sensitivity reader call for modern LGBT high school shakespeare retelling
[image: a picture of a row of light blue school lockers, over which are the words SENSITIVITY READER CALL! in white text.]
hi! i’m max & i’m seeking sensitivity readers for my podcast-in-process, A Modern Tragedy!
demographics sought
Muslim
Desi (specifically Indian & Pakistani)
Black
Trans woman / transfemme
Plus size
Working-class
the story
Rahma Ashiq didn’t expect her sophomore year of high school to be quite so Shakespearean. But she’s determined to vlog her way through the chaos: the freak thunderstorms, the ghost sightings, the usurpation of the drama club presidency, the theater director who might be a faerie queen, all of the mental breakdowns, and, of course, the girl with whom Rahma might be in hopeless, star-crossed, all-consuming love.
in less fancy terms, AMT is a sixteen-episode tragicomedy podcast with the general idea of “what if Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth all happened at the same time, in the same modern high school, to a few overlapping groups of gaytrans high schoolers?”
some other things it features: shakespeare jokes, gay love, explorations of teenage mental health, substantial amounts of #ownvoices OCD rep, drama club shenanigans, and Idiots™. you can find the main page here and the character intro posts here!
cw note: i describe AMT as a tragicomedy because it starts out very light, gets progressively darker, and ends on an optimistic note! thus, while i can guarantee a happy ending (for one thing, the gay people don’t die at the end!), i need to warn broadly for mental health triggers, suicide in particular. all three plays AMT retells deal, to varying degrees, with suicide, and it felt disingenuous not to address it in a story focused on modern teenagers. so the topic gets a not-insignificant amount of page time. other triggers involved (though to lesser degrees) include self-harm and unhealthy family dynamics.
if you’re interested in reading an excerpt of the script, to get a feel for the writing style, allow me to direct you here! (ft. rahma, reuben, + bitty prepping for homecoming)
payment
due to my financial circumstances, i’m unable to offer monetary payment at this time; however, i’m happy to offer editing, beta reading, and sensitivity reading in return:
i can edit and/or beta read your writing! by which i mean that i can do lower-level edits like line editing or typo sweeping, or i can do a full-on beta read! in terms of [straightens my tie] qualifications, i’ve been writing things for basically my entire life; i’ve done nano thrice; you can read excerpts of my work here if you want to judge my qualifications further!
i can also sensitivity read for the following demographics:
lesbian (specifically a nonbinary & butch lesbian if either of those is relevant)
transmasc (specifically i’m transmasc & nonbinary! not a trans man clearly as i am a lesbian, but i can give general tips on representing trans characters)
generalized anxiety disorder
ocd
adhd
apply
if you’d like to apply, please fill out this google form and i’ll get back to you as soon as possible!
ty for reading this post & have a lovely day!
(tagging some of the amt/general folks if any of y’all are willing to boost this for me! @piyawrites @harehearts @narratorstragedy @haldimilks @albatris @writingbyjillian )
blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): . maybe it's no one's business. did you think of that. maybe it's no one's business that i think about particular evil little goths and their moms huh
scrunkly (my "baby," character that gives me cuteness aggression): GINGER LEO... but also avery and rahma. so many scrunklies in AMT they all deserve so much better
scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): is hawk underrated. maybe he always will be because no one can appreciate him enough. hawk stevens best character in AMT. also REUBEN oh my fucking god i don't talk about reuben enough
glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and i won't shut up about it for a week): i know everything about gwen farley it's insane the woman has like four lines in the first ten episodes
poor little meow meow ("problematic"/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): INDRAJIT.
horse plinko (character i would torment for fun, for whatever reason): . also indrajit. i like to see his underdeveloped coping mechanisms whir at high speeds
eeby deeby (character i would send to superhell): how can i be a prison abolitionist but also want claude farley to rot in jail forever. also paul thornton i can't even talk about paul thornton it's literally insane how much i hate him. jurgen leitner rant about paul thornton
view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template
transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h
january
i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.
enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.
Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”
Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”
“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.
“Exactly,” Augustus says.
“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.
“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”
It isn’t.
february
in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”
it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL
I.
Someone was going to die on these steps.
This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.
It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.
march
in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)
INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?
[PAUSE.]
DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.
[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]
NONA: That’s right.
MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.
DEE: We’re using her stove.
NONA: To make pasta.
DEE: Do you want some?
[A TENSE PAUSE.]
INDRAJIT: No.
april
and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.
iv: control
They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.
People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.
may
in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.
ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -
HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.
ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.
HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.
[PAUSE.]
ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.
He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.
God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.
june
okay, honestly, i should talk about “night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!
RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.
So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.
july
every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.
“Do you… plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”
Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.
“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.
“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”
Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.
august
this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.
You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.
You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.
So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.
There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.
september
i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...
It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.
(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)
Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.
But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.
october
...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.
Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.
This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.
Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.
They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.
november
and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)
“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”
Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”
Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.
Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.
“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”
december
and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)
i kill the beast and drop down to my knees,
my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue,
and for a moment these scarred hands shake free,
and hold a world unfurled for me anew.
but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find;
fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare.
my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind;
the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there.
and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE—
O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.
i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)
a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:
(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color
thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!
