Archive | April 2015

April A-Z Blogging Challenge: C is for Costumes

Apr5

The Meme Master Post

C is for Costumes, sewn with a thread

Costumes! I used to sew a lot more costumes – I used to sew a lot more. I mean, there are pictures of me sewing things back when my parents were building their house – so I was about 5 that year. For graduation from college, my mom bought me a fancy Pfaff sewing machine. I like sewing. But time constraints mean I haven’t done much of it recently.

But! A friend has informed me that I AM going to an SCA event with him in June(*), and since I AM going, that means I need to figure out garb. I have my crap-where-did-the-time-go backup plan (A t-tunic>t-tunic over a long skirt I already own). But if I have the time to do something a little more in-period…

…well, Lyn, the first question is WHICH part of period and the second part is location, no? Or the other way around, possibly.

The stuff that first drew me to the SCA in a theoretical way was 11th-to-1th-century English: Cotehardies. I have wanted a proper nice cote for just about forever, but you can’t really wear them to work. So that’s first option, something like this or this.

BUT I’ve been looking at Viking stuff lately, and I find it very interesting – although the stuff I’ve found doesn’t have that flowing-skirts feel I find so very nice (Actually, some more looking, and I may be wrong on that.)

AND in another line of thought, the clothing closest to the inspiration for Reiassan is Mongol & Turkish. The layers of Turkish, the cut and angles of Mongol clothing – add some ridiculously bright colors and you have Calenyen clothing.

That’s a lot of garb. I suppose I start at the fabric store 🙂

(*) That’s the way to get me past my new-things-are-scary anxiety, IF you know it’s something I want to do AND you are a good enough friend to have that understanding.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/919008.html. You can comment here or there.

I Made an AO3 account…

Apr3

(it’s aldersprig, of course).

And I have not all that much fanfic, and 9/10 of that is xover with Addergoole or Tir Na Cali.

So – prompt me fanficcy things, xover or not, that I can write as a stand-alone story. Not sure if I’m in a fandom? Feel free to ask.

Off the top of my head, I’m fluent enough in the following settings:
Leverage, Criminal Minds, Bones (early), Dr. Who (new), Torchwood(early, and iffy), Terry Pratchett/Discworld, Piers Anthony/Xanth (with some effort), Marvel cinematic universe, Batman comics (to some degree), Neil Gaiman’s Dream comics, Valdemr (Mercedes Lackey)… Narnia, Harry Potter, poss. Divergent…

I’m sure there’s more.

I don’t know how many I’ll get to, or how fast. But I’ll post ’em as I write ’em.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/918661.html. You can comment here or there.

April A-Z Blogging Challenge: B is for Bondage

Apr3

The Meme Master Post

B is for Bondagage, Nice and tight

Well, we’re diving right into the “Adult Content” warning I had to put on my A-Z link, aren’t we? *Cough*

I can’t remember the first time I encountered fictional bondage, but it was probably a Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror anthology – where I got most of my early erotica.

I remember very clearly when someone first used the term “S&M” around me – I can’t tell you who he was, but he was the friend of friend, on a mall not-quite-double-date. And when I asked what it meant, he said “spaghetti and meatballs.” 😛 😛

I don’t think he expected me to know the words. But at that age – early teens – I was all about the words.

Buying my first handcuffs, discovering newsgroups (alt:binaries:pictures:erotica:bondage!)… it’s all immensely personal, and yet seems entirely natural to me. I’m not sure I can say much more about this in blog format, so… have a microfic.

This is one of the scenes that started Addergoole. It’s set in Tir na Cali, in a school open to American kids with Californian bloodlines.

~

She’d agreed to be his slave for a week, because he’d said she couldn’t handle it. She wasn’t going to give in now, even if she was beginning to worry that he might be right.

She’d had only the vaguest idea of what that meant. There were slaves in the school, of course – this was California; there were slaves everywhere – but none of them… well.

She shifted from one knee to another as surreptitiously as she could. He ignored her, as far as she could tell; he was probably focusing on his game. They all seemed to be ignoring her. She wasn’t certain, not truly, if she preferred that to being paid attention. She had never been so exposed. Or so helpless.

It was a good thing that their weekly D&D game was in his room; otherwise he might have carried her down the hall like this. As it was – well. She couldn’t walk, that was certain. She could feel the corset pushing into her ribs, pushing her breasts upwards. She could feel the stilleto heels pushing two ridges into her ass. She could feel the way the gag distended her mouth and pushed against the back of her throat, the straps on either side of her nose, the way the buckle pressed against the back of her head. She couldn’t see any of it, not with the thick blindfold covering her eyes. But she could feel it all.

He’d used so much leather. Her arms were laced behind her back in mitts that went straight to her shoulders. Her legs were strapped together in ten places. Even the heels of her shoes were tied to each other – he’d let her watch that one.

She shifted again, trying to get the heel out of her ass. She’d told him she could handle this. She was going to handle it.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/918474.html. You can comment here or there.

Tell-Me-What-To-Write Link Pile

Apr3

 April Theme Poll – pick the poll for this month!

Blogging (Etc) from A-Z – topics from K on (Excluding P) still open!

