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catsafarithewriter · 4 years

Note

"I want to say it was worth it. For a while, it was" Haru/Baron please?

A/N: Oooh, I loved using this prompt! This is a fairytale AU based on Rumpelstiltskin with some… unexpected character casting. The writing style is gently fairytale-esque, and I enjoyed this so much I finished this in a day! Enjoy!

Spinning straw into gold was impossible; everyone knew that.

Everyone, it seemed, but her father and the King. But that was enough.

Haru Yoshioka had never been one for tears, but she decided the universe wouldn’t judge her too harshly for shedding a few in the face of her impending death. After all, who was there to see? If a poor peasant woman cried in a locked tower and no one was around to hear her, did her sobs make a sound?

“Fair maiden, fair maiden,” called a voice from the rafters. “Why do you weep so?”

Haru’s tears came to an abrupt halt. The voice was well-spoken, like that of an old-fashioned noble or royalty; definitely not one of the guards. Also, guards didn’t tend to linger in the rafters. Neither did nobility or royalty, but she could only worry about one thing at a time. She gave one last snivel for good measure and glared up at the ceiling. “I’ll have you know that it’s ill-mannered to listen in on a lady’s distress.” She dabbed at the corner of her eyes with her sleeve. “Let a lady die in peace.”

“Die?” A shadow leapt down from above, and Haru was greeted with the form of a small ginger cat. “I have heard of many ways to die, but over-exposure to hay is a new one to me.”

Haru chuckled, and a little of her usual good temper returned. “You have a sense of humour, cat. I would appreciate it if it could keep me company until the sun rises.”

“And after the dawn?”

“After the dawn you will need to find a new friend, for this one shall be gone.”

The cat placed both paws onto her knees, and emerald-green eyes stared into hers. “Oh now, fair maiden, that shall not be.”

“You have little choice.” Haru waved a hand across the crowded room. “I am but a miller’s daughter, but my father laid claim that I could spin straw into gold, and when the King heard he locked me up in here and told me I must turn all this to gold by sunrise or be put to death.”

“Your king would kill you for that?”

“Apparently. So you see, cat, I have not long for this world unless you can spin straw into gold.”

“But of course. Did I not make that clear? I am a magic cat.” He rose onto his back paws and stood in a manner most human. “And, as a magic cat, I cannot leave such a fetching young lady to such a dire fate.”

Haru’s heart leapt. A fae cat! But then she remembered the tales of being indebted to the fair folk, and quickly removed the ring from her hand. “Please, take this as payment for your help.”

“I take no payment.”

“Please. It isn’t much, but it was my mother’s wedding ring. Is it enough for your kindness?”

The cat took the ring, and in return Haru was rewarded with a strange look. “It is enough for my kindness,” he said, and moved to the spinning wheel, whereupon it whirred into life. The straw spun through the wheel, round and round, until the bobbin was full of gold and he had to replace with another, and another, and on it went till morning and all the straw was gone. And all the while, he kept her company.

When all was done, the cat bowed and vanished.

With the rising sun, the King arrived, and he was both delighted and amazed by the room of gold he now possessed.

His advisors were… less so. Haru saw the stilted looks they exchanged with one another, all too aware – even if their monarch was not – that such feats were beyond the scope of mortal folk.

Still, the King wanted more, and so the following night he locked the miller’s daughter in a second room filled with straw, larger than the first, and uttered the same ultimatum.

This time she didn’t weep, but called out for her previous companion.

“Fair maiden, fair maiden,” the cat greeted, bowing. “Why do you call me so?”

“The King has once again demanded that I spin gold for him and has threatened to kill me if I fail,” she said. She loosened the ribbon in her hair, the ribbon she had specifically brought tonight. “All I have is this ribbon. It isn’t much, but it is the last gift my mother gave me before she passed. Is it enough for your kindness?”

Again, that strange look.

“It is enough for my kindness,” he answered, and began to spin.

Again, the straw was gold by dawn, and again Haru swapped companions from cat to King with the rising sun. She didn’t miss the way his eyes lit up at the shimmering room, nor did she miss the whispered rumours from the advisors. Once, the transformation may have been a trick; twice, and it became witchcraft.

“Three times, and you shall prove your worth,” the King told her. “Why, with a wife such as you, our kingdom would be rich.”

“Wife?” echoed Haru.

“Wife?” echoed the advisors.

“Naturally,” the King said, and led her to a yet larger room filled with straw. “If you spin all this gold by the next sunrise, I shall make you my queen. But if you fail, you shall die.”

And thus, when the cat came that evening, he found the miller’s daughter in tears once more.

“Fair maiden, fair maiden,” he said. “Why do you weep so?”

“I weep because the King desires to make me his wife if I succeed tonight.”

“Why so sad? Surely it is the wish of anyone to rise to such rank.”

“Oh, cat, you do not know me at all if you think that,” Haru wept. “If he marries me, he shall expect this every night, and I shall spend the rest of my life under threat of death. He does not love me; he only loves the gold which you spin.”

Her face buried in her hands, she could not see but she was sure she felt gloved fingers gently brush the hair from her face. “Oh, fair maiden,” the cat’s voice murmured, “I know you too well to let you suffer such a fate. Just trust me a moment longer, and all shall be well.”

She raised her head, but the cat was definitely still just a cat. Even so, the phantom touch of tender fingers lingered on her skin. “Cat, you have been such a good friend to me these last two nights; I want to say it was worth it. For a while, it was. But do not spin the straw this final night. In all the chaos, I have forgotten to bring anything to thank you for your kindness.”

