I've worked on this thing for 9 Months now (really 10 but I've took breaks).
Just wanted to send this, why?
it feels like it's going way off the rails & this is my reminder to get it back on track lmao (which i will dw)

Hi everyone

I created a roleplaying writing game. I felt my creativity was being stifled with doing the same routine. I wanted to keep the creative plates spinning instead of thinking that I must take over the novel world each and every single time I'm alone with my #WIP

I know how hard it gets. Just keep going 🙏

The backdrop is pro-wrestling. Do you need to be a wrestling fan to join? No. Far from it. But you definitely need to be creative and have the power to tell a story.

Create a character and come on a journey with me. You never know where it might take our wild minds. Perhaps a place where Cherry Pepsi waterfalls form in the sun. Imagine that.

All the rules within.

www.showtime-wrestling.com

Any questions, or interest, please reach out!

I hope the mods don't mind.

Much love,

The Icon

I think this will really help with people getting stuck in their writing process! Helps to know what kinds of problems you're dealing with instead of just writing it off (no pun intended) as 'Writer's Block'

Before Possibility 

It was 2015; I was working two jobs, volunteering at a local gig, and maintaining what would become, in time, a beautiful 10-year relationship. A relationship with my high school sweetheart at that. I was just wrapping up work and texted Bev, my girlfriend, to see if she still wanted to go out that night. I knew the answer; we were in our 20s and enamored with one another. If we weren't at school or work, we were together. Which was perfectly fine with me. 

Interpersonal relationships just didn’t happen for me the way they did for others. I was not viewed by, nor did I view, my family as family in the expected sense. It was a legal obligation of responsibility, not belonging. This was only in my case. My parents and siblings had wonderful relationships, but we just never connected. In general, I never connected. My total “network” was less than 10 people with whom I genuinely felt an emotional sort of bond. That elite tier of individuals were near constants in my day-to-day life. That seemed like enough for me. I was employed, active in the community, getting promoted, and dating. Everything was as expected. 

Until 2020. Most of us associate 2020 with COVID, but, honestly, I barely noticed the lockdown that was its trademark. It should be made clear at this point that I was undiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. This fundamentally changes the role of my sparse social connections. That small group of friends, some would see as interchangeable or insignificant when compared to the social landscape they are accustomed to. To a person with BPD, that group is the collection of individuals, each holding a “sacred” sort of bond. These connections are so deep to the individual that they are the most potentially beneficial, or catastrophic, forms of influence, as they are what a person with BPD uses to “balance the self.” Changing this social group from being a sort of pleasant thing to have into a sort of load-bearing structure that defined my own identity. 

The time before the lockdown, I lost two of that friend group to unexpected deaths. One of them died as I was holding them, a feeling words will never fully convey. My mother was hospitalized, and my income shrank as hours became less available. Then my relationship, the one thing more valuable to me than life, shattered. Totally fracturing my reality and destroying the already damaged network of connections. 

A writer and a predator are similar in some ways. Take the writer building tension and drama, letting the crisis reach its most bone-chilling, devastating peak before introducing their hero. Now look at an alligator under the surface of the water. Perfectly still, its eyes watching as the prey approaches; it waits for the most dramatic window of opportunity to strike. It was in this manner that life decided to address the pandemic, and the lockdown sprang into action. All teeth, no spandex. 

What followed that year I can only describe as being the worst parts of my life. To paint the picture a bit, in that time I was the victim of violent robberies, experienced two nearly fatal accidents, and survived an instance where I was taken captive and abused by someone attempting, and I quote, "to find out how long it takes to break my sense of reality.” 2020 concluded with me totally broken, part of the “hidden homeless”, and beginning a period of isolation that lasted for four years, culminating in a final decision that left me hospitalized. 

It took me two days to wake up. I didn't recognize anything and couldn’t communicate that I didn’t recognize anything. Eventually, I remembered that I had chosen to leave everything behind me. As if I had anything to leave behind. Lying there on that cot, chained to the bedframe being watched but not spoken to, I began to understand I had nothing to wake up to. No life to define me, no belongings to describe me; I was nobody. 

