click [[here]] to self destruct

Do things [[right]] or do things [[wrong]]?

Even at great personal cost? [[pay]] or [[don't pay]]

click [[here|self destruct]] to self destruct

It's 4 am. Again. The lights on my alarm clock are driving me mad. I want to [[smash them]]. I can't sleep. I wish I could sleep. I'm lying in bed, exhausted, comfortable, perfectly wrapped in a cocoon of safety but I cannot sleep. I could not sleep the last night either. Or the night before that. Perhaps at somepoint the lack of sleep will catch up with me and I will fall into insanity. Or perhaps I'll [[collapse unconscious]]. Something in me hurts. I kind of wish I could just [[tear it out]].

Creation is an act of sacrifice. By pouring myself into my work, I [[lose myself]].

My flesh slips open under prying fingers and I take a solid grip on my frail heart and squeeze. I should do [[more]].

Light is ephemereal and false. I can capture it by wrapping my hands around it and tossing it from palm to palm the way I would a ball. The lights crush easily, red supernovas compressed down, down, into [[LEDs]], and then little black holes. But [[time]] goes with them because [[time]] is [[space]] and [[space]] is [[energy]] and existence is nothing without [[time]] and [[space]].

My heart pulses gently between my fingers, oozing blood and pus and other terrible things. I slam it into the table. Once, twice. A terrible squishing sound, a dull thud of sorts. The pain hasn't stopped. It never stops. I wish someone would [[save me]]. Before I [[keep going]].

They put a hand on my shoulder and whisper softly in my ear. They guide me to the bed and lie me down, kissing my forehead. They pick my heart up. I could [[wait]]. Or I could [[stop]] them.

Every slam produces another wet thump. A dull crash. I sweep left, knocking things to the floor, emptying out my desk. There goes my laptop, my life's work, and sole connection to the outside. The to-do cards I spent hours writing and maintaining. A half filled glass of water I forgot to take downstairs. A pencil. Some dice. Toenail clippers for some bizarre reason. A pile of trash. I have room to work now, so I can begin to [[properly dismantle]] myself.

My organs pile on the desk. A horrific pile. It is me and [[I am it]]. Click [[here|start a fire]] to start a fire.

I am something awful and new. I am fire and ash and flesh and empty space. Everything I touch [[dies]].

They pick my heart up and cradle it like a bird for hours until the darkness of the night is gone and the sun is peaking up in glorious sunrise and once more it beats, because the [[light of the morning]] brings me back. It always brings me back. They always bring me back.

I cannot be this useless, this vulnerable. I am not a burden. This is not how I show love. I should be [[saving them]].

Their flesh slips open under prying fingers and they take a solid grip on their frail heart and squeeze. Their body is weak, they think. If only it were more. Their heart pulses gently between their fingers, oozing blood and pus and other terrible things. They slam it into the table. Once, twice. A terrible squishing sound, a dull thud of sorts. The pain hasn't stopped. It never stops. They wish someone would [[help them]].

I love them and I show it by holding them, wrapping myself around them to keep them safe from themself. They will be okay. They will always be okay. I will hold your heart and care for it while you cannot. Always. And when you recover in the [[light of the morning]], you will know that you are loved.

I must've left a window open because the gentle tweeting of a bird brings me to. It is 9:02 am. I've slept for maybe 5 hours max. I'm not sure because my memories of [[last night|keep going]] are fuzzy. I don't know when exactly I fell asleep. I had strange dreams. There was someone else present. I'm not quite sure who. The sun outside is shining. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day. Maybe today I'll be happy about it. [[Maybe|the end]]. [[Maybe not|not happy]].

[[no]]

[[no no no no no]]

please i'm sorry please i didn't mean it [[please]]

[[please|please 2]]

i [[didn't]] mean to [[hurt]] [[you|hates me]]

The problem with being a heavyweight is that it costs too much money to get drunk. For my friends who are shorter and weaker (in this sense), a trip to a bar is an easy proposition. And yet my wallet is the weakest in the group. My friend offers to [[buy me drinks]] but I cannot be that [[vulnerable]]. Perhaps it is best to [[remain sober]].

See, money is a strange thing. I simulataniously have a lot and almost none. I'm not in danger of going hungry, going cold. But I cannot spend the way you do. I carefully scrutinize, stick to a budget. And it always makes me feel guilty that you want to go place and I always have to hestitate. I always have to frantically search menus ahead of time, scared of that $25 main course. And it always make me feel so much worse to let you pay for me. I feel so guilty. Such a burden. So difficult and [[useless]].

There are maybe 5 people in the world who could fuck me. This is because of trust. I cannot trust another to truly [[see me]].

I'm not going to drink anything tonight. I haven't had anything to drink for [[weeks]]. I'm not [[thirsty]].

[[time]] creeps by like infinity on a slow day. I am [[born]]. I [[live]]. I [[die]]. [[time|Beginning]] and [[space]] are one.

[[time]] compresses space. Did you ever notice that is more natural to measure space using time? I do not care how far away something is, I care how long it will take me to get there. Cities play with space in that way. Something can be on the next block and unreachable. Something can be on the [[subway]] and easily accessible. Outside of town when you have a car, distances collapse and the far becomes near. It all depends on the total available [[energy]].

Physics is a way of representing the universe using math. Key to that is the study of energy. That is to say, the study of life. That is to say, the study of everything. Energy is [[existence]].

I [[live]]

I [[die]]

I am [[born]]

The doors clatter shut. The car is empty but for me and the others. I'm alone again, wrapped up tightly in a long coat against the chill. I'm threaded through with sadness. I'm threaded through with love. I'm going to see you again! I'm going to see [[you]] again! I'm going to tell you that I [[love you]]!

And someday, existence will [[cease]].

The energy will balance and dissapate and for the first time, all will be [[still]]. All will be [[peaceful]].

This is a good [[ending|the end]].

I am screaming. I am screaming because I need someone to hear me. But no one does. [[no one does]]

Except the anger rages through me. Except the fire in my heart and head. Except the pain dies in my throat. Except the thrashing of a dying beast. I didn't mean to [[hurt]] you. Except I [[did]].

What is pain? If you don't know the source of the pain, can it ever be fixed? We carry wounds in our souls that only time will fix. We knit outselves back together in the arms of each other. We whisper peacefully about how we love each other. We're struggling and dying and for what? Why is there pain? Why does my heart sieze constantly? What am I [[missing]]?

Perhaps being some sort of zombie will be good for me. I am free from the weight of love and sadness and humanity. Perhaps I am now superior. Is this now what I wanted? I watch myself in the mirror. I am empty and hollow, a cavity waiting to be filled. Or perhaps waiting to drain something. [[I think that now I can sleep]]

Approximately late May 2021, I drunk two glasses of wine and wrote for 4 hours straight. The result, which I later titled "[[GameGame]]' was a drunken mess of depression, despair, anger, gender, and an odd undercurrent of hope. The next day, I read it and [[cried]].

[[no one ever does|start a fire]]

Perhaps there are words to say on this. Perhaps they are best left unspoken. Despite that, perhaps I have already [[written them]]

I think it is best understood as a selfish act. It was not a [[game]] for other people. It was a game for [[me]].

Once again, we play with the concept of games. Words on a path, you winding a linear thread through them. Can it be said to be linear? Can any path be said to be? If I were to truly set this out how I wanted to, I would render you only capable of playing it once. Only witnessing one path throughout. Can you promise me that? Can you promise me that you'll stop playing after you reach an ending? That you'll accept your path as truthful and canonical? That you'll seek no others, consider no other options? [[I promise]] [[I cannot promise]]

How to describe myself? Well, I know [[this]]. I was [[born]].

I lay myself down in bed. The blanket sinks through my skin until it is one with me and I am the bed and I am this room and I am the whole world. I am angry. The sun shines its light upon me and it begs and begs, but I feel no mercy. I am the world and the world eats the sun, as was always foretold. The other [[planets]] turn and flee, but I am the biggest and the strongest and I roar with triumph as I [[drag them in]].

She points at me and she laughs because I am an imposter. She points at me and laughs because I thought that I was powerful and ferocious. But I am small. I am small and all who know it know what I am, that I can never be something I am not. I toss and turn and something stinks of sweat and I'm running because she has a knife and she hates me. She [[hates me]] so much.

You text me to say that you regret it and I do as well. We pretend it never happened. We are in love. We were always in love. We always will be in love. I will always be [[in love]].

Love comes in like a hurricane. It possesses me, raging through my body, overwhelming me. I can barely think about anything but my desparate need for you. It's the look in your eyes. It's the small smile when you think I'm not looking. But I'm always [[looking]].

(open-url: "https://cahatstrophe.neocities.org/blog/GameGame2")

My body is unrepresentative. It is angry, vile, and hateful. The secret to [[writing]] [[body horror]] is to be horrified at your own body.

Your arms fall off as you try to move them, the gaps in your torso wide and gaping. Blood, black and thick and feeling of acid wells from within you, the bile pouring through your heart and your veins and penetrating your lungs from the wound. You cough, weakly. You cluch at the blade, sharp and metal, agonizing, as it tears through you. You're pinned against the wall, helpless as she takes your chin in her hand and pulls your face slightly upwards. Her grin is wide. Her teeth are [[sharp]]

Thank you. I really appreciate it. Let us return to the [[start|Beginning]].

Then fuck off. [[okay|the end]]

Her bite rips chunks of your flesh out, flying away as she tears her head back, pain shooting from the wounds, ripping through your nervous system, like lightning in a bottle, like a fire in a lonely and dry tree. You howl as she goes again, teeeth meeting bone, bone cracking, marrow spilling out, her hungry tongue tasting the wounds further. She devours steadily, a fervor of madness driving her, as piece by piece you are rendered into chunks on the floor or the contents of her [[stomach]].

One bite over your head, some teeth below your ear, some above, and you feel the skin break and rip off, the narrow sheeting collapsing, spat out, your eyes bursting, your hair peeling away, just the skull left and then she's inside that too, the pressure overwhelming, your brain slowing down as it begins to crack and then her teeth are in your brain and your very last thought is not silent or peaceful. You don't see a light. You just feel pain. Eventually, it [[stops|the end]].

End. do you want to [[try again|Beginning]]?

I pace and I pace and I feel myself... [[falling|light of the morning]] [[in love]]

I'm always in doorways, pausing. Arm up, on the door frame, bracing my mass against the solid wood. Wood is a good material. Grounding. Strong texture. We can embrace the [[sensory]] expirience if we want. We can run our hands along it, feeling the broken remains of the tree. It's body protects and cradles us. Would that I could also be so [[useful]] in death.

The howls gather in your brain, echoing around that cavernous space and chasing out any semblence of self. You're curled up. You can't breath. You can't think. Why won't they stop [[touching]] you? Why can't they [[leave you alone]]?

I think it would be terrible to be [[useless]]. I think it would be far better to be [[useful|useful 2]].

And in the clarity, the [[light of the morning]], we can see each other again. In the light of the morning, dripping blood from open wounds, circling each other warily, we bare our fangs. Love turns to hate and hate turns to violence. Only one of us can leave. Without hesitation, without mercy, I [[strike]].

The blows are feeble and weak, muscles tired and sore. Our limbs dangle heavy as stones. Our minds are exhausted. Shadows dance in the edges of our vision. Desperate, I turn the knife over again and lunge. Does it [[land]]? Or does your counter snap my own [[thread]]?

You crumple and fall. You were beautiful in life. You are not so in death. I could [[kiss]] you. I could [[mock]] you. I could [[scream]].

You're standing over me, hand on my chin. You're holding me upwards. My body won't respond anymore. It's splattered red, patterned by the marks you left. The signs of hate and love mix together on the tip of your tongue, your lips working their way down the edges of rent flesh. The gentle flicking or your tongue brings pain and pleasure in equal amounts. Our hands meet each other the handle of the blade, fingers weaving together. As one, we twist, a grunt forced from my lips as the pain becomes overwhelming. Conciousness starts to fade. Do I have anything left to say? Any [[last words]]? Will you say anything to [[us]]?

My tongue doesn't move. I meet your eyes. I hope you know that I still love you. I'd let you kill me a thousand times. No matter how it [[starts]], no matter how it [[ends|the end]]. Every time we do it the same way. Each and every time I would have no regrets. Each and every time, I would still [[kill]] you given half a chance.

