ooo... I'm honestly not really much of a VN appreciator but the kink aspect of this one sounds so insanely good I might have to check it out when it releases...

you're so welcome!!!! The Traitor Baru Cormorant is my favorite book ever so I'm just very happy if more people are reading and appreciating it <3

that's kind of specific, and unfortunately, not much comes to mind. I can't remember how hard this hits the specific beat you're clearly looking for, but maybe check out Run Away With Me, Girl

If you liked Asumi-chan, I'd recommend 'I Can't Tell Which One Is Love' and 'I Won't Sleep With You For Free', they're both really good and have a pretty similar sex comedy tone

yep! it's a pretty good time. I enjoy the premise and the character dynamic, although it doesn't really seem like it's going anywhere fast lol

S-tier. NTR yuri is such a rarity in the first place, so have one that pushes it so far, that gets so gratuitous with it, and that also has amazing art and some wonderful character writing? oh my god. it's a manga that has genuinely broken my brain again and again. an all-time fav. I can't sing its praises enough

I wouldn't say I intended it, but it's certainly not an outcome I'm displeased with!

it's amazing! probably the funniest yuri out there tbh, and the way the premise has evolved over time (and become completely insane) is so good. plus it just has so many moments of being so genuinely weird/hot/dykey/true to life. I'm a big fan

sure! This Monster Wants to Eat Me/WataTabe is the big one, which you've probably already found but if not, I'd highly recommend it. Normality and Monsters is also really outstanding and dwells heavily on what it can mean to be a monster vs being 'normal'. Alcohol and Ogre-girls is another great one, with a really interesting central dynamic and a lot of great secondary characters too. The moment when the oni's monstrosity jumps out are pretty fantastic. Finally, check out At the Bottom of the Water - so far it's mostly subtextually yuri, but the vibes are impeccable and it leans a lot closer to horror than other examples in the genre, so if that's your thing, check it out

it's amazing! I've been in love with mike franchina's art forever, and getting a wargame out of that is like... the best possible outcome. WW1 is something I've always been fascinated with, and I also absolutely adore that kind of horror aesthetic, so Trench Crusade feels tailor-made for me in the best possible way. I haven't really looked into the rules, but all the models look very, very good. I'm very excited for its future

thank you! I enjoyed it very much, the writers is incredibly skilled

that's difficult to answer in full, and I don't think I'm the right person to provide a full history of it. I was around for it from reasonably close to the start, I think, but I was more of a reader/bystander than an active participant. but I can try to give my perspective on it

as a literary genre, ES began with twitter mini fics that usually depicted the perspective of an archetypal 'victim' or 'doll' figure in order to explore abuse, unhealthy, unequal and/or particularly emotionally involved relationships, and other related themes - trauma, codependency, etc. often, this figure was contrasted with another, the 'abuser' or 'witch'. a certain narrative voice was often characteristic of ES fics: poetic, symbolic, emotionally driven, melancholic, often lacking much dialogue and not providing straightforward emotional catharsis. over time, a rich mythology and symbology grew up around a lot of ES concepts, dolls and witches in particular. these were often initially personal to a particular writer, but would tend to proliferate through the space as fics and writers became popular. in a similar way, ES was quite prone to trends, where particular ideas or dynamics would be 'discovered' and then that new territory would be energetically explored by participants. moths, combat dolls, and incest would be examples of those trends - and mech pilots, of course, if we're still calling it ES at that point. often, though, trends would lead to certain ideas becoming watered-down or 'cutesified' somewhat, which could be frustrating, depending on your perspective. at one point, for example, dolls became very little-coded, which was a mixed bag if you identified with the original dolls-as-victims idea

as a community, ES was very loose and diffuse and overlapped with large segments of wider trans twitter. in that sense, 'Empty Spaces' wasn't at all a single or definite thing. that said, to my mind it had a very definite origin point with the users @badend_doll and @maybeelse. there might have been others, but as I remember it, ES basically owes itself to those two women. I would also describe ES as being very warm and generous - people rewarded writers with their time and praise, and were quite to share one another's work. it was also very open to new ideas, motifs and perspectives, although sometimes particular writers suffered from feeling themselves to be 'on the outside' if their ideas didn't catch on or if they didn't vibe with current trends. and when I say that ES was prone to trends, I don't mean that in a dismissive way. to me that stemmed from people's excitement to write and create and riff on each other, which was wonderful. ES was also refreshingly open-minded regarding experiment styles and taboo subjects. as you can probably tell, on the whole I feel very warmly about it

on both counts, what stands out to me most about ES is that it was straightforwardly by and for trans women. the community was visible composed of trans women, writing with and for each other, and their writings also deliberately spoke to the transfem experience in complex and crucial ways

finally, to speak to what 'happened' - at a certain point, the collective energy started to dwindle a little bit. some of the shine fell off, and as things diffused a lot of writers ended up preferring to keep doing their own things, individually. without trends, their work was often more personal and esoteric. this was also around the time that twitter went to shit, so people also just... left. ES isn't really 'dead', though. it lives on in a thousand blooming flowers, and even if it's not as singularly recognizable anymore that's partly because so much of what it birthed has simply become part of the air that's breathed in many transfem spaces and communities. that's life, not death

anyway! that's a whole lot of rambling, and maybe not exactly what you were asking for. but to me, that's what Empty Spaces was like

oh my god, these are breathtaking. I've immediately fallen in love with the voice, and the world. thank you very much for finding them for me. I'm hardly one to blame someone for no longer being on twitter, but I hope the writer is still out there creating things. also, I hate to be a pain, but you've linked to 'pilot' twice. I'd be very grateful if you could toss me the link to maintainer so I can find that as well

