Dan F. Bispo
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danfbispo.bsky.social
Dan F. Bispo
@danfbispo.bsky.social
210 followers 130 following 410 posts
Professional word extruder. Author of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy.

My books: https://barrows.itch.io/

Currently working on: FIRST LIGHT, a sci-fi novella
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danfbispo.bsky.social
A little sprinkle of worldbuilding. Just a hint, not much--like the nutmeg of fiction.

I've been in a festive mood lately, I wonder why. 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
“Thanks for getting here so quickly, Captain. It must have been difficult, with the Festival taking up most of the streets.” “It wasn’t so bad. We seem to have avoided the worst of it,” Yana said. “Though I seem to have lost half my crew to the entertainment. What’s the occasion?” Corben rolled his wide shoulders and smiled, just a little. “Not sure myself, Captain, I’ve only been around for a few hours, and I didn’t want to wander off in case you were early. Something about some local politics?” “Maybe,” Yana said. “It seems a bit early in the year to celebrate the Shift’s anniversary, but every place has its own date, doesn’t it?” “That might be it.” He glanced down the walkway platform, where a smaller group of locals made their way towards the city center. Three humans, a wheeled automaton, and a lifeform she couldn’t identify at a glance, chatting among themselves. The humans smiled; the only display of joy in the gathering that Yana was equipped to recognize.
December 4, 2025 at 10:37 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Today's #WIPSnips is "dominant"

This one's from a very recent session, so it's still rough around the edges. Yana goes to an orbital station to pick up a package, and there's a festival on. Her crew disappears to peruse the local cooking, leaving her to meet her contact alone.

Relatable, tbh.
She followed her compad’s directions further from the music, further from the motion, through pathways and sidewalks more representative of what the station must have looked like on a normal day; a spaceport not unlike the ones she’d been to before, full of laborers in safety gear and vacant-eyed managers. Orbital Station Sousa Mendes may have been a smaller outpost than Bayinnaung, and more affected by homeworlder cultures—hard to escape when the verdant shores of Ivapa II were but a shuttle away—but in the end, when all else was stripped, the steel was Terran, as was the engineering that gave it shape. By the time she reached Hangar 12, the dominant smell was not that of outdoor cooking, but coolant and heated metal. As she approached the resting freighter, a figure rose up to greet her.
December 3, 2025 at 4:33 PM
danfbispo.bsky.social
#WIPSnips

Again, can't relate. Free time? In THIS economy?
Free time. An endless void, begging to be filled by work, or by entertainment, lest it filled itself with ennui. She wondered how the samples were doing. She knew Jardine would treat them with all the care in the world, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t about the samples, not really; it was about her, and the joy they brought her, and the fleeting sense of purpose they would imbue into her life. “Ada?” The pod stirred with anticipation. “What’s the status of Blob’s vivarium?” “Biomass dispenser eighty-seven percent full.” The seconds dragged. “What’s oxygen saturation of the water?” “Eighty-five percent and stable.” Yana sighed.
December 2, 2025 at 9:14 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Another repeat, but one I like a lot. It's from the later parts of First Light Book 1, when I was just chilling and letting the words land wherever they did. Worked out okay, I think!

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
Rook sat on their newly-claimed bed, in their newly-claimed private quarters—or, as they defiantly called it, their house. Diodorus had promised to help them clear out all the clutter he’d filled it with over the years, and while they appreciated the offer, they had been quick to decline. Truth was, a cramped room suited Rook just fine. Clutter was evidence of life; a physicality of memory, a sense of belonging. They liked having little trinkets to hold, decorations to move around, splotches of color on otherwise unremarkable surfaces.
December 1, 2025 at 10:57 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
I do have number! A whole character named after a number, in fact. In today's snippet, she meets the crew and introduces herself.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
“That’s great! I am Andromeda Solutions’ Artificial Locutive/Reactive Intelligence™, S&M Model, serial number 0721B-06. I respond to Six, and I’m here to help. And you are… Adrian Rook of Veter IV, and Yana N/A of Vara IX. I hope this is the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.” “S and what, now?” Rook asked.
November 30, 2025 at 9:27 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
It's #CreatorDay on Itch.io, so I made my horror anthology free to claim again. Go get it! Maybe even toss in a coin if you like it--or let me know. I'm as fueled by validation as I am by income, if not more so.

