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gumnut-logic · 4 years ago

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Callisto (Part Six - Rescue Site)

This fic seems to be taking forever, but I hope it isn’t reading that way. I had so much fun over the weekend and I still have some fun ahead of me writing one of the core scenes I had planned. I hope you are enjoying reading this.

As always, many thanks to the amazing @tsarinatorment @scribbles97 @janetm74 and @vegetacide as well for all the read throughs and support. Wonderful science officer @onereyofstarlight this bit has one of the places we talked about extensively and wouldn’t exist without your help :D

Again, thank you to all the wonderful peeps who have been reading along and commenting despite the once a week posting schedule. You help keep my enthusiasm alive and you have no idea how much I appreciate every word of encouragement ::hugs you all::

Have a Tracy boy or two on the job :D

-o-o-o-

Scott rolled his shoulders and tried to stretch out the tension that was slowly giving him a headache.

At least now they were moving. This rescue felt like it was taking forever.

Hell, it was the same with most space recues, if even more with this one. The distances involved just went on and on and no matter how fast the Thunderbird, it was slow.

It rankled Scott just a little. The fact that the environment could not be influenced by his impatience.

And Dad…

He shunted the thought aside. Perhaps that was why he scorned the time needed. It gave him far too much time to think.

The tunnel stretched out before him as it had for some time now. The life signs were nearly seven hundred kilometres away from Callisto Base. Usually, this was not a problem. There wasn’t a Thunderbird that couldn’t cover that distance in a short period of time. Even Four could do it at velocities no other underwater craft had ever managed.

But this location was at least two kilometres underground, and while the molepod was always an option, Virgil had vetoed it with the option of travelling via dragonfly through the tunnels. Scott had to agree. They needed far more information before barrelling into an unknown situation, not to mention the difficulties of deploying the molepod in these conditions.

But by this point he was almost ready to jump out and blast a hole in the damned moon to get where they needed to go.

Time. So much damned time.

Too much to think.

His hands shifted on the Dragonfly’s controls spinning her into a dive as the tunnel dipped suddenly. The brilliance of the pod’s forward lights lit up the never-ending cave as clear as daylight.

It sparkled back at him in sharp, stabbing needle-like reflections off the walls that did nothing to improve his headache. He had already set his helmet to shade to protect himself. It was ridiculous to be needing sunglasses this far underground.

Behind him, Virgil was following him at a short distance in Dragonfly Two, his lights just bright enough to light up the red of Scott’s pod.

For some irrational reason Scott wanted his pod to be blue.

The blue of the sky he was currently missing.

He sighed.

Again, too much time to think.

“Another five hundred metres.” Alan’s voice from behind him was the reassurance it always was. Why he felt comforted when his littlest brother was nearby and within reach was something he did not want to examine too much.

A twist of his wrists as the tunnel backed around on itself in a hairpin of a turn and he had to dodge another nest of those weird deformed ice stalactite formations sticking out into their path. “What are we looking at?”

“Looks like another cavern. A big one.”

They had flown through several of those enormous caverns on the way out here already. They acted like junctions, some having multiple tunnels converging on them, every single one a home for more ice formations and that damned reflective rock. It had taken John to get them out of the last one. This place was a damned maze.

Virgil had fortunately come prepared, as always. He was leaving a trail of comms-support beacons behind them as a clear path to return to Callisto Base.

Scott fought the urge to duck as the tunnel suddenly shrunk by several metres and took another swerving turn. Scott spun the pod over one-eighty degrees on her longitudinal axis as her wings nearly scraped the ceiling.

Righting them finally, he couldn’t help but check his monitor to make sure Virgil took the turn safely.

He almost smiled as the green pod behind them flipped in a manoeuvre that no doubt had Gordon yelping in the back seat. He couldn’t help but be proud for just a self-indulgent moment.

But his attention was torn away as his pod suddenly shot into a large open space and the light reflecting off the walls suddenly blinded him.

Alan’s gasp behind him only echoed his own.

Their forward lights were being shot at them in blinding brilliance off the ceiling of the new cave.

That brightness only increased as Virgil’s pod spun into a hover beside them.

Oh god.

Whatever had been in the walls of the tunnels was obviously concentrated here.

He redirected the lamps away from the ceiling only to have the brilliance follow them all the way down the closest wall until he was able to turn the pod towards the most distant wall.

Crystal.

There was crystal everywhere.

The cave walls were covered in spikes of the stuff as it they were inside a giant geode. He had to acknowledge that it was stunningly amazing when it wasn’t ripping his eyeballs out.

But that wasn’t what took his breath away.

As their lamps lowered, they caught the edges of something else.

He turned the lights down towards the floor only to discover he couldn’t see it.

Because it was covered in water.

Fluid, liquid water, the dragonflies causing the faintest of ripples to dance across its surface.

A lake.

Scott’s jaw dropped as he tipped the pod to peer down into the dark water only to have more crystal attempt to stab him in the eye from the depths.

“What the hell?”

Water wasn’t supposed to be able to exist in this environment. He poked at his scanners. Atmospheric levels were the same, ever so thin, providing little to no air pressure or heat to keep the water in this state.

“John? What am I seeing?”

Thunderbird Five did not answer immediately, but the data transmission rate on comms doubled as his space brother reached his fingers into the cave through the pod’s sensors.

“Impossible.”

“That was my thought. Virgil?”

“It’s beautiful.”

Scott’s lips thinned. “Scientific explanation? Gordon?”

“You got me here, bro. But I’m more concerned about those lifesigns.”

Scott frowned and double checked his readout. The two dots registered, glowing strongly at him.

From under the water.

-o-o-o-

Virgil frowned as Scott spun his dragonfly around and returned to the entrance of the cavern. His forward lights lit up only what could be considered a beach where the original tunnel swooped in and connected with the crystal cave. At the base there was only a few scattered crystal formations and Virgil watched as his brother expertly put down without touching a single one.

“Are we going to take a look at the lake?”

Typical. Nearby water body and his fish brother wanted in it.

But Virgil needed more reconnaissance.

And if he was honest with himself, there was just a dash of sightseeing involved. Not much, because of the urgency of the mission, but enough curiosity to send him off on a scout around the cavern.

Crystals that had to be the length of an arm or a leg stuck out from the walls in haphazard directions. Most reflected back clear, but in streaks, as if seeping up a localised mineral, there were ribbons of colour in places – reds, greys, golds, pinks. His scanners spat back that it was simply quartz, silicon dioxide, but he had never seen a formation like this.

Which was understandable as this was an alien landscape with vastly different environs to those of Earth. The artist in him was literally stunned, while the scientist valiantly fought for a reason.

He swooped around the edges of the cavern, his lamps lighting up brilliance as he went. The cave proved to be roughly circular, approximately four hundred metres in diameter and about a hundred metres high. He came across two more tunnels leading off it, but all were as dry as the one they had used to enter the cave. Towards the centre, but not quite, the ceiling arched down and what appeared to be a stalactite met a stalagmite to form a column of swirling crystal that looked like something straight out of an art glass exhibition. The ribbons of colour were here too, but this time mostly in a rose pink and a startling blue.

Virgil didn’t have words.

The light playing among the crystals just touched every artistic sense he had and froze them solid.

But there was a mission and those two glowing red dots glared at him from beneath the surface of the lake.

He ran scans of the water. For it was water, mostly, though, certainly not any he would want to drink.

For one thing it was salty, a definite brine solution with a number of minerals including silica in concentrations that defied as much logic as the water’s existence did in the first place.

The difficulty was that the lifesigns weren’t clear. They were in the water, but resolution faded at a very shallow depth and there was a lot of deep depth in places.

“John, can you get any more resolution on these scans? I can’t pinpoint the lifesigns.”

There was a muttered curse on comms that had Virgil arching an eyebrow. “No, I’m sorry, Virgil. Interference is particularly strong in that cavern. We’re working on it, but I don’t have any great hopes.”

“What about a probe? Would that improve the signal?” Virgil blinked as his headache suddenly flared. Ow. Damn. The controls in front of him blurred a moment. Shit!

But then everything righted itself, just leaving an echo of the pain in his head as the headache droned on as it had before.

Maybe his painkillers were wearing off. A glance at the time proved that was far from the case.

He dreaded to think what that would have felt like without them.

“Virg?”

“What?!” Okay, so he was abrupt, but he was busy.

“Hey, hey, calm down. You didn’t answer John. Just checking on you.”

“Virgil, you there?” John’s voice dripped concern.

Shit.

“Sorry. Just got a headache. Need some sleep.”

“I feel you, bro. Want me to pilot?”

“No. No. I’m fine.” He swallowed bile and mentally shook himself. “John, you were saying?”

He could feel Gordon’s eyes on the back of his neck.

“Probe deployed. Target is Burr Crater, which you are directly under at the moment.”

Virgil’s display reported the probe entering Callisto’s atmosphere. He hoped it would give them enough information to act.

Time was ticking.

He spun the pod around and tried to ignore the rainbow of light that was his forward lamps. The flicker, while beautiful, was doing nothing good for his headache at all.

“You sure you’re okay, Virg?”

He pressed his lips together and considered ignoring the question from Gordon. But he knew if he did, his brother would only worry more.

It was a Tracy trait.

“Let’s just get this mission done. We have people who need saving.”

Gordon’s grunt wasn’t a happy one and the chances of Scott being called in on his headache were increasing by the moment.

“I’m fine, Gordon.” He cut the conversation off by dropping the pod rapidly towards the beach where Scott had climbed out and was walking to the water’s edge. Another spin mid-air and Virgil lowered into a rather delicate landing, keeping the pod’s feet away from the crystal formations sticking out of the rock.

Virgil swallowed again before climbing out of the pod. His boots hit solid but glittering rock, damp in the darkness.

Scott and Alan were standing at the water’s edge staring out at the spectacle that the pod lights lit up.

Gordon clambered out behind Virgil and together they both walked over to stand beside their brothers.

“This is so cool!” Alan was obviously excited.

He said it on external comms and the sound travelled across the cavern only to bounce back in so many perfect ‘ool’s Virgil’s eyes widened.

On the spur of that, as the ‘ool’s slowly faded away, he activated his own external comm and sung a single pure C note.

It came back at him from so many different directions it was like a chorus.

“Oh, wow.”

‘Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow…’ It went on, the faint atmosphere sporting just enough density to carry the sound waves.

“That is something, isn’t it?” Scott’s voice was quiet. “The dragonflies made one hell of a racket. We’re going to have to be careful. Wouldn’t want to set up a harmonic that could bring the roof down on us.”

Virgil was still processing. The thought of playing his piano in this cave was just mind boggling.

“Dad says the Base scientists are having some kind of scientific fit over this place.” A grunt. “I’m more concerned about those two lifesigns.” He paused. “John, any luck with the probe?”

“Unfortunately, no. The interference is just too thick. I can read the water, but very little in it or below it. I’ll keep trying.”

Scott sighed. “Keep us updated. Looks like this will have to be more hands on.” He turned to Gordon. “We need Thunderbird Four.”

-o-o-o-

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Scott Tracy #Virgil Tracy #John Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Alan Tracy #callisto

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valeriethepussycats · 5 years ago

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I’m Only Human

Chapter 5

Pairing- Loki x Reader, Thor x Reader(Best friends)

Warning- cursing

Your thoughts in italics.

Sitwell talks into his radio, starting to look worried.

“DeLancey, Jackson -- report.” Sitwell said into the radio.

Thor, now wearing a Shield rain slicker, makes his way across the base. Another Shield Agent approaches the jeep, spots the unconscious DeLancey and Jackson. He quickly calls into his radio.

“Agents down! We've got a perimeter breach!” Shield Agent yelled.

The security monitors squelch with static and interference. Sitwell holds his PDA -- even it's on the fritz. Sitwell and the Techie watch the monitors warily.

On the monitor showing the hammer containment area, Mjolnir starts to crackle with energy.

“Get Coulson.” Sitwell urged Techie. Sitwell punches an alarm.

As Thor makes his way towards the crater, an alarm sounds and security lights explode to life.

A spotlight fires out from the base and sweeps across the ridge towards Y/n and Jane. Y/n use her mind control abilities, to make the guards think she’s not there while Jane ducks down, out of sight. She pulls out her cellphone and dials. We hear Erik’s recorded message.

“You've reached Dr. Erik Selvig. Please leave me a message.” His voicemail beeps. She talks quietly, urgently.

“Erik, okay, first of all, don't worry. I'm perfectly fine, really.” Jane started while More sounds of mayhem come from the base. “But if you don't hear from me again, you might want to come out to the crater site and look for me. I kind of did what you said I shouldn't do. Thanks. Bye.” She hangs up.

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Coulson emerges from the Shield command trailer and marches across the mud, radio to his ear. He looks out across the lit up site uneasily. A Shield guard moves through the base, rifle in hand. From the shadows behind a trailer, a figure looks out at him. As the Guard raises his radio to check in, Thor quickly rushes towards him and chokes him out. He falls to the ground. Thor notices the AR-15 rifle lying on the ground beside the fallen Guard.

He stares down at the weapon quizzically. As more Guards approach, Thor snatches up the weapon and takes cover in the shadows of the trailer. The Guards pass by. Thor peers around the corner, sees the well-guarded main entrance tube to the center of the site. A bright light suddenly illuminates his face.

He looks to see an ATV moving across the site, shining its spotlight right on him. Thor sees that the ATV driver has spotted him. The Driver raises his radio to report. Thor knows he has to act fact. He raises the rifle -- then flips it over in the air and catches it by the barrel. He rears the weapon back, then hurls it like a hammer. It flies through the air, smashing the ATV's spotlight. Glass and debris shower the driver, who takes his hands off the wheel to protect himself. The ATV roars out of control past the Guards near the tube entrance. The Guards notice and chase after it.

Thor emerges from the shadows, watches the Guards abandoning the site entrance.The ATV Driver looks forward in panic as the ATV approaches the crater lip. The vehicle careens over the edge of the crater and heads straight for one of the plastic tunnels. The Technicians inside scatter as the ATV crashes into it, tearing into the tunnel, sending sparks everywhere. The ATV finally comes to a stop, the tunnel collapsing around it and the Driver. Shield Agents rush in behind to help.

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Y/n is watching every thing play out like she’s watching her favorite movie. “He’s really going to make it.” Y/n said with a proud smile.

Jane peers over the ridge, stares down at the frenzied aftermath of the ATV crash, at the base on high alert. Lightning Cracking in the sky behind her.

“Can you please do something about this lighting.” Jane Requested.

“There’s a lot of emotions behind this storm Anger,Sadness,Confused and so much more I want to see how this plays out.” Y/n stated.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Coulson climbs to the lip of the crater as a light rain begins to fall. He eyes the damage of the ATV crash. He's not pleased. The light rain becomes a downpour. As Shield Agents pull the ATV driver from the wreckage, Thor races towards the unguarded entrance to the tunnels and heads inside.Thor races up the entrance ramp. Before him, two Guards round the corner.

Thor knocks out the first Guard, then tackles the second. He hurries around the corner, when more Guards come up a ladder ahead. Thor punches the closest Guard, sending him tumbling backwards, toppling the others on the ladder behind him. Thor takes off running, as the Guards regroup and give chase. Thor spots the glow of Mjolnir in the central cube, through the translucent walls of the tunnels. He hurries through to tunnels to find a way towards it.

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Coulson stands on the crater lip, barking out orders, as the Guards in the tunnel rush to cut off Thor. Coulson activates his radio.

“I want eyes up high. With a gun. Now!” Coulson ordered. And just like that a sniper, dressed in black tactical gear and high-tech Night vision equipment, picks up a rifle, slings it over his shoulder and heads out. His name is Clint Barton. Lightning crackles around the camp as Barton approaches a crane bucket . He leaps in, and the bucket lifts into the air. Through the translucent plastic, we see Thor racing through the tubing.

As Thor races through the tunnel, a Guards runs right at him, on a collision course. Thor takes him out with a punch to the gut, then turns to see more Agents coming towards him. Thor picks up the fallen Guard he punched, then throws him into the approaching Agents, scattering them. Thor turns around, runs back the way he came. The Agents give chase.

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Jane looks down at the crater through binoculars, frustrated that she can't clearly see what's happening.

“How can’t they see you you?” Jane asked.

Y/n shrugged. “Perks of being a Mutant.”

Y/n looks closely at and the camp and see a familiar person in the sky bucket

Barton... given the chance he’ll drop the Thor like a sack of potatoes I gotta to stop he.

Y/n starts to climb down but Jane’s voice stops her.

“Where are you going?” Jane questioned.

“Thor needs help and I’m going to help him.” Y/n answered. “You need to stay here if you were to get caught there make you disappear I’ll be back and if I’m not head back without me.”

Y/n starts to climb down the cliff.

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Coulson watches the commotion in the tunnel complex. He heads off for the command trailer to enter the tunnels. The crane basket ascends into the high winds as Barton readies his sniper rifle.

