calliecwrites
calliecwrites
Callie's Cosmos
77 posts
Callie CameronFantasy and sci-fi writing 30s | She/her | Queer & trans
Last active 60 minutes ago
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
calliecwrites · 28 days ago
Text
Shifter HRT, part 8 – Return to Hyper City (11 Months)
I’m on the way back to Hyper City. It’s the middle of winter, there’s a bitter wind, and it’s almost dark even though it’s still only afternoon. The bus is empty. Hardly anyone’s heading out this way on a day like this. When I get off at the tiny village, all the shops are already shut. But I’m not here for the village – I’m once again following the ritual that takes me to another world.
Tonight I’m heading to the Hyper Light Festival, the winter festival at the crossroads of reality. This time I’m ready. I am enough, and this time I’m not running away.
Look closely, and it’s clear I’m not human anymore. More of my body has changed, and I’ve been practising. My bones and organs are still the same, so the forms I can take now are mostly ‘human plus’ – little tweaks and additions to the basic human shape. I’m learning, step by tiny step. I’m wearing a few subtle signs of my inhumanity – my ears are a bit longer and pointier, my tongue is slightly forked, and I’ve got a greenish tinge to most of my skin, except for a few parts that still haven’t changed. It’s quite the contrast with my red hair. This is the first colour change I’ve managed to do. Do shifters have a default colour when fluid? I’ve never gotten a clear answer. But if mine was going to be green, I’d be totally fine with that.
Why not bigger changes, when I’ve been playing with arms and legs and all kinds of things? Partly because I still can’t hold the big things for long. Small changes I can hold now with only a little bit of effort. And, uh, partly because my tops don’t have enough sleeves. Who’d have guessed that human clothes aren’t designed for that? But this time I’m wearing my T-shirt with ‘be goo, do crimes’ on it, and damn anyone who makes a fuss. I’ve been running on adrenaline since I stepped out of the house looking not entirely human – but it’s so quiet, there’s been no one here to notice.
When I arrive in Hyper City, I stop by the registration office to get my shapeshifter license. I’m still slightly annoyed that I have to do this at all – do they think I’m going to try taking over the city as soon as I can imitate someone important? – but I can’t put it off any longer. I’m now officially a ‘provisional physiological polymorph’, and I’ve got a card to prove it – meaning someone who will, eventually, be able to take on any form as part of how my body works, without using magic. Blob of goo that can turn into anything, basically. They do some kind of scan to identify which world I’m from, and note that down too. And now I’m accepting that there really is magic here – seeing it listed on an official form in a dusty government office is what finally convinces me. It’s not just super-advanced tech, like I’d assumed.
Then I head for the central plaza. I can hear music in the distance, and hints of tantalising smells drift on the wind. By the time I get close, the streets are packed. And the plaza itself is full of… everything.
Hyper City doesn’t just connect to our world, but to many worlds, and all their winter festivals come together here. Yes, the multiverse is real. People changing species isn’t the only mind-boggling thing in this city.
There are stalls selling crafts, people dancing, performing, wearing costumes and masks, music, enchanters, impossible sculptures held together by magic – and more. Unfamiliar and enticing smells waft from stalls selling food from across the worlds. I hear voices in a hundred languages. There are people telling stories, playing games, eating and drinking, all packed in side by side. I spot a giant Christmas tree with glowing globes clustered round it, and it’s only one tiny part of everything.
It’s so much. Almost too much. My mind is drinking in the details. But I’m starting to relax. Enjoying the spectacle. Anonymity in the crowd.
The buildings around the plaza are brightly lit. Globes of light drift overhead, and now and again there are people in the air, too. If I had any doubt there’s actual magic here, it’s gone. I briefly wonder if you can acquire magic if you come from a world without any – something to check up on later. In places, people are gathered around bonfires, or at shrines to more gods than I’ve ever heard of. At street level it’s dim, on purpose I think, and many people carry candles. As they move it’s like a slow river of lights winding between the stalls. Light is a common theme here, and warmth, and protection – light against the darkest time of the year.
Snowflakes flutter on the wind. The parts of me that are still human are cold, but the parts that have changed are comfortable even in this.
And in the crowd, here and there, I spot therians and otherkin at all stages of transition – people who started off with a human body, but were never really human on the inside – people like me. The ones early on are a patchwork of human parts and changed parts, just like I am. We’re still a minority even here, but for once, I don’t feel out of place. It lights me up inside like my first time at Pride. I can’t stop grinning. I mean, technically I could, because I’m a shifter and could rearrange my face enough for that, even at this stage… but you know what I mean. I don’t want to.
Someone catches my eye, over where the crowd is a bit thinner. It’s their colour I notice first – a gloopy orange, almost like syrup. Then I notice their arms are entirely made of goo, translucent and with no bones inside, and so is their hair. They must be a slime! I’ve been reading a few slimes’ transition journals online, and we have a lot in common – we’re on different routes to a similar place. I don’t know if our species are actually related, or if it’s convergent evolution, but either way – someone else who’s a gelatinous blob that can shape themselves however they like? Sounds like someone who gets it!
Before I even think about it, I’m slowly making my way closer through the crowd. And now I’m nervous as hell – going up to some random person in the real world, just because they’re kinda like me? But that was the whole reason for coming here. That’s what I was hoping might happen. The festival was just an excuse, really.
As I get closer, I see that the rest of their head is still opaque and human, aside from the orange tint to their skin. But their fingers are tipped with claws, their bare feet are bird-like with talons, and they have a little blob of goo like a rabbit’s tail on their back. Their clothes look very waterproof, even though it isn’t raining – and oh, that must be to stop their slime soaking into things. I haven’t had that problem yet, but can totally believe it’ll be a thing later.
And then I’m there, grinning nervously – and, yes, with excitement too. I form another arm – a bit awkwardly because of the too-small sleeves – and wave with all three.
“Hi?” I say. “I saw that you’re a slime and uh…”
“Oh, uh, hi!” they reply, waving back. “Uh, yeah, I am a slime… and so are you by the looks of things!” they add with a growing smile.
“Close,” I say, “I’m a shifter! But I’m gooey too.” I turn my third hand fluid for a moment.
They raise an eyebrow. “Oh neat – wait? Like a shapeshifter?”
“Yeah! Actually I guess there must be lots of kinds of shapeshifters here, with the whole multiverse thing. We just call ourselves ‘shifters’ for short. Or, well, sometimes the People of Change if we’re being poetic – ‘fluid as the ocean, wild as the wind’, that kind of thing…” My voice cracks slightly on that phrase, that’s been with me my whole life, focus of so much longing. Then I laugh gently, as I poke my human parts: “Which I’m not, yet, as you can see.”
“Oohh! I do like the ‘fluid as the ocean’ bit, kinda hits very close.” They raise their arm, rippling it like a wave.
