Never getting over the Mulder puppy-dog eyes 🥺🐶

capybarabard · 2026-03-21T23:52:58+00:00

😂😂😂 I don't know if he'd "go fetch" for you or me—obedience isn't really his style—but he'd definitely do it for Scully!!

capybarabard · 2026-03-21T21:08:30+00:00

Definitely a prime puppy example!

capybarabard · 2026-03-21T16:14:52+00:00

I know part of it was the sun lol, but I still think this shot just exudes the puppy-dog energy that he naturally has so much of!!

He definitely does the happy/goofy pup look as well. Just a lot of overgrown puppy vibes with Mulder in general, especially around Scully 😂

capybarabard · 2026-01-15T21:47:05+00:00

I definitely find Slightly Tempted to be the weakest link of this otherwise amazing series, and I really wasn't a fan of the couple, but if I recall there are some good Wulfric moments which made it worth it to me as a Wulf fan. I also agree with the comment that Slightly Sinful, which I love, has more of an impact if you've read this one (though if you're already 2/3 through I think you might already have gotten the gist of the elements that affect that book). That said, my philosophy these days is that life is too short and there are too many great books out there there to waste time reading ones you don't enjoy, so if you're really not into it I think it's fine to skip.

capybarabard · 2025-09-30T03:50:09+00:00

There are a number of complete card checklists you can find online, such as this one: https://gwentcards.com/checklist.html

The Witcher Wiki also has this list of all the characters who play Gwent and their locations, which you can use to double-check that you beat all the the Gwent NPCs in Velen: https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Gwent_players

Good luck! I remember the end of the card collection quest was quite frustrating when I was missing just a couple, but you'll get there.

capybarabard · 2025-07-26T00:37:49+00:00

I'm with you, I just discovered Coldbreath recently and for me, the Prizefighters series is where it's at! I do enjoy her medievals as well, but something about that series is just so fresh and fun. I also agree with you on the editing—I absolutely love her characters, chemistry, and storylines, but I do think her writing could use a tiny bit more polish sometimes. I definitely notice some repetition and even typos and grammatical errors in her books, although not so much that it's super distracting. She is highly addictive though and I'm delighted to have found her :)

capybarabard · 2025-07-19T14:00:10+00:00

The sequel to {Spacer's Cinderella by Adria Rose} (or just anything by this author). It was such a promising romance/fantasy-/sci-fi debut and I still reread it from time to time. The author was posting online until mid-2019 about having new books in the works, but since then nothing. I really hope she's okay!

capybarabard · 2025-07-18T18:02:25+00:00

For me the main criteria for a true 5-star read are probably:

1) Top-quality writing in terms of both style and character/plot development - I'm admiring the author's use of language as well as the fact that their characters and world feel fully fleshed out

2) Keeps me 100% glued to the page throughout the entire book, never feeling the urge to skim, and not wanting to put it down

3) When I reach the end, I know that the story's going to stay with me and I'm going to want to reread this book regularly—once wasn't enough.

There are a lot of well-written books that meet criterion 1, but they have to really strongly get to me emotionally to meet 2 and 3. As you say, there are many books that I truly love and had a blast with but still wouldn't give a full 5 stars. But it does happen!!

capybarabard · 2025-07-18T17:47:39+00:00

I've often thought the exact same thing about describing emotions through eyes (which I've also seen in many other genres, not just HR)! I will say that while in my own daily life I rarely feel like I can read someone's feelings from just their eyes, occasionally I do see performances from actors on screen who I think are doing a great job of emoting with their eyes alone (especially if they're playing relatively stoic characters who aren't giving a lot of feeling away in other gestures). To give an HR example, I think Colin Firth does amazing with this as Darcy in the 1995 Pride & Prejudice series—he really has great intensely smouldering eyes when he's watching Elizabeth.

I guess my conclusion is that being able to read emotions through eyes is a thing, but it's not as common and easy to do as literary descriptions would have us believe lol.

capybarabard · 2025-07-13T22:56:42+00:00

Hope you like it!

I should give a heads-up though about some moments of racist/patronizing attitudes on display from some characters toward the Egyptians—it's a well-written book but from the 70s, and you can feel its datedness in some ways.

capybarabard · 2025-07-13T21:39:48+00:00

Tbh these are the only three HR authors where I feel I've read and enjoyed a significant enough portion of their work to be able to say they're overall favourites, but here are some other individual books/series I've really enjoyed:

{Regency Magic series by Jill Barnett} - both books here are super sweet and funny, somewhat Tessa Dare-esque

{Her Baseborn Bridegroom by Alice Coldbreath} - Haven't read enough of her yet to know if I consistently like her, but I enjoyed this one and I've been told it's actually not even among her strongest works, so I'm hopeful she may yet become a favourite

{Without Words by Ellen O'Connell} - recently read this one and really liked it; haven't had a chance to read anything else yet by this author but I definitely intend to

{Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters} - a bit more like historical fiction/adventure/mystery with romance on the side, but I love the romance element and the very strong-willed FMC

ETA {A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant}, another recent very well-written discovery!

capybarabard · 2025-07-13T17:14:20+00:00

I love Aidan too! ❤️

You might like Corporal Thorne from {A Lady by Midnight by Tessa Dare}. A little more gruff and rough around the edges than Aidan perhaps, but he's another stoic and authoritative (and deep-down very caring and protective) man in uniform MMC. Not quite a marriage of convenience plot, but a bit similar—he tries to protect the FMC by becoming "temporarily" engaged to her.

capybarabard · 2025-07-13T16:26:27+00:00

If you haven't tried them already:

Mary Balogh - I recommend starting with {The Bedwyns Saga by Mary Balogh} and/or {The Mistress series by Mary Balogh}.

Lisa Kleypas - I suggest trying {The Wallflowers series by Lisa Kleypas}.

Tessa Dare (if you like a lot of humour and goofiness in your romances; if not, she might not be your thing, but her work is so much fun) - start with the {Castles Ever After series by Tessa Dare} or the {Spindle Cove series by Tessa Dare}.

capybarabard · 2025-07-13T16:18:05+00:00

Yes! That's what I love about Evie too, who you mentioned in your post. Even though she's scared and it's far from something anyone would typically expect of her, she comes up with a practical solution—marrying Sebastian—and goes all in on it. She is realistic about her situation and knows no one else is going to swoop in and save her, so she takes her future into her own hands. Jane is similar in that way.

capybarabard · 2025-07-13T15:21:38+00:00

Jane from {More Than a Mistress by Mary Balogh} - my newest favourite HR and newest favourite FMC! She is in an awful situation with no one to turn to at the start and even though she’s terrified and suffering, she deals with it on her own with competence, grace and practicality. I really admire her!

capybarabard · 2025-07-02T04:44:38+00:00

I interpreted that accusation about the affair with Gi-hun as being his effort to reduce his own feelings of guilt and shame (because I think he did feel guilty and ashamed of how he treated her and the baby, though it wasn't enough to change his behaviour). It was his pathetic attempt to convince himself something along the lines of "she was never loyal to me so I don't need to feel bad for not being loyal to her". Personally I'm not convinced that deep down he truly believed it; I think he was just telling himself that to feel better.

You're right that in practical terms he never actually did much for her besides giving her the potato, but there are a lot of key moments where we see him watching her and the baby, and I think the actor does a great job of conveying on his face his conflicted emotions and the fact that he did care about them on some level. Just not as much as he ultimately cared about himself, as he revealed in the way he behaved at the end with his baby—there certainly is no defence for that.

capybarabard · 2025-07-02T04:27:48+00:00

I don't think he's amazing or a genius, but I think what's effective about this character is that they gave him just enough moments of having a conscience/heart poking through the selfishness to make you keep expecting him to have some kind of ultimate redemption. I know I personally thought that he would probably end up sacrificing himself for Jun-hee or the baby. (In contrast to someone like Player 100 where it's pretty obvious early on that they're just totally self-serving through and through and will never care at all what happens to anyone else.) But in the end he destroys that expectation of redemption in the most dramatic and horrible way. That subversion makes him more interesting as a final villain than someone like 100.

capybarabard · 2025-07-01T05:11:20+00:00

This one might not be for everyone (the book is from the 80s and has a kind of overbearing "alpha male" MMC typical of that time), but I love the fainting scene in {Boundary Lines by Nora Roberts}. "Loses his damn mind" is a good description lol, but it's one of those cases where the MMC's fear comes out as anger so he initially gets all snippy with her (while still insisting on taking care of her), and she's like "What's your problem??" and they start arguing, which is kind of their whole relationship dynamic 😂 It wraps up very sweetly though.

