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beewolfwrites · 1 year

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The Oar in the Sand - Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Seventh Day of Nostos

Here, have another chapter! Literally can’t wait for the reunion, but I also couldn’t help myself and decided to add some angst. Because it’s fun, and why not.

Enjoy :)

I honestly just keep forgetting to include these, but the AO3 link is here.

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There was something beautiful about stepping into the pink and blue dusk of the evening. The sun had almost set, the sky streaked with vibrant pinks, lavenders and greys. There was a screech of metal above, and I looked up at the sleek hotel before me. The King of Hearts blimp billowed in a gust of heat, tilted, and drifted to the ground like a burning star. It collided into one of the neighbouring buildings, the explosion sending a shockwave of hot air blasting through the streets.

I shielded my face with my forearm as a piece of paper whipped through the air and landed on my shoe. Picking it up, I realised it was a leaflet. The photograph on the cover was almost identical to the glossy skyscraper before me. The only thing absent was the busy influx of pedestrians and traffic outside.

‘The Tokyo Horizon Hotel.’

I flipped it over, looking at the pictures one by one. Everything about the staff seemed artificial to me, from the pristine red blazers to their immaculate hairlines. Despite this, I instantly recognised that glint in her eye, a slyness disguised beneath a professional smile. She was sitting at the very reception desk I had been leaning against just hours before, posing for the camera.

‘Izanami,’ I whispered, deep in thought. ‘She was the receptionist.’

A receptionist turned King. There was something unexpectedly funny about it, probably because it made absolute sense to me. She was the face of the hotel, having encountered every possible type of customer under the sun. She knew the ins and outs of the industry, was privy to the drama that occurred behind closed doors, and even the drama that filtered through the grapevine. Of course she was the King of Hearts; she knew exactly what made people tick.

And now she was gone. It was a shame. If not for the circumstances, I could have become friends with someone so carefree and easy as she was.

But I can still remember her.

I could still carry her memory with me, like a token or a good luck charm. In a way, she had died so that I could live. I just had to make it count somehow. For now though, I needed to find my way back home.

Back to Chishiya, to Kuina…

And back to my older brother, who was still out there, somewhere, waiting for me.

I wandered deeper into the city using only the familiarity of the streets to guide me. Thick swathes of tall grass covered the pavements and roads, and it was difficult recognising store fronts through the vines and foliage. Scattered around in the grass, the bodies of players had been reduced to bones, each one a victim of the King of Spades. They were still carrying their weapons, their clothes now rags against their hollow white skeletons. It wasn’t right that a human body should decompose so quickly. It meant that my suspicions had been correct all along; time was altered here. The city was a jungle, and as I waded through the overgrowth, Izanami’s words haunted my mind.

‘Life isn’t a race, it’s a labyrinth. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up going round and round in circles.’

Her dying words were uncanny. In her game, if I had simply carried on guessing answers at random, my points would have hovered around a neutral 25. I would have been trapped forever in that room, going round and round in circles.

It really was like a labyrinth…

How many times had I made a similar comparison with the city? Too many to count. It was as if she had read my thoughts, knew the ins and outs of my heart, as strange as it sounded.

And now as I roamed the streets, deftly avoiding stepping on bony fingers and spines, I realised that Tokyo was opening up, welcoming me back inside its web. Even as the darkness of the evening skulked along the corners and alleyways, I followed my gut instinct, tracing a mental map until I turned onto a smaller side-street, coming to a stop before the small building opposite me.

The furniture store.

There were no candles lit in the windows. No signs of life. I opened the door and slipped inside, tasting the dank mustiness of the air. It was cold, but everything was as it had been before we left. Our makeshift living room was still in place, the armchairs turned on each other in a circle, a flimsy coffee table between them.

Inside the small kitchen, I found a can of Kuina’s favourite corn soup in one of the cupboards. And so, lighting a few candles on the windowsill, I prepared the portable stove we had used to fashion meals with so many times. It was on the kitchen surface, a little dusty but still usable. I poured the can of soup into a pan and left it to warm up as I explored upstairs.

