PRISON OF WORDS
CS Creation Myth
(2026)
The snake is eternal. The snake does not shed, it gorges. The snake creates, the snake destroys. The Ouroboros eats and eats, it's teeth sharpen on it's celestial shell, it's tail has never not known the cavern of it's fate. Born for what? Humans with a purpose is a delusion, death is always waiting. Kissing on the ridges of your spine, dancing through your clogged up veins. Death and life, life and death, it's all the same. Born to die is a human, died to live is a God. When did they begin? When did the stars shine and the snake hiss? When did the heart start beating? You will never know. What came first, death or life? It sounds so simple to those who bleed red, not time. To a God—born or not—it has never been. From stars' death comes them, but the stars lived first, yes? No. They too are born of death. The womb is the void, the cord is the path you cannot see. Gods take each element of mortality, a thing they touch the same, and command it. Death, Life, Disease, War, Love, Lying, Honesty, Evil, Starvation, and everything in between. They built the moon and the sun with their bones as chisels and their blood as heat, tying their souls to Soluna, something permanent no matter The Ouroboros's next cycle. The snake bites and bites and bites. How long the feast is uncountable, there is no beginning or end, just circumstance and fate. Big souls in tiny bodies—humans born to find each other again and again. The rules change, the lands change, the God's and the people change, the inevitable does not change. From ocean gorges to plagued cities to slate-stone towers to creeping forests to unending chasms. The path twists and runs away from you, a little rabbit chasing after nothing. You will die, you will live, you will love, you will fall sick, you will lie, you will sing truth, you will join wars, you will chase power, you will be starving for something just out of reach. And no matter the heart's beating, it will always be eternal.
The "Child"
(2025)
In church you sing in the children’s choir. You are not a child. You are an adult who is forced to sit with the children because that’s how the leaders see you. It doesn’t matter that you’re in your mid twenties, that your younger siblings are regarded as adults, that you are the oldest of the youth group you grew up in, to them you will always be a child. You will always be stupid. You’re forced to stand with them and sing melodies and rhapsodies that sound like the heavens opening, like sucking plum syrup, like drinking silky wine, like watching roses bloom in seconds, like watching the stars explode and light the sky. It drags on your vocal cords like they’re being cut by blades. It’s exhausting, singing like that every day, being treated like the child you haven’t been in nearly a decade. You’re tired, burned out. You want it to stop. Maybe you even want to be respected. But you don’t hope for it because hope only hurts. You’ve learnt that over the years. And so each day and each night you stay standing like a statue with expanding lungs and choke your way through hymns that you lose belief in with every forced performance.
The outfit is too tight anyways; it’s short and crushing, a pure angelic white with a collar that’s only motivation is to strangle you, a necklace with a fine brass cross, finely combed hair, a gossamer white and thin smile. If you stain your robes? You get whipped. If your collars too lose? You get whipped. Your necklace slightly rusted? You get whipped. Strands of your hair like spider legs all over the place? You get whipped. And your smile too watery or too real? You get sent to the catacombs to freeze with the rats and the fermenting bones. Oh, and you get whipped. There really is no peace in such an intense world, and people always feel the need to explain it and explain it and explain it, over and over again. Because clearly you didn’t already know these details. That respect for your intelligence would be too much to ask for. ‘No one else gets it explained to them’, you think bitterly while you buffer out the chips in the pews, but you’re not truly angry or resentful, just sad. The disregard for you as a human just makes you sad. You were raised to see these people as a family, the only one you’ll ever have in this corrupt world, that when you’re in the convent you will never know anything but respect. After all, you’re all children of God right?
On a late night in winter you are sent to the catacombs. Your body is beaten and bloody, your lashes cutting farther than your flesh and into your bones, creating sharp licked grooves in their porcelain surface. You leave trails of metallic reeking blood into the dusty graves. You’re thrown down the stairs and forced to walk for what feel like eons in the darkness, the entrance closed behind you, your only guide the very bones of your fallen brethren, as you grasp and clutch at them to support you. You know that by the entrance are the dead of the last few years, including many of those you were raised with, who died when the convent was attacked, their blood still burrowed in the pulpits rug threads. The thought is ghoulish, but so is the scent of your own blood throttling you. You persist, hoping that somewhere deep in the tunnels someone had stashed some needle and thread in one of the many trunks of unidentified bones. Somewhere down here, somewhere very deep, where the leaders wouldn’t go to snuff out any hope of healing oneself, there had to be something. Even if it’s just an ancient cask of liquor to pour across your wounds in a hope that the dust and disease in the catacombs wouldn’t take your only personal possession, your life.
On your knees you crawl across the dusty grounds, the dirt getting deep underneath your fingernails as they are practically your only momentum. Your muscles are weak from lack of food so they contribute nothing, and your will has abandoned you too. ‘It was inevitable’ you think, ‘that eventually I’d get thrown into these freezing pits, to rot and ferment with the other pathetic heretics. We are both frail and un-saveable, weak and abandoned. Sinner and devotee. It was inevitable that I would die cold and alone, my body to be wrapped in spider silk and dust as I deteriorate. First my flesh will shed from my bones, my muscles unwinding and evaporating like string and steam, my organs will rot and melt away, and my bones will collapse from their frame and rest on the ground, preparing to be kicked away by the feet of another unfaithful sent to these tombs for having the wrong smile. I can only hope that God will forgive me for the sin of imperfection.’
You drag yourself across the floor with all your might, your hands gracing bone after bone, your ragged breath scratching across miles of earth. Eventually in the middle of crawling you collapse into sleep, quite literally falling unconscious mid movement, your body is just so weak, and your mind so exhausted that you can’t help yourself. You’d rather not sleep with your open wounds, hell, you’d rather not sleep on the ground while diseased rats run around, but the choice was ripped from you just as your adulthood and dignity was. When you’d pleaded with The Priest he had told you that children need to be punished the most severely, because children were insolent and challenging, and they needed that beaten out of them. You didn’t even bother to remind him that you’re 27, he wouldn’t listen anyways. When you had tried in the past you were told that your mind made you a child, that because of how you were born you would always be a child, because that’s what your ‘condition’ meant. They were wrong. They were ignorant and prejudice and abusive, that’s all they were. Not wise, not holy, but human and intolerant. And as you crawled in that darkness, this realisation was illuminated. No one that protected God’s people would torture them for showing happiness. But God was cruel too.
You awoke from nightmares of mothers dying in childbirth, plagues turning young ones from lively children into withering corpses, the very raids that lead to all the bones surrounding you. God had let that happen. That was what the Bible said, that God created and controlled everything that happened on His Earth, including the tragedies. The flood. How many children and innocent died because He deemed the people He created, the people who acted just like Him, had to die. It was His choices, everything that lead to it was His choices. Or was that not true and He wasn’t as powerful as you’d been taught to believe? Either way your faith was cracking. It was splintering like the bones around you. If God believes in protecting and healing His children then why drown them? Why create plagues, why let them be abused by His very own preachers, why let them be raped and murdered. In your head you went though a million passages you’d been forced to remember, all the lyrics of the hymns you were forced to sing, God didn’t sound like a hero anymore, God sounded like an abuser. A narcissist demanding worship as He whipped and beat His people into submission and death. And more than that he was a hypocrite.
You crawled with all your might, knowing that this quest meant to kill you or beat you into submission had only made you hate the Lord you were told to worship. How much of your life had been your own choice? Not much. You hadn’t chosen to be brought to the convent, you hadn’t chosen to be baptised, you hadn’t chosen to sing in church, you hadn’t chosen to read the Bible, you hadn’t chosen to tell all your sins, you hadn’t chosen to follow God at all. Your choice suddenly felt like a precious jewel in your hands. Because if it is so important that the leaders will strip it from you and tell you you chose it, if they’re so desperate for it that they’ll force your hand, then your choice is valuable. Mentally you cradle it, promising to yourself that you will protect it, and only give it to something you desire. With this you also willingly give away your chastity, because what is the point in remaining pure for a God that hates you anyways? After hours of this consideration and the promises you make to yourself, you finally stand. Like a mountain of rocks thrown off your shoulders, your body feels stronger and you can finally pull yourself from the dirt. Your walk isn’t powerful, your legs are still wobbly, and you still cling to the wall to help you stand and move, but it is better than crawling and it fills you with hope. You choose to let that hope in.
