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fallenfurther · 4 years ago

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A break in the clouds - Part 6

I should have posted this last week, but completely forgot/got distracted. Here’s a little fluff between Alan and his nephew. Enjoy!

Scott, Virgil, Gordon, Grandma, Jeff

*******

After almost two weeks in space, Alan was glad to be back on Earth. There was something about space food which got boring very quickly. When he’d off-loaded the “space truckers”, as they called themselves, onto Global One, he’d managed to grab a couple of chocolate bars which had tasted like heaven. As usual, he docked up with Thunderbird Five to catch up with John before descending. Alan knew John enjoyed his short visits, and it had become a ritual after long missions.

There had been no one to meet him at the airlock today. Instead, Alan found a tired John floating in the comm sphere, tapping away on a virtual keyboard. Shadows haunted those solemn green eyes, which had frozen Alan to the spot temporarily. Alan felt no shame in wrapping himself around the floating body of his older brother, which flinched before relaxing into the embrace. That’s how Alan knew he’d missed a bad one. John was a bundle of stress beneath him, and Alan only left Five after John had promised to come down before the end of the day. EOS had gladly agreed to help force him down, with Alan threatening to tell Grandma if he broke the promise. John could be the most stubborn of them all.

Popping the top on the cola he had stolen from Gordon’s mini-fridge, Alan slurped his way to the living room. He spluttered at the sight of his father struggling to get off the floor as his nephew pushed a car along the floor behind him. Cola fizzed up into his nostrils and he coughed.

“Alan!”

The little boy ran full pelt into Alan’s legs, giving them an almighty hug before gazing up. Their blue eyes met.

“Play, Alan.”

Alan bent down and wrapped his arms around his nephew properly, lifting the boy up and being careful not to spill the last of his drink.

“Where’s Scott?”

Alan carried the boy over to his father, before letting him go and helping the old man up. His Dad may have recovered from his time in space but that didn’t mean he could keep up with an energetic toddler.

“Still asleep. It was a long one and I thought it best not to disturb him.”

“Alan, play.”

There was a tug on Alan’s hand. Downing the last of the drink, he placed the bottle on his father’s desk before turning to his nephew.

“Want a piggyback ride?”

“Yes!”

His nephew bounced around him, almost whacking his head against Alan’s. Kneeling, small arms wrapped around his neck from behind and Alan caught the boy’s shoes in his elbows. Standing up with a small jolt, to help settle the boy in a comfortable position, he started to stroll around the room in no particular direction. His nephew waved a hand in the air and yelled in Alan’s ear.

“Faster. Faster.”

“How about I take this one down to the beach?”

“Beach.”

“Thank you, Alan.”

Alan headed towards the changing room to grab the beach bag. Scott had learnt to be prepared and always had a bag of clothes, toys and long-lasting snacks ready to grab for beach trips. It took away some of the hassle and meant it was less likely for someone to forget something important. After retrieving the bag, he left through the kitchen, raiding the fridge for some real food of his own. Alan was surprised to find sandwiches, which he slipped onehandedly into a box with some carrot sticks. He had to be a little bit healthy or Grandma would have his hide, and not for the first time. Adding some extra bottles of water, he shuffled his nephew higher and headed away from the villa.

The sea breeze blew at them gently and Alan smiled, enjoying it after the recycled air of Thunderbird Three. His neck was relieved of some pressure as his nephew lent back and waved to the passing birds.

“Faster, Alan.”

Rolling his eyes, Alan upped the pace once they had reached the dirt path. It wasn’t the largest increase in speed, the uneven ground and extra weight forcing him to go carefully, but his nephew was satisfied. Giggles of joy filled the air. Alan slowed as he got to the decline down to the small beach, his lungs complaining from the sudden exercise it hadn’t been prepared for.

“Beach. Beach.”

His nephew was getting harder to carry now as he wriggled in excitement. Alan gave up the fight to keep him on his back and let the child slip to the ground. The moment he was free, he was off. Alan jogged behind him, glad his nephew was still small and easy to keep up with. Thankfully the boy stopped at the flat rock at the edge of the sand.

“Shoes!”

Alan removed the boy’s shoes, socks and trousers, before letting him run on to the sand. He watched as he removed his own shoes and socks, as the child made his way over the volcanic sand. A few strides onto the beach and Alan dumped all the stuff down and chased after his nephew, who was already at the waters edge. His nephew laughed as the waves washed over his feet before running away from the sea as if it was chasing him. He would then head back out to splash in it again. Alan stood beside him, one eye on the sea just in case an extra strong wave came in. He let his nephew go up to his knees, although he never stayed that deep for long. Scott had only ever let the boy swim in the ocean if there was more than two of them about, and only while wearing the right buoyancy aids. They all knew the waters around the beach well, but Scott would not take any chances with his son.

Alan smiled and stepped back as the boy put his hands in the water before throwing them into the air. Spray arched around the boy who filled the air with hearty chuckles. It was a pleasure to see. Before long they had made their way down the beach. His nephew ran over and embraced Alan’s legs before peering up at him. It still threw Alan, from time to time, to see the familiar eyes of his oldest brother looking up at him, rather than down.

“Snack please.”

“Shall we see what your Dad put in the bag?”

The two of them ran across the sand towards their discarded things. His nephew opened the bag and peered inside. An arm went in and pulled out some dried strawberries. Alan sat down and his nephew fell back between his legs. After opening the packet for the boy, he snatched up the sandwiches and gobbled them down, not realising how hungry he had been. Now they had paused, Alan could relax a little and let his focus wander slightly. The sounds of the beach around him were peaceful. The crashing of the waves against the rocks mingled with the wind and birds to make a soothing atmosphere. No wonder Virgil liked to come down here to unwind and sketch. He could almost forget about the world and the weight of responsibility that fell on his shoulders by being part of International Rescue. Only the gentle brushing of an arm against his leg reminded him of his current responsibility. Grabbing the carrot sticks, he offered one to his small companion. It was happily accepted. They crunched away together, before Alan pulled out the bottles of water. Finishing one himself, he made sure his charge drank a good portion of the other, before swapping it for the deflated beach ball. An excited gasp confirmed he’d made the correct call. His nephew poked the ball as Alan inflated it, and the once the tab was secure, Alan held it out. His nephew snatched it and ran away before Alan could even stand up. Laughter came from behind him making him turn around. There was Scott, his shirt slightly ruffled from where he’d slept in it.

“He was running circles around Dad when I got back.”

The deep chuckle from his brother was something Alan had missed over the years. Scott shook his head.

“Thank you, Alan. I didn’t mean to sleep for so long.”

“Dad! Play ball.”

“I think you’re wanted.”

“I believe you are right. Fancy trying to wear him out with me?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? I’m going to sit here and watch you get outrun by a toddler.”

Alan grinned at Scott as the man kicked off his shoes and ran after his son. They both knew he would be joining them in a minute. It wasn’t just the fact that Alan only got to see his nephew briefly that meant he would be getting up to play with them. It was also rare that he got to spend time with Scott like this, away from work and peril. They were all so busy that quality time together was so rare, and if they did get time off, they were often all exhausted. Alan yawned. They might always be exhausted, but at least they could have this time. Standing up, he brushed the worst of the sand off, before he jogged in the direction of the multicoloured beachball that was making its escape towards the sea.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #alan tracy #Scott Tracy #scott's son #baby tracy #jeff tracy #fluff #family fluff

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ncbodyknows · 5 years ago

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starbright ‘20 callback audition

Choi Youngjae TRC callback audition

Performing Bigstar Blue { 01:08 - 1:55 }

Skills shown: singing & dancing

Here he was again. He had been half in doubt of whether anyone would want him again after last time, and as expected he didn’t get a callback from Sphere again -- however, unexpectedly so, from Triple Crown entertainment commonly known as the hardest company to get into. What the fuck did such a place want with him? In his mind they were already telling him that not in a million years would he be good enough to join their ranks, and somehow that thought seemed incredibly realistic and made him second guess even going to try. But if he didn’t at least try, there was no way he would get picked so he supposed there was no other way of doing this.

Thus began Youngjae’s week of training from hell. It was funny how quickly your stamina depleted when you weren’t actively using your body, he thought to himself laying flat on his living room floor with his chest heaving after a round of training, Coco in her basket staring at him. Singing he had at least kept up with, but the less said about his dancing skill the better, and he had to be very cautious with both his song choice and the execution if he wasn’t going to sabotage his own chances.

Come to think of it, maybe he should tell Moonbok he was auditioning. The guy would be an absolute pain in the ass about it, but he at least deserved to know that much considering how their schedules were both going to be busy if he actually got signed and that he wouldn’t be able to buy groceries and other necessities whilst Moonbok was off. Was he being too cocky now to even consider such things? He still had to make it through after all. A sigh left him as he booted up his laptop to at least find a song to sing. From previous experiences Youngjae knew that he couldn’t just do whatever the hell he wanted to here -- this wasn’t about the music he liked, but about appealing to the individual company. TRC was famous for rap though and there was absolutely no way in hell that was going to happen. But even a company like that needed vocalists too he assured himself as he began going through Bigstar’s discography for inspiration.

Covering a group commonly known as one of the biggest if not the biggest influence in kpop was a definite thing to put pressure on anyone, but in the end even a king was a human being just like his retainers. He couldn’t let himself get scared away from something like that. Zapping through dance practices most of them actually seemed manageable to the artist, and hopefully it wasn’t just his own hubris insisting on that. It didn’t take long before he found something he was satisfied with.

Then came the problem of learning the dance. Best course of action would be to ask for help, but as Youngjae didn’t know many dancers after his friend circle had shrunken he didn’t even know where to start with that and thus ended up simply trying to copy off the screen until he felt like he knew the movements. Fortunately it was only the chorus he had to dance to. That was when his perfect plan of finding some random dancer in Hongdae to evaluate him came up.

When the week had passed, Youngjae at least believed he had done everything in his power to prepare. If they still didn’t want him after that, then that sucked for them, not him. Such he tried telling himself whilst approaching and entering the intimidating TRC building for the first time in his life. Had Sphere’s building seemed the same back then? He couldn’t remember any more.

Getting sorted in the entrance, there was nothing left for him to do but wait and it didn’t take long before they were prepared to evaluate him. Called in to a room where he only recognised one man from his time at the MGAs, Youngjae gave a nod in greeting first at Tiger JK and then a general one at the rest of the staff. “Do I stand here?” he asked first to the person directing him around, and found his spot.

“I’m Choi Youngjae,” he introduced himself even though that much was probably already obvious to them. “You told me to prepare my strongest skills, but we all know that you don’t want me to stand here and draw, so you’ll have to make do with what I can offer instead.” Honestly he could have sung whilst speed drawing, but if he was going to do that then he might as well sign up for a talent show instead of an entertainment company. No, they weren’t interested in his prowess as an artist and everyone in the room knew as much. With no further ado, Youngjae put on the instrumental he had procured and let it play at a level at which he himself could still be heard. Ignoring the beats at which the raps should have been performed, he tapped his foot a couple of times to the beat before beginning.

태어나서 널 만나고 죽을 만큼 사랑하고 파랗게 물들어 시린 내 마음 눈을 감아도 널 느낄 수 없잖아

The song itself was rather calming, nostalgic and melancholic and Youngjae couldn’t say that he disliked it. Effortlessly belting out the changing notes of the original lead vocalist he prepared himself both mentally and physically to start dancing, his body moving with the rhythm of the beat, bending over to put more power into the rising note at the end of the part. Then the chorus came.

겨울이 가고 봄이 찾아오죠 우린 시들고 그리움 속에 맘이 멍들었죠

With as much focus as he could possibly muster, Youngjae executed the steps he had practiced whilst singing. Fortunately the chorus wasn’t that vocally challenging so he didn’t have to put too much thought into singing as long as he remembered the lyrics. Perhaps choosing to dance had been a stupid move on his side, but there was no turning back now. Perhaps he would get props for challenging himself. Who knew.

(I’m singing my blues) 파란 눈물에 파란 슬픔에 길들여져 (I’m singing my blues) 뜬구름에 날려보낸 사랑 oh oh

With the last few tunes of the music sample he had brought along looped, Youngjae continued to fill out the remaining seconds he had as he finished off with a last “I’m singing my blues” in a slightly different key this time to mark the ending of his performance. For a moment he stood still, mainly to gather himself, before he placed both hands on his stomach and bowed down politely. “That was it,” he announced, and just hoped that it was more successful an audition than if he had been standing there drawing after all. One minute really wasn’t a long time to show what you could do, huh.

#20starbright2 #ch: solo #rkvok #rkjinwoo #Jinwoo is not mentioned outright but hinted at

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komahinasecretexchange · 6 years ago

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Title: hiraeth

Author: @slickandsolangelic

For: @usernamefieldhere

Rating/Warnings: T (warning for existentialism and disassociation)

Prompt: Hinata dealing with the consequences of having Kamukura as a past self, au or canon

Author’s notes: I hope this is to your liking, and I hope it’s okay that the au I picked is dnd-esque fantasy! I had lots of fun with this, and I can only hope that you do, too ^^

The Isles of Jabberwock are oft a pleasant place to be in, their sand a fine gold that lets itself be swept away by the lapping currents from the crystalline blue ocean that surrounds them. Better yet is the sun there, bearing down on them with its golden rays, easing flowerings into bloom and saplings into growth. Hinata is very, very glad that they managed to rescue it from being leveled down by those ambitious bandits from the east.

An adventuring life was unpredictable at its core, but unusually gratifying after a job well done.

Which is to say, it feels really fucking good to beat up some bad guys and get money for it, but such a thought is embarrassingly self indulgent and thus will remain at the very back of Hinata’s mind, where it belongs.

