#the line between person and monster is getting blurrier by the moment

[peppered-moths]

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6

(When Scott first wakes up, he expects change. Of course he does- it's only natural on a server like this. Every time he's been yellow before, there has always been something new. This? This has to be punishment. A consequence. Something.)

He's hunched over, balancing on his toes, staring at the water, ignoring the way the sea spray stings his eyes. He reaches up, fingers moving carefully over the scales dappling his cheekbones-not green, yellow, or red, but instead a lapis lazuli blue. They feel right on his skin, somehow, like they've always been there. It makes him frown, because it definitely isn't right.

The changes had been gradual. The first scales had sprouted (he assumed) after his first death, speckling his shoulders and the top of his spine. He had realized only much later that they mirrored Cleo's axe blow, which made the ones on his face all the stranger.

His second death had resulted in sinuous patterns of scales snaking outwards from his heart, curling over the tops of his collarbone and down his arms. He hates that it's spreading like that- it looks like a disease. Maybe it is. Maybe the next time he dies, he'll grow gills, and be confined to the water forever. The thought scares him more than he'd like to admit.

He drops down onto the grass, letting his hand brush the warm water. The coral doesn't help either; it's not actually growing from him, he had simply thought it looked pretty. Scott has to admit, though, he looks significantly less human.

He picks up on footsteps through the omnipresent white noise of the waves, and glances over his shoulder, catching sight of Martyn's blond hair and new floppy seaweed headband immediately. He turns back, continuing to study his reflection. It's not the first time Martyn has caught him doing this in the past week.

It is the first time he sits next to Scott, feet splashing into the water and distorting Scott's face. He looks over at Martyn and raises a half-disapproving eyebrow.

"What was that for?"

"Sorry." He doesn't sound remotely sorry. Scott just hums, shifting slightly closer so that their shoulders bump together. The other man glances around. There's nobody in sight; T.I.E.S. are off doing who knows what, and nobody else has bothered to visit. Once he's certain there's an all clear, he shifts, allowing Scott to lean against him comfortably.

"Is something up?" Inadvertently, Scott's hand brushes against his own face again. He pulls it back down quickly, tucking it in his lap, but Martyn's eyes have caught the movement. He attempts to save face. By lying.

"Nope," he says cheerily. "Exciting session last week, wasn't it?" When you don't want to talk about something, deflect. He's very good at it.

"Yeah, I was there. Scott, what's wrong?" Damn it, Martyn's too good at this.

"I'm not sure," he finally decides. Martyn's brow furrows, and Scott shakes his head. "Sorry. Bad phrasing. I mean I'm literally not sure." He holds his hand out, palm down. It shakes, just slightly, from the memory of dying. It's... hard to forget. The scales shine in the light, little drops of ocean branded into his skin.

"What, you mean the fishiness? Isn't that just... yellow stuff?"

"It started when I was still green," Scott says quietly. "After Cleo killed me, they... just started appearing." He hopes Martyn gets the point- it feels a little weird to say I'm kind of afraid that I'm turning into a fish monster.

Luckily for him, Martyn connects the dots fairly easily. "So what happens when you die... ah. Hm."

"Yeah."

They sit there in silence for a moment. Scott bites the inside of his cheek.

"I just- what happens after? What happens if I die a last time-" (Martyn interrupts with a mumbled "Not if I can help it." Scott swats his shoulder.) "-and I- I turn into a sea monster or whatever, and that's it? I'd be stuck." Alone, his brain helpfully reminds him, which does not make Scott tense.

"Why would that happen?" Martyn's using his defusing-the-situation voice, and it irritates him to no end. He jabs a light elbow into his side.

"Come on, Martyn, you know me. And you know Them. This is their idea of a cruel joke, like making me the first boogeyman." Alone alone alone keeps rattling in his head, reminding him of the last time he was truly alone on a death game server.

