#playing doom on an ancient laptop | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

weaselle · 3 years

Text

Ant Cthulhu

Tumblr ate my story! Goodbye to. just. so many thousands of notes. This was one of my first stories that people on tumblr liked. So I’m making it a new post, so that people can find it. Plus, of all the thousands who read the first one or two installments, not nearly as many discovered that I had written a third and final installment that ends the story, so here is a chance at that.

The story was inspired by a pair of observations on Tumblr, where users probablybadrpgideas and 20thcenturyvole said, respectively

“if Cthulhu can be summoned by humans who are so far beneath it, why can’t humans be summoned by ants? The answer is they should be.” and “Well if a bunch of ants formed a circle in my house I’d certainly notice, try to figure out where they’d all come from, and possibly wreak destruction there.“

It gets just a little dark, but any story named for Cthulhu surely must have some death and destruction, right?

ANT CTHULHU

That’s why knowing and correctly pronouncing the true name is so important to the ritual. Imagine how impossible it would be to not go take a look if the circle of ants started chanting your name. And they’re like, you can’t leave because we drew a line made of tiny crystals - now you have to do us a favor. And you’re like, let’s just see where this goes “yup, you got me… what’s the favor?” and usually the favor is like, “kill this one ant for us” or “give me a pile of sugar” and you’re like… okay? and you do, because why not, it isn’t hard for you and boy is this going to be a fucking story to tell, these fucking ants chanting your name and wanting a spoonful of sugar or whatever. And SOMEtimes you get asked for things you can’t really do, one of them, she’s like, “I love this ant but she won’t pay any attention to me, make me important to her” and you’re like… um? how? So you just kill every ant in the colony except the two of them, ta-da! problem solved! and the first ant is like *horrified whisper* “what have I done” …. _____________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile another colony of ants invades your house, and evidently that last ant has gotten some of them to join her in a circle and taught them the ritual because you’re coming out of the bathroom one day and you hear the ants singing your name. Sure enough it’s that ant, but she’s dark and fucked up now, and she’s like, “kill the queen. I will rule this colony” and you’re like, sure, I guess I kinda owe her, and you do it. And she manages to become queen, and they worship you. Which is cool, you’re not, you know, very important in the human world, but to these ants you’re practically all-powerful.

Your beloved Naya doesn’t understand your fascination with the ants at all, but you easily train her to leave them alone. She’s such a good dog. The ants are horrified that you command such a beast.

You begin to realize can’t be just, doing everything a bunch of ants tell you to all the time. When would you watch Netflx? So you tend to only show up for super important ants; you teach them some extra words and when hear them you go see what’s up. Usually. Also though, you’ll show up to just your name, if you’re bored and you hear it. And, sometimes some of the ants are like, tell us more human names, and you’re kind of jealous of the idea of some other human diluting your private godhood, so you refuse. Your roommate Greg is like, yo, that’s fucking awesome, I want ant worshipers! But whenever he approaches any, they run away, because it turns out that the illusion of control from the named summoning is what makes them feel safe around you. That’s great, because Greg is a dick who never does the dishes, and one day you decide to teach Greg a lesson. So you show up at the colony, and you’re like, “yo, witch queen, did you think there would be no price for all these things? Your colony must do something for me, go to the Room of the Housemate, I will meet you there.” And you go sit on the couch and play Overwatch for a while. You’re like, right there, you can clearly see the ants all marching along the wall to Greg’s room, but to them you’re not even there, you’re so far away they can’t see you. It takes them, like, an ant week to make the journey. They have to figure out ways to get over and around things. Some of them drown, or get stepped on by the dog, or whatever. You win a game, you lose a game, you look over, and they’re trying to get through some cobwebs… looks like they’re mostly going to live, you keep playing, you look over, okay they’re all in there, and you stand up and walk over and by the time they’ve chanted your name once, you’re there. “right, hold on” and you look around and you see a twelve-pack of Greg’s precious fucking soda, that he keeps in his room and refuses to ever share, even though it’s a communal food household and you share your hot chocolate with him all the time. So you gather the ants unto you, and you poke a little hole in each of the sodas and you leave the room to the sound of the ants rejoicing. Greg will suspect of course, but he’ll never be able to prove the ants didn’t chew holes in the plastic and steal his stupid drinks.

He actually tries to blame it on Naya. What a prick. You insist with wide eyes that the ants must have found it somehow — maybe he shouldn’t leave soda pop laying around his room. But later, while you’re at work, Greg destroys most of the colony in a rage, and you come home to find the witch queen gasping her last. “The Dew of the Mountain, which you had us steal, was cursed - and so I lay my curse on you” she manages, and then she dies. Well first of all, you don’t really believe in curses, but last month you didn’t believe ants could know your name, so that’s unsettling. And second of all, you feel kind of bad. You know, not SUPER bad, cause she’s like, an ant. But still. And most importantly, third of all, Greg must pay. Like some kind of movie villain, you pet your loving Naya and say out loud “Oh yes, and pay he will.”

But Greg has done more than kill a bunch of the colony. As you wait for eggs and pupae to replenish the ant population, you discover he has found some ants that didn’t go on the Mountain Dew raid, and he’s spared them, told them his name.

He’s made himself a good sized cult in YOUR fucking ant queendom. Greg has started locking his door. So now you NEED the ants. Once again you direct the ants loyal to you to journey to Greg’s room. You meet them at the door. A locked door means nothing to the ants, they don’t even know there is a door, and can barely perceive the difference between it being open and shut - either passing the threshold on the floor regardless, or being on its surface no matter the position. But you need them to get inside. You’re going to put itching powder in his underwear drawer and leave a raw fish under his bed. So you instruct the leading party of ants how to go into the Cave of Keyhole, and position the Magic Megaliths inside just right to enable the opening of the Great Door and allow you to pass into the Realm of Housemate. Crouched by the door, you can hear when your ants are met by a party of Greg Cultists, who insist that if the Great Door is opened, the colony will be doomed. There is fighting. Your ants prevail, the lock tumblers are moved into place, and you swing the door open… To find Greg! In his room all along! It’s a trap! His cultists attack you! I mean, they can’t do much real harm, but it kind of hurts and it’s super annoying. You order your ants to attack him, and they do, but he storms over and pours bleach down the colony entrance.

It’s the end of their world. Now you and Greg are at war, and you both understand the unspoken rules to your fight. You can’t do things directly to each other, why, that would be assault. But anything you can get your ants to do is fine, because “she told the ants to do it to me” isn’t going to get very far with any authority figures that get involved. Later, nursing your anger, you confer with your few remaining ants and stare moodily at your new prize, the ant farm that came in the mail. It will take time to integrate them- your ants have to get access to the new ants’ scent marker chemicals and go undercover. Meanwhile, you’ve got a laptop schematic to go over with your high priestess. It’s finals week, and if you time it right, he’ll lose everything. … You look down into the summoning ritual. The current high priestess, Zé, is an ant of great influence and personality - you quite like her, inso far as a human can be friends with an ant that worships them. You thought the new queen would become the next high priestess, but according to Zé the queens don’t like to come out of the colony after they shed their wings. Plus they are very busy laying eggs and supervising the care of their ant larvae. Zé says it’s a better deal for you, this way your high priestess can have the time and energy to really serve your interests, and wield an authority among the colony that is purely yours - no conflict of interest, and no baby making duties. It’s really just what’s best for both you and the colony queen to have her as high priestess, she informs you, making you laugh at her flattery-wrapped ambition. There’s no laughing this evening though. It’s serious business on the docket tonight. “O wise and ancient entity of power, you grace us with your presence!” and for formality’s sake, she intones the additional ritual greeting from their holy books “You Look Fantastic, Have You Done Something New With Your Hair?” Ants don’t really understand hair. You respond as you have become accustomed “Thank You, Yes.” It’s just easier. They mean well. Mystic greeting complete, Zé and the rest of the dark clergy move straight to business. Several 10s of them line up in formation, creating a diagram of the apartment complex. You had to coach them into how to make it, as far as they are concerned it’s a complex sigil that conveys knowledge to you - for creatures that traverse the building in long journeys along the pipes in the walls and in the spaces between the lower ceiling and upper floor, it looks nothing like the apartment complex as they know it. Zé claims to understand it, but secretly you suspect she’s just mostly cementing her authority among the clergy. She has, usefully, memorized which parts of the sigil correspond with what parts of the building, and that’s good enough for your purposes. “O mighty being, we have done as instructed. Our scouts had to search wide for them, but we have left the corpses of many termites in all the locations you specified, every night this week. “Very good,” you assure them, “and the Greggorites?” “Our spies among them have learned of their next attack. We should be able to influence their timing somewhat.” “Good. And..” your eyes narrow, “the other thing?” “Ah, yes.” Zé’s antennae wave and dip in that way you know means she is uncomfortable. “to the best of our ability to find out, the… Antifreeze initiative was entirely conceived of by the Demon Lord Greg.” “Just Greg,” you tell Zé with bitter hatred as tears threaten to spill down your cheeks. “Greg is not a lord, just a fucking prick who’s going to get what’s coming to him. I swear by all of creation he will.” “Is there…” Zé trailed off and tried again. “O Deity of my heart, far be it from me to question Your Exaltedness, but help your poor servant to understand… your plans have become, ah, they seem perhaps, I am sure I am wrong, but they seem, overly audacious? Your recent change in demeanor has made some of us nervous - not me! - but some of the less devout among my sistren, have become… concerned.” Your fists clench. “I don’t expect you to get it. I’m pretty certain none of you could possibly understand.” Your voice breaks. You clench your teeth. You won’t, you won’t cry in front of your ant worshipers. You lean down and say in the strangled half whisper that is the only way you can force the words past the lump in your throat, “He killed my dog, Zé…” The ants flee the sound of your terrible wailing. The great Finals Erasure had worked to more devastating effect than you had anticipated, and things had… escalated. Then Greg proved himself to be less human than the ants , who themselves had turned out to be such surprising little beings. So. The orders for the heinous deed did in fact come from him. Now, there are things that have to be done. You call the ants back out of hiding and get to work. In the end, it was easier than you thought it would be. You talk to all the neighbors, without Greg. You hide the relevant pieces of mail. You have the scuba gear and the stuff from the sex shop shipped to a friend’s house. You ensure your spies among the Greggorites have escape plans, though Zé assures you they are ready to sacrifice themselves to the cause. “I’m not that kind of Deity,” you tell her. The night before, your ants slip a double dose of tylenol p.m. into Greg’s milkshake. You almost laugh; all your efforts to make sure there is only soup to make for dinner, and he comes home with Burger King. He sleeps so soundly that he never comes close to waking the whole time you are attaching the padded bondage equipment to his limbs and hiding with him in the closet. The walk through by the company inspectors that morning is a tense moment, but as you suspect, they don’t open the closets. After they leave to do their work outside, you finish your work inside, tying Greg to his bed. By the time he starts to wake up, you are sitting in a chair in the doorway to his bedroom, with your mask on. The air is beginning to thicken and discolor. Greg coughs around his ball gag and opens his eyes. You feel curiously calm and empty. “Hi, Greg.” Your voice is muffled, “You like my dive mask?” Greg makes an angry questioning noise, spread eagled to the full extension of his limbs. “Oh, yeah, that must be uncomfortable. Can’t give you enough slack to jerk against the ropes, though, or you might leave tell-tale bruises through the padding.” More angry noises, coughing. “Hhhmm? Oh, did I forget to tell you? It’s termite day, Greg, they’ve tented the house. That’s Sulfuryl Fluoride you’re breathing. You’ll cough for a bit, you’ll throw up, and your heart will stop.” He’s thrashing around as much as the ropes will allow, which isn’t a lot. He’s pretty energetic about it, though; maybe he can’t hear you over his efforts. “You shouldn’t have meddled around with godhood, it didn’t suit you. Power compromised your judgement. You definitely shouldn’t have fucking killed my dog, Greg” You’re suddenly filled with rage. You need to know he hears you. You stride over to the bed and grab him by the throat. Not too hard, you try to remember through your anger, no bruises. The grip is enough to make Greg stop thrashing and look at you with wide wide eyes. “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE FUCKING KILLED NAYA YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! WHY? WHY? HOW COULD YOU!? SHE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!” Just as suddenly, your anger is gone. You feel tired. You look down at him and shake your head.”Time to die, Greg.” You cross the room and sit back down in your chair in the doorway. Watching him die isn’t easy, but it’s not as hard as watching Naya suffer through acute kidney failure. Afterwards, you take off all the bondage gear, throw it in a duffel bag. You leave through the back, rolling out from under the fumigation tent against the back fence, and packing the scuba gear into the duffel before you climb into the neighbors yard. A month later, you’re moving from town to town. The colony has become so large you’re going to need a bigger truck full of clay for them to live in. Maybe an old Uhaul. The ants bring you a newspaper. They bring you everything now, food, money, information. Word of how you value the life of each individual ant has spread through the colony, and reports brought back from the apartment by scouts confirming your status as a godslayer has …elevated… their worship of you. You open the newspaper to find Greg’s death has made the papers. No suspicion of foul play despite the exterminator company lawyers insisting on an autopsy. Tylenol p.m. in his system accounted for his presence in the building, it was decided, and the failure of the inspectors to notice Greg in bed during their walk through was settled out of court, paid off by their insurance. The ants bring you a conga line of grapes, peeling them for you while you stare off into space. A small line of ants brings the peels back to the colony larder. You’re going to have to teach them how to disable cameras - the leaked security footage of hundred dollar bills slipping themselves out under the bank doors has caused a bit of a stir on some parts of the internet… you eat another grape, and count your money. As usual you put half of it in an envelope, uncapping a sharpie to write “From Naya” on it. The ants will slip it under the door of the local animal shelter for you tonight. END

_____________________________________________________________________

so, looking back, I feel I should tell you that when I wrote the final chapter of this I had just become homeless and had to leave my dog in a better home than I could provide. It’s cool, we still see each other a lot these days, I was just real sad about it and it effected what I wrote. Anyway, that’s the Ant Cthulhu story

#ant cthulhu #ant #ants #writing #fiction #story

239 notes · View notes

stumbling-after-happiness · 3 years

Text

Earthquake Lungs

The pain starts again.

And I sit with it.

Trying to tease out the tangles,

laying out the memories into straight lines.

I feel my inner baby rise up,

Shine out, and feel her wetness on my cheeks.

Compassion for this child rushes in and out,

in fits and starts,

silently screwed up faces

and deeply welling gasps.

Crying never felt so good,

Never lifted me up, while showing me the gloomy bottom.

I wrap my arms around my aching body

And tell myself

I love you

I believe in you

I care about you

In between blinding sobs that take away my consciousness.

I hold tightly to the thread that tells me to heal.

I won’t let it unravel.

I believe that “processing” is much too underplayed a word to describe working through trauma.

I’m not sorting orders at the post office when I cry.

I’m not reading over paperwork.

I’m not following an ingredients list and putting flour into a bowl.

I am unearthing the most profound pain I can experience.

I am letting myself feel the awful emotions that have been trapped under a rock somewhere in my mind.

They’re finally breaking free, after years of struggling to move.

Years of being trapped by sharpness.

I’m regurgitating moments.

I’m healing ancient doomed curses, passed down for generations.

I’m naturally contorting my face, squeezing the muscles and working out my emotional range.

I’m unlocking a new space I can breathe into.

Life feels somehow roomier. Bigger. Less claustrophobic.

The tears pool under my neck, desperately running out of me. As though rushing to get as much out as possible, before I have to wait for the next time.

My chest bounces, two tectonic plates above my heart. Earthquake lungs, shifting the grounding.

It feels destructive, yet knew land is being created.

New places that I didn’t know could exist.

Bubbling hell solidified into sturdy foundations.

I mop up the flood with my hand.

I’m alone, staring at the laptop. The story about abuse plays out in front of me.

I let myself empathise. I allow myself to access my reality. The truth overflows. And I’m sobbing freely again, wedged into the sofa with washed up determination.

My life raft, barely holding on.

Hope keeps me going, when the crying seems too much. I remind myself that I’ll probably feel better after the deluge, which keeps the gates open a little longer.

Gently, the uproar falls to a whispering tear.

I brush the bead away and keep watching the tv show, as though nothing happened.

#abuse survivor #depression #depressed #ptsd #complex ptsd #cptsdsurvivor #cptsdhealing #cptsd #life #freedom #me #art #love

3 notes · View notes

sanderssidesfanfiction · 4 years

Text

Royal Growing Pains - Chapter Two

Warnings: Homophobia, transphobia, misgendering, sympathetic Deceit

Royal Growing Pains Tag

When Roman woke up next, he turned to check the time on the clock on his nightstand, only to realize he wasn’t in his own bed. He sat upright with a gasp before he remembered that he was at the Byron’s to be married off to Damien. He forced away a sob as he got himself dressed again, back into that infernal pink thing his mother forced him to wear. He considered the odds of him being caught walking around barefoot, and decided that the yelling didn’t outweigh the feeling of being able to walk for fifteen minutes.

He slipped on the heels and opened the door to his room to find his suitcases waiting. He pulled them into his room and resolved to change into pants later. As it was, he had to get something to eat before his mother came looking for him.

Wandering around the castle in search of the kitchen, Roman realized that same yellow that was in the entrance was painted on virtually every hallway in the place. He was starting to see why someone might hate it.

He made a triumphant noise when he stumbled upon the kitchen, and his heels clicked against the tile as he looked around. There had to be something simple that didn’t need much preparation that he could eat... “Excuse me?” a voice asked from behind him.

Roman turned and the man gasped, hastily bowing. “Princess Veronica, my apologies, I did not realize that was you!” the man said.

“Oh it’s quite all right, Mister...?”

“Uh, Hart. Patton Hart. I’m the top chef in charge around here,” he said. “Is there anything I can do for you? I know you slept through when the Queens were having breakfast together.”

“Yeah, if there’s any...any fruit, or something small I can have for breakfast, that would be lovely,” Roman said.