Nanami looks up from the weapon she’s examining. It’s a medium sized spear with a silver tip. She seems to weigh it in her hands for a bit, before letting out a satisfied hum.

“Komaeda-kun, would this be good to use if you ever wear yourself out using your magic?”

“Oh, Nanami-san, that’s really kind of you to think of me,” Komaeda starts to say, looking up from the item he was examining, a small flute embroidered with bronze trimmings. “But I’ve never really been good with sharp things. And as I’m already worn out, I’m afraid I might just point it the wrong way and, as per chance’s design. Being impaled sounds like it’d be inconvenient for our party!”

“Yeah,” Hinata says solemnly, because he’s traveled with Komaeda long enough to know that this is entirely possible.

“Yeah,” Nanami says, and she puts the spear back.

“I like this,” Hinata says. He raises both his hands to show them them silk pouch nestled in his palms. “It’s magical, so you can put up to three hundred pounds of stuff in there.”

Komaeda is at his side then, gliding past the tables laden with strings and wooden instruments. His arm brushes Hinata’s when he reaches from the small card attached to the golden thread around the pouch’s hem.

“It’s also worth five hundred gold pieces,” Komaeda says.

“Oh,” Hinata says.

“Oh,” Nanami agrees.

“If Hinata-kun really wants it, I can-” but Hinata is already putting it back.

They wind up circling the aisles of items for a few more hours, the other two interjecting with commentary when one makes a suggestion. It’s more comfortable than anything, Hinata muses, surfing through their options with one another together like this. Battles where their competence and trust in one another made the difference between loss and success, between life and death; that’s something that’s undeniably special. Something that matters, in a way, and Hinata knows that, and he is grateful- but he much prefers the quieter moments like these, when all that matters in the moment is their group effort at bargaining with the shopkeepers, the sunset’s rays framing their silhouettes as they journeyed through the winding paths of towns they’d saved or served.

There’s something he’s come to appreciate about their regular time spent together as friends rather than adventuring companions. It’s more bothersome than jarring (in a way that makes Hinata feel equal measures irritated and fond) when Komaeda answers a yes or no question with a tangent which existentially questions the universe and when Nanami turns out to have been asleep with her eyes open for the past hour they were going over plans.

It’s nice, Hinata thinks. It’s just… nice, to have moments of quiet in between. Away from threats to their life during the day, and away from his night terrors when it grows darker.

The Isles don’t really have much to offer aside from scenery and impressive craftsmanship when it comes down to it. They have a good time crossing the bridges that lead up to the separate islands, though (it doesn’t take them that long to haul Komaeda out from the water when he falls off one), and the locals aren’t unpleasant folk to converse with.

The third island has a slightly less relaxing ambiance than the others. Of the six, it’s certainly the loudest and most vibrant of the bunch– Komaeda almost immediately identifies it as the art venue when they pass by a Bard-run tavern by the name of “Titty Typhoon”. It sounds like hell in there, but hell in fifty different types of musical instruments and also wildly out of tune.

“Well,” Komaeda says, looking cheerful. “They’re having fun.” His hands are clasped together, and his eyes are widened in something that’s either wonder or contemplation. Hinata’s learnt to recognize when Komaeda begins to form overly complex thoughts over things that really aren’t that deep, but he chooses not to intervene.

“Very loudly,” Hinata says.

“And out of tune,” Nanami adds, but she’s smiling.

“Everyone’s Bardic inspiration manifests in different forms.”

“Yeah, well, it also helps when it manages to inspire without being a Bardic pain in the ass.”

“Hinata-kun speaks very boldly! Well, I guess I can’t really blame you for not finding that kind of music to your fancy, not when your own bardic prowess is unique in a way that’s unrecognizable to most regular people such as myself.”

“That was months ago, holy shit-”

“The sweet melody still haunts my dreams.”

“You’re horrible.”

“You’re the most inspiring artist a commoner like me has ever had the pleasure of hearing.”

Hinata’s shoving him now, trying to stifle a smile behind the sleeves of his leather armour plating, and failing quite spectacularly.

“Asshole,” Hinata says, but there’s no bite to it. Komaeda gives him a smile that’s a different kind of unsettling, only because it makes his insides turn funny. It’s wide, but soft around the edges, and it makes his eyes crease ever so slightly. Then he looks away, and that’s that.

Hinata hasn’t slept in what feels like three fucking days.

In reality, it’s only been about two and a half- the other half he spent goofing around with Komaeda and Nanami in the Isles of Jabberwock, hooking up their party with new shit for the next challenge.

This is bad. With the map of the nearby continent spread out before him on the scratched and damaged inn table, he should be getting in the mood to mark their next exploit. It’s a pretty good map, even if the dim yellow glow emanating from their lamps doesn’t do its details much justice.The sharp strokes that form the peaks of mountains are unmistakable nearby the expertly woven lines of rivers and streams, cutting through grassy landscapes and flat wastelands. There are circles and lines which mark territories and label them, categorizing them as either off limits or safe to explore.

But with how tired he is, Hinata’s beginning to circle around the same thought over and over. In fact, is that a fucking city, or a firefly? Is that a firefly on his map? Hinata isn’t sure if what’s on his map is a firefly or a city. That circular dot of yellow– is it a firefly, or is it a city?

“You don’t look well,” says a familiar voice. The dot of yellow buzzes and leaps into the air and onto Hinata’s nose. He swings back suddenly in an effort to swat it with both his arms. The momentum drives his chair backwards.

The quiet tavern folk don’t care to stop their chatter when Hinata crashes to the ground with a sound thud, and so the warlock is left to stare at the ceiling with unblinking eyes and his palms cupped around his nose as the minuscule sphere rises and floats away. Nanami’s concerned face hovers above him.

Ah, so it was a firefly.

Their next quest is for a blond wizard hailing from an important family. Hinata thinks he’s kind of an asshole, but Hinata also thinks that five thousand gold is maybe a sufficient price to get a job done for an asshole. He wants them to retrieve this artifact called the “Eye of Fate”, something that apparently reflects a person’s psyche and innermost desires. This is worrisome considering the Asshole Status of the person they’re retrieving it for, but according to the client, the Eye of Fate is trapped within the body of a topaz crystal gollum, a probably slightly more dickish creature to bestow such a relic upon.

Nanami helps pick him up off the ground, but he needs to take a handful of moments to gather his bearings.

“You need to take care of yourself. We won’t be able to get anything done if you neglect your health.”

Hinata thinks this is rich coming from Nanami, who never seems to sleep and yet spends half of the time she’s awake in a state of trance that’s impossible to break her out of. He means to tell her this, but instead the words that come out are “Lord Togami is an asshole.”

“He’s not easy to work with,” Nanami agrees.

“He’s a big fucking asshole.”

“Okay,” Nanami says patiently, sitting him down on the chair.

“I hate rich people who offer lots of money for ridiculous quests.”

“Mhm.”

“Nanami, there was a firefly on my map.”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, there was.”

“It flew.”

“I think fireflies tend to do that.”

Hinata presses his face against the scratchy surface of the map. He traces a finger along the Mountain Range of the Dead, across the Red River, and straight through the continental tunnel into the cavernous entrance of the Cave of Wonders.

“Yeah,” Hinata mutters. “’S cause of their wings.”

“Sure is.” Nanami puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah,”

“Yeah,” she says, and pets his hair gently. “Go to sleep.”

The journey is harsh, but not unbearable.

Through the rocky mountain range they pass, tearing down groups of chimaeras, hopping between camping sights near the valleys. Komaeda picks flowers by one of the crevices, and Hinata feels bad when they wither under his bare hands.

They stop just a clearing away from the bank of Red River for the night. The sun kisses the horizon and turns it a warm shade of purple that lulls Hinata to slumber.

He dreams.

Hinata’s by the Red River.

His pants are rolled up to his knees, and the sky above him is as dark as the waters he’s lowered his feet into.They lap at his skin, icy and unforgiving. He pushes closer to the river side, sinks his legs further in until his calves feel numb.

Below the surface of the water, something is stirring. Moving like a shadow through the already dark film that covers the waters, closer than he wants it to be.

A voice says, “Haven’t they told you that this river is red with the blood of the fallen?”

Hinata doesn’t respond. He watches the figure grow closer and closer, a monster baited to the surface. His legs form ripples in the water when he moves them to and fro. He watches the spray of droplets disrupt the dark surface, and tries to hum away the panic in his chest.

“…You’re not listening anymore.”

The darkness is coming. Hinata is not afraid. He’s not afraid. He’s not.

(He’s terrified. He can’t move anymore, can barely breathe. He is helpless in a way that makes him angry at himself, useless in a way that makes him regret its existence.)

“You’re going to have to. It’s irrational to think you can run away forever.” The voice is calm as it says this.

It is nowhere. It is everywhere. It’s the full moon that lights up the stars above his head, the ripples his legs have stopped making in the river, the all encompassing darkness that wants to eat him whole, devour him until nothing is left of his existence.

Hinata wakes up with a start. His hands aren’t quite steady. That is to say, he’s shaking bad.

Hinata steps outside for a moment. It’s dark out still, so he snaps his fingers and watches a small flame flicker to life in his lantern. Their tent’s still steady against the breezes coming from the north. (Nanami had done a good job hammering it in right, after all. She’s always been good with practical skills like these, even if her proficiency was healing). The leaves sway high above his head on their host of towering trees, though, and the wind’s whistle is unmistakable and sharp, cutting through the night.

Hinata shudders.The bite of the air is akin to the sting of frost at his knees in the dream.

A hand lands on his shoulder, and he nearly jumps a foot into the air.

“Hinata-kun?”

Oh. It’s Komaeda. Hinata tries to be subtle about the breath of relief that leaves him, but he’s sure he failed. Whatever. God, whatever.

Komaeda retracts his hand. “I’m sorry,” he says with the kind of sincerity only he seems to be capable of. “I called for you before, but you seemed preoccupied.”

“…Ah, yeah.” Hinata tries to go for a smile, but it slips off his face at astronomical velocity. He’s exhausted, tired in a way that makes his bones ache and his heart stutter at every step. “It’s just that…” For a few long moments, he contemplates his next words, painfully aware of the tentative silence between them. Komaeda doesn’t break it, and even though Hinata’s looking away, he can feel the weight of Komaeda’s gaze pressing into the back of his head, sharper than the wind that pierces through the thicket of trees surrounding their campgrounds.

Hinata says, “You’re a bard, right?” Of course Komaeda is, that’s out of the question. When Hinata whips around, he sees the look of tempered confusion Komaeda is giving him. His head is tipped sideways, and his gray eyes blink at Hinata questioningly.

“By the standard definition, I am,” Komaeda says. “Perhaps not entirely deserving of the title, but that is the most conventional term to reference what I do.”

“…Right,” Hinata says. He tries to swallow back the lump that forms in his throat, and finds he can’t do it, just as he can’t quite bring himself to dispel the anxiety eating away at the pit of his stomach. “Yeah, I know. You’re a good bard, Komaeda, we’ve had this talk.”

“And you’re changing the subject, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda responds quietly. He’s still looking at him with those intent eyes. Fuck. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Silence. And then a howl from the wind hollow and loud all at the same time.

“Have you heard of the Ender of The World?”

More silence. And then, a laugh.

“Kamukura Izuru… who hasn’t?”

“So he has a name?”

Komaeda sets his own lantern on the ground, then lowers himself and takes a cross-legged position. Hesitant, Hinata follows suit.

“You didn’t know? They named him after the original Wizard, the one whose discoveries helped incorporate the plane of magic with our own.”

“Ah,” Hinata says. His throat is dry. “I, uh, never looked into it too much. I tried to, well- avoid. That sort of stuff.”

“…I see,” Komaeda says, and there’s an obvious question in his tone. To his credit, he doesn’t ask it.

“Well, Kamukura Izuru… Well, to start, he’s beautiful. I saw him, once.”

Hinata’s heart stops. “You did?”

“I did,” Komaeda says, and smiles. There are no creases under his eyes this time, no softness to the edge of his mouth. Only a wide curve that increases Hinata’s unease. Komaeda’s eyes watch the purple flame in his lantern flicker and sway.

“When I was still travelling alone, I took shelter in a sea-side town. I was still young then, maybe in my mid teen years, and so I was still learning how to get around alone, and still learning how to cope with my abilities. Naturally, no one wanted someone whose magical energy was as unstable and harmful as mine.” Komaeda makes animated hand gestures as he speaks, his voice remaining light and unbothered.

“So I tried not to use any, even when it got cold and I needed a fire, even if I had to defend myself. As soon as they realised their flowers wither around me and the grass their cattle eat from is poisoned by my magic, they’d throw me out. I couldn’t afford to let that happen yet, not when I was in such desperate need of a sustainable place to stay.”

“Komaeda…” Hinata starts to say, a crease forming in his brow. But Komaeda just continues.

“This is why I ended up staying by the port, where there was less organic matter for me to visibly hurt. And then he was there, and the stories? They were true,” Komaeda says. “He was- ah, I’m afraid I’m not nearly eloquent enough, but he was something else. He didn’t hurt anyone then, didn’t turn any cities to dust or erase landscapes with the swipe of his hand, but his existence was like…” He holds up a hand over the lantern, and his eyes are wide enough to hold the entire sky within then. Komaeda clenches his fist over the lantern’s glow.

He whispers, “Like fire. It was burning with the demand to be attended to. It was like being charmed, but worse, but better. And where he floated, Hinata-kun? It was over the sea, which had begun to turn inky below him. It was like void. Like nothingness was just overcoming the blue, erasing it.” Komaeda’s still smiling. How is he still smiling?

