#katee robert

"To panic is to die...

I refuse to die tonight."

Neil Gaiman, Journal.NeilGaiman.com, 14 January 2025:

Over the past many months, I have watched the stories circulating the internet about me with horror and dismay. I’ve stayed quiet until now, both out of respect for the people who were sharing their stories and out of a desire not to draw even more attention to a lot of misinformation. I've always tried to be a private person, and felt increasingly that social media was the wrong place to talk about important personal matters. I've now reached the point where I feel that I should say something. As I read through this latest collection of accounts, there are moments I half-recognise and moments I don’t, descriptions of things that happened sitting beside things that emphatically did not happen. I’m far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever.  I went back to read the messages I exchanged with the women around and following the occasions that have subsequently been reported as being abusive. These messages read now as they did when I received them – of two people enjoying entirely consensual sexual relationships and wanting to see one another again. At the time I was in those relationships, they seemed positive and happy on both sides. And I also realise, looking through them, years later, that I could have and should have done so much better. I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available, self-focused and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been. I was obviously careless with people's hearts and feelings, and that's something that I really, deeply regret. It was selfish of me. I was caught up in my own story and I ignored other people's. I’ve spent some months now taking a long, hard look at who I have been and how I have made people feel.  Like most of us, I’m learning, and I'm trying to do the work needed, and I know that that's not an overnight process. I hope that with the help of good people, I'll continue to grow. I understand that not everyone will believe me or even care what I say but I’ll be doing the work anyway, for myself, my family and the people I love. I will be doing my very best to deserve their trust, as well as the trust of my readers. At the same time, as I reflect on my past – and as I re-review everything that actually happened as opposed to what is being alleged – I don't accept there was any abuse. To repeat, I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Some of the horrible stories now being told simply never happened, while others have been so distorted from what actually took place that they bear no relationship to reality. I am prepared to take responsibility for any missteps I made. I’m not willing to turn my back on the truth, and I can't accept being described as someone I am not, and cannot and will not admit to doing things I didn't do.

Dear Neil,

You, sir, are nothing other than fundamentally misunderstood — indicated in every sense by this, a smart and good post that you published on the whole-ass internet for literally the entire world to read.

The important thing is that you're learning! And you deserve infinite credit for that. Not nearly enough people appreciate how much you've learned about yourself in the course of ~ allegedly ~ committing sexual assault against multiple, probably crazy, women and the aftermath thereof. Less enlightened men would disregard the experiences of women who have highly specific and detailed accounts of being sexually abused, but you are open to the idea that the women who foolishly believe you assaulted them were simply mislead by your interminable charm! For which you cannot be held responsible! What a gift you are, friend; your generosity and open-mindedness are unparalleled.

Truly, whomst among us has not been where you find yourself now? Come, enjoy the company of friends who understand the brutal loneliness that results from being misunderstood by hysterical bitches who fail to appreciate the privilege of having your masterful fingers shoved up their asses without notice!

Again and again, women love men like you too much. They want you to be emotionally and sexually available! And that is just so, so much to ask. You have a lot going on! It's not a ding on them — of course they find you irresistible, being as you are an intellectual titan — and they may find themselves confused and intimidated by your sexual prowess, unaware that you exist in a world beyond pedestrian notions of consent. That is what makes your work so particularly meaningful and powerful.

You write about a man who does a bad thing, but you do the other good thing! You do a good thing, but in your work, a man does a bad thing! This is the stuff of sheer brilliance, capturing the sturm unt drang of the human condition — or, at least, of the humans whose conditions matter most, which is to say, men of your creative stature.

The sorry truth is that despite your best efforts, no one understands you, the author of 40-plus years of written work in which you had every fucking opportunity to emulate literally any character of your design who was not an unrepentant rapist. Whomst among us has not struggled with such quandaries? Whomst among us has not wondered: Should I rape women in the presence of my child, or should I just the fuck wait a minute and destroy my marriage by other means? Should I order a cinnamon bagel, or an egg sandwich? These are the questions men such as us must grapple with in a world where cancel culture has run rampant, and where people are liable to believe anything they hear from over half a dozen unbridled harpies (story idea! make sure Katee Robert doesn't see this, she seems like a bitch with designs) whose indeterminate fantasies have been aggressively fact-checked by risk-averse media legal departments.

You're right and everyone else is wrong, and that's exactly the take-away that everyone will have from reading this thing that you posted! Great work, great instincts, great writing. It's like Stardust, but hotter. You know what I mean.

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone - two agents on opposite sides of a time war fall in love.

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun - The Bachelor but he falls in love with the producer of the show.

A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland - a sapphic retelling of the Selkie Wife.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield - Miri’s wife has finally come back from a disastrous deep-sea expedition, but she has not come back unchanged.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden - a woman in the Netherlands lives alone in her late mother’s house after World War II. Everything changes when her brother’s girlfriend comes to stay with her.

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake- Delilah returns to her small hometown to photograph her estranged stepsister’s wedding, and accidentally falls for one of her sister’s friends.

The Sea Witch by Katee Robert - THE best erotic romance author out there. They write for all kinds of pairings, many of them queer, and this book is just one example.

Monster romance cover roundup" part one (yee haw) 😈

"The Dragon's Bride" and "The Kraken's Sacrifice." These are the first two covers I made for the A Deal with a Demon series commissioned by Fae Crate!

Characters from upcoming book A Forbidden Hunger

Commissioned by Katee Robert

I can imagine that the world - including one of the most pivotal joys of any mortal's life, even food and wines - tasted like ash when Theseus broke Ariadne. She didn't enjoy anything anymore, she just simply ate. This has never gone unnoticed by Dionysus, I'd imagine.

I can imagine that nothing tasted the way it did before he walked out of her life.

But on Naxos, Dionysus spends months nurturing different types of wines, trying to concoct the PERFECT blend for Ariadne alone.

I can imagine how dorky he must be when researching various types of grapes, blooming them repeatedly, and getting infuriated because nothing is turning out the way his best friend (who he secretly loves) would love it. She can't just like it, she needs to LOVE it.

...I can imagine that when Dionysus serves her this wine, he gives her the glass with trembling hands, putting a laugh on her face with some stupid joke about how handsome he is, and how easy it was to make the wine (when in fact it took MONTHS)