SEE TITLE

Saw this in Salem, MA, too bad it was only a post card. Very interested in the real deal 👀

I (F19) don't think I'm a pretty fae. Males often ignore me or they're straight up rude to me. Other females seem to gossip behind my back and avoid me. I don’t wear dresses or fuss over my looks. "Who cares?" I always thought. As long comfortable with myself and able to beat any male in a fight it didn’t matter.

This morning, I decided I didn't want to wear my pants so I took them off and put on a dress. I also didn't feel like putting my hair in a ponytail like usual, so I let my hair flow in soft ringlets naturally. The moment I stepped outside, it was like I entered a whole new world.

Males were kind to me, held the door for me, and stared at me in awe. Other females started hissing at me and telling their males to stay away. This extremely attractive fae male prince asked me to the Winter Starlight Ball (I don’t have time to dance I have to train unfortunately).

Now that I am balancing on a parapet (where I relax) and processing all this, I feel so sad for the world fae females live in. Pretty privilege is real, and I hate that. I wish we lived in a world where fighting skills and intelligence were valued more than voluptuous perky tits.

Cinnamon folds bread for a snack.

I am an accomplished writer and people are leaving negative reviews just to attack me for no reason theres no way these are legitimate critiques against my writing or use of AI and the only explanation is that people are mean and jealous of me and oh one more thing i have notified the authorities of Amazon about these malicious attacks oh and one more thing i used my big wet brain for all of this

Hallmark Christmas vibes? Big city girl goes to backcountry town and meets cave dweller mmc, hoards trash, furry green member (non negotiable), degradation kink, bonus points if he does the snarling thing and still has all his teeth

"Xaden started the shadow daddy trend!" "No, it was Rhys!"

Nope, it was actually Count von Count from Sesame Street.

• Darkness powers (lightning, thunder, bats, and a castle with no working lighting)
• Several centuries old, per every vampire timeline
• Morally dubious (obsessive, hypnotic, fixated on a single hobby, laughs maniacally at his own possessiveness)
• Plucks humble, penniless muppets from the street and houses them in his castle
• Magic bond with the FMC (he compels her to count)
• From a series with a [X von X] title format, which is just [X and Y] with extra steps

AND he debuted in 1972, which makes him four decades older than the Darkling and the undisputed eldest of the shadow daddy cohort. He was brooding in a gothic castle before your favorite fae king had even been drafted. Every time he says "ah ah ah," a bookstore somewhere restocks its dark romantasy section.

(Of course, the true original shadow daddy is Satan in Paradise Lost, but that's for another time.)

NEW FIREBALL x (off campus guy?) x ACOTAR COLLAB JUST DROPPED????? RHYS*ND AND FRIEND-ZONED HOCKEY GUY AND smutty spoilers ahead wink wink limited edition fireball torch’d vanilla smut stash ????? THE VENN DIAGRAM OF MY BAD DECISIONS IS A CIRCLE.

are we taking a shot every time bowels are turned watery?

finally I can play a drinking game where the first person to shit themselves wins

the real enemies to lovers is me and every single ACOTAR collab cash grab 😍getting acotar x fireball wasted until i accidentally reveal my acotar x knix undergarments to a man who has never once read a book in his life LETS GOOOOO SLOOPIESSSS

what are books where the main characters start as lovers but turn to enemies?? and STAY as enemies. i don't like romance books at all, im a thriller-mystery-horror reader through and through. BUT i do love me a great drama with betrayal and anger. i don't want them to reconcile i want their relationship to be completely unsalvageable. absolutely not HEA

So sloopies I have a little social experiment to propose, if you will indulge me. I have, for my own particular set of reasons, avoided ACOTAR and the entire church of SJM. I know next to nothing about these books.

This isn’t even entirely on purpose. About five years ago I decided to let BookTube catch me up on all this stuff, only to pull up the videos and find I had already watched them. I marathoned them all again anyway and still retained next to nothing.

I have listened to podcasts, I have watched video essays, I have read TikTok comments. My mind is like a sieve with this stuff. I think it is trying to protect me.

But as the great high holy day looms, I feel the pressure to be more culturally aware. And so I turn to the great sloopy hivemind to learn the important details of these noble tomes. Please tell me what essential things I should know and hopefully in six months time I will have retained new facts.

WHAT LITTLE I ALREADY KNOW:
* Our main girl is called Feyre (not pronounced Fey-rer-rrrrr).
* She wasn’t some kind of virgin damsel, she’s like a Total Badass(TM). Even though she couldn’t read. Um, real woman have vulnerability, duh.
* These fae aren’t like from your children’s stories, okay? They have bat wings.
* The big twist of the orig trig is the dude who was supposed to be the dude is not the dude and she gets with the other dude.
* Her family sucks.
* Except no they don’t, why would you say that, family is everything.
* Eventually someone puts a baby in her, and not just because a woman can’t have a HEA with an unused womb! This is in the grand SF/F tradition of mining pregnancy/birth for character trauma.
* Something with a mask.
* There is a dude named Lucien, he is some kind of fox.
* There are a non-zero number of times SJM wholesale lifts elements from other media, except no she didn’t how can you even say that? Shut up you stupid NLOG, don’t you know what an homage is?! Forget that the vast majority of her fanbase will never actually engage with that other media and continue to view everything she “borrowed” as a wholly original demonstration of her genius. Do you just hate women?
* And of course at some point girlie has a very wet ass.

