At S2B2, Iron Eater’s tale of a fire-tender and a hunter. M/m. Many scenes of competence and intentionality wrt surviving and one’s place in the universe.
Kindling |
I. Animal Husbandry The day your moms become infected, you’re in your animal husbandry class, taught in the tack room of the barn. Sarah’s m
At Otherside (queer lit zine), Nadia Radovich’s story also features competence and violence. It is not a zombie story, but it reminds me of that trope in some of the best zombie stories where the protagonist are scared out of their fucking minds and have to face up to the least bad of no good choices. It’s that kind of story, and it’s beautifully written.
Dee had not expected a good time at the gala, and he was glad it was almost over. It was an annual white-tie to-do in his hometown, and the crowd included former classmates who had mocked him viciously for years for crying during fourth period screenings of The Glass Menagerie and Look Homeward, Angel. But his old friend Neysa was co-chairing this year’s edition, and he was now an Oscar winner whose presence would help smash the fundraising record held by the meanest, snobbiest girl who had graduated with them, so here he was, being professionally cordial to everyone and acting like there was nowhere else on earth he’d rather be.
It did feel good, helping Neysa raise hundreds of thousands for the arboretum, even though he wasn’t himself into trees or gardens—or, indeed, anything nature-centric. It was a failing that Neysa and his other besties ribbed him for—and he was fine with that kind of teasing, because it was stupid funny, how his brain refused to retain anything about flora or fauna outside of scripts. It was particularly weird given his legendary ear for human voices and accents—he was every casting director’s first choice for Southern men over 50, with his ability to nail any drawl between Baltimore and Waco with vowel-perfect precision—and his notoriously discerning tongue, which had not only gotten him blacklisted from celebrity wine and whiskey challenges, for being so much better than the rest of the field, but also cemented his reputation as a manwhore, thanks to an infamous blind tasting on Fire Island where, after five guys had jerked off into Dixie cups, he’d correctly matched each sample to the fellow it had come from.
At any rate, he just wasn’t wired to find landscapes or critters interesting, and that made him a sociopath in many people’s eyes. Fortunately, Neysa was accustomed to artistic tunnel vision—and, the gala’s official jeweler seemed keen to match the freak4freak energy humming behind their social façades. Having formed his initial impression of Jie Alfred Peacock’s style from advertorials, which had naturally favored aesthetically unadventurous selections in the name of social acceptability, Dee had not been prepared for the extraordinary set of accessories Neysa had presented to him on Mr. Peacock’s behalf, after escorting him to his guest room in her mansion: the shirt studs were conventional enough, being pearls encased within platinum prongs, but the double-sided cufflinks featured pearls that, instead of being round, had been cultivated to resemble comedy and tragedy masks, and so were the pendants now dangling from the barbells in his nipples.
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Read the rest of this story in the full issue, Shousetsu Bang*Bang Issue 121: The Great Outdoors
Can we talk again about how queer joy and hope are really needed right now? How the GC series, with all it's flaws, is oh so important for a lot of people?
The pride in Paris have been cancelled this weekend (third year in a row thar they were trying to do so, first year that they manage to do it) and people that dared to march have been repressed by policemen and threaten if they didn't hide their flags. A policeman told them "the repression time has come". In the US, trans people suicidal rate have gone up of 74% the past year. In oh so many countries, queer rights are disapearing.
A lot of people are scared in the world. A lot of queer people. Of POC people. Of disabled people. And so on.
But hope is a powerful thing. It makes joy possible. And it makes everything worth fighting for.
We need more HR. More hope. More joy. More pride.
And we need it now more than ever.
We shouldn't have to feel fear over being ourselves.
Don't forget that the closet kills too. It does so in silence. But it does.
And that's one thing that TLG explore for example.
Gonna piggyback onto this with, for those who might not know, every Shousetsu Bang Bang story outside of the October spooky/horror issues has a happy ending. (And if it’s more happy hockey stories y’all want, there’s a great one by @sconesforjustice in this past February’s sports issue (plus one of mine, about a woman tennis player)) https://www.shousetsubangbang.com/
Shousetsu Bang*Bang is a bi-monthly zine devoted to queer love stories told through text and art.
