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paigesturning · 4 years

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Race in 5e: Who Is at Your Table?

I had to write an argumentative essay for one of my classes this semester. I was really into the idea I had, and gave it a shot! I think this might be one of the best pieces I’ve ever written.

Word count: 2995 TW: Discussions of race science, orientalism, and references to white supremacist rhetoric

Writing is difficult, and it’s even more difficult to write collaboratively. This applies to TTRPG as much as it applies to novels. Sure, the DM could simply railroad the players into sessions of combat, lock them into a certain path, or make their other options so terrible that they simply must go the way the story is leading, but it’s bad practice. After all, though it’s not a traditional story, written down in book form for distribution, TTRPG relies on the interplay between the DM’s idea for what should happen in the story, and the players’ ideas. Unlike writing a book, however, TTRPGs rely on another influence, rather than just the set of people who have agreed to tell a story. There’s always at least one other person in the situation, who might be completely unknown to the DM and players. I refer, of course, to the game designer. TTRPGs have far more freedom than video games, but the decisions made by the game designer have the same amount of weight in both mediums. In Skyrim, for example, this looks like a prioritization of combat mechanics over puzzle solving mechanics or relationship mechanics. Though both are implemented in the game, there’s not nearly as many options in playstyle for relationships, or variation in puzzle types, for it to be considered a romance game, or a puzzle game. In TTRPG, the influence of the designer is often far less apparent. In 5e, your character can do basically whatever they want so long as the other people at the table agree that it’s something they want to interact with. However, with some exception, you will not be able to run a game set, for example, in real-world Chicago or on a transport vessel in space. Players tend to be locked into a fantasy setting. Like Skyrim, 5e is a system that prioritizes combat in a magical, pseudo-European medieval setting. It’s a mix of mechanics, and built-in worldbuilding that can allow us to come to this conclusion - each spell, if it doesn’t explicitly add or remove hit points from a target, changes the rules for when and how combat can happen, and each class is described in their flavor text in high fantasy terms, often opening with the examples of ways each one can be useful in combat. True as all this may be, it is, at its core a neutral thing, and I find myself blessed to occasionally be at the tables of others as a game designer and homebrewer. All games must make assumptions about the kind of game players want, and must do their best to fulfil those expectations, the same way a speaker might attempt to predict the thoughts, previous knowledge, and counter-arguments of their audience. However, in 5e, there lies a certain set of assumptions that I personally find troubling, and in fact in need of some serious reworking. The way that race functions in 5e represents an old-fashioned way of viewing the world. In the most direct terms, yeah, it’s kinda racist. Therefore, the assumptions 5e makes in their race system, represented in mechanics that both promote archaic ways of thinking and force the narrative in directions the players and DM may be uncomfortable with, means that it is time to either dramatically change the way race works, or pass over the system entirely.

When a DM is preparing to start a new game of 5e, one very good place to start is the Dungeon Master’s Guide, or DMG. In it, theoretically, are the tools for DMs and players alike to better understand exactly what the game they are playing looks like. In many ways, it’s a behind the scenes look at what goes into planning a session. For example, each “encounter”, or a portion of the game in which the players fight enemies or find ways around them, there’s a bit of calculation which can tell you what enemies will be appropriate for your party size and level. However, in a new game, before even doing that, you should go to the beginning of chapter 1, on page 9. It lists the assumptions the rules make about your setting, which is a helpful tool for anyone attempting to rectify the base rules with a far-out, high-concept world. They are as follows: “Gods Oversee the World”, “Much of the World is Untamed”, “The World is Ancient”, “Conflict Shapes the World’s History”, and “The World is Magical”. On paper, that’s all you need to know (though it might be worth noting that on page 43 the book contradicts this and gets more specific about what sort of multiverse is required to support the rules). These are five basic rules anyone can follow, rules that most people working to create a fantasy setting would have followed anyway, especially in such a combat-focused system. However, in the Player’s Handbook, (abbreviated as PHB) there are additional assumptions about the setting you’ll be playing in, most notably in the section on the different races that appear in 5e. For starters, each race has a small box that explains how the other races in the game are likely to view them. Taken from page 37, when the book is discussing how Gnomes (a small race of humanoids with large heads and thin limbs) think about their place among other races, “It's rare for a gnome to be hostile or malicious unless he or she has suffered a grievous injury. Gnomes know that most races don't share their sense of humor, but they enjoy anyone's company just as they enjoy everything else they set out to do.” They give no explanation for why gnomes tend to be “Good”, in terms of 5e’s morality system. Perhaps this isn’t an oversight, and instead they are allowing you to fill in the blanks yourself? Do the gnomes perhaps have free healthcare, while some others do not?

I am of course being facetious. I am certain the creators didn’t think quite so far ahead, and instead just wanted to paint a picture of the world they envisioned. It’s not some great sin of design, of course, to do this, and I will admit I am guilty of it in my own design. However, this is just one of the smaller examples of 5e making decisions for the DM and the players. Unlike some other portions of the rules, that brief note can be ignored with little to no need for creating a replacement. You could just as easily scribble the note out of the book, and leave a black sharpie stain where it once sat. Unfortunately, there are other decisions made about race that are much harder to ignore without a level of homebrewed (or player-created) mechanics. For example, a little later, on page 43, the book tells you about the specific mechanical benefits that half-orcs get. Two in particular stand out to me as disturbing. The first, Menacing, means that “You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill”. The other is Savage Attacks, which reads “When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit”. There is no way in which these cannot be seen as narrative decisions on the part of the creators. Exactly what is it about an orc’s presence that would mean it is more intimidating than any other person? One could surmise that, perhaps they are much larger than most people, or that their rarity means that people are not used to their size and tusks. Perhaps I only speak for myself, but I do not often find myself intimidated by people who look different from what I am used to. The explanation the rules provide is that full-blooded-orcs are barbaric raiders, who wantonly destroy and kill, and are considered evil. Why is it, however, that there’s an entire group of people, people with thoughts, feelings, social structures, who can produce viable offspring with members of other groups of people, that the book deems evil? I submit that, in the minds of the creators, there is some sort of orientalist mystique behind the savage barbarian, one that is physically superior, and yet is still no more than fodder to be torn through by the heroes of the story. This isn’t even the worst example of racism built into the game, but to explain this next portion, I will need to explain a concept.