“I need not take anything now,” he said. “You may owe me, if it is enough for my kindness.”

Haru faltered. To be indebted to the fae folk… perhaps would be no worse than being married off to a gold-hungry king. Perhaps she could pay him back in precious gems or trinkets from the royal treasury, if he would accept such baubles when he could create gold at a touch.

“It is enough,” she whispered.

“Then the deal is made,” he said, and he set to spinning.

True to his word, the room was filled with gold by daybreak and, true to his word, the King made immediate preparations for the upcoming wedding upon seeing her success.

“Wife,” the King called her.

“Queen,” the peasants said.

“Witch,” the advisors muttered. “Alchemist. Fae.” She heard their murmured accusations, however quietly they said them, and knew the words would spread. A queen who makes deals with the devil, they asked, what kind of queen is that? And she couldn’t help but agree, although she could not have said which was the devil in her dealing.

Still, she found herself suitably adorned and embellished; a bride fit for a king. The gold the cat had spun was woven into her dress, and the ensuing result left her more gold than girl by the time the tailors were finished. The ladies-in-waiting perfected her face with powder and if they had to add a little more than usual to hide the red-rimmed tearful eyes, then no one commented.

Still, everyone could be heard to agree as she stood alongside the King, she was a suitable bride. Everyone agreed.

Almost.

“Fair maiden, fair maiden,” called a familiar voice. “Why do you marry so?”

And where the priest should have been stood the cat. But not the cat Haru recalled. This one was taller, human in height and dressed in a suit, fitted with a top hat and cane. But still. Haru recognised him, however altered he was, as the same cat who had helped her three times prior.

“A demon!” snarled the King, and stepped back.

“Yes,” the cat said, before Haru could correct him, “A demon.” He approached them, and swept his hat off in a low bow. “I would love to give my congratulations to the happy couple, but I’m afraid there’s been some confusion. You see, the miller’s daughter still owes me a debt, and I wish to collect.”

“Collect?” Haru echoed. “Collect what?”

The cat rose from his bow, and his smile was wane. “You, Miss Miller-maid. Three nights’ worth of gold is a fine price for a bride, I’d say.”

The King bustled, but did not step between Haru and the cat. “You cannot buy her,” he snapped.

“Why not?” the cat asked. “You did.” He returned his gaze to Haru and held out a hand. “Miss Miller-maid, I’m waiting.”

She felt herself shivering, and belatedly recognised it as rage. “Not like this,” she whispered. “I will not trade one cage for another. Cat, if you ever held any affection for me in your heart, do not do this.”

His eyes sparkled, and Haru had the strangest sensation she had given the correct answer. “Very well; we shall turn this into a game, then. I will give you three days with three guesses each, one for each night’s service rendered, for you to win back your debt. All you have to do is call me by my name.” He smiled. “Do that, and you will be forever free of me.”

The first day dawned with the release of messengers, sent across the land by the King. Their task was simple, but perhaps impossible: find the name of the cat demon.

Haru, the prize, was left guarded in her new room – “In case that demon comes to collect early,” the King had said, although she doubted a few soldiers would stop a fairy. She would be given the array of hopeful names, and select the three to offer that day.

“Fair maiden, fair maiden, how grand your cage is now. Why, ‘tis fit for a queen.”

Haru didn’t turn to the voice. “I ought to throw you out of this window for that foul trickery you did me, cat.”

“I did nothing you did not agree to.”

“You could have asked for anything,” she retorted. “So why choose that?” She felt her eyes water with angry tears, and she turned and slammed both fists into his chest. “How dare you ask that of me! I thought you were my friend!”

“And I am. I always will be.” He gently pried her hands off him. “Fair maiden, look at me.”

“I’d rather not,” she muttered into his waistcoat.

“As you wish. But whatever form I take, whether talking cat or demonic beast, I am clearly not of this world, and there are certain ways things must be done for my magic to help anyone. It must be balanced. Equal. If I spirit you away from this unwanted marriage, it will only place you further in debt. And you are running out of precious things worth a fairy’s debt.”

“There are jewels in the treasury–”

The cat laughed. “Jewels? Do you think you can pay off a fairy debt with shiny rocks? No. I accepted your offers because they were important to you – your mother’s ring, her final gift to you – not because they carried any monetary value.” He tentatively brushed her hair from her tear-stained eyes. “Eventually, the debt finds its own payment and I fear the price, if left unchecked, will be too rich for you.” His touch was gentle. “It may be the colour of your hair, or the sight from your left eye, all or all your memories from before you turned five.”

“But you think my freedom isn’t too rich?” she muttered.

“Who said anything about freedom?”

“But you said–”

“That I came to collect you, Miss Miller-maid, but the debt cares little for what I do after it is paid. If I decide to buy a caged bird only to set it free, that is none of the concern of the seller.”

“You’re… you’re telling the truth?”

“I cannot lie,” he said, and slipped a familiar ring onto her right hand. “However, if you choose to stay, then you will need this. This ring is now enchanted. Wear it, and you will be able to spin straw into gold as well as I can. Consider it part of the debt I’m collecting.”

Haru’s fingers flew to her mother’s wedding ring. “Why do this? Why help me?”

“That’s simple. It’s because you are my friend, fair maiden.”

“Haru,” she said, and abruptly felt foolish. Giving her name away to a fae? The only thing more foolish would be to put oneself into unspecified debt to a fae… oh, wait.

But the smile he gave was only kind, not conniving. “Then you may call me Baron. It is as much of a name as any.”