(Ren lay before him, a bloody mess of arrows. The game was over. The game was done. And he was still standing.)

"Well, I'd come find you anyways," Martyn says decidedly. "I'd convince Grian to let me back, or- or I'd just break in." That startles a laugh out of Scott, and he leans his head against Martyn's shoulder, careful of the coral in his hair.

"Yeah? You wouldn't be too busy?" He means it to sound teasing, but it comes out with a note of raw truth in it. Nobody else had come back for him.

"Nah. Never too busy for y- for finding a teammate!" Martyn stumbles over his words, causing Scott to raise his eyebrow again. He feels Martyn shrug sheepishly.

"The scales are still a little weird, though." Martyn picks up one of his hands, seemingly ignoring his words. Scott allows him to run a thumb over the dark blue pattern.

"I dunno, I think they're kind of pretty." Martyn freezes, continues talking with a deer-in-the-headlights look. "Well, there goes my brain-to-mouth filter." Scott sits up again, taking his head off Martyn's shoulder.

He's still stuttering; Scott just rolls his eyes, trying to pretend his cheeks aren't warm.

"You're an idiot, Martyn." He cups the other's face and pulls him in.

For a moment, he can forget about curses, about those who watch, about anything but the here and now. He quite likes it, actually.

[objectivesubjectivity]

Second Chances: “A” Albums

The following are “A” albums I wanted to give another shot at Top 100 Condenterdom and/or favorite “A” albums of my peers. This is their last chance to continue on in the quest.

The Beatles - Abbey Road

For what it’s worth, my mom was an avid Beatles fan and procured most of their records in her teenage years. However, a handful of these albums were met with a sharpie from her sister who decided, if her name was on the item, it was hers. I’m pretty sure Abbey Road was one of those albums because I don’t remember seeing it on our record shelves growing up. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I don’t find it to be, as a facebook friend once commented, “not so much an album as it is a magical ray of sunlight dropped from heaven to prove that perfection is possible.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good album with very good songs and a killer ending opus, I just find it flawed in ways I don’t have the history to overlook. 

And this brings up a larger conversation about subjectivity and objectivity. I have long held the belief that the more people agree upon a certain opinion, the blurrier the line becomes between subjective and objective. “Graceland” being a “good” album is nearly an objective fact. Motown at a wedding party: “good.” the final season of Game of Thrones: “bad.” These are purely subjective takes that have found enough consensus to almost become objectively true. But how we land on that subjectivity in the first place makes a difference. And, for my money, it seems to be a combination of personal history and social influence. 

Think about it: Most of the opinions on the Beatles I come across stem from a deep history with the band. It helps that plenty of my peer group had parents who grew up in the hayday of Beatlemania and that adoration has filtered down through the generations. One might wonder, as Danny Boyle recently did, if one wasn’t to grow up on the fab-four, and was instead introduced to them much later in life, would this same reverence take hold? Or would they go down the Ben Shapiro “overrated” route?

And then there’s social influence. The more people that subscribe to a similar opinion, the wider that net becomes and the easier it is to access, often with less work. Take Nickleback for instance. I would put money down that most people who equate that band with the anti-Christ haven’t listened to more than a handful of hits. The general consensus is that Nickleback is “bad,” and so it’s much easier to stick to that opinion than to do the work necessary in actually forming it for yourself. Case in point: I personally received quite a bit of social media scorn for expressing enjoyment of Puddle of Mudd’s “Come Clean” (sorry, it’s an enjoyable listen). 

So back to Abbey Road. Clearly, in the musical world, there is consensus regarding this particular album (although even the Pitchfork 10/10 review doesn’t understand the appeal of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”), which makes my subjective opinion stick out like a sore thumb. And that sore thumb feels immense pressure from the musical zeitgeist to heal itself and become part of the fold. It is much easier to plop down in the wide, comfortable hammock of belief than to bear the weight of the side-eye, scoffs, and shame when you choose the stubborn old rocking chair. 

But I’m choosing to do the work on my opinions. Over 3 years worth of work. And objectively, I’m sticking to my subjectivity and leaving Abbey Road off the list.

R.E.M. - Accelerate

“Accelerate” initially jumped out at me because it accomplishes a rare feat: it actually sounds like a return to form. Mind you, the form it’s returning to is more “Monster” than “Murmur” but it’s light years away from “Around the Sun,” and to call that a welcome change would be a massive understatement. But it’s also light years away from “Automatic for the People” and “Life’s Rich Pageant.” And seeing that the latter didn’t make the cut the first time around, there’s no way this album’s gonna make it either.

U2 - Achtung Baby

This is a recent pick up and only got the second listen because a friend ranked it as one of their top “A” albums. In fact, I’ve only recently acquired any U2 albums at all. I don’t think I’ve spent enough time with them on the whole to make an opinion on which one of their albums I like the most and whether or not it belongs on this list.

Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

If you were to ask me, going into this week, what album had the highest likelihood of landing a spot on the list, I would have told you this one. I had only listened to it once (I grabbed a copy of it mid-way through phase one) but it made an immediate impression upon me and I was eagerly awaiting a second listen. So it came as a surprise that I was left feeling underwhelmed upon a second spin.

But then I happened to be at a friend’s party on Saturday and this friend put me in charge of choosing a record to play. There was a stack left on top of a speaker and hanging out underneath a stack of reggae compilations and a dusty copy of “Graceland,” there it was.

Perhaps I should add fate to that “history + social influence = subjectivity” equation because, after one more listen this morning, the contender list bumped back up to 119 again. Congrats, Neil.

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz

This is a really good example of how loose and free I was at the start of this journey. This album is far too overwrought to warrant a possible Top 100 slot and yet, I dabbled with that thought way back in 2016. Also, he’s still got two albums on the contender list, so there’s no big loss here.

fun. - Aim and Ignite

This album is a great example of what happens when there are no wrong answers and that’s probably why it struck me so hard the first go around. But while that limitlessness brings about ample moments of unexpected brilliance, it also can feel like no one’s really helming the ship and there are only so many times I can find joy in getting lost.

Steely Dan - Aja

Ultimately, it’s too jazzy for me, but I don’t regret giving it another solid listen. And I love me some “Peg.”

Grateful Dead - American Beauty

This was a tough one. On the one hand, these are 10 well-crafted tunes that clock in at a respectable 42 minutes and make for a very comfortable (and comforting) ride. On the other hand, they’re played with a looseness and devil-may-care attitude that, honestly, feels a bit disrespectful. But then again, I’m not a dead head; I’ve never quite understood the thrill of a 10 (20? 30?) minute solo. And to someone who lives for those meandering discoveries, perhaps the sloppiness is as necessary as the thoughtful arrangement. Perhaps those moments of infallibility make it all the more human and endearing. “American Beauty,” is staying off the list for now but it’s probably not the last time I’ll give it a good listen on this quest.

Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves

There are only so many ways you can go from the 1 to the 4 or the 5. And the more I listen to this album, the more that sentiment rings true. 

OutKast - ATLiens & Aquemini

It may be a couple years before I get to “Stankonia,” the OutKast album currently on the Top 100 Contender list, but I cannot listen to these albums without thinking about its strange and circuitous path and how that keeps its 24(!) tracks fresh. Both “ATLiens” and “Aquemini,” are stunningly forward thinking and ambitious, but their journeys’ aren’t nearly as thrilling or strange as “Stankonia.” And I can’t seem to get over that hump.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced

I don’t do enough drugs for this to make the list.

It’s also not fair to judge this album solely on the US version, seeing that the track listing on the UK one is vastly different. But both contain “Third Stone from the Sun.” And I just can’t dig it man.

What I listened to last week:

Top 100 contenders in bold.

