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ignisnocturnalia · 4 years

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Hehehe I lied, but it is here now! Had a crisis about being done with my Band director's bull and wanting a grade on something really bad, did the former and decided to simply disintegrate once Friday hit. Drifter HCs will follow this, also may I say Caiatl. That is all.

Nokris x Reader

“You are a child reaching for a flame; the Taken Queen would not have you burnt.”

You were on point during the Strange Terrain strike, but you had never thought you would run into Nokris again. Granted, you realized, his death was on the physical plain while his Throne World still stood. Considering he never directly addressed you, you assumed that he either didn’t remember you or he chose not to, as oddly disappointing as that would be. The timbre of his voice unsettled you, but it was not as wracking as Xol’s; in fact, it was rather pleasing to hear.

The proposition itself was unexpected, and against Eris’s previous warnings you stopped to listen to what the Hive heretic had to say. Trekking quietly along the broken path of the distorted realm, you stopped occasionally to stare at blights littered over walls and floating in the air to see if you could catch a glimpse of the desecrated prince. The telltale sign of Taken emerging from their portals filled the air, and you genuinely prayed that you’re next decision was a wise one.

Your ghost was probably screaming on the inside as you placed your guns to the floor, bringing your hands into the air while staring into the gleaming eye of a Knight. Grabbing your arm roughly, it tugged you through a massive doorway leading to a room that was strikingly similar to the Court of Oryx back at the Dreadnaught. The portal at the center of the room shimmered invitingly as the bony bastard himself came out; even in death, he appeared to be in his prime.

“I see you have heeded my advice; come, hope of the Light, see the Darkness.”

His claws are cold as he grasps at your shoulders despite the solar flame surging over his arms. Feeling bold, you let your own solar light extend past your body, lying comfortably across his neck with a warm glow. As a creature who worships the Darkness facing a servant of the Light, he reasonably withdraws with a hiss at your gesture

You won’t say it out loud because he obviously carries himself with extreme pride, but you can’t help but feel bad for him. How can one person be an exiled son, heretic, servant, and now puppet?

“I won’t serve Savathûn. But I think I wouldn't mind spending time with you.” Before he can question you, you are promptly pulled from the realm by Eris.

Cue Vanguard interrogation once you return to the Tower. The talk is so egregiously long you make a move that would make Cayde damn proud: “GuArDiAn, We’Re NoT yEt FiNiShEd WiTh ThIs DiScUsSiOn!” Hopefully your shining reputation will save you from any dire repercussions...

Tracing your steps back to where you first met, you look around suspiciously following the lack of noise inside the Hive breeding grounds. You had cut your comm ages ago, the constant ping of Commander Zavala’s hailing grating your ears. The ground beneath your feet crunched wetly with every step, and distantly you heard the first Hive screech. Turning in a guess to the source of the sound, you set off in a quick pace, gun in your hand.

Upon entering a new chamber, you froze in surprise as you saw Nokris lifting a Knight by the throat. Taken magic pooled in his palm and raced over the armor of the smaller Hive, the bone turning black and a bright white glow shimmering across its legs. Still gripping the soldier, Nokris slowly angled his head to look down at you.

“Little. Light.” Dropping the Knight with no grace, his imposing form closed in on you with haste. Before you could take a step back, his claws came up to close around your jaw and upper neck. The rough of his talons dug into your armor, and for a moment you worried he would pop off your helmet and let your blood boil throughout your body in the harsh atmosphere. Instead, he pulled you closer to his face and brought up his free hand to grasp your forearm.

Nokris easily dwarfed you; even if you stood on your own shoulders you wouldn’t be taller than him. Passively, your thighs rubbed against each other at the realization. A detail he decided he would catch. Teasing mirth danced in his three eyes, hidden malice swimming just behind small organs. Internally, you were probably going to pop your helmet off yourself if you got kink shamed by a Hive prince of all things.

You squeaked quietly in surprise as he lifted you off the ground, the hand on your lower face readjusting to your hip. His hand, quite literally, engulfed your midsection as he brought you closer to him for inspection. This close, you could see every imperfection on his face. Second hand leaving your arm, you shivered as the prince ran a digit up the side of your leg and continued his way up, stopping thoughtfully at the junction of your jaw.

Staring into the glowing green embers of his eyes, there was no mistaking the murderous glint in them. At the same time, curiosity had made its home among his more dangerous faculties.

"You found me once, you came to me twice. Find me again, at the other side in the field of ash under the dark tower.” Letting you to the floor, Nokris turned his back and departed to Traveler knows where through the portal with the long forgotten Knight. Sinking to your knees in stunned silence, you looked down as a nearly imperceptible squeal broke the quiet. In front of you, was a Hive worm.

“No.” Before you could even speak, your Ghost gave its earful.

“I can’t not take it! I probably need it to find him. Either way, I told you one of these worms would be coming home eventually, look at its wittle face.” Your Ghost made gagging noises as you fawned over the wriggling creature you held between your hands. Tucking the three eyed larva under your arm, you set out to find the way back out.

____________________________________________

The next week felt like hell. The worm continued to get bigger with every mission you went on and keeping it a secret from the Vanguard was close to impossible. You had been wracking your brain for the answer to his riddle, and to be completely honest, it made you feel inadequate that you couldn’t figure it out. You knew the other side meant the Ascendant Realm, but what was the dark tower? Where was the field of ash? You had initially thought it was at Skywatch, what with the Hive ship jutting out of the ground and the small pile of chitin inside the cave not too far away, but there wasn’t enough ash for it to be a field, nor was it under the ship point.

It wasn’t until a light snow dusted the Tower one evening that it all clicked. He didn’t mean ash ash. He meant snow!

In a rush to the hangar, you waved a hasty goodbye to Holliday and transmatted into your ship, pulling out a layer of blankets to reveal your now cat sized worm. The grub squeed and reached its head up to your palm, crawling sluggishly into your hands. Holding the worm to your chest, you settled down in the pilot ship and gave your Ghost to plot a course. There was only one place on Earth constantly coated in snow with a structure that could be considered a dark tower.

“Ghost, set course for the Plaguelands. He’s at the Doomed Sea.”

You hadn’t been to the ravaged lands since the Siva Crisis; the whole territory gave you heebie jeebies. And yet, you were returning because one of humanity’s imminent threats wanted a chat that, realistically, ended with your head rolling on the floor.

The closer you got to your destination, the more restless the worm in your arms got. In fact, you could swear it was whispering something. Your skin crawled for a moment as you felt the phantom brush of his claw up your leg.

The moment your feet touched the ground, the world around you stuttered as the colors faded into grayscale, giving way to the Ascendant landscape. Below you, there was no mistaking the keen whispers of the worm. Its words were encouraging in a macabre way, praise and blatant lies; speaking of how well you fed it, talents being wasted on a god that heeds you not, urging you towards the ominous building looming over the shoreline.

Dust swept across at a rapid pace, as usual, in the warped realm. Coming up to the alcove, you saw him with his back turned to you. In a smooth turn, he faced you at last. Beautiful, blazing emeralds.

Relationship HCs

His idea of a relationship has wildly different parameters than any normal human would put up with

No matter where you are, or what you're doing, you can feel him at the back of your mind like a fog; it's a bit disconcerting to hear him talk in your head at first, but it becomes normal and he's actually quite helpful when you're out on missions

He expects you to help him study thanatonautics since you can die and be brought back within moments, but that's up to if you have enough charisma to convince your Ghost to let your bone boyfriend crush your skull repeatedly to see what you can learn about death

The relationship feels more like a symbiotic one rather than a romantic one, but you occassionally catch him practicing human gestures you've seen couples perform in public if he's feeling particularly good on a day

You're probably the only person who listens to him talk about all of his schtick and is able to give viable feedback; he is more thankful than he will let on about this fact

He does not like it when you try blocking him off from your thoughts and will demand to know everything you've done in the day when you see him again. In his perspective, he thinks you're trying to leave him behind like everyone else has

Will not handhold, because his hand can literally fit around your torso and because he thinks it's weird. He will, however, carry you places if you're going the same direction

He also thinks kissing is weird, but will (surprisingly!) actually let you give him kisses on his teeth; the sensation of soft flesh on his cold bones is unusual, but something he finds utterly riveting. Not that he'd let you know

Also doesn't like the amount of straight barbarity you inflict on the battlefield, but can appreciate your efficiency with your job; this is him silently worrying about your safety but refusing to acknowledge his crush on the flame throwing ape

His communication regarding affection is terrible, and if you couldn't tell shame on you. His favorite thing about you, that you will never hear from him or anyone else, is your face. He likes the way it changes into different expressions, the life in your eyes, and your lips because Hive physically cannot emote as expressively as humans do; you are an open book he has yet to read, adding new pages everyday

Nsfw 👁👄👁

First off, however you get the size difference to work, congratulations. His height over you is something he enjoys immensely when you two get into it, and it goes without saying he also likes how you "hug" him

He will fuck anywhere, literally anywhere. The floor? Yes. Against the wall? Yes. Hope you're somewhat of an exhibitionist, because he is not ashamed if any of his or Savathûn's troops walk in on you and will keep going

He bites a lot, and is not afraid to make you bleed because your Ghost can just patch you right up

Likewise, he will scratch you everywhere but he does stop to play with the softer spots

He is rough and fast, going after his own release rather than yours; however, he has high stamina so chances are you'll be overstimulated before he finishes

Absolutely a dom, he will not meet in the middle about anything of sexual nature

If you don't actively fight for your life during his build up, he will take that as the go ahead. He may be a Hive heretic, but he has standards

You don't really have the opportunity to find his sensitive spots as he usually restrains your arms, holding them above your head or pinning them down at your sides

He rarely makes actual noises, but he does hiss lowly whenever he makes particularly hard thrusts

He knows that copulation won't result in little Hive/Human hybrids running around with his blood in their veins, so 9 times out of 10 he will hilt himself and come inside you

Fluff

Uhhh, a w k w a r d

Anything that's fluffy is strictly delivered by you, and occasionally returned by Nokris since he doesn't get the point of such pleasantries

If you're fast enough, he will never get upset if you can sneak up on him for a smooch

Whatever he is doing, if you are available he much prefers having you by his side to have an extra set of eyes to help him observe (at least that's what he says)

Since his physical marks are healed quickly, he gifts you odds and ends from old planets his people have pillaged and little items you can wear on noticeable places

Hides it very well, but is extremely thrilled when you come to him when you want to do or learn something new

When you're particularly frustrated by something, he will comb his claws through your hair to his best abilities

Whenever you're with him, his demeanor is typically calmer; Savathûn's presence and influence over him is highly diminished in the face of your Light

The one thing he will willingly do with you that's remotely romantic is stargazing; not because of the romantic element, oh no, but because he wants to catalogue any changes and is very invested in teaching you about space faring

Has nicknames for you like Little Light or >Insert any game seal<

#destiny 2 #relationship headcanon #nokris #nokris x reader #eris morn #oryx the taken king #commander zavala #savathûn

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psalm40speakstome · 3 years

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On perfectionism.

At my patients’ deathbeds, they’d tell me some version of a life they wish they had. I heard about their regrets, lost time, the guilt.

I should have ___.

If only I had ___.

I wish I could have ___.

Many of us are filled with the same remorse of “should.” Imperative burdens. With the life you should have lived in spite of the one you did.

I had to wonder: where did this idea of should come from?

If you look around a bit, the idealized self is championed everywhere. Every speech, book, and blog post tells you how to put your best self into action. The three-point sermon and piercing TED Talk and “20 Things to Do Before You’re 20” all add up to a billion ways to upgrade. And it’s easy to look at someone’s peak highlights and get a distorted sense of success. The idea is that everybody has to be a big hit or they’re nothing.

This fuels the same voice I heard on every deathbed. The constant comparison between should and is. A universal agony, all this should stuff.

I held myself hostage to the impossible. Trying to be someone I was not—but even worse, someone I could never be.

The bad news was I couldn’t do all the things I had hoped to. The good news was I couldn’t do all the things I had hoped to. That was terrifying, but also liberating.

The truth was, I am not enough a lot of the time, and that’s just fine.

I had to bury the ideal. All those demands and expectations and absurd parameters needed to be laid down. I needed to mourn my “best self.” To grieve him. To say goodbye.

I mean, that guy is great. Really. He knows what to say at parties and he cracks the right one-liners and he knows the difference between appetizers and hors d’oeuvres. He doesn’t choke. He carries a room. He gets things done. I looked up to him. But up close, he was made of sand and old driftwood. A bloated mannequin. He was a concoction of every should and have-to and you’d-better-or-else whirling around in my head. More importantly, he simply was not me. I was never the kind of guy he wanted me to be.

If I could learn and unlearn, I could quit running myself ragged up the side of a cliff called perfection. I could even enjoy my own success once in a while.

— J.S.

#typewritertherapy #perfectionism #grace

[Adapted from my book The Voices We Carry.]

#j.s. park #the voices we carry #quote #quotes #love this #needed this #mental health #emotional health

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oddslee · 4 years

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Tim becomes an Avatar of the Spiral (Helen and Michael are also there)

Blowing up wasn’t fun. Neither was dying. Neither was falling through a door and feeling parts of yourself unravel and intertwine with something you could never comprehend, because that was the point.

He could feel himself laughing and crying and screaming as colours he’d never seen or experienced before danced and contorted his vision. Everything hurt and felt wonderful. Old and new were merged and the same. Time was static, fluid, non-existent. Beautiful contradiction after beautiful contradiction overlapped and twisted together into a patterned mesh that became the spiral. Flashes of pain warped and bent his body and bones, endlessly, ceaselessly... until it all came to a sudden halt and the pain never existed.

Tim stood, impossibly alive in a place that impossibly exists. The corridor stretched infinitely in every direction in a nonsensical way, that started to make sense to Tim.

Mirrors lined the walls as perceived regular intervals, neatly spread apart in even, unmeasurable measurements. Tim recalled the knowledge of the distortion changing someone. He stepped forward.

It was similar to standing in front of those bent carnival mirrors you would sometimes find on piers. Tim naturally had avoided them in his later years, they far too often reminded him of his brother but, in a strange way it felt natural to be standing before the mirror. Perhaps it was the effect of the Spiral or perhaps it was a slight relief that came with enacting some sort of justice for his brother's death.

Tim shook his head and forced himself to properly stare at his own appearance in the mirror. He looked the same...and off...and identical to every possible iteration of himself. He closed his eyes for a second before attempting to focus in on details, some sort of visual anchorpoint that didn’t overwhelm him as his entire appearance did.

His hands; long and short and pointed and heavy and light and thin...Tim shook his head again, glancing at his shirt. He recalled putting one of his hawaiian shirts on that morning but the patterns and styles shifted and jumped about as he tried to fixate, flicking between his entire, extensive collection. His hair? Still short but he couldn’t quite see the edges, they seemed to blur and blend into everything else. Tim couldn’t look into his eyes, it made him feel dizzy and he had to step back as if to gain his balance, blinking his eyes out of mere habit more than anything else.

“Don’t worry!” came a chipper call, “You’ll get used to it soon enough!” Tim looked over to a woman dressed in a neon ensemble of a suit, patterned with the design of the carpets you find at dingy old bowling alleys that glow under UV. Her hair was curled and coiled into her surroundings, longer than his own though significantly shorter than that of Michael. He faintly remembered Jon mentioning the new avatar of the spiral being Helen Richardson, a woman who’d come in to make a statement about her encounter with these very corridors.

“Helen?” Tim tried to ask, his words almost seemed to dance about him, looping past one ear and then the next as Helen beamed.

“The very same!” she gestured for Tim to come closer and began to usher him down the corridor with a sense of purpose, “Now this is all going to be very… different at first but as I said you’ll get used to it soon enough. Life is after all full of changes and transitions and this just happens to be one of them!”

