sunny delight(ful)

30 | she/her | scifi fantasy nerd in the extreme | personal blog for fangirl shit and fruity pebbles

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

Submitting myself to the terrifying ordeal of hope

[lestautism]

best thing a male character can do is be dog-coded. second best thing a male character can do is sob hysterically

[lestautism]

third best thing a male character can do is be a little gay about his best friend

[whumpofalltime]

Whump Book of All Time: Preliminary Match Up #12

Cascade Failure by L.M. Sagas vs The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett

Cascade Failure

The Game of Kings

Voting ended onNov 17, 2025

Propaganda (and thus spoilers) under the cut!

New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.

Preliminary rounds are open for one week.

Cascade Failure:

Anon says, "This book leans into three beautiful tropes very heavily in this space opera: found family, misunderstandings, and hurt/comfort. Our poor whumpee Jal is on the run and stumbles upon a ship that happens to have a former friend, Saint, on its crew. The crew reluctantly let him stay and Saint is weirdly standoffish from Jal who is hungry and aimless. While we don't yet know why Jal and Saint are not on good terms, it's clear there are some massive misunderstandings happening between them. Saint believes Jal did something very bad since they last saw each other, and Jal won't explain himself. Cue lots of emotional whump!

The tension builds so much and the reveal of what happened is so satisfying! Surely I'm not alone in thinking this is one of the best tropes? Add onto that some delicious physical whump later on in the book. Something that Sagas does that many other authors don't is lingering in these whumpy scenes. We get proper details of the pain, the concern, and the comfort. Someone who gives the whump the attention it deserves! She knows us so well."

The Game of Kings:

(We're ISO propaganda for this book! Send your thoughts our way.)

[sunflowcrsinspace]

... for the 5 minutes it took to post on ao3 and find this gif and now i'm crawling back into my bog.

[novelconcepts]

Hey, man, c'mere. Listen. Get in real close, this is important.

You're gonna make stuff again. You're gonna make stuff you're proud of. You're gonna make stuff you're excited to share. You're going to feel that overwhelming drive to create, not just the frantic I want to want to you're stuck in now. You're going to have awesome ideas, and you're going to make them into reality. You're going to create again. You're still an artist. You're still a writer. You're still home to the same passion you had before. You'll find it again. It's not gone. It's just resting. Let it rest. You're going to make stuff again. I promise.

[sunflowcrsinspace]

had the energy to finish the fic, did not keep enough in reserve to post the fic. the classic fic-writer's folly.

[tiktaalic]

#cascade failure

[thatoneplaguedoctor]

It’s literally just them again

[skyrim-forever]

The worst characters are the ones were you only get like three pieces of lore about them but the lore is so fascinating and hits your brain at just the right angle to have you behaving like a feral dog in front of your conspiracy theory cork board

[thewordsarestuckinmyhead]

It’s okay if the first draft is bad…

It’s okay if the first draft is bad…

It’s okay if the first draft is bad…

It’s okay if the first draft is bad…

It’s okay if the first draft is bad…

It’s okay if the first draft is bad…

It’s okay if the first draft is bad…

[ha-hahaha-ha-tower-knight]

I have no grander ambitions in life I simply want to live with people I love, play videod Game, and sink my teeth into all the kinds of eatery on this earth

[rlaehrwk21]

"i can fix him" ok well i will try to make him realize how loved and cherished he is outside of the narrative he created for himself

[jackkdaniels]

extremely good trope: injured character sees their own blood on someone else who's otherwise unscathed and gives a concerned "are you hurt?" double points if they're so injured they're barely lucid

[drizzledrawings]

I love when platonic love and romantic love is so blurred that it doesn’t even matter anymore. All that matters is the devotion that’s there, the unwavering devotion

[roach-works]

writing is the most insane hobby it's like,

is it easy? no

is it fast? also no

but is it fun? well,

[effervesece]

blog goals: making someone feel a little less sad

[sunflowcrsinspace]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

still thinking about that art by @humlase where it looks like jal has painted nails. in my head he had help.