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The symbolism you referenced is rather accurate for the events we’re living through. I hope we see change for the better when the smoke clears from the streets.

In The Last Airbender, when Zuko starts to face his demons and cleanse his anger and hate, he gets really sick. 

I hope that is what we are going through right now. I hope we can make this suffering meaningful. 

#avatar: the last airbender #protest

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Deep Thoughts - Chasing Fantasies

Today, I woke up with a sober feeling, as if looking inside myself and thinking about who I am and what I am doing with my life. I’ve always have this thought going through my mind that I wished I lived in a fantasy world of magic, elves and dragons. It would be awesome to have magic at my fingertips, ride dragons and go travelling to strange and new places. Sadly, though, I’m an unemployed near-20 year old who can’t currently travel and has mainly writing going for me. 

It’s a sucky feeling when you realize your world and your life is relatively boring. Sure, there are some noteworthy accomphishments I’ve done, but I’m still mostly the same person as I was before. When I was 10, I started getting into occultism and witchcraft to fill the void of boredom and emptiness. It fascinated me with all the methods of spellcasting and the spells themselves. I felt I had control over at least something besides myself. Then again, some people have told me that my spells were just coincedence or just hogwash. I still practice, though, but less often than when I was younger. 

I also got really into hiking when I was in high school. Every Friday, my gym class would go on a scenic hike that I was always enjoy. I’d imagine fairies and elves in the forest or a dragon flying in the sky. Sometimes, I wish I can just live in the forest. I sometimes feel as if I was born in the wrong world, my family life wasn’t good by most standards and I was bullied for most of my childhood. Writing, video games and movies became my escape. Now I know what you may be thinking, “Escapism is bad and you should do some productive hobby.” Or from the dude-bros I’ve known in my life, “You just need to get laid.” 

I’m sorry, but neither of those things have changed my mindset. I don’t really agree on the notion that being a fulfilled person means having a career and settling down with a family or marriage. I want to believe there is something more than just personal drama, politics on the news, bills to pay and work. My life has mostly been a stagnant line of mundane-ness. Like Fox Mulder from the X Files, I want to believe.

Sometimes, now more often than before, reality kicks in and brings me back down as if forcing to accept my mediocrity. I wish I had a more vivid imagination, but I don’t know if there a cure for Aphantasia. I keep looking for the strange and paranormal mysteries that everybody ignores or dismisses. I’m trying to find fulfillment in fantasy, mysteries and learning about the weird things in the world. Life, however, keeps making me face the boring and hard burdens that make me think that people just go about their lives not aware of the grand scheme of the world. 

I have been playing Dungeons & Dragons for 2 years, and I’ve recently been incorporating it into my real life. There’s no LARPing in my area, but I have been making my own clothes with a medieval fantasy aesthetic in mind. I even made a character sheet for myself. Maybe, just maybe, I can bring back magic somehow or create a subculture/lifestyle that reflects my desire for fantasy. 

Anyway, these are just my thoughts and I wanted to express it somewhere. I hope you all are having a good day and I will try to write more stuff soon. 

- Dryant

#thoughts #thought #blog #personal #escapism #fantasy #journal

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Coming to Terms [ 1 of 2 ]

October 12th 2022 - Morning shined on his pale face, and the birds were chirping outside. Clayton opened his blue eyes to be blinded by the sunlight, and comb back his white hair as he forced his own tired body to wake up and get out of the couch. It was his second day crashing at Epsilon House; a neighbouring dorm that took them in after his own dorm, Omega House, was broken in and brought to near ruins. It would be weeks before Clayton could move back in. 

Clay grabbed some of his clothes from the basket beside him and walked to the bathroom, changing into his clothes. Jogger pants, long white socks, wool shirt and a wool trenchcoat. To top it all off, a scarf and a beanie to cover his hair. Clayton picked up his phone and sent a text to those he knew from the night before. 

Meet me at the Old Brew cafe, guys. It’s time we talked about it.

Clayton went to the front door of the house and slipped on his boots, grabbing his bus pass from the key rack before heading out. It was a chilly and sunny morning, leaves were in crisp colours of red and copper. He walked all the way to the Northwood campus bus station, boarding the first bus he saw. Clayton was the first passenger, so the bus was practically empty. All buses at the station led to downtown Evergreens, which was just where Clayton was headed. 

