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Character Development Meme (morning Warmup), Questions 7 and 8

Nov23

As discussed here and on LJ, I’m going to do this meme for a few characters (I’m rotating seasonal sibs to not totally overwhelm myself).

Questions 5 & 4 are here and on LJ.

7.) Is there one event or happening your character would like to erase from their past? Why?

Spring (well, really, all 4 RoundTree Siblings): Their father’s death. Dad RoundTree died when Mom was pregnant with Spring, leaving Winter as parental figure for his three little sisters (Mom’s not all that good at the parenting thing). The three that remember him miss him horribly, and Spring has always felt his loss.

Conrad: I’d have to say that what happened to Kai with Anatoliy wins here. He’s had a pretty easy life, even up to his first year of Addergoole

Rin: Hrm. This one is harder. Rin’s seen a number of deaths she couldn’t prevent, and handled any number of really unpleasant situations. I don’t think any one of those stands out to her, however.

8.) Day of Favorites! What’s your character’s favorite ice cream flavor? Color? Song? Flower?

Spring: Rocky Road, Green, “Hate Me,” Orchid
Summer: Chocolate, Pink (yes, really), the soundtrack to Rent, roses
Autumn: Maple Walnut, Red, Something loud and full of fiddles, and irises.
Winter: Vanilla, White (or blue), Mozart, Crocuses.

Rin: they don’t have ice cream. Her favorite colors are green and blue. She likes the marching songs, although she’ll rarely admit it, and she loves the snowblossoms that grown on the cold sides of the mountains.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/183716.html. You can comment here or there.

Character Development Meme (morning Warmup), Questions 5 and 6

Nov22

As discussed here and on LJ, I’m going to do this meme for a few characters (I’m rotating seasonal sibs to not totally overwhelm myself).

Questions 3 & 4 are here and on LJ.

Questions 7 & 8 are here and on LJ.

5.) What’s your character’s ranking on the KINSEY SCALE?

Spring: Varies depending on her mood
Summer: 3
Autumn: 2
Winter: 0

Conrad: I get the feeling about a low 1.

Rin: I’m really not certain. She’s not a very high sex-drive character any way you slice it, but probably about a 1-2.

6.) Describe your character’s happiest memory.

Winter: Winter being who he is, his happiest memory is one colored bittersweet. He was about five years old, sitting on the dock at the family cottage. The whole family was there: his parents, his mother’s mother, and his two little sisters. Autumn, about three then, was drawing pictures in the puddles of water on the dock. Summer was tiny, under a year old, and Winter was holding her in his arms, as he leaned against his father.

“Hold her carefully,” his dad murmured. “They’re a great responsibility, little sisters, and often great difficulty,” the latter as Summer tried to squirm out of his arms. “You have to know just how much to hold them, and when it’s time to let go.”

Conrad: (can I pick a memory in the future? No? Hrmm.) Everything right now for Conrad is covered by the bliss-bond of making his Keeper happy, but a memory from before the storyline…
… kicking a ball around the Village field with Cassidy and Vlad, the summer between years Four and Five. Just hanging out, not talking about anything all that important.

Rin: In a temple in an ocean-side city, her apprentice as a healer finished, she stood over her first solo patient, a woman of middling years who had injured her leg in a fishing accident. Slowly, patiently, Rin brought forth the energy, and coaxed the body to heal itself.

When she awoke, the grateful fisherwoman, generally an reserved type from an reserved group, hugged Rin tightly against her chest in thanks, and gifted her with a small, delicately-woven pendant of copper replicating a fishing net in miniature. She carries this pendant with her in her packs, only pulling it out for special occasions.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/182912.html. You can comment here or there.

Character Development Meme (morning Warmup), Questions 3 and 4

Nov21

As discussed here and on LJ, I’m going to do this meme for a few characters (I’m rotating seasonal sibs to not totally overwhelm myself).

Feel free to suggest another character, and I’ll work through them in rotation.

Question 2 here and on LJ.

Questions 5 and 6 are here and here on LJ.

3.) Name one scar your character has, and tell us where it came from. If they don’t have any, is there a reason?

Summer: Summer had an active, wild childhood, and, as such, has more than a few of those childhood scraped-knee and cut-hand scars. More notable is one across her collarbone, gotten when a piece of a set fell on her, nail-side down.

Conrad: most noticeable on Conrad is his nose, which was broken and not healed properly in his teens (soccer accident). He’s gotten in a few training scrapes since coming to Addergoole, but those heal scarless.

Rin: Rin is a healer. She bears no scars on her skin because she’s healed them all.

4.) How vain is your character? Do they find themselves attractive?

