#stupid old man and his stupid conlangs

[blorb-el]

good news everyone. MAWS fucks. episodes 1 and 2!

clark is soooooo squishable. excellent. hes very soft and skrungle which is an excellent flavor of clark even if its not the one i default to. terrifically earnest

lois has both personality AND emotions thank you showrunners thank you..... both drive and compassion...

jimmy calling his channel flamebird....jimmy was the original flamebird back in ye olde silver age comics.... chefs KISS....

SPOKEN KRYPTONIAN.....it wasn't kryptahniuo the already established conlang but it did use one (1) word from kryptahniuo!!! ['zhi' = yes] [i WILL be hunting down subtitles and staring at them for an embarrassingly long time evaluating this new kryptonian. iirc there were some influences from Esperanto]

did expect livewire, did not expect livewire's stupid haircut, DOUBLE did not expect the other guy to be DEATHSTROKE...fans of That Old Man will be eating well i suppose

seems like livewire's powers were fueled by that piece of kryptonian tech, i suspect this will be a reoccurring theme - smuggled kryptonian tech creating metahumans?

i do wish they didn't make perry out to be so antagonistic i understand why but like cmon...... it's over the top to reassign byline credit on the superman debut story yeesh. but i'm sure it'll get better

the visor in the robot(s) was VERY reminiscent of the visor from STAS' Last Son of Krypton premiere episode!

also Superman Punches Giant Robot in Animation a long and proud history dating back to the second ever Fleischer short in 1942 and im glad to see it returning

i wish. jor-el did not sound so damn angry... but i'm still too busy dweebing out over the spoken kryptonian to be too annoyed. if the leaks i read a few months ago are accurate i don't think i'll enjoy this take on krypton but at least it'll be interesting

LITTLE ANIME EYE SPARKS THOUGH. THAT'S SO FUN... TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE......

the costume being mostly Kryptonian Magic Transformation Sparkles and then martha going actually we are putting some pants on you young man was EXCELLENT. TRUNKS GANG WINS AGAIN....

probably more on the weekend when i can watch it again <3 i can't believe we actually get a Good Superman Animation it's been so LONG since STAS!!!

#MAWS #sorry i've been away from tumblr for a While ive been a little low energy. i will be around a bit more though! #MAWS spoilers #reactions #new canon to bite into! new canon to chombp

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

🏅 😭 ✏️ 💕

-@outofangband

[an ask game about the fic writing life i reblogged forever ago]

🏅 what is the fic you’re most proud of?

at the moment, probably this drabble collection i did for another fandom? i’ve not completely finished rewriting the notes, but the main text is done. it’s not that i think it’s a masterpiece, but i said i was going to write thirty-one 250-ish-word conversations, and i wrote thirty-one 250-ish-word conversations. feels like an accomplishment

😭 have you ever made yourself cry writing a fic?

i... don’t think so? i’m not someone who cries much in general, it’s just how i am. have written several fics that make my heart clench, usually because they’re related to big fancy musical numbers i have a lot of emotional investment in kinou mo kyou wa seiten de~ for this fandom, i’d say a sky full of stars fits that bill perfectly, writing it was a huge emotional rollercoaster. so was homecoming, for different, worse reasons

✏️ what is your fave fic from another writer?

asddfhdghr what a question! i sincerely don’t think i can pick one, i’ve just got a big pool of fic i really like and reread whenever i dive back into the fandom. there’s a significantly higher proportion of the really good stuff in this fandom too, it’s wild. but here, have a selection of three out of many:

the everlasting song series, by @amethysttribble. it feels almost too obvious to put on the list, this was one of the first fics i found in last november’s fanfic binge and i’ve been eagerly awaiting updates ever since. it’s simultaneously one of the best crossovers i’ve ever read and the isekai i’ve been looking for all my life and and a fully-planned-out novel series i’m eager to see unfold. i started rereading asoiaf just to keep up with the other half of the crossover, it’s great, and i can’t wait to see it complete

never a monster he couldn’t love, by luteoflorien (who i don’t think has a tumblr?) i haven’t been keeping up with the harry potter franchise since before the last movie came out, but i loved this fic anyway. it’s very calm, very detailed, very well-written, and it has a soft boy!mags i can actually buy! i love the way he gets characterised, how he interacts with the other characters, it’s never easy but they’re all trying, it feels so real. it hasn’t been updated in over two years, which is a damn shame, but what is there works very well on its own. it’s a fic i reread when i’m having a bad day and just want to feel better

