[irrepressible-domovoy]

Life Update

So, I'm making this for anyone who reads my fics or just wants to know how they can help a queer, disabled household.

Some of you may already know that my sisters and I just moved out of our awful neighborhood and our moldy apartment. We managed to scrounge together the fees, which is great, but we're still waiting for rent assistance, so we're struggling quite a bit in the meantime.

My sister's new wheelchair has also been canceled because her insurance won't cover it due to a mistake in the doctor's paperwork and the doctor is no longer with her, so we have to wait to fight with a new doctor to fill out the paperwork again and hope we have enough duct tape to hold the old one together for now. (And that is not hyperbole, though I wish it was)

I'm also still struggling with hours at my job (only getting 5 hours a week) but I have hopes that I will be getting a second job soon. Downside is I still have to finish paying off some medical bills until then.

If anyone has the ability to help in any way, even if it's just a dollar, you can donate to our ko-fi or my cash app. I also have fanfiction on ao3 and am taking requests for one-shots if anyone is interested.

Thank you so much!

Edit as of September 28, 2025: So, some good news. I finally got a service dog! She's still in training and is only 4 months old at this point, but I have her and she's learning fast. If anyone wants to help contribute to her care or toys or training gear, you can send to my cash app and specify what you want it to go to. (I may also make an Amazon list at some point for some things she will be needing soon)

Edit September 29: I got a baby photo from her old owners!

She's beautiful and always has been.

[scribblesattwoam]

Other

Hey, I wrote another short story! (This one shorter than usual, but I really like it)

Major trigger warning for child neglect/mistreatment and minor trigger warning for a brief mention of blood/gore and slight body horror(?)

I am really proud of this, though, so I hope you like it.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

There’s a reason orphanages and churches care for children.

Most people will tell you that it’s some religious or moral ideology, but we all know that’s not true.

We’ve all heard the howls from the woods and seen the reflections of Their eyes in the torchlight. We’ve all heard the scratches on our doors at night and had to recount our animals and relatives when someone was missing.

We all know these things and yet… we pretend that the orphanages are for the children, not for us.

Last month, the Owens family was slaughtered. Cousins, aunts, uncles. No one was spared.

Everyone except for the youngest: a little boy of three, Idris.

They found him in the middle of his house, surrounded by the carnage and covered in his parents’ blood, crying his eyes out but without a scratch on him. Just like all the others.

The orphanage has been full for the past few months and this is a poor town, so no one had the room or the income to take on another kid.

We all felt bad for him, we really did. I wanted to take him in myself, but books aren’t a very lucrative business here and I can barely feed myself.

So, armed with excuses as to why we wanted to avoid this poor child, we went about our lives.

Idris would wander the streets, knocking on doors and asking for scraps to eat. I gave him what I could when I had it.

I heard he wandered off into the woods sometime in that first week.

The whispers going around town were that we would see another one of Them soon enough.

The others blamed the orphanage for not making a space on the floor, but I knew who was really to blame.

Us.

We didn’t pull ourselves together. Whatever happened next would be entirely what we deserved.

I took to leaving a bowl of porridge and a cup of water on my steps at night.

It would always be cleaned and dry in the morning and while the other houses would have scratches all along their doors and the chickens and goats would be missing, I wouldn’t have a thing out of place.

Yesterday I decided to take a walk in the snow to clear my head.

The neighbors had begun to talk, saying that I had “made a pact with the devils in the woods.”

The cold air nearly knocked the breath from my lungs with every gust of air, properly distracting me from my troubles, and the scenery made me smile with its beauty. Oh, how I wished the others weren’t so afraid so they could see this, too.

A snorting snuffle drew my attention. Up in the tree to my left was… I couldn’t tell you what it looked like (a beaked, ape-like creature of some kind?) but I knew what it was, if not who it was.

“Hello.” Let it be known that I still had my manners.

It chirped, a snuffly sound, in greeting and cocked its head to the side.