I don’t immediately respond, only to realise I’m staring at their arm. I pull my gaze away. “Sorry,” I say, laughing awkwardly, “I think my mind is trying to figure out how to copy your colour, but I don’t know how to do orange yet. I only just figured out green.” I let the green fade away in places, my skin changing back to its original colour, before bringing the green back. “It’s a nice colour.”
The slime looks a little flustered. “Don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before, that they wanna try my colour, or that I have a nice colour, not really sure how to respond to that, but thank you – can say I’m quite a fan, so would definitely recommend it when you can though.” They pause a second before continuing. “But, and, uh, sorry if this is kinda rude, but uh, you still kinda look part human, I was told you had to become something else before you could do shapeshifter stuff?”
“I just got straight on shifter HRT,” I say, shrugging, “there was no mention of anything else. But I’m not going to one of the doctors here – are you at Erian’s clinic?”
They frown a little. “Nah, I didn’t like all the gatekeepery stuff he was doing, so I found another provider who relied on informed consent – they said I had to pick another species first to act as a base for the additional shapeshifter meds. Kinda feeling a little cheated now, even if I’ve been enjoying becoming a slime.”
“But you’re at a proper doctor, right?” I say. “Not just… some person who figured out how to make this stuff? In hindsight, I probably should’ve done that – mine is very hands-off, and the whole thing is super experimental – kinda realising that now seeing other people’s stories online. But they’re a shifter too, they’re the only one who does this specific thing, and I was desperate, y’know?”
They nod. “Yeah, proper doctor ’nd all, but I totally get the desperation, fuck, if I’d known I could get straight on shapeshifter stuff I quite possibly woulda gone for that.” They pause for a moment, looking thoughtful. “Although, if it’s shady like ya say, I’m not sure how willing I’d be to trust it, at least the people I’m going through seem safe and all, even if they are kinda delaying/shortchanging me a bit.” Another pause, before, “You sure it’s safe ’nd all? I mean, it seems to be working for you, but,” they shrug, “there’s enough shit we have to deal with without our meds biting us in the ass too.”
“Yeah,” I nod, “that’s it, it is working, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. But my provider’s really secretive – doesn’t want anyone else figuring out the formula. And I’ve hardly had any support, only vaguely know what to expect at each stage, pretty sure they’re using a false name… Actually that does sound pretty bad when I say it. But it’s working, right? And,” gesturing around us, “I didn’t believe this place existed.”
“Does seem very shady, definitely,” they say. “I’ve been having checkups every six months, actually due my third soon. I’d be careful, as I said, don’t want this to bite ya in the ass. That being said, definitely seems like it’s working.” They gesture at my third arm. “Can’t wait to be able to do more altering of my shape, but I need more human parts to get converted.” They point at their chest. “Still got ribs and stuff under my clothes, which sucks, but given how much my stomach melting hurt, I’m worried about how my spine going’s gonna feel, so for once, slowly is actually preferable.”
I wince a bit. “Ooh, that sounds painful. But, yeah, same here,” I say, remembering how overwhelmed by phantom body parts I was last time I was in the city. “Human’s still my default, and I can’t hold big changes for long yet.” I let my third arm dissolve back into my body – it’s starting to get uncomfortable already. “I’m Callie, by the way. She/her.”
“Oh, right, introductions.” They chuckle awkwardly. “I’m Sandy, she/they, nice ta meet ya Callie.” She extends a claw. “I don’t know how much overlap it’ll have, but you’re also kinda gooey, so maybe it’ll help, but I’ve found if you practice taking and holding forms, eventually it becomes like muscle memory, even if I’m running out of muscles, but you can eventually just kinda take and hold stuff easily.” They gesture to their talons and claws. “Been working on these for a bit now, and now they’re second nature.” They quickly shift between a claw and a human hand, her slime suddenly becoming more fluid, before effortlessly switching back.
I’m envious, I can’t deny it – but it’s not the hopeless envy I would have felt before. Now it’s more like anticipation, knowing that soon I’ll be able to do that too.
“Small changes are getting to be easy like that,” I say. “But,” and I hold up my own hand, “it’s still all bones in here.” And then, with a grin, “Can’t wait to try wings though.” I look up at the orbs floating overhead. “I really want to fly – been dreaming about that for years.”
“Gods yes, I can’t wait to have wings.” She follows my gaze up. “Being able to fly up there would be wonderful…” She trails off wistfully. “Just the freedom to soar up in the air, seems just perfect.”
I try to form wings – not for the first time – but I just don’t have enough goo yet, and of course my clothes are in the way. “I’d have to cut holes in this first though,” I say, tapping my T-shirt.
Sandy smiles. “Yeah, I’ve started cutting tail holes in my clothes, now I can actually have one, even if it is only a small one, not looking forward to all the measuring it’ll take for wings. Although I am vaguely aware there are some shops in the city that are actually trying to cater to those of us with… less human physiology. Haven’t had a chance to check them out yet, but might be something to look into.”
“Oh, I will. Actually, that reminds me! Look at this.” I take out my shapeshifter license and show them. “Can you believe we have to have a license?!” And then I add, “But it’s kinda nice seeing it on something official.” I’m feeling a lot better about it than when I filled in the forms – seeing it actually written down, what I am, is making me smile.
Their eyes widen. “Oh? What’s that?” She leans in to get a better look. “‘Provisional Shapeshifter License’? Huh, didn’t know that was a thing. But wait, yeah, why do you need a license, isn’t it just something you do?”
“They think we’re dangerous or something.” I shrug. “I guess we could be if we wanted to. But that’s not going to happen with me, I don’t want power or… any of that. This is just for me.”
Sandy nods. “Yeah, exactly, I don’t want shapeshifting – when I get there – for power, I just want to, well, be whatever, and ultimately me. People get so up in arms about it for no reason.”
“Familiar feeling,” I say. I’m thinking, of course, about being trans back home. “But we’ve got all the others like us, and that’s… something. People who get it.”
“Mmm.” They nod. “It’s nice to have others like us, this whole conversation’s been wonderful, well except for learning that I might’ve been shafted by my supplier. But yeah, it’s been nice meeting other people going through all this stuff and making friends through it all, and it’s been especially nice to meet another shapeshifter… even if I’m not quite there yet, but like, you get it, is the point.”
We talk a while longer, sharing old dreams of shapeshifting, wandering through the plaza and pointing out things we’ve never seen before. Then, at last, it’s time for me to go, if I want to catch the bus home. We agree to keep in touch, and we hug – and I do my best to form two extra arms for that, though it’s still almost the limit of what I can do. We wave goodbye, and I head home smiling. New city, new world, new friend.
First | Previous | Next
This chapter is a collaboration with @sandyca5tle – whose Slime HRT was one of the stories that inspired me to start writing this in the first place – and takes place between the 14 month and 18 month chapters of Slime HRT. Go read it, it’s goo-d! Also featuring the Hyper Light Festival created by @nuggetofthesea.
