#Orbits writing
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Soulmate AU?
so I rebloged a post about soulmates recently and I was really interested in writing a story and incorporating some those ideas!
so a little bit of context for this AU:
soulmates are pretty much only for borrowers, as humans donât have them. Also when you have a soulmate (since not every borrower has one but most do) their hand print will be place somewhere randomly on your body, and it might not be in the same place for a pairing (Ex. How Poc has Corbinâs hand print on her back and he had Pocâs hand print slightly off center on his wrist)
***
Humans donât have soulmates. At least not in the way borrowers do.Â
Borrowers have glowing hand prints somewhere on their body, and have the ability to write messages on their arms or to telepathically speak.Â
Never have a human and a borrower been soulmates. Or have they?
Poc had been told that her soulmate was probably just younger than her or something, and thatâs why her mark hadnât shown up.Â
But she was a borrower of science. Unlike most borrowers, she had conflicting traits and many problems.Â
She was very creative for a borrower, which caused everyone to call her things like âbrightâ or âgiftedâ as a child. Now that she was older though, her creativity was seen as ârecklessâ and âchildishâ
She also believed in science, and learning about math and literature. She was lucky her parents had taught her how to read and write. Most borrowers didnât get to learn the whole English language or care about science.
She also had health issues that worried her parents. She thought about things differently and had a hard time breathing sometimes. Being able to breathe is definitely important.
So she just thought she didnât have a soulmate. Never in a million years did she even suspect that her soulmate could be human, that is until about half her body glowed with a large hand print.Â
âCraters.âÂ
âHelloâŠ?!â A male voice responded mildly alarmed, further showing that humans donât get soulmates.
âDo you know whatâs happening?â He asked again, this time more confidently.
She knew she probably shouldnât respond, but she was so lonely, and maybe this could be a good way to gain information on human behavior! One of her friends studied humans in an effort to help borrowers predict them better. This insight could help him in that mission.
âYesâ she responded simply, still forming her thoughts and words.
He waited a few seconds before getting impatient âwellâŠ?â
âWeâre soulmates, usually people donât uhhhh have them?â Poc tried to keep her voice even but her words tumbled out in more of a questioning tone, like she herself didnât quite know. Which to be fair wasnât far from the truth.
âOhâ he replied simply again âdoes that mean we should try and meet-âÂ
âNo. Iâm not going to meet you.â She interrupted. âI shouldnât even be talking to you. Itâs bad enough I have your big as the galaxy hand on me!â She thought angrilyÂ
âUhm⊠okâŠâ he sounded a bit dejectedÂ
She couldnât believe she was offering this to him but she still piped up to mend his newly rejected self âWe can still be friends thoughâ
She could feel him beaming âReally?!âÂ
Poc sighed heavily âreallyâÂ
Following Corbin:Â
He was honestly pretty freaked out when all the sudden it was like he was talking to a void through his thoughts.Â
After his void in counter with Poc he noticed a small hand print on his wrist. Corbin had to wonder why it was so small, maybe it was to be desecrate. He guessed it had something to do with the soul mate thing. Poc had said that most people donât have soulmates so he opted not to tell anyone, and just hoped he would meet her one day.Â
They had their first interaction a few years ago, but had never met. Corbin kept trying to push the subject but every time Poc refused saying things like âitâs inconvenientâ or ânowâs not the timeâ
Poc had figured out on day one that he was human, so meeting him was never on her agenda, but today she felt like she needed to at least tell him that sheâs a borrower.Â
Now she wouldnât have had this thought if it were normal circumstances, but she was sure she was going to die. She had been to reckless today and had gotten stuck in some wires under the humans desk. She was always interested in human tech and would go into the beans room whenever he was out at school or whatever he did all day, to look at his computer.
âUhhh CorbinâŠ?â
âOh hey Pockie Stix!â He cheerfully greeted back with the nickname he picked up somewhere along the way of their friendshipÂ
âI- I donât think Iâm gonna make itâŠâ she took a shaky breath then continued âand I feel like I owe you the truth about why I donât want to meet youâŠâ
âHey whatâs wrong?! Are you ok? What do you mean you donât think youâre going to make it?!â
âDonât worry you wonât care afterwardsâ she let out a pained laugh
âWha- of course I will still care!â He was honestly hurt at her lack of trust even through the years.
âWellâŠâ she sniffledÂ
âAre you crying?!â At this moment he just wanted to hug her and tell her everything was gonna be ok but he didnât know what the danger was
âI was so mad at first when I found out a human was my soulmateâŠâ
âWait youâre not human??â Corbin was growing more confused by the second
âNo⊠Iâm a borrowerâŠâ at his stunned silence she continued âI was so offended that your hand print took up so much of my body. I was livid when you kept asking to meet me. I hated that I started to enjoy and look forward to our talks. Iâm sorryâÂ
âW- wait⊠so your like⊠small???âÂ
ââŠyesâ
âIs that why your hand print is small? You said mine took upâŠâ Corbin trailed off, putting the pieces together. it made sense she was small, she didnât talk about things the same way that he did. or that she didnât seem to talk about normal human girl things.
