I've been a writer casually for as long as I could hold a pencil. I love writing fiction, specifically fantasy and sci-fi, and i'm inspired mostly by media like RWBY and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
A lot of my writing is character-focused and you'll find me writing prompt-inspired shorts sometimes. Here are some examples of my writing:
The world is a mirror. A stark, clear surface that reflects what is found within. Some saw quiet windless plains shelled between the ribs of old beasts. Many saw coal-sick darkness studded by lightning.
Here at the bottom of the world, the remains of everything settled. Dust and smoke, especially. Murk's mother used to whisper mantras through her mask.
âWhat a pleasure it is,â She croaks, voice gummy and strange, âTo breathe your smoke.â
When you taste carbon for so long, you begin the mistake it for oxygen. Clean air burns like poison, even when your fluids turn to tar and your lungs to stone.
Strand has never experienced cold before either. Itâs a wonderful new world to add to her repertoire, right beside âannoyingâ and âtime-consuming.â The rain pools in crevices and crackers, sitting on top of the wax and hardening it to the point that she has to dig out chunks to mix her paste. The air was too cool to melt it.Â
âThey were using you,â His voice coos, knowing him better than anyone, âNo one came when you stopped singing. No one cared.â
Blink snarls, heat boiling over into tears down his still-bleached cheeks. He tries to talk, to scream, to do something besides squeak and cry. But nothing comes out.
It cared? Does his Voice care at all? If it had, it would have let him live on in blissful ignorance!
âYou werenât happy.â
You wouldnât know happiness if it bit you on the nose.
It was an honor to be a part of this project! I loved watching it come to life. Tag and everyone else has laid the foundation for healthier fandom spaces that foster creativity instead of stifle it. And God willing, more will pop up in its wake.
Take a bow, take a rest, you deserve nothing but the best.
Detailed Guide on Sending Letters to & Calling Your Senators
As I've been encouraging people to contact their senators to oppose KOSA, The Screen Act, and IODA, I've gathered that a lot of people would appreciate a comprehensive step by step guide on how to do these things. The unknown is anxiety inducing, and even if the actions are easy, it can still get overwhelming if you haven't done it before.
So instead of telling people to Google it, I just sat down and wrote an instructional guide on how to call and send letters to your senators. I even include how to gather supplies for letters and how to drop them off.
I hope someone finds this helpful and encouraging. I promise, once you start doing these things, it becomes a lot easier to do again the next time.
It goes over all these topics:
How to find your senator
What to put in a letter
The actual letters I sent to my senators
How to get supplies for a letter
How to address a letter
How to send a letter
A six step guide on calling your senator
How Can I find my Senator & Their Information?
Go to senate.gov and select âContact Your Senatorsâ under the âSenatorsâ dropdown menu. Enter the state you live in and it will bring up your active senators.
NOTE: If in the future you want to write to your house representatives, you can type in your address on house.gov and it will bring up your representatives.
Their profile on the Senate website will have a âcontactâ button that will bring you to the senatorâs website. Usually, at the bottom of the page or on a dedicated contact page they will have the addresses of all of their offices. You can select one close to you, or their office in Washington for your letter.
NOTE: If you want to email your senator as well, there are often contact forms on their websites where you can fill in your information and automatically send an email from there. No need to dig around for a specific address.
What Should My Letter Include?
Keep your letter to one page.
The goal is to get your opinion counted, not to write an entire persuasive essay.
Keep it to one issue per letter.
This helps staff better tally and record your opinion.
It also means your letters take up more space and more of their resources, so if youâre really angry about multiple topics then thatâs just a built in bonus.
Include your name, your city or zip code, and why youâre contacting them in the first paragraph of the letter.
Again, the goal is to have your opinion counted. Making it known that youâre their constituent and what your opinion is on the matter at hand at the start of your letter ensures itâs clearly communicated.
Identify the issue youâre writing about with the bill number and name.
Everything after is mostly fluff.
You can write about your reasoning for supporting or opposing a bill, include personal experiences that influence your view, or even request a response back. Some staffers might take note of these things, but others might not.
Iâm not saying itâs not worth doing, I took up the full page for my own letters, but if you donât have anything fancy to say you donât need to force yourself to write more because itâs not a requirement.
Letter Templates
In the next part of this post I have copy and pasted the letters I sent to my senators. Iâve left out my personal information and labeled what information should be changed to be relevant to you. They are formatted to be typed in a PDF and printed out.
