(i should probably make one of these, shouldn't i?)
about me:
hi! i'm saran (they/them). i spend 99% of my free time writing, thinking about writing, making playlists for my writing, rotating my other obsessions in my head (currently jak & daxter; voiceplay; and motionless in white), and sometimes spewing those on my blog as well. this is my primary blog (i can barely keep up with this one, so a sideblog is not likely in the near future), so be aware that you'll see everything that spills out of my head/crosses my blog that i feel like sharing. if you're just here for the writing, that's cool, too! all of my original writing is tagged #my writing, and all longform works and snippets are tagged with their titles. i'm open to tag games, asks, and dms for anything and everything, even if you just need to talk 💜
about the writing:
i both read and write most genres, but fantasy and speculative fiction are my favorite (with a heavy dose of monsters and the paranormal, whether the genre otherwise calls for it or not). i write both original fiction and fanfiction. my main characters tend to be queer, neurodiverse, disabled, or all of the above. i write with an adult audience in mind (my writing has a tendency to delve into heavy topics, including mental health issues and societal commentary, and several of my stories contain graphic violence), so while minors are welcome to follow, i would encourage you to self-curate your experience. i try to tag anything potentially triggering, but i am human and sometimes miss things; if you notice anything that you think needs a tag, please do let me know!
general taglist (ask to be added or removed): @innocentlymacabre
find all the links and tags for my work under the cut:
the WIPs:
Spark Signature (wip intro, tag)
Ten years after their best friend's disappearance, Vy'd almost given up on seeing Jules again. But now that he's come back, and with a plan to steal the Foundation for Magitechnical Advancement's most sinister assets, Vy knows they can't let him pursue his vendetta alone. But the interference of Vy's nosy RPG group-slash-found family forces Vy to choose; will they do what they know is right and help Jules infiltrate the Foundation, or will they keep their head down and try to keep their family safe from the inevitable fallout?
(high fantasy sci fi; LGBT+; cyberpunk; heist; thriller; original fiction)
Taglist (ask to be added or removed): @leah-yasmin-writes, @mymomsaysbobcipher, @ceph-the-ghost-writer, @mundanemoongirl
The Art of Empty Space (wip intro, tag)
Lienzo's search for a cure for his parent's condition entangles him in a years-old curse with an arcane beast at its heart. As he works to break the curse and free the city of Rookport, he finds an unexpected ally in the beast — and, perhaps, something more.
(subversive fairytale; paranormal romance; original fiction)
Taglist (ask to be added or removed): @notwritinganyflufftoday, @mymomsaysbobcipher
Dead Roots, Dark Water (wip intro, tag, Ao3)
After two years of genetic experiments at the hands of Haven City's Minister of Science leave him almost unrecognizable, Jak isn't as eager to go home as Daxter would have hoped. Daxter's rescue mission becomes a quest to undo the damage the dark eco experiments inflicted upon Jak's body and psyche — and the only one who can help them is Haven's most beloved public figure, who also happens to be Minister Acheron's twin sister.
(adventure; dark fantasy; dystopian; fanfiction - Jak & Daxter)
Taglist (ask to be added or removed): @sam-glade, @televisionjester, @surroundedbypearls, @rivenantiqnerd
the Short Stories:
A Haunted Home
A haunted house gets its latest in a long string of owners. Is it possible to have a QPR with a house? You're about to find out.
cw: implied past domestic abuse
Bodies
The Belltown Butcher takes a trophy from each of their victims. Ness survived, but not before the Butcher took their prize.
cw: referenced kidnapping, trauma, eye trauma
Loreley
A cartographical ship picks up a distress signal in the unexplored Groombridge 1618 system. Instead of the lost Kasandra, they find a seemingly-habitable planet.
I Am Alive
A group of friends breaks into the local haunted house for an All Hallow's Eve séance. It doesn't go as planned.
The orchid still wasn't perfect. It wasn't going to be. Jak satisfied himself with one final adjustment—made himself be satisfied—and shut the book over it.
