xeruthana

[xeruthana]

i mumbled some really stupid things on stream earlier today, but I think the highlight is "Transmogrification Scroll: turns your gender into money"

[xeruthana]

[xeruthana]

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. Now, one returns to ask a tea monk: “What do people need?” They don’t have an answer yet, but together, they’re determined to find one. In a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune

It’s the spring of 1995, and Nate Cartwright has lost everything. Retreating to his family’s cabin in Oregon after hitting rock bottom, he expects solitude—until he finds a man named Alex and a girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. And Artemis is anything but ordinary. As cultists and agents close in, Nate must choose: stay lost in the past or fight for a future he never saw coming.

Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin

After losing her job and fiancé, Shell Pine moves back home and starts working at a flower shop in the mall. The flowers lift her spirits—and so does Neve, the alluring and secretive shop manager. But something sinister grows behind the scenes: a sentient orchid with a taste for manipulation, a hunger that can’t be sated, and a plan that could uproot them all.

But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo

The old keeper of the keys is dead, and the creature who ate her? Anatema, an enormous humanoid spider with a taste for laudanum and human brides. Now her protégée, Dália, must tend to Anatema’s memory drawers and uncover the truth behind her mentor’s execution. But there’s one problem: Anatema can’t resist a beautiful woman, and she eventually devours every single bride that crosses her path.

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s university—and to her former girlfriend, Pleiti, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems. As Mossa enlists Pleiti’s help, the two embark on a twisting path where the future of life on Earth—and their future together—may hang in the balance.

The Entanglement of Rival Wizards by Sara Raasch

Will they conjure love or evoke chaos? Two rival wizards are about to find out.

Ali Hazelwood meets Dungeons & Dragons in this enemies-to-lovers fantasy academia romcom where rival grad student wizards are forced to work together without killing—or falling for—each other.

Out on August 26, 2025!

Sandymancer by David Edison

Caralee Vinnet lives in a world of dust, where water is rare and the elements are tightly controlled. She has a secret: magic in her bones that lets her command the sand. But when she uses it, she summons the god-king who broke the world 800 years ago…and who’s now wearing her best friend’s body. Caralee will risk everything to save her friend—if her new companion doesn’t kill her first. Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

Four years ago, an unthinkable disaster struck. In what became known as the Low-Probability Event, 8 million people died in bizarre, improbable ways. Vera, a former statistics professor, lost everything that day. But when a special agent arrives, investigating an impossibly lucky casino, Vera realizes she may be the only one who can stop another deadly improbability from happening again.

Coming August 12, 2025!

Not enough books? Check out our other list!

[xeruthana]

My silly little queer game about lesbians getting involved in ancient feuds between old gods is finally launching! On the 24th!

It's really REALLY choice driven - multiple endings and paths through the story, if you get into the lore you'll be playing it again and again.

AND it's super queer!

You can wishlist it here and there's a intro demo for it there too :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3100650/Quantum_Witch/

[xeruthana]

chaos: something wicked this way comes.

chaos: every state, every town, all succumbs.

chaos: each arrest a beat on a fervent drum.

chaos: ice preying on the strong, godforbidden scum.

chaos: nobody knows how far it might go, harmonious notes the crowds began to hum.

chaos: protesting the illegal, violent tribunal, giving ever-worsening outcomes.

BOOM! a shot breaks out from above, national guard member stepped beyond his scope of thumb.

HISS! gasses filling streets that have no structural routine, angrier the crowd becomes.

chaos: curdling screams of mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, cousins and then some.

SLAM! the car doors do clap, locking and sealing the fate of their relatives, cemented their glum.

CRACK! there go the bones of a ww2 veteran's skull, beaten and muddled by the hands of the numb.

chaos arrived a long time ago, but only just now have we begun to see, the brutality amongst this big band of thieves; marching to the clang of their orders hung with love, carrying no thoughts inside, no consideration, nor hugs. inside only lives the war drum they are given, brainwashed into repeating the very cadence of. they trample bodies, children, women, and more, not giving a fuck what they do. their deeds are not criminal they sing in the song, the song that leaves them waiting and wanting to eat someone. hungry eyes, sharp white teeth, these are not people, despite their physique. inside of these monsters lives only fear, determination to kill ever dissenter, every jeer. thou shalt not criticize our namely infamous king, DJT, for he is the prophet who knows the way.

