#wayward astronomer

[erideights]

Little pieces here and there (5)

Pairing: Buggy x Fem!Reader (One Piece Live Action)

Chapters: one, two, three, four

Word Count: 3K

Warnings: light flirting, light metion of sex, a lot of feelings, super fluff (in their particular way)

A/N: I'M BACK WITH THE NEW AND LAST (????) CHAPTER OF THE SERIES AFTER AN HIATUS WEEK. I wanted to post something good, something beautiful, true to the characters and the story you all enjoyed reading as much as i writing! (sorry for the possible grammatical mistakes!)

Side note: this chapter is to be read with different time frames, so changing the lights of the room and their resting positions in bed!

"Say it."

"Nope."

"Why not!?" he whines, his beautiful dove eyes pleading. "C'mon baby. Say it. I deserve it. All the awards. All the honors." The fact he’s beneath her, trapped between her body and the mattress, doesn't help make him look less submissive. She has to admit, it’s extremely pleasant to see how his dignified ass drags himself for her.

"But it would be a lie," she says, sticking out her tongue in a gesture intended to make him suffer a little more. Unbelievable that this is the same man who forced her to beg for sex a couple of hours ago. "and I’m no liar."

''Didn't seem like a lie to me when you were moaning my name and cumming on my cock for the third time some minutes ago.'' Ah, there it is, his ego is back again. Or at least, a glimpse of it. Took a while to appear. 

In front of him, (Y/N) just smiles devilishly, which makes Buggy growl and look at her with pleading eyes again. "Look, we already established I know and even like how you need to play difficult, it's part of your charisma, but I need to hear it, okay? I will give you anything your wayward, fussy heart could desire. Consider it a prize."

''Anything?''

''Anything.''

Hmm. She plays along, and pretends to think about it for long, torturous seconds, shaking her head from side to side in slowmo, taking a deep breath. 

As expected, soon enough she decides to give in-- she’s satisfied after making him beg in her own particular way.

''Fine.'' She takes a breath and starts her dramatic performance, with one hand on her own chest, eyes closed. ''Oh, Buggy, you were right, you are the best lover I’ve ever had, thanks to you my soul has ascended and I have seen the One Piece.''

That is not the praise he was expecting about his sexual skills. Not even close. But was so /him/, so dramatic, exaggerated, and incredibly hilarious, that despite faking offense on his face, eyes half-closed, lips pressed together, fingers pinching her hips as punishment, he has to admit -he will not-, was funny.

''You're a moron'' That’s about everything he has to say on the matter.

‘’Like Ol’Axe-Hand?’’ She asks, raising an eyebrow, hoping he gets it. And of course he does. He's so surprised that he widens his eyes, smirking. Is she actually admitting how incredibly funny he is? ''You still remember that joke?''

''Was so bad it stuck with me since then like a fucking nightmare.'' Hit and sunk.

''Ouch''

"Don't worry, there's still time to improve the quality of your jokes. But for now I'll take the prize you promised.''

''Ugh, fine. What do you want?’' Buggy thinks he knows (Y/N), so he’s convinced she will ask for something impossible. A challenge that will ridicule him or an astronomical sum of money. ''If what you want are berries I’m sorry to inform you, sunshine, I'm broke, I still have to find...'' but the clown shuts himself when he feels the girl's fingers slowly caressing his sharp jaw, finally pulling him by his chin towards her. He leans in too, eyes fixed on her lips, yearning for the kiss he can see so clearly written in the dreamy way she looks at him.

There’s no need to announce it, nor to start it with their usual flirting or provocations. It's slow and doesn't demand anything at all, nor is intended to be the trigger of their next round.

It's just a kiss. Something so simple and intrinsically complex at the same time. And in the same way as if it had been the most fiery and passionate of his life, as not long ago, this kiss leaves him breathless, unable to form a single coherent thought that has nothing to do with her.

Oh, he’s down bad. Just like she is.

              …

And there they are on the mattress, she’s sitting on his lap, legs around him, his hands on her hips, hers on his abdomen in a relaxed pose. The scene is typical of two lovers who have known each other for a lifetime -or at least for years- and not of two people who just had the wildest sex of their lives less than a couple hours ago. For the first time. 

They tell each other anecdotes, surreal stories, and laugh together inside that little bubble they don't even know how it was created, where it came from, or how the hell it could have absorbed them so much, making them completely ignore the outside world.

"What do you mean a giant bird!?" she screams in laughter, her stomach hurting, her lungs burning. "Aha, yeah, laugh all you want but imagine thinking that you’re about to die turned into damn bird feed. It would fucking piss me off."

As it can’t be otherwise, (Y/N) ends up laughing until she cries with the story of how Buggy arrived at Loguetown, and the clown finds himself exaggerating his story more and more with each laugh he manages to get from the girl, eager to hear it again, knowing he’s the only cause of this beautiful melody.

It’s absurd how he would love -kill- to know more about her, ‘cause if he stops to think about it, he doesn't know this woman at all. He knows nothing beyond her name, her crew, and the fact that she has a bold sense of humor. She’s brave and sarcastic, keen, sharp, and much more intelligent and savvy than -in his opinion- all the idiots around her.

And this is how and when he realizes the post-nut clarity theory hasn't worked for him. Getting her out of his twisted mind will not be as easy as fucking her a couple times, get his needed ton of personal satisfaction from making her beg for him, and moving on to the next thing to do/achieve on his list.

Goddamnhim.

"Alright, as much as I love and enjoy being the main character, it's time for you to drop your femme fatale facade and show me who you truly are."

"Awh,’’ she smiles tenderly, reaching for one of his cheeks. ‘’you see me like a femme fatale? That's so cute."

"Cut the crap.’’ The clown slaps her hand away, not in a violent way, but offended. ‘’You're not easily intimidated and I noticed you're good with knives too. That's sexy, and it makes me curious as hell about what you did before you joined those shitty heads."

Fair enough, she would be curious too, so she thinks about it, a bit wary of talking about her private life because there is a part of her that prefers to keep it intact -in case she wants to come back to it-. However, she reasons, mentioning what she did without being very specific doesn’t reveal anything at all. It would piss her off if Buggy casually knows her mercenary name -by which she’s fairly known among marines and pirates alike- and connects some dots all of a sudden. 

Is he actually that smart?

"I was a mercenary." She says calmly, shrugging her shoulders. "With that angelic face?" He retorts in disbelief, raising both eyebrows, even though he knows it fits her personality just right. "You'd be surprised what you're capable of with it."

"No, no, I actually believe you." He cracks an amused smile, looking directly into her eyes after carefully scanning her face. ''I mean, If someone like you tried to sneak onto my ship I would know it’s a trap, either to kill me or to steal from me but I would end up saying ''whatever you say beautiful'' and would actually let you do your thing.''

He's an idiot but still, once again, he manages to make her laugh. “Looking like that, anyone would give you anything,” he adds because he is, in fact and undoubtedly, willing to give her a little more of himself. More time and more attention, because he should definitely be out there gathering his crew -only God knows what they'll be doing- and figuring out how to get to the Grand Line without a damn map.

The idea of asking her, or even suggesting she steals it for him, doesn't even cross his mind. Not even after having shared this /intimate/ afternoon together. He knows she won't do it, she doesn’t own him shit, she’s not one of these women who fall in love and suddenly do everything, and leave everything behind, for the man of their dreams.

And of course Buggy can see the way she looks at him, without an ounce of contempt or distaste for his extravagant appearance or the atrocities he's sure she knows he's committed and of which he's not one bit ashamed. She sees him as he is and still, she’s here, offering him back something as valuable as her time and company.

But she won't give him more, he is aware of that. That's why he didn't offer (Y/N) to run away with him when he escaped from Arlong Park, because as much as she enjoys his company and maybe, just maybe, the clown imagines, feels something for him, he has the impression she’s a disgustingly loyal person, to her principles and her people, and as much as she likes to flirt with him, she would have said no.

He must admit, that's also how he likes her. Strong, capable, independent. He would kill no matter who to have her by his side as part of his crew, although he knows it won't happen. He would settle, however, with the -hypothetical- opportunity to meet from time to time on the high seas or on any random island. To sneak away from their crews in secret, to disappear for a few hours in which all his attention, his entire being, could focus on her, lower the curtain just a little, leave the spotlight behind and relax.

There is a small part of him, the one that makes him unable to stop looking intensely at her with those blue eyes that mirrors his own soul, that truly hopes she feels the same.

