Isaac X Isaac
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isaacxisaac.bsky.social
Isaac X Isaac
@isaacxisaac.bsky.social
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Strange trans man writing a very goofy book.
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isaacxisaac.bsky.social
The requested Essence✨ for today's #Novmemeber:
Very minimal chibi sketch of a young man wearing an enormous scowl, with fluffy hair, a falling band, ribbons at his shoulder, and a faint grumpy blush.
November 10, 2025 at 4:32 AM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
Today's #WIPSnips is from very near the end, but I don't know if I would call it spoilers because like… this is the premise. Also my favorite "picture" and my favorite Blackthorne fourth wall wink.
“You may ride off, but you shall not escape. I am not finished with you. I do not forget your part, nor forgive your insults—and I will not be satisfied till for all your villainy you’ve been held to account. Someday I will best you, Blackthorne, and make you pay. And when I surpass you and you crawl on the ground to kiss my boot, I swear you’ll rue ever calling me boy and poppet.” “Is that so?” Blackthorne called back to him, wicked smile splitting his face. “My, how vivid the picture—and amusing ‘twould be, as a tale.”
November 9, 2025 at 7:54 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
Shared this one for #WIPSnips SEVERAL times now but I'm still really pleased with it.
In the still darkness, Alexander listened to the heavy breaths of his horse, felt the heat steaming off her body. When the lights of Fulham had dimmed behind him, he’d slowed to a more reasonable trot, but the hurry pressed on him still. The window in Epsom from which he’d crept after kissing his parents good-night was two hours behind him; the window to which he was riding was perhaps an hour ahead, and from there he was not sure how much time he would need to complete his mission. It was early enough yet, he hoped, that he could afford to swing wide and detour through the woodland of Hyde Park, in order to approach the town from behind the veil of trees. But those were sparse enough that the paths that wove among them were little shaded, and the near-full moon fell as a thick coat of silver on the meadows and meandering pools. He didn’t much gaze upon the painted scene; he was fretful of the hundreds of footpads he’d been many times told haunted these ways after dark, so his eyes were up and his breaths tense as he scanned the shadows suspiciously. No movement—till suddenly there was, and his heart nearly jumped from his chest—but it was only a deer, or rather a pricket, spots flashing like silver dollars across his flank as he bound away confusedly into the night.
November 7, 2025 at 10:05 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
For today's #Bookvember, I want to say it's the whole ouvre of that late 19thC/early 20thC "Golden Age of Illustration" style of watercolor. Rather than as a child, as an adult I was captivated and electrified.

This particular Dulac lives in my head rent-free. I want a cover in this style sooo bad.
Illustration from Sleeping Beauty (1910) painted by Edmund Dulac. The fairy tale is imagined as belonging to an 18th century Rococo world of colorful patterns, lace, ruffles, and silks. A prince in a frock coat drops his hat in surprise, clutching his heart as he falls instantly in love with the enchanted sleeping beauty, who reclines on a day bed in her fabulous dress. Two amorini fly overhead to make them fall in love with each other. The princess's cat is also under the sleeping curse and is curled up peacefully on a pillow.
November 7, 2025 at 5:11 AM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
This is my favorite "trail" for today's #WIPSnips, from the sensory overload at the October ball.
And then the gauntlet. Immediately descended the lords and ladies, sirs and mistresses, and bombarding him alongside the names and titles and the bright colours of the yards of silk, bold solids interrupted by cascades of rustling ribbon on the men and twinkling jewels upon the women, were all the fragrances with which they likewise had come armed. He had originally a notion to identify what was popular, or even to assess how the others had coordinated their colours with their scents, but then came the onslaught of ambers, woods, herbs and spices, and not only on gloves, handkerchiefs, and persons; pomanders silver, gilt, and painted hung on chains ‘round the waists of the ladies, thickening the air like so many swaying thuribles, creating such a confusion that Alexander’s nose very quickly gave up and went home—leaving his eyes alone to struggle with not just the faces, which female and some male were painted white, rouged red, and speckled here and there with black patches, false beauty marks cut in ovals or more implausible shapes, but with yet more flowers gathered into nosegays and pinned to ladies’ bodices, where they burst forth and trailed across the vast rolling snow-white bosoms, not a neckerchief in sight to save Alexander from being sucked in like a hapless sailor to the whirlpool of Charybdis.
November 5, 2025 at 4:23 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
They have a distinct visual style! Here's a preview from the interior I screenshotted from the DK website.

