#yvesdot

[bluedelliquanti]

Just finished another commission for @yvesdot as part of the Cartoonist Coop E-sim for Gaza donation drive!

#art #commissions #e sims #yvesdot

[mostlyghostie]

A commission for @yvesdot of a collection of their own work!

This was a fun one to draw, especially as most of these don’t yet exist in physical form.

You can read some of these books on their blog, check it out!

#my art #artists on tumblr #booklr #books #bookstack #yvesdot #selfpublishing #indie author

[goose-books]

please check out @yvesdot's remastered debut! trust me, it's worth a read and a reread and a re-revisit. for the blog tour, i give you... another blast from the past, an old-fashioned writeblr-style comic sans powerpoint!

Something’s Not Right, published by tRaum Books, will be released October 10th 2023 and is available to preorder at Amazon, Bookshop.org, and itch.io. It will also be available upon release signed from Bookshop Santa Cruz. yves. will also have a local event at 6:30 PM on October 12th at the Santa Cruz Diversity Center and another on January 4th 2024 (to be announced) at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

(my sixth favorite story is koschei, btw. shoutout to koschei. sorry i left you off the slides)

(slides described under the cut)

all slides are written in white comic sans on a black background.

slide one: text reading "FIVE reasons YOU should read" over a cropped image of the cover for Something's Not Right, featuring the title. smaller comic sans next to the image reads "by yves."

slide two: at the center of the slide, text reads "1. IT'S GAY!" smaller text boxes, scattered around the slide, read:

so many transgender people

you want fluff? we got fluff. you want angst? we got angst. you want high octane drama? we got it

you like metaphors for queerness? we’ve got metaphors for queerness

some characters’ identities are plot relevant! some of them just happen to be trans!

there’s even an m/f couple i actually like!

there’s literally a lesbian robot what else am i supposed to say

first book where i ever saw a they/them lesbian referred to as a woman and they at the same time <3 <3 <3

you want monsterfucking? we got—

between the first and third boxes is this image of feathers. beneath the monsterfucking box is this image of a halo/eclipse. beneath the they/them lesbian box is the anakin image from this post, reading, "dyke business. go back to your drinks"

slide three: the top of the slide reads "2. CLEVER USE OF TROPES AND TALES." the bullet points beneath read:

the author was a lit major & lovingly: it shows

fresh takes on everything from sexy vampires to demigod/human romance

do you like russian folklore? do you wish it was set in your high school

hansel and gretel story followed immediately by wlw fairies

STORY WHERE VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN GOES TO A PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCE

an arrow points from the sexy vampire bullet to an image of edward cullen, captioned "this guy isn't in there." another points from the frankenstein bullet to a picture of the book Frankenstein, captioned "this guy is, tho"

slide four: at the center of the slide, text reads "3. DELIGHTFUL NARRATIVE VOICE." smaller text boxes read "the sheer range of the range of character narrations in this book is impressive and so fun" and "we got teen talk we got litfic prose we got monsters narrating we got ordinary people." there are also three quotes from various stories, set in speech bubbles:

“Everyone’s cousin Tanya says she’s done it with an elf dude. That doesn’t mean shit.”

“And all of these things were true, and simultaneous, and all of them were occurring only a moment before she might be killed, and rise again.”

“At first, the plants seemed quite innocuous, and Ephraim watched them pile up on the windows of the little greenhouse with mild curiosity.”

there is also an edited image of the "she doesn't have the range" meme, reading, "they have the range."

slide five: the top of the slide reads "4. DON’T LIKE ONE-OFFS? NO PROBLEM!" the bullet points beneath read:

do you prefer your short stories unrelated to each other? completely tonally variant?

SNR has got that!

do you prefer your short stories interconnected? do you like recurring characters? do you want to see… characters from OTHER yves. projects?

SNR has got that too!

smaller text boxes read "Red and Eliza from Forest Castles are there!" and "maybe avner too. i'm not allowed to say"

there is also a picture of hannah montana's "best of both worlds" album.

slide six: the top of the slide reads "5. THERE ARE NEW STORIES IN IT!" the bullet points beneath read:

already an SNR fan? already have a copy? you haven’t yet read the new content!

THREE new stories

what if the alien abductee you were interviewing had questions… for you?

what if you had to love-potion your crush… for someone else?

what if you had to come out to your date… AS A MONSTER?

there are clipart images on the side of an alien spaceship, a bubbling potion, and a lit candle.

slide seven: word art with a glowing green shadow reads "max's favorite stories :)". each story blurb goes with a corresponding image:

Six Hours Under: the woman on the L train is crying, dead, and very very pretty. [clipart of a train]

Monsters and The Guy: there’s a guy in Arrivals. he’s being weird about it. [clipart of an airport]

The Hands and The Mouth: the story-speakers speak only in script. there are only a few of them left. [clipart of rolling waves]

Don't Feel Guilty: a teen’s plant collection starts to unnerve their father. [clipart of a leaf]

Blood Orange Tea: getting trapped at work with your crush is awkward even when you’re not a vampire. [clipart of iced tea]

slide eight: large text reads "THANK YOU. GO FORTH AND BUY SNR." in smaller text is the information paragraph from this post.