“Is it–”

“No, it is not my true name, although I did go by that title once.” He grinned. “Do you think I’d make it that easy?”

“Is your name Pendragon?”

“No.”

“Fujimoto?”

“No.”

“Suliman?”

“No.”

The second day came, and Haru found the cat – Baron – once again at her door.

“Fair maiden, fair maiden, how grand your cage is now. Why, ‘tis fit for a queen.”

She smiled, despite herself. “Then it is too grand for me.”

“We shall have to remedy that then,” he replied, and he swung the door open behind him to reveal an empty corridor.

“Baron, I can’t leave here – everyone will recognise me, and I can’t just run–”

“We’re not running. We’re going for a walk,” he said, and drew close. His gloved hands worked through her hair and tied a familiar-looking ribbon into her locks. “This ribbon is now enchanted. Wear it, and no one but you do not want to will recognise you. Consider it part of the debt I’m collecting.”

She tenderly touched the favoured ribbon. “What do you mean they won’t recognise me? Do I look different? Is it a disguise?”

“It’s only a disguise as far as their minds go,” he answered. “People will see you, but they will not realise they see their future-queen.” He smiled. “If you decide to leave the King, it will enable you to live an unencumbered life, free from the risk of royal recognition.”

She wished to thank him, but knew that thanking for fairy gifts was unwise. At the very least, the gift might lose its power; at worst, it might retaliate back at her. So she could only smile, but she felt Baron see the gratitude. Then she hesitated. “Baron, the… guards. You didn’t–”

“Fear not, there are no unfortunate soldiers masquerading as mice. I simply took good note of their shifts and schedule and planned accordingly. As long as we are out of this door in the next five minutes, no one will be any the wiser.” He winked. “Let’s stretch those wings, fair maiden.”

And so she let him lead her through the maze of palace corridors and stairways, and she found that neither of them warned more than a passing glance. She fiddled with her ribbon, awed by its newfound properties. “Tell me, Baron,” she said as they stepped out into the royal gardens, “so you have a similar spell affecting you? For no one seems to mark you.”

He tapped the polka-dotted tie around his neck. “Indeed. With this, everyone merely thinks how strange it is to see a cat demon, and moves on. It has become a valid tool in many a situation. But now it is my turn to inquire. Before all this started, you were a miller’s daughter. If you do leave, what would you wish to do with your life?”

Haru faltered. No one had ever asked her that before – not in any meaningful way, anyway. “I suppose,” she said, “if I could choose, I would wish to travel. Travel, and then settle down as a seamstress, like my mother.”

“Just that?” Baron asked, although he sounded… pleased, if anything. “No riches or power?”

“I’ve seen how people live with excess riches and power,” she answered. “I only want enough riches that I can eat and live, and enough power than I can be free. I have no need for anything more.” She looked to him. “And what of you?”

“What of me?”

“Did you always wish to be… this?”

He looked at her then, and she wondered if, similarly, no one had ever seen fit to ask him either. “I suppose,” he echoed, “if I could choose, I would wish to run a teashop.”

Haru had to resist a laugh. She did smile. “Just that?”

“Just that. I used to make tea for my sister, Louise, and she loved all the blends I would create.” He smiled at the fond memory. “If I were to run a teashop, it would be a local affair, located in a quiet little village with a quiet little village green and rolling hills over the horizon, and annual fairs. People would come from the neighbouring villages to meet up and talk, and when they wonder where they should sup, they would go, ‘but of course, to Baron’s teashop.’”

Haru leant over to him. “So why don’t you?”

He only smiled. “Such a simple life is unsuited to one of my kind.”

“Is your name Toto?”

“No.”

“Teto?”

“No.”

“Yakul?”

No.”

“Why create the game?” Haru asked on the morn of the final day. “Why ask me to guess your name and drag this three days longer if you could have just spirited me away now?”

“That’s simple,” Baron replied. “You deserved to have the right to choose.”

“It is barely a choice. That would imply that the decision is difficult in the making. Anyway,” she added, a smidgen indignant, “how is it a choice when we both know I don’t have a chance of guessing your name?”

“You have the ring and the ribbon,” he said. “Between them, they give you the ability to either live safely in the palace, weaving away, or escape to a quiet, modest life; neither require me anymore. As for the matter of my name,” he said, and gently placed a handkerchief in her hands, “you already have all you need to know that.”

She glanced to the silken material. “Is this another of those ‘consider this part of the debt I’m collecting’ things?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

“What does it do?”

He chuckled and tucked a stray hair back from her face. “It dries eyes, no more, no less. Consider it my promise to you to never make you cry again.”

Immediately, her eyes began to water. She hid them behind the handkerchief, laughing and crying simultaneously and failing to successfully conceal either.

“Haru, I just said–” Baron started, alarmed.

“No crying, I know,” she laughed. “Relax, these are happy tears. Still…” she said, “Why me? Why go to all this trouble for me?”

Baron softly drew her hands away from her face. “Do you think it was pure coincidence I met you that first night? I heard tales of a miller’s daughter whose father’s outrageous claims had lined her up for death. And so I came to help.” He smiled. “I had planned to move on after I had secured your freedom, but the thought of being without you leaves me quite lonely. It has occurred to me that I may be in want of a companion.” He drew away. “But, it’s your choice. It must always be your choice.”

It was a strange item, really, to receive.

Haru turned the handkerchief over in her hands and pondered. Baron had said it retained no power, no unseen enchantment nor spell, and yet it seemed at odds with the other gifts he had bestowed. It didn’t carry the same emotional weight that her ribbon or ring had borne, and yet he had chosen to bequeath such a thing on the day of her final guesses.

