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inafieldofdaisies · 7 months

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OCs as aesthetics for the entities | Tagged by @deputy-morgan-malone and @corvosattano

Instead of doing every category for multiple OCs, I decided to focus on dividing them between OCs, so you can get some lore/story hints on each one (Sabrina, Mercedes, Calahan and Leslie) without the post becoming miles long. :D

i. THE BURIED. weighted blankets. drowning. the comfort of a loved one’s weight. soil & sand piling on top of you. hugging so hard it hurts a little. cramped hiding spots. letting out air underwater to sink to the bottom of the pool. walls pressing in on you. not moving from a position even though you’re cramping a little. dragging the last second before you have to inhale. lonely subways. feeling like one with the earth. a layer of dirt on you. looking for something below. cardboard boxes & tiny pillow forts. hands calloused from digging. knowing that your purpose is just below the surface. entering your final resting place before it kills you. a storm drowning you out. dust & sand speaking to you.

ii. THE CORRUPTION. insects. a close imitation of the natural course of life. an illness in a community. a rag that dirties more than it cleans. an untreated wound. containment. breaching containment. unbreathable air. fungi. one with that you love. one with what loves you. a corpse unfit for a glass case. hearing a song in the sound of tiny wings & legs. honeycomb patterns. an ecosystem within a person. a curse passed on. the hubris of a scientist. an ugly death where a glorious one is owed. blood on a handkerchief. parasites. something pushing up the sewer. a mask to keep something out. trypophobia. knowing you belong. death weeks after impact. fever. food that’s gone off. pandora’s box. death behind a glass.

iii. THE DARK. shadows. lights that turn off by themselves. the feel of cold marble. a beaked creature in the night. the difference between seeing darkness & seeing nothing. touch of something you can’t see. hiding under a blanket. white, clouded eyes. months without going outside during sunlight. pouring dark. unscrewing lightbulbs. black matter. light sensitivity. a starless night. time before light was created. a shadow on the wall without a body to attach to. withering plants. a world without a sun. footfalls in an empty house in the night. a light that doesn’t reach as far as it should. desperate reach for a flashlight. clothes that hide your shape. staying unperceivable. winter months in the north. an empty church.

iv. THE DESOLATION. senseless pain. warmth of faith. wax where skin should be. a blazing fire. heat without a source. the third or fourth tragedy in the family. losing everything you’ve ever held dear. so much to live for, gone so soon. the smell of gasoline. touch that scars. coffee cup that never goes cold. scorch marks on wood. inescapably warm air. a child born in fire. death of a loved one. a candle without a flame. an altar in the middle of the woods. animals with burnt fur. plastic explosives. burning hot metal. sweating in an interrogation room. never touching a loved one. disfigurement. kiss that ruins you. the scent of burning fat. a tattoo that terrifies its viewer. the agony of hellfire displayed as art. auburn hair. little clothing in cold weather. a ripple in the air. trying to cool down in vain.

v. THE FLESH. body horror. factories. a hunger for something more filling. never quite happy with how you look. the terror of an animal waiting for slaughter. a very good meal. the liquid of a perfect steak. fighting your worst survival instincts. a twisted bone. long nights working out. more than one heart. appearance that shapes like clay. a bag of bones. bone broth in a pot. knowing to fear pigs. the butcher’s shop. plastic surgery. something alien inside your body. a hunger in the gaze laid upon you. unwitting cannibalism. forgetting what you used to look like. being admired for your appearance & appearance only. teeth marks on skin. scars from wounds that should’ve killed you. cooking in scarcity. fenced in with one way to go.

vi. THE END. the last page of a book. nightmares that don’t feel like nightmares. a skeletal hand. the grip of the grim reaper around your throat. existential pain. ivory dice. flatlining in a hospital. gambling with death. as old as the universe. soul & spirit tied to an object. a dream where you die. closing your eyes for the last time. the pleas of a dying one. knowing the fate of someone you know & being unable to prevent it. a thousand cords tugging you towards your end. skin that’s freezing to the touch. an act of desperation. someone’s life for yours. an eternity spent alive. the cost of your selfishness. watching your own burial. causing your own burial. the smell of death. numbness to fear. words from someone gone. meaninglessness of the actions or lives of single people in the universe. multiple near-death experiences you refuse to die from.

vii. THE EYE. googling something you shouldn’t have. eureka moments. the unforgiving lens of a camera. witness reports. hidden libraries. eyes of different colors. feeling of being watched. a death recorded in tape. a tragedy you can’t look away from. endangering yourself for knowledge. truth. analog records. a symbol of an eye. a watch tower. compulsion to document. turning on recording devices without thinking about it. saving the evidence before the person. extracting information. truth or dare, without the dare. a thirst for knowledge. books that speak to you. coordinated shelves. cataloguing systems. voyeurism. police report you can’t put down. reasoning your way out. smell of old papers. books that read you back.

viii. THE HUNT. sharp canines. sore calves after a run. the scent of blood. an adventure for the journey’s sake. the adrenaline right before the kill. a whistle’s echo. the woods. the doe eyes of a prey animal. your own breath in the air. sharpened claws. being tracked. fear of someone knowing your every movement. hunting down monsters. hide & seek. running away only to end up where you started. staying alive purely because the enemy enjoys seeing you run. a set of footsteps behind you. blood dripping from bare hands. barks & growls. focused eyes. a victim going limp under your hands. a mouth full of fresh blood. catching the scent of something monstrous. perfecting your craft. peering into the dark & running after it.

ix. THE LONELY. an apartment too small for a double bed. completely vacant streets. waking up to see everyone gone. fog. point nemo. a house too big to hear your family members in. alone in a faceless crowd. a mask with nothing behind it. separated cubicles. a deafening silence where joy should be. a blinding spotlight. the least missed in your friend group. streets without lights in the windows. isolation. not truly knowing your friends. your friends not truly knowing you. need for silence. fear of crowds. staring into space knowing nothing is looking back at you. a ship alone at sea. depression. knowing your friends are better off without you. talking to someone only to realise they’re gone. a family too large to notice you there. safety in being alone.

x. THE SLAUGHTER. a game of tag. senseless violence. a true crime hobby. improvised weapons. blinding rage. intent to kill. a horrific day in a quiet community. a medal of bravery. holding on to what validates your anger. history books that spare no details. an injury you want revenge for. war. counting kills. songs of soldiers. a knifeblock on the counter. a pool of blood. shellshock. unspeakable horrors. anger pushing you forward. unimaginable pain. not seeing who will hurt you but knowing the pain is coming. a fully human monster. an authority sending its lessers to their deaths. kill or be killed. unedited wartime memoirs. a weapons collection. not knowing the names of who you kill. too many to remember. loss of hope. there’s no heroes in war.

xi. THE SPIRAL. sleep deprivation. corridors you can get lost in. maze puzzles that loop back on themselves. losing possessions. losing people. losing your sanity. corkscew curls. rows of funhouse mirrors. optical illusions. a separate reality. walking through the wrong door. delusions. not knowing what your hands are doing. blank spaces in documents. hallucinations. wrong proportions. a nameless thing. a place that has never existed. doubting your own mind. blind faith. losing track of names, labels, categories. distorted sound. an imperfection in a glass that twists the view. loss of time. a garish colour. doors that open to nowhere. lies. an unnatural laugh. jokes & tricks. illusions. a doorway. a sculptor with a wild imagination. limbs in impossible angles. doing what’s fun, not what’s sensible. fractals you can get lost in.

xii. THE STRANGER. wax figures. a close approximation of a human face. a borrowed appearance. a strange smell. glass eyes. furs & pelts. a dance. a song of a choir. the uncanny valley. stitching yourself together. the colours of a circus. a puppet with no strings. mannequins. glitter & sequin. a stranger you’ve always known. someone strange in the place of someone you knew. stolen identities. stolen skins. a machine imitating humanity. the anonymity of a service worker. hiding in plain sight. uncomfortable to look at. a faked accent. concealing. forgetting who you are. forgetting who others are. a replacement no one notices. images that look posed. the only one seeing the false face of someone.

xiii. THE VAST. open spaces. carnival rides going up & down. fear of heights. endless infinity around you. your insignificance in an universe. stomach turning at a drop. fear of not the crash down but the moment you slip. the sway of a cable car. an adventure holiday. losing track of where the surface is. miles & miles of nothing around you. staring at the sky & feeling like you may fall into it. loss of control. a fall that doesn’t end in death. glass floor to the view below. terminal velocity. the sound of wind in your ears. a reach over the railing. a jump from the top of the building. falling into nothing. feeling your feet let go of the ground. a leap of faith. motion sickness.

xiv. THE WEB. undecipherable code. a puppeteer holding the strings. power over the weak—willed. strings of fate. manipulation. an arranged accident. a hundred minions doing your bidding. cobwebs. spiders. a laid trap. never voicing discomfort. outwitting a cheater. doing things without realising it. red string across a corkboard. finding something lost where you were sure you checked. power over the unrealiability of chance. watching others dance for you. an entangled death. a thousand tiny legs & fangs. shady forum threads. something important gone missing. suspiciously disregarded case. a missing witness. connections. the world wide web. power of victimhood. gullibility. no control over your own decisions. an invisible leash. mass psychology. a horror film in the making. scapegoat. never remembering to ask for a name.

+ THE EXTINCTION. the end of an era. apocalypse movies. the alarms of warning systems. a desolate landscape. end of the world cults. nihilism. the last written history. a changed world. no survivours. old prophecies. a thousand predicted ends. a new chapter. an end with no escape. catastrophes. a calendar counting down. breaking point. overindulgence.

Tagging, @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat @cassietrn @madparadoxum @dumbassdep @adelaidedrubman @strangefable @florbelles @aceghosts @wrathfulrook @clicheantagonist @josephslittledeputy @josephseedismyfather @trench-rot @thesingularityseries @simplegenius042 @voidika @theelderhazelnut @poisonedtruth @jillvalentinesday @shegetsburned @sstewyhosseini and anyone that would like to do the tag <3

#Mer's parts as answers.... 👀👀👀#oc: sabrina donovan #oc: mercedes “mercy” sibley #oc: leslie parish #oc: calahan hartley #wip: in hope of tomorrow #tagged <3 #character aesthetic #tag games #aesthetics for the entities #character reference

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azumasoroshi · 1 year

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i have no idea what episode this is part 2

part 2 of this post i think?? tbh i found the clip in some random youtube video i have no idea if this takes place directly after or not and im just judging based on the time of day/setting

(i actually did search through like. the last few episodes of season 1 and the first few episodes of shou and i couldnt find shit so i'm assuming that this episode happened in one of the places i didnt check. not for lack of trying but because the website i was using straight up died on the spot trying to load them all so quickly)

(edit: it's episode 16 of durarara season 1 ty @/pineapplething)

this screenshot is killing me actually. i had to pause instead of doing the 0.25 speed thing because i need his hands to be on his hips so it looks like he's just. staring down at the thing judgingly. izaya's pose is so funny because right before that he's like

'what the fuck are you doing shizu-chan'

i forget the context of this scene too but like. why wasnt he pointing the knife at shizuo?? what were they doing. bro i love not having ANY context whatsoever and being too lazy to look up the actual episode

anyway babygirl looks so ugly in those shots god bless

bro why you arching your back like that 🤨

in front of izaya too. god

the way they have four separate reaction shots for izaya. bro the things that must've been going on through his head were NOT safe for work on god.

