If you're contacting me with the express intent of pitching some kind of service, be it editorial feedback, artists commissions, collaboration requests, or whatever else to try and get money out of me,
I AM NOT INTERESTED.
ANYWAY. I'm Steph, a she/her lesbian adult from Canada (lol I'm old enough to drink and that's all I'm sharing), and I hate writing about myself, so I write about other people instead! My genre of choice is sci-fantasy, and everything I write is gonna be about queer women, because that's what I want to read about.
Tag game and ask friendly (lol so long as you aren't a scammer that is), and if you want off or on my taglist for games, drop a reply over here.
My main WIPs are below, Shackle and Noose being the one most of my focus is on at the moment, while the others are a little more all over the place. They're all linked to proper info pages if you wanna find out more!
We Stand Between the Shackle and the Noose
A space opera about a group of escaped slaves who stole an experimental stealth ship and an ancient mech, then joined up with a group of space pirate livestreamers in order to make money while they hunt down more ancient mechs, because the one they have is compelling them to do so. My plan is to write something in this setting every single day for 2026, and I'm posting as I go over here.
Silent Island of Crow | Island of Crows | Starcrossed Cycle
An old forum RP I'm editing into coherence, the remake of said RP my best friend and I are working on, and the history of my characters for this reboot. Across them all, these sci-fantasies are about strangers who are drawn together by some unknown force, and have to deal with the chaos that followed after them. Updates on all of these are pretty sporadic.
Fragment 48
A supernatural romance where a woman becomes obsessed with tracking down the beautiful stranger she happened to catch a quick glimpse of at a party, her driving force being that she's been dreaming about this woman ever since she was a child. Her journey will lead her down a bloodier path than she could have imagined, but she won't hesitate to tread it. Got a couple chapters done with this, but I won't be posting more than snippets until I get it done.
Oaths
A sword and sorcery fantasy where a knight errant rescues a mage from captivity, and the woman swears a life debt to her. They get up to an assortment of adventures as they travel across the land. This one's very loosey-goosey in terms of just about everything, from the planning to the writing, so your guess is as good as mine for when updates are going to happen for this.
We are but Smoke and Shadow
A romantasy where a vigilante who somewhat unwillingly works for the rebel forces trying to overthrow the corrupt monarchy of their land is forced to go undercover in the castle to see if either of the twin heirs will be someone the rebels can bring to their cause, or if both twins should be assassinated. The male heir quickly proves himself to be as bad as his reputation, but when the vigilante is taken on as the female heir's lady-in-waiting, she'll uncover secrets that could lead them both to an early grave. I'm mostly poking away at the outline for this one, so don't expect a lot from this for the time being.
Abyssal Scrutiny
An urban fantasy where a group of people receive strange powers from an unknown source, and get pulled into a secret underworld in order to fight it. This one's very much on the back burner at the moment, so updates for this are going to be few and far between.
lol I'm not consistent with anything I post on here, and don't bother with the queue, so you'll see me active whenever I'm actually online! If any of my nonsense sounds like it's up your alley, feel free to give me a follow or send a message or whatever ✌️
just finished this month's book club book, went skimming goodreads reviews afterwards as you do, got my breath taken away by this absolutely brutal ending to one of the multi-paragraph 1 star reviews
Look, I can't sleep, so you're getting a ramble, alright!? Gotta do something to shut my brain up
lol mayhaps a little TL;DR, but I came up with the original concept for Smoke and Shadow during a point in my life when I was desperately clinging to comphet, trying to convince myself that I was at most bi, and that my attraction to women was just a passing phase despite the fact that thinking about becoming some man's wife and the mother of his children filled me with such a profound horror that I don't know how to properly articulate it, so I was stuck in this place where I wanted to write romance, but in my head romance could only be het and I did not want to write het, and so I wouldn't write romance even thought I really really wanted to write romance
(so I ended up doing this thing where any time I DID write romance, it would be m/f, but then the lady lead would also have a really close lady friend who would have all the romantically charged, emotional scenes with her while her male love interest would also just kinda be there as basically set dressing. also had a lot of story ideas that ended up with the lady lead falling in with a het couple for a poly relationship, but I only ever fleshed out what went on with the two ladies lol whoops)
Being repressed until you're in your 20's fukkin suuuucks!!!! ✌️✌️✌️
Anyway, all of that is my long winded way of saying that once I figured out I was a lesbian and wanted nothing to do with men, fictional or otherwise, writing romance that I'd actually enjoy was on the plate, so what I want out of Smoke and Shadow now is different from my initial concept of it
It was always the story of two women who became vigilantes to fight the fucked up system they grew up in, but instead of being the pro-monarchy action thriller that I felt I had to shape it into, it's now a very anti-monarchy sapphic romantasy babey!!!
and so all of ^THAT^ is me taking the roundabout way to say that I wanted to noodle on here for a bit about what I actually want out of my romance. So that's going below the cut because if the lead in was long??? WOOF.