Autumn: Autumn is not a narcissist, but she’s a flirt, in a profession that encourages flirtation, and in subcultures that really encourage flirtation. She knows what she’d got, and she likes showing it off; she dresses to that end most of the time. Although she will not sacrifice practicality for vanity, she also won’t sacrifice vanity for practicality.

Conrad isn’t particularly vain. He knows he’s decent-looking, but in Addergoole that’s mostly a function of not getting a bad Change. No-one there is all that unattractive on base.

He attributes his skill with girls – Kai is certainly not his first girlfriend – more to social finesse and less to his appearance.

Rin: Rin has her mother’s nose, her grandmother’s hair, and a family chin. She exemplifies the royal phenotype, looking like a Callanthe and a royal. On some level, she knows this makes her look attractive, especially to other Callanthe, and she’s spent enough time in Bithrain to know that, there, this makes her exotic.

She takes enough care of her appearance to not let down what people expect of her as a healer, as a member of the army, or as a princess, depending on what role she’s filling at the moment.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/182359.html. You can comment here or there.

Character Development Meme (morning Warmup), Question 2

Nov17

As discussed here and on LJ, I’m going to do this meme for a few characters (I’m rotating seasonal sibs to not totally overwhelm myself).

Feel free to suggest another character, and I’ll work through them in rotation.

Question 1 here and on LJ.

Question 3 here and on LJ.

2.) What are your characters most prominent physical features?

The RoundTree Siblings:
They share a stubborn chin they inherited from their father and a strong nose they got from their mother, a build that is sturdy or athletic rather than willowy, and a medium height that is neither tiny not giant.

Winter’s hair went prematurely white (his sisters blame Spring); he wears it long and in a ponytail, and it’s arrow-straight.

Autumn’s hair is a curly mess of russet, which she wears mostly-loose.

Summer’s hair is golden blonde, and as straight as Winter’s. It spends much of its time in a ponytail.

Spring’s hair is dirty blonde, light brown, and worn feathered and, no surprise, a little chaotic.

Conrad: The tail is probably the most notable, and his oversized, extra-digits-and-knuckles hands and feet. With his Mask hiding those Changes, the hands and feet are still oversized, and his once-broken nose and blue, blue eyes stand out more strongly.

Rin: Rin is a model of her ethnicity, as is not all that surprising from a member of the royal family. Her long black hair and small mouth with its rather generous smile are most notable; her skin is a light mocha-tan in the cold season, but, after several seasons at war and on the road, is burnished to a dark very-slightly-olive tan.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/178529.html. You can comment here or there.

Character Development Meme (morning Warmup), Question 1

Nov15

As discussed here and on LJ, I’m going to do this meme for a few characters (I’m rotating seasonal sibs to not totally overwhelm myself).

Feel free to suggest another character, and I’ll work through them in rotation.

Question 2 here and on LJ.

(1) Describe your character’s relationship with their mother or their father, or both. Was it good? Bad? Were they spoiled rotten, ignored? Do they still get along now, or no?

Spring: Spring never knew her father; he died when she was still in the womb. Her relationship with her mother is at times very wild – Mrs. RoundTree has distinct ideas about where her children’s lives should be going, and, as a tangler, especially, Spring is very good at countering that. She was a wild kid, who turned to her brother as a father figure, and in a pinch, she’s much more likely to go to Winter or Autumn than to Mom for help.

Conrad: He doesn’t know who his father is, although a year and a half at Addergoole has led him to assume it’s someone in Regine’s breeding program. His mother, Maria, did her best to raise him well, with the help of her older brother and her father. He has a distant-but-okay relationship with his mother, with some small amount of resentment that he keeps very very deeply buried for sending him to Addergoole; he gets along well with his grandfather, and his uncle taught him most of the “manly” skills that come in handy so rarely at Addergoole.

Rin: She’s the seventh daughter in a family of nine, not spoiled but not ignored either. Her mother is more or less professional royalty; she’s never left Lannamer and rarely leaves the palace complex. Her father is a bureaucrat and a businessman who manages portions of the royal finances and helps to keep the roads going and the weapons heading out. Neither are particularly strong in the faith/magic of that world, and neither are of a particularly military or scholarly bent. They approved of Rin’s time in university, but are a little lost by her decision to go military. She, in turn, thinks fondly of them, but with not a great deal of respect.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/175803.html. You can comment here or there.

Rin & Girey Story: Baths – When Is This?

Sep20

So, I thought this story was after “Pause in the Journey,” but the weather doesn’t fit…

Girey woke slowly to the warm sun streaming in, and the familiar sound of water splashing. He reached for the tent flap to close it, eyes still closed, and hit wood instead of canvas.

