“Can you play it on-screen?” “Please hold… playing.” “Thank you.” “Translated from Unified Extali Speech.” The beautiful emptiness flickered from the main viewscreen, replaced by the twitching visage of an eyeless, many-jawed creature. Near-immobile at first, it lurched forward, each motion leaving behind a trail of visual artifacting, and spoke. “Vessel of Other-space: I am TK’LO’RAV-CONTEMPLATIVE of the all-generous DESPOTATE OF THE ONE PEOPLE, requesting immediate assistance.” Its jittering motions and uneven pulsing of flesh did not even begin to match up with the message—an expected consequence of translating alien speech through means other than the ever-present linguistic implant, but nevertheless unnerving to the still-green Captain of the Trilo. “Station WATCHER-0107 of EXTALI 0424, FEMNO SYSTEM in Other-speak, suffering catastrophic failure of multiple systems,” the prerecorded message continued. “Life support, primary communications, defensive systems severely deteriorated. No response from Command. Long-term survival unlikely. Vessel of Other-space: send immediate assistance to FEMNO SYSTEM.”

Now that Book 1 of FL is released, we're back to Book 2, which survived its first few rounds of editing just recently and is now hunting for beta readers.

Though no wololo is to be found, we do have some translating.

Spare him? Flush him?

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity

#UrbanGaze
#SkyOverCity #CloudThreshold
#FirstLight #DawnLayers
#Music #MusicSky

se il cielo
è così
vicino
di colpo cade
sopra la città

if the sky
is this close
all at once it falls
over the city

Club Dogo, Elodie
Soli a Milano
(live)
youtu.be/SjOdh1H6Gmg?...

In the bowels of Deep Space Outpost Bayinnaung, a miniature world gestated. Storage, the voice had called this place. Other stations had other names for places like these, and of all the ones Yana knew, only one adequately described it—Scrapsea. Six took the lead. She negotiated the shift from platform to scrapheap, from shore to sea, with the unfettered balance expected of an automaton. Rook followed, eyes on the horizon, and last came Yana, second-guessing each step over the uneven surface. Their path, lit by the guiding lights of their compads, took them well beyond the platform; soon, it became swallowed behind them.

To celebrate Event Horizon's release day (yippee!), I'm going to go back and grab a snippet from Book 1, even though it's very much no longer a WIP.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Rook passed another weapon to Diodorus. Unlike Yana’s, its seemed like a more intricate design, with several parts assembled together, rather than her replicated composite tube. “Here, you can have this one,” they said. “It’s too big for our baby hands.” “Ah, my matter disruptor!” Diodorus exclaimed, as if re-encountering an old friend. “I found it at an abandoned campsite near the Trilo’s resting place, only a few weeks into my exile. It fit my grip perfectly—a gift from the machine spirits, indeed!” Rook grinned. “Not that I think you need it, mind you. You knocked me down cold first time we met.” “Big, clumsy fools like me often do.” Diodorus laughed, that hollow laugh, once again. “But rarely twice!”

A little self-deprecation to start the day!

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a woman in a green jacket with a skull on her shirt ALT: a woman in a green jacket with a skull on her shirt

102e Platine : #inFAMOUS #FirstLight de @suckerpunchprod.bsky.social ! Une extension courte, augmentée de challenges tout aussi cool que l'aventure principale.

J'ai clairement préféré l'histoire de Fetch à celle de Delsin, dommage que les devs soient "partis en fantômes" au Japon derrière !

#firstlight
on the horizon
a new day
has begun
the denizens
of the night
go to sleep
while the
birds of the
morning
sing its praises

#BSPP51 #poetry #writing #writingcommunity

There are no directions
it's a lost place
only first light can sooth our pain
joy can be elusive
once in our hands
it slips away
in cold dark nights
it stares at us during a drunken rampage
and the next day it's long forgotten

#BSPP51 #firstlight

Another uncertain step, another unexpected bend in their ankle. Rook gritted their teeth and kept their groan inside, they had enough to worry about already, Yana and Diodorus, and Six, too, since she was supposed to overview the team. Rook wondered why she was so silent. Then again, if the ship’s scanners could not pierce the station, and her only source of information was their voices, she probably felt quite blind. Rook made a mental note to ask her, later, how she was doing, given the body situation and all. They wished they could help, but if even a Machinist like Diodorus was at a loss, what could a simple Security Officer do? And on top of that— Yikes!

We do a little head-hopping in First Light Book 2. I love writing Rook's POV, because their brain works exactly the same way mine does.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Love's firstlight gleams but
the evenglow as it grows—
its enduring flame.

#BSPP51 #firstlight (initial dawn) #haiku #senryu

Eyelids fluttering,
Firstlight captures fading dreams,
To be continued.
#BSPP51 #firstlight #haiku #senryu #poem #writing #writingcommunity
@blueskypoetry.bsky.social

firstlight, red plane wave
sliding past discolored clouds
in the calm storm‑wake

#BSPP51 #firstlight #haiku #writing #writingcommunity
#micropoetry

The silence she craved stretched across the bridge once again, but comfort did not follow. Rather, it stuck to her skin, a gently constricting film of things left unsaid.