You do not know how long you have been in these catacombs but at this point it has been days, it has to have been. You feel your sanity slipping as you continue deeper and deeper into the tunnels. The air is stale and more than one time it makes you choke. But that’s ok, at the end of the tunnels there is a chest. Not of thread, no you’re far past the point of desiring that, no no, you’re looking for money. For jewels. Because if you can escape the catacombs, then you want something to take when you run away from the convent. You know the world is fast and cruel, you know you will need money to survive, you are not a child. So you are preparing yourself, and hey, if you can find some thread and needle then the more the merrier. After a week of stumbling you find yourself delirious, fazing in and out of life. The starvation has taken much from you, but you still have that jewel of choice and that inkling of hope you’ve allowed. Eventually, as the winter frost crawls across the tunnels, and above ground the moon rises high in the midnight sky, you find it. A chest.
It’s made of black obsidian and golden filigree, gold leaves and skulls winding around each other adorned with rubies you can barely make out in the candle light above it. It is the only thing lit in these tunnels, and its at a dead end. It’s ancient, the hinges snapping open like tearing paper when you haul the massive, heavy lid off. Inside you find oceans of gold and pouches of jewels, with a beaming grin you stash as much of it as you can in your robe before you notice it. It’s a book. Made of violet and black leather, its has gold ink detailing a crude sketch of a demon on its cover. Carefully you take it into your spindly fingers, its so heavy that you have to balance it on your knee, but you manage to pull it open. From the date scrawled inside you discover the book is older than England itself, older by several millennium. It is an ancient text, and you feel something sick crawling up your body, the overwhelming urge that you shouldn’t press on. But that was toppled by your choice.
You crack into the book, flipping through the worn yellowed pages, the edges so blunt they don’t cut at your fingers. The writing inside is archaic, spanning from a thousand different cultures over a thousand different years over a thousand different pens that have inked these pages. You cannot decipher much, your Latin and Hebrew are rusty but your best points, and though you understand little you still get the message that this isn’t a book. It is a diary for people who have summoned a demon. An important one. And what you can deduce is so tantalising you can barely resist the pull. Not only do the entries speak of wealth and acceptance and revenge, but romance and pillow talk and sex. All with the demon himself. After reading all you could you flip back to the front pages of the book and find what you’re looking for. A summoning ritual. You need only your blood and an offering, whatever you wish it to be. You snatch the candle off the wall and use the edge of the coins to make the sigils in the dirt, you take one of the chests broken hinges and snap it off, using it to cut your wrist. You pour your blood into the sigils. As you feel your vision wavering and your mind going weak from blood loss he arrives. The sigils burn purple, and in an explosion of smoke the earth begins to shake, a storm arrives above ground and thunder booms like an explosion, somehow even reaching your ears beneath the earth. You feel a hand emerge from the smoke and grab your chin, pulling your head up to meet the violet eyes of the demon.
“Hello there, my Angel.”
And your vision blacks out.
W.W.F - WIP
(2024)
We were vial creatures, with saccharine cores to our bones. Disgusting beasts that we were. We belonged in the dark corners that children fear, we were monsters. I have been told it since I was born.
As my mother cradled me to her breast, melodies of sin coaxed her young ears. I would be horrifying. Give me to the nuns. They would fix me, make me bewitching yet modest, because something was clearly wrong. I could be perfect like I should be. Just let me go.
She let me be swaddled in clergy sewn cloth, they took me from a land with ashen air and raised me in a land of fog and dew. I was born for a world of windowless troves to call “home”, but I was forced into a world of windows sealed with cement and centuries of layered wax. Born to explore metal cities and black cliffs, forced to sit in stone classrooms and hold a bucket to stop leaks during storms. Storms were often, the nuns were strict.
I didn’t need such pleasures; Aj was all I needed. You don’t need flavourful food, it's too indulgent. Plain bread will do. You don’t need nice clothes, they’re sinful. 800-Year-old black robes with holes in them will do. You don’t need human connection, it’s selfish. Belief and faith in Aj will do. And everyone said that one day, one day I would become strong in my religion. And with my faith, my blood would change, it would be Aj’s will flowing through my veins, being all I needed to survive.
It could work for me; it would work for me. That was my resolve, become archaic. Become eternal.
I cannot recall when I first knew what this life was. When I first knew my circumstances. Yet I melted into the mold they wanted, my rosemary indented my flesh, my knees bled and bruised from prayer. I followed that which they said: I only need bread, I only need robes, I only need Aj. And I ran with that, as far as I could go.
Strict routine: 4 AM, wake up and pray. 4:30 AM, bathe in incense, it shall purify you from your sin. 5 AM, join the clergy for their dawn service. 6:30 AM, go to theology classes. 12 PM, bread and prayer. 1 PM, cleanse the cloister, the chapel or the monastery and convent. 2 PM, return to theology classes. 7:30 PM, go to the nightly service. 9:30 PM, return to my dormitory, bathe in incense. It shall purify you from your sin. 10:30 PM, open the scriptures, read and read and read till your eyes are about to bleed. 1 AM, Pray. Sleep if you must. 4 AM, wake up and pray.
The routine will keep me resolved, firm in faith. It’s eternal because it’s time, it is me on parchment. It could burn, but it is here now. I am resolute.
We, as people of Aj, are knowledgeable on feeling. We know the feel of satchel, of thatching, of stone, wax and dirt. Do not say we don’t know to feel. The pulp of pages, the cotton of sheets, the cold reptilian scales of others flesh, the warmth and sent of candles. The wonders of these sensations, they are ours. I do not need worldly pleasures outside of this.
The nuns have taught us of people and of forests, the oil lamp nuns taught all we need. It’s simply not for us. The ‘pleasures’ of lust are a mouse trap with twigs for cheese. That is one of our knowledge's, yet for others in our universe, it is not merely a mouse trap. It comes in the form of skyscrapers stuffed with candy, the people are children with mothers' money.
I live and I live, and I live. Each day the same but with varying levels of whipping. I have lived here since 2 hours old. I have ventured into the forests and hastily came back out again; my whole life is in these stone walls. This is the solitude of practice, of religion and might. This is faith and belief to drag myself away from sin, away from pleasure and pleasures, into a life in stone. I seal my faith and prayer with wax and learn to become holy. For only then I will become whole. Aj will complete, I am his child.
Moulded from his clay and imprinted with his flowers, I am one of his masterpieces. It is time to repay him, no?
I walk through the cloisters every evening, strolling from the end of 2 PM to the beginning of 7:30 PM. I look at the young Theol's in the courtyard and nuns sitting by the black wood willow. The nuns preach and the Theol’s learn to listen, it will be necessary in due time. I see crows sat together on the branches, I see me under there, studying. I watch as dusk arrives and the air is husky and damp.
I sit under the willow, looking at the crescent moon. I sigh a cold breath; the air is looks like I’m breathing smoke. I would never. I enjoy the stars and Aj’s work. The clouds and sky he created. His power is beautiful, his life is magical. His holiness blessed him with an ethereal world to pleasure in. I must learn to be like him. It is always the nun's goal.
I sit here tonight, in the Gregorian calendar it’s February 14th, 1635. The dusk is chilling me to the bone, my flesh is encased in ice. The stars entrance my eyes, and the moon makes me feel eclectic. I am at peace; the world is majestic.
The Deer
(2025)
Death has hands like an angels. Tender, and silky. Silky like his robe is as he drapes it across you. Sometimes he’ll even cut the silk of his robe to keep you warm on a cold, dark night as you make your way to the beyond. He’ll take his scythe and he’ll gently slit the fabric to your needs. The scythe is ancient, dating back to when he was a mortal, when he used it to plough the fields enterprise and reap his crops. He continues it now, reaping his crops. He sharpens and polishes the scythe on his drives back and forth from house to house, from hospital to hospital, from government building to government building. He doesn’t hate his job the way the government workers do. They’ve lost all passion for the work, and are ultimately fine with death reaping his crop, after all, it speeds their cases up. Who cares how many tiny coffins have to be bought, or how many tiny headstones are engraved on the daily? They’re just cases. One out of a million cases. It’s like deers running across the road, maybe they’re willingly choosing to meet death. The signs were there, the lights speeding towards them, the rest of their family only just across the tar. Do you want to do it? To run in front of the car and find all you need? Or do you trust that the driver will stop? You’re just a fawn in the end, too young to need anything other than guidance. Guidance you won’t get because the car won’t stop. The cases won’t stop. Death won’t stop.
