Untitled

worship her

The demon laughs. It's a cold, rattling sound. "I suppose it is pathetic to find something in common with a human." Its shadowy form flickers, a sign of the last pieces of its consciousness fading from this realm.

My own consciousness is also hanging on by a thread. My right arm is gone at the shoulder, and I'm losing a lot of blood way too quickly.

"Two abandoned servants, dying at the bottom of a dungeon," the demon sighs.

"Shut it," I snap, while weakly trying to rip my shirt to make a makeshift bandage. "I'm not..." I pause to take a breath. It feels like I'm running out of air. "I'm not going to die here."

It flickers again, then starts to fade, ever so slightly. "Let me help you."

I don't respond to it. I don't have time for this nonsense. I try to unbuckle my breastplate, my fingers clumsy with numbness and slippery with sweat.

It reaches out to me.

"No!" I try to pull away from it. "I don't---hngh--" I'm trying to speak through the pain, but it's difficult. "I don't need your help!"

Its shadowy hand makes contact with my forehead and seems to suck all the pain out of me. I'm left feeling weak, cold, and tired.

"What did you do to me?" I rasp.

"You know I feed off suffering," it says. "Don't worry. It won't heal me. I'm too far gone for that."

I slog through my tired thoughts to find something to say to that, and settle on the only thing there really is to say: "...thank you."

"Don't thank me," it says. "I can't stop you from dying, only take away the pain. Unless...you let me in."

It looks at me with silver eyes, a kind of expectant look on its murky face. I know what it's referring to. It wants to possess me.

"We can stop each other's bleeding," it says. Its voice sounds far away now, as if it's in a long tunnel.

Possession is a risky thing. Both the demon's mind and the human's mind are damaged beyond repair afterward, meaning that, even if an exorcism is performed, there are lasting consequences. The partnership this demon was proposing would be permanent.

"Neither of us has to die for someone else." The demon's voice is soft. There's an emotion there. Something like hope.

I look at my bloodied hand, then hold it out. "We can help each other."

It smiles. "Thank you," it says, and takes my hand.

okay there are 42 chapters in the book, and dividing 3000 by 42 = ~72

so I’d have to write the chapter titles like this:

I threw together a little rec list for fans of Murderbot :)

This is aimed at fans of the novellas and the TV show and I tried to capture various different elements of the story and characters.

Text of slides below the cut

“everyone needs a library card,” the librarian said brightly, sliding a form across the desk. “fill this out.”

the dark lord produced her own elaborately plumed quill from the depths of her robes and scrawled her name in handwriting that was completely illegible but seemed to whisper the secrets of the dark from the blinding white page. “yes, but i need mine in order to take over the tri-kingdom area.”

the librarian’s polite smile barely faltered. “funny, the last dark lord to try that didn’t bother with a card.”

“yes, and do you see that fool currently ruling our kingdom? no. of course not. utterly ridiculous, to attempt to take over any size country without a library card, much less an intermediate-sized one like this.” she accepted the thin plastic card with a gracious flourish of her gloved hand.

the librarian, adding the new card’s number to the database, privately agreed, but chose not to say anything.

the librarian balanced the pile of pulled books under one elbow and held the list of call numbers in their hand for easy consultation. “intermediate spell casting for grades three and four,” they murmured, running fingers along the peeling spines until they found it. “willing to bet that’s sorrel’s request.”

they fit the large, paperbound book under their elbow and moved on, checking the list again. “magical creatures encyclopedia, L through M. that’s jackaby trying to finish the entire set by midsummer.” they would get that one last to carry it around the shortest amount of time.

“next — the complete guide to raising the dead.” they paused in front of the row of shelves with the right call numbers. they could guess the requester of that one too, but knew better than to say it out loud.

the return slot thunked loudly as it swung open and closed, having swallowed the returned books with a wet gulp.

“good morning,” the dark lord said pleasantly as she looked up from sliding her books in — or as pleasantly as “good morning” could sound when it was uttered by a voice that sounded like gravel being chewed to pieces by the jaws of a large monster.

“it is, very,” the librarian said crisply, conjuring a clean handkerchief for the still-slobbering return slot.

the mouth just visible under the dark lord’s enormous cloak hood curved into a scythe’s blade smile, but she said nothing else.

“did you enjoy your books?” the librarian asked, since she wasn’t moving and there were no other people waiting (most likely because of the dark lord standing there).

the hood nodded up and down. “extremely. especially the taped lecture by doctor dramidius ardorius of the dark arts institute.”

“well, we have many more taped lectures. i especially recommend the one on the healing powers of tea.” they tilted their head in a now get out sign. the poor steam-powered self-checkout contraption would get overheated if people were too scared to check out at the front desk.

they didn’t really expect the dark lord to take the recommendation seriously, but the next day they noticed the cloaked, hooded specter glide out the door with the taped lecture on magic-infused herbal teas tucked between a CD of dark chants and a step-by-step art book on drawing occult symbols.

