lumenhuman

[lumenhuman]

There's lots of things you don't get to have when you can delete someone with a wave of your hand.

For as long as I can remember I've been a walking threat. My parents handled me with extreme caution when I was little, dreading the day my powers would appear. There was no way of knowing what they would be exactly, but it was easy to tell they wouldn't be pleasant. The eggshells they used to walk on turned into shards of glass when I was about five, though. They were both leaving for work, I was a toddler, and I didn't want them to go.

So I made an event horizon in our front doorway, which ended up collapsing our house's entire façade. I'm just thankful they were smart enough to get Child Mage Insurance, so the repairs didn't bankrupt them. But they weren't happy spending weeks in a hotel room with a kid whose every tantrum could spaghettify them. Even now, they're scared of me. They try to hide it, but I've known them my whole life. Their smiles look like they're wired on, they always find some excuse to not be in the same room as me, and even when I was just sixteen, they'd already started helping me look for apartment options.

School was always worse, though. From the moment I awakened, "Control" was my mantra. Honestly, that was the easiest aspect of my magic. Most mages struggle to get their power under control as children because they don't fundamentally understand why they should. But I always knew that breaking things was wrong and killing people was bad, and what else could my power do? I wanted control as much as everyone around me wanted their own safety.

When it came time for aptitude tests in third grade, I staunchly refused to participate. I had managed to completely unhook my magic from my emotions with two little things called "mortal fear" and "learned helplessness." I never wanted to use my powers again.

But before I knew it, that control was being tested. It was exactly what you think it was.

Eyes are the windows to the soul.

Which must mean that I don't have one.

That's what every one of my classmates tried to convince me of anyway. For a time, it almost worked. Well, it did work. Everyone always says to ignore the bullies, but humans are social creatures. We're hard wired to take more seriously the opinions we hear most repeated by those around us, especially if they're dozens, hundreds in number. At that point, you don't just think they're right; you know they are. You're the crazy one for ever believing otherwise.

But you still need to survive. Your mind and your body start to lash out against the isolation like it's any other predator. Anyone normal would talk back, fight back, sling fists once they'd had enough, even if it would only drag them further down the pit. All because they just can't take it anymore. Sure it almost never works, but at least it's a temporary reprieve. A bit of pressure out of the valve.

All I got to have was my own fantasies. Those little moments when I could soothe myself after Brandon "Flamewhip" Thompson charred my locker for the fifth time in a month. Just imagining myself ripping each of his fucking limbs off one at a time was enough to get me through the day. Or when a gaggle of (literally) starry-eyed cheerleaders dunked my head in a bucket of black paint because it was "So my color." By that point, I wanted to suck the entire school into infinite nothingness, and follow right behind.

It was stupid in hindsight, but I was a stupid kid. People are more than happy to keep poking the bear when they know it won't rip their throat out. Whether it's because the bear is afraid of prison or just desperately wants to hold on to the image that it's a good person, it doesn't matter. And I already got more than enough of the "being feared" treatment from my parents, so force was completely off the table. People always assumed my magic was just generic Darkness Manipulation.

By the time I made it to senior year, I was on a razor's edge. My thoughts were getting more violent, and more enticing to match. Three months in was when everything came to a head. My entire homeroom had banded together to ambush me at the door during first period. Pencils, erasers, balled up paper, I was pelted with everything but the kitchen sink.

Once they were all laughing at me, satisfied with their work, I escaped into another of my fantasies. I pictured the abrupt, soothing silence after I engulfed the whole room with a singularity, and killed all of them before they even knew what happened.

Only once I felt the gravity well in the palm of my hand did I realize I was actually about to do it.

I quickly regained control before anyone saw me holding a miniature black hole, marched out the school doors into a rain storm, and aimed for home.

The plan was to walk home and gouge my eyes out with a steak knife. Sure, I'd be blind, but it'd be worth it to be free of this curse.

If it hadn't been raining that day, I know I would've done it.

It was coming down in sheets, soaking through my hoodie in a matter of minutes. My house was just fifteen minutes away on foot, but the cold and damp only got more and more exhausting. Halfway home, exhaustion turned into fury. Every freezing gust of wind turned into a goading shove. Every drop of water landed on my skin like a fist. I crouched down on a sidewalk and clutched my head as the entire universe tried to squeeze me down until there was nothing left.

