Hello! My name is Liz, the writer behind this blog! I'll post my writing on here from time to time, along with updated links to my stories on Ao3. Pop into my ask box or my DM if you ever wanna chat. I promise you, I don't bite!
With Ghost of the Ten officially completed, I've been in the process of outlining Trials of the Ten. Some things I have penciled in so far:
Hekarro and Victoria sword fighting session, because sword fights are hot.
The Enduring comes to visit The Grove because she's heard about Hekarro’s engagement. Cue Hekarro, while having great respect for his teacher, being MILDLY worried.
Hekarro leaves Kotallo in charge while he's gone.
Hekarro being in Thornmarsh and being different? (How different? Not sure but brain is screaming different)
Showcase Victoria’s medical and Old World knowledge by trying to make the Tenakths lives easier.
Lots of little things so far. I will have to cut the chafe somewhere but maybe I'll be able to showcase them in a later writing
"Nothing we do changes the past, but everything we do can change the future." —unknown
~~
Meridian was the crown jewel of the east. It sprawled across the mesa, carving terraces into the red stone, each layered with more splendor than the last. From afar its towers glimmered gold in the late sun. Up close, its walls teemed with the noise of a thousand voices and lives. Every tribe of the east had bled into the city’s veins and left behind their own little pulse. Silk banners. Music. The briny salt of cured meats and sweet rot of blooming flowers. It was all here, all at once. A miracle held together by the thinnest threads.
Aloy disliked crowds, but what she disliked far more was being watched and ever since the Battle for the Spire, the eyes of Meridian had followed her everywhere. Countless times, she had reminded everyone around her that she never asked for this. She was just a person trying to do the right thing, because that’s what Rost taught her, and because too many people in the world would rather turn away. But none of that made it any easier to be the burning center of attention. People stopped to whisper or just stood and stared. She tried not to let it get to her. The people were grateful and she told herself that she should just be gracious and ignore the rest.
She wove between the guards flanking the great staircase up towards The Sun King’s throne room, ignoring their bows. At the top, a familiar figure awaited her: Blameless Marad, Grand Spymaster, a man who was always seemed two steps ahead of any given conversation. It did not surprise her at all that the man knew she was here. Marad nodded as she arrived, his countenance unreadable. He gestured silently toward the sun throne, where Sun-King Avad sat in the heart of a churning court.
The pavilion was chaos. Dozens of nobles ringed the dais, the air was thick with incense. Voices rose in a clamor, each more insistent than the last, accusations and rumors flying over the heads of the less powerful. The word “Tenakth” was everywhere. Aloy didn’t blame them for being angry. Fashav had been beloved, and his death felt like a betrayal. But all the shouting and mourning was just a mask for fear.
It didn’t take Avad long to notice her. He smiled when he saw her, the tension in his jaw relaxing for just a second. He raised one hand and the entire court fell silent at once. A hundred eyes turned to Aloy, and in that moment she wondered if she was about to make things better or much, much worse.
“It’s good to see you again, Aloy,” Avad said, voice ringing off the stone of the open air pavilion. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
He gestured subtly to Marad, who moved to clear the room, but Aloy shook her head. “Wait,” she said, louder than she intended. “I have a message for you. From the Tenakth. And I think the rest of your court should hear it.”
A few people laughed a brittle, nervous sound.
Aloy dug into her pouch and drew out a device. It looked like nothing more than just a handful of metal packed together, wires laced with blue and green, one clear flat panel embedded in the center. Beta’s handiwork had the slapdash genius of a last-minute miracle. Aloy set it gently on the polished stone at the center of the dais. She touched the Focus at her temple.
A blue shimmering light split the air. The court gasped as a figure—lifelike in every detail, tinged only slightly with static—appeared above the device. She was tall and wore clothes no one in the room had ever seen before, hair shorn to her skull on one side while the rest fell over her shoulder like a black curtain.
“Sun-King Avad,” the hologram said, her words halting and unsure at first. “My name is Victoria Faraday, and I am asking Aloy to give you this message on my behalf. And though this might be hard for you to believe, I am an Old One.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Even Avad’s mask slipped a little; Aloy caught the flash of suspicion and fascination before it settled into careful neutrality.
