#the outer series excerpt

[waltzshouldbewriting]

“Do you carry any weapons?” Rat interjected.

“I have a stunner,” Neuron replied. He had already replaced the stunner on his belt, so it was no longer hidden in his boot. “It won’t kill someone, but it’ll knock almost anyone out. It has a setting for droids and drones too.”

“Drones?” RJ asked. “Like, robots?”

“Yeah,” Neuron said, “but less humanoid, more… bug-like.”

“And that’s something you have to worry about?” Ariel asked. “Robots?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?” RJ asked. “That’s so cool! Much cooler than anything we’ve fought.”

[waltzshouldbewriting]

(This is unedited)

For a second, Neuron felt nothing. No sense of feeling, or touch, no sense of anyone around him, no sound or sight.

And then, suddenly, the presence of others - four strangers, each surprised and startled - followed by the smell of dust. His sense of touch returned next, and with it his sense of gravity and temperature: he was laying down on his back somewhere with rough ground and hot air. He could hear the high-pitched whine of old electronics, and the lingering taste of smoke in his mouth, and then - finally - his sight came back.

The four strangers were staring at him with wide eyes. None of them were armed, nor were they ready to attack. Behind them, a cavernous empty room stretched. Bright fluorescent lights hung from the high ceiling, one of the lights flickering slightly and another shining only half as bright. There was a pile of supplies - backpacks, blankets, and something that might’ve been a bow - in one corner. No places to hide traps or weapons.

Neuron mentally checked himself over for injuries. He was starting to get a headache, but he felt no sharp pains or dull bruises. Whatever had transported him here hadn’t harmed him.

But where was he?

Neuron pushed himself onto his elbows to get a better look at the strangers. They all tensed at the movement - not hostile, but nervous.

Only one was in arm’s reach - someone who looked a few years younger than Neuron, with short blonde hair, pale skin, and bright blue eyes. The person was unscratched, despite torn-up clothes - likely invincible - and was crouched down, one hand out as if to protect the others.

The person in front said something, and it took a second for Neuron’s brain to catch up. It was in English - with some type of a North American accent.

“Please don’t be mad at us?” Another person said - the one farthest to Neuron’s left. They looked eighteen, at most, standing off to the side with hands shoved in pockets. The person had light brown skin and dark brown eyes, messy chin-length hair, and a large sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants.

“He doesn’t even know what’s going on yet,” the person in front said.

“What is going on?” Neuron asked.

“You got kidnapped,” the person in front stated.

“But not by us!” The second person said. “We are very anti kidnapping.”

“We can explain,” another person said - the one nearest to the person in front. “My name’s Rat. I’m the oldest, so I guess that means I’m in charge.”

Rat had a scar over one eye that gave him an experienced look, but even then he didn’t look much older than the others. He had blue eyes, suntanned skin, and blonde hair, and worn-out clothes covered in dust and patches.

“He’s not the oldest by much,” the person in front said.

“That’s Ariel,” Rat said. “She’s friendlier than she looks.”

Ariel scowled.

“I’m RJ,” the fourth person added. “And the bundle of nerves next to me is Monsoon.”

RJ also had patches on her clothes - mostly on her shoulders and knees. Her black hair was pulled back out of her face, showing off a bruise on one cheek - with her pale skin, the bruise really stood out.

“Hi,” Monsoon said.

“Like Ariel said,” Rat continued. “You were kidnapped, and now you’re here-”

“- and it isn’t our fault,” Monsoon added.

“And you’re with us,” Rat said.

“And we’re on the run,” Ariel added.

“And we’re on the run,” Rat agreed. “Which sucks.”

“The government here sucks,” RJ added.

“Everything here sucks,” Ariel muttered.

“And where is here?” Neuron asked.

The four of them exchanged glances, a worried energy forming. It was almost familiar - it reminded Neuron of debriefs where a scientist or expert had to deliver really weird news. We looked into what caused the explosions, and we think that someone engineered exploding ants. Or the perpetrators belong to a group who is trying to make fruit flies extinct.

“So, um,” Rat started, “well…”

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[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/11/2025

the bon mot slot goes to the Witcher comics, bc after i inhaled all of the 2014-present series i realized they scratch the same sad goth detective itch batman does

oops! all books!

adding another axis to the "depressive cycles" graph, where x is "how many minutes of mother mother have i listened to in the past two weeks" and y is "how many books have i read and bounced off in the past two weeks" and brother we're at the extreme upper right hand corner

what was supposed to be last week's gay and/or lesbian romance and/or erotica

Desire by Starlight, by Radclyffe, is a 261p softcover published in 2010 by Bold Strokes Books. two unrelated facts about this physical object: VERY glossy cover, and smells faintly of mildew despite having a perfect text block with no water damage. radclyffe has written over a hundred books and this is somewhere in the middle. this is sitting at a solid 4 on goodreads with some complaints that she tends to be a little formulaic. i am going to be very honest and say that when i read this two weeks ago, i did not take very good notes bc i didn't love this one. the structure and pacing were mostly fine and there were only a few strange phrases in the sex scenes, i simply did not find it particularly memorable. we have for sure read worse during this project.

i wish the local love interest did not go by Gard, short for Gardner. is it a stupid old money new york name? sure. is it hard to take the book seriously? yes.

i also found it amusing that radclyffe does not follow her own novel-writing rule outlined in this very meta novel: rarely if ever does a scene open close to the heart of a chapter.

the secret our dear gard is hiding kind of fizzles out in the literal last ten pages. i think she should have had a better or more interesting secret instead of one that could be comfortably resolved through a singular therapy session. i also feel that this teetered on will-they-won't-they-let-each-other-through-a-hardened-outer-shell a little bit too long, and the breakthrough was perhaps not as cathartic as i would have liked. this excerpt, nearly halfway through the book, they are still not together. while it's very funny to watch them seethe in poorly concealed jealousy, i am tapping my watch. do something.

