Getting later and later with these…
Coffee, standard
Cardio Shopping – whee!
Peanut Butter, 1 teas
Cheerios, 1/2 cup
Dirty Rice (leftover from the day before)
Coco multigrain pop cake, x1
Rice cakes
Peanut Butter, 1 teas
Walkies – 1 hour, w/ Rion, mellow, outside
Salad (with hard-boiled eggs and bacon)
Olive Oil chocolate chip Cookies
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/691200.html. You can comment here or there.
![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
piratekitten declared February world-building month.
And now it is March and I am finishing up the questions!
The question post is here
The eighteenth question comes from clare_dragonfly and is for Facets of Dusk
Who discovered the portal thingies? How did it start out?
In the universe the team calls Prime, in our era, Alexa discovered the Doors by accident.
She was – or had been – dating Aerich, and they got into yet another fight, as they were prone to doing. She stormed out of his study and into his library, through a door that was older than the family house in which he lived.
[Aerich’s family consist of a long and esteemed lineage of scholarly mages who discovered the Doors centuries ago, but had never figured out how to make them properly function. As only a few people in any given billion have the ability, nobody in Aerich’s family, nor their associates, had ever managed to spark the doors. Alexa did.]
She traveled from universe to universe for three years; there was a murder investigation back on Earth Prime, and she was officially declared missing: presumed dead.
While Aerich was being charged with her murder, Alexa was discovering by trial and error how the Doors work and how to find them. They do not always lead to the same place multiple times in a row and, unlike a Stargate, they don’t come with a coordinate system. Each universe has several, although the specific number varies with world.
When she returned – not into Aerich’s family library, but into a storeroom in the basement of a famous university – she was immediately snagged by a shadow branch of the U.S. Government, working with an unwilling but competent Aerich and several of his associates.
Once they determined that Alexa could, indeed, open the Doors, they put together an exploration team, and the Facets team was born.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/691062.html. You can comment here or there.
So, the writer in my attic, K Orion Fray, sends out a weekly writing inspiration e-mail, which includes a writing prompt.
A prompt from several weeks ago:
Write for ten minutes, and describe something. It can be a person, a place, or and object – but just describe it. Use as many of the senses as you can, and don’t skimp!
Description in line is something I need work at. So I rolled up three random names and a couple random outfits and went to work.
Marje Allise strode into the room, two steps and leagues ahead of Ket Vasquez. She was dressed in k.d. lang chic today, her indigo suit pattered all over with black designs. It didn’t do to look too closely at the patterns, a lesson Kara had learned the hard way.
“All right.” Marje appropriated the nearest chair, swung it around, and plopped down backwards in it, leaning on the headrest. Her hair, for a moment, failed to obey the commands implicit in the styling gel Marje bought in bulk; one cinnamon-colored curl dangled over her patrician nose, softening the Sergeant’s habitual glare. “Give me what you’ve got.”
Behind her, Ket fiddled with the valises, setting them up on the rickety side table, rearranging them, opening and closing them. Even his suit was a pale imitation of Marje’s: black instead of midnight indigo, the patterns grey and mauve instead of black. He was wearing a fedora, as if that helped. At least it covered up his perpetually-tousled hair.
Kira dragged her eyes away from the boy, found them settling on the way the patterns on Marje’s suit traced her broad shoulders, and dragged her eyes away again. The Sergeant had asked her a question. She coughed.
“Ah, yes. What I’ve, that is, what we’ve….”
“Agent.” Marje didn’t need her voice to fill space. Her presence did that all on her own. So her voice was quiet – not a whisper, not the sort of quiet that hid from listeners, just the voice that had no need to raise itself.
“Yessir?” Kira swallowed around a lump in her throat.
A Scene Description
A Place Description
A Deletion
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/690834.html. You can comment here or there.
For kelkyag‘s prompt to my December Bingo Card – it fills the “Disability: Chronic” square.
Fairy town has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ
I do believe the beggar Kelkyag was referring to was this guy. It fits, at least.
Aston had learned years ago that there were some things magic couldn’t cure.
He’d learned even earlier that modern medicine couldn’t fix everything; he’d learned that when his mother got sick, when Mrs. Newmann next door got sick, when Randy from school got sick and never came back.
