#LGBTQI writers

[yourdailyqueer]

Alicia Roth Weigel

Gender: Female

Sexuality: N/A

DOB:��Born 1990

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish

Nationality: American

Occupation: Activist, writer, journalist

Note 1: Has osteoperosis

Note 2: Is Intersex

[poppitron360]

This video was so cool, and a really interesting look at the history of fanfiction and how it ties in with queer identity. I live for these kinds of video essays, so I would 100% recommend giving this a watch if you’re into fanfics and stuff.

It’s just a great channel in general, but this video caught my eye as something y’all might be interested in- and I wanted to share it because it really got me thinking about the reasons why we write fanfic, and it’s importance.

@lavenderfairiez @demigod-shenanigans @ottpopfic @euryvices

[rainhearted-ramblings]

Pride Month! I know it's still May, but this is basically an announcement about the fun thing I'm planning for June that I've wanted to do for quite a while. I can't celebrate pride openly, so I wanted to celebrate it online in verse because I think it'll be fun. And now, I'm inviting you to join in! The Challenge details will be posted June 2nd, the first prompt and general things will be June 1st. Hope to see you there!!!!

[eternitysirys]

Roadkill.

(The first chapter of "Eternity's Irys". Open Dyslexic version at the end!)

Strained knuckles ached as my grip tightened on the steering wheel. I was hunched so far forward that my head could have gone through the windshield. I’d already busted my butt all day for that ungrateful geezer and now he had me running out in the pitch dark because he forgot a “very important ingredient”.

Milk.

It was milk.

For his coffee.

HIS coffee. Not for our customers. No. That was different. His milk was special. Sourced directly from the dairy farm. Never touched a grocer’s shelf. I mean, so was all our milk. ���Locally sourced” and “small business supporting” was the Diner’s claim to fame, but his milk was “small batch” and “hand crafted”. Which meant it came from the same cows on the same farm as the rest of the plebeian milk, but got processed in a slightly smaller batches, slapped with a fancy label, and sold only locally at the source. I never knew my old man to be the type to fall for that kinda thing, but he swore up and down that this was somehow different.

I knew he just used it to ruin my evening.

So there I was, raging behind the wheel of my mother’s old blue pickup truck, speeding down an empty desert road, milk poorly secured on the seat beside me, when I drove right into something big crossing the road. My seatbelt barely kept me from careening through the windshield. I winced as the sound of bending metal scraped through my ears and the truck came to an unceremonious halt. Only after the damage was done did I slam my foot on the brakes. I sat there silently trying to process whatever happened. In all my years driving this road, I’d never hit anything, much less anything that could total the truck.

“Of course.” I muttered to myself as the rage became exhaustion and self loathing.

I couldn’t help the tears welling in my eyes as the friction burn from the seatbelt was already stinging the side of my neck.

I put the truck in park and looked out the windshield, trying to identify what exactly had made my terrible evening even worse. In the flickering of my headlights, I didn’t see anything on the road, but as I lifted my gaze, I saw it there. Two round orbs floating in the darkness seemed to inch closer every time my lights went out. It was watching me, or whatever I’d hit.

There were plenty of predators in the desert, and it was probably just brazen enough to wait for me to leave my accidental kill to its mercy.

That’s exactly what it was.

That’s exactly what it had to be.

Instead of daring to run over whatever I’d hit, I put the truck in reverse to go around it. The second the engine clunked, a hand flew into the air and came down hard on the crumpled hood. Deathly pale and flecked with blood, it dug into the metal, lifting something from the ground. A man. A man who looked so pale that he had to already be dead. He looked me directly in the eyes. His were a sea of black with an agitated violet cross skittering across their surface. They were glowing. Not bright, but enough to notice. Blood flowed freely down his chin. Violet blood? My heart lodged in my throat as he reached out to me. Massive, thick arms capped by a purple sleeve rolled up to his biceps. A button up beneath a deep purple vest. He was gasping, or trying to speak. I couldn’t tell. He looked at me. Pitifully.

Just past him, I caught something slipping back into the dark from my headlights.

The man collapsed on my hood. I could barely make out his body rising and falling with a haggard breath. Light shimmered from his back, revealing a limp pile of tentacles draping over him like the fronds of a wilted fern.

Looking back up, I caught the yellow orbs bobbing and weaving in the dark. They wanted whatever he was.

I looked back at him.

Time froze as I weighed my options.

Pops would put it in reverse and leave him to fall to the ground. It was his own fault he got hit and whatever he was, it was best not to get involved with it.

Ma, though?

I caught myself idly holding her crystalline cross that had hung around my neck since forever.

I was a child again, carrying a little pet carrier toward the massive willow that stood at the head of Ma’s flower garden. Moonlit night shimmered across the leaves dancing in the sea breeze. We’d reached our destination, but still I clung to the carrier.

“She’s better now, Sunshine. It’s time to let her go home.”

“B-but…” I sniffed, “I don’t wanna…”

A small chirp came from within the carrier.

“You saved her life, Sunshine, she knows that, but she’s a wild animal. We can’t keep her against her will.”

“But-”

Another few chirps.

I took a deep breath and turned to the moon. Closing my eyes, I opened the carrier door. For a moment, nothing happened and I hoped she’d stay, but soon enough a little brown bat came fluttering out, chirping her way toward the moonlight.

“Do you think she’ll remember me?” My lip quivered.

“Of course she will, Sunshine.” Ma knelt down beside me and held me tightly as tears welled in my eyes. “You’re such a kind soul, Jeron. Don’t let anyone ever take that from you.”

There never really was a choice.

“Yeah, Ma.” I breathed as I put the truck in park, undid my seatbelt, and slid out of the cabin.

Horrific shrieks filled the air as I dragged the body off the truck. He looked heavy enough, but was far lighter than I expected as I dragged him alongside the vehicle. The interior lights must have been enough to keep them away, but I could still hear them scraping around in the dark behind me.

This guy was massive and a pain to shove into the cabin with all his tentacles getting in the way. Once I got him inside, I got back in the driver’s seat and prayed the poor old truck could still get me home. I looked out my window to the silvery moon hanging low in the sky. Even with its brilliant light those things remained shrouded in darkness. I closed my eyes and sent a silent prayer to Sion’Dri.

