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flowers-of-io · 3 years

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#2 Trials

“This place stinks,” Aunor said, crossing over the threshold. The Drifter laughed at that—so sincerely and gleefully it almost made her want to punch him.

It did not even stink, not really; just the hollow scent of ozone coming from the bank that was unsettling her. The workshop was halfway decorated for Dawning, with strings of fairly lights and paper decorations bearing symbols she did not recognise already up on most of the walls and railings. Old boxes of even older ornaments cluttered the floor, garlands spilling out of them like some alien, fuzzy worms in vivid colours. She entertained the thought of whether he was doing it all by himself or had this been some elaborate arrangement made with Eva Levante, lingered on it for a moment, then resolved she did not care enough to ponder this.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Drifter had stopped laughing, but the amusement still wrinkled the skin around his eyes.

“I need a favour.”

His baren teeth flashed, “I don’t recognise owing you one.”

“Mm, strange.” Aunor tilted her head, “Word on the wind is you’re about to violate the Reef’s policy on cross-system transit of goods and people.”

Drifter furrowed his brows, all the levity in his expression vanishing, “Where exactly have you caught that wind?”

“This is unimportant, even if you were privy to that knowledge. The customs office, however…”

He snorted in exasperation, “A’ight. What d’you want this time?”

“Watch Trials matches for me.” His eyes narrowed questioningly but Aunor didn’t let him cut in, “You know of all the shit going on there. The day before a Ghost almost got shattered. And while I hate to admit it, you have the… insight I don’t.” She glanced at a Splinter of Darkness glinting on his desk among scraps of junk.

“Should I take notes too?” His mouth twitched.

“You can draw identikit pictures for all I care,” Aunor pressed her lips together, then forced herself to look him straight in the eyes. “You have more experience in how the corruption works and spreads, and the Trials are a hatchery for it now. You could see the first signs I wouldn’t. Act earlier.”

“If you want me to make you a hitlist of Stasis enjoyers to quietly dispose of, then you’re wasting your time.”

“You’ve got pretty limited vision for someone who prides himself in stepping aside the black-and-white binary.”

“All those Guardians you’ve detained lately are not really helping your case.”

Aunor steadied herself against the railing, trying to tame the wave of anger washing over her. It had been his mess from the beginning, one that she, as always, had to clean up. It was unfair. His eyes were perfectly opaque and unreadable as she stared into them for a long moment of tensed silence.

“You think I like that job?” She said finally, the furious grief in her almost spilling out. “I’d very much do anything else than run around the system tracking down mad Guardians, hoping I can get to them in time before Shin Malphur puts a bullet in their Ghosts. If you don’t want these kids ending up dead, help me help them before they start going off on murderous rampages.”

Drifter watched her for a while with narrowed eyes, then shifted his balance and leaned back against the railing.

“Look our for early signs, then?” His eyebrow shot up, “And what you’re gonna do once I spot a… questionable contender?”

Aunor exhaled through her mouth. “You can handle them once they’re stable. You and your merry Stasis college board. Only if you promise they don’t break away and run off killing people.”

She did not expect him to agree. It almost made her jump when he stirred suddenly, flashing a big smile and extending a hand as if they were sealing a business deal.

“Alright! Can do.” He held the hand out for an awkwardly long moment, then pulled back when she made no move to shake it and hooked the thumb in his belt. “And my trade decisions remain mine alone, Reef or no Reef.”

Aunor nodded curtly and moved to exit the room. The smell of ozone was tickling her nostrils, and she did not wish to stay here a second longer than she needed. She cringed at the Drifter yelling a “See ya, sister!” behind her.

“If I had a glimmer for every time I wanted to kill him, I could’ve got you a Tex Mechanica rifle for Dawning,” she huffed into the comms as she turned the corner. On the other side, Eris Morn hummed acknowledgingly.

Surprisingly enough, he did turn out to be quite useful. No more than two days later she would receive a set of coordinates from an anonymous source, and the trail was so clumsily marked it almost felt like hunting those idiots Shadows again. Aunor followed it for a week, and in the Nessusian Cistern she found a half-conscious Guardian, lying in a circle of Cabal bones and already spewing black.

When she returned there was a Tex Mechanica scout rifle waiting for her on her desk, customised slightly for better handling and with a big red bow attached to it.

#i'm terrible at this game!#destcember 2021 #destcember #my fics #aunor mahal #destiny drifter #destiny 2 #destiny 2 fic #aunor mahlol #sad man from the basement

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relucant · 3 years

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late at night, i am disoriented, spatially at sea. the music in my head is a metronome, counting out the hours, the minutes, the seconds thrumming by like the locusts in the trees.

the color of my walls is so neutral i forget where i am. bedrooms blend together: the thick silence of snow in milwaukee; the brittleness of boston, scratching outlines of october into the walls; the weight of the air in florida, muggy with fecundity, heavy with decay, punctuated by honeysuckle and saltwater, drifting in from the blue-black, from the water.

sometimes, in the late night, things coagulate, thick and brittle, heavy, punctuated with salt. for a moment, the walls are the same, a record of the lives almost lived, each postcard a what-if, each drawing an alibi, to say i was here, i am here, taping sketch after sketch into the corners, staring at the map of the places i haven't seen.