#max.txt #snr #something's not right #writers on tumblr #yvesdot #yves tag #by others #:) :) :)

[lazarusemma]

It's the blog tour of Something's Not Right's 5th anniversary! So, for @yvesdot and for you, in keeping with the 5 motif: five moodboards, each spotlighting three stories from SNR. That's fifteen stories you should be excited to read, and only a fraction of what SNR has to offer! I couldn't even feature all of my favorites - get your hands on a copy just for "to hold a faerie court," "folly," and "koschei," and then tell a friend. Dozens of weird little stories are waiting for you...

Something’s Not Right, published by tRaum Books, will be released October 10th 2023 and is available to preorder at Amazon, Bookshop.org, and itch.io. It will also be available upon release signed from Bookshop Santa Cruz. yves. will also have a local event at 6:30 PM on October 12th at the Santa Cruz Diversity Center and another on January 4th 2024 (to be announced) at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

#id in alt text #yvesdot #something's not right #blog tour #em og post #moodboards #book recommendations

[goosemixtapes]

thinking about how strange it is talking about your pretransition self. the narrative always used to be “WAS a [man/woman] and is NOW a [woman/man]” (and some people still say that! which is absolutely understandable and their prerogative), but then there was a push to change the narrative to “i was always a [man/woman/nonbinary person]; i just didn’t always know it.” which i think is a positive push because of its emphasis on the truth a person is living now. but it’s also just interesting talking about it because i’m sure many people do feel that they were always XYZ but i don’t, exactly. maybe because my transition was less binary and more of a steady settling into butchness. i’m not a girl. i’m barely a “““woman.””” but i WAS a little girl once. i refer to my past self with my current name & pronouns, but that doesn’t always feel right, because it so thoroughly wasn’t how i conceived of myself. but it still feels better than using my other name and pronouns, because those make my current self flinch even applied in retrospect. so there’s this weird balancing act. how do i describe who i was before i knew who i would be?

#max.txt #gender tag #this is okay to reblog i am posting it for yves lol #um usual disclaimer that i don't speak for all trans people this is literally musing on me and my thoughts/feelings specifically #prompted by yves my dear friend yves's commentary on their latest story. @yvesdot everyone go follow them and pledge to their patreon #[commercial jingle goes here]

[yvesdot]

I talked about this in the yvescord but I was apparently stopped in the shop by a mutual today?? So if you are the person to whom I said "I'm dripping" today:

Please reveal yourself I apologize for not having recognized you (it is not personal)

I meant "with sweat"

#txt #Imagine being a follower who has not read my writing and seeing this. I promise it's not always this way. #For those wondering what happened it's what it sounds like. Second time someone in the shop has said “yvesdot?!” and it was just as spooky.

[veneritia]

tagging people i'd like to know better

Thanks @zorya-km for tagging me!

Last Song: the fruits by paris paloma

Favourite Colour: dark blue

Currently Watching: Queen of Tears, it's honestly one of the things i look forward to every weekend.

Spicy/Savoury/Sweet: savory and sweet. unfortunately i'm sensitive to spicy things. I can handle a little bit, though

Relationship Status: Single (not interested in a relationship)

Current Obsession: nothing really at the moment? it's a boring answers, I know, but I've just been too busy to be obsessed over anything. I've been mostly either just rewatching things, or catching up on whatever videos or manhuas i've missed.

tagging: @inky-duchess @yvesdot @maddstermind + everyone who sees this tag and feels up to it!

#collection.tag games

[ettawritesnstudies]

The last post that I made with these was queued before the holidays and had the wrong set of graphics (oops. that's what I get for trying to cram 3 ARC reviews into December.) So I'm sharing the new ones now!

I had the privilege of reading and reviewing the 5th anniversary edition of Something's Not Right: a queer, Jewish, speculative fiction anthology written by writeblr's very own @yvesdot. Not only that, but yves was also so gracious as to do an interview with me! The audio is available on youtube, but you can also find a transcript here!

#etta rambles #other people's writing #writeblr #indie authors #indie author interview #indie books #boost #signal boost #Youtube

[sharraus]

No Context Tag

thanks to @blind-the-winds for the tag!

taken from the second book of History That Is Now, chapter 03:

Helen takes a deep, calming breath and opens her eyes. “Just… step out of the mud.” “But my shoes are stuck!” Margot complains and wiggles her foot. Helen breathes into her stomach. “I can see your shoe moving, Margot.” “It’s not!” Margot calls and throws up her hands. She loses her balance and topples over, landing on her ass in the mud. She lets out a yelp and then a stream of French expletives and Helen lets the breath out slowly. “Amazing.”

going to tag @writeblrfantasy @the-finch-address @nikkywrites @zmwrites @yvesdot @dallonwrites @magic-is-something-we-create and anyone else who wants to join

#tag game #tagged #history that is now #shadowhunters #shadowhunters fanfiction #helen blackthorn

[concerningwolves]

Celebratory excerpt from The Kindness of Ravens

living dangerously by sharing an excerpt (about 400 words) from the climax of the book, because I'm finally content with how the plot for TKoR is working and no longer feel like it's an irredeemable mess :D Spoiler warning: This is spoiler territory for TKoR (and therefore technically for The Wyrdseren as a whole) so I've trimmed a few passages that would give too much away. That said, enjoy! Your patience as I slogged through this book has been deeply appreciated. <3

Aethren’s hand turned real and warm around Thrigg’s. It was the same hand she had held so often: strong, articulated, still calloused in all the familiar places. Thrigg saw through cracked eyelids the tiny little scars on Aethren’s fingers. She thought about how much she wanted to kiss each and every one of those scars, and she knew she had to persevere if she hoped to see a world where that could happen.