“Is that all? I could make you something bigger if you wanted...”

“No, something small is all I want,” Roman said, flashing a smile. “If you have any green apples I would be more than happy with one of those.”

“Oh! Sure thing!” Patton said, rushing to the pantry and coming back with two green apples. “Take two, just in case you’re hungrier than you think you are,” he suggested.

“You’re very kind,” Roman said with a small smile.

“Anything for a princess as beautiful as you!” Patton chirped.

Roman kept his smile in place by some miracle of strength he didn’t realize he had. “Do you happen to know where Prince Damien is?” he asked. “I was hoping we could continue our conversation from this morning sooner, rather than later.”

“Oh, of course!” Patton exclaimed. “He should be studying in the library with his professor. He’s incredibly intelligent, did you know? He’s working on getting a Bachelor’s degree in Ancient Roman history.”

Roman sniffed a laugh. Patton’s brows furrowed but Roman just waved a hand. “Nothing particularly funny, just an inside joke between me and my brother,” he dismissed. “How do I get to the library from here?”

“Uh, up one floor and head towards the back of the castle, Damien likes the view by the windows so that’s where you’re most likely to find him,” Patton said.

“All right. Thank you, Patton,” Roman said with a smile, before walking out of the kitchen. His teeth dug into the skin of one of the apples and he took a bite, savoring the tart taste of a good old-fashioned green apple. There wasn’t anything quite like it.

As he made his way upstairs, he kept one ear open to see if he could hear his mother, in an attempt to avoid her. He’d rather spend time alone with Damien than spend any time with his mother.

He got to the library door, somewhat ajar and he pushed it open softly, looking around. There were shelves upon shelves of books, and at the very back of the room, a giant set of bay windows, where Damien was sitting, typing on a laptop. After throwing away the apple cores in a nearby trash can, Roman walked over, relieved that at least one place in the castle had carpet, so he didn’t have to worry about hearing his heels click everywhere.

It was only when he was three feet away that Damien acknowledged him, and then he had him mistaken for someone else as he said, “I’m almost done with my paper, Logan, I’ll have it on the printer for you in five minutes. I just need to finish proofreading.”

“Well, I’m glad I’m not interrupting you in the middle of the paper, then,” Roman said, sitting down across from Damien and looking out the window. “But I’m afraid I’m not Logan.”

Damien looked up. “Oh! Veronica,” he said. “My apologies.”

Roman ignored the sting at his deadname, knowing that Damien didn’t know any better. It was taking a lot of patience out of him, but he could grin and bear it just a little while longer, just until he could figure out a way out of here. “It’s fine,” he said. “I was just wondering if you were still studying. I was looking forward to our conversation about childhood adventures.”

“Ah. Well, as I said, I just need to finish proofreading. As soon as the paper is printed we can talk,” Damien said.

Roman nodded and let Damien read through what he had written, and Roman noticed with a small amount of amusement that Damien was mouthing along to what he was reading.

When he turned back to the window, he could see the blue sea stretching for miles, a few boats dotting the blue here and there, but the ocean was mostly untouched. He would love to go out there on a boat, just him and Remus, swimming and play-arguing, and maybe even fishing a little if they were patient enough.

Subtly he shook himself free of those thoughts. That wasn’t a possibility anymore. He wouldn’t get the chance to speak to Remus often, save through emails which would no doubt be heavily monitored by his mother. His eyes stung, and he blinked back his tears. He couldn’t cry, not at all but especially not here, in front of a man who he was doomed to pretend to love until death.

Damien nodded, hit a couple buttons on his laptop, and in the distance, Roman could hear a printer start up. “I can get the paper in a little while,” Damien said with a smile. “I must admit that I wasn’t expecting you to seek me out.”

Roman shrugged. “Well, I may not be pleased at being married, but I would at least like to know my husband. And any time away from my mother is a welcome distraction.”

Damien threw Roman a quizzical look and Roman shrugged with a bitter smile. “It sounds strange, I know, but it’s true. My mother is not the most caring individual in the world. She adores my brother, and she loves who she wants me to be, but I can’t be what she wants me to be, and that leaves me lacking in her support, and often leaves us at odds.”

“You have my sincerest apologies, my dear. That does not sound easy,” Damien said.

Roman shrugged again and sighed. “Do you ever wish that...that you didn’t have to be who everyone wanted you to be? That you felt in charge of your own destiny?”

“All too often,” Damien said softly. “It’s a painful and lonely feeling.”

Roman gave Damien a true smile, albeit tinged with sadness. “At least we aren’t alone in our misery anymore?”

Damien barked a laugh, clapping a hand over his mouth and looking around before he grinned at Roman. “How very true,” he said, and Roman felt like he could stare at Damien’s smile forever. Why did Damien have to be cute? Why did Roman have to be into guys? He was sure this would have been easier if he felt nothing for the prince sitting in front of him, but Roman undeniably felt there was something interesting about the man. “So, do you want to continue our discussion about childhood adventures? Or shall we just wallow in misery for a few more minutes?”

Roman offered Damien a smirk. “I don’t know. Commiserating can be very cathartic.”

Damien laughed softly. “Well, why don’t I tell you some of my mishaps, so you might feel less embarrassed about yours?”

“Oh, I’m not embarrassed by my mishaps, they happen to make for hilarious stories,” Roman said with a grin. “There was the time that my brother and I swapped clothes as young kids, convinced that no one would be able to tell us apart.”

Damien chuckled. “Did you have long hair then, too?”

“No. Believe it or not, I had hair much like a pixie cut, and so did my brother. We actually got away with it for most of the day, until it came time for dinner, our parents found us covered in mud from playing in the garden, and we had to each take a bath,” Roman laughed.

Damien laughed with him, and Roman actually felt briefly happy, despite his circumstances. “I never had a sibling to wreak havoc with, which I suppose is for the best, considering the sort of trouble I would get up to just persuading the castle staff to humor me for five minutes. One such incident involved a tailor trying to fit me for a suit when I had to be about...six years old, and I managed to get into my art supplies, grabbing the glitter but not looking where I was going...”

“Oh, no,” Roman laughed. “Where did it land?”

“Somewhat on the fabric that was going to be used for my suit...but mostly on the tailor,” Damien explained.

“Oh, no!” Roman laughed hard enough that he was wheezing. “I can only imagine how you would have been with a brother or sister as a child.”

Damien laughed. “Yes, I fear it would not have ended well for anyone involved.”

Roman shook his head. “Were your parents mad?”

“Furious,” Damien said. “I wasn’t allowed glitter for six months after that.”

Roman laughed with a wince in sympathy.

“When did you start to grow out your hair?” Damien asked, pointing to Roman’s long locks. “If you had a pixie cut as a young child?”

Roman sighed. “My mother forced me to grow it out when I was ten. I wasn’t a fan of it then and I’m still not now. Long hair is just impractical, and I much prefer not having to blow dry anything.”

Damien closed his laptop. “May I ask you a question, Veronica?”

Oh, boy, here it goes, Roman thought. “Sure,” he said.

“You seem to be very...androgynous-to-masculine in behavior. But you wear very feminine clothing, and present as very feminine in appearance in general. Is there any particular reason for that?”

He could say it. He could say he was trans, right now, where no one except him and Damien were. His mother couldn’t stop him, no one would wander in and listen, he could say it. But if Damien reacted poorly...his mother would be furious at him still insisting he was trans, and absolutely nothing would go right. He might even be shipped off to a different kingdom to a different prince to be married there, and he wouldn’t be allowed a bit of privacy from his mother until he had that cursed ring on his finger. So...in reality...he couldn’t say it. “I’m unsure,” he said. “I suppose growing up with Remus, and following around the knights and guards, and very rarely being around women made me have a more masculine taste.”

“I suppose that could be a reason,” Damien agreed, but judging by the look he was giving Roman he didn’t quite believe the lie. “Do you intend to have lunch with the Queens today? My father and I were considering joining the three of you, but I would only want to go if you were in attendance.”

Roman sighed. “I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, Damien,” he admitted. “My mother is a controlling woman. What she says goes, and the only people who dare defy her are removed from her world quickly and without mercy.”

Damien frowned. “That does not sound remotely pleasant. Is there nothing you can do to stop her?”

Roman scoffed. “The last time I tried that is the reason why I’m here now.”

“What?” Damien looked shocked.

“My mother is removing me from the equation until in her eyes I can ‘behave,’” Roman explained, using air quotes around the word behave. “She doesn’t believe me when I say what I want. She thinks that marrying me to a man will make me change my opinion on certain things, like my hair, or preferring to wear pants to skirts.”

“That’s...awful,” Damien managed. “I suppose a part of you must be happy to escape her grasp, though?”

“She’ll constantly pester me here until she’s decided I’ve changed my tune,” Roman spat. “I know this isn’t very ‘ladylike’ but I hate her with a fiery passion usually reserved for the deepest pits of hell.”

Damien’s eyebrows rose and Roman inwardly scolded himself for letting himself get carried away in a rant again. “I’m truly sorry, Veronica. That...that cannot be easy.”

Roman flinched visibly at the use of his deadname, and he stood abruptly, needing to get away, to breathe, to think without constantly having his old life thrown in his face. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, before practically running out of the room.

His heels clicked in the hallways, and with every step Roman could feel himself losing a little more of his sanity. The apples he had eaten earlier felt like a rock in his stomach, and he thought he might be sick.

He retreated to his room, fishing in his luggage for the books he had packed. While his mother had confiscated his laptop, she couldn’t take away the books he had read. He pulled out a classic thriller, deciding that he would read before lunch.

In an instant, he was teleported into a world where he didn’t have to be a ladylike princess named Veronica, he could be Ty Stryder, the private eye trying to figure out who killed the mayor before the corrupt cops got to him and got him to stop investigating...one way or another.

He was halfway through the novel before there was a knock at his door and he checked the time. Ten until noon. Time for lunch. He sighed, smoothed the skirt of his dress, and moved to the door, where an overeager young servant was waiting for him. “Right this way, Your Highness, the royal family will be eating with you and your mother.”

Joy, Roman thought to himself, but again, didn’t dare say.

He allowed himself to be guided to the main dining room, which had high ceilings, and bright white walls, with gold accents in the curtains. Damien was already there, as was Damien’s mother, but it appeared that Damien’s father and Roman’s mother were not yet in attendance. “Your Highness, Your Majesty,” he greeted.

“Ah, Veronica, come on in,” the Queen said. “Your mother and I missed you at breakfast this morning.”

Roman shrugged apologetically. “I’m afraid I was more tired than anticipated,” he said with a plastered-on fake smile.

Damien gave him a searching look and Roman bit back the urge to snarl and run. It wasn’t anything Damien had done, it wasn’t fair to antagonize him for something he couldn’t help. Roman sat down across from Damien, which he really wished he could avoid, but he knew it was Damien or the Queen, and he wasn’t quite ready to tackle the problem which was the Queen yet. “Are you feeling better, Veronica?” Damien asked.

“Better? Was she ill earlier?” the Queen asked.

“She was in a hurry this morning when we were having a discussion in the library. I could only assume she felt unwell, by how distraught she was at the end of the conversation,” Damien explained.

And all of a sudden, Roman thought that he might get sick again. He hated his old name and his old pronouns more than he had first thought. Or maybe he was just hearing them so often that it felt like he had never been called anything else, ever, not even by Remus. “I’m feeling a little better, thank you,” he said quietly, hating the sound of his too-high voice, hating the feel of the too-tight dress, hating the situation of being trapped inside his own mind with no way to free himself.

Then, the King came in, along with Roman’s mother, and Roman had to plaster on that all-too-fake smile again as the King greeted him, and his mother sat down next to him, across from the Queen.

Patton came in, along with five servants, who placed plates in front of each of the members of the table. “Today’s lunch is rather simple, I’m afraid. Chicken parmesan,” Patton said.

“I’m sure it’s great, Patton,” the King said. “All of your food is.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Patton said with a bow. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to shout!”

And with that, the five were left alone with their food. Roman forced himself to eat, even though food was the last thing on his mind. His mother would want him to be polite, and that included eating what was put in front of him.

“I had seen pictures of you before, Veronica, but they don’t do you justice. You look absolutely beautiful,” the King said.

Roman looked down at his plate in embarrassment and just a touch of anger before he looked back up and said, “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

The King smiled at him and as the Queen and his mother started talking about wedding plans in excitement, Damien and Roman shared embarrassed glances. Roman was relieved that at least he wasn’t the only one who felt embarrassed by this turn of events. Damien didn’t feel completely comfortable with the wedding either, or at least, he didn’t feel comfortable with their mothers’ plans.

The conversation continued for a while, as Roman picked at his food. Then, “What do you think, Veronica?”

Roman hummed a question as he washed down some of the chicken with his water. “I’m sorry, what was the question?” he asked.

“Do you have a preference on a dress?” his mother asked with a touch of impatience. “I was hoping for something rather intricate, I love it when you wear lace.”

Roman bit his tongue and shrugged. “I haven’t given it much thought, truth be told. Although I must admit I’m not looking for anything like lace in particular. It’s rather difficult for me to enjoy myself when I’m wearing something that...well...feels wrong.”

His mother sent him a warning glare. Roman shrugged. “I just don’t like lace very much, Mother, I’m sorry.”

The conversation continued, with Roman reluctantly roped into it. It was all “Veronica” this and “Veronica” that, never once asking his opinion on the questions that mattered, and he absolutely hated it.

“Do you prefer gold or silver, Veronica?”

“Chocolate cake for the reception, Veronica?”

“What do you want your first dance to be, Veronica?”

Roman stood up from the table the moment he finished his chicken, the chair he was sitting in screeching across the floor. “Apologies, I’m still not feeling well,” he said, before leaving the room without another word.

Tag List: @loganpatton @lilbeanblr @kittyboof8 @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @sanders-trash-4ever @hamilspntrash @swords-and-kittens @phantomfander @narniasfinestavengingsociopath @rjmeta @ambersky0319 @anni-cat-flower @idosanderssidespromptssometimes @nafsbluebery @lunareclipse-13 @sanders-sides-crofters @blushy-gigglee-mess @wannacrymetoo @kaytikitty @magicalspacepanunicorn @bootsinthesun @pricklyfish777 @flowersanddinosaurs @leiasolo77 @voidvirgil @birdybabybird @enby-phoenix @luna–28 @justagaygoose @the-prince-and-the-emo @fandomsandanythingelse @randommuffinyt @snekky-boi @thesoftestlittlepuffballwegot @twilight-trix @abby5577 @escalatingtoofast @friendlyfacestabbing @remus-is-stinky @foggybanditdreampeanut @ghostskull300 @sprinklestheditty

#roceit #sanders sides fanfiction #roman sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #royal growing pains #our creations

98 notes · View notes

kurtty-drabbles · 4 years

Text

Postwoman au (Part III)

N/A: So, here we go. Show don´t tell is one of those things I want to perfect and I hope I can do ok here.

@dannybagpipesarecalling @djinmer4 @bamfoftheundead @muninandhugin

Going to a new job is always brings new sensations. Hopes. Maybe even dreams. And Kitty Pryde would like to say she´s ready to begin this new journey with a big smile. "Oh God, what the hell I get myself into?!" she says as her mirror shows her reflection with a nervous smile and swallows hard as once again Kitty is in the waiting room- the waiting room has no signal of the big wedding and in exchange, there´re magazines covering the new sensation. A Hollywoodian celebrity is dating a mutant- inhales and exhales.

Is all Kitty can do. The receptionist appears to be a succubus- is not something to point out, but, the receptionist looks way too much Like Gloriana If, and is a big if here, wasn´t be the eyes. Her eyes are too unnatural to belong to Gloriana- and well it gives ideas as if this is a look a succubus would dig or if is about her "dates"

"Good morning, Miss Pryde, right on time...good, he loves people that are punctual," she says with an upward smile. She types something really quick in her laptop. Once the laptop gives a small sound more or less like "Blink" the receptionist gives her total attention to Kitty. "Mr. Krampus is in room 23. He´s moving out thanks to his work...he´ll need space" and she gives her a key. And nods as if this end the conversation.

"What? how I get to room 23?" Kitty asked confused. And the receptionist has a resting bitch face- or, maybe, the receptionist thinks poor on Kitty´s intelligence and Kitty will have none of that- she punches the table site separating Kitty and the so-called succubus hard. The succubus couldn´t care less.

Kitty holds the key and channels all her unfamous "mean cat spirit" to deal with this situation. "Listen, How in the hell I´ll go to a room 23 if ..." the words die off as Kitty is teleport right away. The succubus shakes her head and continues to do her work.

"Pff, mortals"

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Room 23 is an oval room. The prominent colors are coffee-colored and a soft tone of blue. And a curious sight caught Kitty´s eyes- not the many strange objects that must remain nameless for now- it was the window...It is dark and snowing, yet, Kitty is 100% certain of the weather. "But...it was sunny this day...what happened?" and she looks at the window to see snow, and what appears to be a village. "Did I time travel or teleport?"

"The latter, Katzchen!" a voice whispered in her ear and is more than enough to cause Kitty to jump in her feet and gest away from the space she was, even if was a little-and turning to see her boss would be a good thing if this was a normal situation. Now, all Kitty wants to is one thing- "AHHHH I´ll not torture children" she exclaims.

Inwardly, Kitty will slap herself for being so brash. She had a big speech about this and even rehearsal that with Doug, and yet, she goes to the most cliche. For shame!

The woman pulls the Davi star out of her shirt and looks at her so-called boss. "Did you heard me? I´ll not torture children!" and if Kurt was seething and ready to mayhem, well, he´s looking perfectly calm as he takes a small candy, unwrapped, and eat it.

"Oh, I was wondering when you would found out" his smile is too charming for one who works as a tortured and Kitty´s hair goosebumps. "Ok, let´s make things clear. You´re not here to torture kids nor people. I´m. I need you to help my agenda and sometimes deliver things to the others" his golden eyes look at the key on Kitty´s hand- a small key that looks ordinary and plain- "and only that"

"Oh, but you´ll torture people? Great...want me to bring coffee to you too?" Kitty took a small knife and points at Krampus. The deity/fairy is too amused. Too amused and Kitty won´t speculate about why the man seems to happy to see a knife pointed at him.