Why yes, I *am* desperate.

barrows.itch.io/the-cryptic-...
November 28, 2025 at 3:53 PM
danfbispo.bsky.social
This is what kicks off the plot in First Light--Yana decides to take an assignment because she thinks she's very clever, and this is going to be a workaround to her boss forcing her to take time off. Workaholics, can't relate.

Turns out, she isn't as clever as she thinks.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky
A spark went through Yana’s mind. She too had been on a Trilobite before, in transit, before Habitat welcomed her, all those years ago—and even though she couldn’t attest to the quality of its brig, she had been allowed to visit the lab, and found it adequate. The spark caught. A functional research station. An opportunity. To do the one thing she was good at, away from Habitat, thus fulfilling Warden’s demand for time off while also avoiding his scrutiny. If she could find a way to bring enough of her research to the Trilobite, then she could continue it there unimpeded. Suddenly, she had a lot to think about.
November 26, 2025 at 11:32 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Guys, don't look now, but I think Yana may have just accidentally released a trapped cyberdemon.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingPrompts #WritingCommunity
Something cracked under her boot. On reflex, she looked down where she had stood was a pile of fine dust, and around it, now clearly visible under her compad’s light, black lines across the metal. She stood in the middle of a circle, coarse lines inside of lines inside of lines, all fading and roughly drawn, but vivid with importance and screaming with intent. Her heel covered up a tangled mess of knots and vines, intertwining, bending, dancing serpentine with each other. The tip of her boot smudged an outer layer of straight lines and right angles arranged into closed systems—circuit diagrams in all but presentation. The smell of incense had become overwhelming; it was as if it had been baked into the walls themselves. “Odd,” Six said, crossing the threshold, “these are signs of habitation.”
November 25, 2025 at 10:20 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Another day, another substitution. This time it's world!

Personally, I like these few paragraphs a great deal. They're pretty indulgent, but I'm indulgent too, so it all works out.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
Storage, the voice had said. Yana knew what the word truly meant. Every station, sooner or later, developed such places. They were the bowels of their artificial worlds, the layers between Layers, the unlit hollows where the extraneous and the unclaimed gathered out of sight and mind. Waste could be burned. It could be recycled, repurposed, even ejected. But between the realms of worthless and worth keeping sat the could-bes, the maybes. Utilitarianism demanded these objects be kept, but not preserved; saved, but not organized; cast aside, but never away.
November 23, 2025 at 12:53 PM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Substituting clear, because even though it's one of my favorite words, "crystal" never shows up in First Light.

Also, I get an excuse to share the other half of the scene with Blob, since people seemed to like it.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
This miniature alien forest, complete with a miniature pond, stepped and dense in all three dimensions, was, Yana knew, purely aesthetic. She always thought Blob would fit in with the Zetan Period forests of Tau Ceti IV; a uniquely CO2-heavy climate comparable to Earth’s Early Carboniferous. In reality, however, Blob felt every bit at home in a nutrient suspension as it did in a lush forest, or calcite desert, or volcanic wasteland. It was, after all, one of the most resilient lifeforms in the known galaxy. The little amoeba, sensing its owner’s presence, crawled out from a pile of discarded shells. It lingered under the claw shape of one of the Zetan arbormorphs, its organs swirling with excitement, then extended a pseudopod upwards, which trembled like a fearful finger until it touched the lid’s glass. Through that thin life rope, Blob lifted itself up and pressed itself against the lid. “Sorry, Blob, no new pathogens for you to absorb today.” she said, reaching into the vivarium and reaching out to the amoeba. The clear, jelly-like shape eagerly climbed onto her hand, and there it rested, basking in the warmth of her touch.
November 22, 2025 at 10:19 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Today's #WIPSnips is "Direction", of which I had a few, but I think this one fits best.

#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
A memory, long sealed away, reached out—and it whispered of barren plains, pressed dirt, air that burned. People, digging like animals. A malfunctioning respirator. The crying of a baby. A wide, unbroken vista, smooth like marble, with no seas, no mountains, no clouds, no life, just tilled earth, tilled earth in all directions, as far as the eye could see. She screamed, but had no breath in her lungs. She closed her eyes, it only plunged her deeper. She breathed.
November 21, 2025 at 9:52 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
I think panache might be one of my favorite words.