I put it into drive and took a deep breath before applying the gas. The engine roared to life.

“Thanks, Ma.” I patted the dash.

As I sped down the road, yellow droplets splattered across the hood of the truck. I didn’t stop, but I glanced up into the rear-view mirror. Countless round yellow lights had gathered in the dark behind me. They stared, unblinking, as I drove away.

My gaze drifted down in the mirror until I saw him lying on the back bench. Violet blood trickling from his lips and over vintage blue leather. His face unceremoniously mushed against the seat, still breathing, but weakly.

I felt my shoes getting soggy. Blood? I looked down to find my father’s milk spilled all over the floor.

“Of course.”

Open Dyslexic version!

Read more about the 100% LGBTQ owned and operated project: EternitysIrys.com! Maybe even check out some of the free short stories there! Or even on Wattpad, if you're so inclined!

[fragileswift1313]

Mrs Maisel Musings!

Kia ora, friends!

Alright, here it is folks, the moment maybe some, maybe none of you have been waiting for: my thoughts on the The Marvellous Mrs Maisel final season. I did it, I finally got it done. I think the reason it took me so long, aside from previously mentioned mental health issues, is that writing stuff like this for five hundred and sixteen minutes of television is hard! It’s really hard. I would love to hear what you all think of this, and if you want to discuss what I’ve written here, or even just about the show or season in general, please hit me up! I would love to talk about it with you.

Now enough with the delays and the stalling - please enjoy my review (??) of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel season 5, the final season.

So, I really liked the first few seasons of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. Even though it’s a bit cheesy and dopey at times. Rachel Brosnahan is a joy to watch on-screen, and a lot of the other actors here do a really great job with the script they were given... such as it is. On a recent rewatch, though, I started to see the strings a little bit - things that I liked the first time around just didn’t quite hit the same. I got through most of it, all the important parts, and then I started the new season. It’s been a couple weeks or so since I finished it, and I’m not as down on it now as I was when I started, but y’all, I am about to have some opinions.

This the final Mrs Maisel season really feels like creator Amy Sherman-Palladino probably wanted to do at least one more season after this, but someone at Jeff’s Website Studios said no, so she simply decided to burn the show to the ground.

Now as I wrote in the subtitle, I am about to spoil things here, so this is your final warning: if you don’t want to be spoiled for season five of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, get out now.

Also: foul language ahead! 🤬

The entire point of this season seems to be leaning into how much of a piece of shit Miriam Weissman is. We get glimpses of her in “current day” 1962 juxtaposed with scenes set in 1972 and 1982, and a couple of other random years, where we skip around and see all sorts of wild stuff - Midge is rich and famous, her kids Ethan and Esther are all grown up, Joel is in prison, and there are some bonkers and hilariously bad facial prosthetics.

Now, aside from the hilariously stupid idea that Midge as a stand-up comic somehow got insanely rich, there are some cool ideas here. The first episode opens with Esther in a psychiatrists office in 1981, searching through a backpack for something and seeming very annoyed. On first watch, I didn’t like that this is something that’s shown at all, but the more I thought about it the more I warmed to the idea. In previous seasons, The Marvellous Mrs Maisel has at times made a point of showing Midge being a terrible and/or absent mother, usually for comedic effect, but I think it’s interesting that they took this idea and bore it out, to show that mid-20’s Midge’s actions had consequences. In a later episode we also see Ethan as an adult, with Midge annoyingly landing in a helicopter nearby and upsetting everyone - this wasn’t as interesting to me, but it was still a good glimpse into how little regard Midge appears to have for anyone but herself, Joel, Susie, or Lenny Bruce.

Speaking of Lenny Bruce, I want to talk about his appearances in the final season. If you know anything about him from real life, you might know how his life ended, and where. The very first episode of season five has Midge bumping into him randomly at the airport when he is about to board a plane to Los Angeles. This made me so. Fucking. Mad. IRL Lenny Bruce was found dead in his home in Hollywood Hills in 1966, which lead me to believe that the very last time Midge will ever see him was this scene at the airport. Midge walks away from the interaction with Lenny with a strange look on her face, as if she somehow knows that this will be the last time she ever sees him alive, and it is my humble opinion that that fucking sucks. Lenny Bruce is one of the best characters on this show, with a ton of great appearances and lines and jokes, and Luke Kirby does a phenomenal job of capturing the real Lenny’s energy - it’s not 1:1, but it’s a great depiction, and I simply cannot believe Amy S-P would do my boy like this. The only other time we see Lenny in this season is years later, performing in front of a fairly disinterested crowd as he mumbles and rambles about this thing and that, and it’s so fucking depressing. This season, the show never outright mentions his drug use, but it’s heavily implied, and there’s a moment in a back room where he is talking to Susie and appears to be unable to stand up. On the one hand, I’m kind of pleased that they didn’t depict his death at all, but it really bothered me that these two scenes were all we got of him before the show stops referencing him at all.

The part of this season that really shines the most to me is a scene from episode eight, with Abe in a dimly-lit restaurant with Gabe, his boss, and a couple of colleagues. The scene begins with Abe checking his coat and coming over to sit where Gabe etcetera are already seated around a table and chatting. They order some wine. There’s a cut here to a few minutes later where the wine has arrived and been poured, and Abe sits silently, swirling his drink and clearly deep in thought while the others talk amongst themselves. Eventually, Gabe interrupts Abe’s thoughts, telling him that he had been raving to the others about his conversational skills. Abe apologises. “It’s just… the whole goddamn world, you know,” he says, clearly depressed about something. “Only that?” chimes in one of the other men at the table. Then ensues a conversation about the state of the world, about progress, about gender inequality and mental health, even, which was surprising to me. This scene is heartbreaking, and might be some of the best writing in the entire series. I cried watching this scene the first time around, and again just now rewatching it. It’s really sad that Abe never got the kind of character development shown here earlier, I would have liked to see that.

Episode six is an interesting sort of experiment; beginning with Midge on stage, in 1985, talking about her relationship with Susie, it then transitions into a roast for an indifferent and grumpy Susie in 1990, which is basically a device for a bunch of famous people you’ve seen in other things to come together as characters never seen before or again and tell stories about Susie’s rise to fame as one of the biggest talent managers in the United States. Here we get an explanation for why Joel is in prison, and a bunch of seemingly randomly selected stories about what Susie has been up to since 1962. As with the portrayal of Esther in episode one, this was another thing about this season that really bothered me at first, because it felt like it lacks focus, but as I thought about it more, it started to grow on me. This collection of tales about Susie’s exploits make sense for her character, and help to define who she is.

