The Mad Mapmaker's Notebooks

📜 Obligatory Preface Statement

I am told this sort of introduction is customary, so here is my feeble attempt at an intro. This site is made for wider screen sizes, but I try my best to make every page both mobile and desktop friendly. If you are the wandering adventurer type, you've come to the right place. Each page is started with a loose idea and made up as I go and learn new things. I prefer to just wing it as you never know what each page will have. I will say, there are no boring ones. For prose, head to the Reading Room. If you see any half-written notes or thoughts that trail away, just know I probably got distracted and forgot what I wass doing. I'll circle back around to it eventually. Also, I'm building a fun little scavenger hunt thing so if you find any stray keys, runes, or hidden links lying around just know, they will be important at some point bear with me for a bit. Anywho, this is a sandbox, go have fun just don't eat the sand, it's not a treat. I'm going to slip into my bureaucratic zoot suit now. You matter. You are loved 🖤

Atheria was born of a want-shaped desire and is currently held together by an incredibly stressed cartographer. If you're looking for a carefully structured high fantasy with a recommended reading order, I'm afraid you've wandered into the wrong forest. The one I can provide is again, very loosely assembled. Honestly, the 'high' might just be the only thing I can guarantee right now. I can't give you rigid structure, or a single linear path to follow. My pretzel brain simply won't allow it. What I can offer is a sandbox to explore, a new perspective, genuine empathy, and the humor in any situation.

This is my chaotic way of trying to express myself. I'm learning vulnerability isn't weakness, and my ideas, while unhinged are not terrible. I'm trying to be a better person without losing who I am. I am slowly discovering the things I thought made me terrible, actually make me interesting or at the very least, normal. I'm hoping that someone sees this, and decides they like even one thing in my world. I hope someone will take the time to explore and maybe learn something about themselves too. I hope this resonants with somebody and maybe, just maybe, that will make my jumbled thoughts mean something. I often question if I'm alone. I can't be the only pretzel brained out here. So if yours is like mine, a little soft, a little salty and mostly covered in cheese come explore my little corner of the interweb. You can't get lost if you don't know where you're going. Be yourself, let your freak flag fly, and forget about trying to be perfect. Atheria doen't ask for perfection. It only asks that you hold all of you honestly, to hold your messy, sorrowful, beautifully unhinged self all at once. And you still call it love.

📜 Unnecessary Rambles ✦

The Vow of Inquiry:
"A well-framed question carries more power than an unexamined answer.
If you debate to reach a victory, you have already lost."

Atheria isn't interested in telling you which emotions are good and which are bad. Anger, shame, grief, joy, fear, envy, none of them make you a villain. They're whispers, trying to tell you something is wrong. Sometimes they're terrible teachers. Sometimes they're faithful guides. Denying them rarely makes them disappear. Usually they just become less visible....until you catch your reflection retreating in the mirror. Until your shadow lags three paces behind. What you deny in yourself will one day call your name in another’s voice.
Shadow is thought to be evil because it holds the unknown within it. We have to rely on senses that require more work to know something our eyes know in a second. We do not look at too bright a light as evil but as something that if seen would break our sight from goodness. Why do you think that is? We can't imagine that something so bright, exposing itself so freely could be evil. Instead, we place it as a shortcoming on ourselves. We believe we aren't holy enough. We think only evil would want to hide itself away. But what if the light is loud because it is afraid of what you'll see when it dims? What if Shadow has been conditioned into believing it's scary or bad so it either screams when you get close or it retreats deeper inside. The trick is not to scream but to whisper, "hello".

People often assume the Law of Mapping is about making maps. It isn't. Maps are simply one way of remembering. They are memories attempting to give directions. A song can be a map. A promise can be a map. So can grief. To map is to anchor. To anchor is to make real. You'll understand eventually. Or perhaps you already do. The canvas doesn't matter, the law remains the same. What is mapped becomes real. What is unmapped unravels. Those who map, are bound to what they witness.
Throughout these pages, you'll find lore, character-driven narratives, poetry, and at times my thoughts of rants and ramblings. You can't get lost if you don't know where you're going, and so, every path is correct. Each page was heavily inspired by Jungian psychology, various philosophers, string theory, and a deeply held belief that despite the pain, self-loathing, and the impossible living standards, there is good in this world. And I believe it is worth fighting for. Maybe this whole thing sucks. I doubt anyone is reading this anyway.

The River Remembers what humanity forgets.