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nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WritngCommunity #spaceopera #navvyverse

Drafty, a bit. That one sentence is really long. In which Polla goes shopping.
March 21, 2025 at 7:00 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #SFF #Writesky #spaceopera #navvyverse #WritingPromopts

Wotd "appreciate"

Ever wonder what would happen if someone like Darth Revan got to meet their implanted persona?

I have...
March 31, 2025 at 2:16 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WritingCommunity #WriteSky #WritingPrompts #spaceopera #navvyverse

Teapot the amazing camouflaged android reveals himself.
March 29, 2025 at 1:35 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
My marketing plan :p

The fun part is picking random locations for the #navvyverse

🪐📚💙
My books in a little free library
April 13, 2026 at 4:37 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips, #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

"Money"

I almost never use the word in the Navvyverse... Polla calls it currency or sling.

But it slips in as a colloquialism from time to time.
February 22, 2025 at 10:07 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Insomnia! So, I bring thee Week2 of #Juneworldbuilders 🪐📚💙 #navvyverse

8. Clothes:

Well, pilots have to wear a special flight suit that exposes their cybernetic arm on one side and has a sleeve on the other.

12Fam aristocrats often wear as little as possible, or, like Davad, kinda OTT

Everyday-
kiraofthewind.com Kira of the Wind (Erika McCorkle) @kiraofthewind.com · May 29
Here's your #JuneWorldbuilders prompt list! I'm feeling much better now compared to some of the previous months, so I'm gonna try to do these ones every day! Remember to check out other peoples' responses and maybe make some new worldbuilder friends!😀
Prompt list for June Worldbuilders. The whole prompt list alt text is in the posts below
June 8, 2025 at 7:21 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
#Juneworldbuilders 7. Servants of a God/Devil

Well... The only actual god in the #navvyverse (so far) is Illcord Natoth, and to his people the term "god" also means "sacrifice." So in some ways it's a question of who serves who?

Does a God serve their people?
kiraofthewind.com Kira of the Wind (Erika McCorkle) @kiraofthewind.com · May 29
Here's your #JuneWorldbuilders prompt list! I'm feeling much better now compared to some of the previous months, so I'm gonna try to do these ones every day! Remember to check out other peoples' responses and maybe make some new worldbuilder friends!😀
Prompt list for June Worldbuilders. The whole prompt list alt text is in the posts below
June 7, 2025 at 1:53 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#JuneWorldbuilders

1. The lines of good/evil are very blurred in #navvyverse . It's a place where good people do horrific things, and even the most reprehensible may not always realize they're baddies.

A big part of the story is the narrator navigating that quagmire.
kiraofthewind.com Kira of the Wind (Erika McCorkle) @kiraofthewind.com · May 29
Here's your #JuneWorldbuilders prompt list! I'm feeling much better now compared to some of the previous months, so I'm gonna try to do these ones every day! Remember to check out other peoples' responses and maybe make some new worldbuilder friends!😀
Prompt list for June Worldbuilders. The whole prompt list alt text is in the posts below
June 1, 2025 at 2:16 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Sometimes writing a villain isn't about the big galaxy-shifting superweapon plans. Sometimes it's about being the kind of woman who'd make fun of a child to hide her own fear.

While also having the superweapon plans.

Writing "real" Ledas for the #navvyverse.
April 23, 2026 at 2:36 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#Pretendpanel major themes in #navvyverse:

Identity, obvs. Atonement. The fallout of war. How much power can corrupt. Good people making bad choices...

I think the biggest theme is how to live in an imperfect world, and do what you can. Sometimes the pregnant farmgirl's the real hero.
professoremily.bsky.social 🫜Prof Emily🫜 @professoremily.bsky.social · Jun 13
Happy Friday the 13th, #PretendPanel! You know what time it is 😁

June 13th: What are the major themes of your book? Did you consciously plan them, or did they arise organically during the process of writing?

Looking forward to y'all's answers! ❤️

#WritingCommunity #Writers #Authors #Writesky
#pretendpanel prompt for Friday June 13: What are the major themes of your book? Bonus Question: Did you consciously choose those themes, or did they arise organically?
June 13, 2025 at 2:03 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

#navvyverse 📚🪐💙

NAMES are pretty significant in Navvy Dreams.