Tumblr media
And here’s how the provisional shapeshifter license looks, using the template from Slime HRT 25 months. The fields are explained fully over there, but briefly, the letters on the bottom row show what you can do now, with the letters in brackets showing what you’ll be able to do at the end of transition.
And now that we’re approaching the one-year mark, more changes are on the way – coming soon, in Part 9: Hunger!
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@ask-de-writer @avery-victoria-winterlight @botgirl-lilith @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie
@lunadook @mint-and-authoress @noizepushr @reliableslimegal @sandyca5tle
@saros-system @scrubbinn @the-gender-fae @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist
@wuwojiti @zzzestyy
40 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 1 month ago
Text
I wrote a little poem for the Sabine Flyover collab:
A shadow passes— Wings on the horizon, A flicker of flame As the new day dawns; You know their name, The one who went before, Who showed the way To the path you're on; Now all their pain set down, All their struggle, done, Peace and freedom— Flying over, gone.
Goodbye Dragon HRT, and the world you started lives on.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
"Please don't let them see me
Sure there's nothing left to try"
-Twenty One Pilots, The Line
Dragon HRT Part 25:
The End.
This took us months so please excuse me if the art quality and style is a bit different between pages lol
Huge thanks to @nyxisart for helping us by making the main background art of the cave entrance, and everyone who supported uswhile we were struggling to finish this. And of course to everyone who enjoyed this story and showed us with comments and fanarts!
Start - Prev
2K notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 2 months ago
Text
Shifter HRT, part 7 – Tipping Point (9 Months)
Things are finally going – or should I say goo-ing. It’s like I’ve been pushing a boulder uphill, and now I’ve reached the top and it’s rolling down on its own. My body is finally catching up with my mind. Just existing isn’t a struggle anymore. I’m a weird gooey mess, and, yes, there’s plenty that’s uncomfortable, but I’m doing good. It’s way too long since I’ve been able to say that.
I ache all over. Parts of me have changed completely, mostly skin and muscles. My organs are still mostly untouched – but even there the filaments of fluid are everywhere, and they’re getting denser all the time. My whole body is equally sensitive to touch now. Before, my hands and face were the most sensitive, as usual, but now it’s all the same. I can feel the same amount of detail wherever.
And the parts that changed? That’s where things get interesting.
When I’m not paying attention, they stay as a sort of smooth shiny version of human skin, and underneath have the same texture as human flesh. At a glance, you might not notice the difference, not with human senses. My shifter body is defaulting to human form, which I suppose makes sense since it needs to keep the human parts of me alive until everything is converted. Wouldn’t want it all falling apart half way through.
When I do pay attention, I can make things change. I relax – but it’s not my muscles I’m relaxing, it’s my form. There’s no other word for it. The parts of me that changed get softer and more flexible. Let go completely, and they turn completely fluid.
And now for the goo-d part!
To my hands (which are still human), the fluid feels viscous, but not wet or oily or sticky – there’s no residue. When completely relaxed, it’s almost as thick as syrup. It’s cooler to the touch than normal human body temperature, but that feels fine. Right now it’s always slightly paler than my skin – I haven’t figured out how to change colour yet. I can push my fingers – or other things – all the way into the fluid, and the pressure is comfortable. Squeeze it between my fingers, and it’ll slowly mould into shape against them.
Except this is part of me. I don’t just have to squish passively around things – I can change shape on purpose, and resist external forces. Right now my hands are stronger than the fluid – I can mess up any form I’m trying to hold just by squeezing it with my fingers – but I’ve got the feeling that’s going to change. I can feel everything I touch, in more detail than I could with my human fingers before all this started.
When I tense up fully – not really the right word, but it’s the best I’ve found – it all becomes solid again. I’m back in my usual human form. I’m aware that I’m actively holding this form now – it’s no longer just a passive default. For this form, it’s almost effortless. Other forms are harder. That’s going to take practice.
* * *
I lie down on the sofa. I relax, and let go of my form. All the parts of me that can be fluid, are. I focus on one part, and stretch it out over the nearby skin. My human parts can only move how the muscles and joints allow, but the fluid is completely flexible, and I can move or shape it in any direction. There is no difference between moving and shaping – they’re the same thing.
I stretch out further to form a little tentacle, curling out from my side, and lift it up to poke at other parts of my body – which I’m fully aware of because of my sense of form. I feel my way over the sofa to a little table. Occasionally I can taste what I’m touching – which my brain still insists is coming from my mouth, just to confuse things. The table is wooden, which tastes weird – though not bad, like I imagine it would if I tried to bite it. There’s a lamp there, and closer to the lamp, I can tell it’s lighter – eventually that’ll become sight. I try to push my way into a join in the wood, but can’t. I’m limited to big blobby shapes for now – fine control will come later.
But the biggest limit is that I’m working with a fixed amount of fluid. Shifters can get much bigger or much smaller, so that’ll change eventually – and don’t even ask how the physics of that works – but for the moment, anything I move into one place has to come from somewhere else. If I want a bigger tentacle, say, something like the length of my arm, I’ll need a whole bunch more goo than I’ve got in any one place.
So I stretch my tentacle towards another patch of goo, and stretch out that patch till they’re touching. Now there’s an arch of goo between two parts of my body. Then I let go at the bottom of the second patch, and it all merges together into one longer limb. And that’s fine – goo is goo, it doesn’t belong in one place or another – though now there’s a big gap in my side where I took it all from, right down to the level that’s still human. A thin layer of fluid that I can’t move holds the human parts in, and the network of tendrils spreads out from there through the inside of my body. Not that I’m bothered by the gap – the shifter part of me already doesn’t have a fixed form, and as long as the human parts aren’t disturbed, I feel comfortable however.
But one thing I noticed pretty quickly – all the parts of me that have changed, whether fluid or solid, have to stay connected to each other. Still-human patches of skin, like my hands, don’t count as connected, which is why I have to move the fluid around the way I do. I can’t disconnect any of it completely from the rest of me. I’ll be able to do that eventually, but right now even thinking about that feels like a really bad idea, at a deep level I’m not going to mess with. That’ll come later.
So I repeat the process all over my body, till: tentacle complete! And now for phase two:
I reach over to the table, wrap my tentacle around a glass, carefully pick it up, and take a sip. It’s taken me days to get this far without spilling things everywhere. I put the glass down – and can’t help giggling. It worked! Callie the tentacle monster!
I know exactly what I want to try next. I manage to split the end of my tentacle in two. Because what’s an arm but a tentacle with fingers, after all?
I form the rough shape of a hand. Five fingers is too much to focus on all at once, so four will have to do. Bones would be helpful here, too. I know how bones feel, because I know how everything in me feels. I tense up to make the middle of each section more solid – though the fingers are so small that’s really pushing the limits of what I can do. Then I manage to solidify the outside into shiny smooth ‘skin’.