Hinata tries to regulate his breathing, but he feels sick. His head spins with a thousand visions, of tarlike darkness invading crystal blue, of lonely teenagers by ports, of magical essences strong enough to burn themselves into the hearts of spectators.

Hinata’s voice sounds hoarse to his ears when he speaks. “…And? Was he- was he evil?”

Komaeda laughs again. “Evil… Well, I suppose it depends on the standards of one’s morality. I just think he was hideous.”

“Huh?! Didn’t you just say-”

“I meant what I said.” Komaeda says. “He was the wrongest thing in the world, in that moment. Something that wasn’t destined to be. He was beautiful, too, and it had made me feel something. Now, I can identify that feeling as what it is.”

“And what is it?”

Komaeda turns to look at him then, eyes wide still. He closes them for a moment, but the smile doesn’t fade. Komaeda says, “Disgust,” and Hinata feels like he’s been kicked in the ribs.

“Oh. Um, I suppose that makes se-”

“I think he was just empty. I don’t understand how someone can have such power over destiny and be such a shell.” His smile takes a dip, then twitches back into place. It looks wrong, not that it ever really looked right to begin with. It looks… sour.

“People will call Kamukura Izuru beautiful, or they will call him horrible,” Komaeda says. “I just think that he’s like me.”

“Like you?” Hinata’s heart is pounding.

“I don’t mean to sound egoistical,” Komaeda says quickly, holding his hands up, His smile returns to its default vacancy again, “Of course, I could never hope to be as powerful. But Izuru-san and I have something in common.”

There is quiet now, and even the well timed howling of the wind fails to shake Hinata out of his semi-trance state of contemplation. He recognises that Komaeda’s given him an opening to ask. The tension in his gut notwithstanding, he does.

“What is it, then?”

Komaeda hums. His gloved fingers close around the handle of the lantern and pull it up to his face. Illuminated so closely by the glow, Komaeda looks like a flame himself. It’s a haunting kind of beauty that Hinata can’t fully wrap his head around. (His heart aches). He blows his flame out, and just like that, the world grows dimmer. Komaeda stands up, and Hinata wants to reach out and grab at his sleeve, but he’s too tired, and Komaeda’s too swift, and it’s too cold out here, so cold and dark and god, Hinata’s so tired.

“Well, when I looked in his eyes, I could tell. I could tell that he had nowhere to go either.” Through the mist of darkness, Hinata can’t see his features, he can sense it when Komaeda’s gaze leaves him.

He whispers, “Good night, Hinata-kun.”

Then he returns to their tent, and Hinata’s left alone.

There is a flash of light.

Pillars of light come together to form a gollum, at least 12 feet tall, its arms made of diamond shards which reflect the yellow light pouring out of the empty holes in its head that make its sockets. The gollum is a beautiful, monstrous thing, its voice caught somewhere between roar and song. It’s a compound of light shards taking the form of rocky limbs and sharp shoulders. Like tears, the light that runs down its head burns into the cavern’s ground, acidic.

They get in order. Hinata raises his wand, and Nanami prepares her wooden staff. The amethysts that stick out of the ground by Komaeda’s feet begin to lose their vibrancy as he puts his flute to his lips.

Hinata casts.

Nanami points.

Komaeda plays.

And the gollum unclasps a dark mouth trapped between jaws of silvery-gold crystals, and showers their attacking silhouettes in stunning light.

You are born.

You are a creature! And how alive you are, how real- your hands are small and pale, your hair back length and a light shade of a pretty colour. And you are not clothed, not yet, but you are so alive.

Besides you a person with shaking arms and a trembling form. They say, “O-oh, it worked, it worked,” and they sound like they’re going to cry.

You reach out to them, and you feel concerned.

Disorientation. Fear. Hinata’s head is spinning, and he can’t tell his head from his feet, not anymore. The world is nothing but a dull blur of colour, and all he hears is a the quiet hum of the gollum’s voice, a guttural, chilling sound.

And then the next flash of light comes.

II.

You are alone. Ash falls between the spaces of your fingers, the remnants of the home you once had. The sky cries for you, but you do not cry. You cannot cry anymore, not when you know they were right all along. Right to abandon you, right to throw a creature of destruction and havoc.

You are disgusted with yourself, with the pulse of energy that crackles like lightning beneath your skin.

Your hands dig into the ashes that were once meadows and gardens and homes, homes you grew up in, homes you weren’t hated for existing in.

You let out a scream that tears your throat in two, and you are heartbroken.

He can’t tell if he’s breathing.

He can’t tell if he’s seeing. He can only hear the roar approaching.

But he feels it, too, the third flash of light slamming into him.

III.

Magic is difficult.

Magic is unnatural- it’s strange, because for your family, it seems to come as easy as breathing. Generations of wizards have thrived from their line, after all, each with magical energy in the very air they breathe, clear in the way they carry themselves, evident in the gleam in their eyes.

Except for you, that is. You have grown up looking at your hands and hating them. You have grown up with the words of the divination mistress inscribed in your head from when you were but a youth, her raspy voice calm and factual as she tells your parents, This one’s a branch that’s been severed. He’s dry, he is.

And you are. You attempt to cast spells. Nothing happens. You try your hand at passive magic, tries to see if you can work out divination, or magical forgery, or bardic inspiration.

Nothing happens within. Your hands remain plain, pitiable things, empty of even the telltale scorch marks and scar of a beginner magician. There is disappointment in the looks they give you. There’s judgement. There’s torment in their stares, a searing fire that burns away at you in the expectations you know you’ll never be able to fulfill. A tiresome, constant hum of unease.

So plain.

What a shame, that one- think of the potential!

Maybe he’s just a late bloomer?

But you aren’t.

You press your palms to your face and try to feel for a hum of something more that isn’t there, was never there, will never be there.

Until one day, not many days from now, at the hands of a circle of wizards who promise your family prowess, progress, and most importantly magic- it is.

And you feel… nothing.

You don’t feel at all.

A flash of light.

Your hair is trimmed to your shoulders. You are dressed in a cloak of silver with a green hood, given a staff crafted of rosewood and embroidered with your initials. You are given a name. You are given a purpose.

The person who made you is loving. They are kind. They don’t make you feel like the tool that you are, but you know, and you think it’s okay.

And another.

II.

You learn that the leaves of plants wither first when you play. And then gradually, so do the stems. The petals are last to go, turning a sorry shade of gray that disintegrates to ashen black the more you continue.

You feel sorry.

And yet another.

III.

There is more magic in the air than has even been. More horror in your heart than you ever thought possible. They are chanting incantations, murmuring things in languages you can’t recognise, humming in tones you don’t understand, and you are scared, but your want to stop disappointing overwhelms this fear. Your want to be something that surpasses ordinary, something that beats worthless.

So you stay still.

And you drift, further and further away, into a space where you can’t feel your heart and can’t contain your soul.

And for a while, you don’t return. Not really.

Another.

You learn that you are a cleric. You learn that your name is Nanami Chiaki, and that you can wield light and speak seven languages and be very, very useful.

You find your place among an adventuring party, and you set off to do your job as a cleanser of despair.

When will it stop?

II.

You feel smaller than you should, a quiet mass of stark white hair and shaky hands that suck the life out of every unsuspecting thing. But you learn- you learn to sleep in the hollows of large trees.You learn to survive days without fire and food. You learn what you have to do to live, what you have to do to continue, but often you wonder if there’s a purpose at all.

And then you see Kamukura Izuru turn the ocean’s blue into void, and immediately realise what you have to do.

Hinata hears what sounds like a thump, but maybe it’s just the dull beat of his heart. Does he still have a heart?

III.

It is

Dark.

It is so dark , and so quiet, and you are not there, but you are, but the world isn’t, but you are, but you’re dead, but you’re not, but you’re in pain, but he’s not.

And he’s you.

Or you’re him.

Maybe you’re both and he’s neither. She finds you somewhere between existence and death, surrounded by the skeletal remains of the seven wizards that made you what you are.

She examines the circle of black glass and scorch marks that used to be their mountain, and the grin on her face can cut through the fabric of the universe and weave it into something new. She holds out her hand, and says, “Confused, aren’tcha? I think I have something that’ll work for you.”

And before you know it, the world is ending at your hands.

There is the sound of something falling multiple times all at once.

You love them so much.

You love them so, so much. But you do not, because you weren’t made for this. You don’t know what love is.

Do you?

It’s getting closer.

II.

You are a being of misdeeds, a creature of filth and ugliness.You are a pawn in the hands of luck and a facilitator of fate. And it’s fine.

It’s fine. You don’t deserve to feel this companionship. You don’t deserve the moments when his eyes meet yours and you feel something akin to hope. It’s selfish. It’s foolish.

It’s fine.

(It’s not.)

They are footsteps, Hinata realises distantly at the back of his head, and they fall like hail.

III.

You wake up in another circle of black glass. Your head is full of memories that aren’t your own, your back breaking under the weight of sins you earnt. You hands are pale and unscarred and yours, yours, yours, but you don’t know what’s yours anymore, so you dig them into the hard ground until your nails chip and bleed and you’re screaming because the pain is the only thing that makes you feel real.

You don’t know how long you lay there, but when you come to, you can cast flame, you can create light.

And it takes you so, so long, to pick yourself up, to tear away your memories and the bards’ songs of Him, of You.

You are sick of your own existence, but most of all, you’re not sure when you’ll be him again. You’re not sure how long you have as you.

(You’re not sure when you started to think of this in terms of you and him.)

When you find yourself a party, you worry.

When you sleep at night, you worry.

When your companion’s piercing gray greens look at you and tell you, “Good night, Hinata-kun,” you worry.

What’s a sense of self for someone without one at all?

Crash!

Splinters of diamond scatter across the cave’s floor, yellow and white and shades of off-orange, shattered, sharp and everywhere.

Komaeda is panting by the now screaming, headless gollum, its guttural screeches now reduced to weak yelps that sound more like windchimes. The splinters that caught him in the face send blood streaking down it, and he’s breathing heavy.

In his right hand Komaeda holds Nanami’s abandoned spear of light, semi-tangible and fading in his grasp. Nanami rises to her feet besides Hinata, only a distance away. Cuts and scrapes line her arms and legs where the crystals caught her, but she is healing faster than any of them can process, and she points her staff at the gollum, lips drawn in a thin line.

When Hinata gets into position besides his companions, his heart thrums with something that’s maybe determination, and that’s definitely the desire to beat this fucking thing to the ground.

Their eyes meet. When Hinata catches Komaeda’s, Komaeda gives him a tired, bloodied smile which he tries to return.

They attack.

LEGEND.

There is a legend in the land about a sorcerer. Or at least that’s what they think he is. He’s certainly not human- it’s not clear if he’s much of anything the people of this world can recognize.

He’s like something out of a night terror, spectral and haunting, ethereally beautiful in ways that are hard to encapture. Bards fail to find music befitting of him, and the storytellers, their hands bleed of their efforts to weave tales and tapestries worthy enough. An artist’s maddening, he is, a being of darkness, or maybe light, or maybe divinity.

He razes lands in his wake.

It only takes a flick of his wrist for the grandeur of towering spires, raised peaks and settlements, so many settlements built with caring craftsmanship and loving ambition, to become ash.

There are no scorch marks to tell of despairing fires, no bloodstained marble and cobblestone to tell the tragedy of battles lost. Only the memory of what used to be and the dust that remains of its existence.

Some call him the Destructor. Some call him a God. Most merely call him The Ender of The World.

And he is as beautiful as he is terrifying, the story tellers swear. He doesn’t function on malice, they say. It’s impossible to tell what his motives really are, but he doesn’t thrive off of evil nor off of death. He does not need to thrive, really, not when his very existence is that of raw energy and power, not when he can make himself a living deity on command of his presence.

Others have different stories to tell of him, all with the staples; the beauty, the divinity, the grace. But they speak of different powers- armies of the dead animated for seemingly no reason. Stormy clouds of gray that encircle him, a crown of booming thunder and imminent destruction.

Eyes the colour of rubies, painfully empty despite the ocean’s worth of magical energy they surely have.

The World is ending.

And then it isn’t.

The cities of ash remain as they are, as do the hearts of endless storms continue to beat with the booms of thunder. Every tapestry and abandoned sheet of song remain, but the Ender of the World does not.

At the gollum’s husk, Hinata brings down a spectral axe he summons; once her spear of light is back in her hands, Nanami maneuvers close enough to leave a gaping gash of oozing yellow where its abdomen was; Komaeda’s flute plays notes that manifest into spectral hammers which descend upon it, blown after blow. The amethysts around them are now a darkened gray.

With each hit that lands, crystals shatter across the floor.

Soon, all that remains is a gradient of gold in pieces at their feet.

And their prize reward, the gollum’s heart: an ornate circle of the very same gold, its surface clear and reflective like a mirror. The Eye of Fate.

Komaeda collapses on his knees.

He’s making a noise that sounds like giggling, red faced and dizzy, and then he collapses to the side, spent. Hinata isn’t fast enough to catch him, but he tries anyway. Chest still heaving from the effort of battle, he takes the time to brush away the red that bleeds from the wound on Komaeda’s forehead. The amethysts are more like coal now, a tell-tale sign of the energy he’s expended.

Nanami kneels beside him, and she’s not out of breath at all. But she looks just as tired as he feels. All her wounds have closed up. Hinata almost finds it funny- he always thought the reason her wounds were so quick to heal was because she was an extraordinarily healer. While that was true, he now more or less knows that there’s more to it. And she… they both…

Well, they both know now, don’t they? But the panic hasn’t really settled in just yet.

“I’ll get him,” Nanami says, and she nods towards Komaeda. Already her hand is on his chest. “You have to go retrieve the mirror. Hinata-kun, you know what to do with it.”

