Archive | March 2017

For Cal: Is He…?

Mar31

For Cal: This comes after a number of things, including Jeska and Carew wandering around the city talking, Convincing each other to tell their Keepers that they were jealous of… (in Carew’s case, Leo, and Jeska’s case, the cat)… and Carew doing some thinking. Sword/Lady timeline

She hadn’t been angry with him.

Carew wasn’t sure if it was the long talk with Jeska or the fact he was pretty sure Leo – sa’Lightning Blade – was probably still mad at him – but he’d really been expecting Cya to be angry with him. Punish him, even.

(Even if his punishment would probably have Jeska rolling his eyes and very politely suggesting it wasn’t punishment at all.)

But now that he knew she wasn’t angry… now he had something else to ask.

And she was distracted, doing paperwork, frowning at something. Not the best time to ask questions.

He cleared his throat. “Cya? Ma’am?”

She put down the ledger she’d been working in and gave him a smile that looked about half worried and half affectionate. He’d told her he was jealous of sa’Lightning Blade, and she’d told him she’d pay more attention to him. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work! That wasn’t – well, it wasn’t what he’d been expecting, but it was the only way to get Jeska to agree to talk to Leo about feeling second-place to the cat, which really had to happen.

Are we friends? Jeska had asked, and, well, if they were friends, friends looked after each other. Even if…

“What’s up, Carew?”

Sometimes she talked like she was out of one of the movies she liked to watch, pre-War things that made no sense at all to Carew but made her laugh and cry with no rhyme or reason that he could see.

He cleared his throat What’s up meant what’s on your mind?

“Ma’am, is sa’Lightnin – is Jeska a Nedetaka?”

“Why do you ask?”

Why do you ask wasn’t no, it was show your work. “Well, for one, he talks about ‘Shenera Endraae’ things ​​like they’re unfamiliar to him. He grew up being taught that what he wanted was irrelevant, that half-breeds are impure, and I’m pretty sure that humans are useless. His idea of punishment is – I’m not sure, but it sounds bad. And, um. He’s not an Addergoole grad, he’s a decade older than I am – he thinks – and he’s twitchy like he just got out of a bad Keeping. And his crew whipped him.”

He watched her eyebrows go up as he ticked off points. When he ran out of things, she nodded slowly.

“We – no. Leo. Leo stole him from a Nedetakaei camp. I found him someone willing, and he got him out of there – although he hasn’t been forthcoming with the details. So yes, Jeska wwas raised and Named Nedetaka. Now Leo has him.”

Carew considered that. He considered the way Cya’s eyes were on him. Judging him, he thought. She did a lot of that.

He cleared his throat. “He asked me if we were friends.”

“And are you?”

“…Yeah. Yeah, we are.” He lifted his chin. It was worth getting punished for, to have a friend, to be Jeska’s friend.

She kissed his cheek. “Good. I’m glad. I think that’ll be good.”

Carew relaxed as she looked back to her paperwork, more confused than ever.

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In the Spirit of 5-Minute Maps – two images of the Aunt Family neighborhood

Mar31


Click to embiggen.

I do not know WHOSE house the unlabeled red outline in the top image is, but it’s family.
The words on the lower image are “Aunt House,” “Church,” and “Diner,” from left to right, bottom to top.

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April Fools’ Day

Mar31

I won’t post pranks. I may post fun-fics entirely out of canon, but that is the most I will do.

I don’t like April Fools’ Day, I’ll admit, and I’m not going to inflict it on others.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1294492.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

I’m not Impressionable at all… Oh, am I? 👾

Mar31

We went to see Kong this weekend!

I found that I honestly really, really enjoyed the movie.

True, there were moments where the direction just failed on the dialogue, and there were some um, kinda uncomfortable choices made in the movie, and even though there were two women on the island, it totally completely utterly failed the Bechdel test, but I honestly didn’t go to it looking for depth or amazing dialogue.

I went looking for giant monsters.

And I was rewarded with giant monsters and pretty Tom Hiddleston and John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson acting their asses off, and really really good effects, and… giant monsters.

Also, as long as you accepted that you were watching a kaiju movie, the plot was pretty good, too.