“For almost a year I have lived among the Tenakth tribe. In that time, I have learned much about the people I hope to one day call my own. We are proud, fierce and determined. But above all, we strive for peace, just as much as you do.”
The hologram inclined its head again. “Which is why I am asking Aloy to deliver this message. We know that your court wants retribution for the death of Prince Fashav. He was beloved by many on both sides, and we are all poorer for his loss. However, more bloodshed only dishonors what he stood for. Which is why Chief Hekarro and I want to extend our hand in fellowship. We invite you, Sun King, and your court, to stand beside the tribes of the west as the Tenakth celebrate their Day of Unity. Bring your best and brightest champions and hunters and come share in our traditions so that we may forge a new era of peace.”
The blue light stuttered and vanished. The device emitted a faint hum before falling silent. In the vacuum it left behind, the court exploded into chaos, a hundred voices battling for dominance. Aloy looked to Avad, who remained quiet in the chaos before he raised his hand for silence. The effect was muted this time. It took several tries, and finally a bellow from Marad, to drag the pavilion back to order.
Avad’s voice, when he spoke, was measured and calm, but Aloy saw the bloodless grip on the throne’s arm, knuckles white as bone. “Is it true, Aloy? Is this…” he paused, uncertain. “Victoria Faraday an Old One?”
“Yes,” she said flatly, not bothering to soften the blow. Her eyes swept the ring of nobles, some of whom shrank at her gaze while others bristled, “Chief Hekarro and I found her in the ruins beneath the Tenakth capital. She was… asleep. I was there when the Chief made the decision to wake her up. Since then, I’ve been checking on her, off and on, whenever I could.”
Avad rested his head in one hand and worked his jaw. “I’d heard rumors from the West,” he admitted, “gossip from traders and mercenaries, tall tales out of Barren Light. I dismissed them as panic or the usual attempts to stir unrest. Aloy, why didn’t you come to us sooner?”
She hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. “Because Chief Hekarro asked me not to. I agreed with him.” Aloy kept her gaze upon the Sun King, lips pressed thin. “The world you and I know is already dangerous, but to someone like her, it’s monstrous. She woke up in a place she didn’t recognize, among people who look like her but aren’t her kin. And Chief Hekarro needed to be sure she wasn’t a threat before he introduced her to anyone, even his own tribe.”
“Typical Tenakth secrecy,” someone muttered, but the words fell flat.
Avad looked to Marad, who spoke up without waiting for permission. “How did she survive?” he asked.
Aloy shrugged. “She says she was put there by her own people.” Aloy paused, searching for a way to explain the rest. “She’s not like us. She understands things about the world that no one else does. But she’s not interested in power. She just wants to live in peace.”
Marad’s skepticism was almost palpable. “And yet she’s attached herself to the Tenakth Chief,” he said.
“She owed him her life. He's shown her grace and compassion in the face of her monumental loss.” Aloy let a note of reproach into her voice. “If he’d meant to use her as a weapon, he’d have done it already.”
Avad nodded, turning the idea over in his mind. “This Day of Unity, is it a genuine offer?”
“It’s real,” she answered, “and it’s the best chance you’ve got if you want to avoid a war.”
Avad glanced to Blameless Marad, whose eyes flicked once to Aloy, then to the inert device still lying on the stone. “The optics of this, Your Radiance, are… delicate. But, this might be the best chance to preserve the peace you desire.”
Voices erupted around the pavilion, but Avad quelled them at once with a single look. “Peace requires courage,” he said, his voice steady despite the white-knuckled grip on his armrest. “My father ruled through blood and terror. I will not dishonor his victims by returning to those ways.” His eyes met Aloy’s. “Tell Chief Hekarro and this Old One that when their celebration comes, the Sun and its court will stand among them beneath the same sky.”
~~
“You know,” Victoria said, her tone light but edged as always with the gentle sarcasm, “I always thought Dekka over exaggerated when it came to your worrying.” At her words, Hekarro surfaced from the labyrinth of his thoughts, the familiar weight of his responsibilities momentarily replaced by a tongue-in-cheek smile. He glanced back at her, amused, and she met his gaze with a quirked eyebrow, as if daring him to protest her assessment.
