#Web Fiction

[qrowscant-art]

LINK ROT / TRANSMISSION 001 / APRIL 3rd, 2024

Link Rot is a multimedia webserial following those within a research station. Once dedicated to the study and containment of a newly discovered life form, complications arise following its unexpected merge with the station's AI. TRANSMISSION 001 - In which you survive the unthinkable, and the world is worse for it.

General warnings can be found in the 'About' section. Any videos will have flashing warnings if applicable.

additional rambling under the cut

wow!!! it's been (checks archive) almost exactly a year since i originally conceptualized Link Rot, and since then it's grown into a beast of a story i cannot wait to tackle.

currently i'm aiming for updates once every month/month and a half (with occasional vacations to work on bite-sized projects). i'd like to do more, but i have a job and don't want to burn myself out. for now, i will take things slow B) maybe this will change in the future!

i hope you all enjoy reading my story as much as i enjoy creating it. there's a couple of hidden things on the website, so if you find anything fun let me know

and lastly,

take this

[valentinedagger]

book 1 cover art by @staarcaake

Stardust is a queer, semi-experimental web serial that blends space opera, gothic horror, and dystopia into a color-coded mess of neuroses, hallucinations, teen angst, fucked up family relationships, Judaism, gun kinks, political assassinations, extradimensional tentacles, and bad sex. as of May 2024, we're exactly halfway through book 1, and it's a great time to get caught up!

it updates the 1st and 3rd Sunday of every month, and you can read it for free here. readers have suggested you might like it if you're a fan of Revolutionary Girl Utena, Homestuck, Battlestar Galactica (2003), The Locked Tomb, Fortiche's Arcane, Starship Troopers, and/or the music of Ada Rook. readers have also referred to it as "tired middle-aged man yaoi," "yuri shonen," and said they "want to chew on July like a squeaky toy."

[hypertextdog]

the process of elimination (tpoe)

hi! this is my interactive web fiction project, tpoe ↴

it features six endings, a robust original soundtrack (by myself), and a number of artworks, including the banners visible above and the tpoe ost's album cover, by @notwerewolf. other information (including many content warnings) can be found on my homepage. if interested in checking tpoe out, join the elimi nation discord!

it's an exploration of isolation, control, surveillance, and early 2020's-era internet culture. you play as harry arsigne, a 14-year-old cat artist living ~alone with his overbearing father, scott, in a decommissioned lighthouse in the shoreline town of conder, connecticut. making choices through personality test responses, you'll balance your two hobbies: exchanging personal histories with and seeking questionable guidance from the set of five eccentric criminals scott keeps in his d.i.y. prison cell in the lighthouse basement, and using his surveillance software to monitor the online activity of one wren wayer*, a rather pretentious local high school sophomore and twice attempted gamedev with whom you have an at times overwhelming obsession.

* that says "wren wayer" sorry dark mode users

put short, it's a lot of fun and the product of a lot of work. it's my story-that-you-think-about-all-the-time of six or seven years as a finished product. tpoe is my first ever project of this scale, and if you think you'd be interested in playing (link in header of this post) and maybe spreading the word, i would appreciate it greatly Σ:)!!

[personalmoshiakh]

hey, so— i’ve been ~officially writing a web serial since 2021 (unofficially, since at least 2014). Updates are currently very irregular, but i’m definitely still working on it!

✨🧿 THE BITTER DROP 🧿✨

modern fantasy romance about gay/trans Eastern Bloc Jews, set in a secondary world counterpart of early Soviet communes

The lounge is nearly empty tonight; all the action is downstairs at the grinding workshop — in the basement discotheque; you if I’m to have any hope of pulling, that’s where I ought to go but … ekh, I’m foggy tonight, between the psychosis and the laudanum for the pain what likes to haunt nefilim and the horse pills they made me take at the Mamka — nu okay, I skipped tonight’s dose so I can drink but like, neuroleptics don’t let go that quick — and as the brainfog settles on my thoughts, it turns to hoarfrost and my will seizes up like a rusty hinge.

Lev/Lyubov Morgenshtern, a queeny bigender flamer who’d once been one of the Pale’s youngest-ever ordained rabbonim, has just returned to the Talons Ghetto sovyet — an autonomous workers-and-peasants commune of the kind that directly preceded the Soviet Union (and indeed the thing that the USSR named itself after).