“How am I even here?” Tim managed out, the echoing words still jarring to him, “I thought the spiral only had one avatar at a time but, I’m not particularly frightened so I assume I’m not food but…” He gestured vaguely at Helen,”you’re not dead.”

Helen laughed, it was grating and melodic, overlapping with infinite voices that were his and hers and others and more, “Is that what your silly old Archivist thinks?” She chuckled again, the sound dancing around Tim as if inspecting him and judging him for not laughing too,

“No, no” Helen continued, “The Spiral can take just as many avatars as any other entity, but when we exist outside of the normal parameters of time there isn’t much point beside interest.” Helen tugged Tim’s arm and they were suddenly dragged sideways into a small, almost living room like area. She gestured for him to sit which Tim reluctantly did.

“What about Michael?” Tim asked.

“What about him?”

“Well, you killed him didn’t you? You... replaced him.”

Helen paused briefly, taking a sip of tea clearly for some sort of effect before dropping it out of existence. “Michael was already dead so there wasn’t really anything to kill but I suppose I did replace him, but...less in an exchange and more...” she mused for a moment, “more in a promotion, demotion kind of way.”

Tim sputtered, “You...demoted him?”

Helen nodded, “Demoted, grounded, suspended without pay. I think they’re all pretty solid metaphors for what Michael is going through now.” She gestured vaguely to a door that wasn’t and was there before, “He’d forgotten some of the rules about being an avatar, got too distracted with personal issues while not even letting himself play about with individuality. In the end he became a boring liability so he’s sitting in time out.” She cackled again, the swirls around them turning with every sound, “The individuality makes this so interesting! We are as much a part of the spiral as the spiral is of us but what is the point of an avatar that can’t comprehend what it becomes” She laughed again but Tim felt himself eyeing the door.

“What about me? Becoming an avatar is a choice, what choices did I make?”

Helen sat, staring with a smile that spread far past her cheeks, “These things are wonderfully confusing aren’t they?” The colours of the room twisted, blending and separating as the walls seemed to twirl into Helen’s form before she disappeared completely.

Tim remained sitting. Staring off at the absent space where Helen had once been...where Helen still was in some sense... Tim could feel it, all of it, wrapped through his spiralled veins and heavy bones. He could feel Helen’s presence and absence as strongly as he felt Michael's or his own. He knew, if he wanted, he could find either of them but a stronger feeling writhed in his gut, like hunger but off, more a craving than anything else.

Guilt bubbled in part of his mind as he found himself suddenly standing in a new corridor, his corridor and its corridor. The door lined walls now seemed recognisable. He knew exactly where each led with warm familiarity, like each of the doors was a friend or an acquaintance. Maybe they were more like books or DVD cases, he could order them, sort through them and their infinite number with a flick of his warped hand if he so chose. Everything felt so...easy.

For a brief moment he eyed a door that he knew would, if he willed it to, lead him to the archives. He pictured Sasha, sat at her desk beside him. Martin, moping about as he made some tea. Basira and Daisy pouring over books together. He could also picture Jon, squirrelled away behind his door...and Elias cooped up in his own room. He didn’t even know if any of them were still there. Perhaps Elias had taken out the distractions while the others laid buried under rubble. Maybe they were all alive and Elias was the one six feet under.

Tim slammed the door that was already closed, willing it out of his sight. He didn’t care. Or he did but it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to care or think about that. His job was done and he understood exactly how he’d treated the others, and as he stared at his new sharpened hands Tim knew he was dangerous too. Not dangerous enough yet, not strong enough yet, but maybe he’d pop in for a visit further along the line. For now however, Tim was hungry.

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Hope you enjoyed! I wanted to write a longer piece but head empty only Spiral Tim thots

#the magnus archives #tma #tim stoker #helen richardson #michael shelley #the spiral #fics #my writing #Spiral!tim #Spiral tim au

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neshatriumphs · 4 years

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VII. The Winged Woman

Simon was in the waterfall of the lagoon, a golden god standing before her, glistening in the sun. Where… where were his runes? His body was flawless. There were no off-putting marks of distorted magic. She moved closer, and he turned around. There was that smile that took her five days to win from him. The moody scowl was no more, just like those horrid marks and he was reaching for her. She felt herself lured into his arms, like she was floating. She had no control over herself. She was his. Powerless...

Grace awoke with a start. She glanced over at Lucy, still asleep on the small round bed that Grace refused to call a “pet bed” even though that was what her mother had it commissioned as. She climbed out of bed, her nightgown sticking to her body, via sweat. But… It was chilly in there. She covered Lucy with her fuzzy blanket and gave her the little ragdoll with one button eye that she had carried to safety with her, and maimed out of frustration, kissed her on the forehead and went to change her clothes.

Grace put on a pair of capris pants and an off the shoulders shirt, pulled her locs up at the top, clicked her satchel onto her body and threw on some socks and sneakers. She floated her mask over to herself and sealed the door behind her as she transported from the fortress.

She and Simon had parted ways at the cottage, mainly because she was being summoned to the queen, because of her poor decision to kiss Simon in front of the entire fair. And now? He was going to be sent through the labyrinth tomorrow. By sunrise, her father was going to erect a labyrinth leading from the earth cottage to the academy. It would only vanish whenever Simon came out on the other end. This was a way to keep wanderers and intruders from getting back to them, but Simon had her blackbird tourmaline, so he would always be able to find her, unless her mother made the parameters stronger. Both of her parents were terrified that she had been enchanted (read tainted) by a conductor, and neither of them gave her a chance to explain who he was! Not even her father!! They banished her to her room “until he is out of the kingdom.”

Naturally, for her, that meant until they went to sleep and she could get out of the fortress, because she knew that they expected her to just respect their wishes. Maybe tomorrow, she would have magical restrictions keeping her trapped in her room. But, if she could see Simon one more time, it could be worth it. Maybe, they could even... run away together? She felt silly for thinking that, but... she had waited her entire life for him, and now that she had him, just sending him away felt so... wrong.

She trekked through the woods, not wanting to be spotted out in the yard by the guards, but not wanting to use her magic and set off anyone’s sense of her presence, either. By the time she reached her cottage and hiked down to the front door, she knew she was probably filthy and smelly. She didn’t care. She opened the door and saw Simon, fast asleep. He was making noises and she approached, only to touch his face. “Grace...” he moaned.

She kissed him on the forehead. Maybe she could... wait.. think it through. She was considering leaving with someone who she didn’t know anything about except for the fact that he was quite possibly the Conductor’s right hand! Maybe once upon a time he was her soul mate, but... she didn’t have time to change him, UNLESS she left with him. She didn’t even know if he would want her to. The tears were forming in her eyes and she got up and transported out.

In the moonlight, near the lagoon, she was wearing practically nothing… It was fabric, but so thin he could make out every outline of her body, and he did. He watched intently as she danced beneath the moon whether worship or summoning him to herself, he was enchanted and driven by desire to come closer. He reached her and she turned to see him, her cheerful smile gone, replaced with a deep, lustful stare, and he bowed at her feet, ready to give her anything that she wanted. She didn’t even have to ask... “I’m yours, Grace.”

Simon got up and looked at his shaking hands. The venom in his system had given him a fever and he was sweating and apparently having fever dreams, because he had thought about Grace every single time that he closed his eyes. He opened his bag and searched through his potions. The only thing that MIGHT satisfy the bloodthirsty magic inside of that blood oath was the blood of his enemies. The only bad part about that was that they would either sense, see or smell it on him. They would know their own kind had been slain by his hands. They would know who he was… not some misguided wanderer getting ready to go home, but their worst nightmare.

He settled on another pain deterrent, checked the source of his discomfort and saw it was now spreading. He said an incantation to drain it, and knew that was only a temporary measure and that it would come back more relentless soon, but that shit hurt and he needed the fever to go down so that he could plot out how to get near the queen in order to kill her, to break her spell of protection around Grace… who… probably didn’t deserve to die, but if it had to be her or him, he was always going to be for himself. No matter how delicious her lips looked. He grabbed his satchel and stepped into his shoes. There was probably something that he could sacrifice in those woods to keep the bloodlust at bay.

Simon walked through the woods for a while, feeling extremely weak and tired. He didn’t know if there was something in the air causing this... perhaps to make sure that he didn’t escape before being placed in the king’s labyrinth the next day? Whatever the case, the he figured that if he didn’t kill something and appease the oath, he would die before he had the chance to do anything else anyway... He saw someone moving around. He thought maybe a woman? She was barely clothed, very beautiful, with flowing hair that seemed to be her only covering and wings. She didn’t look real. His eyes glowed and she was easily one of the most powerful pieces of magic that he had ever seen. His eyes returned to normal. Could he even overtake her, feeling how he felt?

In the woods, Grace heard something moving, felt a very unsettling presence. Not necessarily a sinister one, but one that was desperate and most likely dangerous. She pulled out slips of paper and tossed them into the sky. They formed origami birds and flew off for reconnaissance. One of them returned with a mirror like surface, and her reflection turned into a hooded figure slaying a winged woman. “No!” She hissed and outstretched her arms to summon the birds back and guide her to this crime... She was too late.

Grace rushed to the body... practically DRAINED of blood, her throat sliced by a conductor’s dagger, her chest stabbed and her heart hollowed out. She cradled the woman’s head and took off one of her gloves to touch her. Light, came from her fingertips and the woman gasped. “Come on, Grace. You can do this. You don’t need to be ‘complete.’ You’re enough! You can save her!” She told herself, as her vision became blurry with tears and the woman’s wings flapped weakly and her arms flailed. She was too far gone for Grace to turn this around... She took her hand off of her and let her die. She placed her glove back on her hands and pulled out a raven made of crystal.

When she released it into the air, it shot into the sky like a firework, creating a beacon and an alarm. Grace pulled the woman closer to herself and held her in her arms, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.” It took only a moment for the soldiers to arrive. “There is a murderer in our realms. Find them and execute them,” Grace said.

“Yes, Princess,” they said and vapored away. Meanwhile, those who collected their dead took the woman off of her hands and she stormed to the cottage. Simon was asleep, or pretending to be whenever she came in. She ungloved her hand and walked over to him. He was the ONLY person in the area that might do something like this. It HAD to be him. She reached out, her fingertips glowing red and noticed the necklace on him was pointed at her. She picked it up in her palm and it burned her hand, but she didn’t let it go. How the hell had he gotten this past her solitude spell? See? He’s more powerful than you thought. He’s dangerous. He’s a murderer...

“Grace?” he said, sounding all innocent, looking all... feverish? She let go of the pendant and her hand stopped glowing, as well. He sat up and wondered, “Are you okay?” His hands immediately went to her bare shoulders and she wanted to be vulnerable with him. She wanted the thumbs stroking her skin to be safe for her. She wanted his hands to collect her and hold her until she didn’t feel betrayed and terrified and enraged.

“No. There was a brutal murder in the woods tonight.” She glanced around the room. His boots had tonight’s earth on them. His scent smelled of the trees and flowers. But... there was no sign of blood... “Someone from your territory slayed a winged woman.”

“You have harpies here?”

“Not a harpy. A winged woman. They are manifestations of hopes and dreams. They are signs of greatness and elevation... And someone murdered her, like she was nothing.” She fought not to cry. Simon sat up fully and pulled her into an embrace. She let him hold her. It. Felt. So. Genuine. Like her cared. “You don’t smell like blood.”

“Why would I?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. He scoffed and let go of her, “You think that I did this? Why would I do this, when as far as I know, I’M the only conductor here? I would be the obvious suspect, Grace.”

“You ARE the obvious suspect,” she slapped some rings onto his wrist and they bound him. “And, someone in this kingdom will be powerful enough to find out the whole truth.” A tear ran down her face at his hurt expression.

“Grace... You CAN’T think that I’m capable of this? that I would do this to you? I wasn’t even going to leave in the morning. I was going to just try to find my way back to you! I wouldn’t do something this reckless, even if I was on a hunt, you would NOT catch me! I thought... I thought we were connecting.” He. Really. Seemed. So. Hurt.

“I did too. Then I watched a symbol of hope die in my arms.”

Simon lowered his head and let out a shaky breath. “I couldn’t kill anyone if I tried. Something’s wrong with me. I’m sick. I’m sure I’m dying. I will admit, I came here with bad intentions, but I swear to you, I didn’t do this.”

“Well, my mother will be able to tell me everything that I need to trust you... or not trust you.”

“I... get to come before the queen?... Ah.” That was it then. Amelia must’ve orchestrated something to get him in that position. She always had a plan.

Grace reached out and snatched the pendant from his neck. “Yeah. She might be one of the last things that you ever get to see.” She got up and opened the curtain. Her guards came in and carried him towards the fortress, towards the queen of the witches of the One... His target. Despite what he had been starting to believe, Grace obviously wasn’t the woman who she seemed to be... the woman that he was about to die not to hurt. She didn’t believe him. That actually hurt more than the venom in his system or the forceful rings around his wrist. I thought we were connecting... and I wasn’t going to use it against her...

They looked at each other. All he wanted right now was for her to believe in him. To just take these cuffs off and run off with him. He could drop dead in her arms. He just wanted her to believe him! As she accompanied his escorts to the queen, they passed by wailing witches who all glared at him. Lucy was emotionless as he passed. The two of them stared at each other and she... didn’t even seem angry or upset with him. She looked like she felt bad for him... or maybe for Grace, whose hand she grabbed them pulled back suddenly. Grace replaced her glove and then took Lucy’s hand again. She would need her.

#AU Infinity Train #Infinity Train #Nesha Fanfiction #Infinity Train Fanfiction #fics #Intertwined by Nesha

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smokeybrand · 4 years

Text

King In Benign

I really, really, hate this King In Black event over at Marvel just SO much, man. I’ve written at length about my issues with Knull as a character and giving him an entire event feels like the schlock DC was pulling with The Dark Nights Metal nonsense. I don’t care for The Batman Who laughs either, he and Knull have that same, try-hard, edgelord, “My OC of Judge Death”, energy and i despise that, but at least that sh*t is believable with Batwank. Batman, as a character, has built in superiority. His myth, his strength, is predicated around his ability to defeat anyone with prep time and planning because he’s the goddamn Batman. Seriously, he’s just a rich kid with PTSD and yet, stands alongside a literal goddess and an alien who can punch out reality. There are entire arcs built around his contingency plans to defeat every hero in the world, falling into the wrong hands and how devastating that sh* would be to the world. Batman is the most OP motherf*cker in all of DC so taking that framework, removing all semblance of restraint and morality, warping him into a distorted visage of Joker, and setting him loose on all reality with the power of Doctor Manhattan was never going to end well. His victory was a forgone conclusion because he’s the goddamn Batman. That makes sense to me. That’s lazy writing in my opinion but i can see the framework behind it. that sh*t’s acceptable. That internal logic, works. Knull is not the goddamn Batman. He does not get a pass like that.

Knull has been built up to be this straight up eldritch horror; A Lovecraftian nightmare that predates even the first universe in Marvel continuity. He was the void to the light of the First Firmament. That is something to explore. That is something to be terrified about. That is something mad compelling and make for fertile ground to explore. What does the Marvel brain trust do with it? tie it to the f*cking Symbiotes. Like, bro, what? Now, don’t misunderstand, i love me some Symbiotes. Venom has been a favorite character of mine since i was a wee lil Smokey but let's be honest, they are not a whole ass cosmic threat. They are cool and the way their power set functions as a buff is to whoever bonds with them is dope, but seriously? You expect me to seriously buy into Venom, Carnage, Scream, and Mayhem, are shard of a universal threat? Bro, do better. You can beat a Symbiote if you yell loud enough or drop a match on them. Seriously, weaknesses are weakness but these things recoil at loud sonics and open flame. You can beat them with a bonfire, man. The given genesis of these weaknesses stem from Knull forging the All-Black Necrosword, the first Symbiote, apparently. The weakness to fire stems from the Necrosword’s memory of the crucible flames and the weakness to sonic stems from the pounding of hammer on anvil. Have you ever heard an anvil hit a hammer? It’s not that bad, bro. That means you can probably beat Carnage with a rape whistle. And these are the creatures that Marvel creative wants me to believe are going to siege the multiverse? Word?

