Emotional Machine Activation Vol. 1

DRAFT001 Thoughts About Getting Stuck (2025)

is a zine I wrote under the name AFAB TWIN, exploring what it really feels like to get stuck creatively. It’s not about running out of ideas, it’s about losing trust in your own ability to listen to yourself.

The text moves between personal writing, theory, and small observations, tracing how play slowly shifts into something shaped by expectations, productivity, and systems that assign value. It asks what it means to come back to sound and creativity before they needed a reason.

Originally, I wrote this as a self-help handbook for myself. I only shared it publicly later. It’s left intentionally unedited since the first draft because polishing it would go against why I wrote it in the first place. Leaving it unfinished, uneven, and sometimes contradictory is part of pushing back against the perfectionist voice that interrupts creative flow.

Inside, there are small fragments and quiet moments meant not to be solved or fixed, but to be noticed and returned to when the time feels right.