POLLA is a common name on the planet of Feldelroy, the name of one its saints. A common name can be a blessing, but they'll still find you, even if you have no idea what they're talking about.
April 6, 2025 at 5:10 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts #sff #spaceopera #navvyverse 💙🪐📚

Wotd is trick... That word appears a lot, but I'm going with consequences for this one.

Follow up to yesterday's question: what if you met someone like Darth Revan and realized they'd stolen your entire stinking life?
April 1, 2025 at 2:46 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts wotd "balance"

#navvyverse

💙📚🪐

Our Heroine has about a quarter of the story. Rathe has about three quarters. The other two... Well, they're manipulative stoneshapers working for the greater good... Probably.
She glanced at Rathe. “I despise the Houses too. What we did upset a balance. In its own way, it was a victory.” I scoffed. “For Nate, maybe. And I didn’t take you for a Unity reformer.” Mureen’s voice grew an edge. “You have no idea.” My co-pilot laughed. “That’s my point. She still has no idea.” “Oh, I’ve ideas—” I began. “Leave it, Sai,” Davad said sharply.
July 29, 2025 at 6:51 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips, #WtitingCommunity, #WritingPrompts "battery," the one occurrence in Navvies' Flight.

My thoughts: ships in the #navvyverse have some kind of fusion engine for propulsion, and solar sails for sunlight flight... But they need separate fuel and batteries to run their life support systems.
The kiss was more than a little sore around the edges, and so I slapped on another derm, and then she and I continued reassembling one of the turbines that kept our oxygenated air flowing; one I couldn’t help but notice hadn’t looked broken to begin with. I hadn’t forgotten that Davad’s priceless artifact, Bene Dix’s Crown. I hadn’t forgotten about Ledas’s stone gir, which Davad had stolen back, either. I also hadn’t forgotten the strange sense I kept having of being followed. I still had the gun Ells had given me, but I wanted that gir back. Didn’t seem healthy for Davad to keep the very dagger that he’d used to shank his sister, but finding an opportunity to rob him (again) was harder than I expected. For, as if they’d planned it, I was never alone. Rathe returned in the late afternoon to find me and Mureen completing an inventory of the Escape’s battery reserves. My copilot dragged me to his quarters, pressing me against the wall so rapidly and roughly that it took time for both of
October 9, 2025 at 9:53 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts wotd "half"

A new pov I want to include in Book Three, Danny, Rathe's son. This is overly wordy and I'm still figuring out his voice--but it's a glimpse of a different corner of the #navvyverse.

🪐📚💙
My future was so bright as to be another Centauri nova—complete and total annihilation. Steering Committee apparently thought Kem’s future was so bright they were giving him another whole bounding up into the upper class. Roommate reassignment: Cadet M’Trayme to Cadet Tonatez. Bunk 67-JW. Tonatez was an admiral’s son. The Jay-West bunks had their own private chef. Kem was so lucky he smelled like roses. They’d kicked him all the way to the top to wash off the stink of knowing me. I’m enough of an asshole that I deleted that correspondence from his account. Kem was enough of an idiot that he thought he was the only one with skills. He didn’t even know I’d cracked his login. Hadn’t been hard to guess his password. I knew all his stories. When I was done bandaging my bleeding hand, I went to Commons East to meet Kem’s recruiter. Career Opportunities Day at the Academy had been three months ago, back when I’d had a future. At that time, Foxconn’s rep was just one in a line of 12Fam suits sitting at low tables along the north wall. I’d barely paid attention. All the newsbands had been going nuts about Radalac and us cadets had half-expected we’d ship out to war by next week. Today, those tables were all empty. Save one. Kem was sitting on top of it, a slender cadet standing behind him. Her hands were on his shoulders. A suited man sat at a chair to their left and a pack of official flimsies spread out over the table fluttering in the ventilated breeze. As I watched, Kem and Liisa both shook the seated man’s hand. Behind them all, transparency stretched out a view of Dim VI, the planet beneath the Academy ring. Its inhospitable surface was a bubbling cauldron of brown and black and red. Perfectly matched my mood. Kem’s head turned in my direction. He was cross-legged like they were at a cadet campfire, talking in a casually obvious wag that I knew had to be for my benefit. As I drew closer, my man slipped his arm around Cadet DeVry’s waist and leaned close to whisper in …
September 11, 2025 at 2:28 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts wotd "wait"

Our Heroine escapes her loving companions and sneaks onto Moonbase Celestean, a very fancy "hive of scum and villainy..."

