i know what i'm doing, i have a degree in this

#you really do#i realized a year or two back that i’d gotten to the point where i could just sort of trust fall into a story#as long as i don’t stress myself out over it#it will come together over time#but i had to throw myself into a lot of stories to reach that point

summoning trans cuthulhu to get top surgery

yeehaw everybody here's some links to my published writing! there's some on @writeastorywhere as well but here's the links to the Official Shit

also as a side note I spent a couple years trying to decide what name I was using for my writing, so some of em don't say DS Oswald. Don't worry about that I prommy they're all me. also, this is just the stuff that's available online. Maybe i'll edit this with scans of my contributor copies for stuff that's not online.

SHORT FICTION

I'll Be Seeing You (2020) - mlm/wlw solidarity in the apocalypse.

[Untitled] (2021) - a trans girl has some strange dreams. this character's gonna be appearing in Dreamwalkers, my web comic, and this short story will probably be canon.

Vast and Blue (2021) - madness at sea. this was the first issue of the horror mag i co-edit, so I threw in one of my own stories to fill the thing out.

Shrine Maiden (2022) - fantasy lesbian romance between a wandering swordsman and a high priestess of the moon goddess. A novella! And it's free as an ebook and audio book! AND it just turned one year old! Go and give my girls some love.

Ghost Outside the Truck Stop Off I-95 (2022) - pov a dead armadillo starts talking to you. fun fact i had a fucking blood feud with the editors for this because they wanted to completely change one of the stylistic elements.

Suckers (2022) - a lesbian goes to visit her girlfriend's wacky family--oh, and they're all vampires. Silly goofy

What Should We Do With Your Body? (2022) - part of a collaborative murder mystery put together by @vinegarzines! Very fun. I wrote about a transmasc seeing a dead body while high on opiates.

Warmth (2022) - lesbian romance between a fire elemental and a blacksmith. You have to pay for this one but I honestly consider it one of my better 2022 stories.

ALL THE BEST ART (2023) - the first horror story I ever wrote, now published! And available for only two dollars! It's about a spooky painting. it's also about self harm so tread carefully

In. (2023) - horror flash fiction about grief. free! yeehaw!

POETRY

okay ngl. i don't like talking about my poetry and i kind of don't care if people read it as much. but i'm linking it here for those curious

Pagan steals christian imagery asmr // I watched good omens while I was dating someone and you won’t BELIEVE what the result was **NOT CLICKBAIT**

bodies are made to hold other bodies // I only ate your cat because I was angry it seemed so well-adjusted // Joke about nonbinary naming mechanisms

like "show don't tell" is meant to encourage a new writer to think of different ways to describe something beside The Obvious and push them to observe how different uses of words can affect the reader. it does NOT mean "never outright state what is going on ever."

the common advice to cut out things that aren't essential to the story is to give new writers a better handle on how to PLOT a story-writers generally have to start out telling stories with Very Obvious conflicts and plot beats before they gain enough control of the form to tell more subtle ones. it doesn't mean characters talking to each other casually is evil.

"start in the middle" is a piece of advice meant for beginning writers who often have much bigger story ideas than they can feasibly put to paper. they don't have the writing experience to know which parts of their ideas they can execute well (or at all). starting in the middle then means writing the part with the most conflict and interesting things happening first (which is easier for a beginner) and, most importantly, gets them out of the planning stage and actually writing. it does not mean exposition is evil and your story should always start with something Big and Dramatic.

For some reason, my first instinct is to check the screen. I mean, God knows that Excel makes me want to scream sometimes, and I’ve been working with it twice as long as she has. I turn to it, and everything’s fine, like, as fine as it could be, and then my eye catches on something on the other side of our suite’s glass walls.

The office lead, Angela. With a deli platter. Wiping something off of the plastic cover with a napkin.

“Oh goddamnit,” I say under my breath.

“And here we see a graphite dowel recovered from beneath a small bridge east of Estranum.” The museum guide prattled on. The tour group formed a semi circle without being told around the pedestal displaying the artifact.

“The Human Studies department have found many of these objects before, and certain commonalities have been found across the sample size available. Note the hexagonal shape of the wooden portion of dowel, incasing a thin rod of graphite. At one end the wood has been sharpened to a point. While the other end features a thin tin band joining a hard pink material to the greater structure. Researchers have done tests with the artifacts and speculate they may be some form of writing utensil. However there is still much debate over why humans would have constructed writing utensils in this fashion, the most vexing mystery of all concerning the nature and usage of the hardened flat end opposite of the marking end.”

