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derlakernlins.bsky.social
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@derlakernlins.bsky.social
370 followers 370 following 980 posts
- editing an urban fantasy book about slutty dragons
- GM for @livefromtheapocalypse
- random fiber arts
- two children and a house wolf
- permacultist
- i block for AI
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derlakernlins.bsky.social
This conversation doesnt end well for this guy, which is probably the least deserved death in all of Machinations.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
“TPI does good work too,” the man said, a trifle belatedly. “Like, stuff that genuinely helps people. They’ve got some stuff in the pipeline that might revolutionize oncology. But the magic stuff is universally shady. That’s why I came to you guys. I’m worried we’ve got an Omelas situation. I don’t know if the good we’re going is worth what’s happening below the surface.” Oh, of course they were gonna fuckin’ cure cancer on top of all of it. This guy, this poor guy. This is why organizations shouldn’t try this half-assed, barely get your feet wet version of magic. Friendly nerds wound up knowing just enough to be a danger to themselves.
December 10, 2025 at 1:11 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science, right Penny?

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
She pulled out her work laptop, gritting her teeth through the warning throb of pain that seemed to start in the roots of her teeth and spread into her vision. She ignored it. She didn’t respect this pain. Unfortunately the pain was not the only barrier. Upon entering her password, her watch should have beeped, the diamonds should have flared white, and the system should have opened for her like an eager lover. Now the watch was silent. The diamonds remained stubbornly carbon-black and the laptop rejected her password. Fuck. “Well, that’s the easiest road closed,” she said aloud, raking a hand through her hair. How irritating. Still. She hadn’t spent a significant portion of her adult life doing experimental design for nothing. She moved to her personal laptop, a much less fancy machine primarily used for Netflix and porn, and began drafting an exposure plan.
December 9, 2025 at 1:50 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Highlighting the fourth card Niamh draws in her reading for Harker because I have 0 instances of the word "fourth" for some reason???

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
“For the future we have the five of wands. Conflict. Anger coming from multiple directions, many voices making demands. Below the surface, we see the Nine of Swords, reversed. Inner turmoil spilling out into the world.” Niamh’s eyes swept across the cards. “Your turmoil, the turmoil of others. The conflict we see in your near future must be contained, treated carefully. At the end, the potentials of the situation, we have…” Niamh placed the card without ceremony. Harker snorted. “Death,” he said. “Even I know that one means ‘change.’ What a spectacularly unhelpful card. The potential impact might be change?! You don’t bloody say!” Niamh glanced at the images below. “Death means change, but it can also just mean death.”
December 8, 2025 at 12:22 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Ok Niamh we get it you have the coolest library god

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Niamh was not human. Her book was a part of her, and she was part of it. That gave her some protection from the cloying power promised by foresight. It still wasn’t something she consulted lightly. But she was furious now. Someone had invaded her space. Someone had taken her necklace. Some lesser creature had dared to rob a dragon and she was going to roast them alive. The book sat on a gilded lectern surrounded by soaring windows that looked out into empty Bright. This was the farthest from the material would one could be while still existing within Niamh’s collection. Unreality was a physical force here, something that could, without Niamh’s consciousness to guide it, rend minds and bodies asunder.
December 7, 2025 at 2:15 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
#Smutcember first kiss: Penny and Thomas don't kiss on the lips. Their sex is entirely transactional... until they meet by chance at an orgy and sneak into a private screened space after having fun with others. This is the first moment they *want* it.

...they do a bunch of other stuff instead.
December 6, 2025 at 1:57 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Joey Fitz, New Jersey Elemental, Union Man, genuinely good boss.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
“Hey, man, you invest in people and they invest back in you, know what I’m sayin’? You want people to treat you right, you gotta treat them right. Shit, that’s what’s wrong with half the world today is that folks in charge forgot how to treat people. The bigger you get the more people you gots to be kind to.” That was so profoundly in opposition to the tenor of the meeting Sebastian had just left that it took him a moment to respond. “You don’t find that people take advantage of you?” Joey laughed. “You know, that’s never been a problem for me.” “Such trust,” Sebastian swirled the ice in his glass, hoping his own steaming envy wasn’t obvious. “How many of them know your secret?” This time Joey’s laugh didn’t touch his eyes. “What secret? Ya boy Joey Fitz is an open book. I ain’t got secrets, I just got the hookup to whatever kinda party you wanna throw.”
December 6, 2025 at 12:32 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Niamh may be an ancient being of incredible power and awe inspiring fury but she also has big Sunday school teacher energy.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Penny sat. Niamh didn’t. Under the dragon’s glower, Penny took out her phone and began tapping out the sequence for Camilla’s portable warding, which would shield them from the Crusader’s senses. “No magic, Vigil,” Niamh barked. Penny’s hand shook but did not move from the screen. It was a bizarre feeling, to be afraid of this woman who looked so powerfully like Penny’s third grade teacher back in Norton, Virginia.
December 5, 2025 at 1:50 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Fun fact: dragons explode into a soul-devouring death vortex when they die! Turns out fucking with immortality had some unforseen consequences!

