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#I'm sad that I'm flying #actually this is pretty fun #reeeeeeeeeeeee

They’re researching the best ways to protect their cake next year. Julian is taking notes

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this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever drawn lol

please read Running Close to the Wind by @ariaste

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OMG it's so good!

Yield Under Great Persuasion

Tam Becket/Nicolau Lyford

I have a new obsession. 🙃(Alexandra Rowland's Yield Under Great Persuasion.)

I used the beautiful cover art as a reference!

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#I've read 35 on the list!

I was inspired by @freewayshark and her list! I am a huge reader and I thought that it would be fun to see how many of the books I've loved over the years folks on my blog have read!

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Happy Valentine's Day from all the wonderful men of Dynasty Warriors Origins (sorry for the complete lack of Wu representation, I haven't done their campaign and didn't want to spoil myself on the bond scenes!)

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I hope someone gets to writing fanfic soon. I have hope since origins has only been out for like 3 weeks.

Dynasty Warriors Origins is so gay I can't even...!! why are there no fanfics of this?! my wife's playing it and we're having a blast!

Just a bunch of gorgeous men becoming brothers in arms and saying stuff like "I want you to take a piece of my heart with you" and "I just want you to carry my feelings" when you go on "bond events" (aka dates) with them. They ask to join you in your room at night and the music is ridiculously romantic! 😭 this game is just...!

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Liu Bei - Dynasty Warriors Origins

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#thank usmim for tadek

From Evemer Mahisti-eş to That One Cadet In The Palace, greetings.

As a cadet, you should not be focused on emotional entanglements, but on your studies. Remember that you entered the royal academy to serve the kingdom and follow in the footsteps of the legendary Beydamur, whose devotion to his liege lady endures eternally. That must always be the greatest priority in your heart. If your friend is a fellow cadet, then he should be doing the same. Friendship is secondary in importance to your shared loyalty and devotion to the kingdom.

From Kadou Mahisti to That One Cadet In The Palace, greetings.

Maybe invite him on a walk or something and see if he flirts with you? I would definitely advise not saying anything at all, ever, until he gives some indication that your attraction is returned and that your attentions would be welcome.

From Tadek Hasira to That One Cadet in the Palace, greetings.

Okay, no, I’m taking over. Buddy, why did you ask THEM instead of me? Pal. My sibling in Usmim. What were you thinking, asking these guys? If these idiots hadn’t been forced by circumstance to talk about their feelings, they would not have ever done it and they’d still be silently yearning at each other from across the room.

Take him on a walk and openly flirt with him. Trust me, works every time.

Cordially yours, Kadou Mahisti Evemer Mahisti-eş Tadek Hasira

***

(Are you a fan of my books? Do you have a burning question and you’ve always wanted to ask a fictional character for advice? Send in your question via the “Dear Blorbo” Advice Column submission form! :) All questions welcome.)

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A very good review of this book!

I'm Batshit Fucking Insane About Yield Under Great Persuasion By Alexandra Rowland And You Should Be Too

Rowland must have stalked me or something, because this book was everything I could have wished for and more.

A horrible gremlin who's also a sad little meow meow for a main character? Check.

Yearning? World Building? Whimsy? Sexiness? Divine intervention in growing the biggest phallic vegetable in history? Check!

The word cock in the opening paragraph? MOTHERFUCKING CHECK

Okay, okay, I've taken a little break from writing this, because the urge to keysmash was growing very strong indeed. I think the energy drink has mostly worn off now, so here's the less feral part of the review:

Yield Under Great Persuasion is an achingly tender book.

Its main theme is allowing happiness into your life even if it makes you vulnerable. It's protrayed with an exceeding gentleness and subtlety, yes even in the parts were an actual mother goddess shows up to tell the main character, Tam, to knock it off.

Tam has been awful to his on and off lover Lyford for years now, ostensibly over a childhood accident, but really because Tam is too much of a cynic to allow himself to be loved. His quest for forgiveness and to overcome his bitterness is both realistic and deeply meaningful.

Rowland's incredible sense of humour and daring to be delightfully weird is the cherry on top of a story I devoured in about six hours.

Run, don't walk, to read this book.

@ariaste

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I decided to end hype week for Yield Under Great Persuasion with An Art. Here is Tam riding Piggy through the countryside.

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You are the next David Attenborough!

Pippin worked tirelessly to make this short documentary film about my new favourite book YIELD UNDER GREAT PERSUASION by Alexandra Rowland.

This is such a silly video, enjoy :)

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I did a drawing of one of my favorite scenes from Yield Under Great Persuasion by Alexandra Rowland. The text in the quote is NSFW, so this is spoiled for both that and book spoilers (ch. 8). Drawn on my iPad in procreate.