ââŠyeah⊠Iâm sorry, you were so excited to talk to me⊠but Iâve just let you downâ
âYou didnât let me down, and I donât think of you in a different way, youâre still the same girl I met 2 years ago. But you said you didnât think youâre going to make it?â His mind flooding with much worse things that could be happening now that he knew she could presumably fit in his hand.
âOH! Yeah, Iâm tangled in some wiresâ she had mostly forgotten about her little predicament while she was working it out with Corbin about being a borrower. âI donât have time to explain all about borrowers right now but this human guy will definitely be back soon. He always leaves for a few hours at this time doing whatever the flip humans doâ she explainedÂ
âAnything else you can tell me?â He was starting to panic more while she seemed to be giving up âhmmmm well heâs tall, not just by my standards but by human standards too! His friend came over the other day and he towered over this other guyâ she recalled a similar incident that had happened to him earlier in the week âoh! And he has dark shaggy hair and wears a white bandanna thingyâŠ? Iâm not sure what else you want me to sayâ she laughed nervously.
âThat sounds a lot likeâŠÂ me!â He was starting to strongly suspect it was him she was describing âIs he hot?âÂ
âExcuse me?!â
âEr⊠uh sorryâŠâ he hadnât meant to shout that out to her, it was probably the last thing on her mind if he was honest. He just wanted to know if she found him attractive since they were soulmates and he was kind of in love with her.
âWell I guess he kind of attractive but thatâs not helping the fact that heâs gonna kill me ok?â She deadpannedÂ
âHang on I might be able to helpâ
âWait what?!!?â âWhat does that mean? What is this idiot doing?!â She called out distressedÂ
He drove home as fast as he could. He had been running errands since thatâs what he usually did on Saturdays, but he could fully disregard that if his suspicions were correct. And oh gosh was he hopping he was right.
âCorbin?â She called out. He had stopped talking after he proposed that he could help her, which she highly doubted. Soon she heard the dreaded sound of the door opening but instead of his rhythmic footsteps, he was running, straight towards the room she was in. She cursed under her breath as she fought harder to get unstuck before hyperventilating more.Â
âPoc? Poc!â The human called out
âWhy does he know my name?!â She gasped for air as the wires and her hysteria constricted her breathing even more
âPoc are you underneath the table?â He asked her mentally to which he got no response, he should have expected that.Â
He checked anyway, and sure enough there was a small girl struggling to breath and tangled in cords. He slowly sat down under his desk by the wires âHey itâs ok! Iâm just here to help you, but I know youâre not a big fan of receiving helpâŠâ he gingerly reached down to her and unwrapped the wires that had latched around her. âHeyâŠ!â She grumbled but she had given up struggling to save her energy. She knew she couldnât fight him or even try to leave at this moment, she had to wait.Â
***
ok so I know I have some mess ups and potential inconsistencyâs but I did my best with the hour I was given to write
hope yâall enjoyed!! âš
#no beta we die like men#sfw g/t#g/t community#g/t writing#giant/tiny#g/t#size difference#giant tiny#borrowers#orbit writes#Orbits Writing#oc: poc#oc: corbin#Borrower!Poc#Human!Corbin
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Deathworlders everywhere but in Space
This is sitting in my brain because I haven't seen anyone else do this, but take a second to think about this: There are other deathworlders in space, terrifying ones, huge monster orc things. They are massive and nightmarish and impossibly strong. So thats why humans stand out. Thats how we survive. Human's are terrifying because we aren't built for one biome, one climate or even one planet. We aren't necessarily the strongest or fastest or scariest looking, but we're built to survive fucking everything. What if other deathworlder's are almost always only made to survive in one climate? (similar to some of the most deadly predators on earth currently) All the other deathworlders are terrifying, yes, but the second they step off their planet they're weak. Massive aliens of hulking muscle but their planet's gravity is a lot lower than the standard, so they barely meet the average strength bar whenever they go outside their gravity zone. Aliens that have venomous spikes all over their body and look gnarly as shit but their venom has practically no effect on 99% of discovered intergalactic species. Deathworlders whose planet is the nether from minecraft IRl, but they can't survive in any other temperature for any amount of time because their body just can't handle the cold and regulate their temperate (or, vice versa for tundra species). Aquatic species that are kraken-like nightmares, giant sirens and deadly squid-like beings. But they can't leave their home at all, because theres a very specific chemical makeup of their water that isn't currently found within their life-span distance travel. Deathworlders that genuinely can barely survive off planet and are frail compared to even the most docile prey species whenever they have to travel. Their called deathworlders because going to their planet is certain death, but if they leave they'll be meeting death just as quickly. And then along come humans, and everyones like, oh, another deathworlder, nothing to worry abou- wait. These guys dont seem to loose any of their natural strength off planet... and their fast and strong... and- AND THEY CAN SURVIVE IN PRACTICALLY ANY CLIMATE IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE??? HELLO? Oh and of course their predators. Of course most of their planet is completely uninhabitable for most of us. Mhm, yep. thats fair. Totally Basically, deathworlders are a thing, the more common 'terrifying alien monster' type, but their harmless because they can't survive like everyone else. They can't thrive like humans can. It scares the shit out of everyone for a wholeeeeee while, after all, no one ever expected a deathworlder that doesn't die.
