Do you love greek myths, queer love stories, and badass women? Then I think you’ll love Volume I of my Gods and Monsters series, which contains 22 stories exploring the above.
Of course, these stories are available on my tumblr and AO3, but if you’re looking for physical version that you can hold in your hand, here’s the place to be!
It also contains 17 gorgeous black and white Illustrations by @nesynkoy!
THIS IS A PRE-ORDER! ALL BOOKS WILL BE SHIPPED ON OR BEFORE DECEMBER 1ST, 2018! Pre-orders will be available until 11:59 pm PST on October 31, 2018.
Books are $17, plus shipping. If you would like a signed copy, there’s a $3 add on.
Shipping is UPS Ground and costs $3.75. A tracking number is provided.
If you’re outside of the continental US and interested in buying a book, please send me an email at shanastoryteller@gmail.com so we can discuss shipping costs.
BOOK AND DIGITAL COPY – $17
DIGITAL COPY – $6
SIGNATURE ADD ON – $3
2 DAY SHIPPING UPGRADE – $2.75
Also, in an effort to raise funds for the initial print, I am offering WRITING COMMISSIONS for the FIRST TIME EVER. Ten slots are available.
The cost is $50, and the story will be a minimum of 2,000 words. All money raised will go directly to the cost of production. The rules are:
– I will only accept commissions for derivative works if the property is in the public domain – I own all the work produced as a result of the commission. You are paying to tell me WHAT to write, but I retain all rights to my own work. – Stories will published on my platforms as they’re written, unless discussed otherwise. – Final piece will be at minimum 2,000 words long. – All commissions will be completed by 12/31/18.
If you would like to support me, but can’t afford to, I completely understand. Please consider reblogging this post! Thank you!
Once is chance, twice is a coincidence, three times usually means someone’s trying to kill him.
“What are you doing?”
Draco turns toward the sounds of his voice and scowls. “Potter, I would have thought this level of stalking to be beneath you.”
“I’m not stalking you! You’re stalking me, if anything, because this isn’t even your world.” Draco doesn’t so much a flinch, and Harry’s shoulders slump. “Where did you even get that anyway?”
“I stole it,” he says, and Harry’s barely had the time to get outraged when he rolls his eyes, “I bought it, obviously. With money. You know what that is, don’t you?”
“Shut up,” he answers, and then, “How do you even know how to ride that thing?”
Draco shifts his weight, circling Harry on his skateboard, as comfortable as if he’d been walking. “Please, like it’s hard. You could probably even do it.” He’s dressed like a muggle again, ridiculously tight jeans and trainers and a dark green t shirt that Harry’s pretty sure could stand to be a size or two larger. The sleeves cut into his biceps in a way that can’t be necessary. “Want to try?”
Harry had been so busy staring at Draco he hadn’t noticed when he got close. “What?
“I’m headed to the skate park,” he says, “It will be a lot easier for you to continue following me if you can manage to not fall off a skateboard.”
“I’m not following you,” he says, then immediately follows it up with, “Yeah, sure, okay.”
It seems like this summer is getting away from him, maybe.
chihiro never forgets her time spent in the spirit world,
because that’s no fun for anyone. she never forgets her friends, how could she?
she holds them all close to her heart, which is where they belong, especially
her beautiful white dragon.
hake is hers as
far as she’s concerned, but she’s his too, so it’s all nice fair. of course,
haku thinks that she doesn’t know he exists, but that’s okay. she’ll go find
him again one day.
because chihiro plans to return to the spirit world. but she
knows the time isn’t right, that if she just goes darting through every place
where the boundary between their worlds runs thin, then nothing will change. as
is, she’s just a little girl, just a helpless little girl who will get lost and
killed in the world of her friends, of her dragon. so she doesn’t go back.
she could. now
that she knows what to look for, she sees entrances to the spirit world
everywhere. they’re rarely in the exact same place twice but she knows what to
look for, how to find them if she wants to, how to get back to rin and kamaji
and zeniba. but she’s not ready yet.
she needs to get stronger.
her family’s not religious, so they’re surprised when she
asks to go visit shrines, but maybe it’s for the history or the culture, or,
they don’t know, the architecture. it’s a simple thing, and so they go.
chihiro keeps her eyes peeled, because she’s looking for something
in particular.
she’s looking for a shrine with a lot of spirits living in
it.
