we have adapted to change
• Too old for tumblr.
• Nerd of all trades, master of none.
• Co-editor of Shousetsu Bang*Bang, a webzine of original gay sexy stories.
• My Shousetsu Bang*Bang stories can be found here.
• I am beeblebabe on Livejournal and whitneyarner on Twitter.
• I like watching people do smooches. An important thing you should know about me is that I own the URL manpelt.com.
• Blog is occasionally NSFW (depending on where you work,) but I tag for that.
Photoshop, 2013
These are both the covers for some ebooks that my husband and I recently completed and an advertisement of the fact that they are now on sale for $2.99 each! Amazon Prime members can read them for free, and there is no DRM on any of these works. Share all you want, but if it’s possible and you enjoyed them we’d love if you could kick a little cash our way.
To the surprise of no one who reads this blog, all three of these stories involve humans—or, in one case, an elf—getting into consensual sexy situations with monsters. They are each standalone stories that use different characters and plots, and all three include content warnings in their summaries to help reduce the Unwanted Ick that can bubble up when reading somebody else’s porn. These conveniently double as “spoilers” for people who are into some of the acts included…
Check them out at the Verity Kenning author page!
Signal boosts appreciated!
Okay, I saw this and this and ended up writing a little sequel/epilogue/continuation thing of my Shousetsu Bang*Bang story, On Earth My Nina.
Here’s the complete schedule for 2013: themes, descriptions, deadlines, dates, and all!
FEBRUARY 25: HOOKERS AND BLACKJACK
text deadline: Tuesday, February 19
art deadline: Saturday, February 23
Build your own theme park! But remember, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
MARCH 25: TEA FOR TWO (F/F SPECIAL)
text deadline: Tuesday, March 19
art deadline: Saturday, March 23
How do you ladies take your tea? Hot? Sweet? Spiked?
APRIL 29: PLAYING DOCTOR
text deadline: Tuesday, April 23
art deadline: Saturday, April 27
Whether you’re suffering from a broken heart or a terminal case of handsomeness, the doctor is in.
JUNE 24: HEROES AND VILLAINS
text deadline: Tuesday, June 18
art deadline: Saturday, June 22
Calling all caped crusaders and men of steel: your city needs you now more than ever.
AUGUST 26: ON WRITING
text deadline: Tuesday, August 20
art deadline: Saturday, August 24
Bibliophiles, rejoice! This issue celebrates books and the people who like to create, compile, collect, critique, and/or consume them.
SEPTEMBER 23: DISTANT SHORES (ARTIST SPECIAL)
text deadline: Tuesday, September 3
art deadline: Tuesday, September 17
Our third artist special focuses on far-off places and the fun of going (or not going) there.
OCTOBER 28: MASQUERADE
text deadline: Tuesday, October 22
art deadline: Saturday, October 26
Mistaken identities? Clever disguises? Elaborate costuming? Who was that masked man?
DECEMBER 16: THEME-FREE (BIG BANG*BANG)
text deadline: Tuesday, December 10
art deadline: Saturday, December 14
And as always, if you want your big story to have its big break, December’s the month to do it: the sky’s the (word) limit.
~*~
Want to participate? It’s easy! Signup posts go up about two months before each issue, both for a nonbinding way of declaring commitment and for authors to hook up with volunteer illustrators. Regardless of whether or not you signed up beforehand, stories are due in our inbox by the Tuesday before the issue goes live, and all standalone images/illustrations are due by the Saturday before. You can find more rules and details in our mission statement.
Have you ever been having a slow day and found yourself thinking, “Gosh, I like that Ashlea person’s writing! I wish she had written something I could pay MONEY for, and thereby support her and a group of other hard-working creative individuals like her!”?
…Wait, no, hang on, for the sake of our friendship I think you probably shouldn’t answer that question.
REGARDLESS. Paul, a cool dude who I like, put together The Ships We Sail, which is an e-anthology of short stories by various authors on the topic of ADVENTURE and SHIPS of various kinds and also LOVE, because get it, you know, a “ship” can also mean, right, okay, okay you get it, all right. Anyway, he was also kind enough to invite me and also my beautiful wife ladysisyphus to contribute stories, which we did! I wrote the first one and she the second, rockin’ it pseudonymous style.
