Things Lost

 In the early Naughties, I was a... well, about an average fan, actually... of the Magical School created by That Person who turned out to be a TERF. Her position, as well as the rather shabby treatment she gave the one identifiable East Asian character in her books, as well as... well, her just turning out to be a generally shitty person, has cooled me on her world.

And in a way, that's a shame. Because back then, I could identify myself to those who Knew The Code. I could say, "yes, I am a member of the House of the Eagle," and they could say, "ah, okay; you think you're smart, and you're a bibliophile." and they'd be right. Now, though, there's so much shade involved with even mentioning That Person's name and admitting to having enjoyed her books, that it's easier to just bypass the whole issue.

In a similar vein, a friend of mine once admitted that in a way, he missed the cold war. During the cold war, he said, everything seemed so clear. It was Us vs. Them, and it was a struggle of Good vs. Evil; Right vs. Wrong. Viewing the Olympics, for instance, through that lens let him see it as symbolic trial by combat, and every time one of Ours  triumphed, it was proof that we were the best! Every time one of theirs triumphed, well, they had to get lucky sometimes.

Now? The world is all shades of gray, we can't tell who our friends are, or if we actually even have friends, and the Olympics? Is just another sportsball competition which can safely be ignored.

The Watch Store of Doom

In a certain city there is a shop. Lettering on the plate glass window at the front of the shop says simply, "watch." Not watches; just "watch." If one were to look through that window, or indeed, step within the shop, one would find that, indeed, the stock is watches. Only mechanical watches, both hand-wound and automatic. Watches both new and vintage are for sale within the shop, with one case containing exclusively Swiss and Japanese pocket watches dating to the Nineteenth Century.

If one were to observe the shop over time -- and there are those who do -- one would notice certain anomalies about it. For instance, while it does business, and those who are in the know about watches cite it as the very best place to purchase watches within its nation, perhaps in the world, it does not seem to do enough business to justify its location just off a very upscale shopping district. 

Then there is the matter of the staff. There are always between two to four women working within the shop, ranging in apparent age from twenty to sixty years. They wear a shop uniform of a white lawn blouse and pleated, knee-length skirt in a very particular, not to say peculiar, shade of blue which borders on violet. None of them wear name tags, but all of them wear very expensive watches. These women never leave the store, though after closing hours the shop appears empty. 

A customer is always greeted by a woman of their own ethnicity when they arrive. If more customers arrive than the count of staff which has been observed, a new sales associate will enter the shop from a door in the rear moments before the customer enters. After four customers have entered, the shop door will be locked until one has exited. After the fourth customer has exited, if a new fourth customer enters, they will still be greeted by a sales associate of their own ethnicity, even if their ethnicity is different from that of the customer who departed.

Very occasionally, a woman will enter the shop who is not a customer. The woman will have a conversation with the oldest member of staff, who will escort her through the door in the back wall. She will never be seen again. Even more rarely, the door in the back of the shop will open, and a woman not dressed as a sales associate will emerge. She will smile and nod at the staff, walk to the street door, and emerge onto the street. She will not return to the shop.

Carasynthia Doom

 Okay, okay, the character's family name is actually Dune, but that doesn't fit the theme of the blog.

I was awake at an unreasonable hour this morning, and watched The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 7, "The Believer." No spoilers are forthcoming; the episode was just the catalyst for my thoughts to coalesce and for me to realize that those thoughts needed to be expressed.

Carasynthia Dune, AKA Cara Dune, AKA Marshal Dune, is exactly the sort of woman I fall for.  Cara is loyal to her friends, protective of innocents, strong of arm and sharp of aim. She's a hero. I want her to look at me the way she looks at the series' titular character when she accepts the duffle bag from him.

But note that I'm writing here about the character, not the actress Gina Carano who plays the role.

Actresses. 

Once upon a time, I was an actress. I trod the worn boards of my high school stage, declaimed my lines with some minimum of skill and talent, and when my time in high school was done, so was my time as an actress. Before that, however, I had learned enough about what drove people to want, to need to act that it became one of my Rules for a Happier Life: Don't Date Actresses.

When I was in that phase, it was a dark age. We knew nothing about the figures we saw on the screen except for what we saw on that screen. It was years before we knew that Princess Leia's actress got addicted to drugs. We didn't know that the creator of Star Trek raped one of the actresses on set. We didn't know that our heroes had feet of clay.

In the movie Moulin Rouge... the 1952 version with Zsa Zsa Gabor, not the one with Obiwan Kenobi... the artist Henri de Toulouse Lautrec is given the line, "One should never meet a person whose work one admires; What they do is always so much better than what they are!"

And yet, we now live in an age of social media. It has become indispensable for public figures to be able to give their hot-takes on all the issues of the day, and for their fanciers to absorb those hot takes. I speak, in particular, of Ms. Carano here, though my issues might well include Ms. J. K. Rowling and numerous others.