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Thomas laughed. “Your magic court does trial by combat, doesn’t it?” He asked. “Two of us fight, one gets a lethal wound… we take out the whole pack of ‘em in one go. Distraction and weapon all in one tidy package.” “I have people I care about in this city,” Niamh snapped. “I’m not suiciding for this.” Thomas shrugged. “Suit yourself. Detonating is a perfectly reasonable solution, in my experience. These bodies start to go to shit once you hit 40. Shuck ‘em off, start again.”
December 4, 2025 at 2:43 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
God damn it, Riley.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
“The woman’s name is Niamh Molina,” Jackson supplied, as if giving a hint. “I found her picture on Facebook. The one who fired first… we can find that out the easy way, right now, or we can let Riley off his leash in the city and he’ll find out the hard way.” Riley perked up at that. “Really?” “Sure. You put new soundproofing in, right?” “Nah,” he said. “But I can take their vocal chords first. There’s a trick to doing it without nicking anything lethal.” “Seems like it would defeat the point of asking questions,” Charlie said as if it didn’t rattle him, but Thomas didn’t need dragon senses to hear the wavering of his voice or notice the sudden pallor of his skin. “You’d think, but you just leave ‘em their dominant hand,” Riley chirped cheerfully. “People write truths they’d never speak out loud anyway.”
December 3, 2025 at 11:57 AM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Whomst among us could resist letting a malevolent decay spirit live in our compost heap in exchange for protection and really good soil additives? Im sure there will be no problems with this arrangement.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Later, Thomas wouldn’t really be able to say what motivated him to make a second deal. Maybe it was the pressure of the dragon blood lingering in his mind, reminding him that things were going to change, fast and soon. Maybe it was the fact that Ezekiel was dying, and that his name was a large percentage of what stood between the rampaging supernatural world and the death of the entire compound. Maybe it was Thomas’s obscure, obscene loyalty to a family that treated him like cannon fodder. Whatever the reason, he asked the entity to protect the whole compound in exchange for letting it have the time of its fucked up and nasty life in the Owens family composter.
December 2, 2025 at 12:52 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
You are technically not supposed to bite people at work BUT...
A tiny red crab holds up a metal pen, with colorful text reading "you have been visited by the PERMIT CRAB you may do 1 bad thing today"
December 1, 2025 at 11:58 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Everybody loves a lore dump right???

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Things from the Bright didn’t belong in the material. Fae, demons, and gestating dragons straddled that line, but beings of pure spirit strained the veil between the material world and the spiritual. Their psychic mass did strange things to reality in the same way that Niamh distorted the Bright. While it was unlikely that this spirit had the weight to do any permanent damage, there was no universe or plane of existence where a dragon permitted an unauthorized incursion into her collection.
December 1, 2025 at 12:26 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Ugh Harker why would you give a dragon *back* her treasure thats so stupid

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Harker shook his head, eyes still fixed on the dragon treasure. “No,” he said softly. “That’s not all it is. It feels like…” He stood abruptly. “Come with me.” Harker led her up the back stairs into a small, clean apartment. It looked a lot like where Penny had lived during grad school: neat and spare and barely lived in. He invited her to sit on a folding chair, went into a back room, and came back with a solid gold torc. “Your necklace feels like this,” he said. “And this belongs to a friend of mine, but I can’t give it back to them. I tried three times and my hand won’t dial the phone number. I tried to drive to their place and I drove around the block eight times before someone called the cops on me for suspicious behavior.”
November 30, 2025 at 12:15 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Run in a zigzag pattern to confuse them Thomas! (lol youre gonna die)

