Historias de Lowstakes

Lemony goes around town looking for a Halloween costume. ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶I̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶h̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶a̶l̶?̶ ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶.̶.̶.̶

A fake emo. A perfectionist. A crazy teacher. A small-stakes robbery. A money-crazed CVS manager. An accomplice. An unlikely robber. All of their stories collide when Jacob's civics teacher urges his class to find the perpetrator of a local burglary.

Mindy lives a life she never dreamed of having. She works as an overworked office employee, has no partner, and all her youthful dreams have been buried under routine and exhaustion. As a child, she dreamed of magic. As an adult, she can only escape her reality by fantasizing about it. Until one day, an impossible opportunity appears before her: the chance to become a witch's apprentice. Will magic be the answer to a broken life... or just the beginning of something far more dangerous? Follow Mindy on her journey as a witch apprentice and discover whether magic can truly change a life - or destroy it completely.

Inspired by lo-fi artist City Girl's 2018 album "Neon Impasse," this story follows a character named Lex as she deals with life as an artist and the melancholy she experiences living in an unnamed Big City.

As a librarian working in an underwater library, Ramos likes his peace and quiet, which is distrubed only a few times a year when an author swims by to do a book signing. This time around, it's Kai, a famous writer of steamy romances going by the pen name Phish Seaman, and despite never reading any of his books, Ramos greatly dislikes the man even before meeting him, the pen name being the majority of the reason. Once the signing is over, Ramos is relieved that he will never have to see Kai again. Or so he thinks until the library finds itself with no funding thanks to the new, corrupt mayor. With his library in danger of closing, Ramos has to enlist help from Kai, asking him to come by again for another book signing if only to get a few more months to figure out a new plan to keep the library afloat. Kai does a lot more than that, and the more time he and Ramos spend together, the closer they get, until their tentative friendship turns into something else. Much as Ramos doesn't want to. [Second place in the Aro Ace Awards, Nano Watt 2025 Winner]