Lydia Devin would like you to know that she’s really very sorry for what happened.
Lydia got superpowers, vast and incomprehensible for a college-aged slacker girl, and no real ability to adjust. How could you get used to lifting an entire car? Witness the world as a still life as you walk by, a shockwave building behind every strolling step? Soar into the air without thinking? And what if that was only the beginning?
Well, she knows what it’s like, and with a little help from her sister, Elana, she’ll tell you all about it. If you’ve ever been curious about what being a goddess is like, Lydia is here to dispel the notion that it’s all fun and games.
But really, she is sorry. And she put the universe back together when she was done, so no harm, no foul, right?
That’s right! My original novel, CorrespondenceFrom the Goddess, is now available on
@tapasapp
! If you’re not familiar with Tapas, it is an iOS and Android app for viewing comics and books online - you probably know their website Tapastic, the webcomics hub! You can read chapters of your favorite stories and support the creators (like me!) by purchasing coins or leaving tips! Or watch ads and get coins, and still help!
If you don’t want to use the app, you can also see it from the website right here!
They have been wonderful people and super-nice to work with, and I highly recommend them and their app! They seem to really want to do right by creators, and I’m thrilled that they took an interest in me. Go support them!
And also me! Please also support me, and read and leave the glowing reviews that I so desperately crave!
Hey followers! I don’t reblog stuff on my main blog, like, at all, as a point of pride… but my pal @mrnelson007wrote a novel, and got approached by a publisher, and they had a totally sweet-looking cover made that he got to consult on the design for, and now they’re launching his book on their platform! Naturally I am about a hundred times more proud of him than I could ever be of my reblog policy, so here we are. CHECK THIS SHIT OUT.
The book is a new-adult modern-fantasy comedy-drama with themes of … no, you know what, too many buzzwords.
The book is about a young lady who’s going through the same stuff as most of us do when we get out on our own- namely, confronting the vast possibilities involved in being responsible for herself, doing things that seem totally reasonable at the time and turn out disastrous, cleaning up her messes while also creating other messes that are newer and more exciting, trying to find a way to stop getting into these situations in the first place, and wondering why anyone let her out on her own without a better understanding of the territory or at LEAST some safety gear.
The difference is… Let’s put it this way. Settling into normal adulthood is like learning to operate a vehicle whose controls and owner’s manual are in an unfamiliar language, while navigating a strange city where you don’t recognize the streets or understand the traffic signals. But where most of us are trying to figure out a bike, a motorcycle or maybe a car, Lydia is locked in the cockpit of the Space Shuttle. A fender-bender for her is liable to demolish a couple of city blocks. And her co-pilot… well, go see for yourself, already.
An Extra with earth-moving powers has been shaking down Akron, Ohio, and Evey Bloom leads the investigators of the Athena Office as they try to find the culprit before someone gets hurt! But why would a criminal knowingly attract the attention that comes with threatening an Academy for Extranormal Individuals? The answer may surprise you…
You can start this series from the beginning with Gatekeepers #0, or check out the other stories of the Strange Moon Universe at our homepage.
-// I'm sure others have asked you this, so excuse me for bothering you if I am-- but would you consider expanding on your Ballad of Lapis Lazuli with everything that's happened past Jailbreak? c:
You are, in fact, the first to ask this one- congratulations! Now strap in, because I have both Thoughts and Feelings about this…
After I first saw Jail Break, I really didn’t think we were going to see Lapis again.
She’d been rejected by Homeworld, she’d rejected Earth and the Crystal Gems (though not Steven in particular), and it was not the kind of rejection where you hang around long enough for the other party to understand how much you’re not interested in them- she was leaving. And this was perfectly in line with what we’d seen from her so far- everything she’d done in the course of her first two appearances was in the service of getting away from the Crystal Gems and from Earth in general. When she fused with Jasper and took control of Malachite, she was very certain of her intentions and clearly capable of carrying them out, and crossing paths with our heroes in any capacity was not among them.
And no one was stepping up to stop her, either. In hindsight, it seems likely that the Crystal Gems decided they needed to do something about Malachite, probably relatively soon after Jail Break, but we didn’t get any hints of that decision until Love Letters. When Steven tells Connie what happened to Lapis and Jasper in Full Disclosure, there’s no suggestion that the Crystal Gems saw Malachite as a problem they should be solving. Even when Garnet goes diving in search of them, it looks pretty hopeless- they have all the oceans of the world to choose from, and she shows no sign of any progress. I didn’t really believe there was a possibility of Lapis or Jasper returning until the climax of Chille Tid.
The Ballad of Lapis Lazuli was written and designed under this impression. It discusses Lapis as someone whose story, from the teller’s point of view, is over, and can be considered as a complete thing with themes and an overall mood. It’s a sad song, not just because sad things have happened to Lapis (with or without her help), but because Steven is singing about a friend who has moved away. Those feelings of sadness, and perhaps more importantly of completeness, are woven into it from start to finish. (Note that the past tense is used not only to describe specific events but also the subject in general: “her name was Lapis Lazuli.”)
Lapis’s story as we see it now- after not just Chille Tid, but Same Old World and Barn Mates and Alone at Sea, even after Hit the Diamond and Beta- is wonderful and exciting and certainly worth singing about… and definitely not complete. Where Jail Break felt like an ending for her- overcoming the obstacles she’d been facing, deciding what she wanted
and getting it- our current perspective feels more like a beginning: we know where she is and what she’s up to, but have no clue what she wants or where she’s going next. This chapter of her life can’t be condensed like her Season 1 arc because I haven’t seen the end yet, and even if I had, it wouldn’t work as more verses for the Ballad- its mood and themes are so different from what’s already there that they wouldn’t mesh in such a distilled form.
TL;DR- The Ballad is finished, because Lapis is finished being described that way. What comes next, when it’s ready, will require its own song.
<p> <b><p></b> <b>Me:</b> That's only a couple of intersections down the main road from work...<p/>(Google Maps: 1 mile)<p/><b>Me:</b> It's not 80 degrees out yet...<p/><b>Me:</b> I'm here an hour early...<p/><b>Me:</b> I can walk there and back in time<p/>...<p/><b>My body (asthmatic, underexercised, literally has allergic reactions to its own sweat):</b> Technically that's true<p/></p><p/></p>
