#sci fi has slowly overtaken my brain

[delimeful]

Okay, I've been wondering this about your alien bois - did you come up with them all yourself, or were they someone else's brainchildren and you just said "I wanna take the Sanders Sides and write them as these cool aliens I found"?

Either answer is fine, the first one commands MASSIVE respect from me because I know how hard creating a brand new fictional race is (got one in the works and hundreds more waiting in the wings).

haha, yup, all the alien guys are all of my own creation :)

tysm, i really am proud of how much love and lore i've put into each and every one :'D

[yaldev]

Pole to the Head

CLANG!

The world spins, tilts, and hits the left side of my body. It hurts, but my other temple hurts more. The fireball floating in the middle of the room putters out to nothing, leaving the training chamber devoid of heat and light once again. All that’s left is smoke and the oppressive fear of his presence above.

“Up!” shouts the Sergeant.

You can tell a wound is bruising by the cool rush of icy blood under the skin.

“Now!”

I turn my face upward and scowl at him. Well, I more scowl at his weapon. Sergeant Wortes’s chosen instrument is a thin metal pipe, a spare part for the chamber itself, looted from the equipment room. Its hollow interior doesn’t make its strikes any softer, only louder.

“UP!”

“Yes sir!” I answer, forcing enthusiasm through clenched teeth. I lug myself back to my feet.

“Again! Knees bent more!”

“Yes sir!”

Apparently the idiot can’t figure out that you don’t help someone learn to focus by hitting them over the head. I bring my stance low to the ground, elbows against the sides, hands forward, palms up, fingers half-curled. Blood flows through the joints, carrying not the icy fear of pain, but the heat of a still-living heart.

The heat translates. I imagine the floating fire back into reality. Part of why you connect your spells to different movements is to create those kinds of mental habits. Sometimes you have to be told what to think. Whenever I do this, think of that. In the magical arts, what you think and how you think it counts for a lot. I expand the blazing ball until it’s a couple of feet across. Any other magic takes actual effort when I’m panicking, but my fire’s my specialty. It comes naturally.

Sergeant Wortes walks slowly around me, pipe still in hand, pried eyes looking for any weakness. He’ll find one.

“Pretend it’s urgent.” He suggests. “Pretend you’re needed.”

The sphere flares up for a moment as I weigh the arguments for and against setting him ablaze.

“Pretend it’s a cold night. Ambush. The enemies are creatures of the night. Ungodly things, powers from the dark and all that. The soldiers need to see, so you need to hold the sphere steady, no matter what they-!”

The inflection in his voice clues me to brace. Pipe to the back of the knee. A half-step forward to recover my balance, a flicker in the flame, but we both persist.

“Good!” He congratulates me condescendingly, reversing the direction of his pacing. “But they won’t just go for your knees, boy. Your whole body is a target. Face, shoulders, stomach-”

He strikes my kneecap.

“Rnnnnggg!” I groan in pain, falling to a kneel, covering the impact point with my hands. The fireball puffs out. Tears rise in the corners of my eyes.

“Up!”

“I know!”

“Then UP!-”

A thrusting strike to the back of the head sends my face hurtling toward the ground. Only breaking the fall with my forearms saves my nose.

“Up!”

The metal floor is cold against my palms. I can feel the dirt clinging to my skin. I protest.

“I can’t get up if you keep-”

“That doesn’t save a mission! UP!”

He’s not wrong, technically. With one leg shaking I climb back to my feet, unassailed this time.

The Sergeant orders: “Keep it steady now. You’re lighting fuel, they have nothing else that’ll do it.”

Stance low to the ground, elbows against the sides, hands forward, palms up, fingers half-curled. Thank Pelbee for that heat in the knuckles, that fire in the aching veins. When the rest of the brain is scrambled, that feeling is the anchor that holds down my magical focus by association. Sergeant doesn’t see what it actually takes. He can’t see the practiced intensity of thought and concentration, the tiniest rip in the Aether it creates, the invisible outpouring mana whose potential I narrow to only one purpose: keep the fire going. 

“Focus, kid.” He advises me, pressing the tip of the pipe against my nose. He pushes my face back. The fire weakens, but stays alight through the distraction. I hate him. I will not fall. Not again, and not because of him.

“In a fight,” he brings the pipe away and starts pacing around me again, “you can’t afford to lose focus. Even if they hit you. ‘specially if they hit you.”

He’s in front of me now.

“They won’t have guns, but they’re also not going to go easy on you like I am!” I shut my eyes just before it hits. 