#humans are space orcs#in your orbit#humans are terrifying#humans are deathworlders#humans are amazing#humans are space fae#humans are weird#humans are space australians#humans are space oddities#humans#weirdos#deathworld#earth is a deathworld#lol but not for us#writing#writing thoughts#possible future sbi oneshot?#maybe?#i have no clue if i worded any of this right
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@derinthescarletpescatarian Aspen is fuckimg awesome
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Hii! For the event (star), can I request Gojo as a roommate having a crush on you please? Thank you! (hoping I made it before event is over lol)
warnings: slightly suggestive, bad dates, mentions of sex, first kiss, intentional gojo to satoru
fics4gaza :: jjk masterlist
Roommate! Gojo, who was just looking to fill the spare room he had in his apartment. He didn't really need a flatmate, and he could afford the rent by himself, but sometimes Gojo gets lonely, and he thinks seeing and talking to another human could remedy that. He'd gone through about 4 or 5 trials before he had found you, and you were perfect.
You didn't need to air your underwear with a fan in the living room, you didn't keep your dildo in the shared freezer, and thank the lord you didn't have a really really strange and dubious smell wafting from your room. You were suspiciously normal, but after being traumatised by previous roommates, you were a breath of fresh air.
Roommate! Gojo, who insists on going grocery shopping for you both. He doesn't ask you to chip in or anything because it's just food. He's more than okay to cover it all and knows you're not as fortunate as he is with funds. Just add what you want to the sticky note on the fridge, and Gojo will go get it.
Sometimes, you both go together, and a small part of his brain thinks he could get used to it. Him pushing the trolley while you went through the list and got extra little sweet treats for you both. Gojo loved that the most about you. You were always down for a sweet treat.
(At first, you starkly refused, not feeling comfortable relying on someone else, but Gojo was so insistent you had no choice but to say yes. To show your thanks, you offered to make dinner for you both, so it became a tradition for you to cook whilst Gojo watches you, rambling aimlessly about his day. You'd be lying if it didn't put a smile on your face, though. It was a nice way to end the day)
Roommate! Gojo, who would use any excuse to have you hang out with him and his friends. He has a really good feeling that you, Shoko, and Suguru would get along really well. So he coincidentally invites them around when he knows you're on your day off and gets you to join their movie night, too. Gojo revels in the fact that he was once again right, and by the end of the day, you had exchanged numbers with them and were well on your way to becoming good friends.
(Before he left, Suguru pulled Gojo aside and told him not to mess it up. Gojo pretends like he doesn't understand what Suguru's on about and laughs it off, but deep down, he knows. He's already told himself the same thing a million times.)
Roommate! Gojo, who gets jealous when he hears you bringing guys/girls around after a night out. You've been living with him for 6 months now, and Gojo stopped sleeping with others at the 3 month mark. You were always respectful, though, making sure he knew beforehand when someone was over and always kept the noise to the minimum. Still, something in his heart would clench.
(You'd notice that the day after you'd bring someone around Gojo would be strangely unavailable and avoidant for the next two or three days. At first, when it happened, you assumed that he'd accidentally heard you, but after the second and third time this occurred, you thought maybe there was something else more to it? You didn't know what to think because he'd go straight back to normal afterwards anyways.)
Roommate! Gojo, who's always spoiling you whenever he goes travelling. There's always something that reminds him of you when he's away, and he just has to get it for you. You're always reluctant to accept, especially since he's always paying for you and getting you things, but he insists. In turn, you've started getting him little knick knacks, too. You once found a little rubber duckie with bright blue eyes, and you just had to get it for him. He still remembers the wide smile on your face when you presented it to him. The duck was admittedly a little creepy, but he kept it safe on his bedtime table.
(He'll take this to his grave, but he's never really felt homesick before you. He abroad, and all of a sudden, his heart aches for the smell of home, the smell of you. He misses you so much, and he can't help but see you in everything. If he could buy you the whole world, he would.)
Roommate! Gojo, who tries to take his mind off of you by trying to date other people, but it just never works. He starts talking to someone, and all of a sudden, they don't use emojis the way you use them. Their tone sounds completely off, and they don't appreciate the memes he sends like you would! He stops it before they can even ask for a first date, let alone a second.
He's realised you've completely ruined him. Gojo is besotted with you, to the point that no one else is attractive to him anymore. Except you. It's almost been more than a year since he last slept with someone, but he truly has no desire to sleep with anyone but you.