Another creature crawled from behind a tree on all fours, followed by dozens of others.

All of them were entirely unique, but all of them had one thing in common: They were gaunt, sickly. As if they hadn’t eaten or seen the warmth of a fire or home in years.

Except for one.

He was small and had stepped into the middle of the group. Horns had sprouted from his head and he was covered in scales. He seemed well-fed and happy, though.

His coat, thinned and holey from use, was familiar.

“Idris.”

He grinned, showing off rows upon rows of straight, razor-sharp fangs.

After I had returned home, I was still enthralled.

These children had been abandoned by society and had been left to become something Other and they still became something greater.

As I look out my window now and see the society they left behind, I can’t help but to think… maybe I should join them.

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[scribblesattwoam]

I’m Sorry

I wrote this one while surrounded by small children, so it may be a bit weird…

I was inspired by two prompts (1 and 2) from @thependragonwritersguild​ (my favorite blog to get prompts from, no doubt about it) and this weird, ancient superstition from Finland (I believe; correct me if I’m wrong) that if you said the word “bear,” you would summon one.

Warnings: I don’t believe there are any in this one, but please let me know if you catch one that I didn’t. It’s been a long week, so…

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

My grandfather was the last of the Bards and the Storytellers.

The leaders of our community had ordered all of them executed when he was just a little boy, too young to understand why his parents were terrified.

All he knew was that he wasn’t allowed to tell his stories anymore.

Stories and songs themselves weren’t outlawed; that would have been too much. But the people saw what happened to their friends and family and neighbors and began to wonder.

What if they were a Storyteller and didn’t know it? What if they were a Bard?

And soon, they all became silent out of fear. Some even stopped drawing and painting just to be safe.

No one wrote new stories, just in case they were accidentally read out loud.

Children were put to bed in silence.

No one told stories anymore.

No one except for my grandfather.

Grandfather knew what he was. He knew the great dangers his existence brought.

But he was careful.

His songs did nothing, so he would sing us to sleep without a care for his choice in songs. Whatever flitted across his mind became our lullaby.

But his stories…

He would never speak them aloud in town.

He would go into the woods with a single light to read by.

The stories he would write were specifically tailored to what he was trying to do. Every word was chosen with great care.

And then, when he would come home… It would be done.

The drought would have ended. The plague would have been cleared. The missing child would have showed back up on their parents’ doorstep without a scratch on them.

Three days ago, my grandfather died.

His dying wish was that I go into the cellar and burn his emergency stories, but I couldn’t. Not without reading them for myself.

All of my grandfather’s stories had only brought happiness and prosperity, so I didn’t see the harm in it.

I was a fool.

I had always thought our leaders to be the monsters for slaughtering the Storytellers.

I was wrong. Oh, was I wrong…

When I opened the locked chest in the pit in the dark cellar, I found three short stories and began to read them out loud.

I’m so sorry.

I didn’t know.

You see, I thought my grandfather’s emergency stories were to help people. But they weren’t.

They were punishments intended for if our people ever turned on each other again or became a danger to the world around us.

If he ever saw our leaders beginning to do something like they did when he was a child, he was going to read these pages.

I have since burned them, as he asked, but it’s too late.

The screams of my neighbors have long since died down and I can hear the cackling of the creatures as they scratch at my windows and door.

I’m sorry.

I don’t know if they’ll leave bodies for you to find. I’m not even sure what to call them.

If they stay after I’m gone, I pray their hunger will have been sated, at least for a little while.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t know.

I had no way of knowing.

I’d never told a story out loud before.

Buy my groceries?

[scribblesattwoam]

New link to help with bills

[scribblesattwoam]

Visitors

Fair Warning: This is in first person and the main character is just me if I was in this situation and I am an oblivious person. It’s a miracle I’m not dead already.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Halloween. It’s probably my favorite day of the year.

I always love seeing the creativity of all of the costumes and listening to the shrieks of glee as the kids run from house to house.