Then I looked up to the gray sky.

The rain wasn't alive.

Nobody would care if it was gone.

Then I did myself the greatest kindness I've had since I awakened.

I screamed.

REALLY screamed. The kind that makes your throat feel like you gargled gravel once you're done. The kind you forget you can make when your whole life has been nothing but keeping yourself in check. And now that the emotional hitch was remade, despite all of my efforts, my power responded in kind.

Mana poured out of me, darker than space, and shot high into the clouds.

For a brief second, the sky went black.

And there was no more rain. Just a blue, cloudless sky, the morning sun still lazily glowing through treetops.

I just sat on the sidewalk for about half and hour, feeling empty in the best sense of the word. Like I'd just expelled thirty gallons of tar and my guts were clean for the first time in god knows how long.

The sun began to peek over the trees and washed over me like a gentle hug, feeling more like a mother than my own. Huddled on cracked concrete, wrapped in sunlight on what the weatherman said was the first of a four-day downpour, I started to bawl my eyes out.

Hunched over, sobbing, I looked into a puddle below me, and got a good look at my eyes. For the first time, they weren't hideous.

Nothing had changed. They were still as black as a starless night sky.

I just didn't hate them anymore.

Eventually, I stood up, and headed back to school.

It still wasn't easy. The bullying didn't stop, and my grades were still below average. The teachers still refused to take me seriously. But I still graduated.

Because I finally knew that I could do good. That was all I needed.

when your born with magic your eyes reflect what type your born with. Fire users have eyes like pools of magma, air users have swirling tornadoes, ice users have glacial expanses. You where born with eyes like black holes.

[lumenhuman]

They called me insane. I expected as much.

Anyone would if a random soldier suddenly marched out to their city's gates, stood outside, spun his back to them, then planted his sword in the earth, hands resting on the pommel. Any sane being would think he was losing his mind to his hearth-like plate mail after he refused to move for an entire day in the volcanic heat of the Cinder Trail.

And yet my head had never been clearer. And neither had my conscience.

Of course, it didn't go well the first day. The first few hours were met with reasonable suspicion and mistrust, which instantly turned into apparent hilarity when I introduced myself as the gate guardian to the small delegation sent to greet me. Deep, bellowing laughter echoed across the mountains, shook the ground, and rang my head like a cathedral bell.

The head of the delegation even said that he felt so amused, he didn't feel like eating me anymore. He craned his long neck down, until his carriage-sized head was level with me and, through a chuckle that sounded like gravel caught in a millstone, said, "You're dismissed, human." All of them flew back behind the walls.

I refused that order.

After standing guard through the night, not once moving from my position, the second day was worse. From dawn to dusk I was circled by a particularly vitriolic citizen who made crystal clear everything he planned to do to me if I did not leave my post. How he would boil me alive in my armor and peel the slag off like the skin of an apple, before sliding me down his gullet. How he would pluck my limbs off like brittle tree branches, or "accidentally" misstep and crush me into a puddle. Every now and again he would huff a small plume of flame at my heels or toes.

I was trained well enough that I did not break against his intimidation. It also helped that I knew he wouldn't follow through. The more boastful one is, the less weight their threats have. Eventually, once the sun began to set, and a ring 2 feet deep had been worn into the earth around me, he grew bored. There were no other visitors that night, and nobody trying to pass the gate.

Army training had prepared me for the worst, but the heat, hunger, and dehydration were taking their toll. But, if I were to die outside the gate I protected, then it would merely be my fate. Gate guardians are to be entirely dependent on the city they protect, as Old Law dictates. A shame then, that I was not visited once on day three.

As the fourth day arrived, I was growing faint. The sun climbed into the sky, yet my eyelids felt tied to lead weights. It was all I could do to keep my head up, scanning the horizon for travelers. That was when I noticed a figure in the sky, approaching my position. I passed it off as another citizen, about to fly over the fifty-foot walls behind me, until they dived, and landed directly in front of me, nearly knocking me backward with the force.