Clayton got a text from Milosh, a Russian medical student that was with him during the break-in,

Milosh: Sorry, I can’t come today. I have to study. Clayton: It’s fine, your studies should come first after all.

After a couple minutes, the bus driver started the engine. The seat vibrated with the rattling engine, and the bus started to move and drive on the road to downtown. Looking through the window, Clayton watched the trees pass him by. The trees faded to surbuban houses and some mansions, then eventually skyscrapers and shops. The bus stopped at Beachfront Station. Clayton got out his seat, walking out of the bus. Now that he was in downtown, he had to now find the cafe. Even though Clayton was familiar with where it generally was, downtown always felt like a maze. 

It took a while to find his way, but he eventually made it to the vintage aesthetic of the Old Brew. Clayton went inside through the grey wooden doors to be greeted with the aroma of roasted coffee beans, walking up to one of the baristas and slipping forward a ten dollar bill, “I’ll have a Mocha Cappucino, please.”  The barista smiled and grabbed the bill, pressing a few buttons on the register before giving Clayton his change. The barista said, “Your cappucino should be ready in a couple minutes.”

Clayton nodded and walked to the other side of the counter to wait for his coffee. A car came by and parked at the curb in front of the cafe. Out from the car came a familiar face, it was the security officer who led Clayton and everyone at Omega House to safety during the attack. The older man ordered a simple black coffee and approached Clayton to wait as well. Clayton greeted, “Morning, Officer Giovanni.” “Morning,” the officer rolled his eyes and chuckled, “Just call me Damien. I hate being called Officer like some pig you see on the news.”  “Then why did you become a Security Officer?” “If I’mma’ be honest? It’s just a side-job for the other thing I do sometimes. Private investigating.” 

The barista handed both of their coffees to them, Clayton and Damien went to one of the tables at sat. Another car had parked in front of the coffee shop. From the car came the Elijah, the Romanian doctor and the two boys from Providence High, Nero and Kyle. They all came inside and sat with Clayton and Damien. Elijah turned to Clayton and asked, “Are we all ready?” “Yeah. Let’s start from the beginning.”

Part 2 Coming Soon

#worldenders #original story #original fiction #story #stories #storytelling #creative writing #writing #writeblr #urban fantasy #dark fantasy #modern fiction

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About my Web Novel

So I can’t help but notice that, as far as Likes and Follows on Worldenders, it’s pretty quiet. I’m not trying to bore you with promotions, but I do hope I see people following and enjoying my web novel as I write stories out. I know writing short stories is the norm in the writeblr community, but Worldenders is a very big project that I work hard to expand and write. 

I may only write short stories on my main blog once in a while, but I think my web novel Worldenders deserves more attention than what insomnia-driven prose I manage to write out on a whim. I respect and appreciate the writeblr community, though. I love reading other people’s work and I feel like I’m behind on this fantastic community. I wish you all well in these days, and I look forward to read your stories in the future.

- Dryant

#creative writing #web novel #novel #book #writing #writeblr

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First Chapter Complete!

I’m proud to announce that I have finally completed Chapter 1: A Haunting. It is a 4-part story that sets up the beginning of the web novel. I hope new readers will follow and enjoy this first chapter. You can start reading with the following link here to start your journey. I do plan on releasing the next chapter soon, split into multiple parts like all of almost all of my stories. Hope to meet more people in the writeblr community!

- Dryant

#modern fiction #original fiction #fiction #story #stories #storytelling #original story #dark fantasy #urban fantasy #horror #novel #book #writeblr #creative writing #writing #worldenders

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The Expedition

January 15th 2021 - My team was off the coast of Japan, boating towards the location where several fishing boats disappeared. It was far off into the Pacific Ocean, practically international waters. I wondered what would make fisherman go so far if not for possible hotspots for fishing. All we knew was that they all went missing at this point. It took hours to make it to the coordinates where the boats vanished, and we came across a small volcanic island. It only had a steep volcano with a smoking peak, a faint red glow could be seen in the simmering plume. One of my team members suggested that we go to the island to see if there were any stranded survivors but quickly retracted when they realized that the coast of the island was too high for us to make landfall. 