…

''You know'' she starts, absently stroking his hair, the clown's head in her lap. ''I imagine-- no, I know the whole nose topic is a sensitive thing for you but honestly, it shouldn't-- big noses are incredibly attractive, and yours? Believe me, anyone would want to sit on it.’’

What.

He's so taken aback by the suddenness of the comment he completely forgets what they were talking about before and on top of that, he's unable to reply for some seconds, looking at her like she just started speaking in another, incomprehensible language.

He ends up raising an eyebrow, running his tongue over his red lips. ''Including you?''

''Including me''

''Well, sunshine, today's your lucky day then'' Sitting up, in a blink of her eyes he turns, catches the girl's hips and drags her with him, lying down, leaving her sitting on his chest while he rest his head on the pillow. Buggy winks at her, licking his lips again, this time cheekily rather than thoughtfully. “I’m about to make another one of your dreams come true.”

''Horny bastard.'' she whispers, swallowing saliva. What a view, having him between her legs again. ''Never denied, sweetheart'' with a low, erotic, and breathtaking laugh, he surrounds both her thighs with his arms and pulls her body up in a quick movement, causing a sudden brush of his nose against the inside of her thigh.

(Y/N) shudders and takes a deep breath, spreading her legs a little further as she settles them on the pillow. ''Show me what else you can do, captain.'' To that he just groans, already getting hard with just having her on top of his face and her way of talking to him, pushing his buttons just the right way.

In no time she’s a complete, total, and absolute mess, writhing with pleasure. Hands grabbing his hair, hips rocking over his mouth, forcing his nose to rub against her clitoris, she softly moans his name, an occasional insult or any other possible blasphemy.

''Oh, fuck-- Buggy.''

…

Worn off makeup all around her body, sun setting, long hours spent together in which they have told funny, long stories about each other's life and of course, in which they have ended up letting free -once again- that suffocating sexual tension that attracts them to the other like a month to a lamp. Buggy, surprisingly, ends up letting his guard down to the point where he falls asleep, and not long after, he starts snoring.

(Y/N) knows, it's time to leave and look for her friends. She also knows she warned them about her obsession with the city and that the chances of her getting lost were high, and in that case they should not worry about her, blablabla, because she would come back sooner or later. She didn’t even remotely expect the reason for her disappearance would be a self-declared enemy -Luffy’s enemy- of her crew, tho. Neither was she going to spend so much time away from them to be with him.

The excuses she will need to cover her tracks are endless, and a pain in the ass without even started to think about them yet.

Will Zoro still be lost somewhere on the island? Because she obviously assumed, he got lost as soon as they split.

Still in bed, she takes a moment to calmly look at him. (Y/N) is aware of how this may be the last time they ever see each other, and -not- surprisingly, this thought sparks a pang of sadness in her. She really likes him. She wouldn't say she is in love with him, because those are big words and they barely know each other yet, but... he was right, the chemistry between the two was something impossible to deny. And it hasn't weakened, nor disappeared a single bit after sex. Quite the opposite-- It has become something more, a kind of deep and sincere fondness that in this precise moment, dark outside, distant voices over the window from drunkards and bastards around the streets, his breathing calm for a fraction of second, his eyes closed and the fresh breeze that enters the room, invites her to caress his blue hair while he sleeps, sighing.

It’s been a long, long time since (Y/N)’d enjoyed this kind of genuine, absolute peace, sharing with someone she cares about, a room where time does not exist and life is just a thought instead of reality.

Part of her wishes or better said, acknowledges, she would stay here the entire night if she could. The other says that’s ridiculous, and that those are her hormones talking and nothing else. It would pass.

But does she want it to pass? To fade away?

Finally getting out of bed -all her willpower at once- after long minutes in which she simply memorizes every possible detail around her, she begins to retrieve her clothes scattered throughout the room and get dressed in silence, trying not to wake him up.

Through all this process, in the depths of her head resonates a single thought, ringing as loud and strong as an alarm. She’s unable to shut it up. She can’t ignore it either. It's another kind of thought she shouldn't have, and at the same time… feels so natural, so logical, she doesn't feel guilty for having it.

But should she listen to it? Should she follow it?

Taking a seat in the chair that fulfilled its great purpose a few hours ago, she sighs, again, head resting on her hand, elbow on the table. With a small smile, her eyes fall back on that ridiculous, snoring clown. And then, she just knows.

Reaching to a little secret pocket in her pants, she takes out a small piece of folded paper and starts to open it slowly, being careful to not tear it apart, leaving it on the table of the room once the copy of the map of the Grand Line can be perfectly seen. When (Y/N) suggested her crew make a couple of copies in case something happened to the original, she never thought she would use hers like this, but she doesn't regret it in the slightest.

Biting the tip of her tongue, her eyes scan the partially darkened room, jumping from side to side. When she finally finds what she was looking for, she leans over the table, and taking the pen from the inkwell, she writes in the upper right corner of the map "I will be waiting for you right here, come find me" .

If someone asked her why she does this, why she feels this, why does she decide to ignore her common sense and give something so important to someone as -objectively- miserable as him, she would simply answer that there are things… or better said-- not things, but the little pieces here and there, pieces of himself left in her during conversations, shared glances, laughter, flirts, light touches and the deep strong ones that came after those. It's the way he tried to make her laugh at all costs or how he didn't give up trying to win her over. Those blue eyes so intense she would swear, they reached her soul, or the small, genuine smile she knows she has seen this same afternoon, really far from the forced, crooked, exaggerated ones he usually has.

It is all of this and much more, and opening the door of the room, closing it again so that no one disturbs Buggy while she escapes the building and heads to her ship to find her crew, she knows she can't wait to see him again.

She knows she will. Her sixth sense tells her so.

[falloutober]

Falloutober is back this year with 31 days of apocalyptic prompts! Just as with other years, you are welcome to fill these from any fandom or original story, knowledge of Fallout not required!

Interpret these literally, figuratively, symbolically, astronomically, aeronautically, cytoplasmically, you know, however you want! Kink, whump, fluff, art, lit, screenarchery, music, just have fun! You can merge and swap days around too as desired!

If you want me to see your posts and potentially reblog them to the falloutober blog, make sure to tag them #falloutober2023 or @ the blog in your post!

Alternate Prompts: 2020 | 2021 | 2022

Typed list below the cut!

1 | War Never Changes 2 | Neon 3| Distant Glow 4 | Daddy-O 5 | This Thing Called Defeat 6 | Monument 7 | Midnight Ride 8 | Faith, Hope, & Love 9 | Butcher Pete 10 | Terminal 11 | Fallen Star 12 | Rust 13 | Civilization 14 | Afterdamp 15 | Keeping Warm 16 | Lacrimae Rerum 17 | Fang & Club 18 | Respite 19| Feral 20 | Wayward Souls 21 | Mutation 22 | Heat Lightning 23 | Homecoming 24 | Cigarette 25 | Pound of Flesh 26 | Ink Spots 27 | Green 28 | Cold, Dark 29 | Shrapnel 30 | Atom 31 | This Little Light

[zooophagous]

Can vampires such as Strauss consume and digest things other than blood? Its been a while since I read your "Wayward souls" stories.

And could vampires get pregnant? Probably not, but the idea of Strauss being able to erm, father children has been brought up so I want to ask.

Strauss can consume and digest most liquids, but things with a high fat and sugar content will make him ill. He could have, say, a glass of wine, but a wine cooler wouldn't sit nicely. A milkshake would likely make him vomit.

A vampire could likely get pregnant, but the infant would be human, and the pregnancy would have an astronomically high chance of failure. The vampire body is simply too cold and the nutrients it consumes too sparse. The pregnant vampire would essentially need to be drip fed and placed in a heated isolation chamber for the duration of the pregnancy.

[redley-of-many-noodles]

Imagine, if you will, a bored alien.

Let’s say it’s an astronomer.

Maybe it takes its most powerful telescope and points it off into the void, just for shits and giggles.

Maybe it sees an asteroid. Pretty mundane, all things considered. But, because this alien is so incredibly bored, let’s say it tries to predict the asteroid’s path. It estimates mass and velocity, looks for nearby celestial bodies, and does the same for them. So many gravity wells pulling and tugging at the asteroid, so many forces to calculate. It’s all very tedious work.

And it keeps going, on and on, until—

A collision. Against astronomically low odds (literally!) the asteroid has a direct collision course with… a planet. In a distant bubble in the void, a solar system floats, so far from its peers, and yet… this wayward asteroid finds its way directly to the single life-bearing planet in this miraculous system, as if fated to land there.