Unfortunately, I don’t get a whole lot of visitors due to a combination of living out on the edge of nowhere and the weird rumors. (I’m different and that’s okay. The neighbors just love to hold tight to their stereotypes)

But I love the visitors I do get. They’re mostly teenagers, too, so it makes me feel good to show them some love. (And they really appreciate full-sized candy bars)

The first few years they began showing up, I don’t think they were up to any good…

A pot crashed on the front porch.

I sighed and shook my head with a small smile on my lips, grabbing the bowl of candies.

I opened the door and looked around, spying someone in a very realistic werewolf costume ducked down below the side of the porch.

“Hello,” I called. “Happy Halloween.”

The teenager froze.

I looked down at the pot by his feet, obviously knocked off the railing above, and smiled comfortingly.

“At least it was an empty one.” Silence. “That’s a fantastic costume. Did you make it yourself?”

He blinked, his yellow contacts flashing in the darkness.

“You could say that.”

I chuckled and knelt closer, holding the bowl out.

“Would you like some candy?”

He eyed the bowl and glanced back up sheepishly.

“Do you have anything besides chocolate?”

I turned the bowl around so the side with all the gummies was facing him.

He snatched a bag with a clawed hand and ran off, a “thank you” shouted over his shoulder.

I woke up the next morning to find a new pot with colored glass inlaid in the clay in front of the door and the broken pot swept and put in a box for recycling.

The next year, he came right up to the door. I had a bag full of gummies waiting for him, which made him smile so big he showed off his fangs. (I really am going to have to ask him where he got those. They’re just so realistic)

When I was getting ready for bed, though, I heard some scratching and thumping from outside.

After I put on my robe and slippers, I picked up the candy bowl and opened the front door to find two people climbing the side of my house.

I couldn’t see any equipment, so they must’ve been on the gymnastics team, but I didn’t know that it was possible to climb plastic siding.

When I stepped out, they both froze like I’d caught them both with their hands in the cookie jar… That is, if the cookie jar was twenty feet in the air.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

The boy looked up at the girl who just shook her head minutely.

I barely kept from rolling my eyes. They were either there to rob me or trying to pull some sort of prank and I was not having it.

“How about you two hop on down here, take some candy, and go on home?” I frowned, realizing how late it was. “Do your parents know you’re out right now?”

They shared a look.

“No, ma’am.” The boy let go of whatever he was hanging onto and landed in a crouch in front of me, his friend following smoothly.

I blinked twice at the smell. They must have had pockets full of pennies, because they reeked of copper. I wondered what kind of prank they were pulling with that…

Both teenagers took candy bars and left, whispering between themselves the whole way down the road.

I really couldn’t figure out what equipment they used to get up there, though.

I didn’t see anything, but there were claw marks on the side of my house the next morning.

The third year, I actually had some little kids. Three of them, and they even knocked on the door!

“Hello!” I ignored the fact that they weren’t in costume except for their black contact lenses.

“Hello, miss,” said the first in a monotone voice.

“We’re lost,” continued the second.

“May we come in and use your phone?” the third finished, smiling entirely too sweetly.

I laughed. Oh, these kids were good.

“How about I just give you some candy as a treat, that way you don’t have to trick me?”

They shared a silent, blank-faced conversation. The eldest turned back to me, squinting with a serious expression.

“That would be acceptable.”

The trio filled their pockets (I hope their parents forgave me for the inevitable sugar high) and scampered off down the road.

Ever since then, every year, I’ve gotten more and more visitors.

The ages range from elementary students to college-aged, and the costumes vary even more.

I’ve had everything from fairies to werewolves. (I had a gorgon came by last year)

On the occasion some kids come trying to cause trouble, I’ve caught the others confronting them in the woods behind the house. They never turn them away, but they make sure that everyone knows that this is a safe place.

Since that started happening, kids have been coming all year ‘round (still in their costumes) and they’ve just been getting weirder and weirder.

