Interspecies translation is a delicate task, requiring not only intimate knowledge of both cultures but also an accurate qualia mapping

The most normal people you know may in fact be demons, don’t worry about the weirdos

Demons possessing humans usually take great care to not attract any attention - their boss is not known to be nice to employees slacking off

ancient feuds between immortals, obligations just as ancient, a hermit couple in the mountains who bear themselves as kids

amnesiac immortals whose knowledge sits mostly in their (very idiosyncratic) diaries, immediate memories reaching only 30 years back

magic, here, is not so much as flying sparks but knowledge of ancient tech and self-knowledge through hundreds of years of experience

much of this tech needs active maintenance or breaks down, some sit on tech stockpiles, others go through bodies like vampire lords

immortality tech varies: mindwiped clones (and not-clones), life extension treatment, “actual” immortality through a gene edit

some install themselves as godkings, others become hermits or wanderers to escape being hunted down by said godkings

[scenario - thread]↵immortality was discovered but civilization fell shortly afterwards, now some immortals are still around

Flat Hollow Earth Theory: The world is a flat ring↵Hollow Flat Earth Theory: A very large cave spans the disk but is only about 10m high

Many civs maintain model societies of their neighbors, whole cities of reenactors only to avoid sending that one message that costs a planet

Human interstellar communication is tricky not because of signal strength, but because 20 years of moral drift is a lot of taboos to violate

those who lived in this cave are gone but they left a music elemental, still playing the wind between the stalactites, rippling the ponds

He was set to meet fate that day, but she didn’t show up. At midnight, he shrugged, opened a door in the air, and was never seen again.

Robot slurs for humans:↵- sack of soiled water↵- meat unit↵- amino asset↵- entropy on legs↵- genebag↵- proteins

A Pattern Language, microgravity edition

fountains in habitat cylinders, twisted into yin-yang patterns or more complicated forms by coriolis force

microgravity fountains in space stations, droplets guided along by electric fields and well-aimed bursts of air

phase 5: exploits for these presets, not quite trademark violations but sufficient to activate clone programming

phase 4: sponsored clones, in exchange for brand preferences burned into the clone’s visual cortex

phase 1: ads tailored to you↵phase 2: ads tailored to each of your identities↵phase 3: ads inducing identity splits for more customers

Rain falls but the drops refuse to merge, stay little pearls that bounce and dance, collect in glistening heaps, clog our streets

don’t try this at home unmodified, kids! you should at least weigh the hopes before snorting them, and assume they’re undiluted

To raise your pixels from the dead, break an old LCD over them. They’ll take on a slight greenish tint but will otherwise work fine

crush my hopes, grind them up, snort them off my back

an army of small drones, positioned in the night sky just so that you can pull an “overhead, the stars were going out” on people

You can also talk into one of those sea shells and the ocean will hear you, many friendships with merfolk have started this way

In the heavenly choir, it’s a grave offense to get a note wrong. Often, the punishment is a prison sentience, 80 years in a skull

I’ve taught it to rain on command, now I often send it outside to rain against my windows or, on sunny days, create faerie gold.

A lodestone rests in iron dust↵stirs, then grows magnetic wings↵flies away but meets the rain↵falls down in a cloud of rust

Returning from her trip, she opens her eyes, reaches under her pillow, pulls out a severed elf head oozing technicolor↵↵”I got their king”

Time here meanders, often bends back onto itself. Sometimes then, a loop detaches, we see ghosts and other things that exist for only a day

There’s an optimal speed in space battles and it’s not quite c - time dilation needs to be low enough that you can still outthink the enemy

Well, you could’ve had it the easy way, but you built a hyperdrive instead of just solving that sky captcha with the astrology we taught you

truth be told, once inside cthulhu, you start cheering it on to eat the rest of humanity as well

When you cut open an ouroboros, it has rings like a tree, one for every time it’s eaten itself

Snail mecha: Vast factories that crawl over a to-be-terraformed planet’s surface, trailing forests, lakes, arcologies

Imagine a universe that thinks of itself so that it won’t need your awareness to keep existing, blow soap bubbles with your mind

Sin in as many religions as possible, so that they’ll fight over which hell you belong into and you can slip away

To appease the network gods, we drop a few fat high priority packets every morning

In the night, it comes closer, settles in the comfortable darkness of your eyelids. Thinking you asleep, it oscillates, flows, murmurates

During the day, it’s shy, seems to play hide and seek: A flash of neon in the shadow that seeps away into the cracks when you turn around

It is morning, you step outside to commute to work. Two feral catboys scamper off, watch from a safe distance if you brought any food

Metropolis is torn in dispute: Grant them human rights and citizenship, classify them as pets and legalize ownership, or eliminate the pest?

Since a bunch of catgirls escaped in a lab accident 15 years ago, catpeople have bred like crazy, helped along by many a lonely citizen

Outside, the sound of the crickets changes, becomes a binary modem screech. Something materializes in the shadows

The storm approaches and Artemis readies a lightning bolt on her rainbow. With Zeus asleep, she’s free to hunt as many clouds as she wishes.

Much rarer than insomnia, immortia disrupts the other sleep: Those affected are denied disincarnation, survive in the unlikeliest ways

Day 8: Infection hasn’t subsided. Spots on my skin have begun to glow at night. Roads appearing, a dust mote just landed on my nose, v heavy