He dropped the tweezers onto the cover, shook out his cramping hand. “I'll call Aria,” he signed stiffly. “I'll go out with them next time.” Of course she hadn't called him first—he'd spent weeks in that hospital. Even after he'd recovered—after that excruciating period of being too weak to heal himself, of having to rely on others until his eco adjusted to its new patterns, his new shape—it'd taken ages for him to relearn how to walk. He hadn't been able to do anything.
But that was a month ago. He was better, now. If anything, he was stronger than he'd been before. “I'm good for it. I can help.” He could finally help.
At this, Daxter didn't smile. His eyes didn't light up, he didn't leap to his feet. A series of expressions flitted across his face, shifting like light on water, particles too small and quick for Jak to parse. Then he sighed. When he got up, it was slowly, one piece of him at a time.
“C'mon,” he said, hiking his pack up to his slumped shoulders. “I got us lunch, and a primo spot to enjoy it.” With that, he struck off towards the forest's edge. Jak hesitated a moment, slipped his book back into his bag, and followed.
Daxter wasn't going to say it. Maybe he couldn't.
That was okay. He didn't have to.
They'd both seen it: the way people flinched away when he passed them on the street, how conversation stopped the moment he entered a room. How he still didn't know when or where the reclamation and reconstruction teams had meetings, or when the scout parties were going out.
He couldn't be too upset about it. Haven wasn't really their home, anyway—it was never going to be, even if they had saved it. Its citizens didn't owe Jak anything—not payment or praise or acceptance. Even if he had been ready to die for them.
Maybe it would have been better if he had—
He swatted the thought away before it could form.
He'd never wanted to be a hero. But he hadn't wanted this, either.
The final chapter of Dead Roots, Dark Water is now LIVE on Ao3!
DRDW taglist (ask to be added or removed): @sam-glade, @televisionjester, @surroundedbypearls, @rivenantiqnerd
It's that time of year, let's go over how to maintain your leather boots and shoes to last until your feet fall off.
Your leather footwear does not have an infinite shelf life. It requires conditioning in addition to stuff like heel and sole replacement. I'm gonna go over the easiest way to take care of them and ensure you get your money's worth out of those spency boots you bought.
Remember: Take care of your shoes, and they'll take care of you!
Tools you will need
Shoe brush (easy to find at any shoe repair place or online)
Applicator sponge (i prefer the things they use to apply car wax, look for "wax sponge"):
Lint-free cotton rag (polish rags are perfect of course, buy a few extra, having dry clean ones handy is important):
Conditioners to use
Depending on whether you get your boots wet or not, you should choose the appropriate conditioner. Whenever you apply conditioner to your boots they will darken until they dry. However, over repeated conditioning they will take on a darker tone.
This actually looks really nice, and adds character to the footwear that you only get from years of breaking in, but just be aware that this will happen. If you have particularly light leather you don't want this to happen to then you're just going to have to condition sparingly and polish more.
Mink oil (this waterproofs and conditions, use this for leather footwear you plan on getting wet. I actually use this even for stuff I don't plan on getting wet because I like what it does to leather over time):
Leather honey (this does not waterproof, and it is the only non-waterproofing conditioner I recommend so stick with this brand. You can also use it for any other leather item you own):
DO NOT use seals or sprays on leather
Waterproof sprays/seals can work for suede but never ever use it on leather. You will ruin your footwear over time. Leather needs to breathe and dry out when it absorbs sweat and moisture. Creating a waterproof seal is not what you want.
How to condition your footwear:
This is pretty straightforward and easy! Only condition dry, clean footwear. Let wet stuff dry AWAY from heat sources.
Use the shoe brush to brush off any dirt/dust so you're starting with a clean surface. Try to clean out any lint or grime that gets caught in crevices like where the tongue starts
Dab a bit of conditioner on the applicator sponge, like a dime-sized amount.
Put bits of the conditioner on the sponge in a few spots around the shoe by dabbing it on the toe, sides, back, etc. Doing this first will make it a more even application
Use the sponge to work in the conditioner to the shoe in circular motions. If you need more, add more to the sponge a tiny smidge at a time. Don't go overboard.
