Crowdfunding Creative Jam

[ysabetwordsmith]

Welcome to the thirty-fifth Crowdfunding Creative Jam! This session will run Saturday, November 15-Sunday, November 16. The theme is "Salvaging and Repairing People or Ideas." (Visit the Creative Jam over on LiveJournal.) Note that this will be the last Creative Jam of the year; there won't be one in December due to the holiday rush.


Crowdfunding Creative Jam

Everyone is eligible to post prompts, which may be words or phrases, titles, images, etc. Prompters may request a specific creator, but everyone else may still use that prompt if they wish. Prompts may specify a particular character/world/etc. but creators may use the prompt for something else anyway and post the results. Prompters are still encouraged to post mostly prompts that anyone could use anywhere, as this maximizes the chance of having creators make something based on your prompt. Please title your comment "Prompt" or "Prompts" when providing inspiration so these are easy to find.

Prompt responses may also be treated as prompts and used for further inspiration. For example, a prompt may lead to a sketch which leads to a story, and so on. This kind of cascading inspiration is one of the most fun things about a collective jam session.

Everyone is eligible to use prompts, and everyone who wants to use a given prompt may do so, for maximum flexibility of creator choice in inspiration. You do not have to post a "Claim" reply when you decide to use a prompt, but this does help indicate what is going on so that other prompters can spread out their choice of prompts if they wish.

Creators are encouraged, but not required, to post at least one item free. Likewise, sharing a private copy of material with the prompter is encouraged but not required. Creative material resulting from prompts should be indicated in a reply to the prompt, with a link to the full content elsewhere on the creator's site (if desired); a brief excerpt and/or description of the material may be included in the reply (if desired). It helps to title your comment "Prompt Filled" or something like that so these are easy to identify. There is no time limit on responding to prompts. However, creators are encouraged to post replies sooner rather than later, as the attention of prompters will be highest during and shortly after the session.

Some items created from prompts may become available for sponsorship. Some creators may offer perks for donations, linkbacks, or other activity relating to this project. Check creator comments and links for their respective offerings.

Prompters, creators, and bystanders are expected to behave in a responsible and civil manner. If the moderators have to drag someone out of the sandbox for improper behavior, we will not be amused. Please respect other people's territory and intellectual property rights, and only play with someone else's characters/setting/etc. if you have permission. (Fanfic/fanart freebies are okay.) If you want to invite folks to play with something of yours, title the comment something like "Open Playground" so it's easy to spot. This can be a good way to attract new people to a shared world or open-source project, or just have some good non-canon fun.

Boost the signal! The more people who participate, the more fun this will be. Hopefully we'll see activity from a lot of folks who regularly mention their projects in this community, but new people are always welcome. You can link to this session post or to individual items created from prompts, whatever you think is awesome enough to recommend to your friends.

Comments

Open Playground: Schrodinger's Heroes

[ysabetwordsmith]

Everyone is welcome to play with Schrodinger's Heroes. (If you're new to this project, you can start here.) This is an imaginary fandom for an apocryphal television show. A team of heroes practice quantum physics and other hijinks to protect Earth against invaders from other dimensions. The team is racially, sexually, and culturally diverse. Because the subject naturally deals with alternate realities, it lends itself well to crossovers and alternate-universe interpretations; you can use my version or make up your own.

Re: Open Playground: Schrodinger's Heroes

[dialecticdreamer]

Follows --in one possible universe-- after prompt 5A here. Seriously, do you need a hint that this is Schrodinger-verse?


WHITE CATS ARE EVIL



Juan Carlos parked the dark brown panel van in the parking lot of the coffee shop, which was shared with a burrito shop built along the second side of the triangular lot where two streets met at a sharp angle. The baby was still sleeping, tucked between boxes strapped along the bottom row of the metal shelves lining one side of the interior.

He got out, pretended to check the delivery manifest, and walked the around the van, looking for people who didn't fit, possible tails, possible surveillance cameras... the usual. He needed to open the back to make the transfer as surreptitious as possible, and so far, that looked like the best option. He had two weeks worth of surveillance to look over, first to figure out how the tot had been smuggled into the house, then to identify the person who had done so.

His next target. The copper pennies sat, warm and heavy, in the breast pocket of his black tee shirt.

A scruffy, formerly white cat darted from beneath the next car, abandoning what looked like part of a stale muffin to dash into the back of the van.

Carlos darted after the cat, worried that it would scratch the baby Midas. Or, like Midas, the cat would end up a gold statue. Probably not, because two pennies seemed to put the kid right to sleep. But still...

In the back of the van, he found the cat sitting /on/ the baby's legs, its front paws on the baby's chest. The cat nudged the baby's face, then did it again. Carlos bent to scoop it up, when lightning danced around the top half of the van.

A sharp, dropping bounce had him crouched on hands and knees over the baby. When Juan peered over the dash out the front window, he nearly swore out loud. They were nowhere near a parking lot. The damn cat was nowhere in sight, and the baby was awake, but not crying.

“First things first, little Midas.” Juan scooped the baby into the crook of one arm, and tucked his backup weapons into his ankle holsters, frowning at the timer on his watch.

He opened the van, decided that the sun's position meant that it was an hour after dawn, while the building heat placed his -their- current location somewhere that shared latitude with Purgatory.

There was a metal five bar gate, either new or well-kept, next to an empty security shack. A thickly graveled road wandered deeper into the mix of grass and cacti filling the irregular contours of the terrain.