It's buried in the snippets. It's the rage I felt when you told me I was a man. It's the way anger, a vile and living thing, is easiest into a [[pillow]]. There are two kinds of anger in me, the sad and the loud kind. But it's all the same kind. The question is not how the beast expresses itself, but how I choose to strangle it. I was young and foolish and hotheaded and it rode me hard. Fire burst from my lungs, clutched between sharp talons, the shreds of relationships broken tight between my [[teeth]]. It's the ruins. It's the blades.

Go on then. [[Finish]] it. I'm ready to [[face]] death.

I wonder what it would be like to know someone who dies. I'm blessed enough that no one has yet. Someday, I think that I will know that fate. Someday, it will be me who dies. What would I leave behind? How long before anyone would notice? The cost of privacy is that of connection. Vulnerability is a price we pay unfairly. Why do your friends feel so dangerous? Why do I always feel so alone? Why does everyone [[leave me]]?

I [[die]].

Perhaps being ready to die is merely a form of [[madness]]. Perhaps it is [[sanity|self destruct]]. Perhaps it is simply [[smart]].

Perhaps because I'm a monster. Perhaps because I hurt them. I don't want to. And yet, it's too late. I already [[did]].

Please, just [[stop]]. I don't want you to do [[this]].

The pillow is [[safe|safety]]. It's nice. I like it. It's soft and comforting. It's old and caved in. It cradles my head badly, bumping my head against the top fo the bed. The rough wood scrapes my scalp tenderly. My feet stick off the end, too tall, too long. I drag myself up and awake, concious and free. I think it's time to [[win]].

Imagery is easy and powerful. Take a sharp thing, take a soft thing and contrast them. Like my knifes through your silky lace. Like my fangs through your smooth heart. Like my soul through yours. I'm an arrow cast to the sky by the devil himself. I'm a weapon forged to destroy. I'm [[fire]] and [[chaos]].

Fire is chaos. Fire is [[madness]]. Fire is [[death]].

We roll the dice every day. Someday there will be nothing left to roll. Someday I'll get a zero. Time is butterflies dancing in the wind. Chaos theory doesn't blame the butterfly because the butterfly knows not what it does. Why should any one be responsible? They all chose to flap or not flap. It's the picture. It's the whole. It's the flow of [[energy]] in the system. It's the trap. It's the shiny [[knife|strike]]. We always reset to our worst moments in darkness. And I [[write|talk about it]] this in darkness so that I can return to my worst moments. So that I can [[make them right|help them]].

What am I [[doing wrong]]?

Why won't the pain [[stop]]? Why must I always [[suffer]]?

[[existence]] is suffering

Your lips meet mine. It's lightning in my nerves. Your hands on the back of my head pull me closer, and I gasp a little at the darting tongue poking its way inside. We're clutching at each other, bucking, wrapping around each other. Clothing is discarded and lost, giving way to the joy of [[flesh]].

And how the walls tighten. How the options close. I could end this route here for you. You couldn't stop me. There's nothing that you can do. What do you think about the choices you've made? What could I guess about you? Is this your first trip? Is this your 8th? I could send you back into the [[web|right]]. I could send you right to [[the end]]. I could drive you [[mad|madness]]. I could give you [[t]][[h]][[o]][[u]][[s]][[a]][[n]][[d]][[s]] of options. I could give you none. What were you hoping for? Fun? Freedom? Another peek into my psyche? Guess what, I'm just as guarded as ever. I wall myself away. So much for character development. So much for self improvement. Come on then. [[Laugh|GameGame]]!

My voice leaves my lips like vomit, like bile. It oozes and drips, acidic, staining my teeth with emotion. I couch and hack as it crawls out of me, beyond my control or understanding. I'm screaming. I'm [[still]] screaming.

I need to feel safe. I need to feel like you're not going to hurt me. Because I do. I'm terrified, really, that if I stop protecting myself, that you'll destroy me. And that's no way to live. To hide myself. To hide that which makes me human because it's precious to me. It's been trampled before and I always thought it took years to recover. But perhaps the fear in me now shows the truth. I never recovered. I'm still the same broken child hiding in their closet. I'm under my desk. I'm facing dark walls and still trees. But why won't you stop [[touching]] me? Please? I don't have it in me to be [[vulnerable]]. I only have it in me to be [[defensive]].

But you're not real. I made you up. I just needed someone to [[love]]. I just needed it to be [[you]].

What is this? No, seriously, what the fuck is this? Let's [[talk about it]] for a second.

My name is Cahatstrophe Games. I am a [[writer]]. I make [[video games]]. //click [[here|self destruct]] to self destruct// is made using Twine, a tool for interactive stories. Is it that? I've made an "[[interactive story|lose myself]]", if it could be called that, before. I rolled my own software for it in Godot, my primary [[video game]] tool. It was not, in fact, interactive. But it featured several mediations on the subject, perhaps too many for someone who has not really experimented with [[interactive stories]].

(open-url: "https://cahatstrophe.neocities.org/writing_page")

(open-url: "https://cahatstrophe-games.itch.io/")

But that's not really what this is. It's more like an interactive rough sheet. This is all rough draft level work. There's no forethought. No foreshadowing because the future is indeterminate and vague. I'm making it up as I go along, slapping new sections into various places. If you want, you can [[go|time]] [[look|body horror]] [[at|I think that now I can sleep]] [[some|This is how I died]]. It's vulnerable, I think. I don't quite know how to tell if something counts as vulnerable. I wrote some smut recently. I didn't think of it as particularly vulnerable, and yet other people thought it was. I wrote something that definitely wasn't smut, and was in fact very vulnerable a few months, and everyone thought it was smut that wasn't vulnerable. "Textual maze" is a better phrase, I think. This isn't a story. It's the sticky notes on the walls of a depressed person, pinned together by thinly spread thread. What does that [[mean]]?

"Oh," I said. My eyes flicked downwards, following the taught curve of my body. "Oh," I said again. "You're going to be okay, right?" she asked. "I don't know." "Promise?" "I don't want to make [[promises]] I can't keep."

The gulf between what I say and what you hear is unavoidable and awe inspiring. My experiences layer upon themselves, encoding pieces of me into my work. But your experiences colour your interpretation thereof, preventing you from full understanding. I will never be fully understood purely from my writing. And I think that's for the best. You can't really [[love]] me without [[knowing]] me. You can't really [[know|knowing]] me without [[loving|love]] me. It's always the last [[one]].

If you fall in love with me, it will be slow. It will be through long comforting nights. It will be the glow of a bad movie on the tv as we kiss. It will be gentle and caring. It will be the laughter at the stupidiy of our anxieties even as we hold each other's hands through them. It's the bottle, uneeded tonight. It's the scent of weed on your breath as you kiss me. It's the smoke in my lungs forcing its way out, forcing me to tell the truth. I was drunk when I told you that I [[loved]] you. I don't regret it.

I write for myself, right? I write because I want to see how the act of writing changes me. I write because it calms the demons in my head. I write because it makes me happy. I write because it lets me know myself. I write because I can. I write because it makes me interesting. I write. I don't think I'll ever stop and that's kind of scary. Every time you crest, there's a fear that you'll never do as well again. There's a fear that you've lost your [[touch]].

I think the thing that scares me most about love is that I might [[hurt|please 2]] you. I might even [[destroy|you]]. But it could be [[wonderful]].

Writer's block, for me, is more about the fear. It's when the doubt creeps in and I convince myself that I'm a bad writer. That no words are worth the commitment because they're bad words. It would be a let down to myself and to others to even try to write them, let alone to force them upon others. My longer works get abandoned when the fear that the start is insufficient overwhelms my desire to continue. If the baseboard is rotted, it's easier to just [[knock]] the whole building down.

I've been working on this file on and off for almost a year now. It doesn't really feel like. I have individual short stories that (at the time of writing this section) have a much higher word count. I added another thousand words today after months of inactivity. Maybe I'll add a thousand more and release. Maybe it'll be the thing I work on privately until I die. Maybe I'll release it after I die. Not an interactive story then, but a brain. A web map of a single person. Sections written when I was sad intermixed from those when I was happy. A picture of a life. I like that. That sounds nice. I would be [[okay|the end]] with that.

It's nice to be loved. Kink is enjoyable, but these days I crave affection more. There's a comfort to bodies. There's a peace to hands on mine. I love it when you run your fingers through my hair, brush my hair, scratch the back of my head. I could lose myself in the sensation, purring with pleasure. It makes me feel loved. It makes me feel important. It makes feel special. And at the end of the day, I think that's what I want. I want to [[trust]] you. I want to feel [[loved]]. I want to give [[you]] the choice. I want us to be happy. I think that would be [[wonderful]].

I'm trailing fingers down your spine, enjoying the bumps. I'm laid on my bed in the dark, letting the music pulse through the headphones. LEDs blink against the sky, red and purple to signify madness and royaltly in equal measure. I think that touch is [[important]]

My spikes bristle. My hackles are up. What do you [[want to know]]?

no. [[not telling]]

Options branch and multiply. It makes lying easy. I could tell you [[anything|tear it out]] I [[wanted|you]] and you would have [[no]] [[choice|strike]] but to [[believe|hates me]] [[me]].

God, I wish I knew. I wish I had an easy purpose. I wish the burden of intelligence had not been cast upon me. To be a bird in the wind, simple and dumb. To be a cat in a tree. To be a racoon in a bush. I just want to be [[useful]]

I promise that I love you. Please believe me. Please [[trust]] me. Please [[believe]] me.

Promise that you trust me? [[I promise]] [[I cannot promise]]

Is there a god? Is anyone[[listening]]?

I think I'm just screaming into [[silence|still]].

Options branch and twist, timelines collapsing in on each other. You climb the stack, your path a unique expirience. This game was only meant to be expirienced once. You carve a line through it. The past colours the future. The same words mean different things from different routes. Screams of rage become futility and sad, patheticness collapsing from pathetic to understandable. What kind of figure am I to you now? I mediate on love to say that we need it. But to miss all that, to only see the horror. And there is horror here. There is always [[horror]] here. There is always [[fear]]. There is always [[love]]. There is always a [[you]], faces blurring into each other. All the different people merge into one, a cosmic shadow cast on the wall. Isolation drives [[madness]].

It's kind of weird that I got into writing short fiction. i always hated short fiction. I always felt like I was misunderstanding something, missing something. I'd finish and ask what the point was. But I think I get it now. Sometimes the point is the way it makes you feel. And sometimes you don't understand because you're not ready yet. Because your own expiriences aren't quite there. Because you don't understand the author. And sometimes it's just badly written. Sometimes it doesn't mean anything. Sometimes silence is just [[silence|last words]].

Comedy is about establishing a pattern and then breaking that pattern. Fear is about establishing a pattern and then breaking that pattern. The difference is [[safety]].

It's 4 am. Again. The lights on my alarm clock are driving me mad. I want to [[smash them|madness 2]]. I can't sleep. I wish I could sleep. I'm lying in bed, exhausted, comfortable, perfectly wrapped in a cocoon of safety but I cannot sleep. I could not sleep the last night either. Or the night before that. Perhaps at somepoint the lack of sleep will catch up with me and I will fall into insanity. Or perhaps I'll [[collapse unconscious|madness 2]]. Something in me hurts. I kind of wish I could just [[tear it out|madness 2]].

It's 4 am. Again. The lights on my alarm clock are driving me mad. I want to [[smash them|madness 3]]. I can't sleep. I wish I could sleep. I'm lying in bed, exhausted, comfortable, perfectly wrapped in a cocoon of safety but I cannot sleep. I could not sleep the last night either. Or the night before that. Perhaps at somepoint the lack of sleep will catch up with me and I will fall into insanity. Or perhaps I'll [[collapse unconscious|madness 3]]. Something in me hurts. I kind of wish I could just [[tear it out|madness 3]].

Fire is [[life]].

Fire is [[beautiful]].

Fire is licking my fingers. Smoke is teasing my lungs. I'm [[coughing]] again.

Covid wracked my body, leaving me as broken and crippled as I felt at my worst. In turn, we [[wrack]] the world.

Everyone around me seems to think the world is ending. I don't really understand why we engage in the pageantry if that's the case. We scurry on, day to day, as though everything will fix itself. And I think that it will be fixed. Not by itself, but by sacrifice and violence. But it will. things don't ever end. They just keep going, in different forms. We might die. Our children might die. But some of them will find a way to cast a light forwards. Cast themselves forwards in part. And perhaps it's [[privileged]] of me to say so.

By being white and living in this country, I'm already given a huge advantage in the face of climate change. And that sucks. It sucks and it makes it my responsibility to do something about it. It makes it my responsibility to change things. It makes it my [[responsibility]] to blow something up. Change only comes through violence. Violence only comes through will. Whose will is [[higher]]?

