Shores of Night

 So, a few weeks ago I got my assessment results and it turns out I'm autistic. There's no more "may be" or "could be" about it anymore, even though I'm waiting for the written report. I am autistic, full stop. I've spent two years investigating this and reading books and talking with my therapist about it as I explored who I was and how I see the world. The assessment took the form of two Zoom interviews with clinicians (my friend Leeza was kind enough to sit in on the 2nd one, and to give evidence) and the process was pretty painless - though having to repeatedly say that I didn't know about if I had abnormal development when I was four or five got old... just because I don't really remember anything from that time of my life. I would say that having the diagnosis confirmed was probably the biggest thing to happen to me this year and I have a feeling I'll continue to be influenced by in 2025 as well. The autism, of course, will influenc...

 Morning, Sorry I've been really bad at blogging recently, haven't I? I'll try to address that soon.  In them meantime, I've just published the next part of Shadows, and you can find it  here . This part is mostly fighting, to be honest, though Elna has some other dangers to face. I think you can see how I was "inspired" by the Rollright Stone here. This is the penultimate part, so would you like to see more of Elna's adventures?  I'd like to explore this world more, so if you'd like to read more of her stories, let me know.  I didn't publish anything last weekend, because I went up to Wolverhampton to house sit for a friend who went on holiday. This largely meant I was looking after her chihuahua and watching Netflix - bingeing on documentaries about cults (though there wasn't much I hadn't already seen, which was disappointing) and true crime shows. I did a bit of work, but not very much, and mostly caught up on sleep when I wasn'...

This part of the novella ( Shadows of the Past ) has been published today and is only a small section. It was inspired in part by The Whispering Knights at the Rollright Stones  on the border of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.  The Rollrights The Whispering Men is a dolmen located close to the main circle, The King's Men, and there's also the King Stone which sits nearby. According to legend, they were an army who were transformed into stone when they were cursed by a witch. I doubt that story is particularly novel, really. It seems like it would be a pretty common idea in later epochs, one concocted to explain their presence at a time when "humans dragged stones for miles to build something" was probably an alien concept, and when the predominant thoughts about time was that the Earth was less than 4000 years old.  I suspect the idea that when you count the stones you never reach the same number twice (and that bad things happen if you manage to get the same number thr...

 Good morning. It's Saturday and that means it's Shadows of the Past day. Today, in part 11, the characters follow The Trail  deeper into the forest to a place of long lost mysteries.  This part captures some of the Torvenlanders' history and the way they helped to change the world they're in, as well as shedding some light on Fergus' past. I wanted to flesh him out a bit, to give a sense of his character outside of being someone dependable and good at fighting. Also, as the piece is called Shadows of the Past, it felt appropriate to say that Elna wasn't the only member of this group to have some trauma from her past. The chapter also deepens the character of Vigdis, making her more mysterious and also underlining that she's not a nice person. In fact, "nice" isn't really a word I'd be comfortable putting in the same sentence as the Rook. She's a mystery and has an iron will. She's the type of person who'd do whatever it takes t...

 We're live, it's up! I'm using too many exclamation marks!  Part 10 (and I'm still weirded out by the fact my little story has so many parts) is up and published on Wattpad. You can find it here:  Tornhunder!  !  The Tornhunder are faerie monsters, a mixture of hounds and thorny vegetation created by the Fae in one of their more sadistic moments (that's not actually saying much - the Fae in this series are extremely sadistic and alien, even the Changelings don't really think like humans). They're a pivotal part of Elna's story, as she was wounded by one as a child. While she doesn't remember them per se, they haunt her dreams - always hunting for her in the village she lived in as a child. This is her unhealed wound, something that marks her as much as the scar on her face.  When I first created them, I hadn't realised the idea had been used in other places - I've always had a fascination with mammal/plant hybrids and think they're cool....

