This is where I am building a conversation around the narrative of The Shards of Color Trilogy and more specifically the first book of this trilogy titled BLUSH BORN.

I'm Jeff B. White and I am the writer and creator of these stories. Find Your Colors allows me to provide the breakdown of these chapters exploring the psychological concepts that are present within the narrative of BLUSH BORN, while also explaining how I created this world from my own personal story of struggle and survival.

Last week I shared "Chapter 18 Colorful Revelations" and because of the sheer volume and length of that chapter, I decided it would be best to leave the breakdown for a separate episode.

In the process of writing that breakdown I realized once I had completed it that it was 6,792 words. This would have activated all of the word limit issues and presented something that would have taken me two hours to record and would not be read by the 11 people who read my stuff.

So I decided instead of doing that and sacrificing the valuable information that goes with this chapter, and because of the importance of this chapter, that I would break down the breakdowns. So that is what I have done. I am making this into a three-part sub-series that covers the three distinct points, the first one being culture and structures within the Colorista community as it compares to the rest of their world, and a brief look at some of the characters that were introduced. Later, I will be posting the second part that explores the real world inspiration behind the Rainbow King.

Finally, I will be wrapping it up with the third part that explains the psychological foundations of the seven songs including the Rainbow King and Jethran's place in all of this. I'll also be making a special announcement that I'll get into later.

This gives me time to still be able to provide content while I am working on my chapters that come after this.

Hopefully, I will actually be building up a bank of content if I am able to win the battle against my inner saboteur who tells me that life would be more fun if I dedicate all of my time to working on my unpublishable manuscript that is based on a retelling of The Little Mermaid from the point of view of a sea witch named Octavia because Ursula is owned by the mouse with fat lawyers.

The Breakdown

If you have been reading along and have already finished this chapter, you probably felt the shift in the air. Something fundamentally changes here. The story opens wider, and the emotional rules of the world become much clearer. The questions Jethran has been carrying since birth are brought into sharper focus while new and much larger questions begin to take shape.

This is undoubtedly the most important chapter in BLUSH BORN and quite possibly the most important chapter in the whole series. It acts as the midpoint of the story and fundamentally alters the direction of the narrative. It serves as the exact moment when Jethran's understanding of the world and of himself deepens irreversibly.

Everything that has happened to him up until this point begins to reorganize itself. His birth, his Blush, Collis and the forced pills, the Attention Necessity label, his mother's lullabies, the colors awakening within him, and the strange pull of the Seven Songs all come into conversation. He experiences a breakthrough, starting to believe that his mother knew far more about him than he ever realized.

He currently lacks the proof, meaning the pieces are just now falling into place.

One of the things that makes this story so much fun is that it takes him a long time to get the answers he has been seeking. Even these new questions may remain unanswered in this particular book.

But before that happens, there will be drama.

On Colorista Culture and Avoiding Real World Associations

You may have noticed a change in the story. I updated the name of the Coloristas, as well as their gendering.

Within the culture of the Coloristas, the women are known as ristas, the children are called colorlings and also known as lings which is just the word for kids. While the men are known as colormen.

I want to be 100% transparent and firm on this. This is not a reference to colored men or colored people. I’ve worked very hard on ensuring that the word colored is not even used in this entire narrative and across all three books. I don’t even say that when I’m describing something by its color.

You will never read characters in my stories say that’s a yellow colored plant or say that that’s a blue colored shirt. They say that it’s the shade of or the hue of or it’s blue-hued or blue-shaded. They will describe something saying that it’s the color of.

They also don’t say "of color" due to the racial gravity and weight that is applied to that term in the real world. Although the trilogy’s name is Shards of Color and that was an oversight that stared me in the face every single day that I wrote all of this without ever being seen.

With that part aside, when we’re describing the world in the story we just use the phrase with color or about color. Because the world doesn’t suddenly become a world of color. The people who were once gray become people with color living in a world of vibrancy. They suddenly exist in a reality about color because color is physics and color is magic and color is reality.

So while I do understand and anticipate some people reacting under the assumption that I'm placing real world racial terms into the story, I just want to be clear now that I'm actually working hard to do the exact opposite. The word colorman or colormen is actually taken directly from the world of Art History.

Before pre-mixed paint in tubes existed, artists purchased raw pigments and mixed their own paints. Colormen took over this time-consuming task, grinding pigments with oils or binders, which allowed painters to focus more on creation.

In another context, there is a term referred to as Farbenmensch. This is actually German for "color man" or "color person" and refers to an artist who thinks in color before line or composition. The German Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner used this term for himself.

Further, while art history uses this to describe a person who is a supplier of pigments, it also can be used to describe a person who applies color in printing or a worker who mixes dyes.

There are Coloristas in the story who when they are seen their fingertips are stained from the colors of the dyes that they’ve used and the pigments that they’ve used to color their weavings. Their entire society and culture and spiritual belief is based around the art of movement and around the threads and they see and feel and experience the world through the colors of their people. They are very well established as possessing a full cosmological relationship with the existence of color. And color is part of their actual racial name being that their race is Colorista.

Before I did this I had already done very similar social linguistics and etymological creation of the other races that exist in the world. There are three races within this story. There are the Here of Evenhere, Silvarii, and Coloristas.

First there are the Silvarii. Originally they were called fairies but I decided that was too regular for my story, so because they have silver skin I made them into silvari which is an Urdu term for silver. It's also Portuguese for woodland. So that word works on two levels describing this race.

When I was coming up with their social linguistics and such I decided to just cut the word down the middle. I decided to name the women in their race Sils or sil. Their children, I decided to name sillies. It just felt really whimsical and seems like it would work for this group of people, plus because they are an extremely patriarchal society they treat children on the same level or less than they treat their females of their race. So that's why they call the children sillies, because it's just an extension of the women. However, the males carry an even darker undertone with their name.

The men I named Varii. And I'll get further into this later but it allows for people in the Kingdom to hear that word and to mispronounce it and just start calling them fairies which becomes a derogatory term.

Derogatory term but it's more just like a mispronunciation and the Silvarii took offense to it because it's not what they are. And while it is completely lost as to whether or not it actually was ever meant as derogatory it remains the fact that they deemed it derogatory and therefore it is.

Because it doesn't matter what the intention is what matters is the outcome.

Splitting the root word to reflect their patriarchal hierarchy is a highly effective worldbuilding technique. Designating the women as Sils and the children as sillies communicates their systemic oppression instantly. It establishes their societal value organically and bypasses heavy exposition.

It’s simply the exact same path of naming these races in the story that I took with the Here. The men are called heremen, the children herelings. The women, who are deeply deeply oppressed in their society, are given the gender specific descriptor of wem. Which is partially utilized for the mental image of them being reduced to nothing but a womb. And that one of the very first laws that we experience in this culture is that they are deemed to be "in possession of the delicate female mind which is better suited for playing with the children until dinner time." And they are assigned a man to oversee their family if they have a child and they’re not married because they’re not deemed capable of managing their homes.

Circling back, color men were instrumental in the development of new, brighter pigments, like chrome yellow and cobalt blue, for the Impressionists.

Personally, I found that bit of information to be utterly fascinating. I utilize those exact terms in this book. Jethran possesses his blue magic that manifests as a cobalt blue mist. So this work wouldn't even be possible if it weren't for the work done by the color man and the color men years ago. That they are used to describe the male Coloristas shows that this term is based in real world architecture, outside of racial connotations.

This means that the use of that term in the story allows me to honor the work that was done by those men by codifying their very existence into the fabric of the world within the story that benefits from the work they did in our world.

Find Your Colors is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Easter Eggs and Character Naming

Along with the update to the cultural linguistics, there is another small Easter egg that I just put in this chapter.

Sometimes I think naming my characters has been one of my favorite parts, I think it's all my favorite part honestly, but dealing with a narrative where the story is so deeply rooted around the color it presents me with some cool opportunities.

Of course I'm talking about the family that Fable and Jethran were having dinner with before they went to the Hall of Tapestries. This specific scene serves a few purposes in that it was an opportunity to show Jethran for the first time in the story actually feeling comfortable and relaxed. Being calm and learning to breathe for the first time without the crushing weight of the oppression and the fear that had been facing his entire life. One very important moment came when he was watching Yola's kids. He saw them playing and enjoying themselves and he kind of not in the narrative but it was kind of as if he thought, "Aw that's nice why aren't they at work?"

Because he's only 16 years old but he's had a full-time job at this point for the last six years because of the Ling Labor Law that demands people above the age of ten work to be able to pay for the burden of their upbringing. When Cray tells him that they are only small splashes of color and their only duty is to enjoy their childhood. This very concept is completely foreign to him.

The reason that this scene matters so much is because, as the book moves into the more whimsical and happier parts of the story it's important to continue reminding the reader of exactly the stuff that he's come from and how far he's come in the very short amount of time. Also, he is about to have his life completely flipped upside down in just a few moments and so it was necessary to have him have a moment of peace and exhale.

But another crucial thing about this scene is the actual characters of Yola and her children and her husband Cray. Because you know... Crayola. The Coloristas are a culture based solely around color and so I get to play with giving them names that align with that way of life but, also sound completely like an actual character in a fantasy story.

As for the children of Yola, they remained unnamed in this chapter. While I won't reveal it here today, we do actually encounter Yola's children twenty years later in the story and at that point in time we learn their names. When it happens, it's a moment that shows that the history of this world is built-in and it's a living and breathing place that existed long before we came along. Also this shows that within this narrative is life and that life continues living on even between books, not just for the main characters but for the whole Kingdom of Evenhere.

What all of this is really trying to show and what I'm trying to say is that this is more than just a regular fantasy story with a boy doing some stuff and being a hero and whatnot. There is a living and breathing world of people to meet. Each person offers a distinct purpose throughout the course of these stories. There are even people who you see in the story and you think they're just like an extra or just somebody that's filling up some narrative device at that moment and then you find out later that they have a whole other level of importance. And there's pretty much no one who is mentioned or steps onto these pages who would be considered an NPC.

Nothing that I do in the story is done with a sense of flippancy or with a lack of intentioned purpose and designed thought. It's important to me that they feel real and that they feel lived in, and mostly that whatever their purpose is in the story, that it's served in a way that lands with the reader leaving them entertained, educated, and seen.

What's Next?

Next time, I am going to present Part 2 of this breakdown where I will dive into the real world origins of the Rainbow King, my personal experiences as an LGBTQ activist that inspired the title, and the deeply personal inspirations behind the Colorista magic system.

After that, will be part 3 where I will discuss the psychological foundations of the Rainbow King and the rest of the Seven Songs. And with that breakdown I will be making an announcement about the future of Find Your Colors. So you're not going to want to miss that!

Let's Discuss!

Jethran finally finds a moment to relax and to calm himself. After an entire lifetime holding his breath it's a beautiful moment for him.

Do you know what it's like to have to go through your life unable to exhale because of all the nonsense?

How did you finally reach a point when you were able to release it?

How long have you been holding your breath?

Are you clenching your jaw right now? Is your tongue pressed against the top of your mouth?

If it is, why don't you go ahead loosen that s**t up and take a breath.

Better?

Maybe you've caught every episode of this or you've just got a chapter here and there or maybe you just tuned in for this specific breakdown.

But now that we've reached this Midway point in the story there are some things that I'm curious about. I've discussed quite a bit of background information and narrative lore, a lot of it's been extremely personal, but vital to actually explaining the story.

Do you feel that the narrative probably captures the real world aspects that I've described them to be representing?

If you have been reading along with this, what do you think so far?

How does the story land with you?

Who's your favorite character?

What are your thoughts?

I would really love to know.

Feel free to answer these questions in the comments section below or take them with you as you go.

Read the Story Behind the Story

Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of my memoir Shards of Hope A Tweaker Witch's Journey are all available to read for free right now on my website! If you're interested in exploring the true story that inspired the emotional journey of BLUSH BORN, head over and check them out.

While you're there go ahead and join the email list so you can get updates about my publishing journey and other bonus content that is exclusive to my mailing list.

All of that is available at www.jeffbwhite.com

Subscribe Today!

Find Your Colors is a reader-supported publication and a listener-supported podcast. It is through the support of my subscribers that I am able to continue writing and sharing my stories with the world. If you've enjoyed what you've read here, please consider joining as a free or paid subscriber. And click this button for 25% off for your first year.

If you prefer to listen, make sure to check out the podcast version featuring other content along with breakdowns on Spotify YouTube podcast and Apple Podcasts. Click the button below to join the conversation on Spotify.

As always, if you read this all the way to the end or if you listened all the way through you are absolutely my hero.

Thank you for allowing me the time out of your day, and the space in your brain, to share my story and introduce Jethran to the world.

This is the publication and podcast where we are discussing The Shards Of Color Trilogy and more specifically the first book in that trilogy titled BLUSH BORN.

I am Jeff B. White and I am the writer and creator of these stories. Find Your Colors allows me to provide breakdowns exploring the psychological concepts that are present in the narrative of BLUSH BORN.

As well I explain how I translated my memoir into this dark fairy tale. The first three chapters of my memoir Shards Of Hope A Tweaker Witch's Journey is available now exclusively on my website where you can truly dive into all of my work. Just go to www.jeffbwhite.com and look around, read, and sign up for my email list.

We're at the Midway!

We have reached “Chapter 18 Colorful Revelations.” This is the midway point of the story, y'all! I am so excited that we've get this far. I wasn't sure I would get this far. This is the longest chapter in the book has a lot happening and is obviously the home of the midpoint shift so there will be no breakdown provided with this chapter. It will be sent out separately later in your inboxes. So keep an eye out for that in and let's go ahead and get started.

Chapter 18 Colorful Revelations

The gray light of the afternoon sun cast soft shadows across the Whispering Grove.

Jethran and Fable had spent hours immersing themselves in the quiet rhythms of the Colorista community. They shared a simple meal of roasted root meat and sweet burgundy fruit with a young rista named Yola and her husband Cray.

Jethran and Fable those watched as Yola’s colorlings played a game that involved chasing the shimmering threads that danced in the air around them.

“It’s… It’s midday, don’t your lings need to be preparing for work?” Jethran asked as he enjoyed the feast.

Yola stopped and looked at her lings, then at her husband. They looked back at Jethran smiling.

“They are only but small splashes of color,” Cray said. The colorman looked at his colorlings as he laughed deeply. “They only have the duty of enjoying the freedom of youth until the time comes when they will begin weaving like the rest of us.”

Jethran couldn’t imagine the concept of enjoying the freedom of youth. He took a bite of root meat as he thought of the years said he had spent working in the rock sorting facility.

Fable had initially been wary of this place. Even he soon found himself charmed by the open display of feeling.

“This place is nothing like the village where I spent my youth,” Fable clarified, his voice loud in the carved tree hut. “Living with color and freely enjoying emotion. Oh, sugar! The Silvarii Eldrus would be singing lullabies of calming and correction.”

Jethran took a sip of the delicious seven-shaded hueberry juice Yola had made. He turned to Fable, a look of serenity falling upon his face.

“The last thing I need in this place is calming,” Jethran said, a new realization settling over him. “I’ve never felt so calm. I don’t feel like I’m a Flaw here. I feel normal, as if I belong. I feel like I’m at home, for the first time. I feel like I’m just… Jethran.”

The weight he had carried for so long was lifting. The pulse of shame that haunted him began to dissipate in the vibrant air. He found himself breathing deeper, the air itself feeling richer, fuller. For the first time, his lungs were drawing in the full spectrum of what it meant to be alive.

He watched the colorlings, their faces alight with joy. Their very beings a celebration of the color he had been taught to hide.

“Well, you’re not,” Yola chimed. “You’re not a Flaw, Jethran. You’re so many things but a flaw… Jethran… you are the…”

“The what?” Jethran asked.

Just then Winley Knowles approached them. Her hair shifting to a rich chartreuse as she interrupted.

“Yola,” she said calmly but with an authoritative tone. “I believe I heard Sycamore request that you help him with the looming.”

Jethran watched Yola as the rista quieted herself quickly and departed. He then looked at Winley with a questioning expression.

“Young Frye, come with me,” Winley said, her voice left no room for argument. “There’s something important I need you to see.”

Jethran scanned the area for Fable and found him holding court surrounded by a group of captivated colorlings. His nickel skin shimmered in the light of the glowing mushrooms on the nearby trees. Yola’s lings were sitting with him braiding his hair as he told them a story.

Jethran watched for a moment, a wave of genuine admiration washing over him. Fable’s charm was an effortless force. Seeing him so completely in his element, holding an audience captive with nothing but a story and the mischievous glint in his pewter eyes, it brought a smile to Jethran’s face.

“…and if you listen, I bet you can still hear it clunking around in there,” Fable said, his voice carrying across the quiet clearing. He then stood and swayed the bottom half of his body back and forth, as if he were a bell.

“Fable, we have to go with Winley,” Jethran called, walking over and gently tugging him away from his small audience.

“I’m not even going to ask what that story was about,” Jethran said as they walked away.

“Oh? Just a silvarii story from my youth,” Fable retorted with a grin and a wink, dusting off his tunic.

They met back with Winley Knowles, who escorted them deeper into the oldest part of the central tree. They found themselves in a circular chamber that seemed to pulse with an ancient power. Her hair was now the vibrant yellow of freshly cut grass. Fable noticeably rolled his eyes. The walls of this place were woven from what looked like pure starlight, threaded with fibers that pulsed with soft, internal light.

“This is the Hall of Tapestries,” Winley said as Fable scoffed at her hair, which was now a subdued dark azure. “It’s ancient and sacred. The walls hold the Tapestries of Time. Each one depicting a pivotal moment in the histories.”

“Histories?” Jethran questioned her. “There’s only one history.”

Winley offered a smile. “Oh, but there are many histories. The history of the past and the histories of the future. Even now this is the history of the moment.”

Fable scratched his head as he and Jethran looked at each other with confusion. For Jethran, there was an inexplicable familiarity to these tapestries.

“The style of the weaving,” he whispered. “The way the threads intertwine, reminds me of the old blanket my mother used to wrap around me.”

“These are no mere blankets, sweet boy,” Winley began, her voice reverent. “They are the true record of all that has been and all that has yet to be. All the histories are interwoven. They rely on each other, existing in their own space as well as in each other’s. The essence of these moments are captured in living threads. It is the legacy of who the Coloristas are. And... of who you are, Jethran.”

She walked along the curved wall, her hand whisking a shimmering image.

“Who are they?” Jethran asked.

“Who is he?” Fable asked, pointing at Jethran.

“One answer at a time,” Winley said. “The Coloristas are the stewards of Tapestries. We guard over them, we tend them, and we preserve them. Ours is the magic of time. We protect the histories. So that the histories that have been lived can inform the history that is being lived now. By doing this, the history that has yet to be is met with understanding.”

Jethran looked into the Hall, curious if his history was somehow woven into this place. “Who is it that created them?” Jethran asked.

Winley raised her hand, directing the two of them to follow. “The Seven Songs, the ancient Hues of Feeling, each Song was an emotion woven from the notes.”

Fable bristled. His tradition had taught different stories. “No. The notes hummed the Seven Songs. That’s how they created the Pure Melody.”

As Jethran stepped closer to the wall, a low beat seemed to emanate from the threads, a song that resonated with the pulsing power that stirred within him. The air grew thick, the pressure changing as if before a storm.

The first tapestry, depicting a bustling market, began to shimmer. The woven figures, once static, began to move with a ghostly grace. The threads of light pulsed and shifted, playing out the scene before their eyes. Jethran could almost smell the scent of baked bread and hear the distant murmur of a woven crowd.

Fable and Winley both stepped back in shock. Fable gasped, his wings giving a startled flutter.

“What is this magic?” the Silvarii demanded.

“It is not magic,” Winley said with an untempered awe. “It is the embrace of truth, memory, and grace. Transcending time, accepting that hope has found its way to Evenhere. It... it is responding to him.”

The moving pattern depicted a merchant, his face worried, as he held a basket of bread. A Colorista, approached him, as a wave of azure light emanated from the merchant, revealing his hidden fear of not having prepared the bread properly for sale. The Colorista gently touched his arm, and the blue mist softened, replaced by a confident emerald, and the merchant was soothed. He headed to the marketplace where he sold all of his bread.

“A display of emotional excess. Uncontrolled,” Fable scoffed. The old lessons of his people ringing. “Our proverbs warn against such things.”

“No. That’s a display of truth,” Winley corrected gently, her hair shifting to a warm, emerald green. “Is it excess to show a doubting hereman the truth of bounty he holds in his hands? That is the power that comes from grace. She was Midgelle, the Lightgiver. She helped him see his worth.”

Jethran felt a jolt, a powerful truth pulsing within the vibrant emerald of the tapestry. It was a color he did not yet possess. He felt a similar pull to the next tapestry, which depicted a family quarrel.

As he approached, it too came to life. A father, his face tight with frustration, emanated a dull, angry aureolin. His child, cowering, was shrouded in a faint, transparent tangerine. A Colorista stepped between them, radiating a vibrant cobalt. As the deep blue touched the father, his aureolin softened, and the child’s tangerine glowed with a bright hue.

“This the myth of Muralis the Listener,” Winley said, her hair now a calm, cerulean.

“More chaos,” Fable grumbled, though with less conviction this time, his worldview being pressed. “The ancient texts of the Pure Melody speak of the dangers of such interference.”

“Fable, the father’s rage was transformed. The child’s fear was allowed to shine forth,” Winley corrected, her tone a blend of serene authority and deep, ancient sadness. “Harmony is not the absence of emotion, little Silvarii. It is understanding its composition. Tell me, do your ancient texts speak of a truth that is found in hiding?”

“Muralis,” Jethran breathed the name. “I’ve met her. Fable, the mist... My mist. It’s from Muralis.”

Both Winley and Fable stopped and looked at him. She was enamored that he spoke of her so intimately. That he held her power. Jethran noticed the tears in her eyes as her hair turned a deep cobalt.

Jethran then felt a second jolt, even stronger than the first. A cool, golden-apricot hue. He hadn’t yet experienced it, and now he realized this was a second color he’d never encountered.

He glanced at his hand, a faint inner ring still open, awaiting a new color, a physical and emotional sensation connecting the abstract history to the empty space in his own Blush. It felt like a missing note in a familiar song, he had been searching for his entire life.

They came to a large tapestry, a riot of color that depicted an entire era. As Jethran drew near, the wall exploded with silent life. Figures danced and sang, embracing and laughing, weeping openly as their tears watered colorful flowers at their feet. It was a symphony of pure feeling.

“The Age of Chaos,” Fable breathed, the words an horrified reaction.

“The Age of Songs,” Winley turned her gaze to him, her eyes soft with a profound pity. “Look closer, Fable. Does that look like pain to you, or does it look like a celebration? The histories you were taught were written by the one who hunted and burned my people during the Color Raids.”

Fable looked again, truly looked, and saw the joy, the grief, the unrestrained life woven into every thread.

“But... why?” he asked, his voice full of anguish. “Why would our world forget something so beautiful?”

“Because the Uncrowned One is a demagogue of dust,” Winley said, her hair turning black. “He did not rise to power with an army, but with a whisper. He told the people their vibrant emotions led to chaos. He promised them a better, more orderly way. And those who feared their own feelings, the ones who would become the Big Aughts, they listened.”

“They created a world so profoundly lonely that people learned to fear any deviation,” Winley continued. “Laughter became muted. Grief became a private shame. And love... love became a utilitarian bond, stripped of its wild color.”

“It is why we protect these Tapestries. Why we guard the histories that were woven by the Seven Songs,” Winley said, her voice a low, confident hum. She paused, gesturing to the final, radiant tapestry that dominated the hall.

Fable couldn’t stand it any longer. His voice cracked as he defended the truth as it had been written since the first Silvarii fluttered their wings in tune with the Hum.

“Oh, sugar! Stop it! The Songs did not weave! They hummed. You can't just keep saying that like it's true! What you are saying is heresy!”