The staircase was dark, and the room upstairs even more so. But even in the darkness, I would have recognised that bed from anywhere. It was still as a photograph, a moment in time captured. The way the covers were thrown back, an indentation in each pillow, mine and Chishiya’s. It was only days ago, but it already felt like a fragment of our history.

I ran my palm along the bedside table, searching for the one thing I had left behind.

My ring should be here somewhere.

I wasn’t there. I searched the floors and under the bed, but my ring was nowhere to be seen. I raked my hand along every nook and cranny, feeling for its familiar shape, and only growing more and more frustrated when I couldn’t find it. This couldn’t be happening. It meant too much to me.

I can’t lose it again!

The only explanation I could think of was that somebody had been here after us and they had taken it. Or, it had rolled away into a corner where I couldn’t see it. As impatient as I was, it was too dark to look properly, and so I begrudgingly resigned myself to waiting.

I’ll have to look again tomorrow when it’s lighter. But still, my ring…

Sighing, I headed back downstairs to my simmering corn soup. A warm bowlful later, and I was curled up in my old armchair, trying to fall asleep in the ambient candlelight but unable to shake off the fear that the King of Spades would turn up when I least expected it, and I would become one of those many skeletons.

I tried instead to turn my thoughts toward Chishiya. Finding him was my first priority right now. Now that I was clear-headed, I could understand his perspective a little more. The detachment, the alienation. He had never truly told me about the full extent of his isolation. Only that his parents had ignored him, and he had been mostly raised by the house staff. When he first told me, in the lingering quiet after we explored each other’s bodies, I hadn’t appreciated the full weight of that moment.

And the way he’d fired his pistol at Banda, and sat waiting outside after I’d barricaded myself in one of the cells. Even our conversation in the hospital, his adamance that he wouldn’t take part in a game with me. I had been adamant too. I was willing to play together, even if only one of us survived.

‘Are you really willing to risk an outcome like that? How selfish?’

Back then, his words had thrown me off. They came across as strange and uncharacteristic, but in actuality, I was just blind.

I understand now.

I would feel it too. If Chishiya died in a game, where would that leave me? Wandering around Tokyo alone without a shred of hope. That kind of existence wasn’t worth living for.

God, he was right. I’m really am that selfish… we both are.

It was time to change things.

But right now, my eyes were heavy, so heavy, and it was becoming impossible to keep my mind from slipping away into a velvety slumber. Curled up in my armchair, I watched the light of the candle flames flickering on the wall like shadow puppets, until I fell into a heady, dreamless sleep.

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My eyes flew open.

I was still curled in my armchair, my neck stiff. However, the cold room was bathed in darkness. The candles on the window ledge had blown out, and only faint slant of moonlight filtered through the window, illuminating the armchair across from me.

A shiver brushed the back of my neck.

Someone’s here.

I gently unfurled myself, listening carefully for any indication of footsteps or breathing. There was nothing. Everything in the room was exactly where it was supposed to be. It was just the candles. I got up and walked towards the window, inspecting them. The wax around the wick was still warm and liquid. It could only mean they had been blown out recently.

Raising my head to the window pane, I saw my tired reflection staring back at me. And then I froze. A dark, familiar face grinned from behind me, hovering just over my shoulder. There was a click, and I felt the barrel of a gun press into my back.

‘Don’t even fucking think of moving.’

I should have known Niragi would find me eventually. It was only a matter of time. Although it was actually rather impressive that he was still clinging to the revenge he craved for his burn scars. It was an act of self defence, and most people would have moved on by now.

He’s not most people, clearly.

‘You’re the same as ever,’ I said, stifling a yawn. ‘Always trying to show off your guns. It must be tiring.’

‘I could say the same thing. Not going to show off that terrible foreigner’s accent?’

‘I don’t need to.’ I stuck to my native tongue, looking him straight in the eye through our reflections in the glass. ‘I know you can understand me.’

Niragi pulled a face of disinterest, but beneath the facade I could see his curiosity.

‘Back at the Beach, when you first confronted me about Chishiya’s plans, you seemed to be able to understand me even when I wasn’t speaking in Japanese. It was the same when I was at the bar, right before…’ His mouth quirked in self-satisfaction, and I dropped the sentence altogether. ‘And on the rooftop. You understood everything.’

