#I feel like this is really boring I promise I'll have a more interesting plot next time hghfh

[harrystylesfan2686]

Languages

Just a snippet of something I was working on but then got bored of the concept so didn't write it but I still want everyone to read the fluf. Tell me if y'all are interested in this, maybe I'll continue it with public demand<3

Plot: reader is kinda reincarnate. She was cursed in her first life by a witch because she had an affair with the witches husband. (Don't judge okay, my girl made a mistake!!) And the curse was to be reincarnated in every lifetime with her memories of last life still intact, and to find someone she loves and watch them die (Because why not).

Masterlist

○●○●

"Do you remember the languages?"

"Of course, I do. Cursed to do so, remember?" You smirk.

"Tell me something in them." Azriel's eyes sparkling with curiosity.

"我过了愉快的一天。It means, I had a good day." He looks awed by the foreign words. And then excitedly asks for more, like a child wanting to know new facts.

You laugh and amuse him, speaking in different languages, repeating a few when he asks to learn them. Speaking in these tounges, many that you forgot even existed in different worlds, it feels nostalgic, the words awakening all the happy and sad mamories that you had buried deep in your brain.

"I also remember my first language, the one I spoke in the life I got cursed."

"Oh? Tell me." He smiles softly.

You smile at him, bluntly admiring his beautiful face.

"હું તને પ્રેમ કરું છુ."

You look deep into his eyes, speaking the truth that was buried within your heart. Even though you've said it before, it feels somehow different, even more intimate in your native language. Azriel seems to have sensed the raw emotion in your words, his face filled with adortion as he asks, "What does that mean?"

You want to answer him truly but think to mess with him a little and smirk up at him. "You are weird."

The two of you bust out laughing, looking at each other, him shaking his head in disbelief with the smile still on his lips, and your head tossed back, eyes closed in pure contentment.

"I hate you." Azriel still shakes his head, looking elsewhere for a moment, trying to look annoyed but failing.

When you finally pause laughing, you crook out a reply, "I'm sorry! You are not weird-" He finally looks at you, an eyebrow raised. "You are just- odd," He scoffs. "But good odd, I promise!" The last sentence barely understandable through your laughter.

"Well, હું તને પ્રેમ કરું છુ, too."

You freeze. All signs of amusement leaving your face as you gaze at him. Your eyes widened, mouth agaped. Hearing those words, in your language, from his mouths, ignited something in you.

Also, how did he say it without mistakes after hearing only once?

He frowns at your reaction. "What- Did I say it wrong? Oh god, I made a mistake didn't I?" He winces, thinking about all the possibilities about what he could've said to have a reaction like this.

"No,You-" Blinking at him in shock, you put your hands on his neck and gently kiss him. He instanty melts into the kiss, moving his lips with yours with passion.

You pull back after a moment and say, "You said it perfectly." You're lips curved into a soft smile.

"Yeah? Now tell me what it really means."

"Huh?"

"Considering the kiss you gave me, it can't actually mean what you said."

You laugh. "Well, guess you'll never know." He sighs dramatically, then smirks. "Then I'll just keep saying it until you tell me."

"Darling, હું તને પ્રેમ કરું છુ."

●○●○

(હું તને પ્રેમ કરું છુ. = I love you. In gujarati.)

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

You seem like an incredibly well read person, plus someone with a lot of insight into intimacy because of your work. So, in light of your romance book reviews, which are an absolute highlight on your patreon, do you have any insight into what is needed/suggested for a good romance novel?

g o d this is so fucking hard and also really fun to chew on. I want to preface this by saying this is ENTIRELY subjective and based completely on what I *PERSONALLY* find that I enjoy in a romance. this isn't, like, an objective guide on how to write a romance that doesn't suck. that doesn't exist because people like different things, and I'm speaking from one perspective.

also I should say that my preferred flavor of romance novel is solidly contemporary. I haven't read many historicals, certainly not enough to opine well on them, I don't do those mafia dark romances or whatever the fuck, and I've barely dabbled at all in any kind of fantasy romance, whether they're full high fantasy or witchy urban fantasy stories. (although I'm about to do one of the latter next month, you can vote for a book on my patreon rn!)

having gotten all of those caveats out of the way, here's some shit I like and dislike:

there are exceptions to this but broadly, I prefer a POV for everyone involved in the relationship. to me a romance where we're only seeing events from the POV of one member of the relationship automatically makes it seem like one person matters more in a dynamic where everyone should be of equal importance. also, god, if the plot's really going to hinge on not knowing what's going on in one partner's head suggests that miscommunication is going to be a pretty critical part of the plot, and I hate that shit. TALK TO EACH OTHER. I'LL KILL YOU.

on that note, there needs to be an actual compelling reason why the characters can't be together, okay? the #1 driving tension of every romance is "why the fuck can't they be together yet" and you BETTER have a good answer. whether it's interpersonal or external forces, if there's a very easy solution to what's keeping them apart then your characters look dumb and I'm bored. one of the most frustrating romances I've ever read involved two characters who were mutually attracted to each from the JUMP, who refused to act on it because they were coworkers (neither of them in any position of authority of the other, nothing unprofessional or inappropriate about it) and they were "only" living in the same state for A YEAR. A FULL YEAR !!! shut up. get a grip and kiss each other.

now, having said that: whatever your bullshit reason is for these two characters to be interacting with each other, you need to COMMIT to that shit so hard that I, the reader, will feel silly for even questioning the logic. the worst offender I've ever seen on this front is D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding, which pulls its protagonists together via a reality TV competition and then just... promptly loses any interest in really dealing with the actual realities of being filmed 24/7? it's insanely distracting how little the book engages with its central hook, and was a huge point deduction for me. whereas you have, like, The Bride Test, a book with a premise that skirts dangerously close to a little bit of human trafficking but embraces the whole premise so wholeheartedly that you completely forget about the potentially horrific elements in there. who cares that Esme was bribed here with the promise of a green card if she seduces a man she's never met? there's whimsy happening! we've moved on! it's literally fine and she's in no danger except the danger of a BROKEN HEART.

this one is going to seem SO obvious but like. I need them to be actually like each other. I'm not saying they can't be mutually bitchy while they grow to like each other or anything, they don't have to always be NICE to each other, but there are so many M/F romances where the dude is just flat out fucking MEAN and condescending to the girl until he decides he wants to fuck her. and sometimes even after that! stop it! after a certain point I don't want her to fuck him I want her to run him over a car!!!! there's suuuuch a line between "guy I butt heads and exchange banter with but could fuck if we just got to know each other" and "man who hates me and is for real fucking bullying me."

"kisses only," "doors closed," whatever term they use for a romance novel without any sex scenes on page, I don't like it. listen: I know that they're not everybody's cup of tea, and I FULLY recognize that a lot of romance novel sex scenes are unfathomably cringe. and yet, I need them. partly because they're funny, but also because if this book wants me to be invested in the developing relationship between two adults who are supposed to be WILDLY sexually attracted to each other, then I want to see the damn sex. no matter how many bad similes or unfortunate adjectives it entails. and if you're not going to show me the sex, don't you dare have the characters gushing about how great it is. I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much. (I'm looking at you, Sorry, Bro.)

related: there's this thing that I call "Horny Wolf Syndrome," which is derived from this tweet:

initially I used it to refer to when previously sweet-tempered male romance protags inexplicably started talking like horny wovles during sex scenes - "LET ME SEE YOUR PRETTY CUNT ON MY COCK" and the like - but now I more generally use it to refer to scenarios in which characters of any gender completely dispense with their established personality while they fuck in order to fulfill a more broadly appealing, one-size-fits-all sexual fantasy. I hate that shit; if your characters act like completely unrecognizable people during sex, you didn't write very strong characters. one of my favorite things about writing sex scenes is that it's so SO interesting to see how their the characters' personal quirks translate into a setting that's very different from most other contexts, and it's deeply disappointing when authors take the easy route in favor of some pornhub dialogue.

one of the things that actually won my most recent read, Raiders of the Lost Heart, a HUGE amount of points with me was how frank the female lead was about initiating sex for the first time. it was completely in character for her and felt really different than any other book I've read, and honestly? it was a breath of fresh air.

[mephistopheleswasrobbed]

GMMTV 2025 Riding the Wave first thoughts

We have 15 or 16 BLs, 2 GLs, one mixed het and BL and 1!!! het series. GMMTV really said we don't give a shit about straight people anymore and I'm so here for it.

Dare You to Death: Messy teen slasher meets murder mystery BL. Feels a little bit like two stories mushed together in the pilot trailer but very interesting concept. I'm quite neutral about JoongDunk but the story looks fun. Will almost certainly be watching.

Head 2 Head: Bad Buddy with fashion design students who are also car racers and one of them has visions of the future? There's a lot happening but tbh none of it really caught my attention. Haven't seen SkyKeen before and JavaSurf are new so I have zero opinions on them. I'll wait for the official trailer to make a decision about this one.

Burnout Syndrome: Love triangle kinda but make it serious. Directed by Nuchy, looks a bit darker and mature. OffGun + Dew as second lead looks intriguing especially because there seemed to be more romance shown between Dew and Gun than Off and Gun. This will probably be good. Not necessarily hyped but will definitely watch.

I Love "A Lot Of" You: The only exclusive BG show in this lineup about a guy trying to make all 5 personalities of a girl fall in love with him. Nanon and Mind of 4Eve. Looks very good actually. But it's a straight romance and so far I haven't seen anything that would make me watch anyway. Will probably not watch.

Whale Store xoxo: Down on her luck grocery store owner meets manic pixie dream girl errand girl. Happy for MilkLove to have graduated from school, MewnichJune with history looks promising. Not necessarily hyped but will definitely watch.

Only Friends: Dream On: Season 2 of Only Friends, this time centered around a theatre production. EarthMix as exes, JossGawin and OhmLeng. This is all I ever wanted. I'm so here for this. I would watch anything with EarthMix without hesitation but this has me extremely hyped. Will definitely watch.

That Summer: Troublemaker meets amnesiac prince in seaside setting. Neutral about WinnySatang, looking forward to NeoMint, hyped about MondRyu. Looks good but doesn't really catch me. Will probably be watching for Mond in a BL role finally.

My Romance Scammer: Two rich boys marrying scammers. They are making full use of marriage equality already. JuniorMark look good, Gmmtv went for OhmFluke and it's hilarious, they also look good. Looks like fun. Will almost certainly be watching.

Melody of Secrets: Mystery with murders and unreliable memories. Gives Hannibal vibes a little. (Which doesn't really work in its favour because Hannibal is on another level) Not a ForceBook fan but the plot seems interesting. Will wait for official trailer but probably watch for the fandom speculation.

