About

How Best to Use a Sword is an ongoing, multi-part fantasy series told over a set of loosely connected individual narratives that form a larger plot when read together, but can also be read in isolation–some of the stories contain material that is objectionable to many  readers, and I want people to feel comfortable avoiding stories with content that they find upsetting or even just stories they find boring without missing the overall plot. To this end I’ve created a page of quick summaries for anyone who’d like to familiarize themselves with the major plot points of other stories without reading them. The goal in writing it has always been to subvert and upend tropes typical to the fantasy genre, most especially the prevalent heterosexism that dominates the genre. All the major characters are queer of some variety, and erotic content is a big part of the story, second only to plot.

Mostly, though, I write the story to have fun and so that the people reading it will have fun too, so I hope that if you’re reading the series, you’re having fun!

The series is primarily hosted on Archive of Our Own, but I’ll cross-post it here and also use this blog to talk about the story with anyone who’s interested, as well as share backstory and lore about the world, profiles of the characters and other bonus content related to the story.

If you plan to read the story here, a note on navigation: All chapters are outfitted with forward and back buttons, both for the individual story and for the series at large. Clicking Next (Story) will bring you from chapter 3 to chapter 4 of a given story, whereas clicking Next (Series) will bring you from chapter 3 of one story and potentially to chapter 7 of another, based on the chronological order of chapters, which you can find by going to the chronological page (and subpages) if you want to see it all laid out. The series can be read in whatever order you like, with the warning that some of the stories that start later will take for granted things that happened earlier and may therefore contain spoilers.

The series updates with multiple chapters every weekend on a three-week rotation. On the first week I update Dragon, Witch, Team, Chosen One and Stowaway, and on the second I update Knighthood, Villain, Slavery, Prince, Noble and the Other Boys anthology (check the masterposts for hints on which stories are which), and on the third week I post fills of requests I’ve gotten. Every Monday there’s a review of some media by a character, on Wednesdays we have a character profile, and on Fridays there’s a lore post dedicated to a specific topic from the series.

On the off-chance that you’re interested in following me around, I have a Twitter where you can do that! I also have a Patreon account, where there is no hidden or paid content, but patrons can vote once a month to decide which of my side characters gets featured in the anthology collection. The series also has a fan-run Discord server (enter at your own risk however; it is often nsfw, and never spoiler-free), where I am often available for chatting, as are other readers of the story!