the work of
Ellis Seth Coker
Artwork & Drawings
Illustration
Creature Design
Character Design
Abstract
Abstract Design / poetry
WRITING & STORIES
Narrative Prose
[ GODS OF THE OLD WILDS ]
In the beginning was a hot and churning darkness. It embodied absolute chaos, yet it was also a state of unparalleled certainty, for no act nor shift nor nudge could hope to reign in its heat. It was the primordial domain of the early gods, many since faded away since that ageless time. Five Hands, the God that is Missing, who has left his fingerprints upon the world, came as one among many upon the cusp of the end to that age, not truly one thing or another, neither a singular being or many, for distinct separations between things was a state incompatible with the primordial world. It is said that Five Hands also had Four Arms, Seven Hearts, and Nine Wings, yet such presences are altogether absent aside from anomalous references to their names in ancient apocrypha.
. . .
a collection of short lore pieces of ancient myth and hearsay set in a surreal dark fantasy universeit is available to read online at theoldwilds.carrd.co
a collection of short stories set in a surreal dark fantasy universe focused on themes of suffering and emancipationthe worldbuilding is available to read online at rheoridin.carrd.cothe first volume of short stories is finished and available to read upon request
[ RHEORIDIN ]
. . .
For a great span of time, mankind was made to worship terrible monster called Akak. They served its every whims, worshiped it as their god, were taught that it loved them and they should love it in return. That their every action, every thought, every way of life should be ones that praised Akak for what it had allowed them. It instilled values in them that reflected its wants, demanding of them to covet the virtues of subservience and order, to be vigilant and fearful of anything that questioned its supremacy, to strike down the heretic, the pagan, the transgressor. Akak was not revealed in one single event to be the despot it truly was, but in waves as humans questioned its order and were set upon by their own at Akak’s instruction; terrible massacres, genocide, endless wars and conquest. Those that realized its love was but a manipulation were forced to face the reality that they had no god, that they were alive in a world terrifying and strange with no force to protect or guide them, no one to tell them what their lives should be instead, and no way to console their consciences when they were made to look back on their past decisions and actions.Their distress, accumulated over millennia, had soaked into the earth. In bodies and tears. In blood and ash. And the stain eventually darkened until it became tangible, undeniable, vivid and violent, malignant and twisted. It would not be the last of such conflicts, yet it was the mark of the end when the earth itself was torn apart, remembering every cruelty, every tear, every body buried or burnt, for far longer and with far more clarity than any mortal could ever calculate. It formed a great maw that cut across the land, the bedrock cleaved in two as it ripped itself open and swallowed the landscape, the pit of which held an arcane and frenetic energy that was anguish incarnate. This energy, dubbed the Lament, transformed the life around it, twisted shapes and minds, infecting both the animate and inanimate with inconsolable despair.
. . .
[ THE BLIGHT OF ENDLESS DAYS
THE KNELL TO MARK THE ETERNAL DARK
AND THE TRANSCENDENCE ]
It was the end of everything.We knew because they had appeared. Three mysterious individuals, playing out a sequence of events. And we could only watch in horror, wondering about what they meant, as the pattern was found, recognized, expected and anticipated.No nudge, no word of wisdom, no persuasion could change them from their course. They worked as though from a script, automatons in a strange and desperate motion, diverging yet coming to the same end every time.Time and time again, they would die. One first, then the other, then the last, and then three more would be found again though stuck in a loop. We had no idea which instance would be the last.We recognized them still from countless prophecies, foretellings, visions into the future and past, calculations and signs and symbols, garnered from sources both scientific and esoteric spread out over millions of years. But any force we had at our command offered us little after they appeared.The universe was dark now. We had only ourselves left in the void. And it would all be over soon enough.
. . .
(aka OWLMOLEWASP) a cosmic horror sci-fi novel set at the end of time about reoccurring patterns, risk, personhood, and traumait is currently unfinished and not available to read
a romance novella exploring trans trauma and relationships during a near future where transition is made illegalit is currently unfinished and not available to read
[ MOONCATCHER ]
. . .
Ilya needed, still, to return to Monday. To spend nights in the humidity, the warm lights on dark nights, to breathe in the staleness of the apartment’s musk together. Mildew and weed, with a whiff of distant cat litter. To wait for the word to come through. To sit on the bed as Monday dressed his wounds. To see the ways the other was tired by their silence. Crickets singing from corners unknown. Passing out on the couch. The clink of silverware at a bowl of cereal. A congregation of gnats gathered to harass the lamp in the living room.While Ilya had long abandoned anything of an artistic nature, feeling himself something soulless, Monday wrote poetry. He owned a reconditioned typewriter and it clicked away while Ilya stared at the ceiling.Monday used the words to destroy himself. Chewing and ripping through the flesh, hanging it up as tapestry of some beast as symbol of triumph, of loss unfathomable, like a lion, unfit for society by its own instincts, yet with an untamed nobility memorialized only in death. Monday used the lines to find himself. A ghost, a shadow upon the wall, an absence, a hungering void that gnashed and wailed, out of which reached a hundred hands ready to act bereft of an action to take.
. . .
[ LARKSCALL ]
. . .
Would that through love alone all things were possible. To wash clean all wounds of vanity and grief. To make clear boundaries and align trajectories. To ensure no sincerity was ever left unspoken or unheard or unregarded. To count and plan and spy upon the futures and know which things to say and what paths to take. To hold tight to those beloved that they might never drift away. That they might never reveal themselves to be astray. That they might never reveal themselves to be more than perfect pictures of devotion.Would that through suffering alone all things were possible. Nobility crowned by martyrdom. Paradise seeded by tribulation. Though to be unseen, unheard, unfelt, unneeded, with burdens kept hidden and unheeded, was the truest path to virtue and peace. Because Oakley never talked about that house. Never spoke of the specter it cast, the words it buried, the longings it forbade.