Winley looked at Fable softly. “That is a thread outside the Pattern, a falsity woven into belief, little varii.”

Listening to Fable and Winley debate, Jethran finally interjected. He asked such a simple question that carried with it such weight.

“Isn’t a song nothing more than a pattern of hummed notes woven into a melody?”

He paused, a new clarity dawning. “But they all have a beat. A rhythm... A pulse. It’s the Living Pulse. That... that’s what connects them.”

Both the Silvarii and the Colorista stood, silent and stunned. It sounded like blasphemy, but it felt like the truth.

Winley gathered her composure as she moved the curtain towards another branch of the Hall.

“What you have seen so far has shown you the history of what has been. But there are others. They are the histories that have yet to be. These are woven by all Seven Songs in harmony. The tapestry you’re about to see is the Final Pattern. Jethran, it is the reason you are here.”

She looked at Jethran, her gaze holding a awe and reverence. Jethran could feel a Pulse of sadness and immense joy all at once within her.

“How can this be the reason?” Fable asked, cutting through the mystical pronouncement.

“I was the one who suggested we…” the Silvarii stammered as his mind was drifting in a swirl of confusion. “How could a tapestry have… I'm the one who I said we should find this place… I'm not a weave.”

Winley’s gaze softened, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “You misunderstand, little varii. I do not mean it is the reason he is here, in this Grove.”

She turned back to Jethran, placing a gentle hand over his heart. “I mean it is the reason you were born, Jethran.”

This was by far the largest of the tapestries, and despite its stillness, it shimmered with a kaleidoscopic array of all seven colors, radiating outwards from a central figure. The figure was a king. His face was serene, but powerful. His skin was a soft pinkish gold. He bore magnificent feathered wings, each colorful feather pulsing in waves. And as Jethran looked closer, his breath hitched.

The King in this tapestry looked nearly identical to Jethran, a version of himself touched by age and wisdom. The hair was longer and of multiple shades, the same firm jaw, the same shape of eyes. It was impossible, and yet, undeniably true.

Fable stepped forward, his eyes at first squinted as he peered into the tapestry. Then they widened. He looked at Jethran, then back at the image, then back to Jethran. Fable stumbled backward until the woven wall caught his weight. The foundation of his entire life was crumbling around him.

He stared at Jethran. The Blush was not a flaw, not a curse. It was a vibrant, defiant song that had refused to be silenced. A song that was sung by a boy who refused to disappear.

Lies, Fable thought, the word dismantling his inner truth. My whole life... a lie. The stories, the laws, the traditions of my home... they were chains held by a lock that kept the truth prisoner. And Jethran is the key.

In that moment, the boy in front of him ceased to be just a friend he was travelling with. He was history. He was hope. He was the beautiful truth. It wasn’t the now baseless traditions that needed to be held despite everything. It was his friend who, at all costs, must be protected. No matter what. The weight of it all pressed down, until Fable felt his entire world itself had been shattered and remade.

A divine purpose washed over him. He would follow Jethran to the seven edges of the Evenhere if he had to. He would guard this beautiful creature and protect Jethran with his life.

Jethran, feeling an undeniable pull, stepped forward and placed his hand on the fabric. The moment his fingers made contact, he felt a dizzying sense of duality. It was as if he were both himself and someone else, a doubled pulse echoing in the depths of his spirit.

The air in the hall cracked, the light from the woven stars intensifying. The very threads of the tapestry itself began to dissolve. The light fractured into glowing Spectras. Jethran then saw through the tapestry, as if looking through a window in space. He saw them.

A living figure turned their head. One eye, a vibrant pink, the other a deep emerald, looked directly at him. The figure smiled, briefly looking past Jethran to see Fable behind him. Their gaze then fell upon Jethran, and with a deep warmth that altered Jethran on a level he couldn’t quite explain.

Jethran realized the being could see him, they were smiling at Jethran so he returned the smile. And then they spoke as if speaking across a cavernous distance.

“I’m beautiful,” they said.

The entire tapestry blazed with an overwhelming brilliance in response. He stood in stunned silence, his mind struggling to process the impossible sight of his own face, a mirror image of his destiny, looking right back at him. The tapestry then returned to its original scene, but now hummed and shimmered as the others. Jethran’s eyes begin to sparkle with a bright new hue.

He saw the magnificent wings of the Rainbow King as they slowly moved back and forth. He saw a beautiful beam of multismatic light shot from the central image, landing on a nearby Citizen of the Gray. The moment that the light landed on the gray citizen, their entire appearance changed into a beautiful person the color of magenta.

Winley’s voice, now steady and certain, broke the silence, her hair shifting through all the colors of the rainbow in a slow, hypnotic cascade.

“The Songs have many names for this figure, little spark. The Restorer. The Song Who Sings. But the Coloristas who have guarded this promise, we have always known him by his true name.”

She then turned her gaze, full of quiet power, directly to the boy, she placed her hands on her own heart.

“We have always known him as Jethran.”

Jethran reeled, the world tilting around him. It was a blueprint. His own face, his own name, woven into the fabric of time before he was even born. The word Flaw exploded into dust, leaving a vast emptiness that was instantly filled with the beautiful weight of destiny.

He stumbled out of the room, desperate for air, his mind a torrent of disjointed discovery. Fable, numb with shock, followed instinctively.

Jethran was frantic. A rapidfire of his entire life poured from him.

“Collis,” Jethran sneered. “It wasn’t Attention Necessity... It was a box for what they couldn’t control...”

Fable and Winley noticed his hair streaking in a new shade.

“The pills...” He shouted. “A gray poison to mute a song before it could be sung!

He turned around violently as he heard her... his mother… his mother’s words, echoing across the years

I love your beautiful story.

“She knew...” He whispered. “She had to know... she was protecting me. She was protecting the world’s hope.”

Jethran’s eyes felt a new coolness that he ignored as the colors awakened within him.

“She stood in the way... every lullaby... every time we stood… in that mirror together... everything that she...

He spun around to face Fable, tears streaming down his face, but his expression was one of stunning and brilliant revelation. His blush pulsing with a new vibrancy.

“It was never about the Rainbow King.” Jethran laughed as tears streamed freely from his eyes. “Don’t you see!? It was about… me,” he laughed with a boisterous and genuine burst from his spirit.

“It was about who I am,” Jethran paused, he placed one hand on Fable’s shoulder and the other on Winley’s. “I am… the Blush Born King!”

As the words left his lips, flecks of saffron in his eyes ignited. The weight of his profound acceptance acted as a mirror to the world, showing it what it is meant to be..

A ginger color consumed his Blush entirely, filled the irises of his eyes, and washed through his hair, turning it a vibrant vermilion. It radiated from his palm and then erupted outwards in a concussive blast, a sound like infinite mirrors shattering into one another as it brought a new color into the world. As if every lie he had ever been told shattered with the releasing of this new shade of vibrancy.

In the Whispering Grove, an expectant mother robin, with her deep cerulean feathered crest, found that the gray eggs in her nest had shifted to a warm tangerine. A jaybird transformed into a prismatic shade of burnt sienna. Just outside the Hall of Tapestries there was one last silver light. Beside it, hovering in the air, was one crimson light, one of aureolin, one of cobalt, and another of indigo.

A Colorista in the distance yelled out. “Look! The sky!”

Everyone suddenly looked upward as the stale slate of the sky itself seemed to melt away as it turned a soft peach that stretched to the horizon.

Jethran turned, his own shock palpable as he took in the newly hued world. He gasped when he saw Fable.

“You’re… you’ve changed color!” he said, a sense of responsibility washing over him. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to.”

Though Fable’s tight curls were still sterling silver, his skin was now a beautiful shade of marigold, and his clothes were a vibrant saffron. A geometric segment of his magnificent wings had even adopted a warm amber hue.

“Oh, sugar on a sandwich!” Fable said, marveling at himself. “Well, I suppose it’s my color now.” He grinned, a bit of his jovial self returning. “I like it! The ability to accept change makes us grow into better people. Right, Winley?”

“It does add a bit of flair, doesn’t it?” Winley said. She stood smiling at them both, her hair now a matching shade of cool amber. Fable shot Winley a look, still unimpressed by her. He pointed towards her, then looked at Jethran and he asked, “This doesn’t mean I’m going to change color every seventeen seconds, does it?”

The intense vibration of the new color calmed on Jethran’s body, settling into a mere fleck in each iris, making its place in the gray space that stood between the crimson and aureolin.

Just as the other colors had done, it formed a new ring on the Blush of his cheeks and the palm of his hand. Strands of brilliant vermillion settled into his hair, a new thread in his personal tapestry.

||

What's Next?

​Now you’ve seen the moment when Jethran’s life is changed forever and the story begins down a path that leads both Jethran and Fable into a brand new world.

​This is a massive chapter with a lot of reveals and lore. The breakdown for this chapter will be hitting inboxes soon. It’s going to contain a breakdown on the real world history behind the Rainbow King and other ways that my life influenced this chapter. As well, it gives a look at the hidden Easter eggs in the world building that’s present in this chapter. And most importantly, it looks at the actual reality that Jethran is facing and how this narrative is fully subverting standard fantasy tropes.

​To my paid subscribers, keep your eye out for that as it will be popping up in your inbox very soon.

Read the Full Story

On my website, Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of my memoir Shards of Hope are all available free to read right now. So if you're interested in reading the full true story behind all of this, feel free to jump over there and explore the true story and a lot more. My story is not for everyone. So if you do read it and you don't like it that's okay. I didn't greatly enjoy living it so…

Subscribe Today!

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication and listener supported podcast. It is through the support of my subscribers that I’m able to continue writing and sharing my stories with the world. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read here then please consider joining as a free or paid subscriber. I’m grateful for your support either way, so either click me the subscribe button below to join for free or click the button below to receive 25% off your first year as a thank you from me.

As always if you read this all the way to the end or if you listened to it all the way through, then I just want to say you’re absolutely my hero and I want to thank you for allowing me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story and introduce Jethran to the world.

This is the publication and podcast where we are discussing the Shards of Color Trilogy and more specifically the first book of the trilogy titled BLUSH BORN.

I am Jeff B. White and I am the writer and creator of these stories. Find Your Colors allows me to provide the full chapters of BLUSH BORN in a serialized format, along with breakdowns of the psychological concepts that are present within the narrative. I also explain how I translated my own story of struggle and survival into this dark fairy tale.

Recap

Previously, I shared “Chapter 17 Whispered Color” in which Jethran and Fable met Winley Knowles and the Coloristas. We saw Jethran finally find a place where he is accepted and sees that living in freedom is actually possible.

We will pick back up with the narrative later this week. Today I have some exciting news to share, alongside a few thoughts about making it in the literary world and how we put ourselves out there as professionals.

Growing and Showing

The landscape of publishing shifted a long time ago and we're no longer in an era where a manuscript alone opens every door. Writing a great story remains the priority, but building a conversation around that story is what invites the people to stay.

Through the building of a conversation around BLUSH BORN here on Substack, I have been able to secure a domain and I have built a new central hub for my work.

Thank you to all of my subscribers who signed up for both monthly and yearly subscriptions. And especially, those of you who have signed up on the Prism Tier.

You not only have allowed me to see what it feels like to start getting paid for my actual writing, but you've allowed the writing to pay for itself. That's massive!

Substack has been a beautiful way for me to begin sharing the story behind the story, breaking down exactly what all went into crafting my series. Now my new site is providing me with the opportunity to share the full depth of what exists inside that story as I set myself on the path toward realizing my publishing goals.

Having a dedicated author website remains absolutely crucial because your website acts as your true home base on the internet. It's the platform that you own entirely. While Substack is a powerful tool for content distribution, the personal website offers long-term stability, control, and searchability that third-party platforms simply cannot match.

It's the perfect place for a permanent biography, a professional press kit, your book portfolio, or a “work with me” page. Those elements just feel clunky inside a standard newsletter feed.

On your own website, you decide exactly how your work is presented. You can have full control over your design and overall feel. You get complete control over the brand and user experience.

I have crafted a fully immersive experience that allows visitors to feel the weight of the narrative before you even start the first sentence. I've created a place where you can explore the full depth of the world that's been created in my stories. You can learn about the locations and discover the cast of characters.

I'm building a section detailing the full magic systems and explaining the different cosmologies that go into the belief structures of my characters. There's even radio broadcasts that play the in-world news updates from the narrative, providing added details from the world itself to facilitate a deeper dive into the Kingdom of Evenhere.

Quite possibly, my favorite feature about this new site is that I am able to share full chapters of my memoir with the world for the first time ever. These chapters will not be available anywhere else.

Obviously, this is an extremely personal project for me and it was not easy to sit down and write about all the things that I have included in the memoir. It was important to me that I was allowed to have full ownership and full control over the ways in which it is shared and presented to potential readers.

Having my own domain and my own site makes that ownership possible. So now instead of only telling my readers about my memoir, I finally get to show it to them. On my terms.

Substack is fantastic and I’m not going anywhere any time soon. The fact remains that building a portfolio solely on rented land comes with risks that could be detrimental to your progress. Platforms can change their terms, they can increase their fees, or they can lock you out of your account which could erase thousands of subscribers or years of content. Your website ensures that you own your content, your subscriber data, and brand identity permanently. It serves as a permanent hub for your career, regardless of which social media platforms rise or fall.

It also removes the dependence upon the algorithm whichever algorithm that is. We've all already experienced the Instagram algorithm crunch and we all know exactly how difficult it is to get properly seen by the people you're trying to reach on Facebook. Plus, not everyone is built for tiktok and not everyone wants to be posting videos of themselves all the time or relying on competition with the influencer crowd for clicks in order to ensure our careers get off the ground.

One really big deal is that Substack has limited SEO optimization whereas content on your own website ranks much better on Google. This makes it easier for new readers to find you organically. Plus, a website allows you to structure evergreen content that brings in traffic for years. Newsletter posts, on the other hand, eventually get buried in inboxes.

The website becomes a place where you can sell your books, merchandise, or services directly from your own site without sharing a commission. A dedicated website also lets you set up marketing funnels, like giving away a free story in exchange for an email address, which is much harder to execute on a newsletter platform.

It's a Miley vs Hannah situation because you literally can have the best of both worlds. These platforms work perfectly together and the best approach is to treat them as complementary tools. You can use the website as your foundation and let Substack be the engine that drives the traffic and connection.

Your website can house the archive and shop as the permanent place for your content and your books while serving as your main intake hub. While Substack is still there holding space as the newsletter and housing the community so you have easy access for updates, essays, and direct conversations.

Personalized and Professional Value

There's another extremely important reason why having dedicated author website is vital.

The three key components to successfully becoming a published author are to have a great idea, a great story, and a platform. It used to be that you only had to have two of those. A great story and a great idea were fine even if you didn't have a platform. But, the days of that being true are seeming to be moving away. It's undeniable that the digital world has taken over everything and content creators are a dime a dozen.

While there are still people who are able to get in the door without this, it is naive to still believe that having a professional digital footprint isn't a necessity. As the world continues to conduct more and more of its life and business in the online world it is slowly becoming more and more difficult to ensure that your work gets seen and is treated with the value that it deserves unless you place yourself in the market where the majority is existing.

While having a dedicated author landing page does serve as a marketing tool and a place to directly sell your work, it also provides a point of presence in the digital world. Presence matters. From what I have come to learn, it matters a lot more today than it did only six months ago.

Things have changed in the publishing world and not everyone is talking about it, but they are noticing it. Across the entire literary realm, agencies and publishing houses are closing and filing bankruptcy. Big publishing houses are having to eat the massive debt left behind by some of the smaller organizations, and that is causing a tightening of risk-taking in picking up new authors.

It has always been that agents, editors, and publishers want to see that a new author they are interested in will be able to carry part of the load in getting the word out about their work. Now more than ever, that has gone from a bonus to an absolute necessity.

We must show that we have the ability to attract, engage, and convert would-be readers into dedicated and active communities.

If we want our work to be picked up and remembered, we have to show that we are invested in the presentation as much as the punctuation. We have to make it apparent that we can craft skilled prose and it is vital that we show that we are skilled pros.

A dedicated site tells the industry and the reader that our work has merit and already has its own home. It shows the ones who need to see it that the author is ready to not only participate in the conversation, but that they have already started it.

Plus, a really cool aspect of being able to acquire your own domain and website for the use of marketing and raising awareness around your work is that it comes with a business email that looks extremely professional.

This obviously isn’t a necessity, as people get published every single day with just a regular Gmail account. That being said, it undeniably gives your queries and outreach that added punch that shows a level of professionalism that not all people have when they enter the conversation.

For example, I was able to acquire colors@jeffbwhite.com which if you excuse me for saying this is completely badass and honestly has made me fully emotional.

It's on brand. It's on theme. It's unexpected, but not in a way that is unprofessional. Personally, I believe it is a another layer of proof that I know what I'm doing and I'm acting with intention.

Finally, and overall, this entire process is an act of validation you can provide to yourself. In my situation, it's testament to how far I've come in my life and how far I'm going to go. There's a scared little white boy right now back in the 1990’s Mississippi who would be so happy and impressed to see where I’ve brought us today. Everything else is… additive.

But despite all of this, the fact remains that you can take the combination of all of these things together and still never get published or find your platform. In the same train of thought you could go out in the world without any one of these components and send one query letter and get picked up by an agent right then. If that happens, congratulations. But please don't tell me about it.

This is all simply the nature of the career path that we have chosen. Real talk, I am so grateful to be a writer and to share my stories. I would not willingly choose to be doing anything else.

🌈You can explore the immersive portal as you step into the Kingdom of Evenhere, meet its residents, and discover why emotional intelligence and radical vulnerability aren’t weaknesses. They are the most dangerous weapons in the spectrum. 🌈

www.jeffbwhite.com

The True Story Behind the Fantasy

The first chapter of my memoir is available now on my website and the following chapters are coming soon. So there's no turning back. Feel free to go begin the story now! I promise it is not your typical recovery story.

Shards of Hope

A Tweaker Witch's Journey

Let's Discuss

* If you're a writer or an author have you created your site yet?

* If you have, how has it helped you in raising your platform?

* If you happen to be an agent, editor, or publisher what is it exactly that you're looking for when you go exploring the websites created by your potential clients?

Feel free to answer these questions in the comment section below or take them with you as you go or email me about it at colors@jeffbwhite.com

Subscribe Today

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication and listener supported podcast. If you appreciate what you've read here today and you would like more or you're interested in following along as I drop my fantasy chapters, then please consider joining as a free or paid subscriber today.

Free subscribers matter so much. They let me know that I am sharing a story that people want to read. By subscribing you'll get access to the chapters that are published here on Substack and any bonus content, like this essay, when it becomes available.

Paid subscribers also matter. They let me know that they want to know more than just the story.

By becoming a paid member, you can access all of the chapters as they are published along with all of the bonus content and access to the chapter breakdowns explaining the story behind the story.

Prism Tier subscriptions are available for people who want to provide the level of support that ensures I cross the finish line and achieve the goals that I have regarding my work. I'm so proud and grateful for the subscribers who have chosen to join that level of support.

They will receive:

* The full Shards Collection audio library

* Signed hardback copies of the full collection.

* A place in the acknowledgment sections of all the books in my series.

* And more…

The support that I've received from my subscribers has allowed me to build my website and it's allowed me to acquire the cover art for my written books. All of my subscribers are allowing me to get closer and closer each day to finally publishing and printing my work.

Any support that you're able to give is absolutely an honor and I cannot even express how much I appreciate each of you. Click below to receive 25% off for your first year as a thank you from me.

Oops, My Colors Are On Everything

Not only is Find Your Colors on Substack and jeffbwhite.com, but also the Find Your Colors Podcast is available on Spotify, YouTube Podcasts, and now on Apple Podcasts. You can listen to the chapters and bonus content there. So click the button below or follow the links in the description to subscribe and follow so you never miss an episode.

Thanks

As always if you read this all the way to the end or if you listened to this all the way through, then you are absolutely my hero and I just want to take a moment to say thank you for allowing me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story with you.

Many of you subscribe to Find Your Colors to explore the mechanics of processing trauma. You show up here to learn how to build internal vibrancy and find healing from old wounds through spiritual effort. Over the past two weeks, I was forced to put those exact practices to the ultimate test in the face of the man who manufactured my oldest wounds.

The essay below is an unfiltered reflection on that journey…

One Final Goodbye

As I sit in my apartment in the Bronx writing this, I’m astonished that I’m actually home. It’s as if the events of the past two weeks never happened. My mind is dizzy from the whirlwind of emotions and shock. Yet here I am, stepping back into my regular life after spending two weeks in hell.

Back in November, we learned that my father had glioblastoma, a very severe brain tumor. He endured the surgery and they removed it all, but the aftermath of that type of surgery, especially at his age, was detrimental. Glioblastoma is an end-of-life diagnosis.

As he began to deteriorate, I received another call: his heart was failing. He needed open-heart surgery at 82 years old. The doctors informed me that he weighed 125 pounds. He was incoherent, non-responsive, and in a position where if he had gone under for surgery, he would not have come back.

It was then that myself, my mother, and my sister joined together on the phone. My mother and sister were focused on getting him to heal, getting him back to normal so he could just be the way he was.

It became my responsibility to inform them that that wasn’t possible. I had to be the one to break the news to my mother that Daddy wasn’t coming back. That he would never be the same. I gave them the information, of what the tumor, the brain surgery, and the stage 4 congestive heart failure all mean together. That’s when we shifted from talks of surgery and palliative care to talks of hospice.

The three of us made the decision together, and then we hung up. I created a group chat with my mom and my sister where I gave them some attempt at inspiration, just trying to lift them up and hold them together. My mom said she understood what I was saying. My sister said she just didn’t have any words. I told her not having words is fine and that we’d get through this together. She said she was going to go be with my mom. I didn’t hear back from her for a while.

About an hour later, I got a call from my mother. My sister had locked herself out of the house and gotten extremely stressed out. She called my aunt and started walking to the hospital, which isn’t far from where they live. She fell. She had a seizure. The EMTs came and she had another seizure. They airlifted her to the hospital in Asheville.

My sister was diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago, the same week I was diagnosed with leukemia. Her cancer had metastasized and moved to her brain. A distant metastasis of a recurring lung cancer. The prognosis for this is very small.

I asked my mother if she wanted me to come. She said yes. I bought a plane ticket immediately and flew to North Carolina.

For the first few days my sister wasn’t there. It was just me, my mom, my dad, and an older cousin. I had planned to only stay two weeks because I have an upcoming apartment move and my own chemotherapy treatments waiting for me back in New York. I packed my bags and went down to help my sister heal and get everyone ready as we dealt with the looming death of my father.

Once I arrived, I realized that despite the fact that everyone was sick, and some of them were dying, no one had any end-of-life paperwork done. No power of attorney. No living will. No DNR. None of it. I had started trying to get this work done way back in November. It took me the full two weeks before I was able to get papers signed, and only for my father. I was never able to get papers for my sister or my mother.

My sister’s case is severe. Her prognosis is not good in any capacity. When I tried to talk to her about the actual biology of her brain tumor, the fact that she’d had a quarter of her lungs removed after her lobectomy, and what that means for her body, she accused me of being negative. Literally discussing the definition of the diagnosis and what is happening. Not for the sake of being morbid, but for the sake of preparation. For ensuring that everyone is taken care of and that their wishes are respected.

I find it astonishing that I share DNA with people who demand total blindness in the name of comfort. That being practical and responsible and making adult decisions is somehow being negative.

As an adult, I have built my whole life around finding the light. I practice witchcraft. I study paganism. I write books about healing trauma through spiritual effort. I’m all about that woo-woo s**t. Manifestation, the power of positive thought, the law of attraction, all of it. These are valuable practices. But being realistic and being prepared is not negative.