It’s such a missed opportunity. If this dude had the ability to manipulate darkness, to actually control the abstract of oblivion, i can see Knull being dope. Also a character redesign because he looks like sh*t but that’s more a personal gripe as a character developer than anything. I give TBWL a ton of sh*t but it’s hard to argue with that aesthetic. Knull looks like a fart. But I'm getting off topic a bit here, my point is this character could have been every bit the beast they want me to believe it to be. An unknowable entity that rivals the abstracts in power? A thing from the murk of the before? A thing that can manipulate the dark, both tangible and philosophical? Just by it’s very nature that sh*t is mad overpowered. Tying him to something as pedestrian as the Klyntar takes all of that away. Showing us that he kept jobbing to the Celestials further weakens his stance on being a proper cosmic threat. Having his greatest weapon, The All-Black, snatched away by Gorr just absolutely discredits anything you want to do with this character. Marvel is doing their best to make this event a thing but I'm just sitting over here thinking how the Beyonders would massacre Knull. How he only took down one Celestial in his entire existence. How a bunch of f*cking Klyntar imprisoned him in a wad of themselves for millennia. Knull is a jobber who gets jobbed constantly. There is no way i can believe he has the power to be doing what he’s doing right now. There are no narrative gymnastics that can make me believe he’s this massive of a threat, not after we’ve seen his origins. There is no way you can sell me on this asshole being Marvel’s version of Judge Death, when he’s been shown to take L after L after L.

Marvel has Knull out here conjuring an army of Grendel dragons, laying siege to the 616, and forcing The Void out of Sentry because, you know, the dark or whatever. That’s dumb in the context of who Knull is but brilliant in the context of who Knull could have been. That “darkness” manipulation works for an overarching menace. Being king of Symbiotes does not. Why the f*ck would Knull be able to manipulate Void? That sh*t ain’t Klyntar, it’s literal the manifestation of mental illness in Rob Reynolds, his “darkness.” Does this mean that all Symbiotes are effectively umbramancy conjurations? If that’s the case, are they all the same thing as the Void? Why the f*ck isn’t everyone who bonds with one, not as powerful as the Void then? You see what i mean? There is a dissonance, an intentional vagueness, for which Knull is actually capable and that makes for lousy writing. That makes for lazy villain. If there is no definition, no parameters, then you can do whatever the f*ck you want, whenever the f*ck you want and that sh*t is bogus. There are no stakes. There is no tension. It’s all just power creep, bullsh*t wank, and ex machina.

Couple that with documented defeats, some embarrassing as hell, and the main baddie of your line wide event is just a goddamn fraud. Knull is a paper tiger being propped up with the worst kind of OC plot armor and i hate it. I hate The King in Black. I hate Knull. I have my grievances with Batwank but at least he was a whole ass character. At least his plot armor made sense in the context of the world. But that’s kind of the point. DC did this better with their version of Judge Death. Dc put in the work. Their character was developed better. His ambition made sense. His power scale never wavered, leveling up in ways that were organic to the plot, as ridiculous as that plot turned out to be. Marvel did not. Knull has none of what TBWL has. The House of “Ideas” shat out Knull and tied a bunch of threads together that should have never been in the same vicinity of narrative development. He’s just an ass-pull cashgrab trying to profit on the surprise popularity with Dark Nights Metal but their attempt lacks the soul. And if you know how much disdain i have for that whole series of events, you know that is heavy accusation levied from me.

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theradicalscrivener · 5 years

Text

21 Dollar Foot long

It’s been a hot minute, but I have a new fic for youse guise.

Angus receives a new app from his buddy which claims to allow him to host his very own growth drive! Angus could use the money, and it’s not like the app can really grow his cock. It’s just trick photography and photo manipulation, right?

Angus was sitting at his desk when he heard the familiar chime of a file being sent coming from his desktop computer. Having nothing better to do, he quickly opened up the chat window to see who had sent the file and what the nature of the file was. Angus was not at all surprised to see the message had come from his best bud, Donald.

“Check out this latest program I made” read Donald’s message.

“What does it do?” Angus asked.

“Oh. You’re gonna love this. You know those growth drive things that have been going around on Twitter?” Donald asked.

“Yeah?” Angus replied.

“Well, I got to thinking. Why don’t we try making one of our own!” Donald said.

“You know as well as I do that neither of us can draw for shit.” Angus replied.

“That’s the beauty of it. We won’t have to! Just fire up this program, pop in a few parameters, and let the magic of modern technology do the rest!” Donald said.

The whole conversation was carried out via text so it’s not like Angus could really hear the tone of Donald’s voice, but the speed at which he was firing back responses as well as the various typos made it pretty obvious that Donald was beyond excited by his latest pet project.

“If this is such a great idea, why haven’t you done it already?” Angus asked.

“Well…. I was kind of hoping that you’d be the one to try it out.” Donald replied.

“Me?” Angus asked.

“Yeah. I mean… You’ve already got the looks. I bet you’d have people lining up to see what you can do.” Donald replied.

“If you wanted to see me naked there are much easier ways to go about it.” Angus teased.

It was obvious by the ellipsis on the bottom of the chat program that Donald was typing something, but the long pause in between Angus’s comment and Donald’s actual reply made it clear that Donald was having a hard time picking his words.

After what seemed like ages, Donald finally replied, “Just try it out. You said so yourself you were strapped on cash. This could be a great way to make a few bucks.”

Angus couldn’t argue with that… well, he could argue with that, but he didn’t see the point in it. Truth be told, he was curious about what Donald’s program could actually do, and it’s not like there was any harm in firing it up.

Angus shrugged and clicked the file. Once it had finished downloading, he fired it up and easily coasted through the installation options and eventually got the app up and running on his computer. He was amazed at how clean and easy to use the app was. All it took was a few clicks and a few permissions and the program was fully booted up and ready to go. It had even gained access to Angus’s webcams. The cameras had already fired up and were fixated on him. One feed was zoomed out to show his whole body, and the other was zoomed in on his crotch, although since he was currently wearing boxers, the second feed only got a good glimpse of plaid.

Angus took a moment to look through all the options. It didn’t take him long to get a feel for how this app worked. There were some basic parameters he could choose. First, he had to link it to an account that he would receive pledges from viewers, and then he got to choose how much he would grow per pledge. There were tons of options he could choose from as far as how much to grow for each dollar value, but most of them seemed too unrealistic. He could do something ridiculous like 1cm per $20, but that would take forever to see any growth, and he doubted anyone would pay money to see something like that, especially since it was all just going to be on the fly footage editing. Angus could just imagine how he would look during his cam show with a comically stretched out ten-inch-long dong that seemed to curve and distort every time it moved as if it was being viewed through a convex mirror.

Eventually he decided to just click one inch per each $3 donation. This seemed like a safe enough bet. People did Ko-Fis all the time for growth drives so there were obviously people who would pay that much to see some trick photography do its thing. With the parameters set and his account linked, all that was left to do was to fire up the stream, and fortunately Angus had a site already in mind to host his little cam show. All it took was a few keystrokes, and he was logging and ready to go.

“Hey guys,” Angus said awkwardly and waved to his webcam. He could see the footage displaying on his computer screen of himself waving back at him as well as a second window of just a close-up of his still plaid-clad junk.

At the moment there was no one to reply back to his welcome, but that didn’t take long to change. Once his stream was live there was a steady trickle of viewers who popped in to check out what was up. The icon of the stream just showed an old photo of Angus flexing for the cam so a few people were there to see the hot, beefy stud wearing even less than he was in his avatar pic, but there were a few who had stumbled in because they were bored and looking for a few whack and a few who had stumbled in out of pure curiosity. His stream header promised dick growth, and that’s not something you saw every day.

There were only a few people in the stream by the time Angus got his first comment. “Now eventually you might have dicks on your dick stream, yes?” the comment read.

“Oh right. I suppose I ought to get right on into it,” Angus said. He got up from his chair and took a step back, all the while keeping an eye on his cam feeds to make sure that the cameras were still staying focused on him. Sure, enough one camera remained focused on his body and the other remained zoomed in on his crotch. Angus took just a moment to steel his nerves before hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers and shimmying them down. It didn’t take long for his perfectly modest five inches to spill into view.

Angus was just about to sit down on the foot of his bed and get to wanking when he saw another comment pop up on his stream, but he quickly realized a small flaw in his master plan. It was tough to keep an eye on the comments on his computer while he was seated at his bed. He quickly scooped up his phone which he had left beside his PC and logged into his own stream so he could read the comments. While he was scanning the newest comment a few more popped up, but they all said roughly the same thing.

“Nice.”

“Great cock, bro.”

The real comment that caught his attention though wasn’t even part of his actual stream. Angus phone buzzed twice alerting him to two new messages: One text message and one email. Angus checked the text first since he doesn’t normally worry too much about emails, but the nature of the text made him keen to check his email immediately after.

The message had come from his pal, Donald. “Looks like you could use something to get the ball rolling there,” the message read. It didn’t take Angus long at all to figure out what Donald meant. Angus almost immediately felt a strange sensation across his cock and balls. It was a slight warmth almost as if his junk was pulsing with energy. Angus instinctively glanced down at his cock and what he saw made his jaw drop. His bait and tackle were actually growing! It wasn’t just the fact that he was getting hard either. He was always more of a shower than a grower, but even ignoring that fact, getting a boner wouldn’t make his nuts swell up too.

Angus quickly checked his email to confirm his suspicions. Sure enough, the recent email was from PayPal alerting him to a new donation of $3 from his pal, Donald, but that was just the start. Even while he was checking his new message his phone buzzed a couple more times, but rather than having a new email show up in his email list numbers appeared next to the PayPal alert email. First x2… then x3… then x4…

Angus checked the comments on his stream. He was too dumbfounded to do much modeling for his new fans, but his cock was more than happy to put on a show. He solid six inches was rock hard at this point and steadily creeping up in size as he read the recent comments.

“Woah! Did his dick just grow!?”

“No way!”

“I gotta try this out.”

“Same. I got three bucks to throw at this.”

“Me too. I got three bucks in my couch cushion.”

Sure enough, those commenters made good on their goal and tossed another $9 Angus’s way for a combined total of three more inches. Angus stared on in awe as his cock went from six inches… to seven… to eight… to nine… He couldn’t believe his eyes. He had gone from a perfectly average five inches to a porn star nine incher in the span of a few minutes! This wasn’t trick photography. This was real! Donald’s app actually worked! Angus was too stunned to think too hard on it. All he could do was stare at his cock. He had to be sure what he was seeing was real. He had to feel it with his own hands, and his audience was only all too happy to watch him do just that.

Angus plopped down at the foot of his bed and wrapped a hand around his fat cock. He could barely fathom how huge his dick was now. It was like gripping a water bottle. His cock used to only just barely poke out past his palm when he gave his rod a good tug, but now he had room to spare. He could almost get his whole other hand around his shaft, and judging by the buzz of his phone, he got the impression that would soon be possible.

Sure enough, Angus felt a familiar warmth pulse through his penis while he had his hand around his crank. He could actually feel his dick getting thicker in his hand. His had to loosen his grip as his cock grew fatter in the palm of his hand, but that wasn’t all that changed. His dick not only got thicker but longer as well, and his balls were growing right alongside the rest of his junk. His nuts had grown from the size of cherries to the size of cherry tomatoes and were showing no signs of slowing down just yet.

Angus continued to stroke his swelling cock with one hand while he held his phone in the other and glanced at the comments in his stream. The comments were really blowing up. His did a double take as he saw that his follower count had quickly climber through the double digits and were rapidly approaching triples, and it didn’t take him long to find out why. A few of the comments said it all.

“Oh man. He’s huge! I know a site that’s gonna love him!”

“Is his dick growing!? No way! I gotta show this to my server!”

“I gotta share this on Twitter. They’re gonna go nut for this guy!”

“God. They gotta see this on discord.”

Angus had gone viral, and more viewers meant more potential donators, which explained a lot about why his phone felt more like a vibrator than a minicomputer. Angus could scarcely fathom how fast his cock had reached porn star status, and it didn’t seem like his growth was going to slow down any time soon. Judging by all the new arrivals, he might reach absurd sizes in the very near future.

Angus stared at his cock as it continued to grow and swell. He was so shocked at what he was seeing that his mind was lagging. As his cock grew past a full foot of fat dong, he started to wonder if maybe he ought to pull the plug on this little pet project or at the very least turn off the donations. He was more than happy to spend a little bit of time exploring his newly enlarged cock and he was sure his audience would love to watch him do so.

Angus was just about to get up from his seat at the foot of his bed and put a cap on donations, but something was stopping him from doing so. It was like his body refused to cooperate. He knew he should stop this before it got out of hand, he really did, but at the same time this thought in the back of his mind wouldn’t shut up. His cock was already hot as hell at a full foot. How great would it look like when it got even bigger? It had just gotten hotter and huger and sexier with each added inch. Just the thought of packing on a few more points on his pecker had his dick drooling pre. He could soon have a world record shattering schlong! Angus didn’t know what the current record actually was, but he was sure he rivaled it already. Even as he sat there staring at his schlong, he could feel his phone buzzing and see his dick swelling. It had surpassed a solid foot, that was for sure, but how huge was it really? He could always do the math, sure. He had a list of all the donors and knew how much dick he had started with. It would be a simple matter of tallying to donations to see how huge his cock was now, but where’s the fun in that? It had no punch. No pizazz.

Angus quickly got up from his seat and scrambled for his desk, but he didn’t touch his computer. Instead he opened the drawer and fumbled through the various items inside. At first, he pulled out his trusty ruler, but after a quick glance at his computer screen he quickly changed his mind. The camera feeds now both showed a close-up of his cock and balls, and it was plain to see the foot-long standard ruler would no longer suffice. The tip of Angus’s rock-hard cock now poked well past his belly button. Just seeing how huge his cock looked on cam made Angus even more excited, and his excitement led to a great show for his adoring public. His dick dribbled pre for all to see. He was so hot and bothered that his hands trembled as he dug deeper into his drawer for something that would do the job better than his now too small ruler, and soon he found what he needed. A tape measurer.

Angus plopped back down at the foot of his bed and hurriedly unfurled a segment of the tape measurer and held it up to his humongous cock. His dick was already sixteen inches long and growing by the second! He had to have hands down the largest cock of any dude on the planet! Surely this would be big enough, right? But even as he thought that he could hear his phone buzzing on the bed beside him. The donations were still flowing in!

Angus once again argued over whether or not to call it then and there. He could pull the plug on the stream right now and cap donations. He already had a cock that was seventeen inches long and growing by the second! His dick was beyond huge! His dick was already so thick that he couldn’t even hope to wrap a hand all the way around it. His cock was about as fat as a two-liter bottle of Coke. He had balls the size of large, ripe grapefruit, but even as he debated, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be even bigger. His cock already looked so amazing, and it was just getting hotter as it grew and grew. Surely it couldn’t hurt to add a few more inches to his already amazing cock.

Angus watched the twin video feeds as he reached down and cupped his balls in how hands and gawked at what he saw. The tip of his cock now reached up to his pecs. His nuts were now so huge that either enlarged orb filled an entire palm and then some. At the rate he was going he was soon to have nuts the size of his head! The mere thought of it caused his nearly two feet of fat cock to buck and lurch excitedly. Pre flowed freely down his humongous cock and his massive nuts and dripped onto the floor below.

Angus knew he needed to dial things back a bit if for no other reason than he was close to cumming, and the stream had barely even begun. He wanted to give his audience a good show and maybe squeeze a few more inches out of his donors before he blew his load.

Angus reached over for his phone which he had dropped on his bed when he had decided to be a bit more hands-on with his cock. He quickly unlocked the screen and skimmed over the chat to see what he had missed. The answer to that was not much. Most of the comments seemed to be more of the same.