Lev is fresh off a stint on a psych ward that’d followed a far longer stint living in the tzarist-held half of Svet Dmitrin with a bougie respectability-obsessed ex-boyfriend — he’s got nowhere to sleep, no assurance her old friends, Red Guard and civilian both, would want to see them and the only workable plan she’s got is to find someone willing and soft-hearted to take him home for the night …

… and what luck if their rescuer, a medical necromancer by the name of Anzu Menelikov (Nyura to friends and lovers) is a beautiful trans flamer from a prominent rabbinical family! who better to welcome Lyubov home than a fellow hothouse flower and dedicated scholar? and does it matter if Nyura did anything the White Guard might still bear a grudge about? after all, most of the old Ghetto walls are still safely intact, and it’s not like Reb Doktor Menelikov personally set the Winter Palace on fire, right?

i’d say if you liked the Baru Cormorant series, Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Gentlemen of the Road, Fallen London and its associated games, China Miéville’s oeuvre, and Disco Elysium, this’d probably be your thing!

content warnings

(under the cut)

reclaimed homophobic slurs

the narrator has a history of psychiatric institutionalisation

homophobia, transphobia, transmisogyny and antisemitism are environmental hazards in the setting, though by far not the focus

[weaselandfriends]

Web Fiction, Recently Read

Hello! I'm still early into writing the Pokémon story I discussed in a previous post. I've been writing and rewriting certain parts to better grasp some of the characters, so while I do have some completed chapters, I still consider the story in the planning phase. At the same time, I've recently read a few webfics, and thought I'd share some thoughts here.

1. Floornight by Nostalgebraist

Floornight is short but dense, and in terms of its plot, themes, and focus shares many similarities with Almost Nowhere, a later work by the same author that I read and discussed in a previous post.

This work is the Problem Sleuth to Almost Nowhere's Homestuck. At least, reading the two works back-to-back, that was the impression I struggled to shake. I would often encounter an idea in Floornight that I remembered being expanded on in much more detail in Almost Nowhere, and as such it became difficult for me to appreciate Floornight in its own right.

It's a comparison that reminds me of a quote from Roberto Bolaño's 2666:

Without turning, the pharmacist answered that he liked books like The Metamorphosis, Bartleby, A Simple Heart, A Christmas Carol. And then he said that he was reading Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Leaving aside the fact that A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol were stories, not books, there was something revelatory about the taste of this bookish young pharmacist, who ... clearly and inarguably preferred minor works to major ones. He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby Dick, he chose A Simple Heart over Bouvard and Pecouchet, and A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers. What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze a path into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.

An unfair comparison? Certainly. Especially since longer works are not always commensurately ambitious, but instead simply bloated.

Almost Nowhere is ambitious, however, and pushes ideas touched on in Floornight to their limits, which makes reading Floornight afterward a less impressive experience than it otherwise might be. (Nostalgebraist's other work, The Northern Caves, is fundamentally dissimilar from both and thus not victim to the same comparisons.)

That's not to say I disliked Floornight. I was especially fond of the character Hermes Cept, who might be my favorite character in Nostalgebraist's canon. I love characters to whom the reader is introduced from the perspective of another character, giving the reader a certain first impression that is completely decimated when the character is given their own perspective later on. (A lot of Modern Cannibals hinges on this technique.) In Cept's case, what first appears to be an egotistical and incompetent celebrity scientist turns out to have significantly more depth and nuance than the first impression provides. Love it!

Nostalgebraist also shows off some serious writing chops during a certain battle scene near the story's climax. Another reader's longform review of Almost Nowhere comments that the story lets all its major events occur off screen, only to be known to the reader via the reactions of the characters, and to an extent Floornight is similar: Despite a Neon Genesis Evangelion-esque premise of soldiers fighting aliens, there are essentially zero scenes where soldiers fight aliens on screen. The climax changes that, though, and really makes me wonder why Nostalgebraist is so content to let things happen off screen, since he's so good at writing action when it happens.

I've now read all three of Nost's major published works, and there isn't a more exciting web fiction author today, at least that I know of. Can't wait to see where he goes next.

2. Worth the Candle by Alexander Wales

Floornight is a lean 70,000 words. Worth the Candle, an isekai LitRPG, is 1.6 million words.