She would have been content to leave it at that, until it caught the light and through the silk she saw the remnants of a faded pattern.

A coat of arms.

And after that, it all slotted into place.

His title of baron narrowed it to the lower rankings of nobility.

The coat of arms to a single family.

The sister Louise to a handful of individuals.

And there was only one name that had vanished under mysterious circumstances.

Haru sat beside the King, the parchment of chosen names spread out before her, but none of the offerings matched the name she knew to be true. She chose one at random.

“Is your name Totoro?”

He smiled, and she wondered if he knew of her newfound knowledge.

“No.”

It was ridiculous. Crazy. Irrational. To trust someone steeped so deep in fairy magic was to be a fool, and a short-lived one at that.

Or so the stories went.

“Is your name Moro?”

“No.”

Ridiculous. Crazy. Irrational.

She tried to remind herself of that.

And yet, he had been her one friend through all this.

“Is your name…”

Humbert von Gikkingen?

She hesitated. She thought of rooms filled with spun gold, and reckless boasts, and greedy kings, and ribbons and rings and handkerchiefs with family coat of arms and it’s because you are my friend–

“Nago?” she finished. “Is your name Nago?”

The smile he gave was not triumphant.

But it was happy.

Baron stepped up to the dais and held out a hand to her. “No, fair maiden. It is not.”

She took it.

There were a great deal of things to learn while travelling with someone like Baron, but she had both time and a good friend on her side. Eventually though, when the steepest of the learning curve had been breached and their current adventure had drawn to a close, she asked the one thing that had stayed with her since that fateful day.

“What would have happened if I had said your name?”

“I imagine you would have found some way to escape to a better life,” he replied. “No matter which way you chose, you would have been happy, Haru. I made sure of that.”

“No, I mean… what would have happened to you?” she asked.

“Oh. I would have returned to my human shape.”

“Returned?”

“Indeed. I was once human, but a bad encounter with a fairy left me in the form you see today. While useful in its capacity for magic and immortal lifespan, it has stolen the human life I had desired from me. The fairy that cursed me stole my name, and said that only when I hear it spoken once more will it be broken.”

Haru considered this. “I know your name,” she said.

“Then the day you tire of travelling and magic, speak it,” he said, “and our human lives will begin.”

Years passed.

Years passed, and the King passed away, and in his stead a sensible young monarch rose up. The fairy gold tarnished and rusted long before its due, all except for a golden-laden wedding dress that had once been fitted for a future queen. It stayed, and the whispered witch tales transformed to fairy as memories faded and people fell in love with the story of a gold-weaving miller’s daughter who bewitched a king and spirited away before they could wed.

And, in a quiet little village, with a quiet little village green and set between rolling hills, a teashop owner and a seamstress lived happily ever after.

#Anon #replies #cat writes #the cat returns #i realise there's quite a bit of stardust references or inspirations here #the 'colour of your hair or all memories before the age of 5' is i suspect a terrible misquote #also several quotes or lines used from the blue fairy book telling of rumpelstiltskin #shelby shelby shelby you'll like this this has fae magic logic #also i realise this is somewhat similar to my mummy 3 au #in that a fae being grows attached to this singular mortal and plays the system to help them #also i'm lowkey really proud of how this turned out #4K of decent words blasted out in a single day #this'll probably get posted to ffnet and ao3 when i have no multichaptered fics being posted #this was really cute to write and i'm hoping it'll also be really cute to read #let's find out!

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delineative · 6 years

Text

writing year in review: 2018

total number of completed stories: 9

total word count:

ao3: 43 879

(+ ~5k on socks)

fandoms written in:

dorohedoro

we both chose each other - noi/shin

houseki no kuni

growing without rest - phos/phos

idol producer / nine percent

counting flower petals all day long - xukun/zhengting

leaving nothing behind - xukun/zhengting

when we see each other again - jun/zhengting, ziyi/zhengting, yanjun/zhangjing/zhengting, xukun/zhengting, justin/chengcheng/zhengting

take one step closer - xukun/yanjun/zhengting

nct

from first principles - 00line

produce 101 china / rocket girls

coincidence makes sense - yamy/meiqi/xuanyi

seventeen

the earth in its turning stopped (last 2 chapters) - seungcheol/jeonghan/joshua

reaching for you from the endless dream - wonwoo/jun

wips:

out of the wips i’m currently working on:

dirtmix assignment (will be revealed very shortly!)

nahyuck pacific rim au

markrenmin enemies to lovers fantasy au

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

around what i expected... i was aiming for 1 fic a month and didn’t quite manage to hit that but i feel like each fic was longer than usual (i’m a terminal shortfic writer so anything over 3k is long for me). like i kept going 1-4k over my projected wordcount which was extremely panic-inducing when i was trying to write to deadlines lmao so overall i’m okay with the quantity of words i produced this year!

what pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

fandom-wise probably the survival show spiral and moving into ncity... if 2017 was the year of yugioh then 2018 was the year of rpf. some of the stuff i posted to socks was very uncharacteristic of my usual m.o but i think everything i put on main was very true to brand i.e ambiguous relationships + vague pining + emo conversations in the dark

did you take any writing risks this year? what did you learn from them?

i signed up for svtbb and had to drop out due to exam pressure, which was sad bc it’s the first exchange/fest i’ve ever defaulted on, but then i went and did lordeventeen and yuletide even though they partly ran through exam seasons too so i guess i learned nothing?!?

