So hi! Iām Locke!
āŗ Iām a 21 y/o rising senior in college, majoring in psychology
āŗ Iāve been writing for nearly eight years now, and after all that time, I actually have some idea of what I want to do with my work
āŗ When Iām not writing, I draw, play video games, read, cross stitch, bullet journal, and dabble in photography during my free time
āŗ Some of my favorite games are Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Coral Island, Guild Wars 2, Spiritfarer, and The Evil Within
ā worlds are burning, my child.
gods alone cannot suffocate the flames.
My Writing
āŗ My work probably fits quite loosely under fantasy, but I often dip into all sorts of genres, including but not limited to poetry, steampunk, dystopian, science fiction, supernatural, and more
āŗ Iām polyamorous. My characters are polyamorous. Relationship webs are complicated and I love them dearly.
āŗ I have quite a few WIPs on the backburner due to my rather chaotic writing style, with only one being a finished first draft. I adore them all and I canāt yet bear to part with any of them, so youāll probably see someĀ ānewā wip snippet pop up occasionally
āŗ Lore and worldbuilding makes up most of my word count and takes up most of my time; itās the most consistent thing I do!
āŗ That said, itās also my current focus, so expect a lot more of it!
Ā my works // world anvil //Ā north haven discordĀ // pinterest
WIP // Fable
āŗĀ My tale is an old one. That much should be quite clear. It is not, however, as it has been told...Ā For in a memory as old as mine, there is a truth worth seeking; a light worth following. Perhaps in the candor of my tale, others will find the necessary inspiration to continue on toward their own light.
Summary
A fairytale retelling in the form of a journal come to life. Written by Myhren, orĀ āMerlinā as they may be better known, Fable contains lifetimes of experiences and the truth behind the fairytales we all know and love.
Fable mainly focuses on the stories of King Arthur, Camelot, Merlin, and associated characters. It is written from Myhrenās point of view, with some discrepancies due to the nature of their immortal life and their experience within a time loop. Entries are not all seemingly in order. Instead, the writings follow Myhrenās stream of consciousness.
Status
This is an ongoing, very long term WIP of mine. Iāve written some pieces, and brainstormed others. Iāll be releasing new entries as I complete them.
Phase: Itās complicated.
wip page / cast page / character introĀ
WIP // The Minutemage Compendium
āŗ The MinuteMage Compendium is a browser-based RPG concept presented in an old-school rpg field guide format. Explore the world of Iane and discover its secrets!
Summary
A clock is ticking in the mist and fog; people have begun to vanish right off the streets, and dark knowledge is kept from the common folk. Thrust into an unknown world, it is up to you to bring corruption to light and save the clockwork city of Iane. Can you find the Minutemage Coin and open the doors before it's too late?
Status
Phase: Brainstorming. Iāll be designing items, NPCs, locations, creatures, enemies, and more. Eventually, I plan on making it into a physical guide and an RPG!
WIP // A Ghost, a Quill, and a Mockingbird
āŗ Something in her remembers her past; a part of her that stands tall in the face of another's rage. Mountainous strength, hidden within a mouse. Confidence born of past instinct, of power, of creation and abandonment; Yet her conscious betrays none of it. Her spite does nothing to reveal what she had been so desperate to forget; what her rage continues to remember, impressively extreme for such tame, conscious memory.
Summary
Ghost has lived her entire life in an underground bunker on the planet Serus. The last of her kind after a swarm of vitians invaded her world and slaughtered her people, she spends her days in blissful spite where the vitians are unable to reach her.
It's not in any way peaceful, of course, to hear the screaming from outside the bunker, but as long as she has her music and drink to keep her company, she figures she'll be able to live a nice, conflict free life.
That is, until her simple day-to-day life becomes a bit more interesting; a little more chaotic. Her god has returned, and he's not at all what she expected, nor does he seem all that keen on leaving her alone.
Status
Iām proud to say that GQM, while my eighth existing wip, is the first to have a completed first draft!
Phase: Paused. While I take a step back and move onto other things before revising, adding, and rewriting!
wip page / wip intro
OTHER WIPS // TheĀ Back-burner
āŗ A list of WIPs I love very much and that have been set aside
It is worth noting that I tend to write a lot of standalone vignettes that donāt pertain to specific stories, as well as a lot of poetry that I like to call myĀ āspout of bullshitā
Arcane // world anvilĀ // tag
Alchemist //Ā floating idea // tag
The Demonās Eyes // world anvilĀ // tag
Encounters of the Primal Sort // world anvilĀ // tag
Faefinder // brainstorming phase // tag
Twisted Tales of Myth
āŗ Ellyse of Wonderspire // world anvilĀ // tag
āŗ Servant to Dragon and King //Ā floating idea // tag
Wane of the Lunar Human //Ā floating idea // tag
As much as I think it would be fun to have emotive anthropomorphic ears, I also recognize I can barely control my facial expressions. Like hell can I keep from Angry Ears-ing during meetings
I have flat out refused to drink anything other than blood for three seasons of Interview With the Vampire. But Rolin Jones is adamant that the vampires drink regular drinks and eat regular food. And I've been like, this is so dumb, I don't understand why we do this.
the thing about being bullied for being weird as a kid is that even if you've always embraced being weird your brain is still always looking for the line where it's too much. you can be as proudly and intentionally weird as you want and you can love being weird but your mind is still convinced there's a point where you get too weird and people start treating you like a weird looking bug again. also it feels like you reach that point 500 times a day even if everyone you've spoken to today found you pleasant and likable and even if you're completely alone in your house with nobody looking at you at all.
on the topic of disabled characters, though, i think a LOT of artists give characters mobility aids that their character wouldn't actually benefit from using.