I started reading this one years ago, but only made it to the second arc before giving up under the sheer immensity of it. The start was slow, and while it was improving steadily, I couldn't see myself wading through something of its size. Compared to Nostalgebraist, Wales' prose is more "serviceable" than exciting, so the value in reading is almost entirely from the plot, characters, and themes rather than the actual line-by-line reading experience. After finishing my own isekai story, Cleveland Quixotic, I decided to take a second stab at it.

Upon the reread, I was more amenable to a story that is simply a fun fantasy romp, and WtC has a strong sense of forward progression despite its length, which avoids the trap most long stories fall into of spinning their wheels without accomplishing anything.

As I got further into it, however, a strong metafictional element increasingly came into play. The conceit of the story is that the protagonist, a tabletop RPG fanatic in his previous life on Earth, has been put into a world eerily similar to the ones he created as a dungeon master. His actions seem to be guided or obstructed by a mysterious, unseen dungeon master with godlike powers, and the story often becomes more about trying to understand and play to the narrative that the dungeon master wants rather than simply brute forcing through challenges one after another.

At the same time, the protagonist's dead friend from Earth seems to have been transported to the world much earlier. Their narrative was Campbellian in nature, Hero's Journey incarnate, while the protagonist's is much more postmodern and subversive. This leads to some fascinating meditations on the develop of narrative over history; one of my favorite scenes is when a story-obsessed villain believes they can kill the protagonist despite his Chosen One status because it's a postmodern story and the protagonist dying unceremoniously wouldn't be out of place.

My absolute favorite part, however, is the climax. Without spoiling too much, it involves a long delve into a seemingly endless dungeon, where characters and abilities fall away one-by-one until what is left is only a bare, emotional finale. I love climaxes that involve some kind of literal and emotional ascent; I did something similar in Modern Cannibals and Cleveland Quixotic.

In general, it's difficult to finish something so long in such a satisfactory way, which only makes the ending more impressive. I was worried this story would Muv-Luv me. A year ago, I read the famous visual novel Muv-Luv, a sprawling work that begins as a comedy slice of life and ends as a futuristic science fiction war epic. My problem with Muv-Luv wasn't that it was bad; it even had many elements I adored. But its ending, while not terrible, was merely okay, and I ultimately felt like what I got wasn't worth the time investment I put into it. Worth the Candle's ending avoided that entirely, so I can wholeheartedly recommend it despite its length.

3. Cowboy Grak 5: Yet Another Fistful of Obols by Remy (gazemaize)

Lastly, this one is a fanfic of Worth the Candle, posted coincidentally one day after I finished reading. It's by Remy, the author of Chili and the Chocolate Factory: Fudge Revelation, one of the funniest stories I've ever read. With this fanfic of a webfic, Remy cements themselves as the comedy master of the webfic sphere. I can only hope they start posting stories with more regularity...

I can't say too much about this story without spoiling almost all of Worth the Candle, so I'll keep this brief. If you've already read WtC, then you should read this 100%.

Web fiction is exciting. People are able to write all kinds of insane stuff that would never survive the streamlined mainstream publishing industry of today. I hope to read some more unique webfics and see people continually push the boundaries of what can be done with a story. (Hopefully they're not all 1.6 million words though...)

[ratracewriting]

I rise from the grave: Writeblr Intro

Hello everyone! And a special double hello to everyone I connected with about a month ago before falling into a finals-induced-brain-death. I have since reanimated with only minor changes (you can hardly notice something is off) but even still, I figure a new introduction is in order.

My name is Sal (they/she), I'm a 21-year-old college student vibing in the Bible Belt of America. I'm studying English and my current career aspiration is to work in non-profit literacy services (and maybe get a master's degree at some point, but who knows!) I started taking my writing seriously about a year ago and I still know nothing. But who does anyways? I desperately want to write a novel, but right now what I'm actually writing are short stories in the speculative-realm. I tend to gravitate towards themes of family trauma, divinity, queerness, end times, femme-angst, and getting your ass beat.

I like reading a whole lotta genres; weird fiction, fantasy, horror, sci-fantasy, classic lit, and more. Some of my favorite works are The Locked Tomb, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Murderbot Diaries, Our Wives Under the Sea, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Disco Elysium. Richard Siken is my favorite poet.

now for WIPs! .... ....

