#getting attached to fictional characters is bad actually. it does weird stuff to your brain!!

[hamthezombie]

I kind of want to play Animal Crossing New Horizons again, but it's kind of boring now that I've done everything so part of me wants to delete my island and start again.

But man, that feels bad too!

[ragequitezekielrants]

Let’s Not Turn Our Appliances into Dating Options

Alright, I’ve seen some weird stuff on the internet, but today we’re going down a rabbit hole I never wanted to crawl into: objectophilia—a.k.a., the strange obsession with being romantically involved with objects. Yeah, you heard me. I’m talking about people falling head over heels in love with their toasters, cars, and, apparently, anything with a shape and a surface. And don’t even get me started on this growing fascination with “sentient objects” in fiction. Why? Why is this a thing?

Let’s get one thing straight: objects aren’t people. They don’t have feelings, thoughts, or personalities. Your vacuum cleaner doesn’t dream of a better life, your favorite mug doesn’t get jealous when you drink from a different one, and—brace yourself—your gaming console isn’t secretly in love with you. It’s plastic, metal, and a bunch of circuits. No matter how much you want to imagine your phone as some adorable, loyal sidekick, at the end of the day, it’s just an inanimate object.

Yet, somehow, we’ve managed to reach a point where people are not only attracted to objects but are creating entire backstories for them as if they’re sentient beings. I mean, there’s a woman who married the Eiffel Tower. Yeah, the giant metal structure in Paris. I guess it’s got good… structure? Where does this end? Are we gonna start romanticizing our refrigerators? “Oh, I love the way it cools my food with such passion. It really understands my hunger on a deep, emotional level.” Please.

And then there’s this whole trend in fiction where objects become sentient, and we’re supposed to just roll with it. You’ve got talking swords, smart fridges with personalities, and don’t even get me started on AI assistants that are written like quirky side characters in a bad sitcom. I get it, it’s fun to imagine a world where your toaster can hold a conversation, but why are we encouraging this nonsense? Are we so desperate for meaningful interactions that we’re turning our household appliances into dating options? What’s next? People proposing to their Roombas because it “always cleans up after them” and “understands them like no one else”?

Look, I get it— I'm lonely as fuck too and human relationships are hard. But maybe, just maybe, the answer isn’t to start imagining that your favorite chair has feelings or that your car is in love with you. It’s one thing to anthropomorphize your belongings as a joke, but it’s another to genuinely start believing that the world of Beauty and the Beast is some kind of ideal future where every candlestick and clock is a potential soulmate.

The worst part is, this bizarre obsession is creeping into games now, too. There are whole game mechanics built around your weapons or equipment “liking” you or “being loyal” based on how you treat them. Like, great, now I not only have to manage my character’s relationships with NPCs, but I also have to worry about whether my sword feels underappreciated because I swapped it out for something better. Are we serious? I’m supposed to feel guilty about trading in a piece of gear that doesn’t actually exist? This is where we’re at now?

I’m all for escapism and imagination, but at some point, we have to draw the line. If we keep romanticizing objects and turning them into sentient beings in our heads, we’re just feeding into this weird fantasy where actual human connections become less important. You can’t date your coffee machine. And you definitely can’t get emotionally attached to a piece of metal that doesn’t have a brain.

So here’s a thought: let’s leave the objects as they are—just objects. Inanimate, unfeeling, and not candidates for romantic relationships. Trust me, your life will be better when your blender is just a blender and not your imaginary significant other.

Until next time, stop falling in love with your furniture.

– Ezekiel

[caffeine-and-melatonin]

✨Bad Batch E13 Spoilers✨

FYI this one is probably gonna be on the shorter side in comparison to my other episode posts, so let's take a look at my brain during E13...

- @fictional-men-ruin-lives WHEN I SAW THE TITLE OF THIS EPISODE!!! Omg I instantly thought of your post about the hive mind episodes

- Ok seriously though I know their armor protects them and all that jazz but for a group chaotic clone bros who are hiding from the government, they really do stick out like a sore thumb (like those guards(?) clocked them immediately)

-"And who are they?" Tech back at it again with the funky vocal inflections that I absolutely adore

- Ok it might just be me but my brain instantly went "Is that young Vizago?"... it was not but still

- WHY DO YOU HAVE CID'S NECKLACE? Is she dead? bro what’s going on?

- Tech, love, you can't just casually tell a child that a person they have kinda become friends with was possibly murdered

-Aye abrasive great aunt space lizard isn’t dead!

- Cid's soft spot for Omega is something I didn't know I needed

- "I believe she's threatening us." "You're quick." 💀

- Cid really said "I endorse Girlboss Omega" huh?

- TECH'S FACE WHEN CID COMPLIMENTED HIM!!!! AND WRECKER GIVING HIM A SUPPORTIVE SMILE!!!! AHHHH HE LOOKED SO PROUD OF HIMSELF I LOVE THAT DORK SO MUCH 🥺❤️

-"This is a stealth mission. You boys are good at that, right?" bitch have you met them?

- Aww Wrecker finally got a nickname from Cid...actually he got like four all in one episode (someone please talk to Echo...give him a nickname or something just please talk to the sweet boy)

- Love how Cid totally picked favorites and had Tech and Omega go with her

- Ew hive??? Please no bugs. Please.

-Wrecker'panicked whispering gives me life

- Tech lifting that whole ass trap door by himself 👀

- What is spice exactly? Is it honestly just ✨space drugs✨?

- Ew giant fairy looking bat things...lol wait why does this lowkey remind me of the whole flying keys thing in Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone??? Is that just me?

- If flashlights = torches...then what do they call actual torches with fire?

- Ruby. Love her. She is the moment.

- AHHHH PROTECTIVE BIG BROTHERS!!!

- WHEN I TELL YOU I LITERALLY MADE A FINGER GUN AT MY TV JUST BEFORE THE BOYS DID WHEN THE PYKES SAID THAT OMEGA HAD TO STAY BEHIND.....sis I need to go to sleep

- Awww Cid cares so much about Omega

- Wrecker's face after she said that she got Omega into this and she was gonna get her out is so interesting, but I can't quite place it. Facial expressions are one thing that I really like to focus on because they can say a lot about the characters.

- Wrecker and Cid are a chaotic duo and it's so funny to me

- Durand is a trust fund baby. Makes sense.

- Love how Omega can literally become friends wieveryoneone

- TECH IS BUILDING A THING! LOOK AT HIM GO! I'M SO PROUD OF HIM!

- WRECKER'S VOICE CRACK WHILE SCREAMING

- Lol why does Tech slouch so much when he runs? Like it’s adorable but also sir why? (giving me major “spencer reid running with a gun” vibes if you know what I mean) 

- "INCOMING!"...sir how did you fit a whole ass star into a two liter container thing

- Bruh I thought they were gonna straight up decapitate Durand

- Cid: "First round's on me." Boys: *aggressive sprinting*

FINAL THOUGHTS:

- "So no Crosshair or Howzer?" *throws phone. breaks skateboard* (pls someone understand my vine references)

- Bro I totally called the whole thing with the “this episode is gonna be dark” tweet. So glad 4 years of stage crew really helped me translate lighting nerd humor 

- So no one actually got infected by mind control worms.....weird (go see @fictional-men-ruin-lives post about that whole thing on Disney+)

- Ok y'all know me, I don't really like to be overly negative all the time, but I feel like this was a bit of a step back especially after the past two episodes. Like the episode was fine and all, but sis there's THREE EPISODES LEFT! Like wtf can we please stick to the central conflict/plot???

- While we are on the subject of us only having three episodes left, it's already not super great that they aren't getting into any character development with Tech or Echo (don't even get me started about Cross), but is it just me or did Echo barely talk. Like he's just kinda there and the only times he does say anything it's like a singular sentence and it only serves the purpose of trying to enforce the idea of him being "the grumpy one" (which I feel like is a waste of existing AND potential characterization from a writing standpoint)

- We better be getting another season. I'm so attached to all of them and there is so much potential for each of them as characters as well as a story as a whole. Looking back at S1 of TCW and Rebels, yeah they were a bit slow at some points, but that was because they were trying to establish a world with a decent amount of new characters. With this, we already got the baseline characterization of each of the members of TBB in S7 of TCW, but aside from Hunter and (to a lesser degree) Wrecker, we haven't seen a whole bunch of growth. Omega, who obviously wasn’t in TCW, is a pretty well rounded character who I personally find interesting and I love her dearly, so it's not a matter of "oh it's just the first season we don't have a lot of time to GROW THE PERSONALITIES OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS". Idk I just feel like there is so much potential and another season has to happen or I will go to the studio or office or wherever and write it myself. 

P.S.I'm sorry if my final thoughts section was a little more negative than the stuff I normally post, I just have a lot of things I wanna talk about and y'all just happen to be the ones who have to hear it 😐

Overall, the episode itself wasn't bad, I just think it's placement in the season doesn't really help in the whole cohesive storyline department.

[klymilark]

Sore: Chapter 2

First Chapter

CW: Swearing, mentions of sexual assault

Word count: 1872

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Kaye woke up from her slumber in a sweat.  She’s always had nightmares when moving, but it seems like a new method of torture has been introduced into her brain.  One specifically related to this move. She calms herself down, and heads to the kitchen to put coffee on. Once the coffee’s done, she goes out to the back patio to have a cigarette.  She’s been trying to quit, and has been mostly successful.  Dreams like that, however, just fuck with her in quite a few ways, so she keeps a pack around.  After her cigarette is done, Amie walks outside, and sits near her.

“Bad night?” Amie asks

“Yeah.  Wasn’t worse than anything you’ve heard, but definitely a new one.” Kaye responds.

“Ahh, that’s not good.” Amie says.

“You’re telling me. Although, I do still feel like I’ve slept, so that’s a plus.” Kaye says with a moderate tone of sarcasm.

“You always do.  Excited to see the condo?” Amie asks, switching the subject.

“Yes!  The fact that I can afford to buy is wonderful, too.  Gonna be nice to be able to rip the carpet up instead of just having to deal with it.”  Kaye says, bouncing up and down lightly.

“Woah.  Did you just act excited?!  Who are you, and what have you done with my Kaye?”  Amie asks, genuinely shocked at the display of excitement.  In all of the years they’ve known each other, Amie has not once known Kaye to show any kind of emotion beyond neutral.

“Huh.  I guess so?  This is weird.” Kaye responds, also genuinely confused at her willingness to show the emotions.  That’s something she’s always struggled with.

Amie giggles and says, “Maybe it’s the dress.”

Kaye looks down, and realizes that she is still wearing the dress she went to bed with last night.  Her face then proceeds to turn several shades of red, and you could swear a few shades of purple mixed in at some points. Amie points this out through a very poorly hidden laugh, which only serves to make the problem worse.  After another 20 minutes or so of Amie poking fun at Kaye for showing emotion for the first time, Don steps out.

