Tag Archive | giraffecall: wtf

The Whisky Tango Foxtrot

Sep4

Written to Sauergeek’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  

I am picturing this as the same era/world as The Trouble With… (Chickens, assignments, ferrets, and so on)

It wasn’t, exactly, a dance.

That is, it was never a dance that would performed in high society, in the dance halls of the Dames and Lords.

It was a dance that was born out of too much whisky, the sort of stuff that ambitious university students brewed in the abandoned dormitories.  It was born out of the awkward one-woman-to-ever-seven-men ratio that was common on the University campus – especially those sections where students were brewing bathtub hooch and coming up with interesting ways to “Age” it without getting caught.  And it was born out of one woman’s very determined urge that, if she was going to be in experimental sciences, she was going to get dances, no matter what her uncle said on the matter.

It was neither a tango nor a foxtrot, but it was face-paced, steamy, and done best when more than a little intoxicated.  It was something like a square dance, except that it was done with one woman at the heart of eight men.  And it was quickly declared against the rules by the university, illegal by the government, and immoral by two different churches.

It was so wildly popular that before she graduated, the young woman responsible for the craze wrote an anonymous tell-all book, the sales of which funded her experimentations for the next fifty years.

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What Happened?

Aug30

Written to LilFluff’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  

Probably a new universe.  The last two times Fluff prompted me, we ended up with Kael’s Tower/a New World and The Hidden Mall, so…

When Emma found the door in the closet of her great-grandfather’s old house, she knew what she had to do.  

It was simply the way these things were all done in the books.

She ought to check it out first.  After all, someone always did.

But since she was staying for the weekend with her cousin, she went to get Britney first.

Britney, who was very interested in the current Seventeen magazine, did not want to come see some stinky old closet on the top floor where they really weren’t supposed to be anyway.   “Aren’t we a little old for make-believe, Em?”

“No.”  Emma’s chin jutted out.  It would be so much easier to do this without her.  And yet… “We’ll be old for make believe when we’re old. Grey hair and creaky joints and all that.  Come on. A secret door!”

“Allll right.”  With a great show of reluctance, Britney came along.

The door, at first, did not want to open, and Emma had to once again coax Britney to stay and help her get the doorknob – a little thing, shaped like a fist – to turn.

When they finally opened it, neither of them were nearly as surprised as they ought to have been to find themselves in the middle of a forest.

Britney, who had read the same books that Emma had, took a coat from the closet, sniffed it, and slid it over her shoulders.  The camel-brown leather coat made her look older and more intense than she was.

Emma thumbed through the jackets before pulling the plastic off of a trenchcoat, a grey one that looked styled just right.  It was a wee bit long on her, but that was fine. They were just stepping into a forest…

They left the door propped with a rock that happened to be very brick-shaped, neither of them looking too closely at the way it seemed to hang in mid-air on this side.  And they started walking, both of them secretly wondering if they would encounter a faun or a talking rabbit, a sentient scarecrow or a family with buttons over their eyes…

What they encountered was a glass wall, a thick one, and, outside of it, a city of gleaming steel and shining lights.  There were pod-like things zooming around in mid-air, and the sky, far above, seemed to be covered with yet another layer of glass.

They looked behind them.  There was the forest, and, somewhere in it, a portal.

They looked in front of them.  “This…” Emma whispered. “This was not what I was expecting.”

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Wait, What?

Aug29

Written to DaHob’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  Fae Apoc, early apocalypse.

Things had been going weird for weeks, but Tlalli had been doing a pretty good job of pretending they weren’t.

She went to classes every day, went to work after that, and screened stupid application after stupid application for a roommate, looking for someone who wouldn’t be torture to live with and would actually pay the rent something like on time.

There was some weird shit on the tv, weirder shit on youtube, and twitter was blowing up with the stuff people had seen – and the people that had died or vanished.   One person she followed posted a list every morning. Just an image, black names on white text. It was getting pretty long. Continue reading →

What Next?

Aug29

Written to Clare-Dragonfly’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  Aunt Family all the way.

Beulah considered the spell that had been the work of the last decade.

 

She considered young woman now leaving the property a young woman who attended the property  – an 85 year old Widow. Valise in hand, she was headed off to a new life, away from whispers of what she’d done when she was twenty (the story originally had been what they did when they were twenty, but as more and more of the children of the original miscreants told the story, rather than the people who had been there,  they didn’t wish to impugn their own parents, and so one by one the party shrank until it was only the woman leaving now and Beulah – and nobody made whispers like that about Beulah where she might be some day hear them);  she left behind two dead husbands, three dead children, eight grandchildrens and at least four great-grandchildren, one of whom was Beulah’s great-grand-niece. Continue reading →

What’s in the Garden?

Aug28

Written to Rix-Scaedu’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  This is definitely a Science! story, complete with the Boss – Liam – and his plucky second-in-command. 