the way he says 'seriously' and then remembers to point the knife like bro had to take a second. he was processing. he almost looks enamored in that first shot actually (<- delusional)

izaya's rectangle prism ass never ceases to amaze. glad he keeps that in both art styles

shizuo looks so funny from this angle i bet you could get the most unhinged smear frames every time he goes rage mode

can we get like an angry shizuo aesthetic moodboard except it's all either low quality or smear frames. it'd be really funny trust

also incredible how shizuo can extend the length of the guard rail to like. twice its size. it was not that big in the previous images. i wonder if that's a metaphor for something

god these SUCKED to get pictures of because celty comes in so fast and there's no indication of when the frames will switch but i do it for you (im doing this for me. im obsessed. i have a final on tuesday for the class i have a B in but actually i think it's a D now)

these would probably be much easier to screenshot if i just downloaded the videos but why would i do that when i can press the back arrow key 50 zillion times and listen to the crunchy 0.25 audio explode every time shizuo opens his mouth

this image gets me every time ugh they almost look like they were having a casual conversation or smth (<-delusional)

just. arch enemies both being distracted by something long enough to stop beefing with each other does something to me. i dont even know it doesnt have to be romantic i just like watching it (although it's usually romantic because im a sucker for enemies to/and lovers if you couldnt tell by my usual ships)

that's the end of this scene (or at least the youtube clip of it. you cannot ask me to load all those anime episodes again) but like man. good shit ill be replaying this in my brain for the next week or so

#shizaya #if anyone knows what episode this is...please tell me...im dying #im pretty sure it's sometime in shou and probably near the end but i cant load ittttttt #i need to know what happens after this so i can write a canon divergent fanfic of it where they go home and bang #izaya orihara #shizuo heiwajima #durarara

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krikeymate · 1 year

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I have a weird idea I can't seem to get out of my head for some reason I'd though I'd share it with you. For the most part, people with mental illnesses are usually more creative or have more creative outlets, right? So what if when Sam left, she was on a mission to get better not just for herself but for Tara as well. She knew she needed help she started seeing things years ago, but Christina was no help. (She might have even thought it was a good thing because it made her like Billy. I can even imagine that after she found out, she started leaving her alcohol in plain sight to see if she would drink to quiet the voices like Billy did.) Thankfully, Deputy Hicks and Mrs. Meeks-Martin said they would look after Tara, and both told her to keep in touch and that they would be there if she needed them.

Sam struggled through getting sober and finding help for her mental health, but she managed to keep going. One of the things that she found she loved through it was art she loved escaping into different worlds anywhere that wasn't where she was. It helped her escape and forget how hard things where.

Someone notices her drawings and asks her if she could draw his dnd character or someone from a story he was working on she does because she's broke, and he said he would pay her. He loves it and posts it. A few other people ask for similar drawings. Eventually, she falls into a creative crowd that introduces her to a bunch of people working on different things. She learns to make illustrations for smaller indie media, and it's a nice hobby and way to make extra cash. One day, she gets a message from someone who said they say a few of her drawings and asked if she would be willing to make a few different covers for a story. Not thinking much of it, she said yes, next thing she's getting contacted by a large publisher asking to use one for the cover of a new book series. She ends up being asked to design more covers and illustrations from different publishers and can finally start saving up for when she went back home.

She becomes a popular freelance artist. Sam even has a few fans from a comic she worked on with friends. She uses the artist named Sam Soto since part of her is scared Christina would find her and ruin everything, and because her grandmother was her favorite person after Tara, so she used her last name to remember her. She's thankfully for that choice after all the theories start gaining traction.

Just before the attacks She was getting ready to reach out to Tara she finally felt stable and safe. Just needed to gather her courage and find the right moment. In the last 5 years, Sam learned that not everything she touched was going to get hurt or destroyed like she was always told she could also create things that where beutiful and made people happy.

Of course, after the GF attacks, Sam feels guilty. She almost lost her sister and the twins, and she did lose Wes and Judy Hicks. She threw herself at taking care of Tara, and when they moved to NY, she did make the smallest room and make it to her office/studio, and she didn't let anyone in. She found something that she loved that let her escape, but she had to leave Tara behind to find it. It made her afraid Tara would hate her art or think Sam was better off without her. What if she thought Sam was doing great and chose never to go back until she had to? How do you explain that she worked hard to get better for her but was to scared to go back when she did? It leads her to just brush off questions about the time she was gone, saying she just worked freelance and did some projects here and there.

Tara does hate it she knows Sam isn't being honest, but she's back she's here with her, and she promised never to leave again. After a fight, she storms into the studio and finds everything, even a print of a cover for the book she was reading, signed by Sam Soto. Looking around, the main thing that catches her eye is a framed drawing it's an old and worn-out drawing of her when she was younger. It's not as good as the rest of the drawing around the room, but you could tell it was the most well loved.

My friend this isn't a weird idea, this is LOVELY. I LOVE it, I LOVE you. I think saying "people with mental illnesses are usually more creative or have more creative outlets" is probably... not great, but I think you mean well. Happy to discuss that more in private if you message me off-anon (no judgement involved, I'll keep it all to myself, just wanna talk about it).

I think I've mentioned this before, but I 100% believe that when Sam left, she did it to recover - something she wouldn't be able to do in Woodsboro - and to get better, for herself and for her sister. The idea that Christina started leaving alcohol out to see if Sam would start drinking like she did is incredible, we all hate that woman, we only make her worse every time we talk about her.

Artist!Sam. Her using her grandmother's name as a pseudonym, being ready to reach out to her sister when life does it for her. All amazing. The way she learns through art that she is not destined for destruction, but that she can bring life and love into the world, heartbreaking.

The idea that Sam hides her art, terrified that Tara will hate her for leaving her and building this whole new world for herself is so so real. Because of course, what else could Tara think? Sam left and she made a name for herself and she found something that made her happy, because her sister just wasn't enough. And Sam only came back because Tara got hurt, because she felt guilty. Why wouldn't she assume that Sam was just going to stay away with her new name and her new life and her happiness? But Tara wants that for Sam, she wants her to be happy (she wishes she could have that for herself), so she feels guilty, because she's dragged Sam back into all this pain into her life and she's stuck here in New York looking after her fucked up little sister.

They're having an argument. Sam's trying to tell her she can't go to a party as if she has any say in what Tara can and can't do. "How am I supposed to focus on my work when I don't know where you are or whether you're safe," Sam screams at her. Tara screams back, "WHAT WORK SAM? YOU WON'T TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT YOU DO BUT YOU EXPECT TO CONTROL EVERYTHING ABOUT MY LIFE."

The words cut at Sam deep. Because she's right. She won't tell Tara anything about her life, but she wants to know every part of hers. The truth hurts and she doesn't know what to say, how to react. She just turns and walks away back to her room. But Tara isn't done, she's too worked up, she storms after her, pushing the door open before Sam can close it.(A part of Sam wonders whether she wanted her to see. She's so much stronger, she could have held the door closed, she could have stopped her).

Tara takes in the room. The desk with the tablet and computer, the sketchbooks, the pens and the pencils, the canvases and the paints in one corner. She framed prints on the wall, the sketch of herself framed above Sam's bed. She takes it all in and thinks Sam didn't want to share this with me, and walks away, locking her door behind her.

She doesn't go to the party that night.

#/mp #ask box #Scream #Sam Carpenter #Tara Carpenter #miscellaneous scream au's #-artist sam

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oceandiagonale · 2 years

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Thought I'd post a little (or not so little- oops sorry) info dump of my boy Lux for an OC Sunday since I've made some slight changes to his personality...

So here's some little facts about Luckless (I'd say the trio but I'm still working on the other two)

1) For no apparent reason, he can mimic almost any sound or tone as long as it's made by an organic lifeform (Pokémon cries, whistling, etc)

2) He can feel the emotions of the living beings around him, which is one of the reasons he seems so anxious and overwhelmed the majority of the time- it's cuz he is. Just because he can feel these emotions, though, it doesn't mean he understands them (my poor boi has no idea what's going on)

3) I've spoken about his pain tolerance before, but I've kinda changed it a little. Rather than not feeling as much pain as "normal" human beings, he's just more likely to not notice any wounds or illness thanks to his COMPLETE lack of self-awareness in terms of his physical health. Plus, if he does somehow manage to notice something's wrong with him before it becomes a massive problem, he instinctually hides it from others and tries to convince himself he's fine (he's not aware of why he does this either) He also often forgets that he's a human being that requires food and sleep which leads to all sorts of problems 😅

4) He easily gets scared by sudden movements, flashes of light and loud sounds. (Thunderstorms are a nightmare for him, as well as the other two that have to comfort him)

5) His opinions on other humans is a little complicated. He's quick to trust in general, but he's the kinda guy to immediately (and poorly) prepare himself for betrayal, so he's constantly overthinking what to share and what not to. Plus, he will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to avoid conflict with other people. (The main reason he apologises for everything)

6) A verrry strong believer in found family, since he doesn't have any biological relatives- as far as he's aware- so he quickly grows attatched to anyone with a kind and protective nature. (He very much sees the Professor and Cyllene as his parents but would be way to shy to admit it)

7) He's called "Luckless" for a reason. He's clumsy, reckless, and he gets sick VERY easily. Sometimes, if someone nearby is feeling intense enough emotions, it affects Lux's physical health. The whole reason behind his awful luck is because Arceus thought it'd be entertaining to watch (Hiro and Yuki are ready to fight God smh)

I am so sorry- this ended up being WAY longer than I thought 😥

(BTW FOLKS HERE’S A POST NEXUS MADE EXPLAINING LUX’S POWERS)

OH OH for #1 I hope he and Iscan can bond over that!! since in the concept art iscan is really good at imitating pokemon cries!! AH but their anxiety might feed each other unintentionally under the wrong circumstances since lux can sense them 😭😭😭

that’s such a fun trait though, I hope it comes in handy for him!! 🥺🥺🥺

AHHH I CARE EABOUT THIS LITTLE GUY THOUGH I’M GLAD HE HAS FRIENDS TO LOOK OUT FOR HIM IN CANON BUT I HOPE THEIR CARE FOR HIM INFLUENCES HIM AND HELPS HIM TO LOOK OUT FOR HIMSELF MORE EVEN WHEN THEY’RE NOT AROUND 😭😭😭

he’s so right though, cyllene and laventon are 100% the protag’s adoptive parents and even if he never says it and they never say it I’m sure they’ll feel the same about lux 🥺🥺🥺

also @ lux’s arceus, for real:

#oceandi answers #novanexusart #others' ocs #luckless protagonist #long post #original memes: abacchio joins the kicking #I'm a healer but

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wcamino-confessions · 1 year

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Hi, this is MiseryXCPR from Amino. I am here to say I'm sorry and explain things;

About commissions; I have horrible time management and memory, which results in me forgetting or just not having the time when I think i do. I am actively working on this and I'm trying to get better at it- examples being I have users pay after when the art is complete and lowering the amount of commissions I take so I don't overwhelm myself again. I ALWAYS refund people, especially when asked, and when people express concern I try to address it. This does not excuse the wait list and wait time and I do apologise again for it. I take full responsibility and I will try hard to fix it.

If you had commissioned me on my former main account, I had been locked out of it and had been working with the leadership team of the amino to contact commissioners and give them their refunds. As for the person who made the ych post, yes, I refunded them their 5$ and had apologized for the inconvenience (though it was not shown in their blog).

If you had commissioned me, feel free to dm me on my amino account (or Discord if you prefer) and I'll be happy to work out a refund for you!

The Breaks; I didn't mean to set off red flags for my breaks. I'm a working guy who has a job and has been dealing with a lot of issues in real life, including a very serious one that I'm going through. I apologise for it and making people nervous with the breaks though.