With a sharp glance down,Juan realized the van was slap-bang in the middle of a two-lane road with wide shoulders. Crosswise.

And it wouldn't start.

His first alarm chirped on his watch. Great. He may have just missed the pickup.

This just /proved/ his abuela's insistence that all white cats are evil.

UPS-I mean OOPS-- part 2

[dialecticdreamer]

Several minutes later, a heavy-framed Jeep grumbled its way over the gravel drive, bringing a dark-haired woman and a fair-haired man to the gate. “We thought you had car trouble, until Tim told us he saw the little one with you. I'm Chris,” the man called in an American drawl.

Juan Carlos found himself, unexpectedly and completely, in lust. “Is that a /carbine/ mounted in the cab?”

The woman traded looks with her companion, easing out of the driver's seat. “Sure is. We can get your truck off the road, get you inside. I bet the little one needs some water.”

He turned so the baby was facing away from them, wondering not /if/ the woman was armed, but with what /other/ kinds of weapons. “Where are we?” Juan asked. Demanded.

“That's complicated,” the guy with the drawl began. “You're in Texas. What's... different?” He held up bare hands, his arms naked to the shoulder, without even a vidwatch or wristband.

“The bolt gun,” Juan told them reluctantly.

“You didn't happen to see a white cat?” the dark-haired woman asked.

Juan hissed, nodding. “I swear, it's the soup ANIMALS that are going to wreck the planet! What did the little fuzzball do? And when can I kill him for it?”

“You make soup out of cats?” the guy called Chris blurted. Juan could practically see the blond hairs on the other man's arms stand up in alarm.

“Just the /one/,” Juan growled. “When I find the little monster.”

“But--” Chris glanced at the woman, letting her lead. Juan revised her threat rating. Upward. If he weren't a professional, he might be /interested/.

“The cat is... complicated.” She shrugged. “I'm Kay. We can explain it in the Tef, our work space. In the meantime, we do need to get your truck off the road.”

“Burn it,” Juan suggested. “Everything in it is insured, and I delivered any medication or medical equipment out of order.”

“Why would we do that?” Chris protested, his voice climbing.

“Because I sincerely doubt that whatever brought me here with the kid can bring both of us /and/ several tons of consumerist crap along on the ride home?” Juan shrugged, and reluctantly moved the baby into view, checking his forehead and the nape of his neck for sweat.

“He's... Is he supposed--” Chris' voice had climbed half an octave, again.

“I don't know; I think only dogs could hear the other half of your question,” Juan told him darkly.

“Well,” Kay said briskly, “either set the kid down with Chris and help us winch the truck off the road, or sit with the kid and watch the work.”

“I'll sit,” Juan declared smoothly.

Chris climbed out of the Jeep, shaking his head as the kid began to whine. “You going to let him get riled up like that?”

Juan offered a sarcastic, Gallic shrug. “He's got reason to be, as you call it, 'riled'. I'll see if I can figure out the problem.”

“Pat's up at the Tef, and he's good with kids,” Chris assured the newcomer.

Juan kept his face impassive as he nodded. With his back to the duo, he fished coins out of his pocket, one by one, until he found a brown penny. He placed it carefully in the fussy baby's hand, and yes, he repeated the transmutation, quieting immediately.

The third penny slipped into his pants pocket as the more prudent motion. Juan walked closer, studying the car and the rifle on the gun rack. He also managed to do so without turning his back on the pair.

The Priest of the Flying Spaghetti Monster-- Part 3

[dialecticdreamer]

Juan was a little disappointed to see them winch the truck off the road, parking it carefully beside the gate house. The baby snuggled against him, making a damp puddle on one side of his chest, as Juan looked for differences between the world he knew and the world he'd apparently been /thrown/ into by a supervillain white cat.

“Seriously?” he shook his head as they climbed back into the vehicle, with the woman named Kay behind the wheel. “It's going to be a hassle to get it back to wherever, however you can manage it.”

“Is the kid supposed to be gray like that?” Chris asked, speaking in a normal octave.

“Dunno. I'll ask his mother if I can find her.” Juan frowned. “Do you have people with... skin color like his? Sometimes other problems?”

“He looks like Solomon Grundy,” Chris muttered. “Kinda freaky.”

Kay shook her head sharply. “The kid can hear you, Chris.”

“He's busy falling asleep, I think.” Juan corrected. “Who's Solomon Grundy?”

Chris regaled him with, first an explanation of the character, then superhero comics in general. Juan waved it away, watching a long, low building grow on the horizon. “No, where are the ones about /real/ superheroes and super-villains? Granny Whammy? Or, when she was in World War Two, Whammy Lass? Those things are sold even at /gas stations/, and only a few issues haven't been reprinted half a dozen times. They're everywhere!”

The blond guy stared openly at him from the front passenger seat. “Superheroes /exist/ in your dimension?”

Juan shrugged. “Some places are better for them than others, and some super-villains are saner and smarter than some of the heroes. Green Man is absolutely rubber-room crazy, and /he's/ supposed to be some great environmental protector. I'd sooner trust El Armero, because at least that guy doesn't tolerate collateral damage from /his/ sales.”

As they pulled close enough to the building to make out details of doors and windows, Juan also spotted –something-- standing near an open roll-up door. He tucked the baby into the footwell and drew his zatzer in the same motion, exhaling everything but the information he needed for the next two seconds.