Overall, this season really fell down for me when I realised that a lot of really interesting moments never truly pay off. We jump around a lot between different years and perspectives, and we see a lot of things that could have been great story arcs, but they simply end and are never mentioned again. I really do feel like this season was supposed to be two or more, and Jeff’s Studio said no, so Amy Sherman-Palladino lit it all on fire. I think that if hyou like this show, it might still be worth it to catch the final season, but personally I feel like it should never have been made - at least not in this form. I would much rather have seen this stretched out more, over at least one more season. It tries to give the viewer some closure in the very last scene of the very last episode, but for me it falls flat. I don’t think I’ll ever watch this again.

Thanks so much for reading! What did you think? Once again, please feel free to hit me up in the comments, on the socials, or send me an email. And as always, if you want to read more stuff by me, you can check out my Letterboxd reviews - I recently reviewed The Craft (1996), Eradication (2022), and The Sand (2015)!

I hope y’all are staying safe out there! Have a great week and I’ll talk to you again soon. Ka kite anō au i a koe. 💚

Rebecca

Links | Twitter | Mastodon | Cohost | Substack | itch.io | Letterboxd | Instagram | Carrd | Email

[queerbookdom]

 🌈2023 September Queer Releases 🌈

Nota Bene: an asterisk (*) is added near the titles to mean that the book DOES NOT feature queer characters on page (to my knowledge), but the author is queer and therefore still in need of our support as those book are intrinsically queer (or at least I think so, everyone else is absolutely free to feel otherwise).

I try to be as inclusive as I possibly can, so my monthly release posts will…

[themidnightmultiverse]

⭐The Midnight Chronicles⭐

Set in a futuristic world of Myrrha, the Midnight Chronicles follows Alex Lynx as he's suddenly thrown into a chaotic world of magic hidden beneath the one he thought he knew. Volume One shows Alex's introduction to being a Witch, and uncovering a dark plot to reopen a world of ancient Gods and Goddesses that were sealed away for the good of the world. As of now, two Volumes of this story is released and can be found here!

[eternitysirys]

How authentic my MCs have become. I know this sounds trite but there was so much back and forth and anxiety about them as people and their relationship because personal hangups. So many things I was afraid of getting into and it was holding everything else back. It took a lot of personal growth to finally accept them for who they truly were.

Upon letting them be themselves we were all able to move on with the plot. Which isn't half bad, so I've heard.

If you see this, tell me something about your own WIP that makes you smile.

[whatwewrotepodcast]

PPiS Chapter 6 - Onyx

An insistent buzzing dragged Onyx slowly out of sleep. For a while they lay still, listening to the brrrr brrrrr brrrrr as their sleep-fuddled mind tried to remember how to function. Eventually, some semblance of higher level consciousness kicked in and they realised it was their phone ringing. They peeled their eyes open, fumbling for the glowing screen. They managed to hit the screen in such a way that the ringing stopped, replaced with the sound of several overlapping alarms and screaming sensors. Something cold slithered through Onyx’s half-conscious mind, and they managed to get the phone to their face.

               “Where are you? Can you open the hanger?” a vaguely familiar voice emerged from the cacophony, sans any sort of greeting. Onyx squinted at the blurry screen, finally making sense of the words they were seeing. Dickhole. Theo, then. Reacting more on instinct than conscious thought, they dragged themselves upright and slammed their palm on the panel by the bed that opened the hanger doors to space.

               “’m in bed, the fuck you think I am?” Onyx muttered, their voice slurring with sleep. Consciousness was returning, but slowly. “It’s 3am,” they added accusingly, seeing the time on their phone.  His only response was a string of words in a language Onyx didn’t understand, though there was an audible tone of relief in it. Rubbing their knuckle in their eye socket, Onyx pulled up the hanger bay camera and saw the Idalia inching through the doors, though they were barely open wide enough to admit it.

               “How nice for you. I just spent 6 hours manually dodging asteroids because my shields failed on the first impact!” Theo snapped, sounding winded. Onyx squinted at the screen and their heart dropped when their vision cleared enough to see the ship properly. Steam was venting from several points in its skin, and the panels were belted to shit. A rush of ice cold fear slammed over them and they were suddenly very awake. Not again, not again . . .

               “Shit,” they muttered, lunging out of bed, snatching a pair of pants off the back of a chair. “Eh? Failed?” they said, hopping on one foot as they tried to pull their pants on. “The fuck you mean failed?” they asked, though it was more for something to say than any lack of understanding. Their mind was already racing through the possibilities. Had they misjudged the voltage the SN could take from the engines? Was there a loose connection? Had there been a faulty capacitor?

               “I mean they were unsuccessful in shielding my ship,” Theo snapped as Onyx bolted up the stairs, flinging open the trapdoor to the shop. He hung up, and they shoved the phone into their pocket. They slammed the button to cycle the airlock, and the hanger doors slid closed achingly slowly. As soon as the airlock had finished and the bay was repressurized, Onyx hurried out into the hanger, squinting against the bright fluorescent lighting. The steel grate was cold and hard under their feet, but they barely noticed. Sharp jolts of panic were shooting through them like shocks of electricity, and they could barely hear above the hammering of their own heart.

               The ship was completely fucked. Theo hadn’t been joking. The Idalia looked like it had been playing ping pong in an asteroid field. The heat shielding was shredded, the panels dented and cracked, and it was certainly leaking atmo in at least one place. Even from outside, Onyx could hear the desperate wailing of alarms and sirens coming from the bridge. Distantly, from beyond the sick sense of panic, Onyx was impressed. There weren’t many pilots who could manually fly through an asteroid belt with no shields, much less get a ship in this condition back to the station. And it was abundantly clear that was exactly what had happened. He hadn’t been exaggerating. They made their way down the stairs, already enumerating the damage. They had made it halfway down to the deck when the door hissed open, and the captain emerged. He didn’t look a lot better than his ship. His short cropped hair was soaked with sweat, and lines of it trickled down the sides of his face. His flight suit was soaked through between his shoulder blades, and even from the stairs Onyx could see him physically trembling with exhaustion.