“Hey, you ready to go?” Don asks Kaye.

“Oh, yeah.  Let me change into something more appropriate for heavy lifting.  I’ll be ready in ten minutes tops.”  Kaye responds, downing her coffee.

“No need to rush, I was just asking.” Don says.

Kaye runs out to the truck, and grabs a pair of canvas pants, and a flannel shirt.  For some reason, they don’t seem to fit quite as well today as they did a few days ago.  Must just be the trip.  Kaye then runs up to the box truck, and gets in.  As she waits for Don to get in his car, Amie starts knocking on her driver side window.  Kaye opens the door.

“I think you forgot something” Amie says, holding the dress out.

“No, it’s yo-” Kaye starts.

“Take it.  It’s yours. You love it, and you definitely need it more than I do.” Amie says, cutting her off.

“But-” Kaye starts.

“No.  Buts.  It’s yours.” Amie says.

Kaye grabs the dress through the window, and puts it in the passenger seat.  She then jumps down from her seat, and hugs Amie as tight as she can.  This girl has been nothing but wonderful to her, and it’s about time she starts showing some appreciation for it.  As the hug stops, Amie smiles.  Don comes out, they get in their cars, and leave.  Amie stayed behind, because she had some cleaning to do.

They pulled up to Kaye’s condo.  It was a first floor unit, which she picked out primarily for the fairly easy sound proofing she could do.  She didn’t plan to get very loud, but you never know where life will take you.  Doubly so when everything is about to change.

Before they start moving anything, they decide to walk in to tour the place.  Kaye hadn’t seen the place, and she’d been trusting Amie’s word about how well it would fit.  From what Amie said, it would be darn near perfect.  The living room was large enough that her computer could fit in the corner without obstructing too much of the room, and it had a connected half bathroom.  The master bedroom was large enough to fit a four poster bed, which wasn’t there yet, but would be one day.  The master bathroom had a corner tub that could definitely fit Kaye’s height, as well as a separate stall shower.  Finally, the spare bedroom would definitely fit all of the various implements and furniture Kaye planned.  It was perfect!

Kaye and Don began unpacking.  She didn’t have much, so it only took a solid hour. Kaye moved most of the boxes to the rooms the contents had belonged in, as did Don.

“Hey, Kaye, where do the boxes that just have a D on them go?” Don asked

“Oh, just throw them in the spare bedroom.  I’ll have to unpack everything there, since I’m gonna be kind of particular about where everything goes.” Kaye responded.

“Alright!” Don said.

As Don said that, though, the box he was carrying burst through the bottom.  What looked like a set of mountain climbing gear, plus a few other odds and ends came crashing to the floor.  Don’s focus shifted to one item in particular, though.  Settled near the top of the pile were a pair of very fuzzy white cat ears.  They had barrettes on them for attaching to the head, bells, and ribbons on them.  Don giggled a bit to himself, which drew Kaye’s attention to the mess.

“Whatcha doin’?” Kaye asks, leaning into the bedroom from the hallway.

As she stood there, her mind started racing.  Don didn’t know what she liked to do in her spare time, and this wasn’t the way she was hoping he’d find out. It’d be one thing if Amie told him, but this?!  Almost 500 feet of rope falling on the floor with cat ears smack on top.  Right in plain view.  How is she going to cover this up?  She really doesn’t feel up to the conversation right now, and she’d rather not have to go through with it until way later.  Shit shit shit!  Shit!

“What’s all of this for?” Don said.

Kaye, trying her best to maintain her composure externally, and doing a remarkable job given the night she had, and the amount of heavy shit was just moved.

“I… was in theater in college.”  Kaye said.

“I didn’t know your college had a theater program.” Don responds, puzzled.

“They don’t!  It was a local thing for college-aged kids.” Kaye says, grasping for straws

“Interesting,“ Don says, contemplating whether to believe this story or not, “You’ll have to show me a video at some point.”

“They didn’t really allow video recording a lot of the time, and I wasn’t in it for that long.” Kaye says, realizing that her story sounds less and less plausible, “Plus I mostly did lighting work.  I only had one on-stage performance.”

Really?  That’s the best she could come up with?  He’s gonna know.

“That’s too bad, but not too surprising.  You were always better with technical stuff than the arts.” Don says.

How the hell did he buy that?  That was the single stupidest excuse Kaye had ever heard from anyone, much less said.  She guesses that her friend just trusts her, or at least understands that this is a part of herself she isn’t quite ready to share yet.  

“So, that looks like all of it’s sorted.  Want to grab a few chairs?” Don asks.

“S-sure.  I’ll grab the mead.” Kaye responds.

She goes into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of the mead she brought with her.  It was a dry one that had been aged for about a year before being shipped across the country in the back of a box truck in a fairly big hurry.  While she was doing that, Don texted Amie and asked if she wanted to join them.  She didn’t, as she was just settling in for the afternoon. That was code for the bra came off, it’s not going back on, and I’m not leaving the house without it.

“Oh well, looks like it’s just us.” Don says, not too upset.

“From what she said, it seems that you two have been seeing a lot of each other lately.” Kaye says.

“Yeah.  She just quit her job, but she’s looking for another.  Last one got a bit too crazy for her to want to deal with anymore.  Thankfully she should have one soon, since she’s a damn good worker, and she has a good reference with her previous company.” Don says

“Does she?” Kaye asks.

“Yeah.  Her direct manager was awesome, it was everyone above him that was bad.” Don responds.

“I definitely know how that feels.” Kaye says, looking down slightly.

“Yeah.  Sorry for that, but it’ll hopefully get at least a little better here.” Don responds, rubbing her back.

“Thanks.” Kaye says.

“So, how’d you afford this place, anyway?  Seems like it’d be out of your pay range.” Don says, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

“One of my previous employers.  They did some particularly heinous shit, and I managed to find a lawyer willing to represent it.  I didn’t win all that much, comparatively, but it was enough to afford this place.  Should be able to get a scrap car while I’m here, too.  Outside of that, since the place is paid off, I don’t have to worry about that much. Should be able to afford it working part time, honestly.” Kaye says.

“Ahh, wish I could say the same.” Don says.

“Yeah, I wish I couldn’t, given what I went through with that place.  It’s gonna take a while to get over that.” Kaye responds.

“That’s fair.  I remember how hard it got for you.” Don responds, “I don’t see why places can’t get over that, it’s not even that b-”

“Everyone thinks I’m a rapist is why they can’t get over it.  When someone looks at you and sees nothing but an absolute degenerate, nobody wants to keep you around.  I’m honestly shocked you and Amie did, all things considered.” Kaye responds, a little annoyed.

“Honestly, things would be weird without you texting one of us at random times to vent about something.  It’s been weird to not have you randomly knock on our doors to hang out and calm down.” Don says with a chuckle.

“Hopefully that’ll start again.  I was happiest in those moments.  I felt like I was home for the first time.” Kaye responds with tears welling up in her eyes.

“Well, welcome home.” Don says, arms outstretched.

Kaye hugs him as tightly as she can, and they stay like that for a few minutes.  She cries quite a bit, but he just stands there, just like he always has.  He’s been one of the few constants to her life, and she’s very thankful for that.

“So,” Kaye says, breaking off from him, “did you want to grab a game out?”

“Sure.” Don replies.

Chapter 3

Search sbbl on my blog to find the rest of the chapters, as well!

[patchdotexe]

So, I have a character who is a system, and I wanted to know before I develop them further, how does DID work, from a personal account? I really really really don't want to accidentally create yet another TOXIC misinterpretation of a real condition (because I know how horrible that can feel), and I hope I'm not saying anything wrong even now. (P.S. I love your blog, but I'm too shy to come off anon.)

hey anon!! it means a LOT to me that you sent this message :D theres a lot of really messy-bad potrayals of DID in the media so seeing people actually going to the effort of asking systems abt their experiences is really heartwarming for us. (plus the fact that ppl keep asking us in specific abt system stuff omg,,)

im gonna preface this by saying that, in the end, i can only really talk about my own experiences with full confidence. systems can work pretty differently from each other, but this is how we function and also some details ive noticed from system friends + general discussion over the years

so, to start off: Dissociative Identity Disorder is, at its core, your brain trying to respond to trauma in a pretty severe way. that being said there ARE systems that didnt experience severe trauma and still developed, and im not really sure about the mechanics behind that but i find it really cool and it totally exists. im gonna focus on trauma-based systems bc that’s our ~tragic backstory~ and also tends to be what most people opt for when creating system characters anyway, but the only real difference from what i can tell is, uh, a lack of trauma.

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR ME TO SAY THE WORD “TRAUMA” A WHOLE LOT JFC

(system friends are welcome to reblog with corrections or added info!!)

anyway. the way your brain responds to things is really weird. if something happens where you’re just, like, completely unable to handle it, like you dissociate yourself so hard because there’s no way you can manage this, your brain has a chance of going “uh… well, fuck, uh” and generating somebody who can manage it. or it might decide to be a dick and take all of the fucky internalized garbage and turn it into a person whose sole existence is to be an asshole. (they have the potential to get better, i think… ours didnt.) honestly theres a bunch of reasons and a bunch of “roles” that could lead to an alter/headmate* forming.

* we use the terms interchangeably depending on mood and whos fronting. i think its supposed to be “alter” is DID, “headmate” is implication that theyre non-traumatic? we like using “headmate” because it brings this fun mental image of us being a bunch of roommates constantly starting shit with each other and goofing off which is pretty accurate about 75% of the time

i keep getting distracted bc my cat is here. this is gonna be fun to go back and edit.

whatever the original situation is, you’re suddenly not alone in your own brain. and it’s REALLY WEIRD. communication was VERY hard. Icarus, our system original, used to do a very “cliche” thing of sharing a journal with their early headmates, where theyd write a sentence and then theyd write a reply (although back then they didnt realize that was a system-related thing and just thought they were having a fun conversation with their ocs. which… they were, just. Actually Talking.) they didnt have any inward perception of themself or their headmates either, so that kinda built up over time (with some help) along with the appearance of our headspace so that there was… actually a location for people to interact in. once they had a better awareness of things, mental communication got a bit easier– its sort of like background chatter really, when everybody’s awake. sometimes i get weird out of context things from Mae yelling at somebody, or sometimes ill be talking to a friend and someone’ll butt in.

when talking out loud, this usually leads to us suddenly stopping and then laughing or going “no!!!”. when on discord and around people who know who we are… well.

speaking of Mae, she’s pretty much my sister. not like… biologically? because i don’t think thats possible for me, but shes kinda literally my “other half” which ill get into later. headmates can have strong attachments to other alters! friends, best friends, family, dating, whatever. they can also do that with people outside the system, and itll be different for each headmate. there’s like 4 people dating Jorb but i just see him as one of my best friends. we’re people and we have complex social interactions that can get to be kind of a nightmare when you’re around a bunch of people who don’t know that you’re Not Leo and that youre suddenly not super up to existing around people in general.

plus even if like… so Jorb’s dating 4 of us like i said, but his relationship w/ each of them is different? Ica is very clingy and likes rambling to him, Summer’s pretty much just always happy to hang out, Mae makes fun of him a lot but in a loving way, and Leo is… kinda “all of the above” because that’s his gimmick. plus even tho a few other alters have a sibling-ish relationship with Mae like i do, usually its just me and Mae that do the “chaos siblings” bit.

the basic system.. thing… is that there’s “front”, which is being in control of the body– so, like, i’m currently fronting/in front, because im the one currently active and using our computer and staring at our cat.– and then theres the headspace, where everybody hangs out when theyre not in front. the headspace itself can differ in style & functionality for each system, and i think theres some systems that dont really have a location at all? but for us its like a full on location where we have individual rooms, places to visit if we get bored while away from front, etc.

theres also like, being at/near/away from front? so currently im in front, but Leo is pretty much always lurking nearby if he’s awake (we have individual sleep schedules that dont always sync up to the “irl” one, Trust is almost always sleeping), Ica’s somewhat in the back talking to Rookie so i cant really make out what theyre saying (its probably about either a youtube thing they both like or about a comic they want to do), and everyone else is either asleep (in which case they could be nearby but i cant currently “ping” them, so id have to actually take a sec to ground myself in headspace more) or in a different room. communication is easier if im in front and somebody is nearby, or it can be like with Ica rn where im like “well, theyre talking, but i have no idea what theyre saying and am making a guess based off their usual interactions”, or i could pass off front to go talk to Ica and come back (in which case my memory would be kind of vague and weird because information doesnt always properly translate), oooor i could actually go bug them while still in front. which.. im not gonna do rn bc then id get super distracted.

switching front differs between systems a lot! and even varies from day to day. like there are days where we wake up and we have absolutely no idea who we are bc we went to bed as one person and woke up as another. or we could be talking to somebody and then realize “wait, i stopped being Leo a bit ago, who am i”. or we could pass off front to somebody, like if Summer really wanted to front sie’d run up to me and let me know and we’d swap. or if something critical happens (usually a breakdown), Leo or one of the other headmates that’re more built to handle stressful situations will literally drag somebody out of front to make sure they dont hurt themself. or sometimes we throw front at people unexpectedly, like either mid-breakdown where we go “okay i dont wanna be here anymore, tag youre it” or sometimes because we think its funny because its the metaphysical equivalent of getting clonked in the head with a dodgeball, except the dodgeball is “being in control of our shared physical form”. usually mae’s the one that does that lmao

there’s a couple major categories of how alters come about. there’s “walk-ins”, where they kinda just… appear externally? like they just show up. sometimes we get a feeling of “huh. i think somebody might be here? or somebody might be showing up soon.” and have to rummage around for a while until they approach us or we find them. our walk-ins aren’t like, inherently aware of system stuff at first, so they usually get a crash course before they first front (if they choose to front at all) and it can be kinda entertaining. Rookie’s a walk-in! also Hiro, from a couple years ago. most of our walk-ins are fictives (fictional characters, usually appearing in response to us getting extremely attached to something or somebody) but a couple of our trauma splits are also fictives so that’s not like, a Rule or anything. i think these are mostly associated with non-traumatic systems but we get em fairly often so man idk

theres also… uh, i dunno what theyre actually called? we used to call them “constructs” but that sounds kind of mean. these alters exist to fill a specific role! and we usually dont talk about them on here with the exception of one major one, they just kinda hang out. Dhe exists to keep the system stable and manages the “backend” so to speak. Imp is kind of a mix of our intrusive & impulsive thoughts that came about from us trying to separate ourself from them so that we had an imaginary entity to go “nope!” at, which… stopped being imaginary, and is now a gremlin that lives in my brain. they can show up in response to trauma but arent split off of somebody, they kinda just pop into existence to help manage things.

the more… well-known, i guess? alter origin is “trauma splits”. rather than “just showing up one day with no real connection to the system origins”, trauma splits are formed when somebody in-system, uh, splits. it could be in response to a single situation or something built up over a long time, but somebody just kinda breaks and somebody new that has a bit of the original alter’s identity (if kinda influenced by the situation) shows up.

this can vary. All is a trauma split off of Leo himself, who got saddled with all of our brain hell about our ex and their insystem appearance is influenced more by eir than by leo which is… something they struggle with. Mae has a trauma split from a similar situation that is “Mae but from 2 years ago”, so basically her old identity before she reworked herself after getting put through total hell. and then uh… then there’s me and Mae! Icarus quite literally exploded into several people, with Pat (me) and Mae being the most distinct ones. we’re STILL finding out alters used to originally be a part of them that later evolved into their own people, like Summer and Toby. my identity is shaped pretty heavily not just by who Ica was at time of splitting, but also what they wanted to be jumbled together with trying to rationalize what was happening to them (they’re a pretty big fan of megaman star force, which has a media-typical system in it, so they leaned into hard “its like pat and rey from mmsf! i like pat, i wouldnt mind being like pat, its scary but im like one of my current favourite characters” and so i ended up being like, half-weird shapeshifter, half-green-haired prettyboy. and yeah thats where my name comes from!)

(Ica got put back together w/o anybody needing to integrate, which we were all very scared about, and it’s still kind of surreal to me because… me and Mae used to be able to stick ourself back together and thats how we found out about what happened to Ica in the first place? and we havent tried that since bc we have no idea what would happen. Ica 2: Ica Harder?)

despite their origins, trauma splits can be way more than… being a split. :V;; Toby’s not just a tiny splinter of Ica, he’s a quiet guy that gets stressed out and isn’t totally sure how to interact with people. i’ve existed for like 7 years at minimum and im a totally different person than i was when i thought i was still Ica, ‘cause ive had time to grow and change (and a problem Ica keeps running into now that theyre back is… they kinda Didn’t change because they were MIA for 6 years.) like everything else though this is variable– there can be “temporary” splits that dont develop properly and might get integrated back in, which has only happened to us when we were at the lowest point in our life where we were stuck constantly splitting to try and cope with whatever the hell was going on.

so Ica was gone for 6 years, which meant our system was without an original or main– there wasn’t anybody to be head of the system, basically. for a while i was operating under the assumption that i was Ica, so i filled in that role for a few years before i made the realization. eventually i kinda… stopped being able to, though, bc of stability issues, and then we were back to not really having a proper main anymore. to make up for it, we started going by Leo collectively and kinda… trying to pretend to be a single person? and so that ended up creating a construct to fill the role of “system main and the person we pretend to be when passing as singlet/not a system”: Leo himself! he’s kinda the most prominent traits we all have in common rolled into a single guy, which means that not only is he a pretty good system representative but we can also pretend to be him pretty easily (unless it’s someone like Toby who acts totally different). i dont know how common this situation is, i think normally it’s just “if system original is gone, another alter steps up” like originally happened to us before i had a severe case of problems disorder.

uhhh this is very rambley bc there’s a Lot to cover and now im trying to figure out how much of it i HAVE covered. systems are complicated and weird! OH WAIT okay i have one last bit.

so like, for us, first realizing we were a system was total hell. we fought a lot. as more alters showed up through various means, there were times where Ica felt like they were completely out of control of their own life bc of having to manage everything. there were a lot of panic attacks of people fronting and not being sure they were even REAL, despite… being in front. but we still felt like we were deluding ourself. this was in, like, late 2011, so systems weren’t a THING. they were a very fringe community that everyone hated. we got constantly harassed, which only fed into Ica’s panic hell and our identity issues. interpersonal relationships became a nightmare, especially because we have BPD as well which varies in severity for each of us but… for me it’s pretty bad! there were times early on where every day was another fun new breakdown from us arguing with each other or our friends or not being understood or… etc.

so… how are we holding up ~7 and a half years later? pretty well, actually! we talk to each other. we do things for each other, like buy food or games we know specific headmates like. Ica is back and way happier than they were in 2011, and is thrilled to get to hang out with everybody that’s showed up since. we help each other through problems, because at the end of the day our system ended up being a support network. Ica couldnt function on their own, so we’re like… 10+ people working together to try and be a single functional person. and we feel pretty okay with that! we still fight, and we still start shit, but we’re not in constant crisis anymore. we’re still working through all of our trauma, especially the more “recent” stuff that kinda broke our system for a while until we were able to start rebuilding, but we’re doing it together. :D

so… yeah, it can start out as a stereotypical “nightmare system”, with constant infighting and toxicity and self-sabotage and etc. but we worked through it! it took a while, but we’re overall more stable than we were before. we got out of the bad environment that was fucking us up, we got mental help for our other brain hell (we havent been able to bring up the system to our therapists bc its literally a non-issue now and we focus more on other things like our depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc), we found people that support us for being us, and we were able to like… figure things out. and it was a mess! i still have issues about my own identity because of literally thinking i was someone else for two years. Ica’s still trying to figure out how to adjust to things, especially bc they missed our entire “cringe culture” phase so they came back to find that i’d dismantled a lot of their middle-school settings. and, uh, some of their friendships as well.

systems are fuckin weird

[thebibliomancer]

50 More Days of Comics! 24/50: Arak: Son of Thunder Annual #1 (1984)

“ARAK: IN THE LAIR OF THE SERPENT LORD”

Pretty great title.

I am pretty sure I had never heard of this character until I saw this cover! Probably! He might have been in one of the weirder Justice League Unlimited issues. I think in JLU it turns out that the world is hollow and that there’s a fantasy world inside it for some reason? Or maybe that was an episode of Superman?

Anyway, Arak (Son of Thunder) is an interesting sort.

He was a relatively respectful Native American character for his time which meant that he did not have broken speech or stereotypical powers like super-tracking (looking at you nearly every X-Men Native American character).

And he has a pretty bonkers backstory for a guy that was initially a Conan the Barbarian ripoff.

(Roy Thomas explicitly says in the letters column in the back of this issue that he came up with Arak because Conan Properties wouldn’t let him write a Conan novel. So. Y’know. Make of that what it is.)

See, Star-of-Dawn of the Quontauka Native tribe was fleeing from an amorous evil serpent god and was rescued by the thunder god He-No. She married He-No out of gratitude for saving her from an evil horny snake god but wasn’t really in love with him and missed her people so he returned her home.

And then she gave birth to a demigod, Bright-Sky-After-Storm.

Later, in a one-two punch the serpent god attached He-No while a tribe that worshipped evil snakes attacked the Quontauka. While thunder has a type advantage against snakes, He-No sacrificed himself to save his son and send him floating out into the sea where he was out of reach.

Where he was found by Vikings, as ya do.

One of the Vikings raised him and named him Eric, which became Arak due to the young boy’s mispronunciation.

He joins their raids until a sorceress sends a sea serpent after the Vikings. The serpent kills all but Arak who throws a cross like a Castlevania and impales the serpent through the brain.

A nearby monk says that god has delivered them which makes Arak wonder if it was the monk’s god or his own god. And so he sets off to have adventures and becomes a good friend of Charlemagne and gets romantically involved with a paladin called Valda the Iron Maiden.

So basically Arak has an awesome life, give or take being serially orphaned.

Aside from being set in a real historical period, Arak tends to interact with real mythological nonsense rather than Conan’s sword and sorcery type deal.

And that’s the need to know for this annual. Oh, that and he at some point found the flaming sword of Gabriel, which drove the first humans out of Eden and which can command Christian, Jew, and Muslim. That is a thing that exists and that Arak has and that the bad guy wants.

And as this annual starts, Arak and his good pal Satyricus (…… a satyr, obviously) are on their way to the titular lair of the serpent lord to exchange the Sword of Gabriel for boy-prince Alsind and his cousin Sharizad, friends of Arak’s that the Serpent Lord took hostage.

They are briefly waylaid by desert bandits who get the best of Arak by taking Satyricus the Satyr hostage but the Sword of Gabriel is the real sword of evil’s bane and when the bandit leader unveils it, it burns out his eyes.

Between this and Indiana Jones, god stuff is just really user unfriendly, isn’t it?

The bandits flee in terror of the eye melting sword and Arak has to reswaddle the thing.

No easy task as it wants to rocket to heaven and also its on fire.

Through some weird ritual that Arak himself doesn’t quite understand, he… iunno, wipes the fire into the hilt? so he can rewrap the blade.

Satyricus has some misgivings about turning over the Sword of Gabriel to the Serpent Lord who either works for or is the same snake god that tried to boink Arak’s mom and wiped out his tribe. But Arak gotta do what Arak gotta do.

Then a giant, unnatural cyclone comes at them. Satyricus promises to stick to Arak like his shadow but he’s just so small. He gets blown away by the winds. And as the cyclone blasts Arak with sand he swears he’ll find his friend.

But for some reason, being buffeted by winds makes Arak start contemplating his life backwards, thinking of Valda, the paladin. Thinking of the sea serpent who killed the Vikings who adopted him. Thinking of the good times he had raiding and pillaging with them.

And when the winds subside he finds himself in a familiar forest, the very forest of his long lost birthplace!

Tornados are surprisingly good transportation in fiction.

Satyricus finds himself in quite a different locale though. The tornado somehow blew him into a cave. A cave with a Cerberus in it. Aw hell, he’s in Hades!

The dogs don’t bork which means he’s dead and belongs so he passes by them and meets the ferryman Charon who offers Satyricus a ride across the river Styx.

Satryicus has no coin and also doesn’t want to be dead yet. He has so much to live for. “For love, Charon! Love of green fields, sunshine, sweet fruits, and tender women. Aye, and for love of a friend – one I’ve sworn to protect as he searches the world for his homeland!”

And then a dead friend of Satyricus’ pops up and sasses him.

Khiron: “Just like you, Satyricus, to die without a Grecian obol to your name!”

And then he tells Satyricus to just wade across the river. Pssh what? Its going to kill the dead? Yeah right! What even is the point of Charon here? For ghosts afraid to get their feet wet?

Because he does it! Satyricus just wades across. And he’s short!

Satyricus and Khiron catch up before Satyricus decides actually fuck being dead and decides to spring Khiron. The centaur protests he’s too weak to jail break out of Hades and Charon is like come on dude I’mma have to scythe you if you try to leave.

But Satyricus kicks a hole in Charon’s boat, which tips the skeleton into the drink when it capsizes. The satyr steals Charon’s scythe and thus the scyther becomes the one who is scythed.

He stabs Charon.

Actually pretty crafty, Satyricus. Granted, you look sinister af due to cultural biases against short hairy men with goat legs, goatees, and horns but well played.

He also stabs Cerberus. And I understand that it had to be done to escape but it still fills me with sadness. That poor doggo.

Satyricus and Khiron find themselves emerging into the green glades of ancient Greece. And together they vow that the last centaur and the last satyr will drive the barbarians out of the land and restore its glory. I’m not up on my relative time periods so I’m not sure which barbarians were occupying Greece during the time of Charlemagne but its probably a good thing for a satyr and centaur to start a populous movement.

Elsewhere in America perhaps, Arak ponders his situation. The witch-queen Angelica once used magic to show him that some Quontauka were still alive and offered to transport him to them. But since she was quite evil, he didn’t agree. But maybe a similar magic was in that ol’ tornado.

He doesn’t have much time to ponder because the snake tribe is attacking the Quontauka again! He rushes in and starts cutting and scalding people.

He sees a snake tribesman about to split open an old woman’s skull as his mother’s was years ago but this time he has a sword that is on fire! And he throws it at the dude and burns him. The burned guy flees.

To his surprise, Arak discovers that not only is this situation reminiscent to what happened to his mother its actually his actual supposedly dead mother that he saved!

Arak’s grandfather White-Snow Owl arrives and asks him to take up the fire sword as the Quontauka’s warchief and put the fear in all other tribes.

Arak protests that he did not return to lead them against tribes that have no quarrel with them. Besides, his journey isn’t done. The hostages of the serpent lord will die unless he exchanges the sword for them.

Arak: “One of those I must save is but a child – another a young woman!”

White-Snow Owl: “I do not care.”

And then White-Snow Owl demands that Arak give him the sword. Ahh but see. Arak is the name the Vikings gave him. His tribesmen have been calling him their name for him, Bright-Sky-After-Storm. Why would White-Snow Owl know his Viking name?

So Arak stabs his grandfather.

A lot of stabbing in this sword and sorcery.

And it turns out that his grandfather was a snake and also not his grandfather.

It turns out everyone was snakes. So Arak burns it all down.

And finds himself in a Grecian glade where Satyrnicus and Khiron are hanging out.

Satyrnicus is thrilled to see him and wants to tell him how his once-meek goat-legged friend broke out of Hades but Arak has figured out the score.

This is all illusion. A very convincing illusion. One that knows your memories and knows what you want to see. But Arak won’t be fooled.

He stabs Khiron with the sword of Gabriel which apparently only destroys the wicked and false and reveals that the centaur was actually a man-snake and is now also dead. From the stabs.

Satyrnicus is aghast that he beat Hades all by himself only to lead a monster to his nice home.

No, no. You didn’t get a cool victory or get to go home to a nice green glade. You’re still in the sandy wasteland, Arak says.

Poor Satyrnicus doesn’t get to have anything nice like overthrowing Hades. Oh boo.

Arak waves the sword around until the illusion gives up. That’s probably how dispelling illusions works.

And then the titular Lair of the Serpent Lord finally shows its snake head themed entrance, emerging from under the sand only 32 pages into this 40 page story.

The Serpent Lord almost pulls off the aesthetic. He’s green and scaly and has snake men minions and a snake draped around his hands like a boa but he has horns and I’ve never seen a snake with horns.

Anyway, the Serpent Lord cheekily laments that Arak didn’t fall for the temptations of the whirlwind. Then he would have had the hostages and the sword.

Alsind and Sharizad beg Arak not to give the sword of Gabriel to the Serpent Lord but he ignores their pleas and swears on He-No’s name that after the two hostages are released, he’ll throw the sword to the steps of Serpent Lord’s throne.

Since Arak is an honorable sort where his words are his bond and especially vows on his father and all, Serpent Lord agrees.

He releases the hostages and Arak throws the sword.

Satyrnicus suggests that they amscray but Arak says not yet but for his group to cover their eyes.

Arak: “Guard your eyes, and pray to all your several gods – for I suspect a weapon forged in Heaven will not abide for long a demon’s hand.”

And when one of Serpent Lord’s snake dudes goes to bring it to him the sword angrily flares, incinerating all the snake dudes to ash and bone on the spot.

Arak, Satyrnicus, Alsind and Sharizad are protected by Arak’s shaman aura. And the Serpent Lord by his own sorcery. And then the flare dims, that wily ol’ Serpent Lord is running to grab the sword.

So Arak runs and they both grab it at the same time. And wrassle over it .

The Serpent Lord questions Arak’s oath to turn the sword over but Arak points out that he only swore to deliver it to the Serpent Lord’s throne and did not say what he would do after that.

I always sort of wonder what the point of having such a sense of honor that you must abide by your word, even if it was under duress, when you are also willing to wriggle out through dumb baby word games?

I mean, yes, good thinking on Arak’s part to phrase it in an exploitable way but if you’re doing that are you actually an honorable person?

You’ll build a loophole into a promise but god help you if you lie?

Honor is weird.

The Serpent Lord is actually Arak’s match in muscle so they go all over the place tugging the sword until Arak has an idea.

He beseeches the fire spirits which rest within the sword to flee evil’s grasp by abandoning their metal home. And then he just kind of… pulls away with a sword-shaped fire in his hands.

Serpent Lord decides that he can still use the metal of the blade to kill Arak and you’d think that a metal blade would go right through a fire. But guess what. This is angelic fire or something.

Serpent Lord swings his metal sword and it strikes the fire sword and the metal sword melts all over Serpent Lord’s hands.

Which has to be somewhere up there in terms of things that hurt a whole hell of a lot.

And then Arak stabs him.

There’s a lot of stabbing etc etc.

And then Arak tells the sword it can go home and releases it and the fire flies into the sky, going home.

Arak: “So go you forth, mighty sword! Fly upward to the abode of angels – nevermore to be raised anew against the works of man unless a god decrees!”

You’re a cool guy, Arak.

Now, nearly exhausted Arak still has to run because the Serpent Lord was one of those load bearing bosses and his snakehead lair is collapsing.

And he notices tracks of blood leading out into the desert. The Serpent Lord isn’t dead.

Arak decides not to chase after him. As wounded as he is it will be a long time before he can menace other men. And whatever else, he has been forever denied the Sword of Gabriel because it flew home.

And the Serpent Lord’s anger at being thwarted is a problem for another day.

I actually quite enjoyed this.

As mentioned, Arak is a pretty cool dude. With cool friends (although I kept wanting to call Satyrnicus Phil because it’d be easier to type). And this was a pretty cool adventure.

Arak: Son of Thunder apparently only got 50 issues and this annual and a scant few other appearances. And then recentlyish reappared having been mind controlled into being Braniac’s minion in Convergence. Which… is a choice.

But this issue was good.

Tangentially, it very much felt like you could get a dnd module out of this.

