Happy 2025! aaaaah!!

Hello, my lovelies!

So, there won't be an update this week. The simple explanation for the pause could probably just be “I worked through Christmas, my birthday and New Years and I needed a break, so I decided to talk about 2025 plans instead”, but honestly, the last week hasn't been much of a break for me.

So, before I get into the wrap-up on the last year and my plans for 2025, I'll give a quick explanation of what happened in the final hours of 2024.

The Gall of This Year

(cw: medical stuff, gross organ stuff)

On New Year's Eve, my good friend and assistant, Princess Pengy, was rushed to the ER for severe abdominal pains. She proceeded to spend the first two days of 2025 in a hospital bed waiting for the experts to figure out what was wrong. Her girlfriend, who's terrified of hospitals, slept next to her on two hospital chairs pushed together and never left her side.

The doctors almost sent her home with some anti-ulcer medication and a warning to avoid fatty foods or alcohol. If they'd done that, this would be a very different kind of post.

Fortunately, they realized something was definitely wrong with her gallbladder and that whatever the problem was, there was one easy way to find out. They did a surgery, removed the gallbladder, and immediately saw it was not only blocked, it was necrotic and perforated and actively leaking acid into the rest of her body. One doctor told her “it's a wonder you were not sicker”.

Pengy is making a full recovery now. She'll be staying with us for a bit while her body gets used to not having a gallbladder anymore, and it'll be a couple weeks before she'll be fully recovered, but she's doing really well so far.

(For the other Americans who know what we're dealing with—yes, she's insured, and the hospital and doctors were both probably in-network; we'll find out how much it cost her when the bill arrives.

For the non-Americans, no, this isn't normally how it works. Most states don't offer state health plans like ours, and those that do only started after the Obama administration passed the ACA. If we didn't live in a state that offered a free plan to low-income residents, she likely would not have been able to afford this treatment, and she might have been forced to gamble on the pain being nothing to worry about.)

It's been a surreal few days.

Ultimately, it's a good thing. Irregular abdominal pains were an ongoing health concern of hers, so to know it's treatable, have it treated, and no longer have that hanging over her head? Huge relief.

But gosh, has it been exhausting.

2024 in Summary

I wrote a lot this year! Pengy's in no shape to run a tally, but at a minimum I wrote 150,000 words of smut in 2024, and that's a fairly conservative estimate. My workflow smoothed out a lot towards the end of the year, which felt great. So did the shift to the Rose Gallery!

Oh, and I finished drafting a novel I've been working on for years! It came out to 150,000 words. I'm, going to have to pare it down a bit.

Overall, the world got worse, but we got stronger. We can do this. Resist doomerism.

My Plans for 2025

So, I'm not going to name any specific order or quota to things—that feels like folly to me—but I do want to talk about general desires and intentions going into the new year.

In brief, expect more malesub, more toxic lesbians, more Glowpebble Path, more genre exploration, more commissions, more flashfics, and more plugging away at older obligations. I'm also planning to prioritize consistency as a major goal.

More Malesub

I've really been enjoying the chance to write up some new malesub “heroes”, alongside veteran boytoys like Gretel and Senya! Expect more boys getting hypnotized and seduced by cute monster girls! It's important.

More Toxic Lesbians

Teacher's Pet is definitely not going to be the end of my new fixation on girls bullying girls. I'll write more cutesy monster girl stuff, too! But expect to see a lot of girls getting pinned to walls. I've been reading too much of Jane's work lately to not indulge a little.

More Glowpebble Path

I'm in love with this setting and can't wait to work it into my main stories more. In particular, I really want to write more stories set in the Rose Valley, the region of cute maids, hypnotic swordswomen, gossiping nobles, flirty flower witches, labyrinthine norms of etiquette, and cruel, bratty princesses.

More Genre Expansion

I've honestly started to get a lot more interested in sci-fi, sci-fan and even contemporary settings. The setting of Flying Together is likely to make a return—I've had a sequel/sidequel concept bouncing around my head. A lot of the genre exploration might fit into Glowpebble Path (which has its own regions dominated by weird tech/magical mechs), but we'll see! Maybe 2025 will be the year I finally make a sci-fi setting.

Commissions

Since my financial situation remains tenuous, I'll likely be reopening commissions up again  soon. Expect that to be a roughly seasonal tradition. I don't want it to take over what I write completely, but it's going to be a major element going forward until things have stabilized a bit.

Backlog & Old Obligations

I will be aiming this year to clear out old Bonus Pairing obligations, like the Werewolf/Librarian BP! I haven't forgotten about them. They, and existing series like Winter Rose, Evergreen Treats and Intrepid Pawns, will see at least some advancement throughout the coming year.

People are probably wondering why their voted-in flashfics aren't going up on the Patreon and it's because the flashfic document is currently tens of thousands of words of unedited smut!

More Consistency

I believe I can now sustainably manage about a chapter a week, as long as there's no health scares or pet deaths or holidays. I have great work habits, my mental health is in a much stabler place, and I'm managing my other projects a lot more responsibly.

As a tenuous goal, I'm aiming for 4 full-sized story installments a month? And lots of flashfics that I will try very hard to find time to get edited and posted faster than I can write new ones. Those installments will be a mix of commissions, personal projects, and the Rose Gallery.

(Spritelion is almost finished, by the way.)

My work is always a delicate balance between the diverse interests of my readerbase and, well, my own interests. We have a lot of malesub lovers, a lot of lesdom lovers, and a decent amount of bleedover between the two camps, to say nothing of the genre and kink differences.

I always do my best, and I trust people to let me know when we've gone too long without something in the mix. The best way to keep everyone happy is to keep posting regularly so nobody gets left out for long.

I'm so excited to share the new year with all of you! Let's just do our best.