#crying wolf

[thatsbelievable]

#Three Things You Should Remember When Crying Wolf #wolf #wolves #crying wolf #unreality

[edge-of-the-end]

little oblivions is the album, the only album ever actually, it and b-sides fuck so hard and are so under appreciated in the boygenius canon, like

oh, I miss when I was certain // about every little thing // so scared of forgetting // that I put it down in ink // used to call upon the spirit // now I think heaven lets it ring // wanted so bad to be good // but there's no such thing

or

swallow the truth // force the charcoal down my throat // when i finally come to // maybe i’ll have something to show

or

all my greatest fears turned out to be the gift of prophecy // all my nightmares coming true come do my outline in the street // while every night i re-enact the same recurring dream // i’m stuck inside a vision that repeats

or

how come it's so much easier // with anything less than human? // letting yourself be tender // well, you couldn't make me do it // it doesn't feel too bad, but it // doesn't feel too good, either // just like a nicotine patch, it // hardly works, then it's over

or

oh, i miss it high // how it dulled the terror and the beauty // now i see everything in startling intensity

i am not exaggerating when i say this album saved my life, it deserves so much more respect

#julien baker #boygenius #little oblivions #guthrie #crying wolf #repeat #faith healer #favor #re:set #boygenius tour #phoebe bridgers #lucy dacus #sprained ankle #turn out the lights #punisher #stranger in the alps #home video #historian #no burden

[opulence-is-decadence]

Not someone pointing out the similarities between the Cool About It music video and the Crying Wolf song. My heart can't handle that 💔

Credits to Norah for pointing it out on Tiktok

#crying wolf #julien baker #cool about it #boygenius #music #mv #music video #little oblivions #phoebe bridgers #lucy dacus #the record #tiktok

[barbwritesstuff]

I really enjoyed Crying Wolf (after about one page of being a bit scared cause the words "prison" and "romance" used together can be really...not good in the hands of other people lol) so i'll be buying any book you were to publish. :D

Okay.

Story time.

Perhaps also rant time.

I don't know. We'll see where this takes us.

For those that don't know, Crying Wolf is a novel I wrote that was published in 2021. It's about twin brothers who get sent to prison for a crime only one of them committed. They're also werewolves.

You can buy it here if you're interested.

Now for the drama.

Crying Wolf is not a romance. At least, I never intended it to be a romance when I wrote it. It was inspired by the Australian TV show Wentworth (which is a prison drama) and me wanting to explore werewolves in a world where their existence is not secret.

But, peeling back another layer, it was really about me missing my sibling who I'd previously been very close to who suddenly moved to the other side of the planet, and processing some feelings I had about being in intimidating environments.

Ali's romance with Morgan was not nearly as explicit or important to the story in the first draft, and Amir's relationship with Ben was much more queer platonic.

But, I was told very unambiguously by several people, that I needed to increase the romantic elements. A lot of early readers felt the drama between the brothers wasn't enough to hold their interest.

Which is fair enough. I made the romances a bigger part of the story, but they still aren't the story. The story is still the brothers surviving a very dangerous environment while learning to let each other go.

It was, even then, still not a romance.

I never once tried to sell it to publishers as a romance. I always said it was a family drama. I distinctly remember making a point about this because I didn't want publishers to be disappointed.

But family dramas set in prisons which also happen to be full of werewolves isn't really a marketable category. Gay paranormal prison romance is.

I think this is was even more true back in 2018 when I signed Crying Wolf's publishing contract.

I noticed during the editing process that my editors really wanted to increase the romantic elements of the story even more, but that didn't really bother me. I don't think I 100% realised they intended to market it as a romance until later.

And I don't hate that. I guess I can see why they did it. And, with the edits, there is very much a romantic feel to it now. But, I still don't think it fits well within the category.

The literal climax of the story is about the brothers calling out to each other and giving each other strength from a distance, even if they can't be together in person. It's not about the kissing.

I don't know how readers feel, but that's how I feel. Especially considering how dark prison romances can be, I just don't think it fits the label.

Ultimately, Crying Wolf did not sell very well. Sure, there are a few hundred copies floating around out there, but it doesn't pay any bills. A part of that, I think, is it came out at a weird time in a weird market. COVID changed a lot of things. However, I also think some people picked it up thinking it was a dark romance and were disappointed... while others who may have liked it didn't buy it because they thought it was a dark romance.

Or maybe it just isn't the sort of thing a ton of people would be interested in. I dunno.