We see the figure of Thor inside the complex, heading down a ladder from a junction box, with other figures converging on him. Coulson enters the tunnels through the command trailer. He calls on his radio. “Barton. Talk to me.” Coulson Announced.

The crane holding Barton arcs out over the structure. Barton takes aim. “One shot, one kill, sir. Just give the word. Sir this weather seems very familiar is Agent Munroe here?” Barton questioned into his radio.

“No Agent Munroe is on leave in New York.” Coulson answered.

Barton’s lookout Overlooking the complex. It's a clear field of vision, nowhere to hide. A digital read-out gives information on the distance to the target. He locks in on Thor, who's inside the plastic tubing, emerging from the junction box and heading towards the cube structure.

“Hello, handsome.” Barton grinned.

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Thor races through the tunnel, comes across a wall of Agents . Thor roars and barrels through them -- elbowing, punching --whatever it takes to keep moving. As he takes down the last Agent, Thor sees the last junction box and the entrance to the cube structure up ahead. He races towards it. He can actually see Mjolnir within the middle of the structure, when -- BAM! From out of nowhere, a lands a powerful blow across his jaw, sending him reeling. Dazed, Thor looks up to see --A HUGE SHIELD AGENT. The biggest of them all, standing between him and his hammer in the cube structure beyond. Thor sizes him up.

“You're big.” Thor grins.“Fought bigger.”

Thor and the Huge Agent explode through the wall of the junction box, then crash into the mud, sending them sliding. Barton has Thor in his sites. The sniper stands still as a statue. Coulson hurries through the tunnel, ready to give the word to Barton, when he stops short. He sees what looks like an electrical storm erupting inside the structure ahead, directly above the crater... and the hammer.

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Jane sees Shield Agents and Guards swarming into the cube containment structure. “No...” Jane trailed off.

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Y/n is sneaking onto the camp trying to make sure that she could find a way to help Thor without being caught by Shield. She knows what happen if they find out she’s here helping him, they’re gonna question her and, then big man himself is going to make it his business to come all the way down to New Mexico to see what is going on.

Maybe if I lay down fog... No can’t do that do they’ll know I’m here how am I going to help Thor?

Meanwhile, Thor and the Huge Agent struggle to stand in the mud. Through the translucent walls of the cube structure, Thor sees Mjolnir. The Huge Agent rises up before him, blocking his view. Rain and blood run down Thor’s face. He lunges forward, whipping his feet in front of him, then kicks out, nailing the Huge Agent in the chest.

The Agent goes down hard as Thor's momentum carries him past. Thor stands, heads for the cube structure, when the Huge Guard grabs his ankle in a last effort. Thor looks back down at his foe, then drops backwards, pile driving his elbow into the fallen Agent's chest. The Huge Agent grimaces in pain, defeated. Thor races back towards the structure. From outside, Thor rips an opening in the plastic wall of the structure.

He stands there -- soaking, bleeding, caked with wet earth. His hammer rests just a few yards before him, energy surging around it. Coulson steps into the structure through an access tunnel, one story up. As Thor approaches his hammer, Mjolnir starts to glow brighter, blue electricity sparking off its surface. The crackling energy seems to reach out to him. Coulson notices, his interest piqued. Above the open ceiling of the structure, Barton's crane bucket comes into view.

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Wind and rain whip around Barton as he stares into his rifle site, locked on the back of Thor's head -- his finger on the trigger.

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Thor stands next to the hammer, feels its power. He reaches out to it confidently. Coulson watches from above. Armed Agents approach behind him. He motions for them to hold their positions, then radios Barton. “Barton...”

Barton stands ready to take Thor down. His finger starts to squeeze the trigger. “ ...hold your fire.” Coulson commented. Barton releases the trigger, pulls up.

Coulson watches Thor with anticipation as Thor wraps his hand around the hammer. He smiles, triumphant, lifts... but the hammer doesn't move. Thor looks confused, tries again with two hands, to no avail-- anger and frustration overtaking him. He strains with all his might, screams from the effort, bellowing up at the storm and lightning above him. Something begins to appear on the side of Mjolnir -- glowing runes. Thor looks down, sees them. But, still, the hammer doesn't budge. Thor falls to his knees before it, rain pouring down around him, as the glowing runes fade away. He's failed. Unworthy. Coulson looks on, disappointed. Shield Agents move in, guns trained on Thor, surrounding him. Coulson activates his radio.

“Ground units, move in. Show's over.” Coulson Announced.

As the Agents surround him, Thor doesn't seem to notice or care. He just sits there on his knees, head bowed in the rain -- a man broken, lost. From overhead, we see the hammer in the cube containment room. We pull up as the Guards approach Thor, then continue to climb, until we see the whole camp -- and the extensive damage Thor's done to it during the melee.

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Jane lowers her binoculars, sensing things have gone from bad to worse. She steels herself, then starts over the ridge to help him. Almost immediately, a Spotlight sweeps past her. She hears the sound of dogs and Shield Agents approaching, sees the glow of flashlights moving from the base towards her. With no other choice, she makes a quick retreat.

Part 6

#loki x reader #marvel x reader #thor x reader #loki x black!reader

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themeditationoffice · 4 years ago

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How Meditation Can Make You A Better Artist

Anyone who works with are, can tell you about the first moments of existential dread that mark the beginning of a new work. This is true not only for musicians, writers, painters, or architects but for anybody for whom creativity is part of their process nd this can range from writing a thoughtful email to updating a website. You stand before the endless White Plains of potential, and they stare back like a Nietzschean abyss, casting shadows of doubt into every aspect of your being. Back in the day, most artists had less than healthy ways of dealing with this anxiety, but contemporary creators may have found a better solution in meditation. Here is how to make your creative process less painful and more playful.

Different Types of Meditation

Did you know that there are two main types of mindfulness meditation? They Open Monitoring (OM), and Focused Attention (FA), both of which are engaged by mediators during a session. FA refers to meditation focused on a single object, which can be a sound, a visual object, or the breath. On the other hand, in OM that the meditator does not focus on a specific object or event and instead remains attentive to anything that might capture their attention at any given moment, be it thoughts and feeling, or things like ambient sounds and smells. Researchers have recently discovered that each type of meditation supports two different thinking patterns that are tied to creativity in our brain:

Divergent Thinking: Trained by OM, it represents the process of creating multiple responses to an open-ended question, without regard for a “correct answer” (think of brainstorming for example).

Convergent Thinking: Trained by FA, it focuses on finding the right answer to a specific question while also sorting the solutions created through its divergent counterpart and picking a “correct answer”.

Focus

When you meditate and access a more centered place within yourself, you find that focusing on the task at hand becomes easier. It’s the same principle behind arranging your desk before sitting down to work, a cluttered workspace makes it harder to get anything done, and a cluttered mind makes creating even harder.

As you may expect, this ability is mostly trained in FA meditation, as it involves developing something of a healthy tunnel vision at will. Much like you focus on your breath, you focus on the task before you and nothing else and more importantly you catch yourself being distracted much more quickly.

Intuition

Intuition is the art of letting one idea lead you to another in a creative chain that culminates in the completing (or abandoning) of the piece. By engaging in both OM and FA meditation and training your divergent and convergent thinking, it becomes easier to consider many ideas before picking and sticking to one. As a result, your work is more fluid, and you don’t find yourself under creative blocks as much.

Inspiration

The renowned painter Gustav Klimt once wrote in a rare writing called ‘Commentary on a non-existent self-portrait’ is known to have said, “Whoever wants to know something about me, they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognize what I am and what I want.”

Meditation brings us into closer contact with our inner self in all its different facets that serve as a bottomless well of inspiration. To this end, OM meditation offers a great aid, as it allows you to contemplate all the different sensations you are going through at the moment you’re trying to create.

If you learn to express this through your art, you will never run out of things to say, and what you say will always be filled to the brim with authenticity.

Making Art As a Form of Meditation

Not only is meditating extremely beneficial for artists, but the creative process itself can be also a form of meditation.

No one understands this better than the Buddhist Teacher (and expressionist painter), Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, who states “I believe we can view art as a form of contemplative meditation. I don’t see it as separate from meditation practice in any way. However, since art-making involves being actively engaged with the physical body, the emotions, and the mind, in contrast to resting in the nature of mind without moving, we could consider art to be a form of meditative conduct.”

In other words, not only can your art and the very experience of making it be improved by meditation, your painting, composing, or writing can also be a form of meditation in itself, incorporating both OM and AF as you focus on the task at hand, all the while using it to express all the inner and outer sensations you are going through at the moment.

Conclusion

The English Romantic Painter William Turner once said: “It is only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create.” Indeed, the first challenge any artist faces, no matter how experienced they may be, is to overcome the dread created by the empty page or canvas.

Meditation, on the other hand, proposes to help you let go of the causes of this fear and approach your work from a calm and focused state, leading to more satisfying results.

So, if you are an artist, why not give meditation a try when you are going through a creative drought, and if you like what comes out of this experience why not get in contact through the information provided on this website and have it bring peace and mindfulness to someone else’s home?

If you find this subject intriguing, don’t miss this excellent blog by Kimberly Poppe.

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bountyofbeads · 6 years ago

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Hong Kong Police Rush Barricades, Escalating Conflict with Students https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-chinese-soldiers.html

Hong Kong Violence Escalates as Police and Protesters Clash at University

As riot police tried storming a campus occupied by activists, they were met by protesters fighting back with Molotov cocktails and bows-and-arrows.

By Edward Wong, Mike Ives, Tiffany May and Katherine LI | Published November 17, 2019 Updated 8:03 PM ET | New York Times | Posted November 17, 2019 |

HONG KONG — Hundreds of Hong Kong activists armed with petrol bombs and bows-and-arrows battled riot police who have laid a days-long siege to a university, the most violent confrontation yet in a half-year of protests.

Early Monday, the police tried storming the campus at the main entrance and made some arrests. But the occupiers fought back with dozens of petrol bombs and set barricades ablaze, forcing the police to retreat, at least temporarily.

As day broke, the occupiers and the police were still locked in the standoff at Hong Kong Polytechnic University that began Saturday night, and smoke billowed from the grounds. Some protesters on Monday morning raced for the exits, only to be met with volleys of tear gas.

The police used tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and armored vehicles to try breach the barricades all day on Sunday. But activists resisted into the night. One police officer was hit in the leg by an arrow, while student leaders said protesters suffered eye injuries and hypothermia after being struck by the water cannon.

The clashes were the culmination of the most disruptive week of the monthslong protests, a period that has focused a global spotlight on the growing desperation of the pro-democracy activists and aggressive efforts by the police to suppress them. It is a sign the conflict is turning more violent as the territory prepares to hold elections later this month.

The activists are struggling against the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing to preserve autonomy for Hong Kong, a political system guaranteed for 50 years by an agreement between Beijing and London. The British handed over the global financial hub in 1997.

The rising tensions and a potential of greater control over Hong Kong’s political and legal systems by the Communist Party have raised questions over the long-term commercial viability of Hong Kong and the integrity of its fraying social fabric.

In Washington, American officials said they were monitoring the clashes as well as reviewing a report by The New York Times on leaked internal Communist Party documents showing how party leaders, including President Xi Jinping, had set up internment camps to hold one million or more Muslims in another frontier area, Xinjiang.

Trump administration officials and Congress have been holding discussions on whether to impose separate sets of sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials for human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. But President Trump has held back for fear of upsetting trade talks.

Hong Kong is scheduled to hold district council elections next Sunday. Some residents worry the government might postpone the vote, though Carrie Lam, the chief executive of the territory, has said the elections will be held on time.

A small number of supporters of Communist Party rule, as well as a Hu Xijin, the chief editor of Global Times, a state-run news organization in Beijing, had become so outraged by the Sunday clashes that they said the police should use live ammunition.

The occupation of the university has forced a weeklong shutdown of a tunnel leading to the business districts on Hong Kong Island from Kowloon, and activists said they planned more traffic blockades on Monday.

The university president, Jin-Guang Teng, said Monday morning that he had negotiated a temporary truce with the police, but suggested occupiers still would have to turn themselves in to the police after leaving the campus.

The clashes of the past week began when protesters changed from a regular routine of weekend protests to disrupting traffic on workdays. The disruptions and attempts by the police to breach campuses — considered a last refuge by activists — quickly led to protesters occupying five universities, two of which sit astride key transportation routes.

The death of a student from a fall earlier this month and two dramatic violent acts also set the city on edge — a traffic policeman shot an unarmed protester, and activists set a man on fire after he confronted them.

Protesters abandoned four of the universities over the weekend, but those at Polytechnic University held on. Hardcore activists converged there, while more moderate ones left on Sunday as the police surrounded the campus.

The police arrested dozens trying to flee, including first-aid volunteers. Mainstream supporters of the movement drove to the campus to try to get the police to back off. On Sunday night, the police threatened to use lethal force if the protesters did not leave.

“I know that there is a possibility that the police will fire live bullets on us tonight, but right now, we have no choice,” William Lau, 22, a protester on campus, said around midnight. He estimated there were about 500 activists on site.

About 50 were arrested after trying to leave, he said, so others were wary of trying to exit.

“The police would never just let us walk out like that,” he said. “I know that some want to leave now but don’t know how, while a fair number wants to stay and fight.”

Right outside the campus, pro-democracy lawmakers, a top Roman Catholic official, an American pastor and a student leader called on the Hong Kong government to intervene to prevent bloodshed.

“I want to seek help from the government to stop the police force from their operation and avoid tragedy,” said Owan Li, a student representative on the university council.

As police fired tear gas, Bishop Joseph Ha tried entering with the lawmakers and the American pastor, William Devlin of the Bronx, but were turned away by the police.

“If the police are to launch a clearance, they should use as minimal force as possible because lives are precious,” Mr. Ha said.

Mr. Devlin said in a telephone interview that he had been on campus for about four hours as the clashes unfolded and had left, but was trying to re-enter. He estimated there were up to 1,000 activists still inside when he left.

“They were all in good spirits,” he said. “They were not being deterred. They were ready to be arrested. They said, ‘We stand for freedom, dignity, democracy, human rights.’”

Mr. Devlin said he had been on the front line in the late afternoon when the police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons against protesters.

He said he had seen protesters throw 10 to 20 petrol bombs to deter the police from advancing. At least two were armed with bows and arrows, he said.

Louis Lau, the police superintendent, said before midnight that an officer had fired a live round at a vehicle charging toward officers in an area near campus.

“Coldblooded rioters can only imitate terror acts,” he said.

Protesters confronted police throughout the night in nearby neighborhoods to try to draw them away from the campus. The presidents of five universities released a statement calling for restraint by all sides and asking everyone on the campus to leave.

Denise Ho, a pro-democracy pop singer who has been banned on the mainland by Beijing, invoked the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on Twitter and said, “World, please help Hong Kong and save our students!”

The police tried sending an armored vehicle across a bridge on the east side of campus. Protesters set the vehicle on fire with petrol bombs, forcing it to retreat.

Mr. Hu, the chief editor of Global Times, a nationalistic state-run newspaper in Beijing, posted a video of the vehicle aflame on Twitter and said, “Police should be permitted to fire live rounds in this case to counter rioters.”

On Friday, protesters at the university prepared for a long siege, as they poured gasoline into glass bottles to make hundreds or thousands of bombs and practiced throwing those into an empty swimming pool. They also did target practice with catapult-style slingshots and bows-and-arrows.

The police began advancing around 10 p.m. Saturday, and the clashes reached a high pitch on Sunday afternoon.

On Saturday, Chinese soldiers jogged out of their barracks near Hong Kong Baptist University and cleared bricks from streets that had been placed there by protesters to block traffic.

The soldiers wore T-shirts and basketball jerseys, and carried brooms. The Hong Kong garrison of the People’s Liberation Army is based in 19 sites once occupied by the British military. Even though Chinese troops have been stationed in Hong Kong since 1997, they almost never venture into the city.

The cleanup, which was lauded by Chinese state-run news organizations, prompted a torrent of criticism from local residents. Pro-democracy lawmakers issued a statement saying that the local government and the Chinese military had ignored restrictions imposed on the troops by local laws.

______

Edward Wong reported from Washington, and Mike Ives, Tiffany May and Katherine Li reported from Hong Kong. Paul Mozur and Ezra Cheung contributed reporting from Hong Kong.

🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈🍂🍻🍁🏈

Hong Kong police move on university campus, threaten live rounds, retreat before growing flames

By Casey Quackenbush, Anna Kam and Shibani Mahtani | Published November 17 at 7:11 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 17, 2019 |

HONG KONG — Police briefly stormed a university campus held by anti-government protesters early Monday, making arrests and threatening to meet further resistance with live rounds before retreating in the face of a growing fire — a stunning new escalation in the six-month-long struggle for democracy that has moved in recent days to this territory’s campuses.