And now I’m all excited to write more Fae Apoc in the apocalypse, because I’ve always imagined there being giant monsters there – not just dragons, who have always existed in fae apoc, but other creatures that came with the returned gods or were created with them. And I want to look more at the way that Ellehem (Where the gods went) actually works…

…all because I watched a giant sad ape and some skull-crawlers.

Which is pretty awesome, all things considered. I’m thinking about Escape from Rochester, which is a project I did for Camp Nano a few years back (longer than I’d thought, when I went looking), whose tagline is something like “8 billion people are about to die. Raven cares about 32 of them.” I was honestly trying to kill off a character a day as they escaped Rochester in the middle of the faerie apocalypse. I had trouble making the characters someone anyone would care about for a lot of it, but I was only doing like 1000 words a day. I think that requires something like 3x that amount…

Anyway, distracted, how much cooler would that be with rampaging giant monsters? I mean, really. Thud-thud footsteps shaking the earth and the bus bouncing and…

*coughs*

Yeah. I really like giant monsters, okay?

Okay so BIG MONSTERS and that was Kong and … there will probably be some monster stories in my future, maybe that ought to be on the Patreon theme poll.

But then I re-read The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff while I was sick (and since). I’m pretty sure I read this for the first time just about when I started writing the Aunt Family, because there are definite similarities. Eseme gave it to me, because she’d bought it and found some of the themes unpleasant. I’ve re-read it more times than I can count.

And NOW I want to write a novel about the Aunt Family, too. I’m not exactly sure where such a thing would start, my thoughts about Cat’s Mystery and writing a YA novel with Stone as the love interest aside, or what the plot would be, or any of those things – but every time I re-read Enchantment Emporium, I want to write more of it.

[personal profile] inventrix comments from time to time that I’m very impressionable, and I suppose since it’s been said so many times it’s probably true… *cough* That is. There’s definitely a truth to it. And one of the ways I love being impressionable is the way that taking in media can get me writing again on something completely different. If I want to change my writing voice up a bit, I read an author with a very strong voice. If I want to be inspired, I pick up something with a strong story ([personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s fiction does this to me, too!). Heathens has turned out to be the perfect song to get me writing early-era Boom.

I guess I should watch more monster movies…

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Cya, Leo, and Boom – untangling the timelines

Mar31

So, it turns out, when you get [personal profile] inventrix and I together, what you end up with is a whole lot of different timelines for the same characters.

This is as comprehensive as I can come up with a list of Cya-Leo-Boom timelines we might have posted stories for.

[personal profile] inventrix, if I’ve missed something, misrepresented something, or mislaid something, please let me know!

It appears that the turning points are:

1) When Leo (and thus Cya) gets sane. In canon, and in timelines that could be canon, that happens after Cya builds Cloverleaf, which itself is ~40 years after they attend Addergoole (see Ghost Story).
2) Whether Cya Keeps Leo or he swears an oath of obedience and service to her.
3) If/When they come to the realization that what Cya wants from Leo is not what Leo can provide

“Cya cried,” he says, a little too matter of fact, “because she’s accepted I’m not going to love her back.”
“…The fuck you say?”
“Not the way she wants, at least.”
…
“So, the basics are simple enough, you’ve got me,” he holds out one hand, “and Cya,” he holds out the other, “and we both care about each other way too much. The problem is, Cya has like a tragic romance thing going on because she wants me to be in love with her back, but like… whatever the hell I feel, it’s not that, and I don’t care what that stupid kid says,” he adds in an annoyed mutter, “I’m not going to go pretending to feel something I don’t when it’s just going to fuck everything up in the end and it’s none of his fucking business anyway.”
Leo pauses and clears his throat a little awkwardly. “…anyway, so. Her side, nice, fairly straightforward, normal romantic obsession. My side, some kind of weird martyr Kept knight thing. Which would be fine except like, the one thing Cya wants more than anything in pretty much the whole world is to be attached to just one guy who will actually, you know, love her back? You’d think after–” He stops himself from tangenting this time. “So since I’m obviously not that guy, I talked her into trying dating so she’s at least meeting people who aren’t fresh Addergoole grad Kept with issues.”

4) Whether they all flip the F out and kill everyone their first year.

