#it’s a beauty and the beast retelling but gay :)

[punto-png]

Beauty and the Beast but make it 🌈✨gay✨🌈 This is the piece I created for @onceuponarainbowzine, an LGBTQ fairytale zine, last year. Leftover sales for the zine open in a few days if people want to grab a copy or any of the merch!

Bonus concept art sketches and lineart:

[wayward-inspiration]

First pass on a new trio of characters from a novel I'm working on. They've been living rent free in my head so its exciting to get them out into the real world, and immensely helpful for my writing.

If you had to guess which ones cursed lol you'd be surprised

I won't say their names since they aren'y finalized but enjoy my babies <3

[ayakashibackstreet]

omg Angus birthday in less than 5 minutes.......

[umbershift-art]

Sorry I’ve been awol lately I started a new full-time job and then got obsessed with an idea for a story and wrote seventy pages in two weeks

[bookgeekgrrl]

#i can't stop thinking about these possibilities actually#belle could have a university degree#could be recruited for the soe during the war#but afterwards#when her mother has died and her father's health (broken by the first war) is not strong#she goes home#as all dutiful daughters are expected to do#and she settles into a different sort of life#she earns a little money doing translation#she volunteers at the library#is recruited onto parish committees#she tries to loan books to as many girls (and boys) as she can#she hasn't met the lord of the manor since they were both climbing trees as children#he was (of course) sent to boarding school early; their paths didn't cross at oxford#village rumor casts him as the ogre keeping people off his land#and she mentally shrugs#unsurprised to find him spoiled by privilege and the celebrity of being one of the few to whom so many owed so much#but when her father comes home in tears -- he had only wanted some plums from the manor garden; they wouldn't be missed or begrudged surely#she marches up the front drive and rings the ancient bell pull#(she and her father live in the lodge probably)#(maurice is basically allowed to keep the post out of charity though belle would be FURIOUS to have this pointed out)#anyway he's patching up the hall from the scars of requisition#she agrees (ashamed at her own breathless eagerness) to help with the library#she starts helping out elsewhere too: polishing the silver with the arthritic housekeeper etc.#she wouldn't live in but he'd have a bedroom aired so she wouldn't have to cycle home in bad weather (@oldshrewsburyian)

Eu fiz essas ilustrações durante o Dia dos Namorados de 2022, eu amo demais esse projeto! “Uma moça inteligente e determinada, que para salvar seu pai de uma dívida, vai trabalhar na mansão de um jovem veterano da Segunda Guerra, recluso e amargurado pelas cicatrizes em seu rosto devido ao campo de batalha.” >>> I made these during brazilian’s Valentine’s Day 2022, and I love it so much! “An intelligent and determined lady, to save her father from a debt, decides to work on a manor of a young, World War II vet, recluse and bitter due to the scars in his face caused by the battlefield.”

[snifferish]

Sneafie Book Review: "Where the Dark Stands Still" by A.B. Porenek

Alright gamers that's right I'm posting book reviews on my tumblr, BOO! Jumpscare! Anyways I'm a spoiler free kinda guy here we go.

This week I read Where the Dark Stands Still by A.B. Porenek, this is a Young Adult Fantasy novel that leans slightly into the gothic genre. It's got a lot of Polish Folklore, It's kind of a beauty and the beast retelling? The author and the marketing has compared it to Howl's Moving Castle, which is why I originally took interest in it.

Personally, I gave this a four star rating, but on the Sneaf'o'meter of precision I'd say 73%

Let's get into the good and the everything else.

First off, If you like fun prose and description, this is for you. The Author's range of being able to describe something so beautiful and then transition to something grotesque and everywhere in between is wonderful. This ability comes into play frequently with how she describes the house in the story (which is sentient).

The magic system in this??????? Spectacular, I loved the concept. I've seen things similar to it, but it was so simple yet meaningful (AHH!). Probably my favorite part.

Another really prominent point in the marketing is the amount of Polish Folklore. There's a few specific spirits and demons referenced that are apart of it. I'm no expert on Polish folklore that's for sure, so I can't say whether it was truthful, or what the Author directly took from it. However I can say it was refreshing, new and I learned things :)

Okay sooo... Welcome to a segment called, why not five stars? I hesitate to say something is "bad" about about this book because I think it's really just preference at this point.

The exposition was normally paced but around the exposition into rising action area I felt like It was stalled. Really the book was just giving vibes left and right which is totally cool to some people, but because some information was withheld to certain points I felt like I was missing a lot of the foundation for the conflict and by the time I understood the conflict I was just like ahh, okay.

The romance plot within the story is pretty big, and to me it felt, okay. Just okay. I'll admit I'm a stinky gay that holds heterosexual romances to high standards so maybe that's why I wasn't so into it??? Again! I was so excited, I was thinking yes, it's like Howl's Moving Castle! and I just didn't get that. However, a lot of people who read this and reviewed it did get those vibes, so... not sure. Also, I think pet names just aren't my thing.... It's not usually something I find appealing in romance storylines.

Ultimately, I still really enjoyed this book. This is Porenek's debut novel, and I think it's very promising! Her writing style is excellent and I imagine she can only get better.

Also, this doesn't effect my rating at all, but I am begging fantasy Authors of all kinds to considering adding pronunciation guides. There where times I had access to my computer and I could look it up, but even then I don't know if google is telling me the right way to say it.

if you've read this I'd love to know your thoughts and if youre going to read it, well same, basically, do tell.

[colorfullpaperbird]

Taste in books i think each of the sides on Sander Sides would have

Logan: Easiest side to tell since he says his book taste in canon lmao, mistery books guy, agatha christie, sherlock holmes, murders on rue morgue, he just really enjoys a good mistery (he’s just like me fr). He also probably reads books about scientific discoveries and psychological studies on a day to day basis (since he seems to have an answer for everything), either really likes or really hates sci fi depending on the scientifical explanations the books gives

Patton: Ok so, im gonna be honest, i don’t think Patton reads much? In fact hes probably the one who reads the least out of all sides, but he does seem to know his stuff, quoting studies in some episodes ( ‘Can lying be good?’ being the one who comes to mind ), so he probably reads a few articles about Morality and philosophy, also when i imagine Patton reading i imagine children’s books with deep messages like Dr Seuss, so personally i think Patton’s taste in books would be books like “The Tao of Pooh” which explains philosophy in a simple fun way taking inspiration from children’s media.