But she couldn’t do it. This weave was too much, too vast. Even with Aethren’s power bleeding into hers, even with their scalding determination flowing through her veins, her body was doing something it had never been made to do. She didn’t have the power of a wyrdaetha within her. She was only Thrigg, a human hunter who had wandered hundreds of miles away from home into a world she’d never meant to know.

She felt the strain of the weave in her teeth, her heart, her soul. Her eyes were shut because if she didn’t squeeze her eyelids closed she was sure they would burst, and her brain felt like it was trying to escape out of her nasal passage.

Her body unravelled. This was not the controlled flow of self through the wyrdness, but a total surrender. Currents of magic, frenzied by Aethren’s power, lashed her to-and-fro. She was aware, distantly, of Hvonar’s rage turning to mindless, screaming horror – and then she was aware of nothing else.

She’d wanted to change, hadn’t she? Not like this, true, but the choice was no longer hers. It was almost a relief, save for a final, niggling sense that she was losing something she’d wanted yet never found in either of her lifetimes.

“Thrigg!”

That voice . . . She knew it, didn’t she? Yes, yes she did. It was what she wanted. It—

“Thrigg, come back! Please.”

Clarity seized her in an icy fist.

Particle by particle, fibre by fibre, Thrigg felt herself being drawn back into the world. It didn’t hurt. Some vast presence was cradling her, holding her together, and all she had to do was let it.

Then the presence became a pair of calloused hands, warm and sweaty against her cheeks.

“C’mon, Thrigg. I can’t hold you both much longer.” Aethren sounded exhausted, frightened, pushed to their limits.

Thrigg opened her eyes. Above her, Aethren’s face broke into a near-radiant smile.

Taglist for the The Wyrdseren: @yvesdot @kriss-the-writing-nerd @lady-redshield-writes @thespooniewrites @weaver-of-fantasies-and-fables @kwriteswords @incandescent-creativity @heniareth @ofvisitorsthefairest @chauceryfairytales @royalbounties-main-blog @corishadowfang @novel-novelist

#writeblr #the wyrdseren

[bluedelliquanti]

Adversary reader questions! (part 1)

From yvesdot:

I just couldn't stop noticing all the incredible details and the way you drew backgrounds and perspective shots and so on, so I'm curious if there's anything in specific you feel you really improved at or had to improve at to make the comic.

Similar question: top tiny detail or foreshadowing you hope(d) readers will catch?

It helped that I had recently started teaching a class on perspective drawing and worldbuilding, so I assigned myself a lot of exercises that I gave to students. A question I ask is who the “viewer” of a scene is intended to be. Adversary is often framed through Curtis’s visual perspective, but not always. There are certain things that he doesn’t see or can’t recognize, and I was very deliberate about what those moments were. I was also trying to pay attention to details that made Minneapolis recognizable - graffiti with instructions on how to vote in the city election, apartment space heaters, lakeside paths, that kind of thing.

I had a limited window in which I could show what Anton’s apartment normally looked like, so I made it count. One half of the living room is tidy and presentable for a webcam while the other half is cluttered and neglected. He has several Andreas Malm books on his shelf. The poster on his wall is for the absurd 1986 body horror film From Beyond.

#adversary #ask #comics

[butchniqabi]

"What do you mean?"

"You've always been the religious type haven't you?" he asked condescendingly, "I would've assumed you would be praising your all-merciful God for bringing you back from the dead."

Mercedes stared at him for a long moment. "He didn't bring me back, Alain, you did. And should God have truly shown me mercy, He would've never allowed you to defile my existence this way."

i couldnt pick my favorite cover so i used all of the ones i made...oops? of course i Had to do special dreams after @brownpaperhag tagged me in this...i couldnt NOT do it.

for those of you who dont know the plot a basic tldr: mercedes imperial, an assassin working with a terrorist organization for the last 300 years, is finally killed. 20 years after she is sent to the digital penitentiary, archivists receive her cyberorganetic data and place it into a cloned body. mercedes imperial, a 23 year old taking a gap year before grad school, wakes up into a nightmare and is expected to recount and confess her crimes. her captors, previously unaware of the failsafe that erased centuries worth of memories, endeavour to mold her into a tool of propaganda. mercedes, unsure of what is fact and fiction, is forced to navigate the politics of a new world and discover how she became the woman she did.

i taaaag @fluoresensitive @yvesdot @statikkling @tsippor and anyone else who wants to <3

#my writing #special dreams in which you exist #phew this took a minute....didnt mean for it to take forever but 🧍🏽‍♂️ #um idk idk have at thee!!! <3333 #also im a lil unsure about the thandiwe newton cover...its more like thats kind of the concept i might want yk? #okay im dont for realsies this time afwbend