Victoria closed the gap between them as she joined him at the overlook, her chest pressing against his back as she wrapped her arms around his waist. The warmth of her palm settled against his abdomen, her breath ghosting between his shoulder blades. His posture softened, shoulders dropping as he leaned back into her embrace. "She does, yet now it seems I have two of you to give me endless grief about it," he grumbled, the rough edges of his voice betrayed by an undercurrent of fondness.
She laughed. “But, at least you have me to help keep your mind off things. Seriously, Hekarro, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack if you don’t learn to relax.” Her voice held a cadence of mock severity, but her grip on him tightened with genuine concern.
Hekarro frowned, the foreign idiom catching him off-guard. Heart attack. A sickness, perhaps, or merely one of her metaphors. He suspected the latter, but the effect was the same: a jolt, a small rupture in his resolve.
He reached down and, with deliberate ceremony, brought her hand to his lips. He pressed his mouth against her knuckles, “Speak for yourself,” he murmured, his voice low and intimate.
She scoffed. “My worries are entirely different.”
He twisted within her arms, catching her gaze and holding it. He rested a finger under her chin, gently tilting her face up until the uncertainty in her stormy blue eyes was impossible to miss. “Are they?” he asked, quietly.
She hesitated. He saw it in the way her shoulders tensed, the way her eyes darted to the side. “I just…” she started, faltered, then tried again. “I don’t understand why Dekka suggested you come along. You’re needed here, and I—“
“Victoria,” he cut in, unwilling to let her diminish herself. “Your burdens are no less than mine. And Dekka’s suggestion was a sound one. Unless you’ve somehow managed to overcome your fear of machines, I need to come along.”
She stiffened in his arms, and for a moment he braced for an argument. Instead, her face fell and she whispered, “Wait, how did you know that?”
He softened, pulling her closer. “Aloy told me. About both incidents.” He felt her forehead press into his chest. He could feel her shame in the way her hands tightened, in the silent tremor of her shoulders. “It is not a weakness, Victoria,” he assured after a moment. “You survived an unimaginable horror.”
She pulled away, and as she did, the white powder and a streak of his own blue war paint clung to her face in uneven splotches. Dark, wet tears spilled down cheeks before she angrily wiped them away with the heel of her hand.
“It doesn’t do me any good,” she said, her voice tight. “If I'm supposed to be your partner, I can’t just keep breaking down like this. I—” She broke off, took a deep, shuddering breath. “I have to be better than this.”
He reached up and cupped her cheek. “No,” he said. “You don’t. All you have to be is Victoria. Everything else will fall into place.” He thumbed away a fleck of blue paint. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool.”
Her brow furrowed, jaw tightening in that familiar way. Ten above, Hekarro knew she could debate the mountains into moving if she set her mind to it. He pressed his lips against hers before she could launch her first volley. "Save your breath," he murmured. "My path is set. I'll take your trials beside you, and whether the journey ends in triumph or ruin, I remain yours regardless."
Victoria scoffed at him again, but let herself fall silent in his arms. A thousand and one worries could wait for tomorrow. For now, there was only this: her breath against his chest, the weight of her trust in his hands. Whatever trials the Tenakth Clans would demand, whatever rites of passage lay ahead, Hekarro knew with bone-deep certainty that they had already survived the hardest part. They had found each other across an impossible divide, and in doing so, perhaps shown their people a new way forward.
Pass or fail, his place was beside her. Now and for all the days to come.
"Nothing we do changes the past, but everything we do can change the future." —unknown
~~
Meridian was the crown jewel of the east. It sprawled across the mesa, carving terraces into the red stone, each layered with more splendor than the last. From afar its towers glimmered gold in the late sun. Up close, its walls teemed with the noise of a thousand voices and lives. Every tribe of the east had bled into the city’s veins and left behind their own little pulse. Silk banners. Music. The briny salt of cured meats and sweet rot of blooming flowers. It was all here, all at once. A miracle held together by the thinnest threads.
Aloy disliked crowds, but what she disliked far more was being watched and ever since the Battle for the Spire, the eyes of Meridian had followed her everywhere. Countless times, she had reminded everyone around her that she never asked for this. She was just a person trying to do the right thing, because that’s what Rost taught her, and because too many people in the world would rather turn away. But none of that made it any easier to be the burning center of attention. People stopped to whisper or just stood and stared. She tried not to let it get to her. The people were grateful and she told herself that she should just be gracious and ignore the rest.
