Art

Digital art, writing, and music have been a significant means for me to explore my feelings.

Drawings

Matryoshka

A large nonbinary adult with light skin and curly brown hair is dressed in casual black clothing, black nail polish, and glasses. They are holding a purple rabbit plush, which is holding a disproportionately tiny newborn version of the adult, who is swaddled in a blue blanket. Inside the newborn, rendered in black outline, is a girl with long black hair and pigtails, curled in an upright fetal position, covering her face in a way that suggests crying. Shadowy imprints of hands are crawling on the infant's body and the adult's lower body. More such hands are reaching toward the adult from the surrounding shadows, but a tall female ghost is hugging the adult from behind, and her light appears to keep the hands at bay. — I drew this well before Singer's secondary fracture. The shadowy hands represent Bernard. The ghost and the purple rabbit are both Lorna. The large adult is me. The infant is Singer. The silhouette inside the infant is Alice, though I did not know her yet.

Sink

An almost pitch-black bathroom faintly illuminated by a red glow. Everything in the bathroom is illustrated in reverse-color outline. The main subject is a very young girl with curly hair, wearing nothing but a skimpy, wrinkled dress. She has fallen over on her side on the tiled surface of the bathroom counter. Her legs are raised defensively, threatening to kick. Her face is panicked and weeping, her head turned to look upward in horror at her assailant. She reaches away and her fingers claw at the counter in futility, trying to scramble farther away from the attacker. Notably, the way her legs are raised exposes her bare bottom to her attacker, though to us, the viewer, it is censored by her dress. The attacker is enormous, titanic, compared to her. His hands, each of which is nearly the size of her whole body, are slammed down on the counter, uncomfortably close to her. He is leaning forward on the counter, but he is so large that only his hands and one of his forearms are in view. Behind them is a sink with a large, vaguely phallic-looking faucet. Behind the faucet is a mirror on the wall. Reflected in the mirror is a menacing, nightmarish face. Most of the face, including the nose and eyebrows, is osbcured by the dark of the room. The only visible parts are the eyes and mouth. The bright-white sclera gleam with mischief and malice. The pupils are small and pitch-black, and glare down upon the girl on the counter predatorily. The mouth is spread in an ear-to-ear grin with too many teeth. — This drawing illustrates one of Lucy's recurring nightmares. We believe it corresponds to the incident we tried to report to our mother, in which our father woke us up to bring us to the bathroom and penetrate us on the counter.

Tower

Jump

Against a starry night sky with a full moon, a young girl with light skin and long curly brown hair, dressed in baggy purple pajamas, is upside-down in free fall. She has no face. Her hair flies in the night. Beside her is the balcony of a gray brick tower, from which it can be presumed she jumped. Her knees are tucked in and her arms are wrapped across her chest in self-embrace. The right leg of her pajama bottoms is torn above the ankle, and around her right ankle is a cuff attached to a broken chain. — This illustrates the moment just before Singer's secondary fracture. It is a follow-up to the previous drawing. I believe I drove her to attempt suicide within our headspace, and the impact with the ground, imaginary though it may have been, was what split Alice, Lucy, and Daisy out of her.

Three

A large nonbinary adult with light skin and curly brown hair, dressed in casual black clothing and black nail polish, is reaching toward a mirror and placing their hand on it. In the mirror is reflected a young girl with light skin and long curly brown hair, dressed in baggy purple pajamas. She has no face. Where her face should be is instead a series of cracks as if in porcelain, as if her head were a brittle material on the verge of breaking. Erupting from behind her are three primary-colored ghosts. The red ghost screams to the heavens in rage. The blue ghost ducks, covers, and cries. The yellow ghost blushes and beams, its hands clasped in prayer. — I drew this shortly after Singer's secondary fracture. It illustrates the moment I realized the fracture had occurred. The large adult reaching toward the mirror is me. Reflected in the mirror, the young girl in purple is Singer; the red ghost is Lucy; the blue ghost is Alice; and the yellow ghost is Daisy.

Cotton

White outline on solid black background. A stuffed doll with a frayed stitched mouth and button eyes shoots itself in the head with a pistol. Cotton explodes from the exit wound. Caption, cursive: "It's fine. I'm not real. Only cotton would come out." — I don't remember exactly what I was thinking or feeling when I drew this, but you can tell I wasn't happy.

After what he did (SPOILER WARNING: ZeroRanger, Void Stranger)

The image is split down the middle as if two images were torn in half and then placed side-by-side. The subject of the combined image is a girl composed of two disparate halves. In both halves of the image, she is somewhat voluptuous, and has white skin (the actual color white, not the usual skin tone meant by "white") and messy ankle-length hair splayed out behind her and blowing in the wind. Her head is cracked as if a brittle material on the verge of breaking. She stands up on her toes facing the viewere. Her stance is closed inward protectively. Her arms are wrapped across her chest in self-embrace. Her shoulders are tense. Her head is lowered in shame. A symbolically-rendered broken heart is displayed on her chest. In the left half of the image, the heart is green, her hair is orange, and she is nude and has no face. In the right half of the image, the heart is orange, her hair is white, her eye is closed in contemplation, and she is wearing a torn wedding dress. The background in the left half of the image is a starry black sky with broken green orbs floating in the distance and a melting ghost tearing itself from the girl's body and wailing in agony. The background in the left half of the image is the railing of a balcony, decorated with blue banners. The positioning of the girl implies she is willfully falling forward off of the balcony. In the distance is a hill with a lone birch tree. Farther in the distance is the silhouette of a city bearing the flag of Finland. At the horizon, the sun is setting, and to reflect this, the sky is rendered sequentially in yellow, orange, red, pink, and purple. The image's caption starts in the left half in orange with "I understand now," and continues in the right half in green with "NO universe will EVER accept us." — This fanart shows Princess Lily from Void Stranger the morning after Lord Johann has sexually assaulted her. The piece is set moments before Lady Gray finds her standing on the balcony railing and rescues her from suicide. Lily's appearance in the left half of the image references Despair, the antagonist from ZeroRanger, from whom Lily is strongly implied to be reincarnated. In ZeroRanger, the final words of Erasure, Despair's sister, are "Do you think this future—*your* future—if we were to be born again in it—would it accept us?" The implication of the fanart's caption is that Lily is experiencing memories resurfacing from her past life and has chosen to understand Johann's assault as a rejection of her existence.

