This blog is where I share daily posts about the superhero fantasy novel I’m writing, Byoldervine, as well as writing tips, discussion and analysis. For more specific/in-depth posts about my story, check out my masterpost, and here’s the basic gist of the story:
What Is Byoldervine About?
Persephone Foster was a human brought into the angelic realm of Tyrion after discovering her immortality, and since then has studied magic and monsters while trying to maintain connections to her mortal family. But when the god of the fantasy realm of Paracosm falls deathly ill, and his fragmented power sends mythical creatures into the human realm, Persephone must become the masked hero Enigma to protect her old home, with the help of a credit-stealing new hero determined to make this difficult. When an opportunity presents itself to stop this at the source — curing the dying god — can they set aside their differences and work together with new allies to find the cure before it’s too late? Or have they been more involved in this ever-expanding story than they’ve all been allowed to realise?
What Are The Four Realms And Who Are Their Gods?
Aegis Cantor is the God of Order, and rules over the angelic realm of Tyrion
Corrus Acaron is the God of Souls and Fate, and rules the underworld known as Nexus
Nordsvark Attolus is the God of Creation, and watches over the fantasy realm of Paracosm
Byoldervine is the deceased Goddess of Free Will, and once watched over the human realm of Terran
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Pride Month Storytime — How I Discovered I’m Aroace
TL;DR: Figured I was bi as a pre-teen, ‘dated’ a girl online for a few years, had the world’s most non-sexual first encounter with smut humanly possible, got assigned aroace by a How To Train Your Dragon fanfiction
In the spirit of Pride Month, I wanted to share the story about how I became an out and proud aroace woman. I’ve recently been reminded again of how I discovered this, and there are so many parts of this story that I find beautiful and funny, as well as others that I look back on and regret. But with how much more difficult it is to recognise a lack of something that was never there, as opposed to something new that you’re starting to experience, I felt it was important to share this for any other aroaces out there
I think the first time I questioned my sexuality was when I was ten or eleven or so. It wasn’t much of a question for me at the time; I literally just figured I should probably decide, and then I did. I think the exact thought process was genuinely just this near verbatim;
“Would I date a girl? Yeah, okay. Would I date a guy? Yeah, okay. Do I have any interest in dating right now? Not really. Do I have anything against dating? Not really. So I guess that means I’m bi, and when I’m a bit older or I meet the right person I’ll have more of a desire to act on it. Cool, question answered.”
So for pretty much all of my teens I identified as bisexual. I don’t quite remember if I knew about asexuality at the time. I know that I knew about pansexuality, and that I definitely didn’t know about romanticism being a separate spectrum. I just figured that the desire for a partner would really kick in when I was a teenager and ‘started getting hormones’
I do remember a few years later that I heard about the bi-to-ace pipeline, and the saying “You think you’re bi because you have equal attraction to men and women, only to later realise that 0 + 0 is still 0”. I figured that couldn’t be me because I had, and still have, a bit of a preference towards women. Though present me now understands that all of it is still just in theory, and I don’t have any attraction to either gender in practice
I did have an online girlfriend from the ages of fourteen to maybe sixteen or seventeen. She was two years older, and she was very cheesy and cutesy with me. God, looking back at it now is so weird, we were so weird. We met on Wattpad, doing roleplays and discussing stories and stuff, and we talked pretty much exclusively on Wattpad the entire time. She had a girlfriend for the first year I knew her, when we were just friends, and when they broke up I comforted her. Then a while later she expressed an interest in me, and I agreed to it. I was excited because it felt like a normal teenager thing, and I liked talking to her, and it made me excited to have a girlfriend, so I figured that must be love
But, as with many teens, she wanted something more than just childish fandom roleplays. She wanted something sexual. And since we never did anything in real life, and we never sent inappropriate photos (I think she had like one or two normal photos of me, and she never sent me anything except her face or her fit), so I figured that was normal. She did send me a link to a couple of smut stories on Wattpad, saying she wanted me to read them and give her my thoughts. But when I read them, I got very uncomfortable and told her I couldn’t finish them. They had some taboo kinks in them that I didn’t like. She didn’t pressure me to read them again and apologised, so I figured that was that
Now, I’ve said on Tumblr before that I don’t want to discuss anything related to my sex life, or lack of, on here. But for the purpose of accurately sharing my story, I believe I need to clarify this next part, though I want to emphasise that I wish my younger self hadn’t felt the need to do this, even if it’s not really ‘that bad’ in terms of the actions I took and it’s kind of a funny solution to come to in retrospect
I felt guilty that I couldn’t read my girlfriend’s smut, and I felt that not being able to support my girlfriend sexually made me a bad girlfriend. So, being a weird unknowing asexual, I came up with a system; I went through the most poorly-formatted smut stories Wattpad had to offer, and I would read them. I focused so much on the SPAG mistakes and the lack of paragraph breaks and the terrible sentence flow, and as expected, the content was quite bland and non-descriptive too. So I could read it without much fuss
