fractalusurper

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raiden.

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Hydrangeas on Main Street, from this date last year

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Sometimes friendship is a boss and his two henchmen

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I hope Hank doesn’t find out about my meth business lmao

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Relax bro no one’s taking him away from you

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that post earlier got me thinking about how i'm subbed to a few poem of the day newsletters and dracula daily and all that, but i haven't seen, like. a short story of the day newsletter. like a fiction magazine but if you subscribe you get curated short-enough-for-email stories in your inbox on the reg. it feels like somewhere out there someone must already be doing this. but whomst.

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Discovered this album yesterday and can't stop listening to it.

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(icon by @neladoesart)

Hi! I'm Natalie. I'm trans of gender and ace of sexual and I write dark fantasy and dark sci-fi adventure stories full of boners and thud-and-blunder action violence wherein no swash remains unbuckled, nor pot unboiled. I also blog about books and history and languages and I write essays and poetry sometimes, and don't forget about the many exciting Age of Empires 2 scenarios available at Natalie's Cool Website.

You might have heard my short story The Wishing Tree on the Tales to Terrify podcast! (now available as a zine from Grinning Kitten Press). Other stuff I’ve published to date includes:

THE LAST GIRL SCOUT: A post-apocalyptic wasteland adventure story and transbian romance about two women who fall in lesbians together and fight Nazis and draculas in the bombed-out ruins of Old America

LEAD AND ROSES: LOVE SONGS AT THE END OF THE WORLD: A collection of short fiction set within 23rd-century post-nuclear wasteland we’ve all come to know and love

IN THE COURT OF THE NAMELESS QUEEN: A collection of dark fantasy f/f erotica about sexy swashbuckling swordswomen (both cis and normal) and a giant scary monster lady in a far-off realm of adventure and dark magic.

If you're curious I'd really like it if you'd check out my Patreon because there's even more fantabulous treasures on there and you can subscribe for the low, low price of just one American dollar. Your one American dollar will go toward the ever topical "Natalie can make rent and doesn't starve" philanthropy fund.

I'm gonna stay here on Tumblr until they forcibly remove me from the premises, but I'm also on Pillowfort, Bluesky, and Cohost

:)

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I wouldn't say I'm a lapsed cultist. I still accept the basic worldview--I believe that Cthulhu lies in R'lyeh in a deathlike sleep, I believe his Star-spawn shall one day cleanse the earth and usher in an age of shouting and killing and reveling in joy, yada yada--but I'm not, y'know, religious about it. Cthulhu has lied sleeping for, like, countless aeons, he's probably not waking up in my lifetime. I doubt giving up my Friday nights to chant "Cthulhu fhtagn" with a bunch of naked old guys in a basement is gonna wake him up any faster. I mean, if I ever have kids, I'll probably start going again, but that's more about teaching good morals.

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Vote based on what was standard practice at your school, not whether you personally said the pledge of allegiance or not.

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

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aro & ace books: older characters

older is of course subjective, but the vast majority of aspec characters are teens or early 20s - here's some that are 40s or older!

Party of Fools - fantasy novella - two of the MCs are aroace and 50 & 60

The Gods Below - high fantasy - 43yo aro(ace?) man MC (1/6)

Lays of the Hearth-Fire - high fantasy, MC is greyace, centres QPR, both are 50something

Bang Bang Bodhisattva - sci-fi - 47yo bi ace man MC (1/2)

The Space Ace of Mangleby Flat - contemporary - 40s ace man MC

The Keeper of Lonely Spirits - paranormal - MC is 200/immortal and in an elderly body, and lightly acespec coded

An Accident of Stars - portal fantasy - a MC is a middle aged aroallo woman

Margins & Murmurations - sci-fi - a MC is a 70-something lightly aro-coded woman

Role Playing - contemporary romance - 50yo demisexual man MC (1/2) (haven't read this one)

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

info included here is brief! please see my database for full details of the books

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a sphinx guards the road. in typical sphinx fashion, it will only allow the travellers who best it in a competition of wits to pass, and will eat everyone else. however, the sphinx is tired of giving the same few riddles to everyone it encounters - thus, it instead declares that, if a traveller wants to pass, then the traveller must give the sphinx a riddle that the sphinx cannot answer.

---

wen chao asks the sphinx: "what has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?"

"are you fucking kidding me," says the sphinx. wen chao is eaten.