the heart hides unimaginable things, by softshark (almost certainly not the tumblr user of the same handle.) you guys all know i have Opinions about elrond’s relationship with his parents, and this fic is one of the best takes on his reunion with elwing i’ve ever read. elwing is so painfully scared, elrond is so painfully understanding, it reads like two people who’ve never met trying to forge a personal connection despite everything, and i love that angle. the line ‘As Sauron had reforged Maedhros in his own image, and Maedhros had reforged his brothers just the same, perhaps her sons, too…..’ haunts me, the terrifying au it inevitably spawned lingers in the back of my head. a+ fic

💕 what is the wip that you are most excited about?

i’ve already talked about the songfic songfiggorath several times on this blog and haven’t worked on it since last spring, rip so instead i’m gonna gush about the Big Silm Project i’m actually making progress on, the kidnap-dads-all-the-way-down fic!

the basic hook of this thing is that those jokes about maglor being a serial child abductor are hilarious, but you know what’d make them better? if all of his brothers were like that, literally all of the time. acquiring children under dubious circumstances, raising them with their particular brand of love and care, turning them into treasured little killing machines... they are legitimately good dads. terrible people, but good dads

it’s one of the first of my trademark stupid fëanorian aus, and i’ve put way much more effort into fleshing it out than it probably deserves. you know those fëanorian child ocs i bring up every so often? this is where they’re from, and while only a few of them have names several of them have, like, personalities and sketched-out character arcs and stuff. we’ve got celebrimbor’s younger sisters, maglor’s horrible only daughter, caranthir and haleth’s son-by-adoption-on-both-sides, the original orc culture hero... i have a family tree, it’s wild

i’ve had the bones of this whole au sketched out for... coming up on a year now, but due to various distractions i’m still on the fifth scene of :counts on fingers: nineteen for the first introducing-the-verse fic. that fic is a zoomed out sweep over the boys’ time stealing children in beleriand, with a few flashes forward and back for contextual purposes. i have some other fics i wanna write within the au - something about nerdanel, something about [SPOILERS] - but i wanna get this one done first. it’s very directed at my personal tastes, but i’m having a lot of fun writing it, and i do wanna get it out there!

#ask #i guess i do ask games now #outofangband #post nyanyannya askbox clearout #...should probably change that tag to 'post uni askbox clearout' #heya! not completely done with coursework - i got a sinus infection in the middle of term - but teaching is Over! #i could probably go on for hours about my third gen feanorian ocs #(don't worry they (almost) all die) #still refuse to give them names until i absolutely have to #stupid old man and his stupid conlangs #the elrond-and-elwing fic ain't the most technically polished but the ideas more than make up for it

[runawaymun]

Hi, my 2 questions are:

Fresh Air, Macabre!

Thank you, dear one!

Per this meme

Fresh Air - what's something you're thankful right now? Currently I'm so very grateful for my boss. He can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but he's so incredibly flexible and gives me such a long leash. He knows I work hard and can manage myself and so he really just leaves me to my work, and when I finish my projects he doesn't care if I spend the rest of my time writing or reading or working on my own things.

Also he didn't fire me when my mental health got really bad and I wasn't able to work. He just allowed me to take as many days off as I needed until I was better again (which is like...UNHEARD OF in the US). I wouldn't still have this job if it wasn't for him.

Macabre - you have peculiar interests? Does Elrond count? But oh man. Yes. What those interests are widely depends on my current hyperfixation. But in general I'm absolutely obsessed with history, and by that I mean I have a stupid amount of historical knowledge, facts, and anecdotes lodged in my brain. Most of it is pre-20th century because I legitimately do not care about anything after the Victorian era lmao. I suppose it isn't the interest which is peculiar, but just the depth of my interest!

I read koine (Biblical) Greek, and my literature interests vary widely, but I do have particular interest in Old English and Norse literature, like Beowulf, Dream of the Rood, The Green Knight, the Mabagnonn, Celtic Myths and Legends, and the Poetic and Prose Eddas. One of these days I will apply myself to learning Icelandic and Old English...