However hard I try, I can’t do fine details yet, so it ends up looking more like a cartoon arm than a human one. But it’s unmistakably an arm.
I move it slowly, making sure to hold the form as I do, and close the fingers around one of my other arms.
And if three arms, why not more? Collect more goo, repeat, and:
I’ve got four arms! Oh my god I’ve got four arms! And it wasn’t even that hard – since I already know what an arm feels like, and this is just… more of them. And it feels great! My mind has no problem at all adapting, as long as I remember to hold the form. I get up and walk around, slightly giddy. I grin at myself in the mirror. I pick things up, shake my own hands crosswise, hug myself – and I’d hug someone else, too, if there was anyone around. I take a few photos – though I use my old hands for that; wouldn’t have the dexterity yet in my new ones – and guess who’s got transition photos, at last!
After a few minutes I’m exhausted, and let everything go. I’m aching all over again. My arms turn fluid, and I slowly pull it all back to my body. I slump on the sofa, goo hanging out all over the place. Yeah, I’m a mess. There are gaps all over my body where I’ve taken the fluid from. But I’m grinning, and can barely believe I actually did it.
Now that I’m not holding a form, the fluid is balancing out, slowly moving through the filaments inside my body till all the gaps are filled and I look human again. Back to the default, for now. But even though I’m limited, even though I can’t do much yet, there’s a huge difference between ‘fixed form’ and ‘default form’, and I’m already so much more comfortable. Now just to wait for the rest!
* * *
When the urge to absorb things comes on, well, I still can’t, but now at least I can go half way. I can flow around things, hold them inside my body, squeeze them as tightly as I can, until I’ve fitted myself to all the details down to the limits of what I can feel. I think that’s all the detail I could handle right now. And it helps. The dysphoria isn’t as bad, and at least I can do part of what my body wants. Things with complex shapes and lots of little holes are best. I can sit there for hours just doing that. I’m easily entertained.
I’ve told more of my friends, and even hinted to some of my family. As for work, fortunately I’ve been working from home since my job went remote during lockdown, so once again it’s put on a safe face for the camera while absolutely anything could be going on off screen, just like in my first transition – and oh boy, if only they knew! How many arms or legs have I got today? They don’t need to know! Or pretending to be all serious with my boss while twisting and flowing through half a dozen gratings I picked up somewhere – they have no idea! No idea at all.
And as for the rest – I’m tired now. Shapeshifting takes a lot out of me when I’ve never done it before, who’d have guessed. But I’m definitely not human anymore – and now no one can deny it.
First | Previous | Next
It's back! I won't be posting as regularly as the first time round – but hopefully there won't be any more months-long gaps between posts like with this one. So: coming soon, Part 8: Return to Hyper City!
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@aiden-nevada @ask-de-writer @avery-victoria-winterlight @botgirl-lilith @dierotenixe
@leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook @mint-and-authoress @noizepushr @reliableslimegal
@sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @the-gender-fae @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist
@wuwojiti @zzzestyy
30 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 2 months ago
Text
Shifter HRT interlude – Restless
Sometimes the restlessness comes, And you want to bound and roll in the snow, To dive in the deep, To stretch your wings and soar Under the ice-blue sky. Instead you doze by the fire, Twitching claws you do not have, Wrapped in wings and tail that are not there, Drifting in not-quite-memories, Waiting for what will not be.
First | Previous | Next
I've started working on the main story again – so hopefully it won't be too long till Part 7. In the meantime, here's some restless yearning :)
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@aiden-nevada @ask-de-writer @avery-victoria-winterlight @botgirl-lilith @dierotenixe
@leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook @mint-and-authoress @noizepushr @reliableslimegal
@sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @the-gender-fae @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist
@wuwojiti @zzzestyy
28 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 2 months ago
Text
Reposting a poem this time - with some inspiration from an old classic. Will Santa make it, or is Christmas doomed?
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@ask-de-writer @avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook
@mint-and-authoress @sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist
@wuwojiti @zzzestyy
Crisis at Christmas
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
’Twas the night before Christmas, And up on the hill, Rudolph the reindeer Was feeling quite ill. His nose had turned green, He forgot how to fly; The elves, all a-panic, Said, “The end is nigh!” And Santa came running, All a-huff and a-puff, Cried, “All of my planning Is never enough! Oh what will we do? What a terrible sight! How will we deliver Our presents tonight?”
They called the Avengers, But they were all out; The X-Men were missing And Spidey had gout; No help for them there. They called Starfleet instead, But Captain Picard Was already in bed. Batman was busy, The Joker was drunk; “Oh what will we do?!” Santa cried in a funk, And the elves all around him Gave out a great sigh: “It’s just like we told you— The end is nigh!”
Back he ran, forth he ran, Up on the hill; All in a panic, Santa couldn’t stay still, Till, “I’ve got it!” he cried; “They won’t think it’s nice, But we can save Christmas With the help of the mice!” Mice came by the millions, Took the presents away, Put them all in the houses Before break of day, Till not a creature was stirring; And in each cosy house, There would still be Christmas, Thanks to a helpful little mouse.
Also on Instagram.
26 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 2 months ago
Text
Reposting an old Christmas story, one of my favourites.
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@ask-de-writer @avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook
@mint-and-authoress @sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist
@wuwojiti @zzzestyy
All I Want for Christmas
‘Deer Satan, all I wunt fr Crismas is a poaniee…’
Children are really bad at spelling. Have you ever noticed that? They aren’t born with the skills they need for life, but have to learn. That doesn’t seem fair. Their lives are so short anyway, and they have to waste years learning that the order of the letters matters, that ‘Santa’ and ‘Satan’ are not the same thing, even though they have the same letters in them. Not like us demons; we’re the personification of abstract concepts, we’re born with all the skills we need; and we’re immortal, so it wouldn’t matter even if we did have to spend a few years learning.
So I know just fine that when we get a letter addressed ‘Satan Claws’, that’s not what the child had in mind. But the address on an envelope is a sacred contract, and even when you know it’s wrong, you have to act as if it isn’t.
I’m one of the sorters in the mailroom in Hell. We don’t get much mail here – most people don’t know you can write to Hell. But it’s a comfortable life. It’s a bit smoky, and sometimes the brimstone smell gets a bit overwhelming, but give me that any day over the freezing North Pole. Then Christmas comes, and we’re overrun. I read the letters, and forward them on to the best department. The easiest ones go on to Curses & Jinxes. The demons over there love concocting cruel twists on what the children asked for. Want a pony? You’ll get one, but it’ll die within a week. Or maybe it’ll be a literal nightmare that haunts your dreams for the rest of your days. As for the juiciest letters, the soppiest ones, they get passed on up to the old Boss himself. No one thinks up a twist like him.