At its base level, phrenology is, as per the Encyclopedia Britannica, “the study of the conformation of the skull as indicative of mental faculties and traits of character, especially according to the hypotheses of Franz Joseph Gall”. Gall, born in 1758, measured the heads of his colleagues, convicts, and people in asylums, in order to determine traits such as intellect and potentiality for criminal behavior. As with many things invented in late 18th century Europe, this practice was used to fuel European imperialism. The article Of ‘Native Skulls’ and ‘Noble Caucasions’: Phrenology in Colonial South Africa, by Andrew Bank, explains very quickly that “The leading proponents of the new discipline almost uniformly adapted their science of the brain to issues of racial differentiation”. I assume that from here it isn’t difficult to see the direction I am heading with this. Elves, Tieflings, Humans, and Gnomes are given bonuses to Intelligence. Dwarves, Humans, and Elves are given bonuses to Wisdom. Elves, Half-Elves, Humans, Tieflings, Dragonborn, and Halflings are given bonuses to Charisma. Of the races present in the PHB, Half-Orcs are the only ones that don’t get any bonuses to the so-called “Mental Stats”. Physical stats, on the other hand, include Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and Half-Orcs get bonuses to Strength and Constitution. In mechanical terms, this leads to a fairly good balance. The other classes serve as either well-rounded jacks-of-all-trades, or are specialized for certain casters, or help fit an archetype of dexterous fighter/caster combinations, while the Half-Orcs are specialized for non-caster tanks, such as the Barbarian or the Fighter. This makes narrative sense as well; if Half-Orcs are raised by the orcish side of their family, they are far more likely to be brutal in martial combat, trained to fight and kill anyone who might have supplies or treasure for them.

However much this might “make sense”, I have to ask why this was an addition to the game. I see three possible answers, and by my approximation, they are likely to all be true. The first is that the creators wanted more narrative control than they let on. The second is that they needed those stats to be stand-in numbers to represent various types of spellcaster and are simply ignorant to their implications. The third is that the creators simply find race science unobjectionable. Earlier, I suggested that the game designer joins the players and the DM at the table, through their work. At my table, ignorance and suggestions that some races are simply more intellectually powerful than others is not tolerated, and I should only hope you feel the same way.

At this point, you’re thinking so loud that I can practically hear it, even in the past. “Ignorance isn’t tolerated? What if the ignorant person in question is willing to change, and well-meaning?”, but if this is what you were thinking, I say with the deepest respect that you’re being just a touch too literal. Of course, if I’ve sat down and agreed to play with someone I know, I am willing to go over why what they said made me uncomfortable. TTRPG is a dialogue, one where the players and the DM must negotiate, not battle, for the story they want to tell, and where everyone must speak up when something happens that makes them upset. The difference between a literal player’s presence and the game designer’s figurative presence is that there is no arguing with a book. In some ways, it’s easier to change a book’s mind. Simply write your own rules, and move on, there’s no need to debate an actual person. You may also be thinking that 5e simply utilizes the mechanics of previous editions. While that is technically true, what is the point of creating a new edition if you can’t change things moving forward? And what’s more, each of my criticisms can be moved onto 1e. The biggest criticism I expect against my argument however, isn’t any of this. Obviously, only one of the races in 5e is human. Nothing in 5e indicates that one race of human is significantly better or worse than any other race of human, and so surely it can’t be racism. Again, you may be thinking a little too literally. In the world supposed by 5e, each race is seen as a person, and (depending on the setting and narrative your group constructs) has the same rights to freedom and life, and yet some are just more mentally skilled than others as soon as they are born. How often in reality do the dregs of society say something along the lines of “it isn’t that I think [members of a certain race] aren’t people or should be enslaved, it’s just that I think that white people are inherently smarter” to make an effort of sounding more reasonable? It isn’t that I think the races in 5e are 1:1 parallels to real-world racist stereotypes. Instead, it’s a matter of philosophy, race-based pseudoscience, and ideology that makes 5e (and previous editions) racist, without major rules upheavals.

However, in some cases, it would require such an overhaul of a system that it isn’t worth it. Most people would look at the rules for 5e’s races and pale at the thought of changing it completely. Do you get rid of stats completely? Do you select whatever stats you want by yourself? Perhaps you instead get certain bonuses when you select your class, rather than your race? These are all possibilities, and I have played games that utilized some of these options. Aside from the strength of reducing the amount of racism in 5e, it also increases the amount of choice a player has when creating their character. It isn’t unheard of to have a dwarf that uses Dexterity and Charisma as it’s primary abilities, but it is poorly optimized in comparison to the options of Half-Elf or Tiefling, and though it takes a bit more work than just handing a player the PHB, I believe it is worth it in the end. There’s no shame in admitting defeat, though. It’s not every day that I feel like fixing another person’s game, and I design games. And I do it for fun. It is the talent I am blessed with, and my lifelong burden. I understand not wanting to put in the effort. However, my suggestion isn’t that you walk away from TTRPG forever, scorned by the problems in 5e, never to roll a die again. Instead, it might be worth your time looking into other systems of play. Whenever I recommend a system to someone who has only played 5e and is looking for a similar aesthetic, I always turn them toward my personal favorite, Dungeon World (abbreviated as DW). DW is, in many ways, the game that I thought I was playing when I first started playing 5e. Looking through the PHB, it seems very comprehensive to incoming players. But to go back to the example of Skyrim, there’s a suggestion when you start it for the first time that you are about to enter a world of endless possibility, only to be shoehorned into a game that directly prioritizes combat. Dungeon World, while it has far less comprehensive rules for combat, one of its biggest strengths is that it has far fewer rules in general. That isn’t to say that it’s harder to follow. Instead of having intense, complicated rules for combat, every moment in the game is subject to “moves” in which, when you say that your character is doing something, the GM - Game Master, in contrast to the Dungeon Master of 5e - can tell you that the outcome is uncertain, and that it might be difficult. When this happens, you roll two six-sided dice, and the game provides very comprehensive rules to help you resolve it. When you choose a race, you get one extra move and nothing else - an option easily alterable, if one finds it uncomfortable. Blades in the Dark, a similar fantasy system, resolves roles in a similar manner, once again, with a much lesser emphasis on violence, and a much stronger emphasis on magic heists. It’s races have no mechanical benefit, and can be completely ignored if so desired.