"I´d not torture the innocents, Kitty, I torture those who have wicked souls. The children I took...is not little ones who watch porn or forget to do chores...no, I´m talking about kids who killed their younger brother, pets just because" and with a snap of his fingers the room changes and images of a young boy drowning a baby is showed much to her displeasure.

"I´m not a monster, Kitty, mere a force to punish the wick. Nothing more or less." Krampus concludes. His golden eyes seem ancient now. And an animalistic smile plays off. "I can show more of my victims...A man who shot his entire family for money. A woman who tried to murder her lover and his wife..." and Kitty raises her hand.

"STOP"

"That´s my work, Kitty...I see this every day and I´m very good in what I do"

"Could have told me" she faces him. Gritting her teeth as the room finally returns to normal. "I didn´t like to know what you do ...by a friend"

"Galaticus indicate you....this is new to me, and you´re right. I should have been more honest" his tone is full of mirth. "Do you still want to work with me?"

Yes?

No?

"Will I not have to torture anyone?"

"Yes, like I said...I only need you to organize my agenda and deliver things...only this"

Kitty exhales and slowly lower the knife. "If I stabbed you...would you felt any pain?"

"Oh, I would feel something but not what you´re imaging"

"Uhm...I think is what I´m imaging" she says holding the key closer now. _____________________________________________________________________________________________

By perchance Doug has an old movie about Krampus- well, old is an ambiguous term to use. The movie has not even 5 years old but as is the first Krampus movie...and the first to get not so favorable reviews...is easy to believe the movie is ancient-and Jubilee, Kitty, Bobby and Doug are invited to watch the movie.

"So...you´re working with Krampus?" Bobby asked bemused. "And Galaticus indicated you?"

"Yes...I have a magical contract if you want to see" Kitty responds a bit grumpy. "By the way, how are Scott and Jean?"

"Oh...yes, how are the couple?" Jubilee pipes as Doug is putting the movie on the DVD player.

"Scott and Jean are rightly pissed. They even refuse to use Prof X´s honeymoon vacation...instead, Doom...yes, I know...even they´re shocked, Doom over a nice honeymoon vacation to them and well, they´re traveling to Paris, Italy and Spain. I know, odd"

Doug then sits on the couch. "Odd love confessions aside...the movie will begin, let´s watch Kitty´s future working with Krampus"

And they silently watch the movie, especially the final part, where Krampus put all members of the family in a snowglobe.

"Well...Kitty, please don´t put us in a snowglobe"

"Speak to yourself...I can be in a snowglobe"

"Bobby, shut up"

And Kitty wonders if perhaps Galaticus hates her.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Krampus is cleaning his tools when his friend, Santa, arrives at his office offering some snacks. "So, still wanting to keep Kitty as your secretary?" and Krampus stops what he was doing to gaze seriously at the old man´s piercing eyes.

"She really had no idea what I was...that was really new to me...and as I mentioned before...yes, I´ll keep her until the contract breaks"

"You think you two may get along?"

"I think she´ll have questions. I think she won´t bide her will to mine and that" Krampus licks his dry lips and shows all his teeth in a big grin. "and I like that very much....way better than the last one"

Now Santa scowls him. "You mean that poor and delusional witch from the wind ways who wanted to sleep with you and turn you in her personal dog? No shit, Sherlock"

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Amanda Szardos screams in fury when she got the word that Krampus got a new assistant. "A plain woman like her? Replace me?" and Amanda has to plot, has to be the smartest because she still needs Krampus to do her bidding and sex is not a viable coin for trade anymore.

"Then... the best thing to do is sabotage her work and Krampus will return to me"

#Postwoman au #kurt wagner #Kurt!Krampus #Kitty Pryde #Kurtty yet #Yes the keys are teleportation device #always anti amanda #yes Krampus enjoys some BSDM and knife play #and Kitty will have lots of questions #Krampus likes people like Kitty more than Amanda #even if Krampus did slept with Amanda

7 notes · View notes

tessatechaitea · 4 years

Text

Cerebus #16 (1980)

Cerebus is going up the stairs while Lord Julius is going down them. In the same direction.

Cerebus is often touted as the greatest independent comic book of all time (for various reasons) but I'd like to point out that Elfquest told an incredible story with beautiful art in just 20 issues as opposed to 300. Plus it had an elf orgy. Also, I know it continued on after the first 20 issue story arc but we can ignore the rest of the story because there was never another elf orgy and also the rest of the series concentrated too much on Skywise's fear of dying which was totally valid but was often used as a foil to make Cutter seem braver and more loyal to his wolf roots but really just showed he was stubborn and dumb and totally didn't fuck as many elf maidens as Skywise did. Cerebus does have some sex in his comic book but since the first sex he has is when he rapes Astoria, I don't think anybody was really clamoring for any more of that. I mean, sure, some people were! I didn't mean to erase the sickos and perverts out there. Sorry, jerks! I'm sure the "A Note from the Publisher" bit by Deni seemed like a good idea when starting out on a harrowing self-publishing journey like that of Cerebus. But it quickly became a space where Deni just says, "Self-publishing is fraught with hardships and also this is a really good issue! I won't spoil it! Goodbye!" I won't be sad to see the divorce happen! That's an okay thing to say because it already happened, right? It's not like my wishing for the end of their marriage in 2020 somehow brought about the end of their marriage in the early 80s. Is it? I never took a college course on cause and effect so who the fuck knows? Unless that Critical Literary Theory class was about that?! Oh my God! I think I understand it now! Dave's finale to the "Swords of Cerebus" essay that has been broken up over the last three issues describes how he was consciously drawing the Eye of the Pyramid cult leader's gigantic penis while drawing the snake. Sorry to report, though, that he's being sarcastic. Apparently Dave is above using phallic imagery to make a point about patriarchal themes. Only fucking hacks do shit like that! Take that, whoever wrote fucking Beowulf!

Even if Sim can't see the humor in everybody assuming he made a giant snake dick joke on purpose, he can still be extraordinarily funny with the least of materials.

This issue takes Cerebus to his first fancy dress party (that's a costume party for all of you people who aren't British (which is also me but only because I was born a citizen of the United States of America who didn't have a choice but knew it was a huge mistake as I was learning about Monty Python's Flying Circus and Dave Allen at Large in elementary school and The Young Ones in junior high and Red Dwarf in college)). Cerebus changes out of his vest and puts on his costume: a furry black jumper (that's sweater for all of you people who aren't British (which is also me but only because I was forced to watch mostly American popular entertainment until the advent of YouTube and now I mostly just watch Taskmaster over and over (by the way, is Taskmaster as good for people who don't know all of the "contestants" or do I enjoy it more because I recognize and like almost all of the people on the show?)). Lord Julius is dressed as an, um, a, uh, Estarcion matador? I have no context in which to guess what he is.

Certain people like Cerebus because he says what's on his mind. I purposefully used the passive voice here so you can't prove one of those people is me.

Lord Julius has a follow-up joke that leaves the reader thinking, "I guess all Pavrovians are fat?" That's Dave Sim continuing his work on Estarcion continuity! Remember how Pavrovians are the, um, you knows of Estarcion! You know the nationality I'm thinking of! The ones that are all the things people usually find insulting! Come on, you know who I'm talking about. The dumb fat arrogant stupid naive gullible ones! Yes, that's it! Americans! Try to remember Dave is Canadian. You have to think of Americans through Canadian eyes (which are the equivalent of smart, cynical Americans)! E'lass and Turg have gotten tickets to The Festival of Petunias so they can steal the Wyndmel Diamond. They're the duo composed of a giant muscular man and a little bitty shrimpy guy who last encountered (and were beaten by) Cerebus in Issue #6. E'lass is dressed like some kind of small dirt dwelling creature so I hope Cerebus gets offended by his costume and stabs him in the throat. There isn't enough random slaughter in this book about barbarians.

I haven't wanted to fuck a fish this badly since The Littler Mermaid.

I suppose I could have said "since Splash" in that last caption to seem more normal and less perverted but then you'd know I was lying. The assassins make a move on Lord Julius but Cerebus comes up with a plan to stop them that involves inducing the Palnu elite to throw herring-and-onion dip at them. Is that a parodied scene from Duck Soup or Conan the Barbarian? In the confusion, the lead assassin slips out through a secret door and E'lass, having just stolen the diamond and becoming increasingly paranoid that somebody saw him, slips through it as well. Cerebus and Lord Julius follow, having noticed the assassin but not E'lass. Most of the pursuit's tension comes from E'lass believing Cerebus remembers him and is now going to use the excuse of this new crime to murder him. It's more tense than I've even described because I really need Cerebus to murder somebody in this Swords & Sorcery book already. Reading this book waiting for a murder is like firing up a porn video on your laptop with your dick in your hands and realizing after five minutes that the video is almost over and was just a teaser for a pay porn site. Cerebus threatens to quit his job just before battling the assassin so he can negotiate a term of 8 bags of gold and a horse in exchange for killing the assassin as a pension before he goes. Julius agrees and Cerebus takes out the assassin with a rock to the head. I mean, I guess it's a murder so yay? But I was really hoping for some stabbing. Meanwhile E'lass lives through the cliché of the criminal whose paranoia gets the better of him and he tosses the diamond into a huge pit so he doesn't get caught only to discover that they never knew he took it anyway. Everything is wrapped up quickly and thoroughly with Cerebus given money and motivation to move on from Palnu. Dave complained about his heavy use of cliché in this Palnu trilogy and I have to say I agree with Dave. But I only agree with Dave on this point! Don't take that out of context and start raving on Twitter that Grunion Guy agrees with Dave's Issue #186 rant about girlfriends being illogical which is also secretly a rant about a guy who needs to get laid so badly he puts up with partners he probably wouldn't even be friends with and then finally just decides orgasms are evil and religion is super awesome but only if you smash all three People of The Book religions into one bland mash paste of ancient dogma. In the epilogue, Lord Julius receives a letter from his niece Jaka in which she expresses delight in possibly seeing Cerebus again. I guess Dave learned from Howard the Duck that comic book nerds really love for their anthropomorphic heroes to be fucking statuesque women. Perhaps every guy develops a fetish of being with a woman whose breasts are at head level due to being hugged constantly by their female relatives when they're ten years old. Deni's brother Michael's first installment of the "Aardvarkian Age" essays appears in this issue. It gives more details to the various nations of Estarcion and their inhabitants' culture, ruling styles, and brutality of their armies. I thought I'd be more interested in this than I actually wound up being. Maybe I thought it would be funnier? Instead, it's just a bunch of facts about made-up kingdoms to make them sound more believable by making them more like European countries in the Middle Ages. If this entire bit were just lifted from a history of Europe with the names of actual countries replaced by Estarcion countries, I wouldn't even notice. Mostly because I know nothing about European history. As I've always said, "Those who know about European history are doomed to repeat it, boring every single other person at the cocktail party." Dave apologizes for the quarter price increase of the comic book in the Aardvark Comments pages. Why, I hadn't even noticed! Probably because this is the Biweekly reprint issue and I purchased it as a collection off of eBay. Some people write in and discuss how Cerebus is a very fine and funny comic book. I nodded along in agreement as I read the letters. I only touched my private area twice while reading and neither time was for pleasure. The most surprising thing about "The Single Page" is that it clearly states who the comic was authored by: Kent Featherly. I don't know why so many of these single page comics aren't more clearly labeled. Isn't part of the reason for having them exposure for the artists drawing and writing them?! Not putting an effort to let a large audience know who you are and how they can read more of your work just sounds like something I would do. By the way, you should play this game I wrote, Starship Troopers: The Game. You can find it on the hard drive of my laptop. Cerebus #16 Rating: B. Look, it was funny and well drawn and all that. But even Dave said it relied too heavily on cliché plot devices. I've got to lower the grade when even the author points out some of the story's flaws! And I'd probably have come to the same conclusion without having been influenced by Dave Sim because I'm like the best Internet comic book critic who isn't a critic and isn't actually reviewing comic books. Also I almost forgot this evidence: I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer! Nobody else can make that claim and if they do, they're plagiarizing me and I'd like you to point them out to me so I can send them a threatening email in which I pretend to be my own lawyer who is really good at suing dumb-dumbs.

#Cerebus #Dave Sim

2 notes · View notes

cyberneticlagomorph · 5 years

Text

The tips of Moira's nails graze your scalp and make you shudder deliciously. Your body greedily presses against hers, as if trying desperately to leech the warmth from her skin. She coos at you, calls you "cute", calls you "dear" and "darling".

And "hers".

You purr for her, press your head into her waiting palm, wrap your arms around her nonexistent waist. Oh, how far you have fallen, how pathetic you are now. To kiss up to your captor in more ways than one, and to love every second of the attention. You really are her pet now, crying and whining when she's gone too long, tripping over yourself to feel her touch, even for a second. Something breaks within you when she's near, a switch that snaps on at the cost of your dignity.

Your lips brush hers, cutting her off mid-sentence. You revel in the silence, learning to love the taste of herbal cigarettes and stale coffee.

You don't sleep with her, you aren't that broken, no, not yet. Even if you were, her movements seem stiff, labored, as if she were in pain. There are places all across her body, too tender for you to touch. She hisses and snaps when you do. You understand.

She's gotten weirder lately, mostly physically. Her biolume is almost hideously bright, now. The tips of her ears are knife-like, and the sharpness of her teeth? Terrifying. Alluring. She's a funhouse mirror mimicry of you, like the assassin she sent to steal you away. You try not to think about it, thinking about it always leaves you sobbing in the shower long after dark, long after the 15 minute timer has shut the water off.

Today, your time together is brisk, to the point. You press your face into her bony chest and rumble while she plays with your hair and whispers about nothing in particular just, whispers. About her day, about the other faculty, about you. Mostly you. You don't pay attention to what she's saying half the time, too busy forcing yourself to imagine her as someone else, anyone else. It doesn't work most of the time. She asks you questions about your body, your makeup, your mods. She asks you if your prison is to your liking, if anything can be improved.

You bite your tongue and shut your eyes, you've already asked for so much. She wants you to ask for more. This feels like a trap, like each favor you ask for is going to need to be paid back with interest. But still, she untangles your tongue with her own, loosens your lips with sweet kisses. You tell her you miss the sky, you tell her that you are bored in your cage. You tell her that you miss coloring your hair. She tells you that she will fix things, make things better for you. You are unsure why she would go to these lengths just to please you. Does she really love you, or does she just love your silence?

You are lonely when she leaves, you hate that you are. You hate that you miss her. Nothing alleviates your boredom today, not Youtube, not Tumblr, nothing.

The masked lackeys (you've started calling them "Jerries") come in to clean your room around lunch, they change your sheets, disinfect your bathroom. You are scanned and looked over, one hesitantly ruffles your ears. You behave. You don't bite. But you do give them a look that clearly states that under different circumstances you'd split them up the middle and bite out their heart.

They don't touch you again. They pack up their things and leave. You sit on the floor and eat your lunch in peace, listening to Spotify over the speakers of your laptop. At least you have that. The censoring is aggressive, spiteful at times, but done in real time. As you thoughtfully chew on the remains of some poor songbird, you think to yourself a series of devious thinky-thoughts that are soon interrupted by the familiar jingling of the walls melting open to let someone through.

Cold silver and black eyes stare back at you, set in in a face so ghostly pale, it looks corpselike. You remember that face, you've seen it every time your life has gone to shit recently. Any fear you might have felt is quickly swallowed by rabid, feral anger.

Charon watches your expression twist in displeasure and distrust with her personal brand of practiced boredom. That's all you two do for quite some time, stare hatefully at each other, in unfathomable silence.

Your hackles are raised, but can you really do much else? You wrack your brain for answers.

Have they finally gotten tired of your requests?

Is your "academic assistance" no longer required?

Is she here to kill you?

Can she kill you?

Has your Luck finally run dry, dooming you to all the deaths you thought you'd escaped?

Charon takes a step inside, and you bare your teeth like a cornered animal. She smiles, just a little. A concerning upwards twitch of the corners of her mouth, made all the more malevolent by her resting bitch face. She looks like someone that delighted in pulling the legs off of insects as a child, and you don't plan on being her new plaything.

Your movements are clunky and slow, dragged down by your unnatural weight. Even if you could get the drop on her, what would you even do? Charon takes another step towards you, slow and deliberate. She gazes at you the same way a trainer gazes at an unruly animal, a thing to be broken. You circle each other like wolves, hackles raised, teeth bared. You're both itching for a fight that never comes. You are interrupted by a gruff, smoker's rumble of a voice, telling the two of you to knock it off. In the blackened, toothless maw of the doorway stands a woman, well muscled and impossibly ancient. Truly she looks no older than 40, but she exudes this aura of existence that feels like she's been here since humans were crawling among the muck, banging rocks together, and she'll continue to be when humanity have devoured this tender little rock and turn their endless appetites to the stars.

The name on her ID badge reads "S. Belmont". She sets her empty, cold eyes on you and you feel the fear of a thousand thousand generations of night-creatures, flinching at whip-cracks and sword-blows. You feel the fear of the darkened, impossible to find places where your bones will be hidden away and studied.

Yes, you know of the Belmonts, everyone knows of the Belmonts. Monster hunters, vampire killers, those that stalk the Night herself. You have never been afraid of them until now, until this one set her eyes on you. She has killed the fight in you with only a look, leaving little more than stunned prey in her wake.

She turns her eyes on Charon, voice as biting as a whip, "Do your job, or I'll do it for you." a threat, a warning. A promise.

Charon grabs you by the scruff and starts to march you out of your cell, past the Belmont with the cold cold eyes without a word. The hallway beyond is blacker than black, even your less-than-spectacular night vision is useless here. She marches you into an elevator, visible as only a sliver of light in the blackness. It takes you up and up and up, past countless floors you cannot see. She takes you to a place buzzing with activity.