Kay twisted the steering wheel, forcing Juan to turn his torso to keep the zatzer trained on the target. “Tim's a friend, so put the weapon down,” she barked in crisp, military style.

“Not military,” he responded, watching the pile of tentacles change color as it... waved... to them. Oranges, yellows, nothing as dark as the local clay, most of his colors looked like a kid's splattered pastel box. “He with you? But he's not a soup?”

“A soop? Like super?” Chris ventured, patting the air in an annoying 'calm down' gesture.

“Soup, like bits of everything and you never know how it's going to turn out,” Juan glared at Kay. “Your boy can't handle a little gray toddler when he works with a priest of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?”

Chris barked a laugh. “You've got that in your dimension, too?”

Juan kept a straight face as he nodded, with as much solemnity as he could muster. “Sixteen major temples in America, three in Spain, but the Vatican won't allow any in Rome at all, which is putting pressure on Italy to go along with their view.”

And WHERE is that cat, again?

[dialecticdreamer]

The baby whined when the man they called Pat tried to lift him. Tiny hands managed a decent grip on Juan's black tee shirt, making him shake his head. “Kid was almost asleep. Leave him. If you can bring me a bottle or a little cup of water, I'll see if I can get him to drink something. Oh, and there aren't any extra diapers.”

“He's not yours?” Pat wanted to know, arms crossed as he stared down at Juan.

A shrug as Juan shook his head. “I'm stuck with him at least until your gizmologists can get us home.”

“Gizmologist?” Chris mouthed, shaking his head.

“Okay... hmm... a refrigerator is regular tech, right? Well, better than that takes gizmology, which would be something like an appliance the same size with a flash-freezing, flash-defrosting unit that means your milk doesn't go bad or change texture or flavor.” Juan followed them through the slightly curving corridors until it opened out into an enormous kitchen. “Better than /that/ is super-gizmology. Picture a little clip, the size of a credit card, that you put on a shelf, and anything that touches the shelf but doesn't extend over it is put in a stasis field with the same level of preservation, plus you turn it off and slip it in a pocket when you want to rearrange the furniture.”

Pat whistled. “We don't have anything like that, but we do have some of the best minds in the world working on the Tef. Alex can get you back home. We've done it before,” he assured.

He nodded toward the baby Juan was carrying. “When was the last time he ate?”

“Don't know. Went to drop off a package, the door was open, guy inside was dead. Found the kid in the kitchen. Figured I'd take him someplace and let other people figure out what to do with him, then that... /cat/.” Juan glared at the ceiling. “We've got a couple of soup animals... a whale, a turtle... But that cat is more dangerous than anything I've run up against.”

Pat filled a small paper cup, holding it for the little one to drink from, very awkwardly. Pat's eyes narrowed, studying Juan's expression. “You know nothing about this kid, or what kids should be able to do at a given age,” Pat challenged.

“Never said I did,” Juan agreed blandly. “I said the kid was in a mess and I took him out of there.”

“You mean kidnapping?” Kay asked, very carefully.

“No. The kidnapping part is that white cat you actually have /sidestepped/ explaining. I haven't forgotten that,” Juan reminded them.

“I'll call my house; one of my spouses should be able to bring up some diapers, clothes for the weather here, the usual,” Pat offered.

Juan blinked in surprise, but it was the appearance of the man with silver and green tips in his hair that made him backpedal, tucking the baby behind him. “You're... dead,” he whispered.

Getting down to it- part 5

[dialecticdreamer]

“You know Quinn?” Pat asked. “And could you not swing the little one around like that?”

“Knew, past tense. Watched... her... die when I was twenty-three.”Juan controlled his breathing with the same shielding exercises he'd had to learn as his powers grew in. He checked the baby, who'd begun whining again. “Kid, you're supposed to be starving for INPUT, not output,” Juan groused.

Quinn, for his part, stayed in the doorway. Juan appreciated it; it made him less likely to reach for something more lethal than a zatzer. “I'm Quinn,” he confirmed. “And sometimes, yeah... different universes mean that sometimes you find someone with the same face but different experiences.”

“I'll say. It is beyond creepy that you are /alive/,” Juan glared, “male? That's pretty much the easy part. So... about the super-villain CAT?”

Quinn nodded slowly. “Yeah, if you haven't passed out from shock or started swinging, I think you can guess why we haven't wanted to mention that the /good/ version of the cat is black, lives here, and has saved each of our lives at least once. We call him Schrodinger.”

“Figures.” Juan rolled his eyes. “Heroes. Give 'em fur, scales, fins, or dexflan capes, but beneath that, they're all exactly the same.”

“Scales?” Chris asked slowly.

“Aquarina,”Juan answered absently, “who works without any dexflan at all.” He smirked.

The smirk disappeared as he settled the baby facing him, the little head on his shoulder. “No,” he told the boy, “I am not going to do that again, not even if you make that face.” A tiny hand rubbed a gray cheek. “Yes, that's exactly right. Sleep.” He rolled his eyes. “Got someplace I can set him down?”

“Right now I think the safest place would be a blanket on the living room floor,” Pat suggested.

Juan followed him, and it became a loping gaggle of humans and questions, mostly about the kinds of soups Juan knew of, or had met. He did his best to deflect that one, motioning toward the uniform and shaking his head. “Lookit, I'm just a delivery driver, all right?”