               “I thought you said you’d fixed the shields,” he said in clipped tones, gingerly peeling his gloves off with shaking hands. Onyx rubbed their eye again, trying to rattle their scattered thoughts into some semblance of order.

               “I did, ay?” Onyx muttered. And they had. In as much as they’d replaced the whole damn generator. Not again, not again . . . they shook their head sharply, forcing their thoughts into some sort of order. There was no point in freaking out. They had a problem to solve. Better just fucking solve it then. “Stop snapping at me and tell me exactly what happened,” they said, their voice steadier than they felt. Theo took a slow, deep breath, and then another. He was standing at the end of the Idalia’s ramp, in his standard brace position – feet hip width apart, hands behind his back. This time, though, Onyx thought the military discipline was all that was keeping him on his feet.

               “I told you,” he said as Onyx came the rest of the way down to the deck, “They failed at first impact. Crossing into sector 12, came across debris that even the most basic of shields should be able to handle. It took one hit and they just ‘fft’. Stopped,” he said. Onyx had to bite back on the nearly hysterical urge to laugh at hearing him say ffft, but managed to keep a lid on it. He looked very close to the end of his tether, and Onyx felt like if they pushed him too hard right now he might just shoot them.

               “It’s well fucked,” they said honestly, staring up at the steaming, hissing, creaking hulk of a ship. And, in all honesty, its captain didn’t look much better. He was swaying where he stood, every inch of him drenched in cooling sweat. Onyx’s stomach twisted fiercely. This was their fault. Again. Even hate him as they did, they had their professional pride, and they could feel it sliding through their fingers.

               Without giving themselves time to think it over, Onyx turned to the magnetically sealed cupboard under the stairs where they stored things that were likely to get sucked into vacuum when the hanger doors opened. And, of course, an emergency bottle of Sileurian vodka, for those long cold nights when the huge, empty, barren expanse of the hanger bay got into their heart and they needed something to take the edge off. Grabbing the bottle by the neck, they turned back and proffered it to the captain.

               “Here, have a drink before you puke on my floor, ay?” they said. A look of genuine surprise crossed his face, but after a second, he took it gingerly off them. Onyx didn’t look at him, their eyes on the ship, trying to locate where the first blow was, what might have caused the failure. The SN shields should have been up to this . . . “Ffft?” they asked, repeating his onomatopoeic noise. “Was there a noise? A shudder?” they asked. He took a long swig of the alcohol, and didn’t even cough as it went down. Impressive.

        ��      “There was a large shudder when the asteroid put a massive hole in my ship, yes,” he said testily. “But no, no noise. It came through my shields like a hot knife through butter,” he added. Onyx grimaced. So it wasn’t that some debris had hit something important and shorted it out then. They’d need to see the diagnostics. Without glancing at Theo, Onyx made their way up the ramp into the ship. Most of the sirens had shut down now, but it was abundantly clear that the ship had been through hell. There was a patch of leak sealant on the wall where a crack in the hull had been sealed, and despite the mag locks, half the cupboards on the ship were hanging open, their contents tumbled across the floors. The bridge was awash with angrily flashing lights and warnings.

               Onyx sat down in the pilot’s chair. The plastic was still warm from Theo’s body heat, and they shifted uncomfortably as they pulled up the diagnostic scanners. The screen was awash with red warnings. An atmospheric breach, environmental systems at 5%, that damn portside thruster offline again. Main drive power was down to 50% thrust and manoeuvrability was minimal, with the main thruster offline and half of the correctional thrusters out as well. And the shield generator was offline. Onyx stuck their thumb into their mouth, chewing on a hangnail as they flicked through the damage report.

               They glanced up briefly through the view screen and saw Theo had sat down on the stairs, his forearms resting on his knees, his head hanging. Every line of his body spoke of crushing exhaustion. They bit harder, yanking off the hangnail with a stab of burning pain. He’s not dead though. You haven’t killed anyone else. Onyx jerked their gaze away from him, instead looking back at the screen.

               A few minutes later, they had their answer. Or, part of it, at least. With a sigh, Onyx pushed back from the display and got up, heading back out to where Theo was waiting. He stood up as soon as he heard their footsteps on the ramp, despite his obvious exhaustion.

               “Power converter failed,” Onyx said, coming over and taking the bottle. They took a swig, letting the searing burn of the alcohol wash away the bitter tang of guilt that wouldn’t let go of the back of their throat. “I ain’t gonna get her running tonight,” they added, handing him the bottle back. “You’re leakin atmo somewhere and nearly had a hull breach. And that thruster offline again,” they added, though it would be hard to believe he wasn’t aware of that.

               “I’m aware,” he growled, “I’m more concerned with why it failed. They were working better before you fixed them,” he added with a cutting edge. His words slid under Onyx’s skin like knives, and they abruptly felt sick. They dug their fingernail into the side of their thumb where they’d bitten off the hangnail, trusting the pain to hold them steady. Time for recriminations later. They weren’t going to let this asshole see them hurt.

               “You want yer ship fixed, you’re gonna want to watch what you say to me right now, pal,” they said coolly, “I’ll look into it tomorrow, ay? I can’t tell what went wrong just by starin’ at it. I’m not a fuckin’ psychic.” They gave him a level look, which he met. They could see that muscle ticking in his jaw again, but after a moment he gave a short, jerky nod.

               “Very well,” he said tightly, and turned towards the stairs with the attitude of a man contemplating scaling a mountain. Onyx contemplated letting him struggle, but the sickening guilt in the pit of their stomach wouldn’t let them.

               “Need somewhere to stay?” they asked. He stopped, gripping the railing on the stairs, and turned back to look down at them.

               “What?” he asked blankly. Onyx gestured to the steaming heap of metal behind them.

               “Ay, well I’m thinking it’s not in your interests to rob me, like. So stay in ya ship if you want,” they offered. He hesitated visibly, and Onyx wondered whether he was contemplating the chances of them killing him in his sleep.

               “Alright,” he said finally, turning to come back down the stairs. His knee half buckled on the first step, and only his grip on the railing stopped him from pitching headfirst down to the deck. “Appreciated,” he added gruffly. Onyx just shrugged.