I encourage you to write your own letters from scratch, as personalized letters can have more of an impact and itâs good practice for being able to independently articulate your own beliefs in a low pressure environment. While you can copy and paste my letters and send them to your own senator, I ask that you read through the letters fully and only send them if you agree with what Iâve written, as they are my own opinions and may differ from your own. Keep in mind, everything I wrote is from my perspective and is aimed at my Republican senators and what I think theyâd respond best to.
SCREEN ACT
DATE
The Honorable SENATORâS NAME
SENATORâS OFFICE ADDRESS
Dear Senator LAST NAME,
My name is FULL NAME and I am writing to you from CITY, STATE. As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the S.737 - Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net Act.
Children absolutely deserve to be protected from harm, but vast prohibitions and heightened surveillance of the entire population is never the solution, and has been shown to be ineffective in keeping children safe. In addition to this, it is a massive security nightmare waiting to happen.
Children are clever, and have been shown to use a variety of methods to circumvent even the most modern age verification technology, and while people claim this bill protects parental rights, it ignores parental responsibility to educate their children on online safety and to personally monitor and guide their interactions online. Not only is age verification technology ineffective in keeping children out, it risks limiting access to knowledge and freedom of speech for the masses. For instance, requiring age verification across the web would lead to many companies and organizations being unable to comply with regulations, forcing them to shut down as a result and taking whatever services, resources, and knowledge they provided for the public away with them.
Those concerns are before we even get to the fact this bill is a horrific data breach in the making, as businesses have historically failed to protect consumer data time and time again. Requiring adults to expose sensitive personal data to so many businesses and organizations exponentially increases the risk of incidents like identity theft and fraud, and in the worst cases can even risk the physical safety of the individuals exposed.
So once again, I urge you to oppose the Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net Act, as it is ineffective and would do more harm than good for the public.
Sincerely,
SIGN IN PEN HERE
FULL NAME
YOUR ADDRESS
KOSA
DATE
The Honorable SENATORâS NAME
SENATORâS OFFICE ADDRESS
Dear Senator LAST NAME,
My name is FULL NAME and I am writing to you from CITY, STATE. As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the S.1748 - Kids Online Safety Act.
I WROTE ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE GROWING UP IN THE WILD WEST OF THE INTERNET AND HOW I UNDERSTAND HOW HARMFUL THE INTERNET CAN BE TO A CHILD. However, I believe this bill is an ineffective method of protecting children online, and it would restrict access to a wide variety of knowledge that may benefit children and adults alike, ultimately making the bill counterproductive.
Currently, the UK is enacting similar laws, and children are using a variety of methods to get around their restrictions, rendering them useless. Itâs also pushing determined children to seek out less regulated sites and go deeper into the shadows of the internet where they are at an even higher risk of danger from online predators. Additionally, libraries of online information are being age restricted. Such information is not limited to depictions of sex, but has extended to censoring general knowledge along with a variety of resources that may actually help children in being able to identify the signs of abuse and seek support and safety.Â
I truly believe education is one of the most powerful tools we have to arm our children with the ability to combat harm they may face. So I fear if we pass KOSA in America, the same things happening in the UK will happen to us and our children, failing to protect them while simultaneously stripping valuable resources from them.
So again, I urge you to oppose the Kids Online Safety Act, as it is not in the best interest of American children or the adults who care for them.
Sincerely,
SIGN IN PEN HERE
FULL NAME
YOUR ADDRESS
IODA
DATE
The Honorable SENATORâS NAME
SENATORâS OFFICE ADDRESS
Dear Senator LAST NAME,
My name is FULL NAME and I am writing to you from CITY, STATE. As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the S.1671 - Interstate Obscenity Definitions Act.
As you know, we already have definitions for obscenity. While some may find them too vague, the level of interpretation it provides is vital in allowing case by case assessments, and to prevent the government from abusing its power to censor freedom of speech.
Redefining obscenity as the bill intends could lead to far more harm than good. For example, this bill could be used to silence victims of sexual abuse from sharing their stories and warning others due to the graphic nature of their contents. It could also be used to restrict access to female healthcare information including resources on breastfeeding, since some people wrongfully consider the natural and necessary act of breastfeeding a child to be sexual.
I WROTE ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE AS AN ARTIST MAKING ART ABOUT MY TRAUMA AND HOW PUBLIC REACTIONS FROM POLITICIANS AGAINST ART THEY FIND DISTASTEFUL MAKES ME BELIEVE THEY WILL USE THIS TO CENSOR ARTISTS WHO HANDLE HEAVY TOPICS THAT ARENâT CONSIDERED PALATABLE.