I had never heard of that album or artist before, but I just gave it a quick listen and... yeah, wow, that's perfect. I very much enjoy synthwave, especially synthwave with a darker, more downtempo feel, so thank you very much for that rec honestly! having said that, though, I actually don't have a particular broad listening reportoire imo. I do usually listen to music while I write, but there isn't really anything specific that gets me in the mood for Warhound or anything else. it's usually just whatever new (or sometimes old) music happens to be crossing my radar at the time

I am immediately FASCINATED by this question but unfortunately I'm simply not familiar with the term 'vaginal extremism'. could you tell me what that means?

yes absolutely! feel free

hard to say without knowing what's interesting to you! but if I'm reading 'coward' as meaning you're a bit wary of darker material, you could take a look at something like Faithful to the Source Material? it's on ROM and mcstories, and it's a little tropier and lighter, generally, whilst still having a lot of fun with mind control :)

oh I'm obsessed with this question... let's see. Sartha as a handler would be terrifying, tbh. all of that hero charisma, but fundamentally evil instead. I think she'd be almost as good as Handler herself, but in a very different way. much warmer. she'd still have that smug, rough edge that drives people crazy. the kind of girl you look at and immediately fall in love with - and she's an expert at worming her way even deeper into your head until you convince yourself that anything's worth doing, if it's for her. even more than with Handler classic, it would be all about winning her approval. earning her attention. living and dying for a look or a smile from her. she'd feel more human Handler, until you're in too deep to pull away, and then you realize that she was playing you all along (and you love her anyway). a total obsession magnet. that said, it's really hard to imagine would get her to become that. she really was the best of the rebels, until Handler

Leinth would be the opposite. one of the things that Handler teases out of her in Hunting Hound (ch. 2 especially) is her capacity for judgment and violence against Sartha once she sees what Sartha has become. I think that as a handler, that tendency would be turned up to 11. she'd be very cruel and very, very sadistic, but in a way that's hard to desist because she's so skilled at looking into you and picking out all the reasons you secretly think you deserve to be hurt. she'd keep playing on that, until your guilt eats up all the rest of you until her punishments, with their false promise of forgiveness, are the only things that make sense. and for her, I think what could turn her into a handler is losing her optimism. in Hunting Hound, she has a lot of faith in Sartha. faith in other people is Leinth's bedrock - but if she was let down badly enough over and over again, I can imagine her losing her rebel spark. maybe at that point, she could be convinced to turn on the rebels just so she can show them how flawed they truly are

I'm afraid I'm way too fake of a star wars fan to have an to this ehe

nope. I really don't vibe with games that have that kind of progression system

I've answered this question more extensively on here before but to go over it again briefly: Empty Spaces twitter, Armored Core 6 trailers, and like... the mecha genre as a whole

I adore them!! it means a great deal to me that people have felt moved to write Warhound fanworks, and I more than welcome it. in fact, the one and only rule for them is that if you write one, you gotta give me a head's up so I can read it and spread the good word. I'm also very free and easy about canon. I'd much rather you go with your wildest, most exciting ideas than leave them on the shelf just because it's 'not canon'. your stories are your stories, even if they're based on my world. similarly for characters - reference (or write!) them to your heart's content. all I'd ask is that you try and do them justice, since Handler, Sartha, Leinth, and Kione are all quite precious to me

and thank you!!! that's quite the compliment, I'm blushing <3

I'm afraid I have not!

honestly, it's a bit scattershot! for Patreon stuff, I do a poll story every 2 months and apart from that I basically just try to make sure no series goes too long without a new chapter and no commissioner has to wait too long. with Rescue Hound particularly, I've been trying to make sure there's a new chapter each month - I was aiming for 2, but the chapters always end up way, way too long for that to be practicable. and then for public stuff, it's 2 posts a month (although I might bump that up to 3, because the backlog is getting a touch silly), and beyond that there isn't a ton of rhyme or reason to what gets released when. I kinda just try to keep series updating regularly and try to post older stuff first

personally, I'm not sure I've noticed, although I'm probably just missing the tells. I'm not very confident I could distinguish bad AI writing from bad human writing. it might also be that most of the erotica I read is either by people I know, or from relatively small, personable communities (like mcstories/ROM) where there'd be little to gain from posting AI writing. I'm sure you're right that it's happening though. definitely depressing, although I take heart from the fact that in my experience most smut readers tend to be pretty discerning and are going to want to read and support good, interesting human writers