I was like, "I'm pretty sure I have a film somewhere!" and sure enough, I did, just not the kind I thought I did.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

She looked around. What little tidying she had managed to get done in the Infirmary might as well be none at all, for how cluttered it still looked. In truth, she had no idea what this module had been while Diodorus was squatting here—but it had cabinets, and one of those cabinets had a first aid kit and a dust-covered medical scanner inside, so Yana had dragged two cots and a chair in and deemed it the infirmary. It was that very scanner that she fished for. It stuck slightly to her hand when she held it, and when switched on, produced a worrying staccato that clawed at her ears and vibrated down her arm, but as far as she could tell, it functioned, and that was all she cared about at the moment. She pressed its flat surface to Rook’s dumb thick skull, ran it up and down, ignoring their protests throughout, until she was satisfied. “No concussions. No internal bleeding.”

Unlike most people's snips for today, mine isn't particularly fun for anyone involved.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Mar. 31

Firstlight cracks
the horizon,
touching every limb,
every blade,
every drop of water.
Winter lingers
in memory;
spring unfolds
its deliberate certainty,
and the month
concludes
in luminous grace.

#BlueSkyPoetry #prompt #firstlight #BSPP51 #MarLumina

And yet, restless feet soon paced around the freshly-mopped corridors. Ship logs showed Rook checked the time to arrival at least seven times a day, which was to be expected, as the good Security Officer always had pent-up energy to spare. But even placid Diodorus, who kept himself busy—there was always something to maintain, after all—could be spotted here and there, servicing perfectly functional pieces of machinery, or moving around talismans only to return them to their original spot.

Good morning, #WIPSnips!

I know I've shared this bit before, but it's been changed recently and, I think, for the better.

#FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

New «For All Mankind» transcript!

s05e01 - First Light

#TV #ForAllMankind #Season5 #FirstLight #episode #script #transcript #TVTranscripts #TvT

tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org/viewforum.ph...

A snippet from my upcoming steampunk dystopia, Steam and Steel

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingPrompts #WritingCommunity

“May I interject?” “Go ahead, Six.” “I took the liberty of examining the transmission while you made your way to the Bridge, and I found some discrepancies in Tk’lo’rav-Contemplative’s behavior.” “What do you mean, discrepancies?” “I will provide examples: at the message’s beginning, Tk’lo’rav-Contemplative ‘requested’ immediate assistance. This is an inappropriate use of Extali grammar: when interacting with non-Extali, the correct form would be, ‘demanding immediate assistance’.” “They could just be worried and tripping over themselves,” Rook said. “I know I’d be.” “That is a plausible option,” Six said, “but I found other discrepancies. Upon reiterating their request for help, Tk’lo’rav-Contemplative refers to the Femno System; it is unlikely that an Extali would not preface that with the ‘proper’ denomination for the system, in this case Extali 0424.” “You think they weren’t just panicking, then?” Yana asked. “That is a possibility. So is deception,” Six said. “But my results are not as conclusive as expected. I believe there are additional factors at play.” Diodorus lowered himself into his seat, which creaked under his great weight. His features caught the light at an angle that made him look even older than usual. “If this is a trap,” he said, “it worked on the Mariposa.”

The Trilo's crew debates their options, in a scene that somehow draws even more from Star Trek TNG than the rest.

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Then came the day’s end. For all her time aboard the Trilo, Yana had never gotten used to calling them shifts, or cycles—days felt just right, when her drifting eyes stopped gazing over a cargo manifest, and her alarm went off with the gentle crashing of waves of a sea she’d never seen, and she sighed, and stretched, and cradled her fifth tea cup of the day all the way to her quarters. She passed by the Engineering Bay, roaring with activity and smelling of incense and burnt metal. Rook’s quarters, with its wide-open door and no one inside. And as usual, she reached hers, and as Six, either willingly or as an involuntary spasm, opened the doors for her, she stepped inside without a second thought.

Everyone's very gentle in this WIP. I can tell, because I had trouble deciding which excerpt to use.

This one feels the gentlest, though.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Yana wandered the commercial districts of Orbital Station Sousa Mendes under the pretense of a goal, as if watching the festivities counted as work—and as if that mattered at all. She must have seemed so strange, so gray and put together, wading through a sea of smiles and colored tassels, as if closed hardware shops had more to offer her soul than the fires of celebration.

Today, a little bit of prose that I kinda dig.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Maia had listened. She’d intuited. She sought no more than time fondly spent together, and accepted no less. Yana could have found it in herself to match her enthusiasm for physicality if Maia had only asked, but she never did. She was too considerate, too reasonable, too concerned with Yana’s happiness to bind her to Habitat, or to request that not willingly offered. Dandelion seeds, she’d said, must fly.