The demonstrators, who spent Sunday countering police water cannons of stinging blue dye with petrol bombs, held their ground early Monday morning local time. Just before daybreak, officers from a special tactical unit entered the campus and made dozens of arrests, according to local news reporters at the site. Then a live feed showed a university entrance engulfed in flames. Demonstrators were feeding the fire to hold off police.

The confrontation showed how many young protesters have followed a steady path of radicalization as the movement presses forward with significant public support. Although police insist on ending the protests and neutralizing their core of frontliners, it grows increasingly unclear where the unrest will lead, how it will end and whether the damage can be undone.

The protesters at Hong Kong Polytechnic University rained molotov cocktails down on riot police officers and their vehicles Sunday in one of the longest days of fighting since the demonstrations began in June. One police media liaison officer was struck in the calf with an arrow. Skirmishes raged into the night, leaving a police vehicle burning and the air thick with tear gas.

As police tried to move in on campus, they warned stronger measures could follow. They sealed the exits, leaving hundreds of students trapped inside the university.

“We will use the minimal force,” police said in a Facebook video. “We are asking the rioters to stop assaulting the police using cars, gas bombs and bows and arrows. Otherwise we will use force, including live rounds.”

In a video widely shared on social media, a protester in a raincoat and a full-face respirator said he would stay at the university “until the end.”

“What will happen to [the students] if we leave?” he asked. “I am so afraid, but I have no choice.”

Police said early Monday that they were trying to disperse and arrest “a large gang of rioters” who “hurled petrol bombs at police” and “set objects ablaze.” In a statement, police said they did not “raid” the campus.

“Fires were observed in various locations in the PolyU premises. Explosives, flammable substances and dangerous goods also pose threats to anyone therein,” police said. “Police appeal to everyone inside the campus to leave immediately.”

In a message released Monday morning, Polytechnic University President Teng Jin-Guang said he had negotiated with police through the night to reach an agreement: Officers would refrain from using force if protesters did not instigate clashes.

“We have now received the assurance of police of a temporary suspension of the use of force under the condition that if the protesters do not initiate the use of force, the police will not initiate the use of force,” Teng said. He added that he would personally accompany protesters who left the campus peacefully to the police station to ensure they were treated fairly.

By early Monday, police had not used live ammunition at the university. Elsewhere, police fired several rounds at protesters who were pelting officers in an ambulance with bricks, but they hit no one, according to witnesses and a video of the incident.

A spokesman for the police force did not immediately confirm the use of live rounds.

The current pro-democracy movement was sparked by a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam eventually scrapped that legislation, but not before the movement had grown to include the long-held demand that the people be allowed to vote for their own leaders and remain autonomous from Beijing. For many here, the events of the past months have eroded their trust in the territory’s institutions — and the police, in particular — while giving rise to a new generation of young protesters who believe this to be the defining fight of their lives.

The all-day standoff began early, with police pummeling front-line protesters with volleys of tear gas and water cannons that streamed irritating blue liquid. Protesters responded with petrol bombs.

Much of the battle centered on the bridge leading to campus from the nearby metro station, which protesters had filled with barricades. As night fell, they repeatedly set it alight to prevent the police from advancing onto the university.

Police announced at 9 p.m. that the “next round of operation” was beginning, leading to speculation that they would storm the campus. They threatened to arrest those involved on charges of rioting, which can incur penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

University authorities had implored students not to engage in violence. In a statement, they said they were “gravely concerned that the spiraling radical illicit activities will cause not only a tremendous safety threat on campus, but also class suspension over an indefinite period of time.”

The university in Kowloon is next to a key cross-harbor tunnel that protesters blocked in recent days by setting fire to toll booths. Universities have become the latest flash points in the protests that have rocked this semiautonomous territory to its core.

In the face of an increasingly harsh police crackdown, protesters have taken up an eclectic spectrum of weapons, including bows and arrows and javelins — probably appropriated from campus athletic departments.

In Sunday’s battles, though, protesters’ key weapon appeared to be gas bombs. At one point, a police van speeding toward their barricades was set alight by a flurry of molotov cocktails and forced to retreat.

Polytechnic University was one of the last campus strongholds following an intense week of protests centered on the city’s universities. The clashes over the past week, which unusually spilled into the workweek, were prompted by the death of a young protester following a police operation earlier this month.

After police laid siege to the Chinese University of Hong Kong last week, protesters barricaded other campuses and major roads, drawing the city and schools to a halt.

On Saturday, members of the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military, left their barracks to help clear the roadblocks that protesters had erected around universities. It was the PLA’s first appearance on the streets of Hong Kong since the pro-democracy protests erupted in June.

As a semiautonomous territory, Hong Kong is legally distinct from mainland China. Although the army’s presence here was not unprecedented — it also appeared in September 2018 to assist with disaster relief after a severe hit from Typhoon Mangkhut — the move was a subtle but significant development. Under Hong Kong law, the PLA may not interfere in local affairs unless invited by the Hong Kong government.

On Saturday, the Hong Kong government denied that it had invited the PLA to clear the roadblocks, saying the work was a “voluntary community activity,” according to Chinese state-owned CGTN. The development drew sharp criticism from pro-democracy lawmakers, who said it was illegal and a public relations stunt by Beijing to normalize the army’s presence in the territory.

Lawmaker Cheng Chung-Tai, a graduate of Polytechnic University, called the standoff there a “humanitarian crisis.”

“Carrie Lam’s murderous regime has resorted to brutality, which makes Hong Kong become a state of savage existence and astonishes the international communities,” he said in a statement early Monday.

At a peaceful rally Sunday in Hong Kong’s central business district, Alex said the involvement of the PLA was unacceptable.

“They cannot be volunteers because they are soldiers,” said the 35-year-old clerk, who gave only his first name for fear of retribution. “They’re conveying a message that they will be going out. They will take action if the situation is not getting better.”

The Education Bureau announced that all classes would be canceled on Monday. Classes were suspended for most of last week as protests and a strike paralyzed the city. Two university campuses have called off classes for the rest of the semester.

_______

Mahtani reported from Chicago. Tiffany Liang in Hong Kong and Timothy McLaughlin in Chicago contributed to this report.

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yoongi-sugaglider · 6 years ago

Text

Seek and Destroy

Pairing: Namjoon x reader featuring ot7 and Monsta X though not specifically by individual member name

Warnings: None really? Mild violence, bomb explosions, member injury, heavy sports junk (The angst Queen did it to em I’m sorry lol)

Word count: 2609

Au: sports/ Halo aka grifball. Futuristic twist on rugby

A/n: Okay so I know not many will understand the ins and outs of the Halo universe unless you’re a gamer lol. Keeping that in mind I tried hard to make it as comprehensive as possible without losing the substance of the plot. A special shout out to @crystaljins for the beta read lol Ya girl almost chickened out until she came through with the confidence boost. Thank you so much chica~ And on that note I hope you all enjoy!

***

The roar of the stadium crowd echoed in his ears. A distant cacophony that rang through the concrete tunnels protecting the anxious man and his equally unnerved teammates. He ran a trembling hand through the short cropped blonde hair at the base of his neck, turning to his team in the hopes of lightening the mood.

“This is it boys. The finals has been a long time coming but we’re here because we’re the best of the best. We’ve squashed every team that stood before us. Those crowds out there?” he punctuated his statement by jabbing his thumb towards the exit. “They’re cheering for us! It’s Bangtan they want! Are we going to give it to them!?”

He glanced around, taking in the various answering cheers of the team as a whole.

Yoongi, their goalie, was checking the straps of his reinforced suit, ensuring that the specialized titanium composite body suit protecting his vital organs was undamaged before beginning the process of putting on the various components to the outer shell. Jimin and Taehyung, two of their center backs, were joking and hugging as they cheered and chanted in singsong voices.

Jin, and Hoseok, their center forwards, were distributing the fuel canisters to ensure that everyone’s rocket packs were properly fueled. And then there was y/n, his fellow center forward.

She smiled up at him, sliding an armoured glove through the military cut of her hair before sending him a thumbs up that was meant more to reassure him than it was to show that she was ready.

“Remember boys. We are at war.” Namjoon growled as he banged the steel plate covering his chest. “Monsta X may think they’re prepared for us. But we’re gonna show them why we’re Bulletproof!”

A resounding cheer echoed through the hall as the last member of their team arrived, pushing the massive cart sporting their gravity hammers along the hall and distributing them accordingly.

“Jungkookie! You’re late man!” Taehyung joked, patting the backup goalie roughly on the back as he reached out to grab the Gucci patterned grav hammer that belonged to him.

“Yah! I can’t help it! I had to shove my way through a bunch of reporters just to get here. I swear you would think we had won already with the way they were acting.” Jungkook grinned as he handed y/n her hammer.

She took it with a nod, inspecting the handle to make sure that it was powered up and ready to go. The weapon moved easily in her skilled hands, weighing close to 85 pounds and yet slicing through the air like a chef’s knife through a tuna filet.

A moment of pride filled him as his eyes followed those around him. They’d come a long way to get to where they were today. From injuries early on when their equipment wasn’t rated to deal with explosions, to almost being torn apart as a team when rumors ran rampant after an incident between Yoongi and another goalie on an opposing team.

They'd made mistakes, plenty of them to be sure. But the most important thing was that at the end of the day they were family. Had been since they'd been on a squad together in the war that ended 8 years ago. These were their retirement days, and yet they still faced danger, still fought together, and would lay down their lives for each other, Namjoon wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Hyung. We’ve got 2 till contact.” Taehyung interrupted his thoughts, handing the captain his helmet before sliding his own on and locking it into place.

“Saddle up ladies! We move out at 0600. Get your gear and get moving!” Namjoon’s voice had taken on a hard edge, adrenaline lacing the nerves trailing along his fingers and stilling the trembling he hadn’t even realized had taken over until it quit.

The team moved together like a well oiled machine, taking hold of their weapons and banging them into their chest plates before moving towards the exit.

The former space marine grinned, shoving the high tech helmet onto his head and locking into place until the Heads Up Display flickered into view and gave him a map of the entire arena they were about to enter.

***

The roar of the crowd increased, stadium lights reflecting on bright blue armour as Bangtan stepped onto the field.

Namjoon waved, grinning beneath the protection of his armour as his well disciplined team lined up at their end of the field.

“Ladies and gentlemen! We are here today to celebrate an amazing feat! The match up of the millenia!”

He tuned the rest of the announcer’s speech out, choosing to glance across the field to take in the glaring red armour of the opposing team.

Monsta X. They’d not been on the grifball scene nearly as long as Bangtan had, but they’d fought together in the Covenant War almost a decade before.

Namjoon remembered well their leader Shownu’s ability to strategize in the heat of battle. Clearly picturing the last battle they’d been in and how Shownu had quite literally carried an injured Jungkook off the battlefield while ensuring that both teams escaped into the alien planet’s early morning sunrise and to safety.

Namjoon respected him to be sure. But past experiences had to be put to the side. He was no longer a Spartan officer. No. He was the captain of a team of ruthless players. And as the final countdown began he knew the others felt the same way that he did. This was their chance to finally unleash. To be able to face an opponent as skilled as they were, to battle like they used to in a life or death situation with no way of knowing what the end result would be.

They loved the feeling, they lived for it. And no matter how this match turned out they would finally feel complete.

The clock ticked out each second, inciting the crowd into a fevered pitch, filling the stadium and the surrounding city with a deafening shout of almost feral proportions.

Namjoon waved to his team as it came close to time, signaling them to ignite their jet packs.

The building rumbled as the floor began dropping away, causing those on the field to now rely on their jetpacks to keep them in view of the stands. At the same time the audience seats began to rise, powered by massive pistons that lifted the seats into the air as huge almost building sized monitors flickered to life. The monitors showed various positions on the field, each focused on ensuring those in the arena as well as those watching at home would be able to see the full extent of the match.

A loud buzzer resounded through the air, signalling the start of the match as a massive round bomb was shot high into the air. Namjoon moved quickly, signalling to his partner to grab the bomb as he powered up his gravity hammer in preparation to defend her.

Y/n managed to reach the bomb, snagging it and whooping in glory through their shared comms as her armour sizzled a bright orange color to signal to those watching that she was now in possession of the coveted item.

The field erupted into chaos, three members of Monsta X having decided to take on Yoongi in an attempt to render him immobilized and Bangtan’s goal undefended. Jimin and Taehyung moved quickly to defend him. Taehyung shot high into the air, letting out a war cry as Jimin flew down low. As one they converged, forcing two of the opposing team to swerve away from the goal at the last minute as Yoongi took the last on on his own.

The man seemed to have underestimated the shorter goalie. Yoongi wielded his hammer with ease, waiting for the man to come just within reach. As he swung his hammer Yoongi took full advantage of the high tech armour he was wearing. Lithe body flipping through the air with barely a thought as his warrior reflexes caught the man in the back of his head with the gravity hammer.

The poor fool’s body shot across the arena, catching the barrier of his own goal with his ankle and spinning off into the bleachers. Taehyung cheered, saluting Yoongi with his hammer before turning back to assist Hoseok in keeping others off of Namjoon’s back.

The orange armoured Spartan meanwhile had been surrounded. She floated in the center of the arena, back to back with Jin who was flailing his hammer back and forth in an attempt to keep those trying to steal the bomb at bay.

"Jin come on, focus!”

Y/n elbowed her senior officer in the side, causing him to pause in his rapid and random movements to really assess the situation around him.

The match proceeded rather quickly. After a hasty play call by Namjoon, Jin and Y/n managed to shake off their opponents and scored with a resounding explosion that the unfortunate goalie hadn’t been quick enough to avoid.

Namjoon breathed a huge sigh of relief as the medics cleared him to continue playing, thankful that the protective armour that protected the sport’s players was the military grade that’d always been their signature on the battlefield.

He signaled to his crew, letting them know to set up for the next bomb to be deployed. His attention was caught by Yoongi who seemed to be reclining in between the goal posts.

“Hyung!!! Really? Taking a nap in the second round???” Taehyung seemed to have caught on to what Namjoon was glaring at as his voice was layered with a high pitched irritation.

There were grumbled words over the muffled coms and Yoongi waved in Taehyung’s direction just as the bomb launched into the air to signal the start of the second round.

It was a mad rush to the bomb, one that unfortunately Bangtan lost with a series of well placed swings of the hydraulically enhanced battle hammers of Monsta X.

Jimin shot forward, dealing a glancing blow that knocked an opponent out of his way. He smirked beneath his helmet, a loud growl echoing through the coms as he seroed in on the two red suits attempting to pin Taehyung down midfield.

He barely registered the play by play of the announcer, instead honing in on the reserve fuel lines glowing bright blue against metallic red paint.

“Taehyung! DUCK!”

His brother in arms reacted without hesitation, cutting the ignition of his jet pack just long enough to drop thirty feet through the air.

With a battle cry Jimin swung, clipping the supply line of one of the men and sending him careening into his own teammate and out of play for the moment.

Taehyung cheered Jimin’s actions, patting him on the back in appreciation as they raced back into the game.

Jin meanwhile was attempting to redeem his earlier hesitation, battling it out with a red suit as if this were a real battle and his life depended on it. An overhead swing clipped his opponents shoulder, forcing him to almost drop his own weapon. Before the man could respond Jin was swinging up, catching the man in the jaw and almost knocking him out cold.

“Jin! On your six!” Hoseok shouted as he came up behind his elder.

A member of Monsta X had been intent on catching Jin off guard but Hoseok caught on quickly, smashing into the man with his shoulder and shoving him well past Jin who smashed his hammer down on the man’s back. If it weren’t for the protection of the armour this would have destroyed the man’s spine, instead only shoving him down towards the floor of the arena and rendering him timed out of the match for a matter of 15 seconds.

Namjoon battled it out side by side with his girl, grabbing her hand and swinging her through the air in front of him to launch her towards the orange suited man that’d quickly made his way towards their goal.

“Yoongi! Watch out!!!” She screamed, attempting to garner his attention.

He’d unfortunately come under attack, having been virtually pinned down in the safety of his own goal as he battled off the remaining member of the opposing team.

She watched on in horror as the orange suit launched the bomb across the field. It breached the barrier between the goals posts, ticking rapidly as the enemy launched themselves out of the way.

Yoongi hadn’t seen the bomb and was unaware, turning only at the last second to stare at the device as it exploded.

He was launched through the air, smashing neck first into one of the goal posts before dropping to the ground below.

“YOONGI!!” A collective roar echoed through the communication system as the bulk of Bangtan raced to his rescue, dropping from the skies like flies and landing around him as the medics quickly set to work attending to his injury.

Jungkook rushed from the sidelines where he’d been observing the match, helmet and hammer already in hand as he joined the group to wait out the medical team’s diagnosis.

“He’s going to be fine. The fall unfortunately broke both bones in his left leg. He’s also got a concussion and several minor cuts that we’ll be treating immediately.”

Namjoon nodded as the others sighed in relief, though his eyes burned with fervor as he watched his elder and battle buddy get carted off the field.

He turned to his team, barely registering as the crowd screamed and cheered at the raised wave of Yoongi.

