Two Fic Tuesday for January 6th

Hi, hello, and welcome!

It's a new year, but it's still Tuesday, which means I'm here to shout about stories. I've not been doing too much reading as of late, but I found these two and knew they belonged together.

I'm someone who really enjoys weird ways people get close to each other. I love seeing the different ways you can explore passion, attraction, and intimacy, and these two stories delivered on that. They're a little queer, a little violent, but ultimately they're about forms of passion, and I'm just so here for that.

Recs

A Rare and Exceptional Delicacy - G.M. Mitchell - Apex
This feels like it has so much passion to it. So much longing, so much need. You can feel the ache that the character has to know this person, to feel him as intimately as someone possibly can. This is part of why I love cannibalism stories There's something so intimate about the whole thing, no matter how it's done, that I gravitate toward every time. This story is no exception, and it leaves me smiling at the closeness they get to share with each other.

Bleed for Me, Bro - Sharang Biswas - Nightmare
I read this story at the same time as reading the other, and it was kind of great. While they don't cover the exact same thing, the two are close enough that I knew I needed to pair them together for this first post. This one is lighter in a lot of ways, but carries that same passion and need for intimacy and closeness. While this one has a much lighter feel to it, I could still get a lot of emotion from the whole thing, and it was great. And yes, this story also made me smile at the end. I love unconventional affection and sharing and this was absolutely that.

Updates:

So yes, 2026 is here and I'm having a little bit of a hard time getting into the swing of things. Haven't done much writing or reading so far, but I'm really going to be making the effort on it this week. A Codex contest starts on Friday, so I'll be participating in that to see if I can get my writing brain kickstarted, and if not I'll at least have given it a try.

I did get an adorable mushroom cup over the holidays that has a tea strainer built into it, so maybe this year will see a lot more of that in my life. Who knows.

I wish everyone many good stories,

• Vale

PS: If you want to find me elsewhere, I'm on Bluesky at @howsweetthewords and I have a Ko-fi and Patreon where I post prompts, more personal/writing updates, micro-fiction, and miscellany. Tiers start at $1, but there is the occasional free post as well.