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#shortstory

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🚨 EXTREMELY URGENT!

just $300 needed! OVERDUE

please help my #disabled #Indigenous friend & her family survive. thank you so much for helping her cover rent! she been helping her daughter & grandson escape domestic violence. she's received a water shut off notice & needs to pay it off this week. you can buy her #art and #jewelry below!

- PayPal.me/kiagbear
- Cashapp/Venmo: kiagbear
- ko-fi.com/mahtheyzhawey/goal?g
- etsy.com/shop/MahtheyzhaweyArt

⭐ you can get handmade art or a short story collection or an email with file storage space for donating to her here:
- writing.exchange/@riveraerica/
- terror.black/@sayyid_qishta/11
- flipping.rocks/@inherentlee/11
- weirder.earth/@june/1138898143
- mismo.jagtalon.net/@jag/status

@mutualaid #MutualAid #native #nativeArt #MutualAidRequest #beads #beading #design #creativeNatives #beadwork #parent #mom #onlineShop #SmallBusiness #cute #handmade #MastoArt #creativeToots #FediGiftShop #FediArt #OriginalArt #sciFi #specFic #fiction #artist #asexual #LGBTQIA #SFF #prints #cyanotype #photography #shortStory #queerMutualAid

If you follow me, you have a sense of humour. If you're reading this, you're a reader. I’ve put this story online, free, gratis and for nothing, it's a twelve minute read. If you like it, maybe you’ll be curious enough to risk 99p for one of my short story collections. Maybe you’ll be smart enough to save some money by buying a compilation. Maybe you’ll be brave enough to buy my novel. Whatever happens, I hope you enjoy ‘Vincent'. aarondavid.co.uk/Vincent.html #freeread #shortstory #funny #pleaseboost

aarondavid.co.ukHome
Writing ExchangeErica Rivera (@riveraerica@writing.exchange)✨ March 15 update: my debut short story collection is officially available! ✨ Introducing THE GIRLS FROM PASADENA, a collection of 15 twisted, transfeminist modern fables that peel back the skin on a technocolonialist hellscape lurking just around the corner. You can order it for $13.12 (🔥🖤) and you'll get the PDF and EPUB versions. Alternatively, give $15+ to a Black and/or Indigenous person's mutual aid request, and get the book for free! More details at: https://riveraerica.itch.io/pasadena
Writing ExchangeErica Rivera (@riveraerica@writing.exchange)✨ March 15 update: my debut short story collection is officially available! ✨ Introducing THE GIRLS FROM PASADENA, a collection of 15 twisted, transfeminist modern fables that peel back the skin on a technocolonialist hellscape lurking just around the corner. You can order it for $13.12 (🔥🖤) and you'll get the PDF and EPUB versions. Alternatively, give $15+ to a Black and/or Indigenous person's mutual aid request, and get the book for free! More details at: https://riveraerica.itch.io/pasadena
Continued thread

I woke to shifting light, an imitation sunrise. I rolled over and pretended to still be asleep.

"Darling," said a disembodied voice. "You know I can tell you're awake."

I groaned in complaint and buried my face.

"Do I need to get out one of my remotes and come make you get up?"

"Mmm?" I hummed optimistically. "Maaaybe…"

"With a bucket of water."

"Meanie. I just wanna sleep a lil' longer, Randi, what's so important?"

"We're getting to the station in 40 minutes, we'll have to dock in about an hour. You promised me you'd fly for the docking."

I made a whining noise. Unfortunately by this point my spouse had kept my brain active long enough to rule out going back to sleep, so I was mostly just protesting for the sake of it. "You can literally feel the radar, I still say I'm a worse pilot." I started getting up, aiming a pout at the camera in the corner of the captain's cabin.

"That's not what my 'feeling the radar' shows me. It's those fleshling narrow-spaces instincts."

I sighed and splashed water in my face, getting started on the day. A little while later, I flopped into the pilot's seat and checked the readouts. "Alright, Miranda, I have the conn."

"Yes, sir," they jabbed back. They were 51% owner and official shipmaster of Miranda's Pride after the original Miranda had been killed in the war, but as a spark had no need for a bed I slept in the captain's cabin, so they loved to pretend I was in charge.