Maedum felt Dana lean down behind her to whisper in her and Haedum’s ears.

“He’s got it mostly right actually. Pencils are basically used like pens except they don’t use ink and you can erase what you write with the other end.”

Maedum hoped nobody noticed Dana’s illusory form whispering into her armpit.

Vaeralta did their best to make something that comprised between emulating Dana’s true appearance and making them resemble a nondescript elf. The end result was an elf with strabismus, half a head of extra height and a ludicrously puffy coat. The coat was Maedums idea, there’d been concern over Dana’s natural frame being wider than what’s normal for an elf. They almost went with the Extra Thick Danelf look before Maedum suggested hiding the difference with illusory clothing. Haedum and Dana vetoed but came round on the basis of customizing her outfit. A semi-mythical human disguised as a towering, rail thin, cross eyed, horrendously dressed elf was whispering about the practical usage of pencils into, *Yep. That’s my armpit.*

“Who can tell me what is unique about this particular artifact?” The tour guides question brought Maedum back to focus. He scanned the tour group and called on a few who raised their hands. After a couple of obligatory “Good guess!” And “Not quites” the tour guide was nearly bouncing on his toes to share his secret piece of knowledge. “What makes this piece special are its unique inscriptions.” He said as he turned the case to show black stenciled lettering on one of its six sides. *That’s a bit unfair. Trying to make us guess at something we never could have known of.* She was about to ask Dana for a translation but when Maedum turned back she saw Dana with her knuckles clutched between her teeth. Haedum saw this as well and began grinning like a madman, knowing well enough when Dana was trying to hold in laughter. The twins fixed their attention to the pencil. Whatever it was that caused such a reaction *had* to be good.

The tour guide, so far unaware of the brewing chaos, continued his spiel with zeal. “These markings have fascinated our archeologists. While procuring a literal translation was easily accomplished. Language deciphering spells only translates speech and texts literally, so the true meaning of art becomes simplified and distorted. So I will read to you one such translation and I’d like all of you to think deeply using all the contextual information we’ve learned so far to decide what you think this poem means.”

The tour guide inhaled, Dana exhaled, the twins and the rest held their breath.

“Unduly Crisp, Carries Out Medication.”

Dana wheezed and shook from the lack of air in her lungs. There was an equal wind left in the guides sails as his face soured. “Are you alright sir?” Dana didn’t respond properly, instead opting to cover her mirth with a coughing fit. She managed to wave him on in a convincing enough manner for the guide to continue.

There were some genuinely interesting theories being thrown about. Ranging from the therapeutic properties of writing to a popular theory the utensil had once belonged to a philosopher doctor of sorts. Dana had left temporarily to collect herself in the bathroom, and by the time she was no longer in danger of bursting a blood vessel the guide was ushering everyone on to the next room.

Dana sidled up between the twins. “Did you know the bathrooms here just have a sponge on a stick? Is that common?”

“Well they’re enchanted.” Defended Maedum.

“God I’d hope so.”

Dana stopped cold.

Maedum and Haedum swiveled in unison to follow the laser line of Dana’s gaze.

Beyond the crowd, set upon a pedestal, a human artifact of unrealistic proportions was erected. The shape itself was suspect enough to draw a few scandalized gasps from the crowd. The garish green color of the thing did not so much *draw* the eye, as it violently took ones retinas hostage at fluorescent gun point.

Dana did not move a muscle. If she did, she would be acknowledging the forward progression of time and be forced to process the visual information of exactly what she was seeing in exactly where it was and with what context. The guide, unaware of the precipice on which Dana’s self control balanced crookedly upon her juvenile humor, announced with a stony countenance:

The character says that there’s no white pencil.  But you don’t need a white pencil to draw a white egg.  We already know the egg is white.  What we need to draw is the luminance of the yellow lamp and the reflection of the blue cloth and the shadows and the shading.

We know a broken bone hurts.  We know a knife wound hurts.  We know grief hurts.  Show us what else it does.

You don’t need to describe the character in pain.  You need to describe how the pain affects the character - how they’re unable to move, how they’re sweating, how they’re cold, how their muscles ache and their fingers tremble and their eyes prickle.