ani mosity

Writing Exciting New Levels of Heresy, it became apparent to me that Ayla was basically Nic and Mara's third, but a: Heresy was pretty narrowly focused on Mara's whole god thing and b: S2B2 stories need to have sexual content and Ayla is ace.

But I couldn't stop thinking about how their relationship would progress, especially since she'd be pretty involved in raising Nic and Mara's kids. Like, she does live with them. And she's very important to them, and vice versa. It's implied in Heresy that the reason Nic can fuck off with Mara to kill his priest/dad is that Ayla is managing the village--she directly enables their relationship to even exist.

This sequel story is actually longer than Heresy, lol. It also covers a lot more time, and they all have even less of a blueprint for how a polyamorous relationship with an asexual member works that it...takes a while to figure out.

Read it on AO3!

Often, I struggle with titling stories. I end up asking my wife or my best friend, both of whom are so much better at coming up with titles than I am. But sometimes...sometimes I write a line and instantly know, that's the title right there.

Exciting New Levels of Heresy is a story I wrote for Shousetsu Bang*Bang Issue 98. Until I wrote the titular line, I was considering calling it "If It Sucks, Hit The Bricks". It is about how sometimes the best thing to do with the things your parents give you is throw them away. It is also about how a single line in a video game can make me write an entire novella two entire novellas a series of short fiction.

You can read it on the S2B2 website or on my AO3.