Month: July 2017

Pigtown Prison (Part 5)

CW: Rape

“You were telling the truth, weren’t you slut?” Keith asked as he reentered the room, “Because if Rod or I find out that was some fucking bullshit, you’re going to be wishing you’d never been fucking born.”

“Please, it wasn’t–it didn’t even work after I left the bar, please, just–I’m sorry, tell him I’m sorry,” Oliver said.

“Oh, don’t worry boy, you’ll get a chance to tell him yourself,” Keith said, “But first, don’t you want that fuck? That’s what started all of this, right? You wanted me to fuck you? That’s what I am now, someone who can fuck you nice and rough, like you asked for.”

“Please, I don’t want–”

“Who gives a fuck what you want? Interrogations always get me horned up–so you’re gonna get that fuck whether you want it or not.”

He unlocked the handcuffs holding Oliver to the radiator and dragged him into the bedroom, laughing at the small man’s attempt to free himself from his tight grip. He threw him onto the bed, pinned him down, and started forcing his cock into his ass, raw and unlubed. Oliver fought against it and tried to get away, but his fight only seemed to make the fuck better for Keith, who dragged him backward by the hips, impaling him on his massive shaft, inch by inch. Eventually, he gave up, and Keith climbed up, hammering into him, taunting him, checking underneath to see if Oliver was even getting hard–which he was, to Oliver’s own disgust.

“I guess you really do like it rough, you slut–is this really what you fucking wanted all along? Well, you only have yourself to thank for this, you know. The only reason I’m here is because you were stupid enough to think you could cross Pigtown and get away with it. Well don’t worry, slut–we have all night and day tomorrow to play. I’ll give you what you fucking need, plenty of it, and then we’re going to pay Rod a visit, eh? I think you have an apology to give the boss, don’t you?”

He wrapped one massive, hairy arm around Oliver’s throat and hauled him up. Oliver struggled for breath and arched his back as much as possible–his body was raised completely off the bed now, and with one thick hand, Keith reached around, gripped Oliver’s cock in one huge hand, and started tugging on it roughly in time with his own thrusts. He was…close, Oliver realized, and he found himself looking forward to an orgasm at least–but as he crossed over the edge, Keith gripped his cock hard, making him scream, his cum trickling out but ruining the orgasm completely.

“What, you thought you’d be getting another orgasm ever again? You fucking cunt!” Keith laughed, pounding in harder now, shoving Oliver down onto the bed and giving him the full length of his cock for another minute until he unloaded deep inside him. “Fucking whore–you’re mine now, and I’m going to payback the pain you put me through a hundred fold, just you fucking wait,” he said, pulling his cock free. Oliver breathed a sigh of relief, only to feel Keith’s fist force its way inside him with a pop. He screamed again, but the night was young, and his new master was only just getting started.

It was around nine the next night, that Keith dragged a handcuffed Oliver down the steps and back into Pigtown. The previous day had seemed like they would never end. Keith’s new mind had a never ending capacity for abuse–he would transition seamlessly from fucking, to fisting, to torture and back again in sessions that stretched on for hours. Every time he saw Oliver’s cock rising thanks to the treatment, he would taunt and toy with him, and each and every time he had ruined his orgasm, leaving him shaking, sobbing and hornier than ever, even as exhausted as he was. He was allowed to rest a few times, but never for longer than a couple of hours, and always handcuffed to the bed. He thought about trying to escape…but he was terrified of what might happen if Keith caught him. He’d never met someone like this, and all he really wanted was for all of it to stop. He was thankful when Keith told him it was time to head back to the bar–no matter what Rod might do to him in there as punishment, he was somehow certain that it would be better than this–it had to be, right?

The bar was sparsely occupied when he stumbled in, but behind the bar Rod’s eyes lit up with excitement. “There you two are–I was getting worried.”

“No need to worry about me, boss,” Keith said, dragging Oliver over to the bar.

“You took care of the little shit’s magic whatever?”

“Sure did–some ring from his witch of a grandmother–had a ward of protection or something. Stopped working after he came in here though, and I smashed it for good measure.”

“Good to fucking hear,” Rod said, coming around the bar to where Oliver was standing, “So, what do you think? Is your old boyfriend everything you wanted him to be? You have a good time with him? It sure as fucking hell looks like he enjoyed the shit out of you boy, you look like a piece of shit.”

“Please–please, I’m sorry. I…I was wrong, please just let me go.”