So the yays and the nays of it all, what do I actually want out of a romance? Gay ladies in love, obviously, but beyond that I like pining and yearning, two hearts desperately calling out to one another but kept apart for some reason.
(a couple being kept apart by outside forces while they're fighting tooth and nail to get to one another??? That's some good shit right there!!!)
But I'm PICKY about the reason they aren't together right off the bat. A lot of that has to do with the miscommunication trope, which I only like in a very specific circumstances, otherwise it makes me livid!!!!
An example that pissed me off from a fic I read recently: a married couple, who had been noted to be good at communicating with one another start having these little slips in said communication, so instead of, y'know, actually communicating, they immediately jump to divorce, all of it just a blatantly contrived way to have this separation angst that ends with them admitting they don't want to be separated, and then they don't touch on the miscommunication aspect of it beyond how it led to the split! The whole reason this plot happens is because the author had to make these characters wildly OOC by making them stop talking to one another for no real reason, and then doesn't even have the catharsis of them working on their issues, they're just back together again after saying they miss each other. I'M KILLING YOU WITH MY MIND, HELLO????
(honestly I'm not really a fan when an author has to go against a character's way of operating in order to move along to the plot point that they wanna hit. How about you use their pre-established flaws to get us there instead of inventing new ones when you intend on dropping them once they serve their purpose anyway?)
When it's unrequited love but actually not really, that's more my speed when it comes to the miscommunication angle. Like if one (or both!) has a secret that they fear will make the object of their affection leave them, so they keep them at arm's length while actively pining?? Which results in a tearful confession of said secret only for their partner to go "I don't care about that, I care about you" 100% sign me the fuck up immediately
Or if they're both pining but think that the other doesn't feel the same way, that it's at most a friends with benefits situation, or just really close friends and the other doesn't have the same intense romantic love for them that they feel, so they each trap themselves in a spiral of "if this is the only way I can have them in my life, then so be it" until they finally start playing Chappell Roan and admit that it isn't casual???? My longest YEAH BOI ever
(not a fan of actually unrequited love, however, or not in my romances, at least. I'm a fucking sap, I want that happily ever after, alright?)
Another thing I like in my romance is when the couple is a little codependently obsessed with one another, just fully souls intertwined, there's-no-one-for-me-but-you type bullshit is like catnip to me!!! I want that love unrealistic!!! I want it so that if something happened to one, the other would NOT be able to move on!!! Let's throw in a suicide pact to really spice things up!!! "If you die, I'm killing myself" type shot to give them an excuse to fight to live, if only to save their love!!!!!
Something I'm not a fan of is when the couple gets together at the very end of the story. I want them staring longingly at one another while they think the other isn't looking, naturally, but I also want to see them BE together, for more than just a timeskip epilogue. All that time in the story spent telling the reader how they're so in love, how they're so perfect with each other, but then we only get a little tease of that at the very end? That's not the kind of edging I want to see!!!
(the whole "second act breakup" that happens in a lot of romance stories is something that I'm leery on because, like the miscommunication trope, it can sometimes only happen if the characters get hit with the idiot ball. But when the trope is done right? It HITS. I just find that it doesn't often hit for me, and I think the reason for that is how it's pulled off??? Like if it reads as the logical conclusion to the character's insecurities, that's fine! But when it feels like the author wrote it in just because it's a genre convention? That takes me out of the story, and when I'm reading I want to be immersed!!!)
Enemies to lovers is another one that I'm very picky about. I like it when, even on opposite sides, they're still equals to one another. There's a respect there, as much as there is hate, and so we get to see their passion towards one another gradually turn from negative to positive. Not so much a fan when they're both just kind of bitchy but also flirty with one another while thinking "ooooh I hate them! But why can't I stop thinking about how sexy they are?" without a point where they're literally trying to tear each other's throats out in a non-sexy way. What's the whole ENEMIES point if, once they get to lovers, they don't tenderly trace the scars they left on one another!?!?