Hinata nods. Rises to his feet.

He heads towards the Eye of Fate, back turned to Nanami. It feels smooth and light in his hands. The surface reflects his face, bloodied and plain, and it all feels deceptively simple.

Nanami says, “Hinata-kun? I know you’ll make the right decision. I know you’re a good person, and you can make your own path.”

He feels the smile in her voice as strongly as he feels the sting in his eyes.

“Right,” Hinata says softly, and examines the glassy surface.

He throws it to the ground experimentally. It lands quietly without a sound.

And then he crushes it under his fucking feet. Over and over until it breaks apart for good.

Nanami laughs softly from behind him.

Hinata says, “All right, then. Now that that’s over with, let’s go home.”

Home isn’t anywhere but the three of them.

The journey back isn’t as tiring as Hinata thought it would be, but it’s every bit as emotionally taxing. He wallows in his anxiety on their trip back, just as he wallows in his thoughts.

He and Nanami don’t speak of it.

And he understand that she needs time, and she understands that he needs courage, or perhaps strength of will. But she smiles at him like he means something still, like he’s more than lost identities and failure and magic that isn’t really his, and he’s grateful. He smiles at her too, a bit less patient, a bit more jaded, but he hopes it lets her know that she means something to him like he does to her.

And then there’s Komaeda.

They’re back at their camp grounds when he finally wakes. The sun’s beginning to rise above the horizon, painting its line a faint white and streaking the blank sky with shades of pale blue and orange.

Nanami’s gone to bring them firewood for later on since they’re all too tired for conjuration. Hinata’s fingers clench and unclench into a fist. He counts the fading stars that are eaten by the sunrise, and wonders if he can still see the faint outline of the moon provided he tries hard enough.

Komaeda sits opposite from him. Neither of them says a word.

The silence is quiet and tangible, and when Hinata looks at Komaeda, really looks at him, he pauses. Komaeda’s fully healed and unscarred but for a nick that the gash on his forehead left, and even that is hardly notable. His hair is even messier than usual, dirtied and gray with dust and dirt from their encounter. His pallor is still prominent, but thankfully, it doesn’t look like he’s about to fall seriously ill.

"Hey,” Hinata says.

Komaeda raises his head to look at him. He’s giving him that look again, a look of uncomfortable intensity that Hinata feels in his bones.

Komaeda say, “Hinata-kun,” by way of greeting, and they fall quiet again.

Hinata looks at his thumbs.They’re shredded from the shrapnel of crystal, scarred in little crisscrosses.

He says to Komaeda, “Well. I mean, god. Let’s- let’s cut right to it. Talk to me.”

And so they start to, the rising sun a backdrop to their conversation.

“You know now,” Hinata says.

“I do.”

“You wanted to find me. Or him. Whatever.”

“I do.”

“You still do?”

He tips his head sideways, and light curls frame his curious expression. Very sincerely, he says, “I do.”

Hinata feels a tightness in his chest.

“You’re weird.”

“You’re a god.”

Hinata gives him an annoyed, incredulous look. Now he knows Komaeda’s messing with him.

He says, “You know I’m not,” and can’t help the edge in his voice.

“Of course I do,” Komaeda says, voice hushed in a way Hinata’s never heard it before. “I felt your thoughts, Hinata-kun. We both did.”

He knows this. And it’s frustrating, infuriating even, to have something like that taken away from you and broadcasted so intimately. Looking at the mess he made of his own fingers, Hinata wishes he hit harder, attacked harsher.

And then he looks at Komaeda, and oh. He sees it now, the tightness around his shoulders, the tension in his frame. The sharpness of his present smile, guarded and ingenuine.

He’s hurting, too.

And god, Hinata’s so selfish. This entire time, his own anxieties have been overwhelming him, and he wasn’t able to realise sooner that his companions have their own plates full to the brim.

Of course. Of course he’d hurt. He’s felt it vividly, Komaeda’s loneliness, his pain, just as he had Nanami’s doubt in her existence, just as tangibly as they felt his own aches.

Hinata reaches towards Komaeda, who tenses like he’s about to flinch away, but… doesn’t. He places a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

And Komaeda says, “I was wrong.”

“Wrong?”

His gaze bores into Hinata. “Wrong to call you beautiful and hideous.”

Hinata puts away his hand. He says, “Then what would you call me?” and feels bold for it. The way Komaeda says ‘you’ instead of 'Kamukura Izuru’ or 'The Ender of the World’ or some other superficial title makes him shiver.

“I would call you hopeful,”

“Uh, what?”

Komaeda puts a hand over his heart. And there it is again, that terrifying earnestness in his eyes.

“Hopeful. You’re not like me, Hinata-kun. Despite everything, you’re still here. You’re still doing good after what she made you do.”

What she made you do. The illusion of guilt, the vision of the perfect monster, it’s gone. It’s all gone.

Hinata is shaking just the slightest bit. His hands aren’t as steady as he thought they’d be in his lap. This is hard.

“But– so are you.”

“So am I what, Hinata-kun?”

“You’re here too, aren’t you?”

Komaeda falls silent.

Hinata can’t quite read his expression right, was never quite able to, but the stunned look of bewilderment that twists his features isn’t hard to note.

“But I- that’s not… That isn’t how it works.” Komaeda argues, a confused frown twisting his mouth.

“Isn’t it?” Hinata is smiling, and as he does, he feels the tremors start to calm.

“It isn’t! Hinata-kun, if you’re as good at drawing conclusions as you are at playing instruments-”

“Stop trying to backhand compliment me, I probably can play if I really try.”

“Backhanded compliments? How rash of Hinata-kun to jump to such a conclusion, I was only trying to speak my mind.”

He flicks Komaeda’s forehead. Komaeda doesn’t make a move to flinch this time.

Hinata dares to push back the hair that falls in front of his eyes, heart beat mingling with the songbirds’ melody. He waits for Komaeda to stop him, but he does not. He rubs his thumb over the small scar on his forehead.

“…You were good out there with Nanami’s spear,” Hinata murmurs. “Maybe you should actually consider buying one.”

“Oh,” Komaeda breathes in response.

Sunlight makes him look even prettier.

It’s quiet here in these woods, and it’s not “home” forever. Nothing will be for a while. But the permanence of home and the worries of tomorrow mean nothing when Hinata sees that smile again. A smile soft around the edges that make his eyes crease, a smile that makes Hinata not want to let go.

“Is this okay?” Komaeda says, and his voice is quiet. His eyes begin to flutter. His gloved hands reach tentative towards the back of Hinata’s neck as he moves to lean into Hinata’s touch. Komaeda’s hands are light, their pressure barely there, like he’s afraid to hurt him.

Hinata says, “It’s okay.”

And when he kisses Komaeda, it feels like the relief of something long awaited. It feels like comfort. It feels like something right. Hinata’s hands reach to cup his face, and oh.

He kisses him again, and again, and again, and everytime Hinata pulls away, he sees that smile and just can’t stop.

They’re going to be okay.

#komahina #komahina secret exchange #fanfiction

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strawberryjmilk · 6 years ago

Text

add a bow | lee minhyuk

word count: 1264

Christmas had went by faster than you were expecting. A strange absence circled around you - it was the first Christmas you'd spent away from your boys. They'd also went on a small break, visiting their families and calling you when they could.

That's where your idea came from.

Minhyuk raised an eyebrow as he looked at you. He hummed, "a Christmas party? Y/N, you do realize it's January, right?"

"So?" You argued. The both of you had a stare down, you glaring while simultaneously pouting hoping Minhyuk would give in. The roll of his eyes made you grin - bingo. "Just a small party with the eight of us! I missed them."

"What about me?" Minhyuk whined. You rolled your eyes now - you just had to date the world's most dramatic boy. "You didn't miss me?"

You held no emotion as you spoke, "Minhyuk, we were literally together the whole time."

Before Minhyuk could argue again, you grabbed his hand and headed towards the door. Parties meant decorations, and you needed to make your apartment as pretty as you could. And presents - you needed to get presents for the boys.

Minhyuk held up two pairs of headphones - one in white and one in black. You pursed your lips as you looked at them, nodding before adding them to the cart. Minhyuk tried to put in goofy items - "no, Y/N, Kihyun really needs this oven mitt!" - but, you always ignored him.

Until you finally got to the decorations. The isle was sparse, and most of the items were on sale, but you felt a warmth spread through you. You could finally celebrate with your boys - the holiday season seemed empty and blank because you hadn't been with them.

You gathered ribbons, wrapping paper, and various gift bags into your cart. Minhyuk had found a small Christmas tree, just the perfect size for you to set up in the middle of the living room. Humming, you separated from Minhyuk to venture to a different side of the store. You had an idea for the perfect present for your boyfriend - you beamed at the thought.

Settled onto the floor was you, surrounded by tape and shreds of wrapping paper. You nagged at Minhyuk until he turned on some Christmas music - you didn't get why he argued when he was singing along loudly. Minhyuk grabbed the last batch of presents, sitting in front of you with a huff.

He picked through the bag curiously, "who needs this many bath bombs, Y/N?"

"Hoseok," you spoke. You poked out your tongue, placing the last piece of tape you needed onto the present. With a satisfied smile - this one didn't turn out as crumpled! - you wrote out Hyungwon's name neatly.

"Why did you get Hoseok bath bombs?" Minhyuk muttered. He continued to search through the bag, laying out the face masks, candles, and bubble bath. "Why did you get Hoseok this? Y/N, what goes through your mind?"

You looked Minhyuk in the eye seriously, "it's what he deserves."

A heartbeat of silence drifted through the room. Minhyuk cracked first, giggles escaping his lips as he leaned back into a pile of scraps. You laughed along with him, joy seeping through Minhyuk's smile and into you.

Grabbing the gifts from him, you placed them into a gift bag. You delicately wrapped the candles up, settling them into a glittery box. With a subtle smile, you began to hum along to the music that was playing.

Minhyuk reached over to place a red bow on the top of your head. You huffed, glaring at him with a pout before taking it off. This repeated because Minhyuk insisted on placing the bow on your head - again and again and again.

"Minhyuk," you finally grew annoyed with your boyfriend. You scowled at him, looking up from the gift bag you were making for Jooheon. Minhyuk only beamed at you brightly. "I'm trying to do something, so why do you insist on putting a bow on my head?"

Minhyuk's grin brightened, but his voice was soft when he spoke. "You're my present, Y/N."

You quickly leaned in to kiss him on the lips. Minhyuk hummed happily and you could still feel his smile through the kiss you shared. You pulled away briefly, long enough to feel Minhyuk sigh against your lips before he delved back in.

You pulled away, ignoring Minhyuk's protests. "Presents, Minhyuk. We need to get ready for the party."

Minhyuk only mumbled "stupid party" before complying.

A small group surrounded the tiny tree you'd bought. It barely met your kneecaps, but you'd still hung gold spheres around it and added a tiny star to the top. Laughter rang throughout the room as messy and crumbled presents were given. Shouts of protests when a gag gift was given - though, Changkyun really considered keeping the glittery nail polish he was given.

Hyunwoo thanked you for the cologne and sweaters, muttering about how soft and warm they felt. Kihyun grinned when he received the bag of candies and the gift card to his favorite cafe. The watch he had was dark blue and his eyes sparkled when he unwrapped it.

"Told you he'd like it," you mumbled to Minhyuk as Hoseok opened his presents. The blond was sniffing every candle and bath bomb he could, proudly showing off his gift to everyone that glanced his way.

Minhyuk shifted so you were sat between his legs, back against his chest. You felt him sigh before he kissed your cheek. "Y/N's always right, I guess."

Hyunwon and Changkyun adored the headphones they were gifted, nodding along as they conversed. Changkyun also thanked you for the new glasses and books he'd been given. Hyungwon had the same reaction as Hyunwoo as he looked at his new sweaters - "these are going to be so freaking warm."

Jooheon squealed at the different cat cafe gift cards he had, whispering about his excitement to see all of the different cats. He also enjoyed the cologne and new earrings he unwrapped, holding the jewelry to his ears and humming in satisfaction.

Kihyun peered over at the small tree, making a small noise of confusion. "There's one more present left."

Hyungwon crawled over, picking up the present gently. He looked up to meet your eyes - no, he was looking behind you. "It's for Minhyuk."

"Me?" Minhyuk's voice squeaked in confusion. Hyungwon handed him the present and Minhyuk read over the name-tag before looking down at you. You only smiled as he spoke. "When did you get me something, Y/N?"

He unwrapped it gently, only pouting when a box was shown. As Minhyuk finally unwrapped the present, he realized it was a necklace. A small, round pendant laid against the box it was held in. It was flat and silver - Minhyuk realized it was engraved.

He pulled it out of the box gently, holding it up. It said one word, "sunshine."

You sat up from where you were laying against Minhyuk to face him. His cheeks were a little pink, mouth hanging open as his eyes shifted from the necklace and to you. Slowly, you lifted a chain that was around your neck and pulled out the pendant that was hanging limply.

It, too, said one word, "moonlight."

The silence was broken by Changkyun. "Did you really buy couple necklaces, Y/N? Gross."