Rod laughed, “Boy, get on your fucking knees.”

Oliver tried to resist, but the magic of the place, the compulsion in Rod’s words, brought him down, his face inches from Rod’s crotch.

“Now see? You broke the rules before, boy. You know what that makes you? It means you’re a lawbreaker. You know what happens to lawbreakers, right? Lawbreakers have to go to prison. And who better to keep an eye on a lawbreaker than a man of the law, like Keith here?” Oliver whimpered a bit, watching Rod massage his growing cock through the front of his grungy jeans. “Yeah–I like that idea a lot, don’t you Keith? You willing to keep an eye on this slut for me?”

I seem to recall you mentioning you were working on a twine text game a while ago. Am I going crazy, or did you actually say that?

I did say that! In fact, I posted a demo of it for all of my Patrons a couple of years ago, promising to finish it at some point, but I, uh, didn’t! Because follow through has never been my strong suit. That said, the demo is quite large, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. You can access it with a pledge at any level here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/virtual-revenge-2667106

As for working on other twine stories, I’m still very interested in doing that, but it’s also very hard to find the time to do so, because these stories require a sizable investment of time/energy, much more than the standard story I put out. It’s also a bit difficult to come up with ideas that would be well served by that format that I’m interested in writing. On one hand, I don’t want to create a “character generator” story, where plot is thin, and mostly you’re just crafting a persona. But there has to be some space for reader interaction as well, or it’s just a regular old story. The demo I wrote struck a surprisingly good balance mostly by accident, and I’m not sure how to make it work again.

Then again, I’m so disappointed in Dream Daddy that I have thought about creating a dating/TF simulator of my own of some variety, but that’s still very, very far from any sort of realization.

Eh. I rather liked the recent pigtown series. To be quite honest with you (and I know the character might not be the same in each story) I was a bit flustered when it seemed like Rod had lost control. I rather like him (or them).

Rod is one of my oldest characters, and actually dates back to my first story, “Losing Control,” where he is the audience for the narrator of that story. Needless to say, I rather like him myself. If there’s a character I feel the most empathy and connection to, and who feels most like a direct authorial insertion, it’s probably Rod more than anyone else. 

In any case, different strokes, different folks. The commissioner loved it, so that’s what counts to me! There’s two more parts to come today and tomorrow, and then onto whatever’s next!

Aw. Dang, I was hoping we’d see some stronger world development for pigtown. The immunity ending up being a plot device really makes it feel hollow. I was personally rooting for a get away that leaves a bunch of moral grays and ambiguity that would change some future pigtown interactions.

Caveat: This story was a commission. That’s not me attempting to excuse myself, the ring plot point is a bit shoddy, but the point of the commission wasn’t to delve into Pigtown, so much as the TF of Keith, and his revenge on Oliver. The commissioner likes the Pigtown setting I use, and it made sense to use it here. 

But even then, Pigtown isn’t a world–there’s no internal logic to the place–it’s just a setting. It’s an entirely different place each time I use it. Each iteration has a few commonalities–it’s always owned and operated by a man named Rod, for instance–but beyond that there is no continuity here that you’re looking for.

That’s not say I don’t find the bones of your idea intriguing–not enough people escape Pigtown, in my opinion, and a setting with a 100% success rating becomes less interesting over time. But I don’t think you’re ever going to get “stronger world development” in my stories–it simply isn’t how I write. If anything, I actively avoid constructing worlds whenever possible–I prefer the flexibility a more fluid storytelling style offers.

Pigtown Prison (Part 4)

It was getting late, and Oliver was trying to figure out whether or not his gambit had paid off. He knew Keith had gotten to the bar and gone inside…but whether Rod had actually done as Oliver demanded…well, no one really knew what might happen once Pigtown got involved. Threatening him probably hadn’t been the best move either, especially because Oliver had been making threats he was no longer sure he could back up, should things go awry. The magic ring he’d gotten, the one which cancelled out magic around it, had…cracked after he’d gone to the bar the night before. Whatever magic Pigtown was running on, it was a whole lot stronger than the parlor tricks Oliver had been taught by his grandmother, and the trinkets gifted to him in her will. Still, whatever happened, he was never going to be setting foot in that place again–that would be way too much of a risk. In fact, he should probably skip town entirely, just to be safe.

