Shousetsu Bang*Bang Wiki - User contributions [en]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:55:55Z

DL:

Her Lover's Salt is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 79]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>I can't stop thinking, lately, of your long legs, so brown and so pretty against my own gray-green skin, and how it feels to wake up and run my hands up them in the morning.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Long-distance lovers write explicit letters to each other as they wait for their separation to come to an end.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's Notes==

I used to absolutely hate, and now only tolerate, the word "lover." I hear it in my head with this mix of saccharine, melodramatic, and slightly exhibitionist connotations that I just don't like. I think I associate it with the Mercedes Lackey books my first college boyfriend got me reading. It's still not a word I use for real people's personal lives, but this phrase came to me as I was editing, and it seemed right for this pair, and so here we are.

I started writing this on a rainy day. I was in a coffee shop with a sweetie who was in town for a long visit. All of the people I'm involved with live at least two time zones away, so while one of my sweeties was actually in the room, my mind was on all of the ways we conduct relationships via text and voice, over distance. The writing tank was feeling very empty, but I really wanted to get some words on paper during that afternoon in a cafe, and I really wanted to get back into a habit of contributing to S2B2. Since text-based relationship communication was very on my mind, I took a swing at an explicit letter. I finished it and wrote a second explicit letter that weekend, while cooling off in a public library.

Maybe I decided these characters would be academics separated by distance and funding because we'd been having a lot of conversations about how distance sucks, and about how academia's expectations that you'll move around are hell. I probably found epistolary work to be easy to write when tired because I spent my middle school and high school years writing long letters by hand to a number of different pen pals, even my own classmates, because we lived in a very rural place and it cost long distance charges to call my classmates over the summer. Why space, and why an interspecies couple? Because those are my jams, and have been since I was a little kid reading Vonda McIntyre. Why a clasper fold? Because [https://www.google.com/search?ei=vOUPXY66EfDc5gLFrpLoCg&q=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&oq=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&gs_l=psy-ab.3...23126.24435..24854...0.0..0.233.1120.3j6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i304i39j33i10.MT63sCpOVWM genital geometric morphometrics studies of marine vertebrates are so cool].

[[category:text]][[category: 2019]][[category: stub]]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:54:33Z

DL:

Her Lover's Salt is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 79]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>I can't stop thinking, lately, of your long legs, so brown and so pretty against my own gray-green skin, and how it feels to wake up and run my hands up them in the morning.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Long-distance lovers write explicit letters to each other as they wait for their separation to come to an end.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's Notes==

I used to absolutely hate, and now only tolerate, the word "lover." I hear it in my head with this mix of saccharine, melodramatic, and slightly exhibitionist connotations that I just don't like. I think I associate it with the Mercedes Lackey books my first college boyfriend got me reading. It's still not a word I use for real people's personal lives, but this phrase came to me as I was editing, and it seemed right for this pair, and so here we are.

I started writing this on a rainy day. I was in a coffee shop with a sweetie who was in town for a long visit. All of the people I'm involved with live at least two time zones away, so while one of my sweeties was actually in the room, my mind was on all of the ways we conduct relationships via text and voice, over distance. The writing tank was feeling very empty, but I really wanted to get some words on paper during that afternoon in a cafe, and I really wanted to get back into a habit of contributing to S2B2. Since text-based relationship communication was very on my mind, I took a swing at an explicit letter. I finished it and wrote a second explicit letter that weekend, while cooling off in a public library.

Maybe I decided these characters would be academics separated by distance and funding because we'd been having a lot of conversations about how distance sucks, and about how academia's expectations that you'll move around are hell. I probably found epistolary work to be easy to write when tired because I spent my middle school and high school years writing long letters by hand to a number of different pen pals, even my own classmates, because we lived in a very rural place and it was long distance to call people I saw every day during the school year. Why space, and why an interspecies couple? Because those are my jams, and have been since I was a little kid reading Vonda McIntyre. Why a clasper fold? Because [https://www.google.com/search?ei=vOUPXY66EfDc5gLFrpLoCg&q=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&oq=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&gs_l=psy-ab.3...23126.24435..24854...0.0..0.233.1120.3j6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i304i39j33i10.MT63sCpOVWM genital geometric morphometrics studies of marine vertebrates are so cool].

[[category:text]][[category: 2019]][[category: stub]]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:53:55Z

DL:

Her Lover's Salt is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 79]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>I can't stop thinking, lately, of your long legs, so brown and so pretty against my own gray-green skin, and how it feels to wake up and run my hands up them in the morning.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Long-distance lovers write explicit letters to each other as they wait for their separation to come to an end.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's Notes==

I used to absolutely hate, and now only tolerate, the word "lover." I hear it in my head with this mix of saccharine, melodramatic, and brazen connotations that I just don't like. I think I associate it with the Mercedes Lackey books my first college boyfriend got me reading. It's still not a word I use for real people's personal lives, but this phrase came to me as I was editing, and it seemed right for this pair, and so here we are.

I started writing this on a rainy day. I was in a coffee shop with a sweetie who was in town for a long visit. All of the people I'm involved with live at least two time zones away, so while one of my sweeties was actually in the room, my mind was on all of the ways we conduct relationships via text and voice, over distance. The writing tank was feeling very empty, but I really wanted to get some words on paper during that afternoon in a cafe, and I really wanted to get back into a habit of contributing to S2B2. Since text-based relationship communication was very on my mind, I took a swing at an explicit letter. I finished it and wrote a second explicit letter that weekend, while cooling off in a public library.

Maybe I decided these characters would be academics separated by distance and funding because we'd been having a lot of conversations about how distance sucks, and about how academia's expectations that you'll move around are hell. I probably found epistolary work to be easy to write when tired because I spent my middle school and high school years writing long letters by hand to a number of different pen pals, even my own classmates, because we lived in a very rural place and it was long distance to call people I saw every day during the school year. Why space, and why an interspecies couple? Because those are my jams, and have been since I was a little kid reading Vonda McIntyre. Why a clasper fold? Because [https://www.google.com/search?ei=vOUPXY66EfDc5gLFrpLoCg&q=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&oq=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&gs_l=psy-ab.3...23126.24435..24854...0.0..0.233.1120.3j6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i304i39j33i10.MT63sCpOVWM genital geometric morphometrics studies of marine vertebrates are so cool].

[[category:text]][[category: 2019]][[category: stub]]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:53:02Z

DL:

Her Lover's Salt is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 79]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>I can't stop thinking, lately, of your long legs, so brown and so pretty against my own gray-green skin, and how it feels to wake up and run my hands up them in the morning.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Long-distance lovers write explicit letters to each other as they wait for their separation to come to an end.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's Notes==

I used to absolutely hate, and now only tolerate, the word "lover." I hear it in my head with this mix of saccharine, melodramatic, and brazen connotations that I just don't like. I think I associate it with the Mercedes Lackey books my first college boyfriend got me reading. It's still not a word I use for real people's personal lives, but this phrase came to me as I was editing, and it seemed right for this pair, and so here we are.

I started writing this on a rainy day. I was in a coffee shop with a sweetie who was in town for a long visit. All of the people I'm involved with live at least two time zones away, so while one of my sweeties was actually in the room, my mind was on all of the ways we conduct relationships via text and voice, over distance. The writing tank was feeling very empty, but I really wanted to get some words on paper during that afternoon in a cafe, and I really wanted to get back to a habit of contributing to S2B2 for a while. Since text-based relationship communication was very on my mind, I took a swing at an explicit letter. I finished it and wrote a second explicit letter that weekend, while cooling off in a public library.

Maybe I decided these characters would be academics separated by distance and funding because we'd been having a lot of conversations about how distance sucks, and about how academia's expectations that you'll move around are hell. I probably found epistolary work to be easy to write when tired because I spent my middle school and high school years writing long letters by hand to a number of different pen pals, even my own classmates, because we lived in a very rural place and it was long distance to call people I saw every day during the school year. Why space, and why an interspecies couple? Because those are my jams, and have been since I was a little kid reading Vonda McIntyre. Why a clasper fold? Because [https://www.google.com/search?ei=vOUPXY66EfDc5gLFrpLoCg&q=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&oq=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&gs_l=psy-ab.3...23126.24435..24854...0.0..0.233.1120.3j6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i304i39j33i10.MT63sCpOVWM genital geometric morphometrics studies of marine vertebrates are so cool].

[[category:text]][[category: 2019]][[category: stub]]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:52:38Z

DL: fixing link AGAIN

Her Lover's Salt is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 79]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>I can't stop thinking, lately, of your long legs, so brown and so pretty against my own gray-green skin, and how it feels to wake up and run my hands up them in the morning.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Long-distance lovers write explicit letters to each other as they wait for their separation to come to an end.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's Notes==

I used to absolutely hate, and now only tolerate, the word "lover." I hear it in my head with this mix of saccharine, melodramatic, and brazen connotations that I just don't like. I think I associate it with the Mercedes Lackey books my first college boyfriend got me reading. It's still not a word I use for real people's personal lives, but this phrase came to me as I was editing, and it seemed right for this pair, and so here we are.

I started writing this on a rainy day. I was in a coffee shop with a sweetie who was in town for a long visit. All of the people I'm involved with live at least two time zones away, so while one of my sweeties was actually in the room, my mind was on all of the ways we conduct relationships via text and voice, over distance. The writing tank was feeling very empty, but I really wanted to get some words on paper during that afternoon in a cafe, and I really wanted to get back to a habit of contributing to S2B2 for a while. Since text-based relationship communication was very on my mind, I took a swing at an explicit letter. I finished it and wrote a second explicit letter that weekend, while cooling off in a public library.

Maybe I decided these characters would be academics separated by distance and funding because we'd been having a lot of conversations about how distance sucks, and about how academia's expectations that you'll move around are hell. I probably found epistolary work to be easy to write when tired because I spent my middle school and high school years writing long letters by hand to a number of different pen pals, even my own classmates, because we lived in a very rural place and it was long distance to call people I saw every day during the school year. Why space, and why an interspecies couple? Because those are my jams, and have been since I was a little kid reading Vonda McIntyre. Why a clasper fold? Because [[https://www.google.com/search?ei=vOUPXY66EfDc5gLFrpLoCg&q=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&oq=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&gs_l=psy-ab.3...23126.24435..24854...0.0..0.233.1120.3j6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i304i39j33i10.MT63sCpOVWM genital geometric morphometrics studies of marine vertebrates are so cool]].

[[category:text]][[category: 2019]][[category: stub]]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:51:10Z

DL: fixing link i hope

Her Lover's Salt is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 79]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>I can't stop thinking, lately, of your long legs, so brown and so pretty against my own gray-green skin, and how it feels to wake up and run my hands up them in the morning.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Long-distance lovers write explicit letters to each other as they wait for their separation to come to an end.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's Notes==

I used to absolutely hate, and now only tolerate, the word "lover." I hear it in my head with this mix of saccharine, melodramatic, and brazen connotations that I just don't like. I think I associate it with the Mercedes Lackey books my first college boyfriend got me reading. It's still not a word I use for real people's personal lives, but this phrase came to me as I was editing, and it seemed right for this pair, and so here we are.

I started writing this on a rainy day. I was in a coffee shop with a sweetie who was in town for a long visit. All of the people I'm involved with live at least two time zones away, so while one of my sweeties was actually in the room, my mind was on all of the ways we conduct relationships via text and voice, over distance. The writing tank was feeling very empty, but I really wanted to get some words on paper during that afternoon in a cafe, and I really wanted to get back to a habit of contributing to S2B2 for a while. Since text-based relationship communication was very on my mind, I took a swing at an explicit letter. I finished it and wrote a second explicit letter that weekend, while cooling off in a public library.