I kept this up until I could advance to better-written smut, and eventually I could sit through much more taboo and good quality stories with a straight face. That was… a learning experience. And I feel like if I’d told my psychiatrist about this system, I’d have gotten my autism diagnosis a lot sooner
I never did end up putting my ‘training’ to good use, because to her credit I don’t remember my girlfriend asking me to read smut again. She did find out about my ‘system’ but she didn’t say much on it. I don’t know if she believed me when I explained why I was reading that stuff. I think it was at that point that I was like “Fucking hell I’m reading porn for the grammar — I thought I was failing at being a girlfriend but I’m actually failing at being a teenager”
You can laugh at that, I found it funny typing it out
Anyway, there were a lot of factors in our break up, but it was around the age of sixteen or seventeen that I started to realise that, hey, I’m almost done with being a teenager, I’ve had a girlfriend for the last three years, I’ve been reading erotica… and I still don’t have any desire for an actual, physical relationship. Was what we had even love, at least in the romantic sense? Would I still be with her if this were real life?
And honestly? The answer was no. I couldn’t imagine myself being in a real relationship with anyone, whether that was my girlfriend or not. So we broke up, and I focused on other things for a while. I didn’t really question my sexuality much more, but I was vaguely aware of the possibility of asexuality now, considering I ‘should’ve’ been at the age to experience these things already. I figured I was just a late bloomer, or that I just hadn’t met the right person yet, and I wasn’t particularly bothered by that idea, so I didn’t dwell on it much. I’ve never really been the kind of person who’s afraid to be alone
I don’t remember how old I was when I started to seriously consider if I might be asexual. Maybe eighteen or nineteen? Possibly twenty at the oldest, but I doubt it. But I’d gone back to Wattpad again, and wanted to continue an old fanfic I’d started writing at thirteen and had recently gotten new inspiration for
I mentioned it very briefly in this old post; a trilogy of How To Train Your Dragon fanfics. Was I way out of the age range for it? Yes. Did I care? No. Honestly I may still go back to it one day if I can ever be assed to redownload Wattpad. But anyway, the story involved two OCs of mine; Indigo and Plasma. And the two were growing closer as friends, but I was kinda considering if I wanted to have them end up together since I introduced Plasma in the second fic. I’d been kind of hemming and hawing on it and leaving Indigo disinterested in romance in general anyway, so I didn’t know if it would even make sense for her character even if the big themes of the trilogy and Indigo’s overall arc were about learning to love and let people into your life
These fics were relatively popular at the time, or at least it felt like it since I had a lot of dedicated fans always going crazy the moment I posted any new chapters. And from the moment Plasma was introduced, the comments were curious about the potential for a romance between him and Indigo. As the pair grew closer and closer, this became even more true
But then, a bit of the way into the third fic, I noticed a change; the comments were starting to get divided on whether they wanted this romance after all. Not because people had lost interest in the ship, but because people were debating whether Indigo liked Plasma or if Indigo might be asexual. They were reading Indigo’s considerations of her feelings, and the way she experienced or didn’t experience them, as her being asexual
And the thing is, they were how I felt about romance, too
By this point in time, I’d had the vague notion that asexuality could possibly be on the table, but I hadn’t really given it any actual thought until this. So I decided to conduct an experiment; I kept writing the relationship between Indigo and Plasma, adding slightly more deliberate pseudo-romantic moments, not outright saying Indigo’s thought process on it but intentionally keeping her largely oblivious to the significance of her more friendly actions. And the comments were torn between loving all this ship bait and suspecting Indigo as asexual, and everyone being curious as to how this was gonna go
I ended up researching asexuality a lot, and I started to find things I identify with. I’m still wondering if I’m just too young, but I started to figure that, if this is my experience right now, who cares if that changes later? It doesn’t make it any less real now. And combined with that and the fic comments, I was becoming more and more convinced
The final test was me full-on dumping my feelings on relationships onto Indigo, just having her say everything I feel in the way I feel it. I poured everything into that chapter, and I hit post, and I waited. And once the comments had the chance to roll in, I opened them up, and I scrolled through
Everyone was convinced she was aroace. Every comment said ace or aroace. And every comment was supportive and proud, if a little disappointed about their ship not sailing
I think that’s the point that I accepted it completely. I gave Plasma and Indigo a QPR, I thanked my readers profusely for helping me out, and I kept writing
And since then, I haven’t found the right person, and I haven’t outgrown being a late bloomer. I’m twenty-two years old now, and I’m still happily aroace. In theory, I consider how things may look or feel, but in practice I have no desire for romance and I have no desire for sex. And if one day I do happen to meet someone that I want in my life in a different capacity? I’ll reassess based on that. But unless or until I experience the desire for it, I’m not going to pursue it or worry about it, because I’m just as content on my own
Writers, what’s a rule of sorts that you’ll always have with your stories?
