J.B. Pinkle
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jbpinkle.com
J.B. Pinkle
@jbpinkle.com
1.3K followers 1.5K following 790 posts
Somewhere on this timeline I'm King of the Pirates. No wait, the Wizard King. No wait, a published author. I'll let you know.

Husband and Father

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Trans rights are human rights.

Querying my first novel while writing my second...
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jbpinkle.com
MC Lesin and her magician friend Nivie have magically traveled to a location where they unexpectedly discover the external cost of Nivie's earlier magical experimentation.

**Content warning** for accidental animal cruelty.

#WIPSnips
Moments later her horse reared at the screams of some animal thrashing in the thick evergreen forest surrounding them. Nivie’s did the same and they both spent long moments calming their horses enough to investigate the horrifying sound. Bolting into the woods they found a wolf, alone, screaming in such agony the sound could not be recognized as a wolf, nor even as a howl. It was just a scream, recognizable by any creature who could feel pain. Front paws digging tracks in the forest floor, she dragged the lower half of her body down the trail, rear legs and pelvis smashed as if struck by a large object. Like a falling rock. She gasped, her eyes welling, and saw on Nivie’s face the same horror. They raced to her side. Lesin was concerned that she’d bite in pain and terror, but she made no such moves, perhaps aware they were trying to help. A slow blink from Nivie and the wolf’s body relaxed, her cries receding to a whimper. “I have mostly dulled the pain, and made her feel safe and loved. Please support her head and stroke her muzzle while I form the deed.”
November 5, 2025 at 6:16 PM
jbpinkle.com
MC Lesin having another moment of 'I'm about done putting up with this state of affairs.'

#WIPSnips
The Donazk Watchmen kept the peace and enforced the law in Donazk. They were not attached to nor commanded by the Donazk Garrison, and not even within the same chain of the command. In theory they reported to the Governor. In reality they reported to their commandant, who treated the Governor as more of a peer with whom he often disagreed than he did as a senior authority. No one, not miscreant nor model citizen, attracted their notice willingly. No one tried harder than Syng’Ult and Figari to avoid them, and as an ‘armed’ Syng’Ult she’d try even harder. But she would not lay down her staff for these oppressors again.
November 4, 2025 at 2:39 PM
jbpinkle.com
MC Lesin and magic user Nivie are in disguise while checking on some friends who are imprisoned against their will.

She's surprised to nearly walk right into a good friend, and takes the opportunity to arrange further support.

#WIPSnips
He smoothly dodged around them both with barely a glance. “Pardon me, my thoughts were elsewhere,” he said with a smile and a brief wave. He continued along his way without pause. She recovered from her panic. “Jandal!” she stage-whispered. Those months sparring with him were about to pay off. He turned in surprise. Before he could open his mouth she flashed a hand signal she knew would get his attention. He responded immediately, confusion on his face. They had to be quick. Her fingers and wrists flicking rapidly, Lesin gestured, “Urgent. Academy friend. Safe. Meet folly. Go wait. Coin good. End.” She waited only for his first sign—one of acknowledgement—before turning and continuing on. They could not be seen together.
October 18, 2025 at 9:20 AM
jbpinkle.com
MC Lesin grapples with unkind feelings for those around her.