Maybe I decided these characters would be academics separated by distance and funding because we'd been having a lot of conversations about how distance sucks, and about how academia's expectations that you'll move around are hell. I probably found epistolary work to be easy to write when tired because I spent my middle school and high school years writing long letters by hand to a number of different pen pals, even my own classmates, because we lived in a very rural place and it was long distance to call people I saw every day during the school year. Why space, and why an interspecies couple? Because those are my jams, and have been since I was a little kid reading Vonda McIntyre. Why a clasper fold? Because [[genital geometric morphometrics is an amazing area of evolutionary research https://www.google.com/search?ei=vOUPXY66EfDc5gLFrpLoCg&q=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&oq=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&gs_l=psy-ab.3...23126.24435..24854...0.0..0.233.1120.3j6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i304i39j33i10.MT63sCpOVWM]].

[[category:text]][[category: 2019]][[category: stub]]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:50:41Z

DL:

Her Lover's Salt is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 79]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>I can't stop thinking, lately, of your long legs, so brown and so pretty against my own gray-green skin, and how it feels to wake up and run my hands up them in the morning.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Long-distance lovers write explicit letters to each other as they wait for their separation to come to an end.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's Notes==

I used to absolutely hate, and now only tolerate, the word "lover." I hear it in my head with this mix of saccharine, melodramatic, and brazen connotations that I just don't like. I think I associate it with the Mercedes Lackey books my first college boyfriend got me reading. It's still not a word I use for real people's personal lives, but this phrase came to me as I was editing, and it seemed right for this pair, and so here we are.

I started writing this on a rainy day. I was in a coffee shop with a sweetie who was in town for a long visit. All of the people I'm involved with live at least two time zones away, so while one of my sweeties was actually in the room, my mind was on all of the ways we conduct relationships via text and voice, over distance. The writing tank was feeling very empty, but I really wanted to get some words on paper during that afternoon in a cafe, and I really wanted to get back to a habit of contributing to S2B2 for a while. Since text-based relationship communication was very on my mind, I took a swing at an explicit letter. I finished it and wrote a second explicit letter that weekend, while cooling off in a public library.

Maybe I decided these characters would be academics separated by distance and funding because we'd been having a lot of conversations about how distance sucks, and about how academia's expectations that you'll move around are hell. I probably found epistolary work to be easy to write when tired because I spent my middle school and high school years writing long letters by hand to a number of different pen pals, even my own classmates, because we lived in a very rural place and it was long distance to call people I saw every day during the school year. Why space, and why an interspecies couple? Because those are my jams, and have been since I was a little kid reading Vonda McIntyre. Why a clasper fold? Because [genital geometric morphometrics is an amazing area of evolutionary research https://www.google.com/search?ei=vOUPXY66EfDc5gLFrpLoCg&q=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&oq=2D+and+3D+genital+geometric+morphometrics&gs_l=psy-ab.3...23126.24435..24854...0.0..0.233.1120.3j6j1......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i304i39j33i10.MT63sCpOVWM].

[[category:text]][[category: 2019]][[category: stub]]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:46:11Z

DL:

Her Lover's Salt is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 79]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>I can't stop thinking, lately, of your long legs, so brown and so pretty against my own gray-green skin, and how it feels to wake up and run my hands up them in the morning.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Long-distance lovers write explicit letters to each other as they wait for their separation to come to an end.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's Notes==

I used to absolutely hate, and now only tolerate, the word "lover." I hear it in my head with this mix of saccharine, melodramatic, and brazen connotations that I just don't like. I think I associate it with the Mercedes Lackey books my first college boyfriend got me reading. It's still not a word I use for real people's personal lives, but this phrase came to me as I was editing, and it seemed right for this pair, and so here we are.

I started writing this on a rainy day. I was in a coffee shop with a sweetie who was in town for a long visit. All of the people I'm involved with live at least two time zones away, so while one of my sweeties was actually in the room, my mind was on all of the ways we conduct relationships via text and voice, over distance. The writing tank was feeling very empty, but I really wanted to get some words on paper during that afternoon in a cafe, and I really wanted to get back to a habit of contributing to S2B2 for a while. Since text-based relationship communication was very on my mind, I took a swing at an explicit letter. I finished it and wrote a second explicit letter that weekend, while cooling off in a public library.

Maybe I decided these characters would be academics separated by distance and funding because we'd been having a lot of conversations about how distance sucks, and about how academia's expectations that you'll move around are hell. I probably found epistolary work to be easy to write when tired because I spent my middle school and high school years writing long letters by hand to a number of different pen pals, even my own classmates, because we lived in a very rural place and it was long distance to call people I saw every day during the school year. Why space, and why an interspecies couple? Because those are my jams, and have been since I was a little kid reading Vonda McIntyre. Why a clasper fold? Because real life genital morphology of marine vertebrates is amazing, and you gotta hold on somehow, right?

[[category:text]][[category: 2019]][[category: stub]]

Her Lover's Salt

2019-06-23T20:31:14Z

DL: composing author notes

Himawari

2019-06-23T19:50:33Z

DL: Adding Issue 79 piece

Himawari (ヒマワリ) contributed their first story to S2B2 in 2014, in [[Issue 48]], but they've been reading stories and cheering on other contributors for a while now. Their Twitter is [http://twitter.com/coreopsismajor @coreopsismajor], their Tumblr is [http://coreomajoris.tumblr.com coreomajoris], and their ЖЖ is [http://digitalemur.livejournal.com Digitalemur]. They are also [http://archiveofourown.org/users/dlemur Dlemur at AO3].

== Contributions ==
Himawari has written the following stories:

*[[$LoveStory]]
*[[Current]]
*[[He Will My Shield And Portion Be]]
*[[Holographic-synthesis-waltz|{Holographic-synthesis-waltz}]]
*[[Sunrise]]
*[[Throw Away These Numbers]]
*[[A treatise on the mating habits of Bibliothecarus bibliothecarii]]
*[[V_Zoni]]
*[[Her Lover's Salt]]

[[category:author]]

Himawari

2018-07-31T00:06:23Z

DL:

Himawari

2018-07-31T00:05:55Z

DL: adding July 2018/ Yes, And 6 story

Himawari (ヒマワリ) contributed their first story to S2B2 in 2014, in [[Issue 48]], but they've been reading and cheering on other contributors for a while now. Their Twitter is [http://twitter.com/coreopsismajor @coreopsismajor], their Tumblr is [http://coreomajoris.tumblr.com coreomajoris], and their ЖЖ is [http://digitalemur.livejournal.com Digitalemur]. They are also [http://archiveofourown.org/users/dlemur Dlemur at AO3].

== Contributions ==
Himawari has written the following stories:

*[[$LoveStory]]
*[[Current]]
*[[He Will My Shield And Portion Be]]
*[[Holographic-synthesis-waltz|{Holographic-synthesis-waltz}]]
*[[Sunrise]]
*[[Throw Away These Numbers]]
*[[A treatise on the mating habits of Bibliothecarus bibliothecarii]]
*[[V_Zoni]]

[[category:author]]

V Zoni

2018-07-31T00:04:37Z

DL: /* Summary */ adding summary to blockquote

V Zoni is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It ran in [[Yes, And 6]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/v-zoni

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>"It's a delight to come home to the flat and find Serhiy's dick in Lyudmila's mouth." </BLOCKQUOTE>

One lover comes home to find the other two already engaged in sexy fun times, and it only gets hotter and wetter from there.

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's notes==

Someone asked me if hey, maybe I could contribute something to Yes, And 6. The thing that immediately popped into my head was the part of the Dirty Computer emotion picture set to "Don't Judge Me," where you see the main character with the man and the woman who are pretty clearly her lovers, spending time on the beach together.

This came into my head over a lunch break, and I don't really know how I got from that to the setting I ended up with. It's a mixture of things I like! Cyborgs. Trans folks. Genderfuck, which is to say, people who challenge notions of gender, in protest against things like homophobia or transphobia, or just for the hell of it. And finally, the cultures and struggles of Slavic peoples.

While the setting is a possible future, many parts of this story exist today. The broadest definitions of a cyborg include a person wearing medical devices like contact lenses, while implanted pacemakers or insulin pumps meet some of the more narrow definitions. And certainly, people around the world have experienced moral judgment and prejudice for the devices and procedures they seek, and for the ways they modify their bodies for aesthetic reasons. While some of the philosophical and cultural contexts differ between the West and the eastern Slavic nations, we are sadly alike in terms of the prevalence of collaboration between religious conservatives and political ideologues to consolidate power through persecution of vulnerable people. Hell, I might lose some protections against transphobic discrimination in my own extremely liberal state this November, if a ballot issue passes. [https://www.freedommassachusetts.org/ Yes on 3 in 2018], Massachusetts! And if you know the history of why S2B2 has moved away from LiveJournal, you know something about the history of government-sanctioned homophobic and transphobic oppression in Russia, and why it wouldn't be crazy for an authority like, say, the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_of_Moscow_and_all_Rus' Moscow Patriarchate] to whip up even more severe attacks on these freedoms.

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone Zona] of this story also exists today. It's in northern Ukraine, and while it isn't actually known for mammals of unusual size, it is a refuge for many of the larger mammal species of the region. There are actually two zones, one administered by Ukraine and one administered by Belarus. I set this story in the town of Pripyat itself, near the epicenter of the disaster. The ferris wheel in town features in many pictures tourists take there, and yes, there is tourism to the zone now.

This story mixes Russian and Ukrainian names and other words. Lyudmila and Anatoli are refugees originally from Russia, and Serhiy is Ukrainian and speaks Ukrainian. The languages are quite similar, so the characters mix them at will. The Ukrainian Exclusion Zone is in a moderately ethnically Russian region of Ukraine. I almost used only Russian words, as I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, but I'm trying to get better about that, because the whole reason I speak one instead of Ukrainian, or even the Slovak my great-grandfather spoke and my grandfather could read, is imperialism. And also love of Russian culture! But definitely partly imperialism.

Any mistakes are mine. Many thanks to [[Okō]] for the quick beta skim, and to [[Sparklebeard]] for answering some sex ed questions along the way.

[[category:text]]
[[category:Yes, And]]
[[category:2018]]
[[category:stub]]

V Zoni

2018-07-31T00:03:34Z

DL: minor text changes

V Zoni is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It ran in [[Yes, And 6]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/v-zoni

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>"It's a delight to come home to the flat and find Serhiy's dick in Lyudmila's mouth." </BLOCKQUOTE>

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's notes==

Someone asked me if hey, maybe I could contribute something to Yes, And 6. The thing that immediately popped into my head was the part of the Dirty Computer emotion picture set to "Don't Judge Me," where you see the main character with the man and the woman who are pretty clearly her lovers, spending time on the beach together.

This came into my head over a lunch break, and I don't really know how I got from that to the setting I ended up with. It's a mixture of things I like! Cyborgs. Trans folks. Genderfuck, which is to say, people who challenge notions of gender, in protest against things like homophobia or transphobia, or just for the hell of it. And finally, the cultures and struggles of Slavic peoples.