For me, I refuse to write a sad ending. There are plenty of amazing stories out there that end with darkness and sadness and the bad guys winning, but that kind of story isn’t what I want to read about most of the time. If I wanted sad stories, I’d watch the news. I need happy stories in my life, and that’s the kind of story I want to write, because if I can’t even get a happy ending in my own fantasies, what’s the point?
I love a happy ending, and even if it turns out a little bittersweet, I will always, always make sure the story’s ending is overall a happy one
Guess I need to figure out what my new system will be once I’m able to return to a writing routine
Writing 1000 words per week works brilliantly for me when I’m drafting, but when I’m doing rereads and notes for edits? It’s not exactly applicable. I doubt the proper editing will be the same, as well. And based off how the rest of the project has gone, I definitely need some kind of plan in place
My best guess is that using the old writing sprint video I like and just spending those two hours editing will have to be the plan. Once I’ve started on the routine again, I can always adapt things to make them work better. I just need to get that experience first to know how compatible this plan is with my writing process
I think my goal for this year will just be to get all these notes and planning bits done, and then 2027 will be the year of the big rewrite
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There’s only one person in the world aside from myself who has ever read even a small part of my book. There are endless lovely things I could say about him, but I’ll keep it mostly on-topic here to avoid things getting too long or too emotional
He asked if he could read it, and when I told him it won’t be ready for a very long time, his reply was “But I won’t be alive for a very long time. So I want to see it before I’m not alive anymore”
He got to read the book. Just a chapter or two. He had me read them to him, and he listened with full attention the whole time. Afterwards, he said it was fantastic, and asked why it wasn’t ready yet. I don’t think he fully understood why it would need editing, nor that writing a first draft can take years on its own
But yesterday, I woke up to a very sad message; he was right that he wouldn’t be alive to see the finished book. He passed away over the weekend, after a long struggle and decline. He was a wonderful, kind, thoughtful, cheerful man, and exactly the kind of person I wish we could all be more like. Things won’t be the same without him
You can’t really complain about a writing choice, even when it’s generally almost always a bad writing choice, if said writing choice is very specifically the whole point
I have a whole load of critisism for Miraculous Ladybug, but one piece of criticism I can never understand is “Lucky Charm is just Deus ex Machina, it’s bad writing!”
Deus ex Machina means ‘god in the machine’. Tikki is a god. The Ladybug earrings are a machine. Lucky Charm as a superpower is literally a god granting help from inside a machine
It is very literally a Deus ex Machina. Hell, every single Miraculous is a literal Deus ex Machina
And that’s okay! You’re allowed to use Deus ex Machina or other ‘bad’ tropes so long as you do so with intention and purpose. You have to know what you’re doing and execute it in a way that works with the story you’re telling. And if one of the biggest parts of the lore and worldbuilding is that you put tiny gods in tiny machines, then hey, you’ve got an entire story based around Deus ex Machinas — and that works!
