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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 →

Tootplanet: Explorers’ Logs Planet 7-11-1

Mar26

Planetary Day 321

Lei has something new to distract him from the joy water (and how nigh-impossible it is to get to the sea on foot from where we are, now); he has been domesticating the knee-highs – and teaching them tricks.

They are relatively friendly, if you keep them away from wires; we had discussed using the old trick of putting a cyanide-like compound on them, but both Lei and our three pregnant mothers complained.

So we’re using some spare plascrete armoring on wires & trying to keep them out of our beds.  

But at least Lei isn’t trying to drown himself in joy water anymore?

Some More New Words From a Name (written for Patreon)

Mar26
Mar 26, 2018 at 2:43pm
@RixScaedu asked for an etymology for her name in Calenyen, so, based on the meanings of the words that her pen name is based on and playing a bit with some etymology, I went looking.

Rik is from Beatrice, “bringer of joy”, and Scaedu is Old English for ‘shade’ , which has a sort of fun etymology to it.

I didn’t yet have a word for Joy yet!  Okay then, I can make it.

Rikkido : to give joy

Rikkie – Joy

Nor did I have a word for shade!  So I decided to steal a bit of English Etymology (shh)

Kadoo, shade: from archaic Kadkaddo, to give protection, to have one’s back (now only used in a social situation)

Kadtad, shield or protection, modern, used as aegis in English, that is, “she is under my protection.”

Want more?

Tootplanet 7-10-1: Another Viewpoint

Mar26

Or-en-al-en was not sure what had happened to reno life.

One moment, ren had been working in the forest, seeking out the best fronds for a rug-weaving, reno specialty.  The next moment, ren had been nearly killed by a death-thing from the sky!

That had been nearly an entire sun cycle past.

Now ren spent all of reno time talking to the Smartest Ones, the Ladies, or, might the depths protect ren, the Highest.

And yet there was still nothing ren could tell any of them, and reno rugs were unwoven and reno home was unsoftened.

Ren found that more and more, ren wished the brightness of death-fire, only, on the hyu-men who had sent this death-thing.

Except on the days of the full blue moon, when all stood in the center of town and spoke.  Then, the ones who were most lovely wished to speak to Or-en-al-en, because ren spoke to the Ladies.  

Then, ren thought the death-thing might not have been so awful.

 

 

Renovation Fics

Mar26

These are a few microfics, written to prompts for my Renovations Prompt Mini-Call (which is still open as long as I keep getting prompt).

Claim the Sun

The tree was ancient, the sort of monster that managed to live through a convergence of luck and good soil, best placement and the weakness of her neighbors.  She had sucked up all the sunlight for what seemed, to the younger trees, like miles. And she had, in turn, sucked up lightning blasts.

It had been the last one that killed her, cutting through old scar tissue and toppling her in a  crash louder than any thunder. Continue reading →