beth (defunct)

i've been feeling really burned out when it comes to writing and part of that is general depression, and part of it is feeling like a failure every time i engage with it because no matter what i try it seems like my audience has more or less plateaued, and it genuinely seems impossible to make anything near a living wage.

i've been probably blaming myself too much for this and now this thing i used to do for fun feels like a big chore and every day i don't do it, i feel like i'm being lazy and stupid and throwing away chances to maybe reach more people.

and i've applied to a bunch of other jobs etc and it's just been silence on that front so i'm not particularly hopeful.

i've been going back and forth lately on if i should just shut down my Patreon and give up for a while because right now i feel trapped in this endless cycle.

on the other hand, most of my stress is coming from me and whenever i actually mention this stuff to supporters they say that it's fine and they're giving money to support me and my health and wellbeing is more important than my productivity.

The world today is built on sand
Laid out in wires, lightning fast
Like all sand does, it too will fall
Our glass more fragile than we know

“I’m sorry, but it’s about the principle of the thing,” the middle-aged bureaucrat explained. “The way she transformed you was illegal. There are processes for these things, you know. There are processes.”

“But I didn’t want to be changed back!” Nigel protested. “I liked being Nigella! I told your cops that.”

“They’re not ‘my’ cops, thank you very much,” the bureaucrat said, “and that’s just standard procedure. We can’t be making exceptions for every little thing. There’d be chaos if we did!”

“What if I just asked another magic person to change me back?” Nigel asked. “It’s fine if they have my permission, right?”

The bureaucrat emphatically shook his head. “Some individuals have… dangerous and peculiar desires in terms of their morphology. I’ve seen cases of people who wanted to be turned into a squirrel or a sandal. What if they had later changed their mind? They could hardly communicate that to request being turned back. They could easily be lost forever!”

“But I can communicate,” Nigel pointed out. “And obviously turning me back was pretty easy, right?”

“There’s a process,” the bureaucrat said. “We don’t yet know if you’re sound of mind.”

“Well, can I do that process, then?” Nigel asked.

The bureaucrat muttered something to himself before retrieving several sheets of paper from a filing cabinet behind him. “You can fill out an application to have a consultation about intra-species polymorphing, after you fill out and submit your registration with the ministry. I’ve included both forms, as well as a waiver and an informed consent sheet. You need to thoroughly read through, fill out, sign, date, and return every one of these documents to us. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” Nigel said. “I just don’t understand why there need to be so many, or why this all seems so slow–”

The bureaucrat cut Nigel off. “In that case, I have other clients I need to get to. There is a line, you know. You can drop those forms off at window 5-B window once you’re done.”

“5-B”, Nigel muttered to himself as he tried to find a chair. “Fuck, they didn’t even give me a pen.”