I devoured sooo many of these on all sorts of subjects.
Preview of the interior of the Knight book from the DK Eyewitness Books series. It shows photo subjects against a plain white backdrop. In this case, it's a step-by-step process of a 15th century knight getting armored.
November 4, 2025 at 4:42 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
#Bookvember
DK EYEWITNESS BOOKS!!!!
Four books from the Eyewitness Books series published by Dorling Kindersley. The titles pictured are Arms & Armor, Castle, Explorer, and Viking, showing detailed photographs of the subjects against white backgrounds.
November 4, 2025 at 4:24 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
#Novmemeber
There is a reference to the in/famous A Ramble in St. James's Park, which, if you know it, functions as a (kinda dark) joke about the boys' naivety.
Full black the moonless sky became as the boys meandered back and forth along the streets, as they tried to see Mr. Kynaston at the other Cockpit (and failed) and sought any coffee more palatable than that they’d drunk at the Rainbow (it wasn’t). And they were not the only ones. Though the streets themselves grew slowly quieter as the hours advanced, as they passed for the second time along the rim of St. James’s Park, they noticed even more lights than previously, torches and torches glinting in the slits between trees and buildings. “Whatever do you suppose they’re doing there?” asked Alexander, genuine. “I’m not quite sure,” said Hunt, the same.
November 4, 2025 at 4:13 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
STEEL! It's a swashbuckler so there's gotta be "steel", and I think I gotta share this old one. #WIPSnips
One must understand that Alexander Aldridge, having been denied a sword for so much of his young life, had never been without one a day since his parents had finally breeched him. If he were ever a miser, his riches were measured not in gold, but in steel—and for two long months trapped on a ship or in a townhouse, his exercise took one form and one form only, and when he was not at it, his mind was full of Agrippa, di Grassi, Saviolo, Fabris, Alfieri. And from the moment he saw a man hold a noose out to a child, that mind was filled with no colour but red. So when the man’s foot moved forward, his hand on his sword, so too moved Alexander’s foot, and his hand was already outstretched, and his sword in it. “If you’re ready to kill, are you ready to die!?”
November 4, 2025 at 4:05 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
There's only one correct answer for me to give to today's #Novmemeber:
Low angle photo of a fluffy yellow chick. Tumblr user wisteriafield has added the caption, "I'll kick anyone's ass. I'll kick your ass. I'll kick your dog's ass. I'll kick my own ass."
November 3, 2025 at 4:35 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
#WIPSnips
There is a really important instance of "monster", though not terribly cheerful. CN internalized transphobia.

I want to expand out the theme of "monstrousness" from where it's introduced here, what it means to be a monstrum/monster in this period, and develop it fully by the end.
“Perhaps,” he finally said, voice now hoarse and brittle, “they were right all along. Perhaps there is a devil in me. Forever doing what I oughtn’t. Being what I shouldn’t. When the wrath washes over me, all I can think of is the fight. When my way is blocked, I see no course but to clear it. And nothing has been able to change my perverse nature. Perhaps I just am wicked—I was made some sort of monster from the start.”
October 31, 2025 at 4:56 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
There is a metaphorical spell in the book! 👀 Here it is with spoilers redacted for today's #WIPSnips.
It was inexplicable, insane. And as he watched the pair fly like a silver bullet to the wall, a strange pall of wonder draped over him. An evening’s nightmare had turned unexpectedly to a midwinter dream, a spectacle so absurd, it transfixed him. And he felt himself unable to do aught but watch the flying cloak and flying hooves and wait to see when the spell would break, and how.
October 30, 2025 at 7:29 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
#PlotTober
I'm enjoying the vibes of this painting by Philips Wouwerman, painted probably in the latter half of the 17th century, no title but describe on Wikimedia Commons as "Cavalier Holding a Dappled Grey Horse".
Oil painting of a well-dressed 17th century gentleman leading a white-and-brown horse (maybe a "bloody-shoulder" grey), a well-dressed woman on a flaxen chestnut horse facing away, and their two sighthounds, black and brown, lying on the ground nearby. A lower-class man carrying a satchel and a woman sitting on the ground doing some handicraft are further in the background. The landscape is muddy, with a single tree with sparse leaves standing against a cloudy gray sky, drab green-brown landscape receding into the distance. The texture of the canvas is visible through the paint, especially through the clouds at the top.
October 30, 2025 at 7:26 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
OK I have the perfect excerpt for today's #WIPSnips.