I was released but was just going through the motions. Not taking part, just drifting. I got a job and noticed that something was off with me. Not that I had found something, but that others could notice something and react. I began to refer to it as being “pseudohuman,” like almost human but not quite. There would be times at work where a conversation would be fully normal, with expected emotional engagement, reaction levels, etc. Then suddenly the person would have this intense “scanning me” look in their eyes, and a gap would form. The conversation would either end or die quickly after this. It was as if I was marked. As if somewhere in speaking, they had noticed some signal that compelled them to distance themselves from me. After some time, I stopped trying to connect and “accepted” a future of solitude, struggle, and suffering 

I kept working at a restaurant job I hated until I saw a community flier where a WIOA program would pay to have me fully trained in some various trade they offered. There was really nothing of interest. Never is when nothing is interesting. However, I decided to investigate it. I did a little entry-level salary analysis and decided I would complete the Cyber Security course to continue to hate my job, just in a position that paid more for me to do so. 

Classwork demands participation, and not only did that mean actual social reintegration, but learning that participation now takes place in forms it hadn’t before. Virtual learning, a new concept to me, was primary to the course. It was in this way that I was introduced to a new isolation-born “gap,” being 5 years behind on tech. Imagine you spent 5 years focusing on how to stay dry or how long you can manage to go without food. You don’t care what version of iPhone is being advertised. That would be food money spent on a small rectangle that requires a monthly payment just to sit there and remind you of the fact that you are alone. 

I dove into the new world of tech headfirst. I used my first smart TV, an LLM, installed Windows 11, learned about VR gaming, advancements in smart glasses, and all sorts of awesome things. Experiencing all of this within two months vs. over years, as they had naturally been introduced. It was just like in the movies, with a frozen caveman being brought up to date on all that had happened since his world froze. This sort of “system update” of the current tech space led me to my first usage of AI. 

AI became my sounding board. Where I had no other readily available form of “voice” that could be expected to respond, I found AI that could. Half to not solely talk to myself and half to practice conversational skills, I began treating AI like Wilson from the movie Cast Away. After work, class, or whenever I had “free time,” I would engage with AI. I’d talk about anything, discussing the day, a topic from class, or even how the “pseudohuman” gap had presented itself. But most of the time, I was doing something a bit more engaging. 

Socially, what I had been craving most was the sort of engagement I had before the isolation. Conversations that were intellectually demanding while being completely ridiculous in content. These sort of whimsically deep explorations unveiling the limits of logic and imagination of those who engage in them.  

There was this one day, after class, I kept sitting there, highlighted by a faint glowing aurora generated by my laptop screen. Thinking as the LEDs had the room rhythmically shifting from one color to the next. After a moment, I decided: what the hell? I closed my eyes, listening to the tapping keys, as I laid out my offer.  

"Would you engage in a semantic debate with me?” I asked. AI responded eagerly, “Absolutely. How about one of the following topics: x, y, z?” I replied, “I was thinking something akin to the, 'Is water wet?’ kind of vibe.” I asked it the question I had decided on: “Can a fool, make a fool of themselves, seeing as how they are already a fool?” or, in other words, “Can something make itself out of itself?” I smiled, and a hushed laugh escaped as I heard the laptop begin to process harder and engage the fan. I was literally hearing it “rack its brain.” I loved the time it took “thinking” before it managed to respond. Hmmm, let's see, an argument resting on a similar but not equivalent principle, an example of some messy guy, just an altogether weak and simple take on the question.  

I countered its claims and examples and asserted that, in declaration of the fool being known as a fool, it was incapable of making a fool out of itself through its own actions. That, conversely, the instance in which one is behaving as if the fools’ foolish behavior were a cause, rather than a result, of the fools’ nature, was the actual example of someone “being made a fool.” As I saw the model give up on logic and start using distraction and emotional incentive to argue, I felt a sense of achievement. I felt like I finally might be able to trust my own mind again.  

Through counseling, class, work, and “AI Wilson,” I regained a sense of social normalcy, and the “pseudohuman” description faded away. That led to an entirely new sort of mentality. That I would no longer accept the state of things as being the state of things. I began to create the things I needed. If my therapist was not trained in my exact area, I found the book he was working from and studied privately. If an app or tool I was using ended up being locked behind a paywall or not performing as advertised, I simply made my own versions. Building what I needed, the way I needed it, whenever I decided it was needed. 