The dragon's scales gleamed a verdant green, the color of summer leaves. Golden eyes that sparkled like gems looked down upon me, not with scorn or amusement but...curiosity. I finally noticed small drops of crimson falling to the ground beneath her maw.

I bowed my head. "Are you injured, my lady?"

As large as she was, I could feel through the ground the sensation of her lowering her forelegs in order to lean down to me. Placing her head mere inches from me, she opened her mouth, and set down a fresh kill. A mountain goat, with a single bloody bite-mark across its entire body. "For you, human." A gout of fire rushed over the goat, burning off the fur and charring the meat. "Breakfast."

I remained still. She kept watch of me.

After a minute or so of leaving my head bowed, she asked, "Why do you not eat?"

Doing everything I could to hide my salivation I answered, "My lady, I have not been blessed."

There was a moment of silence, before she made a soft, rhythmic noise, high in her throat, accompanied by small puffs of smoke from her nostrils. Was that...giggling? "You are a very strange one." She raised one of her massive forelimbs, stretched it toward me, and rested the tip of a razor-sharp claw on the back of my head. "By the grace of the gods, I grant upon you the alms of Draknir."

"I graciously accept." Instantly, I dropped to my knees, removed my gauntlets, and tore into the goat meat like a ravenous animal. So busy was I wrenching a leg from the carcass that I somehow didn't notice the dragon in front of me shrinking down into her human form, watching as I took bite after bite of freshly cooked chevon for myself.

In the middle of stuffing my stomach with its first meal in days, I remembered myself. I sat up, swiped my hand across my mouth, and addressed my lady, who now took the form of a young maiden wearing a long sundress the same color as her scales. "Apologies, my lady. Hunger temporarily dampened my manners. It won't happen again."

Her brow furrowed. "You're really serious about this, aren't you?" Her voice lost all gravitas and rumble, replaced with uncertainty and, if I were to be so presumptuous, a note of concern.

"Yes my lady. I've sworn myself as the gate guardian of Draknir." I placed both fists on opposite shoulders, forming an "x" with my arms; the traditional gate guardian salute. "My life is the vanguard against all who would do the people of this city harm."

I had to admit, it was much easier reading her human face than her dragon one. Her head tilted in confusion as she squinted at me, like the angle she was looking at me from made her hear me wrong. "You're oddly dedicated to the Old Law," she looked back towards the road, "Especially for a gate guardian from this day and age."

I set my hands on my lap. "They were made for a reason." I tore another chunk of meat off the bone. "May I, my lady?"

She waved her hand twice, clearly exasperated by the formality. Unfortunately no exceptions could be made of what is required of me. Still, I took her gesture as an affirmative and resumed my meal. As I swallowed my next bite she asked, "What reason do you believe that is?"

"May I-?"

Palm to her face she sighed, "By the gods, please be a person for five minutes!"

I cleared my throat. "Very well." I shifted positions, sitting crisscross in front of her offering. "They were made to keep exactly what is happening today from occurring. Gate guardians growing lazy, complacent, some only standing watch one day of the year on a festival!"

"Well what's so wrong with that?" She plucked some meat from the carcass, and blew a small stream of fire over it to cook it more thoroughly. "If I remember correctly, the Old Law also states that gate guardians can't own businesses or property either, which all of them have now. I don't think the strongest warrior of a nation would deserve to be reduced to a pauper."

"It's what is right!" I yelled. Her eyes widened. "Protectors should always rely on those they protect. Elsewise their power can grow twisted and cruel. They can forget their position as a servant and leave their city starved for protection."

She smirked at me as she flicked her piece of chevon into her mouth and chewed. "And you believe that we, the dragons, need protection?" She chuckled to herself again. It sounded much different in her human voice. Brighter. "It's all so absurd. There's no race alive that rivals us! The last war waged against us was 400 years ago, and it was a civil war!"

"What I believe," I stated, "Is that you have a gate." I stood and turned to face the massive, thirty foot tall stone gates, reinforced around the edges with studded iron. "And that no amount of strength makes you unworthy of protection."

"I mean," green, membranous wings unfurled from her back in an instant, "We hardly ever use it."

"And yet here it is. So if it's not for your kind," I turned back toward her, "Then who is it for?"

