clare_dragonfly | Entries tagged with world: robot rights

Title: Jammin'
World: robot rights
Word count: 1,066
Rating: PG (for brief mention of past violence)
Prompt:

rainbowfic Fire Opal 3, Impassioned; Hills of Iowa 9, Here's hoping that the days ahead won't be as bitter as the ones behind you.
Notes: I was also inspired by the Thimbleful Thursday prompt "vale of tears," but I think I went too far beyond the wordcount for it to qualify!

Mo dragged herself towards home. She was exhausted after another long day of job searching. But she wasn’t discouraged; two people had said they’d contact her if they had any openings, after she’d declared herself totally willing to do any kind of manual labor. She’d emphasized that there was absolutely nothing too disgusting for her to take on, without actually telling them how she knew that.( Read more... )

After two months crashing with Dylan—though he had continued to insist she was an honored and invited guest and he absolutely could use a roommate, he would be happy to let her pitch in on the rent—Mo finally had her own place.

As it turned out, she didn’t need a job first. All she needed was first and last month’s rent, and despite re-buying her entire wardrobe and treating herself and her friends to nice dinners and drinks two or three times a week, she still had that and more. The payout wasn’t worth the time in Binnington or the time under her uncle Edgar’s thumb (nothing could be), but at least it was making her life livable.

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This story was written to

aldersprig's prompt, "explosive personalities," and mjkj's prompt, "Wow, my heart did just go boooom." It most directly follows She Has Her Reasons but there's a couple of months between them that may get filled in later.

The master was dead.

Alacenna studied her hands, which he had created. She looked at the tray full of clean and dried dishes, which he had created her to work with. She turned to look at her fellow androids, but none were in the kitchen; that did not change the fact that he had created them as well.

What were they to do now?

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This story was written to

aldersprig's prompt, "Everyone else thought it was an ending. Even she did at first. Until..." and is a complete reworking of this story from the January 2012 Garden of Prose.

Title: On the Internet
World: robot rights
Word count: 217
Rating: PG-13 for implied horrible things
Prompt: Thimbleful Thursday, icing on the cake;

rainbowfic Antique Brass 6, The Internet has everything.
Notes: This follows The Best Boutiques (locked) and comes before She Has Her Reasons.

“Hey,” said Lola, “your friend is on the Internet.”

“What?” Dylan leaned over the back of the couch to see what she was looking at. “What friend?”

“What friend do you think?” Lola pointed at her smart watch, then zoomed with her fingers so its hologram mode took effect and the screen appeared, large as life, in the air in front of them.

There, along with a few other photos of people he didn’t recognize, was Mo. The photo was a few years old, and clearly taken before whatever trauma she’d just escaped from—but there was yet more hollowness in her eyes, more pain in the twist of her lips, than when he’d last seen her in person, when they were students.

He scanned the text quickly. It described a major company’s neglect, the horror of many people being trapped in a small room for months, the anger when it was finally revealed that they were being kept there, the relief when they were released. Mo was one of them, but she was considered missing.

A lump thickened his throat as he tried to speak. “Don’t tell her we found this, all right?” He checked out the window to make sure Mo and Brooke weren’t back yet. “That would just be the icing on the cake.”

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Title: She Has Her Reasons
World: robot rights
Word count: 393
Rating: G
Prompt: Thimbleful Thursday: for XYZ reasons
Notes: This follows The Best Boutiques (access-locked).

“I just… I don’t think she’s okay,” said Brooke quietly.

Dylan shook his head. “Of course she’s not okay.”( Read more... )

Title: The Decay of the Mind
World: robot rights
Word count: 179
Rating: R for dead body
Prompt:

rainbowfic Caput Mortuum 9, Advanced Decay
Notes: I honestly thought this piece was going to have physical decay in it.

There just didn’t seem any point anymore.( Read more... )

Title: Drowned
World: robot rights
Word count: 281
Rating: R for dead body
Prompt:

rainbowfic Caput Mortuum 7, Bloat
Notes: None.

Moira turned over the body, disgusted by its bloated, soaked state despite thinking she was inured to such things after almost a year with the mob. “It’s him,” she said, standing up instantly to press her sleeve to her face. It didn’t block out the smell.( Read more... )

Title: Soul Seeking
World: robot rights
Word count: 1,171
Rating: PG
Prompt:

rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 18, virgin hunter; Heart Gold 3, Soul meets soul on lover's lips. - Percy Bysshe Shelley
Notes: I think Dylan's going to be okay.

Dylan missed Moira.