my walls are dull beige, curtains the grey-green of the atlantic as it licks along my skin, impatient, waiting for me to find the right colors, to remember where the corners are, for the door to be a friend, not an answer.

it's nearly dawn. for a second i freeze: my head is filled with direction, with orientation; the window faces east, over the bay, soon, the sunrise will hang itself, practiced, lurid, idly plucking the yellows from its palette, the oranges, the reds, painting its own watercolor backdrop.

i describe things, if nothing else -- if nothing else. i search for the right words, to talk about the sunrise, to explain my walls, to explain the lives etched inside them. the corners are the same, but i stare at the angles too long, chewing on my fingernails and demanding the math, the resolutions, the cleanliness, geometry bustling in and clarifying the corners, naming the shapes; trigonometry is gentler, she takes my hand, she draws my index finger down the hypotenuse of my life, if it were lived in right angles, sliding down the x and the y.

my walls are the same color, the same corners, the same silence, a tick-tick-tick, goading me to describe it, to paint color, to draw my own hypotenuse, salt-pocked and dripping snow. someday, maybe, i will find the color of my walls, the color that sets the sunrise on fire, that coaxes her shadows from my elbows, from my throat, sitting with my silence.

my life is drawn in shaky hands, colored like a bruise, filled with corners that don't fit, light scattering in the wrong direction, math like i missed every class. i fixate on the certainties, the holes i tiptoe around, unsure of what is missing.

but there is softness too, the kind that doesn't dull the sharp edges, that doesn't turn the shrieking into silence. there is, sometimes, a sunrise that enjoys herself, sweeping her hands in watercolor across the sky: we ignore each other, mostly, but she leaves me gifts, drippings from her windows of something unearthly.

i think about pythagoras, i romanticize math, a life lived in straight lines, in clean corners, measurable, predictable. i think of the girl that could have occupied that outline.

i saw the sun go out. i lay on my back in the grass, bored but happy, children twirling their cardboard glasses. and then the sky inverted, vivid in its absence; briefly, abruptly, i slipped into an emptiness without edges, a gentleness of nothing.

i am still disoriented, still staring at the walls, at the bones in my wrists, at the suggestion of dawn outside the window.

i don't have the right words and i never have the math, i never have the art, i have not found the shape of my own silhouette, the lives that lived inside her. but maybe, maybe i can sketch myself out in stasis, for a little while, maybe i can ignore the fractals tingling in my fingertips.

i still count out the minutes, the hours, the endless blue-black sea waiting for me, shapeless and scattered, searching for my music, my math, searching for something in the colorless wall.

but sometimes i shift, i blink, i stop for a second. the sky is empty, neutral, seeped in its pre-dawn hesitation, but i don't need to describe it, to decide on the shade between blue and grey, to sketch out the sunrise, the way it lurks this morning, crawling over the bay with a yawn. sometimes the math is just holding my hand, giving me language, pointing out pathways, somtimes briefly, i think of my life as a whole.

i will never have the right words, i will never have the math or the art. but maybe i am not all sharp edges and shrieking and silence, stillness without stasis.

sometimes the sky stretches out like a cat, indifferent to the definition of her color, indifferent to the clarity of math; even the tick-tick-ticking in my head is muted. my walls are the color of skin, pock-marked like my scars, but tattooed with art, with letters, with ragged postcards, a map of the world hanging over my head.

i am still disoriented; i think about the lives i might have lived, a life fleshed out in the first person, full of adjectives and adverbs. but my life is full of descriptors, even when i can't describe them. i stomp verbs into the floor like a bingo card; i am replete with adjectives and adverbs, and sometimes they are unhappy, but always they describe, they tell my story.

i live my life with minimal nouns, existing in descriptors, sometimes in verbs; i walk, and maybe i am a person. i look around, the art on my walls and the photographs, signs of an existence, of a life worth describing. the silence slides around my body like a blanket; occasionally, i don't need to say anything at all.

#poetry #My writing #i forgot to sleep

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zmediaoutlet · 5 years

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the gardener for the director's cut please?

oh fam. Okay. So the gardener was my submission for the first-ever Gencest Bang (celebrating the insane relationship between Sam and Dean Winchester, how am I going to say no to that). I signed up without really having an idea, although I finally started writing in January... an entirely different story, where Dean’s leg is amputated and Sam has to take care of him. It was actually shaping up to be a pretty good story, and I was about 7k into it before I slowed down, and paused, and went--hmm. There was a critical flaw in the conception, and the thing I was aiming toward was going to be a miss, I could already see it coming. So--what, then? What to do? Well, have an abrupt idea out of nowhere about gardening that I thought could maybe be around 5k, exactly one week before we were supposed to check in. Perfect timing, self. (self-directed eyeroll)

At the time I was binge-watching all of Deadwood, and there’s a certain sensibility to the language and syntax that seeped through. It was an interesting way to write it--a new voice to play with, which felt only right considering that it was a Dean-without-Sam, who was a new sort of person for me to write, at least at any length. This sentence, particularly:

Dean watches him and feels keenly how his heart thuds in his throat like it's trying to beat right out of his body and he also feels, in the vivid knowing of dreams where the knowing comes delivered like a book falling open to the right page, that he is dead too and that everything is ended, and yet simultaneously that things will be all right, after all, and he looks at Sam and then he opens his eyes into the humid hour of dawn with his back aching and the smell of pollen up his nose, and he sneezes, and knocks over the mug of coffee, and that odd feeling stays with him all day, and for days after.