He sent Keith another text, telling him he was probably just going to cancel tonight…but at this point, why was he even trying? If Keith had gone into the bar, it was too late for him anyway, regardless of whether Rod had followed through on the bargain or not. He felt…a bit bad, really, but he’d never liked Keith that much–he’d never been able to love Keith like he’d loved Oliver in return. He was about to get ready for bed when he heard a heavy knock on the door to his apartment.

“Open up! It’s the police!”

The voice was low and gruff, with a hard edge to it. Had…something happened to Keith? Oliver went to the door and opened it up, and found himself staring up at a man who might as well have stepped out of his wet dreams. At least six foot four, his wide framed packed with muscle and squeezed into a leather police uniform, all of it meticulously shined. “There you are, Oliver–I think the two of us need to have a word.”

Did he…know him? Oliver’s eyes flicked to the badge on the shirt, and the name engraved on it. Keith Lewis. His eyes went wide, unable to believe it–had…had Rod really bought it? Had he turned little twinky Keith into this…fucking monstrous brute, just for him? Before he could say anything, Keith put a gloved hand on Oliver’s chest and shoved him back into the apartment, Oliver struggling to keep his balance. Keith stepped in, shut the door behind him, and locked the door. “Keith, uh, I…guess you met…Rod?” Oliver asked.

“Rod? Yeah, I know Rod–he’s my boss now,” Keith said, cracking his knuckles in his gloves as he walked forward, “I know you too, Oliver…kind of. It’s a bit…fuzzy. But I know what you fucking need, and I have a fucking job to do. You have information I need, and I’ve found that the best way to get that sort of thing is…a little unpleasant, but necessary.”

He stepped up to Oliver, grabbed him, and shoved him up against the hallway wall, and then pushed his body against him, pinning him there. Oliver moaned, and started grinding his ass back against the leather clad officer, unable to believe it. Rod had actually done it! “Fuck, sir, you can do whatever you want to me, I fucking want you so fucking bad…”

“Yeah, I bet you fucking do,” Keith whispered in his ear, “You fucking slut–do you fucking know what you put me through? Do you fucking know how much it fucking hurt? I…I still feel it, you know, the fucking ache. I wanna hurt you like you fucking hurt me, but I don’t even know where to fucking begin…”

“Fuck me sir, fuck me and show me what a bad boy I’ve been.”

“Fuck you?” Keith said, laughing, “Oh no boy–see, that’s what you want me to do. I didn’t come here to give you what you want pig. I came here to teach you a fucking lesson, about fucking with the wrong fucking people.”

He grabbed Oliver by the hair, slammed his face into the wall, and then flung him to the floor, where he lay for a moment, stunned.

“As far as fucking you is concerned…fuck, you know what? I really do want to rape that tight fucking ass of yours. I wanna leave it a gaping, bleeding crater. But you know what I think? I think you might enjoy that too much, you fucking slut, so let’s call that a reward. You know what we’re going to do first, to deserve a reward like that? You’re going to tell me how you were able to resist Master Rod yesterday. He’s real curious about how you made that work, you see, and I don’t think I can see myself fucking you unless you get real helpful, real fucking quick.”

Oliver scrambled up to his feet and backed up down the hallway, staring at the door to freedom behind Keith’s massive frame. “Look, Keith…I’m sorry, alright? Just–we can talk this out.”

“Oh no–you ain’t sorry for nothing, Oliver, I could feel how fucking horny you got, rubbing against my big fucking cock–well fuck you, you fucking slut–you’re gonna fucking get what’s coming to you.”

Oliver made a break for the fire escape, but Keith tackled him before he could even get the window open, and dragged him over to the radiator, where he handcuffed him to the base. Over the next few hours, Oliver endured what Keith considered to be an interrogation–stripped of his clothes, and beaten, until he told Keith everything he could–about the ring, about his grandmother, about how he’d been planning on running–when Keith was satisfied he’d gotten the truth, or at least enough to satisfy Rod, he decided to give Oliver a rest, took his boot off the young man’s balls, and let him sob a sigh of relief. He went into bedroom, where Oliver had told him the ring was, and picked it up–to think, all of this shit was caused by such a small thing. He dropped the ring to the floor, and stomped on it, hearing the already cracked crystal shatter under his heel. Back in the living room, Oliver heard the sound, and guessed what had happened–whatever came next, he was at Keith’s–and Rod’s–mercy.

