ID: a picture of TV presenter John Oliver holding his arms wide with a sardonic expression saying, “Welcome to whatever this is...”  The image is surrounded by a gradient rainbow frame.ALT

Welcome to the blog of international bestselling author, Joy Demorra, aka, the Crucifix Nail Nipples Editor.

This is my personal blog where I commit word crimes.

If you’re looking for my chronic illness and disability advocacy posts, or you want to block them (fair), the tag I use is #chronic health tag.

You can also peruse my FAQ.

ID: A promo image showing the two different book covers for Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites side by side. One is blue, one is red. Both show three characters juxtaposed in a bisexual parody of the "distracted boyfriend" meme.   At the top, white text stands out against a purple/blue gradient. It reads: Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites, Book one of the Hunger Pangs Series.  Beneath that it lists qualities of the book: queer paranormal romance, vampire x werewolf, gaslamp fantasy, mutual pining (the love is requited, they're just idiots), slow burn and happily ever after, for now....  The bottom line of text reads: both medium and high heat versions available in eBook, Paperback and Audio.   The image is surrounded by a rainbow gradient frame.ALT

My international bestselling debut romance novel, Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites (Phangs), is out now and available in eBook, Paperback, and Audio.

Set in a pseudo-regency meets fake-Victorian Gaslamp Fantasy world, complete with gothic castles, enchanted forests, and just a smidge of industrial coal dust. Phangs has been described as “like reading the queer, goth love child of Terry Pratchett meets Jane Austen,” and no amount of marketing buzzwords I say can ever top that.

If any of that sparks your interest, you can:

Why are there two versions and what’s the difference between them? Glad you asked! You can also check out individual content tags and heat ratings on my website at www.joydemorra.com

ID: A small tan and white Shih Tzu with dark eyes looking directly into the camera with her tongue hanging out. She looks like a teddy bear.  The image is surrounded by a rainbow gradient frame.ALT

If you’ve seen my dog, Holly Mop, trending around the place and would like to see more of her, her tag is #holly mop. You can also now follow her blog at @holly-mop; we just use it to upload pictures.

Other places you can find me online include: Ao3, Twitter , BlueSky Pillowfort, and Instagram. If you like what I do and would like to see more of it, you can support me on Patreon, Ko-Fi, Payhip, or through my Throne Wishlist.

You can also find me hanging around Twitch on Sundays, where I co-host @theayesphere podcast with @ayeforscotland and sometimes play games. Feel free to come hang out; we’re always happy for new people to natter with.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and happy scrolling!

Additional image IDs under cut due to length.

Keep reading

pinned posthunger pangs: true love biteschronic health tagholly moplinksalt text provideddescribed
ao3org
ao3org

We're looking into issues causing site slowness and error pages. Very sorry, will let you know as soon as we know more!

(17:48 UTC March 28, 2024)


We had to restart a database, so the site will continue to be slow or non-responsive as it recovers. Please be gentle with the Archive, and stand by for further updates.

(17:58 UTC March 28, 2024)


Doing the gentlest possible thing to help out our database server: taking the Archive down for a bit. No need to panic, we'll be back as soon as we can!

(18:03 UTC March 28, 2024)

ao3org

We're really sorry this happened just as everyone was getting to the good part. 😔 It might be another couple of hours until all the servers are back in business, so please continue not to panic, and thank you for your kind words so far!

(19:24 UTC March 28, 2024)

ao3org

We're back for now, but still working on getting all servers back on track. There might be more downtime later, so download your current reading material if you can. Thank you so much for your patience!

(21:39 UTC March 28, 2024)

ao3org

The servers that were straggling have got themselves back on track. Thanks again for your patience!

(02:16 UTC March 29, 2024)

naamahdarling
coldalbion

image
image
image
image
image
image
image

As a disabled person who's loved LEVERAGE and LEVERAGE REDEMPTION since the beginning - for the characters but also the whole ethos of performing acts that help people against crap systems, it's wonderful to be reminded that it springs from reality.

Reaching the “I want to twist my own head off” phase of this migraine.

At least Ao3 is back up. Small mercies.

a-kind-of-merry-war
a-kind-of-merry-war

image
image

What do you do when you hear your best friend's hand in marriage is the grand prize in a tournament? You steal your brother's armour, cut off all your hair, and enter in disguise to rescue her. Obviously.

All The Painted Stars is a sapphic, medieval romance novel with...

Knight's Tale Vibes
⭐ Women in armour
⭐ Skinny dipping
⭐ Ruining arranged marriages
⭐ The pain of being in love with your best friend

It's OUT NOW wherever books are sold in paperback, ebook and audiobook!

Bookshop.org / Waterstones / Blackwells / Amazon / Kobo

Full blurb & content warnings under the cut.

