illicit affairs

secret shanghai | grishaverse | the hunger games| books | writing | taylor swift | 16

[blossomkiss]

[theskeletonsinourclosets]

phoebe hong reminds me of platform heels and i will not elaborate further

[hazellevessque]

FHH spoilers

Ugh gotta hate it when the guy you hooked up with years ago turns out to be your wife’s cousin’s husband’s cousin’s husband

[yelenapines]

our violent ends spoilers

THEY KISSED AND ARE BEING ALL CUTE AND HAHBWWWDOSBAHS I LOVE BENMARS I LOVE LIFE LOVE IS REAL AND IM ALWAYS RIGHT AND I LOVE THEMMMMMMMMMMMMM

[foxglovedforest]

AND THEY’RE FUCKING CORRECT

[thesefallenembers]

the problem with reading and writing leading to a strong vocabulary is that you tend to know the vibe of words instead of their meanings.

if I used this word in a sentence, would it make sense? absolutely. if you asked me what it meant, could I tell you? absolutely not.

[marsneedstherapy]

genuinely the secret shanghai series changed me as a person

[theskeletonsinourclosets]

having a friend who loves the tbosas movie but hasn’t read the book yet is genuinely one of the most stressful things i have ever experienced

[typingwithmyhandstied]

Phoebe would be a Renee Rapp fan. I can't explain it. I just know it to be true.

[juliyumus-deactivated20240204]

😭

[heert-today-gone-tomorrow]

tbosas text post memes

Part ll

[bubbeshfk]

I think I might write a defence of Immortal Longings down the line but having witnessed the discourse around the novel the thing that has come to annoy me the most is how deeply misunderstood Calla and Anton's relationship is. A lot of people have complained about how their romance doesn't feel particularly romantic when that is the point. A relationship between two individuals with worrying amounts of unresolved childhood trauma and severe attachment issues struggling with giving purposes to their lives in an empire that has grown so large that the only way of mitigating the consequences of violent colonialist expansion is to commodify it as daily entertainment so that the failures of said empire as a system of governance go unquestioned. Traumas that are a result of that expansion driving them to participate in a government-funded death tournament where only one person can win, to use victory in that tournament as a final fuck you to the soullessnes of the empire for denying them their humanity. Partnering with the other as a strategy whilst still being hypervigiliant of the existential threat they pose to your goals only for that to devolve into an obsessive emotional codependency driven by sexual attraction, lack of proper social interaction with other people, fear of loneliness, and a deeply flawed understanding of what romantic love is results in a volatile and unstable relationship which is the point. The relationship progressing at an absurdly fast rate is intentional, their in a death game which puts their romance on a ticking time bomb and establishes how their speed running a relationship because of that poor conceptualization of love and even worse communication between the two planting the seeds of their doomed romance long before it sprouts. None of that reads as romantic or sexy and THAT IS THE POINT. It is a a very unhealthy relationship between two terrible toxic people. The author thought whether something good can exist in a foundation that broken or will it all fall apart under strain would be an interesting question to ask, as a writer known for writing enemies-to-lovers dynamics to twist the trope into something far more uncomfortable and nasty to explore the interplay between obsession and love and how it means nothing in the face of overwhelming differences of ideology, ethics, and, identity and that you can't love someone into agreeing with you

[ganymede-dewormer]

Fhh spoilers

[writergracethepanda]

I’m not obsessed with Secret Shanghai. Would an obsessed person mention the series in their college application?

I am obsessed i talked about it profusely-

[booksandpaperss]

Suzanne collins wrote a trilogy where a main media propaganda strategy was to market a horrific act of violence as a love story to distract ppl and then it got adapted into a box office breaking movie and ppl made it all about the love triangle. so then since they didn’t get the point the first time Suzanne collins wrote a prequel story about the main dictator and she makes it so that you as a reader want it to be a genuine love story so badly even tho it’s so very clearly not and instead feels extremely unsettling to make her point even more meta which then gets adapted into another box office breaking film and now ppl are making romantic snowbaird tik toks. do u think she’s gonna write another book that’s somehow even more blatant or just give up and start executing ppl? hard to say but I wouldn’t blame her for the second one

[ganymede-dewormer]

Chloe Gong seeing Immortal Longings in the YA section at a bookstore and moving it I have so much respect for her

[theskeletonsinourclosets]

is it too much to ask for two characters to not be into each other 100 pages into a book. what happened to slow burns and emotional connections, i’m sick of instant physical attraction and lust