Patron Suggested Stories for July Ready to Download! | Wesley Bracken on Patreon

I want to take a short break from “Pigtown Prison” to announce that the monthly Patreon suggestions have been written and are ready for download! Anyone who contributes at least one dollar a month can both contribute suggestions each month, and read the results! I hope you all enjoy them. To give you all a sense of what these little snippets look like, here’s one from last month I enjoyed a lot, a sequel of sorts to “Asslickers Inc.” from last year.

The Attention Whore

“There aren’t that many left–which one should we use on him?”

“This one?”

“No way–Robbie used one that looked a bit like that…and you know how Robbie is now.”

The group of young, bearish men all nodded and agreed at that. Beside them, bent over the table and tied down was Officer Clyde Bucksworth, who had responded to a noise complaint at the house an hour earlier. He’d assumed it was just a frat party getting a bit out of control, like usual–not a big problem. Hell, he’d pledged this frat back when he was in college, so he was on a first name basis with almost all of the guys in the house. However, as soon as he’d pulled up…something had seemed off about the whole thing, and when the door had opened letting him see what was happening inside…he’d freaked out. All of the straight laced, jockish young men he’d known well were gone–or if not gone, they were twisted somehow. He could recognize a few, but most were entirely different people now–hairier, beefier, older in a lot of cases, and without exception, they’d all become faggots. He’d pulled his tazer, and stepped inside, but someone had knocked him out before he could do much of anything, and now he was here, naked, tied over the edge of a table, surrounded by men he didn’t recognize, watching them play with a selection of six or seven dildos laid out on the table in front of him.

“What the fuck happened to you guys? This–you aren’t faggots!” Clyde said.

The men all laughed.

“That’s what we thought too!”

“Don’t worry–you’ll understand soon enough, just like we all did.”

They settled on their choice in due time–and Clyde struggled harder when he saw the tool. It was at least ten inches long and covered with what looked like metal studs and rings, including one that looked like a PA in the head. It was called “The Attention Whore,” and it promised to make the man who used it into the sort of freak people would gawk at, day or night.

Clyde begged and screamed, but they lubed the toy up and started pushing it against the officer’s virgin hole–to his surprise, it slid in easily, and it actually felt…kind of pleasant. The men took turns fucking him with it, and soon he was moaning a bit, trying to avoid thinking about how hard his cock had gotten all of a sudden.

“That;s it, don’t fight–it’s going to be great. You’ll see.”

He could feel the metal bits rubbing against the inside of his colon, making him shudder–but then they started to loosen as the asslicker dissolved, and he could feel the balls and rings inside him…pushing their way through him. It hurt–but not as much as when they started pushing their way out of his body after a couple of minutes. Most of them had found their way to his cock and balls, and he cried out in pain as they pushed through his skin, though it healed up immediately afterwards. His balls looked like a pincushion, and the PA from the dildo was far too large for the head of his leaking cock. His nipples received doorknockers of similar size, and the ring in his septum was even larger, hanging down to his mouth. Eyebrows, ears, lips, tongue–none had been spared.

The men could see the next layer emerging below the outer metal–a swirl of black ink against a field of deep red shaft, almost the color of raw steak. In fact, he could taste it–sweet blood on his tongue, and his body began to ache as his muscles spasmed, and grew. Clyde had always kept his body is good shape, but prefered to be lean, rather than bulky–now, however, he was rapidly gaining the physique of a powerlifter. The hair on his head was falling out, even as a short beard filled in around his face–the hair on his body grew a bit thicker, but not thick enough to obscure the black tribal tattoos which were swirling to the surface of his skin.

“Oh fuck, I feel really…fucking big,” he slurred, voice thick and twisted by the metal in his mouth. It was deeper, and sounded…stupid. He had to figure out some way out of this–but he couldn’t. His mind felt sluggish, and everyone was…staring at him. He liked having people stare at him–it felt good. He felt sexiest when everyone’s eyes were on him, and nowhere else. The men, noticing that he’d lost the will to resist, undid one of his hands–and rather than try and escape, he reached under and stroked his metal studded cock, the men fucking him harder now–but the dildo was feeling…strange in their hands. It behaved like a water balloon, or an inflated condom. They pushed it in deep, and Clyde felt it pop inside of him, and whatever liquid was inside of it flooded his ass–but didn’t flow back out. No, he could feel it surge through him to his cock and balls, the silicone running into his scrotum and into the flesh of his shaft. He could feel it growing in his hands, losing some sensation as the skin stretched. His cock didn’t grow any longer, and the shaft swallowed the head entirely, with just the massive ring jutting out from the fleshlight shaped mound his cock had become. His balls, when they stopped growing, hung heavy below him, almost the size of a bowling ball, the piercings now better spaced on the huge sack.

