Apr 5, 2025
On my way into Bristol for TeratoCon!
Excited for a day of discussing monsters, beasts, creatures, and all the fucked up romances one might pursue with them. ♥️
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On my way into Bristol for TeratoCon!
Excited for a day of discussing monsters, beasts, creatures, and all the fucked up romances one might pursue with them. ♥️
A convention dedicated to monster romance media.
Heard about this at WorldCon; have firm plans to be there; figured Tumblr is a place where I can and should let people know this is a thing!
TeratoCon 2025 Write-up
Had a spectacular time talking monsters at the very first special convention!
Yesterday, I had the delightful privilege of attending the very first TeratoCon at the Future Inn in Bristol, an 18+ convention for monster lovers with a special focus on all things monstrous, especially on monsterfucking and monstrous romance!
I had an initially bumpy journey getting there, entirely as a result of my own silliness — I came down south from Bradford to stay with my family in Chepstow the day before yesterday on the train, which came with its own issues (no seat on the entire train between Bradford and Derby, meaning my body was fucked the rest of the day, I fell asleep and passed by Chepstow Station, had to get off at Newport and then go back towards Chepstow, etc), got the bus into Bristol from Chepstow the following morning… Whereupon I promptly got a bus in the wrong direction, went to the wrong hotel, then had to get an Uber literally to right beside the bus station, where the convention was being held at the Future Inn!
I was unfortunately only a minute or two late to the opening ceremony and was able to see Zoey Burgess-Foreman and Tim Mendees introduce the convention, and then we were able to jump into things!
I can’t name a literary convention I’ve actually had a bad time at, they’re normally very warm and welcoming environments and it’s great to be around other people who share a particular passion enough to want to travel across the country and chat about it, but there was an extra pleasure and ability to relax at this convention because it was 18+ and explicitly was intended to allow and center adult discussions, especially when it comes to sex, desire, and kink.
On the one hand, it’s great that many conventions allow for teenage self-exploration and for people to be able to decide their own comfort level and opt into adult themes, but many cons end up shoving a lot of adult events and stalls in dark shadowy corners and corridors, or we end up doing our panels in smaller out-of-the-way rooms after dark with less advertisement and publicity, and especially as a creator who centers many adult themes — not just in terms of erotica, but also in terms of trauma, chronic pain and disability, marginalisation, homophobia, and other themes that I explore using sex and sexuality, or intimate forms of violence, as vessels, you end up feeling more than a bit hemmed in!
I was obviously especially grumpy about this issue having been grappling with Patreon’s seemingly random approaches of recent to banning and hiding my own work (this week was censoring a fully consensual erotic novella for “glorifying” sexual abuse and rape by… including a single criticism of rape culture within the British police forces), thus why I recently set up my new website, albeit with all the technical difficulties that came with for me.
With rising censorship online and cultural changes toward sex and sexuality in public spaces — explicitly fascist government in the USA and rising queerphobia everywhere, including the UK, has already caused many pride flags to quietly disappear from shop fronts and businesses all around us, a real canary in the coal mine — it was such a relief to be at a professional event for creators and enthusiasts that not only didn’t give into those attitudes, but pointedly stood in opposition to them.
The Future Inn decided to euphemistically label our little gathering Literature Convention on their posters and signage, but other than that, once we went up in the lift to the sixth floor where the conference center was, liberty reigned!
Read more here!
no more cons for the rest of 2024, but several bookings confirmed for 2025!
4 cons booked so far and hopefully I'll see you at one of them! hoping to also apply for RakuCon Manc, ACME Glasgow & MCM once bookings for those become available 💖