Love You Teacher: Elementary school teacher who hates kids has to care for his amnesiac, age-regressed partner. Directed by Dome. Looks very fun. PearthSanta look good. They're gonna have to walk a fine line here with the whole age regression thing but I trust in Dome. Will be watching.

MU-TE-LUV: 7 Stories centered around Thai supersticious activity. Too many people in this for me to list. Will wait to see how much the stories are intertwined or if they're all separate from each other. Looks like fun. Definitely seated for the Fluke, Lego, Yacht, Neo story, the two BL stories didn't really catch my attention, some of the straight ones seemed more interesting. Will wait for official trailer for anything except the FLYN part which I'm super excited for.

Cat for Cash: Debt collector can understand cats, helps new owner to manage cat cafe. Family drama happens. I like FirstKhao but tbh the trailer bored me a little. (Pls don't kill me FK stans). Will wait for official trailer, might binge after it's done.

Girl Rules: Jojo directing basically Only Friends lesbian edition. Although mostly MilkLove and NamtanFilm seem to be mixed up, ViewMim seem to be doing their own thing. Gmmtv turning up the heat on the GL side. This looks very fun, I'm here for it. Will watch.

Boys in Love: Three high school couples and some gay teachers to round it out. Don't know any of these kids and tbh didn't even realise until the end that there were three couples. Looks like a nice high school BL, but I'm probably too old for this. Will probably watch for Podd and Papang.

My Magic Prophecy: Doctor x fortune teller with some mystery and escaping to the country side. JimmySea romance storyline didn't really catch me but the mystery plot seems interesting. 2 seconds of TeeFranc look intriguing. Will wait for official trailer but will probably watch for the mystery.

A Dog and a Plane: Scruffy first responder x prim flight attendant who's getting cheated on by his pilot boyfriend. This looks extremely fun. TayNew and MarcPoom has me seated. Jojo directing again. Second most hyped show for me. Will definitely watch.

Me and Thee: Teaching an out of touch mafia boss how to court someone. Looks like a lot of fun. PondPhuwin seem to alternate between uni and mafia, good for them. Directed by X. Will almost definitely be watching.

Wu: Probably BL but could also be bromance, the Pilot wasn't definitive but from the discussion afterwards I'm leaning towards BL. Either way, down on his luck athlete fated to protect supernatural fortune teller kinda guy. This story seems to be in its early developement stage still but SkyNani/NaniSky has my full attention and what we've seen of the concept so far looks very promising. Looking forward to this. Will be watching.

Memoir of Rati: Period BL, translator of French diplomats falls in love with some sort of nobleman. IFYLITA vibes. GreatInn are a perfect fit for a period BL. AouBoom look promising as well. Personally not a big period drama enjoyer but this looks very good. Will almost definitely be watching.

Ticket to Heaven: Return of Aof, based on real events, slight period + heavy christianity. Aof is angling for his next award with this one. Looks very good, more queer cinema than BL. Not the biggest fan of GeminiFourth but they're talented and this will be really good probably. Have to watch it for my ultimate bias Aof, anyway. Will be watching.

Overall thoughts: 16 out of 20 BL is crazy, so much for the fear that Gmmtv will switch to focus on bromance. Would have liked some more GL but what we're getting looks good. In general this lineup has me very excited. There's not a single pilot that made me instantly say "Nope" this time. Even the one single straight show which I'll probably skip, looks very good. We're getting a good variety of genres and moods as well. Also not a single remake afaict.

The new BL trend for 2025 seems to be superstition and mystery. I'm very happy with that.

All shows in order of my hypedness:

Extremely hyped:

Only Friends: Dream On

A Dog and a Plane

Excited:

Girl Rules

Wu

Me and Thee

Love You Teacher

Not really excited but looking forward to because it will most likely be good:

Burnout Syndrome

Ticket to Heaven

Memoir of Roti

This will be fun:

Dare You to Death

MU-TE-LUV (this is an average, only FLYN would be a lot higher, the rest without them would be lower)

My Romance Scammer

Whale Store xoxo

That Summer

Looks interesting enough:

Boys in Love

Melody of Secrets

My Magic Prophecy

Cat for Cash

Head 2 Head

I'm happy for the het show enjoyers because this looks really good but I don't really care:

I Love "A Lot Of" You

[pinkkop]

This week's recap is brought to you by "lesbians making out in pools" because that seems to be a recurring theme in Thai GLs. This is certainly not me complaining but I do find it interesting that this has become a thing™. Also I'm thinking I'll make it so I'm always watching at least one GL weekly, so I'm gonna need to find a new one soon. Any recommendations are welcome and it doesn't have to be a show currently airing.

QL Recap for Week 17

The 21st of April to the 27th of April

🇹🇭 Lost in the Woods

Episode 6 of 7 || Watching on: Gagaoolala, Wednesday

This was such a good episode! Loved the usage of the moon in this episode as way to talk about your feelings. Padme and Prod were so cute confessing to each other and then Prod gushing to Hem about the whole situation. It was soooo sweet and it worked well as a way for Hem to realize the difference between his relationship with Fifa vs Prey. I also just loved Fifa and Hem's dynamic this episode. They're just this bickering married couple who love each other so much. There were just so many fond glances and this underlying ease and comfortableness with each other. I'm going to miss them and this show after the final episode!

🇹🇭 My Stubborn

Episode 2 of 10 | | Watching on: iQiYi, Sunday

This keeps being soooo good! I love Sorn and Jun's dynamic and can't wait to see the mess that's going to unfold. Sorn is just down so bad and Jun is on his way there but it's going to take them a while before they're able to communicate that. I would love a look inside Sorn's brain at this point, like does he realize what he's doing and why? Also can I just say that with the amount of kissing and NC scenes this show has had so far I've not gotten bored once. It hasn't felt repetitive and they haven't followed the generic structure and production of NC scenes so many BLs go for these days. I really hope that this keeps being the case, especially if the show keeps revolving around Sorn "teaching" Jun. Give us the slow escalation of sexual acts we never see in QLs!! Give me idiots in love mutually pining while having ALL the sex!!!

🇹🇭 The Bangkok Boy

Episode 1 of 12 || Watching on: Gagaoolala, Saturday

What a first episode! I'm intrigued! It's been a hot minute since we've had a mafia/underworld BL so this was welcome. Also, I do love a good enemies to lovers and this production looks promising so I'm hoping it keeps being great. Also I missed having Top on my screen so that's a bonus!

🇹🇭 Boys in Love

Episode 2 of 12 || Watching on: Youtube, Sunday

This is cute and I like how the relationships are evolving. I'm not entirely sure if there's going to be an overarching plot outside of boys being boys in love because right now it doesn't seem like there's much structure to the plot. I hope the show becomes more coherent because in this episode all the pairings felt like they had their own little show with very little overlap and I really hope that doesn't keep being the case. Especially for Podd and Papang's pairing because it could so easily just feel like two disjointed stories, where one feels like it's entirely there to attract viewers. I hope they prove me wrong but we'll see what happens.

🇹🇭 My Golden Blood

Episode 7 of 12 || Watching on: Youtube, Wednesday

I'm slowly getting more convinced by the Joss and Gawin pairing, though I'm still on the fence about Gawin's performance in this show. Plot-wise I'm still convinced that Khun Thara is a bad guy but I guess we'll find out soon because it turns out Tong's 21st birthday is soon?

🇹🇼 Fight for You

Episode 6 of 12 || Watching on: Gagaoolala, Friday

I'm still a fan of the seduction practice and on the whole this show is decent but I've given up on the plot.

🇹🇭 I'm Your Moon

Episode 7 of 8 || Watching on: iQiYi, Sunday

Glad they figured their shit out but that boat plot was a wild turn before the final episode. At first it just seemed like the usual brief drama before the final ep. but the preview seemed to be something else. Like is Earl just stuck in France now? And does this version of France have no phones or internet? Wild. Also I love that it seems to be tradition by now that the lesbians need to be wet and kissing, preferably in a pool, at least once pr GL.

That's it for this week!!

For links and airing schedule check out World of BL (Only for BLs)

[yeonjuns-beanie]

Halo Pt.2

warnings: less plot, but still plot, 18+, smut, unprotected sex, biting, light blood(play), light hair pulling, body worship, oral(f receiving), light degradation, yandere themes, dub-con, think that's it

summary: in your free time you do freelance writing, doing interviews with people most would consider strand and unusual. when you recognize that one of the regulars in your coffee shop only visits in the evening, you pose the question of where you can interview him, upon his agreement, you realize this is unlike any other interview

a/n: holy shit, i am alive actually. i feel kinda horrible that i last posted in september. life got kinda crazy, i was slammed with uni and work, and had intense writer's block. anyways, i hope those of you who enjoyed the first part enjoy this one even more! i'm not entirely sure how active i'll be this semester, but i'm not going to make any promises lol. as always, i hope you enjoy and have a great day! :D ~nero

word count: 5.4K

Vampire!Seonghwa x female reader

pt.1

Seonghwa looked off to the side, inhaling a calculated breath before he spoke. 

“The nightlife. Where I was before was too prosaic and mundane. It lacked character. But here? There’s a flame that ignites when the sun goes down.” 

You scribbled down his last sentence wanting to maybe use it as the title for the piece when you finished. Looking back up at him, you felt your body relax and suddenly everything felt easy. 

“Where were you before?” 

“Everywhere. I’m a bit of a nomad, you see? I can’t stay chained to one place for too long.” 

“Did you find your last locations to grow boring, or was it something else?” 

“Something else. Rather of my own doing, but needing to keep my needs satiated is a necessity.” 

You paused for a moment and glanced at your notebook littered with questions trying to find the next avenue you’d walk down. You hadn’t been faced with someone so careful in their speech. He was answering your questions, yes, but not in the full detail that you desired. He was making you work. 

“Being a nomad, you must have a flexible job. What do you do for work and what’s your haven for play?” 

A smirk formed on his face, like he knew he was stumping you. Running his fingers through his onyx locks, he went to lick his lips and you noticed the length of one of his canines peeking from behind his upper lip. 

“Ah, yes. For work, I was lucky enough to benefit from years of generational wealth, but I hated the fact of that being my only accolade. So I sought after art. I always rendered an interest in building things so I thought, why not extend that to an artistic field?” 

“What’s your medium?”

“Sculptures and charcoal portraits. I love capturing time in a piece. I don’t know how long this life will grant me so I enjoy partaking in affairs that allow me to immortalize that time. Remind me to show you some of my portraits.” 

Nodding, you remembered the busts you saw when you entered his home, the question crossed your mind if those were his art.

“Those busts that you have in your entryway, did you make those as well?”

“So you really were quite entranced. To answer you, yes, I did create those as well. They’re of my family who have since passed on. I don’t have many left in my life so it aids me in keeping the memory of them alive.” 

Moving your hair out of your face to look at him, you furrowed your brow feeling sorry for him as you processed his statement. 

