A Look Back at 2025
Josiah B Vale year end recap
Hello my lovely readers!
My first few months on Substack have been incredible. It has wildly surpassed my hopes of just SOMEONE reading my work, and quickly became a community of incredible readers and supporters like you! So, let’s celebrate the end of 2025 together and look back at everything I’ve released since I started Substack this year back in August. It hasn’t been that long, but it feels like so much has changed since I began. I went from thinking about writing to actually doing it, and making a little money from it!? That was a far off dream, I thought. I’ve started to feel like a real author, whatever that means, and I have each and everyone one of you guys you have read, liked, commented, shared and subscribed (free or paid) to thank. So, thank you! And I only hope we can keep growing this community together as I write more, and better, queer stories for us all.
Ongoing Series:
Roommate Bonding Time
The story that started it all. RMBT was the first ongoing series I started on Substack and has remained a JBV staple, encapsulating what became my signature style: high on-page spice with a creative twist, romance where love always wins in the end, and gorgeous diverse characters. The final chapter in the first Arc—now known as “Book One — The First Knot”—will release before the end of the month, it’s almost ready. You might even see this published as my first novella! Then these roomies might go on the back burner while I complete first arcs for some other ongoing series. (You wont have to wait too long, don’t worry, I’ve already got notes and plans)
Divinity Binds
Flexing my fantasy and world building talents and intertwining them with magical erotica kinky situations has been a blast while writing Divinity Binds. It takes the most notes and thinking through, so it comes out at a slower pace than some of the other stories, but is consistently one of the most rewarding as an author. I plan to continue the series and flesh out the next big trial in early 2026!
The Locker Room
This is some of the most boner-inducing smut I’ve ever written … with this story I just let my horny imagination run wild. I kept thinking: whats the hottest thing that could go down in a football locker room? Then doubling the intensity. I kept pushing myself to get more creative for a story that just keeps raising the sexual and emotional stakes and almost never gives you a second to breathe. This story will also be continuing very soon and will probably be the next big first arc to wrap up in early 2026.
The Straight Roommate
This was born from one of the first short stories I’d ever written just for fun. I really let the characters tell me where they wanted to go, while ensuring the stakes are raised every chapter. I never imagined it would culminate in the craziness that is my first ever crossover series: Unscripted with R. Adrian Throne. The crossover continues next month!
Behind the Silver Curtain
I wrote this initially as a short story for a competition that I ended up not entering into, but the characters have been in my head a lot lately. I have some interesting ideas to at least give this story a nice romantic ending in early 2026.
Breaking The Rules
My newest erotica-focused ongoing series is Breaking The Rules, and it continues to be one that keeps me up at night with some wild fantasies. I look forward to giving you more stepbrother drama from these two hotties in 2026!
Short stories and limited series:
— The Semester is a college door room roommate story between a super Dom jock type and an inexperienced freshman. It flips dual pov between the two men in their vastly different experiences which makes for a fierce, thrilling sex scene.
— Daddies and Dumbbells was one of the more grounded stories I’ve posted on Substack so far … yet still full of erotic fantasy. I pulled inspiration from myself and friends insecurities and what it would be like to have that shattered, and your body worshiped.
— Similarly to the previous story, His Prescribed Pleasure became a vessel to explore anxiety and insecurity, and how sex and submission can lead to relief. Is it medically accurate? I don’t know, I’m no doctor (lol) but it sure is hot.
— Below the Cathedral came out around Halloween, which inspired me to write a smutty supernatural limited series that was equally thrilling and arousing. I had so much fun writing this one.
— Dare Gone Wild is one of my hottest fantasies come to live in prose. A closeted gay guy gets dared to suck off his straight friend at a college party, and they both seem to like it.
Thats not all to look forward to in the coming year, though. Expect the unexpected. New stories to shock, thrill and arouse. Old favorites continuing in new directions. And more community building posts and engagement. Of course, PAID subscribers are the only ones who have full access to the full experience. Every word of every story. So, if you like what you’ve read so far, and you haven’t joined already, please consider it!
Now, let’s have a little fun and decide who wins the best ongoing series, and the best short or limited series, of the year. Maybe we’ll have a little awards ceremony in January! Vote for your favorites below:
© 2025 Josiah B Vale. All rights reserved. josiahbvale.com