Roman: Roman’s my favorite side and although i would like to dump my personal taste on him i am aware that he canonically hasn’t read my favorite book and dislikes dark retellings of fairytales, leaving me to tears since those are my favorite kind of story. However i will indulge a bit and say that Roman would love Shakespearean plays ( His favorite would be Hamlet bc it inspired Lion King ) and typical fantasy books. Im also 100% sure that guy has a shelf full of Disney Movie Books like the novelization of Beauty and the beast and the villain’s origin books by Serena Valentino, also has those super pretty Disney Classics books ( lucky mfer ). And obviously he would have the original novels of multiple musicals ( Wicked, Be more chill, Dear Evan Hansen…) and some ballets/non-Disney classics as well (The nutcracker, The wizard of oz, Swan lake… ). Also Harry Potter i guess, since that’s canon 😒

Virgil: We all know what im going to say, Horror fan. Likes Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and classic horror books that inspired movies/series ( Carrie, Ring, the haunting of hill house… ), also reads a concerning amount of True crime about unsolved murder cases, and he has a special edition of the novel of The nightmare before Christmas somewhere trust me. And to self indulge a little, Dark retellings of fairytales, especially the Horror leaning ones.

Janus: I feel like Patton would read simplified philosophy books while Janus would grab shit like The gay science by Friedrich Nietzsche at the local library (never read this book, hilarious title tho), Overall i think Janus’s taste on books would consist of either philosophy and sociology books (especially the ones that annoying people read to keep gloating about how smart they are, except he actually likes them), and influential plays like Shakespeare, The Odyssey, The Iliad, Medea, Phantom of the Opera etc… His taste is the perfect combination of annoying Theater kid with pretentious philosophy kid (He is the guy they strive to be 😭)

Tw: Remus and everything that comes with him

-

Remus: YES, REMUS READS, YOU CANNOT CHANGE MY MIND ON THIS, The books he reads? Very simple, Dark romance and horror, the books are his inspirations for new creative ways to annoy the shit out of the other sides, he is slowly but surely making a list of new horrid murder and torture methods he learned via horror books, also dark romance for him is just romance since he thinks normal romance books are boring and lack taste, some other side definitely walked in on him reading once ( picture him reading on the sofa twirling his hair and bouncing his legs in a very stereotypical teen girl way ) and asked what he was reading only for him to answer something like “ ‘Taken Hostage by the Hot Mafia Boss’ :D” Also definitely read the Kam4 Sutr4.

-

Bonus: Remy/Sleep has a book detailing the multiple different ways on how to brew coffee and Picani has every Kids Show Book he could find ( Gravity Falls 3rd Diary, Star vs the Forces of Evil Book of spells etc… )

ALSO WARNING: If you want to buy any of the books i talked about here be aware there is currently a boycott of Disney and any other properties that have ties to the genocide committed by Israel!! And mainly, i would recommend to grab any book i mentioned in the library since they’re one of the only public community spaces that haven’t shut down yet, support your public library to make sure it stays that way!

[swifty-fox]

Hi! It's me again.

I was about to start reading your Little Beast fic, because, God, I wait a whole week to read the new chapter of kfak and just end up reading it all in one go 'cause I just can't stop once I start. But as I was saying, I just began Little Beast and realized you seem to read a lot, judging by all the beautiful quotes you put in the opening of every new chapter of kfak. I read the whole Richard Siken book just because of you (got blown away by the quote on chapter 16 and realized I had to read it all).

All this just to ask: do you have any recommendations of books that you love? Specially ones that somehow relate to your writing. I'd be delighted to get recommendations from you!

Hello!!! oh I hope you enjoy Little Beasts it is a very different flavor to kfak LOL

I actually read far less than you think I'm just very good at themes. Richard Siken is always a good choice but often what I am doing is googling quotes about a certain theme or feeling of the chapter! or for some of them a book or poem is features in the chapter so I try to steal a quote from that.

Always always always Richard Siken, but Poppy Z Brite is a HUGE style influence for me. Drawing Blood and Exquisite Corpse are some of my favorite books ever. Evening Crowd at Kirmsers by Richard Brown has been a great read while writing KfaK. While not very quotable it was a HUGE point of reference for perceptions of gender and sexuality during the 40's especially when it came to what was considered acceptable or not in terms of masculinity and heterosexuality.

books I've enjoyed recently:

The Haar by David Sodergren (horror)

Wilder Girls by Rory Power (horror)

Evening Crowd At Kirmsers by Ricardo Brown (autobiography)

Peter Darling by Austin Chant (Transmasc retelling of the Peter pan tale)

The End of Billy Knight by Ty Jacob (Fiction book following a gay porn star in the 80's. A tough read at times but has a happy ending)

Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz (sort of?? a horror. tw for themes of sexual assault and child abuse)

Haven't read it recently but this is my all time favorite comfort book:

An Olive Grove at the Edge of the World By Jared Gulian (autobiography)

the author is such a sweet man who I email with from time to time

My dear friend @katy-l-wood is a deeply talented queer author who just released a book Camp Daze! can't recommend her stuff enough

Fealty of Monsters by Ladz another author friend of mine you should be checking out!

@stereobone always has some good book recommendations as well

[rose-bookblood]

The Witch and the Beast | WIP Intro

Genre: fantasy retelling, romance, post-apocalyptic steampunk

Target: NA

Setting: our world, France; centuries in the future

POV: multi (mainly 2), 3rd person limited, past tense

Themes: family, guilt & forgiveness, trauma, oppression, power

Logline: In an attempt to save her father's life, 21-year-old Rosebelle offers herself as prisoner to the king of a forgotten realm, cursed to remain a half-human, half-wolf beast.

Literal logline: Disaster bisexual falls in love with sad wet dog (literally) while juggling his nosy siblings and practicing witchcraft.

Featuring: one-sided enemies to friends to lovers | Arabic bisexual FMC | mixed black-white family | siblings dynamics | vampires, werewolves & witches | Italian pirates | side f/f & m/m pairings

Inspiration: various iterations of Beauty and the Beast and other fairytales

CW: violence, gore, death, descriptions of corpses, blood drinking, trauma & depression, sexual harassment, self-hate & implied self-harm (no physical injuries)

Hi, folks! After ages, I'm finally introducing this project I've been mentioning for months! It really shouldn't have taken me this long to post this, but I'm a busy perfectionist.