“We’re ending this. Now.” Namjoon’s orders left no room for objection, though those around him would have never said anything against their fearless leader.

“Jimin take point. Phalanx form up.”

They rose into the air, patiently awaiting the countdown to announce the resumption of the match.

At Namjoon’s signal the team moved as one, forming a solid line of titanium and muscle around Jimin and moving forward across the field at a fearsome pace. Hammers worked in unison, swinging and smashing the opposing team as they tried to break the line.

Namjoon roared into the coms, signalling Taehyung and Hoseok to break rank as Jimin streaked forward like a bullet. The young soldier acted on instinct, dodging a player with a roll in mid air before launching the bomb at the goal more than 15 feet away.

It struck with a clang that echoed through the stadium, beginning the 3 second countdown.

“Move out!” Hoseok shouted, shoving an opponent out of the way with a resolute swing of his hammer before tackling Jin out of the way.

The arena went quiet, a unified breath being held as two of the opponents attempted to race towards the goal to knock the bomb out of the way.

But they were too late.

An explosion rocked the arena, smoke and flames billowing forth to encase the field and obscure the players from view.

A moment longer of silence as the smoke cleared, blown away to reveal a victorious Bangtan standing at attention as they faced the crowd in a resolute circle. Jungkook flew to the side lines, offering the injured Yoongi a hand and helping him to the center of the circle.

Namjoon turned instantly, shouting a clipped “Atteeennn Hut!” Into the comms before saluting the injured warrior. As one the others saluted as well, moves well polished and practiced hundreds of times before. And yet this salute felt different.

More a salute to the ending of a chapter in their lives. Or the beginning of a new one.

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sepublic · 6 years ago

Link

Above is a link to an overview of Bionicle RaE: Part 1′s plotline. It’s an adaptation of G2′s 2015 storyline, meant to expand on the original ideas and concept and go on from there, well past the 2016 story. The summary itself covers the event of Bionicle: RaE from the Arrival of the Toa, up to the defeat of Kulta the Skull Grinder. It’s by no means complete, but for now it’ll work as a story bible to explain what’s happening in RaE.

Below is an excerpt for those curious;

The Okotans have been menaced for approximately eight hundred years by swarms of blade-legged automatons with the ability to possess victims, known as Skull Spiders. Despite generations’ efforts against these Skull Spiders, led by the heroic Protectors, hope more or less seemed to dwindle. Okotan efforts to scavenge and reverse-engineer ancient technology from the Creation Era have been continuously hindered by the chokehold the mysterious Skull Spiders, their origins, motives, and nature unknown.

However, a Prophecy of Heroes divined by the scholars of Kokoro became known. According to legend, when the stars aligned, the Okotans would travel to the Inika, a desolate automaton from a time before time. There, the Inika would activate, and its power would cause six stars to fall from the skies, each bearing a hero known as a Toa.

Each Toa would have the power to control one of the six, fundamental elements that comprised Life itself. And from there, the Okotans hoped that the Toa would help them defeat the Skull Spider swarms.

An expedition was planned as Kokoran star-gazers calculated the date in which the stars aligned. All six Protectors gathered their finest warriors from each Mega-Village, and when the time was ready, departed to the Inika. The Skull Spiders naturally sensed the Okotans’ movements and went in to intercept them, and many noble lives were lost. Thankfully, the Okotan expedition succeeded in finding the Inika within the Region of Fire.

Even as a wave of Skull Spiders tried to stop them, the Protectors gathered within the Inika, even as a brilliant light filled the temple. Before them was a golden mask –A Mask of Time, according to legends- and its powers caused time to reverse within the Inika. Time sped back to a point when the automaton was functional, and from there the Protectors took control of the automaton and directed its power towards the heavens. A beam shot upwards, and just as quickly the Mask of Time disappeared and the Inika reverted back to its present-day form.

Their work apparently done, the Protectors regrouped with the remaining Okotan defenders and called for a retreat. Many more lives were lost in the trip back home, including the Protector of Water’s.

As the Okotans waited back home, some wondered if the Toa really would arrive. Others even doubted the Toa, with some feeling insulted at the idea that the Okotans would have to rely on outsiders to save them from someone else. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and surely enough, six bright stars began to seemingly grow larger at an increasingly exponential rate…

Commence the Arrival of the Toa. The stars weren’t growing larger- They were getting closer, many Kokoran stargazers realize. And the speed of their descent exponentially multiplies until one night, six comets, each blazing with one of the elements, crash into their respective Elemental Regions.

Both Okotans and Skull Spiders converge on each Toa’s position. Kopaka, Toa of Ice is stumbled upon by the Sanctum Guard Matoro. After a brief misunderstanding is brought by Kopaka’s brash, ready-to-fight nature, the two reunite with Izotor and the Sanctum Guard and after being chased by Skull Spiders return to Kokoro.

Onua, Toa of Earth is retrieved without any particular Skull Spider incident by Korgot and her team, and the same happens with Lewa, Toa of Jungle, and Vizuna and the Gukko Airforce. Tahu, Toa of Fire stumbles from his landing point and gets ensnared by a trap, but is thankfully rescued by Narmoto and the Tawahan Military. Skull Spiders chase them as well, but they too survive.

Gali, Toa of Water plunges into the depths of the Region of Water, and after coming to terms with her sudden consciousness, swims along with Kivoda and his team back to Kiniga. As for Pohatu, Toa of Stone…

He lands in the Motara Desert, only to be confronted by a lone Skull Spider. Unaware of his circumstances or the swarms he’s meant to fight, Pohatu is nevertheless wary of the being as it seemingly approaches him in peace. To his surprise, a voice rings from its hollow shell- A cackling rasp that invites him to join the swarms, even as other Skull Spiders begin to emerge from the shadows…

Pohatu is rescued just in time by a masked stranger, who shatters the Skull Spiders and leads the Toa of Stone back to her isolated tower-home in the desert. She reveals herself as Melea, explaining to Pohatu how the Skull Spiders have been ravaging Okoto. Nearby is the village of Levato, where the other residents of Motara are gathered. Despite questions from Pohatu, Melea keeps the answers short and simple –perhaps too much- and invites him to live with her in their tower. In the days that follow, Melea hones Pohatu’s fighting skills, teaching him to survive, and passing onto him a steely resolve to survive found in the Region of Stone.

Meanwhile, the other Toa become acclimated to their new homes, purposes, and destinies. Many take it differently, and are welcomed differently by their fellow Okotans. Kopaka strives to be a proud, dutiful defender, although the Kokorans find his clumsiness and simple-mindedness to be surprising, and aren’t entirely sure what to make of him.

Korgot is one of many who are critical of the Toa, and she makes sure to carefully analyze Onua as she introduces her to the subterranean city of Marn. The Brains of Okoto, led by Nuparu, frequently study Onua, fascinated. Onua herself is a bit taken aback, but learns to go along with the flow, and recognizing the resentment of others, tries to ease Korgot as the Protector figures out her thoughts on the powerful stranger.

Tahu sucks up the glory and praise quickly, but just as rapidly finds himself being monitored, disciplined, and trained by Narmoto and Jaller, who aren’t as eager to revere him as a demigod as everyone else is. He’s brought down to earth quite a bit in the following days, but he quickly grows to form a bond with the Tawahans and understand Narmoto’s wisdom. Amongst the villagers, he’s definitely a bit of a riot who loves to show off, and great with kids- Including Narmoto’s son, Lhii.

Gali has reservations. She isn’t sure where she came from and it’s bothering her, and she doesn’t know how to feel about being told that she now has to fight for a bunch of people. In all honesty, Gali wonders if she even has a choice in what’s happening, and the situation is only more complex with Kivoda, the new Protector of Water, still adapting to his role and the loss of his mentor. The worship and constant gifts of the Okotans definitely give Gali anxiety as the burdens of her role begin to weigh on her. Meanwhile, the Kinigans happily wait for Gali’s heroics, not realizing her troubles.

Lewa happily joins the community of the Vuata Maca. He becomes a quick friend to everyone, doing his best to know each Macan and their names, and providing fun and entertainment. The Macans in turn love and idolize Lewa, quickly growing to enjoy him, although thankfully Vizuna and Kongu keep both in check and remind them of the graveness of their situation.

Almost immediately after her arrival, Onua quickly learns of a hidden monster supposedly lurking in one of the subsections of the mining tunnels. This faceless creature has never been seen, but many miners have disappeared from those tunnels, and some have been found dead, skinned, dismembered, and drained entirely of their blood. This creature had once been a secret, but eventually the miners pressured Korgot into revealing the truth to the public. The supposedly haunted subsection was walled off, but Onua vows to defeat the beast. Venturing into the tunnels alone in order to lure out the killer, Onua, after a few attempts, succeeds in revealing the monster to be a giant, spindly spider with burrowing capabilities, later dubbed the Fikou Nui. The Fikou Nui is slain, with one of its legs torn out by Onua’s great strength, to be proudly displayed in Marn for all to see.

News of Onua’s achievement quickly spreads, pressuring the other Toa to live up to their expectations and do something worthwhile for the Okotans. Pohatu, meanwhile, continues to live with Melea, wondering why he came to Okoto in the first place. He doesn’t bring up how a Skull Spider had talked to him, as he hasn’t realized such a thing is unusual to begin with. Still, the secret can’t be hidden forever, and Pohatu begins to realize the truth of his arrival, as well as a past issue Melea had with her former home village.

Pohatu eventually confronts Melea after learning the truth. Melea has reservations, explaining how she was once the wife of the Protector of Stone, Nilkuu. The two had fought valiantly against Skull Spiders, but one day their daughter asked to join in the effort. Melea was more than happy to let her in, but Nilkuu had his concerns. The two fought at first, but then their daughter joined the effort against the Skull Spiders anyway at a young age, and it was out of their hands.

Nilkuu couldn’t quite bring himself to encourage his daughter’s choice by training her. One day, their daughter died in combat to the Skull Spiders, and in their retreat the couple couldn’t even bring her body back home. Back at Levato, the couple was grieving, and each responded to the death in a different way.

Now, it was Nilkuu who felt it was his fault. If he’d been more supportive of their daughter and trained her, she wouldn’t have died. In contrast, Melea felt it was Nilkuu who had been right all along, and regretted encouraging their child to fight. The two fought over things yet again, and unable to bear with Nilkuu’s new direction of recruitment, which she blamed herself for, Melea left Levato.

Pohatu is unsure of how to react, but ultimately, he acknowledges Melea’s pain while still standing for himself. And despite his seemingly surly, hostile personality, Melea’s love has warmed him and taught him that others need help. He could never forget what Melea did for him for so unconditionally, and he understands how important that kind of compassion was as a result. Thus, he makes his decision to leave the tower and find Levato.

Melea is hurt, but finally comes to terms with Pohatu’s departure. She fights him in order to see if he’s ready, and of course, Pohatu wins. Tearfully they make their goodbyes as she helps Pohatu pack his belongings, and supplying him with the equipment he needs to survive the sandstorms, as well as a map, Melea directs him towards Levato. Traveling through the harsh sandstorms, Pohatu is soon confronted by the Levatan Patrol, who are unsure of his identity. After quickly explaining his situation and demonstrating his powers, Pohatu is rapidly introduced and welcomed to Levato.

There, he’s treated immediately not as some higher, greater hero, but as an equal- Or most of the time, a rookie who needs to be taught a lot. The local tribe leader Onewa makes sure to keep Pohatu in check, and while his teachings are less than orthodox (being VERY sink or swim, with emphasis on sink), Pohatu nevertheless feels treated like a person and forms a deep kinship with the Levatans.

Each of the Toa learn to fight the Skull Spiders, at first assisting in mere defensive measures. Gali manages to come to terms with her anxiety over being a worshipped hero with the help of Kivoda, whom she relates to and vice-versa, as well as Hahli, Macku, and Kotu. When Skull Spiders escape confinement in a Kinigan laboratory, Gali and her allies succeed in rescuing the researchers trapped inside.

#bionicle #bionicle g2 #Bionicle RaE #okoto #toa #protectors #kulta #Lord of Skull Spiders #fenrakk #ekimu #makuta #story bible #AU #skull spiders #mask of creation

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fogchanged · 6 years ago

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When the Tokyo Lockdown happened, Naoto was inside the Yamanote line based on a gut feeling. Ever since she was young Naoto considered herself sensitive to abnormal things. This lead her to being in the right place at the right time for when some strange events happened. At age 18 she knew that trusting her instincts and her wits was her best bet when it came to these situations. So she got caught right in the middle of the Lockdown. She didn’t originally start with a COMP, but by the second day she ran into Naoya who gave her a COMP and noted her unusual abilities.

She finds herself at Akasaka tunnel and runs into Izuna and Fushimi there. She finds herself at gunpoint before explaining why she’s come. She sensed that a fair number of demons were converging in the area and she was coming to investigate. Just like she said, the demons appeared and she was able to defeat them before the Protagonist arrives. She has a conversation with the duo and offers her aid to them. Essentially she gives the S.D.F a warning to which areas might have more demons show up so the S.D.F can react appropriately. She never makes a move to escape through this time.

When the Lockdown is finally lifted and the Demons are being controlled by the Japanese government, Naoto is offered a job due to her actions during the Lockdown. Numerous lives were saved by her foresight. She agrees without a second thought. She’s given a new COMP that is compatible with the new Demon Summoning Program with a paired heads up display visor. She works with the government as an advanced scout for any supernatural events that the systems pick up.

At age 25 she gets sent to Inaba due to some strange readings on the governments sensors. She stumbles upon the Investigation Team after looking into a strange string of missing people reports. She reports her findings back to HQ and tells them that the situation doesn’t require full teams to be mobilized. If anything she advises her superiors not to send anymore back up. She fears that if the government mobilizes who or whatever is behind these strange events might get scared and run away. She’s given permission to continue to monitor and handle this situation at her digressions.

Naoto’s Shadow never manifests due to the Harmonizer within her COMP keeping her Shadow contained. This is also the reason why she can see through the fog without assistance and is able to fight the Shadows regardless. However, she cannot enter the TV World by herself and must have someone open it for her.

#{v;demonic power under government control}#(Tenative AU idea)

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gosdwan · 3 years ago

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Company C-Century-Old Power Giant

Company C is one of the largest private power companies in the Asia-Pacific region with a history of operating for over 100 years. It has invested in over 20 business nodes in the mainland of China, ranging from power generation, transmission to distribution.

Sustainable development and low-carbon environmental protection are integral part of its core corporate values. It is committed to gaining more proactive and smarter IT governance control capabilities through digital transformation solutions, for greater improvements in production management, industrial design, control assistance, and even new technologies such as Internet of Things.

GOSDWAN's Innovation in New and Renewable Energy

From rigid tunnels to flexible networks

The Industrial Internet results from the convergence of production and computing, analytics, sensing technologies, and Internet connectivity. By connecting intelligent machines and ultimately connecting people and machines, in combination with software and big data analytics, companies can work more efficiently, economically, environmental friendly and with safer management. Therefore, the ability to provide larger and more flexible bandwidth channels to meet the need of business developments, and to interconnect data elements across the network with key cloud-based applications in real time is the underlying logic of digital transformation for new energy companies.

Network management visualization

The diversity of network structures inevitably generates a large number of network elements and links, and inefficiency and deviation easily occur on the service as well as device side. To realize network intelligence, new industrial enterprises need compatible monitoring and alerting tools for business logic. At least two basic features, application label customization and collection depth customization, are required at project introduction to effectively support intelligent network visualization outside the framework of traditional network management.

Data cloud and business automation

Digital transformation leads to the exponential expansion of data held by the enterprise, and unifying it in the traditional data center for statistical analysis, computation and mining is expensive and difficult. Intelligent enterprises will build a global view of data assets, and the collection, summary, analysis, mining and archiving of human-machine data will be done more at the edge, with a more balanced dynamic scheduling based on the link and computing resource overhead of the whole network.

Network redundancy and multiplexing backups

Industrial enterprises usually keep the original network composed of private lines such as MPLS VPN or IEPL for the use of the original information system and some critical latency-sensitive applications, but at the same time use the newly expanded SD-WAN network capacity as a carrier for non-critical applications and a backup channel for critical applications. Therefore, the LAN and WAN of service nodes will give priority to MPLS VPN + SD-WAN dual-active Hybrid WAN mode, and ensure that the traffic has redundancy structure at the core routing level to guarantee high availability.

Highlights of Technical Design In New and Renewable Energy

Seamless connection to existing network and multi-data platform handover

The new SD-WAN network and the existing MPLS-VPN network are seamlessly connected at each business node through SD-Branch and intranet optimization. The SD-WAN solution takes over the definition, scheduling and routing of service traffic to form a Hybrid WAN architecture.

High availability design

Based on end-to-end redundancy design, the SD-WAN solution delivers 99.99% network availability and automatic service switchover for disaster recovery. Its monitoring background performs real-time monitoring of key indicators to sense service jitters.