---

wei wuxian asks the sphinx: "what has to be broken before you can use it? i’m tall when i’m young, and i’m short when I’m old - what am i? what has a heart that doesn’t beat? what comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years? the more of me you take, the more you leave behind - what am I? what can travel around the world while staying in the same corner? what has hands but can’t clap? i speak without a mouth and hear without ears; i have no body, but I come alive with wind - what am i? what gets wetter the more it dries? what is full of holes but still holds water?"

replies the sphinx: "an egg. a candle. an artichoke. the letter 'M'. footsteps. a stamp. a clock. an echo. a towel. a sponge."

"well damn," says wei wuxian, before he is eaten.

---

lan xichen asks the sphinx: "what is the air speed of an unladen swallow?"

replies the sphinx: "the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow is somewhere around 20.1 miles per hour; however, some may fly as fast as 46 miles per hour."

adds the sphinx: "also, monty python references are overdone these days."

"that last bit was unnecessary," says lan xichen as he is eaten.

---

jiang cheng asks the sphinx: "given the cone:

where a>0 and c>0 are constants, can you calculate the surface area of the cone, excluding the base?"

the sphinx scratches some figures into the dirt.

then, says the sphinx: "the area is as follows:

"how the fuck--" splutters jiang cheng, before he is eaten as well.

---

lan wangji asks the sphinx: "what does it mean to be a good person?"

the sphinx ponders this question for a while. then the sphinx responds at length, expounding upon all of the world's major moral philosophies, their similarities, and their differences. the sphinx discusses in great detail what philosophers such as confucius, laozi, aristotle, jeremy bentham, immanual kant, philipa foot, t. m. scanlon, and so on had to say about the matter.

after a lengthy and spirited discussion, lan wangji has to conclude that the sphinx has thoroughly addressed the question. therefore, lan wangji is eaten.

---

wei wuxian crawls out of the sphinx's stomach and demands another match. not seeing any reason to refuse, the sphinx gives him another turn.

says wei wuxian: "imagine that i give you three qiankun pouches: inside one of them is a lump of gold, while inside the other two are lumps of coal. after you pick one qiankun pounch, i (who know what's inside each pouch) open a different punch to reveal a lump of goal, and then ask if you want to switch your choice. should you switch?"

"i should switch," replies the sphinx. "if i switch, my chances of getting the lump of gold increase from 1/3 to 2/3."

"should've known it wouldn't be this easy," says wei wuxian as he is once more eaten.

---

jin guangyao asks the sphinx: "doha pz aol zxbhyl yvva vm mpmaf?"

the sphinx thinks about this for a moment. then, replies the sphinx: "hwwyvepthalsf zlclu wvpua glyv zlclu vul glyv zpe lpnoa, yvbuklk av zlclu zpnupmpjhua mpnbylz."

"well, it was worth a shot," sighs jin guangyao before he is eaten.

---

nie huaisang asks the sphinx: "can you tell me what my grandmother ate for dinner on this day 70 years ago?"

"she did eat dinner, yes?" asks the sphinx.

"she did.''

"then she ate food," replies the sphinx.

there is a long silence.

"well, i can't argue with that," says nie huaisang as he too is eaten.

---

wei wuxian again crawls out of the sphinx's stomach, and once more demands another match. the sphinx indulges him.

"if a barber only shaves every man in town who does not shave themselves, then does the barber shave himself?" asks wei wuxian.

"the barber transitions to female, so she does not shave herself," replies the sphinx.

"can an all-powerful god create a rock that is too heavy for god to lift?"

"i don't believe in god."

"what is the 130940119832th digit of pi?"

"it's somewhere between 0 and 9, inclusive."

"if you traveled back in time and prevented your grandparents from meeting, then how could you have existed to do it?"

"i cannot time travel."

"what's the largest prime number?"

"it's up there."

"motherfucker--" starts wei wuxian before he is again eaten.

---

jin zixuan approaches the sphinx. though the sphinx prompts him for a riddle immediately, for a moment he is silent. then, appearing rather downcast, he finally speaks.

"i really like jiang-guniang, but i've behaved so boorishly towards her that i fear she will no longer be willing to give me the time of day. how do i convince her to give me just one more chance?"

the sphinx thinks about this for a moment. then the sphinx thinks about this for another moment. then the sphinx begins to walk in circles, looking more and more frustrated.

finally, the sphinx speaks. "i don't know, man," it admits. "i think you might be cooked."

jin zixuan is allowed to pass. however, he does not seem happy about this at all.

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Lights and Shadows of Cyber City.