By now, almost everyone and their mother has heard about the omegaverse. If you didn’t discover “wolf-kink porn” through the copyright debacle a few years ago, you might have heard of it when AIs seemed to devolve into writing a/b/o fics. That loaned support to the idea that AI had been trained on stolen fanfic—among other stories. (Ron Lach / Pexels.com) Whether you’re brand new to omegaverse or...
I largely ignore award season, because it’s mostly popularity contests. There’s nothing wrong with being popular, but winning often depends more on the author’s social network than literary merit. (And even when there are governing bodies, we can see all kinds of problems, like what’s gone on with the Hugos.) Yeah, yeah, they’re nice to look at. (Anna Shvets / Pexels.com) We also run...
I’ve argued before that omegaverse tends to play fast and loose with our notions of gender. Mpreg, generally, does the same thing. One of the curiousities of the genre is that characters who can get pregnant maintain a cisgender identity. Because sex and gender is always so very clear cut. That can cause some consternation when it comes to terminology—particularly when Baby arrives. Should we...
(And Why I Won’t Be Doing Any NaNoWriMo Events in the Future) What my writing output has looked like the last couple of months (Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare / Pexels.com) Right! So, it’s May already. You may have noticed that the blog went on a bit of an extended break from early March. That wasn’t really my intention, but … life happened, as it is wont to do. Truth is, I haven’t written...
For International Women’s Day in the past, I’ve looked at topics like “what makes a woman” and other such topics. This year, I wanted to return to a topic I’ve written about before: mpreg and transphobia. Specifically, though, I wanted to look at how transmisogyny plays out in our mpreg stories. What Is Transmisogyny? Transmisogyny is the intersection between transphobia and misogyny. Transphobia...
The robots are coming! (Kindel Media / Pexels.com) The Verge released a pretty ugly article recently, detailing the rise of artificial intelligence and content generators. In it, they interviewed at least one author who was using a content generator, as they sought reasons people either supported or didn’t support these new “tools.” The article sparked a lot of debate, especially in light of the...
If any of you have read Saved by the Selkie, then you know one of the leads is Aramis. And Aramis is joined, at various points in the book, by Athos and Porthos. Now, if you know anything about literature (or pop culture), then you know those are also the names of the three musketeers. So … what gives? Why pick these three particular names? Saved by the Selkie and the Historical Setting Saved by...
Quick, what’s the difference between Edward Cullen and a stalker?Bella loves one but not the other. This isn’t even really a joke. It’s kind of a hard-and-fast truth we have to acknowledge when we start talking about the romance genre. So many romances feature guys who are lovingly referred to as “alpha males.” Yet, all too often, these men veer into the realm of what would be better termed...
These candy hearts, oddly enough, include both “romantic” messages and platonic ones (Jill Wellington / Pexels.com) It’s February once more, which means the subject of love and romance is on everyone’s minds. One big topic that’s come up in more recent years is the debate about platonic vs romantic relationships. What’s the difference between them? Can you actually tell them apart...
Omegaverse has taken off in the last five to ten years or so. With it, we’ve seen plenty of batshit crazy moments—like someone claiming to have “invented” it. We’ve also seen it cross over into the realm of M/F books, even if the trope was represented there early on. A lot of m/m and queer omegaverse is also mpreg, so I wanted to focus this post on books that were less firmly in that category...
Coming January 28! Get set for more intergalactic hijinks when a monk inherits a HOST CLUB ON THE PLEASURE PLANET!