#twor project

KASEEM IBN AL-NEJEM - Kaseem from the Stars from The Tale of Twin Dunes (excerpt below)

A WIP I've been sitting on for a year, now finished thanks to my friend BinaryClone on bsky !!

A Manner of Patience ; short story, excerpt below

Nadine is troubled by disinterest in daily life until she notices something spark when she's around her soon-to-be husbands' male companions. She doesn't understand why she wants to belong among men, and figures that she will eventually settle into her marriage.

Merfolk across the globe have been seen recently; even the amphibious type more commonly found in the Eastern part of the globe. Not sure we have record of interaction with the amphibious folk, but the pinnipedals used to be much more known around here from the last Great Calamity 8kya to around 4kya.

Is Nadine a part of a larger story you're writing? Or just a one off short piece?

Your art for the piece had such a specific mood to it that really piqued my interest so I went and read it-lovely writing-and I was really curious about what you were trying to convey. Do you intend for Nadine to come across as somebody who is in the process of realizing that they're transgender?

I mean, within your setting and context of the society she's in. Nuance to all of that.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope your day is going well ^_^

what a delightful ask! thank you so much for your interest in the story.

for folks tuning in, this is in reference to this short story WIP.

i'm writing a series of short stories set within a specific world called TWOR, short for 'The World of Reckoning'. i describe this world as one not unlike our own, stuck in cycles that could take place within days or across millenia. mostly, it's my sandbox where i can pick any point in time at any part of this world and play with what it. So far, there are three main eras I've been working with to reflect the way real world history influences are day-to-day

Age of Wisdom (how 'ancient' and 'medieval' blends together and the knowledge we've drawn from our ancestors in these periods; see hellenistic greece, the islamic golden age, the many religious developments taking place across the world, paracelsus' medical revolution etc)

Century of Progress (the past two centuries, amalgamated into a single hundred year span; focusing on labour rights, the industrial revolution and the link to colonialism/imperialism, the fight for decolonization and bodily autonomy)

Epoch of the Unknown (after the advent of yet another world-shattering catastrophe, we take a look to see how solidarity takes us a step closer to a better future. basically mostly built on hypothetical and theories, a 'what's next?' answer to the current state of the world; all sorts of flavors of post-post-apocalypse.)

Nadine's story takes place in an era called 'Century of Progress' in a sea-side nation still clinging to traditions while making way for newly afforded luxuries via trade. her story basically boils down to a question i ask myself; what if i had no resources to learn about trans people? what would my life have looked like if i succumbed to tradition, and never self-exiled?

i'll be using any pronouns interchangeably for Nadine, because I haven't yet decided what kind of person she becomes. i still havent finished the story, but i think it might be 3 chapters. i know for myself though, i was very interested in what boys were up to when i was younger and wanted to be included among them. but i was fortunate to have the language for transgender experiences at 12. Nadine did not. she lives somewhere under a monarchy, where traditional roles are enforced and only now is gender segregation being considered 'old school'. i think the disgust she had for her body and the way it was sort of 'adultified' through puberty (ie 'congratulations 11 year old girl who got her first period, you're now a woman and your curves can now be considered sexual') (real thing i went through myself) but as she grew older, she would have learned to compartmentalize, never having a chance away from that atmosphere. the world is pretty connected at this point, mostly via radio, i'm not sure about the existence of the internet yet but that might be toward the latter end of this era.

my feelings thinking about this hypothetical; if i had never left and if i never had the language; i think my depression would be worse and i would be stuck feeling like i don't belong. but i would still assert my intelligence, because i'm stubborn like that. i also think a lot about people who transition later in life, or who might have never had the realization, or say that its 'too late' for them. as a child, you might be let off a little easier because there's still time for you to be groomed into certain roles. but when you're older, you're expected to know better. this was something i fought against a lot, and it resulted in being forced into femininity. if i were born just a decade earlier, i mightve given up, or had a worse fate.

then there's the conversation about bodily autonomy; nadine's body is seen as a reproductive tool, an incubator. she's expected to marry reza and have children with him, it's not something she's given much thought of because she doesn't want to think about it. it's not yet her reality, and so it's another day that doesn't exist to her and another day that is meaningless. whatever fate befalls them is currently undecided since i don't know what kind of story i want to tell yet.

i have some other things on my blog about this project, but not a lot lol. i appreciate the opportunity to talk about it though since i mostly work on it in private!

some WIPs of another short story that i've actually got the final draft finished for called 'The Twin Dunes'

excerpt below.