While the setting is a possible future, many parts of this story exist today. The broadest definitions of a cyborg include a person wearing medical devices like contact lenses, while implanted pacemakers or insulin pumps meet some of the more narrow definitions. And certainly, people around the world have experienced moral judgment and prejudice for the devices and procedures they seek, and for the ways they modify their bodies for aesthetic reasons. While some of the philosophical and cultural contexts differ between the West and the eastern Slavic nations, we are sadly alike in terms of the prevalence of collaboration between religious conservatives and political ideologues to consolidate power through persecution of vulnerable people. Hell, I might lose some protections against transphobic discrimination in my own extremely liberal state this November, if a ballot issue passes. [https://www.freedommassachusetts.org/ Yes on 3 in 2018], Massachusetts! And if you know the history of why S2B2 has moved away from LiveJournal, you know something about the history of government-sanctioned homophobic and transphobic oppression in Russia, and why it wouldn't be crazy for an authority like, say, the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_of_Moscow_and_all_Rus' Moscow Patriarchate] to whip up even more severe attacks on these freedoms.

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone Zona] of this story also exists today. It's in northern Ukraine, and while it isn't actually known for mammals of unusual size, it is a refuge for many of the larger mammal species of the region. There are actually two zones, one administered by Ukraine and one administered by Belarus. I set this story in the town of Pripyat itself, near the epicenter of the disaster. The ferris wheel in town features in many pictures tourists take there, and yes, there is tourism to the zone now.

This story mixes Russian and Ukrainian names and other words. Lyudmila and Anatoli are refugees originally from Russia, and Serhiy is Ukrainian and speaks Ukrainian. The languages are quite similar, so the characters mix them at will. The Ukrainian Exclusion Zone is in a moderately ethnically Russian region of Ukraine. I almost used only Russian words, as I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, but I'm trying to get better about that, because the whole reason I speak one instead of Ukrainian, or even the Slovak my great-grandfather spoke and my grandfather could read, is imperialism. And also love of Russian culture! But definitely partly imperialism.

Any mistakes are mine. Many thanks to [[Okō]] for the quick beta skim, and to [[Sparklebeard]] for answering some sex ed questions along the way.

[[category:text]]
[[category:Yes, And]]
[[category:2018]]
[[category:stub]]

V Zoni

2018-07-31T00:01:50Z

DL:

V Zoni is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It ran in [[Yes, And 6]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/v-zoni

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>"It's a delight to come home to the flat and find Serhiy's dick in Lyudmila's mouth." </BLOCKQUOTE>

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's notes==

Someone asked me if hey, maybe I could contribute something to Yes, And 6. The thing that immediately popped into my head was the part of the Dirty Computer emotion picture set to "Don't Judge Me," where you see the main character with the man and the woman who are pretty clearly her lovers, spending time on the beach together.

This came into my head over a lunch break, and I don't really know how I got from that to the setting I ended up with. It's a mixture of things I like! Cyborgs. Trans folks. Genderfuck, which is to say, people who challenge notions of gender, in protest against things like homophobia or transphobia, or just for the hell of it. And finally, the cultures and struggles of Slavic peoples.

While the setting is a possible future, many parts of this story exist today. The broadest definitions of a cyborg include a person wearing medical devices like contact lenses, while implanted pacemakers or insulin pumps meet some of the more narrow definitions. And certainly, people around the world have experienced moral judgment and prejudice for the devices and procedures they seek, and for the ways they modify their bodies for aesthetic reasons. While some of the philosophical and cultural contexts differ between the West and the eastern Slavic nations, collaboration between religious conservatives and political ideologues to consolidate power through persecution of vulnerable people certainly already exists in both regions. Hell, I might lose some protections against transphobic discrimination in my own extremely liberal state this November, if a ballot issue passes. [https://www.freedommassachusetts.org/ Yes on 3 in 2018], Massachusetts! And if you know the history of why S2B2 has moved away from LiveJournal, you know something about the history of government-sanctioned homophobic and transphobic oppression in Russia, and why it wouldn't be crazy for an authority like, say, the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_of_Moscow_and_all_Rus' Moscow Patriarchate] to whip up even more severe attacks on these freedoms.

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone Zona] of this story also exists today. It's in northern Ukraine, and while it isn't actually known for mammals of unusual size, it is a refuge for many of the larger mammal species of the region. There are actually two zones, one administered by Ukraine and one administered by Belarus. I set this story in the town of Pripyat itself, near the epicenter of the disaster. The ferris wheel in town features in many pictures tourists take there, and yes, there is tourism to the zone now.

This story mixes Russian and Ukrainian names and other words. Lyudmila and Anatoli are refugees originally from Russia, and Serhiy is Ukrainian and speaks Ukrainian. The languages are quite similar, so the characters mix them at will. The Ukrainian Exclusion Zone is in a moderately ethnically Russian region of Ukraine. I almost used only Russian words, as I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, but I'm trying to get better about that, because the whole reason I speak one instead of Ukrainian, or even the Slovak my great-grandfather spoke and my grandfather could read, is imperialism. And also love of Russian culture! But definitely partly imperialism.

Any mistakes are mine. Many thanks to [[Okō]] for the quick beta skim, and to [[Sparklebeard]] for answering some sex ed questions along the way.

[[category:text]]
[[category:Yes, And]]
[[category:2018]]
[[category:stub]]

V Zoni

2018-07-30T23:59:35Z

DL: Adding summary, connections section, and author's notes.

V Zoni is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It ran in [[Yes, And 6]] at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/v-zoni

==Summary==

<BLOCKQUOTE>"It's a delight to come home to the flat and find Serhiy's dick in Lyudmila's mouth." </BLOCKQUOTE>

==Connections==

No connections to other stories or settings.

==Author's notes==

Someone asked me if hey, maybe I could contribute something to Yes, And 6. The thing that immediately popped into my head was the part of the Dirty Computer emotion picture set to "Don't Judge Me," where you see the main character with the man and the woman who are pretty clearly her lovers, spending time on the beach together.

This came into my head over a lunch break, and I don't really know how I got from that to the setting I ended up with. It's a mixture of things I like! Cyborgs. Trans folks. Genderfuck, which is to say, people who challenge notions of gender, in protest against things like homophobia or transphobia, or just for the hell of it. And finally, the cultures and struggles of Slavic peoples.

While the setting is a possible future, many parts of this story exist today. The broadest definitions of a cyborg include a person wearing medical devices like contact lenses, while implanted pacemakers or insulin pumps meet some of the more narrow definitions. And certainly, people around the world have experienced moral judgment and prejudice for the devices and procedures they seek, and for the ways they modify their bodies for aesthetic reasons. While some of the philosophical and cultural contexts differ between the West and the eastern Slavic nations, collaboration between religious conservatives and political ideologues to consolidate power through persecution of vulnerable people certainly already exists in both regions. Hell, I might lose some protections against transphobic discrimination in my own extremely liberal state this November, if a ballot issue passes. [https://www.freedommassachusetts.org/Yes on 3 in 2018], Massachusetts! And if you know the history of why S2B2 has moved away from LiveJournal, you know something about the history of government-sanctioned homophobic and transphobic oppression in Russia, and why it wouldn't be crazy for an authority like, say, the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_of_Moscow_and_all_Rus' Moscow Patriarchate] to whip up even more severe attacks on these freedoms.

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone Zona] of this story also exists today. It's in northern Ukraine, and while it isn't actually known for mammals of unusual size, it is a refuge for many of the larger mammal species of the region. There are actually two zones, one administered by Ukraine and one administered by Belarus. I set this story in the town of Pripyat itself, near the epicenter of the disaster. The ferris wheel in town features in many pictures tourists take there, and yes, there is tourism to the zone now.

This story mixes Russian and Ukrainian names and other words. Lyudmila and Anatoli are refugees originally from Russia, and Serhiy is Ukrainian and speaks Ukrainian. The languages are quite similar, so the characters mix them at will. The Ukrainian Exclusion Zone is in a moderately ethnically Russian region of Ukraine. I almost used only Russian words, as I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, but I'm trying to get better about that, because the whole reason I speak one instead of Ukrainian, or even the Slovak my great-grandfather spoke and my grandfather could read, is imperialism. And also love of Russian culture! But definitely partly imperialism.

Any mistakes are mine. Many thanks to [[Okō]] for the quick beta skim, and to [[Sparklebeard]] for answering some sex ed questions along the way.

[[category:text]]
[[category:Yes, And]]
[[category:2018]]
[[category:stub]]

Rec: Bisexuality

2015-09-24T02:07:42Z

DL:

Stories that contain characters who either identify as bisexual or, during the course of a story, express both same- and different-gender sexual attraction. These bi desires can be mentioned, implied, and/or explicit. Pansexuality totally counts too. ''This list is open for editing.''

*[[Always Somebody Better]], by [[Tsukizubon Saruko]]
*[[And All the King's Men]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Are You Now or Have You Ever Been]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Ash and Incense]], by [[Iron Eater]]
*[[The Author is Dead]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Bedtime Stories (Issue 47)|Bedtime Stories]], by [[Yukiyama Hibana]]
*[[Behind the Scenes]], by [[Kuroobaa]]
*[[Beyond the Sea]], by [[Iron Eater]]
*[[Big Name Fan]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Bless Your Heart]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[The Breathing Lessons]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Busted]], by [[shukyou]] and [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Canaan Falls]], by [[Tsukizubon Saruko]]
*[[Current]], by Himawari
*[[Dating, and How to Make Apostasy Work For You]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[Decanter]], by [[Iron Eater]]
*[[Dinner at Dido's]], by [[Iron Eater]]
*[[Double Shot Red-Eye With Room]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[Duet for Tenor and Transradial Orthosis]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[East]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[El Presidio Rides North]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Everything living tries to get back to the soil]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[The Frying Pan Into]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[God(dess) Bless you, Ruby Woo]], by [[Kimyō Tabibito]]
*[[Her Lamp Does Not Go Out at Night]], by [[Koiwa Shishiko]]
*[[Heterogenesis]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Holding Out]], by [[Kougyoku]]
*{[[Holographic-synthesis-waltz]]}, by [[Himawari]]
*[[How Far You've Come]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Ibeji]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[In the Bush]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Inspiration]], by [[Fuuten Eki]]
*[[International Dissertation Avoidance Day]], by [[Kimyō Tabibito]]
*[[It Started With A Kiss]], by [[The Autumn Poet]]
*[[The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Little America]], by [[Tsukizubon Saruko]]
*[[$LoveStory]], by [[Himawari]]
*[[Multi-Touch]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Murder Ballad]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Natural and Artificial Flavorings]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Night Begins the Day]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Now It Can Be Told]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Our Lives in These Empty Spaces Aside]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Quantification]], by [[Kimyō Tabibito]]
*[[The Revelation of Orev]], by [[Koiwa Shishiko]]
*[[Riding Drag]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Riverfront Blues]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[Robin, Or, My Adventures In The Adult Entertainment Industry]], by [[Nara Kagerou]]
*[[Sid Stills' Blues (Three-Quarters in the Bag in Alphabet City)]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Smuggling, and How to Make Interstellar Exploration Work For You]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[so werd ich dich auf meinem Blute tragen]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Suspension]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Terlingua]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Third Wheel]], by [[Tsukizubon Saruko]]
*[[This Year's Prom King]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Throw Away These Numbers]], by Himawari
*[[A treatise on the mating habits of Bibliothecarus bibliothecarii]], by [[Himawari]]
*[[Unidentified Friendship Objective]], by [[Ogiwara Saki]]
*[[Ve Cherinitat ral ve Mofellivun]], by [[juou no zen]]
*[[War Bonds]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[The Way That The Sunshine Gleams From Your Wedding Band]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[Welcome Back, Class of 1990]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Yes, And]], by [[Yukiyama Hibana]]
*[[You Just Might Get It]], by [[juou no zen]]
*[[心也許很小很小世界卻很大很大]], by [[shukyou]]

[[category:rec]]

Himawari

2015-09-24T02:07:17Z

DL:

Rec: Bisexuality

2015-09-24T02:06:02Z

DL: added more himawari!