World/Character-Building Fun Prompt Call – Dragons Next Door, Addergoole/Doomsday, Reiassan/Edally

Five Things... – If I were to do a series of Five Things… blog posts

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/918032.html. You can comment here or there.

Leaving the Swamp

Apr2

Written to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s question here: How did sa’Skin-Taker end up at Addergoole?

After A Vision to Purchase.

~1895

The visions wouldn’t leave her alone.

It had been three years since the woman had visited her. The payments had come as promised, quality stuff, and with some planning Chantal could have lived for years on the largess of her client. But the visions wouldn’t stop.

She had moved out to the swamp because she did not like touching people anymore. Touching people led to visions; visions led to nightmares and that worrisome time when she couldn’t separate the vision from the reality in front of her. But she was touching no-one, speaking to nobody but the man who brought her goods and took her furs, and yet the visions kept coming.

She knew what she had to do. The Fur-taker packed up the things she would need, leaving much of the cabin’s supplies where they were. Either someone else would find the cabin and use it, or she would be back.

The man who brought her food was willing enough to take her to dryer land. The fur-taker assumed he’d probably gotten rather rich on her over the years, but she hadn’t been interesting in accumulating wealth, and she’d been less concerned about his honesty than his reliability.

He proved half her suspicions correct and the other half slightly less correct when he handed her a leather bag at the edge of the water. The bag jingled quietly as she took it; the fur-taker raised her eyebrows at the man.

“I’ve put it aside for you over the years. You’ve done well by me and it was the least I could do.” He handed her two pieces of paper. “That, and these. Train tickets. You said you were going to San Francisco.”

The Fur-taker was rusty on her human manners. “Thank you,” she said, more cautiously than gratefully.

“We’re each given to do what we may. Do what you can, Fur-taker.”

“I will,” she assured him. That was why she was leaving the safety of her swamp, after all.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/917874.html. You can comment here or there.

April Theme Poll – open to everyone!

Apr2

I will write at least one public story, as well as the two for the Patreon rewards, this month or early next month, based on the chosen theme.

This poll will remain open until 4/5/15, 10:00 p.m. EST. If you do not have a DW account, you can vote in the comments.

My Patreon is here.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/917617.html. You can comment here or there.

April A-Z Blogging Challenge: A is for Apocalypses

Apr2

The Meme Master Post

A is for Apoc burning bright…

It’s hard for me to say anything about apocs that I haven’t already said. After all, I’ve written about apocs here, here, and here.

I grew up with the vague feeling that the world might end any day. My parents had some feelings that way, although I don’t think they were well-articulated, more the general sense of dread of the Cold War. I also grew up in a house where the power would go out and stay out for hours, maybe as long as a day – and when I was thirteen, the power went out all over the city for an entire week. Combine that with almost all family vacations involving camping – possibly all vacations; I can’t remember any that didn’t – and I have this comfortable foundation need to be prepared for any off-the-grid sort of emergency.

That’s my personal background on apocalypses. Even though our current rural property is close enough to a major line that it rarely loses power for more than ten minutes, I’m still more comfortable having the wood-burning stove (It’s cheaper!) and would be happier still if I had a way to make hot water/make the water run (Yay well water if the electricity went out. In that sense, I’m prepared for small emergencies much more than the apocalypse. Then again – small emergencies are a lot more likely. (And, considering my habit of buying food in bulk when it’s most on sale, we have Way More than the recommended three-day supply of food.)

I think one of the reason post-apoc settings have always appealed to me in fiction boils down to my feeling of disconnection with the modern world. There are myriad marvelous wonders – but there’s also the daily grind and the social rules that seemed to rub me the wrong way. If there was no more modern world, a little voice sometimes whispers, there’d be no more nine-to-five.

Apocalypses are as much a fantasy/speculation as dragons in my mind, and I’m comfortable with that. (Though it’s a bit easier to plan for the former than the latter!)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/917481.html. You can comment here or there.

Blogging (Etc) from A to Z

Apr1

Thanks to [personal profile] anke and [personal profile] inventrix mentioning it, I have signed up for the April 2015 Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Please to give me topic ideas? Either microfic or blogging topics are fine!

If I do not get a topic idea by the time I am ready to write that day’s blog post, I shall be forced to ramdomize or make something up myself 🙂

A is for Apoc burning bright
B is for Bondagage, Nice and tight
C is for Costumes, sewn with a thread,
D is for Dragons, with gold for a bed
E is for Elves, for fairer or worse;
F is for Fires of Gobann, of course.
G is for Gifts, both given and got;
H is for Houses – repairs and whatnot.
I is for Islands
J is for Jewelry
K is for knitting and kisses and kites
L is for Lust, in the days and the nights.
M is for morning, the moon, and the mountains.
N is for nereids standing in fountains
O is for octopi clinging to jetty-as
P is for posturing, and peacocks, and poinsettias
Q is for quietness leading to mystery
R is for ritual that helps cement historyS-
S is for the shore, and the sky, and the storm
T is for truth, all embroideries shorn
U – uniforms, umbrellas, upside down cake, unicorns
V – Velocipede, velociraptor, vector, virgin
W – west, wet, water
W for Worldbuilding
X is for xylem, supporting the bast.
Y- Yelling
Z- Zoned

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/916817.html. You can comment here or there.