I’m no stranger to a too-long sentence, but just the framing of it, the sailing through clauses, that’s straight-up Deadwood. Sort of fun, fresh. Nice to work with something new.

So that was all well and good, but I also had to work out how to drop details of the plot I refused to reveal--either to the reader or to Dean, really--while making this choice he’s making seem at all reasonable, and more than that to have a deliberately flat narrative without easy jumps into high drama, or even necessarily moments of change. Dean’s stuck, and dead--that’s sort of the whole point, and the writing had to reflect that. At the same time, we needed to move with relative ease from season to season to get to the end of full year of Sam’s burial. That’s how I came up with the idea of the three visits, from the three women--while Dean was stuck in place, life continued outside his stasis, and it generated an automatic structure to hang all of the details of history and love and loss on.

Tricky, though, to keep at all interesting for the reader. I’m still not totally sure I succeeded. Plus, trying to do all of that while also crying all the time while I was just trying to get through a g.d. paragraph. :) A lot of the comments I’ve gotten on the fic (like, far more than half) are about how it made y’all cry; fam, I feel that. I started writing it on a beautiful chilly afternoon in January, and I think I was steady-seeping a double stream of tears like a damn anime character by paragraph six. Top tip: do not write a death fic from the point of view of a soulmate. It’s just not to be borne.

#ask meme #writing #my soggiest fic #actually though there was a fic in my series 'a perfect circle'#'over' - set when dean came to lisa's house #that one made me leak about as much #but only for like 1200 words or whatever #and not on and off for 13k #sigh #dean's just Too Sad #Anonymous

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rannadylin · 6 years

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💬 💬 for PoE, 💬 for Critical Role, 💬 for Dragon Age and 💬 for Tolkien, have fun rereading your fics :D

So much to reread, oh goodness… XD It was fun though! So here’s my picks:

I’m always especially proud when I manage to choreograph an action scene well, because those aren’t my typical thing and I’m happy when I can pull it off, so for the two PoE quotes, here’s Vi and team chasing a psychopathically Awakened preteen in Clan & Court, chapter 4:

“I would notrecommend eating that,” Anselm nodded to the bun on his own plate.“Violet…pardon me, but my conclusions which I discussed earlier with you seemto have been off. By one small degree.” And his glance flicked again to theboy, who was now nearly to the door leading down to the farmhouse’s cellar.Beside Xipil’s chair, Yaotl gave out a low whine.

Violet exchanged a glance with Edér, seated beside her, hisexpression confirming that he’d caught on at about the same time she had. Ather grim nod, he launched from his chair and around the table toward the cellardoor. Eadric was through the door by the time Edér, now followed by a train oforlans and one hound, got there. Wilfrith sat sputtering in surprise for amoment as they all disappeared down the cellar steps, then got to his feet andhurried in their wake.

They chased Eadric through the ancient passageways, finallycornering him in the chapel hidden among the catacombs. Edér barrelled throughthe doorway just as Eadric grabbed a handful of candles from the altar, theirlittle flames flickering and half of them sputtering out before the boy slammedthem down onto the weathered old tome of Eothasian prayers that lay open amidstthe lights. “Wait!” Edér shouted, even as the boy, teeth bared and handsclenched in fists, turned to face him from across the altar with its bookquickly catching fire. “Eadric, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Let it all burn!” the boy rasped in a voice not quite his own.“You want the light? I’ll show you light!”

As Edér tried to edge around the altar to get to him, Eadricgrabbed more candles, first holding them out as if to fend Edér off, and thenstarting to fling them at him, one by one. Edér swore and ducked the littleflames, which guttered out quickly on the stone floor if not in midflight. Thenfrom behind him, a greater light suddenly glowed, and he felt a tingling warmthmove through him as a ball of glowing energy, the timbre of a winter morning’ssun upon fresh snow, passed silently by with the aroma of icicles. At a glancehe saw Violet behind him, palm out towards the altar, frowning in concentrationwhile her siblings – and of course Anselm – fanned out to either side of thealtar to help Edér intercept Eadric. Looking forward again, he saw the lightshe had projected, still in the rough form of a ball of energy but he couldswear at its heart he saw a figure of light, crowned. As it moved over thealtar, one candle after another winked out and the flames playing over the bookfinally died down, replaced by a layer of frost.

Eadric was staring agape at Violet’s slowly advancingprojection, lit only dimly by the candles still burning along the walls of thechapel, when Edér finally leaped over the icy altar and tackled him to thestone floor.

And from Soul & Shield, Chapter 15, here’s the fight scene that surrounds the activation of the Haven: (gonna put the rest of these behind the cut, this is getting long…)

Anselm? Lenneththought desperately. Hi! Trouble! She dodged as one wizard’s magic missiles slammedinto the cobblestones where she’d been standing, ducked and rolled as thesecond wizard loosed a cone of ice her way. From the marketplace, she heard asudden commotion and glanced that way just long enough to see several moreattackers closing in – but behind them, several familiar faces. “Ha!” Lennethcheered, then shrieked in pain as one of the wizards caught her in a ray offire that went on burning even as she darted forward with her knives out,gritting her teeth against the pain, in hopes of stabbing at its source.