Only flower I could find! Well, there's another one, but this one works best out of context.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

A still, quiet morning, lakeside in the Cascade Mountains.
#washingtonstate #washingtonisbeautiful #pnw #pacificnorthwest #cascadmountains #mountainlake #westcoastkin #earlymorning #firstlight #stillness

Awareness came to Rook in fevered spasms that pushed against the layered wall of dulled perception, ebb and flow, stir and sink. Then, by degrees, came the pain in dull embers, pressing against the inside of their skin. They awoke in a pool of their own sweat, with a jolt, and took in the sharp air in a staggered gasp.

Rook doesn't have a great time in this book.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingPrompts #WritingCommunity

Here's Boston Legacy preview for the season.It's Friday and that means NWSL is the highlight of my day. youtu.be/opgvO97k9Mc All team Previews are available in a playlist #bostonlegacyfc #nwsl #FirstLight #woso

Then it shrieked, and the piercing sound cut through metal and composite fabric, through layers of dampening material and radiation shields, through the helmet’s visor and Rook’s bones unimpeded. They stumbled back, stunned, in pain, grasping at walls for balance, finding another hole to their right; they held on to it as tightly as the polished surface allowed. Something stabbed at their shin, a sharp and precise pain—scalpel-like. Its little claws hooked into the exosuit’s leg as it attempted to pierce the protective layers with what Rook could only describe as a flexible metallic needle. It stabbed again and again and again, each strike a painful reminder of how little protection an exosuit provided against weapons, and just as it lined up for yet another strike, Rook slammed a heavy boot down on it, disorienting it for just a moment. But the claws still dug deep, and burned where they scraped skin. Panicking, Rook gave it another kick, and a third one for good measure, and only then realizing no amount of stomping could squash this bug, pulled out their pistol from its holster, took aim, and hoped the surrounding air didn’t ignite the moment they pulled the trigger.

I really tried! No 'dart', 'run', 'dash' or 'sprint'. So I get to share the scenes with the needles again, because what's a needle, if not a melee dart?

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingPrompts #WritingCommunity

With a deep, rolling sigh, Yana sank even further into her chair. At this point, a shot in the dark would be easier—for all this fog of additional factors, of ifs and maybes, might as well have been complete ignorance. “If,” she began, and the room fell silent around her, even as she hesitated, “we jump to Femno, how long until we can jump back out?” “After a jump of that length, the spike drive would take about seventeen minutes to recharge,” Six said. “We could do this.” “An observation: such a course of action would delay our delivery considerably. Captain Gloria is unlikely to be pleased.” “And this could be a trap,” Diodorus added. “But it could also not be a trap,” Rook said, “and we might be able to find out what happened to the Mariposa and her crew… and even if we can’t, can we really ignore a distress call? We are NEVs, after all.” That last sentence hung heavy about Yana’s mind. When other thoughts tugged in all directions, frayed at the edges and melding with each other until they bloated into one unbound mass of doubt and anxiety, this one sentence remained clear, like dish soap on dirty water. We are NEVs, after all.

Not sure how to feel about that last simile. My editor will probably skewer me for that one!

But I like the rest of the excerpt, at least 😉

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

a man in a red hat is holding a video game controller . ALT: a man in a red hat is holding a video game controller .

100e Platine : #inFamous #SecondSon de @suckerpunchprod.bsky.social ! Un épisode très beau pour le lancement de la PS4, sublimé par le patch "4K" de la PS4 Pro, le tout en 60 fps constant sur PS5 ! Plus qu'à faire #FirstLight maintenant (et pourquoi pas #FestivalOfBlood sur PS3 derrière ?)

Today, the light that was hidden takes its first breath. In the eyes of the newly born, the cosmos remembers itself. The eternal returns. 🦉🌟

#NebulasNestling #FirstLight #EternalReturn #FantasyArt #VisionaryArt #OwlArt #Symbolic #Halo #ILoveOwls

New Discovery, the City of Two Skylines. The name, while appropriate, could not begin to describe what stood before them, for there were, indeed, two skylines, though they were not separate, nor were they comparable in beauty or grandeur. Great spires and minarets reached out towards a green-tinted sky, their tips fading into the clouds. Some wore ridges, and delivered rivulets of condensation into the soil below, where fungiforms and arbormophs bloomed in arrangements so deliberate as to humble the finest of gardeners. Others arched with organic zest, cartwheeling between their towering comrades, drawing points of contact between them, and together, creating the world’s ancestral skyline, that of those who came before the Terrans.

Yana and crew arrive at New Discovery, the City of Two Skylines: the human species’ first colony outside of the Sol system, and their last to be established in a previously inhabited world.

#WIPSnips #FirstLight #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

My snip for the word of today: Repeat
From my third rewrite/edit of my Southern Gothic
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