#WIPSnips
She dropped Nivie’s hands and glanced all around, crouching just slightly. Her heart raced and her body called for action as she fought the fear and anger welling up within her. She hated these feelings in herself, but not more than she hated what had been done to her people. She felt only disdain and fury for those who had created the pastures in which these unkind thoughts grew. The Emperor. The Operants. Sure, them. They had her hatred. But so, too did all the millions over all the years who had not even slightly resisted the oppression, nor erasure of the Syng culture and people, because it threatened their own personal safety, or because of bigotry, or because of indifference. All of those held a place in her heart. All of them fed the coals of slowly growing resentment and raw, fresh anger about what had been done to her people. Their recent victories were nothing short of astounding. They’d relearned the secrets of Egrian. They’d regained some of their land, She’d met a dragon! They’d been shown how to Travel by that very dragon! These steps were important, necessary even, but ultimately precursors only.
October 14, 2025 at 3:12 PM
jbpinkle.com
I didn't know it was clean-and-lube-the-FC660-day when I got out of bed, but here we are...
A Leopold FC660C keyboard broken down to component parts, and misc related supplies.
October 13, 2025 at 5:22 PM
jbpinkle.com
#wipsnips
They entered through the side door of the Folly, directly into the common area. She could smell the familiar aroma of the kitchen. Her stomach vibrated noisily and her mouth moistened. The common room was about half full of various patrons. She stopped in her tracks for just a heartbeat before carrying forward. They’d had the exclusive use of the building when they were here last—she hadn’t even stopped to consider that they would be barging in to an unknown crowd. Lesin silently cursed herself for the lapse. But she needn’t have worried. “I cannot believe it!” A boomy tenor voice filled the room. “Nivie and Lesin! Welcome, my friends!” The floor shook as Fallah, the owner, strode powerfully across the room to greet them. He was a huge man in early middle age. His black beard had little grey, and spread impressively to cover nearly all his massive, if somewhat blubbery, torso. He’d likely been hugely muscled in his youth. He still looked powerful, just soft.
October 11, 2025 at 2:53 PM
jbpinkle.com
#booksky 📚💙
#writingcommunity
"We live in capitalism. It's power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words." — Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)
September 27, 2025 at 3:46 AM
jbpinkle.com
This was on all the time on one of the movie channels in my tween years. It's got romance, humor, self-sacrifice, and uncanny-valley makeup.

0% lol

>Post a movie you like with a terrible rotten tomatoes score
While at the repair factory, Val (Andy Kaufman), a robot valet, meets Aqua (Bernadette Peters), a fellow automaton who functions as a party hostess. Remarkably, the two robots discover that they are in love, and impulsively flee from their duties. Looking for a place where they can establish a home, Val and Aqua create their own mechanized child, but their happiness is short-lived, since a relentless enforcer robot has been programmed to apprehend them.
September 20, 2025 at 2:13 AM
jbpinkle.com
No new pictures, where are you mentally?
Photo of Anne Frank with this caption: "The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were following it."
August 25, 2025 at 1:41 PM
jbpinkle.com
If you see this post a robot: 🤖

(this one's a twofer)
This is Twiki from the 1984 Buck Rogers TV show. Around his neck is Dr. Theopolis.
August 20, 2025 at 3:59 PM
jbpinkle.com
@frame.work Thank you for your great customer service!

Trashed 2 older laptops in <1 year over damage that should have been repairable, so got a framework.

Supply issues with first framework ordered, but one email to customer service and they overnighted revised build.

A++ would buy again. 🙂
My 2 weeks-old framework 13 DIY edition, spec'd to my preferences, which took barely ten minutes to DIY, sitting in its usual place, surrounded by my Chopper, my Linus mug, and my favorite keyboard. (Though the keyboard on the Framework is also quite nice, I'm just very particular about my keyboard, and the one shown is the only one I willingly use most of the time.)
August 2, 2025 at 12:02 PM
jbpinkle.com
#WIPSnips 'stripe'

Lesin and Nivie confirm her peoples' advance settlement is where it should be. But their elation is short lived.

#amwritingfantasy
All in all—it looked like its namesake, at an impossible scale. A massive wound marring the landscape, with a god-sized instrument of harm close at hand. Nivie regained control of her focus moments ahead of Lesin, and continued to survey their surroundings. A moment later she gasped again. “Look, are those from your people?” She followed Nivie’s pointing finger, and her eye picked out the distinctive log-homes of the People. Relief flooded her. Only a few in this temporary camp, but it was like they looked down on a tiny fraction of the town they’d left just that morning. The nearest rooftop was not even very far. She could make out the individual windows. Then she saw the roof. Three parallel lines were roughly marked in wide stripes by some kind of pigment. One long, one short, one long. Her stomach clenched. There again on the next roof over. Three long strips of some green cloth. One long, one short, one long. To any of the People it meant “enemy ahead.”
July 7, 2025 at 1:16 PM
jbpinkle.com
MC Lesin and her companion, Practitioner Nivie Fin, have recently made the acquaintance of a dragon, the first that has shown itself in their world in centuries.
In perfect Continental the dragon said, “Nivie Fin, I mean you no harm.” Nivie came to stand near Lesin. “Greetings Practitioner.” “Greetings, uh, Dragon?” “You may call me Ferrik.” “You know my name?” Waves of deep sound washed over them while the dragon spoke at length. It spoke slowly, as if the indescribably low tones needed extra time to clear its fanged and fearsome mouth. “I am capable of knowing most things, eventually. At the moment I don’t know everything, but I do know many things. Yes, I know who you are.” Lesin’s stomach was grateful for the reprieve when it paused. “Did you kill those soldiers?” “Yes, Practitioner, I did.” “Why?”
July 3, 2025 at 12:48 PM
jbpinkle.com
#WIPSnips 'truth'

Apologies for the length for a 'snip', but at this pivotal moment MC Lesin is listening to one of the leaders of her sect communicate to her people why they must now act decisively.