...and I'm currently writing my own conlang for use in my Sci Fi novel series which I'm collaborating with a dear friend of mine on. It has its own alphabet and I've pulled mostly from Maori, Hebrew and Icelandic for sounds and grammar.

(Also just...I love mythology in general. Whether that's Greek, Roman, Hindu, Slavic, Germanic, or Celtic-- and Folktales around the world, especially Native American peoples like the Salish, Chinook, Zuni, etc.-- I especially love reading Coyote tales!)

This is why I love the Silmarillion so much-- I've spent so much time studying Mythology and Folklore, and Tolkien intentionally wrote it stylistically as a collection of folktales.

Ok ok I'll stop. I could go on about my interests for an Age.

#personal #out of uniform #ask meme

[shiisiln]

for the lotr asks: 6, 7, 28?

6. If you could pick one place in all of Middle Earth, where would you decide to live? 

HOBBITON

Catch me getting high off my ass and eating five meals a day in between banging my stupid tall head off every doorframe it can find

7. First character you fell in love with? 

I mean, throughout my childhood I was a Frodo stan. but I distinctly remember switching to him from Bilbo when I was a wee babby and got LOTR read to me for the first time.

I’m just canonically weak for hobbits i guess.

28. Funniest part about the entire franchise, movie, book, or real life? 

Well, I do want everyone to be aware that once upon a time Jirt hijacked a bus

Also the Tig prank will live on in my heart forever

But no, you know what, funniest thing to me? Is that old man Tolkien changed the course of English literature forever by being such a huge nerd about languages that he happened to make a world to set his conlang in, and then happened to write some of it down. Absolute madlad.

...Also the time in the Return of the King book where Pippin threatens to kill a ten year old

#lotr #leogobsin

[septembriseur]

FRIENDS. As you may know, I’ve been doing this remix project where I write an alternative version of defunct author cleanwhiteroom’s Stargate Universe fic Force over Distance. This remix has everything: psychic bond, posthumanism, M-theory, enemies to lovers, an AI that sometimes looks like Daniel Jackson and sometimes like John Sheppard, an ancient alien form of proto-Latin that I’m conlanging up...

Have you thought: MAN, I wish I could read this remix, but unfortunately I have never read nor will I ever in ten million years read this fic? GOOD NEWS: I am now writing from the beginning, so you can read along without any prior knowledge!

Have you thought: MAN, I wish I could read this fic, but unfortunately I am not a Stargate Universe fan (IS ANYONE), GOOD NEWS: you don’t have to be— especially because the fic is quite divergent from the show. Here is a complete guide to the important characters and concepts, for anyone who might be interested in joining me on this posthumanist psychic bond ancient alien journey:

The concept of Stargate Universe is that a ragtag bunch of humans are gated onto a million-year-old Ancient spaceship that is constantly traveling through a region of space impossibly distant from Earth. To understand that, you have to understand both the idea of a stargate (a magic circle that you “dial” to create a wormhole through space that transports you to another planet) and the Ancients (literally Ancient Aliens who looked like humans and interbred with humans and AS PART OF A PLOT TO CAUSE MY EARLY DEATH THROUGH STROKE spoke Latin-ish, and who were super technologically advanced and were responsible for the stargates and the city of Atlantis). A long time ago the Ancients died of a plague, and those who didn’t die figured out how to ascend (transform themselves into pure energy in order to exist on another plane).

The Destiny (the million-year-old Ancient spaceship) is reachable only by dialing a Very Special nine-chevron stargate address. Because of this, the secret Earth Air Force program responsible for the stargates established a base called Icarus (GREAT WORK GUYS! A+ NAMING!) on a planet they could use for fuel to dial the address. However, the base was attacked by evil space empire the Lucian Alliance just as Nicholas Rush figured out how to do the dialing. Rather than evacuate everyone to Earth or another location, Rush decided to dial the nine-chevron address rather than lose his chance to do so. That meant everyone who evacuated got stuck on Destiny, because they had no way to dial home. Their only contact with Earth is through the Ancient communication stones, a set of magic rocks that, because the Stargate writers don’t understand that Cartesian Dualism Is Bad, can switch a person’s consciousness with a person at the other end of the device on Earth.