The best way I can describe TWATB is if Once Upon a Time and The Vampire Diaries had a child. Hopefully a better written one. It's mainly a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but in book 1 you can see hints of other fairytale characters and, in book 2, all new characters come from different stories. Yes, it is a series, it seems I'm physically unable to write standalones.

Plot

After a nuclear war set technology back and filled Earth's atmosphere with gas clouds that black out the sun, vampires came out of the shadows and subjugated the humans.

Rosebelle Fortier wishes to escape the small French village where she lives, unable to pursue her thirst for knowledge and tormented by a vampire who wants to make her his. Ro's wish comes true with a catch when she offers herself as prisoner to a half-human, half-wolf Beast and his siblings to save her father's life.

Before he angered the wrong witch, Adam ruled the Kingdom of Alsace. Now, he's a monster trapped in his own castle and by a curse that will only break if he learns to love and be loved back. Time is ticking by and, even when a girl stumbles on his path, Adam knows there's no hope: no one will ever love a beast.

As a hidden threat forms, Ro and Adam must come into their own power and fall in love, all before time runs out.

Characters

(* means a character appears in book 2)

Rosebelle Fortier

she/her

the Beauty

bookworm with a thirst for knowledge

curiosity killed the cat etc. etc.

may or may not become a witch

disaster bisexual

Adam d'Alsace

he/him

the Beast

a literal sad wet dog

(he's a werewolf)

(he's also depressed)

currently stuck in a hybrid form

François Guérin

he/him

the Avenant/Gaston

nasty musty crusty dusty

old as fuck vampire

spends his days harassing Ro

Delphine d'Alsace

she/her

eldest sister syndrome

forever plagued by guilt

Ro & Adam's matchmaker

this || close to losing it at all times

Julien d'Alsace

he/him

wishes his family did something to fix the situation

be gay do crime

grumpy but there's no sunshine (yet)

perpetually on the verge of spilling all the tea to Ro

Véronique d'Alsace

she/her

moody teenager

trans & asexual

wants to be left alone with her garden and books

she and Adam connect on a depression level

Charlotte d'Alsace

she/her

definitely undiagnosed ADHDer

aromantic

a ball of sunshine

loves running around the castle gardens in wolf form

Bianca Chen Hildebrandt*

she/her

the Snow White

princess of the Kingdom of Germany

lesbian

her stepmother turned her into a vampire against her will

is now leading a rebellion

Astrid Morgenstern*

she/her

the Sleeping Beauty

Bianca's loyal knight (in a totally heterosexual way)

pansexual

is currently. you guessed it. asleep

Sebastiano Falconieri*

he/him

the Captain Hook

unsurprisingly, a pirate

bisexual

Italian pride let's gooo

stuck on a magical prison island

Setting

Like I mentioned in the plot, TWATB is set in an unspecified future, after a nuclear war. As a consequence, the planet is cocooned by a thick cover of gas clouds that block all sunlight. Vampires, who had previously been considered a myth, came out of hiding and started ruling over the humans. Besides that unfortunate implication, lack of sunlight also means the climate is colder and living conditions are dire. The story is set in France, but now it looks like Siberia.

The war also set technology back a couple centuries, before the discovery of electricity. There's gas lamps, railroads (not many, because, y'know, lots of ice and snow), zeppelins. And, of course, I couldn't resist the steampunk/Victorian aesthetic.

But that's not all! Even though I'm not sure how much will come across in book 1, since it's set at the castle for 90% of the time, there's more to the setting than "steampunk but cold". I've built a vampire-centric society with its own rules and spent a bunch of time researching what effects the absence of direct sunlight would have, to make everything as realistic as possible.

This is all for now. Hope this "new" project piqued your interest!

— Rose

Taglist: (lmk to be added)

@ink-fireplace-coffee @the-inkwell-variable

[natureboy96]

My journey through the Court of Thorns and Roses series

It’s been roughly a month since I started reading the ACOTAR series, and let me tell you, it’s been one mad ride. I’ve had a lot of thoughts on the books, and I needed to put them down somewhere to hopefully stop them from rattling around in my brain for much longer (success tbd). While I am writing this more for myself than anyone else, I wondered if anyone else went through a similar journey that I have, and perhaps help understand why people view the series as they do. I’ll be going book by book to break things down.

(Also might be worth mentioning that I am a gay man in my thirties, which definitely impacted how I read certain parts of the books..)

ACOTAR

Having come into the series with absolutely no hints as to what it was about (besides the back blurb), I actually found this first book… kinda boring? I was surprised, I suppose, to see it was a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but that actually made me look forward more to where things actually deviated from the script (I texted my sister it was around chapter 30 that I felt things really getting interesting).

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy parts of it - the more intimate moments between Tamlin and Feyre were what I liked most, like them dancing together after he played, or him appreciating that painting that made him not feel alone, moments like those. A bit stilted writing, perhaps, but fine.

When we went Under the Mountain, though, that’s when my interest picked up. I felt the fear that Tamlin and Feyre felt, knowing one wrong move could be their last. I felt terribly icky at the things Feyre was manipulated to do; maybe I can see how people might think her dancing black out drunk in a napkin could be a sexy fantasy, but it definitely didn’t do it for me, nor the bone twisting. The trials themselves felt… underwhelming (the worm was some exciting action that our Feyre’s skills to use at least, but the second one was kinda meh), but I was interested in seeing a story where the main character actually experiences some lasting impact of trauma, something I feel a lot of books gloss over. Seeing what Feyre and Tamlin were willing to sacrifice for each other also helped solidify their relationship for me. I went into the second book excited to see how it was handled, and to see what kind of character Rhysand proved to be, after his UtM admissions and actions…

ACOMAF

I was into this text a lot quicker than the previous one, no doubt because of what I mentioned about seeing actual consequences for trauma. I didn’t expect to see so much of Tamlin’s trauma as I did, but I appreciated seeing even a high lord couldn’t walk away from something like what happened without damage. I definitely felt the tragedy of what happened to their relationship, seeing how trauma warped and changed the way they were to the point where they no longer fit, and I was glad Feyre was able to leave.

That brings us to what I thought was the best point, seeing Feyre get the space and patience and support she needed to heal, from Rhysand and the rest of the Inner Court. Like the first book, some parts felt a bit stilted to me, but seeing her gain back her confidence and work through the pain Amarantha had dealt was with satisfying. Having her find a group she came to care for and a place she felt safe was wonderful.

I couldn’t say I saw the end twists coming, and I was definitely shocked to see Tamlin siding with an evil king who wanted to bring back slavery; after what I knew of him in the first book, it felt to me like there had to be more going on, and I immediately started the next book after finishing this one in 3 days.

