writer of allegories

your resident cryptid writer. lover of fantasy, horror, stories about (recovering from) trauma, and well-written diversity.

[ominous-faechild]

WRITEBLR INTRO

I COME TO MAKE A NEW, RFTA STYLE INTRO!!!

(with RFtA being my current hyperfixation and the fact that i'm going to be posting things about it, i figure i should make it where my page automatically leads to for now haha)

(for more details about me, check out my first intro)

ABOUT ME:

🍂 Barlowe (she/her)

🍂 In my early 20s

🍂 A writer of 11 years 🍂 working on novels for 7 of 11!

🍂 Less dedicated to—but still interested in!—drawing, animation, photography, and cinematography 🍂 currently a digital arts major in college

🍂 AuDHD and a grey lesbian (aka I'm leaning asexual) 🍂 (my writing may or may not be a special interest)

RISING FROM THE ASHES

🍂 my main, current wip ❤️ 🍂 accessible: 🍂 here (color-coded) 🍂 (will eventually expand to royal road and ao3)

🍂 story introduction 🍂 navigation (pending)

During a routine, staged mission assigned by Kieran Caron—the headmaster of Lotus Academy—three unfortunate students get caught in the middle of a disaster that devastates the city of Vemor and nearly kills them all.

Joined by a prodigious healer recruited from the relief effort, the four begin digging into things best left undisturbed. What happened that day? Who could ignite a city all at once? Caron won’t let them investigate, their leads all collapse into nothing, and it seems like everyone’s always watching them to see how far they’ll go.

For Kieva, Carmin, Lou, and Sammy to push deeper, they're forced to dodge lessons, avoid Caron's constant interference, and navigate their own tangled dynamics to uncover the truth.

But answers come with a cost, and those responsible for Vemor's destruction aren’t interested in being found.

Not for long.

NAVIGATION:

WIPS:

🍂 Rising From The Ashes 🌊 Waves of Misfortune ✦ Sun and Shadow

❧ The Arcane Rifts ♞ [Order's Chosen] 🌹 Sub Rosa

✨ What Lies Beneath ✦ Modern Existence ⚜ Faerie's Dawn

[] surrounds unofficial titles & coloration

GENERAL:

🍂 how do you do gradients?

🍂 #the faechild original 🍂 #the faechild writes 🍂 also @the-faechild-writes 🍂 #the faechild prose

🍂 #the faechild speaks 🍂 #about the faechild 🍂 #behind the scenes 🍂 #the faechild shitpost

ABOUT MY WRITING:

My Writing:

🍂 main genres: 🍂 fantasy 🍂 high 🍂 action 🍂 urban/rustic (depending on story) 🍂 mystery 🍂 political intrigue 🍂 horror

🍂 includes: 🍂 lgbtqia+ 🍂 neurodiversity 🍂 especially: 🍂 autism, ADHD, & PTSD 🍂 racial/cultural diversity 🍂 disabled characters

🍂 themes: 🍂 accepting yourself 🍂 discrimination 🍂 trauma 🍂 the experience, 🍂 aftermath, 🍂 and recovery thereof 🍂 poverty 🍂 political corruption

dividers made by @saradika

[amnhnyc]

You won’t find this pigeon on the streets of New York City. Meet the Pink-necked Green Pigeon (Treron vernans)! This colorful bird can be found throughout Southeast Asia, where it inhabits forests. It hangs out in small flocks in the treetops, foraging mainly for fruit. Distinguishing males from females isn’t too difficult: Females lack pink necks and are mostly olive-green in color!

Photo: Yi-Kai Tea, CC BY-SA 4.0, iNaturalist

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[genderqueerpositivity]

(Image description: 10 pride flags with text that says "Queer kids deserve safety, support, and acceptance." in white and black text. The flags are the original Baker rainbow, intersex, aromantic, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, sapphic, lesbian, gay man, and abrosexual flags.)