I still really like it. I think I did a good job writing it and reread parts of it from time to time. But, personally, for me, it isn't a romance.

It's about twin werewolf brothers being bad at emotions in a very fucked up situation.

Anyway, I'm really glad you enjoyed it, and would buy other things I publish. I hope you'll get that opportunity and I hope this sort of cleared up the marketing weirdness with Crying Wolf. 💙

#crying wolf #long post #bookblr #publishing industry

[ahordeofwasps]

Find the Word Tag

I've been tagged by the terrific @autumnalwalker! Thanks for the tag! My words are even, perhaps, body, & shatter. I'll be sharing excerpts from Crying Wolf.

But first, the no pressure tags! I'll be tagging @cat-esper, @talesofsorrowandofruin, @sarandipitywrites, @notwritinganyflufftoday, and open tag! Your words are cold, bold, fold, and mold!

Now, onto Crying Wolf!

Even

So, Justine kept protecting the bad man, feeling like a toy soldier marching into oblivion. She told herself that unlike the Capital, blood wasn’t being shed. But that was a lie. Even though it was not being shed in back-alley knife fights, it was shed by empty stomachs and overworked bodies, on deathbeds occupied by the too-young.

Perhaps

Ogwut knelt down beside the one-eyed man, wondering once more if he was dying. “What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching towards the one-eyed man’s arm. Perhaps it had something to do with the missing eye? He gently grabbed his wrist, intending to pull it back so he could assess the damage. The one-eyed man stiffened and stopped convulsing as soon as Ogwut gripped his wrist. He scrambled to his feet, trying to yank himself away. “DON’T KILL ME!” he screamed. He was no longer making the strangled choking noises. In the torchlight, Ogwut could see that his face glistened with both tears and blood. His eyes widened as he realized the one-eyed man wasn’t dying at all: he was crying. He let go of his wrist. The one-eyed man fell to the ground and scrambled backwards.

Body

Standing in the doorway was not a Thing. It was a boy. He was not a normal boy. He had skin like most adolescents, but it looked like it belong to a corpse and didn’t cover his entire body, leaving his left arm and left half of his torso bare to the elements. What was bare had the familiar gleam of metal. The boy’s eyes were much like Ogwut’s: cold and glassy. From a circular wound in his right arm, strange molasses-like blood oozed.

Shatter

Jack marched into the room. The governor wrenched the drawer open, shoving his hand inside. “WHERE IS SHE?” he roared. The windows in the room shattered.

#writing #writeblr #scifi #science fiction #tag game #find the word #crying wolf #cryingwolf #queue

[cniionnn]

drew some queens tbh

#batb unit #beauty and the beast #mgs4 #metal gear solid 4 #screaming mantis #crying wolf #laughing octopus #raging raven

[echolesschamber]

concept art by Yoji Shinkawa

#Beauty and Beast #metal gear solid 4 #mgs #mgs4 #character design #screaming mantis #raging raven #laughing octopus #crying wolf #metal gear

[rainbow-multishipper]

How about some Sheepdog kiddos?

Yay! I get to do some doggies! My favourites!

Meet the THYME triplets! COLLIE, BOBTAIL, and FRIAAR, all named after their own respective breeds and supreme little cuties in their own rights!

Thanks for the suggestion! Remember ask box is OPEN for Ship Summaries, Headcannon Requests and Ship Trials!

#sheepdog #crying wolf #fiona thyme #marrow amin #rwby #rwby ship #rwbaby #dice sketches #multishipper draws

[rustandsky]

Cry wolf

#Wolf #Canine #Crying #Crying wolf #Fake tears #Tears #Mask #Lying #Gaslighting #Trauma #Ptsd #Abuse #Stylized #Personal #Gold

[vickypink-favourite-ifs]

Got my copy of Crying Wolf from the wonderfully talented and lovely @barbwritesstuff ! Super excited to meet the twins and see if Sergi has competition 😄 💕🐺

#crying wolf #werewolves

[mgscon]

#mgs #poll #metal gear solid #mgs4 #metal gear solid 4 #old snake #solid snake #otacon #hal emmerich #sunny gurlukovich #sunny emmerich #naomi hunter #vamp #liquid ocelot #ocelot #revolver ocelot #laughing octopus #screaming mantis #crying wolf #raging raven #drebin #big mama #eva #raiden #meryl silverburgh #johnny sasaki #rosemary #roy campbell #mei ling

[pourquiteprendstu]

#loup hurlant #crying wolf

[fr0gg13b413]

i thought you were crying wolf, but you weren't. who am i to be so sceptical of your cries? dilapidated by my hands, your life was terminated by my faithlessness in you. is forgiveness something the insentient can give? but how am i to be deserving when i heard your cries so irreverently.

