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Giraffe Call etc. Summary.

Nov3

This is an addition to the October 26th Summary (LJ).

Since then, I have written & posted:

Addergoole
Year Nine
Frying Pans, Etc. (LJ)
and
Changed (LJ)
after
Fae-Bane (LJ)
9 Things I Hate About… (LJ), after Preferences (LJ)
Apoc
One Sharp Mother (LJ), after Memories (LJ)
and Post-Apoc
Scared (LJ), after Finding Comfort (LJ)

Dragons Next Door
Rule One (LJ) (not technically for the Giraffe Call)
Neighborhood Watch (LJ)
after
Fears (LJ)and Loopholes (LJ)

The Aunt Family
Trash and Treasures (LJ), after Heirlooms and Old Lace (LJ)

tir Na Cali
Cali-novel 13b (LJ) (Not at all for the Giraffe Call)

One-Offs
In Sickness… (LJ)
Outcast (LJ)

If you haven’t offered feedback to the questions here (or here on LJ), please do! The two most pressing are:

  • The story that is winning comments-for-a-settings-article is the one-off story Cunning Linguist – Would you rather that story, or the runner-up, get the settings article?
  • What prompt themes would you like to see in the future?

Signal Boosts for the last week include:

[personal profile] meeks has posted an update to Radiator Dragon (and on LJh) from [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s poem Restoration. Go squee!
Also! she has uploaded a new detail view of Rin‘s picture 🙂 It’s the city! (Livjournal and Dreamwidth.
She’s also posted a new sketch on DW and LJ – to [personal profile] jjhunter‘s poem The Lamb’s Plea To Them Both, which is definitely worth a read.

[personal profile] lilfluff wrote this story to my prompt.
[personal profile] kajones_writing has posted a lovely story to my prompt.
nijipie has done a really adorable drawing of kitty-me and my Mouse-Girl character Kendra.
check out this! Rix-scaedu painted the Primordial card from Heirlooms & Old Lace 🙂
[personal profile] inventrix drew this picture and this one of Porter from Changed (or on LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/165898.html. You can comment here or there.

In Sickness…. Giraffe Call

Oct31

For [profile] kc_obriens‘s prompt.

Commenters: 0

Neil reached for Ericka’s hand, and felt the shimmer and chill as his wife’s spectral fingers settled atop his. They had been together through a lot – college, marriage, kids, grandkids, and then this, the zombie apocalypse.

He checked his weapons and watched her face and hand gestures carefully. After so long, they hardly needed words to communicate, and his Ericka had gotten very expressive since they’d started this macabre journey, but it was best to be certain of the details. “Down by the grocery store on the corner?” he double-checked.

She nodded. She wasn’t smiling, he noticed. She rarely did, now – not that he could blame her – but her expression today seemed particularly melancholy. He stroked the edge of her cheek carefully.

“I know, darling,” he murmured. “This isn’t easy for either of us. And I know – we don’t know what will happen, once it’s done. But whatever comes next, I will always love you.”

She wrapped her insubstantial arms around his neck and planted icy kisses over his cheeks, tears falling soundlessly from her eyes. Their city had been one of the first and worst hit by the zombie plague, and Ericka one of the first to be taken.

She was also proof, here beside him in ghostly form, that the walking dead out there were no longer the people they had been. Her spirit was here, with him. Her body…

Neil checked his weapons again, tested the spray on the flame-thrower, and stepped out into the street to give his wife a proper cremation.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/164486.html. You can comment here or there.

Poll-off!

Oct31

Poll-off! After having the poll up for several days, I have a three-way tie. So!

Edited to add: I clearly can’t count. But I’ll keep this poll up anyway.

Edited again to add: (the miss-count was, in part, because someone changed a vote. I feel less silly!)

Should I split the continuation-incentive up among the winners or pick a specific winner from those three?

Alternately, should I continue something I’ve written since I posted the first poll?

Original polls are here:
http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/160638.html
http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/305857.html

Manually xposted from http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/164018.html

Poll-Off!

Oct31

Poll-off! After having the poll up for several days, I have a three-way tie. So!

Edited to add: I clearly can’t count. But I’ll keep this poll up anyway.

Should I split the continuation-incentive up among the winners or pick a specific winner from those three?

Alternately, should I continue something I’ve written since I posted the first poll?

Original polls are here:

http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/160638.html
http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/305857.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/164018.html. You can comment here or there.

October Giraffe Call Closing (ish) Summary!

Oct26

I still have 4 prompts to write – 2 for Ysabet & 2 for KC O’Brien – but I’m close enough to the end to post a summary.

Then I get to move on to the paid continuations! If you haven’t told me what story you want me to continue/write/etc. with your donation, please send me a note, comment, or e-mail!

I wrote 39 stories so far:

Stranded
Rude Roommates (LJ) Autumn, and Ghosts
At the Movies (LJ)

Unicorn/Factory
The Grey Line (LJ)

Reiassan
Ghosts of Memory (LJ) Girey ponders

In the past
Giving up the Ghost (LJ)
Carrying the Spirit (LJ)

Tir na Cali
Ninja Kitty (LJ)

When in Rome (LJ)
Revenge of the Pumpkins (LJ)

Refurbish & Sell (LJ) “‘Spooks’ means FBI!”