Laughter echoed around the small apartment as you helped Minhyuk clip on the necklace. He turned to grin at you, giving you a few pecks in happiness. You sighed in content as you looked around at your - now messy - living room. This is exactly what I was missing.

its a late christmas party, what a dream! you can ignore the chirstmas theme if you want - sometimes w just need a lil gathering w all our closest pals, right? requests are open, but pls know theyre not a priority! thank you for reading, and i hope you enjoyed this, ♡♡

#lee minhyuk imagine #lee minhyuk scenario #lee minhyuk oneshot #lee minhyuk fluff #monsta x scenario #monsta x imagines #monsta x oneshot #monsta x fluff #kpop scenarios #kpop oneshots #kpop imagines #kpop fluff #My Imagines

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spacebrick3 · 7 years ago

Text

The Malformation AU: Part 2

Chapter 1 |

Return for the second part of the Malformation AU with @writerofwriting‘s cool character of the Malformation, where...things are already getting interesting on Mars. Unfortunately, Anechoi’s not in the best position (and she needs to sleep) so this chapter will be turned over to Talya:

Chapter 2 (Talya):

Talya Lewis yawns, stumbling out of bed and slamming a hand down about two feet to the right of her flashing alarm. She proceeds to insult said alarm in various inventive and creative ways until she finally finds the off button, tapping out the code to stop the blaring sound that fills the room. A bleary hand rubs at an eye, brushing long strands of black hair out of the way. Six Cities, why did I set that alarm so fucking EARLY?

It’s a few minutes later, hair pushed back into something approximating where it should go and a little bit more alertness in her green eyes, that she makes it out of her room and into their common living area. The two of them - Talya and Anechoi - share it, a three-room apartment where the central area functions as a combination desk/workspace/living room/kitchen/whatever the hell else they decide to use it for that day. Even on the outskirts of Sapphire, it’s expensive, and it runs that line between ‘large enough to run the Designer black market from’ and ‘small enough that the authorities aren’t gonna wonder how two people with no listed income live there’.

Anechoi is already there, slumped against the edge of one of their couches with her mouth hanging open. She would let her sleep, but she’s still feeling a little bitter about being woken up last night and so she kicks the edge of the couch. “Hey, idiot,” she says, even though of course she can’t hear her. “Get up. It’s morning. Time to do things.”

She jumps, rolling over and falling off the couch in a heap and a shout. Talya snickers, patting her on the back as she gets up - Anechoi seems less happy, glaring at her with eyes that are only half-awake. “Really?” she signs, and even those movements are barely lucid. “Really? You just had to wake me up?”

“It’s morning!” she signs cheerfully, even though she herself is only marginally more awake. It’s the clearheadedness of being the most coherent person in the room, no matter the scale of that ‘most’. “The whole day is ahead of us.”

Anechoi is unconvinced. “Like hell it is.” She pulls away and heads for their tiny kitchen, grabbing the last bottle of some greenish drink from the cabinet. “I’ve got a goddamn awful headache and it’s literally splitting my head open-“ she makes sure to emphasize that point, slashing her hand through the air- “so just leave me alone.”

“Alright, alright,” she signs, trying to discharge the mood. It’s too early in the morning for such hostility. She has a headache, she’s not feeling her best, Talya tells herself. That’s what headaches do. She starts another sign, then flicks it away with a shake of her head. No, no no. Um…

Oh. Right. There is one thing to take care of, some personal business before she can leave Anechoi alone. She waves a hand to get her attention back, earning another glare but brushing it off. “Hey. So, a couple days ago it was your birthday. Winter solstice, right?”

She nods, eyes narrowing. She puts down the bottle of soda - since it’s just the two of them, she hasn’t bothered to get a cup. No matter that Talya likes that drink as well and now she can’t have it since if Anechoi has a headache she certainly doesn’t want to catch whatever it is. “Yeah. What about it?”

“Well, Syrus sent a message. He says you didn’t check in with him.”

“What?” she signs, gestures sharpening in anger.

Talya takes a step backwards, confused. “Syrus sent a message. He says you normally check in with him on your birthday. Every year.”

“No, how do you know that?” she demands.

“You…told me? What the fuck are you so angry about?”

Anechoi starts forwards, then stops, glancing around the room. She shakes her head, pressing a hand to her head and hoping some of the cold from the metal will bleed into it. “I…don’t know. Sorry. I’m just gonna-“ she gestures to the couch- “sit down…”

“You should call him,” she signs, unwilling to drop it quite so easily. See, Anechoi wasn’t always Anechoi. Unlike her, unlike the Talya Lewis with no familial connections to speak of, Anechoi still has a family - she just hates them. The feeling is largely mutual, except for her brother Syrus, the only member of her family who apparently showed any kind of affection for her. So she tries to talk to him at least once a year, just to stop him worrying. They’re a thousand kilometers away from one another, and anything could happen on Sapphire.

Except this year. Anechoi flops down on the couch, settling back into the dark fabric. She rolls her eyes. “I don’t care. You can message him and say I’m fine, because, look-“ she indicates herself- “I’m fine.”

She sighs, walking the few steps over to her desk. If Anechoi doesn’t want to be nice today, that’s fine. Talya has her own business to attend to. Her two displays on one side of the desk click on, already filled with text that should have been dealt with two days ago. Contracts and commissions, mostly, people who want her to create Designer circuits for them. It’s how the market works, but it’s a fucking nuisance for the one running it.

A good 80% of the requests can be dismissed or sent back with a form letter, because they simply don’t match the requirements she needs to create such a Design. Or they’re asking her to make it for free. “Hey, Anechoi,” she signs, spinning around in her chair. Anechoi is not looking in her direction, so she grabs one of the candies from the bowl on her desk and lobs it at her, the small yellow sphere bouncing off her forehead.

She reaches down and plucks the candy from the floor, crunching it pensively between her fingers. “What. Do you want?” she asks, with the implication that it better be fucking good.

“This- this-“ She falters under the steady glare. “This guy says I should make something for him, for free, because I’ll get, and I quote, ‘free exposure for investors’”. She pauses, but Anechoi doesn’t even fucking blink. “It’s a black market. It’s illegal to sell this stuff. I don’t want exposure!”

Somehow it was funnier when she read it. Anechoi regards her with a flat look before turning away again, tapping at something on her personal tablet. Talya can see nothing of it besides the odd glimmer of light, flashing onto her face. Great. Just great. This day is just going fucking fantastic already.

She turns back to her work, examining the diagram of the first legitimate request. It’s a strange design, built with triangles and circles rather than the usual rectangles and for fluid transfer rather than electricity. Oh well. There’s a decent fee for this sort of work, and she’s pleased to see that it’s even through a semi-official channel. It’s a burner email, but the schematics that the design needs to fit with is clearly for Aquamarine. They haven’t even taken the official markings from the diagram.

Satisfied that the buyer will pay, she starts the soldering iron heating and spins to the other side of her desk - the workspace. It’s not a proper workshop, not really, but it’s enough. Designer magic is mostly internal design - the only true physical part is engraving that same Design into a tangible piece of metal, and that’s small-scale.

The best comparison is probably that Designs function a lot like circuits, where the magic acts as electricity that flows through the carved sigil. That’s how the combination of magic and technology - on such a level, not like what IPD was trying to accomplish - works, where the carved sigil actually contains the same wires. Electricity runs through it on the surface, providing basic functions, but below it is the layer of magic.

A pair of lenses slide down over her eyes, darkening the room except for the lines of dazzling blue that suddenly appear in front of her, the paths of magic as she painstakingly engraves the sigil into the metal. She adjusts the focus, grabbing the now-burning iron and pressing it into a piece of copper, tracing the lines experimentally and watching as they fill with molten sapphire.

The soft ping of an alert on her computer distracts her. She moves to dismiss it, except…Lifting the lenses onto her forehead, she peers at the listed address for the incoming transmission. What the hell? What is this? she wonders. Because it’s not an address, not in any meaningful sense. It’s just - a string of numbers, incomprehensible.

Why not, she decides. Her computers are all backed up and virus-protected a thousand times over, and if it’s a threat, well, it’s always better to know that said threat is coming. She grabs her custom, handmade headphones from where they hang over the monitor and put them on.

The voice that speaks is computerized. “Talya! Talya! Are you there? Come on, don’t-“

“VAL?” She recognizes the voice, because she’s the one that programmed it. “What the hell? What are you-“

“Shut up!” A hiss of static accompanies her words. “There’s no time!”

“Time for what?”

Her utterly exasperated sigh is mixed with the crackle of white noise. Talya frowns, because Designer circuits don’t have static. There’s no way for them to degrade, not like ordinary wires, so there’s no way for static to form. “Listen. Listen to me. I don’t think I have a lot of time, because-“ The transmission cuts off, then clicks back on with an awful grating sound.

“VAL, what the hell is going on?” she asks in complete confusion. “And why can’t I - can’t you talk to Anechoi?”

“Because-“ she starts, before the signal goes dead again. Talya is frozen, listening for anything she can pick up. There was an edge of her voice, an edge that she never put in there. The edge of fear. “Something...” Her voice manages to break through once again, but it’s quieter now, and the words fall prey to the crackling static. “Don’t kn…IPD…something broke…magic…no…just look,” she manages to plead.

Then it’s gone. The error message on her screen reports that the signal simply stopped, that whatever it had been receiving was just not there to receive any more. She tries to reconnect, to send her own broadcast, but the address file itself has become corrupted. For a second, she simply stares at the small display, uncomprehending.

She said ‘look’, Talya tells herself, snapping out of the reverie. She said ‘magic’, so…She pulls the lenses back down over her eyes, the molten lines appearing in her vision again. But that is not what she is looking for. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, and it takes a deep breath to strengthen her resolve. But whatever it is, she can’t do anything about it without knowing what it is.

She turns, and it is so much worse than she could have imagined.

The lines are fractured. That’s the first thing she notices. The magic isn’t right, because the lines that make it up are fractured, broken and splintered into hundreds of pieces. Each shard driven like a knife into her skull. They shimmer, but it’s wrong, because the shards are the wrong color, are somehow both every color and no color at once, are just a hole from this universe to the next or the most solid thing in existence. They warp and twist, a strange light flaring even through her lenses.

There is a malevolence behind it, a pattern and shifting in the way the broken and twisted strands move, wrapping and tightening around Anechoi’s head. Somehow, the complex and shifting shards form a brain, the flickering, pulsing chaos at its center in possession of a murderous intelligence. She stares at it and it, impossibly, stares back at her. It has no eyes, nothing to even show which direction it is facing, and yet she knows it is looking at her.

She wants to scream, to grab Anechoi and shake her by the shoulders because that thing is inside her head, is digging in deeper with every passing second. But she can’t. She knows, because scattered around the - around it - are the faintly glowing remains of her own Designs, snapped and tossed aside to go dark. They were the sigils of VALENTINA, the Designs that lifted her from a particularly useful computer into a person, gave her life. Were, until the…creature tore into them, ripping apart the lines with what must have been gleeful savagery, hacking and shredding the intricate patterns.

A flick of a shaking hand lifts the lenses, and there is Anechoi, sitting sedate as ever. No sign of the parasite that even now is cutting and clawing at her head crosses her face, idly swiping through some menu on her tablet. She yawns, such a normal action, so at odds with what Talya knows is happening and yet is powerless to stop.

She can’t stay here. Throwing off the lenses, she stumbles out to the door and out into the air of the city, staring up towards the faded blue of the city. Lights blink and gleam, life continuing as normal as she gaps for air, pressing her palms together to slow her trembling hands. It does no good.

But out here, looking up at the impossibly tall skyscrapers, somehow it seems more manageable. Looking up at the Union building, the pyramid that sloughs off even the skin of the dome to reach for the sky, the tiny shred of magic that’s broken into Anechoi’s brain is microscopic in comparison.

And Talya? She runs the black market for the whole goddamn city. She’s the lifeblood of half the technology that’s currently running around out there.

So what’s a little broken magic to her?

That’s right, tune in next time for more Talya Lewis VS. the Malformation. Excitement! Action! The abomination that is the sentient and chaotic shattered magic running around out there!

Tag list (if you want to be added or removed, just let me know!):

@lady-redshield-writes, @no-url-ideas-tho, @ratracechronicler, @ken-kenwrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @cirianne, @lonelylibrary @maxbeewriting, @endlesshourglass, @thebloodstainedquill, @anip-ocs, @dreamwishing, @incandescent-creativity, @fatal-blow, @danafaithwriting, @wri-tten, @thewitchthetimeladythehuntress

#malformation au #things are…getting worse?#better?#at least there's someone who knows about it now #although...#...#just going to leave that there #anechoic

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oatmealaddiction · 7 years ago

Text

We’re on a Boat

The sun hung low on the horizon, warm and round as a Summerday peach. Watching it balance itself on the tips of the waves calmed Fenris a little. He’d been on edge since he boarded Isabela’s boat, disliking the ways the salt-worn boards creaked under his feet, and the constant rolling sensation in his stomach. From day one it’d been impossible to scrub the salt off his skin, and the boat itself stank of bird shit and brine. The stench alone was enough to make him gag, but he’d made up his mind on the first day not to give Isabela the pleasure of watching him be seasick. She’d never let him live it down if he threw up on her deck. It had been a struggle with some definite close calls.

Evenings like this though, where the waves had calmed and the haze from the sun dulled and a gentle sea breeze cooled the humid hair a little...this was good. Isabela didn’t seem to agree though. She’d been pacing in circles on the deck for almost an hour, talking loudly and more rapidly than she did when she was actually relaxed. “...Get itchy when the winds go still like this, ugh my skin is just crawling.”

“There’s wind,” said Fenris. “Not the hurricane forces usually propelling us around out here, but wind.”

“Not enough to get this ship going anywhere. I can see the sharks circling.” “Stop calling this thing a ship,” said Fenris. “It’s a dinghy with a sail.” “Don’t say that, you’ll hurt her confidence!” Isabela replied, feigning offense. She leaned over and patted the side of the boat. “Shh, don’t listen to him, you’re perfect.”

Given the chaos they’d left Kirkwall in, Isabela never had secured a true boat, but with the old gang scattered to the wind she was no longer content to be landbound. She’d won an old fishing vessel in a rigged hand of Wicked Grace, and Fenris had scared off the losing party. Now they were somewhere on the Waking Sea, skirting the ends of the coastland and headed toward the Amaranthine, looking for slaver ships to commandeer.

