100 Subscribers, 7,000 Views

When I started Line & Verse a few weeks ago, I thought it might just sit quietly in some forgotten corner of the internet. A private experiment. Maybe a handful of readers.

When I started Line & Verse a few weeks ago, I thought it might just sit quietly in some forgotten corner of the internet. A private experiment. Maybe a handful of readers.

Instead, we’ve crossed two milestones: 100 subscribers and over 7,000 views on the story so far.

For a project this personal, that’s hard to wrap my head around. These chapters are fiction, but they’re stitched together with threads of memory — the places, the feelings, the confusion of coming of age in the late 1990s. To know that people are not only reading but connecting — commenting, restacking, even writing back with their own stories — makes this feel less like shouting into the void and more like community.

I’m grateful.

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What’s Next

The story is only just beginning. First Line-up is live now, marking Ethan’s first real night as a pledge. This Friday, The Grind drops, pulling him deeper into the day-to-day reality of fraternity life: errands, humiliations, absurd rituals — and the quiet moments of connection that complicate it all.

Alongside the chapters, I’ve been writing reflections and essays. The Nifty piece surprised me with how many of you remembered that same secret archive. I’ll keep weaving those midweek essays in — nostalgia that connects directly to the world of Line & Verse, and maybe stirs some of your own memories too.

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Beyond the Chapters

A few readers have asked about the images that accompany the story. They’re not stock photos — they’re AI generated, painterly illustrations created to evoke the 1990s collegiate world of Westmore. I uploaded the handful of snapshots I have from college just to get an idea of clothes, hairstyles, and the look of the campus and used them as the backdrop. I wanted them to feel like the vintage illustrations you might find in a pulp fiction novel, an old alumni magazine, or an illustrated story, but reimagined to capture Ethan and Eli’s story.

I’ve also started a “Reading & Watching” series — reflections on the books and films that shaped me and, in some ways, helped shape Line & Verse. Next up is E.M. Forster’s Maurice, which I think belongs on Caleb’s shelf. Though set almost 100 years apart, the world Maurice Hall inhabits is very similar to Ethan’s world.

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Thank You

100 might not sound like much in the grand scheme of the internet, but it feels monumental to me. It means people are choosing to come back, week after week, to see what happens next.

So thank you. For showing up, for sharing, for making this story feel alive. Here’s to the next hundred.

👉 Share Line & Verse with a friend if you think they’d enjoy it.

— Caleb

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