Archive | December 2014

December Meme – Day Twenty-Three – Apocalypse!

Dec26

The Meme

Today’s prompt is from @dahob – Why do you like apocalypses so much?

Heheheheheee.

So, I chewed on this a bit, and it came down to two major things: why I like dystopian settings, and why I like space colony stories.

I swear this is all related!

So, dystopian settings. I looove dystopian settings, although I have to admit that that’s 50% lazy writing. That is: if the setting is the bad guy, then it’s man vs. the environment, and the innate bad guys are mostly working within a bad setting.

Tír na Cali’s a perfect example of that: “Yes, I own you, but I can’t exactly free you. The Californian government will never let you go home, and, even if they did, the Americans would lock you up and pick your brain for every scrap of information about our country. So you’re stuck with me and my only options are keep you or sell you.”

Of course, in Addergoole, the reason for the uber-dystopia is right there, in the school, a living breathing person. Um. Poor thinking on my part there. O_o

“Man against his environment.” That’s my favorite style of story, of the classic three taught in English classes (Man v. self, other man, environment), and that really covers the “space colony” story part of this, too: I love the idea of carving out a new world, a new home, against massive odds. I love making something from scraps, from whatever’s left over. And with space colonies and post-apoc both, you walk into it with some “modern” tech, and some idea of how modern tech should work.

Except cargo cults, of course. But I still need to write one of those.

So why do I like apocalypses so much? Because I get to write people struggling against their environment, and persevering.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/871496.html. You can comment here or there.

December Meme Day Twenty-Two: comfort food

Dec26

The Meme

Today’s prompt is from [personal profile] lilfluff: Comfort foods

Mmm Comfort food.

I’m one of those people that has to not work to eat all their feelings… and I also tend to want to feed everyone else. “You’re sad? Here, have food. Angry? Food. Happy? Celebratory food!”

But when I really need comforting… when I’m sick, it’s broff (broth) if I’m really sick, or chicken soup if I’m just a bit sick.

I like this risotto that T. cooks, too – it’s got just a bit too much cheese in it, and sweet onions, and it’s creamy and starchy. If I’m feeling ambitious, it’s mac n’ cheese, although cauliflower and cheese works okay with the thick cheese sauce we use.

I mean… really, anything familiar is going to be good. Sometimes the comfort food I want is enchiladas Thorne, made with rice & lentils and taco sauce. Sometimes it’s pizza, bought from the take-out place down the street. And sometimes it’s chocolate chip cookies, with the recipe I’ve got memorized. It’s mostly starches, really. I like starches when I want comfort food. <.< Starches and fat.

And then there was that once, when I was feeling lousy, when I found the recipe my mom used when I was sick – vanilla custard – and made it myself. ‘Cause as much as I like being taken care of, I’m a grown-up now, and sometimes you just gotta make your own comfort.

What about you? What’s your favorite comfort food?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/871348.html. You can comment here or there.

Amrit Continues, including a description this time

Dec25

After A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description, although I cut off the last line because it annoyed me. FAe Apoc, approx. now

Amrit didn’t care. He was going to go for some fish or some honey or some cattle, and he wasn’t sure which was more irritating.

This third bidder, though, she was interesting. She was thin – almost everyone was thin, these days, and there was nothing that raised more red flags than a fat person when everyone else was starving. She had features that looked good thin, though, with high cheekbones and wide eyes that made her look – ha – fey. Her hair – black or dark brown – was pulled back into a long braid, and she was wearing cargo pants and what looked like three shirts, all of them in shades of green.

And it looked like she was winning the bidding. Amrit tried futilely to fight against the chains, but that wasn’t getting him anywhere. He slumped. There would be a chance. He’d get away – and then he’d be more careful where he slept from now on.

“Sold, to the lady. Come collect your prize. He’s yours now.”

The auctioneer gestured grandly, and the woman came up onto the platform. She pulled the gag out of Amrit’s mouth and met his gaze. Her eyes, he noted, were so dark as to nearly be black. “You Belong to me now.”

He worked his mouth, getting the taste of wood and leather out. “Fuck you.”

She took a step back, frowning. Oh, had he offended her delicate sensibilities? Good.

“You’re going to be interesting.”

