In honor of lunar new year (2025), Year of the Snake, here are several flash fiction pieces of all the twelve zodiac animals during a more dangerous version of The Great Race-- specifically from the perspective of The Snake and The Horse as animal-human hybrids. Each chapter is exactly 100 words.

How young is too young to be crowned a King? When sixteen-year-old Tybalt is burdened by kingship while still a child, he must convince his subjects that he's strong enough to wear the crown or risk the whole town of Nevergolden, demanding his blood. His friends struggle to accept him in his new role. His subjects do not want him as their leader. He's just too young in their eyes. With his sister forced to marry a teenage Lord from another town who she hates, will Tybalt cope with the struggles of Kingship or will the weight of the crown be too heavy to carry? [Thanks to JABrownOfficial for helping me with the blurb!] {Anyway, while this is a work of historical fiction, it's a screenplay. The episodes I wrote are thirteen and this is the first one (the pilot). I also added some pics and gifs of the characters! Unfortunately, their clothes in the photos and gifs don't quite match the descriptions, but I still want you to see the characters as I imagined them} <<Ps. English is not my native language. If you want to help me to improve the grammar, we can talk about it on discord>> Copyrights: All the copyrights belong to me, except for the pictures and gifs that are taken from movies, TV shows and other websites. The pictures and gifs are taken from: - Miracle workers - Merlin - Bridgerton - Anne with an "E" - Hwarang: The poet warrior youth - Pride and prejudice (starring Colin Firth) - The Serpent Queen - Outlander - Getty Images - Reign - Game of thrones - Once Upon a Time - Peaky Blinders - Gifs from Reface-app - The Green Knight - House of the Dragon

-ˋˏThis is a stand-alone sequel to Bruised Knuckles! ˎˊ- ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Five years later. Four unanswered letters. So much inbetween. Orion is alive. After the tragic passing of his parents in a plane crash, Orion returns home to visit New Jersey, where his childhood home once stood. But it's also where he left his first love, Axel, before getting swept away to California. What will happen if their paths collide again? Can love outweigh betrayal?

Silas knows three things for certain: Ezra loves him more than anything in the world. Ezra would never hurt him on purpose. Ezra will, quite literally, be the death of him. *** Ezra and Silas have been inseparable their entire lives, for better or worse. Theirs is the kind of attachment that makes "forever" sound less like a promise and more like the premise of a true crime documentary. After eighteen years of proximity, distance finally exposes the rot. Even then, neither of them can let go. *** A study in codependency with a touch of romance, and no happy ending in sight. CONTENT WARNINGS: graphic violence, blood/gore, harsh depiction of mental illness, sex & strong language

"You have somewhere to be? A dirty bathroom wall you haven't fucked against yet? A dick you haven't choked on?" "Are you jealous? Must be hard being a virgin at your age." His smirk drops into the glare I've been craving all night. Jackpot. 🎸 🎸 🎸 Liam lives for chaos - too much booze, too many hookups, and an obsession with winning the band competition that even his band members deem unhealthy. Vincent lives for control - perfect riffs, strict rules, and having to interact with the idiots of the world as little as possible. Oh, and winning, of course. The problem? After Liam accidentally kisses him because his drunk brain thought it was a good idea, they can't stay away from each other. Every gig, every backstage run-in, every fight is just another excuse to turn insults into kisses, and rivalry into something much more complicated. While Liam and Vincent are busy trying to out-snark, out-play, and out-fuck each other, both are still carrying scars-from broken families, bad relationships, and choices that won't stop haunting them. How long can they keep telling themselves: "We're only fucking" before they have to realize it turned into so much more than that. 🔥 Enemies-to-lovers (and with benefits) 🔥 Queer band drama 🔥 Sexual tension you can cut with a guitar string

|| A Gladiator's Queer Star-Crossed Love Story|| *** The former Champion of Champions gladiator seizes a chance to forge the next prodigy of the arena, but when his bull-headed student and would-be-lover proves to be a hardcore enemy of the Empire, they both must decide what's worth fighting for. *** Three defeated Roman legions escaped to a whole new world through a mysterious portal. Their new Empire is savage, merciless and bloodthirsty, especially toward the natives of Naciscor - - the Barbarians. This descendants of Rome love their gladiatorial games no less than the Romans on Earth. When the former Champion of Champions Maximus seizes the chance to train the next champion of the arena when his school buys a new barbarian slave, his path to the pinnacle of his career is not easy. The bull-headed student and would-be-lover proves himself a hardcore Enemy of the Empire, sworn to destroy it. Then, the Empress bids Maximus to annihilate this Enemy, offering him a lot more than the Champion of Champions' title as a reward. So, Maximus must decide if he is a puppet of Imperial propaganda, or a man who fights for more than glory, more than his own life, more than anything he used to value. *** First published: February 1, 2022