Yana finds herself at a crossroads. Be cool space hero, or go back to Habitat? The answer might surprise you.

The answer won't surprise you.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
“You two are here,” Gloria said, “because you passed our exams, and applied for positions aboard an NEV vessel. I’ll be direct: we have more than a few opportunities for people like you.” Her halfhearted smile said less capable, more breathing. “Actually, if I may…” “Yana, yes? Go ahead.” “Well, it’s just, I’ve been thinking, and maybe this isn’t for me…” A massive understatement, and Yana knew it. She had no business being a NEV; NEVs were pilots, and linguists, and mechanical engineers, and special agents, dashing rogues, action heroes, paramedics. Yana was an epidemiologist. Her expertise lay in the lenses of microscopes, not telescopes, and, as far as she could tell, there wasn’t a single molecule of daring, panache, or wanderlust in her entire body.
November 20, 2025 at 9:09 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
The rule of threes states that I will have to share this snip again later to complete the cycle 😎

When Yana and Rook first meet, she has little patience for their attempts at making friends. Surely, they won't become besties in the future.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
Silence fell between them, and though Yana basked in it, it soon became clear Rook could not abide a moment’s rest. “I took my exam three times,” they explained, out of nowhere. “First in my homeworld, then in the Kiran Bedi station, then in the Habitat.” Yana nodded, hoping the conversation would fall off again. “So, I failed the first one because I didn’t understand what they were testing. Then I failed the second because I didn’t read the briefing right. But I had a bunch of time to practice between stops, suss out what do they want from an officer, what qualifies as a good officer, that sort of thing. Then I passed my third test! Just barely.” They smiled. As far as Yana could tell, they were proud of this. “The Kiran Bedi station is several spikes away,” she offered, under quiet protest. “Yeah, there were a lot of those,” Rook said. “And my homeworld’s further away still.”
November 19, 2025 at 8:47 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Diodorus when a bunch of weirdos from space walk in with a deed to his spaceship-home.
A teary-eyed cat in a hole, with a post-it note saying "EVICTION NOTICE"
November 18, 2025 at 10:44 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Substituting "backwards", and even that was a close one!

In this scene, Yana experiences the concept of a sky firsthand for the first time.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
She double-checked the directions she’d been given, and a map came up. Looking around, she identified no landmarks at all, only ever-shifting crowds. Then, she looked up. There was no ceiling; only a void that no light dared pierce. She felt herself stumbling backwards, even though her feet were glued to the floor; the darkness spread out in all directions, with no height nor depth, grasping her by the somatic nervous system and wrenching her skyward. Everything faded but the nausea. Next to her, someone said something that the background chatter swallowed up completely. When she felt a pull on her sleeve, she ignored it; just another piece of sensory input at a time where everything melted together. A hand grasped her wrist and pulled, and without protest, she let it lead her away. One step at a time, the crowd was left behind. She felt herself in familiar corridors again; two walls, a ceiling, one path. One path. No sea to drown in.
November 18, 2025 at 9:38 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
I know I've shared this one before, but I really like it. It is Yana's first experience in a NEV ship, a place where history is made, not just remembered.

It immediately infatuates her. Of course, like most infatuations, this one will fade if not nurtured.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity
In the third deck of the Nomadic Exploration Volunteers’ scout ship Radiant, Yana sat in a waiting room and considered all the decisions that had led her to this point. The old vessel had been quick to work its strange magic on her. From the moment she stepped through the umbilical, a whole new world had welcomed her. A world of history—not the almost desperate remembrances of the Habitat’s Bellerophons and Devapalas and Anansis, not the things that were easy or empowering to remember, but real history, immediate history, written itself in dents and plasma burns and long sinuous scars in the fuselage. It reminded Yana of something she hadn’t seen in a long time—something she’d escaped, but had come to find herself missing, as if some part of her had craved the simplicity of hardship. There was no Ada here to haunt her under the guise of helpfulness. The smiles she did encounter on her way came with effort, yet were all the more honest for it. And more than that, this Radiant, this old and tired piece of metal full of old and tired people, wore its wounds openly. They were wounds she could spend a lifetime tending to.
November 17, 2025 at 11:34 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Return of the fan favorite character--in that I'm its fan, and it's my favorite.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
“Okay, Blob, back in you go.” The amoeba tried to run up her arm, but she scooped it up and placed it, defeated, in its lush cage.
November 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
#Novmemeber 14

The main opposing force of First Light book 1 is literally just a bunch of garbage that's in the way.
the world's worst drawn trash can
November 14, 2025 at 3:36 PM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Fresh new snip from the first chapter of First Light Book 2, as promised!