It is a way rad book by some way rad people, and I think you’d like it. You can find it at that link above. For right now, you can buy it in DRM-free .html, .epub, and .mobi formats direct from the site, and very soon it will also be available from the Kindle Store and iBooks.
It costs $2.99. Come on, man, you can’t even get a decent sandwich for $2.99 normally, let alone 7 cool stories from 7 cool people. I think you’d like it! And I like you.
I love these assholes come on and buy their thing
From Volume 8, Issue 39
Ianaver Swordhand is a human fighter. Standing a majestic six and a half feet tall, he has high strength and charisma balanced by relatively low speed and dexterity. He wears a dwarf-forged breastplate, a gift from Nortiln Giantcrippler, the party’s other fighter (and himself a dwarf); he wields a sword that has a plus-three in dragonslaying, which is reputed be very handy should he ever be approached by a dragon.
Literally the only reason Noah can remember most of this is because it’s all written on the piece of paper in front of him, on the table between his can of PBR and Jai’s bag of white cheddar popcorn.
“Coming over the ridge, you see a forest,” says Ruby, her words slightly garbled by the stick of red licorice jammed in the corner of her mouth like the world’s floppiest cigarette. “Huge fucking forest. We’re talking trees as far as the eye can see. An eerie mist rolls along the ground, shrouding the interior in mystery. Other than that, though, it looks like a completely ordinary forest.”
“I think I’d like to know more about this forest,” says Jai, speaking not so much for himself as for Viceak Hawklight, centuries-old human mage, whose magics have over time turned his skin a copper sheen and deepened his human eyes into dark pools of starlight. Jai has a little pewter statue in front of him of an inch-high wizard, painted appropriately. All the others have similar miniatures of their characters, except for Ruby, because being the DM is apparently the opposite of having a single character, and Noah, because this is his first game. “I’m casting a spell of checking that mother out.”
Ruby shrugs and nudges a red die across the table to him. “Roll for perception, wizard.”
My dearest ladysisyphus writes something fun, funny, sexy, and in a shocking twist, well, well under 20,000 words long!
Hey, fanfic writers of the world, check this shit out:
Homophobia is not a universal cultural constant. Even before the present moment, which is its own complicated kettle of fish, there have been about as many different attitudes toward same-sex relationships as there have been cultural settings. And the assumption that homophobia is a universal cultural constant? Is itself homophobic.
Like, seriously, when you write same-sex relationships as being some giant taboo in a story setting where there’s actually no reason for that to be the case, that is like a big giant fat slap in the face of ‘WOW GAY IS ACTUALLY SO GROSS THAT IT WOULD NEVER BE ACCEPTED IN ANY CULTURE EVER AT ALL, AM I RIGHT??’ If you’re writing in any setting other than your very own modern current context, you need to do your goddamn research! You can’t just merrily assume everyone hates the gays in the past, because surprise, a lot of people in history really actually haven’t! And if you’re writing in a fantasy setting… maybe it would be more interesting to take a DIFFERENT approach to that sort of thing than exists in your own?
And if you’re writing something that’s set in the future? Wouldn’t it actually be more interesting (not to mention debatably more consistent with ongoing cultural trends!) to seize that opportunity to assume that bigotry has lessened over time, and isn’t much of a problem anymore, and get to actually focus on other aspects of writing a same-sex relationship than the hackneyed old The Tribulations Of Being Gay warhorse? Or are you so desperately married to how gross and unnatural gay stuff must surely be to everyone all the time that you have to go ‘NOPE, IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE HAS FORGOTTEN HOW GAY STUFF WORKS AND NOW IT WILL BE A ~TABOO~ ~DISCOVERY~’ to try to shoehorn in that shit? When some of us are maybe just a teeny weeny bit tired of dealing with all that, constantly, for real, in our actual lives, and would maybe like to be able to think about gay people doing something ELSE like OTHER than being oppressed in our fantasy lives??
ALSO CAN I CRAM ANY MORE BITCHY SARCASM INTO THIS POST, OR HAVE I HIT CRITICAL MASS?????
