Clarisse McClellan's Daughter

My Fandom Trumps Hate fic is finished. I'm awaiting a ping from the person to whom I owe said fic, with info on how they'd prefer to receive it.

Entropy is running, said Diane Duane. Run faster. Working on it, sir*.

*Starfleet. Sir is universal, until and unless someone expresses a preference for another respectful term of address. This is where I get my own preference for sir, should I outrank or otherwise lead someone.

The seasonsofdrabbles signup always intimidates me, and I'm not kidding when I say it often takes me longer to fill out the signup than it does to write the eventually-associated drabble(s)! It's that 3 to 10 fandoms on either side of the metaphorical scale thing.

Did anybody else spot spring_renewal going live? Yay! I'd almost forgotten about that.

I really, really wish there were still a list kept of unfilled threesentenceficathon prompts. I know conuly curated it for a long time, but I don't believe that's the case anymore, and I can't randomly go over to her journal and ask her to take it up again or something, yeesh.

This wish brought to you by tripping over a prompt that felt like an electrical shock. Ow! :( And then a second, which added to the ow. Ow!

Edited to add: Day brightened by conuly in comments.

This post brought to you by my having spent a chunk of my free time during the last few days getting caught up in a new series! Er, a new-to-me series, as it's anything but new. I have you to thank, sovay, for my now being a fan of Sapphire And Steel. And, well. You'll see.

So, I was out on a walk earlier, and was passing by a large local park that's almost always full of people of all ages, between the soccer field, the tennis courts, and loads of open green space. And as I got closer... At first I thought someone had unfortunate timing with a child's musical toy, which got a mutter of "It's flipping September, come on," but once I was more in range, I realized what I was hearing was an ice cream truck with a playlist that, for a warm day in fairly early autumn, was downright eerie. I counted at least three Christmas songs, including some of a more religious variety, before the tunes shifted to old-fashioned, vaguely western standards and nursery rhymes, back again to carols and then away a second time.

And forgive me, but all I could think was, this is music out of time! An incursion? I absolutely said, "Oh, this is creepy!" at least once aloud. ... Er. I may have also murmured, "Upstairs and downstairs, upstairs and downstairs," in the suitable rhythm a time or two before I stopped myself. Yes, I was on a public sidewalk and yes, I'm of an age where that sort of thing is generally frowned upon. Boo hoo. The adult Anne Shirley would have done it too, even after 1918, and there have been shades of Anne Shirley in me for ages. I've had that pointed out to me before, by a trustworthy source I know wasn't being either cruel or snide when he said it.

The darn truck continued to mess with my head until I was out of its range, which, given my hearing and local wind action, meant until I was nearly home. Not that it was actively malevolent or any kind of threat, because I can still tell local reality from a particular fictional universe, thanks, but the oddity, the touch of the surreal, that was Christmas music on a warm afternoon in late September, plus the nursery rhymes (darn you assignment 1) and the twinkly mechanism overall definitely put me in a fannish headspace. Er, more of one is probably a better description. Heh.

All the way down the first block, and then the next one, I was daydreaming. I've long since gotten home, but my brain's been... elaborating. And then I admitted I was shelling thirst-scribbling again, because aces can do that too. By way of a self-insert elemental persona, no less. Ugh! I'm embarrassed. And I'm proud of what I've written, of the imagery, but also... shells, Chanter. I was going to post it, but now I hesitate.

Dammit.

I sniffed this out while looking for another entry. I found what I was looking for, but also couldn't resist the memery. If anyone can guess who these characters are, or to which universes they belong, feel free to say so! I suspect sovay might recognize the fourth... :)

If you happen to be working on some creative writing project, fanfiction or NaNoWriMo or what have you, post exactly one sentence several lines from each of your current work(s) in progress in your journal. It should probably be your favourite or most intriguing sentence several lines so far, but what you choose is entirely your discretion. Mention the title (and genre) if you like, but don't mention anything else -- this is merely to whet the general appetite for your forthcoming work(s).

1:

Nerellan almost scoffs at the summons, almost laughs, almost turns away but what is he going to do, go hide somewhere? He has some pride left, hasn't he, says a voice in his head that sounds very like Grandmum Lessa, and he sneers at that, too because shut it, it's more than pride he has, shaff it, it's some measure of basic dignity and that, that's what keeps him on a march to the flagstones. He feels like he's setting himself up for a wingless drop over a cliff, but he stays.

That dignity rolls itself up, in his head, shrinks into a counters game stone that's heavy and misshapen, flattened on one side, coal black and not quite as cold as Between. He keeps it. He all but ignores it.

2:

She has seen goldrider Celina being casually decent to M'tok and shells, by this point, she's fairly certain goldrider Celina is decent to just about everyone, but a junior weyrwoman absolutely does not count as one of Cona's peers no matter how well they get along in the everyday.

As for M'tok himself, she'd spotted he and J'ralt in a free patch of weyrbowl ground only the day before, Gather dancing a fast step to nothing at all with Palanth as a blue-eyed witness. They'd been laughing as much as they talked, words indistinct from distance, and a laundry-laden D'wer had definitely given them - she's got a few important gestures committed to memory now, because dragon or no dragon, some things are simply important weyr vocabulary - the flight signal for 'affirmative' with his unoccupied hand as he passed by. The whole lot was frankly adorable.