Well, at some point, I want to tell y'all about my WIPs. Though I struggle to even call them that. It's more like I have 4 big ideas that have been plaguing me for months to years. I think about them, too often, but I have written basically nothing on them. The common denominator between them all is that there is some BLOCK keeping me from actually developing them. I'm self aware enough that I must power through them if I want to actually write a novel (I do, terribly so), but I don't have enough force of will to... actually do the thing. I'm working on it.

Anyways, thank you if you've stuck with this rambling mess so far! Feel free to dm me, tag me in challenges, or whatever!

[deathkoala]

I love when things take advantage of unique features of their medium!

[antics-pedantic]

WEB FICTION! GETCHER WEB FICTION & WHATNOT HERE!

Presenting @antics-pedantic! Home of ongoing tales and one-shots alike, across offbeat genres and characters!

Regale yourself with all sorts of stories, including but not limited to:

Action-Adventure / Mystery / Suspense!

Comedy [ Zany, Dry, Soggy, Bewildering!]

Larger-Than-Life Thrill & Down-To-Earth Chill!

ABOUT | ASK | STORIES

[d4t-webserial]

D4T: Page 7 (Lu POV)

//cw: ableist slur and depiction of internalized ableism// go here for more info on d4t

previous page

After telling her about his detransition she proceeded to ask a handful of follow up questions (they were pretty incoherent, and he honestly didn’t know enough..), he did his best to answer them until she just told him “srry for so mny questions idk if u can rlly give me what i wnt…for answers i mean! i think i  jst need some time to thnk” (so there’s still, a chance they stay friends, hahaha,,, he’s dying ;-;).

But actually tho what the fuck just happened? Lu was so confused… did Alice just ask him out, or ask him to ask her out… why? He’s so… subpar, how long had she liked him??? Her little brother always called him her “boyfriend” to tease her, but he thought the joke was cause of how… mediocre he was. He knew she would say stupid things to make him flustered but, but wasn’t that to get a reaction out of him (plus she teased all her friends). She always did sit close to him when they hung out (but like she’s a girl, girls hug and cuddle and hold each other's hands all the time… right?). Wasn’t there that guy she liked??? Was she playing a prank on him?... no she would say that’s cringe and lame probably… so she likes him. He still can’t begin to process that but, luckily he won’t have too! Since she now knows about how absolutely disgusting his body is she’ll stop having feelings real quick (yay problem solved ;~;)... this sucks, if she had just never liked him it wouldn’t have hurt this much, was she gonna grow cold… like… nvm, he didn’t want to think about that, he didn’t want to think at all actually… she was his only friend (unless you counted his roommate Tanner… he seems nice… they rarely talked tho.) why did he have to like her so much, why did she have to like him back! If she was just not interested he could repress and hide away his feelings as tho they didn’t exist, but instead she ripped his heart out of his chest and now that she knew… she would throw it away. In this moment he wished more than anything he could be a feather floating thru the wind not needing to feel emotions or have thoughts, just going where the universe takes him.

Alice was somewhat more distant than before, but Lu was surprised how much she kept in contact. They didn’t really talk about what happened, which was comforting. He didn’t need to worry about what to say or do to keep her in his life, it was as tho they had an unspoken agreement to not acknowledge it. One day she asks to hangout at his, it was just after a big test so his roommate was out at a party…

trashbag_minister (Lu): “sure thing”

Tranny Mona Lisa (Alice): “yay!”

Tranny Mona Lisa (Alice): “when wll u get here btw”

trashbag_minister (Lu): “around 20 minutes”

Tranny Mona Lisa (Alice): “❤️❤️❤️❤️”

.

.

.

She just sent him hearts, he thinks his brain is about to explode… did she used to send hearts?... he thinks so… maybe, but like it had to mean someth- no… no no no. He wasn’t going to do this, he was going to be normal. She’s his friend.

When he picked her up she waved to him and got in, the car ride was quiet, but that was normal (he was so bad at talking and driving). But when they got out she was a bit quieter than usual, she barely said a word until they got to his dorm. When they did she hesitantly started talking about her life as they often did, but it felt strange, like she was padding for time. After a couple of minutes of this he asked…

Lu: “Is there something you wanna talk about?”

Alice: “...”

she seems more nervous than he’s ever seen her

Alice: “yeah…”

(oh god, dear god, please let it be no big deal)

she is fiddling with the seam of her shirt ever so slightly

Alice: “I don't super know what your detransition means to you…”

Alice: “... i mean, i tried to learn, but there aren’t many… resources or anything”

Alice: “anyway i don’t know what it means, but i still like *you*”

he lets out a deep breath 

(thank jesus)

Lu: “Cool…”

Alice: “...”