These are all important questions and we should consider them. And furthermore, while we are considering things, someone should also consider making me a mojito. The muddler’s right in the utensil drawer, right — yeah, right there. Great. Thanks. I’ll be in the den.
Don’t describe them with foodstuffs.
THE END
I’d like to see the foodstuff problem applied to white people more.
“She had skin the color of a 6 oz. tub of Fage 0% fat greek yogurt.”
“His eyes were almond-shaped, but they were blue, so honestly kind of more like an almond that had gone bad or one of those things your grandma has in a bowl at Easter.”
(via ladysisyphus)
From Volume 8, Issue 37
In Simon Carroway’s view, there were three things that were particularly wrong with his current situation.
First, he was stuck up a gumtree and there was a protuberant piece of branch sticking into his arse; second, there were five dingoes sitting under the tree, muzzles upturned as if they expected him to just drop into their waiting jaws; and third, he had no mobile phone reception.
“Hungry, are you?” he called down at them. “Well, I’ve got news for you. Fuck the lot of you; I can sit up here all day.”
One of the dingoes stuck its tongue out of the side of its mouth and panted.This was another gem from the most recent issue!
Yeah, this one won my heart, or some sort of outrageous Australian slang for the same thing.
From Volume 8, Issue 37
Jonathan Crowe @birdsinmybeard
Yesterday was not the first time I told someone I was an ornithologist and they thought I meant orthodontist, but I can pray it is the last.
Pen Hamilton @pen_ham
@birdsinmybeard It’s ‘cause you got such beautiful chompers!
Pen Hamilton @pen_ham
I’m thinking: braces for birds — “Your smile will be im-pecker-ble!”
Jonathan Crowe @birdsinmybeard
@pen_ham I’m confiscating your phone.
Pen Hamilton @pen_ham
@birdsinmybeard Come and get it, chickadee.
My story! It is perhaps the most original and unusual concept I’ve ever come up with for a story, and I feel very good about how it came out. In three words, it’s about middle-age, cryptozoology, and twitter.
I must draw attention to the art at the end done by serenity-fails, because it is amazing and perfect. When I got the email with the art, I literally clutched my hands together in front of my chest and squeaked.
There’s some bonus content for this story if you know where to look. It doesn’t really take much detective work. You can do it!!
From Volume 8, Issue 35
Alone in the command center Richard sat, his elbows braced against the shiny black roundtable, leaning forward into his clasped hands, resting his lips against his steepled index fingers. The machines around him buzzed and hummed, but he paid them no mind; he stared straight ahead at nothing, though even his expressionless face told its own story. He’d changed back into his civilian clothes, a shirt and slacks so expensive they looked cheap. His graphite-grey helmet lay on the table next to him, cracked up the left side, and a half-patched wound up his left cheek toward his ear told of where the helmet had been when it had suffered that damage. Alone, he waited, and he’d wait as long as he had to, impeccable and patient.
The heavy metal doors swooshed open (or at least they would, after foley got through with them), but Richard didn’t flinch, not even as Brandon stormed in, his own blond hair matted with blood. “What the hell was that?” shouted Brandon, bringing down his gloved fist on the metal railing. He was still in costume, though the star-spangled pattern up the sleeves was burned and torn in artful places, exposing his golden-tanned, muscled body beneath.
“Oh, good, you survived long enough to complain.” Richard moved nothing more than the muscles necessary for speech. This wasn’t amateur hour, not by any means, but even amongst professionals, Richard was a professional.
Brandon’s entire body was tense with fury and betrayal, his jaw set firm enough that it might have put his teeth in danger of shattering. “You knew the thrusters would fail. You set us up.”
“No,” said Richard, and now a cloud of real anger bubbled up through his ice-cool voice, “you were so intent on being a hero that you couldn’t wait for—”
”You set us up!” Taking powerful, echoing strides, Brandon walked around the empty comm station to the short set of steps that would take him from the center’s upper level of control stations to the sunken center where Richard sat. “You couldn’t stand knowing that your idea wouldn’t work, so you sabotaged the only way we AAAUGH!”
REBLOGGING THIS TO CELEBRATE THE AVENGERS US RELEASE
VENGEANCERS VASSEMBLE!!