Behind him, Kay snorted. Politely.

“Really,” he added, with complete candor, “I don't hang out with super heroes. I watch them on the news like the rest of the world.”

In the living room, Juan selected a thick afghan, made of many different shapes sewn together, shaking his head at the array of gender and identity afghans. “I don't know if you started that, Quinn, but I definitely can see you keeping the project going.” He made a pad several layers thick, barely bothered by the weight in one arm, then slid the mostly-asleep infant onto the makeshift bed.

Juan perched on the edge of the couch beside the tot, as the running tally of afghans suggested that he'd met less than half of the people living here. “So, how do we figure this out? It better not need blood or magic, because I am /not/ a fan of messing with either.”

6- Fraying Pitch

[dialecticdreamer]

The man who crossed into the room from the other entrance made Juan's nose /itch/ with the scent of gizmo-tech, no matter what he called himself. And then the two women came in on his heels, introducing themselves as Ash and Alex, and the first trickle of hope crept into Juan's heart.

“You guys might actually be able to do this,” he mused. But then, the discussion over 'when and how long and where were they from' made Juan's head spin. Worse, his /second/ alarm beeped. Well, so much for the job. He would've offed the bigot for /free/ if he'd known about Midas in the first place, and this just proved it.

At least the kid was-- A soft whine made Juan turn, crouching, as the white cat darted out from under the sofa, carrying a crumpled piece of copper and gold mesh as it streaked straight at a wall... and through it.

By the others' exclamations, the cat's ability to move through solid objects was new. Juan was busy. One by one he fished out three more golden items. What looked like a bottle cap, though some brand he didn't recognize, a cheap barrette now gleaming with pure gold, and a half-transmuted screw had all been within reach of the little boy.

“The freaking cat was probably right /under/ me,” Juan groused as he knelt to switch the zatzer out for something with a much, much more satisfying damage level. “Nobody, but /nobody/ gets away with that.”

The blonde woman, Alex, picked up the barrette, bending the tongue side easily. “This is...” She bounced it in her palm, lightly. “This is at least twenty karat gold. Did the /baby/ do that?”

“I'll tell you right after I turn that cat into cat /soup/,” Juan declared in a low, hard voice. “Kidnapping, displacement from my freaking /universe/, I didn't get /freaking paid/ because that /CAT/ wanted pretty TOYS to play with!”

“You can't,” Kay tried to tell him, crossing her arms and standing just far enough out of reach to be a warning rather than a challenge.

“Because it would offend your sensibilities?” he growled.

“Because we need to know /how/ he got through the walls. In case you haven't noticed, the Tef is a /machine/, and if he's got access to it at will, it means he could do this to anybody, anytime.”

Juan tapped his chest with the index and middle fingers of his left hand, while the grip on his Slither tightened in his right. “Not. A. Hero.”

“Did you kidnap that baby?” Kay demanded, leaning onto the balls of her feet, deliberately across the neutral territory they'd staked out.

“No, not that it's ANY of your business, I took him out of a terminally bad situation, and I'm going to hand him off to somebody who actually /knows/ how to change a diaper as soon as I get home with him.”

“Are you going to get /PAID/ to do it?” Kay took a half step closer.

“You know what? You don't /need/ to know. It's not your /business/. My Quinn might've had a say, but /she/ was beaten to death by bigots years ago.” He drew his thumb across the safety lock on the Slither, and it hummed to readiness.

Open Playground: Torn World

[ysabetwordsmith]

Torn World is a science fantasy shared world available for writing and creating in. Sea monsters! Giant furred unicorns! Crystals that control time! People of changing gender, or no gender!

For more information about the setting, prompters should start here and contributors should start here. For specific information about submitting your work to our world continuity, rights and allowances, please see our contributor's rules. We have a space for sharing non-canon work on our site, so don't be shy about jumping in, even if you aren't familiar with the setting yet!

Prompts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Image Prompts:
Salvaging wrecked spaceship
Mother and daughter talking
Working on the car together

Title Prompts:
"Somebody Save Me"
"Ms. Fix-It"
"Heartbroken, Heartmended"

Text Prompts:
Learning to correct yourself.
Solving a big problem one little bit at a time.
"River, you don't fix the Bible."

Re: Prompts

[dialecticdreamer]

Based on the "mother and daughter talking" picture, and "Homesick Day" on LJ:

“Homesick Day”



Kristen stared at her new foster mother, torn between smiling and narrowing her eyes. “I said school was fine. It's been fine all three weeks.”

“I know,” Mrs. Roberts agreed, blonde hair too short and too gelled to move when she nodded. “And I emailed Mr. Compton, to find out that you don't have any quizzes today, that the class pizza day is at the end of the week... and that you've been staring at maps in your free time.”

“I like maps!” Kristen argued, her breath drawing tight in her chest.

“Onion City has a lot of suburbs,” Mrs. Roberts mused, changing the subject. “Grab your jacket, and let's drive around to see them.”

Kristen resisted the urge to hurry. Her own family hadn't used a car, but had relied on public transportation to get everywhere. It was just another thing which was different after... After. She didn't say much, leaning her forehead on the cool glass as rain drizzled over the autumn landscape. Houses, parks, strip malls... It was all the same until Kristen saw the huge, carved owl that marked the entrance to Peterson Park, just a few blocks from her old home... her old life.