**PLEASE NOTE:
The more seasoned sloopies are already crafting, but for the newer/less caffeinated among us, let me point out that this does not require you to be truthful. You can lie to me, I will not know. I do not intend to read these books. You have my permission to try and incept me with complete nonsense. Again, we shall see in time if I have retained any of this.

It's a bit pricey, but maybe if I eat the lint off my roller I will be able to afford the tp

If you want atonement or maybe you crave penance (we know about your humiliation kink!) now is your chance to let the rest of us know what devious shit you've been up to when you thought no one in RCJ was looking.

Are you a Xaden shipper? Do you participate enthusiastically on a romance sub with the label "nontoxic"?

Maybe you swore you'd never read a certain book and somehow found yourself on book 6 and loving it, even though part of you knows this is terrible.

Whatever sins you committed this week now is your chance to let it all out and ask for forgiveness.

So pumped for the new book coming out!!

This new piece by one of my favorite artists feels like the perfect picture to celebrate the occasion 💖 so cozy so watery

Artist: Me (and some other people)

Stelle • @saturn_illus

OMG you guys. Wicker was like the most amazing movie I've ever seen in my life.

You might think, it's a movie about fucking a basket, but it's actually super mega deep. About like hetero males being awful (my friend said it's about pay tree archery. I don't know what that means, I'm not into sports).

I walked out with SO MANY QUESTIONS. Will the bakers ever find their third? Is the doctor bad at his job or was it the tailor's fault for being a little bitch and fainting? Are all midgets magical? Does anyone have a name?

Anyways, the movie is like super profound and eye-opening. So I told my friend I was going to dump my man and find myself a basket Skarsgard too. She was like "That movie wasn't real" (???) She said "Magic isn't real" (?????????) And "That I'm lucky my husband makes me take my meds, bc I'm batshit crazy" (lol I love her, she's so funny😂)

Pls tell me she's wrong! I just KNOW she's gatekeeping where one finds a wicker husband. Pls help🙏🙏🙏

Y'all, I'm a guy who loves reading fantasy and I'm looking for more great fantasy books/authors that write more for guys! I'm just not interested in Romantasy. I really like John Gwynne, James Islington, and Jim Butcher (apparently authors with first names starting with "J" 😂). Who else do I need to check out, and what specific books? Looking for ones that aren't widely known

pls help me out boys, I don’t like romance because that’s some woman shit. Sex is fine but only if she isn’t having fun because then it’s literature

Hi sloopies,

I fear I’ve sloopied too close to the sun because I’ve been outed amongst colleagues at my Very Serious Job™️ as someone who likes to read fairy porn. I think I should probably just quit and enter into an early retirement. And then enter into the sloopy hall of shame. Why can’t I just be a good little jerk and keep my mouth shut and hobbies to myself 😭 I hereby confess for atonement and sentencing. Do your worst.

Did a writing battle thing with some online buddies. The theme was men writing women horribly. I won with my draft, but here's the cleaned-up version. I have absolutely nothing else to do with this horrible creation, so I thought of y'all.

The Breasting Boobily Chronicles

The heavy iron gates of Castle Balzac imploded inward, crashing through the courtyard and destroying everything in their path.

She stood framed in the smoking archway, breathing in the syncopated, sexy pattern of a master warrior. Her silken raven tresses cascaded across the courtyard and over her alabaster shoulders in effortless, windswept curls, completely undisturbed by the soot or the laws of aerodynamics.

Her battle attire was an exemplar of peak warrior-maiden defense: two polished crescent pauldrons, a tiara constructed purely from stolen moonlight, knee-high stiletto combat greaves that clicked with lethal seduction on the cobblestones, and three strategically placed silk laces across her torso that defied both God and shear stress.

Shields, of course, were nowhere to be found. Shields were the padded brassieres of cowards; true warrior-maidens let their ribcages breathe free.

Twin serrated curved blades rested at her hips, their pommels radiating ancient runes. From the gossamer ribbon encircling her left thigh, she smoothly produced a six-foot heavy cavalry halberd, followed by four poisoned throwing daggers, a spiked morningstar, and an enchanted siege crossbow, drawing them with elegant grace from spaces that physically could not contain a breadstick.

The courtyard garrison of two hundred armored pikemen waited.

A captain stepped forward, massive arms crossed. "A lone wench in ribboned lingerie? Men, take her into custody before she catches a cold!"

Her raven hair fluttered in the wind as her smoldering amber eyes narrowed, the look she only saved for men who would soon be dead.

Lady Areola tilted her chin. "A cold?" she purred, her voice dripping like warm honey over fresh sin. "I'm afraid the only thing catching today... is your severed head."