Her wings folded back into her form as she opened her mouth, didn't speak, then placed a hand over her face in ponderance. It took about a minute for her to admit, "I really hadn't thought of that before."

A small bit of self-satisfaction crossed my face before I could stop it. It annoyed her. "A gate is an invitation, my lady. No matter how heavy, or imposing, an opening lets those who would make their way past the walls know that, under the right conditions, they would be welcome. But what could serve as a vital artery for the city's life can become an infected wound if the wrong people slip through. That's why they need guarding."

I looked back, and her face had grown stern. She stood, and walked up beside me. "Fine then. What makes you think you could provide that guarding?" She crossed her arms. "Who are you, among the humans? Some grand champion? A king's personal guard?"

I sighed and shook my head. "In truth, I'm nobody of great import. Just another disposable foot soldier in an army like any other."

"Then what could a nobody like you," she poked me in the shoulder, "Possibly hope to protect us against?"

"Humanity," I said, "But, more specifically, myself."

Her face was incredulous. She laughed once, like she couldn't decide whether to be offended or impressed with the audacity. "You think that you could do us any harm?"

"I know that those like me can. I've served long enough to see it happen." I walked back to my sword, still lodged in the ground, and placed my hands back atop the pommel. "Whenever a lair was discovered, detachments would always be sent to raid it, kill the dragon, and take the riches for themselves." I turned back to my lady. "They would fail sometimes of course, but they were successful more often than not. Your kind are nigh-immortal, surely you've noticed this trend?"

"Well," there was hesitation in her voice, "It has been noticed that a dragon is increasingly likely to die the longer they're on their own-"

I interrupted, "Not 'die,' my lady. Be killed." My grip on my pommel tightened as a flash of anger bubbled through me. I looked to the road and mentally dared anything with two legs to cross my path. "And for no other reason than that they've already done the hard work of gathering the precious metals and gems that greedy monarchs covet oh so hungrily, and then have the audacity to nest on them.

"I never witnessed it firsthand, but from the stories I've heard, most of their last words are ones of profound confusion, bafflement." A single breath. Don't lose your composure. "They all believed themselves untouchable as well. All of you have that flaw, and humanity has learned to exploit it."

My lady's anger was becoming apparent as she marched over to me. Practically in my ear she yelled, "Well what about you then?! Have you ever-"

I faced her, "Yes."

She lurched back. Her eyes, once an emerald green, transfigured back to their draconic gold with black, cat-like pupils. A growl escaped her lips, along with a heavy amount of smoke. She looked truly ready to kill me.

I almost let her. But that would be the coward's way out.

I saluted once more, and knelt before her. "If you believe me worthy of this verdict, then I accept. But I beseech my lady to hear the rest of my story."

Five endless, uncertain minutes passed, before she sighed and commanded, "Fine." She walked over and kicked me in the shin. It still hurt through my armor. "Get up and explain yourself, knave."

Back on my feet, I clarified, "I've never finished off a dragon myself, but my platoon was assigned to raid the lair of one three months ago. I'd rather not go into great detail, but if my lady prefers-"

"Please don't." She looked less angry, and more dejected. Could she have known the dragon I helped...

I locked that thought up tight. "Needless to say we suffered heavy losses, but eventually she was slain. I was taking apart the nest when I saw," that same horrific image, burned into the back of my mind, invaded my head. I felt bile in my throat. "Hatchlings." That was all I could squeak out.

Her hands flew to her mouth and I could see the seeds of tears in the corners of her eyes. She caught on.

"That was the last straw for me. The guilt had such a hold on me that I felt my only option was to either kill my lieutenant or pluck out an eye and be discharged." I exhaled all of the blood, shouting, and tragedy I just relived. "But then I remembered that Draknir was the only city in the world without a gate guardian." I took position again at my sword. It felt right, now.

My lady looked at her feet as she placed her hand atop mine. "I apologize, truly. I shouldn't have pried."

"You had every right to ask, my lady." I gave a mirthless smirk. "I am your servant, after all."