He scoffed, jerking the gun harder against my spine. ‘What, did you think I’m an idiot or something? I went to school, obviously.’

‘You could have fooled me.’

It was only a mutter, but Niragi had heard it all the same. Grabbing my shoulder, he dragged me away from the window and forced me to sit in the armchair. I leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. He sat in the chair across from me, the handgun still pointed at my chest.

‘You clearly have something planned,’ I said. ‘Otherwise I’d be dead by now.’

‘Well done, genius. Even though I’d love to put a bullet in your brain, there’s something else I’d like to do. Something more fun.’

Niragi looked terrible. There was a strange gleam in his eye, and the charred remains of his hair were an unruly against the scarred rivers running along his skin. Even his clothes were in tatters. It was a wonder, after everything he had done, that he was even still alive.

‘We’re going to wait here for a while,’ he continued, ‘and then you and I are going to go for a little walk.’

I can see where this is going.

A walk was never just a walk when Niragi was involved. I sighed deeply, knowing that I was at least safe for now. At this point, Niragi was too predictable for his own good. No doubt, he was going to take me to wherever Chishiya was just so he could have the satisfaction of killing one of us in front of the other. But if he led me to Chishiya, I would happily go along with his plan for now.

Niragi hummed with fascination, the sound breaking through my thoughts. ‘You seem awfully compliant. What happened to the feisty little zebra who clawed at me?’

‘You have a gun and I don’t,’ I replied, nodding towards the handgun resting on his knee. ‘And I have no intention of dying just yet. My brother’s waiting for me.’

His mouth curling into a jagged smile. ‘Your brother, hm? What makes you think he’s still alive? He could be one of those skeletons out there, you know.’

The thought gave me pause for a moment, but I held my ground. I knew better. ‘He’s not dead. He’s in the other world. The real world, I mean.’

‘The real world.’ Something flashed in Niragi’s eyes, as if I had touched on his favourite subject. ‘Which world is the real world? You can live freely here. There are none of those man-made laws to hold you back from giving into your human instincts. You can kill or rape as many people as you want, take whatever drugs you what, there’s nobody to stop you. You can die freely too.’

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. ‘Well, since you’re here in this place, I’d much rather go back.’

Niragi didn’t seem fazed by the mild insult. If anything, there was a smugness about him, as though everything was vaguely funny. ‘You know, I’m surprised you’re here all alone,’ he said. ‘I assumed Chishiya would have come back, but clearly not.’

Now that was unexpected.

‘You’ve seen him?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And you didn’t kill him.’

Niragi shrugged. ‘Why would I, when I can kill both of you at once?’

I couldn’t hold back a snicker. ‘What, are you going to line us both up and try to do it with one bullet?’

His smile disappeared. The gun was against my forehead faster than I could blink. Niragi’s fingers were in my hair, against my scalp, pulling my head back until my face was mere inches from his. I let out an involuntary gasp, but tried to meet his gaze squarely. I couldn’t show him any fear. Not now.

‘Don’t you fucking dare laugh at me,’ he snarled. I could smell blood on his breath, could feel the cold barrel of the gun against my temple. ‘I could easily kill you right now and spare myself the trouble.’

‘I’m sure you could,’ I murmured. ‘But we both know it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying.’

He released my head violently, throwing me against the back of the armchair as he sat back down in his own. Through the window, the first streaks of a red dawn had finally appeared across the hazy concrete skyline.

Niragi was quiet for a few minutes. He checked the bullets in his gun before sliding the mechanism back into place. ‘Get up,’ he ordered. ‘We’re leaving.’

I stood and looked over my shoulder at the stairs. Now that dawn was here, I would be able to see everything better. ‘Can I at least go to the bathroom before we go?’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Where is it?’

‘It’s just at the top of the stairs.’ I waved a hand at the staircase. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.’

He stood up, gesturing to the stairs with his gun. ‘You’ve got two minutes. If you try anything, I’ll shoot you in the foot and you’ll have to walk on it.’