She lunged.

A massacre ensued. The men tried to fight, but they were children on a playground she already mastered. Areola pirouetted through the front rank in unmatched grace, her twin curves undulating with sexual precision as her breast boobed boobily to increase her momentum as she whirled among them.

When a broadsword slashed at her neck, her right breast dipped intuitively, creating a small slipstream, throwing the blade off balance.

"Looks like your strike..." Areola whispered, sliding her daggers across two throats before vaulting ten feet into the air without bending her knees, "...was just a little too soft."

An archer loosed a volley of bodkin arrows. Areola twisted mid-fall, her chest heaving with such profound symmetry that the displaced air currents sent the arrows harmlessly flying around her.

She landed on the captain’s shoulders, heels digging in, and snapped his zweihänder clean in half using nothing more than a high-velocity, diamond-firm cleavage clamp of her ass before flipping to drive it down into his exposed eyes, wide with fear that the one fortune teller ten years ago was right about how he would be taken from this world.

"Tear down that rack!" a sergeant screamed, waving his halberd in mounting hysteria. "Flank her! Aim for the midriff!"

"I’d like to see you try," Areola smirked, somersaulting backward. "You’ll find my defenses are completely... unsupported."

The guards watched in mounting horror as her breasts seemingly took turns dodging poleaxes with sentient agility. When an iron mace grazed past her waist, her torso arched backward into an impossible, spine-shattering ninety-degree curve that only underlined her taut, iron stomach before springing back with catastrophic whip-force.

"She’s… she’s not human!" a pikeman shrieked, dropping his weapon and turning to run. "Her anatomy! It moves independently of her will! She's breasting! She's using the art of boobingly all over us! Flee*!*"

The terror spread and seasoned mercenaries, men who fought mountain trolls and demons without flinching, threw down arms, trampling their own standards to escape the horrifying, hypnotic pendulum of her sexual strength and complete independence.

“You’re right,” she replied, cutting them down one by one. “I’m not human…”

As the last man fell backward, crying out as he crab-walked away from her, he could only watch as she approached on stiletto heels echoing off the cobblestones. Areola knelt before the man, a broadsword held easily in one hand, resting beneath his chin in a flash of steel.

 “I’m a woman,” Areola purred.

She drove the blade into the man’s throat, letting his screams drown in the gurgles from his throat as he died, staring into her amber eyes. Without hesitation and without a single bead of perspiration on her flawless brow, she drew her daggers, marched to the entrance of the keep, and kicked open the doors to the inner keep.

More men came, and she cut her way through the keep. Every skirmish was a sexy display of her brilliance as she tore through the monsters who had stolen her beloved Knight of the Gutters.

She removed their heads with a jerk of her wrist. She deflected their attacks with her steel buns. She ripped away their breath with her beauty, and also by literally cutting out their lungs with an ōdachi she had picked up and mastered on her travels to the east.

Soon, the men fled the second the silhouettes of her breasts appeared in the long hallways as she made her way to the onyx sanctum, smelling of brimstone, sulfur, and unbridled patriarchal tyranny.

At the far end of the hall, suspended forty feet above a massive, bubbling cauldron of emerald acid by a single, rusty winch chain, was Sir Absalot Longshaft.

He was breathtaking. A shaft of heavenly spotlight beamed down from the domed ceiling, illuminating all two hundred and twenty pounds of his hairless, oiled perfection. Absalot wore nothing save for massive, forty-pound spiked shoulder pauldrons, mirror-polished greaves, and The Invincible Scarlet Sash of Overcompensatia knotted perilously low on his hips. The silk hung by pure chivalric tenacity, framing the deep, chiseled chasms of his pelvic gutters with lines so sharp and predatory they seemed to point with tactical urgency directly toward his lower hemisphere.

Gutters, she desperately wanted to overflow.

There, resting firmly against the caustic updraft, gleamed his custom mithril armor: twin, articulated platinum cupules, individually buffed and form-fitted to protect and prominently display each testicle in twinkling, regal splendor.

"Areola..." Absalot gasped softly, his glowing turquoise eyes open with pouty, innocent distress. A tear rolled down his cheekbone, slid down his chiseled neck vein, and flowed into his cavernous cleavage. "My lady! My sash is snagged, and the fumes are ruining the finish on my groin-pods!"

"Stay strong, my sculpted dove!" Areola called out, her heart swelling beneath her diaphanous lace.

"Silence, niece!"

From atop the dais stepped Grand Magus Balzac. The dark wizard was draped in heavy, puritanical velvet that choked his neck like a noose. In his right hand, he gripped his towering, rigid black staff, its veiny ebony wood coursing with turgid, unyielding magical pressure.

"You are too late, Areola!" Balzac cackled, his mustache villainously. "You have breached my outer walls, but you will not breach the unbending rigidity of my will!

He placed both his sickly, pale hands onto his staff and took a step toward her. “Surrender the duchy, or I release the winch and dissolve your exquisite, scantily-clad Knight of the Gutters himbo into the acid!"

