Taylor Made - Chapter 6
Added 2025-06-29 08:05:13 +0000 UTCA reluctant shopping trip for makeup and dorm supplies forces Taylor to invest in his feminine disguise as the line between performance and reality begins to blur.
Another long chapter, but I'm starting to think Taylor just can't help himself when it comes to overthinking every single moment of his life. Plus, Abigail is quickly becoming the chaos-loving best friend we all need... Hope you have as much fun reading as I did writing! 😊
Comments
Emory, since you have told us you went to college in Boston, is it possible this shopping cart adventure may have taken place IRL in some other time on another Boston college campus??? Maybe MassArt??? 🤔 😉
Diana O'Neil
2025-07-25 01:01:04 +0000 UTCAnother great chapter.....but I now have an urge to buy twinkle fairy lights hehe x
stacy C
2025-07-13 22:31:48 +0000 UTCOMG!! next chapter today!🤩 Can't wait any longer🥵
Ryan
2025-07-11 15:42:15 +0000 UTCHappy holidays to you too! Taylor built his identity entirely out of defensive armor. He thinks the disguise is just another layer of that armor, a better way to hide. But it’s now giving him permission to feel things (joy, confidence, connection) that his old self was too busy surviving to allow. The experiment is fundamentally changing the experimenter! You're right about the fox! lol 🦊
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 06:19:35 +0000 UTCHah! You absolutely got me on the Dunes. Although I can just picture Taylor being the kind of person who would argue that a freshwater lake doesn't technically count as "the beach," probably with some deeply nerdy explanation about salinity. 😉 And yeah! He just washes his face with bar soap! It’s another piece of male obliviousness he’s carried with him.... and he has no idea how lucky he might be!
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 06:17:29 +0000 UTCThank you, Gemma! Abigail operates on a totally different set of principles than Taylor. He’s all logic and empirical data, while she runs on pure intuition and social physics, a science he’s never been able to grasp. I definitely had friends who were my “Abigail” when I was first finding my way, people who just pulled me into the world without asking permission. It’s both terrifying and essential. Introducing Maya and Will was a way to explore what happens when Taylor goes from being an object of ridicule to an object of desire. It’s equally disorienting for him because he believes the attraction is directed at a construct, not him. I think about him coming out to Abigail all the time. She would be so supportive, but her brand of support would be to immediately try and find a label for him, and that's a box he is nowhere near ready for....
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 06:12:09 +0000 UTCThank you, Wes! And you're right about the Indiana beaches, haha. I had to look it up on a map myself. A little sliver of that great lake! I think for Taylor, "beach" just means the ocean, a symbol of the sunny, easy world his sister Wendy lives in. His own world has been so small for so long (just Bloomington and the four walls of his high school) that his internal map is pretty limited. And that small-world view is why I love writing him with Abigail. She’s a force of nature just bulldozing his walls, demanding that he participate in his own life, which is something no one has ever done... except maybe his mom, but she can only do so much. Speaking of... that thought about his mom seeing the video is adorable. She’d be so happy to see him genuinely joyful...
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 06:09:27 +0000 UTCThank you, Diana! This chapter was fun to write, and important for Taylor. It’s in these painfully normal, public spaces where the mask either sets or cracks. It’s where Taylor’s theoretical understanding of his situation crashes into the messy, practical application of it all. And Taylor is trying to map this scary new social universe with the only tools he has. Meanwhile, Abigail is the uncontrolled variable that keeps breaking his equations... which is what he needs! Also... a lot of my own early-transition terror is baked into those moments of hyper-awareness in the cosmetics aisle lol
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 05:57:45 +0000 UTCThank you, Jade! Their dynamic is one of my favorite things to write. Abigail is a force of nature AND she’s a catalyst. Taylor has spent his whole adolescence treating his body like a problem to be solved or an enemy to be hidden. Abigail just completely refuses to accept that premise. She looks at Taylor and sees potential and power, not a pathology. She is forcing Taylor to stop being an observer in his own life and to actually live inside his skin. 😊
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 05:53:32 +0000 UTCThank you so much, Samantha! I'm really glad you're enjoying their dynamic (me too!) and the art. Abigail is this force of pure, chaotic good. Not only is she pulling Taylor toward parties and makeup, she's also pulling him into the present moment, into his own life, which is something he's been actively avoiding for years. And yeah, Abigail might definitely interpret things that way if she saw Taylor's body. The ultimate irony for Taylor is that his 'disguise' might lead a compassionate person to a conclusion that is both completely understandable and entirely wrong. Oops! 😉
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 05:51:08 +0000 UTC💕 💕 💕 Thank you, Alyson!