Creating a system is difficult, I know. Playtesting aside, it’s a combination of finding something special that you want to create, deciding what the players will be looking for, and editing draft after draft. It’s also difficult, both logistically and emotionally, to kick someone out of a campaign. It’s my belief though that a line should be drawn when someone in the game insists on adding not only social, but biological inferiority to characters of certain races. It’s a privilege to have your work at someone else’s table, and it’s a privilege that can be revoked. Once again, playing 5e isn’t some ethical failing, or mortal offence. However, it is worth evaluating what changes can be made to 5e’s race system, and if it’s worth it to you to not switch to another system. If you have found any of this compelling, consider your other options. In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, there are designers out there who can bring you into space, cities filled with dark magic and/or under control by cosmic monsters, or honey conventions where there are a few bears trying to steal stuff. Next time you get the urge to roleplay, just consider what I’ve said here, and think about who you’re inviting to your table.

Bibliography

LaTorra, Sage, and Adam Koebel. Dungeon World. 1st ed., The Burning Wheel, 2012.

Harper, John. Blades in the Dark. Evil Hat Productions LLC., 2017.

Works Cited

Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. Player's Handbook. 5th ed., Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2014.

Mearls, Mike, and Jeremy Crawford. Dungeon Master's Guide. 5th ed., Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2014.

“Phrenology.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/phrenology.

Bank, Andrew. “Of 'Native Skulls' and 'Noble Caucasians': Phrenology in Colonial South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 22, no. 3, 1996, pp. 387–403. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2637310. Accessed 26 Mar. 2020.

#D&D #5e #D&D 5e #racism #Phrenology

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paigesturning · 4 years

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look, the whole thing was fucked, and it was always going to be fucked, but this is a level of fucked that I really wasn’t expecting. the YOUNGEST rey is likely to be is like 37 years old. unless sheev was still walkin around boning down after episode 6. for a second I thought @worthikids ‘s animation wasn’t the cannon explanation

am i the only one who finds it weird that rey and kylo ended up a Thing when rey is a palpatine

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paigesturning · 4 years

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The Force Arises - The Martyrdom of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, and the Rise of the Orthodoxy

(Author’s Note: This is... sort of a fixit fit, I guess. I was, let’s say, displeased with The Rise of Skywalker, and wracked my brain trying to figure out what I would have done if I had been handed three movies that happen at the end of the “Orig Trig”. So, I did a ass-ton of worldbuilding. This happens at some point between Ep. 6 and Ep. 7 (I think like 15 years before the start of Ep. 7???). Aside from trigger warnings, I think that’s about all you need to know, but to be clear: I do not care what the cannonical words for everyday objects are. If it looks like chocolate, tastes like chocolate, feels like chocolate, and is made like chocolate (for example), I’m gonna call it chocolate. Not whatever word starwars picked for chocolate. Maybe that seems glib, but seeing as this isn’t even close to being cannon, I was more focused more on putting pen to paper than cannon lingo. TW: Poisoning Via Drugs in Drink, Gun (blaster) violence, Political propaganda, anger issues)

Today was Luke’s Birthday. Not so special, it happens once a year. Approximately. It was, however, a nice excuse to go out and do something nice with his coworkers, students, friends, and most notably, his sister, who is often far too busy with presidential matters to return his calls. As he sat on the bench and waited for the speeder to pull up, he unwrapped a candy and popped it into his mouth. They were bad for him, he knew, but today was a day for celebration, and you only turn 79 once.

After all, today, more than most days, even more than most birthday, he was acutely aware of how old he was. It didn't bother him that much, he was leaving behind more than a legacy, he also was leaving behind the Jedi. Even if they were divided slightly on how to handle the force, (and he found himself concerned with the rigidity of the Orthodoxy) division brings balance, a lesson that he learned, in hindsight, all those years ago on Dagobah. Soon, he knew, he would be leaving everything in the young, capable hands of the next generation of Jedi, a generation of well equipped do-gooders who could go out and, if possible, stop wars instead of fighting them.

But then, the galaxy is big and wars waged by the rich are hard to stop.

Speaking of young, capable Jedi, it was at this moment that the speeder pulled up next to him.

"Master Skywalker," the young man in the backseat said as Luke pushed himself to his feet on his cane, "would you like help up?"

"No need to be so formal," he responded, getting into the vehicle. "Call me uncle today at least. It's my birthday after all!"

"Alright. Uncle it is then," Ben said, with a little smile, "How are you feeling today, Uncle?"

Luke took a deep breath in. “Peaceful,” he said with a sigh.

Ben laughed, “That’s new. You’re sure you’re feeling okay?”

Luke side-eyed the youngster. “I become less peaceful by the second. Shall we?”

Ben nodded and snapped his fingers. The Chauffer pulled away. “I’ve been speaking to Master Gueyn and Master Snoke. They suggested that the division between the Reformists and the Othodoxy is causing a general weakening of the force among new padawans, and that they’d like to meet with you at-”

Luke cut him off with a raised hand. “You know it’s my day off, right, Ben?”

Ben began to say something but cut himself off, filled with a visible anger that Luke recognised in himself. “Of course, Uncle.”

“It’s fine, Ben. I just want to cut down on shop talk if we can today. It should be a day for relaxation,” Luke said with a gentle elbow into Ben’s side, “For all of us, right?”

Ben swallowed and took a breath, calming himself. “Of course Uncle,” he repeated.

Luke looked out the window. They were passing the ever-extravagent Skywalker Plaza. He rolled his eyes. They were silent for a moment, but Luke spoke up again. “Ben, I - I am so proud of you. You’ve come so far in just a few short years, and I’m proud that I was around to train you into a Jedi.”

“I… Thank you, Uncle,” Ben replied, caught off guard.

“And I just want to… Ben, you spend so much time with members of the Orthodoxy-”

Ben groaned, “We’re doing this conversation again?”

“They never wanted me to take you on for training, and I just-”

“The thing you just want is for me to listen to you just because I owe you for training me, right?

“No, I-”

“Because you’re the hero and they’re not.”

“I’m not saying that they’re bad people,” Luke said softly, trying to calm Ben down, “I’m just concerned that you’ll burn yourself out trying to live up to their standards, when they already have their mind made up about you.”