During the prolonged aftermath of the recent election, Ms. Carano apparently tweeted out that she supported recounts, and that she believed the incumbent deserved to win the election. This statement, this opinion, resulted in howls of anguish from fans of the series. The role of Cara should be recast, or better yet, the character should be killed off. When Pedro Pascal, the actor who portrays the titular character of the series, praised her acting, people reacted negatively.

This behavior is insane. It's the kind of behavior which led John Boyega, Oscar Isaacs, and Daisy Ridley to declare they had no further interest in participating in Star Wars projects in the future. It's the kind of behavior which led Harrison Ford to demand that Han Solo be killed off as part of the price for participating in The Force Awakens.

We, as consumers, as fans, have to let it go. There's a line between Ms. Carano saying that she supports a politician supported by nearly half of the American public, and Gene Rodenberry raping Grace Lee Whitney on set. The former may lead to tsks and headshakes of disagreement; the latter rightfully deserves anger and ire.

My point here is that though there is no going back to the days when all we knew was what we saw on the screen, we should carefully judge which parts of the creators' behavior are subjects of disagreement, and which are worth getting up a torch-and-pitchfork mob about.

In the meantime, I'll be over here watching my dream girl, Carasynthia Dune, punch out armored stormtroopers with her bare hands. 

I'm Not Dead (Yet)!

 So, um.  

It has been more than a year since I last posted something here. Sorry about that.  

I'm doin' alright, but not very well. Mostly, I'm hiding in my blanket fort and reading trashy novels. Looks like I'm going to hit four hundred this year.

... and that's about all the news.

The Roles We Play in Our Own Doom

I started playing Role Playing Games (RPGs) in 1980 or '81. Like many of my generation, my gateway was Dungeons and Dragons. At that time, trying to convince my friends to play with me, I described the game as being "like playing Barbies, but with rules for settling disputed outcomes." It rarely succeeded in winning converts, though I still think it an apt description.

In the late '80s and early '90s, I was a teetotaling sailor stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. Not being interested in bars, but still being interested in RPGs, I spent a great deal of time in a friendly local game shop called Campaign Headquarters. There, I played a great many different game systems, with a fair number of people, many of whom were also sailors stationed in Norfolk.

Nor did I give up on table-top RPGs after I became a civilian again. I lived here, there, and everywhere, and in most cases, found people with whom I could play. Most of them were good folk, with whom I became friendly outside the game environment. Some of them were jerks I barely tolerated at the table.

I remember one particular night with a group I often attended: the Game Manager (GM) was my uncle, Thomas (who lived in a trailer early in life, but never, so far as I can tell, a cabin). We were having one of the periodic spats and disputes to which geek packs are prone, and Tom went around the table, saying what he thought each of us got out of the gaming experience. This fellow used it as a substitute for tactical wargames, and was unhappy if the GM played fast and / or loose with the rules. That fellow's wife was mostly there for companionship and connection to other Humans. This fellow wanted to be able to make mistakes without real life consequences. And Jenny? Jenny just wanted to be someone else for a couple of hours each week.

And he wasn't wrong. But over time, I came to realize that there's a fundamental split in gamers, and what we want out of the games. Because of our social roles and expectations, I'm going to label this split as masculine / feminine. 

The masculine gamer (who may not always be male) wants Action and Adventure. This gamer is there to get the dice on, to have a Walter Mitty moment of being an action hero doing daring deeds with a smile while never spilling a drop of their martini. Anything which does more than linking those scenes of action and adventure together is superfluous, boring, and wasted.

The feminine gamer (who may not always be female) is looking for connection, community, and belonging. Scenes of conflict are fine, if they serve the purpose of establishing camaraderie, but kicking in the door, slaying the monster, and adjudicating the treasure is not their style. Storytelling is never wasted; emotions are involved in play.

And like most dichotomies, this split is exaggerated here. Most people fall on a spectrum somewhere between these extremes. As a GM, you have to know your players, know what they want out of gaming, and strive to provide each person what they want -- which can be a tricky balancing act, and is part of why the aforementioned group had regular flare-ups and spats.

Why was I thinking about this, enough to sit down and use energy to put it all into words, and freeze it into web-published words? Because, since I became disabled, the majority of my role playing experience has been through coöperative fan fiction writing in the Star Trek universe. In such circles, each person has a primary character for whom they write. They work with other writers to produce scenes in which their characters interact, and over the course of time, the scenes create an overall narrative.

I got involved a few years ago with Starbase 109, one of those coöperative writing games, because my oldest and dearest friend mentioned that it was starting up, and it would be nice to have someplace to write together. After about a year, the founding GM dropped out, and my friend and I, along with a third woman, ended up accepting the GM role as a triumvirate. For the last couple of years, we've been cruising along, telling our stories and having a good time.

Every once in a while (twice in the last year) we get a new writer who is very much a masculine gamer. They're there to be Jim Kirk or Johnny Rico, to get in fights with bug eyed monsters and seduce their women. At best, these guys only skim other writers' posts. They don't really care about all that touchy-feely stuff, or about the plotlines. They just want to shoot something, gorram it!

