Drabbles & Thoughts

Holy fuck, an angsty enemies while lovers period wuxia BL!!! A genuine BL!!!

Oh my GOD

As someone who enjoys the wide variety of stories that these authors have given us, it’s disheartening to see how much censorship and targeting they face. I really hope the authors can stay safe and I’m heartbroken for them.

My only criticism with this article is the heavy focus on the ‘female desire’ aspect of Danmei, (even if that is part of it) especially considering a lot of these stories offer representation where other genres and authors don’t even try. Not to mention the incredibly complex plot lines and stories these authors create which it feels like is being overlooked here.

It’s very easy for readers to just dismiss these stories as a result when there’s a lot more to them.

However, this article is very important to read. And we should all be aware of what’s happening.

Your own birth (unless there were complications/urgent concerns)

Routine check-ups or scheduled-in-advance appointments that just happened to be at a hospital

Visiting or accompanying someone else to the hospital

Use your discretion as to whether to count visits to urgent care.

–

Concussion/stitches 2021

Miscarriage 2x 2022

Double ear infection 2022

Baby delivery 2023

Heavenly Tyrant is out today! It's a weird feeling after so many years of losing hair over it. It didn't feel like I was capable of finishing the book until I wrote the last word. The publication process was not a happy one. I'm not doing any events for it, not even a launch. I'm typing this while lying in bed and thinking about what a terrible year it's been. We joked about 2020 being the worst year ever, yet every year since has been progressively worse. And the coming years do not show any indication of being better.

But a big theme in Heavenly Tyrant is that wherever there is oppression, there WILL be resistance. I have had as much heartwarming support from peers, friends, and readers as I've faced heinous shenanigans this year. When a very, very famous author I met this summer asked me "Are you a controversial person?" after I told him about the stuff I was going through, I answered "To many who hold power? Yes. To regular people? I don't think so."

I want to thank all of you who gave me the faith to say something like that. Most people I know are on the right side of history. If you aren't - I don't want to know you.

Anyway, the book. Heavenly Tyrant is SO different from Iron Widow that I'm pretty nervous about whether people would like it. I want to ask you all to adjust your expectations going in. You're not going to get another breakneck-paced story about a Girlboss Going Smash. The smashing was the easy part. Rebuilding what she broke into something better is much, much harder. The story is a lot slower by necessity, and the problems she faces are way more complicated to deal with. I also ask that you read until the end before making a judgement because, well, developments you don't like might not be endgame! And there's a book 3 coming! (This was always supposed to be a trilogy; it's just that my publisher was only willing to buy 2 books from me at first. They changed their minds after seeing the preorder numbers for IW.)

Finally, I want to bring everyone's attention to the five songs the Bookish Songs Collective wrote specifically for Iron Widow! They're now available to stream whenever you get your music. It blows my mind that MY book would get such epic music?! I can't thank or praise them enough. Seriously, CHECK THE EP OUT.

Jewish baby named Edgardo Mortara is seemingly about to die in Bologna, 1851

Catholic nanny secretly baptises him to save his soul, which she’s not exactly the kind of authority who can do that, but w/e, it’s interpreted by the church as valid later

Kid survives

1857 her secret gets out, a baptising makes a kid a Catholic according to the Church and a Catholic can’t be raised in a non-Catholic household in the Papal States, so the church authorises the police to kidnap Edgardo from his family

Raised personally by Pope Pius IX, Jewish family not allowed to take him back due to Church doctrine, this action destroys the family with grief and despair

This case gets international infamy with the Pope not understanding why everyone’s shiting on him for doing this, including allies

Emperor Napoleon III shifts from opposing Italian unification to supporting it as a direct consequence

Bologna falls the next year, 1859

Kingdom of Italy forms 1861

By 1870 Rome is lost to the Italians and the Papal States are no more

(Edgardo Mortara goes on to become Father Mortara)

The most infamous of these cases was the Finaly affair. Two Jewish children in France, Robert and Gerald Finaly, were placed in a Catholic nursery in 1944 in anticipation of their parents being deported to Auschwitz, where they were both murdered. Their aunt, Marguerite Fischel, survived the war and went to find the boys so she could take them to live with her. However, the nun who had custody of the boys, Antoinette Brun, adamantly refused to give them up, reportedly saying that “The Jews are not grateful”

What followed was a years long custody battle where despite being repeatedly ordered by courts all over Europe to return the boys, Brun took them to many different countries and hid them, with the support and help of other nuns and priests. It was suspected at the time, and later confirmed by documents released in 2020, that Pope Pius XII had supported the effort to keep the boys away from their surviving family and have them be raised Catholic.

Thankfully, after negotiations between a sympathetic cardinal in France and the chief Rabbi of Paris, the boys were finally recovered and reunited with their aunt.

I wish I could say that the phenomenon of the Catholic Church kidnapping children and keeping them away from their families for the purposes of forcefully raising them Catholic is unique to Jews, but it’s not. From the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, the Church ran hundreds of residential schools in the US and Canada where indigenous children were kidnapped from their homes and forced into these cruel and inhumane “schools”. The children were forbidden from speaking their own languages or practicing their own cultures and religions, their hair was cut, and they were subject to emotional, verbal, spiritual, physical, and sexual abuse. Many of the children died due to malnutrition or medical neglect, their bodies buried like dogs beside the schools. The Catholic Church was not the only Church to participate in this, but they’ve been the most reluctant to fully acknowledge and apologize for it. It was only in 2022 that Pope Francis apologized on behalf of the Catholic Church for their part, but some people found the apology inadequate.

speaking of hair loss, it took a lot of going back and forth with my doctor before she would prescribe finasteride. she wanted very badly to prescribe minoxidil (less effective) instead, because finasteride can cause birth defects if you're pregnant. please note that I am not pregnant, and if I find out I am pregnant, it will not take much time before I am not pregnant again. my doctor finally gave in, on the condition that I talk to a pharmacist and have them explain all the risks to me.

anyway, so the pharmacist said you're a great candidate for finasteride, let's do that. and then the pharmacist said please don't take minoxidil, you already have low blood pressure and that med would lower it further.