A pillar of light slammed into thefemale wizard, knocking her to the ground. The fire went on blazing. Lennethleapt for the male wizard, who threw up some sort of flaming shield just as herknives reached him, leaving her burnt once again as she struck. Lenneth growledand danced to the side as he began an attack spell, but from behind her came asudden bolt of arcane energy, knocking him off balance before he could finishcasting. Fire be damned: Lenneth danced in and finished him off, feeling theheat of his shield once more and grimacing at the scent of the ends of her hairburning, along with a bit of the skin at her elbows where her bracers ended,probably – but as the wizard dropped, so too did the ray of fire that hadlatched on to her. She stumbled back to see that the female wizard was caughtin some sort of stasis field: perfect, excellent, the whole point of luringthese people in to attack her was to capture one, right? So she turned back tothe reinforcements – both the enemy’s and her own – that had turned up at theentrance of the alley.

They were fairly evenly matched,though it looked as if the other side had brought mostly casters this time:more wizards, what looked to be a priest wearing a symbol of Magran (great,more fire was all she needed now), and an orlan whose mace glowed with the samepurple soul whip she saw now wreathing Anselm’s sword. But Lenneth’sreinforcements had multiplied to include a handful of Itzlis, Edér, and Xipil’sdog, who was now tearing into the throat of an enemy archer.

This might just work.

She kept to the shadows, takingopportunities to strike where it would do the most damage. She flung Nochtaca’spowdered chilis into the enemy cipher’s eyes, sending his mace off course justas it was about to slam into the back of Violet’s head. She tripped one of thewizards and was about to cut his throat, when all of a sudden the sky above litup like noontide.

Everything seemed to slow.

Everything from the cobblestonesbelow to the laundry lines strung overhead across the alley glittered in arcanelight.

Lenneth glanced to Violet, thinkingthe priest had invoked some sort of Eothasian thing, but Violet looked ascaught off guard as everyone else. Her hands were raised as she recited abattle prayer, but the look of resolution on her face slowly shifted toconfusion when nothing much seemed to happen.

Leneth looked around to see thesame confusion spreading among the enemy casters – and Anselm, Aloth, Lottie,all baffled as their spells failed to take effect.

Lenneth looked up to the sky, notrosy at sunset as it should be but brighter than the dawn. It was…not the skyitself that glowed, she realized. And then the memory struck.

“By all the gods,” she gasped. “TheHaven! Who invokes the Haven?” Visions overtook her: Citlatl, but smaller;temples, half-built; the light, powering up and spreading over the whole city,even the parts not built yet. But not like this. It was too much;it could not sustain such light. She shook her fist at heaven, blinded fromwithin as the battle raged around her.

Until it was Lenneth herself whowas being shaken, and she snapped out of the memory and looked down to seeViolet peering at her in concern.

“It’s all right,” the little priestsoothed. “It’s over. You’re all right, Lenneth.”

Lenneth gasped and crumpled to thestones at her feet, jostling one of the burns on her arm from the wizard’sattacks painfully against the ground as she landed in an awkward crouch. Violetknelt down with her as the rest of her allies gathered around.

For CritRole, I think I’m actually proudest of the very first thing I wrote for the fandom - Cards & Choices, a mini-fic inspired by the soothsayer’s cards drawn for Vex’s question in episode 65. It’s tiny, so I’m just quoting it all here…

Vex’ahlia dreams of the sun, rising over mountains.

At first it is the stylized imagery of the soothsayer’s card, bright with exotic paints more vivid than ever seen in Tal’dorei, or perhaps just more than seen in her waking life. Somehow then the flat peaks spread out and fill out and it is now the Alabaster Sierras over which a brilliant sun rises, a new dawn chasing away the last of shadow as she stands hand in hand, face warmed by Pelor’s rays, and as she turns to say something to her companion she –

Wakes up.

II.

Percival dreams of hands.

He had only a brief glimpse of the cards the soothsayer drew for Vex’ahlia’s final question, but the coppery leaf decorating the lines of fingers interlaced stands out clearly to his slumbering mind. First it is the very hands from the card, clasped in symbolic unity and lined in metallic leaf. When the image shifts – clever fingers manipulating gears; slim hands, nails bitten to the quick, grasping a bowstring – the glint of the leaf remains at the edges, now copper, now silver, now brass, no matter how lifelike and familiar the hands become as the scene shifts, as he weaves his fingers with hers, gunmetal grey edging to glittering gold. He sees his fingers tremble as he slowly raises hers to his lips and –

Wakes up.

For Dragon Age, there are lots of favorite scenes in all my Fenhawke fic but I’m particularly proud whenever I feel I’ve gotten character voices right, especially Varric’s in the fic about Varania after her confrontation with Fenris, Beneficium Accipere Libertatem Est Vendere. Here’s one fun snippet with the dynamic between Varric and Hawke, and Varania, as they gradually befriend her over a game of cards.

“Need I remind you,”said Varania, returning her eyes to her careful stitches, “that I have no moneyand would be foolish to gamble it if I had.”

“Fiddlesticks,” Varric retorted with a wave of his hand,producing a deck of cards from where she could not see and beginning toshuffle. “Who said we’d play for coin? I fancy a game of Tell Me Truly.”

“Oh, Maker, Varric,” Hawke groaned, “not that again!”