               “Keep the bottle, ay?” they said, then stepped briskly past him and made their way back upstairs to the shop.

               As soon as the trap door was closed behind them, Onyx staggered down to the lounge and collapsed, shivering violently as the reaction they’d been fighting off washed over them with a sudden ferocity. They wrapped their arms around themselves, trying to hold themselves together. There had to be an explanation. A reason.

               But a chilling through had taken root in their brain. For years they had maintained that there had been no way they could have been responsible for the accident on the Alliance ship. They hadn’t touched the magnetic bottle. They hadn’t changed the power draw or added anything new. All they’d done was pull out the space junk. But the secret Onyx would never tell anyone was that somewhere right down deep inside, they weren’t sure. There was that tiny, lingering, niggling down. What if they had? What if something they’d done had caused the accident? What if the lives of all those people really were blood on Onyx’s hands? They’d gone over and over and over it, retracing their every step, every wire they’d touched. They were sure they hadn’t done it. But still the doubts lingered.

               And now this. Another mistake. They had replaced the shield generator. And it had failed. Theo was right, they’d tried to fix it and they’d made it worse. Nearly killed him and destroyed his ship. What if they weren’t as good as they thought they were? What if the one thing Onyx had always believed about themselves, that they were a good mechanic, wasn’t true?

               Onyx dug their fingers into their hair, raking their nails across their scalp. No, there had to be a reason. An explanation. They shoved themselves to their feet, their anxious energy jolting through their limbs. The power converter had failed. The power converter drew energy from the fusion drive and restricted the massive amount of power needed for the main engines into something the shield generator could manage. So the power converter was the most likely place for a shield generator to fail. If the power coming from the drive spiked for some reason, that could blow it out, or if the shields suddenly had to suck too much power too quickly, the converter might shut itself down to protect the power going to the engines. A lot of older ships had that problem, when the drive was old and wasn’t producing enough power anymore. The failsafes would always prioritise sending power to the engines rather than anything other than life support. So maybe . . .

               Onyx growled in frustration. They wouldn’t know for sure until they pulled the damn thing apart and had a look at it. They glanced at the clock. 4:15am. Well, they certainly weren’t going to get back to sleep. They exhaled through their nose. Well, from the look of him, Theo would be sleeping soundly tonight, and Onyx certainly wasn’t going to sleep again. They hesitated a moment more, but then sighed. Surely he couldn’t get upset with them for trying to work out what the hell had gone wrong with his ship.

               They exhaled softly, then pulled a pair of overalls on over their pajamas and headed back out to the hanger bay. It wasn’t the first time Onyx had found themselves in the hanger in the middle of the night, but they still found it peaceful. They paused at the top of the stair, breathing in the sharp, metallic smell of space and hot metal. The Idalia lay somnolent now, its frightened wailing silenced. The hull was scorched and scored with black marks and bright white scrapes where the heat plating had been scratched away, the remaining panelling dinged and dented. Onyx walked down to it, pausing at the cupboard to grab their small tool box and a pair of headphones.

               They moved quietly into the ship, in case Theo was still awake, but everything was quiet. They rested their toolbox quietly on the floor outside the bridge where the shield generator’s power converter lived, and shuffled back onto the bridge to review the diagnostics again. They were pretty basic – as they’d noted before, the systems needed upgrading, but like most frigates, it did have a collision recorder. Onyx remembered learning in university that they were invented back on earth for terrestrial flights – a black box, they called it. The Idalia’s ‘black box’ was a bit more advanced than those had been, they assumed. In the case of a major incident, the device immediately started recording. Audio, in case the pilot was able to narrate their circumstances or send out an SOS, and all logs of the ship’s damage. They doubted it would help them diagnose the problem, but they couldn’t help but be a bit curious.

               When Onyx had finished reviewing the diagnostics, they retrieved the recorder and pulled the power converter out of the wall and sat down in the middle of the floor to start working out what the hell had happened. They plugged their headphones into the recorder and hit play while they started unscrewing the outer casing of the converter. The recording started with an ear-splitting collision alarm, followed by a rocking crash as something big careened off the hull. Onyx flinched at the screeching of metal and Theo’s shocked curses – they didn’t know whatever language he was speaking, but the vehemence was clear. The shipboard computers were screaming in distress, and a calm female voice repeated Hull breach imminent, hull breach imminent in incessant repetition for a solid ten minutes before that particular alarm cut out.

Onyx glanced across at the screen, noting that at that point the emergency sealant had been deployed. They paused the recording, looking towards the bridge. This was a ship designed to be flown by a crew of at least three of four. There were three chairs on the bridge – the pilot, the navigational computer, and the shipboard comms system. There was no way Theo could have flown his ship through an asteroid field and sealed the hull breach at the same time. They narrowed their eyes, scrolling through the system alerts until they found the one they were looking for. Escape pod deployment. It hadn’t registered at first. Old ships often accidentally deployed their escape pods in emergency situations – the tractors lost hold with the jostling or the system ejected them automatically. But perhaps this hadn’t been a mistake. Which meant there had been someone else on this ship. Onyx glanced down the narrow hall that lead to the living quarters, but decided it wasn’t really anything to do with them.

Instead, they flipped the recording back on, listening to Theo’s muffled grunts and curses and the wailing of alarms as they finished unscrewing the converter’s casing. One eye on the system alerts as they did so – there went the air filters – and there a piece of heat plating – causing the environmental systems to overheat and shut down. No wonder the guy had been sweating. Onyx set aside the casing and shifted the converter in their lap, running their fingers over the wires and boards that had been revealed.

The suddenly they heard something else on the recording. Another voice. Muffled, unintelligible through the racket of screeching metal and screaming electronics. But clearly a second person. So Theo did have a crew. Or a passenger.

“I told you to get the fuck in the pod!” Theo’s voice suddenly rang out, as clear as if he’d been standing right behind them, “I’ll meet you at Genesis! Go! I got this!” Onyx lifted their brows a little, glancing down the hall again, curiously. They couldn’t help but wonder who Theo had been flying with. He didn’t seem to be a particularly social type, but then maybe that was just the way he was with them. It wasn’t as if they’d ever seen him speak to anyone else. For all they knew, he could be the picture of charm. They snorted to themselves briefly at that, amused at the thought.