. . .
an experimental short story about trans mourningit is available to be read online here
a cosmic horror sci-fi novel set within a biotechnological alien civilization about embodiment, body horror, and the body and self as a tool of empireit is currently finished and seeking beta readers, available to read upon requestfor a taste, the unfinished sister story set in the same universe can be read here
[ Cressfel's Thirteen ]
. . .
Ulharr Jump ves Jo, First Son of the Fifth Family, stood before the procession of those who were soon to become his new brothers and sisters by rite of marriage. Men and women clad in gold and scarlet armor, sculpted from living flesh and carapace complete with fins and frills and veils. True brothers and sisters, true children of their Father.Those most Blessed, The Ascended, The Thirteen were also in attendance. They were sentinels who towered over their siblings, unmoving and unflinching, silent like statues assembled in an arc at the top of the steps. Their faces were entirely obscured by their armor, with no symbols nor markings. Gargoyles, boundless in their devotion, by whose hands the fate of the Empire itself had been carved and polished.The First Family was headed by The Jace, Their Father, to whom the empire and its children truly belonged. The Jace was the axis upon which their civilization turned, the Grand Commander of their armies, the arbiter on behalf of the dead, the seat of wisdom, power, respect, and, most importantly, all-encompassing love.
. . .
[ indris ]
. . .
Observing him without his knowledge, I watched the light and the silhouettes and just listened. There was grandeur to the music when on the fingers of Yoli or the tongue of Cyrolin. But this was something else. It was sincere. And when he picked up on a measure, there was a magical quality to it. Though I was seeing into him.He had so often refused to try to play in front of me. And I knew there were parts of him that I didn’t see. That I didn’t know. That, when all was said and done, he was still a person. A person who suffered and struggled and loved and dreamed.He never listened to me. He had insinuated in not so plain of words that if I wanted things to change, it needed to be with force.But I didn’t understand. Why it couldn’t be like this. Why when I heard him mumble to himself as he worked, when I heard him take in a deep breath to massage his joints, why it was so beyond him to allow me the same. The ability to not be good enough. The ability to fail. To pass over it as a thing lost, a thing forgiven, a thing given up.
. . .
a fantasy sci-fi novel set within a decadent magical aristocracy teetering towards fascism about failure, harm, identity, and traumathe worldbuilding for the setting is available to read online at traizar.carrd.coit is currently finished but not available to read
a fantasy sci-fi novel set within a militarized state about war, salvation, plague, religion, and where the line is drawnthe worldbuilding is available to read online at traizar.carrd.coit is currently finished but not available to read
[ The Fall of Cascadara ]
. . .
They sat amongst pews in the main hall, lit only by what light made it through the colored glass of the facade. At the front, behind an altar, was a mural in stained glass, illuminated only dimly, occluded by the several other layers of colored glass the sunlight had to go through before making it inside. Strange angels in white with a multitude of branching, fleshy wings and multiple eyes were shown on it, holding onto to people and pulling them away from the black mass at the bottom as they made their way to the top of the mural where a bright light was shining down.Daedalus was hunched over, holding himself with the full effect of the weight on him, and spoke quietly to the priest. “It’s not even the war,” he confessed.“Things have changed so much these past two years,” he continued on. “It isn’t just me, the whole country had been preparing for this. But now that we’re here, I can’t help but think on the time that I lost. The time spent preparing. And it wasn’t just charity that drove me,” he said, looking up at Rei. “It was arrogance. Pride. To think that it somehow fell to me to make a difference. That it was my responsibility.”“You are only a mortal man, General,” the priest said in pained admittance.“What good is a mortal at a time like this?” he said, the bitterness in his voice becoming audible again.
. . .
a dark medieval fantasy novel set within a world of heretics, demons, and crusader knights about religious trauma and transgressive sexualityit is currently unfinished and not available to read
[ Harvester ]
. . .
They were traveling back from conquest. War, but one that only truly belonged to despots and Kings. Fresh blood still in his mind, crackling fire, children plucked from their beds, cries of women in the streets.Alone in his room, different thoughts wandered through his mind. He was a young boy again. In church, hearing the word of their god. His frail, dying mother at his side. His father, gone. At the head of the church was a statue, image of a great, luminous being that watched over them and demanded of them actions that marked them as pious. A being that watched them for their actions that marked them as unworthy.Damnation for intemperance. Damnation for cruelty. Damnation for perversity. He prayed. He prayed for his soul to be clean. They looked upon him as a child, and told him to pray. They looked upon his mother’s health and told him to pray. They looked upon his father’s absence and told him to pray.
. . .
worldbuilding
[ Rheoridin ]
Rheoridin started as purely a creative exercise, filling in a map with a plethora of kingdoms replete with surreal phenomenon, and supernatural beings that are thematically more similar to cryptids than gods. Finally, I wanted to stand in opposition to fantasy worldbuilding that relies on constructing systems and taxonomy, taking instead the idea that eccentricity is the only real rule and that most underlying mechanisms of the real world like DNA or subatomic particles simply don't apply.
[ Yveran ]
The impetus behind Yveran was to create a fantasy world that feels like science fiction. Survivors of a great catastrophe cross a vast ocean to an isolated land with forces at work they have yet to fully understand. They contend with a mysterious plague of undeath and develop a practice of necromancy in response, but the setting takes it one step further, exploring how such things might be exploited, resulting in rapid industrialization and stratifying society into rigid hierarchies. The undead are seen as a resource to be used, repurposed, traded, managed, tallied, upkept, and only able to truly die at the whims of those few with the power at their disposal.
[ The Old Wilds ]
The Old Wilds is a surreal universe that takes fantasy animism to horrific extremes where the ground, the water, the wind, the sky, animals and plants are all sentient beings who are always watching and judging. The physical reality of the world itself is always shifting, unfolding itself differently at different times to different people, and may all be an illusion whose boundaries and power fluctuate to leak in the unseen truths of the world.