i'm sort of having a mild brain fog moment rn so i can't fully articulate what i'm on about, but i think a lot of able-bodied artists view things like canes and crutches as interchangeable. and they often don't know enough about the wide range of mobility aids to make an informed decision about what their character might actually use based on their disability
i also think that aids like walkers and rollators are sort of viewed as "cringe" on some level, and many people view them to be "just for old people," so many artists will opt for giving a character who has full-body pain and fatigue a cane (which, in many cases, can potentially WORSEN full-body pain) instead. and a lot of people don't realize that most wheelchair users are able to walk, so they don't consider it an option for characters with chronic pain
idk it's kind of frustrating. i've genuinely never, ever seen a character that uses a rollator before. not once. i cannot name a single one. i know of multiple ocs who are described to have full-body pain, dizziness, and fatigue that are drawn as cane users and are never shown with wheelchairs or walkers, though
it's also sort of sad? i've been diagnosed since i was twelve years old, and i only heard of rollators LAST YEAR. and that was only because i saw one irl and immediately asked what it was. i wonder how many disabled people out there don't even know it's an option solely because they're completely underrepresented online and in media
if you're a creative with a disabled oc, PLEASEEE check out this link. it's a very nice and detailed guide for telling which mobility aids suit someone's needs best. it's incredibly important to make the right choice for your character! mobility aids tell you a LOT about someone's lived experience. picking the right one will communicate to your audience #1 what your character goes through #2 that you UNDERSTAND what your character goes through!
for those curious, this is joanne, a 15-year-old sumatran tiger currently living at phoenix zoo. it's very sweet to see her playing and tumbling around like this at her age -- she's got some people taking care of her if she still has this energy at that age.
i did see some users in the notes who were concerned about her looking 'scrawny', or wondering if she's maybe a juvenile -- far from it! at 15, joanne is very much considered a geriatric tiger; she's a grandma. she is, however, a sumatran tiger (panthera tigris sumatrae) -- sumatrans are the smallest extant subspecies of tiger, built more for the sweltering jungles of sumatra than the blistering cold of the amur river or the dense forests and mangrove swamps of south asia.
when you're used to seeing amur or amur-bengal hybrid ('generic') tigers on television or online, most of which are often overfed and overweight, a sumatran is going to look a bit weird, but joanne looks to be in wonderful shape -- look at those muscles flex and that coat shimmer when she moves! that's a healthy old lady for sure. props to joanne's keepers for taking such good care of her.
was outside earlier and a bird Came Up, squatted down, fluttered itās wings at me and opened its mouth like a hatchling begging for food (it was a grown female) so I went and checked the seed cube in the feeder and the thing was completely covered in mold. this is one of the weirdest things thatās ever happened to me. how did she know im the one in charge of the birdseed. How Did She Know To Pantomime Hunger At Me. Hello.
i have spent my afternoon confusedly getting dressed, driving to the store, purchasing a new seed block, driving home, washing the cage, and getting the feeder set back up. i donāt take this much care for my Own nutrition. ive been bullied into a grocery store run by a tufted titmouse. i feel so loved
I do think itās interesting how the novel Dracula is meant to be a modern setting from its perspective. Itās very much that genre of story about an ancient fantasy archetype finding itself in a modern setting, complete with the rules-lawyering that often comes with modern parodies (that isnāt to say the stories of Olde didnāt have fun with loopholes either though).
Except Dracula is a story that plays itself straight. The vampire himself is not stupid. Heās possibly the oldest vampire of all which means he upgraded from animal instinct and mindless echoes of past memories to someone whoās regained his critical thinking skills. The story begins because heās already adapted to how the modern world works now by hiring a solicitor who understands modern laws.
He knows now that he doesnāt have to march into London with an army like he used to; He can just buy property and the laws of London are forced to respect that. Similarly heās already experimented in and discovered loopholes to vampire rules and limitations; Vampires are bound by the permission of owners so he simply uses his solicitor to buy and own a bunch of properties. If he needs to be invited in, Dracula hypnotizes someone to let him in.
Vampires need to return to their grave every dusk/dawn (whichever comes sooner), which causes their coffin to act as an anchor that limits how far from it they can travel? Dracula simply rations the earth of his grave into fifty coffins and spreads them across London so his range becomes exponentially larger.
All of these things make the story almost come across as a deconstruction and it might just be! Itās just that Dracula the novel became such a trendsetter that people nowadays see it as playing things fully straight. It almost feels as if the novel is written with the idea that readers have a basic understanding of vampires and their rules, so part of the thrill comes in the revelation of how the titular vampire is working around these rules. Likewise Iāve heard it used to be a trope in English literature for a traveler to visit some foreign land with a monster and escape by going home. But here the foreign aspect of the story is just the first (and final) arc; The monsterās plan hinges on coming to the UK itself!
So yeah. Dracula isnāt stupid and he reflects the idea that people of the past had just as common sense as the rest of us, they just had access to less/inaccurate knowledge and things worked differently back then. Dracula would be likeā¦ That bit of someone showing a medieval peasant a meme as they comprehend it perfectly and arenāt even wowed by the Doritos. If Dracula was set in the 21st century heād probably understand social media well enough to become an influencer if he wanted to, though the issue of being invisible in cameras wouldnāt help.
The kid next door (talking toddler age) is playing outside and just wiped out in his Fisher Price car, and I just heard the babysitter say, āoh no, your insurance premium is definitely going to go up!ā And the kid who had only been mildly sniffling before made the most confused, but startled sound youāve ever heard.
Just very clearly an attempt at saying, āmy what?ā
He straight up forgot about his scraped knee and is now worried about whatever the fuck an insurance premium is.
