Chapter Text
CONTENT WARNING SPOILERS:
Look, I won’t pull any punches. This story was tough to write, and it’s designed to be tough to read in some places. This book is an exploration of my trauma from childhood to young adulthood, and my long history of suicidal ideation, which started when I was a child. There’s a reference to rape and many anecdotes about emotional abuse. If you’re not in the headspace to read graphic descriptions of alternate timelines where this author committed suicide, including childhood suicide, just turn back now. There’s also sex, drugs, rock n’roll, Satanism, witchcraft, cannibalism, vore, otherkin, OCs, self-inserts, and general cringe.
A Word from the Author:
I was originally going to publish this story the traditional way. That’s been my dream for fifteen years. I even had the incredible fortune to befriend Clare B. Dunkle, author of The Hollow Kingdom, my favorite book, who gave me permission to include her goblins in this story. She also did me a humongous favor by getting me in contact with her literary agent. However, she represents YA, and this is... not YA. So, I plan to reconnect with her on another project. That’s not the only reason for this decision, though.
My journey as a writer has been deeply rooted in fanfiction, starting all the way back with my composition notebooks full of smut in middle school. I made the transition to FanFiction.net when I was fifteen, discovered Tumblr when I was seventeen, and joined Ao3 just a few years ago. The media that shaped me is already deeply important to this story, so why not lean into that? Fan communities and the weirdos within them kept me alive. On that note, there will be several fandoms referenced, but if I tagged it, I promise it’s plot relevant, even if it takes time for the fandom to be introduced. Loki and True Blood, while sprinkled in throughout the work, don't become relevant until the last chapter.
The final factor in this choice was, well, the sociopolitical climate in America as of writing this. Between rampant book bans, censorship around words referring to death (and any reviews using tiktok euphemisms about my real-life trauma will be deleted, by the way), a quickly disintegrating democracy, and the violent stripping of human rights, I think a story about the value of marginalized lives is needed NOW, not later. Clare warned me that publishing this on Ao3 was throwing out my chance of making money. Well, I care more about the chance that reading this stops another beautiful freak from killing themselves.