Welcome to the inside of my head! It’s fun in here. I write, draw, and generally create. Expect to find everything from shapeshifters to robots, eccentric wizards to space dragons, with a healthy dose of Humans Are Weird. Let’s have fun with this.
Hello there! Are you looking for the Token Human series, featuring a spacefaring veterinarian during her time working on a courier ship? I post weekly short stories with this tag, and there’s a masterpost that’s up to date as of April 7th, 2025.
Also! I post early on Patreon if you’d like to spend a few bucks a month reading sci-fi shenanigans before the general public. (There’s a free tier too, if you want the stories emailed to you every Monday with no strings attched.)
Also-also, I write novels! Like this one that takes place after the courier era, when Robin is working as a vet on an alien planet (dealing with a crisis of escaped rabbits and troublemaking space poachers). And other books about completely different main characters. Sometimes I put together anthologies with friends.
And then there’s the rest of my blog, which is full of writing-related things, sci-fi, fantasy, Fun Facts and interesting nonsense, and general Tumblr tomfoolery.
I’m having a great time, and I plan to bring everyone else with me.
Vampires are not weak to garlic in particular. Rather, any allergy a vampire had in life becomes a deadly bane in undeath. The garlic thing is just a matter of one famous vampire having that as their thing.
Picturing someone rubbing peanut butter on their neck before they go out, with strawberry-scented shampoo and as much cat hair on their clothes as they can manage. “This has gotta be enough, right? My odds are good!”
#that's a fun idea for sure #there are some very niche allergies out there that would make for an exceptionally embarrassed vampire #'Oh no my one weakness! Rubber gloves!' #vampire hunter breaks out the balloon animal sword 'You're not getting away this time!' #squeaky battle noises
Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.
So I do 3D modeling and printing as a hobby, and a few weeks ago I designed wheel guards meant to prevent office chairs from running over cables and clothes... or your pet's tail.
I got the idea from cowcatchers old locomotives used to have.
Anyways, yesterday I uploaded the model to Thingiverse, and just hours after uploading it, the Community Relationship Manager of the whole website left a comment suggesting I enter the model into a competition that's currently being held on the site.
So I did... and now it's in third place not even a day later. First place is $500, but the competition still has a month to go.
Then the Community Manager contacted me again, telling me they want to feature my model in an upcoming design promotion.
Just, what is happening? I mostly made this thing for myself in, like, an hour, and now it's suddenly super popular? This is all a little bit overwhelming 😵💫
Other models I worked on for weeks didn't get nearly as popular. I swear, it's impossible to predict what people will like.
Anyways, if you want to print the wheel guards yourself, you can get the model here or here.
I also made a quiet version you can stick furniture felt pads on.
Vampires are not weak to garlic in particular. Rather, any allergy a vampire had in life becomes a deadly bane in undeath. The garlic thing is just a matter of one famous vampire having that as their thing.
Picturing someone rubbing peanut butter on their neck before they go out, with strawberry-scented shampoo and as much cat hair on their clothes as they can manage. "This has gotta be enough, right? My odds are good!"
Animation time works differently. Fifteen seconds for them is five hours for me. Kinda makes you wonder. Five hours for me must be like five days for my animator
Angry hissing voices from the hallway told me the two bug aliens on the ship were arguing. Which they didn’t usually do, thankfully. They disagreed, sure, but in an agree-to-disagree-though-you’re-clearly-wrong kind of way. They didn’t tend to get worked up about things.
“It issss disssgusssting,” Trrili snarled.
“Give it back!” Zhee said.
“Not until you admit that it’sss vile.”
“It is not!”
I rounded the corner to see the pair of them facing off in front of Zhee’s quarters, both waving their pincher arms, antenna angled into glares. I wouldn’t have wanted to get anywhere near that when I was new to the ship. I kept my distance a bit now. “What’s going on?” I asked.
Trrili whirled with a hiss, standing even taller, a looming black-and-red nightmare. “He has been using something unspeakable for grooming!” She spoke clearly and brandished a small object in my direction, holding it awkwardly between the tip of her mantis pincher and her elbow, like she didn’t want to touch it. I had no idea what it was, just a stick of something purple.
The same purple as Zhee’s glossy exoskeleton, actually.
He lunged and snatched it out of her grasp. “It’s the best kind of seam brush, you heathen! I made it myself — with excellent crafting skill, I might add!”
Before Trrili could retort, I asked, “What is it?”
Zhee held it well away from Trrili, scowling. “A seam brush, like I said.”
“Made from his own shed exoskeleton!” Trrili exclaimed.
“That’s what you DO with it!” Zhee shot back.
“It should be mulched immediately, you disgusting dirt-grubber!”
Before I could ask more clarifying questions, Paint came trotting up with concern all over her lizardy face. “What’s happening?”