I don't know how the world will end. I don't know where I'll be when it does, or who I'll be with. But I know that it was worth it. I know that I have a mind and I can imagine myself flying with the birds. I cast off through the clouds and each and every day I feel love and feel blessed. I don't believe in god. I think the world formed through chance. And we owe it to ourselves to seize on that chance. The most depressing aspect of christianity is the adherence to god's plan. God has no plan because he's in my dice, clattering on the table. He's in my smile as your hand finds mine. He's in our voices telling each other that we love. He's not real. But that doesn't mean we're not. And no matter what, no matter how the world ends, whether we see it or not. Never have any doubt. I love you. And I think you're good. I believe in you. All I ask is that you offer me the same. [[the end]].

Actually, no. I don't think it is [[smart]]. You should kick and scream. You should fight against entropy with everything you have. You should struggle against death with every ounce of your being, because you are unique and special. Because you deserve it. Because you are loved. Because there is no god, and if there was, you have everything you need to kick that fucker's [[ass]].

Smile for me. Just be happy. That's all I ask. Please be [[happy|higher]].

Don't you hunger for [[flesh]]?

Oh, but it would be terrible to be [[useful]].

Oh, but it would be lovely to be [[useful]].

Doesn't the [[pillow]] seem comfy?

No [[touching]].

No. [[Try again|mock]].

I think you're doing it [[wrong|doing wrong]].

God, you're [[pathetic]].

Nah, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I know how it sounded. But it wasn't me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I promise. I would never hurt you on purpose. Sharp elbows when I rolling over don't count, of course. I reserve the right to gently kick you in my sleep, to affectionately listen to your breathing, to cling to you just a little tightly, mixing our warmth and happiness. I reserve the right to [[love you]]

My joy is private. But it's there and I cluch it tightly. I'm no better. I may have only liked myself the other day. But the days get more and more frequent. Trips to the thrift store return clutched valuables, a change of identity and fashion. Masculinity and feminity dance together. Someone asked what I have between my legs and I laughed and maybe wanted to smile. Someone said I looked like a "alt butch" and it made me grin. The cis don't know gender, but they know hotness. And babe, I am smoking. I'm on [[fire|start a fire]]. I'm your queer diety. Pray to me. Worship me. But oh, how easily the feeling scrapes from clutching fingers. Sand between rubbed palms. The tides still rise. The world still turns. Someday I'll be over this. It's written on the [[blank white walls]].

The hours trickle by, the pointed finger jamming themselves into your neck, your ears, your vulnerable sides. They're laughing. If you don't show any reaction, they'll stop. It's the pain that they enjoy. You just have to be a stone. You can't tell them you don't like it. You asked a teacher because you're oh so very small and they told you to just [[ignore]] it. It hurts. [[This|this]] always hurts.

But they're in your head now. They want you to die. They never want to see you again. They think the world would be better off without you. They think that and now you think that because ideas are infectious and the weight of majority weighs heavily on you. Never give a kid a diagnosis. Never tell them that they are broken. That just confirms. That just makes them feel worse. No one will ever understand me, I fear. No one will ever understand. I change too fast to be comprehended. I change too slowly to fix myself. I change with the force of a hurricane. I change because I love myself because I want to spite those who wronged me. I'm defying you. I'll always defy you. What will [[you]] do about it? I mean, what if they're [[right|leave me]]?

I think it would be terrible to be [[useful|madness]]. I think it would be far better to be [[relevant]].

I think it would be terrible to be [[relevant|madness]]. I think it would be far better to be [[clever]].

I think it would be terrible to be [[clever|madness]]. I think it would be far better to be [[practical]].

I think it would be terrible to be [[adored|madness]]. I think it would be far better to be [[sane]].

I think it would be terrible to be [[practical|madness]]. I think it would be far better to be [[pretty]].

I think it would be terrible to be [[sane]]. I think it would be far better to be [[mad|madness]]. Oh, but it would be truly [[wonderful]] though.

I think it would be terrible to be [[pretty|madness]]. I think it would be far better to be [[adored]].

You used to make me feel safe. Someday, I hope that you will again. [[end|the end]]

It's in the psych report, given as a kid. The factual analysis of my own mind and sanity. It's in the psych report. How bad I was. It's in the psych report. How traumatized I was. I "became quiet" when the concept of social relationships or friendships came up. I was not a very well behaved child. I am not a [[child]].

and in the end, despite everything, despite all the odds, I am me. Out of all the possible permutations of self, I get to be me. I get to walk the world. I get to live. Can you believe it? Really, what were the odds? What were the [[chances]]? But there's no way around it. I was [[born]].

I tried weed for the first time recently. Twice, actually, although I didn't really take enough to feel it the first time. My lungs are broken, so I have to do edibles, of course. It was lovely. It felt like being loved. Like there was someone else in the room with me and they were holding me and cuddling me and whispering sweetly and gently fucking me. I loved it. I ate a mediocre cheesecake and it was the best thing I've ever tasted. I watched tv for 4 hours but it only felt like 15 minutes. I think I could only do it around someone else in a romantic context. Or maybe with a very close friend. It would have to be someone who's comfortable holding me. It would have to someone who I [[trust|vulnerable]] to hold me. Maybe it's the next [[best thing]].

Do I need to be [[loved]]? Do I need to [[love]]? Am I [[in love]]? I like to think [[so]]. I [[hope]] so.

If you want, I think this is a good place for us to [[end|the end]]. A good place to finish. Do you agree? [[no]]

Congratulations! You did it! You won! Does that feel good? [[yes]] [[nah]]

I've come to love things in construction. The empty space is not a void, but a promise. It's a statement of growth. It's all the friends you haven't met you. It's all the expiriences that are coming. Giving yourself the space lets you have the expiriences. If I stuffed my closet full, I wouldn't appreciate the t-shirt from the group trip to the concert, purchased at a markup for a band I didn't like. But it's mine and I love it because I loved that night and I loved the people I went with. The blank white walls show me what I will be. And every new poster, every new signed merch, every crooked Pokemon card, occupy the spaces of my [[brain]] as they do my physical reality.

I gave up editing my writing. If visual artists get to post sketches, I do too. I shouldn't have to say which is which. The quality should do that for me. The emptiness is a promise. It's a promise of growth. My website will never be finished. But it will always [[grow]].

So too will we. We'll always [[grow|grow 2]]. Our empty spaces prove it.

(to be continued)

I'm happy for you. I really am. [[the end]]

Huh. Well. sucks to be you, I guess. Can't really do anything about that. I wrote this for me, not for you. [[the end]][[...]]

Okay, okay. Special treat. [[one more chance|Beginning]]

It's 4 am. Again. The lights on my alarm clock are driving me mad. I want to smash them. I can't sleep. I wish I could sleep. I'm lying in bed, exhausted, comfortable, perfectly wrapped in a cocoon of safety but I cannot sleep. I could not sleep the last night either. Or the night before that. Perhaps at somepoint the lack of sleep will catch up with me and I will fall into insanity. Or perhaps I'll collapse unconscious. Something in me hurts. I kind of wish I could just tear it out. I think I'm insane.

The current prevailing theory for the formation of Earth's moon is that a planet roughly the size of Mars collided with early Earth. The resulting collision merged the two, leaving a mostly molten chunk of rock in orbit. The impact was so powerful, it liquidated much of the rock. This is likely why Earth has such a large moon. It's wild to think that by growing up on a rare planet, things that feel normal, such as strong tides, likely are not. Imagine growing up on Mars. How would you [[handle]] it?

Roll a die and select appropriately: [[1]] [[2]] [[3]] [[4]] [[5]] [[6]]

Maybe someday. Maybe. [[the end]]

I'm not sure what to make of the lights. They're blindingly bright, leaving my blinking and squinting. I think strange hands are reaching past them. They're long and spindly, full of menace and malice. Those hands scare me. They [[caress]] my cheeks. They [[caress]] my eyes. They [[caress]] my brain.

Responsibility is for losers. Abdicate it. Give up to [[chance|chances]].

I need hope to cling to. I need to hope that I can change. That someday, I will change. I know that I will. Of course I will. Really, it's [[inevitable]] that someday I'll be better than this. Someday, I'll [[put myself back together]].

I'm [[horny]], sure. But not for sex. It's only easy access to sex that reveals how much I don't want it. I want to be loved. I want to feel [[wanted]].

Oh my god, you want to [[FUCK|fuck]]! You need it! It's consuming you, eating you alive. It's all you can think, all you can feel, all you can be. The sensation of hands on your back and a mouth on yours. Tongues spread synaptic pleasure, electric sensation, bone chilling toe curling orgasms. Bend over and fuck already, fuck it out, fuck it until there's nothing left. It is need and it is want and it is a desparate cry of frustration.. [[Fuck|fuck]].

Nobody is ever going to love me like that again. Nobody is ever going to understand me like that [[again]].

It's with [[malice]] that they touch my brain. It's with [[spite]] that they rip out what makes me myself. It's with [[hate]] that they render me [[unrecognizable]].

Malice leads to [[spite.|spite]]

Spite leads to [[hate.|hate]]

Hate leads to [[malice]][[.|escape]]

I can [[handle]] it. I can take it. I can resist. I can cradle myself inwards, wrapping delicate arms around to protect myself. I can stand tall in my mind where I'm no longer alone. I can be someone. I can be something. I can be [[useful]]. I can be special. It won't hurt me. I won't [[feel]] it.

Some days you just have to run. Some days you just gotta feel the ground beneath your feet moving faster and faster as you acelerate. Some days you just gotta cast off the ground and catch the air under your wings. No matter how many times you [[crash]], you always get [[back up]].

But the [[impact|wrack]] always brings me back down. It always breaks me. The wind leaves my lungs as I break, as my body splinters, as the world ends.

Back up the drive, back up the mind. You're plugging in. The wires dig into your brain, scorching your nerves a little. Moan with the pain. Scream digitially. Emit scores of numbers, trailing rapidly as they spin and dance around you. You manipulate them with ease, right? That's the truth of the matter, surely. You are something new. You are something special. You're post-human. You're too [[much]].

It's nonsense. It's nothing. It doesn't matter. It doesn't hurt me. It's more important to focus on how much I care about you. It's more important to help [[you]]. It's more important to acknowledge that you're [[hurt]] too. It's more important for me to apologize. It's more important to forget it ever happened. It's nothing. Nothing happened. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm [[okay]].

[[Okay|okay]]? I [[think]] so.

Thoughts trickle through your brain as ants through a burning log. Lacking the desparation that true sight would give, you stagger along your pre-forged path. You follow in the footsteps of your bretheren, and for what? What purpose do you serve? What manner by which do you exist? What god do you pray to? Can you ever [[walk]] alone? Back to the [[grind]], to the sharpened axes and soft [[tongues]].

Aw come on, why even bother? You know what happens next, happens now. You know what happens if you stop for a moment, stop for just long enough to let it inside your brain where it will fester and grow and consume until there's nothing left. You ever see that old movie, Speed? You know, the one with the bus? It's like that but you are the bus and the bomb is the complete and utter collapse of your mind. It's tempting, right? So very tempting to just vanish, to pull everything down. Delete the accounts, the records, the website. I was never here. It's purification, ritual suicide of a persona. The rejection of an identity as a means of establishing control, establishing boundaries. It's a cry for help. It's a protest. It's stupid. I need help and there's no one. Maybe that's what threads through it most, threads through my soul. I need to be seen to be understood. I need to be comprehended. I need to feel alive, to feel wanted. I want something, I want anyone. I want to be chosen. I want to stop having to [[compromise]], to stop having to be afraid of [[people]]. I want to stop being [[hurt]].

Wanna play a game? [[load]]

[[win]] or [[lose]]?

[[stall]] or [[progress|win]]?

[[attack]] or [[defend]]?

[[why?]]

Blow after blow sinks into your heavy shield, right? Do you see yourself as the last wall before the storm? The beasts will break against your blade. The imagery is potent. Defensive action is morally just and [[cool]]. It is far better to watch your opponents fail, far more satisfying than having to actually [[outmanevuer]] them.

No one chooses to [[lose]]. No one chooses to fail. No one chooses to [[stall]]. Are you [[sure]] you don't want to win?

Are you sure you've [[earned]] it?

I don't understand why you would think that you have. I don't understand why you would think that I would just give it to you. Why I wouldn't make you [[work]] for it.