Mrs. Roberts parked the car carefully at the curb, ignoring the chipped paint and tired, dull swings beneath the brown-painted shade pagoda as she zipped her beige jacket over the cream-colored angora sweater she wore. Mrs. Roberts wore mostly white or cream or beige... but Kirsten could spill orange creamsicle on her /socks/ while eating one. Her mom used to-- The sound of the Edwin Grant school bell cut off her thought.

“I'm missing school!” Kristen gasped.

“No, you're not. I emailed your teacher to tell him you're having a homesick day.” Mrs. Roberts offered a hand. “Come on, that slide looks too wet to play on, but the swings are dry.”

“I'm not sick, and... we're not at your home.” Kirsten's head was buzzing.

“No, a homesick day.” Mrs. Roberts tugged a strand of Kirsten's hair deliberately, gently, out of the ponytail she wore and let it spring free. “If you want to visit your old class, I got permission to bring you to first recess, too, and then, well, it'll be lunch time. We'll pick someplace to eat then.” A slender, manicured hand waved toward the row of boxy shops across from the park. “Pizza, maybe?”

SQUEE!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I love this. It's so sweet, yet it doesn't gloss over the very real grief of Kristen moving away from everything she's known. She's got a good school, too, to be that observant.

Also, that short boyish haircut on Mrs. Roberts has me thinking lesbian as a possibility. I have some lesbian characters in this setting but I don't think there's a married couple of them, so it'd be a fun addition.

I would enjoy seeing more of this story, especially to find out the background of why Kristen needs a foster family.

Re: SQUEE!

[dialecticdreamer]

If you'd like, definitely. Kristen is about Hadyn's age, and in the same area.

[chanter1944]

Prompt fodder! I have three of them, so far.

"Okay, um, I think I know what went wrong that time... now let me get up off the floor."

"What blew up?"

"I'm chaotic. That doesn't automatically equate to irredeemably evil lost cause, you know."

Your fill--

[dialecticdreamer]

WARNING: Sensitive topics, implied child abuse/neglect/exploitation. Some swearing. The main character is a hit man for hire; you have been warned! I am borrowing Ysabetwordsmith's “Trashman” with her permission.


"I'm chaotic. That doesn't automatically equate to irredeemably evil lost cause, you know."

Juan Carlos Garcia shook his head as he spoke, staring at the little boy with pale green eyes, wisps of ash gray hair paler than his stone gray skin, and four tiny, pearl-white teeth. Juan normally kept his bland uniform until the job was done, then ditched it, but today, he shucked out of the ugly khaki shirt for the delivery driver's uniform, then used a pair of wire snips he'd scrounged from the target's kitchen junk drawer to break the side panel on the dog cage. Plastic packaging wrap, thick and glossy, poked out of the kitchen trash can along with the paper label for the cage. “Not even /I/ would do this!” The toddler inside looked curious, but not alarmed. There was a set of four bottles, each with liquid in them, but the only other item in the cage was a bowl of.. pennies?

“Pennies are a choking hazard,” Juan growled went back to muttering inside his head in the worst of the street lingo he'd picked up. He held out his hands and the toddler crawled toward him, carefully. There wasn't even a blanket to soften the textured steel base plate. The urge to go /damage/ the mortal remains of his target was making him /slightly/ less professional than usual.

The little boy seemed to recognize the word. Giggling, he reached for the bowl and fished out a coin. He whined, high-pitched and frustrated, then proffered the... now... gold... coin... to Juan. Sleepy, limp, the little body sagged against his chest.

“Holy Mother of--” he cut himself off, and quickly bundled the tot into his uniform shirt, leaving his own black tee shirt visible. Needs must, and all that. “Okay, Haboob, /he/ might do this, but he's a lunatic, kid.”

The boy in his arms hardly responded, his little chest rising and falling in that freight-train-fast pattern that most adults panicked at. Juan was better than panic, of course. He checked the diaper, eyed the clean footie pajamas with zippered front, and shrugged. Well enough and warm enough for a few minutes outside, and he sure wasn't heading deeper into the suburban ranch house without more guns.

As they headed out the back door. Juan thumbed a burner phone out of his pants pocket. Possibilities popped up like pictures on a slot machine, but nothing SPOON would suggest would get the kid the kind of immediate help he needed.

Reluctantly, he touched a pre-programmed number. It picked up, switched, picked up, switched, as he tucked his bundle into the brown delivery van. Finally, after another switch, “Yes?”

“Need to burn a healer favor,” Juan began crisply.

“Hurt?”

“Jackass target had a /bonus/ in his kitchen. Like a freaking spaniel puppy.” Juan carefully pried open the boy's hand, revealing a second transmuted coin. “I need your healer to come pick it up now, no questions.”

“Is the package hurt,” the voice corrected evenly.

“No. Bring a team to check the site, and preferably burn it to the ground.”

“There's a coffee shop with wi-fi four blocks from you. Wait there; our team will arrive with a white-blonde woman and her dog in a carrier--”

“Too small,” Juan corrected.

“You said a spaniel puppy,” the voice mused, faltering.

“I said /like/ one. Sonofabitch had a /baby soup/ in a kennel. His own golden goose! Seems like he hadn't had the kid long, but feel free to be as creative as you like when you toss his place.” Juan resisted the urge to grin, savagely.

“How large, how old, is the infant?” The voice, whether male or female, was definitely shaken.