“you give good recommendations,” the dark lord said with a shrug when the librarian raised their eyes from the front desk’s computer to the shadows of her hood.

the librarian wasn’t sure what to say. “you seem to take up quite a lot of my time.”

“i’m only a simple library patron,” the dark lord replied in a saintly voice that resembled a dragon coughing up a partially digested house. “do you enjoy mermaid song?”

“yes. you can find the library’s collection in the CD section over there.” they looked pointedly back down at the computer.

“i hear there’s a concert on the shore tomorrow evening.”

“perhaps we’ll get a recording of it.”

the dark lord continued taking out books on various unsavory topics. the librarian continued suggesting books on healing, positive thinking, and community service. the dark lord seemed more amused with each visit. her smile was almost charming, once you got past the long, sharp teeth.

the librarian was trying to go about their usual morning ritual of pulling books that had been requested the night before, but the dark lord wouldn’t stop making faces at them from behind gaps in the shelves. she seemed to find it hilarious. the librarian hadn’t decided yet if they were amused or annoyed.

“ooh, look at this,” the dark lord said, pulling a sturdy but beaten up board book featuring a werewolf mid-transformation on the cover from the shelf. “this was my favorite when i was just a little menace.”

“somehow i’m not surprised.”

the dark lord tucked the book into the ridiculous basket made of a large skull that floated alongside her. “didn’t you have a favorite picture book when you were little?”

“Barker the Sentient Book End,” the librarian said promptly. “i screamed for it every night until someone read it to me, long after i’d already memorized each page.”

the dark lord cooed, sounding like a cross between an owl and something eating an owl. “adorable. i knew you had a little monster in you somewhere.”

the librarian crossly debated denying being a monster at all or pointing out they had actual kraken blood in them.

they should have guessed how close the dark lord was from how good her mood was, but it wasn’t until they arrived at work on monday that the librarian heard the news.

“the newest dark lord managed to overthrow the faeyrie monarchy last night. something about combining traditional herbal spells with a newfangled mental magic based on the power of willful thinking… or something. the news reporter mentioned the use of mermaid song in a mild kind of mind control, i think? i wasn’t listening. the good news is, our budget stays in place.”

the librarian contemplated hurling the can of bookmarks across the room, but concluded that it would be both unprofessional and unsatisfying. they settled for aggressively stamping returned, only slightly saliva-covered books with red ink.

the phone clicked loudly. “public library, how can i help you?”

“by taking my offer,” the dark lord said, slightly hesitant voice like a rock slide that wasn’t sure it was ready to slide. “the royal library in the capital needs a new head librarian.”

“why’s that?” the librarian spun in their new swivel chair, tangling the phone cord while they were at it, thinking they wouldn’t want to leave so soon after getting it.

there was a cough like the ocean spitting out a new island. “erm, hmm, last one got… eaten. tragic. these things happen when you’re very, very small, you know.”

“so i’ve heard.” the librarian stretched the phone cord and watched it bounce back. “well, i’m happy where i am.”

“well.” her voice was more disappointed than they’d expected. “it’s a very nice library, you know. large selection of mermaid song in the CD section.”

“the royal library is part of our system. i can request any materials from there that i want to be delivered here.”

a pause. the dark lord had not considered this. “well, maybe i’ll take the royal library out of the system.”

“you wouldn’t dare disrupt the workings of our very intricate library system set up at the dawn of time.”

“maybe i would!”

“no.”

“fine. i wouldn’t.”

the librarian swiveled some more, wrapping the cord around with them until it ran out of give and spun them in the other direction. “would you like to grab a coffee sometime?”

“yes,” the dark lord said, voice too surprised to resemble anything in particular. “i can travel down meet you tomorrow morning.”

“don’t you have things to do?”

they could sense the shrug from the other end of the line. “i’ll move the capital to your town. i can do that, you know. i’m the supreme ruler of the tri-kingdom area.”

Fascism thrives best in the cesspool of hopelessness. They want us so confused and hopeless that we give in. When you give in, you don’t fight back.

If you wait for life to look good to do the things that bring you joy; life will still be bad - you will just have less joy.

As someone who has struggled with my mental health a lot for the last thirty years, I know this struggle firsthand. And changing this belief system - the one where you spend all of your time expecting bad things so you won’t be surprised when they happen - it’s the hardest work that I have ever done. And I’m not perfect; I still have setbacks. I still experience really real fears about the state of the world and the US, in particular, because that’s where I live.

But I made a vow to myself that I will not let the choices of others ruin my life. When I made that vow, I was thinking of my parents - but it applies to the state of the government right now, too.

There are still flowers in my garden, and ripe tomatoes, and it’s almost pick-your-own apples season, and I have plans with my friends to go to as many cemetery ghost walks as we can find this October.

I still deserve to live. I still deserve to laugh. I still deserve to love. I still deserve to be as happy as I can be.

It also inherently challenges purity culture with multiple varied casual and symbiotically supportive relationships.

Taking both of those into account challenges the Patriarchy itself, and the idea that a singular man should be in charge and rule over his own household like a petty tyrant.

In the order that I happened to read them:

• A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys

• Spear by Nicola Griffith