“Are you all alone out here?”

The concerned look on your face quickly fell to anxiety as you feared you may be prying too much into his personal life. Getting ready to speak again, Seonghwa stopped you with the gentle raise of his hand and smiled. 

“You’re not overstepping any boundaries, my dove. When I agreed to sit with you, pen in hand with the recorder running, I alleviated all forms of privacy for you. You may ask me whatever you feel called to ask. I’m yours for the evening.” 

A soft smile pulled at your lips as you silently acknowledged him, and thanked him for being so tender with you. His velvet voice pulled you from your thoughts. 

“To answer your previous question though, yes, I am all alone. It was lonely at first, but after a while it became comfortable. Perhaps preferred. I did find that recently though, the exigent desire for a partner has been pulling at my heartstrings.” 

“With your interest in the nightlife here, surely it shouldn’t be too hard to find yourself a companion. Not to mention if you’re speaking romantically, I’m sure you’d find yourself plenty of options.” 

You regretted it as soon as it left your mouth, but it was already in the air now and you just had to hope and pray that he’d let it slide.

“What are implying?” 

Of course, he wouldn’t. 

“I’m just saying…that, you know, you are an attractive guy. It seems like you’d have a particularly easy time…weeding through people.” 

“You think I have a lot of suitors?” 

Seonghwa had his arms folded across his chest now, gaining pleasure from making you squirm. 

“I’m saying that I think you’d have a fair amount of people to choose from, not necessarily that they’d be worthy of your time.” 

You brought the pen up to your lips, feeling your anxiety swirl in your body as Seonghwa continued to hanker down on you. You glanced over at your notebook again, seeing what you could ask to divert the subject but before you had the chance to speak, Seonghwa was prying. 

“Worthy of my time?” 

“From first impressions, you seem…difficult to entertain. Not to be impressed by the bare minimum, which if considering this town, there is a lot of.”

Seonghwa leaned forward, smiling without showing his teeth. His aura radiated a slimy smugness that irritated you but also ignited a fire within you. 

“I’d beg to differ. There are a select few I’ve come across. I wouldn’t be so certain in your statement.” 

Your mind was swarmed with questions, most of them centering around who he was entertaining and if you even spared a shot with him. 

“Have you found a lover yet then?”

With Seonghwa still hovering over the desk, he looked so much larger than usual. He commanded even more attention and you couldn’t bear to tear your eyes away from his as he stared you down. When he spoke, he raked his eyes over your form and was begging whatever deity was out there that you’d pick up on his hints. 

“I’ve found who I want to be mine, she just doesn’t know it yet. I’ve been leaving her clues, paltry I know, but I beg that she pick up my scent soon.” 

“Like a secret admirer?”

“You can call it that, yes. What I feel for her though is more than what a secret admirer could possess.” 

You felt your heart drop, not even letting the delusion have time to manifest to let you think that this “she” was you. You nodded your head and looked toward your notebook again scanning over your questions to see where you wanted to take the interview next. As you went to look up at Seonghwa again, you noticed that unabated gloss cast over his eyes again. The other thing you noticed was that his eyes seemed to change color. It was hard to tell for sure in the dim lighting of the study, but you swore you were seeing flecks of red in his irises. 

As you inhaled to speak, you felt your body freeze and an indistinguishable tingle ran rampant through your limbs. Panic registered across your pupils as you tried to move but soon recognized that you were glued to the chair. Your limbs were attached to the wood of the desk as if your skin were made to melt into the surface. Suddenly as you looked at Seonghwa, you realized that you recognized this feeling, the energy that was emanating across from you. It was all too familiar.

It wasn’t sleep paralysis. It was him.

“Ahh, yes it was, my dove. I’m disheartened that it took you this long. Thought the journal would’ve been clue enough.” 

Feeling that static in your fingers trail up your arm and down through your body, you felt control over yourself again. You pressed your back flesh against the chair, a feeble attempt at creating space between you two. Your vision was unfocused for a moment and in the blur created, you understood that the man across you was the figure in the corner of your room last night. Your breath quickened with fear, but something else mixed in with your emotions that you couldn’t quite place yet. 

“Y-you we’re in my room last night?… Why?” 

Seonghwa stood up slowly, his hands planted firmly on the desk. His frame which was at first sleek and inviting was now imposing and ravening. His eyes were boring into you making you feel so minuscule under his gaze. His tone was low, almost near a whisper, but his next words sent a chill down your spine. 

“Because I can’t bear to leave you alone.”

Your eyes blew wide in panic, fear present in your features. You wondered how you could find a way out of this, a way to remedy the situation but you felt completely and utterly trapped. You looked behind you to the door of the study and defeat enveloped you as you came to the conclusion that any attempt you made to escape would prove to be fruitless. As you returned your gaze to Seonghwa, he was shaking his head, a grin cast on his face. 

“How could you even think about leaving so early when we haven’t finished the interview yet, y/n? I’ve looked forward to this all day, I’d hate for it to end so soon.” 

Seonghwa furrowed his features into a pout, persuading you to swallow your fear and sit forward. Maybe, if you indulged in him he’d let you leave. As Seonghwa sat back in his seat, a new wave of questions ran through your brain. Whether or not you’d include this in the posted interview, you needed closure for yourself. Asserting yourself in your spot, you sat taller, your gaze piercing his as he did to you moments before. Your voice carried a dominance that hadn’t been present all evening. 

“How long have you been following me?” 

“Fiesty are we?”

“Hwa, how long have you been on my tail?”

“My dove, I’m disappointed. How could you not realize all those rotten feelings you felt when you stepped out of your car were because of me?” 

His face was sickening, he was enjoying this. The smile that painted his face was sardonic and it made acrimony bubble within you. All those weeks where you felt like you were going brainsick were because of him. 

I can’t believe him right now

“Better start believing y/n. At least you have the comfort of knowing you’re not demented.” 

“Stop doing that!” 

It was freaking you out that nearly every thought you had about him he had a response to. He was inside your head and you couldn’t place how he was doing it. 

“Doing what, darling?” 

“That! Being in my head! How are you doing that?!” 

Your fear was making you hostile and agitated. You felt completely out of control and you hated every second of it. You were in a stranger’s house, agreeing to come based on the hopes that you’d get something out of this and now you were shackled in this room with a stalker. You stared down at your notebook trying to fit the pieces of all of this together. The thought finally dawned on you that he knew where you lived, and it was no mere coincidence that the journal you found at your front door perfectly matched the pen he gave you. Your eyes landed on a bookshelf behind you and you noticed a horrifying similarity between what was sitting on the shelves and what was resting underneath your hands.

“Ask me.” 

Your head whipped to Seonghwa’s voice, not daring to disrespect him for you were fearful of the consequences. 

“Ask you what?” 

“Ask me how I know your thoughts.”

You inhaled a deep breath, trying to prepare yourself for the answer you were about to be given. Sighing you looked straight into his eyes, and that’s when you noticed the color of them changed. A deep carmine colored his irises now. Your eyes squinted, trying to understand his motive now. 

“How do you know what I’m thinking.” 

He inhaled a breath, mocking you. He smiled at you, something sickeningly sweet about it. 

“Vampirism. Vampirism is how I know. Vampirism is also how I’ve been able to stalk you without the thought of me ever crossing your mind. It’s the reason why I was in your bedroom, why I could never leave your thoughts, why you were entranced by me. By design, you were meant to be allured by me and you were. Which is why you’re sitting across from me.” 

You were stunned. You always entertained the idea of supernatural creatures, but never did you think that were actually real. Never in your lifetime did you think that you’d be face to face with a vampire and with that knowledge you were now more fearful of your situation. Your next words flew from your mouth without any chance to filter. 

“What do you feed on?” 

Seonghwa leaned forward and smiled, the tip of one of his fangs peeking out onto his bottom lip. 

“Whatever I can get my hands on. I have to say though, the more fear that exudes from my dinner makes the taste that much more delectable. And you, my sweet y/n, are absolutely intoxicating right now. Almost as sweet as last night. Gods, it took everything in me not to devour you then.” 

You held your composure, but something stirred in your lower stomach. Radiating heat between your thighs. 

Arousal. 

You were feeling aroused by his words, and you were ashamed by it. Here you were, at the mercy of a stranger and yet, you were aroused by the transparency of his truths. You tried to push the feeling to the back of your mind, but something was bringing your innermost fantasies about Seonghwa forward. His eyes were indulging in you in sheer gluttony, looking at you like prey and you couldn’t help but think that he was holding back on what his inner monologue consisted of. 

“What are you thinking about right now?” 

You leaned forward, asserting yourself now that a lustful wave crashed over your body. 

“So that’s what gets you off? Carnal urges, is it?” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“While true, it is what I heard prior to you speaking.” 

Rolling your tongue across your teeth, you were through with the antics. 

“What’s on your mind now, Hwa?” 

He smiled flashing his teeth, his fangs on full display. 

“Truthfully, I’m running through all the ways I want to consume you. To make you mine. And it’s becoming quite painful to ignore.” 

You wanted to call his bluff, to catch him off guard even with the disadvantage of him invading the privacy of your mind. You stood up from the chair, the legs creating a painful scratching sound across the wood. You walked around the edge of the desk and positioned yourself in front of him, gently laying your hand on the table in front of his, your fingertips barely touching. Leaning down, you stared into his piercing garnet eyes damning yourself to cosset in the feelings that were licentious in nature. Wetting your bottom lip with the tip of your tongue, you felt your eyes blow in temptation and you knew he was aware of every second of it. 

“Then do something about it. Live up to this lavish vampiric character you’ve laid out for me.”

With the passing of a second, the roles of power drastically shifted. His body moved with a swiftness that you hadn’t experienced and before you had a chance to register what happened, you were caged underneath his frame with your hips nailed against the side of the desk. His slender hand snaked its way to your neck, wrapping his deft fingers around your face and forcing you to look at him. 

“Careful, pet. I don’t think you understand the gravity of your words.” 

Eyes darkening with lust, you smirked at him feeling a sense of power as you watched him lose control in front of you. Moving your body to sit on top of the desk, you rolled your neck, exposing your most vulnerable space of skin to him.

“You reek of luxuria, have you any shame?” 

“Not any more than you.” 

Wrapping your legs around his waist, you trailed your hand up to the nape of his neck, goosebumps forming in its wake. You curled your fingers into the hair resting on his neck feeling fulfilled as you watched his body shiver in unabashed desire for you. His chest heaved heavy breaths as his lust for you was becoming harder to control. Seonghwa let his head fall into the conjunction of where your neck and shoulder met, his breath creating an intense humidity that only aided your arousal. 