Roommate! Gojo, who's there for you after you come home from a bad date. You swore this one would be different. The conversations you had with them prior to the date made you think they could be the one. But meeting them in person was completely different. You came home in tears, thinking you truly weren't meant for long-term relationships. Maybe you were destined to be single forever.
Gojo offered to have a little pamper party for you and listened to all your rambles as you painted each other's nails. He even held you all night as you cried, the movie he put on in the background completely forgotten. Through the hiccups and tears you told Gojo, you wished you had someone like Gojo. 'Why not me', he whispered in response, a watery and uncertain smile on his face.
It was you who leaned in first, and albeit it a very watery and emotional first kiss, Satoru wouldn't change it for the world.
(You were surprised at Satoru's sudden confession. Over the past year and a half, you'd been living with him, and you'd gotten to know Satoru extremely well. And he was almost perfect. Never once did you think he'd be interested in you, so you took your chance and kissed him while you could. Even if it was for one night, Satoru was yours. When morning came, you'd have a serious conversation. But for now, you were each other's.)
Roommate! Boyfriend! Satoru who sneaked into your room almost every night because he claimed he 'couldn't sleep without your warmth'. He sleeped completely sprawled out, his limbs somehow taking up the entirety of the bed. You had no choice but to use him as a mattress and sleep on his chest. You complained often, but secretly, you loved it. His body was so comfortable to lay down on, and his arms wrapped around your frame made you feel warm and safe. The kisses he'd press to every inch of your face were also always welcome.
Boyfriend! Satoru, who talks about you moving in again, this time into his room (since it was the bigger room of the two), and using your room as extra storage space or an office. You were more than happy to agree with him, with you two sleeping together every single night for about 4 months now anyway.
(Satoru's room was filled with your things before he asked you to officially relocate. Half of your clothes filled his wardrobe, your skincare and toiletries were in his en suite, your books had taken up quite a couple of shelves too. Him asking was just making it even more official.)
a/n: thank you so much for your request !! you were right on time, so don't worry about it boo and i really enjoyed writing this. i hope you enjoyed it too, and once again, thank you for your request <33
© ffsg0jo 2024 â do not plagiarise, repost, modify, or translate any of my work, in any way shape or form; i will piss in your cereal if you do. all work belongs to me and me only.
#đ».sunspell#đ».nonny<33#ê©â interstellar communications#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#jjk x reader#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jjk x you#jjk x y/n#gojo satoru#satoru gojo#gojo x reader#gojo x you#gojo x y/n#satoru gojo x reader#gojo satoru x reader#gojo satoru x you#gojo satoru x y/n#satoru gojo x you#satoru gojo x y/n#jujutsu kaisen x you#jjk smut#jjk fluff#jjk fanfic#jjk writing#jujutsu kaisen x gender neutral reader#jjk gojo#đ».celestial orbit
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I could wax poetic about why Viktor's League backstory is inherently more interesting and more thematically resonant than where they went with him in Arcane season 2, but the cold hard truth is
a man covered in grease and probably blood who builds his own body out of scraps with his own two hands, can in fact build any contraption out of dinted metal sheets and a few screws including a deathray, performs deeply inadvisable operations on desperate but consenting people with his own tools, generates a cult following against his wishes because of his ability to inadvisably help people but the power's all his now anyway so he may as well, wants to clean up and save the undercity but is (only sort of) misunderstood as a walking Geneva Convention violation a freak and a supervillain, torments his arch-nemesis on at least a weekly basis and probably homoerotically hunts him for sport, had his life's work misattributed to people in the ruling class and is angry and tragic about it forever, tries to rip out his own emotions and is unsuccessful but pretends like he was not, is actually oddly kind to children, and is at the end of the day still just some guy,
is just hotter okay
#arcane#viktor#viktor arcane#machine herald#arcane critical#viktor the machine herald#and yes it IS more interesting and more thematically resonant and doesn't unnecessarily launch the story's stakes into orbit#as usual i'm mashing his 2011 and 2016 lore together but that seems the natural course these days because there's good in both#the conversation around viktor's league changes is unfortunately mostly about appearances from what i can tell when really#the issue is themes and story and what is ACTUALLY cooler and more interesting as character writing#and not just -bigger stakes are automatically better- because they are really really not
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@derinthescarletpescatarian đ is everything normal and happy at the end?
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popping in randomly after almost an entire month just to talk non stop about the tsaritsa again everyone sit down.
specifically just thinking about the implications of tsaritsa's ideals originally being about love + the abandonment of those ideals to complete her goal of, presumably, destroying Celestia or whatever she's cooking up. to the point even her people don't love her and I probably don't even remember a time her ideals were of love. now it's all just ice and snow and cold.
which makes romantic fics w her even funnier because she's purposely removed this part of herself and suddenly reader walks into teyvat like they own the place (they do) and I can only imagine her reaction. angry, probably. because why you? what are you doing to her that's caused her hundreds of years of strict adherence to rejecting "love" both from others and to others to just. collapse. absolute shattering of her world and you probably don't even know it bc if nothing else she's good at hiding it. a lot of denial. tries to pick you apart and see what's makes you so different.
and oh she just hates it. she loathes it.
basically one sided enemies to lover trope because she can't stand you for a while but if you stick around she starts warming up to you and it makes it WORSE. so much worse. tries to distance herself but your just everywhere and it gets on her nerves because why does she love you? she isn't capable of love, not anymore. she thought she was.
g-d forbid one of the harbingers or PIERRO notices she'd never live it down. might even consider the implications of just killing you (she doesnt). worse if you know about it and act like a brat she will lose her damn mind
just the tsaritsa being an absolutely horrible mess internally.