The voyage had been infinitely less enjoyable than Isabela had boasted, due in no small part to what had been left behind in Kirkwall. There was so much they wouldn’t say, couldn’t allow themselves to think about; Anders, the Chantry, Hawke. Rather than escaping these troubles, they seemed to instead hover on the top of the water, blinking at them with their reflections. Isabela made her thousandth lap of the deck, before groaning and falling flat on her back, pouting up at the sky. “Blighted fucking winds. Be faster if I just got out and pushed.”

Fenris let out a long belabored sigh as he tore himself away from the beautiful view. “Where are you eager to get to anyway? We stocked up on supplies a day or so ago.” “Fenris, Fenris, Fenris…” Isabela tsked, “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. And this leg of the journey is unbearably dull.”

“Would you prefer it if a sea beast tried to eat us right now?” Fenris asked sarcastically. He knocked his fist against the wooden railing as he did so, just in case he was inviting some sort of weird unnatural calamity. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Something,” Isabela sighed. “I didn’t realize how spoiled for adventure we were with…” she cut herself off, then rolled over onto her belly and grinned up at Fenris. “Let’s do something fun,” she said.

“I’m still nursing rope burns and splinters from the last time we had fun,” Fenris said, his libido stirring in spite of himself. He pushed down the desire to slip out of his trousers and go lie down with Bela on the deck, and instead tried to broach the actual problem they were dealing with. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. “About what?” Isabela said. “Look if you’re that worried about splinters I’ll let you top this time—” “About Kirkwall,” said Fenris. “You miss them too, don’t you?” Isabela went silent, and for a moment the only sound was the dull crashing of the waves. “Ha!” Isabela laughed. “Miss them,” she rolled over again, scoffing despite the fact she couldn’t hold his gaze. “You make friends, you leave friends, you move on. Granted I’ve never had a friendship break up on account of one of them turning into an abomination and blasting a chantry open, but it’s all life…” her voice grew softer, more wistful. “What matters is that you don’t trap yourself in the past, that you keep looking forward. You should know that better than any of us.”

Ouch. Fenris frowned, disliking Isabela’s subtle implication that Kirkwall had any relation at all to his former life in Tevinter.

“Still, nine years,” he said. “That’s a long time though.” “I guess,” said Isabela.

“Longer than I’ve known any of my other friends,” he said. “If I had any before Hawke and Varric, and you.”

Isabela jumped up. “All right, you know what. No, I don’t want to talk about this.”

Fenris shrugged. “Fair enough,” he said.

“Well, good then,” said Isabela. “Good,” he responded.

“Fine!” she snapped, and marched over to the other side of the boat, beginning the work of lighting the few glass lanterns that lit the deck at night.

She was thinking about what had happened now, he knew that at least.

Satisfied he’d pissed off his one and only shipmate, Fenris turned back to the view. The sun had submerged some, now a dome rather than a sphere. The color had paled from a warm orange to a cool pink, shooting streaks across the sky. Fenris wasn’t a novice to the ocean. He’d sailed with Danarius from Minrathous to the Seheron countless times. He spent hours on the docks, listening to Qunari sailors talk different kinds of slipknots and the best price for fish, watching ship after ship dock, each carrying some new sordid soul to Tevinter. He’d always been so focused on those occasions, always so intent to learn something new, desperate for any small escape from the hell that was his life in those days. Now, perhaps for the first time in his life, there was no urgency or desperation. He was free, without even Hawke to guide him. It was terrifying. He wondered what she’d make of this sunset. He could see her clear as day in his head, standing precariously close to the edge of a cliff on the wounded coast, her hair a black flag against the sky, her blue-eyes focused out on the horizon, her lips in that eternal half-smile that wasn’t the least bit happy. She was so soft in the light, so different than usual...

“She’d love this…” he mumbled to himself.

“What’d you say?” Isabela asked, seemingly forgetting she’d been pouting.

“Hawke,” he clarified. “She’d love this view, wouldn’t she?” Isabela didn’t respond, so Fenris kept talking. “Remember how she’d just stop walking sometimes on the coast to take in the view. It wasn’t even good.”

Isabela snorted. “Well she’s Ferelden. You ever been to Lothering? Everything there looks like ass. Anders used to get like that too, all starry-eyed when we’d get close to the ocean.”

“Did he?” Fenris said, his expression souring somewhat. “Oh yeah,” said Isabela. “All that time in the Deep Roads, could you blame him. I mean the ocean trumps anything else you’ll find in Thedas…Both of them would get these big wide-eyed expressions—” she put her hands out, trying to describe it, and the unadulterated love in her eyes broke through, and it wasn’t for the ocean. It was oddly sincere. Isabela sighed, her arms going slack. “Look, of course I miss them Fenris. But I’m no good with nostalgia. It messes with you, you know?”

“No,” said Fenris. “I don’t.” Nostalgia was utterly alien to him. There’d been nothing in his life to feel nostalgic for until now.

“You get caught up in old memories and feelings and it makes everything else around you dull,” Isabela sighs. “Food loses its taste, the sea loses its salt, and you get sick. Not here Fenris, not on my ship.” “Boat.”

“Whatever,” Isabela snapped.

The sun was only a sliver on the horizon now, just a small white line. It bobbed for a moment and then sunk below the waves. Isabela leaned on the railing, her arms crossed. The tips of her fingers just barely brushed against Fenris’s bicep. He scooted over slightly, allowing her to hold on. “I wish…” she sighed. “Me too,” he agreed.

The first signs of stars began to emerge in the sky, barely visible as the sky darkened. Isabela took a breath. “All right, come on.” She smacked him on the ass roughly and pulled him over to the deck’s fish-hatch. “Let’s get dinner cooking. We have fish, fish, and fish, and…I think maybe one crab?” “Fish sounds good.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

She laughed and shoved him, and the two passed the night in good humor, licking the meat off skinny sharp bones, and tracing constellations, Isabela taking pleasure in inventing new dirty ones. The wind picked up, and the nostalgia passed.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age 2 #DA2 #Isabela #Fenris #Fenris x Isabela #Drabble #It's a bit more than 400 words

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shdwgambit · 7 years ago

Text

Core of the Shadow Beast

Arriving at the room that had been allocated to him upon his re-arrival, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. It was a small blessing to have a door this time, though the exchange was for a much smaller room in comparison. It was a fair trade, though he couldn't say he preferred one room over the other. It was convenient that he could secure his room and not worry about the world looking in on him, especially here in this moment. Rook retrieved the faceted crystal from his right pocket and placed on the table. After watching it for a moment as if to make sure it wouldn't get up and cause havoc, he turned his back on it and began digging through his traveler's pack. From somewhere close to the bottom he pulled out a small black leather case shaped like a book with a zipper along the edges. He returned to the room's table and sat with the case to the left of the crystal he was intent on investigating.

The unzipped case opened to a small array of tools and instruments. Files, hammers, picks, and pliers all sized, it looked like, for a race smaller than his own. Rook settled into the seat and plucked a circular glass with a tarnished gold rim from the assortment. His fingers settled on the two smooth areas where the gold was untarnished, the instrument was loved at one point. The metallic edge also noticeably glinted, free from the stain of time. Rook relaxed in the seat and raised the monocular to his right eye where it rested between his cheek and his brow. With no distractions and no pretense to uphold he let his full interest settle over the crystal removed from the once mobile entity. He had yet to run into any of these creatures himself, but then he'd been removed from Argus for some time on his errand for the Aldor. Though he'd witnessed one last night it wasn't in a natural habitat and he hadn't taken a close interest in the creature. He had been more concerned with the group's draenei, their opinions and how they treated such dangerous magic. After all, he did have a duty to observe them and their interactions with the shadows as well as, if necessary, report their actions to the proper individuals. There were standards they held as a society and minds wouldn't be changed overnight about this kind of magic, nor how those that treatied with it would be dealt with, new allies aside. His gaze followed the edge of the crystal structure's facets, it was a point cut, or that's what a jeweler would classify it as. It was difficult to tell whether it was man-made or not, at least with his level of understanding. Rook continued with the physical investigation, noting that though the creature had ‘bled’ mere hours ago--and in the end had sloughed down into a puddle--there were no remnants of the physical essence on the crystalline core. He hadn't been the first to handle it so he was unsure whether it had all fallen away cleanly or if the Exarch had removed any as she touched it. Next, he squeezed the dark crystal along opposing sides only proving what he already thought, it was hard and sturdy along each surface. Rook reached across and pulled from the tool case a pointed utensil with a fat pear-shaped handle. Holding it over the crystal at a shallow angle, he used the thin metal portion to tap against the crystal's side. After a few taps of the metal etching tool, he perked a brow and lifted the crystal to his ear before he struck the gem-like core again while holding it at its two furthest points. With a satisfied hum, he set the tool aside and the magnifying monocle to the side. "Hollow." He said aloud to himself and then began placing the tools back in their proper place. He was meticulous in putting things back as they had been and even returned the case to the bottom of his pack before returning to the table and the Akata'sha crystal. Rook settled into the chair once more and sat resting his arms on the table. His hands were positioned to either side of the crystal as he focused on the magic surrounding the object of his attention. It was no longer radiating shadow magic or void energies like it had been when it was originally retrieved, but he didn't think it was docile. He focused deeper on the area surrounding the crystal, tightening the feelers he cast in an effort to sense the movement of any energies. The first hints of magic came to Rook as though they were barely visible hints in his peripheral vision. It was faint enough that he felt the need to focus, felt that perhaps the first inklings might’ve been delusions. The magic that had been surrounding the crystal when it was first freed from the creature's chest seemed to be condensing itself tightly inside the crystal and siphoning itself away. Into the void? Into the nether? Rook couldn't tell off-hand where it was going, but a faint trail could be followed if he focused, he thought. The magical strands, though thin as spider silk on the wind, were legible when you knew what you were looking for. But, whether it ended nowhere or lead to some ancient void puppet master wasn't for him to discover this evening. He noted this and moved on to his next curiosities. Exarch Orynthia had stated it was safest to work with the creature under the shroud of shadows as the Light seemed to strengthen and excite the creature's ferocity. So why not start there? With one long pleasant exhale through his nose, the shadows settled around him, a comfortable mantle wrapping him in wispy darkness. A steadying sigh escaped him as he rolled his shoulders back and began tracing his left pointer finger in a circle on the table in front of him. After a few moments and several more revolutions of his finger, a small sphere of shadowy energy had formed solid enough to become visible to the eye. It was about the size of a marble and with a flick of his wrist the spinning orb began approaching the flat edge of the crystal only to meet under the priest's observation. To begin with, resistance along the side of the crystal kept the orb at bay but as soon as he began to reach a conclusion regarding what that may have meant, the crystal's resistance gave way and like a mana fiend absorbed the orb of dark magic. Rook focused on the long strands he'd discovered trailing off into the ether on his initial inspection. He wanted to monitor their reaction as well. There was definitely a change in the concentration of these lines as his offering was consumed and dispersed. A duplicate attempt yielded the same results--as expected--though this time there was less of a pause before it absorbed the tight sphere of amassed shadow essence. Rook dropped the facade. Shadows fleed his face, then chest, leaving last his hooves and the tips of his fingers until he was sitting again--just himself--a humble priest of the Light. Rook repeated the experiment again, though this time with a dose of the Light. Rather than serve up the same gentle offering of magic, he thought he'd see how it responded to what would amount to an attack under normal circumstances. A quick left to right movement of his pointer and middle finger sent a slice of holy energy toward the crystal structure. As his magic touches the deep purple edge there was a quick reaction, the holy energy was nullified and absorbed. Though expected to a degree he hadn't expected the reaction to be so quick. Perhaps it was in the nature of the spell he had cast, one that would strike and disperse. He repeated this again, more prepared for what would happen. He scrutinized the way the energy was negated and drawn in. Still, he had thought there would be more resistance as there had been with the first shadow orb. Perhaps if he chose a different spell, he thought. He repeated this process several more times making use of different spells to see if the way they were absorbed differed. He had noticed the line of energy that stemmed outward didn't swell in the same manner to transfer this energy as efficiently, and the essence pooled in the crystal's hollow core. After what he'd decided to be his last test on the crystal, a strike of holy fire, he finally got a reaction. The core shuddered on the table, rattling as the sharp edges chittered back and forth on the smooth stone. A dark opaque mass seeped from the back of the point cut crystal and writhed like a living pool of shadow. It slowly began to grow and took on a putty-like form prompting the priest to stand. In a snap decision he grabbed a navy cloak off the back of the chair and whirling it around covered the crystal. He gritted his teeth, hoping the imbued arcane magic would smother the creature's formation. At least, that's what he assumed was happening, based on what he'd heard from the Exarch. With a growing sneer, he watched the cloak shudder and tremble, only able to guess what it was doing. He watched it contort, both bulging and shrinking over and over again until the cloth of the cloak finally stopped moving entirely. Time seemed to slow around Rook, his attention fixated on the unmoving rumple of cloth now. Rook cloaked himself in shadows again, preparing himself for the unexpected. Taking the edge of the cloak in both hands, and with a mental count of three, he pulled the cloak back expecting to see the small, yet formidable, creature pressed against the table ready to strike. Instead, the crystal laid alone. From inside the hollowed core, it pulsed with the absorbed Light as the magic was 'digested' and siphoned off. He returned the cloak to the back of his chair and released it tentatively while monitoring the crystal and its collection of energy. Rook stood by for an hour as the crystal's magical build up slowly siphoned off into the ether, decreasing the chance that the creature would reemerge. Rook's curiosity as to where the siphon lines lead was ever-growing throughout the wait. He needed to return the crystal to the Order's Exarch along with a brief description of his findings. But first, he needed to find it a container.

