#zeke omezie-fumudoh

[novemberthewriter]

fortune teller [300 wds]

genre: literary/drama (another flash piece done for a writing club prompt months back xx)

[tw: grief]

--

Zeke didn’t think divination was the Devil, like her mother did – she just thought it was dumb. When it came to Joseph Augustine, so-called Fortune Teller? Well, high school angst was a hardworking force and Joe Augustine worked even harder to feed into it. He never asked for money – not a single cent! Zeke checked – but somehow always had a shoebox full of cash by lunchtime. It was a total grift.

And yet. There she was, home alone after school, ear to the radio at Joe’s behest. She’d never actually spoken to him before. But today marked one month since Dodie’s passing, and Dodie used to visit with Joe every day. The decision was made for Zeke, really; at lunch her feet moved of their own accord and brought her right in front of Joe’s table. Her mouth moved of its own accord and said, You know Dodie James?

Her mouth said, I don’t want any of that playing card star chart shit but I just need to … know something about her.

Now Zeke worked the dial with two skinny fingers, trying to find answers in so many static-filled ballads and news bulletins. She’d been at it for an hour. You’ll know when you hear It, he’d told her. Her back ached from bending over. Her eyes were leaking without her permission. Zeke didn’t know what she was looking for, but she knew she had fifteen minutes before her mother got off work and demanded an explanation for doing Devil’s Work with the Crosley.

Then the next dial turn had Dodie’s favorite song blasting.

What could Zeke's body do but crumple?

What could Zeke do but sob?

And after eight minutes of her dead friend’s revival via rock opera – what could Zeke do but resolve to tip Joe tomorrow?

[novemberthewriter]

between home & the other hard place [650 wds]

a character sketch of candida “dodie” james

genre: literary/drama (lightly-edited discovery writing for one of my WIPs, the horror/dark fantasy project ‘dagmar’. we learn a bit abt dodie: the black sheep of her family, & best friend to zeke, our protagonist)

[cw: emotional negect/abuse, implied self-harm]

–

A BIT OF THE BEFORE [for dodie]

The best thing Kendra James ever does is reupholster all the shag carpeting in the house. This makes it much easier for Dodie to wallow overnight in the corner of her bedroom.

Sometimes, if she’s got her good PacSun hoodie on (with the thumb holes and the built-in earbud drawstrings that connect to her iPod), and some fuzzy socks, she doesn’t even need to use a blanket. The nights will start with a racing mind and end in the deep, drugged-without-drugs sleep that depression causes so many people to fall into. 

Even this rare good thing from Kendra has Bad attached. Side effect of these plush-carpet-pillowed nights: as easily as racing thoughts and slumber come, so too does morning, missing the bus, incurring Kendra’s wrath for needing a ride. Dodie prays on these days for Grandma Dolly to feel well enough to drive her instead of Kendra ‘Can Never Be Late For Work’ James. Then Kendra’s schedule changes, and Dolly’s health declines, and suddenly it’s easier in these times for Dodie to call herself in sick (the attendance office at the high school always falls for her Kendra impression). 

The thing is, ever since the family split and Dad and Little Denny went off their own way, it’s actually less work for Kendra to be stuck with an ailing mother and depressed daughter instead of them two plus Dad the Manchild and Denny the Actual Rowdy Schoolboy. When Dodie’s not thinking of herself as The Big Disappointment, she is able to muster a bit of grace to speculate (privately) that Kendra’s become a nightmare because she’s feeling like a failure for not holding the family together.

Listen. Dodie’s also just tryna survive – between home, and the other hard place where hardly anyone connects with her: school.

When Dodie (having finally accepted that her first Black geek friend is not an online figment of her imagination but someone who exists in her town, in her same school) starts talking to Zeke offline, she’s surprised to learn Zeke cares nothing about her massive follow/friend count. “I have an extension to hide all that shit,” she tells Dodie.

“But can’t other people still see it?”

“Yeah, but I can’t, which is all I care about.”

Other Things Zeke Cares About:

Dodie’s nail care (Dodie will never again rock chipped black polish & chewed-up nailbeds while Zeke has an acrylic kit @ home) 

Dodie’s makeup (“You can still be all goth and spooky but let’s do it CLEAN!”)

Under Zeke's hand, Dodie sees things about herself gloss over in some areas and come together, less ABC Extreme Makeover and more like using the Photoshop sharpening tool IRL. One day, she makes the mistake of leaning into the never-before-received curious attention of alt onlookers at school – only to be met with a Greek Chorus of Jeers (Tryhard, Wannabe, Poser, White Chocolate, and so many dumbass Marilyn Manson puns involving slurs). Zeke’s not there to protect her (Dodie would never expect her to be, Zeke’s her own person, not Dodie’s guard dog), and anyway, Dodie found out the consequences of being a Black Girl Fighting Back in the white town of Dagmar early on in life. She knows that her best chance of survival in this, as with everything, is to take it on the chin. To stay grateful for the few good things she has. 

THE REALITY NOW [for zeke]

Dodie dies.

The remaining James family moves away before Zeke can process anything. Consensus among the people of Dagmar who notice is that the death was by Dodie’s own hand. And Zeke’s not saying she wholly disagrees with that (Kendra’s shitty enough that Zeke can imagine many people being driven to the edge by her), but she feels a hole like a missing puzzle piece, and the hole is what her friend left in her, but it’s also wonder – What exactly befell Dodie James? 

Who else but Zeke cares enough to find out?

[novemberthewriter]

wip snippet #1 [novella project 'dagmar']

context: this is from 'part 1: machinations' of my queer dark fantasy/horror novella. we're laying the foundation for the way our protag, 18-year-old zeke omezie-fumudoh, views her world and her girlhood and her one-sided attraction to authority figures

taglist [anyone wanting to be added/removed from this or other taglists for my work, pls shoot me an ask or dm! finally figured that is the best way for me personally to keep track of things] :

@s-pendragon7 @sshawthorne @kyuponstories @heartshapedgreen @halfbit

@juliebarnes

@agirlandherquill @leahnardo-da-veggie

--

I think he’s pretty in a ‘can I make out with your brain’ way.

He spent so much of the first years he had me trying to get me to Form Good Habits — and God, was I resistant to writing everything by hand (I write like a doctor, I type so much better), to doing the cartography assignments (a handmade map copied out of the textbook for Every. Single. Learning Unit), etc, etc.

Until end of 11th grade hit me with the realization that I only had one more year in which I'd be justified in hanging around him all the time. Just like that: I was leaning into everything I admire about him, and his mind, and all his quirks. My own Senior Sendoff (since Dodie’s not here but let's not dwell on that now).

The new block schedule means I get to bask in him more during his sessions. I, like all the other students, use the excess time to help him decorate his classroom and rearrange desks and all the things good pupils should do. I, like all the other students, get told ‘lovely job, dear’ — but I’m fairly certain I’m of a small, small population of people really honing in on the use of ‘dear’. It’s a pet name and I know it’s platonic but I love silly teacher crushes so much, it’s fun to imagine the pet names are meant as sweetly as I want them to be. The camp and melodrama and theatrics of it all. Performance. Girlhood as Drag and Cabaret.

I had a similar teacher pet name sitch when I took a supplemental history course on a whim last year. Miss Hendrix made me shudder every time she did roll call. She made me shudder just by existing. I loved studying her. She was a Young Teacher, bright and tiny and could've been in K-12 with me, she wasn't that far out of college. She had that … surfer blonde look. Peggy Lipton in the 60s. Or Bridget Fonda in Jackie Brown. She was a history teacher that teased the hipsters among us about our old movie obsessions. Listen, I was failing that class 'cause I couldn't pay attention 'cause every time she called me 'honey' I thought I’d melt through the floor into the bottom of the earth.

[novemberthewriter]

WRITEBLR INTRO xx

hey, all! i’m n.k. :-)

i'm not new to tumblr (have had a few diff accounts since 2011/2012), but i'm new to interacting with writeblr proper. 

ABOUT ME

late 20s

black & queer & disabled 

lifelong writer/musician/creative (in both professional and hobbyist capacities)

finally finishing my degree in creative writing & english! 

ARTISTIC/THEMATIC INTERESTS 

literary fiction, horror, camp, kitsch, diversity, introspection, family/friend bonds (especially nontraditional ones), romance, art rock, nostalgia, technology, diy ethos 

GOALS

connect with the tumblr writing community at large! for a while i was unable to get excited about my non-work, non-fanfic related writing projects. over the past year or so, my passion’s been renewed, and i just wanna chatter with like-minded folks about my longform WIPs, my short stories, etc – and geek over other people’s work here too <3

WIPS 

Dagmar

there’s always something going down in dagmar, an insular coastal community straddling the delaware bay. pragmatic tech geek zeke omezie-fumudoh, 18, prefers to keep her head in her books and projects – deaths and disappearances were common in her parents’ home country, too, after all. when her best friend dodie dies, however, zeke has no choice but to start trying to connect the dots & face the potential supernatural forces at play. 

[this is finna be dark fantasy/horror, romance, mystery, and queer as hell! i got a lot of worldbuilding to do, but a few months ago the twist popped into my head 1st and i’ve been working backwards. i'm sooo excited abt figuring out the narrative path(s) i gotta take]

Dave & The Family Davenport

20-year-old twin musicians dorian & daria davenport are a little s club 7, a little sly stone, & a whole lotta spitfire. as the very first act signed to holliday records, 30-something producer & label founder dave levine considers it his duty to take the family davenport under his wing. they become his pet project – and eventually something more to him. 

[i’m taking this one in a literary/drama direction! thinking found family and music industry commentary vibes. idea came from revisiting big time rush and thinking ‘what would happen if you mix btr + the carpenters + prince + mtv’s making the band??’ (for the record, dave is 100% NOT meant to be a p. d*ddy analogue re: making the band, i'm mainly thinking of the aesthetics of the young artists of color featured on the show)]

Several fun essays about my personal fandom/shipping history (one is about all the diff sites i've used over 17+ years of reading/writing fanfic, another is an old-school livejournal-style ship manifesto that i plan to make into a video! etc etc)

SHORT FICTION 

blank [literary/drama, 300 wds]

fortune teller [literary/drama, 300 wds]

hothouse [horror, 500 wds]

a certain standard of care [horror-comedy/surreal/gross-out, 1k wds]

good bones (or, an exercise in letting go) [literary/dramedy, 1.3k wds]

[writing tag: scorpio the scribe]

hmu if you think we'd get along <3 i need more ppl to follow!

[ETA: i prefer to follow/be mutuals w/ ppl 18+ only, ty!]