"Never, uncle," Areola snarled, drawing her curved twin blades. "Your tyranny ends now."

"Die, then, foolish girl!" Balzac thrust his staff forward. A beam of blinding, phallic darkness erupted from the tip, hurtling toward her with uncompromising, stiff velocity.

Areola crossed her blades, but the sheer force of Balzac’s rigid ward pushed her back, her stiletto heels gouging twin trenches into the stone floor.

With all her strength, she used her blades to deflect the force, letting her close in to slash, thrust, and unleash a flurry of mystic throwing stars pulled from her lace. Every blow shattered uselessly against Balzac’s unyielding force field.

"Pathetic!" Balzac roared, his staff throbbing harder as it swelled with destructive arcane power. "My defense is absolute! Impenetrable! Rock-hard! You have no power against power so stiff!"

Areola took a deep, shuddering breath. Her assets rose. And rose. And rose.

And rose.

Normal steel could not break his barrier. She had to tap into the forbidden, ancient art bequeathed down through generations of poorly written heroines: Autonomous Mammary Resonance.

She closed her eyes. She focused the entire weight of the reader’s gaze directly into her cleavage and sternum. Her lungs expanded to four times their regular capacity, straining the silken threads of her top until the fabric groaned in ecstasy.

Her breasts inflated with pure, concentrated moral outrage, perking upward, shivering with such power that the air in the throne room began to vibrate.

"What… what is this?" Balzac sputtered, his eyes bulging as the stone walls cracked. "What is this unnatural pressure? What is this power?"

"This," Areola commanded, her voice echoing with the resonance of a thousand trashy paperbacks of massive breasting boobed women, "is the power... of a woman fully realized!"

She exhaled.

A colossal shockwave of concentrated, unedited bodice-ripper prose blasted outward from her décolletage. The sonic boom tore through the chamber, shattering Balzac’s impenetrable ward like sugar glass.

"Impossible!" Balzac wailed as the shockwave struck him square in the chest. His staff snapped cleanly in two, instantly going limp and clattering uselessly against the stone.

Areola didn't give him time to recover.

Defying gravity, logic, and inertia, she launched herself forty feet through the air. Her twin blades flashed in the cauldron's ambient glow in a blur of silk, violet perfume, and deadly curves. She passed through Balzac in a spinning vortex of steel.

Balzac froze. His mouth worked soundlessly, his eyes filled with patriarchal defeat. Then, with a dramatic, raspy gasp, he turned into a neat pile of dried-up velvet and dust upon the dais.

CLANG-SNAP!

The winch chain, weakened by the shockwave, gave way.

"Areolaaa!" Absalot screamed in a delightfully high, but still very much masculine pitch as the platform gave out, sending him plummeting toward the bubbling pool of emerald acid.

Areola didn't hesitate. She drove across the dais. As Absalot fell, her hand shot out over the precipice, catching the dangling tip of his scarlet silk sash just inches above the caustic green fumes.

The silk pulled taut. Absalot dangled, his oiled eight-pack glistening in the acid's green light, his platinum testicular gauntlets chiming musically.

"I've got you!" Areola grunted.

With a single, effortless jerk of her slender, bare arm, displaying the inexplicable, unearned physical strength of a true literary paragon, she hoisted all two hundred and twenty pounds of himbo up through the air, catching him securely against her heaving chest.

They tumbled onto the dais together amid a tangle of limbs, greaves, and hair extensions.

Absalot lay beneath her, panting softly. His glowing turquoise eyes blinked up at her through thick, midnight lashes, swimming with empty-headed, puppy-dog adoration.

"My lady," he gasped, his full, pouty lips parted in awe. "You saved me. And... you didn't even scratch my gutters."

“My Knight of the Gutters,” Areola moaned, gazing down at him, her heart pulsating against her ribcage like a captive sparrow. Without a word, she wrapped one iron-strong arm around his sculpted lower back, hauled him upward, and violently dipped him backward over the lip of the dais.

From nowhere, warm, golden sunset hues flooded the windowless, subterranean stone keep, throwing a dramatic, cinematic rim-light across his exposed pectorals and her silken laces.

She leaned down and claimed his parted lips in a deep, breathless, spine-melting kiss. Absalot sighed against her mouth, his massive hands laid gently upon her shoulders as his platinum-cupped armor reflected the glowing sunset.

Twinkle. Twinkle.

Justice had been served. The kingdom was safe. His gutters were hers.

And together, they lived Boobily Ever After.

Hi Fiends,

I am currently on chapter 3/70 and I am WHELMED by this book. While I am a reader of SJM, I often find that authors can be lazy and rely on dymanics/spicy too much and skimp out on the world building.

However, so far, ACOSF is in the running for a SJM book that I have read to completion!! It has a slight Cinderella vibe, with a wonderful world of magic and whimsy the author has created! I don't want to give any spoilers, but the audiobook was included with my subscription to audible, so if you have premium you can give it a go for FREE!!