Customized SaaS network management

The single-tenant SaaS Network Management system, independently designed and deployed for the customer, highlights key indicators concerned by the customer and supports configuring alarm thresholds. It automatically generates service performance reports regularly in a configured format.

#sd #wan #managed #service #provider

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senceiveuk · 5 years ago

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Tunnel Convergence Monitoring: City of London-Senceive

4 monitoring hubs and 367 sensors have been deployed, which were installed on the tunnel linings and the track bed. On the cast iron lining segments, Senceive’s patented magnetic mountings were used for the five segments visible above the track bed.

#Tunnel Monitoring System #Tunnel Monitoring #Tunnel Convergence Monitoring

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sulfurousdreamscapes · 7 years ago

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No one knows about the monitoring tunnel I've installed into the game I've developed. It's a bit of a debug tool, and it lets me look into the entire digital world I've created, so that I can see where every player is and what they're doing, right down to details like which way they're facing, or what button they just pressed. It's all in real-time.

It's thanks to this tunnel that I met the strange player named Anomaly.

That wasn't a name I gave them, it was their actual username. Every day, at a certain appointed time, they would start the game, and go to a distant, very specific point on the game map. Then they would just stand there for hours. Then, exactly 12 hours later, they would quit the game.

The game was singleplayer, and there was no benefit to idling, so this player's behaviour baffled me. I introduced a new patch to the game, and one of the undocumented changes I made was to add a chance for an enemy to spawn or wander around the area where Anomaly stood.

The next day, I tracked Anomaly as they walked to their usual position. The rabid dog mutant I'd appointed to show up arrived a few minutes later. Anomaly died in a vicious attack. And then, upon respawning, they just started walking right on over. This time, the dog didn't show up for two hours. When it did, it killed Anomaly again. Once more, Anomaly started walking.

Anomaly was playing the game by standing at that one spot, and I had no idea why. It wasn't really a big deal, but it bothered me to no end. I'd lie on the bed in the dark, and all that I could think about was Anomaly. It affected my focus on the game's continued development, and I stopped fixing bugs, all in an attempt to get this single player to actually play my game the right way.

The time finally came for me to do something about it. I assembled a rudimentary multiplayer system and embedded it in the next patch for the game. Dataminers found the files and it caused quite a stir on game news websites, but I paid none of that any mind. I just waited for Anomaly to start the game, and I immediately connected to their game.

I spawned on a mountain overlooking the spot where they stand. I waited, and waited, and they wouldn't show. I checked the debugging tools on the other monitor, and there was Anomaly, standing at their spot.

Was my multiplayer component broken? I'd tested it on a number of random players, and it had worked each time. I came down the mountain and walked over to where Anomaly was supposed to be standing.

On the monitor, I tracked the progress of my own black blip as it approached the red blip that represented Anomaly. As soon as they converged, my game screen went black.

"You'll be with me forever, won't you?" they whispered.

Happy New Year to all of you!

#writing #writeblr #words #fiction #flash fiction #flash fic #story #stories #short fiction #short stories #prose #spilled prose #original fiction #original story #original prose #video games #games #daily writing

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lovemesomerafael · 5 years ago

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Destroying The Planet To Save It Chapter 30: Get That Song Out Of My Head

Chapters 1-25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27

Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Read It On AO3

Sam Wilson didn’t consider himself a religious man, but he was definitely a man of faith. He made sure to give thanks when the three men S.H.I.E.L.D. was watching did absolutely nothing of interest for the next twenty-four hours, because it meant that he and Anita were able to fall into bed in their hostel, forgetting even to eat dinner, and stay there all night. They might have been a little inhibited by the thin walls and the fact that half the guests in the hostel were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but that only meant that they were quieter than they wanted to be. The next day, they were able to just relax and enjoy the sunshine, walking around La Macarena together holding hands and talking romantic drivel.

It wasn’t until late afternoon that Anita’s phone beeped, letting her know she had a text. The message was simple: “Go time.” They decided that they could hurry back to the hostel because, if anyone saw their haste, they’d probably just think they were in a rush to be alone together. It was certainly no secret around the hostel that they were making the most of their “pre-wedding honeymoon.”

When they reached the hostel, the lead agent on shift was standing outside, seemingly enjoying a smoke and scrolling lazily through something on his phone. Sam was impressed. Had he not known what the agent was really doing, he would have been entirely fooled. When the agent, whose name was Kelty, saw Sam and Anita approaching, he went into a very convincing “hello, new American friends” act that gave them a reason to stand chatting together. Kelty quietly told them that one of the agents had managed to follow one of the men they were watching to a small outbuilding behind the hostel, which he entered, but from which he didn’t emerge. Another man, however, did emerge from the tiny shack a few minutes later.

They’d found the machine.

Anita, who was the senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on site, decided that they’d wait until dark to move in. Until then, she stationed several agents around the hostel, and especially near the small outbuilding, to make sure they’d know the location of every person in the area once they decided to act. That was critical, because they could only use a small team if they hoped to get in and out of wherever the machine was without drawing attention. The last thing they wanted was a firefight where townspeople and tourists might be hurt.

There was no plausible reason for anyone to be spending time behind the hostel, because there was nothing back there that would be interesting for guests. Luckily, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. teams’ rooms had a window in the right location. It was a simple matter of seemingly casually setting a camera down on the windowsill, like any tourist might do. This camera just happened to be on, and to have a wide-angle lens that sent a nice, crisp image to any S.H.I.E.L.D. computer that chose to log in to the feed.

Once the sun had gone down and true darkness descended, Sam and Anita had donned tac gear while monitoring the scene around the little shed. The agents doing surveillance around the hostel reported that everything was very quiet; there were only a few guests around and one person manning the reception area. The go team was suited up, ready and in position.

Sam took point as four agents converged on the outbuilding that was the entrance to wherever the machine was. It had to be underground, given the size of the shed, but beyond that, they had no idea. Other agents were stationed invisibly in the shadows around the area, but only Sam, Anita, Agent Kelty, and a fourth agent were on the team that would enter the shed.

Since there were no windows on the small outbuilding, Sam quietly tried the door and found it locked. The door had a small, cheap key lock on it, and Sam motioned for one of the agents crouched in the shadow of a car parked near the shed. She crossed to him, swift and silent, and took almost no time picking the lock without making a sound. She then resumed her post while Sam eased the door open and slipped a tiny disc in, then silently re-closed the door.

Nothing happened. Had anyone been inside the shed, they would have made some sort of noise as the disc began to emit a sonic vibration. Although the vibration was at too high a frequency to hear, it would definitely have hurt the ears of anyone within the little outbuilding.

Sam made a motion, and the entry team took their positions outside the door. On his signal, Kelty opened the door as quietly as possible, while Sam and Anita swept the interior, weapons at the ready. There was nothing in the shed, but a two-foot square hole yawned in the floor, the end of a wooden ladder visible sticking out of it. Faint electric light glowed inside the hole.

Sam signaled the fourth agent, named McNair, standing just behind him. Agent Kelty assisted her as she silently and carefully levered a pole-mounted apparatus as close as possible to the mouth of the hole without being visible from inside. Agent McNair thumbed a tiny joystick on the pole to control a miniscule fiberoptic scope camera, no bigger around than a ball-point pen, that snaked out until it barely passed the edge of the hole. Anita, standing next to Sam, held a small screen on which they both watched a dim, infrared display of what the camera saw.

There was nothing but the dirt at the bottom of the ladder, and light shining from somewhere to the right. Anita used ASL to tell McNair to snake the camera down the hole until they could see where the light was coming from.

At that moment, the sound of voices was heard from the side of the hostel building. Sam’s head whipped around in time to see a man in loose shorts and a T-shirt come around the corner, with another man, in equally casual clothes that marked them as tourists, beside him. Black-clad agents emerged for the briefest of moments, then melted back into the shadows, each dragging one of the men with a hand over his mouth. No further sounds were heard from either man.

Sam immediately put the incident out of his mind, going back to monitoring the display from the camera. He watched as the picture changed, showing the dirt at the bottom of the hole getting closer, until the screen filled with what seemed like brightness, although the red of the display was actually too dim to be seen from more than a foot or so away. McNair stopped the forward movement of the camera and used the controls to tip the end of the scope up, giving the camera a view of the source of the light.

A man-sized tunnel about five feet long led to a large room where one of the machines sat, taking up most of the space. The room was surprisingly crude and small, given the locations of the other machines Sam and Anita had seen. It was dug out of the ground underneath the hostel, the walls simply shored up with thick, square wooden beams that looked to Sam to be about the thickness of railroad ties. There was only one guard visible: the one who had been seen entering the shed. However, there was a large portion of the room they couldn’t see, and there were moving shadows on the visible portion of the machine and the opposite wall. There was more than one person down there.

They couldn’t know for sure whether there was another exit from the room, which meant that Sam had to decide how to approach this situation. There was no way to surprise the people guarding the machine when the only way for the team to enter was to descend ten feet on a wooden ladder, single file. Sam pointed to his belt, where a couple of flash bang grenades were fastened. Anita shook her head. Too noisy. Sam agreed, and opened one of several pouches on the belt, showing her a metal cannister about half the size of a soda can. She nodded and signaled to Kelty and McNair to retreat.

Once the four were again outside the shed, McNair handed the pole camera to the agent who had picked the door lock. Sam took a moment to review the video taken just now from the pole cam, turned, and said something in ASL, seemingly to the shadow behind a dumpster. The shadow grew taller as the agent stood from his crouch and quickly crossed the distance between the dumpster and the shed to hand Sam a strange-looking contraption. It was basically a metal frame in the shape of a football. Handing the monitor to Agent Kelty and taking the metal cannister from the pouch on his belt, Sam placed the canister into a cradle in the frame, then handed the frame to Anita. He then accepted something from the agent that looked like a video game controller.

Sam flicked a switch, illuminating several LEDs on the controller, then pushed a button. The football-shaped frame emitted a faint whirr, then rose from Anita’s hands to hover there. Sam slowly and carefully began to fly the drone through the air and into the shed, walking with meticulously quiet steps behind it. The team formed up behind and on either side of him in the entrance to the shed and watched Sam maneuver the metallic football until it descended, motor so quiet it could no longer be heard, into the hole.

Anita held the monitor where he could see it as he activated the camera on the small drone. It took him very little time to maneuver it below the level of the tunnel roof. Once it was there, he flew it as fast as it would go into the room and hit a button on the controller. The canister activated, spraying a greyish-blue smoke into the room and quickly obstructing the drone camera’s view of anything in the room.

Whoever was in the room uttered sounds of surprise and fear, but they ended almost as they began. The gas filling the room below rendered them unconscious as soon as just a small amount was absorbed through the skin. All Sam, Anita, and the two agents had to do was wait the fifteen seconds it would take for the gas to become inert, leaving the guards asleep but the room perfectly safe for anyone else to enter without being affected.

From there, all the four-person team had to do was descend into the underground room and destroy the machine. The team moved the one guard near the machine out of the way, but left the other two where they sat at a decrepit metal table. They’d apparently been playing some card game for pistachios, given the piles before each man and in the middle of the rickety table. They’d wake up in an hour or so, none the worse for having taken an unplanned nap. No one approached the outbuilding above, and the team simply did what they’d come to do and closed the shed back up.

By midnight, no S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were left at the hostel.

As he leaned back in his seat on the quinjet taking them to Argentina, Sam smiled to himself. He had enjoyed his time in La Macarena with Anita, much more than he had dared hope. And if he could ever get that fucking song out of his head, he would die a happy man.

Walking with Steve through the pretty coastal village of Heysham on the northwest coast of England was like something out of a dream. Steve wore a chunky fisherman’s sweater in a grey-blue that made his eyes even more beautiful than usual, with well-fitting jeans and a navy peacoat over all. He looked so good, Sharon actually felt a little tongue-tied a few times in the hours they wandered, waiting for the ferry to the Isle of Man. It was cold, even though the sun shone, making the waves sparkle out on Morecambe Bay. But even though it would have been warmer, Steve and Sharon preferred to enjoy the village rather than pass the time in the ferry company’s waiting room at the port.

They wandered through narrow streets, taking in the picturesque stone cottages and quaint pubs along the way. Although they stopped briefly at St. Patrick's Well, set into the stone wall around the rectory garden of St Peter's Church, they didn’t visit the church. Sharon was extremely interested – after all, it has stood since about the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. She would also love to have seen the ruins of St. Patrick’s chapel up on the windy headland above. But she didn’t suggest either one.

Had Steve suggested it, that would have been different. But something about the idea of visiting the famous churchyard with its ancient headstones, or the graves carved out of stone looking over Morecambe bay, seemed to Sharon like something Steve would prefer to pass by. She’d seen him purposefully avoid literature, movies, and even conversations that invited contemplation of the passage of time, or the forgotten histories of those long dead. Instead, she suggested a walk along the rough, rocky beach, watching the wading oystercatchers and other seabirds on the shoreline.

The romance of the day was undeniable. Steve held Sharon’s hand as they walked, and kissed her at every opportunity. At the beach, he sat with her back against his chest and wrapped his coat around her as far as he could while they sat on a moss-covered boulder and watched the waves. He nuzzled behind her ear and they shared some heated kisses. Still, she was sure that he was quieter than usual and seemed just a bit tense. It didn’t distract from her enjoyment of the day, but she wondered what was on his mind.

The ferry was a large, sturdy-looking vessel with a pointed prow and an elongated back deck for vehicles and cargo. The boxy white superstructure featured a large, round, blue and red logo with a white symbol in the center: the three armored legs with spurs that decorated the flag of the Isle of Man. There was newer, sleeker and faster catamaran ferry, but Steve said that he preferred the more traditional design of this one. Rather than spend the three and a half hour trip crowded in a lounge full of seats, they chose to have lunch in the café/bar. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was pleasant and seemed, somehow, more their style than some Tony Stark-worthy party yacht. In any event, when compared to the Staten Island ferry back home, it was grand.

After lunch, they went up onto the deck of the ferry. They were fortunate. The sea, which could be rough between England and the Isle of Man, was fairly calm, and it was warm enough, if they huddled together, to sit on one of the benches on the deck and watch the misty coastline while it was visible.

Once they docked in Douglas, the Isle of Man's largest town, they were met by a roughened, red-faced man who identified himself only as “Clive,” and only because Steve directly asked him his name. “Clive” handed Steve the keys to a MINI Countryman and walked briskly away. While Steve took his time familiarizing himself with driving a car with the steering wheel on the right, Sharon tried to get over the idea that MINI made an SUV. She offered more than once to drive, since she’d had experience with right-wheel driving, but Steve insisted. Sharon would probably have been affronted if it had been any other man, but it was Steve, which meant she was charmed instead.

Sharon used an app on her S.H.I.E.L.D. phone to direct Steve around the western side of the island. The information they had was that the machine here was located in a lighthouse, and had been abandoned. What they hadn’t known, until after some difficulty searching for the entrance road, was that the lighthouse itself was abandoned.

Standing at the edge of a rocky promontory and lashed almost continuously by high winds, the lighthouse was made of rough-hewn stone and connected to a keeper’s house made of the same stone. It was not yet a ruin, but the keeper’s house had clearly been untenanted for a long time. According to S.H.I.E.L.D., the light itself had been built in the late 1700’s, new by U.K. standards. But it had been replaced by a radio beacon in the tower forty years earlier, so the light keeper’s cottage had been abandoned. The house was now roofless, with one wall partially collapsed. The radio beacon was now located on massive, sea-swept rocks below the headland in the Irish Sea, so the tower had also been abandoned. It was nonetheless in much better shape than the house.

Steve drove to the end of the gravel road that stopped short of the keeper’s cottage. From there, he and Sharon made a show of taking pictures of the lighthouse and the keeper’s quarters, the sea from the headland, and each other. If anyone was watching, they would look like tourists who had been lucky enough to spot the well-concealed entrance to the road that led to the light.

Steve seemed to like the novelty of it as much as Sharon did, but both kept their minds on the job they had to do. He pointed out to her a rock fence that appeared to serve no purpose, and was also unmistakably new, even though someone had attempted to dirty it and crack some of the rocks to make it look as old as possible. They guessed that the fence covered the disturbance in the ground where the heavy-duty power lines must be if there was, indeed, a machine in the lighthouse. No one would be able to tell that Sharon had used the advanced lens of her camera to zero in on the shiny new hardware on the door into the lighthouse itself. They might have seen her show Steve the picture on the little screen, but tourists did that all the time, and Sharon needed no words to tell him what he was looking at.

The abandoned place had a distinct feeling of being forgotten by time, but that didn’t seem to bother Steve. The location and even the old house and tower were gorgeous, and Steven and Sharon had them all to themselves. They spent far longer than was necessary, enjoying the harsh wind and the beauty of the Irish Sea, taking picture after picture of the beautiful old stone lighthouse with its intricate, rusted railing around the light. The only thing that eventually drove them back to their little SUV was the fading light.

