Archive | March 2018

Beauty-Beast 32: Want and Need

Mar31

First – Previous – Landing Page – Next

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He didn’t want me anymore.  The words still hurt.  Ctirad willed them not to, but his will and his pain were not listening to each other.

“Some day,” Timaios growled, and Ctirad’s misery only increased, “I am going to take that man and pin him to a wall until he has some idea what he put you through – no.  Until he is sorry what he put you through.  He bargained very dearly for you indeed, Ctirad, and cared a great deal to have you be taken from him, but such is the nature of a bastard like him that he would rather have you believe that you are un-valued, begging and pleading for every bit of attention and praise, than have you know that you are valuable to him.”  He cupped his hands around Ctirad’s chin and looked down into his eyes. “You are very valuable to me already, Ctirad, and were you to serve me as long as you served Ermenrich, I believe I would consider you a treasure beyond worth. And he certainly had some small idea of what you could be worth…. I’ll stop, I’ll stop.”  He released Ctirad’s chin and wrapped his arms, instead, around shoulders that seemed to be shaking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Could you tell me what it is that I said?” Continue reading →

Sneaking through the Bear Empire

Mar30

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous: Poaching in the Bear Empire

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Deline woke to find herself pressed up against Carrone and his arm draped over her in turn.  She moved slowly, trying not to wake him. She needed to get her thoughts together and form a plan.  “Head off into nowhere” was more like a flight in terror than an actual battle plan, and it would take her longer and longer to get home.  

That would, of course, probably make Carrone happy.  Out here, he could still pretend everything was more or less the same – except the part where he was bound to her and they were being hunted by bounty hunters that had been his associates.  

Come to think of it, that wasn’t much the same at all, was it?  She glanced over at him. She knew nothing about him, except that he had tried to kill her – twice – and failed – twice and then saved her life from another bounty hunter.   Continue reading →

A brief blog post rambling on about audience and writing

Mar29

I’ve been thinking about audience lately.

(Hi, Audience!)

So some of what I’ve been thinking is how things like Rin & Girey started out as this entirely self-indulgent story, and how now it’s one of my most in-depth worlds (Addergoole/Fae Apoc is THE most in depth, but that’s because of the serials) (Then again, Reiassan has a conlang and Fae Apoc only has a few con letters).

And you know “I am not the audience for this” is totally fine, and I have to remember that.  (Like one time I left romance out of an entire storyline because one person had said they didn’t want romance, and then it turned out they didn’t even read that story…)

And that’s a weird balance.

Like, I am not sure I will ever be comfortable just writing things because I want to see them. A thing here and there, sure.  But not like, as a rule.

On the other hand, I have to remember that I can’t please all of the people all of the time, and that trying is likely to just give me a migraine and make me cry.

I don’t have any real conclusions here yet, just thinking about that balance.  It can’t always be bondage catgirls in space; it also can’t always be ace aro mysteries with pretty magic.  I’d get bored, and so would y’all.

…Speaking of bored, how do niche authors keep from getting bored?  Money?

A Conlang Word for the Day (written for Patreon)

Mar29

Today we’re boiling!

Likkooz is an old word for bubble, as to roil or froth.

Likkoz is to boil; Likozok is a boil. (“bring to a boil…”)

The word got is a pot, generally a kettle for cooking over open fire, more generically any pot.

But for a modern teakettle, using Libbaano, music as sung, you end up with a Libbaangot, a sing-kettle.

Tairiekie, Libbangot-noo in-likkooz-ak – Tairiekie, the kettle is boiling.

Want more?

Tootplanet: Explorers’ Logs Planet 7-14-2

Mar29

Supplementary Exploration Log – P.Date 198

On a planet this small, I thought we’d run out of things to explore.

Today, I found a canyon barely wider than my hips, and in that canyon, I found a thriving species of mice.

Planetary Date 252 

We’ve spent a week exploring a lake that is barely bigger than a swimming pool but deeper than anything short of an ocean trench has any right to be, especially on this tiny planet.

Its water is potable, its southern beach is beautiful, and its animals range from the adorable – tiny rainbow fish the size of a fingernail! – to the outright terrifying.

Falip nearly died when something grabbed her leg and dragged her under.  From her scrambled reports, it was a many-armed creature the size of a man.

We haven’t been able to find any other sign of its existence, but we intend to keep looking – and to be very careful in that water.

 

Tootplanet: Explorers’ Logs Planet 7-12-1

Mar29

Planetary Date 262

There are actually other things on this planet besides puffballs.

The thing is, that some of them find the puffballs to be terrifying – because of mutations like the one we got out of the Dawn line, it seems, and because their bright colors blend in so well that something that could be toxic or venomous just, poof, appears under your feet.

The poor… fluff.. thing – think the size of a large dog or small pony, mostly lime green, with blue and pink spots – walked like it was on show as it checked us out, lifting each foot up all the way and putting it down very carefully.

 

 

The Hidden Mall 28: Clean✨

Mar29

First: The Hidden Mall – a beginning of something
Previous: Reunion

It was too awkward, talking to all these people with the faces of people she knew.  Abby rushed through a meal of ridiculous fruit and meat she didn’t want to ask too much about, Chinese-restaurant sauces and a few spices that the person in batik swore up and down would do nothing more than make mystery meat taste more palatable.

It would feel nice to sleep here, but something about the way Vic looked at them, the way Kevin looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, the way Greg sometimes looked at Tommy, it made her feel like they shouldn’t be here.  Like it was like looking at ghosts for them. Continue reading →

A Quick Conlang Post

Mar28

I’ve been doing a bit of conlang over on Patreon this month as I play with people’s names in Reiassan and their post-Edally titles.

But I realized that a core concept of Calenyen, the language, had no word: Use

Time to fix that!

Calenyen has three grammatical genders:

Useful/of Use – toka
Useless/with no use – tyok
Beyond use – etok 

-tok- is used only in this setting and for nothing else.  Discussing use as -tok- is a philosophical concept that is intensely important to the Calenyena from their  goat-herding days through to their Industrial Revolution and beyond.

 

 

Edally Academy Houses III

Mar27
Every one of the nine houses of Edally Academy has its own tower (which serves as a dormitory and social area), its own classroom building, its own uniform colors, and its own sigil.

House Gepmingippai (Geppai*) are the people you want to talk to if you want your school uniform to fit right; they are the school of Fashion and Textiles.

Weaving and knitting,  sewing and embroidery are all the purview of House Geppai. (GEP-pie).  Their perfectly-tailored, usually very carefully embroidered uniforms are in goldenrod, fushsia, and lime, the most brilliant colors that they can dye and nodding to no one god at all.

Their sigil is a needle athwart a loom, or just the needle, sometimes crossed with knitting needles. Continue reading →

Bang bang bang

Mar26

Bang!  Bam!

Who knew demolition could be so much fun?

Oh, man, I’m having a blast tearing things apart.

(Ask me again when we get to the insulation, but for now…)

BANG!  There goes another piece of drywall.

BAMMMM!  There goes a cross piece!

Bang bang bang! Continue reading →