"Once Upon a Time...

Moments after being called to the dining room table and briefed on a lengthy set of rules, local woman Shayla Meyer reported Tuesday that her relationship with Matt Brickell had apparently reached the point where she had to learn his family’s weird card games. “Okay, so everyone gets seven cards that you want to arrange by suit, and starting to the left of the dealer, we all take turns drawing a card from the deck and adding its value to the face-up ‘community card’ in the middle,” said Brickell’s father to Meyer, who nodded politely during a three-minute explanation of the so-called “kitty” and “trump suits” while simultaneously coming to the realization that, as long as her relationship continued, she would be expected to play this game with her boyfriend’s family every time they were all together.

This is so fun, I love the brightness and joyfulness of the art, and Elliot so clearly being a little menace and their very different angry expressions. And the scar on Luke’s head from the trigon ball!

I absolutely love the progression here, not just Elliot from lil snot to much bigger snot in jock denial, but the progression of the weird table’s dynamic. Luke and Serene, who were platonic love at first sight, Elliot’s undeniable bisexuality and the celebratory way it’s shown.

And since it is the last day of Pride, I do have some other things to say. Things are rough right now. I hope in an extinction burst way, where people are being awful because they know the tide is turning against them. I hope things will get better and better. In some ways they are! LGBT representation has come a long way since I was first published in 2009. There was behind the scenes pushback then I don’t get now. I watched Queer as Folk back in the day, but all my friends weren’t watching it the way they all watched Heated Rivalry.

At the same time, the way is rocky and full of stumbling back. Tasha Suri (genius author of the lady knight/witch Arthuriana tale ISLE IN THE SILVER SEA) showed me this link about how Heated Rivalry spawned… straight hockey shows? (Well said by the lead and writer of Fire Island, a very excellent gay modern take on Pride & Prejudice.)

And my head spun round and round. And yet… before Heated Rivalry, last year publishers in various markets were saying no thanks to LGBT fiction, and now they’re saying yes again. Baby steps through the rocks.

There is a reason I wrote IN OTHER LANDS on my blog, and that it was published by a small press. For the record, if any book with a straight romance at its centre had made the sales numbers IN OTHER LANDS did, it would have been SNAPPED up by a big publisher. And several editors over the years have tried. (Whenever I talk critically about publishing, I mean the institution, most people in publishing are beautiful story-loving souls.) All of this is incredibly frustrating for those of us who want to celebrate love and share stories.

Still I do think there’s a rising tide of love and change. There are more writers sharing more diverse stories than ever before.

For obvious reasons, LONG LIVE EVIL is the story that means the most to me, and that I think of as my best. (I’d hope my writing has improved in 10 years, or what is it all about). And Time of Iron is making a lot of points about queerness as a way of breaking free from the narrative that I couldn’t quite articulate, back then.

But I know for many of my readers IN OTHER LANDS will be the book that means most to them, the big magical joyful bi coming of age tale that came to them at an important time. I have read and cried over emails and letters telling me that they read it and came out, to their families or themselves, that Elliot was their first bi MC. I’ve heard from other writers that it inspired them, as books like Swordspoint inspired me. And this book survived, and in a large part my career survived, when books I published with big publishers went out of print, because of readers loving this book which for so long I didn’t even know was a book. I wrote it long enough ago now that I experience the book through my readers most: I love it again through their eyes. You bring the tale and the joy back to life for me.

I wrote some of this book sitting in the London beer garden of a gay pub with my friends, drinks in jamjars, drenched in sunlight, lying to them that I had a deadline. Playing with my awful and awfully good Elliot, Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, and golden Luke. Telling the story mattered, and so does love and celebration.

children of any species are very good at being annoying and very cute while doing that

a sphinx child based on this post

And like there was no permanent cast, all these celebrities seem to have gotten a scene or part of a scene to do (i’m not sure exactly, I did not ever watch Quibi and thus haven’t seen this yet), and then they just… recreated it as best they could. At home. Under quarantine.

So like, you had Jennifer Garner in a blanket cape playing Princess Buttercup AND the Booing Old Woman with a crowd comprised entirely of stuffed animals:

Or Taika Waititi paying Westley off a badly-drawn Inigo on a piece of cardboard held in front of someone’s face:

And it’s all just delightful.

But my absolute favorite part of this thing that I’ve sadly never seen but assume is probably absolutely hilarious and a treasure and I want to find it some day and watch the whole thing… is that Carey Elwes is in it.

As Prince Fucking Humperdink.

Here ya go

Edwardian 9ct Gold Pendant Brooch set with Opals & Rubies

Today's my birthday and I'd like to share a new comic with you, it's called Marginalia. It's a love letter to all the weirdness of medieval manuscripts, and you can read it by unfolding a single sheet of paper!

Thank you for all the love on Marginalia!

There is a trick to each dice roll. To get high numbers, try these:

d4: Drop the die from a height of at least 4, this will guarantee you get 4.

d6: The cubic or "Caesar's Dice" can be made to roll a 6 by blowing on them as they fall. Do not try with 3d6 or you will get 666 and Satan will result.

d10: This shape is not physically possible, and works only with the placebo effect to make players think they have rolled it, thus you can make up any number and people will accept it.

d12: Anoint the die with Oil of Abramelin and seek guidance from the holy guardian angel of dice to guide them to roll the numbers you wish. Roll what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, 12 is the law, 12 under Thac0.

d20: Bribe the dice with payments of gold, silver, electrum, or ivory. Photograph yourself doing so, then blackmail them if they refuse. This also works on most politicians in the d20.

d100: This is a ball. Why are you rolling a ball for D&D? That's absurd, balls are for sports people.

They actually did it, all 8 seasons are now available on dvds !!!

Here's the link: