stormandwind: (knowing)
[personal profile] stormandwind
"Every time I think I understand magic, I learn that I don't understand anything at all. I like that."
neverwaitslong: (Default)
[personal profile] neverwaitslong
You wish to strike a bargain, and so you come north, until the land ends, and you can go no further. You stand on the rocky coast and face the water, see the waves break upon two great islands, their coastlines black and jagged. Maybe you pay a local to help you find a boat and a safe place to launch it. You wrap yourself in sealskins to keep the cold and wet away, chew whale fat to keep your mouth moist beneath the hard winter sun. Somehow you cross that long stretch of stone-colored sea and find the strength to scale the angry cliff face, breath tight in your chest, fingers nearly numb in your gloves.

Then, tired and trembling, you traverse the island and find the single crescent of gray sand beach. You make your way to a circle of rocks, to a little tide pool, your wish burning like a sun in your mortal heart. You come as so many have before—lonely, troubled, sick with avarice. A thousand desperate wishes have been spoken on these shores, and in the end they are all the same:
Make me someone new.
smashandgrab: (05)
[personal profile] smashandgrab
The trooper was Sergeant Taura, unmistakable even from the back and dressed in clean grey ship-knits and friction-slippers. She sat cross-legged to reduce her intimidating height. The girls, overcoming fear, crept up to her and even touched her with apparent fascination. Of all the Dendarii Taura had never, even in the most frantic moments, addressed the clones with anything but politely-worded requests. She now had all the air of a fairy-tale heroine trying to make pets of wild animals.

And succeeding. As Mark came up, two of the clone girls actually skittered around behind the seated sergeant, to peek at him over the protection of her broad shoulders.



Bring me your plots, or send a message to [plurk.com profile] tricia868 if you want to talk things out first!
talesuntold: (Default)
[personal profile] talesuntold
Hello, darlings!  It's October, and we all know what that means.  I'll be hosting horror movie festivals every weekend, and on the live chat with spooky stories every weeknight.

We spend a lot of our time afraid these days, but I, for one, appreciate a nice detour down the tracks of comfortable old horrors for a change.  Let's trade in the monsters outside our doors for monsters on the screen, and turn our attention to ghosts that don't have to haunt us for the rest of our lives.

Every house is at least a little haunted, and mine is no exception.  Come and keep me company, won't you?

It quiets the ghosts for awhile.

⁠—from Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, October 1, 2041



Movie Nights at Maggie's are always full of dogs and food and Fictionals.  People and dogs sprawl over every available surface, massive bowls of popcorn and plenty of soda and wine are at the ready, and she's baked and decorated cookies in keeping with whatever the theme of the night's films might be.  (If there's a movie about a lesbian werewolf who lives on a farm, you can bet that wolves and flannel will feature heavily in the cookie decorations.  Some nights, there are bat and bloody fang cookies.  She doesn't get too heavily detailed, but she doesn't shy away from occasional grisly cookie designs.)

Come over.  Snark at the bad horror and scream at the good stuff.  Let Maggie or one of her two dozen miniature bulldogs cuddle you.  Eat, drink, and be however merry horror movies make you.

Once you're through security at the gate, you're one of her people, and it's time to make yourself at home.
spitehawk: (you've coined a brand new kel joke)
[personal profile] spitehawk
Kel Command wasn't why Brezan had become a hawk anyway. Indeed, Kel Command was a great argument for avoiding the Kel. Family wasn't the reason, despite what Brezan had told Shuos Zehun in academy, although family had something to do with it. No: it was that the hexarchate was a terrible place to live, but it would be an even worse one if no one with a conscience consented to serve it.

You couldn't pull the hexarchate apart and exchange it for something better. The fact that the heretics always lost was proof of that. So you had to do the next best thing, the only thing left: serve, and hope that serving honorably made some small difference.
palegoldenlight: (Trip Beneath)
[personal profile] palegoldenlight
"It is a lovely name," he said politely. "It suits you."

"It does," she agreed. "It is like having a flower in my heart." She gave Elodin a serious look. "If your name is getting too heavy, you should have Kvothe give you a new one."


Bring me your plots, or send a message to [plurk.com profile] tricia868 if you want to talk things out first!
inheritedbluntness: (Default)
[personal profile] inheritedbluntness
"He never learned tact, Lady Keladry," one of the new boys explained. "His papa - my uncle - he's every bit as bad."

"Then I will stay away from Jesslaw," Neal said firmly. "It must be a madhouse."




Bring me your plots, or send a message to [plurk.com profile] tricia868 if you want to talk things out first!
deheldegarthe: (63)
[personal profile] deheldegarthe
And so all caution fell away, all the distance of the trained observer who tries to plan ahead to avoid disaster, who defers to diplomatic necessity, even in games — skills her mother had taught her since she was very small. She was young and strong, and the single thing she shared with Tanrid was the intensity of focus that could be terrifying to those who did not know them, yet thought they did.

Bring me your plots, or send a message to [plurk.com profile] tricia868 if you want to talk things out first!
stormandwind: (Default)
[personal profile] stormandwind
"Not create it. I don't create weather. I move it from someplace else."

Bring me your plots, or send a message to [plurk.com profile] tricia868 if you want to talk things out first!
talesuntold: (Default)
[personal profile] talesuntold
Because we chose to tell the truth
(The cool of age, the rage of youth)
And stand against the lies of old
(The whispers soft, the tales untold)
We find ourselves the walking dead
(The loves unkept, the words unsaid)
And in the crypt of all we've known
(The broken blade, the breaking stone)
We know that we were in the right
(The coming dawn, the ending night).
So here is where we stop the lies.
The time is come. We have to Rise.

—From Dandelion Mine, the blog of Magdalene Grace Garcia, August 7, 2041.


Bring me your plots, or send a message to [plurk.com profile] tricia868 if you want to talk things out first!
inasmithsyard: (pleased)
[personal profile] inasmithsyard
Small spider weave on a silver sleeve
Oh weave your grey web nearer.
From a golden crown let your silk hang down
For lost, lost, lost is the wearer.
earthandpine: (winter seedlings)
[personal profile] earthandpine
Bring me your plots, or send me a message (tricia868 at plurk or gmail) to talk things out!
tricia868: (kiss)
[personal profile] tricia868
In the 500 Kingdoms, there's a power to fairy tales. Those who know about it call this power the Tradition.

The Tradition is latent magical energy that builds up around people and places when they seem to fit into the trappings of a familiar story. Its goal is to shove them down that same path, willing or not.

Now, some people fall in line with the Tradition willingly, and they really do wind up with happy endings. The thing is... not all fairy tales end happily. Just as many of them are much darker, and it's awfully hard to prevent tragedy unless you're lucky enough to find a particularly clever fairy godmother.

Or maybe the specific story isn't the problem. Sometimes the circumstances just don't fit. The Tradition wants any girl with ugly stepsisters and a cruel stepmother to marry a prince, but what if her prince is a toddler, or an old man, or cruel, or he'd rather marry another prince? It's a situation that happens over and over. What if the dragon would much rather peacefully hoard baubles or books than ravage the countryside? (Bookwyrms aren't the most common sort, but they do exist!) What if the sleeping beauty absolutely does not want to be manipulated into falling in love with whichever man wakes her with a kiss?

All that magical energy has to go somewhere. The Tradition will keep trying to push you wherever it wants until either you find a way around it or the magic is repeatedly siphoned away. A Fairy Godmother can do the latter, but then, so can an evil Sorcerer or Sorceress. No one wants to fall into the hands of one of those, and many of them are quick to seize any source of Traditional magic.

Wits are at least as important as power when it comes to changing your path, because the Tradition is strong, implacable, and incredibly difficult to escape. Finding alternate, more appealing, Traditional paths is an option. Changing your circumstances enough that you deviate from any Traditional course works too, if you can manage it. Confusing the Tradition by making yourself seem to fit any number of stories can sometimes help.

There is one other way, but it's more frequently a long-term strategy than useful in a pinch. Since stories and songs have such power, new Traditional paths can be slowly forged by creating works of fiction or music that lay out a new path. To really create a firm new course for the Tradition, though, a song would have to be popular. It has to be on the lips of people throughout the land. When it becomes widespread, the Tradition accepts it.

-----

Figure out what stories your character might fit into, and what ways these fairy tales might be turned on their heads or throw obstacles into people's paths. Note that the Tradition can draw from a broad range of mythologies and legends. Place your character in a fairy tale world, or think about how this power might manifest in theirs. You can choose to have your character aware of the Tradition, or they might not have any idea what's driving them onward.

Good luck to them, if they try to break with Tradition!



(Concept taken from Mercedes Lackey's 500 Kingdoms series.)

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