the deep moans round with many voices

I was digging through my works in progress tonight and I found this 3-sentence ficlet from 2019.

I think I saved it as a separate file -- and then never posted it -- because I wanted to do something more extensive with the prompt... but you know, it's a reasonably complete thought as-is and I honestly don't recall how I was planning to expand it, so I will call it good enough and let it go.

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For anonymous: X-men, any, For decades Xaviers was the only wheelchair accessible foster care facility in rural New York, written January 2019

'Differently Abled' (142 words)

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Charles hesitates at the first request, unsure whether he's ready to take such a drastic step toward building acceptance between mutants and others -- but then, what breathtaking hypocrisy, even for him, if he turned away other children whom "normal" society wishes to throw away and make disappear.

He never officially tells any of the other foster children about the X-Men, but they're bright and wary and would have to be telepathically nudged into complacent ignorance a dozen times a day to stop them from noticing; they never mention anything to their case-workers (he eavesdrops, naturally), and so he considers it a tacit bargain of silence.

He's never quite sure whether linking mutant rights to disability rights was a wise or foolish tactical move, but in his long history of ethical tightrope walking, this is one choice he never looks back and regrets.

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Please note the quotes around the title. *wry*

As always, here is the link to the current ficathon. Come and play! :)

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( 11. ) For celeste9: X-Men comics, Emma/Scott, rough edges, written 12/2/16 [AO3 version]

at the broken places (150 words)

Emma's jagged edges don't quite match up to Scott's own wounds; what shattered her, he might have survived with fewer scars, and the blows that tore him to shreds over the years might have found less purchase in her mind and heart. Some days he hates the way they miss each other's more idiosyncratic tripwires and scrape each other raw, the way he lost the ability to just be with a lover somewhere between Apocalypse and Jean's last death and therefore can't help Emma learn that alchemy of warmth and grace.

Other days, he thinks maybe they're stronger because of those flaws; you get back from a relationship what you put in, after all, and if he and Emma haven't yet learned comfort, they haven't learned complacency either, and Scott will trade almost anything up to his soul (...and maybe even that) to keep from losing another person he loves.

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( 12. ) For celeste9: BtVS, Buffy/Faith, liberated, written 12/2/16 [AO3 version]

won't take this lying down (175 words)

"Y'know, B, the nineteenth century's not your best look," Faith said, interrupting Buffy's sulk over the news that Spike had come back to life and neither he nor Angel had seen fit to pass on news of this development; "Say it with me: 'I'm a liberated modern woman and I don't need no fuckin' man.'"

Buffy rolled her eyes and shot back, "Yes, Faith, I am in fact aware that it's the twenty-first century, and it's not like I was even holding out for--" only to squeak in shock as Faith leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Buffy's mouth (with tongue! uninvited! ...but pretty smooth actually) until Buffy's body gave up waiting for input from her brain and started to respond enthusiastically on its own.

Then Faith pulled back (the cheater, not finishing what she started), murmured, "I didn't say you might not need a fuckin' woman, though; look me up once you reboot," and sauntered off like she hadn't just upended Buffy's self-image and reframed years of their prior interactions.

Oh, this meant war.

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( 13. ) For iawenbemerry: X-Men (preferably movieverse but doesn't have to be), Scott/Jean, the moments no one else sees, written 12/2/16 [AO3 version]

the golden age of the barefoot time (275 words)

Scott and Jean have a standing monthly weekend date -- sometimes adjusted on account of crises, but always kept -- where they leave the mansion for a full twenty-four hours, disappearing from one evening to the next.

The general consensus among the students is that they go out for a fancy dinner, and maybe sex (opinions are split between super vanilla and super kinky) in a swanky hotel down in the city where they can be sure no mutant senses (noses, ears, brains) will disturb their privacy; a few hold out for more cerebral things like visits to museums and other cultural interest spots (on the theory that thinking of teachers and sex in the same sentence is gross and also, seriously, Scott and Jean are just that boring); and one or two have even suggested that the Professor lends out two of his best and brightest to the CIA on timeshare in order to keep the school under the rest of the government's radar.

Jean takes great delight in recounting these theories to Scott, who then takes equal delight in planting new rumors, both of them secure in the knowledge that nobody will ever guess they use their jealously guarded days of freedom to beat each other over the head with feather pillows, eat dessert for dinner and then again for breakfast, rent all the children's movies they never got to see, spend hours petting cats at animal shelters, and generally indulge in the idyllic, archetypal childhoods that they both lost too soon, and which they will give their lives to make sure their own students can hold on to as long as they possibly can.

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( 14. ) For silvr_dagger: Narnia, Jadis/Susan, pomegranates, written 12/4/16 [AO3 version]

the iron queens (350 words)

A light kindled, impossibly, in the eternal cold and dark of Narnia after the end, and the tattered remnants of she who had once been Jadis (for no witch ever truly dies, especially not one who has tasted the apple of immortality, and the Lion had known this when he shut the stable door) drifted toward the blue-white fire, compelled by the circle and the ancient rite she herself had carved into the flesh of this world at its birth; "You," she snarled as she coalesced, and saw the shape of her summoner.

"Me," agreed Susan Pevensie, who had dared to steal Jadis's throne and think herself a queen, standing untouched by the killing cold despite the sheerness of her silk dress; "I have come under my own power and in my own name, not that of the Lion, to offer you a chance at redemption -- for those who turn away from warmth and light need not be cast forever into darkness, nor do I think love of the Lion a necessity to love of life or the ability to be and do good in the world -- and therefore I have brought a taste of summer to break the walls of this your prison and offer you a thread you may grasp to follow me back into the myriad worlds," she said, and her hands, when she held them out across the bounds of her protective circle, were filled with a red like blood, or rubies, but this fruit was no apple with its all-or-nothing absolutes: a pomegranate, rather, which spoke of bargains and balance, a personal interest on the part of the one who offered to the one who ate, and perhaps even the chance at a throne shared rather than claimed by force and held armed against all comers; Jadis had dreamed of such impossibilities once.