The recording continued for another 20 minutes or so, revealing nothing more than more of Theo’s cursing and the wail of sirens, so they turned it off and returned it to its position under the comms desk, and went back to their slow, methodical disassembly of the power converter, laying each piece in a neat ring around them as they pulled it off, searching for the point of failure.

When they eventually found it, it wasn’t hard to miss. The tiny piece of metal, barely longer than their finger, with a glass bulb at each end, both of which were shattered, the wires within blackened. Onyx grabbed their smallest screwdriver and undid the tiny screws that held the device together. It was one of eighteen identical capacitors that were supposed to absorb the charge from the drive by narrowing the circuit. Except, as they’d known as soon as they saw it, the wires within it were worn through, the insulation cracked with age and use. Onyx exhaled slowly through their nose, trying, with limited success, to control the surge of blind fury that surged through them. Capacitor failure wasn’t uncommon, especially in older shield generators, but it was incredibly dangerous. The things took a beating, even flying in regular space. And so it was accepted practice that any second hand shield generator would have all its capacitors checked before it was sold. Checking capacitors was a big job, so most mechanics assumed if they’d been sold a shield generator, it had had them replaced.

Onyx closed their hand around the busted piece of metal, remembering Dion telling them about the MKV shield generator they had on deck, and the call from Old Joe. After which he’d offered them the SN. Joe had knowingly sold them a faulty part. Deliberately. Because he couldn’t be fucked fixing it and didn’t care if Onyx killed someone else?

Onyx reached out and precisely placed the capacitor back in the array before them, staring down at it as though it held the secrets of the universe. Their rage ebbing, each little flare of fury being replace with something akin to despair. A creeping, cold sense of failure. They had left their whole life to come here to Genesis, all those years ago. Thrown away family, home, security to risk it all for a life that would make them happy. For this dingy little shop on this dingy little station at the far edge of space. All they’d ever wanted was to fix things. To take something broken and put it back together. A simple life. And for some reason the universe had looked at that small, simple dream and said, succinctly, fuck you. Onyx felt abruptly very tired. The brief hope that working on the Idalia would make things better, that they might be able to rebuild their business eventually, was fading like the sputtering of a dying star. They didn’t even have the energy to be angry anymore.

[benandstevesposts]

Victor: A Man of Mystery and Resilience | Uncovering the Lost Relic in Haunting Mansion

A forgotten mansion, shrouded in mystery, stood in the heart of the old city, nestled among the cobblestone streets and gothic architecture. Its grandiose facade, though worn by time, still retained an enigmatic elegance. On a stormy evening, Victor, a man of mystery and resilience, found himself drawn to this mansion, its secrets whispering to him. Victor, a man of mystery and resilience, had…

[madmaru2010]

Baby Dyke*

How old was she? I don't remember exactly, I only know that I was no older than 10 or 11 years old.

Across the street from my childhood home was a valuable piece of municipal land. Those stretches of land in towns that are like the jokers or the Hogwarts Room of Requirement, a place that becomes whatever you want it to be. A paddock, the setting for learning to ride a bicycle, and from time to time, the temporary home of a traveling circus or amusement park.

I remember, when circuses allowed animals, listening from my bed to the roar of famelic lions that were more sad than scary, or the gray streaks of a rickety elephant. What happened to those critters! The advent of Green Peace and similar organizations, as well as the discovery of ecology, put an end to circuses with Bengal tigers and acrobatic horses. Also with zoos, although don't ask me why I wanted to visit them, the circuses and the zoos. I was fascinated and saddened at the same time to see all those wonderful species, different, magnificent in their eccentricity locked up and condemned to perish.

I don't know why but now I associate that at the same time that the defense of the environment and the species in extinction was taking place in society, coincidentally, homosexuality was no longer considered a disease.

On May 17, 1990, the WHO removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), specialists highlighted the widespread consensus that homosexuality is a natural variation of human sexuality and cannot be considered a pathological condition.

Green Peace was born in 1971, when a group of Canadian anti-nuclear activists embarked on board the old fishing boat Phyllis Cormack to protest against the nuclear tests that the United States was carrying out in the Amchitka archipelago, in Alaska. Their goal: to prevent the bomb from being detonated by placing themselves in the center of the test site.

In the summers of 1978 and 1980 the first Rainbow Warrior ship had confronted the whaling fleet still in Spain, trying to prevent their catch.

It always struck me that his ship was named after the same rainbow that represents LGBT rights. And that he was the warrior who defended the most valuable species from the clutches of their predators.

But the memory that this text brings back to me is that of an amusement park that was installed on that property in front of my parents' house when I was still an elementary school student.

I remember the garlands of lights, the creepy music that could be heard every night, a ghost train whose structure, riddled with holes, let so much light into the interior that it was more frightening than frightening, or even scary.

The star of that park that remained in my memory was a huge round-the-world ride. Or at least I remember it as huge. Surely it was a precarious installation, with countless missing or wobbly pieces, with more than one loose screw, a screaming call to the tragedy that we kids from a city with a small-town personality climbed on every summer.

To better understand this anecdote, I suffer from severe vertigo, that is, I get dizzy just getting on the curb. But my best friend, a red-haired girl whose skin was an infinite constellation of freckles, invited me to take the ride around the world and I followed her in rapt attention.

I remember every moment, the two of us sitting on that wobbly stool, holding on to a crossed pipe that acted as a very unconvincing safety bar. I remember getting to the top and staying there, stopped, stranded, shipwrecked. I don't know if it was because of a malfunction or because they were slow in getting people up or down, but I still feel like I'm there.

Vertigo is a kind of painful nausea that strangles your stomach, blurs your vision and your limbs feel like rubber. It's really feeling like you're falling. Any resemblance to falling in love is on the reader.

Up there, in the rocking cart, watching the languid white church tower stand proudly against the blue sky and the evening sun melting into a ruby gold pool on the horizon, vertigo mixed with the happiness of being on top of the world, far away from everything, in that layer of invisibility that height gives, trapped with that red-haired girl who happily laughed at the park, at the experience, and at my vertigo that today more than fear of heights seems like fear of realizing how much I enjoyed that closeness out of sight of everyone, that moment of intimacy with a friend who gave me butterflies in my belly and I didn't know it.

