❤️♥️just another writing blog. Forty bajillion wips that possibly maybe might get uploaded at some point eventually♥️❤️
Oak King Holly King is a Victorian romantasy wherein a fearsome fae warrior destined for ritual sacrifice seeks a mortal clerk fated to save him.
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✨Books✨
The beginning of a trilogy about a god of death and the world who has to put up with him
Book 1: A disaster bisexual convicted of stabbing a politician gets chosen to be Prophet of Death. The priesthood is… not thrilled. Get it here
Book 2: A retired assassin gets hired to find a cure for a young lord’s poisoned daughter. Along the way he meets a nonbinary bard with the power to change people’s emotions by touching them. Maybe they fall in love? :3 Get it here
You can read them out of order, as long as you read both before book 3 (which will come out 2025)!
Read the reviews here
Trigger warnings are listed in amazon descriptions.
Oklahoma is attempting to pass a bill that would ban explicit romance novels. Authors, narrators, and sellers could all face fines of up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in jail for each instance.
If you live in OK, call your representative and tell them this bill should not be allowed to pass.
This is likely a test case. Republicans will try to pass it in OK and if it passes other states will likely try to pass similar laws.
In the meantime, get physical copies of books you like. Download those pdfs. Archive your AO3 stories and keep them on a physical hard drive. (Storing those files in the cloud could be problematic in the future as the company managing the cloud service can see what your files are)
I know this doesn’t apply to any of the romance authors on here, but I really hope the Twitter/tiktok authors who cheered on the porn bans and told the rest of us we were crazy to “fear monger” that Romance would fall under fire are having a very “stub your toe for the rest of your natural lives” kind of day.
unfortunately this post is at best a misunderstanding of the legal terms, but is still absolutely worth fighting against.
ALTI'm not a lawyer, but as best I can tell, "depiction" specifically refers to images and videos, and in the context of the proposal seems to refer to such. this would still most likely include drawings and animations. this is only proposed, not passed, and hopefully they'll strike this down as a violation of freedom of speech.
at this point in time romance and erotic novels are not directly in danger, but we should consider this the canary in the coal mine; what comes next if a drawn depiction is considered pornography? Where lies the line between art and porn?
Yeah, the details regarding what precisely this bill seeks to criminalize are deliberately difficult to parse, but the claim that it "would ban explicit romance novels" and that "authors, narrators, and sellers could all face fines of up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in jail for each instance" is certainly inaccurate.
“No person shall knowingly photograph, act in, pose for, model for, print, sell, offer for sale, give away, exhibit, publish, offer to publish, or otherwise distribute, display, or exhibit any book, magazine, story, pamphlet, paper, writing, card, advertisement, circular, print, picture, photograph, motion picture film, electronic video game or recording, image, cast, slide, figure, instrument, statue, drawing, presentation, or other article which is obscene material, unlawful pornography, or child sexual abuse material, as defined in Section 1024.1 of this title.”
"Unlawful pornography” is defined by the bill, in ironically pornographic detail, as “any visual depiction or individual image stored or contained in any format on any medium including, but not limited to, film, motion picture, videotape, photograph, negative, undeveloped film, slide, photographic product, reproduction of a photographic product, play, or performance in which a person is engaged in any of the following acts with a person: a. sexual intercourse which is normal or perverted, b. anal sodomy, c. sexual activity with an animal, d. sadomasochistic abuse, e. flagellation or torture, f. physical restraint such as binding or fettering in the context of sexual conduct, g. fellatio or cunnilingus, h. excretion in the context of sexual conduct, i. lewd exhibition of the uncovered genitals in the context of masturbation or other sexual conduct, and j. lewd exhibition of the uncovered genitals, buttocks, or, if such person is female, the breast, for the purpose of sexual stimulation of the viewer.”
Violating this law would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine of at least $2,000, or both.
(Emphasis mine.)
To be clear, this bill is an extremely serious attack on free expression, and it is vital that we resist any attempt to curtail sexual freedom.
SB593 is one of a slate of bills with which this cartoonishly-named person is also seeking to criminalize things including no-fault divorce, access to abortion medications by mail, and drag performances (citations in the article linked above.) There's no need to exaggerate the facts here.
I just discovered foodtimeline.org, which is exactly what it sounds like: centuries worth of information about FOOD. If you are writing something historical and you want a starting point for figuring out what people should be eating, this might be a good place?
CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY
this is awesome but the original link just turned into a redirect loop for me, here it is again (x)
OH HELLO
No more potatoes in medieval novels!
writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.
other things I'm bitching about but which could still be useful as writing advice for 1 eyed characters:
2. they're going to favor their sighted side, obviously, but it doesn't always manifest in the way you think. when I walk down a hall I walk much closer to the wall on my sighted side than on my blind side. which is the opposite of how it might seem logical to do that bc it means the world at large is on your bad side, but the reason is I can't fucking See the wall if it's right next to me in the blind side and I end up knocking into it.
3. door frames and poles are my enemy. If your character is smart this will not be a problem but for me it is. I am King of walking into shit I could absolutely see but couldn't tell how far away from me it was. on this note, their blind side hand is getting bashed into every jutting out thing in a 5 mile radius.
4. having 0 depth perception is less of a big deal than you'd think it is. Especially with driving. I've become a Much safer and more wary driver because I can't tell how far the other cars are from me. however I fucking suck at parking now. because I can't tell how far the lines are from me either.
5. you know how people who lose limbs get phantom pains? that happens with eyes too but like. phantom sights. for me it's like. a lot of bugs. like every so often my brain will just put something suddenly skittering beside me there. hate that.
6. it is completely possible to "get stuck" somewhere because your ability to tell how wide a space is is just Gone. shopping isles especially where bumping something or Someone is matter of embarrassment or potentially breaking something. it can be legitimately paralyzing and also irritate everyone around you because they can tell there is Plenty of space for you to get your cart through even if you can't.
7. if the eye is still in their skull it can still be the normal kind of painful. Glares off of shiny surfaces causing weird sharp pains you can't figure out the cause of are genuinely one of gods greatest tests of my patience.
I too am missing my eye and have advice. But first:
OP I've been missing my eye for 18 years and because of you I'm just now noticing that my neck does in fact list left. Now I will live with that knowledge forever.
1) depth perception issues are more severe if you lose the eye on the same side as your dominant hand. I lost my left eye and am right handed, and only have problems with close-up things. Like pouring water or threading a needle. Sometimes putting the pump in for gas. Walking down stairs is a huge problem I have (walking up is fine), but unlike OP I don't have issues with doorways. Depth perception is different for everyone
2) I've completely lost my eye and need to wear eye patches, no fake eye here. People like me do still rub their "eyes." We also usually say "eyes" and "contacts." Except for comedic effect
3) the people that are in your life with regularity just... forget you have only one eye. Even if, like me, you wear obvious eye patches. This means they get confused when people asked what happened. They'll walk on your blind side and get snippy when you run into them. When my sister learned how to cross her eyes she ask me if I could do it, and it took so much coaching for her understand why my answer was no, and that I would not be "just trying." So don't write everyone around them constantly noticing. Most people don't
Not to derail from the very important disability writing awareness, but PSA:
if you have poorer vision in one eye, even slightly, this also fucks up your neck. I have to routinely reset mine and make my head move into a full racing position and stretch it the other way.
I have good vision and one eye with astigmatism that doesn’t demonstrably impact my sight. This is still a problem!
i'm feeling bad about the chapter i posted and fear i may be killed or even pelted with tomatoes. i really hate tomatoes so you can see this is not great for me
here are all my horror lists in one place to make it easier to find! enjoy!
I hit the 100 link post limit (oopsie) but I gotta add this last one
hammer horror
ALTAnyway. If you like books that contain "very long, very explicit sex scenes" then maybe you'll like One Night in Hartswood more than this person did 🤷
And if you've already read ONIH and want an even steamier bonus sex scene, then check out Kneel over on AO3 👀
If you are transmasc, specifically an angry transmasc, specifically specifically an angry artistic/creative transmasc who likes horror, you should read The Church of the Mountain of Flesh by Kyle Wakefield.
CotMoF follows a trans man named Sole as he navigates life in a small medieval Italian town perched on seaside cliffs. After his life is torn apart by an earthquake, a religious uprising (that he started), and the death of his childhood sweetheart, Sole makes a deal with God - rebuild the church, in return for the body of a man.
The story is full of body horror, religious overtones, and some of the most painful and nuanced depictions of dysphoria I've ever read (/pos). I have a full review I've written for Casual Obsession Horror Podcast's website that will go live next week where I get into the nitty gritty of my feelings on that, but in the meantime I urge other people to (after reading the content warnings) READ THIS BOOK!!! 1 part cautionary tale, 1 part wish fulfillment, 3 parts devastatingly well-written character study. Read it pls.
Get a copy or search The Church of the Mountain of Flesh for more, non-amazon purchasing options.
My article elaborating on my many feelings about Sole De Gasinis:
https://www.casualhorrorpod.com/book-reviews/church-of-the-mountain-of-flesh