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
“They’re on me,” Thomas said into the walkie-talkie, his voice a lot steadier than he felt. He scooted backwards, trying to keep out of sight, dragging his rifle with him and hustled his ass down the ladder as quick as he could manage. “Cover fire,” Finn said, and the answering sound of Owens guns was music to Thomas’s ringing ears. He didn’t want to drop the rifle as he bolted, but he needed something for close quarters. Thomas sped around a corner. His brain said “Werewolf!” almost before his eyes actually resolved the mass of grey fur and yellow fangs barreling toward him.
November 28, 2025 at 3:36 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Niamh’s shop sets up a nice cozy fantasy vibe to which the rest of the novel immediately does arson.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Niamh spent much of her morning, as she always did, at work. She owned a small antiques shop, just off of the main drag of the shopping district of Concord. The shop, Legends Of Their Time, took up the first floor and the basement of her home and was laid out in the traditional antique shop jumble. People liked to hunt for their treasures, Niamh reasoned, though she always made sure the nicest and priciest things were easily accessible.
November 27, 2025 at 1:54 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Y e e t
A toddler in a blue shirt, pink leggings, and a sparkly purple tutu leaps off the top bunk of her bed onto a giant beanbag
November 26, 2025 at 9:21 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Attempts to impede Penny's progress arent gonna work out great for you, Thomas.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Thomas snorted. “Like any good cult we keep track of apostates. You gonna tell me what you were in there for or am I torturing it out of you?” Penny’s libido furnished her with a series of increasingly improbable images of what that might be like. He sneered at her, probably taking her little shudder of desire for a shiver of fear. Was that a hint of disappointment in his face? Did he not like that she was afraid of him? No. That was an absurd thought. She pushed down the thoughts about how fun he’d probably be in bed and straightened her spine. “What bargains I make are my own concern. What she reveals to you is hers.” She went to push past him but he stepped in front of her so she had to either stop or run face-first into him. “I didn’t say we were done,” he growled. A porcelain hand clamped down on his shoulder. He turned and looked up, and up, and up into the serene, unmoving gaze of Penny’s Arcane Crusader. “No,” Penny said, sweetly. “I think we’re done now.”
November 26, 2025 at 12:09 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Still hating Dr Chase, always hating Dr Chase.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
“Void existed before your work, of course,” Zhu said. “Long before.” Penny was almost too amazed at the concept to be irritated at the of course. But she was certainly not too amazed to realize that this was almost certainly the final nail on the coffin of Chase’s hatred of her. He’d fought to have his name removed from that project because he’d thought it wasn’t worth his time. “I’m very glad my work has been helpful at all. Thank you for bringing me here.” She eyed the molecule again. “You mentioned it uses whole blood product.” “It’s materially expensive to produce,” Graham acknowledged. “But not terribly complicated.” Alborez frowned at her. “Dr. Chase should have–” “Dr. Chase saved research and development documents in his downloads folder,” Penny said. Zhu snorted. “I’m afraid I’ve had to waste a good deal of time doing systems archaeology and unable to read up on this project.” Brooks silenced whatever Alborez was about to say with a raised hand. “Of course. Dr. Chase was a–” Penny would never know what Dr. Chase was beyond a sexist piece of shit with bad file management practices, because the light from the glass wall suddenly switched from dim and gray to a dull, sullen red. All heads turned toward it.
November 25, 2025 at 3:53 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Losing at chess but winning at dinner so I guess that's all right
Spaghetti with venison bolognese, a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and a slice of homemade garlic bread
November 25, 2025 at 2:36 AM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
The debut of Penny's Arcane Crusader