The Beatles - Abbey Road

R.E.M. - Accelerate

U2 - Achtung Baby

Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz

fun. - Aim and Ignite

Steely Dan - Aja

Grateful Dead - American Beauty

Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves

OutKast - Aquemini

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced

OutKast - ATLiens

Albums listened to in total: 2,283

Top 100 Contenders: 119

Next week’s album: Aimee Mann - Bachelor No. 2 (Or, The Last Remains of the Dodo)

Think I missed an album? Challenge me! The list is alphabetical by letter.

[swipestream]

Short Reviews – Three Lines of Old French, by A. Merritt

Three Lines of Old French by A. Merritt originally appeared in the August 9, 1919 issue of All-Story Weekly. It was reprinted in the February, 1950 issue of A. Merritt’s Fantasy Magazine, and can be read here from Archive.org.

AMFM Follows up The Smoking Land with the A. Merritt short story “Three Lines of Old French”, and I’ve got to say, I really enjoyed it!

Dangerous confession time: prior to this, the only A. Merritt story I’d read was The Metal Monster. I’d found The Metal Monster ambitious and fascinating in what it set out to try to convey, but ultimately it dragged as Merritt struggled to describe in great detail the inconceivable (a race of beings that pretty much resembled Vector Man, only gargantuan). I’d been hesitant to check out his other work, because it took me so long to finish MM. Three Lines of Old French has made me re-evaluate and put Merritt back in the priority list.

Here, he masterfully conveys scene and imagery and powerful emotion in a relatively short space, telling a war story that transcends notions of horror and fairy tale and science fiction, teasing at darkness and nihilism while the true bait-and-switch promises love and hope.

A soldier in the trenches during World War One stares out across the trenches, keeping watching. Barely on the edge of conscious, cognitive thought, his mind is weakened and frayed into a near hypnotic state from extreme fatigue, the flashing lights of tracer shells and flares, and the rhythmic gyrations of corpses caught in the barbed wire of no-man’s land.

The story is recounted, to a group of scientists and physicians, of the seemingly impossible events that transpired in the blink of an eye to Peter Laveller, now deceased. A surgeon had wanted to conduct psychological experiments on soldiers who were at a mental breaking point, in this case planting a suggestion in young Laveller’s mind by simply waving a few words in front of his eyes, allowing his subconscious to fill in the gaps.

And fill in the gaps it does! Peter wakes up in a pleasant field near what must certainly be the chateau just a short way from the trenches in the even more pleasant company of a young lady, Lucie de Tocquelain. He doesn’t know whether he’s dead, sleeping, or if the war is over and he’s suffering flashbacks.

The story presents a visceral look at subjects like PTSD and Shell Shock, dissociative episodes in which one cannot tell what is real and what is not. Is Peter really with Lucie or is he in the trenches? Has he fallen asleep and failed his comrades, or is war in the past, behind him, haunting him? When he leaves, Lucie sends him back with a token of her love and the truth of their moments together, but Laveller is confronted by the doctor who claims credit for the experience—it becomes too much for him that so real and pure an experience, and the promise of life after death and a time and place of peace after all of the killing might be nothing more than a lie of the mind.

Laveller nearly kills the surgeon, he’s been so shaken from his reverie, but after being restrained, collects himself and apologizes. Thinking it has all been a trick of his mind, Laveller pulls the scrap which the surgeon had held in front of his face and placed on his person—over the lines of poetry the surgeon had shown him were written:

Nor grieve, dear heart, nor fear the seeming—

Here is waking after dreaming,

She who loves,    Lucie

The storyteller concludes his story, and one of his fellows insists that perhaps the surgeon had not noticed the lines written on top of lines, maybe they were too faint. No! the storyteller reveals, for HE was that surgeon! The implication, of course, is that Laveller had faith in life after death and that he would see his love again, and thus, after a brief convalescence, was able to return to the front and fight and die bravely with his comrades, for he was surely reunited with his Lucie in death. And Lucie truly had written those lines for him, present now in defiance of all reason across space and time.