An outsider's opinion of Alexander's painstakingly assembled ninja costume.
They had plenty of time to study each other in the bright moonlight, and the man opposite John became more and more peculiar each time he looked. His costume, from the cloak draped across his chest to his billowing breeches and dark stockings, was somehow ostentatiously sober—black velvet on black wool, black ribbons trailing from the black hat, like a caricature of a wealthy hogan-mogan peering down his nose whilst the lightermen paddled his nutmegs and delftware to market. His face, though—what John could see of it, for half was covered with a black mask about his eyes—poorly matched the rest: it was small, pert-nosed, pretty, with the barest blond peach-fuzz on his cheeks. And though John was by no means a large man himself, for all this lad sprawled wide across his seat, he could not much conceal his slight body and small hands and narrow little ankles. “So where are you wearing that to,” asked John, “if not to a spot of knavery?” The boy glared. “A mission of honour—if you know the word.” “Are you god-damned Robin Hood?”
October 28, 2025 at 8:20 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
Alexander's hat is so important a symbol that it shows up in the first sentence!

It goes on its own adventures alongside Alexander, all the way—possibly, depending on revisions—to the last sentence. #WIPSnips
Alexander stood at the edge of the deck, one hand clutching the railing, the other fastened tight on the brim of his hat as he leant out over the waves. He was not much afraid of falling in, though he had never swum anything choppier than a pond. Rather, he was afraid that his Acadian fur hat, the most expensive for sale in the shop on the Kalverstraat, might fly off his small crown and flap with its feathers all the way to the water—which, like the sky, could not quite decide between blue and grey.
October 26, 2025 at 5:38 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
every time,

EVERY. TIME.

that I request my library purchase a book and it gets approved, the book gets borrowed by someone else before I can get in line for it 😡

(its fine i guess i just have good taste)
Screenshot from a library website showing that all copies of "Republic: Britain's Revolutionary Decade, 1649–1660" by Alice Hunt have been checked out before the user could get to them.
October 26, 2025 at 2:04 AM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
I tried my best
Character Influence Meme by DanSyron, showing four original characters with four characters who influenced them each. Alexander Aldridge (blond, baby-faced, grumpy fopling) is D'Artagnan (Wishbone version of The Three Musketeers) plus Oscar (Rose of Versailles) plus Zuko-in-scarequotes (Ember Island Players episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender) plus Emma Woodhouse. Jan Klein (expressionless brown-haired man) is Jeeves plus Alfred Pennyworth (Lego Batman Movie version) plus Briar Moss (Circle of Magic) plus Uncle Iroh (Avatar: the Last Airbender). Thomas Hunt (sweaty, pock-faced brown-haired young man) is Jonathan Harker plus Basil Hallward plus Samwise Gamgee (here represented by 1978 version) plus Harriet Smith. Lord Blackthorne (scary pock-faced dark brown-haired man with goatee and mustache) is Snidely Whiplash plus Dorimant (2017 UNCSA version of The Man of Mode) plus Kefka (Final Fantasy VI) plus Beatrice (Umineko no Naku Koro ni).
October 26, 2025 at 1:39 AM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
#QueerPrompts
I would love not only for there eventually to be a scene where Alexander sits for a portrait, but to commission a faux Lely/English School painting of it. Unfortunately a bajillion dollars would have to appear out of nowhere for that to happen.