It’s a midsummer night when they make the call. The heat is cloying at you, the willow trees are rustling next to the bridge, winding around each other like a sacred dance of leaves and twine. A crane soars into the inky sky, its eyes glowing like the stars themselves. The fish travel in colonies through the silver threads of rushing river water. The bridge arcs like a moon cresting a flat horizon, a perfect round construction of stone and mortar, hundreds of years old, ran over by countless numbers of cars, carriages and people in its time, and its fair share of deer. You are a deer. Running across the bridge. On the other side is a door, one made of pearl and iron and everything you need. What do deers need? You’re not quite sure, but you know its behind that gate. It’s reflecting in your glossy black eyes. Glowing like the stars themselves. They tell you to go inside. Why? Because your fur is the softest in all your family, no one is as fluffy as you. Maybe it’s because you’re so young, maybe its because your heart is do disgustingly tender, but either way, your fur is so desirable, hunters are always coming for you. But the organization has promised your protection, so you never have to worry about being hunted for your fur again. But the hunters still eat at you, like you’re every course at a kings banquet. You can barely breathe most days, feeling sickened by the scent of the flowers around you, being unable to rest at any time because the fear paralysed you. They’re always right behind you in your mind, watching, waiting. It is inevitable. They will always catch you, you tell yourself. You do not know peace. You just want to escape the fear. And the organisation promise you that, when has the government ever lied? All you have to do is walk into those beautiful iron doors.
The car rams into you like egos during a war. Your death feels eternal. All your dreams are just as crushed as your brain is, the tyres turning everything about you into a bloody pink pulp. Your skull is ground into stardust, your oh so soft fur caked in your own blood, the light from your eyes fading. Death runs out from the car, his scythe abandoned on the leather seats, your eyes pull away from the organisations logo on the hood, now covered in splatters of your flesh, and into the eyes of Death. You look at him with joy, he looks at you with horror.
Trans
(2025)
Are you a knight trapped in the wrong armour, or a princess trapped in the wrong dress? They can’t tell. They can’t decide for you but they try. If you tell them you’re unhappy with it they simply tighten your chest piece and clean up your face before they kick you out into the world. They tell you to find a man to follow, a woman to disrespect, a child to make you aspire to parenthood, really anything and everything that will make you conform to their wishes. Weather it’s a sword or a ‘sword’, a dress or a role to address, they will force you into it. Would you rather be destitute? Alone, a whore, penniless, honour-less? No. You wouldn’t. Because that is shameful; so you’re going to put on the helmet or put on the crown, and when you’re told to you’re going to take off the armour or pull off your shift. Simple. You’ll keep your hair long and present flawless femininity while you wish for the glinting silver of armour plates, you’ll strap on your boots and sharpen your blades while you dream of you having feminine beauty and layered skirts. You’ll do it all with a smile on your face and a blizzard inside your chest. A chest you might hate, with a smile unbelievably fake.
You look in the mirror in the morning, wanting to rip off your skin. You put on your best clothes that you’ve spent all your money on, clothes that you’ve dreamed of, and then your body doesn’t conform and you’re left dejected. You watch the rest of the people around you feeling beautiful and embracing their bodies, and for a second you may achieve the same, but there’s still something there, there’s still something missing. You get mad at yourself, you get mad at everyone. You try to conform for a long time, but each time your clothings are laced up you feel… wrong. You try walking around in public but you just can’t stop thinking about it, ‘Everyone is staring. Everyone thinks I’m not who I am. They’re not seeing me they’re seeing my body. I don’t even want this body. They’re seeing me wrong. They’re thinking of me wrong. I hate myself. I hate myself. I want to die, my body is wrong. It’s so wrong. I’m so wrong. What’s wrong with me? Why me? Why was I born in the wrong body? Why why why why why why why. Why.’ But you don’t have an answer. There may be one out there, but this is a time before science, this is a kingdom where there are still knights and princesses. And now you’re wondering if you’re the devil. If you deserve to die for being a disgusting animal.
That night you go to a tavern or walk into a ball, and while you’re struggling with your clothes and mentally screaming at yourself, you hear others speaking of people like you. People in the wrong bodies. They call you slurs, they call you sick, they say you should die and that you are equivalent to trash. They tell people this with pride, with a smile and a laugh, not caring at all that it already hurts enough being trapped in a cage of your own flesh and bone. It’s all about them. Because they’re not you, your pain doesn’t matter, you don’t even matter. You’re not even human, you’re just less than, you’re just a joke. It brings the most sour tears to your eyes, but you can’t let it out. Because maybe they’re right, maybe you’re disgusting and you deserve it. You leave the building and feel the doors slam behind you. Back inside people laugh at you and call you soft, and you run back to your tower or your barracks, because locked inside you can cry safely and hate yourself in peace. And that’s fine. You should lock yourself away because you’re ‘weird’, and you’re trying to make yourself ok with that.
Maybe you should read a book, you decide, but the only thing you get is a story about how wonderful it is to be a princess, or how wonderful it is to be a knight. And you’re sure that it is, and you know there’s nothing wrong with being a knight, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with being a princess, but its not made for you. The roles don’t fit with your punches, the puzzle of identity doesn’t click with your pieces, and in the end, you’re just not what you’re told to be. You throw the book away and go to bed, knowing tomorrow you have to brush your face with different paints or you have to polish the metal of your gauntlets and cuirass, and tonight, just as any night, you tell yourself its ok. Once you’re deep in slumber, you dream of a world where you can shake off what’s forced on you. As a knight you pull off your armour like octopus cups being pulled off the hull of a boat, your breasts grow in and your hair grows long, you may pull on a dress or not, you may put on heels or you may not, but either way you’re happy, and you have never felt more beautiful. As a princess you rip your dress to tatters and pull on a suit of armour, it moulds perfectly to your body like the man you’ve always seen yourself as, your breasts vanish, your hair is cropped short, and weather you want to ride into war or not, and weather you want to be traditionally masculine or not, either way you’re happy, and have never felt more handsome.
The people ask you what you’d rather be referred to as, and they love you and accept you, you feel respected for once in your life. You’re free to frolic or swim, you can take your top off and feel incredible, you can finally, finally wear what you want and feel amazing. You finally feel comfortable. You’ve found yourself in an oasis, far different from the rotting kingdom you hail from, its an oasis of moss ground and willow trees. Idyllic cottages and ponds of cerulean blue, faun’s playing melodies and bakers serving fresh cakes, people dancing in the square amid the forest alcove you find to be your new home. The festival is bubbling with life. As ducks swim in their pond and the faun spin and blow on their pipes, you find the citizens embrace you wholeheartedly. You dance and spin with the other people, their frocks twirling and their armour lightly clanging as you all run around together. Laughter pours into the air, the air that smells of flowers and sugar, and after all the dance your body craves food. As you think this the baker brings his cake to the picnic table, its 10 tiers, with creamy snow-white buttercream and delicately piped pink and teal frosting flowers on the top, there are chunks of juicy scarlet strawberries placed with the flowers, and shavings of chocolate sprinkled onto the sides. He cuts into it and you see that it is a mix of vanilla and chocolate, with a milky chocolate ganache and buttercream flavoured with marshmallow and plum juice. With a single bite you ascend to heaven. The sponge is so fluffy its like a cloud, and it practically melts on your tongue, the chocolate is so smooth its practically silk, and the cream is just the right level of sweet. Each bite draws a moan out of you, and once you finish your slice you instantly go back for more. There's only one slice left, and as you go to take it you see someone in front of you. Someone just like you, but opposite. As a princess you see a knight, and as a knight you see a princess. But not a forced one, a true one. Someone just like you, but opposite. Another person transitioning from roles to punches, from puzzle to peace. You smile and offer them the slice but they offer it straight back, and you both laugh as you both insist the other takes the last slice of the delicious cake.
