Archive | November 20, 2011

A Vignette of #Addergoole Yr9 for @inventrix’s art and @dahob’s ideas

@Inventrix posted these two sketches:
of Porter
of Sylvia; Porter, Sylvia, and Arundel are a crew of upperclassmen in Year 9; Porter and Arudel we met in Timora’s Hell Night stories.

This scene takes place very very early in the school year, possibly the day before the new students get back.

“Um, Sylvia?” Porter stuck his head through the suite door – the actual door, for once.

“What is it?” Normally, the boys didn’t bother her when she was watching TV; they knew it made her uncomfortable, so left her that hour in the common room by herself. But Porter’s ears were a-kilter and his tail was swishing uncertainly, so she muted the TV and let him talk.

He got himself all the way in the room and the door closed before he continued. “Ghita challenged Arun.”

“What?” She blinked. “Margherita? Our Arundel? Whatever for? She’s barely back from summer vacation; they haven’t had time for a disagreement.”

“I – Arun doesn’t want to talk about it, he’s getting all the way he does, you know, with his wings over his ears?”

Sylvia couldn’t help but chuckle. Both of the boys in her crew could be toddlers when it suited them. “I do know. So there’s something outstanding there, and she’s challenged him over it. I assume the terms aren’t anything horrible, right?”

“Right,” he gestured impatiently. “It’s one of those favor-and-get-to-say-you-won sort of deals, not some sort of really bad one where he could end up Belonging to her or Owning her. I’m pretty sure neither of them are willing to risk that.”

“Arundel’s a smart boy,” she reassured him, “and my impression of Margherita was that she was bright, too. Of course she’s not going to set terms she won’t want to follow through with. It’s fine, Porter. People challenge people, whatever the reasons.”

“I know, I know.” He flopped down unhappily on the floor. “But I think she’s going to cheat. And I think he’s going to get really badly hurt if she does.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “Well, that’s another matter.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/181528.html. You can comment here or there.

“Self-Hating”

For meeks!

Meeks has posted a sketch (and on LJ) of the beginning of this story.

This is part of a continuation of the series –
Over the Wall (LJ Link),
The Black Tower (LJ Link,
The Pumpkin (LJ Link,
Skeletons (LJ)
Rule Three (DW)
and
Dwimors (LJ)

Zizny lowered its whole body into a crouch, until just its eyes and nostrils were regarding me over the wall. “You’re telling me,” it rumbled, “that your mother’s family are dwimors, and that, as well, that they are poachers.”

I could not meet its eyes at once – its head was simply too big. So I settled for looking it in one eye – and was suddenly thrown by the pronoun I was using to think about this creature, this person, my neighbor. “I’m sorry,” I asked abruptly. “You used ‘cx’za’ as, I believe, a pronoun for Jimmy. What pronoun is appropriate for you?”

The large head lifted, and Zizny showed me more teeth (very clean teeth; the ogres had had horrible dental hygiene) than it-she-Zizney had ever revealed to me before. “You are asking about appropriate grammar?”

“Well,” I shrugged uncomfortably. It would be very nice, right now, to back up, rub away, something. To put more distance between myself and this rather-irritated-seeming dragon. But Zizny was my neighbor. “I’m a student of the relations between the races,” I explained nervously.

“Academic curiosity, then?”

“Not at all! It’s really not academic to want to be polite to other people, is it?” For a moment, my pride was pricked, and I forgot to be nervous. “It’s not some scholarly study when these are the people you deal with every day!”

“‘People.'” Zizny settled back down. “For a grown adult dragon, the pronoun is ‘thez.’ But I do not object to you using ‘she’ for me and ‘he’ for Cthaiden. We have taken on those roles here, after all.”

“Aah.” I smiled ruefully at thez. “Thank you. It seems proper to use, well, the proper terms. It makes me feel more comfortable.” I took a long breath. “And it’s not a comfortable subject, Zizny. I can’t do anything about my grandparents and their family. I can’t do anything about their actions. Because, yes, they were poachers, hunters, and, I’m afraid, probably still are.”