[goose-books]

goose-books productions: a 2023 review

only [checks watch] two months late! view the image in higher quality here; read past years-in-review here; and thank you as always to my beloved @yvesdot for the template!

i shan't be dishonest; 2023 was not exactly the year of max. but i still got a lot of good writing done! transcripts + commentary under the cut, and, uh, take the godsong character roster again.

cws: animal death (february), pregnancy/miscarriage + body image issues (july), addiction (september), self-harm-as-metaphor (october)

january

what’s that? godsong ran away with me for another year? well, it does that. in the second of a plotted trilogy, anna (roughly: what if aeneas were a very sad lesbian?) and her lieutenants visit a soothsayer. ichari wants to kill for her, btw. anna please let them kill for you,

“Have we got to sacrifice an animal?” Sascha said, tilting his head. “Let you dig around in the entrails?” “If you’d like,” the Sibyl said, upper lip wrinkling. “But I’m haughty enough to believe I can make do with a bit of holy blood. Not you. Annadrijanna, if you would give me your hand.” Anna didn’t move. Her eyes widened, very slightly, as she stared at the hand the Sibyl had extended to her, palm up. Ichari’s hand was on their knife again before they could blink. Damn the gods and Avender’s Sibyl, and damn Anna’s quest, the moment she needed it they could have their blade in the prophet’s throat no matter what holy punishment tumbled down on their heels— “It won’t be like the other,” the Sibyl said, nodding to Anna’s right hand. “I keep my tools clean. Far less messy than entrails.” From their cloak pocket they drew a glinting silver pin, topped with a bead of pearl. “Just a prick, that’s all.” Ichari couldn’t tell if Anna’s chest was rising and falling beneath the robes, or if she had calcified entirely. “Anna,” they said, soft, warning. Almost pleading. Just give me the word, Anna. Just say the word. “You’ve a lot of ghosts clinging to your robes, Annadrijanna,” the Sibyl said softly. “I need a bit of life.”

february

while anna’s doing that, ambergris is causing problems. raised in regency patriarchyville, she recently befriended a dragon and received Powers; now she’s working toward 1. making it seem like her family’s manor is haunted 2. killing her parents and 3. having gay sex. not necessarily in that order.

Blood and yolk still stuck to her hands, gumming the webbing between thumb and forefinger. But it was a pretty picture, the mews desecrated, the falcons gone mad and tearing open their eggs. The duchy would whisper that Pyranimia had forsaken even the birds, that the Armindale fortune was suffocating in broken shells, and no one would consider that it was only nature, that rabbits and snakes and stable cats would swallow down their young if they got hungry. But not here, Ambergris thought, serene, picturing what her mother would say when she learned of the mews—the slight twitch of her mouth before her face settled back into glacial calm. Not you. You wish you could. You’re starving for it. But you won’t be rid of me now. You don’t know that yet. But I hold you in my hands now. If I were really a sorceress, I could twist up your body, ruin the organs that made me, the ones that hurt you. Or I could take them out and let you go free. She could sympathize. Abandoned by the goddess, she too might have withered and waned, and come to loathe the children sapping her strength as they grew inside her body. But her mother had made Ambergris too well for that—too cold to love a child or a husband, too cold to shrink from blood. You took the knife from your chest and put it in mine, Ambergris thought. But the gods have been watching. My god has been watching. The storm is building. And before I ever let you eat me, Mother, I will finish a daughter’s work and drain you dry. She raised her hand to her mouth, where her thumb met her forefinger, and licked away the blood.

march

in the spring i wrote a very long paper about antony and cleopatra (the shakespeare play, and also the people, and also the echoes of their story in the aeneid). which got me thinking about the deliberate narrative parallels between dido and cleopatra, which got me writing a ten-minute play where they have a one-night stand. happens to the best of us. i’m very proud of how this one came out, actually, but i have no idea what to do with it. target audience of weird lesbian classicists?

D: I want to be someone they don’t write tragedies about. C: (to the audience) Well. How charmingly ironic. D: If I could just—have—if I could just—just a life. Just someone who loves me. Just someone who won’t go away. Something boring. Something monotone. I don’t care how good I look burning. I want to stop being on fire. C: You have absolutely no sense of flair. D: I miss my sister. (A pause. She looks to C.) C: Can’t help you there. I had mine killed. D: (exhausted) Happens.

april

fans of the aeneid, please enjoy The Scene In Which The Protag Loses To A Tree. if godsong ever drops i will accept a 10-page double-spaced essay about how it is in conversation with the jason & medea myth.