We decided on circling the island while one of the others searches for any stranded fishermen through the binoculars. We didn’t find anyone but we did find their wrecked ships. They were all ripped in pieces and charred black, melted like candlewax. I hypothesized that they were caught in the middle of the volcano’s eruptions and were not able to get offshore before the ash and lava probably bombarded them. It was now no longer considered a retrieval mission but now a forensic investigation of a natural disaster. Surprisingly, the team geologist noticed that where were caves in the smaller mountains around the enormous volcano. Perhaps, they could’ve made shelter in those caves from the eruption. 

Before we could make a decision to approach unto land, we heard a sound unlike any we have heard before. It wasn’t any atmospheric sound and it wasn’t any kind of animal known in zoology. It sounded similar to that of those dinosaur movies and Godzilla. Everyone on the boat was silent, and the armed task force were aiming their rifles at the sky. There was a rythmic sound of thunder, like a beating of a loud drum. Of course, it wasn’t thunder. It was the beating of large wings. We heard the roar again and saw it. The wings of this previously unknown creature blocked out the sun for a second and the size was comparable of that of a plane. One of the riflemen compared it to a Northrop X-12A. From its mouth, it spewed fire into the peak of the volcano. The plume grew larger and more red, and we all had the same conclusion. This was a dragon. We had stumbled upon a dragon nesting ground where the fishermen were most likely eaten. 

Without a second thought, we drove our boat away from the island as fast as we could, avoiding being noticed by the creature in the grey overcast sky. There had to be more than one on that island, and I will report to my lab colleagues of what our team found. Fortunately, I found out later when we left the island that one of my teammates recorded footage and photographs of the island, and the dragon inhabiting it. It will take months or perhaps years to go there again. At first, the police said it was merely some sort of anomaly, but now we know that we have discovered a new species, and it remains to be seen as to what should be done next. Perhaps another, more covert, expedition. For now, we can only speculate on what it eats, how it reproduces and plan ahead. 

#dragon #dragons #volcano #island #japan #original fiction #original story #short story #short fiction #creative writing #writing #writeblr #one shot #oneshot

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This is part of the worldbuilding I do my for web novel, Worldenders. I plan doing lore in the style of POV articles by characters in the story that explain the world. I did some light research on sociology and political science to come up with how the fictional town of Evergreens would be like as a society. With that, I’ll open this up for discussion, and I hope I intrigue any potential readers and members of the writeblr community!

- Dryant

Socials of Evergreens

Essay written by Bartie Moores, October 7th 2022

Evergreens is a town with a very nuanced and interesting social hierarchy, besides being to the detriment of those in the lower ranks. Of course, I was curious to find out how Evergreens functioned as its own society since I was thirteen. Being bullied in high school was sort of a gateway to the town’s politics as I grew more aware of the inner workings. There was four pillars to being powerful in Evergreens; Force, Attractiveness, Influence and Wealth. In Providence High, it was simply the Jocks and Nerds, etc. When I came to my first day at Northwood College, however, the social hierarchy shifted. Below is the organizational chart of Northwood’s hierarchy which I call the Evergreens Hourglass due to the shape. 

As you can see, the Elites are a collective of those who contribute to the Four Pillars that make them almost untouchable. Athletes are the primarily the bodyguards and the enforcers of the Elite supremacy. They intimidate and bully fellow students to stay in line as the other cliques use Soft Power reinforced with the Althetes’ Hard Power. You may be wondering; what is Soft and Hard Power? Where Hard Power is be using force to dominate people, Soft Power uses economic, cultural or social influence. According to many students I interviewed, their circles are very selective and the three other pillars tend to overlap with their members. 

Keep reading

#creative writing #writing #writeblr #fiction #worldbuilding #lore #novel #original fiction #storytelling #sociology #society #worldenders

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Worldenders - New Blog

I am very happy to announce that I have started my new fiction blog, Worldenders! Contrary to most blogs, Worldenders is a blog with stories are connected together rather than an anthology. It is a Dark Urban Fantasy that dabbles with horror and adventure, and follows a group of protagonist in a time where supernatural forces are returning into the modern world. Although still new and rough around the edges, expect original art and new features to be added later on when possible. 

Feel free to read through what I have so far and follow to be updated for more posts! So far, it’s only been a two three prologues and the first chapter of the main story is still in the works. I’m excited to start this journey and I hope see Worldenders grow.

Happy reading, and stay safe! Dryant

Link to Worldenders here.

#new blog #fiction #fiction blog #book blog #story #stories #novel #my novel #horror #dark fantasy #urban fantasy