#amwritingfantasy
#whoopsdeleteandrepost 😁
“We’ve spent generations as near-outcasts from not only the Empire, but from all that rose afterward, even when cooler heads prevailed at the former Imperial nations. “In five hundred years, there weren’t cool enough heads at any of them to formally rebuke the limitations on Syng’Ult education and enroll us in their schools. “In five hundred years, there weren’t cool enough heads at any of them to allow us to raise and train an army for our own defense. “In five hundred years, there weren’t weren’t cool enough heads at any of them to allow us to take possession of a chunk of our own ancestral lands without the Operants rising out of the brush to kill us.” Lesin saw the truth of those statements appreciated on many a face. She didn’t see skepticism or cynicism anywhere. Impatience on a couple, but careful attention was on most. They were listening.
June 30, 2025 at 2:14 PM
jbpinkle.com
I have nothing for today's word, but it's still the 28th somewhere, right??!! 😁

Lesin is returning home a few weeks after the events of the previous novel. She's been away more than a year in total.

Profound changes have been wrought in that time, many just within the past few weeks.
Eyes wide, Ralo and Lohd looked first at each other, then back to her. “This will be exciting, indeed.” said Lohd. She’d missed his quiet ways and penchant for understatement, just as she’d missed Ralo’s ever-present smile and ready humor. They made a great pair. Here, on this unfamiliar forest trail, it took only the two of them plus the whistle of the Ligalic Sparrow to bring her home. Somewhere within her, she felt something uncoil that hadn’t uncoiled since she left the sect to become a consort. Perceptive as always, Nivie was gentle in her intrusion. “Sweetlings, are we close enough to join Nolap, and Lesin’s parents, this evening?”
June 29, 2025 at 1:14 PM
jbpinkle.com
It's not, it's Breakin'! 🙂

But also dammit, I thought I had this box checked so I always remembered Alt text. Clearly I did not. 😬
A snippet of my settings showing that somehow the require alt text box is not checked. 😬
June 29, 2025 at 10:40 AM
jbpinkle.com
#WIPSnips 'side'

MC Lesin is in the early stages of realizing she's done letting the world define her.

#amwritingfantasy
A few steps later, a young boy hoped no one noticed as he edged closer to a display of sweet baked goods. He caught her eye and they shared a smile. Most of these people were wrapped in their own struggles, too destitute in their own ways to spare a moment of ill will for her, or her kind. It was hard to remember this when surrounded by reminders of how mistreatment of her people was the default, accepted behavior by so many. They turned down a side street to continue their journey to see the Head, and the crowd thinned substantially. It helped her mood and she tried to put an end to her unpleasant musings.
June 28, 2025 at 4:18 AM
jbpinkle.com
For today's #WiPSnips, protagonist Lesin is about to enter a secure area, and has just been musing to herself how surprisingly pleasant and memorable it was during her prior visit.

(sorry if this is a little long for a wipsnip)
She even remembered the guard who challenged them to check their weapons before entering. Months ago now, the guard had been one of the few people they interacted with in Donazk who looked her in the eye. The well-muscled woman wore what was likely the same well-used looking chainmail and gambeson, with two daggers and a sword handle visible, plus a buckler stowed on her back. All of it had the patina of long use. “Good Morning, sweetling!” said Nivie as they presented their medallions. “We are engaged in an active investigation.” As last time, she wrote the information from their medallions in her logbook, then dismissed them without taking Lesin’s staff. She and Lesin shared a nod, and they moved on. She smiled as she wondered what weapons would have appeared from within Nivie’s many layers if they had surrendered their weapons. She was certain Nivie carried the means to physically defend herself, but she’d not once seen what it was.
June 26, 2025 at 7:30 PM
jbpinkle.com
This post brought to you by *just enough* sleep that I can't get back to it.

(also, third time's the charm! 🤞)

#WIPSnips - 'defend'

Gyl Ikfal, protagonist from Novel #1, is being watched by Lesin, protagonist from Novel #2, as he endures a farcical inquisition.