[ Harvester ]
Harvester is a fantasy setting with a distinctly 1200s medieval character, taking inspiration from the crusades, christian doctrine, medieval understandings of universe and beliefs about monsters and demons. Although remodeled into a fictional analogy, it takes many literalistic christian doctrines at face value and explores them through the apparatus of a deity that is plainly cruel and capricious. The creation of mankind in the setting was achieved through the mutilation of the old gods and those who survived live on in the new world as horrific demons of flesh and rot.
[ Thravanrania ]
Thravanrania is a science fiction setting that focuses on a civilization of aliens that have mastered biological technology, which they use for almost everything, including construction, conveniences, starships and conquest, and for secondary skins that augment their appearance and capabilities. It is interested primarily in investigating mind-body dualism through a material allegory that touches on eugenics, identity, instrumentalization, and imperialist extraction of conquered bodies.
[ Traizar ]
Traizar is a science fantasy setting that follows from a history of the real world, where humans of Earth on the eve of its destruction were rescued by mysterious angelic beings and delivered to a new world already inhabited by others who shared a similar fate. The initial premise of the setting was to play with the Problem of Evil in a box where all can agree on god's existence but not much else. It explores how even seemingly benevolent actions leave room for ambiguity and individual interpretation, as is how the politics of Traizar are driven.As it is my oldest project, it has branched out into many microcosms of factions and peoples and characters, transgressing genres and themes throughout the years.
Ellis Seth Coker (aka LS) is a queer, transgender artist from Kansas City, Missouri who dreams about fantastic worlds, the quiet between the noise, the sublime and horrific.He is a life-long creative person, aspiring to be an author and storyteller as a child, evolving from there into an art school kid with a BFA in Illustration. Although his working life since then has been mostly mundane (yearbooks, signage, packaging and label design, etc), he's tried to spend some degree of his time on his own creative pursuits. Nowadays, writing is at the forefront, as MS has made it more difficult to draw in recent years. He is also a proud cat dad of two darling girls named Pip and Gertrude.
[ May 22 2025 ]
About a week ago, I decided to upload some of my Rheoridin short stories to AO3. These are mostly erotic in nature and have some dark (horror-adjacent) elements to them. I'll include a link here.I originally had them on itch.io but it really didn't get any traction. Seeing them get even a little attention has sort of motivated me to work more on the series.
- LSC
[ May 10 2025 ]
I added a worldbuilding section to the writing tab. I'm actually quite pleased with it, because it allows me to include projects that I am fond of but that have no narrative element to be able to classify them as "writing" and allows me to gesture at a larger imagining of certain settings outside of just one story or two, such that multiple works may be set within these worlds both currently and potentially in the future.I am removing the poetry section for now until I figure out what to do with it.Trying to get myself back into things still. Sentreyek is a start.
- LSC
[ APRIL 19 2025 ]
I was contemplating some basic updates to this site. Relatively minor things. But I wonder if worldbuilding as a project shouldn't be a separate section from writing or drawing?Also uploaded more of my abstract design poem things. Those also feel kind of in a weird place.Still scheming on how to make the Rheoridin site a bit more engaging / immersive. I don't know that it is not as it is right now, I just aspire for more.The world is in chaos right now and I have been feeling inordinately stressed out, making it very difficult to focus on anything creative. It is frustrating and not being able to really delve into a project certainly makes me feel worse. I need to remember to cut myself some slack.
- LSC
[ MARCH 13 2025 ]
I finished the updating of what was done of Piece by Piece, including turning it from first person to third person (though there may still be some instances I missed). It is here: https://thravanrania.carrd.co/#piecewisePiece by Piece aka Piecewise was originally made because I was unhappy with Cressfel's Thirteen and felt some areas that were interesting necessarily unexplored. For a time, I played with the idea of them being a foil to each other. In the final scenes of C13, there is a very vague insinuation that revolution is under way, with a crowd seen gathered around the Emperor's tower. Piecewise was meant to eventually get to a place of exploring Sanctuary and the life of the graceless to fill in those gaps that C13 left open, eventually leading up to the revolution. But I am not sure if I am interested in that kind of story set in this universe. The things that interest me are much more the sublime and less the political. I have decided it is unlikely I will go back to Piecewise.But now it is available to read online as a thing I can share.
- LSC
[ MARCH 04 2025 ]
I did some organizing of my writing page on here and then sat down to nail down a creative to-do list. I have far less RH side stories to finish than I thought I did but also less direction on additional stories than I assumed.I also decided that Sentreyek (one of the worlds that can be traveled to through a portal in Rheoridin) should be its own worldbuilding project. It gets to be the scifi foil to Rheoridin's fantasy, complete with space ships and mecha (albeit with the clause that the universe basically exists within a slime mold computer that keeps resetting), so that's fun.Also decided to make the unfinished C13 EU story Piece by Piece available to read online, as I don't think I will be finishing it. But I've got to do some formatting before it is ready.I wonder if I should redraw my portrait seeing as I've maintained a full beard for a while now. Hm.
- LSC
[ MARCH 02 2025 ]
I have been in a bit of a slump. 2025 sure is a year so far.In other news, I decided to make Larkscall available to read on this site here. I might need to format it a bit more though.
- LSC
[ DECEMBER 30 2024 ]
I did the aforementioned updating of the Rheoridin map. This includes adding Ananza and editing Kolyvanva/Sunsrynva as well as removing some spots I deemed unnecessary or undecided. Trammand is included in this which is like... I think Trammand is still there on Raaswend somewhere, I am just undecided on where exactly it is, so I am leaving it off for now. I've also combined the Sentreyek Growth with Kesekeyek for now—if I ever add a more details section I'll go more in depth about the Growth.Officially adding Amnamuutha (at the end of the section for Raaswend) is exciting, especially now that I have linked it to the mountain of water I've been wanting to point out (Ananza). Amnamuutha itself is really fun. Clothing with wings! Civilizations that can fly! Peoples and cultures stratified by elevation! Everyone is here via isekai! There is much, much more to Amnamuutha than I was able to cover, including one particular land-bound civilization tied to a set of skeletal death gods that they've made a pact with in order to power massive machines (although just saying that here is concise enough). Plus the specific cultural beliefs belonging to the people who worship Hananorra. Maybe I will break it up later or figure out some way to create other pages with more details (and also maybe figure out names for these peoples).I really need to go through and update my backup versions. But that's such a chore.