i cannot immediately find the weird wording that threw me a little during the sex scenes. the sex scenes are kind of widely scattered.

i think the thing that annoys me most about this book is that there's no real benefit for either of them in this relationship. jenna has broken down from not eating or sleeping well on a national book tour, not because she's psychically suffering from not letting see her feelings she keeps in a tightly locked box. there's no real benefit for gard either, who is lonely but not cripplingly so. it starts off as a casual-only thing and then both of them (and me) are startled they catch real feelings.

there are some gestures made toward It's Nice To Have Another Woman Around In Case of Physical Injuries Due To Mishap but i would have loved to see more of how gard was won over by being taken care of. gard princess carries jenna into her vet clinic bc of a fucked up ankle and jenna is annoyed, flustered, and doubly annoyed she's flustered.

i think this one was so forgettable bc i genuinely had trouble remembering what the conflict (if any) was. both of them are stable adults with real jobs and other friends. inheriting a farm in vermont doesn't really add any new or exciting problems for either of them. neither of them are very spontaneous and neither can manic pixie dream girl the other out of her shell, and when they finally do emotionally let their walls down it doesn't feel very organic.

the like technical putting words one after another is there, this is her zillionth book and everyone has dialogue that sounds like things real people would say out loud with their mouths and everyone's physical actions map onto my real-world understanding of how bodies in 3D space work. this one did not grab me.

-

this week's gay and/or lesbian romance and/or erotica

title drops in this book: 3.

Heart on Fire is a 167p softcover published in 1996 by our old friend Naiad Press. a slightly water-damaged paperback i felt okay dragging down to the gulf when i was dragged down to the gulf last weekend for my health. this was Diana Simmonds' first solo book and first fiction book, and a lot of older lesbians seem to have a great deal of fondness for it. while i was trying to find any press or interviews, most of the hits were from other lesbian authors citing her as an inspiration. naiad really banked a lot on it being the hit novel of their publishing season and were sure it would eclipse their previous bestseller from nearly a decade ago, Katherine Forrest's Curious Wine. i don't own a paper copy but have placed a libby hold so we will make a detour from physical books in the near future.

overall, a rare book where the third act breakup does actually make a lot of sense: being the partner of a globetrotting traveling musician would put a strain on any relationship whether you choose to stay on the road or wait at home. however! it really did stick the landing! and for that i can forgive it a great deal! the sort of not quite reality of their respective third act depression sojourns and then the incredibly sensory descriptions of the finale concert…very good. very nineties movie about a musician ending if that makes any sense.

while i think the structure is fine, i think the actual craft of the narrative is more variable. we'll go into the style in the next paragraph, but part of the dedication goes "to CCC, without whom it would be full of people thinking to themselves." i wish CCC had dialed their feedback back a little bc i would have loved some more interiority, particularly from jody. i must commend our stuck-in-one-place half of the couple, grace, who makes SUCH fascinating decisions. the traveling musician jody looks like she could be the sister of her abusive ex-husband, grace's brief rebound from jody is her goddamn college advisor… bonkers. what ARE you doing???

stylistically, it feels like sitting on the patio of a lesbian bar for three hours and listening to a friend telling you a very long story about how two absent friends you don't know got together with a lot of elaborations and asides. i occasionally found this style tiresome. there are some charming turns of phrase, like "She wrote the address of the roadhouse on the package, sealed it with a kiss, said "What the hell," to neutralize the sentimental gesture, and dropped it into the mailbox." i also cackled out loud at "I don't know, I-- I really really want you, so much, and I am not very good at being cool about it." did nearly tear up at this paragraph:

some things have aged a little strangely since 1996. grace is briefly forcibly kissed by a very drunk bandmate before jody rescues her, but there are further instances of someone not immediately stopping a kiss or an embrace or what have you when someone else says no, that i think could not be written in a modern day romance novel. there are some very frank discussions of marital abuse right after a literally soul-healing sex scene.

this is a book that could never be rewritten as a straight romance with light serial numbers filed off. no one is in physical danger just because they're gay, but there's a lot of internal homophobia and readjustment on grace's part, and overall people are fairly accepting in theory but not always in practice. jody outs herself to the aussie press, and early on/right after her bus breaks down, grace and her mother discuss this news and her mother tells her off for being prejudiced, but connives to throw them together to distract grace from her recent divorce. her mother is then is very sad about the thought of her daughter who would have a very difficult life as a publicly out lesbian, and I can’t really blame her, but it’s such a switch from the vehement Fix Your Heart Or Die!!! discussion in the second chapter. there are some fraught familial reactions to grace's bisexuality-- her mom basically bullies her dad into remembering he loves his daughter-- but they all do come around.

this was fine and a good beach read, i'm not sure that i'll ever reread it. almost forgot about the sex. i think the current fashion for queer romance novels is not quite as purple, but the whole book is like this and i must respect an author's full commitment in this manner. here are some sex examples on non-consecutive pages.

-

did not finish, or finished with severe annoyance

i have become a libby power user in my old age bc texas is remarkably free with its library cards. i don't THINK i'm meant to have five of them but there seems to be no law against it and no one's told me to fuck off? this is good bc i have (at the moment) 44 holds and 56 "notify me if any of my libraries purchase this book" books tagged.

the flipside of being willing to give anything vaguely intriguing a try is that most books aren't very good or they aren't quite what i want. i will DNF anything, anytime, for no good reason. i know that statistically most novels are debut novels but i am so fucking tired of reading debut novels.