I rolled my eyes, then used my fingertips to carry a kiss from my lips to the (long read-only) control automation display. "I love you." I smiled at the little electronic noise I got in reply.

Continued thread

In my lap was a metal box painted in red with yellow stripes and military-style black stenciled labeling. It bore scoring, scorches, and impact marks from decades in space and from the events that had put it there; not uncommon for recovered debris.

This, though, was different. There was a person in this one. The markings were not unclear on that point: "PILOT SURVIVAL UNIT—OCCUPANT ALIVE IF INDICATOR LIT." Each side was decorated with the emblem for a life-saving device.

I'd never held someone's life in my hands before. Certainly not this literally. The weight of the responsibility Den and I had stumbled on was crushing, and combined with the knowledge that the spark in the box had been dormant for the 82 years since the battle, had missed all that time, had almost certainly lost people by now— It was really hard not to break down.

We were running for the nearest station at the safe limit. If they were any good, the spark techs there would be able to move them to a proper brain.

I gently patted the survival unit, as if the spark inside could feel. "I'm so sorry," I murmured. "We're—" I choked a sob. "We're gonna get you out of there."

The little LED gleamed reassuringly.

"Ok, roll."
"What am I rolling for?"
"A spell."
"But I'm not trying to cast a spell."
"I know. Roll anyway."
"Ok, there."
"Excellent! You cast UNCONTROLLABLE CRYING."
"WHAT?!? Why in the world would I cast that? I mean, I know how I'm feeling right now, I want to cast CONQUER FOES, DESTROY EVIL, END INJUSTICE, or heck, UNLIMITED BOON AT RANGE. I mean, if I'm casting anything right now, it should be BERSERKER RAGE AT SYSTEMIC INJUSTICE!!"
"Sorry, but you cast UNCONTROLLABLE CRYING."
"WHY!??"
"Give me another roll."
"FINE. There."
"You look it up your spell book, and apparently, UNCONTROLLABLE CRYING is the normal response to really awful world events when you still have a heart and soul."
"Huh. Dang. So... no BERSERKER RAGE AT SYSTEMIC INJUSTICE?"
"Not without trading in your soul."
"Ok, I guess I'll keep it."

#ShortStory #FediShortStory #ThisIsWhy500CharactersIsntEnough #StoryTime #StoryTellers #DND #D&D #RPG #TTRPG

"Whoa, hey, slow down, I've got something on secondary! Uh, mark – 14 by 68 relative, range 47-something."
"Adjusting course. What is it?"
"Get closer, the signal's too weak to decode. … It looks like an old S&R beacon. Poor bastard."
"…Reducing speed."
"Almost… There, solid read. … The heck?"
"What?"
"The visual search parameters are wacky; 15×10×25 cm cuboid? You can't get a person in there, even—"
"Yes you can. Poor bastard is right… back during the war they'd put these backup modules in sparks' ships. Just barely enough to maintain continuity as long as the little RTG holds out."
"Why've I never heard of them? You'd think that'd be important to mention!"
"They almost never got used; only fighter weapons are small enough to leave debris, and sparks perform so much better in fighters they'd basically always at least get away from a human pilot, and since the other side only had human pilots, that being their whole thing…"
"Right. Are they… conscious in there? God."
"I think they dream, sort of."
"I guess 80 years late is better than never, right?"
"Right. Coming up on it, stand by."

I don't participate in these things that often but...
#WordWeavers 3: Share something writing-related you’re proud of: an achievement, a beautiful passage, a compliment, etc.
I love to #roleplay in #StarTrek. A few years ago, I wrote this piece for one of the groups I'm a part of. I still come back to it all this time later and can't believe I pulled it off.
groups.google.com/g/sb118-eagl
Part of me has considered writing more short stories in this style, if in a different setting.
#Writing #ShortStory #Dogs

groups.google.comMandy – Is this home? (Backsim)

Today's the 6th birthday of my #Christmas #book MIDWINTER MAGIC. If you like #JaneYolen or #UrsulaVernon 's #folk #fantasy work, you'll love these 3 fairy tales that reimagine the story of Santa Claus.

Buy from me: shop.pixelvaniapublishing.com/

Buy everywhere else (paperback on Amazon): books2read.com/midwintermagic

Boosts appreciated!
And in case I don't see ya, Merry Christmas!