- LSC
[ DECEMBER 27 2024 ]
There are more landmarks (and entries) to add to the Rheoridin map, but it is getting to the point where I have to update so much just to add one small thing so I've been putting it off. Especially since I noticed last time I did it, I accidentally grabbed a version of the file which had not yet changed "Mitra Kesekeyek" to "Mitra's Kesekeyek", so now that is wrong on many of the maps as well. Unfortunate.But I do love the Amnamuutha idea I have been working with. Love a mountain made of water out in the ocean that houses a forgotten god.I also need to update Kolyvanva and Sunsrynva to elucidate a religious detail.Also. WHAT IF I really did write something out for the modern AU of Harvester. WHAT IF I did... Maybe I will make some theoretical outlines...
- LSC
[ DECEMBER 09 2024 ]
I am back in the zone with two more completed short stories for the short story series: The King of Rot and The Prisoner of Law Oxley (although I might want to make some changes to the prisoner story). I also have two others that are coming close to being done (one for the current crisis in Kolyvanva and one backstory for the Dragon God of Seyefrax).I also have maybe some plans to write something short for the modern AU of Harvester characters... I should do more with Harvester.
- LSC
[ OCTOBER 25 2024 ]
Creative projects took a major pause because of changes in my responsibilities at work and also moving apartments. Hopefully I will find time and energy for them again soon.
- LSC
[ JUNE 03 2024 ]
Since my last update I've been sporadically picking at some projects. Notably, a bit of OWLMOLEWASP, that feels like it is going in a good direction, and a bit more on the Rheoridin side stories.I decided to break up the Rheoridin stories into maybe multiple booklets, which lets me say the first book is finished. Now to figure out posting it.In other news, L. Ashfield is officially my pen name for my nsfw stuff. The connection is not entirely obscure, yet I want it to be obscure enough to dissuade a basic search. The origin of the name is just the name of one of my characters.
- LSC
[ MARCH 28 2024 ]
Some kind of art block, unfortunately.
- LSC
[ FEBRUARY 07 2024 ]
Work proceeds apace on the series of short stories that go along with the Rheoridin universe. About six entries so far with six others in-progress. Not sure how many there will end up being. These short stories all have a strong erotic focus to them, a first for me to venture into seriously composing. I have come a long way from back when I couldn't even bring myself to consider including sex scenes in other works, mostly because I felt too silly using vulgar language.I am not sure what I will do with it when it is done. I was thinking about doing a basic illustration that goes with each story and putting it up as a pdf on itch.io for download, probably for free but with a suggested donation. Not sure if it would garner any attention but it would be cool to have something up in a way that is associated with monetary value. I suppose sometimes people also post original work (as in, not fan-fiction) to AO3.
- LSC
[ JANUARY 26 2024 ]
I've added a shortened version of the short story that was The Heresy of Kulea Kuleana to The Old Wilds. It was originally like 4,000 words, but I've worked it down to only 1,000 for the purposes of the website. It is at the end. I think this will be the final addition for now.
- LSC
[ JANUARY 18 2024 ]
Theoridin has been officially renamed to Rheoridin after I decided I had too many projects with T names. I think I've updated all the links (including previous journal entries) but there may be one or two that are still broken. I also added an entry for Wauchfend, which can be found in the section for the continent of Raaswend.The Old Wilds has also got a couple of more entries (The Truth of the Angels, The Kartis Sword, and The Line of Iron are new). They existed only as notes before. Still feeling out what else I might want to officially add for this project.
- LSC
[ JANUARY 08 2024 ]
Maybe a little late by my earlier goal (for no particular reason, I just got to the last few paragraphs and was hesitant to put the final punctuation down), but I am officially done with the second draft of Cressfel's Thirteen. Now to wonder about beta readers and maybe contemplate a few sections I was considering tweaking (nothing major).
- LSC
[ DECEMBER 15 2023 ]
I've made it a goal to finish the Cressfel's Thirteen rewrite by the end of the year. This is absolutely do-able, as the holiday season is always slow at my workplace and I only have a couple of scenes left. It is currently at 56,623 words.
- LSC
[ NOVEMBER 13 2023 ]
I decided to add a spot for Theoridin in my creative writing portfolio, which includes a link to the website. It is a relatively minor thing but I am particularly happy with the image I put together for the header card.
- LSC
[ NOVEMBER 04 2023 ]
I went back and did some editing and added another entry (Inwelan, at the very end) for Theoridin. I also finally arrived at a format for the faction pages that I liked for Traizar and started transferring more of them over from my toyhou.se page, along with some minor revisions.Cressfel's Thirteen is put off for now. I think it is in a good place, honestly. I just haven't been feeling it lately.Was considering doing a series of short stories for Theoridin. Still considering it. Hmmmmmmm. It is November. I should be writing.
- LSC
[ OCTOBER 09 2023 ]
THEORIDIN IS DONE!!!
(for now anyway)
Now I go back to Cressfel's Thirteen.My website building lately:
traizar.carrd.co (main page done)
theoridin.carrd.co (done!)
theoldwilds.carrd.co (done!)
- LSC
[ OCTOBER 04 2023 ]
As I was nearing the end of my work on the Theoridin site, I decided to make a new site for my project The Old Wilds at theoldwilds.carrd.co. The project used to be hosted on an unlisted page of my old portfolio site, so it makes sense to just have it on its own site. I am pretty happy with it. Although I might add more entries (there were a few left unfinished from when I was working on it around 2020-2021), we can consider it done for now.My website building lately:
this one counts!
traizar.carrd.co
theoridin.carrd.co
theoldwilds.carrd.co
- LSC
[ SEPTEMBER 20 2023 ]
I am almost done with the Theoridin site! Only 6 entries to transcribe left! Teashim in particular is what I was working on last and am very happy with the Mysteries and the dolls.