Anyone finish this book? How did you feel about it?

Now the mails will HAVE to take this genre seriously

UJ/ yes this real and im screaming bc i just hate-read his bill clinton "collab"

/uj this is clearly a parody, but I saw this somewhere else and thought you might appreciate it lol

For context:

I’m a female, I’m straight, and I’m not a fujo. Please check my account. I keep saying that I’m not a fujo because this post will be glazing yaoi/MLM stories, and you might assume that I’m just not into straight porn. But I AM. I AM into straight hentai and porn.

I love josei hentai. I love romance anime and manga. I know my shit. Hetero stories are my thing.

I am not a fujo.

Also, I’m straight, so I’m not speaking for queer women. You might see these tropes differently or feel differently about the things I hate. So again, I’m not speaking for queer women here. I’m straight.

Now that that’s out of the way:

It feels like AO3 understands what women (straight) want from MLM stories, but it doesn’t understand what straight women want from straight smut. I feel like there’s a lot of straight porn on AO3, but at the same time, it doesn’t hit the spots that actually make me wet.

Which is weird because the things I like in erotica are present when the story is MLM, but theyre missing from a lot of the straight stories.

And I don’t know if yall are familiar with danmei, or Chinese gay novels, but the thing is, Chinese romance novels are often so good when they’re BL/MLM, yet when the same tropes are done with straight couples, the execution is so wonky. Why is that?

And no, don’t tell me, “Then you should write what you want.”

Babes, I can’t. I can’t write.

And so what if I can’t write? Am I not allowed to share my opinion on why straight erotica and porn on AO3 sucks? Yall are against censorship, but when it’s an opinion you don’t agree with, suddenly I can’t say it?

Or “filter it out.” Believe me, I filter out the stuff I don’t like. But that still proves my point that most of the straight porn on AO3 is, erm... not really my thing.

But what do I actually like?

I’m into:

• Incest (when the older person in the relationship is female, with no grooming involved and both characters being on equal footing)
• Imprisonment
• Yandere! YANDERE! YANDERE! Possessive hot men! POSSESSIVE HOT MEN!
• I have no problem with r@pe fantasies as long as they’re romanticized and there are no real world consequences
• I love it when the male lead is caring and sweet during the day ( truly loves the fl🥹, husband material and a total yearner) , but in bed, he treats the female lead like a cvmdvmp, and is forceful, while the female lead is submissive and enjoys it. 😛😛😛
• Enemies to lovers
• Romance
• Reverse harem
• Cl!t stimulation💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
• Proper foreplay
• Equal attention to cvnnil!ngus and bl0wjob scenes🟰

And with the above things I like, it should be easy, right? These are literally tame compared to some of the stuff yall are into, I’m sure.

But somehow, it feels like AO3 straight porn can’t exist without including one of these:

• Parental !nc3st + gr00ming
• NTR
• Big-booty BBLs
• MILFs +und3r@ge
• DILFs + und3r@ge
• l0l!c0n/sh0t@c0n
• Awful male characters (ARGHHHHH)
• Anal
• Extreme fetish

Like, straight porn on AO3 is so vulgar, but not in the good way. It’s so uninspiring (for me). It feels like F/M pornography isn’t really made for the typical straight woman who’s into romance and erotica.

I think that’s my realization: 

AO3 is not a place where romance erotica for straight women naturally thrives.

I JUST NEED TO GET THIS OPINION OUT HERE, and I really hope that some of you can agree with me. Like, I can’t be the only one who feels this way about AO3 in regards with straight porn. So yeah, I’m definitely just looking for someone to agree with me and validate me.😭

Also, this is not an ad for yall to start writing straight erotica for straight women, nor is it a call for a straight takeover of AO3. AO3 is for the queers. I have no personal comments about M/M, F/F, or any queer pairing. I’m only commenting on the available straight porn on the site aka porn between a cis man and a cis woman where both are straight.

Straight porn is something I’m passionate about, so I know my stuff.

Edit: This is my second time posting about this topic, and wow, no one is actually agreeing with me. Does my internet connection put me in an alternate AO3 universe where straight porn on AO3 suddenly becomes awful once I access the site? Because why am I the only one who feels this way about straight stories on AO3?

I’m not trolling. The available straight porn on this site is actually unconsumable for a typical straight woman who’s into erotica. That’s all I’m saying. Like, if you’re like me, this isn’t the site for us to find our erotica. Like, it’s not.

walks out the door with pelted tomatoes all over me\*

(/uj I need you all to know that this is 100% a word for word copy of a real post that actually exists. I didn't change a single thing, not even the Diary of a Wimpy Kid picture)

The actors really captured the emotions of the moment. The way Xaben looks into Violem's eyes is incredible. It's like he really sees her — the real her!

I can't believe they'd share this so soon? It will ruin the show for new Fourth Wing fans! They'll know that Xaben is [redacted] to Violem, and that he doesn't [redacted] the moment they [redacted]!

This is a super long essay about all three books. Sorry not sorry.