There are people here, people like you. People with fantastical cybernetics and animal ears, with odd eyes and gems in their skin. All dressed in white, with heavy collars at their throats. They sit and lounge, chat and smile, watching the massive screens on the walls, sitting in front of glorious sloping windows.

You are roughly tugged away before you can get a good look at anything. Dragged off to some room full of windows, a humid indoor garden with a ceiling of glass. The plants here are silent strangers that you cannot speak to, but that doesn't stop you from crying when Charon lets you go. You fall face down among the daisies and sob, rolling on your back to watch the rain drops glitch on the glass in the endless emerald afternoon.

#ic #action post #enclosures #ask to tag

2 notes · View notes

faejilly · 6 years

Text

i am for you

this is entirely @janoda‘s fault. her and her tag essays. ANYWAYS. I have a weakness for epistolary fic, and also Alec & Magnus being adorkable, so here. Have some self-indulgent fluff. Part 1/? (AO3) (series tag)

One misdirected email leads to bonding over bookstores & bad fiction, sleep-deprivation, the introduction of the Lightwood-Garroway Family Hedge, and Magnus and Alec falling in love.

From: [email protected] [M. Bane] To: [email protected] [R. Fell] subj: forgive me

Hello, you old stick in the mud.

Yes that is a perfectly acceptable way to open a letter, do shush.

And yes, email counts as a letter, just because you study ancient dead people more than living ones does not mean you should not admit to the existence of modern innovation.

Also yes, obviously, I have bad news, you know me so well, however have we borne each other's company for so long?

Especially when you have such an appalling lack of sense as to allow me to borrow your copy of Marlowe's treatise on the White Book.

Oops?

It will not be wending its way back to you along with the references on the Grey and the Red. I know, it's not the same when it's not a whole set, I will make it up to you.

Somehow.

I promise.

And you know I keep my word.

From: [email protected] [Alec L.] To: [email protected] [M. Bane] subj: this is awkward

I want to apologize. I'm not whoever it was you were trying to write to, but there are way too many people I know who would start an email with a "forgive me" so I was about half-way through before I realized you weren't actually one of them.

So, uh. Sorry? I mean. Sorry, really, and you should probably double check your friend's email.

But. Not to be too creepy or intrusive, barging in on someone's accidentally public conversation, but I know a bookstore on Isaacs Dr, behind the campus liquor store, (the one with the red roof, not the one with the blue roof), that had a copy of the book you mentioned. If you wanted to find a replacement. It's called Fray & Garroway, and if you tell them it's for Alec they'll give you a 10% discount.

Assuming you're even in Alicante, which may be a bit of a jump, but you did send your note via a UIA email address.

From: [email protected] [M. Bane] To: [email protected] [Alec L] subj: Charming, not awkward

I feel, my darling Alec, (if I may?), that it must have been Providence that sent my email astray. Do you believe in fate? I think I do, as of today.

There cannot be many people in Alicante who have even heard of Marlowe's delightfully obscure infatuation with the occult, much less know where to find a copy of a reprint of one of his books. Or be familiar enough to know a discount on that price-tag is not a trivial thing.

Not that I wouldn't have paid full price to redeem myself in my long-suffering (as he says) compatriot's eyes, but it is rather delightful to know that I did not have to, purely thanks to the kindness of a stranger.

Thank you.

You didn't have to reply at all, much less go out of your way to offer assistance. It's unusual to bump into such a giving soul these days. You have quite restored my faith in humanity.

-- M

From: [email protected] [Alec L.] To: [email protected] [M. Bane] subj: you do have a way with words, don't you

M, is it? Are we embarking on a mystery correspondence? I feel I may have fallen into a bad spy movie, or perhaps a pulp detective novel. (I am certainly no 007 to have fallen into a good spy movie, after all.)

Do you have contacts scattered across Idris running secret errands for you? Clandestine meetings and secret back-alley exchanges?

(Please don't tell me if you don't, imagining a secret society dealing in strange matters of the occult is the most interesting thing to have happened to me all week, and the only interesting thing in at least a month that wasn't bordering on a disaster, and is quite probably the only thing that's going to keep me awake for the next two hours of my shift.)

You're welcome, but you don't have to thank me. I just answered an email. Definitely not worth the weight of the entire human race settling in-between us.

From: [email protected] [M. Bane] To: [email protected] [Alec L] subj: but your words were so much more interesting than mine

There are a myriad number of people whose job it is to reply to my emails and yet they never manage it. You are exceptional, and I refuse to let you avoid my gratitude. I am thanking you, and you are just going to have to accept that that is the state of things.

Also I may have laughed out loud and scared my best friend when I read your email, so now you have to keep responding so I can prove you're a real person and we're having a real conversation and she doesn't think I'm crazy.

Well. Crazier than usual.

You are a real person aren't you? Who likes spy movies and old pulp paperbacks? (Can you recommend some of those detective stories? I really loved your bookstore, it was very welcoming. Sunlit and dusty and well-organized shelves but piles in the corners just waiting to be explored and the most gorgeous tiny pieces of artwork hiding in all the small bits of wall where shelves wouldn't fit. Quite my new favorite place, I think I shall be back, especially if I have a shopping list as an excuse?)

Don't answer that real person question, I don't want to know if it's a no, anymore than you want to know that there are no covert societies, encoded messages, or secret passages anywhere in my life.

Though wait, of course you must be real, that lovely young redhead at the bookstore was positively delighted at the idea that Alec sent me, her whole face lit up with a smile.

Are you sure you're not already living the life of a secret agent? I feel I may have unwittingly been involved in some of your clandestine courier work already.

Though I suppose secret agents do not generally have shift work.

From: [email protected] [Alec L.] To: [email protected] [M. Bane] subj: not nearly as interesting as you are attach: ruleswip.docx attach: pulpfiction.docx

Oh hell, Clary was working? Were there charcoal stains on her fingers and a sketchbook on the counter? Was it an evil smile?

It was, wasn't it. I'm doomed, I'm going to have to avoid family dinner for at least a month.

I could distract her with your compliments, perhaps? Most of the artwork is hers. Some of it was her mother's. Either way she actually almost looks shy whenever someone says something nice about it.

Or I could ask her all about you.

I feel like that would be uncalled for, but I'm not sure why. Are we playing a game? Are there rules? Would that be cheating?

Unless you asked her about me, in which case it would be entirely fair, and also that was definitely an evil smile and oh my gosh I'm rambling in an email. I'm typing myself rambling, clearly the sleep-deprivation has reached epic proportions, I am so sorry.

And yet I'm going to send this as is, because I think perhaps that might be one of the rules.

Maybe I should make a list? Would that be weird? This entire email is weird, have I apologized already?

See attached: two lists. Feel free to delete them. Or edit and send them back. I feel I have no idea what I'm doing anymore, I may need some direction.

That's wow. I'm kind of pushy tonight, sorry.

This is what happens when you work second shift at the student support center. Which is usually about as difficult as did you try turning your laptop off and on again and let me unjam the printer with the occasional yes I do know how to format a bibliography, that's why I'm here. I am definitely as far from a secret agent man as it is humanly possible to be, and my brain has mostly leaked out my ears from boredom by the time I'm done.

(That was an attractive description, wasn't it. I'm sorry.)

But second shift was quiet enough when I was an undergrad I could manage to do extra studying, and now they're stuck with me, I guess. Or I'm stuck with them? I'm not entirely sure anymore. At least this is the last year.

But now I'm wondering, if you're not part of some secret coven of the occult, why The Book of the White?

Which is assuredly none of my business, feel free to ignore me.

If you've made it this far and still respond, I think I might start believing in miracles.

From: [email protected] [M. Bane] To: [email protected] [Alec L] subj: still with the incredibly charming attach: ruleswip2.docx attach: pulpscripts.docx

I don't believe anyone has ever compared me to a miracle before, I am quite over-wrought.

That sentence came out even more melodramatically than I intended, but that does not mean it isn't sincere. We haven't met, but I find I am quite pleased to think I have earned your good opinion, and your curiosity.

I have indeed taken a look at your rules, and marked it up with my virtual purple pen. (Not red, because it did not need correction so much as expansion. You have a very economical way with words once you switch to informational.) Also I counter your collection of ridiculously titled fiction (all of which I am looking forward to devouring) with some ridiculously styled plays. We did start this with Marlowe, after all.

I feel like it will be a great disappointment to tell you that I am doing regular boring class-related research; I do not think that crosses the bonds of this strange pseudo-anonymity we have, as you recognized the UIA email address, and thus know what an 05 extension means. (Though I still have no idea how my first email got routed to you. I am distressingly good at clicking the wrong thing, but that is a bit dramatic even for me. The servers must have had an aneurysm or something, the original recipient's an 08, on top of the entirely different set of initials.)

And no, I did not ask the redhead anything about you, I was oddly terrified that somehow she'd learn my entire life-story in the process. There was a very steely glint in her eyes when she rung me up.

But family dinner! I am entirely intrigued. Are you also a redhead, my mysterious benefactor? Cousin, brother, uncle?

I typed boyfriend in that list and erased it and typed it about three more times and then I looked up at our rules and realized you're right. I'm not sure if we've reached a coherent set of directions yet, but I don't wish to cheat either. I typed it, it stays.

From: [email protected] [Alec L.] To: [email protected] [M. Bane] subj: I may start blushing at any moment attach: ruleswip3.docx attach: bmovietime.docx

Oh fuck no, definitely not her boyfriend, I am very gay and also she's kind of my sister?

And wow, that's a way to come out to one's secret pen pal. I really have to stop responding to your emails at 2 in the morning, I am always vaguely horrified when I remember what I said the next day, and this is clearly not going to be the exception.

Though, since you keep responding anyways, clearly I should only respond at 2 in the morning? I may have to consider that one.

And no again, I am not a redhead, and the family dinner is a little complicated, (see the kind-of above) but I suppose I would be her step-brother once removed? That sounds entirely implausible doesn't it, it's quite obvious I just made that up.

Her step-dad married my mom.

That was much less complicated than I thought it was going to be, hmm. Clearly I have been over-thinking the family history every other time someone asked. Perhaps it's a lifetime of being over-sensitive. One of my brothers is adopted and we got a lot of oh dear you look nothing alike comments when we were little.

But now I realize how very one-sided our conversation has become, you know my name and that I have a family hedge rather than a tree, that you can find some of us at a bookstore, and that I have a rainbow flag sitting in the cup of pens and highlighters on my desk.

Also that I am much more familiar with b-movies than b-plays, so I feel I must switch media in our disaster lists of duelling recommendations yet again. I did manage to find that set by Bernhardt to read, however, and they were joyfully terrible, I hope someday I can see them on stage.

My sister is staring at me in shock from across town, I always rolled my eyes when she was in her musical theatre stage in middle school. (Different sister, not the redhead.)

Then again I rolled my eyes at everything at that point, it's difficult being nice when you're so far in the closet you can't even see the door. And look at me, over-sharing again. I don't.

This isn't something I do? But since that email you sent back thanking me, I have felt like I've known you forever, and can tell you anything. Is it because I don't have a face to put to the words, so I'm not worrying about what I look like to you? Is it just that such sincere and honest gratitude isn't something I've really seen before? Maybe you don't think people can just help just because, but I'm not sure I've ever seen someone just say thank you without a single caveat. You answered me with such grace, it made my heart ache.

I don't know. And here I am getting all philosophical, the joys of 2am confessions. I can't say I'm sorry though, because that wouldn't be true.

But I know next to nothing about you. And you did just compliment my curiosity, it's in the email chain, I could copy-paste it and prove my point, if I had to. (Never leave a paper trail if you don't want it to be used against you.)

Though I can make an educated guess, at the very least, that your long-suffering compatriot is Professor Fell? I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, I knew he had a bunch of Marlowe in his collection. And his old email got routed to mine over the summer when I did a work-study with him and he didn't want to deal with any more of Dean Aldertree's questions.

Everyone else switched to his new extension when he got tenure. Except you. Providence does seem to be the answer here. I'm glad.

From: [email protected] [M. Bane] To: [email protected] [Alec L] subj: the very thought makes me breathless attach: ruleswip4.docx attach: ChairmanMeowFavorites.docx

I am honored you trusted me, Alec. Is that short for Alexander, perhaps? Would you mind if I called you that? It seems to fit the poetic nature of this correspondence.

Ragnor and I have been friends for a very long time, even before we both ended up on opposite ends of campus. It is terribly tempting to go ask him for a description of his interns last summer, except for the fact that I'd be lucky if he remembered the color of your hair. He could probably recognize your writing style within three words, but asking someone else is not how this goes, is it?

You are giving me clandestine operation vibes again, darling. Paper trails. Who says things like that? Spies. In delightfully bad movies.

Oh, oh! Do you have a tuxedo with exploding cufflinks? I have always wanted to see such a thing.

And yes, I am avoiding your questions, and no, I am not entirely sure why.

Or I am, and it's vaguely embarrassing. I think I am afraid that as soon as you know my real name this will stop being some unexpected fairy tale I have landed in, and something will go wrong, and I'll never get another email from you, and that thought is more upsetting than it has any right to be. I trust you too, dramatically, inexplicably, and completely.

I have never wanted to delete anything as much as I want to delete that paragraph. But you sent me all your sincere 2am ramblings, so I must do the same.

You make me brave, my mysterious Alexander.

Our rules list is not so much rules as elaborate flirtation at this point, wouldn't you say? And we've made our way through books and plays and movies, so now have a list of the music I never admit to people I listen to when I'm home alone and dancing for the cat.

My name is Magnus, and I have no real family to speak of, so I am not at all sure what one means by a hedge but I must admit that I want to find out.

And also that I especially wish to see a tuxedo on you, which I am sure is entirely too forward of me and I am quite sure I have just scared you away and I have never been so nervous about clicking that damn send icon in my life.

From: [email protected] [Alec L.] To: [email protected] [M. Bane] subj: forget breathless, I think I've forgotten how to breathe entirely attach: music.docx

I don't think I have successfully flirted with anyone before in my entire life. I feel suspiciously like I might be having an attack of the vapors like the characters from an old romance novel.

Don't tell my sister I read old romance novels. Or that there are showtunes on my music list. She will never let me hear the end of it. And look at me, assuming you want to meet my sister. Did I mention breathing is not really a thing at the moment?

Your cat's name is Chairman Meow? That is the second-best thing I've heard in my life.

First is that this unexpected correspondence means as much to you as it does to me. Or maybe first is the idea of you calling me Alexander. No one does, never have, though I've had to repeatedly correct a few teachers over the years to keep it that way, but I like the idea of it coming from you. I like that very much.

To answer your sort-of question before I get to my actual question, because I am nervous enough I have started this email about five times already, law students talk about paper trails. Especially in their last year when they're trying desperately not to think too much about everything that could go wrong before graduation and how easy it is to fail the Bar.

And here we go. If you were brave I cannot be any less, can I?

It's not a tuxedo, but if you do want to meet the hedge (and me, hopefully more so) Clary's best friend Simon is a musician, and he has a gig this weekend at The Hunter's Moon, if you would like to come and find out...

I don't know, find out if this is a real off the computer screen as it is inside it, somewhere public where it'll be easy enough to make a strategic retreat if necessary.

Or, I think we're past easy retreats, but at least it'll be possible.

I hope we don't have to.

It will be an awful lot of the hedge though, if that's too much? We could try coffee or something first.

I mean, there's my brother and sister and step-sister and Simon and his girlfriend (who also works at the bookstore, we're a tangled disaster) and sometimes my friend Lydia because if I don't drag her out occasionally she's even more of a workaholic than I am. And it would be even worse if our cousin Aline was here, but she's visiting her girlfriend abroad.

They frequently are too much. Because they will, assuredly, every single one of them, make a comment on me inviting someone. Except maybe Lydia. She'll give you a look though. She's very good at those. So. Just. A warning? Hell, that paragraph looks terrifying and I know all of them already. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore, and if I had to talk instead of type I'm pretty sure I'd be stuttering. I kind of am, even here, aren't I?

I am 102% convinced I have just scared you away, but it's better to warn you than drop you in the middle of that. No one deserves that, and especially not someone I am very much looking forward to meeting.

And I really better hit send now or I'm going to give myself a heart-attack.

From: [email protected] [M. Bane] To: [email protected] [Alec L] subj: breathing is overrated

I have, my entire life, always been the one who is too much for someone else. I think it only fair, at our first acquaintance, that you have the opportunity to be too much as well. I would be delighted to dive into the deep-end of whatever this is and start out by meeting your family. We've done everything else out of order, haven't we?

With the caveat that perhaps we meet outside rather than in the middle of your hedge? (Do they know you call them that? Can I call them that? That sounds delightful.) Just in case, as you said.

And to share note by note, and also so you can answer your delightful hedge's presumably nosy questions about who the dashing man you've invited along even is, I am finishing up the second year of my very first real professor job in the drama department.

Not that that is likely to be a surprise, considering Marlowe and Bernhardt.

Also the eyeliner tends to add to that conclusion for most people who have met me in person. I am so very much looking forward to adding you to that list. (Also I'm terrified. Is it alright to be terrified? Should I admit that? Probably not. Too late now!) What's your favorite color, Alexander? I think I shall need the fortitude of getting my nails done before I arrive.

From: [email protected] [Alec L.] To: [email protected] [M. Bane] subj: but I need to survive until Saturday

There's a bus-stop around the corner, on 5th? We can meet there at 8 on Saturday, and then decide if you're willing to come inside with me or not. (I have not ever called the family a hedge before I attempted to explain them to you, and most definitely not to their faces. I highly encourage you to do so, so that I can watch. Is that mean? That might be a little mean of me, I do apologize. Sort of.)

I don't think anyone's asked me my favorite color since I outgrew my moody teenage years and the only possible answer was black, with perhaps the occasional detour into grey. Would it be terribly out of line of me to admit that meeting you makes me think of the sunrise, and thus I am, at the moment, most especially fond of pink and gold?