- LSC
[ SEPTEMBER 05 2023 ]
While I stew on C13's ending and how exactly I want to format the faction information for the Traizar page, I've started another carrd website for a worldbuilding project, this time a new one (that has absorbed one or two existing projects that lacked a concrete setting, admittedly). The world details have come together pretty fast, aided by some online generators, so now all that I need is to fill out the copy. Having a good time with it.So now I have:
traizar.carrd.co and theoridin.carrd.co
- LSC
[ AUGUST 29 2023 ]
I have been working on making an official site to put all of my Traizar worldbuilding information on. Previously, I had several google docs as well as the articles published on my my toyhouse, but nothing quite so centralized.Now it may be found here: traizar.carrd.co (still considered a WIP at this point)
- LSC
[ AUGUST 11 2023 ]
Edits proceeding apace. I have been considering the dour tone much of my writing has and wondering about alternative directions it could go instead. But I should really finish the basic editing process first before I play around with alternative endings.A bit reinvigorated by the thought of publishing, though. I wonder if I haven't just been overthinking it all.
- LSC
[ JUNE 08 2023 ]
Most of my work the past year has been doing some more intensive editing of my novel Cressfel's Thirteen. There were some rather large chunks that I wanted to either greatly embellish or entirely rewrite and I am making a post to celebrate being through one of the major ones. There is still more to come, but getting back to lower key editing of the original version has been welcome for the time being.Still unsure of how I will feel about everything once I'm done, though. Last time I edited a novel, I afterwards decided that I needed to get rid of most of what I had changed or added. Sometimes "fleshing out the middle" with extra detail is not to the benefit of the overall narrative.
- LSC
[ JUNE 02 2023 ]
I'm consistently unsure of how to brand some of my fantasy pieces, as they do not stay strictly high fantasy in genre. I've wavered describing Yveran (The Valley at the End of the World) as dieselpunk, sovietpunk, and have now settled on just describing it as "industrial fantasy". The aesthetic is supposed to be turn of the 20th century Russia (1880s-1920s roughly), so on the cusp of industrialization, while still also being quite cold and gloomy. It still needs to be "fantasy" as a genre, though, as the "industrialization" in question is powered off of magic. Is Magitek a genre?
- LSC
[ JUNE 01 2023 ]
Update to story section to include general summaries and revised excerpts.
Added a section for Mooncatcher.
Added a section for general poetry.
Added a blog section.Social media sites are garbage. I'll make my own platform for myself.A bit undecided about the title of Mooncatcher but it will work for now.
- LSC
Larkscall
Part one
It was an impossibility. That the house stood in front of her. That the house had a place in her memories. That those were her memories.She remembered growing up in that house.It was so very long ago. In rural Pennsylvania. But she knew she had been raised elsewhere. And that was not so long ago. Meadow was 22. She had never seen that house before. Oakley had left this place at 24. Both were her names. Both felt like her names.Her nerves were in knots as she looked at it. As she felt the pain of her time there. As the pain sank into her bones. As the phrase, “That was real,” stewed in her mind. She felt the shouting, the bruises, the shame. The cotton on her skin, the wind in her hair, the horses’ mane against her fingers. Wishing her hair could be as long and wild. That she could be as free and wild. But she was now. And always had been.It had started when she was 10. The memories seeping in. At first, glimpses. They mixed with her dreams from childhood. She remembered flying, her room filled with snakes, her toys missing eyes and ears. And it felt the same. They were equally real. Until they weren’t.She had grown older. And was able to look back. She knew that she couldn’t fly. That snakes had no motive to fill up a room. That even should they miss a button eye or two, her toys wouldn’t cry. But there were some she couldn’t quite dispel.She remembered growing up on a farm. When her childhood as Meadow had been in the city. She remembered the scorn, the welts, the crying alone. She remembered wanting so dearly to be a girl, when the fact of her gender had never been questioned. Her parents loved her. Supported her. These parents had never uttered the words.For a time, she had assumed it a fantasy. A book she read, but did not remember. A story she wrote. A persona she invented, assimilating scraps of media, television and gossip. Children are so easily fascinated, she believed. They are inventive. Their minds are strange in unexpected ways. They latch on to stories of suffering, finding through them a voice to speak on the horror of being a child at all.But there the house stood.It was ancient now. Weeds grown, horses absent. A quiet upon the fields. She wondered on who might still occupy it, remembering a face, a smell of sweat, a clench of his knuckles. He would not know her now and would not wish to. She did not wish him to. But she knew herself. And felt a nausea climbing up her throat.It was not long before she left.In her hotel room, she ruminated. The memories with the sharpest points were the most clear. Clear, but without details, without preamble, without placement. It was not quite like the feeling of remembering her own. If she had been older, she would have recognized it. Those memories were the memories of an old woman, looking back on her life.From that house of ireful rot, of lonely grays and choking veins, a warmth bloomed. A chance encounter. A sunny day. A couple of kids, come by the fencing. A couple of kids, down from New York. A couple of kids, dressed peculiarly, with paisley button-ups and brown leather vests. Bell bottoms and colored glasses. Ideas and philosophies and theories. A couple of kids, college students, on a road trip during their summer break. Her gateways to a better life.There was a glow in her to think of the two. They had giggled to each other as they made their greetings. Their voices, so sweet. Their smiles, enchanting. Their intentions, both playful and political. They hadn’t expected her to blush, this girl in the shape of a man. Who knew he was queer and all the wickedness that came with and despite all his father’s ravings about those kinds of people, about that way of living, knew she might find a better home with them. With the girl and the boy.They were staying over. The boy, an artist, writing and painting and dreaming of nature and man, society and the individual, the hegemony and the outcast, the self and the other. What it meant to break free of it all, what it meant to remake oneself, what it would take to remake the world. He loved Thomas Cole and Toulouse Lautrec. The Rite of Spring and Dvorak. Nietzsche and Sartre. Beloved Fred.The girl, whose interests were more worldly, wondering on Cuba and Vietnam, Marx and Stalin, the liberation of women, of love, of civil rights, of the working class. Hoping, perhaps naively, that it was possible for humanity to come together, to find common ground, to speak on truths and heartache and simple comforts and find love instead of hate. Beloved Lisa.She loved them both. She had loved them both. Oakley had loved them both. And they had loved him. Her. That time, that person, that face and hurting heart. Meadow blushed as she remembered kissing them. As she remembered the flutter in her heart, the tremble in her joints, the excitement and shame at how stark a contrast it painted to her life as she had known it. Of putting his lips against a boy’s and feeling that boy kiss him back. Of putting her lips against a girl’s and feeling that girl kiss her back.They all felt, and agreed to feel together, that if they were damned, then they would embrace damnation. That they would dive deep into the beauty of it, the tragedy of it, of each other, of a different way of life and being.Meadow didn’t know these things. She hadn’t learned them herself. But she felt them burn in her heart, a warmth eruptive and all-consuming, that she wondered if that had been what her parents had felt. Her grandparents had felt. Her neighbors and friends and teachers had ever felt. If their families and grandsires and ancestors had felt it. If humanity itself, the thousands, upon hundreds of thousands of years they had their feet on the ground, if they had known love. If she would ever know it herself. If she would ever feel it again.It blotted out the pain of the memories before, the memories after. And she sunk into cheap, freshly-laundered hotel sheets, her eyelids closing their doors to the cold truths of the world, feeling that, perhaps, all was right and good. All-the-while, an unspoken, unacknowledged dread hid in the back of her mind. Oakley’s life had not ended there.
