Hello friends! As usual, you can call me Al. I’m going to try and do something different with my website, which is to say, I’ll be doing my best to make monthly posts and let you know what’s going on in my weird little horned hobbit life. I think how I’ll be formatting this is starting with my own projects and moving outward to more broader topics, because as much as you and I probably want to pretend the world at large doesn’t exist right now, unfortunately, it does.
I’ve been promising this for a hot minute, but let me finally talk about my WIP, where it’s at, and how it’s coming along. I try to avoid talking too much about what I’m writing while I’m writing it, but there’s a fine balance between keeping a project on the DL and hyping up your audience/giving them something to look forward to.
Keep in mind, the “project goal” isn’t a hard line, but I would definitely say I’m over half-way through what I wanted to put on paper for the first book. I have the rough outline of how I want the story to progress and end, but there are details I have yet to iron out. Of course there are smutty scenes. It wouldn’t be an Aloyster/A.L. Crowlay book without some sauce, but my main focus this time is the story and the process of falling for someone when the world says you shouldn’t and growing confidence in fighting for what you want vs what the majority wants of you.
I think I’ve talked a little bit about it before, but since this is technically my first ‘newsletter’ of sorts, let me recap some info aobut the book. This WIP is me venturing out of my comfort zone and writing a fantasy series, compelete with its own world and races. I’m not gonna tell you it’s super original. It’s not! But, it’s fun, and I think readers will find comfort in the character growth, much like I have found comfort in writing some of my emotions as I’ve experienced similar scenarios.
Without giving everything away, the main storyline centers around a character named Rex, a loyal knight of her kingdom who recently vanquished two terrible foes in one go. One of them was a rampaging deity, and the other was the greatest enemy to her kingdom whom she secretly had feelings for. It wouldn’t be a romance if he didn’t come back to life (of course), with some caveats in place regarding his memories and identity (spoiler alert: he has amnesia. It’s one of my favorite tropes).
Rex is forced to decide between the kingdom she has been trained to protect and the enemy who has placed more value on her shoulders than anyone else in the world. Part of my inspiration for the book was The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s a fantastic, thought provoking short story that I’d recommend everyone read. Sometimes, the right choice isn’t obvious. Sometimes, there is no ‘right choice’. Do you place the needs of one before the needs of many? Would you let someone suffer if it meant everyone else thrived? I loved this story, because it drove home that there’s not always a winning solution to suffering and conflict.
The other half of my inspiration for this story is incredibly self-serving and you may consider it a fanfiction that developed into a book of its own. Many, many books are inspired by previous works, and while a younger Al was jaded about such literature, an older, more nuanced Al recognizes their importance to our experiences. I fell head over heels for a character in a game who inevitably dies and, while I felt that his end in that game was justified, beautiful, and satisfying, I wanted more than that. Greedily, it’s my way of resurrecting him and putting him somewhere I can control him huehuehuehue.
In all seriousness though, while I am pulling some inspiration from parts of the game, I’m also trying to make it stand on its own and be something more than just a spinoff. This is my first experiment in world building and it’s been a learning experience. I’m trying to take notes of my lore, environments, names, and traits to avoid continuity errors, but I have a feeling I may not catch them all.
I also talked on Bluesky about some of the inspiration for names and such. The MC and LI’s names both come from songs. Rex comes from Brutus by The Buttress and Dismas (Sunkiller) comes from Sunkiller by Spirit Box. I’ve started a playlist for the vibe of the building relationship if anyone is interested exploring it a little further! I’ll add more music to it when I find appropriate tracks. This should give you a taste of it, though.
Now, outside of my little writing bubble, we need to have a serious talk about something that will affect all of us, whether you think it will or not. Payment processors including Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and Stripe have started cracking down on the sale of NSFW works, which includes games, books, and porn. It started with niche fetish material and has grown especially heinous on sites like itch.io. I’m here to tell you that I don’t care if you don’t like/indulge with what’s been banned already. That level of selfishness is what’s gotten us into this mess in the first place. The powers that be have sought to divide us and villanize marginalized communities (such as the LGBTQIA+ community) to the rest of the world. These payment processors are banning adult content, but we don’t ask enough what adult content actually *is* to them.
All of this is under the guise of protecting children, but unless you’ve been drinking gallons of the orange koolaid, you know it’s never been about protecting children. It’s about dividing and censoring us. Why else would they arbitrarily limit what you can buy on strictly adult sites?
And, you may be surprised to know that this flood of censorship started from a shitty little group of Karens in Australia (called Collective Shout) that hate people who aren’t like them. All they had to do was make some calls, which means what YOU as an individual need to do is call these payment processors and let them know it’s not okay for them do dictate what legal product you can and can’t buy. Furries aren’t illegal. Fantasy dildos aren’t illegal. Erotica that explores ‘taboo’ subjects isn’t illegal. Writing queer romance isn’t illegal… But if we don’t act and let our voices carry, it might be in the future.
Then they’ll take more, and more, and more, until we’re all joyless cunts like the Karens in Australia.
So, here’s your cheat sheet for fighting censorship, thanks to @dieselbrain.bsky.social. This is where I’ll sign off. If you want to interact with me more, you can find me over on Bluesky talking about much of the same things! I have a SFW Account and a NSFW account~
Aloyster Crowlay 