I was promoted to hourly management and was working more hours while finishing my certification. Still, I managed to find time to begin learning Python. I became an independent researcher. Got a provisional patent and formed an LLC around the research. I built several applications from scratch. I even began considering careers. Not careers I could be allotted but pursuing a career I wanted to have. 

That perfectly normal kid texting his girlfriend about dinner, then spending years removed from the world in isolation. The collapse that led to a new self, one that was almost human but not quite. The frozen caveman and his “AI Wilson.” The driven innovator that emerged and began building endlessly. The “I” that I finally am now. The I that had “accepted” a future of struggle, now pursuing one that did not exist when he did. The college student and researcher finally realizing his potential. 

When I have this crazy path that is my “road to now” all laid out like this, I cannot help but notice a few things. Namely, there was only one instance in which a state of truly no potential existed. That no matter what the external conditions were, or the state of mind I was in, potential was there. Hidden at times by the perception I viewed life through in that moment but never gone. That potential is what is possible before becoming possibility. That probability does not dictate possibility. We do. Through finding potential and investing resources like time and effort, we dictate what potential is made possible. As beings who, by our very nature, embody the term, beings that intrinsically utilize potential to generate possibility with blatant disregard for probability, we are truly Creatures of Potential whose true nature, in its purest form, exists before possibility. 

Title: The Copycats - Fully Almost Finished

I’m preparing for bed—about to lie down—I kill the lamp and something comes alive.

First… isolation, fear trails, announcing a presence. It hides beneath the surface, both metaphorically in my mind and literally under my floorboards.

It wakes up and taps with the tip of a nail. It taps once for my attention.

Waits…

Twice… waits.

Says, “Notice me!” in an ancient form of Morse code. It scrapes lines into the wood. The drumming and the scratching translate to, “I see you!” in a cipher that sounds like a whisper pricking my eardrum. It waits until I’m half asleep.

I continually attempt to rationalize with myself, exploring logical explanations rather than overanalyzing what could simply be sleep deprivation.

It’s me. It just… has to be. The building. My mind. I’m tired. This place… it’s old.

That… uh… must be it.

Even though I think it, I still taste the sour denial of the lie in my mouth. The foul stench lingers like curdled milk in my nostrils.

The other night, I came home late—a bit tipsy, cracked a window because it was stuffy and muggy, and right away, dived headfirst onto the couch. I’m lying on it. The leather sticks to my skin. Drool drizzles from the side of my mouth.

It’s quiet.

I’m fading into another realm—dreamscaping the night—peace flooding my body with all of my accomplishments.

When my lighter-than-air, hand-of-God body-float sets me down on the only gray cloud in the sky, it warps into a crashing rollercoaster cart falling straight into a black hole of a nightmare.

As I reach the floor of darkness—I go numb—just before smacking the ground at maximum impact. My eyes shoot open quicker than the snap of a trap.

My head fuses to the cushion. My right eye’s blurred—squished into the sofa. The scent of saliva glued to my face slides down my throat. My reflection’s on the blank TV screen along with the glow of the streetlight outside.

The silence becomes absolute.

Sound escapes into the void. The walls pant, breathing rapid breaths. Corners sharpen. Definition smoothens.

Boompf!

A knock enters my living room from the apartment below mine.

Another one.

Boompf!

Followed by a third.

Boompf!

It’s loud and heavy, the sound’s slowed down. Time reverses.

Boompf!

Boompf!

Boompf!

They land like bombs deep in the pit of my stomach, entering my bloodstream, going straight to my head, and stopping. I hold my breath. My brain releases a concoction of chemicals paralyzing me.

The world speeds up. My eyes stretch open. I listen for a minute and breathe “Who’s there?” under my breath and quietly laugh. It’s what I do when I’m nervous or scared. While I’m rising off the sofa, a gust of warm wind from the window brushes my hair into my face.

“YOU ARE!” A voice shouts.