1984 was a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual, so please, oppose IODA. Strike down this bill and any variation of it that may rear its ugly head again in the future, as people are putting faith in you to defend our freedoms.
Sincerely,
SIGN IN PEN HERE
FULL NAME
YOUR ADDRESS
How to Send a Letter
Supplies
Something to write on and an envelope to put it in.
You can get plain, standard sized envelopes at any office supply store, but places like Walmart, Target, drug stores, and most grocery stores should sell them as well near their section with school supplies/stationary/packing supplies.
These standard envelopes easily fit 8.5 x 11 paper when folded into thirds horizontally.
NOTE:Â You can absolutely send letters on postcards or greeting cards or whatever else you have on hand.
Stamps
Standard USPS stamps are currently 78 cents each. They never expire and you can send a standard rectangular letter anywhere in the U.S. with just one of them.
Stamps are typically bought in âbooksâ which contain 20 stamps. You can get them directly at the post office, but many grocery stores and drug stores sell them as well.
NOTE: Thereâs lots of fun stamp designs you can buy at the post office or buy online at https://store.usps.com/store/stamps. Thereâs ones for square or irregular shaped letters, and additional postage increments for letters weighing over an ounce.
Addressing Your Letter
Your full name and address go in the top left corner.
Including this on letters sent to senators is recommended for several reasons. It shows that you really are their constituent and allows them to send a response back to you.
NOTE:Â There have been incidents of letters containing deadly materials, like anthrax, being sent to political officials. So while I canât definitively confirm this, I imagine if you donât include your return address, itâs entirely possible your letter might get thrown out as a safety precaution.
The address youâre sending it to goes in the middle of the envelope.
When writing who itâs going to, include either âSenatorâ or âThe Honorableâ before the senatorâs full name.
The stamp goes on the top right of the envelope.
NOTE:Â Some postcards have dedicated sections for where to put addresses and the stamp.
How to Send It
If you have a mailbox with a working mailbox flag, you can put your letter into the empty mailbox and raise the flag. This will notify the mailman that the letter inside is outgoing mail, and theyâll take it and get it sent out.
If you donât have a mailbox with a flag, most apartment mailrooms, neighborhood mailbox groups, and office buildings will have a box or slot labeled âoutgoing mailâ. Just slide your letter in and youâre good to go.
Some places still have USPS blue letterboxes for dropping mail. Theyâre also called snorkel boxes, so occasionally youâll see that on a sign pointing you towards the box.
You can always stop by your local USPS location. Theyâll either have a mailbox outside for you to drop mail into, theyâll have a mail slot inside the building usually near the PO Boxes, or if all else fails you can hand it to the person working at the post office counter.
Step-By-Step Guide to Calling Your Senators
I KNOW phone calls are scary, but I promise calling your representatives are some of the easiest and fastest phone calls youâll make. Iâve never had one over two minutes long and every staffer has been helpful and polite, even when Iâm asking for my deeply Republican senator to oppose something I know they for sure agree with.
Go to your senatorâs website and find their list of offices. Usually itâs either at the bottom of the webpage or in a dedicated tab. There youâll find phone numbers for each of their offices in your state, and their office in Washington.
When you call during office hours, an office staff member will answer the phone. Theyâll say something along the lines of âThis is Senator [Last Nameâs] office. How may I assist you?â.
NOTE:Â Some offices have voicemail boxes for after hours. Not all of them have it, and you wonât get confirmation from a person that your message has been noted, so I encourage you to call during office hours. But if you leave a voicemail, still include all the information present in the next steps.
Say hello! You can either give them your full name and zip code now, or you can do it later. But make sure you give that information to them before you hang up so that your input is documented.
Tell them what bill youâre calling about and tell them you want your senator to either oppose or support the bill.
Thatâs it! Say your goodbyes and hang up. The call is usually less than two minutes. You can give a brief sentence or two explaining your stance, but itâs not at all necessary. This is just for them to tally support or opposition to report back to the senator.
Youâre all done! Wasnât that so much easier than you thought? Go get yourself a treat as a reward. It helps with the after phone call anxiety crash.