Stories that contain characters who either identify as bisexual or, during the course of a story, express both same- and different-gender sexual attraction. These bi desires can be mentioned, implied, and/or explicit. Pansexuality totally counts too. ''This list is open for editing.''

*[[A treatise on the mating habits of Bibliothecarus bibliothecarii]], by [[Himawari]]
*[[Always Somebody Better]], by [[Tsukizubon Saruko]]
*[[And All the King's Men]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Are You Now or Have You Ever Been]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Ash and Incense]], by [[Iron Eater]]
*[[The Author is Dead]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Bedtime Stories (Issue 47)|Bedtime Stories]], by [[Yukiyama Hibana]]
*[[Behind the Scenes]], by [[Kuroobaa]]
*[[Beyond the Sea]], by [[Iron Eater]]
*[[Big Name Fan]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Bless Your Heart]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[The Breathing Lessons]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Busted]], by [[shukyou]] and [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Canaan Falls]], by [[Tsukizubon Saruko]]
*[[Current]], by Himawari
*[[Dating, and How to Make Apostasy Work For You]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[Decanter]], by [[Iron Eater]]
*[[Dinner at Dido's]], by [[Iron Eater]]
*[[Double Shot Red-Eye With Room]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[Duet for Tenor and Transradial Orthosis]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[East]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[El Presidio Rides North]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Everything living tries to get back to the soil]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[The Frying Pan Into]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[God(dess) Bless you, Ruby Woo]], by [[Kimyō Tabibito]]
*[[Her Lamp Does Not Go Out at Night]], by [[Koiwa Shishiko]]
*[[Heterogenesis]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Holding Out]], by [[Kougyoku]]
*{[[Holographic-synthesis-waltz]]}, by [[Himawari]]
*[[How Far You've Come]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Ibeji]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[In the Bush]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Inspiration]], by [[Fuuten Eki]]
*[[International Dissertation Avoidance Day]], by [[Kimyō Tabibito]]
*[[It Started With A Kiss]], by [[The Autumn Poet]]
*[[The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Little America]], by [[Tsukizubon Saruko]]
*[[$LoveStory]], by [[Himawari]]
*[[Multi-Touch]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Murder Ballad]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Natural and Artificial Flavorings]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Night Begins the Day]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Now It Can Be Told]], by [[Domashita Romero]]
*[[Our Lives in These Empty Spaces Aside]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Quantification]], by [[Kimyō Tabibito]]
*[[The Revelation of Orev]], by [[Koiwa Shishiko]]
*[[Riding Drag]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Riverfront Blues]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[Robin, Or, My Adventures In The Adult Entertainment Industry]], by [[Nara Kagerou]]
*[[Sid Stills' Blues (Three-Quarters in the Bag in Alphabet City)]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Smuggling, and How to Make Interstellar Exploration Work For You]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[so werd ich dich auf meinem Blute tragen]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Suspension]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Terlingua]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Third Wheel]], by [[Tsukizubon Saruko]]
*[[This Year's Prom King]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Throw Away These Numbers]], by Himawari
*[[Unidentified Friendship Objective]], by [[Ogiwara Saki]]
*[[War Bonds]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[The Way That The Sunshine Gleams From Your Wedding Band]], by [[Aosora Hikaru]]
*[[Welcome Back, Class of 1990]], by [[shukyou]]
*[[Yes, And]], by [[Yukiyama Hibana]]
*[[心也許很小很小世界卻很大很大]], by [[shukyou]]

[[category:rec]]

A treatise on the mating habits of Bibliothecarus bibliothecarii

2015-03-19T23:56:42Z

DL: adding author's notes

A treatise on the mating habits of Bibliothecarus bibliothecarii is a story written by [[Himawari]] and illustrated by [[A.Sammich]]. It ran in [[Issue 53]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/300025.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/a-treatise-on-the-mating-habits-of-bibliothecarus-bibliothecarii/.

== Summary ==
From [https://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/ssbb-53-planes-trains-and-automobiles/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "Two librarian podcast hosts meet up at a conference."

== Author's Notes ==

I'm a librarian. This conference is set in the present day, but I'm using my memory of a certain library conference, held at this particular resort hotel, about a decade ago. (The resort hotel I'm talking about was damaged by flooding some years later, but this is the Nashville-didn't-get-those-floods alternate universe, I guess.) I've stayed at the smaller hotel with the pool in the atrium, and eaten at that Cracker Barrel. I did not hook up at that conference. If you did, I don't want to know.

== External Reviews ==
* http://harmless-one.livejournal.com/36069.html: "A Treatise on the Mating Habits of ''Bibliothecarus bibliothecarii'' by Himawari has a humdinger of a title and is really in the spirit of Shousetsu Bang Bang: it's short, it's porn-tastic, it has fetishes that are out of this world (Tats! Piercings! Beards!). Just kick back and enjoy this piece of porny, fluffy, delight."

[[category:text]]
[[category:M/M]]
[[category:2015]]

Category:A.I.

2014-12-30T19:58:38Z

DL: Created page with "For all your artificial intelligence needs. Because A.I.s are hot."

For all your artificial intelligence needs. Because A.I.s are hot.

Category:Bara/Bear

2014-12-30T19:49:35Z

DL: Created page with "For all your bara and/or bear needs. We know you have bara and/or bear needs, yes we do."

For all your bara and/or bear needs. We know you have bara and/or bear needs, yes we do.

Bear-y Christmas, Here's to Many More

2014-12-30T19:48:51Z

DL:

Bear-y Christmas, Here's to Many More is a story written by [[Kimyō Tabibito]]. It ran in [[Issue 52]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/298395.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/bear-y-christmas-heres-to-many-more/.

== Summary ==
Two bears, a twink, a fireplace, and some hot chocolate.

From [https://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/shousetsu-bangbang-52/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "A triad celebrates their own special Christmas"

== Authors Notes ==
There are no actual bears in this story. No twinks were harmed in the making of Bear-y Christmas.

Looking for Steven's home-fucking-made hot chocolate? You can find it here http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/12/decadent-hot-chocolate-mix/ although add a pinch of cardamon and cinnamon to the recipe and you're good to go!

[[category:text]] [[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]] [[category: Bara/Bear]]

Bear-y Christmas, Here's to Many More

2014-12-30T19:48:40Z

DL:

The Selkie and the Bear

2014-12-30T19:48:08Z

DL:

The Selkie and the Bear is a story written by [[Kimyō Tabibito]]. It ran in [[Issue 51]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/291785.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/the-selkie-and-the-bear.

== Summary ==
Seamus is a selkie who rejects traditional notions of magic and tradition. Why settle for fish when there are hamburgers and milkshakes in the world? And who really needs tradition and heterosexuality when there are apps that facilitate anonymous gay sex?

From [http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/shosetsu-bangbang-51-under-the-sea/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "The tale of a selkie who seems to like land better. He likes milkshakes, and modern fashion, and rough hook-ups."

== Authors Notes ==
After giving up on finishing something for October, a smart ass selkie showed up and demanded to have a story where he got nailed by a bear. So I went along with the idea and spit out this as a quickie.

It is not related to any of my previous SSBB stories.

It was vaguely inspired by Cassidy Stone's image of this [http://thesanityclause.tumblr.com/post/75445192827/one-last-sketch-before-bed-a-selkie-who-only hoodie wearing selkie]

{{DEFAULTSORT: Selkie and the Bear, The}}
[[category:text]] [[category: M/M]] [[category: selkie]] [[category: bear]] [[category: Bara/Bear]]

The Last Battlefield

2014-12-30T17:23:32Z

DL:

The Last Battlefield is a story written by [[Kagaku no osomatsu]]. It ran in [[Issue 52]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/295942.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/the-last-battlefield/.

== Summary ==
From [https://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/shousetsu-bangbang-52/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "Another tale dealing with living on after war. This one a medieval Commander who had never let himself play with his ‘favorites’ before."

[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]]

My Life in a Blueberry Pie

2014-12-30T17:23:05Z

DL:

My Life in a Blueberry Pie is a story written by [[Dr. Noh]]. It ran in [[Issue 52]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/296881.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/my-life-in-a-blueberry-pie/.

== Summary ==
From [https://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/shousetsu-bangbang-52/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: " A short and sweet tale of reunions and dealing with life after war."

[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]]

Strange Lexicons

2014-12-30T17:22:40Z

DL:

[[File:Strange-lexicons.jpg|200px|thumb|Strange Lexicons cover art, by [[beili]].]] Strange Lexicons is a story written by [[Ogiwara Saki]] and illustrated by [[beili]]. It ran in [[Issue 52]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/297809.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/strange-lexicons/.

[[category:text]]

==Summary==

Disgraced magician-linguist Terrence is called back into service by an old flame, and has to confront the mistakes of his past and his own lingering feelings for Eli.

==Author's notes==

This is a story about forgiveness.

What happens after:

Somewhere down the road Terrence becomes Cass' teacher and it becomes his greatest legacy, that he trains this powerful, responsible, conscientious Linguist who chooses to use her powers for good. Terrence never speaks the Words much himself, except for when he and Eli get married (because Eli is totally the type who wants Terrence to make an honest man out of him). The day ends up stormy with rain, and Eli is so so sad that they might have to call their beautiful outdoor Jewish wedding ceremony off (he surfed Pinterest so long, guys!) So Terrence makes it sunny again. He thinks it's worth it when he sees Eli under the canopy glowing with happiness. Terrence figures if a little bit of sun is all it takes to make Eli that happy — which he mentions later that night, when he and Eli are lying in bed totally exhausted after crazy wedding night monkey sex, and Eli is like, god you're an idiot, it wasn't the sun, it was you.

(During their honeymoon, Terrence takes him to a basketball game).

== External Reviews ==
*[https://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/shousetsu-bangbang-52/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "In four (4!) parts. This is a really interesting contemporary fantasy novella, with a spoken magic system to rival any other such I’ve ever heard of."

[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]]

The King of Eternal Flame

2014-12-30T17:20:04Z

DL:

The King of Eternal Flame is a story written by [[kiyala]] and illustrated by [[pie派]]. It ran in [[Issue 52]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/298145.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/the-king-of-eternal-flame/.

== Summary ==
From [https://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/shousetsu-bangbang-52/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "The Pheonix King returns after a year of burning, but parts of his memories are missing. Important parts."

[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]]

The Selkie and the Bear

2014-12-30T17:16:18Z

DL:

Bear-y Christmas, Here's to Many More

2014-12-30T17:11:05Z

DL:

Satu Finds Himself

2014-12-30T01:28:15Z

DL:

Winner of the coveted "Most Porn Per Square Inch" award for [[Issue 48]], Satu Finds Himself is a PWP tale of a horny kitsune who has to deal with the consequences of his innovative magics.

It is a sequel to [[Book of Myth: Origins]], which appeared in [[Issue 44]]. Both stories are also set in the world of original Book of Myth stories, which can be read [https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2845614/1/The-Book-of-Myth/ here].