She wove between the guards flanking the great staircase up towards The Sun King’s throne room, ignoring their bows. At the top, a familiar figure awaited her: Blameless Marad, Grand Spymaster, a man who was always seemed two steps ahead of any given conversation. It did not surprise her at all that the man knew she was here. Marad nodded as she arrived, his countenance unreadable. He gestured silently toward the sun throne, where Sun-King Avad sat in the heart of a churning court.
The pavilion was chaos. Dozens of nobles ringed the dais, the air was thick with incense. Voices rose in a clamor, each more insistent than the last, accusations and rumors flying over the heads of the less powerful. The word “Tenakth” was everywhere. Aloy didn’t blame them for being angry. Fashav had been beloved, and his death felt like a betrayal. But all the shouting and mourning was just a mask for fear.
It didn’t take Avad long to notice her. He smiled when he saw her, the tension in his jaw relaxing for just a second. He raised one hand and the entire court fell silent at once. A hundred eyes turned to Aloy, and in that moment she wondered if she was about to make things better or much, much worse.
“It’s good to see you again, Aloy,” Avad said, voice ringing off the stone of the open air pavilion. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
He gestured subtly to Marad, who moved to clear the room, but Aloy shook her head. “Wait,” she said, louder than she intended. “I have a message for you. From the Tenakth. And I think the rest of your court should hear it.”
A few people laughed a brittle, nervous sound.
Aloy dug into her pouch and drew out a device. It looked like nothing more than just a handful of metal packed together, wires laced with blue and green, one clear flat panel embedded in the center. Beta’s handiwork had the slapdash genius of a last-minute miracle. Aloy set it gently on the polished stone at the center of the dais. She touched the Focus at her temple.
A blue shimmering light split the air. The court gasped as a figure—lifelike in every detail, tinged only slightly with static—appeared above the device. She was tall and wore clothes no one in the room had ever seen before, hair shorn to her skull on one side while the rest fell over her shoulder like a black curtain.
“Sun-King Avad,” the hologram said, her words halting and unsure at first. “My name is Victoria Faraday, and I am asking Aloy to give you this message on my behalf. And though this might be hard for you to believe, I am an Old One.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Even Avad’s mask slipped a little; Aloy caught the flash of suspicion and fascination before it settled into careful neutrality.
“For almost a year I have lived among the Tenakth tribe. In that time, I have learned much about the people I hope to one day call my own. We are proud, fierce and determined. But above all, we strive for peace, just as much as you do.”
The hologram inclined its head again. “Which is why I am asking Aloy to deliver this message. We know that your court wants retribution for the death of Prince Fashav. He was beloved by many on both sides, and we are all poorer for his loss. However, more bloodshed only dishonors what he stood for. Which is why Chief Hekarro and I want to extend our hand in fellowship. We invite you, Sun King, and your court, to stand beside the tribes of the west as the Tenakth celebrate their Day of Unity. Bring your best and brightest champions and hunters and come share in our traditions so that we may forge a new era of peace.”
The blue light stuttered and vanished. The device emitted a faint hum before falling silent. In the vacuum it left behind, the court exploded into chaos, a hundred voices battling for dominance. Aloy looked to Avad, who remained quiet in the chaos before he raised his hand for silence. The effect was muted this time. It took several tries, and finally a bellow from Marad, to drag the pavilion back to order.
Avad’s voice, when he spoke, was measured and calm, but Aloy saw the bloodless grip on the throne’s arm, knuckles white as bone. “Is it true, Aloy? Is this…” he paused, uncertain. “Victoria Faraday an Old One?”
“Yes,” she said flatly, not bothering to soften the blow. Her eyes swept the ring of nobles, some of whom shrank at her gaze while others bristled, “Chief Hekarro and I found her in the ruins beneath the Tenakth capital. She was… asleep. I was there when the Chief made the decision to wake her up. Since then, I’ve been checking on her, off and on, whenever I could.”