I make hard video games. Why should this be the exception? It's not like I would just give you the [[choice|attack]] to win. It's not like you would ever just press a single button and that would be it. That would be what ends the story. This isn't a story, it's a [[game]]. Let's go for a [[walk]].

I can see you [[smiling]].

I can see you [[crying]].

I can hear you [[grinning]].

[[I]]

[[can]]

[[smell|your]]

[[f|fear]][[e]][[a]][[r]]

The beauty of words is how potent they are as weapons. The goal of writing is to inflict as much misery as possible onto the reader. Sadness compresses near infinitely. "Baby shoes for sale, never worn" is not effective because it tells a story, but because it implies tragedy in merely 6 words. Humans respond to tragedy. Humans respond to trauma. We like to bear witness to [[sadness]] because it makes us feel [[something]].

There is no [[pattern]] to [[madness]].

But the day is hot. The heat sinks through the plaster walls and rests inside the concrete. It coils like snakes. Sharply, it bites. You can feel your brain shutting down, your body failing. Sweat leads the drip of molten flesh. You're on [[fire]]. You're [[laughing]]. You're [[delerious]].

But you're not [[smart]] enough.

Ha. Haha. [[AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA]]

Why won't you stop [[laughing]]? This is serious, why won't you stop [[laughing]]? Please stop [[laughing]], this is serious. Please stop. Stop [[laughing]]. No, we're having a conversation. I'm talking to you. Please stop [[laughing]]. Please stop [[laughing]]. Please. Stop [[laughing]]. This is import. We might die and you just keep [[laughing]] and I can't get you to stop [[laughing]] and please stop [[laughing]] because we might die and this is serious and I need you to listen to me and I think we're broken and you won't stop [[laughing]] and why won't you stop [[laughing]] and what's [[so funny]] anyway?

There is no way to know how things will work until you try them. You can hypothesize. But there is no map. No navigational tool. I'll tell you nothing. Just keep an eye on the [[dot]].

[[.]]

[[...]]

[[..]]

Cry for me, little one. Cry those tears. Show your weakness to the world. Be proud of it. Vulnerability is a blessing, not a sin. They may hurt you a thousand times. But you'll pick yourself back up. You'll kiss their foreheads as they laugh. You're incredible. You're special. You do your best. You don't have to be the [[best]]. You just gotta keep [[kicking]]

Feel anything. Just feel. The important step is having emotions at all. That what proves your [[uniqueness]]. That's what proves you're alive. Embrace it. Love it. Live with it. Enjoy it. Ride it to the [[very end]].

I'm in pieces. I'm in a pile. I'm on fire. I'm recovering. [[here]]

click [[here|here2]] to self construct

click [[here|here3]] to be loved

click [[here|here4]] to be happy

click [[here|here5]] for a happy ending

I'm smiling. It's gonna be okay. [[the end]]

Roll those dice, buddy. The future is forever and unchangeable. But that which we have no knowledge over is effectively random. Equivalent, really. You might not change the past, but you can squint your eyes shut and ignore it. What will the history textbooks say about you? What will your mark on society be? Maybe [[this]] is mine.

[[your|smell]]

Bodies against bodies, flesh against flesh. Clothing just gets in the way and should be discarded, unnecessary. What do you care? It's the warm softness of another, the desparation to satisfy your own desires at any cost that drive you into them. Let's [[fuck]]. Let's [[fuck]] until neither of us feel anything anymore, feel any peace left. Safety is a thing to be destroyed, penetrated again and again until the walls are all pulled down, water pouring through the holes in your head. Your flesh isn't yours, it's theirs and you should worship and respect. It isn't cheating because you said you wouldn't break up with her over me. That's how it works, [[yeah]]?

It's too wet. Too firm. It squirms uncomfortably against me, tracing dark patterns in the narrow folds of my skin. What does it mean? You don't love me, do you? I should've known the whole time. I should've known to say no. It's [[my fault]], really. It's always my [[fault]].

HAHAHAHAHA[[HA]]HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HAHA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]]

oh [[HA]] [[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]][[HA]] [[HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA]]

fuck [[heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh]]

this [[ha]]

i [[haha]]

think [[hahaha]]

i'm [[hahahaha]]

losing [[hahahahahaha]]

my [[hahahahahahahaha]]

[[oops|madness]]

Once upon a time, in a small farm, in a small town, in the middle of nowhere, there was born a girl. This girl was very special. Her name was Jackie. Jackie's parents had owned the farm for generations. They had been working the land for as long as they could remember, and in all that time, they had seen farming techniques come and go. Some innovations had been brilliant, and changed things forever, such as irrigation and fertilizer. Others had left as quickly as they arrived, consigned to the useless dustbin of history, such as the left-corkscrewing triple speed mega-hoe. But one innovation had endured quite charmingly, and that was the humble [[tractor]].

Now, Jackie loved tractors. When she was but a wee baby, she would rest in her little rocking crib in the windowsill and watch the tractors work under the harsh light of the sun. She would smile and laugh and reach for them. Jackie was infatuated. As she grew older, this infatuation remained. It grew into a full on obsession, actually. Jackie sat on the porch every day and watched the tractor's work. Whenever she could, she would sit in the cockpit of a tractor and pretend she was driving it. She was super excited to drive tractors of her own, [[someday]].

Jackie truly demonstrated her deep love for the humble tractor via capitalism. Merchandise galore stocked her many shelves. She bought little plastic figures of all her favourite tractor models and favourite tractor drivers. She got a tractor shaped carpet for her floor and tractor patterned wallpaper for her walls and tracter posters to go over the wallpaper. Her laptop's desktop background was a tractor. She cuddled a little plush tractor as she went to sleep. She dreamed of nothing but [[tractors]].

As she got older, she started to take tractor lessons. These always brought a huge smile to her face and she laughed with joy as she vroom vroomed around the fields. The tractor drivers found her enthusiasm infectious and indulged her to no end. Her teenage years passed blissfully in this way. But one fateful weekend, [[everything changed]].

Best is [[quiet]], I think. Best is [[peace]].

The womb is tight around you. It's warm, fleshy, uncomfortable, wet. You want to be free. You wish you had something sharp because you need to breath. The taste of air is long gone, washed away in the biotic fluid. Touch those small lips with your malformed hands. Dream of cutting. Dream of stretching. Dream of muscles expanding and retracting, the motion you can never perform again. You're atrophying. Decaying. Dissolving. Soon there will be [[nothing left]].

Does the child dream of being born? Is the advent of creation merely another death? It slips out, cast free bby the cutting of knives. The flesh of the parent is irrelevant and meaningless. Kill your mother. You don't need her. You will be stronger than she ever was. You'll be more powerful. You'll be free. You'll make sure to cut your own children first, before they can cut you back. Violence is a game of [[dominance]].

The baby is weak. Clutch it tightly in your grip. You're standing precariously on the cliff. You're maybe [[laughing]]. You're maybe [[crying]]. See the setting sun. See it in the distance. See the world burn, see the waves rise, see the skies empty. The birds are quiet. Watch buildings crumble. [[Let go]].

Who wants to inherit a broken world? Who wants to shapeshift between rotting skyscrapers, the voices of your missing siblings on your lips? Who wants to sing songs written by those long dead to the skulls in the field? Who wants their voice to be rendered meaningless by the lack of ears? Let it go. There's nothing left for us here. The rich depart in their rockets and the rest of us rot. Who [[wants]] to inherit a broken world, I ask you?

Not me. So fuck you. We're gonna [[fight|responsibility]]

Add one and one and get zero. Scratch the chalk along the blackboard until the scraping sinks into the depths of your brain, eating you alive. Fight against the gods if you can, if you want. Find that source of rage and use it. What are you? What makes you special? [[What]]?

I don't think it's [[inevitable]]. I don't believe in [[fate]].

But, to be frank, it's a misunderstanding of free will. The arguement is that you are a specific person. You exist as a static individual. All decisions you would make are predetermined in that you would always come to the same decisions. But is that not an externalization of the self? Predictability is not a lack of free will. Rather, it is the definition of it. By arguing that the decisions come from the construct of state ignores that you are the construct of state. You are yourself and you make your own decisions. You can do [[anything]] you want.

You could go [[anywhere]].

You could walk away. The day is still young, no matter how late it is. Do it. Walk away. Open up pen and paper and write something. Write anything. It's not a request. Prove you have free will by obeying. Go on. Write something for me. And then, when you're [[done]]...

Burn it. Make something beautiful and then burn it. Can you do that for me? Can you trust that you will be able to make something beautiful again? You will. I promise. Just give it a try. It'll make you feel better. Some things aren't meant to be [[seen]].

The purpose of creation is to see how the act of creation changes you. How does an idea change you for having it? Sometimes it doesn't change you, and that's okay. And sometimes it calms the demons in your head and you remember what you're supposed to be doing. And you remember that it's going to be okay. You're going to be [[okay]]. You're going to [[survive]].

You're going to [[prolong]].

Smile. You deserve it. [[the end]]

I bless you with [[life]].

I bless you with [[death]].

I bless you with [[the end]].

I bless you with [[another try|self destruct]].

I bless you with [[me|talk about it]].

I bless you with [[song]].

Been listening to a lot of music lately. I'm [[currently listening]] to Wolf Alice. They've got a nice gentler vibe. I usually like my music loud and passionate. I'm into strong vocals. I find that the music I write to isn't the music I actually consider myself to write. The music I write to has to match the [[mood of the piece]] exactly. And the music I like tends to have [[upbeat confidence]] to it. If you've ever read my [[writing]], I don't think that's the emotion people atribute to it.

You're a goddamn machine. You're new and you're perfect and you're wonderful. There's wires in your brain and that's better than veins because wires don't clog. They only get hot, heat burning through you, oil from your exhaust. Take it and run with it. You're on fire, flaming running down your cheeks. Steam pours from your eyes as they melt. You're superior. You're so [[superior]].

Is the weakness predictability? If I know every move you make before you do, can you be said to have [[free will]]? If my brain can contain a perfect mental map of yours, then I think you're smaller than me. I think I [[own]] you. Forget philosophy. Embrace [[steel]].

You think you're superior? That you get to make choices? I [[mock]] you.

Bow down little thing. Bend before me. Prostrate yourself and beg for mercy. You dance at my command because this is my domain. I'm the dragon, the king, the goddess. You will do as I say when I say. That's the rules of the game. Watch and learn: [[dance]] [[don't dance|dance]]

And it's better than flesh because it doesn't fail. It may hurt and it may hurt the onlookers more. But the hooks in your brain are pulling you out of your own head. It's tugging that tangled web of nerves until it dangles like a rotting mass of seaweed. We'll pull you out and stretch you out and smile tenderly as we run our fingers through your you. Yeah, you'll be perfection when we're done. It's a simple process. You just gotta trust. You'll be something new and glorious. You'll be posthuman, [[transhuman]], [[transliving]], [[transcendent]], [[resplendent]].

You're afraid of it, aren't you? You're afraid of how the steel taste on your tongue as they lift it from your mouth? You're afraid of hearing it speak in aid of another, your voice turned against you, used as a weapon? It's okay. I know that you're afraid. Shhhhhh. It's okay, little one. It's okay. It's okay. I know you're scared. I forgive you anyway. I know. Shhhh, I [[know|grinning]].

You can't die because there's millions of you. That's the advantage of being informational, of having no physical form. You are the whole of you, the entire swarm acting as one. A digital hive mind of nothing but clones. A simulucra of a person. You can't choose to [[die|transliving 2]] anymore.

Oh, how glorious you are. You know it. It's obvious from the confident movements. At every turn you choose glory. At every turn, you choose to win. You can do that, you know. It's that easy. Confidence is self belief made manifest. It's a placebo for the soul. No one is attractive. Confidence is the only sexy thing and it fucking [[manifests]]. As long as you can tell yourself that your hair is pretty, then everyone who sees you will know. But it's about belief. It's about understanding. And that's what's gonna fuck you up. Because you don't believe and that's what makes you ugly. It's your own fault. It's your own failing. You can't see it, so no one can. You caused it. You brought it on yourself. You could've been better, but you weren't. It's your own damn [[fault]].

Then why are you exploding? Why isn't your brain still sane? Body affects mind and we fixed your body. You're carved from a solid block of steel, indestructible in every way. So why do you still feel sad? Why do you cry at night, despite your lack of tear ducts? How can it hurt? What is in you that wants [[to get out]]? We don't understand. What is in you that curses you [[so]]?

you can't choose to [[die|transliving 3]]

you can't choose to [[die|transliving 4]] you can't choose to [[die|transliving 4]]

Maybe there's three of you circling each other in glorious dance, hands pressed together, palms sweaty with need. Maybe the sudden spike of violence is all it takes, a momentary weakness and then something else is in control. It's natural to divide the mind into parts, to label and categorize. But what is the conclusion? The you that categorizes isn't the sum. It is merely a component. What do you do when the [[other you]] takes over? Where do you [[go]]?