Satu Finds Himself was written by [[qui-te]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 48]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/272848.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/satu-finds-himself/.

[[category:text]] [[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]]

Tiştên Negotî (Words Not Needed)

2014-12-30T01:27:53Z

DL:

''Tiştên Negotî (Words Not Needed)'' is a story written by [[natsumachi]] (馬遅夏海) and illustrated by [[beili]]. It ran in [[Issue 48]] and can be read at [http://s2b2.livejournal.com/273067.html LJ] and [http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/tisten-negoti-words-not-needed/ the S2B2 website]. Also available on [http://archiveofourown.org/works/1519787 AO3] with content tags.

The title is in Kurmanci dialect of Kurdish, and more literally means "things unsaid (by you)".

== Summary ==
A young man pines for the man who has cared for him and been his rock since he was younger. Teasing, nostalgia, and phone sex. The setting is modern or near future, though not necessarily in a realistic contemporary world.

<blockquote>"Sohran wandered around the house while talking business with Ali over the phone, opened the kitchen cupboards, and glanced in at the pitiful contents of the fridge. He leaned against the kitchen sink and stared into the strip of garden warmed by the last of the afternoon sun, while imagining Ali in a night-lit private hospital room. He pushed off from the sink and returned down the main hallway, but passed by his own room, and into Ali's at the end of the hallway."</blockquote>

== Connections ==
''Tiştên Negotî'' is set before [[My Hawk]], which also features Sohran.

It's not particularly secret that the story has its roots in AU fanfiction [http://yoshitsune.dreamwidth.org/65741.html]. And fans of a certain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam_00 giant robot anime] might notice the references.

== Related Links ==
*[http://8tracks.com/milky/wordsnotneeded The writing bgm (on 8tracks)]
 
[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]]

Midnight Interruption

2014-12-30T01:26:57Z

DL:

Midnight Interruption is a story written by [[Shiawasena Ryokō-sha]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 48]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/275011.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/midnight-interruption/.

== Summary ==
From [http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/shosetsu-bangbang-no-48/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "A pretty hot tale of a bored AI and his human. Liked the premise and the smidgen of world-building that made it work."

<blockquote>"I'm going to reboot the warning subsystems, Cyrus." He'd taken to telling the program things like that before he actually went through with them. It made it seem more humane, somehow - the fact they were keeping something basically indistinguishable from a human holed up in a tin can to run their air conditioning. Clever, nimble fingers flashing, he typed a few lines into the console. After a moment, the cacophony outside quieted down. One of the folks on shift down below whooped in gratitude. Blake leaned back. "It's time we had a little talk, Cyrus." "Oh good, I just love our little talks," the AI responded. Flatly. Blake frowned. That wasn't supposed to happen, especially not more than once in a row.</blockquote>

[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:sci-fi]] [[category:A.I.]] [[category:2014]]

Identifier, Bolt-hand

2014-12-30T01:26:20Z

DL:

Identifier, Bolt-hand is a story written by [[docktonroad]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 48]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/273232.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/identifier-bolt-hand/.

== Summary ==
From [http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/shosetsu-bangbang-no-48/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "A guy finds an android wounded, gets him some help, and then has to deal with the emotional and moral fall-out."

<blockquote>An uncertain noise startles Leo out of his contemplation of the graffiti on the troll's wrist. A voice, sort of--half breath and half pained-sounding low moan. Or not pained. Leo's shoulders tighten up again as he wonders whether to investigate and risk walking in on people fucking behind the troll's head. But who the hell has sex on the dusty Fremont Troll at eight o'clock in the morning? It sounds totally unappealing to him--though more for the risk of dust in all his crevasses than the hour or the location.</blockquote>

[[category:text]] [[category:M/M]] [[category:sci-fi]] [[category:robots]] [[category:2014]]

Programming

2014-12-30T01:25:38Z

DL:

Programming is a story written by [[Hyakunichisou 13]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 48]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/275376.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/programming/.

== Summary ==
From [http://aconfusedbird.tumblr.com/post/100049880884/smut-is-really-great-um-any-fandom-really-im-not aconfusedbird.tumblr.com]: "About a fellow who hires and hacks a sex android to make it look like he’s in a relationship without actually being in a relationship."

From [http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/shosetsu-bangbang-no-48/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "This one is the sweet tale of a guy who wants all the benefits of a relationship without actually having one."

<blockquote>Lewis picked Cam up in the Personal Services annex of The Mercantile. "Hey," he said. "I'm Lewis." The young man stood and smiled. "Cam." Their screens, Lewis knew, were running an interchange right now. He was about to thumb his on to check, but Cam put out his hand as though this were a social meeting, and Lewis shook it out of uncomfortable reflex.</blockquote>

== External Reviews ==
*[https://www.pinboard.in/u:littlerhymes/b:ea0e7ed1cb4b pinboard.in]: " Lewis needs to raise his Social score to land his dream job, so he starts fake-dating android Cam. I really liked this for the twist on the fake dating trope and the world building elements. Loved how the theme of storytelling, crucial for Lewis and Cam's personal and professional lives, binds the plot threads together (and turns the mirror back on the reader a bit too)."
*[http://pinboard.in/u:jedusaur/b:4b68e041357c pinboard.in]: "God, I can't get enough of this author's worldbuilding. This is the one with the shy dude who hacks his paid date so he won't have to have sex."

[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:sci-fi]] [[category:robots]] [[category: A.I.]] [[category:2014]]

Holographic-synthesis-waltz

2014-12-30T01:23:46Z

DL:

{holographic-synthesis-waltz} is a story written by [[Himawari]] and illustrated by [[aspectabund]]. It ran in [[Yes, And 2]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/280961.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/holographic-synthesis-waltz/ and at http://archiveofourown.org/works/2416109.

==Summary==
Sun-Mars L5 Station is a small city that happens to be spinning at a libration point in Mars orbit. Jensen is fond of the friends and family he has there, in ways he doesn't quite know what to do with.

From [http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/shousetsy-bangbang-yes-and-special-2/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "Hey, remember a few issues back where there was a guy, and a space station, and some AIs–it must have been the AI issue, yeah? Great story, that. Anyway, this is a sequel! It’s a two-part sci-fi tale of two AIs trying to sort out their place in a human world."

==Connections==
If you like this cast of characters, you might also like [[$LoveStory]] from [[Issue_48]].

==Author's Notes==
First of all, [[aspectabund]] knocked it out of the park AGAIN this time. I basically wrote and said "Hey, you're not signed up for this issue but I wanted to give you the chance to illustrate these characters again, here's a partial and completely messy draft....?" And she came up with absolutely adorable illustrations. Is that cool or what? And second, while he didn't even know this story was in progress until after it was submitted, thanks to a_dodecahedron for introducing me to the two writers who influenced this the most, and for generally encouraging my science fiction related explorations of sexuality and gender for fifteen years now.

There are two writers whose use of gender in science fiction informed this story. The first is, unsurprisingly, Ursula K. LeGuin. Even though it's been years since I read ''Left Hand of Darkness'', it was in the back of my head as I worked out how Gino works with gender the way ze does. Seminal work in feminist science fiction, yo.

The other is Lois McMaster Bujold, who already taught me that bisexuals could be all kinds of things, yay! Also, her book about an all-male planet, and the man they send away to find more egg cells when they run out, is a riot. But the character that inspired me the most was Bel Thorne, who shows up in "The Warrior's Apprentice" and many books after. Bel is part of a group of people deliberately engineered to be biologically hermaphroditic. Bel is brave, smart, incredibly kind, completely sassypants, and let's face it, totally hot. Bel is also successful and more well-adjusted than a lot of the sorry souls in the books. Thing is, this group uses the term "hermaphrodite" and the pronoun "it" to refer to themselves, and I realize that might be a tall order to deal with, if anyone has ever used those terms on you or someone you love without permission. I know people who just can't read about Bel because of this, and I get why. Seriously, don't call people "it" unless they ask you to, what is your problem? But yeah, one step along the road to realizing I was attracted to people who might be trans, or genderqueer, or intersex, or androgynous, or simply genderfabulous, was reading Bujold. (I say again: totally hot!)

I found out during writing this how deeply rooted binary gender is in my own brain and in my muscle memory. My hands do not want to type ze or hir easily, even now. This was maddening, because every time I mistyped I could feel my mental perception of Gino, a character I had created and whom I was writing, shift a bit.

I know from feedback on [[$LoveStory]] that some folks wondered if there might be some inclination toward open relationships in this cast of characters. I'm now even more curious as to what people have been imagining. I could see it? I haven't written anything like that before, but I'd like to talk about it? You can comment here or at the end of the story, either's fine with me.

And finally, if you have never seen pictures of sensory and motor cortical homunculi before, [http://stevyncolgan.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-alan-davies-is-bald-and-why-jack.html check out this awesome creepiness].

[[category: text]] [[category:M/M]] [[category:sci-fi]] [[category:robots]] [[category: A.I.]] [[category:2014]]

$LoveStory

2014-12-30T01:22:57Z

DL:

$LoveStory is a story written by [[Himawari]] and illustrated by [[Aspectabund]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 48]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/272387.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/lovestory/.

Holy smokes, really long author's note, sorry/not sorry....

==Summary==

Dynin Nkosi moves to Sun-Mars L5 station to take up work as the Chief Financial Officer of Futura Propulsion.

<BLOCKQUOTE>"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single human in possession of the best interplanetary business degree ze could get in this solar system must be in want of a startup venture."</BLOCKQUOTE>

==Connections==

If you like this cast of characters, you might also like {[[Holographic-synthesis-waltz]]} from [[Yes, And 2]].

See author's notes if you want to know more about possible future connections.

==Author's Notes==

First of all, not only was this the first time I have written creative fiction of any length, original or not, since I was 17, which was an insane experience, this was the first time someone has illustrated my work, and wow, did Aspectabund knock it out of the park, both on her illustrations for my piece and on the cover art. THANK YOU Aspectabund!

And for all that made it into the final edition, man, the _sketches_ and experimenting and shooting ideas back and forth were a big part of what made me fall in love with my own characters. She had suggestions that I will be utilizing in my quest for a sequel. At one point, we had this conversation about how I wanted a character to have David Gandy's eyes, and she was getting a bit of an Antonio Banderas vibe (even before the character in question became part Brazilian in heritage, honestly, that probably nudged me in that direction), and then we both agreed that Acton had to have a soul patch because the Van Dyke beard has been UTTERLY RUINED for the moment by… well, you know who he is.

And speaking of that, it was a delight to bounce around between all of the things I was scrubbing the serial numbers off of. Some of them will be pretty apparent, but let me put in a plug for Matt Fraction's run of Invincible Iron Man, because I love the idea of the guy who has come from money and a huge business losing it all and starting over with a startup and the long hours and the shilling for VC. I also wish I was as good at finding near-future tech and adapting it to the story as Fraction is, so that's what I was going for, here, while also riffing on my favorite Arthur C Clarke elements and my favorite parts of Vonda McIntyre's Barbary, which I adored as a kid. I'm really trying to write the sci-fi I wished there was more of when I was 12 and was kind of grossed by the depictions of women and of sex in Asimov.

Seriously, I had withdrawal after I finished this story.

Some of you may remember the post where this came about [during a discussion of great writing about A.I.s and A.I.s in love], but I wasn't expecting it to develop in such a deliciously semi-hard sci-fi way (it's at least soft crack stage if not hard crack stage and if you didn't know sci-fi could be compared to stages of boiling sugar down to make candy, well, I didn't either until I started working on this), or in a way that pulled in so much stuff I love.

