Piety Update

Amg so busy! The strawberries in my garden are small, but delicious. Mmmm.

Piety chapter 6 is here!

The entire thing is here, and I've gone through and edited the bookmarks to make it easier to navigate. I'm such a .pdf newb.

THIS IS YOUR WARNING: Piety contains themes of slavery and violence, as well as non-consensual sex. Please do not read it if you are uncomfortable with those things.

The whole shuffling through borrowed computers thing is getting tedious, but I'm hoping to have my own machine some time this fall. It'll make life so much easier. Hope everyone is having a sexy summer! (Yes, today I'm feeling particularly bouncy. Onward!)

Oooooooooh art.

This is Baal.



Marie drew him. She draws such lovely things. You should visit her website.

You can also read a short with Baal here.

As always, more writing and artwork are available through http://www.avenier.org.

Temptation (a suggestive short)

Written with Felix Avenier.
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Uriel liked the snow. It didn't even have to be falling from the sky for him to be pleased with it. Drifts of the stuff along the edges of the sidewalks tickled his fancy, and he enjoyed watching the dirty hills turn to slush at the roadside. It was early spring in the North, and things were starting to melt off. It probably wouldn't flurry again, but there were still patches of ice here and there. The sun was out, but it was cold enough for mittens and scarves, for soft woolly caps and long heavy coats. 


Goals? What are those?

In the world of Things That Feed Marcus, summertime is my busiest time of the year. I fear my writing goals are not being met, and that I should accept that this will continue to be the case until the slow-down in September. What breaks I am taking from financially motivated work are being spent doing things like going backpacking, exploring side streets with neon-lit mosques, and finally dealing with the room full of stuff (mostly Star Trek paraphernalia) that belonged to my (now-deceased) mother.

My health is largely maintaining its upward trend. I am most pleased by this. I must continue to work on realistic goal setting and recognize that just because I am feeling better, I cannot simply take on the whole world all at once.

As a side note, if you like pulp & fantasy, they don't get much pulpy fantasier (amg the words I make up) than The Dresden Files. This is excellent reading-on-the-bus material. It's got bad puns, a bit of grunge, and gritty detective stories with the added spice of magic & the paranormal. Satisfied my junk food craving good and proper. ;)

Nope, no hardcore degrading mainstream porn here. Sorry!

Some of the google searches that land people on this blog are just.. remarkably obscene. Even by my standards. I am far too amused by this.

LVL excerpt (short smut)

This one I'll be completing and polishing behind the scenes. Don't worry, I'm still working on Piety too! I seem to have become enthralled with reading history books. Psh.
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Lorenzo winced and sucked a short, sharp breath in through his teeth.

“The path to salvation is not without sacrifice, Lorenzo.” Laurent’s voice was a low rumble against Lorenzo’s ear.

“Sì, monsieur.”

onoes a rant

I started writing something. It was going to be a short something. It has turned into.. well, a beast. One thing led to another, and I was knee deep in reference books and notes. I possibly have more pages of notes than I do of actual writing. Historical fiction is no light undertaking for someone who skipped all but the required history classes in favor of the sciences for credits in school. It is unhelpful that I continue to become distracted and am simply reading these text books instead of digging out the significant information that I require. Even as I undertake this, I wonder just how much I actually need for the purposes of my story. I suspect very little.

On another note, I read Black Wade at the recommendation of this blog. The art is positively gorgeous. The writing leaves much to be desired. The dialogue is stiff and the script hackneyed. To say nothing (except that I am saying something) of the fact that it contained a few of my pet peeves in commercially available erotica. For example, why would the brawny pirate with thick body hair and scraggly jaw take the time to give his junk an immaculate shave? Did he do this while they were sailing in open water? At high seas? Imagine if they'd hit a swell. Oops, there goes a testicle! Guess it's Eunuch Wade we're reading from now on.

Then there's the issue of rape. This story isn't the only one guilty of it. It's an all too common theme. The author feels the need to incorporate forced sex in order to win over the 'curious' protagonist. However, at some point during this rough fucking, the victim (yes, dammit, victim) comes to enjoy the act. Now, I can understand the point that publishing houses don't want to publish actual rape. That a hint of resistance in the beginning and utter yielding and enjoyment are required for the sake of actually having your story hit press. However, if it's not rape, why not just skip it entirely? Use some other device. It's insulting.

Rape is not sex. Rape is not something that the victim enjoys. Sure, some people enjoy rape fantasies, but these are two very different beasts. In the realm of the fantasy scenario, I am the very willing partner playing out the role of the straight-laced archetype fighting and resisting my also very willing partner who is playing out the role of the big-bad pirate. Presumably we even know just how far the other person is willing to take said role. In the case of an actual pirate having kidnapped an actual naval officer (who has supposedly never dabbled and only has eyes for his well-bosomed fiance) and opted to give him what-for with ye old immaculately shaven endowment, the rape victim is not going to continue to cry 'stop' while visibly enjoying himself. And no, I don't just mean involuntary erection with possible ejactulation. I mean swooning expressions and lust-driven moans. I see it all the time in m/m fiction.

"Sure I fucked him. Yeah, he said no, but he didn't mean it."
"How could you tell?"
"The look on his face, your honor! The sounds he was making. He wanted it. Hell, he started begging me for it!"

In what universe does that not make the rapist sound like an ego-driven fuckwad? Oh yeah, the universe of m/m erotica. You know, the one in which the antagonist and protagonist shack up afterward and live happily ever after somewhere under the cumbow.

Dear writers, give us a little credit. Oh, and you know what else? Rape is not okay. Read about it, write about it, what have you. Just stop equating it to love-making. Your magical fuckstick is not going to turn that straight guy queer no matter how much you force him to take it up the ass.

Hobbies are so difficult to maintain when you have a life.

I sacrificed smut this week for rocks. Can you forgive me?

I still haven't finished moving them all. Never buy a house with a rock garden. This shit is heavy, yo.

I did write comics that will hopefully be illustrated. In the meantime, mad plans for writing over the weekend after I get off work. I think I'll go to Peet's, have a nice tall glass of iced tea, and covertly write naughty things while tucked into a corner.