Part two
Would that through love alone all things were possible. To wash clean all wounds of vanity and grief. To make clear boundaries and align trajectories. To ensure no sincerity was ever left unspoken or unheard or unregarded. To count and plan and spy upon the futures and know which things to say and what paths to take. To hold tight to those beloved that they might never drift away. That they might never reveal themselves to be astray. That they might never reveal themselves to be more than perfect pictures of devotion.Would that through suffering alone all things were possible. Nobility crowned by martyrdom. Paradise seeded by tribulation. Though to be unseen, unheard, unfelt, unneeded, with burdens kept hidden and unheeded, was the truest path to virtue and peace. Because Oakley never talked about that house. Never spoke of the specter it cast, the words it buried, the longings it forbade.Meadow stared at herself in the hotel mirror.She was a girl. She had always been a girl. Touching her lips, feeling through her hair, thinking on her body as she dressed, dwelling on her clothes and style. Frilly, pleated top. Close-fitting jeans. Her shoes had little buckles on them. Cute but classy, with a modest heel and pointed toe. There were pictures of cartoon robins on her socks. She had a collection of patterned socks with cute animals on them. They were innocuous things.To love, Oakley had believed, meant to bury oneself.On her way out, she passed again by the house.Wrapped in a shroud of morning mist, it was a pale and barren monument of a past she shouldn’t have known. Shouldn’t have been able to imagine. The warped wooden boards creaked and moaned in the fog. Like a sobbing wail, it reached and clawed into the white of the sky, desperate and afraid, blistered with rusted twists of barbed wire and belt lashings.A restless grave.And she wondered why she remembered. What it meant to remember. What it meant to be Meadow. What it meant to be innocuous.Her next stop was further east.She loved Fred and Lisa for their idealism. Their messiness. They had no plans, no strategy, no clear view of their futures. They aspired to crash on couches, in cars, in cheap apartments, in crowded, communal spaces with other aspiring socialists and artists.It was Oakley who made their concessions to the world. Who decided he would be the one to provide for them, to assimilate for them, to find a job and a house and a plan. He would keep them together. He was desperate to keep them together. He would do what was necessary. It was him that decided to get a marriage license. It was him that decided to tell the fib that Fred was a cousin, a brother-in-law, a close family friend.When Walter was born, she felt the weight of it, an anchor.That she could hold him. That she could hold Lauren. And Virginia. And Liam. And quietly admit, in trembling voice to her wife alone, that to hold their children made her feel like herself. Not a father, but a mother. Doting, precious, sentimental, and tender.Gripping the wheel of her car with a tremble in her hands, Meadow struggled not to let loose tears as she thought of it. On Walter. And Lauren. And Virginia and Liam. On Lisa, who understood. On Fred, who couldn’t have. On Walter’s accident. On Lauren’s overdose. On Virginia’s distance and Liam’s resentment.It wasn’t for the sake of normalcy. It was never for the sake of normalcy. She was so averse to harm. She remembered harm so clearly. The memory of harm was still so close to her, to that part of herself, to those realities. It nipped at her heels with bared and bloodied teeth everywhere she went, everywhere she looked, every time she tried to catch her breath.When the threads started pulling apart, her instinct had been to remove herself, as though all trouble in existence had poured forth from her own heart.Fred grew to hate him.So she stayed even further away.Meadow started to recognize the houses, the streets, the trees and the corner signs. Mind racing. Heartbeat fluttering. They were real. Real as that old oak, split by lightning in decades past. Real as the realty company sign on the corner, the top shattered and never fixed. Real as the half-finished biking path the city had put down. Lisa protested to the city that there were no proper sidewalks. That their neighbor with the electric chair was made to brave pot-marked streets. They never finished either.But it didn’t look quite the same. The houses, repainted. Foliage, some cleared, some hungry and eagerly making their claim. The ground surrounding old trees peeled up by their roots. Things weathered. Neglected. Fences broken. She didn’t recognize the cars parked outside. The people in the yards. The dog barking. She wasn’t sure how long exactly it had been. She hadn’t done the math. She didn’t want to do the math.She had expected to feel an excitement. Proving it. Proving the lie to the falsehood. Proving the clarity to the details. But it was anger that overtook her. Anger for time wasted wondering. Anger for wondering on time wasted. Anger for time spent wondering on time that wasn’t hers and didn’t need her to prove anything. Didn’t need her to wonder on it. Didn’t need her at all.There it was.A house.At the end of the row.One and a half stories with an attic. Small for the size of their family. Painted yellow with a white front door and colored glass on either side. Nothing parked outside. No sign of anyone home.Why was she here?Was she Oakley or Meadow?And what cruelty of fate was that to be reborn. To be a person who had been born once before. Of knowing a life that had ended, but hardly the life that had barely begun.She parked down the road. Trying to gather her thoughts. To right her path. To clear the brambles and briar of her mind.What would she tell her parents?What would she do now?The last holiday they had celebrated had been at Fred’s new condo in New York. Visiting his new studio. Seeing his new work. Becoming aware of his new students and new lovers. Canvases as big as the wall. Buckets of paint mixed by interns. The space kept orderly and sparkling by his housekeeper.But all was tied and tangled as they sat for dinner. With Walter’s family, Walter’s wheelchair, Walter’s nurse. The gnawing absence of Lauren. The hesitant and uncomfortable quiet of Virginia. The begrudging presence of Liam. Fred’s other children from other relationships. Foresters. Ruth and Goodwin and Corie. Lisa’s ashes on the mantle. In this house, not theirs.Oakley walked with a cane, for her body was giving out. Feeling the pin pricks and needles of pain as she moved. Feeling a stranger in the Forester home. And it was “she” then. It was “she” finally. But, still, she had not talked about it. And, still, it felt much too late to matter.Meadow had delved in too deep. Too fast. Swept away by the currents too swift. She must have been haunted by