Archive | February 2020

OKAY I feel like it’s that sort of day.

Leave me a prompt about the relationship between any two characters I’ve written & I will write you a 100-200 words of a Something about them.

A Story for B, Chapter 2

Began here.

There was a girl named Malina Serafina Anastazja Dominika Naveed Jeleń nic Cecília O Alexandre, for several reasons, including the fact that her ancestor Dominika had, it seemed, built a castle, along with, or so she was learning, the Malina Concordat, the Dominika Accord, and the Treaty of the Alexandres.

She – we will call her Malina – had been lost in the desert, and not she was not so much lost as unsure of where she was.

She had a castle in front of her; she had a mustang under her.

She had a cat next to her, & that was what she knew.

The building coming into view was not quite what she’d consider a palace. It had no tall spindling towers; no beautiful white stucco painted with all the colors people could dream of; no gold.

She could see a thick, squat tower above the horizon, flanked, of course, by cacti (her whole life was devolving into nothing but cacti). From it fluttered 2 banners, as tattered as any she had seen on border trees in this journey & more so. Continue reading

Read Me Elsewhere

I haven’t done this in a while (ahem. Since September.) But if you’re only reading me  here, you’re missing things!

Or at least some things. 

On Ko-Fi, free for anyone to read (From the November Prompt Call)

A Light in the Dark – Advent
The Real World – Stand and Deliver…
The Two Kings – “There isn’t meant to be a thief king!”
D.F. Claudine Davenport & other authors – “…you listed your cat as a co-author…”
Atsidasauron Minimus – ship’s… creatures.
Nitpick – be careful about your trolling…  (Tir na Cali)
Boys & Girls  – a sequel to Boy Modification, on Patreon below.
Walking Away – something’s… Wrong with the Garden.

Stitched In (September, Aunt Family)

On Patreon – those that are free are marked with a * (only the last 21 posts; check out Patreon for the rest~)
🅿️

Deep Discovery *— Follows A Discovery in Depth, a story of Reiassan about the things you can find buried when you’re just looking for silver.
The Wilds of Notebook *— Sometimes the best idea is to take a little leap.
Caturday! Untitled Cat Game *— Stranded World, a tiny story of kitties.
Ru(i)ne(d), Grim(oire)End(ur)ing*– Stories of Potions & the Apocalypse.
Stewart Drive & Other Lessons *– A bonus story; things you need to learn about college you don’t learn in school
Sunshine Magic *– A fantasy story, another bonus, pretty much what it says on the tin. 😉
Read Another Story – Aunt Family, a Finish It to Heroes, Tell me a Story, etc.
Deck the Halls, a story of Science! 
O Christmas Tree *Set in Fairy Town in Crossroads Park.
Creep – a story of Aunt Family
Where There’s Smoke, there’s… Friends? *– Aunt Family, Beryl & New People
After-Action Report: First Mission with the Ψ Unit – Tir na Cali, their “X-Files” type unit.

A Map of Sorts of Spoils of War
Recipe Blog – Delicious Leavings (& Vegan Caramel)
Recipe Blog: Cooking on a Wood Stove
Fun Facts about Stranded World *
A Conlang Word: Tea (updated, annotated) *

The Expectant Wood 
Nimbus’ Journey Continues!
Chapter 48: Run
Chapter 49: Frivolous 

On Archive of Our Own – free to read and ongoing. (all Harry Potter ‘verse)
🗄️
Exchange Students – Harry is going to Addergoole. Porter is coming to Hogwarts. Nothing could possibly go wrong!
Reconstruction – The war is over, and yet Harry, Hermione, and Ron, Neville, Luna, and Ginny find they have another war on their hands. What’s more, Harry appears to have an enslaved Draco on his hands.
Inherited – Severus was dying, and he was dying free.  Then everything went wrong. 
A Solution, of Sorts – my take on the Wedding Law & Harem tropes.

 

The Bellamy, Chapter 5

Attention – Read Chapter 4.5 First, Sorry!

She was standing outside the Local History department, considering Eleanor’s directions.

Left did not look like the right direction; she could see the sign for the elevators to the right, but she decided on a whim to trust Eleanor rather than the signs and headed left through an area which looked more like a back room than part of the public collection – there were stacks of books to one side, cataloging cards and notes on the other side, and a little collection of things like cellophane sleeves for books and the labels for the spines. 

Veronika peered at the notations on a couple of labels – that was definitely neither Dewey Decimal nor Library of Congress, but aside from that, she couldn’t tell anything about it.  The letters were at least letters and then numbers numbers, but since everyone she’d met so far had spoken English, that seemed like a rather low bar. 

The shortcut did, indeed, lead to a bank of three elevators, looking as old as everything else here in the Bellamy (including possibly the skeletons).   Continue reading

Purchase Negotiation 34: Not a Drop

First: Purchased: Negotiation

💰

It might have been a dumb joke, but Inka giggled, at least.  “Oh! Well, no, girls are jerks too, I don’t think … oh, that’s cute though.”  She giggled a little more, and Leander felt less stupid. Maybe not all Sylviane’s friends would be hard to deal with.  “Oh, no, I’ve utterly lost the thread of the conversation.”

“She does that,” Ripley assured Leander.  “Not just when she’s drinking her weight in tequila, either; watch out, when these two go out drinking, it can get kinda of messy, and not just the way they shut down the boys that are interested. Although that,” he grinned, “that is a murder by burn sort of scene.  Inka burns and Sylvie freezes them out and then they swap out,  it’s amazing.”