Wood. He opened his eyes, blinking, as the long evening past came back to him. It had been raining buckets, cold nasty stuff that didn’t seem to want to let up long enough for them to pitch a tent, and so they’d kept riding long past sunset, torches lighting their way, until they’d found this way-station. His captor seemed to have an allergy to them, using the sturdy buildings only when no other opportunity presented itself, but this had counted as an emergency, or she’d been too damp to care about her normal objections.

She hadn’t shared her logic with him – she never did – so Girey was left to simply be happy for the soft bed, the roof, and the pleasant fire. And the splashing water, which made less sense now that he knew they were in a waystation.

Splashing…? And the scent, trailing under drying-goat-odor, of perfume. Girey sat up, looking around. A bath? There was a bath?

He had his feet on the floor before his arm was jerked short, his left arm chained to the box-bed. He swore quietly in his own language; did she ever, ever forget?

“Good morning, sleepyhead.” Rin’s voice, treacherously cheerful, wafted over the screen separating the two halves of the small cabin.

“You chained me to the bed,” he informed her, although he was sure she hadn’t forgotten.

“I did,” she agreed.

“Let me go.” That was, of course, futile. He’d spent nearly every moment of his captivity so far chained to something. As if he had anywhere to go.

“You’ll have to wait until I’m done with my bath. Just give me a few more moments, and you’ll have your turn.”

His turn. A real bath, from the sounds of it, with soap and warm water. A chance to be clean, to wash the stink of goats off his skin, if only for a little while. He lay back down, trying not to sound too impatient. “I’ll wait.”

“Good.” She made splashing noises for a few more minutes, while he tried not to think about the hot water, the soap, his captor, naked, in the tub just a couple body-lengths from him. He squirmed uncomfortably, his chain jangling. “Almost,” she called, and he could hear her stand up, the water sluicing off her body.

Girey caught his breath, and reminded himself that she was the enemy, his captor, and generally a miserable woman to be around, not the sort of woman that hung around Bitrani war camps.

Of course, a treacherous part of his mind whispered, if he had captured her and not the other way around…

He yanked hard on the chain, letting the shackle dig into his wrist, and thought about sword-drills. Sword-drills, and long marches through swamps, and not….

“All right.” She dropped a fluffy scrap of cloth atop him. “Stand up, it’s your turn.”

He stood, blinking to clear his eyes. She was in her undertunic and trousers, hardly revealing clothing, her hair falling loose and damp around her shoulders. And she was smiling. Girey held out his wrists to her, surprised as she unlocked his wrists altogether.

“No peeking,” he teased nervously, as she ushered him behind the screen.

“You have nothing to worry about there,” she assured him.

“Good.” He tried not to think too hard about why that itself would concern him.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/132081.html. You can comment here or there.

Yet more kissing!

Aug13

[personal profile] lilfluff requested Jas-who-will-be-a-boy/Rin or Girey in the kissing meme.

Notes: “Tuathan” is what the Cali royalty call themselves. Girey’s language is not actually Italian, but it’s within close enough that Jas could pick out basic words.

Not canon

Jas knew better.

There were rooms in the sub-sub-sub-basement sections of the Agency where you just didn’t go, and there were rooms where, when you had to clean something, you cleaned very carefully only where you were told to, and didn’t cross the blue lines.

You never crossed the blue lines.

This time, well, the blue line had been under something, and s/he’d moved it (Jas was still coming to terms with pronouns. Everyone here, even the cats who knew better, treated him like a boy. But there was still the little voice in the back of his/her head saying that wasn’t quite right. Yet. Yet?). Jas had moved the box, because it needed to be cleaned.

He was pretty sure he hadn’t tripped, but the next thing he knew, he was falling through a bright blue doorway…

…and landing in the middle of a campfire. He yelped, and stumbled backwards…

…into the arms of the most beautiful non-Tuathan woman he had ever seen. Heart pounding, ass mildly scorched, and still smelling slightly of cleaning products, Jas did the only thing that came to mind.

He kissed her.

He knew the logistics, of course. He’d kissed other slaves, in the barracks, boys and girls, and Lords had kissed her, once or twice, before she shifted to boy’s livery. He knew what he was doing, and, it seemed, so did the woman.

It lasted about three heartbeats before the man, chains jangling, yanked him away. “You came through there?” he asked, in heavily-accented Italian. Jas, now even more disoriented, nodded. The doorway was about four feet up in the air, shining bright blue.

“Go home,” the man grunted, and threw Jas through the doorway.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/109247.html. You can comment here or there.