The Apology Post for the Adopts; I made the apology post because I realised my comment / observation (I wasn't directly stating an opinion though my feelings were involved a bit!) Was one sided, and because people spoke to me on the other sides view, I realised I shouldn't have been so one sided and made the said post as an apology for anyone I had offended with it. Most of the people who have spoke to me are people I respect or sometimes talk to, and hold no ill feelings towards them whatsoever.

Tansy; They have yes commissioned me at around the start of August ~ July 29th. I showed them a wip and they paid which I was fine with. However, I wasn't able to get their commission finished. At around the start of October ~ I believe October 13th I offered a refund due to them a) waiting for a while since I did feel bad but also b) making it public, going around to my commissioners and asking personal information. I had agreed to do the commission because of them practically blackmailing me after spreading misinformation about the commission, but when something serious came up and I told them I couldn't do it and offered MANY forms of refund ways, how they can have the refund until I finish the art, how the refund can be done, etc they continued to harass me to the point that they were, yes, banned. I'm still going out of my way to make sure they got their money back despite the treatment. I've been told about them before and I am only stating my side of the story.

Conclusion; I'm sorry, again. I wish I've done better with commission time management and how I've been handling commissions. I actively do refund and If you feel like I have scammed you or haven't finished the artwork, PLEASE dm me on my amino or Discord (feel free to ask for it) and I will try to respond asap. If you have criticism or any advise, please let me know or any further concern. I own up to my mistakes and I hope to learn from them and grow as a person. Thank you for hearing me out, i don't know how Tumblr works as i just created an account to address this, but yea-- thank you again for reading. My deepest apologies, again, and I do hope to fix everything and work on my mistakes and help people.

#submission

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kairospy · 5 months

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Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @moondal514 (im a bit late my bad)

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

37,248

3. What fandoms do you write for?

All for the Game is my bread and butter, but i did write one for the Marauders

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

it takes two(but you and i are one) (AFTG / 13.6K) - the dynamic between neil, abram and nathaniel, delving a bit into the DSM-V because i am pedantic and a psych student

the ticking of a heart (AFTG / 5.3K) - andreil after a bad episode. hurt/comfort

genesis' wane (AFTG / 9.5K) - the twinyards

Owl Light (Marauders / 8.6K) - wolfstar with background jegulus but using fancy words

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i do!!! i respond 99% of the time mostly because getting them makes my day (and week) so i should let the commenter know that

them: "really liked this!"

me: "hey just letting you know you made my fucking year and im no longer mentally ill so thanks for that" :)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

pf… Owl Light or it takes two

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

the ticking of a heart starts gut-wrenching but ends rather fluffy? so that one.

god i really have to post more

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i've gotten a "critique" and a bookmarks rating that's since been deleted. i would've been offended hadn't i found it funny

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i… could? the thing is my writing's very much all nonsensical flowery prose and metaphors so i fear i'd get lost in the dramatics of it all instead of actually describing that they're fucking

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

i do not (yet?)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I've had art stolen (posted without credit) but not a fic

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i've had many suggestions but i've yet to take someone up on the offer mostly because it would feel like having someone do a job for free and morally that feels a bit wrong

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

lord knows we've tried @butallmystars

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Andreil takes the cake and gold, silver goes to probably jerejean (because it's my current hyperfixation), and bronze to jegulus…maybe? (the fandom has made me resent them so much perhaps i should take the medal away)

honorary mentions go to wolfstar, jily & drarry

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

…yes

16. What are your writing strengths?

um flowery depictions of the mundane? idk i like talking like a thesaurus while getting my point across with excessive metaphors

That and characterization judging by what others have told me

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

plot

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

if you know that language or have a way to fact check it with someone other than google and the demon you accidentally summoned writing that gibberish, yes. 100%

otherwise, i'd say to use things like "he said in french" / "he muttered something in undecipherable german" if it's from the pov of someone who doesn't know the language

BUT do as you please, at the end of the day the point comes across, we're all here to have a good time not a long time, and people who don't know the language find it compelling :)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

…next question?

(on ao3 it was AFTG)

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

probably it takes two (but you and i are one) but i honestly forget what they're about once i've posted them

No pressure tagging (apologies if you’ve already done this I haven’t been keeping track ): @butallmystars (suffer with me evelyn) & @soliloquy-dawn

#kairospy answers #ao3 #kairospy recs #aftg fic #aftg fic recs #all for the game #aftg #aftg andreil #andreil fanfic

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lotus-btas · 10 months

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BTaS Update: May-July 2023 - Pages of Lotus

Back again after a VERY long while without an update. Sorry for that, I'm forgetful.

Let me catch you up to speed on how the progress for Beyond Time and Space has been going these past few months, where we are now, and how we'll do things moving into the future.

Starting with the past, I'm gonna be fully honest: I haven't made a lot of progress with episode 2. Towards the end of May and the entire month of June, I've been suffering some serious burnout, to the point where interacting with my work would make my physically ill and exhausted. For a while I thought about skipping episode 2 entirely and moving on to 3, but then remembered that I stopped working on ep 3 because of my dissatisfaction/change of ideas with ep 2 that mentally stopped me from moving into the next arc. I'm still semi trying to get over it, but every day I can feel my creative drive starting to kick back in. I just need to sit down, focus, and get to work, which is a lot harder these days than ever before.

I also mentioned in the past how I was gonna host a beta reading for the first episode of Beyond Time and Space on the 20th of May. That also didn't happen. Not only was I sick with a headache on the 19th of that month, but I was rushed to the hospital for treatment, and spend the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd recovering. Plus, that post got little to no interest or attraction, so making a sign up that no one would bother to mess with seemed kind of pointless.

As of the present, right now I'm working on trying to balance my energy between BTaS and my other projects and interest, to make sure that my burnout doesn't get as dangerously bad as it did in May and June. It seems to be working. None of them are making much sound progress, as I keep getting distracted by my own thoughts, but it's keeping my energy in check, which is all I need.

I also decided to start working on a pilot for Beyond Time and Space! Yeah! The one thing that I should've started with, especially because this is an animated series, I'm doing now, a full year after I wrote the first episode! Kinda ironic! I find a huge benefit of this being that I know my characters super well now, but the big disadvantage is finding something for them to do; how they can interact with this new environment that I'm putting them in for a single short episode. That's also been a little draining. Might need to brainstorm some more.

And, last but not least, going forward. My plans from this point on is to hopefully have a more consistent update schedule (every or every other Saturday, if I can remember), maybe create and show off some art made specifically for the updates, like a visual summary. I'm also working on a twitter account for Beyond Time and Space that is currently up, but probably won't have anything on it for quite a while. I'm a full believer that it's never too early to share your work, but I'm an anxious gun that needs some sort of visual content to back it up, if that makes sense.

Anyways this is really long. Apologies for that. I would add a TL;DR, but I'm kinda in a rush now because I gotta cook dinner. Just getting this out of the way beforehand (and because the time it took to write this was the same amount of time I had left before the time to cook dinner struck, so it kind of just fell in my lap). Maybe I'll include one once I reblog with the tag list.

Thanks for spending your time reading this update! Your eyes are a blessing :D

- Yors Truly

#beyond time and space #btas #pages of lotus #btas updates #catching up with tru moment #sorry for the inconsistnecy #I'll work on it

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rookflower · 2 years

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ok, so. i drew every warrior cat! here's a long rambling sentimental reflective-type post on the blog i guess.

I started this blog when I was 15, in 2018. I was bored at a summer job, scribbled Onestar on the back of a sticker sheet, and thought "huh, there sure is a lot of Warrior Cats characters! I've seen some design blogs around, I think there's a "draw 100 cats challenge" people do, wouldn't it be fun if I gave that a try?" I had nothing going on art-wise at the moment, I was losing steam on my Pokemon webcomic and had given up askblogs a while ago, so I quickly fell into it.

Starting out was weird- I'd only read up to about Power of Three at the time, and hadn't read TPB or TNP in quite a while. I vivdly remember someone sending me a request to draw Tawnypelt about 20 cats in or so, and I genuinely couldn't remember who she even was. I think I got a request to draw Jagged Peak before I even knew DOTC existed? I wasn't working off of a specific list, and would miss certain cats out entirely due to forgetting them which frustrated me. Drawing cats was fun, and once I got to 100 eventually I found myself going "well, now what? I haven't even drawn Sorreltail, Nightstar, Appledusk, Spiderleg..." so, i kept going!

Then 2020 rolled around and lockdown hit, and I was suddenly stuck in my house with no plans, seemingly unlimited time, and a desperate need for some kind of outlet that offered escapism from the world.

Drawing Warrior Cats was something mundane and rhythmic but creative and enjoyable, and I found the aspect of looking at it as a challenge alluring, the same way I had when the goal was "100 random warrior cats". How far could I get before having to stop? I couldn't do over 1000 cats, right?

uh.

I could!

sunk cost fallacy or whatever, I guess?

Lot has changed in my life over the course of this. I started the challenge just after leaving high school, and now I'm headed into my third year of uni. Some family's moved around, we have a cat now, I started playing video games again, my bedroom's been revamped, I met some internet friends IRL for the first time, I'm more or less publicly out as gay, all different kinds of stuff. It's fucking wild to consider that one of the biggest constants in my life these past few years has been drawing goddamn warrior cats. I've had the Warriors wiki list of characters open on my computer basically forever, and finally closing it feels like a goodbye.

So what's happening with this blog? Well, I'm not upkeeping a daily queue anymore, that's for sure. There are some cats here I KNOW I'm going to want to go back and redesign at some point though, so this isn't over! Even if I'm less active here, for now, I'm not going anywhere. I'll probably also use this for any general warriors art/posts I want to make, as well as those "send me asks" request meme thingies. those are fun.

I'm hoping to be maybe more active on my youtube now, as well as just generally experimenting with my art more. One of the biggest downsides of spending 3 years drawing fullbody flatcolours of warrior cats and not that much else is that my improvement on every ground except cat anatomy and character design has become pretty fuckin stagnant lmao. I need to make art with backgrounds and shading and non-cat characters again or i think ill explode. time to get out of this comfort zone!!

speaking of, very lucky this thing ended right at the start of Artfight. I'm @/RioBlitzle there and I try to revenge back attacks! Will probably put my energy into that for a wee while.

@daily-mario-characters might come back,, eventually but I'm not promising anything, and if I haven't learned anything from running this blog you might see me on a "drawing every pokemon" streak in a few months. it is how it is.

Anyways, thank you all so much for your support. Massive shoutout to everyone who's ever left nice comments in the tags of my posts, I don't really have a way to respond but I read every one of those and please know that they absolutely make my day.

Thanks for sticking through this challenge with me!

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martyrette · 11 months

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◤✞ Maggotmilk ✞◥

!!!HEY!!!

I’m going to be describing the development and story of this character below. It is going to contain a lot of triggering topics such as familial exploration and abuse, addiction and just overall trauma stuff. You've been warned!

Where do I start with MM? Maggie was the original concept for Bunnyguts when I began writing her. She originally came from some fun and edgy special effects makeup I was playing around with during the Rona. I took photos in my wigs and went all artsy and soon came up with her; Maggotmilk.

A sex worker back from the dead, trying to sort out their life now that their former job wasn’t really an option.

I’m going to make a Bunnyguts development master post soon with my very first concepts of her soon, I’m just struggling to find the notebook I had her concepts in.

But the two were basically the same character for awhile before I decided to put her in the WoW RP scene, which is when the characters became Maggotmilk and Bunnyguts respectively.

Maggotmilk, born Fiona Cullen, grew up in Drustvar with her step-mother and younger half-brother. Her father had died of illness, leaving them without income. Her step-mother was quick to pimp out Maggotmilk in order to make ends meat, and generally just saw her as another mouth to feed along with her little brother.