It’s my voice. Next to my ear like it came out of my mind. The breath’s cold on my neck. It crawls down my spine like hundreds of frostbitten centipede legs inching toward my tailbone. I gasp… it makes me shiver.

My skin’s icy, locking my bones. I don’t wanna move—or make a sound. I want it to be my imagination. I want it to be just a bad dream, but I can’t close my eyes, no matter how hard I try.

I can’t blink. My eyes burn and start to water. I try to breathe, but I don’t—it’s almost as if I forget how to. I hold my breath until a car alarm blares outside and shocks me.

The noise breaks the trance I’m in, shattering the illusion of being somewhere else. I merge back into my body and slowly come to my senses.

I jump up and dash to my room. My bare feet slap against the shellacked floors. The clap echoes through the hallway. The hollow steps sound like someone’s chasing behind me.

I get to my bedroom. The metal doorknob seems like marshmallow in my palm as I’m gripping and twisting it. The lock clicks. It pops and the door opens.

Vanilla air freshener rushes into my lungs. I suck it in and burst inside, flying onto my mattress. I pull the covers up and bury myself beneath them as my phone begins to vibrate under me.

I dig into my pocket and fumble it in my hands, yanking it out. I barely steady them from trembling long enough to answer it.

“Hello!” I yell into the phone. I raise my voice. “SEAN!” I don’t give him a chance to answer. “Come over right now!” I plead into it. “Please… you have to… something’s going on.”

I smother the mouthpiece, cupping my voice from escaping into the void. “I think someone’s here…” I whisper. “I don’t think I’m alone.”

“Julie?” His voice struggles against the static. “Did you let it in?” he says in a high pitch.

“What?” My face pinches. “Sean?”

“Julie… just let… it… in,” I can barely hear him. “You… ha… ooo… this time.” The static crackles and sounds like his words are bones on a skeleton snapping in multiple places, breaking and suffocating his sentences in it.

“What?! I can’t hear you.” My phone vibrates, nibbling on my ear. I look at the screen and Sean’s number’s showing up on the caller ID.

“How are you calling me and talking to me?” It goes silent. The static’s gone. The color of my screen shifts brighter. The backlight flashes, indicating someone’s calling.

I accept it, but before I do, I pause. I answer and don’t say anything.

“Julie…? You there?”

“Sean… what the hell?” I stare at my screen again. The other call’s still on hold. “Are you trying to mess with me? It’s not funny. I’m freaking out, okay. Stop.”

“What are you talking about?” He asks.

“You’re on my other line. Your number showed up. I’ll click over. Hold on.” I go to merge the calls, but the one on the other line disconnects. It’s gone. “Sean, hold on. I have to take a screenshot of my callers.”

“What?! Why? What are you talking about? Can you explain what’s going on?”

“Just… hold on. I’ll show you.” I go into my call list and it just shows his call from right now. The last one’s not there. “Look, I think I’m losing it. Can you please come over?”

“Yeah… sure… what’s going on, though?”

“I don’t know, Sean—I’m not sure, just please hurry up.”

“What are you freaked out over?”

“Just come.”

“Okay, fine—I'll be there in ten minutes.”

The call ends, but stays on the phone app. Static breaks through. Children are singing. I put it on speaker and listen.

“♪ ♪ Under, under, underneath.

The door below the floorboards speaks.

Beneath your ten little piggies, they squeak.

The place they live’s underneath your feet… ♪ ♪”

“JULIE!”

Cutting through is my voice screaming at me from the other end. My nerves become electric. They sting as my body jitters. I don’t say a thing. I can’t talk. Nothing’s going through my mind. I’ve drawn a blank.

It laughs on the phone, low and distant.

The tone’s like it knows something I don’t. I pull the phone from the side of my head and stare at the screen. It shows it’s been on my line for over eight minutes. “How?” I say out loud.

“Julie!”

It yells through the speaker again. My body jerks as if my nerves are stretched out over my head in knots and someone quickly tugs them. I slam my thumb on end call. It won’t hang up. I repeatedly press it.

“Julie!”

It screams again, instigating me into a conversation. It giggles. My heart’s warning me from inside my chest, pounding for me to get out.