And me? The closest thing I have to a soul is the love of order, efficiency, and a job well done. The others say I’m barely demonic at all. They say I’m nowhere near nasty enough. Maybe they’re right. So I keep my head down, do a good job, and hope they don’t look too closely.
Because there’s a special letter, you see. One I wait for every year. This kid knows what she’s doing. She was eight the first time it happened – I have no idea how she learned what she knew, so young. But she was good. Not ‘good’ as in ‘who’s been a good girl this year’, but ‘good’ as in, I’m impressed. More than that, I’m caught.
Every year her letter’s the same. ‘Dear Satan’, it starts, and that’s no spelling mistake, ‘all I want for Christmas is you’. Except – that’s no ordinary writing. The ink is made from the blood of a dozen pitiful creatures – mice, usually. The paper is stitched together from the confessions of a dozen broken hearts. And the writing is surrounded by eldritch sigils so powerful that it hurts just to think about them. Like I said, the kid’s good.
What demon could possibly resist?
Being eight, I don’t think she quite understood that Satan wouldn’t be opening all his mail personally. Instead, her spell of binding fell on the first demon to read it.
That would be me.
I had to do what she asked. I couldn’t not. Fortunately, we get time off at Christmas. We’re supposed to go attack Santa and his elves, to stop them delivering presents, or at least swap the real ones for our cruel tricks. I was never much of one for that, myself – it was too inefficient, too disorderly. So I slipped away when the others were occupied, and went down to the ramshackle old house where the girl lived. I slipped down the chimney, and hid myself in a present under her Christmas tree, just as she had asked.
In the morning, she unwrapped me, and she was delighted. This terrifyingly-powerful eight year old, who’d be able to twist the world to her whim once she had a mind to, just wanted a friend. She was lonely. She’s never had much luck with other humans, so instead she turned to the one thing she was good at: the dark magic she’d been learning from all the books her parents left lying around, ever since she’d been old enough to walk. Her parents weren’t even there, poor thing. They’d gone off on their own, like they did every Christmas, leaving her all alone. Except this time, she had me.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t actually Satan, that I was just a lowly mail-sorter. I didn’t have a heart at all. But I could see that she was sad, and that I could make her happy, that I could do it efficiently, and call it a job well done.
At the end of the day, she cried, and hugged me, and said it was the best Christmas ever. I’d made her a cake, and told her stories (hellish ones, though that seemed to delight her even more), and played games. She asked me to stay, but I couldn’t. I had a job to do, and the others would notice if I was gone too long. So she said I’d hear from her again next year, and she’d miss me until then.
She kept her word. The next year, the same letter arrived again. I opened it, and I was bound. We spent Christmas together, and I made her happy however I could.
Each year, she sent the same letter. I waited for it to arrive, and made sure I was the one to open it. Each year, her writing was steadier, and the spell was more elegant, and more powerful. She was growing up. Such a human thing to do.
But when she was fourteen, her letter was different. The paper and the ink were ordinary. There were no sigils, and no magic in it at all. Just the words, the same as always: ‘Dear Satan…’. The other letters had been commands; this one was a request. I wasn’t bound by it. But why the change? Was something wrong? I didn’t have to go, but I went anyway.
On Christmas morning, she unwrapped me, and hugged me even tighter than usual. She was crying. “You came,” she said. “I had to know.” She had grown a lot this year – she was almost as tall as me, now. “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.”
“I’m not a person,” I said.
“Technicality.”
She pulled back and studied me.
“I’m not actually Satan, you know,” I said, and she giggled.
“I know. I figured that out years ago.”
“But the letters—”
“That’s just a game. It isn’t Satan I want, it’s you. The last few years I tweaked the spell so it wouldn’t work on anyone else.”
“And this year?” I said.
Her smile dropped.
“Things are bad. My parents are fighting. They’ll take it out on me. I’m worried I might have to hurt them.” With all the magic she had, that would be easy. “I can’t stay here – I’ve got to go, somewhere.” Then she looked me in the eye: “Will you come with me?”
She had woven magic into everything she wore. But there was no magic in her words, no compulsion. Like the letter, this was a request. I could say no.
I didn’t.
What did I feel towards her? Love? Demons can’t experience love. I could list off all the typical human behaviours that go with it, but I don’t understand why they do those things. Friendship, then? I’m not too sure on that one, either. But I could make her happy, and it was satisfying when I did. Any demon could do my job in the mailroom, but only I could do this one, so of course I’d go with her. I’d stay with her the whole of her life, if that’s what it took, and never mind the punishments the other demons would line up for abandoning my post. And when she’d eventually die, as all humans must, happy with the life I’d given her, I’d go back to Hell knowing I’d been orderly, and efficient, and with the satisfaction of a job well done.
Also on Reddit.
37 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 2 months ago
Text
Understanding
From the prompt 'make me understand', for writemas day 2 by @agirlandherquill.
I was human. She wasn’t.
The loneliness was on her again, as bad as I’d ever seen it.
“How long is it since you saw another of your own kind?” I said.
She didn’t say anything. It was years, at least. Maybe a lot longer.
“You’re not meant to be alone,” I said. “And you don’t have to be.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d brought this up.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she said.
“Because I don’t understand?”
“No one does—”
“We’ve been together for years. I’ve seen more of you than anyone.” Then, quietly, “You’ll never be understood if you’re surrounded by humans.”
I held her hand, doing what I could to comfort her. It wasn’t enough. It never was.
“You don’t want to be what I am,” she whispered.
“You learned that trick from humans – ‘don’t’ and ‘shouldn’t’ are different. You wouldn’t have switched them round before.”
She flinched a little at that. You don’t have to pretend with me, I’d told her so many times – but she’d trained herself so well to mask that it was hard to let it go, sometimes.
“You know what’s in my dreams,” I said, “even if you pretend not to. I know this is within your power.”
She looked at me. I could only imagine what was going on in her mind. But I thought I could see something shifting.
“You wouldn’t be human anymore,” she said at last.
“I know. I’m counting on that.”
“It’ll hurt,” she said.
“I want this.”
I could see the longing in her eyes – how desperate she was not to be alone. How scared she was of letting go.
“I’m ready,” I said. “Make me your equal. Make me understand.”
There was a very long pause.
Then she put her hand on my head, closed her eyes, and everything changed.
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@ask-de-writer @avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook
@mint-and-authoress @sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist
@wuwojiti @zzzestyy
21 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 2 months ago
Text
Tumblr media
It's that time of year again!
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@ask-de-writer @avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook
@mint-and-authoress @sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist
@wuwojiti @zzzestyy
16 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 3 months ago
Text
The Ferryman
The water was sluggish and smelly. Tyres and shopping trolleys were snagged on the weeds. I’d read enough to recognise where I was – the river Styx, boundary of the underworld – but this wasn’t the afterlife I’d been expecting. And certainly not looking like this.