The raid had taken down three scientists working outside the bounds of the law, morality, or common sense, along with seven “assistants”, mostly grad students, who would probably not be charged, as having to find another research position might be punishment enough for anyone.

It had also found several references to “the farm office,” which, once the proper grad student was interrogated, appeared to be an old veterinary clinic sitting in a small farm town half an hour outside the city.

Liam, who had no official government or law-enforcement position, and Cara, who was, on paper, at least, his second-in-command, were along on both trips.  Liam had already recruited the most sensible of the scientists (along with hiring her a lawyer) and the three grad students Cara had hand-picked. Now – now they got to see what the farm office was. Continue reading →

What The Rent?

Aug27

Written to Eseme’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  Dragons Next Door ‘Verse, definition(s) at bottom. 

You heard things about this city, moving in.

People from nearby cities would whisper about the dragons and the ogres and other, darker creatures.

They’d talk about the pixies dive-bombing cars, or something their mother’s cousin’s wife told them about living near harpies.

All cities had some magical-creature presence.  But in most places, it was completely distinct from the human presence.

Sure, this city had Smokey Knoll, but there was no wall.  There was no dividing line, even, keeping the races separate.  There was just a hill you went up and then there were dragons.

Violet  hadn’t been worried. She’d never had a problem with magical beings – her best friend in high school had been half-dweomer, after all. She’d done her thesis on the integration of the magical with the mundane.  And the job paid really well. Continue reading →

What The… Doll?

Aug27

Written to Del’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  This Miiiiiight be Science! or Dragons Next Door universes – what do you think?

I suppose I had nobody to blame but myself.

I’m one of those compulsive “clickers” that likes to play with online dollies, you know ‘dress up Soldier Sapphire!  Make a Fashion Doll!”

It’s not a habit I really admit to people in real life, but the online world has always been different.

So when “make your mini-mi!” came up in the advertisements for one of the sites I like a lot – they have wings!  And some pretty funky skin colors! – I couldn’t resist clicking.

And then I spent an hour playing – maybe two hours – it could have been three.  All I know is that when I was done, I had a nice little character that looked “just like me.”

I mean, if me had blue hair.  Continue reading →

What The Spell?

Aug27

Written to Victoria’s prompt to my new “WTF?” Prompt Call.  Set in the same world as Parts and Points, which itself is the same world as a cyberpunk-ish novel I’m working on. 

The book was old – ancient –  the sort of thing that people hoard and pass on to their descendants in their wills, and Jenivere had found it in the back of a flea market booth, hiding in a bargain bin.

She’d felt a little guilty about what she’d paid for it, so she’d done a little spell around the booth, one of her favorite easy ones that just made everything a little fresher without ruining the quality of something old or antique (although it sometimes had unfortunate effects on ‘shabby chic’ sorts of things).

Now that she’d read the whole thing three times, she was ready to start one of the spells in it.  It was a shield spell – it was listed as ‘defend and protect’ – and the ingredients were almost all supermarket-easy. Continue reading →

Giraffe Call: “WTF?!?”

Aug27

Short version:

The theme is “WTF??!??”.

Leave as many prompts as you want.

If you tip $3 or more, are a Patreon at the $3 or higher level, or if another prompter tells me they came here from your signal booster, I WILL write to at least 1 of your prompts.

All others will be written as mood, time, and inspiration permit.

In addition: for every $3 you tip, I will write 200-400 words continuing the prompt-call story of your choice.

The WTF?!? Prompt Call

Here at House Thorne, we are in the middle of renovations to the second floor (“attic”) of our cape cod-style farmhouse.

We’re turning what was two knee-walled attic spaces (unfinished) and two separate “rooms” into one large room, ripping out all of the insulation, and replacing it with blown-in closed-cell foam.

Which, because our house is 150 or so years old, will require adding in framing at almost every step!

This is looking – framing, insulation, drywall, and flooring –  to be approximately a $12,000 project.

My goal is to pay for 5% of that from Patreon funds and 5% from this prompt call.

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To that end, I am asking you to leave prompts to the theme “WTF”, and, if like what you read, to leave a little money in the WTF jar.

You don’t need to tip!  All prompts are welcome.  But tipping will guarantee that I write your prompt, AND get you more words.

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In addition:. The more tips we get, the more things EVERYONE gets:

$50 – Cat Picture, probably with dirty paws.

$75 – 1/8 of the way there! – I will post a picture of the author in her first home renovation project (age 5)

$100 — and every hundred thereafter — Mr. Thorne will write a piece on some portion of the “wtf” in the house.

$150 – 1/4 there! –  I will post a photo essay of some particular “wtf” area of the home & its renovation

$225 3/8 there! – I will find one more photo of the author in her first home renovation!

$300 – halfway there!  I will pick three tipping/Patreon readers to receive one 100-300-word continuation of their choice.

more rewards to come!

For “what is a prompt call?” or “Why Giraffe?” see here.