And that's really not the kind of game Starbase 109 is. Everything is more complicated than that; problems can't generally be solved at the point of a phaser, or in a burst of torpedo fire. Espionage happens, but it's not the James Bond type of thing; it's quieter, subtler.  Conflict happens, but it's on a personal level. Coming in and insisting that you can solve everything by waving your, er, gun around is Just Not On. But they want to.

Which stresses me out, because as a gamer, I want to provide everyone in the group with the kind of experience they want. As a writer, I want continuity. But as previously mentioned, these guys (and it usually is guys) don't care about your storyline. They think it's boring and superfluous. They know everything about Star Trek, and you, silly little girl, are wrong -- just go over there and play with your Barbies, and let the Mens charge their light brigades into the torpedos!

And I'm burned out with dealing with those conflicts. I don't think I want to be the personnel GM anymore. Currently, I'm on hiatus, with the other two members of the triumvirate guiding the game and taking care of administration. I'm not sure I intend to go back. It's been a while since I felt much joy from writing there.

I get the impression that the three of us are the only ones who care about the overall story. I get the impression that many... perhaps most... of my posts get skimmed, or skipped altogether. I get the impression that most of our players aren't really involved in the game. And I wonder... why am I doing all this, again? 

Saturday Scene, 15 September 18

It's a frustratingly short #SaturdayScenes excerpt from my WiP Smokey and the Monkey Girl. Now here's your snippet!

Dallas follows Jessica silently. The pair walk up the hill and cross the street to a parking lot, where Jessica makes a beeline for a car under a tarp. Dallas rolls her eyes. “You’re one of those people?” she asks rhetorically.

Jessica just raises an eyebrow, and pulls out her phone. She taps on it for a moment, and there’s the sound of a lock opening, and the bottom edge of the tarp falls loose. Another moment, and she’s swept the cover off, dramatically, revealing… Dallas isn’t sure what she’s looking at. A car, that’s certain. Yup… four wheels, two doors, headlights, turn signals. A car. A very, very sporty looking car. And even in the twilight, it’s clearly a very, very blue car with shiny silver accent stripes on the nose and down the sides. “What is it?”

“It’s a 2017 McDowell Spyder,” Jessica grins, leaning over to tap the word “Spyder” in cursive chrome lettering just in front of the driver’s side door. “Well. I guess it’s kind of a 2013 through 2017 Spyder?” She laughs at the confused look on Dallas’ face. “I built it. Mostly in Auto Shop in high school.”

“Oh,” says Dallas, watching as Jessica opens the driver’s side door and touches something inside. The trunk pops open and the roof of the car folds itself, withdrawing into the trunk. After a moment, the trunk closes again with an audible thunk.

Jessica walks around to the passenger side, opens the door. “M’lady.”

“Thank you,” Dallas says, taking a seat and glancing around. The seats are patterned on racing buckets, but they are comfortably padded and upholstered in blue and white leather. The dashboard is one solid slab of black glass -- unless it’s obsidian? The steering wheel looks more like the control yoke of an aircraft, and the logo in the center is an M in an irregular octagon, with eight legs sprouting out of the long sides.

“Buckle up,” Jessica directs, sliding into the driver seat. “For this ride, you shouldn’t need the fifth belt, but do pull the shoulder and lap belts tight.” She illustrates the comment, and Dallas follows suit, making sure everything is tight and nothing is twisted.

“Power up, James.” The dashboard lights from inside, forming a bewildering array of indicators and gauges. “It’s not instant power,” Jessica explains, watching the gauges. “It’s a Stirling cycle engine -- a hydrogen fired, external combustion engine which uses heat differential to generate power. So it has to come up to temperature before we can take off. The engine is tied to an ultra-compact nested pulley infinitely variable transmission. I put in a drive-by-wire system with inverted recurve suspension.” She looks at Dallas and laughs. “Sorry.”

“At what point in there did you just start making up words?” Dallas quips.

Fragment brought back from a dream

Two eight year old girls stand on the shore. "You need water," Rihoko said, frowning at the crumbly mound of sand.

"Water?" Jane asked, scrunching up her nose and turning to look at the ocean from under the brim of her straw hat.

Rihoko nodded. "My dad told me the Roamin's made the best roads the world has ever seen, by mixing water, sand, and limes."

"We don't have any limes," Jane pointed out, sounding Very Practical. "Or even any lemons."

"Well, we don't want it to last a thousand years. Just today. So maybe sand and water will do."

Saturday Scene, 25 Aug '18

There are only two dorms closer to the south campus dining hall than the one on north campus. Dallas eats, not talking to Ashlyn, then goes to the dorm she doesn’t live in. She walks the halls asking, “Jessica? Asian girl, green jacket?” and following the pointing fingers. When she finds the door decorated with construction-paper letters spelling out Jessica and Monica, she pauses, knocks.