“Fuck you.” He managed to find a bit of spittle to add to that one. She wiped her face and, for a moment, Amrit thought she was gong to hit him. She’d learn fast enough that that didn’t do much to control him.

Instead, she shoved the gag back in his mouth. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Leave him chained, please.” The last was to the slavers, who’d come over to wrap Amrit for travel, or whatever they did. “I’m sure what I paid for him can cover a couple shackles… and this gag.”

“Yes, ma’am.” They unlocked the two pins holding Amrit’s chains to the sales floor. “He’s all yours, then.”

“Yes, yes he is.” She hauled Amrit to his feet. “Come on, then… unless you’d rather stay here and try your luck with Fineus the Whoremonger? I hear his bid came in second.”

Next: In Which Amrit is Amazingly Eloquent

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/871001.html. You can comment here or there.

Free and Clear

Dec23

Prolly nigh on 50 years after Addergoole: Year 5

She wasn’t really sure why her last owners released her.

She’d done (almost) everything right, and had been (relatively) docile and obedient. She’d been trying to learn, and Owners Number Three had taught her quite a bit. But ‘why they released her’ wasn’t part of it.

They’d given her a nice big pack of stuff, too. The girl who had once been Delaney looked at it for the third time. There was enough in here to survive for a month, if she decided to wander. There was enough to trade for… well, a whole bunch of booze, if she felt like that, instead.

She wasn’t really sure what she felt like. She’d been under the collar for what she thought was probably a decade, and before that… before that, she’d been insane, cracked, and, if the stories and her vague memories were true, psychotic and sadistic.

That person had a string of homes and wealth scattered across the country. The person she was now wasn’t sure where any of it was – or if any of it was still where she’d left it. She’d shared everything with a partner, after all. And that partner was gone.

She stared down the road. It curved through wasteland and farmland, through places she didn’t remember being and places she might never have been. And it was all hers. She could do whatever she wanted.

The horse-drawn wagon clomped up beside her. “Going west, Miss?”

“I am.” At least, that was the direction she was pointed in. “I could give you..” she touched her pocket. “Twenty dollars Sondaran for a ride.”

“Ten will do. Hop on in.”

The man in the driver’s seat reminded her of Amish, long ago – beard and straw hat, plain shirt and plain pants. She wondered if the Amish had survived. “Thanks.” She passed over the money, first.

“My pleasure. My name’s Amos, by the by.”

She’d prepared for this. She had more than enough reasons to leave that old name behind her. But she’d needed a new one. “Ellery.” She smiled brightly. “You can call me El.”

She had a fresh start, and she was going to take it.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/870681.html. You can comment here or there.

A beginning of a story which obnoxiously cuts off just before the description

Dec23

The problem with the settlements was the rules. Shit, the problem with other people was the rules. The last three crews Amrit had run with had enforced rules that were stifling, terrifying, and ridiculous, in order. Better, he’d decided, to run on his own. It wasn’t like anything could hurt him, at least not permanently.

The slavers had taken him while he was asleep, enough of them that they could tie him down even when he started fighting, and fae-savvy enough that they knew to gag him before he got out more than one Working. One of them sat on him as they attached the collar – wooden and spiked on inside and out, and the spikes burned where they brushed his skin – and informed Amrit that he now Belonged to them.

Amrit had made “fuck you” understandable through the gag, with effort. It had gotten him a bigger gag for his trouble.

And now he was chained to a platform, between two other guys, one of them in a plain metal collar and the other one wearing more wood and more chains than Amrit himself. Clearly he needed to fight harder.

And people were standing in front of them, bidding, ever so politely, like this was fucking Christie’s or something. And they were bidding on him. Amrit glared at them all. People.

It had been boring as well as irritating, watching them go back and forth about the other two, but now they were down to him. It looked like a fop sort, long hair, long nails, long mustache, was winning out over this big muscular guy wearing rawhide. They were using a form of shorthand Amrit didn’t quite get, but it sounded like he was up to 2 head of cattle or seven barrels of fish.

Suddenly, the men quieted. A woman in the back stood up and waved her number. She rolled off a series of words, all of them new to the debate.

There was a pause, while everyone discussed the relative values of… whatever. Honey, maybe? Amrit took the moment to study this new bidder.

more

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/870596.html. You can comment here or there.

