The most powerful thing I have ever written...That would take some thought...Hell,I haven't written anything in over fifteen years...now I'm starting again and it's driving me nuts.I guess it's the death of the girl in my story.She gets cut in half by a laser ray.Her last words are about her dog peeing on the floor.My hero goes berserk and when he attacks the monster who killed her they both go flying off the cliff and into hell...well,the hero lives,the other guy breaks his fall.I tried to turn an ordinary story into literature.I gave up writing over fifteen years ago,but started again last week after reading The Confidential Agent,by Graham Greene.Man,that guy could write.Its a possession,an obsession,this horrible urge to write,to be understood,to be recognized,remembered.I like your depth.

Well, I'm hoping Friar Chicken to become more powerful with each season, though it's mere child's play at this moment. I'm looking to explore deeper, more mature themes that border on mental health, society, classism, animal welfare, etc, with deepening suspense and emotional drama. So, yeah, there's that to look forward to.

But to answer your question for the present moment, I'd have to say "The Last Train to Gnashville" might actually take the award for "most powerful" and deep atm, in a short format. Two characters are stuck on a "train" to an unknown(somewhat doomful) fate. I'm not satisfied with the ending, but for the contest's sake, I've left it where it is, and I hope it leaves the viewer with a sense of empathy for animals, not shame, just an awareness of what we put animals through, though less intelligent/sapient than us, or so it seems. Makes for an interesting but kinda powerful story, in my opinion, though my goal is not really to change the world or viewer, just to tell an interesting, heart-wrenching, thought-provoking story, and test one's empathy.

And I still eat meat, btw, but I may change my own mind by the end of my bigger story. Who knows...

I will say, Along Came Tabutu. This chapter was not originally planned to be in my series, it was something added in 2020 when the world was beginning to lockdown. It had been 2 years since the previous chapter and during those years it was difficult to be motivated to keep working.

The overall theme of this series is about Crow (the MC) finding his self-worth. This chapter sort of represents a turning point for him.

Well, I have a lot of poems and stories that I've yet to share that I think are some of the most powerful things I've ever written, but out of the things already released, I think the chapters "Sanguine Thread" "Lurid" and "Symphony and Ash" are two of the most powerful things I've ever shared with the world so far.

Actually, there are quite a lot of really emotional parts in "Damsel in the Red Dress" but this reply would be super long if I went into all of them, so I'll just do "Lurid" and "Symphony in Ash." They string right into each other, so I have to list them together.

The emotions Alicia is experiencing about wanting to get out of her body are based on my own experiences with s*xual abuse from my childhood. For so long I just tried to keep anyone from knowing about them, and writing was the only way I could express this trauma. Being able to express these feelings through Alicia made the scene real, I think, but her fighting through the almost crippling anxiety to still live her life despite the horror she as experienced and not letting it derail her dreams and future to still do her speech at the museum is easily the most powerful part of the first book, and even brought a reader to tears.

Two snippets from each:

It’s been four days since I left the house. Four days since I last had a proper meal.

The trauma echoes…

Only this time I took a shower - in a vain attempt to scrub the horror out of my skin-

“I missed hearing from you the last few days,” he says casually, “You feeling alright?”

I swear he’s magic.

My mouth blurts the single syllable before I have a chance to lie, to swallow it back down-

“No.”

Why does that word feel so dangerous to say?

There’s a brief pause, and I think I can hear doors closing somewhere far away in his background. He asks almost timidly, “Do you want to tell me?”

Yes.

And no.

No no no.

I want to pretend it didn’t happen.

I want him to tell me it’ll be okay. That it wasn’t right.

And I don’t even know where to start.

With the calamity -? Or all of the space in between -?

Explaining what I should have seen coming but never did-

I’m such an idiot.

Maybe if I had…I wouldn’t be here, cowering in the dark, trying to get out of my body.

My face burns as I rush to the bathroom and pull my hair into a messy sort of bun - try to fix my makeup through the trembling.

This is going to be okay. We’re gonna-

I lean on the sink so I don’t collapse.

Breathe, Licia. Just breathe.

What if someone from The Foundation is there- they’re gonna-

Breathe

In front of all those people - god - not - I’m not ready-

My heart moves too slowly and too quickly at the same time - I can’t get enough air into my lungs-

I’m paralyzed between staying and running away - never mind the embarrassment.

Everything in me wants to scream - everything in me wants to stay - because I want this - I want to do this speech…

Peace my sweet.

I don’t want to let Shannon, or Etan, or the accident, or the panic, or the voices in my own head - the stupid shadows - ruin this for me.

We’re not - not giving up on this…not now…this is what we’ve been fighting for…in spite of everything…

I breathe. For myself and for Kattar, hoping at least one of us will come out of this okay.

But okay…

Is only going to be possible if I choose to stop running away from it.

Breathe - I’m-

Still trembling.

But I’m breathing.

So far so good, I guess.

The other most powerful thing (unrelated to DITRD) I think I've released is my short story "Rain Dance." Also inspired by real events.

It's the idea of choosing to grow and change despite the odds being against you, and not to sit being afraid in the misery. It's a different kind of powerful, because the perspective the female lead comes from is already a lot stronger than Alicia's, but the biggest moment of the story is her choosing to dance as her house is surrounded by, and being flooded by a tropical storm. This storm, or the edge of a hurricane, whatever it was, is something I actually experienced, and as there were no windows in one room of the cabin where I lived, and gaps in the walls, our floor was just flooded as the hill by our house seemed to melt and fill the house with muddy water. My protagonist experiences all this, but instead of just laying in bed scared, she gets up and begins dancing with the wind.

