InterNutter

Indie writer seeks audience with an audience. Paying customers welcome. [pronouns: ze/hir] Daily free stories happen because it is an excellent counter to Writers' Block.

Burpengary East http://www.cmweller.com 12611 posts

Challenge #01059-B327: Reset... Reset...

http://paintdripps.tumblr.com/post/133942666585/magic-aus-for-all-your-magic-au-needs

Pick a second -- Gallifreya

Sans had let a fine layer of snow settle on him again. It didn't really matter. Skeletons were generally immune to the cold in the first place, and he just didn't care for the second.

Every time he opened his eyes, he saw the sky... Blue sky. Real stars. Clouds... it didn't matter.

Crowding didn't matter. Not any more. There were seemingly boundless areas of mountainside and forest in which to build homes, grow farms, and otherwise just be. Sans preferred New Snowdin. Everyone knew him, and he could rely on two or more residents to drag him and his lawn chair under the eaves when the weather got harsh.

It was worth it to open his eyes and see...

...the gem-speckled ceiling of the cold caverns.

Sans spent his first reset on the border of madness. Trying to find someone, anyone, who also knew about the reality that was.

Anyone except the kid. Sometimes, they were... terrible. Other times, they were an angel. And those times, he got to spend time above, gathering snow, letting rain pool in his eyesockets. Enjoying the moments before...

...he found himself staring upwards at a bleak imitation of the sky. Heartbroken.

He'd tried so hard, so often, to set things right.

In the end, he only cared when the kid had murdered everyone they could find. And even then, he didn't stay dead for long.

And sometimes, once in a great long while, the kid would speak the words that meant that they had the power to see alternate lives. He hoped they would somehow be able to fix the machine his father made. Set things right.

But what did he expect? They were a kid. All they knew how to do was torture him with the promise of the outside on a permanent basis.

And in the end... he just gave up. Kept pulling the same jokes. Kept working with the same script. Kept enjoying the time above while it lasted. Kept... not caring.

It hurt too much to care.

Even when the kid crawled into his lap and promised there would be no more resets, he kept waking up from the nightmare of seeing that gem-studded imitation of a sky.

Day after day.

(Muse food remaining: 23. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

Still poor

The scratchie didn't win us anything. Boo. I had such plans for that $1K a week, too. It's not fair.

Ah, the wuzgunnas.

I was gonna buy air conditioning for the office. Save up and purchase my cosplay. Hire people to make sure the house is spic and span because I'm absolute pants at it. I was going to have money to spare for wardrobe emergencies, like the kids simultaneously growing out of their shoes. And clothes. I was gonna get a

Read more »

Challenge #01058-B326: Desperate Measures

http://paintdripps.tumblr.com/post/133942666585/magic-aus-for-all-your-magic-au-needs

Pick one -- Gallifreya

Cam had had enough. Their entire adventure across half the realm had been full of bailing out of flirting. Near misses and excruciating closeness mixed with nigh-intolerable formality.

It had been painful. Didn't Bes know how awesome she was? How wonderful she was for everyone around her. It wasn't that she had a Bard's natural glamour. It was all charm and charisma. And... just being Bes.

All Cam could think about

Read more »

Well hello!

Just unveiled a Christmas card from the nice dude we pay to mow our lawn. Which included a $5 scratchie with the potential to win us $1K a week for five years.

I haven't scratched it yet. I'm waiting for Beloved to awaken to share the suspense.

I know my luck with scratchies. Never have won anything greater than a free ticket. I came close, once. Only once. And then I confused a 2500 for a third 25000. That's it. That's my

Read more »

Challenge #01057-B325: Angels Unawares

http://soluscrow.tumblr.com/post/133913436559/modernaukeats-texts-between-angels-trying-to

Angels living among the mortals -- Gallifreya

Mrs Getherty had always been in the neighbourhood. And she had always been a little strange. For instance, she invited the local evangelists in for tea and cookies. And a nice, long chat that somehow devoured their entire day, covered nothing, and roamed from topic to topic like an indecisive kid with one dollar to spend in the candy store.

Nobody could remember when she wasn't a slightly

Read more »

It's getting closer to Christmas

I haven't bought any more presents and I really should. I need to figure out what to get my little darlings on a slim budget. And something for Beloved that they will actually like/use.

Beloved is hard to purchase for. They have the freedom to get pretty much anything they want when they want it. Anything they can't get - I can't afford.