He was happy to be home, living in the same house with his mom and one of his sisters. He’d reconnected with some of his friends from high school. He had a good job—okay, a good internship—okay, an internship that would look good on his resume, but he was looking forward to the future.( Read more... )

Title: Programmed
World: robot rights
Word count: 100
Rating: NC-17/FRAO
Prompt:

kink_bingo humiliation (verbal);

rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 12: golden fleece; Heart Gold 1: I love you - those three words have my life in them. - Tsarina Alexandra
Warnings: (skip) Nonconsensual verbal humiliation and sexual activity.
Notes: The last one for

kink_bingo's January mini-challenge. Sometimes prompts come together in the weirdest ways... No, you haven't met these characters before, and may never again.

( Read more... )

Title: One Interesting Thing
Word count: 1,326
Rating: G
Prompt:

rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 9, Trojan horse; Heart Gold 20, Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. - Robert Frost; novelty beads (Someone is lovelorn.)
Notes: And new theme: Moira backstory! :D I am enjoying getting to know her history.

There was an old wall out in the woods behind the school where Moira and her friends would sit to hang out, smoke, and drink—usually on weekends. But today it was empty, because Moira was the only one cutting school, and that was the way she’d planned it. She hadn’t brought any alcohol, but she had brought a full pack of clove cigarettes, and she intended to sit there until the pack was gone or until she felt better, whichever came first.( Read more... )

Title: Electricity
Word count: 1,572
Rating: R for implied sexuality (it's all dialogue)
Prompt:

rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 25, the Midas touch; Heart Gold 15, I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. - Roy Croft
Notes: So I guess my theme lately is doomed young love. That's what I get for writing character backstories. Though, actually, these two meet again later and may not be doomed. I'm not exactly happy with the choice of architecture for Dylan; I picked it a while back for something different and artistic for him to do, but it seems too practical now, especially since I know neither of these characters will be doing what they studied for in a few years! So I may revisit this later with a different artistic field for Dylan to study...

When he touched her she felt like gold.

He was studying architecture; she was studying engineering. “I want to be able to do something useful with my life,” she said. He was the artist, dreaming; she was relentlessly practical.

She wouldn’t tell him anything about her family, except that she was the only buffer between her parents. He told her all about the mom he’d lost and the mom he still had, the older sisters who still thought they could control his life. She sympathized, though she was an only child. He wished he could know what that was like.( Read more... )

Title: Calling
Word count: 556
Rating: G
Prompt:

inkstains: "love or duty"
Notes: This is another random story about one of the people who will theoretically be a main character in the actual robot rights world story. But then, I've been writing Wasteland stories for more than a year and haven't started the main story there, so this story may never come to development XD

“It’s my job,” said Dylan.

His mother sneered. “It’s not a job. It’s a damn hobby.”( Read more... )

Title: A Trip to Aruba
Word count: 2,243
Rating: G
Prompt:

rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 22, the dogs of war; Heart Gold 28, Love builds bridges where there are none. - R.H. Delaney
Notes: So, this is the same world with the robots, which still doesn't have a name. There's an actual story to it, but this is just from the background of one of the main characters.

Moira came home to the sound of screams.( Read more... )

Title: A Road
Word count: 100
Rating: G
Prompt:

rainbowfic Tyrian Purple 29, don't look back; Heart Gold 18, Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze. - Elynor Glyn
Notes: This is the sequel to The Pathless. This world still has no name, but it will! Suggestions welcome!

Lett left with her.

Camedris didn’t. But Alacenna had expected that. What she hadn’t expected was for anyone at all to come with her.

She knew it would be frightening and strange. She had never been outside of the master’s house before, and Lett had only left to drive the car. The light was so bright it hurt her eyes.

And Lett was so bright he hurt her eyes—but in a good way.

So though there was no path through the forest when they found it, they made their own road. They illuminated it with the light of love.

Title: The Pathless
Word count: 331 (total: 1,017)
Rating: G
Prompt:

pippin's: Roads for the pathless.
Notes: I believe it was one of

ysabetwordsmith's poems that introduced me to the term "gynoid," which I use once only because "androids and gynoids" is a bit of a mouthful. I think this story might be the same world as another story I'm vaguely working on, but far in its past, so it might get its own world-name. Suggestions are appreciated.

This story has sequels: A Road and Built for Love.

“Your place,” he told Alacenna, “is to serve me.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Every soul has its appointed path. We learn, when a child is born, what his or her path is to be.” ( Read more... )

Hi and welcome to my Dreamwidth journal! The main thing I post here is original fiction.

My work is posted with varying degrees of privacy. If nothing is listed after the summary, it is a public piece. If it says "locked," then you must be on my access list to read it (usually this is because I want to keep rights of first publication intact). If it says "sponsor this," then the beginning of the story is public, with the rest of it waiting to be unlocked for a donation!

( The Many Worlds of Clare K. R. Miller )