Landscape with Oak and Irritated Traveler, by shukyou *
Lakeshore Delights, by Rey Rider *
Big Girl Words, by Etienne Telling
I shelter you with my branches. I taste my fruit on your tongue., by Devin Ambrosia *
Summer Skin, by ChibiSaboten
This New Season, by Rowan York
On the Wall, by Shirozubon Saruko
*illustrated
—
The Fisherwoman’s Prize, by serenity_winner
~*~
Welcome to Shousetsu Bang*Bang International Park! Shousetsu Bang*Bang, better known by the acronym “SSBB”, is the world’s oldest (that we know of) international park dedicated entirely to the cultivation and preservation of original queer smut.
Since 2005, SSBB has gathered over 12 million words of endangered and threatened erotica, protecting them and making them accessible so that visitors from around the globe can continue to enjoy them for internet generations to come. We believe that a diverse ecosystem is a healthy ecosystem, and that a healthy ecosystem is one allowed to flourish wherever it feels most comfortable, which means you won’t find artificial divisions between biomes or rigid gatekeeping of ecotones here.
Instead, here in our pages, you’ll encounter majestic work-unsafe sights featuring a vibrant array of genders, bodies, identities, relationships, genitals, and kinks, all in their natural habitats. We encourage you to start at the beginning of the issue and follow the path as you venture through its contents, taking things as they come and letting yourself be surprised by what you might encounter. Of course, some guests may choose to curate their own experiences, and that’s fine too! What matters is the relationship you cultivate with what you find here.
Supported by an army of volunteers, SSBB has managed to keep its doors open and admission completely free for over two decades now. If you’d like to know what it takes to be an SSBB Rainbow Ranger, check out our upcoming themes and dates or visit our Discord to chat with other volunteers! We’re always looking for new recruits as we continue our living out our mission by giving writers and artists a space to share original works featuring queer love stories and happy endings!
And as you visit these beautiful lands, remember the SSBB hiker’s creed:
Take nothing but inspiration
Leave nothing but comments
Tell all your friends
—
(For summaries, creators’ notes, and more, please visit the relevant Google Doc of contributor commentary.)
“Catching Pearls” is by me! Short, m/m, set in a Southern US city not unlike the ones I’m from. And there are literal pearls involved.
And per my creator note:
The seed of this story (so to speak) was a crack 5+1 RPF on Discord that between Thing 2 and Thing 3 insisted on yeeting the R entirely. Junjie's given name corresponds to 俊 杰 , which per Namepedia can be translated as "outstanding hero.
“Jie” can also serve as a transliteration of several other Chinese characters, including ones associated with terms for "sister" (姐) and the verb "to catch" ( 接 ). Junjie is invoking it all on IYKYK purpose.
Resurrecting my tumblr because PWHL Reddit said PWHLblr was the place to be.
I’ve been working on these tarot card (ish) designs over the last few months. I gotta get it together and finish up with Vancouver and Minnesota before the new teams announce their names/logos 💀
Description:
All text is scribbled in pencil.
#MakeATerribleComicDay2026 in top left corner
First photo
Square 1: striped hammock with tiny snoring head and book falling to ground. Caption: It's the 3rd day of summer and I haven't had enough sleep. I would like to be dozing in a hammock.
Square 2: Doodles of herbed salami, chocolated covered espresso beans, candied ginger, and swiss cheese (with "cheese, gromit!" label). Caption: I made a SMART plan (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Based) yesterday to cut back on processed foods this week, but staying awake and not hangry through my afternoon shift won out.
Second photo
Section 1: Smiling blob cradling an Excel spreadsheet . Label: "Spreadsheet fondler" emoji from the possum discord (feral KJ Charles fans). Caption: I have piles of work to plow through tonight...
Section 2: text: but PRIDE is this weekend, so I also have a dance routine to practice. [PRIDE is in five different colors.] Illo: purple ankle sock and brown sneaker.
Section 3: text: and a parade costume to pull together. [A gold arrow curves back to the left side of the page. It has thin rainbow stripes sticking out of its right side.
Section 4: text: To be honest, I was initially thrown at what a Taiwanese costume would be, let alone something (1) I could find (2) that would fit me (3) by Friday night.