Characters:

Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle): Rush is a surly Glaswegian mathematician who is constantly engaged in about thirty-seven secret plots at any one time. He tragically suffers from Dead Wife Syndrome, a serious disorder afflicting men on our TV sets. His wife, Gloria, was a concert violinist who died of cancer. For a while, Destiny’s computer was appearing to him as her. One time Colonel Young left Rush on an alien planet for dead after Rush framed him for murder. Then Rush got picked up by the Nakai, who put him a wetsuit (good work, guys) and tortured him (bad work, guys) until he escaped (good work, Nick).

Everett Young (Louis Ferreira): Young is “”in charge”” of the Destiny, except for when people are trying to mutiny against him. His principal character trait is Military Guy. He split up with his wife, Emily, after having an affair with TJ, but then they kind of got back together, but then Telford split them up again, and oh my god this plotline was so stupid that remembering it is sending me into a coma. Also this one time Young had to mercy-kill the wounded Hunter Riley, As Men Do.

Tamara “TJ” Johansen (Alaina Huffman): an Air Force medic who ended up being de facto doctor on the Destiny. She was pregnant with Young’s child (a daughter she was planning to call Carmen), but then either miscarried OR something spooky and mysterious transported the baby to another dimension and oh my god I thought I had come out of my coma but it was just a dream and I am in hell. She also found out through time shenanigans that she is going to develop ALS in the future and die from it. 

David Telford (Lou Diamond Philips): a sinister, devious, and super hard-core Air Force colonel whose loyalties are always slightly unclear. (For a while he was brainwashed by the Lucian Alliance.) He wasn’t part of the Destiny crew, but he ended up on Destiny a few times due to various shenanigans. One time future!Rush killed Telford, then downloaded an Ancient database into his head and committed suicide. So they have a totally normal relationship.

Ronald Greer (Jamil Walker Smith): a soldier with a temper/self-control problem who, despite having no character traits except for being angry, is actually really fun to watch.

Chloe Armstrong (Elyse Levesque): the daughter of a senator, who was working as his aide when they ended up on Destiny. He died. She got abducted by the Nakai, who genetically altered her, which made her dangerous (which got fixed) and a math genius (which didn’t). 

Eli Wallace (David Blue): a nerd self-insert OCn MIT dropout who solved an impossible math problem in a video game. That won him an involuntary trip to Icarus Base, which is how he ended up on the Destiny. 

Camile Wray (Ming-Na Wen): an International Oversight Advisory (the UN body overseeing the stargate stuff) politician who ends up in charge of non-military stuff on Destiny. She has a girlfriend back on Earth.

Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith): a young soldier whose main character trait is that he’s dating Chloe.

The Science Team: Brody (laid back dude who makes moonshine as a hobby), Volker (hapless guy whom Rush hates), and Park (sweet woman who is dating Greer) work on the Destiny science team, which exists for Rush to yell at sometimes. Dr. Franklin used to work on the science team, until they discovered a neural interface chair on the ship— the Ancients use to build these interfaces that would allow the user to do stuff like download a database of knowledge or fly a city or interface with weapons and stuff— and it fried his brain and uploaded his consciousness to the ship.

The Lucian Alliance: a bunch of Lucian Alliance people boarded Destiny at one point. Imagine a bunch of D-list actors dressed in leather pretending to be space mercenaries. A couple of them were “good” in the sense that they were “morally not terrible:” Ginn (a young hacker whom Eli fell in love with, but then who got killed later, but her consciousness got uploaded to Destiny’s computer, and it’s SO not worth going into) and Varro (a dude TJ fell in love with despite the fact that he looks like a weird muscular bird).

The Nakai: blue insectoid aliens who are always chasing Destiny and trying to conquer it. They mentally torture/interrogate anyone they come in contact with, preferentially by sticking them in tanks full of water with psychic transmitters on their heads.

Also: remember Daniel Jackson, from SG-1? Keep him in mind.

John Sheppard and Rodney McKay, too.

In conclusion,

(I could not find a source for that gif of Rush, so let me know if it’s yours.)