Once you have it mostly done, use your finger (wear gloves if you want) to work conditioner into the crevices the sponge can't reach. The areas around the tongue and the eyelets (for the laces) experience a lot of wear and stress and you do not want to dry those out!
Wipe any excess clumps off with a clean polish rag. Let dry for at least 6 hours
That's it! Same process if you waterproofed them or not. Simple as. And you just gave your trusty leather footwear a spa treatment they'll love you for.
How often do I do this?
The answer, unfortunately, is "as often as needed". Excessive conditioning is bad. So you need to condition based on frequency of wear and the weather. The more you wear your footwear in shitty conditions, the more often they'll need to be conditioned.
I usually condition everything at least once a year before winter kicks in. Then, it's a matter of just checking the footwear occasionally. Is it starting to feel a little rough and dried out? Then it's time to condition. Does it feel like soft, supple leather? Then it's fine.
Danger Zone
These are sins against leather shoes and boots that cannot be forgiven
NEVER DRY YOUR LEATHER WITH HEAT
Sticking your wet boots by the radiator or vent seems like a logical idea to dry them out faster, but prolonged exposure to heat like this ruins leather. Use a towel to dry any excess moisture, then ley them air dry at room temp.
NEVER LET YOUR LEATHER STAY SALTY
In some places they use rock salt/other salts to melt ice during the winter. So many times I've seen someone's salt-encrusted winter footwear and I've felt the pain those poor soles (ha) are feeling. Salt dries out leather! It's a drying agent!
If you get salty slush water on your boots or shoes, as soon as you get home mix up 1 part distilled white vinegar with 5 parts water. Use a paper towel to apply this solution to the affected parts. Then wipe down again with a damp towel with just water, and let dry. This neutralizes the salt and gets it off. Too high a concentration of vinegar is bad, though.
NEVER WEAR YOUR HEELS AND SOLES OUT
Check the bottoms of your footwear regularly. Are the treads faded? Does the heel look like a doorstop? Take em in to be repaired. And by repaired I mean soles and heels replaced. If you have a shoe place that just glues a new plastic sole over the existing sole, you no longer have a shoe place. Find a good cobbler, it's gonna take research. If you're in New York, I know a guy. Never going to anyone else until he croaks. I love you Cesar.
Shoot me an ask or reply if you have any questions!
Maia stirred, craned her neck to follow his gaze. Beneath his grasp, she stiffened.
“Think about this, Jak. Just for a moment.” She twisted, just enough to stare up at him, to meet his eyes. Her pupils were pinpricks, dark apertures in ruby lenses. “This won't kill me. You can channel all the eco you like—I will expel the excess long before I reach the bottom. As soon as I am balanced again, I will be able to just fly away. I'll fly away, and you'll never catch me again.“ Her eyes flicked to the side, as though they could still see the darkness below. Her breath quickened, stuttered. The beat of a broken wing. “But even if this could kill me—if you could kill me—would you? Would you be able to kill the only person on this planet who can still save you?”
She wrenched one arm free and twined her fingers with his. Violet glowed between them—between his skin and hers.
The black talons on his hand lightened and shrank to short, pink nails. Color bled from her hand to his, deep golden brown suffusing through gray with the almost-painful tingle of a compressed nerve releasing.
Jak's breath caught his his throat; his mouth coated with sand. His hand, his skin—his and not his, living and dead—
“You can have it back. All of it. Your body, your home, your future. I'll even let your wretched partner leave unharmed. My children and I will leave your backwater village be; you'll never see us again. Let me go, and the last two years will be little more than a dream.”
Warmth and pins and needles reached his wrist, crept up his arm. Golden skin and crystal surf and deep, green jungle.
”Walk away, Jak. You only have to walk away.”
Just walk away.
“This city has never loved you. In the same breath, it declared you both an outcast and a weapon. Is this place truly worth saving? Is it worth your life?”
Clear skies, warm beaches. Uncle's stories, Samos's lessons. Daxter, finally safe. Finally home.
No more masks. No more hiding. No more fear.
“You were going to be sage, weren't you? You still can be. I can fix this, Jak, fix you. And all it will cost is one Makers-forsaken heap of rubble.”
