I'm writing a story called "Heresy of Truth" (synopsis under the cut more). You should check it out, especially if you like:
psychological horror
espionage
evil women
the spiral
self-destructive shitheads having a bad time at each other
perverts
petty drama
drama that is anything but petty
transfems that are sucked into the spiral
forcefemming
"magic" integrated into science / technology
extreme depth of worldbuilding
the spiral
I've just started publishing after 5 years of creating it, so I really appreciate anybody who gives it a try! It's on my website:
Home of The Heresy of Truth and that creep Ruby Caine (your friend and mine).
Content warnings can be found at the Heresy of Truth index.
Synopsis
Four years ago, the nation of Holzhyt lost two of its top scientists, the world-renowned duo of Ihczya of Overlook and Axye of None, to a horrific accident involving their would-be magnum opus. In the present day, Axye’s protege, Ysa Yddgru, still wonders if her part in the creation of their building-sized machine helped kill them. She receives an assignment to investigate an eerie letter sent by Axye, in which she had predicted—down to the minute—every detail of her death a month before it happened. The letter had alluded to dangerous secrets, but unlocking them seems impossible: Axye had insisted only Ihczya could do it, and she had failed to predict she would die with her. Ysa’s only hope is Erras of Sea-Garden—investigating claims that their deaths were not an accident after all—who offers the use of her contacts in the underworld. Ysa agrees to an unsteady alliance; all she has to do is provide her knowledge of her mentor and pretend that she doesn’t know Erras’s assignment was forged. To piece together the agent’s ulterior motives, she must withhold what she can, but she risks tipping off the agent (and anyone she might be working for). With every probing question she must answer, Ysa begins to wonder: how well did she know her mentor? How well did anyone know her mentor?
As both dig deeper, they must dodge the attentions of the secrets that threaten to find them, all while keeping their own secrets safe from each other. As if that wasn’t enough, the two had become recurring, non-consensual guests on Eye of the Storm, the talk show hosted by Ruby Caine (your friend and mine)—caught in the gaze of an audience demanding their secrets with escalating vehemence.
Thousands of miles away, across an ocean’s worth of ideological turbulence and seawater, a senator of Adila shambles into the middle of a crowded public square and shoots himself in the head. He leaves behind, on his desk, dozens of candid photos of himself. Bitter, the sex worker featured in the photos, and Eviruda De'Sanya, the tabloid reporter contracted off-the-books to create the blackmail, are immediately hounded by forces that would have their silence permanently secured. The two find themselves embroiled in vortex of little taunting threads: the suspicious death of a weapon’s smuggler and sudden suicide of a police officer join the senator’s in a tenuous pattern of craniocerebral trauma; an unassuming mercenary, charismatic, stilted, and unable to escape their gazes, draws them deeper into the shadows of the secrets looming over her; and the occult forces surrounding them from all sides threaten to doom them in ways worse than killing them—which might be their only chances of survival.
As all logic melts away, all that is certain is that they can’t trust anyone, no matter how wide their smile may be. As if that wasn’t enough, the two had become recurring, non-consensual guests on Eye of the Storm, the talk show hosted by Ruby Caine (your friend and mine)—caught in the gaze of an audience demanding their secrets with escalating vehemence.
The Minister of Education and Higher Education of the Gaza Strip has visited and documented the construction of the school, which is absolutely remarkable
We have raised nearly 650 children to give them a real chance for education and hope.
And he gave us a chance to do that and he only gave us one month to collect the costs of building that little initiative. Please if you can help us donate now. Please donate write now
The Coastal Initiative in Gaza urgently needs your support to laun… Asma Yunis needs your support for Help the children of Gaza get a safe a
Guys, we just need 700 euros to reach 3,000, please donate now, we are really able to do that, please donate and do not ignore us, please! You're the most amazing hope.
Please guys, there is some hope why not take advantage of it. We now have an opportunity to educate the children of Gaza and save them from ignorance. Please! I swear we can do it, just please send some euros. They're waiting.
