When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears · 11:32pm Nov 19th, 2021
It’s been a hell of a year.
Are you tired of variations on that phrase yet? Honestly I’m not sure that I am? I go back and forth between indifference to it and emphatic “God, yes, hasn’t it?” It feels like there’s not a better way to open stuff right now. Like the weight of almost two years of tumult has to be acknowledged at all points, has to be how you open the door and say hello. Lovely drawn-out apocalypse we’re having! Too bad life peaked shortly before the death of some random Zoo gorilla we all the know the name of now, and then joked about how his death was a sign of the end of the world, and then the world ended, and we remembered we made that joke and weren’t sure how to feel anymore. Hi! When I left you, forever ago, the world was nicer. There. I think that’s a nice place to start.
I’ve spent the last couple of months desperately searching for a job. Despite what you might have heard, the “worker shortage” has been a bit exaggerated. If you want to work for beans, yes, but if you want to be able to pay rent, I’m sorry to say there’s less work than you’d hope.
I’ve been writing in the mean time. Or started again, at least. I’m working on original fiction now. I’m even working on pony fiction! Yes, seriously. Pony fiction. With ponies and everything.
Rebooting my entire writer-thing has taken a long time. But it is happening, and I’m happy to see it happen. In the mean time, I wanted to say hello--by the by, hello!--tell you about what I’m working on right now, and what I will be doing.
Original fiction-wise, I’m working on a longform story about mechs and pilots and the cycle of revolution. I’m workshopping a title, which is weird for me, but its already proceeding apace. Right now I’m thinking about “A Time of Monsters” but I’m not sold on it. It has to do with a hardbitten mercenary company in one of mankind’s stellar backwaters finding themselves blacklisted and doomed, only to be rescued out of corpro-serfdom by a mysterious benefactor whose jobs grow increasingly strange and alarming in their scope and aims. Grainne and her pilots just want to survive, but the Underground Man controls their fates and finances, and he hasn’t revealed exactly what he has planned… or how far he will force them to go to avoid servitude and death.
I’m also planning some shorter stories based on a Werewolf: The Apocalypse campaign my wife and I did a year or so ago. Eimar and Emi, an ex-marine werewolf and an unassuming little kitsune shop keeper make ends meet in the grimey, miserable future of Atlantic City. Half investigators for hire, half mercenaries, and all around willing to do what it takes, they eke out an existence one job at a time out of the back of Emi’s struggling occultist shop.
Ponyfiction-wise, I’m sketching out a collection of vignettes based in the Equestria at War universe! You do not need to know much lore about EAW specifically, except that season 7 is the last “canon” one and that tanks are a thing. While much of the content will focus on EAW characters and others, some of it will include ponies you know and love, namely Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon. I’m also kicking around ideas about what other sorts of pony-related stories I could tell (and I’ve told quite a few already, so its a bit harder now than it used to be).
The first chapter of Time of Monsters is actually already available on my newly reconstituted patreon. I’ll be posting all of my writing, original and pony, there before I release it anywhere. This includes stuff meant for Medium, which my wife and I are working on slowly in tandem. Trying to get some good material going on there. I’ll be updating currently at least one completed chapter of Monsters a month, with 2 full in productive months, as well as at least one other thing of my choice long or short form. But that is just the minimum. As people join I’ll be letting people choose what it is I work, with old ponyfics being finished if people in my patreon want me to go back and finish them. Whether you join or not, the pony stuff will inevitably find its way to FiMFic.
Have a link, and if you support me writing more in this time when I have all the space and all of the stres... thanks. Thank you so much.
https://www.patreon.com/Lyrewulf
I’ve missed posting. I’ll see you all around. Tell me something cool you’ve been up to, something great you read or watched or did.
That all we could say.
Welcome back, cyne! I transferred colleges last year (terrible timing, in retrospect) and started posting my big WIPs I've been working on... only to have to pause on posting more til the semester ends, whoops. Also, joining a queer sorority! Hopefully. Getting the news about whether I'm getting initiated tonight.
Also... started ADHD meds. Wow, they make a difference!
Had some genuine French crepes.
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You could conceivably swap the word order and end up with "it's been a year of hell" + an awkwardly leftover "a". Ok, so maybe it doesn't work so well. It was a lot funnier before I realized I had a leftover "a".
I feel like this was directed at me in particular, if you could call posing a nuke over an ant directing.
The Return of the Queen 👀
I missed your blogs! I've been reading a book called Confessions by some random fella named Augustine. Maybe you've heard of it.
This sounds rather like a Battletech story that dips into the material from the varous Interstellar Players volumes. And for those not already familiar with the setting, Battletech is a futuristic space opera that features eternal warfare among a pretty large span of interstellar space, fought primarily with giant walking tanks, and (depending on the era) primarily by mercenaries that are often a step away from being indentured (and expendable) servants. Interstellar Players is a series detailing the various conspiracy theories in the setting, which range from entirely pedestrian Illuminati-type stuff (and amusingly enough, featuring the actual Illuminati) to Lovecraftian eldritch horrors lurking in the place that ships briefly enter when they make a transit from one system to another.