Anna set his jaw. He braced his wooden hand against the trunk, then stepped up onto the coil and reached for the golden branch. It was slick and cold under his fingers, closer to stone than wood; Anna took hold and yanked. The branch slid from his fingers. Anna grabbed the trunk so he didn’t fall backward, ice jolting up his spine. The serpent hadn’t moved. Again he tried to snap the branch. A whisper of leaves as it bent, but there was no give; again his sweat-damp hand fell away. The word that slipped from his mouth startled him, because it was the sort of word no one used in a temple, something Caradorra had been scolded for saying in front of their mother. Another glance at Sascha. The serpent hadn’t stirred. Anna wiped his hand on his robes, straining up on his toes, and wrapped his hand around the base of the branch. If he could saw at it—but his sword lay gleaming and useless in the grass, his calves starting to ache, the branch warming under his touch. Please, Iv, please, please, please— He ignored the flicker in the corner of his eye: movement from the lakeside. But then came the hiss, rising like steam from the water thrown at the charred walls of a burning city, and his blood ran cold. Breaking from the lake, wet and shimmering, came an enormous frilled head. The second serpent, awake and alert, slitted yellow eyes fixed on Anna. It moved faster than thought—legs bunching, coils rippling, launching itself for the tree. “Sascha, down!” Ichari shouted from the treeline, and the gun went off, louder than godly thunder, and the branch beside Anna burst into splinters, and as he gave a last desperate yank the golden branch snapped cleanly into his hand.

may

while working on the actual plot of godsong, i was also fleshing out the backstory, and ended up stumbling into the personalities of anna’s parents (a t4t4t throuple! let’s go gay people). so here’s a bit of anna backstory from the perspective of his mother, who is wonderful and nervous. did you know anna was chosen for priesthood at age 11? probably had no long-term psychological effect on her at all.

It was a celebration for Eli’s records: three days and three nights of festival feasting, of singing and dancing and hymns, of the temple bells ringing a clangorous echo from dawn until dusk. In past years, after past Ivtouchings, the celebrations had been citywide but quieter, briefer—the ceremonial anointment before the temple doors, to mark the new priest as a new melody in Iv’s living voice, and then a song. But it had been three hundred years since Iv had plucked a child from the rings of Ivander to holiness. No simple ceremony would suffice. On the first day, the older Ivtouched helped Anna atop an oxcart, the horns of each ox wrapped in gold ribbon, and led him in cheering parade through the city’s spiraling roads to the temple. In the street, in the surging shouting crowds that followed on foot, Radi cheered her voice hoarse and tried to etch the picture into her memory: the brilliant blue of the sky, the loose tail of ribbon flapping from one oxhorn, the glint of the sun off the bronze-painted spokes of the cart’s wheels. All of those details she might have set to canvas, with a small enough brush and a steady enough hand. But she knew even then that she wouldn’t try. There was no replicating her son’s smile, so broad it must have ached, or the dazed look of joy in his eyes. As if he were dreaming and praying not to wake. As if some curtain had unveiled before him to show him the heavens in shining vivid color, the world created for him anew. Someone else’s hands would mark him holy; someone else’s hands had dressed him in the dark Ivtouched robes, billowing out behind him in the breeze. He wasn’t quite tall enough. The hem was pinned up so it didn’t drag. Every few minutes atop the cart, Anna’s hand drifted down to hike the fabric up, more twitchy than deliberate, each yank a quiet spear through Radi’s heart.

june

please refer to my february comments on that list of ambergris’s.

Ambergris regarded them coolly. She had pulled them around the back of the orchestra into a corner: curtained from the rest of the room by a clot of musicians, the strings near too loud to speak over, the lanterns throwing warped shadows over the floor. “I apologize,” she said, slow, “if I startled you, Captain. I’d like a word.” Ichari’s heart still pattered at their ribs. Again they forced down the shaking need to wipe that faint smirk from her face. “You’ve had a few. You satisfied yet?” “Y-you’ve met my husband,” Ambergris said, “twice now.” So she had been watching, then, probably sunken into the shadows like a grotesque. “Twice too many times,” they said, curling their lip. “You aren’t impressed.” “Don’t let me offend your wifely sensibilities.” Ichari flashed their wickedest grin to see if she would squirm. “But you’re too pretty to go to waste on an ill-dressed fool’s limp cock.” Ambergris didn’t flinch, but her eyes widened slightly. Big innocent eyes, Sascha’s eyes, with all the guilelessness of a kitten. “Am I?” “Too good for him? I’m sorry you had to find out this way, duchess.” “Not duchess,” Ambergris said, “yet. I find—I know I’m too good. Am I pretty.”

july

more backstory, this time in second person about ambergris’s mother, who gets a POV in the book proper. not a very fun POV, but there's generational trauma to explore. creusa is the doctor that's been called in to help jonquilla through a miscarriage; she is gnc as fuck (jonquilla voice: you're insane).

Four weeks Creusa tends your bedside—four fuzzy weeks drifting in and out of fever, your thoughts racing like loosed horses, as you bleed out the last of your hoped-for heir. You loathe her for it, with a bright-hot intensity you can only grasp for moments at a time between unconsciousnesses. You loathe her for daring to pity you, for helping you sit up to drink down your pain relief; you loathe her for doing it well. You loathe her because she is fresh and young and rosy-cheeked and you are soft and lumpy and pathetic. You loathe her because she is beautiful despite all she does to destroy it, despite the way she prowls the manor in trousers, despite the fact that you have never once seen her suck in her stomach. Beautiful the way you were mere years ago. Beautiful enough to make breath catch when those worn fingers tuck her shorn hair behind her ears. What gives her the right to see you like this? What gives her the right to sprawl out in your home, in your chambers, in all her impropriety? What gives her the right to choose to be—this? Does she have a husband somewhere who lets her run free? Children she tends to with the same slight curve of a smile she gives you? Sisters? Brothers? Who does she fall into bed with at night? You want to step inside her skin, to pry it up, to take her apart and see how her heart beats. She’s had her hands in enough of your blood. You want to hold her organs. Your dreams come in tatters. Your stomach swollen to bursting again. The endless hallways. Dittany soaring away from you. Children squirming in your gut. Creusa stroking your hair. Sometimes those are not dreams, you think; sometimes your eyes flutter open and she is there, patient, quiet, calm. As she always is, except for the crease in her soft rose-petal lips, because when you are asleep she does not smile at you. She watches you as if she is afraid for you. She watches you as if she is guilty of something.  There are other dreams, too. Dreams you refuse to remember.