Yet here I was, being told by the very people who manufactured every toxic emotion of my childhood that I needed to focus on positivity. That everything would just work out if I just believed it. As if my own personal life structure was being weaponized against me.

Yes, thoughts influence what happens. We can alter our situations through positivity and light. But we all die. We can’t stop that. We can be educated about it. We can be prepared for it. We can make sure that we’re not a burden on our family after we’re gone. We can make sure that our children are prepared instead of blindsided because we kept telling them everything was okay when it wasn’t.

They brought a hospital bed into my parents’ home and set it up in the living room. My father sat on that bed, his actual deathbed, and flat-out declared he was just going to ignore the diagnosis. He wasn’t going to think about it, and then it wouldn’t be real. He said he just wasn’t going to pay attention to the negative stuff. He told me there was nothing seriously wrong with him.

That’s when everything snapped into focus.

I had spent decades wondering how a father could just turn his back on his own son and throw him out like garbage. Never looking back. Now I finally knew. Acknowledging that he abandoned me would require looking at something ugly, so he just erased it from his mind.

You can destroy people for your entire life without any shame or effect on yourself personally, as long as you simply refuse to look at the wreckage.

It is the most dangerous kind of toxic positivity. It wipes away personal responsibility and leaves a trail of victims bleeding out in the background.

Being back in that house was a total mindfuck. It wasn’t the house I grew up in. It was a house my parents had lived in for fifteen years that I had never seen. My cousin who was there was surprised to learn I’d never even been. I hadn’t seen my father in twenty years. And although this wasn’t my childhood home, it held all of the same stifling energy. I am endlessly grateful that I put twenty years of distance between myself and that family. It took an ocean of therapy to survive them the first time. Walking through the door was like entering a time capsule of a life I spent decades dismantling.

On the first day, after about ten minutes, my cousin saw me suffocating and took me to get food just so I could breathe. We sat in the Sonic parking lot and I laughed as I stared off into the distance.

I told her, “The fact that they even asked me to come down here makes me want to scream about the laws of audacity.”

She simply smiled at me, because she knew it was true.

Then I said, “But how could I not have come? They needed me. Of course I would be here.”

I asked her if it made me pathetic. As if I’d waited decades for them to throw me a bone. She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

I spent thirty-four years in therapy unknotting the mess I survived as a kid. During that time, I used to wonder what it would be like to actually stand in front of my father again and say something. I never believed the universe would put me in that position.

I went down there ready to play the part of a normal family. But then I was angry, because I showed up and it was the same people. Then I found myself wondering. Is every family like this?

I think of that film August: Osage County, the whole family gathering as the father is dying. They fought. They fought hard. Is that just what families do?

When I was a kid, I used to watch Roseanne. Blue-collar family struggling to pay bills, working dead-end jobs just trying to make ends meet. They fought like a real family. They reminded me of mine, except at the end of thirty minutes, you knew they still loved each other. That was the fantasy. Because my family was just like theirs. Loud, obnoxious, large, and poor. But there wasn’t love. Not discernibly. Not from their end. If I’m being honest, that’s always made me angry. I’m still bitter about it.

I put aside my bitterness. I put aside my resentment and showed up ready to help. They wanted the idea of my help, but they hated the physical reality of me standing in their house.

My presence cost me a lot. I paused my own chemotherapy in New York to travel South. I put my survival on hold to manage the decline of a man who despised me. A man I felt the exact same about. They couldn’t even acknowledge the sacrifice. It’s not that I needed anyone to say thank you, or that I wanted praise for doing the right thing. But after changing my father’s diaper. Honestly, a thank you wouldn’t have hurt as much as an “I don’t need you.”

Everything revolved around his hospital bed. He was drowning in terminal delirium, his lungs filling with fluid, his brain falling in and out of coherent thought. But the muscle memory of his abuse still controlled that house. It was only the second day when he looked at me from his deathbed and demanded that I leave. He could barely remember the days of the week, but he could remember that kicking me out was the dynamic he and I shared. Every single day, even though he did not have the strength to stand, he demanded I get out of his house. And of course, like always, my mother and sister just nodded along. They bowed to a broken king who didn’t know his head from a hole in the ground.

I stood in that room day after day defending my right to be there.

I walked into a living room vibrating with Fox News blaring at volume level 247. My deaf mother sat right in the middle of that aggressive static, hearing absolutely none of it. The room was so loud you could not even hear yourself talk without yelling from your chest to be heard. And then, in all that swirling chaos, Greg Gutfeld already screaming at a bone-shattering volume, my deaf mother looked me in the eyes and told me that I was too loud.

I knew exactly what she meant. It wasn’t my volume that was too loud. It was that my existence took up too much space and ruined the delicate little illusion she needed to survive.

She tried to tell me she didn’t ask me to come. But that wasn’t true. I had stayed away from these people for twenty years. I’d never gone anywhere near that house, never even seen it, because I wasn’t invited. I never would have shown up had I not been told to come.

The moment I lost my compassionate concern was when my mother, for the first time in my life, looked at me and said I was too much.

This was the person who had always been my champion against that phrase. She always told me that everyone else wasn’t enough. But now she was saying the one thing that actually landed. It only landed because it came from her.

I tried to tell myself she was just upset. She was dealing with so much. She’d been with my father since she was fifteen, and she’s seventy-six. That’s an entire lifetime. Her whole world was falling apart. Of course she was being mean. Of course she was taking it out on me.

But then I told myself, and I told them, that my years of being the whipping boy in this family ended a long time ago. No matter what you’re going through, you don’t get to take it out on me. You don’t have the right and you don’t have the permission.

It all hit a boiling point when my father looked at me from those pillows and delivered the exact same threat he used twenty years ago. He told me I needed to find a place to go. That he’d put me out on the streets and have me thrown in jail. Such a tired, worn-out statement.

This from the man who got fined by the fire department for calling 911 too many times without an emergency, in his wild attempts to have me arrested for talking back or saying the word no.

Two decades ago, those words were a death sentence for a terrified boy. I’ve lost count of the number of times my father put me in jail, calling in favors with his judge friends so they could lock me up through family vacation. Threats of jail used to carry weight. They used to bring fear.

The man I am today just laughed.

That laugh broke the spell. I stood over him and told him I would love to see him try. I told him to go find his phone, figure out how to turn it on, and see if he could remember what he was doing long enough to dial the police. I reminded him he didn’t even know how to use the remote control anymore.

I told him I came there so I could help my family and witness as each member of my family dies right in front of me.

To that he said, “Poor you. How do you think we feel?”

I looked the man square in the eyes and said, “I think you’re upset, and you’re hurt, and you’re disappointed. Because it is upsetting, and it hurts, and it is disappointing. But just because you are those things doesn’t mean you have to be hateful. So stop being ungrateful that people actually care enough to help.”

I told him I was leaving. But not because he commanded it. I was leaving because I built a life that had absolutely nothing to do with him. That I would leave when it was time to leave, and until then, I was staying, and I was helping my family get through this. That there was nothing he could do about it, because he had no power.

Those words hung in the air right alongside the smell of chicken-fried steak and gravy. I stripped him of his illusion and handed him the cold reality. I had total agency. He was just drowning in his own failing biology.

Before I walked out, I had my final words with my father. I told him I have no idea what comes next. But I said if he gets a chance at a next life, he needs to try to be good. I told him he failed at being a good father and he failed at being a good man. And if he’s given the opportunity to choose, he needs to choose a life where he can be a good person, so that his soul can have that experience.

Then I packed up my survival and flew back to the Bronx. I left them to their stagnant obedience and the sounds of war and hatred on volume level 247.

See, people think we are required to give our forgiveness. We are told that if we don’t forgive, we can’t heal.

That’s a lie.

Not everyone deserves our forgiveness, and we are not required to give it. We get to decide where we go, who we see, and who we allow in our lives. We get to decide who we offer forgiveness to and why. If they don’t deserve it, they don’t deserve it.

Because as I just learned, even on his deathbed, he’s not sorry.

Forgiving someone for something they feel absolutely zero remorse for isn’t going to make anyone feel better. Being guilted into forgiving someone simply out of shame is far more dangerous and far more damaging than denying them the forgiveness they’re not seeking.

Forgiveness of the shameless, guilt-free abuser is just one more moment when the thing you survived gets to hurt. One more moment when the person who victimized you gets to be absolved. Gaslighting survivors into forgiving those who harmed them is just putting more abuse on top of us.

The societal demand for unconditional forgiveness functions as a mechanism of control. It shifts the moral burden from the abuser directly onto the survivor. Forcing a victim to absolve a remorseless perpetrator prioritizes the comfort of the collective over the actual healing of the individual.

I have spent years exploring how to process trauma through spiritual and practical effort. I stared directly into the eyes of a dying man who was the source of most of my trauma, and he refused to take responsibility. In that moment, I dismantled the myth that healing requires his absolution.

True liberation comes from reclaiming agency. Withholding forgiveness is not bitterness. It’s a boundary. He can go to his grave with his lack of remorse. It’s not he who has to live with himself anymore.

Within a few months, he’ll be nothing but dust in a jar. I’m going to have to live with myself for the rest of my life, and that would be a lot harder knowing I handed one more piece of my peace to a man who didn’t deserve it.

I didn’t get closure. I gave absolutely no forgiveness.

But I finally walked away free.

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Watch the Experience

I documented my experience in North Carolina as I navigated the complexities of hospice with a formerly estranged family. It is a raw and honest account of my experience from my perspective. If you're interested, check out UncleJeffIsHere on tiktok

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As always if you read this all the way to the end or if you listened to it all the way through then you're absolutely my hero. So I just want to thank you for allowing me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story with the world.

I am Jeff B. White and I am the writer and creator of this story. Find Your Colors allows me to share these stories with the world while also discussing the psychological concepts that are present within the narrative and breaking down exactly how I translated my own life experience into this dark fairy tale.

I would like to first take a moment to say thank you to all of the new subscribers who have come in in the past few weeks. While I normally make two posts a week where I share chapters, and often include random bonus content whenever it becomes available, I have been on a brief time out from writing, from Substack, and everything in general. But I've gained four subscribers during this time and that is highly meaningful to me.

Currently, my father is on hospice and I have gone back home to North Carolina to be with my family and help them during this time. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to come home and face this experience with my family. I’m also grateful for the support that I’ve gotten from a few people here on Substack, and to my friends who have been there during this time. Finally, I’m extremely grateful for legalized marijuana on the state level because I forget that that exists and I would not have survived this situation without it.

Hospice care is a monster of a life event to live through. If you’re interested in following along on my hospice journey with dad, please allow me to invite you to check me out on tiktok at @UncleJeffIsHere where I am documenting my experience from my perspective. It’s something that’s not often talked about and it should be because it’s a major part of life that we all end up having to face.

Today is the first time in over a week that I’m able to sit down in privacy and peace to bring this latest episode. So let’s get back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Recap

Previously on Find Your Colors we read through Chapter 15 which was an antagonist chapter which served as a villain showcase. We were able to see the Uncrowned King as he demoted Martier to janitor and ordered Collis, the Big Aught Medic, to be held in the Underprison where he would be fed pebbles for the rest of his days.

While I absolutely adore my antagonist chapters and I do and I love writing them, this story is about Jethran. So let’s not waste any more time, as we begin...

Chapter 16 Seeing Colors.

Outside the Grotto of Trust the world was alive with the humming symphony of new color. The citrine leaves of the trees rustled with the quiet truth of the wind. A teal chested robin hunted a little lavender worm that wiggled on the lilac branches. A periwinkle fox ran with his azure vixen, playing in the light of the gray sun. Hummingbirds that seemed to shimmer like golden sprites fluttered back and forth between roses of amber and mauve.

Inside, a deeper quiet had settled between Jethran and Fable. The raw vulnerability of the night before, of shared grief and confessed fear, had forged something new, something stronger than anything Jethran had ever known. Jethran awoke to the soft crackle of the cerulean embers, feeling, for the first time in his life, truly seen and truly safe. He looked at Fable, still asleep on his bed of moss, his colorful wings a reassuring presence. They were not alone. Not anymore.

This newfound clarity brought with it a shared sense of purpose, a silent agreement that the world outside the Grotto, with its vibrant beauty, awaited them. Fable stirred, his eyes fluttering open to meet Jethran’s gaze.

“Well,” he boomed, his voice still a little raspy from sleep, “we can’t stay cooped up in here forever, can we!” He gestured vaguely towards the Grotto entrance, a small smile playing on his lips. “Not with all that... potential outside.”

“I wish all that... potential could tell us what the color means and why I have these powers,” Jethran answered.

“It means you’re special, dummy,” Fable said, rolling his eyes. “But we knew that. The question is, what do we do now? We need to find you a proper place, Jethran. Somewhere safe. Somewhere you can figure out what to do with it.”

He tapped a finger against Jethran’s cheek, where the colors now pulsed with a steady rhythm.

“A place where the King’s shadows can’t reach. I always heard tales, old silvarii stories, about a hidden sanctuary. A place where the colors never faded, even in the Grayest of Ages. Some Silvarii have always said that it’s just a myth. But the thing is, silvarii stories are all based in truth.” He shook his head, a mixture of awe and determination in his eyes.

“Well, after what I saw yesterday, I belieave that this is one of those stories that needs to be sought out,” Fable rose, stretching his long, awkward limbs. “Let’s go find your legacy, Jethran. The real one.”

Their journey to the sanctuary was a two-day trek that began under a sky still holding the memory of Jethran’s thunderous rage, a bruised-gray canvas slowly softening to a gentler hue. The air, scrubbed clean by the recent storm, tasted of wet ground and growing things. As they ventured deeper, the landscape unfolded like a forgotten dream.

The lilac trunks of the ancient trees now held canopies of impossibly vibrant citrine leaves, each one rustling with a dry whisper that was almost a song. Below, the grass, once a dull gray, shimmered with a citrine so profound it hurt Jethran’s eyes. It was a living carpet that stretched to the horizon. Never before heard melodies drifted from the branches above, causing Jethran to pause.

“Are those... birds?” Jethran whispered.

In the Gray, the only birds he’d ever known were the drab pigeons, their calls were guttural and mundane. These sounds were unfamiliar and intricate. They were full of surprising joy. Fable nodded, his own ears tilting to catch the new symphonies.

“They are indeed,” he murmured, a rare solemnity in his voice. “They say the birds remember the old songs.”

The wind carried the scent of blossoms, a heady perfume that mingled with the damp richness of the soil, invigorating Jethran’s senses in a way they never had been. As well, to Jethran’s surprise, Fable proved to be an entertaining travel companion. He delighted Jethran with exaggerated tales of his own clumsy escapades.

“So there I was,” Fable began, gesturing grandly with one hand while the other clutched his satchel strap, “trying to show a few of the little Silvarii sprittens how to properly catch the silvery sunlight on a dewdrop. It’s a very delicate art, you understand. I had the perfect leaf, the angle was magnificent, the dewdrop was practically singing with light. I’m telling you, Jethran... oh, sugar, it was poetry.” He took a dramatic step, reenacting the moment.

“And then I met Aggravus. That’s what I’ve named him. A particularly spiteful tree root who had made it his life’s mission to ambush me. Well, Aggravus introduced my foot to the concept of terminal velocity. One second, I’m a portrait of Silvarii grace; the next, I am a pinwheeling disaster of limbs and wings. I tumbled head-over-wings right into a patch of the most ridiculously shiny flowers you’ve ever seen, with petals like polished pewter. I went in with a certain silvery dignity and came out looking like a walking, talking, utterly humiliated bouquet. There were pewter blossoms clinging to every part of my wings, stuck in my hair, two on one eyebrow... I think I even had one in my ear.”

Jethran couldn’t help but chuckle, even managing an accidental snort. Although he tried to hide it, it was a rare and welcome sound that felt light in the moment.

That’s it! Fable thought, his heart giving a joyous lurch. That sound. That’s his true color. Not the Blush, not the magic. That right there.

A fiercely protective ache, for which Fable had no true name, spread through his chest. The world could have its gray, its kings, its wars. Fable knew, in that instant, that his only quest was to protect that fragile, precious sound. It was the only song that mattered. He puffed up his chest with pride, relishing the moment that he finally got to hear his new friend laugh for the first time.

“With all these new emotions flying about,” Fable confessed. “I think I understand joy.”

“What do you mean?” Jethran stopped, smiling at Fable.

“The first time you see someone smile,” Fable answered. “That’s... that’s when you understand joy.”

They both stood, smiling. Then Fable looked away. “That’s stupid,” he laughed. “Nevermind, nevermind”

Jethran stepped forward, his brow furrowing. “No!” He commanded. “You truly felt that… what you just said. And if you feel it, it can’t be stupid, Fable.”

“Besides, I’ve seen you smile,” Jethran continued. He reached up with his injured arm and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “I understand joy, Fabe.”

He then took the lead down the trail and Fable stood there watching him walk away. After a few hours, as the light faded, casting long gray shadows over the forest floor, Fable called out, “We should make camp here. The sanctuary can wait until morning.”

He found a sheltered hollow near a stream, its water flowing with a gentle sound. Soon, a small fire flickered to life between a circle of stones, casting cerulean flames. Fable produced a small fishing net, and with surprising agility, pulled out a few fish from the stream. Their scales sparkled with a pale almost translucence.

As they cooked the fish over the embers, the subtle scent filled the air. When Jethran took a bite, the pale blue flesh was surprisingly firm, with a clean taste. It was different from the fish that he had prepared after he left the Menders. He felt a pleasant warmth spread through him, a subtle vibrancy that was both unfamiliar and deeply satisfying.

“Not bad, eh?” Fable said, as he chewed thoughtfully. “A bit... bluer than I’m used to, but it is truly delicious.”

“Now, Jethran. You’ve spoken of meeting old gods. The Seven Songs. Have you... how many have you met... have you met any of the others?” Fable asked, his voice softer than usual.

Jethran nodded, and he began recounting his encounters, the stories flowing easily in the shared intimacy of the campfire.

“Crezwil,” Jethran said. “They taught me that a wound isn’t something to be ashamed of... but a story of survival that we should love and grow from.” As he said that he held out his hand, and from his palm an indigo light glowed, showing a flower blossoming in the air between them.

“And Muralis,” he continued, exhaling a faint, controlled wisp of cobalt mist. “She told me that the numbness can be a tool. A way to find a moment of quiet when the pain is overwhelming. That it’s a way to endure, not a surrender. It’s a tool, not a home.”

“And Rabb,” he explained. “He showed me there’s a difference between a storm that cleanses and a storm that just destroys.” A spark of aureolin light pulsed from his hand into a self-contained cloud above them.

“He helped me understand all that anger I told you about. At myself for my mother’s death, and even at her. He taught me that the hardest part isn’t just feeling the anger, it’s navigating it. Knowing which part is okay to feel, and which part needs to be transcended. It’s how I learned to swallow that storm.”

“Yeah, but... did you... really swallow it?” Fable whispered.

“Yeah, I did,” Jethran laughed. “I breathed it in and swallowed it down from the sky into my belly.”

“Jethran, that’s... that...” Fable stammered.

“I know!” Jethran replied with a tone that showed his own disbelief.

“But then there was Elba,” Jethran went on, as the red center of his Blush began to glow with crimson light. “She told me about my ancestry, about the power of my lineage and that my power was my own.”

As a crimson light showing the truth of Jethran’s lineage began to rise from his hand, Fable interrupted.

“What is your lineage though?” He asked, “Who do you come from?”

“I don’t know,” Jethran closed his hand and looked at Fable, the same questions burning within him. “I know my mother. That’s all.”

“But she didn’t tell you?” Fable pressed. “Elba. She told you that your power comes from your lineage but she didn’t tell you where your lineage comes from?”

“She said she forgot,” Jethran huffed. “She also said I forgot, but that I’m ‘the most beautiful song’ and that ‘no songs came before me’ whatever that even means.”

“That... sounds like she told you that you were the First Song,” Fable chuckled. “That would be the wackiest thing to ever be true. Here I am just eating fish with the First Song. The source of all Silvarii magic.”

“I don’t know,” Jethran sighed. “I don’t know what any of this means.”

“A wound as a story... I’d never considered that,” Fable mused, tracing a pattern in the dirt with a stick. “The King says a wound is a defect, a sign of weakness that must be hidden away.” His brow furrowed in thought. “And numbness... the King calls that weakness. A failure of order. He preaches that we must set aside personal pain for the sake of the Gray. That focusing on it is selfish, and numbness is just giving in to it.”

“But that’s just another way of being absent, Fable,” Jethran shook his head, his voice patient. “Muralis taught me that numbness can be a tool, a way to find a moment of peace when the pain is overwhelming. It’s not about avoiding the truth, it’s about surviving it. You can’t be paralyzed by the pain. It’s a way to endure, so you can come back... so you can actually be present in your own life.”

“But the King preaches balance through order,” Fable frowned, kicking at the dirt. “He says sorrow is just... a distraction. That balance comes from... sameness. From not feeling those extremes at all.”

“The Uncrowned says a lot of things,” Jethran felt a quiet sigh building in his chest. “He says a wound is a flaw, not a story. He says anger is destructive, not righteous. He says sameness is peace, when it’s really just silence.”

Jethran realized he was hitting against a wall of ingrained belief. Fable’s face, usually so open, had taken on a subtle, defensive rigidity. It was like trying to argue with the stone itself. There was no breaking through the layers of propaganda. He simply wasn’t ready to hear it. Jethran sighed, an indistinct sound that went unheard in the soft crackle of the embers.

“Look, Fable,” he said, deciding to shift tactics, “it’s getting late. We should get some rest if we want to reach the sanctuary tomorrow.”

Fable nodded, a hint of relief in his expression at the change of subject. Jethran settled into his bed of moss, the lingering frustration and the unsettling conversation swirling in his mind.

He eventually settled into a deep sleep, where he found himself dreaming. He stood among a large group of people all gathered around seeming to be waiting on something. He slowly realized they were all standing in line. He noticed the people standing nearby had begun humming. Finally the line meandered around the corner, and he noticed that they were all in line for mirrors. As far as the eye can see, a realm of mirrors.

It was at this moment that the hum raised, and all of the people from all around began to sing in a unified chorus.

Sung upon a once before...

Carved from twilight in the sky,

Mirrors wake the unlived day,

Hidden visions start to fly,

Watching chances slip away.

Digging past the shattered dream,

Shadows of another fate,

Unborn futures start to gleam.

Stepping to the fractured frame,

Witnessing the paths ignored,

Weeping for a different name,

Mourning what was unexplored.

Grieving versions left behind,

Standing at the mirrored gate,

Healing the divided mind.

Some will linger in the gaze,

Lost within the branching choice,

Fading in the mirrored maze,

Silencing the present voice.

Wisdom lets the phantom fade,

Turning from the unlived cost,

Stepping from the heavy shade.

Mourning mirror of Hun Gun,

Shows you how to love the one.

As he stepped up to the mirror, just before he was able to catch a glimpse of whatever the mirror offered, the vision was shattered by a nearby jaybird singing its morning song.

Jethran awoke with a jolt, the vivid images of the mirror still shimmering at the edge of his vision. Fable was already up, meticulously rolling his moss bed, humming a tuneless song as if nothing uncomfortable had transpired the night before. His face was a mask of serene normalcy, a deliberate avoidance of the sharp words exchanged.

Jethran felt a twinge of annoyance at Fable’s easy dismissal, but he let it go. There was no point in reopening a wound Fable clearly didn’t want to acknowledge. He simply rose, packed his meager belongings, and followed Fable out of the hollow.

After a few hours of quiet hiking, they stepped into a clearing where they caught a glimpse of Seven High Reach. Its peaks now held the undeniable vibrance of the world.

“Jethran, it's the same as your Blush,” Fable breathed.

Jethran looked down at the ground. “I don't want to change the world,” Jethran whispered. “I just wanted to be seen.”