From: [email protected] [M. Bane] To: [email protected] [Alec L] subj: if you keep saying things like that, I'm not going to survive either

I never knew heart-attacks were contagious, but oh I think you shared yours with me with that last line. You are painfully romantic, Alexander, I am in awe.

But now I desperately need a change of conversational topic or I will fidget myself into a disaster by Saturday night, that's two whole days.

Why law school, if I may be both bold and boring and ask the obvious and impertinent?

I shall answer your return question, why the theatre? before you even have to ask. Or the short version, anyways. It gave me a world better than the one I was living in when I was young, and then it was just so very pretty that I never wanted to leave. Especially when I realized how many other people need that escape as well, and I could help them find it.

That got a bit more serious than I intended. That does keep happening to me, as soon as I start a message to you. I have never failed so entirely at being a light and sparkling and charming personality before. You're remarkable.

From: [email protected] [Alec L.] To: [email protected] [M. Bane] subj: you have rendered me almost entirely speechless

I am not at all remarkable but the fact that you think so has kept me smiling all day. At least three people asked if I was all right, Lydia asked what his name is, whoever he is, (I have not told her yet, but I did re-invite her to Simon's gig, and I think she's definitely decided to come now), and I didn't even mind having to fix the same printer error four times tonight.

And you are easily the most captivating person I have ever (almost?) met.

Most of the time when people ask why law school it's easy enough to fob them off with a shrug, to mention that my father's a lawyer and my mother's a forensic accountant so I sort of just grew into it. Lightwood family tradition. Or something.

But my father's really the reason I almost didn't go to law school at all, and I don't want to give you the wrong impression. It's also a bit of a long story and may quite well ruin the conversation and if I scared you off now I think I might not recover any time soon.

Which is my way of saying hello there terror, nice you're visiting me, too.

I suppose the short version would be that, after Jace (the adopted brother) and my parents' truly disastrous divorce, I'd seen too many cases of terrible situations where no one had a real advocate. So I'm going into family law.

Hopefully. Assuming I don't have a panic attack and fail the Bar. Which is honestly what every other law student I know thinks is going to happen and clearly we can't all be that disastrous, but it's hard to keep that in mind some days.

Most days.

I can tell you the long story, if you'd like, but I have to admit I rather desperately want to kiss you before I say something too depressing and you no longer want to kiss me back. (And don't think I didn't notice you doing the exact same thing with your long story.)

And the 2am inability to think before I type is back. I did not miss you.

I am going to hit send now before I chicken out or die of mortification.

From: [email protected] [M. Bane] To: [email protected] [Alec L] subj: asdfjklgh (how's that for speechless?)

I may have just lost a half-an-hour staring blankly at my screen imagining Alexander kisses so. Priorites agreed upon! Until tonight it is.

#malec #malec fic #shadowhunters #alec lightwood #magnus bane #epistolary #modern email epistolary even #jilly writes #my sh fic #modern au #college au #i am for you

71 notes · View notes

inkyardpress · 6 years

Text

10 YA Reads That Have Us Loving the Skin We’re In

There are so many diverse and empowering new reads out there totally flooding our TBR that we couldn’t pick just one of our current obsessions to share—so here’s a list of ten we can’t stop talking about. From kick-ass queer anthologies to MC’s who totally get what it’s like living with anxiety, from the body-positive heroes we deserve to the everyday teens showing us how to be true to who we are inside, these books have us feeling ourselves and celebrating our individuality.

Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now by Dana L. Davis

For sixteen-year-old Tiffany Sly, life hasn't been safe or normal for a while. Losing her mom to cancer has her a little bit traumatized, and now she has to leave her hometown of Chicago to live with the biological dad she's never known.

Anthony Stone is a rich man with four other daughters—and rules for every second of the day. Tiffany tries to make the best of things, but she doesn't fit into her new luxurious, but super-strict, home—or get along with her standoffish sister London. The only thing that makes her new life even remotely bearable is the strange boy across the street. Marcus McKinney has had his own experiences with death, and the unexpected friendship that blossoms between them is the only thing that makes her feel grounded.

But Tiffany has a secret. Another man claims he's Tiffany's real dad—and she has only seven days before he shows up to demand a paternity test and the truth comes out. With her life about to fall apart all over again, Tiffany finds herself discovering unexpected truths about her father, her mother and herself, and realizing that maybe family is in the bonds you make—and that life means sometimes taking risks.

Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Puddin’ by Julie Murphy

Millie Michalchuk has gone to fat camp every year since she was a little girl. Not this year. This year she has new plans to chase her secret dream of being a newscaster—and to kiss the boy she’s crushing on.

Callie Reyes is the pretty girl who is next in line for dance team captain and has the popular boyfriend. But when it comes to other girls, she’s more frenemy than friend.

When circumstances bring the girls together over the course of a semester, they surprise everyone (especially themselves) by realizing that they might have more in common than they ever imagined.

Puddin’ is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Fat Girl on a Plane by Kelly DeVos

FAT.

High school senior Cookie Vonn’s postgraduation dreams include getting out of Phoenix, attending Parsons and becoming the next great fashion designer. But in the world of fashion, being fat is a cardinal sin. It doesn’t help that she’s constantly compared to her supermodel mother—and named after a dessert. Thanks to her job at a fashion blog, Cookie scores a trip to New York to pitch her portfolio and appeal for a scholarship, but her plans are put on standby when she’s declared too fat to fly. Forced to turn to her BFF for cash, Cookie buys a second seat on the plane. She arrives in the city to find that she’s been replaced by the boss’s daughter, a girl who’s everything she’s not—ultrathin and superrich. Bowing to society’s pressure, she vows to lose weight, get out of the friend zone with her crush and put her life on track.

SKINNY.

Cookie expected sunshine and rainbows, but nothing about her new life is turning out like she planned. When the fashion designer of the moment offers her what she’s always wanted—an opportunity to live and study in New York—she finds herself in a world full of people more interested in putting women down than dressing them up. Her designs make waves, but her real dream of creating great clothes for people of all sizes seems to grow more distant by the day.

Will she realize that she’s always had the power to make her own dreams come true?

Fat Girl on a Plane is out June 5th. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson

Mila Flores and her best friend Riley have always been inseparable. There's not much excitement in their small town of Cross Creek, so Mila and Riley make their own fun, devoting most of their time to Riley's favorite activity: amateur witchcraft.

So when Riley and two Fairmont Academy mean girls die under suspicious circumstances, Mila refuses to believe everyone's explanation that her BFF was involved in a suicide pact. Instead, armed with a tube of lip gloss and an ancient grimoire, Mila does the unthinkable to uncover the truth: she brings the girls back to life.

Unfortunately, Riley, June, and Dayton have no recollection of their murders, but they do have unfinished business to attend to. Now, with only seven days until the spell wears off and the girls return to their graves, Mila must wrangle the distracted group of undead teens and work fast to discover their murderer...before the killer strikes again.

Undead Girl Gang is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages edited by Saundra Mitchell

Take a journey through time and genres and discover a past where queer figures live, love and shape the world around them. Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens.

From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexico featuring a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanish convent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, time periods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored or forgotten.

All Out is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Runebinder by Alex R. Kahler

When magic returned to the world, it could have saved humanity, but greed and thirst for power caused mankind's downfall instead. Now once-human monsters called Howls prowl abandoned streets, their hunger guided by corrupt necromancers and the all-powerful Kin. Only Hunters have the power to fight back in the unending war, using the same magic that ended civilization in the first place.

But they are losing.

Tenn is a Hunter, resigned to fight even though hope is nearly lost. When he is singled out by a seductive Kin named Tomás and the enigmatic Hunter Jarrett, Tenn realizes he’s become a pawn in a bigger game. One that could turn the tides of war. But if his mutinous magic and wayward heart get in the way, his power might not be used in favor of mankind.

If Tenn fails to play his part, it could cost him his friends, his life…and the entire world.

Runebinder is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman

Star-crossed lovers, meddling immortals, feigned identities, battles of wits, and dire warnings. These are the stuff of fairy tale, myth, and folklore that have drawn us in for centuries.

Fifteen bestselling and acclaimed authors reimagine the folklore and mythology of East and South Asia in short stories that are by turns enchanting, heartbreaking, romantic, and passionate.

A mountain loses her heart. Two sisters transform into birds to escape captivity. A young man learns the true meaning of sacrifice. A young woman takes up her mother’s mantle and leads the dead to their final resting place. From fantasy to science fiction to contemporary, from romance to tales of revenge, these stories will beguile readers from start to finish.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

The Diminished by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

In the Alskad Empire, nearly all are born with a twin, two halves to form one whole…yet some face the world alone.

A rare few are singleborn in each generation, and therefore given the right to rule by the gods and goddesses. Bo Trousillion is one of these few, born into the royal line and destined to rule. Though he has been chosen to succeed his great-aunt, Queen Runa, as the leader of the Alskad Empire, Bo has never felt equal to the grand future before him.

When one twin dies, the other usually follows, unable to face the world without their other half. Those who survive are considered diminished, doomed to succumb to the violent grief that inevitably destroys everyone whose twin has died. Such is the fate of Vi Abernathy, whose twin sister died in infancy. Raised by the anchorites of the temple after her family cast her off, Vi has spent her whole life scheming for a way to escape and live out what’s left of her life in peace.

As their sixteenth birthdays approach, Bo and Vi face very different futures—one a life of luxury as the heir to the throne, the other years of backbreaking work as a temple servant. But a long-held secret and the fate of the empire are destined to bring them together in a way they never could have imagined.

The Diminished is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Emergency Contact by Mary H. K. Choi

For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind.

Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him.

When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.

Emergency Contact is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Someone to Love by Melissa de la Cruz

Olivia "Liv" Blakely knows how important it is to look good. Her father is running for governor, and Liv will be making public appearances with her family. Liv has an image to uphold—to her maybe boyfriend, to the new friends who suddenly welcome her into their circle and to the public, who love to find fault on social media.

Liv's sunny, charming facade hides a dark inner voice that will settle for nothing less than perfection. No matter who she has to give up to get there. No matter what she has to lose to do it. Liv is working for the day when what she sees in the mirror is worthy…worthy of confidence. Worthy of success. Worthy of love. But as the high price of perfection takes a toll, placing her body and soul at risk, Liv herself has to realize what she has to live for.

Someone to Love is out now. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

Want to see more like this? Sign up for the Harlequin TEEN newsletter here.

#YA Books #YA Reads #self esteem #bookworm #Harlequin Teen

23 notes · View notes

cherrypixelbun · 6 years

Text

RAMBLE: Booting a portable DOS collection, the pros and cons

Quite a while ago I posted screenshots of a bootable FreeDOS USB stick that I have with a collection of games installed. Like I mentioned in my initial Twitter post about it, I was inspired to do it by Lazy Game Reviews, who made a video where he had a full install on a high-end PC. After that I had an idea. “What if I could run my DOS games from anywhere, not just on a single PC." I got a USB stick, and went to work finding a portable solution.

What I did was not a full installation of FreeDOS. Instead I used a program called Rufus for making bootable USB sticks. Normally you’re supposed to give it the ISO of whatever OS you wish to boot but it gives you MS-DOS and FreeDOS as built in options. While I could have gone all in with actual MS-DOS, FreeDOS has better compatibility with modern hardware. FreeDOS also has a USB installer available on their website, but it’s just that. An installer for putting the operating system onto a hard drive. When installed via Rufus, you don’t get the full packages that you can download from the FreeDOS website. Instead you get just the kernel, the very bare essential thing needed to boot the operating system. While this works good enough for a lot of games, quite a few of them require extra memory of some kind. DOS on it’s own only uses 640k of RAM, even if you have 4GB on your system. After manually creating and editing my own CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT (the two important system settings files), all my DOS stick boots at startup is HIMEMX (For that extended memory), CuteMouse (A wonderful generic mouse driver), and 4DOS (An enhanced command line interface). In retrospect I probably could have extracted a full setup from a virtual machine, but what I have now is functional. This so far works with just about everything I’ve thrown at it, aside from games with CPU speed issues, but this was a problem even when DOS was relevant and not a modern incompatibility.

I’ve tested this USB stick on a handful of computer setups to see how much compatibility varied. The first was my personal desktop. It’s got an AMD FX-4350, an Nvidia 750Ti, and 8GB of RAM. The second was my HP Spectre x360 laptop. The third was a salvaged embedded all-in-one PC that was originally part of a fancy restaurant cash register. It has an Intel Celeron 420, no GPU, and 2GB of RAM. I use it pretty much as a DOS gaming machine with Xubuntu on the hard drive for the pitiful amount of Linux and Windows games (via Wine) that it could run as well as downloading/moving games without having to use my main desktop. Each computer booted into DOS just fine.

First, I should address the issues that were present among all three computers. The first and what is probably a dealbreaker for a lot of people. The sound, or lack thereof. While modern video displays are just as capable of running FreeDOS as ones from decades ago, none of the sound devices in any of the computers I tried had compatible drivers. The only sound I could get was from the “PC Speaker”. A simple device that can play simple square-wave tones and not much else. Sure a clever developer could get some decent sound effects and music but for the most part all you get from it are beeps and boops. Back in the day this was an actual loudspeaker in IBM compatible PCs, but most beepers these days are tiny piezoelectric beepers. While it still works, it doesn’t produce as good of sound quality. The DSS MP3 player was impressive in DOSBox, but on my home computer you had to really try and pick out the music as the poor little buzzer struggled to play pretty much anything from the new wave pop of XTC to the heavy metal of Aria. There is the OPL2LPT that I could plug into the all-in-one for some FM synth music but it’s expensive and would only be used on one machine. I don’t mind the beeping however, I’d rather have that rather than no sound at all.

Video is a better story, but still one with caveats. The first thing to note is that newer Nvidia cards don’t seem to play too well with CGA and EGA graphical modes. While the HP laptop and the all-in-one had no issue displaying those outdated visual standards, my 750ti gave everything a green tint. Some text modes, like when trying to play PC-Man or Paratrooper had invisible text. LGR also ran into this issue in his video so it is something with Nvidia GPUs. While disappointing, I can’t really fault Nvidia for not playing well with graphics modes that aren’t used by modern computers. This second quirk is more of a nitpick than anything serious. This “problem” is the aspect ratio. While you can set most monitors and TVs to correct aspect ratios, this could potentially cause issues with the more “unusual” video modes. I wouldn’t know firsthand with DOS, but I usually handle aspect ratios on the driver-side of things because my monitor can be weird about some resolutions even when using Windows 7. Of course DOS doesn’t do this in software, so whatever you’re running gets stretched to the aspect ratio of the display. It’s a pet peeve of mine to see 4:3 stretched but it’s not a dealbreaker. If you’re lucky, some 3D games like Car & Driver let you adjust the aspect ratio or set a custom resolution.

So putting aside those limitations, what can you play on this USB stick? Here’s a list of the things I’ve got on here and run with no issue:

Doom I & II

The Oregon Trail 2nd Edition

Silpheed

Super Street Fighter II

Retro City Rampage 486

Sim City 2000

Arkanoid 1&2

Jazz Jackrabbit

Paku Paku

Rise of the Triad

Shadow President

Ancient Domains of Mystery (The free version, which still gets updated but lacks features from the paid release. Said paid release only supports modern PCs AFAIK)

Tales of Middle Earth (2.0, Maj’Eyal is only for modern PCs)

Golden Axe

PC-Man

Paratrooper

Alley Cat

robotloveskitten

Catacomb 3D (original)

Softdisk Catacomb Trilogy

ChampProgramming games

Wolfenstein 3D

Duke Nukem 3D

A lot of much older DOS games have their speed tied to the CPU so are completely unplayable on modern PCs, hence why it’s mostly 90′s games on there. Your mileage still varies, but it’s nowhere as much of a crapshoot as trying to play something from 1983. Overall, I’m happy with the results. It boots fast and without having to run another OS underneath like DOSBox means that I don’t have to worry about a game struggling on my new space age machines. I recommend anyone who has a spare USB stick try the same thing. It’s easy, doesn’t take up much space on the stick, and probably will run on your machine just fine.