He’d been eight, then, and the doctors had told him things that he hadn’t really understood, and his father had told him things that hadn’t helped much, and Mr. Newmann had cried for hours and wouldn’t talk to him.
But eight was old enough to know that Granny Paolo was not actually his granny, no matter that she babysat him and gave him sweets he wasn’t supposed to have. And eight was old enough to learn that magic had a cost.
So Aston had told Granny “I’ll pay it. Whatever. Just bring mommy and Mrs. Newmann back.”
And she had asked him, “you, who are a child-boy, you, when their husbands could not?”
Which was when Aston learned that love had limits. The first time Aston learned love had limits.
“Me,” he’d agreed.
“You are young, son, and have your life in front of you. Would you risk that, for the sake of those that are old?”
“My mother’s not old!”
“Older than you, child.”
“Not old at all!”
“Come back tomorrow. I will give you this – they will get no worse between now and then. Think about it. Ask your father, if you would. Ask your friends.”
Aston had already learned that his father would not pay the price, whatever it was.
But he did ask his friends: the goblin in the park, the faerie in the fountain, the lion in the bar.
“It will be hard. But it will be worth it.” Three voices, three phrasings, but Aston understood the meaning.
And he had paid the price.
Years later, frustrated and angry and losing the last of his sight, hungry and depressed and with all his human friends having left him, he’d confronted Granny Paolo.
“You saved my mother. You saved Mrs. Newmann. There has to be a way to save my sight.”
She had shaken her head – it was only a blur, then, but he could see the movement. “No, so. The price of magic is its price, and cannot be wished away.”
And he had cried like a babe, the way he hadn’t when his mother was sick, and Granny Paolo had comforted him, patted his back, and fed him cookies like he was eight again.
“You have borne up under this burden well, so I will tell you this: when you give of yourself like you did, selflessly and wholly, the magic always gives something back.”
It had taken Aston four more years to find it, the voice like an angel that poured from him mouth, and by then, his sight was gone altogether. Magic gave, and magic took. For everything there was a price.
He sat in his spot by the curb and sang, his hat out. Sometimes the good people left money, and sometimes the bad people took it. Aston didn’t mind. Life, like magic, gave and took. He sang them all a song and let the fates sort it out.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/690438.html. You can comment here or there.
http://www.springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/character-build.htm
Gives you results like:
Coroner/Gardener/Velociraptor
Gemologist/Songwriter/Dragon/Sculptor
(why don’t I have a tag for “generators?”)
There’s also a character interests generator – Your character’s interests include candle-making, owls, web design, and old castles.
A skills generator – Your character’s skills include martial arts, horseback riding, and playing the guitar.
And check this out, a personality generator:
Courteous: Typically
Risk-Taking: Often
Ambitious: Sometimes
Curious: Often
Self-Controlled: Sometimes
Nurturing: Generally
Trusting: Never
Honest: Sometimes
Loyal: Usually
Affectionate: Never
Romantic: Never
Flirty: Never
Sympathetic: Generally
Altruistic: Sometimes
Optimistic: Usually
Observant: Usually
Logical: Sometimes
Social: Fairly outgoing
Emotions: Fairly controlled
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/690344.html. You can comment here or there.
piratekitten has declared February world-building month.
Every day in February, I will answer one question about any one of my settings.
The question post is here.
The twenty-ninth question comes from librarygeek and is for Addergoole.
Keeping: Was it part of the original plan or it something fae? Is there any specific magical binding for Keeper and Kept? I just read a reference to ‘Hell Night’ and wasn’t caught so he should be home free. Is being caught at Hell Night how you get to be Kept?
Keeping is the effect of one of the Laws of Belonging.
The Laws are the rules which bind all Ellehemaei (fae); they fall in a few different categories, but the ones that interest us here are those of Belonging.
These laws state that a fae will first belong to its* Mother, then to its Mentor, and then to itself, but that a fae, once they belong to themselves, may choose to belong to another adult fae.
There are connotations to the word “belong” in the language used for the Laws (commonly called The Old Tongue) which include a sense of responsibility rather than just proprietorship; the word literally means “under another’s name,” and one who Belongs to another, either as their child, their student, or their Kept, is that person’s complete responsibility.