Is Absolutely Canon
Addergoole: Year Nine
Addergoole: A Ghost Story

Probably Canon
That story about Cya ordering Leo not to die.

Could be Canon but aren’t Yet.
The Sword and Lady Timeline — this includes most of the currently-posted stuff on DW/LJ, where Leo gets punched by Carew, Luke tries to apologize to Mike, etc.

The Thistle Timeline — hey, it couldtotally fit within canon! This is the one in which Cya dies but resurrects(reincarnates) and Leo has to cope with all of that while Thistle-Cya copes with being 10 years old with memories of a 100-year-old in love with Leo.
I’d just re-read Thief of Time.

Definitely Not Canon
Sane!Cya Timeline — I think the only thing posted of this is something called “Sane!Cya and Panlong,” in which the man who unwittingly participated in Cya’s son Yoshi’s torment as a Kept, Panlong, actually doesn’t end up getting TOO horrid of a deal…
This is the timeline where Leo has a psychotic break after Cya locks him in the barn (this is a fixed moment in time) and comes out the other side sane.

Black Knight/Chess Timeline — In which Leo gets an army, starts taking over the West Coast, and achieves godhead. Also in which Luke ends up Kept by Cya, flappy wing bongage, and such things.

Expelled Timeline — in which we’re not entirely sure what happened but Boom gets expelled in their first year, their memories wiped, and sent home, or in Cya’s case, to a foster home.

Leo Dies — in which we misread Inventrix’s rp, Leo suicides, Cya tries to blow up the earth with Abatu Eperu (destroy Earth), and in the end Howard talks her down and she and Zita heal Leo’s body, find his soul, and shove it back in.
Cya feels strongly about Leo dying, okay? 🙂

Fixed Moments in Time
These happen in pretty much everything but Expelled

  • The Ranch: As the end of the world looms, all of Boom, their kids, and their closest allies (and some allies’ kids) go to live on a ranch in wyoming and slowly take over the territory.
  • Cya Locks Leo in a Barn: She has a cell for such things, because Cya believes in being prepared. So when delusional!Leo decides he’s going to leave them all so he can go fight monsters and probably die but they’ll survive, the crew tracks him down, literally force him into the van, and tie him up in the cell until he promises not to do that
  • Cloverleaf and Doomsday: Cya gets sick of putting Addergoole people back together after the fact and builds her own school in what was once Montana. Because she’s like that, she also builds a city around it. And then starts trade routes. And then…

I might add links later. I might bribe people to add tags to things later – I’m totally willing to do that! But for the nonce, this is what I’ve got.

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Worldbuilding Month Day 12 – What’s in a Name?

Mar30

March is Worldbuilding Month! Leave me a question about any of my worlds, and I will do my best to answer it! (I need more questions, guys)
🌏
This twelfth one is from B: have you figured out the naming rules for that one world?

So “that world” is Portal Bound, which there is a map of here. The basic premise is that it was originally discovered – i.e., this continent at least had no human life on it – by a family who found a portal in their back yard. They were handwave-Scandinavian at the moment.

BUT this land has several portals! Many portals! And the portals are not so regular about where they lead or where they come from. So this land has had immigrants throughout the course of time from many different worlds, and from many places over the world. Most are human, or humanoid, but they speak many different languages and having many different ideas about names.

“When in Rome, shoot Roman candles.” The naming thus ends up being an interesting combination.

Usually, children are given names of the parents’ culture, if the parents happen to have a culture in common. Children from mixed-cultural-heritage families sometimes alternate, so you might end up with Lars and Yuki, for instance, as brother and sister. Ancestors’ names are common, although not normally parents’ names.

If the parents are themselves very mixed-heritage or feel no particular connection to the heritage or world they came from, then the children are often named Scandinavian names, as those are still the most common in this world – often they are then named after historical figures, Princes or Kings, Queens or Princesses or Governors from times past. It is considered ill luck to name a child after a living person.

(In a family where there are many siblings having children, this can lead to battles about who gets to name their daughter after Grandma Yuki or Grandpa Lars.)