Fire.

A resounding blow to the forehead. My consciousness ripples. I clench my jaw so tightly it feels like I’m going to push my own teeth out.

Fire.

But still, I keep balance. The fire continues, for the fire is everything. There’s nothing else to distract me, because that’s all there is.

The fire.

“Good.”

His compliments mean nothing.

“You’re shaking, you’re crying, but it’s still going. That’s good. You’re learning.”

My fingers curl fully into fists. Sergeant Wortes puts the pipe under my chin and tilts my face up. I still don’t open my eyes. The sight of him would make me angry. I just bring the fire closer. It’s easier to sustain when it’s closer.

“Maybe Bruzek’s right. Maybe there is something in you.” He pulls the metal pole away. My chin slumps down. “After a few more sessions of this you might actually be usable!” He starts walking around me again, swinging the pipe in small circles, ready to strike at any moment.

It’s a mistake to confuse hate for anger. Being angry at someone is just an emotion, a distraction for the mind.

“You can’t keep your eyes closed in battle.”

But to hate someone is just an opinion, and opinions can be rational.

“No matter how scared you are,” he steps behind me, “kid.”

Hate doesn’t have to replace thought. It can be the driver. My mind is still clear. The flame burns pure as ever.

“Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up for-!”

I hear his sleeve move. Fear supplants all at once. My whole body tightens. The strike never comes. He chuckles.

There is no passion in what I do next. I’m overtaken by a surge of untainted reason. He is below me. His existence degrades mine. This is an error to mend. I must mend it.

The fire shapes into a giant gauntlet over my fist as I whirl around and punch him in the face with the explosive force of a still-beating heart!

The blast of flame sends him flying halfway across the chamber, his limp body rolling across the floor before settling face-down. Panic sets in. While I’m whimpering and patting out the fire on my uniform it doesn’t occur to me once that I could have just extinguished it magically. I breathe hard, cough twice from the smoke, and turn my attention to Sergeant Wortes. He’s not getting up. Shit, what do I do? What do I do?!

Oh, he’s on fire. Fixing that’s a good start. I run to his motionless body, hold out a hand, vividly picture a gust of wind running forth across my arm. The resulting jet of air puts out the last of the flames, leaving the training chamber devoid of heat and light once again. All that’s left is smoke, and the oppressive fear of his absence below me.

Yaldev is a fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding project based on Beeple art. Through a combination of narratives, in-universe documents and stylized loredumps, it reveals the story of a planet in magical pandemonium, the nation which rose to conquer it, this empire’s inevitable collapse and the new world which emerged in its wake. The project has major themes about perspective, imperialism, nationalism, nature and the metaphysical battle of law against chaos. For all stories in chronological order, check out the pinned post on the subreddit at r/Yaldev, or this album on the Facebook page!

[thesunlounge]

Reviews 161: Talking Drums

I’m most familiar with Patrick Ryder through his music writing, as he has a real knack for providing evocative and tastefully far-out descriptions. This is especially apparent in his longtime relationship with Growing Bin Records, having provided most of the reviews for the label’s illustrious discography (check out that killer piece on Eleventeen Eston’s At the Water). As well, Patrick can be found providing staff reviews for Piccadilly Records and there’s no telling how much I’ve bought based on his tasty words alone. So it’s no surprise that he’s also a skilled selector and creative editor, using his Talking Drums project to explore “an unsafe space for poorly executed dance moves, misjudged vibes, and narcotic bravery.” There is a wild and freewheeling spirit at play in these edits…a true sense of balearic adventure according to the earliest definitions of that word and in that way, these two volumes of tropical funk, zoned out disco, cosmic body music, and filter house fantasy sit nicely alongside the mysterious Love Creation edits and Kenneth Bager’s longstanding and subversive Balearic Blah Blah series.

Talking Drums - Talking Drums Vol. 1 (Talking Drums, 2018) The disco beat backing “C60 Lato A” is awkwardly slow and that is wholly part of the charm. This time-shifting dancefloor heat is washed over by wild oscillations and scorching noise skree and there are addictive childlike sun chants repeating through the mix. Vibrant drums and a funky twanged out bassline give the groove shape and as the searing noise clouds recede, joyous vibes of some eternal paradise party enter via ascending saxophone harmonies. The body moving bliss is soaked in solar positivity and Afro-sunshine and since everything is slowed down, the guttural low end brass instruments end up sounding like weirdly filtered monosynths. At some point meditative organs work their way in the mix and the vibe somehow grows even brighter and more ebuliient, especially once skronking and expressive sax solos intertwine with vocal scats and conversational singing. Everything is buried under layers of rainforest percussion and the riffing organs have vibes of 60s psychedelia, while the backing choirs and their staccato chants unite with feedback smears and rattling noise clouds. It’s impossible not to stomp your feet and clap your hands as the body merges with the sunshine dance perfection. And no matter how wild or hallucinogenic it gets, even with the vocals locking into shamanic funk spells, that twanging bass loop never relents and always keeps the groove on task.