“Four teeth, crawling is a little wobbly.”

“Correction, black-haired guy in his late twenties, rectangular glasses, pushing a baby stroller covered with a blanket. He'll spill his drink near your vehicle, run a pickup and disappear. You sure you don't need a healer?”

“Please. I'm a professional,” Juan retorted.

“I'll have to send this up several layers,” the nervous voice warned. “But if you're bringing us a baby soup we cannot return to its parents... it's bigger than the favor you're cashing in.”

“And if I give you names and locations of human traffickers?” Juan's business sense kicked into high interest.

There was a full fifteen seconds of silence. “Much bigger,” his contact admitted.

Juan bounced the two coins in his hand. “Yeah, kid, I can do that for you. No problem.” A smile eased onto his face, as the toddler curled between two boxes and shut his eyes. “This job will be an absolute pleasure.”

Poem

[ysabetwordsmith]

Your chaotic prompt inspired the free-verse poem "In Dublin's Fair City." Instead of a Scottish referendum, Terramagne had an Irish one, and Backdraft got dragged into providing fire suppression service for the occasion.

224 lines, Buy It Now = $112

Prompt fill from LJ

[dialecticdreamer]

From this road repair pic, I got another fill for Ysabetwordsmith's Polychrome universe. (Rudy and Gideon are back!)


James, Grant and Duncan were stuck repairing the missing chunk of street that the delivery driver insisted /he/ didn't create. Again. Some days, it didn't pay to get out of bed.

James shook his head, watching Rudy explain 'root shock' to the teenager working on the landscaping crew in language his mama would be ashamed of. James' mama-- most people thought Rudy had hatched from beneath a cabbage leaf because no one else would have put up with the stink he made. Regularly. Gideon had already put the chunks of planter off to one side for disposal, and was shaking his head at whatever nonsense Rudy was spewing.

A young Hispanic woman walked toward the road crew on the duplex side of the street, both arms full of mesh grocery bags and an assortment of groceries. A cluster of bored young men stood near the locking gate for foot traffic, next to the metal sign which proclaimed the apartment ownership and warned that the pool was for residents only.

James watched the two intersect like a slow-motion train wreck.

“Ooh, hey beautiful!” one young man called. He jogged until he was only a pace or two behind the Hispanic woman.

She quickened her steps.

“You cookin' at home? Gonna invite me over for some? I /like/ home cookin'!”

Rudy put a hand on Gideon's shoulder, pointing toward the work trailer parked along the curb. And then he stripped off his work gloves and let them drop to the street.

Behind her, the idiot reached for the long fall of loose hair.

James dropped the spade in his hand, letting it clang sharply.

The woman flinched.

“Touch her, and I'll knock your head off your shoulders,” Rudy declared, flexing hands to emphasize his bare, scraped knuckles.

“I was just-” the younger man began, bravado and whine mixing like milk and vinegar.

“You were just behaving like a buffoon,” Rudy declared. He jerked his chin toward the teenager carrying a bottle of water from their site office. “Miss, go sit a bit, have some water. Gideon's a good kid, and he'll help you carry things home if you want.”

James stepped forward as well, out of arm's reach of the young tough who'd been following the lady. “Dude, you're actin' like a --” he glanced at the young woman, “-jackass. Sorry, Miss.”

“Yeah? You think I can't--”

Rudy thumped his fist into his open palm. “Don't finish that sentence. Go home, learn some manners, grow up enough to shave, and leave the /lady/ alone.”

“Miss?” the teenager smiled nervously. “Hey, James.” He nodded to me, and the smile settled in a bit more comfortably. “ I could take some of the bags? I'm Gideon.”

Rudy stepped closer to the teenage tough, making him bolt. Brash laughter followed him back to the apartment gate, which sprang shut with another high-pitched clang. “Idiot, pestering a beautiful lady for being beautiful.” He raised his voice slightly. “Didn't you know it takes honey to catch flies, not vinegar?”

James couldn't resist, laughing so hard he had to brace his hands on his knees. The road crew, and more than half of Rudy's own crew, joined in.

“Rest for five minutes,” Gideon told the lady in an undervoice, “and you'll see why everybody's laughing at /Rudy/ saying that. But he's a good guy, okay?”

Slowly, she offered the teen the bags held in her left hand, and cracked the seal on the bottle of water in her right.

Re: Prompt fill from LJ

[thnidu]

Good working! (No, I know there aren't any workings, at least not as far as we can tell here.)

This paragraph, though, is kinda confusing:

“Miss?” the teenager smiled nervously. “Hey, James.” He nodded to me, and the smile settled in a bit more comfortably. “ I could take some of the bags? I'm Gideon.”

• the teenager
> What teenager? At first I thought this referred to the intrusive jerk, who was one of the "bored young men". "I'm Gideon" cleared that up, but it was confusing for a bit.

• “Hey, James.” He nodded to me...
> ???? Who's this? I'd expect Gideon to nod to James with that greeting; but James was introed in 3rd person along with the rest. Springing first-person narration on the reader in medias res isn't unheard of, and can be very effective if used carefully; but this looks more likely a typo or other kind of slipup.

Re: Prompt fill from LJ

[technoshaman]

Yeah! *punch air* Somebody learnt how to be a gentleman.