Riley

A young girl in baggy purple pajamas sits in a gray box. She has light skin, long curly brown hair, and long eyelashes. Her face is downturned and somber. She is hugging her knees to her chest. — This is Riley from my autobiographical OMORI vent-fanfic RILEY.

Field

I See His Face in the Walls

White outlines against a dark background. On the left, a person is sitting curled into a tight ball with their knees tucked in and their head tucked down between them. On the right is a wall with a large grotesque face stretching out of it. The face has somewhat detailed teeth, a long phallic nose, and empty, emotionless eyes. Its mouth is wide open in an ear-to-ear grin as if laughing uproariously. Its tongue is long, thin, and segmented, and reaches out toward the terrified person as if to lick them. — This is how I feel when I'm alone in a room.

Lucy

A rocky pit surrounded by flames. A young girl sits on a cushioned purple throne. She has light skin, vibrant rose-colored hair, red eyes, torn burgundy clothing, devil horns, and a devil tail. Her legs are crossed. She leans one elbow on one of the throne's arm rests. Her hair is long and flowing and curly, and cascades down to cover her eye on the side she's leaning to. Her other hand is raised to her side, occupied twirling her hair on the other side of her head. The throne's head rest is adorned with an eye. Both the girl and the throne stare down at the ground in front of them in disgust, for upon that ground is a somewhat large orange snake. The girl is stepping disinterestedly on the snake with her bare heel, crushing its windpipe and making it hiss and scream in pain with a tear in its eye. The caption is a poem: "For you, my nasty little snake, / I'll burn your body into coal / And take away what I can take / Until I've emptied out your soul. / I'll drink the poison from your veins / And steal the breath you use to lie / Until I find a shard of pain / That tastes the way you made me cry." — This is how Lucy feels about Bernard.

All of Us

This picture is a bit too noisy to explain, but I'll try my best. There are nine square images aligned in a three-by-three grid. I'll describe them from top-to-bottom, left-to-right, row-major order. First image: White outline, black accent color. A large nonbinary person with long curly brown hair and glasses is sitting at a computer desk. They are hunched over and typing on the keyboard. In the background are two symbolic icons, one of a bird composed of the digits 8, 3, and 1, and one of a rabbit. Second image: White outline, purple accent color. A young girl stands with a neutral posture. She has long curly brown hair that falls down over one eye. Her eyes are blue. She is holding a purple rabbit plush at her side. Her face is cracked as if a brittle material on the verge of breaking. She has a purple bow in her hair. A symbolically-rendered broken heart is displayed on her chest. The background is cracked like her face. Third image: White outline, brown accent color. A girl with long curly brown hair and no eyes is flopped over to one side, throwing her arms back, and yelling or groaning. Bubbles and squiggles emanate from her in the background. Fourth image: White outline, orange accent color. A tall, voluptuous girl with devil horns, long curly orange hair, and green eyes raises her arms in rage and looks down in disgust. She is on fire and intimidating. Fifth image: White outline, blue accent color. A girl with long straight blue hair and empty black eyes crouches and covers her head in terror and weeps. Around her, it is raining. Sixth image: White outline, yellow accent color. A skinny effeminate boy stands politely with his hands joined in front of him. He has long curly yellow hair, pink eyes, and a pink flower in his hair. There are yellow flowers with spiral pistils in the background. Seventh image: Light pink outline, darker pink accent color. A stuffed rabbit plush with huge ears and button eyes sits with its arms outstretched. Hearts surround it. Eighth image: White outline, light gray accent color. An angel with long curly hair stands with her back turned. She has wings and a halo. She is reaching up to press a button on the wall. Ninth image: Dark gray outline, black accent color. A menacing entity with a glowing yellow skeletal face reaches down toward the viewer. — From top to bottom, left to right, row-major order: me, Singer, Sophie, Lucy, Alice, Daisy, Lorna, Kate, Bernard.

Much of my work can't be showcased here

Due to the nature of my trauma, most of my vent art is pornographic. I don't really want to share it in a way connected to this particular online identity. I am nonetheless at least admitting to its existence here for two reasons: because it's a crucial part of my self-expression, and because I'm trying to be less ashamed of it.

Writing

RILEY

I wrote an OMORI fanfiction based on my trauma. It can be read here. It is my proudest creative work to date.

The Stain

don't show any weakness.
don't show any skin.
yet painted on your inner walls:
the echoes of his sin.

smile and say you're okay.
lie and say it's fine.
the numbness of each hollow day
can be your anodyne.

every day is empty,
every hour too long.
psychiatrists gave up on you.
no cure for being wrong.

don't imagine dying.
don't remember pain.
as long as you keep on lying
you'll cover up the shame.

nightmares do not haunt you.
no one touched you there.
even as their shadows taunt you
and redness fills the air.

you're the only problem.
you're the one who's sick.
those men would never hurt a fly.
it's just your nasty trick.

yet still engraved inside:
the stain of his vice.
don't care if they believe or not.
won't let it happen twice.

rest would be nice