Ben said nothing, and didn’t look at him.

“I’m sorry I brought it up. I want good things for you, and I don’t want you to have a hard life. But even with everything I know, I can’t decide for you what can make you happiest. I’m still here for you.” Luke held his hand out for his nephew to take.

“I’m sorry as well,” Ben said, “I shouldn’t have gotten so upset. Such displays of emotion are unbecoming to me, and the Jedi order. I’m sorry. Let’s just enjoy this evening.” Ben looked at Luke and gave a weak smile. He did not take his hand.

It was in this moment, as they pulled up to the restaurant, that Luke felt something in Ben, an apprehension that he hadn’t noticed before. “Ben, is everythi-”

“C’mon you old man, waddle on over and give me a hug.” Luke heard as the door opened to let him out. He turned to see President Leia Organa-Solo hovering in her chair, drifting closer to the transport. Luke got out of the transport and bent down as best he could to embrace his sister.

Ben gave a curt bow, “It is nice to see you mother.” She responded with a smile, and bowed her head in his direction.

Chewbacca walked over, and they headed into the restaurant.

The presents were pretty typical, which wasn’t to say they were unpleasant to recieve. Leia gave him the same gift she always did. A 48-pack of chocolate treats from Ermaron-3, brought with her from home (plus a calendar that marked which day Leia’s birthday would be). Chewie had been continuing the work he and Han had after the war ended, and brought Luke more records detailing the history of the Jedi. Mostly policies and ledgers, as always, but as far as Luke was concerned, it was all important, all valuable knowledge. Everyone else, as requested, had donated to a charity Luke had picked out earlier that month. An orphanage, run by non-Jedi affiliated priests from the Medichant Order.

Not too long after he started eating, Luke leaned over to talk to Leia.

“I think I’m getting old. I’m tired already.”

She snorted, “I’m not even that old, and we’re twins. I won’t blame you if you want to say you got pulled away for work.”

Luke shook his head. “There’s something I wanna talk to you about. Jedi politics stuff. You’re the general, not me, you know? I just thought I could get some advice.”

It wasn’t true exactly. More than anything else, he wanted to discuss Ben with her. If they could both be there to help make sure Ben was staying sane, not pushing any emotions down too hard, and all that, it would be way less likely that he’d snap. But Ben was sitting right on the other side of him. He could hardly mention it without embarrassing his nephew unless he waited until Ben went to the bathroom.

Except, he wasn’t getting up. It wasn’t of place or anything, but as time went on, Luke started feeling more and more tired. More than that, his vision began rippling, distances started being confusing, and he felt dizzy. Something was very wrong.

He turned to Ben. He needed help. He could trust Ben. “Begggg, Innie… Bem. Ikahhhn…” he wasn’t able to get the words out right. Why couldn’t he talk?

Ben looked back at him and smiled toothily, and it was like Luke’s stomach dropped. “Everything okay, Uncle?”

Luke stuttered out some nonsense. Ben picked up Luke’s water and smelled it, and winced with a laugh. “Guess you broke out the strong stuff, eh? Do you mind if I finish it off?” No, it was water. Luke tried to tell him so, but when he shook his head, Ben just raised his glass to him, and downed the rest.

“Right well, the birthday boy has overindulged, it looks like. I’ll take him home,” Ben said as he handed his mother a card, “Pay with this. I’ll grab it for you tomorrow morning before you leave tomorrow?”

Leia nodded and took the card.

“Alright, we’re heading back, it’s getting a little late for my uncle. Remember, everything’s on me, so don’t indulge! Have a nice night! And one more toast to Master Skywalker before we get out of here!” Ben announced.

The door to the restaurant closed on the sound of everyone cheersing for him.

“Right. Get in, Uncle.” The transport was waiting for them. How did the driver know to prepare it?

“Doesn’t look like he can even try to talk anymore. How about that?”

“Whatever, just give me the antidote,” said Ben from the front seat.

“I still think it was dumb that you drank it.”

“Didn’t want anyone else to. Besides, I wanted to divert suspicion from the drink.”

A scoff. Were they moving? When did Luke get into the transport?

“Ha, no, he’s fine! The Master just overindulged in celebration. Stay safe tonight!” Ben called at a small group of Padawans that seemed to be sneaking out for the night. They must have been at the monastery again but when?

Luke hadn’t even formed the thought when he was thrown onto his bed.

“You know Uncle,” Ben said, his voice tinged with malice, “for all your talk of being able to choose your own destiny and the power of emotion, this proves it’s all nothing. This is not my doing. Tonight was powered by the two strongest forces in the galaxy: fate, and simple, cold, calculation. But you’re about to-”

“Are you done monologuing, or can we just finish this?” Luke couldn’t look over, and couldn’t see at the angle he was at, but he knew the sound of a blaster pistol being unholstered and unsafetied from the time spent with Han.

“FINE. Fine. Go ahead.” Ben’s voice was close now, Luke could feel his breath on his ear. “I’d like to tell you that the poison will dull the pain. That you won’t feel anything, you know? But I wouldn’t know. I’ve never died before.” He heard Ben stand back up now, “Be one with the force.” he said harshly, and then there was the report of a blaster, and then nothing.

It was on the news the next day. Jedi Master, and savior of the galaxy, Luke Skywalker, was assassinated in his bedroom when his nephew, Jedi Knight Ben Solo, brought him up to his room after his birthday. The assassin had panicked, killed the Master, and wounded his nephew.

People, on smoke breaks that day would laugh mirthlessly. “Can you believe it? Savior of the universe, killed by one of his own, on his birthday no less.”

The Orthodoxy wasted no time releasing the the Jedi Council’s official statement. A heretical Reformist insurgent, imagining himself to be wronged by the Jedi Order, nay, the Force itself, had broken into Master Skywalker’s room, and murdered him. They sprayed their so-called “symbol” on his wall after doing it, too, and that’s how you know it’s them.

Later, a person would be standing in their kitchen, listening to the report. “That doesn’t sound right,” they’d say, “I thought the assassin ran after killing him? Because his nephew was there?”

“Now’s not the time for conspiracy theories, the man is dead,” their husband would say tiredly, “can we just talk about something else? Everyone at the office was discussing it all day.”