It’s almost a meme in our circles that Merritt’s writing transcends genre and in his time the line between fantasy and science fiction was much blurrier, but he really hits all of the notes in this story: the sort of macabre and visceral horror that you get from a Poe or a Lovecraft, the nearly gothic fairytale fantasy of the pure, ghostly lover, and the mad science of manipulating the psyche of soldiers at war to create false experiences. In this story, much more than The Metal Monster, do I see Merritt’s influence of Lovecraft, CL Moore, and a whole host of other pulp writers.

Short Reviews – Three Lines of Old French, by A. Merritt published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

[vrheadsets]

VR Fantasy RPG Karnage Chronicles Gets New Trailer And Update

Battling zombies and soldiers in virtual reality (VR) is all well and good. There is, after all, plenty of opportunities to do both; and if you’re interested in slaying the former then there are a number of sales on at the moment where you can get a title to do just that. If you’re getting weary of gritty or scary first-person shooters, however, there are plenty of other options out there.  For example – how about engaging in a bit of high-fantasy gameplay?

It’s been a little while since we last discussed it but Oculus have just released a brand new trailer for Nordic Trolls’ room-scale fantasy action role-playing game (RPG) Karnage Chronicles – and it’s looking better than ever.

Originally released back in April this year on the HTC Vive through Steam Early Access, a series of updates throughout the year have seen the title gain support for the Oculus Rift head mounted display (HMD) and Oculus Touch as well as other improvements such as the A.I becoming more challenging. Karnage Chronicles.

Karnage Chronicles sees you delve in to a world of swords, sorcery and hack and slash gameplay that is rapidly tumbling down a slope of war and despair. You take on the role of a Murkwraith tasked with wrestling back a world under siege by dark forces and sinister plotters where the line between what is right and what is wrong is blurrier than ever. “Good and evil are mere shades of the same colour.” Explains Nordic Trolls “Where you come from, and what is your purpose, are questions you’ll need to uncover to shape your future.”

“It’s fun.” Explained Nordic Trolls’ Executive Art Director Daniel Arnold-Mist in an interview with VRFocus, discussing, among other topics the four-player co-operative gameplay. “Because what we’ve found is that the players can cooperate with each other in brand new ways in VR. Especially in combat. For example, in combat – as an example, during a fight if one guy sees an arrow flying towards you the other guy may catch that arrow out of the air. If they’re really good at what they’re doing.”

You can see the trailer below.

The trailer also follows a new content update earlier this week from Nordic Trolls which introduced a whole heap of updates including increasing gameplay time as well as revamping the saving system to allow for real-time saving. Although this change in function is so significant that previous data saves will need to be wiped by the update. “We have not made this decision lightly,” apologised the developer, “That said, we believe this patch is the best time to do this, both since we’re still in Early Access, and because it happens prior to any additional content increases. Unlocked achievements will not be affected.”

The update patch includes:

Minimum game time per hero class increased from 2+ to 5+ hours.

Completely reworked the start of the game and extended Level 1 to become a proper dungeon crawl.

Real time save system that keeps track of your dungeon crawling progress and allows you to continue from where you left off.

Two NPCs; one a quest giver with full voiceover and dialog options, the other being a shop keeper.

Quest journal.

Inventory system.

Complete customization of weapon loadout.

Magical potions.

Magical rings and necklaces.

A magical scroll.

Basic player housing.

A town portal system.

Additional mode of difficulty. (Easy, Hard, Impossible.)

New monster class; Spiders.

Quests and rewards.

New weapons.

Additional trash loot.

Randomized item drops from monsters and chests.

Additional secrets and puzzles in Level 1

This is just the first content update and VRFocus will be sure to bring you details on future ones as they are revealed.

from VRFocus http://ift.tt/2iIVx7U