I was also quite interested in Elain and Nesta’s changes too, I hadn’t expected them to be big characters after the first book, but it makes sense to tie them together - and give some fun stuff to work with in the next book.

ACOWAR

Unlike the last book, I finished this one in two days :p

I enjoy a lot of politics and intrigue in my books, so I enjoyed hearing about a lot of the planning that went into preparing for the upcoming war. I enjoyed hearing Feyre’s thoughts and plans for the Spring Court, and I was glad Lucien was able to escape with her - I haven’t mentioned him much but I have enjoyed his character quite a bit. I loved getting to meet with the other high lords and see the Dawn Court, though I found it odd how easily everyone seemed to lose their temper at what was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting. I read Tamlin’s words as being sheer bitterness, but I was glad to hear he hadn’t betrayed everyone blindly and had a plan.

The end of the book was a bit of a shock twist page after page, and I couldn’t put it down. Dads coming out of nowhere with an army only to die a few pages later? Monsters joining the fight only to get murked? Elain pulling an Arya Stark stabbing on the big baddie? The only surprise I had been expecting was Akeem’s transformation; I felt the biblical angel clues were strong enough to expect an angel of death when she changed.

I didn’t like the fakeout Rhysand death. It felt like it was tacked on for a bit more milked drama, only to be undone moments later. What I did love was how the end of the story gave Tamlin the chance to save both Feyre and Rhysand, despite everything that they had done to each other. I had hoped it was the chance for them to start healing that rift, not expecting them to be friends or in love again, but respectful at least..

Also some questionable choices for sexy scenes, but again, I kinda didn’t read too much into em, not my thing.

ACOFAS

This is where something changed with my thoughts on the text. I thought it was a nice “Christmas” story, and I enjoyed seeing where and how people were preparing for it with each other. I felt for Nesta, and as hard as it was to see where she was I didn’t feel she was ready for healing from her trauma yet, and was interested to see where it went. Wasn’t as big a fan of people talking down to Lucien, but that wasn’t the real issue I had here…

Rhysand’s visits to Tamlin may have been brief, but they struck a really unpleasant note in an otherwise nice little story. I had come to see Rhysand as a good person over the books, over what he had said and did. I couldn’t like that up, though, with the way he treated Tamlin in this book. I didn’t expect them to be friends, or even like each other, but I couldn’t understand how Rhysand could be so cruel to a person who had saved not only his life (even though I could have easily seen him not doing so), but Feyre’s, Elaine’s and Azriel’s lives too, and in doing so played a crucial part in saving the whole world. How could someone see this person who is clearly broken and so alone, and beat him down further? And then to come back and see what state he was in, and essentially suicide bait him while making him a steak? It was such a harsh and cruel thing to do that it took me right out of the text, and I took some time with that thought in my head.

AFTER READING

I had been planning to jump into Silver Flames right away, but the sour taste of how Tamlin was treated in the last book was really bothering me, and I needed to share my thoughts with someone. None of my friends had read the books, so I turned online to see what people thought, and… I have to admit, I was shocked at the level of sheer vitriol directed in Tamlin’s direction. If this was after the second book, I could see some of it, but undoubtedly most people who were sharing their dislike of his character had read all the books, even past what I read. It didn’t make sense to me, that someone we knew was a kind and good person in the first book, who was warped by trauma and bitterness in the second but helped save our main characters in the third, only to be kicked while he was down, was so incredibly hated? The more I read, the more confused and honestly frustrated I started feeling. It was as if there was nothing good in his character, who quite objectively did quite a few good things!

Until I had read ACOFAS, I had taken everything as it had been delivered to me, through Feyre’s thoughts and words. Hell, I was so into it after the second book I went and bought the coloring pages and some very expensive pens! After, though, I began rereading parts of the texts in a more critical lens, trying to somehow connect the cruelty I’d read and felt with people’s words online, with what I thought was the point of the text, of healing through trauma, and how I has liked the various characters.

It was around then that I found I wasn’t the only one who had similar thoughts and feelings towards Tamlin’s character and how he was treated in the narrative, and the fandom. I noticed some things I had missed before, where Feyre’s perspective of Tamlin had shifted to make his character from the first book worse in the second and third. Not even inconsistencies in terms of character traits changing, but points where events in the first book were quite blatantly retconned in a different view entirely, and then for people to ignore the former for the latter because it made Tamlin worse. The more that I started looking, the more issues I started picking up, issues of characters being held to different standards by both the character in text, and the people reading them.

Now, a month out from reading the books, I think it’s become very clear that the author intended for people to strongly dislike Tamlin’s character, and for a lot of people, the author’s intention is enough to accept that view. When it comes to writing, though, an author’s intention ends with the words they put down, adding clarifying statements afterwards can help show their intention, but the intent is the same. Readers, then, are free to interpret a text how they will; not everyone is going to get the same experience from a story as everyone else, because people are individuals with their own outlooks on the world they bring to a text. Just because one agrees with the author’s intention with a text doesn’t make other’s differing interpretations less valid. People don’t have to like Tamlin’s character for all the reasons the author tells you, but that doesn’t make criticism of the view wrong, or bad. People who criticize the author’s choices and the actions of characters in a text are as valid as the author’s choice to write them in the first place. I’ve come away from this feeling Tamlin’s character has been “done dirty”, whether the author intended for me to have that opinion (she clearly didn’t). That doesn’t make my viewpoint less valid, just different, and based in the same text other interpretations come from.

In the end, I’ve come down from the obsessed high I had with the series, and I’ve settled on having very mixed feelings overall. Once my interpretation of the earlier texts had changed, it kinda rusted some of the luster the books had had in my mind and added a more critical, negative undercurrent to things I had seen as entirely good before. For me, that actually makes them more interesting, and I like the idea of talking about and debating points of a text and how they can be interpreted. I don’t know if I could recommend the series to other people, though, what with the feelings I’ve had towards the actual texts and the fandom around them. I will probably be invested still for a time longer, though - whether I read Silver Flames (the takes I’ve seen online are veeery mixed, but perhaps my take would be different than what I’ve seen) or the next book afterwards, it’s been a real and novel experience diving headfirst into it all.