#rook #my writing #order of the shanai

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cecilia5191505-blog · 6 years ago

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Week 7: Sketching Drills

In this week’s studio, we did several exercise to help with our drawing techniques. The exercise help us draw straight lines, circles, ellipses, perspectives without the help of any drawing tools.

Straight Lines

Drawing straight lines without the help of any rulers is really hard. Out of the whole A2 page, only several lines that I drew are nearly straight. Since the paper is A2 size, it is extra challenging because we have to draw longer lines whereas if we use smaller sized paper it will be less difficult. I repeated the drawing for four times. The second time drawing it, Will told me to focus on the weight I put on my hand and the way I hold my pencil.

Join the dots

Joining dots to form straight lines is harder than I thought it would be. I remember doing this kind of exercise a lot when I was younger so I thought it wouldn’t be that hard. But, turns out its also a challenging one in a fun way.

Circles and Ellipses

Next, for this one we have to draw circles all over the page. I really struggled trying to draw perfect circles. As I kept drawing more circles, I guess I slowly got better at drawing it and finally got a more round circle and less oval. Then, I started drawing ellipses inside the circles so that it will look like spheres.

Ellipses in perspective

Then, we were told to draw ellipses in perspective. I started by drawing a cube in perspective then draw the ellipse inside the cube. I actually find it quite hard to draw the ellipse since I need to follow the lines within the cube.

After drawing the perspective in the middle of the paper. Will asked me to explore the drawing in several angles either from right side or left side of the paper. I ended up trying to draw from both sides and had difficulties trying to draw them accurately.

Shading & Tone - Flat surfaces

After that, I had to draw a circle, triangle, and square then shade all of them. I had difficulties since I don’t really know a thing about shading. But, Will taught me which directions to start to shade each shapes and it really help me.

Shading & Tone - 3D form

Lastly, we were asked to draw our own water bottle using every technique that we learned in this exercise. My water bottle has a cylinder shape so it is not that difficult for me to draw it. The difficulty that I find is only the shading part since I am not really good at it, but overall I’m pretty satisfied with the result of my drawing

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pookha · 8 years ago

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Cat Fight Club

McGonagall hosts a cat fight club in the Room of Requirement. Inspired by a tumblr post by ababelofprose.

The first day of students returning to Hogwarts had wound down and now the castle seemed to take a breath and gather itself. A torch guttered in the abandoned hallway as a small, female, silver tabby with black spectacle markings walked nonchalantly down it. She walked almost to the end of the hallway, then turned around and walked back. She paused at the far end and looked down the crossing hallway before she walked back across the same bare patch of wall again. As she did, a small cat-flap appeared in the wall and she ducked under it quickly. The other side was a resplendent cat paradise. Soft pillows lined the floor and there were tall, carpeted towers to climb on with legs lined in sisal to scratch on. A pipe came out of the wall and fresh water gurgled out of it into a small pool. Roasted chicken and kibble sat aromatically in small dishes along a far wall. There were dangling strings hanging from the ceiling; buzzing, flying golden spheres; and all manner of cat toys strewn about on the floor. There was even a hamster ball big enough for a large cat to get in and roll around in. The spectacled tabby surveyed the scene with her luminescent green eyes before she walked up to a small patch of grass growing in a large square container. She jumped into the container and rubbed her cheeks on the grass, then rolled around on it. She stopped once when a small sound came from the cat flap, but when nothing else happened, she flipped upright and stalked majestically to the tallest cat tower and climbed it in a series of small leaps. A few minutes later, as she was cleaning a foreleg, a large orange male cat with a flat face came cautiously through the cat flap. He walked the perimeter of the room, sniffing everything and occasionally stopping to mark a place with his cheeks. He sniffed at the grass where the tabby had been rolling around a few minutes before and then lifted his head, opened his mouth slightly, baring fangs and a surprisingly long pink tongue for such a flat-faced cat. He sniffed, turning his head, and his ears swiveled to catch any sounds. “Mew!” the tabby on the tower said. The orange cat finally saw her and made his way up the tower. When he’d reached the platform just under hers, he raised his face and put his nose up near hers. She lowered her face to his they sniffed each other thoroughly, then they marked each other in a friendly manner. She moved over and the big male jumped up next to her and they lay down with backs pressing against each other. One by one, other cats came through the cat flap, did their explorations and then mounted the cat tower to sniff and be sniffed by the big orange tom and the spectacled tabby. Even though she was smaller than all but two of the cats, none of the others challenged her for her spot on the tall tower. The only cat that tried to challenge the orange male was a scrawny, dust-colored cat with yellow lamp-like eyes. When she tried to jump onto the tallest tower with the tabby and the tom, he pushed the dust-colored cat down repressively with a large paw. She arched her back and hissed at him, but he just yawned, showing his fangs and she backed off, down to the next lower platform. Occasionally, she glowered at him and seemed on the verge of trying to move back up, but she never did. A striped Maine Coon, that looked nothing less than a miniature lynx, had jumped into the hamster ball and was rolling around in it, terrorizing the other cats who scrambled hissing out of its way, except for one black cat with white mittens on her paws who moved too slowly and got her tail run over. She leapt to her feet and chased the hamster ball with the Maine Coon in it. He tried to stop, but she added her momentum to his and pushed the ball with him in it into the pool. He flailed, trying to get out of the ball and trying to get out of the water at the same time. The mittened cat sat calmly on the side of the pool, licking her injured tail. When the Maine Coon finally extricated himself from the ball and the pool, she lifted a mittened paw and swatted him delicately on the nose. A chase ensued, but all could tell it was more playful than serious. A moment later, the spectacled tabby atop the tallest tower warbled a long, shrill meow. All the cats stopped what they were doing and looked up at her. She lifted a delicate, striped paw and turned her muzzle to the large orange tom next to her. He stretched and stood up, then made his way down the tower to the center of the room, where he flopped over and started to clean his butthole. The grey, dust-colored cat with the lamp-like eyes seemed to take offense at this and she moved to sit in front of him. He ignored her. She stretched out and started cleaning her butthole, too. He stopped and glared at her. She continued blithely on, until he rose and jumped on her head. There was yowling and howling, and paw strikes so fast from both of them that the onlooking cats could barely track them. They grey cat put her claws out, and the tabby on the tower yowled warningly. The grey cat retracted her claws and went back to swatting without claws. She was clearly getting the worst of it, as the male orange cat had a size advantage and his strikes seemed to be starting to disorient her. He finally landed a strike on her back right leg that sent her sprawling and then jumped on her. He put his mouth over her neck and bit down, but did not break her skin, he merely held on and then raked at her with all four paws, but with his claws in. The tabby on the tower yowled again and the pair broke off. The grey cat stood up, and stalked off to the pool in the corner, looking back resentfully at the orange tom. He sat down, cleaning his fur by licking a paw, then running the paw over himself, starting at his head and then moving down his body. The mittened cat approached him, and he sat up. She twined around him and they circled each other, sniffing at the others rear end. Finally, she stopped and sat down. He sat down directly across from her and they stared each other down. She broke the stare first and looked away. When she did, he cuffed her lightly across the head with a large paw. She lay down and exposed her belly. He knew better than to take that invitation; it was a trap to be mauled in. Instead, he sidled around her quickly and swatted her head: once, twice, thrice, and then she was running to a short tower, where she leapt up, displacing an elegant Persian. He took on a few more challengers, but they all walked away stunned or beaten. He then sat in the middle of the room for a couple of minutes and when no more challengers came, he went to the food bowls, ate some of the chicken, pushed the still-bobbing hamster ball out of the water and had a drink. He then climbed back up to the top platform where he sat next to the spectacled tabby again. After that, there were several good bouts, with the mittened cat taking seeming especially eager to show her worth. She took on three challengers before finally succumbing in a protracted bout against a slightly smaller, but much quicker Himalayan. Several times she thought she’d swatted him a good one, but she’d only hit his fluffy fur. He peppered her sides and face with blows while she spun hissing. She finally lost control and bit him on an ear, drawing blood. The spectacled tabby hissed warningly and leapt from tower directly into the center of the room. As she landed, she transformed into a severe-looking tall woman. She gingerly grabbed the mittened cat and lifted her to her face. “Now, Mittens,” she said in a Scottish accent. “You know that teeth and claws are not permitted.” She sat the cat down and the cat flattened her ears and stalked off with her tail down to sit on the grass. The woman picked up the small Himalayan, pulled her wand from her pocket and touched it to the cat’s ear while saying something. The bites healed over, leaving only a small nick in his ear. When she sat him back down, he marched over proudly to another fluffy brown and white Himalayan and sat down next to him. The other Himalayan cat leaned over and began cleaning the victor’s ears. He sat there with a satisfied expression. “We’ve only got time for one more fight tonight. I’m going to duel Crookshanks and then we’ll be done. We’ll meet again in two weeks time. Smell for the scent markings around the castle, watch the angle of the moon, and you’ll know when.” She transformed back into the spectacled tabby again and the large, flat-face male came off the tower again to the center of the room. As soon as he had reached the middle of the room, she swatted him once, twice, three times on the nose. Her strikes came one after the other and before he had a chance to retaliate, she had already flanked him and swatted the base of his tail. He spun, much more quickly than a cat of his size should have been able to and hooked a paw behind her right front paw. She leapt away backwards, arching her back and hissing. Before she landed, he’d rushed forward and smacked her out of the air. She landed heavily on two paws, but the other two crashed to the ground. He dealt her a crushing blow to the head with a huge paw and then laid his teeth on her neck. She backed away when he released her and she flowed back into her human form, a large welt beginning to form under her eye. She bowed deeply to him. “Well done, Crookshanks. I can’t imagine any who could stand against you here.” The cats filed out of the cat flap in ones and twos. Crookshanks left just before the woman changed back into a cat. She looked around the room fondly and then ambled out, limping slightly. The next day as Harry walked into class, he stopped dead. “Professor McGonagall, are you okay?” he asked, noticing her black eye. “I’m well, Potter, why do you ask?” He pointed to her eye. “I had a spell backfire rather severely,” she said severely, ushering in the other students. “This is why you must practice.”

#Harry Potter #fanfic #HPFT #catfightclub #pookha #dark_pookha #crookshanks #McGonagall #Mrs Norris

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spamzineglasgow · 6 years ago

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Exits in Video Games: Immanence and Transcendence (Calum Rodger)

In this essay, Calum Rodger explores the poetics of exits and transcendence in video games, via the vectored planes of ‘Victorian-thought-experiments-turned-quirky-novella’ Flatland. Read on for reflections on the secret ecstasies and eeriness that accompany discoveries of glitches, nonsensical infrastructures and metatextual moments in the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog, Monkey Island and, of course, the virtual sublime of that San Andrean Heaven.

> Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is the weirdest little book. Published in 1884, written by schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott, and pseudonymously attributed to ‘A Square’, it describes a strange and awful world of only two dimensions. Its inhabitants – lines, triangles, squares and polygons – are organised according to a totalitarian caste system wherein rank corresponds to the number of one’s sides (nobility are hexagons and above; priests, the highest class, are circles; women, the lowest, are lines). Not that these shapes are conventionally perceived as such by Flatland’s residents: with no way of stepping outside their flat plane of existence, their world appears to them as a series of monotone straight lines in various shades of brightness (colour – the ‘chromatic sedition’ - is brutally suppressed, compromising as it does the ‘intellectual Arts’ of Flatland and, with it, the nobles’ hold on power). ‘Irregularities’ of all kinds - ‘an infant whose angle deviates by half a degree from the correct angularity’, say – are summarily destroyed at birth. Not only must Flatland be an awful place to live; it must also be interminably dull.

> The book is remarkable for the head-spinning extent to which it imagines how a world might be liveable in such dimensionally-limited conditions. It is a necessarily dystopian world: how can one conceive of liberty in a world literally without depth? Flatland is totalitarian by its very form, lacking a structure from which liberty might emerge; there is, in other words, no exit. Only after the narrator’s encounter with a ‘Stranger’ - a ‘Sphere’ from ‘Spaceland’ - does real exit become possible, as the visitor enlightens his incredulous host:

What you call Solid things are really superficial; what you call Space is really nothing but a great Plane. I am in Space, and look down upon the insides of the things of which you only see the outsides. You could leave the Plane yourself, if you could but summon up the necessary volition. A slight upward or downward motion would enable you to see all that I can see.

Unlike conventional dystopias, where the potential of exit is immanent to the system itself (in the irrepressible human parts: love, desire, freewill, etc.), exit from Flatland is transcendent in the genuinely metaphysical sense: a ‘climbing over’ (cf. immanent, ‘remaining within’) one’s dimensional limits, a ‘slight upward or downward motion’ beyond not merely the plausible, but the possible.

> There is an obvious religious subtext to Flatland (it’s telling that Abbott was a reverend and a theologian), with an exit into Spaceland and subsequent transcendence into a God-like omnipresence analogous with enlightenment and epiphany. But this is neither the most timely analogy nor, really, the most revealing. Among Victorian-thought-experiments-turned-quirky-novellas Flatland is surely singular, insofar as it could, conceivably, be accurately ‘translated’ into a 1980s-era home computer game (albeit a very difficult and boring one). And what are the ‘Spacelands’ of contemporary games but extensions of the formal principles of Flatland: virtual worlds constructed according to arbitrary limitations, underpinned by mathematical ‘realities’ to which we mere inhabitants are never granted access? The analogy, then, is between the immanent exits of the games themselves – their deaths, save points, level ends, level ups – which only ever lead to more game, and the transcendent exits lurking imperceptibly somewhere between the game and the code, a ‘slight upward or downward motion’ (which is to say a whole world) away from the limits and objectives set in advance by the game’s structure. It’s an idea which has long interested developers and, more recently, players, with whole subcultures dedicated to finding those exits through which one might ‘look down upon the insides of the things’. But what do transcendent exits look like? Are they even possible? And why – since games are not dystopias we are cursed to inhabit but fictional closed systems in which we participate willingly – do gamers ‘summon up the necessary volition’ to seek transcendent exits at all? While the answers to these questions are beyond the scope of this essay, the transcendent quirks of three classic games can, perhaps, point us in the right direction.

