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valarltdWhen you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y. gacked from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
astolat
Lots of bits.
1) From the one where the lesbian librarian is in love with a shape-shifting Martian:
Mars. Beautiful, sere Mars. Legendary home of beings ranging from the Peerless Dejah Thoris to fire balloons to slimy tentacled monsters who could be brought low by chicken pox. The wind howls down the dead sea bottoms, but there is no ochre moss of Burroughs’ imagining to keep the dust in place.
The iron-rich dust gets everywhere. Only three more paycycles and I’ll have enough saved for a repelcloak with face mask. Maybe then my mouth won’t always taste of blood. I imagine this is what it was like for my ancestors in the Dust Bowl of twentieth century Earth.
2) From the one about the gay mermen:
The room of the Prince's Consort was small and in one of the lesser towers, one that did not rise as high, one that looked on the less-good part of the city, the slums of stone and congealed sand that made their ramshackle way down the slopes and into the dangerous deeps.
Swift-Current floated on a low-lying eddy, half-asleep as he waited. Deep-Dives had promised to take him out this evening. His prince was handsome but very young, and he often forgot his consort; being taken up for days at a time with hunting the sharks and rays that preyed upon the people.
A series of bubbles, large and unpleasant, rattled him from his drowsing. He drifted over to the mirror and ran one webbed hand through his long green hair. Consorts always wore it long, whether male or female. He picked up a comb of bone, inlaid with pearls and used it. A bit of kelp to make his lips greener. A bit of squid ink to make his eyes darker.
He checked his gills, and tipped them with some kelp, too. His tail was fine, and he flicked an errant snail off his fluke.
He was ready to go when Deep-Dives came in.
3) David origin story:
David Charles Inman died four months short of his nineteenth birthday. He remembered the date with amazing clarity: October twenty-second, 2064. The location was equally crystalline in his memory: the dayroom of Cellblock A, Federal maximum security penitentiary, Canaan, Pennsylvania.
(The scalpel glinted on the side of the sink. )
He’d been in solitary for two weeks, after an especially bad round of beatings. Being young, slight, pretty and gay had garnered him a protector early on. But the protector had vanished shortly after James Ligatos paid his first visit.
4) A SF piece:
Of all the flame-dancers, Saritaa was the best. She wove through the crowds that flocked to The Station’s only restaurant, burning in colors that changed with the music, collecting her tips in the flame-proof basket. It was a good living.
When her shift was over, she would go to the dressing room, douse the NoBurn Inferno makeup with the heavy snuffercloak and shower it away. No longer flaring yellow and green and blue, she caught the transport back to her building.
5) From Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch:
Amanda and John’s ranch had butted up against mine and Luke’s, and what with both of us being widows now with three sons between hay and grass, and four daughters not old enough to marry, it seemed only right to smash them together get more work done.
Eli, Hannah, Melissa and Abigail were Amanda’s kids and they all looked like her and Luke: short, pretty and very very fast. Abigail was the baby at twelve and a better hand with a needle we wouldn’t find in all of Indian Territory. John had died when she was just a tyke, caught a fever clearing a swamp.
Better way to go than my Luke. My Luke had been smart, too damn smart for his own good. Read all the time he wasn’t farming, and kept trying to build the stuff he read about. Arky Meedy’s Steam Cannon blew up in his face about five years ago.
Men and their new-fangled ideas. Differences engines to keep count of people and clockwork wings to make them fly through the skies. Burt Newley’s principles to take them to the moon. Steam weapons and gadgets. And all sorts of weird tales of clockwork servants coming out of the cities.
I yanked the paint’s mane as we came close to the paddock. He slowed and stopped and I saw the problem. Zombies.
We’d been hearing weird tales outta Louisiana for a long time now, about slave-holders who couldn’t give up free labor after the War and had just killed all their slaves and had voodoo men bring them back. Hadn’t thought much of the stories and never quite believed them.
6) From Rocket Ride:
Jake came up behind Cliff, and slipped his arms around his waist. His eyes were closed, their lids oddly sunken. “You’re gorgeous,” he whispered and kissed his husband’s neck. His own khaki pilot’s uniform rustled as he moved, the scarlet piping bright in the room. His helmet sat on a chair near the door.
“How would you know?” Cliff kissed Jake. “You haven’t put your eyes in yet.”
“Because it’s Testing Day.” Jake ran one hand over Cliff’s mechanical left arm. “And that means,” he grinned and boomed like a holoannouncer, “Commander Cliff Cody of the Space Exploration Rangers,” he dropped into normal tones, “wears his full regalia.” His voice dropped low as he licked Cliff’s neck. “And looks very sexy doing so.” He growled playfully and nipped Cliff’s ear.
Cliff turned and caught Jake in his arms. His husband had lost his eyes five years ago on the same mission that had cost Cliff his arm. Jake’s cybernetic eyes were almost indistinguishable from his original-issue organic ones. He said they were better than the original because now he could plug them into the ship’s sensors and see everything. Such modifications could be made to the unimpaired, but they were frowned on publicly and the Space Ranger Code forbade them as mutilation.
7) Adrien origin story
Adrien prowled the night, his skin blending with the darkness, The spring air was heavy with honeysuckle and damp with vapors from the bayou. There was no light in the slave quarters.
He could smell the small creatures of the nearby swamp, all the small lives he had fed upon for days. Tonight he had not eaten. Tonight was special.
A week ago, Marc and Jean had buried him. Tonight he came, bearing the only freedom that was his to give. He would not make them as he was.
astolatLots of bits.
