[If you’ve been reading and you want creator’s resources, go here.]
Hello, New Reader!
Fuck the status quo, fuck the Hero’s Journey, fuck corporations, copyright and marketability, and “punk” ain’t just an aesthetic. And now you know why this thing is indy AF and you’ve never heard of it. Welcome to the ‘verse! I made this world and I’m inviting you to play in it. As long as I don’t have to sell out to survive, all I have will be available for free or pay-what-you-can. This is my story.
What you’ve got hold of here is a text-based serial (updating occasionally) in two parts (so far) with a magical world and a cast full of trauma and marginalization. And it’s funny! Well, it starts with a hate crime, but sometimes it’s funny. And sometimes it’s scary, and sometimes it’s sad. I’m not one for pulling my punches.
If you’re not able to deal with extreme levels of anguish, you should not be reading this. If you’re dealing with some anguish of your own, see the Pain Stars Index at the beginning of every instalment for a nonspecific spoiler-free content warning. (PSI-5 is the worst.) If whatever country or continent you find yourself in says you’re legally too young to deal with high-intensity drama, sex, and violence, I can’t actually make you leave, but this isn’t meant for you either. I’m gonna pretend you’re not here, and I don’t wanna hear from you until you’re legal. You need emotional maturity and critical thinking skills to navigate this world; do not expect me to provide you with easy answers and do not trust the narration, the characters, or me.
New instalments go up in “six-packs,” one a week for six weeks, and then you have to wait until I finish another six. “Finished” is more of an aspiration than a fact — there may be uneven proof-reading, formatting errors, a lack of illustrations and other issues. I’d love to hire someone to help me with this, but for the moment there is only me, and my brain and body don’t work very well. You’ll need to be patient and forgiving as you read. I’m not charging you enough to buy myself real illustrations, a web designer or a human editor. I will take your money if you can afford to help me out, but I won’t extort you with paywalls. I don’t have the time or the energy.
Speaking of the illustrations, I’m doing them up collage-style, including elements from the public domain. I do not want to steal from other artists, and I do not want to use AI (but I repeat myself). However, I cannot force the internet in general to tag its shit honestly, accurately, and legibly. I know I stole some things for my original art-style, and there’s non-zero AI content in the newer stuff because I wasn’t reading the tags at Public Domain Vectors closely enough. I thought they were cool. They’re still cool, but they’re not without sin and neither am I. I’m tryin’ my best to consume ethically under capitalism, but you know that’s not a thing.
That said, do not use my work to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it, and don’t feed me to an AI. They’ve probably already eaten me, but don’t feed them more on purpose. If you want to play with my content as a human being who has human ideas, I have some resources to help you, and you can leave me comments, ask questions and scream into the void off-site at Tumblr.
Talk to Me!
WP’s comments are spam-filled and broken. Interact offsite and help boost me with Tumblr’s algorithm. It’ll show me to more potential readers if you make me look interesting!
(I’m sorry about the inconvenient change of platform, but Tumblr works slightly better than WP. Slightly.) I will add more ways to engage if I ever start getting significant engagement.
If I’ve hurt you somehow (please, not just if you think I might hurt someone else – do me a big favour and don’t go looking for reasons to yell at me, ’kay?) take a minute for self-care and come tell me about it when you can tell me gently and patiently, because I will freak the fuck out. I’m an anarchist, I’m prepared to damage property and institutions, not human beings with feelings and complicated lives. If I can fix something for you, I will. Some things I can’t fix, either because I don’t have the resources or they need to stay like that for plot reasons. I’m having an abusive relationship with WordPress, among other difficulties, and this travesty is never going to be perfect. (If something big breaks, it might not even be legible! It’s happened before!) I’m aiming for “decent,” or maybe “brilliant and life-affirming” at best. “Perfect” ain’t never gonna happen.
You’ll find more notes and asides from me all over the site, sometimes hiding in accordions, sometimes with whole pages of their own. And, of course, there’s more at Tumblr too. I’m autistic, I don’t trust you to understand me and I’m prone to info-dumping. This is me being restrained. I’m not gonna hold your hand, although I want to. Click around however you like.
If you want to read from the beginning, start here. If you ain’t got time for Part 1, Part 2 starts here. And, if you decide to stick around, and if you’re legally allowed to read me, for god’s sake drop me a line somewhere. My hit counter is buggy, I’m not popular, and I’ll never know you like this if you don’t tell me. It’s the validation that keeps me going. Please send me the love I didn’t get in my childhood.
