Reanna: I Made Three Posts About My Anxiety, But I Decided To Delete Them. This Should Be More Private.

Reanna: To eat the fruit of wild strawberries again.

When I was a kid, I saw some wild strawberries growing around Westgate. (That's a school I went to.) I picked the tiny fruits and ate them. They were sweet. I wish I could find that plant again one day.

From Our DeviantArt Post

Title: Carnival Byline: Reanna Field

This is the new front cover for Carnival. It's the red curtain but changed to look like a frame that puts the title and byline in the focal point.

It was supposed to have a picture of Staride, and the curtain was supposed to look like it was rising. But it looked cooler after we used the smudge feature to make the cover look darker. It makes the frame look like a diamond.

Carnival is out now, so you can buy it on Amazon. (Link to its page. Note: the back of the hardcover does not have a blurb.)

Reanna: Well, it's our birthday. Do you know what would be a great gift? BUYING OUR BOOKS! Also, you're probably looking for a present for a gift-giving holiday.

If someone you know likes reading horror comedy, buy Carnival. If someone you know wants a (very) short mystery they don't need to follow, buy The Murder After. (We hope they don't mind the second person.) If you're buying out of pity, donate the book to a library, so people who can't afford books can still read them.

Link to Carnival on Amazon (Not for kids!) Link to The Murder After on Amazon (Well, you could give this to a ten-year-old. But you would need two copies, so you can explain things to them.)

Happy Halloween from Mint Phalanx!

SL: I still don't like that The Year After is going to be longer than The Murder After. If the first book were fifty two pages, I'd be fine with it.

I know there's more to say this time, but I worry readers won't see it the same way. What if they don't like that the first story is a chapbook while the second is a novella?

Or maybe, a potential reader will find The Year After on Amazon and want to know what happened first. Maybe they won't care that the first book is short.

Maybe I should worry once we gain readership.

Reanna: I wish my headmates had the luxury of thinking about their stories without possibly annoying others like I did. But they get to have collaboration and make suggestions. I didn't have that before the phalanx.

Reanna: I don't think I'd ever realize I'm bigender without my headmates. I'd have probably just continued thinking I'm making it up.

It happened in 2022. The feeling may have been triggered by a dream Chaz had in 2021 (link to the dream.) It caused his form to go back and forth between male and female. This happened so much that he made a character to make it stop.

Then, we did research on trans men for a scrapped story idea in February. I noticed a desire to be a man, but when I imagined a full transition, it conflicted with my womanhood. So, I told myself that I was making it up, that it was the research talking.

But the feeling didn't leave.

A desire to be a man while remaining a woman. I didn't know why I was feeling this way. We felt confused. There was so much conflict.

Then, on April 19, Brian was thinking about all of this. He realized something and said, "I think we're bigender." Because I represent the body, it means that I'm bigender. The conflict stopped because the word fit.

Without Brian's realization, I would have still felt confused. Without Brian's realization, I would have continued dismissing my feelings as "making it up."

The Murder After: Preview

From chapter one. Terrance calls 9-1-1 to report a dead body belonging to his roommate Jacqueline. If you like what you read, go to the book's profile below. And before you ask, nothing happened.

I would like to joke that waking up next to a dead body is the best hangover cure ever.

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Dispatcher: “9-1-1, what’s the address of your emergency?”

“There’s a dead girl on my bed!” But it’s her room, stupid.

Dispatcher: “What’s her name?”

“Jacqueline. Luna.”

Dispatcher: “What does she look like?”

“Brown hair, really really pale- “your voice cracks- “but-but she has a big cut on her neck and-and blood on her pillow! That wasn’t there before!” It keeps cracking, but tears aren’t falling.

Dispatcher: “I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath.” You do.

Dispatcher: “Do you see any weapons?”

“No.”

Dispatcher: “I’m going to send an officer to check on the situation. But first, I need to know your name and address.”

You give your name then leave the bedroom and run down the stairs, worsening your headache. You go to a coffee table in the sitting room. There is an envelope from yesterday’s mail. It has your townhouse’s address and door number, so you read it aloud.

Dispatcher: “Okay, the officer is on their way and will arrive as soon as possible. Now, tell me exactly what happened.”

“Well, I was drunk, and Jacqueline took me back here. She was alive when I passed out, but when I woke up, she was dead!”

Dispatcher: “That will be all. You can hang up now.” You hang up. Then, the realization clicks.

Carnival: Profile

Title: Carnival (links to Amazon) Edition: second Genre: gothic horror comedy Year self-published: 2022 (through B&N Press), 2024 (through KDP)

Copyright status: CC BY 4.0 (do whatever you want as long as you credit the original work.)

Blurb: A car explodes while leaving Lakeside Amusement Park. Rebecca is assumed dead. After James and Chaz argue over what happened, they and their friends go there to look for her. Instead of entering Lakeside, our heroes find themselves in Carnival, the park’s Faerie counterpart. It is a backdrop which makes finding Rebecca only one of their worries.

Format: novella Page count: 76 (seventy-six)

MPA Rating: R (Restricted) Reasons: profanity, violence, child death, drama, spirit possession, and horror

Price: $6.50 (paperback), $13.00 (hardcover)

Note: This is the one we portrayed ourselves in. It was like acting in a movie. Chaz, Brian, and Rebecca are the only tulpas in this story that still consider themselves part of the phalanx. The rest chose to live in a place we call The Background to relieve head pressure (a sense of pressure, not actual pressure.)

F.M.: I'm based on a real person, and sometimes, I worry about what might happen to me when my source dies.

Will I die too? Will I deactivate and become a statue in the Stone Garden? Will I stop existing? Mary and Reanna would be devastated!

My source is in a band, and seven (going on eight) years ago, one of his bandmates killed himself. I formed from a fear that he'd be next. Maybe that's why I'm so worried.

I can already imagine myself sitting in a corner of the headspace and thinking, "oh my God! He's dead! What's gonna happen to me!?"