Illos:
gold and pink qipao (rendered with washi tape, gold gel pen, and pink marker, with pink question mark next to it)
black shirt with short striped sleeves and "TAIWAN 26" in white outline. Labeled "White Sox Taiwan Night jersey)
Taiwan flag face mask
Third photo
Left half:
Text: but it's coming together [each item is paired with an illustration of it]
white sleeveless top (it's gonna be hot) (illos: white v-neck shirt and thermometer reading 87 F )
comfy jeans with some embellishments
black sneaks
red earrings
blue pageant sash with the white star of democracy and the word Taiwan (NOT "Chinese Taipei" FFS)
mask
neck Buff (sunscreen & eczema don't play nice)
Right half:
Text: And all of that said, it's truly not a big deal, because we're dancing with fan-flags, so that's what everyone will be looking at!
Illo: rainbow streamers flowing from a stick base
Caption: Part of what I'm practicing is not to trip on the streamers!
Gold text: EXCITED!
Three red hearts
Signed: Ribbons 6/24/26
Postscript: cardstock from local lesbian yard sale!
Happy Make A Terrible Comic Day 2024!!! I hope you enjoy participating in this annual tradition which we’ve all done for ages!!! You must participate so you might as well enjoy it!!!
If you make a comic (again, it’s mandatory) and you want to share it, post it on the tag #makeaterriblecomicday2024! Or don’t, I’m not a fucking cop.
Remember, the goal is to make something terrible! So if you can’t draw or have never made a comic, or if it’s just been ages since you made something just for fun — that’s perfect! You’re all set! If you fuck up and make something that’s NOT terrible… well, some might say there’s a joy to that too.
The rule could have heavy impacts towards trans people across society.
Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"
The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.
Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation—hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic."
This is all very bad and horrible, but I want to be clear that it’s worse and more sweeping than just eliminating trans research.
This torches everything. And I do mean everything.
A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):
ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives
allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason
preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies
requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.
What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.
Please, if you only ever write one public comment, this is the one to do.
Bringing back this guide to writing an effective public comment. This gives you the basics you need to know, what you need to include, a basic outline you can follow, etc.
Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:
"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"
But also, if possible, don't stop at writing a comment. Don't stop at calling your representatives. You should ideally be talking to people in your community about this and organizing resistance on-the-ground; there is a good chance people are already doing that even if you aren't hearing about it.
Some added 101-level context from someone (me) who’s worked in federal grantmaking for 20 years and is literally certified on this document - this is a document that governs all federal grantmaking. It’s been around for over a decade and is a mega-document that combine multiple previous smaller documents that have been around for ages. It is updated every few years and generally the updates are minor - a notable change in the previous update was raising the small procurement threshold from $10,000 to $15,000 for example. Deeply dry boring minutiae that no one outside of federal grantmakers need concern themselves with. It was also federal GUIDELINES, which means there was flexibility.
This year’s is different. They are now federal REQUIREMENTS, which means there’s no flexibility. As was said previously, the 400 pages are not singularly devoted to being absolute shitheads to trans people. Theres a lot of stuff in there, some of which is the standard dry boring grants stuff, some of which is the horrible ideological warfare outlined above.
This document is issued by the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is currently lead by fucking Russell Vought, the principal architect of Project 2025. This is how they’re going to implement all the horrible shit in there that wasn’t covered by Executive Order. Russell Vought is actively coming for my job, my marriage, and my kid, and most of my friends lost their jobs last year because of him. He is the fucking arch villain behind the heinous shit the current regime is doing.
So yes, please comment. You don’t have to read all 400 pages before doing so, it’s dry and dense as fuck, but I thought this information might be helpful. Also, while there is a public comment period, this isn’t voted on by Congress. The OMB just fucking issues it. Pressuring your elected officials into publicly saying “hey what the fuck are you doing here” is good, though.
Please note the comment period is open through JULY 13th, not JUNE 13th. I saw a lot of relogs yesterday saying "last day!" and I just want to say it is very much not too late.
Adding onto this to say that one of the posts above frames this rule as covering research grants--but it is not limited to research. If you live in the US, your state and local governments are crushingly dependent on federal grant money for things like services to students with disabilities, free and reduced price school meals, road and bridge maintenance, lead poisoning prevention, crime lab testing, disaster recovery, cybersecurity, HIV and hepatitis outbreak tracking, invasive species mitigation--EVERYTHING.
The objective of this rule is not to stifle research, although that, too. The main objective is to put a gun to the head of blue jurisdictions and say, "Cave on every one of your principles or watch your people die of preventable causes because you have no money to save them." Because this rule gives Vought the power to strip any organization of ALL of its federal grant money if ANY part of the organization is doing ANYTHING he disapproves of, like acknowledging the existence of trans people, or refusing to hand immigrants over to ICE.