Thez pinned me with a long gaze. “You are angry.”

“I am angry,” I agreed, “and Mortified.”

“Why?”

“I’m mortified that I have family that are… bigots. Worse than bigots. Relatively horrible people. And I’m angry about that, too.”

“And at the perceived assumption that you are like them.”

“And at that,” I agreed, very quietly.

“Anyone who would assume that, Audrey, has obviously not met you.” Thez set a finger on top of the wall, the claw curled around the stones. “If you were, indeed, a ‘monster hunter,’ you would be the most stealthy, hidden one ever. You have friends, as I have seen, with every race you have encountered.”

“Almost everyone.”

“Well, some people make it very hard to be their friends. But I do have a question for you.”

“Yeah? Yes?”

It tapped me on the shoulder very gently with a claw. “You call your family ‘self-hating.’ And you call them dwimors. You, I believe, are a dwimor?”

“I am,” I agreed. “We are.”

“Do you not risk, yourself, becoming a ‘self-hating dwimor,’ with the hatred and anger you are evidencing?”

“I… oh.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/181376.html. You can comment here or there.

Encyclopedia Californica: The Modified Humanoid in Tir na Cali Culture

This is the comment perk from the October Giraffe Call, a setting piece on the Tir na Cali cat-people. For whom I really need their own icon.

The Modified Humanoid in Tir na Cali Culture

History

The trend toward today’s Modified Humanoid, or “Moddies,” began as a fad for cosmetically altered slaves in the early sixties.

The first on record were a set of three cat-girls, triplets who were modified to have pointed cat-like ears, tails with some mobility, and dental work to look like sharp, cat-like fangs. The trio belonged to the tycoon Madison Arthur, a man who took great pleasure in appearing as eccentric as possible.

Others soon followed, modified with ever-increasing skill from a small cadre of experienced cosmetic surgeons and the empowered, to look like everything from house pets – dog-girls and mouse-boys – to predators – crocodile-men and wolf-women – to the fantastic – dragon-beings and, once, a failed pair of centaurs.

These slaves, altered through a combination of internal power and surgery to appear in some way inhuman, were genetically and biologically still completely humanoid. Their brain chemistry was still entirely “normal,” and their children, when they were bred, were of course still humanoid. They were no stronger, no more aggressive, no quicker than a normal human, either, and thus the purpose of their modifications was entirely cosmetic.

The trend towards owning “moddies” came and went, as with any fad, and, as with the sad accessories of any fad, the modified slaves were left by the wayside when the trend passed. Some were consigned to fieldwork who have been pampered house slaves; a few lucky ones were modified further to suit the new trend, or returned to their “natural” state. With each surge of the trend, the technology, science, and skill of the innately powered modifiers became more refined, and with each surge, the modified humanoids looked more and more realistic.

The second true wave of modified humanoids have only recently come into existence; the first genetically modified humanoid was made known to the general public in 2002. There are, of course, rumors that the Agency had been working on these genetic changes for as long as a decade earlier, and the rumors of second-generation genetically altered beings seems to lend credence to this theory.

These modified humanoids, better described, perhaps, as “scientifically produced hybrid species” are created by manipulation at the genetic level. At this date, the only producer of said hybrids is the Agency; all known attempts to make genetic hybrids outside of the Agency’s labs have resulted in, at best, failure, and, at worse, death. As such, all such experiments are illegal, save on volunteer free subjects.

The hybrids produced by the Agency are to their predecessors what a real tiger is to a children’s drawing of one. While a well-modified cat-girl might ape the behaviors of a cat, and, in modern times, have catlike ears, tail, and sometimes whiskers and claws that move naturally and serve as part of her body, the Agency’s well-protected hybrid cat-humanoids have brain chemistry and behavior patterns that, in many ways, are more feline than human.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/181097.html. You can comment here or there.