As for family names, most people use a patronym or matronym – sons follow the father’s line, normally, and daughters the mother’s line, although a fatherless or motherless child will go with the extant parent. So Larssen or Yukidar, or Larsdar or Yukisen.

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Assumptions (Cya, Carrew, Lady/Sword Timeline)

Mar30

In the Sword and Lady timeline, after
Cya Yells at a Kept which itself followed (but was posted before) Faking it.

“Leo and his Kept are coming over tonight — for dinner and to sleep over.”

Cya said it like she expected it to be nothing, just another day, but her eyes were on Carew and he had no doubt she was gauging his reaction.

She did that, said things without any tone and waited to see what he made of them. Carew still wasn’t sure what he made of that.

“So…” He tried for casual. He almost made it. Leo was still angry at him for the face-punching thing, at least as far as he knew, and, truth be told, he couldn’t blame the guy. It had seemed like a good idea at the time… “Extra lasagna for dinner, then? And I’ll sleep in the guest room — or do you want me to go hang out with Dev?”

Dev was Magnolia’s — not Kept, but might-as-well-be, he called himself her pleasant-revenge lover — and he was just about Carew’s age. They weren’t exactly friends, but they’d been in Addergoole together, the women they lived with were sometimes perplexing, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes wonderful, and they liked the same beers.

“I didn’t say I was kicking you out. It’s a big bed, hon.”

It was. Four of them would probably fill it comfortably. He’d always wondered why she had such a big bed — now, he supposed, he knew. He worked around a lump in his throat and tried to show nothing. “All right, sure. So lasagna?”

“Lasagna’s a good idea. I’ll start on the filling if you start on the noodles.”

He let the companionable working-peace fill the room for a few minutes before coughing. “So, uh, why’s Leo coming over? Over night, I mean. Is that why he’s bringing his Kept?”

“He’s… having a bad week, and I don’t want him left alone.”

“…Oh.”

Lots of stupid things went through Carew’s mind, like Isn’t that what HE has a Kept for? and Is that where you were last night? and If you’re just going to sleep with him — with THEM — what do you need me for? He focused on the noodles and said none of them. It wasn’t his first rodeo.

“What is it?” she asked. Carew swore internally. He didn’t think he’d been showing anything at all.

He cleared his throat and looked away.

Her hand on his shoulder almost made him jump. “It’s okay, Carew. I’d rather know than not know, all right?”

“It’s just… your whole world seems to revolve around him,” he muttered.

“Well… To some degree, yeah. It’s like this, here.”

Here wasn’t an order, but he looked anyway. Her left hand was held out flat at chest-height, marking a level.

“So,” she brought her right hand up, marking a line a little above the left. “There’s my kids. Then crew.” Her right fingers touched her left. “Then Kept—” a little lower on the right, and Carew’s heart did something weird up in his throat “-and then my project, which right now is school,” her hand moved down, “and city,” her hand moved down a bit more. “Except right now, I don’t have any kids in the nest, so,” her left hand moved up a notch, “and Leo’s the only crew in the city with me… So, yeah, my life kind of revolves around him. What?” she asked gently, although Carew had no idea at all what his face was doing. “Haven’t you ever had someone you loved? Or a crew you’d kill for?”

“Yeah…” He worked his throat, fighting with emotions he really, really didn’t want to deal with right now. “Both. But, uh. They were older, and they didn’t come back for me.”

“Well.” She patted his shoulder. “Did you tell them you wanted them to?”

“No, but…” He frowned. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“See, that’s the thing about assumptions. Maybe they assumed you’d come find them. Maybe they got there a few days late.”

“Wouldn’t the school have told them where I was?” He turned back to the lasagne just to have something to do with his hands.

“Well, depends on who they asked, and what mood they were in.” She turned to the food, too, but her eyes were still on him. He could feel them, feel their pressure. “Luke knows, because he’s still not entirely convinced I’m not locking Kept up in a dungeon… non-consensually. But if he told them would depend on if they asked, and if he approves of them, and any number of other factors.”

“Wait.” He put his hands on the counter to steady himself. “You lock Kept up in a dungeon consensually?”

“Well, some of my Kept have been pretty kinky, and so am I and—”

“You never said anything!” He slapped his hands over his mouth, but he’d already said it, and he’d already interrupted her.