In the end the baker comes up to you and recommends you try to split it, and you two agree, taking one plate and sitting together at the edge of the pond. You ask them how they got here and they tell you exactly what you went through, you know you’re kindred spirits and you spend hours just talking about your experiences being different. You don’t worry once about your body or what they think of you, because not only are you finally in the right body, but they know what you speak of. They tell you they’re so happy to be a knight or a princess, and though you can’t relate, you’re so happy as a princess or a knight. Though you’re opposites it makes sense, and you both finally feel seen. You talk until the sun has vanished and the stars are shining, not even crumbs remain of the cake, but there’s no end to the laughter and joy you share with this person. You’re like family in your differences from others, and its weird. It’s weird to finally be seen. You’re siblings in the world of transitions. You walk together and laugh about all your stories, all your exploits as a knight or a princess, all the stars you recognise and all the clouds in the way. You decide to share a room in your idyllic cottage, staying up for what feels like forever together, your body numb from laughter, your heart full with camaraderie.
As you lay down to sleep you look at them, you look at them in a way you’ve never looked at anyone before, and they look at you the same. In this body that you adore, in the clothes that you can finally wear, you go to sleep content. When you awake you smell the distinct scent of burning. They have come for you. Back in the kingdom you have always lived in you find your home on fire, as you run from your bed and to the window tears flow from your tired eyes, because your house burns, because the cottage wasn’t real. As you throw your head out the window you see the men with their torches, the same men from last night. As they yell their slurs at you and burn all you’ve ever found safe, the smoke stifles your lungs, and you fall into an agonising death. Their laughter ringing in your ears as your heart stops.
Demiurge Vore
(2025)
You are going to let a god eat you, it is a punishment. This isn’t an act of vore, it isn’t from a place of desire, or sadomasochistic cravings. In fact it’s the exact opposite, you do not want pleasure. It makes you sick. Pleasure is, to you, a disease. You’re wrong for wanting it, but it keeps coming for you. Others will say it is normal, that sex and pleasure are in fact something to embrace and celebrate. But you hate it. Because it makes you feel absolutely fucking filthy. It’s vile, you tell yourself, disgusting. It’s unnatural and its wrong; because you are unwed, because you do not deserve it. Every-time you even think about pleasure, or feel the warm tides of desire wrap around you you want to cry and scream. You stand in the mirror naked and shame yourself, absolutely refusing to let yourself enjoy the sight of you. You have a friend who looks at their body with joy, who relish in experiences with person after person, who encourage you when you express your hatred. They try to help you enjoy your body, your sexuality, your life. But each time feels cheaper than the last because in the end you don’t think they like you at all. They do actually, a lot, you’re a vital part of their lives and they care about you. When you tell them how shameful you feel about your wants they give you the biggest hug and give you the space to speak freely. You want sex, you want partners, you want to embrace yourself. But you never do. Instead you summon an ethereal entity and beg them to eat you.
You want your body ripped into and shredded, the way it should be. You were taught that your body is a temple, that it should be pure and secret about what’s inside. But other things happen in temples too obviously, bloody things. You want teeth dug into each of your sides, your ribs snapped and sucked upon to take off the meat, your intensities slurped down like spaghetti, lungs bitten into like loafs of bred, your heart taken and chewed up like gummy bears, your blood drunk like creamy liquor, eyeballs popped like cherries, tongue sucked deep into a throat, thighs nipped at with fangs, fingers licked like a lolly, throat clamped upon like a dogs teeth in heat. You tell them this, the god you summoned, and they tell you that cannibalism is not what you want. You affirm that it is, that you want to be eaten, you want all of this. They don’t believe you, but do they actually care? No. No they don’t, you say. So they prepare to eat you.
They lie you on your carpet, and you stare up at the stars out of your domed ceiling as they take of your clothes. They do it so softly, their fingers wrapping under your delicate silks, the air is burning with an incense to mask the scent of iron, it catches in your throat and rakes across it. The gods eyes do the same to your body, getting ready for supper. You ask how long its been since they’ve feasted, they say a while. You think this is good and you go silent, the hungrier the better. As they softly pull away the fabric, lifting you delicately, you feel… safe? Your skin begs for more contact from the immortal creature, you want them to hold you close and shield your body from the hatred. Because it feels so good. You feel sick with yourself and beg them to speed up, but they refuse. They tell you to embrace yourself and you shout to the heavens with all your might that you can’t. That you’re sick. What you want is wrong, who you are is wrong.
Your eyes fill with tears, they burn so hard its like a lemon was squeezed on them. They take their fingers and tenderly wipe them away as they roll down your cheeks. They help you up, holding you as you come to your knees and fall into their shoulder. They wrap their many arms around you, massaging circles into your naked back and they mutter praises into your ear. ‘You’ve done so well’ they tell you over and over again, and with each time you want to believe them more and more. The shuddering breaths wrack out of you over and over and over again, the tears falling into your open mouth and sear your throat with their salt. Your chest feels numb, but your heart feels wonderful. The sensations around you comfort you. The satin they drape across your shoulders, the candelabra burning against the pillars, the leather books you’ve spent hours pouring over, the sensation of being cared for. You take a deep breath and feel resolve, through stuttered breaths you ask them how old they are, and they tell you they’re infinite. That they’ve been here since the beginning of time and will never go anywhere, no matter if you banish them or not, they will still be with you, especially after this.
You want to hate it. You want to hate it so badly, you want to hate them so badly. But you can’t. You’ve found what embracing yourself feels like, it feels like a lover wrapping satin around your body and denying you harm. It feels like a hug. You ask them to not eat you, and to instead come to bed with them, not to have sex but to talk. You’re not ready for that yet, but you feel seen by how they speak to you, how open they are to what you want. It reminds you of your friend. Maybe you’re not ready to have sex yet, to embrace your sexuality and desire, but you learnt something today. That death is always there, and that life can feel like a lovers embrace, like your own embrace.
The god takes you to bed and you talk for hours, until all the candles have burnt out and till you’re wilting with exhaustion. As they make to leave you grasp their hand, a hand that has existed for billions of years, and ask them to stay. They agree and stay with you, curling around your body in just the way you ask, and protecting you as you enter rest. The bed feels strangely empty with them in it, because they are both the whole universe and nothing at the same time. But you are warm and safe, your mind running like rabbits in a field as you prepare to awake to a new life. One where you never feel ill with yourself again, where your body is worshipped like the cosmos it comes from, where maybe you choose to ask for something more tender than vore, yet just as desirable.
Creature Wife
(2026)
The syringe slid deeper into the meat of my arm, my eyes did not water for the pain, but for the frustration. Again, I was being prepared to be a mother, and in that, a wife. This was the 6th shot of the month, and I was fucking sick of it. None of the other girls in my grade had to have this many. I guess it was my doubt for the plan I was assigned. The drugs would fix me. Fertility pumped through chemicals distilled through filthy vials—that would cure the sickness of difference. I was barely 18 and already on a rapidly increasing diet of needles; what had felt like a lot before paled in comparison to the new dosage. After getting stabbed up like a fucking vegetable I had an appointment with a physiologist so they could fix whatever was messed up with me. Based on what I've already said you'd think I was walking around the streets screaming about how I hated children and didn't want to be a wife. Truth is I just wasn't married. People looked at me with disgust when I walked near them. Girls of all ages got told to avoid me as I was a 'bad influence' and a 'child-hating demon' who would seduce them out of wanting motherhood.
"There, done. Don't keep Dr Brook waiting." The injection doctor who's name I honestly didn't care about yanked the needle out of my vein carelessly, before scraping his palms down on his dirty scrubs. Don't ask me what he needed to 'clean' off his hands.
I got off the sticky chair, yanking my skirts down nervously. "Thank you."
I was not thankful. I walked out of the room, ignoring the doctors cloying eyes, and made my way up the black marble stairs towards my next 'you're a woman, be an incubator. Now.' appointment. There, instead of sitting on a gummed leather surgery chair, I would sit on a gummed leather upholstered sofa. Lovely. So I sat there for an hour repeating for the 25th time since my birthday that I did want children, I did want to be a pretty little housewife; easy to like and perfectly acceptable. Next I had 3 hours of class, sitting with the uncomfortable tampon I didn't even want getting stabbed harder into me thanks to the wood desk. I could feel my bones creating grooves in my fucking chair. I had to get stared down when I walked in, then get whispered about by annoying classmates, and then have to sit and listen to a disinterested teacher 'educate' half a classroom, because why would he try with educating the girls. I chewed the end of my pencil so much that when I started climbing up the hill to the forest I was still spitting out little wood chips.