#navvyverse
I turned to see a refreshingly familiar bubble-faced uniform, same the galaxy through, neatly molded to the portside officer wearing it, complete with a scribe and scanner. The port officer leaned against our ship like she had nothing better to do than wait for my bribe. “Have a heart.” I grinned. “Boss put me on kits while we’re docked. Supposed to spend our entire shore leave slotted in and checking regulators. I needed to stretch my legs.” “Poor thing!” The woman chuckled from behind her visor. Her helm was diffused so all I caught of an expression was the flash of her silvery teeth. “But we only have one pilot authorized from your craft, and he’s already gone. Afraid I’ll have to issue a citation.” “Truly?” I produced a ring from Davad’s hoard, the one I’d tucked in my chest pocket for this possibility: small and plain, nothing outrageous. “If you do, I’d have to keep this old trinket. Just a scrap of old Earth gold I found cleaning the tanks.” “May I see?” Her friendly smile turned professional, which told me I’d chosen well. “Well! This is quite nice.” She held out the ring on her finger for us both to admire. “But you’ll need a station carta, or you’ll just get stopped again.” “Really?” I lowered my voice. “Thing is, I’m on the low. Got a premade?” She pulled a handful of metal, glittering chits, all attached to chains, out of her pocket. “I might… For someone from your ship.” “Ours? Why? Is it special?” I’d already noticed the Escape was the only one around not stamped with any Arkan logos. She lowered her voice. “Top clearance codes. There’s even a rumor that the Arkan of Arkan’s aboard your ship, whoever they are. It’s the talk of the station.” I froze. “Oh that! On the low, so I can’t confirm.” She giggled. “I think you just did.” I quickly changed the subject, since dealing with why Davad was throwing around 12Fam titles when we were desperate fugitives seemed best addressed with him. “Say… you do genetic scans on Celestean?” She snorted. “With how paran…
June 3, 2025 at 2:35 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
A lot of space opera goes for the epic scale:trillions and trillions of worlds, millions of years, unimaginable numbers and giant empires without end. Epic sweeps like Foundation, or Culture, or Sun Eater.

I love that stuff, but I wanted to do it different. Epic, but claustrophobic.

#navvyverse
June 21, 2025 at 12:01 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
The kind of weird notes you make to yourself: can't use oysters here because in #navvyverse, people use them as part of terraforming project, not for eating...

Or also for eating?

Ponders.
June 25, 2025 at 7:54 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
Here first, in their debut holopik...

Team Villain in the #navvyverse. Although I use the term villain loosely, as I'm not really sure who the good guys are.

Teapot? Nik?

Art by the fabulous @cgmythology.bsky.social

From left to right: Virmarr, Nate, and Beya post-krov Shaping.
A scarred centaur, a very fit man with goat legs and a cybernetic arm, and a dryad all pose by some ruins while eldritch krov energies twist the very fabric of reality around them. Virmarr, Nate, and Beya: from Navvy Dreams and Navvies' Flight
November 28, 2025 at 2:53 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
The reason androids in the navvyverse are never called DROIDS is I thought it was a Star Wars term... Although I think "android" refers to a human shaped robot, and none of the navvyverse androids are that... (Forbidden to make a machine that looks like a person: nearly universally agreed.)
April 15, 2026 at 5:54 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
From today's progress. I don't know if I'd call it "meet cute."