Zhee answered first, pointing with his free arm. “This judgemental blot got ahold of a personal item and is making her own wrong opinions everyone else’s problem.”
“Oh, just my opinions, are they? All three moons—”
“I don’t care how many of you—”
“Everyone knows it should be disposed of—”
“So wasteful when it can—”
Paint pitched her voice higher and suggested, “Maybe we can all just keep our personal items to ourselves?” She looked from the tool to the pair of angry Mesmers.
They both glared at her. Trrili said, “I wasn’t snooping. I found it on the lounge floor.”
Zhee snapped, “I didn’t put it there.” He angled his head towards me. “Your cat did.”
That sounded like something she’d do. I spread my arms and said, “Sorry.”
Still working hard to mediate, Paint said, “Then it can go back in your quarters, in a safe spot, and we’ll make sure Telly doesn’t sneak in to play with it. Trrili can use her own grooming tools, and everyone can do things their own way.”
Trrili sounded like a sulky teenager when she insisted, “Disgusssting.”
Zhee waved it at her with a lecturing tone. “Practical and customized, and better than whatever mass-produced trash you use.”
“It’s still made of something that should not be kept!”
Exasperated, Zhee said, “At least I don’t have a whole collection on the wall of every blade I’ve shed! Some of the houses back home display those proudly!”
“Your people are unclean,” Trrili declared. Then she turned to Paint and me. “Keeping body parts is gross, yes? I know you’re at least reasonable about shed scales.”
Paint laughed uncomfortably. “That is not exactly a polite topic of conversation,” she said, fidgeting in a way that said she’d probably be blushing in embarrassment if her species did that.
“Exactly,” Trrili said in approval. “Something dealt with in privacy, not kept forever. Right?” She looked at me, daring me to disagree.
I shrugged. “My people don’t shed like that. We get haircuts and throw the hair away, I guess. Oh, baby teeth! That’s the closest match! We sometimes keep those.”
All three of my alien coworkers were giving me uncertain looks now. Paint said, “Right, I forgot your species actually sheds teeth.”
“Only once,” I said, as if that mattered.
Zhee repeated, “And you keep them.” He gave Trrili a pointed look.
“Sure, but usually in the back of the closet as a keepsake.”
Trrili looked right back at him. “Not making tools for daily use.”
“They’re not really big enough,” I said, considering. “And they tend to be kind of bloody when they come out, though that could be cleaned. Oh! I used some for a science project once!”
“A what?” Paint asked.
“I made a demonstration in school of how corrosive soda is compared to a few other drinks,” I said. “Mom gave me some of my baby teeth so I could leave them in a cup for a few days to see if they dissolved. I’ll tell you, I wasn’t eager to drink soda after that.”
Paint stared at me in horror. “You drink something that dissolves your teeth?”
I shook my head. “Turns out it was an urban legend. But it did dye the teeth a nasty brown, and burnt the dirt off a penny.”
Paint shook herself and made a visible effort to regain her composure. “I am fairly sure I didn’t need to know that.”
Trrili threw her pincher arms in the air and turned to leave. “At least it’s a drink that fights an honorable battle as you consume it. Everybody keep their revolting bits to themselves.” She jabbed a pincher at Zhee as she passed. “I don’t want to see that ever again.”
“You do not deserve the honor of seeing it again,” Zhee said. “You’ve scratched it, and now I’ll have to polish it then see if any of the bristles need replacing.”
Trrili hissed and disappeared down the hallway.
Paint asked, “Are the bristles exotic? I think we’re going to stop at a relatively small place to restock next.”
Zhee held up the tool and ran a little wrist finger across the bristly end. It looked like a sawed-off paintbrush. “The best kind can be difficult to find, but this seems to be intact, thankfully.”
I pulled my long braid over my shoulder and held it up. “Let me know if it would help to trim the end off this. My hair’s probably not stiff enough, but the offer’s open.”
Zhee gave me a look that was deeply amused. “It’s probably not, but thank you.”
Paint said in an undertone, “And we won’t tell Trrili, because she definitely won’t want to know.”
Zhee and I both agreed on that.
~~~
Good news! Volume One of the collected series is now available in paperback and ebook form! (Check your local store, or this handy link hub.)
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These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.
Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.
The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).
every so often i remember how awesome the modern interconnected multicultural world is. i grew up getting to hear fairy tales from all over the world. africa, asia, europe, america. everywhere in between. i can have bagels for breakfast, curry for lunch, and ramen for dinner without even leaving the city limits. music and art and philosophy and technology that originated thousands of miles and years apart from eachother have come together and interwoven into something greater than the sum of its parts. its hard not fall into despair when thinking about the horrors but god. god the wonders.
I can snap a photo of my cat and share it with friends in multiple countries without even getting off the couch. And they can send back pictures of their own cats. We can laugh about the different time zones we're all in, and who's awake too late. It's great.
The horrors may be horrible, but the wonders are wonderful.