oh, because that’s another thing she can do now.
she can see spirits.
not ghosts, not
the echoes of the dead. but spirits, nature spirits mostly, but tricksters and
guardians, and all sorts, really. so they visit shrine after shrine, and there
are sprits there, of course, but never enough, none of them are there for anything
but the offerings, and that’s not what chihiro is looking for.
it takes months, and she’s already started school, settling
into it easier than she knew she could. after her adventures in the spirit world,
human children are nothing. but one day she visits a shrine, and she knows it’s
the one. it’s small, nothing impressive, all the way at the top of a long hill.
but she knows she’s found what she’s looking for. someone
who can help her.
there’s an old priestess taking care of it all on her own,
and all around her dart spirits, some lingering, some running by and doing
nothing more than patting her on the shoulder or back, but all of them
acknowledging her in some way. she takes one look at chihiro and says, “looking
for an apprenticeship, then?”
her parents start to say no, but she interrupts them, says, “yes,
i am,” and her parents don’t understand, but they have no reason to deny her,
so they don’t.
“it’s been a while since i’ve seen someone else who was
spirit touched,” she says the first day that chihiro returns, this time on her
own.
“what happened to you?” she asks, and knows the old
priestess will understand. those with the ability to interact with the spirit
world aren’t born. they’re made.
“a spirit saved my life as a child,” she answers. “you?”
she grins. “a river spirit saved me. once when i was
younger, and then again just a few months ago. i’m going to back to him.”
“returning willingly to the spirit world is foolish, and
dangerous,” she says, but there’s something like approval in her eyes.
“yes,” she says, “teach me how to survive it.”
so the priestess does. chihiro becomes known to the local
spirits, helping them however she can just like the old woman. plenty of
guardian spirits offer to attach themselves to her, to mark her as under their
protection, but she always refuses. there’s only one spirit who’s mark she’s
willing to carry.
years pass, and chihiro grows, from a girl to a young woman.
she grows up strong, and beautiful, and thanks to her years under the
priestess, she grows up powerful. she learns how to shoot arrows that cut
spirits and to write spells on rice paper, she learns every inch of the forests
around her home and the spirits that dwell there, and on the day she graduates
high school she moves into the temple.
but she’s not planning to stay.
“i hope he’s worth it,” the priestess tells her.
chihiro grins, sharp and eager, and says, “i guess i’m going
to find out.”
she walks into the woods and slips through one of the places
where the border is too thin, and enters the spirit world once more. she has
her bow and her ink, and this time she’s not going to be easy prey, she’s not
going to be someone that has to be saved or coddled.
she’s come here for her dragon, and she won’t let anything
get in her way. it’s haku, and haku alone, who will be able to turn her away.
if he rejects her, she’ll leave. but for no other reason.
it takes her a long time to get to the bathhouse, to fight
and bargain her way there, because before it was an obstacle, so it came to her
easily, but now it’s a goal, so this world holds it back from her. but she won’t
let it stay out of her grasp forever. when she arrives she’s filthy and tired
and half her arrows are missing, her clothes are different, and she’s older. by
how much she doesn’t know, because time isn’t the same in here, but she’s not
the same girl who entered.
the whole realm is talking of her, of the human who walks
among them and won’t be chased away, of the girl who marched across the endless
marshes until she reached the end, something few ever manage, and then just
kept going. who aids those in need and destroys those who stand in her way.
when she walks through the bathhouse doors, haku is there.
“it’s you,” he says, eyes wide, and he looks older too, like
breaking free of yubaba’s curse finally allowed him to grow up. “i didn’t think
it could be. i didn’t think it was possible.”
she marches forward, grinning, and grips the front of his snow
white shirt with her muddy hands. “anything is possible. you taught me that.”
she kisses him, exhausted and filthy and feeling more alive
than she ever has. she kisses him like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do, because
it just might be, because if she angers him, then he could easily kill her.
he doesn’t kill her.
he kisses her back.
chihiro gets exactly what she wanted – her friends, a place
in the spirit world, and a reputation as someone who’s dangerous, even as a
human.
and her dragon husband, of course. she gets that too.
Zuko was a firebending master by the time he was eleven. Not like Azula was, all dizzying new moves, and terrifying tricks, but something – deeper. More basic. He knew exactly how to control the fire under his skin and on it. If he couldn’t do the flashiest or strongest moves – well, he had this, at least, an intimacy with fire he wouldn’t trade for anything.