"You're late." He was waiting in the foyer; hanging around the corners, digging into the stucco finery like cobwebs.
"Sorry." I threw my books on the chequered floor. "Was getting pumped full of fertility shit again."
His laugh shook the foundations of the castle. "How cute."
I snorted, but I did feel a shot of indignation inside of me. "It's not cute. It fucking hurts."
"I know that." I could feel his smile singeing my skin, before slowly slinking way. "But it's naive, mostly."
"Mh." I looked around the gaping foyer: dark, lathered in red velvet, spindly and creeping on your vision. Always something just out the edge of your eyeline, watching you. The black walls made the space look smaller than it was, hiding passages, statues, people. Liches and ghouls waiting on nonexistent breath for what little bits of your life they could take and take and take. "Can we go upstairs?"
At the core of the winding mass of halls, high enough to just peak over the tree line, was the main tower which he had made his quarters. It was like a cathedral in one room, soaring ceilings and large slit windows, beautiful chandeliers and chiselled black stone walls, you know, that kinda thing. For a bedroom is was disgustingly grand, and the shit of nightmares, but I loved it. You could not get more 'horror novel creepy palace' than that room. Hanging from the ceiling was a giant circular bed attached to thick gold chains, draped in silk sheets and satin. He picked me up on his palm and dropped me onto the bouncy mattress, where I stretched out, school uniform cutting off my circulation and all.
"Um, love?" I could sense he'd left the bedside, and I tried coaxing him back with a fruitless attempt at a honeyed voice.
"Yes?" Words curled around my throat like smoke.
"Can you bring me a change of clothes please?"
He brought his form to lay beside me in my scratchy—but more comfortable than the uniform—silk. I dug my teeth into my bottom lip, ripping slices of skin away. I'd been chewing at a question to ask him for a while, and with the horrible concoction of styrofoam hormones dancing through my bloodstream, I felt bold enough to try.
"Why did you want to be a monster?"
I looked at where I felt his face should be, but still felt eyes everywhere else around me. "Because I could be."
"But… why?"
He sighed with a hint of frustration. "Why do caterpillars enter cocoons?"
"'Cause they're warm?" He laughed.
"You're far too sweet. No, no. To become butterflies." Let's just say I didn't go to a good school.
I could taste some blood on my tongue. "And being a monster is the equivalent?"
"Exactly. But I don't expect you to understand." His presence shifted away slightly.
"No, I do!" I rushed, grasping out into inky nothingness. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to grab. But…"
"Continue." He permitted.
"I think I kinda get it. Being human just… wasn't meant for you?"
He chuckled deeply. "Maybe not for you, but you misunderstand again, love. I wasn't human to begin with… But we're getting off topic."
I noted that down in my brain's chalkboard I'd reserved solely for the enigma of him, and continued on. "What do you mean 'for me'? I like being human."
The castle trembled with laughter. "Oh, you are sweet." He cackled loudly, slamming against each wall. I looked down at my hands, embarrassed.
"Ok well I think I do, at least. Being a monster sounds… spikey."
"Hm. Interesting thought process."
I shrugged and slid down onto my back, legs and arms stretching again, a sharp sting still resounding in my left arm. "I like being all soft and sweet." I gave him a toothy grin and closed my eyes to go to sleep. Still, that night all I would dream about was a little seed covered in spikes burying itself into the deep forest earth, slowly sprouting into a tree I barely escaped with school bells the next day.
Baba Yaga
(2025)
Baba Yaga lives in a house propped up on the scrawny legs of a chicken. Yes, she also flies around in a mortar and pestle, but you’ve never been in the mortar and pestle, you have only been in the house. The house is called Избушка, but you call it Iza, and its always liked you. When you were a baby, your parents left you in the forest. You were a quiet child, already being killed by the Slavic cold, frostbite gnawing away at your fragile and plump flesh. And despite the fact that you didn’t cry in your wicker basket, Iza still found you. It came straight to you, even when Baba said no, and told the house to turn around—already on her way back to her post at the fountain of life—but the house didn’t listen, insisting on making its way deeper into the dense maze of the taiga, towards the silent babe. After hours of winding through spindly trees, of Baba cursing the house under her breath, Iza finally found you. Baba had resigned herself to making a broth inside when the house stilled, stopping and lowering less than an inch from your makeshift cradle. You don’t remember seeing it, but sometimes in your dreams it conjures out of the subconscious mist. You see a rickety hut lit by honey-coloured lamps, creaking back and forth, skulls poking out atop a fence of bones, moss crawling up a slate roof, stairs so brittle they look ready to collapse but never will, wood damn near rotting yet still holding strong, a beautiful deep chestnut colour, dewy green plants coating every surface like algae or matted sea grass, the scent of chicken broth, of mildew and fire made a strangely comforting odour that you know so well, and getting taken inside…
Again, you don’t remember it, you just know what Iza looks like, what Iza feels like to be welcomed in to, to call the house home. All you know is that eventually, after a while, Baba Yaga exited her hut and found you lying there. She probably thought about eating you. It is her most pulling nature, she probably thought about boiling or roasting you, but then she thought other than it. She took you in as her child. Or, grandchild, because really, she is more a grandmother in nature, age and name. She dubbed you Koz, pronounced Kaz, relating to goats. You’ve always been slightly offended by that. She taught you how to kill people, to eat children, to cook a mean okroshka, to hunt, to guard, to protect, to guide. Your role is varied in the hut, but generally you cook meals for visitors, and brew poisons for killing visitors. Lots of cooking occurs in your house, from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep you are always surrounded by the aroma of cooking. It your one true love even.
The day starts as any other, you rise from your bunk and drink black tea straight from an iron kettle, you then take notes in a battered journal—practising your Russian and such, because you have never known many people you have struggled learning from only one person—then once Baba is awake you braid her hair and then dust the floors and Iza’s porch while she cooks up a platter of syrniki and a wooden bowl of kasha. You share breakfast at the kitchen table, a small, nearly floor touching round table, with a thick top and stumps in the middle of the hut. You finish with tea and speak briefly to each other, always with a lecture and a reminder that no one will ever love you like she will. The hut itself is very small and cramped, but you would call it cozy. There's barely a human bodies space between the table and each wall, the most space being in your quaint and cluttered kitchen. Really everything is cluttered, but it an organised way. There are garlic head ropes, tapestries, charms, animal heads, bones, chilli’s, furs, and other knick-knacks hang on the walls, and dolls, orbs, playing cards, journals, knives, chopping blocks, bowls, lanterns, tea leafs, mortar and pestles, boxes, bones, coins, talismans, miniature statues, cookbooks, crystals, shawls, textiles, wooden table wear, dusty glass wear, and slippers adorn the shelves and any crevices they’ll fit in. Rugs hang on the walls too, and the whole space is bathed in that honey glow from the lanterns. Afterwards you straighten your bed quilts and prepare yourself for work.
People often seek out Baba Yaga, raised with tales of her kindness and her cruelty, and hoping to acquire some help in their quests. Wether the quest is just being wed or slaying a bukavac, they will seek Baba out—or maybe you’re just searching for lost travellers to devour, either way, you prepare for it accordingly, by cooking a large pot of borscht. And if necessary, for the latter half, by making potions of nightshade and foxglove. You have Iza take you from your post at the fountains—after doing your morning checks of course—all the way through the forest to your hunting and foraging grounds, and if you’re low on supplies, to the edge of a market town in which you collect the rest. On this day you find your supplies lacking, and your foraging spots ravaged. You hurry to Baba’s side on the porch and tell her this as she whittles away at some small bones—she plans on making knitting needles as she has heard that baba’s commonly knit for their Внук and внучка and so she wishes to learn for you—with a deep hum she tells you, you must go to town then, and with a curt nod you return inside to find your shawl.