Jessica answers the door, blinks. “Oh,” she says.

“I wanted to apologize,” Dallas explains. She holds her hands in front of her, pulling on her left thumb with her right hand, looking down and away. “Ashlyn’s not a homophobe; she’s just a jerk.”

“Oh,” Jessica says again.

There’s silence for a moment. Then Dallas sniffs. “Is something burning?”

“No,” Jessica says, glancing over her shoulder. “That’s my hot glue gun.”

Now it’s Dallas’ turn to say “Oh.” There’s silence again. “Well,” she says, “I should be….”

“Would you like to come in?” Jessica says, in the same moment.

They laugh together, and Jessica steps back, in, out of the way. Dallas follows. “Smokey?” Jessica laughs.

“Yes?” Dallas says.

“No, I mean… why do they call you Smokey? How do you get to Smokey from Dallas?”

“You take the I-40 to Farm-to-Market Road 199,” Dallas says, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Then she relents and holds out a strand of her coppery-red hair. “I’m a Forestry student. Red hair… forest fire… the smoke gets in your eyes?”

“Wow,” Jessica says. “That’s a long trip down a gravel road.”

“Yes,” Dallas agrees. “Yes; it is.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“Dallas; it’s my name.” She shrugs. “Though, honestly, anything is better than ‘Cowboy.’”

Jessica smirks but makes no comment other than, “Okay. Hello; Dallas.”

Dallas smiles. After a moment long enough that it has begun to feel just slightly awkward, standing there just looking at Jessica and smiling, she turns and looks at what the other young woman is working on; what requires hot glue and a scent of burning. “Oh! EVA foam!” She casts her eyes over the assortment of pieces, the foam, the pre-cut panels of flight satin and what looks like carbon fiber. “You’re making the… thing,” she says, running her hands vaguely in the air to suggest a vest-like shape over her chest.

Jessica rescues her, “the flak vest for my flight jacket. I’ve got an SDF-80 patch on order, and one for the fighter squadron.”

“Cosplay for the win!” Dallas enthuses, pumping her fist.

“You know, I did wonder about the Snow White outfit.”

Dallas beams. “You noticed!”

“I noticed.” They stand in silence for a moment, grinning at each other.

“Oh!” Dallas says, holding up one finger as if experiencing a sudden epiphany. “You said you have a sickle? May I see it?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind taking a short ride in my car? Campus rules make it iffy to have edged things about, and having a roommate…” Jessica uses her chin to point at the loft bed and desk on the other side of the room, “makes it even iffier. I’m hoping I can get a single next year, but for the moment, I keep a storage unit off campus.”

Dallas makes a show of looking over the smaller girl. “We just met, and now you want to get me in your car? How do I know you’re not a candy-giving murderer?” Her tone is teasing, but there’s a serious look around her eyes.

“Have I given you any candy?” Jessica counters.

“Point,” Dallas agrees.

Jessica scoops up her flight jacket, turns off the glue gun. She pats her pockets. “Keys, wallet, phone… oh!” She opens one of the front pockets on the jacket and pulls out a small paper sack. “Jelly beans?” she asks, as if ice cream wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

“Aieee!” Dallas says, pretending to flee in fear.

Saturday Scene: 21 July '18

This is a list of words which describe Jessica McDowell: short, dark, dorky, quiet, observant, self-contained. She sits at a table in the student dining hall. It’s late November, and while snow has not yet fallen, outside is chilly. She’s wearing a sweatshirt with Sam-I-Am and his brightly colored eggs and ham; a green satin flight jacket; old black jeans; knee-high trooper boots. Her underpants are striped robin’s egg blue and white, because that’s a thing in Japanese animation, and she secretly wishes she had cooler name, like Sakura or Umiko or Nenene; a name to go with the epicanthic fold of her eyelids. She hasn’t bothered to wear a bra today -- who’s going to know, anyway? With one hand, she’s eating meatloaf. She loves meatloaf, even the way the student dining hall at the University cooks it. She also loves books, and her other hand is holding one, her chocolate-brown eyes reading eagerly.

Three girls approach the table. There are eight seats, and Jessica’s only taking up one, down at the end. The girls set down trays, start taking off coats, draping them on chairs. Jessica glances at the trio. A blonde, a brunette, a redhead; the redhead is only separated from her by one chair, Jessica notices before pulling her attention back to her book. She’s only halfway listening to the girls.

“The Sugar Skull is the easy part,” the redhead is saying with a shrug. “I mean, it’s just makeup. The black robes should be easy enough to distress… just a bucket with some gravel and kick it around the parking lot. But where am I going to get a scythe?”

The blonde girl shrugs. “I’m sure we can find a plastic one at the mall.”

The redhead is chewing, frowning. The brunette holds up three fingers, drops one, then a second, and finally points at the redhead just as she finishes chewing. “No, I want a real one. Steel. If I’m going to be a reaper, it should be functional.”