Hammajang Luck, by Makana Yamamoto, debut novel published last month. comps include ocean's 8, blade runner, and gideon the ninth. much as i love a heist novel, a heist is extremely ambitious for a debut and i didn't quite vibe with the style. i DNF'd at around the end of chapter seven, it has a very strange issue where we get from location to location pretty snappily but overexplain setting and clothing too much within individual scenes. i think it wants to be a screenplay a little too bad. a great deal of the dialogue is hawaiian pidgin (what the author grew up speaking). very much a me problem, i didn't have any experience with this language coming into this book and it was hard to turn off the kneejerk "this is racist and making fun of black people" response i had. again, very much a me problem.

Yamamoto uses Hawaiian pidgin—“an amalgamation of Hawaiian, English, Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese”—in much of the novel’s dialogue, particularly between Edie and their crew members. It is the “primary language” spoken on Kepler and speaks to the kinship between the characters. However, the decision to include pidgin occurred by happenstance. When writing the first line of dialogue between Edie and Cy, fellow crew member and friend, “it just came out in pidgin spontaneously”. Yamamoto “tried to rewrite it in standard English”, but it “sounded wrong”. Notably, the pidgin and Hawaiian words in the novel are not italicised or translated, nor does the novel include a glossary of terms. Yamamoto felt that these practices were “othering” and so asks the reader to do the work.

i think this is a reasonable thing to ask a reader, and i think i might have to take a crack at it some other time.

The Rainfall Market, by You Yeong-Gwang, a debut novel from last year freshly translated from Korean. a young woman wins a lottery ticket to enter the Rainfall Market on the first day of the rainy season, where she can completely change her life. DNF at two chapters. this seems to be generally marketed as general fiction (which is what my library had it under) but it feels very middle-grade, both as far as sentence structure and vocabulary and the general maturity-- the protagonist is about to graduate high school but her concerns and goals feel more like she's about twelve. not sure if it's an unfortunate series of translation and marketing decisions? rough!

Water Moon, by Samantha Sotto Yambao, the author's fifth book and published last month. the premise of this book is so charming: liminal-space pawnshop where you can exchange your regrets for tea, woman taking this family business over from her father, physicist who stumbles in, oh no! the physicist is playing the scully to her mulder but does not have a physicist Vibe. i think he’s too personable and not tiresome and mansplainy enough to be a particle physicist. he's too nice. she falls in love with him near-instantly. DNF partly because i have never met a particle physicist i could stand to be around for more than fifteen minutes, mostly a DNF bc at about a quarter of the way through this very slow to start book, when the girl turned to the boy after they fell through a pond into a perfect recreation of a edo-era tokyo street and said "this is the other world, you can call it isekai" i did not throw my elderly ailing phone across the room and i did not get up and stomp around bc phil was on my lap but i did vehemently return the library ebook thirteen days early.

Lucky Red, Claudia Cravens, a debut novel published summer 2023. this thoroughly fucking annoyed me. published by the literary group that also ran...basically a budget MFA? they called it a "novel generator in 12 months", they have since closed, and i cannot find how much AI was involved. i do not think this book was marketed well:

A thrilling, raucous, and gloriously queer debut about a scrappy orphan bent on making her own luck in the American West—and finding friendship, romance, and her true calling along the way, now in paperback.

this book is about an older teen in 1877 dodge city who turns to survival sex work. terrible thing after terrible thing happens to this girl whenever she makes a connection outside living just in her own head and for what? it felt like the author was setting up to deliver some moral lesson or theme other than "never question your boss" but never quite followed through. it felt like the author was punishing the protagonist for being a whore even though that’s the book the author chose to write and the author can't quite decide if it's empowering or not. again, it's very strange to read a book where the protagonist is punished for almost every decision she makes and very few parts of sex work are idealized, but then she turns to the camera and reassures the reader with a chipper "but it wasn't all bad!". i wish the protagonist got to mature or grow as a character a little more. i think this could have used more time in the oven and an ending that doesn't feel like a very ill-earned end of every american western ever. thank fucking god this is a real ensemble cast and not found family or i would be much more impatient with this book than i already am.

good at getting me to finish a book bc it's very effective at hustling you from chapter to chapter. great technical skill on that front. bad at any sort of emotional throughline.

things i DNF'd after less than two chapters

Thornfruit by Felicia Davin, published in 2018 and her seventh or eighth book. i am a little annoyed bc this was on hold for over two months but i really do appreciate the AO3-style list of tags and warnings in the front bc now i know there is stuff in this book that is not for me!

Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages, a 2017 novella and her...twentieth? work. a prolific woman. urban fantasy gay historical fiction of 1940s magical san francisco. while i do love a magical painting, i did not have it in me this week to read about a woman struggling with her legacy in the face of a terminal diagnosis.

Nevernight, Jay Kristoff, 2016 first book of a trilogy and his third trilogy overall. he keeps fucking getting me with fun vampire premises but he's very much in the same bucket as paolo bacigalupi in my brain. far more brutal and visceral things happen than you really are prepared for. do not love an opening chapter with disassociation to a past sexual assault in the middle of an assassination, as movie-crisp as the match shot transitions from present day to disassociation were.

plus a nice half dozen varied romances im not going to individually name, bc the last time i seriously used the "tag for later" feature in libby was the summer of 2019 and my tastes have changed. for example i rarely put myself through heterosexual vampire romance books these days.

-

yeah these were all right

Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett, his first full novel in 1929 after literally dozens of shorts and novellas. this detective noir was like watching a car crash. brutal little book. im positive this is not the earliest example of turning both ends of a town against the middle for your own profit, but it was the one cited for yojimbo so its the one that gets brought up a lot. i think the cast is slightly too large for what hammett is trying to do. sometimes reading noir as something woman-shaped feels like an elaborate act of self-harm.