...this snip is too long but that's ritual magic nerds for you.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Something moved behind her. The ground shook slightly under its great footfalls. Penny turned around and looked up into her own, carved visage. A colorless valkyrie, Penny’s twin in every detail, from the tiny acne scar that never faded from her forehead to the way her hair draped to her shoulders, stared back at her. Its eyes flashed amber, then red, then blue, then the brilliant, sheening white of the diamonds in Penny’s watch. “This, Vigil, is your Crusader,” Graham said. “Our first and finest weapon against our reincarnating enemy. Wounds given by our Arcane Crusaders will reappear across lifetimes, preventing dragons from attaining their full strength for generations. Here in the Pit they collect and store thaumic energy, allowing those Vigils who do not possess vast reserves of magical strength to cast spells like those of the greatest mages of all time. Through their eyes, we can detect the minutest disruptions and most occult origins of magic. And, due to the intricate and potent work of our own Judge Yanis Brooks, they can be veiled from the sight of most of Concord’s populace.” The Arcane Crusader knelt before Penny, a movement which took the top of its head just about level with Penny’s own, and held up its sword to her. Its eyes did not leave hers. Behind her, Graham said, “Vigil, accept your Crusader’s service and ascend to your place among the protectors of humanity.”
November 24, 2025 at 9:31 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Multinational instead of global.

Also, Riley is secretly my favorite Owens.

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
Riley followed Thomas to the car park, clearly wanting to continue their conversation. “So what’s the plan for TPI?” Thomas gave his brother a gimlet stare. “The fuck do you mean, what’s the plan for TPI?” “I know you have one. A whole corporation of mages! Dad’s gonna flip!” “Dude,” Thomas was briefly at a loss for words. “Dude. TPI is a multinational. They got crazy resources. Us? On a good day we’re forty guys and a Tacoma with a 50 cal mounted to the back of it.” Riley scowled. “It’s an F-250,” he muttered, crossing his arms sullenly and leaning against his car. “Not a Tacoma. I buy American.”
November 23, 2025 at 7:49 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Who just breaks into an antique shop in the middle of the day? Hooligans and rowdies!

#WIPSNIPS #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
“You don’t have real wards?” Harker asked as they drove. He was so proud of this little car, Niamh usually made sure to compliment it, but she wasn’t able to focus right now and frankly the question pissed her off. “It’s a shop,” Niamh said. “I can’t be melting customer’s faces if I forget to turn them off in the morning. And it hadn’t ever been necessary.” The police were already there when they pulled up. A neighbor had seen it happen and was trying to give details to the cops. Niamh went up and identified herself as the shop owner. “They must have been waiting for you to leave,” the officer said. “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary when you left? Any cars out of place?” “No.” Niamh looked at the scattering of glass. The brick hadn’t just shattered the window but destroyed the display of cut crystal goblets and fine china. It had taken Kimmy hours of work to get it looking that nice. And now it was rubble. There were boot prints in the porcelain-dust, but in the era of mass-manufacture, Niamh knew better than to think this gave them an edge.
November 22, 2025 at 1:24 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
"Hey what'd you get up to over the weekend, Penny?"

"Oh. You know. Normal stuff."

#WIPSnips #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting #writingprompts
The warehouse smelled like a butcher’s shop as Penny set up her summoning circle. Lamb bones and viscera, piled in heaps in the cardinal directions, steamed slightly in the cool, autumn air, as did the bucket of blood with which she painted arcane symbols on the walls and floor. She blended suet and blood together in a small mortar and painted lines of thick, sticky fat across her cheeks, her forehead, and her arms. She snapped open an Elizabeth Arden compact mirror to look over her work and nodded, satisfied. She looked like a freak. She looked like herself.
November 21, 2025 at 2:02 PM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Reskeet with a time you looked cool

(Jackson, Wy rocks)
White girl in Orioles pride hat and plaid overshirt holding a cup of coffee atop Grand Teton
November 21, 2025 at 12:34 AM
derlakernlins.bsky.social
Sandy explains the plan to her uncle Thomas, who is not a complicated man/dragon/ness.

#WIPSNIPS #urbanfantasy #writingcommunity #writesky #booksky #amwriting
“You all are gonna use the meeting as an opportunity to jump the wolves and steal their whole shipment of Brimstone, which is some kinda fucked up magic drug making the rounds. Either we destroy the shipment entirely or we do the drugs ourselves and become super-powerful psychonaut warriors and rip apart the enemy with our bare hands.” Thomas grinned. “See? You get me.” “It’s not exactly complicated,” Sandy said. Thomas sighed. He stood up and looked around for a rag to clean off his hands so he could get to work on the technical’s gun. “I think that’s part of the problem. It’s too simple. They want it to be some big complicated comeback and it’s not. I think some of ‘em are afraid I’m gonna force drugs down their throats like a villain in an after school special.”
November 20, 2025 at 12:57 PM