this spirit unfulfilled. Submerged in a caustic mixture of guilt and regret, anger and loathing, the passage of time, of the world, of people and politics, of love and hate.It was the building surge Oakley had needed to speak. To finally speak. To finally say something. To say anything. Knowing that Fred still carried with him the hurt of it all. That Fred still blamed him for the hurt of it all. That Oakley still blamed herself for the hurt of it all. That nothing could change what had already passed. That she couldn’t go back and be there with him, for him, to let him know he wasn’t alone when tragedy struck their family again and again. When they lost Lisa. When they lost Walter. When they lost Lauren. When they lost each other. When they never really had each other.But then Fred referred to Oakley as an, “old man–woman…thing–whatever you are now,” said so flippantly, so dismissively. It didn’t matter if she said anything. She decided not to say anything. She kept her head down and gave only a self-effacing smile instead.There was a knock on the window.Meadow, shocked back into the present with a panic. As though she was visible. As though the place her mind had taken her was visible. As though the person looking was a person who could recognize it, knew it, had taken part in it, could weigh in on it and how it was affecting her.She looked up, feeling the weariness of a lifetime upon her and thanked her fortune that the person was indeed a stranger.She rolled down her window.“Are you lost, miss?”
She turned to look back at the yellow house.“Oh, do you know Fred Forester?”She shook her head.“Ah. Figured you might have been one of his students or something. Guy just owns the property now, rarely comes by. Sometimes has someone come by to pick up a thing or two. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Part three
Flyer in her hand. Slick, black. Cardstock. With address and time. Show name in silver foil, “YOU DESERVE TO CRY.” Exhibition of work by the artist Frederick Forester. Printed on it was one of the pieces. She stood in front of the real one.A stark black dominated the canvas. So rich a color, impenetrable and smooth. Almost still wet, still malleable, still alive. It was put down exactly where it needed to be, forming from the negative a positive. A presence where it otherwise should have been an absence. It swallowed glimpses and gasps of human bodies. Anatomical artifacts. A lock of hair falling over a woman’s shoulder. Lips in mid-speech. Fingers laced together lovingly. They were abstracted into chunks and sections, sometimes as flesh itself, blood coursing through the veins, sometimes in ways inexplicably violent and sexual. Yet the temperament was like a renaissance fresco, colors bent to pastels, and textures caught between satin and marble.It produced an impression astronomical, visions of humanity like stars against the sea of black that was the universe.Butterflies upon a field of wildflowers.But also remnants of a shipwreck strewn about the water.Meadow couldn’t claim to understand it. What it meant. Why he had made it. Why something like that would draw in a crowd. She couldn’t say it didn’t resonate with her. But she didn’t like how art galleries felt like such frigid spaces. Isolating. Empty, save for the work. People spoke in hushed tones, sharing impressions or observations with their companions but seemed irrelevant to the space. To the work. Almost as though they were trespassers, come here to feed some voyeuristic hunger.It was Lisa’s passing that had seen Fred’s work transform, his burgeoning renown following closely behind. Before that, despite his protestations and proclamations, it could be said he was unsuccessful as an artist. A state that had frustrated him endlessly and complicated the financial strains on the relationship.Maybe the transformation was a kind of progress.Maybe they could smell the grief in it, like blood in the water.Maybe his older work was too typical. Too personal. Portraits and figures. Oakley and Lisa, his muses. He painted over them. Covering them with thick veils of black or white. To be spoken about in hushed tones in dead spaces, and sold.Maybe it was just the novelty of it, of him, of the work.Fred was living openly and triumphantly last she knew. He had patrons who marveled at his naked queerness, at his stories of relationships and lovers, at his every opinion and eccentricity, at how he embodied the individual the eras he had lived through had meant to extinguish, clutching their pearls in excitement as they considered the nature of the homosexual.Maybe it was only happenstance.Meadow thought of all the times she remembered him crying.How surprisingly shy he was in his youth.She turned herself back to the painting. The gallery was lit dimly, with only underlighting to spotlight each piece. She followed a trail of hands painted with red and bloodied knuckles and fingers up until they disappeared into the darkness above.In the same room was Ruth Forester. Dressed in a close-fitting blazer with patterned lapels, cropped slacks with patterned socks. High-heeled oxfords and dark-rimmed glasses. Hair swooped over his shoulder into a loose braid. There was a crease to his cheeks and a weight around his eyes. He and his, yet nothing to be assumed, for what he was was something entirely his own.Ruth had grown up as the child of Fred and Fred alone. His absent mother had neither planned for nor desired the title. As he aged, he had been driven to seek out faces further and further along the branches in the family tree. The bundle of half-brothers and sisters. Nieces and nephews. Oakley. Recognizing at once that they shared in something unspoken.It was through Ruth that the tether had been tied. That the twilight of Oakley’s life had been again lit by the warmth of family. Family, not just of Woolfolks or Foresters, but family in community, in advocacy, of others cast out to the fringes of society through aberration of gender who shared with her their deepest grief and their greatest triumphs. That on her deathbed, she had been surrounded by gratitude.It was Ruth (it was them) who had wished for his mother to find life anew. To find light anew. To find the understanding and force of will necessary to move forward. To forgive herself (themselves) but not to forget herself (themselves). Not to forget the griefs or the triumphs. Not just hers but others too. Not just for his mother, but for others too. That they were forgiven but not forgotten. That there would be those that remembered. That they could find life anew. Live anew. Love anew. And find peace without need for martyrdom.Those were her, their, a mass of hands, cut up and bloodied, forming a chain that stretched into the darkness. Hands to pull herself (themselves) up. Hands to reach out to others. Hands to embrace and wipe away the tears.