But even the weird theater kids need a place to hang out sometimes.

I can’t wait to see what new costumes show up tonight.

I’m thinking about making a big roast and inviting everyone in for dinner.

Some of those kids look so hungry every time I see them…

Pay my bills?

[scribblesattwoam]

New link to help with bills

[ebookfriendly]

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel…is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become. –Ursula K. Le Guin More

[scribblesattwoam]

How I Accidentally Survived the Apocalypse Ch. 5 - Christmas in the Apocalypse

The wind blew through the streets, icy and biting. Snow fell heavily around them and reflected the little light there was left from the setting sun.

Delle clutched onto Maya’s arm so she wouldn’t lose track of her in the wind, David scouting ahead.

The boy ran up the steps of a small home and jimmied the lock, waving the girls in after him.

The two women trudged up the steps after their friend and stumbled inside.

David closed the door behind them and wielded his bat.

Maya lifted her shotgun aiming it into the darkened corners of the house. Her fingers were stiff from the cold.

After searching the house from top to bottom and ensuring that there wouldn’t be any surprises, they settled in the living room. Delle curled up on the couch, pulling a blanket over herself and curling up in the corner.

David came back from the kitchen empty-handed.

Maya questioned him with her eyes, but he just shook his head. No dinner, then.

Her stomach growled but she ignored it. She hung up their coats and laid their hole-y gloves over the backs of chairs to dry, making a mental note to look through the house for new ones soon. She curled up on the floor with her ratty old blanket wrapped around her.

“Merry Christmas to us,” she whispered.

Maya rolled over, snuggling deeper into the sleeping bag’s warmth.

Wait…

She opened her eyes and scrambled from her cocoon. The sleeping bag was a light navy blue and appeared to be overstuffed and… was it waterproof?

Piled neatly in the doorframe was a pile of food. Cans of soup and two loaves of bread. A bag of different kinds of fresh fruit and packages of jerky and dried fruit. A whole sack of potatoes and a bottle of eggnog.

Maya looked to her friends with wide eyes.

A maroon bag was unzipped all the way and wrapped around Delle like a blanket.

David was wrapped in his own sleeping bag, this one a pine green with cats on it. She shook him awake.

“David. David!”

The boy blinked open his eyes, mumbling incoherently.

“Look,” Maya waved around the room.

The boy’s eyes widened and glittered like a little kid on Christmas morning.

There was a stack of logs by the empty fireplace with a box of matches on top.

Maya lost her breath for a moment when she looked over to where she’d hung the coats and gloves and saw three different coats and gloves that matched their sleeping bags. On the table was an array of survival gear; heavy duty wind-up flashlights that doubled as radios, a flare gun, cooking pots, water purifying tablets was just what she could identify from the living room. And on top of one of the coats was a foldable cane for Delle.

David tapped Delle’s covered shoulder, the woman snapping awake.

“Delle! Santa came!”

The older woman furrowed her brows as she felt the warm fabric of the sleeping bag around her.

“But,” she paused. “There’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”

David started rambling about all the food and the gear as Maya started preparing the fire.

She looked out the window with a smile, actually enjoying the snow for once in a very long time.

David handed her a glass of the eggnog.

“Merry Christmas, Maya.”

“Merry Christmas, David.”

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[scribblesattwoam]

How I Accidentally Survived the Apocalypse Ch. 4 - Newcomer

Maya was nearly thrown from her feet.

The door fell off of its track, forcing her to dive out of the way.

David swung the rope over Maya’s head, wrapping the weighted end like a bola around the zombie’s torso.

Maya stumbled to her feet and leapt on the tangled corpse, dragging it to the ground. It kicked and screamed.

Maya looked it over, trying to gauge its freshness. Seeing very little decay, she tore back its ratty sleeve and bit down hard.

The walking corpse threw her into David, knocking them both to the ground. David let go of the rope in order to try and catch Maya.

As the duo extricated themselves, the creature growled and rolled around.