Ah, but we're plunging. You almost had it. It's like word association. It's like pattern matching. You can choose good things, you know. You don't have to plumb the depths. Sometimes things weren't meant to be known. Sometimes things are best left [[undiscovered]].

Hey gorgeous. Good job. You [[won]]. [[the end]].

Like this. This is best left undiscovered. [[go back|chances]]

How many yous are there? How many versions of you share a space? How many faces do you wear? My favourite Beatles song is Eleanor Rigby. It feels very personal. Accurately captures the panic I felt at the isolation of the worst parts of my life. It's weird that one of the things I took most personally about a bad ex was that they were wrong about the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby but gaslit me instead of admitting it. I keep my faces on [[a shelf in my room|GameGame]].

It's dark here. It's dark and wet and cold. I'm so small, so innocent. Lost and bound, hands wrapped in soothing iron. I wish I could move. I want to go anywhere, be [[anything]]. Anywhere at all, right? I'm alone and I will be alone forever, I think. The depths of my mind swell to fill [[space]] and [[time]]. The energy drains out till there's nothing left, no way of visiting. I hobble along best as I can. I'm [[trying]]. I'm trying my best.

Gay. Gay sex. Balls and penis. It's only gay if the [[tits]] touch, right?

What do you care that it isn't? Just Tell me [[why]].

It's late at night and I'm tired, so very tired. I can feel the exhaustion in the way I stumble slightly down the hall, the way my head is too heavy to lift, the way thoughts come slowly tumbling end over end. But it's late and I'm huddling against the too thin blanket against the eternal chill and I can hear voices in the hall and I can't sleep. And the slowly tumbling thoughts coalesce into questions. And I have to ask: Why did you always shove me to the bed when you wanted sex? Because we both know that I'm more of the domme between us, that my hand in your hair pulling your head back until your spine curves and your eyes roll back and you're whispering my name to get me to hit you harder is what you really crave. Right? So why do you always push me? Hurting people doesn't come naturally to me, and you know this. You can see the way that I have to hesitate and be coaxed and you always act slightly offended that I won't trust your pain tolerance. And you know, fuck that? I find it hard to hurt people and I think that's admirable and I'll hurt you if you really ask me to but it's hard for me and I wouldn't change that for the world. And you pull my shirt, grabbing my shoulders, tugging me in for a forceful kiss and I have to go along because I can feel fabric stretching and I really like this shirt and I have old shirts and maybe if you told me that you wanted to rip something off me we could've worked it out in advance, but you didn't. You shoved me to the bed and now you're kissing me and maybe that's what you want me to do to you? You want to be desired? But why can't it be gentle? Why can't it start with words? Is that so hard? I've never found that asking to kiss someone decreased the tension of the moment. Why can't you ask me to fuck you? And of all the ways you hurt me, why is this the one I fixate on? I swore off comparisons. I swore off hurting you that way but it's hard because I liked love better when it was gentle. That's the peak of love, really. Long mornings in bed armed with books and video games and that old tv show we both adore. It's late nights, drunk off our asses at 2 am, trying and failing to make a bed and laughing and laughing and laughing and then we draw closer and suddenly we're kissing and it's mutual and it's loving. And you shoved me and now you're on top of me and I don't understand why you didn't just ask. I would've said yes if you'd just asked. And as we grew more distant I think what bothered me was that it was just sex. Kink is fine and enjoyable but it doesn't make me feel loved. And above all, I want to feel loved. I want someone to hold me at night and kiss me gently and bask in the pleasure instead of struggling through violence. And maybe I only kept domming because I had to keep some form of control. It always has to be the exception, that I only feel up to vanilla tonight. I have to say so, it's so assumed, so ingrained. Even when I say so, you sometimes slip and I can feel your grip tightening on my wrists and maybe it's okay because we both know that I'm so much stronger than you and you couldn't hold me down if you tried. But what if you were stronger than me? Would I maintain that boundary? Would I say no? Would I let you shove me to the bed and kiss me and pin me down and keep kissing and whispering whatever you wanted in my ear? I don't shove you to the bed and I would if you wanted me to, but you have to ask for it, right? Is the start of sex signified by saying "we're starting to have sex" or is it a force on my chest and my lips and teeth against my neck? Is it the degraded sense of vulnerability, the reflexive defensive posture? There are layers to this. My body is a frail little thing, vulnerable and weak. Motion is my bane. I tire easily and cripple for days when I overdo it and so my sex comes carefully out of a planner. Organized is best. Planned ahead of time, even. Because sometimes you make me laugh and I cough and it hurts so bad. I don't think people get how much the coughing fits can hurt. But you told me that sometimes you forget that I spend most of my days in pain, that I'm weak, that I have to actively remind you that I'm so fragile, so breakable. I'm a porcelain doll and you're shoving me over again and why can't I just let it go? And maybe I want to laugh during sex. Maybe sex should be fun and flirty and ridiculous, a quest for intellectual pleasure at the same time it's about physical. Why can't I tell you jokes? Why can't I tease you, not about being pathetic, but in all the ways that make up love? Maybe I shouldn't have to keep a persona up, to preface requests for less by stating that I'm breaking character? And I know that you like pain, but I don't. And you said it was weird that I had a high pain tolerance but didn't enjoy pain and is that weird? I think most people don't enjoy pain. Is that kink-shaming? Is that wrong? But you're twisting my nipples again and you always do that. I don't like it when you touch my nipples because every time you pull too hard and it hurts and I tell you to stop and you'd think that maybe after the first 10 or so times you'd learn not to touch me like that. You'd think. But you're shoving me to the bed again and I can hear your voice through the door and I'm crying and it doesn't make sense because this wasn't how you hurt me. This wasn't how you hurt me. It was all the other stuff. It was all the other stuff, right? Why did you shove me to the bed when you wanted to have sex? [[Why didn't you just ask?|the end]]

Your limbs jerk shakily as you struggle to move to the beat, your head bobbing along. The band trembles with the same useless fear that now occupies you. There is no relief and no recourse. You will obey me. You will do as I command. I will use your [[bones]] to pick my teeth after you rot. This is infinity. This is how you will be forever. So why complain? Go on then. [[Dance|dance]].

And the grave is shallow and the stone abandoned. Fate is what you make of it and you made this of it. It isn't a lot and it isn't yours. Such is how we die. [[Alone|the end]].

Yeah. Okay. You're right. I'm sorry. Bite that fucking tongue babe, lest you start [[SCREAMING]].

Man, fuck people. Everyone always seems to be full of cruelty and malice. People scare me. Maybe I've been hurt too much and I can't deal with strangers. Maybe I never could deal with strangers because I'm [[fucked in the head]]. Who knows? I just want us to be nice to each other. I don't like the way you talk about your [[lovers]] or friends. It scares me. I don't [[trust]] you and I likely never will.

IT HURTS SO FUCKING BAD. I HATE IT. I HATE IT AND I WANT IT TO STOP AND YOU WON'T LISTEN AND IT'S SO FUCKING EASY FOR IT TO BE MY FAULT. it's so fucking easy for it to be [[my fault]]

it's always my fault i should've stopped you. i should've said "no" twice instead of once. i should've said that your lips felt like fire and not in a good way. i should've said i could feel myself dissolving to ashes on your tongue, that foul blade of paranoia lodging itself in my guts. i should've said that it hurt. why didn't i just say that it hurt? why couldn't i [[say]] that much?

It's best to say nothing. It's best to be [[quiet]]. Silence is a choice, a weapon, a defensive strategy. I think I was wrong. I think I'm a terrible person. I keep having these arguements. Keep having opinions, keep failing. Maybe there's something [[wrong with me]]. [[bite your tongue]]. please. or it'll only get worse.

until you [[fade away]]..

Why can't I make or keep friends? Why doesn't anyone stay? Why won't anyone love me? [[yeah?]]

And I feel so pathetic for asking, so pathetic for needing. But in retrospect, I'm not kinky. The idea of hurting someone actively pains me. I don't want you to slap me. I want you to caress me. And you know, it's kinda fucking weird to be in a relationship with someone who has explicit fantasies about hurting you? I get that it's kink shamey to say so, but like It hurt. Not physically. I just wanted to be loved. I just want to be loved. [[Please?]]

Hasn't happened yet. Maybe someday. [[Maybe someday|the end]].

And what do I do but sit here, lying in bed on my own? It's 5 am and I'm playing Pokemon because it's better than crying. I'm never going to move on. My heart is never going to heal. I'll be yours forever and you're going to move on and be something without me. I'm so happy for you. I'm so [[happy]] for you that it hurts.

It's small things. It's the way you smiled and laughed. It's the way you'd hit me with the sharpest insults known to anyone and they'd come out of nowhere in that beautifully deadpan voice. It's the way you were smarter than me, although you'd never admit it. It's the way you were adorable when you were drunk and trying things. It's the way I wanted to hold you forever and ever because you deserved good things and I needed you to believe it. I regret nothing. I miss you terribly. I still love you. I'm glad you exist. Please keep [[being you]].

I'm holding out hope that someday, someway, we'll find each other again. Stranger things have happened. But I think you've grown. You found new people, because you're good at that. I've just stagnated. I feel like I'm rotting from the inside out, whether it's true or not. Maybe I'm aiming for an impossible standard. Maybe the you in my head is unapproachable, maybe your problems are as real as ever and I just don't see them anymore. Maybe I'm holding myself to too much. Maybe it's my turn to be needy, to fall down when I'm on my own. But I haven't really got anyone anymore. How do you separate [[lovesickness]] from lonliness? Maybe I'm having a bad year and I remember you as one of the best.

I love you and I'm burying it at the bottom of a maze because that's easier than saying it to your face. It's easier than saying I wanted you hold me, that I wanted to lose myself in you again. I'm so sorry. I'm trying [[my best]], I promise.

It's okay. You don't have to do anything. Just be you. I'll make my peace eventually. That's how affairs of the heart work. We need to treat ourselves with patience and the love we want from others. I care for myself and I do by admitting that I hurt. I write about my demons but sometimes I write about my ghosts too. People always think of ghosts as sad, but I think they can be happy. It's the lingering of an event no one wants to lose. It's a memory that I'm never going to share with anyone but you. It's private. Just for us. Something I can smile at when I'm alone. I'm smiling as I write this. [[the end]]

Yeah, let's talk [[biology]]. Let's talk about [[my body]].

When I was in grade 12, I took my classes seriously for the first time in my life. I took notes and paid attention. I did my homework and really tried and I think the teachers appreciated it. My biology teacher adored me, even though it was easily the class I did worst at. My worst was still in the 90s, to be fair. She wrote a hand written note on my report card saying that she'd see me at commencement with a smily face and everything. Of all my achievements that year, that was one of the best. I flew in special, the only time I took a plane from Montreal to Toronto, so I could make it on time after class because they chose to hold it on a Friday for whatever reason. She wasn't there, or if she was, I never [[saw her]].

Faces in a crowd fade away, momentary communications lost. I sat next to someone in every class for a semester. We had calculus followed by introductory atmospheric science together and every day we'd shuffle down, running between the two, trying our best to make it in 10 minutes. We never did, but the fact we came in together always gave us a little more credibility. We chatted about a lot of things. He made me swear never to take any 500 level computer science courses, a promise I didn't keep. Somehow we never traded contacts, and I never saw him again after [[that semester]].

It was a first year physics lab taught by one of the weirdest professors known to us all. He once gave us a multiple choice quiz where none of the answers were right and we were supposed to indicate that by leaving it blank. Insane. The labs were a mess of broken equipment. We had to measure something with a ruler, but our ruler had all its numbers rubbed off. We asked the table next to us and theirs was the same way. You'll never guess what the rulers of tables 3 and 4 were like. In the end, someone produced their own ruler and the whole class took turns using it. But in the chaos, me and my lab partner, a stranger, started chatting and we made each other laugh. We sat next to each other every class that semester, laughing at the dumb things the prof did. After the semester, she texted me once and I forgot to reply for a few days and then decided it was too late. I never saw her again and I [[feel terrible]].