“Come on, Hawke, you’re as curious as I am.”

“Yes, but last time - oh, bother, fine then. Go on.” Shesignaled to the waitress for drinks while Varric began dealing the cards.

Varania looked from one to the other of them suspiciously. “Whatis this game?”

“Wicked Grace, actually,” the dwarf said, “but instead ofwagering coin you wager truthfulness. Winner gets to ask the loser anyquestion. The more truth in the pot, the more audacious aquestion the winner can ask and the more honestly you have to answer.”

“That,” Varania said, tossing her head in affront, “isridiculous.”

“Yes!” Hawke shouted, so loud that heads turned. Quieter, shecontinued with a jab of her elbow at the dwarf seated beside her, “See? I’m notthe only one, Varric.”

Varric chuckled. “Sore loser. And I promised that story wouldstay out of the book.”

“What story?” Varania asked, blinking at them innocently.

Hawke exchanged a panicked glance with the dwarf. Varric’s grinwidened as he turned back to Varania. “You want to hear the story, elf, you’regoing to have to win a round.”

And finally, for Tolkien, a snippet from In the Mirror, the tale of a haunted mirror in the Prancing Pony, as told by my lore-master Lennidhren at a long-past episode of Ales and Tales…

“My good Elf,” saidthe innkeeper almost apologetically, forgetting my name as he ever does, “sosorry to bother you, but I wonder if I might ask a favor of you.”

“Gladly,” I replied, rising to greet him.

“I was hoping,” he continued, “you could take a look at thismirror for me. Being a – what is it they call you – a scholar and such, withall your book-learning –”

“A Lore-master,” I provided the term he was hunting for.

“Yes, yes, quite,” said he; “being so good with the lore andsuch, it might be perhaps you’d know something about a piece like this. Fellerjust brought it around with a lot of other little things to sell; not much tospeak of, the most of it, but this one caught my eye. Looks fairly old, don’tit? I’ll wager you’ve seen a thing or two of its sort before, with your loreand all, and maybe you can tell me what sort of a bargain I’ve made.”

I thought better of explaining to Master Butterbur thedistinction – faint though it may be – between a Lore-master and a dealer inantiquities, and simply took the mirror from him. ’Twas old, indeed! Seldomhave I seen bronze-work of that sort; but once in a book I glimpsed a sketch ofthe doors of the king’s house in the city of Gondolin long ago, and the motifworked there was worked in miniature on the border of the mirror in my hands.

So I told the innkeep of my suspicions, and oh, did he preen tothink that a thing from that glorious city should have passed into his keepingover the course of so many years! But it puzzled me. “Gondolin lies now beneaththe wave,” I reminded him. “How came this thing here? I wish you had stayed theman that brought it to you. I should like to ask him where he got it.”

Yet that opportunity was beyond us now – if not quite as farbeyond us as the land of the mirror’s making. Barliman made the rounds of thecommon room, for it behoved him to tell the tale again and again to every oneof his guests, and to show off this marvel of a mirror. Then as the night grewlate and the folk, tired of hearing how Barliman Butterbur paid a pittance foran Elf-king’s own mirror (so grew the tale in the telling), departed for theirown homes or to their hired rooms in the inn, Master Butterbur produced aladder from some back room and climbed up to hang the mirror right above thefireplace.

#pillars of eternity #critical role #dragon age #lotro #quotes i'm proud of meme #grumpy-jedi

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swipestream · 6 years

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New Release Roundup, 17 November 2018: Science fiction

Video game mercenaries, sky race pilots, Martian private investigators, and an army of alien bears feature in this week’s roundup of the newest releases in science fiction.

Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science – Alec Nevala-Lee

Astounding is the landmark account of the extraordinary partnership between four controversial writers—John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard—who set off a revolution in science fiction and forever changed our world.

Drawing on unexplored archives, thousands of unpublished letters, and dozens of interviews, Alec Nevala-Lee offers a riveting portrait of this circle of authors, their work, and their tumultuous private lives. With unprecedented scope, drama, and detail, Astounding describes how fan culture was born in the depths of the Great Depression; follows these four friends and rivals through World War II and the dawn of the atomic era; and honors such exceptional women as Doña Campbell and Leslyn Heinlein, whose pivotal roles in the history of the genre have gone largely unacknowledged. For the first time, it reveals the startling extent of Campbell’s influence on the ideas that evolved into Scientology, which prompted Asimov to observe: “I knew Campbell and I knew Hubbard, and no movement can have two Messiahs.” It looks unsparingly at the tragic final act that estranged the others from Campbell, bringing the golden age of science fiction to a close, and it illuminates how their complicated legacy continues to shape the imaginations of millions and our vision of the future itself.

Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven Part 1: Trickster’s Pit (Shattered Gates #1 Part 1) – Bryan S. Glosemeyer

Deep in the subterranean Labyrinth of a cruel, alien world, a nameless girl has one chance to choose her fate, earn a name, and join the conquest of the stars:

Nine victories in the bloody fighting pits of the Divine Masters.

With eight kills behind her, she is one fight away from realizing her dreams. But what must be sacrificed, and what must she become, in order to survive the Trickster’s Pit?

Part 1: Trickster’s Pit is an action-packed novelette that introduces an exciting, new science fiction adventure through outer and inner space.