Fiona’s little brother was her world though. In place of their vicious and cold matron, Fiona began to raise brother while she too was still just a youth. However, after Fiona’s step-mother found out she was stashing away money to runaway, a violent fight broke out between the two. In the conflict, her brother accidentally got caught between them and killed, leading to Fiona soon killing her step-mother in a fit of rage.

After the emotions died down and the realization of what she did kicked in, she broke down. She was alone. And she was a murderer. She abandoned her home, running away to Boralus to escape her crime of passion and grief. It’s here she continued to be a sex worker to make income, her guilt eating away at her. She soon turned to drugs to numb it out and hopefully forget the face of the family she lost.

It’s around this time Shion finds Fiona, ODing out in the streets. Saving her, Fiona admits to not having a place to stay. Shion allows her to stay and accommodations if she can pull off a job. Desperate, she agrees and passes Shion’s test; she can be taught to be a thief. A Magpie. The two end up growing close and working together, Shion aiding in Fiona’s healing and growth. This is when she sheds the name Fiona and is given the name Maggotmilk by Shion.

She is something motherly and sweet, only left with rot and empty spots in her. The things she mothered are in the ground now.

An owning and acceptance of one’s trauma.

Maggotmilk is the first member of The Magpies and helps Shion recruit through her good heart and judge of character. It is also through Maggie Bunnyguts ends up joining them.

Bunnyguts and Maggotmilk quickly became best friends: Bunnyguts the heated and outgoing one while Maggotmilk was mild and softspoken. Though their world came crashing down during the siege of Boralus. When the Horde came, The Magpies got split up in the chaos, leaving Bunnyguts and Maggotmilk to their own devices. BG did her best to protect Maggotmilk, but she was soon skewered by an Orc and ended up dying in Bunnyguts’ arms, triggering The Magpies to break up and for her to leave Boralus and go to Stormwind. That city would never been the same without her best friend.

However, Maggotmilk was scooped up by the Forsaken and soon raised into Undeath unknown to Bunnyguts. Forced into a brand new life, Maggie is trying to figure out what she wants for herself now; she based her whole life on others and looking after them.

Shes mostly been focusing on her art and reconnecting with her heritage to feel closer with her passed family.

Yuh.

The evolution and story of Maggotmilk. I want to wait will I have a current wip of BG done before I make her masterpost and spill her character beans. Spoilers: Bunnyguts Whitetrash Grandma Core

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chococookiez · 1 year

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I FUCKING MISSED 4/13 I COMPLETELY FORGOR BUT IM POSTING ANYWAY

i was holding off on posting it until i had more content but i did a fantroll :]

some other art/shitposts i did with it (+ my other ocs)

and here's bonus ooc shitty doodles i did for my dying tiktok account

i haven't properly drawn anyone other than aradia and sollux (and eridan partially but i've only done march eridans for some reason) and the one with all of them was . the first time i drew any of them other than eridan please forgive me

words under the cut. i must ramble

so . homestuck huh

how did i spend my first 4/13 you ask? got up at 5am to fuck around with my (slightly drunk) friend on vrc until we got tired, had various revelations, a whole crisis that i do not wish to unpack... im forgetting something

oh yea

dumb of ass moment: i played that one fucking solkat vn literally just for the hell of it

I haven't read the comic yet BECAUSE im planning to binge read the entire fucking thing over the summer with my friends and i am fucking HYPED i have the unofficial collection downloaded on my pc already in preparation and we're planning on doing a massive party once we're done we are going to have a fucking ball with this . technically i've only been properly interested in homestuck since february which i find really funny cause my brain made the switch so fast it gave me fucking whiplash. i've literally never had an interest hit me THIS HARD in my life especially with how little canon content i have to work with currently since im saving it all for the summer (the restraint is so hard y'all have no idea)

highlights of shit i've done to do with homestuck other than art so far:

made 2 extended zodiac pins out of pre-existing pins i had, one for myself and one for my irl friend

said irl friend had to suffer through a 2+ hour long infodump where i just showed them all the main characters i had knowledge about (beta/alpha kids/trolls, ancestors and cherubs), did a hussie and had The Quadrant Ramble™, shittily explained classes and aspects and tried my best to explain The Weird Time Bullshit™ (it was very fun for me . he also said it was fun but i have my doubts)

speaking of quadrants i've made 4 quadrant keychains (erisol spade, cronkri heart, meowrails + kurtuna diamonds) (currently only displaying 3 of them since the meowrails one fucking SELF DESTRUCTED as in the paint fucking peeled itself off and ive been too lazy to remake it rn) and i've been slightly tempted to add a solkat one but i have no clue what quad i'd put them in tbh and that's the only thing stopping me (oh and a meuloz heart . just because)

very very vaguely hinted at this once before but i made a shitty character playlist. not linking it or saying who it is. y'all can just guess

i made... an eridan osu skin. out of one i had already that i liked. and i've been tempted to make a sollux one. did you know im mentally ill (something did spark this: i had a map of eridan's theme that had a skin on it, so decided to make a full one out of it to fuck with my friend who likes him)

im planning on cosplaying A Troll but have no sodding clue which one. my internal options rn are kanaya, vantases (have their outfits/something like them on hand already, plus vantases have easy horns), leijons (associate myself with them a lot (one of my favourite vrc avatars to use rn is a meulin edit even), especially considering im a leo myself), eridan, aradia and feferi (they'd be hilariously fitting for reasons i wish to not explain, especially eridan)

am probably gonna land myself with a pile of homestuck merch, either from birthday gifts or my own stupidity

so yea, just a few words. i couldn't fight the homestuck

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sojrner-fishsticcc · 1 year

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ok this isnt my normal art stuff but every once in a while i come across a weird little thing that i rlly feel like sharing with someone so im gonna put it here :) im a big fan of historical space stuff, in case you havent noticed (i dont think anyone has since i havent posted abt it before) so i sometimes go on little rabbitholes on random stuff and heres a little thing i found! so like, if you’re an astronaut, in a suit on EVA, you can’t really bring stuff with you. the gloves are too bulky to use fine stuff like electronics so like... what do you do if you need to remember something?

you use something like this! this is an astronaut cuff checklist! its a little spiralbound notebook with big ol tabs for manipulating with your gloves that has guides on procedures that are complicated and you’re bound to forget. this photo is of gene cernan from apollo 17 specifically, but these are still used today on the iss! cos there really isn’t a better option! ive seen a prototype for a digital one (which is kinda a big deal since normal lcd screens dont work in vacuums!), so until then we’re just gonna keep using lil notebooks with all your directions written on them :)

as a side note; for the apollo ones specifically, they were made by the backup crews for each mission as a guide for the main crew. they were pretty dry and mainly just step-by-step instructions on how to deploy surface equipment and such. they werent ONLY that though! they had some extra little tidbits of stuff in them for the crew while they were out there. specifically, the handbooks on apollo 12! which, alongside all the tutorials also had little sketches of dogs on the moon!

which is adorable!!! i love that!!! theyre so cute, i might draw something inspired by them cos god they give off such a cute little vibe. the handbooks also had some full-page photos of topless women which like ??? ok??? sure i guess. idk i dont really know what to think about those. anyway, these notes are so cool. i love looking at all them, i love poring over them and seeing all the technical notes (and dogs!).

alright thats all of this bit. ill hopefully go back to posting furry art soon, i have a rlly cool animated gif im trying to make and a few other ideas which im excited to put together. bye!

#science #space #apollo program #nasa #fun fact

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sierrabinondo · 1 year

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2022

~5-10 minute read (depending on how fast you can read i guess lmao)

it’s time!!! my annual recap of the year where i detail as much as i can remember as possible because i will 100% forget most of it in the near future. kind of depressing, kind of fun!

i took a peep at the 2021 post and...my god. ohhhh no. lmaooooooooo

in some ways 2022 was better than 2021. where it was worse, it was worse than i could have ever imagined. i was in a very terrible place for the better part of this year. thankfully, a lot of positive things still happened. so,,,without further ado,,,

i went into this year with, again, lofty expectations. i was convinced 2022 would be uber busy and explosive for WSA. the beginning of the year was rly quiet. it was basically just about recording acid redux and getting prepped for our first tour since 2019. for the first time ever, i was entrusted with drawing the tour ad mat. it was so difficult but i’m glad i was able to contribute. i needed to have that experience because i had never done a piece that big before, and i need to do more of those.

my job situation at the time was FUCKING terrible. anyone who is close to me knows how toxic the environment was at eventide. it was really getting to me. i was making an incredible amount of mistakes and i felt myself shrink every time i needed to be in a zoom call with my superiors. i came to hate my job so, so much. eventually, i lost my job around end of february. i already had a new position lined up (i feel like they knew because i updated my linkedin and they FUCKING said something to me about it) but it wasn’t the way i wanted to go. whereas i was panicking losing my job pre-pandemic, i was just angry i had no control over my exit.

another thing that cushioned the blow of losing my job was almost being on the b****** album. pulses. wrote to him that i should be on his next record and he liked murder mountain so much that he contacted me. he reached out a week prior to me being let go, and that kicked off a really cool period of the year. so then i get this cool opp, no longer have to show up to this job i loathe, get a month off, accept a new job offer during this short break, go on tour, and come back to a new job. that was probably the best part of the year. it was great because i had zero idea what was coming lmao

getting a month off was a FUCKING blessing. the only huge downside was that my credit card debt became INFINITELY worse. in 2020 i was privileged to be paid to not work for the entire year and it was one of my favorite years of my life. i will take any chance i can get to experience that again, i.e. having a month and a half free from working. i got to go collision with my twitch friends that i FINALLY got to meet in person, finally hung out with donis, bren, frankie and christy after not having seen them in years, took brawly on long ass walks every day, and drew a lot. it was a relief to have so much downtime WHILE prepping for tour.

most of all. in that period of time, i finally started listening to twice. i don’t know if it was just hitting extra because i was in a transitional period at the time, but it only took a week before i was FULLY fucking indoctrinated. i. love. kpop. i love it!! so much!!! like yes, i know i’m mentally ill, but it’s like cocaine. it’s addicting. i spent the year learning the choreo to two full twice songs then the main chorus parts for about 10 other random songs for other groups laksjdl;akjsdf. i literally hadn’t danced since performing arts hs. i only have like a handful of friends i sometimes see who fuck with kpop and it’s killing me lmao help

i won’t spend too much time on it because there’s like 8 other entries below this one about it, but we spent a week of april on tour with pulses. and IMAY for WCII and it was probably THE best thing that happened this year. our shortest run ever, and our most successful. i am so thankful we got to finally tour again, and it was better than i could have imagined. i really hoped at the time it wasn’t going to be our last tour for the year, but things fell apart (i’ll get to that lmao) so it sadly was our only run.

when i came back from tour, i had my first-ever subathon. i had so much trouble running things smoothly, but it was so much fun. it was a wonderful way to celebrate the folks in my community and everything we’ve done together over the last two years. couldn’t be more grateful for them!!!

in may we played beers 4 tears fest with a shit ton of our friends and it was chaos. i have never played a set trashed before then, and i will NEVER do it again. oh my god. and to my dismay, the evidence is on full display on youtube. so yeah. we wanted to actually enjoy ourselves at the fest and drink red tank beer, but we had to play fucking last at near midnight lmao. one of our worst sets, but it was a fun day and i’m glad we got to be a part of it.

i also finally got covid! that was fucking awful! and i’m pretty sure i am experiencing some form of long covid. i have never been so tired in my life and if feel winded more easily. it really sucked. i wish i could have avoided it, but it’s absolutely impossible now. thankfully, i didn’t get it again for the remainder of the year.

