Stephy Read Love Bites by Lynsay Sands

 

 

 

 

I did a half-assed review of this awhile back.

  

 About/Summary

Second book in the Argeneau series.

Etienne Argeneau is having a slight problem. Someone keeps trying to kill him. During one attempt, Pudge (the attempted murderer), fatally wounds Rachel Garrett.

Content/Trigger Warnings

Attempted Murder

Manipulation (Etienne feeds Rachel bad blood in an attempt to keep her around)

Sexual Content

Slight Non-Con (at a bar they have drinks that make vampires super horny and then have sex)

Dick biting (not even explaining this, it's a book about vampires, you can assume)

 

Characters

Main characters are Rachel Garrett and Etienne Argeneau.

Rachel is a coroner, Etienne a video game designer. Which, dude made a video game about vampires. Bit on the nose, innit?

Main characters are fine. They're great. But the real stars of the show are Thomas and Marguerite.

I adore Thomas. Just adore him.

And I fucking love Marguerite and her meddling ways.

 

Atmosphere/Setting

Takes place in... Canada?

Writing

I adore Lynsay Sands' writing. In my opinion it is the perfect blend of romance, spice and humor.

Plot

Main plot is the romance. Cause it's a romance book. The whole attempted murder thing is a sub-plot.

Both main plot and sub-plot are well done. Though, sometimes I did sort of forget there was a nerd out there that wanted Etienne dead.

Romance

Honestly, the romance is pretty predictable. But... that's part of why I read romance novels. Especially Happily Ever After romance novels. Things will happen, but it's fine, because these two are gonna kiss and live happily ever after.

How diverse is it?

Just a bunch of straight white people. 🤷

Overall Thoughts

I love this book and I love this series. Some bits are a bit cheesy. Some are predictable. But I still love it.

Also, there is a bit where Etienne's computers get destroyed and more than once having backups of files is mentioned. Which made me laugh and question if Lynsay Sands has made the mistake of not backing up her work.

I also really enjoy how the series connects. I have read some of them out of order before, but it is so much better reading them in order. I think it's fun to see what the main characters from previous books are doing. The main characters from the previous book are getting married in this one, by the way.

But yeah. Fun paranormal romance. Highly recommend to anyone that enjoys the genre.

 

That's all for this one.

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This Week I...

Saturday again.

What did I do this week?

Wrote

A blog post for next week.

A little fan-fiction related writing.

Did some research releated to my original stuff.

Read

Nothing important.

Stop looking at me like that.

Stop it.

Nothing to see here.

Move along.

These are not the droids you're looking for.

Watched

Mortal Kombat - The old movie. This movie is so bad and I love it.

Mortal Kombat Annihilation - I hysterically laughed at Baraka. Holy shit. So terrible. And I love it.

A massive amount of Stray Kids related videos on YouTube.

Played

Games on my phone.

Posted

A short fic on AO3.

My ramblings about Avatar: The Last Airbender

Another short fic on AO3.

Anything Else?

Well, I learned all the members of Stray Kids' names.

And that's it for this one.

I think I got a book review ready for Wednesday's post.

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Stephy Watched Avatar: The Last Airbender

 

That's rough, buddy.

 

 About/Summary

 Originally aired from 2005 (hey, that's the year my kid was born! This show is as old as my kid!) to 2008 on Nickelodeon.

Water... Earth... Fire... Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Content/Trigger Warnings

War

Death

Betrayal

Stalking

 Abusive Parent

Violence

Tropes

There's a lot on TVTropes. Now I shall ramble about my favorites.

Action Girl -  There are soooo many action girls in this show. And they are all fantastic. Gold stars all around.

Back for the Finale - I love it when characters return in the big final battle or whatever. Makes me all giddy.

Badass Adorable - This is 100% Appa. So adorable, and so badass. Oh, and some other characters, but mostly Appa.

Big Brother Instinct - I love the protective big brother character type, as long as it is done well. Sokka has this over Katara throughout the whole show, but towards the end, he also acts like a protective big brother to Toph. And it was done pretty well. He was ready to stand up and protect them, but he also knew they were certified bad-asses.

I'm sorry, but this one made me laugh. "It's cool, Zuko outgrew stabbing people in the back."

Elemental Powers - This one is a big one on this show. And I'm a sucker for media that has elemental powers in them. I am kind of disappointed that there wasn't more people that could (do?) control plants.

Forgot the Disability - I'm sorry, but I loved the way the Gaang kept forgetting Toph was blind and her snarky responses. Love Toph...

And that's all I'm doing for the tropes section. I spent days going through the A-H page of tropes and do not want to spend weeks going through the rest.

Characters

Sokka is my favorite. Which, hey, it's really good to see a funny side-kick type character not be a fucking idiot. Sokka is silly and he bumbles, but he's really smart.

Toph is also super awesome. I love her.

Oh, and Uncle Iroh is everything I wish I was.

I really liked all the characters. Well, except for the fire lord asshole. Fuck that guy. Absolute worst.

All the characters were really well written. So five stars on characters.

Atmosphere/Setting

The settings were so great! Each nation had it's own feel and look which was super cool to see.

Also, it takes place in a sort of ancient medieval times, but not based in a fictional European country! Woo!

Writing

Writing was fan-damn-tastic. Five stars to the writers.

Plot

 Aang, the Avatar, has to defeat the Fire Lord. And to do so he must master all four elements. Which means he must travel the world finding teachers for the Water, Earth and Fire bending. Oh, and he has, like a year to do this.

Pretty basic plot of Main Character needs to learn something to defeat Big Bad, but it was done fantastically.

Animation

I really liked the animation. Five stars to the artists.

Costuming

Not sure if costuming is a thing to talk about in an animated show, but... fuck it. Great costuming.

There is a trope that I didn't mention, color coded outfits or something like that. And while it seems kind of silly, honestly it was kind of helpful for my shit memory to be able to know where the Gaang was by just checking out what color people were wearing. I do wonder if they ever came up with a reason in lore to why the people of each nation seem to only wear one or two colors.

How diverse is it?

Bunch of straight people. Or... Straight passing? No one is openly queer.

Lots of not-white people though! 

Also, there are disabled people that are more than just their disability. One of the main characters is blind and she is badass.

Overall Thoughts

I really liked this show. And I feel horrible for waiting so long to watch it. I watched it right before I cancelled Netflix so I can't rewatch it and I want to rewatch it. Such a great show.

Also, props to the Avatar fans because it is 18 years old and I knew nothing about it. Like, all I knew was that the Fire Nation attacked and there was a cabbage guy who's cart of cabbages kept getting destroyed. That's about it. So good job not spoiling the entire show for me. 

 

And that's all for this one.

Send me money on Ko-fi so I can buy this show on DVD and watch it all the time.

See y'all Saturday.

This Week I...

 Look at that. It's Saturday. Let's see what I did this week.

Wrote

 A little. Mostly did some work on some blog posts. I did write a couple things in my prompt journal.

 Read

 Finished Monsters of West Virginia and Love Bites.

Read very little fan-fiction this week. Huh.

Watched

 Welcome to Raccoon City - Fun movie. Working on a blog post about it. Here's hoping I can finish it.

Caught up on the Percy Jackson show.

Watched some Elementary

Watched a whole bunch of Stray Kids videos. Oh, and not just their music videos. Just... videos with them in it... I... I regret nothing.

Played

 Games on my phone.

Posted

My ramblings about some things I really like.

Anything Else? 

 Ugh. Weather is shit. Mental health is shit. It's all just shit.

Six Lists of Six Things

Since I started this blog I've been trying to figure out how to do a... Well, an introductory post. The thing is, I sort of hate talking about myself. But I do like to talk about shit I like. Plus, I always thought you could tell a good bit about a person about things they like and how they talk about them. So, here's the deal: I'm going to give six of my favorite Movies, Musicians, TV Shows, Books, Video Games, YouTube Channels and animes. Do a bit of ramblings (as I do). And... Well, that's all.

Oh yeah. Don't come at me cause I didn't mention  something. I just went with the first six things that popped into my head.

 

Movies

 Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Hush. It's my favorite. I like the Ewoks. And I like happy endings. Maybe that's why I'm not a huge fan of the sequel movies. I like happy endings and they took away a bit of my happy ending.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights - I once drunkenly re-enacted this entire movie by myself. Okay, not the entire movie, but a good bit of it.

Shaun of the Dead - This is my favorite zombie movie. Ever.

Kong: Skull Island - I love all the Godzilla movies (that I have seen...) but this one is my favorite. I mean, come on, big monkey, Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson.

Clue - A murder mystery movie based on a board game. That is perfect in almost every way. There is one line that is said during one of the endings that I find a bit questionable, but other than that. Perfection. Tim Curry is fantastic as the butler. The rest of the cast is also perfect. Just so much greatness in one movie.

Jurassic Park - Pretty sure my friend Ryan would start throwing bricks at me if I left Jurassic Park off this list. But yeah, this movie is still fantastic.

 

Musicians

 The Amazing Devil - I can blame The Witcher fan-fiction for this one. Not even joking. A few fics I read mentioned Joey Batey's band so I figured I should check it out. Fell in love. Joey and Madeleine have such beautiful voices. Perfection.

Darren Hayes - I really liked Savage Garden back in the day and got way into Darren's stuff when I learned he released solo stuff.

Korn - Being a Korn fan was about 40% of my personality in middle school and high school. I still love their music.

 Green Day - Green Day is a band that I forget how much I love them and then suddenly remember and that's all I want to think about for a few days.

Stray Kids - This is Ryan's fault. I would have barely listened to any K-Pop if it wasn't for him. And before anyone asks me questions about Stray Kids, don't. Not being mean, but I know almost nothing about them aside from the fact that I am super into a few of their songs right now. And Hyunjin is too pretty to be real.

Dixon Dallas - I will not feel shame over how much I love this dude's songs. Nor will I feel shame when I giggle every time I see an F-150 because of the song.

 

 

TV Shows

 Elementary - This is my favorite Sherlock Holmes adaptation. I just love it so much.

Daria - Daria is such a quality show. Daria is a character that believes she is smarter than most of her classmates (and possibly the teachers at their high school) but she doesn't bully anyone. She is oddly kind to Brittany and Kevin for the most part. I still pull out the DVD and watch this show. It's just really good.

 The Addams Family - The old 60s show. Oh my gods, I love this show. I love anything Addams Family really, but this show is my favorite.

MASH - When I was younger I remember my mom watching MASH, and I kind of made of the show. Then I watched it. Then I watched all 11 seasons. Then I bought all 11 seasons on DVD. Actually, I haven't watched the show in awhile. It is time for a rewatch.

Doctor Who - Doctor Who is such a fun show that goes serious. Or a serious show that goes fun. Both. Great show. I love it. And I need to catch up. I'm a season or so behind.

Wings - I remember my mom watching this show when I was a kid. Then I think I streamed it somewhere and was like "Oh, I still enjoy this." Then I bought the entire series on DVD. Some of the jokes don't hold up anymore. But overall it's a fun sitcom.

Video Games

The Sims - I have been playing The Sims since the first one came out. The Sims 3 has gotten the most gameplay from me. Few years back I would just start a town that was just Sims versions of my friends and family. I did another town with Sims based on my original characters I use in my writing. Last time I played I just made a bunch of randomized characters.

Mass Effect - Took me awhile to decide which Mass Effect game to put on this list. Finally decided to go with the first one. The first game did a great job teasing a bigger plot that would continue throughout the series. The gameplay is pretty good. And I refuse to hear a bad word about the MAKO. Yes, it sucked, but it was my baby. I ran over so many enemies in that thing.

 Batman: Arkham Asylum - This is such a great game. I loved all the Riddles about various Batman villains that didn't show up in the game. And I loved the villains that did show up. Exploring Arkham was super fun. Great game.

Mortal Kombat: Deception - I loved the Konquest mode in this game. It was just so fucking great. I need more Mortal Kombat games like that.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - This game got me back into gaming. I played games as a kid but kind of drifted away for awhile. And then there was this game. This was so many of the things I didn't know I wanted in a video game. Only complaint was that I couldn't kiss Carth's stupid face...

Dragon Age: Origins - Had the same issue that I had with Mass Effect. Couldn't decide which Dragon Age game would make this list. Once again decided to go with the first one. I love how many different ways you can play this game. The first time I played, I almost had the game beat as an elf rogue that was romancing Alistair. Then I learned if I was a human lady, I could become queen. So... I started the whole game over just so I could be queen.

Books

 The Witch and Wombat by Carolyn Cushman - You can read more of my ramblings about this one here. I just love this book so much.

Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton - this was probably my favorite Star Wars book growing up (still might be...). I read it so much as a kid and a young adult. And I just realized it is a romance novel Star Wars style. The main plot is Han and Leia getting together. 

 The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan - The beginning to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. And the beginning to all the other mythology based books Rick Riordan wrote. Which are fucking great. Me and my kid get excited every time a new book is announced. Which is another great thing about these books, I can share my love of them with my kiddo. And The Lightning Thief started it all.

The Shining by Stephen King - You can read more of my ramblings about this one here. I'm not sure if this is my favorite Stephen King book, but I know it is pretty high on the list. I love spooky horror shit and this is damn spooky.

Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - I picked this book up on a whim and godsdamn was it good. Like, so fucking good. It is wonderfully written. Characters are fantastic. Just... Five stars.

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi - This is one of the few true crime books that I will re-read at this point. I used to be really into true crime, but the interest kind of faded. But, this book still interests me. It focuses a lot on how they caught the Manson Family and the trial. Which I find interesting.

YouTube Channels

CJUGames - CJU plays a lot (mostly) horror games. Which, a lot of which I enjoy the plots of, but I am a big baby and don't wanna play scary games. So it's nice to be able to watch what happens. He also reads, like, everything so I get to learn all the lore and shit. He's also funny as hell. So yeah, love watching his stuff.

Miniminuteman - Dude (Milo, his name is Milo) makes videos about history and shit like that. My kiddo actually recommended the channel to me. Great channel. Milo is a great host. And the videos are super interesting.

Pushing Up Roses - Roses does a lot of Murder She Wrote and Goosebumps related videos. And I love them. She is super funny. And I had to start watching Murder, She Wrote because of the videos.

Outside Xbox/Xtra - Counting these as one for reasons. Outside Xbox consists of Jane, Andy and Mike and they talk about Xbox games. Outside Xtra is Luke and Ellen and they cover other games. My favorite is their list videos. But I do recommend checking out the Hitman 3 Ways to Play on Outside Xbox. Luke did some great Animal Crossing videos on Outside Xtra. Never really watched a bad video from them.

Some More News - Just some news. I dunno. Dude makes the news more entertaining.

Drawfee - Another kiddo recommended channel. Nathan, Jacob, Julia and Karina are artists that take ideas from their viewers or themselves and then draw some weird ass shit. They are all hilarious and their art is fucking superb.

 

That's it for this one

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 Also, I fucking love doing lists like this, so if you got any ideas for more specific one you'd like me to do, let me know. I do want to do a list for some of my favorite Star Wars books.  And I was gonna do a list of animes, but I liked the six lists of six things.

 

This Week I...

 Hello There!

Saturday again. So, let's see what I did this week.

Wrote

 Mostly stuff on a few blog posts.

Read

Mostly fan-fiction. I read a bit on my Now Reading Stack.

 

Watched

 Avatar: The Last Airbender - Decided to cancel Netflix and realized I had never watched this show. So, figured I could try to fit it in before no more Netflix. Now I regret not watching it sooner cause I wanna watch it again. Sokka is the best. Love that boy.

The Legend of Korra  - I enjoyed this one as well, but the original series is still my favorite of the two. We did get an almost lesbian relationship in this one. Gonna have to read the comics now.

Mysteries at the Museum - Seriously this show just makes me wanna have a show where me and my kid just travel the US going to every museum we can find and asking the people that work there to tell us about their favorite exhibit... Anyone wanna pay us to do that?

Played

 Nothing... 

Posted

A short Dragon Age story.

 Animal Crossing post.

 

Anything Else?

 I'm down to three cigarettes a day! Go me. Okay, I'll admit, a couple days I have had four... But most days I'm down to three

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And that's it for this one. Not sure what Wednesday's post will be. Depends on what the fuck I get done in the next few days.

Stephy Plays Animal Crossing: New Horizons

 Day 20

Last time on Hades

Label visited the island. I got new shoes.

I'm collecting wasps. For reasons. Reasons I explained before...

She is talking to me more! 😍 I also totally bought that dress.

That is such a weird pose and facial expression for modeling knee bandages...

Finally! I fucked one up! I was beginning to think the game made it impossible to make an imperfect snowboy.

Huh. This is not what I imagined the inside of Cherry's house to look like...

I got a door plate thing! Looks awesome!

Ooooookay... *backs away slowly*

I have no comments, really...

That's all for this one.

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See y'all on Saturday

This Week I...

 Saturday again.

 

Wrote

 Very little.

Did some work on my Writing Challenge stuff. But not much.

Read

 Mostly fan-fiction. I did read a bit on my Now Reading Stack, but haven't finished anything yet.

Watched

Elementary - Gods I love this show.

 World's Most Evil Killers - it was background noise.

Inside Job - Forgot I was all caught up on this show and ended up watching it again.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - This show is as old as my kid. And I feel bad that it has taken me this long to watch it. It's a really good show. Also, props to the fans because in 18 years nothing has been spoiled for me.

 

Played

 Games on my phone.

Posted

January Plans

My Ramblings About Miss Sherlock

Anything Else?

 Nope.

 

That's all for this one. 

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Stephy Watched Miss Sherlock

 

 

 

About/Summary

A Japanese gender-swapped version of Sherlock Holmes. Oh, that sounds like an anime plot, but it's not!

 

Content/Trigger Warnings

Murder

Child Murder

 Torture

Brainwashing

 

Characters/Casting

This version of Sherlock is pretty unhinged. And I enjoy a good unhinged Sherlock.

Characters were slightly different than how they are usually portrayed. I guess. I mean, this version of Mycroft actually gets along with Sherlock.

This version of Watson (Wato) was... She was okay. Not bad, but not my favorite version of Watson (that honor goes to Lucy Liu as Joan Watson)

 

Adaptation?

This is a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but Japanese. Names are different but it is still noticeable who some of the characters are.

Sherlock Holmes adaptations are hard to judge. I don't think this one follows any of the old stories, not sure as it has been awhile since I read anything besides Hound of the Baskerville. The characterization of Sherlock is good. But, Wato seems a bit more meek than Watson. But it's not bad.

As an adaptation I would say it's not bad, but it's not exact.

 

Plot

 Each episode focuses on a mystery that Sherlock has to solve, with Wato trailing behind. There is also an underlying plot (the Moriarty plot) going through several of the episodes.

Costuming

I adored Sherlock's outfits. And did get quite distracted by her shiny heels at one point... She could stab a suspect with those shoes...

Uh. Everyone else's outfits are fine... Just fine... Look, I was fucking distracted by Sherlock.

Overall Thoughts

I put this one my list on Max a few months back and then promptly forgot about it. Then, I wanted to watch Elementary, but couldn't find my DVD of the first season. So I watched this to get my Sherlock Holmes fix. And oh. My. Gods. I hate that I waited so long. I figured I would only end up watching one or two episodes before my attention span was at its end. Nope. Watched the entire series. And do not regret it. I loved this show.

I do not recommend this to picky Sherlock Holmes fans. But I do recommend it to anyone who enjoys mystery shows with awesome female characters. Just remember it is a Japanese show.

That's all for this one.
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January Plans

Hello There!

I thought about doing a post about my plans for the WHOLE ENTIRE YEAR but... Let's face it. I can't meet monthly goals I set for myself. Why in the fuck would I think I could make goals for a whole fucking year?

So, monthly goals I will probably ignore it is.

 

In January I plan to...

 

Write

 Something. Just something. I've been just writing down random bits for things but haven't finished shit in months. I might try and go back to doing my little writing challenge over on AO3 daily. It was fun and did get me to write.

I do want to get back to my original stuff. Actually finish something in there.

Read

All of these. All of them.

 

I am almost done with Monsters of West Virginia, Good Omens, The Stand, and Love Bites, so I should be able to finish those soon. Just started Interview With the Vampire cause I did not like the mystery book I was reading, so I swapped it for Interview. It fits the Horror/Thriller/Mystery slot well enough. 

Speaking of reading, the Kiddo has started Queen of the Damned. So yay for more of them shouting about Lestat.  🤣

Also, for future reference, The Girl Explorers and Monsters of West Virginia probably will not get a blog post.

 

Watch

More than just YouTube.

Gonna try and finish up the Resident Evil stuff. I think I have the new live action movie. The new animated movie. And that show on Netflix? Not Infinite Darkness. Watched it the other day. But yeah, gonna try to finish those.

Gonna try to resist watching Red, White and Royal Blue again... It's just so good.

While I was rearranging the books and movies in my room, I did set aside some movies that I've been meaning to watch so I'll try to get to those. If there is anything I should watch, let me know. Always open to suggestions that I will get around to in a year or so... 😂

 

Play

 I wanna get back to Resident Evil 5.

And Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.

Also have been in the mood for some Sims shenanigans.

And some Red Dead Redemption.

And still need to finish the download for that Sherlock Holmes game.

Oh, I got another Sherlock Holmes game for Playstation. I should play that as well.

Oh, and I should check in on my Animal Crossing island!

I will not do any of these things. 

Anything Else?

Kiddo is getting new flooring for their room, so we have to empty out their room. Which means emptying up a few shelves of books. Which will be moving to my bedroom. So the books aren't lonely.

 

And that's all for this one.

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Oh yeah, by the way, I like to mess around with the fonts, obviously. If there are any that don't work for someone, let me know.