While I fudged what I had to fudge, the technology is as real as I could make it: vacuum deposition fabrication is really one of the sorts of things that could easily be done in factory units attached to Stanford torus colonies where solar energy is abundant and so are raw materials purified from moon and mars rocks, silane is really something used in certain kinds of electronic component fabrication, MOAs are real if very very experimental right now, and Raytheon really does run their Antarctic installations on the same time zone as their office in Wellington. ETA: And huge thanks to a_dodecahedron for his editing, critique and general geeking about the technology, and to r_ness for encouraging me to take real technology and bend it as much as needed to make the plot work. It's possible that some of this story came about because he had just visited Clarke's long-time residence in Colombo. I do love me some Clarke.

And Russian engineers in space will, I have no doubt, still observe the traditions that started with Yuri Gagarin watching "White Sun of the Desert" the night before launch. (Cosmonauts all still watch that the night before launch, to this day, and they also stop the bus on the way to the launch site and relieve themselves on the back tire, because he did it. Women cosmonauts bring a little bottle of urine to splash on the tire to complete the ritual. I am not even kidding.)

I wish I'd been able to more fully explore the backstory between Acton and My and Kenni, because there's a lot more there. I do intend to write what I originally intended to fit in here: Gino and Jensen's exploration of what they could be together. As it was, I loved fitting in all that I did about colony life, and the fact that it is a very large small town with great amenities but so, so removed from the rest of humanities. I have no doubt that the foodies will quickly make this into awesome local food snobbishness, because when you read the 1970s and 1980s books about how space station agricultural systems would work, you realize that people at that time were dreading the loss of all of their packaged convenience foods, but station diets will have a lot in common with the local foodie hippie chow available in my own community. And writing karaoke that relied on my own range of music knowledge but sounded suitably varied for karaoke in the future? That was fun. The gay man who kicks off the karaoke session is straight up cribbed from my local dive bar karaoke scene.

I also have an idea for a story about Cameron, because solar yacht racing is dangerous sport of the rich, full of sexy, thrill-seeking people.

And if you catch the Suicidal Tendencies reference, well, good on you. I wouldn't have caught it if I hadn't ''written'' it, to be honest.

(from [http://digitalemur.livejournal.com/1349763.html http://digitalemur.livejournal.com/1349763.html])

== External Reviews ==
*[http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/shosetsu-bangbang-no-48/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "This was maybe the best tale. It’s the second 2-parter, and that gives it enough length for some delightful world-building, some lovely character-building, and even some fantastic relationship-building."

{{DEFAULTSORT:LoveStory}}

[[category:text]] [[category:M/M]] [[category:sci-fi]] [[category:robots]] [[category:A.I.]] [[category:2014]]

Multi-Touch

2014-12-30T01:22:35Z

DL:

Multi-Touch is a story written by [[Domashita Romero]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 48]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/273637.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/multi-touch/.

== Summary ==
From [http://whitachi.tumblr.com/post/91307760666/a-list-and-summary-of-my-shousetsu-bang-bang-works the author]: "The heartwarming story of a young man falling in love with his phone."

From [https://www.pinboard.in/u:sophia_sol/b:8f9bbfc13475 pinboard.in]: "the one with the AI phone thing."

== External Reviews ==
*[http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/shosetsu-bangbang-no-48/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "I am unsure if I can look at my smart phone the same way after reading this. It’s, um. Well, it’s something. Sort of a predicted near-future, in a way that’s both fun and slightly unsettling."

[[category:text]] [[category:M/M]] [[category:sci-fi]] [[category:A.I.]] [[category:2014]]

At Last

2014-12-30T01:22:03Z

DL:

At Last is a story written by [[Midorin]] and illustrated by [[moomyung]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 48]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/273823.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/at-last/.

== Summary ==
<blockquote>"When Eli had signed up for the S.T.E.M project, Dr. Boyd had told him that his spinal enhancements would give him increased speed, strength, and endurance, and that he would be able to do things that most men only dreamed about. For the most part, it was true: Eli could fight men who had twice his muscle mass, lift cars without much effort, and run thirteen miles in thirty minutes. But surviving a fall from a forty story building? Somehow, he didn't think any amount of spinal enhancements could prevent him from becoming a pile of broken bones on impact."</blockquote>

[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]]

Amphistere

2014-12-30T01:21:08Z

DL:

Amphistere ran in [[Issue 48]] and was submitted by [[Koiwa Shishiko]]. It's published at [http://s2b2.livejournal.com/275694.html s2b2.livejournal.com/275694.html] and mirrored at [http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/amphistere shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/amphistere].

== Summary ==

A boy seeks out a long-forgotten creature with a power over death.

<BLOCKQUOTE>Set woke where he had fallen, exhausted from the grief that had drawn his entire body into his sobbing. He stared at the violent gash of the stars above him, and he understood. He groped for the loose soil underneath him with hands still dirty from laying it; he dug like a dog himself. Several feet down he found her, and he carefully, so carefully, pulled Avi free. He brushed the dirt from her fur and pulled off his coat to carry her in.</BLOCKQUOTE>

== Connections ==

As of this writing, Amphistere has no known connections to any other stories or settings.

[[category:text]] [[category:M/M]] [[category:2014]]

Nostalgia Night

2014-12-30T01:20:33Z

DL:

Nostalgia Night is a story written by [[Phun Saa]]. It originally ran in [[Issue 48]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/274007.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/nostalgia-night/.

== Summary ==
From [http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/shosetsu-bangbang-no-48/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "This one was about a pirate radio guy and the officer who keeps trying to catch him. But on Venus."

<blockquote>"At 23:59 on the dot he popped a pill to counteract the helium in the air and keep his voice low and rough, turned on his mic, and got started. "Check, check... checking, five-six... This is Pirate Radio Venus. This is Pirate Radio Venus, and I'm your host, Baron Barium, saying goodnight to all you bad boys and girls out there. You're all up past your bedtimes and tomorrow's not getting any further away, so let's get started, shall we?" He reached out onto thin air, fingers dancing over a projected light workstation of buttons, knobs, and sliders, and launched into the first song with a quick staccato of drums."</blockquote>

[[category:text]][[category:M/M]] [[category:sci-fi]] [[category:2014]]

Through Uncharted Seas

2014-12-30T01:19:54Z

DL:

[[File:Unchartedseas_by_nebulositycielon.jpg|200px|thumb|Cover Illustration by [[Nebulosity Çiélon]].]]

Through Uncharted Seas is a story written by [[Aosora Hikaru]] and illustrated by [[Nebulosity Çiélon]]. It ran in [[Issue 48]] and can be found at [http://s2b2.livejournal.com/274229.html http://s2b2.livejournal.com/274229.html] and mirrored at [http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/through-uncharted-seas/ http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/through-uncharted-seas/].

== Summary ==
Asher Baumann is an inventor who has somehow managed to build a robot far beyond his skill in terms of complexity. He names the robot Ezra, after himself. Ezra, however, has no desire to remain a mere robot.
<blockquote>"Here lies Asher Baumann," he murmured as he picked up the pitcher. "Inventor, madman, flaming idiot."</blockquote>

== Connections ==
Through Uncharted Seas is unconnected to other stories or universes.

== Related Links ==
Through Uncharted Seas is listed on [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22060637-through-uncharted-seas?ac=1 Goodreads] and [http://archiveofourown.org/works/1666187 Archive of Our Own].

== Author Notes ==
So I really love steampunk, like a lot. And so this story, and Ezra specifically, was very loosely inspired by the character The Spine from the band Steam Powered Giraffe. All I truly pulled was the fact that Ezra is a robot who runs on steam, has silvery skin, and desires to be human (or at least, more human-like). After all, how could you have consensual robot-on-human action if the robot doesn't want to consent?

My illustrator and dear friend, [[Nebulosity Çiélon]], bless her, is an engineer, and I think my complete lack of technical knowledge about, well, anything, probably drove her bonkers. I'd gone into writing Ezra blind and had no idea how any sort of robot should work. Less than a week before the due date she started trying to talk about Ezra's engine and tried to link me to a wikipedia entry about the sort of engine she thought Ezra would have. I had to be like "whoa now, no, I don't have time for this!"

Therefore, Ezra runs on steam and handwaving. Probably also magic. But mostly steam and handwaving. If I ever go back and expand this into a novel-length story (an idea I am considering), I'll obviously need her technical and engineering input.

The title of this story was a tricky one, because it had to sum up Asher's initial resistance, then curiosity, then acceptance of Ezra's journey to "humanity." Of course, by proxy, it also had to cover Ezra's aforementioned journey. I was panicking because the deadline was coming up, and two days before the story was due it was still untitled. I crowdsourced suggestions, and Through Uncharted Seas was the one that felt perfect.

[[category:text]] [[category:M/M]] [[category:steampunk]] [[category:robots]] [[category:2014]]

Programming

2014-12-30T01:19:02Z

DL:

He Will My Shield And Portion Be

2014-12-30T01:12:58Z

DL:

He Will My Shield and Portion Be is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It ran in [[Issue 50]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/287118.html, and is mirrored at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/he-will-my-shield-and-portion-be/.

==Summary==

An Air Force chaplain, one of the few Unitarian Universalist chaplains in the USAF, has a very busy Sunday. Deployment is rough.

<blockquote>Dawn over Bagram Airfield was a dull gray. A high ceiling of clouds softened the morning. Dust, that thick Afghan dust that rose from every road and covered every building, tree, and plane, was rising from the paved roads and the dirt paths between buildings. It blurred the outlines of the Hindu Kush rising up in the distance beyond the base and the town, snow-covered and angular against the growing light. Chaplain Aaron Kiko trudged from his quarters up Disney Drive toward the chapel, his booted feet stirring up more dust as he went. The chapel was his, and these were his airmen, at least for the moment.</blockquote>

==Connections==

No connections to other stories and settings, so far.

==Author's notes==
The second sentence of this story is ten times funnier if you're running the Cloud to Butt Plus extension on Google Chrome that converts cloud-->butt and the cloud-->my butt, etc etc and if you're secretly twelve. Yes, I am twelve, and my combination of professionalism and utterly juvenile humor is strangely suited to describing life while deployed. No, I have never served, and they shouldn't have ever taken me for health reasons and for queer reasons, though they might have taken me anyway for academic reasons, and messed me up even more in the process. When I was thinking about it as a teenager, my choice would probably have been Air Force and to try for an appointment to the Academy. Yes, I felt guilty about that for a number of years, and yes, this story finally worked some of those feelings out for me. I live between an F-15 unit and a C-5 unit, and I love hearing them.

This story is set in May of 2011. It's a few months after Egypt's government was overthrown but before Libya's was, and it's a week or two after the announcement of the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden. On December 20, 2010, the Department of Defense announced that they would be repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, so by May of 2011, commanders were being retrained on how to operate under the new rules, though Congress was still fussing about it. In July 2011, the DOD announced that they would no longer be pursuing any DADT-related discharges or evidence, and stated that September 20, 2011 would be the day the new policy began.

These [http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/03/07/on-war-military-chaplins-in-afghanistan/1501/ photos of chaplains in Afghanistan] made me think I couldn't make a go of this story, and inspired me to try anyway. And this [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mqp1r thirty minute radio documentary] about the role of the song "Brothers in Arms" in a variety of conflicts, including its use in a unit memorial much like the one in this story, was the other thing that inspired me to give it a shot. I never did find a piece of lyrics from the song to use as a title, but I tried about half a dozen different ones and wrote a lot of this with that song in my head.