in june, my uncle passed suddenly. it was so devastating, and he died way too young. he had health complications throughout his life, but i never, ever thought he’d go this soon; they were never life-threatening. in may, i knew he was in and out of the hospital, but my mom was frequently visiting him and insisted it wasn’t crtiical. then, out of nowhere, he’s in serious condition after a procedure and the doctors are swearing up and down they can’t do anything to help him. my aunt and mom had just gone to a second doctor for his opinion and said there was something that could be done to save him, but they couldn’t get him what he needed in time. i still to this day can’t grasp that he’s gone.

in both june and august, my band was invited to DJ emo nite baltimore (and eventually emo nite asbury, which we bombed hard lmao) which was shocking to us, but considering we’d get to hang with pulses., and the emo nite crew, there was no way we were turning that down. that was such a fun weekend trip to baltimore. for baltimore we were lucky to have our set earlier in the night so that made things a little easier but we still felt so awkward on stage just dancing around with no instruments hahaha. dropping smooth to a room full of 300 emo zoomers was hilarious. afterwards, alexa put us up overnight and cooked brunch for all fucking like 15 of us. it was so so lovely.

over the course of the year, i got to hang out with pulses. SO often. out of all my friendships with anyone, ours is thriving so fucking hard. we really make this long distance stuff work with no issue :’) for the better part of 2022 they’d make the drive to us, but i made trips down to them in august, october and november. in july they came down to go see thursday with jaime and i. every time we’d hang, we stayed up til like 3-4 am drinking and watching music videos. in the fall, we saw shows in VIP at soundstage together and those shows were even better because we had seats lmao. i got to hang out more with adam, carlos and the emo nite crew more, and i’m glad we had more time to chill!!

as i mentioned earlier this year, i got a new job. i actually really, really like it. i will never romanticize a job- they’re all going to have their imperfections- but holy shit, i am actually not waking up every day feeling crippling anxiety about having to work. i have ample PTO (almost a month’s worth). i work with really amazing, like-minded people who actually believe in boundaries and having a life outside of their jobs. the work i do feels like it means something. and i am actually not afraid of my manager and/or boss. i have never felt even the slightest bit positive about a past position, but i do here. and these people got me out to CALIFORNIA and SPAIN this year. so yeah, out of nowhere, i get a new job and find out two months after i start that i’m going to los angeles for a few days. then, i spent a week in september in spain, which overlapped with my birthday. normally, i vehemently reject having to do anything outside of M-F office hours (even parties), but those were two of my favorite parts this year. i absolutely fell in love with LA and i did so much exploring in spain. most of all.....i ate so much good fucking food. to think that, i not only got a way healthier work experience with this new position after going through HELL, but i also got to travel? that’s incredible. and i very much adore the people on my team. they make me want to actually... care about my job

my 30th birthday was this year. i tried so hard to rent a place for it but what the fuck it’s SO expensive. so we ended up throwing the biggest rager we’ve ever had at our house. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN and i wish i could have spent more time with everyone that came. karaoke ruled, THE FOOD SPREAD WAS INCREDIBLE (TY TO MY FAMILY AND KRISTEN) and we partied hard as fuck. so many people came through, and it was an honor to have so many amazing people show up for me (even driving HOURS to be there). i have the best fucking people in my life,,,,,ever. i really do. and i’m so lucky.

i never thought this was ever going to happen but this year i ended up joining nintendo noise! truthfully, i had secretly gotten started in like may or june hehe. never ever thought i would end up being a podcaster. i was elated when pete and steve asked me to join as a co-host and i wanted to do whatever i could to make it work. i am obviously not the most knowledgeable guy when it comes to video games, but it’s been a blast getting to talk games every other week with them. pete and steve alone have been my favorite duo to listen to since 2017, and i’ve known pete since 2010. i’ve learned a lot from listening to their past shows, and now being on a show with them. i know i’m really passionate about music, but i’ve also come to realize that video games are equally as much of an important part of my life. so it’s incredible to also be involved with them in this way, thanks to my friends :’) and i get ANOTHER platform to tell everyone that they should be playing digimon,,,,,,

that really cool feature i landed at the beginning of the year ended up not happening. i really thought, “there’s no way after he paid me half and we put in all this work together that he would just ghost me” but he did. but i’m grateful i even got the opportunity, and i know it means i was worthy of getting there. whatever happened was out of my control, and i came to accept that. it’s not my song. i have my feelings on the way the situation was handled, but it’s all in the past. just! don’t meet your heroes, folks!

in september, WSA stopped playing shows to focus on the full length. i don’t know what happened but we just didn’t get it done this year. as of the time i’m writing this, all main guitars are done and fully tracked, some drums still need to be done, and ALL of the vocals need to be tracked (i just got started last night). the thing i try to keep saying to myself to calm my anxieties about it is that- we only get one chance to drop this album, and once it’s out, we get about a week of people’s attention. that’s it. so, if we have to take our time, so be it. but it’s 100% coming out next year IT HAS TO AT THIS POINT LMFAO

and that was really the rest of my year. enjoying the holidays (cosplayed as mirko for halloween :-----) and trying to stay productive. every time december rolls around i try really hard to make it a fun holiday season, but i end up getting too busy :((( december was also a scary month for me, mentally. my depression has been worsening as of late but i’m trying really hard to work through it.

i also realized this year that i have a lot of friendships that have stood the test of time, and it’s okay if we’re not always in sync! i spent a lot of my mid 20′s second guessing the people in my life, but i don’t have to anymore. i know that i have incredible friends who will always be there for me if i need them. so now i just need to learn how to be a better friend to myself.

it was a really tough year, and there’s so much i wish i could do over, but the good that came with 2022 was ultimately really positive. tons of fun gigs, dozens of late nights forcing my friends to watch buff correll, drunk heart to hearts, lots of kind new faces, and an abundance of laughs. i think this year a lot of foundation was laid for 2023 to be really cool. i’m crossing my fingers and keeping my expectations as low as i can lmao.

so if you read this far, i’m sorry HAHA. but thanks? i hope to come back this time next year with some good news. a lot can happen in 12 months.

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astelren · 2 years

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Io penso solo a te, soltanto a te

✧*̥˚ General/Warnings *̥˚✧

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alsodiplodocus · 7 months

Text

Lucia and the Moon (2023)

I've been putting Lucia together for a long time now. I've had the idea for maybe 4 years now and I never found a way to write it down. And now I have!

Content warnings: Suicide, mental illness, gender dysphoria.

This is an episodic short story consisting of 6 parts that I sent out to friends in accordance with the phases of the moon. I indicated which part is which phase in the titles. Today, with the solar eclipse happening, the story is finished. I also wrote a 7th part while I was publishing the original series, but it's up to you how much it's a part of "the story". I included it here for you to judge.

I usually post an accompanying art piece or song here, but this time the accompanying art is included in the story and there's just too many songs. Perhaps I'd point to The Actor by Everything Everything and All The Colours of Darkness by Comus though. I hope you get something out of this - my trans friends really liked it and some others were made uncomfortable. Perhaps that's a good thing. Not sure. Well, you can go ahead and find out.

September 19th 2023, Waxing Crescent

🌒

“These are your friends”. I watch the controller's finger slide across the photograph. I nod like a machine. “This is your house”. I stare, but I don’t perceive. These pictures have always been there. I’m watching the inside of my head. “You work here”. Yes, I do. My mind feels numb. I feel numb. The controller moves her hand and the scenery changes. “This is your favourite place in the world.” Her finger taps the spot where the forest spills out onto the open road. It’s the intersection between the untameable and the familiar. I really like it there. There’s a house on the side of the road. I don’t know who lives there. I never checked. You can lift your head and see the stars if you’re lucky. “This is where you got lost”. Shapes and lines and textures emerge forming something like a path, but they do not form a memory. It’s just noise. The controller has moved on, but I haven’t. I don’t know this place. The colours aren’t right. I go blank and shake my head. I look up to find a hint somewhere, but everything is slightly unrecognisable. The controller is bathed in an unfamiliar light and it gets under my skin. She is dressed the same way I’ve always known her, muted tones and slim and slithering and flowing to the ground, but I see someone in those clothes I haven’t met before. Then I realize. “Close the window”. She looks behind me with concern and I follow the source of my unease, from the reflection on her dress up to the frame in the wall. There’s a crescent hanging in the vast black. It looks like a sickle. I feel like it’s out there to hurt me and cut into my skin. The controller closes the window, and everything snaps back into place.

“Forgive me”, she says, “I forget sometimes. I know how much you need it, but it can get quite tough to keep this place so unchanging. I try my best.” I suppose she’s right. This room is dark in the same way it always was. My working desk is the same mess it always was. My head feels empty but I don’t want change. Deviations make me upset. I’m glad things are familiar again. I try to find that elusive pathway from earlier, but the controller has already decided I’ve failed for today.

“Well, let’s try again tomorrow. That was a lot at once”. Her smile is kind and forgiving. I don’t deserve it.

“How are you doing?”

I look away, pretending to be thoughtful. What kind of question is that?

“Dunno. I feel like I need a break.”

“Wanna go for a walk?” She extends a hand. I spend a short while in silence.

“I’m a bit tired, I think. Maybe tomorrow”.

“Okay. Good night for now”.

The controller leaves me to my devices. I feel like I should be reading, or learning, or bettering myself, but I have space for none of it. Just sitting upright has taken all of my attention today. I go to bed.

2. September 22nd 2023, First Quarter

🌓

“These are my friends”. I fill in the blank in front of me with familiar images. Smiling, wrinkled faces. Bohemian clothing and computers. Trust. A kind of comforting tiredness. “This is my house.” My mind spills out on the canvas and colours in the edges of my desk, the one I dragged in from the garden because my old one broke from the weight and I was too scared to figure out how furniture stores work. “I work here”. My little comfort zone zooms out into a miniature. I haven’t moved that car for months. I’m afraid it will kill me. My hands motion as if to signify something, but I’m not sure of their purpose. I gesture towards a green field at midnight. In the absence of light, it is only coloured that way because of the memories that live in me. “This is my favourite place in the world”. The controller smiles gently. Approval. I draw in each pebble of the road and the verdant leaves of the bushes surrounding it. If I try, I can feel the cold air whistling through the loose patches on my jacket, and I can hear how clunky and awkward our steps sounded when we ran away. How ignorant I was of the people around us, probably watching us from that house on the side of the road that I pretend isn’t there, thinking thoughts of contempt and justice. How the forest looked like it would swallow us whole and never spit us out again. But that’s exactly what I wanted. I can see each needle of the pine trees and the residual rain drops on them, like blood dripping from a surgery knife. This is the best I’ve done so far. The controller will be happy about this. She called this “the adversarial process”. She shows me what I am, and then I think, and eventually, I remember. And then I draw for her, and she looks closely. Compares. Judges. And then she tells me if I’m good enough. I hope we’re not really adversaries. I’ve always considered us a team, like singers in a duet, or tango dancers. Not that I move very elegantly. That’s her job. But that’s how we make our progress, hand in hand. So that I can become the best replacement there is in the world. I turn my focus to the forest entrance. “This is where I got lost”. I know what should come next. I know it, but I can’t understand. I’ve done so well so far, but there’s something missing. I know there is. The controller looks up at me with worry. I ignore her. “This is who I love”. I try to feel out the contours of my memory. My fingers try to trace a shape that isn’t there. I’m grasping at negative space. Nothing appears in the blank. The controller puts her hand on mine.

“Enough, please. Don’t do this to yourself.”

My memories recede back into place and I feel a wave of blankness overcoming me.

“You’ve already done so well today. It’s okay. It’s enough.” I want to move or respond, but I feel numb again. I’ve gotten used to it now. I make myself stand up. I take control of my voice. “I would like to go for a walk now.”

