Words Mean Things

(Crossposted from Patreon, SFW, 1380 words, Gen. Content warnings: careless handling of a corpse, children in peril.

Another Unlikely Uncertainty tale, as voted on by my patreon supporters - that means that this is in continuity with both The Stranger Who Sojourns With You and We're Young And We're Bored, if you're keeping track (although it takes place slightly before either of the previous stories.

A very big thank you to everyone who supports me on Patreon and Ko-Fi, and to everyone who generously gives my little stories their time and attention - you guys are great, and I hope you enjoy this story about a scavenging space-mermaid.)

Astal hadn’t known what to expect, when they’d found the distress signals in the void. It would take more effort than they particularly wanted to expend just now to interpret the content of the signals – the beacon was clear enough, a short loop thrumming with the kind of encoding that many of the atmosphere-dependent species in this part of the universe used in their ship-to-ship communications, but the siren would need to use some kind of artificial receiver to decode them. And Astal knew where to find such a thing, of course, they had one stashed away in their nest. But going and getting the device and listening to the broadcast properly seemed like a waste of effort, when the signal was strong enough that it must have been coming from nearby.

There were inhabited planets and moons nearer the center of this system. Nice ones, Astal understood, whatever that meant when applied to hot, bright rocks with crushing gravity and choking thick atmospheres. The sturdy little beings that liked that sort of thing didn’t often come out into the asteroid fields and dust clouds at the edges of the system, and when they did, most of them avoided the inhabited regions. ( The ones that ventured into the areas where Astal and their kind lived were usually heavily fortified, or rival scavengers… or desperate and doomed. )

(Crossposted from Patreon, SFW, 2035 words, gen. Content warnings: implied police misconduct, depersonalization, mild body horror.

A big thank you to all of my patrons for providing financial support to my art and writing in these trying times. If you enjoy my writing and would like to see these stories a week early, and also vote on which characters I focus on and see cool bonus art and behind the scenes stuff, consider supporting me on Patreon?

Stay safe and wash your hands, everyone!)

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

Her partner shrugs, sitting in the unmarked car with his foot propped against the dashboard in exactly the way that’d kill him embarrassingly dead if the airbag went off. Jaq does not point this out. She knows that he knows, or if he doesn’t, he should. Anyway, it’s not like the vehicle is moving.

Neither is the conversation, honestly. They’ve worked together for a couple of years now, and she gets the impression that he’d be just as happy to pretend he doesn’t have any kind of interiority. Even before the quote unquote upgrades, trying to get him to acknowledge he’s a person with person experiences had been like pulling teeth.

Before the quote unquote upgrades, she’d been dissuaded from trying by second-hand embarrassment.

“I mean, I think it should bother me. If I’d realized how much it would change it would have bothered me. Which means it’s a bad sign that it doesn’t bother me now – but if I can recognize that, does that mean it actually does bother me?”

( He shrugs again. )

(Crossposted from Patreon, SFW, 1,385 words, Gen. Content warnings: unhealthy coping mechanisms, implied child abuse.

Thank you, as always, to all of my generous patrons for their support! If you'd like to make a recurring contribution to support my writing or art, get special behind-the-scenes material, and help decide what characters I write about next, consider becoming a patron as well?)

“So. You know I hate asking my favorite tech broker not to do business,” said Digit, leaning against Ash’s table with a casualness that absolutely was not backed up by the distinct current of concern that ze was broadcasting.

“Favorite?” Ash asked, mock-affronted. “You got other brokers, Didg? Someone else been finding you implants?”

“Don’t be stupid,” ze scoffed, and not being stupid, Ash let the teasing drop. There were some of his clients who he did have to worry about showing up with some kitbashed circuitry installed by who knew who, but Digit had always been cautious. A single high-end emotional broadcast and receiver gadget that must have cost hir six months’ pay, and frequent debugs and appropriate software updates. Digit was one of his clients who he didn’t worry about ending up hemorrhaging in a seedy cafe somewhere.

It meant that he took hir seriously. Sometimes even when ze was right out in the open about it maybe costing him a commission. He gestured at the seat across from him, an invitation that Digit completely ignored.

Ash sighed. “What’s going on, then.”

( “Kid over there’s been asking some <i>really</i> telling questions,” ze said, with a slight gesture of hir chin across the room. )

(Crossposted from Patreon, SFW, 1852 words, Gen. content warnings: cartoon violence, implied gender dysphoria.

Thank you to all my patrons who support my writing and art! If you'd like to get early access to stories like this or vote on what characters I develop next, please consider becoming a patron!)

The rain had stopped a little before sunset. The sky was clear enough, now, for the last streaks of color to catch in the last shreds of cloud, and in the cool autumn dusk the standing puddles and wet pavement caught hints of orange and pink. Before long, they’d be reflecting the yellow glow of street lamps instead, and the sometime flash of white headlights.

It was lovely. Sunset had a tendency toward loveliness in this neighborhood, in the past few years. Maybe it was just confirmation bias, that a certain teenager noticed how things fell neatly into place to provide a picturesque backdrop on evenings where the nagging awareness that there was a monster somewhere out there prompted them to sneak out. There was no proven link between ambient meteorological anomalies and an active case of Transformative Adolescent Empowerment Syndrome, but Blair was pretty sure this was their doing anyway.

( On the other hand, no one else ever seemed to make the connection. )

Today's challenge is Comment to someone you haven't ever interacted with before or introduce yourself to someone you've interacted with and friend/follow them. and while I'm kind of toodling around reaching out to other people, please consider this an open invitation to pop in and say hi if you'd like!

(Basic Rundown On Me: they/them pronouns. multiple fandoms but at the moment primarily Homestuck and The Adventure Zone, with long-term chill investment in LoTR and Harry Potter and always low-key ready to demand that people read Digger by Ursula Vernon. writing is mostly fanfic; art is mostly original work. I like unusual animals, weird history, and genre-bending musical covers. I've been RPing on DW for a lot longer than I've been using it for a personal journal.)

New journal layout, lets see how long it takes me to get sick of this one.

(The old one was a little cleaner but the narrow display of individual entries was driving me nuts.)

happy holidays, everyone! I drew you some candles. I might do a color version later, but in the meantime, if anyone else wants to color a bunch of candles feel free - adult coloring books are still trendy, right? right? ah, whatever.

(I'd appreciate it if you'd link back/let me know if you post a colored version anywhere, though! <3)

So! I went ahead and made a community for Miracle Child updates, because there was some interest in that and it still sounded like a good idea. It's miraclechildfic and there's a new chapter up right now.