The ritual that makes two fae Keeper and Kept – at its most basic, a repeated statement of “you’re mine;” “Yes, I’m yours” – binds the Kept to the Keeper. Once Kept, a fae cannot disobey direct orders from its Keeper. The Kept feels bad if they disappoints or angers the Keeper, good if they are praised, and will often strive to please their Keeper at all costs.
The binding on Keeper is societal – if the Kept upsets or offends someone, it is the Keeper’s responsibility to ameliorate the problem. If the Kept breaks a law, the Keeper has to deal with the consequences. And the Keeper is responsible for making sure its Kept are fed, housed, clothed (if they so wish), and so on.
All of this covers Keeper and Kept relationships in the greater world outside of Addergoole, as they happen within what passes for fae society in the world.
“Hell Night” is a function of Addergoole.
Originally intended as a gentle hazing ritual to induce stress in new students – because stress is part of what causes juvenile fae to go through the Changes that make them full fae – over the years of the school, it has become a darker, more intense day of pranks, chases, and flat-out bullying, with an underlying secondary cause of enticing students who do not yet know about Keeping to agree to belong to someone for the year. So, in Addergoole, being caught on Hell Night is how you are often Kept, and the day in which the upperclassmen are the most intent on hunting down their new prey.
* Ellehemaei use a gender-neutral pronoun; the closest English has is “it.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/689925.html. You can comment here or there.
A good day!
Coffee, as per standard
Cheerios, 1/2 cup
Pad Thai Tofu
Coco multigrain pop cake, x1
Dirty Rice – House Thorne style, which isn’t really all that dirty.
(Brown rice, tomatoes, pepper, onion, a bit of hot sausage)
Abueleta
Sake
Gymmm – a mellow 1/2 hour of elliptical
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/689681.html. You can comment here or there.
piratekitten has declared February world-building month.
I’m finishing this up in March!
The question post is here, please feel free to add more questions!
The twenty-eighth question comes from rix_scaedu and is a meta-question
Do any of your universes have a “big bad” or a “he who must not be named”?)
No.
Next question?
😀
Okay, that’s not entirely fair.
Unicorn/Factory has the unknown, un-met Governors, who seem to have some control over everything and motives that are questionable at best.
Faerie Apocalypse has the Departed Gods (who Return), a group of powerful fae who have been trapped in another world.
One could possibly argue that Regine in Addergoole is a big bad, although she is not nearly as Big nor as Bad as most end bosses.
But in Tír na Cali, the main antagonist is the setting. Dragons Next Door, human ignorance is the main bad guy. Reiassan and Stranded both have bad guys for the individual story.
I’m not a big fan of bad guys, I suppose, despite the recent Bad Guy Giraffe Call. I prefer settings where the world itself makes the antagonist, or writing small villains who are either misunderstood (they weren’t actually bad in the grand scheme of things) or that can be redeemed.
That being said, writing a Xanatos Gambit style Big Bad From The Shadows might be an entertaining project at some point.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/689603.html. You can comment here or there.
As I’ve said, weekends make it harder to remember to log food, but this weekend we ate in big meals again instead of browsing, which helped
3/7/2014
Coffee, 1/4c 2% milk, 1t sugar, creamer
Cheerios, 1/2 cup
tiny apples
Pad Thai Tofu
Tuna Melt, low-fat cheddar
two glasses of wine
3/8/2014
Oatmeal
Beef with onions and cream sauce
Sushi
3/9/2014
French Toast
one-egg Egg salad
Fish Balls, Pierogies, and roasted speargrass
puff pastry-cream cheese-banana rollups
T. and I came up with a dinner plan for the week, too, since I’m now grocery shopping for work every Tuesday a.m.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/689172.html. You can comment here or there.
March is Women’s History Month, I’m told.
And I liked Febcreate, so I’ll do MarWomen.
Ask me something about one of my female characters, anything, or ask me to write one of my female characters in a specific situations
First sixteen questions/prompts will get answered/written to. 🙂
(I will note: March’s project is the Rin & Girey novella and finishing Addergoole: Book one, if you want to give a timely prompt/question)
And I challenge all y’all who write to do the same. Write something about your women characters. Write something about women in history. Tell us about your female characters.
1.2. Shahin and/or Kailani as tweens?
3. That conversation that Rin and her mom were in the middle of!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/688938.html. You can comment here or there.