[lena-rambles]

writeblr intro //

me ; lena, she/her, 19, disaster sapphic, pisces

happy things ; music and piano, the colour red, reading, autumn, puns, reinaeiry, learning, and writing of course

fiction favs ; moral ambiguity, queer themes, fantasy, historical fiction, found family, complex relationships, enemies to lovers, literature references and parallels, tragic lovers, fantasy politics, eldest sisters

other ; tag and ask game friendly, open ask box and dms, and pls send me your wips!

fav reads ; much ado about nothing (shakespeare), ballad of songbirds and snakes (collins), as old as time (braswell), the false prince (nielsen), godly heathens (edgmon)

current wip eris ; lyssa harland could almost be good: she’s determined, hardworking, honest, reliable... except for the teeny tiny little fact that she very much craves power above all.

wips //

the kingdoms ; my indulgent sprawling medieval fantasy world with no plot. includes fantasy politics, diverse cultures, conlangs, and a large cast of lovable fiends mostly centered on the terakk continent. never officially on hiatus; it's been my blorbo world since i was thirteen and i think about it all the time.

long live the queen ; a regency-adjacent royal murder mystery. it's five years after vallera's civil war, and tensions are still running high. when the queen suddenly dies, her oldest daughter believes there was more to it than simply illness. themes of grief, familial bonds, loyalty, coming of age, politics, arranged marriages, and what it means to be a just queen when all you want to do is protect your siblings. (wip intro) [hiatus]

disney but gay ; shamelessly inspired by reinaeiry's but it's gay covers. disney retellings where i try to draw more from the folktales themselves and everyone's sapphic. things i love about this series: sleeping beauty is a dream-sharing soulmate au, belle has anxiety, snow white and flora are exes, and the beast's name is amarante after patricia mckillip's "lady of the skulls". [hiatus]

other wips ; have a lot of other wips running through my brain, even some that i have no intention of returning to but still have occasional revelations about. linked is my side blog for quote, photo, etc. reblogs without context. follow + ask questions if you want lol

if you have wips with any of the above themes, tag me! i'd love to see them :)

[moonmothmama]

so a while ago i went looking for books with major characters who were sympathetically portrayed orcs because. you know. the whole "lifelong Tolkien/fantasy nerd who has also constantly rankled at both uncharitable generalizations made about certain fantasy races as well as the idea that there are entire peoples who are Evil" combined with "sometimes when you are treated as undesirable/monstrous by society you empathize with monsters" and a fascination with what makes a monster a monster vs a person blah blah yadda yadda

anyway the book that i ultimately found and read turned out to be a romance novel. funny thing number one: i have never read a conventional romance novel in my life. the only other romance novel i ever read was a gay retelling of beauty and the beast a few years ago (someone promoted it bc the author was a friend of theirs who was in a financial bind iirc and i'm admittedly a sucker for the various interpretations of that particular fairytale). idk if retellings of fairytales count as conventional romance novels? anyway.

i read the book with a free trial of kindle or whatever on amazon. i'm poor ok? i plan on buying the books properly at some point.

so. moving on.

fast forward a few months or however long it's been and now amazon is recommending me like. orc erotica

read a sample of one (comparatively tame seeming) book out of sheer novel curiosity. got interested in the fucking plot and bought a digital copy of the book. and then the sequel. funny thing number two: i'm ace

so anyway amazon is recommending me things like "ravished by two orcs" now

[cherrybombfangirlwrites]

Fractured Stars Falling ; a WIP (Re)Intro

(New and Updated!)

Genre and Setting

High fantasy, fairytale retellings, dark fantasy ; the magical world of Eltya filled with magic and enchanted creatures, six different kingdoms plus different regions and environments throughout the continent

Playlist

Masterlist / Shitty Comic Sans Intro 🤪

POV

Third person limited, multiple characters

Status and Length

First Drafts, roughly 10k words so far ; 9 book series with 6 fairytale retellings and three more books to wrap up everything, no idea what the wordcount I'm shooting for is gonna be yet...

Tropes and Themes

knights, royalty, and pirates, magical creatures, magic that actually has consequences and can kill you, found family but they're a bunch of dumbasses, sassy princesses, badass knights, chaotic found family, "i'd kill for you" romances, protective morally gray characters, kingdoms based on historical eras/aesthetics rather than countries, character who is genre aware, POC disabled and queer rep galore, platonic relationships are just as valuable as romantic ones ; trauma and how we deal with it, and what makes life worth living

Warnings and Rating

fantasy typical violence, depictions of mental health issues including panic attacks, abusive family members in a couple of books, blood, depictions and explorations of death, descriptions of corpses and demons, lots of spooky shit but no horror stuff ; Teen and Up

Main Cast

Tris Lakewater (she/her)

"Cinderella"

Black, Trans Woman, Plus sized

self trained knight who wants to join the army and become a war hero like her mother, trying to escape her stepfamily after her father's death

Prince Kaye (he/him)

"Prince Charming"

Latino (Mixed), OCD, Bisexual

A peacemaker born into a family of bloodthirsty warlords, kind and soft spoken, has a lot of anxiety too

Princess Snow (she/her)

"Snow White"

Asian (Chinese), Partnering AroAce

the crown princess training to overthrow her stepmother, talented archer and swordsman, people pleaser to a fault

Lan Everson (they/them)

Snow's best friend and QPR partner

Asian (Mixed), Nonbinary/Genderqueer, Partnering Aspec

a gifted poet, supportive best friend, and loyal to a fault to their best friend Snow

Captain Cassandra (she/her)

"The Little Mermaid"

Plus sized, pale and freckled Redhead, Pansexual, mute and partially deaf

the former mermaid with a broken heart that she'd rather pretend doesn't hurt after her first love abandoned her

Erica Princeton (she/her)

"Prince Eric"

Plus sized, Polynesian, Lesbian, amputee (peg leg)

hopeless romantic determined to show this beautiful pirate captain that she deserves to be loved and she won't leave her

Max Florronson (he/him)

"The Prince"

doesn't want any trouble, avoids conflict and lacks confidence in himself, very skiddish person

Gay man, black, has a serious case of genre awareness

Prince Monty (he/him)

"The Frog Prince"

a lost prince that got tangled up in a curse gone haywire looking for his family, too adventurous for his own good

Brown (Mixed), gay man, randomly switches between frog and human form

Elliot Beautyson (he/him)

"Beauty"

a shy village bookworm boi who wants do right by his family and dreams of an adventure like in the books he reads

Trans man, pale and freckled with light blonde hair

Princess Hestia (she/her)

"The Beast"

a lost princess with fire powers, isolated in the abandoned castle of a fallen kingdom long forgotten

plus sized, Brown (Mixed), anxiety/panic disorder

Raven Crescent (he/him)

The Princess's Bodyguard

head over heels in love with the princess he's supposed to protect, morally gray and calm and calculating

Latino, Bisexual, Autistic (high masking)

Princess Sapphire (she/her)

"Sleeping Beauty"

an impulsive and hotheaded princess who has zero self preservation and is a danger magnet

Demisexual, ADHD (low masking), Redhead

Triveya Avenlin (she/her, they/them?)