This means when his father presses a flaming hand to his face, Zuko doesn’t stop him, but he doesn’t take it either. He directs the heat of the flames from his face to the rest of his body and subtly into the floor.
When Tiffany opens her big yellow eyes to kill Tom Riddle and save the world from all the things he plans to do, she resigns herself to another thousand years alone, to another thousand years of eating rats and missing her beloved Salazar.
Instead, within the very same century, another boy makes his way into her chamber.
He speaks her tongue and puts her scales and convinces one of the house elves to bring her fresh meat from the kitchens. He says that his mom is going to be so mad, but it she’d just let him get a pet snake, none of this would have happened, so it’s really not his fault.
Tiffany loves Harry Potter utterly. He reminds her of Salazar.
like, okay. a lot of it has
to do with the way i write. i work best when i have a lot of room to work
with and to tell the story, which is why my chapters are really long and i write
in multiple povs. someone recently commented they were surprised they liked an invincible
summer because it’s rare for them to really get into a story that’s less than
ten chapters long, and i was like …. it’s almost a 140k words long. what are
you saying right now. because, in spite of it’s length, it only has 6 chapters.
and originally it only had 5, but then the last chapter was like 40k and that
seemed too ridiculous so i broke it up into two.
this is why never grow a
wishbone is just … so hard for me to write. i have a lot of plot stuff planned
out, but i’m really struggling with finding a way to get to it, because i
pretty much set myself up to fail for that fic. i wanted to try writing shorter
chapters, because i never had before, and it hadn’t occurred to me that HEY
MAYBE THERE WAS A REASON FOR THAT. but writing only 5k is very constraining to
me, and it means i end up focusing one chapter on one specific thing, rather
than bouncing around like i like too, and i end up writing myself into a
corner. this is made worse by the fact i did a single pov for this fic, in
spite of knowing full well how hard it is for me to tell a long story in a
single pov. when i start writing this fic again, i’m going to have to make the
chapters longer, maybe 6-8k, because otherwise i’ll go insane.
crust and sugar over is a
good balance for me for chapter length, because those chapters were 8-9k, and
that’s a really comfortable place for me if i’m not doing a super long fic.
with caso i struggled a lot with pacing, because i wanted this story to stay a
reasonable length, but the actual writing was pretty easy, i just struggled
with plotting the timeline of things.
an invincible summer was
actually very easy for me to write. my chapters were like … way too long, over
20k and i think two of them were over 30k. per chapter. what was i thinking.
but that had a lot of stuff going on, and outline wise, i literally did not
write a single thing down until after i published the third chapter, so over
60k into the story i was like hey … maybe an outline for the rest of it. before
that i just kept track of and planned everything in my head.
a terrifying clamour or
trumpets was very easy to write, in spite of being a single pov fic. but that
fic was very specific to my mood at the time. i’d had the idea of ed dying of
trisha’s illness since i was like … 14. but it wasn’t until i was stuck at
minimum wage job that i hated with my bright and shiny college degree and a bit
of situational depression that i was like OKAY now i am ready. and i wrote most of it all at once without an
outline.
know the difference, by
comparison, was very hard for me to write with the single pov. also a lot of it
was i was talking about a lot of big concepts with that fic, and it was an
angel/wing fic, and i was worried people would read it for pretty boys with
wings and then be like ??? what’s all this religious body horror and
pretentious bullshit??
survival is a talent is
pretty easy for me to write. there are scenes that i struggle with sometimes,
usually because i’m trying not to mess up my timeline, but for the most part
siat comes out easy. 15k is a good chapter length for me for long fic, although
sometimes it runs a little over because i don’t want to cut it off in the
middle of something Dramatic happening. i know i take a while to update, and i’d
hate to leave you guys on too big a cliffhanger.
build you wings on the way
down is like … the messiest fic i’ve written to date. originally, bywotwd and
son of the desert were one fic. but then i realized a lot of themes and story
stuff would work SO MUCH BETTER in sotd, so i incorporated them into that fic.