Keep reading

fantasticwhovian
Anonymous asked:

the chocolate trigger thing is a myth??

baejax-the-great answered:

Thank you for asking. The short of it is yes.

Chocolate as a posited migraine trigger came out of migraine journal studies. Basically, people suffering from migraine were asked to keep detailed journals of their lives, including what they ate, and this was compiled and trends were picked out.

One thing they found? People often ate chocolate before reporting a migraine attack.

There were two things going on here, though it took years for people to come to this conclusion. The first is that migraine prodrome can include sugar cravings– so people who were already well on their way to a migraine attack were craving chocolate, ate the chocolate, and then reported the migraine. The second is that stress is a trigger of both migraines AND sugar cravings. Thus for someone had a rough week, the stress induced both a migraine attack and a desire for chocolate.

Later lab studies in which people who suffer migraine were given chocolate, or cocoa, or small doses of caffeine similar to what’s found in chocolate, etc etc found that there was ZERO evidence for chocolate triggering a migraine. No component of chocolate triggered a migraine in sensitive people, even people who reported chocolate as a trigger.

So really, eating chocolate is a symptom of migraine, not a trigger of it.

These same food diary studies also led scientists to (briefly) believe that alcohol might PREVENT migraines. Why? People who reported fewer migraine attacks drank more alcohol. The actual finding here? People who have more migraine attacks don’t frequently drink alcohol because jfc who wants a drink when they have a migraine (also migraine fucks up social lives). Alcohol, unlike chocolate, DOES trigger migraine attacks.

So these are the kinds of limitations of food diaries when you are trying to figure out what triggers your migraine attacks, and also why doctors emphasizing food triggers, especially chocolate, get a side eye from me.

That said, there is ample evidence that when people feel in control of their health, they tend to feel better. If you believe that chocolate triggers migraine attacks and you feel like limiting chocolate helps you, I’m not going to tell you to stop.

But if your doctor handed you a pamphlet with 20 year out of date information on migraines that included the idea that you had to stop eating chocolate and cheese (no evidence for cheese, either, eat your heart out), I’m here to say your doctor is at least 8 years out of date with the literature.

TLDR; chocolate fine, alcohol bad, doctors lazy, science progresses

fantasticwhovian

@thebibliosphere thought you and your followers might find this interesting

thebibliosphere

That is interesting! And also might explain yesterday’s sweet tooth craving in advance of today’s (unexpected) migraine.

Side note: chocolate and cheese may actually be a migraine trigger for some people with histamine processing issues or some type of mast cell disease, as both chocolate and most cheeses are considered moderately high in histamine or to be histamine liberators.

I don’t have an IgE allergic reaction to either, same with foods like tomatoes or pineapple, but eating them will result in a colossal migraine because of my wonky mast cell response. I get other symptoms too, of course, but migraine is a very common mast cell dysfunction symptom and not one often looked at by migraine researchers. (Understandably. It’s barely looked at by anyone outside of oncologists and immunologists.)

It’s something to do with how histamine affects hypothalamic activity which in turn can affect the severity of migraines.

So yeah, chances are doctors are recommending outdated info that doesn’t quite line up for common migraines, but if you have other symptoms of mast cell dysfunction, the chocolate and cheese could be a trigger due to histamine processing issues. The more you know 🌈⭐️

migrainechronic migraineMCASbodies are weird
thejollywriter
queerslurheritageposts

Queer Slur Heritage Post

princess-mihai

And if we're busy picking which type of gay is most acceptable, that leaves tons of room for bigots to come in and say "this side is right" and watch us tear each other apart. And then they can pretty easily say to the side what won "Well actually you were a little too mean to the other gays so now you die too" all the way until there are no gay people left alive; or that the only ones who are alive are too afraid to go out in public ever again.

Which is

You know

THE BIGOTS' WHOLE PLAN

Thinking about how petty some writer’s groups can be (re this post and the likelihood of the person being reported to gDocs) and remembering the time I was invited onto a mailing list group that boasted Addison Cain (yes, that Addison Cain) as being one of the people you’d be networking with.

When I tell you, I recoiled. Like on the one hand, cool that Hunger Pangs was doing enough numbers at the time to even get on their radar, but also, no, thank you.

There’s enough drama in writers’ groups without willingly walking into the mean girl circle of hell.

dracota
evilwriter37

Okay, so, looks like Google Docs might actually start implementing their rule about not sharing explicit content. (This includes writing.) How in the ever loving fuck am I supposed to back up 1,000+ stories that equate to 3 million+ words into fucking Microsoft Word????? And efficiently, for that matter?! HELP.

evilwriter37

I figured out how to move all my stuff onto Microsoft Word!

image

See those three dots next to the folder name? Click on that.

image

Then it'll give you the download option.

image

Once downloaded, it'll save the folder as a compressed zip file! All the documents inside are changed to Word files, and you can view and edit them now.