Jessica looks up from her book. “Will you marry me?” she blurts. “I don’t have a steel scythe, but I do have a very sharp bronze sickle.”

The redhead turns her head and looks at Jessica. Jessica squirms, feeling the rays of judgement, the condescension. The redhead is cute, Jessica realizes. Beyond cute. Her skin is pale, with a pinkish undertone, and a scattering of freckles across her nose. Her eyes are hazel, not green, not brown, but both at once. She smiles. “Not tonight."

“Huh?” Jessica asks.

“Getting married is not on my agenda for tonight.” She sets down her fork and extends her hand. “Dallas.”

“Jessica.” Jessica notices that Dallas’ hand is very, very soft. Her skin is smooth.

“I may take you up on the sickle, though,” Dallas says. “If I can’t find a scythe.”

“Sure,” Jessica says. “Whatever you need.”



These are some words which describe Dallas Morgan: tall, passionate, brilliant, funny, va-va-voom. She has, as the boys like to tell each other, “all the right curves in all the right places,” and she’d started growing them before any of the other girls. People hardly ever notice, or at least, hardly ever mention, but she enjoys putting together outfits she calls everyday cosplay. She’s wearing a red crop-top under a blue cold-shoulder tee, paired with a lemon colored, knee-length skirt. It’s cold outside, so she’s also wearing a fuzzy white coat and black fleece leggings. She should be wearing a red hair bow, but red disappears in her hair, so she’s wearing a yellow one instead.

They’re walking away from the buffet line at the dining hall when Laurel points with her chin, and Ashlyn says, “Oh, look, it’s Smokey’s fiance!” She says it loudly enough that Jessica hears and looks up from her book.

Dallas smiles warmly at Jessica and heads that way, Laurel falling in behind her, Ashlyn bringing up the rear, still talking. “Should you both wear a dress?” she asks, rhetorically, “and does that mean we’ll need to decorate with two different colors of flowers? What about bouquets?”

Jessica is frowning, closing her book, standing. “I don’t have to sit here and be mocked,” she says, picking up her tray. “I can go anywhere on this campus and get that.”

“No, wait,” Ashlyn calls after her, “How do you feel about lingerie?”

“You’re an ass,” Laurel says, quietly.

“A whole ass,” Dallas agrees, then re-phrases, "an ass-whole."



There are only two dorms closer to the south campus dining hall than the one on north campus. Dallas eats, not talking to Ashlyn, then goes to the dorm she doesn’t live in. She walks the halls asking, “Jessica? Asian girl, green jacket?” and following the pointing fingers. When she finds the door decorated with construction-paper letters spelling out Jessica and Monica, she pauses, knocks.

Jessica answers the door, blinks. “Oh,” she says.

“I wanted to apologize,” Dallas explains. She holds her hands in front of her, pulling on her left thumb with her right hand, looking down and away. “Ashlyn’s not a homophobe; she’s just a jerk.”

“Oh,” Jessica says again.

There’s silence for a moment. Then Dallas sniffs. “Is something burning?”

“No,” Jessica says, glancing over her shoulder. “That’s my hot glue gun.”

Now it’s Dallas’ turn to say “Oh.” There’s silence again. “Well,” she says, “I should be….”

“Would you like to come in?” Jessica says, in the same moment.

They laugh together, and Jessica steps back, in, out of the way. Dallas follows. “Smokey?” Jessica asks.

“Yes?” Dallas says.

“No, I mean… why do they call you Smokey? How do you get to Smokey from Dallas?”

“You take the I-40 to Farm-to-Market Road 199,” Dallas says, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Then she relents and holds out a strand of her coppery-red hair. “I’m a Forestry student. Red hair… forest fire… the smoke gets in your eyes?”

“Wow,” Jessica says. “That’s a long trip down a gravel road.”

“Yes,” Dallas agrees. “Yes; it is.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“Dallas; it’s my name.”

“Okay. Hello; Dallas.”

And Dallas smiles.

Saturday Scene: 24 March '18

It was late in the evening. The fire had burned down. A log popped and fell into embers; a shower of sparks drifted up into the sky. The knight followed the ascending motes with her eyes. “We call ourselves the Order of the Celestial Guardian,” she said, “but you never do. When you think we are not listening you call us…?” She looked at her apprentice.

“The little sisters of the Dragonslayer.”

The knight nodded. “And do you know why we are the little sisters?”

The merchant reached for a stick and stirred the coals. “I have wondered,” he admitted. “Is your Goddess not your Mother?”

“She is our Eldest Sister,” the Knight answered. “But to understand why, you have to understand a little about the Gods.”

Though there are Eighty Thousand Gods (the Knight explained), all under the stars, all the peoples of the Ten Thousand Isles, are the adopted children of our Fathers, Earth and Sea; our Mothers, Sun and Moons. We may point to this or that one of the host of spirits great and small, say that this one, this is our parent, this is the one who created these people. And from the smallest of the Fae to the largest of the Hexapods, each has such a story. Perhaps some of the stories are even true.