Her eyebrows went up. “Now, remember what I was saying about assumptions? And then I went and assumed you weren’t the type. Well.” She patted his ass affectionately. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow night, mm? And this coming weekend, maybe we can talk about Finding your friends and crew.”

Carew swallowed. “Yes, ma’am… thank you, ma’am.” Both of his hands went to his collar. “Thank you, ma’am.”

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Beauty-Beast 7: Sal’s Questions

Mar29

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🔒

Ctirad tensed. That… was a bad sign.

Sir stroked the top of his back gently, such that the touch might be missed from the rear-view mirror, if Ctirad had his positioning right.

“What’s your name mean?” Sal sounded completely serious. Ctirad gave the question consideration.

His name wasn’t all that common in America, he knew that. And among fae, the name your father chose to give you was heavy with meaning (sometimes). Of course, he had no idea if Sal was fae or not. He cleared his throat. “Joy and honor, or joy from honor.” It wasn’t a name that brought him any joy anymore, but it was all he had left that was his.

“And what about your Name?”

He knew he went still. He knew his fists clenched. He didn’t try to hide any of it. He was not going to punch the driver in the back of the head, not with his eyes closed, not when Sal was driving. “I don’t have one of those.”

“But you did. You were Named before you were Collared, or someone needs to pay pretty badly.”

“I don’t have one now.” He knew he sounded like murder. He just wondered if he could do it before he was stopped.

“Sal. That’s enough. Allow him his secrets, if he wants them.”

Even though he couldn’t see, Ctirad turned towards Sir’s voice. “Sir?”

“Yes, sir.” Sal sounded, Ctirad thought, irritated. “But you said to ask questions.”

“It was a fine question, and it’s fine that he didn’t want to answer it.” And now Sir sounded irritated. Ctirad tensed.

“Sorry, Ctirad.” Sal didn’t exactly mutter the apology, but it sounded a little abashed and a little embarrassed. Ctirad, on the other part, was entirely surprised.

“Wha-” He shook his head. “It’s fine, Sal. I just don’t want to go back there, ‘cause, well, I can’t go back there, you follow?”

“Pardon me for saying so, but you probably won’t be Kept forever, will you?”

Ctirad swallowed. It didn’t hit with the same pain it would when he’d been under Sir’s collar for any length of time, but there was still an edgy panic to the thought. “If,” he said, carefully and slowly, every word its own individual thought, “I’m ever… ever not Kept… I’ll… make a new Name. Have to. The old one’s burned.”

“Woah.” Sal drew the word out. “I retract the question.”

“Thanks.” He leaned back against the seat, suddenly exhausted. “What next, sir?”

“Well, hrrm. What’s the most important thing you think I should know about you that I don’t already? And what about Sal? What’s the most important thing Sal should know about you?”

Ctirad considered the question for a moment. There were too many ways to answer.

“I’m not tame.”

🔒

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Want more?

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Worldbuilding Month Day 11 – The end of the World, as I know it…

Mar29

March is Worldbuilding Month! Leave me a question about any of my worlds, and I will do my best to answer it! (I need more questions, guys)
🌏
This eleventh one is from [personal profile] lilfluff: just what was the nature of the apocalypse in The Planners?

You know, I have been doing a Very Good Job of leaving that completely unsaid.

The things I know are: It was not nuclear, it was not alien, and it was not zombie. It was not climactic – I.e. Giant Flood, that thing in 2000 or whatever the movie was with a giant freeze everywhere and the book-burning, and it probably didn’t involve Mad Max. It was probably not an asteroid strike.

It destroyed a large portion of the infastructure and it was probably that destruction that killed off a large portion of the population.

It was a worldwide apocalypse, not centered on any one nation.

It may have had a lot in common appearance-wise with the apocalypse in the TV show Revolution, although it was not cause by Plot Nanotech. Basically: the power all went out. Cars stopped working. Going anywhere became a challenge.

I think it involved several EMPs or a world-wide EMP. Either a backfiring test strike that ended up with several large nations making a mess of the world, or something like solar flares that made a mess all on its own.

As far as apocalypses go, it left the landscape mostly untouched, the people devastated, and technology a mess.

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