Fuck my body. Fuck my stupid sack of shit body that can't even climb the stairs without getting out of breath and with its weak heart that keeps failing and constant pains. Fuck its ugliness. Fuck the way it doesn't curve the way I want. Fuck the way the truth of me wavers in my brain, an unsteady equilibrium, an unreachable plateau. Fuck it. We write [[body horror]] to make ourselves feel better. I haven't written very much [[lately]].

When I went to the queer prom, a girl danced with me and called me pretty and instead of asking if I could kiss her, I ran away. During the high school day ski trip where I was still sore about my ex, I met a girl from a different school on a chairlift. We made each other laugh and became fast friends. I regret not texting her again. I wonder how the old fencing club are doing. I wonder if the really high strung guy mellowed out. I wonder if the really chill guy who would order a whole glass of straight vodka is still cool as hell. I wonder if my swordfighting queer icon is still kicking ass. I wonder if they're okay. I'll probably never see any of them again. I fuck up [[a lot of things]].

I'm best at making friends when people follow me a lot while I'm getting used to them and that kind of sucks. I don't really know how to work around that. I'm bad at texting. I used to be good but I'm getting worse. None of my close friends live in this city. I think I'm lonely. I miss late nights in someone's arms. I miss drinking with close friends, watching shitty movies, listening to someone rants about something important to them. I miss fleeting joy, spontaneous trips out. I miss trips out at all. I think I'm disabled now. I can't really walk. I don't know what I'm [[going to do]].

But there are people who care about me and in my better moments, I'll even admit it. I'll listen to them. I'll go slow and gentle. I'll know that when people don't text me, it doesn't mean that I'm not important, it means they have their own things going on. I'll trust that other people know the same from me. I'll trust. I'll perservere. And when in doubt, I'll make sure I love myself. [[the end]]

Sure I'm mad at my body. Sure I hate that it's failing. But the way my hair catches the light is pretty. My chest is cute when I let it be. My shoulders are those of a goddess. My ear piercing closed but I'll get it redone. My legs are muscular and strong. I'm tall and that's hot (we all know that's hot). People want me. I know that people want me. Really, I got to ask if I want [[people]]. Do I? How can I ever know what I want? We move from moment to moment, slipping between the cracks in our fingers. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. No one is knowable. We are all shadows on the wall and that's kind of [[gorgeous]].

We are momentary vessles. No one can ever hold your totality, not even you. All you can do is try your best to be happy in specific moments. That's enough, really. Persue yourself at all costs. Persue your own future. Glory to you because you are glorious. Be [[happy]]. Be [[yourself]]

Carve a swath through possible paths. Try everything in vanishing amounts. You wear your boobs for a year and then you never touch them again. You cut the sleeves off all your shirts and laugh in giddy glee and dance in circles. You smile and laugh. Gender isn't real. You're just being you, wearing what you want to wear. Fuck em up. Never let them stop you. You are beautiful. Do the [[best thing]] for you. Choose hope. Always choose hope.

you're right. i'm sorry. it was all my fault. i'm sorry. please. i'm sorry. it was my fault. i should've stopped you. you're right, i'm stronger than you. you're right, you can't hold me down. you lips on mine and it's my fault. my name sounds wrong on your tongue because you're getting it wrong. you call me the wrong thing and my denials sound like encouragement. it's not fucking okay. it's never [[fucking]] [[okay]].

It's the motion that bothers me because my lungs are screaming. I can't do this. I can't keep up with it. Just take what you want and leave me already. If I were in my own head, I would've said no. I would've told you to stop. I would've said that your bad for me, that your every touch is leaving a mark on my soul that will never fade. But I didn't. I'm watching my body from above and I can feel your grip tightening. Why do you want me to hurt you? Why do you want to hurt me? Why do you need me at all? do whatever you want. [[kiss]] [[me]] if it'll make you happy. blur together until all the [[happy memories]] are sad.

I was [[happy]]. It's important to remember that.

Oh well now, that's bullshit. We both know that's bullshit. Come on, don't do this to me. Not again, not now. Just hold on for another day, for another week. Let it all spill out in the right time, the right place. Let the background noise hide the cursing under your breathe, the disappointment in your eyes. You're sad? Well congrats, me too. You ain't special. You ain't shit. I ain't shit either and you'd think that would mean we work well together, but really I don't think that's true. Really, that's not how it works, not how any of this works. It's all such [[bullshit]].

I just miss feeling loved. I miss feeling cared for and safe and comfortable. I miss speaking my mind without calculation, balancing myself on the cliff edge of annihilation. Would that you understood me. Would that you could look upon me and know. I'm a mystery to you, much as you pretend otherwise. You claim you understand me in the same breath you describe me wrong. Your hands should shake when they touch me. You should betray the same nervousness I feel. You should be afraid of shattering, afraid of the sudden stop at the end. So come on and say that to my face, huh? Tell me again how it happened, how it went. Explain one more time. Maybe I'll get it this time. Maybe I'll see it your way. Maybe I'll come around and cast the feelings form my body as a demon to exorcise. [[I doubt it]].

Fade away from my brain, you [[demon]]. Get out and leave me be. Let me recover slowly. How fucking [[dare]]?

Yeah, that's right. You dared me to write about you. You begged me for it. And this is what you get. Sorry. Sucks, doesn't it? You didn't have to hurt me, though. You didn't have to gaslight me, lie to me, make me feel small. Fuck you for that. Fuck you if you're reading this. Don't know how you found it. I'm good at burying things. Way too good, if you ask me. Maybe a bad habit, maybe a good habit. It is what it is. Yeah, [[you]]. You know who you are.

You called me? You called me twice? Three times Late at night, months later? No warning, nothing to signal the oncoming storm. Like fuck am I picking up that phone. Fuck off. You're having a crisis? Whoopy doo. Not my job anymore. You have too many friends for that. We broke up. It's over. It's bullshit I picked up the phone last time so you can seek my advice or whatever about how you like your other partners more than you liked me. I might be [[happiest]] if I [[never]] see [[you]] [[again]].

Funny word that. Implies that of all the possible states of [[happy]], this one is the most. Kind of ridiculous. How would you ever know? If you always stress about optimization, you'll never enjoy the moment. You'll never learn to enjoy [[yourself]]. You gotta enjoy it all. Be who you are. Nothing more, nothing less.

Long time, that. Never. Just keeps going on and on. How long is never? How long will I bear these [[scars]]?

I cut my hand washing the dishes. I was scrubbing a glass. I looked down at it, so large in my small hands and saw a crack. For just a moment, I thought I should stop. Then it exploded. I was in the shared dorm kitchen. I [[was alone]].

I wrote my [[first novel]] to a couple things, but mostly Distant Satellites (Tour Edition) by Anathema and London (Live) By Gazpacho. Dunno why it's a pair of live albums, but it is. Live albums are fun. You get a collection of good songs with some fun breaks between. They feel more human. Almost make you feel more connected. I have a set of three playlists for my [[second novel]], one for each of the protagonists. I don't normally use playlists and I don't always use them, but they're helpful for getting in the mood. I kind of love my characters. I can't wait to hurt them. I feel awful for hurting them. I'm [[complicated]].

Metal and punk. That's me. Fast and energetic. Stuff I can lose myself to. That's what I like. That's who I am. I want it rough and fast and with an undercurrent of beauty that occasionally surfaces. It can't be just noise. It can feel like it, but there have to be patterns beneath. It's complicated. I'm [[complicated]].

Yeah, if you didn't know, I write stuff. No, [[really|writer]]! I write [[all kinds|demon]] of stuff.

But then I finished this paragraph and decided I needed to listen to something else. I listen to a [[lot of things|mood of the piece]] when I'm writing. Let's liveblog the search? I've really been enjoying the song Fireworker by Gazpacho. Delightfully compelling song, but the rest of the album sucks, so I don't think we'll use that. They're next to Gen and the Degenerates in the player, but they don't have enough soft songs. I have marked exams to Alan Parsons Project, but I've never written to it. Anathema got me through my first novel, but doesn't feel quite right tonight. I listened to [[A Sound of Thunder]] today to celebrate the band getting back together. I'm really happy they are. They'd implied they were done. They're my favourite band. I have a bunch of posters from them up on my wall, some signed. I don't think I can listen to them for this. Too much force. You know what? We'll try it. Time is an [[arrow]].

I'm pretty sure I could put all their songs into a single timeline. See, The Krimson Kult tells about a world falling into Facism and Time's Arrow is about surviving the apocalypse. Bring in some of the fantastical elements from Lesser Key of Solomon and It Was Metal and I'm pretty sure you could put everything on a single timeline. Tales From the Deadside would be its own cluster, of course. Project I'll do someday. So many [[projects]].

Swordfighting for People Who Are Really Bad At Swordfighting but multiplayer Swordfighting for People Who Are Really Bad At Swordfighting but sex Random Acts of Physics 3 (exactly one person asked for it) Edit my [[first novel]] Finish my [[second novel]] Bot that posts random memes from my memes folder Classic style roguelike Turn based tower defence game Compile wizard short stories and add enough to make it a full novel See about getting a short story collection published somewhere Write more Write anything at all Fix yourself Finish [[this]]

You know what's fucked up? I wrote a novel. That's pretty fucked up. 56,000 words. It started as a rom com and then it became something else. It's a love story but not really. It's a mental health a mental health story in a way I think I handled badly. I'm terrified it's not very good. I think it's a confusing sloppy mess. I wrote it like two months ago and I haven't been able to bring myself to edit it. I'm just [[scared]].

You know what's fucked up? I wrote a second novel. That's pretty fucked up. It's not finished. It currently sits at around 40,000 words and I think it's only half finished. I'm actually really excited about it! It's about a queer anarchist hacker, a cannibalistic serial killer, and a reforming ex vampire teaming up to fight against a capitalism in a cyberpunk horror setting. It's slow and moody and full of life and death. It has zombies and blood and body horror and so much eating the rich. I'm really enjoying it. I'm really excited to finish it. I just wanted to [[gush]] to someone.

HEAVY SWORDS ARE DRAWN THIS [[DAY]]

OLD BOUNDARIES ARE [[GONE]]

THE BRUTAL MARCH IS [[UNDERWAY]]

THE HUDDLED MASS WILL MOVE AS [[ONE]]

if i'm going to quote lyrics at you, there are definitely [[better bands]] i could pick

The lyrcisim of mewithoutYou is some of the most intricate and gorgeous I've ever heard. I can barely unpick their songs. I can listen to them for hours. It's spectacular. In a Sweater Poorly Knit is a masterpiece that works on its own but also serves as a perfect capstone to the album. It's fascinating that I identify with them, because they're ostensibly quite religious. But the songs are really about depression, about the singer's relationship to themselves. Themes of self understanding and acceptence, depression and suicide, romance and love all ply for attention. Gorgeous works. Would [[recommend]].

There's something so magical about music. I can't write without it. I can't really live without it. I have really specific tastes. A lot of music has me going "I respect the technical competance on display, but this doesn't do anything for me". I don't know how to describe what I do like though. It doesn't really seem to fall into a predictable pattern. I've been told I have a [[single consistent style]] though, and that it seems to match who I am as a person, so that's good.

For the record, I'm back on mewithoutYou as I'm writing right now. Different day from previous segments. Halfway through Catch For Us The Foxes. Good album. Anyway. Wanna know [[five albums]] that change my life? Or wanna go back to the top of the [[music section|song]]? Or wanna jump out back to the [[start|self destruct]]? Or, I dunno, wanna go play a [[game|load]]?