#long post #actually blogging #rambles #dos games #freedos

1 note · View note

weaselle · 5 years

Note

where can i find ur ant cthulu post i saw it on imgur and i wanna reblog it thank

This is the BEST questionanswer A: to to my tumblr and search “cthulhu”Anser B: Here’s everything I’ve written about it so far…Firstly, um, I had just had to leave my dog in a better home than I could give him while I was homeless living in a tent… that’s my only excuse. AnywaySecondly, In the interest of crediting folks, I was inspired to write the last installment by littlesons, who said, oh I can’t find it rn but they were very nice and said something like they loved it and wanted to know how it ended.I wrote the first of three installments in response to probablybadrpgideas and 20thcenturyvole who posted, respectively “if Cthulhu can be summoned by humans who are so far beneath it, why can’t humans be summoned by ants? The answer is they should be.”and“Well if a bunch of ants formed a circle in my house I’d certainly notice, try to figure out where they’d all come from, and possibly wreak destruction there.“_______________________________________________________________________That’s why knowing and correctly pronouncing the true name is so important to the ritual. Imagine how impossible it would be to not go take a look if the circle of ants started chanting your name.And they’re like, you can’t leave because we drew a line made of tiny crystals - now you have to do us a favor.And you’re like, let’s just see where this goes “yup, you got me… what’s the favor?”and usually the favor is like, “kill this one ant for us” or “give me a pile of sugar” and you’re like… okay? and you do, because why not, it isn’t hard for you and boy is this going to be a fucking story to tell, these fucking ants chanting your name and wanting a spoonful of sugar or whatever.And SOMEtimes you get asked for things you can’t really do, one of them, she’s like, “I love this ant but she won’t pay any attention to me, make me important to her” and you’re like… um? how? So you just kill every ant in the colony except the two of them, ta-da! problem solved! and the first ant is like *horrified whisper* “what have I done” …._____________________________________________________________________Meanwhile another colony of ants invades your house, and evidently that last ant has gotten some of them to join her in a circle and taught them the ritual because you’re coming out of the bathroom one day and you hear the ants singing your name. Sure enough it’s that ant, but she’s dark and fucked up now, and she’s like, “kill the queen. I will rule this colony” and you’re like, sure, I guess I kinda owe her, and you do it. And she manages to become queen, and they worship you. Which is cool, you’re not, you know, very important in the human world, but to these ants you’re practically all-powerful. You can’t be just, doing everything a bunch of ants tell you to, though, when would you watch netflx? So you tend to only show up for super important ants; you teach them some extra words and when hear them you go see what’s up. Usually. Also just to your name, if you’re bored. And, sometimes some of the ants are like, tell us more human names, and you’re kind of jealous of the idea of some other human diluting your private godhood, so you refuse. Your roommate Greg is like, yo, that’s fucking awesome, I want ant worshipers! But whenever he approaches any, they run away, because it turns out that the illusion of control from the named summoning is what makes them feel safe around you. That’s great, because Greg is a dick who never does the dishes, and one day you decide to teach Greg a lesson.So you show up at the colony, and you’re like, “yo, witch queen, did you think there would be no price for all these things? Your colony must do something for me, go to the Room of the Housemate, I will meet you there.” And you go sit on the couch and play Overwatch for a while. You’re like, right there, you can clearly see the ants all marching along the wall to Greg’s room, but to them you’re not even there, you’re so far away they can’t see you. It takes them, like, an ant week to make the journey. They have to figure out ways to get over and around things. Some of them drown, or get stepped on by the dog, or whatever. You win a game, you lose a game, you look over, and they’re trying to get through some cobwebs… looks like they’re mostly going to live, you keep playing, you look over, okay they’re all in there, and you stand up and walk over and by the time they’ve chanted your name once, you’re there. “right, hold on” and you look around and you see a twelve-pack of Greg’s precious fucking soda, that he keeps in his room and refuses to ever share, even though it’s a communal food household and you share your hot chocolate with him all the time. So you gather the ants unto you, and you poke a little hole in each of the sodas and you leave the room to the sound of the ants rejoicing. Greg will suspect of course, but he’ll never be able to prove the ants didn’t chew holes in the plastic and steal his stupid drinks. But later, while you’re at work, Greg destroys most of the colony in a rage, and you come home to find the witch queen gasping her last “the Dew of the Mountain, which you had us steal, was cursed - and so I lay my curse on you” and then she dies.Well first of all, you don’t really believe in curses, but last month you didn’t believe ants could know your name, so that’s unsettling. And second of all, you feel kind of bad. You know, not SUPER bad, cause she’s like, an ant. But still. And most importantly, third of all, Greg must pay.But Greg has done more than kill a bunch of the colony. As you wait for eggs and pupae to replenish the ant population, you discover he has found some ants that didn’t go on the Mountain Dew raid, and he’s spared them, told them his name, and made himself a good sized cult in YOUR fucking ant queendom.Greg has started locking his door. So now you NEED the ants. Once again you direct the ants loyal to you to journey to Greg’s room. You meet them at the door. A locked door means nothing to the ants, they don’t even know there is a door, and can barely perceive the difference between it being open and shut - either passing the threshold on the floor regardless, or being on its surface no matter the position. But you need them to get inside. You’re going to put itching powder in his underwear drawer and leave a raw fish under his bed. So you instruct the leading party of ants how to go into the Cave of Keyhole, and position the Magic Megaliths inside just right to enable the opening of the Great Door and allow you to pass into the Realm of Housemate.Crouched by the door, you can hear when your ants are met by a party of Greg Cultists, who insist that if the Great Door is opened, the colony will be doomed. There is fighting. Your ants prevail, the lock tumblers are moved into place, and you swing the door open…To find Greg! In his room all along! It’s a trap! His cultists attack you! I mean, they can’t do much real harm, but it kind of hurts and it’s super annoying. You order your ants to attack him, and they do, but he storms over and pours bleach down the colony entrance.Now you and Greg are at war, and you both understand the unspoken rules to your fight. You can’t do things directly to each other, why, that would be assault. But anything you can get your ants to do is fine, because “she told the ants to do it to me” isn’t going to get very far with any authority figures that get involved. Later, nursing your anger, you confer with your few remaining ants and stare moodily at your new prize, the ant farm that came in the mail. Bullet ants don’t usually get along with sugar ants, but you’re betting they will if a god tells them to. Meanwhile, you’ve got a laptop schematic to go over with your high priestess. It’s finals week, and if you time it right, he’ll lose everything.…You look down into the summoning ritual. The current high priestess, Zé, is an ant of great influence and personality - you quite like her, inso far as a human can be friends with an ant that worships them. You thought the new queen would become the next high priestess, but according to Zé the queens don’t like to come out of the colony after they shed their wings. Plus they are very busy laying eggs and supervising the care of their ant larvae. Zé says it’s a better deal for you, this way your high priestess can have the time and energy to really serve your interests, and wield an authority among the colony that is purely yours - no conflict of interest, and no baby making duties. It’s really just what’s best for both you and the colony queen to have her as high priestess, she informs you, making you laugh at her flattery-wrapped ambition.There’s no laughing this evening though. It’s serious business on the docket tonight.“O wise and ancient entity of power, you grace us with your presence!” and for formality’s sake, she intones the additional ritual greeting from their holy books “You Look Fantastic, Have You Done Something New With Your Hair?” Ants don’t really understand hair. You respond as you have become accustomed “Thank You, Yes.” It’s just easier. They mean well.Mystic greeting complete, Zé and the rest of the dark clergy move straight to business. Several 10s of them line up in formation, creating a diagram of the apartment complex. You had to coach them into how to make it, as far as they are concerned it’s a complex sigil that conveys knowledge to you - for creatures that traverse the building in long journeys along the pipes in the walls and in the spaces between the lower ceiling and upper floor, it looks nothing like the apartment complex as they know it. Zé claims to understand it, but secretly you suspect she’s just mostly cementing her authority among the clergy. She has, usefully, memorized which parts of the sigil correspond with what parts of the building, and that’s good enough for your purposes.“O mighty being, we have done as instructed. Our scouts had to search wide for them, but we have left the corpses of many termites in all the locations you specified, every night this week.“Very good,” you assure them, “and the Greggorites?”“Our spies among them have learned of their next attack. We should be able to influence their timing somewhat.”“Good. And..” your eyes narrow, “the other thing?”“Ah, yes.” Zé’s antennae wave and dip in that way you know means she is uncomfortable. “to the best of our ability to find out, the… Antifreeze initiative was entirely conceived of by the Demon Lord Greg.”“Just Greg,” you tell Zé with bitter hatred as tears threaten to spill down your cheeks. “Greg is not a lord, just a fucking prick who’s going to get what’s coming to him. I swear by all of creation he will.”“Is there…” Zé trailed off and tried again. “O Deity of my heart, far be it from me to question Your Exaltedness, but help your poor servant to understand… your plans have become, they seem perhaps, I am sure I am wrong, they seem, overly audacious? Your recent change in demeanor has made some, not me!”she interjects hastily, “but some of the less devout among my sistren, have become concerned…”Your fists clench. “I don’t expect you to get it. I’m pretty certain none of you could possibly understand.” Your voice breaks. You clench your teeth. You won’t, you won’t cry in front of your ant worshipers. You lean down and say in the strangled half whisper that is the only way you can force the words past the lump in your throat, “He killed my dog, Zé…”The ants flee the sound of your terrible wailing.The great Finals Erasure had worked to more devastating effect than you had anticipated, and things had… escalated. Then Greg proved himself to be less human that the ants that had turned out to be such surprising little beings. You strongly suspected, of course. Now you are sure: the orders for the heinous act came from him. And so, there are things that have to be done. You call the ants back out of hiding, and get to work.In the end, it was easier than you thought it would be. You talk to all the neighbors, without Greg. You hide the relevant pieces of mail. You have the scuba gear and the stuff from the sex shop shipped to a friend’s house. You ensure your spies among the Greggorites have escape plans, though Zé assures you they are ready to sacrifice themselves to the cause.“I’m not that kind of Deity,” you tell her.The night before, your ants slip a double dose of tylenol p.m. into Greg’s milkshake. You almost laugh; all your efforts to make sure there is only soup to make for dinner, and he comes home with Burger King.He sleeps so soundly that he never comes close to waking the whole time you are attaching the padded bondage equipment to his limbs and hiding with him in the closet. The walk through by the company inspectors that morning is a tense moment, but as you suspect, they don’t open the closets. After they leave to do their work outside, you finish your work inside, tying Greg to his bed. By the time he starts to wake up, you are sitting in a chair in the doorway to his bedroom, with your mask on. The air is beginning to thicken and discolor. Greg coughs around his ball gag and opens his eyes. You feel curiously calm and empty.“Hi, Greg.” Your voice is muffled, “You like my dive mask?”Greg makes an angry questioning noise, spread eagled to the full extension of his limbs. “Oh, yeah, that must be uncomfortable. Can’t give you enough slack to jerk against the ropes, though, or you might leave tell-tale bruises through the padding.” More angry noises, coughing.“Hhhmm? Oh, did I forget to tell you? It’s termite day, Greg, they’ve tented the house. That’s Sulfuryl Fluoride you’re breathing. You’ll cough for a bit, you’ll throw up, and your heart will stop.” He’s thrashing around as much as the ropes will allow, which isn’t a lot. He’s pretty energetic about it, though; maybe he can’t hear you over his efforts.“You shouldn’t have meddled around with godhood, it didn’t suit you. Power compromised your judgement. You definitely shouldn’t have fucking killed my dog, Greg”You’re suddenly filled with rage. You need to know he hears you. You stride over to the bed and grab him by the throat. Not too hard, you try to remember through your anger, no bruises. The grip is enough to make Greg stop thrashing and look at you with wide wide eyes. “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE FUCKING KILLED NAYA YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! WHY? WHY? HOW COULD YOU!? SHE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!” Just as suddenly, your anger is gone. You feel tired. You look down at him and shake your head.”Time to die, Greg.” You cross the room and sit back down in your chair in the doorway.Watching him die isn’t easy, but it’s not as hard as watching Naya suffer through acute kidney failure. Afterwards, you take off all the bondage gear, throw it in a duffel bag. You leave through the back, rolling out from under the fumigation tent against the back fence, and packing the scuba gear into the duffel before you climb into the neighbors yard.A month later, you’re moving from town to town. The colony has become so large you’re going to need a bigger truck full of clay for them to live in. Maybe an old Uhaul.The ants bring you a newspaper. They bring you everything now, food, money, information. Word of how you value the life of each individual ant has spread through the colony, and reports brought back from the apartment by scouts confirming your status as a godslayer has …elevated… their worship of you. You open the newspaper to find Greg’s death has made the papers. No suspicion of foul play despite the exterminator company lawyers insisting on an autopsy. Tylenol p.m. in his system accounted for his presence in the building, it was decided, and the failure of the inspectors to notice Greg in bed during their walk through was settled out of court, paid off by their insurance. The ants bring you a conga line of grapes, peeling them for you while you stare off into space. You’re going to have to teach them how to disable cameras - the leaked security footage of hundred dollar bills slipping themselves out under the bank doors has caused a bit of a stir on some parts of the internet… you eat another grape, and count your money. As usual you put half of it in an envelope, uncapping a sharpie to write “From Naya” on it.The ants will slip it under the door of the local animal shelter for you tonight.END

#cthulhu #ants #writing

22 notes · View notes

always-the-little-spoon · 7 years

Text

Sterek A-Z Challenge: one word prompts

Week 8: H - Home

Forty-two hours stretched over four days. That’s how long Derek had been trapped in a tiny car with Stiles, and it was enough for Derek to admit that he should have ignored Stiles’ protests and sprung for tickets for both of them to fly because Stiles could not sit still. He fidgeted constantly.

Stiles played with the radio, the electronic locks, the windows, the seat controls, the contents of the glove box, the map, the sunroof, and even Derek himself. No amount of growling or fangs could stop him. It’s like Stiles wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

Derek had almost strangled Stiles when he’d demand they stop for “pee break” only two hours after leaving Beacon Hills. Four days of diner food, crumbs on the seats, and scenic rest stops. There had only been one point that had been non-negotiable: hotels. High-end, or nothing, and Derek happily footed the bill to sleep on clean sheets.

There was not enough money in the world for Derek to sleep in a low-end motel filled with the scent of other people's deeds, deaths, and other indiscretions just because Stiles could afford the rate. No better way to spoil an already crappy day by laying down on a pillow that smelled like semen.

But that was in the past. They’d just crossed the Hudson and were heading towards Derek’s loft on the edge of the Upper West Side near Columbia.

After receiving Stiles’ call at the beginning of May, Derek had finally set foot inside the loft for the first time in five years. It had been Laura’s. When she died, her assets had been transferred into Derek’s name as the last known living relative. Peter had supposedly been in a coma at the time.

The call had been tentative. So timid and hesitant. At first, Derek hadn’t been sure it was really Stiles, but someone impersonating him, trying to lure him in, which had only been more worrying. He may have left Beacon Hills, but Derek still cared about his pack. Stiles in particular. The fragile pack human whose emotional damage rivalled Derek’s own.

Derek still wasn’t sure how it happened. One minute Stiles was asking him about New York and for advice on the city and finding a place to live near Columbia. The next thing Derek knew, he was offering Stiles the loft and a new roommate.

Stiles’ face was pressed to the window to stare up at the skyscrapers. Occasionally he wiped the glass with his sleeve when his breath fogged it over. They were stuck in traffic, but Stiles was enthralled.

The only time Derek drove in the city was when he was coming or going. For the full moon, he would probably drive up to their old cabin upstate where he could shift and run. He’d been living there until Stiles had contacted him.

“This is so cool! I’ve never been to New York before,” Stiles said. He wiped down the window with his sleeve again and squished his nose back against the glass. “I mean, I went to DC during spring break, but you know, so not the same thing.”

Derek flicked on his blinker to change lanes and the taxi behind him honked. “I know. You didn’t stop texting me.”

“Hey! You love my texts.” Stiles whipped around and jabbed a finger in Derek’s direction, and Derek raised his eyebrows at him. “Don’t lie.”

Derek rolled his eyes, and Stiles punched him in the shoulder.

“Jerk. Okay, so love may be a bit strong, but you liked it. Admit it, sourwolf” Stiles said, leaning across the armrest to nudge Derek in the side and wiggled his eyebrows at him. “You loved hearing from me.”

“Stiles, you once chronicled your first encounter with a bidet via text.” It had been amusing, not that Derek would tell Stiles that. It would only encourage him.

“It was an experience!” Stiles nearly smacked Derek with the back of his hand as he flailed about.

“One that I didn’t need to share,” Derek muttered. Shoulder checking, he wedged the nose of the Camaro into the other lane. He hated driving in the city.

“Well, fine,” Stiles huffed. He slouched in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “Next time I do something epic and exciting, I won’t tell you.”

Derek clenched his jaw to keep from grinning because Stiles pouting was surprisingly adorable. “Good.”

“You suck,” Stiles muttered.

“It’s more of a chewing motion,” Derek shot back before he could stop himself. It had been an old comeback with Laura. The city was already starting to get to him, and they hadn’t even stepped out of the car yet.

Stiles gaped at him. “Did- did you just make a joke?”

Derek shrugged. “It’s been known to happen.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles exclaimed, fumbling for his phone. “I need to text Scott! Sourwolf’s got jokes.”

Derek lunged for the phone, snatching it right out of Stiles’ hand before the brat could even unlock the screen. Stiles made a strange strangled noise in shock before he planted a hand on Derek’s thigh and tried to climb over the armrest, while still wearing his seatbelt, to steal the phone back.

The battle was a mess of flailing limbs and sharp elbows at a stoplight. Stiles clipped Derek in the jaw which caused Derek to bit his tongue and split his lip. By the time the blood dripped off his chin, the superficial wounds were already healed.

Derek shoved Stiles’ face away from him. His skin was warm and his breath hot. The hand on Derek’s thigh slipped, and Stiles’ head hit the steering wheel. Stiles shrieked, and his head slammed into the roof when he jumped at the blast of the horn.

The light had already changed at the intersection. Derek shoved the phone under his butt and sat on it.

“Oh, come on,” Stiles said. He flopped back into his seat. “You know me better than that.”

Just as Derek shifted the car into gear, Stiles wedged his hand under Derek’s butt. It was weird. Fingers wiggled.

When they stopped at the next light, Derek grabbed Stiles’ wrist and growled at him. His eyes flashed blue and his fangs descended.

Stiles froze, eyes wide.

Derek dropped Stiles hand and backed off. “Sorry.”

“No.” Stiles voice cracked, a little hoarse. He cleared his throat. “No, it’s fine. I just... I missed this.” He shrugged.

Derek turned down a quieter side street and glanced back at Stiles. “Yeah?”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah.

Derek ducked his head and smiled. He’d missed this too. Whatever this was. He’d never made sense out of the complicated relationship he had with Stiles. They were packmates? Comrades? Friends?

The truth was, Derek trusted Stiles. That was more than could be said for most people, even the rest of the pack. Time and time again, Stiles had proved himself. Risking his own life for Derek’s.

The car was silent until Derek pulled up to the curb.

“I’m keeping the phone,” Derek said, and climbed out of the car, taking Stiles phone with him.

Stiles kicked open the passenger door, making Derek wince at the harsh treatment of his baby. “Like hell you are,” Stiles shouted.

Slipping the phone into his back pocket, Derek stepped up onto the curb beside Stiles and looked up at the old building. “We’re here.”

The building was quaint. Old brick work, wide windows, and a cobble stone walk to the stone stairs. Laura had been all about aesthetic. Derek had been sixteen at the time. Cute hadn’t been a priority unless it was going to suck his dick.

Stiles stared up at the ten story building, head tilted back and mouth slack. “Woah.”