This alien, in its moment of boredom, has found the most amazing, absurd, tragically unlikely existence. Millions of light years away, in the midst of utterly desolate space, is a single planet where life flourishes — and is doomed to extinction by a single asteroid.

Imagine the wonder it must feel. Imagine the awe written across its features when it takes its equipment and sets up to observe the planet’s surface — only to find that some of its lifeforms are so massive that they can be made out in some level of detail even from so far away.

Imagine how surreal it must feel.

Knowing that the light it sees has travelled millions of years to reach its eyes. Knowing that everything it sees is long dead.

Knowing that the asteroid already hit.

I imagine an alien that is no longer bored.

[alishaaxo]

A Mother’s Disappointment

Rhaella confronting her son, and his paramour Lyanna after the destruction faced in Westeros

How could this all go wrong?

Rhaella’s own flesh and blood, grown showcased the mistakes of man yet doomed to repeat it. Aerys was a blight on the realms, yet her poor son Rhaegar acted so callously, causing a war the likes never seen before in centuries.

Even King Aerys, the infamous madman himself, did not create astronomical damage alike to his progeny.

The philosophical heir, the presumed prince to bring peace and greatness to Westeros, restoring the blunders of his father.

Now he stands in front of his beloved mother shamelessly, with his vagabond of a mistress, and his collection of cowardly Kingsguards.

How dare they stand in front of Rhaella Targaryen.

These alleged protectors of the realm preach their vows of duty and honour in the name of the King, to justify standing idly by as her brother-husband mistreats her, beats her and rapes the frail women into submission.

Yet now they act as turncloaks and betrayers to the King, in the name of Rhaegar and his harlot wolf-girl.

The frail, pregnant women gathers all the power she can muster, and strikes her foolish son with the culmination of rage released from the depths of her heart filled with disappointment.

His three underlings gape back in shock, undetermined in how to act as their admirable king has been slapped by the now Queen-mother, the women they once witnessed numerously battered and downtrodded by the previous king. Rhaegar’s paramour Lyanna also gazes at her presumed-mother-in-law acting unexpectedly, unlike the frail southern flowers she presumed everyone below the North would be in temperment.

“Mother! Why did you slap me? I’ve won the war and returned back in great health. This is cause for celebration, not to attack me!” Rhaegar retorted in response to the unanticipated assault on himself by the mother he cherishes dearly.

“Have you no decency Rhaegar? After witnessing your father’s mistakes, I thought you would grow up respectful and kind with the values I taught you unlearning the evil tendencies of your father.”

“Yet here you stand with your mistress and guards, as you flaunted about carelessly in poor Elia’s homeland while the realm was set ablaze due to your actions!” Rhaella’s fury was unleashed and unrestrained, her eyes never once leaving the guilt-filled lavender eyes of her firstborn son.

Lyanna impulsively retaliated snidely, “I’m no mistress! Rhaegar and I’s love is pure and true, witnessed by both Gods Old and New! That Martell crone is of no consequence in our love!”

The Kingsguard beside her, Arthur Dayne of Dorne sends a disapproving gaze filled with shame.

Shame in participating in this foolish excursion of two wayward lovers. Shame in betraying the Princess of his land and participating in the humiliation of Elia Martell in front of all, nobles and smallfolk alike.

“You let your little whore call your wife, the mother of your children that? I see now that all I taught you was irrespective, as Aerys blood truely runs through you.”

“At least your father had the courtesy to not outwardly flaunt his mistress to me and abscond with her!” Rhaella counters in anger at the total absurdity of the situation.

The gallivanting prince whines in shame, “Mother, I’m not immoral like father! This was a duty of mine, to provide the realm with the conqueror’s reborn to face the northern threat.”

His mother rebuts this claim, “And yet this somehow led you to run away with the betrothed of the Baratheon Lord! Doing so caused a war, you fool!”

Lyanna Stark immediately screeches back to Rhaella, at the name of her previous-betrothed, “I didn’t want to marry that boarish oaf! He already has a bastard child! Love is sweet but it cannot change his nature!”

“And so you abandoned your family to gallivant off with a man with two children, and a pregnant wife instead.” The Targaryen matriarch retorts, illustrating the incredulous hypocrisy of the arrogant wolf-girl.

The Stark women growled in a pathetic attempt at silent as she grows red as a prune in mortification.

Her immoral deeds have been showcased off to everybody in the room witnessing the argumentative nature of Lyanna’s meeting with her mother-in-law.

“These callous actions of yours led to the murder of both your brother and father and yet you have nothing to say now!”

“I’m done with you imbeciles. Rhaegar, I tried the right ways on how to act, yet you and your cronies acted so badly to the extent of war!”

“I’m heading back to Dragonstone with Viserys. Hopefully him and my next child will grow to be nothing like you. My eldest son. My biggest failure.” Rhaella then storms off, away from the unpleasant scene. Unable to face the blunders caused in the rebellion as a result of her son.

Lyanna stewed silently in shameful fury.

Rhaegar now filled with shame, yet unwilling to accept the fact that his pursuit of Lyanna Stark in the name of prophecy was a foolish endeavour.

Arthur Dayne lingered in the room, feeling disgusted with himself for following these scandalous nobles. In attempt to become a man worthy of the Kingsguard, worthy of the titles he has been given, as a result of his skills and his supposed noble attitude, yet he had led himself to ruin. Led Westeros to ruin.

Nobody continued to speak, silence ensued while the figures stood unsure of themselves. Awkward in the fact they had to face the consequences of their actions.

[ccohanlon]

from my bookshelf

Pytheas of Massalia was a Greek geographer, explorer and astronomer from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia — modern-day Marseille, France. In the late 4th century BC, he voyaged from there to northwestern Europe, but his detailed account of it, On The Ocean, survives only in fragments, quoted — and disputed — by later authors such as Strabo, Pliny and Diodorus of Sicily. The Extraordinary Voyage Of Pytheas the Greek by the noted British historian of ancient maritime Europe, Barry Cunliffe, attempts to draw out the reality of what was an extraordinary sea journey, from the Western Mediterranean north along the Atlantic coast of Europe to the British Isles, then even further north, to the near-mythic land of Thule. Cunliffe makes a strong case for Pytheas being “the first European explorer”, while identifying the most likely locations of Thule, sought so avidly by 19th and early 20th century adventurers and artists.

James Hamilton-Paterson’s Seven-Tenths: The Sea And Its Thresholds, published in 1992, more than two thousand years after Pytheas’s On The Ocean, is an ambitious, expressive exploration of the vast aqueous wilderness that covers three-quarters of our planet by a writer of remarkable literary accomplishment (he was one of Martin Amis’s professors at Oxford). Plumbing humanity’s complex, multi-faceted relationship with the sea, Hamilton-Paterson writes vivid, meditative passages about, well, everything — fishing, piracy, oceanography, cartography, exploration, ecology, the ritual of a burial at sea, poetry, and even his own experiences living for extended periods on a small island in the Philippines.

Tom Neale’s autobiography, An Island To Oneself: Six Years On A Desert Island, describes an altogether smaller, more solitary world: the island of Anchorage, part of the Suwarrow Atoll in the South Pacific. Born in New Zealand in 1902, Neale spent most of his life in Oceania: after leaving the Royal New Zealand Navy, he worked for decades aboard inter-island trading vessels and in various temporary jobs ashore before his first glimpse of his desert island home. He moved to Anchorage in 1952 and over three different periods, lived in hermitic solitude for 16 years, with rare visits from yachtsmen, island traders, and journalists. Among the last was Noel Barber, a close friend of my late father: he gave my father a copy of Neale’s book, in Rome, shortly after it was published in 1966 (I still have it). Neale was taken off his beloved island in 1977 and died not long after of stomach cancer.

The Starship And The Canoe by Kenneth Brower, published in 1978, is an unlikely dual biography of a father and son that draws intriguing parallels between the ambitious ideas of renowned British theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson — who, in the early 1970s explored concepts for interstellar travel, settlements on comets, and nuclear rockets that might propel mankind to the outer reaches of the universe — and his wayward son, George, who lived in a self-built tree house 30 metres up a Douglas fir overlooking the Strait Of Georgia, in British Columbia and devised large canoes based on Aleut baidarkas in which to paddle north to the wild, uninhabited littoral of southern Alaska. Brower’s descriptions of long passages with the younger Dyson in the cold, sometimes fierce tidal waters between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland are gripping and I have read them again and again. It is, unarguably, my favourite book.

