Xaeraia - Sea Salt & Spilled Ink

The term and concept of "rent lowering gunshots" has seeped into my mental vocabulary, and I've welcomed it there. Something I'm up to is gross and weird? Good, keeps the rent low. Keeps judgy people out. Post weird shit on your blog, do weird shit to your hair, be as fucky as your heart ever wants to be. If you're not the one making the profit, make yourself unprofitable. The aposematism of brightly coloured creatures is there to warn predators, not friends.

You have no moral obligation to make yourself palatable for those who would consume you.

You know what fuck this *puts on my seal skin and fucks off back to the ocean*

we all have that one homie who volunteers to take first watch that they might contemplate the heavens in solitude

If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?

It does a very poetic job of explaining how I (a naturalistic pantheist) feel about death and how my remains should be treated. I talk about scattering my ashes instead of caging them in an urn because I see it as an act of reconnecting with life and the natural world. If my carbon atoms and other basic elements are free and being used in the lives of other things, and I truly dead? 😊

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled “do not stand at my grave and weep” after the poem by mary elizabeth frye. the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”