30 Days Second Semester: 10, Coming Soon: Reiassan

Aug5

For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “11) Write a movie trailer style trailer for a story, existing or not-yet-written.”

Reiassan/Rin & Girey – landing page here (and on LJ).

Pan over a rocky landscape, following a river that wends its way south, past a white-walled cliff city, past farms cut into the mountains. As we begin, the travel up the road, running Northwards, looks like a long, ragged snake.

Voiceover: The two nations on the continent of Reiassan have been at war as long as either of them can remember.

As we grow closer, the snake reveals itself as an army, slowly marching, tired, wounded, but proud. The almost-universally dark-haired and short figures wear bright colours, and we can hear, over the crescendos of the music, the thudding rhythm of a cheerful marching song. Their armor is Romanesque in feel, and their mounts, those that have them (Officers, better-dressed, no less tired, no less wounded) ride tall, husky goats.

Finally, after generations, one nation has emerged victorious.

We see, among the short, brightly-dressed soldiers, others, dressed in bland browns and tans, wearing chains, some male, some female, mostly taller, fairer people. The camera is still moving Northwards, picking out faces on the long train of people.

The war is over.

Cut to generals signing treaties in a tent, one dark-haired, one blonde, both tired-looking.

Pan out from the tent to the mess of the battlefield. Scavengers and medics tend to the wounded and bury the dead. Near the tent, a man in rich-looking robes is forced to his knees on a platform.

The Callanthe had defeated the Bitrani. They have killed their King.

We see the axe begin to fall, and the camera cuts away, again. A dark-haired woman in a bright green tunic looks down at a scruffy blonde soldier in the remains of expensive, if dull-colored, clothing and armor. His hands and ankles are shackled.

Now they must learn to live with them.

The List:
1a) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
1b) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
2) write a scene that takes place in a train station.
3) the story must involve a goblet and a set of three [somethings]
4) prompt: one for the road
5) write a story using an imaginary color
6) write the pitch for a new Final Fantasy styled RPG (LJ Link)
7) prompt: frigid (LJ Link)
8) write a scene in the middle of a novel called “The Long, Dirty Afterwards” (LJ)
9) prompt: mourning dead gods (LJ)
10) write a story set in three different time periods. (LJ)
11) Write a movie trailer style trailer for a story, existing or not-yet-written.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/99133.html. You can comment here or there.

“…or both…” the third 200-word request, for @Inventrix

Apr27

There was a hole in the universe. Autumn stared at it, curious and a little bit horrified. Sometimes the strands split a little bit, letting things leak through from one world to another, but this was a genuine hole, visible not just in the stranding, but to mundane sight.

This couldn’t be good. And yet, it could be very interesting. She eyed the edges of the portal thoughtfully. It was just a bit wider than her shoulder-span, maybe three feet tall, and glowing blue around the edges. She could step through it easily. (Anyone could step through it easily; it was hanging out there plain as day).

She ought to call a weaver to seal it. And she would, right? She grinned wickedly to herself, feeling more wild than she had in years, as she stepped through the portal.

She had been standing in a hayfield; she tripped as she stepped through onto a mountainous cliff. Strange; the world-holes she’d stepped through before had been mirror-worlds, not all that different in the broad details. This didn’t even feel like home; the strands were different, the air was different. She took a steadying step forward.

Ahead of her, a proud-looking woman hailed her in an unfamiliar language. She was, it seemed, astride a very tall, broad-backed, saddled… goat?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/37787.html. You can comment here or there.

Worldbuilding passing thoughts

Jan30

Today’s question for which I have yet to come up with an answer:
Are the gods of Reiassan real?
If they are real, how active are they in their worshipers’ lives?
(On a loose scale between New Testament Jehovah and Greek Zeus)
How much like their worshipers think they are, are they?

I think that they’re real, they actually exist.
We were bantering about the idea of yearly 1040ez’s for the gods
(bureaucratic deiocracy!)

But, as T pointed out, if you have gods that come down and say This is the Way Things Are, you’re less likely to have religious wars over interpretation: “If the Blue God comes down every Thursday, then if people start a war over what you’re supposed to sacrifice to him on Monday, on Thursday he’s going to be like, ‘what are you people doing? No, no, cut that out.'”

So. The gods are real. Perhaps the avatars they choose to portray themselves vary?

Edited to add:

They each show up, once a year, on their holiday. They take a non-human form at that time, and where they show up is … seems to be random, although it it not really. This is the time they communicate in any fashion with their followers.

Thinking the Blue have the most organized theology and the best records of these visits.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/2531.html. You can comment here or there.