under construction

These days when I look at passages about hoarding wealth being corrupting in the New Testament my studying brain is like it’s kind of interesting how Christianity says wealth is a bad thing because a lot of polytheistic religions in the ancient Mediterranean took the exact opposite approach so this was probably pretty weird to people at the time but maybe that’s also why some people found it appealing.

[... ] a wonderful phrase

lacuna mutata

aint no [... ] craze

it means textual emendations

for the rest of your days

it's a source [...] free

ambiguity

Like for the majority it really is "oh i'm hungrier and moodier than usual"

If, before you get your period, you feel furiously angry, suicidal, irritated by every tiny thing to the point you want to murder someone, stuck in a black hole you'll never escape from. If you are experiencing extreme emotions for what seems like no good reason, especially if you get your period and those extreme emotions just go away. You're probably not just PMSing , you may have PMS's feral big sister PMDD and it's treatable.

The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.

The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don't tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.

I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.

The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson. My big standout new author find this year, with a classic fantasy court drama/murder mystery featuring a truly excellently written cast of characters. Review.

A Drop of Corruption, Robert Jackson Bennett. Second of the Holmes and Watson-style intrigue murder mysteries, with a rare combo of unique fantasy worldbuilding and a classic, plotty mystery. Review.

How to Find a Nameless Fae, AJ Lancaster. bi4bi fantasy romance with a sensible 40 year old protagonist, fairy tale plot, and a love interest with more than a little bit of Howell Jenkins. Review.

I Leave It Up to You, Jinwoo Chong. Leaning a bit towards litfic, about a queer man's complex relationship with his family and their sushi restaurant after waking up from a coma. Review.

Blood on Her Tongue, Johanna van Veen. A properly bloody Gothic novel set in 19th century Netherlands. Excellent atmosphere. Review.

A Brother's Price, Wen Spencer. Genderswapped Regency romance with the sociological SFF worldbuilding to back it up. Review.

The Incandescent, Emily Tesh. Emily Tesh never misses. Slice of life about a jaded teacher at a elitist magical school for teenagers. Review.

The Everlasting, Alix Harrow. Time loop narrative about butch lady knights, fascism, and the meaning of the stories we tell ourselves. Review.

A Far Better Thing, HG Parry. Excellent fairy changeling angst based on A Tale of Two Cities. I love a good tragedy. Review.

Upcoming Releases

The Subtle Art of Folding Space, John Chu. Probably a bit obvious to compare it to Everything Everywhere All At Once. Messy family drama and interdimensional shenanigans. Out April 7th. Review.

The Duke, Anna Cowan. Absolute souffle of a lesbian melodrama and very much in the shape of classic eighties Regencies, except the duke is a woman. Has the intensity and drama I've been missing from some sapphic romances. Out April 28th. Review.

The Poet Empress, Shen Tao. Still thinking about this one. Ruthless, pragmatic fantasy set in a mythical China that takes aim at a lot of dark romance tropes and hits it out of the park every time. Out January 20th. Review.

A Widow's Charm, Caitlyn Paxson. Delightful fantasy romcom about a widow blackmailing a guy into (illegally) necromancying her recently dead husband. Out March 31st. Review is held until spring but here's the Goodreads.

Honorable Mention

One Yellow Eye, Leigh Radford. Story about a woman trying to save her infected husband in the most compassionate take I've ever read about a zombie plague. Excellent medical details also. Review.

Notes from a Regicide, Isaac Fellman. Messy, rambling narrative about a trans man trying to make sense of his trans parents, with a sprawling SF future that only shows around the corners. Review.

What Fury Brings, Tricia Levenseller. The only thing you need to know about this book is that CS Pacat enthusiastically blurbed it. What if HE got kidnapped and dark fantasy romanced, and also the protagonist lady had biceps the size of cantaloupes. Review.

but I'm hearing there's a NSFW-friendly ko-fi alternative built on atproto that's actively in the works, and being vetted by lawyers right now. as torrent-princess (OP) says, you should be able to swap out payment processors while keeping your account intact. this matters since even if stripe removes support, you'll still have a shop and all of your links intact. (ATproto is an infrastructure that bsky is built on, but is far bigger than bsky with far more opportunities.)

additionally, the Free Speech Coalition is working on a credit union specifically for adult work (including kink art) - here's the link so you can add your interest & support. Since this will be built by sex workers, there'll be far less risk of being debanked for spurious and puritanical reasons.

on a domain TLD level, there's an initiative here for a .furry domain built from the ground up by seasoned furries; it's unclear whether they'll support NSFW, but it's yet another promising turn of events for a group that's been similarly affected by censorship.

These two giant turtles have been fighting each other for more than 120 years.

According to the zoo, one turtle stole the other’s food 120 years ago, and since that day they became enemies.