The writerdeck movement has one recurring irony: devices built specifically to cut through digital distraction have a tendency to get expensive. Custom keyboards, purpose-built screens, and precision-machined enclosures can push a DIY writing build well past the cost of a regular laptop, which rather defeats the point. The Whale Writer is an open-source, foldable, DIY writing device designed to be as cheap and portable as possible. Rather than a backlit LCD, the Whale Writer uses a Waveshare RLCD, a reflective liquid crystal display that reads using ambient light instead of a power-hungry internal backlight. None of what the Whale Writer does is entirely new, and it doesn’t try to suggest otherwise.