#booksky #navvyverse #spaceopera
grenades, beside a dozen others he’d lost the skill to protect. By then the battle had reduced him to nothing but the gir in his hand, and his willingness to do harm. It was during the monotone of Davad’s imprisonment, and the madness of his remorse that Mureen finally came, slipping in quietly one night during his sleep cycle, a time when he wasn’t supposed to have visitors at all. (He would find out later that she bribed his guards, relying upon the advice of her new acquaintance, a certain Feldelroyan smuggler.) “Hello,” she said, smiling. His first impression was that she was small and slight and vaguely familiar, and that her robes were a plain beige, with only the bulge of her gir in her pocket to indicate that she ranked high enough to carry one on a Fleet-controlled ship, the privilege having been rescinded to most Ken’ri after the war. “I thought Glos would send a taller assassin to kill me.” Davad stood up, because on the off chance that was true, he did not want to meet death lying down. “Perhaps all the taller ones are busy.” Her head tilted, assessing him. “You do look much improved.” “When did you see me before?” When she smiled, a dimple flashed. “I was assigned to your retrieval crew. You were unconscious for weeks. My name is Mureen.” “Hello, Mureen.” He gave her a curtsy. So I’ve been told—about the unconsciousness, I mean. No one ever told me about you,” he lied. He’d put a playful edge to his voice, but Mureen just stared. Her eyes were very large for her face, and very dark in this light. “Why would they?” she asked. A pause, then. “But we have mentors in common. Ells and Solon trained me, after they trained you.” “Oh! You’re the Aemercy girl!” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m almost thirty, in fact. Hardly a girl.” He shrugged. “My sister had a note in your file; she said not to recruit.” “Oh? And are you still recruiting for the Faege?”
June 22, 2026 at 10:50 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
In the #navvyverse, humankind went for the stars and got there... But it hasn't really gone well. Most planets have less than a million people. It's only been 3k years from now. There's a lot of untold price that everyone has accepted, that's not something they talk about.
June 21, 2025 at 12:01 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
To counter mutations, and hostile environments, in the #navvyverse, humankind has made some hard choices in those 3k years. For example, what if your um... hermit sect with powers are that way because those powers are stinking dangerous?

The first rule of Kamen is "do no harm" for a reason.
June 21, 2025 at 12:01 AM
nillcord.bsky.social
2: snippet "spirit, angel, or demon."

#JuneWorldbuilders

The differences between demons and angels and spirits and gods in the #navvyverse is up for debate, but the common denominator is probably that old space opera chestnut: aliens.
“Priests back home said horns were common on Aemercy. Because of the part demon.” I had a random remembrance of the time an agnostic Aemercy monk had landed in our neck of the woods. Our cache of Grass Priests had taken poorly to his proselytizing. And then—I shivered. Some smells you never forget. Faris gestured at my navhand. “Pilots are all part-demon. Don’t they teach anything at those Fringer academies?” “We learned that pilots are imbued with pieces of god-spirits. Demons are extinct.” “I learned a hundred years ago not to talk about religion with you people.” I rolled my eyes exaggeratedly. “Probably wise for an atheist bomb-worshiping heretic. I’m not religious myself.”
June 2, 2025 at 7:52 PM
nillcord.bsky.social
#Juneworldbuilders #navvyverse

My MC's thoughts on angels/demons, and religion, summed up here in the published NAVVY DREAMS

Feldelroy's 20 Books of Revelations (there are 20 volumes) speak of angels defending from the sky... They may actually be accurate.
(On Feldelroy, they say curiosity’s the Original Sin—the one that first sent the Blessed Twins out of the Garden and into the black. Curiosity’s what made humankind look beyond ourselves, made us build shells to travel the stars, made us create computers to calculate the impossible. Curiosity drove us to find the mysteries of the gods in the first place. I’d like to say I only followed Ken’ri Arkan Davad because he had a pretty face, or a noble cause—didn’t even know his cause—or because of his threats, or that I was doing it for currency. But the second I saw those scars on his arm—things changed. Truth, we learn from the Grass Priests, is a certainty. Indivisible. But circumstances are fickle, and sometimes certainties break. I followed Davad for the currency and the threats, sure, but from that moment on, curiosity took hold, and the urge in my heart of hearts was to know how a princeling became a Kamen-lord, and why a Kamen-lord would dare become a pilot. The Pilot Guild tells us that kamn touched never walk between stars for the same reason they never learn to combine elements or split atoms: such things are heresy. Such things make them gods.)
June 5, 2025 at 2:28 PM