#sagau#genshin sagau#self aware genshin#genshin impact sagau#self aware genshin impact#genshin cult au#genshin impact cult au#tsaritsa#i could also talk sbt furi here and how similar they r + how writing one of them influences my writing of the other#but anyway#ive been busy moving i havent had time to write unfortunately#but i do have time for tsaritsa! and furi. mwah#i just think its funny imagining tsaritsa trying to be polite snd cordial but ohh shes SEETHING. she hates you. she loves you.#she wants to kiss you snd kill you and devour you. a horrible mess of a woman who closed herself off snd suddenly she feels exposed#she hates it. wants to hate you but oh g-d you make her soft in the worst of ways. she'd destroy teyvat itself if you asked her to#shes like a cat you gotta work to earn her trust but oh lord when you do. velcroed to your side#she will say she despises you before kissing you so tenderly it makes you dizzy. between vitriol she brushes her knuckles against your cheek#longing and yearning so violently you will tear each other apart just to be closer.#is there anything so undoing as loving another so wholly it consumes you?#she swears she's indifferent but she pampers you and sends you extravagant gifts with no name attached yet it smells like her. you know.#oh to be in a horribly complicated relationship thats almost one sided enemies to lovers w the tsaritsa that consumes you both#like two stars wanting to be closer and yet..in doing so you undo each other when you inevitably collide. caught in an orbit that dooms both#this has been ur monthly tsaritsa ranting ur welcome and goodnight đ«Ą#when i say im crazy sbt the tsaritsa i am so serious. i AM her number 1 fan source me
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woke up thinking several of my recent sci-fi favorites would have trouble with some of their characters' pronouns if they were to be translated into Ukrainian for a very funny reason
the thing is, "it" in casual use isn't primarily dehumanising/instrumentalising
it's affectionate, sort of a diminutive, used in a "not old enough to be gendered" way
so you have anglophone writers using "it" for their characters to underscore that they treat themselves or are treated by others as inhuman instruments
and with Ukrainian (and probably other Slavic languages) you immediately have to deal with that the most widespread use of "it" is for "small child" or "baby /affectionate"
ĐČĐŸĐœĐŸ ŃĐ°ĐșĐ” ĐŒĐ°Đ»Đ” Đč ŃĐ°ĐșĐ” ĐŒĐžĐ»Đ”
this would be harder to translate for Derin's Public Universal Friends - there is this whole emphasis on how it is a choice to become one, and the vetting process is decades long. nobody calls a PUF cute; they're recognized as useful but slightly terrifying in the "I chose to make myself into an instrument" way
and for Martha Wells' Murderbot this could probably work out of the box, because a lot of the story hinges upon the different perceptions of itself that Murderbot has in comparison to its humans, and a lot of the storyline has humans adopting Murderbot the same way it adopts them. so here the child!it could probably work pretty well
speaking of which i need to get back on a translation project i've been procrastinating on
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canât believe i never posted the commission i got of karlach and daefina from the talented @b0zart iâm still so in love with it
#this is the druid wood elf oc i write in my karlach fics đ«¶đ»#i love her so much sheâs babygirl (she tops her 6ft masc wife)#the first time i saw the finished product i noticed the lesbian manicure karlach has and i still donât know if it was intentional or not#but i love it so much it sends me into orbit#i use the datamined karlach mod fyi and had the artist use that as karlachâs refs#i canât resist a big nose đ«¶đ»đ«¶đ»#oc: daefina#karlach#bg3#baldur's gate#baldurs gate 3#baldur's gate 3#bg3 karlach#karlach demonsbane#karlach bg3#karlach cliffgate#karlach x tav#bg3 tav#b0zart#commission
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Goodbye, September!
Being Barnes & Nobleâs SFF Book of the Month meant getting to sign piles of books wherever I went, having LONG LIVE EVIL in windows, seeing cool displays and my fabulous poster, having a wonderful event with the lovely Rachel Gillig, seeing other books on my Evil Table - it was especially thrilling when I saw books that were inspirations for LONG LIVE EVIL (shouted out in my acknowledgments!) like Scott Lynchâs Lies of Locke Lamora, anything Leigh Bardugo, Spinning Silver and THE PRINCESS BRIDE ON MY TABLE DO YOU SEE IT.
Iâm mostly a text girl on my tumblr, but it was a wonderful time. Overwhelming (I was a slug with the amnesia for a week there) but wonderful. I was really sure, after cancer and losing many professional friends and contacts and after people in publishing TOLD me I was done, that I was done. I am so grateful to see Evil being embraced, to my publisher and my readers for giving me a chance. Publishing is a strange game, and itâs early days yet. This could all fall through. Sometimes you go into strange worlds for one brief adventure and sometimes they become home. But I want to be very joyful, even if just for a moment.
(Also yes I stole a book trolley and ran around B&N Union Square. Thatâs not important at this time.)
LONG LIVE EVIL has been on US bestseller lists for 4 weeks.
Farewell, September. Farewell, Evil Tables. You were a hell of a birthday month. Iâll miss you. Iâm happy you happened.
#barnes and noble#rachel gillig#the princess bride#Naomi Novik#lies of Locke lamora#long live evil#sarah rees brennan#bookblr#writing#publishing#orbit books#portal fantasy#isekai
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Someone had to go first.
In an odd first, I forgot to post this HFY story here until after it was voiced by BirbletonVA. Their channel actually did such an insanely good job that I would actually strongly recommend listening to it over reading it. Nonetheless, the text is provided below.
Please like and subscribe to their channel if you like their work.
youtube
The first ship that arrived was pretty matter of fact about its fate. The pilot introduced himself as Eric, and told us he was part of the first sublight resupply attempt in modern history. He then gave me and the ground control team his bad news.
âSo,â he said. âWithout real time telemetry, we werenât even sure which half of your orbit youâd be in. Thatâs half a solar systemâs worth of wiggle room. Decelerating enough to survive contact with your low orbit would take me two weeks, which, you know, it looks like we donât have. That means that in order to get the second ship in before you lose orbital control to the Kresh, Iâm gonna have to make a sacrificial flyby. Ten to the negative four torr is good enough for a lot of things, but at point-seven c itâs gonna be like sandblasting a soup cracker. Good news is that all the expensive toys are in the next ship, so this really ainât costing you more than a ship and a pilot.â
âYou knew,â I said. If they put the expensive toys in the second ship, they knew that the first was likely a sacrifice. No one smart enough to handle orbital physics would miss that.
âI did,â he said. âBut someone had to go first.â
That was, of course, a lie. No one had to go first. No else had had, at least. When our connection to the FTL network was lost, weâd understood that as the end of our reinforcements. Doing resupplies via sublight was just too risky. It was a testament to Earth that it had accepted the risk and continued anyway.
âIs there anything we can do for you?â I asked. This man had come here to die for us. I wasnât sure how much I could give, but what I had was his.
âI do have a few requests,â he said. âFirst up, I need as much high-orbital data as you got. The whole lot.â
I began directing tightbeam resources to him immediately. It was an easy resource to exchange - it wasnât like there was anyone else out to talk to anymore. When we lost FTL, we found ourselves very, very alone.
âSecond,â he said. âRight, I know Iâm gonna sound like a princess right now, but I have been stuck in this stupid tin-can for almost two-years now, and I seriously overestimated how much I like synth music. If you have anything thatâs analog - I donât care what kind of string or drum or brass you play, but Iâd kill to hear something without a beep in it.â
I jumped my own queue in the tightbeam, and added a short playlist that I ripped from the local web. Human Music, it was labeled. 3 Terabytes. I prayed there was something on it that heâd like.
âAnd third,â he said. âThird. The uh, next pilot is pretty mad at me. Turns out this will just be one of those things left unfinished. Thatâs all death really is, I guess - a lot of unfinished things. Let him know that he was right: He is a better pilot than me. But tell him that wouldnât have made a difference here. Bad luck beats skill, and this luck was shit.â
I promised, and he went silent after that. We could see what data he was analyzing, and the short answer was all of it - everything from atmospheric density to troop positions and his own shipâs blueprints. He knew he had one shot at this, and that if the price wasnât paid here, it would be paid by whoever came next.
---
Ground control didnât get a verbal warning that heâd entered atmosphere. Just a ping. A little here-I-am, whispered in the dark.
After that, we could keep track with visuals alone.
He hit the outskirts of the exoatmosphere in his first pass, burning bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. He caught the sparse particles like a kite, trying to shed enough speed to hit actual low orbit. Automatic telemetry updates gave us the grim news for the ship: Thermals were holding up decently, but the ablative was wearing out fast.
The entire descent brought us more than two hourâs reprieve. The Kresh hadnât expected to see a resupply, but they knew what one meant: Get it now, get it fast, or deal with a stream of new troops. They could buy themselves ten days' time by shooting this one ship down now. That was an eternity during a siege.
The first loop lowered the speed by about a twentieth of light. The pilot responded by pulling the ship in tighter, burning trying to preserve more ablative plating by trading off with thermal. Seven fighters were close enough to fire off heat seekers. I donât think the Kresh had ever anticipated shooting down a craft coming in that hot - the missile's decoy avoidance countermeasure actually made it steer around the thing, chasing down loose pieces of shrapnel. Cooled fragments, still hotter than an engine, should be at full blast. The simple mistakes bought it enough time to enter pre-orbit, and the fighters had to stop their pursuit. They werenât willing to die to stop the ship.