Okay finally have a design drawn for Jo, now I gotta do Toll at least. I'm running into this interesting problem though where I'm designing younger and older versions of them because I always intended to tell their story in two parts. But, well... I like their adult concepts much, much more as a writer lol
A young Servant of the Stone, born in Calyp, who despite having known much loss in her life, believes in looking on the bright side. Starting off as a timid, mousy girl, unsure of her place in the world, Josephine spends her childhood trying to figure out her Aspect and how it can help others. After witnessing a devastating mold blight, she adopts a pygmy bee from a collapsed hive that comes to symbolize her strongest ideal:
âDonât stress about what the right thing to do is, think about what would happen if you do nothing at all.â
She becomes a promising young Servant, but still finds herself longing for the warmth and familiarity of family that she hasnât known since she was a child. Now a teen, one of her oldest friends, Cadoc, has asked her to marry him once he becomes a master of his field. She agrees, but while he finishes his apprenticeship she chooses to seek out her estranged mother so that she can attend her and Cadocâs wedding. This leads her to leaving Tolero for the archipelago herself.
Tolland of Uxor
The youngest child of a power-hungry family line of renowned engineers in Kine. As smart as his mother and as ambitious as his father, he had a promising start. But fate isnât a kind mistress. At the age of ten, he failed his Affixtion exam and proved himself to be the one and only Unaffixed in his family in generations. In an attempt to save face, his parents send him to the archipelago to work for his oldest brother, Shay, whoâs become a renowned nexus engineer. He tries to use the opportunity to study nexus engineering, but is repeatedly cowed by his brother who fears Tolland wonât be able to keep up in their cutthroat world if he aims too high. The years of being undermined and dismissed bred a stubborn ideology into him:
âNo one has time for useless things, so donât be one.âÂ
PLEASE give Jo head pats and braid her hair, she LOVES it. She'll also insist she does your hair for you.
Tolland's hair, when he's an adult, is nearly to his knees and is a huge point of pride for him. That being said: Look, don't touch. Compliment him, he loves it.
Cadoc doesn't really have any strong feelings since he has his hair almost always buzzed super short. You will want to play with it because it's fuzzy and pokey, and if you ask nice honestly he might just let you.
Shay's hair is a goddamn work of art and if you touch it he WILL slap you. This man has so many different products that he uses, his hair is basically sculpted rather than groomed.
Mavis is Nullian and so rules for hair are a little different. You do not *EVER* touch a Nullian's hair unless you are their partner. Especially their streaks! It's considered extremely intimate, and Mavis carries that same sentiment herself.
A young Servant of the Stone, born in Calyp, who despite having known much loss in her life, believes in looking on the bright side. Starting off as a timid, mousy girl, unsure of her place in the world, Josephine spends her childhood trying to figure out her Aspect and how it can help others. After witnessing a devastating mold blight, she adopts a pygmy bee from a collapsed hive that comes to symbolize her strongest ideal:
âDonât stress about what the right thing to do is, think about what would happen if you do nothing at all.â
She becomes a promising young Servant, but still finds herself longing for the warmth and familiarity of family that she hasnât known since she was a child. Now a teen, one of her oldest friends, Cadoc, has asked her to marry him once he becomes a master of his field. She agrees, but while he finishes his apprenticeship she chooses to seek out her estranged mother so that she can attend her and Cadocâs wedding. This leads her to leaving Tolero for the archipelago herself.
Tolland of Uxor
The youngest child of a power-hungry family line of renowned engineers in Kine. As smart as his mother and as ambitious as his father, he had a promising start. But fate isnât a kind mistress. At the age of ten, he failed his Affixtion exam and proved himself to be the one and only Unaffixed in his family in generations. In an attempt to save face, his parents send him to the archipelago to work for his oldest brother, Shay, whoâs become a renowned nexus engineer. He tries to use the opportunity to study nexus engineering, but is repeatedly cowed by his brother who fears Tolland wonât be able to keep up in their cutthroat world if he aims too high. The years of being undermined and dismissed bred a stubborn ideology into him:
âNo one has time for useless things, so donât be one.âÂ
Fun fact about Nullus: All people born on Nullian soil develop between 1 to 3 streaks of some other natural hair color in their hair! It's extremely rare to ever cut these streaks, so usually people braid them to keep them separated from the rest of their hair. You can cut the rest of your hair though! Which leads to the iconic Nullian hair style of having short hair with just the streaks long!
Josephine really likes spicy food and enjoys home cooking. She's a pretty good cook because the church she grew up in rotated what kids helped with cooking meals for everyone. She's really not a fan of anything with a gummy or slimy texture though lol okra would make this girl's skin crawl
A lot of food in Tolero uses bug products. So honey, butterfly milk, snail eggs, and beetle steaks.