Alice: “Do you… like me too?”

(shit)

Lu: “Oh… you meant like *like like*.”

Alice glares at him like he just said the stupidest thing in the world

Alice: “Yeah no fucking duh, also who says ‘like like’ past the age of ten”

Lu: “i don’t umm…”

Alice pulls back and once again becomes more timid

Alice: “Do you not? It’s okay if you don’t i… just thought you did…”

Lu: “No i d-do- i do, i just…”

Alice both looks affirmed and confused

Lu: “You shouldn’t,,n’t l-like me.”

Alice: “Why???”

Lu: “Be-be-be-cau-cause you can do better-ter…”

Alice: “That’s retarded!”

Lu: “L-Lys! You can’t sssay that!”

Alice: “Jesus fucking christ Lu, i… i just *fucking confessed to you*, and you respond with the dumbest shit i’ve ever heard, i can respond however the fuck i god damn want!”

Lu: “go-ju-Alice! I- it’s- god like you- you- you could- could have any s-s-ssself respecting man you want, you sh-shouldn’t se–se-set-t-tle for… *me*”

Alice: “I’m not settling, i *like* you, you’re smart and caring and sweet, why wouldn’t i like you.”

Lu: “Why *w-would* you! I’m a fu-fu-fu shit fuck god damn it! I’m a- I’m a fucking pathetic little shit preten-pretending to be a man, i-i-i can b-b-b-barely even s-sb-sp-speak, i…"

she rests a hand on him and looks in his eyes, he didn’t realize he was crying

Alice: “Are you okay?”

Lu: “...ye i just, it’s nothing, my brain is stupid sometimes”

Alice: “That's okay, i’m sorry for getting you worked up."

she smiles up at him

Alice: “I’m just… if you like me and i like you there isn’t any real reason not to date right?”

Lu: “But it’s more,, complicated than that-t”

Alice’s jaw clenches for a second but she takes a somewhat forced breath to relax

Alice: “Why? Why does it have to be?”

Lu: “Because of all the s–st-stuff i said.”

Alice: “But i don’t care about any of that.”

he pulls away from her

Lu: “I don’t even have a f-f-d-di-dick Alice… how would that- how would that even work”

she looks somewhat surprised at that, but responds quickly anyways

Alice: “Tons of people make that work.”

Lu: “But you shouldn’t- you shoulnt have too, your boy-boyfriend should be a real man not a tr-tr-trans girl in denial”

Alice: “You could be my girlfriend then, we don’t hav-”

Lu: “I don’t want to be your girlfriend!”

Alice: “...”

she looks down at her lap where her hands are gripping hard into her pants

Alice: “ok”

they sit like that awkwardly, tensely until…

Alice: “I want to go home”

.

.

.

Lu: “ok… can i go to the bathroom first”

Alice: “of course”

Lu walks into the bathroom, and sits on the floor. What was he doing? She was like the girl of his dreams, and more importantly, his best friend. Was he really gonna throw that all away because of… fuck, he entirely forgot what his point was. He was so scared. For almost a year now, ever since he detransitioned he just… accepted he would never be in a relationship again. But then Alice came in with her unending confidence and had the gall to just… like him, as he is… she didn’t care, not about his body, not about his brain, not about anything… god damn it. He walks out of the bathroom and sits next to Alice, when he approaches she seems to wipe something from her face…

Lu: “What’s wrong?”

(why did he say that jesus christ)

she looks at him like he asked her if she preferred drinking water or vegetable oil

Alice: “...nothing”

Lu: “mhm?”

she looks at the floor

before she could ask him to take her home he put his arm around her

she rests her head on his shoulder

(good sign… here goes nothing)

Lu: “You don’t have to say you’re fine.”

she looks up at him

Alice: “*I am fine*”

(she very obviously isn’t)

Lu spends some time trying to find the right words

(god damn it he is so bad at this)

he holds her cheek

Lu: “Look as your boyfriend, you should- you should tell me when you aren’t ok.”

Alice: “You’re my boyfriend?”

