Thorn Wilde

The Egyptian pharaohs all married their sisters. They were divine, literally the kin of the gods, and so they could only marry and procreate with other people who were also divine. An animal is unable to give consent. I see this as a fairly 'logical negative', to be honest. A lot of us have this weird barrier that you do not shag something that cannot give consent, strange and illogical as that may seem to you... As soon as we're in a fantasy universe in which animals can talk and flirt, you can have your character shag as many lions and tigers and bears, oh my, as you could possibly want and I couldn't give less of a shit.

Oh, the side-effects are perfectly normal, Ashi. They tend to last for at least two weeks, sometimes up to a month, and the pills don't actually take proper effects for a few weeks either. That's just the way it is, and it's not at all worrying. I'm having side effects that almost everyone who takes the damn things experience at first. Then the body adjusts. I'm not worried, but it's a massive pain in the arse.

Thank you so much!! I'm gonna miss them, too... Maybe I'll revisit them some day. Thanks for reviewing!

Well, this whole thing has basically been a collection of sequels (and prequels). But you never know. We'll see what happens when I feel a little less shitty. Your comments have been hugely important to me along the way. Thank you so much! And yeah, I just kind of found it hilarious to imagine a Bull Mastiff named Peaches... I once met this silly little mostly naked rat-like thing with a white poofy tail and a white fringe. It was small and ridiculous and ugly as sin, and its owner had named it Brutus. The Bull Mastiff Peaches is kind of the flipside of that, I guess.

So, some of you may have noticed that I haven't been very active lately. I checked the forums yesterday and had a huge shock when I noticed that the member status thingies had changed... I haven't been busy. I'm still unemployed. I've barely been writing, and I haven't touched an instrument in like two weeks. I've just been depressed. It's been coming in sort of waves. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to make an appointment with my GP to see if I could get a referral to a shrink. I went last Monday, and she wrote and sent off a referral for me, but she also prescribed me antidepressants. I'm currently taking 5mg Escitalopram per day. There are side-effects, and their severity varies from day to day. Some days I'm mostly fine, just kind of tired. Other days, I get nausea, shakes, headaches, sort of feverish symptoms. My heart races, and I feel hot or cold. It takes a few weeks for antidepressants to actually take effect, so at the moment they're making things worse rather than better. If the side-effects have subsided in about a week, I'm to up the dosage to 10mg per day. I'm scared. I'm worried about what this is going to do to my creativity, to my artistic ability. At the moment, I'm just taking it one day at a time. I mean, it's not like I was managing to do much without the meds either. Now I'm just waiting to hear from the shrink, and I'm going back to see my GP in 2 weeks to talk about how the meds are working out and whether to continue further treatment. She's a very good doctor. Anyway, that's why I'm not here much. I thought some of you might like to know. Or not. It's weird, because I can be temporarily cheery. In London last week with my mum, I had loads of fun. We went to the theatre, and I was psyched about that, and I met a funny magician in Camden and that made me happy, and I got new Deadpool comics at Forbidden Planet and that made me happy, and there were all these little things that made me feel temporarily happy. Today as well, it was Magpie's birthday, and he liked my present so that made me happy, and we went out for dinner and he was cheery so I was cheery. The food was super tasty, so that made me happy too. But when all outside influences are gone, it's like I'm just sat here with no motivation and it's just empty and dark. I feel empty and dark and I don't know what to do about it. It's not the first time I'm depressed, but it's like I've just repressed all the other times so I don't know how I got through it then either. Only all the other times I've been like this I think I've had some kind of routine. School, mostly, or work even. Something to get me out of bed in the mornings, get me out of the house, even if I'm a total zombie doing it, and now I have nothing. You can go to school if you're a zombie. You can perform routine tasks in a workplace, mostly, cause it's all automated. But you can't create art, and that's the only thing I have at the moment and it doesn't work. I haven't got the energy to look for work, which stresses me out and makes me feel guilty. Magpie's very kind and supportive, but I'm starting to feel like a burden because I have no income. I've taken up a small loan in the Bank of Mother. She's happy to help, but that makes me feel guilty too, and that just pushes me down further. If you've made it to here, I applaud you. I probably wouldn't have read all that shit. Skimmed it, maybe. So if you read all this, thanks for taking an interest. It sort of helps, I think. TL;DR: I feel shitty, and I'm depressed, but I'm on medication so hopefully I'll get better soon.

Thank you so much! I'm so happy you've enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Welcome to the sweary club. I'm considering t-shirts. Thank you so much for reviewing! It means a lot.

Meg loves her parents. All three of them. But maybe, in the end, especially Pa. Contains some swearing.

She calls him Uncle Jacob at first. She’s introduced to him just after Christmas, a few months before her fourth birthday, and she instantly loves him. He’s fun, and smiles a lot, and says strange things that cause Daddy to glare at him and roll his eyes. And he reads the best bedtime stories. The first weekend he’s there with them, she draws him a picture of the three of them and a dragon, and declares, in the way that only almost-four-year-olds can, that he’s welcome to come visit them wheneve

I live for making my readers cry. Thank you! It means the world to know that people appreciate what I do. Thank you so much for all your kind words and support.