but then that meant my original plan for bywotwd was pretty much shafted. and
it took me a really long time to come up with a continuation that wasn’t a rip
off of sotd, and instead was interesting and different in it’s own right. it
ended up being a MUCH bigger story than i was planning on telling, as tends to
happen to me, but i really didn’t want to spend 100k on it, which is why plot
in bywotwd happens at 100mph. bywotwd is like if you were making a puzzle, and
halfway through someone stole all your pieces for a different puzzle. but hey!
they give you two boxes of puzzle pieces, mess them together, and tell you good
luck. so now you have to complete the puzzle using these pieces, but you can’t
alter the half a puzzle you already made, and the whole thing still has to make
sense and show an actual picture. that’s why writing bywotwd is so hard for me.
anyway. that was a super long
answer to your question. i hope it was interesting for some of you??
hhhmmm i just … i don’t know, they seemed to fit together? at first i was planning to make ares a villain because FUCK WAR but then i was like … what if he wasn’t the general, what if he was the soldier boy drafted into a war he didn’t believe in? and, the thing is, general god of war ares and hades would never ever work. but kind, strong, soldier boy ares who didn’t ask for any of this and is doing his very best? who is kind and trying and cares?
hades is just so all over that.
and patient hades, with soft hands and soft words, who opens his arms and says, let me be your resting place? show me your rage, your sorrow, your anguish, i will take it all and love you just the same – of course ares loves him, loving hades is as easy as breathing.
draco’s been keeping
a secret his whole life, from his parents, from his friends, from everyone.
people thought poorly enough about the malfoy family already, he wasn’t going
to make it any worse. he’ll just have to deal with this alone.
except in second year, the dueling club happens, and he’s
completely thrown by what happens there. he can’t stop thinking about it.
the next day he corners potter when he’s away from his
friends, concentrates for a moment, and asks “you too?”
in parseltongue.
draco thought he was the only one, but clearly he was wrong.
draco is so fucking elated that the golden boy is a
parseltongue, because if harry potter is a parseltongue, then that means it
can’t be bad, can’t be evil, not if harry has it too. he swears harry to
secrecy, and harry agrees because they haven’t been truly awful to each other
yet, they’re enemies, but just when harry thought there was something else to
mark him as different, as other, here is someone else who’s like him. even if
it’s draco malfoy, he’ll take what he can get.
and he and draco sneak out to the forbidden forest together,
and draco has known about this for years, has been practicing for years.
“practicing?” harry asks, confused, “what’s there to practice? it’s just
speaking snake.”
draco rolls his eyes, because what a muggle raised
simpleton. “of course it’s not just speaking snake. when you told that snake
not to bite justin, do you think it listened out of a sense of courtesy?
because it was trying to be polite? of course not. you compelled it too. that’s
what being a parselmouth really means. being able to control snakes, not just
speak to them.”
harry’s horrified, and this is why it’s considered a dark
skill, because it takes away free will. not just in snakes, a truly gifted
parseltongue can do it to humans too, can weave compulsion into their voices,
more subtle and powerful than imperio.
how many of voldemort’s followers believed in him, and how
many had been compelled into following him? it’s impossible to say. it’s how so
many people got away without punishment – they claimed to have been compelled
by voldemort, and there was no way to prove otherwise.
“do you compel people?” harry asks warily.
“i’m thirteen,” he snaps, “i can barely get magical snakes
to listen to me, never mind real people. one step at a time.”
“so you would compel people, if you could?” he presses.
draco shrugs, unrepentant. “wouldn’t you? it’s a nice
security blanket, knowing if someone ever tries to hurt you or the people you
care about that you’ll be able to stop them. it’s … nice.”
harry can’t argue with that. what wouldn’t he do, to keep
his friends safe?
so he practices with draco, and the snakes of the forest
seem to know him, delight in his presence. it’s not all compulsion, because
draco switches easily between the two, just talking to the snakes one moment
and then ordering them around in the next. there’s a difference between the
two, and it’s small, but he can hear it.
“i don’t know if i want to learn how to compel anything,” he
admits, “it seems wrong.”
“relax.” draco says, rolling his eyes. “we’re both a long
way off being able to compel actual people, if we ever can. we know voldemort
can, but there’s debate about whether salazar slytherin himself could even
manage it.”