Pulling at his hair, you positioned him to look at you head-on. His eyes were blown wide, the red of his irises nearly covered up by the black of his pupils. His breathing was still heavy and you could feel a small bulge prodding at your inner thigh. Rolling your hips into his, you watched his eyes roll to the back of his head, only the white of his sclera showing. As he breathed out, a small whimper was swallowed in his throat. Pulling at his hair, he opened his eyes to look at you. 

“Devour me, Seonghwa.” 

Any suppression of his feelings turned into a zealous carnal display of affection. His lips were on yours in a second, hot and impassioned. His hands roamed over the exposed flesh of your thighs, indenting the skin with his fingers each time he squeezed. Your head was squirming with floating ideas and wrestling with the plain fact that you were getting exactly what you wanted. 

As Seonghwa swiped your bottom lip, silently asking for permission, you parted your mouth just enough to grant your tongues the freedom to fight for dominance. With one roll of your tongue into his mouth, the side of your tongue was swiped by the point of his fang. It sent a chill down your spine but excited you even further. Feeling bold, you closed the space of your lips and bit down on his bottom lip, pulling away from him as you watched him with hooded eyes. 

Letting your hands snake down his torso, you hooked your fingers into his belt loops pulling him closer to your clothed center. Gently rolling your hips, you were thankful that you wore a skirt as your aching cunt ghosted over his jean covered cock. Looking up at him, your eyes were blown and you could feel the sexual adrenaline raging through your body. 

“I want you, Seonghwa. I want you to make me yours.” 

Seonghwa looked down at you, a knowing smirk painting his mouth as he gingerly put his finger under your chin. 

“Aww, how sweet. But darling, you were mine the moment I laid my eyes upon you, don’t you get that? I just needed that sweet invitation to fall from your pretty lips.” 

In the blink of an eye, Seonghwa’s hands found their way underneath the fabric of your shirt. His hands were like ice, but the contrasting temperature soothed the raging heat dancing across your skin. There was an uncontrollable need and you felt like you couldn’t get close enough to him. Your body kept rolling into his and you couldn’t quell the small moan that escaped your throat. 

“Excited, hmm?” 

Your eyes were pleading, needing to feel something other than his hands roaming your body. 

“Do something, please. I’m begging you.” 

Seonghwa brought his face to the side of yours so that his lips grazed the shell of your ear. He was breathing slowly, almost methodically and it made your heartbeat race. When he spoke, your eyebrows furrowed at his lower tone.

“Just something?”

You mewled at him, tired of the teasing, but what he did next was not what you expected. One of his fangs made contact with the sensitive skin of your neck and you moaned out as the tip of it impaled your skin. Seonghwa pulled away, his tongue swiping at the tiny drop of crimson staining his tooth. His eyes darkened as he smirked at you and indulged in your metallic taste. You felt him roll his hips into yours, his cock growing harder as he imagined how it would feel to feed off of your naked body. 

Growing impatient from the wanton ache that settled in your cunt, you pushed Seonghwa away from you and your body off of the desk. Making yourself as big as possible, you guided his body backward until his knees met the lip of the couch in the study. As his form gracefully plopped into the cushions, you tore your top off throwing it on the floor behind you. You straddled Seonghwa’s thighs, grinding your hips down into him as you made contact with his lap. You cupped his face as you let your body control your actions rather than your mind. Pulling him close, your lips danced a dangerous waltz of spit and tongue as he began to feel dizzy from the intensity.

Seonghwa was enjoying this obscene side of you, his nimble fingers gripping at your skin any chance he got. Pulling away from his lips, his mouth chased yours not ready for the kiss to end so soon. Placing your hands on his chest, you allowed yourself the time to admire his form. His perfectly sculpted body that was encased so delicately by the mesh he wore. You sucked your bottom lip behind your teeth as you gripped the fabric into your fist grinding down into his erection. 

His hips rolled up into yours and his breathing quickened as he devoured you with his eyes. 

“Enjoying yourself?” 

“More than you know.” You panted out

Seonghwa patted your thigh and nodded his chin behind you. 

“Up.”

You pushed yourself off of him, suddenly hyper-aware of your insecurities. They didn’t have long to manifest as his voice pulled you from your thoughts. He grabbed your hand leading you out of the study, down the hallway, and guided you into his bedroom. 

“Never. Think such dreadful things about yourself, my dove.”

Seonghwa gently placed you down on the edge of his opulent bed, his bedroom far too extravagant for you to fully appreciate right now. Nodding his head behind you, you understood his cue to scoot back and your eyes never left him as he crawled over your body. 

“It’s simply just, if I’m going to ravage you in the ways I’ve dreamt so vividly, it wasn’t going to happen on that vapid couch.” 

He placed gentle kisses on your jawline, nipping slightly at the skin near your earlobe. Seonghwa then dragged his nose down the valley of your breasts and stopped at the hemline of your skirt. The heat and your arousal turn near suffocating under the constraints of your panties. 

“You deserve to be tasted, worshipped. To be given a night of passion. And I, my sweet y/n, am going to give you all of that and more.” 

His voice turned more gruff the more his sentence trailed on. What you failed to realize was that due to the angle he was at, your arousal was like his personal parfum and it was dreadfully intoxicating. He acted with no haste as he dragged your skirt down your legs, taking your underwear with it. You felt embarrassment quickly wash over your body as you felt the stick of your arousal stretch between your needy lips and the ruined cotton. 

Now fully exposed to him, you had nowhere to hide and it excited you. He pressed his nose against your clit, the action sending a savage bolt of lust through your body. Your body shivered as he took a deep inhale of your scent, his tongue following soon behind with a flattened lick across your folds. The moan that left you was covetous and echoed off the walls of his bedroom. 

Seonghwa lapped at your folds like a ravenous dog and your sounds only egged him on. Your hips were riding his face, unable to get enough of him. When your hand found refuge in his inky locks, he moaned into your pussy, the vibrations bringing you to the precipice of your orgasm. With one hand gripping at his hair and the other fisting the sheets, you were moaning like a rapacious whore. 

“Hwa, fuck! Hwa I’m gonna cum!” 

Seonghwa gripped his hands tighter around your hips, shoving your cunt as close as possible to his mouth. Seonghwa focused on your clit, fluttering his tongue against your sensitive bud before sucking your orgasm right out of you. 

“Fuckfuckfuck!” 

Seonghwa didn’t give you a chance to ride out your first orgasm, instead, he continued sucking on your tender rosebud and let the aftershock of your second climax wash over you. Your body shook in intervals of vibrating lust. Chillis littering your body as you relished in the feeling he just bestowed upon you. Lifting himself from between your legs, he hovered over you with a satisfied smirk plastered on his lips. Soon his lips were on yours again and the tangy taste of yourself swept across your tastebuds. Pulling away from you, he began unbuttoning his shirt. 

“You taste even better than what I dreamt of.” 

You couldn’t quite wrap your head around the fact that he wanted you just as bad and your mouth moved quicker than your mind. 

“Y-you’ve dreamt of me?” 

An airy chuckle left his throat. 

“Darling, if you question my likening for you one more time tonight, I’m going to have to chain you to my bed and fuck any trace of doubt out of you.” 

Your hole squeezed around nothing and courage found itself in you again. Flipping your bodies over, you sat on top of his lap, your arousal spreading all over the top of his jeans. Undoing his belt, the sexual tension was fervid and it was as if you couldn’t move your hands fast enough. His cock was straining against the layers of fabric and you needed it straining against your walls. 

Pulling his jeans down his legs with his underwear, you knelt down, prepared to offer up all your oral skills known to man. Before you could ghost your lips over his tip, Seonghwa’s hand found your chin and titled you to look up at him. 

“There will be plenty of times for you to taste me, tonight though is about our collective ecstasy. To lose ourselves in one another.” 

His hand pulled you closer to him and you straddled your legs over his. His leaky and libertine cock teasing your entrance as you hovered over him. His hair lay disheveled across his face all thanks to your hands and he somehow looked even more desirable than before. With puffy lips and heavy eyes, you needed him in every way imaginable. 

Lowering yourself down onto his cock, you weren’t prepared for how big he’d feel as you took him in inch by inch. He thickened as you reached his base and made you feel so full. As you bottomed out on him, both of you moaned in harmonious synchrony that made you wish you could have it on repeat. 

“Hwa~! You’re so—so big.” 

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as you squeezed his length inside of your velvety walls. You placed your hands on his shoulders needing something to ground yourself on. Seonghwa’s hands purchased themselves on your hips awaiting your movements. 

“Call me that again.” 

You rolled your hips, your walls fluttering as you looked down at him. 

“Hwa~” 

You let your forehead rest against his as your body began to ride his perfect cock. Your moans creating the quintessential licentious atmosphere. 

“Hwa, baby…you feel so good.” 

Your mind was racing, not really paying attention to the words that left your mouth. But you wished you did. 

In seconds, the use of the pet name rendered you at his mercy. Only for a moment did his cock leave your seraphic cunt as your bodies were flipped once again. Seonghwa entered you with such a force that you could only describe as concupiscent and raw. Your nails immediately dug themselves into his back and the sounds that left him were more obscene. 

“Oh, God!”

“God is nowhere in this room, nor will he ever be, Pet.”

His moans were tantalizing, hypnotizing you even more so under his spell. His thrusts were deep and calculated, abusing your G-spot with every hit. If God wasn’t in this room, all that Seonghwa was making you feel definitely felt like it. You’d never felt euphoria like this before, it was sinful in every sense of the word and made it feel like there truly was a reason for Him to have died for our sins. Feeling a pool of heat begin to settle near the bottom of your stomach, you wrapped your legs around his waist caging him to you. 

“Y/nnn, I can’t hold myself back much longer.” 

As your walls fluttered around him one more time you shook your head, your voice coming out with more air than you anticipated. 

“Me n-neither.” 

You kissed him again, impassioned and frenzied. Panting against his lips, your nails found solace in his back again. His breath was creating humidity in your neck and you enjoyed every second of it. Looking into his eyes, there was more swimming in them than just lust. 

“I want all of you. I want to feel every part of you Hwa. I need you. I need you so bad, H~wa!” 

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head and your nails dug deep crescents into his skin. As you begged him for all he had to give he did just that as his mouth snuck its way to your neck and his fangs sunk into your skin. 

The feeling of the puncture was just what you needed to peer over the horizon of your orgasm and crash into the sea of its entirety. Seonghwa was still pumping his hard cock into you and then you felt a familiar warmth flood your walls. Your body squirmed underneath him and slowly your vision began to blur. Before you had the chance to completely lose consciousness, you watched Seonghwa slice his tooth into his wrist and felt the crimson drain over your lips as he pressed his wrist to your mouth. 

“Drink, my sweet dove.” 

His voice was so sweet. Like a siren’s as you drifted into a slumber that was filled with nothing but pleasure. 

~*~

When you awoke, you were still lay in his massive bed, but your body was covered in a black silk nightgown and you smelled faintly of sandalwood and frankincense. You turned your head to the left and then to the right only to find that the bed was empty. 