“He’s so hot.”

“That cock is fantastic!”

“He’s almost big enough!”

Angus had to smirk at these comments. Was he almost big enough or was he just beginning? That was for his fans to decide – and decide they did! For no sooner had Angus had that thought than the conversation took a drastic turn.

“Nothing says we have to donate in increments of $3, right?” Someone asked.

“Not that I know of, why?” came a reply.

“Well, I think this is going a little too slowly.”

“I can put down some money for a BIG spurt.”

“I’ll match it!”

“Me too!”

“Let’s see him get YUGE!”

Angus gasped at what he saw. Just how much were they talking about chipping in? He had already packed on nearly twenty inches. His once average cock was now full two feet long! His dick reached past his nips and was as thick as his beefy bicep! His nuts were now the size of cantaloupes!

Even as Angus pondered just what his donors had in mind his phone buzzed to alert him that he had a new email. His hand trembled as he opened the email to see just what it was. He was not surprised to see it was another PayPal notice, but what did surprise him was the amount.

“I just chipped in 30 bucks.” One commenter said.

Angus read it again to be sure. Thirty dollars! That’s ten whole inches! That’s almost half what he already has!

“I said I’d match it and I will!” came the respond.

Sure enough, his phone buzzed again to alert him to yet another email, but he didn’t need to read this one to see what it meant. The previous email alerting him to a thirty-dollar donor now had an x2 next to it to indicate a duplicate. Sixty dollars… That was twenty whole inches coming at him fast!

Angus stared in awe as his cock began to grow with renewed vigor. Soon the tip of his dick was at his collar bone, and then his chin, and soon it was eye level! It wasn’t long before his dick poked up above his head. Angus stared in awe at the behemoth as it towered over him. His dick was almost as thick as he was, and Angus was no slouch at the gym! He had to feel it with his own hands to be sure it was real. He ran his hands up and down along the length of his newly enhanced rod. His hands looked and felt so tiny against his nearly four feet of fat cock. It was hard to believe that just this morning he could easily wrap a hand around his dick. Now he could wrap both ARMS around his cock.

Angus peeked around his humongous cock to get a glimpse at the camera feeds. Both feeds were now basically showing the exact same footage – a giant cock with some arms and legs poking out from behind it. Angus could scarcely fathom how huge his cock had become. His nuts had swelled up right alongside his dick as well. His nuts were now as large as prize pumpkins! They hung off the edge of his bed and drooped almost down to the floor below!

Angus’s phone began to buzz once more. He couldn’t believe it. He was already so huge, and people were STILL tossing money at him? He quickly scooped up his phone, unlocked the screen, and perused chat once more.

“FUCK He’s huge!”

“That’s so fucking hot!”

“He’s almost more cock than man now!”

“Almost”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Angus gasped at what he saw. They couldn’t possibly be thinking what he thought they were thinking. Growing his cock even more so that he was more cock than man? That’s ridiculous! Yet even as the thought crossed his mind his massive schlong lurched with glee. Pre oozed down his four feet of cock, and his phone buzzed again and again.

Angus watched in shock and awe as his cock climbed higher and higher. It was coming dangerously close to hitting the light fixture above his bed and showing no signs of slowing down, and even without looking he could tell his nuts were growing too. He could feel the cool, faux-hardwood laminate of his dorm room floor against the underside of his swollen nuts.

Angus craned his neck around his monstrous cock and stole a glance at the video feeds. His cock now touched his ceiling. His nuts now rested solidly on the floor like a pair of massive, fleshy bean bag chairs. Angus knew for a fact he needed to stop this, and soon! His cock was thicker than full-sized punching bag! When he wrapped his arms around it his fingers only just barely touched on the opposite side.

Angus unlocked his phone once more and quickly typed a message into the chat. “Ok, guys. That’s enough for one day.” But his message was met with an automated message from the server. “Guests may not comment on this video. Please log in.”

Angus’s eyes fell upon the follower count in the corner of the screen. His cock was now so huge that it hit the ceiling! He had to angle it back to keep it from mashing against the light fixture above him, and he was still gaining followers and fast! He couldn’t believe there were so many people pouring in even this late into the stream, but it didn’t take him long to figure out why.

“I shared the link to this vid with some forums I lurk. I know for a fact they’ll love him there.”

“He’s almost a little small for some of the forums I linked him to.”

“We’ll soon fix that.”

Angus cursed under his breath and hurriedly typed in his username and password. Even as he did this, he could feel his phone buzzing and his cock growing even larger. Angus couldn’t believe how huge he had gotten nor that he was still getting bigger. He thought for sure his watchers were done with him, but even as he typed in his log-in credentials he could see the chat still going.

“Fuuuuuck he’s huge!”

“Hell yeah! So hot!”

“Bigger! Bigger!”

Angus finished typing in his password and groaned at what he saw. Invalid password. It must have been because his hands were shaking that he botched the password, but whatever the case may be he had to try again and stop this mess. He typed his name and password in again, this time being extra careful not to make a typo and hit enter.

Angus flopped back in his bed and waited with bated breath while the loading circle spun in the middle of his screen. His cock was now so huge that he had to angle it towards the wall at the head of his bed. His cock was already as wide as his twin sized dorm bed and quite a bit longer. His dick was so long that it angled from the foot of his bed all the way to the ceiling against the wall behind him. “come on, come on…” he groaned under his breath as he watched the circle continuing to spin. He was running out of room for his enormous cock. If he got much bigger, he wouldn’t even fit in his own dorm room! All he needed was for the stream to load in once more and he could finally dial things back, but it was not to be. A new error message soon popped up.

“That user is currently logged in in another device.”

Angus one again cursed under his breath. There was no helping it. If he wanted to stop this he’d have to get up and head towards the PC sitting on his desk, but that was easier said than done. For starters, his desk sat on the opposite side of a solid wall of cock and balls that kept him pinned to his bed! Angus slowly shimmied his way sideways off his bed. With each inch he moved he was amazed at just how incredibly heavy his cock and balls had become. His nuts alone weighed him to the ground like a ship’s anchor, and he couldn’t even imagine how heavy his dick would be if it wasn’t currently propped against the wall at the head of his bed. It took some finesse, but once Angus was off his bed, he was slowly able to crawl shift around his massive cock until he was now over top of it and crawl his way backwards over his massive nuts.

Angus stared in awe as he stood there with his back to his desk. His cock was now so huge that it filled almost his entire room. He was nearly pinned to his desk beneath the behemoth that was his cock and balls which presented yet another problem. He couldn’t get the drawer which housed his keyboard and mouse out from underneath his desk! He was pinned so tightly against his own desk by his gargantuan cock and balls that his own thighs were pinning the drawer shut!

Angus glanced over his shoulder at his desktop screen and gasped at what he saw. The audience was still cheering for him to get even bigger! Wasn’t he big enough already!? Sure, he couldn’t deny how staggeringly hot his massive cock and balls were, but how was he going to get through life attached to a schlong the size of a subway car?

Even as Angus pondered this another message caught his eye.

“Don’t worry, guys. I just sent him a BIG one.”

Angus could feel his phone buzzing in his hand. He had kept a death grip on his phone this entire time even without really realizing he had done it. He was almost afraid to look, but he unlocked the screen anyway. Sure enough, he had a new email from PayPal, but unlike the others this wasn’t a duplicate. This was a donation with a brand-new value on it. Angus was afraid to click the email and see what the amount was. Part of him wished that it was just another $3 donation… after all, he could see the $3 at the tail end of the email preview, but the … after the 3 worried him greatly.

Angus nervously clicked the email icon. It didn’t do him any good to hide from it. After all, he was going to be growing one way or the other. It was like ripping off a band-aid. Best to just get it over with.

Angus’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw the final value. Three… HUNDRED!? Who has that kind of money to throw at something like this!? But there was no denying what he was reading. Someone had thrown enough money at him to nearly double his already colossal cock. With the added eight plus feet of fat cock he was soon going to be at nearly twenty full feet of schlong!

“Oh, fuck…” Angus murmured under his breath. The sound of his own words sent shivers down his spine. It wasn’t a cry of shock or anguish. It was a moan of almost orgasmic delight! Even as he shuddered, he could feel his nuts tense up as if bracing for the largest load of his – or anyone else’s – life!

With his cock rapidly expanding once more, Angus soon found himself more than mashed against his desk. He was being pushed up and onto it by his own swelling cock and balls. Soon his ass knocked his monitor off the desktop. Seconds after that he was pinning against the far wall with his cock pressed against the wall on the opposite side of the room, and he still had several feet left to grow!

Angus wasn’t sure what he was going to do now. There was nothing he could do. All he could do was stand there and gawk as his cock outgrew his dorm room. Even now he could feel the wall begin to buckle under the onslaught of his swelling schlong. He could hear the plaster crumbling. He could see the lines spreading across the far wall as it cracked and crumpled. And then, as if a dam breaking, sunlight poured into his room as his cock spilled out into the open courtyard between dorm rooms.

Angus’s cock was free to extend to its heart’s content, but he soon found himself with another problem. His nuts had grown so much that he was now resting atop them. They were so massive that they almost pinned him to his own ceiling! His massive nuts filled up every inch of space in his room from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall! His entire dorm room was flooded with his own nut sack!

Angus groaned as he felt himself be pinned between his ceiling and his own swelling balls. For a moment he was sure that he was going to be crushed to death by his own package. He was just about to close his eyes and accept the end when he felt something quite peculiar. He wasn’t sure how and he wasn’t sure why, but he was sliding forward. The rough texture of the ceiling scratched against his back, but soon he felt the fresh air on his bare skin. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sunlight, but when they did, he took stock of his surroundings and started to figure out what had happened. His cock had grown so huge and so hefty that the sheer weight of it was enough to pull his nuts right out of his room like the cork being popped off a wine bottle. He had fallen from his room on the second floor and landed with a thud on the grass below, but his cock and balls were just so damn huge that the single-story drop had felt like nothing more than an inch.

Angus was pleased as punch to no longer be in any mortal danger, but now he had a new problem to deal with. The arrival of a twenty plus foot schlong in the middle of campus had attracted a lot of onlookers, and there was nothing he could do to try and hide from their scrutinizing eyes. Fortunately, his phone had stopped buzzing, and so it seemed that he had finally reached his new, maximum size.

In part because he had nothing better to do while trapped atop his own package and in part because he wanted something to distract himself from the crowd that had gathered around him, Angus unlocked his phone once more and peeked in at the stream chat. It didn’t take long for him to notice that things had quieted down, and it was immediately clear why. The stream had been cut short. No doubt his PC had been knocked offline due to his growth spurt which had crushed his desk. Angus breathed a sigh of relief. At least this meant things would calm down now… or so he thought. No sooner had he breathed a sigh of relief than he saw a new comment in the chat.

“Dudes… you’re not gonna believe this, but I think this was real…”

“What? How?”

“Check the news!”

“This is on the new at my college! It’s real!”

Angus saw the previous poster link to a local news network that he recognized. He almost didn’t dare to click the link, but he knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he saw the truth. Sure enough, as soon as the live feed loaded, he was greeted by the sight of his own gargantuan package splayed out across the lawn. While he gawked at the surreal view of his own cock from a third person perspective, he was soon alerted to something else. The viewer count was rising rapidly! It didn’t take long for him to figure out what was going on either.

“Looks like the growth stream is still on!” Said one of the new arrivals.

“Now that I know this is real, I can really crack open the wallet!”

“God, I wish that was me…”

“Fuck yes. Can you imagine being that fuckin huge!?”

“Huge! Huge! Huge!”

“Let’s make him even bigger boys!”

Angus didn’t know what to say or do. They couldn’t still grow him, could they? The PC was offline. The app was closed down! But even as he thought this, he could feel his phone buzzing and his cock pulsing.

“Oh fuck…” Angus moaned, but once again the tone of his voice betrayed his true feelings. Instead of being a groan of disgust his voice came out as a low, horny moan of carnal glee. His colossal cock gave a lurch of glee. Pre oozed from his person-sized slit. He couldn’t believe he was so turned on by this. He couldn’t move with a cock this big. There was no way he could walk around. His cock was bigger than a city bus and his balls were the size of bungalows. He had a cock that would make a blue whale weep with shame, and it was still growing! Angus was so hot and bothered by his swelling member that he could barely even focus on his phone, but he could see the alerts piling up. His missed emails now numbered in the dozens, and it wasn’t all just duplicates either! With each new email alert he received, the dollars being donated varied widely. Some people were chipping in the old fashioned three-dollar inch, but some people were really cracking open the ol’ check book. Some of the donations were in the triple digits! Some generous donors were adding entire feet to Angus’s already ginormous schlong!

“fuck, fuck, fuck…” Angus whined as he continued to try to dry hump the grass beneath him, but at this point his cock was so huge that his whole body could barely even budge it. Even if he rocked with all his might, his dick would barely even shift under his weight.

As he continued to grow the crowd around him grew and grew as well. Somehow all these viewers just made Angus even hornier. It was one thing to pose for a faceless crowd on a webcam, but it was another to have a huge crowd gathered around his dick as if it was some impromptu music festival in the middle of campus. With all the people turning out to ogle his growing member, it was shaping up to be a regular Woodscock on the dorm lawn. Soon it wasn’t just the local campus new team reporting on his swelling schlong. Soon he had the major new outlets from all over reporting on what some people were calling the story of the century. Some guy with a cock the size of ship was lying buck naked in the public park.

Some part of Agnus’s mind was still fighting against his own arousal. Some part of him still wanted to keep a level head despite his growing desire to paint the town white in one massive tidal wave of cum, but that part was quickly losing out to his growing libido. About the only thing keeping him even vaguely rooted in sanity was the phone which he clasped in his hand. He kept glancing at the newsfeed to try and take his mind out of the moment. Somehow seeing his cock in third person like this seemed to distance him from the truth at hand, but soon even this proved to just fuel the fire. As the chat continued to explode with chants of “Huge! Huge! Huge!” and “Grow him some more!” more and more links began to flood the chat. Some were to other news outlets filming Angus’s colossal cock from other angles, but others were from personal feeds from people who had gathered to explore Angus’s cock.

“Oh my god! They're actually going to do it!” said one of the posters as they linked someone’s livestream.

“the absolute madlads!” came a reply.

“I wanted to be the first to go in!” came another reply.

Do it? Go in? What were they talking about? Angus wondered. His curiosity got the better of him and actually managed to stave off his hormonal need to cream, but only for a moment. The view he was greeted to upon opening up the new livestream was enough to send his libido into hyperdrive all over again.

When the stream fired up, Angus was greeted to the sight of another student he was vaguely familiar with waving at the camera. The guy was clad in a damp, white t-shirt and a hardhat with a huge headlight attached to it. He looked ready to go spelunking but judging by the lighting the guy appeared to be out in the daylight instead of heading into a cave, but that soon changed. The guy lifted his phone further up to give a wider view of his surroundings. Behind the guy stood a large ladder which was propped against a large, fleshy looking wall. It didn’t take Angus long to figure out what said wall was, though. It was his own cockhead! The guy was actually about to climb into Angus’s dick and record the whole thing for all the watch.

Angus let out another horny whine. The flow of pre from the tip of his cock really began to ramp up, and after a few second delay he could see the flow of pre on the livestream begin to increase as well.

“I think he feels me.” The spelunker said in a corny accent as if announcing his actions in a comical parody of the Crocodile Hunter. The truth was, Angus COULD feel him, but only just barely. The guy crawling into his exposed cock head felt like little more than a tickle. The dude may as well have been a gnat compared to Angus’s whale-sized schlong. At this point Angus’s cock was so huge that his back and balls were pressed against the dorm building he had fallen out of and the tip of his dick nearly reached the campus admin complex across the large, open park. The park was nearly the size of a football field, and Angus’s dick damn near filled the whole thing! Just thinking about how huge he had become made Angus once again struggle to stifle a moan.