A small, rueful laugh escaped her lips as she took her hand back. "Well then," she saluted me, and bowed her head. I rushed to do the same. "Noble gate guardian of Draknir. I ask that you continue to deliver us from all harm, stand vigil over our humble city, and remain a beacon of hope and bastion of safety until your days are up."

"This I shall." I raised my head with her. "And you say I'm obsessed with the Old Law?"

Her sparkling giggle broke the tension like a hammer. "Give me a break, I was there when they were written."

Before I could have my mind blown by that fact, she walked up to me, took my face in one hand and pecked me on the cheek. "I'll bring you something for dinner later." She unfurled her wings and took off, transforming back into her true form mid-air.

I merely sighed, and resumed my post.

At the mouth of each city wall, stands a gate guardian - a strong warrior, tasked to protect the people. A city of dragons is thus very perplexed as to why a human has become the city’s guardian.

[lumenhuman]

Dear Writers who can’t stop comparing themselves

Me, you, and probably every writer ever...

☽ Someone else’s success is NOT your failure. Just because they got there fast doesn’t mean you’re slow, you’re just on your own weird little timeline, doing your weird little writer things, and that’s fine. You're not late, you're just... you. And that’s more than enough.

☽ You don’t see the mess behind the masterpiece. That perfect book? It probably had 49 drafts, six meltdowns, two deleted subplots, and at least one sob session over a blank page. You’re not broken for struggling, you’re just in the middle of the part they edited out.

☽ The age thing is IRRELEVANT. Some people write bestsellers at 19. Others don’t write anything until they’re 39. Or 57. Or 83. That doesn’t make it less magical. It just makes it yours. (Seriously, google late-blooming authors, it’s comforting as hell.)

☽ If you’re comparing your draft to a finished book... Please, stop, NOW. That author had editors, proofreaders, beta readers, deadlines, caffeine-induced panic, probably a spreadsheet or two. You’re not comparing apples to apples. You’re comparing a soft, screaming baby draft to a book that went through glam boot camp.

☽ Your voice isn’t supposed to sound like theirs, I mean it’s not supposed to sound like anyone else. That’s the point. You don’t need to be the next [I dont know, J.K.R or Stephen King (Fun fact=I love both)...]. You just need to be the first you.

☽ Your writing might be exactly what someone else needs. Like, exactly. The right story at the right moment can feel like a lifeline, so don’t keep yours locked away because you think it’s not “enough.” It is, you are.

☽ You’re not going to grow by tearing yourself down. Being cruel to yourself doesn’t make you a better writer, it just makes the work heavier to carry. Be kind to yourself, especially on the days the words won’t come (And they will come, I promise).

☽ Someone out there probably reads your stuff and goes: “Damn. I wish I could write like that.” You might never know who, but they exist and they mean it.

[lumenhuman]

fuuuuck i just realized that the future idealized version of myself cant exist without current me being the catalyst for change and doing hard things. has anybody heard about this

[lumenhuman]

It’s the goddamn wee small hours, that sacred stretch of night when time melts into introspection and shadows become philosophers. The air is thick with silence, save for the occasional squelch of my gut, protesting the late-night slice of existential pizza I shouldn’t have eaten. No breeze, no barking dogs, no traffic. Just me, a mind wired on questions, and the ghost of a million ancestors staring back through my DNA like some cosmic jury.

I was thinking—no, spiraling—into the meat grinder of human origin. Twenty different species of humans? More or less. That’s not science fiction, that’s real. The Earth, this wild, bipolar rock hurtling through space, was busy being a chaotic chef: stirring up ice ages, flipping tectonic pancakes, belching fire from volcanoes like it had IBS. And in the middle of all that, it birthed and buried species after species of humans. Not chimps, not dolphins with dreams—humans.

And yet, we are the ones left. Alone. The sole survivors.

We who are hairless and helpless at birth, who need ten years to become barely functional, who sunburn and break bones and cry at reality shows. We who are, by all metrics, the weakest model on the showroom floor of evolution. Yet here we are. Shopping on Amazon. Building particle colliders. Taking selfies next to pyramids built by hands we don’t understand.