As a professional hand engraver, when it comes to old crafts like these, its way more accessible to get started with the basics than you'd expect. Back in the day good steel was expensive so trying something like hand engraving was expensive and difficult to justify. But now you can can just buy a good quality handpush graver online for less than a fancy coffee. Just think, for under a hundred quid you could get all the kit you need to get started with fucking up coins and stabbing yourself repeatedly!!!
Don't threaten to do it, go research it, and actually give it a go!!! Most of the books for old crafts are out of copyright. Even if you don't get a job at whatever you try, or hell, even of you don't become in any way good at it, just learning and trying something new is good for you, and it gives you a greater understanding and appreciation for things.
Fuck AI? Good. I agree. Now fucking do something about it. Return to doing human hand crafted things as an act of rebellion! Start knitting, start wood carving, start engraving, whatever the fuck. But most importantly, remember you don't need to be making money doing it to make it worth doing.
Many years later, I wrote a guide to help others eat lemons.
This is a guide to leaving home before 18. It ranks among the most important and most personal things I've ever written. It's also one of our most popular guides of all time. So I updated and expanded it. To make it as accessible as possible, we recorded audio and video versions too. My lemon-flavored heart would swell with joy and citric acid to know it reached people who need it.
But it's a fight share it. Heavy topics like this get muted and buried on most social platforms. Even worse, this administration is deleting surveys and data about it; my .gov sources transmogrified into 404s before my very eyes. Gonna post this, and pray that Tumblr does what Tumblr does best.
Announcing the May Trope Mayhem Prompt List for 2026!
May Trope Mayhem is a multi-fandom/original creation event open to writers, artists, and creators of all kinds! Our creators have shared their favorite tropes, and we’ve put together a list of 31, one per day through the month of May. We encourage creators to join us for this month of fun tropey mayhem.
Our goal is to promote motivation and help with habit building, so we’re encouraging authors to keep their ficlets under 1,000 words, artists to stick to making just a sketch, gif makers to only do a single image, etc., as applicable to whatever you’re making.
This event is primarily held on Tumblr, but you’re welcome to participate anywhere Duck Prints Press has an account (you can see all our current platforms here) and we’ll keep our eyes on our tag everywhere!
How can you participate? It’s easy! There’s just a few simple rules:
write a ficlet or a poem, create art, make a gif, or create any other content that you want, aligned with the prompt for the day!
post your correctly tagged fills to Tumblr, and we’ll reblog them! We’ll reskeet works on Bluesky, retoot those on Mastodon, you get the idea. Note: we do not use Twitter.
you must tag warnings such as gore, MCD, sexual content, etc., so that people can make informed decisions!
please also tag fandom and ship, so people can find what interests them!
we ask that you put the tags at the top of your post, so they’re easy to find.
if you write more than 1k words and post the whole text on Tumblr or wherever, please use a read more if the platform allows.
if you create something with NSFW content or potentially triggering material, please put the entire work under a read more.
Ping us (duckprintspress) or tag your creations “#may trope mayhem” and so we can find them! We’ll reblog all fills that follow the above rules and are posted between May 1st and June 8th, 2026. Posting starts May 1st!
If you post to AO3, you can also add them to our collection there!
You don’t have to sign up for May Trope Mayhem, just post your fills. You don’t have to be a member of the Press nor do you have to be following us. You don’t have to be part of a specific fandom. We’re open to all ships, genres, formats, ratings, kinks, etc.! You can post whatever properly tagged content you want. You don’t have to post fills on the corresponding day, though we ask that if you’re creating for a day that hasn’t happened yet, please wait for that day to post.
Participating in May Trope Mayhem? Want to chat fandom, books, creation, and more? Join our Book Lover’s Discord Server!
This is a low-pressure event, held in good fun, and we look forward to seeing what you create!
i think in the only other past human life shane has lived, he was an anchorite nun in medieval france, and lived on water, gruel, the holy eucharist, and scripture from age 14-38 and i think that explains a lot about his vibe. other than that he’s mostly been ants and bees and fungi.
and ilya’s are like serf, serf, whore, serf, 200 year old mighty oak cut down during industrial revolution roots still trying to take hold but all growth is choked by oil and smoke, marilyn monroe.