Our man, on the other hand, was already committed to that course.
A third loop followed a fourth. Ablative coating went from 65% integrity, to 30%, to 5%. Telemetry scans were exceptionally detailed - the pilot was making the flyby count. The last message we got from him was simple:
Are you EMP shielded? he asked, not even bothering to encrypt the text stream. He didnât have time to process more than that.
Yes, we replied. We knew what he was thinking, but it was still a shock to see it. The fusion torch flared hot, burning through the nozzle and feeding directly into the craftâs dueterium supply. The reaction went super critical, and the resulting neutron pulse set off everything in the ship with a z-count higher than iron. Three continuous seconds of EM interference screamed through the comms as the hulk burned through orbit.
The explosion itself wasnât powerful enough to kill the Kresh ships still in high orbit, but it made enough broadband radiation to blind both sides LADAR. The man must have been a hell of a pilot - half the shrapnel went down and got burned up as it entered the standard atmosphere, traded as the cost of moving the other half past lagrange. Standard evasion wouldâve made the pieces easy to dodge, but with LADAR down, all the Kresh could do was sit still and cower as the wrath of a dead man riddled them full of holes. Our best ace had managed to shoot down seven ships before this before getting shot down himself. The wreckage of the freighter took down six.
---
The second ship came in stealth. One second, we were holding attrition in high orbit, the next, something the size of a small station came ripping through the atmosphere.
It did the same trick as the former - swapping between ablative and thermal loads, coming down at a speed that the Kresh fighters didnât even try to match. Armies could be built in years, but skills like this took decades.
Telemetry connection was established almost as an afterthought. The way the ship casually ate through ablative armoring made my eyes water, but the pilot himself seemed pretty non-plussed.
âYouâre down to fifteen percent coverage. You need-
âWhat I need,â he said, âis to see the previous shipâs telemetry. If thereâs one thing you can trust, itâs that this bird is going to come down gentle.â
He cut off my chance to reply by flicking the channel off. We watched, and we wrang our hands, but sure enough he came in six minutes later with 4% of the ablative left.
I met him on the landing pad. Under normal circumstances, weâd have needed twenty-four hours for the craft to cool enough to even approach, but weâd had cryo ready just in case. Three tankers of nitrogen, and the loading area, at least, was cool enough to touch. Safety would have to take a backseat to speed here - we needed the supplies fast.
But those both would take a backseat to a promised conversation with the second pilot. He was out of the craft as soon as the air was cool enough to avoid scalding his lungs, picking through the workers to try and find who had the telemetry data.
I found him first. The drive went into his hands, but I needed to keep my promise with Eric before letting go.
âYouâre better than the first pilot,â I said, and I wasnât lying. If the previous flier had been a saint, this one was a god. âBut you wouldnât have been able to manage the landing either. There just wasnât time.â
âLet me see,â he said, tugging on the drive. âJust let me see. I have to know I couldnât do it either. I have to know that someone had to die.â
I let go of the drive and he stalked back into his ship. I didnât follow. I figured Iâd pushed things far enough as it was.
---
The second pilot left the ship six hours later. He looked bleary in a way that put me at ease. Iâd been up the last six hours directing supplies from the ship. Everything from ground-to-orbit rails to AGI targeting systems was inside, and to say it was gamechanging would be an understatement. It was good work, but I was tired, and I didnât want to have to pretend otherwise. Seeing the other man with bags under his eyes meant we could just be frank with each other.
âI couldnât have managed it,â he said, half-ashamed, half-relieved.
âIt just wasnât possible,â I agreed.
We sat there a moment longer. I didnât mind the break. This was time well spent.
âDid it hurt?â he asked finally.
âAblative failed before heating,â I said, which was the technical way of saying no. âHe overloaded the reactor before the ship actually broke up and did some kind of slingshot maneuver - hit the main body of the Kresh fleet with half a space stationâs worth of shrapnel.â
âGood,â he said.
I knew the signs. The tremor in his cheek, the way his jaw clenched - it wasnât professional, but I hugged him anyway. Let him have the dignity of choosing to weep instead of having it wrenched out of him.
It was a gift weâd all been given at some point in this war. At least now, there was the hope it could be over soon.
#hfy#humanity fuck yeah#science fiction#scifi#creative writing#speculative fiction#i work a lot with vacuums#much much less with orbital mechanics lol#seriously i cannot recommend birbletonVA enough#easily the best HFY channel on youtube#and criminally underrated#they take a little longer to push work out but my god their production quality#chefs kiss#perfection#Youtube#Babylon-HFY
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Bottoms Up Borrower đ„ 3
I have way to much time right now but since my classes havenât started up yet hereâs a little bit more of BUBAU also Iâm so sorry for how unthought out this story is, it started out as a blurb
edit: I accidentally posted the wrong chapter so I will be giving yâall part 2 and finished part 3 later
***
Remember when Santi thought everything was going great? Yeah itâs not going great anymore.