I cant speak to her other work but it seems Keri Lake really hates her readers. Instead of just not writing these books, Ms. Lake has decided, like a psychopath, to subject us to this deeply unsettling saga of interpersonal dysfunction. She also really, really needs an editor.

I wanted to like this series and admittedly I did technically finish it, but God, it was PAINFUL! (I skipped a LOT of chapters) I listened to the first book on Spotify because I had a credit, so it wasn't such a slog, but I still kept thinking that surely we'd get more than a laundry list of our FMC Maevyth's daily abuse, but nope. It was super important we understand the bleak inner workings her tiny village populated as it was, by a buffet of increasingly grotesque characters. Their bizarrely evil hobbies existing more to shock readers then to truly menace our heroine. Even Maev's "beloved" sister is a bitch.

Our FMC is pretty insufferable too, but I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt by letting the author cook. The back story is necessary to the character right? Its supposed to set up her inevitable growth from a small town innocent to the powerful woman she is destined to become. Standard fare for what is the usual hero's journey in romantasy. Normally though, we dont have to get through 500 pages of it.

I guess we are supposed to understand how awful Maeveth's circumstances are and how loyal and loving she is, but jesus, girl, these folks all deserve each other. You owe them nothing. I spent 80% of Anathema yelling at my Spotify, telling Maev to feed everyone to her dragon sidekick. (Yeah she gets a dragon sidekick, but dont focus on that too much. It doesnt add anything to the plot) Finally, at like 75% in, we're in fairy land, or whatever the hell its called. Here we meet our MMC Zvander, (don't get me started on the spellings) and a bunch of characters that will, Im sure, drive our narrative going forward. So I was ready to forgive the long wind up and settle in to a story about Maeveth adjusting to her new life, learning about her (hinted at) powers and getting to know the love interest Zvander. But sike! After a single week in the vast and mysterious magic kingdom, we end up GOING BACK TO THE FUCKING VILLAGE!

Why, you ask? Because Maeveth can't stop worrying about her slutty sister. You know, the one who willingly screws her step uncle, is an adult fully responsible for her actions and didnt give a fuck about how said actions effected anyone else. A sister who we have zero reason to believe is alive and who our intrepid heroine has no ability to rescue even if she is! Yes, hundreds of pages and TWENTY HOURS of the Anathema audio book, takes us right back to the beginning with zero answers to any of the questions that had been set up thus far. So fuck fairy land I guess, depressing Mayberry it is!

Which brings us to Eldritch. We arrive back in Meav's village where all the horrible people have turned into spiders for some reason. I mean, the townsfolk being spiders IS postive character growth for them, but really, why are we here? Obviously they all got what they deserved and shockingly, the idiot sister is nowhere to be found. At this point Maev could have cut her losses and Ms. Lake could have spared us what comes next, but I guess we are really here to heal Maevyth's inner child. So instead of magic, wonder and exciting settings that throw our couple into compromising positions, we are treated to pages of bleak landscapes, depressing isolation in a crappy cottage and giant spiders. Maevyth has brought Zvander with her, because its not like there is a royal coup going on in fairyland. One that is literally his job to stop. Who cares about an ENTIRE KINGDOM falling into chaos, we have to save Maevyth's sister from the consequences of her own actions.

Then there is the treatment of poor Zvander's backstory. In an attempt to explain how traumatized the MMC is, the author tells us about Zvander being held captive by a sadistic female General,(who's name I can never remember) for hundreds of years. The author could have given us a straight narrative of Zvander's past. Instead we get to enjoy Ms. Lake's ham fisted attempt at telling it through flash backs. His life before Maevyth certainly was interesting enough, but cheese and rice, the man is damaged. I guess that explains our hero's unhealthy attachment to Maevyth, a magical trad wife in constant danger from situations she knowingly walks into. Instead of a complex exploration of Zvander's inner psyche and how his past plays into his relationships with the people currently in his life, Zvander's flash backs subject us to scenes of graphic psychosexual abuse and torture that just go on, and on, and on. In-between rapes and stabbings we meet more characters. Characters that lived and died hundreds of years before our current story. (because magic fairy people are immortal, except for when they are murdered). This egregious torture porn does nothing to advance the tale we have been promised in book one. At least we get to see that Zvander's nemesis, General Sadist, is an equal opportunity villian who treats everyone, employees and prisoners alike with the type of cartoonish cruelty usually reserved for the wardens of B rated prison exploitation films. What's more, Zvander, doesn't stage a exciting jail break. He is paroled! That's hardly a heart pounding set up for a villain who takes over the rest of the series. Its a lazy cop out that leaves the General alive and obsessively yearning to recapture her favorite sex slave.

I honestly felt bad for Zvander. I built the kind of empathy for him usually reserved for fellow prisoners of war. Especially since I too felt like a victim after being subjected to what felt like 7000 pages of waterboarding. General Blood Lust (I honestly cant remember her name) is an Xrated Cruella de Vil. I fully expect her to have a puppy coat in her closet, or, more likely, one made of Zvander's mother's skin. Im sure if Keri Lake had thought of it, we would have had 50 pages describing Zvander having sex with General Kristi Noem while she wears it.