I picked my way across the rubbish on the shore to where the ferry waited. It was a rusted old skiff, patched and listing. A microwave had been strapped where the motor should have been, doorless cavity pointing down at the water.
The skeleton at the tiller had seen better days. Eye sockets followed me as I climbed onboard.
“Charon?” I said. He nodded. “What happened here?”
He made the motion of spitting over the side. “Capitalism fucks us all, my man.”
“I’m not a man.”
He shrugged. “It’s all the same to me. Give me your battery.”
“Is that what this is?” I took the metal disk out from under my tongue. A coin cell. I’d known it was there since I’d arrived, but I’d felt no need to remove it. It wasn’t like I could swallow it and die. “Isn’t this supposed to be a coin?” I said.
“Times change.” He took it and weighed it in his hand. “That’s all you’ve got? Well, it’s better than nothing.”
He adjusted a receptacle until it was the right size for the battery, and popped it in. The microwave came on. The platter turned. The water behind the boat began to boil, and pushed the boat forwards.
Which was ridiculous. A tiny battery can’t power a microwave. A microwave can’t propel a boat. But this was the liminal space between life and death, so who was I to say what was possible?
Then the microwave dinged, and we stopped. He pulled out the battery and tossed it over the side.
“All done,” he said. “That’s as far as we go.”
“But we’re not even halfway there!” I said. “Can’t you paddle?”
“See anything to paddle with? You’re going to have to swim the rest of the way.”
I took a long look at the murky water, and the tyres, and the trolleys.
“Is that safe?”
I was only seeing what poked above the surface.
“You’re already dead,” he said. “What’s the worst that can happen?” Somehow that wasn’t reassuring. “Just don’t look back, or you’ll turn into a pillar of salt.”
“Isn’t that from a different mythology?”
He gave me a look – or would have if he’d had any eyes.
“You’re talking to a blind skeleton driving a boat powered by a microwave. Mythological consistency is the least of your problems.”
And then a minute later: “Are you going or not? Can’t stay here forever.”
The far shore was hazy. Was it any better than the shore I’d left? Hard to say. But Charon was right.
So I braced myself, took a deep breath, and jumped in.
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook @mint-and-authoress
@sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist @wuwojiti
@zzzestyy
29 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 3 months ago
Text
The Void
From the prompt 'utter darkness', for writemas day 1 by @agirlandherquill.
It was dark. Not just the absence of light, but the absence of the possibility of light. Light couldn’t exist here. I had no eyes, because matter couldn’t exist here. I had nothing, was nothing, except me.
I didn’t know how long I had been here. There was nothing outside myself to measure time by. There was nothing outside myself at all.
But I still had my memories. I still had my imagination. I imagined touching wood. A table. I imagined the shape of the edges. I imagined the texture under my fingers. I imagined so hard I could almost feel it. I reached out – when had I started having hands? – and imagined harder still – and it was real.
I imagined sounds and smells – a bird outside the window, bread baking in the oven. I imagined the carpet under my feet, the clothes on my back, the heart beating in my body. I had a body now. Each of these I held in my mind, and pushed beyond, and made real. These things implied other things, and everything cascaded out from there. I was starting to understand where I was, and what I was.
But something was still missing. I knew, now, that all I had to do was open my eyes.
And there was light.
There's a state in dreams that I call the void, that's exactly like this.
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook @mint-and-authoress
@sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist @wuwojiti
@zzzestyy
19 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 3 months ago
Text
"But you look human most of the time!"
So? 'Most common form' isn't the same as 'true form'. Neither is 'default form'. I'm a blob of goo that can turn into anything - but what makes you think 'blob of goo' is any truer than 'turn into anything'?
Haven't you heard what we say about ourselves? That we're as fluid as the ocean, wild as the wind, and cannot be contained? That we are the people of change? - no true nature, no true name, never stay the same.
We are not like you.
people will really go up to shapeshifters like "oh what's your true form? oh but what do you really look like?" are u hearing yourself. do u hear how insane u sound
4K notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 4 months ago
Text
I had a dream where one of my relatives was the Cult Leader of the Goddess of Strawberries - and the Cult was clearly up to something. She kidnapped me and tried to recruit me, not knowing that I was secretly the most powerful being on the planet - the one who stops the alien invasions, cures the plagues, and generally stops people wrecking the place. In most worlds I'm open about that, but apparently not in this one. And so there I am, casually passing all the hard tests she gives me, she's thinking she's found the perfect recruit, and meanwhile I'm giving her goddess a Significant Look: try anything, little fruit deity, and you'll have me to deal with.
I have no idea how she was going to use strawberries to try taking over the world, and I kinda wish I'd let her, just to find out.
7 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 4 months ago
Text
Rage
They put me in the cell because they say my kind are monsters. I tried talking to them, I tried reasoning with them, but they wouldn’t listen.
The cell is empty. It’s freezing. They barely feed me. I hold onto my human form, naked, hoping that might win me some sympathy. I don’t resist. Nothing here to fear, nothing to hate. But they’ve seen that when they beat me I don’t flinch, that when they cut me I don’t bleed. They throw my words back in my face.
I lie on the floor. Where my skin touches the stone, I form tendrils and start to burrow into the rock. It’s slow, almost imperceptibly slow, but I am as fluid as the ocean, and as patient. I have all the time in the world. I carve myself into the stone, while keeping the part of me they can see completely still. I draw some nutrients from the stone I absorb, but that’s not why I do this. I spread until I am a web of roots all through the floor and the walls. I can feel where the stone is weak, and follow those lines, and weaken it further.
Days, maybe weeks, pass before they next come to my cell. I speak again, give them one last chance to see reason. They beat me. This time I laugh. I clench all my tendrils at once, and the cell comes crashing down. The stone crushes them. I tear into their meat and lap up their blood. I feel my strength returning.
Did they really think this would hold me?
While the rubble still falls, I stand up, and I change. No more soft human form. Now I’m all razor spikes and teeth and claws. I’m tendrils and fluid, ready to pierce and devour whatever I touch. Those outside see me, and they run.
They think they know what fear is? They have no idea.
I can burrow into flesh as easily as stone. I can empty out their skin and use them as a puppet. I can take their memories and destroy every last thing they care about, one by one.
Maybe I am a monster. It’s time to show them what that means.
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook @mint-and-authoress
@sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist @wuwojiti
@zzzestyy
42 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 4 months ago
Text
Flying Lesson
It’s difficult, I get it, Though it’s pretty clear to see, That no matter how you practise, You’ll never be as good as me; But there’s mastery and there’s basics, And some things just aren’t that tough, And all your clawing at the air Won’t ever be enough; So before your crash and clatter Sets off all of the alarms, You’re supposed to be flying with your mind, Not flying with your arms.