[grace13star]

Contemptible Me Chapter 8: Roman

Triggers: Violence, minor swearing, Deceit, gun violence, fighting

Characters: Roman (Prince), Logan (Berry), Virgil (Sanders), Lyle Draven (Deceit)

----------------

Roman still didn’t trust Virgil fully.

He had known Virgil for almost two years now, but as a civilian. He acted so differently as Anxiety. Who knew what he was really like? He could actually think like Anxiety, and he could be leading them straight into a trap. Maybe his protests about splitting up was just reverse psychology. Maybe-

“Prince! Concentrate,” Logan hissed.

Roman looked up and saw he was falling behind. He sped up a bit, leveling with Logan.

“We don’t have Virgil with us now, so we’ll have to either avoid more guards or take them down somehow without alerting everyone else in this facility.” Logan said, not sounding out of breath in the slightest, despite the fact they were practically sprinting.

Footsteps echoed off the metal walls, coming around the corner. Roman pulled open the first door he saw and dragged Logan in.

Luckily the room was empty. It looked like an armoury, since there were over two dozen guns hanging from the wall. Roman even saw some nunchucks. The guards thundered past their hiding place.

“Coming in on disturbance point,” come a voice, probably speaking on a walkie talkie. “Stand-by, command.”

Roman shot a glance at Logan to see him concentrating. Probably some technopath stuff.

The footsteps faded, still heading in Patton and Virgil’s direction. A bit of worry flared in Roman’s gut. He didn’t exactly trust him, but he’d known Virgil for awhile, and Patton was a very old friend, so he was still attached to both of them.

Roman listened to make sure there was no one outside, then opened the door cautiously.

“Got anything?” He asked.

Logan nodded. “His walkie talkie had a direct connection to this ‘command.’ We’re headed the right way.”

Logan led the way this time, navigating the surprisingly complex maze of hallways as if he’d had a map. Occasionally he’d have to stop, or they had to turn back, or hide from another squadron of guards, but eventually they were in front of a large metal door.

“You’re sure?” Roman asked.

Logan was studying the keyboard next to the door. “Just numbers,” he reported. “Give me a second. And,” he paused, “maybe draw your sword. There will most definitely be guards.”

Roman pulled out the sword and prepared himself.

Now that his trusty sword was in his hands, he felt better about all of this. There was still some anxiety pooling in his gut, but they were attempting to break into an organization that was seemingly single-handedly responsible for both superheroes and supervillains.

Logan did his techno-whatever stuff, and the door slid open like some kind of Star Trek thing.

“Hey, Roy!” One of the people inside called out. “Did you bring me my cappuccino?”

Then she turned to see Logan and Roman.

Almost immediately a gun was in her hands, pointed at them. “Who are you?” She asked.

“Step aside, or we’ll be forced to hurt you,” Logan said, his voice hard. Roman nodded, brandishing his sword, even though he knew if she opened fire there was no way he could block all -if any- of them.

She faltered a bit, but stood back up straight. “My-my job is to guard this place.”

“Just you?” Logan asked, eyes narrowed.

She hesitated before nodding.

“She’s not alone,” Logan realized. Roman swung around only to almost get hit in the face with those nunchucks he’d seen earlier.

He stumbled back, the guy swinging the nunchucks following. Roman shot a look at Logan, hoping he’d get the message. Logan nodded and turned to the first guard.

The nunchuck guy didn’t seem to have any training with them. He basically just tried to hit Roman with them. His stance was all wrong, and Roman couldn’t help but wince when he saw that. Seriously, was that Lyle Draven guy even trying?

The next time the nunchucks came at him, he grabbed them in mid-air. His palm stung, but it was easy to grab the weapon from the guy.

“What did you do, just grab the first thing you saw?” Roman asked, looking over the nunchucks. Logan hadn’t had much training with these, so his knowledge was rudimentary at most.

Rudimentary? Jeez, he was spending too much time with Logan. Big words were not his thing.

He took a closer look at the guy that was just trying to beat him up, and was shocked to see he was probably a few younger than Virgil.

“You’re just a kid!” He exclaimed before he could stop himself.

“I’m 19,” the kid scowled.

Roman shot a look over at Logan and the girl. She seemed to be giving Logan access to everything. Now that he looked closer, she looked about as young as the kid over here.

He knew somewhere in the back of his brain that he was being stupid, he was only 22, 3 years older than this guy. Not that big of an age difference.

The guy lunged at him again. His weapons were fists against a sword, but he didn’t seem to care.

Now that Roman could see how young he was (not that young) he didn’t want to hurt him. The girl had given up easily, why couldn’t he?

The kid’s fist came for his face, so he just caught it. He twisted the guy’s arm just enough to hurt slightly, but not enough to do any permanent damage. He glanced over at Logan who as typing away, probably erasing them from the systems, as well as Virgil and Patton.

Roman had a bad feeling about this.

This kid was a bit of a problem, not knowing when to quit, but the girl had given up too easy. She had a gun! She could have shot Logan while Roman was busy with her friend.

And if this was command, their central headquarters, with all the information and technology, why was it only guarded by two kids just barely out of high school?

He was about to say something to Logan when he heard a hissing.

Sure it’s Florida, and snakes are almost as common as crocodiles, but there was no way one was in this sterile science fiction underground villain lair.

And that was when the guy and girl fainted.

Roman was starting to feel a bit woozy, and he noticed a pain in his head as if someone was stabbing him above the eye with a blunt knife. He looked over at Logan in time to see him collapse. He stumbled back, wondering who Logan was, and then everything went black.

When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see he was in the same place as before. Logan, the guy and the girl were gone.

He tried to sit up and regretted it. The stabbing pain he remembered from before he passed out was back with a vengeance. He sat up slower, head still throbbing, but less now.

The screen was on, switching between cameras all over the facility. He saw a large warehouse-like space filled with boxes of who-knows-what. It switched and he saw an empty hallway. It switched again and he saw Patton run across the screen.

Where’s Virgil? He thought, brow furrowed. He tapped an arrow key and was back at the empty hallway. He switched keys and saw different hallways, a different room with people watching screens, a room with a rock in the center and a kid touching the rock, another 2 empty hallways, and-

Wait a minute.

The kid in the rock room had looked suspiciously familiar. He zoomed in, not even aware of what he was doing, and studied the kids face.

It was like looking at a younger Virgil without the emo hair and style.

“The similarity is amazing, isn’t it?”

Roman twirled around, sword in his hand suddenly, pointed at the man standing behind him.

The man was wearing a bowler hat which made Roman immediately think of Meet the Robinsons, especially with the weird cape thing this man was also wearing. The hat combined with the man tilting his head, and the way he was standing in the shadows prevented Roman from seeing his face.

“Who are you?” He asked.

Only half of the man’s smirk was visible as he answered. “That’s definitely the most important thing right now.” The sarcasm in his voice was apparent.

Roman was confused. “What?”

Roman waited for more, but the man didn’t seem like he was answering anything, especially not an unvoiced question.

Finally Roman broke. “What is important right now?”

“I have to say, you 4 are the worst things that ever happened to me,” The man said, not at all answering Roman’s question. “Everyone else is so not boring. Logan was not the first to figure it out. Or even get far away. I programmed that message such a short time ago, I almost had not forgotten about it.”

“What message?” Roman asked. This man seemed to mean the opposite of whatever he said. Figuring out what he was saying was causing Roman’s already pounding head to throb more.

The man waved it off. “That’s important right now.”

“Where are my friends?” Roman demanded. “What did you do with them?”

“Everything!” The man said, finally raising his head.

Roman was speechless for a second. The half of his face the man had hid in the shadows was badly burned, the skin pink and scaly, reminding Roman of a lizard. Or a snake.

He found his voice after a minute.

“Okay, Black Mum-Lie, you need to answer my questions.”

The man grinned. “Don’t I?”

It took Roman a minute with that one. “Uh, yes, you do, Jekyll and Lied.”

“I did everything to your friends,” The man said. “And poor Virgil did nothing.”

Roman froze. What?

“What does that mean? Are you implying that Virgil hurt the others?” If it was true… Roman lowered his sword slightly, hoping his suspicions weren’t correct.

“No.”

A scream echoed from the computers behind him. He whirled around, momentarily forgetting about the burned man behind him. There was only one thing on his mind.

Patton.

Patton was on the screen, backed into a corner by Virgil. Virgil’s face was twisted in a snarl as he advanced on Patton, shadows curling around him and sharpening.

The picture changed to another empty hallway.

“No!” Roman frantically pressed some keys trying to get back to what he’d seen, but all that he saw was more empty hallways.

He twirled around to the man, but the room was empty.

Roman cursed, then grabbed his sword and ran out of the room.

“Patton!” He yelled, not caring if he ran into any guards anymore. “Logan! Where are you?”

He thought he heard something faintly in the back of his head. It sounded like a voice saying something.

No time to go crazy now, Roman, he thought. Save it for after you’ve rescued Patton and found Logan and defeated Virgil and maybe whoever that guy was.

Suddenly the voice was back louder, and his vision was getting blurry again. Was he being gassed again? Was he still affected by the gas from earlier?

“-man! Roman! Holy-”

“Roman! Wake up! Fu-”

Suddenly he snapped up. He was laying in the command center again.

“Oh thank god,” he heard.

He looked over to see Virgil fighting off three guards. They were firing guns and Virgil had put up a shadow barrier in between them and him.

“Listen, Princey,” Virgil said, sweating and not even looking over at Roman, “I lost Patton after that gas hit, and I have no idea where Logan is. What we can assume, from everything happening, is that they are aware of us and we need to all meet up.”

Roman growled. “What did you do to Patton?”

Virgil faltered a bit. “What? I just said I lost him.”

“I saw you!” Roman shouted, ignoring the people shooting at them. “You were threatening him!”

“You really think I would threaten Patton?” Virgil asked incredulously. “You guys are my only chance at finding Thomas, why would I attack you guys?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me, Anxiety?”

Virgil froze at the name. Luckily the wall stayed there, giving them cover.

Roman stood up ignoring the headache that was still there, and pulled out his sword. “Let me take care of this,” he muttered.

Virgil scowled. “Fine.” He let the wall drop in front of Roman and left it for himself. The guards saw this immediately and focused fire on Roman.

Roman yelped, immediately regretting this. He blocked a few bullets with his sword and then ducked behind the computer. They had to run out of ammunition eventually, right?

Five minutes later they still had not.

“Do they have infinite resources?” Roman muttered.

Virgil was watching him with an unimpressed look on his face.

Finally he seemed to get fed up and lashed out with the shadow wall. The guards went down, unconscious, and Virgil turned to glare at him.

“Nice job, Princey,” he grumbled, then started out of the room.

“Wait!” Roman hurried after him. “You aren’t leaving my sight, Sweeney Todd.”

Virgil groaned as he kept walking. “You obviously don’t trust me. Why are you following me?”