Till then I make my own doodles.
Doodles of two men wearing baldrics and rapiers over aristocratic 1660s garb: short doublets, petticoat breeches, stockings, high-heeled shoes, billowing shirts, big hats with huge ostrich feathers, and tons and tons of ribbon. On the left is a short young blond white boy with blue eyes, wearing blue, pink, and silver; he has a blue-dyed ostrich feather plus two pheasant feathers in his hat. He's got a cute heart-shaped face. On the right is a tall adult white man with dark hair and eyes, a mustache and goatee, wearing purple, black, and gold, plus bright red stockings. He has a long face with some subtle smallpox scars.
October 25, 2025 at 9:25 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
More about the best man in the book for today's #WIPSnips.
Klein didn’t know who Viedma was; he’d been taught what he knew of fighting in the middle of a dusty camp by a bibulous Frenchman who spoke about four words total of Swedish and German. What he did know was that when the young master was in such a mood, he would not budge by argument as long as he still had energy for it. So he sighed and made ready again, and he knocked Alexander’s blade down again and again until finally its wielder himself collapsed to his hands and knees, wheezing.
October 24, 2025 at 5:18 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
He's my favorite.

When I feel discouraged about my book I look at this.
"Do It For Him" meme, showing a corkboard onto which are pinned a variety of drawings of an aristocratic white man with pale skin, dark hair and eyes, a curly moustache and goatee, and smallpox scars, dressed in an ostentatious hat and foppish clothes in purple, red, and black.
October 23, 2025 at 1:33 AM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
For today's #WIPSnips, poor Mr. Calver being persecuted by his student, Alexander.
“But why not read the Academica?” “Cicero’s purpose is to teach you rhetoric; the Academica will only confuse you.” “But how are we to read Descartes without the Academica or Sextus Empiricus?” “Descartes!” cried Calver with alarm. “Indeed I think myself obliged to keep the two of you well away from that Catholic atheist!” “Why?” asked Alexander. “Has not the whole world an opinion on him? We two’d be at a disadvantage if we arrived among gentlemen with none formed of our own.” “For now suffices what I have just said,” answered Calver. “To expose tender minds to such twisted philosophy before proper inoculation with the good would do unto my charges immeasurable damage.” “How? I don’t quite follow that. Does not an argument stand or fall on its own merits, whether ‘tis given first or last?”
October 22, 2025 at 11:35 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
Stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness. 🥰
Crude drawing of two aristocratic white men dressed as 17th century fops and armed with rapiers but in more of a chaotic brawl than a sword fight. A blond boy in vaguely trans pride colors and with an expression of feral aggression is chomping down on the calf of a dark-haired man with goatee, mustache, and an unhinged grin.
October 21, 2025 at 8:52 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
#LGBTQWriteAThon
This week I reread the MS, complete the up-to-date todo list, and tackle as many of those items as I can!

I think I'll miss my year's-end goal, but not by much, which is OK!

I also share a snip for "silly" cause I missed yesterday's prompt. It is, generally, a very silly book.
Alexander rushed to the window, but the casement was rusted—or else he was pushing the wrong way, in his panic. Meanwhile clomped the heavier footfalls, wide-spaced in a decisive stride, of a gentleman’s broad shoe. Still the window wouldn’t open, wouldn’t open, until finally Elizabeth grabbed him by his shoulders, pushed him down onto the floor, and rolled him up in the carpet.
October 20, 2025 at 5:10 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
Alexander's reaction to coffee-house debate for today's #WIPSnips!
As Alexander listened, his heart thumped faster to hear such shameless discourse, the likes of which Calver would never countenance the boys throwing around the school-room. He felt himself a cavalry-horse tethered tight in the lightless, swaying hold of a ship whose cargo hatch had just been lifted, who did not see but smelled that somewhere beyond, lush emerald fields rolled—and he knew the taste of the young grass-shoots already, before they touched his lips, and he lusted for it. Though it was also possible that those palpitations had something to do with the effects of the coffee beans.
October 20, 2025 at 4:51 PM
isaacxisaac.bsky.social
I have a single, perfect instance of today's #WIPSnips word!!

From the backstory of Mr. Calver, the boys' tutor.
And then everything began to unravel, about a year before he found himself sitting across from Alexander Aldridge and Thomas Hunt. Cromwell died. His son resigned. General Lambert marched north to save the Commonwealth only for the hearts of the fool and fickle English to drip away through his fingers, and from Cambridge, Calver watched his future drip away, too, like running sand. By the time of Commencement, the king was lounging in Whitehall Palace, the triers and ejectors had scattered—and he had a small fancy that the MA he held might be profitably exchanged for a loaf of bread.
October 17, 2025 at 3:53 PM