I don’t buy the official bedtime story they hand out in schools. You know the one—upright apes + time + bananas = smartphones. Something smells fishy, and it ain’t just the tuna sandwich from last week’s lunchbox. We didn’t just evolve like the rest. We appeared. With language, fire, and a suspicious amount of self-awareness. Right out of the blue. Like a magician’s trick—ta-da!—Homo sapiens, baby.

Were we an accident? A cosmic prank? Or a goddamn upgrade?

Or were we realigned and designed this way by “gods” from another neighborhood?

Not divine, not omnipotent, but advanced. Outsiders. Visitors. Tinkerers with an eye for biogenetics and a flair for myth-making. Creators not of galaxies, but of species. Maybe they didn’t paint the sky, but they sure as hell messed with the clay.

Sometimes I think we’re nature’s rebellious child, and sometimes... I think we’re adopted.

Maybe the old stories are half-true, twisted into myth because our ancestors didn’t have Wi-Fi or a printing press. Maybe the Watchers, the gods, the sky people—whatever name floats your boat—left fingerprints on our soul. Maybe we’re version 2.0 of something much older. Something that didn't survive. Something we erased, like jealous children.

And deep down—real deep, below the cholesterol and the hang-ups and the Amazon Prime history—I think we know. We feel it. That something’s off. That this isn’t quite home. That we were made for something else. Not this rat race. Not this tedium. Not this constant nagging anxiety about the future and the past like we’re stuck in a loop we didn’t write.

Maybe that’s why we build religions, and sci-fi stories, and monuments that stare at the stars.

We're trying to remember who we were... before we forgot what we are.

And so here I sit, in the dark belly of the night, brain buzzing, belly gurgling, wondering:

Were we born of Earth…

engineered on Earth…

or just parked here for a while, until someone comes back for the keys?

Either way, I’ll probably still wake up groggy tomorrow and forget the whole damn thing.

But for now, I’m wide awake. Watching. Listening.

Waiting for the stars to whisper back.

[lumenhuman]

My character: "I can't believe I've hurt you so badly. Who could've foreseen that me constantly fretting over the myriad ways I could potentially and would, eventually, hurt you, would lead to this outcome?

"Self-fulfilling prophecy? What's that, a new GamerSupps flavor?"

[lumenhuman]

Simply turning off my alarm is not enough. I need to kill it.

I need to halt it in the middle of a note like it's the world's most annoying songbird that I just shot out of a tree. Only then is my vengeance complete

[lumenhuman]

Godddddddddddddddd I despise being a writer with executive dysfunction.

Trying to get ideas out of my head and onto the page feels like passing a kidney stone sometimes, and yet I've continuously seen it bring joy to myself and those around me and even those around them, so I continue.

Most days I can't bring myself to even get anything on the page anymore, and it's been this way for months, now that the fickle mistress of inspiration has left me out in the cold again. Honestly, with how much I avoid doing it, it's difficult to convince myself that it's even still my passion, rather than something I decided to do because I wasn't good at anything else.

I know I can tell a story. I know that much is true.

So why the fuck won't my brain let me put it on paper.

[lumenhuman]

As the seasons roll ever onward, and spring further asserts itself, I'm reminded again of why I love this season so much.

I stepped from my house this afternoon into my backyard, and it felt like I hadn't gone anywhere at all. The temperature didn't change, the sky was crystal clear, and the sun was gentle and warm. These are my favorite days.

Humans do so much to control our environments that when the environment matches them of its own accord for even a few hours, it becomes easy to convince ourselves that the entire world really is our home.

The sun, bright but not burning, keeps a perfect temperature, so that you may go out wearing whatever you wish and not be uncomfortable. The wind, neither freezing nor desiccating, turns into the hands of a playful friend, pushing and urging you into adventure, saying without words, "Look! Come see what I found over here!" The birds returning with a triumphant song that lifts your spirit into the sapphire sky with them, glad to have survived the cold months once again.

I feel all of this, standing on the lush grass of my backyard, and I wouldn't be upset if I sprouted roots then and there. If only to join in with the rejoicing of the trees, for getting back to the highest peak in a never-ending cycle of destruction and renewal. To live with them, die with them, then live with them again.

Then I remember the stories I still want to tell, the places I still want to see, the people I still want to appreciate, and I come back to myself. The day is beautiful, yes, I think. But it's not yet time to be a tree.