actually i think i probably could have afforded to take a few more risks genre-wise, i feel like everything i wrote in 2018 recycled the exact same themes but also at the same time those themes are the only thing i can write. terrible taste i will never change i will never improve that is a promise etc etc

what’s your own favorite story of the year?

reaching for you from the endless dream had me tearing my hair out while i was writing it but ultimately i feel like it paid off! i’ve always wanted to try canon compliant + magic and this ended up with some of the best writing i’ve ever done, plus i’m happy i was finally able to write something for one of my favourite svt ships <3 honourable mention to the concept behind when we see each other again, my post-disbandment allzzt ship manifesto titled after csc_uri_dasi_bol_ttae.mp3

best story of the year?

also reaching for you from the endless dream! i’m really proud of how this one turned out both in terms of technical quality (.... *repeats the same phrase 300 times* Is This Thematic Consistency?) and emotional beats, and it got so many lovely comments. i think this is probably one of my best fics ever, and i’m glad it struck a chord with other people too!

most popular story of the year?

not counting teiits since most of that was posted in 2017, it’s counting flower petals all day long, which really surprised me when i checked my ao3 stats? i must have hit the sweet spot of fandom growth + burgeoning ship popularity bc literally nothing happens in the fic other than one (1) kiss, but thank you for giving it so much love 💖

story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

omg i think everything i wrote this year was WAY over-appreciated but coincidence makes sense, which features a f/f/f rarepair (raretrio?) in a fandom with very little western fan presence, so i’m not surprised by its stats but i’m still pretty fond of this one and consider it one of the better fics i wrote in 2018, and one of the best idolverse fics i’ve ever written

most fun story to write:

from first principles, the debate au fic i’ve wanted to write for like 6 years, my beloved pet project through the month of august, and i think it shows? i tripled my projected word count and in the process of writing fully converted to dreamyism(/renjunism), so a lot of love went into it, even though there are places you can tell i definitely rushed the execution. one day i’ll do justice to a proper nct sports anime fic...

story with the single sexiest moment:

all the rated content i wrote this year was posted to socks other than the brief dance studio 3some scene in take one step closer, but i genuinely have no idea if that was even sxc since i wrote it on my phone in a feverish last-minute sprint on a plane while blasting twice bdz and haven’t reread it at all jhfgdfjdfh

most sweet story:

the general tone of everything i wrote in 2018 was much less depressing than 2017 but i guess the sweetest story was we both chose each other... what’s more romantic than dismembering a bunch of thugs with your beloved partner and then jumping off a cliff together!!

story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:

kind of a weird question to apply to rpf... characterisation perceptions are constantly shifting based on current meta and au role needs, though i feel like i’m always struggling to play catchup and by the time i publish anything the general image has shifted ;__;

most unintentionally telling story:

from first principles draws heavily on my own experiences with high school debating... lots of 3rd speaker related anxieties and hangups projection all over the place in there lmao

hardest story to write:

every time i’m working on something, especially when i’m close to finishing, it is the hardest thing i have ever written... i can’t remember if writing has always been this difficult for me or if it’s an rpf thing. probably i struggled the most with reaching for you from the endless dream bc i’m deeply intimidated by writing jun (light of my life) due to the fear of not doing him justice, and also the deadline pressure nearly killed me. also at one point i called writing from first principles the worst experience of my life but looking back it wasn’t even that bad... mostly it was just that it kept getting longer and longer and eventually i was like Please God Let It End Already

biggest disappointment:

not finishing my svtbb fic... i am literally twitter user juncheolsoo i owe them SOMETHING!! not writing more fic. mediocre execution of decent concepts bc i got too impatient and rushed to finish things before i got bored of them

biggest surprise:

all of my fics about idol boys except one have over 100 kudos, which is just a ridiculous amount?! idol rpf fandoms have been so kind to me... i will work hard to become a better content creator in 2019!!

favourite opening line(s):

from leaving nothing behind:

“Are you looking for Justin?”

Xukun rears back, knuckles still poised to knock on the doorframe. “I—what?”

“Are you looking for Justin?” Zhengting repeats. He’s sprawled across the bottom bunk, leg dangling inelegantly off the edge. The phone in his hand casts an unsteady ellipse of light over his collarbone.

favourite closing line(s):

from growing without rest:

Beyond the arches the world is silent. The gem Phosphophyllite will become returns their gaze steadily, evenly. The shadows lengthen. In the distance behind them, a flicker of white, like light needling off somebody’s back, or the gleam of a pearl eye.

favourite 5 line(s) from anywhere:

from first principles:

“If only Mark-hyung was still here,” Renjun said, only half-jokingly. There was a brief moment of solemn silence as the three of them paused to consider their ex-captain, who had passed on last year to the realm of university debating.

when we see each other again:

So maybe they weren’t friends, but they were something. You couldn’t inhabit the same space for two years and come out the other side as strangers. Sometimes Zhengting thought that might have been easier than whatever this intimacy limbo was supposed to be, knowing somebody in the minutest details, what they looked like at the height of their intensity or the moments before they fell asleep, without really knowing them at all. Looking, and not having the gesture returned, or at least not equally.

coincidence makes sense:

The song ends, starts over. Meiqi doesn’t, though, pivoting to face them, and that’s all the invitation Xuanyi needs to unfold from her position beside Guo Ying and cross the floor. Like two halves of a single movement Meiqi reaches out to Xuanyi and Xuanyi presses their palms together, interlacing their fingers. The tilt of their heads towards each other like it’s something irresistible.

reaching for you from the endless dream:

Junhui was practically raised by the industry. The stage lying close enough to the bone it would be indistinguishable from it. He leaves his intensity on the stage but glimpses of it show through in odd moments, seamlessness without ease. It’s hard for Wonwoo to understand, but most things about Junhui are.

take one step closer:

You want to look into somebody, of course you have to let them look back. This is why he kept away in the first place, the terror of vulnerability when it could be staved off indefinitely instead, though he’d wanted to be seen, hoped for it, even, despite himself, something in the marrow singing out to be known.