Ooo, that mecha thing sounds like it could be a lot of fun. As it would happen, I'm working on a non-pony mecha story of my own-- albeit mine probably doesn't have the same social commentary that yours does. Honestly I think mecha-fic is gonna be the next thing-- but that may be because I'm reading Xiran Jay Zhao's Iron Widow, which you'd probably dig.
Oh, and speaking of mecha, stuff, your premise sounds like it could slot really well into the mecha RPG LANCER, which, again, you would probably dig. (And I'm pretty sure you can get a PDF of the corebook for free these days?)
And speaking of RPG stuff, didn't know you were a Werewolf: The Apocalypse fan! It's easily my favorite of White Wolf's oldschool World of Darkness. If we ever cross paths at a con or something (a wild concept these days, I know), we should totally swap lycanthrope-nerd stories sometime. #letmetellyouaboutmycharacter
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Just be Italian.
"It's-a been a year of hell!"
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I only got to play Werewolf once even tho it’s my favorite! I played lots of Vampire. And I adore Lancer, I was at one point in two different lancer games and when one switched to Ironclaw another one went to Lancer. Lancer is one of the coolest settings I’ve ever played in. I was mildly bummed when Abaddon dropped Icon cause the game I’ve been working on is in the same wheelhouse
I have not heard—wait is that the lady who has a YouTube channel? And based her mech novel on a Chinese empress? If so my wife adores her
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I have a standing Battletech game every Tuesday! My friend Zai and I have been experimenting with playing with company size encounters and it’s been a hell of a thing. I won the last one with a single modified construction crawler with a backhoe murdering assault mechs in melee. Beautiful
I was actually inspired by the Harebrained Schemes game, which I enjoyed immensely. I wonder what ComStar would think about an old Star League drop ship out in the periphery?
And remember, pay your HPG bills!
Welcome back!
Yikes, let's see… Somehow I managed to release couple of pony stories and have been working on an original fiction novel, which is taking so much longer than my previous one…
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Hello Silent! I hope you are doing well. How is the sorority? I was in a “fraternity” that was more of a pack of goblins haunting the campus
So nice to see you again!
A cool thing I've been doing is doing raids in Destiny 2 with my fiance! It's an endgame 6 player activity and we've done 2 out of the 4 currently available raids, and we're doing our third tomorrow. We've had a ton of fun doing them after trying to run them last year and failing miserably due to people just dropping out on us all the time.
These are so much fun and we're hoping that we can join a team for a Day One Raid for the next expansion that's coming out in February.
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It's 13 queer people (at least 4 of us are nonbinary) being gay as hell and doing lil events and drinking Starbucks and being pals so... pretty good. They said yes, btw! I'll be one of them!
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Well, considering the era that the HBS game takes place in, we're talking about pre-Reformation CS which is full-on into quashing--by any means necessary--anything and everything that could potentially spark a technological recovery. So while they generally won't quibble about a few old 'Mechs or armored vehicles pulled out of a wreck or found cache, a functional DropShip like the Argo (with its many features that aren't in line with existing ships) could merit a visit from a ROM team packing explosives if anyone gets the bright idea to reverse engineer it for large-scale production (which even some of the Periphery powers could manage to do, in terms of industrial capacity).
I'd actually be more worried, however, about Snord's Irregulars learning about the Argo. The ship's unique nature would almost certainly get the attention of that pack of history-obsessed maniacs. And considering what they've done in pursuit of other relics that they wanted to take possession of, there's a good chance of a fight kicking off.
Great to hear from you! I'm looking forward to everything you've mentioned
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Aw man I love Snord. I had totally forgotten they were in the same period as that game.
This sounds dope.
Cool stuff I've done? Well, I now own a 3D printer. I'm also almost-ish done moving. Oh, and the last DnD session I ran was a Doom-Soundtrack fueled breach and clear of an old wizards tower boobytrapped with demon-summoning glyphs. The campaign is a sandbox, so the players were, effectively, stupidly over-leveled for the challenges at hand, but it was fun watching these level 10 heroes of the realm bully imps and quasits.
“A Time of Monsters” sounds really interesting. A sort of suicide squad that ends up working for seemingly GOOD guys, and are aimed AGAINST the government.
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Part of me wants to try and do The Man Who Was Thursday with robots but like, not even I can be that full of myself
It is reassuring to see you active and about and doing some writing.
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i have done almost nothing for months. I am glad I can do anything at all tbh
good to hear from ya!
*makes grabby paws at the werewolf story* GIB!
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I admire beyond... a lot of things, anyway, the ability to return to the cross and bear it again after having set it aside.