In straight lines you’ve got it, I’ll give you that, you do, But sometimes a corner’s handy, Or going up a little too; Not everything’s as spry as me, Can’t rely on that to stay— Rocks and trees and houses Won’t be jumping out your way; So clear your mind and focus, Where you will, you’ll go, Up and down, it’s all the same, That’s it, take it slow— Oh I pity any passengers You might decide to take— Watch out! Don’t you see it? Stop! Stop! Brake!
All that wild flapping Won’t get you anywhere; It’s magic, not aerodynamics, That keeps you in the air— You’re a witch and not a pilot, And it wouldn’t do you any harms, To remember you’re flying with your mind And not your goddamn arms!
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook @mint-and-authoress
@sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist @wuwojiti
@zzzestyy
35 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 4 months ago
Text
Breakthrough
In the morning, everyone in my building is dead.
It takes me a while to notice. I live alone, and don’t see my neighbours often. But there are always little noises through the walls – doors closing, toilets flushing, voices – and now there aren’t any. By lunchtime, the shutters are still all closed. I knock on the doors, get no response, and call the police.
My neighbours have all died in their sleep.
Now I’m at the police station, waiting to be seen. My friend Ellen sits with me, holding my hand. As the only survivor, the police want to know if I heard or saw anything. Maybe I’m even a suspect. But they’re still rushing around, bringing in the bodies, contacting the families, doing autopsies – it could be a while before they’re ready for me.
And yet: I’m happy. I feel great. And my mind is going a hundred miles an hour because this is absolutely not how I should be feeling right now.
Ellen can tell something’s up. She always can. Well of course something’s up – we’re sitting in a police station and all my neighbours are dead. But there’s more than that, and she sees it. What do I tell her?
She leans in close. “What is it?”
“I dreamt I ate their souls,” I say eventually, and glance at her. We talk about my dreams all the time, and have a good laugh at how weird they are. But this time, she’s looking at me like, you want to talk about dreams, now?
“Were you lucid?” she says eventually. I nod.
“Because it’s Halloween,” I say, as if that explains it. “I wanted to do something spooky. For fun.” So I’d thought, let’s try eating souls. It’s all just pretend, of course, it’s all just a game in my head – but it’s in all the stories, so why not? All kinds of monsters and demons eat them, but what’s that like? What do they taste like? I’d always wondered. I thought it would be fun to see what my dreams came up with. Something surprising, for sure, something we could laugh about afterwards – but when I’d summoned some characters in the dream, it was my neighbours who’d turned up, and that made me pause. I don’t ever dream about them. But I’d gone through with it anyway – I’d phased my hands into their chests, pulled out the glowing masses of their souls, and slurped them down. I can’t even begin to describe the taste.
And in the morning, my neighbours were all dead.
I do weird stuff like this in my dreams all the time. That’s half the fun of being a lucid dreamer, right? I can do anything I like in there – or, well, anything I can persuade the dream to let me do; I’m not good enough yet to do anything anything – but I’m getting there. I can try out powers I’ve seen in films, play a part in stories I like, fight monsters, destroy planets – and all with zero consequences, because:
“And, what, you think you actually ate their souls? It’s a dream, Sue, it’s not real. You tell me that all the time.”
I nod. “Then how am I still alive? If it was something in the water, or a gas leak, or I don’t know – I’d be dead too. How can I be the only one still alive?”
“Maybe it was something they all ate?” she says.
“And this morning,” I go on, “I felt great, like really great. Full of energy, full of ideas – like I could do anything. I still do. Even here.” In fact I’ve been trying to stop myself grinning the whole time. This is not the place for that.
Ellen gives me a long, hard look, and squeezes my hand. “Stop tormenting yourself. Survivors’ guilt is a thing, you know that. You didn’t eat their souls. You don’t even believe in souls.”
I nod again. She’s right, of course.
A policewoman comes over. She’s wearing a black coat.
“Ms Tanner?” she says. “Come with me, please.”
Ellen gives me another look, gentler this time, and then we’re apart. The policewoman takes me to the far corner of the room.
“That was quite a feast you had,” she says.
This is so not what I’m expecting, it takes me a moment to respond.
“You mean my dreams? Did you hear us?”
She gives me a grim smile. “No – but you dream so loudly, half the city would know if I wasn’t shielding you.”
“Is this a joke?” I say. That conversation was between me and Ellen! “What’s this got to do with anything?”
“Everything,” she says. “There’s power in your dreams.”
“Look, I know I’m weird,” I say, “but… it’s just lucid dreaming. It’s all in my head.”
“For most people that’s true. But you aren’t most people, are you? You’ve made quite the mess. We knew you’d break through on your own sooner or later, but we didn’t expect it to happen like this…”
But I’m not listening. The people around me have caught my attention. There’s something moving inside them. I can’t see it, but I can tell it’s there. When I focus, it starts moving towards me—
She snaps her fingers in my face. “Stop that! What, do you want to kill everyone here, too?” She glares, and almost to herself, “You’ve broken through hard if you can already do that awake.”
I stare at her, and at the people. “Were those souls?” She nods. “But I don’t even believe in souls,” I say, weakly, while in my head is: oh shit. Worse, knowing they’re there is making me hungry. Susan Tanner, devourer of souls – that has quite the ring to it.
But I glance around, and say, quietly, “You’re saying I did kill them? What if someone hears—”
She shakes her head. “No one will. I’m taking care of that.”
No one is looking at us. In fact, no one has looked our way the whole time, like they’ve forgotten we’re even here.
“You’ve broken through the barriers,” she says. “Everything you can do in the dream, you’ll eventually be able to do out here – and you’re nowhere near your full potential, even in the dream.”
I’m still at: I killed them? Eventually I catch up. “That’s impossible,” I say. All of this is impossible. Those can’t have been souls, I just imagined it. But I can still feel them there, and if I just focus—
“Hey, stay with me,” she says. Oh. Right. “You don’t believe me? Change something.”
“What?”
“Change something, like you would in the dream.”
I stare at her black coat, and will it to be green – and it is. For a moment I wonder if I’m still dreaming. I do half a dozen reality checks, and they all fail. Which means either I’m still in the dream, and my mind is really messing with me – or I’m awake. Something people often don’t understand about learning to lucid dream is that the whole practice is based on being able to tell dreams from reality. We get really good at telling which state we’re in. And everything here is telling me this is not a dream.
I still feel completely, unreasonably great, despite everything, even though she’s just told me I’m, what? A murderer? Or at the very least, that I killed a bunch of people by accident.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” she says. “Soul euphoria’s quite the thing. There’s nothing quite like digesting the essence of another person to cheer you up. Just don’t go making a habit of it, OK?”
Has she just read my mind?
“I’ve been reading your mind for years, Ms Tanner, watching you learn in your dreams. It’s lucky I found you first – you’d have made a tasty morsel for someone, with potential like that.”
I flip the colour of the lights on the roof from white to red to blue. I make a potted plant on the other side of the room rise a few centimetres off the ground. It’s easy. Telekinesis, too? Shit. That grin has broken through, now, and I can’t help it.
“You’re not with the police, are you?” I say at last.
“Smart one.”
“So what happens now?”
“You come with me,” she says. “It’s time for your training to really begin.”
“But what about the police? The… deaths? What about Ellen?”
“Don’t worry,” she says, “I’ve taken care of that. They won’t remember you were ever here.”
There’s something in the way she says it: she doesn’t mean here, in the police station, she means here, at all. That I ever existed. I glance at Ellen. This woman has just taken away my best friend. She’s taken away my whole life. But because of those souls I ate, I still feel totally, overwhelmingly great. I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Turns out you can feel wonderful and horrified at the same time – but the horror is such a small part of it that I can’t keep my mind on it for long. I just feel too damn good.
How long will this euphoria last? And how hard will I crash when it goes away?
But I can’t think about that now – literally can’t, my soul-drunk emotions are too overpowering – can’t think about what I’ve lost, or the implications of what I’ve done. All I can think about is power, and dreams, and adventure. So when she gestures and opens a portal, I grin harder, and don’t look back, and follow her through.
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook @mint-and-authoress
@sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist @wuwojiti
@zzzestyy
34 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 5 months ago
Text
Pretending
Sometimes pretending to be a person is easy. Sometimes it isn’t. On the bad days, numbers start crawling on the page, straight lines curl, and I’ve got to remind myself to keep my face on. I want to stretch my other limbs, but the world down here is so thin, and so easy to tear. I have to be careful not to think too hard about anything, or it might start seeping through. You have no idea how much power you have, someone told me once, being able to create with a thought. And the children of my mind look too much like madness to humans.
Cases of madness worldwide are 1.3% higher on days like that.
But I don’t want to drive them mad. I’m here to protect them, not devour them. Not this time. So I have to pretend. Though with some of them practically throwing themselves at me, that isn’t always easy.
Writers are the worst. I let my ‘pretending to be a person is hard’ line slip into the coffee I’m nursing while my head pounds with the effort of keeping it all together, and her only response is, “Yeah, I know.”
“‘A writer is a world pretending to be a person’,” she quotes at me, and then, “That’s a deliberate misquote of something Victor Hugo said: ‘A writer is a world trapped in a person’. But I like my version better. If my soul wasn’t in a human-shaped body, sometimes I think I’d turn into a galaxy or something. Or maybe more than that. A multiverse.”
Humans are famously good at detecting things that don’t quite look human. I’m not doing a particularly good job of staying out of the uncanny valley today, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed. Or, worse, she’s noticed and likes it. Writers are like that sometimes. But I’ve been deliberately staying out of her mind. I can tell it’s twisty and complex, and I’m afraid the slightest touch from me would tip her over into madness. Or, who knows, maybe she’s right, and it would trigger her transformation into some kind of eldritch goddess that would put even me to shame. I don’t want to think about what that would do to the paper-thin world down here.
I’ve been so focused on my coffee, I’ve accidentally created another one. She hasn’t noticed.
“I do wonder what being a person is actually like, though,” she goes on. “You know, actually fitting in with all the weird rules humans have. Actually feeling at home here. And most of them only get to live one life, not all the fragments of all the lives we get to. Imagine that. They’ll never know what it’s like, being able to create with a thought.”
That last part hits too close to home, and I can’t resist taking just one quick peek into her mind.
“Oh, hello,” she says, and looks me in the eye.
I withdraw. No way she should have been able to feel that. And what I saw there – she’s practically a multiverse already, all jammed up there somehow into that tiny human brain.
“I always wondered if telepathy’s real,” she’s saying, “and now you’ve gone and proven it. Do that again, so I can see how you did it.”
No way, I’m not risking that – but she fumbles around and somehow does it anyway.
“There you are!” she says. I twitch back into my defences – why does this have to be happening on a day like this, when I’m barely holding it together anyway? The writing on the menu twists and curls, and customers start walking in circles. This time she notices.
“Ooh, eldritch abomination, is it?” she says. “Here, let me try.”
She squints, and now she’s holding another coffee, too. She takes a sip. “Mmm, just like in my dreams.”
Then she’s looking at me. Not just at my rapidly-slipping human disguise, but really looking at me, all the parts that no human should ever be able to see. But I don’t think she’s human anymore – I think she’s been right at that boundary for a while.
“You know, you really should pay more attention to that,” she says. “I find pretending is much easier if I do something like this—” and she does something, and my own human form snaps back into clarity. “There you go. Get those few things right and most people won’t even notice.”
Meanwhile, her own form is becoming more solid. That’s the only way I can describe it. Soon she’ll be so solid that her slightest movement will tear right through reality like tissue paper.
“Be careful,” I say, “you’re new to this, and this world is fragile—”
But it’s too late. She twitches in just the wrong way, and something tears.
Now everything is inverting. Everything that was packed up tightly inside her brain is becoming outside. The whole world is reforming around us, into one she considers home. I’m unaffected, but the humans are being completely rewritten.
“Hmm,” she muses, observing all the worlds at once. “Looks like I was right about myself.”
And she sees my dismayed expression. Avoiding something like this is exactly why I was being so careful down here. So much for that.
“Don’t worry,” she says, and gives me a reassuring pat somewhere in the fourth dimension. “There’s more than enough room in me for everyone.”
I really like that quote she uses, and use it myself. This story came from thinking - what if it was literally true, and not just a metaphor?
Tag list (tell me if you want to be added):
@avery-victoria-winterlight @dierotenixe @leahnardo-da-veggie @lunadook @mint-and-authoress
@sandyca5tle @scrubbinn @theriomythic-lesbian @void-botanist @wuwojiti
@zzzestyy
27 notes · View notes
calliecwrites · 6 months ago
Text
Writing Shifter HRT has been a bit of an experiment. I'd never serialised a story before, so I decided to post weekly, with a two-week backlog, to see what it's like writing that way. I did it for six weeks.
The hardest part was not getting distracted - either by other story ideas, or other things altogether. I'm used to writing when I feel like it - sticking to a schedule was very different. I had a few weeks where I didn't feel like writing at all, and that used up the backlog. Part 6 took longer to write, because it was going deep into old pain and dysphoria - which I felt was important to get right, even if it hurt - and left me not wanting to write for another few weeks, which broke the schedule completely. Staying on track is hard.
I've been taking a break since then, but I'm glad I tried it - I've often wanted to see if this kind of writing would suit me. I'm not sure if I'd want to do it for longer. I was already impressed by people who write long serials with consistent schedules - presumably they're facing similar obstacles on a bigger scale - and now I'm even more impressed.
And my story? Let's say we're at the end of an arc. Sad chapter with a hopeful ending feels like a good place to pause. Maybe I'll start the next arc soon - but probably not on the same schedule 😅.
12 notes · View notes