The Wizard

the wizardess with some kind of past with the witch queen, expert of magic, roughly a thousand years old, Burntout Gifted Kid

Unlabeled Queer, Autistic and ADHD (high masking), Redhead

Antagonists

King Burningham and Queen Persephone - Antagonists of Book 1. Prince Kaye's parents with high expectations for him, projecting everything they want to be onto him. Bloodthirsty warlords who thoroughly enjoy the Princess Tournament and how violent it is turning out to be

Queen Reigna - Antagonist of Book 2. Snow's abusive stepmother and a tyrannic ruler. Manipulative and master swordsman. Determined to get Snow out of the way and keep her away from the throne. Very loosely based on Narissa from Enchanted.

Gar Face Gabe - Antagonist of Book 3. Rival pirate captain that might have been a tiny bit corrupted by dark magic and working for someone else. Got a thin scar across his face from Cassandra a couple years earlier and is a pissy baby about it.

Councilor Darevan - Antagonist of Book 4. The shady councilman of Dryklan with some questionable things being done in the mines. May or may not be corrupted by dark magic and working for the Witch Queen.

Francis la Leonardron and His Father - Antagonists of Book 5. Francis is a sniveling and whiny rich brat, his father will get his precious son whatever he wants. They use rumors and superstition to control the villagers.

The Witch Queen - Big Bad of the series. Actually makes her first appearance in Book 6/very end of Book 5. Corrupted by dark magic, roughly a thousand years old. Barely even human anymore, the dark magic has taken over. Very loosely based on Agatha Harkness.

King Undral - Big Bad of the series. Shows up for the first time in Book 7. God of the Under, King of the Dead. Hates his job and thinks mortals are worthless and stupid. Cold Businessman and will torture anyone who angers or undermines him.

Plot

Six fairytales retold, all colliding together for the climax in the last three books.

General Cinderella - Book 1

Snow Knight - Book 2

The Little Pirate - Book 3

The Lord's Son the Frog - Book 4

Handsome and the Beast - Book 5

Sleeping Beauty's Bodyguard - Book 6

Escape from the Under - Book 7

The Amulet *placeholder title* - Book 8

The Finale *placeholder title* - Book 9

Extra Stuff

A little bit on the different regions in Eltya that we see in the books

Dinvirty: Tris and Kaye's kingdom. Nestled in one of the biggest mountain ranges of Eltya, almost always in a deep blanket of snow with freezing temperatures year round. They are they protectors of Keyon's Gate, the one thing keeping the Witch Queen imprisoned. Based on the Vikings and the Roman Empire.

Goke: Snow and Lan's kingdom. Not far from Dinvirty on the other side of the mountains, with a slightly more temperate climate. Mainly deep woods with some lakes and small rivers. A little bit less colder than Dinvirty, but still gets frequent snow and rain with very cool temperatures year round. Based on the Medieval Gothic Era.

The High Seas: Cass and Erica's region. A lawless land in the waters surrounding Eltya, including the lush but deadly tropical islands surrounding the main continent. Very hot with wild and rough seas, filled with very large and dangerous sea monsters. Based on the Golden Age of Piracy.

Dryklan: Max and Monty's kingdom. Settled in the second biggest mountain range of Eltya, the mountain mines filled with the purest ore and finest metals. Other than mountains there is the forests, one of which spreads into Greyvenhill. Temperate region on the warmer side, with lots of rain. Based on late 1700s/early 1800s French Aristocracy.

Farkle: Elliot and Hestia's kingdom. The fallen and long lost kingdom, overgrown with deep and cold pine forest and dangerous magical creatures, with villages on the outskirts. Temperate region but on the colder side, with frequent snow and wet weather. Based on Mid 1800s English countryside/The Last Russian Dynasties.

Greyvenhill: Sapphire and Raven's kingdom. Mostly in the middle of the continent and relatively flat with grasslands throughout and swamps towards the coast. Trading hub of the continent, with the most river and coastline out of the other kingdoms. Very hot with just enough rain to keep grass and trees alive, more humid towards the coast. Based on Authruian/Robin Hood Medieval era with a touch of Scottish/Celtic in there.

The Under: The Afterlife and Underworld. Desolate and devoid of life, everything down there is hellbent on making you suffer. Mortal souls rot away there until who they were in life is gone and they become demons themselves that serve the Dark King. Unbearably hot and dry. Based on Goblin Valley in Utah and the underground caves in New Mexico.

The Sands of Doom: The Witch Queen's imprisonment for roughly a thousand years. Completely devoid of life, with nothing but sand and tall thick cliffs on both sides. The only exit is a small gap in the mountains, closed off by the high wall called Keyon's Gate, guarded by the fiercest warriors in Dinvirty.

Other things:

Triveya has a pet dragon! His name is Torch, he's dark red, and he's basically a puppy with claws and teeth that breathes fire

Triveya also lives in a giant tree library complete with a fireplace and living space up top with a glass roof. She hundreds of books, mostly on magic

Hestia has servants that she made out of fire in her castle, because she got lonely and couldn't do the upkeep of the castle on her own. There's Embers, the genderfluid butler with their tiny lizard companion Coals, also made of fire. Then theres Flicker and Ashes, the cook and the maid.

Raven has a big family back in his home town. He has two big brothers both of which are in the army with him, and three little sisters (triplets). His parents own the tavern and inn of the small town, and his mom is the best cook for miles. Yes Raven is a total Momma's boy, that's why we love him.

Sapphire is based on a combination of Buttercup from Princess Bride, Anna from Frozen, and Giselle from Enchanted. (plus a little bit of me!)