[xeruthana]

since the old version of this post was flagged for ‘adult content’…

reblog this post if your account is a trans safe space or owned by a trans person!

along with that, reblog if your account is a non-binary spectrum safe space or owned by someone on the nb spectrum!

[xeruthana]

What?

No, no no no no, of course not.

This isn't a Cursed Collar of Obedience, it's just, a normal... collar.

Those are normal collar tufts of purple magic smoke phasing in and out around it. Normally.

I thought it would look cute on you :3

[xeruthana]

The entire Hero's Party have fused into one being to defeat the villain. They don't want to separate again. This is a problem because the Royal Family, Church, Assassin's Guild, Military, and Knights Order need their high ranking members back.

[xeruthana]

You were the sidekick to a super hero. You worked hard, doing all the labor while he got the credit but it's fine. Anyways, while saving people in a fire, you get trapped. You scream out for help, but all he does is stare at you. "Sorry, kid." He shrugs and leaves you there to die.

[xeruthana]

A dumb D&D thing that I do - that I have a lot of fun with - is having recurring background artisans that are extremely well known, but also, never actually in the story. Just as background-lore.

Here are some of my favorites.

First up is Brother Tucker: A long dead brewer who pursued alcohol distillation as path to enlightement. According to legend, he never actually died - he simply transformed into an ultra pure vapor and slid through the physical plane before distilling in the astral one.

According to historians from his era, there was simply no possibility of a body being recovered. The explosion that was his final work reduced a 5 story alchemical lab into a -8 story crater.

Still, some of his work lingers. His early brews are actually safe for consumption, and command top prices among collectors. His later works were enormous casks of, impossibly, 400% purity alcohol. It's stored exclusively in glass ampoules because it explodes on contact with air.

There are two subtypes.

Brother Tucker's Unreasonably Flamable Turbo Apocalypse Juice, Paranthetical, With Lemon.

Brother Tucker's Unreasonably Flamable Turbo Apocalypse Juice, Paranthetical, With Mint.

Top explodes for 5d6 fire, 5d6 force, 10d6 radiant.

Bottom explodes for 5d6 frost, 5d6 force, 10d6 necrotic.

After that, there is Chien Cane, a distinguished portrait artist who captured very vague, fuzzy, impressionist images of people next to hyperrealistic depictions of their dogs. It was rumored that there was a curse associated with all his paintings - the people depicted never lived more than a few years after the painting, while the dogs often lived unnaturally long lives - decades, even, in a few cases.

His masterpiece was a self-portrait made after he contracted lycanthropy. It contains both the fuzziness, hazy, dreamlike quality of all the people he depicted, and the realistic, sharp, crispness of the dogs. He ran into the forest after shortly afterwards, stark naked during a blizzard.

His body was never recovered, but legends speak of a dog larger than an elephant roaming between the trees. Scratching strange shapes into the trunks of trees with its massive, dull claws.

I'm actually having trouble thinking of more. I know I have another one, but he is escaping my mind, and I have already suceeded in my goal of not working on my Babylon-lore story. So. Goodnight y'all.

[xeruthana]

The cracked old concrete will split open,

Eggshell casing flung afar;

Underneath what's dead and broken

Life bangs back like a newborn star.

[xeruthana]

When your girlfriend first told you she wanted to put you in a Poké Ball, the first thing you did was laugh. You felt a little bad, seeing the expression on her face afterward, but it was just silly, you know? Poké Balls were for Pokémon, for pets. Obviously she couldn't do that to you, you were a person.

It was a while before she said it again, but the next time was when she had her teeth on your neck and your hips in her hands. She whispered husky against your skin about how badly she just wanted to catch you and keep you in a way that no one could separate you two ever again. It was cute - the gesture, at least - but that was what pet play was for. You already had a collar with a little bell on it, she guided you around by a leash sometimes. You told her that, and she went quiet, her eyes dark and intense and fierce.

After that, you couldn't help but find yourself... looking, sometimes. Staring at the way trainers and their Pokémon interacted. The way an Eevee would snuggle up into their master's lap, or how pretty a Furfrou would look after a grooming. Even those Pokémon in the wild that you'd pass by started to feel....... hollow in a way you couldn't understand.