Unicorn/Factory Landing Page Updated

Dec23

I have updated the Unicorn/Factory Landing Page here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/143643.html

In honor of that, I am now taking 2 Unicorn/factory prompts.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/870177.html. You can comment here or there.

Bug Invasion

Dec23

The world wasn’t expecting the Bugs to invade.

But the Bugs weren’t expecting the humans, either.

A Week of Settings

From the moment they breathed our air (Lj) after: Staying in the City (LJ) and Spooks vs. Bugs (DW)
It’s all in your Head (LJ)
Out of Their Minds
Voices – After All in Your Head and Out of Their Minds.

Poison (LJ)
Beyond (after Poison)

Icon Flash: The Bug Rebellion

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/391028.html. You can comment here or there.

Strange Things and Stranger

Dec22

Written to flofx‘s commissioned prompt.

The Kirkavare can be found in Fairy Town stories, starting with Re-blessing the Church.
⛪
The was a boy in the church yard.

There were three boys in the church yard, but two of them were human. The third shone like starlight when Mirandabelle looked at him sideways, and glared like a demon when he caught her looking.

They were making a snow fort. It seemed strange, a fae boy making a fort in the church yard, but he was laughing along with his friends and seemed to think nothing of it, nothing of the iron so close. She set her mittened hand on the fence, and felt the soft burn even through the heavy wool.

A snowball whizzed past her ear. Mirandabelle jerked up her head, and say the demon-eyed boy grinning at her. Without thinking about it, she scooped up a handful of snow and lobbed it right back at the boy.

His eyes narrowed and he scooped up his own handful. Before he could throw it, Mirandabelle was running. She skidded in through the open gate – the iron gate that was never closed, that Father Nehemiah had firmly set concrete planters against so that it could not be closed – like she was making a home run, grabbing more snow on the way.

The handful of snow landed in the demon boy’s hood before he saw her coming, but he caught Mirandabelle in the face with a handful of snow as she skidded into their fort.

“No girls in the fort!” one of the human boys complained.

“What are you, ten?” The demon boy laughed.

“Girls are welcome if they can make it in. And this one has fire.”

“This one…” Mirandabelle launched a snowball at the demon-boy. “Has snow! Also, she has a name.”

“Of course she does.” He took a step forward, a massive snowball in hand.

Mirandabelle didn’t so much see the lamb as she saw an emptiness where it had been: One moment, there was some extra whiteness in front of the demon-boy’s legs, and the next it was gone, and the boy was stumbling and falling.

She took her opportunity and dropped a snowball down the back of his neck, while he sputtered and shouted. And then she saw-not-saw the flash of the lamb again, hopping onto and off of demon-boy’s back when he tried to stand.

“I think he likes me.” She tossed another snowball, although it really wasn’t fair when demon-boy was still down.

“I don’t even know you!” He obliged by surging to his feet. Mirandabelle readied another snowball.

“Not you, silly.” She grinned at him. “Though I wouldn’t mind changing that.” No harm in admitting that, was there? “The kirkevarer. The church-lamb.”

It was interesting, Mirandabelle thought, the way all three of them froze, not just the fae boy, demon-boy. It was more interesting, she noted, that it was the one who was against girls in the fort who spoke first. “There’s a corpse lamb here? But…” He looked at the demon boy.

Mirandabelle chuckled. “I told you, he likes me.” She patted the air where the spirit of the lamb was floating. “This church – this church is different.”

The demon boy made his way to his feet. He was eyeing the lamb – but he was eyeing Mirandabelle, too. “Yeah. It’s not the only thing that’s different, either.”

She jutted her chin out at him. He was an interesting one, this demon. “Nope. Everything around here -” she grinned, and gestured to include him – “we’re all strange. And that’s the way I like it.”

She was pretty sure, from the warmth under her hand, that it was the way the church lamb liked it, too.
⛪
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/869643.html. You can comment here or there.

Meeting People!

Dec22

(This icon (in DW) came up in random choice three times out of ten, and it’s the only “Lyn” icon to come up. Soooo.)

I met [personal profile] kelkyag! (and not-certain-of-user-name? <.< sauergeek)

We went hiking!

I learned a bit about geocaching!

It was awesome!

🙂

Also, on the way there and home, I contemplated details of Potential Dream home.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/869449.html. You can comment here or there.