When I think about my approach to women throughout my history nausea was always present. But it's not disgust, I realize today, it's vertigo, it's knowing you're walking through a narrow gap between a land you don't want to belong to and the precipice. That feeling of wanting and fearing to take a leap into that void that is as desirable as it is threatening. It is the irrepressible desire to launch yourself into free fall that beats in every cell. It is knowing that sooner or later you are going to jump.

Vertigo is not the fear of falling, but the desire to jump.” -Milan Kundera

*

Note: *This word is used in slang to refer in pejorative terms to lesbians or lesbianism in general, especially lesbians with appearance or clothing considered far from the cultural canons of femininity. In this sense, we are in line with other derogatory terms such as “machorra”, “camiona”, “marimacho/a”, “chicazo”, “amachada”, “virago”, “chongo” or “butch”. In recent times, however, the lesbian women's collective itself has made this word its own, reappropriating it to use it in a positive sense. Baby dyke: young lesbian or recently out of the closet. It is also used, within the LGBT community, to refer to lesbians who want to be “butch” but do not succeed.

[ballsalsda]

@betatrolls @mothbioligest @heartbunnymoth @madeline-the-bisexual-samurai @th3g4ysqu1d @sadpurpleblood @supersexyghotmew95 @sillymcmaxx @kdcrystalise @alex-just-vibing @acid-tunnel-of-love

@same-pic-of-the-sun-everyday @hateful-daystar @same-pic-of-mercury-everyday @same-pic-of-venus-everyday @same-pic-of-venus-every-day @same-pic-of-the-earth-everyday @the-real-earth @same-pic-of-the-moon-everyday @same-pic-of-mars-everyday @same-pic-of-jupiter-everyday @same-pic-of-saturn-everyday @the-real-uranus @same-pic-of-uranus-everyday @same-pic-of-neptune-everyday @same-pic-of-pluto-everyday @steve-not-anon @same-pic-of-a-dictionary-daily @same-pic-of-juno-everyday @same-pic-of-kepler-186f-everyday @same-pic-of-halleys-comet @same-pic-of-titan-every-day @same-pic-of-andromeda-everyday @celestial-same-picverse @same-pic-of-polaris-everyday

GET KOSA TRENDING.

STOP SCROLLING NOW!

AS OF FEBRUARY 21ST, 2024, WE GOT FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE DAY OF DECISION OF THE KOSA BILL, WHICH WILL CAUSE MASS CENSORSHIP ROUND THE INTERNET IF PASSED. OR DOOMSDAY. WE NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS AND CONTRIBUTE. I'M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU ALL.

WE'RE DOWN TO THE WIRE BUT WE CAN'T GIVE UP YET. IF WE GIVE UP, EVERYTHING IS OVER. IF WE DON'T, AT LEAST WE HAVE A CHANCE.

I'M THE ONE WHO SOUNDED THE ALARM, AND I'M NOT GOING TO CURL UP AND DIE YET.

Reblog this post in every LEGAL way you can under the Tumblr guidelines with the appropriate tags. TELL AND TAG EVERYONE YOU KNOW, then add the tags to see below... and more if you can think of any complying.

Visit badinternetbills.com if you want to find a way to defeat KOSA. It WILL NOT take much of your time. Reblog with any other information or sources, too-- but make sure to reblog if you can.

Reblog if you support lgbtq+ content.

Reblog if you support questioning queer youth and/or abused youth getting the information they need.

Reblog if you support Ao3 and/or other sites that wholeheartedly preserve talentedly made media.

Reblog if you're going to repost this on other sites than Tumblr and spread the word across Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, or elsewhere, alongside the link to badinternetbills.com.

Reblog if you think KOSA is unfair and shouldn't be anyone's problem -- including the adults ALL OVER THE DAMN EARTH forced to face the mass censorship it causes because "think of the American Children!".

Reblog if you support internet activism and Palestine.

Reblog if you hate fascism or censorship, and don't want actually serious and helpful conversations censored on the internet.

Reblog if you value the internet in any way at all whatsoever.

We won't let this stand any longer. Let's start a riot and get this trending.

[rainhearted-ramblings]

The Prompts are Out!

Now, you might have noticed that there are only 27 prompts., counting the first introductory prompt. The other three prompts are blank, meaning you're free to write about whatever your heart desires. In fact, you don't even have to follow these prompts to take part in the challenge. One poem a day, about the LGBTQIAP+ experience. That is all I ask of you. Jumble up the order, write all thirty about love or hair, make a thirty stanza poem over the month, it's all upto you. In the spirit of pride, there are no rules, only guidelines for those who want to follow them. I genuinely hope you'll have as much fun writing for this challenge as I had making these.

Be Gay, Do Crime and Write Poetry. Yours Truly, Eventide

The Awakening™ New Beginnings Discovery Rejection Reflection Skin/Body Representation Swimming Upstream Robot Sin Hate Fear Understanding Beauty Hair Part of a whole Celebration Identity Validity Idols Queer Spaces Community Love Advice for the past Wisdom for the future Acceptance

[eternitysirys]

Behold! The final illustration for "Eternity's Irys"!

Guest starring Batty!

I feel like this was the most challenging one. @firelocket decided on some pretty complex poses. Most of our time was spent trying to figure out why a cock browed Sylus looked weird. It was probably just me, but we worked it out in the end.

As always, their body language is impeccable and I am once more in awe of their skill.

Just like the other two illustrations, it's sourced directly from a scene in the book. All three will be available in print versions only!

Now I intend to reread the manuscript one last time to catch formatting errors (artifacts and backwards quotation marks) and then it's done. Six years of work will finally be complete.

Stay tuned!

🦑💜🦇

[fragileswift1313]

Speak Now (Taylor's Version)!

Hey!

So some of you will know this, others may not, but Taylor Swift recently re-recorded her 2010 album titled Speak Now, and it was released roughly 40 hours ago at the time of posting. When ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ was announced back in the first week of May this year, I wrote a thing about how I feel about the original album. If you haven’t read that, you may want to to get caught up on how and why I feel things so deeply for this record in particular.