“How could the world ever not see you?” Fable clarified. “Look at you. You are a sight to behold. Now more than ever. How could the world ever look away?”

Jethran had heard this before, but now it landed differently. He stared at Fable as something within him healed. Before he could process fully, the landscape abruptly changed. They came upon a vast chasm that suddenly cleaved the ground before them. Its dark, rocky walls plunged into an abyss shrouded in swirling mist. Fable, who had been leading the way with determined steps, stopped dead at the edge, his colorful wings drooping. A low whine escaped him, not just of fear, but of a deep, visceral pain. He backed away, his large frame trembling.

“Oh, sugar,” he whimpered, his voice barely a whisper, eyes wide with a crushing despair. “A chasm. A deep chasm. I... I can’t. My wings, Jethran. The Wing FADES. It’s... I can’t fly like I used to. Not over something like that. It’s too wide. It’s too far.”

He hugged himself, his vibrant wings pulling in tightly, his usual boisterous confidence utterly shattered. Jethran saw the deep terror etched on Fable’s face, the raw vulnerability of being confronted with his greatest fear in front of another. It was more than just an inability; it was a profound, daily reminder of loss. Jethran felt a surge of quiet empathy, and a certainty born from his own journey of self-acceptance. His tone was gentle, but laced with an unshakeable resolve.

“Don’t worry about the Wing FADES, Fable,” Jethran said, his voice calm, but with a power that surprised even himself. “I am not a Silvarii.”

Fable blinked, momentarily forgetting his fear, his head cocked to the side.

“Then what are you?” he asked, a flicker of curiosity pushing through the haze of despair.

Then, for the first time in Fable’s presence, Jethran unfurled his wings. Not the wings he’d manifested in the King’s throne room, but magnificent, feathery wings of pure light. Each feather was a shifting tapestry of indigo, cobalt, crimson, and a vibrant aureolin. They beat slowly, powerfully, against the air, stirring a gentle breeze. He reached out a hand to Fable, a faint, confident smile gracing his lips.

“I’m beautiful,” Jethran replied, his voice quiet with no arrogance, no boast. His eyes, fixed on Fable, held a playful glint, daring him to counter.

Fable stared, jaw literally dropped, eyes wide with pure, unadulterated awe and shock. He looked from the resplendent wings to Jethran’s calm face, then back again. Jethran was right; he was beautiful.

“I... I see,” Fable stammered, a dry chuckle escaping him. “Humility. Is it... is it one of the colors of your plethora?” His expression was a perfect blend of genuine amazement and his usual sarcastic wit.

Jethran’s smile widened. “I am actually very humble,” he told Fable, in a mock-serious tone. “Which is surprising considering how amazing I am.”

Fable burst out laughing, a joyous, uncontrolled sound that echoed across the chasm, a clear, unrestrained sound of pure delight. Jethran gently took Fable’s arm, pulling him close to his chest. Fable stopped laughing as they stood face to face. Fable could feel Jethran’s warmth. He took note of the fact that he never felt someone as warm as Jethran.

“Hold on tight,” Jethran whispered. With a single, powerful beat of his new wings, a surge of power that felt both natural and immensely impressive, Jethran lifted them both into the air. They soared across the chasm, the wind whipping past them, a glorious testament to his newfound power and purpose. Fable clutched Jethran’s tunic, his laughter replaced by a whoop of exhilarating joy.

“Oh sugar, Jethran! You truly are amazing!” he shouted over the wind, his face alight with a sillie wonder that banished all traces of fear. “You’re like... a flying sunset! A really fast, incredibly confident, flying sunset!”

Jethran only grinned, enjoying the sensation of effortless flight, the sheer freedom of it. They landed safely on the other side, Fable still trembling slightly, but now from exhilaration. Then Fable noticed Jethran’s tunic had risen substantially, showing that he too was... exhilarated.

“Well,” Fable said quietly as he gestured with his eyes towards the rise in Jethran's tunic. “What’s more surprising than your humility is the length of your tunic considering how large you are.”

Jethran’s blush nearly became its own light source as it brightened so deeply at the realization.

“Oh!” Jethran immediately covered himself with his satchel. “I didn’t mean to... that’s so embarrassing.”

Fable smiled. He didn’t say anything, but he thought to himself that with the height that Jethran’s tunic had achieved, embarrassment was the last thing that boy should be feeling.

They hiked for another few hours as the world bloomed into an impossible, audacious spectrum. The lilac trees grew taller, their citrine leaves brighter, and the air grew warmer, scented with sweet perfumes.

Bright blue monarchs darted past crimson lavender and green daffodils, the very ground seeming alive. Patches of soft, citrine moss spread like carpets over the lilac ground, and robins with vivid teal chests darted between trees, guarding nests of peach eggs.

Overhead, the gray sky, though still ever-present, was thinning, allowing glimpses of something vast and deep beyond. Every step brought them closer to something wilder, something more vibrant, a world that was shedding its muted past.

Jethran realized Fable had been right, at least about the possibility of finding answers here. They came up over a small hill, and at the top, the entrance to the sanctuary spread before them. Fable gasped, his eyes wide.

“There it is,” he whispered, a reverent awe in his voice. “It’s real.”

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The Breakdown

This chapter stands as one of my personal favorites because Fable steps into a truly vital role. Fable isn’t his best friend and he’s not his sidekick. He’s just someone Jethran met along the way who decided to walk with him. He’s less of a ride or die at this point and more of a ride while you’re interesting.

Fable initiates the conversation about the gods Jethran encountered, and while he believes in these beings, the lessons they offer go against everything he has ever learned. Those new trains of thought are incredibly difficult for someone raised in this world to accept. That friction causes their argument to end without any real resolution.

This dynamic draws direct inspiration from the real life relationship that shaped these characters. Jullian and I disagree on many things, particularly deeply held convictions. Fable is clearly a victim of propaganda in this story, and I would argue that both Jullian and I are victims of propaganda in reality. We are probably both wrong. If he were standing in front of me today, I would confidently tell you Jullian is wrong. Obviously.

Mourning Mirror

Throughout BLUSH BORN we experience small chapters featuring travel breaks. Travel sections in fantasy can become monotonous and offer little to the overarching plot. I honestly hate them. So I focused heavily on using these moments to progress the personal connection between the characters while advancing the storyline.

Jethran requires dreams and visions to move the narrative forward, and those moments demand scenes where he can actually rest for the night. Jethran experiences a dream where he stands in line with unknown people singing a song about mirrors. Later in the story we will uncover the true meaning of that vision.

Flying Sunset

Following their little dust up the night before, the story required a moment to prove to Fable that Jethran’s powers are useful and entirely safe. Flight is a vital part of existence for a creature like Fable, and losing that ability left a profound mark on him. Exposing his vulnerability became a necessary beat in the narrative. He wears a cheerful mask and carries intense bravado, so we needed to see how deeply his trauma affects him beneath that polished surface.

Landing on the other side of the chasm and experiencing the tunic tent provided necessary levity for this chapter while highlighting their shifting dynamic. Fable decides he wants to protect Jethran’s laughter, and Jethran then has to use his satchel to hide his physical exhilaration. The attraction between them is becoming impossible to ignore.

One fun fact I must share is that I wrote this entire chapter before I knew these two characters were in love. I will point out the exact moment I finally realized it later on, but I discovered their connection very late in the writing process. When I went back to reread the manuscript to look for areas to add foreshadowing, I found that all of these moments already existed organically in the text.

I have said it before and I will always claim it. This story wrote itself. I laced bits of imagination into it and placed portions of reality within the narrative, yet there still remained parts of this story entirely outside of my control.

The romance between Fable and Jethran was never part of my plan. Looking back through the text after reading it as many times as I have, they were always meant to fall in love. Changing that trajectory would have made the story read as disingenuous. I may be biased, but it is my true belief that denying these two characters their romance would have robbed the world of something beautiful.

Let’s Discuss

Jethran shares the wisdom of the Seven Songs, yet Fable struggles to accept it due to the Uncrowned King’s teachings.

* Have you ever had to unlearn deeply ingrained beliefs like Fable is being challenged to do here?

We get a glimpse into Jethran’s subconscious with the dream of the Mourning Mirror.

* Have you ever faced moments when you mourned the lives you never lived?

The chasm scene brings Fable’s deep trauma to the surface, it also gives the two a moment for banter and levity which foreshadow the deeper bond that is growing between the two.

* Have you ever written something that advanced its own plot in ways that you never intended?

What’s Next?

On the next episode we will read Chapter 17 Whispered Color where our two travelers stumble into a village that is unlike anything either one of them has ever experienced, and meet a new character who will influence them and their family for decades to come.

Thanks

As always, if you read this all the way to the end or if you listened to it all the way through, then you are absolutely my hero. I want to thank you for giving me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

Hang in There

I'm so grateful to be able to have brought this episode to you today. While I might not be able to keep up my same schedule as before of two posts per week I will soon return full-time to my Substack and my writing. So just hang in there with me and thanks for being here.

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication and listener supported podcast. You can find us at www.findyourcolors.substack.com or by searching for the Find Your Colors Podcast on Spotify and on YouTube, or by clicking the button below.

If you like what you've read here, please feel free to join as a free or paid subscriber. Any level of support you give is extremely appreciated, honored, and welcomed. Click the button below for a 25% off for your first year. Click the button below that to join as a free subscriber.

Feel free to leave a comment or critique or complaint because those are things that make me stronger.

If you know somebody who wants to read some angsty poetry and some emotional fantasy stories, share it with them and we can all learn and grow and evolve together.

Thanks for stopping by.

You can reject me. That's totally fine. One day someone is going to see me. They're going to see that I'm a story that they can't put down. They will want to see what happens next. They will call me a page turner. They won't call me just when they're horny. They won't call me just when they’re feeling regrets. They won't call me just when they're drunk. They won't call me just when they're bored. They'll call me because they want to be a part of the story. They'll call me because they want to read more. They will want to sign with me. They will want to align with me.

You can reject me. That's totally fine. You don't have to reply. I'll figure it out in time. I would be lying if I said I appreciate the same rejection that you gave to everyone else. I understand you just don't have the time. One day someone will have the time. One day someone will take the time.

You can reject me. That's totally fine. One day someone will love my cover art. One day someone will want to open me and feel what's inside. One day someone will be enticed by my flaps. They’ll love what the see on the back. They're going to want to know where the story goes. They're going to see the work that I've put into my prose. They're going to love the structure of my sentences. One day someone's going to see that I'm timeless. One day they're going to think that I'm just so timely. One day someone is going to think that I am a great concept. They're going to appreciate my platform.

You can reject me. That's totally fine. You don't have to be the agent of my rise. One day someone's going to pick me up. One day someone's going to read me and never want to stop. One day someone's going to want to see how the story ends. One day someone is going to talk about me to their friends. One day someone is going to represent me.

Until then,

I'll keep representing myself.

Thank you for your consideration.

Welcome to Find Your Colors, the publication and podcast where I am breaking down the narrative of the Shards of Color Trilogy through an exploration into the psychological concepts within and real life inspiration behind the first book of that trilogy titled, BLUSH BORN.

I am Jeff B. White and today I'm going to be discussing something a little bit different from my normal writing. There will be no chapter, and today's breakdown already happened privately.

I started chemo today.

Four years ago, which blows my mind that it's been that long, I began my cancer experience. It was a terrifying moment in my life. I woke up one day with a softball-sized lump on my neck, and I actually hurt from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I could barely move, but I got myself to the hospital. In an Uber, because I live in America, so I can't afford an ambulance. After they ran some tests, they came back and told me that I had a malignant tonsillar carcinoma.

They demanded that I do a biopsy right then and there on the spot. The doctors came at me with a gun-like needle device they were going to jam into the side of my neck to pull cells from the tumor. They told me to be still and quiet. I did not. One of the doctors held me against a wall as I screamed and begged for them to stop. He pressed my face and my body firmly against the wall while the other one stabbed me with this giant, silver gun thing.

Of course, they didn't get the cells that they needed. So they did it a second time. The doctor pinned me harder against the wall and clamped my mouth shut while the other stabbed me in the neck again. They did not get the cells that they needed the second time.

They actually attempted and tried to go in for a third attempt. I punched the doctor in the face. Afterward, a third doctor came in the room and sincerely apologized on behalf of Mount Sinai. I then left the hospital against medical advice and was told that I would not survive the weekend.

Yet, I continued on and I lived with this malignant tonsillar carcinoma for thirteen months. During that thirteen months, I was also diagnosed with perinasal sarcoma. The treatment for perinasal sarcoma is the removal of your nose, leaving you with a hole in the center of your face. I wrestled with this diagnosis quite heavily.

I couldn't imagine, as difficult as my life had been already, to consider living my life without a nose. I fully came to the determination that I was simply not going to seek treatment and would find a way out quicker.

To my surprise, at the end of that thirteen months, I was informed that I did not have malignant tonsillar carcinoma. I also did not have a perinasal sarcoma. Both of those were a misreading of my test results. Isn't that fantastic?

For thirteen months, I began to seriously and thoroughly plan my death to avoid life without a face. This is when they decided to inform me that I had the least cancer of all the cancers. The cancer that the cancer doctors don't treat as real cancer. The cancer that they sit and watch. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The cancer that you can live with for 30 years. Isn't that fantastic?

It was at this point that I began to face my own mortality.

Susan G. Komen

Back in 2015, there was this commercial that would come on late at night for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. It was a commercial with a name: Kathleen's Story.

Kathleen was a woman in her mid-to-late twenties. She shared about how she had just had a baby and she found out that she had breast cancer while she was pregnant. She wasn't sure if she was going to be around to watch her son grow up. When she said that because of the research of the Susan G. Komen Foundation there was a chance that she might, that's all I needed to hear. Kathleen's Story worked on me, because I signed up to give monthly donations, and I've given that $15 a month donation for years. I wanted to do my part to assist with breast cancer research. I wanted her to be able to see her son grow up.

She led me to think about all of the women in my life. I thought about how grateful I was, and still am, for my own mother. I thought of how grateful I was that, despite her health concerns over the years, she was able to watch me grow up.

And then, I thought about how grateful I am that I'm a man and that I would never have to deal with breast cancer myself. I wore the little pink ribbons from time to time to show support during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I proudly wore my Susan G. Komen t-shirt. I just thought I was being a good man; I thought I was being an ally.

F**k Cancer Entirely

A few years ago, after having received a leukemia diagnosis, I had just begun to learn the steps necessary for navigating that, when a new lump emerged beneath my right areola.

This resulted in a diagnosis of Paget's disease. Statistically, this disease makes up for 1 to 4% of all cancer cases. To add to that, only 0.01% of men will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Of breast cancer patients, only 1% of them will be men. The odds of this diagnosis being given to a man is 0.0025%. I am the noise after the decimal point. I am the cancer unicorn.

When my doctor made the order for me to have my first mammogram, I suddenly found myself in a crisis of my own manhood. The word breast was now being applied to my own body. I have no appreciation for that word in reference to myself. I have to admit that I still can't use the word when discussing my own body. And I can't bring myself to state that I have that specific type of cancer. I have Paget's disease.

It has been an assault against my masculinity that I had never prepared myself to face.

My relationship with masculinity and manhood has always been a war. Growing up in the South, I was never masculine enough. We are taught that masculinity is a strength that allows us to be pillars of male rigidity. We don't measure up to what we're told being a man is about if we show our emotions or wear the wrong thing. If we care about how we look or present ourselves, or apply self-care practices.

As the years stripped away the noise, I realized that the standard definition of manhood is a hollowed-out lie. It never applied to me anyway, because I'm not some weak little man who allows my masculinity to be defined or gauged from external sources. I'm a strong queer boy who navigates my own manhood and masculinity from within my own internalized barometer. There’s a big difference there.

The stoic man, terrified of his own reflection and unable to name his feelings, isn't strong. He is incomplete. A man whose identity is threatened by a hue or a gemstone is the most fragile little creature among us.

In truth, the concept of masculinity is nothing more than a fragile box. It is a structure that, for so many men, shatters the second it touches anything soft, vulnerable, or pink. In my case, I found myself facing the very real fear that my masculinity would reach its critical point of breakage the moment that it was placed between two cold panels of a machine.

The straight world loves to look down on gay men because they see us as overly feminine and place us in a category where they also place women. Within the gay community, we enforce this rigid hierarchy in the same ways for the same reasons. We look down on the bottom because we bought the lie that assuming the passive role sexually is an effeminate act, and they equate femininity with weakness.

Meanwhile, the tops would cry and beg for it to stop if they ever had to do what we do. Men would literally die if they had to do what women do.

Because men, even gay men, don't want to be seen as a woman. It’s absurd. I am not a woman, but if you refer to me as one out of your own weak masculinity, I take it as a compliment. Women possess a resilience that men are taught to fear. Women contain this raw, Earth-grounding power and strength. That truth leaves men feeling forced to define themselves as stronger simply because they aren't.

I carry no fear over a little lipstick, or some concealer, or even a cute little skirt, if it accentuates all the right parts. Because that's what's cool about a skirt. How I decorate my manhood and how I dress my manhood does nothing to diminish my masculinity. It enhances it. And if your manhood is so weak that it's easily deconstructed by things like this, then it defies the definition that you claim your manhood carries.

My masculinity isn't a porcelain vase. It doesn't break because I wear eyeliner or find power in the color pink. I stopped questioning my masculinity years ago. It was solid.

I thought that my sense of masculinity had passed every test. Then life gave me a pop quiz.

Hold Your Breath

Calling to set up the appointments for these mammograms was honestly the worst part, in hindsight. I could hear the receptionist’s smile through the phone. She had her polite, ready-made rejection of a confused man calling a women’s clinic prepared. She always had to put me on hold while she went to go check because she believed that the doctor must have made a mistake. But then she came back on the line, her voice dropped an octave into a solemn tone and I could hear the dead silence behind her words. That was the exact moment the screen told her that I wasn't lost. I was the patient.

I missed my first two appointments, because I just couldn't go. When I finally arrived, the clinic smelled of perfume and hand sanitizer. The walls were a sea of pink ribbons and non-threatening pastels. I felt like a trespasser in a quiet space that had been curated for female vulnerability.

Every time I sat in that waiting room, the other patients seemed to find their thoughts very difficult to mask. At first, there was an unmistakable recoil. I watched their lips tighten and their brows crease. They silently demanded to know what a man was doing in their sanctuary.

Then, a softening would wash over them. They realized we were standing on the same terrifying ground. Their eyes would offer a sudden embrace of deep understanding before they looked away. It was those moments of empathy that left me wanting to crawl into a hole and hide.

Another unforeseen moment that came from this was when I witnessed women who had just received the most terrible news of their lives. They were sitting in the waiting room looking as if they had been completely leveled. They would stare out the window with tears rolling down their faces. But then, something Divine happened. They would take a breath, ball up their fists, and suddenly be taller right where they were sitting.

I was being granted witness as they plated themselves with the armor of the Amazons. It felt like a sacred moment I wasn't supposed to see. Even still, it was a moment that I am very grateful to have been granted audience. It was the gift of being allowed to watch them as they moved into their strength, which allowed me to gain mine.

Then the nurse called my name. I walked into the back and put on the paper gown.

Step forward. Place your breast on the plate. Lower your shoulder.

I turned to look at the nurse because all I could think was: How? I don't have one.

Well, she found it. I still think it was witchcraft but, I stood there as she pressed my chest into the machine.

Turn your head to the side. Hold your breath.

Holding my breath was easy because I constantly had to remind myself to breathe during this time.

And this was the moment a new reality set in. Surviving this ordeal immediately stopped feeling like an emasculation. It became a transcendence. I viscerally understood something fundamental about women, about pain, and about endurance.

I thought of every woman I had ever known. I knew they had all stood exactly where I was standing. I thought of Kathleen. For the first time in years. I wondered if she got to see her son grow up. I realized that because of her, I had been donating to the very same research that would later save my own life.

I found the lineage of suffering, of survival, and of quiet grace in the face of the impossible. In a strange, beautiful way, I was allowed to touch it for just one second.

It was this realization that a man's strength is born not from stoic silence but from radical vulnerability that is the exact foundation upon which I built Jethran Frye, the hero of BLUSH BORN and the center of the Shards of Color Trilogy.

In his world, the oppressive Gray Order views emotion as a nasty disease. They want perfect, silent chords. They want compliance. When Jethran’s vibrant colors begin to bleed through the gray, they diagnose him with a chronic case of Attention Necessity. They demand he dull his shine.

But Jethran redefines power not just in his world, but in general. He is a male fantasy lead who cries because he is sad, screams because it hurts, and complains because it isn't fair. He doesn't use muscle or win with a sword. He refuses to stop feeling. His greatest magic manifests through his pink Blush. He proves that a man rooted in emotion isn't weak, but is a force because he is a danger to the status quo.

True strength isn't about dominating a room or fitting a mold or wearing earth tones. It is about taking the moments where you are terrified, shattered, and utterly out of place, and allowing them to transform you.

Let's Discuss

This post explores the profound clarity that comes from stepping outside of the fragile box of traditional masculinity and the jarring reality of facing your own mortality.

* Have you ever experienced a moment where witnessing someone else's quiet grace and survival finally opened your eyes to your own strength?

Jethran is someone who proves that a man rooted in emotion isn't weak, and it's through the lineage of suffering and resilience that I discovered the foundation of his radical vulnerability.

* Do you have a moment in your life where surviving a particular ordeal stopped feeling like a deconstruction of yourself and actually became a transcendence?

As a man, the parts of myself that the world tries to use to disembody me from my own masculinity are actually the parts of myself that define my masculinity.

* What parts of your own vulnerability are you hiding because the world called them flaws?

Men facing this illness are rare, if you or someone you know is a man facing this disease. Please reach out. I would love to chat with you.

Feel free to answer these questions in the comment section below or just take them with you as you go. My inbox is always open.

Donate to Breast Cancer Research

Over the past 15 years, an average of 74 cents of every dollar spent by Susan G. Komen have gone directly towards research, community-based health programs, education and advocacy programs to support its mission of saving lives and ending breast cancer.

To find out more about all the things they're doing to help those who are fighting and surviving breast cancer as well to find out all the ways that you can help please click the button below.

What's Next?

On Monday, we will dive into a complete read-through and discussion on Chapter 13 of Blush Born, titled "Storming Colors." We will see Jethran encounter another one of the Seven Songs and learn a very valuable lesson on anger.

Subscribe Today

I honestly want to express my sincerest gratitude to those of you who have invested in my work. I now have 11 paid subscribers out of 30 total. Two of them are Founding Tier. Each of you honor me with your presence. I can never fully express exactly how much it means to me to have your support. Your financial contributions give me the time and the safety to keep writing, to keep podcasting, and to keep bringing these stories into the light.

If you would like to subscribe, please follow the link below and consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

And so as always, if you read this all the way through or if you listened to it all the way to the end, then you are absolutely my hero. I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me the time in your day and the space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

Colorfully yours,

Jeff B. White

Welcome to Find Your Colors. Here we are discussing the narrative within the Shards of Color Trilogy and the first book in that trilogy, BLUSH BORN.

I am Jeff B. White, and I am the writer and creator of these stories. Through this publication and podcast, I am focusing on the emotional intelligence, radical vulnerability, and transformative growth found through exploring the psychological concepts and real-life story behind this dark fairy tale.

Recap

Last week we journeyed through Chapters 9 and 10 of Blush Born. We witnessed Jethran endure the execution of his mother, Regale. In the following chapter, we saw him bury her, say his final goodbyes, and breathe in the mist of Muralis to numb the unbearable pain of that moment. Adrift and wandering, he eventually stumbled upon another settlement. Now we come to Chapter 11, where Jethran walks into that village to discover exactly who lives beneath the heavy steam.

Let's Discuss

This chapter was stressful to write and is by design stressful to read. If anything in this Chapter 11 breakdown touched something inside you that left you feeling bothered or shaky, please take some time for yourself as soon as possible to just breathe and center. Practice some intentional self-care. Reach out to a loved one if you need to. I am also always available to chat.