Leia gave a speech that was, as always, incredibly moving, focusing on how the small actions of the many outweigh the large actions of the few, and how Luke wouldn’t have wanted the Reformist movement as a whole to be blamed for his death. “After all,” she said, “he was Pro-Reform himself!”

What was more widely-circulated was the interview with Jedi Knight Solo, in his place in the infirmary. “I couldn’t see it coming,” he said with eyes red from crying, or lack of sleep, or both, “It was so jarring. It’s exactly the kind of thing that you imagine when you’re training but… I hate to say this, so close to his death, but I keep wondering if maybe I would have had the discipline to sense the assassin’s presence if I had been trained in the traditional way. With the Orthodoxy.” He teared up, “I don’t care, I just wish I could have saved him. I… L-leave, please.” As soon as he was out of the infirmary, a week and a half later, he replaced the seat left empty by Luke’s absence.

In the month and a half that followed, there were six Reformist deaths attributed to gangs of orthodoxy supporters in the public, two of which were a Jedi Knight and her Padawan. Eighteen more Reformists were arrested by the Jedi Council.

It only took a half a year for the Council to declare all Reformists to be heretics. The public, angered by the death of Jedi Martyr Skywalker, was spurred on by this, and raided the monastery, purging it of Reformists completely.

A statue was erected in the square in front of the temple. It’s Luke, with his arms firmly in front of him, holding his lightsaber, his robes flowing around him. It was constructed out of pure marble, and stands at a mighty forty-seven feet tall. Along the base, there’s an inscription.

“In memory of what he sacrificed for the mighty Orthodoxy, and the Force. May he forever be one with the force.”

#star wars #fanfic #fixit fic

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paigesturning · 4 years

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girls writing poetry are always like “i fed my blood to the coyotes i reached inside of myself and tore out my own lungs” and i’m always like damn u good? Mood tho

#OHOHOHOH BITCH #LEMME TELL YOU

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paigesturning · 4 years

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Regarding the Mech I Pilot

(This work regards how I feel about being trans, and how I feel about my body. I’m not sure how to define this, but let’s say that in it I make reference to self-destructive tendencies.)

My body is a machine and I am it's pilot. I keep it running barely. I give it fuel and turn it off when I need to but only because I am trapped inside of it.

It's traditional, in my family, to do this. To live your life inside of a machine. It seems to be traditional for most people I meet in fact. Most don't complain and most of them like their bodies. I hate it. I hate that there are no mirrors inside of it. I hate that people see it when they think of me.

The others are the worst part. Asking for the make, and the model. Asking me to identify myself in a way that can be contextualized against my body. Against the bodies of others. But I am not my body, I am a Pilot and there are no words for Pilots who aren’t also their mechs.

I want to get out. There are no doors. I’m not even able to move, strapped into my chair, experiencing life vicariously through the tool I am bound to. I want to break free but I can’t move any part of me, or even see them. The only control I have is of the mech. The only recourse to break into it, smash it open and let myself out. Tear out the wires that keep it running, the coolant, the fuel lines, the hinges.

I’m not stupid, of course. I can’t do any of that. My mech keeps me alive as much as I keep it running. I am bound to it metaphysically as much as I am claustrophobically strapped in. Even if I broke in without damaging my part of the cockpit would I wouldn't even know what to do without four limbs, two eyes, ten fingers.

What do I look like?

If I knew, how could I describe it to you, in your suit, the tower of meat that is your home, that you call you?

Fuck it though. Maybe I’ll paint parts of it. Maybe I’ll add tits. Shit.

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paigesturning · 4 years

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The Grandiose Burden of Being my Caretaker - 2

(Author’s Note: This chapter makes reference to eye trauma, and mentions self-harm in humans, specifically the chemical effects of it on human brains. Also there’s lots of blood, though no graphic violence. If this is not something you want to deal with, the unbolded part of this is a summary: In this chapter, things are getting weirder. In addition to Caret apparently being able to feel the movement of grass, Partridge’s old scars begin to bleed. Throughout the chapter, something mysterious seems to be stalking them. Partridge begins harvesting the blood she’s loosing, and designs a magical dagger, one that keeps the user alive during bloodletting, while inhibiting any biological responses that would cause them to become addicted. Caret learns to smell things. When Partridge and Caret head into the woods to activate the dagger, they come across the creature that has been stalking them, and discover it was a benevolent-yet-ominous collection of souls that call themselves We-are-the-Dead.)

"Hey, Caret, could you come take a look at this?" I shouted behind me while I looked in the mirror.

No response.

"Caret?" I looked around and left the changing room I had built. She wasn't in the living room/bedroom/dining room either.

I found her outside, working on the cave she was carving into the cliff face.

“Hey, Caret!”

She stopped mining and turned toward me, before dropping hard off the wall. “What’s up?”

“Look at my hair.”

“...Mhm?”

“How much longer is it than when we first met?”

She blinked, “Uh, 2.3 centimeters? About? Was that all you wanted, or....?”

“Well, look at the color of it.”

“Liiiiiiiiiiiight blue?”

“And I don’t have any roots!”

She didn’t seem as stoked about my discovery as I was. “And, I’m to take it that you don’t usually grow blue hair?”

“I… I dye it, Caret.”

She crossed her arms, “Well, excuse me, you come from a weird magical dimension. How was I supposed to know that?”

I must have recoiled or something, because she softened, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m distracted. I’m running the calculations for my generator, tracking something, and trying to talk to you. I didn’t mean to snap.”

I took a step closer and worried my fingers together. “It’s fine. What are you tracking?”

“There’s a… something? I dunno, it’s hard to explain. It’s kind of like when you feel the wind move differently through your neckhair when someone gets close to you, even if you can’t describe why you know someone’s behind you. Except it’s like the grass around the house is moving differently.”

“You can sense grass movement?”

“Well, that’s the weirdest part: no.”

“Uh huh.”

“There’s something really strange about this place,” she said, scratching her eye, “Your hair, being able to feel the grass around me. Like, that’s weird, right? Plus, your stigmata.”

I shrugged. She’s tried to explain what exactly stigmata is to me, but frankly it seems far fetched. Only about three days after I met Caret, the scars on my hands and chest would occasionally start bleeding again, even though there wasn’t a proper wound. Just blood. “Sure, it’s not something I’ve seen before, but blood magic is weird. On one hand, it could be something about the world, but it could also be a combination of the residual blood magic and something about the world. Sort of like... “ I squished my fingers to interlock, “Baking Soda and Vinegar.”