I used these examples of Unitarian Universalist worship to get Kiko's words right, though I am not UU myself: [http://uusaratoga.org/sample-order-of-service/ Sample order of service]
[https://www.uua.org/worship/words/openings/5185.shtml Examples of opening words]

I did a lot of reading up on life at Bagram, and found a lot of videos of what it is like to walk and drive around the base, and what it is like to take cover during indirect fire. Here's someone's [http://xangam.com/afg/welcome-to-the-neighborhood/a-look-into-xander-gambles-room-in-the-bee-hut-on-bagram-air-field tour of their B-hut room] . Note the ilovebagram.com sticker on their door. I read [http://www.ilovebagram.com i love bagram] extensively before writing this, because it's this pithy little trove of details about daily life on base.

It took a while to research what the unit memorial service would entail, because there are many more examples on the internet of Army services, which usually involve the "final roll call" ritual, than Air Force services, though the Air Force does do "final roll call" sometimes, at least in domestic memorial services. I eventually found a PDF intended for religious support teams that detailed the order of events for all the standard services, and it had the kind of simple unit memorial service I describe here, but did I save the link? Nope, sorry. It was more important to indicate how all of these services blur together for Kiko, than to give you the details of what Forbes' comrades said about him. Which I hated, but I killed my darlings and gave you Kiko's perspective and left it at that. Believe it or not, I still like "Amazing Grace," because whatever version we're talking about, the version in my brain is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkUKARzhxUY the Ani DiFranco one], and I am jamming along over whatever other version is actually being played.

Sam Smith's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB-5XG-DbAA Stay With Me] kept running through my head as I wrote the dinner scene and the sex. I wrote the sex last, which I don't always do, but sometimes it works out like that. I was writing right up to deadline, and I'm hoping to get the next few stories finished earlier, and have more time for better cleanup.

Kiko really is a Hungarian surname, but I didn't know that until I decided, "Hey! I want to use a surname I heard as a kid, how about this one?" and looked up where it was from. Kiko grew up Catholic and has made the transition to UU pretty damn well. Misajon is kind of a combat helicopter pilot version of one of my boyfriends combined with that hottie Filipino-Canadian boy I hooked up with my first year of college. Misajon grew up Catholic too, and is now more of a cheerful engineer agnostic. I swear that some day I will write a story without an engineer in it, but looking at the future stories I have slated, that's not gonna happen soon. I've been dreaming about what it's gonna be like once Kiko and Misajon are both back in the US and get to fuck in a real bed some place private and off-base again. They're going to be so happy about that.

Serious shout-outs to [[Kimyō Tabibito]] for beta-reading and infusions of awesome music as I was hustling to finish this, and to [[Shukyou]] for helping me find an imperfect but nicely tidy solution to the awkwardness of writing a love story between two men who mostly refer to each other by their last names. I was also cheered on by [[aspectabund]] and [[Iron Eater]] for which many thanks! Major props to my significant other r_ness for troubleshooting my aircraft designations and listening to me as I spent a week going "I can't write something for August because work's about to get busy, but I can't stop researching chaplains at Bagram, now what do I do?" Oh and a shoutout I can never say to my coworker who also talked aircraft with me, because when you're asked, "Why are you so interested in aircraft?" by someone at work you can't just say "I'm writing Air Force porn," even if it's God's honest truth and they, having served in the Vietnam era and having a twisted sense of humor themselves, would be amused.

I found the story about [http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_wedding/2012/07/erwynn_umali_and_will_behrens_the_first_gay_wedding_on_a_military_base_.html the Umali-Behrens wedding] on Slate last night, and no, while there are resemblances, I did not know about this when I was writing. (Or if I did, I had forgotten.) I bawled. And now I want to write about that road trip.

There's also a one-year-later [http://www.slate.com/articles/life/weddings/2013/06/will_and_erwynn_umali_behrens_one_year_later_with_america_s_best_known_gay.html update about the Umali-Behrens family]. Progress is slow, in families and societies.

== External Reviews ==
*[http://fairyninjas.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/shousetsu-bangbang-50/ fairyninjas.wordpress.com]: "Set in Afghanistan in the near past, a certain minister and his flock of soldiers. Especially one soldier. Very sweet and heartwarming, with a lot of realisticness."

[[category:text]] [[category: 2014]] [[category: war]]

Holographic-synthesis-waltz

2014-12-30T01:11:18Z

DL:

User:DL

2014-12-24T14:41:15Z

DL: page creation

DL is Himawari (ヒマワリ) and is also @coreopsismajor on Twitter.

Throw Away These Numbers

2014-12-22T20:34:42Z

DL: /* Author's notes */

Throw Away These Numbers is a story written by [[Himawari]] and illustrated by [[EMINA]]. It ran in [[Issue 52]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/296692.html, and will be mirrored Wednesday at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==
Cameron Darling: father, industrialist, widower, solar sail pilot. He puts on his best smile for the cameras, but some folks know better.

==Connections==

This story includes a character from [[$LoveStory]] and {[[Holographic-synthesis-waltz]]}, but in this one, he's only six.

==Author's notes==

I needed to write about these men, but the story just wouldn't come together, even though forty-five percent of it was written back in June. I got excellent feedback from [[Kimyō Tabibito]] in September, which I actually could not bear to read over for a while, even though it was perfectly fine and I utterly agreed with it! Ultimately I had to figure out what I could put in place so that you could see [[EMINA]]'s amazing illustrations, and then just let this one go. I kind of want to talk more about exactly how this story interacted with my anxiety disorder, because the writing was okay. You know how some folks can't open their mail or listen to their voicemail when they're depressed? I was having anxiety attacks whenever I tried to discuss or read about how to edit or improve this story. NO idea why. I'm fighting that right now as I type this, which is why it's staying in here, just to fight that urge. Speaking this frankly about my anxiety and depression is very scary right now, but I think speaking about it is important. I hope this problem doesn't happen again any time soon. I could read feedback for my professional writing and guide my coauthors in editing this past month with no trouble. I'm hoping this was just a fluke, or my brain deciding to dump its inability to cope on my SSBB story rather than let it out at work or at my family.

I could have done an entire story about the re-entry jumping if I had figured out in time how that would have made sense on its own. It's a technology we're working hard on right now, but it wasn't a good candidate for the subject of an entire story, because it wouldn't be something we're still working hard on ''then''. I'm also fascinated by the idea of yacht racing with solar sails, and interested in space elevators, and in love with magnetic levitation trains, and curious about mass drivers, so you got a hodgepodge. I'm going to ramble about how I got there; buckle up and hang on.

There's an Arthur C. Clarke story called "The Wind From the Sun" which is about a solar yacht race. I've never read the whole story but it was made into a comic [http://240plan.ovh.net/~upngmmxw/imag/bd/bd_a.htm here]. There's also a great P.J. O'Rourke piece on realio-trulio rich folks racing yachts, that I read bits of: it's called "At Sea With the Americas Cup" from the book Holidays in Hell. Ultimately, I got more excited about the space elevator, solar sail development, and re-entry jumping than about rich people racing. For the sail design part I got a lot of information from the [http://www.u3p.net/admin/qqm_a.htm UP3 website] and I strongly recommend the documentary ''Between the Folds'' about the mathematics and materials science of origami. Robert J. Lang is the man. The sail fold design is based on something they're doing with solar panels at Brigham Young University, here's [http://www.space.com/27485-origami-space-solar-panels-video.html a video and a story about that].

The re-entry jump was originally earlier in the story. It grabbed me and wouldn't let me go work on the rest of the piece. Sometimes the answer isn't to kill your darlings, exactly, but to split them out into stories of their own. I didn't manage to remove this darling because I was running out of time to finish something, so I reorganized the plot and put it nice and late to be climactic and stuff. Here's why it was important to me.

I was in my friend Ben's living room. I'd gone for a run while he was making his awesome banana muffins, and he'd turned on NPR while I was out. As I walked in they were covering on the shuttle Columbia's landing and quietly reporting what little they knew, that something had gone wrong and the shuttle had fallen out of contact. I can remember sitting on his futon, my intention to shower forgotten, listening to that broadcast. It was February 1, 2003. I can remember reading, about a year or so later, that Dr. Jonathan Clark, the husband of Dr. Laurel Clark who had died in that event, was not only on the panel investigating what happened, but was hard at work on technology that could enable future space travelers to re-enter atmosphere safely without a ship. I mean, he's a doctor, sure. But he's discussing the remains of his wife and her coworkers and their ship. Bloody hell! That guy is my fucking hero, I'll tell you what. I've since heard more stories about how disasters like that affect the communities around NASA. I knew someone who lived in Houston at the time of the Columbia disaster and it turned out his roommate knew Kalpana Chawla's nephew and had a pretty front row view of how it affected a space town like Clear Lake. Later, I talked a lot with my coworker who can describe what it's like to be sequestered from the media as family of the astronauts (her husband went up three times, and did four spacewalks), while you wait to see how the launch went, and how each family has a NASA representative with them, to help answer their questions, assist them if something does go wrong, etc. She still talks about how even though Houston was so not her kind of place, the greater NASA family continues to be a force for good in her life. I'm just thinking about the space shuttle pendant she routinely wears and getting sniffly. Sorry, got a little space exploration in my eye.

Two years ago when it was going on, I was fascinated by the RedBull Stratos mission, because I knew that the idea of "jumping from the edge of space" was a step toward safe human re-entry equipment. Cameron and Olin borrowed a lot of their vibe from Felix Baumgartner and Joseph Kittinger, who were the jumper and the CAPCOM for that project. They were very honest about how flat-out fucking scary it is to do a jump like that, and how Baumgartner struggled with it, and how Kittinger was the only man whose voice he wanted in his ears. Meanwhile, I was researching the re-entry system they used, and I thought, hey, I wonder what Jonathan Clark is doing these days, does he work for the company that makes these suits, or something? Turns out he was the Medical Director of RedBull Stratos. Again I tell you that Jonathan Clark is my fucking hero, still working to protect others in this young, but growing, spacefaring family. Some of the RedBull Stratos altitude and speed records have already been broken, but the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raiFrxbHxV0 full video of the Baumgartner jump] remains one of the most intense things I've ever seen.

Let's end on a cheerier note. If you've read ''The 100th Thing about Caroline'' by Lois Lowry, which was one of my favorite books as a child, you'll recognize the bit about Cameron's socks. And if you haven't read it, oh man, find someone you love and share it with them. And finally, the title is from "Might Tell You Tonight" by Scissor Sisters and I sang it to myself a lot while I was working on this.

[[category:text]]

Throw Away These Numbers

2014-12-22T20:31:42Z

DL: /* Author's notes */

Throw Away These Numbers is a story written by [[Himawari]] and illustrated by [[EMINA]]. It ran in [[Issue 52]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/296692.html, and will be mirrored Wednesday at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==
Cameron Darling: father, industrialist, widower, solar sail pilot. He puts on his best smile for the cameras, but some folks know better.

==Connections==

This story includes a character from [[$LoveStory]] and {[[Holographic-synthesis-waltz]]}, but in this one, he's only six.