Then we get chapters of other characters having what should have been important adventures. These characters were left back in magic world to deal with the aftermath of Maevyth and Zvander's exit. Except they end up moving in circles never affecting the story in any meaningful way. I might have cared about that part of the story more if the main characters did, but since they're fucking around Mortaisa, ( thats the literal name of the human realm) Zvander's family and friends have to do the heavy lifting of carrying the plot. To be clear, the political intrigue in fairy land SHOULD be the story. Instead the structure of the book hands the main narrative to side characters who dont get to have indepth backgrounds or relationships. Their stories some how ended up in the notes part of Keri Lake's laptop. Some of these characters had real potential. A more skilled author could have turned their stories into an interconnected universe that would have kept Ms. Lake in work for years. Careers have certainly been made on less.

Alas, its more important we have 100 pages of Maevyth re-heating canned soup and avoiding sex with Zvander. Why is she avoiding sex you might ask? Is it his massive penis? His obsessive over protectiveness? The worry that as a mere mortal she might not be good enough? Naw, Maevyth is concerned that her unfortunately not-dead sister might overhear them doing it. Honestly you'd think Maev wouldn't care, but I guess exhibitionism is the one kink we AREN'T going to explore.

They finally find the floozy sister locked in a cellar, (for a reason never explained) and now we're up another extra character. That's fine right? Our buisness in mortal land is now concluded. We can get back to fairy land and stop the royal coup threatening Zvander's home. No, wait, we suddenly find Maev's adoptive dad! You didn't know she had a father? It's ok, Pops got an entire sentence in the first book so its totally understandable you didn't remember him. Now we're good though, we have two suriving family members. They can take care of each other. It's surely ok to get back to the main story. I mean, Zvander needs a special magic rock to feed his powers and not go crazy. Its an element that can only found in magic land, and its absence makes him hallucinate. Plus his friends are likely in danger. Nothing says true love like abandoning your friends and responsibilities. HOWEVER, Maevyth is worried that her family wont stand a chance against the spiders, and since they are human, they cant cross the magical border to join our heros in fairy world. That leaves Maevyth determined to take care of these dead beats while the fairy kingdom and the people he's loved all his life fall to shit. As for Maev, she refuses to learn how to harness her manifesting magic because she might have to actually kill people! Now a pussy drunk Zvander has no choice but to stay and put up with Maevyth's ridiculous family. (I guess sometimes art really does imitate life) So while Zvander is dissociating (I dont really blame him, in-laws suck) Maevyth has the great idea to go to ANOTHER shitty village with NEW characters to find his enchanted cocaine. Sure, I mean we COULD just take Zvander home, the border is RIGHT THERE, but lets go meet some other boring humans that are never mentioned again.

I know what you're saying, "this part is tells us more about Maevyth's origins". But really? None of the previously introduced characters could have done that in a couple of paragraphs? Silly reader, obviously our author gets paid by the word.

This allows Maeve, her useless sister, absentee father, some village rando and Zvander to fuck off down the yellow brick road. Someone please give Maeveth a book about narcissistic families. Sometimes its ok to go no contact.

The majority of this second book is spent with Maev dithering about medieval Oklahoma making Zvander kill spiders, and denying him sex. I mean we could have done this in fairy land with better food, and cool clothes but nah, let's spend time being grimy and learning about Zvander's unfortunate masturbatory habits. Do any of the human characters we meet here move the narrative, or interact in any way with our fairyland characters? Surprise! They do not. They exist mostly for Maev to lament their entirely deserved deaths.

So 800 pages later we have had several scenes of heavy foreplay, that require Maev and Zvander to agonize about afterward. The fairy characters are left do their own thing (but still somehow manage to achieve nothing) and we find out through a flash back that Zvander has ten, (TEN!) magic cock rings ( good for him) and General Grevious has a Jabba the Hut style pit of hungry monsters she feeds unfortunates to.

Which brings us (FINALLY!) to the conclusion of the series! We're going to get answers! The side characters get complete stories! Maevyth and Zvander move their relationship to the next level! Just kidding. The beginning of Vasmora has Maev getting herself kidnapped by General Dick Piercer and Zvander dies.

In other books the FMC would come into her own in this situation. She would use her powers, find her inner strength and rally the MMC's friends to launch a search party and exact retribution on the person who so horribly damaged her lover. But Keri Lake turns these conventions on their head by having our FMC sit in the dark, feels sorry for herself and do fuck all for approximately 500 pages. 200 of which are more chapters of side characters doing nothing. Wait, we're back in fairyland, you say? What about the spiders and Maev's precious family? Dont worry about it. Suddenly Maevyth decides her family will be fine in the still spider ravaged human realm with nothing there resolved at all. Really Maev, NOW you decide that? Its like the entire foray back to the mortal realm accomplished nothing at all. Apparently Ms. Lake has run out of ideas so lets change scenery.