Where did he go? 

You pushed yourself up to sit in the bed only to be met with the worst headache in your life. It felt like your entire body was pounding in pain and the drumming of it only kept getting louder. Wincing, you heard the handle click open on the bedroom door, revealing Seonghwa with an assortment of food, water, and a glass of red liquid. Wine maybe? 

“I could hear you worrying from across the house. Trust, I’ll never be far from you. Now—I know you’re probably in a decent amount of pain right now, but it’ll soon fade in the next few days. Your body can still take normal food just not in large quantities. Here.” 

His voice trailed off as he tore a piece of the croissant laying on one of the few small plates on the tray. Holding it up, he raised his eyebrows encouraging you to open your mouth. Obliging, you gently took the piece of bread from him, chewing slowly as you tried to make sense of your reality. 

“Did you…did you turn me?” 

“Yes.” 

You nodded. 

“So that means, I’ll be like this forever? Like you?…With you?” 

You saw something like fear flash in his eyes for a moment. Or maybe it was regret?

“Yes. And if you’d like to spend your days with me then it does seem that way my sweet dove. If you feel otherwise I will not hold you back. Although, I will admit I will have a hard time staying away from you.” 

He smiled, almost jokingly in a way that softened your heart. 

This must be who he is behind that mask

“Forever with you doesn’t sound so bad.” 

You blinked up at him, a smile spreading across your own face. 

“I was hoping you’d say something like that.”

taglist: @blackswann-53098 @tunaasan @bellamuerte1987 @seonghwasstar

[skywalker1dream]

part of the stuck with the stranger series

Title:Unexpected Connections

part one | part three

note: hello, how are you guys hope you are having a good day or night, my day is fantastic so far I driking my second cup of coffee exams are coming and writing those fics kind of helping me to relive my stress (even tho I have so little time for myself) so this is part 2 of stuck with the stranger and I changed many things cause I didn't liked my previous writing and add plot twist too ( I don't know if it is a good plot twist tho my friend saw it coming mile away, but maybe its because she knows me better then I know myself, okay I won't bore you even more and I hope you like it <3

Summary: Carlos Sainz and the reader's romance takes an unexpected turn when it's revealed she's the little sister of Carlos's best friend, Lando Norris. As secrets unravel, they must navigate the complexities of their relationship. Will love conquer all, or will fate intervene?

warnings: none, I guess?

The first date with Carlos was like stepping into a fairy tale. The soft glow of candlelight illuminated the intimate restaurant as you sat across from him, lost in conversation that flowed effortlessly between you.

"So, tell me something about yourself that I wouldn't learn from twitter," Carlos said, leaning forward with genuine interest.

You chuckled, feeling a warmth spread through you at his easy charm. "Well, I have a secret talent for making the world's best pancakes," you confessed with a grin.

Carlos's eyes lit up with amusement. "Really? I'll have to put your skills to the test sometime. My pancake game could use some serious improvement."

The laughter that followed was infectious, filling the air with a sense of warmth and comfort. As the evening progressed, you found yourselves diving deeper into conversation, exploring topics ranging from your favorite childhood memories to your wildest dreams for the future.

Hours passed in the blink of an eye, and before you knew it, the restaurant was closing around you. Reluctantly, you and Carlos said your goodbyes, promising to meet again soon.

........

On your second date, Carlos surprised you by taking you to a local amusement park. The sound of laughter filled the air as you rode roller coasters and indulged in cotton candy.

"This is amazing," you exclaimed, your heart racing with excitement as you clutched Carlos's hand tightly on the Ferris wheel.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," Carlos replied, a smile playing on his lips as he looked at you fondly. "I've been wanting to take you here since our first date."

As the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange, you leaned against Carlos's shoulder, feeling a sense of contentment wash over you. In that moment, surrounded by the bright lights and joyful laughter of the amusement park, you knew that this was where you were meant to be.

The evening ended with a cozy dinner at a nearby cafe, where you and Carlos shared stories and laughed until your sides hurt. It was a night you would never forget, a perfect blend of excitement and intimacy that left you craving more.

.....

dates followed, each one more memorable than the last. From picnics in the park to late-night stargazing sessions, you and Carlos reveled in each other's company, savoring every moment you spent together.

One evening, Carlos surprised you by taking you to a quaint bookstore nestled in the heart of the city. You spent hours browsing the shelves, exchanging book recommendations and sharing snippets of your favorite passages. It was a simple yet meaningful date, one that allowed you to connect on a deeper level.

As you walked hand in hand through the quiet streets, the night air filled with the soft glow of streetlights, you couldn't help but feel a sense of gratitude for the man beside you. In Carlos, you had found not only a romantic partner but also a kindred spirit, someone who understood you in a way that no one else ever had.

.....

But amidst the blissful haze of new love, there was a looming complication, one that neither of you had anticipated. It all came to a head one week later, on a race weekend, when Lando brought you to the paddock, and Carlos's world collided with yours in an unexpected twist of fate.

As you walked through the bustling paddock beside Lando, Carlos's familiar figure came into view, his brown eyes widening in shock as he caught sight of you.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his tone laced with confusion as he approached.

Before you could respond, Lando stepped forward, a mischievous grin playing on his lips. "Carlos, meet my little sister," he said, gesturing towards you. "She wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

Carlos froze, his expression shifting from confusion to disbelief in the span of a heartbeat. His gaze darted between you and Lando, realization dawning on him like a bolt of lightning.

"Your sister?" he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. "But... but I had no idea... that you....."

You watched as the shock registered on Carlos's face, his features contorting with a mix of disbelief and dawning realization. It was as if the ground had shifted beneath his feet, leaving him adrift in a sea of uncertainty.

In that moment, you knew that nothing would ever be the same again. The revelation had shaken Carlos to his core, casting a shadow over the fragile bond you had built together. And as you stood there, caught between past and present, you couldn't help but wonder what the future held in store for you and Carlos.

.....

[mrstsung]

My unpopular mk opinions

These are my unpopular opinions,venting,and genuinely how i feel about mk lore and characters.

This is just my personal opinions and feels ok? If you do not agree nor like. Then this post IS NOT FOR YOU! so keep scrolling down. (I can't believe i have to remind people of common sense and how to use their brain functions.)

But yeah. Here they are. It's a long one.

Below cut

🔥🐲🔥🐲🔥🐲🔥🐲🔥🐲🔥🐲🔥🐲🔥🐲🔥

Ok like i said a but long. But bear with me.

• Im sorry but liu kang x kitana can not realistically happen. At least for long term. They both have too much going on. Kitana has a whole realm let alone her own goals too separate from liu. And no offense guys but liu kang said he wants out in several stories endings. So a peaceful,quiet,normal lady and/or spouce is what he needs. Away from kombat,away from mortal kombat especially. So yeah....sorry guys. But your little fantasy of liu kang being with some badass warrior chick is just that. A fantasy and a boring one at that. Liu kang just needs a simple honey by his side. (This goes for liu kang being paired up with any of the known established lady characters)

• Speaking of which,liu kang should've retired. Not become a god. What was nrs thinking?!

• Kung lao should've been champion and the new chosen one. But y'all allergic to good storytelling.

• I could say so much about the lady characters. But I'll keep it short. Unfortunately guys,sexism exists. And it's affecting men too so if they actually eant people to enjoy fighting games. Dont make your lady fighters like shit and only eye candy. Let alone make them broken because your too lazy to program good movesets for them that actually work.

• Ah raiden raiden raiden. Where do i begin? First,they screw you over AGAIN. they take away you're whole ass personality. Nrs  only pretends now to actually gaf about you. And most of that is lip service. Shall i continue? You should've been retired by now. And not to mention they defang you for plot and treat you like shit as well as your mains. That pretty much covers it.

• Shang tsung my baby sweetheart,look at what they do? Do people care about your character? No. They dont. They never did until you looked lioe a pretty boy band hack. And no offense....they brought back the irl goat shang tsung himself,for what? Only to mock us fans and tease us with the false promises of something actually good? Yeah. Sadly i feel this. Tho i appreciate all of shang tsung's incarnations and iterations. Cary hiroyuki tagawa IS shang tsung to me. And honestly the only one worth mentioning. Because he's honest to god skilled in his craft. Im not saying this out of fandom,to butter his toast nor nostalgia sake. I genuinely feel he does shang tsung like nobody else does. Look guys alan lee is ok. But i feel he NEEDS SOMEONE TO WRITE HIM SOMETHING BETTER. Honey plz let me write for you! I know what shang neeeeeeds!

• That being said. Im sick of people saying shang tsung is eViL. When? Also is he tho? Anymore than anyone else in that world. Dude you're killing. And even if that wasn't a factor,there are worse guys. Shang tsung is actually compared to the likes of quan chi,shinnok,shao kahn,ONAGA,THE FUCKING ONE BEING ITSELF!?! shang's a fairly honorable and reasonable man. He is psuedo-immortal but he was once an earthrealmer warrior(idc what nrs says thats what he is end of story. Because thats what he was truly and it makes for a more compelling story) so unlike the other "baddies" he's the only really "human" one. So he's more realistic and relatable. Which honestly makes for a more interesting antag. Or even neutral character. Seriously guys,it's right there. Why do people refuse to see it is beyond me.

• Bi-han....you dont deserve what you're given. Im sorry.

• Same with mileena.

• Also mileena isn't some disease ridden floosy,isn't secretly shangs kid,she is a clone and an experiment and is a fucked up lil froot loop. She does get a heart of gold later and reconciles with kitana or should. But shang tsung hates mileena,sees her only a an object let alone just a pat on the back for a job well succeeded. Shes an experiment to him. Shao kahn sees her as a means to an end but an heir to be used. Sindel say milly as a daughter but the lesser one and only in high regards when kitana "disappoints" her. Sindel before and after the dark magic purge,was kind of selfish. She never hated her daughters,but she was arrogant. But that's just her personality. Anyways. Mileena is a clone/twin sister of kitana and deserves better and to be her own person and have her own agency. Sorry not sorry but i hate "fandom" mileena.

• Kung lao....my baby.....you deserve better. But you deserve to obliterate nrs for the mistreatment

• Sonya blade deserves to kill more. Let alone never be written by men ever again. NEVER AGAIN.

• We as fans deserve a good game. No gimmicks,not unnecessary dlc,full functional and FULLY MADE gameplay,no guest characters,no characters that was in the main storymode not on the roster let alone some pre order fucking only. No a fully good game. That has minigames to keep you busy. That has a fully open world krypt. A game WORTHY OF THE TITLE OF MORTAL KOMBAT!

I have so much more but....thats it for now.