1) From the one where the lesbian librarian is in love with a shape-shifting Martian:
Mars. Beautiful, sere Mars. Legendary home of beings ranging from the Peerless Dejah Thoris to fire balloons to slimy tentacled monsters who could be brought low by chicken pox. The wind howls down the dead sea bottoms, but there is no ochre moss of Burroughs’ imagining to keep the dust in place.
The iron-rich dust gets everywhere. Only three more paycycles and I’ll have enough saved for a repelcloak with face mask. Maybe then my mouth won’t always taste of blood. I imagine this is what it was like for my ancestors in the Dust Bowl of twentieth century Earth.
2) From the one about the gay mermen:
The room of the Prince's Consort was small and in one of the lesser towers, one that did not rise as high, one that looked on the less-good part of the city, the slums of stone and congealed sand that made their ramshackle way down the slopes and into the dangerous deeps.
Swift-Current floated on a low-lying eddy, half-asleep as he waited. Deep-Dives had promised to take him out this evening. His prince was handsome but very young, and he often forgot his consort; being taken up for days at a time with hunting the sharks and rays that preyed upon the people.
A series of bubbles, large and unpleasant, rattled him from his drowsing. He drifted over to the mirror and ran one webbed hand through his long green hair. Consorts always wore it long, whether male or female. He picked up a comb of bone, inlaid with pearls and used it. A bit of kelp to make his lips greener. A bit of squid ink to make his eyes darker.
He checked his gills, and tipped them with some kelp, too. His tail was fine, and he flicked an errant snail off his fluke.
He was ready to go when Deep-Dives came in.
3) David origin story:
David Charles Inman died four months short of his nineteenth birthday. He remembered the date with amazing clarity: October twenty-second, 2064. The location was equally crystalline in his memory: the dayroom of Cellblock A, Federal maximum security penitentiary, Canaan, Pennsylvania.
(The scalpel glinted on the side of the sink. )
He’d been in solitary for two weeks, after an especially bad round of beatings. Being young, slight, pretty and gay had garnered him a protector early on. But the protector had vanished shortly after James Ligatos paid his first visit.
4) A SF piece:
Of all the flame-dancers, Saritaa was the best. She wove through the crowds that flocked to The Station’s only restaurant, burning in colors that changed with the music, collecting her tips in the flame-proof basket. It was a good living.
When her shift was over, she would go to the dressing room, douse the NoBurn Inferno makeup with the heavy snuffercloak and shower it away. No longer flaring yellow and green and blue, she caught the transport back to her building.
5) From Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch:
Amanda and John’s ranch had butted up against mine and Luke’s, and what with both of us being widows now with three sons between hay and grass, and four daughters not old enough to marry, it seemed only right to smash them together get more work done.
Eli, Hannah, Melissa and Abigail were Amanda’s kids and they all looked like her and Luke: short, pretty and very very fast. Abigail was the baby at twelve and a better hand with a needle we wouldn’t find in all of Indian Territory. John had died when she was just a tyke, caught a fever clearing a swamp.
Better way to go than my Luke. My Luke had been smart, too damn smart for his own good. Read all the time he wasn’t farming, and kept trying to build the stuff he read about. Arky Meedy’s Steam Cannon blew up in his face about five years ago.
Men and their new-fangled ideas. Differences engines to keep count of people and clockwork wings to make them fly through the skies. Burt Newley’s principles to take them to the moon. Steam weapons and gadgets. And all sorts of weird tales of clockwork servants coming out of the cities.
I yanked the paint’s mane as we came close to the paddock. He slowed and stopped and I saw the problem. Zombies.
We’d been hearing weird tales outta Louisiana for a long time now, about slave-holders who couldn’t give up free labor after the War and had just killed all their slaves and had voodoo men bring them back. Hadn’t thought much of the stories and never quite believed them.
6) From Rocket Ride:
Jake came up behind Cliff, and slipped his arms around his waist. His eyes were closed, their lids oddly sunken. “You’re gorgeous,” he whispered and kissed his husband’s neck. His own khaki pilot’s uniform rustled as he moved, the scarlet piping bright in the room. His helmet sat on a chair near the door.
“How would you know?” Cliff kissed Jake. “You haven’t put your eyes in yet.”
“Because it’s Testing Day.” Jake ran one hand over Cliff’s mechanical left arm. “And that means,” he grinned and boomed like a holoannouncer, “Commander Cliff Cody of the Space Exploration Rangers,” he dropped into normal tones, “wears his full regalia.” His voice dropped low as he licked Cliff’s neck. “And looks very sexy doing so.” He growled playfully and nipped Cliff’s ear.
Cliff turned and caught Jake in his arms. His husband had lost his eyes five years ago on the same mission that had cost Cliff his arm. Jake’s cybernetic eyes were almost indistinguishable from his original-issue organic ones. He said they were better than the original because now he could plug them into the ship’s sensors and see everything. Such modifications could be made to the unimpaired, but they were frowned on publicly and the Space Ranger Code forbade them as mutilation.
7) Adrien origin story
Adrien prowled the night, his skin blending with the darkness, The spring air was heavy with honeysuckle and damp with vapors from the bayou. There was no light in the slave quarters.
He could smell the small creatures of the nearby swamp, all the small lives he had fed upon for days. Tonight he had not eaten. Tonight was special.
A week ago, Marc and Jean had buried him. Tonight he came, bearing the only freedom that was his to give. He would not make them as he was.
