Prompty Meme

[awanderingbard]

Trying to shake out my writer's block by messing around with some prompts. Stolen from myself in the past. No time machines involved.

Give me a fandom I'm in, a character or characters, and a prompt (word, image, phrase, poem, reference, whatever) and I'll give you something creative made of words. (Meta? A line of fic? A paragraph? A drabble? A ficlet? A full story? We'll see.)

All fandoms I've written in before are open, plus I'll take Cabin Pressure, Merlin (no S5 spoilers, please), and The Avengers out for a spin, if prompted.

Comments

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Jack Harkness. Tea and biscuits. :)

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

Soppy drabble and a halfish length thing ahead!

Home

The thing about tea and biscuits was that no matter where you went, or what century you were in, there was always tea and biscuits. Not as humans might define it, but tea and biscuits nonetheless.

Ianto stepped quietly into Jack's office, putting down the tray on his desk and adding the milk to the cup first, like the proper British citizen he was. Jack looked up briefly from the report he was reading to smile his thanks. Ianto's hand touched the back of Jack's head, fingers twirling the hair as poured the tea and added the sugar. He slipped out quietly again. Jack look a sip of the tea, stuck a biscuit in his mouth.

Tea and biscuits was a constant. It meant comfort and friendship and sympathy. It meant 'welcome to the neighbourhood' or 'thank you for saving me from that alien-thing' or 'I'm so sorry to hear about you and your partner'.

And sometimes, it simply meant 'home'.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Oh this ADORABLE. *squishes Jack in a big hug*

[joonscribble.livejournal.com]

Arthur Shappey. Instant popcorn.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

Got a bit long on me, but here you go. First crack at Cabin Pressure.

Culinary Delights

"Hullo, chaps! I made you a snack!"

Douglas and Martin were presented with a large bowl of... something. They looked at each other, both silently asking the other if they knew what it was. They both came to the conclusion that they didn't, then had a brief argument with their eyes as to who was going to ask and risk hurting Arthur's feelings. Martin, as usual, lost.

"It looks... uh, what is that?" Martin asked.

Arthur's enthusiasm was undampened. "Popcorn!" he announced. "I'm practicing. I thought, you know how we show films and stuff when we fly?"

"Oh, is that what those grainy, out of sync things on the wall are?" Douglas asked. "I always thought they were cries of help from some sort of advanced lifeform, hoping we'll pull over and give them a lift."

"We do need a new DVD player," Martin agreed. "Remember when it got stuck and just kept repeating 'murder! murder!' over and over again for twenty minutes?"

"That was brilliant!" Arthur said. "It was like being haunted by a ghost! A ghost of a murdered person. Anyway, I thought, since when you go to a proper cinema you get popcorn, maybe we could offer popcorn here too, so I'm practicing."

"Yes, making popcorn can be tricky," Douglas said. "Hard as a soufflee, so I'm told."

Martin ducked his head, hiding his smile from Arthur. "So, what exactly happened here?" he asked, gesturing to the black mess in the bowl.

"Oh, well you know you're supposed to listen for when the popping slows down to one to three seconds between each pop?" Arthur asked. Martin nodded. "Well... I didn't. So, it burned, a little."

"A little?" Martin said. "It looks like it was cooked in the fires of hell."

"That seems a rather a propos description of old Gertie's microwave," Douglas said, fondly.

"But, if you poke around a little, you can still find some okay ones," Arthur said, shuffling around in the bowl in demonstration and producing one that was only mildly crispy. "And I'm taking another go at it, so there will be more soon."

"Just out of curiosity, what 'go' is this?" Douglas asked.

"Um... sixteenth," Arthur said. "But I'm getting better. I didn't have to use the fire exstinguisher on this one."

"Speeaking of which..." Martin said. "Do you smell smoke?"

There was a brief silence as all three men sniffed the air. Then Arthur ran out of the flightdeck, looking vauguely like a muppet and Martin lunched for the satcom to inform ATC that they would need to divert immediately.

[guardian-chaos.livejournal.com]

Ohhh!! Lovely! I see "Star Trek (Reboot)" in your sidebar, though I haven't heard you talk about that much. Would Jim Kirk + Spock + "time travel will really mess you up" work? I can prompt a different fandom, if you'd prefer. :)

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

I wrote a couple things for the happyfest the year it came out. I might be a bit rusty, but I'll have a think and give it a go. :-D

[guardian-chaos.livejournal.com]

Months and months ago, I ran across a prompt something like "Sometimes happenstance works on in one's favor. Captain Kirk meets Captain Jack Harkness at a spacebar. Shenanigans ensue." and I was so, so tempted to fill it. I think I still might. DON'T TAKE THAT FROM ME. *flaily hands*

I actually think that prompt might have been on a happyfest post! I don't remember anymore. Where do you go for those things? Perhaps I could find the original post and make someone happy months down the line, heh.

I'm excited to see what you'll do with the prompt! :D

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

Happyfest used to be at bringthehappy, but they haven't run it the past couple of years, unfortunately. But anyone is welcome to fill the prompts at any time, so you could probably write some if you wanted.

[guardian-chaos.livejournal.com]

Aww, good comms that haven't had any activity in a while are sometimes the saddest things, aren't they?

Alas though, I checked it out and it's not where I found that one prompt before, so I suppose I'll just keep looking. Thank you for sharing that link, though. :)

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

Ta-da! I hope this works. It's been a while since I took these two out for a spin.

Definitions of Self (Or 'Yeah, that's messed up')

"Does it ever bother you?" Kirk asked, suddenly.

Across the 3D chess board, Spock's eyebrow was raised at him. "To what are you referring?" he asked.

Kirk realized he hadn't exactly prefaced that question with any sort of lead-up. He'd been mulling it over in his head and forgot to speak it out loud. "That there's another you out there," he clarified, making a vague gesture to his left. "You from the future."

Spock blinked at him. "I have considered it," he said. "But concluded that it has very little bearing on my duties here or my life in general. It does not bother me. It is, of course, remarkable, but not something on which to dwell."

"It'd bother me," Kirk said. "I like being unique. Having another me running around would be weird. Besides, don't you want to know what's going to happen? How your life turns out?"

"There would be no point in inquiring," Spock said. "His presence in my timeline had already changed it. We no longer share the same future. He did not live through the same events as me, ergo my future is different from the one which he experienced. In fact, it could be argued that he and I are no longer the same person, on a spiritual level if not a genetic one. If you believe that a person is made up of his or her or its knowledge and life events, then there are, therorhetically two entirely different versions of myself in this universe."

Kirk considered this for a bit. "Yeah, it'd mess me up too," he said.

"I don't believe that's what I said," Spock corrected, politely. "I am not 'messed up'. I have merely concluded that seeking out my other self is illogical."

"Still," Kirk said. "Let's not ever time travel, okay?"

Spock nodded. "Agreed."

[guardian-chaos.livejournal.com]

Oh! This is lovely! I particularly like Spock's thought process, and Kirk's knowing the Vulcan is, in his own, Vulcan way, at least slightly unnerved by the idea of another "him" running around. Still, Spock handles it with more than enough dispassionate logic to handle the issue.

Well done! Chess!fic is actually one of my favorite tropes in the Star Trek fic realm, so you've inadvertently stumbled into something I like almost instinctively. Thank you for this! :D

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

I can't even play regular chess, so I can't do much with it in fic, but I do like using it as a good way to have a meaningful conversation, because both parties are distracted enough to not realized they're being open with each other, if that makes sense.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! It was fun to flex my Star Trek muscles again.