I write poetry too! Just wanted to mention :)sorry not available to be read in full online right now, I plan on updating this section soon
[ POETRY ]
. . .
She saw herself in a flower wilted.
Clasping it between her hands that were
Gentle, trembling, and wild,
A trespasser, under glass, with aching heart
And rushing dreams.
It was tangled in its cage,
Wandering vines holding tight,
To what she knew, what she felt,
Trying her best to pull free of her lattice.
. . .
We’re on a street unfamiliar
A hidden channel
An unmarked passage
He says he knows the place
He sells his VHS tapes
The atmosphere
A blanket, heavy
Suffocating, weighted in
Deep, forbidding blues
Buzzing in your ears
Floor speaking,
Watching, warning, judging
In high pitched tones
. . .
I build myself, I built myself
Out of impressions and glimpses
Choices and flinches
Regrets and wayward dreams
I was not
Empty
But I dug myself out
. . .
[ piece by piece ]
I spoke at length with Ulharr Zabet. She had taken me as her apprentice. But we found ourselves speaking of much more. Talk of technology, of conspiracy, of allies and enemies.We talked about the Eversea Savage. About the First Family. About our Holy Father, The Jace. About the graceless and passing controversy with the lower families. I was from a lower family, after all, and was eager to share my perspective.We talked about history. How the frontier peoples came to be. What it might’ve been like when the ancient Veint first landed on the Cressfel moon. How the eiffa set us on the path our society was on now. What we had learned from other civilizations, other people, that we had adopted into our empire.But she shied away from notes of glamour or pride. I could tell there was something she wasn’t telling me. Every conversation wavered into a sudden lull, where she sat, perched on the counter, in war with her own thoughts over what could be spoken of.
. . .
a sci-fi novel set within a biotechnological alien civilization (same universe as Cressfel's Thirteen) about political conspiracy
[ catching a spider ]
Hm...
. . .
an eclectic novel set in 2011 centered around those whom society have deemed a failure
[ The Sacrifice ]
. . .
The region of Morande was under the dominion of the royal line of Ruria. They were a vast and numerous family, the King and Queen proper residing in the Great City, while Octavia was only a second cousin. The Ruria’s were known for their brilliant red hair and freckled faces, so much a symbol of their line that heirs born of a different visage were immediately questioned, ostracized, and sometimes disowned. It was referred to as the Ruria Scarlet, a gift from God to mark them as His confidants.Octavia had once been married, arranged and to a cousin also in the Ruria line. Her husband had died many years ago, suffering a battle wound that then festered and putrefied, forcing her to care for him for the time interim. His passing was a grateful fact in her life, yet she had been left with only a sickly child that all had doubted would live to adulthood. Her family was not kind, taking both fortunes as symbols for some secret transgression against God. She knew that even if Ionsida were besieged, it was unlikely they would come to her aid.
. . .
a dark medieval fantasy novella about the desperation of a city as they are preparing for siege
an industrial fantasy novel about plague, necromancy, and old vendettas
[ The Valley at the End of the World ]
. . .
The end of their journey was Hotton. The land at the edge of the Endless Fog. Though it was a wide valley that indeed allowed for seed and grazing, they kept their eyes still on what lay to the south. For, at Hotton, the land quickly fell away in altitude, and the view beyond that great cliff revealed only a great ocean of pointed tree tops and a thick, invincible fog that neither abated nor dissipated in all the time it was observed.The outpost was established, the designs carried on. To keep going south. To find warmth. To find life. But few who went into the Fog ever returned. Survivors told of ghastly sights, where they lost even sense of their own limbs to scalding whiteness, becoming mere consciousness floating in a purgatorial abyss. And, stranger, were the stories of what dwelled in the fog.The last expedition returned only one survivor. Her name was Linnea Griswall. But, besides that, there were only rumors. Rumors that only make sense when we allow another hundred years to pass. For Griswall did not die. Griswall was a thing beyond life. What had happened to her or what she had discovered in the fog, no one knew. All that was known that she continued to persist.
. . .
[ The Myriad and Wild ]
. . .
Something primordial had nested itself in her heart.
. . .
an experimental short story about trans selfhood published within Gutslut Press' The Bone Milk Collective: Volume III
a long-form narrative poem set in a fantasy world focusing on the relationships between state power and minorities following a string of mysterious disappearances
[ The Profane ]
. . .
Whispers and murmurs
Carried on rivers and bridges
Made it to that dark room
Of disappearances
Most grave yet by as far…
Passing unnoticed, uncounted
A peculiarity but nothing moreThravik was the one to set the dial
Sure that if it were true
The needle would point clearly
Towards those tall buildings
At the city center.
Who oversaw Code and Loyalty
Buildings and Blood
A perpetual villain
For our own credulityI was not so sure“But it is clear they wish to be rid of us
They have bided their time
Clothed in mercy and pride
It makes sense
For those veils to finally fall”
Thravik insisted
. . .