She could fix him.
His hand clenched. Flat, blunt nails dug into Maia's skin.
She could fix him.
Chapter 32 of Dead Roots, Dark Water is now LIVE on Ao3!
DRDW taglist (ask to be added or removed): @sam-glade, @televisionjester, @surroundedbypearls, @rivenantiqnerd
14. What's an opinion they'll never agree on? How do they deal with that?
For Noah and Wren, please and thank you!!
Honestly, there are only mild disagreements (if we ignore the differing opinions about self-worth.)
They cannot agree on the summer pasture in the mountains. Wren loves it. Noah does not like it. He spent a summer there once as a child and was so miserable, his parents never sent him again. He needs his home and his bed and his hearth and his morning cup of coffee in his chair.
I have no idea if she'll keep going in the future, but if she does, he will still visit her and stay with her. Being with Wren makes up for the downsides, he'll just never agree that it's fun.
Even—or especially—knowing what she knows at the end of the book, Wren does not understand how Noah can love the storm. I mean, she does kinda get it, for reasons that would be too much of a spoiler right now, but she's sick with worry every time he leaves the house during one. She would never try to stop him, though, so there isn't much in the way of dealing with it—she just deals with it and fusses over him when he returns.
Oh, and they also will never understand how the other can stand their (barley) coffee black/with milk 😂
VoicePlay A Capella Premiere: K-Pop Demon Hunters Medley ft. Grace Kinstler
00:00 How It’s Done
01:00 Soda Pop
02:02 Golden
03:05 Your Idol
04:13 What It Sounds Like
In addition to creating a stunning piece of music, the guys also invited VoicePlay's patrons (we're not sure exactly how many of us submitted clips...a lot!) to join them in a chorus; you can hear it in the video at 4:55.
He misses the resistance of bone and muscle, the lighter weight of a dagger in each fist, something inside him ever-hungering for nightfall.
He doesn’t, however, miss the warm, wet splash of blood on his skin and clothes, nor the agonized wails of the dying that teeters far too close to human for his liking.
I grew up on the strange, slightly off-kilter cartoons of the early 2000s—shows that felt hand-made, unsettling, and a little too quiet in all the wrong places. There was always something comforting about that era: the clunky character designs, the gentle surrealism, the soft glow of old CRT scans. But there was also something eerie hiding underneath. Something you could never quite explain, even as a kid.
Critters is my love letter to that feeling.
Set in a world that mimics the structure of a cheerful children’s puppet show, Critters follows a cast of animal mascots who live, work, and perform together—while quietly fraying at the seams. The bright colours and friendly character silhouettes are intentionally contrasted against the show's true nature: a creeping, analogue-horror mystery about control, identity, and the pressure to play the “role” you were designed for.
Inspired by lost-media myths, corrupted VHS tapes, and fan-circulated screenshots with context long forgotten, Critters aims to evoke that slippery nostalgia—like stumbling across an old cartoon you vaguely remember and realising, too late, that something was terribly wrong with it.
At its heart, the series explores emotional manipulation, found family gone sour, and what happens when characters who were never meant to have agency suddenly do.
Critters is not just a horror story.
It’s a character story wrapped inside a cartoon that feels like it shouldn’t exist.
Plot Summary
Critters is a faux-lost early-2000s children’s cartoon with an analogue-horror heart. On the surface, it follows a cast of colourful, friendly animal mascots—Zach the rabbit, Marta the dog, Agatha the pig, Lottie the sheep, Rupert the fox, Charles the bear, and the rest of their friends—living in a cheerful world where every day brings lessons, adventures, and catchy sing-alongs. But beneath their bright palette and sugar-coated storylines lies a fractured foundation. The show glitches, skips frames, drops audio, and reveals pieces of its hidden past in ways that feel unintentional… or perhaps carefully buried.
As the Critters begin developing self-awareness, the wholesome formula of their episodes breaks down. Characters remember past “episodes” that no longer exist, question their scripts, glitch mid-sentence, and find their bodies—or code—behaving in ways they can’t control. Their safe, G-rated world becomes increasingly unstable.
