Keeper -- A Short Comic About An Angel Meeting A Robotic Lighthouse Keeper That Doesn't Know The World

I feel you there. I think that's what's been keeping me from writing recently is that, what happens when there are no other directions for them to go? It feels like funneling the characters in a specific direction... even when it's the decision you're most certain the characters would have made in the moment.

It's like, you're there with the characters as decisions are made. And then you step back and suddenly you're aware that the only decision being made is your own. And idk why but it sucks the adventure out of writing for me sometimes.

Interesting! Idk how much I can relate to this specifically, but yeah that feeling of "what happens when there are no other directions for them to go" definitely stuck out to me. Writing things down is how we communicate and share ideas, obviously, but it also cements them and closes down other possibilities. Not necessarily a bad thing because that's just... the nature of things, but it is an interesting dilemma to me.

Lots of people asked for my concept dev for the Shapers in my webcomic FACING THE SUN, so here it is!

Read the Comic \ Support the Project \ Buy the Issues

from da archives!!!! a screenprinted zine i made <3

Epic Cosplay of “Horizon Zero Dawn”

As someone who is trying to write their own story, I'm so happy that there are author's out there who have written books with disabled rep, who have written books with queer rep. Because I am both of those things, and it really helps to know that mine won't be the only one like it.

The terrible indecision of having to name a new document.

Cast your votes now! I personally am a big fan of "one robot teaches another how to be human. their daughter is dying." and "am i a muppet or a man?" This one's just for planning, so it doesn't have to be serious lol. "Exoskeletons and Inner Machinery" might be good for an actual project title.

OCtober Bingo: Multilingual

“Come here,” Glass signed.

Sprocket shifted forwards, sand sliding over and into his joints, tubes bending to follow the movement. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, hands folded in his lap. Opposite him, Glass kneeled in the sands.

The mid-morning sun fell through eir body, refracting and splitting through the glass, shining brilliantly on pieces of metal and bulbs of green liquid before falling onto Sprocket. It would be warm, if either of them had the skin to feel it.

(Natural heat was lost to Sprocket in the storm of his own whirring processors and grinding motors. He just had the vague impressions offered to him by an internal thermometer ticking up or down: 42.3°C.

He’d once asked Glass if ey could feel warmth, could feel the sun beating down on them.

Ey said it felt like life, which sounded very different from 42.3°C.)

Glass pressed eir palm against Sprocket’s chest, warping the way the light fell, and hummed three notes.

They slid together like the gradient of a sunset, each higher than the last. They sat somewhere in the middle of Glass’s vast spectrum of sound, a neutral sort of tone that shook around in Sprocket’s chest but didn’t quite stay there. He raised a hand from his lap to grab onto Glass’s forearm, fingers clinking into place. Another point of connection, without the leather of Sprocket’s vest separating them.

“Go again,” he said.

The same three notes played. Sprocket could feel the vibrations humming against his sensors, sound washing through him. It brushed over those parts of him designed only to detect pain, to alert to problems, gently passing by without alarm.

The sweeping rise in pitch felt whole in some way, complete. Someone with more musical knowledge than him, with more knowledge of the language Glass was trying to speak to him, could have had the right words to describe it. Sprocket had neither of those things, so all he had to offer was-

“It sounds nice. What does it mean?”

Glass nodded. Ey pulled eir hand away from his chest, and Sprocket followed suit, disengaging.

“It’s supposed to sound nice,” ey signed. “It means ‘to give comfort.’ We have many words like this, that represent concepts, that can be used in many different ways as long as the emotion is there.”

Those bulbs of liquid rolled around in Glass’s chest, occasionally colliding with each other to become one, other times clinging to the clear walls surrounding them. A pool of it splashed in eir head, right behind the pair of white, glowing eyes that watched Sprocket intently, making sure he understood. Glass continued.

“It means ‘it’s okay.’ It means ‘it’s alright.’ It means ‘it’s over.’ It means ‘I’m here.’ It means whatever it needs to mean.”

“And does it… work? Do you feel comforted by it?”

“Of course. That association has been well-established for me. The same will be true for you, eventually.”

Glass hummed the notes again. Ey nodded at him to do the same.

Sprocket took a moment to find the first pitch, letting it hum in his speaker before he climbed to the next, and then the next.

Glass tilted eir head at him. “You’re climbing stairs.”

“What?”

“When you move from one syllable to the next, you find in betweens and jump to them, instead of sliding up the scale. Here, try it with me.”

Ey reached out, pressing a hand against his chest, the globs of liquid in eir fingers twisting and reforming. Sprocket reached back, grabbing onto eir arm. The tubing that coiled loosely around him flexed and shifted, filled with that same blood.

Glass held the first note, leading the way for him to follow. Sprocket could hear the vibrations, could feel them thrumming in his veins of tubes, buzzing where cheers of metal met each other. The sound rattled discontentedly while he tried to find the right note, warping and grating until it fell into place.

Glass raised eir pitch, and Sprocket clumsily followed em up the scale, resting together at the three notes along their journey. When Glss nodded, Sprocket already knew what ey meant, and they starting over, and he led the charge.

They traded off like that several times, taking turns to find the right notes to play, each time getting closer to each other’s rhythm. Until the need ceased for a lead at all, and Sprocket and Glass spoke as one.

Liquid danced in Glass’s body, bulbs of it twisting in eir chest, all surrounded by singing glass.

Sprocket’s metal sang, carrying waves of sound. Gentle hands, not ones that poked or prodded, cupped his sensors, pressed against his vest.

They reached what Sprocket knew would be their final iteration and grew silent together, the last of the sound fading out of reach. Only when every last bit of it was gone, when Sprocket couldn’t possibly feel it, did Glass pull away. Sprocket’s hands fell into his lap.

“Like that,” ey signed.

“Thank you,” Sprocket responded. “I understand.”

@glacierruler

Another square down! I actually wrote this story a while back, it was one of the first things that went into my Deslotair notebook. Just some thoughts on the glass bot language and how we can communicate even when we're so different. Languages are very important to Glass (ey used to be a translator) so this was a really good prompt for em!

Yeehawgust day 30 “the big empty”

Some covers of my nano project I threw together in canva! Thought it would be fun to try and get a rough idea for some of the visual language and ideas that might make their way onto an actual Raven's Rock cover, and then the newspaper one was mostly just for fun. Although I do like the idea of eventually getting something more landscape-y, like in that first pic.

Summary:

Raven's Rock is a small mining town in the Barren. It's strange, and quiet, and kind, and the people there lead strange, quiet, kind lives.

Then, they dig too deep, they strike something new, and days later their mines explode. The people of Raven's Rock no longer know quiet and kind, it is all strange and stranger.

Emanuel Rye is the sheriff of Raven's Rock. He listens to the wind like it has something to say, and he'll fix his town or die trying.

Ramona buried her sister yesterday, and she spends her free time sitting over a haunted grave. She's going to fix things, and she'll break this town trying.

I think it's funny when robots in fiction are just,,, super old and they outlive multiple generations of humans and are kinda treated as functionally immortal but irl tech is like "Your car is 20 years old???" or "I get a new smart phone every two years!"

Lemme see old ass bots who are mocked for being all ancient and outmoded and then when someone asks "How old are you??" it turns out they're like five.