* As a member of the gay community, have you ever faced this type of psychological lateral harm?

If so, please let me say how deeply sorry I am that you had to go through that.

* How did you navigate your way through it?

For anyone who has ever been a victim of gaslighting, you know it is an insidious tactic that can truly wreak havoc on your mind.

* What are some ways you have found yourself able to reclaim your reality and your peace after enduring those situations?

Feel free to answer these questions right here in the comment section, or you can simply take them with you as you go.

What's Next?

On Wednesday, we will do a complete read-through and a discussion on Chapter 12 of Blush Born. This chapter marks the pivotal moment Jethran finally leaves the village and introduces the character of Fable. This is going to completely change the trajectory of the story and alter Jethran's life forever.

Paid Members

This was my first paid post. Taking the leap to put this level of vulnerable truth behind a paywall was genuinely terrifying, but your support proves that these raw conversations are absolutely necessary. I want to express my sincerest gratitude to you for investing in my work. Your financial contribution gives me the time and the safety to keep writing, to keep podcasting, and to keep bringing these stories into the light.

Thanks!

And as always, if you read this all the way through or if you listened to it all the way to the end, then you are absolutely my hero. I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me the time in your day and the space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

Welcome to Find Your Colors. Here we are discussing the narrative within the Shards of Color Trilogy and the first book in that trilogy, BLUSH BORN.

I am Jeff B. White, and I am the writer and creator of these stories. Through this publication and podcast, I am focusing on the emotional intelligence, radical vulnerability, and transformative growth found through exploring the psychological concepts and real life story behind this dark fairy tale.

Recap

On Monday, we read through Chapter 9, Loss of Color, and witnessed the ultimate tragedy of the story as the Uncrowned King ordered the execution of Regale Frye. We watched Jethran experience the devastation of losing his mother, a profound grief that triggered a massive surge of aureolin energy. He found a significant upgrade in his overall powers as he forged wings made of pure light and leveled the throne room before fleeing into the sky.

We also saw some other major developments in his abilities. There is now an active physical force caused by his vibrancy. Before this moment, his power manifested through love and perception, yet now it has become highly intense. His blast took the lives of two men when the BAPs who were holding him were turned to ash. He will soon have to process the reality that he ended those lives, even though the act was completely unintentional.

Today we are going to look at the psychological aftermath of that event with the breakdown for Chapter 10.

Buried Hearts

Chapter 10 Colorless Parting

The wings of light that had carried him from Evenhere City beat against the air with frantic energy. They were a construct of pure feeling. They were born of the searing yellow rage that had answered his mother’s murder and the profound grief that was its echo.

The light was the same aureolin yellow that had obliterated the fortress wall, a color of untamed power. It was the color of a world ending, and it was now a part of him. Jethran could feel them shuddering with his heart, each downstroke a silent scream. The sound they made was a rending, the sound of light tearing fabric, a sustained thunderclap that vibrated in his bones. The force of it was agonizing, pulling at new muscles in his back that he didn't even know he had. A magnificent pain that was the only thing keeping the void at bay. He moved with jagged agony, a comet of betrayal streaming across the storm filled sky.

He flew, cradling his mother’s body. Her familiar weight was now an anchor, grounding him in the emotional storm. He stared forward. He couldn’t look back. To look back was to see the gray sprawl of the city, the hole he had torn in the wall, the throne room, the King’s smiling face, the snap of his fingers. To look back was to see her body fall, again, and again, for eternity. Looking back meant unraveling in mid-air, to let the wings dissolve and to follow her into the ultimate gray.

He pressed on through the torrential rain until the gray of Evenhere City was a distant, sickening memory, a smudge of ash on the horizon. He continued until the air tasted cleaner, until the deep lilac of ancient tree bark grew tall enough to grant him sanctuary, their massive trunks standing with a promise of a world older and deeper than the TriAught. The world below presented a complex pattern, a tapestry only now existed because of him and the effect that his Blush was creating. He saw fields of swaying citrine grass that should have been gray. He saw the leaves on the lilac trees, vibrant with citrine, aureolin, and gold. It was a world with color. The world his mother had whispered about in forbidden lullabies.

He had brought her to it, but only in death. That realization was a fresh blade in his gut, twisting with every beat of his terrible wings. He was looking for a place that held all the beauty this world had to offer, something fitting for her grace. He passed over a jagged cliff edge, but its violence felt like a mockery of the King’s. A streak of lightning shot across the sky.

He saw a cave consumed by silence, but it felt too much like a tomb, an extension of the gray. His search continued over an expanse of blooming flowers, but its bright beauty was an insult, a laugh in the face of his grief. He knew in his heart that no place was good enough, no place deserving enough to house her. Not in this world or any other.

He found a hidden glade where a circle of stones cloaked in ancient moss leaned together as if whispering secrets. The constant downpour that had followed him from the Fortress to the glade reduced, but still the rain persisted. Despite the rain, the air here held a stillness, thick with the scent of damp soil and blooming night-flowers. The light was different, softer, as if the trees themselves were protecting this one, sacred patch of ground. It was not enough. It would never be. But it was all he had.

He landed. As his feet settled on the ground, his wings blinked once, twice, and dissipated in a cloud of stardust. He stood there for a moment, his body trembling from the exertion, the sudden silence of the glade a deafening roar after the thunder of his flight. He gently laid her down on a bed of soft moss. Her face was peaceful. The lines of worry, etched there by his mere existence were gone. Her blue eyes, now forever closed, were at last free. The sight was a fresh scar laid upon his spirit, and he choked on the hollow sob that tore at his throat.

With no tools, only his one good hand, he dug. He plunged his fingers into the lilac mud. He clawed, tore, ripped at the ground. He attacked the world through the mud. His hand was a frantic tool. He was furious at his own body, at his weakness, at the Menders who had stolen his hand and left him unable to even dig a proper grave. He poured all his rage, all his grief, into that hole. Every handful of mud, every rock he tore loose, was a memory that assaulted him.

Her hands mending a tear in his gray tunic. The gray-on-gray thread, a tiny, invisible act of love. Her quiet humming the lullaby of the traveller and the flower. Her face, lit by a single candle, as she whispered, “See how beautiful you are?”

He screamed, a jagged scream that echoed off the ancient stones, and clawed at the ground, his nails splitting, his fingers bleeding. The sting was a distant, unimportant fact, a small pain against the gaping wound in his chest. He dug until his arm was a trembling limb. He dug until the hole was deep enough, a cradle, a sanctuary. He was digging a grave not just for her body, but for the only warmth he had ever known. When it was deep enough, deep enough to be safe, he stopped, panting, his body slick with sweat, his stump aching with a phantom, digging motion. He looked at his hand, caked in mud and his own blood.

He lined the grave. He gathered broad leaves, still shimmering with citrine light. He found petals of blue lilies and purple roses and sprigs of red lavender. These were colors she would never get to experience. They were now part of this beautiful world he was somehow recreating and would never be able to share with her. He laid them with a tenderness he didn’t know he still possessed, a final, soft bed for her.

He lifted her one last time. Her body was impossibly light, a mere shell of the Wem who had been his entire world, his shield, his creator. He laid her to rest. He kissed her cold forehead. As the storm began another pitch, he began the task of returning the ancient dirt, handful by handful. The first clump struck her gray tunic with a suffocating thud that stopped his heart. It was the most violent sound he had ever heard. Each handful was a betrayal. The cool dirt felt like the gray pills from the Medic, burying her, hiding her, erasing her.

“I’m so sorry, Mother,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry that I ruined your life. I’m sorry that I killed you.”

He worked until a small mound marked the place. He may as well have put his heart in the ground with her. Jethran knelt before it, his body hollowed out, shaking in the sudden chill of the forest. It wasn’t enough. The world would forget her. The TriAught had already erased her. He would not allow it.

He opened his satchel, pulling out the gray medic kit. His unfeeling fingers moved past the sterile bandages and salves until they found it: a simple, gray-metal dissection scalpel. The tool of the BigAught Medics. The tool of violation. He would take this tool of violation and turn it into an instrument of love. He had found a soft slab of slate by a small stream, and now he set to his work.

He placed it at the head of the grave. The first cut was hesitant, a shallow scratch on the stone’s dark face. He leaned into it, his shoulders bunching with effort, his one good hand gripping the scalpel with intensity. As the sky flashed with lightning, he began to carve her name.

R

The work was slow. Painstaking. The world faded. There was only the scrape, scrape, scrape of steel on stone. It was the only sound in the universe. He traced the letter again and again, the line growing deeper, truer. The muscles in his arm and back began to ache, to seize. The tip of the first scalpel blade dulled, the metal groaning. He paused, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and carefully, with trembling fingers, replaced it.

E

As he worked, he saw his mother’s warm smile. He heard her voice, a lifeline, whispering, “See how beautiful you are?” He carved the stone as if he could carve that memory into the world itself, make it permanent, make it real in a way that her death was not.

G

He poured all of his grief, his love, and his impotent rage into the task. Each scratch was a tear he couldn’t shed, a final conversation he would never have. He was taking their clinical tool of dissection and using it to assert her existence, to write her name into the ground that they had stolen her from.

A

Hours passed. The sun began to dip, painting the glade in shades of gray. His hand was a claw, cramping so badly he had to stop and pry his fingers open. His arm trembled with exhaustion, but he did not stop. A second blade chipped. A third. He worked until the last letter was finished, until her name was a permanent, undeniable truth.

L

He finally sat back on his heels, his body aching, the last scalpel blade broken. He ran his battered fingers over the freshly carved letters.

E

REGALE FRYE

He had done it. He had taken their instrument of dissection and used it to create a monument of devotion. It was done.

He then stood over the mound of lilac dirt and flowers, and he spoke. He recited the traditional words of parting of the Here. They were words she had taught him. Though he never imagined he would have to say them for her.

Part now, Here of Evenhere

Enter now into the Afterhere,

Go forward in your death,

Guide me through each breath.

You’re in my heart and forever will

With me be held ever still

And with that final, finished act, the fortress he had built inside himself crumbled. The meticulous focus, the rage that had fueled the digging, the spite that had guided the carving, it all vanished. The void rushed in.

He collapsed beside the fresh grave, his body convulsing with silent, dry sobs. He was alone. Utterly. Irrevocably. He was an island, a mistake, a plague. His mother was dead because of him. The pain became a vacuum, a cold star, a negative space in his chest that was heavier than any mountain. It sucked his lungs, his heart, his bones into a pinpoint of impossible density. He couldn’t breathe. He was going to die here, and he deserved to.

He reached for the gift of Muralis. He took a slow, deep breath, and as he exhaled, a calming plume of cobalt-blue smoke emanated from his lips. The Mist of Muralis.

He hesitated. He looked at the grave, at her name. To breathe it in was to lessen the pain of her loss. It was to let her go. It was to betray this monument he had just built. She deserved to be mourned. The pain spiked. A memory, unbidden, flashed behind his eyes: the snap of the King’s fingers, a sound so small, so casual, that had ended his world. The sound of her body hitting the stone floor. It was too much. It was unbearable. No one should have to feel this.

He gasped, a desperate, broken sound, and inhaled the mist, pulling it deep, deep into his lungs. It was instantaneous. It was cold. It was a profound numbness. The vacuum in his chest was filled with a cool, blue stillness.

He had become a hollow statue of grief. He stood to his feet, his movements now fluid and empty. He shouldered his satchel. He gave the grave one last, empty look. Then he turned and began walking.

He wandered aimlessly as he simply wanted to put as much distance between himself and the place where he left his warmth. He wandered through the forest in a constant downpour of rain. He was a shell of his former self. The Mist of Muralis was a fickle, demanding friend. It was a mask, and it required constant maintenance.

Then, the mist would begin to thin. A fragment of memory would break through. The smell of the wax from the King’s throne room. The creak of the leather on Martier’s boots. The color of his own aureolin wings. Each time the feelings and emotions would begin to rise, a jolt of uncut agony would electrify his system. His knees would buckle. A scream would build in his throat. And he would panic.

He then would exhale, hard, conjuring a blue cloud, and he’d breathe it in. He became desperate and greedy. He would inhale until the memory shattered, until the feeling was gone, until the world was flat and silent and safe again. For two days, without stopping to sleep, without stopping to eat, he meandered through the Western Wilds. For two days, he held the Mist of Muralis at nearly each breath. Refusing to allow himself to feel.

On the third day, his body began to fail. The numbness could not mask starvation. The hunger was a grinding pain that the mist couldn’t touch. The pain of his arm was a searing screaming monster that nothing could subdue. The cold was seeping into his bones, and the warmth of the numbness could not stave it off.

Then he remembered the BAPs. The two hereman who escorted him from the dungeon into the throne room. The ones who held him whenever he tried to run towards his mother. They had turned it to ash when his body detonated. They were killed. He killed them. He didn’t mean to do it. It was just his raw power.

He stumbled, falling to his knees. The jolt of these thoughts was enough to crack the blue shell. He was too tired to summon the mist, too weak to fight. Jethran thought he deserved to feel the weight of the lives he had taken. He just lay there, weeping, until he had no tears left.

Then as the last ounce of strength left his body, he was stricken with a searing vision. This was similar to the ones that he had experienced before, but there were no misty woods and there was no storm.

There was only a graveyard, and a swoosh sound. He looked up to see there was a giant red lady swinging from the purple crescent moon. The swoosh of her swinging began to take on a rhythmic effect, forming itself into beat. Then he heard the lady humming. Soon the air filled with song.

Upon a once before…

Swinging from the crescent moon,

Graves below in lilac dirt.

The crimson lady keeps time.

As she holds an ancient hurt,

Her voice, it rings like a chime,

She hums a forgotten tune.

Her left hand shows you the past,

Heavy songs across the space.

Humming with the bitter tears,

Watching the forgotten place.

Holding secrets from the years.

The other a future cast.

Forgetting everything,

Given for the trust compelled.

For if the past was to fade,

As the memories she held,

She gave her past unafraid,

Beauty futures will not bring.

Trust will make the vision clear,

Remember for Evenhere.

Jethran watched as the lady hummed, holding out her hand. From that hand grew a bright light that separated into six smaller lights. Each a different color. Crimson, Indigo, Cobalt, Vermillion, Celadon, and Aureolin. The tiny lights swirled around each other until a new light was formed. Pink.

Suddenly, a darkness came and the world turned gray, then to dust. Then the seven lights bound together and shot across the sky. Flying directly into the sun. From her other hand, a world arose. Vibrant with all colors.

Jethran thought it must be her showing the past and future of Evenhere. He couldn’t think of any other explanation as to what those moments she portrayed in her hands could have possibly meant.

Then the being stopped and looked directly at him across the distance. She spoke into his very essence…

Remember who you are.

The vision ended. He was dizzy. He hoped this was from the lack of food and sleep. He sat for a while thinking about these things. Just trying to figure out what it meant.

“I’m just... Jethran,” he sighed.

Finally, he stood and began walking forward. Eventually his path led him to a village nestled in a small, damp valley. It was a collection of low, gray cottages that were half-hidden in the steam that rose from vents in the ground. The steam swirled through the air in heavy clouds. It clung to everything, muffling the sounds of the world, making the entire village look like a watercolor left out in the rain.

Although it did smell of herbs, it smelled sweet and inviting, not at all like the antiseptic scent he found in the Mender Village. At first he told himself not to go. His good hand instinctively flew to his stump. After what he survived in the Menders Village, he did not want to face anything similar. He crouched at the edge of the ridge, watching.

The hunger was a grinding pain. The cold was real. The ache of his arm almost too much. They might have medicine. Eventually, his mind settled on the fact that it wouldn’t be possible for something like that to happen again. The Menders must be a unique group of people.

He resolved not to trust and not to be a victim again. Jethran exhaled the Mist of Muralis, despite having declared himself finished with it. He took a slow inhale to steady his perception. Then he began the careful descent into the village, noticing it almost seemed to be lit by the steam itself.

The Breakdown

Reclaiming the Blade

Chapter 10 deals entirely with the immediate shockwave of profound grief as Jethran lands in the Western Wilds and faces the physical reality of burying his mother. He digs a grave using only his one remaining hand, allowing the intense physical exertion to become a channel for his rage.

The most important psychological shift happens when the burial is complete and Jethran needs a way to mark the grave. He reaches into the stolen medical kit and pulls out a Big Aught scalpel.

The scalpel is a tool of the oppressor representing the clinical compliance of the King’s regime. Jethran takes the exact instrument used for dissection and forces it to create a monument of devotion. By carving her name into the stone, he asserts her existence against a system that tried to erase her.

In recovery, we often have to take the systems or the experiences that broke us and repurpose them. We take the pain and use it as the mortar for our new foundation. Jethran reclaims his agency by turning a weapon of the gray into an anchor for his love.

The Afterhere

Chapter 10 introduces the concept of the Afterhere, serving as this world’s answer to the afterlife and establishing the three distinct planes of existence held within the kingdom’s belief structure. Evenhere acts as the living world where everyone currently resides; the Afterhere is treated as a beautiful, heavenly afterlife; and the Underhere exists as a tangible plane considered to be the physical source of all darkness.

We also experience the Song of Parting for the very first time. Later in the story, we discover that each culture has its own unique version of this parting song, and we eventually learn how they all seamlessly fit together.

Because this is our initial introduction to the song and Jethran is singing it for Regale, I embedded a hidden tribute by making the first letters of every line spell out the name of my own mother. The character of Regale is deeply based on her in countless ways. The name Regale is actually an anagram created using the letters of my mother’s full name, just as Jethran Frye is an anagram of my own full name. I simply gave his mother the same last name I created for him.

Interestingly, the name Jethran Frye translates to “generous ruler who brings freedom and abundance,” while the name Regale Frye means “she who provides unconditional love without cost.” Those definitions perfectly capture the essence of the characters wearing these names.

This naming convention happens frequently throughout the early parts of the story, as seen later with Winley Knowles who was created using my friend William’s full name. Also, Martier’s name was built as an anagram from my father’s full name.

A true testament to the living, breathing nature of this story is how the worldbuilding eventually evolved beyond my initial blueprints. I started by crafting names using the names of people close to me, crafting these deeply personal anagrams early in the drafting process.

As the lore expanded, the fictional cultures of Evenhere took root and began generating their own unique linguistic rules. Characters started emerging organically with names dictated entirely by the history and language of their specific societies. The foundational rules I set for this world, this itself, Evenhere essentially gained a mind of their own, creating culturally significant traditions that now actively steer the narrative into entirely unexpected directions.

The Mist of Dissociation

Once the carving is finished and the adrenaline fades, the void of grief rushes in to make the pain entirely unsurvivable. Jethran uses the Mist of Muralis again, despite having said that he would never use it again.

The mist gives him Stillness. In psychological terms, Jethran intentionally triggers dissociation.

In my memoir, Shards of Hope: A Tweaker Witch’s Journey, I talk openly about using substances to numb the noise of my own trauma. When the reality of life feels like a crushing weight, finding a way to simply turn off the feeling becomes an act of desperate survival. The mist gives Jethran a profound numbness and fills the vacuum in his chest with a quiet stillness.

Every time a memory breaks through, Jethran experiences a jolt of pure agony that causes him to panic and inhale more mist. He chooses the quiet of the mist over the screaming reality of his grief.

The Burden of the Blast

Beyond the grief of losing his mother, Jethran carries a new internal conflict because his powers evolved from perception into destruction. The aureolin energy turned two BAPs into ash. The act lacked intentional malice, yet the consequence remains absolute.

Processing that guilt of even unintentional harm adds a true cost of his power. This moment is going to affect him for a very long time.

The Demand of Memory

Jethran starves his body and exhausts his mind trying to outrun the pain until his physical form finally fails and the mist cracks.

In that moment of vulnerability, he receives a chilling vision of the Crimson Lady swinging from the crescent moon. She hums her song of hallowed land and bitter tears, showing him the creation of the colors and a vibrant world rising from the dust. Then she speaks a direct command into his very essence, telling him to remember who he is.

Healing demands that we look at our history so we can understand the shape of what remains, to find the beauty that awaits in the future. The vision forces Jethran to stop running and start walking forward, even if he still only sees himself as “just Jethran.”

In truth, the moments this vision shows actually foreshadow events from the following two books. Events that will not be clear or understood by Jethran until he is in his 40’s.

Bargaining with Trauma

At the end of the chapter, Jethran finds a new village, and his immediate reaction is absolute terror. His hand flies to his stump because the last time he trusted healers, they mutilated him.

This is a textbook trauma response where the brain projects a past betrayal onto a future opportunity. The body registers a threat before the mind can even process the environment. Jethran has to engage in a mental bargain to step forward, rationalizing that lightning rarely strikes the same place twice.

However, acknowledging the logic does not instantly erase the fear. He pushes past his panic to seek food and warmth, but he still has to exhale and inhale the Mist of Muralis one more time before descending into the steam. Healing is a slow process, and sometimes taking the next brave step requires leaning on the exact coping mechanism you are trying to outgrow.

Let’s Discuss

This chapter forces us to look at how we survive the unsurvivable moments of our lives.

* Have you ever had to take a painful experience and repurpose it to build something beautiful?

* Have you ever found yourself relying on a coping mechanism to numb a pain you were unprepared to face?

* How do you convince yourself to keep moving forward when your past experiences demand you hide?

Feel free to answer these questions in the comments below or just take them with you as you go.

What’s Next?

On Monday, we will do a readthrough of Chapter 11. We will follow Jethran into this new village and see exactly what kind of people live hidden in the steam.

En Español

Recently, a friend told me that they had tried to listen to this on Spotify but they just weren't able to keep up because English isn't their first language, and they still struggle sometimes. So that prompted me to begin using Google translate and 11 Labs voice cloning to record my previous posts in Spanish using my actual voice. I'm actually quite impressed with how these things have turned out. So I'm currently in the process of translating the previous posts that have been shared on here as well as my novel itself. That second part takes a little bit more work than I initially realize but might actually be worth doing. So stay tuned for updates on that because it's turning out to be an interesting part of this journey.

Join the Conversation

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication and listener supported podcast. We can be found at findyourcolors.substack.com where I invite you to join as a paid or free subscriber.

We can also be found by searching for the Find Your Colors Podcast on Spotify. When you do, please take a moment to follow the show and make some comments to get the conversation going there.

Thanks!

If you read this all the way to the end or listened to it all the way through, you are absolutely my hero. I want to thank you for allowing me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

Bienvenidos a Find Your Colors. Soy Jeff B. White, escritor y creador de la trilogía Shards of Color.

Recientemente me enteré de que este podcast no es accesible para personas que no tengan el inglés como lengua materna. Por eso, he decidido solucionarlo. Con la ayuda del traductor de Google y mis amigos de 11 Labs, he podido crear mi propio clon de voz profesional. He podido usar el texto del artículo para crear un guion en español que mi propia voz de IA lee en voz alta. Así que iré creando poco a poco versiones en español de cada artículo y episodio del podcast, empezando por la primera publicación. Con esto, espero que quienes deseen escuchar esto y lo hayan encontrado difícil, lo hagan más fácil y así esta historia pueda llegar a más personas. Y ese es el objetivo.

Así que, por favor, disfrútenlo y, si se sienten motivados, tómense un momento para seguir este podcast de Spotify y calificar el programa. Los invito a unirse a la conversación en www.findyourcolors.substack.com, donde pueden suscribirse gratuitamente o con suscripción de pago. Muchas gracias.

Cómo llegué aquí

Mi vida ha sido un desafío abrumador. Para sobrevivir, tuve que romperme en mil pedazos, dejando solo fragmentos de mí misma. Para prosperar, tuve que encontrar la manera de reconstruirme, fragmento a fragmento. Quien soy ahora es apenas reconocible de quien era, pero es mucho más hermoso.

