Manifesto

This site started when I suddenly felt motivated to get started with one. I had been thinking about making my own site for a while, I think ever since I saw a youtube video about the indie web. The idea of having your own space completely in your control appealed to me.

I'm not someone who grew up on the indie web. I'm from 2003, my earliest Internet days were Hyves, Habbo, and MovieStarPlanet. I wasn't on the Internet much, mostly just Youtube, I didn't even have socials. Until in my early teens, school friends made an Instagram and Snapchat for me, without really asking me if I actually wanted it. So then I was suddenly thrown into the world of social media.

I've never felt like I fit in on social media platforms. I don't naturally interact with others, and whenever I did, it felt like I was playing a role (poorly) rather than just interacting with other people. I was trying to mimic what others did but I guess others could always tell something was off. Or it made me feel bad about myself after the fact.

In more recent years, I wanted to give growing an audience for my art and projects a shot. I tried many platforms (Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Bluesky, Artfol, Cara, DeviantArt, Pillowfort, Tumblr), but I never found a place where I truly felt welcome or like I fit in. Some I gave up on very quickly, some I stuck with for a couple years, but I never got anywhere. The one time I got the tiniest bit of traction was on TikTok, I got to about 180 followers. But none of the interaction I got was interaction I actually wanted. Things like "cool, look at my art!" "This character looks like [insert random anime character that looks nothing like the character]" or some unhinged, out of pocket shit (my favourite was someone who commented on a drawing of a merman and a diver looking slightly romantic, saying something like: "ew, gross, that... thing is an animal and he looks like he's in love with the diver, so that makes this beastiality!" Like, what? Go back to watching Cocomelon). Point is, sure there were people looking at my art for a second here and there, but it was nothing meaningful. No one actually cared about it. I ended up nuking that profile.

I wanted people to see my art and care about my characters and stories, but I refused to play the influencer game. I thrive on slow, longform creation, not on making content every single day just for someone to look at it for 2 seconds and then forget about it. And the cultures of social media spaces (or any online spaces if I'm honest) are so confusing. Why do people like this and not that? Why is this considered cringe and that's the funniest thing ever? Why is this confidence and that arrogance? Why is this just and artist "getting their bag" and that is selling out and being obnoxious?

I can't tolerate being active on any social media platform for more than a couple months before I wanna nuke the whole thing. The only one I'm still somewhat active on (I just post new art) is Tumblr, but I don't get any interaction there. This has been an active 4 year struggle for me. I would love if my art and projects could be my career, but I don't have the right skill set for growing an online platform the standard way.

In comes this website: my own corner of the Internet where I can do whatever the hell I want. I can simply exist here and others can pay me a visit and see what I create if they like. It's like an open door studio; the creator is just doing their thing and those curious and intrigued can come see and maybe support them. Unlike social media, I don't have to play to their rules in the hopes of maybe someone seeing my work and caring about it. Here, people who arrive already chose to be here. I can show off my work on my own terms, and visitors can shift through it on their own terms too. It gives it a much more relaxed, less pressured vibe. I can dissappear for a few months and come back like nothing happened, and anyone who grew to care about this site would be glad to see an update, I wouldn't be thrown into the abyss because I couldn't get myself to work on this for a while.

Like I said on the homepage, this is like an archive of Me. It's not only a place to host my projects/characters/writing/art, it's a window into who I am as a person. Expressing myself isn't easy for me in real life, so instead, I can do it here.

So to you, dear visitor, I say: Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring enough to read this whole thing. And I hope you continue to enjoy your stay.

Creative Workflow

Following hyperfixations
My hyperfixations lead my creativity, meaning I work on whatever story my mind demands to work on at the time. This isn't ideal when I'm trying to focus on one book to get it done, but I've stopped trying to fight it and force myself to focus on one at a time. Yes, this means my release schedule is sporatic. I could not release anything new for over a year and then suddenly have three books ready to go the next year. But I do believe this results in the best stories I can make, I write way better when I actually feel inspired to do so. I'm way more creative and better at problem solving in the moment while writing this way.