“Who knows what you’re about to do,” Roman said. “We don’t need anymore problems.”

“Why am I always the bad guy?” Virgil exploded. “I just want to save my brother and have my friends be safe. I would never threaten Patton. I just saved your ass back there. I never wanted to hurt you, or anyone.”

Roman paused, seeing the tears in Virgil’s eyes. He was no empath, but he didn’t think any actor could put on such an emotional performance. He could almost see Virgil’s regret and anger hanging in the air, swirling around them. Or maybe that was just the shadows he could control.

“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” Roman said after a minute of silence. “And only because we need to find Logan and Patton. But I know what I saw.”

“Wait,” Virgil frowned. “When did you see it?” Roman frowned as well. “Uh, right before the fire fight.”

“When you were asleep?” Virgil asked.

Roman nodded slowly, vaguely aware of the implications.

“Someone’s trying to turn us against each other,” Virgil said. “Probably the guy behind this all. Lyle Draven.”

“I might have seen him,” Roman said, thinking back to the man with the snake face.

“Let’s focus on finding Patton and Logan first,” Virgil said, pulling out his phone. “Then we find Thomas and get out of here.”

Roman nodded.

Virgil was pulling up Logan’s contact. Roman smiled at the name Virgil had him under.

Virgil hit call, and the phone started ringing.

Calling Professor Specs.

“I already tried Patton,” Virgil said as the phone rang, “But I didn’t get through.”

The phone was picked up. “Virgil?” Logan’s voice was scratchy and he sounded very tired.

“Hey, Specs,” Virgil said. “Any idea where you are, or where Patton is?”

Another voice that wasn’t Logan’s came through, causing Virgil to freeze.

“Virgil? Is that you?”

[endmetrash]

I was tagged by @1runw1thwolves212

I actually wrote half of this earlier today but lost it, a whole bucket load of fun.

(The) Last (I can make people (@1runw1thwolves212) die by those two words)

1) Drink: Water

2) Phone call: My mother, last week

3) Text message: iMessages - @1runw1thwolves212 and @omggryffindog, text – drama friend, Tumblr - @1runw1thwolves

4) Song I listened to: I Like It by BTS

5) Time I cried: watching a play yesterday, it featured a blind woman suffering from a brain tumour who bonds with a poor art student shortly before her death.

Have you ever

6) Dated someone twice: People do that? No, I’ve never dated anyone.

7) Been cheated on: See above

8) Kissed someone and regretted it: As a result of never having dated, I’ve never kissed anyone either.

9) Lost someone special: Many friends when I moved houses at 8, others when I moved schools a few more times. My father when I was 10.

10) Been depressed: I don’t think I’ve been clinically depressed. But I’ve been in a bad space…about once a day.

11) Gotten drunk and thrown up: Never drank that much alcohol.

List three favourite colours

12) Bluey green

13) Greeny blue

14) Black

In the last year have you

15) Made new friends: Not close ones…

16) Fallen out of love: Again, never really experienced that type of love.

17) Laughed until you cried: Yesterday, my drama group has a whole heap of inside jokes.

18) Found out someone was talking about you: Again, yesterday, but not at drama.

19) Met someone who changed you: I’m a believer of every single action affecting other people, so undoubtedly yes.

20) Found out who your true friends are: I’ve known who they are for over a year, actually.

21) Kissed someone on your Facebook list: I don’t have Facebook, and again, I’ve never been kissed (ah, I remember that movie)

General

22) How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: See 21.

23) Do you have any pets: I have a dog

24) Do you want to change your name: I’m starting to grow attached to my first name, but I still wanna change my last and middle names.

25) What did you do for your last birthday: I had a shared birthday with a friend. A groups of friends and ourselves went to see La La Land.

26) What time did you wake up: Around 8-9.

27) What were you doing at midnight last night: I think I was asleep?

28) Name something you can’t wait for: BTS comeback! It’s going to be amazing!

29) When was the last time you saw your mother: Can I just register the fact that this question is a little weird? My answer is 2-3 months ago, I honestly can’t remember.

30) What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: This is deep. One of two things. I wish I could either change how emotionally sensitive I am or the fact that my family is so disjointed.

31) What are you listening to right now: You Were Beautiful by Day6.

32) Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Weirdly specific question. Yes, I have a step-grandfather named Tom.

33) Something that is getting on your nerves: My family.

34) Most visited website: YouTube

35) Elementary school: 5 different ones.

36) High school: Only one.

37) College: Not certain about degree, but I’m gonna go as soon as I finish high school.

38) Hair colour: Blonde, I think it’s fair?

39) Long or short hair: Just above my shoulders.

40) Do you have a crush on someone: Not anymore.

41) What do you like about yourself: How quickly I learn and how sympathetic and emotionally creative I am.

42) Piercings: I used to have the standard ear piercings, but I let the holes close in.

43) Blood type: I used to be tested a heap, but I don’t have contact with anyone who knows. I’m actually curious.

44) Nickname: Tash, Trash.

45) Relationship status: Single and not really willing to mingle yet.

46) Zodiac sign: Pisces

47) Favourite TV show: I don’t really know…how about…American Hustle Life (BTS TV series)! That was on TV! It’s a series! It counts, right?

48) Tattoos: I don’t have any, but once I’m legally able to get one, I want a pretty reference to a book/movie/anything really. It would probably be one of those deep and meaningful quotes, it would be somewhere I can hide easily but won’t look weird if I show off.

49) Right handed or left handed: Right handed, though I don’t feel uncomfortable doing some things left handed.

First

50) Surgery: I don’t know if I had one earlier, but I had to have tongue surgery because the join between my tongue and the bottom of my mouth was REALLY far forward.

51) Piercing: My ears, I think I was 9-10.

52) Best friend: Jacob, I haven’t seen him since I moved house just before I was 8, I honestly could barely even remember his name, makes me feel kinda sad.

53) Sport: Swimming, I think I started that before horse riding.

54) Vacation: Cairns, QLD, Aus. I was 8 years old.

55) Pair of trainers: Wait, who ACTUALLY remembers that stuff!

Right now

56) Eating: Haven’t eaten for AGES

57) Drinking: I finished a bottle of water just recently

58) I’m about to: Get back to doing my homework, I gotta annotate myself a book by Tuesday.

59) I’m listening to: Fire by BTS

60) Waiting for: As above, BTS COMEBACK ITS GOING TO BE AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL. Also for the next Every Day6 release, Hi Hello is beautiful and makes me feel emotions.

61) Want: My friends, food, sleep, no homework, BTS comeback, all BTS merchandise and music, to meet BTS.

62) Get married: Umm? Not at the moment, and I’m uncertain about making that commitment at all.

63) Career: Frankly, I have no clue.

Which is better

64) Hugs or kisses: Hugs, because I have experience and a good hug is the BEST feeling.

65) Lips or eyes: Eyes, they tell you so much about a person and they’re really pretty to look at.

66) Shorter or taller: Depends on what for. For friendship I’ll say shorter because I’m used to that. For a romantic relationship I’ll say taller, but not by much, probably because of relationship stereotypes. I think I’m slightly traditional in terms of romantic attachments.

67) Older or younger: I don’t care about age specifically, but I internally believe in the stereotype that older people are more mature so might go for someone older for relationship on that basis. I focus on personality more that age.

68) Romantic or spontaneous: I really don’t know, I want a connection with my partner so I don’t really care about romantic gestures.

69) Nice arms or nice stomach: Honestly, I couldn’t care less. I care about how I get along with my partner. Can I answer nice personality?

70) Sensitive or loud: I want someone who is both. I suppose more sensitive as I want someone who really pays attention to me and cares about how I feel. I want someone who can be loud though as I want to be able to have fun with my partner.

71) Hook up or relationship: Relationship, no doubt. I care about emotional connections.

72) Troublemaker or hesitant: I want someone who can do both. I suppose troublemaker as that person would be more confident than the hesitant one?

Have you ever

73) Kissed a stranger: As above, I have no experience.

74) Drank hard liquor: Nope.

75) Lost glasses/contact lenses: Real talk, I am the WORST when it comes to losing glasses. At one time I had THREE pairs of glasses lost AT THE SAME TIME.

76) Turned someone down: Um, no one’s ever propositioned me…so…

77) Sex on first date: No, I despise the thought.

78) Broken someone’s heart: Does my own count?

79) Had your own heart broken: Platonically, yes, almost constantly because of a few bad friendships I’ve been in. Romantically, see above.

80) Been arrested: No.

81) Cried when someone died: When that someone was a fictional character, yes. I am TERRIBLE at not crying, I just feel all the emotions and can’t help myself. When that someone is a real person, yes. Nowhere near as much as a fictional character, but still a lot. I taught drama to young primary school children and one of them was involved in an accident. This was around November last year and I still wanna punch anyone who brings the topic up.

82) Fallen for a friend: I draw a strict line between people I allow myself to feel that way for. Anyone in a position of authority or I am close to platonically are definitely in the DO NOT FALL FOR zone

Do you believe in

83) Yourself: Not really.

84) Miracles: No

85) Love at first sight: That, my dear, is called hormones and is an ATTRACTION. I believe that ‘love at first sight’ will not last unless built up and strengthened over time.

86) Santa Claus: Nope, the only reason I pretend to around my family is so that I get the benefit of presents.

87) Kiss on the first date: Depends on how long you’ve known each other, how close you are and the dynamic at that moment. I would definitely say no to anything too extensive,

88) Angels: Not beyond the comparison to really kind people.

Other

89) Current best friend’s name: I refuse to choose between Tara and Payton, so there you go, you get both (see Tara, one of us is fair).

90) Eye colour: Blue

91) Favourite movie: I really have no clue…

Ok, that’s it. I don’t really have anyone to tag so just feel free to do it. Sorry for the delay in posting.

[lil-melody-moon]

revenge... 1 to 99, added extra question: Why do you love Yuri so much?

1. What is you middle//full name?          My middle name is Ewelina. I know, very original considering that my first name is Karolina

2. How old are you? 18 and still acting like child

3. What is your birthday? 22th of July. Best month of the year X3

4. What is your zodiac sign? Cancer ^^

5. What is your favorite color? Purple! And blue as well… Maybe pink too…

6. What’s your lucky number? 4 and 9

7. Do you have any pets? Yes an 11 years old dog. Though he acts like he would be 5 years old and he’s an ass. But a lovely ass

8. Where are you from? Poland

9. How tall are you? Around 166cm

10. What shoe size are you? In European measures 39 or 40, depends

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Umn… 4 maybe?

12. What was your last dream about? Ugh, that was a weird one. I have a small crush on one of my classmates. He can be really charming sometimes and my brain apparently thought that it is a good idea to dream about a moment when he actually is kissing me in classroom. Though the strange part was that his behavior was actually Yuuri’s behavior. So a nice combination, but… My classmate isn’t that charming as Yuuri sadly. So dream stays a dream.

