The Evening Star

and they're just absolutely horrified because now they know why the Blip-A never returned, they sent them all to die, now to save their sun they have to redo the entire program all over again and Adrian is devastated -

An excerpt from a story I'm working on for @tendebill! The idea is that by the time Grace goes back to save Rocky, Rocky has discovered an egg stashed away on his ship, likely laid by his former crewmates. This is what follows.

Summary:

Rocky and Grace raise an Eridian baby. In space.

Hey, with a leaky human space blob and a definitely not eccentric at all Eridian as parents, what could possibly go wrong? This little pebble has it made.

Or: cue awkward but endlessly devoted co-parenting featuring xenonite diapers, puppet shows, genuinely alarming amounts of baby food, and a bilingual child smarter than either of its parents know what to do with.

****

Excerpt:

Grace gazed fondly down at the pebble asleep in its xenonite nest, its tiny limbs tucked under it in an adorable loafing position, with the heat lamp overhead gleaming off the amniotic juices still coating it, giving it a soft, brand-new shine—smooth, innocent, un-roughened by experience. Like any human newborn’s skin. Streaks of unknown minerals shimmered crystalline and gold-green across its reddish carapace, not unlike brecciated jasper. Incredible. “So, what do we name this precious little rock?”

“Name it Ryland.”

Grace jumped nearly a foot in the air. “What?” he squeaked. “No!”

Rocky got that mulish tone he did when he was sure he was right. Which was almost always, admittedly. “Why not, question? Is it not common to give parent name to child on Earth, question? Rocky read on human thinking machine. Memorise all names on record from ‘ancestry.com’ and ‘babynames.com’—”

“Jesus Christ—”

“—and is frequently mentioned giving same name as parent to child. Pebble should be named Ryland the Second.” He pointed at Grace with a stony finger. “After Ryland the First.”

“That makes me sound like some syphilitic British monarch who probably deserves to be assassinated—no, nobody’s actually out to assassinate me, Rocky, quit with the aggressive clicking—but I’m. You really think I’m the baby’s. Parent?” Grace could feel his cheeks go warm. Damn. “I’m not… I’m not even the same species.”

“You hatch pebble,” Rocky said matter-of-factly. “You sing egg into hatching, along with Rocky. You parent, too.”

A lump lodged itself in Grace’s throat. His eyelashes grew damp.

Rocky groaned: a noise like shifting gravel. “No leaking! Happy occasion. Celebration! Egg hatched successfully, first egg hatched in space, first egg hatched with human singing. Amaze amaze amaze.”

Grace wiped his eyes. “Humans cry when they’re happy too, you know.”

“Weird.”

Grace huffed out a wet laugh. “Yeah. Weird.”

To be continued.

****

Hi! No bother at all, friend. Thank you for checking in. 💜

It's a bit of a long story, but unfortunately a couple of other writers and I, who volunteer as moderators for a Tomarrymort community, have been dealing with ongoing targeted attacks over the last few weeks. Between that and some things going on in my personal life, I ended up feeling pretty burnt out. I just didn't have the emotional bandwidth to keep writing while also dealing with a pattern of intimidation, invasions of our privacy, and other underhanded behavior from a small handful of individuals in an otherwise amazing community. 

We collectively decided that what we needed was a full reset by stepping away from fandom for a little while, which included temporarily privating our works.

Unfortunately, that's the reality of what this kind of behavior does. It doesn't just hurt the people targeted; it also means fewer stories for everyone else!

I hope it's a reminder to all that there are real people behind these fics. And healthy fandoms depend on creators feeling safe, supported, and excited to share what they make.

I still love Tomarrymort, I still love writing, and I'm incredibly grateful for my kind, thoughtful readers and the wonderful friends I've made through this ship.

Thank you so much for reading my fic! My stories are very dear to me, and I absolutely hope and intend to come back to them when I'm in a better place. Right now I'm just taking the time I need to recharge so that, when I return, I can focus on what I love most: writing and sharing stories about these two idiots falling in love. 💜

Here, for your added entertainment, is the Diadem retrieval scene:

“Uh.” Harry fidgeted. “Remember how I told you I met your Diary and Locket Horcruxes already? I, er. Might’ve also had an, um, encounter—a verbal one!—with the Diadem.”