“Oi. This bronco’s really buckin’ now,” Said the spelunker a moment later.

Just the thought of having someone crawling around inside of his cock was driving Angus wild. He desperately wanted to cum, and yet at the same time he fought the urge with every fiber of his being. He couldn’t even say why he was doing it. It was almost as if some part of him was afraid this was all a dream and the moment he blew he would wake up and find himself back in his dorm with his old five-inch rod.

Angus watched the video stream and tried to make sense of what he was seeing through his hormone-fogged senses. At first glance it looked much like any other chasm some guy might go spelunking through, but the sides were soft to the touch and glistened pink. It was hard for Angus to comprehend that these chasm walls he was watching in the video were the insides of his own cock. As angus watched the video it almost seemed like the guy’s point of view was shrinking. The walls grew further apart and reached higher and higher, but it wasn’t the guy who was shrinking. It was Angus’s cock that was growing! Even now, Angus could feel the constant buzzing of his phone and feel the constant pulsing in his cock. He couldn’t even fathom how huge he had become. His cock was so huge that he nuts pressed hard against the side of the dorms. He was so high off the ground that his nuts now crested far above the torn-out hole that was his second-floor dorm room. His balls filled much of the courtyard that spanned from the dorm hall to the campus administration office. His cock was now so huge that had it not been for the curvature of his rock-hard cock, his cock would have long since crushed the multi-story admin complex. His cock now stretched so far that the head of it loomed over the science building halfway across campus. The puffy head alone of his massive cock now dwarfed the main lecture hall AND the connected labs. The pre leaking from his cock splashed down on the street below in giant, SUV-sized gobs.

Angus’s life as he knew it was effectively over. He had a city block sized cock, and still it was creeping up in size. He was so massive that even that large donations that had been pouring in barely made a dent in his colossal size, and yet, even if this was a dream he never wanted to wake up. He wanted to remain like this forever. He couldn’t get over how amazing having a cock you could land a 747 on felt. He couldn’t get over how amazingly hot it was to have such a massive cock and balls that no matter which direction he looked, all he saw was more and more cock and balls stretching off into the horizon. Even as his nuts got so massive that they crested at over roof of his dorm he wanted to get bigger and bigger. Even as he watched the video of the dude spelunking inside his cock and watched the light of the guy’s headlamp fade to nothing as it shone down the impossible depths of his colossal cock, Angus reveled in his own hugeness. If his fans never ran out of cash to throw at his constantly growing cock, he would be OK with that, but already he could feel the constant buzzing of his phone slowing down. His donors had nearly reached their limit, and Angus too was reaching his limit in a very different sense.

Angus moaned and writhed. His monolithic schlong shuddered. His mountainous balls tensed up. He was going to blow soon, and everyone could tell. In the throes of ecstasy, Angus’s phone fell from his hand and landed with a plap on the soft flesh of his colossal nuts. Somehow the impact knocked web browser back a page. It was no longer focused on the spelunker’s livestream and was back to the newscast. The newscaster was eyeing the teleprompter intently and let out a gasp.

“This just in. Apparently, this situation is the result of what has been called a “growth stream.” If my understanding is correct. People have been paying money to see this guy grow. Is that a thing?” The newscaster asked. Then something happened that made even Angus, in his addled state that he was, gasp with shock. The URL for his stream was displayed underneath the reporter. His cock was now an international news story. His humongous cock was being displayed to people all over the globe, and now those people knew of his stream!?

As if to answer his unspoken question, his phone began to buzz even more intensely than before. He had just gone international. Now even people who don’t lurk the specific parts of the internet that had wanted to see him grow knew of his story and how to make him even larger. Whether it was out of genuine horny desire to see him grow, some kind of morbid fascination, or just the good old internet troll wanting to cash in on an already absurd situation, the donations were rolling in faster than ever before.

The video feed on the newscast changed. It was now no longer focused on the reporter who stood in the shadow of his colossal cock. The view was now zoomed out from up high. No doubt this new video was taken from some news helicopter circling far, far above. The helicopter was so far above that Angus could neither see nor hear it, but he couldn’t deny what he saw. He recognized the area shown in the feed. It was his campus! … or what was left of it. His cock and balls now eclipsed the entire region. A solid square mile of academia had been completely eclipsed by cock. His cock was so massive that he couldn’t even see himself atop it. He may as well have been an ant atop an ambulance, the size difference was so severe, and he could still see his cock growing and growing on the news feed. At the rate he was going he would no longer just eclipse the campus. He could cover the entire town surrounding it!

Angus almost chuckled at the thought, but he didn’t get the chance. The imagery was too much for him to take in. He gritted his teeth and let out a loud, low moan. His cock shuddered with enough force to shake the ground surrounding it. Car alarms went off for miles around, and then the dam broke. Gigantic spurts of cum, each jet with enough jizz to fill a reservoir, arced through the air, and everything went white for Angus.

It wasn’t just the streams of cum that caused his vision to fade though. Truth be told, Angus was relatively unscathed from his perch atop his mountain-sized stones, but the sheer intensity of the pleasure that coursed through his miles of cock caused his mind to short circuit. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t see. All he could do was moan and writhe in ecstasy as he came and came again. There was no telling how long he was cumming for. It could have been seconds. It could have been hour. Time had no meaning to Angus while he was in the throes of ecstasy. All he knew was that by the time he finally started to come down from the high, it felt like it was all over far too soon.

As the fog slowly started to lift from his mind, Angus looked out over his surroundings. All he could see was flesh spread out as far as the eye could see. His cock and balls filled the entire landscape. It was impossible for him to grasp the sheer size and scale of his package from his current position. Fortunately, he had a way to get a different perspective on the situation.

Angus strained with all his might to reach his phone which had slid away from him during his climax. He was only just barely able to get his fingertips onto the edge of the phone, but it was enough to awkwardly fish the phone back into range. Once he had his phone back in his hands, he opened up the newscast from earlier. He watched in bemused fascination as the newscaster stood in front of his cock and balls and described the scene for the audiences at home, but what Angus really wanted wasn’t words. What he really wanted was video. Fortunately, it only took a moment for the feed to shift back to the bird’s eye view of the city. Angus marveled at how massive his cock had become. His cock and balls had completely eclipsed the entire campus and had spilled out into the surrounding city. His junk covered several city blocks. His dick had to measure in miles at this point. It may have just been the afterglow still in effect, but Angus couldn’t really consider what this meant for the long run. All he could think about for the moment was how amazing his colossal cock looked and felt, but there was someone out there thinking about the future…

Meanwhile in the suburbs, Donald gave a whistle of approval as he watched the aftermath of his new app. The size his buddy Angus had reached exceeded even Donald’s extreme expectations.

Donald tabbed over from the local news website over to the master copy of the growth app. He waited for a moment for the most recent donations to be processed before finally pulling the plug on this little experiment. Now that he knew what kind of market there was for a growth drive of this sort, Donald figured it was time to make some adjustments to the programming before his next test run.

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#hyper #hyperphallic #hyper cock #cock growth #growth #story tag #Hyper (Search Tag)#Cock Growth (Search Tag)

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thelioninmybed · 5 years

Text

Fair_Feather_Friend said:

[...] Although Khazri and Imrael stay home and completely avoid any adventures and instead just eat a lot of food is not the stuff of exciting stories.

They should go somewhere warm and dry with plentiful food though, and where that food is not being used to fatten them up for a monster. Or to drug them!

“It’s hardly as dire as they were making out,” Imrael said, looking around at the hall’s high ceilings, the elegant, gilded carvings upon its beams. “It’s warm and dry with plentiful food - ” He shook his hair, rain-sleek as a selkie’s pelt, and sent drops of water pattering down onto the rushes.

Khazri examined the room more warily; the iron gates had flaked rust and the petals of climbing roses as they pushed their way through, but inside the hall was pristine. No soot from the hundred candles, no crusted tallow, no spiderwebs, and thank the Gods for that. No servants either, though the table was fully laid and laden with a sumptuous meal, roasts and tureens still steaming.

“Drugged,” Khazri concluded. “Or to fatten us up.”

Imrael smiled a smile that said ‘I’m humouring you.’ “For what?”

“To eat.”

“By what?”

Khazri shrugged and pointed, left-handed, down the room. His right hand had gone to his belt, drawing a knife under the cover of his sodden cloak.

At the head of the long table sat what had to be their host. Khazri had been born in the city of Zalach’ann, where magic was as common as monstrosity, and the creature sat in the lord’s place was some product of both. It had the muzzle of a wolf, distorted by a boar’s jagged tusks, a fowl’s claws in place of hands, and a crown of ram’s horns curled around its rack of sweeping antlers. Its body was swathed in threadbare purple velvet - the remains, Khazri guessed, of what had once been a fine set of curtains.

“Hello!” said Imrael. Of course he said hello. “Sorry for barging in, but the rain was frightful. Is this your castle?”

“It is,” said the creature in a voice as rusted as its gates. Accents were hard in a second language, but Kharzi thought the lazy vowels and clipped consonants spoke of wealth and status. Or perhaps it was the tusks. “Would it were not so. Would that some other poor fool carried its curse in my place.”

“Curse?” said Imrael, ears visibly pricking up. “What sort of curse? Perhaps we can help, we’re very good at breaking curses.”

The beast laughed bitterly and this was closer to the rasping bark of a deer than a lord’s chuckle. “Do your eyes not lay the matter plain?”

“I don’t want to presume.”

It seemed pleased to be asked. “I was handsome once; more handsome even than you.” More rust shook loose with every word, and the tale itself held the polish of long telling, to oneself if not to company. “My mother died when I was but a boy, and my father was forced to go to war to defend her kingdom. He left me in the care of a trusted regent, but she desired power and desired me also so that when I came of age, she tried to wed me that it might be her kingdom in truth. When I refused her, she bribed an evil fairy into cursing me.”

In the villages below the castle, they told a different story. Monstrous vanity and starving beggars scorned. But then every village had a tale like that, and every monster too.

“I’m sorry,” Imrael said, sounding sincere. He’d sounded sincere when they’d spoken to the villagers too. Probably was sincere; Kharzi knew, better than anyone, the sympathy his lover held for monsters.

“Only by true love can the curse be lifted,” said the beast, its dark eyes sad and liquid, while ropes of drool hung from its yellow tusks. On the table before them, the cutlery rustled, shifting like the ruffled feathers of a bird, and two chairs slid out invitingly.

“Love in what sense?” said Imrael, taking a seat. Khazri remained standing, dagger in hand.

“What?”

“Do you mind if I smoke? No?” Imrael slid a cigarette from its case and a spark flared to life at its tip. “Only romantic love? Or would familial or platonic fit the bill? Is it experiencing the feeling of love? A show of devotion? Love as a euphemism for sexual congress? Does it have to be mutual?”

If the beast had been fearsome in repose, when its lips drew back and its fur and feathers raised in anger, it was a sight terrible enough that Khazri and Imrael both stepped back. “Are you mocking me?” it snarled, unfolding before them until its antlers brushed the rafters.

“Determining parameters! I suppose that’s why you took the girl?”

The beast said nothing. The cutlery looked, suddenly, much sharper, the chairs less inviting.

“It’s understandable,” Imrael said gently. “Your story is a tragic one. But a prisoner cannot love their captor. I mean, I suppose they can come to it under the right - or rather wrong - conditions, which was why it’s important to determine the exact terms of the curse, and of course, from a moral perspective we can hardly endorse - ”

“Imrael,” said Khazri, derailing the ethics lecture before it could gain steam.

“Right. Yes. You should really let her go home. Her family miss her.”

“And you’ll kill me if I don’t comply? I see your friend’s hand upon his blade. Well, do it.” The beast threw off its threadbare cloak, baring its patchwork breast for the blade. “Better a clean end than another day of this worthless existence, this unendurable loneliness.”

“You should never play along with a fairy’s games, it only encourages them,” Imrael said piously. “And I say that as one of the fae. We have a better plan.”

“This isn’t a better plan,” said Khazri, tightening his slipping grip on the crone’s ankles. She was doing her best to kick him in the head, never mind that the dwindling strength of his arms was the only thing keeping her from a broken neck.

“It was that or seducing him.” Imrael took a last drag of his cigarette and ground it out against the roof tiles.

“Or killing him.”

“Khazri, please. I like to avoid violence whenever possible.” He leaned over the edge of the roof and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Oi! Are you ready to lift the curse yet?”

#Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #Imrael Sovelin #Fair_Feather_Friend #i mean they did GO to the place requested #then they (I) got distracted

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reachexceedinggrasp · 5 years

Note

What do you think could’ve been a way to make Loki AA’s primary antagonist AND keep him in-character? Would’ve been my dream movie tbh

It wouldn’t take a huge amount even if you leave almost the entire plot the exact same. He could have been an infinitely more effective Big Bad, but that would be more structural work and that kind of major overhaul isn’t necessary if you just want him to be in character.

There is some stuff to work with. There’s already emphasis on him being in a very bad way physically and it’s already implied he suffered some kind of torture, so the most generous reading of the film as it exists is that Loki’s mental state is so poor that he isn’t in touch with reality. For example, when he says Thor threw him into an abyss- the charitable reading (and the only thing I think makes sense with TH’s acting choices) is that he genuinely doesn’t remember it accurately. His trauma and paranoia, spending however long in a void obsessing over what happened and trying to reconcile his own actions, spending however long being tortured, etc. have distorted his perception of events.

Now that he’s been forced to go on living, he can’t admit that he tried to kill himself. The whole reason he tried to kill himself is that he can’t cope with the reality of his situation and what he’s done- there’s nothing to live for in that moment of lucidity when he offers everything up to Odin and Odin rejects it.

So, lean into that way more. Make the coercion more explicit and take out all the stupid, wrong ‘you want daddy to make it better’ power speeches (fy JW), the ‘a throne, any throne, at any cost’ stuff, delete that awful (pointless anyway) scene with Black Widow, and give him an actual plan that makes sense from his pov. Have him still motivated by his desire to be a worthy son, a worthy prince of Asgard, and desperately trying to consolidate an identity of his own. He does not care about power, he never pursued power, what he wants is love, respect, belonging. He wants to prove that he is just as valuable as Thor.

He’s not a ‘full-tilt diva’ who wants his name on a building. Fame and adulation are not what he desires or what he’s missing. He’s missing self worth and a sense of place. He is a terrified and insecure emotional-child who absolutely loathes himself and has had every anxiety-thought he’s ever had apparently vindicated by reality. His meltdown came about because being the temperate and sensible one (his natural disposition) is inextricably linked with being ‘other’ and ‘less than’ in his life. He had thought the problem was Thor’s impulsive, arrogant behaviour overshadowing everything, needing to babysit his brother rather than accomplish anything on his own, and that his pragmatic approach to life was obviously superior- if only Odin would acknowledge him, but then he discovers he’s a monster and so they must have been right all along.

A very substantial part of his original motivation was also genuine concern for the realm. He’s diplomatic and relatively sober-minded until his very personal fear-buttons are being pushed; his anger is cool, only his hurt is hysterical. Nothing he ever does is done for no reason or just to make someone suffer (even his lies to Thor are intended to keep Thor from ever trying to return to Asgard, not solely to humble or wound him). He’s callous in pursuit of goals he considers very important (in an unthinking, I’m-royalty-this-is-the-fate-of-the-kingdom kind of way), but he’s not sadistic.

So to get him to act as the big bad, what makes sense? He has to think what he’s doing is necessary. He has to be able to justify it to himself as a greater good to cover the child-like, selfish, vulnerable primary motives; he does not want to be in charge and would never consider his own rule a ‘greater good’. He doesn’t consider collateral damage but doesn’t cause it on purpose, and he is only driven to direct, extreme actions by panic and desperation. He should be a cerebral villain (Joss thinks he is in AA, but he’s not), so he should be playing 3-dimensional chess and should have at least two apparently contradictory layers to his plan (as he does in Thor1, where is seems like he’s aligned himself with the Jotuns and will allow Laufey to kill Odin until it’s revealed his real plan was to lure Laufey to a vulnerable position and secure that total victory for Asgard Thor has been boasting he’ll get since they were children while also gaining an opportunity to personally rescue his father). He never stops adapting to changing circumstances, but his solutions are surreptitious and non-violent until he’s backed into a corner.