After all, I imagine it's pretty hard to type with branches.

[lumenhuman]

STOP PERSONIFYING THE UNIVERSE JUST SO YOU CAN BE SCARED OF IT

The universe isn't "uncaring" or "hostile," the void isn't "hungry," the closest you could get to actually describing it is "unfeeling," which still doesn't work because it implies that the universe has the capacity to feel at all, which it doesn't.

"But doesn't that make it worse?" NO.

The universe can't be anything in particular, because it is EVERYTHING. Stars are universe, supermassive blackholes are universe, planets are universe, you and I are universe.

And the universe is infinite.

So, if everything is infinite, that means everything is the same size, and there's literally no reason to be scared of Sagittarius A* or whatever, it's just chilling exactly like we are. Compared to infinity, you are both equally small and insignificant. The universe doesn't give any more of a shit about a supermassive blackhole a bajillion lightyears away that could fit our whole galaxy inside than it does about us.

Stop telling yourself that the universe wants you dead. the universe doesn't "want" anything, it just is. Very big things do exist, and if they ever did get near us (which I assure you, they never will), they could kill us.

But take comfort in the fact that we even can know that these exist. That we are the dust that woke up and wanted to know what the rest of the dust looked like. Stars can't ride a bike. Blackholes can't taste ice-cream. You can. Appreciate that.

[lumenhuman]

PLEASE Write Your Book!

I'm serious. Please write it. If you need a sign to start, continue, or whatever is inbetween, this is it. Go do it.

I spent the past couple weeks indulging myself in some BookTok recommendations. While some were indeed good (Kings of Sin, my beloved), some were just...I don't need to finish my sentence there.

I DNF'd some books for the first time since I read Lord of the Flies (sorry Golding, you put me to sleep with your descriptions) and I powered through others in hopes that they would eventually get better. The general consensus I ended up getting was that I could not understand for the fucking life of me how these books got published. The writing in some of them was no better than that of a 2010s teen writing Maximum Ride fic on Wattpad for the first time, with the characterization abysmal enough to match.

I don't want to knock any specific author or book here, because I will concede one thing: they finished their books. They got them published. They're successful. For that, I commend them, because I'm still on my way there myself and I can't take that away from them. Jolly good show.

But that brings me to my point: if they can do it, YOU absolutely can do it too.

If some of these Amazon and NYT bestsellers can have prose on a Wattpad level with characters that have enough poorly-written cognitive dissonance to make Deadpool or Walter White jealous, your fleshed out, deeply intuitive, and remarkably creative epic can sit right alongside them no problem. Whether you're writing the next GoT or a romantic slice-of-life, there is a not a goddamn thing on this planet stopping you from rolling up with the big dogs.

If these guys can do it, so can you.

So, stop telling yourself you can't. Stop letting other people tell you you can't. Stop comparing yourself to these authors who, respectfully and bluntly, can't write for shit (or at least need to fire their fucking editors, good lord).

WRITE YOUR DAMN BOOK. PLEASE. WE NEED IT.

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[lumenhuman]

I hope you understand that I will be living off of this encouragement for the next seven months at least, thank you for your kind words

The Elf looks down to the lone human mage "You stand trial for warcrimes. Explain how you did it with just fire Magic" he said dismissively. "Well. Have you ever thought how and why fire burns?"

[lumenhuman]

This is why I don't read as often as I want. The post-emergence daze is also accompanied by a killer eye-strain headache.

I don't read books. I fall into them, lose all sense of time, emerge only when forced, and then spend hours wandering around in a daze, haunted by fictional people.

[lumenhuman]

[lumenhuman]

My coworkers whenever I need a shift covered:

Me: Man, this really sucks, I'm going to do my best to never be like this.

Also me, whenever any of my coworkers need a shift covered:

[lumenhuman]

I have that dog in me. The dog is, unfortunately, autistic and struggles with executive dysfunction.

i think it is a very powerful thing when the story inside you is so loud that you are forced to relearn how to draw, write, and talk to people to get it made into a real thing

[lumenhuman]

Evil Death Wolf from Puss In Boots be like: "You're Life, gay down."