Shawl wrapped tight around your head to conceal your identity and pinned together with a sliver of finger bone; you return to the porch. Wicker basket in tow, wool gloves pulled on tight, slippers ready to brace the cold, you make your way to town. It’s a short way from where Iza chose to rest, and you enter it quite quickly, it’s strange aroma and dense talk drawing you in. Everything feels a lot warmer in town, maybe from the fires or just the atmosphere, or maybe from the desire to eat everyone around you broiling in your chest, but your body stops shaking and assumes its practiced demure stride. You make your way towards the bubbling market with your scraggly piece of paper in hand,
свекла,
капуста,
морковь,
картофель,
лук,
говядина,
человеческое мясо
You review the slip of paper probably a thousand times as you search, eventually managing to procure the required ingredients—human flesh excluded—and securing them in your basket. It is on your way out of town that you see him. A дружина. A princes guard. You see everyone staring but naturally, all at the prince, not at him. But you can’t pull your eyes away from him. He’s muscular but not in a braggadocious way, more so in a nervous way, his hair long and black, cascading down his shoulders, his eyes pure, glinting gold. Your breath is ripped from your lungs. He stands directly next to the prince, who looks like he came straight out of the children’s book you’ve seen the towns youths read, but you don’t care. Not even two seconds of your time are resigned to the prince. You care not for his fine hair or his jewels and fine clothes; your eyes are so tightly pulled to the guard with dirt on his boots and blood on his knuckles. You instinctively think that you want to eat him. That has to be it, right? There is no way the desire in your body is not directly correlated to your birthright of cannibalism. It can’t be. It just can’t. You resent the pleasurable need melting in your chest, the desire to speak to this alluring man, to bed him, to dance with him, to cook him stew and dumplings and—
You run from the town. What was that?! Your ears are ringing from the sheer volume of the thoughts in your head. What the actual nav was that?! You throw yourself through the forest, hitting your shoulder against trees and cutting your legs on the underbrush as you force yourself through it all. The pleasure crushed by pain and sadness as you ridicule yourself. You aren’t attracted to your food. No. That’s wrong. They are meat, they are dinner, they are delicious and easy to kill and… Perun. You don’t want to kill this man. Obviously murder and cannibalism are vile and detestable to normal people, but you are not normal. And this revelation shocks you. It horrifies you. You run back to Iza, to your red quilt and your crockery, and Baba Yaga. Who will hold you like a real Baba would, and who’ll remind you that humans are evil and she is all you need. She will protect you from the rotten people of the world, you need no one other than her.
When you finally bust through the huts door you find her preparing the broth for your borscht, but instead of bringing her your basket you discard it on the porch and fall to the tiled floor at her slippered feet. She pulls off your shawl and sits on her weak knees with you, stroking her hands through your plush hair as you cry into her shoulder. She hushes you and speaks to you, humans are vile, they will only betray you, Baba Yaga is all you need. She holds you closer than ever before as she lulls you into calmness. After the clock hits an hour gone by, she tenderly pulls you to your feet, sending you back for the basket. “Cooking is the best medicine” she hums to you as you cut the beets and peel potatoes, a smile brought to your tear wracked face. As the borscht is cooked to completion you sing folk songs with her as she spins you around. You feel so happy and fulfilled, the дружина long forgotten, but then he calls out for Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga is all you need.
Iza stops dancing along with you and Baba, going rigged and coming back down to the ground. You do not know that it is him yet but something in your core feels ill. With a foolhardy smile and a jovial attitude, you open the door. He stands like a statue, posture damn near unnatural, almost trying to emulate the prince himself. Up close you can see the roundness of his straight jawline, his stubble, the thin scars stoking his face. The echoing resonance of those cursed golden eyes. It makes you want to scream. You feel nothing severe towards him in reality; you have simply never felt physical attraction before in your life. And with him you feel it. It’s weird, but looking at him feels partially desirable. Like a child discovering sugar plumbs for the first time. And obviously the children go for the sugar plumbs in the end. You realise you’ve been staring.
“Oh, um… hello. What do you… want. From Baba Yaga, I mean.” You choke through your words.
“I… well I need materials. For a quest.” He too stumbles through each syllable, equally, if not more nervous than you. You wonder if it’s because he’s come to see an ogre who eats children, or simply that he fears people. He looked nervous back in town centre too, you realise.
“A quest to…?”
He stumbles again but when he speaks he speaks with will. “To kill Koshchei the Deathless.”
On that first day with the knight, you learn two things. One, his name is Zlatan, and two he is certifiably insane. He plans to kill an immortal man. A man who hides his death like nesting dolls of random bullshit. I mean, the man hid his death in an egg for Perun’s sake. I mean, it’s not that unusual, but who is a narrator if they don’t complain? Anyways, Zlatan leaves that day upon the middle of the night, Baba Yaga choosing not to kill the man. That night, after he left, you finish your daily routine, and you decide to ask her about it. You clean all the crockery and sweep everything yet again, for dinner you finish the last of the borscht and devour a slice of modovik, concluding the meal with a long drag from your iron kettle. Boiling another pot, you put it next to where your head goes on the top bunks shelf, then dress yourself in your bed clothes, finally getting on to unbraiding Baba’s hair.
She sits relaxed on the edge of the bed, and you speak in your crude Russian together, about the man. She remarks on how tasty he looks, but you disagree, saying he is too old to eat, too adult. She agrees, but something about it still feels wrong. You don’t want to eat the man. When you finally ask her why she spared him, she said she wanted to see him try. If a man is really so crazy as to ask Baba Yaga for help defeating her old friend, then she wishes to see what they do. It makes no sense to you, but you settle with that feeling, either way the man came more for his prince than for himself. In fact, over the whole conversation, you got the impression that the дружина did very little for himself. Of course that is traditional for royal servants, they are servants as the name implies. It’s his job to slave away and walk to his death, if his prince requests it, it must be done. But the nerves so clear on the man’s face had complicated that for you. Did he even want to seek out Koshchei, let alone kill him? You shook your head as you curled underneath your thick ruby quilt. It’s not your problem, don’t worry about it.
The next morning you are jolted to consciousness by Iza jumping from leg to leg while running through a mountain range. The house had taken you from the forest. Iza was forbidden from taking you from the forest. What on earth was happening? Beneath you Baba awoke groaning and shouting curses at the house, spit flying from her gnarly toothed mouth—you slide out from under your sheets and into the shocking cold of the hut, clambering down your crude ladder, you make your way to the door. Flinging it wide, you see the mountains you’re climbing up. Snowcapped, craggily slate, with frozen over bodies strewn at random places.
“Where are we going?” You call to the house. Your only response the creaking of the houses rotting wood. “Urgh!”
You slam the door and turn to the kitchen, Baba pulling her aching body from her bed and waddling over to the table. She sits on her stool and grumbles to herself, her crackly voice lightly grating at your ears as you frustratedly pull some bread from your cabinets, shoving it into your mouth and chewing grumpily. Being powerless in a situation and not knowing what’s going on in a situation are two of your biggest fears, Iza running from your forest home both frustrates, confuses, and scares you. You bring a plate of pastries to the table and drop it aggressively, grabbing your kettle off your stand and taking a long sip before throwing yourself onto your stool. Baba quirks her wiry eyebrow at you, but you wave her off, both of you resigning to eat breakfast in silence aside from when she calls the pastries stale. After what feels like hours of travelling, Iza abruptly holts, throwing the two of you through the air as you clean. Baba shouts and you sigh, the frustration bringing tears to your eyes for the last few hours, tears that never escaped but desperately wanted to. Your body felt weighed down as you went to the door to find out what was going on, the second you opened it up you came face to face with the knight again.
“Um, hello again… apprentice.” Stuttering again, you note.
“I have a name, you know.” You find yourself too irritated for nerves.
“R-right! Sorry! What’s your name?”
“… Koz.”
“W-well, nice to meet you, Koz.”
You look him up and down softly, your edge smoothed down, “Nice to formally meet you too, Zlatan.”
You smile at each other, timid, youthful despite who both of you are. A knight with bloody knuckles, and a cannibal who lives in cursed forests. Does he know that about you? He must. Everyone knows. And yet he still tentatively takes you hand in his, and bows as he places a kiss to your skin. Baba comes to the door in a rage, shouting at Zlatan about why he summoned Iza here. He shook his head and held his hands high, speat dripping down his temple as he defended that he hadn’t done anything, the house had to have come on its own. She berated him for a while, before you rolled your eyes with a laugh and made your way inside. You boiled dumplings and started to burn a stick of fern incense, welcoming him inside despite Baba’s complaints. You sat across from him as you sipped tea, silent but your eyes parentally connected. The silence dragged on for what felt like an eternity.