#stargate universe #cleanwhiteroom #force over distance #22k words of this are up now #and i should be posting at least one chapter a week #JOIN ME ON THIS JOURNEY #the stargate pit

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 4

Note: I will be editing parts of the quotes from the original preview to reflect the way they appear in the final product. So if something is written like this it means it’s no longer in the book, and this indicates that something’s been added. This is so that I don’t have to explain in complex detail how things have changed if the changes are minor.

Don’t worry, this will stop once we get to more new content. 

Girls shouldn’t be space pirates.

Those were the last words Dex had said to his ex, and, well, look how that turned out. He was eating those words now.

Fike, the irony stung.

What’s with female authors constantly writing meaningless sexism and then have their characters PROVING THE MENZ WRONG.

Like I get that it’s a bit of a power fantasy and everyone wants some payback for being underestimated, but it’s always dumb bullshit like this that serves no other purpose than to impress or prove the male characters wrong by DOING MANLY BADASS THINGS.

I can’t articulate what I’m feeling properly but you get my point, right? The MENZ always end up being proven wrong, but only when the female characters do traditionally masculine-coded things, because not only do female characters need to prove themselves to men, the only talents worth respect are those that men are “supposed” to have.

Whatever, moving on.

Update: That whole chunk of text has been removed. Thankfully.

Dex is a dude who used to teach/date (???) Andi and is now hunting her because ... she ... lied to and cheated on him? Something like that. I guess we’ll find out. He’s the one in charge of the hunt and he’s NOT PLEASED.

A female captain was one thing. But a whole rutting ship full of girls?

You need to settle on your dumb conlang curses or on old-timey curses you saw used in [some SJM series]. You can’t have both “fike,” whatever that is, and “rutting” in the same book. I mean you can, but it’ll look like this, aka garbage.

Update: This comment has also been removed. 

Leave it to the Bloody Baroness, the most ruthless space pirate in the galaxy, to get the best of the best.

[...]

Also leave it to the Bloody Baroness, Dex thought, as he stared at her photograph, to get me to work with the Arcardian Patrolmen.

BLOODY BARONESS WILL NEVER BE INTIMIDATING, I’M SORRY.

And yeah, for some reason, in this HYPER-TECH FUTURE, they still have photographs?

Also, why does Dex think that wanting good people to work for you is somehow unique or particularly impressive?

Whatever. We have a quick flashback to Dex’s latest meeting with Andi. Y’all need to see this so I’ll just post the entire thing:

She was standing in the shadows of a pleasure palace, a Holo cyborg dancing in the window behind her. Androma’s pale, ghostlike hair was streaked with purple, which was new, and peeked out from beneath a black hood, pulled low over her face. He could just barely make out her glowing grey eyes and the smooth metallic plates on her cheekbones, a defensive body mod she’d had done years before. But he could make out the rest of her: perfect curves beneath a sleek, skintight leather bodysuit; the hilt of a knife sticking out from her black boots. And, of course, outside of the hooded cape, her trademark glowing katanas swords strapped across her back like an X of death.

I was gonna make a remark about how people Sasha’s age probably should know better than to write garbage like this, but then I remembered that her KWEEN SJM is 30+, so nevermind.

And yes, Andi has fucking KATANAS. And they are AN EXXX OF DETTHH.

I’m cackling.

Update: So um ... Let’s talk about those edits, shall we? Andi’s eyes are no longer glowing, and as much as I’m happy they toned it down (I wish), this is really the last of their starshined problem.

She has metallic plates on her cheekbones now, which ... let’s examine some official art (from the book trailer):

The art is kind of inconsistent, but those are not on her cheekbones, but on her cheeks. And frankly it looks terrible, as a concept. I would guess it’s the result of miscommunication, but since this is on the official website, I’m assuming Shinsay approved this.

And how is this a defensive mod? She couldn’t have her skull reinforced with titanium or some shit? Ah, yes, the most vulnerable part of the head: the cheek/bone. You gotta protect ‘em! 

Also, I don’t wanna shit on a fellow artist, but I have to say: Idk who this artist is that they got this job but I thought Shinsay would have enough money to hire someone who understands perspective and facial anatomy.

Dex Dogtective is having a BAD TIME trying to catch the Marauder, so he complains about their own ships.

Here I am, the ship seemed to say. Large and in charge and as slow as a rhinoceratops.

I just wanted to include this so y’all could see RHINOCERATOPS.

