I think Silent Hill could really work in a medieval monastery. So much scope for self-reflection turning ugly and faith becoming misdirected, and lots of corridors to stalk around. #HorrorWritersChat

Mary Wyrd (she/her)@marywyrd.bsky.social · 37m ago

Make horror history with a new setting. Q4: #HorrorWritersChat - Choose an existing horror IP or horror creation and add it to an historical period different from its origin. Share your idea. ---- Outro in 10 mins

Whenever I bring up my being raised Catholic in relation to my writing there always seems to be an assumption that a) I have a bad relationship with religion and b) I must be anti-Church. I like to think the trans-Catholic-monstrosity tensions in my stories are more interesting than that.

For me, horror is ALL about the past. Things we've neglected and forgotten, hidden secrets, echoes of past regrets. While I do enjoy some "fear of what's coming" horror, as a historian, there's just so much to mine in history. We all live atop a graveyard of tragedy and horror. #HorrorWritersChat

Mary Wyrd (she/her)@marywyrd.bsky.social · 1h ago

Even fictional characters have a past. Q2: #HorrorWritersChat - How much history, how much of a past, do you give your horror characters? Share an example.

Raised-Catholic trans woman who dated an ordinand writing about vampire/werewolf priests and relic cults (positively and negatively)? Absolutely nothing about my past there, no ma'am. #HorrorWritersChat

Mary Wyrd (she/her)@marywyrd.bsky.social · 52m ago

Making it personal. Q3: #HorrorWritersChat - In what ways has your own history (past) impacted or inspired your horror writing? Examples: giving a character your childhood trauma, reimagining an experience with a different ending.

I give my characters as much history as is needed to give the story flavour and tell you what you need to know about them. For example, in By the Blood, the vampiric Fr Marcellus is very old as he remembers the Hundred Years War while being a governor in 19thC Bavaria. #HorrorWritersChat

Mary Wyrd (she/her)@marywyrd.bsky.social · 1h ago

Even fictional characters have a past. Q2: #HorrorWritersChat - How much history, how much of a past, do you give your horror characters? Share an example.

Hi #HorrorWritersChat! I'm Lawrence (she/her) and I write folk/religious horror. Favourite historical horrors are: The Empusium (Olga Tokarczuk) Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno Garcia) The Private Memoirs and Confession of a Justified Sinner (James Hogg)

Mary Wyrd (she/her)@marywyrd.bsky.social · 1h ago

Welcome to Horror Writers Chat. It’s time to explore the past. Q1: #HorrorWritersChat - Introduce yourself, the horror you write, and share up to three historical horror fiction stories you’ve enjoyed. (Horror set in the past.)

My cis male colleagues are bored and going "hmm I'm bored, is anything in the news today" and I'm sat there transly like 😬

This is a horror and our country has disgraced itself. But laws change and in the meantime, no toilet narcs + malicious compliance time.

Equality and Human Rights Commission@equalityhumanright.bsky.social · 11h ago

Our code of practice for services, public functions and associations comes into force today. It provides practical guidance on how the Equality Act 2010 applies to services, public functions and associations. Find out more: https://ow.ly/alIf50Zwrkx

Well... Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I put gratuitous references to The Legend of St Eustace in another story?

By the Blood Ursula's new governor, the mysterious Fr Marcellus, must defend her from accusations of vampirism. He knows they're false. He should know - he's a vampire himself. But the stakes soon rise when the undead also take interest in Ursula. 💙📚 #booksky ko-fi.com/s/6793e39b5b

By the Blood - Lawrence Harding's Ko-fi Shop

When Fr. Marcellus becomes governer of a nocturnal child with a strange aversion to the sun, he knows the locals will draw the obvious conclusions. Bu...

ko-fi.com

OK, today's share of this is because I had an email from the clinic saying that they would take a smaller deposit, and rather than being about £1000 short of it, I'm more like £200 short and that's a reasonable target to aim for. I don't suppose you can give it a share? Ta. gofund.me/c1ef9f99e

Donate to I'm not going back: Help Sian access gender-affirming care, organized by Sian Penny

My name is Sian and I am crowdfunding for gender confirming surg… Sian Penny needs your support for I'm not going back: Help Sian access gender-affirming care

gofund.me

andy burnham could've stopped this btw

Equality and Human Rights Commission@equalityhumanright.bsky.social · 11h ago

Our code of practice for services, public functions and associations comes into force today. It provides practical guidance on how the Equality Act 2010 applies to services, public functions and associations. Find out more: https://ow.ly/alIf50Zwrkx

The EHRC code has become law and I'm actively pissed so in leiu of this we're raising money for LGBTQIA+ Switchboard and we're going to be streaming until we reach the goal of 10K. BOOST THIS STREAM LIKE CRAZY WE CAN HIT THE GOAL. www.twitch.tv/lottsoflottie

lottsoflottie - Twitch

Hi, I'm Lottiescanlines! You can call me either Lottie or Skitty! Both work!I'm a transwoman who streams, I do a bunch of different content from the worst mascot horror cashgrab slop to some genuinely...

twitch.tv

As a big "fuck you" to the segregation UK Labour has brought in today I implore you to chip in or share Sian's GFM today and make my good friend safer and happier in her body.