(And somebody will, or be the worse for it.. *feral grin* )

Open Playground: Nine for the Nebula's Heart

[alexconall]

nineforthenebulasheart is a collaborative-canon fantasy quest story available for writing and creating in. Core canon, contributor guidelines, masterlist of works, and do not feel shy about participation even if you don't know anything but the core canon because fanworks and multiple contradictory canons are totally a thing.

Re: Open Playground: Nine for the Nebula's Heart

[ysabetwordsmith]

This session's freebie is "Mending Spirals." Feel free to copy that over on nineforthenebulasheart.

Learning to correct yourself

[dialecticdreamer]

Author's Note: Molly Finn is one of the paramedics in my story "Keeping Warm." in seven parts.


“Learning to Correct Yourself”




Liborio frowned down at the strawberry-blond preschooler. “What?”

“Do you have a squish on Olivia?” the boy, Edison Finn, asked again. He grabbed at Liborio's polo shirt, hauling himself at least half a head taller before sheer practicality made Liborio pick the boy up the rest of the way.

“I like this shirt,” Liborio told him evenly. “Pulling on it can wreck the fabric.”

Little wisps of red, too fine to really be called eyebrows yet, drew together. “Sorry. But do you have a squish on Olivia?” he repeated for the third time.

“What's a squish?” the dark-haired man asked, resisting the urge to borrow his boss' favorite nervous tell by pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It's when you like somebody for what they do and what they say, not because they make you feel gushy.”

“Oh. And you think I have one of these 'squish' things on Olivia?” Liborio asked.

Edison nodded gravely. “Or you could have a crush on her. Or you could want kissing with her. OR you could /do/ kissing with her....” he scrunched his face up, completely repulsed.

“Edison!” His oldest sister Molly shook her head in exasperation. “What are the rules for talking about relationships?”

“We're at home!” he protested, leaning a shoulder against Liborio as he twisted to face the young woman currently pulling her ash-brown hair into a curly ponytail. “And he's a friend, Daddy said so. ANNNNNNNNNNNND Olivia's outside with Aida in the salle, so /she/ won't get nervous, or upset, or mad.”

“Edison,” Molly began with a sigh. “Look at his face. Is he /happy/ about this conversation?” She mouthed 'sorry' to Liborio even as she waved from shoulder to knee. “Is he relaxed, or upset?”

“But you said if I asked /you/ about it, that was gossip!” he protested. Earnest hazel eyes pleaded with Liborio. “How do I know which rule to use? Are you...” his shoulders dropped to match the curve of his frown. “It's not FAIR that it's so /complicated/.”

“That's why humans take so long to grow up,” Molly told her littlest brother. “Now, think through what you said, and where the mistake is.”

The little boy was quiet, relaxed in the curve of Liborio's arm. Finally, he nodded. “I'm sorry I mentioned kissing and junk.” He wriggled, launching himself fearlessly toward the floor. His tennis shoes chirped sharply on the hardwood floor as he landed. “I've decided. Olivia's a nice squish, and I'm going to keep her.” He scampered toward the sliding glass door where Olivia's dark hair stood out against the sea of blond Finn youngsters, but turned back to offer a slow nod and wave to their other guest. “I didn't mean to make you feel left out! I could have a squish on you, too, Liborio!”

Behind him, Molly thumped her head against the cabinet door.

Re: Learning to correct yourself

[janetmiles]

You know, I don't even *like* small children, and yet I find this adorable.

prompt request

[dialecticdreamer]

Danso & Hannah tackling some of the problems with others who insist that his status as a teen dad is something Danso disagrees with-- definitely breaking a large problem down into a smaller section.

Re: prompt request

[ysabetwordsmith]

From this I got the free-verse poem "My Greatest Source of Achievement." Danso deals with an unsupportive teacher, and Hannah suggests exploring church groups.

168 lines, Buy It Now = $84

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I love this story. It looks like payoff for everyone's persistent efforts to teach Rudy some manners!

>> James, Grant and Duncan were stuck repairing the chunk of street that the delivery driver insisted /he/ didn't create. <<

This threw me for a bit. Something like "pothole" or "chunk of broken street" might be clearer, since the driver couldn't have made the street itself, only damaged it.

>> James shook his head, watching Rudy explain 'root shock' to the teenager working on the landscaping crew in language his mama would be ashamed of. <<

This transition also tripped me up; wasn't until I read it the second time that I realized the workers were divided into two teams, one repairing the pothole in the street, the other doing landscaping in the lawn. I think mentioning team and location would clear it up.

>> A young Hispanic woman walked toward the road crew on the duplex side of the street, both arms full of mesh grocery bags and an assortment of groceries. A cluster of bored young men stood near the locking gate for foot traffic, next to the metal sign which proclaimed the apartment ownership and warned that the pool was for residents only. <<

This got me thinking about neighborhood design in Terramagne. In our world, neighborhoods tend to be very homogenous now -- most things built at the same time in the same style, even if the buildings themselves are somewhat varied in appearance, and set to the same pricing. It's less common to see a mix of large and small houses plus apartments. So I wouldn't have expected apartments in a neighborhood with houses. But thinking about it further, I suspect Terramagne is more diverse in this regard, which makes for better neighborhoods because there's less tendency to put all the low-rent housing in one place, and it's easier on kids moving out if they can find an affordable place to live. Might be worth exploring further, and a construction crew is one group of people who would notice that sort of thing.

>> “Didn't you know it takes honey to catch flies, not vinegar?”

