Some short notes on Refrost (Patreon)

As any who read the story have likely guessed, the title is an allusion to women in refrigerators. 

While watching an episode of the Dororo reboot anime, I got to a scene involving the death of a certain female character and watched the roaring rampage of revenge play out, I thought to myself "god I've seen this scene so many times. I've seen this WOMAN, who was created to die and trigger some Manly Rage tm, so many times, in so many different stories." And then I considered: what if it was the same woman in all these stories? What if she was doing this on purpose, or as revenge? 

Basically been working on the story on and off in small fits and starts since that episode, which, is quite a while for such a short story.  At first, I tried to lean into the horror angle. planning a few different deaths and bloody revenge scenes and a full origin for the main character. I wrote how she got her powers and so on, but I found it a slog. I finally realized less is more and maybe I didn't have to explain the whole backstory or even do more than one death. But it wasn't 'til I went on a random late when I was struck with a rare jolt of motivation and hammered out that section where the Nameless Woman explains her modus operandi and found her casual, snarky voice that it really came together and I realized I might be able to finish this damn thing.

And so I did! It could use some work even now though, so I welcome any feedback and suggestions. PLEASE let me know what you think, lately it's been so hard for me to write that finally having this done feels like a miracle, so having people engage with it would mean a lot to me.

 In the end, sparing as much detail as possible and keeping things vague worked for the story and made things manageable, but it could be worth expanding on someday- there's a lot of room for more story, like maybe one of the gals Nameless Woman helps doesn't want to simply leave, and demands to come with her on her journey, tries to encourage her to have a "life" of her own. 

 (Also, for the record, I like to imagine there's also a "demon" who sacrifices parents at future- plucky-orphan-child-heroes behest in this world, it only makes sense, but it'd muddy the thematic waters a bit to explicitly state that) 

I  think there's a lot of cool things someone with skill and drive could do with the concept, but I don't know if I'm that person right now.  

I do want to submit my short stories to some sort of anthology or journal or do SOMETHING with them one day, and in particular is one I want to put out there somehow...but we'll see.