Editing process
I can't afford to hire editors, and I am a team of one. The only outsourcing I do is letting my friend beta read for feedback on plot. That being said, I do by best to edit my books as well as I can on my own, with many rounds of edits. It changes a bit from project to project, but this is generally my process:

  1. First draft
  2. Read through in my writing software to catch the most obvious mistakes and inconsistencies
  3. Make a simple ebook for myself and read again, highlighting things I want/need to edit
  4. Send a new simple ebook to my friend for feedback
  5. Read again while I implement the feedback
  6. Have a text-to-speech read it back to me to catch awkward phrasing and more typos
  7. Use Grammarly to catch the last typos
  8. One more simple ebook and read again
  9. Done. Probably
  10. (Sometimes I do another read through months later)

(Odd) inspirations
The inspirations that jumpstart my projects can be the most random things, if I remember them at all. This is what I remember them being influenced and inspired by:
  • Please, Love: The Sims 3 Supernatural. I wanted to make characters that were the occults in the game, and that is how the earliest versions of Hyde and Rune were born. Other than that, I don't remember any influences
  • Team of Thieves: A book on Wattpad that I really liked (I think I read it like three times). It had a love triangle, and I really liked both ends of it, so my mind basically went: "But, what if, both?" And that is how the core trio of Eric/Keith/Ben was born. Outside that, I think I was also influenced by reading V.E. Schwab's Villains Duology (or trilogy in the future). That wasn't that consciously, but looking back, I guess the story did take a darker turn after I read that with the whole SRAT thing.
  • Wolves: Just generally a/b/o werewolf stories, I guess. But I think the thing that truly started it was when I reread another Wattpad book years after reading the first one, and it had an alpha/omega pair, but the omega had an older brother who was best friends with the alpha, so, naturally, my brain said: "What if it was the brother that was paired with the alpha? Do stories like that exist? That would be an interesting dynamic. I can't find one. Let's make one."
  • Demons: Okay, to be honest, the only thing I can remember inspiring its first iteration when it was just Ray and Zoe was a dumb idea I had come up with of a 'Guardian Demon.' Then much later, I got into Buzzfeed Unsolved and loved the ghost hunting dynamic, so that entered the story. Then I watched Good Omens and the whole Demon x Angel thing of Ozzy and Ray came into it. Then much later again, again BU, because I loved the fandom thing of the skeptic secretly being a demon, and Jack and Henry were born, lmao. And then most recently, I decided to have it take place in the Netherlands because I wanted at least one of my stories to take place more locally to me and this one fit the best.
  • Merfolk: The only inspiration I can remember for this one is Mermay in 2020, when I just drew two mermen being romantic because I felt like drawing mermen. They didn't even have faces. But then they became characters and a whole story and world grew around them, and I have no idea what else influenced it (except my vague interest in speculative biology)
  • The Shaded: Okay, so, technically, this is based on a super old story of mine that I abandoned years ago called Reversion. Mid-2025, I suddenly thought about that old concept again (after having dropped it in 2019 or so) and realised it actually had a lot of potential. So then I adapted it into this new concept.
    What was Reversion based on? Well... let's just say it was originally an embarrassing fanfic that is completely unrecognisable now.
  • Elves: I think the only media inspiration this one had was The Dragon Prince (elemental elves and all). Other than that, it became its own beast and I don't know what else influenced it.

Planning (or lack there of)
I plan a little bit. For every book I start, I have a general idea for where I want it to go and what I want to happen in it. But I don't make detailed outlines, I mostly go with the flow. I often plan my scenes by describing them in varying detail before actually writing them, and that collection of scene descriptions function as my outline. Most of my writing and storytelling is intuitive, like "Oh yeah, this happened 10 chapters ago, this would be a great time to reference it again!" or "Woah, that idea that just appeared in my brain while writing this scene would really make this scene pop!" And since I do know the broad strokes beforehand, I can foreshadow pretty well (sometimes very subtly).