august

in august i had a Medical Experience. but first i finished the draft of godsong2, because i never fucking lose. this bit is from the very last scene, where no one is doing well.

Most days she shaved her face each day after morningsong, when she had the strength and a passable mirror. In Ivander she had not needed to, but she liked the look of it, the cleanness; in Armindale Manor she had been particularly careful. Sascha must have noticed, or picked it up from her face, because he scrambled wobbling back to his feet. “I’ll fetch a razor, eh?” “Sascha—” Ichari started, but Sascha waved a hand. “I’ll do it, Anna,” he said, earnest. Her twinge of warmth was faint; she inclined her head slightly. They had done something like this before, Sascha scrunching up next to her to wind his fingers through her hair—hair, Anna realized distantly, that was soot-choked and tangled now. He had spun her waves into a thick braid, then a number of tiny ones, chattering all the while; she had repaid him for it once with a spiraling swirl of mehndi across each of his fluttery hands. Now, though, when he held the razor up to her face, there was a new trepidation in the set of his lips. It took Anna too many sticky seconds to realize he was trying and failing to settle the terrible shake in his hands. “Sorry,” he said, blanching, when Anna looked at him. “Ah, I’m sorry, I…” “Armindale,” Ichari said, soft. Gentler than she had ever heard his name in their voice. They held out a palm. “S’okay.” Anna tilted her face toward them. Sascha scooted back to wrap his arms around his knees and watch Ichari sliver the hair from her chin, one hand braced against her cheek, their hands callused and cold and kind.

september

and we've reached the part of the year where school hit me like a Fucking Train. here's some carronash. that is, MILF julius caesar x neopronouns mark antony, in an extremely uneven borderline-religious-worship dynamic that has swallowed the latter's entire life (more about their deal here). you know, out of context here, they almost look sweet.

Ash shut xir eyes so xe wouldn’t see her hear it, and xe croaked, “I need a drink.” Her chest rose and fell beneath xim in silence. Somewhere beyond xir walls, a cart rattled over the streets. “I know,” Ash said, panic starting to rise cold in xir throat. “I know—I know, but it hurts, I need a drink, Julienne, it hurts, I think I’m going to die. I think I might fucking die.” I know you do, she had said the last time xe��d told her xe needed a drink. I know you do. I know you know why it’s a bad idea. And she had kissed xir forehead like an anointment and held xim when xe shook with frustrated sobs. Nothing now. Just her hand combing through xir curls. “Julienne,” Ash said, near a whine, the craving a spidery itch beneath xir skin. “Ash,” Julienne said. “Am I asking too much of you?” It didn’t sound like a condemnation. Xir insides curled anyway. “No,” xe said, small as a scolded child. “No, I just—I just…” “If it’s too much,” she said, soft. “If you can’t bear it. There’s no shame in that.”

october

i posted this poem here, but we’ll see it again! i think it’s kind of heavy-handed, but that's what happens when you try to articulate an insanity.

2:35 grindstone // max franciscovich there is a knife in my hand. there is a knife i am holding in the palm of my hand. i hold it by the blade. when i squeeze the blood runs down through the webbings of my fingers and the sting is hot. if i uncurl my fingers i will let go of the knife and it will not hurt. if i let go of the knife i will forget pain. suffering and fear will dull and scab over and my eyes will close. when i squeeze i remember it hurts. i remember i am dangerous. my eyes can close. i can cut with a touch. if i let go of the knife it will not hurt to make a fist. if i let go of the knife i will make a fist. if i let go of the knife in my hand i will forget there is a knife in my hand. when i squeeze the sting whets my thoughts and i see the world in all its brutal glory and i touch nothing i could ruin. there is a knife in my hand. there is a knife i am holding in the palm of my hand.

november

no nano this year :( i was being crushed by school and mentals, unfortunately. which sucks, because i've had a streak since 2018! but alas. next year. i did write a little more godsongverse backstory, set in anna's old city and starring the book's hector and andromache figures (ira and lucia, respectively; imi and nia are their twin toddlers).