3:

"Concerned," chuckles Tall Bear tiredly. "He is. Ever so terribly worried. Campbell!" she adds more loudly. "You look worse than I; what have you been doing?"

"Sle-eeeeee--!" Terrence Campbell's cut off, mid-word, by a jaw-cracking yawn of his own. "... Eeeeeeping," he finishes muzzily. "Pardon. I was asleep, and I wish I still were. Biologic sciences exam revision. Blasted horrible botanical details," he mumbles. "Oh, my head--someone put the lights out in here, or wake me when the... bells go off in the morning. You know. Breakfast prelude sort of... but I'm not for choir practice yet, when that happens. Pardon me, Molly. Móran taing. The bell at the gate's gone jangle, but I can't... the plants everywhere. Someone else get the door, aye? Catriona, tell the ferryman... green leaves on the floor. Chlorophyll content... the formula, one by thirty'n seven. Over to you." He wavers, dazedly, from one foot to the other, head nodding lower by degrees. Cass the Silver splutters a laugh too quick to hide.

"Has he fallen asleep standing up?" Lili inquires, sounding somewhere between concerned and amazed. "And who is Catriona?"

"His sister," Curtis supplies. Then, with an exhale through his nose that isn't entirely divorced from a snort, "Green leaves on the floor, in choir practice? I ask you--" He's grinning. Merélie Barilleau forces the knuckles of two fingers unashamedly between her own teeth and bites down, trying hard not to giggle.

Aaaaaand 4

The second cat strolls in, via an open window's narrow sill and a leap to the low dresser beneath. Where the metal case with the half-dozen symbols - red cross, crescent, crystal, something that looks like a blue-toned leaf with a nearly fractal pattern of veins - debossed into its surface came from isn't clear. Neither is just where its owner stashes it with a practiced paw lift and nudge, beyond the fact that it must be somewhere outside local space; the thing vanishes into thin air.

In the interest of archiving things in places other than AO3 and my own drive(s), and because not everything I'm about to share has been posted outside the relevant comm, heads up, circlethingie: You get an incoming fiction flurry!

Most, if not all of these are three-sentence ficathon fills. Each cut tag contains fandom and prompt info. The Valeris one references canon mental violation, so please consider tastes and headspace if you go there. The TNG crossover one requires knowledge of the specific novel I've looped in. Aaaaand the Sleeping Beauty one has milliways_bar echoes and resonances, hi all.

( Star Trek: The Next Generation, any fandom, any character, Q did it again )

( any, any, cats vs pickles )

( Sleeping Beauty, the fairies, meet Fauna, Flora, and... Funga? (And that's when she changed her name to Merryweather) )

( Star Trek, any, Vulcan - this is the Valeris one )

( any, any, about damn time )

( Any, any, paper wizard, scissors wizard, rock wizard )

( Emelan, Sandry, new vaccination program )

( Digimon, any, the Digital World )

( Harry Potter, any, the 2020 pandemic (yes, it makes wizards and witches sick too) )

( Star Trek: TOS, any, turbolift malfunction )

( any, thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd )

( Miraculous Ladybug, Adrien Agreste, calico )

( Harry Potter; any teacher; the glories and hazards of the autocorrect spell )

( Star Trek: DS9, Kira, you've been holding on a long time and the ships are left to rust )

I'm going to create an entirely separate post for the There Are No Lesser Colors series, which is Ninth Pass Pern, and another for anything to do with Xanadu Weyr. But this is a start.

In the absence of anything eloquent to say. :P

1: I got my seasonsofdrabbles signup in with time to spare, whew! I do not appear to be unmatchable, even though the reference made to AO3 names starting with C gave me reason to quick dash over and check my e-mail. Why is it that the signups for writing events are always harder than the actual writing, for me?

2: Brewers 9, Dodgers 3. We needed that! Forget the majority of that disastrous series in the west, please. Like I needed more reasons to curse Colorado - no offense, kellan_the_tabby!

3: The reason I couldn't find specific details or care instructions for the type of aster I bought on a cheerful whim a couple weeks ago, at least when it came to searching by way of common Wisconsin varieties, is that I have myself a rare species! The owner of the farmers market stall was throwing me off with his pronunciation of Shortii's Aster and, given the way he was saying the thing and what I know a similar phrase to mean, I was reluctant to search by what I *thought* I heard. Turns out, Short's aster is the usual name, and aster Shortii is a not-uncommon usename for the same, incorporating part of the scientific name; the stallholder was reversing the words on me. So yes, I have a Short's aster, it's listed as anywhere from threatened to rare depending on where in the Midwest you are, and I will hopefully have lovely blue-to-lavender flowers with bright centers in a few months. :)

Re-boosting this because fauxfox has a medical situation keeping them out of work, which is doing them no favors at all. See this post for further info, but I'll take prompts on *this* post if anyone's inclined to donate over in their GoFundMe's direction.

To say that the Wisteria Auction Thingie is still open for prompts, should you be so inclined.