Voldemort glowered at him. “Just how many of my Horcruxes did you seduce, you wanton imp?”

“I didn’t seduce any of them! They mostly just wanted to kill me!”

“Mostly.” Voldemort’s brows lowered. “And what did they want to do the rest of the time?”

Harry blushed. “Noth—they just—we just. Talked. In a very… fraught… way. Is all.”

“That statement was broken into eight component parts.” Voldemort folded his arms. “Care to explain that charming little stutter?”

“Okay, fine!” Harry threw up his hands. “We might’ve flirted a bit. But just a bit, and most of that was them threatening me with weirdly predatory but slightly fond language. It might’ve gotten me hot and bothered but it didn’t go beyond that. Nothing to get your knickers in a twist over.”

“Except that you did proceed to go ‘beyond that’ in your dreams.”

“Yeah, dreams. Y’know, entirely unreal processes of the subconscious mind that none of us have control over?” Harry rolled his eyes. “Stop acting like a jealous thirteen-year-old with his first crush and get to finding that damn Diadem.”

“You are my first ‘crush’.”

Harry’s blush deepened. “Yeah, right. What about that Corner boy?”

“He was a moment of intrigue, nothing more.” Voldemort smirked. “Now who’s jealous?”

“All right, fine, we’re both pathetic losers. Diadem, please.”

So what is the basis for yomarrymort? Can you elaborate a bit? I mean this genuinely, not sarcastic or ironic. I just.. dont personally get it? But it's a pretty common ship

I mean Sirius is so hyperfocused on James and later Harry I could see that erhm.. escalate? Beyond platonic relationships. Knowing what i know of the world it seems almost impossible not to ho that way tbh (i am ok alright I'm fine this is fine) so as a ship, yes

Sirius and Lupin even, all these years later, in the shack communicate by just glances and are of one mind and Sirius lies low at Lupins place for a while even, and yeag even that i could see happening and I'm not even in wolfstar at all

I could see every character with someone at the end of the day, as they are all human, warmblooded and have not been a shade for 12 years in a forest, and have a soul that's intact. But not Voldemort, he is pretty much an inferi walking, a ghost in a way already

Only in some whump, dark, abduction scenario i could get tomarrymort almost. But even then Voldemort has to be much more corporeal, tactile and therefor sexual to go there and it's become a whole different character already. A fanon mort, not canon mort. Idk :/ i see this ship often on my timeline and i don't get it do I'm curious

I have two thoughts!

1. First off, don’t underestimate the appeal of monsterfucking on the monsterfucking site 😈

2. Must a ship be logical to be fun and compelling?

But more seriously, there are a LOT of iterations of Tomarrymort—even the name itself implies multiple interpretations. I agree—there isn’t a lot of indication that there is anything sexual about Voldemort…but I also think that it would be a weird thing if we got any hint of that in the books. Literally the last way Harry, from whose point of view is our third-person limited narration into this world, is going to view Voldemort is through a sexual lens (for…multiple reasons).

I go back and forth whether or not I think Voldemort had the ability to love. You have to sift a lot through Rowling’s personal prejudices—like the suggestion that a child conceived of rape is, inherently, incapable of feeling love. Narratively speaking, since this is a children’s series, it would have been much more complicated to learn that Voldemort was capable of remorse (at least at some point in his life), but such a revelation would have taken away from the seventh book’s reveal of Dumbledore’s past. And, in my opinion, Harry would have tried harder to save Voldemort if that were the case.

But I also love the idea that Voldemort actually does not feel love, but CAN feel obsession and comfort. We love to see a Voldemort or Tom who encounters Harry, intends to kill him, and then stops only when he realizes that Harry is a Horcrux. Then keeping…Harry…as his secret little treasure (or not so secret)… And Harry’s all like, “Please don’t” while Voldemort is like, “You don’t have a choice here, bucko.”

Anyway, I don’t expect people to like it! It’s weird and off-putting, and frankly, probably a lot gross. But it’s cathartic. It’s got that whole “smother you with obsessive love” vibe and “unhealthy power dynamics” vibe that feels like a huge release of energy in a world where everything is so out of control all of the time. It answers the question, “What if I just let go and let someone else take charge?” in the sort of way I would never like in real life.