Lu: “I mean, even if i think you have bad taste, who would i be to deny the most b-b-gorgeous woman i-i’ve ever laid eyes on”

(that was the cringiest thing he’s ever said)

but she’s blushing very hard

Alice: “... i… you think i…”

she attempts to compose herself

Alice: “I don’t have bad taste, you’re very…”

Lu: “The point is you should tell me why you feel bad.”

she rolls her eyes but smiles

Alice: “I actually feel alot better now.”

(now Lu wasn’t so autistic that he didn’t *know* it was because of him before, but man did it feel good to hear her pretty much say she felt *better* because of him)

riding that high he kisses her once softly on the lips

Lu: “I hope that means you don’t have to go home right now, cause i,, i really wanna,, be with you a bit longer”

she responds by grabbing onto his shirt and nuzzling further into him

Lu can’t stop the massive smile on his face, as he hugs her tight. Nor does he want to, as he thinks about how lucky he is to be here.

[thundamoo]

Why are there so many litrpgs!? It's a question that I hear asked a lot in webfic spaces: why does every story have a system, why is every story number-go-up, why is every story about stats and skills and words in brackets? And if you have ever wondered this, I have the answer for you. It's because writing a litrpg is easy. And this—and I need you to pay attention real close on this one—is fucking awesome. Even the first chapter of a book is a ton of work, notably far more work than any other individual chapter. Because to write the first chapter of the book, you don't just have to put two to six thousand words down on a page, you have to have a complete enough idea to even start. You need a world, you need characters, you need a plot, you need a story arc, you need every single organ that turns the story into a functioning body that can have any chapters, at all. And litrpgs are popular because they streamline this process. People who don't have backgrounds as writers and worldbuilders can just use the template, making a generic world with a magic system that more or less does anything the writer wants it to and doesn't need to be explained to the audience. That is the essence of the "generic litrpg" that swarms so many webfic sites: other ideas absorbed into the tumbling, churning waters of a new author's mind and deposited in slightly different ways, ready-made for deployment into a full story. Which is, frankly, a fantastic way to start writing. The swarm of off-the-shelf litrpgs is the product of literal hundreds of people who wouldn't have otherwise decided to become a writer trying their hand at it using an accessible starting point. Yeah, that means more mediocre stories that you might not want to read, but more importantly it means more stories period, and some of those stories WILL be great!

Lowering the barrier for entry into creative writing means that we get more authors and more books. Who cares if they aren't all great Some of them will be, and they wouldn't exist otherwise, and I don't see how that isn't enough.

[qrowscant-art]

LINK ROT/ TRANSMISSION 002 / MAY 11, 2024

Link Rot is a multimedia webserial following those within a research station. Once dedicated to the study and containment of a newly discovered life form, complications arise following its unexpected merge with the station's AI. TRANSMISSION 002 - In which you search for a way out.

General warnings can be found in the 'About' section.

additional rambling under the cut!

this one was supposed to be posted alongside even MORE writing, but i didn't want to take two months, so i decided to shelve the extra story im working on and to post it later on in may/early june <3

transmission three might take a little longer, i have some irl stuff popping up that'll probably get most of my attention, but i promise its being worked on : )

ok goodbye

[makapatag]

PRINCESS MURDERS THE HERO is an ongoing web epic set in GUBAT BANWA, the Realms of War, rooted in SEAsian culture and wuxia. Witness the Hero- Murdering-Princess as she strides across the Sword Isles to achieve the enlightenment of violence.

PMTH started off as a Zelink AU in Fantasy SEAsia that eventually spiraled out of control, inspired by reincarnation, Pigafetta's accounts of Borneo, and the story of Padmasambhava.

If you're into written slick martial arts fight scenes (I practice FMA irl!) and deep SEAsian inspired aesthetics and cultures (kratons! masjids! trishulas and giant buddha statues! stilt houses and longhouses and excessive gold jewelry to hold all that merit!) check it out!

It's like if POPPY WAR was SEAsian and steeped in Maharadia Lawana, Aginid, Darangen, Nagarakertagama, and then blended with a Zelink frother and spiced with a healthy dose of BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF and LIONS OF AL-RASSAN in a cup of LEGEND OF CONDOR HEROES

Book 1 is just about to finish, we're near its climax. Book 2 begins in a few more months-ish, though I don't plan to keep it waiting for too long as I've had a pretty long hiatus to finish Gubat Banwa from this.

Also working on a character page for this already, still WIP but it's getting there.