The men untied him and he went straight to the mirror–eager to look at himself, to see what everyone else could see. He was a freak–a muscle freak with an impossible cock, and Clyde couldn’t be happier. The silicone seemed to have affected other parts of his as well–his lips fuller, his pecs inflated too large to be completely natural. The men were all gaping, and soon, one was on his knees, worshiping Clyde’s strange meat, while another bent him over and started fucking the attention whore’s still loose hole, memories of his old life fading quickly.

Within the hour, he was running around the house with the rest of them, massive package barely constrained by a thong he’d found in one of the boxes Arctos had delivered with the asslickers–dancing for the men, enticing them, until they gave in and fucked his ass or worshiped his freakish junk, nothing more than a musclebear attention whore for the rest of his days.

Patron Suggested Stories for July Ready to Download! | Wesley Bracken on Patreon

Pigtown Prison (Part 3)

Keith, in his mind, was desperately trying to make his body stop, but he couldn’t. He’d never topped another person in his life, but all his body wanted to do now was fuck–and fuck rough. The pig under him had gotten used to the assault and was starting to enjoy himself, so he redoubled his force, plowing him harder until the pig squealed in pain…and hearing that, he felt so fucking good, it nearly made him shoot. “What…the fuck did you fucking do to me!” he shouted at Rod, his voice deep and gruff, completely alien to the one he’d known his whole life.

“Don’t be mad at me, fucker–it was Oliver, who did this to you.” Rod got down and stared Keith right in the eyes, “You wanna be mad at anyone, then be mad at him.”

Something…changed in him. The rage he was feeling flared higher, and Keith felt all of it focused on Oliver. He tried to fight it and push back–he loved Oliver! Sure, their sexual chemistry was a bit of a struggle, given that they both preferred to bottom, but he’d thought they’d been working through it, right?

Rod just chuckled, “Oh no, Keith, no, no, no. Oliver never really wanted you. That’s why you’re here. He wants a top, a brutal top, a mean fucker who only wants to plow him into next week. He doesn’t care about who you are–he just wants the fuck. All this? All this pain? He doesn’t care as long as he gets what he wants. Well guess what Keith? You don’t have to care either. In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

There was a flicker in Rod’s eyes, and a moment later, Keith screamed again. His mind–it felt like it was on fire–or at least parts of it were. All of his memories of Oliver, all of the times they’d shared together, all of them were aflame–but it wasn’t just memories–it was his compassion and his love. He could feel it shrinking and withering to ash, and the pain was horrific but soon he didn’t even care. He enjoyed it, he reveled in it–he gripped the pig by one hip, hard enough to bruise, and drove in deeper still, his other hand planted on the back of the pig’s head shoving his face into the filthy, pissdamp floor of the bathroom. “How’s that feel, you fucking piece of shit?” he screamed, and his cock exploded, filling the pig’s ass to the brim, but he kept fucking until he went soft, and only then did he pull out–body shaking with some caustic mix of pain, exhaustion and exhilaration.

Who…was he now? He remembered so little, but he did know one thing, and remember one person. Oliver–he remembered him, and he hated him. Hated him, because it was his fault that he’d just been put through all of that pain and suffering…and Keith knew he was going to have to pay for what he did.

“That’s a good boy,” Rod said, giving Keith a pat on the shoulder, “Now, why don’t we get you deputized?”

Rod’s hand settled on his shoulder, and underneath his palm, something like a shadow spread out and down Keith’s body, down his chest and back. He braced himself for more pain, but this didn’t hurt–it was warm and supple–he first thought it was some kind of rubber, but he touched it with a finger, and discovered that he somehow being coated in leather. It covered his entire body, aside from his neck and head, in less than a minute, a smooth, body hugging layer–and once it had coated him, he felt the entire body suit shift and morph around him. It split at the waist, becoming a shirt and pants, and then split again at his knees, the leather around his feet shaping into a pair of perfectly shined leather motorcycle boots. The pants were tight against his muscles, with a red stripe down the side, his huge cock bulging in the crotch and running down one leg. The leather…adjusted to it, and it felt so comfortable, like his cock always laid there, in a stretched out pocket of his pants. The shirt took a bit longer to form, but the details were more intricate–lapels and pockets, the sleeves shortening, exposing his massive biceps and forearms, hands encased by the tightest fitting gloves he’d ever felt, like they were painted on his hands.