Usando diferentes conceptos de sanación del trauma y trabajo de recuperación, combinados con una década de estudio espiritual, encontré mi camino. No pretendo estar completamente curada, y no sé si alguna vez lo estaré. Lo que sí afirmo es que estoy lo suficientemente curada como para hablar de ello y compartir lo que me trajo aquí. A medida que continúo el proceso de sanación, quiero ayudar a otros en el camino.

Cuando decidí que quería compartir mi historia, tuve que crear dos mundos completamente diferentes para ponerla en palabras. He pasado los últimos años deconstruyendo mi propia mente. Escribí unas memorias crudas y honestas para diagnosticar el daño y una fantasía épica, oscura y extravagante para idear la cura. En total, son cuatro libros, y hay más en camino.

Fragmentos de Esperanza es la autopsia de un instinto de supervivencia. Es la realidad granular del control de daños en la ciudad de Nueva York y la mecánica de mantenerse con vida cuando tu cerebro intenta matarte.

Fragmentos de Color es la reconstrucción. Es una trilogía sobre un mundo donde la Defecto es la fuente de la magia y la emoción es la física. Es donde aprendemos que la única manera de superar la oscuridad que nos rodea es ser la fuente de color más brillante posible.

Durante años, los mantuve separados porque pensaba que la fantasía era solo una vía de escape de la realidad. Pensaba que Fragmentos de Esperanza era la dura realidad y Fragmentos de Color era la bonita mentira. Pensaba que eran historias separadas.

Me equivoqué. Ambos son la verdad. Todos forman parte de la misma serie.

¿Qué Esperar?

Publico "Encuentra tus Colores" porque me di cuenta de que la fantasía no es una vía de escape. Es un plan.

Este no es un espacio para quienes buscan "Amor y Luz". Si buscas escapismo espiritual o positividad tóxica, estás en el lugar equivocado, pero no te vayas todavía, porque lo que ofrezco es mucho más que eso.

Esta es una Gruta de Confianza, un santuario para personas resilientes. Esa confianza debe ser mutua. Debes confiar en mí, ya que me embarco en esto para sintetizar comunidad y crecimiento. Y yo debo confiar en ti porque compartiré algunas de las peores cosas que he vivido y cómo las he superado. Es para quienes les dijeron que eran "demasiado", "demasiado equivocados" o "demasiado rotos". Es para los marginados, para el dolor y para la sanación. Para quienes recorren el camino de las brujas y para quienes aún buscan el camino.

Mientras me preparo para lanzar esta serie a finales de este año, quiero construir una comunidad en torno a ella. Exploraremos los temas psicológicos de la Saga Fragmentos de Color una vez por semana. Publicaré cada capítulo en orden y profundizaremos en cómo se han traducido desde mi experiencia personal y cómo pueden relacionarse con la tuya. Analizaremos cada libro de la serie: Nacido del Rubor, Una Búsqueda Desvanecida, y Ecos del Presagio.

Examinaremos el elenco de 26 personajes y cómo se traducen en la vida real. Por ejemplo, Muralis, un ser ancestral que proporciona una bruma mágica para ayudar a silenciar el dolor y permitir que la atención lo confronte. A través de esto, exploraremos el concepto de Reducción de Daños. Nos centraremos en el Rey Arcoíris, quien nos enseña a integrarnos plenamente con la valentía de sentir todo el espectro de emociones humanas. Para ello, exploraremos la verdad tras el concepto de que todo lo que necesitamos para progresar, crecer y sanar está directamente en nuestro interior una vez que conectamos con nuestro yo superior.

Exploraremos a Jethran Frye y a su compañero Fable. Nos sumergiremos en el poderoso romance queer que florece.

Y más adelante, llegaremos a las secuelas que cubren una historia multigeneracional que abarca el cosmos.

Qué Obtienes

Aquí tienes una lista de todo lo que verás y recibirás de este espacio. He incluido la experiencia completa para cada nivel. Así que encuentra la opción que mejor se adapte a ti. Sea cual sea tu elección, te agradezco que me hayas permitido dedicarme tiempo y espacio en tu mente.

1. Plan gratuito

Ensayos semanales que conectan la magia de BlushBorn con la realidad de la recuperación. Ensayos que analizan los primeros 10 capítulos de la saga Fragmentos de Color y Fragmentos de Esperanza. Audionarraciones de los primeros 10 ensayos, leídas por la autora. Noticias sobre la trayectoria editorial.

2. Plan Mensual ($7/Mensual o $70/Anual) *

* Acceso anticipado a la Saga Fragmentos de Color, publicada capítulo a capítulo, semana a semana.

* Narraciones en audio de cada capítulo y/o ensayo discutido cada semana, leídas por el autor.

* Acceso completo a la sección de comentarios y a las discusiones de la comunidad.

* Preguntas y sugerencias exclusivas para facilitar un análisis más profundo al final de cada ensayo.

3. Nivel Prisma ($250/Anual)

Para Coleccionistas.

Obtienes la biblioteca completa, tanto física como digital. Esto equivale a más de $430 en libros y audiolibros firmados, entregados a domicilio con un descuento de casi $200 sobre lo que pagarías de otra manera.

Beneficios:

* Ediciones de tapa dura firmadas de los cuatro libros (Fragmentos de Esperanza, Nacidos por los Lazos, Una Búsqueda Desvanecida, Ecos de Presagio) enviadas directamente a ti.

* Dedicadas personalmente por el autor. Acceso digital inmediato a todos los eBooks (PDF/ePub) y audiolibros.

* Llamadas trimestrales por Zoom

* Tu nombre en el Muro y acceso completo a la comunidad.

* Tu nombre aparecerá en los agradecimientos de los cuatro libros.

Aclaremos algunas cosas…

No soy una gurú. No soy médica. No te doy consejos médicos ni diagnostico ni trato ninguna enfermedad. Sin embargo, llevo 34 años estudiando psicología. Desde la perspectiva de la persona en el diván. Soy un espejo. Estoy aquí para ayudarte a mirar dentro sin pretextos ni intenciones. Estoy aquí para mostrarte que no estás rota. Estás herida, y en esas cosas hay un mundo de diferencia.

El mundo monocromático está muriendo y las cajas en las que nos encasillan ya no nos pueden contener. Es hora de pintar fuera de las líneas y teñirlo todo de belleza. Así que espero que me acompañes en esta locura que estoy a punto de hacer.

Con Colores Mucho,

Jeff B. White

Autor de Fragmentos de Esperanza y Fragmentos de Color Saga

¡Gracias por leer "Encuentra tus Colores" de Jeff B. White! Si te gusta lo que ves y quieres más, suscríbete gratis para recibir nuevas publicaciones. Mejora tu suscripción y obtén regalos geniales como agradecimiento por apoyar mi trabajo.

Welcome to Find Your Colors. Here we are discussing the narrative within the Shards of Color Trilogy and the first book in that trilogy called BLUSH BORN.

I am Jeff B. White and I am the writer and creator of these stories. Through this publication and podcast, I am providing breakdowns of the psychological concepts behind the dark fairy tale.

I’m focusing on the emotional intelligence, radical vulnerability, and transformative growth that is found through an honest look at where I’ve been, how I’ve gotten here, and where I’m going next.

Recap

Last Monday, we continued reading through the narrative of BLUSH BORN looking at Chapter 8 Colorless. We saw Jethran stand trial before the TriAught. And we got to meet the cast of characters who make up the architects of order and gray. This antagonistic mythopolitical landscape is the antithesis of everything Jethran is.

Today we’re going to be reading through Chapter 9 and the breakdown following.

Let’s Discuss

This was a difficult chapter to write and a difficult breakdown, too. Allowing the death of this character was not something that I went into lightly.

* Have you ever faced a difficult loss that helped you to step into who you were supposed to be?

* As a writer, have you ever had to kill off a character who you didn't want to but you know that it wouldn't have served the story if you hadn't let them lived?

In a world where bigotry is so often just the norm of things, conveying that in this story was something I felt to be necessary.

* Have you ever felt like you were nothing more than dirt to the powers that be?

Feel free to answer these questions in the comments below or just take them with you as you go.

What’s Next?

On Wednesday we will do a readthrough of Chapter 10 Parting Colors. Where we will witness Jethran say goodbye to his mother. And we will see him start a completely new path on his journey.

Join the Conversation

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication and listener supported podcast. I invite you to join as a paid or free subscriber. We can be found at findyourcolors.substack.com

We can also be found by searching for the Find Your Colors Podcast on Spotify or by clicking the button below. And when you do, don’t forget to follow like and subscribe.

Thanks!

So grateful to all the following supporters that I have gained I hope that you all are enjoying this story. As always, if you have read this all the way to the end or if you listened to this all the way through, then you are absolutely my hero and I want to thank you for giving me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

Welcome to Find Your Colors. I am Jeff B White and I am the writer and creator behind the Shards of Color Trilogy.

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication on Substack and a listener supported podcast on Spotify. Wherever you find us be sure to like, follow, and subscribe.

As I prepare to publish BLUSH BORN, first book in this trilogy, I'm using this platform to build awareness of these books and to explore the story. I'm breaking down all the psychological concepts that are present within all three books and as well explaining exactly how I translated my memoir, Shards of Hope A Tweaker Witch's Journey into this dark fairy tale.

But more than that, Find Your Colors is the platform through which I am allowed to experience my life's purpose, and the purpose behind all the things that I have survived in my life. That purpose is having survived those things, so that I could share the story allowing some person out there who might be going through something similar or through their own level of nonsense to feel less alone. While I am discussing very specific things from my life, the foundation upon which this work is built is that universal truths apply. Those are: The power that you're searching for comes from within you. The strength that you need is already yours. And the light that you are looking for, is right there waiting, you just have to know where to look. That's why I'm here. We are going to look inside and Find Your Colors.

Recap

On Monday we continued on with the reading of the book BLUSH BORN with Chapter 8 Colorless. We were introduced to the cast of characters who portray the architects of the gray and we ended with Jethran sent to the dungeon.

Because I missed my regular chapter posting day, I decided today I want to do something a little different and I'm going to expand upon a previous post about the Seven Songs.

The Breakdown

The Rhythm of the Seven Songs

On Monday, I will pick back up with Chapter 9. As for today, I previously explained how the Seven Songs were inspired by real-world individuals. Now, I want to show you how they actually exist within the world of BLUSH BORN through both present-day events and historical grounding.

When I created these characters, I knew I wanted the fallen gods to be called the Seven Songs. The name ties directly into the full cosmology of the world and the spiritual beliefs of the Silvarii people who listen to the Hum of the Great Melody. This is a their world's answer to meditation and harmonic resonant frequencies. However, one thing always bothered me. There was never an organic way for them to actually be songs.

People sing throughout the story, and singing becomes a massive part of the narrative later, but the gods themselves were never literal songs. From my point of view, it felt like huge a plot hole. The narrative could have functioned without them being songs, yet their titles demanded more.

The Myths of the Songs

Below are each of the Seven Songs, along with their myths, and the songs that were crafted from the myths. For this story I created my own emotions and elements as you'll see below.

I. Crezwil (Purple: Emotion of Embrace and Element of Flame)

The meaning and purpose behind this specific being is to convey the need for integration of the stories we've survived with the person we've become. Embracing the one who was wounded.

There was a scar, jagged and deep, that no one dared touch. A cursed wound etched across a sacred hill. But one day, a traveler came who knelt before the wound and kissed it. From the scar bloomed a flower, fierce and wild, its petals stained with every hue the world had tried to erase. The traveler carried that bloom inside, where it grew into a fire.

They wore their story on their skin. The people in the world saw them and said that they were grotesque. They saw themselves as glorious, because they were unhidden. The light that shone from their wounds was a song of survival made visible that resonated in the bones of others, reminding them of their own unhealed parts. They did not ask to be seen, but they radiated until others could not look away. But in the process of being seen, they helped others to see themselves. Because of this, they loved their beautiful story.

Sung upon a once before…

A wound sat on a small hill,

Stretching out both near and far.

People feared the wound until,

A traveler saw the scar.

Seeing it held no such curse,

Forgotten pain is much worse.

They kissed the scar gave it love.

Soon a purple flower grew,

Glowing with the brilliance of

Miraculous vibrant hue.

Plucked to keep the flower safe,

Sheltered from the worldly chafe.

Its warmth made the spirit soar.

Its love put the pain to sleep.

It opened the healing door,

To truths we struggle to keep.

The traveler then knew he,

Loved their beautiful story.

II. Muralis the Listener (Blue: Emotion of Stillness and Element of Void)

The meaning behind this entity is to convey acceptance of Stillness and quiet in order to allow healing when trauma has become too loud, but to not linger in those moments of Stillness for too long or else one becomes trapped.

They say the forest forgets itself every winter, swallowing names and footprints. A wanderer came, skin peeled from too many winters, lungs filled with smoke. They inhaled the blue mist that erased hunger, pain, and memory. They became no one. An echo without a voice. Behind them trailed a thin line of smoke, a secret they could not shed.

One day, a child followed that thread, eyes burning with questions. The child whispered a name into the cold air. The smoke trembled. The wanderer woke. To wake was a violence and a grace; a sudden, searing agony that was also undeniable proof of being alive. They looked down and found their own hands again, trembling with survival. Raw, unclaimed, real.

Sung upon a once before…

Soldier burning deep within,

Trapped in anguish of the war.

Quiet settles on his skin,

Standing on the ruined shore.

Mists born of the summer storm

Offers quiet in its form.

Silenced screams and silent fear,

Replace terror of what's lost.

Voices speak but you must hear,

Forget pain at any cost.

The child you know comes again

Whispers truths from way back then.

Memories caged in his head,

Forget so you remember.

Pulling the connected thread.

Cerulean's burning ember.

Leave the bitter dark behind,

Pain unraveled frees his mind.

Discovering he’s alive.

III. Elba Reclecta (Red: Emotion of Memory and Element of Self)

For this one, the purpose is to convey the importance of our memory and of our path. Knowing where we've been and how we've gotten here so that we can be able to fully embrace our future and where we're going.

The giant red lady suspended from the purple crescent blood moon. Swings over the graves of lilac dirt with the weight of time, held captive by the gravity of history. Her silent pendulum ticks the end of an era and tocks the beginning of an eon. She was a silent witness to all endings, and so the dead trusted her with their truths.

She hummed a beautiful tune as she held out one hand that contained the past, in the other she held the future. Those who watched felt the weight of their own bones, the pull of a lineage reborn in rhythm and memory.

The weight of the memories of every person who lived and died was a heavy song to sing, costing her the memories that were most precious to her. The memories of herself. The people living asked her why she would give her own memories just to remember those who were gone. She said, "Because when the past is forgotten, the future’s beauty dies."

Sung upon a once before…

Swinging from the crescent moon,

Holding futures in her hand.

She hums the past with her tune,

Swings over the shadowed land.

Over graves of lilac dirt

Healing all the ancient hurt.

Heavy songs across the space,

Humming with the bitter tears.

Watching the forgotten place,

Washing away bitter fears.

Given for the truth compelled

Losing memories she held.

If the past is left to fade,

Future beauty surely dies.

Giving up the self she made,

Watching with unknowing eyes.

Truth will make the vision clear

Casting out the ancient fear.

IV. Rabb the Storm Eater (Yellow: Emotion of Justice and Element of Seed)

The meaning behind this entity is to learn the difference between the righteous rage in the face of injustice and the destructive anger that serves no purpose. With one we can fight against wrongdoing but with the other we only get in the way.

They tell of a man born beneath a sky that never rested, where storms roared and lightning struck with reckless fury. The land trembled, and the people cowered behind walls of silence. But the man did not flee. Instead, he opened his mouth wide and swallowed the fire. Each bolt seared his flesh and cracked his bones, yet he stood firm. His teeth a grinding thunder.

When the last storm was devoured, the skies calmed. His heart glowed like a captive star, and his voice forever rumbled with the echo of the thunder he had tamed. The people named him monster, a madman who invited destruction into himself. But the land remembered him as a shield. The storm-eater who bore the lightning so others could stand unbroken.

Sung upon a once before

Underneath a boiling sky,

Storms will rattle at the door.

Watching primal lightning fly,

Crashing on the valley floor.

Aureolin strikes the night,

He inhales the jagged light.

Thunder he must now control,

Holding all the storm within.

Taking on the heavy toll,

Bones aglow beneath his skin.

People scream and call him beast

As he makes the sky his feast.

He stands ready as a shield,

Swallows the deep unspoken.

Standing firm within the field,

So others stay unbroken.

Banishing the shadows deep

Guarding those who fall asleep.

V. Hun Gun the Seer (Orange: Emotion of Release and Element of Wave)

For this one it was important to convey the point of releasing ourselves from what if and what could have been, to mourn the different versions of ourselves that we never became so that we can accept the version of ourselves who we are.

There was once a mirror unlike any other. It was carved from twilight and edged with whispers. It refused to show faces as they were. Instead, it revealed the selves hidden beneath layers of fear and forgetfulness, the selves buried beneath shattered dreams. The mirror did not invent; it only excavated.

Those who dared gaze into it found not reflection, but possibility. Some saw brilliance, others ruin. Those who lingered too long lost their grip on the world, unraveling into strangers. But those with courage stepped through the fractured glass. They shed the weight of what they were told to be and claimed the truth the mirror offered. They became someone the world had never known, new shapes born from the shards of old lies.

Sung upon a once before

Carved from twilight in the sky,

Mirrors open up the door.

Hidden visions start to fly,

Shadows dancing on the floor.

Mirrors wake the unlived dream,

Unborn futures start to gleam.

Stepping to the fractured frame,

Mourning what was unexplored.

Weeping for a different name,

Witnessing the paths ignored.

Grieving versions left behind

Healing the divided mind.

Some will linger in the gaze,

Silencing the present voice.

Fading in the mirrored maze,

Lost within the branching choice.

Wisdom brings the true self near

Mourning now with every tear.

VI. Midgelle the Sun (Green: Emotion of Forgiveness and Element of Wind)

Personally, this was the most important lesson of all and the most difficult. That we have to forgive ourselves for what's been done to us. And that forgiveness is not required for those who harmed us, but it is required for ourselves.

The world was once consumed by darkness. High upon a mountain, there was woman whose skin glowed with an internal viridescence. The people, seeking light and warmth, came to her and asked her to give them her skin. She gave it to them willingly, piece by piece.

Where the skin was taken, it grew back, and the light became even brighter. The people, seeing her exposed, asked how she could endure the pain. She revealed that she let her light go so that she could keep it, sharing herself so that their time in darkness would be less.

Yet, she realized she had given more of herself than she had to give. She began to hold onto herself more than she had before. She forgave herself for what was taken from her. As her skin grew back in the places it had been taken, it showed the map of her healing. From it, the light grew brighter than any light had ever been, until she became the very light to shine for the whole world. Now she wears her skin, while the people bathe in the light of her story.

Sung upon a once before…

Darkness held the starless night,

High upon the mountain peak

People begged her for the light,

Viridescence on her cheek.

Piece by piece she gave away,

The beauty of her own skin

Giving so the light would stay,

Healing from the pain within

Gave it so that she could keep

Growing brighter through the day.

Waking from the shadows deep.

Holding back the glowing part,

Letting the bright beauty show.

Healing up the giving heart,

So its light they all may know.

When for light the people call

She shines down upon them all.

Yes, there are only six songs here. I didn't forget. However, sharing the seventh song would give away too much from the story. I can't just give it all away. When we've reached that point in the story the background and explanations for the final song will be provided. So in order to access those parts of the story, you'll either have to join as a paid subscriber or wait until the book is published and buy a copy. What I can tell you is that it's definitely worth whichever choice you make.

Seeing What Was Right in Front of Me

Recently, I made a massive discovery within my own writing. I found syllabic verse scattered throughout the text. I realized different paragraphs naturally followed the structure of a haiku, and I had unknowingly formed sonnets right in the middle of standard narrative. I have been told by beta readers, editors, and agents that my writing carries a unique poetic quality. I never really understood that feedback before. I simply wrote things the way they sounded best in my head.

When I sat down to create the Seven Songs, I knew Jethran needed to experience them through a lullaby, a fairy tale, or a vision. I ended up using a combination of all three. The visions he endures are built directly from the myths of these seven entities.

I wanted this world to feel lived in. I wanted the history to make complete sense. I found the easiest way to achieve that was to sit down with every single component and flesh it out fully before dropping it into the story.

By creating each aspect of the story separately and then weaving them together, I established a foundation that functions as a real component of life. This process allowed me to create lore that feels ancient and inevitable. The opposite approach involves pushing characters through a scene and inventing lore on the spot just to solve a problem. Readers can always feel when something is manufactured simply to get through a moment.

Before I wrote anything else, I sat down with each color and assigned it a specific emotion. Then, I wrote seven individual myths. I don't use the actual myths in the story but I translate the myths into something else such as a dream or a vision. I took those myths and rewrote them to mimic the experience. I made the narrative fractured. I left the symbolism intentionally vague while keeping the emotional impact highly explicit. That exact combination makes the lore feel purely mythological.

While reviewing my work, I kept noticing these moments of accidental poetry within the lyrical prose. The vision scenes and the lullabies are inherently surreal. I decided to lean fully into that rhythm.

For example, the lullaby Regale sings to Jethran in Chapter 1, naturally came out as fourteen sentences containing exactly seven, eight, or nine syllables each. Basically, I had written a sonnet, that was slightly off balance. After playing with specific syllable structures and line counts, I decided to turn the myths for all Seven Songs into individual songs that contain three verses of six to seven lines, each line having seven syllables.

The Pleasure of Creating

I love these myths. I was able to take the emotional lessons and steps I had to manage in my path to recovery that are explained in my memoir, and forge them into living characters on the page. It was a fun undertaking and I feel as if I've done it. To craft those lessons and life points into something that told the same story and gave the same outcome, but sounded like it came long before I was born was absolutely a challenge.

As I said in my previous post about the Seven Songs, doing this specific portion of the work turned out to show me much more about myself and my own personal growth than the memoir ever did. This required me to dissect all of these different aspects of my journey and provide them put back together in a way that was coherent and showed the psychology behind these moments of growth. Ultimately, this was the most rewarding thing I've ever done.

Let's Discuss

It's important to me that these characters are coherent and more so than just to myself.

* Do the emotional purposes and the lessons of the songs resonate with you?

* Is this a story that you would read?

Feel free to answer the questions in the comment section or take them with you.

What's Next?

Finally on Monday, I will be sharing the text of chapter 9 with the following breakdown and will be discussing how loss helps to form us.

Join the Conversation

There are now 30 subscribers who are following Find Your Colors, and 1/3 of those subscribers are paid subscribers. I cannot tell you how much that means to me. And because find your colors is a reader supported publication, I'd like to invite you to subscribe and follow and consider being a paid or free subscriber.

As well we can be found on Spotify simply by searching the Find Your Colors Podcast. And when you do please take a moment to follow the show there and say hi in the comment section and get the conversation going there.

See ya later!

As always if have read this all the way to the end or if you listen to it all the way through, then you are absolutely my hero and I want to thank you for allowing me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

Find Your Colors is a Substack publication and Spotify podcast through which I am breaking down the psychological concepts that are present within the trilogy, and I explain the true story that inspired the first book in the Shards of Color Trilogy, which is titled BLUSH BORN.

Blush Born is a work of speculative fiction that tells a dystopian fairy tale about a boy who is too vibrant for the world he was born in, so he has no choice but to change that world.

Last week, I shared Chapter 7, where we saw Jethran being marched back to the city by his mandated hereman, Martier. Jethran finally released years of pent-up anger and frustration that he had been holding against Martier for nearly his entire life. We also got a glimpse as Jethran began to display some unique aspects of his power.

This week we are talking about Chapter 8, where he has arrived at the Uncrowned Fortress and is going to stand trial for his crimes.