[time-traveling-fetus]

I'm often really dedicated to the visual quality and authenticity of the memes I make, but like idk if I could ever make another human being care about that. I used the proper font and color picked the correct color and sized everything correctly and used the alignment tool to get the spacing right and redrew the nebula background and spent way too long messing with the drop shadow settings to mimic the original text. Skyrim media literacy 0 skill meme. If you care.

[awkwordalex]

Your commitment to craftsmanship is appreciated. Years ago I spent way too long on this stupid meme to get the pull lines in the dark green and the fading of the lime color just right.

[skingrad]

i am still stupidly proud of this lmao

[aggressionbread]

just letting everyone know this post has been cooking for 7 years and it'll finally post in 2028

its so old that when i click edit the corners of the boxes are still sharp

[flairina]

[saint-ambrosef]

what "no sugar added" should mean: the natural sugars of the other ingredients like fruit are the only source of sweetness in this product

what is actually means: we added a fuckton of artificial sweeteners

[saint-ambrosef]

i see we are all angry about this

[green-fellow]

Godling: It is the month of pride Sara’s child. You know what that means.

Sayeon: What. Do you want me to do like. Gay psychological manipulation or something? What.

Godling: 👁️

[veliseraptor]

that ‘pakige?’ post but me, a couple hours after posting a fic, like ‘comints?’

[kitten-kin]

[leahazel]

F5 F5 F5

[kitten-kin]

… F5 F5 F5 F5F5F5F5F5

[kriosv]

[renthony]

I was 12 when the first of my siblings was born, so I have very vivid memories of the way my mother was excluded from a lot of spaces because people find children annoying.

If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.

My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.

"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.

"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.

"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.

"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.

"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.

What the fuck was our family supposed to do? Never go to the grocery store? Starve because strangers couldn't handle a toddler existing in public?

[renthony]

I am incredibly fucking disturbed at the way this post has brought people out of the woodwork who really want to tell me all about how hitting kids isn't actually abuse, how they think babies are the spawn of Satan, and how being confined to the home is an acceptable punishment for women who dare to have children. People have told me all about how they think children should be banned from airplanes, that I'm being inconsiderate to childfree people, that allowing crying babies in public is ableist against people with sensory issues (I have those, too, and so do many children, which is often WHY THEY ARE CRYING, jackass), and that people who have children are "irresponsible" and "selfish."

I have blocked multiple people who went on tirades about how I'm a "horrible breeder" who is "contributing to overpopulation" and how I and my "spawn" deserve to be trapped at home. (I am infertile and my foster kid is an adult now, so I don't know what breeding and spawn they think they're talking about.)

One person asked if I was posting ragebait for fun because "this isn't a real issue." Several have asked if this "really happens" and told me that my "experience isn't universal." (There are multiple parents in the comments who have agreed with me and talked about how hard it is to navigate the world with their kids.)

Children are an oppressed class who are treated like absolute vermin. Parents are given absolutely no support in caring for them. Good parents are set at a disadvantage even when they have all the best intentions, struggling parents aren't given resources to improve their situation or get community assistance, and blatantly abusive parents don't get caught because hitting and screaming and controlling are considered perfectly normal ways to treat a child. Communities would rather shut kids away where they can be ignored and forgotten and mistreated, all for the sin of "being annoying in public."

Youth liberation is vital, regardless of whether you, personally, like kids. You cannot ban children from public. You cannot shut children away in isolation and expect them to grow into happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults who can function in our society. You do not get to demand children be removed from every corner of public life all for your personal comfort.

Children are people.

[renthony]

People in my notes of my youth liberation post keep asking me if I think kids should be allowed in bars, and it's driving me up the wall for two main reasons:

1. My original post was talking about the ways I watched my mother get harassed for bringing toddlers to *the grocery store.* Jumping to "omg so you think kids should be allowed in BARS?!" is a hell of a stretch.