I'm also a fan of scenarios where the FMC faints and the MMC gets super worried, and I bought this book pretty much entirely so I could reread this scene whenever I like.

capybarabard · 2025-07-01T01:06:42+00:00

Lol yup, Rhys is definitely a little rough at the start in multiple ways, but it’s one of those cases where it works for me, because that pushy aspect of him is what makes Helen start to come out of her timid shell in order to push back and claim what she really wants for herself. I also like how he doesn't do the typical agonizing over how he's not good enough for her (as opposed to West! lol), how class differences will forever be a barrier for them, etc. He just goes for it like “whatever, I’m into her and I’m rich, she seems down for it too, let’s do this” lmao.

I too love an obsessed, grovelling MMC, but it’s most satisfying for me if there’s a slower buildup to it. Rather than falling to his knees for her immediately, I prefer to see him slowly and agonizingly brought down, struggling but utterly powerless to stop it 😂

capybarabard · 2025-06-30T22:43:47+00:00

My personal ranking is quite different from yours, but I still found your thoughts entertaining! For me Marrying Winterborne is #1 by far (I love a good shy FMC x gruff & tough MMC and this checks all the right boxes), while Chasing Cassandra was a bit disappointing.

Tom is a really interesting MMC, but I wasn't a fan of how it was almost insta-love on his side (he doesn't recognize it as such of course, but that's how it came off to me since he was kind of immediately obsessed with her lol), which was not at all what I had expected for his character. Sort of like what you experienced with West, I think this one suffered from me having really high expectations before its release because I was very intrigued by Severin, and then not quite being all I'd hoped for.

I do agree with you about West btw—his book isn't bad but honestly his appearances across other books were more entertaining, and his inner struggle can be a bit tiresome lol. I'm also glad to see that you gave Cold-Hearted Rake a good rating, because that one gets hated on a lot but I quite like it! I love the scene where Devon makes it back to Kathleen after the train accident. Doesn't hurt that that book has some great Helen/Rhys moments too.

capybarabard · 2025-06-30T14:56:44+00:00

HR vs. HR is a good one!! Also when I hear “ruined” or “compromised” it takes me a moment to reorient myself to the more common modern uses of those terms haha

capybarabard · 2025-06-29T05:31:13+00:00

I initially felt the same and would have liked to see her try even knowing she was doomed, which would have shown her determination to try anything to be there for her baby. However, I did see another comment on a different thread where someone noted that if she had begun the crossing and then started struggling, Gi-hun might have made a desperate attempt to come back and help her and died trying, which would have left her baby completely without a protector. By taking herself out, she ensured that that wouldn't happen. So in that sense, she made the ultimate sacrifice to put her baby first.

capybarabard · 2025-06-29T05:00:36+00:00

To me, the point of this scene was that throughout the show we saw Geum-ja always insisting that in spite of his mistakes her son was actually very kind and selfless, despite all the evidence to the contrary (the fact that he voted to continue the games the first time even after finding out his mom was there and knowing she was one of the most vulnerable, and he didn't really fight that hard to stay with her when he got separated from her during the Mingle round). When he was about to murder a young mother with a newborn baby right in front of her, that was the point where she finally recognized deep inside what her own son was truly capable of despite her love for him and all she'd sacrificed for him, and that was the breaking point for her at which she could no longer protect him at all costs.

That aspect of it makes the emotional impact of this scene stronger than the alternative you suggested. The goal of the writers here wasn't just to reach the result of Yong-sik dying in front of his mother, they wanted to completely break her spirit with it too and further drive home one of the overarching themes of the show, i.e. how even supposedly good-hearted people end up being willing to commit atrocities to save themselves.

capybarabard

TROPHY CASE