(something that shows up more in m/f is the whole thing where one partner is the big thick huge dominant one in the relationship, and then there's the tiny submissive waif love interest who's always moaning and crying for it. PLEASE mix this shit up to make it interesting!)
Lust is all well and good, but I want to see the couple actually liking each other. Kinda hard to buy an "epic love that can tear the very Gods asunder" when I can't even tell if the couple would be able to have a normal one watching TV without resorting to fucking. If they have nothing in common besides the fact that they like getting orgasms from one another, then how is that a romance??
What about tenderness too? Sure their sexy times can bring down mountains or whatever, but what about a knowing look across the room, a whisper of a kiss against their knuckles, folding each other into a loving embrace and just feeling their hearts beat against one another? Variety, people!!!
Also when kink gets involved, and the more "experienced" of the pair just starts leading the scene without checking in or explaining what they're doing, only that they just "know what's best" when it comes to their partner, not even a talk about safewords or anything beforehand! "You're my sub now, we're having rough bondage later!" Aftercare, have you heard of it!?!?
And just mix up the sex scenes in general, yeah? Stop writing the same shit every single time!
Back to something I love, it's when a couple is so in sync with one another that they can convey a whole conversation's worth of info with just a glance, in combat they don't even need to speak to optimally position themselves for one another, or even simple stuff like shoving a glass of water in the other's hand without having to be asked. They're just so on the same frequency that they seamlessly work together without having to talk about it. And all THAT'S because they pay such close attention to one another that they know all the subtle signs of what their partner needs before the other may even realize it. It's all about being seen and known here people!!!
I'm all for smut, but sometimes the smut dialogue can be a bit much for me, and a lot of that has to do with how out of character it can get. Unless a character is doing something like spouting out a bunch of porn phrases because that's what they think their partner wants to hear, and then they get called out on it, what a character says in the throes of passion should at least still sound like them!
And the sex itself, for that matter - how a character fucks should be a reflection of their personality, or reveal something about their personality, same as any other kind of action that they take. Like having a shy person being a dynamo in the sack, this could be to show that as closed off as they seem to be, they actually possess a deep well of passion. Or the brash braggart being a one pump chump to show how they're actually not as good as they say they are in ALL aspects, not just in the bedroom. Or hell, even having the kind and caring person shown to be a generous lover in order to further emphasize their nature, that's what the sex should be used for! When two people who don't have that kind of relationship just fall into the fucking seme/uke dynamic even if it makes them both wildly OOC??? Miss me with that shit!!!!
Fucking LOVE it when a couple, even before they officially get together, are so joined at the hip that everyone already assumes that they're an item and are then genuinely shocked when they find out that isn't the case. When they're such a huge part of each other's lives that they can't imagine living without the other, but they don't fully clock the depth of said devotion???? *loudly smacks lips* NOICE
Fucking HATE when, once the couple gets together, their personalities drastically change for no reason, just switching into generic lovey dovey cookie cutter romance protagonists even though they haven't been like that for the rest of the fucking story. NOT A VIBE!!!
Again, this is more of an issue with m/f romance, but I really fucking hate when one partner takes on a paternalistic role in the relationships, and not in a sexy ~daddy~ way, but just they become a father figure telling them what to do "for their own good" while also railing them, but then doing nothing to address the daddy issues in all of that. It could be an interesting peek into one or both of their psyches, but instead it just happens because that like the "default" way a man is supposed to treat a woman 🔪🔪🔪
THAT or when the dude is some kind of dark and brooding type, screaming and throwing shit around having mantrum tantrums everywhere, like textbook abuse shit but the narrative paints it as being part of his twisted soul that only his lady love can fix. Fix him?! Oh I'll fix him alright, as in spay and neuter him!!!
(het romance is on THIN FUCKING ICE with me)
SCREECH okay but when the couple has implicit trust in one another??? That's something that makes me want to tear my tits open and fire a big gay energy beam out of them like I'm the Guyver blasting out a Mega-Smasher!!! One of the pair willingly throwing themselves into danger because they know the other has their back, or a brainwashing thing where one has the other at gunpoint but they don't flinch from it because they know their love won't hurt them!?!? HOPITAL
Absolutely LOATHE a cheating storyline. Breaking the other's trust like that? I'm not here for it. VERY different if there's a breakup and they have super unfulfilling rebounds after that, but I can't abide a cheater.
I do very much love it, though, when a couple is complementary, when each other's strengths make up for the other's weaknesses. It's REAL GOOD when, individually, they're absolute menaces, but together they're unstoppable!!! Catch me cackling like Scooby-Doo when that comes up in a story!!!
Okay, I think I got this all out of me now. Or at least I can't think of anything else to add, so that's something!
SO! Going off of that, this is what I want out of my romance in Smoke and Shadow:
LESBIANS
codependency/obsession with one another
mutual yearning/lust that they don't clock as romance right away
match each other's freak on the streets and in the sheets
separated by outside forces otherwise they WOULD be together
they get together sooner than later
a little bit of a rivalry but there's always respect
Battle Couple™
they'll bang, okay?
I want them DISGUSTINGLY in love
a happy ending (to go with all their happy endings ;) )
"So if you win the duel, you get to take her on a date." They both nodded. "And if she wins the duel, she gets to take you on a date." They both nodded. "So why don't you both just... Skip that and go on a date?" They both glared.
There are many fun reasons to have a character avoid using guns, but I think "this otherwise-awesome fighter is a really terrible shot" is an underappreciated one. Yes, they're available in my setting and would work against my enemies. No, I don't have a moral code against them or a power that makes them redundant. I just can't aim for shit!
In general IMO the more badass and hypercompetent a character is, the more they're enriched by having one skill they're just absolutely hopeless at. Terrible shot, terrible liar, terrible dancer, no poker face, no sense of direction, can't drive, can't swim, can't cook, can't read, always broke, always late, always falls for a certain trick...
It's that time of day my darlings! Tell us some wonderful little details for your original writing project or work in progress my dears! (No fanfiction please- it's a wonderful medium but not the focus of this blog post.)
TODAY'S QUESTION:
Which part of storytelling do you think people systematically underestimate?
So many people treat the act of storytelling like it's something easy. How many times do you hear, "Yeah, I've been thinking about writing a book" from someone who can barely string a text message together? Like they can just bang out the next Great American Novel™ on the first go, no prior storytelling experience needed?
A story is so much more than just words on a page - its the characters and their motivations, the world in which they walk, the trials that they face, as well as all the things that they don't see but you, as the one telling the story, have to know about. That's a lot of irons in the fire that people who don't understand storytelling don't realize are even there. Subtext, imagery, allusion, hell, even basic spelling and grammar are difficult for some people to understand let alone master, and so it comes as a huge shock when they put pen to paper only to find out that what they wrote isn't all that good in the end. It's probably one of the reasons LLMs are such a popular writing tool now, as a person can just toss in their ideas and have something else write the story they want without having to go through all the trouble of learning how to write themselves.
It takes a lot of thought and care to tell a story, and so many people don't care to think.
The romanticism of undressing someone and seeing their curves and edges and birthmarks and scars and moles and freckles and kissing every single one of them like you’re thanking their body for existing, for choosing to be seen by you.
⚠️ 📢 COVER REVEAL- Tangled Wires: Threads of Deception 📢⚠️
One week. It had only taken one week- and one persistently annoying FBI agent to turn Raz’s world upside down.
Bedraggled, neurotic, and still reeling from her conflict with Ivan and the disturbing revelations surrounding her missing memory, Raz should be focused on recovering. On moving forward.
Except she can’t. Not with Kit still missing- and certainly not with old friends resurfacing in questionable circumstances.
With the time to save Kit rapidly diminishing, will the attempt to save her force Raz back into the same tangled web of lies and deceit that she had spent her whole life trying to escape?
Or will the forces conspiring against her leave her trapped between two inevitable, but impossible choices: Submit to control? Or lose everything in pursuit of freedom.
🔗And don't forget to preorder on the Zon!!
Tangled Wires: Secrets that Bind (book 1)
Tangled Wires: Secrets that Bind - Kindle edition by Foyle, D.M. . Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets
Tangled Wires: Threads of Deception (book2)
Tangled Wires: Threads of Deception - Kindle edition by Foyle, D.M.. Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Discord community:
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ARC:
Heyo friends! This is an early form for ARC sign-ups for Tangled Wires: Threads of Deception - book 2 of the Tangled Wires series.
The ARC