13. What talents do you have? Pissing off people around me, get attached to fictional characters to the point that I am caring and am worried about them like for real people, learning languages, liking hard languages, coming up with ideas for one-shots or drawing from thin air, being very grumpy sometimes… And being a no life for the most part of my free time

14. Are you psychic in any way? My intuition is usually right, and the annoying voice in the back of my head too… It is very annoying!

15. Favorite song? Just like mentioned before “Leave Out All The Rest” by Linkin Park

16. Favorite movie? "101 Dalmatians 2: Patch’s London Adventure" and this won’t change

17. Who would be your ideal partner? Considering the fact that I like well… The not so normal people… A grumpy and sometimes funny and with an edgy character boy would be good ^u^

18. Do you want children? If possible then yes, why not?

19. Do you want a church wedding? Nah

20. Are you religious?  Nah

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? Yeah, a few visits in there because of my family… I hate hospitals

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? Nope, I am an angel fake smile, *hides the huge smirk crawling up my innocent face*

23. Have you ever met any celebrities? Nope

24. Baths or showers? Showers definitely.

25. What color socks are you wearing? Fluffy blue ones. My grandma bought them for me ;u;

26. Have you ever been famous? Right now in my high school class. I am famous for the person with sharp tongue. Really, I can be such an asshole to some people…

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? Nope, I want to stay as I am. On the side, doing my own stuff without a care for the outside world.

28. What type of music do you like? Heavy metal, Neue Deutsche Härte, Nu metal, Orchiestral music, Japanese music, games soundtracks

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? No

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? One fluffy one. I love fluffy things X3

31. What position do you usually sleep in? On the right side, curled into a ball

32. How big is your house? Little flat with kitchen, bathroom and two rooms

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? Eggs! I love eggs :3

34. Have you ever fired a gun? No

35. Have you ever tried archery? No, but it seems to be a lot of fun

36. Favorite clean word? Comfy

37. Favorite swear word? Fuck, but I like to use my native language meaning for this word. It sounds better

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? You do not want to be near me without something to defend yourself if I don’t sleep more than 3 hours

39. Do you have any scars? Nope

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? No, I am not that beautiful… And probably my charisma is way too original for normal people

41. Are you a good liar? Yes, a very good one!

42. Are you a good judge of character? Yes, I am usually observing someone for a long time before I am showing my true self. I don’t trust anyone, besides my friends.

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? Yes, English and a bit of German

44. Do you have a strong accent? Let’s be honest, Polish doesn’t have a very strong accent. If it comes to English than yes, I do have strong one. And about German accent… Still working on it :3

45. What is your favorite accent? Without a doubt, German

46. What is your personality type? Dunno, didn’t do that test

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? I don’t know

48. Can you curl your tongue? Yeah

49. Are you an innie or an outie? Innie

50. Left or right handed? Right handed

51. Are you scared of spiders? No that much. Just little thingies walking on their small 8 legs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

52. Favorite food? *scratches my head*  Chicken soup with self made noodles

53. Favorite foreign food? Pizza or Spaghetti

54. Are you a clean or messy person? Clean, I hate mess

55. Most used phrased? Dunno

56. Most used word? Just

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? In the morning before school? An hour

58. Do you have much of an ego? Sometimes *sweats*

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? Suck

60. Do you talk to yourself?  A lot. And then my mom thinks that I am talking to her

61. Do you sing to yourself? Yes, it helps to concentrate on things

62. Are you a good singer? Dunno, ask my dog Dog: Woof!

63. Biggest Fear? Being left alone

64. Are you a gossip? No

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? I am not watching movies, though I came up with very dramatic au for my oc x canon character. Not gonna tell because smart me is too shy

66. Do you like long or short hair? Long or middle. They are fun to draw

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? No. I have problems with Polish map and you want me to know states of America?

68. Favorite school subject? German all the way!

69. Extrovert or Introvert? Introvert

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? Yes, once or twice

71. What makes you nervous? Talking out loud in front of people who I don’t know. Getting involved into situation where a lot of people needs to get their voice about something

72. Are you scared of the dark? No, dark is nice and calm.

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? Yes because I just have the urge to do so

74. Are you ticklish? *hides my legs*  Not at all ^^

75. Have you ever started a rumor? I am not that kind of asshole

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? I think not

77. Have you ever drank underage? I hate alcohol so nope

78. Have you ever done drugs? Look at the answer above

79. Who was your first real crush? Fuck real crushes, let’s go to fictional characters. This asshole *points at Bakura*

80. How many piercings do you have? Only on ears but I am not wearing any earrings

81. Can you roll your Rs?“ No

82. How fast can you type? Fast

83. How fast can you run? Not so fast

84. What color is your hair? Brown

85. What color is your eyes? Hazel. From light blue to light green or green, to gray blue.

86. What are you allergic to? To people who have tendency to piss me off

87. Do you keep a journal? No, but if we are counting the many one-shots I wrote to keep my ideas in one place then yes

88. What do your parents do? They are old, they are relaxing

89. Do you like your age? Kinda. I would rather be older though. Be after collage and such, have work already and have my own flat

90. What makes you angry? Oh God… People who thinks they are better for whatever reason, people who thinks that it is bad to have something original in yourself, people who wants to outsmart you just because they want to dump their shit on you, people who gossips behind your back, people who… *a few hours later*  And finally people who are just sexists.

91. Do you like your own name? Yes, I do. Long names are cute

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they? Fuck, Dalia do not laugh, don’t you even dare… I like the name Jörgen and if my plans go as planned then maybe I will have the opportunity to give it to my child. Maybe… Ah, dreams…

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child? Neither will be good

94. What are you strengths? Hiding my true self before others, being able to cut myself off from society for most of the time, being creative

95. What are your weaknesses? Choosing favorite characters - they are dying or are suffering or are treated badly by the writers and fandom, plushies, heavy metal music - especially Rammstein and Metallica

96. How did you get your name? My mom overheard name “Karolina” on one of the parties when she was younger and she liked it so she thought of giving me that name

97. Were your ancestors royalty? From Polish side yes, but only from my dad’s side and from German side? Ich weiß es nicht ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

98. Color of your room? Purple and green. And I want it to stay like that

99. Color of your bedspread? Purple and blue for now

Your extra question: Why do you love Yuri so much?Oh… Oh God *blushes* Well…It is not only because @amiiera pulled me back into Arc V and made me make oc for Yuuri, but… He’s not only handsome and cute and adorable. His voice is perfect, like a melody for me, his behavior is charming as well and his smirks really can make me fell really weak and squeak more than I was squeaking while seeing Vector, but the thing is, I can relate to him very much. The thing about being alone, without family, without friends. I went through hell in Primary school. I was without anyone who could shake me and woke me up from this nightmare. @true-lab were - and I really hope so that they still are - my only friend at that time, but even though, I still felt alone. Now to the parents stuff… When I was younger my dad drank a lot and I don’t have very happy memories from that time. I was always closing myself in fictional world, trying to not listen to my dad or ignore him completely so yeah, childhood almost without parents is checked as well.Now to other point why I like him so much. The way writers treat him and the way fandom treats him is just awful. Not only Arc V writers are really bad, but fandom doesn’t see that abusive relationships are bad and they are - in my opinion - shipping Yuuri with the worst characters they can. And I kinda want to protect him from everything. I just… Want to make him happy even if I had to make whole new au for him and my oc. I just want to see him happy for once. He deserves it, and I don’t care what other people thinks about him. 

[acorntops]

Interview with Conor Walsh, Author of Little Glass Men

Back in July we interviewed Conor Walsh about his book Little Glass Men. We are excited to be working with him in our upcoming bookstore!