==Author's notes==

I needed to write about these men, but the story just wouldn't come together, even though forty-five percent of it was written back in June. I got excellent feedback from [[Kimyō Tabibito]] in September, which I actually could not bear to read over for a while, even though it was perfectly fine and I utterly agreed with it! Ultimately I had to figure out what I could put in place so that you could see [[EMINA]]'s amazing illustrations, and then just let this one go. I kind of want to talk more about exactly how this story interacted with my anxiety disorder, because the writing was okay. You know how some folks can't open their mail or listen to their voicemail when they're depressed? I was having anxiety attacks whenever I tried to discuss or read about how to edit or improve this story. NO idea why. I'm fighting that right now as I type this, which is why it's staying in here, just to fight that urge. Speaking this frankly about my anxiety and depression is very scary right now, but I think speaking about it is important. I hope this problem doesn't happen again any time soon. I could read feedback for my professional writing and guide my coauthors in editing this past month with no trouble. I'm hoping this was just a fluke, or my brain deciding to dump its inability to cope on my SSBB story rather than let it out at work or at my family.

I could have done an entire story about the re-entry jumping if I had figured out in time how that would have made sense on its own. It's a technology we're working hard on right now, but it wasn't a good candidate for the subject of an entire story, because it wouldn't be something we're still working hard on ''then''. I'm also fascinated by the idea of yacht racing with solar sails, and interested in space elevators, and in love with magnetic levitation trains, and curious about mass drivers, so you got a hodgepodge. I'm going to ramble about how I got there; buckle up and hang on.

There's an Arthur C. Clarke story called "The Wind From the Sun" which is about a solar yacht race. I've never read the whole story but it was made into a comic [http://240plan.ovh.net/~upngmmxw/imag/bd/bd_a.htm here]. There's also a great P.J. O'Rourke piece on realio-trulio rich folks racing yachts, that I read bits of: it's called "At Sea With the Americas Cup" from the book Holidays in Hell. Ultimately, I got more excited about the space elevator, solar sail development, and re-entry jumping than about rich people racing. For the sail design part I got a lot of information from the [http://www.u3p.net/admin/qqm_a.htm UP3 website] and I strongly recommend the documentary ''Between the Folds'' about the mathematics and materials science of origami. Robert J. Lang is the man. The sail fold design is based on something they're doing with solar panels at Brigham Young University, here's [http://www.space.com/27485-origami-space-solar-panels-video.html a video and a story about that].

The re-entry jump was originally earlier in the story. It grabbed me and wouldn't let me go work on the rest of the piece. Sometimes the answer isn't to kill your darlings, exactly, but to split them out into stories of their own. I didn't manage to remove this darling because I was running out of time to finish something, so I reorganized the plot and put it nice and late to be climactic and stuff. Here's why it was important to me.

I was in my friend Ben's living room. I'd gone for a run while he was making his awesome banana muffins, and he'd turned on NPR while I was out. As I walked in they were covering on the shuttle Columbia's landing and quietly reporting what little they knew, that something had gone wrong and the shuttle had fallen out of contact. I can remember sitting on his futon, my intention to shower forgotten, listening to that broadcast. It was February 1, 2003. I can remember reading, about a year or so later, that Dr. Jonathan Clark, the husband of Dr. Laurel Clark who had died in that event, was not only on the panel investigating what happened, but was hard at work on technology that could enable future space travelers to re-enter atmosphere safely without a ship. I mean, he's a doctor, sure. But he's discussing the remains of his wife and her coworkers and their ship. Bloody hell! That guy is my fucking hero, I'll tell you what. I've since heard more stories about how disasters like that affect the communities around NASA. I knew someone who lived in Houston at the time of the Columbia disaster and it turned out his roommate knew Kalpana Chawla's nephew and had a pretty front row view of how it affected a space town like Clear Lake. Later, I talked a lot with my coworker who can describe what it's like to be sequestered from the media as family of the astronauts (her husband went up three times, and did four spacewalks), while you wait to see how the launch went, and how each family has a NASA representative with them, to help answer their questions, assist them if something does go wrong, etc. She still talks about how even though Houston was so not her kind of place, the greater NASA family is still a force of good in her life. I'm just thinking about the space shuttle pendant she routinely wears and getting sniffly. Sorry, got a little space exploration in my eye.

Two years ago when it was going on, I was fascinated by the RedBull Stratos mission, because I knew that the idea of "jumping from the edge of space" was a step toward safe human re-entry equipment. Cameron and Olin borrowed a lot of their vibe from Felix Baumgartner and Joseph Kittinger, who were the jumper and the CAPCOM for that project. They were very honest about how flat-out fucking scary it is to do a jump like that, and how Baumgartner struggled with it, and how Kittinger was the only man whose voice he wanted in his ears. Meanwhile, I was researching the re-entry system they used, and I thought, hey, I wonder what Jonathan Clark is doing these days, does he work for the company that makes these suits, or something? Turns out he was the Medical Director of RedBull Stratos. Again I tell you that Jonathan Clark is my fucking hero, still working to protect others in this young, but growing, spacefaring family. Some of the RedBull Stratos altitude and speed records have already been broken, but the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raiFrxbHxV0 full video of the Baumgartner jump] remains one of the most intense things I've ever seen.

Let's end on a cheerier note. If you've read ''The 100th Thing about Caroline'' by Lois Lowry, which was one of my favorite books as a child, you'll recognize the bit about Cameron's socks. And if you haven't read it, oh man, find someone you love and share it with them. And finally, the title is from "Might Tell You Tonight" by Scissor Sisters and I sang it to myself a lot while I was working on this.

[[category:text]]

Throw Away These Numbers

2014-12-22T12:40:07Z

DL: /* Author's notes */

Throw Away These Numbers is a story written by [[Himawari]]. It ran in [[Issue 52]] at http://s2b2.livejournal.com/, and will be mirrored Wednesday at http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/.

==Summary==
Cameron Darling: father, industrialist, widower, solar sail pilot. He puts on his best smile for the cameras, but some folks know better.

==Connections==

This story includes a character from [[$LoveStory]] and {[[Holographic-synthesis-waltz]]}, but in this one, he's only six.

==Author's notes==

I needed to write about these men, but the story just wouldn't come together, even though forty-five percent of it was written back in June. I got excellent feedback from [[Kimyō Tabibito]] in September, which I actually could not bear to read over for a while, even though it was perfectly fine and I utterly agreed with it! Ultimately I had to figure out what I could put in place so that you could see [[EMINA]]'s amazing illustrations, and then just let this one go. I kind of want to talk more about exactly how this story interacted with my anxiety disorder, because the writing was okay. You know how some folks can't open their mail or listen to their voicemail when they're depressed? I was having anxiety attacks whenever I tried to discuss or read about how to edit or improve this story. NO idea why. I'm fighting that right now as I type this, which is why it's staying in here, just to fight that urge. Speaking this frankly about my anxiety and depression is very scary right now, but I think speaking about it is important. I hope this problem doesn't happen again any time soon. I could read feedback for my professional writing and guide my coauthors in editing this past month with no trouble. I'm hoping this was just a fluke, or my brain deciding to dump its inability to cope on my SSBB story rather than let it out at work or at my family.

I could have done an entire story about the re-entry jumping if I had figured out in time how that would have made sense on its own. It's a technology we're working hard on right now, but it wasn't a good candidate for the subject of an entire story, because it wouldn't be something we're still working hard on ''then''. I'm also fascinated by the idea of yacht racing with solar sails, and interested in space elevators, and in love with magnetic levitation trains, and curious about mass drivers, so you got a hodgepodge. I'm going to ramble about how I got there; buckle up and hang on.

There's an Arthur C. Clarke story called "The Wind From the Sun" which is about a solar yacht race. I've never read the whole story but it was made into a comic [http://240plan.ovh.net/~upngmmxw/imag/bd/bd_a.htm here]. There's also a great P.J. O'Rourke piece on realio-trulio rich folks racing yachts, that I read bits of: it's called "At Sea With the Americas Cup" from the book Holidays in Hell. Ultimately, I got more excited about the space elevator, solar sail development, and re-entry jumping than about rich people racing. For the sail design part I got a lot of information from the [http://www.u3p.net/admin/qqm_a.htm UP3 website] and I strongly recommend the documentary ''Between the Folds'' about the mathematics and materials science of origami. Robert J. Lang is the man. The sail fold design is based on something they're doing with solar panels at Brigham Young University, here's [http://www.space.com/27485-origami-space-solar-panels-video.html a video and a story about that].

The re-entry jump was originally earlier in the story. It grabbed me and wouldn't let me go work on the rest of the piece. Sometimes the answer isn't to kill your darlings, exactly, but to split them out into stories of their own. I didn't manage to remove this darling because I was running out of time to finish something, so I reorganized the plot and put it nice and late to be climactic and stuff. Here's why it was important to me.

I was in my friend Ben's living room. I'd gone for a run while he was making his awesome banana muffins, and he'd turned on NPR while I was out. As I walked in they were covering on the shuttle Columbia's landing and quietly reporting what little they knew, that something had gone wrong and the shuttle had fallen out of contact. I can remember sitting on his futon, my intention to shower forgotten, listening to that broadcast. It was February 1, 2003. I can remember reading, about a year or so later, that Dr. Jonathan Clark, the husband of Dr. Laurel Clark who had died in that event, was not only on the panel investigating what happened (he's a doctor, sure but he's discussing the remains of his wife and her coworkers and their ship, bloody hell!), but was hard at work on technology that could enable future space travelers to re-enter atmosphere safely without a ship. That guy is my fucking hero, I'll tell you what. I've since heard more stories about how disasters like that affect the communities around NASA. I knew someone who lived in Houston at the time of the Columbia disaster and it turned out his roommate knew Kampala Chawla's nephew and had a pretty front row view of how it affected a space town like Clear Lake. Later, I talked a lot with my coworker who can describe what it's like to be sequestered from the media as family of the astronauts (her husband went up three times, and did four spacewalks), while you wait to see how the launch went, and how each family has a NASA representative with them, to help answer their questions, assist them if something does go wrong, etc. She still talks about how even though Houston was so not her kind of place, the greater NASA family is still a force of good in her life. I'm just thinking about the space shuttle pendant she routinely wears and getting sniffly. Sorry, got a little space exploration in my eye.

Two years ago when it was going on, I was fascinated by the RedBull Stratos mission, because I knew that the idea of "jumping from the edge of space" was a step toward safe human re-entry equipment. Cameron and Olin borrowed a lot of their vibe from Felix Baumgartner and Joseph Kittinger, who were the jumper and the CAPCOM for that project. They were very honest about how flat-out fucking scary it is to do a jump like that, and how Baumgartner struggled with it, and how Kittinger was the only man whose voice he wanted in his ears. Meanwhile, I was researching the re-entry system they used, and I thought, hey, I wonder what Jonathan Clark is doing these days, does he work for the company that makes these suits, or something? Turns out he was the Medical Director of RedBull Stratos. Again I tell you that Jonathan Clark is my fucking hero, still working to protect others in this young, but growing, spacefaring family. Some of the RedBull Stratos altitude and speed records have already been broken, but the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raiFrxbHxV0 full video of the Baumgartner jump] remains one of the most intense things I've ever seen.

Let's end on a cheerier note. If you've read ''The 100th Thing about Caroline'' by Lois Lowry, which was one of my favorite books as a child, you'll recognize the bit about Cameron's socks. And if you haven't read it, oh man, find someone you love and share it with them. And finally, the title is from "Might Tell You Tonight" by Scissor Sisters and I sang it to myself a lot while I was working on this.

[[category:text]]