Here was a part of the war that would not be told: that sometimes it would be late, very late, the sun sunken into the earth and the children in bed, before Ira came home. That Imi and Nia were asleep, Lucia suspected, was not an effect but a reason, because sometimes her heart-knit lover was nigh unrecognizable in the doorway, hunched and haggard, bathed in gore, and the twins would have been terrified. Blasphemous, maybe, for Lucia to see the dried blood cracking in rivulets on Ira’s skin and think of Iv’s shattered face. But even blasphemy was better than the other reason she shied from the thought—that likening Ira to the holiest of martyrs felt like giving up. Giving into what she suspected everyone else already thought inevitable. After the first night she had stopped fearing the worst. There would have been no missing the uproar in the city. Her fears were simpler: how much blood there might be, how many times Ira would wake in the night. But unless the wailing rose high enough to shake the temple down, the sixth wall of Ivander stood, and Lucia sat at home with the spinning and waited.

december

and… would you look at that, more godsong. i did write non-godsong things this year! but most of them are short stories i'm hoping to send out for publication, so i'm not keen on sharing yet. this, however, is literally a godsong x hadestown AU that i’ve been calling spadestown, and if i ever finish it i Will be posting it here. in a beautiful alternate world, godsong is an annaspades romcom. (it's not even that in this AU.)

Lying on the bed watching Anna write, Spades said, “You know xim. The queen.” Not an accusation, exactly. But a search for solid ground, an escape from the ice shifting under her. At the desk, Anna tapped the end of his pen against his lips. Distracting lips, unfairly plush. “Yes,” he said after an absent moment. “It is—natural. Xe returns every summer.” “Only here?” “As far back as I remember.” Anna blinked; Spades watched it sink in. “But not where you come from.” Spades shrugged. There were gods where she had come from, too. Not the sort one poured drinks for. “I suppose we can’t all be holy,” she said, reaching out across the narrow span of the room to his chair. Anna took her hand, his skin warm against hers, his pen calluses already familiar—the tip of his second finger, the inside of his third. When she closed her eyes, Ash’s grin flashed behind her lids. Xe must have known who she was. Gods always knew. “Sing it again,” she said, patting the bed beside her. Anna was staring at the page. He hummed another bar under his breath. Spades thought she might have to get up, to close the journal for him, to slip the pen from his hands and kiss him and hope he kissed back instead of dreaming louder. Then Anna said, “Sing what?” Spades tipped his chair back to hear him yelp. “What do you think, dipshit?” “My song?” Anna said, and there was his little winking smile. “Or our wedding hymn?” There was only one bed in the attic room, so they slept curled together. Invariably Spades woke with silky hair in her mouth. Not bad, she figured, for a night always warm.

and that's a wrap! i know i didn't post much this year, but i'm still hard at work at various odds and ends. thank you for sticking around, and i hope everyone reading this has a wonderful 2024!

#max.txt #max actually writes #year in review #okay tags time innit. #godsong tag #anna ivtouched #ichari felidore #sascha armindale #ambergris armindale #jonquilla armindale #julienne carron #ash pyrris #hellenira ivtouched #lucia tag #< poor girl doesn't have a last name yet. that's on me #cinquedea spades

[innocentlymacabre]

NOW THEY CALL ME THE PLAGUE⤳ find the word tag game

Thanks for the tag, @lexiklecksi!

benefit

Now sure he was invisible, Trance turned his attention away from the bickering – which kind of reminded him of him and Eda – and towards the room. Just another benefit of his other-worldly ghost powers, he assumed.

monster

Humans spend a lot of their time dismissing that which is seldom available to them. They turn them away with a brush of their hand, discarding them as hallucinations or insanity, crediting overwork, stress, a lack of rest, or any number of inane reasons that they would ever be privy to something that didn’t immediately fit their world. They never seem to stop to consider the possibility of it being something special possibly taking time out of their busy day to make themselves known to you. Back home, there were stories of little tears in the air – tiny shreds in the universe’s fabric it had forgotten to sew up. According to those stories, some of the Dreaming – or dream folk, if you’re so inclined – were known to cross through these shreds from time to time. The monster under your bed. The shadow in the corner of your eye. The whisp of movement you swore you saw the second you turned away from the mirror. The sudden light breeze on an otherwise still, baking day. The quick, momentary scuffle on a perfectly noiseless night, the disturbance gone as quickly as it came. Your mind is not playing tricks on you. Your mind does not play tricks on you. We do.

surprise

Eda cast a look around the terrain that had imprisoned her and almost choked on sand in surprise. She’d been here before! Then the dread came rising back. She’d been here before. And if memory served – which it unfortunately did – her last experience had been just as pleasant as this one.

Unfortunately didn't find anything for grumpy or beloved at the moment. Tagging @yvesdot, @rydykg, and @jailforwriter to find horizon, frenzy, and doom, if you're so inclined :)

If this book sounds like your thing, I would absolutely love you forever if you could buy me a coffee to support its development!

#tag games #ntcmp #writeblr #fiction #historical fiction #horror #gothic horror #gothic fiction #speculative fiction #writeblrcafe #wtwcommunity #piratecore #dark academia #dark academia aesthetic #chaotic aesthetic #writers of tumblr #writers on tumblr #writing #SFF #queer SFF #this is a secondary blog so i can only interact through reblogs!

[goosemixtapes]

max's favorite short stories & articles!

to be updated as i read new things! "articles" could be anything from political points to philosophical musings to fascinating stories. obligatory statement that i don't necessarily agree with everything in every one of these stories/articles, but i think about them a lot and want to share :)

short stories

Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live by Sacha Lamb (@kuttithevangu) (novella) (so says the writing on the bathroom mirror. of gender & judaism & magic and t4t trans guys. cw for suicidal ideation and bullying)

Epistolary by Sascha Lamb ("The [stuffed] frog you are selling on your blog is MINE and he is NOT HAUNTED and his name is MOSHE not BILLY HOPPER.")