The Sian from Atlantis@parthenoid.bsky.social · 12h ago

OK, today's share of this is because I had an email from the clinic saying that they would take a smaller deposit, and rather than being about £1000 short of it, I'm more like £200 short and that's a reasonable target to aim for. I don't suppose you can give it a share? Ta. gofund.me/c1ef9f99e

The EHRC guidance sucks for trans women but "trans men have to use the ladies now, the TERFs will hate that" isn't a) true or b) a good gotcha anyway if you're bringing up the whole "scary men in womens' spaces" trope that got us here in the first place.

Lawrence Harding (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️@lhardingwrites.bsky.social · 7h ago

This is something I keep seeing brought up but as I understand it the guidance is that trans men "shouldn't" use the men's as it doesn't match their assigned sex at birth, but also "shouldn't" use the ladies as they might upset the cis women. Which is even more bullshit than for trans women.

As a big "fuck you" to the segregation UK Labour has brought in today I implore you to chip in or share Sian's GFM today and make my good friend safer and happier in her body.

The Sian from Atlantis@parthenoid.bsky.social · 12h ago

OK, today's share of this is because I had an email from the clinic saying that they would take a smaller deposit, and rather than being about £1000 short of it, I'm more like £200 short and that's a reasonable target to aim for. I don't suppose you can give it a share? Ta. gofund.me/c1ef9f99e

You are also not expected to try to check the sex of people using your facilities. In fact, if you try to, there's every chance that you could be breaking the law. Leave people to live their lives in peace.

Today, shamefully, government guidance comes into force that trans people should be segregated or forced to use facilities that don't match their lived gender. It's important for businesses and organisations to understand that this is guidance, not a requirement. So don't obey.

1802) Transwrongsbot. Listen, validation and love is all very well, but at some point things get bad enough that action is required as a matter of simple survival. It's time to protect trans rights by doing some trans wrongs.

COVER REVEAL! My next novel, The Animals We Became, retells the medieval Welsh tale 'Math fab Mathonwy'. It's a book about gender, trauma, and compulsory heterosexuality expressed through non-consensual animal transformations and some deeply unreliable narration... finnlongman.com/books/the-an...

What Saints Fear 3 tales of dark monastic fantasy in which the faith of the Keepers of Khriam is tested by: - occultist clerics addicted to demons - saints claiming need of rescue - factory-farmed relics #booksky 📚💙

What Saints Fear - Lawrence Harding's Ko-fi Shop

Lawrence Harding presents three more tales of the Keepers of Khriam, in which faith is tested by dark forces - from within and without the church th...

ko-fi.com

right, ok, enough self-pity, I need to turn my shit pub around. it's in Stratford, it's got a (small) stage, there has to be someone who has something cool they want a space for queer-run, extremely diverse venue (we even let mumbling old white geezers in) what I'd call 'mostly accessible'

Realising I wrote this article over 4 years ago now which means I've been out as trans for 5 years. Time flies. Still, I think the article has aged well.

Lawrence Harding (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️@lhardingwrites.bsky.social · 2y ago

As we near the end of Pride month, I'm going to reshare an article I wrote two years ago as a newly cracked egg who was accepting their new life, not as a Morticia or a Gomez, but a Fester. www.dreadcentral.com/editorials/4...

Featuring: Old Habits Die Hard 12000 words of dark monastic fantasy, in which Brother Statius must steal relics from his former brethren and save his saint. Featuring: - heists - monks - demons - demon monks - relic cults - battle trauma #booksky 📚💙

Old Habits Die Hard - Lawrence Harding's Ko-fi Shop

In this fantasy novelette, Brother Statius must break into his old monastery to save the relics of his saint before they're used for nefarious ends - ...

ko-fi.com

I love it when something added for a throwaway gag becomes the lynchpin to make a whole novella make sense structurally. I should stop planning, it goes out the window the moment my characters start doing literally anything 😭

My latest ghostlt read was How to Mend the Sky by "Ivy Liu" of the Eden Book Society A deeply unsettling Christmas Carol story of intergenerational love and predatory men. #13MorbidMondays

#13MorbidMondays@morbidimagining.bsky.social · 2d ago

QUESTION TWO What is your current or most recent ghostly read? Tag #13MorbidMondays no A.I. Please use alt text (3/5)

I think it would be in a kitchen, and I would be looking somewhere other than at the camera. Maybe I'm disinterested in what's going on around me. Maybe I'm looking for something, or someone. It'll be interesting to find out. #13MorbidMondays

#13MorbidMondays@morbidimagining.bsky.social · 2d ago

QUESTION ONE If you were a ghost, what would a spirit photograph with you in it look like? Tag #13MorbidMondays no A.I. Please use alt text (2/5)

Honestly (vegetarianism and lactose intolerance aside) there is nothing on this list I wouldn't eat, except maybe grapefruit, but I would eat that if it was in something in the right balance.

Monica@softtail65.bsky.social · 2d ago

There are 12 that I absolutely won't eat. 🤷‍♀️ What about you? 🤔

Besides all the obvious points about transphobes mourning a domestic abuser and nonce-fantasist, Duffield here is forgetting that, unlike Rod Liddle, Marmite is at least nourishing.

Libby@captainlibatron.bsky.social · 2d ago

Dear god

Oh no. Americans are discovering Branston Pickle.