Now I know how to move 3 million+ words onto my laptop. It'll still take a bit, but not nearly as long as I'd imagined.

evilwriter37

I would like to add that I am not trying to fear-monger. However, it is part of Google Drive’s TOS to not share explicit material, be it sexual or violent. (So, basically what I write.)

This occurrence seems to be rare. Read about it here.

Besides, it is better to have everything on your own hard drive vs Google docs. You retain more ownership over your work that way.

evilwriter37

Someone pointed out that I did not provide the ToS, which, my bad. Again, not trying to cause a panic or anything. Just saying that Google is not a safe place to keep your writing/art.

This is the specific part of the ToS that I was looking at:

image

And this is the part that says they can restrict access to your writing or remove it entirely for breaking the ToS:

image

So, yeah. An author lost access to their writing due to sharing it with beta and alpha readers. It seems like an isolated incident as far as I’m aware, but you can never be too careful. Back up your stuff if you can.

autumnslance

Reblogging mostly for the How To Backup From Gdocs info too many don't know about; this also works with Libre and others, as that's what I have.

Still investigating for more than anecdotal evidence this is actually a new concern with Gdocs, or if someone got hit with a ban for something weird with the automation.

Yes, the TOS information is still there and always has been, but whether the auto-mods are trying to catch out private writings and fiction shared or not, I'm still digging for more than screenshots from 1 group chat. The links in the screenshots (linked by OP in one of the reblogs) are the monthly Search updates report and the basic TOS info.

It's also possible someone simply reported the writer which is how they got hit, given the policy page linked.

thebibliosphere

Good info on how to do the backups.

My money would be on someone reporting them, tbh. I’ve seen quite a few stories on Twitter recently about a few NSFW artists and writers who have managed to fly under Ko-fi’s extremely strict NSFW ban for years suddenly up and losing their accounts (and access to PayPal, because Ko-fi is essentially a PayPal wrapper) because people were reporting them.

and I cannot emphasize enough how petty some writer groups can beI've seen people going to actual serial killer lengths to get their discord grudge removed from the groupall because they just plain don't like themit's wild
katy-l-wood
galileosballs

I like the expression new-fangled. I don't know what it means for something to be fangled, but I sure as hell know it was recent

maniculum

It’s from the Old English word feng, which can mean “to take”, or also “to grasp, hold, or embrace”. So something that’s newfangled is something that was taken up recently.

The reason it’s using this pretty archaic root is that it’s an older word than a lot of people think. Here it is in the Canterbury Tales.

A photograph of a printed page with Middle English text on it. The word "newefangelnesse" is highlighted.ALT
maniculum

Minutes after posting: "Why did I write archaic when I could have gone with old-fangled?"

a-book-of-creatures

Reblog to fangle this post

dreamwaffles
fuckyeahgoodomens

Fun fact: ‘Mind how you go’ is a Terry Pratchett reference. Not only his last book, The Shepherd’s Crown, has this dedication to one of the characters, it’s the Pratchett family’s mantra for safety:

Her [Rhianna Pratchett’s] parents were living in Wiltshire, while she was based in London but they saw a lot of each other and spoke constantly. “I’m always telling them I love them on the phone in a slightly silly way. We always say to each other, ‘Mind how you go’; it’s almost like a Pratchett mantra for safety.”

with Rhianna, the daughter of Terry Pratchett, saying this as her last words to her father and her grandfather.

image
n4ut1lus
iprayforangels

I think the obsession with having been “born this way” largely stems from the idea that you need to be “innocent” to be guiltless. 

If something is weird then you need to have no control over it, otherwise it would be mandatory to fix it. If I said that I had control over my stimming and could stop it at any time, people would request I do so. Not for my comfort but for theirs. If I said that I had control over my gender and could be something binary or maybe even cis, people would request I do so. If I said that I have control over my sexuality and could make myself heterosexual, people would request I do so. If I said I could control my attraction and could make myself monogamous, people would request I do so. If I said that I could control my disability and could choose to stop a flair up in its tracks, people would request I do so. They would never ask out of the goodness of their hearts, they would always be asking because I was annoying, concerning, distracting, or inconveniencing them. 

Diversity is sometimes only tolerated if you have no control. If you have control, rules will be made to stop it. Hair will be straightened, clothes will be standardized, languages will be shushed, interests will be squashed, weight will be lost, and so on and so on and so on. Proving that we were born this way replaces the more obvious, that we’re okay this way. I don’t need to be a helpless victim of my differences to be forgiven for them. My differences aren’t crimes.