Some criminal gang showed up on the news one day, and they started boasting about their Poké Balls (designed after some old weird black Poké Balls with eyes on them that showed up at some ruin somewhere) could catch Pokémon that already had an owner, and even worse, could possibly catch more than Pokémon. Officer Jenny decried this and publicly stated it was an impossibility, but as you watched the news, you could feel the tension in your girlfriend, her intense stare boring holes into the TV set.

A week later, a night of passion, tugging your collar as she buried herself in you over and over, and near the end with you dazed and panting and practically unconscious, she reached to the side table. It was silly, you thought, she didn't wear condoms - no. Not that. Sleek and black, obsidian purple lines and a glaring eye, the Poké Ball was intimidating in a way that went beyond the fear you felt in your gut. A primal, dangerous fear, the fear only a prey can comprehend when it sees the gaping maw of a predator.

You wanted to run, you wanted to scream and tell her no and thrash against her and tell her that this was stupid and illegal and... But you didn't. You didn't protest as she pressed the button to your neck, a needy, keening whine falling from your lips as it flashed and-

In a flash of red, you were back on the bed, blinking in surprise, panting and disoriented. You must have gone in and come back out, with no perception of the time in between. You felt... fine. No. That's not it.

You felt wrong. Different. Broken.

When you wore your collar for her, there was something beyond the physical discomfort of leather tight against skin. There was something deeper there. A feeling of domestication, a feeling of ownership. The knowledge that the collar can be grabbed or clipped by a leash and you will always comply. She didn't overpower you physically - she didn't need to. The implication was enough. The subservience was enough.

This was that, tenfold. In your gut, in your heart, in your brain you felt a complete hold on your psyche. Every atom in you was drawn to your girlfriend now, Poké Ball in her hand, like a magnet. You wanted to be against her, you needed to be touching her, you needed to be hers.

"Up," she said. You sat up. You didn't even think, your body moved before conscious thought. "Off the bed." You did. Legs swinging over, even as your mind struggled and bent against the commands. There was a lash around your heart. "Stand." Up you went. Trembling, gasping, sweating with tears pouring down your cheeks. You could move, you twitched your fingers to make sure of it, but you could not go against a command your girlfriend made, not while she was the one holding the Poké Ball.

You could never disobey her again.

You sobbed, falling into her arms as she stood beside you, trembling like a leaf as she held you and scratched your back, kissing needily up your jaw and neck. You didn't need the leash anymore. You didn't need the collar or the promise of pet play or the implication of subservience.

You belong to her, now.

Forever.

[xeruthana]

Went to 2 aquariums and um. Got excited about the sturgeon

[xeruthana]

We dwell

in existential detritus

as we seek

clarity

outside and in.

Endless negativity

crawls into

our neurons

and sets up societies

without a breath.

A fist against

noise is

a riot

against fool's gold

wearing suits;

they dry away

without the screen's kiss

and we

float on.

Robert J. W.

[xeruthana]

I'm sorry for being so clingy.

It's just..

My soul is like Ivy.

And yours like old castle walls.

[xeruthana]

anomalocaris is a maid

[xeruthana]

Light Pollution

How could we have known? No one had seen the night sky in so, so long; not the way it was meant to be seen. We turned our gaze away from the light of the stars as we built our own on Earth. We blotted out the night. We feared the dark, and so we banished it. The night sky was burned through with the lights of our people.

When it began, we almost didn't notice. Not at first, anyway. Astronomers had been out of work for a long time at that point--there were no telescopes yet made that could penetrate the veil of light that shrouded our sky. So, when the stars began to vanish, one by one, no one even knew. How could we know? No, no one cared. We had our own lights for the night. We had our sun for the day. That is, until we didn't. That thing... hungered. It came for our sun. Then, with it's gaping, endless maw... it consumed. Gone in an instant, now only a distant warm memory growing colder by the second.

As quick as it came, it moved on. There was nothing left for it here, after all. And with our star gone, well... we made our own. Our lights grew brighter. Warmer. Brighter still. We had to outshine the dark where our sun used to be. How ironic that the very things that doomed us would be what kept us going.

There's so much light now. Every moment is bright and warm, filled with radiance. No one thinks about the sun anymore. No one acknowledges the dark. There is no dark. Not until that thing comes back to finish what it started. When all the stars in the sky have gone out... it will return. Our light will call it in like a beacon. All that remains between the bright lights of civilization and the dark of an empty, uncaring universe.