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Lianyu Tan, author of sapphic dark fantasy novels

dark sapphic desire

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Home » Content Warnings

Content Warnings

These warnings contain spoilers. While every attempt has been made to note major themes and aspects that might be disturbing, these lists are not exhaustive. Please read responsibly.

  • Captive in the Underworld
  • Breathless
  • The Wicked and the Willing
  • Save Yourself

Image: Cover of the novel Captive in the Underworld by Lianyu Tan. Tag: What Hades wants, she takes. Caption: A dark lesbian romance novel. Cover image features a picture of pomegranates.

Captive in the Underworld - content tags

Summary
Due to the mature content and dark themes, Captive in the Underworld is intended for adult readers only. It contains scenes depicting death, abuse, kidnapping, assault, rape, and other intimate partner violence between the main characters.
Sex
  • Rape of the main character by the secondary main character
    • graphic depiction using the survivor’s point of view
  • Non-consensual, dubiously consensual, and consensual graphic sex scenes between the main characters
  • Vaginal strap-on sex
  • Oral
  • Loss of virginity
  • Fingering
  • Spanking
  • Bondage
Relationship
  • Abusive romantic relationship between the main characters
  • Emotionally and physically abusive mother of the main character
  • Past emotional and physical child abuse
Animal abuse/death

Throughout this book, characters have omnivorous diets including meat and fish consumption. Characters ride horses and use horses to pull chariots.

  • Chapter 14, Above Your Station, pages 158-160, a magical hound is magically drugged and shows distress.
    • This incident is briefly mentioned again in Chapter 15, Name Me, page 174.
  • Chapter 20, Not Wanted, pages 225-226, mention of widespread famine and livestock suffering/culling as a result.
  • Chapter 22, The Ascent, pages 252-253, a brief mention of fish being prepared for eating.
  • Chapter 25, The Drakon, pages 274-276, a drakon is killed.

Page count accurate to most paperback editions.

Violence
  • Death and dismemberment
  • Flogging as punishment
  • References to torture in the context of the afterlife
  • Enforced captivitiy/kidnapping
  • Abusive mother: physical and emotional abuse
Other
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Misogyny
Ending
  • HEA ending (main characters end up together)

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Image: Cover of the short story 'Breathless' by Lianyu Tan. Tag: Hades lusts for something dark. Something dangerous. Caption: An F/F Hades and Persephone short story. Cover image features a picture of pomegranates.

Breathless - content tags

Summary
  • forced breath play
  • (some) lesbian sex
  • non-con/dub-con (due to kidnapping)
  • dysfunctional marriage
  • bad domme
  • this is fiction not a manual
  • do not try at home
  • if someone treats you like this, run.

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Book cover: The Wicked and the Willing by Lianyu Tan, an F/F gothic horror vampire novel. Dark background with red acanthus and blood dripping down, Fearful young Chinese woman wearing white qipao.

The Wicked and the Willing - content tags

Summary

Due to the mature content and dark themes, The Wicked and the Willing is intended for adult readers only. It contains potentially disturbing scenes including rape, torture, suicide, self-harm, an abusive romantic relationship between two women, and adult characters who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Sex and sexual assault survivors
  • Rape from the rapist’s point of view (Chapters 45 and 47)
  • Rape from the victim’s point of view, initiated when victim was asleep (Chapter 23)
  • Dubiously consensual and consensual explicit sex scenes
  • Rape/non-con because of: victim sleeping; ignored verbal requests; ignored body language/context; graphic violence
  • Dub-con because of: lack of communication; power imbalances: employer/employee, vampire/human, coloniser/colonised
  • Several adult characters are childhood sexual assault (CSA) survivors with unexamined trauma
  • CSA survivor has a flashback to a memory where she’s a minor and alone with an adult teacher; the scene implies that sexual activity is about to commence but ends before any such activity is depicted (beginning of Chapter 23)
  • References to past emotional, physical and sexual assault of adult characters when they were minors (no explicit depiction of these events)
  • Consensual sex with under-negotiated kink
  • Period play
  • Oral
  • Fingering (mostly vaginal, anal in one scene)
  • Vaginal fisting
  • Rough sex
  • Unsafe sex
  • Spit Is Not Lube
  • Slut-shaming language
  • Female character verbally threatens impregnation
  • Female character experiences supernaturally-induced anorgasmia
  • Top drop
Relationships
  • Abusive F/F romantic relationship
  • Character perceives main character’s behaviour as cheating (kissing someone else)
  • Jilted man becomes vindictive
Violence
  • Physical, sexual, and emotional assault
  • Death and murder of multiple characters including queer characters; Asian characters; sex workers
  • Semi-graphic torture including digital dismemberment, cannibalism, acid-like facial attack
  • Forcible removal of a tongue
  • Self-inflicted hand injury
  • Accidental hand injury
  • Really, there’s just a lot of hand trauma/gore
  • Non-consensual non-sexual bondage
  • Assault with a handgun used as a bludgeoning weapon; broken nose; assault while restrained
  • Abandonment of an infant
  • Use of firearms
  • Attempted suicide using a knife
  • Physical assault in a domestic context: grinding a lit cigarette against the skin, choking, forcible handling
  • Sexual assault (see full list under ‘sex’)
Other
  • Suicide
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Self-harm
  • Setting-consistent racism between various races
  • Misogyny
  • Ableist language, disability slurs
  • Slut-shaming language
  • Vampire attempts to control her own eating patterns and fails
  • Vampire experiences her need for human blood as an addiction
  • Drug use: opium smoking, heroin tablets, tobacco smoking
  • Slavery
  • Acquired brain injury
  • Acquired blindness
  • Amenorrhoea; discussion and experience of menstruation
  • Character dies while pregnant
  • Reference to death in childbirth
  • Flashback to a death caused by a deadly pandemic
  • Traumatised characters trying to cope without access to mental health care
  • One character almost misgenders a trans woman minor character but self-corrects in time
  • Swearing (f—, c—).
Ending

This novel includes two endings, each with their own epilogue. The rest of the novel is not interactive; the reader only makes one choice about the ending.

  1. Save Mrs. Edevane: main character and vampire are alive and together; a horror ending.
  2. Save Po Lam: main character and Po Lam are alive and together; a happy ever after/romance ending.
  3. Bonus downloadable ending for newsletter subscribers, available May 13, 2022. Save Yourself: Main character kills vampire, then dies; a horror ending.
    • Additional warnings specific to the Save Yourself ebook: Intimate partner violence, dubiously consensual kiss, menstruation, off-screen death of infant, ritualised infant sacrifice, self-harm, suicide (pharmaceutical overdose), supernatural violence, gore, grappling violence, gun violence, gun misfire, acid attack, corpse ravaged by animals.

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Save Yourself - content tags

Summary
  • Intimate partner violence
  • dubiously consensual kiss
  • menstruation
  • off-screen death of infant
  • ritualised infant sacrifice
  • self-harm, suicide (pharmaceutical overdose)
  • supernatural violence
  • gore
  • grappling violence
  • gun violence
  • gun misfire
  • acid attack
  • corpse ravaged by animals

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