James couldn't resist, laughing so hard he had to brace his hands on his knees. <<

Made me laugh too!

Re: Yay!

[dialecticdreamer]

Had to read three times before I realized that I left out the phrase "of broken street"!

Yes, they're fixing a chunk of broken street because careless driver thumped the planter OFF the skids. And drove off insisting it wasn't his problem.

Prompt fill from LJ

[dialecticdreamer]

More friends of the Finn family, exploring a “good mistake.” (LJ prompt) Will eventually tie into “legal battles that actually do good.” (Also LJ prompt). Began with the LJ picture prompt.



Jules shook his head as Mariset draped an arm around his waist, her wry expression for him alone. “I don't know, Mariset. I don't know.”

Silent, the dark-haired teen watched the other people in the park, tugging Jules toward Nilofaur, alone a few paces ahead of them.

“Nilofaur,” Jules called, “Mariset wanted to say hi.”

Looking up, scrubbing a hand over her face, she waited for her classmates to catch up. “Hi, Mariset.” She waited for the other girl to nod, then turned to Jules. “Have you seen Aida this weekend? I just got some crappy news about her, and my parents are /thrilled/.”

“You got bad news, but your parents are thrilled?” Jules shook his head, confused. He scrubbed a hand through chin-length, shaggy blond hair just to emphasize the confusion, and when that didn't change Nilofaur's expression, made an exaggerated grimace.

She shrugged faintly, unable to muster up a stronger response to his joking. “You know Aida Finn pretty well... and I don't. My parents can only push tradition... so far... and everybody knows her little sibling Halley isn't anything /like/ traditional.”

Mariset nodded, nudging the other girl's shoulder gently.

“You don't tease thon, /or/ Drew and Aida,” Jules defended. “Keeping a neutral distance is better than a lot of people can manage.”

Nilofaur shook her head quickly, the rustle of dark strands muffling her voice slightly. “Not anymore. Aida's going to hate me forever.”

“What happened?” Jules stopped walking, and Mariset, her arm still around his waist, dragged to a stop half a pace later.

“Doctor Chaduri offered me Aida's job in the blood lab. She said that Aida quit unexpectedly.” Nilofaur shook her head fiercely. “I don't believe it, but I have to know what to do in just a couple of hours. My parents both think she'd quit, but... I know better. She was counting the days until she could get her work permit and if /I/ could see that, I bet she was constantly talking about it to her family.”

“Was this a verbal offer?” Jules scrubbed his hand through his hair again.

“She left a voice mail offering me the job. Does that matter?” Nilofaur moved half a pace closer to Mariset.

“Do you want to make a /good/ mistake?” Jules persisted. “You don't have to get any more involved than that, but I need a copy of that voice mail.”

Mariset put a hand out, rubbing between Nilofaur's shoulder blades. They waited.

Nilofaur drew out her phone, asking, “What's the number?” Jules rattled off the number for Doctor Finn's office at Soup to Nuts. Nilofaur's eyes grew wider when she recognized it. “My parents are going to go nuts. I've got about four hours before I'm supposed to show up for work, and they're calling relatives /everywhere/ to brag on me.”

Mariset pulled her into a one-armed hug.

Jules shook his head. “Don't worry about that. We're going to walk once around the park, then over to the Finns to talk to Aida and her parents. They're not going to be mad at you.” He smiled, reassuringly. “Plus, if they can't talk your parents calm, you can pick my next hair color.”

Nilofaur shook her head. “Serve you right if I pick something boring.” She hadn't stepped away from Mariset's hug. “Do you think... Aida would talk to me?”

“Let's head over there and find out,” Jules suggested. As they jostled and made room for each other on the brick path, he reached behind Mariset to take Nilofaur's hand. “You're aiming for med school, right? You should totally talk to Molly.”

“But she's a paramedic.” Nilofaur eased a fraction closer, as Mariset tucked her head against Jules' body.

“She turned down med school,” Jules laughed. “And your 'good mistake' is probably going to make her want to hug you to pieces. Helping you get into med school is going to be a Finn family project.”

Nilofaur's eyes went wide. “What... Family project?”

Mariset nodded without lifting her head as Jules laughed. “Come on,” he said as he tugged Nilofaur's hand gently. “It took a month or two to get used to it, but they're good people.”

Re: Prompt fill from LJ

[ysabetwordsmith]

I really like this. It's a good look at how young people handle a sticky situation, and how other folks in town are dealing with the core issues. Also it's a very Terramagne kind of problem-solving, the way the teenagers have and use social skills at this level of fluency and don't just grab the quick personal benefit.

Prompt fill from elsewhere

[zeeth_kyrah]

I was inspired by a conversation elsewhere, but it was only after seeing my story mentioned in ysabetwordsmith's list of prompt fills for the CCJ that I realized it would fit right in with this month's theme.

"Finding the God in the Gate", set in the Blueshift Troupers universe. Links and more description are available on my post and elsewhere.

Re: Prompt fill from elsewhere

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yay! Thank you for linking to this. I love when ideas cascade this way, creating chains of inspiration.

[wispfox]

I love this character and what he's doing here. Any chance of a pointer to other instances of his?

Hmm ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Which character? You put the comment under the Creative Jam post itself, so I can't tell who you mean.

If you mean the jam in general, hit the Creative Jam link in the sidebar. This event runs on the third weekend of each month.