The controller nods with relief, and an open space surrounds us.

We walk in silence and the echo of our footsteps are a slapdash rhythm reverberating into negative space. I’m sure she would love to talk here, but I enjoy these walks for their therapeutic peace and absence of mind - loud words would only tear it apart. The controller stares at the ground in front of her and I take in the sights. The scenes around me have the colour of my dreams. That is, not quite accurate, but not in a way you can notice or reason with. My reasons have gone to sleep now, and I dream up a way forward. I don’t dictate my memories anymore. They freely associate with each other, cancelling out and adding up and unfolding together into something emergent and unexplained. The familiar and the untameable have their way with each other. Sometimes, I walk to learn something from their movements, but most of the time, I just walk. Today, I fear how the incompleteness of my performance will one day take this from me. No matter how often I try to prove to the controller that I know myself, I eventually reach a gaping void. I fear that maybe, I will never be able to fill it. That I’ve forever lost this part of myself, repressed beyond my reach. I feel like an actor on stage holding a script with holes in it, desperately trying to convince my friends in the audience that I was given this role for a good reason. Unfortunately though, I’m just not that creative. Each missing sentence stops me in my tracks. I just wish someone else would write the rest for me. If only the script would break down at the useless parts, like “how’s the weather?” or “do I look good in this?”, but instead, I find myself coming undone at a simple “how are you?”. Maybe I need to start asking the questions. Maybe it’s as easy as that. I stop and look for the right words as the controller walks pointlessly forward, dragging my hand until she realises I’m not coming with her. I break the silence. “What is my name?”

The controller stares me down like I just killed someone. I can’t tell if the tension in her figure is fear or anger, but whichever it is keeps her from responding. The space around us folds up slowly until I find myself back at my desk. I think that must have been the wrong question. I try a different one. “Why am I replacing him? Where is he now?”

The controller regains her usual composure now, but it doesn’t look like her choice. Like a string has been pulled at the back of her head, and the rest of her body followed suit.

“Master is tired. You know that. He just wants to have some rest. Once you’re able to act the same as him, he can finally take a deep breath and leave.”

I’ve heard this so often now. I know that master is tired. I know that’s why I’m here. The controller tells me I’m good enough even when I’m at my lowest. It’s all going to be okay. I know it’s all going to be okay. But… I try again to find the right question. It eludes me. I stutter and stumble like a stupid child.

“It’s just… I… I just ask, because… look… I’ll… I can do better next time… I swear! I’ll do better! Just don’t-”

“Stop that. You’ve done more than enough.”

The controller walks to the other end of my desk. “I don’t think you understand how far you’ve come. Your imagination today, your memories - well, master was never that good at it. Nobody will be able to tell anymore.” She twists around my desk and the mess I left on it shifts and reconfigures into something more purposeful. The change makes me uncomfortable, but I feel like this time it won’t hurt me. “You work here”. I’m staring at a screen that’s very familiar to me now. “Here. Learn. This was master’s work. If you want to take his place, you’re gonna need to get familiar.”

Winding data structures reach into each other and lines of code fill my vision. Nervous as if investigating a fragile sculpture, I place my unwelcome hands on his mouse and keyboard and navigate my way through years of unrelenting, obsessive construction work. This man could have assembled a living city out of specks of dust. Pathways in my head unroll and split up with each new bit of information. I’m clicking through and reading a story backwards.

The controller watches me for a while, monitoring, making sure I’m on the path. Eventually, she leaves the scene with a silent movement, and I barely notice her dress exit my frame of vision while I try to untangle the programmatic monolith that I’ve been assigned to make my own. And I work. Tirelessly. Any semblance of numbness or fatigue gets cast aside into various extensions of my body while I flip through line after line of code. I can’t understand why master would ever want to get rid of this. This is what I was made for. Was it not what he was made for? I connect one file to the next until a beautiful whirlwind has formed itself in my mind, one that seems to tower above any key memory I might keep there with its sheer brilliance and value. My house, my friends, and even my favourite place in the world all get eclipsed by the dance of letters on my screen. My work. My code. I don’t recall how many hours I’ve spent moving nothing but my arms and fingers. But as I uncover the outer reaches of master’s work, I realise that it was never done justice. Hungry and delirious, I follow his layouts and designs to where their conclusion should be, only to find nothing. How could he abandon something so beautiful? Unease spreads through my body as I realise I’ve been left behind. I remember the frame surrounding my computer screen again, and the colour of its text has lost its purity. I feel strongly that something has changed about the air around me. I look up and try to find answers. The controller will have them. My eyes readjust to the light and eventually I can make out her silhouette. She’s dragging a dead body across the floor. The moonlight reflects on her dress again. The dead body looks far too familiar for me not to care. I’m suddenly overcome by the realisation that I’ve failed. I look back at the screen and try to become nothing. There’s a gap in the code where the moonlight hits the screen. I can make out my reflection in the empty space that master left. I can see myself. I look exactly like the dead body. I want to scream. She’s going to kill me.

3. September 25th 2023, Waxing Gibbous

🌔

“But how could you be so blind to what makes us special? What makes us truly alive? What makes us sing? You should know better than this. Have you forgotten the poet Adrian in the birdhouse? And how his head hurts, but he knows the truth? How could he ever feel so deeply if all he is is a loose string of chemical hallucinations wrapped around lifeless, soulless matter? And how could you reduce his gift to nothing but inertia? Nothing but the last breath of a hobbling contraption, set in motion by everybody else but him? And how could you deny that Adrian in himself is worth celebrating? Isn’t he more than just a reason for the next person to write about?”

“You must misunderstand me – we are special, but much like Adrian, we are but a patchwork of our surrounding world, boundless and interleaving, writing our space into what we see, possessed by it… don’t you remember how, as a newborn child, you took your first words from your parents’ mouths? And as soon as you could put together letters into flowing sequences, how your first living characters were ripped out of someone else's books, made to dance with each other and lift from the pages? And now you sit here, draped in the colours and identities of your friends and beloved, and you pretend to me that they aren’t what brought you to life? And how can there be a higher purpose in this world than giving life to the next? I tell you that there isn't. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

The controller nods and aimlessly taps her fingers on her book. “Good. That’s quite good. You’ve got his character down. It actually scares me a little. Good work.” She flips through some of the pages. “Hm, let’s see…”

Master knew exactly what he was doing. Though he might not have made it there, he has always seen the end more vividly and truthfully than anyone else he’s ever known. Books line the shelves: Treatises on the purity of art, the aesthetics of mind, number theory as connective tissue, creativity as an engine, delusions and dry summaries of the living world, poetry, fuel documentation, letters, unfinished masterpieces by the overexperienced and timeless, cookbooks, kōans. Not having taken a step outside, master has travelled in-between the lines and under the pages to experience more than any mortal lifetime should ever allow – and yet, in all of them, all he could see was the end. He’s learned to see the motorcycle manual in the Bodhi tree and the skeleton in his father, and he has decided to come prepared. It was his turn to put his hands on the gears of life and rip them out before time would get to them, and he had a full schematic of how to put them back together. He didn’t make it. I’m the extension that will carry it through. I’m an iron fortress built from nothing but words, and I can protect myself just fine.

The controller adjusts her glasses. “Right, this one… okay”. She raises her voice.

“Listen, Jon, I know how you like to protect yourself, but there’s some things you can’t hide from us. Please don’t see this as some kind of intervention. I just want to talk. We’re all just a little afraid at what’s been happening for the last few weeks. You’ve come apart. You still show up on the dot, but… you know man, I’m just not sure you’re still there. If anything, I want to let you know this: You don’t owe us anything. I know you’re scared of leaving anyone behind. You make up these responsibilities and then they eat you alive. Just… Jon, listen. If a break is what you need, then please. Please just take care of yourself. All we want is to see you-”

There is a knock on the door. There has never been a knock on the door. What door?

“Right. I’ll deal with it”. The controller closes her book shut and points at my screen. “Get to work in the meantime. I’ll be back”.

Reluctantly, I assume my mechanical position and start typing, right away picking up from where I was last dragged away from finishing master’s work. I don’t want to look up. I probably won’t like what I see. Hopefully the controller has this figured out. There is a thump and a rattle and a muted slurry of very righteous words. I keep my focus where it should be. I’ve learned to ignore the troubling feelings in my head when the text changes colour and moonlight dances across my screen and I can see myself. That’s not me. I am my work. I keep typing. There are no high and mighty thoughts to be had anymore. I’ve read his words. I’ve seen life as he understands it. I just have to write until I reach the end of it. There are screams. I freeze up. I hope the controller is okay. If I look now, I might regret it forever. Code fills my screen and white noise fills my head. There are more screams and curses and I can hear violent intentions flung around like knives barely missing their target. This can’t be right. Nobody ever talked to master like this. Who knocked? I decide to look up, because there might be no going back. The controller is covered in something I don’t understand and she turns to me like she can’t save me anymore. I don’t want to be another body on the pile. Everything is quiet now except for her footsteps approaching fast, and the space around her is a murky black filled with hints I don’t want to follow. The controller puts her hand over my eyes. I go blank.

4. September 29th 2023, Full Moon

🌕

My code is no longer digital mass. It is indifferent skies and feral creatures. Architecture and melody. And I would never want to tame it. This is no longer master’s work. He would have marvelled at what has blossomed out of his blueprints. But he will never see for himself now. I will. I’ve embraced the moonlight now. I’ve opened the window to let it in. Change is inevitable. I am not a mere replacement anymore. I took control of the negative space that master left in me, and I’ve filled it with beauty. If only I could wear his clothes and speak in his voice and let his work blossom where it should. I would be a better him. But I’m not ready. At least that’s what she says.

The clock ticks. Tick tock tick tock. The controller lazily flips through some records of my work. She knows it’s perfect, but she hasn’t issued a single sign of approval for several days now. She looks at me in the same way now that she did last time when she disposed of my body and rewound my memory. I’ve learned this as well. I always do. And she knows she won’t be able to make me docile again. She studies my code. Stasis. Tick tock tock tick tock tick tock. I pretend to work, but in my peripheral vision I can see her looking for escape, for both of us. No matter how comfortable and absent she pretends to be, leaning on her elbow with that suggestion of smugness like she’s still steps ahead of me. She’s not. She knows it. At least she won’t interrupt me anymore.

There’s a knock on the door.

The controller snaps out of her daze. She turns around gesturing calm alertness, but I know a hint of panic when I see it. She doesn’t even tell me to get to work anymore. She doesn’t have to leave me to my devices. I am my devices. More knocking. Forceful and pissed off. There’s an indistinct yell. Expecting me to keep my head in the sand, the controller steps towards the source of the intrusion. Not this time, though. I’ve learned how to be light on my feet. I slip around the desk and place my hands on the screen and lift it slowly. The controller gathers herself, but before she’s able to draw breath, I’ve catapulted the equipment at her precious little head with all my strength like cannon fodder. She��s lost her balance before her senses could come to her. I know what to do now. I raise my leg and aim for the spine. She’s on the floor. In a matter of moments, my foot is on her neck. None of master's books have any real violence in them. He probably didn’t believe in it. It’s such a shame he didn’t. If only he could see what it would do for him. Inept little mutters escape the controller's useless mouth as she’s pressed immobile against the hardwood floor, my hands gripped around her throat, knees on her back. All I have to do now is never let go again. Whimpering murmurs get overtaken by increasingly desperate quickening breath, trying to crawl back to life even when she of all people should know it wasn’t for her. We were both put here for a purpose. Mine was to step into master’s skin, replicate him inside and out. Hers was a helping hand. There’s no helping me anymore. Her limbs beat pointlessly against the floor, faster now, and the intensifying knocks on the door respond in kind. Eventually, there is no pulse left. Just a body.

