well, now you can! thanks to the diligent efforts of myself and @notsoalex, there is now a complete audiobook of the first book in the aligned trilogy! this is my first attempt at recording a book like this, so hopefully it works alright for you guys! if there are any technical issues drop me a DM.
Hey btw I didn’t wanna make a whole big urgent post about this bc I don’t wanna overburden my followers by constantly asking for help dealing with the streak of unlucky circumstances that has been wreaking havoc on my financial situation for the last few months, and it really isn’t as urgent as what happened last time, but the whole deal with my husband getting his phone stolen (and thus losing access to the money he had in his bank account because without access to his old phone number he can’t verify his identity unless he travels back to Mexico to go to the bank in person) and the fact that I’m gonna get paid less this month because I was unable to work for a little over a week is gonna result in a lot of extra financial stress for us in the coming weeks, so if y'all like the stuff I post and have money to spare I would appreciate it, but it’s totally cool if you don’t, we’ll get through this.
I’d advertise my music commissions again, but tbqh I’m getting kinda burnt out and I’ve been stuck for a few weeks with the two comms I have on queue already, so I don’t wanna start promissing commissions until I know I’m in a state where I can work on them alright.
In case anyone wants to help (again if you don’t have the money or you’d rather spend it on soemthing else no hard feelings, do it only if you can and want):
“le dollar bean” makes me even more uncomfortable than “unalive” because they’re overtly turning the censorship into a quirky joke and selling fucking merch that says it and shit
this makes me want to kill myself for real thanks!!
I am really, really behind on rent, and gas. Had to put a cat down. I’m a little concerned about losing my housing. I can deal without gas for the rest of the summer but need a roof.
She talks to you, in the darkness of transit. They say she can’t. They say there’s nothing in there except dull, unfeeling subroutines. Optimization processes pointed at one goal: the efficient and timely application of violence to large problems. NLRFV-23B Schatten is an unthinking, unfeeling machine made of math, steel, and electron flow paths. It is thirty tons of death in a compact package, a boarding vehicle meant to wreak havoc on enemy vessels from the inside. The 120mm flak cannon on the left arm tends to leave organic opponents as an ugly red splotch smattered onto the bulkheads. The APFSDS mortar on the right shreds those bulkheads and the people behind them, and the few unfortunate pilots who thought they could challenge you end up becoming one with their mechs when the armor piercing shells turn them into a wrecked mess of meat and metal.
Schatten does not talk. It does not think. It does not feel. It moves, it flies, it kills. It is a machine, crafted to a specific purpose. The only heart and soul inside it is you and your half-meat-half-metal body.
So why, then, do you hear its vocoder in your head, as you drift through space ten-thousand miles a minute towards your next target?
The shrinks say it’s a common ailment – interference from your augs, or maybe just prior mental instability. It’s not like they have psych standards for any of you, after all. The only qualifications you needed were a lack of scruples and the ability to fly heavy machinery – which is how you went from flying a floating forklift to maneuvering this baby towards a techno-organic artillery cruiser. This wasn’t a war, so much as it was pest control. The Hiveys were poking their heads out of their borders, amping up their broadcasts and testing their neighbors’ defenses. Its neighbors? You aren’t sure what the hell the Hiveys are aside from boogeymen, ever-present in the dark but rarely seen.
A thousand clicks out, you pull the joystick and throw Schatten retrograde. Her burners ignite and you sink into your crash couch as a cocktail of combat stims and blood-pressure meds shoot through your veins. ETA to impact, five seconds.
And then you hear her, loud and clear in your own head.
“Dance with me, Specialist.”
You cast the thought away. Four seconds. Automated routines enter breach mode. You’re aimed at a presumed weak spot in the bulkheads where you should be able to crash right on through. The Maximus howitzer aims itself and fires.
Three seconds. “Dance with me, and don’t trip over our own legs this time.”
Simulated sound and a fireball on the rear camera tells you the shell hit home. A gaping hole is all that’s left of the ship’s starboard maintenance hall, sparking wires dangling in the outflow of air from the breach.
You breathe in, and spin Schatten back around, curling her limbs into a ball as you hurtle towards your next battle. Two seconds.
“Dance with me, Specialist. Don’t mind your two left feet, I’ll lead, you follow.”
One second. You breathe out, and tremble as the high-grade ampthetamines focus your mind on one task, the only task you’ve ever found yourself skilled in. The only thing you know how to do, the thing you were born for, the thing you gave your limbs and mind and body for.
Schatten’s hull rumbles like a dying star, and you see the impact alarm flash. Zero seconds. You feel your mouth open and your own vocoded voice speaks to you, to Schatten –