It’s like an infection, a second heart in his ribs. A kind of longing that bites right through his hand. Strikes down to the quick. Severs the whole thing clean off. He ran so far from himself he landed in somebody else’s body, and here he is, still trying to escape.

top 5 scenes from anywhere you would choose to have illustrated:

jun lifting zzt up and spinning him around, from when we see each other again (;___; #junting_agenda_seeding)

wonwoo and jun in the kitchen with nectarines spilling out of the open fridge, from reaching for you from the endless dream

cxkzzt conversation in the dark while zzt is wearing a facemask, from leaving nothing behind

00z sports shounen hug, from from first principles

phos getting crushed by their future self’s gold arms, from growing without rest

honourable mention to noishin leaping off a cliff from we both chose each other, which actually did get illustrated in dorohedorozine <3

do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year?

cut down my wip list... please i have 25+ wips on my spreadsheet i just want to FINISH something for once in my life instead of constantly starting new wips and letting them rot in the graveyard of my gdocs

practise writing actual shipfic and not poorly disguised gen. i WILL get better at writing kiss scenes

try to write something over 10k again

relearn what figurative language is and how to use it. rpf boosted my productivity stats but at what cost...

#ash writes #i literally log on once a year to make this post

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suzanneshannon · 4 years

Text

Review of the Surface Book 3 for Developers

I was offered a Surface Book 3 to use as a loaner over the the last 5 weeks. I did a short video teaser on Twitter where I beat on the device with a pretty ridiculous benchmark - running Visual Studio 2019 while running Gears of War and Ubuntu under WSL and Windows Terminal. I have fun. ;)

Hey they loaned me a @surface book 3! So...I threw EVERYTHING at it...Visual Studio, Gears of War, Ubuntu/WSL2/Windows...*all at the same time* because why not? LOL (review very soon) pic.twitter.com/FmgGCBUGuR

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) May 14, 2020

Size and Weight

My daily driver has been a Surface Book 2 since 2017. The new Surface Book 3 is the exact size (23mm thick as a laptop) and weight (3.38 and 4.2 lbs.) as the SB2. I have had to add a small sticker to one otherwise I'd get them confused. The display resolutions are 3000×2000 for the 13.5-inch model and 3240×2160 for the 15-inch one that I have. I prefer a 15" laptop. I don't know how you 13" people do it.

Basically if you are a Surface Book 2 user the size and weight are the same. The Surface Book 3 is considerably more power in the same size machine.

CPU and Memory

They gave me an i7-1065G7 CPU to test. It bursts happily over 3.5 Ghz (see the compiling screenshot below) and in my average usage hangs out in the 2 to 1.8 range with no fan on. I regularly run Visual Studio 2019, VS Code, Teams, Edge (new Edge, the Chromium one), Ubuntu via WSL2, Docker Desktop (the WSL2 one), Gmail and Outlook as PWAs, as well as Adobe Premiere and Audition and other parts of the Creative Suite. Memory usually sits around 14-18 gigs unless I'm rendering something big.

It's a 10th gen Intel chip and as the Surface Book 3 can detach the base from the screen, it's both a laptop and tablet. I gleaned from Anandatech that TDP is between 10 and 25W (usually 15W) depends on what is needed, and it shifts frequencies very fast. This is evident in the great battery life when doing things like writing this blog post or writing in Edge or Word (basically forever) versus playing a AAA game or running a long compile, building containers, or rendering a video in Premiere (several hours).

FLIP THE SCREEN AROUND? You can also when docked even reverse the screen! Whatever do you mean? It's actually awesome if you want an external keyboard.

All this phrased differently? It's fast, quickly, when it needs to be but it's constantly changing the clock to maximize power/thermals/battery.

SSD - Size and Speed

The device I was loaned has a Toshiba KXG60PNV2T04 Hard Drive 2TB NVMe M.2 that's MASSIVE. I'm used to 512G or maaybe a 1TB drive in a Laptop. I'm getting used to never having to worry about space. Definitely 1TB minimum these days if you want to play games AND do development.

I ran a CrystalBenchmark on the SSD and it did 3.2GB/s sequential reads! Sweet. I feel like the disk is not the bottleneck with my development compile tests below. When I consulted with the Surface team last year during the conception of the Surface Book 3 I pushed them for faster SSDs and I feel that they delivered with this 2TB SSD.

GPU - Gaming and Tensorflow

The 13.5-inch model now comes with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 memory in its Core i7 variant, while the 15-inch unit features a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q with 6GB of GDDR6 memory. When running the Gears 5 Benchmark while plugged in (from the Extras menu, Benchmark) is has no issues with the default settings doing 60fps for 90% of the benchmark with a few dips into the 57 range depending what's on screen.

It's not a gaming machine, per se, but it does have a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti so I'm basically able to 1080p 60fps AAA games. I've played Destiny 2, Gears of War 5, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare on default settings at 60 fps without issue. The fan does turn on but it's very manageable. I like that whenever we get back into hotels I'll be able to play some games and develop on the same machine. The 15" also includes an Xbox Wireless Adapter so I just paired my controller with it directly.

