Skip to main content

Posts

Markov And The Withered Land

 Hello, Welcome to the Shores of Night, or welcome back if you are new. My name is Grim, a nonbinary, autistic human, and I talk about too many things here.  This time, I wanted to write about one of my characters, explaining a bit about his world and his origins in our world.  His name is Markov, and his world is meant to be a weird mix of Sword and Sorcery, Post-Apocalypse, and the sort of fantasy you find in video games like Skies of Arcadia , Tales of Symphonia , and films like Princess Mononoke and  Nausicaä Valley of the Wind .  His story began back when I was trying to commit to writing - which you may have gathered is a recurring activity for me. I'd created the basics of a roleplaying setting called Ironbound, using ideas around states modelled on ancient Greece, Persia, and other things. I'd determined that in the past - I've no idea how far into it - there'd been a magical war which had resulted in all the magic vanishing because the energy that...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

Standing In The Dark: Learning I Don't Fit

 Hi, Welcome back to the Shores of Night, or welcome if you're new. My name is Grim, a nonbinary, autistic human, and this blog covers far too many things.  Content Warning: Abuse, Bullying and Mental Health This is a bit of a memoir I'll never write. Some pieces from my past which, sadly, still inform who I am. I've been in therapy since 2022, and a lot of that has been dealing with this shit.  I've never fit in anywhere. One of my first memories is being bullied on the playground because I didn't watch the He-Man cartoon (I know, the nerve ! How dare I?). It doesn't get much better after that. My childhood was a patchwork of bullying and abuse. At the second school I attended, things got so bad that I'd burst into tears at the start of the school year, and I threw up in the back of my Dad's car at least once. It didn't help that the teachers were also picking on me, and I'm pretty sure that this was the start of my developing depression and anx...
Post a Comment
Read more

You'd Better Work...

Hi,  Welcome back to the Shore of Night, or welcome if you're new. I'm Grim, a nonbinary, autistic person who blogs about too much stuff.  In a world where blog advice is to focus on one subject, Shores is more like a walk along the beach, discovering what the sea's washed up. A place of flotsam and jetsam, if you will.  Photo by Jason Mavrommatis on Unsplash I'm trying to blog more, so you'll hopefully see more entries... but that does mean you'll be getting quite a few small pieces about my life, which you may actually like.  Anyway, today, I'm thinking about work... again.  Partly, that's because my annual review is coming up, and one of the questions was about my career goals. I've been going back and forth on this for ages, but when I had that question, I suddenly knew. Slightly annoyingly, it wasn't anything new but a confirmation of the things I'm interested in.  Neurodiversity advocacy, particularly in universities. Since I discovere...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Keyboard

 Hi, Welcome, or welcome back if you're new, to the Shores of Night. My name is Grim, an autistic, non-binary person, and I talk about too much stuff here.  You know how it goes.  Photo by Igor Kasalovic on Unsplash I'm sort of just trying to keep going with the blog, and -help! - I'm blogging without a plan! Danger, danger, Will Robinson!  I usually at least have an idea of what I'm going to write about beforehand, but today's subject literally came to me as I sat down to write.  So, this post will be a catch-up about writing and how that's going.  Or more accurately, how it's not going at all.  I started this year with big plans. I was going to write ten short stories, get them published, finish a setting for gaming (at least to the point where I could play it with my group), and plan a novel to start next year.  Looking back in September (as in... now - sheesh, where has this year gone?) I have achieved almost none of this. I got a story publ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Proof of Life

 Hey,  Welcome, or welcome back, to the Shores of Night. I'm your host, Grim, and I talk about far too many things.  I'm conscious that I'm pretty bad at updating the blog. This is really a proof-of-life blog piece. I have a few essays/think pieces on the back burner, waiting to be finished. One's about human nature and the other about fantasy and history, and I'll try to get them published soon... ish.  After that I'll see what I can start writing about. I'd quite like to do something fairly big, perhaps a deep dive into a roleplaying game like The Wildsea or Vaesen , or a Chapter and Verse series for the Definitive Edition of Ars Magica, going through it chapter by chapter. I also want to talk more about mental health and the odd things I find interesting, because let's face it, I'm interested in some odd things.  That, though, is for the future. I feel like I have to get through this month first.  September Honestly, this time of year is exhaus...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Own Private Cosmology

 Hi,  Welcome to the Shores of Night, or welcome back if you're new. I'm Grim, and I write about far too many subjects for one blog... I think I'm used to it now.  I wanted to talk about my own personal cosmology in terms of spiritual beliefs. My main belief is in Mother Earth, Gaia, the Anima Mundi - whatever you want to call her- with occasional dips into acknowledging a sea god and believing in Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess. They form an eclectic mix, and I'm not applying much logic to them. I believe in Gaia because without a planet, we wouldn't exist, and because if we don't protect the Earth, we'll suffer a dramatic change in lifestyle, at the very least. My faith in a sea god is because I live by the coast and there are times when the sea can be awe-inspiring, both in its beauty and its violence.  I believe in Bast because I still maintain the closest thing I've seen to divinity is looking into a cat's eyes. I associate cats with beauty and c...
Post a Comment
Read more

That Inner Voice

Photo by Luke Jones on Unsplash  Hi,  Welcome back to the Shores of Night, or welcome if you're new here. My name is Grim, I'm a nonbinary, autistic person, and I usually write about fantasy, writing, paganism, roleplaying games, and whatever else takes my fancy.  Today I want to swerve into my mental health journey and talk about some of the things I'm wrestling with. I've already talked about some changes, which I believe are deep work paying off.  I've been in therapy since 2022, and learned I'm autistic in 2024, so the past few years have really helped me learn to like, and possibly even love, myself. It's allowed me to reframe a lot of my experiences into something more manageable and encouraged me to have more self-compassion. I feel like a lot of the places I've struggled with sit in the space between what I feel I should have experienced and what actually happened, as well as the various double binds we humans are so good at creating. I guess it...
Post a Comment
Read more