#i did indeed cry #a lot actually #<3 #poems #? maybe #idk #chaotic academia #?? ig #ineptias loquor #my words #would you even call this poetry (or is it just a call to god)? #damn. chill dude tis never that serious twas never that serious #on faith #on death #on grief #on life #on being human #consequences #crying wolf #insentient #the little forest cryptid speaks

[candyfloss-esophagus]

CRYING WOLF FOR ASK GAME!!!! GIMME ALL THE INFORMATION!!!!

Okay I'm just gonna spam you with asks here so feel free to ignore them if it's too much <3

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (don't think I've forgotten about the post you made mentioning an alternate ending! 👀👀👀) 10, 11, 13, 14 and 15

Hope this isn't too much! (like I said feel free to ignore these if that's the case!)

I remember you mentioned something about making a lore post about stuff that didn't get put in the fic and maybe you could combine them? If you still feel like making it that is <3 (seriously I still love that fic so much!!!!)

Alright buckle up boys this is gonna get LONG. @voidpants since you sent me an ask with a couple of these in, I'll combine them here <3

This probably goes without saying but there are extreme spoilers for crying wolf below the cut

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way? My recent obsession with vivisection, dissection and cannibalism <33 I know I'm very good at falling into stereotypes and I'm your local transmasc butch unhealthily obsessed with cannibalism <33333

The noirpunk server did, in all honesty. I don't know what I'd do without you guys.

2: What scene did you first put down? The very first scene! I write generally chronologically, unless there's something I'm raring to get down!

3: What’s your favorite line of narration? He pulls back, unable to staunch the hysterical giggles building in his chest, and they tumble free like the intestines of a mutilated fox at the side of a road -- all bloody ropes thick with mucus.

I just like this comparison lol. A close second would be the line about Peter's organs being better to eat than the pigeon.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue? “Oh, I know you’re on the square, doll. I don’t think you’ve ever lied to me.” 

I really love this line because I love blatant foreshadowing. But also because in the previous line, Hobie really wasn't lying (as is shown later on).

5: What part was hardest to write? The scene directly before the first cannibalism scene. I'm never too sure how to draw it out and build the tension in the proper way and I'm not entirely too sure I managed it.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics? It's absolutely dripping with paranoia, a lot of what is drawn from my own paranoia (where are my insane babes at ik we're around here somewhere). And also it's one of my most violent fics. Didn't tend to write it before now but I'm really enjoying messing around with it now!

7: Where did the title come from? I was brainstorming with myself after I told the people in the discord that I would try to write something approximating what we'd cooked up together and it took a while (probably about half an hour) before I hit on the story of the boy who cried wolf.

In this context, the boy crying wolf is Peter, whose spider senses are so fucked up that he tends to ignore them when he implicitly trusts people -- which means that when that person isn't in their right state of mind, he dismisses any notion that there might be something wrong.

Simultaneously, the crying wolf is Hobie, who is by far the more dangerous one of them, having been possessed by an actual murderous cannibalistic alien, but who is in much more denial about it. (Literally in the scene where he kills and eats Peter, he refuses to accept what's happened, whereas Peter just told him that it was going to be okay. Both of them are Fucked Up okay.)

Anyway this was a long-winded way of saying that it came from a children's story lol

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it? Yeah!!! In the early days of the noirpunk discord server, we were chucking around the vague idea of symbiote Hobie, throwing out a few vignette scenes and pieces of dialogue, and it was so compelling to me that I said I'd take a crack at it, so here we are! Thanks guys!

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic? AHAHAHAHHAAHAHHAHAHA

Yes. I have an alternate ending kicking around in my head at the moment that I'll probably start with once I'm finished with whumptober and another couple of things I've promised people I'll do </3 the adhd is real you guys

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story? UM?? BECAUSE NOIRPUNK????????

Because this idea was thought up in the noirpunk server with noirpunk in mind and it would have been a disservice to write this pairing as anything other than noirpunk. And also I wanted to give Peter more cannibalism trauma. And at the moment noirpunk is the only thing keeping me sane (which I mean in a very real and worrying way. We ball.)

11: What do you like best about this fic? I got to write cannibalism under the guise of love :>

Also very proud that I came up with the acronym for the D.O.R.M.A.N.T symbiotes

12: What do you like least about this fic? Um. Am I allowed to say my writing. If not, then I know there are plotholes and pieces of lore about the worlds and the symbiotes that don't make sense. Consider: I wanted to write cannibalism.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading? I listened to a lot of Tunng, Troy Kingi and Arab Strap!!

Mostly from Tunng I was listening to a lot of their album Dead Club and out of those were my favourites of Eating the Dead, Man and also Woman (the last two of which are spoken word poems but I choose to treat them as music because they are <333)

Troy Kingi specifically Sleep (Slumber), First Take Strut, and No Reason to 2nd Guess M.G.

Arab Strap specifically The Turning of our Bones, Here Comes Comus! and The Fable of the Urban Fox.

Sleep (Slumber) was looped specifically for scenes where I needed them to be soft with each other. The Turning of our Bones was looped specifically for the cannibalism. Please watch the music video (don't if you're sensitive to gore) because it's actually one of my favourite things in the world.

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic? HUNGER AS A METAPHOR FOR DEVOTION. or there might just be a parasite eating your brain lol

Just kidding. Hm. Sometimes we go through something in our lives that's horrific. And we're trying to process it and not getting anywhere because it's so huge that our brains can't wrap themselves around it. Most of the time, we start to convince ourselves that it's us at the core of the problem. Sometimes we are. But to peel back the layers and get to the actual center, there are almost always outside forces that influence us into certain behaviours/choices that we regret later. And that's part of being human!

I'm not saying that you have a parasite in your brain that's making you eat your romantically inclined partner. I'm saying that the love shown in crying wolf is a relatively equal balance of give and take. They try to be as their worlds have shown them that love is, they're unlearning some of the more detrimental things, they're learning and growing together. They take steps back from each other when they need to and try to navigate their situations as well as they can. Idk.

Forgiveness is probably one of the main themes here. Please be gentle with yourself. It's so so important that you are.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic? That I really enjoy writing cannibalism. And that I need to watch a hell of a lot of 30s nyc films and 70s london films because I STILL don't have their turns of phrases down and it's annoying me.

And to take the leap (haha itsv references). This fic was very overwhelming for me at first because I don't tend to write very fast-paced or violent stuff. But I really enjoy reading it and so I really wanted to write it! Even if it isn't that great, I had a blast writing it!

Thank you for sending this ask in!! It's been really good to look past the writing into the inner mechanics of what makes it tick! (And I promise that I'll have that lore post up sometime!! I have not forsaken you!)

Edit: just realised you skipped 12 in your request but in my defence I'm not wearing my glasses and sort of assumed you asked about everything whoops

#sorry about the lack of life on my writing fronts at the moment #life's thrown me a good few curveballs recently #i am but a small lad <3 #esophagus speaks #ask game #ask answered #fiepige #voidpants #crying wolf #hobie brown #peter benjamin parker #noirpunk #atsv #on writing #behind the scenes with esophagus

[barbwritesstuff]

Quick question for those of you who have read Crying Wolf

This is Crying Wolf if you're not sure. I published it in 2021.

My friend said something about 'the obvious favourite' and I'm reeling.

#crying wolf #my writing #werewolf #bookblr

[ahordeofwasps]

Heads Up Seven Up/Last Line

I've been tagged by the terrific @chauceryfairytales and @isherwoodj! Thanks for the tags! I'll be sharing the last seven lines I wrote Crying Wolf.

But first, the no pressure tags! I'll be tagging @afoolandathief, @amewinterswriting, @blind-the-winds, @space-writes, @by-allison-kai, @autumnalwalker, and open tag!

Now, onto Crying Wolf!

Wotan snatched up another piece of bread and shoved it into his mouth before he could respond with “left.” If he lost Grav’s touch and floated up into the sky, he would be happy with that. The worst part was that he had failed to fall out of love. If he had, then there wouldn’t be any sting to his bumbling and he could just laugh it off as being part of his “charm.” But he couldn’t; he just felt like a fool. A fool who had to get ready to fight a skin-wearing dæmon. At the time, Wotan would have rather took on the dæmon. He would later have a different opinion on the matter.

Crying Wolf taglist: @sarandipitywrites

#writing #writeblr #scifi #science fiction #tag game #heads up seven up #last line #crying wolf #cryingwolf #queue