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 05:48:28 +0000 UTCThank you, Crystal! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. That shopping cart scene was so fun to write. Taylor's life up to this point has been governed by a very strict, self-imposed set of physical laws: be small, create no friction, attract no attention. It's his survival code. Meanwhile, Abigail is this wonderful, chaotic force who just doesn't operate by his rules. She's like a different kind of physics altogether. She offers him a world where his fear doesn't have to be the only thing that's real. 😊
Emory Ahlberg
2025-07-07 05:48:10 +0000 UTC"because Indiana is, you know, landlocked." *Distant chanting of "Dunes! Dunes! Dunes!" rumbles across the horizon* God damn though Taylor is lucky. Soap? Seems the curse of his chest came with a counterweight for his skin
Amber Caledonia
2025-07-01 12:44:41 +0000 UTCDearest muse Emory, the line doesn't just seem blurred...it seems to be dissolving very fast...unless I'm missing something big here. Happy Canada Day and also Happy 4th of July to you and yours. And I see the continuation of the fox from the "Vixen Lipstick" with the anthropomorphic fox from Second Dawn's videos.
Alex From the Tri-Cities
2025-06-30 18:17:35 +0000 UTCGreat dialogue with such a depth of knowledge and information make up- everyone needs an Abigail to show them the way. Interesting introduction of the very cute Mayo in this episode and Will in the last. It keeps us all guessing which option Taylor will eventually pursue romantically? I do hope she opens up to Abigail who I believe would be very understanding and may help her/ him open up, chill out and embrace who she is becoming.
Gemma
2025-06-30 05:56:28 +0000 UTCAnother great chapter. The prose and illustrations are among your best. I really enjoy the Abigail/Taylor dynamic. And I really hope mom sees the video of her child having fun. One correction, as a Midwestern, that I have to point out. Indiana does have beaches. It has shoreline along Lake Michigan along it's northwest corner, the Ohio River to its south, and numerous lakes and rivers in between.
Wes Adams
2025-06-30 01:37:01 +0000 UTCEmory, absolutely incredible! This may be the best episode yet and it revolved solely around a trip to Target! But the story, the dialog, the emotions, the art work, it is all Incredible and all work and support each other beautifully. And while I do believe it is the best episode yet, I suspect there are many more episodes ahead to which I will wind up saying the same thing. And of course I think you maxed out your nerd quotient between all the physics reference and star wars and star trek reference, even mix metaphored Top Gun and Star Wars. And I did not even catch all of them I am sure. And half of those I did I still have to look up to actually understand. Wayne and Garth should be kneeling before you chanting "we're not worthy"! 😉 Party on!!! 😂
Diana O'Neil
2025-06-29 19:32:08 +0000 UTCyou are too hard on yourself, the best part is your inside
Ryan
2025-06-29 18:13:14 +0000 UTCOh... Taylor has some serious social skill issues... just like me... but she's at least 🔥
Maggie Heels
2025-06-29 13:17:05 +0000 UTCI could honestly read another 300 pages of Abigail well akshully’ing Taylor and generally making her do stuff she hates which turn out to be incredibly good ideas.
Jade Diaz
2025-06-29 12:57:05 +0000 UTCYeah the talk about their dad with the entropy, how their mom used to wear makeup before the father passed, that all hit hard.
Samantha Louise
2025-06-29 12:14:11 +0000 UTCThis chapter like all of them is amazing! I love Abigail and Taylor they make such a great combo. I hope when Abigail figures out Taylor, or gets closer, she is gentle with her. Hmm 🤔 the most logical conclusion if she ever sees Taylor’s full body is that Taylor is a trans girl who is still very much not comfortable with her body due to societal bs and earlier treatment. I love watching Abigail bring Taylor out of their shell. And the art was so good!!!!
Samantha Louise
2025-06-29 12:13:01 +0000 UTCOh my god amazing stuff
Alyson Greaves
2025-06-29 11:28:46 +0000 UTCLove this chapter. showing Tay how they can find joy in the simplicity of life if they just let go of their fear and preconceptions. Adorable X
Crystal Peaches
2025-06-29 10:43:51 +0000 UTCThat was absolutely exhilarating! Brilliant dialogue that leaps off the page and makes you smile and guffaw alternately, Abigail’s snappy rejoinders, Taylor’s hesitantly growing confidence, giving as good as he gets in the verbal stakes, and some wonderful set pieces. Only thing I need to know is who’s commissioning the sitcom and who have you pencilled in for the leads! Then there are the heartstopping moments like the lipstick and entropy interlude. And I haven’t even commented on the illustrations yet, all of which are superb. I don’t know if you’ve mentioned how long you intend this one to be, Emory, but it could, and should, and must, run and run. I’m loving it.
Robertlouis
2025-06-29 08:40:19 +0000 UTC