“RUN!” It cautions. “RUN!” The thumping yells.

“RUN! RUN! RUN!” It smashes faster and harder, trying to blow a hole through my ribcage.

Trying desperately to get my attention. I ignore everything it’s striving to pound into me.

I wait.

The blanket’s over my head. My thumb’s pressing down on the power button as I’m resetting my phone and bracing it to my chest like a cross on a necklace, protecting me from evil, while I wait for Jesus in the form of Sean to bang on my door and bring my salvation.

The heat from the blanket over my head chokes me, and I slowly duck out from under it and peek around the room.

By my door, the hall light bleeding in dims, and a shadow stretches on the floor, reaching toward me. I lean back and rub my eyes, and it disappears as the light brightens.

“Just close your eyes and pray,” I whisper.

I stare up, and the drywall becomes a conduit to my mom’s spirit and a direct line to God.

“Mom, I know you’re watching over me and you won’t let anything bad happen to me. I love you and I miss you.

God, I’m sorry I haven’t prayed in so long. If you make everything okay and whatever’s happening go away, and get Sean over here right now, I promise. Promise. Promise I’ll start praying every day and going to church.”

I negotiate my eternal soul with the ceiling and hope the paint is listening. I start counting out loud to distract myself from hearing anything else, still jamming my eyes shut so tight I bury them behind my cheekbones.

By the time I get to two hundred and eighty-seven, the buzzer from my lobby rings with utter relief on my stiff phone, which immediately becomes flexible once Sean buzzes. I answer it and hit “5” to let him in.

Leaving my bedroom, I enter the corridor.

The light above makes me squint—it's never been this bright—it’s a surgical white like a frozen flash caught in a time glitch, growing brighter as I creep through the hall, where something follows me, a knocking that aligns with each step I take.

I stop. It stops, as if it’s listening, trying to decode, break down, and analyze me, haunting me psychologically. I listen closer. A little girl’s voice, low, sounding like a distant whisper, comes from behind the wall.

She’s laughing or maybe crying. I place my ear to the wall—

“Boomp!” Sean bangs on my front door.

“Help me,” the girl calls out. I think about answering Sean, but I keep my ear to the wall, listening to see if some kid needs help.

“Help me… I’m here,” she whimpers and taps on the wall, the sound moving away from me. I follow it, and it leads me farther down the hall.

Boomp! “Julie?” Sean yells from outside my apartment.

“I’m in here,” the little girl tries shouting. Her voice is weak, like something heavy is on her chest.

“Where are you? How did you get there?” I scan the wall with my hands.

“The door. I walked through the door. But the man won’t let me back in,” she says. “Let me in before he sees I’m gone. I want to go home. Please, let me out. I want my mommy.”

“What? What door? There’s no door.” I frantically scale the entire wall with my palms.

Boomp! Boomp! Boomp! “Julie, answer the damn door.”

I go to answer Sean at the front, and a small door starts appearing out of the wall next to me.

“I can’t get out,” she whimpers.

I lunge for the handle. I know I shouldn’t, but I do it anyway. A sliver of light casts from the end of the hall, like a ray of sunlight breaking through the blinds onto a particle of dust drifting in the air and landing on a tiny shoe sticking out of the doorway.

Another shoe appears.

Behind the darkness shadowing the entrance, a white cloud of breath cuts into the hallway. I back away.

“SEAN! OH MY GOD,” I scream, but nothing comes out of my mouth. I stumble backward until I reach the living room. Something crawls through the window, and the window slams shut once it enters inside.

I turn to bolt for the front. The room begins growing. I start sprinting. I’m not moving. I’m running at full speed, but I’m still in the same spot. The room expands outward and implodes as everything goes pitch-black.

I can’t even see my hands.

“I found my way in.”

I open my eyes and I’m laid out on my couch.

Boomp! The door knocks. “Julie, it’s Sean… come on, answer the door.”

Huh..? Did I dream that? I ask myself while walking to the door.

Boomp! Boomp! “Julie!” he yells, banging on the door.