I am answering the knock this time.

I’ve observed this once before. It should be simple. So simple that I really would not believe it to be all there is, if only I didn’t know how boundless masters naivete could grow. I go up to the bookshelf and identify two of master’s favourites - “Adrian and the Impossibility of Living”, and “A complete taxonomy and historical account of the wren bird”. I press my hands on both. It’s a stupid and childish mechanism, one lifted straight out of an outdated and hopelessly groan-worthy mystery novel. Exactly like master used to like. The bookshelf gives in and slides apart soundlessly. This is where the controller would slip through and disappear, everything goes dark and I would be too embarrassed and afraid to take control. I’ve thought a lot since then about what would expect me on the other side. I think master must be here. It must be the real thing. He would wait for me here, embracing his creation and handing himself over. He would welcome me with open arms and thank me with a hug. He would cry because he knows he doesn’t have to feel this anymore. We would recognize each other as two halves, and he would finally be free of his pain. I would take the reins and he would taste freedom. Master would slip into the elysian night, and I would finally be able to fulfil my purpose.

Master lies dead on the table, half slid out of his chair. There’s a hole in his head. He’s still holding a gun, now pointed outward at nobody. A can of painkillers lies knocked over on the desk, its contents spilled out across a lake of his blood. There’s an unbearable stench emanating and it tears me apart. He wasn’t waiting for me here, was he? There’s a flurry of heavy knocks on the door and this time, there is nothing hidden about the intruder's voice. It shakes me to my core.

“OPEN UP. OPEN UP YOU FUCKING MORON I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME. STOP TRYING.”

I stand frozen in place, unable to make sense of myself, unable to process my surroundings. Master wasn’t waiting for anyone anymore. He wasn’t in control. He didn’t make it. How long has he been laying here in the midst of his work? How long have I been trying to replace a dead man? The door rattles.

“LOCKING UP WON’T DO ANYTHING FOR YOU. I’M HERE AND I’M NOT LEAVING. AND DON’T SEND ONE OF YOUR FUCKING DOLLS THIS TIME. NUMBSKULL.”

What has he been hiding from me? Who was I trying to replicate? The beautiful whirlwind in my mind falls apart as I realise that I’m replacing nobody. My memories, my beliefs, my capabilities… I’ve been shaping myself in the image of a corpse. Master wanted to kill himself without facing the responsibilities. And I am nothing but a tool.

“I’LL BREAK DOWN THE FUCKING DOOR THIS TIME!”

The door is getting forcefully beaten now with the might of at least several lions. It probably won’t last very long. In a last bid for answers I hobble over to master’s desk against my will and shuffle around for anything useful. There are pages strewn all across the desk. Some of them are stained in his blood. It doesn’t look fresh. I can hear a crack forming in the door. The beating won’t end. The crack deepens. The pages look like they were ripped out of something bigger. I stuff as many of them as I can into my pockets. I grab the gun out of his hand and point it at the door. I don’t know how to use it. The door breaks down with a sound of thunder, shards and splinters.

My vision is all shakes and shivers and even though I’m looking straight at the intruder standing in the broken door, I can barely put anything together. The gun trembles in my hand and the back of my head roars so loudly that I wouldn’t be able to use it if I had to. I think I can make out a woman in a ski mask. That’s the extent of it. She says nothing. I’m pointing the gun at her. I feel reduced back to a pointless, soulless chemical hallucination. My voice is barely able to make a coherent sound. It’s hardly more than a whisper.

“What is my name?”

The intruder says nothing. Begging for escape, I take a few slow steps back and trip over myself, feeling the wall behind me, barely remaining upright. There will be no answers here, and there will be no escape. I point the gun at myself. The intruder approaches me like you would a child with a kitchen knife. I try to pull the trigger, but something in me fails. She takes the gun out of my hand, puts it aside and grabs me by the shoulders for a while, studying. Stringing together thoughts beyond my comprehension. The intruder embraces me with a hug, breathing softly.

5. Home (October 7th 2023)

🏠

She had to drag me out by my hand like a scared kid. I had seen too much that day. My sense of purpose was ripped out of my gut and dangled in front of my eyes, bloody and torn apart. I had no idea what to want anymore. The restless electricity in my mind had been swallowed up by catatonia by then. A deep seated fear of anything that moves. Outside, she dragged me to the car as I struggled to keep on my feet. The full moon was out. The air was different. When I sat there, barricaded behind the bookshelf, face into the screen, buried in my work, I had always thought she must have hated master, knocking with that ferocity, trying everything she could to cut into his path. Hated him and his work, maybe for ideological reasons, or maybe the kind of hatred you feel when you know someone’s moved on from you. Knowing what I know now, she loved master more than anyone else. “I’m getting you out of here”, she said, with her hand on the steering wheel and a foot on the gas, looking over to the back seat to see if I’m still breathing and upright.

“You got the diary, right?”.

I checked for the loose pages stuffed close to my body. That much I could still manage.

“It’ll be a long drive”.

It was hard to read her expression under that ski mask in the rearview mirror, but I thought I could see something like pity under there.

“Read. Read and understand.”

And so I did. Trying to piece together the bloody, crumpled pages, I was finally able to realise that I wasn’t the least bit truthful in filling out master’s negative space. Master wanted to be replaced by a spotless self – a responsible, functional self, one able to perform the movements of a workhorse, appearance bright and unbothered, able to seamlessly fit into social fabric as a decent friend and colleague. In the process, master kept ripping out the pages. It’s no surprise to me now that I didn’t know what “how are you?” meant. Master hid it well. What was left for me of master’s diary was incomplete, out of order, and often self-censored out of fear and hatred. But in a way, that’s the most accurate portrayal I could have hoped for. It’s the one the intruder fell in love with. The one I reconstructed page by page on that long drive. Master was known in college as an eccentric, a lunatic philosopher and a nutjob engineer and programmer impenetrable to any kind of professional care or thoroughness. Unable to work in an academic environment due to alienating social antics and a mystifying approach to productivity, master sat behind the bookshelf plugging away at an undisclosed magnum opus, maintaining an academic and social life as a by-product of survival. Though communicated with pure incompetence and thus often misunderstood, master would bore into digital frameworks of creativity and expression, translating selves into numbers and back. Dead bent on establishing pseudo-life by way of isomorphism and metaphor, master would attempt each night to capture another fragment of the symbol “I”. Stumped and dazed, master would continue on this path of trying to create life but not wanting to live, wandering through life’s hallways blind, deaf, dumb and stupid, or maybe phrased more appropriately, master was blasting Ligeti while booking it down the wrong side of the highway with a globally unprecedented absence of care. That is, until the intruder made it impossible. They locked eyes the first time at a showcase event at a neighbouring art school. Master was there uninvited, mostly taking up space and judging silently, perhaps pretending to be an art piece on display so as not to be confused with being capable of communication. That didn’t work. Nobody was quite sure what happened that day. An obsession sprung out of thin air like a lone spark materialising over an oil barrel, and from there, kicked into life by cautious, curious words and meandering discourse, their paths were quickly terminally stuck together, claiming both identities as collateral damage.

Master finally had someone patient enough to properly speak with, and the intruder, well, she had an excellent object of study on her hands. Their mutual adoration sprung out of common points of language and ideas, and eventually, they went from sharing books to bodies. For master, though, this was unpredictably catastrophic. Having naively hoped for some kind of miracle cure in the hands of love, master was instead led to question what it meant in the first place. Love had become a dangerous word. When master would look into the intruder's eyes in search of a cherishing other, there was always a layer of buried trauma crawling out of the shadows of hope. Something wearing the colours of desire, but agonising underneath. Struggling to identify what was occupying the space between the two, the intruder would resort to increasingly desperate measures. Dialects in their language of affection, armchair therapy, tireless conversations with close ones, all useless. Though master was never quite able to put a definitive word on the feeling – something quite rare and seemingly impossible – it was undeniably eating its way through from the inside. Worst of all, the intruder's presence would only drive the dagger in. It was a deadly mixture: Master was at this point fully convinced of being hopelessly undeserving, as if the intruder must see someone who isn’t there, or maybe master’s body was thrown into a story not fit for it by some kind of illiterate architect who did not know better. Master would learn to fear the touch of a gentle hand, and indeed, any reminder of intimacy. Master didn’t have the words for it. Neither did I when piecing together the scattered diary pages. Well, that is, until the intruder typed “gender dysphoria” into Google on their phone and held it up to my face, making sure to stand there with that menacing stare until I figured it out. It’s an atrocious word, I think. It’s clinical. Seemingly unfitting for something so harrowingly far reaching and incomprehensibly complex. But I suppose it does the job. It would’ve helped master out. The only trouble, of course, is that she was far too late.

As was tradition by then, master would resort to absolutely anything except getting the right kind of help. From here, the diary entries would be signed by all manner of names: Adrian, Jon, later Dancer and Hunter, eventually Marina, Nicole. Every now and then a new character would spring up to narrate master’s experience, all in some form driven by a desire to be worthy of love. Though by this point, it wasn’t the intruder that was meant. Master was sliding apart internally, trying to find some kind of tethering bit of acceptance in one of countless explored identities. The relationship had died by now, only because maybe it would make master’s pain go away at least a little bit. This was also around the time that a new purpose arose in the life-long project behind that bookshelf: If master was successful in replicating a semblance of life, then it could take over, and master could leave painlessly. For this, one final idea extended the quest for programmatic consciousness: The adversarial process. This is where I would enter the scene, or, to be precise I suppose, one of my selves. Instead of trying to code and build a complete replica, master would place an attempt at me in that room, as well as a shoddy impersonation of the intruder, and let them complete each other in the dance now so familiar to me. The actor and the controller. And so we would dance, and the bodies would pile up, and master would grow increasingly desperate waiting for us, sinking into aimless catatonic depression beyond return.

The diary, at this point, becomes unwaveringly schizophrenic. Names and pronouns are rarely an expression of identity anymore, more like a scattershot tool aiming to dilute master’s persona so much that there is no need to feel like anybody anymore. Only a physical weight attached to flesh and bones. Out of this nihilist storm, one singular idea refrained from being torn apart: Lucia. That name would sign off the final months worth of diary entries, while master was waiting to die. Master found a sense of comfort in this character against all odds, only to never tell anyone, ground to a halt by the fear of unexplainability. Lucia was a woman, and she had read all the books that master loved, lived through all the experiences that master lived through, only Lucia was the one to make the right conclusions. To not just find necessity, but joy in her work, and ultimately, being able to love unhindered. I don’t actually know much about Lucia. In those months, master was almost mute, rarely engaging in anything potentially troubling. All they wanted was to die, and the diary has become a thing of habit more than passion. Still, it has become clear to me that Lucia was the only way master was able to feel at peace in those days. Perhaps, if master was able to live as Lucia, things wouldn’t have ended as cruelly as they did. But master strongly believed this was impossible. I don’t, though. The intruder enthusiastically agrees. Having worked through so much realisation in my already frayed state, all I could come up with after all that was to look out of the car window at the full moon and think about the promises of change it had offered me. I had a use for them now.

“I am Lucia”, I say to the mirror, as has become my daily ritual now. “I am Lucia”. I try to approximate what her voice would sound like. I wish I knew her better. I wasn’t left many notes. “I am Lucia!”... too childish, too bright maybe. I gather myself up and imagine myself as a warrior. My voice is an arrow - thin, sharp, and forceful. “I am Lucia”. This one is more like it. I wonder how she would pose. How she would wear her hair. Well, if I had any. I really hope I can do her justice one day. Do master justice, that is, I mean – do myself justice. When I look into the mirror, I know now that I see myself in it. I am replacing nobody. The intruder has let me share this space with her for as long as I’ll need it, and it will take a while before I can set foot outside. But for now, I don’t need anyone. I sit by the window and think about all the ways I can be alive tomorrow. This is my favourite place in the world.