[readingwiththestars]

₊˚⊹♡ RECKLESS

["it's a good thing you're not here, because i still havent found my courage."]

| ✮ 4.5 stars |

THOUGHTS ° ᡣ𐭩 . ° . [spoilers ahead]

okayyy let me just start off with WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK WAS THAT ENDING LAUREN???? i'm not okay because of it. like nuh uh get lost. u had no right to do that (im saying this as if it didnt get spoiled for me and i didnt gaslight myself the entire book read that it wasn't going to happen)

i would like to straight up say this seemed like a filler book. just a set up for the next one, it didn't really have all too much plot-wise aside from pae and kai's romance. it was less on the fantasy side and more on the romance but i still enjoyed it a lot. and obviously since it was a filler book there was less character development (for some- im looking at you paedyn)

kai and pae were really cute in this book honestly (and as it mostly focuses on the romance ofc they were) the banter and everything was so wonderful to read i was giggling and kicking my feet wayyy to much. the romance was romancing but also not romancing at the same time (im not even gonna try to explain that just use vibes)

i do feel as though lauren's writing has definitely improved from powerless. she has this whimsical magical style of writing that i love it really takes me into the world of the book (mostly). other times the long sentences were too much in moments. like lauren. we did not need to know the colour of the bricks in the market at this certain moment in time when you'd already explained the colour two pages ago-

CHARACTERS ° ᡣ𐭩 . ° .

paedyn - ok i love her. i really do she's such a good fmc BUT for me in this book she was boring-ish. and hella indecisive like girly pop if i had kai talking to me like that i'd be folding so damn fast- but yeah it felt like she didn't have too much character development aside from finding out her dad was actually her dad. also i idk who the fuck she was trying to fool with her 'i hate you' to kai, like be fucking for real bitch no you dont.

kai - ok bye i could write a whole rant on why i love this man. like im sat. this book felt more like kai's book (as powerless felt like pae's) imo we got more on his backstory and i think his character (and povs) were more interesting for me to focus on. also his flirting and little one liners had me giggling and shit my sister actually woke up to me grinning like an idiot under torch light-

kitt - bye idek why i made this section for him. this is going to entirely be hate fr. OKAY WE GET IT DUDE UR A GHOST WHATEVER. OH MY GOSH U MISS UR DAD BUT IN THE NEXT POV U DONT LIKE BITCH CHOOSE A SIDE IDC ABT UR WHINY ASS. ALSO U CLEARLY HAVE AN OBSESSION WITH PAEDYN LIKE FUCKING HELL DUDE SHE IS UR 'MUSE' OR WHATEVER GET OVER YOURSELF. EUGH AND THEN PROPOSING TO HER?? YEAH SURE BUDDY "YOUR FEELINGS FOR HER DIED" MHM YUP OKAY TOTALLYYY *clears throat awkwardly* can you tell i hate him?

QUOTES ° ᡣ𐭩 . ° . [its like all kai... im not even sorry about it either]

"you are my proof of paradise." - kai

"call us even. call me crazy. i don't care. just... just call me yours." - kai

"under different curcumstances i promise you im much more fun tied up." - kai (WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREECHED AND STARED AT THE PAGE. MALAKAI AZER-)

"just pae and kai." - kai

"she was supposed to be my forever. now i'll watch her become someone else's. because the beast doesn't get the beauty." - kai

jahsdgj i can't wait for the next book hehe

[zetsubobu]

Danganronpa for the ask game? 🥺 I feel a wave of nostalgia already! 🤣

ohh boy here we go, talking about danganronpa feels like opening up an old drawer I haven't opened in years fdsafsa (I know I participate in dr zines but I rarely talk about the show itself haha)

Favorite character: kyoko, licorne/rei mikagami (from the danganronpa kirigiri spin off novel, yea I was that deep into that franchise), sayaka and makoto!

Least Favorite character: tbh I don't really like a lot of the characters, if I had to choose some I think it would be teruteru (he makes me uncomfy as an ace) or kazuichi (he annoyed me)

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): naegiri, kirizono, saimatsu (used to be a huge oumasai girly though), fuyupeko and naegami

Character I find most attractive: okay this is going to sound really basic I know but celestia, kyoko, byakuya, shuichi and sayaka. They're so pretty okayyy

Character I would marry: I'll be honest, makoto because he's such a green flag in every way. Least toxic character. Yes he is boring but come on he is a sweetheart

Character I would be best friends with: tbh I struggle to make friends so possibly none of them. Maybe tsumugi though since I could talk about my fav shows with her

A random thought: read the danganronpa kirigiri novels, I love them with all my heart. She has such an insane backstory

An unpopular opinion: trigger happy havoc is better than the other games. It feels much more tense since we have no idea what's really going on plus the characters are much more forced into an enclosed space than in the other games. Like in v3 or sdr2 they can go outside, hell the second game has like 5 islands. Meanwhile in the first one they are in one single building, it's honestly a surprise that they didn't end up with more victims. Additionally we have no idea what the school was about which made the final trial more interesting imo

My canon OTP: naegiri fdsafdsa I'm happy that they're actually canon

Non-canon OTP: kirizono, I love girl kissers

Most badass character: tbh they are all badass in their own way considering they are ultimates and the situation they're in. However the most badass of them all is sakura, rest in peace queen. Also kyoko (you can see I have a bias) cause not only can she solve cases really quickly but she also knows martial arts, can shoot with a gun from 200m away, knows german, is rich and a straight A student? Go off queen

Pairing I am not a fan of: tbh komahina which is surprising considering I usually like the toxic ships because of the angst they bring. But in their case it's the fandom that ruined it for me though. Also hinanami is kinda boring

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): tbh a lot of them. However I think the character that was done dirty the most is hifumi cause after being forced to read through his fte for a fanfic, I learned that he's actually surprisingly relatable. It's just the main plot and focus on his weirdness that make him icky (doesn't mean I like him btw, I still don't like him). Also I think tenko and I say that as someone who didn't like her in my playthrough either. Ohh and I'm legally forced to say mukuro (for obvious reasons)

Favourite friendship: kyoko and yui samidare oh my god they are so bittersweet aaaaaaaaa I love their development throughout the novels so much which makes the ending so much harder. I promise you the novels are good

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PRELIMINARY ROUND - BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER/ANGEL THE SERIES

PROPAGANDA

Fred Burkle

1.) She is chronically a damsel in distress in the canon even though she has demonstrated her intelligence and ability to use weapons. The canon consistently takes away her agency over her body and ability to make decisions just to further plot. Why does she die because she gets possessed by a god for no reason </3

2.) ok I promise I'll be more normal about the other ats female characters than about cordy. fred was introduced as a genius physicist who had spent five years stuck in a demon dimension where humans were persecuted, surviving on her own and trying to somehow find a way back home. after being rescued from the demon dimension by the show's main characters, she joins the main cast and starts trying to readjust to the normal world. the setup for her character is really interesting, with her having a lot of trauma from her time in the demon dimension, feeling helpless, and struggling to become comfortable living in the human world again. but I guess because she's a Woman the show instead reduces her to just being at the centre of a love triangle with two of the other main characters, which she has almost no agnecy in and gets stretched out over like two seasons. and then after she breaks up for good with one of the guys and it looks like MAYBE she'll at least be freed from love triangle hell, the show introduces a NEW love interest for her just to keep the love triangle drama going. she basically never gets any focus or to be an active player in the show's plot aside from in a couple of episodes, pretty much being reduced to just a damsel in distress. and as if all that wasn't bad enough, fred's story ends with her being killed by a demon that takes over her body and destroys her from the inside out in a way that isn't Technically a mystical pregnancy but is like. close enough to one and presented close enough to one for it to count. (if you read the cordelia submission and are perhaps thinking to yourself jesus christ did they actually fridge both their main female characters in exactly the same way? Yes. Yes they did.) the demon in fred's body then allegedly becomes a new member of the main cast but the show does pretty much nothing with this character and she doesn't play any important role so it really does just feel like fred died for no reason other than to make her boyfriend sad. This is because fred died for no reason other than to make her boyfriend sad. It fucking sucks but I guess it's not like she got any agency or development when she was alive either

3.) Poor Fred. Amy Acker is a fantastic actress and Fred had the potential to become a truly wonderful character - a brilliant scientist who goes through intense trauma and finds her purpose in helping other people. I have a lot of love for her. Unfortunately she was the victim of a lot of really misogynistic writing. For starters, a lot of her characterisation falls into the ‘quirky weird girl who’s hot but doesn’t realise’ camp which Joss Whedon is fond of. Like other examples of this, her trauma is turned into something quirky which fades away once they get bored of it. Also, she becomes completely sidelined and silenced in a love triangle where the feelings of the man pining over her are given all air time, and her own opinion is never mentioned. Additionally, she’s constantly sidelined in the final season after being made the token girl, and is finally killed off unceremoniously to generate drama and pain for the aforementioned man who was pining over her. And you know what the worst part is? She still gets off more lightly than Cordelia.

Cordelia Chase (CW: Pregnancy)

1.) (downs an entire bottle of vodka and slams it back on the table) SO. CORDY. Cordy started off as a supporting character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At the start she was your typical high school mean girl character, but as the show went on we got to see more depth to her character: her insecurities, her courage, her capacity for incredible acts of kindness. Then after the third season she moved into the show's spin off, Angel, where from the beginning she was basically the show's secondary protagonist. Her and Angel were the two mainstays of the show's main cast, she gets the most episodes centered on her out of all the characters aside from Angel (and yes, I've checked), and we really got to see her grow from a very shallow and self-centered and kind of mean person to a true hero who was prepared to give up any chance at a normal life to fight the good fight while still never losing the basic core of her character. There were some… questionable moments like the episode where she gets mystically pregnant with demon babies and things got a bit iffy like halfway through season 3 where the writers seemed to run out of ideas for what to do with her outside of sticking her in this romance drama/love triangle situation with the main character but overall, pretty good stuff right? THEN SEASON 4 HAPPENED. In season 4 she gets stripped of literally all agency and spends pretty much the entire season possessed by an evil higher power, and while possessed she sleeps with Angel's teenage son (who BY THE WAY she had helped raise as a baby before he got speed-grown-up into a teenager it was a whole thing don't worry about it) and gets pregnant with like. the physical manifestation of the higher power that's possessing her. it's about as bad and stupid as it sounds and also is like the third time cordy's got mystically pregnant in this show and like the fourth mystical pregnancy storyline overall (you will be hearing more on that note in other submissions I'm so sorry). after giving birth she goes into a coma, in which she remains for the rest of season 4 and the first half of season 5. SPEAKING OF WHICH DON'T THINK SEASON 5 IS GETTING OFF SCOT FREE HERE. yeah so in season 5 the show just FULLY starts trying to erase cordy's existence. she gets mentioned ONCE in the first episode and then never again until halfway through the season where she wakes up, helps out Angel for a bit and encourages him in his fight against evil, and then goes quietly into that good night and dies so it can be all sad and tragic. I'd call it the worst fridging of all time but even THAT feels generous because the whole point of fridging is killing off a female character so a man can be sad, and after Cordy dies basically no one's even sad about it because the show immediately goes back to pretending she never existed. she is not mentioned ONCE in the two episodes after she dies. in the whole stretch of time between her death and the end of the season she gets mentioned exactly four times. again, I counted. anyway the fun twist to all of this is that all of this happened because the actress who played cordy got pregnant before season 4 and joss whedon was so pissed off about this affecting his plans for the show that he decided to completely fuck over her character and then fire her and write her out of the show. so cordy's a victim of both writing AND real life misogyny!! good times!!