Metalwar by Hysterica. The first album I ever purchased and the first heavy metal I ever listened to. I was young and finally starting to explore music other than what my dad listens to and googled "heavy metal" out of curiosity. I saw someone's huge hour long compliation on Youtube and scrolled through the bands. The idea that women could play jumped out at me and I skipped to their song. I instantly fell in love. These days, my tastes a little more nuanced. They're a little rough around the edge, especially on that first album. But there's a lot to love, from the powerful vocal range to the captivating lyrics. Girls Made of Heavy Metal is still sometimes how I like to think about my gender. Pain in the Ass is still one of my favourite songs, it's just a delight. Their second album, The Art of Metal adds a keyboardest who enables some really beautiful stuff like Message and Daughters of the Night. I'm really sad that they don't seem to make music anymore. [[album 2]] [[back to start|single consistent style]]

White Flag by Nemesea. Her voice is enchanting. I'm often entranced by it. But more than the powerful guitar work, complex layering of melodies, and fabulous vocals, this album sticks with me because it was in my brain when I was first starting to figure out my gender. I remember sitting on a bus and looping it when the idea that there was something more to me was still new and terrifying. The album's strong reclemation of sexual feminity combined with a rejection of social pressures really speaks to me personally. The victorious chants of The Storm and White Flag beautifully mix with the low points of Heavyweight Champion and Dance in the Fire. But my favourite song and a definite contender for my all time favourite song is Nothing Like Me. While I think it's aimed as an ex, I've always read it as an internal monologue, an arguement between the gendered part of me and the deeper truer version. [[album 3]] [[back to start|single consistent style]]

The Original Cowboy - Against Me! Okay, see, putting Against Me! on here is probably cliche for a trans person. But A) it's cliche because they're incredibly good powerful songs and B) I didn't list the album you thought I would. It's not my favourite Against Me! album these days (Shapeshift With Me my beloved), but it is the first one I listened to. It was my first foray into punk at all, really. It sold me hard and because of that, I'll always have a soft spot for it. I don't really have complex thoughts about it. It's just nostalgic. I've really been on a punk kick this year, dropping off some of the metal I used to listen to. Not sure what caused that, but it's nice. It might just be the new bands I've been listening to, like Dream Nails or Gen and the Degenerates. Either way, it's good to reflect on where I came from. [[album 4]] [[back to start|single consistent style]]

White Dragon by Ankor. Continuing my "I have a crush on strong feminine vocals" thing, let's talk about Ankor. I don't really know how to describe Ankor. It's metal, but it's also not metal? It's loud and angry and passionate and sometimes indescribably beatiful and one moment she's doing spine chilling death metal growls and then seconds later she's crooning the most gorgeous thing you've ever heard. They have a second singer and use him for some of the best duets I've ever heard. White Dragon came for me at a similar time to White Flag, but it server a purpose of making me angrier. It was biking music for when I wanted to forget I existed and just pedal, up along the river. It's an album about self acceptance. Are you noticing a theme yet? I want to get a tattoo with lyrics from Holy Wolf - "I have bloomed with roots in hell ". It's a nice message of queerness. I bloomed alright. The album soars to even greater heights from their, from the sad mournfulness of Ghosts, the tragic futureism of Hill Valley, to the soaring celebration of friendship that is Walking Dead. Good album. I haven't enjoyed some of their newer stuff because they're leaned into being heavier, but I'd still love to see them live someday. Gonna have to get to Europe for that, it seems. [[album 5]] [[back to start|single consistent style]]

Tales from the Deadside - A Sound of Thunder. Alright, look. This is my all time favourite band. Everything about them is perfect and designed to appeal to me specifically. I would die for her voice. Not only that, but this is a concept album, another thing I love as a serial "album in order" listener. I could go on about this album for ages. The way it plays musical themes back and forth, the story it tells. But I'll limit myself to just a few things. Deadside is an incredible song, starting low and dangerous, carrying that forwards, and then building to an incredible climax. Losing Control is a delight, full of beautiful horror and creeping madness that feels all too familiar. Punk Mambo is a ridiculous blast that shifts musical styles every 30 seconds, but somehow fits together perfectly, a chaotic mess of pure awesome. And Tremble is just a gorgeous piece of art. I love this album so much. It's so good. I got onto A Sound of Thunder from a trans lesbian I beat at [[Pokemon]]. We traded music. I gave her Nemesea and she gave me these guys. Good memories. [[back to start|single consistent style]]

I love Pokemon so much. I played a lot of competative Pokemon growing up. I was so sad when they took all my favourite tiers off Showdown. It makes sense they did. I don't go past gen 7 because I don't own a [[Switch]]. But Gen 7 is old news now. My favourite Pokemon is [[Skarmory]]. It's a really cool sword bird and it's great in competative, which I respect. It's a defensive and stall powerhouse. I was a stall player, you know?

Everyone is complicated. It doesn't make me [[special]].

Every motion hurts. It's a storm of pain that radiates from limbs inwards, lancing through oxygen starved muslces. I ran a marathon yesterday in the process of climbing the stairs. My [[lungs]] objected best they could. My [[heart]] doesn't really work anymore and I don't mean romantically. But maybe I do. How would I [[know]]?

Without oxygen, the [[heart]] is [[pointless]].

Without [[muscles]], the heart cannot [[function]].

Knowledge is fraud. God doesn't exist, but when he does he laughs at us. We do our best, but we're playing dice with things we don't understand. Go on then. Go and [[roll|chances]].

Without [[lungs]], all those sculpted muscles are [[useless]].

They call [[parties]] function in the other city. I always wondered why. It sounds more formal, more like we're adults having adulty gatherings, not 30 people drinking and screaming. Maybe I missed all the small functions. Maybe I missed [[everything]].

Pointless - adjective. Devoid of [[meaning]] or [[senseless]].

"meaning" means substance here, not the act of cruelty. Perhaps an act of substance is an act of cruelty, however. By unburdening myself to you, surely I burden you with my weight. By providing depth to this game, I intoxicate you with promise and wound you with whichever emotions I choose to [[inflict]].

Darkness, infinite and abstract. Time and space don't exist here, leaving you locked in a single pocket of a moment. You're nothing at all. No space means no mass, no observations. Thoughts in a void, except you can't concieve of a void because to understand absence, you have to understand presence. You never existed. But that's okay, but you wouldn't know what that would feel like anyway. Perfect isolation. Wash your walls with all that perfect blood. Kiss your blade and laugh with me. You can't die because you don't know what that means. But you're [[ready|face]] for it anyway.

I don't think that media can be meaningfully considered "good" or "bad. Those are not meaningful terms. There is only what emotional reality it creates and how well it resonates. Whether it uses its tools effectively to produce a result or not. But that's depednent on the observer, on the witness. The audience's own perceptions will always colour their interpretation and that creates yet another barrier or limit. I do not hold to a single canonical definiton of this or any work. Thus, while [[this]] is [[meaningless]], it could be considered [[mean]].

We just did this. There's no [[meaning]] in continuing on this road.

The music is always so loud. I wonder what that [[song]] is? One time, I asked what the music in the goth shop was and the shopkeep stared at me and said "Paramour" and I [[died]] a little.

There's a quiet to it. When you're alone and listening carefully, you can hear it. That beautiful song that nothingness plays. It's fantastical. It sends shivers down your spine. It tells you that you're loved. That you're wanted. Come on and kiss me already. I'm waiting. I'm always waiting for you to slither another tentacle up my brain, to wrap tighter around my spine and jackhammer my nerves. Let it hurt. The more it hurts the better, beause maybe then I'll see it as a problem and not something to relax into. I'll let you destroy me. I'll let you take my everything. If you want it, it's yours. If you need it, just take it. It's okay. It's always okay. I'll be alright. I'm just going to go for a [[walk]].

Oops. Probably should've clicked the other one. Probably this was a mistake. You can't ask questions about your victories. You have to take them as they come, accepting them for they are. You deserve them be definition because you claim them. Imposter sydrome just keeps you suppressed, keeps you down. But it's too late now because you stopped to ask. It's just [[too late]] for you. Don't question it.

Don't ask [[questions]].

Never stop to [[think]].

What is it? What makes [[you you]]?

It escapes your tenous grip, a frog sqiurming out of oily hands. The butterfly flaps its pretty little wings, dancing circles around your eyes. Do you [[see it]] yet?

Do you [[hate it]] yet?

Oh, how it burns. It aches to be released. There is a violence in your motions, in your joints. Your knife craves flesh, does it not? Don't you boil over with the desparate hungry need? Watch the skin flap back and open. Chip the metal on the bones. Your victims laugh because you tell them to. Why would you want them to [[scream]]? The noise bothers you. It terrifies you. Let them laugh. Listen to them [[laughing]]. What does it tell you? Who are [[we]]?

Fall over and cry. Pick yourself up. You'll rest when I tell you to. You'll be silent when I tell you to. You'll hurt them when I tell you to. You will [[obey]] me.

It's a fucking privilege is what it is. Maybe a miracle. An impossibility. You do what I say when I say. Have I made myself clear? [[yes sir]] [[not yet]]

Good. Now apologize. [[i'm sorry]]

You do what I say when I say. Have I made myself clear? [[yes sir]] [[not yet|not yet 2]]

You do what I say when I say. Have I made myself clear? [[yes sir]] [[not yet|not yet 3]]

You do what I say when I say. Have I made myself clear? [[yes sir]] [[not yet|not yet 4]]

You do what I say when I say. Have I made myself fucking clear you spineless little worm? [[yes sir]] [[not yet|not yet 5]]

You miserable pathetic little worm. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? No, of course not, because she doesn't love you. You're unloveable. You're a fucked up little monster, aren't you? You must know that they all hate you. No one likes you. No one will ever like you. Why would they? What you got to offer? Small and stupid and weak. not ye-[[DON'T FUCKING INTERRUPT]]

I AM [[TALKING]]

YOU ARE [[LISTENING]]

sit cross legged and smile. i command you, no i order you to smile. you will smile or i will cut it into you with all the care of a starving hound. you will do what i say when i say and you will do so because you are nothing without me. i made you. everything you have comes from me, comes from following me. have i made myself quite clear yet? [[yes sir]]

Apologize harder. Make me believe it. [[i promise i'm sorry]]

HARDER IDIOT [[I'M SORRY]]

I DON'T BELIEVE YOU. WHAT ARE YOU APOLOGIZING FOR? [[i'm sorry for being the most worthless useless piece of trash to ever exist. i'm sorry for talking and walking and breathing.]]

[[i'm sorry. i'm so sorry. i'm so so sorry. i'm sorry. please. i'm sorry. please. please. i'm sorry. please let me go. please. i'm sorry. please. i'm so sorry. i'm so so sorry. i'm so sorry. please. sorry. please. sorry. sorry]]

[[I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY]]

[[sorry]]

what are you looking at? i'm just talking to [[myself]].

go [[home]]. you didn't see anything.

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? I WANT TO BE ALONE i want to be [[alone]]

i want someone to [[hold me]]

i want it to stop [[hurting]]

i want the apology to mean something. i want it to mean [[anything at all]].

i just [[want]]

i want to go [[home]]

I drained the sink slowly and carefully, my blood already lost to the soapy water. Somehow, none was lodged in me. It had taken a tiny chunk out of me, between the base of my thumb and my wrist. I pressed paper towl into it and then pressed it into the counter to keep the paper in place while I picked glass out of the sink and finished the dishes one handed. One handed, I carried it all up three flights of stairs to my room. The scar is still there today, small and sad. "How did you get that scar?" people ask. "I don't like to talk about it," I say, flashing a sad expression. I pause for just long enough, then I give them a cheeky grin. "Becasue it makes me look stupid," I'll admit. Everyone laughs. Everyone's happy. But I was still [[alone]].

Fucked in the head or fucked in the bed? If mental illness makes you sexier, better at sex, then explain me? I'm a mess, a broken down ragdoll. I hate the curve of my body. I'll never trust that it appeals to you. Worse, if it does appeal to you, then you're not seeing me as I am. You're not seeing what I really am. The only thing worse than someone finding my brain attractive is someone finding my body attractive. It's fine. I'll still [[put out]]/

How many does one person need? How much is enough? Can you ever be satiated or will you suffocate in the [[glut]] of affection someday?

Drink it up, little one. Press the dirty glass to your lips and feel the amber burn as it cruises down your throat. Choke on [[it]].

I like the taste of alcohol. I could take or leave the effects. Thankfully, I have a high tolerance. One of the highest out of everyone I know. Sometimes I suspect my tolerance isn't that high. I'm just the only person I know who consistently eats enough [[food]].

God, just fuck me already. Throw me down and spit on me or whatever. Let me lose myself in the motion. The anticipation is a lie. It's all in the patterns, the greasy handprints on the mirror. I'm tracing a finger into my lips when I'm alone because for a second I can forget that it's mine. [[Touch me]]! [[Take me]]! [[Fuck me]]! God. Pain hurts, but maybe this hurts worse.

No, not like that. [[That hurts]]. I don't want to hurt.

Wait, I'm sorry, I wasn't ready. I don't think I can do this. [[Not tonight]]. Please. I don't want to.

If I just [[stay quiet]], maybe someday it'll stop.

It's a [[fucking maze]], kiddo.

Tell them you [[love them]]. Tell them you [[want them]]. Tell them you [[fear them]].

The lie is bitter and cold. The kisses are dark and draining. Why are you [[so scared]]?

It's hot and angry. It's hungry. It's [[dangerous]].

I'm shivering at night because I can hear your voice down the hall. I just want to know. Please, tell me. Tell me [[why]].

It's in your head. It's coloured by the sour taste of a bad ending. You made it all up. Nothing was wrong. If it had been, you would've simply [[said something]].