“it seems wrong to take free will away from the snakes too,
even if we never get to people,” he says stubbornly, ready to dig his heels in
if he needs to.
instead draco turns to him, surprised, then smiles. “come
on. you can ask their permission first if it will make you feel better, but i
personally find lower level snakes a bore to listen to.”
draco turns and walks deeper into the forest, an ever
growing parade of snakes slithering after him even though harry hadn’t heard
him tell them to do anything special.
i’ve just finished reading the protector of the small series
for the dozenth time, and i’m just … i can’t help but imagine how the rest of
her life pans out
raoul says that giving kel all that she asks for within
reason to build her new refugee town is the crown’s way of saying they’re sorry
for putting her people in danger. but the crown doesn’t care about her people,
can’t care about five hundred refugees when there’s a whole war being waged.
they’re not saying sorry for endangering the refugees.
they’re thanking kel for winning the war.
no one can acknowledge what she did, running from her post
into enemy land to save her people was treason, and those that followed her
(besides dom’s squad) committed treason too. they can’t acknowledge what she
did, because then they would have to punish her for it, and they’re not going
to do that. so giving her more supplies is their way of saying thanks, the only
way they’ll knows she’ll accept, this painfully practical girl who always,
always puts others before her own self-interest.
she killed blayce, and stopped the killing machines, the
only things that stood in the way of tortall winning the war. she marched into
scanra with a ragtag group and did in a couple weeks what the rest of the realm
hadn’t been able to do for over a year.
the tales they must tell of the lady knight, of keladry of
mindelan.
they took her people, stole them right from under her nose.
so she marched into the heart of war and took them back, rather than follow
orders she flung herself like an arrow into enemy territory and killed the
famous mage that had stolen them, saved the adults, and then kept going and
saved all the children too. she didn’t leave anyone behind. she refused to
leave anyone behind.
commoners trust her, like her. they know that if they follow
the lady knight she won’t abandon or abuse them. kel has this gift for making everyone
around her shine a little brighter, she brings out the best in people.
her maid lalasa becomes the best seamstress in tortall and
opens up her own dress shop, making dresses for the queen and other noble ladies.
kel picks up an abused boy from an inn, one touched my horse magic, and he finally
gets to use his gift, sharpens himself with it, and learns weapons.
she hates praise, is only trying to work and do right by
those around her. but just as raoul told her when she was a squire, she’s a
commander, a natural leader, and people flock to her.
i like the idea of kel accidentally becoming powerful. not
with the nobles, but with the commoners. whispers travel fast, and everyone
knows about kel, soon commoners she’s never met trust her with their lives,
will follow her orders when they’d follow no other’s, just based on what they’ve
heard, what they know she’s done for others.
kel could single handedly lead the commoners in a rebellion
against the crown, if she so desired. she doesn’t. she’s loyal to the crown,
and if she’s unsure how she feels about their current king and queen, she knows
how she feels about roald and shinkokami.
toby eventually goes to work in the palace as a horse
breeder and trainer. every time kel or her squire (she has several, over the
years. after her first stunningly successful squire, the crown quietly offers
her a gold purse for every squire she takes on so she can afford to outfit
them. she tries to protest, but they only call it an investment – those under
her tutelage always prove invaluable to the crown) need a horse, he’s the one
who supplies them, and he won’t accept any payment. kel tries to argue, but
toby only laughs at her. she raised him after she took him in, and he calls her
mother more often than not, and refuses anything she tries to give him.
it’s like lalasa, who after all these years as a fabulously
wealthy and famous designer and seamstress, still mends the holes in kel’s
clothes, still fits her for everything she wears, and makes her dresses whenever
she has an occasion to wear them. and still won’t take anything for her work.
they are the rule, not the exception. kel becomes the person
who “knows a guy” for almost everything, and there seems like there always some
sort of tradesperson or someone who knows someone who feels indebted to kel.
the king jokes they could replace their spy network just with the friends kel’s
made on the road, and she’s appalled.
when she’s older, and had spent decades fighting, they offer
her a position – the pages’ training master.
under her, the pages are stronger, smarter, kinder. the knights
who’d complained about her appointment shut up when they take her pages on as
squires.
kel enjoys fighting. but she loves teaching, and it shows.
as much as wyldon had disliked this position, kel loves it.
and when it all threatens to overwhelm her – her best
friend, sir nealan, is just down the hall. he and yuki live at the palace,
where he divides his time between teaching magic classes to those pages who
have the gift, and assisting in the infirmary.
wupacing 