Midnight guitar psychedelia introduces “Get Serious,” working ear-to-ear as sultry brass fanfares and wah wah serenades overlay a stomping beat. The horns grow ever more adventurous until we smash cut into a silky smooth jam led by freaky synth soloing, all cosmic wave dancing and LFO modulated insanity. When the singing hits, it’s apparent yet again that things have been slowed down, which adds a layer of drugged up delirium to the funk disco enchantments. The vocals sound like they are dipping into pools of molasses and the vibe is sultry and anthemic, as harmonizing voices are backed by sci-fi synth trails. Eventually we get another wigged out synthesizer solo that leads to a delirious climax…earnest voices smothered in heartache, tambourines jangling, ripping distorto-bass guitar riffs stomping into the sky while celestial brass cascades ring out. And after another passage through the “get serious get serious” refrain, we are once more immersed in a jaw-dropping synth solo, only now the mix is slowly overtaken by phased string synths and their majestic prog perfection, like rainbow winds carrying the soul to a heavenly kingdom in a sea of stars. Ripping fuzz guitar solos struggle to break through the epic phaser orchestrations and the bass guitar is so heavy, crushing mountains while the drums fade into vapor. It’s an atmospheric outro of pre-Darkside Floydian space rock perfection and just when you think it’s all over, another soulful vocal section magically fades back in for a final blast of deep disco romantics and blaring brass magic.

Talking Drums - Talking Drums Vol. 2 (Talking Drums, 2018) A Hungarian goddess and an exotic jam out sitting under heavy French touch filters…this is “Disco Danube,” which explodes into view with the kind of delirious looped disco magic perfected by Le Knight Club, also with hints of Ptaki. Hot guitar riffs jangle away while flutey synth sequences created LSD soundwebs and the muscular disco beats and slamming basslines work the body into an ecstatic frenzy. The track sits there looping over and over again…tripped out, lulling the mind into hypnosis…all setting up a brain melting fanfare of towering funk brass. Finally, the intoxicating vocal hook hinted at during the filter-intro makes its appearance, but each time it’s short lived as the track prefers to zone out into instrumental disco mesmerism with snake rattles moving across the spectrum and shadowy strings holding down ominous drone chords. There’s a moment when everything turns happy and sunny, with percolating sequences sounding like futureworld banjos joining earworm hooks of sparkling positivity. But this is all eventually decimated by those massive cinematic funk horns blasting away and after a brief rhythmic pull out wherein the mix is subsumed under high pass filtering, we launch yet again into physical disco fire. It’s a dancefloor bomb of the highest order, riding waves of sensual sexual disco fever until an outro that sees the whole mix blasted through brain piercing highpass filters and overwhelming aquatic echoes.

Of the four tracks across both Talking Drums volumes, I think “Space Talk” might be my favorite. Dark blasting bass sequences and cymbals made of noise lead some electro rhythmic sorcery and body music magic, with dissonant feedback, synthesis bubbles, and cosmic vapors underlying melodramatic male singing. Vibed out minimal funk shades are stoked by percussive chords and roto-tom fills fly through the mix under galactic delay fx. The “talking about / you and me” refrain alternates with desert noir guitar arpeggios and sometimes the vocals work in round with other lyrical snippets creating a headrush of dark intoxication. Crazed outerspace insect noises swarm around rimshots and cowbells weaving their hypnotic percussion webs and the whole thing is a nightmarish dream of forbidden physical euphoria. The verses are interspersed by passages featuring haunted synths and their soft psychedelic melodies working straight into the mind and at some point, feminine vocals replace the masculine and everything grows even headier. It’s like the murky kraut cosmica of Bison or the loved up and ass shaking acid vibes of Zmatsutsi, just pure dancefloor ecstasy for shadowy spaces…the absence of light…sweat covering everything…heat raining down…mind and body merging with the electro rhythms, chugging bass vibrations, and amorphous sheets of synth noise that glow with a strange neon light.

(images from my personal copies)