Maya wiped the disgustingly rotten blood from her face.

After a few minutes the stiff’s growls turned into pained moans.

The woman turned her head back and forth, eyes unfocused.

“Who’s there?” She pulled at her bindings. “Where am I?”

David clambered to his feet and ran over to the woman.

“I am so sorry.”

Maya pulled a canteen out of her pack and approached the others.

“Here.” She placed the container in the woman’s hands.

She sniffed it, took a small sip, and began guzzling.

“You really don’t want to do that,” David warned, taking the water from her. “Trust me; take more than a couple of swallows and it all just comes back up later.”

The woman licked her lips.

“Thank you.”

Maya studied her. While she and David were in their late teens, the stranger had to be in her thirties. Her feet were bare, scratched and roughened from walking, and her eyes stayed blank and unfocused.

“What’s your name?”

“Delle.” The woman rubbed her hands together like they were cold.

“I’m Maya and this is David.”

“What happened?”

Maya opened her mouth to answer, but her friend beat her to it.

“You know all those movies and books about the zombie apocalypse?”

“Yes?”

“That happened.” David had a big ol’ grin on his face.

Maya shook her head and sat next to Delle.

“You were turned,” she said gently.

Delle swallowed.

“So they found a cure?”

Maya made an unsure noise.

“It’s more like we started biting back.”

David’s grin got even bigger before he launched into their story.

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[scribblesattwoam]

How I Accidentally Survived the Apocalypse Ch. 3 - Not-So-Silent Night

Crackles and pops from the fire were the only sounds to break the silence. The wind whispered amongst the trees and across the closed door of the barn.

David sketched across from Maya, eyes trained intently on the pad of paper he had found in the house. The flickering light of the fire cast shadows across his face in an eerie display.

Maya nearly laughed when his tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth.

She focused back on her book. (Borrowed. The owner was still around… just not alive.) The irony of reading a zombie novel during a zombie apocalypse.

It made for a good comedy, though, and gave her some really interesting ideas.

Maya stopped and looked up. The door was shut and it was hard to hear anything over the wind and fire, but…

Another shuffle.

The survivor looked to David, his drawing forgotten and in his lap. The boy was hardly breathing.

A thump sounded right outside the door, making David jump.

“David,” the girl hissed. “Get the rope.”

The boy slid his sketchpad under a pile of nearby hay and pulled a coil of rope from the bench beside him.

Another thump, more insistent.

The two survivors readied themselves: David in front of the door, the end of the rope dangling with a weight tied to the end, and Maya ready to pull the sliding door open.

Another thud, this time rattling the door’s hinges.

“Ready?”

David nodded and begun swinging the weight in a wide circle.

Maya, taking a deep breath, pulled on the latch.

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[scribblesattwoam]

How I Accidentally Survived the Apocalypse Ch. 2 - Potato Chips and Zombies

Maya sifted through the boxes of crackers. The shelves were full, but most of the crackers were so far past their expiration date that they’d begun to turn to dust.

Maya laughed to herself. Expiration date; what a joke.

At the end of the world, no one payed attention to that sort of thing.

The ex-lone survivor tore open the last box. Inside were perfectly-formed, whole crackers.

Jackpot, she silently cheered. Maya shoved the box into her backpack and left the aisle.

From the other end of the store she heard crunches and the crackle of bags.

Rolling her eyes, she followed the sound. (It didn’t get past her that a week ago she’d have been quietly searching for a backdoor at those sounds)

“What are you doing that requires you to make all that racket?”

She came around the corner and met the answer in the form of David with an arm full of potato chip bags. The ex-zombie had a handful of golden, fried slices halfway to his lips with a guilty look in his eyes.

“I was just testing them.”

Maya rolled her eyes and snatched a few bags from the shelf, a long-suffering smile on her face.

“Come on; I think we’ve found everything edible.”