Unnatural Magic, by CM Waggoner, a debut novel from late 2019. thoroughly charmed by this one! one of the most well thought out country/species/religion/immigration systems and how any and all of those can impact any one specific wizard’s magic. it's like a beautiful clockwork orrery ticking along in the background. very prachett-esque approach to troll gender. the baddie is Not doing good things but the ultimate motivations are really understandable! I get why that happened even if it was a really bad reaction! a line i keep turning over in my head is "worry like a third person in the room." i have put their second book on hold on the strength of this one.

The Firebird’s Tale, Anya Ow, a debut novel from 2016. charming retelling of the fairytale element of a royal having to marry the one who makes him smile. the lead up to and the third act separation itself were kind of stupid, and felt like it wanted to be a duology but wrapped up very fast. has a lot of thoughts about choice and putting the end of things to bed quietly and with dignity on your own terms. also has a lot of thoughts about meanings of stories. the non-magical and non-immortal half of the couple is a possessive prince who falls so hard so fast and is mad about it. they fuck so many times while thinking "well surely this doesn’t mean anything, we're just married for the convenience". they're both so dryly exasperated.

-

there's an additional hardboiled noir that was fun but i have nothing particular to say about, and a stack of physical comics from a new library that i mostly hated, but we are almost at the image limit and it is 1030 PM. i can't see why we wouldn't be back to the usual format next week but no promises bc there are no rules

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

~Chapter 15: The Law of Conservation of Energy~

Summary: A 'good' school gets infiltrated by 'bad' people, a 'bad' school welcomes 'good' people with suspiciously open arms…and then there's Jesse, accidentally caught in the middle of it all as usual.

chapter link | story start | entire series

excerpt:

Lloyd knows better than to even consider complaining about their lack of mechs…but he’d forgotten how long trekking to Darkley’s on foot alone takes. He still remembers the days of aches his feet suffered after his very first arrival here— and when he was forced to leave. 

"If only we didn't have to walk," Jay whines as he hovers two inches above the ground, lacking Lloyd’s reservations on complaining. Kai elbows him out of the air. “Hey hey hey ; still nursing a knee injury here…!”

“Well good thing I didn’t aim for the leg, then,” Kai grumbles, clutching at his sides. 

“I for one have been enjoying the walk,” Zane hums, happily bird watching as they go along. “Though I do agree, the lack of efficiency is…regrettable.”

Therefore, it’s a relief when they get close enough to be able to read the school’s sign—‘Darkley’s School for Great Children’ emblazoned in gold letters and pressed into chestnut wood, and decorated with red lanterns to guide the way in dark times. A fresh, floral scent permeates the air, originating from the groupings of lilies and out-of-season blooming cherry blossom trees all over the lawn of the school.

…So, it’s an entire 180 on the vibes from the last time Lloyd walked this path.

“Was there… this many flower bushes last time we were here?" Cole asks, admiring the sheer amount of vegetation alongside the outer walls and the entrance path. 

"Hard to remember," Kai coughs with a barely concealed smirk. "...Considering we were too busy crashing the Bounty's anchor through the roof."

Jay nudges Kai in the shoulder. “Shut up."

[ironicveghead]

Armament for the wip game 👀

Armament is a Zosan whump series that I chip away at when I'm feeling savory. My hope is that maybe each will bloom into it's own standalone story but for now they live in that doc as a possible like 5+1 type of thing.

Here's an excerpt from one of them:

Three doors down on the left is the ornate mansion door the guards had been posted at. It’s also the only one in the hallway with two sets of steel bars fastened to keep it shut. 

No… that wasn’t right. 

They were braced to keep someone in. 

The outer edges of the wood door were charred, the paint cracked and peeling from heat. 

“Can you get this or do I need to find a way to unfasten it?” Usopp asks, gesturing to the steel beams. 

“I’ll handle it,” Zoro replies, bringing Kitetsu down in a tense downward strike. 

The metal bars bracing the door fall away and Zoro’s forcing his way through scorched wood before the metallic clanging stops.

The parlor is a large, opulent room. There are various pieces of smoking, crisp furniture shoved against the walls. A rug in the middle of the room trails smoke from its tassels. 

And there, in the middle of the parlor, is a man chained to a metal chair. His still body is hunched forward and there’s a brown sack fixed over his head. Tendrils of blond hair drape below the edge of the sack, the locks curled against a blue dress shirt. 

Zoro freezes. The body is so- so still and it strikes him with terror. 

He holds his breath and wills himself to move but feels as if he’s made of lead. 

Then. 

“Chou?” 

The word is quiet. It’s a hesitant whisper behind thick burlap and it’s the most beautiful and dreadful thing Zoro has ever fucking heard. 

“Curls,” he rasps out, rushing forward and dropping to his knees as he reaches for the ties of the burlap. “We’re here,” he swallows thickly, “I’m here.” 

[dragonmuse]

WIP Posted: We’re Not Stopping, We Have a Perfectly Good Rebellion at Home (1/6)

Dimension 20: Fantasy High. Series: Continuing Education for Wayward Adventurers

Fic Summary: Everyone needs someone, sometimes. The Bad Kids outer circle is there for them, even as they live their own lives.

Chapter 1: Elyasa Thistlespring-Blufftop

Pairings: Gorgug/OFC, Riz/Fabian

Excerpt:

“I have never actually heard your voice do that, even when you hooked up with that half-elf with the nose piercing,” Harpsthut huffed out a tiny trail of smoke, a sign of much amusement.