Avad rested his head in one hand and worked his jaw. “I’d heard rumors from the West,” he admitted, “gossip from traders and mercenaries, tall tales out of Barren Light. I dismissed them as panic or the usual attempts to stir unrest. Aloy, why didn’t you come to us sooner?”
She hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. “Because Chief Hekarro asked me not to. I agreed with him.” Aloy kept her gaze upon the Sun King, lips pressed thin. “The world you and I know is already dangerous, but to someone like her, it’s monstrous. She woke up in a place she didn’t recognize, among people who look like her but aren’t her kin. And Chief Hekarro needed to be sure she wasn’t a threat before he introduced her to anyone, even his own tribe.”
“Typical Tenakth secrecy,” someone muttered, but the words fell flat.
Avad looked to Marad, who spoke up without waiting for permission. “How did she survive?” he asked.
Aloy shrugged. “She says she was put there by her own people.” Aloy paused, searching for a way to explain the rest. “She’s not like us. She understands things about the world that no one else does. But she’s not interested in power. She just wants to live in peace.”
Marad’s skepticism was almost palpable. “And yet she’s attached herself to the Tenakth Chief,” he said.
“She owed him her life. He's shown her grace and compassion in the face of her monumental loss.” Aloy let a note of reproach into her voice. “If he’d meant to use her as a weapon, he’d have done it already.”
Avad nodded, turning the idea over in his mind. “This Day of Unity, is it a genuine offer?”
“It’s real,” she answered, “and it’s the best chance you’ve got if you want to avoid a war.”
Avad glanced to Blameless Marad, whose eyes flicked once to Aloy, then to the inert device still lying on the stone. “The optics of this, Your Radiance, are… delicate. But, this might be the best chance to preserve the peace you desire.”
Voices erupted around the pavilion, but Avad quelled them at once with a single look. “Peace requires courage,” he said, his voice steady despite the white-knuckled grip on his armrest. “My father ruled through blood and terror. I will not dishonor his victims by returning to those ways.” His eyes met Aloy’s. “Tell Chief Hekarro and this Old One that when their celebration comes, the Sun and its court will stand among them beneath the same sky.”
~~
“You know,” Victoria said, her tone light but edged as always with the gentle sarcasm, “I always thought Dekka over exaggerated when it came to your worrying.” At her words, Hekarro surfaced from the labyrinth of his thoughts, the familiar weight of his responsibilities momentarily replaced by a tongue-in-cheek smile. He glanced back at her, amused, and she met his gaze with a quirked eyebrow, as if daring him to protest her assessment.
Victoria closed the gap between them as she joined him at the overlook, her chest pressing against his back as she wrapped her arms around his waist. The warmth of her palm settled against his abdomen, her breath ghosting between his shoulder blades. His posture softened, shoulders dropping as he leaned back into her embrace. "She does, yet now it seems I have two of you to give me endless grief about it," he grumbled, the rough edges of his voice betrayed by an undercurrent of fondness.
She laughed. “But, at least you have me to help keep your mind off things. Seriously, Hekarro, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack if you don’t learn to relax.” Her voice held a cadence of mock severity, but her grip on him tightened with genuine concern.
Hekarro frowned, the foreign idiom catching him off-guard. Heart attack. A sickness, perhaps, or merely one of her metaphors. He suspected the latter, but the effect was the same: a jolt, a small rupture in his resolve.
He reached down and, with deliberate ceremony, brought her hand to his lips. He pressed his mouth against her knuckles, “Speak for yourself,” he murmured, his voice low and intimate.
She scoffed. “My worries are entirely different.”
He twisted within her arms, catching her gaze and holding it. He rested a finger under her chin, gently tilting her face up until the uncertainty in her stormy blue eyes was impossible to miss. “Are they?” he asked, quietly.
She hesitated. He saw it in the way her shoulders tensed, the way her eyes darted to the side. “I just…” she started, faltered, then tried again. “I don’t understand why Dekka suggested you come along. You’re needed here, and I—“
“Victoria,” he cut in, unwilling to let her diminish herself. “Your burdens are no less than mine. And Dekka’s suggestion was a sound one. Unless you’ve somehow managed to overcome your fear of machines, I need to come along.”
She stiffened in his arms, and for a moment he braced for an argument. Instead, her face fell and she whispered, “Wait, how did you know that?”