I wante the vibes of Handsome and the Beast (Elliot and Hestia's book) to be Beauty and the Beast meets Anastasia with a sprinkle of the 12 Dancing Princesses in there

I want the vibes of Sleeping Beauty's Bodyguard (Raven and Sapphire's book) to be Maleficent meets Princess Bride

Elliot has a ten year old sister named Daisy. She's very playful and imaginative and Elliot is teaching her how to read

Snow seems like she's got it together and she's the one in the group with a braincell, but she's actually a dumbass and just chooses not to use the braincells she has sometimes. She's clever but she's also dumb as rocks

Lan is the main holder of the group braincell and they DANGEROUSLY close to losing it

Elliot's favorite book is the Eltyan equivalent of Twelfth Night

~~~

Fractured Stars Falling Taglist: @rose-bookblood @chalcid @evethenovicewriter @writing-is-a-martial-art @mjjune @fiercely-raging-writer (comment or send me a message to be +/- from the taglist <3)

General Taglist: @enchanted-lightning-aes @thatprolificauthor @wip-nook @writeblrsupport

[aurorawest]

Another reading update

Epitaph by Mary Doria Russell - 4.25/5 stars

Surprise queer love story at the end! Also made me regret that we didn't stop in Tombstone, AZ, when we drove by it on our vacation to Arizona last year.

The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem - DNF at pg 18

Prince and Assassin by Tavia Lark - 5/5 stars

This book was A DELIGHT. I didn't expect to love it so much because I've been burned by so many Rainbow Crate selections, but goddamn this one was good. I ordered the next five books in the series from the parking ramp where we watched the eclipse, lol.

Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray - 4.75/5 stars

The gay, WWII retelling of Beauty and the Beast you didn't know you needed. Really lovely novella.

New Adult by Timothy Janovsky - 4.5/5 stars

Time travel! Crystals! I'm a sucker for books where the main character realizes that their career isn't everything (clearly, since my debut novel is about that). I love Timothy Janovsky. He's so good at writing characters who are deeply unlikable but who you root for from page 1 to get their shit together.

Stars, Hide Your Fires by Jessica Mary Best - 3/5 stars

A Glorious Mess by Kennedy Sutton - 4/5 stars

This is a prequel to a series I haven't read, but I really enjoyed it!

The Midnight Kingdom by Tara Sim - 4.25/5 stars

This is another high fantasy where I was like, okay, what happened again in the first one...? It slowly came back to me, haha. I love Tara Sim and this book was just as good as the first in the series. Definitely excited for the conclusion.

The Body in the Back Garden by Mark Waddell - 4/5 stars

Cozy mysteries aren't really my thing, but I really liked this one. There was enough violence to keep it from twee overload.

The Bookseller's Boyfriend by Heidi Cullinan - 4/5 stars

The Path by Ariel Tachna - 4.25/5 stars

Aka, now I want to hike the Inca Trail. This was a great book about two guides on the Inca Trail in Peru (and if you know me you might know I have interest in guiding). Not only was the book just good, but I loved the exposure to a country that I don't know much about.

The Bachelor's Valet by Arden Powell - 5/5 stars

Hello????? This book is so good???? If you loved Freya Marske's The Last Binding trilogy, give this series a shot. It's very lighthearted, and I loved dumb, kindhearted Alphonse with all my heart from the first sentence. Also the cover is super pretty, I had to keep taking breaks to stare at it.

Assassin by Accident by EJ Russell - 4/5 stars

Tramps and Vagabonds by Aster Glenn Gray - 5/5 stars

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Okay so I knew I'd love this book, because I went feral for Honeytrap, which I read last year. God this one was so good too. It's about two young men who ride the rails in the Midwest during the Depression. James is homeless and Timothy has parents he could go back to...except he's in love with James, obvs. If you're a fan of Cat Sebastian's mid-century books (We Could Be So Good, The Cabots), PLEASE read this. Gray deserves to be much more widely read.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley (reread) - 5/5 stars

Here's my copy after rereading:

Those are all the spots that were particularly emotionally devastating. This reread secures The Kingdoms as my favorite Natasha Pulley book. Maybe my favorite book, full stop. Missouri and Joe, god be still my heart.

[fanfiction-artist-prototype]

Actually you know what, I was going to go to bed since it is 2.30 AM right now, but I have opinions!

Retellings of classics/fairy tales can be so so GOOD especially when they add more representation or explore new avenues through which to view the story which allows us to see aspects of the story that have been forgotten/wouldn't have been appropriate to focus on in the time period they were created/vastly distributed. Even the 400 pages of smut woth an excuse of story retellings can be good because hey you wrote what you wanted and yes it was set up for smut but you actually sat there and wrote something!

And I know I've bemoaned books that strip stories just so they can write smut before, but that's aimed at books that pretend they aren't just smut. The people who from the gey go basically establish within 100 pages these guys end up in bed have my respect. You're open, honest and ironically enough aren't messing about with foreplay here.

However my issue lies with the influx I've noticed recently on bookinsta and booktok of "diverse" retellings of classics/fairy tales that ... just aren't?

Like on booktok I recently came across a user claiming that now that the Great Gatsby was in the public domain as of last year they were going to be writing the gay gatsby book. As if people haven't been writing literal fanfiction for years of Nick and Gatsby, as if there isn't an entire area of novel analysis designated to the idea of Nick and Gatsby as not only a couple but also as metaphors for different forms of sexual repression within 1920s American society. Like there's nothing necessarily wrong with it, but it's being marketed as something so new and fresh... when i know for a fact within the hours of it becoming public domain there was a great Gatsby retelling but if they were animals, at least 3 Great Gatsby but Nick and Gatsby kiss and the great Catsby published.

Or the fairytale retellings that are queer, but aren't actually retellings or based on the stories. They're using the names for attention.

In particular a recent one I found was a beauty and the beast retlling but Gay. Promising so far, I was imagining like bear jokes you know? Maybe a twink joke, a medieval appropriate fuck boi joke about Gaston.

No.

The prince falls in love with his guard (its supposed to be based on the Disney film) not the Princess (Belle is a peasant in the film) but its all a okay because she's a lesbain.

Again how the actual fuck is this a retelling or even inspired by specifically as the author DOES specify the Disney version!?

Just write queer fairy tales nobody will stop you.

"But proto it's for exposure, it's for the algorithm!"

And anybody who has any interest in reading that goes beyond being spoon fed tropes and wattpad level descriptions won't want to read a book when the marketing itself is deceptive!

It just annoys me because like I said retellings can be so cool -ie hamlet and how it's set in EVERY time period or that one Macbeth adaptation set on a council estate where the Fife lords are drug dealers in Sussex- but nowadays people DONT want to wrote retellings they just want to use the concept and they disregard everything about it and then hide behind diversity cards. And what annoys me so much is that its mostly cis white authors being pushed.