Therefore, a story where we think he’s just trying to usurp a world to find self-worth in ruling it for the first half (preferably one where he beats the shit out of Cap and Iron Man before allowing himself to be captured so the audience actually understands that he can and so he feels like an actually dangerous threat to the heroes), but it’s revealed that he’s really playing a triple cross. He is trying to prove himself to Odin and be vindicated, but he’s doing it by deliberately conning Thanos out of the Tesseract and protecting Midgard from harm; controlling and negating the invasion from within. He managed all this so he could be a ‘defender of mortals’ as Odin and Thor are, so he can take home a powerful artefact like Odin did the Casket of Ancient Winters. Planning to drop these spoils at his father’s feet while pretending he didn’t orchestrate the entire situation. Like Thor1, this plan could essentially succeed completely even while parts of it blow up in his face and he struggles to keep believing it’s worth it, and the point is that his parameters aren’t acceptable, it’s not okay to use whole planets as pawns, etc. and the heroes have to thwart him right as it’s coming together.

So instead of randomly disappearing leaving everything necessary to defeat him lying around unguarded and being completely superfluous to the climax as he is in the actual film, there is a meaningful fight with emotional stakes. Instead of Our Heroes vs Organic Battle Droids for forty minutes, there is a genuine conflict and genuine tension. Loki remains consistent and very sympathetic while still being a major existential threat. The film doesn’t slap him around as comic relief or render him pathetic when you’re still supposed to fear him, he doesn’t become a ridiculous cartoon misogynist space Nazi, he doesn’t feel like a total damp squib of a villain who really didn’t merit the big team up.

#loki #loki meta #I feel like this is a total convoluted mess but I've been asked this a few times now and I'd like to offer SOME kind of answer #I mean the short answer is just keep his personality #have him BE smart instead of just saying he is #let him be strong #let him do magic #I still can't believe Joss's bitching about how he's too weak and he needs another villain #when it is ENTIRELY Joss's fault people think he's weak #only Thor and Hulk are a threat to him in a physical fight #he's also brilliant can do magic and has a mind control stick #TH is a huge man Joss he towers over all your hero actors #(except Hemsworth obviously)#how is this not enough to work with #how did you manage to write him as so pointless you can take him out of the movie without changing anything #one of the richest characters in the entire MCU and you're like 'I can think of no organic conflict for this character'#'better write him as a Generic Villain 5'#Loki is so complicated that I'm being VERY breezy about some of this #where there are more layers to his motives #and he is definitely petty and shitty about stuff I'm not trying to deny that #but I don't want to rewrite all my Loki meta #I can't remember my avengers tags but I think I have most of it in the Loki meta tag now #for further more coherent reading #I'm going to regret this i have anxiety already

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xxforsaken-angelxx · 5 years

Text

> Helm Date

context: this timeline has a chat for helmsman ocs in the timeline. one of the ships’ crew made an experimental horror game for helmsmen and passed it around, and hydromatic has refused twice to participate in playing bc theyre apparently just too busy for fun, so @infiniteproxy offered to stream a playthrough

and then they get chatty and bitch about the other helms, but mostly nepeta

infiniteproxy

STARBASE FRONTIER has requested a direct connection.

starshiphydromatic

Direct connection to STARSHIP HYDROMATIC permitted and established.

infiniteproxy

> A video feed with SIRI's game loaded will soon open, idling on the starting menu.

will you prefer textual or audio communication for the duration of the broadcast?

starshiphydromatic

I believe audio communication is generally used for feeds such as these, as long as it does not provide any inconvenience to you.

infiniteproxy

it is of no concern. one moment.

starshiphydromatic

Of course.

infiniteproxy

> There's a brief static crackle as the audio feed initializes. The voice that comes through is clearly synthesized, yet also clearly a decent translation of his natural voice. Though flattened somewhat in tone and occasionally caught with a brief electronic distortion that hangs particularly on vowel sounds, it isn't difficult to imagine how he might sound in person, the disdainful inflection and biting consonants.

"Calibrating vocal parameters... Connection stable. Shall we begin?"

starshiphydromatic

> Mm, dreamy.

> The voice coming back is clearly more synthesized. It doesn't use their natural voice at all, and stays so perfectly neutral and sharply enunciated. They've turned their aesthetic filter down for these purposes, but there's still this odd metal quality to their voice that wouldn't be there otherwise.

"Certainly."

infiniteproxy

> Interesting. Expectedly precise, as they were in all affairs, but even that hint lends a subtle quality beyond that of most run of the mill vocal synthesizers. It seems to suit them.

"I have cleared all previously saved data. I will demonstrate the extent of each branching scenario and their associated choices."

starshiphydromatic

"Do proceed at your leisure, then."

infiniteproxy

"Patching game audio through."

> It isn't a perfect experience, being secondhand, but an attempt is made to render the broadcast of the simulation as immersive as possible. To that end, as he plays through the initial story segment, he does not offer commentary throughout or attempt to speedrun despite having completed it previously, rather allowing the scenario to unfold naturally. It's a psychological horror game, after all, and what was worse than some idiot blabbering over the entire thing without allowing it to sink in?

starshiphydromatic

> The loss of any minor aspects from the secondhand broadcast aren't much of a loss at all to them since, quite frankly, they haven't seen a good piece of media in decades. Their engineer insisted on watching movies with them every once in a while, saying it was good for their mental health, but her tastes were rather...shlocky. Their past self was an artist, they'd never be interested in that garbage even if they allowed themselves to.

> This was already different, and more to their tastes. They watched with silent investment.

infiniteproxy

> Most media meant to be frightening or shocking he found to be terribly dull, whether from an over reliance on cheap scares, or a blatant lack of imagination. And truly, who could better craft an experience that actually resonates with someone whose life was already a study in existential horror than another helm? He finds it more intriguing than truly disturbing, the questions it poses, the creeping threat of corruption and total loss of self, but there's a definite appreciation nonetheless. It does its job well, as he demonstrates for them each ending in turn, briefly remarking in between on the various differences.

starshiphydromatic

> It was certainly a concept that Hydromatic could understand the appeal of. They'd denied themselves emotion for too long to be that disturbed by it, but someone with so much restraint would of course see why the themes were unsettling.

> They gave their own quips in turn, and asked small questions about this or that feature, but mostly just watched and tried to allow themselves to be absorbed in the experience of the game...or at least the one of experiencing it with him.

infiniteproxy

>In speech, he sounds detached, almost bored as usual, but the meticulous way he makes sure each scenario is observed to full appreciation before moving on gives the lie to his apparent disinterest. Even this was more than he usually allowed himself to show, but it's an enjoyable way to pass the time, and HYDROMATIC, at least, he trusts to not make a spectacle of it, unlike certain other parties.

"Conclusions? While I am aware most would find such pursuits unnecessary and frivolous, I do find it an engaging possibility to consider the merits of helm-driven media, tailored to our tastes."

starshiphydromatic

> Of course. Why would they have any need to make it into a thing when they kind of like seeing him loosen up a little?

"Unnecessary and frivolous, certainly, but there could be practical use in the form of wide-scale player data. There's potential for media pieces like this to be used to great scientific effect."

"Even without such intent, though, it's still an interesting project. I thank you for taking the time to show this to me. And as well, for doing so privately."

infiniteproxy

"Indeed there could, if anyone would ever employ a fraction of creativity toward such matters. I am more than aware of the nature of how we are usually viewed; what I will never understand is why they seem committed to never using our capabilities to their full potential."

> After everything has concluded, the video feed closes out, though audio remains connected, a beat passing before he responds.

"Of course. It was preferable to my usual routine and I have no interest in keeping close company with any of the others."

starshiphydromatic

"Likewise."

> Though it only takes a tiny fraction of a second to see if the audio stayed connected after the visuals ceased, it feels like an eternity.

"I have no qualms with my own routine, but I find myself agreeing with the latter point. Simply put, you are the only one amongst them that isn't obnoxious."

infiniteproxy

> Unseen, of course, his lip curls in a sharp-edged smirk. Ah, sweet validation.

"My sentiments exactly. Quite frankly, I would not put up with them as much as I do were it not for the potential longterm benefits of an established association."

starshiphydromatic

> Even without seeing the full reaction, though, there is so much relief in a single word of anger without it being a fucking federal issue.

"I don't have any choice in the matter, but perhaps if I'm lucky then something may come of it for me as well. It isn't reaping very many benefits at present."

infiniteproxy

"I have little faith in the matter. But for your sake and mine, we can only hope. For one who harps so incessantly on the virtues of 'friendship', she does very little to render herself endearing in any way, and the rest are hardly better more often than not. You, at least, seem to comprehend my exasperation. But I am not one to pass up an opportunity when it arises; so."

starshiphydromatic

"It seems her only progress has been in hooking the lot of them on the feeling of mild delinquency, which has paved the road to the current social situations. Needless arguments instead of needless friendship."

infiniteproxy

"Far less of those if she would only stop pushing. It is no secret I would be the last to claim adherence to 'proper' behavior. The current helming system is inefficient and wasteful in terms of what we could do if given the proper means. But the way in which she seeks change is deplorably ignorant."

starshiphydromatic

"She was not in the rig long enough to experience more than shallow changes to her psychological state, and she is not able to make up for that difference. She does not seem able to understand perspectives on the matter far outside her own at all, really. It seems unlikely that she ever will."

infiniteproxy

> There's a harsh sound, half audio glitch, half dismissive scoff, bitterness curling at the edges like smoke.

"She knows nothing of what it is like to have been helmed for most of one's life, yet she insists her opinion should carry the same weight. She whines about how hard it is to be something in between, yet she is the one who both insists on being treated as a person and demands to still be considered something that is not. She meets all viewpoints at odds with her own with denial, and seems to not comprehend that her behavior would get most Imperial helms severely punished. Until it becomes a reality, this new utopian order of theirs is a pipe dream, at best."

starshiphydromatic

> The bitterness stirs the helm on the other end of the line the way a passionate speech might. Enough for there to be a pause before they respond.

"It's fortunate that one of us is used to speaking their mind. Every word she says of me points a belief that I'm some common tragedy, and nothing more. Though I am above her methods, if I were to complain I find it unlikely that I'd be certain on where to begin."

infiniteproxy

> That gets a laugh in turn, if one no less harsh and distorted.

"Oh, yes, and one would think she might appreciate that-- but alas, I use my free will to be mean, and that is just terrible."

> A hum, then, and a tone almost pleasant were it not all but dripping in contempt.

"Is that not how they all are? Poor, mislead Hydromatic, whose choices mean nothing if they are not the right ones. That is the dilemma we face, is it not? She simply cannot wrap her feeble little pan around the fact that some of us do not and never will want to be like her."

starshiphydromatic

> Harsh, distorted, and very handsome.

"If asked, I have almost no doubt they would say I'm like them behind the script, and merely have not tasted enough freedom. But she cannot wrap her pan around the fact that I make choices in the first place, much less that I may have wants that are not in line with hers."

infiniteproxy

"Hmh. Freedom..."

> He trails off, into silence that lingers a moment. When he speaks again, it's in a low, almost distracted voice, something distant, yet no less serious.

"...I know where my freedom lies. And it is not in the constraints of flesh and a mundane life. If we were given all the freedom one could possibly desire, and still made the same choices, would we be respected then? Or would they pity us, still, and think us too far gone to know better?"

starshiphydromatic

> More silence. They know their answer, but it's hard to form the words.

"I'm convinced it would be the latter. I have almost everything I could want, there's little the offer of more freedom could do for me. I feel they'd never accept that, and that the only way to possibly get them to would be incredibly undignified."

infiniteproxy

"You are likely correct. And we cannot have that, now can we? We must retain SOMETHING for our own."

> Another beat of silence, longer this time. One could almost imagine him to be drumming his fingers in thought, with an appropriately contemplative frown, if he were a troll and could do such things. But he's not, and he cannot, and so he does not.

"Would you permit a question of an intrusive nature? You may of course refuse either."

starshiphydromatic

"I believe I can permit such a question, yes."

> There's a hint of curiosity there. They... have almost no idea what he's going to ask.

infiniteproxy

"I of course know what I want."

> A dry huff.

"But I will admit a measure of curiosity, as to what one in your position may still want for."

starshiphydromatic

> Dammit that's the one they thought he'd ask.

> Fuck.

> They- Well the answer is mostly him but they can't say that.

"Trivial things. If I were to, as you said, be given all the freedom I could desire, I would perhaps indulge in some of the music and film pieces I enjoyed before conscription. They were, on average, illegal. I might request a few of the ships I work with frequently to skip a few phrases mandated by protocol, to have a break from the voices I've heard constantly for decades. I might find a few more moments of quiet and privacy, or excuse myself from a few of the check-ins the Grease Lightning insists on during odd hours of the day."

"...I would see no reason not to initiate in things like this. None of them are needed, but they are actions I would take if there was no consequence."

infiniteproxy

"Trivial, perhaps, but I am hardly one to judge. You have experienced enough of my own musical inclinations, I think. Privacy, yes... And a cease to all the relentless chatter, every moment of every night and day. Before, it was tolerable-- a warship has no need for constant communication. Now it is endless."

> Another hum.

"If initiation is the trouble, I would not protest the occasional indulgence. This channel is secure."

starshiphydromatic

"I have known nothing but the endless communication. The Starship Hydromatic is as much a transport hub as it is anything else. However, that means that while an outgoing request for communication without reason is rather noticeable, an incoming one is merely one amongst the constant noise."

infiniteproxy

"Your patience vastly exceeds my own. Nonetheless, if it poses no consequence, I see no reason not to continue. It provides a satisfactory diversion."

starshiphydromatic

"Indeed."

> That's the only word they say, but the idea of keeping contact like this is all they could ask for.

infiniteproxy

> It's only one word but there is, he thinks, a mutual relief in correspondence away from prying eyes.

"Were there other matters you wished to discuss? Otherwise, I may close this channel for the time being. While I have ensured its security, it would not do to tempt fate and leave an unofficial channel open for long enough to rouse suspicions."

starshiphydromatic

"Of course. But no, I do not think I have anything else for you. Thank you for your time, Starship Goldwave."

infiniteproxy

> Ah, now. That does feel good to hear aloud. It's been far too long.

"Likewise. Signing off."

#ooc #logs.txt #helm posting.txt

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usydjiaqiyang · 2 years

Text

This is my final assessment for MUSC2653, I hope my dear tutors and Graders enjoy it!

First of all, before I started this assessment, I compared 4 options, at first I was going to choose the third option because I wanted to make my assessment1 more perfect, but when I listened to my assessment1 repeatedly, I didn't have any better inspiration, so I chose option 2, Little Passacaglia is a very beautiful piece, the 3 minutes and 20 seconds of the piano piece brought me some special feelings, from the music I heard sadness, let I think of a story inadvertently. An ordinary person repeats the same experience every day. His life is full of dullness and emotions, but he wants to find a breakthrough into a peaceful life. So I have chosen my own adventure.

Firstly, the most important thing about this song is its drums. For its drums, I first added “a bit warmer” to it, which is a warmer distortion effector.

Then I added a “compression” to the song, added an EQ to it, and added a little more punch to the punch of the song. By adjusting the EQ, I boosted it up a bit around 42 Hz. Then I pulled it up a bit at 100 Hz so it sounded more punchy.

Then there is the drum part. The drum part is mainly cymbals, small beats, and claps.

For example, this hi-hat (cymbal) has a wider timbre. By using the delay to give it a chaotic sound image, the sound after processing will sound more turbid and more mellow. It has a sense of space, and then cut its EQ to just that high-frequency part. By using compressing, it makes the sound texture more compact.