Addergoole
(Main storyline)
Monster (LJ)
Memories (LJ) – Baram, through the lives
Not Everyone Makes it Out (LJ) and some never leave
Hell Night (LJ) Years 1, 4, & 7
Night Terrors (LJ) – Yngvi’s nightmare

(Yr 9)
Fae-Bane (LJ) Timora’s Hell Night [and notes on her appearance (LJ)]
Creeped (LJ) – Ceinwen’s Hell Night

Hallowe’en 19888 (LJ) (chibi, non-canon)

Dragons Next Door
Where Have all the… Zombies gone? (LJ) Aud & Jin having a discussion

Fears (LJ) Juniper & Jimmy, continued in:
Loophole (LJ

Questions> (LJ)
Consulting (LJ)
Salt (LJ) (After “Ketchup”)
Rule Two (LJ)
Skeletons (LJ), after The Black Tower & The Pumpkin

The Aunt Verse
Heirlooms and Old Lace (LJ)
Estate (LJ)
Lost Spirits (LJ)

Shadow Rebellion
In the Shadows (LJ)
Shadow of a Doubt (LJ)
Creep (LJ)

Planners
Inside the Walls (LJ)

Bug Invasion
Spooks vs. Bugs (LJ)

One-offs
Cunning Linguist (LJ)
Ghost of Finals (LJ)
Unintended Consequences (LJ)
Keeping House (LJ)
Eat, Prey, Live (LJ)
Teddy Demon (LJ)

And we’re well on our way to that carpet!

The Giraffe Funds Raised So Far:

October’s funds:

Thanks to everyone who participated in the fun!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/160124.html. You can comment here or there.

Carrying in the Spirit – Reiassan – for the Giraffe Call @inventrix

Oct26

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.

Thanks to @inventrix and @Anke for the names.

Reiassan, some generations before Rin & Girey. Reisassn has a landing page – here (or on LJ).

After Giving up the Ghost (and on LJ)

Commenters: 5

::We’re almost there.::

Ostovin found it more than a little creepy to be carrying his grandmother sheathed at his hip.

It wasn’t her, quite, not the woman he remembered; the soul in the sword had been, the High Priestess told him, distilled, hardened. The Empress Ellanasia had been a loyal and wild devotee of Veignevar, and it was that part of her, the wild red woman, that had survived death in the sword. But it was still his grandmother, the woman he remembered best as an ancient, cadaverous figure on the throne, passing him candies and advice about his fighting stance.

The advice had not stopped. ::If you want to win this war, grandson, you’re going to have to do something about your footwork. You sword-fight like a farmer.::

The truth of the matter was, while Ostovin was a loyal servant of the threefold, and strong enough in the red to please the temple, he had never expected to inherit the throne. He was rather far down the line, or had been, but the war his grandmother had instigated had served to winnow the numbers down, until it had been just Ostovin and a cousin. The cousin had slipped and fallen in a rainstorm within hours of their grandmother releasing her ghost, and thus, the would-be-ranger-and-tracker found himself cleaning up his grandmother’s mess.

“We’re there, Os. Your Majesty.” The look his lanky, lifetime-soldier cousin Erenya giving him was half assessment and half concern. He didn’t blame her. He’d be giving himself nervous looks, too, if he had to follow his own orders.

::You ARE nervous.::

“Of course I am,” he muttered. Bad enough to have to live up to your grandmother’s legacy. Worse to have to do it with her watching.

He nodded to Erenya to his right, Igerial (another cousin, another one more suited to this role than he) to his left. “Onward.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/159879.html. You can comment here or there.

Eat, prey, live – for the Giraffe Call

Oct26

For KC_OBrien‘s prompt.

after “On Top,” (Dreamwidth link)) from the gender-funky-giraffe call.

Commenters: 3

I couldn’t deal anymore.

I’d set myself up a perfect situation, or so it had seemed, but here I was, in my happy little pack with my happy little alpha who did what I said… and I hated it.

I hated his passive-aggressive bullshit. I hated being everyone’s mommy. I hated hearing everyone’s. Fucking. Complaints. Because, well, everyone knew the alpha’s bitch was who you went to when you had a problem. Everyone knew I’d listen to their problems without ripping out their throats for it, listen and be compassionate and pat their shoulders and tell them it would be okay.

And I was beyond sick of it.

It took a night sleeping on the floor, because Chris was sick and tossed and turned, followed by the world’s whiniest werewolf having a bad day all over my tiredness, for me to snap. I threw the cur out of my room – and I do mean threw – threw some clothes in a bag, and left. Just left. Out the door and gone.

I shifted to wolf form as soon as I made it out of the city, the backpack one of the doggie sorts modified for this, and ran. Ran and ran and ran.

I chased some hikers down into a ravine and terrified them for a little bit, ate rabbits and deer and, once, a raccoon that sassed me. Never humans, but it was fun to make them run. Fun to listen to them stop whining and focus on just living for a little bit. Even a wolf in a backpack is still a wolf, and I was a damn big werewolf.

I came across the human version of my whiney cur in a truck stop in Nevada. He was trying to tell me his problems. I guess I have that face.

“Sorry, I don’t care,” I told him. It was the most liberating moment of my life. Better than my first Change. Better than making Chris win the alpha challenge. Better than my first kill. The look on his face – sweeter than blood.

“You…” he sputtered.

“You might ask, the next time,” I suggested. “The last guy that whined at me without asking is still trying to find all his teeth. And I’m sure your wife-” there was a ring “-doesn’t like it either.”

“You…”

“Just. Don’t. Care.” I grinned at him, and I’d been spending a lot of time in wolf form. My teeth were still pretty damn sharp on two legs. “Not sorry, either.”

“I…” He ran away… and I stopped running away from myself. I’d never felt better.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/159452.html. You can comment here or there.