Rod gave a flourish with his hand, and a cap appeared in his hand–and a silver steel badge. He placed the police cap on Keith’s head, and pinned the badge to his chest, and then gave him a smoky kiss. “Beautiful–now, you have a suspect to interrogate, right officer?”

“Y-Yes sir,” Keith said.

“Good fucker–work him over nice and proper. Figure out what sort of shit he pulled here yesterday. But whatever he did, don’t bring it back here! Just…deal with it as best you can. Probably some knick knack or something–it surprised me, but wasn’t that strong.”

Keith nodded, and a few minutes later he was out on the sidewalk, cool in his leathers despite the hot night. He found his motorcycle and rode off into the dark, heading for Oliver’s place, and more than eager give the man who’d done this to him a bit of payback.

Other than a determined nihilism, do you see politics in your stories?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: I have, like, a treatise in my head that I want to write about the intersection of TF fiction, heteronormativity and queer revolutionary politics, but I doubt it will ever see the light of day. Maybe it’ll be Wes’s crowning achievement at some point in my old age, when all of this shit finally makes sense to me.

If anything, however, I would say that the politics of most of the queer fiction I see is suuuuper disappointing. Oh man, I bought “Dream Daddy, a Dad Dating Simulator” and I can’t help but feel super fucking irritated at the implicit heteronormative shit embedded all the way through that thing. I mean, it goes beyond the fact that you are literally a “dad” dating other “dads” (It makes the game safer, I think, to a mass audience, to know that whatever happens in it can’t possibly be too revolutionary–after all, they all have families to worry about, right?) to the entire structure of the dates themselves.

***FUCKING SPOILERS***

Like, can we fucking talk about Robert here? The storyline that seems like it could actually be sex positive shuts down the entire possibility of the story arc if you hook up with him during the intro. Fucking punishment for sex on the first date, fuck you Game Grumps. I’ll fuck if I fucking want to, and that doesn’t mean I’m treating Robert as a fucking object, you piece of shit narrative. In fact, the entire Robert-Mary-Joseph-You love/hate quad is so fucking dysfunctional and anti-queer I can’t even handle it. 

*Calms down somewhat*

Brian’s hot, sure, whatever. The point is, TF fiction, especially TF fiction which assumes an entire shift in world (and I definitely count “Dream Daddy” in this category–the notion of a world where a bunch of dads openly date one another is still a fucking radical change compared to real life, even if the game butchers it) can appear so radical on the surface, but that only serves to make the internal hetero logic of these stories stand out even brighter on the surface.

Without being too cruel, this was my primary issue with @anothermeekone‘s story a few months back, called “Queer Happenings”. You have this radical cult, a god demanding a complete shift in the nature of reproduction, love, self-determination, physical form and agency…and then the story ends with two of the characters wanting to get married.

*Rips hair out*

Meek, you put in so much effort here! Can we expand our imaginations beyond marriage please! 

Most of this criticism can be leveled back at me, of course. I struggled with these concerns, or proto-questions to these concerns, a lot when I was writing City of Bears, and these remain the chief reason why that story has remained on the back burner for so long now. What does a queer world even look like? If we break the monotony of hetero-monogamy then what can society even look like? Without women, what does reproduction even look like? Is a queer society necessarily a society dying, and is that a good thing?

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions, but it’s frustrating to me that a lot of other writers haven’t even bothered to notice these questions exist. Dream Daddy is only ever going to be a completely safe simulation. Imagining it *actually* occurring is terrifying. As a simulation, a queer world can always be just a joke. Instead, most of my friends are probably going to end up losing their health insurance this week, and I’m going to be left crying myself to sleep.

Nihilism? Yeah, I got fucking nihilism. I got more nihilism than anything else. You know what? Despite all my reservations though, I’m still glad things like “Dream Daddy” exist. I loved reading Meek’s story, even if I howled in rage at the ending. I miss the guy I was, writing City of Bears. I really, really miss having hope, because that’s what all of those stories require–they need hope to exist. I don’t really know where my hope went–maybe it’ll come back someday. But until then I’m stuck wrestling with this shit all the same.