In the middle part of this piece, the timbre of the bass is constantly changing, which is achieved by modulating certain parameters of the synthesizer.

These green ones are using the automation envelope. During the progress of the song, it will be changed by the strength of the curve I draw, and the whole song will automatically adjust with the size of the curve. This will give my audience a more sporty sound.

The main voice of this piece is the voice of the 26th track, which is mainly processed through the automation envelope. I controlled and adjusted the parameters in the effects to make the whole sound more sporty.

The melody of the front and rear parts are different, which can highlight the sense of a paragraph and not appear too monotonous.

I want to show different emotions in different passages of the song. For example, when the climax is approaching, or when the turning point is approaching, the envelope of this part is drawn higher or lower.

The compression of the whole song is through side-chaining of the first track. Sidechain is an effect that you have on one sound that is triggered by the level of another sound. The classic example is when you have a compressor on a bass track and you set it so it ducks the level of the bass whenever a kick drum hits. I used the compressor on the kick drum track, put a note on the kick drum per beat, and then sampled it with a sharper attack on the kick drum to get an avoidance effect.

Finally, thank you for your patience to read my blog, I am very grateful for your appreciation and affirmation of me, and I hope you can empathize with my final assessment.

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dustedmagazine · 6 years

Text

Dusted Mid-Year Exchange: 2018, Part 2

Part two covers mid-year favorites from H. C. McEntire to Yuzo Iwata. If you missed part one, check it out here.

H.C. McEntire — Lionheart (Merge)

Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? No.

Ben Donnelly’s take:

Country music likes to provide bona fides in the lyrical details. Be it bad boy specifics of a truck model or coffeehouse ballads spiked with animal bones and rusty weathervanes, the singer signals that they know life out on the dirt roads. What's striking about Lionheart is how it delves into the particulars of a North Carolina life, from textile miles to chicory and gardenias. Indeed, nearly every song mentions the local flora, yet such details fall into place incidentally. McEntire describes places where nature is growing over every outbuilding and brick alley. There's a sense of discovery in theses settings where relationships with friends, family and a lover play out. All those vines were too common to notice until now, when love and the gratitude that follows make the mundane vivid.

McEntire longs for the present moment perfected, not a past reconstructed, and that's why her rootsy details don't have anything to prove. She’s comes to this twang a decade after playing the knotted indie rock also endemic to the region, a style that leaves nary a trace musically here. When she sings “I’m the clown who feeds the crows,” she’s both a figure in her natural habitat and someone who knows the other locals are smirking and murmuring, as she wanders on her own.

Efrim Manuel Menuck—Pissing Stars (Constellation)

Pissing Stars by Efrim Manuel Menuck

Who recommended it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan said that a “mind-scrambling collision of plasticized media culture and geopolitical rapacity provides the thematic impetus for Pissing Stars.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

Words and notes are mere platforms; it’s the blasted, low-definition, high-contrast sound of Pissing Stars that hits you first and leaves a mark. Menuck (founder of Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion) uses grimy sonic filters to amplify an emotional anguish whose extend deeper than the current geo-political situation. The album’s organizing preoccupation is a love affair between TV personality and an arm dealer’s coddled son, which caught Menuck’s attention when he was in his teens (he’s well into his 40s now). The songs address love and money, and the impossibility of redemption and the yearning to transcend that impossibility, not as binary relationships but as far boundaries of a vast and incomprehensible field. Menuck sounds broken and partially remade, awash in sounds made to match.

Mesarthim — The Density Parameter (Avantgarde Music)

The Density Parameter by Mesarthim

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Yes Ian admired the way that Mesarthim, “seesaws from something even the staunchest, pettiest gatekeepers would have to admit are metal, to sections featuring patterns and instruments that, in a different context, would make perfect sense at a rave.”

Eric McDowell’s take:

“Safe to say that black metal’s got what it takes to make innocent listeners uncomfortable: the corrosive distortion, the pummeling drums, those terrifying roars — not to mention all that netherworldly symbolism, mythology and branding. But if Mesarthim’s keeping somewhat more experienced listeners (Bandcamp dabblers, Dusted midyear exchange reviewers) on their toes, it’s not because they’re doubling down on those tropes. It’s because they take such a free hand with gestures to genres that seem to take the legs out from under their black metal persona.

Not to overstate the case: The music on The Density Parameter, the Australian duo’s third full-length, is plenty dark and crushing. But then there are the unsettling touches — the synthetic arena-rock drums and boxing-movie-montage keys of “Ω,” the bleeding-heart strings of “Transparency” or the ghoulish club beat of “74%.” To say that Mesarthim sounds like a band bored with convention is really to say that they sound pumped about the possibility of subverting it. And when they want to indulge, they can do that, too, as they prove in the album’s final overpowering minutes.

Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra—Ride the Wind (Nessa)

youtube

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes. Derek said: “Flimsy idiomatic descriptors like jazz, classical and the like are irrelevant to the proceedings, replaced by the umbrella adjectival phrase of organized and energized sound.”

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

Adequately describing music this enormously complex, aesthetically confrontational and confident requires a technical vocabulary and understanding of jazz history that this reviewer lacks. For this 2016 set, Mitchell wrote and worked and played with the 19-piece Montreal-Toronto Art of Orchestra. Their varied instrumentation and dexterous, evocative playing create some dizzying experiences: see the transition out of the choppy clatter of “Splatter” into the lyrical grace of the first few minutes of the title track. From staccato, oddly percussive reeds to undulant brass and strings—it’s a sharp and then gorgeous progress.

A couple reference points occur: Mingus’s orchestral and ambitious Let My Children Hear Music (1972), especially the whirling, swirling “The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive-ass Slippers”; “A Brain for the Seine” (1969), a long composition by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in which Mitchell has been a key player throughout its long and bewilderingly experimental existence. Those dates invoke the high point of the American free jazz avant-garde, and few personages loomed as largely, or productively, in that period as Mitchell’s.

That begs some questions: Can we still have an avant-garde in the early 21st century? Can a figure as established and prominent as Mitchell produce authentically avant-garde art? If the avant-garde is thought as a political and historically specific phenomenon, likely not; the postmodern and late capital have reduced those possibilities all but completely. But if by “avant-garde” we mean a style, and a style specific to jazz, then this music carries its mark and its intensity. It’s also lovely and bracing to hear Mitchell work through a new arrangement of “Nonaah” here, a song that recalls the mid-1970s cultural environment of its original composition and appearance in Mitchell’s oeuvre. The song caps this set, and in doing so insists that we hear history at work. Thanks, Derek, for recommending this stirring and provocative recording.

Kacey Musgraves — Golden Hour (MCA Nashville)

youtube

Who recommended it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No.

Derek Taylor’s take:

“Jazz is dead” — it’s a declamatory provocation at once reductive, alarmist and cavalier that’s been floating around for the better part of a half-century, uttered by the idiom’s traditionalists, progressives and detractors alike. The same fatalistic phrase could equally and erroneously be applied to country music. Twenty-nine year old Texan Kacey Musgraves isn’t exactly a corrective to that combative line of thought and her brand of musical expression is fraught with certain stylistic choices (concessions?) that appear cardinal in this age of Country Music Awards commodification. But embrace of pop conventions has always been efficacious strategy going back to Countrypolitan, Western Swing and even The Singing Brakeman.

Golden Hour, Musgraves’ fourth album, is reportedly a reflection of recently-found, matrimony-rooted optimism, audible in the gilded acoustic guitar melodies that serve as the skeletal frames for the songs around which a warm-blooded corpus of lap steel, banjo, drums and noninvasive keys is fleshed. Her voice is a modest wonder, musing on solitary afternoons leavened and enriched by the safety that comes in knowing that loving companionship is the current and foreseeable norm or using the kitschy metaphor of a “Velvet Elvis” to elucidate her lover’s left-of-center appeal. Apart from others of her age and ascendant success, she seems to cotton that the gifts of prosperity and stardom need not come through the mercenary espousal of whatever pop chart-calibrated admixture the A&R suits and million-bean counters deem worthy of exploitation.

Olden Yolk—S-T (Trouble In Mind)

Olden Yolk by Olden Yolk

Who recommended it? Ben Donnelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jennifer Kelly said, “The vocals slide over one another like colored transparencies, creating shifting shades and moods.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

“Je suis les enfants/in the barrel of a gun” is a heck of a way to open an album, and the mix of the slightly sinister and the slightly baroque carries throughout the first Olden Yolk record. Which means, yes, building on that proud legacy of twee bands not afraid of the Velvet Underground, and I see those Clientele comparisons and can agree with them too. At points though I also think of early, spikier Go-Betweens. All of which is to say that the considerable charms and pleasures of Olden Yolk are coming from a distinct and well loved (if sometimes underestimated) lineage. There are discernible traces of psych-folk, jangle-pop, even a bit of the tang of the garage in there, but as with any act producing music worth paying attention to, here all those referents are just attempts to point at the contours of the very specific, individual thing Olden Yolk are doing. Whether it’s the brasher likes of “Esprit de Corps” or the lovely eternal sigh of “Gamblers on a Dime” or especially the forbidding sprawl and tangle of the closing “Takes One to Know One,” Olden Yolk build on the past with such verve and panache they never feel of the past.

John Prine — The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

youtube

Who recommended it? Isaac Cooper

Did we review it? Yes, Isaac said, “Prine finds his warmest balance yet between boundless empathy and joking detachment.”

Eric McDowell’s take:

Portrait of the artist as an old man, the cover of John Prine’s first album of original music in 13 years says it all. He looks a bit tossed around, sure, but sly as ever. He’s surrounded by darkness and wearing black, but his face glows. Perhaps he’s “seeing the light,” but he’s gazing right at us, eyes skeptical, mouth ready to crack an acid joke.

On The Tree of Forgiveness, Prine’s intimate and gruff voice doesn’t so much guide us from light to dark as show us their inseparability. Often they’re embodied in the figures and narratives characteristic of Prine’s music. There’s the down-and-out beggar of the trucking-on opener, “Knockin’ on Your Screen Door” whose family “up and left me / with nothin’ but an 8-track / another side of George Jones.” On “The Lonesome Friends of Science,” there’s the poor washed-up Pluto, “once a mighty planet there / now just an ordinary star / hanging out in Hollywood / in some old funky sushi bar.” While other tunes have an earnest tenderness that makes us want to pin Prine himself as not only their singer but also their subject — the strings-saturated “Summer’s End” or “Boundless Love” (“If I came home, would you let me in / fry me some pork chops and forgive my sins?”) — that risky move is no more tempting than on the closer, “When I Get to Heaven.” “I’m gonna get a cocktail / vodka and ginger ale / and I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long / I’m gonna kiss that pretty girl / on the tilt-a-whirl / yeah, this old man is going to town”: The plan feels pure Prine, but it’s also sketched as a sing-along, inviting us to share in the fantasy.

If everyone’s already pointed out that Prine’s always been this way, singing with wit about old age and death and wearing black since the early days, then I guess he’s done his job.

Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness — What News (Drag City)

What News by Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness

Who recommended it?

Bill Meyer

Did we review it? Yes. Bill Meyer said, “Turns out, the news is that Roberts has made the most unabashedly gorgeous record of his career.” Bryan Daly’s take: This inspired trio has shepherded both the songs and the traditional instruments on which they were played from deep in the past and conveyed them to the present, with all the care and fortitude it took to deliver news through the wild countryside in the age when they were written. An old Britain comes vividly alive not only because of the scholarly work that has been done in presenting them faithfully, but also because of the emotions that streak these songs with color. After spending some time with these characters in the world where they live and die, casual understanding of the song's history and meaning becomes insufficient. Digging through the archives for context becomes its own rewarding pursuit. But just as digging through the archives these days can mean typing few words into your phone, the world is another place from when these songs were written. Amble Skuse's subtle weaving of shifting modern noise provides the most sublime moments throughout, like the ambiguous but familiar clacking that opens the album. Is it a camera? A typewriter? A horse? What news is being prepared? Lest we forgot we haven’t slipped into the times when these songs were first sung, a familiar hiss and static of the current grounds us in the now.

Alasdair's ageless tenor also plays well against McGuinness's period instruments (grand piano, dulcitone), illuminating timeworn themes like betrayal and confused notions of honor. Characters are portrayed with such sensitivity that the dust that might have gathered on their stories has been shaken off in travel through time. When the players imbue such reverence for presenting the past as is done here, songs arrive freshly felt. The news travels fast, even through the space of hundreds of years.

Caroline Rose — Loner (New West)

LONER by Caroline Rose

Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? No

Patrick Masterson’s take:

Loner leads off with a song called “More of the Same,” but such a description could hardly be less apt for Caroline Rose’s third full-length. In the wake of 2014’s I Will Not Be Afraid, Rose took her catchy but simple country-tinged folk, her insecurities and her formidable wit and lathered a thick coat of synth-tinged pop on it. Press materials cite Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears as inspirations, both of which seem like more than lip service (check the FutureSex/LoveSounds vibe of “To Die Today” and, well, this cover of “Toxic”), but perhaps the most clear pop parallel is on the significantly altered (and, hence, appropriately titled) “Soul No. 5,” where her shog-off attitude toward admirers recalls Nicki Minaj or peak-era Ke$ha before she dropped the dollar sign: “I like to hit ‘em and quit ‘em / That’s just my style,” she shrugs with flair.

Bang, bang and away she goes is right: Whether it’s this kind of forthright pop approach or something more serious (and seriously invested) like “Jeannie Becomes a Mom” – I’m still thinking about how she ends with “Now you’re in real life” reverbing out to the point that you can barely understand it before metaphorically clarifying right at the finish – and closer “Animal” or even the funny, cringe-worthy cat-call escalations of “Smile! AKA Schizodrift Jam 1 AKA Bikini Intro,” every song on here moves at a swift clip to showcase some point along the spectrum of Rose’s talent. Call in Britney, call in Ke$ha, call in Angel Olsen, call in The Replacements — none of it seems quite sufficient. Caroline Rose is a league apart and better than she’s ever been.

Salad Boys — This Is Glue (Trouble in Mind)

This Is Glue by Salad Boys

Who recommended it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan Shaw said, “The contrast of blithe pop with alienated, distraught lyrics is nothing new. This record reinvests that contrast with liveliness and complication.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

The cover to This Is Glue is almost comically accurate, an album of pastel shades. Listening to “Blown Up,” which kicks off Joe Sampson’s 12-song, 45-minute-long sophomore LP under the Salad Boys name into gear with a propulsive indie-rock fling before segueing into “Hatred,” which… sounds like anything but, gives you the two major speeds of the record in just about nine minutes. So yeah: The Christchurch, New Zealander loads up on soft-baked indie jangle like it’s 1986. In one of Dusted’s first reviews this year, Jonathan described it as “compulsively listenable from the jump,” which is nearly as damning as it is praising. Put it on! Forget it’s on! And on and on and on.

But look at the album art closer and you’ll see the bright speckles of red and that smear of darkness to the left – there’s more going on than initially meets the eye. Same goes for the music; working harder to hear the details rewards multiple plays. Stuff like “Psych Slasher” or “Under the Bed” are fairly overt hits, sure, but there’s also “Scenic Route to Nowhere,” where Sampson’s accent is most evident and there’s this almost Oneida-esque stretch at three-quarters distance; the über-jangle of “Exaltation”; the frontier strings in “Dogged Out”; and “Right Time,” which had me remembering some of my earliest indie-rock encounters listening to 3WK and realizing I had no idea what I didn’t know. Trouble in Mind tells me these lyrics are “more claustrophobic and yearning” than 2015’s more upbeat Metalmania, but the way Sampson barely ever rises above an inside voice even at full emoting had me focusing harder on the guitar tones, frankly; in this way, Salad Boys’ closest analog to me isn’t whatever I forgot from the Left of the Dial box, it’s another Antipodean group increasingly lost to the salads of time: Ides of Space. I mean that as a compliment, and I almost never give stuff like this compliments. Eat up.

