I had to start off with the gif, because it looks so good. If you just wanna get the links and abscond, here they are, because after this is gonna be a really long ramble:

KU/Amazon: https://geni.us/TheFabricOfReality

Audible: https://com/pd/The-Fabric-of-Reality-A-LitRPG-Adventure-Audiobook/B0C8ZQ8F8V

It's been something of a wild ride this past... what, year and a half since I started posting this story? When I started posting it I didn't imagine that it might get picked up by a publisher, or that I'd be able to hold a physical copy of my book. I knew I needed to have some writing prepared, so I had something like 60k words that I'd slowly written over the course of the seven months between when I filled the writing prompt and when I posted it here.

And then I cut most of that backlog and started rewriting it, while still posting daily and maintaining my IRL job. Not the smartest choice on my part!

At the time a lot of people were mad about Jerome. Jerome was kind of written to be the standard isekai protagonist viewed from an outside perspective. I wanted to write about what it would feel like to be on the other end of that stick - when the "main character" has all the resources and power available to him to do whatever he wants to what is ostensibly a low-level and unassuming party of adventurers. Stealing credit for the dungeon was, from his perspective, a necessary evil.

But that kind of thing doesn't really fly with the Guild. I could have kept the team strung up and forced to abide by and work with him, but I was still new to this at the time, and I jumped out of that arc because I was so worried about people abandoning the story because of an annoying character. I think that's something a lot of authors new to RoyalRoad end up struggling with; getting feedback live can throw a lot of people off. It's one of the reasons I have a hard time reading my comments now (I get my partner to read them, and then respond if there's something that needs responding to, or just to understand the general vibe).

So! Originally Jerome was supposed to keep working with the team and eventually coming around to their way of thinking, mostly from Sev being relentlessly friendly, Misa radiating an aura of violence, and Vex and Derivan being, you know, themselves.

Not sure if I would keep that, if I had a second go at things. There's a lot of things I would change! Book 1 doesn't change that much, though, because when I submitted the manuscript for that I was still working full time and didn't really have time for dev edits. Some parts I cleaned up for consistency, that kind of thing. Book 2 I did hire a dev editor f or, and I have to submit it in... two weeks? I've got a bunch of changes I want to make. I'm working with some really cool people to produce the book - Travis Baldree, and my artist, Cosmic - and I feel like I want the book to live up to them? And I want the book to be worthy of all of you guys' support, too.

That's part of the reason updates have been slow lately - lots of stressing about rewriting parts of Book 2, haha.

That said, the Book 2 cover looks amazing. Cosmic did a fantastic job with it. It captures the divide between the system and magic. And also Derivan and Vex are holding hands on the cover and it is adorable. I'm hoping I get to share the cover with you guys soon!

But now on to what this announcement is actually about!

The Fabric of Reality is now officially out on Kindle Unlimited as well as Audible. It's exciting! And... also kind of nervewracking.

I have been told - directly, by authors who are more experienced and 'better' than I am - that a story with LGBT characters will fail. Not might fail - will fail. I have been told that I shouldn't post my stories on here, because this isn't the right place for characters that are LGBT. I've been directly DMed and asked to stop 'virtue signaling'. And look, I know it's not everyone's thing, but this is a part of my life. It's not really extricable from who I am. I live in a country that I was illegal in until very recently, and even the reversal of the anti-gay laws was, and I quote, "so they can't force us to let them get married". The laws were only repealed so they could write gay marriage into the constitution as illegal.

What I wanted to do with Vex and Derivan was to show that they're just two people that are very much in love. I wanted to write a story where it wouldn't make any sense for them to not be together, so that someone who reads the story and comes to know both characters will go "yeah, no, this makes perfect sense". I read stories with straight couples all the time! When they work, I think they're cute. And that's what I wanted to replicate here.

And I'm not perfect, obviously. Writing is hard. I've gotten better and more intentional about a lot of things. In some other ways, I've gotten very intentional.

And I am so, so tired of being told what I can and can't do.

I'm running some ads for EC's launch. Here they are. Some authors would probably call this suicide. I, personally, am done hiding what this story is meant to be.

It is a story about people. About people that are different - you know, edge cases - but that are kind. About people that will fight to be kind, even when that kindness is difficult. About hope in the face of adversity. About little things going right in a world that's going awfully wrong.

And while there are many things I could do different - many things I could improve - I still love this story for what it is.

So! If you like what this story has been so far, please consider (re)reading it on Kindle Unlimited or purchasing it on Kindle - even just putting it in your KU shelf would help. Or just telling your friends about it, if you think they might like the book. The audiobook is also incredible - Travis did a wonderful job with my characters, and Vex has this adorable, slightly hissy voice.

Also, leaving a rating or a review on Amazon or on Audible would really help. Especially since I've been told that stories like mine are liable to get rating bombed, and I've seen it happen to other stories.

And whatever else you think of what I've said so far, thank you for following me this far.

Sorry for the very long ramble, haha. This is probably the most emotional/vulnerable I'm going to get in the course of talking about this story. I kind of worry I'll lose readers over it.

Here are the links once more, for ease of access:

KU/Amazon: https://geni.us/TheFabricOfReality

Audible: https://com/pd/The-Fabric-of-Reality-A-LitRPG-Adventure-Audiobook/B0C8ZQ8F8V

Also, I'm having an AMA on the r/litrpg subreddit, so feel free to ask any questions you have for me (about this release or otherwise) here: https://com/r/litrpg/comments/159cuzs/ama_with_silver_linings_author_of_the_fabric_of/