Tolland on the other hand has a sweet tooth! His favorite treat is actually frozen shaved sugar palm fruit, which is popular in Uxor. He's not a picky eater, though he isn't a fan of really heavy or starchy foods like bread, rice, pasta, or potatoes.
Uxorian food is naturally vegan because they don't have a lot of space to raise animals. Ergo, they relied heavily on plants for most of their agriculture. After the Basian Archipelago was founded and trade started up proper, Uxor and Tolero traded produce and began sharing cultural food.
âOnce, there was nothing, and then there was a stone. Surrounded by life yet it was lonely. So, the stone grew. It grew, and grew, and grew, and welcomed upon itself mosses, insects, and dew. Then those creatures welcomed trees, mushrooms, and rivers. They in turn welcomed us, the humans. That stone became our land, and we became its caretakers.â
~ Toleran Origin of the World
Primary beliefs:
All beings of the world (the Stone) are destined from birth to descend to their version of heaven (the Place of Union); A place of beautiful soft melodies and warm sunlight, where souls spend eternity together with their loved ones.
But, it is possible to fall out of favor with the Stone by not living up to the core tenets of Lithism.
In doing so, upon death you will rise to their version of hell, (the Place of Cacophony); A place of absolute silence and stillness said to drive souls to madness.Â
The Affixed
Toleran Affixed, or really anyone with a lot of Anima present in their bodies, are often sent to their local church to receive formal education. The study of Anima and religion are the exact same thing here, and are broadly referred to as Lithism.Â
Affixed are often referred to as Servants of the Stone, with the most prominent of them being seen as pieces of the Place of Union itself. Brothers and Sisters of the Stone are expected to live up to the tenets of the faith and are judged harshly. Punishments often include physical labor and community service.
Affixed are often tasked with missions to aid their community or fix what is perceived as an upset between man and nature. Anything ranging from a farmerâs flock of stag beetles getting loose, redirecting dragonflies and mantids away from villages, or helping evacuate sudden Dead Zones or Cascades.Â
Affixed are permitted to marry and have children, and their partner may be Affixed or not though they also must be of the same faith. Their union must be approved by the elders of both individualsâ home city, and officiated by the church.
The government and the church are seen as one in the same. The church speaks on behalf of the people, looking after well-being by looking after nature itself. A court of Affixed Servants of the Stone governs every single settlement. They individually choose who shall receive their tutelage and train them to take up their role. They all unite under the religious guidance of a Reverend Mother or Father. Together they are the Toleran Church of Unity (or TCU).
âOnce, there was nothing, and then there was a stone. Surrounded by life yet it was lonely. So, the stone grew. It grew, and grew, and grew, and welcomed upon itself mosses, insects, and dew. Then those creatures welcomed trees, mushrooms, and rivers. They in turn welcomed us, the humans. That stone became our land, and we became its caretakers.â
~ Toleran Origin of the World
Primary beliefs:
All beings of the world (the Stone) are destined from birth to descend to their version of heaven (the Place of Union); A place of beautiful soft melodies and warm sunlight, where souls spend eternity together with their loved ones.
But, it is possible to fall out of favor with the Stone by not living up to the core tenets of Lithism.
In doing so, upon death you will rise to their version of hell, (the Place of Cacophony); A place of absolute silence and stillness said to drive souls to madness.Â
The Affixed
Toleran Affixed, or really anyone with a lot of Anima present in their bodies, are often sent to their local church to receive formal education. The study of Anima and religion are the exact same thing here, and are broadly referred to as Lithism.Â
Affixed are often referred to as Servants of the Stone, with the most prominent of them being seen as pieces of the Place of Union itself. Brothers and Sisters of the Stone are expected to live up to the tenets of the faith and are judged harshly. Punishments often include physical labor and community service.
Affixed are often tasked with missions to aid their community or fix what is perceived as an upset between man and nature. Anything ranging from a farmerâs flock of stag beetles getting loose, redirecting dragonflies and mantids away from villages, or helping evacuate sudden Dead Zones or Cascades.Â
Affixed are permitted to marry and have children, and their partner may be Affixed or not though they also must be of the same faith. Their union must be approved by the elders of both individualsâ home city, and officiated by the church.
The government and the church are seen as one in the same. The church speaks on behalf of the people, looking after well-being by looking after nature itself. A court of Affixed Servants of the Stone governs every single settlement. They individually choose who shall receive their tutelage and train them to take up their role. They all unite under the religious guidance of a Reverend Mother or Father. Together they are the Toleran Church of Unity (or TCU).
