#PennedPossibilities 302 — What is the one thing your SC desires most in the world?
Caramello, aka Caramel-eyes, né [unpronounceable polysyllabic tropical islander name], is the last son of the Chieftain. He is the last in the succession. He's been "exiled" to the Endless Island (the mainland) to avoid his siblings after his father is murdered. What he desires most is to be forgotten. No scratch that. What he desires the most is that his mother, the Chieftain's second wife, survive what he fears is going on right now...
#WordWeavers 2405.01 — Introduce your setting as if it’s a character in your story.
[/Well, I decided to jump ahead in the WiP and write what might be the start of the next chapter. The title may be named:You Have Mail. Pardon the Dickensian texture; this is a first draft. —RS/]
I never expected a human habitation to feel as protective as my dorm room did. Sure, my lodgepole tent protected me through the blizzardy winters in the Fell Wood, as it did the wolf pack that had adopted me. I provided the tent, though. I repaired it, stored it, and raised it year after year. I maintained the cooking fire for all the wolves and cubs. It was I who was being protective, not it—or so it felt.
My dorm room wanted me to know that for the next few years, at least, it existed solely to protect /me,/ to comfort /me./ Increasingly, it did so as I added memories. Mother Wolf and I used one of the two small beds, the left one, piled with fuzzy brown blankets as needed or clothed with luxurious white cotton sheets that felt cool against cheek or jowl. Since I was tasked with the cleaning instead of the dorm servants, my room smelled of us, faintly of yeast, sweat, and a wolf that occasionally hunted rabbits but favored the cafeteria's pasture-beast stew.
The little red iron stove kept us warm through winter; the room's wood panel walls kept us shaded from the hot summer sun. It lovingly provided a rare enclosure—almost like walking within the orange and white rock walls of the slot canyons of the south woods—creating a remarkable silence in a land of noisy humans and huffing machines. This and its soft radiant cloud-light ceiling made me feel... what? Swaddled? Like being /home,/ as my parents would have used the word back on the farm when I was a child. My spirit books, fashion magazines, and papers cluttered the worn ink-stained blond pine desk. I ran my bare feet over the oval tapestry rug letting the patterns of wands and dryad trees caress my toes. My skin stuck to the cushy tan leather chair as I stood, but I knew that was it hugging me.
Situated to the rear of the building on the first floor, the casement window at the end of the rectangular space opened to the clay roof of a shed. Crisp autumn breezes fluttered the gauzy drapes as I looked out at the barrier forest beyond the stables, lit by the setting sun. The window conveniently allowed Mother Wolf to jump up, as she did right now, and clatter into the room as she pleased. She greeted me with an ever-wet red tongue on my face and backside. (A white wolf opening the front door of the women's dorm, with a key in her mouth, and walking in always frightened at least one student or professor. People called me their Wild Woman, but still never got used to the implications of the name.)
Best of all, as the special guest of Her Highness, nobody dared inspect my room. Everyone knocked, no exceptions. Wolf inside, right? Framed pictures of my boyfriend hung suspended by single powder blue silk ribbons, and they were /very/ inappropriate. Looking at him warmed me deeply, reminding me of being /us,/ together—so I didn't care that my foolish "civilized" human brethren might think. People existed to enjoy themselves, regardless of what nosy people might say. This room supported me as I lived here, trapped in the Townships because circumstance required me to learn to be "more human" as Her Highness was fond of saying. My little supportive enclave encouraged me to be me, and allowed me to dress or not dress as I pleased behind its closed oaken door.
When the House Mother knocked, I simply threw on a dressing gown. I turned the pictures around before answering—to be respectful. It tickled me that she never asked why I always smiled when I opened the door.
Whos ready for something new? Who here wants to experience the greatness of senses that are not normally talked about? Who here wants to enlighten themselves to a new way of life? a way where loving and being loved is different? If so, #boost and favorite this post. If you want to know what this is about, DM me. #College, #CollegeProject, #Love, #Romance.
Reminder that if you want to hear me perform the voice of a 6'5" mountain man, I do that in "Scar" by Kelsie Calloway. In real life I'm a tiny woman! But I also have opera training, and that makes all the difference when I'm voicing burly men. 💪
You can hear him make his first appearance a the end of the attached sample.
Seen elsewhere: name 10 authors of whose books you've read more than 5:
Elizabeth Moon >5
Margaret Atwood =5
Stephen King >5
Dean Koontz >5
Jennifer Roberson >5
Anne Rice >5
CS Lewis >5
Octavia Butler =5
Susan Cooper =5
JRR Tolkien >5
Thank you @courtcan, I like reading these lists. My five or more books/or stories read by #author list. This isn't all of them; I haven't got to the attic bookcase, yet. A pattern emerged. Can you see it?
Lissanne Norman
Patricia Briggs
Clare Bell
CJ Cherryh
Andre Norton
Lois McMaster Bujold
Joan D Vinge
Connie Willis
Anne McCaffrey
Tamora Pierce
Nancy Kress
Nicola Griffith
Barb Hendee
Julie Kenner
Diana Rowland
Agatha Christie
Phyllis A Whitney
Danielle Steele
I hope everyone takes this #challenge to write up their list, too.
> Romantic #relationships are surprisingly poorly understood by science, partly because they are so difficult to study. Amie Gordon and her lab hope a new #dating#app they are developing will help change that
One of my offline friends was telling me, as I was stuffing watermelon into my mouth, that the reason most people detest #Romance books is, yes, because of the smut, but it leads people to confront some human desires they really don't want to think about. She then continued, when reading a romance book, you have to engage in human connections and relationships instead of a fantasy world or a possible dystopian future. Concepts. I was gonna remind her that romances are starting to involve objects and tech now but I let her continue...
And continuing, People hate having to confront their human desires so they'd rather pretend romance is for dumb people and pretend to engage in higher level concepts instead of their own needs or other peoples needs. I dunno if she nailed it but I haven't stopped thinking about it since. #RomanceLandia#Romance@romancelandia
From: For Love of a Konbini Idol
I Faced Her Onryo Lover
They have a ways to go before they get to the real thing.
Join Ume, Shiomi, and Tomo as their relationship develops. In a creepy world where “love” never dies.
Quote: I looked at the cigarette in my hand, thought, “What the hell?” and took a puff; “Ugh, unflavored.” But I’d finally gotten a kiss from my konbini girl, a secondary kiss, but a kiss.
From: For Love of a Konbini Idol
I Faced Her Onryo Lover
Everyone is angry
“Don’t swear at me!” The situation was wearing on my nerves, or I might have let it pass, but the swearing grated. It clashed with the image of Shiomi I kept trying to build in my mind. I was tired, my cigarette tasted foul, and I had just risked my life for the third time. And for what, an ungrateful woman who didn’t have the sense to see her lover was a rotting corpse!
“I’ll swear if I want to, White Knight-sama. I’d be with my girlfriend right now, instead of wandering around these desolate hills, if it wasn’t for you. You’re as bad as Mika, riding in on your fucking white horse and fucking my life up! I hate you! Damn it, I hate you!”
“The Idea of You”: Deconstructing the Modern Romance Through a Cinematic Lens (articleshubspot.com)
Premiering on Amazon Prime Video, "The Idea of You" offers a captivating exploration of contemporary relationships and societal expectations.