Here for the Horror

Pencil toned sketch of Ricky Porter from THE CROWS, with taxidermy marionette in the trees behind him. Quote: “The thing is, if I lied to you, said it was all herblore and starlight and all that airy-fairy crap, you’d find out eventually. I could spend my time tip-toeing around cleaning up the corpses and pretending to be vegan, but to tell the truth, love, I really can’t be arsed.”

Ricky is on the aromantic and asexual spectrums, which is very obvious on page. He's also as amoral as they come, and this is very much the story of an anti-villain in pursuit of his dream house - and figuring out how to make friends without actually having to, you know, sew them up yourself.

He also sees the future, and is an ascetic devoted to soothsaying the old-fashioned (what he thinks is the Romano-British/Saxon) way. That's all he really cares about - that, and the sentient manor house he's loved since he was five... a house his family are banned from entering thanks to a 60 year old curse.

Ricky has learned that in 33 days, the house's new owner will die (details tbc, entrails don't tell you everything) and when she does, he'll get everything he's ever wanted. All he has to do is stop her from dying before her appointed time, which proves trickier than he anticipated... But it's not like he's going to start caring about her, is it?

That would be pretty inconvenient, considering you can't fight fate...

Art by Thomas S. Brown - @/[email protected] on Bluesky, @thomassbrownarts on instagram. You can support Tom on Patreon and get access to amazing stuff here:

Hey :)

Here are some options for you:

How to write a phone call

Doing something other than talking:

washing dishes (very noisy)

folding laundry

brushing teeths (some people hate to hear that)

lying on their back on the floor or their bed, kicking up their feet, staring at the ceiling

walking up and down

getting distracted

trying on clothes, missing half of the conversation with their head stuck in a hoodie

doing their makeup and hair

drinking or eating

vacuuming (the noisiest)

I hope this helps!

Where is the POV character when they are talking on the phone? Use their senses and their interior world, so what are they thinking (are they concentrating on the call? Is the call making them anxious? Are they distracted by something they can see? Smell?)

Use the physical nature of the call - does the character squeeze the handset of the landline, or the mobile phone, if upset or anxious? How are they holding the phone? Are they holding it flat and talking into the mic on the bottom of it, while they listen with earbuds or have it on speaker? If on speaker what is the consequence of that for other people around them? Do they need to take it off speaker at some point if the conversation gets heated or more private? Is that a cause for embarrassment/awkwardness?

For the person on the other side:

How is the POV character interpreting their tone, their pauses, their words, and can the POV character hear any background noise that makes the conversation hard to follow, or that they note purely to set the scene for the reader and make it more realistic?

For writers wanting to add ace and/or aro rep into your books, it's worth talking to ace and aro people, and those whose orientations sit on both spectrums, as having this perspective can really help.

Honestly, I think it's just way more interesting to have this kind of rep, too, because we aces and aros can flip and subvert story expectations and narratives, no matter what genre this rep is in.

What happens if you take sex (but not necessarily romance) totally off the table as a motivator for a male character who is very "macho" or perceived as that? How does that change/subvert expectations? What vulnerabilities does this add, and how might it complicate his storyline?

What happens to the dynamics of a situation when one person is very comfortable having sex with all genders but only romantically attracted to certain ones, or vice versa, so they could fall in love with someone they aren't sexually attracted to, or be sexually attracted to someone they won't fall in love with?

What happens if you're writing spice and a character is fine with sex but just never falls in love; what would changing a subplot or main plot into a Strangers-to-BFFs-With-Benefits do, if you wanted to look at ways to open things up and explore queered relationship structures?

How does jealousy manifest in these relationships, if it does, and how do you navigate that?

In an SFF situation - how would any of the above impact the dynamics of a group of characters, with forced proximity of a quest or castle or space station or something they can't leave so they're all stuck with each other? It doesn't have to make something "boring" if spice isn't added... It can create opportunities for growth, new situations, conflict, and resolution to issues.

In horror, sex averse MMCs basically take SA off the table totally as a means to shock or disturb the audience, and mean the writer has to actually work with that and create more interesting antagonist characters with deeper motivations. It also changes the dynamic when someone is literally only interested in your body from an anatomical point of view, and if you start coming onto them, they freak out and have no idea how to handle that situation, which can even flip the power dynamics. (See also: my touch-starved cannibal in The Crows).

You can also use it for deepening emotional bonds in romances of all types, as demisexuals and demiromantics are perfect for the slowburn trope. Explicitly exploring demi orientations gives additional things to develop and talk about, too; what will help them create the emotional bond the demi character requires in order to feel sexual and/or romantic attraction to the other person?

Note: if the person is demi and the emotional bond isn't formed, the only-one-bed trope won't work. BUT you can use that to create more angst for Character B if Character A is demi, and then reprise it later once the demi character is fully into them...

Anyway - almost everything I write has ace, aro, or both spectrums rep in it, not necessarily both, and I would love more people to know that!

Ace and Aro rep can be found in:

The Crows Thirteenth The Day We Ate Grandad The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre (& Other Stories) (all of these have unlabelled but very obvious and on-page ace/aro spec rep) The Reluctant Husband (aesthetic attraction is present, but the MMC is lowkey aro and grey-ace, unlabelled as it is set in 1938)

Birds of a Feather (contemporary romcom with aro-spectrum and sex averse ace MMC, he doesn't label himself but microlabels are speculated) Yelen & Yelena - aro only, Queer Dark Gothic Fantasy

My stuff for those interested:

The MC who is asexual and totally unmoved by any attempt at seducing him/her/them, including by succubi/sirens and merfolk/witchcraft/spies whose JOB is seduction, etc. Nope. Unbothered. Very useful.

That one character who isn't clouded by how "attractive" or "sexy" someone is, if that's all they're trading on, and can see exactly what sort of person they are underneath it.

Love potions that affect romantic attraction but still don't make the ace person want to have sex, because they don't equate sex with romantic love.

If you are curious about aromantics who are also allosexual, so have sex but don't fall in love, my Dark Gothic Fantasy has aromantic bisexual MCs! Lots of monster fucking and no romance, plus rot plague, dead gods, and themes of agency, choice, community, and death.

If you liked my worldbuilding posts, a lot of them were relating to the worldbuilding I did for this book.

Come for the monster spice, stay for the power dynamics, or something.

[Art by Delilah Monroe @delilah_monroe_ on insta/threads, @/delilah21.bsky.social on Bluesky]

Meet Katy Porter...

I find it fascinating what different cultures will offer you as complimentary when you are a guest.

In some parts of Türkiye, it is complimentary salad, for example. You sit down to eat and get given a salad automatically. You don't pay for the salad, this is just provided at the start of the meal for the table, like tap water.

In some places in Greece, like Athens or some of the islands, it's a basket of free bread and water. Other places like Crete it's a shot of raki and something sweet to share.

There will be historical and sociocultural and even religious or political reasons why it has become a uniform cultural offering to (paying) guests, but now there is no reason for it, it is simply what happens.

What happens in your fantasy taverns and eating establishments, and why is it like that? If you aren't trying to mirror capitalist Western practice where someone is not a guest but a customer, how are they treated as a guest, even if they pay for their meal?

What hospitality are they shown and what is the culturally appropriate sign of hospitality, what do they get given for free as part of their meal?