Steve had arranged for a tiny seaside cottage on the promenade in Peel, on the west coast of the Isle of Man and eight miles or so down the coast from the ancient lighthouse. They went to the cottage then, so they could prepare to return to the lighthouse once it was fully dark. Sharon thought she’d never seen such a cozy, perfect little house. The décor was maybe a little heavy on ruffles for Steve, but the cottage had thick rugs and a large stone fireplace, and the bed was large and comfortable. The little cottage was steps from the white sand of Peel Beach and from the windows, they could see Peel Castle. The rental agent had told Steve that, on a clear day, they would even be able to see Ireland to the West and Scotland to the North.

Both Sharon and Steve wished they didn’t have work to do. They would have preferred simply to enjoy Peel.

As it turned out, destroying the machine was a simple matter of returning to the lighthouse with the lights of the MINI turned off. There was no indication in the clay of the road that anyone but them had used it in quite a while. When they reached the lighthouse, Steve pulled the locks from the heavy oak door into the tower and, just inside, they found the machine, sitting in the middle of the circular ground floor. The few windows in the stone tower had all been covered over with wooden shutters that fit tightly to the frames, preventing the sickly green glow of the orb from being seen by anyone outside.

Within half an hour, they had destroyed the machine, Steve had the orb in his backpack, and they were making their way carefully up the circular stairs to the light itself. The view would have been spectacular in the daytime, but it was still beautiful and romantic in the light of the crescent moon.

Once they reached the top of the tower, they stood, Steve behind Sharon holding her wrapped in his arms as they gazed out at the moon glinting on the water, and the endless expanse of stars. Below, the waves foamed white around the massive boulders scattered below the cliff upon which the lighthouse stood.

“I feel like I’m in a fairy tale,” Sharon breathed.

“Except, if this was a fairy tale, you’d be a prisoner here. The beautiful princess locked away in the tower.”

Sharon turned within his arms to embrace him, smiling up into his face. “Maybe I was. But you’re the brave, handsome knight who’s come to rescue me. We fall in love, and live happily ever after.”

She felt Steve tighten his arms around her. Suddenly, he seemed just a touch nervous, although his smile didn’t falter and the mildly dazed look on his face didn’t change. “I already fell in love with you.”

“And I fell in love with you.”

Steve gave Sharon a long, slow kiss. “So I guess that just leaves the happily ever after part. And I was thinkin’, maybe you might wanna… get started on that.”

“Oh? What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I thought maybe we could, um… I could… relocate. At least partly. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s in Washington, and it wouldn’t take much of anything to set up a second base for the Avengers there. We probably should have done it already, anyway.” Steve swallowed hard. “And then we could, if you wanted, we could… live together. Would you, um… Well, would you?”

Steve looked like he’d just pulled the pin from a grenade. But he didn’t look like that for long, because Sharon’s entire countenance lit up, answering his question before she had a chance to whisper a shaky, “Yes!”

She squeezed him as hard as she could with her arms around his neck, and they hugged and laughed for a few moments before Steve relaxed his embrace enough to look down into Sharon’s face.

“I love you, Sharon. I do.”

“I love you, too, Steve. You’ve made me very happy, you know. Not just because you want to live together, but because now I know what you’ve been nervous about all day.”

Steve smiled that all-American smile that, combined with his slight blush, was irresistible to wide swaths of humanity. “Yeah. That was it.”

They stood together in the huge light chamber, surrounded by sea and stars, with the moon sparkling on the waves until the fog began to roll in. Steve and Sharon sealed their agreement with kiss after kiss until, finally, they decided that it was time to go back to their little cottage by the beach and test out that ruffly bed.

Bucky woke up feeling a little sore from sleeping on the hard surface of the cargo compartment of the Land Rover. He noticed it for all of half a second, which is how long it took to realize that the soft, warm weight on him was Joss’s naked body. He could hear the slightest purr of a snore, telling him that she was still sound asleep.

He stayed still. He didn’t want to wake her quite yet. There was no need, for one thing, because the orange-pink dawn hadn’t illuminated the alien desert landscape quite enough yet to begin the drive back to Alice Springs. More than that, though, he wanted to enjoy this moment, his first time waking up with her, after their first night together. Bucky wanted to appreciate the way she smelled, warm and sweet, and the shape of her bare back and shoulders above the edge of the blanket. He savored the heaviness of her arm across his chest and the way her fingers clung to his metal bicep, even in her sleep. Yeah, this was a moment he wanted to revel in for a while.

Bucky hadn’t been with a woman in a very long time. It had been even longer since he’d woken up with one in his arms. But that wasn’t why he was feeling so soft and tender he was glad Steve wasn’t here to see him getting so schmaltzy. It was Joss. It was the fearless, weapons-crazy spitfire whose thick, dark hair was currently tickling his chest, and the way her teasing grin and her lusty smolder both made him weak in the knees. It was her apartment in an old house that felt like home the moment he walked in. It was the fact that she didn’t hesitate to wade into trouble with him, and the way he knew, without a flicker of doubt, that she had his back anytime they did.

Ultimately Joss stirred, then blinked slowly awake, roused by a combination of Bucky’s body reacting to her and a sense of his wakefulness. In the half-light that now illuminated the Land Rover, Bucky watched her question, then realize where she was, and felt a deep thrill as her lips immediately curved up in a smile. She looked up to see his eyes on her.

“Hi,” she said drowsily.

“Hi, yourself. You’re beautiful when you sleep.”

Joss giggled a little at that, turning her face in toward his chest. “I doubt that.”

“You are,” Bucky assured her as he moved to reposition them on their sides facing one another. As nice as this was, it felt good to rest his weight somewhere other than his back against that hard floor. He smiled into Joss’s eyes, both a greeting and a question.

She smiled back and lifted her chin to kiss him. In Bucky’s current state, it didn’t take long for the kiss to get serious.

“Your mouth is sinful,” Joss said when they eventually came up for a breath. “I’m so gonna have to go to confession.”

Bucky chuckled wickedly. “Are you Catholic?”

“No, but for you, I think I’m gonna have to make an exception, because… ooooohhhh…”

That was the end of conversation for a long time. By the time Bucky and Joss lay side by side again, recovering their breath, it was full daylight outside the truck.

Joss groaned in what sounded like disappointment. “That was… I feel… You know, it would make my life easier if you were terrible in bed. I was kind of hoping you would be.”

“Sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“Really?”

“Oh, hell no,” she laughed, and rolled back toward Bucky to kiss him some more.

He kissed her back, slow and indulgent, but when he pressed his forehead to hers, he was frowning slightly. “We should get going.”

Joss groaned louder, but began the slow, painful process of extricating herself from Bucky’s arms. Although they’d both rather have stayed snuggled together, at least they could look forward to flying the quinjet together again as they traveled to Papua New Guinea, where their last machine awaited them.

On a sunny day – like there’s any other kind in North Central New Mexico – the Red Stone Reservoir was like an unexpected teal-green jewel set among the harsh beauty of the rocky, red plain west of the Sangre de Christo Mountains. The Red Stone dam impounded the Rio Hierro - part of the Rio Grande river system - to create a five thousand acre lake of clear, cold water surrounded by layered, red sandstone cliffs with hazy mountains in the near distance. It was over six thousand feet above sea level, and Tony Stark thought he really needed a cabin somewhere on this lake.

He wasn’t flying around above the awe-inspiring landscape just to scope out real estate, however. In full Ironman armor, he was doing reconnaissance. He needed to figure out how to take out this last machine in the U.S. with a minimum of disruption and without being killed. Which meant he needed to figure out how to get in and out of the dam control complex without being seen. Ideally, he wanted to find a way to do it alone.

Tony had to hand it to Arias. He’d hidden this particular machine and its power supply in plain sight, and he’d gotten the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to pay for it. Red Stone dam was an earth embankment dam just over three hundred and fifty feet high and two thousand feet long. It had initially been designed and built simply for flood control, irrigation and municipal water storage. As of 1995, however, the dam was also used for hydroelectric generation.

Jarman Arias had really had no trouble convincing the town of Taos, and several other surrounding communities, that generating electricity at Red Stone dam was all upside for them. So in the early ‘90’s, Arias’s handpicked team had bribed their way into winning the contract to retrofit the dam. Who was to notice if, among the huge infrastructure supporting the turbine, they also built another, modest-sized room, the purpose of which everyone assumed someone else knew? And who was to notice the ordering of a few extra machine parts and a crew building something vaguely electrical-looking as part of the project? Best of all, the power for the machine was built right into the project.

Friday had done a masterful job of comparing the published plans of the original dam with those for the retrofit, and determined exactly where the machine had to be. Neither Friday nor S.H.I.E.L.D. could know whether the machine was still guarded, because technicians were needed to run the dam itself. There was no way to know whether they had other jobs.

Tony wasn’t worried. He was just anxious to get this done so he could start the vacation he’d made Pepper swear they would take: she’d already agreed to two weeks minimum, and absolutely no cell phones. He was still working on the “no clothing allowed” part.

He had just about everything he needed. He’d determined the best way to approach without detection, and Friday had successfully hacked into the Army Corps of Engineers’ systems so that he knew when the fewest technicians would be on site. He just needed to figure out where to land tonight. The Ironman suit was cool as fuck, you didn’t have to tell Tony that, but it was also just a tad noticeable if you, for example, wandered into the control facility for a small dam in the wee hours of the morning. Which meant he’d need to leave the suit and walk in, so Tony needed somewhere safe to do that among the piñon, juniper, and sage dotting the colored rock in the area.

Ah. There it was. The dam builders had filled in a canyon, and one of the walls bent backward on itself, forming a small but very tall amphitheater of sorts about a quarter-mile behind the building that housed the control room for the dam. He could land there, leave the suit well-concealed behind any of the boulders that had tumbled down from the cliffs over the centuries, and simply saunter into the dam complex. There wasn’t even a guardhouse at the gate, just a numerical keypad. Friday had actually been insulted to be asked to determine the combination. She’d done it before Tony had time to finish giving her the instruction, but she’d made no secret of how far beneath her skills she considered the task.

At two a.m., Tony flew in, as low as he dared, and lowered himself into the tall amphitheater near the dam control complex. He touched the switches that opened his Ironman suit and retracted it as small as this particular version got, which fit nicely between the cliff wall and a group of three boulders seemingly placed there for that purpose.

It was actually chilly even in his flannel shirt and jeans. The short quarter-mile walk over the rocky, sandy ground was no problem, nor was the keypad at the gate.

Now came the part where it really paid to be full of shit. If he met anyone, he needed to be able to talk himself into the facility. Fortunately, Tony was entirely full of shit, as anyone who had ever met him would tell you, so he strode, loose-limbed and cocky, up to the service entrance at the side of the corrugated metal building. It, too, locked with an electronic keypad, and Tony had to murmur quiet sweet nothings to Friday before she would crack the code for him. Eventually, she did, although it had cost him. Friday really liked Bruce, and was quite satisfied to have extorted some additional administrative permissions for him in her system, in exchange for the humiliating but entirely elementary task of hacking such a primitive security system.

Tony knew exactly where he was going. He knew where machine was, where the dam technicians on duty were, and how to get to the former without being seen by the latter. What he didn’t know, that made this mission slightly interesting, was anything about the security around the machine. There might be guards. He didn’t think so, but there just weren’t satellites in the area that Friday could infiltrate in order to get real-time data on exactly how many people were inside the control building. He was less concerned about the physical security: locks and such. Other Avengers might be able to bust down any door between them and the machine, but he was Tony Stark. He could get through any security with less noise, less destruction, and way more savoir faire.

What he couldn’t do, as it turned out, was avoid getting three bullets to the chest from the trigger-happy (and, it must be said, extremely jumpy) asshole who surprised him in the concrete tunnel. The last thing Tony heard before losing consciousness was Friday’s voice saying, “Boss? Boss? Was that a gunshot? Your vital signs are suddenly quite anomalous. Boss?”

#The Avengers #Ironman #Captain America #Bucky Barnes #The Winter Soldier #Sam WIlson #The Falcon #Tony Stark #Steve Rogers #Sharon Carter

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totallytubulargirl · 8 years ago

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Soulmate AU; Donatello X Reader

Rating: PG-13

Universe: 2016

Authors Note: Ok so if we’re talking about soulmates here, I believe that means that the universe will draw you together no matter the circumstances. I know a lot of Soulmate AU’s have them sort of communicating before they meet and they already sort of know that they are soulmates. But like if we’re speaking realistically (i mean as realistic as we can get) that wouldn’t happen right? Like you’d be drawn together over some sort of item or situation and click right away, So I sort of wrote it like that, but if you guys want the next one to be different send me an ask or something. I think Raphael is next, so if you want his to be not the same as this lol let me know.

Summary: Donatello finds his soulmate.

Donatello sat in the sweet rarity of silence, polishing his microscope, carefully maneuvering around the small intricate pieces. A golden chain smacked his plastron, a small stone that mimicked that color of stormy ocean clouds hung at the end. Donnie had had the broken pendant for as long as he could remember. With all the science he knew, he still couldn’t explain why he was so drawn to it. He had found it in the sewers when he was only a toddler, but even then he had thought it to be so pretty, he had placed it around his neck. At first, Splinter had thought it was cute but as the years passed he had begun to understand it held a deeper meaning for Donatello. It got the occasional giggle and tease from his brothers, but he didn’t care about that. There was something in his gut that told him it was worth it. Donatello’s phone vibrated against his hip, interrupting the silence he was so enjoying. He answered the phone, as Leo yelled something on the other side.

“We need you on 54th!”

“Ten-four.” Replied Donatello and the line went dead. He could’ve at least said bye.

[Y/N] looked down onto her chest, gripping the broken pendant that hung around their neck tightly. They sat in her closet, avoiding the violent drunk man they called their dad. They could hear him, throwing furniture to the side, desperate to take his anger out on them.

“Where areya!?” He roared from just outside their bedroom. [Y/N] pressed their back against the cold closet wall, shutting their eyes as tight as they could. Their hand clutched around the pendant tighter, praying that they wouldn’t be caught. They tried comforting themselves with thoughts of their mother, of her warmth and her smile. They drew themselves farther into their own memories, living for a moment in a time when they were happy, when their mother was alive, before being snapped out of it by unbearably loud thrashing noises. [Y/N] knew their father was getting closer, fear ran rampant through their mind, keeping them from making rational thoughts. They tried to keep their panting under control, “I know yer inhere sumweear.” He taunted. They knew the window facing the alley was open if they could just get to it. They took a deep breath and kissed their pendant before leaping out of the closet door into the open. Their room was a mess, a shell of its former self. Clothes were strewn across the floor, furniture was everywhere, even her ceiling light was shattered, [Y/N] rolled their eyes at the sight of their room, knowing he had been there. They didn’t have time to feel angry though, stomps were getting closer and before they could think about it, they were out the window and onto the fire escape. They scurried down the ladder, before noticing there was a street brawl going on in their alley. They kept going, unfazed to the dark underbelly of New York City. They didn’t live in the best neighborhood, so they were used to criminals. Not to mention their home situation. They kept going, ducking behind a dumpster as their father poked his head out the window. “Ya won’t gitaway dat easy.” He shook his fist after them, angrily. The gangsters fighting on ground level continued their brawl, unperturbed at the small person running away from home. [Y/N] scrunched up against the dumpster, hoping that the street fight would be over before their dad made his way down.

Donatello knew where Leonardo wanted him, but he still tracked his phone to be sure. He rounded the corner in the battle shell, honking his horn to alert his brothers of his arrival. Headlights shone brightly into the alley, bringing the battle to light. Foot soldiers surrounded the Terrapin brothers, as sirens wailed in the distant. A drunk man dragged himself into the alley, yelling slurs towards a dumpster. The foot quickly retreated, and the turtles ducked into the shadows. Donnie turned the headlights off, watching the man from the end of the alleyway. The pendant around his neck began vibrating, slowly lighting up from within.

“[Y/N],” yelled the man from the alley. “I’m gunna fuck youap,” he stopped hurling insults at, what seemed to Donnie to be, thin air. “Just like I did yer ma.” Ouch. Even Donatello felt the sting of his words, and he felt compelled to protect the invisible victim. He quickly slipped out of the car, making his way to the drunk man from within the shadows. His necklace wasn’t doing a very good job of being stealthy, shaking more violently as he neared the man. The drunk man turned around, a scowl was plastered on his face, “What the-” was all he could manage before Donatello knocked him out. There was only a split second of rest before his necklace began tugging him behind the dumpster, Donnie slowly approached the dumpster as the necklace glowed, levitating above his chest.

“I knew it,” He snorted to himself, so grateful to be proven right. He looked down where a small girl trembled. “Are you ok?” He asked, watching a matching necklace that glowed equally as bright as his own. They lifted her face to meet his, and he abruptly forgot every unimportant thing that had ever made him miserable in his life, because at this moment, looking into the sparkling eyes of the love of his life underneath the stars, he was the happiest turtle to ever exist. [Y/N] felt frozen, an indescribable feeling rushed through them and they were suddenly afraid to breathe as if he might disappear with their breath into the night sky.