Update: This line has been changed and is now: Here I am, the ship seemed to say. Large and in charge and as undercover as a Xen Pterran carriage slug.

Also here’s what Dex apparently looks like (from the artist’s Instagram): 

That’s the face of someone who sniffs dirty underwear.

Dex then wanks on about how hot the Marauder is. No, really:

A sleek, beautiful beast that looked to be made of the stars in which it swam.

Deadly and delicious, all varillium glass in the shape of an arrowhead, now concealed by metal shields to protect it during the chase.

He probably has a secret porn stash of plane schematics.

Some little dork comes up to Dex to declare that the Marauder is “making an interesting move,” because I guess the carrier pigeons are dead.

He looked up at the youngest Patrolman on his dedicated crew, a boy just barely of age, who’d never seen battle. Who didn’t know the feeling of blood on scarred hands.

He doesn’t seem like he’s there for battle anyway, considering the fact that he’s near the captain at the moment, is the one delivering the update, and likely isn’t a part of the ground troops.

Update: He looked up at the youngest Patrolman on the ship, a boy no older than fifteen with slitted reptilian nostrils. A boy who’d never seen battle. Who didn’t know the feeling of blood on scarred hands.

Why does he have slitted reptilian nostrils? Is he a particular type of alien? A mutated human? Voldemort? Why do you explain Lira’s whole deal for three paragraphs and then just go “meh, he’s got a weird nose” for this dude? You couldn’t even just throw in a random collection of letters and pretend it’s the name of a type of alien? 

Effort who?

But what is this “interesting move?”

“We aren’t able to catch up to them, as we’d previously hoped.”

Their “interesting move” is ... outrunning them? Like I know what the “interesting move” is, but the way it’s written is so stupid and makes no sense. Who would say this? Dex asks the guy specifically to “use his words” to explain their “interesthing move,” and all he gets is “shit shit we can’t catch up.”

Seriously, who edited this?

Update: Someone edited this as best they could, I guess, because his reply has been changed to “It seems they’re charting a course for the asteroid belt.” 

Does this change anything? No.

The boy asks for orders and Dex tells him to fuck off.

“The rest of you,” Dex said, unbuckling his harness and standing up from his seat, voice rising to a roar, “will catch me that fiking damned ship!”

The glory of his rage was lost in another explosion.

I suspect the glory of his rage was lost some time before that.

Can we just take a moment to go over the dialogue here?

Boy: They’re making an interesting move!

Dex: What’s the move?

Boy: We can’t catch up to them like we hoped! They’re heading towards the asteroid belt!

Dex: I KNEW IT!!

Boy: What should we do?

Dex: GO CRAP YOUR PANTS SOMEWHERE ELSE. THE REST OF YOU: CATCH UP TO THAT SHIP AND GET IT FOR ME!

That was a nonversation. Who put Dex in charge? Is he the Captain of Redundant Orders? He was literally told that they aren’t able to catch up and need to rethink their strategy, and he’s like CATCH ME THAT SHIP.

One of their engines gets fucked.

Dex tumbled into the metal siding, his anger tumbling with him.

Multi-level tumbling.

Update: This has been changed to: Dex’s temper rose as he unclasped his harness and toppled against the metal siding.

Why did he unclasp his harness twice? Or is there a difference between unbuckling and unclasping?

Dex thinks it’s time to take matters into his own ... claws?

Dex squeezed his fists. The pilot flinched back as a triangular blade sprung out of each of Dex’s gloves, just over his knuckles. “Move the fike over.”

Or he’ll scratch you to death with his kittycat claws.

Update: Dex squeezed his fists. The pilot flinched back as four crimson triangular blades sprung out of each of Dex’s gloves, just over his knuckles. “Move over.” 

I’m so fiking mad that they removed fike, so I’ve decided to bring it the fike back, just like we all fiking deserve.

And obviously one blade isn’t enough, you gotta have FOUR, and they gotta be CRIMSON, like the BLOOD OF HIS ENEMIES. How else will you communicate that he’s HARDCORE. 

He could hear commotion in the background, the sound of the pilot’s whining voice as he phoned Cyprian, a glorious tattle-tale.

Yet another Smaas-ism. And this sentence is a trainwreck.