2.) OH SO MANY THINGS they menaced by giving her terrible hair cuts, making her seem like she'd get together with the guy she loves (and who loves her back) but instead she was killed and when she was brought back, she got possessed by an evil entity who used her body to give birth to itself. afterwards she was in a long coma and died. her character was so throughoutly assassinated

3.) She got demonically pregnant TWICE - there was this real sense of a womb/ability to get pregnant as like, a place for evil to get in. She got positioned as femme fatale and evil mother. The actress basically got fired for being pregnant, and when she agreed to come back for a single final episode she specifically said they could do anything but kill off the character. Guess what happened

[thelazyhermits]

Idk if this has been asked before, if so you can just ignore, but how come you don’t write the main story chapters for twisted wonderland on ao3? At first I was confused when going through reading the fics and was curious. I love how you write the character interactions and hoped to read them with the other fics.

Hmm you know I don't know if anyone has ever actually asked me this, but that may be because I shared my thoughts on this matter when I first started writing for TWST or because every so often I mention this topic. Since I don't have this info anywhere where it'd be easy for anyone to see, I can totally understand your confusion, so I'd be happy to answer your question! ^^

Basically, I honestly don't want to cover every single thing that happens in the main story in a fic cause I think I'd get really bored if I did. Like there are definitely plenty of main story scenes that I'd love to cover, but there are many more that I just have zero interest in writing. I also don't wanna rehash all the things that would for the most part not be any different from canon, such as all the dialogue that needs to be said for plot purposes, etc.

My fic, Psychic Recollection, was created so I could cover main story scenes that interest me and avoid all the ones that I don't want to write, so I have every intention to cover more of the main story since I can totally understand why my readers would wanna see more of the beginnings of all of my Yuu's relationships.

So unfortunately I have no plans to cover the whole main story in a fic, and I can't promise that I will cover every scene that interests my readers. That said, if there's a scene in particular you'd like to see, feel free to let me know, and if inspiration strikes, I'll make sure to cover it in Psychic Recollection ^-^

Lastly, thank you for your kind words! I'm so glad that you like how I write the character interactions in my fics! 💕💕💕

[llycaons]

now that I'm home, a brief summary of the new (historical) fantasy books I AM interested in. there are still nonfiction (essays, social commentary, biology) that are on my list but THIS is more my jam. putting this under a readmore but 1. if you've read any of these I'd love to hear your (non-spoilery!) opinion of them, and 2. if you have any recs based on this list, feel free to reply or send me an ask!

The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang: if this book is bad I'm going to cry. it looks like it could be everything I've ever wanted. I love when lesbians are anti-authoritarian and I love wuxia settings. the rebel love interest has tattoos 😍

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec: I haven't actually read much norse mythology-inspired stuff except that pjo spinoff that wasn't very good (and one set in 9th century greenland that was HORRIBLE) but this was suggested a few times and I think it looks very promising! it's always neat to see older women as protags and she's bisexual and maybe polyam as well, which I've only ever seen in baru cormorant and the broken earth iirc

The Forever Sea by Joshua Phillip Johnson: this doesn't look GREAT but I looovvee environmental fantasy so I'll give it a shot

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo: this one looks WILD

The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker: this one seems a little more YA than the others but the concept is pretty original so I'm curious to see what they do with it

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard: the description made me cringe a bit but the idea is pretty cool and it seems like YA but it's marked at adult?

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho: another wuxia-inspired book!!! please be good PLEASE be fucking good 😭

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse: this one is sparing in the description but I have a sense it'll be VERY intense

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang: I may struggle to keep focused on this one but I thought I'd check it out bc in theory it's interesting

The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang: I didn't really understand the summary but it's hopefully good? I'l always check out a wuxia and I like a sibling dynamic

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig: PIRATES, BABY!!!!

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Katherine Tiernan O'Connor (Translator), Ellendea Proffer (Annotations/Afterword), Diana Lewis Burgin (Translator), Hans Fronius (Illustrator): *points* like from tumblr...in all seriousness I HAVE heard some really interesting things about this book and the relationship so I'm glad to add it to my list

The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar: the first book of this series sounds really boring ngl but this one oohh 👀

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: I heard high praise for this one so while it doesn't specifically appeal to me, I'll give it a shot

Sistersong by Lucy Holland: I like a sibling story!

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh: this one could touch me tenderly I feel. I like when love interests are nice. whenever I see those setups that are like 'oh he's got an OBNOXIOUS and HOT partner' I'm like well this projection isn't working for me bc I'd leave then. I don't want to be annoyed by someone I'm supposed to like. I am aware this is a big setup for CR arc of mdzs but the annoying guy is my actual younger brother and my dear dear friend wwx so he can do whatever he wants. and also lwj really does have a stick up his ass and wwx is acting significantly more normally all things considered. anyway. this gay tree man may touch my heart

books that are ALREADY on my list/I have read excerpts from already

The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick: this one is pretty YA but I enjoy the writing and the setting, and the plot is exciting. I look forward to reading more

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley: I think my mutual suggested this to me and I tried reading it but I found it really hard to read but I am going to try it again because it sounds so intruiging!

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty: I'm on the fence bc while I liked the city of brass, I thought this one was a bit weaker so idk if I'll keep reading. I like the concept tho

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro: this one's strange and mysterious and I love the almost primordial atmosphere of england 1000 years ago...the ancient and massive landmarks around the elderly characters as they go about their relatively small lives. kind of frightening, kind of magical

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong: I haven't read any of this and it DOES look pretty YA but the setting sounds fun so why not

[aurorawest]

Reading update

White Trash Warlock by David R Slayton - 4.75/5 stars

Urban fantasy with a protagonist from a trailer park, who, for bonus points, got sectioned by his older brother as a teen. Daddy issues, mommy issues, and brother issues, what's not to like? I ordered everything else by this author I could find when I finished the book, including the other two books in this series.

The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos - DNF

Boring.

The Revolutionary and the Rogue by Blake Ferre - DNF

Boring, with the added crime of actual plot happening but still, somehow, nothing actually happening. I kept reading whole pages and realizing I had no idea what I'd just read.

The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard - DNF

OMFG CAN I CATCH A BREAK. This was such a disappointing DNF, too, because I'd really been looking forward to it. One of the characters is a spaceship and it bills itself as a space opera? Yes please. But after the initial marriage of convenience setup, it's just all a bunch of pointless, boring conversations. Nothing happens. I flipped ahead. Still nothing happening. Not a space opera but definitely cozy sci-fi, which I think I officially hate.

Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray - 5/5 stars

An FBI agent and a GRU agent get assigned to work a case together in 1959 and they fall in looooove. But oof, this book was so good. I'm not sure I've ever had a time skip hit me in the gut so hard. I really can't recommend this book enough, it fits squarely in my niche interest of mid-century America or Britain m/m romance. I think Natasha Pulley also awakened something in me with The Half Life of Valery K, because I seem to be a sucker for gay Soviet men. Speaking of, if you liked The Half Life of Valery K, I bet you'll like this too! Anyway, read this, but be prepared to be hurt by it.

Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro - 4/5 stars

X-men meets Strangers Things with a dash of English boarding school, set in Victorian Britain.

Human Enough by ES Yu - DNF

Promising until it devolved into boring, pointless conversations and tumblr posts on neurodivergence.

Olympic Enemies by Rebecca J Caffery - DNF

I put this down on page 12 and my wife grabbed it to flip through it, cackling at the amateurish prose.

Frost Bite by J Emery - 4.5/5 stars

Snowed-in cabin fic with an enemies to lovers romance between a vampire and a (former) vampire hunter. It was cute and a quick read.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner - DNF

Very Not Like Other Girls. Also read a review that said pregnancy was a huge focus of the book, and that's a squick for me.

Reverie by Ryan La Sala - 3.75/5 stars

This book didn't quite live up to the promise of its beginning (missing memories, bizarre disruptions to time and space) and the writing was a little twee at times, but overall I enjoyed it. This was the author's debut, so I suspect subsequent books will probably be better. I did feel like the teenage main characters were weirdly inured to death, which also contributed to me knocking of a quarter of a star from what would otherwise have been a solid 4 star book.

All Souls Near & Nigh by Hailey Turner - 3/5 stars

If you like The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards, this series might be worth picking up. I will say, though, that it's nowhere near as good. I think it's a combination of pacing and too many characters that detracts from my enjoyment of this series. This is the second book and I enjoyed it more than the first, probably because I sort of remembered the massive cast of characters from the first one. It's one of those things where I really don't think they're all necessary and some should be combined with others. The pacing is also...weird. It's pretty much nonstop action. At one point I think the main character drove back and forth between various crime scene locations and his office like 5 times in a day.

That said! Despite the issues, clearly I still picked up book 2, and I'll probably read book 3 at some point. I really like the two main characters.

[lady-bluebird-luv]

Hello Luv, Santa is back! Just in time for a little Halloween celebration. Are you doing anything especially frightening for 31st?

I will always read 300 pages of your Feysand takes, so bring them on. And did you somehow introduce me to a new Hozier song? Wasteland Baby is my favorite album but I had never listened to the special edition.

I did a lot of evil cackling, maybe even steepled my fingers, when I read your responses to my questions. There were two or three fic ideas I had kicking around in my head, and I think I've chosen the one that will be a feast of favorites! I can promise at least that someone will be covered with blood.

Would you be interested in some teasers and other little gifts between now and the official release date? I can certainly light a few candles and try to build some anticipation.

In the meantime I have a few questions for you:

What are some of your favorite books?

Tell me a little bit about your other fandom and what drew you to write for it!

And: what's your favorite scary movie?

Until next time! 🎅

Santa, I would be beyond happy to get a stocking stuffer! I hope you're enjoying spooky season :) I'm so excited to see what you come up with, and I hope you're having fun plotting! I'm also absolutely thrilled to introduce you to more Hozier, and I don't suppose you've heard Ethel Cain's new song, too?