But these five: Earth and Sea; Sun, Red Moon and Black Moon, were the first Great Gods of this world, and these Ten Thousand Isles. These five, and one more; the One Apart. She had a different name, a different purpose, in those days, but now? Only the stars recall what that name and purpose were. Now we call her the Dragonslayer.

When the Great Gods became aware, they walked the world and realized that they had been walking together for some untold time. They decided it would be good to be still, to have a place to rest. So they came to build their hall of Jade Thrones within the Palace of Fire at the top of the Mountain That Never Was, and for a time they ceased their wanderings.

(The old woman coughs; looks apologetic. The Knight’s apprentice listens to a story she has heard many times in her young life. The Merchant watches the fire. Only the Knight goes on speaking).

The Great Gods became known to themselves as they built the Palace of Fire. They became known to one another. Stories to fill many nights could surely be told if we knew the details of those times. How the Sun wooed the Earth; how the Sea won his wives. But if those stories are known to mortals, they are not known to me. Nor do I know if the Dragonslayer loved, or if she was loved; if she was sister to all, or if she stood always a little apart, watching, listening, waiting.

In time, a Power came from beyond the world, and alighted upon the Mountain That Never Was. Xe took the form of a dragon, indescribable in beauty and might. Xir scales shone with all colors hard as metal and smooth as water; Xir grace amazed the Great Gods. “This is a lovely world,” the Dragon said, and Xir voice was male and female; the voice of wisdom, of time, of awe. “But it is empty. I beg your leave to bring my children here, to give them a home warm and verdant.”

The Great Gods looked upon each other, speechless. How, they wondered, had they not had the idea of filling their world with children? And so they smiled together, and extended their hands in welcome to the First Dragon and to Xir children. The Dragon placed eggs throughout the islands, not so many that they would be crowded; not so few that they would be lonely.

(“This is a story of Dragons,” the Merchant protested. “But they are only myth. Stories to frighten children.”

“To know the Slayer, you must understand the Dragons,” the Knight answered. “And there were dragons. There are dragons, though you may not have seen them. They are old now, and rarely walk among mortals.”

The Merchant nodded thoughtfully, and the Knight went on telling her tale).

The eggs hatched. The dragons grew. They learned from their parent and the Great Gods listened, and they, too, learned. The dragons dug deep beneath the land and the sea. They found gold, and silver; mythril and orichalum. They found gems of all hues, and learned to work these materials in ways that delighted the eye and the finger; the mind and the soul.

But the One Apart wondered: from whence came the First Dragon? Long did she stand upon the Mountain That Never Was, at the top of the tallest tower of the Palace of Fire. Long did she look into the places beyond, long did she listen. And when she had learned, she called the Great Gods together to sit in their thrones of jade. She spoke to them of what she had learned.

There was a war, she said. Far away, in the places beyond, a great war raged. Powers great and mighty built tunnels from one world to another, and through the gates of these tunnels they sent their forces to destroy, to enslave, to conquer. These concepts were new to the Great Gods, and the One Apart explained them as she had learned to understand them.

Then Mother Sun spoke, her compassion flowing like a stream of soothing water. “And under the feet of these Powers,” she asked. “Are there those who would flee from the war? Leave behind the tunnels, and their gates, and live here in peace with us?”

The One Apart did not know. So she went again to the highest tower, and more long years she spent looking into the places beyond. She heard the lamentations of the small, and when she had learned, she came again among the Jade Thrones, and she told what she had learned.

“Let us open our world to those who need shelter,” Father Earth said.

“No!” cried the First Dragon, who had not been invited, and whose presence had not been noted. “You have given this world to my children, and they fill it! There is no room! No room!” With a mighty roar, Xe lept into the circle of thrones. Lightning flashed, fires surged. It was clear that Xe meant to end the Great Gods.

But the One Apart had learned, watching and listening to the War Beyond. She had learned the arts of war, and she stood now before the First Dragon, and for an age the two struggled. At last, the Dragon fell.

“Sister,” asked the Red Moon, “what have you done?” For it is a terrible and shameful thing to end that which is rightfully unending.

“I have done what had to be done,” the One Apart said. “I have slain the Dragon, and in shame and dishonor I discard my name, and take in its place this deed, that it never be forgotten.”

“Sister,” asked the Black Moon, “what shall we do now?” for a thing which is born in blood can have no good outcome.

“Now, we open our arms to those who are tired of war; those who are hungry; those who are lost,” Mother Sun answered, when it was clear that the Dragonslayer had no ready answer.

(“I know this part,” the Old Woman said, drawing her blanket closer about her shoulders. “The ships came, bringing our ancestors.”

The Knight nodded. “The ships came,” she agreed).