Georgeâs class had ended early when Santi went into his room to borrower some more fabric.
He hid behind the sewing machine, but he knew his cover wouldnât last. He needed to get to the exit in the walls, unfortunately that was located on top of a shelf he couldnât get to with out alerting the human to his presence.
George would definitely see him if he left right now. George was currently sitting on his bed finishing an assignment so he could start sewing.Â
Which means he would use the very sewing machine that concealed, albeit poorly, the little borrower.
âShit shit shit!â he thought to himself over and over. The longer he waited the more likely that George would find him while he was sewing, and the more likely that he would die.
Every borrower knew, from the day they could form a coherent thought, that humans would kill on sight. No matter how nice or sweet they were to their peers or how kind they looked, that humans were merciless creatures who were to big for their own good.
***
Sorry itâs so short, I wrote this in the middle of my break lol
I hope yâall enjoyed âš
edit: I posted the wrong part of the story so none of this makes sense lol
also I deleted the chapter soâŠ
#lol I have to get better at tags#no beta we die like men#BUBAU#Orbit writes#Orbits writing#sfw g/t#g/t writing#g/t#giant/tiny#borrowers#borrower oc Santi#oc: santi#Oc: George#giant tiny
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Can you imagine how sorrowful the kokiri were after Link disappeared? Can you imagine their heartbreak after loosing two loved ones in the same âday?â Their protector, gone and dead, even with the seedling left behind it did not help with mending their broken hearts. Neither did loosing the child the spirits helped raise. He had swore to do right by the Deku Tree and do right by Hyrule, leaving all that he knew behind. The boy, their boy, was just 10 when Hyrule was forced on his shoulders. He was just 10 when he doing a job only elders could truly comprehend.
âŠ
When Link comes back to kokiri forest after the 7 year slumber, a slumber that would forever change his tired mind, he finds somewhere in the forest a small pile of rocks and sticks. Its a grave, on that he had never seen before nor remembered being so close to his home. A grave that had all sorts of flowers, freshly craved ocarinas and little toys scattered about it. Childish objects, ones that once had his face splitting with a smile to see. But as he admired the small grave, on one of the biggest stones a simple engraving stood out amongst the rubble.
âAlways a hero, never a child.â
â- Our Linkâ
#tales out of orbit#oot link#ocarina of time#link ocarina#oot kokiri#kokiri#angst writing#legend of zelda#loz headcanons#hero of time#deku tree#loz oot#uhhhhhhh idk i think thats all i can tag it asâ
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ok so maybe i spent all day on the couch. but i did write 2000 words. so. have another snippet.
Tommy's house has a few additions. One has four legs, yellow eyes, and white fur with a splotch of orange covering the ears and half the forehead. He looks like he's wearing a hat.
"You got a cat?" Buck says in surprise.
"Yeah, he's my, uh," Tommy waves his hands in the air, "'yayyy I'm not gonna die' present to myself."
Buck offers his finger for the little guy to sniff. "What's his name?" Tommy looks away. "What?"
"It's, um." He sighs and stares at the wall. "Billy."
"Billy Boils?" Buck chokes.
Tommy shrugs. He might be blushing.
"Tommy."
"He made an indelible impression. What can I say?"
#bucktommy#911 abc#my writing#things by beanarie#ch 2 my beloved#at some point in this process#i will figure out how they actually get back together#but right now they're just orbiting ever closer
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What can we do in our abandoned solitude but gaze at ourselves? Examine ourselves in endless bouts of fascinated distraction, fall in love and hate with ourselves, make a theatre, myth and cult of ourselves. Because what else is there?
â Samantha Harvey, Orbital
#orbital#samantha harvey#quotes#booker 2024#literary quotes#literature#fiction#writing#booker prize#books#spilled ink#thoughts#lit#pretty quotes#quote of the day#reverie#reverie quotes#quote#book quote#book quotes#inspiring quote#inspiring quotes#beautiful quote#beautiful quotes
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object permanence so bad I have to reread old messages for my brain to go âoh yeahhhh I care themâ
#its WEIRD I think itâs the reason why I have a hard time expressing why Iâm not always aware of people in my life#its not because they dont matter enough to make a mark or that I see them as less than real even though im scared it feels that way#it feels like repeating smth so basic like water is wet or the moon orbits the earth because I stopped seeing it in the daytime#actually this already happens when I write a reminder and then forget because it blurs into the background and my brain#stops registering it as something important without conscious effort#oh shit this might also be why I suck at staying in touch with high school friends and coworkers#especially bc I only know my coworkers for as long as I work with them so when the season is over theyâre not present in my routine anymore#isnt it scary when the thought of smth becoming physical in your life means it could eventually be misplaced or forgotten#yapping#diary
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