As far as choosing favorite books goes... WOOO-WEE I don't know where to begin. I love books that are kinda weird and/or surreal. It doesn't need to be fantasy or sci-fi to scratch the itch, but it often is. I also love fictional worlds that just... feel really lush and vibrant, which I know sounds really vague, but I don't know how to describe it much better than that. :/ I guess a good example would be Marlon James's Dark Star Trilogy, which I adore.

Some of my other favorites right now are the Aye, and Gomorrah collection by Samuel Delany, anything by Toni Morrison or Yoko Tawada, and The Overstory by Richard Powers. Stuff by Emily St. John Mandel (think Station Eleven) and Lydia Millet (especially A Children's Bible) are also up there. Dark academia also hits the spot for me, so I love work by Maggie Stiefvater and Laini Taylor, although it's been a long time since I reread their books. I used to be obsessed with The Mortal Instruments. I'll still always have a soft spot for them and the Infernal Devices.

I don't consider myself a huge poetry person, but the book that I keep coming back to more than anything else is actually my anthology of Louise Glück's poems. She writes a lot about the loss, failure, shortcomings, etc. that are inevitable in life. A lot of her material is pretty depressing (if not straight-up dark), but she weaves painful experiences into extraordinarily beautiful poems. I admire that a lot, and it's... comforting, in a way? Catharsis doesn't quite capture what I mean. She's not going to tell you that it will all be OK in the end, but that's alright, because that's how life is sometimes. I like that she rips the band-aid off AND shows you how to grit your teeth while she does it. Ocean Vuong's poetry is also some of my favorite writing.

I don't know how familiar you are with my other fandom, Attack on Titan, but it was a HUGE part of my life for a long, long time. It still is near and dear to my heart, although ACOTAR has taken some brainspace from it for sure.

I've always read a lot, and when I was... 13? 14? somewhere in there. I got bored to death with a lot of the YA novels I was reading. I got into anime/manga to try something new, and since AoT was one of the big shows at the time, I watched it first.

It was a hell of a first anime, but I really liked the action and how deceptively simple the premise is. In case you aren't familiar, I won't spring any spoilers on you. But basically, the premise is very easy to grasp until you realize that a lot of characters are lying through their teeth about themselves and the world around them. AoT was also one of the few major animes at the time that had basically zero fanservice, which I appreciated, and the characters were really appealing. AoT has a strong anti-war message, and the story is partially about how governments can prey on young, idealistic, hurt people by turning them into war machines. There are no heroes in AoT. If you think otherwise, wait a few episodes.

I love morally grey characters (if you couldn't tell) and angst that seems to have no good solution, so that drew me in. Hange might be my favorite character.

I'd already written a little fanfic before AoT. It was for a really trashy fallen angel romance called Hush, Hush. It's definitely still out there on fanfiction.net LMFAO. I don't remember my username or the name of the story, which might be for the best. In any case, when I found the AoT fandom, I was so excited to find a huge and incredibly talented fandom. AoT is what introduced me to AO3 (for better and for worse) and where I learned to channel my writing itch into projects that I could stay passionate about for, in some of my fics' cases, years. Looking back, some of what I wrote was definitely cringey. Nevertheless, I'm also really proud of how well some of it has held up and performed. I learned a lot from writing AoT fic, and writing for AoT undeniably boosted my confidence as an artist.

Also, Santa, I LOVE horror movies. I'm not gustsy enough to try to write horror, but I think it's one of, if not THE hardest genre to execute well, and I admire a good horror film. My favorite has to be Hereditary.

This video essay is a great breakdown of what makes the film awesome. It's a way better explanation than what I could do, but it's also almost five hours long. So, the TLDR is that the film subverts and reworks a lot of tropes while having insane acting, cinematography, effects, etc. When I saw it, it was the first genuinely frightening movie I'd seen in a while. I'm not super into the torture porn/pure shock value style horror movies, and I think this one strikes a good balance between disturbing gore and psychological horror.

I moved to Central Europe recently, so I celebrated Halloween in a very foggy ex-Yugoslavian city with lots of bridges over canals. The spooky vibes were indeed spooking. I hope you had fun :).

[linagram]

questions for the prisoners (both 1 & 2 if you feel like it): are they consistent readers? what's their favorite book or genre?

linagram 2 01, 03 and 09's relationship with books is actually kind of a spoiler (it makes sense i promise), so they are the only ones who will not be mentioned. linagram 1 prisoners will answer the questions themselves and i will answer them for linagram 2 prisoners :)

[ Linagram 1 ]

Akio: "I just.. read everything. As much as I can. As often as I can. It's a bit.. hard now, considering what happened, but thanks to whoever treated me, I'm getting better. I used to read a lot because I wanted to feel smart, and I know that I am smart, but right now it's more about.. killing time, I guess. Usually Arata was the one who bought books for me because of.. my family situation."

Aimi: "Umm, it's not really my thing, haha. I feel like it's for people who are wayyyy smarter than me. I was okay with reading Akio-kun's books out loud to him though when he.. didn't feel so good. Ah, my.. older brother used to read a lot. He always liked creepy stuff though, and I wasn't interested in it. From what I've heard, his favorite author has been losing popularity lately for some reason. He was.. very sad about it."

Shun: ".. Other than manga and light novels, I don't really read anything else. Does that even count as literature?.. I guess you could at least say I was a consistent reader when it came to those things. A-as for what I liked to read.. Romance manga is always nice. A-and more mature stuff too, I-I guess."

Naomi: "I used to read a lot because of my job, but I wouldn't say I necessarily enjoyed it. Just tried to appear smart and also motivate kids to read more as well. I'm going to be honest, sometimes reading just.. makes my head hurt. I don't know, maybe it just really annoys me. Now that I don't have to worry about my image, I don't really read anymore."

Kei: "Eh, I wouldn't say that I'm, like, that interested in it. I prefer more, uhhh, "visual" stuff if that makes sense? Me and Eiji often fought because of that, like, I would just go and watch a movie without reading the book first and he'd throw a tantrum and go "YOU WON'T UNDERSTAND HOW GOOD IT REALLY IS!!". Who cares, Eiji, I never really cared about the plot anyway."

Eiko: "Hmm, I'm not really that much of a reader?.. I guess I can read something, especially if it's recommended by someone I like, but I don't think it's something I'd want to try myself.. No, even if Shun recommended me something, I wouldn't read it. Actually, him recommending it would only make me lose any interest I could've had."

Asahi: "Isn't that what nerds usually do though? Nah, I'll pass. I'll leave that to Akio-nii. I can't really read much anyway."

Yurika: ".. Manga and light novels. That's it. Anything else is too boring. Hm? Shun gave a similar answer?.. Ugh, don't compare me to that creep."

Riku: ".. Oh, um. I never really had the time for that. And also I just wasn't interested in it, haha. To be honest, I haven't really watched movies that often either.. Man, I sound boring, don't I? Sorry, sorry, I always was more focused on music. Uh, does opening one or two of my textbooks like once a week count?"

Reina: "Not really. If I remember correctly, I used to read pretty often when I was a kid, but I lost all interest as I got older. I didn't have the time and energy for it."

[ Linagram 2 ]

Prisoner 002: I imagine that 02 would read quite often. She mostly would read stuff for school, but sometimes she'd be interested in reading something that's not related to that at all. However, like Naomi, I doubt that she would actually enjoy it. I don't think there's anything 02 truly enjoys, honestly.

Prisoner 004: Not really a huge reader. She finds it too boring and her attention span is too short for that.

Prisoner 005: He doesn't really have any time to read, and most of the time he just reads news articles, since he needs to know everything about what's been going on lately because of his job. He still enjoys reading more than watching movies or playing games and thinks it's better for your brain.

Prisoner 006: Mostly reads stuff related to her job, other than that, she enjoys reading romance novels sometimes.

Prisoner 007: Doesn't have much time to read as well, but if he did, he would also enjoy romance novels and I think he'd like manga of the same genre a lot as well.

Prisoner 008: She'd be ashamed to admit it, but she's not that much of a reader and she prefers to watch TV instead because she can just put it on the background while she does stuff. She would absolutely love to get back into reading one day though.

Prisoner 010: Reads manga sometimes for fun, but other than that, she doesn't read much.

[libraryofnika]

⋆˙⊹JULY RECENT READS⊹˙⋆

Full reviews of my most recent reads (4 books)

One Last Breath (sapphic, mystery-thriller, paranormal)

I hate the pairing so much. The twist? It was one of the worst things. The characters here deserved better except for the killer, of course.

This book makes me SO ANGRY. I HATE THIS. I want to give this 1⭐️ but the first half was decent, so I'm settling for 2⭐️

P.S. Dark and Shallow Lies (from the same author) was much better than this.

Beneath These Cursed Stars (fae fantasy romance)

DNF @45%.

This might be one of the most disappointing or worst books I've read this year.

I am honestly looking forward to this book considering how promising the premise is.

The writing is one thing that I dislike this novel. It's very bland, I had to force myself to finish a chapter. Another thing is the characters, which I dare say the most boring characters I ever encountered.

It's honestly disappointing and saddening, considering I was really manifesting to be able to read the arc. Not to mention my first novel from this author.

Thank you, Harpercollins, for the e-arc opportunity via Netgalley and Edelweiss.

The Enslaved Mate (vampire and shifter romance)

I always love to read anything vampire and shifter stories. I was pretty excited to read this, especially after the promising premise the novel had.

I pretty enjoyed the characters here, I would say they were written with depth and quite complex in some ways as well. The struggles the main pairing here was something I would say is alarming and definitely need to be taken with delicate care.

With that being said, the characters definitely are interesting, especially the existing characters from the previous books, which I will be reading soon.

Another thing is that I would have definitely enjoyed this more if the plot is more intricate and also if I had read the previous books.

Nevertheless, it was an okay read for me.

Thank you, author, for the e-arc opportunity. 3⭐

When He Desires (mafia romance)

First things first, the writing clearly did improve, and I was happy with that. There's also some refreshing elements here that I liked, especially the FMC being able to resist the MMC and not succumbing too fast.

The small town setting definitely caught my eye and the mafia combination. Anything small town— I'll read it right away.

I think I would have loved to see more of a mafia element here or the gangster one, but it turns out that the content bere was ptetty generic or mediocre for my liking. It was pretty superficial to me. I would say i wasn't impressed at all.

I also didn’t like that the FMC was kind of weak and stupid at times, especially with Brett— I hate this Brett guy so much. Definitely needs an improvement with the character.

The same goes for Nero or Rowan. He didn't really feel a mafia guy to me? Doesn't ooze that dangery kind of character. I would go so far as his character not really convincing.

The romance as well. Definitely need more development.

I'm quite not happy overall with the story. I feel like the plot wasn't even there? The only thing that saved this book for me is the ending, which I believe did good to hype me up for the 2nd book.

Thank you, author, for the e-arc opportunity. 2.5⭐️

Bookstagram Booktwitter Goodreads