“Yeah."They whispered breathlessly. Donatello helped them up and they didn’t feel afraid anymore, even though their father lay unconscious at their feet. He smelled a hint of mint on their breath and Donnie couldn’t help but wonder what they tasted like. Their necklaces glowed brightly until they connected, creating a heart. The pendants seemed satisfied at finding its other half as the light from within dimmed down until it was extinguished. His brothers watched the events unfold before them from the shadows, but he wasn’t concerned about that now.

"Should we say something?” Asked Leo only to be hushed by his youngest brother. It was like watching a movie happening in real time, but it seemed so personal it was almost uncomfortable to watch. [Y/N] told themselves not to kiss him, that they had just met him, that maybe they should be asking questions about the fact that he was a giant turtle. But all that stuff seemed less important than feeling his lips against theirs. They stood on her tippy toes to reach him and their faces converged, only able to taste the sweet sensation for a split second before a blinding white light flashed from their necklaces and blew everyone backward with a blinding explosion. Donatello’s head spun and a high pitched ringing took over his ears. He groaned in pain, crawling on all fours trying to find the girl that had so suddenly seemed to take over his life. “Donnie!” He heard a muffled voice yell. He looked to his left, Leo was trying to find the source of the obscene noise. Raphael and Mikey were ok except for the spots in their vision and the annoying noise ringing in their heads. Donatello’s glasses had been cracked in the explosion but he could still see a little. He finally found them lying unconscious, face down on the other side of the alley. He picked them up in his arms and they were so limp he feared the worst. A single tear fell from his eye as he pressed two fingers against their neck to see if they still had a pulse.

“Please please please.” Donnie pleaded. He could feel a faint pulse thumping against his fingers softly. “Oh thank god!” He lifted them up quickly as Leo approached him.

“Let’s get out of here!” Yelled Leo, trying to be louder than the ringing in his ears. Raphael warned of oncoming police,

“Aye cops will be here in 60 seconds!” Mikey already stood at the manhole, opening it and waving them in. Donnie jumped in first, not waiting for his brothers to slow him down. He took off for the lair, sprinting down tunnels and passageways as fast as he could. He couldn’t let it end, not like this. He hurried past a couple of more twists and turns before finally reaching the lair. He rushed into his lab, past Splinter who was drinking tea in the kitchen. Donatello immediately went to work, hooking up her arms with wires to monitor her vitals. He spent an hour running tests to see if she was completely ok. He needed to be thorough to make sure she was ok. Donnie didn’t know why the anxiety in his chest was forcing him to work so hard for a stranger, he had saved other people before but not like this. He felt as strongly as if it were one of his brothers lying on that table. He had a lot of questions, what was that blast? Who was she? Why was he so drawn to her? They would all have to wait though as he finally sat beside her and realized the only thing he could really do was wait for her to wake up.

[Y/N] could still see a bright light that seemed to limit her vision. They could feel a presence in front of them,

“Hello?” Their voice echoed into the distance.

“Hello, my daughter.” Their mother stepped forward from the light, revealing herself. [Y/N] was in shock, was it really her?

“Mom?” They asked. She opened her arms and [Y/N] ran into them. They sobbed uncontrollably as their mother kissed the top of their head.

“My daughter,” She said, stepping back. “we don’t have much time, someone very important is working very hard to wake you up.” She smiled, placing a hand lovingly on her daughters face. Tears fell down their face, “do not cry darling,” She bent down, coming face to face with them for the first time in years. “when I died, and my necklace broke in half, I made sure the other half would reach someone worthy of your soul.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “Donatello will take good care of you baby girl.” They wondered who Donatello was for a second, before deciding they didn’t care and throwing themselves into their mother’s arms.

“I love you, mom.”

“I love you too baby.”

A few hours had passed before [Y/N] finally woke up. They lifted their head off of the table, groggily looking around to see where they were. Wires stuck out from patches on their arms, they would’ve thought they were at the hospital but everything seemed like it was handmade. Two turtles, a blue masked one, and a purple one stood in front of them conversing before they noticed they were awake. The purple one seemed stunned at the sight of them,

“Hello.” Said the blue one cautiously. “How are you feeling?” Their eyes lingered on him for just a second before their attention turned to the purple turtle who had so swiftly taken over their heart.

“I think I’m ok.” They managed. None of their limbs appeared to be missing, so that was a plus.

“Donatello here never left your side. “ The blue one nudged his elbow into the lean turtle next to him. Donnie’s eyes widened in embarrassment, turning his face a deep green.

“Donatello.” She repeated, engraving his beautiful name in her memory, that’s who her mother was talking about. He could’ve sworn they were singing his name because it sounded so pure coming from their lips. Just then two more turtles walked in with different colored masks.

“Hey, your girlfriends finally up?” Asked the biggest one. Donnie tried to wave his hands around, signaling them to stop but if they got the hint they didn’t show it.

“Awe, now you guys can finally make out!” The small turtle brought his hands to his face and made kissy faces. Leo could see the torture in Donnie’s face and although he was amused he knew the two needed time alone.

“Come on guys.” Leo guided the other two turtles out of the room while they groaned their complaints.

“But Leo,” whined the orange-clad turtle. “We were just starting to have fun.” They closed the door behind them and the room grew silent. [Y/N] tried to get up and Donnie rushed to her side,

“Hold on,” he stopped her. “you need to rest.” His fingertips brushed her arm and he was breathless, but quickly pulled away. He could feel something coiling in the pit of his stomach, but he tried to ignore it. Why would such a beautiful human being want to be with HIM? He chuckled, “Sorry.” [Y/N] stared at him in wonder,

“Thank you.” They finally cut through the silence. He rubbed the back of his neck modestly,

“For what?” He asked.

“For saving my life.” They replied. He smiled and they could feel their heart stop. They could finally get a good look at the person who had saved them from their own father, and now from death. He was tall, much taller than them self. He was lean, his chest puffed out leading to a tapered waist, they had never seen anyone more attractive. His eyes seemed to be the best part about him, they seemed so honest and genuine. Glasses sat on his green snout, and he shoved them back up his face. Donnie felt like he was under a microscope, their eyes jumped from place to place, examining everything around them, even him. He tried to think of the situation logically but everything seemed jumbled in his head and he couldn’t form a solid thought without stuttering first.

“Uh, aren’t you s-scared of me?” He asked. They almost laughed, they lived in New York City, if mutant turtles were to exist anywhere it would be in the big apple.

“You’re just greener than I’m used to.” They smiled. “And have a shell.” Donnie felt a smile creep onto his face. The room almost felt electric, but it wasn’t because of the tech,

“Thanks, I guess.” He said. “What’s your name?”

“[Y/N].” They replied. “And I’m guessing you’re Donatello?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” He asked.

“Do you really want to know?” They questioned. “I mean it’s kind of crazy.” They trailed off.

“Crazier than a mutant turtle living in the sewers of New York City?” They rolled their eyes, knowing he was right. “How about I unplug you from all these machines, and you can tell me your story?” They nodded in agreement. So they told him about her mother, how she had died, how her dad had become a drunk afterward. They had been running away from him when they came across the turtles fighting the foot in the alley. They finally told him about their vision.

“She was in white robes,” They explained. “She said she loved me and,” they paused, afraid of what he might say when they told him. “She told me about you.” [Y/N] stopped, looking down to fidget with her thumbs, free from the wires that had saved her life. “She made sure you got the other half of that necklace…” Words sat heavily at the edge of her tongue, unsure of whether to retreat or continue. “because you’re the only one worthy of my soul or something.” They smiled, embarrassed. Donatello stared at them, in awe of the obstacles they had overcome. He wondered if they questioned what their mother had said to them. If she really meant for a mutant turtle to receive the other half of her pendant.

“Do you believe her?” He asked. Donnie twirled the words around in his head, he believed her. The way he felt when he looked at [Y/N]… there was no other way to explain it.

“Do you?” They retorted. [Y/N] felt a something inside of them, an undeniable feeling that told them their mother was right. They were afraid of his reaction. He seemed like a man of science like he would only believe the tangible.

“No.” He replied, startling her. “I don’t think I am worthy of you.” Donnie looked away. A muffled “Aw.” came through the door. Donatello stood up to open the door, his brothers tumbled in, one after the other. Donnie rubbed his temples in frustration. Leo was the first one to get off the floor, helping Mikey and Raph after him.

“We were just-” Leo started.

“Just making sure you were ok, right Mikey?” Raph said, through clenched teeth. [Y/N] watched the orange turtle they called Mikey, he looked like he was about burst with a secret that could kill. He giggled before spilling the beans,

“I totally think you guys are soulmates! Ask her out Donnie!” He hollered. Donatello looked like he was going to die of embarrassment while the two other turtles ushered Michelangelo out of the room. “Do it, Donnie! Follow your dreeeeeaaammmss!” He reached for Donnie dramatically as he was dragged away.

“Sorry about that.” Leo smiled politely and closed the door behind him. The room was silent once again and Donnie wished his brothers would come back.

“So?” They asked. “Are you going to ask me out?” They bit their lip nervously. They could tell he wasn’t very forward at all, constantly afraid of saying the wrong thing. I guess it’s up to me, they thought. They stood up from the examination table. “I believe my mother Donatello.” They took a step towards him. “I mean she's never come to me like that before, why would she now?” Donnie contemplated her words taking a deep breath.

“Why else would her necklace have exploded?” Donnie thought to himself, although he already knew inside his heart [Y/N] was his soulmate, he wanted them to be sure. His words gave her hope that he felt the same way they did.

“Exactly!” They took another step towards him, bravely taking his hands in hers, pressing them against their chest. “I don’t know about you but-” they stopped, so very terrified of pushing the words out into the open. “I can feel it.” Their heart thumped at an alarming pace under his fingertips. He was astonished, only lifting their hand to his heart to reveal a heart rate that kept up with theirs, beating in sync. “Woah.” They said in unison. “Kiss me.” [Y/N] whispered. Donatello was happy to comply, meeting her lips softly and tenderly. They kissed him back, wanting to convey how long they had been waiting for him. The two kissed passionately, as the background disappeared and only the stars that had sealed their fate surrounded them. [Y/N] pulled away and they locked eyes and they both knew that they had found their soulmate.

#tmnt #tmnt 2016 #tmnt donatello #donatello x reader #donnie x reader #tmnt donnie x reader #tmnt soulmate au #tmnt donnie #soulmate au

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streetartmuseumamsterdam · 8 years ago

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Graffiti - from Writing to Urban Art: a fluid journey towards tomorrow

Street Art Museum Amsterdam have asked the famous expert on graffiti and urban art from Madrid Dr. Figueroa Saavedra to share his thoughts on the evolution of this contemporary art movement. DrGraphitfragen has helped Muelle to get the recognition of the city management - one of the first streets in the world to carry the name of the first graffiti writer is in Madrdid.

ENGLISH: If something has characterised and made Graffiti great, if something explains the transit from Writing to Spray can Art, it is the attention given by writers to the graphic and its aesthetic dimension. It was made with so much passion that intended up becoming a fundamental factor of individual self-realization, a communicatory place and distinctive part of a subculture—later an international movement—which expressed before all freedom and interculturalism.

For this reason, it is complicated to understand the emergence of 21st century Urban Art without paying attention to the genesis and definition of the Writing Graffiti in 20th century. Both processes are child of the same germen, which made them to share the same pavement. Graffiti, with its vitality, autonomy and popular fortune, is, however, the true vanguard of street art in the current century.The Style Wars, in New York of the end of the 70 and the early 80s, were not more than the public declaration that artistic creativity is one of the fundamental pillars of Graffiti.

It characterized it as a frontier art, autonomous at the face of the artistic ecosystem and parallel to those branches of Public Art that are entrusted, or commissioned or monitored, by the public administration and even to omnipresent advertising language. The willingness of design and style triggered an aesthetic movement and an existential life experience, in which the creativity was merit, talent, emotion, affection and co-existence. The Graffiti not only covered trains and walls but also penetrated the mass culture and the high culture galleries, establishing a perpetual interchange of materials with those spheres. It also could connect with its social and cultural reality, jellying its aesthetics as a sign of the new times emerging after the 1973 crisis and giving itself in flesh and soul to the young effervescence of the 80s.

Thus, its childish glance grew up and flourished, absorbing in its spirit the hippie hedonism, the vitality of rock and the rebelliousness of the 70s punk, without leaving aside in its development the combination of nutrients offered by comic, TV, cinema, vinyl’s covers, graphic design, publicity, advertisements, and the cult to the fame expressed in neon lights and screen flashes. Afterwards, the flood of Hip Hop would drag graffiti into refreshing and rhythmic vibes. This took place under the consolidated world-empire of consumerism and the conversion of a combative counter culture into a subculture of resistance. In this context, the corner boy became a neighbourhood superhero, whose psych-evolutive development would make him aware of an adult reality of which he knew he could never belong to. The memorials and other civic murals, which were produced by some writers, became the reflex of the writer’s involvement with its neighbourhood, civil society, the people and its own destiny; always from its own personal glance and fashion.

Meanwhile, while graffiti of signature and “masterpiece” (spraycan art piece) was consolidating on one hand, on the other side of the Atlantic, other street art experiences were being thriving since the 60s. These experiences were at the margin of the official culture, from the framework of popular culture, art world and cultural activism. Postmodernism was born and it had aspirations to remain, it spread itself in each single corner of the western culture, embracing all sort of creative phenomena.

From the “provos” to the hippies to the punk, passing by the Internationale Situationniste, social and political muralism of the 70s, Neo-expressionism or Figuration Libre, or that array of French serigraphysts, in all these movements it was conveyed the living interest for expression without censorship, with creativity and a mix of faith and mocking, publicly, in society, and to take art to the streets to fuse it with life, without more frontier than the limits of the imagination. It was time to annihilate the notion of art as merchandise, underlie its communitarian and un-elitist character, to democratise its access and practice in public spaces. Public spaces had to be taken and left them open and shared. In sum, it is a space lived and enjoyed by an autonomous community.

Doubtlessly, what gathered writers and other graffiti writers and public or urban artists was an epochal air which resumed itself in the opening borders and freedom to action. It was about amplifying the mental horizons of society, its consciousness of the possible and positive, its vision of a future and framework of different interrelations, forged in self-improvement, concord and plurality as opposed to the hostility of a frustrating reality. Yet the movement has not yet shown the severity of its castrating facet.

However, and despite of the worldly pressures and prosecutions of the 90s, no one thought to abandon the idea of an opened or underground visual shock as warranty of a direct and sudden contact with the spectator. It was its own interpretation of an aesthetical-vital experience at the margins of the mass media, but that reproduced or simulated or exaggerate its dynamism and imperative existence. They were sons of a technological era with artcraft mentality. Thus was that the world of graffiti, after of its concretization and as we know it today, passed from being encumbered as Aerosol Art to suffer the spectacular criminalizing whirlpool coming from states.

As Norman Mailer puts it in his The Faith of Graffiti (1974), this was the Vietnamization of the graffiti phenomenon. The systematic and unproportioned belligerent prohibition of graffiti consecrated illegality as a characteristic feature of Hip Hop Graffiti of the 90s (and today); just in the moment where graffiti fell in a crisis and withdrew itself to cultural marginality of neighbours and periphery. No one reacted against such climax of social castration, due to energy of the new generations who replaced the local old schools and to the fact that Hip Hop Graffiti extended itself freshly over Eastern Europe and Latino-America; thus showing its force. Hence renascence, with its acts of vandalism but, at the same time, its artistic entity. Vandalism and art, however, will many times appear and be assumed as disjunctives.

At this point, an entity and identity reflection took place within the graffiti culture. It was time to look backwards, rethink the past, not to doss, take breath and go forward over a lightless tunnel. To some, this reflection came with the opportunity to set aside powerful burdens of the tradition. Some active vets and new writers left the orthodoxy of the old school to give place to their experimental “pulsion” and make graffiti grow with more illusion than fear, with adult vigour and child’s faith.The impression that all the previous stages have followed each other to create a unique and immutable model has been knocked down. There is no duty to reproduce the model with precision and reverence, the present is no longer a devaluated, non-returning golden past. Certainly, the aura of Graffiti was not limited to the idle imaginary of subway art of the 80s, as portrayed by Craig Castleman or Henry Chalfant.

Moreover, no one could imagine the dimension that graffiti would reach in the 21st century. Graffiti did not die in 1989.