Okay, somebody asked, so here's the promised collection of fun facts about my high school science teacher Brad Goodhart.
First off, for a guy with a name like a third-tier romance novel love interest, he looked like Santa Claus The Retired Basketball Player. White beard, smiling, very tall, but with something of a spine problem that had him stooped slightly toward a more normal height. But only slightly.
Secondly, he taught science for fun, and did other things in the summers. And in previous decades. He was always coming up with random anecdotes that would derail the lessons when we demanded he stop and explain that.
In no particular order:
-As mentioned in the other post, he met Koko the gorilla and she played a prank on him. She invited him to race, then let him hustle over to the far side of the room without moving a step. When he turned to look, she was signing laughter at him.
-He met one of Jane Goodall's chimps, which bit him on the knee.
-He used to lead wildlife-watching tours in Africa.
-He had a species of bird named after him.
-He was on a whale-watching trip once where they found a dead body in the water. Everyone decided to finish whale watching, then report it.
-He once saved someone's life by giving the guy enough money to get an airplane ticket to somewhere with a proper hospital.
-He got a bug bite in Africa, came home to California, then had it checked out by local doctors and passed up as not a big deal. When a larva crawled out of it later, he caught the thing in a bag and went back to the doctor for a more thorough inspection (and cleaning). They were apologetic.
-He had a pet bat in high school.
-He explained the physics of water traveling through tubes, and taught my class of AP Biology students how to siphon gas from cars. Just in case we needed to know that.
-Back in college, he had something of a running scam going at a local pinball place, where he'd bet other people he could beat them while they were both drinking, though the waitress was secretly bringing him nonalcoholic drinks.
-His wife was involved in wildlife stuff too, and once got bitten on the leg by a hippo. He described hippo teeth as "like rebar," a description that stuck with me. The tooth went straight through her thigh; luckily she made it out alive and recovered.
-He'd taught himself to fall asleep on command, though he refused to demonstrate this in class for obvious reasons.
-He had dormant malaria in his bloodstream, which meant he always used a ton of bug spray on hikes. When his friends made fun of him one time, he told them it was to make sure that any mosquito that bit him died before it got to them. After that, they just sprayed more on him whenever his back was turned.
-He was the one who did the Egg Drop science lesson, and had a fun anecdote about a previous spectacular failure.
-Another lesson involved a water jug with a little rubbing alcohol swished around inside (with the cap on), and the windows to the classroom covered. Then he got out a candle on a very long stick, told us all to stand back, and took the cap off. When he moved the candle over the opening, a blue flame exploded through the entire jug and shot out the top with enough force to dislodge a ceiling tile, making a loud boom that had the history teacher running in from next door to see what had happened.
-He repeated this with a jack-o-lantern at a school assembly on Halloween, though it wasn't quite as impressive because there were more holes for the gas to escape from. Still cool, though.
-I once dreamed that he taught us all how to turn into green werewolves, and he was definitely the sort to have done that if he could. He explained a lot of fascinating Fun Science Facts, like the way hair and fingernails are both made of the same stuff as ram's horns, which led to me making up some fun fictional species. A lot of my fascination with turning real biology into speculative biology started in that science class.
-Once he played a documentary in class and didn't tell us that he showed up in it halfway through. It had been filmed decades ago. He looked exactly the same.
She also asked for a kitten (RIP "All Ball" the Manx).
And she asked my high school science teacher if he wanted to race her, then when he agreed, she played a prank on him. He ran for the other side of the room, giving it his all, then when he got there, he turned to see she hadn't moved -- she was standing there signing laughter at him.
Even if a question was phrased as a suggestion, that doesn't mean a lack of curiosity. Or mischievousness, as it turns out.
(I'm told she once ripped a sink out of the wall and blamed it on the cat.)
Something about me is that due to Allergy Reasons I have had extremely little fast food in my life but a culvers location has opened near me and this particular one will let you ask for gluten free fries & I haven't stopped thinking about them. I need more. The texture is so much better than the baked fries I've been having at home. I need Oil. I feel like the united states military
Being a celiac haver whose family went gluten free when I was a baby so I simply haven't Had a lot of Normal People Foods makes me feel like a space alien but it's so good when I Do get to have them. Just found out about fries. Like fried in oil fries. They come in a little paper cup and everything. I'm entering my fries era
Vulcan in starfleet who starts trying Earth foods & gets really into various forms of fried potatoes. It's similar to some baked plomeek bullshit they ate at home but a little bit heavier which is nice for staying warm in the colder climate. Having a great time with a completely blank expression
I had to check, and yes they're real birds. (iNaturalist) (Wikipedia)
They're adorable.
Wikipedia says they're related to the cuckoo, but they couldn't be more opposite in their childrearing. They nest in groups, with all the eggs laid in a communal pile that everyone helps incubate and raise.