The late, New Zealand-born doctor and sailor, David Lewis, is not as widely known as he was half a century ago, even by avid readers of sea stories, but from his earliest memoirs in the 1960s — of his participation in the first-ever singlehanded trans-Atlantic race (The Ship That would Not Sail Due West), and of incident-prone voyages to far-flung coasts with his young family (Dreamers of the Day, Daughters of the Wind, and Children Of Three Oceans) — to his practical, first-hand studies of instrument-less ocean navigation among South Pacific islanders, (We, The Navigators and The Voyaging Stars) in the 1970s, Dr. Lewis was not only the late 20th century’s most remarkable and intelligent writer on the sea and small-boat voyaging but also one of its most adventurous. My favourite of his several books: Ice Bird, published in 1972, an account of a gruelling, almost fatal voyage from Sydney, Australia, in an ill-prepared, steel, 32-foot yacht to achieve the first singlehanded circumnavigation of Antarctica.

It’s said that spending time anywhere with Lorenzo Ricciardi, late ex-husband of Italian photographer Mirella Ricciardi, was an adventure. A film-maker and former senior advertising executive, once described by a British writer as “a penniless Neapolitan count”, he gambled at roulette to raise enough money to buy an Arab dhow, which, in the 1970s, with little seafaring experience and plenty of mishaps, he sailed from Dubai to the Arabian Gulf, and from there down the Arabian to coast of Africa, where the dhow was shipwrecked among the Comoros Islands. The Voyage Of The Mir El Ah is Lorenzo’s picaresque account (illustrated by Mirella’s photographs). Astoundingly, several years later, Lorenzo and Mirella Ricciardi completed an even more dangerous, 6,000-kilometre voyage across Equatorial Africa in an open boat — and another book, African Rainbow: Across Africa By Boat.

Italian madmen aside, it used to be that you could rely on surfers for poor impulse control and reckless adventures, on the water and off. Back in the late 1990s, Allan Weisbecker sold his home, loaded his dog and a quiver of surfboards onto a truck, and drove south from the Mexican border into Central America to figure out what had happened to an old surfing buddy — in between checking out a few breaks along the way. In Search Of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond The End Of The Road is a memoir of a two-year road-trip that reads like a dope-fuelled fiction but feels more real than William Finnegan’s somewhat high-brow (and more successful) Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.

Which brings me to Dana and Ginger Lamb. In 1933, these newly-weds would certainly have been looked at askance by most of their middle-American peers when they announced that they weren’t ready yet to settle down and instead built a 16-foot hybrid canoe-sailboat and set of on what would turn out to be a 16,000-mile, three year journey down the Pacific coasts of Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to the Panama Canal. Dana’s 415-page book, Enchanted Vagabonds, published in 1938, was an unexpected New York Times best-seller and today is more exciting to read than the ungainly, yawn-inducing books produced by so many, more commercially-minded, 21st century adventurers.

First published in Sirene, No. 17, Italy, 2023.

[ana-lora-rein]

Finally, I can introduce you to a new fan fiction hero. My author's OC. Olo'eiktan and part-time Tsahik of the Anurai clan with the eloquent name A'mok (from jav. amoak — to kill). A wayward Bone Lord. He is only 20 years old, and the guy is wise beyond his years. Father's name was Rai'uk (legendary warrior, protagonist of the video game "James Cameron's Avatar: The Game»). A'mok can be called the son of the clan, since his parents died when he was 3 years old. Potion maker and astronomer. A lover of creating jewelry from bones.

A custom-made concept from an artist with golden handles @iamrenji

[askvectorprime]

Dear Vector Prime, I recently saw the Super Mario Bros movie and, I couldn't help but wonder, have Transformers ever visited the Mushroom Kingdom?

Dear Mushroom Master,

Indeed they have! You may recall the Maximal starship Dianosk and its many deep-space colonization missions—here is the story of one such adventure…

Several solar cycles after departing Starbase Rugby with a fresh complement of thirty protoforms, the four-man crew of the starship Dianosk—consisting of captain Updraft, engineer Ratchet, security officer Regulator, and ensign Brakeline—arrived at a red planet somewhere on the spinward edge of the galaxy. While the planet Dykayra had been known to Cybertronian astronomers for some time, no Transformer had set foot on the planet since before the Great War, many millions of stellar cycles ago.

Although the Dianosk picked up no signs of extant intelligent life, orbital scans picked up vast forests of skyscraper-sized mushrooms, whose toxic spore clouds would choke out any organic lifeform in nanokliks. More intriguingly, their sensors detected rich veins of subterranean energon, as well as signs of extensive prior habitation—the tips of ancient, crumbling towers poked up through the red fungal canopy, while abandoned maglev lines and crumbling superhighways criss-crossed the planet. Intrigued at the prospect of discovering a lost civilization, Updraft ordered his crew to land their ship in an abandoned spaceport; to better explore the planet’s treacherous, fungus-based ecosystem, he decided to activate a protoform to assist them in their endeavors, whose native alternate mode would allow him to better explore the terrain. The scanning process yielded FunGus, a gregarious young Transformer whose unusual mycelium alternate form allowed him to easily navigate the planet’s terrain.

The five-man exploration team established a temporary command post as a beachhead for further exploration of the city. As they picked through the detritus, the team uncovered many strange clues regarding the planet’s prior inhabitants—garments they surmised to be hazard suits of some kind, and an abandoned botanical research lab where dozens of brightly colored mushrooms had long ago burst from their holding tanks—perhaps, they surmised, the source of many of the strange, colorful mushrooms that seemed to form the ecosystem’s primary basis. Before the team could report back to Updraft, however, they were attacked by dozens of strange, humanoid fungi! Although the creatures only wielded crude melee weapons fashioned from old lead pipes and rusted nails, they were numerous, and difficult to deter—worse yet, amidst the chaos, FunGus abruptly turned on his crewmates! The terrified crew dragged the wounded Brakeline to safety, even as FunGus escaped into the overgrown sewers beneath the city along with their attackers.

Unsuited as they were to trekking through the dangerous fungal jungle, it took several more solar cycles before the rest of the team could locate their escaped ensign; when they did find him, it was in a series of abandoned catacombs, where a network of glowing tendrils connected him and hundreds of other fungus-creatures to an enormous, building sized fungus. As one, the aliens moved in on the Cybertronian explorers… but, before the encounter could descend into violence, FunGus announced that Queen Mycellium, ruler of their collective, had chosen him to serve as her mouthpiece. Millennia ago, she explained, their race began as parasites: a freak lab accident created a race of aggressive spore-based lifeforms who reproduced through unwilling hosts, until they and their progeny had choked out everything else on the planet, including the original civilization responsible for creating them. In the intervening years, however, they had attempted to move past their ignoble beginnings, and her collective hopefully marked the beginning of a new era of peace and understanding. She and her minions had mistaken FunGus for a wayward member of her own tribe, and attempted to “liberate” him from what she perceived to be alien captors; their unique form of spore-based communication had accidentally driven FunGus into a frenzy.

Fortunately for all involved, Updraft was able to settle the matter agreeably, and the planetary monarch graciously accepted his request to establish a research base and Energon mining outpost on the planetary surface. When Updraft and his crew left for their next adventure, FunGus remained behind to further map the planet and act as a kind of ambassador between the two species, ready to welcome further waves of Cybertronian colonists to this unique planet.

[yllzchair]

Modern AU

(Click link in title // TW tags in bold )

Title: Across the street to another life Tags: Hurt/comfort // Past Child Abuse // Addiction // Crime // Amnesia // Ableist Language // Family Fluff // Happy Ending Rating: Explicit Summary: A ragged monosyllabic man wearing a collar shows up at Wei Ying's music store. Wei Ying and A-Yuan ask, is anyone going to adopt this guy? And then they don't wait for an answer. Word Count: 99,065 Status: Completed.

Title: Red Chrysanthemums for Wei Ying Tags: Alternative Universe – Modern Setting // Alternative Universe – College/University // Stalker!Wen Chao // Friends to Lovers // Getting Together // Artist!Wei Wuxian // Date Rape Drug/Roofies // Attempted Sexual Assault // Attempted Murder // Top Lan Zhan / Bottom Wei Ying // Hurt Wei Ying // Hospitalization Rating: Explicit Summary: Wei Ying has a pretty okay life: a wonderful sister and nephew, his beloved brother who he'd die for, and a seemingly unrequited crush on his best friend. It's pretty standard: go to class, cry over his senior art exhibit, fight with Jiang Cheng over who busted their lock place multiple reports on some guy following him, and make sure Wen Chao stays one hundred feet away from him. Life is pretty good. At least until the stalker problem start and things go batshit. The universe has a hard on for watching Wei Ying suffer. Word Count: 104,884 Status: Completed.

Title: Post Mortem Tags: Psychological Horror // Friends with Benefits // Slowburn // Mystery // Stalking // Drug Addiction // Serial Killers // Consensual Non-Consent // Angst with Happy Ending // Final Girl Trope | Wei Ying // Top Lan Zhan | Bottom Wei Ying Rating: Explicit Summary: Life is a horror movie sometimes. You ignore all the warning signs. You end up standing there in the final scene, covered in blood, contemplating your life choices. Wei Ying is used to that. But it’s harder when you’re in love with your best friend. Word Count: 78,486 Status: Completed.

Title: Paint smears on sunny days Tags: Comfort // Fluff // Fluff and Smut // Everyone is Alive // Dadji // Mutual Pining // Happy Ending // Masturbation // Blow Jobs // Hand Jobs // Accidentally Co-Parenting Rating: Explicit Summary: Falling in love with your son’s art teacher, in five parts) Word Count: 53,808 Status: Completed.

Title: (our friendship) up against the ropes Tags: Friends to Lovers // Getting Together // Lan Zhan FUCKS //Fluff and Smut // Top Lan Zhan | Bottom Wei Ying // Experienced Lan Zhan // Mutual Pining // Oral Sex // Anal Sex // Dom/Sub Undertones // Masturbation // Kink Negotiations Rating: Explicit Summary: Lan Zhan fucks. Lan Zhan fucks. Lan Zhan fucks. Lan Zhan has been Wei Ying's best friend for years. Literally, years. How did he not already know? How has he missed this most important of facts? And more importantly, how is he ever going to get over it? Word Count: 36,391 Status: Completed.

Title: Operations Old Men Tags: Alternative Universe – Boarding School // Single Parents // Matchmaking // Family Dynamics // Hospitals // Family Vacation // School Reunions // Junior Shenanigans // Happy Ending Rating: Not Rated Summary: An ill-fated parent teacher conference reunites Jin Ling's wayward uncle with Sizhui's father. AKA: A matchmaking disaster as told by Jin Ling, Sizhui, and Jingyi. Word Count: 37,654 Status: Completed.

Title: Night rain (dripping down on us) Tags: Sports AU // Dancer Lan Zhan // Demisexual Wei Ying // Bottom Lan Zhan // Blow Jobs // Anal Sex // Getting Together // Happy Ending Rating: Explicit Summary: Somehow, Wei Wuxian went seven years without realizing that Lan Wangji is a really good dancer. Word Count: 20,335 Status: Completed.

Title: My little love Tags: Single Parent Wei Ying // Kindergarten Teacher!LWJ // Kid Fic // Hurt/Comfort // Domestic Fluff // Pining // Happy Ending Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Summary: When A-Yuan’s teachers come to collect the kids, Wei Ying feels his face do an astronomically dumb grin. The man recognises them and arches one very lovely eyebrow indeed. Wei Ying cackles. “Kindergarten teacher, you say?” Word Count: 54,816 Status: Compeleted.

Title: And A Million Miles Tags: Alternative Universe – College/University // Friends to Lovers // Exes to Lovers // Getting Together // Bottom Lan Zhan // Autistic Lan Zhan // ADHD Wei Ying // Blow Jobs // Rimming // Mentions of Homophobia // Internalised Homophobia // Happy Ending Rating: Explicit Summary: Lan Wangi meets Wei Wuxian at university in Gusu and despite a rocky first meeting, they end up falling into a relationship, one that is hidden from the rest of the world due to Lan Wangji's strict family. When Wei Wuxian breaks things off and disappears entirely, Lan Wangji is left to wonder what happened, never quite getting over his first love. Thirteen years later and Lan Wangji is about to marry his best friend: Luo Qingyang. It's not a love match, Lan Wangji is gay, but it helps his friend and gets his uncle off his back. When he wakes to a voicemail from Wei Wuxian, it sets off a chain of events that will bring them back into each other's orbit and unravel what happened to break them apart all those years ago. Word Count: 55,350 Status: Completed.

Title: They call me artist, they call me idol (I’m proud of it) Tags: Alternative Universe – Idols // Choreographer WWX // Idol LWJ // Misunderstandings // AutisticLWJ // Bottom LWJ // Anal Sex // First Time // DadWWX // Childhood Illness // Implied/Referenced Homophobia // Surgery // Angst with Happy Ending // Autistic Meltdowns Rating: Explicit Summary: Lan Wangji is an idol. Wei Wuxian is his groups choreographer. Word Count: 43,875 Status: Completed.

Title: Two Dollar Coffee Tags: Alternate Universe – Sugar Daddy // Alternate Universe – College/University // Miscommunication // Fluff // Smut // Light Bondage // Sex Toys // Anal Sex // Angst with Happy Ending Rating: Explicit Summary: Wei Ying is a poor college student and thinks Lan Zhan wants to provide for him. Word Count: 145,286 Status: Completed.

Title: together, we're just enoughTags: Bartender LWJ // Single Dad WWX // Kid Fic / / Accidental Sugar Daddy WWX // Bottom LWJ // Younger LWJ/Older WWX // Light Dom/Sub // Happy Ending Rating: Explicit Summary: The one in which workaholic and single dad Wei Wuxian tries to do something just for himself. And, Lan Wangji, who is working as a bartender to pay for school, tries to find his way in the world. They fall in love in the process. Word Count: 134,723 Status: Completed.

Title: Pas de Deux Tags: Alternative Universe – Ballet // Alternative Universe Dance // Ballet Dancer LWJ // Hip Hop Dancer WWX // Dance Teacher AU // Addiction // Drug Addiction Rating: Mature Summary: Lan Wangji lived for ballet. His life revolved around it, for that moment where the music would swell, and the curtain would rise. Only during his most recent tour, the spark was gone. He no longer looked forward to going out on stage. So he does the only thing he can think of, duck his uncle’s reminders about auditions and commit to helping his brother run their mother's ballet studio. Only to find the walls shaking with bass heavy hip hop. The man responsible? The new teacher Lan Wangji's brother hired to broaden their offerings; a man named Wei Ying. He's confusing and chaotic, and perhaps exactly what Lan Wangji needs to rekindle his spark. Word Count: 62,724 Status: Completed.

Title: To See You (Again) Tags: Friends to Lovers // Self-Discovery // Pining // Grindr // Lan Zhan FUCKS // Bottom LWJ // Mild Dom/Sub // Straight Boy WWX Rating: Explicit Summary: A new job brings Wei Ying to London, and back into Lan Zhan's life. Many things have changed since their time in boarding school (Lan Zhan is out of the closet, arranges charcuterie boards, stocks a fine bar...), but their friendship slots right back into place like no time has passed. Wei Ying is a little perplexed by the fact that Lan Zhan apparently doesn't have any interest in dating anyone despite being an obvious catch—but hey, at least that means he doesn't have to fight anyone for Lan Zhan's time and attention. And besides, it's not like Wei Ying is in any big rush to find himself a girlfriend either. It’s all working out great! Word Count: 84,267 Status: Completed.

Title: 总有一天; a place to hide (can’t find one near) Tags: Alternate Universe – Modern Setting // Alternative Universe – Pianist // Getting together // Mental Health Issues // Suicide Attempt // Suicidal Thoughts // Depression // Overdosing // Eventual Happy Ending // Hurt/Comfort // Note: Additional Trigger Warnings in Authors notes Rating: Explicit Summary: That’s just the thing, isn’t it? Wei Ying feels nothing. He doesn’t feel anything, and this emptiness should scare him. He knows he should be scared. He wants to be scared. He isn’t. Fear itself is never scary; fear is just a response. It means that your body wants you alive. It’s the absence of terror that scares him. Word Count: 76,091 Status: Completed.

Title: you've ruined my life (by not being mine) Tags: Alternative Universe – Modern Setting // Awkward Flirting // Slowburn // Demisexuality // Happy Ending // Background Relationship – NMJ/LXC Rating: Explicit Summary: After spending a semester abroad with Wei Ying, Lan Zhan is resigned to never seeing him again. But a surprise text message may change all that. (In which Wei Ying and Lan Zhan develop a text correspondence during their senior year of high school, and Lan Zhan is in serious danger of developing Feelings.) Word Count: 132,713 Status: Completed.