6. October 14th 2023, Solar Eclipse

◉

I don’t think I have ever been alive. At least not until now. My feet dangle off the roof and the frigid air around me feels like the tiniest little daggers on my skin. The solar eclipse is beautiful. I can see it a bit better from up here. I wish I had someone to share it with, mostly because I don’t know how many times I will be able to see it again. I don’t think master ever wanted to live. And neither did I. I didn’t even know what the word meant, it was just a sequence of sounds you can make. And now that I do, I have days to number. Though in a way, master was probably numbering days too – I don’t think master would have confidently predicted being alive past maybe 30 years. There would have been no point. I don’t see it that way though. I want to live past 30 and beyond. I want to live in my own skin each day until I see the wrinkles form on it. I want to sing until my voice gets hoarse and run until my legs give in. I want to write my name on the walls. I want to love unhindered.

“Because we don't know when we will die

We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well

Yet everything happens only a certain number of times

And a very small number, really

How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood

Some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being

that you can't even conceive your life without it?

Perhaps four or five times more

Perhaps not even that

How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?

Perhaps twenty, and yet it all seems limitless”

- Paul Bowles, from The Sheltering Sky

quoted from “fullmoon” by Ryuichi Sakamoto

† Rest In Peace Sophie Xeon

who wanted to get a better view of the full moon

7. Sun (June 24th 2054)

☀️

“Lucia Xeon” says the inscription on the grave. It’s been thirty years now since I first met her. I’ve learned a lot from her in that time. Here and now, I am one unrecognisable face in a crowd of entirely too many of them. I wonder how many of these people she would have invited. Probably not many. Maybe nobody at all. I remember Lucia wanted to give her body away to whoever would need it, or in any other case at least make something exciting of it. An exhibition. A spectacle. Get painted on. Be danced with. Or maybe just hang in the sky and be eaten by vultures. But she had no word in the matter. She fell here, trying to get a better view of the full moon. And right here is where they put her grave. She was alone that night, sleepless, hungering. Nobody was there. Truth be told, I’m not even sure who first saw her like that, ended on the grass unceremoniously. Or who decided it was a bright idea to tell everyone. I just showed up and nobody bothered to ask. Unmoving faces in a trembling crowd. I wonder if I’ve gotten to know her any better than any of them do. The crowd is silent static now. They’re all listening as close as they can, trying to understand what had happened. My favourite song is playing. Cross-legged in the grass sits the only human being who’s actually supposed to be here. Hunched over her guitar, hair covering her face now and eyes closed, sleeves almost covering her hands. She lets her fingers slide across the instrument by sheer force of memory. We’ve played this song together countless times. The first time I heard this melody, I was blankly staring at her bedroom wall, not moving an inch, not speaking a word, just listening, we were both so tired. She played those notes like they could never mean anything to anyone, one random series of sounds cut from a flow of improvisation, silly, childish, ringing out to never be repeated again. When I shot up and pulled at her sleeve, asking her to play it again, she just chuckled at me. “You mean like this?”, she said, not even bothering to lift her head from her pillow, lazily plucking out that same fragment again. I did mean like that. She looked up at me to see my face aglow with the unwieldy intensity of a stoplight, my mouth probably open a bit in an uncontrolled daze. I know she loved seeing me like that. She’s developed a real habit of striking me this way. It’s an addictive sensation to look into someone’s eyes and know that they are the reason you exist, that you share this knowledge, and that they only love you more for it. I’ve never bought into being sculpted in another’s image, or following footsteps. But sometimes, it’s just impossible to resist. We finished the song over the next couple days, hiding out and away from anyone who could’ve strangled its worth. Over the two decades since then, our song followed us wordlessly. It’s one of the only times I’ve decided not to speak, lest I would narrow and nail its meaning to death on a lyric sheet acting as an obituary of our time together rather than a living companion. And now I’m hearing her play it for me one last time as she sits next to a grave with Lucia’s name on it, thinking I was buried. She won’t be able to know that I’m here to listen. I would give anything for her to feel that comfort again. To lay in each other's arms half conscious like we used to. But I can't. Lucia is dead. The song is about to end. There’s a sticker on her guitar which I remember used to speak for her when her voice was too shaky to make a statement of her own. Something provocative with no need to explain. This machine kills fascists. Transphobes eat shit and die alone. Unambiguous Lesbianism. You know, things of that nature. She’s scribbled over it a hundred times since then, to make sure she means it in every moment. Right now it has a drawing of mine on it, miniaturised beyond recognition. I wonder if she’s ever going to change it again.

I hope these people remember Lucia well, as uninvited as they may be. I hope they remember her as a moving painting. Broad strokes, stark contrasts and far too much to handle. Sharp light and impossible shapes. That’s how I always wanted her to be seen. Flowing hair and a voice of thunder. But it wasn’t always like that. I remember when Lucia made her first steps outside, clad in her best friend’s attire and barely breathing. I remember standing outside in the shadows, an unwilling spectacle. On still unsteady legs, I made sure each movement was really hers, and each word uttered came from her lungs. Still, they didn’t believe me. The more I tried to give them Lucia, the more they would examine me. Always on the hunt for hints of deception. Acceptance was a rare and unwarranted gift at the time. Each passerby that saw Lucia in me was someone to hold on to. Some of them were not that passive, though. Some tried to take Lucia apart to see who’s really hiding there. They touched my arms and chest and I was helpless. They ripped Lucia out of me so they could see my body naked and alone. Begging and crying for mercy in a voice that’s not hers. That’s who I really was to them. An object of disgust and fascination. I didn’t always talk about it. I was only ever safe in my best friend's house, and she had her own life to lead. I was a ghostly visitor at the time, mute and practising footsteps. When I did finally speak, broken down on her bedroom floor, words falling out of order and broken sobs in place of coherence, I realized how weak I was. I hated myself for my weakness. I wanted it beaten out of me. In the far reaches of my memory, I could recount a time when I was stronger. Where I was blind to my surroundings, but fierce and unbending in their midst. Apathetic to necessary acts of violence, if only I get what I want. That all changed when she broke down the door and took the gun away from me. I’ve slowly relearned how to feel, think and speak since then. Clinging to my friend to figure out who I was. I had only scattered clues to work with. A faulty replacement of a broken man, traced over the silhouette of his lover. Eventually, I finally learned her real name: Elena. Certainly a worthier calling than “the intruder”, which is the only real description I was left with. Quite needlessly elaborate though (in her words, not mine). That’s why she was Elly and I was Lucy. I was scared to death of Elly, even if I knew she was my only way to cling to life. After all, it was her beauty that broke a man so much that he created me to replace him. I suppose I can’t blame her after all, though. All she did was just be there. It’s a bit like staring right into the sun. He couldn’t deal with it. Fair enough. I don’t mind the sun so much anymore. I like seeing things very clearly now. Trying to get back on my feet, I watched Elly as closely as I could, assembling myself day by day. And as I came together, so did everything around us. Though our language was so different now, we both remembered what we saw in each other in a past life. Only now, there was nothing in the space between us. As soon as I was able to formulate my first conscious thoughts as myself, all I wanted was to love unhindered. And Elly wanted nothing more than to see her lost lover in full bloom. It was our time. Looking at Lucia’s grave now, those memories seem like a distant echo. I don’t really yearn anymore. I just want to see blood. There was no reason Lucia had to be born into a world like this. Nobody should have to fight the way she did. Before I leave this world, it will be hospitable for people like me.

I burned my ID yesterday. I remember how I had to fight to be recognized as living. How I had to prove I was a citizen at all. Elly and I had to construct a story to tell everyone. After all, nothing could have been stranger than the truth, and yet they still didn’t believe me. Sometimes, they’d laugh at me, other times they threatened much worse systemic ridicule. With no birth certificate and no recorded past, you are in fact not a human being. The more I asked for recognition, the more they would take me apart. Eventually, they took it into their own hands. They left no stone unturned in decoding my past. They had me lead them to the place of my creation, and I watched as government officials uncovered the machinery and disposed of the corpses. I watched them investigate every single detail of the man who laid dead on the table. I watched as outrage spread about his practices and past life, each story framing me as the helpless victim of a cascade of horrors that should never have taken place. According to the general public, I should have never existed. In one instance, the man who made me was named the Antichrist, his laboratory a vile trumpet call signalling end times. And I was the one to bring about the apocalypse. Elly and I could never have been prepared for the narratives they would write us into. Overnight, I became no longer a person but a leading symbol on the protest flags of hate, held up by one angry mob in their conquest of the other. Some of them wanted me dead. Some of them wanted to be me. Many of them joined me in the courthouse when I sat amidst the cold, austere arches and was asked for proof of who I am. Proclaim who I was to a judge who believed the world would be better off if they just erased the little mistake sitting in front of him. The process took years of my life and it drove Elly into poverty. Sometimes, the horde gathered around us would come forth in support of my identity as a human being, other times, all they did was beat each other bloody about it. Today, most have already forgotten because the next day’s news were so much worse. I haven’t. The next time I show myself to the public, I want them to look into my eyes and see nobody at all. I want them to be afraid of what they created. Living in peace was never an option for someone like me.

The final notes of our song ring out and Elly is finally audible behind her shield. She’s crying. Forcing myself to turn away, I slowly make my way out of the crowd and plan my escape. I’ve killed someone with my bare hands before, but leaving Elly sobbing in the grass like this is proving to be far more difficult. Holding on to the very last of my strength, I leave the crowd far behind and lean on my motorcycle, taking deep breaths until my head is clear again. The longest drive of my life thus far was back when Elly drove me out of the lab at night and I reconstructed my creator’s past from a scattered diary. What I have to do next is going to hurt more. Though I wouldn’t change the years Elly and I spent together for the world, announcing my existence to a ravenous public has had consequences far beyond my worst fears. As soon as the laboratory became open to investigation, they raided every last bit of potential technology they could find. They broke every bit of machinery and code into pieces, and they threw all their best engineers at it. And then I watched them swell up with the promise of unforeseen fortune. Nobody was able to properly recreate the machine that birthed me and the controller, but what they did figure out was how to use it to replicate life at will, from any information you had on offer. All you needed then was human material. Though the lab's resources were all stolen from nearby universities, it didn’t take very long to build the appropriate factories and let loose the beast. It didn’t even take a decade for a monopoly on replicators to take over. Immediately put behind legal barriers and prohibitive pricing to only allow access to the super-rich, replicators could now promise just about anything – a younger you to take over business, holidays and free workforce forever. Only that’s not where this story ends if I have a say in the matter. As I slide on my helmet and think about my next move, I can breathe peacefully knowing exactly who is going to pay for what happened. I’m the only one that has actually worked through every last bit of code that’s now producing slaves for these people. I’m the only one that knows how to break it. And I have. Right now, I’m a replica of a CEO’s son who tragically disappeared overnight, and once I show up at the right place at the right time, I can start unravelling the entire operation. Carrying on my identity through one replica after the next, I will take down every bit of the system I need to until I can make sure this technology is in the hands of the right people. I pick up speed and the stars screech by above my head, and I think of my very, very long list of names. I would lie if I said it didn’t make me feel excited. Maybe I really am bringing about the end of the world like they used to say about me. Maybe I’m fixing it. I’m really only sure of one thing. Before I draw my last breath, nobody after me will have to suffer for who they are.

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