Octavia Writes

@byoctaviawrites.bsky.social

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https://ko-fi.com/octaviawrites Queer author. Voracious reader. I write stories about immortality, identity, and impossible choices. I also brew mead 💜 ‘Everyone Who Remembers Me’ is my first novel: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85685406

Short story teaser for ‘Velvet’. Everyone watches the door Berlin wore winter poorly, snow turning grey the moment it touched the streets. The cold settled into cracked stone and stained concrete, biting at the cigarette smoke beneath tram lights, sharp enough to numb careless faces. Posters layered the walls in ragged strips, political slogans and empty promises. Red stars and black crosses scrawled across them in cheap paint that would never dry. Gwen stood outside the station in the shadows of a streetlight’s glare, one gloved hand curled around the strap of her case as she watched the city move around her. The people carried an air of unease she recognised from a dozen different eras. The same unease regardless of which court, salon or office those in power claimed as their own. Men stood in clusters that quieted when police passed. Women smoked together, shoulders tense underneath expensive coats worn out of season. Jazz music spilled from basement bars, each note an orphaned prayer. The city waited. Trying hard not to look over its own shoulder. She understood that feeling well enough.
Excerpt from the novel ‘Everyone Who Remembers Me’ by Octavia Writes. “At midnight we walked to the stone circle. Em stood at the very edge, skirts whipping in the wind, hair unbound. Her hands cradled a jagged shard of metal a handspan in length. The bronze was dark and uneven, edges dull and engravings worn with the passage of centuries. What remained of the blood groove in the metal was embedded with shards of dark amber. Even a few meters away, I felt it humming with a pulse deeper than sound. “Few things remain to me from before I was reborn. Little has survived the true lifetimes I’ve lived since, but this is one. The broken splinter of the spear that once pierced my side.” Em said. "This is what you learned the deepest magic from?" Fay said, staring with wide-eyed intent at the spear tip. Em nodded, staring into Fay’s eyes. “This represents the oldest and most powerful of magics. Not of harm or control. Not even power in the way people crave it. This taught me change. The kind that weaves through your bones and dreams alike, rewriting you in the shape of your soul."
Front cover of a comic book ‘Jenny Sparks’ a female superhero smokes and exhales with electricity in the background
Two women, one with dark hair lying back on a red couch and one with light hair kissing her thigh. The caption reads ‘At that point, I already knew I’d do anything she said if she said it with her hands…’
Cover of a novel ‘Everyone who remembers me by Octavia Writes’ a picture of a hand-made twisted silver wire jewellery tree with a green moss coloured fleece blanket in the background
Movie poster for ’Atomic Blonde’, showing actress Charlize Theron holding a pistol, in a stylised neonoir lighting
A dark haired woman (Verna from the tv series ‘The fall of the house of rusher’) with a quote ‘There are always consequences.’
Goth girl standing with a sign that says ‘both is good, smile emoji’
Photo of a peacock with its feathers spread.
Picture of a piano keyboard with a note propped on it ‘I’m old and I’m tired. Please do not play me.’
A woman with long dark hair staring calmly at the camera, dressed in armor with a quiver of arrows. Nyssa Al-Ghul from the tv show Arrow.
Black and white picture of a woman in a strappy dress with runes on, with a dragon tattoo on her arm.