I feel absolutely rotten not getting anything for Beloved, because they mean so much to me. It kind'a

Read more »

Challenge #01056-B324: For a Dog to Tear

Hachiko, Greyfriars Bobby, Fido, Shep, and every other dog on all three subsections of this list

By the way, to get the full tearjerking experience, for every dog on that list that has a full article, read it as well. -- RecklessPrudence

Etta was getting used to it, even though it broke her heart. Every day, for their morning walk, Boy would insist on trying to find his Master. The routine included visiting his former home in the JOAT sector, and visiting

Read more »

Small progress is still progress

I didn't get everything done that I wanted to do yesterday. I got my daily Instant up. Of course. I got my five hundred words in.

I got some more chicken and I got dinner on.

And I got the floor cleared of the mountain of debris that had built up through collective apathy.

Today... if I'm lucky, I shall clean up the spare room a tad, make it nice for incoming visitors, and attempt to keep the cat out of it.

Read more »

Challenge #01055-B323: Eventual Amity

http://callmegallifreya.tumblr.com/post/133857707605/jcatgrl-copperbadge-persinetteinthetower

Domestic life after the baby dilemma -- Gallifreya

Gloria was crying. She'd been crying for hours.

Disastra moaned. She hadn't slept enough to focus her magic. Therefore she used her wand to prod Calamity. "It's your turn."

"N'h did it las' time..."

"No you didn't, I did it last time. GO!"

"...five mo' minutes..."

"NO! YOU HAD THE STUPID IDEA TO STEAL A STUPID BRAT!"

"You had th' same one," Calamity grumbled. She, too, had

Read more »

I have to push myself

I have a routine, now, for exercise. I can make myself do it every day. But setting time apart for the things that need to be done?

WAY more difficult.

I have to exercise. My future career as a writer kind of depends on doing something on a daily basis, whether I'm 'feeling it' or not. I have to apply the same self-enforcement to cleaning. And if I can drag my loving progeny into helping out, that would be brilliant.

Todays goal:

Read more »

Challenge #01054-B322: Joint Custody

http://callmegallifreya.tumblr.com/post/133857707605/jcatgrl-copperbadge-persinetteinthetower

Two separate magical entities turn up for the same baby. -- Gallifreya

They both appeared at the christening. Calamity in a plume of green fire and Disastra in a cloud of roiling purple smoke. Both with identical words.

"Give me the child!"

The proud parents recognised one of them and boggled at the other. Then at their spouse.

"I can explain," they both said.

He had paid for an invulnerable armour with the life of

Read more »

Coming soon...

I've been working on something of an epic Lorefic concerning the earliest days of my favourite automatons. And as soon as I'm done with another round of tech support for MeMum, I'll get right on back to finishing that monster off.

Then I shall think about a better title, chapter divisions, and correcting any extraneous minutia.

After that's done, dear readers, you get a bonus fiction, one chapter a day, until the story is done. With helpful linkages for navigation.

I'll have

Read more »

Challenge #01053-B321: Subtle(n)...

We're going to be subtle with high explosives

My favourite kind of subtle! -- RecklessPrudence

There are certain things that worry Galactic Citizens about humans. The thing that worried them most was when they got very quiet. Despite the fact that a sleeping human is a safe human, a quiet human is usually involved in working something out.

Ax'and'l had learned that only slightly more dangerous was a human who was muttering to themselves. Only more dangerous was when they stopped muttering

Read more »

Aaaah holidays

There's something about the school holidays that just makes me want to lie in until my back aches. At least I wasn't waylaid by Steamworld Heist, today. Just a solid dollop of The Lazies.

I want to take care of a drift of boxed debris as part of tidying up for Yuletide, but Beloved insists that all boxes going into the big shed must be sealed and labled. I'm thinking of making Beloved to it with my help. It's a cool enough

Read more »

Challenge #01052-B320: The Way to Win is Not to Play

"If I can't win, I don't want to play!" -- Anon Guest

Emperor Gregor "Elf-hand" of Vardia always displayed his shortened hand at the negotiations table. It put the wind up the other side. They knew the story, without a doubt. Mainly because he had someone as part of his staff whose job it was to tell it.

Anyone entering the negotiations room would stare, and then try to not stare. And fail. And they'd spend the rest of the talks being

Read more »