2. If you have to be 18 or 21 to get into a bar/club, duh, that's not a place for kids. They check ID at the door for a reason. But not every bar is like that. My favorite local bar is actually a brewery and family pub with board games and big tables for game nights. They host food trucks and have a nice outdoor seating area. I have been up there for multiple community events that welcome kids and families. I have literally held a toddler at the pub while their mama got herself a glass of cider from the bar as an "I just stopped breastfeeding and can have a drink again" treat. Family-friendly establishments that also serve alcohol are, like, 100% a thing. Hell, *Applebee's* has both a kids' menu and an alcohol menu.

[str-ngeloop]

"public schooling in america is by and large not designed for ideal learning and has a lot of fucked up incentives and structures that encourage mistreatment of children" ✅

"it would be preferable to have no structure or standardization and just go by vibes" ❌

"education itself is the problem, knowledge is fake, math and writing are unimportant, and ignorance is wisdom" ❌❌❌

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

It's like the education version of "the police are corrupt and courts are inefficient, so we should bring back mob rule and it will go good because my mob has the correct morals".

[squidinktea]

i dont want 22 episode seasons back. i dont want 8 episode seasons. i dont actually want a prescriptive number of episodes per season

its the era of streaming. we dont need to fil x number of timeslots.

i want tv shows to be able to determine for themselves what their optimal number of episodes per season to tell the story they want at the pace they want. maybe thats a 3 episode season. maybe thats a 50 episode season. i dont care, i just want the decision to be made for practical and artistic reasons rather than corporate ones

[renthony]

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately that tell dropouts "you can always go back!"

And that's not bad! It's true for a lot of people! You CAN go back later! You can apply to university, you can get your GED, you can pursue whatever level of education you want. It's not bad to share that message. If you dropped out and want to go back eventually, there is zero timeline. You can go back at any age, with any life experience. You do not have to graduate by a specific age.

But as someone who dropped out of college over a decade ago, sometimes "you can always go back!" starts to feel a little like an empty platitude. Sometimes it starts to feel grating instead of hopeful. Even when it might technically be true, sometimes it still feels like a hollow sentiment.

I just want to say, to anyone else out there who feels that way, who dropped out and CAN'T go back, potentially EVER, whether it's due to poverty or disability or any other reason:

It's okay to drop out and never go back. It might feel shitty, and you may even feel grief over it. That's real, and painful, and allowed. But you are not lesser. Even if you never go back, you are not a failure or a loser. Academics do not define your worth. You are not stupid. And it is almost certain that the system actually failed YOU.

With love,

A fellow burnout

[renthony]

A couple people have reblogged this with the comment that it's also okay to be totally confident in the decision to drop out, and to not grieve about it at all. And you know what? Yeah! They're right!

I personally still deal with a lot of grief about how my university career ended, but that's just one experience. I know other people with zero regrets, who talk openly about the ways that dropping out literally saved their lives. Life throws nasty curveballs sometimes.

So, to everyone who dropped out, for whatever reason, and however you feel about it: the educational system is a fucking minefield, but academics don't define your worth, and sometimes dropping out is the only option. Rock on.

[renthony]

*grips all of tumblr by the shoulders*

If you are THAT MAD at me for saying children are people who should be allowed in public, you can just fucking block me instead of writing essays in my notes about how I'm a horrible idiot and children are the spawn of Satan. You can just fucking block me and move on. Oh my god.

[renthony]

There are full-on eugenicists in my notes talking about how poor people shouldn't be allowed to have children.

Can y'all fucking stop.

[renthony]

Part of me is like, "I should just move on and lock the post," and part of me is like, "my notes have been garbage for a FULL SOLID MONTH because I dared to say children are people, so I'm going to keep yelling about this until people get it in their heads that CHILDREN. ARE. PEOPLE."

[mercurialturnip]

Sorry you're getting shit for telling the objective truth. I never realized that was a thing people were so twisted up over.

[renthony]

*grips all of tumblr by the shoulders*

If you are THAT MAD at me for saying children are people who should be allowed in public, you can just fucking block me instead of writing essays in my notes about how I'm a horrible idiot and children are the spawn of Satan. You can just fucking block me and move on. Oh my god.