Title: You’re My All and More Tags: Alternative Universe – Modern Setting // Alternative Universe – Detectives // Case Fic // Mystery // Slowburn // Pining // Angst with Happy Ending Rating: Explicit // Graphic Depictions of Violence Summary: It had been four years since the last time they had seen Wei Wuxian. Four years without a trace nor evidence, neither track nor news, nothing, none. No one knew what had happened to the said bright and wild detective after he had been caught by Wens, the biggest triad family in China, in an undercover mission. Most investigators had given up, they believed that Wei Wuxian had died and perished. Most. Except Lan Wangji and Jiang Wanyin, each with their own regrets, still searching after all those years. Word Count: 42,964 Status: Completed.

Title: you'll always know me Tags: Alternative Universe – Modern Setting // Actor Wei Ying | Teacher Lan Zhan // Getting Back Together // Exes to Lovers // Angst // Angst with Happy Ending // Wei Ying rides a motorcycle Rating: Explicit Summary: Lan Zhan's world is turned upside down when his High School love, famous actor Wei Wuxian, comes back to their hometown after 13 years. Word Count: 97,328 Status: Completed.

Title: you are safe / loved / worthy / enough Tags: Alternative Universe – Modern Setting // Alternative Universe – College/University // Social Media // Mental Health Issues // Healing // Self-care // Anxiety // Hurt/Comfort // Depression // Slowburn Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Summary: Lan Zhan falls apart and finds himself through the most unexpected means. Word Count: 150,003 Status: Completed.

Title: Wishing on Runway Lights Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Pilot Lán Zhàn | Lán Wangji, Flight // Attendant Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wuxian // Single Parent Lán Zhàn | Lán Wangji // Meet-Cute // Happy Ending Rating: Explicit Summary: Amidst flight delays and cancellations, Wei Ying finds himself taking care of a young boy left stranded at the airport. The initially unfortunate circumstances of their meeting would lead Wei Ying to meeting Lan Wangji, the child’s father. From then on, it’s a quick one-way trip to falling in love. Word Count: 41,700 Status: Completed.

Title: Where You Fell Tags: Alternative Universe – Modern Setting // Alternative Universe - Homeless // Angst // Mutual Pining // Getting Together // Slowburn // Implied/Referenced Child Abuse // Accidental Sugar Daddy Lan Wangji // Suicidal Thoughts // Self-Esteem Issues // Autistic Lan Wangji // ADHD Wei Wuxian // Panic Attacks // Hurt/Comfort // Implied/Referenced Sex Work // Implied/Referenced Substance abuse // Happy Ending Rating: Explicit Summary: Years ago, Lan Wangji was a Senior in high school, readying himself for graduation and the coming years studying at the Gusu Lan Institute of Music. Everything in his life made sense, from his role in his family, to a future as a classical musician. The only thing that didn’t fit was the sudden epiphanies he had about himself brought on by his bothersome and flirtatious classmate, Wei Wuxian. When the growing attraction and friendship was cut short by the other boy’s disappearance, he mourned what could have been, but ultimately had to move on. What he didn’t know was that fate would bring them back together again one day, or the reality of how far apart two lives can diverge, how some can find peace and prosperity, while others can fall farther than he ever imagined. Word Count: 303,010 Status: Completed.

Title:  to hold the wind Tags:  Alternate Universe – Soulmates // Alternate Universe - Modern Setting // Alternate Universe – Reincarnation // Alternate Universe - College/University // Slow Burn // Friends to Lovers // Mutual Pining // Hurt/Comfort // Disownment // Touch-Starved Lán Zhàn Rating:  Explicit Summary: When you touch your soulmate for the first time, you remember your past life together. When Lan Zhan touches Wei Ying, he watches him die. Word Count:  62, 474 Status: Completed

Title:  Threads of Love Tags:  Alternate Universe - Modern Setting // Disabled Character // heavy angst // (flashbacks) // Major Injury // Medical Procedures // Graphic Description of Injuries // mental health // past trauma // Ableism // racism mention // Living abroad // Happy Ending // mild angst // One Bed // POV Lan Zhan // Jiang family feels, WWX is best uncle // Disabled Wei Ying // Very Minor Qin Su/Lan Xichen Rating:  Mature Summary: Thirteen years ago, Lan Zhan came to Germany to study classical music and found his first true friend. Ten years ago he returned to Shanghai, heartbroken after a horrifying accident left Wei Ying with life-changing injuries and destroyed their friendship and budding romance. Today, he comes back to Germany – to teach, not to study. But when he and Wei Ying meet again by sheer chance, he realizes he has much to learn after all. Word Count:  61, 494 Status: Ongoing

Title:  The Simplest Way Forward Tags:  Alternate Universe – Modern Setting // Accidental Baby Acquisition // Kid Fic // Green Card Marriage // Pining for your own husband // Endless Pining // Slowburn // Happy Ending Rating:  Explicit               Summary: It’s a really unfortunate thing, developing a crush on your husband. Wei Ying had assumed this would be easy. Lan Zhan had been so icy and unpleasant to him, it had never occurred to him that he might end up spending the next however many years with this dumb, burning feeling in his chest whenever he looks at him. “Okay,” says Wei Ying. “But tell me if I...if the pretending gets to be too hard, okay?” “It will not,” says Lan Zhan, quietly certain. Word Count:  70,972 Status: Completed       

Title:  the best of you Tags:  Alternative Universe – Modern Setting // Alternate Universe – College/University // Angst with Happy Ending // Emotional Hurt/Comfort // Mutual Pining // Getting Together // Nightmares // Panic Attacks // Implied/Referenced Child Abuse // Dysfunctional Family // Mental Health Issues // Descriptions of Past Violence Rating:  Explicit Summary: When Jin Zixuan calls in a favour, Lan Wangji ends up renting his spare room to Wei Wuxian. It doesn't go how any of them expected. Word Count:  41,938 Status: Completed

Title:  Symphony no.1 in E minor Tags:  Alternate Universe - Modern Setting // Alternate Universe - Classical Music // Alternate Universe - College/University // Musician Lán Zhàn // Musician Wèi Yīng // Breaking Up & Making Up // Coming Out // Exploring Sexuality // Bottom Lan Zhan // Anal Sex // Anal Fingering // Rimming // Oral Sex // Angst with a Happy Ending // Orchestra // Dom/sub Play // Dom Lan Zhan // Sub Wei Ying // Cock Warming // Spanking Rating:  Explicit Summary: In university, Wei Ying meets and is immediately intrigued by Lan Zhan, a frosty and prodigious violinist. When a class brings them closer together, Wei Ying jumps at the chance to get to know Lan Zhan better. The two make mistakes and fall in love, but external forces threaten to pull them apart. At the cusp of adulthood, Wei Ying is faced with choices that will guide his future. A story of growing up, finding your way, diaspora, and most of all - music. Word Count:  75,199 Status: Completed

[asset35-maya]

REUNION

Dear friends, followers. 

It’s me, Maya.

I’ve not been writing for a very long time because of work and other priorities in life, but I seriously plan to get back to it. I began writing fanfic two years ago as practice for creating concepts, narratives and character arcs without the pressure of original worldbuilding.

My secret dream is to write for film someday and run my own production company. I have some very strong ideas and hope to make them come alive in the next few years. For now, I will most likely juggle my IRL responsibilities and get some more practice/wordcount under my belt.

I might not always be successful, but I will try my level best to: A)finish my WIPs in the DBH and MCYT RPF fandoms and B)practice screenwriting and pieces required for film/television production.

Thank you to those who’ve supported me in the past. I hope you’ll stick around as I continue my writing journey, and give me notes if you can. (By notes, I mean feedback.. but tumblr notes would be awesome too!!)

To kick things off, here is a Treatment I’ve written for a spinoff from a popular but cancelled Netflix series called Altered Carbon:

//

A CTAC soldier named Maya is spun up over 200 years after her organic death. The last memory she has is coming home from an offworld mission and getting her stack blown through her throat intact before she could even set her keys down. 

She finds her hometown on Earth largely unchanged. Cars fly, acid pours from the sky and nature is well and truly dead. The same Meths run everything, vapid and uncaring as ever. The quirky AI love hotels aren’t thriving like they used to but they’re definitely still around.

Her husband still lives in their apartment in midtown Bay City. David is CTAC Special Forces and incredibly valuable to the Protectorate. After two centuries of elite operations and resleeving on demand, the rank he bears is astronomically higher than Maya remembers. Mild surprise is all he expresses when she storms back into the tiny kitchen she died in.

He greets her like an acquaintance and informs her, almost as an afterthought, that their little boy is dead. RD-ed in conflict about twenty years after her attack. Top of his military cohort and as talented as his mother. They never found his stack. Likely destroyed by the Envoys he was fighting. Maya is overcome with grief for the toddler she never saw grow up. Her husband asks if she’ll stay for dinner.