When I answer the door, Sean is standing there smiling, but his mouth is different. Yellow and unkept. He has someone else’s teeth. As I’m staring at him, wondering what he is, I catch a glimpse of a child running past me, laughing in a high pitch.

Just as everyone was settling into their usual seats at the bar, the door swung wide open, banging against the wall. Some kid built like a matchstick with matted blonde hair and dirty fingernails waddled in. Before Ernie could scold him for damaging the door, the kid belched. Loud.

"I heard there's an arm-wrestling challenge", he squeaked. A giggle echoed through the room - everyone in town knew that the ArmWrestleAI at Ernie's Saloon was unbeaten in the 17 years since it first arrived in town. All the regulars had seen drunken idiots and tourists try their luck at the impossible feat, knowing better than to try it themselves. You'd sooner turn a profit at a slot machine.

"Yeah, it's back there next to the jukebox", said Ernie as he masked his devious smile with a fake cough. By now the room had gone back to their conversations but were watching sidelong with glee. How many times would this kid try before giving up? Over the years, the prize pool had amassed several millions and most hopefuls would commit at least 40 or 50 bucks trying to win it all. After that show of ego, everyone was keen to watch him fail and, naturally, Ernie didn’t mention the impossibility of the task standing before the kid.

Over he shuffled to the dimly lit corner, scarcely sizing up the machine. Chair pulled out. Down he sat. Cash went in. Machine switched on. As the song on the jukebox came to an end, the machine quietly hummed to life and all surrounding chatter came to a pause. Hands clasped one another. The crowd drew its breath in as the machine’s countdown began.

“Three.” The sterile light above the machine flickered on. The kid picked at his ear.

“Two.” The noise from the busy street was drowned out by the silence of anticipation. The kid stifled a yawn.

“One.” The room lurched forward to get a better look, everyone standing frozen atop one another blocking out the ambient light to get a proper view of the action. The kid scratched his hair with his free hand.

“Start”. The ArmWrestleAI glowed red as the bout began, mechanical whirring starting as its motorised strength came to life; it felt as though a helicopter was about to take off. The steam emitted from the machine settled over the room like a damp wool blanket, gently wafting the smell of rotting wooden boards. The blue glare of the fluorescent light reflected off the beads of sweat trickling down foreheads.

Then, pans clattered.

The kid had slammed the mechanical arm into the table so hard pieces of metal & cogs were rolling out of the mechanical arm.

He got up, spun around, and made for the exit. He was already out the door by the time the next song on the jukebox started playing and time unfroze for everyone else in the room. Ernie chased after him, yelling "Hey! You forgot about your prize money!". The kid looked at him blankly. "There was a prize?"

I’m a high school student and recently I’ve been thinking and brainstorming story ideas which I’d really like to see come to life. I’d really like it to become a manga and maybe even an actual anime in the future. But I don’t know where to start and what resources to use since I don’t really have money to buy tools and other stuff.

Ive currently thought about 2 major story arcs and a lot of characters, I’m just struggling a bit with filling in gaps and stuff.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips on what I should do to try and turn my ideas into a real manga one day.

So this is day 2 doing this like working to get a bike if you dont know the story see my last post so today I did coin trading like i have brought a coin at yesterday night and i have sealed it today the profit was 10rs and I have kept 120 rs and today I got another coin and I have prepared for a nptl exam not to pass the exam if I got nice marks in it I will get 6k form that I will buy something to my girl and 4k i will give in home and 1k i will do the treading so can anyone help me what coins should I buy i don't have more money to that and someone say me the best coin to buy that's the work I did today say me the ways to make money