Jax made a curious noise, “Is our precious Blue actually flirting instead of waiting for the boy to fall into her honeytrap eyes?”

“He has a mechanical arm and emo-boy hair,” Opal scoffed. “She’s beyond flirting. She’s already imagining their babies.”

“I am not,” Elyasa hissed even as she opened the passenger side door. “I am imagining cold water and air conditioning.”

[dailydemonspotlight]

Could I request one for Haokah? It is a rare demon of Native American mythology and it comes from smt 2, a game out of the Devil Summoner series where they took ahold of the narrative and made demons with their first appearances?

Haokah - Day 60 (Request)

Race: Yoma

Alignment: Neutral/Neutral

June 21st, 2024

Wow, we've got a pretty obscure one today! As the series has continued, a lot of demons have unfortunately been left behind- whether it be due to changes of licensing, controversy, or simple forgetfulness, a lot of demons earlier in the series failed to recur later on, a rather unfortunate symptom of how many ideas they had that struggled to translate to the metaphorical big screen. Today's Demon of the Day is one of those, and one I'd love to see make a return- the tricky Jester at the top of the Lakota food chain, the Haokah.

Also called the Heyoka, this role is that of an incredibly important figure in Sioux folklore, someone blessed by and able to see the all-important figure of the Thunder Being. Contrary to the explanation in SMT, the Haokah is not a deity in-and-of-itself, instead being the role of someone who effectively works to be the exact opposite of those around them, calling into view questions of and satire relating to life itself. The Haokah will typically work as what could be best seen as a funhouse mirror, twisting and calling into effect the flaws of the society they live within by exaggerating the opposites.

When one becomes the Haokah, they are given the role of doing various incredibly foolish things, acting afool, almost like a jester who manifests during a performance. For example, if food was to be scarce, a Haokah may end up complaining about how full he was, or during a horse-riding ceremony, he may ride it backwards. One such example of this was an infamous Haokah literally called the straighten-outer, who, to quote an excerpt from 'Lame Deer Seeker of Visions', "...was always running around with a hammer trying to flatten round and curvy things (soup bowls, eggs, wagon wheels, etc.), thus making them straight."

Honestly, I have no idea where the SMT idea of the Haokah as a hunting god came from- it sent me for a bit of a loop, as it's the only place online that lists the Haokah as a hunting god instead of as the ceremonial role it actually is. Also, funny enough, a lot of posts online related to the Haokah have to do with someone being an empath of it? I won't even begin to pretend I understand what that means, but okay. Honestly, I wish they also did a bit more with the design- most interpretations of the Haokah are weird, and this one feels just a bit too plain? It feels like they're trying to play into the hunting god idea, which is not what the Haokah even is. I wish they took a bit more inspiration from contemporary depictions of the Haokah, but... well, it was very early in the series, so I can't fault them much.

Still, flaws aside, I quite enjoy the fact that the series introduced me to such a unique concept! I guess I can see why they abandoned this demon down the road, though.

[ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask]

Tell me about “Human” since I have a Halo fic by almost the same name 😂

Ours are very different, and yours is definitely the better of the two.

The idea is that after the battle of Fumirole - when Kat lost her arm and the original Noble Six died - Carter stumbles upon Kat trying to get used to her new prosthetic. She is furious at herself for not picking it up immediately, but she is more concerned with blaming herself for Thom's death. Carter is also busy blaming himself for Thom's death.

Writing it because gol dang do those two need a constant infusion of hurt/comfort or I will spontaneously combust. @whotookmytomato knows what I'm talking about.

Here's the opening excerpt!

---

0203 Hours, April 27, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Aboard UNSC Frigate Prairie Fire

Carter-A259 stalked carefully down the corridor toward the hangar. Even though he was still clad in the extremely high-tech and armored MJOLNIR undersuit, he felt naked. Vulnerable. He was used to seeing the world from behind the protective shield of his helmet, but his outer armor had been stripped for repairs. It was practically unrecognizable after the last battle they fought. The last battle they lost.

Fumirole.

Thom.

The Spartan ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. There would be time to mourn friends - time to figure out just how he had failed his teammate - later. At the moment, there were more pressing concerns; the remainder of his team were taking the loss hard, and they had preparations to make for whatever mission was coming next for them. He’d lost one of the people closest to him… he had to take care of who he had left.

Which was what brought him to the hangar.

A series of loud clangs echoed from the hangar, reverberating down the largely empty corridor he was currently traveling. Up ahead, he saw a pair of Ensigns and a Marine rush out into the hall like , throwing concerned glances over their shoulders before disappearing in the other direction.

Amidst the clanging and booming echoing through the doorway they had fled through, Carter caught the sound of a very angry-sounding woman.

Kat.

[waltzshouldbewriting]

“RJ doesn’t have moot either,” Rat said. “She nearly blinded herself just a couple weeks ago.”

“Almost nearly blinded myself,” RJ corrected. 

“What are your powers?” Neuron asked. 

RJ grinned and raised her hand. A ball of glowing red formed around it and shot out towards the ceiling, where it exploded. 

“They call me Cannon Blast,” RJ said. 

[waltzshouldbewriting]

“This is depressing,” Neuron muttered. No wonder there were doomsday warnings everyone - this felt like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. A really, really cheaply made post-apocalyptic movie.

“You’re not in Kansas anymore,” Ariel replied.

Neuron nodded.

“What’s it like, where you’re from?” Ariel asked.

“That’s a pretty big question,” Neuron replied. “What do you want to know?”

Ariel frowned. “Well - I don't know. You’re a telepath, right? So you would have had to go through the surge, what, ninety-eight years ago?”