 Werewolf is occupying my thoughts a bit at present, and I thought I'd dive a little into the different parts of the setting I like and how it manifests in the game. This will include setting information, Tribes, Auspices, Breeds, and Gifts, as a bit of  a tour de force for the things I think are cool. I want to say before I begin, I don't have a beef with any part of the setting (aside from some of the totem spirits, particularly those that are a bit... stereotypically New Age), so these are a) my opinions and b) just because I don't love something doesn't mean I hate it.  I must admit that I'm assuming that the reader knows the setting but if you don't, here's a wee glossary for your information: Garou - Werewolf (derived from the French, Loup Garou) Gifts - Magic powers Pentex - Big nasty corporation Umbra - Spirit World Renown - Divided into Glory, Honour and Wisdom, Renown is the earned through behaving properly and can be lost as easily as its gaze.  R...

I first encountered Werewolf: the Apocalypse in 1994 after playing its sister game, Vampire: the Masquerade . As a keen tree hugger and cynic about the modern world (who'd already toyed with the absurdity of humanity by scribbling notes for something where green politics were rejected because implementing them meant the toilet paper wasn't soft enough) the game caught my imagination, though sadly I haven't played it as much as Vampire. I loved the Tribes and Gifts, and the way that the werewolves (known as Garou in the game) interacted with the world around them. The sense that they were outsiders in the modern world which with how I saw myself seemed fascinating and like it could build into something really powerful. The world building in the line transformed the werewolves from "cool antiheroes" to something far more problematic. Books like Book of the Wyrm and Umbra: the Velvet Shadow , suggested that the Garou were more like a cult than a nation, relying on ...

 Today sees the next episode of  Shadows of the Past: The Unkindness of Birds  being published on Wattpad. The episode ends the second act and leads into Act 3.  I wrote this scene in a different form as part of the original form of the story, and got adapted when I rewrote it. Initially, it followed on from the fight in the bedchamber, with "Gertrude" performing the actions she takes at a much earlier point in the original. The whole thing I wanted to emphasise initially was the way that Lady   Ella-Dýr was being manipulated and was more or less helpless to stop the changeling from doing anything. The rewrite changed that to make her more formidable, and to introduce more problems for Elna in the process - which is really what the rewrite was all about. Other changes crept their way in, for example I changed the birds that "Gertrude" changed into - to make her a literal cuckoo in the nest. I also wanted to play around with Fergus' apparent inability to understa...

 So... let's start with the good side of this. It's pretty, the art is amazing and its coloured really nicely. The artists brought their A game and the character design is great. For the most part, the characters feel well written and there's a solid core to the storytelling. Wynn, our protagonist is the representative of "The Powers That Be" - or magic, and those are opposed to "The Natural Order Of Things", or Science. So far, so cliched, right? It's a hoary, too well ridden track, that has a well established history. Thankfully, what we receive in the stories doesn't really reflect this conflict too much and instead we get to read about a Babylon Event (basically a big scary thing that requires everybody unite and fight together, which is rather convenient). It also allows for Hickman to pick up some of his previous toys, the Black Swans, from before Secret Wars and play around with them a little more which is quite nice. In all honesty though...

 Part eight of my novella, Hearth Not Home is now up on Wattpad. It finds Elna in a reflective mood after the raid on the besiegers' camp.  Shadows of the Past: Hearth Not Home This part of the story was added at a later stage and it gave me a chance to do a touch of world building around the faiths present in Torvenland. I was very conscious that the official religion, the Church of the Five was male dominated and patriarchal and that made me feel uncomfortable. I know that in real life, more women than men are believers even in religions which don't give them any grace for being female (the Madonna/whore issue is proof of that, as is the idea of Eve committing the first sin). I was also conscious that - even though I haven't introduced the identities of the Five gods - there wasn't a deity allied to the domain of death or luck and that didn't seem right. Death is a fundamental part of life, after all, and you don't just dismiss it as nothing because you want t...