Daisy’s Run (The Clockwork Chimera #1) – Scott Baron

Life in deep space could be a drag sometimes, but Daisy supposed things could have been worse. They were still alive, after all, which was always a plus in her book. Now if only she could figure out who, or what, was endangering her return home, things would be just peachy.

With the powerful AI supercomputer guiding the craft beginning to show some disconcerting quirks of its own, and its unsettling cyborg assistant nosing into her affairs, Daisy’s unease was rapidly growing. Add to the mix a crew of mechanically-enhanced humans, any one of whom she suspected might not be what they seemed, and Daisy found herself with a sense of pending dread tickling the periphery of her mind.

Something was very much not right––she could feel it in her bones. The tricky part now was going to be figuring out what the threat was, before it could manifest from a mere sinking feeling in her gut into a potentially deadly reality.

Deception (Forgotten Colony #2) – M.R. Forbes

Somewhere in deep space, Caleb wakes from stasis, unprepared for what he discovers.

The Marines he was supposed to relieve are missing, something monstrous is roaming the corridors, the dead are rising, and the starship is inexplicably low on fuel.

Now Caleb is fighting time, desperate to find some way, any way, to overcome an impossible situation and get the colonists to their new home.

He’s also about to come to the most frightening realization of all:

They may have already arrived…

Dirty Deeds (The Omega War #6) – Mark Wandrey

Abraham Murdock left his home of Sheridan Arkansas at seventeen to start a merc career that spanned almost 50 years, working for dozens of companies, killing aliens and getting paid across the galaxy.

Near the end of his career, he landed a gig with Cartwright’s Cavaliers. The storied Four Horsemen unit was just coming back from near catastrophe, and the battle-proven Murdock was an ideal choice for their top sergeant. It would have been a perfect last contract, but then his dropship was destroyed in the Chimsa system, killing the flight crew and him.

Or did it?

Nobody was more surprised than Murdock when he found himself alive. After weeks of surviving in a failing CASPer, floating in space amid the ruins of dead starships, he was rescued by an alien salvage crew.

Deciding retirement was the right call, he headed to Valais, a beautiful aquatic paradise not unlike the South Pacific on Earth. Warm sun, sandy beaches—peace and quiet. That is, until the alien mercs arrived, and he suddenly found himself back in his old trade, and up to his ass in the Omega War. What good is a 70 year old merc in a star-spanning war?

Never trust an old man in a career where most die young. Murdock isn’t quite done…yet.

Embark – Jon Justice

In the not so distant future, flight culture has replaced car culture. Two of Earth’s largest corporations now supply the planet with the technology and fuel to make air and space flight available to everyone.

Taft Gaurdia spends his weekends at an abandoned flying field, racing through the skies with his three best friends and the girl he longs to be with, Kaytha Morrow. After receiving a mysterious message from her deceased NASA-scientist father, Kaytha and Taft make a shocking discovery.

With Earth now suddenly facing a great disaster, a ruthless and power hungry enemy emerges. Unwittingly, Taft, Kaytha and their friends are thrust into the middle of humanity’s fight for survival and future among the stars.

Emergence (First Colony #6) – Ken Lozito

As the colony grapples with the realization that New Earth is not as uninhabited as they’d once thought, tensions between the colonial settlements rise to new heights, and the Colonial Defense Force finds itself caught in the middle.

When Connor uncovers evidence of a militant colonial faction secretly exploiting the NEIIS, he has to investigate. Connor learns that some of the colonial settlements have been holding back discoveries of their own. He’d thought the NEIIS were a threat to the colony, but he was wrong. They all were, and the truth is beyond anything Connor could have imagined.

Meanwhile, Colonel Sean Quinn’s latest mission brings him off-world to investigate a previously discovered NEIIS settlement. When all communications from home go silent, he must return to New Earth to investigate. Cut off from everything, Sean must lead the crew of a CDF warship against a mysterious foe. Sean must forge a path into the unknown if he’s to have any hope of unraveling the mystery.

Hokas Pokas – Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

When a human thinks he’s Napoleon Bonaparte, it’s time to get out a straightjacket. But when a Hoka thinks he’s Napoleon Bonaparte, you’d better believe it! Particularly since there’ll be hundreds of other Hokas around who know for a fact that they’re the French Army, mon amis, even if they’re on another planet lightyears away from Earth, and the forces they’re facing aren’t the British but very nasty warlike aliens who by all reason should be expected to make mincemeat out of the Hokas.

But when it comes to Hokas, reason does not compute. These friendly, fuzzy aliens who resemble large teddy bears have a very vivid imagination and have never quite grasped the difference between human fiction and reality, or (in the present case), between past history and the much later and rather different present. Always bet on the Hokas. Even when a young lad and his Hoka tutor find themselves stuck on a planet where they seem to be scheduled to fulfill and ancient (and lethal!) prophesy that neither of them had ever heard of until now. Hokas as usual find that reality is merely optional and the good guys—and bears—always win, quicker than you can say HOKAS POKAS!

Old Enemy (The Survivors #6) – Nathan Hystad

Dean Parker has brought his wife home, and he’s looking forward to relaxing and having a future with his family on New Spero. The Iskios vortex is gone, vanquished by the Hero of Earth, but unforeseen enemies linger in the universe.