The juice of the apple had been bitter as gall and cool as the first snow of winter; this, bursting slow and rich across Jadis's tongue, solidifying her body with its memory of summer sun and flower-laden winds, was sweet.

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( 15. ) For anonymous: Inception, Arthur/Ariadne, stargazing, written 12/5/16 [AO3 version]

written on the arched sky (275 words)

Their latest job involved a maze in a planetarium ("Why a planetarium?" Ariadne had asked, to which Eames had smiled annoyingly and said, "A memory of first loves fumbling illicitly in the dark, sweetheart, makes an excellent atmosphere for digging out any current sexual indiscretions -- and don't ask me how I know the mark brought her boy here while she was meant to be running the projector; a man needs a few secrets, after all.") and Arthur had insisted on being the dreamer once he'd heard the rough draft of Eames and Ariadne's extraction plan.

When she slipped into the dream maze to see if it needed any last minute adjustments and saw the star projections Arthur had imagined, which he was sliding smoothly around the domed projection field as a narrator explained the reason different stars were visible in different seasons or at different latitudes, Ariadne realized why; "I could never hold all that steady enough to convince somebody who knows what it ought to look like; how are you managing?" she asked as she wrapped her arms around his waist; "Are there some illicit planetarium escapades in your past that I should know about?"

Arthur tugged her around until they were face to face, the glow of the projector striking gleams from his hair and casting his face in an otherworldly light, and said, halfway between wry and anticipatory, "It's possible there might have been, but let me make a suggestion: we have a subjective half hour before the dose runs out; instead of making me relive my embarrassing youth, wouldn't you rather try topping the memory?"

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( 16. ) For mermaids_feet: Homestuck, Any, Frogs, written 12/5/16 [AO3 version]

questionably intelligent design (150 words)

"You know," Jade said with a slightly distracted air as they watched Bilious Slick junior arrow toward its destiny, "I'm still not sure why it's frogs all the way down; I mean, yeah, they lay a lot of eggs and there's the metamorphosis symbolism, and they look very pretty in those big globes with the lily pads, but there must be better animals from a self-defense and general toughness standpoint, not to mention ones that take a more active interest in raising their young, which you'd think might be relevant from a universe-propagation standpoint -- and you don't even have to sacrifice the 'lays lots of eggs' factor very much to get those benefits."

"I confess zoology of the non-cryptid type was never my strong point," Rose said, "but you sound like you have a specific alternate animal in mind; why not enlighten us as to its name?"

"Well, I was thinking maybe alligators."

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More to follow at some point, probably. :)

I am up to 40 fills over at the Three Sentence Ficathon, god help me (though three of them are really for the same prompt). So it is time for another catch-all post!

I am still not very good at the three sentence limit, though I did manage to wrestle seven of the following fills back into the constraints of the form. \o/

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( 1. Why We Fight - Bourne trilogy (movies) )

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( 2. Wrong Turn at Albuquerque - Chronicles of Narnia )

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( 3. Geometry - anthropomorfic )

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( 4. Bad Influence - Chronicles of Narnia/Star Trek )

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( 5. Of Mourning - Chronicles of Narnia )

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( 6. Thelema - the Bible )

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( 7. Happily Married - Chronicles of Narnia )

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( 8. Target Practice - Captain America )

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( 9. Open All the Doors - X-Men: First Class )

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( 10. Irrevocable - Game of Thrones/Merlin )

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I will post the girl!Arthur/Eames fics tonight or tomorrow. Now I am off to fold laundry. Ah, laundry. So necessary, yet so evil.

A while after the first X-Men movie came out, I started a series of drabbles about one of the everyday mutants in that world. Of course, I also feel free to steal from the comics, since Marvel has retconned and contradicted itself so many times that canon is... shall we say... rather mutable.

Anyway, Raven Carlson has four arms, a tail, and black fur over every inch of her body -- except her lips, her palms, and the soles of her feet. The first set of drabbles can be found here.

( Raven drabbles, part II )

Drabbles -- in the strict 100 word definition -- are hard to write, since you have to squeeze everything down into so few words. I think of them kind of like haiku or sonnets: the trick is to paint an impression, evoke an emotional response, tell a miniature story, within a highly stylized format. When you do them right, they create a spare, elegant beauty.

I don't know if I reach that goal, but it's a useful exercise to try now and then.

"Switch" is a story I started writing several years ago. Originally it was a piece of X-Men fanfiction -- and those influences are still very strong and obvious -- but I went off in a slightly different direction with the causes and results of mutations. (In other words, I decided that most Marvel-style mutations make NO scientific sense whatsoever, so I used magic as a justification instead, combined with the creation and use of nuclear explosions. Also, I toned down the prejudice and discrimination to less hysterical levels.)

This is the story of a girl who discovers that she's a little bit different, and the way she works that difference into the rest of her life.

( Switch )

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I wrote another 500 words of "Locked-Room Problems," the Giles/Indy story, and planned out the next fight in "Apartment Manager." But as I was flicking through some files this morning, it suddenly occured to me that I knew how to finish "Switch." So I did.

I'll get back to real fanfiction this evening.

(And seriously, doesn't that sound weird? "Real fanfiction." Oh, whatever. *wanders off to surf the web*)