Happy Birthday to Us, by the way. This radio show went on the air six years ago, in mid-June of 2017. And here we are. Some of us, anyway. Welcome to the American Desert, where we’ve got a “champagne climate” (nine months of brutal summer), David Hockney’s hidden Pearblossom Highway artworks, and wild gunfights in the streets of yore. But springtime is very lovely, if you can catch it. With new…

All while I was growing up I wanted Strong Female Characters in my media, and I would go to libraries and video rental stores and Borders and ask for books with Strong Female Characters, and they would hand me Gone With The Wind.

And I would say, this lady isn't strong.

And they would say, but look at what she endures! Look at her character!!

And I, a child, would stare at the incredibly, woefully, cripplingly stupid individual saying this and decide they were simply too small-minded to understand what a Strong Female Character was.

Now, decades later and still immeasurably disappointed by the definition of a Strong Female Character, have come up with a way to say it that hasn't been claimed by idiots:

Can she kick my ass? No?

Port Nowhere was supposed to be relatively neutral ground, deep within space.

How a gunfight always seemed to break out when Korin was present was a weird coincidence. That was his story, he decided as he took cover beside an overturned pazaak table, and he was sticking to it.

Beside him, Risha had the exact same expression that she wore while lecturing her captain on his lack of focus or adult maturity or common sense. "How does this always happen when I go anywhere with you?" she complained.

"Let it not be said that I don't know how to show a lady a good time," Korin cheerfully said, and promptly got a smack on the arm. "Ow!"

"You deserved that," Risha retorted, turning her focus back to looking down the barrel of her sniper rifle. "Opening your mouth like that in front of one of the most influential commodores in the underworld… and who works for Rogun, might I add."

"How was I supposed to know that little detail?" Korin protested as he straightened up enough to fire a couple of shots over the edge of the table. A yell from a few metres away told him that he'd hit his target. "Not like he had a name tag on saying who he worked for or anything."

"Not that you would have read it before saying something insulting about his pazaak skills," Risha muttered. "Next time, do what I say and try to not overtly insult anyone."

"You have no sense of fun," Korin grumbled.

"I'm a balance to you and your excessive 'sense of fun'," Risha pointed out as she fired a few rounds off, downing her targets with deadly accuracy. “Serious question, but how have you survived as long as you have?”

“With charisma and wit and dashing good looks, obviously.” Korin ducked a return shot over his head and fired back in the direction of its origin. “And being a better shot than these morons.”

“... I’ll grant you being the better shot,” Risha grudgingly admitted. “And being good looking.”

“Would it kill you to say that like you mean it?”

“It might kill both of us to stay here much longer.” Risha risked a quick glance over the table, then looked at Korin and shook her head. “If you’re done shooting up the place…?”

“I’ve never used a gun before and I’m not about to start now.”

Mahou Shoujo Tokushusen Asuka

Rating: 2/3

Categories: action, contemporary fantasy, dark fantasy, drama, dub, fantasy, gunfights, magic, magical girl, manga adaptation, mature themes, military, monsters, physical abuse, school, seinen, urban fantasy, violence

As a kid Asuka dreamed of becoming a magical girl but now at the end of a war which saw six of her team members die she regrets her childhood wish. Now that the world has been saved all she wants is a normal, quiet life but the enemy doesn’t stay down for long. Basically military magical girls.

[Masterlist] Wow, so this one gave me a lot of trouble, but I think I did okay in the end. Picking a triad was the main problem, and once I settled that it came pretty easily. Thank you for your help, @mangaraven. OT3 for this drabble: Inara/Mal/Nandi from Firefly.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me. I told you this was a bad idea, Mal.” Inara ducked down behind the overturned dining table and glared at the man currently returning fire over the edge of the table.

“A bad- This was your idea!” Mal snapped back, taking his eyes off the Alliance thugs currently pouring into the fancy restaurant. Gunfire answered his sudden lapse, and he returned his attention to picking them off one by one from behind his makeshift cover.

“It was not!” Inara yelped, offended.

A bullet shattered the edge of the table and sent shrapnel flying into Mal’s shoulder and making him curse in rapid-fire Chinese. Inara joined him, while also pulling him towards her side of the table, which was less damaged. “You said-” Mal began, voice low now that they were all but pressed together, knocking knees and sharing breath as they huddled behind their paltry shelter. “You said you wanted to do something classy, so I took the two o’ you somewhere classy.”

Inara gaped at him. “I- That wasn’t-” She tried to protest.

“Through that door, now.” Mal barked, and Inara went, trusting his judgement. She heard him covering her with more gunshots, and she made it to the doorway through to the kitchens unscathed. She almost ran into Nandi, who caught her by the arms and grinned at her.

“Nice of you to join me.” She teased, swooping in for quick kiss. Inara rolled her eyes fondly, and let Nandi nudge her out of the way, so that she could create cover for Mal to make his escape from the overly crowded dining room too. Inara swallowed down her guilt, because she had made a comment about wishing they could do something a bit more classy than candle-lit picnics in the bridge. Mal, the stupid, sweet man, had taken her seriously and brought them here, and put them in the Alliance’s cross-hairs.

Mal ducked into the room, cursing, and Nandi lowered her gun in favour of throwing something back into the dining room. “What was-” Inara began warily.

“Take cover!” Nandi advised through a wild girn.

Inara gaped at her lover, hardly daring to believe what logic was telling her Nandi had just done. Mal was less shocked, and hustled both women into a corner impressively quickly, chivalrously covering them both with his own body. He was grinning, which kind of made Inara want to punch him, or possibly kiss him, she couldn’t quite decide.

“And three… two… one…” Nandi murmured quietly. “Zero.”

The last word was drowned out by the explosion, and a wall of force and heat slammed into them, even in their protected little corner behind some of the industrial cooking appliances that populated the kitchen. Inara ducked her head against Nandi’s shoulder to protect her face, and felt the other woman hiding similarly against her hair.

“Since when do you carry explosives?” Mal asked Nandi appreciatively.

“Since my lover decided Alliance central was a great idea for a date.” Nandi shot back as if it should be obvious. Mal adopted a wounded expression and opened his mouth, likely to protest, once again, that it had been Inara’s idea. Instead of letting him, Inara kissed him quiet, partly in apology and partly in gratitude, and partly just because he was kind of cute when he tried to look all wronged and hard-done-by.

“How about we get back to the ship before we settle in for a discussion about appropriate date locations, hmm?” Inara suggested pointedly, once she was sure Mal wasn’t going to continue arguing the moment she let him have his tongue back. She got to her feet before he could answer, and headed for the door.

“Good plan.” Nandi agreed, following her after pecking Mal on the cheek.