Tools
These are the tools I use to make my books, I do almost everything on my IPad:
  • Scrivener, for planning and writing
  • ReadEra, an app to read and edit the ebooks on my phone
  • Kindle Create, I've used this to make my ebooks before, but I'm not sure what I'll be using in the future
  • Apple Pages, I use this to make my simple ebooks for editing
  • InDesign, this is what I used for my first few print books. It's great and I love it, but it's also expensive and I don't want to be reliant on Adobe, so I don't know if I'll still be using it, even if I have it for school anyway
  • Affinity Publisher, I got this to replace InDesign, and I really like it and am planning to keep using it! I heard the new, free, combined version is planning to also have epub export options, but I'll first see how it is when it comes out before deciding anything
  • Procreate, for the illustrations and little design elements
  • Google fonts, for completely free to use fonts without having to worry about licencing. (Also where I got the fonts for this website!)I used to use Adobe fonts, but again, don't want to rely on Adobe

Creative Timeline

  • 2016: started drawing seriously after taking a class for a few months. Immediately made OCs (that have long since been abandoned).
  • 2018: made the beginnings of my longest surviving story (Demons), followed shortly by my current main project (Please, Love) and started writing.
  • 2019: finished first draft of first book (it was terrible).
  • 2020: an OC boom, made the beginnings of Team of Thieves, Merfolk, and Elves.
  • 2021: started design school (kinda like a trade school art school, I think? I'm not that familiar with US/UK school systems. Not a true Art School, a level below that. There was a lot of drawing.)
  • 2023: finished the first book that I published (that I am now rewriting) and published it (Please, Go Home). Went into creative burnout near the end due to internship.
  • 2024: published second book, Thunderbolt. Graduated design school, still in burnout. Focused more on writing instead.
  • 2025: still recovering from burnout, still more focused on writing. Another OC boom with Wolves and The Shaded.

Creative Philosophy

Why fantasy
I have always gravitated to stories with fantasy aspects, I grew up watching Marvel cartoons and Disney and Nickelodeon shows with more fantastical elements. Those always gained my interest way more than more normal, slice-of-life shows. Same with books. Contemporary books, even kids books, had a very hard time keeping my interest. That preferance never went away. My brain just kind of... spawns stories from almost nothing, and there's always a fantastical element attached.
When I look at this critically, this is probably the case because my autistic ass can't really relate to normal, contemporary stories that are about neurotypical people 99% of the time (and even if they are about autistic people, I don't like them). Fantasy is the genre that features themes like feeling like the odd one out and not fitting in and being misunderstood. Plus, I already struggle enough with the real world, I don't need to watch someone else's real-world struggles that'll just stress me out. And, of course, fantasy is also escapism.

Why queer characters
This one's pretty simple: I am queer. I like writing stories about people similar to me, even if they are queer in a very different way from me. Also, same with fantasy, it has that 'outsider' aspect. I do also think there are enough cis/hetero stories in the world and would like to contribute to the effort of balancing the scales.

Why novels
Well, because writing prose is my skill. Pretty simple. But then you might ask: "You're also an artist, why not comics?" I've thought about it many times. But for most of my projects, I came to the conclusion that they are way too long for a comic project. I wouldn't have enough years in my life to finish them all. My storytelling also involves a lot of internal monologue, which can be awkward to execute in comic format. Skill issue? Maybe. There are a couple of my projects that I am considering making into comic projects. Mainly Merfolk, because I think it would benefit hugely from a visual format. And also Demons, maybe. Mostly because that story is shorter and the pacing may fit a comic best. But I'll see how I feel when I get to those after I'm done with my current ones. Elves would also be awesome as a comic, but man, my lifespan isn't long enough for that.
I could possibly make comic adaptations of my own novels one day if I wanted. But that's a far in the future type of thing.

Why family focused
To be honest, I don't really know. I think because I like to focus on characters so much, I often think about how they became what they are, and family and especially parents play big roles in that. So then it becomes this cycle of "She's this way because her dad is this way, but why is her dad that way? Oh, whoops, the dad is a full character in his own right now, and now he also needs parents and siblings to explain his whole being. Oh, and now his family are also full characters—"
Please, Love is the worst offender of this (not that it's a bad thing), but you can see some degree of this in almost all my projects. Like, I have actively needed to reign myself in to not go overboard. Like I had to tell myself: "Sometimes a brother character can just be a brother, he doesn't need his own entire arc and branch of the family, calm down."

Why romance
Well, why does anyone like romance, I guess? But for me, it's probably also an extension of the love of complex characters. Complex people have complex relationships, and you can't really separate the two.