If you don't do The Reading then perhaps you want to do The Listening, there's an audiobook of the first Arc!

Finally a great review from Kyle Tam!

[valentinedagger]

welcome back from break, we've got a new POV character this week

[charaznablescanontoyota]

hey tumblr do you like mysteries

do you like mysteries ON A BOAT

do you like mysteries on a boat and also all the main pov characters are in the middle of breaking up, messily, while taking on assumed identities and also people are getting murdered around them

i have good news

chapter 20 of @prairiesongserial the gay web novel i write with my wife is finishing imminently and it is a murder mystery where all of the above things happen. you can read it right now if you want to catch up and try to solve the mystery yourself before the parlor scene drops

you will probably want to read the "previously on" summary first or like actually go back and read book 2 at some point but i'm not your mom

[indigosabyss]

So... my follower count on tumblr has basically doubled since I last mentioned this, so I want to remind you guys that I also write original fiction. Most of it I've been saving and refining, but I've also been updating one webserial on RoyalRoad since last June. It has twenty two chapters left till completion, so I would recommend you check it out if it interests you.

In essence, it's a multiperson post-apocalyptic Gamer story, with multidimensional aspects and strong themes of colonization and the generational trauma left by it, with underlying queer themes.

Not my best work, since I was - and still am - a bit too strapped for cash to waste time perfecting the concept. I just wanted to get it out there. And I hope someone enjoys it.

[popcultureoverdosed]

The Curse of Saki Sanobashi

I'm writing this journal entry to document my experience with a certain film. I'm probably already dead if anyone is reading this, but please read on. I hate Saki Sanobashi and what it has done to my life. Most importantly, I hate the depraved bastards who made it.

Until recently, I've been an average college girl with only one notable quality: I love searching for lost media. Most people get a thrill from watching a good horror movie and I'm no different with lost media. There's just something about the elusive nature of it that makes the hunt so fascinating. There's a countless amount of entertainment that vanishes from the public eye for whatever reason and many remain completely forgotten. That never sat well with me. Maybe it's the history buff in me, but I believe every form of content should be preserved. It's scary to think that something that brings you joy could one day be forever lost to time.

Saki Sanobashi is a name that's been plaguing me for the last few years now. Every lost media enthusiast worth their salt has at least heard of it if they haven't already joined the hunt. I'm one of the several archivists who plunged headfirst into this monstrosity of a goose chase. I, like many others, got hooked on its tragic premise of a bunch of schoolgirls trapped in a bathroom where death is the only way out. The morbid curiosity in all of us compelled us to search high and low for this elusive anime.

That was years ago.

Now? Saki remains a distant memory in the minds of once optimistic researchers. Dead end after dead end had led to the entire thing being labeled as some elaborate hoax. Even I began losing faith in the search despite all the time I invested in it. It was disheartening knowing that one of the most fascinating lost media searches of all time could be fake. I would've quit entirely had it not been for that one fateful afternoon.

It was a typically brutal winter in Toronto which meant that a snowstorm would be picking up before the day was over. I thought it best to go to my favorite comic and stock up on my favorite books before the storm trapped me at home with my girlfriend. Marque Noir was different from other comic shops in that there exists a secret section of the store only a select few know about. Because I've been a loyal customer for a few years, the owner trusted in showing me the back room. I was hesitant at first to enter a secluded room alone with a man due to being a woman, but I figured he wouldn't try anything with customers still in the store.

What I saw in that room was the stuff of wonder. Several shelves were stocked with underground comics so obscure even the most hardcore archivists probably didn't know about them. The type of comics you can't even find on the internet. It was heaven on earth for a lost media obsessed girl like me. The original post mentioned Saki being an anime, but I was desperate for any type of media out there. What's fascinating is that there were also movies stocked with the comics. The cover art on each DVD case was incredibly low quality, to the point that I assumed the store owner hand-made them himself. There were no ISBNs or distributor info anywhere to be found so my theory seemed fairly likely all things considered.

I filled my bag with as many items as I could afford( which isn't a lot for a broke college student)  and excitedly swiped my card at the counter. The store owner gave me the weirdest of grins as I made my purchase. He seemed amused but almost in a mocking sort of way. He hardly ever emotes in the first place so that smile really caught me off guard.

