Ollie of the Beholder
Name: Ollie
Pronouns: They/Them/Their or Xe/Xem/Xyr
Ollie has been writing since they were able to force a crayon into shapes recognizable as letters. Xe wrote their first serialized story at the age of six because they didn't feel like coming up with a different subject for each sentence in their spelling assignment and didn't realize xyr teacher had noticed until the third week, when she handed xem the words and said she couldn't wait to see what the character xe had invented was up to this week. This is also how Ollie learned that taking shortcuts often leads to more work in the end.
They spent most of xyr childhood making up stories about Power Rangers and Disney characters in order to send xemself to sleep after lights-out. Shortly after their twelfth birthday, they discovered that this was called "fanfiction" and that there were places online to share such stories, at which point all hope was lost. Xe spent the next ten months filling the hard drive on the family computer with stories and began posting them as soon as xe turned thirteen. (They would go on to upload over 100 stories on that first website xe joined, which was not FF.net, but as the site is now defunct and the fandom is not one they wish to associate with any longer, xe does not tend to claim them.) In their senior year of high school, a friend who also wrote fanfiction introduced Ollie to National Novel Writer's Month, and any hope xe ever had of being a functioning human being went with it.
Today, Ollie still writes fanfiction, which is almost certainly why you're here, as well as original fiction in their spare time (allegedly). Xe is the junior Municipal Liaison for the USA :: Virginia :: Hampton Roads region of NaNoWriMo, which xe has used typewriters for every year since 2010 and reached 50k every year but one since 2008. They have a number of stories floating around in various states of completion, and have currently committed to a twice-weekly posting schedule of a fanfiction for The Magnus Archives; the fic updates Wednesdays and Saturdays and will be complete on 11 May 2024. (Xe does eventually intend to get back to their other unfinished works, hopefully.)
Ollie is also a prolific yarn- and needlecrafter. Xyr mother taught xem to cross-stitch when xe was six, and they have just recently completed a project they have been working on off and on for the last fifteen years or so. They own a number of patterns and quite a lot of thread and aida cloth, and are rapidly approaching PELE. Xyr mother also taught them how to use a sewing machine, and xe will be making an extensive wardrobe as soon as xe has the space and spoons to lay out the patterns properly. They learned how to crochet xyr senior year of high school (aided and abetted by the same friend who got them into NaNoWriMo, so really, it's her fault xe is like this) and have gradually gone more and more off the deep end with the hobby. Xe is currently working on the "Crocheted Blorbos" project (see that page for further details), as well as xyr annual temperature blanket. Last year they did a scarf, fondly referred to as The Scarf That Ate Cincinnati due to the fact that it is almost twenty feet long and a foot wide; this year they are making a tablecloth in thread crochet, because heaven forbid they make anything easy on themself. Xe is also learning to knit and embroider, but has no fandom-related plans for those yet.
Ollie is asexual, nonbinary/genderqueer (they use both labels depending on the situation), panromantic, and intersex. Xe usually shortens this to "queer" because it's a lot less of a mouthful. If this term offends you regardless of who uses it and for whom, you are respectfully invited to take a long walk off of a short pier and hug an octopus.