Captain Marvel. Breaks my heart :(

Doesn't just have to be immortality either. I know Harry Potter shouldn't be mentioned today but the Remus and Tonks relationship had potential as a dynamic. Remus as a werewolf saw himself as less than, as not being human - not being WORTHY. It's that kind of self-hate which makes me bond with characters (Rumple had the same thing going on). But the whole I love you, all parts of you, even the monster parts - that acceptance of the flaws. That's good stuff.

WINNER: Supernatural

I will post up the next bracket when @purlturtle does theirs! Though we did pick some different things so their bracket will look different from mine. It's going to be interesting!! :)

#romance tropes bracket #fic tropes #this was seriously fun #also I stayed up an hour past bedtime writing all of this out I was COMPELLED #put a quarter in and I will talk story for hours sorry not sorry

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maevathon-waveathon · 5 months

Text

a not-so-short rant on booktok

as much as i would LOVE to talk about how much the middle aged women on this side of tiktok are crazy, and how literally everyone will uplift the most horrible books (ACOTAR/colleen hoover books), my beef with this side of the internet lies in what it has done to the book industry as a whole.

to give context on my perspective, i have been a reader since i was a little kid. my mother was an english teacher who taught tenth grade and AP Lang. for most of her career. we are a family of very english and history oriented people. i was a reader from the age of like, three, and i’m currently fifteen. so that’s where i’m coming from.

i have been reading since before tiktok became a thing, so i have read many books. this was also a time when reading was sort of out of vogue (not cool) so the books were vastly different. i was introduced to high quality stores such as The Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer, Percy Jackson, etc. every plot line was new to me and the communities were vastly different from what they are now.

then the pandemic hit, and everything changed. people began to turn to tiktok for ideas of hobbies, and many found books to be a fun little hobby. while this was very good for me, the kid who had NEVER been able to interact with people who liked to read before, it became very problematic when people began to start picking up on and twisting common tropes.

that’s when we come to the whole dark romance craze/plague of unoriginal YA novels that is so common today. dark romance romanticized the toxic stereotypes around certain material that is usually morally grey, and twisted it to just straight up novels about sex. it took away from what the “dark” part of dark romance really was, and turned me away from any book that has been remotely seen as darker in atmosphere, for fear that i am going to be subjected to this.

then we have the YA novels, which are getting so bad that they deserve a whole freaking paragraph. certain authors saw the words “enemies to lovers” and “prophecy” and “over complicated magic system that is never ever explained over 5 freaking installments” and decided that this was the PERFECT recipe for a book. no. no it was not. i am so sick and tired of mary sue protagonists and the same two love interests copy pasted (white boy with black hair and slightly tanned boy with brown hair) in every book and the complicated names and the PROPHECIES and the overuse of magic that i have started reading adult novels and liking them more. just because something is trending among a younger audience does not mean that every single person needs to copy it to try and turn a profit. i find myself more into books with original plot lines and interesting development than the same three books over and over again.

i am losing my mind looking at certain books and reading about the synopsizes of them just to find the same plot lines repeated and repeated and repeated and beaten to death with a stick. it’s what motivated me to start writing again in the first place, because i think the book industry is beginning to get too repetitive.

anywaysssss if anyone who sees this wants to hear updates on my current story idea feel free to ask i need to infodump to someone lmaoo.

#bookblr #books #i hate tiktok #booktok #booktok slander

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 1 year

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Your meta about Twilight have me convinced that, written by anyone else, it's not a romance-- it's a horror story.

So now I'm wondering, if instead of being by Stephanie Meyer, Twilight was written by someone like Stephen King? In a horror book with the same core plot and the same blurb on the back, what's the scene everyone remembers- the equivalent to the scenes everyone remembers in The Shining, IT, or Carrie? (Or whatever horror author and work you're more familiar with, you get the idea)

There's just so many good horror scenes, and I really want your take, but like as I write this ask I just want to appreciate the ending a bit:

After she almost dies, after the venom is sucked out, smash cut to Bella the surviving heroine. The horror is over, safe back in Forks. Except the reader gets this sinking feeling. We slowly realize, no, she didn't avoid the bad ending. She's not running from it. She's choosing it, unaware of what it's actually going to cost her and how little she's getting in return. Even as a human, Bella has become the monster that will kill her in the end... setting us up perfectly for new moon where actually she kind of is the villain.

I guess I'm asking what one scene from spooky!Twilight would stick in your memory years laters, and how is it written differently to emphasize the horror?

(And if you're having fun with this, what scene for the other books)

Interesting question.

Of course, you nearly inspired an entirely too long rant between the differences of Stephen King's novel The Shining and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation, but no one wants to sit through that.

With that though, I think we have to take a few steps back.

Stephen King Wouldn't Write Twilight

First, he's done a vampire novel, Salem's Lot, which has a similar enough premise that he probably wouldn't do a Twilight style version.

Salem's Lot is also set in a very small, insular, American town. The events take place only within the town and most of the townsfolk never cotton on to what's happening. There are a select few knowledgeable insiders who then get dealt with.

It's much more Dracula in its inspiration than Twilight, in that we have a very similar subplot to the Lucy subplot where the town slowly starts being victimized by the vampires, no one believes the protagonist except a select few who then disappear from the story, and we slowly get the reveal of the demonic monstrosity that are the vampires.

But it's similar in that it's King's "Give me a modern, small, town with vampires".

But it's more than that.

What's the core plot of Twilight that we're keeping and the blurb on the back per the ask?

The core plot is that Bella moves to this small rural town, realizes there's something strange going on with her classmates, falls in love with Edward and loves him despite him being a distinct risk to her, is hunted by other vampires, and then the story ends after James has been destroyed.

The trouble with Twilight alone is that we have no resolution and no real consequences. Twilight really is just a book that sets the stage for the follow-on books, which works if you're writing YA romance novels, not so much if you want a horror novel.

Bella's fate is undecided as of the end of the novel, her parents are still ignorant as well as alive and well, nothing terrible has happened to any of the characters we've met so far including the NPCs, the Cullens so far seem to be everything they've claimed to be including Edward who for all his talk hasn't done anything.

Compare that to, say, the plot of Carrie. The important thing about Carrie is that we get the Prom. Everything leads up to Prom, we see everything build towards it and no something terrible is going to happen, and then it does.

You can't have Carrie, as a singular novel, end at the moment she opens the door to her surprise date so she can go to Prom.

Similarly, you can't have The Shining end only when they realize that maybe this hotel is filled with malevolent psychic energy, and it might do something.

It's not a horror story unless you see when things go very bad.

He'd probably also add in a lot more of the typical Stephen King tropes that I won't comment on because this isn't the post for "weird shit Stephen King puts in his books sometimes".

Okay, So What Would Stephen King Do?

Honestly, I imagine Charlie would become our main character.

Small town divorced cop estranged from his wife and daughter, whose daughter suddenly decides to live with him (whose new stepfather may or may not be abusive) and is a total mess he doesn't know how to relate to, has the background on the Cullens and yeah they're weird but they seem so nice, as well as the even more local guy in his best friend Billy who says, "dead isn't better, Charlie, don't bury your pets in the cemetery", and life gets progressively worse and weirder as his daughter begins dating what is slowly revealed to be an abusive inhuman creep.

Add on a little former alcoholism and Charlie Swan gets the Stephen King protagonist stamp of approval.

Bella's nice and all, but she's what's lost in the series and gives the impression that she has agency. Charlie is the one who is ignorant, who tries to stop it, and only realizes too late that he moved too slowly, ignored the wrong people, and made all the wrong choices.

And we'd get the entire four novels packed into one with it starting with Bella's arrival and ending with her having been turned and having a daughter niece.

You Didn't Answer the Question

Alright, alright, fine.

I'd say the moment Charlie meets Bella after she's been turned and realizes that this isn't his daughter anymore and that he has to pretend for the rest of his life that it still is.

Of course, this requires being from Charlie's point of view, but honestly, he's the better character for it.

Bella's over there in Breaking Dawn living her best life at this point.

In Twilight itself? The meadow. Midnight Sun is its own spectacle, but the meadow even from Bella's point of view is fucking bizarre and mildly terrifying. You have Edward purposefully, just for a moment, showing what he really is to terrify her, then backing off in terror that he might lose her.

That said, the trouble is Bella as our narrator. What happens is disturbing, but Bella's so teenage in love that she doesn't care or even notice it. She has set up circumstances so that Edward will be able to get away with her murder, let him know it, and watched him rage about how easy it would be for him to kill her now. And she's having a great time.

Basically, if you want this to be a real horror novel, it can't be from Bella's point of view. Otherwise, we have Twilight.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #stephanie meyer #stephen king #bella swan #charlie swan #meta #headcanon #opinion

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aurorawest · 1 year

Text

Reading update

The Restless Dark by Erica Waters - 4.25/5 stars

Genuinely good YA thriller.

The Stagsblood Prince by Gideon E Wood - 4.25/5 stars

This one ripped my heart out and I am going to be PISSED if there isn't a happy ending in the third book in the trilogy.

You First by JC Lillis - 4.25/5 stars

You'd think a book that is essentially an Incredibles AU would be lighthearted, right? You wouldn't think you'd practically be sobbing by the end? Haha! You thought wrong!

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton - 4.25/5 stars

I initially rated this 4.25 stars but honestly I might bump it up to 4.5. It's a zombie story but it was really well done, and I ordered the second book in the series the minute I finished this one.

The Falcon and the Foe by AJ Truman - 3.75/5 stars

Felix Silver, Teaspoons, & Witches by Harry Cook - DNF

This one was too Middle Grade for me.

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers - 3.5/5 stars

So I won my local indie bookstore's trivia in March and the first place prize was a bunch of books that I never would have picked up on my own, including this one. I bumped it to the front of my TBR pile because I thought it would make a good comp for the manuscript I'm editing - it's about a woman who meets and drunkenly marries a stranger in Vegas, then falls in love with her afterwards. The book is really not a romance though, and is actually about burnout. I might have rated it higher if it didn't sell itself as a romance.

All the Better Part of Me by Molly Ringle - 4.25/5 stars

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley - 5/5 stars

"What if France won the Napoleonic Wars because of time travelers" shouldn't have shattered me the way this book did, but of course it's a Natasha Pulley novel so it absolutely did. There isn't a single one of her books that don't live in my mind rent free for apparently the rest of time after I read them, but man. I'm not sure if this one hurt as much as The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, but it's pretty close. Missouri Kite is the most Gay Little Man™. And Joe, poor Joe. The PINING. The YEARNING. When the reveal happens, I had to go back and read prior sections of the book and good god do they hit different. Different and SADDER. AKDJF;AKDJFKDAFJ;D JUST PLEASE READ IT PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

A Destiny of Dragons by TJ Klune - DNF

Not only did I DNF this, I removed the rest of the series from my TBR pile and will be offloading them at my local indie bookstore's next book buy-back. I think the worst part of this one was that he dedicated it to his eighth grade English teacher, who apparently told him his stories would never amount to anything. And like. What an awful thing for a teacher to tell a kid (sidebar, my eighth grade English teacher is one of the reasons I started to really take writing seriously, she was amazingly supportive - thank you, Mrs. Brzezinski!). But reading this series is like...you know, she might have had a point. I KID I KID WE ALL KNOW KLUNE ACTUALLY CAN WRITE but holy shit again, this series is so bad. The writing was a little better than The Lightning-Struck Heart but the characters are so fucking annoying. The term Mary Sue gets thrown around a lot and I'm generally not a fan of its application (since usually it's used to tear down teenage girls) but Sam of Wilds is such a fucking Mary Sue (or Gary Stu, I guess, but down with the gender binary, let's just have one word). Everyone wants to have sex with him and while it may have been sort of funny at first (it wasn't), by book 2, the joke has worn extremely thin. Also there's a prophecy about him, because of course there is. And he's the most powerful wizard ever. And yeah, I've read a lot of books where there's a prophecy about the MC and they're the Most Powerful Magic Person Ever, but they're usually not this annoying.

Chainbreaker by Tara Sim - 5/5 stars

This is book 2 of a really interesting and original fantasy/steampunk series. I really enjoyed the first one but this one was even better. It takes place in a world where time running correctly is controlled by clock towers. The main character is a clock mechanic (obviously an important job) who falls in love with the clock spirit of the town of Enfield (delightful, since my wife is from Enfield and it's not a place you often see mentioned in fiction). This book raises the stakes of the first one and takes place largely in India. Highly recommend.

Stormhaven by Jordan L Hawk - 4.25/5 stars

Game Changer by Rachel Reid - 4/5 stars

Is this the OG m/m hockey book? There was something very quaint about it haha.

The Best Man's Problem by Sera Taíno - DNF

I'm beginning to realize that I don't really like books where the family is given equal importance to the romance.

Arctic Wild by Annabeth Albert - 4/5 stars

Hummingbird Heartbreak by Max Walker - 2.75/5 stars

I found Dusty's reaction to the reveal of Brandon's past to be over-the-top and unreasonable (like, unreasonable within the context of the story - obviously characters can react unreasonably to things, but it still needs to make sense for them!). I probably would have rated this 3 stars if not for that, because it's a sweet enough love story.

The World We Make by NJ Jemisin - 2.5/5 stars

NK Jemisin, please do not read this. Jemisin has been open about how difficult this book was to write, and about the fact that she couldn't handle the trilogy she'd planned and took it down to a duology, and…unfortunately, it shows. I loved the first book but this one was a disappointing finale. The pacing was uneven and the character development stalled. Plot threads were introduced and either vanished (Bronca's new girlfriend) or were resolved in a way that felt unearned (the mayoral race, Manny's true identity, honestly the whole big conflict). Aislyn was an interesting character who ultimately felt underutilized. I actually, physically cringed at a couple points during this book—the coda was really just one long cringe, and the other moment was when Brooklyn calls...Beyonce. Who is an old friend. But then Beyonce is never brought up again and I couldn't tell you what the purpose of her inclusion in the book was. I'm sure some people love that kind of stuff but I can't stand it.

I did really love the other cities though! If Jemisin ever returned to this universe, I'd read a book about Faiyum in a heartbeat. His snark and his gay little crocodile earring were chef's kiss.

Jemisin is a fabulous writer and all my issues with this book feel like the result of an author forcing herself to write something she wasn't feeling and just wanted to be done with. Disappointing all the same since I had really been looking forward to this one.

The Sugared Game by KJ Charles - 5/5 stars

It is not possible to go wrong with an AJ Charles book and this one is no exception. I love Kim and Will so much, and I really really hope the third book builds on the trust they established in this one.

Sixteen Souls by Rose Talbot - 3.75/5 stars

I liked this book but I did find myself, at the climax, wondering why on earth living people would sacrifice themselves to save ghosts from...being more dead? Like. They're...already dead.

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theladyragnell · 5 months

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11, 12, 13 and 16 for the bookses please!!!

I'm putting most of these under a cut both because I'm wordy and because you asked all the Hot Take Questions!

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

So much recency bias in my reading! I did read some older works, though, and I think I'll shout out The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson, a 2013 release, which I picked up because I had a "set south of the equator" square on my book bingo card. It's a dystopian future set in Brazil, YA, with characters who are allowed to be as fucked up as they would be under the circumstances. Quite dark! Shared a few worldbuilding overlaps with Robinson's Mars Trilogy but came at them from a perspective I liked more.

Any books that disappointed you?

Oh, always, yes, but often not the book's fault? For instance, I really want to like epic doorstopper fantasy but I simply don't, which means however much I want to love Sherwood Smith's books that aren't Crown Duel, A Sword Named Truth wasn't to my taste. And while I really loved The Hands of the Emperor when I read it, the rest of my Goddard reading has been very hit-or-miss, in ways that are more about my taste than about her being inconsistent.

Oh, no, okay: Lavender's Blue by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. I was beyond delighted to have a new Crusie in my hands at last, after YEARS, but there's too much Mayer in this one. I don't like his work, I don't like the cop love interest. It was awful reading a book with the right banter and the right zany background characters and just wholly the wrong ethos. Ma'am, you used to write about charming confolk! Why are you sanctioning a cop who shoots teens' car tires out!!!

And, unfortunately, Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst, too much Not Like Other Girls there for me.

What were your least favorite books of the year?

Well, see above, to start. I'm simply not the audience for The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, the literary genre and I aren't friends, but I had to read a National Book Award prize winner for book bingo, so I cordially destested my way through that. (Well-written! Just not for me.) Unfortunately, despite this being my Year Of Tamora Pierce, Tempests and Slaughter hits this for me. It breaks the characters and the worldbuilding in so many ways that made it impossible to like for me.

And last, I am NOT going to call out specific things here, because it doesn't seem fair to critique less-well-known authors whose products I read for free, but just for completeness, I signed up for a fantasy romance advent thing, where for the first 24 days of December I got a free indie/self-pub fantasy romance, anything from a short story to a novel, and while I found a few fun ones in there (though I'd already read and adored Casey Blair's The Sorceress Transcendent and if you like tumblr's favorite trope of showing up on your enemy's doorstep saying you didn't know where else to go you should read it), overall the selection wasn't particularly to my taste. I am glad to have looked at them, and have a few more I want to read, but alas, there seem to be a few different areas of the subgenre, and this selection largely came from the ones that don't interest me.

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Ohhhhhh, I'm about to get canceled. I am so sorry, everyone, and I reassure you all that I did like Piranesi very much. But I did not really like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It wasn't BAD by any stretch of the imagination, to be clear! Over-hyped doesn't mean something is bad! Just that I'd been prepared by the general tone of people's discussion of it to be bowled over, and I spent sort of a lot of time checking the remaining page count.

#impetusofadream #answered asks

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