Neuron nodded. “Yeah. Everyone got powers. Some got a power plus shapeshifting.”

“Same thing here,” Ariel said. “If I had to guess, the surge was the splitting point between our two worlds - but there’s no way to confirm that, without comparing history books or something.”

“I know a good deal of history,” Neuron replied. “Try me.”

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[raccoonfallsharder]

Outer Space Safety & Spaceship Maintenance Training ✩°｡⋆

navigation | fanfiction masterlist Domestic Scenes in Space Travel seriesInstallment Two ✩ The Ninth Visit

18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | oneshot | complete | word count: 9,853.

study night. or: why study when you can seduce your hot local Space Pilot into oral?when you were a kid, you imagined yourself growing up, working a cool job, living in a cute house, getting a big dog, marrying, and having kids of your own. you've currently got none of those things, but you are getting regularly railed by a raccoon-shaped cosmic adventurer, and he's currently showing you around his spaceship. which is kinda better than anything you could have dreamed up for yourself. excerpt behind the cut.

WARNINGS: smut with feelings & domestica. oral, orgasm delay (kind of), dirty talk, praise, use of "slut"/"whore" (affectionate).

read Outer Space Safety & Spaceship Maintenance Training on ao3 ❤︎‬❤︎

excerpt below the cut.

Fuckin adorable sweatshirt girl art by @blueberrysquire

Domestic Scenes in Space Travel series

navigation | fanfiction masterlist

You grin, and lean forward, intent - but you’re sure your eyes give you away. You can feel them curving into mirthful crescents when you tease him. “Just one more question.” “For flark’s sake, Sweatshirt Girl. You said the last question was the last question. And the one before that.” “I mean it this time!” you protest, but you’re already laughing and he’s pointing a clawed finger at you with narrowed eyes.  “You better watch it, sweetheart. I know what you’re doing and I’ll make you regret it.” “Promise?” you tease, and his eyes go dark as embers. “I need something to look forward to when I get done with studying tonight.” You grin. “A reward.” His lids are half-mast and he’s crossed his arms over his chest. “You think this kinda behavior gets rewarded?” He leans forward, and his voice is a low, purring threat.

read more on ao3 ✩°｡⋆

dividers & banners by @saradika-graphics | moodboards by me!

[artdecosupernova-writing]

Excerpt St. Guess

↳ Joey peered hard through the doors, cupping his hands around his eyes to get a better look inside. "Huh," he muttered, his breath fogging the glass in front of his face. "Well, it ain't a whiz-bang in there. Guess it's not open after all. Let's come back tomorrow."

Mickey looked in over Joey's shoulder and his expression settled on a concentrated frown. Farther inside the museum, in front of what Mickey could vaguely make out to be the security office, a man in a tan single-breasted suit without a hat spoke to a much more refined, older gentleman. The younger man took a catalog envelope from the older man and smiled personably, patting him on the shoulder and engaging with him directly, holding grateful eye contact. The older man smiled as well, shaking his hand as his brows pitched in apology.

"Are there people inside?" Joey asked.

Mickey watched the younger man laugh at something and turn toward the front of the museum. "Security guard talking to the director. Likely picking up a series of misplaced paychecks."

Joey stepped away from the door and urged Mickey to do the same. "What?"

"During the renovations, the staff paychecks were either misplaced, improperly handled, or halted," Mickey explained as he moved to stand closer to Joey. "One of the security guards has just received his back pay."

"How do you do that?" Joey shrugged, mystified. "One of these days, you gotta tell me how you do that."

"And give away my secrets? Joey." Mickey tutted with a grin. "It's fairly obvious."

"If it was obvious, d'you think I'd be standin' here makin' myself look stupid?"

"Hmm," Mickey intoned, choosing at the benefit of everyone not to respond to that otherwise.

The security guard opened the door, brushing past the pair as he exited. "'Scuse me, fellas," he said, gracing them both with the same warm smile Mickey had seen inside the museum.

Mickey locked eyes with him for one moment that dragged on like several. Neatly combed, blue-black hair—dyed. Shiny. Slicked down with pomade. His eyes were green, full of life, youthful in contradiction to the shallow crow's feet at the outer corners. His smile could have illuminated an entire room.

He shifted the envelope to his other hand and bounded down the steps.

Mickey watched him, his gaze tight. Willing the man to glance back at him.

Some physical distance grew between them before he did just that. He threw one last look behind him, halfway across the street, and the friendly smile developed into one of deep understanding…an acknowledgement of words unspoken, or perhaps a pass of pleased appraisal.

Joey's stare bounced from the man to Mickey. "You know him?"

"No," Mickey said.

But he was sure he would.

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Princess Diarist. By Carrie Fisher. Blue Rider Press, 2016.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Genre: memoir

Series: N/A

Summary: When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved--plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Before her passing, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon was indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher's intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time--and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into one of Hollywood's most beloved stars.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: alcohol, adultery

The aspect of this book I liked best was Carrie's honesty. Carrie holds nothing back and is quite upfront about her insecurities, her naivite, and her desire to please. The effect is that this memoir reads like a snapshot of a teenage girl who is starstruck by a much older man, and it's both hilarious and a little sad (in that Harrison Ford comes across as... not great).

Let's just get this part out of the way: this is not an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Star Wars. The book jacket and marketing might be a little misleading on that front. If you're here for more Star Wars trivia or juicy gossip from one of the franchise's buggesy stars, best go elsewhere.

What this is, more than anything else, is Carrie's reflection on a number of things: her relationship with Harrison Ford while she was was a teenager and he was married and in his mid-thirties, how so-called "washed up" actresses struggle to make a living, the complicated feelings Carrie has regarding conventions and fame. For what it is, this book is endlessly funny, raw, and heartbreaking, moving from Carrie's characteristic humor and self-deprication to a hard-hitting insight into the workings of Hollywood and celebrity fandom.

