Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Would you rather ... 2

Image inspiration
Would you rather...

  • Never have to worry about money?
  • Or live in a world with Pokemon?

(If you'd rather consider a different dream fantasy world it's cheating to pick the universe of Star Trek since money isn't an issue in the Federation! ;-))

Create a list of pros and cons for each. The more convincingly you can argue both sides of an issue, the more effective your writing. :-)


This came from The 15 Hardest "Would You Rather" Questions You Will Ever Be Asked (undoubtedly just one of many repostings). When I hit the dragon one then this one, my interest was piqued! As I read the rest, I realized why I don't like "Would you rathers". They're almost always picking between two horrible things. I'd much rather ponder the quandary of two equally tempting things!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Prisoner of Love

Prisoner of Love by Paul Manktelo
Love, AKA The God or Goddess of Love, has imprisoned your character. Why? Has Love fallen in unrequited love? Or is your character a threat to Love? Or a threat to love? Is the imprisonment intended as permanent? Or temporary until some event passes?

Below is a list of the gods and goddesses of love throughout the ages. (Perhaps one Love has captured another Love.) Feel free to use one or come up with your own.

List of love and lust deities (from Wikipedia)

Albanian folklore

Armenian mythology

  • Astghik, goddess of fertility and love

Aztec mythology

  • Xochiquetzal, goddess of fertility, beauty, female sexual power, protection of young mothers, pregnancy, childbirth, and women's crafts
  • Xochipilli, god of love, art, games, beauty, dance, flowers, maize, fertility, and song
  • Tlazolteotl, goddess of lust, carnality, sexual misdeeds
  • Ixcuiname, goddess of the carnality.
    • Tiacapan, goddess of sexual passion.
    • Teicu, goddess of sexual appetite.
    • Tlaco, goddess of sexual longing.
    • Xocotzin, goddess of sexual desire.

Buddhism

  • Aizen Myō-ō or Rāgarāja, a deity who transforms worldly lust into spiritual awakening; his red-skinned appearance represents suppressed lust and passion

Canaanite mythology

  • Astarte, goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare
  • Qetesh, goddess of love, beauty and sex

Celtic mythology

  • AineIrish goddess of love, summer, wealth and sovereignty
  • Cliodhna Irish goddess, sometimes identified as a goddess of love and beauty

Chinese mythology

  • Yue-Lao, a Chinese god of love who binds two people together with an invisible red string
  • Tu Er Shen, a Chinese deity who manages the love and sex between homosexual men
  • White Peony (Bai Mudan), a chinese godess who tempt men specifically the ascetic

Egyptian mythology

  • Bes, god of music, dance, and sexual pleasure
  • Hathor, goddess of the sky, love, beauty, and music
  • Bastet, goddess of felines, love, sexuality, protection, beauty, and dance

Etruscan mythology

  • Albina, goddess of the dawn and protector of ill-fated lovers
  • Turan, goddess of love and vitality

Greek mythology

  • Aphrodite, goddess of love, lust and beauty
  • Hera, goddess of marriage, which is a lifetime of love and compromise.
  • The Erotes
    • Anteros, god of requited love
    • Eros, god of love and sexual passion
    • Himeros, god of sexual desire
    • Hedylogos, god of sweet talk and flattery
    • Hymen, god of marriage and marriage feasts
    • Pothos, god of sexual longing, yearning and desire
  • Peitho, personification of persuasion and seduction

Guaraní mythology

  • Kurupi, god of sexuality and fertility

Hindu mythology

  • Kamadeva or Manmadhan or Kama, god of love
  • Rati, goddess of passion and lust

Lithuanian mythology

  • Milda, goddess of love and freedom

Mesopotamian mythology

  • Inanna or Ishtar, goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare

Moroccan mythology

  • Qandisa, goddess of lust who first seduces men then drives them insane

Norse and Germanic mythology

  • Frigg, goddess of romance, marriage, sex and reproduction, married women, household duty, and divination.
  • Freyja, goddess associated with magic, shamanism, seiðr, sacrifice, war, death, and sexuality.
  • Freyr, worshipped as a phallic fertility god, he was said to "[bestow] peace and pleasure on mortals"
  • Sjöfn, goddess associated with love

Roman mythology

  • Cupid, the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Eros
  • Venus, the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite

Slavic mythology

  • Dogoda, Polish spirit of the west wind, associated with love and gentleness
  • Dzydzilelya, Polish goddess of love and marriage and of sexuality and fertility
  • Ladafakeloric goddess of harmony, merriment, youth, love and beauty
  • Siebog, god of love and marriage
  • Živa, goddess of love and fertility

Vodou

Yoruba mythology

  • Mami Wata, a pantheon of water deities sometimes associated with love and lust
  • Oshun, goddess of love, intimacy, beauty, wealth and diplomacy

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Quay's quandary

Quay is the King's magician. He wakes up one morning and discovers his magic gone. This is not a good thing! The King's prospective bride is arriving in a week and he'll be asked to cast several spells to confirm she is who she claims. And to make matters worse, there are others coveting his position as King's Magician.


He has asked for a leave of a few days to attend his "sick aunt" who isn't sick but is a healer. He arrives at her home.



He finds his Aunt Edelia ...


with her apprentice Siff,


Quay explains his quandary. Edelia hovers over Siff, directing her in the casting of spells and mixing of potions that the apprentice doesn't seem particularly adept at. Finally his aunt says he's been cursed. But she can't do anything unless she knows more about it.

Quay is in a bind. He needs his magic back NOW.

Siff offers her help. She confesses she's not much of a healer. Her family made her apprentice here. What she really has always wanted to be is a magical investigator and she'd love this opportunity to prove she can do it. Quay is skeptical (and a bit of a snob). But what choice does he have?

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Would you rather ...

Would you rather ...

Have a dragon?

Or be a dragon?


Argue why you wouldn't want to be one. Then argue why you wouldn't want to be the other.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Snakes on a plane

Ms. Shofi Ademola has been hired as assistant to Jan Czarnecki, 137th richest man in the world. After a night jet flight to Montevideo, then a two seater plane ride to a landing strip in a cow pasture, then a 3 hour jolting ride in a Jeep, the odd questions she'd been asked in her third and final interview looped in her head. Had she ever been bungee jumping? Was she allergic to exotic foods? And was her baby sitting certificate up to date? They had laughed after the last question.



The jeep brought her to mud hut with a corrugated tin roof where a guide and donkeys waited for her and her luggage. After four hours on the donkey there was a forty five minute climb up the side of a mountain which brought her here:


Surely this was some bizarre joke. Perhaps one of those reality shows. She was dusty, sore and the guide was calling for Jan, his voice growing distant as he ventured further into the jungled forest. Then twenty minutes later she was greeted with, "Hey, Shof, know any new ways of cooking snake?" If it weren't for the smile, she wouldn't have recognize this man before her as Jan Czarnecki.


Take it from there.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Star kissed

Write a single sentence describing a star filled night sky from the point of view of someone who feels:

lonely
weary
trapped
persecuted
betrayed
infected by wanderlust

and/or someone who is:

an alien who can't get home
a cleaning woman who just won a seventeen million dollar lottery
a woman new turned to a vampire against her will
a miner trapped beneath the ground for three days
a cadet for the space force who has been kicked out of the academy
a wizard on the night before her 1000th birthday

You don't need to mention whose point of view or anything about their state. Work at conveying how their emotions color and change what they see.