It accommodated itself in its roots to see an obscure winter covered with a layer of frost transiting over its colours.From over the 90s, Hip Hop Graffiti would reinvigorate itself due, above all, to its taking consciousness of its character of a transgenerational movement and to the consolidation of a worldwide net of human collaboration and exchange of internal information that had never seen before in artistic movements; may be comparable with proposals in the world of music such as jazz and rock. Therefore emerging fanzines, specialized markets, the first webs geared at exhibiting graffiti art and fostering collaboration, national and international meetings and even the concretion of an own industry. Graffiti revolution within graffiti brought the possibility of having awareness of other street realities, mind opening, other styles creation, new techniques and bases, new techniques to endure, the development of the iconic, of the dynamic, of realism, expressionism, of the grotesque or informal, the exploration of textures, of reliefs, of the volumetric, the accentuation of the conceptual and the performative, the development of the metalinguistic aspect and the study of the relation between graffiti and other means of expression and communication, in sum, new strategies to keep the ‘getting-up’, the creative spirit of graffiti live and fresh.

Graffiti has grown up, in body and spirit and yet was facing a metamorphosis that would give place to something that looked like another thing: the Postgraffiti. This movement was manifested in the explosion of Iconism, Stencil Art, stickers, posters and urban spontaneous interventions. They themselves were not new things; their power and profusion were. It was about amplifying limits, tense them in the extreme while keeping the possibility of preserving graffiti as an art; this time with more integrity, after the infelicitous experiences of the 80s and first 90s. In this way, writers and artists would converge from different origins and goals in urban art of the 21st century, building innovative proposals from its grounding and aspirations, with the added difficulty of having to reach an equilibrium of respect with the public powers.

The transfer from Graffiti to Urban Art did not necessarily supposed a rupture with a certain mode of seeing and making things. The protagonists saw it as a conceptual expansion, an amplification of the graffiti consciousness, speech and capacity of action, always faithful to the concept of ‘no limits to fame’, which now became a motto of freedom and heterodoxy within the world of graffiti. Graffiti was born and always beats in streets, true. But it could reverberate in other ambits with the same passion. In any case, graffiti would keep itself as a solid movement, cohesioned, rich and international, which has shown a great capacity of integration and renovation. It is an incomparable community within the world of contemporary art, it is a past which grows every day and helps building a different reality.

At the doors of the 21st century, we see a new urban reality; very different to that of the 70s. In graffiti, a new poetic project emerged, it diversified physical objects, which can be static, mobiles and portable. Graffiti in this new era leads to hybrid pieces which integrate street action and expositive facet. Writers not only take possession of but also establish a face to face dialogue with architecture, urban furniture, and human surrounding and the other communicative codes that share space with graffiti. Graffiti would endorse social and political leitmotivs. All these new concerns were imperatives that were taking form along the new century and yielded graffiti not unheard, given its public vocation.

Aware of the prevailing social conventions, the well-established political truths and today’s world’s agony, we find in graffiti as opinions, criticisms, demands or hopes expressed grotesquely or poetically in walls become revolutionary acts. From their personal initiative or under the aegis of group initiatives, writers vertebrate themselves into social movements and cultural, political and social life. However, all is susceptible to a political and commercial instrumentalisation. Even rebelliousness would be a victim of such instrumentalisation, as it occurs with the use of urban artists in processes like gentrification or campaigns of institutional imagine building. Yet Graffiti, due to its special philosophy, tailors the dignifying life in the neighbourhood (barrio pride), bricklayer’s routine.

Moreover urban artists avoid being encapsulates as public artists, even though in seldom occasions. It is obvious that Urban Art and Graffiti exemplify that great human potential which is resumed in the mottos ‘do it yourself’ or ‘don’t stop’. Street Art looks like a polyhedron of one hundred faces, a figure capable of daringly give away a ‘just do it’ to society and the world of art, thereby appropriating and reinterpreting to parody the ‘American dream’. Graffiti talks to society to convince us that any adversity, conflict and fear will be overcome. We just have to have ourselves. Moreover, in its popular origin and outlook it pulses the nerve which makes some persons proclivity to understand life as a collective adventure and embark themselves to redefine society without more arms than a spray can charged with heart, and a fabric of ideas in one’s soul. The writer or urban artist has in his hand the possibility to express the humanity that the own human hostility shrinks while nature demands it to explore the responsibility and consciousness that comes with the project of building a common freedom.

Fernando Figueroa Saavedra, PhD in History of Art

SPANISH (original): Si algo singularizó e hizo grande al Graffiti, si algo explica claramente el tránsito del Writing al Aerosol Art, eso fue la atención prestada por los writers al plano gráfico y estético. Se hizo con tanta pasión que acabó convirtiéndose en un factor fundamental de realización individual, aglutinador comunitario y distintivo particular de una subcultura –luego movimiento internacional–, que expresaba ante todo libertad e interculturalidad. Por esa razón, resulta complejo entender la eclosión del Urban Art del siglo XXI sin atender a la génesis y definición del Writing-Graffiti en el siglo XX. Ambos procesos son hijos de un mismo germen, que les condujo a compartir una misma senda sobre el asfalto, siendo el Graffiti con su vitalidad, autonomía y fortuna popular la verdadera vanguardia del arte callejero de ese siglo.

Las Style Wars, en el Nueva York de finales de los 70 y primeros 80, no fueron más que la declaración pública de que la creatividad artística era uno de los pilares fundamentales del Graffiti, caracterizándolo como un arte de frontera, autónomo frente al ecosistema artístico y paralelo a ese Public Art encargado, ordenado o dirigido por la administración pública o al omnipresente lenguaje publicitario. La fruición por el diseño y el estilo fue el pistoletazo de salida para un movimiento estético y una aventura vivencial sin precedentes, en el que la creatividad era a la vez mérito, ingenio, emoción, afecto y convivencia.

El Graffiti no sólo recubría los vagones o los muros, sino que penetraba en la cultura de masas y en las galerías de la alta cultura, estableciendo un perpetuo intercambio de materiales con dichas esferas. También había logrado conectar con su realidad social y cultural, cuajando su estética como un signo de los nuevos tiempos surgidos tras la Crisis de 1973 y entregándose en cuerpo y alma a la efervescencia juvenil de los años 80. Así, su mirada infantil había crecido y florecido, absorbiendo en su espíritu el hedonismo hippie, la vitalidad del rock o la rebeldía punk de los 70, sin dejar de lado en su encarnación todo ese conjunto de nutrientes ofrecidos a través del cómic, la TV, el cine, las carátulas de discos, el diseño gráfico, la publicidad, los letreros comerciales, el culto a la fama expresado en luces de neón y fogonazos de pantalla. Luego la riada Hip Hop, arrastraría al Graffiti con sus aires renovadores y rítmicos, bajo el consolidado imperio mundial de la sociedad de consumo y la conversión de una contracultura combativa en subcultura de resistencia.

En ese contexto, el pandillero se convertía en un peculiar superhéroe de barrio, cuyo desarrollo psicoevolutivo le llevaba a tomar conciencia de una realidad adulta de la que sabía que no podía evitar formar parte. Los memorials y otros murales cívicos, salidos de manos de algunos writers, se convirtieron en el reflejo de la involucración con sus vecindarios, con la sociedad civil, con la gente y su destino, siempre desde su mirada personal y a su manera.Paralelamente, mientras a uno y otro lado del Atlántico el graffiti de firma y pieza cogía cuerpo y arraigo, otras experiencias artístico-callejeras se habían estado desarrollando desde los años 60 en adelante al margen de la cultura oficial, desde el marco de la cultura popular, el mundo del arte o el activismo cultural.

El Postmodernism había nacido y aspiraba a quedarse, desperdigado por cada recoveco de la sociedad occidental, acogiendo todo tipo de fenómenos creativos. Desde los provos o los hippies hasta el Punk, pasando por la Internationale Situationniste, el muralismo social y político de los 70, el Neo-Expressionism o la Figuration Libre, o esa pléyade de serigrafitistas franceses, desde todos ellos se exponía el vivo interés por expresarse sin tapujos, con creatividad y una mezcla de fe y cachondeo, públicamente, en sociedad, y sacar el arte a las calles para fundirlo con la vida, sin más frontera que los límites de la imaginación. Era ya hora de aniquilar el arte como mercancía, subrayar su carácter comunitario y no elitista, democratizar su acceso popular y su práctica común en un espacio público que debía ser un espacio reivindicado y tomado, abierto y compartido, en suma, un espacio vivido y disfrutado por una ciudadanía autónoma.Sin duda, lo que reunía a writers y a otros graffiteros o artistas públicos o urbanos era un aire de época que se resumía en la apertura de miras y la libertad de acción.

Se trataba de ampliar los horizontes mentales de la sociedad, su conciencia de lo posible y lo positivo, su visión de un futuro y un marco de interrelaciones diferentes, forjado en la superación, la concordia y la pluralidad frente a la hostilidad de una realidad frustrante, pero que todavía no había mostrado en toda su crudeza su faceta castradora. No obstante, pese a las presiones y persecuciones asentadas en los años 90 a nivel mundial, jamás se pensó abandonar el shock visual a cielo abierto o bajo el subsuelo como garante de un contacto directo y sorpresivo con el espectador. Era su interpretación de una experiencia estético-vital al margen de los mass media, pero que reproducía, simulaba o exageraba su dinámica e imperativa vigencia.

Eran hijos de una era tecnológica con mentalidad artesana.Así fue que el mundo del Graffiti, tras su concreción tal y como lo conocemos hoy en día en los 80, pasó de encumbrarse como Aerosol Art a padecer una vorágine criminalizadora espectacular desde las instancias públicas, una vez cuajó la vietnamización del fenómeno, tal y como denunció Norman Mailer en su The Faith of Graffiti (1974) . Esta ilegalización sistemática y beligerante hasta la desproporción acabó consagrando la ilegalidad como un rasgo identitario del Hip Hop Graffiti de los 90 hasta hoy, justo en el momento que se sumía en una crisis y se replegaba de nuevo hacia la marginalidad cultural de los barrios y la periferia. No se tardó en reaccionar en este clima de castración social, gracias al brío de las nuevas generaciones que tomaban el relevo de las old schools locales y a que el Hip Hop Graffiti se expandía airoso hacia Europa del Este y Latinoamérica, demostrando su fortaleza. De este modo se afrontó inicialmente ese renacimiento, acentuándose el actuar vandálico, pero también su entidad artística. No obstante, ambos aspectos se planteaban y asumían, a menudo, como una disyuntiva.En este punto, dentro del Hip Hop Graffiti se produjo una reflexión sobre su entidad e identidad. Era hora de mirar hacia atrás, hacer memoria, no flojear, coger aliento y seguir para delante por un túnel sin luz, y eso contrajo, para algunos, la oportunidad de decidir dejar a un lado el lastre poderoso de una tradición.

Algunos veteranos activos y nuevos writers se deslindaban de la ortodoxia más old school para dar alas a su pulsión experimental y hacer crecer el Graffiti, con más ilusión que temor, con ímpetu adulto y fe de niño.Se había derrumbado la impresión de que todas las etapas anteriores habían sucedido para llegar a un modelo inmutable y único, que se tenía la obligación de reproducirse con precisión y reverencia, o de que el presente no era más que una devaluación de un pasado dorado que no volvería jamás. Ciertamente, la aureola del Graffiti no se limitaba a la imagen idílica del Subway Art de los 80, retratado por Craig Castleman o Henry Chalfant, es más, nadie podía imaginar la dimensión que alcanzaría en el siglo XXI. El Graffiti no murió en 1989, sólo se acomodó en sus raíces para ver transitar por encima de sus colores el oscuro invierno con su blanco manto de escarcha.

Desde mediados de los 90, el Hip Hop Graffiti volvía a fortalecerse, gracias, sobre todo, a que tomaba plena conciencia como movimiento transgeneracional, y a la consolidación de una red mundial de intercambio humano y de información interna sin parangón entre los movimientos artísticos que se habían sucedido hasta la fecha, sólo comparable con algunas propuestas del mundo musical, como el jazz o el rock. Surgían fanzines, comercios especializados, las primeras webs destinadas a visualizarse y estrechar lazos, los encuentros nacionales e internacionales o la concreción de una industria propia. La revolución del Graffiti dentro del Graffiti tuvo como consecuencia conocer otras realidades callejeras, abrir la mente, crear nuevos estilos, nuevas técnicas y soportes, nuevas tácticas para perdurar, el desarrollo de lo icónico, de lo dinámico, del realismo, el expresionismo, lo grotesco o lo informal, la exploración de las texturas, del relieve, de lo volumétrico, la acentuación de lo conceptual y lo performativo, el desarrollo del aspecto metalingüístico y el estudio de las relaciones con otros medios de expresión y comunicación, y en definitiva, nuevas estrategias para mantener el getting-up y el espíritu creativo del Graffiti vivos y frescos.

El Graffiti había madurado, en cuerpo y alma, y afrontaba una metamorfosis que daría lugar a algo que parecía otra cosa: el Postgraffiti, encabezado por la eclosión del iconismo, el Stencil Art, las pegatinas, los carteles o las intervenciones urbanas. No eran cosas nuevas, pero su vigor y profusión sí lo eran. Se trataba de ampliar sus límites, tensarlos al máximo, manteniendo también la posibilidad de adentrarse en el ecosistema artístico, ahora con más integridad, tras las infelices experiencias de los 80 y primeros 90. De este modo, writers y artistas convergían desde distintos orígenes y diferentes metas en el Urban Art del s. XXI, contribuyendo desde su bagaje y aspiraciones a concretar propuestas innovadoras en ese difícil equilibrio y respeto con los poderes públicos. El trasvase del Graffiti al Urban Art no suponía necesariamente para sus protagonistas una ruptura con un modo de ver y hacer las cosas, sino acaso una expansión conceptual, una ampliación de la conciencia, del discurso y de la capacidad de acción, fiel al concepto del ‘no limits to fame’, que se reconvertía ahora en un lema de libertad y heterodoxia dentro del mundo del Graffiti. El Graffiti nacía y latía en la calle, pero podía reverberar en otros ámbitos con la misma pasión.

En todo caso, el Graffiti se mantenía y mantiene como un movimiento sólido, cohesionado, rico e internacional, que ha demostrado una gran capacidad de integración y renovación. Una comunidad humana sin igual en el mundo del arte contemporáneo y pretérito que crece día a día y ayuda a construir otra realidad. A las puertas del siglo XXI, se adaptó a una nueva realidad urbana, diferente a la urbe de los años 70. En ella ha establecido un nuevo proyecto poético, diversificando los objetivos físicos, estáticos, móviles o portátiles, susceptibles de convertirse en soportes o las maneras de intervenir en ellos, llegando a concebir piezas híbridas que integran en su proceso tanto la acción callejera como la faceta expositiva. Los writers no sólo poseen, sino que dialogan con la arquitectura cara a cara, con el mobiliario urbano, el entorno físico y humano, los otros códigos comunicativos que comparten escenario con ellos, y, por su puesto, acogen, llegado el caso, enfoques sociales o políticos. Era un imperativo que crecía con el avance del siglo XXI y que no les puede ser ajeno como fauna urbana, dada su vocación pública.

Conscientes de las convenciones sociales y políticas o la deriva y agonía mundial, podemos hacernos una idea de que la opinión, la crítica, la demanda o la esperanza expresadas de forma poética o grotesca sobre los muros se convierten, de nuevo, en actos revolucionarios. Ya sea desde el plano personal o al abrigo de iniciativas públicas, particulares o vecinales, los writers que participan de ellos se vertebran dentro de la movilización social y la vida cultural, social y política. Sin embargo, todo es susceptible de instrumentalizarse política y comercialmente, incluso la rebeldía, como sucede con el empleo de artistas urbanos en procesos como la gentrificación o campañas de imagen institucional, pero el Graffti, por su especial filosofía, a nivel local parece congeniar muy bien con la dignificación y el orgullo de barrio, o el trabajo a pie de calle, como también algunos artistas urbanos, poco propensos a establecerse, aunque sea puntualmente, dentro del más convencional rol del artista público.

Es evidente que el Urban Art y el Graffiti ejemplifican ese gran potencial humano resumido en lemas como ‘do it yourself’ o ‘don’t stop’. El Street Art se asemeja a un poliedro de cien caras, capaz de soltarle con osadía un contundente ‘just do it’ a la sociedad y al mundo del arte, reapropiándose y reinterpretando hasta la parodia el American dream, para convencernos de que la voluntad supera toda adversidad, conflicto o miedo mientras nos tengamos a nosotros mismos. Pero no sólo eso, sino que en su sentir comunitario y origen popular late el nervio que hace a algunas personas proclives a entender la vida como una aventura colectiva y embarcarse en redefinir la sociedad sin más armas que un spray cargado de corazón y una fábrica de ideas en su alma. El writer o artista urbano tiene en su mano ayudar a expresar la humanidad que la propia hostilidad humana se encarga de encoger, mientras el mandato de la Naturaleza le impulsa a explorar la responsabilidad y consciencia de lo que significa construir la libertad común.

Fernando Figueroa Saavedra, Doctor en Historia del Arte

#graffiti #amsterdam graffiti #madrid graffiti #dr rat #dutch graffiti #history of graffiti #history of street art #street art #amsterdam #amsterdam street art #delta #boris telegen #suso33 #misstic

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