act FIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

13 new chapters, ~30,000 more words! base price increased to $7.00.

patch notes for previous acts:

• changed the title to A Hungry Light for better searchability. Sorry if this creates confusion!
• changed some Act IV chapter titles to match songs that are more appropriate. Honey -> Crazy Kids, Summer -> Warrior, BFF -> Die Young, Gold Trans Am -> Summer, Only Love Can Save Us Now -> Hungover.
• added a short scene to the end of 35 Summer

The bw epub got like 3 downloads overall so im gonna save myself the pain and not bother making that again until the whole thing is done. I do really recommend that if your ereader won't display colored text you check out the pdf.

This Act has a new character! Rowan has an interesting history behind her. My wife Carcosette created her for The Goddess and her Dog, which began as a coffee shop AU of Hungry Light but quickly expanded beyond that. I back-ported Rowan into A Hungry Light (and made her an even worse person because Hungry Light is very close to being the Worst Of All Possible Worlds).

I've also included a short bonus chapter at the end that I wrote for Thanksgiving.

Shout out to @vootins.bsky.social who gave me a second pair of eyes on this Act to make sure that it's not completely baffling!

Additional Note: kesha songs are not great with regards to, like, gender essentialism etc and i dunno how much of a trans ally she is. i use her songs as chapter titles because i like them and, to quote athame, trans women dont owe you good behavior. Chapter 49 references what is possibly her worst song in that regard, Grow a Pear, which is outright transphobic (wrt trans men). BUT it's also probably the funniest chapter title i could've picked for ch 49.

Other New Works Since Last Time:

• Many new chapters of Training the Rose
• Five chapters of Kimmy fanfic called Thumper
• A short story called What Happened To John