He's a personal hero of hers.
The chairman looked less neutral now, and unhappy to have been challenged. “When a practitioner is dead by your hand, and you admit to numerous acts of defensive rage during the course of the events surrounding his death, your prior pacifistic behavior carries somewhat less weight, Practitioner!” Now there were loud murmurs. From somewhere in the hall she heard, “Syngy horseshit!” Jandal was still here after all. She thought the Jagjaws would have been on the road. He’d been lamenting the need for a contract to keep his freshly formed mercenary band financed. The Ge’Ult replied in his own defense. “I acted to defend our party from what I know was the formation of a lethal and horrible deed—” “How could you possibly know that, Practitioner? You may be correct, but we can’t actually know, because the one person who could tell us for sure is dead by your sword!”
June 21, 2025 at 8:09 AM
jbpinkle.com
What's your sign?
A woman at a protest carrying a handwritten sign that says, "The Enemy Doesn't Arrive By Boat He Arrives By Limousine."
June 20, 2025 at 10:11 AM
jbpinkle.com
Lesin prepares to head onto streets which have recently become even less welcoming to her people.

#WIPSNIPS
#AMWRITINGFANTASY
Though it galled her to do so, she donned her finest cloak, which was both large enough and luxurious enough that few were likely to notice it concealed a Syng’Ult woman within its depths. She felt the other choice was to leave her staff at the Folly, and this she would not do. She would concede this much of herself in the name of discretion, and no more. She looked up and caught Nivie eyeing her. Some days she truly wondered if the woman could read her thoughts. Holding Nivie’s eye, she said only, “Just help me to be alert for the Watchmen.” Nivie smiled her kindest smile, and spoke gently. “That I will, sweetling.”
June 19, 2025 at 11:15 AM
jbpinkle.com
50K is one of those arbitrary wordcount thresholds that don't actually mean anything but that do give me a little shot in the arm when I crest them. 🎉🎊🎉

😁

#amwritingfantasy
My WIP, working title "Conqueror's Contrition" sitting in partial first draft state at 51,038 words. Let's hope it's not as long as its predecessor when I'm done... 😬😁
June 16, 2025 at 8:19 PM
jbpinkle.com
Happy Father's Day #WIPSnips!
“Yes, Councilor!” One of the guards reacted with something that was not quite a salute, then paused to write their names in a logbook. He unlocked the door, and the councilor pushed it open. Lesin held her breath, not sure what to expect. The Ge’Ult sat with his back to them, his once-black hair mostly gray, his skin still the darkest brown. His tonsure was as well maintained as ever, bare pate gleaming in the sunlight spilling from the open window. Meanwhile his unshaven hair fell straight to his shoulders, truncated neatly as the edge of a sword just before it would have touched them. Col paced to and fro without pause, brow moist, and moving so rapidly his yellow braids flapped behind him when he turned. He’d taken the news exactly as she would have expected.
June 15, 2025 at 11:56 AM
jbpinkle.com
#WIPSnips
She had deep respect for those who volunteered to take rotation multiple times, but once had been enough for her. She brooded on it while they slowly worked their way through the crowded streets. The work was awful—but that wouldn’t have stopped her. Everyone understood the need, and the service it performed for all of them. By some measures they had thrived despite all that was done to them, thanks to the willingness of so many to volunteer. No, it wasn’t the work. She could not abide how she and all her people were treated as background objects by nearly everyone they encountered. Worse, being ignored was preferable to the most common other reactions they received.
June 13, 2025 at 3:00 AM
jbpinkle.com
#WIPSnips

MC Lesin looks on while magic user Nivie works to refine their security system before sleep.
Lesin managed to catch the slow blink that nearly always accompanied a deed performed by Nivie. An armored warrior appeared on the far side of the fire—easily twice as tall as any man Lesin had ever seen, and encased from head to toe in plate armor. The two-handed sword on its back was longer than she was tall. Nivie laughed with a hoot and the massive knight disappeared. “Maybe I still need a little practice on the size.” A moment later it was back, but was likely only Fallah-sized under that armor, instead of the stuff of nightmares. The sword was still large and intimidating. The creation stood there as if uncertain what to do, and Lesin felt oddly bad for it. Were its shoulders slumped? “Does it think?”
June 10, 2025 at 12:04 PM