“So, um… what’s your magical expertise?”
“What do you mean?” You quirked your eyebrow, a cup of steaming tea warming your frigid hands.
“I mean, you’re a witch, right? What magic do you do?”
“I… I’ve never actually thought about that.” You tap your finger on the rim of the cup, “I don’t have one, but I’ve always loved the idea of divination.”
“Why do you not practice it then? I mean surely your master would be ok with it?”
“No, it’s just… Baba doesn’t approve of these humancentric things.”
He seems to question that with an all too pure innocence, “But I’m human.”
As if on cue Baba Yaga barged back in, decidedly finished with lecturing the house. She threw herself to her chair, startling Zlatan as she barked at you to get her soup and tea. You complied silently, serving her as she took over the conversation. It’s a shame, you were enjoying him probing at your magic. You’d never been questioned about it that way…
AI, Arcane, and Contrarians - Essay
(2025)
In every generation there is the effect of contrarianism, where something the previous generation thought was good is regularly downgraded by the younger ones. Combine that with the facts of young people always thinking they know better than older people and we're all misguided—like children thinking teenagers are 'dramatic' and claiming they'll never be like that when they grow up because they're 'different' and 'smarter'—and the prevalence of these same children on social media, you get youthful contrarianism blasted into mainstream. Now, contrarianism is something seen in everybody of all ages, but combining it with the previously discussed 'all knowledgeable' children thought process and the soap box of a TikTok comment section, and you could have a serious problem with public opinion. Take for instance, the rapper Doechii. If she had found viral success in the way she had in 2024 a few years ago, then yes there would still be contrarians, but she would not have been completely written off in the way that she has been by a very loud minority. In the last year the trend epidemic on TikTok has gotten completely out of control, with stuff like Dubai chocolate and 'very demure' coming into the zeitgeist and leaving within 3 months maximum, the constant search for 'the next trend' and the over consumption of never ending stimulation have created a new time of over used trends and trending audios. Doechii's hit song "Anxiety" was completely ran into the mud by this obsession with trends and the over usage of whatever audio is trending with influencers, as a result a real musician with far better songs and a real love for the art form of rap has been discredited by people sick of a trending song and wanting to sound different. While well respected and talented musicians in the same genre and spaces as Doechii notably vouch for her and her art—such as Kendrick Lamar and SZA—others online who want to be contrary to the popular opinion have taken to calling her overrated and a 'Nicki Minaj clone' despite their styles being very different and Doechii only doing a somewhat similar 'angry' voice to old school Nicki Minaj, who herself heavily imitated the work of trailblazer Lil Kim. And in the same way that Doechii discredited, I worry about Gen Alpha's future with the groundbreaking animated show, Arcane.
Arcane is by far one of the most influential show's of the 21st century, winning 8 Emmy Awards, 16 Annie Awards—including winning every award it was nominated for this year—, and a Golden Trailer Award over it's 18 episode, 2 season run. It is loved by millions around the world for it's incredible writing, music, animation, and rich characters. It has inspired a whole generation of Gen Z'rs who watched it in the realms of art and writing. It is a piece of genuine art, passion, and love, that clearly was adored by all those who worked on it. It has changed the game for adult animated shows going forward; especially narrative and character driven works. However, it has also unfortunately made it into the beige clad depths of the TikTok infulencer and trending audio. In November 2024 season 2 of Arcane came out on Netflix, and in one episode it included a moment where the main character—Jinx, a mentally ill young adult who grew up in abject poverty—is talking to a new character called Isha. In this moment she says the line "Because in a moment, it could all… boom." accompanied with her pointing a gun at her own head and mimicking shooting herself; this soundbite was then mashed with the 2005 song 'Headlock' by Imogen Heap and turned into a transition audio. The first season of Arcane heavily focused on classism and oppression, and while when season 1 came out in November 2021 it did also go viral and have a trending audio—which actually came about around the summer of 2022—, the virality came from fans of the series celebrating it, and the audio was not wrapped up in transitions and wealth. It remained a fairly small clip and it was not being used in the spaces of Labubu's and influencers. However, I find something particularity ignorant, privileged, and ghoulish about this soundbite of Jinx being used by the very people who would fit right in with the elite who oppressed her people. The sound of a young woman failed by the systems around her that the wealthy profit from talking about shooting herself should absolutely not be used by the people who profit from shilling Shein discounts and fast fashion over consumption try on hauls in their mansions. In my opinion, the infulencers using this sound are the exact same as the Piltover socialites—the oppressors of the show—who could not care less about the starving people of Zaun—the oppressed of the show. While there is a legitimate genocide currently happening in Palestine right now, these people are taking sounds from Arcane and posting TikTok's instead of doing anything to help the real children and innocents dying. They are the very same people the analogy was written about.
In combination with that we have the rise of AI. Returning back to my first point about young people on social media and contrarians, I have a very genuine fear with how Arcane's new status as a trending TikTok sound—which should never have happened in the first place—will effect how Gen Alpha will treat it. Will it get the same treatment as Doechii and be forever disregarded as just a trending sound? In an age of AI, real art should be celebrated more than ever, but with the rapid acceleration of children's access to social media, the pendulum swing of generational progress, and the never ending pest that is contrarianism, I fear the show will be thrown to the wayside just like pastel bows and 'I'm literally just a girl' hamster plushies. Real art is going to be destroyed in the constant over consumption of the next trend an infulencer can capitalise on; and maybe Gen Alpha will only see Arcane as 'That TikTok show', thus throwing away years of real humans work. I can't pretend that AI isn't an incredibly depressing topic, and a lot of the time it feels like we've reached the end, that we're about to fully open Pandora's Box and the world is about to come to ad's in the skyline instead of the stars. With how AI is destroying the planet and how humans second most important thing behind each other—art—is being abandoned in favour of a tech bro's idea of talent, it feels like humanity has finally doomed itself. From the earliest days of humanity we have created art. Before we even had language we were painting on cave walls. I remember being a child and watching documentaries on cavemen and cave art. I remember celebrating the beauty of that art, because before humans even knew what being human was, we were creating, we had love. The younger generations will now only know AI. They may never get to have children's magazines teaching them about humans millions of years ago and their hand crafted paints, they may never watch Arcane and see the love so many incredible people put into it—Christian Linke, Alex Yee, Ella Purnell, Hailee Steinfeld, Pascal Charrue, Arnaud Delord, Bart Maunory, Kevin Alejandro, Katie Leung, Harry Lloyd, Toks Olangundoye, Alexander Temple, Alex Seaver, and the 300 animators on the team of Fortiche Production to name a few—they may never see past the satisfaction of being a contrarian. In this story, Pandora is the billionaires and tech bro's who have brought about AI; ChatGBT, Gemini and so many others you cannot count them all are the moths that escaped the box; and all the real artists, writers, creatives, and Arcane itself are the moth of hope that will never be truly free again. Art is dying, and contrarians are going to help AI kill it.
Elon Musk and Cyberpunk: Aesthetics VS Analogy and Allegory - Essay
(2025)
A few hours ago as of the time of writing this, Elon Musk made the bold claim that in the future money and work will be irrelevant thanks to AI. While at first, someone naive to Elon's overarching stupidity may think this was a good thing—inevitably we all want to escape capitalism in some way even if we claim to be pro capital—, anyone who knows more about him will find this opinion laughable if not hypocritical. After merely searching 'Elon Musk AI' I got directed to a Reddit post where people were discussing this statement, and somebody had said "Money will be optional for his future slaves. Thats what he meant." This Redditors comment was interesting to me as somebody who had very recently been reminded of Elon's claim to be a fan of the game, aesthetic, and genre of Cyberpunk. In fact he claims to be such a fan that not only did he design his 'cybertruck' after the aesthetics of the genre, but when his at the time partner—Grimes—was recording a voice acting cameo for the game Cyberpunk 2077 Elon barged into the studio waving around a 200 year old gun and demanded his own cameo in the game. He even loves the genre so much that he has decided to ignore it's very core of anti-capitalist analogy, trans analogy, and excessively obvious dystopian status in favour of his interpretation of a utopia that never existed. It may be obvious, but Elon doesn't understand Cyberpunk. I however, while not an expert, am a huge fan of the genre. I grew up experiencing classism from my more wealthy family members, am ragingly anti-capitalist—Cyberpunk being a cornerstone of understanding what that meant at a young age—, and am also a trans person. And in all fairness to Elon, the aesthetics of Cyberpunk are incredible. What he doesn't understand however is that those aesthetics come from the thing he may hate more than human rights, which he has also made his personal mission to destroy; art.
