Wordy Thursday: Platonic Friendships are Important

The Ornery Old Lady is not a fan of WordPress.

Wordpress' overly aggressive Spam filter is the bane of my existence on many occasions. I attempted to leave the following comment on this post about the best fictional couples. The comment may have gone to a moderation queue, but I suspect it was eaten as Spam. 

Here is my comment.

My most recently published work is a buddy story rather than a romance, but I guess one could say there's a lot of bromance in this book. 

There's a fun pairing between a human ghost and a Lovecraftian creature who meet up with a couple of ghouls who are longtime friends. This odd bunch form a quartet on a quest to save the Universe from itself. 

The older I get, the more I prefer to write about platonic bonds rather than romantic ones. Romance seems so often to contain a toxic and possessive undertone. Admissibly, I may just be old and bitter. I never was any good at romance in real life.

Here are some further thoughts, and a bit of shameless self-promotion.

The Dreamlands Bro Squad consists of:

Ketil Nagel, the spirit of a Swedish underground metal vocalist who sacrificed himself to the vampire goddess Mormo on 6 June 1991, when he was 25 years old.

Robin Roberts, a ghoul who was a petty thief during his lifetime. Robin perished in London during the influenza pandemic of 1918. He morphed into a ghoul due to dabbling in the wrong magic for the right reasons.

John Tamboli, a ghoul who in life made what money he could by doing a variety of odd jobs. He wasn't particular about the legality of the jobs he was hired for. John also perished in London during the influenza pandemic and morphed into a ghoul for similar reasons to Robin's.

"Yitzy," a member of the Great Race of Yith. Yithians in their best-known form are long-lived asexual creatures who reproduce infrequently by means of spores. Yitzy is not in any way bothered by being perceived as masculine and would not be bothered by being perceived as feminine. 

There is not one sliver, scad, or iota of romantic interaction in this novella. But there is bromance aplenty. 

I find that platonic friendships tend to take a backseat to romantic ties. I feel that this is a shame. Bromance, sisterly love, and opposite-sex platonic friendships are just as important as romantic bonds. 

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

Ornery Owl

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Notes:

The Great Race of Yith were created by H.P. Lovecraft.

The ghouls referenced in this post are Lovecraftian ghouls.

Weekend Writing Warriors/Snippet Sunday 2 February 2020

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The following snippet is from Team Netherworld's recently published novella, Ketil and Yitzy's Adventure in the Xura Dream House. The previous snippet from this story can be found here. Further details and a link to purchase the book will follow!

“Yithian, I fear the concept of ‘overly simplistic’ has evaded you. Your explanations are always quite detailed. However, I am tremendously pleased that you have decided to assist me. I did not know it at the time but embarking on this task which I have placed before myself is much more pleasant with a companion. Not just any companion, mind, but the right sort of companion. Perhaps it is so that the Universe felt that we ought to meet. As you have observed, it certainly seems that we can benefit one another. Now, shall we enter the house together?”

~Cie for Naughty Netherworld Press~

Notes:

I have generally used the Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop to share WIPs up to the point when the WIP is published. However, the WIP I had been sharing has done some really weird things, and I am trying to get it under control. So, I am going to be sharing the adventures of Ketil and Yitzy for a while. I love this story, so it isn't as if it pains me to share it. It also gives me an excuse to share some fun pictures of members of the Great Race of Yith. However, I thought that this time I would share an image of Ketil that I created while messing about in Pixlr.

The amateur ghost photographer ran screaming from the building moments after capturing this image, which pleased Ketil to no end.

I won't take up too much space in this post rattling on about personal issues. If you're interested, you can catch up with me on Sunday at the Come as You Are Party.