He softened, pulling her closer. “Aloy told me. About both incidents.” He felt her forehead press into his chest. He could feel her shame in the way her hands tightened, in the silent tremor of her shoulders. “It is not a weakness, Victoria,” he assured after a moment. “You survived an unimaginable horror.”
She pulled away, and as she did, the white powder and a streak of his own blue war paint clung to her face in uneven splotches. Dark, wet tears spilled down cheeks before she angrily wiped them away with the heel of her hand.
“It doesn’t do me any good,” she said, her voice tight. “If I'm supposed to be your partner, I can’t just keep breaking down like this. I—” She broke off, took a deep, shuddering breath. “I have to be better than this.”
He reached up and cupped her cheek. “No,” he said. “You don’t. All you have to be is Victoria. Everything else will fall into place.” He thumbed away a fleck of blue paint. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool.”
Her brow furrowed, jaw tightening in that familiar way. Ten above, Hekarro knew she could debate the mountains into moving if she set her mind to it. He pressed his lips against hers before she could launch her first volley. "Save your breath," he murmured. "My path is set. I'll take your trials beside you, and whether the journey ends in triumph or ruin, I remain yours regardless."
Victoria scoffed at him again, but let herself fall silent in his arms. A thousand and one worries could wait for tomorrow. For now, there was only this: her breath against his chest, the weight of her trust in his hands. Whatever trials the Tenakth Clans would demand, whatever rites of passage lay ahead, Hekarro knew with bone-deep certainty that they had already survived the hardest part. They had found each other across an impossible divide, and in doing so, perhaps shown their people a new way forward.
Pass or fail, his place was beside her. Now and for all the days to come.
I hate that the "x reader" or "x Y/N" style of fanfic has become sooooo popular, partially because it's just not for me and partially because they clog general non-fic related tags and those authors seem allergic to the "read more" function on this website, but ALSO because I believe that you should have to go through the trouble of creating an absolutely batshit self-insert character, with a backstory that makes no sense and a name that doesn't really gel with the aesthetics of the universe. Legolas and Aragorn should be in a love triangle with Kylie, the angsty sixteen year old half-human half-elf and inexplicable tenth member of the Fellowship. Do the WORK. If everyone was doing "Y/N" nonsense back in the day, there would be no Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, or probably Bella Swan. These are important women. They deserve to be named, confusingly and with no regard for the fictional world they inhabit.
The demon dimension had its effects on the races differently. For the hylden, it emaciated and desiccated them - shrinking their flesh to their bones and withering their organs to dust. Living mummies forced to carve out a desperate sanctuary in a world that didn’t want them.
To vampires, this hostile plane produced something…else. A curious effect on the mind and on instinct, rather than any outward visual change. Kain felt the effects gradually, a simmer in his gut that magnified into a rolling boil. What once was a disciplined thirst for blood he’d handled for millennia, became a nearly uncontrollable frenzy. He didn’t just want to feed - he wanted to maim. To mutilate. To destroy.
Perhaps thanks to his age, Kain’s frenzy could grasp him only at intervals, and in his moments of lucidity he was able to navigate the realm with some sense of direction, even allying himself with one of its strange demonic natives in the process. He had questions that needed answering from one of its prisoners, and perhaps could glean another worthy ally from Janos were he to be found.
Little did Kain know how challenging that would be.
—
Okay more OC and headcanon stuff. What happens next???? Omg!
I feel so sorry for my followers because when I’m not online my blog is DEAD no queue no nothing but when I’m online you’d better be ready for an avalanche of posts within .5 seconds of each other POST POST POST POST POST POST
thinking bout Horizon and how the derangment only happened like twenty years ago and how the experiences of older and younger hunters are wildly different.
"back in my day we didnt need no fancy schmancy fire or goo arrows. we just went out with our ol sturdy bows and practiaccly none of us got hurt u know. u kids dont know how much easier u have it."
cut to a half dead twenty something thats just:
"grandma. u guys were fighting like mecha horses. THAT is a robot trex with lasers, rockets and an attitude. PLEASE just take ur meds and go to bed"
If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…
Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.
Including (sigh) the em dash.
There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.
A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.
No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.
You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.
Defend the em dash.
(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)