“Were you planning on starting the blood magic back up soon?”

“Basically as soon as I can find a ruby, yeah. I need one for the knife.”

She made a face and stuck out her tongue, and climbed back up the cliff. I’m pretty sure she muttered “gross” under her breath.

I almost missed the smell, like ash, coming from the woods, as a cloud passed overhead.

“You smell that?” I asked, basically to myself, as Caret returned to drilling her hands into the stone above. I started moving toward the tree line. I was… drawn to an old, dead tree. It had been there since I began building my cabin. At the time, I hadn't noticed anything about it, but now there was something about it that stood out to me, a quality about it that I hadn't recognised before. Yes, I decided, this tree had allowed itself to be hit by lightning, to save the other trees. I didn't even think about how strange that thought was until I heard Caret's voice shouting at me.

"I am trying to focus, can you please get out of the grass?"

Caret and I were laying on the ground, listening to music.

By which I mean, taking turns singing songs at the other. She was way better at it than I was at it, but I think having a music library built into your brain, with speakers in your neck is cheating, honestly.

"No, no, the guitar was more like a… Wubwubwubwubwubwub, you know?"

"Nah," she said, "I think you might be thinking of like, a brass instrument or something? Maybe a tuba?"

I laughed, and wiped some blood out of my eye. "It was a guitar, I swear to Kom."

I heard her fans kick on, and when I glanced over to her she was looking at me intensely. "You're bleeding again."

"I… yeah, but it's fine."

Suddenly she was upon me, one hand on my cheek and pushing down, the other on my eyelid and pushing up to get a better look at the blood. "I can't believe you," she said.

"Ow!" I cried, "can you plea-"

"When did you do this to yourself?" She interrupted, "When and why?"

"I… the bleeding happens automatically, you can't get mad at me just because the world is weird."

"Do you think I don't notice? That the blood comes from old scars?"

"Well, sure, it’s from my work at-"

"I know."

"... Okay so," I hesitated, "why?"

"I don't know how anyone can do this to themselves, even for power. I," she cringed, "I don't even feel the way you do, and I still couldn't do it."

"It's just… normal where I'm from. Some people integrate stone into their flesh, some people take on animal aspects, some people drown themselves… some people do bloodletting," I put on an affectation, "that's magic baybey!"

"Well that's not how it is in Third York," her hands loosened up, just cupping my face. I could feel myself warming up and started to wish i had lost a little more blood.

"In Third York, before I was decommissioned, there was a wave of deaths from self inflicted wounds. People would get high off their own endorphins and endocannabinoids and accidentally kill themselves.”

I put my hand on her’s, and barely got out a soft, “well, duh,” before her head snapped like she was looking through the wall. “Shh!” she said, as her fans sped up further. Something black and fluid blasted past our window and chills went down my spine. I tried to move but even though Caret wasn’t pressing hard on me, she was immovable as a statue.

“Plea-”

“Shh.”

“Please let go.” I whispered. One of her eyes glanced down at me, and she let go and stood, before grabbing a sword off of the table.

Slam

I turned to look at the door. It was quiet again.

Slam

Sl-TANG, Caret’s sword pierced the door, followed by a loud scuttling. Caret audibly relaxed, her fans spinning down to a more reasonable level.

“Is it gone?” I whispered. She nodded and walked toward me, before wrapping her arms around me and laying the two of us down on a bed. I was glad for the company. After that, I wasn’t going to fall asleep alone.

Water flowed all around me, while I floated on my back. “Thanks for doing this with me,” I said to Caret as the blood flowed from my neigh-unopened skin, and into the basking pool.

She shrugged from her place next to the slate container I created. “Oh, it’s whatever, you know?”

“Nah,” I said, “I know it bothers you. But I don’t super like being alone when I do this.”

“Why not?”

“I’m always worried I’m going to get too relaxed and fall asleep and drown.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. I closed my eyes and laid back. “Well, if you want to stay awake, how about I explain what I’m doing with my cave?”

“Sure!” I said, enjoying the water swirling around my body, the quiet darkness of the whole experience, as Caret started in on explaining the cavern.

It was… complicated. I got the sense that if I was from her universe I would have understood it. There is, apparently, a stream in the mountian, which she has powering a turbine, which helps run a screen, which she’s using to run diagnostics on her senses, I think? She also said that something about this process is making plants grow everywhere. I got the sense that she wasn’t sure why though.

“Think you’re done?” she asked at the end of her explanation.

I cracked an eye open, and lifted an arm out of the water. No blood, just scars. As usual. I nodded and closed my eyes again. "We're good."

"Can we please wash the blood off you?”

I stood up and stretched a bit, “Mhm, yeah.”

“You smell… I mean, like blood.”

I stopped. “You can smell now?”

She waved her hands around, “This place wants me to smell, I guess?”

“Yeah, uh, that checks out, I guess. Makes about as much sense as any other damn thing that’s happened this whole time.” I rubbed a temple. “Right. To the shower?”

She nodded and we went up the stairs, out of the house, and around the back to where the “shower” was. Honestly, it was just a hose that led up to her cave. I have no clue what it hooked up to.

She turned it on, and blasted me straight in the face. “You know, I’m going to have to make some bandages. This is getting ridiculous.”

“Aackpffthpfth,” I said, before she moved the stream off my mouth, “Tha-that’s true.”

She ran it up and down my body. “Honestly, I still don’t completely understand why blood magic. It just seems so high-risk. What even is the point of it?”

“Well, like… It’s hard to describe. For one thing, it’s a power source, you can make lights, weapons, pepple-”

“People?”

I shook my head. “No, they’re called Pepple? They’re… vaguely person shaped, but made of, you know. Viscera?”

“Dear God,” She deadpanned, “Go on?”

“Well, all of that’s fairly advanced. On a micro level, it makes you like, way harder to kill? A lot of soldiers get into it. Adventurers, rune disposers too.”

She made a face, “You weren’t a soldier, were you?”

“No! Hell no. I,” I felt my face warming up, “Actually, I was trying to impress a girl?”

“Get on your knees, I need to wash your hair,” I did as I was told, and she came up behind me as I tilted my head back, spraying water through my undercut, running her fingers through my hair. Her voice was close to me now, a sensation that I seemed to always find out I was way less used to than I thought. “Did it work?”, she asked quietly.