Leander found himself smiling back.  “I can’t wait ’till I can see that.”

“Oh, and you will.  Once classes get started, it’s usually every Friday night-“ Continue reading

Saving the Cult (if not the World), Chapter Five

Warning: Discussion of racism

Saving the Cult (If not the World) "It's time." Manfield Lee knew he was good at sounding authoritative even when he didn't know what he was talking about - he'd turned a fortune into a megafortune doing just that, after all, not to mention running the Organization - but right now, he DID know what he was talking about. After all, it was just a date, wasn't it? And if the date turned out to be wrong, well, then he knew exactly what to blame it on, and that blame would fall on the scholars and the psychics, not on him. The other thing Manfield Lee knew how to do was to place the blame in very specific ways that were not him.

“We could all—” Lina flailed her hands, “– be sitting here & die while some other Hill Top is safe?”

“Well, if so, we’ll be in the majority?” His smile was crooked.  “Most people agree that this is the place. That’s why Dylan and Ethan’s fathers are here.  And my mother — my parents — and probably your parents. “

“Dylan said I didn’t belong here,” she muttered. “So did his buddy.”

“Yeah, well, they’re assholes.  You literally held them in the air with the power of your mind.  You belong here. And if they’re stupid about your mother — because that’s probably the problem, between you and me,” he sighed.  He caught himself and huffed. “Sorry, that’s—” He stared at his pizza, attacked it, and was quiet for a moment, mouth full. 

Lina took the chance to take a couple bites of pizza herself, thought about what he was saying and not, and grabbed the soda to wash down the pizza.

“So you’re saying they’re racists.” Continue reading

Grandpas Never Die (a one-shot)

“I have been through seven Grandmas now.”

Grandpa’s voice sounded tired.  He looked  tired.  He didn’t look all that much older than he had back then, but it had been seven grandmas.

It was a good song.  It was clever, it was easy to sing, and it got me on the Billboard top ten.  Raked in the money on iTunes.  Seriously, it made me nice money, got my name out there.

The problem was, I sang it for the wrong person, or maybe in the wrong place, or maybe both.

I’m still not sure which, but what I do know was it that one stage, in Springfield, packed audience but not that big of town.  I got through the end of I Wish and somewhere in the back of the audience a woman stood up. I mean, everybody was already standing, and all of a sudden there she was taller than anyone else like she was standing on their shoulders. At the time, it seemed to  make sense.

And she said – damn I will still remember her face to this day – she said Continue reading

Thimbleful Thursday: Honored

Written to Thursday, Jan 16th’s Thimbleful Thursday Prompt, Do the Honors

At the top limit of the wordcount, 320-330 words. 🙂 (depending on the counter)

🎖️

“Do you want to do the honors?”  Saliked bowed playfully to Viytoj.  “Or shall I?”

“I really think…” Viytoj shifted back and forth.  “I really think this is a bad idea.  It’s – do you know how many things can go wrong with something like this?”

“Viyiy, it was your idea!”  Saliked huffed.  “You said it.  You developed it.  You named it, you even found this place.”

“I did that because I thought you were just trying to see if I’d do it!  I mean, I thought – I didn’t think you’d – really?”  Viytoj stared at the Viewscreen.  “Really?”

“Come on.  What is the absolute worst that can happen?”

“The absolute worst? We trigger a world war down there that wipes out 99% of their population and, while they’re at it, kills us!”

“That’s, ah, that’s, way to go on the pessimism, buddy.”  Saliked took a moment to regroup.  “All right, what’s the worst likely thing that could happen?”

“They bomb us out of the sky?  That’s admittedly only got a 1 in one thousand chance of happening with what we know of their current technology.” Viytoj was bending. Slowly.

Saliked pressed. “Is it even against Galactic Law?”

“Well, not yet, because nobody’s thought to do something like this…”

“Then let’s do it!  Come on, push the button, Viyiy.  We came this far, and it will be the best prank in all of their history!”

Viytoj sighed.  “I… this could go so poorly.”

“But it only has a one in a thousand chance of going horribly!”  Saliked grinned widely.  The grin always worked.

Viytoj pushed the button.  Tiny rockets shot from their ship, hundreds of them.  For every 10 degrees of latitude and longitude where there was land, a rocket would fall apart well above the treeline and drop, with a small parachute, a notice. More of a certificate, honestly.

The rest of the galaxy honors you,
the third planet around your star
For reaching intra-stellar travel
Welcome to the Galaxy!

 

 

Want more?

Life, Love, and a Funeral

Warning: the below discusses, among other things, death and funerals. 

Last Monday I got an email from my mother telling me that she & Dad were off to Death Valley for their annual “get Dad away from the cold” trip. (Dad says he doesn’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Pretty sure he’s wrong.)

Three emails into the chain, she tells me my cousin Marilyn has passed away.

Marilyn was my mother’s older cousin (as I track the family tree, I think she was my grandmother’s brother’s daughter), 78 years old, and it turns out she’d been in intensive care for 8 months.

She was also the woman who taught me horseback riding and something of one of my queer icons growing up, long before I actually realized I was bisexual.

I started horseback riding because our Girl Scout leader was horse-mad & her daughter, my nemesis from elementary through middle school (same church, same Girl Scout troop, same school…), got to ride, so I wanted to ride. Continue reading