The Bhlat send a warning to the humans, one that suggests the Kraski may not all be dead. All signs point to Lom of Pleva, a wealthy and very dangerous enemy to have.

Dean must unite with the Bhlat to fight against a common adversary, but when push comes to shove, can he trust them?

Join Dean and the others as they seek to save themselves from the race of beings that beamed them off Earth years ago, setting everything in motion.

Who do you turn to when everyone is trying to kill you?

Pop Kult Warlord (Soda Pop Soldier #2) – Nick Cole

It’s way more than just a game!

PerfectQuestion is back! He’s running and gunning his way across an incredible civilization-building game set on Mars. But this time he’s employed as an online ringer for a corrupt dictatorship and trying to avoid getting “disappeared” in a reckless world of intrigue, epic parties, sports cars, and women who are as dangerous as they are beautiful.

Five million in gold says he can do it and put the next Sultan on the throne by leading a rag-tag clan of gaming jihadis to victory, but revolution and revolt are afoot. The long knives are out in Calistan for the hero of Soda Pop Soldier and anyone else who gets in a murderous prince’s way.

Renegade Children (Renegade Star #8) – J.N. Chaney

People are dying.

Shortly after Captain Jace Hughes and his team recover hundreds of surviving Eternal refugees, disaster strikes. A recently unearthed fauna dome, one of many biological arks on Earth, is destroyed and several people are killed.

All proof points to the Eternals.

Meanwhile, shortly after the slip tunnel at the center of the planet is shut down for good, a strange distress signal is detected. It appears to be coming from somewhere on the planet, but the exact coordinates are unknown.

Two investigations are launched. One for the saboteur; the other for the source of the signal. With rising tensions between the colonists and the Eternals, Jace must do everything he can to prevent a bloody confrontation.

Spartan Valor (Spartan Company #2) – Toby Neighbors

Only the strong survive on the hostile planet of Apex Venandi. Space Marine Orion Porter is stranded with his Master Sergeant “Money” Eubanks and the injured Staff Sergeant Barnes. Surrounded by hostile natives, and running out of resources, their only hope is the return of the Fleet. Their call for help was beamed into space, but no reply has come. For the foreseeable future, the only help they can count on is themselves.

Apex Venandi holds an invaluable resource. Ignatius Xelum is an ultra rare element needed to power intergalactic star ships. Humanity’s fleet is dependent on IX gas, but mining it on a world filled with five intelligent species who are constantly at war with one another may be too a great a challenge, even for the vaunted Space Marines.

Thin Air – Richard K. Morgan

On a Mars where ruthless corporate interests violently collide with a homegrown independence movement as Earth-based overlords battle for profits and power, Hakan Veil is an ex–professional enforcer equipped with military-grade body tech that’s made him a human killing machine. But he’s had enough of the turbulent red planet, and all he wants is a ticket back home—which is just what he’s offered by the Earth Oversight organization, in exchange for being the bodyguard for an EO investigator. It’s a beyond-easy gig for a heavy hitter like Veil . . . until it isn’t.

When Veil’s charge, Madison Madekwe, starts looking into the mysterious disappearance of a lottery winner, she stirs up a hornet’s nest of intrigue and murder. And the deeper Veil is drawn into the dangerous game being played, the more long-buried secrets claw their way to the Martian surface. Now it’s the expert assassin on the wrong end of a lethal weapon—as Veil stands targeted by powerful enemies hellbent on taking him down, by any means necessary.

The Titan Probe (Ice Moon #2) – Brandon Q. Morris

In 2005, the robotic probe “Huygens” lands on Saturn’s moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander. At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth. Meanwhile, on Enceladus a deathly race has started that nobody thought was possible. And its outcome can only be decided by the astronauts that are stuck on Titan.

New Release Roundup, 17 November 2018: Science fiction published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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57-dayo · 7 months

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the future changes here now

#vivid/stasis #dawn vivid/stasis #my art #happy 1yr anniversary to vivid/stasis!!!#play vivid/stasis :^)

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idkman-ijustwannamakeatournament · 2 months

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Loser's Bracket:

Round 1: Match 13

"Two Sides of the Same Coin"- Two things that are regarded as part of the same thing. Even if they're very different, they have at least one common thread that helps them fit into this trope.

Propaganda:

Dawn/The Liberator and Tsuki/The Worldkeeper:

"complete antitheses. always fighting. represent opposite ends of the protagonist's psyche. but both represent part of her all the same. no matter how much they might try to refute it they're both part of the same whole and need to be one despite their refusal to do so"

Sara and Night Swan:

"They're both humans that got invited into an alternate world by a monarch (of the same royal family, no less!)"

#two sides of the same coin #losers bracket #poll tournament #vivid/stasis #dawn vivid/stasis #the liberator #tsuki vivid/stasis #the worldkeeper #just dance #sara just dance #night swan just dance

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aphoticpits · 7 years

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B&B Chapter 1A

Every night the ocean would rise and swallow me whole. As I sank to the bottom of the ocean like a heavy rock, the lush ocean bed would rise and give me footing. The garden in the ocean was rich and bright and it welcomed me with open arms. As I lay in the ocean garden, waiting for my breath to run out, a bright orb of light would silently float towards me as the weight of the water came crashing down on me.