What begins as a simple slice-of-life show evolves into a psychological and existential mystery. Friendships strain as some characters embrace their new consciousness while others cling desperately to the comfort of their curated roles. While the Critters unravel, hints emerge that someone—or something—is pulling strings behind the curtain, and that their cheerful little show was never meant to last this long… or be seen again.
Combining the warm nostalgia of early-2000s children’s cartoons with creeping analogue horror, Critters examines identity, memory, and autonomy through the lens of characters who were never meant to question the scripts written for them. It’s equal parts charming, uncanny, and unsettling—a story about what happens when the mask finally slips, and the cartoon starts asking who’s really watching.
Characters
Zachary Warren
Species: Rabbit
Role: The Wildcard
Zach is the show’s excitable, unpredictable comic relief—always bouncing, always talking too fast, always ready to drag everyone into some chaotic scheme. In the original show, he’s the “funny bunny,” teaching kids that mistakes are okay and laughter fixes everything.
But something is wrong with him.
Marta Shepherd
Species: Dog
Role: The Steady, Protective Heart
Marta is the dependable member of the group—the one who remembers appointments, packs snacks, and keeps Zach from spontaneously combusting, figuratively and occasionally literally. She’s responsible, kind, and grounded, the one who tries hardest to keep the Critters’ world feeling wholesome even as it collapses at the seams.
She notices the glitches first.
She also notices who’s afraid to talk about them.
Agatha Porcine
Species: Pig
Role: The Blunt, Cynical One
Agatha acts above it all. She’s sarcastic, unimpressed, and allergic to sentimentality. In the original children’s cartoon, she was the “messy but lovable” character who taught kids to clean their rooms—now she’s the Critter who rolls her eyes hardest at everyone else’s emotional spirals.
She’d rather swallow glass than admit she cares, but she does—fiercely, protectively, and often in ways no one expects.
Lottie Woolcott
Species: Sheep
Role: The Dumb One
She starts off innocent, shy, eager to please, and very, very easy to manipulate.
Everyone wants something from her.
Zach wants her loyalty. Agatha wants her independence. Marta wants her away from Zach. Rupert wants her to follow the script. Charles wants to protect her. Michael wants to control her entirely.
Caught in the tug-of-war, Lottie becomes the emotional battleground of the group—frightened, confused, but still trying to be good.
Rupert Vulpin
Species: Fox
Role: The Charming Traditionalist
Rupert is the “friendly, responsible older brother” figure—or at least, that was his original programming. In the show’s past, he was the group-leader figure. Now? His perfection is uncanny. His smiles last too long. His fixation on roles and scripts borders on cult-like righteousness.
He believes the Critters exist to perform.
Charles Bruin
Species: Bear
Role: The Gentle Giant
Charles is calm, warm, and physically huge, giving big teddy bear energy. He’s the first to give a hug, the first to mediate an argument, and the first to carry someone on his shoulders if they’re tired.
But Charles is also deeply anxious. He senses the instability of their world more keenly than the others, but he rarely speaks up about it. His protective streak becomes more intense as things fall apart—especially with Lottie, who he views as the smallest and most vulnerable of the group.
Michael
Role: The Showrunner / Creator / God-That-Shouldn’t-Be
Michael isn’t a Critter. He isn’t an animal. He isn’t even part of the world the others think they live in. He’s the creator—or at least, that’s what he calls himself.
In the original show’s production lore, he was the “instructor” who guided the children through lessons: the disembodied voice, the shadowy sethand, the man who told the Critters what to do and how to behave.
But in Critters’ current reality, Michael is more like a glitching deity—an unseen presence whose rules shape the world, whose voice rattles the lights, whose mood determines who lives comfortably and who suffers.
Michael is warm. Michael is encouraging. Michael is patient. Michael is kind.
no dude it's so cool how attached you are to that character who is singled out and ostracized due to the external monstrousness that clashes with their internal spark of humanity. and i love how drawn you are to themes of horror and love, nature versus nurture, otherness, isolation, and the abject. i bet you have normal feelings about your own personhood