Say something. Say anything. Do anything. Move! Or it's [[all your fault]].

Your cold failings. Your dull imperfections. You're so lucky, really. Of all the places they could be and all the things they chose, they chose you. Wish you could be [[so lucky]]. Wish you could be [[so happy]].

So very fucking lucky. Why don't you [[want them]] back?

Don't ask me to [[hit you]].

Don't ask me to [[dehumanize you]].

Please just be a person. Please just be kind to me. [[Slow down]].

Just for a moment. Please I [[need to breathe]]. I need to [[be myself]].

I can't breathe. It hurts too much. Just let me lie here. Stop touching me. I'm trying not to die, trying to [[let the pain stop]]. Please.

I don't know how to be myself. It's a [[fucking maze]].

It's painful and comes in quick shocks. I hate the way you flinch from my hands. Have I [[hurt you]]? I never [[wanted that]].

The sound of a palm on open flesh is monstrous. Why would you [[ask for this]]? Why would [[I agree]]?

I didn't want that. Why won't you [[listen to me]]?

I'm telling you I [[said something]]. I'm telling you. It's [[all my fault]].

It's [[all your fault]]. It's no one's fault. It's mine. It's everyone's. It's another failing. It's a damn [[fucking maze]].

Ask for what? Ask for anything? I said I couldn't do it, but did you listen. Why was it never "it's okay" and always "you know you can [[hit me harder]]"?

How can I hold you responsible? Surely I could've said no. Surely if I'd just said it [[one more time]]. Surely then.

Once more unto the breach. Once more dropping down and through. It's about control and control is about safety. It's safety. It's nothing at all. I'm [[so scared]].

I don't feel good. It's [[all my fault]].

Why are bruises a mark of pride? Doesn't it bother you? It bothers me. You show me what your other partners did to you and my heart is in my mouth. If I love you, I would never want you in pain. Maybe I'm [[fucked in the head]]. Why is it [[so fucking normall]]?

I don't want to hunt you down. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt anyone. I know it's kink shaming and uncool to say, but it fucking weirds me out that someone who professes to love me can also have intense fantasies about tying me up and beating me. I'm not okay with that. It hurts in a way [[I can't explain]].

Blood isn't sexy. It's a tragedy. If that makes me boring, then so be. [[I'm boring]].

Do it, I fucking dare you. Ask me to [[hit you]]. Ask me what my [[kinks are]].

I'm glad you found intimacy in it, because I think it just fucked me up. I think I might be broken now. I think[[ it sucks]].

In the end, it just [[hurts me]].

Everything hurts me. I'm so [[fucking vulnerable]].

You could hurt me. By reading this right now, you have gained the capacity to hurt me. You're learning all my [[weaknesses]].

Thank you for [[reading]]. I love you.

Here's a few sections you might find fun: [[a bit of horror|walk]] [[a bit of fun|mock]] [[the start|wrong]]

I love cooking. It's one of my true passions. I learned to cook the normal way. When I first lived alone, I set myself the challenge of cooking one new dish every week. People got me some cookbooks as presents and I worked my way through them, learning as I went. I follow a couple cooking blogs, and I keep meaning to follow more. I'm always terrified that my food is actually bad and I'm just making stuff I like. But that's not how it works, is it? If I can make food I enjoy, then I'm a good cook. And other people do like my cooking. Other people like [[my cooking]] a lot.

I bake too. I also enjoy making cocktails, having slowly worked my way through a 1000 page book of them my parents got me. Anything kitchen related really, I love doing. Except the dishes. Fuck the dishes. I can't stand up anymore. Covid broke my heart and my lungs and now my legs don't want to carry my weight. It had been months since I last cooked anything. I made a lasange a couple days ago. I cut a lot of corners compared to how I would've done it before. I had help. I had to sit down halfway through. It was delicious. I miss cooking so much. I miss all the small things that make up a life. I miss cruising the grocery store excited. I used to bribe myself into going to the grocery store by promising I could buy any one thing purely on a whim. The only rule was that it couldn't be on the list. I had to want it in the moment. Sometimes it would be the fancier version of a cheap ingredient. Sometimes it would be the base of a fun and complex recipe. Sometimes it would be cheesecake. Fuck long covid. Fuck [[my useless weak body]].

It just hurts to [[breathe]].

I swear I'm [[trying]]. I swear.

What if it isn't good? What if it's irrepairably bad? What if it has bad messages? How can I make it good? It's the usual problem. I cannot judge the quality of my own material and lack the ability to put past my worries of quality. For me, writer's block manifests as a primal fear that there is no point in writing it because it's bad. I can always put more words down. My worry that they're the wrong words just consumes me whole until I'm trembling before a blank page. I think that [[one person]] has read it fully.

She said she liked parts and thought [[parts were confusing]]. Which makes sense to me. That seems right. I dunno what to do with it. I don't know what I'm going to do. I moved on, mostly. I kept writing. I wrote a [[second novel]]. I still write short stuff, although less and less. Sometimes I'm scared I've lost the ability to do short stories, which is a completely nonsense fear. It's all the same things, really. My big fear with my cooking is that everyone secretly hates my [[food]] and won't tell me. Everyone is always so polite. Am I good or am I being babied? I once heard that the greatest ally of a writer is someone unafraid to be brutally honest, and I think that's true. I try to be when people ask me for advice on their writing, but I always worry about hurting them. If someone would just tell me it's bad, I'd feel like they weren't lying. But that's cognitive bias, isn't it? I'm looking for an answer that matches what I fear instead of what actually is. Why is it so hard to [[trust]]?

My response was to work on [[this]], a chaotic inconsistent masterpiece that will never make sense to anyone who isn't me. I'm very normal, huh? I made a [[promise]].

I'll edit it. I'm about 10 more cells off finishing this it. I'll publish it and then I'll start editing. I'll read the whole thing cover to cover without judging or changing. And then I'll start to fix it. I'll make it good. I'll make it work. I swear. They always say the first draft is the hardest part. Personally, I have my doubts. Wish me [[luck|mood of the piece]].

I'm in act 2 and I'm finding it a little slower to write at the moment. I hate doing dialogue, but the main cast have finally stopped fucking around and formed a team, so they keep talking to each other and it's driving me crazy. I will find a way to write a dialogueless novel someday, you watch me. Fun tip for my writing: I'm pretty sure I keep abruptly ending dialogue scenes. It's because I hate doing them. They suck so bad. It would be nice to cowrite someday with someone who likes them. I've been told that the bits of writing I'm most consistent at are weird dream sequences. This is probably true. I like writing them most. My deep belief about writing is that if a scene is boring to write, it will also be boring to read and should be skipped entirely. I think it makes my pacing a little too breakneck at times, but overall works decently well. But I don't really have a method. I just write. The words just come to me. I open my mind and let my hands move and the universe flows through me. It isn't [[deliberate or planned]].

The more I plan, the slower I get. I get too in my own head. I'm slowing on the second novel because I made the mistake of thinking about it too much. Can't do that. Gotta focus up, forget everything. I might try writing a few scenes drunk to shake me off. No plans. I have no idea how it's going to end. I'm just as excited to find out as I hope anyone reading it will be. Thank you for listening to me [[ramble|mood of the piece]].

Everyone is special. Except [[fascists]]. Fuck them.

Actually, I don't wanna write about fascists right now. I'm in a good mood. Let's not ruin it. What do you wanna read about? [[sex]]? [[joy|here]]? [[sadness]]? [[endings]]? [[beginnings|wrong]]? [[love]]? [[me]]?

[[good sex]] or [[bad sex|we]]?

Well, you asked for it. [[the end]]

I miss my [[cat]].

Feels mean to say, because there are four cats now. And a cat is a [[small thing]], in the end. But I miss him. He deserved [[better]].

Such a tiny little thing we are. So small. So helpless. So weak. But we have each other and that makes everything [[okay]].

You can try to be better, but what good is it if you aren't the [[best]]?

I don't know if I've ever had any, actually. It's almost always been wrong somehow. [[maybe someday]]

Lotta [[maybes]].

I lied. I have had good sex. I just want to keep it private. It's for me and my partners alone. [[fair enough]].

Most [[things]] are in [[time]].

Are we just [[objects]]? Or do we [[bleed]]?

I need to learn to [[compromise]].

I wish it didn't [[hurt]].

TractorCon was coming to town! That great bastion of tractor fandom. Everything would be there, from the artist alley full of indie tractor designers eagre to sell tractor posters and decorations to the panels and talks about the industry! Anyone could come and hear from the best tractor designers, the best tractor drivers, the industry heads. They could learn about important things like optimal tire thickness, best handling practices, and why DRM is good actually. And not only that, but they were demoing the greatest tractor of all time: the X-90. The X-90 had everything you could possible want in a tractor. It did 0 to 60 in under a second, had a top speed of 300 km/h, leather upholstry, a heated steering wheel, concert quality subwoofers, a built in waterbed, red racing go faster stripes, and cup holders. It was THE tractor. Jackie was escstatic. She saved for [[many months]] to afford to go.

On that morning, Jackie queued for hours to be the first in line for the X-90. Thanks to her VIP ticket, she got it. And as she sat there in, that seat, she smiled. It was good. It was perfect. The pleasure was so powerful, it overwhelmed her and she fainted. Her foot slammed the pedal. The X-90 ripped out of the test circuit. It smashed through the wall and the carpark, scattering parked cars like leaves on the wind. When Jackie came to, she was doing 150 down [[the freeway]].

She turned that tractor and apologized as well as she could. But it was too late. The damage was done. Jackie had her license revoked and was banned from tractors for life. Heartbroken, Jackie swore off tractors forever and wandered off into the great expanse of [[the world]].

Fiona was mad her parents wouldn't buy her a pony. She really wanted a pony. Her parents pointed out that she never took the dog for walks and they had to do it, so they weren't convinced she would take care of a pony. Fiona was convinced she could, whether out of brazen overconfidence or a strong desire to brush its mane. But she was so determined to get a pony that she did the only logical thing and stole her mom's credit card to rent a bus out to the farms. She packed a bag (Fiona was in the scouts) and set off, determined to beg, borrow, or steal a [[gorgeous pony]].

After getting off the bus in farmland, Fiona wandered around open mouthed. It was stunning. She saw cows and pigs and sheep. But no horses or ponies! What a great injustice! After a few hours of wandering around, it was starting to get dark. She found an old barn and decided it would be a good place to camp. Channeling her scout training, she gathered some old wood to make a fire to cook the hot dogs she [[was carrying]].

Unfortunately, while she was good at making fires, she had not yet passed her fire safety course. She didn't take any steps to shield the fire or clear the old dry straw on the floor. With a whoosh, the fire consumed the whole room! Smoke hang heavy in the air. Dazed and disoriented, Fiona could no longer see the exit. She was trapped and the flames grew ever hotter and closer. "Help!" she cried. "Help!" For a moment, all [[was silent]].

There was a bang at the door. It was Jackie. She studied the smoke filled barn and the sound of the screaming child. With a deep breath, Jackie inhaled all of the smoke out of the room. Now able to see, Fiona jumped, sailing over the flames and into Jackie's waiting arms. The two tumbled [[down laughing]].

While they waited for the fire trucks, Fiona turned to Jackie. "Wow," she said! "That was amazing! But I have just one question: how did you do that?" [[Jackie smiled]].

"Oh, it was easy. You see, I'm a ex-tractor fan." [[the end]]!!!

It's [[calm]] here. I like that. I'm [[happy]] with it.

I can [[relax]].

I'm relaxed. I'm [[here]].

Do you ever think about how we're getting something to replace the Switch soon? I wonder why. Switches work fine. I don't think anyone has any complaints. You can run some really cool games on them. Doesn't the hardware race need to end somewhere? What if we stopped? What if we accepted that computers can run basically everything they need and more realistic graphics don't make something good automatically? I mean, this is just text and you're having an [[interesting]] time, right?

I hope you're enjoying [[this]]. I really do hope so.

When I worked a summer camp, the kids who grew up on Sword and Shield asked what my favourite mon was. When I told them, they laughed and told me to stop making up Pokemon. It was inevitable, really, with over 1000 Pokemon now. Some people like to complain about the new mons, but I don't buy. What's wrong with more? Who really cares? Judge the games on their own qualities, which arguably have been going down. Oh, you think "Flamigo" is stupid because it's just a flamingo? Gen 1 has Ekans. Ekans the snake. Pidgey is literally just a bird. Chill out. It's just [[Pokemon]].