Still, I don't think I can give this book more than 3.5 stars because there were aspects of Carrie's writing that didn't click for me. Some of her phrasing was a little awkward, and sometimes she would veer off in different directions (which is fine - that's the way her mind works - but it is also hard to follow sometimes). I also would have liked Carrie to deliver some sort of takeaway for each chapter - not necessarily a "moral to the story," but a clear(er) verbalizarion of the insights she gained by reflecting on the stories she's told.

The excerpts from her diary were also nice little insights to Carrie's headspace at the time, and if you care about Carrie as a person (not just Carrie as Princess Leia), they're a lovely look into the way her mind works.

But perhaps the section I liked best was Carrie's chapter on conventions. I found her honesty and complexity to be incredibly insightful and it shines a light on what she had to deal with for 40 years after the first Star Wars film.

Still, I'm glad I read this book. It's quick, it's amusing, and the photos are charming and nostalgic. The book perhaps hits a little different because both Carrie and her mother are gone, so some of my good feeling might be influenced by me being a fan who misses these icons. But if you love Carrie, you'll cherish this chance to "hear" her voice again.

[lunastarhawk]

The Call of the Stars

Part 14 of Julian post-route series Tides of Memories (on AO3).

On and on into the starry abyss, living my best life. Because who needs canon anyway.

Also, The Star is my new favourite to write. She's so fun.

Summary

An unexpected visitor sheds new light on Julian's book of constellations and myths. Altheia's desperate search for her gateway leads her to make a reckless decision to venture to the Arcana realms alone, and only Julian can pull her out - and chance encounters with The Star and Judgement are more than a little revelatory.

~*~*~*~

"I felt something pulling me, across the lake.  But then the feeling faded, and I walked us right into Valdemar’s trap.” “Is that really what happened?” “Yes,” Altheia said bitterly.  “I nearly got us both killed.” “Hmm.”  Judgement’s trunk curled upwards lazily.  “I don’t think so.” “That’s exactly how it happened,” Altheia said bitterly.  “My ‘intuition’ wasn’t good for much.” The impossibly deep, golden eyes narrowed a little.  “Your intuition wasn’t the problem.  When you stopped listening to it - that was where you made the wrong choice."  They paused, and then added, "But was it really wrong, after all?  You didn't find your gateway, but you found something else, didn't you?" Altheia shifted her weight on her knees as she thought.   "Well, yes.  Valdemar."  "A purpose." Altheia huffed in frustration.  “That doesn’t really help, you know.” “It helps more than you think it does.”

Excerpt

“You… really don’t know what this is, do you?”

“Ah… it’s a book of stars and stories?”

But it was intoned as a question, because suddenly Julian was certain only that it wasn’t just a book of stars and stories.  

“The name didn’t give you a clue?”  Selina was lightly mocking him. 

“I… I didn’t think… no, it didn’t, I didn’t…”

He looked at her helplessly.  Now she smiled gently.

“I won’t pretend to know much about it,” she admitted.  “But I read about a fair few schools of magic before I settled on alchemy.  Astromancers take the science of astronomy, and the magic of astrology, and they make talismans.  Very powerful ones.”

“They do?”

Julian was aware of how stupid he sounded, but for once he couldn’t find any words.

“Like I said, I don’t know all that much about it.  But I do know that these are alchemical…”  She traced around the outer circle again.  “These are planetary, or astrological… or maybe illusory.”  She tilted her head a little as she traced around the inner circle.  “Could be.  Anyway, and then you have the star chart in the centre.  I’d bet that one of those magical symbols is a trigger.”

Julian’s head whirled, partly from disbelief, partly from his underlying mistrust of magic that hadn’t quite faded - despite being in love with a magician - and partly from excitement.  

“Star charts, I understand,” he murmured.  “Alchemy, too… you take something, and you make something else.  I… don’t know about these other symbols, but…  What is it?”

Selina gave a little burst of laughter, of disbelief that Julian still wasn’t understanding.  

“It’s a spell, Julian.  Three different schools - or languages, as you say - alchemy, astrology magic, and astronomy.  Two charges, and a when.  It’s astromancy.”

“What does it do?” 

Selina shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I’m not a magician of any kind.  I don’t even know all the alchemical symbols.”  She flashed him a grin.  “Try it and find out.”

Julian’s breaths quickened, his heart raced, and a cold sweat broke out on his palms and neck.

“I don’t know, I’m not a magician, I know science, the astronomy makes sense, but I don’t know any of the rest of it.”  He pushed his hands through his hair with one hand, the other on his hip.  “And how does it even work?  How do you cast it?  Just… just draw it?”

“I was joking,” Selina said gently.  But then she peered up at him, and he knew how flustered and wild-eyed he must look.  And she hesitantly ventured, “Unless…?”

Julian’s hands were trembling and a sense of panic was coming over him.  He shook his head vigorously and closed the book firmly, pushing it halfway across the table.

“No.  No, I don’t think it’s a, uh…”  he fluttered his fingers.  “a spellbook , or astromancy, it’s quite nonsense I’m sure, and besides which I have no business with it.”  Nodding decisively, he turned from the table and waved his hand in the air as he spoke, looking back over his shoulder at Selina as she followed.  “If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in all my years, it’s not to fool around with magic you don’t understand.”

~*~*~*~

“Mm.  Very wise.” 