What do you want reader to take away from Little Glass Men? The hope is that the story would spawn more interest in, if not World War I itself, then at least the stories that spawned from it. I find the era fascinating, but feel it's been highly neglected by most forms of media, for the most part. World War I doesn't have the "allure" that the second World War does - that of a distinct good-and-evil struggle, though of course it was more complex than that. The first World War was a meaningless war, for the most part, and one that everyone lost. So the men who fought and died in it can't even say "Well, at least I beat the bad guys." It's always had a sort of poetic merit to me - a war with no point, but one that men still fought and died in. History doesn't really give them a fair shake. ​ In Little Glass Men you explore a diverse group of characters. Was there a particular perspective that was most difficult to explore? What made you choose these particular characters to explore? Garrett's perspective was the most difficult to tackle, I'd say, mainly because I had a vision behind his character that got somewhat "lost in the shuffle". The idea behind his character is that he'd never really had a childhood or adolescence; that adulthood was forced on him, so to speak. I find him the most interesting, for what that's worth, as he's even more alone than the other people in the hospital. Racism was rampant in the era Little Glass Men takes place; he's half-black. He has no family. His only "friends" are years above his age, and all with their own score of problems. As for the cast of characters, I felt each personified a certain outlook in reference to the war and what it took. Lombardi's angry and bitter, O'Brien is secretly wistful and longs for his life before the war, Garrett is a victim of circumstance more than anyone else, Norman's unable to handle the horrors that he's seen. They've been trodden on by life and by the people close to them, and I feel that makes the way they get through each day all the more intriguing. How do they keep going? A fragment of hope on the edge of the horizon, or a deep-seeded will to survive? Do you have a favorite quote or character from your book? If I were any good at talking about myself I'd say something like "There are just so many great ones, I can't pick!" In reality I'd just like to skirt around them a bit. Avery has a few good lines when she's berating Lombardi - as she should - and I like the end of chapter six in general, though I don't know if I can go into more detail than that for fear of spoiling. As for favorite characters, there I will say it's a bit tougher to pick a favorite. I feel like the struggles of Emerson, O'Brien, and Norman are the most poignant, but I don't know that that necessarily makes them my favorite. I do like Avery, though, she's a firebrand. The sanitarium is called Saint Foresters. Is there a meaning behind it's name? To be perfectly honest I don't believe there is. I'm afraid it's just a name I liked. On Goodreads you listed Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, and Edward Carey as influences. How have they influenced you? Why do you find them so influential? And what are some of your favorite works that they've written? Ray Bradbury is the first hard sci-fi I read, I think. Though sci-fi's one of my favorite genres, the main reason I like him is because of his style. You can read something by Bradbury and recognize it as his by the style alone, which is a skill I hope to one day come close to. Asimov has remarkable - stamina, I guess you could call it. In my head I could see him being very methodical in the way he planned his stories out. He's an excellent storyteller - rarely do his works get caught up on unnecessary details or overly philosophical points. Moreover, I first read his stuff without actually expecting to like it, but the more I read the more I wanted to read. His stories sink their teeth into you, rather than the other way around, and putting down one of his works becomes difficult, to say the least. I'm sorry to say I've only read one book by Edward Carey - Observatory Mansions - but conversely I'm pleased to say that it's one of my favorite novels, if not my favorite hands-down. The way he writes is stylistically interesting, the characters are bizarre in a score of ways but remain interesting and sympathetic, and seemingly-strange or otherwise random points brought up always have a reason attached. A lot of writers seem to enjoy being weird to be weird, without any particular reason - it just lends itself to the style. But Carey's characters are something else. You mentioned that you could see Asimov being very methodical in the way he planned his stories out. When you write, do you tend to plan out your story or fly by the seat of your pants? It's almost always the latter. Little Glass Men wasn't planned at all when I began it, though I did start to separate and organize more as it went on. Recently I've been trying the more methodical approach, but I have yet to tell exactly how effective that's been. I definitely prefer to make it up as I go along, but I've written myself into a corner more times than I'd care to admit. So I suppose it's still a bit of a touch-and-go thing. You said scifi  is one of your favorite genres. Have you written anything scifi or are you planning to? What do you enjoy about scifi? I've written some sci-fi short stories, but none recently. I've had some ideas for sci-fi books, but they've all fallen through. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that even though I am a big fan of the genre, writing it has proved a bit of a challenge. The excuse that springs to mind is that the projects I'm currently working on just happen to not be sci-fi, but in truth I think I'd need to settle for a smaller scope than a swashbuckling, galaxy-spanning space quest. Though dystopian wastelands have eluded me too. I'll write something of substance with a sci-fi genre someday, but right now my brain doesn't want to, for some reason. I'm not sure why I like the genre as much as I do. Maybe because it's so all-encompassing. Most think sci-fi and get images of spaceships and laser fights and aliens, but that's only a small snippet of the genre. Dystopian fiction is typically sci-fi, and the sub-genres (steampunk, cyberpunk) can turn already-interesting concepts on their heads. I've always felt like the genre allows a greater creative scope, not limiting writers to what has been discovered so far - or what even might actually work according to the laws of nature. I remember reading an essay by Asimov - the robots in his stories worked because of "Positrons". If I remember correctly, he said in the essay that he never explained them because he didn't need to - doing so would be long, possibly boring (though Asimov could have kept it interesting), and would prevent the reader from using his or her imagination. By never going into detail and working off suspension of disbelief, he was able to tell excellent stories about fantastic things without being bogged down by details. Is that part of the experimenting you've been doing with your writing on Deviant Art? The works I put up on Deviant Art are typically more experimental, yes. I'm mainly working there to hone my short-story writing ability. Currently I don't believe they're up to the level of quality I want, and that particular site gives me an opportunity to get feedback on what worked and what didn't from those I don't personally know. The only reason I don't use a more literature-focused site to post my stories is because I find  Deviant Art's posting process a lot easier to use than that of any other site, despite its reputation for having no strong literature-focused community. Did you always want to write? What drove you to first put words on a page? I started writing when I was in eighth grade - prior to that point I'd enjoyed making things, but hadn't quite pinned it down to creative writing. I fiddled with some narrative-related stuff, but when I was super-young I was more interested in building things than making stories. Exactly how I got it into my head I couldn't quite tell you, but that year I decided I wanted to write something substantial. I brought it up to my English teacher at the time - his name was Mr. Muelmester. Everybody liked him, including me, and I wanted to see if he had any advice. And he did. "Try short stories first," was the gist of it. Smart man - if I hadn't heeded what he said I probably wouldn't have thought of writing short stories, would have tried and failed miserably to write a novel, and would have chalked it up as something I couldn't do. Possibly. Whatever the possible alternative cases, I'm glad things worked out the way they did. Speaking of advice, on Goodreads one piece of advice you offered to aspiring writers was to pay attention and that the strangest things can spawn ideas. Has anything like this happened to you? Can you give an example? Off the top of my head, it's a little tough to come up with a more recent example. Not because it doesn't happen, but because a single story can be sort-of coalesced from a very wide variety of different bits of media. You might decide you like a certain character type from a movie, book, or game - or you might decide that you'd like a character who acts exactly the opposite. To more adequately answer your question, I believe I've had a few dreams that have been clear and normal enough (rare occurrences, both of them) to be worked into stories. To give yet another example, when I was early in my writing career I saw a woman dressed in army fatigues walking through an airport by herself. Peeking out of the top of her army satchel was a stuffed teddy bear. I recall writing a story inspired by that singular interaction. Now, that was when I was very young, and I'm sure the story isn't exactly a literary masterpiece. But, even though that's probably the case, that's the kind of thing I mean. Surprise ideas popping up in unexpected places. On Deviant Art, you mentioned in a forum the troubles that come with self-marketing, especially for self-published authors. Have you found any techniques to help since May or do you have any advice to give in this area? I don't think I do at all, I'm afraid. It's a bit of a stumbling block for me. I can repeat some of what I've been told, though. Do your best to work it tactfully into conversations, get a social media presence, find a way to get people interested and keep them interested. But I'm afraid that much as I might try to give advice, it's a facet of the writing process (if you can qualify it as such) that just doesn't come naturally to me, and I have yet to find a unique strategy that works. One of the things young authors run into is the questioning of supposed lack of experience to write content that could have  any real impact on or wisdom for readers. What is your response? Having the discipline to write at an early age, I believe, displays some maturity. Someone with discipline to sit down and write some five-thousand words with characters interacting and a cohesive plot must have something going for them, even if their work isn't interesting or powerful. So there's that. There's also the fact that there's a wealth of information out there, on the internet, in television and movies, and of course in other books. I actually believe that a perspective on certain scenarios that one hasn't taken part in - even ones as mundane as filing taxes or living in a city - can paint a drastically different picture than might be immediately apparent for someone regularly experiencing such tasks. Give them a fresh, non-jaded outlook. Furthermore, I'd motion to suggest that that criticism is illogical if applied automatically. To explain: I don't see a scenario where a reader could finish an entire work by anyone, and only after finishing it question how invested they were in the book. It's either interesting or it isn't. If it is engrossing or insightful in some way, and the author is young, then despite his or her lack of experience the reader has been impacted or given a new outlook. Now, I could understand part of the effect being lost because of a lack of intimate knowledge with certain subjects, but I feel there isn't much out there - in regards to writing, at least - that can't be learned through practice, research, and consumption of other media. You had such an amazing debut novel. Where are you planning to go from here? I suppose I'm still trying to get the word out there with the first book - self-marketing's a bit of a doozy, as I mentioned. I'm glad to hear the first book was decent, though. ​(As a side note from the interviewer's perspective, decent does not begin to describe how amazing this book is.) Currently I'm working on another novel, which should be finished at some point before the heat death of the universe. In all seriousness, I hope to have it done before the end of this year (though I have no idea how long the editing and other processes will take). The next novel's actually a bit of a departure from what I've tried thus far - the genre is dark fantasy. The plot centers around the stereotypical "hero" of a fantasy story, one whose parents were murdered by a "mustache-twirling" villain when he was too young to defend them or himself. He then goes on to train to fight said villain - the cliche this time is your corrupt king with an iron-fist - and defeats him in the last part of the story. Or, at least, he would. But my novel intends to pick up at exactly the last point - moments after the protagonist has already defeated his foe. As the novel goes on, the protagonist will come to terms with the fact that he's essentially never had a chance to grow, or experience the world around him, and that the King who he once thought to be evil incarnate might have had a reason - a real, constructive reason - for all of his "evil" measures. You cover a lot of history in Little Glass Men. You have the struggle of the Irish against the British, when Heroin was discovered to be dangerously addictive, the KKK, Prohibition, the Russo-Japanese War, just to name a few. How much research went into the making of Little Glass Men? You know, it sounds funny, but I always paid a lot of attention in history classes, and I think more than a good deal of that fed into the information I was able to put on the page. Most of what I wrote about I wouldn't be aware of if I hadn't paid attention to what I was taught. That said, there are exceptions - mainly about specific dates. The internet was very helpful at aiding me in making sure that everything fit together, so that certain events could transpire without upsetting the continuity of the story or the actual events of the period. I think the hardest part was researching how hospitals functioned in the 1920s, because I didn't learn anything specific about that in high school and needed to know as much as I could while writing the book. Do you have any resources you could recommend to people who are interested in learning more about some of the history you mention? My first response to your question is, of course, the internet. My second response would be books - other historical fiction novels, accounts of the first World War, and so on and so forth. Donald Kagan's On the Origins of War was one I read - it compared the ancient wars between the Athens and Sparta and Rome and Carthage (respectively) to the first and second world wars. The discourse is detail-heavy, but more in macro-details, so to speak - that is to say, it tells more of the reasons as to why war broke out, as well as the actions taken in each war by the respective armies. In regards to the portion my book tackles -  namely, society immediately after the first World War came to a close - I don't have any specific books to recommend, I'm afraid. Steinbeck's Cannery Row, perhaps, but that's more Depression-era than my book. I recommend it anyway, though, as it's an excellent book. What advice do you have for writers who are writing historical fiction? Research, foremost, but don't destroy yourself. You need to be as accurate to the period as you can be, but if you feel like bending the truth a little, do it. For me I largely ignored the country-to-country hatred - the chances of as many nationalities as are in Little Glass Men getting along without copious amounts of violence is almost a certain impossibility. I played that aspect of history down quite a bit. I also found the vernacular of the period a bit difficult to emulate, and believed that if I tried it would come off sounding wooden and unnatural. So I did a bit, but not for the most part. So try to pay attention to what the people of the period looked like, and what had been invented, lest you mention something that didn't exist. Try to be aware of the societal views at the time, and the way people should act in the situations that come up throughout the book that they might not in the present day. But don't let it constrict you - move with the confines granted by the time period, and write freely. What are you currently reading? Currently am working on Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li. It's a quasi-drama-thriller what-have-you about three childhood friends who drifted apart after a friend of theirs was poisoned, and the struggles they're having with coping with their adult lives because of the incident. So far I haven't made much headway, but I've noticed that the author is excellent at streamlining her prose. There is not much in the way of unnecessary words, and the writing's much better for it. More than that I can't quite say, because more than that I haven't quite read, but I'm optimistic. ​Is there anything else you would like to add about Little Glass Men, your writing, or being a writer? There are a lot of hurdles standing between me and success, enough to be intimidating. But I think I picked the right passion - or maybe it picked me. If you're a writer and aren't getting a lot of notice, and are feeling discouraged, try to take a step back and ask yourself if you enjoy what you're doing. Success isn't an easy thing to acquire - some, maybe many, never will. But if writing makes you happy, then you should do it as long as you can. And hey! Maybe if you do it long enough without expecting success, it'll be a pleasant surprise when it falls into your lap. Don't let the world discourage you, because it's sure going to try. Follow Conor Walsh on: Twitter Deviant Art Goodreads