Since way back in February 2021, when Taylor first announced that she was re-recording a bunch of her old albums, starting with Fearless, I have been waiting for this moment. I won’t get into the whole sordid story about why she’s doing it, or how much I wish Scoote* B*aun would get hit by a car, but it’s a whole thing. What I will say is that in the long run, I am honestly happy that this happened because the re-recordings are flawless. Seriously, I’m just wonderstruck (lmao 😉). I haven’t listened to this record as much as I wanted to before writing this - I’ve listened a few times, but mostly I’ve just been thinking about it. I was b i g excited for this to come out, but I can’t lie, there was some anxiety too - this record is so important to me so it had to be flawless; and I think Taylor nailed it. Anyway, I have waited for this for a long time, and now that it’s finally here I have Some Thoughts.

I went back and forth in my head about how to do this, and I decided the best way would be to nail down exactly which songs I was most nervous or excited about, and then do a broader breakdown of the rest of the album, so here we go: starting with…

Mine

‘She is the best thing that’s ever been mine.’

Taylor always opens her records with one of the strongest tracks on said record, and this one is no different. I adore the original, and the re-recording is incredibly faithful to it. The only differences I noticed in this track versus the original were a few unsubtle moments where the growth and refinement of Taylor’s vocal range in the past thirteen years really shine through. It’s the same song, but new again.

Sparks Fly

‘The way you move is like a full-on rain storm, and I’m a house of cards,’

This song has always been one of my all-time favourites from any artist ever, and this new version is just as intense and moving as the original was back when I first heard it somewhere around 2012. This re-recording gives me chills. I am literally trying not to cry right now as I sit here writing this and relistening to it. Every line in this song is flawless. And oh my god, the strings. During the track, I find it difficult with my audio processing problems to tell if it’s a guitar, a violin, another string instrument, or all of the above, but whatever it is it makes this song so much more powerful.

Speak Now

“She floats down the aisle like a pageant queen,”

‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ is the first track here where Taylor’s strengthened and refined voice is apparent in almost every lyric. While it’s maybe not one of the biggest or strongest stand-out tracks on the record, but it has a very special place in my heart from when the original record made its indelible mark on me. Not a lot is different here, besides the sound of Taylor’s voice, and I think that’s okay.

Mean

“You, with your switching sides and your wildfire lies and your humiliation.”

Mean is so much fun, it always has been. The up-tempo of it contrasted against the subject matter has always worked really well for me. The opening is so peppy while she talks about how hard critics had been treating her, and how badly she used to take it when it happened. But I love how the song goes from ‘upset’ to ‘f**k you’ by the end. This re-recording feels really good, too, because the line “some day I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me,” feels like both a prophecy from 2010, and a vindication in 2023 that she was right all along.

Better Than Revenge

“He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches.”

This is the one I was most anxious about going into this new version. For one, I really love the original song, despite its one glaringly large problem, but I was also nervous about whether or not she would change the lyric, and if so, to what? The first time I heard the new lyric, I was reading the prologue in the booklet that came with the CD hard copy of the album, and even though I wasn’t super paying attention I noticed it. I skipped back a few seconds to hear it again, and looked up the lyrics in the booklet so I could sing along and get it into my brain. I really like the new lyric a lot, and I expect I am going to think about it a lot in the future, too.

Haunted

“Something keeps me holding onto nothing.”

Haunted has always been a big favourite of mine to just scream-sing along to when I need to release some sadness energy, even the acoustic version is great. This version is… something else. It’s always been something of a rock song, but I feel like Taylor really leaned into that here, and the result is flawless. I sent Castles Crumbling to my sister (not a swiftie) during my first listen to the record, and she liked it so much that she listened to the rest of the album - during her listen, she sent me back this text:

This new version is incredible, and I’m so happy to have it in my life. And I’m stoked that ‘Haunted (Taylor’s Version)’ may have made a Swiftie out of my sister. 😁

Ours

“The stakes are high, the water's rough, but this love is ours,”

I love the way Taylor kept the little southern drawl from the original track here. This is the one track on this record that really makes my heart flutter. There’s very little in this track that feels different from the original, but I think that was a really inspired choice because it was honestly practically flawless the first time around. This song also has a really special place in my heart because the original video was the source of one of my favourite reaction gifs to use on social media or in texts (see below!).

Wrapping up… 🎁

The rest of the re-recorded tracks here are gorgeous, and you really can hear the different inflections and tones in Taylor’s voice as she sings these classics from her early career in the studio again. Altogether, I love this release of Speak Now and I really feel like if someone were to ask me which version they should listen to, my answer would be overwhelmingly this one; it truly is the definitive version of the record. It was honestly tough to nail this list down to just seven favourites out of the 22 tracks, even with excluding the From The Vault tracks which I will get to in a second. I’m so happy to have this space to gush about this record, and I really hope you enjoyed reading about my feelings!

From The Vault 🔓

As I said above, I excluded the From The Vault tracks from my list because I simply don’t have a ton to say about them yet. I have only listened to them a handful of times, so expect a follow-up post in a few weeks, once I’ve had more time to sit with them and form Some Opinions. What I will say right now, though, is that the immediate stand-outs for me were Electric Touch, I Can See You, and Castles Crumbling. I’m excited to listen to them a bunch more times. I also wanted to mention the Surprise Announcement video at the end of the album on Apple Music, too. Many hardcore swifties will probably have seen a version of it before elsewhere, but I had not - I have been avoiding any streams from The Eras Tour in hopes that I’ll someday get to see a complete version on Netflix or something - and y’all, this video almost broke me. I so wish I could have been there in person to feel the energy of the crowd!

The End 🔚

Well that’s it from me for this week, friends. Thanks so much for hanging out and indulging me while I am once again back on my Taylor Swift bullshit. If you want to see more writing from me, as I mentioned above you can go back and read about why Speak Now is so special to me, check out other things I've written on Substack, and as always you can check out my Letterboxd movie reviews. I recently reviewed Single White Female (1992) and Poseidon (2006)! Also! Please remember that if you have comments, questions, suggestions, or just want to say hi, please hit me up in the comments or at any of the socials in the links below.

Stay safe out there y’all and have a great week. You’re the best thing that’s ever been mine! Ka kite anō au i a koe. 💚

Rebecca

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[arcdreamer]

Grab your Free copy of "Shadow Frolic"

In case you like some gothic feel of a writing, with some shady shade short stories – that would be your cup of tea. Witchy kind of stories, psycho-kind of stories, all wrapped in poetic feel and really charming.