For a thousand years the ships came bearing refugees and their gods, fleeing the tunnels and their gates. Fleeing the Powers that warred. Here they settled, but all was not peaceful. The deed of blood had written its legacy upon the world. In grief the Dragonslayer walked among the children, lamenting at their anger and their strife. But she saw also that some stood as she had; some did what must be done to protect others.

How could she encourage that behavior? She looked, and she saw that some, often girls, were unwanted; some were left on hillsides to die, or cast adrift into the sea. She took these girls and from the unwanted she made sisters. Raised them up strong and wise in battle, to stand against those who would hurt others; to stand in protection against any who would impose their will by force, to stand against those who came from outside to conquer.

And as these girls became family, wanted one by the other, sisters, we became also sisters to the Dragonslayer; our eldest sister, our dearest kin.

Reviewed!

Erica Friedman of Okazu does a tremendous amount for the literary, nerdy (otakui) members of the LBT community, which includes me. She's been kind enough in the past to publish my guest reviews of various Yuri (L/B) Anime, and now she's written a fabulous review of Flowers of Luna!

Thanks to Erica for the kind words and for feeling the book was good enough to bother reviewing.

Wrestling with the Angel

So, I'm wrestling with a concept, and I kind of need some feedback from you, my readers.  See, the thing is... one of my reviewers mentioned that he'd happily read Flowers of Luna all over again, if it was told from Hana's perspective.

And I've come to realize that if I had written the book from Hana's perspective in the first place, it would have been a better book. After all, as several people have pointed out, there's little external conflict in the story -- almost all of the conflict is internal to Hana, as she goes through one of the most basic struggles of Japanese literature: the struggle between what's right for her family / social group, and what's right for her.

So, on the one hand, I kind of feel like maybe I should crack open Hana's head and write inside of it. I think Hana's a lot less confident than she tries to appear, and my own anxiety gives me something of a window into that feeling.

On the other hand, I kind of feel like the story is done and told, and I should move on to something completely different -- the long-teased Little Sisters of the Dragonslayer, or The Delicate Art of the Sword, or... something. Anything but more Flowers of Luna.

So... wha'd'ya think?

Write-In Campaign!

It's a Write-In Campaign!

If you haven't voted for someone else already, please consider going to Goodreads, scrolling to the bottom of the Young Adult Sci-Fi / Fantasy section, and writing in Flowers of Luna

.
No, I'm not under any illusion I'll win, but I could get enough write-ins to get noticed!

Thank you kindly for your consideration!

Saturday Scene for 23 September, 2017

Doctor Chlamydia Addams took a seat behind her desk, and her companion, the Zeta Reticulan spider known as Thing, sprang from her shoulder to disappear behind her. "Have a seat, Lieutenant," the Doctor said, indicating those on the other side of her desk. She tapped the surface of her desk, linking to the files generated by the scan she'd performed on the young woman a few minutes prior. She considered the results again, and looked across the desk at the woman. "You believe your arm is defective in some way?"

Lieutenant Gray shook her head. "I don't know how to describe it, Doctor. It's... it's not real. It's not mine.."

"You can touch it with the other hand?" Addams inquired. "You feel what it feels? In what way is it not real, or not yours?"

Lieutenant Gray held up the hand in question, flexing it, turning it. "It exists, yes," she said, quietly. "But... I left my arm, almost to the elbow, on board a burning freighter. This one...." she trailed off.

Addams made a thoughtful sound. "It's been three years since the incident aboard Sato Maru. In that time, the engineered tissues have undergone apoptosis at a natural rate, and been replaced with your autologous tissue. The muscle and bone are assimilating nicely, and the neurons have completely linked with your own nervous system."

"I know all that," the Lieutenant said with a sigh, lowering the arm again. "But I still can't shake this feeling."

Addams nodded. "What you're experiencing is not physical," she observed. "Which does not mean that you are not experiencing it, or that it is not real. It does mean that I am not the right person to help you. I am therefore writing you a referral to my colleague, Dr. Graves."

"A psychiatrist?" Gray asked, sounding unenthusiastic.

"A shrinker of heads," Addams said. She was tapping away on her desk, presumably writing the referral she'd mentioned. She glanced up, at the top shelf of the glass cabinet secured to the bulkhead, at a curio, apparently a ball of leather with some fiber sticking out the top.

Gray followed her gaze, and realized that the thing was a shrunken head. She paled.

"Usually not so literally," Addams said with a ghoulish smile. She tapped the desktop once more, and Lieutenant Gray's PADD vibrated in her pocket. "I'm sure you will find him quite personable, actually. And if not...." She glanced once more at the top shelf.

"Yes, ma'am," the Lieutenant said, getting to her feet and exiting the office quickly.

Addams sat in silence for a minute after the young woman's departure, regarding the shrunken head. "Ah, Thing," she said at last. "What trouble brains cause us."

Thing, for its part, declined to comment.

The Numbers of Doom!

Well, it's all over now.

1615 people signed up for a chance to receive a copy of Flowers of Luna, and five people were selected... four in the United States, and one in Great Britain.

