The Pillow Book of Azalais Emrys, Slytherin Love Goddess

AFTERWARD - What Comes Next

There's going to be a novel featuring Azalais Emrys, Love Goddess. But that Pillow Book will be a much closer analogue to the original book and will include poetry and lists in addition to diary entries. It will likely also be more influenced by current political events.

This is the short story that kicked off the idea (and currently involved execution) of my first novel, which is intended to take back the wizarding universe for everyone, but especially for my QUILTBAG+ peoples. In part, I am writing the book to reclaim it from Rowling's bungled vision by bringing the wizarding world back to its mythological roots. I'm basing it on a form of my current protag, who I hope you enjoyed reading about, and the story will occur in a similar setting, but in a completely new universe using magical heroes and villains either deeply rooted in the past (Merlin, Nimue, Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar, and Gwenhwyfach, and Sei Shonagon) as well as freshly planted in the present (Azalais Emrys and all of the recent past and present day characters I'll be creating).

Since the wizarding world, and schools where young wizards learn their craft, teachers of children in general both good, bad, and tyrannical, quests, gods, corrupt politicians, racism, ableism, fatmisia, bigotry of all stripes, misogyny, rape culture, cults of bad people doing bad things, and everything else that appear as elements of my planned novel-length story have long been used by writers (some of them even inspired Rowling herself to write her novels) I know that I'll be able to create a layered and interesting mix of those things without thinking I'll be stepping on anyone's toes or be accused of stealing anyone's ideas.

So I hope you all will let me know if you're interested in reading more about the cozy and mischievous adventures of an embodied love goddess trying to live her life as a wizard in a world that looks very similar to the one we are all living in right now.

Final Note: You may be asking yourself how my character can claim to be a love goddess when they aren't doing a lot of what you would normally think of when hearing that term. And I will ask you to reconsider your assumptions and confirmation biases about what you think love is. Because love is all we need and it comes in many forms that aren't highly charged sexualized contexts. Love is kindness. Love is drying the area you got wet around the sink in a public toilet. Love is baking all the good things for your friends. Love is leaving little sticky notes all over the house hidden in places your partner will discover in the normal course of their daily routines. Love is shutting the lights off when you leave a room. Love is planting the poison garden your best friend always wanted. Love is putting the toilet seat down either at home or out and about (and not hover-peeing on the seats). Love is insisting on foot pedals, automatic soap dispensers, actual toilet seats covers that go down automatically when someone stands up, automatic flush systems that wait until you exit the stall, and paper towel boxes in all public bathrooms so that people have to touch as little as possible in a high trafficked area and aren't spraying droplets and other nasty substances into the air when they're drying their hands. Love is writing cool micro fiction stories when quote-tweeting cute animal pics and gifs so not only are you making it so the visually impaired can tell what's going on, you create a comforting mini-escape from the horrible and terrible things that happen every day to people close to you or far away.