hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

it would be nice if i could explain it. i’m sure if i did describe the experiences and circumstances that have aligned into my current life that people might understand where i’m at. use those useful cultural points of reference to determine why i might feel so lost that I can’t make sense of a single thing about myself anymore. but for me everything just fails to cohere. it’s just fog

anyway. in trying to move on from bad experiences and mindsets i do feel like i’ve had to completely sever myself at the root. that’s left me feeling lost. and it wasn’t compassionate, it was the opposite. it feels like an act of violence to myself. still transformative maybe? but with no hope for or vision of the future it’s hard to say. positive transformation feels like it should have a light at the end of the tunnel instead of a bleak grey nothing.

I’ve been working on a project called Up to Never Come Back since around eighth grade with a still unfinished book, animatics, scripts, and comics

I’ve had this story I’ve been working on since eighth grade with comics, animatics, scripts, and then an actual online book I’ve also been working on

It’s about Maxie, a artist right about to graduate college in small town South Dakota terrified of spending the rest of her life in mediocrity

She gets the chance to go to an island that’s meant to act as a fully funded work environment where she can pursue her art and gain enough notoriety to have a career once she returns

Maxie’s wanted to go to the island pretty much all her life to the point where she has no qualms leaving everything behind in the pursuit of it, but over the course of her stay she learns that no matter how far she tries to run, there’s no escape from herself

There’s also Bastian, her childhood best friend who’s pretty dependent on her and has to come to terms with losing the one person who had always held him together. Maxie has also had a longstanding crush on him that he can’t return despite loving her more than anything, and he has to deal with the dread of the chance that loving her romantically could have kept her with him (it wouldn’t have, but it takes a while for him to understand when Maxie’s not actually there to explain it)

And the last main character is Poina, who acts as the “guide” of the island and has been brought to her wits end by constantly supporting and caring for the dozens of people who have come and then gone. She’s the oldest of the main cast, and completely convinced that after Maxie leaves, there’s nothing left for her to do in this life. The kicker is that she’s really only 36 and has an island of people who have wanted to be there and support her but haven’t had a clue how to do so, not until Maxie helps them reconcile

This story honestly means the world to me even if working on it is so stressful (I want it to be just right!!) and it’s changed a lot from the “everyone has to leave eventually and you’ll always be miserable about it” theme when I was a hurting teenager to “even when people leave or things hurt, you need to confide in the community around you who is willing to love you, even if that trust is scary”