I was also able to run Tensorflow with CUDA on the laptop under Windows and it worked great. I ran a model against some video footage from my dashcam and 5.1 gigs of video RAM was used immediately and the CUDA engine on the 1660Ti is visible working in Taskman. The commercial SKU has an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 that is apparently even more tuned for CUDA work.

Developer Performance

When I built my Intel i9 Ultimate Desktop 3.0 machine and others, I like to do compile tests to get a sense of how much you can throw at machine. I like big project compiles because they are a combination of a lot of disk access and a lot of parallel CPU work. However, some projects do have a theoretical maximum compile speed because of the way the dependences flesh out. I like to use Orchard Core for benchmarks.

Orchard Core is a fully-featured CMS with 143 projects loaded into Visual Studio. MSBUILD and .NET Core supports both parallel and incremental builds.

A warm build of Orchard Core on IRONHEART my i9 desktop takes just under 10 seconds.

My 6 year old Surface Pro 3 builds it warm in 62 seconds.

A totally cold build (after a dotnet clean) on IRONHEART takes 33.3 seconds.

My Surface Pro 3 builds it cold in 2.4 minutes.

I'll do the same build on both my Surface Book 2 and this new Surface Book 3 to compare. I've excluded the source folders from Defender as well as msbuild.exe and dotnet.exe. I've also turned off the Indexer.

A cold build (after a dotnet clean) on this Surface Book 3 takes 46 seconds.

A warm build is 16.1 seconds

A cold build (after a dotnet clean) on my Surface Book 2 takes 115 seconds.

It's WAY faster than my Surface Book 2 which has been my daily driver when mobile for nearly 3 years!

Benchmarks are all relative and there's raw throughput, there's combination benchmarks, and all kinds of things that can "make a chart." I just do benchmarks that show if I can do a thing I did before, faster.

You can also test various guesses if you have them by adding parameters to dotnet.exe. For example, perhaps you're thinking that 143 projects is thrashing to disk so you want to control how many CPUs are used. This has 4 physical cores and 8 logical, so we could try pulling back a little

dotnet build /maxcpucount:4

The result with Orchard Core is the same, so there is likely a theoretical max as to how fast this can build today. If you really want to go nuts, try

dotnet build -v diag

And dig through ALL the timing info!

Webcam Quality

Might be odd to add this as its own section but we're all using our webcams constantly right now. I was particularly impressed with the front-facing webcam. A lot of webcams are 720p with mediocre white balance. I do a lot of video calls so I notice this stuff. The SB3 has a 1080p front camera for video and decent light pickup. When using the Camera app you can do up to 5MP (2560x1920) which is cool. Here's a pic from today.

Ports and Power and Sound and Wi-Fi

The Surface Book 3 has just one USB-C port on the right side and two USB 3.1 Gen 2s on the left. I'd have liked one additional USB-C so I could project on stage and still have one additional USB-C available...but I don't know what for. I just want one more port. That said, the NEW Surface Dock 2 adds FOUR USB-C ports, so it's not a big deal.

It was theoretically possible to pull more power on the SB2 than its power supply could offer. While I never had an issue with that, I've been told by some Destiny 2 players and serious media renderers that it could happen. With the SB3 they upped the power supply with 65W for the base 13.5-inch version and a full 127W for the 15-inch SKUs so that's not an issue any more.

I have only two Macs for development and I have no Thunderbolt devices or need for an eGPU so I may not be the ideal Thunderbolt consumer. I haven't needed it yet. Some folks have said that it's a bummer the SB3 doesn't have it but it hasn't been an issue or sticking point for any of my devices today. With the new Surface Dock 2 (below) I have a single cable to plug in that gives me two 4k monitors at 60Hz, lots of power, 4 USB-C ports all via the Dock Connector.

I also want to touch on sound. There is a fan inside the device and if it gets hot it will run. If I'm doing 1080p 60fps in Call of Duty WarZone you can likely hear the fan. It comes and goes and while it's audible when the fan is on, when the CPU is not maxed out (during 70% of my work day) the Surface Book 3 is absolutely silent, even when running the monitors. The fan comes on with the CPU is bursting hard over 3Ghz and/or the GPU is on full blast.

One other thing, the Surface Book 3 has Wi-Fi 6 even though I don't! I have a Ubnt network and no Wi-Fi 6 mesh points. I haven't had ANY issues with the Wi-Fi on this device over Ubnt mesh points. When copying a 60 gig video file over Wi-Fi from my Synology NAS I see sustained 280 megabit speeds.

The New Surface Dock - Coming May 26th

I'm also testing a pre-release Surface Dock 2. I suspect they wanted me to test it with the Surface Book 3...BUT! I just plugged in every Surface I have to see what would happen.

My wife has a Surface Laptop 2 she got herself, one son has my 6 year old old Surface Pro 3 while the other has a Surface Go he got with his allowance. (We purchased these over the last few years.) As such we have three existing Surface Docks (original) - One in the kids' study/playroom, one in the Kitchen as a generalized docking station for anyone to drop in to, and one in my office assigned me by work.

We use these individual Surfaces (varying ages, sizes, and powers) along with my work-assigned Surface Book 2 plus this loaner Surface Book 3, so it's kind of a diverse household from a purely Surface perspective. My first thought was - can I use all these devices with the new Dock? Stuff just works with a few caveats for older stuff like my Surface Pro 3.