I left the store and boarded the closest train to drop me off at the dorms. Though Halloween comes in the autumn, I feel like winter is the most ideal season to indulge in horror. The cold weather is like a reflection of the spine chilling fear I get whenever I read a good comic. I stepped inside my dorm room and immediately began browsing through my latest collection. They all looked so good I didn't know where to begin. As I rummaged through the pile of DVDs, I noticed something that threw me for a loop.

One DVD case was completely blank. The cover was pitch black and so was the back. There wasn't even anything on the spine. I couldn't imagine myself buying something like this so how it ended up with me was a mystery. Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't the least bit intrigued by it. There could've been literally anything on that disc and the only way to find out was to start the movie.

I waited for my girlfriend to return from campus before starting the movie. Emily's a cute brunette, but she has zero tolerance for horror. She always shrieks her head off whenever I play my movies in the living room. All that blood and gore drives her crazy. She greeted me with a kiss on the lips and then paused when she saw the devious smirk on my face. She already knew what I had in store for her. Emily, of course, protested but I pleaded with her to watch the movie with me. Seeing her scream like a child over on screen murder was sometimes more enjoyable than the movie itself. She remained firm in her stance against it but eventually broke down after enough of my begging. It feels good having things my way.

I quickly inserted the DVD into an old game station and stared at the screen with anticipation for what was about to start.  After several seconds of a blank screen, some Japanese text appeared with an English subtitle that read " Requiem of the lost girls." The title naturally left me curious so I watched on with excitement.

The scene then faded back to black and what I saw after that made my blood freeze solid.

Three schoolgirls in a bathroom.

All of them had miserable looks of utter despair.

The scene was unmistakable. It was a scenario I ran over in my head countless times. It was Saki Sanobashi, the anime searched years for! Having the legendary film before me after all this time was almost too good to be true. And to think it came from my favorite comic shop. I've been shopping for years now and never even had a hint something like Saki would be there.

Emily was confused as to why I was so excited so I told her we just discovered the holy grail of lost media. The gravity of the situation was unsurprisingly lost on her but she smiled anyway for my sake. We watched the movie unfold just like the legend went. The girls remained trapped in the bathroom and lamented their misfortune all the while. As the film progressed, the agony in their expressions became increasingly visceral. Their eyes looked so hollow, their skin was so pale. Emily clutched into my hand with a hint of anxiety in her eyes.

The tone of the video was much more somber than I expected. Seeing the girls take turns telling the others about their hopes and dreams, trying desperately to alleviate their situation, felt oddly melancholic. I was growing attached to these characters to the point I hoped they'd find a way despite that going against the lore. We eventually reached the part where the girls realized there truly was no way out of their situation...except for death.

Their deaths were just as horrid as I expected them to be. One girl goaded one of the others into drowning her in the sink and another clawed at her own neck with visceral detail. The most painful part of it all was the bloodcurdling scream the last girl emitted as she bashed her head against the wall. It was far more realistic than it had any right to be.

Despite all the fear, my heart raced with excitement. I had to write a blog post to let everyone know about my discovery! The internet would go wild once I told them the good news. I quickly went to my Tumblr to start writing, but the site wouldn't load. I tried other social media sites but nothing was working.

I tried stepping outside in the hall to get better reception but the door wouldn't budge. The knob didn't move at all no matter how hard I pulled. My girlfriend and I were both freaking out at this point. We tried opening windows, calling 911, and banging on doors, all of which were in vain. We were somehow completely severed from the outside world. I wondered how the hell was any of this possible when the image of the movie flashed into my mind.

We were trapped just like the girls in Saki Sanobashi. Was the film cursed? That seemed to be the only explanation. I should've trusted my gut instincts and never let that guy lead me to the backroom. I knew there was something off about him and now I fell into his trap. So far we've spent two weeks in this hellhole of an apartment. Food has long since run out and any sense of hope is dead. It pains me to see Emily's body as pale as winter, her eyes devoid of life. Neither of us can last much longer. I'm writing this document as a warning to anyone searching for Saki Sanobashi.

Stay the hell away from it. It is a cursed film that dooms its viewers the suffer the same fate as the girls in the bathroom. I imagine the curse will be lifted once we die and our belongings will be collected by our loved ones. Hopefully, they will see this document and spread the news. Or maybe they'll brush this off as the crazed rantings of a lunatic.

I honestly don't know anymore. All I can say is to stay safe and never attempt to watch this damned movie.