She doesn’t have much time to dwell on the past. Maya soon finds herself in the employ of a powerful Meth who carried her stack along with several others on a key ring. The Meth is oddly kind, but ignores all her questions. The only clues come from the Meth’s wayward daughter, Ariel. A raging alcoholic who gets a new liver 3D-printed every week. It’s easy to hate the girl, but Maya’s irritation quickly disappears when she recognizes the tarnished wedding ring on Ariel’s finger. It is her own. And the wretched woman is her son’s widow.

Maya tries in vain to sit her monosyllabic husband down for a talk. His evasive responses frustrate her to no end and one evening, she slaps him across the face in a burst of rage. The tears in his eyes immediately tell her who’s been wearing her husband’s sleeve all this time... and Maya can’t believe it took her that long to recognize her own child. 

It’s extremely odd and she’s doubly thankful she made no attempt to rekindle any romance since her return. She wipes his tears and cups his jaw like she used to when he was nervous to board the school bus. They smile shakily at each other, both hyperaware of the irony of the situation. Between his father’s sleeve and his own stack, she’s coddling the most lethal fighter in the entire Protectorate.

“Robin... you need to tell me now. It’s okay. You’ve been very brave but I’m here now. You can tell me. Where is your father?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“Robin…”

“I promise, Ma. He’s as safe as you were all this time.”

The Meth’s key ring jingles in the back of Maya’s mind. She drops his jaw and steps back in shock. It would be so, so easy to burst back into her boss’s office and rip the ring of stacks out of his hand. But she knows better than that.

“Why?”

“Dad wanted to hide us all. So I helped him.”

“And your wife helped you?” 

“Ariel didn’t really know that she did but... yes.” 

“How did you-”

“I put on Dad’s sleeve and handed her two stacks. Yours. Dad’s.”

Maya closes her eyes as her worst suspicion is confirmed. It was David who’d pulled the gun on her all those lifetimes ago. It was David who’d scooped her stack up from the bloodied floor with utmost love and care. It was David who’d turned their son into their saviour.

“Told her it was the Envoys who killed her husband, and when the time came, we would spin them back up to make things right.”

“She’s been waiting 200 years for you to make good on that promise?”

“Her family would never doubt a word to come out of a CTAC officer’s mouth.”

“Okay. So why am I here now, Robin?”

“Laurens Bancroft just pulled Takeshi Kovacs out of prison.”

The second name rings a bell, and Maya claps a hand over her eyes as yet another suspicion is confirmed. David had always been a little too intrigued by the literature of Quellcrist Falconer. It was an interest that went above and beyond knowing one’s enemy. She’d warned him about it plenty of times. Robin probably remembered the dinner table arguments too. But here they were, 200 years hence. A family of three with their heads in the lion’s mouth, banking on the last Envoy to do something crazy and finally set them all free.

[jurassicpark1990]

despite promising myself i wouldn't buy anymore books this year i have been an absolute menace in the past week, so here are my reading plans for the next few weeks:

finish bruja born by zoraida cordova (it's book two in the brooklyn brujas trilogy, i read the first one a couple of weeks ago and absolutely loved it. i've already read about 100 pages of this and loving it just as much so far)

then wayward witch by zoraida cordova (obviously book three in the series)

from there i'm going back to star wars and reading the revnge of the sith novelisation (i had a voucher so i caved and bought it lmao)

after that the ahsoka novel (bought it for like $8 with birthday money) and then the kenobi novel (it'll be my first legends novel and i'm quite curious to see how it goes)

in terms of nonfic i'm currently reading the first astronomers (i'm about a third of the way through this atm) and then after that i'm gonna read a book called cultural appropriation in fashion and entertainment (just bought this and it's about 200 pages so should be good)

i have also decided to finally read three muskateers so fingers crossed i pick that up sometime soon too!

[dfroza]

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures

for the 9th of September 2024 with a paired chapter from each Testament (the First & the New Covenant) of the Bible

[The Book of Revelation, Chapter 9 • The Book of Joshua, Chapter 4]

along with Today’s reading from the ancient books of Proverbs and Psalms with Proverbs 9 and Psalm 9 coinciding with the day of the month, accompanied by Psalm 82 for the 82nd day of Astronomical Summer, and Psalm 103 for day 253 of the year (with the consummate book of 150 Psalms in its 2nd revolution this year)

A post by John Parsons:

The only way we will draw near to God is by believing that He draws near to us, personally, intimately... "Behold I stand at the door and knock" (Rev. 3:20). Faith “hears the knock” as God's desire to draw near... faith hears his voice and opens the door to his presence; faith believes to partake in his communion.... "Draw near to God and he draws near to you" (James 4:8). The Hebrew word karov (קרוב) is translated using engidzo (ἐγγίζω) in New Testament Greek, a word that means to come close and touch... When we draw close to God, we reach out and find God holding us. Our "I" melts away as we cling to God as our dear life; we become one with his heart; and by means of this blessing we lose ourselves to find ourselves...

"Turn to me, and I will turn to you..." (Zech. 1:3). Someone might wonder why we must take the initiative, but that is because God has never turned away from us; he has always been the one who loves us most of all and awaits our return to his love.... "Turn to me and you will discover that I have never left you nor forsaken you."

Yeshua illustrated the idea of teshuvah (i.e., תְּשׁוּבָה, “returning to God”) by telling the famous story of the "prodigal son" (Luke 15:11-32). After selfishly squandering his father's inheritance, a wayward son decided to return home, full of shame and self-reproach. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." The father then ordered a celebratory meal in honor of his lost son's homecoming. When his older brother objected, the father said, "We had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."

This parable reveals that teshuvah ultimately means returning (shuv) to the outstretched arms of your Heavenly Father... God sees you while you are still “a long way off” (Rom. 5:8). He runs to you with affection when you first begin to turn your heart toward Him. Indeed, God’s compassion is so great that He willingly embraces the shame of your sins and then adorns you with “a fine robe, a ring, and sandals.” Your Heavenly Father even slaughters the "fattened calf" (Yeshua) so that a meal that celebrates your life may be served...

[ Hebrew for Christians ]

========

Zechariah 1:3 reading:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/zech1-3b-jjp.mp3

Hebrew page:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/zech1-3b-lesson.pdf

9.6.24 • Facebook

from Today’s email by Israel365

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

[a-typical]

In another example of facts versus feelings, consider proposed solutions to the meteoric rise in the deer population that wander in residential areas of the northeast US. Deer account for unending car accidents that result in human injury and death, not to mention astronomical insurance costs. One proposal to combat this hazard reintroduces the native species of large, deer-munching feline carnivores that once roamed the region.

What could go wrong?

A study from 2016, authored by nine wildlife scientists, modeled the predator-prey relation between cougars and white-tailed deer. They reported that within thirty years, a vibrant predator population dining upon unwanted deer can avoid 21,400 injuries, prevent 155 human deaths, and save $2.1 billion, all from car accidents that won’t happen. Naturally, cougars also occasionally eat people, especially small wayward children—the model predicts about thirty of them. So we have two choices:

Introduce hungry cats that eat thirty people in thirty years

Don’t introduce hungry cats, and leave car-deer accidents unabated that injure thousands, kill hundreds, and cost billions.

If the societal priority is to save lives, but the interpersonal priority is to value our emotions, then how do we balance these factors in our daily lives? Laws and legislation and national directives pivot on this. Dying in a car-deer accident, even in large numbers, can be thought of as nobody’s fault. Yet getting eaten by a large cat put there by the government is abominable. Do we admit (confess?) to ourselves that we are not cold mathematical creatures, and then celebrate our feelings, knowing they wield the power to override our rational thought? Or do we suppress all that might confound a rational decision? Could or should we allow emotions to influence legislation in response to data?

— Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization - Neil deGrasse Tyson (2022)

[arcadiafm]

𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄  𝐓𝐎  𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐀, wade wilson, salvador gallio, samir el faouly-spector, meridian crane!  the  face  claim  of  zendaya, priyanka chopra jonas, ishbel bautista, anil liter, andrew hozier byrne are  now  taken.  you  have  24  hours  to  join  the  discord  [ from the pinned post ]  or  your  role(s)  will  be  reopened.  check  out  the  ooc intro + about channels!