I flushed. “Oh, uh. No. Turns out I uh, wasn’t her type.”

“What was her type?”

“Not… uh. Trans?”

“Oh. Screw her.”

I laughed a little too loud, but… who can blame me, it cut the tension. I may have snorted. Accounts differ. “It was fine, honest. It just got kinda awkward. And I was just... Young. Kinda stupid. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, and I shouldn’t have chosen a field of work just to impress someone. Buuut at least now I bleed randomly and freak out my only friend, so. Put one in the win column?” I said sarcastically.

She got really quiet and furrowed her brow.

“Did I… We are friends, right?”

“I…” she said, trailing off.

“Oh god, I was joking but we are, right? Like, I won’t even be mad just surprised.”

“I really… Love you. Like a lot.”

“Oh. Woah. I love you too. You’re my best friend.”

“Ditto,” she replied. I didn’t often see her flustered, but I was pretty sure this had done it. She sprayed me in the face again as I sputtered, before she dropped it. “Alright get your bits clean. I’m not doing those.”

I found a ruby. The knife had been made, along with the necessary preparations. It was a full moon that night. I had a pig. I had some blood saved from my basking pool. We were in a clearing in the woods.

“I’m still… fuzzy on why we have to do this,” Caret said, trudging along behind me.

“Well, it’s partially tradition. But it also helps to activate the knife itself. It’s good to charge it a touch before you use it on yourself.”

“I don’t love that you’re testing it on an animal.”

“I mean, if all goes well it shouldn’t feel anything. Or even die,” I turned back toward her, “Theoretically you could do it on me. Wanna do some stabbing?” Her face said no. “I’m just saying, it’s an option.” The first time a new knife is used, it’s easy to be overzealous. Mostly because the anesthetic affect takes a moment to get calibrated for the first time. It’s meant to just make it so you don’t feel any pain and stay lucid, but some people have reported passing out from it their first time using a new one. Not a risk you want to take, especially with a knife in your arm. Even one that doesn't let you die.

“Really it’s not testing anyway. It’ll work, it just needs to get started up. This is how we do it.”

Cerat raised an eyebrow, "and the black robes, those were super-duper necessary, I guess?"

"It's just… the uniform they had us in back at the academy. It's comfortable. In more ways than one."

“Can we just get it over with?”

I nodded, and drew my blade. It was fairly simple. I won’t go into detail. I cut into it, filled a bowl, poured it over the knife. Just as I was finishing up, I heard a spinning up over from Caret’s direction.

I saw her before I saw the other thing. In her hand was an oak wood crossbow which I had the privilege of watching her carve, and decorate with pink dye. What she was pointing at was far less adorable.

It seemed humanoid, mostly. It was naked, with pallored, greenish skin, skin swirling around itself, with weird, empty faces appearing and disappearing, each frozen in a wail for the half-second they were around. The face was similar, so big, with sagging meat, that it almost seemed larger than the body, the eyes and mouth were huge and empty, cartoonishly so, the gape of it staring me down, as a bolt entered the eye. The eye-hole. The hole where the eye ought have been.

It didn’t seem to get a reaction, but the mouth waggled, and the creature began to make a noise.

“Hhhhhhhhihhhhhhhhhhhhh”

“Caret?” I shouted, panic mounting.

“I’m thinking,” She replied coolly, as she loaded another bolt.

Another bolt loosened, this time into it’s endless dark maw.

“Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-”

“It’s still not working!” I said, raising my dagger.

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii”

Caret's stance changed as she held up a fist and shouted, "Hold!"

Everyone was motionless, apart from the swirling faces of the figure. Caret spoke up again. “Clarify your name and intentions,” she commanded.

“We are We-are-the-Dead. We have been meaning to introduce ourselves,” they said, stretching each word out, as if it was a labor.

“So should I call you like… We?” I muttered to myself.

“To what end?” Caret asked.

“To get to know those what live.” they said.

“Why’d you wait until now?”

“We are shy,” they said simply.

“And that’s why you’ve been following us around?” she asked.

I blinked.

“Yes. We have been… unsure of how to introduce ourselves. We are the collection of those who have passed on,” I realized the looks on each face wasn’t some horrible wail, but an expression of extreme nervousness. They seemed far more comfortable now, though their presence hadn’t become comforting. “Someday, all will be part of us. It is only sensible that you should know us first.”

Caret narrowed her eyes, “Is that a threat?”

They shook their collective head, “An observation. A philosophy, perhaps. Everything joins the collection eventually. We-are-the-Dead. We all will someday be… the dead.”

Caret seemed to loosen up a touch, pointing the crossbow towards the ground. “Right. Are you staying some place?”

“We are staying… Around. Not many things die. We welcome anything that joins. We were about to welcome a brand new soul,” They gestured toward the pig, “or so we thought. But we travel, and meet the others.”

“Others?” I asked.

“To the sunrise. Away from the woods. Into the sand. Into the mountains. Even in the great empty space, someone roams.”

“So… What now?”

“What are your names?”

“Partridge,” I said pointing at myself, “Caret,” I pointed at her.

“It is nice to see other faces. We remember…” They trailed off.

“Yes?” I asked.

They shrugged, “It’s no matter. We shall leave you be.”

They turned to walk back toward the woods, their body flopping and wriggling as they moved. Over their shoulder they called, “We shall see who else we can meet. And then, we shall all meet again… One way, or another.”

Like that they were gone, returned to the darkness. I looked at the knife I was holding, and tucked it into my bag. I looked at the pig, and untied it’s harness. As it ran off, I headed over to where Caret was poised. She seemed not-quite-ready to relax.

“So that was fucked up.”

She nodded.

“Think they’re dangerous?”

“Who knows. How’s your knife?”

“It worked. Pig survived it, it should work for me now.”

“Great. Let’s head back. I want to lie down.”

We started walking back home. “‘Clarify your name and intentions,’ though?” I asked

“Oh, hush. Old habits.”