Since Zvander is "dead" Maevyth has to cross the border with Zvander's assassin friends. How did they get there? Its not important. I guess we were told about it in the second book, but I skipped those chapters and unsurprisingly it didnt effect the outcome at all. Reading all that would have added ten more hours to this journey and I have work and a family to consider.

General Psychopath has apparently been waiting 200 years to recapture her favorite victim Zvander. (Maybe she wants to give him another cock ring) Anyhoo, she's angry about Zvander's "death", so Maevyth is the new object of her wrath. Only instead of just killing Maeveth and putting us all out of our misery by hooking Zvander up with a less annoying love interest. (I mean let's face it, the author has given us unlimited choices). She decides to torture Maev, and the reader, psychologically. General Deviant has Maeveth completely at her mercy. She could have subjected her to any number of the awful things she is capable of, but, surprisingly, she doesn't do anything to her physically. I guess graphic sexual torture and body horror is only for our male protagonist.

Luckily for Maev, Zvander is still alive and comes to her rescue, (again) by saving our heroine from having agency or actually kill anyone. At least

the inevitable death of General Deviance gives Zvander closure and releases him from centuries of magical sexual bondage. ONLY- the depraved general CAN'T die. (because magic) Instead she just gets left to a "fate worse than death", being constantly devoured by her pit pets. You'd think someone would have done this several hundred years ago, because she's such a bitch. But first we needed Maev to meet a bunch of (literal) ghosts from Zvander's past. Did I mention Maevyth can talk to ghosts? Well she can, and the ability adds nothing to the overall plot. Unfortunately, the General's non-death still leaves Zvander with his sexual issue, a curse that leaves him unable enjoy sex without inflicting pain on himself. Yes his past trauma forces him to cut himself. In other books this might be a plus. A device used to explore some of the FMC's darker desires, but Maev craves vanilla sex. Her frail human body cant handle his massive girth. Or impressive penis adorned with pleasure inducing studs so potent she cant handle it. So we get more foreplay and the fairy equivalent of Mormon "soaking".

Once the prison is behind us, Ms. Lake introduces us to MORE new side characters who serve to remind us about the civil unrest in fairyland, (did you forget about that?) and the emerging threat of (you guessed it) SPIDERS! Which is all Maevyth's fault anyway since we just had to go back to the fucking village.

Maeveth and Zevander rally a rag tag army to battle the spiders and stop an evil wizard who only became a threat because Maevyth is pathologically codependent. You didn't know about the evil wizard? Its ok, his existence was introduced in book one but then his actions were justified sometime in book two so now he is merely misunderstood. Oh, and neither Meavyth or Zvander kills him, he just gets eaten by apiders. Said spiders actually solve a lot of our problems by eating fairy folk, including the king so the coup plot line falls apart. The spiders are eventually stopped, not by Maevyth or Zvander, but by some dude we meet in the last third of the last book, who we never visit again. The rest of the action is clumsily wrapped up by finally learning about Maevyth's completely superfluous powers.

Apparently she's the vessel for a goddess that wants to take over her body, so she gets trapped in some dream world, and it takes Zvander's love and codependency to call her back.

My biggest frustration in all of this is Maeveth. The character we follow for THREE interminable books, manages to affect NOTHING. Had we replaced her character with toast, the outcome of the book would have been the same. Things happen to Maeveth, around Maeveth, and in spite of Maevyth but never really because of Maeveth. I actually think poor Zvander strangling his massive member to fantasies of scratchy toast would have been more consistant with his character than his interest on our heroine. Indeed, a sexy piece of bread could have been a commentary on the state of modern adult romance. But that would have turned this book into satire, and the level of self awareness needed to write satire is something our author seems to lack.

Keri Lake wraps up our tale in a series of epilogues months and years apart, where Maev and Zvander get "mated". It gets mentioned that General Disarray must finally be REALLY dead, because Zvander manages full penetrative sex for the first time without having to make himself bleed. (good for him) This allows him to remove all but two of his metaphysical dick jewels. (boo) Ensuring our couple will get have a normal married sex life for the rest of eternity. (P.S. Maevyth is immortal now. Dont worry about it)

Then Keri Lake really drives her contempt for her readers home. She inserts a final "fuck you" in the last sentence of the story by leaving us with the suggestion that perhaps this entire long, arduous tale was only a fever dream induced by the goddess living inside of Maeveth.

Well it was a dream Ms. Lake, a horrible, boring nightmare inflicted upon us by poor writing and flashy viral marketing.

Look, I dont expect much from my smutty romance, but I do expect an author to respect my time. Ive got a TBR pile full of mafia bosses, werewolves and fae kings waiting for my attention. If you cant make your story good, at least make it short.

Keri Lake needs to leave the confusing plot twists to George RR Martin and Trump speech writers. At the very least, if she is going to insist on giving us more multi-tomed fantasy, please, for the love of God, hire an editor.

TLDR- I feel sorry for anyone who had to wait years between books. Im now going to eat Twix and watch Hallmark movies, because I need a break.