RANDOM NOTE: What happens when you plug a Surface Pro 3 (released in 2014) into a Surface Dock 2? Nothing, but it does get power. However, the original Surface Dock is great and still runs 4096 x 2160 @30Hz or 2960 x 1440 @60Hz via mini DisplayPort so the Pro 3 is still going strong 6 years out and the kids like it.

So this Surface Dock 2 replaces the original Dock my office. The Surface Dock 2 has

2x front-facing USB-C ports (I use these for two 4k monitors)

2x rear-facing USB-C ports

2x rear-facing USB-A 3.2 (10Gbps) ports

1x Gigabit Ethernet port

1x 3.5mm audio in/out port

Kensington lock slot - I've never used this

First, that's a lot of USB-C. I'm not there yet with the USB-C lifestyle, but I did pick up two USB-C to full-size DisplayPort cables at Amazon and I can happily report that I can run both my 4k monitors at 60hz plus run the main Surface Book 3 panel. The new Dock and its power supply can push 120 watts of power to the Surface with a total of 199 watts everything connected to the dock. I've got a few USB-C memory sticks and one USB-C external hard drive, plus the Logitech Brio is USB 3, so 6 total ports is fine with 4 free after the two monitors. I also Gigabit wired the whole house so I use the Ethernet port quite happily.

Initially I care about one thing - my 4k monitors. Using the USB-C to DisplayPort cables I plugged the dock into two Dell P2715Q 4ks and they work! I preferred using the direct cables rather than any adapters, but I also tested a USB-C to HDMI 2.0 adapter I got in 2018 with some other Dell monitors in the house and that worked with the Surface Book 3 as it had previously with the Book 2.

SURPRISE NOTE: How does the super-thin Surface Pro X do when plugged into a Surface Dock 2? Amazing. It runs two 4k monitors at 60 Hz. I don't know why I was shocked, it's listed on the support page. It's a brand new device, but it's also the size and weight of an iPad so I was surprised. It's a pretty amazing little device - I'll do another post on just the ARM-based Surface Pro X another time.

One final thing about the new Dock. The cable is longer! The first dock had a cable that was about 6" too short and now it's not. It's the little things and in this case, a big thing that makes a Dock that much nicer to use.

Conclusion

All in all, I'm very happy with this Surface Book 3 having been an existing Surface Book 2 user. It's basically 40-50% faster, the video card is surprisingly capable. The SSD is way faster at the top end. It's a clear upgrade over what I had before, and when paired with the Surface Dock 2 and two 4k monitors it's a capable developer box for road warriors or home office warriors like myself.

Sponsor: Have you tried developing in Rider yet? This fast and feature-rich cross-platform IDE improves your code for .NET, ASP.NET, .NET Core, Xamarin, and Unity applications on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Review of the Surface Book 3 for Developers published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

0 notes

suzanneshannon · 4 years

Text

Review of the Surface Book 3 for Developers

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) May 14, 2020

Size and Weight

Basically if you are a Surface Book 2 user the size and weight are the same. The Surface Book 3 is considerably more power in the same size machine.

CPU and Memory

FLIP THE SCREEN AROUND? You can also when docked even reverse the screen! Whatever do you mean? It's actually awesome if you want an external keyboard.

All this phrased differently? It's fast, quickly, when it needs to be but it's constantly changing the clock to maximize power/thermals/battery.

SSD - Size and Speed

GPU - Gaming and Tensorflow

Developer Performance

Orchard Core is a fully-featured CMS with 143 projects loaded into Visual Studio. MSBUILD and .NET Core supports both parallel and incremental builds.

A warm build of Orchard Core on IRONHEART my i9 desktop takes just under 10 seconds.

My 6 year old Surface Pro 3 builds it warm in 62 seconds.

A totally cold build (after a dotnet clean) on IRONHEART takes 33.3 seconds.

My Surface Pro 3 builds it cold in 2.4 minutes.

A cold build (after a dotnet clean) on this Surface Book 3 takes 46 seconds.

A warm build is 16.1 seconds

A cold build (after a dotnet clean) on my Surface Book 2 takes 115 seconds.

It's WAY faster than my Surface Book 2 which has been my daily driver when mobile for nearly 3 years!

dotnet build /maxcpucount:4

The result with Orchard Core is the same, so there is likely a theoretical max as to how fast this can build today. If you really want to go nuts, try

dotnet build -v diag

And dig through ALL the timing info!

Webcam Quality

Ports and Power and Sound and Wi-Fi

I also want to touch on sound. There is a fan inside the device and if it gets hot it will run. If I'm doing 1080p 60fps in Call of Duty WarZone you can likely hear the fan. It comes and goes and while it's audible when it's one, when the CPU is not maxed out (during 70% of my work day) the Surface Book 3 is absolutely silent, even when running the monitors. The fan comes on with the CPU is bursting hard over 3Ghz and/or the GPU is on full blast.

The New Surface Dock - Coming May 26th

I'm also testing a pre-release Surface Dock 2. I suspect they wanted me to test it with the Surface Book 3...BUT! I just plugged in every Surface I have to see what would happen.

So this Surface Dock 2 replaces the original Dock my office. The Surface Dock 2 has

2x front-facing USB-C ports (I use these for two 4k monitors)

2x rear-facing USB-C ports

2x rear-facing USB-A 3.2 (10Gbps) ports

1x Gigabit Ethernet port

1x 3.5mm audio in/out port

Kensington lock slot - I've never used this

Conclusion

Review of the Surface Book 3 for Developers published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

0 notes