Derek tore his attention away from the soft curve of Stiles’ exposed throat and busied himself with retrieving Stiles’ meager possessions from the trunk. He hadn’t brought much. A single worn duffel bag stuffed with clothes and his laptop.

“Woah?” Derek repeated.

“Yeah. Woah,” Stiles said. He shrugged helplessly and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I mean, where’s the doom and gloom. The creep factor?”

Derek grunted and slammed the trunk closed. Shouldering the duffel bag, Derek thrust the laptop into Stiles’ chest and jogged up the front steps.

“Hurry up.”

Stiles was still standing on the sidewalk clutching his laptop to his chest and blinking up at the building. “What? Oh!”

The lobby was empty, but it brought back memories, like the time Derek and Laura had lost patience with the ancient elevator and opted for the stairs with twelve boxes of pizza at three in the morning. By the time they reached their floor, they’d already eaten two whole pizzas a piece.

Derek ran his fingers over the claw marks in the wood in the elevator from the time he lost control shortly after the fire. He closed his eyes and drew a shaky breath. They’d spent the night curled up together on the couch watching horrible B-movies under a single blanket that smelled like home.

A gentle hand on his arm brought Derek back to the present. Stiles watched him with a quiet expression of unadulterated understanding and acceptance. Not trace of pity. Stiles knew loss.

Tugging Stiles by the arm, Derek pulled him into a one-armed hug, burying his nose in Stiles’ neck and inhaling. Returning was harder than he thought it would be. He was thankful Stiles was here with him.

Timidly, Stiles curled an arm around Derek’s waist and propped his chin on Derek’s shoulder. It was new and different, but good. Like unlocking a new level in their turbulent friendship.

Most interaction in the past had involved slamming Stiles into various hard surfaces and heavy amounts of sarcasm. Gentle had never been in their repertoire, at least not since losing Boyd. Derek could still recall the warmth of Stiles’ hesitant hand on his shoulder.

The hinges of the painted red door of apartment 10A creaked and groaned as Derek eased it open. The gust of stale air made his nose twitch. Stepping back, Derek gestured for Stiles to enter first.

Stiles took a deep breath and marched into the apartment. He stopped dead center and turned slowly on the spot to survey the interior. The apartment was bare with a thin coat of dust. Derek followed at a more sedate pace, casually glancing around the large open room.

“Nice to see your decorating skills are up to their usual standards,” Stiles teased. “No hole in the wall. Classy.”

Derek dropped Stiles’ duffel bag at his feet. “Shut up, Stiles.”

Grinning, Stiles set his laptop down on his bag and jogged up the stairs to the single loft bedroom, disappearing from sight to explore the room they’d probably fight over later.

Wrinkling his nose at the tickle of dust in the air, Derek opened one of the large windows that overlooked the street below. He inhaled the burst of fresh air and sighed.

“Hey, sourwolf,” Stiles called.

A few seconds later, Stiles’ head poked over the rail, and Derek raised an eyebrow at him as if to ask ‘what? and Stiles grinned down at him.

“Welcome home.”

#little spoon works #sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #teen wolf fanfic #tw #teen wolf #mieczyslaw stilinski #eternalsterek #sterek a-z challenge #sterek a-z

72 notes · View notes

post-post-goth · 7 years

Text

the angelic process interviews sourced from some anonymous dude

Black Doom With White Curtains

The Angelic Process Gracefully Walks the Ambient Metal Tightrope

Oil and water. Orange juice after brushing your teeth. Conscience and the Bush administration. Some things just don't go together, no matter how hard you smack the square peg into the round hole. Most bands realize this and safely stay tucked into their little niches. Understandable. Others attempt fusion, and the few who achieve a modicum of success are rightfully hailed as awesome. From Miles Davis to the Jesus and Mary Chain to Kevin Federline, there are varying degrees of fusion as well as realization. Apart from silly matches like vegan hardcore and classical piano, perhaps the most delicate balance an artist can strive toward is that of ambient music and metal. It's a bit of an understatement to state that it's a thin line where the two meet. On the one side sits ambient music, defined by its master Brian Eno as "aural wallpaper," meaning that while it can be deeply absorbed through close listening, it also serves a secondary purpose by pleasing the ears in a background role as white noise. It's music to read to, condoning both zoning out and blissing out. On the other side crouches metal, particularly doom. The past couple of years have seen metal open up a lot of doors, and no other subgenre has gained more than avant metal. Alabama's The Angelic Process has for six years been striving for just that balance, and with increasing rewards. K.Angylus and MDragynfly were kind enough to give me some of their heavenly time recently, and expounded upon the art of mixing volatile cocktails of powerful music.

Flagpole: I understand you have a soft spot for Athens.

MDragynfly: While not an Athens native, I spent a good deal of time there and eventually ended up moving to a sweet little house off Chase St. There's nothing spookier than walking down Boulevard at 2 am, but I think some of my best soul searching was spent pounding the pavement, trying to find myself. It was a rough period of time for me, but Athens will always be my true home. I moved to Alabama to be closer to my family and stayed after getting a great job there. (Laughs) Not that I didn't love working at Taco Stand; it's the kind of thing you have to do in a college town. After moving, I met K and everything with the band came together. We still spend a good bit of time in Athens when possible, and I stay in touch with a lot of my friends there.

Flagpole: I'm a huge fan of ambient music, first and foremost. Before I get to the subject of metal, how much of an influence does ambient/drone/etc. play in your music? I'm fascinated with how two extremes such as this and doom metal can meet in the middle and create such a wondrous maelstrom. The two make strange but hot bedfellows. What is your purpose in blending these two genres, among any others? It's a feat very few can pull off. Could you describe how you go about balancing the delicate with the brutal while avoiding the cliché soft-loud formula?

K.Angylus: The use of drone plays a very important part in The Angelic Process' sound. Drone is a very primal sound element that can be found at the foundation of most all ancient cultures. We take drone and instead of just letting it drift like a lot of ambient music does, we harness it, give it a charged emotional connection to the song. Drone is such a powerful thing and most bands never properly recognize that. When we first applied that idea ofdrone, with the heavier, more extreme end of metal, everything just fell intoplace.

MDragynfly: I generally tell people that we're not as much composers as we are translators. It's more stream of consciousness than method or formula. We like to show the full spectrum of emotion or state of being, everything from hate and anger, hopelessness, to absolute joy and epiphany. To us this is what living sounds like, and when we write something it is obvious if it is an Angelic Process song or not. Our purpose isn't to play with our audience like puppeteers, leading them forward quietly and then slamming them into a wall. It seems that some bands are going for that. What I want is something that a person can wrap themselves up in and then ride the wave, whether it is through joy or pain. I always hope that our music is an experience, perhaps even a spiritual one, as it is for me.

Flagpole: Avant metal has received an enormous amount of fanfare in the last couple of years, due to the dominance of the mighty Sunn O))), the reemergence of the mighty Earth, as well as many others. It's fertile ground right now, to say the least. How does it feel to be part of it? Why do you think this fairly young genre (or subgenre, if you prefer) has ratcheted up so much interest? I'm speaking of doom in particular, but also Jesu-type shoegaze metal and black metal, which has surprisingly crept into new corridors.

MDragynfly: I am so excited for our genre right now. Around the world people are discovering us (collectively) and can't seem to get enough. I think part of that is due to bands like us and like Isis who seem to bridge the gap and make a smoother transition into doom, black metal, and other more extreme genres. Many people are becoming disenfranchised with pop music, not only the sound, but the attitude and the way it makes (or doesn't) make them feel. They need something deeper, and with the internet all kinds of music are accessible to people who might have never encountered it otherwise. MTV is losing its stranglehold over what people will be exposed to. I can't wait to see how things change over the next few years.

Flagpole: Obviously like everyone else you guys love My Bloody Valentine. Would you say shoegaze is on par with drone and doom on your influence list?

K.Angylus: I always loved the experimental attitude the shoegaze bands had toward the guitar and that they never lost sight of using it as a songwriting element. Obviously, My Blood Valentine was something extremely special and stood well apart from its contemparies. Loveless was one of those albums that, when I heard it, changed the way I thought about music. That fluid guitar sound really resonated with me. Combining it with things I liked about other bands seemed like a natural response.

Flagpole: How does your sound translate to the stage?

K.Angylus: Extremely well, we believe. Most people think we layer everything on the records a million times to get that sound, but it's not nearly as much as one might think. We build our own FX pedals and modify all our gear. That combined with my playing guitar with a cello bow created much of that sound. So live, we use volume and our absoultely HUGE bass sound to fill in the spaces, along with a laptop for the drums and additional atmospherics.

Flagpole: So what are your plans for the near future?

MDragynfly: We've got a lot of exciting things going on this year. Our new album Weighing Souls With Sand will be out on May 15th on Profound Lore Records, and then Sound Devastation in the UK will be releasing it on vinyl around mid-July. We will be touring as much as possible in the US and Europe to promote these releases and are really looking forward to meeting everyone who has given us such great support. We feel extremely fortunate.

"How It All Started" 06/07/06 Rockbeast.com Interview

The Angelic Process have just released their harrowing EP ‘Sigh’ and re-released their phenomenal conceptual album ‘Coma Waering’ and are causing many utters of interest in the murky undergrowth of the doom/drone scene. Whilst delivering blissful melancholic ambience and sporatic waves of intensity, The Angelic Process are an act that can take you on a journey of emotional perils whilst leaving you wholesomely naked in the end. I got the chance to join the journey with K.Angylus and M.Dragynfly and let them tell me what their process is all about.

Lee - How did The Angelic Process come together and what were the initial intentions for creating the band?

K.Angylus - The Angelic Process came together in April of 2001, when we wrote and recorded our first 4 songs that were released as 'theangelicprocessep'. As Swans were/still are my favorite band, those initial songs took a lot of influence from late era Swans, in the use of crescendos, transitional structures, and that overwhelming aspect that was so much a part of them. The desire to move away from typical drumming, into a more tribal, tom and crash heavy area came from listening to Neurosis's 'Times Of Grace'. My Bloody Valentine's experimental guitar sounds rounded everything out. I began to play my guitar with a violin bow, to achieve a more textural sound, allowing the bass to anchor everything down. We wanted to create the music we weren't hearing others make and wanted to hear ourselves and I wanted to make music that might mean to others what Swans music had meant to me.

Lee - How would you define the progression of your music from the first initial release to now?

M Dragynfly - '...And Your Blood Is Full Of Honey' (our debut album from 2001) is more doom oriented, seeming to find different ways to express the same kind of emotion or state of mind. Our second full length from 2003, 'Coma Waering' is more dynamic, expressing a myriad of emotions... definitely more melodic... picks you up and carries you along on this warm, intense wave.

K.Angylus - From a technical stand point, we have learned how to better write and record Angelic Process songs. 'Coma Waering' took a huge step forward be ditching the drum machine of '...And Your Blood' and using live drums. As M said, the melodic aspects were greatly increased and really helped us define our sound...and the ambient drone metal subgenre.

Lee - When it comes to the creative process do you have an initial idea of what you're heading for in terms of sound and dynamics or do you just go with the flow as such and let it all come naturally?

K.Angylus - We've been doing The Angelic Process for over 5 years now and have over a half dozen releases, so we have that history to draw upon. A lot of songs begin out of drum patterns we record or specific melodic progression we are going for. We're lucky to have reached a pont where we can plan out to a certain point and then let the songs build themselves naturally.

Lee - What Influences The Angelic Process?

K.Angylus - That feeling I get when I listen to Swans...those moments where they will build things up and up and then change chords and you just feel it in the pit of your stomach. I want The Angelic Process to be for others what Swans are for me. That transcendental place where you lost yourself and let go. We aspired to those lofty musical ambitions from the very beginning and that's what still keeps us going.

Lee - You've recently just released an EP called 'Sigh', the music flows almost conceptually, is it meant to? If so what thematically ideas are incorporated into 'Sigh'?

K.Angylus - 'Coma Waering', which was recorded right before 'Sigh', was a concept album about a person lapsing into a coma and eventually dying. I think the resonance of death and transcending life carried over to 'Sigh' and influenced the atmosphere a great deal.

Lee - You've had a couple re-releases of earlier material, any plans for the next full length album?

M Dragynfly - We've actually already finished writing and recording the next full length and are playing some of those songs live, but with 'Coma Waering' finally seeing a proper release and the success we've already had with 'Sigh', we want to take the time to properly promote everything and not just skip over them for the new record.

Lee - For such a chaotic yet blissful sound, how do you manage to incorporate the atmospheres into a live setting?

K.Angylus - Live, I play guitar and sing, M plays bass, and we have the drums and ambient effects coming from a laptop. This is the first time in our history that we've actively pursued playing live and this setup works the best for properly presenting The Angelic Process' music. Live, our sound is clear, loud, and maintains that balance of beautiful and noisy that the records have. To the point that someone at our last show was so overwhelmed, that she just started crying and couldn't explain way. To move people in such a physical and emotional way...it really is just amazing...

Lee - Do you plan to come to the UK at any point soon?

M Draygnfly - With 'Coma Waering' being reissued on London based Paradigms Recordings and the overwhelming interest and support we're receiving in Europe, we are doing everything we can to coming to the UK as soon as possible. Financing a tour is the only obstacle we currently face and as soon as we can manage, we'll be there!

Lee - Where do you stand on the whole doom/drone culture that seems to be taking off now (after many years)?

K.Angylus - It's both good and bad, just like when anything starts to break out beyond it's initial stages. A lot of really interesting bands are finally getting heard, while at the same time, there are a lot of people who totally miss the point of the doom/drone idea, that create terrible, derivative music. For every one band that creates something powerful and moving, there are 10 that just copy Sunn O))). M said it best when she said, "good music is good music, but do something creative, do something that is your own."

Lee - For any fans reading this on ROCKBEAST, what would you like to say?

M Dragynfly - Thank you very much for the support and we hope that everyone continues to enjoy the music as much as we do.

VERSUS MAGAZINE INTERVIEW OCTOBER 2006

THE ANGELIC PROCESS: Maximum Volume Yields maximum results

“The Angelic Process was started in April 2001 and we were quickly picked up by Crucial Blast Records, K.Angylus remembers, they issued our debut album '...And Your Blood Is Full Of Honey' as a limited edition cassette. The music was much more doomy than it is now and had a heavy "Swans, with My Bloody Valentine guitars" vibe.” ‘Coma Waering’, their 2nd and more melodic release that came out in 2003 and got recently reissued by Paradigms (go and see the review in this issue), keeps the nearly-physical impact of a thick wall of guitar sounds, but with live drums that show more subtlety. Then, the ‘Sigh’ EP which was composed last year hammered it in. After that, TAP took a break until last year when bass player MDragynfly joined K.Angylus. Soon, the duet plays live and takes a new beginning.

LIVE VS STUDIO

“we finally played our first live show in January and have played quite a bit since, MDragynfly remembers, The first show was amazing...a huge rush that lasted for days. I think we've become quite addicted to playing live. When you see someone moved to tears by your music...I don't know. You can't beat knowing that for a space of time, you connect with someone like that. For us, playing live is not only thrilling but a spiritual experience as well”. K.Angylus adds : “We're extremely happy with our live sound. Live, it's M playing bass, me playing guitar and singing, and all the drums and atmospheric sounds coming from a laptop. This is the way we've found it works best, allowing everything to come through very loud, but also very clear. It was very important that everything be as clear as possible, so it wouldn't just be a big mess of sound. Best of all, you can FEEL it! At shows, the volume is very high and you can feel the sound and the bass pushing against you, but you can still hear all the melodies and little atmospherics that make the records so special. We also change some of the songs up while rehearsing, making them different from the recorded versions. It's always fun to reinvision something you're created and lived with for a while...there are actually several songs that I like the live version more than the record.” At first a strictly studio project by obligation, TAP has turned live (too), but without forgetting the old good habits, just like MDragynfly explains: “We pretty much never stop recording (Haha)! So, we're constantly throwing new songs into our sets to see how they go over. We can then take the feedback we get from the audience back into the studio. It gives us an outside perspective that we wouldn't have otherwise. For me personally it is difficult not to release music right away, just as soon as it is done. I love sharing it, and having unreleased material feels like having to wait 6 months to give someone a present. I want to know if it makes other people feel the way I felt writing it. That's how I know a song is really right. “

WORK IN PROGRESS

K. Angylus: “Swans, My Bloody Valentine, Neurosis...those are some bands that directly influenced us in the early days”. MDragynfly adds: “I think that people don't necessarily pick up on the classical influence in our music. Transitional structures, movements, the layering of sound that builds to a huge overwhelming climax. In centuries past you needed an orchestra to be able to achieve that.” And one’s wouldn’t think about contradicting them when one’s considers the epic dimension of crescendos and other sonic storms, which can also conjure up an affiliation with the Swans by the way, while the ‘shoegaze meets metal’ thing can evoke Jesu. And finally, this duet reminds us of another one, Loveliescrushing, in a more hammering and heavy way… almost post-apocalyptic. Thus Athens, with its creative vivacity, finally turns to be a place that’s great for the band and its original mixture, just like MDragynfly explains: “Athens has always had a very dynamic scene. A lot of the trends there depend on the students at The University of Georgia, so it is interesting to see the progression when new students come in. There is a constant flow of creativity from the full time residents of Athens, and the locals can give you a taste of just about everything from blues to punk, southern rock to black metal. The experimental scene seems to be making a comeback with the help of Paul Thomas and our friends at Xray Cafe, which has been the underground home of experimental music and art for several years.”K. Angylus: “Recently, our biggest project has been taking over Decaying Sun. It was a label we've worked with a lot and released our 'Sigh' EP and reissued '...And Your Blood Is Full Of Honey' through. It is a small label and the people involved decided they no longer had the time to invest in it and since our records were selling the most and keeping the label afloat (as well as it being named after our logo), they offered to hand over full control to us to do with as we pleased. We will continue to release our "official full lengths" with other, larger labels, but Decaying Sun will allow us to release limited edition Angelic Process records directly to our fans. Within the next month, we plan to release the first of 2 or 3 limited edition EP's centered around some of the songs from the next full length. Since we've been playing some of these songs live, fans have been asking us to release them. We ended up recording a lot more than will be on the record, so we'll be throwing a few songs people have been asking for, with some that will be exclusive to the limited EP's. Each copy will be numbered and signed by us, will come in a special made box, and be decorated differently to make each one unique. We will also be including a few little extras in each box.”. To finish with, let’s hope that this band, which has been skilfully dealing with reissues so as to make them a new beginning, will then move from the ‘ultra underground but praised’ status to the ‘recognized jewel of the post-doom/noise scene’ one.