I would add some kind of remark, but really, it's just good, solid advice.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
“Hey, Captain,” the first voice interrupted. Yana winced. The title still hung about her like an unwelcome smell. “Yes, Rook?” “Where do we keep the medical supplies?” “...why?” “No reason.” “Rook…” “Just a lil’ nosebleed, it’s nothing, really.” “Infirmary.” “There’s really no need—” “Now.” A small chuckle, echoed through cramped surroundings, rose from the small device. “I’d advise against antagonizing your captain in the very first minute of a week-long spike jump,” Diodorus said from the ship’s bowels. “Doubly so when she’s also the only doctor on board.”
November 14, 2025 at 11:52 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Yana would insist she doesn't find memes funny, and then laugh until she got a tummyache the moment you showed her this one.

#Novmemeber 13
A two-panel meme template with the caption "if you had a time machine what would you go back and fix?" "me:" followed by someone using a stick to push the first fish to walk on land back into the water.
November 13, 2025 at 5:27 PM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Guys, the robot is being explainy again...

Also, accountability moment: tomorrow's snippet is going to be from Book 2. I WILL sneak a "week" in there.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
“Yeah, I reckon,” Rook said; their voice carried, however, a different message. “So you prefer to reside in that body, rather than something more advanced? Did I get that right?” “Perhaps explaining is not fully possible, but it could most accurately be described as compatibility, rather than preference. As a braked AI, I am limited in terms of processing power; there are hard limits of what I can achieve intellectually and creatively. My body, likewise, is defined in concrete ways in terms of appearance, build, and capabilities. The interaction between these two factors distinguishes and defines me as an independent unit.”
November 13, 2025 at 9:43 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Subbing clothes for today's #WIPSnips.

Protagonists will do all kinds of things to avoid having to get back to the person who asked them on a date.

Incidentally, I started work on Book 2 today. What's that? Fresh snips in the horizon? Maybe.

#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
By the third day of her imposed break, Yana felt as if she’d done everything there was to do in the universe—everything, that is, other than calling Ngata. She had walked through the visitor areas of the station, sipped on designer drinks at the many bars that littered the arm. She had seen all the museum pieces, visited all the niche communities on the station’s alt-world, participated in a pottery class, tried on new clothes, and put herself in the shoes of an Old World explorer in the sensory chambers. But no matter how enjoyable the experience, or how didactic, she always called it early, craving the quiet of her pod, access to all her systems and the six walls that protected her. And once there, she felt at peace—and empty again.
November 12, 2025 at 10:43 AM
danfbispo.bsky.social
Yana is this owl in particular. Rook's an opossum. Six is a mantis, but only when they're posturing to scare off a predator. Diodorus is a giant tortoise.

#Novmemeber (I actually spelled it right this time!)
A picture of a startled-looking owl.
November 11, 2025 at 5:53 PM
danfbispo.bsky.social
No burgers, but here's the infamous Bread--the one, singular case of people eating in the entirety of First Light.

To be fair, it's good bread.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
November 11, 2025 at 2:11 PM
danfbispo.bsky.social
In today's snip, I channel my terror at having to turn corners in busy areas (people always bump into me), as well as my self-consciousness about my resting bitch face.

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
Even these more isolated alleyways still felt crowded compared to the Habitat. Though wide, the way they winded made every bend a blind spot, and it seemed as if behind each one a local awaited just to startle her. Windows were scattered across the facades of rusting buildings, of a thousand shapes and sizes, casting their glow across the street. For each pristine synthwood door, another had been barred with chunks of scrap. It seemed to Yana like a place between places, defiant in its identity while lacking one at all. “New to non-modular housing?” Rook asked. “Sorry?” “You’ve been glaring at everything for the last minute or so, all intense-like.” “That’s just what my face looks like.” Yana was used to this comment, but it nevertheless gave her pause. “How many people live here, six million? Seven? I expected it to be more efficient, that’s all.”
November 10, 2025 at 9:05 AM