The Breakdown

An Outlet in the Dark

So, you may have recognized some possible inspiration for some of these characters. When I was trying to think of who would be the best antagonist for this story, I decided I wanted an ensemble. I wanted someone to match the Seven Songs by creating their opposites. I also wanted to have a moment of pure satirical social commentary to release some of the angst that I have personally built up over the state of affairs of this nation and the world that we’re living in right now. It’s been a frustrating couple of years, and I was able to create this mytho-political landscape that directly speaks to the way things are today.

I also wanted to create someone who was the antithesis of Jethran. Someone who held the opposite of hope and was afraid of his emotions and afraid of the color. As I was trying to draft his specific voice, I decided to pull from real-life inspiration. The creation of the Uncrowned King came into being when I was watching the No Kings Protest that occurred directly after the 2024 election. I had also recently read the Project 2025 manifesto.

For me, I was reading a blueprint of a man who was trying to manufacture his own kingship in our modern world. At the time, there was nothing scarier I could possibly imagine than that. So, I decided to write that into the story.

This is a man who is a leader because he uses propaganda and deceit to control and manipulate the people. He’s created a system of punishment and silencing that forces people to either be too afraid or too complacent to speak up. Because it’s been this way for so long, no one wants to change it, no one thinks they can. This man is the logical conclusion of what happens when we allow our emotions and our free thought to be criminalized.

The Architects of the Order

I had to think of who it is that would allow someone like this to go into power, and that’s when I thought of the Big Aughts. I felt that they needed to be a governing body who is completely disconnected from everyone.

I also considered it would be a necessity to have three main players who are the highest level in the land. These are three of the most disconnected, most absurdist characters in the entire series. They’re all pretty self-explanatory. They all involve fully uneven rule, completely out of touch with who they are representing, and ill-informed.

The Yoke of Youth is so far detached from anything close to being young that she has no concept of what those people need. She is a commentary on our laws being written by ancient people who have no concept of our world and a commentary on how over 20% of American lawmakers are over 70 years old.

The Author of Autonomy was the linchpin of the whole group. He was actually the first of the political side of this story who I immediately thought of and wanted to reate because I wanted to provide commentary on the concept of men in politics who feel the need to legislate the uterus. I just severely wanted to that be a part of this story. Because it is something that I truly find to be an extreme issue that we're faced with today that brings the rights of women to a point of debating their right to proper medical care and in doing so debating their right to live. I find that to be disgusting.

No matter what your opinion is or may be on reproductive rights, I seriously invite you to educate yourself on the services and medical care that Planned Parenthood offers before you align yourself with the belief that they are an organization that does not need to exist.

As well I feel that a mature understanding of the anti-abortion laws that have been recently put into play is necessary for all adults. I do not plan on having a child nor I do plan on having an abortion, however I also do not plan on taking away this very necessary procedure, nor do I support a denial of access to cancer screenings and medical necessities that are offered to women in need through Planned Parenthood.

There are laws that the Author of Autonomy enacts regarding the wem and what they are required to do with their bodies that actually affect the world for decades to come in very surprising ways that I never could have foreseen when I created this character. The entire plot of the fourth book which takes place thirty years after the events of this chapter is answering for the crimes of Author of Autonomy.

Then we have the Arbiter of Aging who is, however, my favorite character out of this entire story across all three books. And he’s my favorite for a lot of reasons. First, he is actually based on a person I know named Jullian. This is an individual who is named in my memoir and, ironically, is also the inspiration behind the character of Fable, whom we meet later in this book.

Fable is the perfect counter-balance to Jethran in all ways. Among the people who have read the books, Fable is the favorite. He is a standout character and is actually at times treated as if he is the star of the series. Which is fine. I translated my life story into a fairy tale in which I'm not even the star of it, but Jullian is. And that is the most accurate translation of my life that will ever exist. The relationship that is forged between Jethran and Fable is something that I find literally to be one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever read. Anytime I'm in a chapter with them and their love and having their relationship being at the forefront I am in tears the entire time. I’m amazed to see that these characters ever lived inside me and that I created them.

What’s even more amazing is that Fable himself is also based on that person Jullian, because Jullian is not in any form or fashion someone I would ever consider the thought of having feelings of love towards in any capacity. I was completely smacked down when I realized that Fable and Jethran were heading towards romance and this version of an iconic love story that I honestly can’t wait for people to read.

The Arbiter of Aging and Fable were created on the same day but it was after I began writing these characters that I started to realize that the Arbiter already naturally hinted at the characterization of Jullian. So I began to write him as the shadow of Fable making these two characters polar opposites of each other. To where I wrote the character of the Arbiter from a point of view of, “What would Fable do or say in this situation, and let the Arbiter do the exact opposite.” Because that is who they are actually based on.

Fable does exist on a foundation that carries quite a bit of Jullian’s well insulated and protected heart in his DNA, his also shares some of the same painful backstory as Jullian. As well his entire race of people have a lot of the similar traditionalist views as Jullian. Conversely, the Arbiter exists with a level of self-centered detachment that speaks more directly towards the manner in which Jullian presents himself as a person. It's highly fictionalized, but containing the same depth.

While I do not believe Jullian himself has ever been responsible for any genocides, that I'm aware of, I also don't believe he's ever spoken out against one.

In my memoir, I describe Julian as a golden retriever narcissist mix, with Disney prince eyes and a heart of gold. But you know, it's the kind of gold that gets that green stuff on your fingers when it gets wet. And while there will be a much deeper exploration of Fable later, he was given the golden retriever heart gold aspects and the sugar. While the Arbiter received the narcissistic stain portions of Jullian. They both got the height and the theatricality as well as the Disney prince eyes. And by making these characters be the same character told in complete shadow of each other, I created two highly memorable characters who are, in their own ways, both an absolute force on the page.

Also, Jullian himself is one of the five people who provided inspiration for the characters in this book who is also a paid subscriber of this substack. So, if your listening… thank you for allowing me to include your powerful narrative within this story. It wouldn't be what it is without what you added to it. So I'm forever grateful.

That alone itself was a challenge, but what was even more challenging was that I had to learn a new language in order to write him. I had to sit down and study the linguistics of GenZese. Later, there’s an entire chapter that’s written from his POV. In order to write that properly, the narrative itself has to lean into his manner of speech, and it’s two of three chapters that I honestly feel, if I would ever call anything that I’ve ever done a masterpiece, that would be it. Those chapters are literally terrifying and also hilarious, and they are even more terrifying because they're so hilarious.

Thankfully, they have online translators where you can type something in standard English and it will provide it to you written in this form of slang. Of course, I couldn’t just trust that, so I also had to go and do my own cross-referencing of the translation that I got, because for some of the things, I didn’t know what they meant and had to make sure that they meant what they were supposed to mean so that he was still having a coherent, understandable, translatable conversation.

What I do find interesting is that what he’s saying does not make any sense, and I don’t know if the other people understand him or not. And my favorite part about him is when he calls Jethran by the incorrect name of Jenrathan. For some reason I find it so delicious. It goes to speak on his self-absorbed and unconcerned with anyone other than himself.

The Comfort of the Gray

In psychology, it’s called anhedonia. It’s the inability to feel joy or pleasure or decreased interest in things one used to enjoy. It's the act of choosing to stay in bed instead of getting up and facing the day, because to face it means you have to face so many other things, even if it is at the cost of doing something you enjoy. It’s the moment when the captive is so accustomed to the cage that even with the door open they refuse to fly out.

The people of Evenhere are known as the Here. Because they don’t do anything, they don’t fight back, they don’t speak up, they’re just Here. It’s one of those situations where people have been in a situation for so long and faced systemic abuse for such an extended period of time, they just become accustomed to it in a way that stops them from speaking back because it’s just comfortable. It’s that worn-out speech that you hear when we discuss the Electoral College and other institutions that have been put in place in this country that are outdated and tired and need to be fought back. It’s that whole tired refrain of “this is just how it’s always been, so why would we change it?”

The Chilling Power of the Absurd

It can be distracting, I've heard, to read the way that some of these characters speak, but that is exactly the point. The voices of these antagonists are so unique and jarring compared to the rest of the Kingdom of Evenhere that they put the disconnect between the leadership and the people on full display.

While these people seem absurd and inept, they remain in power. And that’s what’s chilling about them. They are idiots. They should not be in a position to legislate a single life. Yet they are there because society has been silent and complacent for so long that the status quo has become a cage. These leaders rely on the fact that no one has questioned them for so long that the people have forgotten that they can.

The Uncrowned King is of course a dark mirror of Jethran. We get a deeper exploration into who he is later in the book, but for now, he’s just a narcissist who controls the world through a total disconnect from reality. So I gave him his orange hair as a deliberate act of hypocrisy. He is the head of an order that criminalizes color, yet he wears it on his own head. He’s declared himself the only standard of vibrancy because people are too afraid to see the truth of the man behind the curtain.

It was something that I was kind of pulling from the ending of The Wizard of Oz when after she kills the witch and their soldiers that are there who were just a moment ago were like chasing Dorothy and all of these people you know the all these animals is whatever around the castle with those spears made out of tin foil and like they were doing all of that like they were all gung ho for it. But then the moment that she gets killed feel like, “Oh she's dead. Thank you, thank you so much! We're free now!”

What were you doing you didn't want to be there it just always got to me about that and that's kind of how this story is that everybody is completely supportive of all this and is staying with it just because that's all they know and then once they're shown something different they'll accept something different. But it literally just takes one person standing up.

I bring back the Medic from Chapter 1 for this because, in the grand scheme of things, he’s actually the only one who is moderately intelligent, although he is still just as clueless. But he is truly for me personally the scariest antagonist in the world.

One thing to note about the Medic is that he refers to Jethran by a serial number which holds its own meaning. JF-3529 uses Jethran’s initials, but the numbers are actually the word FLAW if you look at the letters on a touch-tone phone. And of course, he’s completely dehumanized by this code.

I have also had some warnings about these characters that they might be too absurd or satirical. But the problem with that complaint is that’s the point. There are so many people who are in positions of power who don’t deserve it, who shouldn’t be, who are completely absurd and ridiculous and say some of the most outlandish things. Yet they are still in power. And that is the chilling part, that’s what’s scary. That’s what makes these people into some of the most terrifying villains, simply because they are utterly, unacceptably ridiculous, and they are able to make the laws and decide who lives and who dies.

Let's Discuss

* Jethran faced the dark mirror of the Gray Order and experienced in real time the other disconnect between himself as a citizen of the kingdom and those who are in charge of determining his life.

* How are you dealing with this disconnect between reality and our leaders? Are you okay?

* In life we have two types of people we have the ones who just keep their heads down and keep going through the gray with nothing to say and we have those who stand up and speak out and clap back.

* Which one are you?

Feel free to answer in the comments below or just take these questions with you as you go.

What's Next?

Up next we have Chapter 9 Loss of Color. This is going to be the most difficult chapter for my boy Jethran that he has lived through yet. It's going to be a turning point in the book it's going to be a turning point in his life and it's where everything is going to change. If you've been reading these chapters as I've been posting them then you're not going to want to miss this one.

Join the Conversation

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication on Substack and a listener supported podcast on Spotify Apple Podcast YouTube Podcast and Overcast. You can find us on any of those places simply by searching for the words find your colors or by going to www.findyourcolors.substack.com where I invite you to consider becoming a free or paid subscriber so you can stay in the know when there's updates and new chapters coming out.

And if you happen to come across us or search for us on Spotify or YouTube or apple podcast please take a moment to follow the show and provide a rating and comments to get the conversation started there.

Thanks

The substack is about to hit 30 subscribers and I just think that's so flipping cool. I was not sure what type of response I would get by sharing these things that I've shared through this publication and the fact that I have not been on sub stack for 30 days yet and I'm already at 30 subscribers is just so meaningful and validating. I did not know that I wanted validation but I guess we all do don't we? So thank you for supporting me and for subscribing and thank you to my paid members the paid content is on the way we are just around the corner.

And as always if you have read this all the way to the end or if you have listened to this all the way through then you're absolutely my hero so I want to thank you for allowing me to have the time out of your day and space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

This space is about finding your inner colors and shining your light unapologetically. There is no set of colors more beautiful and no light brighter than that of the flames we ignite when we set the old systems ablaze and burn them away.

Let's Discuss

I am so interested to hear from my readers on this topic.

To the women, if you don’t mind sharing, what are some ways that the men who do care can become stronger allies in your struggle for equitable treatment?

To the men, your opinion on this matters, too. So if you do not mind speaking up... Actually, no I’m joking. Our opinions on this do not matter. Just be quiet for once, Kevin. Listen to the women and let them tell us what needs to be done. Then do it.

What's Next?

Next week we will be back to the regularly scheduled program where I will be providing a further breakdown of the next chapter of BLUSH BORN. I will be sharing the text of Chapter 9 Loss of Color.

In the breakdown, we will be discussing how often moments in which we experience the most profound loss can be the same moments that define who we become, and in turn, can be the most empowering.

Join the Moment

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication and a listener supported podcast. This is a moment and a movement for those who have been called too different, who have been told that they are too loud, and who have been made to feel as if they are too much so they are afraid of taking up space that is too big. If what you have found here speaks to you in some way, please feel free to join the conversation on Substack and consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Also, look for us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Podcasts where I invite you to follow the show and to provide a rating. You can also leave comments there on your favorite episodes to get the conversation going.

As well, you can share this with your friends if you think you know of someone who might benefit from the work I'm doing here with Find Your Colors.

It is literally free and it takes less than a minute to do any and/or all of those things listed above. Doing these things shows that you support what I am doing and that you care, and it helps me to be able to achieve my goal of building something that is substantial because it matters.

Thanks, Again

Thank you again to the 28 people have subscribed to this substack. It's been less than a month since I joined and I'm already well ahead of expectations. I did not know that this experience was going to be so meaningful.

Bye for Now

So as always, if you read this all the way to the end or if you listened all the way through, you are absolutely my hero and so I thank you for allowing me the time out of your day and the space in your brain to share my story and my point of view while together we build the new world on the foundation of the ashes that remain after we burn the old one down.

Welcome to Find Your Colors. I am Jeff B White and I am the author of The Shards of Color Trilogy. Through this podcast and substack publication, I am breaking down the narrative of the fantasy BLUSH BORN, which is the first book in this trilogy. Here I am discussing the psychological concepts that are present in the story of Jethran Frye. I'm also detailing the ways in which my own personal story, which is shared in a memoir Shards of Hope: A Tweaker Witch's Journey, has been translated into this dark allegorical fairytale of speculative fiction.

Find Your Colors is a reader supported publication and a listener supported podcast. If you enjoy what I am sharing here, if it speaks to you in some way or resonates with you, please consider subscribing and following the conversation on Spotify. And if you know someone who would benefit from this story, please feel free to share it with your friends.

Recap

Last week's post we discussed Chapter 6 Adjusting to Color where Jethran had to adjust to his new life after having his hand non-consensually removed from a group of mender cultists who mutilate themselves in order to fit into their worlds rigid demand for compliance. This was an allegory for the 12 Step model for recovery. The chapter ended with Jethran being captured by Martier and the Big Aught Police.

The following chapter shows the fallout of that capture as we find Jethran being taken back to Evenhere City to face the Uncrowned King. This was one of my favorite chapters in the entire series to write. I hope you enjoy reading or listening to it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Let's Discuss

In this chapter, Jethran is given the opportunity to take all of the shame that he has held bottled up and pour it back into the source where it began.

* If you had the chance, would you confront the people who harmed you? What would you say?

* What could you do today to relieve some of the pain and shame the younger version of you that lives inside still suffers from?

* What gift could you provide to that version of yourself to help them heal?

* Have you ever had a moment where you fought back against your own pain and trauma only for it to result in a tragedy you could not have seen coming?

Please feel free to discuss and answer these questions in the comments section or just take them with you as you go.

What’s Next?

In the next chapter, Jethran arrives at the Uncrowned Fortress. He must face the leaders of the Gray Order. He faces the lawmakers, the Medic, and finally goes face to face with the Uncrowned King himself.

This chapter is a biting social commentary and a satirical look at modern leadership. It also gives Jethran the chance to present his powers and the lessons he has learned. It was a very fun chapter to write because some of the characters are my favorites, even if they are also the worst.

Join the Conversation

If anything I discussed in this chapter or this breakdown speaks to you or resonates with you, please consider joining Find Your Colors as a free or paid subscriber. And don't forget to look for Find Your Colors on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube Podcasts, and Over Cast. When you do, be sure to follow like subscribe and wait the podcast so that we can get into the algorithm on those sites.

Breakdown begins at the 13 minute mark

​Opening Note

I apologize for missing the Friday post. A sudden illness sidelined me, but I am back and feeling better. Happy Monday to everyone.

​Recap

Last week, we saw Jethran endure a non-consensual amputation in Chapter 5, "Color on Hand." He expected therapy. He woke in the woods missing a limb. This week, we follow his navigation of a sudden disability.

What's Next?

On Wednesday I will be sharing the text and break down from chapter 7 of blush born which is called Colorful Truth. It will be showing Jethran and Martier as they are on their way back to the city to The Fortress to see the king. It is a very empowering chapter in and of itself and it's actually one of my favorite chapters that I've written in the story so far.

So long!

And as always if you actually read this entire thing all the way to the end or if you listen to it all the way through then you are totally my hero and I want to thank you so much for giving me time out of your day and space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

In my previous post on monday, we discussed Chapter 4 of Blush Born titled “Coloring with Kittens.” We got to witness Jethran as he discovered uses for this new power that is growing inside him when he subdued the lioness. And I explained how that translates into my own journey of struggle and surviving with addiction and recovery that nearly cost me my life. In today's post we're going to be discussing chapter 5, where Jethran encounters a group of people who help him remove what society says is a flaw. Immediately following will be a breakdown and some discussion prompts.

Find Your Colors is a reader-supported podcast and publication. To receive new posts and episodes, please follow and subscribe. You can join the discussion on Spotify , Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Podcasts. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at findyourcolors.substack.com.

And as always if you've read this far or if you've listened along through the entire thing you are absolutely my hero so thank you so much for giving me time and your day and space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

I wrote a gritty, honest memoir about that life and that survival called Shards of Hope: A Tweaker Witch's Journey.

But sometimes, reality is too jagged to hold. Sometimes you have to melt the shards down and forge them into something else.

So I took the addiction, and I turned it into a song of power.

I took the trauma, and I turned it into a Monochrome Kingdom.

I took the survival, and I turned it into a fairy tale.

I translated my life into a dark fantasy allegory called The Shards of Color Trilogy.

Find Your Colors is the podcast where we peel back the curtain. I'm going to show you the true story behind the fantasy.

To go along with the content warning above, I have a personal disclaimer. With the previous chapters, I've given you the breakdown first and then in a separate email I provide the chapter. Today we're going to do things a little bit different. I'm just going to send it all together. I'll give you the chapter first and then I'll give you the breakdown immediately following.

People say that we are not allowed to discuss the topics I am going to bring up. "It is too heavy." "It is not something that we should write about." "These are the things that everyone wants to just forget." Is what I've been told.

People ask me if I am crazy when I say that I want to write about these things. My answer to them is simple. Yes, queen. I am. That is 90% of the point of the work that I am doing. Processing the crazy.

Personally, I find it to be utterly insane that we don't discuss these things. Keeping things inside and pretending that we're all okay is not okay.

I'm in this life to grow and expand. For me, holding things inside is stifling to my own personal growth. It's the only way that I can survive is to let it out.

What’s Next?

For Jethran, the wandering continues until he stumbles upon a village of people dedicated to removing their flaws. These people focus on fixing anything that they see as an inconvenience or as an offense in their conformist society. They offer Jethran help to remove his flaws, a choice that will ultimately change his life forever.

For us, we will explore the concept of Curative Violence. We are often taught that fixing ourselves is the ultimate goal, but on Wednesday, we examine the cost of slicing away our history just to fit in.

Join the Grotto

Find Your Colors is a reader and listener supported publication. If you are reading this and you feel seen, then you are in the right place. Please consider joining as either a free or paid subscriber.

If this post made you uncomfortable, that is the point. Growth is uncomfortable. The window is uncomfortable. The lion is uncomfortable. Let's be uncomfortable together.

For the next two days I'm still offering a 44% off for your first 12-month subscription. That makes monthly subscriptions be around $3.90 and yearly subscriptions are about $39.

Also, the Prism Tier offers signed hardback copies of all four books. Shards of Hope A Tweaker Witch's Journey, the entire Shards of Color Saga- Blush Born, A Faded Quest, and Echoes of Foreshadow. As well as immediate digital copies of all four books, with audiobooks (currently in production) included. And that's a $430 value for an almost $200 discount.

You also will receive acknowledgment in the acknowledgment sections in each of the books, if purchased before publication. As well as some other neat perks and gifts.

All that can be found by clicking the button below.

A Note from Liliana

Ironically, in a post about coloring with kittens, you may have heard an unavoidable guest in the background audio. This would be my cat, Liliana La Gata. She has been in ultimate protest mode today, as she usually is on any day that I pay too much attention to my phone and not enough to her. So she can be heard throughout the recording. I promise that wasn’t planned, but no matter how many times I tried to re-record it, she made her way in. It was just her way of being meta.

In my previous post I gave a full breakdown of Blush Born, Chapter 3 The Color of Pain. I explained how I took The narrative of my own personal life, and translated into this chapter of a dark fairy tale. This is the moment when he begins to discover the truth of his power and the reality of his existence.

Chapter 3

The Color of Pain

The night air was a shock of warmth against Jethran’s mallow-flushed skin. He ran, heedless of the branches that whipped at his face or the roots that tried to snare his ankles. He ran with the lung-searing terror of an animal sprung from a trap. Behind him, the oppressive silence of concrete, order, and judgment gave way to the living quiet of the woods. This was ancient and felt aware. Every rustle of slate-hued leaves was a BAP’s footstep; every hoot of a night bird was a signal of his pursuit.

He didn’t stop until his lungs became burning torches in his chest and his legs gave out from under him. Jethran collapsed at the base of a towering tree whose bark was an unnerving lilac. He fell onto a bed of damp moss, his cheek pressed against the lilac ground, gasping. The moldy flavor of the forest air coated his tongue, thick and cloying.

He lay there broken like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The vast silence of the forest pressed in on him, amplifying the frantic, tearing sound of his own breath. His mind was caught in a cycle of assault by the memories of the past two days.

He still felt the clinical disgust in the Medic’s eyes. He could hear the helpless sound of his mother's weeping. The inescapable efficiency of Martier’s hands remained, the way his bones nearly cracked as one hand pinned his arms and the other gripped his jaw. He could feel the graveled taste of the pill like a phantom grit on his tongue. He tasted the metallic shock of the water from the flask, as if it would cleanse his Flaw.

Martier and the Big Aught Medic had trespassed his body. They forced their way inside, and that violation had unlocked something.

Worse, far worse, was the memory of the aftermath. The concussive eruption of indigo light had exploded from his own body. He had done that. He was a weapon, a signal, a monster.

He could never forget how they stared in horror when his body released the exhale of cobalt. The moment when the flames turned cerulean only compounded the always present fear that the people had towards him. The terror on Martier's face as he saw the blue flowers scattered across the wallpaper was only half as heavy as his own.

He rolled over and looked at his hands in the faint moonlight filtering through the smoke-hued canopy against the unworldly hue of the trees. His palms, once a soft mallow, now held the pink rim at the outermost edge but inside was a sharp ring of undeniable indigo. Inside that stood a matching ring of deep cobalt.

He could feel it like a vibration under his skin. It was a cool pulse that was more than just color. It was a presence.

The pink had been a mark of shame; it was a secret to be hidden. But this was a broadcast. This was the color of his powerlessness and the brand of his violation. He scrubbed at his cheeks with the sleeve of his tunic. He had done this countless times in his life, wishing to scrub away the color and just be gray. The fabric scraped his skin as his breath caught in a sob. He scrubbed with a ferocity that scared him. No matter how hard he scrubbed, the color remained, impervious to his panic. Now it was a deeper stain on his spirit made visible.