Spy x Family meets The Avengers in a world recovering from a war and the emergence of superpowers! The Fromage Kingdom split in two: a bitter civil-war-turned-revolution. Truvia United carved out their own space amongst the countries, trading in their dairy farms for sugar factories. In this short story collection, we learn the political and human stakes of two countries at war, and what it is like for a new nation to take their first steps. Among all the obstacles, the influx of the Frosted appearing overnight with unimaginable powers meant the very concept of peace was not quite so straightforward. This novel-in-stories follows the early years of this new nation through many different points-of-view. Ghosts stuck in the in-between. Widows trying to move on. Frosted who try to discover what their futures hold. Young women married too early. Before the concept of heroes, there was a need for them. This is the story of how that need manifested. GENRES: *short story,* fantasy, superhero, allegory ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ First Draft/second concept version. An X-Dreams Production: Origins. Project's current word count: ~43,000

When life turns into horror, will you pray or will you prey? After five years of him asking, Karoliina Hautamäki relents and brings her boyfriend to Iron Lake, her deeply religious hometown in Finland's arctic circle. The midsummer visit is marred when her father passes from Covid, though it is the inexplicable deaths that follow that truly throw life off its path. A virus is what most consider it, but in Iron Lake, it is understood as the Sin. The only cure-confession. Karoliina's brother Aatami is heralded as their saviour, the one who has prayed people back from the edge of death. The internet crashes, phone service dies, society collapses. The government attempts to control the contamination by enforcing military quarantines across the country. What was intended as a brief visit turns into a year and a half with no end in sight. When Karoliina's childhood best friend asks for her help to discover the true cause of the deaths, Karoliina rejects it without consideration. But with her brother's glory grating on her, she might desire her own moment of recognition, even if it comes with the risk of all that is Isolde. In the vengeance of mid-winter, Iron Lake is crueller than ever. And amongst prayers is where predators most easily hide. GENRE: horror, dark romance MAY BRING TO MIND: Raw (2016), The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015), Pearl (2022)

[ONC2024] Everyone can read minds except for Ethan Langdon. And Ethan Langdon has the dumbest (and cutest!) thoughts Lukas Hoffmann has ever heard. ____ Part one complete. Part two updating every Friday until completion (but already fully complete on my Kofi!) ____ Lukas Hoffman's life in Brambleburg is about as boring as you'd expect for a town where everyone can read minds. He's used to his routine of dusting the LPs at the record store where he works and helping out his grandma around the house. Nothing in Brambleburg changes. No one in Brambleburg changes. Until Ethan Langdon stumbles in with the soggy remnants of a paper map, asking for the quickest route to Berlin. Ethan, it turns out, doesn't have telepathy, and as aggravatingly inane as his thoughts are, Lukas hasn't felt the excitement of meeting a stranger since.... well, ever. And the more Lukas listens, the more he starts enjoying Ethan's cute thoughts about life, the universe, and Lukas's dimples. ____ Might bring to mind: "Cherry Magic" but set in a fictive European town where everyone except the love interest can read minds. ____ Written for the Open Novella Contest 2024 using prompts 8, 75, 82, and 85. 8. You start singing along to a movie soundtrack late at night forgetting that your window is open. Someone from the outside starts singing with you. 75. You awake in the middle of the night to a voice saying loudly "May the force be with you..." 82. You wake up on a seemingly ordinary day to discover that your thoughts are not private. There is someone else in your head with you. 85. "If you do that again, I'll throw you out that freaking window. What are you doing?" "Checking how high the drop is to see if it's worth it."

**WATTYS 2025 HONOURABLE MENTION** Cas and Vish are best friends whose feelings run deep. Whilst Cas is clever, sporty, and on the brink of a bright future at university, Vish has no such prospects. A painfully shy artist, Vish's horizons end at his daily routine of pills, sensory issues and panicking parents. When they celebrate what could be their final summer together by painting wildlife and swimming at a secret wooded wetland hidden in the Fens, the lads awaken something ancient and sinister lurking in the water. A voice in Vish's head -- Charlie -- tempts him to spend longer and longer in the woods. When villagers begin to disappear and Vish becomes increasingly secretive and distant, Cas is convinced that Charlie intends to claim Vish, body and soul. Lies, heartbreak and obsession push their friendship to breaking point, but nothing will stop Cas from protecting Vish from Charlie's onslaught, not even a fight to the death. --- This book started life as an ONC 2025 prompt: 105. Your childhood imaginary friend who disappeared years ago returns - only this time they're real.