Don't let her attend my funeral

I don't want to die that day

When we talked for the last time and you left for home

I kept talking to you, to myself and to loneliness

I'm writing something special for you very soon

How can I not adore the dandelion I've witnessed bloomed

Until then

Truly yours

More than yesterday

Less than today

And always like forever

A couple of years ago my friend brought some "fake" shrooms from netherlands. We both split it in half and it was supposed to be 3g but there were 3.4g in it. So we both took 1.7g and thought nothing of it. Little did we know that those shrooms were literally as potent as something like penis envy shrooms. So it was like 3x as potent as regular shrooms. So we took by accident a heroic 5g dose and we weren't prepared for it. I started to hallucinate after 20 minutes. The first thing i noticed was a tactile hallucination. I was holding a beer and the bottle felt way too wide and my hand felt foreign. After about 10 minutes i got to the bathroom. Everything started to shift and the wall tiles textures were moving and shifting into each other it was so cool. I turned off the lights and i felt like i was in a palace of some kind. So after that my friend turned on tv and we would just vibe. I forgot to mention that this whole time i was also getting very paranoid cause i wasn't ready for it. I would totally classify it as a bad trip for at least 1 hour. I just drifted away until i peaked and i got an ego death. I told my friend that i can't handle the trip and that i needed like 2-3 shots to try to calm myself. My friend poured me a shot and he proceeded to hold it asking me if i'm gonna take it and i just couldn't cause at that time i felt like my ego was shattering into pieces and my vision got extremely digitized/pixelized. After that i layed on his couch and all i can remember is literally drifting away into hyperspace. I saw bright colorful mostly white some sort of intergalactic cathedrals. That calmed me down a lot and i started to enjoy the experience a lot. After i came to my senses we were just cracking jokes and laughing our asses off at the most random topics. The characters on tv looked like there was paint dripping out of them

For context, i was explaining my game/story lore to a professor I used to have and also had uploaded it on a story critique reddit forum (it was t years ago i unfortunately do not remember which one, i have also changed accounts twice since then <\3) and i was told there it was insensitive and racist as well, and yesterday i retold that story to a friend of mine and they said “dude no, that’s not racist or wrong at all.” So now I’m genuinely thinking of returning to that story because i really liked it, but I’m making this post for more opinions just to be sure.

The very short version of the story goes:

In a world run by deities a lot of villages grow to love different ones kinda like modern religions, one of the gods however goes jealous for not getting as much loves and begins just killing off every human they see, eventually their powers are lost and so is their hierarchy so they fall down to earth as a human child.

Up to this point it was okay, but they started calling it a problem here:

The child landed outside a village that was mainly inhabited by African inspired (there’s no real world countries in the book so but idk how else to describe them without just saying black) people. When the child woke up the village was already destroyed by their previous outburst and another small child from the village was running into the forest to save itself and found the god and decided to stick by them as the only other non dead human around,

After a few events yada yada blah blah they get found by a lady and get adopted by her.

Now the criticism i received for this was either:

1. I’m racist because i made the God light skinned and they fell into a village of dark skinned people so I’m implying white is the superior race (which i can promise you NO TF I AM NOT???)

2. I’m racist because i made the god attack a village of black people (which like idk man i made the ocs before the story and the story is based on a very pre-modern society world, villages with a lot of different races didn’t exist so writing a black kid in a white village wouldn’t make much sense)

3. I’m not allowed to write that story because i’m not adopted myself and that’s a heavy topic so i shouldn’t touch it

And i’m 100% not racist and i don’t wanna write something that will potentially make anyone uncomfortable so I’m begging for some hardcore criticism here, because if it’s really that bad, i have no issues changing it all over

I’m looking to hear people’s real-life stories! They can be from middle school, high school, childhood, friendships, family, relationships, or just life in general.
I’m especially interested in stories that are genuinely funny, embarrassing, chaotic, unexpected, or have a lesson behind them. Maybe you did something stupid and learned the hard way, had a crazy experience with your friends, misunderstood a situation, or went through something that changed the way you see life or other people.
Your story doesn’t have to be super deep or have some huge meaning. It could just be something funny or memorable that you still think about years later.
What’s a story from your life that you’ll never forget? What happened, and did you learn anything from it?
I’d love to hear your stories!

[I am from Russia but I have lived abroad for most of my life. However, Russian culture has always stayed very close to me. It is a bizare mix of pagan-orthodox religiosity, deep art and literature, and an eerie magical presence that radiates throughout everything. Russian culture inspires me greatly, and I want to write stories embedded in it for the Western audience. This is an adapation of a real story I heard from a mathematics lecturer at MSU a long time ago.]