What about the POC authors who are writing queer/POC/ other forms of diversity such as disability stories? Why are they being suppressed when they actually fit the description???

Like for instance cinderlla is dead!? Personally I didn't enjoy it but its a retelling, of the story of cinderella with its own twists and turns!!

[crownamedblue]

Names are So Fuckin Weird

(And that's pretty fuckin cool)

I wrote a while ago about names, but, after recent inspiration, I've found I still have so much more to say. This isn’t about the classical or modern definitions of someone’s true name (the answer involves ancient egypt, voodoo, and the church), nor is it about what someone’s real name is. No, today I want to talk about the function of a name, and the strange side-effects not written on the side of the bottle. 

This first bit of inspiration has been– let’s say– “borrowed”. To be fair, I am almost entirely sure that the very same bit of inspiration has been stolen from somebody else entirely, but alack & alas, such is the way of writers. I digress. Imagine, if you will, a pencil. Focus on the pencil, on its ridges, the unevenness of the exposed wood reaching up to the graphite tip. The pale arches, giving way to a garish yellow paint. At the bottom: an eraser mostly gone, mostly stale, mostly useless. This pencil’s name is Steven. Say Hello to Steven, Class. Still with me? Imagine Steven. Imagine someone ripping poor Steven out of your hand and snapping it against their knee, like Steven is nothing, means nothing. It hurts a little bit, huh? Hate to break it to you friends, but Steven is an imaginary pencil. You are a little bit upset over a made up, nonexistent piece of wood. But it wasn’t just a pencil, was it? It was Steven the pencil. All that because I gave it a name. 

There’s a book I highly suggest that you read. It’s a reiteration of old fairy tales, including two gay princes, a black snow white, a ghostly beast, and a street-smart Ursula convincing Ariel that maybe, just maybe, she shouldn’t throw her life away for a boy (the book is called Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales by Soman Chainani). It is an excellent read, and it made my Tales Dark and Grimm obsessed inner child absolutely ecstatic. It also features a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin with good ol’ rump being none other than the Devil himself. The story still stands, still makes sense, because to give something a name is to classify it, to place it into a box, to give it a beginning and an end. Let me explain. Consider, if you will, two different tests. One of the tests you have been studying for, and you know for a fact that it will be incredibly challenging, and you might very well fail. The other test, you’ve been informed by a reliable source, is far easier, but they refuse to tell you what it’s on. You’re still going to pick the harder test. Perhaps you’d prefer a different analogy entirely. You’re in a forest and you can see two paths before you. One contains a lion, a tiger, and a bear (oh my), while the other is completely covered in darkness. Through the darkness you can see three pairs of eyes, three sets of gnashing teeth, and hear the footsteps and clawing of wild, hungry animals. Down the second path could also be a lion, a tiger, and a bear, or it could be three bears, or it could be three rabbits pretending to be bears, or it could even be a scooby-doo-esq contraption scaring away hikers. You don’t know, you can’t tell, and so you’ll choose the thing you can see, that you’re familiar with. There's a common turn of phrase that, funnily enough, ties this back to Dangerous Tales: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. The Devil is essentially a symbol of all things dark and evil and malicious, it’s effectively a title or a catch-all. The Devil is whatever you want it to be and everything you don’t, it is fluid and omniscient and all-powerful. To give it a name is to define it, to place it into a box. Naming something tells you the subject of the second test, it solidifies the shadows into a pulley system and a wireless speaker. The Devil is unknowable, but Rumplestiltskin is a little red man with more magic in his pinky than your entire body. That being said, he’s still a man, and all men die eventually.

Consider again the paths and the beasts. Knowing that the path covered in darkness contains the beasts changes nothing. You still need to go down the path. It does, however, allow you to take action. You cannot act against something without first knowing what it is, or at least giving a name to it: you can only act against what you can describe. Consider the difference between being sad, being depressed, and being clinically depressed. Each of these have similar symptoms, and each can simply be described as “being sad”, but if someone is unaware that they have clinical depression, they can only try to fix their own sadness. One cannot cure clinical depression with comfort food or puppies. This doesn’t always work, of course. Sometimes things are unavoidable, and knowing just what they are, naming them, does not make it any better, or allow one to take action against it. For example, knowing that you’re on the neurodivergent spectrum, ADHD or Autistic or wherever you fall, doesn’t let you take action against that thing. Sure you can form coping mechanisms, learn to mask, take pills to let you focus, that sort of thing, but you’re only fighting the symptoms: you’re still on the neurodivergent spectrum. The proper naming of something, at the barest of minimums, brings closure. Conversely, the misnaming of something instead brings about dissonance. Pulling from a previous example, a clinically depressed person knows that they are more than just sad, even if not yet diagnosed (with the exception of denial). When the wrong name is used, someone personally intimate with the thing can tell, even if they don’t know what the proper name is. This is most commonly seen as when you forget someone’s name and start to guess: you can tell that each guess is wrong, even without actually knowing what the right name is. This effect doesn’t even have to be with people’s names, it could be the name of a tool or even just a word. I’m referring to, of course, that time when the word is just on the tip of your tongue: that sense of dissonance when you start just listing out synonyms and that sense of closure, that rush of satisfaction when you finally get it right. Even if it is a solid hour or two later and the good vibes are crushed by frustration before the good vibes even hit you.

I don’t think people really spend a lot of time dwelling on names as a concept. People definitely think about names, as in what to name their child, what to name themselves, if someone can rename themselves. We can sort of see some consideration of concept in that last one, but it’s closer to conscious, mostly morality minded, and, I’d posit, purely philosophical, as opposed to often unrealized reaction. To clear up confusion summoned by superficial, supposedly superfluous, and altogether avoidable alliteration, we don’t really think of names as their own entity. They’re a means to an end, a way of addressing something. Just as pronouns are a shortcut so you don’t have to say the name, names are a shortcut so you don’t have to explain the entirety. You can just say “Blue” instead of having to say “the annoying living bisexual stereotype who simultaneously thinks far too much and far too little of themselves”. That idea of a name is what people really think about: the more functional practicalities as they intermingle with one’s conscience and sensibilities. However, for whatever reason, names are much more than that, to the point that they seem to hold a power in and of themselves. I think that’s pretty cool. Sorry about Steven.

^^ this is the post that Steven is from, and I was right, it was also stolen