#Fiction #Mythology #The Grandiose Burden of Being my Caretaker #Isekai #my writing

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paigesturning · 5 years

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The Grandiose Burden of Being my Caretaker - 1

When people write about waking up in unexpected places, they usually present it weirdly peacefully. Like, “I opened my eyes and looked around. I was in a field” blah blah blah blah blah. But that’s not really how it goes. So, for example, when I woke up with my skin sizzling, and realized I was in a desert, I kinda flipped out. I opened my eyes, groaned, because the sun was shining directly into them, said “What?” to myself, sat up, said “What?” again, and finally, I jumped to my feet and shouted “What the fuck?”

Then I took a moment to look around. I was in a desert all right, but it wasn’t a desert like you get out East, but more like the deserts on the southern continent, all multicolored rock formations, and dry, thorny bushes.

I said “What?” again.

I wasn’t wearing… exactly what I had fallen asleep in. I still had the black tank top on, but I guess at some point I had put on jeans. Or jeans had been put on me. Or my PJs turned into jeans? I still don’t know. Another notable item on me was a backpack. It was a green canvas with a dark-brown leather trim, and brass pieces holding the flap at the top shut. Curious about this mysterious new bag, I undid the clasps, and flipped it open.

Despite the fact that I was holding the bag off the ground, and it was shaped like a typical bag (albeit, more fashionable), a long tunnel, seemingly made out of the green canvas, seemed to move down into the darkness forever - something which is obviously impossible.

At this point, I laid back down on the ground, and considered my options. It was possible that I was dreaming. Sometimes this kind of thing happens, I suppose. I’ve never had a lucid dream, but I assume it would be something like this, where you feel awake, mostly, but you also know you’re dreaming, because nothing works the way it’s supposed to. I had a friend who told me about a lucid dream once. She said she summoned a bunch of muscular butches to, quote, “take care of her”.I also heard a story from another friend where they decided to fly in their dreams, and did that.

I was sick of laying down anyway, what better way to pass the time than to try and fly around? I raised my arms out in front of me. Then, I started to levitate.

Rather, I started to try to levitate. This, I thought, is taking far more effort than Dara made it out as. Maybe it was because I was thirsty?

I was thirsty. I sat up, and looked around again. Nothing had changed, really. I picked the bag back up, and started digging through the outside pockets that I had ignored before. Just like the main pocket, they each seemed far larger than I would have guessed. There was a donut, which seemed fresh, three books, and some apples. I pulled out one of the apples, and started to eat it to help quench my thirst. This being a dream seemed to be getting less and less likely, and (even if my dehydration wasn’t a sign of this being real) there was no sense in staying thirsty, so I began to walk.

On top of a little outcropping I got a better lay of the land. To my left (which I found out was south), the stones turned into a more deciduous mountain. Just to the right of that was a forest of… I want to say aspen trees. Even that was at a higher altitude than I was currently at. The rest continued to be swaths of red-stone mesa.

And I started walking. __

It was a few weeks later, when I found her. I was on my way through the woods, trying to see if I could find a source of clay at the time. I was sick of having a lean-to to live in, and was nearly done with a nice mud-brick structure. There was a grassy area, filled with wildflowers. The trees above created a roof over the area, casting the underbrush in a green, peaceful glow that felt healing in it’s own way. Amid all of the flowers and grasses, she was half lying, half sitting, propped up on her hands, yet on her side, like a starlet on a piano. Furthering the analogy, she wore an all-red outfit, A cloak, parting to reveal a crop-top, and cargo pants. Her yellow hair looked near green in the light of the trees, and it framed a round, soft face, upon which, aside from startlingly cherubic features, were two shiny gray rectangles, each covering a cheek.

Oh, I was staring at her. She was staring at me.

“Er, sorry, can I… can I give you a hand here, ma’am?”

She gave me… a look and sat up straighter. As she did, I heard a whirring from her direction.

“Only, uh, I haven’t met anyone else in a while. I thought I might be the only one out here?” I continued, trying to fill the silence.

“Oh, um,” she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, “I’m fine. Sorry.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, where are you from? Or, how did you get here?”

“I’m from Third York. But for the past couple of days I’ve been here.” “I’ve never heard of that place.”

“No? It’s a very large city.”

“Yeah, sorry. Do you have like, a shelter or something? Where have you been staying?”

She looked embarrassed, and gestured around at the little field she sat in, “I don’t really need to sleep, and if I stay out in the sun I can recharge. Especially if I lay down.” She tapped the panel on her face. I must have looked as confused as I felt, because she rolled her eyes a little and said, “You know… cause I’m a robot?”

This didn’t help very much. “Is that… anything like a nymph?”

It was her turn to look confused. “Where did you say you were from?”

I ran a hand through my hair. “Seqestra? Second City to the Sun? I lived at the college there.”

“I have no idea where that is. Is it… around here?”

“I… I dunno. I just sort of woke up here one day.”

She looked like she was lost in thought, “Yeah, me too…”

Frankly, dancing around what was going to seemed to be a little much, “Think it’s safe to say that we were both transported to some alternate dimension from our own, or something?”

“Oh, that’s definitely the case. The stars are different here.”

I knew I should have been paying closer attention in my astrology class. “Different how?”

“Well, to put it simply, it seems like they move through the sky at the same rate that the sun and moons do.”

“That’s… Weird.”

She nodded, “It seems, if you’ll excuse the expression, like the whole universe is revolving around us.

...

K. What I was doing seemed trivial now.

But god damn it if I wasn’t going to have a roof over my head by the end of the day. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Cerat,” she said, finally standing all the way up. “And you?”

“The folks at the University called me Partridge. Nice to meet you.” I stuck out a fist at the same time that she stuck out an open hand. Looking between me, and our hands, she switched to a closed fist, facing down, and gently bopped my knuckles.

“...Right. Well, Cerat, I’m actually looking for some clay. I have most of a house built, but I just need something to keep the roof stuck on. Want to come with? You can stay with me, until we find another place, or something. If you’d like.”

She furrowed her brow. “I’ll have to decide.”

I stood there waiting for a moment. After a few seconds too many of silence, I said, “Right, so, I’m going to get going. I’m,” I pointed, “that way. Let me know what you decide, I guess.”

I turned to walk away, when I heard her following behind me.

“You make up your mind then?”

She shrugged.

“Okay, I guess.”

Later that night when I was eating dinner, she spoke up again.

“I think I’ve made a decision.”

#Fiction #Mythology #The Grandiose Burden of Being my Caretaker #Isekai #my writing

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