Chokechain by Andrew Joseph White (a trans man discovers his parents have replaced him with a robot version of his pretransition self. cw for transphobia and violence)

Sandrine by Alexandra Munck (the tagline for this one is "I dated a sun god in college" but that doesn't do justice to the sheer concept here please read this)

The Traveler Wife by yves. @yvesdot (an astronaut writes to the wife she left back home)

You Wouldn't Have Known About Me by Calvin Gimpelevich (set in a hospital ward where patients are recovering from gender-confirming surgery)

No Flight Without the Shatter by Brooke Bolander (novella) ("After the world’s end, the last young human learns a final lesson from Earth’s remaining animals." cw for climate change/extinction)

And You Shall Know Her By The Trail Of Dead by Brooke Bolander (what if you had to death-match-fight a virtual version of yourself at your meanest made by your boyfriend whose life you're trying to save would that be fucked up or what. cws for guns and violence)

Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang (stories that clock you in the fucking teeth in the religious trauma.)

A Serpent for Each Year by Tamara Jerée (microfiction) ("Our relationship is almost a year old when I ask Nal why she is covered in snakes." cw for animal death)

The Front Line by W.C. Dunlap (microfiction) (cited as one of the world's finest attention-grabber openings. cws for police brutality, racism, and SA)

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience by Rebecca Roanhorse (step into the simulation and gain an authentic experience! cws for anti-Native racism and alcohol)

articles & essays

Lockhart's Lament (on how math is taught in schools. that is, badly. one of the most cathartic essays i've ever read on education)

Against Cop Shit by Jeffrey Moro (on adversarial education)

I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out. by Jennifer Coates (do you have to be out to be a woman? cw for transphobia, homophobia, and eating disorders)

Debunking "Trans Women Are Not Women" Arguments by Julia Serano (comprehensive, well-written, good to have as a reference point)

On Liking Women by Andrea Long Chu (and on the politics of desire)

Turning a Unicorn Into a Bat by Josh and Lolly Weed (on Mormonism, love, and whether a gay man and a straight woman can marry happily. cw for homophobia)

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price (musings on motivation from a social psychologist and professor)

How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Peterson (how come everything happens so much?)

White Women Drive Me Crazy by Aisha Mirza (on the harm caused by white women. cw for racism)

Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong by Michael Hobbes (should be required reading for everyone at this point. cw for fatphobia and eating disorders)

Becoming Anne Frank by Dara Horn (on the cultural fascination with Anne Frank. cw for antisemitism)

The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem ([on/a] plagiarism)

On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People by Patricia Taxxon (video essay) (ostensibly what the title says, but actually a detailed musing on the essential properties of furry media and the freedom of dehumanization; changed my life a bit)

#max.txt #yayayayayay :) #i've decided i'm going to start doing the 'what i read this month' thing #so this is like #my base to come backt o and update when i find new favorites #readings

[onomatopiya]

5 Somethings: Celebrating the 5th Anniversary of Something's Not Right by @yvesdot

hello all! as many of you may know, my beloved mutual @yvesdot has a really banger book that's approaching its 5th anniversary right now! which is super exciting and a MASSIVE accomplishment which means we have to celebrate <3 thus, i give you 5 somethings (or: my top five short stories from SNR)

#1. my parents are spies

oh my goddddd this one got me man. i think yves has this insanely powerful ability to tell a story from between the lines--the metaphor and the paranoia worked so perfectly and made me have to close my laptop and pace on a school night. 10/10. holy shit. amazing. this especially hits in the closeted feels it's everything

#2. blood orange tea

i'll be honest and say that vampires usually aren't my thing but i LOVED this one. it was so sweet and ended on such a nice note AND it explored the depths of humanity vs monstrosity in SUCH a clever way. mel i adore you forever

#3. parent teacher conference

I LOVED THIS ONE. WAAAH. when parents love their children that is something that is so personal to me. it definitely hit home and had such a nice heart to it <3333 when the love is unconditional also . wails forever i love family

#4. soliloquy

this one just really stuck out to me for reasons i can't even explain. the language. the art aspect of it all. goes NUTS goes INSANE it definitely stayed with me as i finished the collection itself which says so much about it in my opinion

#5. of the night

i adored the texture of this one SO much. there was such a world built up in such a small space!!! it was so evocative and cleverly done, and the end grabbed me by the throat and Shook me. AH. love love loved it

and overall this collection is just. SO gorgeous and crafted with love and care. recommending for a thousand years go order it!!!!!

Something’s Not Right, published by tRaum Books, will be released October 10th 2023 and is available to preorder at Amazon, Bookshop.org, and itch.io. It will also be available upon release signed from Bookshop Santa Cruz. yves. will also have a local event at 6:30 PM on October 12th at the Santa Cruz Diversity Center and another on January 4th 2024 (to be announced) at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

#writeblr #writblr #blog tour #short fiction #booklr #book review #writers on tumblr #creative writing