In spite of his seemingly cold nature, I think Marcus is probably one of the most deeply human characters I've ever written. Maybe that's why I'm so fond of writing him. I'm glad this story helped you connect with that. Thanks for reviewing!

Wow, Sash, this was really different. And very good. I felt bad for Jack... I couldn't fully relate to the protagonist, but you describe his feelings and his experience of the world so well that I could empathise anyway. Excellent work, bro!

Oh, they totally will. Glad you enjoyed the chapter! Jacob and Marcus are finally at the stage where they're willing to admit properly to having actual feelings. Only one story to go now... Might post it tomorrow-ish. Or I might hold off for a while to let people catch up. Thank you so much for taking the time to review!

Well, no. They talk about Jacob coming to visit more often. They don't say anything about moving in together, at all. What's going to happen (and I can say this without really spoiling anything) is that Jacob is going to move to Marcus's town and rent a place of his own for a few months (quitting his job and living off his savings; he's working on that novel after all), and THEN they're gonna start talking about moving in together. In Then Things Happened, Jacob brings up wanting to meet Meg, but Marcus shoots him down, saying that he can't go bringing new people into the life of a three-year-old before he knows for sure what's going to happen between the two of them. After this whole thing, though, they seem pretty solid, so Marcus decides that maybe this is the right time. Jacob is surprised, but happy. As for the confession of love, yes, they did say it, but Jacob said it in the heat of the moment when he was angry and upset, and Marcus may or may not have said it while still very, very drunk. Now they're both sober, both (supposedly) calm, enjoying post-coital bliss. So it becomes a very different situation. Jacob has called Marcus Marc on a couple of previous occasions, back in the Fucking Trilogy days, but perhaps I should establish it a little better as a nickname in the earlier stories before using it again here... Thanks for your comments! They are, as ever appreciated.

Marcus may be a stupid twat, and oftentimes not a very nice person, but for all that he means well, poor bugger. He deserves a bit of compassion, I think, even if he's made a lot of really dumb choices. At the time of writing, the scene at the end was, in its own way, the cutest and fluffiest thing I had ever written involving these two. Of course, that is no longer the case. Thanks for reading, and for reviewing. Means a lot to read your comments.

He thinks it’s his asthma flaring up, the first time. He can’t breathe, feels as though his throat and chest are constricted, like he’s choking, and it scares him so much that he starts sobbing. His flatmate, Darren (who is fantastically straight, thank fuck, so there’s never been any sexual tension) takes him to A&E, where they inform him that, no, this is not an asthma attack. Ironically, his GP informs him, one of the things that might have helped his anxiety is cigarettes. But, of c

Yeah, they're quite a pair, aren't they? I'm glad these stories can have such an effect on you. Thank you so much for reviewing!

Well, with all the shit they've been through, I feel like they deserve a little happiness coming their way. They're getting to know one another anew now. I'm glad to be able to give them that chance.

It's true. Neither one could ever work with anyone else, because they could never find other people who are fucked up in just the right way. I think you'll like part two as well. It's with Sasha at the moment. Thanks for reviewing!

Well, there's a part two to this one, and then there's another short story I've already written. I think it'll end with that one... But you never know. Maybe they'll poke me again some day.

Yeah, they are, in words they themselves would use, 'a pair of fucking retards'.

I think you're pretty much spot on, Ron. That is more or less exactly what I was going for. Marcus is terrified of allowing himself to love. He had trust issues to begin with, due to his relationship with his parents. That made the betrayal doubly worse. So he constructs his wall, hides his humanity away and becomes, properly, the angry, bitter fuck we meet in Soft. Thank you for reading, and for leaving your comments. They're always much appreciated.

They're no good without one another. They both know that, deep down. Because when they're apart, they make some really stupid decisions. Contains gratuitous swearing and a whole lot of booze.

He doesn’t really know why he’s agreed to go to a church function in the first place, but his mother so wanted him to come, so here he is, drinking coffee and trying to avoid the priest who’s been attempting to catch his eye—not, he assumes, in order to seduce him, but rather in order to convince him to come to church more often. ‘Marcus!’ his mother calls. ‘I’d like you to meet someone! This is Jenny Clarkson.’ She’s very pretty. A couple of years younger than him, perhaps, with dark hair and

Thank you so much! The next instalment will be posted tonight or tomorrow. I'm so glad you're enjoying this. I think you'll enjoy the next bit even more, really. I think it's easy to overlook just how damaged poor Marcus really is. Part of what I explore in Firsts is what made it so he became so hard, and so unable to trust. Of the two of them, Marcus is probably the one with the more natural empathy, to be honest. Jacob was pretty much born the way he is, while Marcus was forced into his current role by circumstance. Thanks for reviewing!