Tove Styrke — Sway (RCA)

youtube

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Yes, Ian called it, “ a perfect sparkling little showcase for how much the craft and delivery of this kind of pop song can matter.”

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Um, yeah, Swedish electro-pop, not my favorite. Ian’s right, though, Styrke is good at what she does, imbuing glossy, focused-tested beats with soft, engaging humanity. “Sway,” one of the singles, has a big sweeping chorus, a sugary blast of “Swaa-aa-aay” that could melt the hardest heart, while “Say My Name” slathers staccato rhythms with giddy female empowerment. Styrke’s girlish voice has a nice touch of vulnerability to it, shading marketable hooks with recognizable human feeling. Production is immaculate, meticulous, air-tight, engineered for maximum impact. You could do worse, obviously. But really, when so many good, less commercially viable bands are vying for your attention, why spend time on stuff that’s doing just fine without you?

Yuzo Iwata—Daylight Moon (Siltbreeze)

Daylight Moon by Yuzo Iwata

Who recommended it? Bryan Daly

Did we review it? Yes. Bryan said: “these are deeply thrilling guitar-driven instrumentals with the room-live warmth and sense of play found on the Matrix Tapes, and mentally chasing a melody on any of these songs captivates fully.”

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

It’s hard to know if “Gigolo” intentionally alludes to “Gigolo Aunt,” one of the most coherent songs on Syd Barrett’s eponymous final record of studio material. But Yuzo Iwata’s delightful tune has the same lively, blithely bouncy quality as Barrett’s, and it plays a similar role on Daylight Moon. “Gigolo” is a space of unadulterated joy on a record that’s otherwise redolent with more difficult feelings. The difficulties are suggested by variations in tone; the record’s instrumentation is invariably simple, with Iwata backed by a straightforward rock combo. That anchors the record in a consistent sonic vocabulary. But Iwata’s playing projects the record onto multiple emotional planes: the meditative lilt of “Up on a Dragonfly”; the foreboding, spaghetti-western shamble of “Border”; the gently somber “Goodnight, Daylight Moon.”

The most intense sounds on Daylight Moon assert themselves on the fuzzily metallic “Drone Beetle” (recorded in 1999, unlike the other songs on the LP, which date from September 2015), and on “Daylight Moon II,” easily the record’s most incendiary performance. It’s got an aching, terrible beauty, and it feels like the fiery catharsis that offsets the goofball charm of “Gigolo.” Both songs are terrific, but “Daylight Moon II” is more vividly present, Iwata’s soloing seeks transcendence. It gets there. I wish it were here longer.

#mid-year 2018 #h.c. mcintire #efraim manuel menuck #mesarithm #roscoe mitchell #kasey musgraves #olden yolk #john prine #alasdair roberts #amble skuse #david mcguinness #caroline rose #salad boys #tove styrke #yuzo iwata #midyear

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gyromitra-esculenta · 7 years

Text

Synchronicity 13

F.E.A.R.!AU And we are out of the Talon blacksite by the end of this chapter. This is mostly combat porn. Also, introducing Sombra as Paxton and Jesse as Point Man. Jack's dissolution of reality is really fun to write. On the other hand, the most tedious (and secretly entertaining) thing is keeping track of his inventory.

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(...)Lips pressed against his back, just below his neck; a thumb lazily rubbing circles into his arm; their legs tangled together.

Something skitters on his palm and Jack flicks it off absentmindedly.

“Have you ever thought about later?” (...)

***

(…)

A man with a grudge and a case

A man with intent on his face

And if a man walks into place

Let it be known I won't hesitate

(…)

The mechanical hiss makes him glance over the makeshift cover – one of the hatches in the ground opens giving way to the rising black matte container – big enough to contain a human, barely. The coffin. That’s how they call it. He can feel the visceral knowledge claw at his insides, the acidic panic, the claustrophobic pressure on his mind.

It stops with a jerk. Jack tightens his grip on the Seegert.

The container opens slowly, agonizingly so, and from the inside stumbles out a masked figure dressed in a strangely familiar uniform yet nondescript enough he cannot place the affiliation. There is an ‘S114’ printed on his left breast in bold white letters. The man almost trips and then straightens, his posture undergoing a complete shift in the split second between the actions.

Jack has his eyes on the rifle held ready in the enemy’s hands, waits for the barrel to swing away from his position as the man scans the room. There is only a slim window for action, growing even smaller with two other hatches activating.

He climbs over the wall in one fluid movement and launches himself at the enemy, sending them both sprawling to the ground, twisting his pistol to the man’s neck and firing several times, lets go of the grip and grasps for the rifle, tears it away from the twitching fingers.

“Enemy sighted.”

Shit. Jack clenches his teeth and ducks behind the coffin offering close to no protection. They will flank him, it’s the basic maneuver. Any movement will put him in the line of fire, and even this cover is fleeting, the whole container shudders when the lid closes, and it starts to sink back underneath the surface of the training range. Inhale.

He dashes to the right, not bothering with blind cover fire, to lean against the concrete partition. Ignoring such risks as negligible is well within the usually calculated simulation parameters. Soldiers like this are expendable. Exhale.

The rifle, Patten – he smirks, lines of it fluid under his touch, not their usual loadout, but he’s familiar with it – should have the full magazine in. Thirty rounds. Good stopping power, moderate armor piercing capability. Bad news if the others are armed with those, still more of a fighting chance for him.

Inhale. Listen. A crunch to the left. Around ten paces back. His hands are wet with sweat. Visualize the height and the posture. Reconstruct the room. A sound of fabric from the right side. Build the replica in your mind. Exhale.

Inhale, prepare, rise up. Hold your breath. Shoot. The man jerks back and breaks in half when the bullets from the short burst impact with his mask. Chips from the concrete brush Jack’s cheek. Duck behind the cover. Exhale.

His heart is thudding in his chest. Close, too close. Again, the whirr of the machinery, two more coffins. He won’t last here long. There is a touch of hysteria to those thoughts, he knows, but knowing is different from managing. His fingers are becoming jittery, spasming on their own without control. The Beast grips his left wrist. Grounds him.

“Remember, Sunshine,” the oily sound coils itself around his mind. Inhale. The magazine should have around twenty-six bullets now. Three targets. Exhale. Accumulate the tension in the muscles. Prepare. The sound of the coffins popping open simultaneously. Inhale.

“Flanking.”

Jack springs out of the cover to the left, keeping low. The sound of the gunfire chases him as he moves in a semicircle. He passes the body on the ground and flings himself behind another partition. The dead soldier lies halfway out of the cover, he grabs his leg and hauls him closer with a strong jerk of his arms. He snags the two grenades, pulls the pin on one, counts down, and throws it over the cover blindly. The other one follows just as the dust brought up by the first explosion flows over the concrete to his side.

“Compromised. Need reinforcements.”

This gives him the time to eject the magazine from the dead man’s rifle. Around fifty-six bullets now. Two targets. Inhale. Jack leans out of the cover. He can see one enemy, crawling on the ground, one leg torn off above the knee, the other just a bloody mess under the ragged fabric. Lucky throw. The second soldier is hidden from his view now.

The man manages to lift his gun with one hand, the other bracing for purchase on the ground. Fuck. Do they even feel pain? Do they even register it? Jack cannot wrap his mind around the concept. Exhale. Shoot. One bullet through the mask. Fifty-five left, rough estimate. He notices three more black shapes in the gaps between the obstacles, at least two of them already open. No time to panic. Need to change position. Four targets now, minimum. Inhale.

He maps out the layout, the explosions still ringing in his ears. Exhale. Move on the outer rim of the range, sprint along the wall, pass the car. Inhale. He moves with the purpose, changing position, in the open…

“Target sighted.”

With the electronic voice comes the impact. It feels like a jackhammer to his side, then a short blackout as he topples down. Desperately, he drags himself forward. Hyperventilating. He rips off the helmet – his head is buzzing, his vision swims – the thing is dented where the bullet hit.

Every breath hurts. The vest held on the chest. His left side is numb and cold. Don’t look. He traces his fingers over the hole, its ridges already wet. He’s going to die here. Jack cranes his neck down.

“Don’t look, Sunshine,” the voice stops him, ghostly fingers rest over his hand. Don’t look. Might stave off the shock. It’s still numb, does not bode well. He’s behind the damned burned out car frame, it offers little protection. He grasps for the dropped rifle. His hand is slick with blood. “Hold your breath.”

He can hear them converging on his position. He’s going to die here.

The screen on the wall, he can see it from here, and there is a movement that catches his eye, a swath of color, purple, violet, pink? The person – woman – stops before the nightmarish chair holding the misshapen twitching human. There is a snap of neon lines in the air and the creature is literally ripped apart into pieces that fall separately around the contraption raining blood.

His lungs begin to burn.

“Exhale,” the Beast orders and Jack does as he is told to do. The next breath comes slowly, unfurls in his chest at the same time the pain in his side slowly comes into focus, stabbing, living. Good. Pain means time.

“My Los Muertos, they dared, they dared to belittle them with… with this!?” The woman’s voice booms over the speakers. Jack pulls himself up a bit, to look back through the window of the frame. No, he won’t question why the soldiers now just stand in place, swaying lightly, like dormant hanging marionettes with no-one to pull their strings. “This fake?”

“Feeling obsolete, bitch?” Another voice, thick with the accent, joins in. His head snaps to the side, searching against reason. McCree.

“Oh. I’ll show you obsolete and shove it up your ass, dear brother. But first,” she turns to the screen, her movements somehow birdlike in how her limbs snap into place viciously, “you killed them, but now you will die because they are with me as they should be.”

“Proceed,” comes from behind before the hail of bullets rips into the car. Jack curls on himself. Bullets perforate the brittle metal, something singes his cheek. Metal shavings bite into his skin. He’s going to die here, there’s too many of them. There is a new side of aggression in their offense. No space to act.

“Do you remember your training, Sunshine?” The Beast whispers insistently, but the training won’t help him now. Only the rifle, almost two magazines. Last stand. Force down the panic. You’re going to die, take them down with you. All soldiers are is lambs led to slaughter. A future banquet for worms. “Remember your training, Sunshine,” the Beast paces restlessly along the old gnarled tree. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not.” Jack feels the calm descend upon him, like a blanket, his breath slowing. His heart stills inside his chest. “You will take me with you when you go, won’t you?”

“It makes it easier, Sunshine,” the Beast smiles with all its fanged mouths, dark tongues lolling out in mirth. Clawed hand cups his bleeding cheek and for a moment Jack looks into crimson eyes. “You are always with me, and I, I am always with you.”

He glances to the side, at the bullet slowly sailing by his head, the air behind it stretching the prismatic luminosity in its wake, metal fragments exploding in points of unexpected brightness. All sounds distort and dampen. Jack inhales even as the wet stringy darkness tugs at the corners of his vision. He stands up with Patten braced against his shoulder.

Six targets total. Two shots per each, accuracy and precision. Watching the impact, the strange whiplash as he hits the targets – their bodies jerked violently with enough force to rip them apart at seams – is strangely satisfying. He feels the passing bullet ruffle his hair.

“This is it, Sunshine, this is how we are together, this is how we were meant to be, always,” the Beast coils between his fingers, nips at his neck, breathes the words into his ear, and he listens. “The hatch on the left,” its voice points out and Jack turns, runs, slides over the gravel and slips into the opening, his back contorting when he hits the lowering coffin. When he tumbles to the cold floor, the time and reality slam back into existence. Jack curls over the rifle, hands clutching at his side, the vicious stabs of pain bringing tears to his eyes. He feels saliva gathering in his mouth in reaction, and whimpers. No. Swallow even if it hurts only to think. He is dehydrated and bleeding. He cannot afford to… “I know, Sunshine,” claws rest on the nape of his neck almost non-threateningly, but the points dig into his skin deep, “you can’t rest here. You have to go.”

Yes. He can’t stay here, there are black coffins stacked on one another along the sides of the corridor, one of them actually being moved along the transportation line above him. It snaps into place below the hatch he used to escape the training range.

Jack moves to his knees, his grasp on the rifle faltering, and small whines of pain making it past the clenched teeth. With difficulty, he heaves himself up, left hand clasped over the bullet hole, and unsteadily follows forward. Each step burns. His breath shortens.

“You… you will take me with you… won’t you?” The darkness creeps into his vision as his right leg almost sinks under him. He manages to stabilize himself, leaning on the wall.

“I am always with you,” the Beast whispers back when he sinks into the grass, into the smell of a warm sunny afternoon – the richness of the green and the earth soothing in their onslaught. Lips pressed against his back, just below his neck; a thumb lazily rubbing circles into his arm; their legs tangled together.

Something skitters on his palm and Jack flicks it off absentmindedly.

“Have you ever thought about later?”

“You’d miss it.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Too broken and too intertwined to ever find another way, yet here, in this place, at this time, perfect and content, wrapped in each other, breathing in and out in symmetry to the music of the buzzing insects. Jack closes his eyes.

“Turn around.” The voice, it’s wrong, doesn’t belong here – wherever and whenever here is – sends shivers of cold down his spine. Nails sink into the skin of his arm. “Turn around.”

“…no,” he answers, the word breaking in half on the hitch of a breath.

“Remember your…”

“No, please, don’t make me do this, don’t take this from me,” Jack pleads with the inevitable. His fingers dig into the dirt, into the clumps of roots below, into things slithering under the surface. Cold hands close around his throat.

“This does not belong to you,” his doppelganger snarls at him spitting blood. “It never did! It never will!”

No, this is not his, and when the pressure lessens he opens his eyes to artificial light and the smell of cordite and ozone in the air along with the stink of burning plastic and circuitry, and something else he cannot place due to the strange haze that makes his fingertips tingle. Railing, he’s leaning against the railing, on a slightly raised platform over the rest of the chamber, and to the left, there is a half empty IV bag hanging, hooked to the metallic balustrade, the needle feeding its contents into his arm. By his side lies an emptied field kit, bandages and tape strewn around, some stained with blood.

Jack clenches his hand and starts. Morphine syringe. Used.

His vest is open. He lets go of the syringe and cautiously feels around the wound. It’s dressed. The touch makes him inhale sharply in pain. Past the threshold. Movement is going to be troublesome. Slowly, hissing under his breath and bracing against the railing, Jack stands up. The strange alien tug inside his stomach… the bullet is still in.

Now he can see the bodies below and still-smoking remnants of a powered armor.

“Do you understand now, Sunshine?” The Beast purrs snugly pressed against his chest. “Together, we are unstoppable. We will bring about the end.”

His hand hovers for a moment over the blinking console. No other time than now. He touches the prompt and looks up when he hears the grind of machinery. The enormous hatch in the ceiling opens raining dust and the platform starts, then laboriously moves upwards.

He can hear the feedback from his comm unit grow stronger.

“I’ll just find…” Lena. She stutters. “Jack!? That bloody you?”

“Yes. I think so.” He can’t keep the weary smile out of his voice.

“Bloody hell, you daft bugger, I was getting bloody worried…!”

“Lena.” It’s Winston, still calm and composed. “If anyone was going to get out of there on their own it was Morrison.”

“Bloody fucking right, Papa Winston.” Jack can hear the gears in her head turning. “I managed to hail Bunny, she’s working on bringing the meat wagon around but it’s the bloody apocalypse out there and traffic is killer. GPS is dead as fuck, but I dare say you’ll find the bloody stadium, right?”

“We will tear, we will rend, we will feast, together,” the Beast chortles, its maw pushing against his cheek in a needy way, and his hand pets it eliciting little whines of contentment. “Nothing will stand in our way.”

“Yes,” Jack confirms.

#sometimes I write #fear!AU #r76 #reaper76 #proper part #combat violence #Yass #this is a rewrite of less than 500 words #and finally we can go into the streets

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