The boy began to follow. He still limped, dragging his right leg along, and he still had patches of half-healed skin but he was the embodiment of hope.

(Even if he did have chip crumbs on his face.)

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[porchbirds]

been thinking abt this a lot. A poetry professor once told me every poet has a particular emotion from which they write. It’s not what they write about, but what emerges from the writing. For instance, louise gluck posits that Richard Siken’s central emotion is panic. Even though the word is never spoken to or about, the poems are saturated with it. I think Mary Oliver can be characterized by relief. Anyway, i think having that recognizeable Emotion is a major mark of poetic voice & it’s development

[irishiris]

[illiteracy-is-for-woozles]

NaNoWriMo 2019 Intro: Delaying the Darkness

Genre: Religious Supernatural Thriller/Mystery

Word Goal: 50,000

Draft: Final

I’ve been planning this story for a couple of years now and am so excited to finally write the final draft.

Below is the summary and the character list, and you can find me on the NaNo site here.

In a small, rural town in Indiana, Death stalks the sleeping.

Omisha Patil, the county coroner, sees the pattern but struggles to get backing in her investigation until someone close to her nearly becomes the next person on her slab.

When it’s her turn, will she be able to fight back or will she succumb like the rest?

More below the cut.

Keep reading

[scribblesattwoam]

Why Are You Angry?

Why are you angry?

You said we’d always be this way.

Isn’t this what you wanted?

We tried; we really did.

We fought and struggled against it,

To be quiet and invisible.

We’re sorry we weren’t obedient enough.

Instructions are hard sometimes,

And they’re even harder when they change often.

We’re sorry we were too loud.

Crying is hard to do silently

And there are some things you can’t stay quiet about.

We’re sorry for being angry.

You gave us the leftovers after you scraped the world clean,

So I suppose we should be grateful.

We’re sorry for becoming what you told us we would be,

But we didn’t see any other choice.

It was the only thing we knew.

You said we’d be selfish,

So we began asking for things:

Respect and the right to live.

You said we’d be lazy,

So we created tools to do things for us all.

(We know how you appreciate not having to rely on us so much in your old age.)

You said we would hate ourselves.

And we do, depression and anxiety running rampant.

(We did listen to your criticisms, after all.)

You said we’d become angry.

So we stopped excusing your mistakes

And demanded action and reprisals.

You said we would become many things

And we became all of them.

We just wanted to survive.

We became what you told us to be,

What you spoke on us from childhood.

So why are you angry?

   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~

An explanation for this is I’m from that really odd generation of people in between Millenials and Gen Z. I’ve grown up listening to many of the previous generations tell us (myself and those younger than me) a million things that we would be... And then, when I grew up to be just that, they were upset.

Either they were trying to warn us or they didn’t “mean it that way.”

Now I see the Gen Z kids struggling with the same things I did and it hurts to see.

But the thing is, the "adults" have no right to be angry with us. They told us what to be and we all became that.

This is a message to my parents and all of the people who told me what and who to be, but it's also to the entirety of their generations who have done the same to those younger than me.

I hope we didn't disappoint you all too much.

Buy my groceries?

[scribblesattwoam]

In celebration of NaNoWriMo being the day after tomorrow, I will be posting the first poem I've written in nearly six years in just a few hours!

Also, keep an eye out this next month for announcements regarding my NaNo project!

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

[scribblesattwoam]

For those of you who keep asking me when my third book will be out: I'm working on it but I don't have a date set yet. I'm still working on the last draft and cleaning up some scenes.

Delaying the Darkness is a Christian psychological horror-suspense and I want it to be perfect. 😜

[scribblesattwoam]

Book Signing at Community Block Party - Hosted by Word of Life

Party event in Lafayette, IN by Valeska Parks and Word of Life Fellowship Church on Saturday, August 24 2019

Tomorrow I will be signing books!!!

The hosts of the event are providing free food and music, as well as a host of other things, so please come by if you're local and say hi!

[scribblesattwoam]

It's today!!!