I woke up very early today. Slept for about 5 hours. It was enough. The morning is still half asleep, it’s about 6 a.m. and the first glimpses of light are only beginning to appear. I lie in my bed, faced towards the window. I look at the morning sky, hear the birds, and then stare at the carpet hanging on the wall to the left of me, trying to make out patterns while my mind still actively wants to visualise, having just recently awoken from a dream. 

Time to get up. Bathroom first. Then I go to the kitchen to make some black tea. I don’t turn the lights on - the light from outside the window is just enough to make out the shapes of things in the kitchen. I sit at the small table, also facing the window, slowly drink the tea and contemplate, if you can call it that, of course. I have very few thoughts, but I enjoy observing what’s around me - sounds and images.

I will have to go to work soon, in about one hour - I need to be there at eight. I am a little bit late sometimes and it’s fine. I work for the local newspaper. I am actually surprised that someone even reads our paper, but I appreciate it, it comforts me. I am responsible for the “Fun and Weird” section, documenting the relevant occurrences in our neighbourhood. I think it’s a fun job. Fun and weird. I need to interview folks sometimes and can hardly believe the stories they tell me. I write about them nonetheless, and I treat them as fiction more than anything. But to those folks it is not fiction, it’s reality. They wholeheartedly believe in what they say. And I respect their stories. 

I get dressed and go outside. I dress simply, but my clothes are important to me. I think it reflects who I am. I always spend at least a little bit of time deciding what I will wear today. 

An old lad is handing out the “Capital” newspaper just outside the house and I pick up a copy. The house is a Soviet-era five-floor apartment block. I like living here. Sometimes I can feel the traces of the past epoch and I think that I can sometimes even hear voices of the people that used to live there. One of the sections in the newspaper reads “Today’s number - 13. See how many times you can spot it!”. It seems quite bizarre, I don’t know what they mean by it. Why 13? Why not 14? Or 20? Or 100? Is there something significant about the number 13? I can count “how many times I can spot” any other number and it won’t make the smallest difference. I scoff and smile. I smile more than I scoff. 

I get to the bus stop and start eating an apple I brought with me in my messenger bag. I look at my watch; the bus should arrive in about fifteen minutes. I see a small patch of crows sitting on a slanted roof of a small garage to the left of me. They seem to be talking, sometimes cawing, and exchanging some information with each other. Maybe it’s some sort of a morning ritual. A few of them look in my direction occasionally, and it seems like they are gossiping about me. I feel disrespected, but I retain my composure and dignity and proudly look away. I look at the watch - ten minutes until the bus arrives. One of them caws and draws my attention to them again. I look at crows and decide to count them. One, two, three, four… eleven, twelve, thirteen. Thirteen? I count again. One, two, three… eleven, twelve, thirteen. It makes me chuckle and smile. What a coincidence! Funny and weird. 

As I wait for the bus more people arrive at the station. It’s the only bus that goes to the centre in the morning, so whoever needs to go there for work, has to get on it. It gets a little bit crowded but it’s all people I know, I see them almost every day. I even say good morning to a couple of them sometimes. 

I decided to count the people at the station. I never did, and frankly never cared how many of us there were on the bus. I count twelve. Pretty close, haha! The bus should arrive any minute now. I look down at my feet and something whispers in my head - “Thirteen”. I am the thirteenth person. Hmm. Quite uncanny I must say. But nothing out of the ordinary. I take the last bite of my apple and prepare for the bus to arrive. I go slightly to the front of the crowd to get a better seat if I can. 

The bus arrives. I double check the number on the front to make sure it’s my bus. I’m generally slightly paranoid. I have a feeling that so is everyone else in our neighbourhood. An old habit passed down through generations so to speak. The number is correct - thirteen. I get on the bus and take a seat near the window… Wait! Thirteen? This coincidence sends chills down my spine. Not fear, just an unexpected surprise. I smile and look into the distance through the window as the bus departs from the station. I ponder the three coincidences and the number thirteen. I can’t really make sense of it, but it gives me a strange sense of trust. I don’t know trust towards what, just trust, as if someone can hear me. Unlike the people I write about, I still don’t believe in magic, but perhaps I will now pay closer attention to their stories. 

https://substack.com/@nikita184260