‘There’ as in “There are many places we could go. I want to go over there.” Here and there
‘Their’ as in “Their toys look very fun. I want to go play at their house.” It has an ‘I’ in it because it talks about a person and their wants or needs or belongings
‘They’re’ as in “They’re very nice people. They’re fun to be around.” The apostrophe means two words are connected, and those two words are ‘they’ and ‘are’, to make ‘They’re’
No matter how good your writing is, there will always be someone who doesn’t like it
Do NOT change the story to make it palatable to them. They will never like it. There is nothing you can do to make them like it
But there are so many people out there who will like it. And if you tone down the things that make other people not like it, you’re also toning down the things that make these people really like it
Would you rather have a story that’s loved and hated, or a story that nobody finds notable, and thus is easily forgotten?
Don’t tone yourself down to make people like it — tone yourself up. Make it so unapologetically you that instead of merely disliking it, they absolutely hate it
Because at least then you’ve left an impression on them, and how your story made them feel will stick with them, whether they like it or not
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Whenever I feel like I haven’t done anything with my life, or that I’m unaccomplished and would have nothing to show for my existence if I died today, I’m glad that nowadays I can think of my book. Even if it’s far from done, that’s still a major accomplishment that proves I can put time, effort and passion into something
I’m a firm believer that everyone needs some kind of creative hobby in which they make something, and thus can tangibly see the fruits of their labours in real time. Writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, designing, sewing, knitting, making music
When nothing else feels real, what you’ve done is real, and you can’t deny that
What baffles me with media literacy issues is that media literacy is genuinely so much fun
I love writing out my thoughts and getting to explain my perspective on things. I love considering what works and what doesn’t, and coming to a conclusion on why that is. I love appreciating the minor details of a story or a character and getting excited about them. I love talking about the things I love
And okay, sure, people absolutely don’t have to like all the things that I like, and it’s perfectly normal to come across people that have different tastes than I do. But you’re telling me you don’t even like to talk about the things you like? There’s no book, no play, no TV show, no movie, no video game, no manga, no webcomic, no nothing? You don’t have a single one that you enjoy discussing?
It’s so important that we practice media literacy, and there are some genuinely fun ways to do it, and you can bring in things you already like. You don’t have to write giant rambling essays of analysis like I sometimes do, but just… talk about it once in a while
Writing a description is like a game of Chinese whispers; you have to translate from your imagination to actual written language, and then your reader has to translate actual written language into their own imagination, and it doesn’t help that both imaginations are entirely different languages to begin with
Not only is a perfect translation impossible, but the fun of the game is waiting to hear what the final translation is and seeing how similar or how diverged it became
June’s back again. This time last year I was ending my break from writing a month early because I was so excited to finish my first draft, and I pulled it off before the end of the year
Now, all I’ve done since is reread half of what I wrote and made a few notes on changes I want to make. And due to a big work project taking up all my free time for the next two months or so, I won’t be able to get back to a consistent writing routine until at least August, which sucks
Going without a writing routine again after two years is… different. Especially with the fact that I’m now editing and making notes, not actually writing. I thought that this would be the ridiculously easy part; if I can write an entire book, how can I struggle now to just read it back and make the occasional note?
I can’t wait to get back to consistent writing. I feel like everything will just click back into place once I have my routine back, and that everything will go a lot easier. I would’ve gone back way sooner had it not been for the work project needing to be settled
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I’d rather my foreshadowing be completely obvious to absolutely every reader I have, to the point where my big reveal is actually no surprise to anyone, than to not foreshadow anything in order to guarantee that my big reveals have maximum shock value
Because the thing is, you ultimately want your readers to notice your foreshadowing in some capacity. Ideally not knowing the plot twist from the first page, of course. But the average reader should be at least subtly influenced in their understanding of the story by the foreshadowing, so that it feels like a logical progression by the time they reach the plot twist
But no foreshadowing for a big twist? All that shock will quickly be replaced with confusion, and immersion is broken. It’s better to make it too obvious than to have it come entirely out of left field
Recently got asked by someone if I’m able to write porn as an asexual. I won’t share my personal relationship with these kinds of things here, but in general, I don’t really understand why there’s an assumption that asexuals have the capacity to write about magic and murder and such, but sex is too far out of the realm of belief
Ignoring that some asexuals have had sex in the past, or may still have sex by choice, you don’t need to have personal experience in something in order to write about it. And this goes for relationships, too; if it didn’t, none of my characters would have friends
Writing about sex is not inherently different to writing about anything else; write what you know, and if there are gaps in your knowledge, do your research. Anyone can write any sexual interaction irregardless of their personal experience with it, and whether or not it turns out good is dependent on their research skills and writing abilities, not their skills in the bedroom
