TBM-2512.22 – Dog Days of Advent: Ritual, Thread, and Magic

2025-12-23

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https://www.bathtubmermaid.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/TBM-2512-22-DDOA-Ritual-Threads-Magic.mp3 Description: Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompts are Ritual, Thread, and Magic. Excerpt: Across the Coalition of Aligned Worlds, she...

https://www.bathtubmermaid.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/TBM-2512-22-DDOA-Ritual-Threads-Magic.mp3 Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompts are Ritual, Thread, and Magic.

Excerpt:

Across the Coalition of Aligned Worlds, she could imagine this same carol rising in a hundred places at once: sung in English, Centauran Creole, SolCommon, Vulhari, SynthCant. Sung in domed colonies, hydroponic farm chapels, mining outpost rec halls, starship sanctuaries. Sung by people who had never stepped on Earth, yet carried its stories like inherited starlight.

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Transcript: Ritual
Transcript: Thread
Transcript: Magic
Dog Days of Advent

Credits:

The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
Sound Effects and Music are from Freesound and UppBeat
Music Used:
1) A Moment, A Miracle
2) Ding Dong – Jazzily
3) Silent Night

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