RoSalarian

When Val stepped out of the car onto shaking, jelly legs, the first thing she noticed was the smell. It wasn’t the pleasant smoke of a fireplace or campfire. There was a chemical edge to it, the smell of preservatives that kept the wood from decay, the smell of clothes and books and records turned to ash. Nothing was left, not even the bricks of the chimney. It was charcoal, still damp from the fire hoses that had finally tamed it. She didn’t realize her legs had given out un

Rose is finally bleaching her roots.

Val woke to the sound of birds chirping, the sun shining on her face. It took her a moment to realize where she was. A strange bed could feel like an entirely different planet in those first moments of consciousness. Once she was rooted back to Earth, she checked her watch. It was after 11. In a panic, she ran downstairs, worried her father would be grumbling as he worked by himself, but he was not there. Dorothea was in the kitchen in a pale peach nightgown trimmed with lace

Violet's powers are based around technology. Magic and technology don't have to be mutually exclusive. "Computer" is a power like fire or water or air etc. and Violet is the master of it.

I talked a bit about this on Bluesky , but I'm so glad I was able to find alternatives to machine translation for page 22. I originally had Google do it for me, but I thought to ask a friend who grew up in the Philippines for advice on the scene, and she made it so much more authentic. Google doesn't know that "po" is used when talking to an elder, and it doesn't know how many different dialects there are in the country, with many people pulling words and phrases from Tagalog

Dorothea’s house had become a refuge from everything Val wanted to escape. She helped Ernesto with small tasks, but he wouldn’t let her follow him to some of the more dangerous parts of the house. Often, when Val was alone, Dorothea would come up with a bon bon and a little glass of port for a toast. “Drink with me,” she would tell Val. “Take a little break.” At first, Val would turn her down, thinking of her father saying that accepting too much too often would seem greedy.

Sorry for the missed update last week. My buffer is not as robust as it is when I don't have a day job. Sometimes, I get down on myself for not being as productive, but then I remind myself that time and energy are finite and it's normal to do less of one thing when you're doing more of another. Rose didn't have to get a new job because the underground resistance colony is sponsoring her and her family, and they don't leave old or disabled people behind even if Rose wasn't a

We should all be allowed to be soft. It's cruel that these times force us to be hard, but we must fight so future generations can have a lasting softness that lasts their whole, beautiful lives. Also, that Tetris thing is real. Games like that can distract the psyche away from filing the memories in the "you'll have flashbacks of this for the rest of your life" part of the brain. We live in a society that is constantly traumatizing oppressed people every day. No wonder games

A little dog danced around Val’s feet, nipping at her ankles and tearing holes in her stockings. “Oh, Mitsi. Stop that,” Patty Young scolded as she carried a tray of sandwiches over to the dining room table. Between the plates and the tea cups were piles of forms and samples of new products. Val hoped the meeting wouldn’t last long. Patty could be very intense and pushy, and Val needed to spend part of her Sunday doing laundry. Everything in the house was pink, from the carpe

"The paradox of tolerance" is a philosophical concept that posits that by extending tolerance to the intolerant, those intolerant people will just end up hurting the people that the tolerant want to protect. Fighting monster DOESN'T make you a monster yourself. The tolerant standpoint is that IF you leave us alone, we will leave you alone. If that social contract is broken, then we get to fight back. For the fascists, the mere EXISTENCE of certain types of people is a problem

I have... a lot more thoughts about this, and originally I wrote them down, but I'm just gonna let the work speak for itself. In summary, trolley problems suck, but avoiding making the choice just means somebody else has to. You can't always expect other people to do it for you, though, and you need to start thinking about what you're willing to do to protect justice in the world, even if that world is far from ideal.

This kill feels... different somehow.

Well, shit.

The rest of the week went more smoothly, and the weekend was Val’s to use as she pleased. Jane had invited her over. Though it was just a casual lunch, Val wore a knee-length, full skirted taffeta dress, dark blue with pink flowers. She relished in the feel of nylon stockings sliding up her legs, clipped into her garters and nestled into pink satin heels with bows on the toes. She wore her hair down, and completed her look with eyeshadow #44 “Coconut” and lipstick #10 “Petal

In this fictional world, they kept making old-school milk cartons. They're made of, like, 100% PFAS though.

Rose has electricity now!