Update: He could hear a commotion in the background, the sound of the pilot’s whining voice as he commed the general. Pathetic tattletale.

Did Shinsay read my first snark or what? So many of my favorite bits have been changed and I hate it.

“You were right,” [the co-pilot] said. “They’re heading for the Asteroid Belt.”

Of course I’m right, Dex wanted to say. Androma always runs until she finds a place to hide.

Damn that wily Androma, always running when she doesn’t want to get caught and hiding when she doesn’t want to be found! Only she could come up with such outside-the-box, wild card strategies!

Update: The copilot, a man covered in purple spikes, stared at Dex openmouthed. “You were right,” he said, his massive canines visible. “They’re heading for Gollanta.”

Shinsay, are you gonna explain your random aliens or what?

Dex sets up a trap for the Marauder in the asteroid belt and we end on this:

Androma was good at what she did. But so was Dex. 

And besides, a prodigy protégée could only outrun her master for so long.

Androma has literally nothing to do with the ship moving too fast for them to catch, but ok, whatever.

#eff reads: zenith #book rants

[paraphernaliawagon]

Diary for 6/20/20

i also made my first attempt at a conlang at age 9! i didn’t know that’s what it was called yet and i didn’t know you couldn’t make up a language by just kinda messing at random with individual english phonemes until they sound just different enough to you. anyway, a teacher heard me singing the ponyan national anthem on the swings and asked me about. it is called “carrie ponyietta” which means “peace in ponya” and it goes “carrie ponyietta, carrie ponyietta, carrie ponyietta, dooday.” (you can guess that “dooday” means “today”)

i can’t believe i’m actually writing this down so people can read it. but i’m finally old enough that my elementary school playground games seem cute and funny instead of just cringe. (i am several years out of college btw)

my next attempt at a conlang was attempted IN college circa 2016 and was almost immediately abandoned for being cringe and “who the hell would want to read this stupid, inept, silly bullshit that reeks of mediocre pretentious undergrad”

(that’s niithian and it’s spoken by an empire of evil sorcerors that are kinda supposed to be a metaphor for america in the same way that the melnibonean empire is a metaphor for britain, AND the main character is a deliberate ripoff of elric except he is gay, nicer than elric, will get a happy ending, and has curly black hair and brown skin so that i can say “see he doesn’t look like elric so he’s clearly a different character.” my god if i had actually written these stories down they would have been so awful and embarassing and probably full of problematic tropes that i hadn’t thought about thoroughly enough)

(i drew zoal (that’s his name, it’s two syllables) (his name is literally zal like the hero from the shahnameh who is reminiscent of elric due to his albinism and state as both a king and an outcast during his life- but he goes from outcast to king instead of the other way round cuz he’s a classic hero type unlike elric) but with an extra letter inserted.) i drew zoal once and before i colored it in i was weirded out because he looked a lot like jesus which i did not intend at all.

zoal was like classic uke cliches too and i didn’t even realize it. i don’t like anything about this character any more. he’s like a pile of mediocre and quasi-offensive tropes disguised as a pretty boy whose chronic illness i am sort of fetishizing because it like, makes the other main character, his love interest (who is a “traditionally masculine” man and is significantly darker-skinned, this is so racist) protective of him. and suddenly all of that seems more fucked up and less romantic than it seemed before

also marrhia (zoal’s love interest) has a dead wife and i was like “oh no that’s women in refrigerators. i will deal with this by having zoal the well-intentioned necromancer-king, resurrect iskanda (the wife) in an attempt to please marrhia, resulting in them having a bit of a love triangle that’s resolved by iskanda falling in love with the only other two female characters (excepting a femme fatale evil sorceress type reminiscent of winnowill from elfquest because her main things are fascism and body horror who turns up later) and then all five of the heroes end up as a polycule. surprise it was bad fanfic tropes all along!

i managed to write like two paragraphs of this planned “novel” earlier this year. they were about marrhia drinking and being sad by the seashore because his husband died and then his wife died.

i was realizing all this stuff that’s wrong with my story AS i was writing it down, so this post is really directed at myself more than anyone else. so i will make it one of my “diary” posts

#this story's a nightmare #i HAVE stop taking influence from wendy pini #i was in denial about the planned sword and sorcery tale actually being a romance novel #which is not meant to imply all romance novels are bad