(He is definitely horny for the marrow. i should have possibly made the faces lighter so you could see details but Lyford is blushing.)

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It really is cozy despite all the emotions, or perhaps because of it.

Where did you get the idea for Tam's character? He's such a relatable person with his deeply entrenched self-loathing and how he feels hurt so deeply.

Went to a lot of therapy. Spent a couple years unpacking a lot of my own hurt and anger and self-loathing. Had a big months-long fight with my best friend and eventually had to step away from the friendship entirely. Cried for months about it. Hated myself and blamed myself and was deeply Not Okay for a long time. Went to more therapy. Faced the cold and heartbreaking reality that apologies aren't worth shit and don't do anything to fix what's broken.

Wrote a book about it. Gave it a happier ending than what I got, because even after all of that bullshit, I still believe that we all deserve second chances, and that you shouldn't have to be perfect to be loved for who you are (including being loved for your flaws and imperfections), and that being able to forgive someone who has wronged you is the sign of an incredible strength of character.

So yeah, as with all my most relatable characters, Tam Becket is torn right out of my own heart and smeared bloody across the page.

...[jazzhands] read YIELD UNDER GREAT PERSUASION, everybodyyy.... it's a cozy romantasy i swear.....

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Let's give a warm welcome to Yield Under Great Persuasion! Looking for a cozy m/m romantasy for the fall? This might be the novella for you! It features a local gremlin of a man named Tam Beckett and his long-standing complication who is sunshine in a human form, Nicolau Lyford. Follow Tam as he begins the messy, hard process of not only figuring himself out and becoming better but also figuring Lyford out, who he has known since childhood and has not forgiven him for a vegetable smashing, contest entry ruining incident that happened they were nine. Them sleeping together for the last ten years being irrelevant of course. It took me four days to read but I was also a very busy human who used every bit of free time to read this book and enjoyed every second of it! There is a gorgeous aching warmth to this book that is unlike any other that l've ever read. Even some of the conversations l've never seen in another. So it should come to no surprise that I highly recommend checking it out if any of this calls to you! If not, check out @_alexrowland’s instagram post about it for more info!

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I am so excited for this book, it is amazing!

YIELD UNDER GREAT PERSUASION comes out on September 17th! It's a cozy M/M romantasy about second chances, the difficult journey to self-forgiveness, and a one-sided enemies-to-lovers situationship 👀 It's available from most book retailers in hardback, paperback, and ebook (with more retailers coming soon) -- links to most of the common ones right here. The cover art is by the amazing @holographings, check out more of his work!

SUMMARY: Tam Becket has hated Lord Lyford since they were boys. The fact that he’s also been sleeping with the man for the last ten years is irrelevant. When they were both nine years old, Lyford smashed Tam’s entry into the village’s vegetable competition. Nearly twenty years later, Tam hasn’t forgiven him. No one understands how deeply he was hurt that day, how it set a pattern of disappointments and small misfortunes that would run through the rest of his life. Now Tam has reconciled himself to the fact that love and affection are for other people, that the gods don’t care and won’t answer any of his prayers (not even the one about afflicting Lyford with a case of flesh-eating spiders to chew off his privates), and that life is inherently mundane, joyless, and drab. And then, the very last straw: Tam discovers that Lyford (of all people!) bears the divine favor of Angarat, the goddess Tam feels most betrayed and abandoned by. In his hurt and anger, Tam packs up and prepares to leave the village for good. But the journey doesn’t take him far, and Tam soon finds himself set on a quest for the most difficult of all possible prizes: Self care, forgiveness, a second chance... and somehow the unbelievably precious knowledge that there is at least one person who loves Tam for exactly who he is—and always has.

This book might be for you if:

You like enemies-to-lovers but you think it would be improved by being one-sided and meanwhile the other person is living through a “hopelessly yearning for childhood crush” trope

you like it when two people are so, so, so stupid that they’ve been fucking for 10 years and Person A hasn’t figured out that Person B is in love with him, and Person B hasn’t realized that Person A doesn’t even know about his feelings

You know how fucking hard it is to Do The Work In Therapy and you want some catharsis about it

you want to read about an imperfect, truly difficult person who still gets loved, because being perfect is not a requirement to deserve affection and care

you know that apologizing for wronging someone doesn’t just magically take away the bad feelings and automatically repair the relationship, and you want to read about someone having to do the extra steps that come after the apology

this one’s for the wlw: fat harvest goddess milf. my gift to u

you like gods who don’t have anything better to do than stick their noses into human business

when you see a gorgeous man holding an infant, it takes you out at the knees

you like queernorm fantasy AND small-town gossip, and you find the intersection of the two delicious and intriguing

a religion based on pre-Christian Brythonic England. That is, they’ve got henges and standing stones instead of churches and altars. it’s cool

plant magic!!!!!

“god of temptation and evil” actually “god of self-care and personal boundaries and taking responsibility for the consequences you consented to”.

"Alongside the sexiness and absurdity (and the sexy absurdity) in Yield Under Great Persuasion is a tender, resonant story of second and third chances and being loved when we need it most and feel we deserve it least. Evocative, emotional, and endlessly entertaining." —Jules Arbeaux, author of Lord of the Empty Isles Preorder here! (Signal boosts are always greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!)

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The thing about the whole "being anti ai is ableist" is like...

Disabled people are effortlessly and needlessly excluded from everything all the time. So why is allowing generative ai in a fucking Writing Competition framed as an inherently anti ableist move when the genai submissions are NOT proveably created by disabled participants?? It would be different if ai was ONLY used by disabled people, but the majority of ai users are able bodied people using disabled people as an excuse.

In this world, a more believeable outcome of the "what about disabled people" perspective would be disabled people making art with ai and not being allowed to submit it to competitions. Disabled people are bitched out for asking for accommodations and often times just denied entry places out of laziness and ableism. Why are healthy able bodied people bending over backwards to create viable careers out of generative ai specifically if not for their own benefit.

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I've only read part of this book, but what I've read has been AMAZING.

So excited to announce my next book, YIELD UNDER GREAT PERSUASION, coming out on September 17th! If you've never read any of my books before, no worries--this is a standalone, so you can jump right in without any extra context. (The stunning cover art is by the amazingly talented @holographings -- go check out all her other art!)

"Alongside the sexiness and absurdity (and the sexy absurdity) in Yield Under Great Persuasion is a tender, resonant story of second and third chances and being loved when we need it most and feel we deserve it least. Evocative, emotional, and endlessly entertaining." —Jules Arbeaux, author of Lord of the Empty Isles

SUMMARY:

Tam Becket has hated Lord Lyford since they were boys. The fact that he’s also been sleeping with the man for the last ten years is irrelevant. When they were both nine years old, Lyford smashed Tam’s entry into the village’s vegetable competition. Nearly twenty years later, Tam still hasn’t forgiven the bastard. No one understands how deeply he was hurt that day, how it set a pattern of small disappointments and misfortunes that would run through the rest of his life. Now Tam has reconciled himself to the fact that love and affection are for other people, that the gods don’t care and won’t answer any of his prayers (not even the one about afflicting Lyford with a case of flesh-eating spiders to chew off his privates), and that life is inherently mundane, joyless, and drab. But then, the very last straw: Tam discovers that Lyford (of all people!) bears the divine favor of Angarat, the goddess Tam feels most betrayed and abandoned by. In his hurt and anger, Tam packs up and prepares to leave the village for good. But the journey doesn’t take him far, and Tam soon finds himself set on a quest for the most difficult of all possible prizes: Self care, forgiveness, a second chance... and somehow the unbelievably precious knowledge that there is at least one person who loves Tam for exactly who he is—and always has.

This book might be for you if:

You like enemies-to-lovers but you think it would be improved by being a one-sided situationship, and meanwhile the other person is living through a "hopelessly yearning for childhood crush" trope

you like it when two people are so, so, so stupid that they've been fucking for 10 years and Person A hasn't figured out that Person B is in love with him, and Person B hasn't realized that Person A doesn't even know about his feelings

You know how fucking hard it is to Do The Work In Therapy and you want some catharsis about it

you want to read about an imperfect, truly difficult person who still gets loved, because being perfect is not a requirement to deserve affection and care

you know that merely saying sorry for wronging someone doesn't just magically take away the bad feelings and automatically repair the relationship, and you want to read about someone having to do the extra steps that come after the apology

this one's for the wlw: fat harvest goddess milf. my gift to u

you like gods who don't have anything better to do than stick their noses into human business

when you see a gorgeous man holding an infant, it takes you out at the knees

you like queernorm fantasy AND small-town gossip, and you find the intersection of the two delicious and intriguing

a religion based on pre-Christian Brythonic England. That is, they've got henges and standing stones instead of churches and altars. it's cool

plant magic!!!!!

"god of temptation and evil"? No, actually that's the god of self-indulgence, self-care, personal boundaries, and taking responsibility for the consequences you consented to.

You can preorder it in ebook, hardback, and paperback from most retailers (with more coming soon), but if you'd like to order an autographed copy from me directly, just fill out this form! :) Signups for autographed copies close on August 31st, so hurry hurry hurry if you want to nab yours!

(Signal boosts are very much appreciated! 🙏)