I opened my eyes as the clock struck three. I was wide awake and my body was alert. The snores around me rose and fell in an undulating rhythm as my numerous siblings around me slept in peaceful stasis; their worries and lives all on halt in the brief darkness of the night. My breath broke the hypnotic rhythm of their deep slumbering. I heard my mother jostling around as she went back and forth between the kitchen and the tiny little room beside ours, tending to our little brother, sleeping by himself. My little brother coughed a deep, hoarse cough and it sounded as if perhaps, he may have coughed up his lung itself. I heard my Mother’s sniffles as she ever so softly hummed to him. He coughed again. It was then I realized I was sweating profusely. My clothes were drenched and my hair was matted. I remembered the vivid and intense dream that had been pervading my restless sleep for the past few nights.

The heavy silence broke the rhythmic snores as I realized that today was the last day I would wake like this. Today was the last day I would be surrounded like this as I went to bed and as I awoke. I watched Nayung, my older sister sleep beside me like a fallen piece of lumber on the roadside and realized that I had very little to remember her by. She and I interacted maybe once a day, primarily when she woke me up. She was secretive as I was quiet and this suited us just fine.

I was the 4th child. A feared number and in some cases, an unlucky omen. There was nothing great about being 4th. My two older sisters Yuuna and Ai wielded significant influence in our household while Nayung and I slipped into the background. Yuuna and Ai were neither beautiful nor ugly but had an assertiveness in their manner that many boys found attractive. They were fast friends and even closer sisters. Yuuna and Ai always had each other’s backs and their sense of filial piety made them a vital part of the household. Yuuna worked at the market, shucking oysters for a living and gave all her income to the family. Ai, younger than Yuuna was apprenticing to be a seamstress and working part-time at the market alongside Yuuna.

I had one younger sister, Chi, whom most agree, was the prettiest of us all. She shone like a bright star and captivated the hearts of the crankiest old men. She was sweet with her tongue and quick-witted all the same. She had vivid daydreams and wilder tales to tell. Chi was loved by all but unfortunately, Chi hated our little island village. She fantasized about the enigmatic mainland that offered a plethora of experiences that the village couldn’t even fathom. Chi confided in me mostly because I said very little. She told me of the boys that pursued her and her brutal rejection of their unsophisticated wooing and their provincial ambitions. However, her manner of rejection came dripped in honey and doe-eyed sincerity and thus no one really caught on to Chi’s disdain and underlying contempt.

“I can’t wait till I’m old enough to leave this dump town. It’ll be the last I see of that old goose!” she ranted one day about our old neighbour who reprimanded Chi for being too wayward.

“You’ll come with me, won’t you, Una?!” she asked me suddenly; pleadingly.

“Of course.” I comforted her untruthfully.

I also had two younger brothers whom, perhaps on account of being the last ones born, were both tender and weak. Li, the second youngest was hearty in body but had a weak mind. He idled all day and shirked responsibility like the plague. He had a handsomeness to him that, like Chi, allowed him the luxury of sweet talking his way out of things. Li always meant well however and his lies never broke the extent of simply getting out of chores.

Yaru was my youngest brother. Physically, the weakest of us all, emotionally perhaps the strongest. He was born with a frail body and a wide smile and loved to laugh and talk as much as he hacked and coughed. He loved as he laughed; wantonly and willingly. Yaru was my favourite but time was not Yaru’s friend. Increasingly weaker and frailer as he grew older, by the age of 12, he spent most of his time on his flimsy mat, sick and weak. I watched over him when my Mother was busy with the others and he read to me on occasion. Yaru loved to read. He told me of the other side; a world that plundered as much as it developed. The many new and fascinating things that were born at a constant and steady rate that made things like his sickness go away. Although we barely had enough to eat, Father kept up a steady flow of books for Yaru from his dealings with the buyers at the fish market. He was gone at dawn and returned after dusk, usually with fish he caught that day and vegetables for dinner as well a book for Yaru. Father taught Yaru the basics of reading and it took a life of its own in him. Yaru even taught me how to read. Our bond was strong and for a time, I thought it infallible. Then, the day came when Yaru coughed up blood.

At this time, however, I felt nothing. I surmised that upon being sold off, there should be a sense of panic as that is what most would assume would be a reasonable reaction. Yet I lay in bed thinking about Chi. I thought about her desire to leave and I thought about how little I cared for the world outside this village. In all earnestness, I thought I would live and die here in this little island village, cast aside from the mainland, enveloped in its own sleepy bubble. I closed my eyes and let the ennui and resignation wash over me. All I knew was, me going away would save Yaru. Somehow.

Mother and Father had asked me not to tell anyone of this transaction. Mother never looked at me once, her eyes firmly focused on her hands folded in her lap. Father sat stoically on his heels, looking straight into my eyes.

“I hope you understand why we’re doing this, Una” he said. “This is for the family. Yaru is very sick and he needs medicine that we cannot afford. I hope you know that we’re not making this decision lightly.” I looked at my Mother who sat in silence.

“Why me?” I asked quietly

“You’re the only one we can count on” he replied in a heavy voice.

“I understand.”

I knew it was not Yaru’s fault yet I couldn’t squash the rising feeling of rejection growing inside my heart. I knew that my parents did not love me as they loved my siblings, but they had faith in me. It was a type of love, I suppose but for now, I didn’t care for love, nor for people.

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