> First: the ambiguous ‘GOAL’ of Sonic the Hedgehog (1991). In Sonic –probably the first video game I ever played – there was one thing that always got me. In the vertigo-inducing bonus stage, your goal was to reach the ‘chaos emerald’ at the centre of a maze. But the maze’s numerous exits, which you endeavoured with rising panic to avoid, were all emblazoned with the word ‘GOAL’. Why, my perplexed seven-year-old self asked, did all the exits say ‘GOAL’ even though they were emphatically bad? What was in the least bit ‘GOAL’-like about these terrifying immanences? My childhood geekery led me to the Westernised version of the game’s back story, which revealed that the villain of the piece, Dr. Robotnik, had designed the mazes as traps. These apparently nefarious exits, then, were but sweet blessed releases from these endless, timeless labyrinths. But that explanation didn’t satisfy me. Leaving aside the fact that the game explicitly rewards you with extra lives for staying in the maze as long as possible, what kind of fool would go chasing the ‘GOAL’ exits, ‘scored’ as with an all-too-simple nudge left on the control pad? What kind of absurd universe was this anyway? Curiously, this was the only aspect of the universe that troubled me. Liberating tiny animals from robot shells with a mutant blue hedgehog I accepted as perfectly logical; the ambiguous ‘GOAL’ just didn’t make sense.

> I later learned that the ‘GOAL’ anomaly was probably due to a mistranslation in the Japanese-designed game, which Western distributors tried (with limited success) to accommodate in their back story. Two things to say about this: one) it makes me like it even more; and two) while this doesn’t involve transcendent exits per se, it frames the ‘flatlanding’ limitations of immanent exits. That’s why it didn’t make sense: it rendered both ‘GOAL’ and chaos emerald (failure and success) as ultimately one and the same. This error in translation – this glitch, you might say – is the accidental ‘Sphere’ that demonstrates such is the case. By extension, there is no essential (‘transcendent’) difference between the GAME OVER screen and the end credits the player is treated to once beating the final boss. Both say ‘now play again – or do something else’. But neither, the ambiguous ‘GOAL’ suggests, offers transcendence. As the theologian wants the real beyond the real, so the transcendent player wants the game beyond the game, the virtual beyond the virtual; like the ‘Sphere’, to ‘leave the Plane’.

> Second: the infamous ‘stump joke’ in The Secret of Monkey Island. While the ambiguous ‘GOAL’ of Sonic is a kind of poetic fortuity, the Monkey Island developers – primarily writer Ron Gilbert, a legend in a certain vintage school of game design that prizes narrative and humour over adrenaline and point-scoring – played with and extended the conventions of gaming to an extent that remains visionary today. Monkey Island has many of the generic hallmarks of postmodern fiction and cinema: intensely metatextual and ironically self-aware, its protagonist breaks the fourth wall more often than Mario and Luigi break crudely-pixellated blocks. But it’s the ways in which the game self-reflexively plays with its own medium – significantly, its exits – that are truly innovative. For one thing, you can’t die, subverting what is perhaps the most common gaming trope of all (this is partly a dig at rival developer Sierra, whose adventure games are infamous for the frequency and ease with which players pop their avatarial clogs). But even more amazing is the ‘stump joke’. Like all PC games of the time, Monkey Island was published on a number of floppy disks (in this case, three) which had to be switched around when moving between game areas (that is, at various immanent exits). The stump joke comes early on in the game, when attempting to interact with a nondescript tree stump in a labyrinthine forest. The player is told to ‘Insert disk 22 and press button to continue’, the first of several requests for high-numbered non-existent disks. Eventually the game resumes as the protagonist says, with characteristic understatement, ‘I guess I can’t go down there. I’ll just have to skip that part of the game.’ Joke is: there is no ‘down there’.

> Simple enough, you might think. But while I figured there was something amiss with the ambiguous ‘GOAL’, the stump joke in Monkey Island – which I first played around the same time as Sonic – was a meta conundrum way beyond my understanding. I was desperate for it to mean something: for the ‘down there’ to exist. And I wasn’t alone. The ‘joke’ was too confusing for many players (many of them grown-ups, I should add), and it was removed from later versions of the game. As ‘A Square’ is obliged to return to Flatland and, in an ending Plato could have predicted, is considered a lunatic and is promptly incarcerated for the social good, so the stump joke was just too transcendent for 1990s gamers’ mores. But games – and gamers – have changed a lot since then. The faux-transcendence of the stump joke has given way to a player-driven pursuit of transcendence, that ‘slight upwards or downward motion’ which breaks the game’s syntax, revealing it – even if momentarily – as something other than it claims to be. The increasing complexity of virtual game worlds, and the concomitant impossibility of testing its every ‘slight upward and downward motion’, has inspired gamers to play the game against its grain until it breaks, finding the glitch that reveals ‘that part of the game’ – the world inside the stump – which we were never supposed to see.

> Hence, third: ‘Hidden Interiors World’, or ‘Heaven’, of 2005 title Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It is difficult to describe, to a non-gamer, the sense of awe I have experienced on entering the world of San Andreas: its vastness; its character; its endless complexity; and, above all, its absolute liberty. But this liberty, I am aware even within my awe, is an illusion. All gamers know this (though the moralising press might disagree), but only the transcendent gamer, ‘summon[ing] up the necessary volition’, can see it for themselves. Such a gamer reaches for ‘Heaven’. As one how-to video on YouTube puts it:‘The Universe of Hidden Interiors or Heaven refers to [a] “universe” […] placed high in the sky, far from the fly height limit. Once inside Heaven, the normal world of San Andreas disappears.’

> In crude materialistic (virtualistic?) terms, ‘Heaven’ is where San Andreas keeps its interior areas, probably to limit loading times when passing (immanently) between them and the main external area. But this prosaic explanation is much too ‘superficial’ to do justice to ‘slight […] upward motion’ and the vision it begets! It’s the sudden collapse of space and distance, the eerie silence, the solitude. It’s the fact you’re in on a secret, have seen something few others have seen (seen it from the insideas well as the outside). It’s also the tranquility, a surprisingly affecting counterpoint to a game-world defined by its constant movement, violence, and energy. That said, I have to concede that its revelation, such as it is, bears little comparison to that of ‘A Square’. The excitement of being somewhere phenomenologically elsewhere is tempered – or perhaps it is exaggerated – by the knowledge that this world is merely an accident of design; its transcendence not a ground, but a figure’s remainder. And that too is its pleasure. ‘Heaven’ is a place where nothing ever happens – but we dream about it anyway.

> Poet and critic Ben Lerner has written of his ‘hatred of poetry’; actually, a frustration at poetry’s inevitable imperfections, borne of an idealistic love for it. He recalls, in his childhood, ‘speaking a word whose meaning I didn’t know but about which I had some inkling’, locating in that ‘provisional’ sense the essence of poetry. Once a word was ‘mastered’, it ‘click[s]’, and is no longer poetry. ‘Remember how easily our games could break down or reform or redescribe reality?’ he asks. Games have their poetry: their transcendent exits, metaphoric apertures nestled deep within the metonymic totality of their worlds. For innocence and experience, for order and liberty, for squares and spheres, they are exits worth chasing.

Text: Calum Rodger

Image: Sonic the Hedgehog (SEGA, 1991)

#essay #video games #Calum Rodger #Ben Lerner #Sonic the Hedgehog #SEGA #special stage #poetry #virtual sublime #critical games studies #Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas #Monkey Island #joke #glitch #Edwin Abbott Abbott #Flatland

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atticusblog2016-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Atticusblog

New Post has been published on https://atticusblog.com/3-expert-guides-to-help-you-make-money-as-a-blogger/

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whilst developing content fabric on your net web page, hold articles extraordinarily focused and use long-tail key phrases so you trap an appropriate target market attempting to find that solution in Google. It’s additionally critical to make use of distinct Traffic sources like vacationer running a blog, social media, and infographics for pulling in site visitors from other locations.

How to Make cash blogging: Commands from 23 A fulfillment Bloggers with the aid of Authority Hacker There are many exclusive procedures to make cash with a net Web site or weblog, However understanding your specific goal marketplace and their wishes are important to maximizing your internet Site’s profits. by means of keeping your internet site on-line as the area of interest-targeted as viable, not simplest will your content material provide more cost, However, your Web site’s advertisements will too. The most not unusual and effective tactics to start monetizing a weblog are through Google AdSense, banner advertising, and associate advertising.

As soon as a weblog has enough Website site visitors and authority, it is able to additionally Start promoting its very own CPM-based direct advertising and advertising, services and products at a pinnacle class fee. now not best does this reference manual cowl the entirety stated above, it also goes into the first-class element on how top bloggers are incomes income with their websites through the content material introduction, custom offerings and attempting out one of a kind monetization Strategies.

Guides To Make Money Online

If a person were to ask you what the #1 ‘mystery’ to being profitable Online become, what could you say?

Any guesses?

Maybe you would say it is to discover a ravenous crowd. Or to construct and nurture a listing. Or to get in on the start of a hot new trend.

All of those are precise answers.

And all of these are wrong.

THE huge mystery to earning money On-line is one which crosses all niches, applies to all markets and entrepreneurs, and works pretty much every single time to make Real Money.

It is how six and 7 parent incomes are nearly usually earned.

And it’s also how You could start earning 6 figures inside the next one year.

Now then – before I screen this ‘mystery,’ allow me to warn you that you might have heard it earlier than.

In truth, a few On-line entrepreneurs ought to listen to this a dozen times or more before it virtually begins to sink in.

That’s due to the fact the most effective techniques regularly masquerade as something a chunk uninteresting. Or tedious. Or dull.

In spite of everything, taking a wheelbarrow full of cash to the bank is thrilling.

Earning it’s miles frequently something altogether extraordinary.

Geared up?

Here’s the ‘mystery… ‘

“find a profitable formulation – after which SCALE it up.”

Yup. It really is it. Pretty simple, I know.

Yet ninety-eight% of entrepreneurs will never do it. And ninety-seven% of marketers will stay broke due to it.

Make More money This Yr With Those Pointers

Easy but powerful commercial enterprise techniques to make cash in 2017

The 12 months 2017 is going to be the Yr of opposition. There is competition in every area. The commercial enterprise discipline is not any unique from the rest in any manner. We will percentage a few Guidelines on the way to remain beforehand of the sphere in the rat race in 2017. Last beforehand of your contemporaries can make sure that you will make cash. This is the using pressure at the back of every commercial enterprise marketing campaign. Right here are some Easy Hints on how to make cash in 2017.

Purchaser delight:

This is an age-antique remedy. Clients force your enterprise. There have to be not anything new on this element. However, on this aggressive global, Customer pride has emerged as a very effective tool in the enterprise. in the olden days, there has been a concept recognized in commercial enterprise circles as Client loyalty. These days, That is a diminishing quality. You cannot blame the Client in this score. He or she has an expansion of alternatives. In case you cannot satisfy her or him, your competitor is ready to pounce at the possibility. Of path, the identical logic applies to him or her too.

Consumer retention:

Client pleasure is crucial. Client retention is extra so. in this ‘canine-eat-canine’ world, it does now not take tons time in an effort to lose your Clients. For this reason, you should do the entirety for your ability to lure the present Client and try and retain his or her patronage. Accurate provider constantly subjects. Your Patron will truly not wasteland you for the sake of some bucks while He or she reports True provider from you. Sourcing new Customers is usually brilliant. But, maintaining the present Client is surely greater critical. This is one sure manner on the way to make cash in 2017.

The way to Construct Your Email Listing by using Visitor Blogging

Even as websites need visitors to continue to exist, blog websites do too. Bloggers are constantly seeking new ways to enhance visitors to their websites. Famous strategies include marketing, Search engine optimization, syndicating articles, and filing posts to authoritative sites, which includes eHow.Com and ezine articles

However, all these take time, fee cash, or each.

As an end result, more and more Internet marketers are turning to Visitor Running a blog to pressure traffic to their own web pages. Guest Blogging is when you write a blog post and provide it to any other blogger to put up on their blog. Even as this association doesn’t price both celebrations any money, it may be hugely beneficial to each.

So why would you need to put in writing on somebody else’s blog free of charge? And why could a longtime blogger want to post your blog on their website? The solution to that question is straightforward: visitors.

Build Your Electronic mail Listing through Guest Running a blog

Win/Win for Blogger and Visitor Visitor Running a blog blessings both the weblog’s host and the man or woman writing the Visitor weblog. For the Visitor, posting on an established weblog can result in plenty of hobbies from the host’s readers. If the Visitor weblog offers excessive-cost content, readers may additionally need to click the links to the Guest bloggers internet site, services, and products.

For the host blogger, allowing a Visitor blogger to put up on their weblog lets in them to provide excessive-cost content to their readers without having to do something themselves., They enjoy the identical degree of site visitors without having to analyze and create unique content material.

Creates New Backlinks

Running a blog on a number blog also lets in Visitor bloggers to obtain new Oneway links to their touchdown pages. Readers who find the content material of the Visitor weblog of value can observe the links returned to the Visitor blogger’s touchdown page.

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