J.K. Petrie
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jkpetrie.bsky.social
J.K. Petrie
@jkpetrie.bsky.social
42 followers 91 following 45 posts
they/them. wrote the DAISY BELL series. lit-fic liker and attempter. read GIVE ME YOUR ANSWER (finally out!!)
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jkpetrie.bsky.social
as far as i’m concerned, all magica riot art is pride art.
June 2, 2025 at 10:02 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
13/13
Because someday– maybe someday soon– you will meet a kid with wide eyes and an awkward gait. They will be clutching the same library book you got your old username from. You will remind them to return it, even if your own copy ended up in a yard sale somewhere. You might catch them drawing wolves or cats or dragons or girls with backwards hands and backwards cigarettes. You’ll tell them, “Cool drawings. Keep at it.” You’ll mean it and you’ll feel sick for it. But when you turn and walk away, your heart will be pounding out of your chest. That’s only natural when you’ve seen a ghost. And just for a second, you will get to feel fourteen again.
June 2, 2025 at 9:59 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
12/13
10. Let it all go. That website brought out the worst in you. You owe the most important parts of your being to it. It’s where you learned that you could kill yourself if you wanted. It’s where you learned to cut and burn and make yourself puke. And it kept you alive. As much as you owe to it, you are older now. You have moved on, but your favorite original character is still stuck on the white void of a sketchbook page. She is not made to heal. You love her, but you have to grow the fuck up. It is sink or swim. This is where you forget. This is where you acknowledge that it all meant something to you, but you cannot remember what. The media you consume doesn’t choke you anymore, the smell of a school library means nothing, DeviantArt’s user base is dead, and summer is just another season. Instead of following your dreams of becoming an animator with a CalArts degree, you went with something more practical. Maybe you’re a student teacher. Or a bus driver. Maybe you took a camp counseling gig. Make you work at the Boys and Girls club. Regardless, the most important thing is to remember what it did to you, even if you can’t remember how it all felt.
June 2, 2025 at 9:58 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
11/13
9. Search yourself. By now you’ve probably forgotten your password. You can only get so good at memorizing. This is why you must dig deep when you search your username. You should do this when you are at your lowest. It should be when you’re reminded what it feels like to be in middle school. Find the MAP part you posted to YouTube. Find half of an art trade you did with a friend. You won’t find your own half. That was posted on a banned account. Find the comments you left on your favorite animators’ videos. i wish i could animate like you. what program do u use? Use the Wayback Machine. Most of the links on your old profiles’ archives are broken. You can see your journal titles, though. Wince at how obvious your lies were. Save all the old art you can scavenge– most of the images will only exist through low-res thumbnails, and it will make them look even more far-away. Keep them all in a folder you never open.
June 2, 2025 at 9:58 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
10/13
8. Outlive it. When you wrote “14 forever” in your signature, you meant it. Yet you’re still here. This is when you stop logging in. It isn’t all at once, though you’d tried that so many times before. What was once addiction becomes a chore. School gets in the way. Not just academically. You’re tired of the bullying, so your priorities change. You ask your mom for Baby Lips and Uggs and whatever else you overhear classmates chatting about. When your boobs grow in, your classmates treat you differently. You’re no longer just weird. Now you’re a weird slut. You get better at masking over time, and eventually, you graduate to quiet slut. By then, your DeviantArt account is very far away. You don’t draw her anymore. But sometimes when you’re supposed to be asleep, you think about her, winged and beautiful and far away. She is the abyss that stares back at you. And she remembers you. Even if nobody else does. Remember her.
June 2, 2025 at 9:57 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
9/13
7. Restart. Loop back to step one until you are ready to proceed to steps eight through ten. If you ever are.
June 2, 2025 at 9:56 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
8/13
6. Disappear. Let’s say someone made a warning post about you, or noticed your cancer story doesn’t line up, or made your roleplays with them public, or your mom caught you crying and told you to grow the fuck up. Log out. Change your icon to black. Post “i’m really doing it. bye forever.” Check it. Nothing. Check it. Nothing. Check it. Still nothing. Try not to really do it.
June 2, 2025 at 9:56 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
7/13
5. Be seen. Steal someone’s character. Trace someone’s art. Post a journal that says you’re leaving DeviantArt, then say it was just a prank. Message someone and tell them you want to die, then wait for them to beg you not to. Cut yourself and post pictures. When your parents aren’t home, pour a handful of ibuprofen on your bathroom counter, take a black-and-white picture, and post it. Post a suicide note. Get banned. Make another account. Add more X’s to your new username. Say your little sister did it. Or your cousin. Or your friend. Pretend to be your own friend on an alt account. Pretend to be your own girlfriend on an alt account. That way, when you finally pretend to kill yourself for real, you can still be somebody else. You can still see someone grieve for you. And if you do kill yourself for real, none of it will matter.