Guys, last donated almost an hour ago and that's so sad we're close to just 3,000 euros We just need to get there 600 euros please donate if you can Your donation is the hope of these children. Please send a donation.
We are very close, we just need 300 euros to get there, please donate now we are very close, let us reach 3,000 euros, only a little left you are trying to help the children of Gaza who have suffered and sat for years without education. You're the only hope. Please!
Another black trans woman who I know personally was just arrested for self defense after a white cis man attacked her and yet I don’t see the “community” rallying for her.
If you want to actually be a useful ally donate to her cashapp: $badwitch85
There's a whole book or even multiple sagas to be written around the question of "why do adventurers exist in this world at all". I hate the term "murderhobo" with a passion but there is a lot, a lot to talk about what kind of society hires wandering questing warriors to solve problems and where do those "adventurers" come from and what role do they have in society.
Lots of people have talked about this but I would like to point out this essay on ACOUP that starts with seemingly a semi-related matter (why gold coins in fantasy don't make sense in historical societies) and ends with a very revealing insight... gold isn't the reward that "fantasy adventurers" should seek. It should be power and influence, noble titles, a comission in the local army, land.
This week on the blog I want to take a brief detour into discussing historical coinage, particularly in the context of modern fantasy and ro
As usual and expected from a blog titled A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantry, it does take a long (but very interesting and worth reading) read to get to that point, but I'll point out the interesting thing in this context:
Here, "Big Man" is a stand in for the nobles and rulers and landowners of agricultural societies. While more urbanized and industrial societies may have a use for coinage, what do these societies based in interpersonal relationships can give you as a reward for a quest, as a reward for solving a problem? Social power; a title, a relationship, a promise of support. And not only that, but this isn't often a reward but a necessity in the first place. To have a horse, to have armor and weapons and the means to wage war (go adventuring) in the first place, you don't go to the medieval store and buy them with 20gp, you often have people supporting you and even , you are a man-at-arms, part of a noble retinue a noble yourself, maybe part of a holy order, or in more early-modern scenario, part of a mercenary group.
However, this doesn't happen often in fantasy because of these reasons reasons:
The idea of the selfless hero who doesn't choose glory or fame but instead continues questing endlessly to do good or defeat an ultimate evil. Making a hero have a patron feels like selling out (but I will address that)
Even with those characters who aren't selfless and would probably take the power and titles, it seems to tie them down to a place or obligation and this makes adventures boring (but I will address that!)
Dungeons & Dragons
People say that every generic fantasy world is inspired by Tolkien but I will argue that he's the grandfather of modern fantasy, the father is Gary Gyax. The ideas baked in D&D have been present in ALL over popular fantasy for decades now, even more prominently than Tolkien (and of course D&D 'borrowed' a lot from Tolkien). Now what this means in this particular case is the idea of wandering "adventurers" solving problems for "gold" in "dungeons", often with the undertone of a frontier or decaying civilization full of monsters and bandits to be killed and tamed into civilization (some other people have written about this better than me)
Nevertheless, even beyond the setting implications, there are deep gameplay implications that have filtered down popular fantasy. Dungeons and Dragons is a survival/combat game. It's a survival game because you have to rely in your abilities and limited equipment (which you buy with gold) to survive in a dungeon, through combat. Of course you can do a lot more than that, but this is the core of the game, what it was designed for: buy equipment, go into a dungeon, survive, get treasure, use it to buy equipment, go into another dungeon. Here "dungeon" can mean many things... combat, travel, puzzles, but the loop is clear.
There is no "gain a patron and get social capital" loop in the game, though it might be simulated, it isn't fun. So there is a lack of interest on exploring this, or really, anything beyond the "quest". And since again, it's D&D, not Tolkien, that shapes most popular fantasy, we see popular fantasy repeating this deeply baked in idea of fantasy once and again and again and again. Sometimes even making them into actual, literal points inside the world: making literal worlds with Adventurer Guilds and Dungeons and Quests and sometimes even Levels and XP as part of society (they're only lacking the dice... and that's because D&D is also the main influence behind videogames).