I agree. My best friend had cancer when he was 16, and to this day watching his health fail more and more over time is one of the scariest parts of our lives right now.

I enjoyed my "Devil in the Details" arc. Was 4 parts and was a conversation between Gavin and Lucifer on who Baul is and what she has done in the past, and why he should leave her. Thought it came out pretty good.

I would say for me it would be episodes 5 through 12 of Wild Nights, Hot and Crazy Days. These episodes deal with my first experience with trauma, coming to terms with my sexuality, and the emerging relationship cut short between my friend and I. I will summarize what happened here, but I warn, it s a tear jerker. This is a long "Summary", but remember, I'm condensing seven chapters here!

I had just turned thirteen years old on Boxing day, 26 December, 1984. On 30 December, during a sleepover at his place my friend Aiden and I discussed sexuality. He had picked up on subtle signals from me (he'd see my eyes lingering on a hot guy, and even noticed me looking at him), and we confessed our feelings for each other. I am gay, he was bi. We talked a lot about how these feelings... felt (for lack of a better term), and snuggled in to bed together. We did nothing more than snuggle - we were very young, and besides, we were not alone - we were babysitting his six year old brother while his mother worked. I went to bed thinking that I was on top of the world.

Then, the very next day, 31 December, trouble hit. Aiden's mother was upset at us because we had been smoking in the house and he had even drank a couple of beer while we watched movies. Being the hyper-intelligent kids that we were (sarcasm) we forgot to clean up the evidence before going to bed, so his mom came home to full ashtrays and empty beer bottles. Needless to say, she exploded. Aiden was immediately grounded, and I was sent home to await the wrath of my own parents after she called them and told them what we had done.

Fortunately that phone call never came.

Unfortunately, the reason that phone call never came was that just after I left Aiden's house he and his younger brother Richie got into a big argument, which resulted in Richie running out of the house and disappearing into the woods. I was very surprised when Aiden showed up at my door (he had been grounded, after all), but he was not there to hang around, he was looking for help. Richie was missing. I called our other friends and the bunch of us combed the neighbourhood looking for him. At around supper time it was starting to get dark, so we headed to Aiden's house only to find a bunch of police cars. They told us that in addition to Richie there was a six year old girl missing in the same area. We told the police the places we had looked and my friends and I went home, leaving Aiden with his mother and the police.

For the rest of the evening I was at home. My parents were throwing a New Year's Eve party, and everybody knew about the missing children (it was all over the news). I kept calling Aiden to see if anything had turned up, but eventually the police admonished me not to call anymore in case Richie was trying to call from somewhere. It was a very subdued party indeed, everybody's thoughts being on those two children.

Then, at 11:55PM, only five minutes to midnight, the phone rang. I answered it, and it was Aiden, bawling his eyes out with the news we were all dreading: They had found both children in the lake. They had gone through the thin ice and drowned. I felt empty inside. Everybody at the party was bawling. My mother guided me to bed, and as I laid there I watched my clock turn over from 31 Dec 1984 at 11:59PM to 01 January 1985 at 12:00AM. The new year had come in.

After the death of Richie, Aiden and his mother disappeared. I didn't hear from them until February, when Aiden called me and asked me to come to the place he was staying: His mother's boyfriend's house a few towns over. I gladly accepted the offer, and is mother's boyfriend's brother (who shared my name, but spelled differently: Carman instead of my Carmen)) picked me up. On the car ride he told me how hard Aiden had been taking the tragedy, and before we arrived he even stopped his car and told me that it was not going to be pleasant, and offered to take me back home if I didn't think I was up to facing him. I told him to continue.

Even though I had been warned, I could not have been prepared for how bad Aiden was. He was holed up in his bedroom avoiding everybody. Carman told me that Aiden hadn't even wanted to call me, that he and Aiden's mother had cajoled him into doing it. I went inside and talked to him. I learned some more about what happened that day. The long and short of it is that Aiden and Richie had a big fight, Aiden threatened Richie, and Richie ran away scared. Aiden blamed himself for the tragedy. This was not helped by Richie's last words: "I HATE YOU, AIDEN!" as he disappeared into the woods.

Defeated, I left Aiden in his room and found Carman. As it turned out, Carman was gay too, and Aiden had told him all about me. Carman, in fact, had given Aiden instructions on what to say to me that night, and it was he who suggested that Aiden drink a beer or two to loosen up his nerves before he broached the subject. At first I was terrified, but afterwards I was grateful: Carman and I had a long and very serious talk, and the things he told me helped me understand my sexuality better. He gave me some of the best advice I could have ever received on how to accept and deal with who I was, and how to protect myself from haters and homophobes. Almost forty years later I am still grateful for the talk we had. I I won't repeat that advice here, as it would take several chapters to do so, but I don't know how I would have managed without it.

Our talk was interrupted by dinner, and during that dinner Aiden made an appearance: His first such appearance since the tragedy. Carman and I left the table so that he could talk to his mother and we continued our talk in the carriage house. As he was wrapping up, Aiden came into the carriage house, so Carman left the two of us to talk.

It was then that my heart was broken for the first time in my life. Aiden told me that we could no longer be friends because every time he thought of me he thought of that tragic night. He would never return to our town. I was devastated. He left me crying in the carriage house, and Carman came out with his brother (Aiden's mom's boyfriend). The two of them picked up where Carman had left off, and helped me to understand why my friendship with Aiden must end. I did not like it, but at least now I understood it. Aiden needed to move on from the tragedy and could not do so with old friends.

The next morning Carman drove me home. Before we left their house I scribbled a note to Aiden. It was two simple words: "I Understand". I slipped it under his bedroom door and left.

I never heard from Aiden, Carman, or any of the others again.