 My name is Grim and I'm a recovering  people pleaser . For most of my life, I put myself last to make other people happy, self sabotage for approval, and do my damnedest to avoid conflict because I don't believe I'm worthy of love, attention, or happiness. I've sat through conversations, being talked at, because I don't dare to say I don't care about the subject being talked about, or that I find my conversation companion incredibly boring or rude. Only recently I had a meeting with someone and it was more like attending a piece of theatre (albeit a highly repetitive one), because it felt more like other person was monologuing instead of conversing. It's incredibly frustrating and I've lost so much time to this need to fawn and please other people.  On the other hand, being a people pleaser also means that I'm a manipulator, always doing my best to appear happy and compliant so you won't get angry or upset with me - because that will send me int...

 There's a scene in Sandman 's Kindly Ones story where Rose Walker says how much she hates love. She talks about how it robs you of dignity, autonomy, how it takes hostages and makes you vulnerable. It hollows you out and makes you into someone new, because you fall under someone else's influence even if you never wanted to be. It snatches you away from your own life and integrates you into someone else's. Love, in other words, is a parasite. I wish I hated love just because of that.  I mean, I get it. The obsession at the start of a relationship where all you can do is think about the person is so frustrating. It's not a peaceful, happy, thing. Rather it makes me anxious and unsettled to have those thoughts, to be continually thinking about the other person. Perhaps that makes me selfish - a recurring theme with my internal monologue - but I don't want to be so focused on someone else I lose myself, and that's what it feels like to me.  That infatuation - t...

  The Raid , part 7(!) of Shadows of the Past is up! Wow, I didn't realise this was so long before! I certainly didn't think it had nearly 2 months worth of parts (and more). This is very much an action part, though it is a pivotal turning point in the story. I don't really have anything else to say, except I hope you enjoy the story. 

 So, October. Another year almost gone with very little to show for it. I'm trying not to beat myself up about it as I'm pretty sure I have various forms of executive dysfunction at play, but all the same it's hard to think that another year has almost gone and I'm no nearer to my goals. The Knot, which I've talked about before, seems more pressing in some ways and it's hard to feel like they're getting resolved. I'm honestly tired of it all and just want to be able to get a house, put down some roots, and get some cats. It's not quite vanish into the woods, live in a cottage and never come out again, but it feels pretty close.  On the plus side, I have a date for the two parts of my autism assessment - one incredibly soon on Wednesday next week, the second part in November. A touch of imposter syndrome is kicking in but at the same time, I'm in no doubt that I'm autistic. It will be a relief to get a diagnosis and I hope it will help me unde...

 Exploding onto the DC universe's reset in 2023 after the Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, King's Wonder Woman is a strange beast, picking up one of the oldest superheroes in the world and using her to weave a shockingly contemporary narrative that relies on talking about the real world and modern America. Which, of course, means he's annoyed much of the fanbase who don't think politics shouldn't be part of comics. It's well written, as you might expect from King, though his obsession with PTSD seems to be mercifully off the table for this book. It's also extremely brave, tackling patriarchy head on and leaning into the ideas that constitute a revolt against that. The book is obviously actually about the rise of the Right in America, and the lack of value placed on women's lives and freedoms as a consequence of that, and King is relentless is his pursuit of it. The story opens with the introduction of a new character, Trinity, who appears to be Wonder Wom...

 I'm increasingly concerned that we don't actually know what gender means anymore. People seem to think it's a political thing and talk about how gender was invented in the 1950s by  John Money . However if we take the meaning of gender from the dictionary - in this case Merriam Webster  - we can see that it isn't anything new. In fact, although it was potentially only identified during the 20th Century, we can see that it's probably existed for so long we accept it without thought. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most of us have a gender before we have a sex, at least in chronological terms. By that I mean that we are slotted into male or female, boy or girl, from the moment of birth or even before with the improvement of ultrasound technology and the creation of things like gender reveal parties. We expect certain behaviours from people based purely on their physiology, and in many cases use it as a straightjacket. A study from 1976 conducted by  John a...