Is EVERY SINGLE FANTASY WORLD like this? No, not at all. But I want to talk about where does this idea of "gold" and "adventures" comes from, and it's NOT medieval or historical inspiration, and it's NOT even Tolkien. It's D&D.
I told you I would address the idea that having a patron or a story based on one's social standing could be boring or at least incompatible with "adventure", and there are many cases that I could point out, but I want to point to a very interesting one: Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, el Cid Campeador.
El Cid is both a real person who lived a very interesting life and a folklore figure, and both are very interesting as inspirations for fantasy "adventurers". El Cid was considered (by the social standards of the time) as an ideal knight and a tragic figure. But his whole life is defined by the society he lived in and, as any knight (or noble warrior in general), how he walked the interrelationships of his society; his back and forth of loyalty and betrayal with King Alfonso, his loss and recovery of honor, his service to the Muslims rulers of Zaragoza which indeed gave him his title (these constant intercultural interactions were very common in medieval Iberia, which makes it a very unique and underused setting inspiration), his rulership over Valencia. Over time, El Cid changes and seeks patrons and his changes in his social status (and his dependence on them) are a major part of the story both in real life and fictionalizations.
But this doesn't mean that the life of El Cid is boring or lacking in combat and travels. He gets "adventures" all over the place, he travels and fights over the whole breadth of Iberia, he has countless legends to his name. He wasn't a "murderhobo" that got gold from each adventure and then went to the store to buy a new sword, he took command of armies and he even took power and governed his own realm, but his life wasn't lacking from excitement, he didn't just sit and became a paper-pusher. I need to be very clear I'm not saying El Cid was a hero, I'm saying he led an exciting, interesting life, worthy of most fictional adventurers, but he wasn't just going from place to place asking for gold... well, technically yes, but this involved his status, his honor and his place in society. Which makes for a rich story.
And he's not the only one, Medieval Iberia is full of stories of these characters that navigated the social networks of their time, a place where cultures interacted with each other in multiple complex ways and kingdoms and taifas often employed these wandering "adventurers". Maybe if you want to get inspired to write about adventurers, don't look to D&D for inspiration. Read about Al Andalus sometime.
I know it's just a porn phrase, but there's a compelling metaphysico-poetic resonance in the claim to "destroy [someone's] hole(s)". Take a moment to turn over in your mind what it means to destroy a hole...
Alright, you know what? You’ve just been Isekai’d into the 5E D&D world! Spin this Wheel to find out your Class and, to make it more interesting, your Subclass!
How are you feeling?
HELL YEAH THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME
This class is perfect for me! (complimentary)
This is pretty cool!
Not bad but… could better
Some parts of this are GREAT and some are TERRIBLE and it kinda evens out
I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna die but at least I’ll be cool as hell
Well, I’m gonna hate being this Class but at least I’m gonna survive
I feel utterly indifferent about my Class
This class is perfect for me… (derogatory)
This isn’t good for me, but… could be worse
Yeah, this sucks
OH MY GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE I AM GONNA BE MISERABLE AND THAN I’LL DIE
OH MY GOD… my baby Qais’s heart stopped tonight. I ran through darkness carrying him, screaming for help, until doctors said severe anemia from his bleeding nearly killed him again.
I stood frozen, watching machines and doctors struggle to revive him while I whispered his name, begging him not to leave me. Please donate now before his heart stops again.
I live in constant terror that this nightmare will return any night. Your donation could pay for treatment, stop the bleeding, and keep my little Qais alive beside me.
I am begging you as a mother who almost lost her child tonight—do not wait until you read that he is gone. Your support today could be the reason he survives tomorrow.
Tonight I cleaned Qais’s wound again while he cried from the pain. I felt completely powerless as a mother. Please don’t leave us alone—share his story or donate and help save my baby.
it's clunkier, but probably 85% of the things labeled "male" and "female" can just be described with the anatomical name of the relevant part. we don't need to say "female genitals" (or worse, "afab genitals") when we can simply specify "natal vagina" or "uterus" or "neovagina" or "vulva" or anything else that's relevant. i'm tired.