The Call of the Stars

Part 14 of Tides of Memories

[dragonmuse]

WIP Updated: We’re Not Stopping, We Have a Perfectly Good Rebellion at Home (3/6)

Dimension 20: Fantasy High. Series: Continuing Education for Wayward Adventurers

Fic Summary: Everyone needs someone, sometimes. The Bad Kids outer circle is there for them, even as they live their own lives.

Chapter 3: The Spin Cycle of Sandra Lynn Faeth

Pairings: Sandra Lynn/Gilear, Sandra Lynn/Gorthalax, Sandra Lynn/Jawbone, a touch of Sandra Lynn/Jawbone/Garthy O'Brian

Excerpt:

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Dawn. I’m Sanadariel Lyath,” she said, a waitress’ perfect delivery.

“Oh come now, that’s far too much name for a little thing like you!” He laughed. “And I’m never going to get all those Elvish syllables right.”

“I go by Sanadariel usually,” she offered, entranced by the eye contact he made. The world seemed to narrow to the two of them alone.

“Mm, it just won’t go. We’ve got Pamala, Barbara Ann and Cindy Lou, you know? You’re just as cute as a button and you need a cute little name to go with it. What about Sandra Lynn? That’s close enough, right?”

If anyone tried that on her even five years later, they would've been punched square in the middle of the face. But she was nineteen and all the world seemed possible. She could be Sandra Lynn for a little while.

[writernopal]

Happy (late) STS! How much do you describe your characters? Do you leave their appearance intentionally vague or go into intricate detail? Something in between? As a bonus, how is your MC(s) described? You can share an excerpt or just otherwise describe!

Happy late STS, Karkki!

How much do you describe your characters? Do you leave their appearance intentionally vague or go into intricate detail? Something in between?

So I'm quite bad at this lol. I struggle to imagine faces or body types so they might have one or two defining features and that's it. So I'll say oh, this character is old, or they have blonde hair, or they have a crooked nose and nothing more haha. For me it's more about their personality, aura, and vibes so physical description is really only mentioned when it complements one of those things and is relevant to that part of the story. They're literally just little blobs to me. It's part of why I commissioned art for the main cast because one day I was like okay, I need to really figure out how these guys look lol.

As a bonus, how is your MC(s) described? You can share an excerpt or just otherwise describe!

Okay I am going to add excerpts here because I'm quite proud of them!

Mariel

I gave the room another pass when my body tightened nervously, and the breath departed my chest. Just along the back wall was a short human woman, adjusting a sheer pink shawl over her shoulders. Her hair, a soft sandy brown. Her skin, a pale olive color. And her waist…yes, small and pinched. Could it be…Miss Frère? No, it couldn’t be... She flipped her fan open and turned to look in my direction. My heart pounded hard in my chest. If it was her— No. No. It couldn’t be. I waited, like a fish gasping for life on the end of a fisherman’s hook, as her eyes lifted to meet mine. Through her lashes, I spotted a pale blue color, not at all like the gentle and warm almond of Miss Frère’s. And her face was all wrong too. Her features were too handsome. Miss Frère wasn’t ugly by any stretch of the imagination, but her face was not…well, it just wasn’t like that. She had a softness to her as if she were always being seen through fogged glass. One’s eyes could easily roll back and forth across the gentle slope of her cheeks and the tiny bow of her lips.

Axtapor

His lavender scales were lit beautifully by the low firelight in my tent and seemed to have a sheen to them of the most lovely violet. He was dressed as one might normally find him—in well-fitted trousers, a loose shirt, and a coat. Many trinkets dangled from him, though he seemed completely unarmed and his eyes, which I had only seen to hold ferocity, looked almost tender, making the whole of him appear dashing... But he, by contrast, looked to be handsomely carved of marble by some forgotten master. There was something easy about taking in his features… And the light in this place seemed to agree as it reveled upon the high points of his face and the shadows seemed to melt and fall asleep comfortably in his contours. At this distance, I could observe his eyes more closely than I’d ever had the chance to, and despite being the eyes of a predator, they were altogether enrapturing. He blinked, and a series of thin white eyelids moved under his outer one to perfectly frame the smoke-gray eye within them. His pupil was a vertical one with a thin ring of bronzy yellow just around it, and in their dark reflection, I could see myself.

Fay

She was leaning against one of the masts and somehow managed to look imposing and enchanting at the same time. Her face was long and elegant, each feature upon it well-defined and distinguished. Her eyes were a golden color that stood out against her skin and hair; both appeared the color of rain-dampened soil, rich and dark. There was something about how the very rigid quality of her nose contrasted with the easy nature of the waves in her hair that almost seemed like she could be nobility, but the rest of her told a different story.  She was tall for a human woman, probably standing close to six feet, and was lean-looking in build. She had no overt fullness anywhere, though that was not to say that she had no curves to mark her shape out, just that even with them, she appeared more like a racing dog or a wildcat. She was not armed from what I could see, but I took no comfort in that notion; she was plenty dangerous even without such implements. I gathered her to be a witch, as they were the only regular practitioners of rune inscription I knew of, and given our previous encounter, it was something she was clearly well versed in. Though now that I looked at her more closely, her fingers seemed to be blackened on the ends, and the nails upon them were long and sharp-looking. A sign that she wasn’t just any witch but one that practiced the dark arts.

Wilkes

His scales had become almost translucent but still managed to capture the light like some finely cut gem, and just underneath, I could see millions of tiny red veins chasing after one another. Even his eyes seemed to be alight with more fire than usual, smoldering like his own pair of setting suns. The opalescent sheen of his scales, the sealike swell of his sloped horns, and the feathery mane upon his head, all of him was beautiful as if he had been born for the sole purpose of being admired. And what wasn’t his by nature felt alive with his spirit all the same, for that ruby upon his forehead even thrummed with the frantic life of a third eye.