To really understand Cyberpunk, you have to understand 3 things: art, analogy, and allegory. While art is far too complex for an all encompassing description, I believe that we as humans inherently know the act of using art to express oneself, particularly when it comes to protest, and I think with that understanding you can appreciate Cyberpunk. As a genre it cannot be credited to one persons revolutionary design—though it does have it's original pioneers, who, ironically because of Elon's hatred for any act of creation, were all authors and graphic novel artists; William Gibson, Katsuhiro Otomo, Phillip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, and Philip José Farmer to name a couple—it is more so a creation of the people. In my opinion at least. Cyberpunk comes from thousands of human beings coming together to express disdain for the capitalistic structures they have been pinned under, and taking that frustration into art. A lot of the motifs seen in depictions of a Cyberpunk world are street art, vandalism of propaganda and advertisements, and communities coming together to create. A fairly interesting and prolific explanation about the genre from sci-fi magazine writer Lawrence Person is "Classic Cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body." And while it is a near perfect explanation, the genre is just too complex to completely describe in one go. If I had to try from my own perspective—so by no means as gospel or even a good explanation but just as an interpretation—I would describe the genre as follows: Cyberpunk is a genre focusing on marginalised people who are a part of the larger system being under the complete control of capitalist organisations who use advanced technology as the core part of their oppressive regimes. The stories focus on rebellion and may sometimes include the themes of body modification, sexuality, and identity. From the creative perspective they are always anti-capitalist, and as observed over the years can also make fairly obvious trans analogies á la The Matrix. Cyberpunk also heavily focuses on the themes of what it means to be human, and in tow, self expression and creativity. These stories are an art form created from a place of protest, and because of that they often focus on the importance of art.
It cannot be understated that Elon Musk is not only a raging bigot—see him claiming his daughter is dead because she is a trans woman and him doing the Nazi salute on camera after known child rapist Donald Trump was elected—but he is also a billionaire. With the basic understanding of Cyberpunk being ant-capitalist and all about the oppression of marginalised people, it is instantaneously clear that Elon cannot be a fan of the genre. Not only is he the living embodiment of every capitalistic dictator ever depicted in the genre, but he is quite literally going out of his way to oppress people. So how can he sit there and claim to be a fan? Very simple, he only likes the aesthetics. As so many people with far too much money do, he has removed the need to actually understand art from his life, and so when he see Cyberpunk he thinks a bit like a toddler would, "Wow, so much technology and AI! Cool!" not understanding that the media he is consuming is against these uses of technology and AI's replacement of humans. Cyberpunks aesthetic foundations come from the explicit contrast of technological progress and human oppression under capitalism. It has never been "Technology cool!" it has always been "Corporations will use anything for more power, and if the power comes from technology they will use the people to build it and then they will use the technology to destroy the people." This is blatantly obvious when you find out that he designed his ridiculous cybertrucks with the Cyberpunk aesthetic in mind—which is even more ironic when you know that these trucks have literally been known to cut peoples fingers off due to bad design. He has never liked the genre, he has never truly liked the games, he has only ever liked a very watered down impression of the aesthetics. Maybe that is why GenAI love the aesthetic too, but they can never truly recreate it. Look at any scene from either of the Bladerunner films, and then compare it to the muddy blue blob of an AI's idea of Cyberpunk; in the same way that Elon doesn't understand what makes art powerful, his little robots don't either. It is also painfully of note to me personally that the incredibly iconic AI scene from Bladerunner 2047 where an AI woman says to the main character "You look lonely. I can fix that."—with symbolism of a faux relationship so clear you'd think anyone would recognise it—is unfortunaley becoming reality as people marry their AI 'partners'.
Elon has chosen to never understand Cyberpunk because it is against him as a person. And when I say "as a person" I do not mean that literally, because I do not think Elon really has or ever has had a person. He is a conglomerate capital-acquiring robot and he has been for years now, so yes, in my opinion, Cyberpunk is against him 'as a person'. But he refuses to see it like that; instead of recognising that a world with capitalistic dictators, no respect for bodily autonomy, and AI everywhere you look is a horrific dystopia, he sees it as heaven. He sees it as a place for him to have power and control. And he's already trying to acquire it in our reality. Right now Elon owns Twitter—which while notoriously chaotic has also been a space for free speech and activism for over a decade—and is spear heading GenAI. I think it's always important to question what world people in power want to create, and while Elon doesn't have an official seat at the world leaders table, it's more than clear that he is lurking right on the cusp of it. And with one look at his Nazi salute and those god awful cybertrucks it's clear what world he wants, he wants all of our dystopias so long as it's his utopia.
Our Town - Wives Tale poem 1
(2026)
It stands as the cradle of humanity.
A town so pastel and sweet it cannot be.
Mossy crawling branches,
Cotton candy dances,
The teeth of a loving God logged in marble towers,
Children's laughter, pretty flowers.
It stands as the cradle of humanity,
A town so loving and soft, radically.
A fairytale land it is,
With sugar plums and barefoot women,
It's so beautiful you'd want to zoom in,
Like it's a picture, not a reality chosen to be his.
A chosen land in between thick forests,
Buried in a dip as if designed for the holy allegorists,
Safe from the horrors of the non-conformists torrents,
Gentle like wool, flourishing next the thorns of sickly Wraiths orates.
In between the forests is a town.
In between the forests, low down.
In between, in between,
In between the forests is our town.
Houses iced so pretty,
Snug enough to elicit pity
For people not blessed with this towns committee,
The world outside's too gritty.
Sugary treats lined up in windows, itty bitty,
Grown ups here live to 50,
No one's ever too busy,
For their little boys, oh they're so 'deary'.
It's an exciting life full of fruit and song,
Everyone works in sync, calmly getting along.
No chaos no flames like all the rest's,
Holding each other close to their mothers' breasts.
It's a small community,
The kind everyone wants to be
In when they live in a city,
In the we,
With the 3
Real close friends they have,
Alone in a world all bathed in black,
Kings fighting, spilling blood, pray for heart attacks,
City folk do it all day, it's half and half.
Half worship, devotion,
Half doom and gloom,
Half work, half church,
Half sex, the moon.
They pray to light and then beg ruin on the whole monarchy ordeal,
But King's don't rule here in the dreamland,
It goes against the tenets of close family ideals,
Nothing bad ever happens in the between lands he planned.
In between the forests is a town.
In between the forests, low down.
In between, in between,
In between the forests is our town.
Smell the roses,
Hug the saints.
They're clean and holy in sacred poses,
The kinds of Gods free of complaints.
Un-chipped paint, no job too hard,
Nice wife, good kids, fresh green yard.
Money's not an issue,
Old plates won't need a shiny reissue,
Your neighbours will love you,
cry and they'll hand you a tissue.
Kick back and send your kids out to school,
Your boys will grow strong enough to rule
Over a household full of love, it's true,
Their ladies will forever appreciate you.
Get a job at the mill, eat good, good food,
Drink scotch, smoke cigars in a nice slow mood,
This is the very dream your ancestors pursued,
In the end this is the only oasis, is what you'll conclude.
In between the forests is a town.
In between the forests, low down.
In between, in between,
In between the forests is our town.
Home is where the heart is,
Home has the hottest hearth, its
So warm and safe from the dark, its
A heaven wrapped up in blue plaster.
Ascension coming for their faithful faster,
The people wealthy and blessed, traditional bliss,
Open their doors, give you a buttercream kiss,
Slice of apple pie, end of the dinner party, gift from the Mrs,
Trauma in the cart ruts, getting ran through,
Don't tie yourself in a bend,
So just flee from your pain, because in the end,
This home is ready, waiting for you.
It's waiting,
It's waiting,
It's waiting,
It's waiting,
It's waiting,
it's waiting,
it's waiting,
its waiting,
its waiting,
its waiting,
its waiting,
itswaiting,
itswaiting,
itswaiting,
itswaiting,
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
itswaiting
It's waiting for you.