In the three days when the eBook was a free download from Amazon, approximately 250 people took advantage and downloaded it.

I hope that all of you who received a copy, whether physical or electronic, enjoy it.  And I know I've been saying this a lot, but please... take a moment to review it on Amazon.  It really does make a difference in how Amazon deals with the book, even if you just post "It was good."

Oh, and yes; thank you.  My birthday was very nice, also.

Free Without Doom!

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Labor day is named for the day my mother went into labor, so if you have the day off today, you're welcome.  But I'm not content to stop there.  Oh, no, I am not.

Today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, Flowers of Luna is absolutely free to download from Amazon.com. That's free.  No money.  No munny.  Zero dollars, no pounds, no euros, no yen. No clams, no bucks, not even a single simoleon. Free.

So if you're one of the seven hundred and change people who signed up for the giveaway, now's your chance to read the book without cost, without risk, without worry. Download it. Read it.  No strings.

But if you'd be so kind as to leave a review on Amazon, I would be grateful.  Very, very grateful.

Yet More Lightsaber of Doom!

Long-time readers may remember my lightsaber project from such entries as The Lightsaber of Doom and More Lightsaber of Doom! I'm not sure that I mentioned that my friend John Bump is helping me with the electronics.  A couple of weeks ago, he sent me a circuit board designed to fit inside the narrowest part of the saber, and asked me to test-fit it. Well, today, I finally had both time and gumption to do so.

First, the high-concept version:

And then, the important shots:

The edges of the board need to be a tiny bit narrower... I had to take some sandpaper to them to make them fit. Otherwise, it's smooth sailing, and the next test board will be functional. I guess I need to see about actually getting the sound board for this thing, hmm?

The Bigger Giveaway of Dooooom!

In my previous entry, I mentioned that I had seen websites offering my book, Flowers of Luna as a free, downloadable PDF.  After talking with a few people, I discovered that many of these downloadable, pirated books contain malware. So I decided to do something about that.

Look, I get it.  I'm basically an unknown author.  And maybe you don't have Kindle Unlimited, which would make the book available to you without any further cost. And these economic times, they're hard.  So three clams seems like a lot to risk. And you think that you're not really hurting anyone if you download that free ebook, right? Wrong.  Here's who you're hurting:

You don't want those innocent and trusting little souls to go hungry, or cold, do you? But really, I'm going to meet you halfway.  You'd like to know what that means? You're waiting for me to get to the good part?  Okay.  Here it is: I'm giving away books.

Yes, yes, I know.  You just said, "Jenny, I know all about your Goodreads giveaway, but it's only five books, and over five hundred people have signed up! That's less than a one percent chance!"

And you're right.  So I've decided that, to celebrate my birthday, I'm going to make the eBook version of Flowers of Luna free.  On the day before my birthday, September 4, lasting until the day after my birthday, September 6, you can go to Amazon and download the eBook absolutely free, and without any taint of malware.  You're welcome.

Oh, and if you're asking, "what's the catch?" there's none, really.  But there is one teeny-tiny thing you could do for me in return.  Go back to Amazon after you've read the book, and rate it.  Not just stars at the end of the kindle file, go and rate it on the site.  Write a review, even if it's only, "Jenny is the greatest writer of ten thousand ages!" Post it. Thank you.

The Day of Dooooooooooooooooom!

Today's the day!

What day, you ask?

The day my Goodreads giveaway goes live!

Want a copy of Flowers of Luna, signed by me, the inimitable Jennifer Linsky? Of course you do! And now, there's a way you might get one! Just click below, jump through Goodreads' hoops, and there's a chance you'll be one of the five lucky recipients of a signed, paperback copy!

restrictions apply.  Void where prohibited.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Flowers of Luna

by Jennifer Linsky

Giveaway ends September 05, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

The Giveaway of Dooom!

As many people do, I have a Google alert set on my name. And, as I expect many authors do, I also have a Google alert set for Flowers of Luna. The other night, I got an email telling me there was a newly-found web page including the title of my book, so I clicked on the provided link. Instead of a review (for which I was hoping, as I never tire of reading people's reactions to my writing), the page turned out to be yet another site where one could download FoL for free. Apparently, I'm greedy for wanting to be paid for my writing, and three bucks is completely unreasonable.

Anyway, I could rant (again) about how free downloads from unauthorized sites are stealing, and that these thieves are literally taking food out of my kittens' mouths, but instead, I decided to do something more fun. My birthday is coming up on the fifth September, and so I decided to give away five signed, paperback copies of my book... and to be glad I wasn't born on the thirtieth September.

To enter the giveaway, just go to Goodreads.  I've included a helpful link below.

Edited to add: Goodreads set a minimum delay before the giveaway begins accepting registrants, so it doesn't start until the twenty-fourth.  I'll post about it again, then.  Sorry I didn't mention it before!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Flowers of Luna

by Jennifer Linsky

Giveaway ends September 05, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway