#(but it's iwwv)

[old-habits-die-screaming]

oh to be immortal and be able to consume every piece of knowledge and literature ever

[chai-n-ivy]

If We Were Villains and The Secret History are siblings. One is the pretentious, intellectual older sibling and the other is the earnest, romantic younger sibling. One makes tongue-in-cheek jokes at the expense of the other and one rolls their eyes at the drama of it all, but they share the same nose and have the same taste in red wine because they're in the same FAMILY.

UNDERSTOOD??????

[queenofheartsdeservedbetter]

I really, REALLY, don't know what I would do without books.

[taeggukxiie]

I depend emotionally on too many homosexual pairings and that's both the most beautiful and destructive trait of my personality.

[droptheguillotineplease]

If We Were Villains sketch page

[vciousevrvale]

this book. we can't let m l rio get away with this

[book-connoisseur]

I usually don’t care about how people interpret text, but I’ll throw hands with anyone that says James Farrow is dead

[flowersforfrancis]

[shakespearesdaughters]

To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

[obsessing-again]

if we were villains: a summary

[poppletonink]

Best Quotes From 'If We Were Villains'

"You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough."

"You can't quantify humanity. You can't measure it - not the way you mean to. People are passionate and flawed and fallible. They make mistakes. Their memories fade. Their eyes deceive them."

"I don't know, it's like I look at you and the sonnets make sense. The good ones, anyway."

"Do you blame Shakespeare for any of it?" The question is so unlikely, so nonsensical coming from such a sensible man, that I can't help but suppress a smile. "I blame him for all of it."

'She says, “Were you in love with him?” “Yes,” I say, simply. James and I put each other through the kind of reckless passions Gwendolyn once talked about, joy and anger and desire and despair. After all that, was it really so strange? I am no longer baffled or amazed or embarrassed by it. “Yes, I was.” It’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is, I’m in love with him still.'

'I need language to live like food - lexemes and morphemes and morsels of meaning nourish me with the knowledge that, yes, there is a word for this. Someone else has felt it before.'

'Below was the motto: Per aspera ad astra. I'd heard a variety of translations, but the one I liked best was Through the thorns to the stars.'

"We cracked up. [...] But we didn't really shatter until we were all back together again."

'The clock on the mantel struck twelve, and we stirred, one by one, like seven statues coming to life.'

'Actors are by nature volatile - alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster.'

[old-habits-die-screaming]

what's with dark academia books all having an asshole named richard

[leovaldezs]

"Actors are by nature volatile—alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster." — IF WE WERE VILLAINS. | M.L. RIO

[your-favorite-overachiever]

"you can justify anything if you do it poetically enough,"

--m.l. rio, if we were villains

[kilzzming]

if we were villains

[bb-8]

okay so I've read If We Were Villains, These Violent Delights (gay), Summer Sons, In Memoriam, The Wicker King, Death in the Spires, Don't Let the Forest In, As Meat Loves Salt... now what? where do I find my homoeroticism and codependent gays?

*honourable mentions to: The Dove in the Belly, The King of Infinite Space, Babylonia, and The Secret History