He had run to protect his mother. That was the only clear thought in the screaming chaos of his mind. As far as he knew, she was safe, asleep in her room. She was unaware of the indigo cataclysm he had just released. But he knew the Aughts. He knew the heremen from the tavern would follow him. The obsession with tracing any disruption back to its source would lead them into the wilderness to find him.

He was grateful that Martier had seen him leave. The fear of what they might do to her if he had stayed was a physical sickness. He rolled onto his back as the world spun. He saw it in his mind: Martier dragging them both into the street and the BAPs surrounding them. They would call her a sympathizer, an accomplice, the mother of a monster.

The thought was a fresh spike of terror that jolted him to his feet. His flight was an attempt to draw the line of their inquiry away from his home and away from her. He had to become the sole focus of their hunt. He had to be the only target.

He pushed himself forward, his body screaming in protest, and stumbled deeper into the woods. He traveled east, driven by this singular hope.

For hours, he walked, lost in a fog of fear and self-loathing. The world was a blur of lilac-barked trees and gray stones. The glow of his skin felt like a mockery, a triumphant torch lighting his way through the monochrome it dared to disrupt.

He was the thing the world taught him to fear. He was the spectacle, the infection, the flaw made manifest.

As the first hint of dawn threatened to turn the gray sky a pale shade, he felt a Living Pulse. It was a rhythm that he felt deep in his bones. A vibration seemed to draw him off his aimless path. It thrummed in his teeth and in the soles of his feet.

He followed the feeling; his feet moved as if guided. His exhaustion was momentarily forgotten, replaced by a magnetic curiosity. It led him to the edge of a clearing.

The landscape here was different. It was a low hill that rose from the forest floor, bare of trees. Running across its crest was a jagged scar of dark gray rock, as if a giant had once dragged a claw across the ground. It was a wounded place. The ground seemed as if it had been burned. He neared the hill and the Silvarii tale his mother sang echoed in his mind.

Upon a once before, there was a great wound on a hill…

And yet, from the center of the rocky fissure, the pulse was strongest. A single spot of vibrancy emanated in the gloom. Jethran wondered what had happened here.

…a traveler came and saw not a wound, but a story…

Drawn by the rhythm, Jethran climbed the hill. The air grew still as the sounds of the forest faded behind him. His breath caught. He could clearly see a flower with petals the same defiant indigo that he had released in his apartment. Slowly, it began raining.

…a color so beautiful it made the sky weep…

The flower grew directly from a crack in the stone. Its luminescence seemed to push back against the gray air. He reached out a trembling hand, just to feel the warmth coming from its petals. He was fearful of what might occur if his hand touched this budding flower.

A voice that sounded like the end of a thousand screams spoke from behind him.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it? The life that still grows despite the deepest wound.”

Jethran spun around.

Standing there was a figure that seemed woven from his own spirit wound. Their form wavered like smoke and their skin was marked with gleaming lines of violet light that resembled the scar in the rock they stood upon.

“Crezwil,” he breathed. “You are Crezwil. But how do I–”

“You carry a fresh wound,” Crezwil's voice pulsed with a low rhythm.

They looked at Jethran, their eyes holding a compassionate sorrow that was almost unbearable. They weren’t looking at his face, but specifically at the indigo ring that emanated from it.

"It sings a painful song," they said. "It's a Living Pulse. We can feel it even here."

“I want it gone,” Jethran rasped, the words surprising him with their venom. “It’s a sickness. Proof of … of what they did. It’s ugly.”

“Is it?” the living being asked gently. They gestured a hand at their own form, made of pulsating light.

“The world has taught you that a scar is a thing of shame. That a wound is a sign of weakness. They taught you to cover it, to hide it, to wish it away. This is the great lie of the Gray. The scar left on this world is deeper than the scar on this hill. The Gray itself is a scar. It was left behind when the world refused to die. A scar is a beginning. It is the place where the body, or the spirit, refused to die. It is a story written in the flesh and spoken on to the spirit.”

“But it’s a story of pain,” Jethran insisted, his voice raw. “Why would anyone want to read it?”

“Because it is also a story of survival,” the entity replied, their eyes seeming to see right through him. “You look at the world and think it is in its final form. The world survived and still lives, despite the Gray. You look at your skin and you see the memory of a violation. I look at it and I see a world that has only begun to live. I see a boy who endured and erupted with a light Evenhere had forgotten… like a spectra.”

“But this light,” the being continued, “is only the first note of your song. It is incomplete. You must seek out the other Songs, Jethran. Find them, listen to them, and you will understand the truth of your own song.”

“Songs?” Jethran’s head snapped up. “What are you talking about? The lullabies my mother sang? Those are just lullabies. They aren't real. They don't exist. No one believes in that.”

“The reality of our existence is not dependent on the belief of others,” they said. “We exist no matter what Aught be felt.”

“You have been taught that the stories are a lie,” they continued. “But lullabies hold deep and powerful Magic, ling. They are the truths. The source of your strength, the path to understanding your power, will be found within the Seven Songs. They are your way of learning to love the one who wears the scar.”

Jethran stared at them, his mind reeling. He was supposed to seek out Silvarii tales. The idea was so impossible. It felt like an attack. This being was telling him to embrace the thing that was destroying him.

A knowing smile touched the being’s lips. Their form wavered, the lines of light upon them shining brighter. They gestured to the flower.

“That bloom honors the scar on the hill; it does not hide from it. It makes the wound its foundation. The color you wear is the story of your survival. Do not try to erase the story. Learn to love the one who lived through it.”

Love it, he thought. Love this humiliation? Love what forced me from my home? Love the flaw?

“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re a myth. I’m just… Jethran. The Flaw. They’ll hunt me for this. They’ll hurt her. I can’t love this. I just want it to go away!”

He turned and fled, scrambling down the side of the hill, away from the budding flower and the being with its unbearable wisdom. He ran from the hard truth, seeking an easier silence.

His flight led him into a part of the forest where the trees grew thicker, their branches knitting together to block out the pale dawn. He felt the air grow warm and heavy. A cobalt mist swirled around his ankles, muffling the sound of his frantic footsteps. The world became indistinct. The edges of his panic dulled.

As they burned, the self-hating thoughts in his head grew quiet, replaced by a welcome emptiness. The mist dimmed the indigo light from his skin. It was absorbed by the encroaching cobalt cloud.

This felt better. It felt like relief.

He stood in the dream from the night before, a place made of memory and mist. His skin seemed pale and rough. His breath became shallow.

The mist around Jethran swirled, and a voice murmured from it, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was a voice like exhaled breath, like a secret you tell only to yourself.

“That pain is too much to carry,” it sighed. “The wound is too fresh. The Scar's truth is too hard for now. Let it go. You don’t have to feel it all right now. Let me hold it for you. Just … breathe.”

Jethran’s breath hitched. He knew who this was.

“You’re the one from the vision,” he gasped. “Muralis. The world doesn't believe you're real. They think you’re only a story.”

“Many are in denial,” the voice murmured. “Their belief is of no consequence to my truth. I exist no matter what Aught be done.”

“Are you one of the Seven Songs?” Jethran asked. “The ones I'm supposed to find.”

“We both are,” Muralis sighed.

He assumed that meant Crezwil and itself. Jethran thought of the world he’d left behind, a world that had erased these beings. The mist seemed to be amused, and the voice grew a little stronger, tinged with ancient mockery.

“Fear is a wild beast,” the voice softened again, becoming seductive. “I will help you cage it. The pain is a fire. I will give you rain. You need to be strong to face what comes next. Evenhere is facing a storm. You will need many things to weather the storm. I can only offer a simple cover from its rain. The others will provide the rest.”

It was right. He needed focus. He needed control. Crezwil asked him to love his pain. Muralis offered to take it away. He made a choice. Not forever, he told himself, just for now. A tool for survival.

“Okay,” he mumbled to the mist.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the warm cobalt vapor. It tasted of night-blooming flowers and forgotten memories. As Jethran inhaled, he felt the Living Pulse within him slow, dulled by the mist into a wonderful numbness.

He could feel his internal rhythm changing, becoming quiet. The burning shame of the indigo on his skin eased to an observable fact. He could think again. He could see the path forward.

He felt a surge of gratitude, an aching relief that made his knees weak. But as the initial wave of relief passed, he felt a dangerous pull. He felt a desire to just keep breathing, to let the blue wash away everything. He wanted to disappear into the calm. He felt the seductive power of the gift, the temptation to let it control him completely.

The memory of the tavern heremen pointing. The memory of Martier's hand on his jaw. The memory of his mother's defeated shoulders. It all came rushing back, the pain sharp and sudden. He gasped, tears springing to his eyes.

No... don't want to feel that.

He took another, deeper breath of the mist. The images blurred, lost their sharp edges, and dissolved. The pain vanished, replaced by the warm emptiness.

“You must not stay long within the mist,” the voice warned. “As with any escape, you must eventually return to yourself.”

But the memory of Martier’s hands, of his will being erased, was still a fresh wound. He was in control now, not Martier. This warm numbness felt like power. It was his choice.

The pulling desire to just... let go... was stronger than his fear. He invited it in. In that moment of surrender, he ignored the voice as he took another deep breath, letting the peace wash everything away.

The blue mist he had inhaled glowed from within his chest with a soft luminescence.

The peace he found was interrupted by the sounds of the BAPs’ horsemen. Martier had found him. He put his hands out just as his guardian stepped forward. A light erupted from Jethran; a surge of cobalt pulsed outward, silencing the woods. It was a wave of sensory deprivation.

Martier and the stiff-robed Big Aught Police recoiled, hands flying to their faces, their eyes overwhelmed by the sudden color. They had been struck deaf, suddenly unable to hear even their own voices. They shouted, but no sound came. They looked at each other, their faces masks of panic, their authority instantly shattered by a silence they couldn't control.

In that single, precious moment of confusion, Jethran acted.

He spun around and bolted, plunging deeper into the cobalt forest. The numbness was still with him, making the run feel strangely detached. He could hear Martier’s shout behind him, but it was already distant, swallowed by the cloud.

He ran until the shouts faded completely, until his legs were numb and his lungs burned with the effort, not stopping until he was sure he had left them far behind.

He looked at his hands and wondered how he made the BAPs go deaf. He was now even more scared than he had been before.

What am I?

After the Songs

So now that he has met two of the Seven Songs, he's been given his mission, his goal, and a directive. He still doesn't believe it even though he's seen it right in front of him.

Now he has to continue forward with this confusing information that he's supposed to seek out the Silvarii Tales. And somehow he has power and magic that is tied to the lullabies. He's been given direct information but he's so overcome with exhaustion and post-traumatic stress that he can't relate the information in his mind to anything factual.

In the next chapter, Jethran gets a break and makes an unexpected friend. We'll see him continue to use the Mist of Muralis and learn how to use one of his other powers.

Let's Discuss

* How do you handle the concept of loving your scars?

* Can you relate to the way Jethran refuses to accept it even when the truth is scaring him right in the face?

* Have you ever just known that your way of coping was wrong but you knew it was the only way you could get through?

Feel free to answer and share your thoughts in the comments.

What's Next?

Now that I have completed my writing for this week, and now that new subscribers have joined, I will begin next week with a pinpointed schedule of a chapter breakdown on Mondays, the chapter on Wednesdays, and a character or concept deep dive on Fridays.

Don't Miss Out

Make sure that you catch all new content as soon as it goes up by clicking that subscribe button below. Consider joining as a free or paid subscriber.

If you're listening to this on Spotify, please click follow on the show page and drop a rating so that I can get on the Spotify algorithm wave.

And if you read this or you listened and you made it to the end you are totally my hero. So thank you so much for allowing me time out of your day and space in your brain to share my story and to introduce Jethran to the world.

The Color of Pain

This breakdown explores how Chapter 3 of Blush Born serves as the bridge between the visceral trauma of my memoir, Shards of Hope, and the magical architecture of the fantasy found in The Shards of Color Saga.

Let's Discuss

In the gray world, labels are used to maintain order and compliance. When Jethran leaves that world, he is left with a crisis of identity.

Have you ever had a moment where you realized you were not the labels or diagnoses the world gave you? How did you begin to answer the question of who you are once those false names were stripped away?

What's Next?

Later today, I will post the text of Chapter 3 – The Color of Pain for you to read or listen to so you can experience the fully realized fantasy of this story.

Next week -

On Monday, I will post the breakdown of Chapter 4 Coloring with Kittens which gives Jethran a break from the trauma whole allowing him to experience another breakthrough in his power.

On Wednesday, I will post the full text of Chapter 4

On Friday, I will post an in-depth look into the Gray Order and how it maintains control over the populace.

Birthday Deal

In celebration of my 44th birthday coming up, I'm offering a 44% off for your first year subscription for monthly and yearly subscriptions. So that makes monthly subscriptions be around $3.90 and yearly subscriptions are $39. This deal lasts between now and February 18th.

Don't Miss New Content

Find Your Colors is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Currently everything that I'm putting here on substack is free. When we reach Chapter 10 the paid content will begin. So if you like what you're hearing and find the story to be something that you relate to, please click that subscribe button so that you can get all the new content when it comes out. You can join as a free subscriber or coming soon there will be extra content for paid subscribers.

If you know someone that you think might benefit from being a part of this journey with me, please feel free to share Find Your Colors on your socials.

Find Your Colors is now available on Spotify for free! I'm just so glad to be back on podcasting again. If you have time, click the link below and go ahead and just give the show a quick follow because that immediately puts me in the stratosphere of being found on Spotify. Without follows it reaches no one. And if you can take a moment to rate the podcast because that gets me into the algorithm. And as always you can share the podcast with your friends.

The Seven Songs of Emotional Intelligence

Before I move into the next chapters, I want to introduce the characters who serve as the spine of this story. For Jethran, the story could not happen without them. Likewise, for me, the story would not be possible without the people upon whom these characters are based.

Finding the Pulse

For some of these lessons, Jethran's Journey takes 20 years to complete. While some of them he is able to apply to his life immediately. Regardless of when he does it, by embracing these songs, he stops being the flaw and becomes a connection between the ancient past and vibrant future.

Thank You

I want to say thank you to the new subscribers have who have joined in the last few days. It's only been four days and I have eight subscribers and I think that's really cool. Some of you I know, and I'm so grateful for your support. Some of you are actually the inspirations for the characters that I've written about, such as Midgelle who is mentioned above as well as Winley Knowles and even Fable, who I will be going in depth on later. Some of you I've only just met. I'm sincerely enjoying reading all of the things you guys are writing and I'm loving this community.

As always, you can listen to Find Your Colors by Jeff B White on Spotify or find me on substack at findyourcolors.substack.com

Find Your Colors is a reader-supported publication. If the humanity behind Jethran’s journey speaks to your own story of survival, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I'm currently offering 44% off for your first year subscription on yearly and monthly subscriptions between now and February 18th. A monthly subscription is around $3.90 and a yearly subscription is only $39

Before You Read

In the previous post we looked at the history and linguistics that built this world. You've seen the how and why behind this chapter. Moving from the reality of what I survived into the fiction of Jethran's world is a delicate process.

As you read I invite you to step into the gray with Jethran. Witness the moment when colors and emotions stop being conceptual and become undeniable, physical reclamations. This is where the world of Evenhere starts to crack and where the light finally starts to bleed through.

Thank you for being here, for bearing witness to Jethran's rise, and for walking this path with me.

What's Next?

In the next chapter, Jethran has an encounter in the wilderness that changes his understanding of everything he has ever known. In my next piece, I will be translating how I took the emotional lessons I had to learn as I recovered from trauma and dealt with addiction then reforged those lessons into god-like archetypes. This one creative endeavor led me to creating an entire cosmology of beings that comprise the cultural beliefs of the different people who live in the world of Evenhere.

Support the Journey

Jethran is now in the darkness of the forest, and the gray world he left behind is already staining with the colors he could no longer hold back. If his story or the reality of survival is something that you can relate to, please consider supporting this work. I am building this community from the ground up and I want to make it as accessible as possible for those who find a piece of themselves in these pages.

As a part of that effort, to celebrate my birthday, I'm offering 44% off for 12 months for new subscribers from now until February 18th. So monthly subscriptions are $3.08 and yearly subscriptions are $30.80.

Find Your Colors is now a podcast available on Spotify. Just look for the Find Your Colors Podcast on Spotify and listen to new episodes there for free.

This is the scariest thing I have ever done. I can't recall a time when I've felt more exposed. So if you're reading or listening, thank you.

I wrote this chapter for the boy who was inspected in the shadows and finally rose to find the light. The vibrancy in my blood was a fire they could not put out. It might have changed shades, but it is still my light.

What's Up Next

Tomorrow I will post the full text of chapter two for you to listen to and read. I will also be posting a deeper look into the Gray and why the people of Evenhere continue to accept the world they live in.

A Birthday Gift

While I'm working to build this community, I'm offering 44% off for new subscribers from now until February 18th. So monthly subscriptions are $3.08 and yearly subscriptions are $30.80

If Jethran’s journey through the gray resonates with your own survival, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Find Your Colors is now a podcast available on Spotify. Just look for the Find Your Colors Podcast on Spotify and listen to new episodes there for free.

Find Your Colors is a reader-supported publication.

Tammy Green Mitchell is the author of Living Without Skin Everything I Did Not Know About Fierce Vulnerability, an amazing book about her life that can be found on Amazon. You can find Tammy here on Substack, where she is doing some amazing work helping people to find their proper place in the world.

Find Your Colors Podcast

Because I truly want to reach as many people as I can with the story that I'm sharing, I have chosen to go ahead and turn this substack into a podcast which is now on Spotify. I previously had a moderately successful podcast on a different topic and I've always missed it and wanted to get back to it. Since I'm already making audio for each post anyway it basically is a podcast. So now even more people can meet and fall in love with Fable and Jethran just like I have.

A Birthday Gift from Me to You

Between now and February 18th, in celebration of my birthday, I'm offering a 44% off discount for your first 12 months subscription. Which means that a monthly subscription is $3.08 and a yearly subscription is $30.80

Substack automatically excludes Prism Tier memberships from this discount otherwise they would be there, too.

Find Your Colors is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is the full text of Blush Born chapter 1 Flawed Color

This is where I do a breakdown sharing the blueprints of how I created chapters 1 and 2 of Blush Born translating it from my real life experience into a dark fairy tale.

This is my first real post and my first time sharing anything about this story in a non-writer's room. So I would really like your feedback. Just let me know in the comments how you vibed with this. And thank you so much for your support.

My life has been a gauntlet of overwhelming odds. To survive, I had to shatter so many times, leaving behind nothing but shards of myself. To thrive, I had to find the way to put myself back together and rebuild one shard at a time. Who I am now barely resembles who I was, but is so much more beautiful.

Using different concepts of trauma healing and recovery work mixed with a decade of spiritual study, I found my way. I don't claim to be fully healed and I don't know that I will ever be. What I am claiming is that I'm healed enough to talk about it and to share what got me here. As I continue the process of healing, I want to help others along the way.

When I decided that I wanted to share my story, it required me to create two completely different worlds to put it down into words. I have spent the last few years deconstructing my own mind. I wrote a gritty and honest memoir to diagnose the damage and I wrote a dark and whimsical fantasy epic to engineer the cure. All together this equaled four books, with more on the way.

Shards of Hope is the autopsy of a survival instinct. It is the granular reality of harm reduction in New York City and the mechanics of staying alive when your brain is trying to kill you.

Shards of Color is the reconstruction. It is a trilogy about a world where the Flaw is the source of magic and emotion is physics. It is where we learn that the only way to defeat the darkness surrounding us is to be the brightest source of color we can be.

​For years, I kept them separate because I thought the fantasy was just an escape from the reality. I thought Shards of Hope was the ugly truth and Shards of Color was the pretty lie. I thought that they both were separate stories.

​I was wrong. They are both the truth. They are all parts of the same series.

What to Expect

​I am launching Find Your Colors because I realized that the fantasy isn’t an escape. It is a blueprint.

​This is not a space for the “Love and Light” crowd. If you are looking for spiritual bypassing or toxic positivity then you are in the wrong place, but don't leave yet because what I am offering is more than that.

This is a Grotto of Trust, meant as a sanctuary for the resilient. That trust has to work both ways. You have to trust me that I'm embarking on this to synthesize community and growth. And I have to trust you because I'm going to be sharing some of the worst things that I've ever survived and the ways in which I have done that. It is for the people who were told they were “too much” or “too wrong” or “too broken.” It is for the outcasts, the hurt, and the healing. For those who follow the witches’ way and those still searching for which way.

​As I prepare to launch this series later this year, I want to build a community around it. We will be dissecting the psychological themes of the Shards of Color Saga once a week. I will be posting each chapter in order, and we will be diving into how they have been translated from my own personal experience, and how they can be related to yours. We will examine each book in the series Blush Born, A Faded Quest, and Echoes of Foreshadow.

We will look at the cast of 26 characters and how they translate into real life. Such as Muralis, an ancient being who provides a magic mist to help silence pain to allow focus for dealing with it. Through this, we will be exploring the concept of Harm Reduction. We will look at the Rainbow King who teaches us to fully integrate ourselves with the courage to feel the full spectrum of human emotion. For this we will be exploring the truth behind the concept that every single thing that we need to progress, to grow, to heal, is directly inside of us once we tap into the highest version of ourselves.

We will explore Jethran Frye and his companion Fable. Diving into the powerful queer romance that blooms.

And later we'll get to the sequels that end up covering a multi-generational story that spans the cosmos.

What You Get

Here's a list of everything that you're going to be seeing and receiving from this space. I've included the full experience for each tier. So find the best option that works for you. Whatever you choose I'm grateful for you allowing me time out of your day and space in your brain.

1. Free Plan

* Weekly essays bridging the magic of BlushBorn with the reality of recovery.

* Essays discussing first 10 chapters of the Shards of Color Saga and Shards of Hope.

* Audio narrations of the first 10 essays, read by the author.

* News on the publishing journey.

2. Monthly Plan ($7/Monthly or $70/Yearly)

* Early access to the Shards of Color Saga released chapter-by-chapter, week-by-week.

* Audio narrations of every chapter and/or essay discussed each week, read by the author.

* Full access to the comments section and community discussions.

* Exclusive prompts and questions to help facilitate a deeper dive at the end of every essay.

3. The Prism Tier ($250/Yearly)

For the Collectors.

You get the entire physical and digital library. That is over $430 worth of signed books and audio delivered to your door at a near $200 discount from what you would pay otherwise.

​Benefits:

* ​Signed Hardback editions of all four books (Shards of Hope, BlushBorn, A Faded Quest, Echoes of Foreshadow) shipped directly to you.

* ​Personally inscribed by the author.

* Immediate digital access to all eBooks (PDF/ePub) and Audiobooks.

* ​Quarterly Zoom calls, your name on the Wall, and full community access.

* Your name included in the acknowledgment sections of all four books.

Now let's get some things straight…

​I am not a guru. I am not a doctor. I'm not giving you medical advice nor am I diagnosing or treating any illnesses or ailments. However, I have been studying psychology for 34 years. From the perspective of the person on the couch. I am a mirror. I'm here to help you look inside without pretext or agenda. I am here to show you that you are not broken. You are wounded, and in those things there is a world of difference.

​The monochrome world is dying and the boxes that they put us in can no longer contain us. It is time to color outside the lines and stain everything beautifully. So I hope you'll join me on this crazy thing I'm about to do.

Colorfully yours,

​Jeff B. White

Author of Shards of Hope & Shards of Color Saga

Thanks for reading Find Your Colors by Jeff B. White! If you like what you see and you want more, Subscribe for free to receive new posts. Upgrade your membership for really cool gifts as a thank you for supporting my work.