Will be in a few pieces so bear with me.

THE ANGELIC PROCESS

"There was a moment while working on our 3rd full length 'Weighing Souls With Sand' that I will never forget: I was looking at the big marker board we have in the studio that has all the songs titles and categories for guitar, bass, drums, vocals, atmospherics, etc [to show what has and hasn't been done] and I realized there were 15 songs and every category was checked. Another Angelic Process album was nearly complete."

Formed in 1999, and hailing from the Athens Georgia realm, the husband-and-wife duo of K.Angylus and MDragynfly have been known to create some of the most mesmerizing and moving music within the ambient drone-metal musical realm... Garnering already a huge response with the 2006 re-issue of "Coma Waering" [Paradigms Recordings], a recording that is actually four years old, The Angelic Process now deliver said album's follow-up, namely "Weighing Souls With Sand."

The Angelic Process Centering around a concept that continues the story begun with "Coma Waering", "Weighing Souls..." is the inevitable aftermath as the band explain:"'Coma Waering' is a concept record about a man falling into a coma and eventually dying.'Weighing Souls With Sand' is the follow up to that concept, this time about the man's wife trying to deal with his death and failing, eventually committing suicide."

Sound-wise picture the wall-of-sound through the fuzzy celestial grace of My Bloody Valentine, the tribal ritualistic pulsations of Neurosis, the emotional fervor and bloodletting of Swans, and the powerful grace of Jesu, and here you'll get a glimpse of what "Weighing Souls..." shall offer. And then some...

Roadburn Records is proud to present "Weighing Souls..." on vinyl [a limited edition up to 500 copies: 300 black, 100 yellow, 100 red].

Words | K.Angylus

Following up a record as loved by our fans and widely acclaimed as 'Coma Waering' was never gonna be easy. Every time I start a new Angelic Process record I always wonder if the songs are going to be there this time. I think a lot of musicians go through that, but for me, it had been 4 years since I wrote 'Coma Waering.' The flood of reissues [Coma, our debut '...And Your Blood Is Full of Honey', and the 'Sigh' EP) at the beginning of 2006 garnered us a lot of buzz and it was clear people were wanting to see if we could top ourselves. MDragynfly had just joined the band [who is the perfect sounding board and an amazing musician] and we were finally able to play live, so pretty much everything had changed from when 'Coma' was written.

I think it was playing live that most influenced WSWS. With 'Coma', we had established our sound. Playing those songs live required use to alter some of the arrangements and strip the songs down. The new songs we were writing followed that line and had less repetition, more parts, and faster mouvement between those parts. We stripped away some of the ambient noise that 'Coma' used so heavily and increased the complexity of the melodies we wrote. But most of all, we were able to tighten up the arrangements by playing them live and seeing what worked and what didn't.

Having our own studio is very important. While the initial arrangements are worked out beforehand, most of the texturing and ambient atmospherics have to be worked out while recording. We build our own FX pedals and modify our gear, so we have a large number of sounds and textures at our disposal. We very rarely use synths or electronics, preferring to use guitar, bass, drums, vocals, keeping everything as organic as possible. We also master our albums to tape and not just in the computer. We use computers to sequence tracks, but everything is run back out onto tape. Maybe this is how we keep so much warmth in our sound. Another thing I would like to mention: all the drums are live, mic'd drums. A lot of people seem to think we use a drum machine, but we don't, not since our 2001 debut. I had a custom kit build before I started recording 'Coma', the toms are bigger than normal, so we get a deeper resonance and bigger sound. Same with the crash cymbals...we just like big, deep drums.

So, after 8 months of writing and recording, we had a finished album. A lot has already been written about the extremely personal nature of the concept that runs through both our 'Coma' and WSWS. I've decided not to address it here and talk more about how the songs came together and little stories that come to mind about them in this track by track account:

The Angelic Process The Promise of Snakes

This was the last song written for the record and the only song where there was no bass on it until everything else [except vocals] was finished. M and I did the intro and the first two riffs and just continued to write new sections around permutations of those riffs. After everything was written, I recorded all the drums and guitars in one day, then we didn't touch it for a while. We were at the point of having to many songs to fit on the record anyway, so including a 9+ minute song meant we would definitely have to cut a song or two that we already liked. So it remained unfinished, until one day M grabbed her bass, came in, and nailed a quick take of the whole song. We went driving around and listened to the vocal less version and it just crushed! So I went back in, hammered out the vocals, and ended up with my favorite song on the album.

Million Year Summer

After we restarted the band and had been playing live, we realized we didn't really have any songs that were just full blast from start to end. We have a ton of 7+ minute mini-epics that take you on a roller coaster ride, but nothing we could throw into a set to shake things up. It was the third song M and I wrote together and was put immediately into our live set. It has been played as either the first or second song at every show we've done since. At under 4 minutes, it's the shortest 'song' we've ever done and one of the best. It also sound great on just acoustic guitar...

The Resonance of Goodbye

The second song M and I wrote together, 'The Resonance of Goodbye' is one of those songs where the title and music fit together perfectly. Such an incredibly emotional and just plain heavy song, we played it live for a while, but had to stop because of how difficult the vocals are to perform. For whatever reason, certain notes in it just shred my vocal cords. But I really love this song. The little shimmery melody that follows the bowed guitar in the intro, then leads to the feedback fade in of the massed guitars never fails to get me right in the gut. One of the most powerful songs we've written by far.

We All Die Laughing

One of our most popular songs and one that almost wasn't a song at all! We were in the middle of writing for the album and I had demoed the first 3 minutes or so and hated it. It just wasn't coming together at all for me, but I played it for M and she loved it and made me promise not to trash it. The Angelic Process Everyday, she would come in and listen to that first 3 minutes and make notes about what could follow it. We then took those notes and continued to write until we reached the version that is on the record. Definitely a song that would not have been at all if M hadn't worked so hard to make it come together.

Dying In A-Minor

The second to last song written for the record. By that point in the writing, we had established the concept for the album and had a basic running order, so we knew we needed a song to bridge the first half of the record to the second half. I had written the middle section in rehearsal one day and kept coming back to it. Something about the movement of the chords really struck me. M and I worked on it without drums, just guitar and bass, and wrote the end section. I then mixed some heavily filtered guitars with a washy synth for the intro. When I put down the first layer of vocals, you could just hear the backing vocals in there, so I put those instead of layering guitar melodies like I did on most of the other songs. In the end, it's the least complex song on the album, but it's all the more powerful for that simplicity.

Weighing Souls With Sand

One of those songs that comes together quickly and is done. I did a lot of weird vocal layering on this one that most people don't pick up one. I really like the flow and forward momentum this song has. It really gives the album that push into the end. After about 2 weeks of talking it out, we decided this would be the album title. It just has that certain something. That right combination of words that envokes images and emotions, especially within the context of the album.

Mouvement - World Deafening Eclipse

Since the flow of our albums is EXTREMELY important, we use shorter tracks to bridge the gap between certain songs. I knew in the beginning that I wanted to do this, but also wanted to make sure that listeners knew these weren't suppose to be viewed the same as the actual songs. So, since I am a fan of classical music and the transitional structures we use are based off of the way classical music is sometimes arranged, I called these tracks "mouvements". We wrote several that didn't make it onto the record. Being bridge tracks, they have to be just right and really highlight the songs their between. It has some great flitered guitar atmospherics and nice chord changes in the middle. M really loves this one and we plan to play it live.

Burning In The Undertow of God

I love the dissonant notes during the first loud section and the ever shifting chord patterns throughout. The more open chord voicings allowed me to use a different approach to the vocals and use more circular guitar melodies underneath. We did a lot of guitar arranging in the studio, after the drums and some bass were tracked. A lot of little subtle things are going on in the guitars, lots of harmonic elements that create little melodic things that weren't intended, but sound great. As soon as we wrote it, we knew it would end the record. A great song, this was featured on Terrorizer Magazine's cover CD.

Mouvement - The Smoke of Her Burning

This was actually written and recorded as the original ending to 'Burning In The Undertow of God', but we decided to split it into a separate mouvement to help give the album a more defined ending. In the original version, it was much longer and had a vocal section, but it seemed to slow the pace of the album down to much. When we cut out those sections and added the more ambient outro, everything just fell into place.

How To Build A Time Machine [Hidden Track]

We left tracks 10-16 blank to give a little separation between this song and the last mouvement. To me, this song feels like the summation of the record. It was originally intended to be somewhere in the middle of the album, but ultimately just sounded to out of place. But still, a great song that I am really proud of. It's always nice to include some kind of little hidden/bonus thing at the end of a record, but we wanted to make sure that the hidden track we chose wasn't just some throwaway track and still related to the record.

#doom metal #doomgaze #interview #the angelic process

4 notes · View notes

chocolateheal · 5 years

Text

27 Things To Know About Action Painting Art Definition | action painting art definition

The Conception are the analogue of a bandage band. They alone existed for a abrupt spell—formed in 1966, fell afar in 1968— but during those months, they bore a complete that could’ve fabricated them stars. Adding to the Creation’s attitude is the actuality that they weren’t broadly heard at the time. In their built-in Britain, they eked out alone one hit, “Painter Man,” which aching the Top 40 at No. 36. But that’s bigger than they managed in the U.S., area they about didn’t exist; their four singles stiffed and the accidental 1967 LP We Are Paintermen never alike embodied in America.

"A Virtual Essay on Gutai" at Hauser & Wirth (Contemporary … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Eurodisco accouterments Boney M took their awning “Painter Man” into the UK Top 10 in 1979, but that had little to do with the bandage of the Conception that was already able-bodied underway. The aboriginal accurate beginning of Conception acquaintance accustomed in 1978, back the Jam clearly affected a Conception 45—“Biff Bang Pow,” the addition of “Painter Man”—in their collage of afflatus and self-celebration in the close sleeve for All Mod Cons. By the aboriginal ’80s, Television Personalities were accoutrement their songs and the band’s arch apostle Alan McGee formed a characterization alleged Conception and called his indie bandage afterwards “Biff Bang Pow.” Fan adherence doesn’t appear abundant clearer than that.

By that point, Edsel appear How Does It Feel To Feel, the aboriginal in a alternation of Conception abstracts created for British Invasion, freakbeat and attitude collectors. Many agnate collections accept appeared over the aftermost three decades, but Numero’s new double-disc Action Painting is the aboriginal Conception accumulation advised to address to admirers who ability not already apperceive them. It’s for bodies who may be acquainted of the bandage through the enduring consequence “Makin’ Time” fabricated in Wes Anderson’s 1998 blur Rushmore, or conceivably Ride’s awning of “How Does It Feel To Feel” in 1994, or maybe they aloof assurance Numero’s curation of the abandoned corners of our agreeable past.

vocabulary27-rodneisha cannon | Collage | Paintings – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Action Painting absolutely contains its own beneficiary bait—the aboriginal disc includes remasters of the band’s aboriginal address mixes supervised by their ambassador Shel Talmy, while the additional contains all the ahead un-reissued aboriginal abandon the accumulation cut as the Mark Four forth with new stereo mixes—but its amount is in presenting the assignment of this amazing bandage in an calmly comestible fashion. The sequencing of Action Painting gives their short, agitated activity some coherence, presenting a anecdotal area the accumulation keeps blame adjoin the pricks of their time.

For outsiders, Shel Talmy may accommodate the best aperture to the Creation. Talmy produced the ancient hits of the Kinks and the Who (he’s amenable for the proto-metal bang of “You Really Got Me” and the audacious affront of “My Generation”) and the Conception benefitted from his edgeless touch. On his productions, Talmy ratcheted up the agitated pop-art of the Who back they were at the aiguille of their mod swagger, a move that was alone applicable for a bandage who seemed to abide in an abiding now, accompanying hoovering up account from R&B-besotted mods and affective psychedelia. In that sense, the Conception sometimes flirted with the abolishment of the Move, but area Roy Wood generally advantaged in irony, the Conception were sincere, never adopting an angled countenance back abracadabra after-effects of babble and accomplishments their whimsy with absolutely nasty, bent guitar riffs.

Non Objective Painting Definition What is Abstract Art … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

The conception existed in a hot abode amid mod and psychedelia, alignment amid the delirious barge of the above and the mind-warping analysis of the latter. Listen to “Sylvette,” one of their ancient numbers: it’s about a carbon of Eddie Holland’s “Leaving Here”—notably covered by the Who on their 1965 admission My Generation—but the Conception feels coiled and lethal, as if they were advisedly befitting their abounding ability in check. One of their arch attributes is that they sounded almost vicious.

Innovation never played into the Creation’s legacy. Guitarist Eddie Phillips sawed a violin bow beyond his six strings, a move Jimmy Page would steal, but the bandage embodied their time added than transcended it. The activity that the bandage was consistently on the bend of a advance is what makes them agitative to this day. Decidedly in the address mixes that comprise disc one, they are active and alive, sometimes hinting at the apple-pie curve and big exhausted of mod, but usually aural like the adventurous access of pop art. It doesn’t cull you into a bookish atmosphere the way the best psychedelia does, it aloof detonates. “Biff Bang Pow” takes its name from banana art—the appellation suggests the hyper-stylized Batman alternation of 1966—and it rampages like the Who on a bender and it never makes a comedy for the head. Alike “How Does It Feel To Feel”—a churning amphitheater that suggests consciousness-expanding obsession—pushes beef over brain.

27 Best Jackson Pollock images | Abstract Expressionism, Action … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

The Conception accustomed aloof as the British Invasion befuddled off regimented R&B influences, again they ancient aloof as bedrock started to get added and weirder. Certainly, a bandage that was blame bawl organs and bawl guitars could’ve survived the breeze bedrock era, but that aboriginal abridgement of success pushed the bandage into a alternation of cadre upheavals, eventually dooming the band. Yet, their brief, afire activity is additionally why they abide captivating: they lived minute to minute, blame out their best account because it was acceptable they’d never survive to addition seven inch. Action Painting reflects this urgency, decidedly as the singles accumulation up one afterwards addition on the aboriginal disc. Here, the Conception generally anamnesis their peers—they’re as abandoned as the Who, able as the Kinks, as self-aware as the Move—but they assume absolutely original, a bandage with the ideas, complete and songs for the big time, but one that never bent the appropriate break. They are adored and accursed by absolute for a flash.

27 Things To Know About Action Painting Art Definition | action painting art definition – action painting art definition | Allowed in order to my blog, with this moment I’m going to explain to you with regards to keyword. And after this, here is the primary image:

40 Brilliant Examples Of Color Field Paintings – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

What about graphic above? is usually that will awesome???. if you think maybe consequently, I’l m show you a few impression yet again down below:

So, if you like to have these outstanding graphics regarding (27 Things To Know About Action Painting Art Definition | action painting art definition), simply click save link to save the pictures in your personal pc. They are available for transfer, if you appreciate and wish to get it, simply click save logo in the post, and it will be instantly down loaded to your laptop.} As a final point in order to have new and latest photo related with (27 Things To Know About Action Painting Art Definition | action painting art definition), please follow us on google plus or bookmark this website, we attempt our best to offer you regular update with fresh and new pics. We do hope you love keeping right here. For many updates and latest news about (27 Things To Know About Action Painting Art Definition | action painting art definition) photos, please kindly follow us on tweets, path, Instagram and google plus, or you mark this page on bookmark section, We try to offer you up grade regularly with fresh and new shots, love your exploring, and find the right for you.

Here you are at our website, articleabove (27 Things To Know About Action Painting Art Definition | action painting art definition) published . Nowadays we are excited to declare that we have discovered an awfullyinteresting contentto be pointed out, namely (27 Things To Know About Action Painting Art Definition | action painting art definition) Most people attempting to find information about(27 Things To Know About Action Painting Art Definition | action painting art definition) and definitely one of them is you, is not it?

27 Best Jackson Pollock images | Abstract Expressionism, Action … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

4. Learn to paint Abstracts | | LifeART School – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Abstract Art: Definition, History, Types, Characteristics – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Checkliste Action Painting – Was brauche ich? | Action Painting – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

annipainting: Research Point 27: Abstract Expressionism – Tachisme … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

GOD ART,GOD DRAWING,GOD SKETCHES,GOD PAINTING,GOD ILLUSTRATIONS,INDIAN GOD, Anikartick,Chennai,TamilNadu,India – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Abstract Expressionism | Boundless Art History – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Action Painting defined – From Goodbye-Art Academy | “JACKSON … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Willem de Kooning Paintings Gallery in Chronological Order – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Artwork of the Day: "Action Painting II" by Mark Tansey … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Checkliste Action Painting – Was brauche ich? | Action Painting – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Liquid Explosion Painting! | Follow me on Twitter at … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

'Yellow Islands', Jackson Pollock | Tate – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Kooning, Willem de: Fine Arts, After 1945 in America | The … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Venus in Aries: Willem de Kooning – The Oxford Astrologer – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Abstract expressionism – Art Term | Tate – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

Where is Action Painting Today ? The Heritage of Jackson Pollock … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

27 Best Pollock images | Abstract Expressionism, Action Painting … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

10 Facts about Abstract Expressionism – Fact File – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

1000+ images about Expressionism And Abstract … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

27 Things That Happen When You Are In Abstract Expressionism Art … – action painting art definition | action painting art definition

from WordPress https://americanartist.club/27-things-to-know-about-action-painting-art-definition-action-painting-art-definition/

#usa action artist #action painting art definition

0 notes