And now, my latest attempt to paste in an excerpt from the second chapter of long-defunct prose experiment I Am Empowered, a Year-One-ish first-person account from Emp in 140-character Twitter format detailing her earliest days as a superheroine.

WHAT IS THE SOUND OF ONE HAND (NOT) TWEETING? (part 3)

Spending my capetime hours without a phone gives me plenty of time alone with my thoughts… WAY too much time, as it turns out.

Without texts or Facebook updates or Angry Birds to distract me, I have puh-lenty of time to spin up my mind's Hamster Wheel of Anxiety.

Given how craptastically my so-called career's gone, I have the luxury of agonizing over both what MIGHT happen and what already DID happen.

If I tire of worrying about future humiliating failures, well, I can always wallow in my excruciating memories of past humiliating failures.

I'm extra glad that my suit's hypermembrane prevents my fingernails from getting damaged by nervous chewing—though I still chew 'em, anyway.

(Icky side note: Chewing my invulnerable, suit-shielded fingernails is kinda neat, as they taste a little bit like licking an AA battery.)

After a full day of A) worrying about traumatic failure or B) actually experiencing traumatic failure, I waddle back to my empty apartment...

…and fling myself facedown on my empty bed, and all my ill-suppressed emotional crap starts venting out of me, mostly through my tear ducts.

Really, the term "venting" is way too positive. After my nightly emo-bulimic purges, I never feel much better, just wrung-out and exhausted.

Then, my stomach knotted, I stare blankly up at the ceiling for most of the night, until sleep finally stops my Hamster Wheel's spinning.

After countless sleep-deprived nights, I've become a scathing art critic of the sweepingly epic, popcorn-textured panorama of my bedroom ceiling.

Clearly, the drywall guy was just mailing it in when he textured the ceiling's northwest corner with such overt sloppiness and imprecision.

And what's the deal with that unsightly ridge near the light fixture? You seriously need to work on your trowel technique, you inartistic hack.

What I can't tell anyone—'cause, hey, there's no one to tell—is that I'm angstily anxious if not outright terrified almost constantly, now.

I'm not just scared of getting publically humiliated for the bajillionth time, though that really does scare me quite a bit, I assure you.

Getting beaten up, stripped of your powers, and ropeburnily hogtied by a bad guy is already traumatic and degrading for a newb superheroine.

Videos of your beating, stripping, and hogtying being uploaded to YouTube for vicious comment fodder? Even more traumatic and degrading!

Lately, though, my fear of public mortification has lost the #1 spot on the Keeps Me Awake, Fearful, And Chewing My Nails At Night hitlist.

Increasingly, I'm scared that I'm gonna die in the line of superduty. (I've barely avoided getting Reapered a few different times, lately.)

Twice this week alone, I've been seized by the mind-shattering, blood-freezing insight that HOLY CRAP I AM GOING TO DIE RIGHT NOW FOR REALS.

Gotta admit: The rush of relief you feel after a close brush with (or a dry-humping by) death is ridonkulously, almost orgasmically intense.

Honestly, any sexual climax I've ever had—not that I've had very many, really, until lately—seems anticlimactic next to OMFG I DIDN'T DIE.

After my Asymtotically Near-Death Experience with MegaChopper's 50-foot axe, my hands shook uncontrollably for a good three or four hours.

Plus, my knees went all weak, I rubber-legged around so shakily I that I looked drunk, and I blurted hundreds of variations on "Holy Crap!"

Nerving yourself up to face danger is one thing. Repeated situations in which you're completely certain of imminent death? Quite another. 

But Real Superheroines Don't Cry, and I'm also sure that Real Superheroines Never Find Themselves Too Scared To Get Out Of Bed, Somedays.

My teammates all seem to take the existential terror underlying our work in stride, while I'm struggling desperately just to not break down.

Then again, it's tough to get much of an emotional read on stainless steel golems, faceless mecha, gelatinous blobs, or bandaged-up mummies.

Y'know, that might be one reason why superheroes wear masks: So our abject terror and "WTF?!" facial expressions can remain safely hidden.

I'd kill for a friend I could actually talk to about this, someone I could unburden myself to, someone whose shoulder I could snivel on.

I'd maybe even wish for (ahem) A Lover to hold me and comfort me and indulge my whining, but I know that's straight-up Crazy Talk, obvsly.

(Out here, my horrifically botched, wholly disastrous attempts at hook-ups have been even more mortifying than my friend-finding failures.)

So, at long last, we come to my elaborate, convoluted, essentially delusional rationale for the 140-character-format of what you're reading.

Except you AREN'T reading this, because, dear reader, you don't exist. Oopsies! No one is reading this crap, except for me.

The fact is, I'm writing these narcissistically confessional and self-pitying anecdotes for a Twitter account that I'll never actually use.

I'd never dare to post these tweets online, as—Big Surprise, here—blabbing away your Secret Identity is frowned upon in superhero circles.

Instead, I like to IMAGINE that I'm tweeting to my besties, that I'm part of a social network, that I'm not alone and scared and friendless.

Late at night, too worry-rattled to sleep, I type up these imaginary non-tweets in a Word document, pretending as if someone could see them.

I do a wordcount on every one of these never-to-be-posted tweets, making sure they could fit into Twitter's character limits. Pathetic, huh?

Mo' pathetic: Sometimes I even imagine that these unsent tweets are getting replies, that someone's telling me everything will be all right.

You might not exist, Imaginary Person Reading These Tweets, but somehow your phantom (non)presence is still a tiny—if deluded—comfort to me.

The grimness: If I do end up getting killed—which seems quite possible, if not statistically certain—then Mom will someday read this stuff.

When she comes out here to gather up my belongings, at some point she'll find this file among the documents on my hard drive.

Almost every night, I agonize over whether or not I should delete this file, so Mom wouldn't have to learn about her daughter's sad reality.

Wouldn't be too comforting, after I die tragically, for Mom to find out that I was lost and terrified and in way over my empty little head.

The truth is, I'm already a bitter disappointment to myself. I'm not sure if I could cope with being a disappointment to her, too.

Then again, I'd be dead, and wouldn't have to worry about coping with anything anymore, would I? (Which sounds like a relief, really.)

Still, I really, truly, sincerely, absofuckinglutely hope you never end up reading this, Mom.

And if you are, um, well… Hi, Mom!

<END OF EXCERPT, AND CHAPTER>

Today’s Patreon update: Originally done as a means of scratching out more worktime to complete the long-gestating Empowered vol. 12, I've switched over to a Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday Patreon posting schedule that won't feature the fixed content format I previously used. So, who knows what today's post might feature? Could be Life Drawing or Distressed Damsels content (both of which are featured at least three times per month), or something in the Work Stages, Vintage Con Sketches or Design departments, or possibly something entirely new. Golly!

-Adam Warren