June 2, 2025 at 9:55 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
6/13
4. Stay hidden. You’ve learned your lesson before. Always keep one earbud out. Keep CoolMathGames bookmarked. It makes it easier to exit the page. Keep your head underneath the covers so you feel safer. Learn to differentiate what your family members’ footsteps sound like. Get good at memorizing. Clear out your search history every single night, don’t forget it. But not all of it. That’s suspicious. Just delete your searches for how to die painlessly. And am I gay. And the weird art references. And the porn. And the fanfiction. And anything they might not really get, because that makes them suspicious, too. And, of course, every time you clicked on your own profile. Blast your music so loud you can’t hear your own thoughts, but only when your parents aren’t home. Don’t cry too loud at night. The pillow doesn’t muffle well and your parents’ room is right next door. When you all moved there, they insisted that you should take the room next to theirs. Keep your diary under the mattress. And the art with the nooses. Don’t draw in class unless there’s a substitute. If you draw on your worksheet, erase it well before you turn it in.
June 2, 2025 at 9:55 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
5/13
3. Create your first character. She’s older than you, so she doesn’t have a mom that keeps her from dying her hair purple. She smokes backwards cigarettes with backwards hands. Or paws. Trench coats look cool on her. Give her the scars you don’t have yet. Give her wings like the ones you wish would burst through your back while you’re running in gym class, that way you can fly far away and never come back. Obsess over her. Draw her bleeding. Draw her chained. Draw her crying black tears. Draw her with missing limbs or missing eyes. Draw her naked and maniacal and covered in blood. Post it under a content filter you’re too young to use. Draw her kissing girls. Draw her kissing your friend’s character even if they don’t want you to.
June 2, 2025 at 9:54 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
4/13
2. Shape your backstory. Yours isn’t good enough as is. Getting grounded from showering for two weeks is just gross and weird. You can say your mom beat you, but leave out how it was because she caught you touching yourself. Rewrite all of it. Say your dad’s in jail. Say you have a heart condition. Say your mom makes you eat dog food. Say your brother overdosed and killed himself on your birthday. Even if you don’t have a brother. Especially if you don’t have a brother. Say you have cancer and only a year left to live. Say you cut yourself, say you’re suicidal, say you’re psychotic, then make it real.
June 2, 2025 at 9:53 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
3/13
1. Pick a username. Don’t pick anything like your real name. You never liked it because it is what they call you when they’re yelling. And because it is always said as if it is hideous. Your mom says it first-middle-last, your teachers get it wrong, and your classmates say it like a punchline. Pick something you’ve never heard spoken aloud in your house (and hopefully never will.) It has to hurt when you whisper it. You could pick something from your library book about wolves (or cats or dragons.) You never returned it before you moved out of state, so everything inside it is all yours. All the cool names like xXLunaWolfXx are already taken, so you can either add more X’s or just pick something else. Something with the word tears, or raven, or blood, or midnight, or twisted. Change it as many times as you need. It’s camouflage.
June 2, 2025 at 9:53 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
2/13
Content warnings: abuse, manipulation, bullying, suicide, self harm. Disclaimer: This is not based on a single real person. It is drawn from me and my friends’ childhood experiences, people I knew, etc. Nonetheless, it is fiction. Reach out to your local chronically online middle schooler today. It’s hard.
June 2, 2025 at 9:52 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
i wrote a story last night about a specific corner of deviantart a lot of my peers and i were on in middle school. here it is as a thread.

HOW TO MAKE A DEVIANTART ACCOUNT

a story told through tutorial

by jk petrie
An image of a DeviantArt deviation of a black wolf with purple and red markings. The title, “HOW TO MAKE A DEVIANTART ACCOUNT: a story told through tutorial by JK Petrie”, is overlaid.
June 2, 2025 at 9:50 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
hey wassup it’s me 3 months later! the “secret fourth thing” was that i wasn’t harnessing the power of positivity, believing in myself, and writing literally whatever i want 💖
May 28, 2025 at 1:54 AM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
my honest super true real and authentic reaction to being accepted into my first litmag (!!!!)
May 20, 2025 at 8:13 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
i’m so excited to read magica riot. the long awaited second coming
an image of madoka from madoka magica with the caption “yuri jesus” in impact font
March 9, 2025 at 11:46 PM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
uhhhh art? i impulsively wrote “comfort in the false” on the back so thats what its called i suppose

#webkinz #littlestpetshop #art #collage
February 28, 2025 at 4:26 AM
jkpetrie.bsky.social
i loveee making my meow meows absolutely sick and gross. i 🩵 writing lesbians suffering from paranoia *kicks my legs in the air*
January 24, 2025 at 7:43 PM