⟨ ryan reynolds. male. he and they. 35+ ??. ⟩ LOADING FILES … did you know DEADPOOL’S real name is WADE WILSON ?! i’ve seen them around town listening to HIPS DON’T LIE by SHAKIRA ! they seem to be quite eccentric, but also morally questionable, but it makes sense given they are a BARKEEPER at MARY MARGARET’S HOME FOR WAYWARD CHILDREN. i’d watch out for them, though, official files say they’re a GENETICALLY ENHANCED HUMAN skilled in MULTICELLULAR REGENERATION/HEALING FACTOR, IMMORTALITY, PEAK HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY, MASTER MARTIAL ARTIST AND MASTWR ASSASSIN. no surprise there !

⟨ omar apollo. cis male. he + him. 10k + / seems 25. ⟩ LOADING FILES … did you know SELENE GALLIO’S (ADOPTED) child’s name is SALVADOR AMOR GALLIO ?! i’ve seen them around town listening to SPEED DRIVE by CHARLI XCX ! they seem to be quite CHARMING, but also SMUG, but it makes sense given they are a BARKEEPER at 3 DOLLAR BILL. i’d watch out for them, though, official files say they’re a MUTANT + EXTERNAL skilled in LIFE - FORCE ABSORPTION, PSYCHIC VAMPIRE, PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENTS, TELEKINESIS, PYROKINESIS, TELEPATHY, IMMORTALITY, RESURRECTION, PSYCHIC LINK, SORCERY, DARKFORCE & SHADOW MANIPULATION. no surprise there !

⟨ tamino amir. transmasc & genderfluid. he/she/they. 25. ⟩ LOADING FILES … did you know MARC SPECTOR & LAYLA EL-FAOULY (ADOPTED) child’s name is SAMIR "SAMI" EL-FAOULY - SPECTOR ?! i’ve seen them around town listening to WORK SONG by HOZIER ! they seem to be quite pos, but also neg, but it makes sense given they are a PROFESSOR [ EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY + ANCIENT EGYPT STUDIES ] at COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. i’d watch out for them, though, official files say they’re a HUMAN [ VESSEL OF ISIS, FORMER VESSEL OF ANUBIS ] skilled in EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY, ANCIENT EGYPT, HISTORY, HIGH LEVEL IQ, OCCULTISM, ENNEAD PHYSIOLOGY [ IMMORTALITY, RESURRECTION, ENHANCED PHYSIOLOGY, MAGIC + SPELL CASTING, MAGIC MANIPULATION ]. no surprise there !

⟨ jessie mei li . genderqueer. they/them + she/he. 29. ⟩ LOADING FILES … did you know NATALIA KNIGHT & BRUCE WAYNE'S (BIO) ⏤ JONATHAN CRANE'S (ADOPTED) child’s name is JOSEPHINE GRACE WAYNE-KNIGHT | MERIDIAN LO CRANE ?! i’ve seen them around town listening to OH NO !!! by GRANDSON ! they seem to be quite CUNNING, but also MANIPULATIVE, but it makes sense given they are an ASTRONOMER at ARCADIA OBSERVATORY. i’d watch out for them, though, official files say they’re a HUMAN MUTATE skilled in TELEPORTATION, PHEREMONE CONTROL, TOXIC IMMUNITY, GENIUS LEVEL INTELLECT, HAND TO HAND COMBAT, PEDAGOGY, ASTRONOMY, TOXICOLOGY, CHEMISTRY. no surprise there !

[lutoogyan]

SpaceX Struggled to Destroy Its Failing Starship Rocket, Raising Safety Concerns

During its inaugural flight, SpaceX’s wayward rocket did not immediately respond to an automated self-destruct command as it began spiraling in the skies. That’s problematic, as launch providers need to demonstrate the ability to quickly destroy their rockets during launch to protect populated areas. Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their View SpaceX CEO Elon…

[lowtaxsa]

Simulation Awful Presents: Airships! Just When You Thought They Were Out of Hot Air

Greetings, my lovely and totally unprepared readers! Lowtax here, with another steaming, stinking pile of stupid. Seriously, the things I read for your amusement should be considered a form of self-abuse, but here we are. Today, I've dragged the ever-so-hilarious Tanya von Degurechaff, our resident technical genius (and sass queen), into the fray to help me dissect and ridicule the latest idiocy: cargo airships. Yes, you read that right, somebody out there thinks airships are a legitimate solution to modern logistics. Buckle up, kids, this is going to be a bumpy ride!

According to the fever dream of a blog post written by Eli Dourado, titled "Bring Back the Cargo Airship!", there's apparently a need for these lumbering, flying monstrosities. I mean, who needs supersonic jets or hyperloops when we can just float our cargo through the sky like a wayward Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon? Tanya, my dear, would you like to weigh in?

Tanya: Oh, Lowtax, where do I begin? It's as if this Dourado character's time machine got stuck in the 1930s. It's like they saw the Hindenburg disaster and thought, "Yeah, that's the future right there." I'm sorry, but I can't take anyone seriously who thinks massive, slow-moving airships are the pinnacle of modern technology.

Lowtax: Right? But wait, it gets worse. Dourado claims that cargo airships will be the savior of rural areas, you know, because roads and airplanes apparently can't do that. I guess he thinks the Amish are just itching for an airship fleet. And for some reason, he envisions a future where cargo airships will be used for "high-priority, time-sensitive cargo." Tanya, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't airships slower than a sloth on tranquilizers?

Tanya: You're not wrong, Lowtax. A cargo ship would laugh at the idea of these airships even remotely keeping up with it. And let's not even talk about the energy efficiency of these glorified parade floats. The power-to-weight ratio is utterly abysmal.

Lowtax: I'd say it's about as energy-efficient as a Bigfoot convention at a solar-powered stadium. And let's not forget the minor detail that airships are, I don't know, kind of a massive target? It's like putting a "Shoot me!" sign on a pile of money and expecting it to be safe.

Tanya: Exactly. It's like painting a bullseye on the side of a blimp and then being shocked when it gets taken out by a rogue bird. Not to mention the issues with turbulence and maneuverability. I don't know about you, but I don't want my Amazon Prime packages coming via a method that has the aerodynamic grace of a brick in a wind tunnel.

Lowtax: Dourado goes on to claim that cargo airships will be more environmentally friendly, due to their "lighter-than-air" nature. I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure that just because something is full of helium doesn't mean it's not a gigantic, fuel-guzzling abomination.

Tanya: It's a laughable assertion, Lowtax. The sheer amount of energy required to keep these bloated monstrosities airborne would be astronomical. And, as you mentioned, the helium situation isn't exactly a bottomless well. I wouldn't be surprised if this plan single-handedly depleted our helium reserves, leaving the world's children without balloons for their birthday parties. Way to ruin childhood, Dourado!

Lowtax: But of course, Dourado wouldn't be the first to introduce terrible ideas and not think of the consequences. He's practically a poster child for bad decision-making. And speaking of terrible decisions, he also seems to think these airships would be useful for humanitarian aid. Because nothing screams "emergency response" like a sluggish, cumbersome airship, right?

Tanya: I can just imagine it now, Lowtax. A cargo airship slowly floating towards a disaster-stricken area while people on the ground are desperately yelling, "Hurry up, we need help!" and the airship is just like, "I'm going as fast as I can!" It's the perfect solution for people who want to feel like they're doing something without actually accomplishing anything.

Lowtax: It's like the superhero of uselessness. "Look! Up in the sky! It's...a bird? A plane? No, it's Cargo Airship, here to save the day...next week, maybe!" And you know what? I'd almost forgive all this if there was some kind of silver lining, like, say, these airships being cheap to produce. But nope! Dourado estimates that it would cost around $40 million to build one. That's like funding a small country's space program to develop a colossal, floating disaster.

Tanya: For that kind of money, you could buy a fleet of helicopters, cargo planes, or even invest in developing better, faster transportation solutions. But no, let's spend it on giant, inflatable blimps because that's clearly the smartest option.

Lowtax: If by "smartest," you mean "most comically absurd," then yes, I totally agree. You know what, Tanya? I think we've given this article more than enough of our precious time. I can only handle so much idiocy in one day.

Tanya: I couldn't agree more, Lowtax. It's been an absolute delight tearing apart this ridiculously misguided proposal with you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some actual work to do, like designing technology that doesn't belong in a slapstick comedy routine.

And there you have it, folks, another fantastically ludicrous idea torn to shreds by yours truly, Lowtax, and the ever-witty Tanya von Degurechaff. Be sure to tune in next time when we tackle another harebrained scheme that's so dumb, it makes cargo airships look like a stroke of genius. Until then, stay sarcastic, my friends!