‘Fine. Two minutes is all I need.’

I sprung up the stairs and made a beeline for the bed I shared with Chishiya. His familiar scent still lingered on the linen, and it sent a sharp ache running through my chest. I would have given anything to go back to that time. It was turbulent, yes, but there were moments of sanctuary.

I pushed thought away.

Don’t get distracted! You don’t have long.

That’s right. I now had less than two minutes to find this ring. I got to my knees, searching the gap behind the bedside table in case it had rolled off the edge. There was no sign of it. Growing more and more desperate, I pressed my face to the floor as I peered under the bed. No matter how hard I looked, the ring was nowhere to be seen. I was busy checking under the neighbouring bed when in the slant of light beneath the frame, I saw Niragi’s feet appear in the doorway.

‘Oi! Get out of there before I drag you out.’

I crawled out from under the bed. Frustratingly, my ring was still missing. It must have rolled away into a dark corner somewhere in the crannies of the room. I hated being without it, but there really was nothing I could do.

‘I lost something up here last night,’ I tried to explain myself. ‘While I was here I thought I’d check before we left.’

Niragi marched around the bed and grasped the back of my clothes, hauling me towards the doorway.

‘Move!’ When I was too slow, he jabbed the gun firmly against my spine and pushed me forward. ‘Hurry the fuck up!’

Pff, you’re not going to shoot me. Not right now anyway.

With the gun between my shoulder blades once more, I silently allowed Niragi to lead me down the stairs and out of the store. Dawn had broken, and to my surprise, the overgrown jungle was softened by birdsong. I hadn’t expected to hear birds singing in the middle of Tokyo. Only the flap of pigeons roaming around for scraps of food. But on second thought, nature had taken back the city. The birds had every right to flock here.

Niragi didn’t tell me where we were heading, and I didn’t dare ask. I knew better than to goad him on further. I would keep walking and walking until Niragi gestured towards a new direction with his gun. It was a mystery to me, how he knew where he was going. I could only imagine that he had spied on Chishiya and worked out where he was staying.

The sun was high in the sky, reaching a mid morning simmer when faint voices sounded from somewhere nearby. Niragi paused behind me, then pushed me forward in a vague direction.

‘Keep moving,’ he hissed.

I felt his breath against the shell of my ear and flinched away. He chuckled lightly at my reaction, but I refused to show him how it affected me. He wouldn’t take my dignity from me.

Not again. Never again.

The voices grew increasingly louder, and as we rounded a corner, I began to recognise the structures, the familiar crosswalks.

Shibuya crossing?

I had visited this place with my brother on the day after we landed in Tokyo. In fact, his friend’s apartment was only a couple of minutes away. It was so different now that it was swamped in foliage.

There were two figures in the distance, standing between abandoned cars on what would have been the iconic crosswalk. My heart pounded when I saw a shock of white, that familiar hoodie, his blond hair. It was Chishiya. But despite seeing him only a day ago, he looked so different. His face was darker, more mature, and his expression was strange. There was apathy there as usual, but lurking beneath that thin surface, there was something troubled about him. He was talking to Arisu, who appeared to be holding a rifle in both hands. Neither of them had noticed us standing there.

I opened my mouth to call out to them, only for a hand on my shoulder to shove me back. Niragi pushed in front of me, raising his gun.

No!

Everything slowed, blurring into a haze as I launched myself at Niragi, wrapping my arms around him and clawing at his hands in a furious attempt to grab his gun. He buckled under my assault, letting out a guttural growl as he shoved his palm into my face, trying to push me away. I saw my opportunity, sinking my teeth into the dirty skin of his hand.

‘Fuck! Get off, you rat!’

I bit down harder, ignoring the taste of dirt and blood on my tongue. However, Niragi twisted his entire body, throwing me to the ground before storming forward.

Winded and wheezing, I scrabbled to my feet. ‘Niragi, don’t!’

‘Watch me,’ He grinned and pointed the gun once more at the pair. At him.

Please, don’t!

I moved forward, my eyes on the one person I wanted by my side. I was too far to reach him and push him out of the way, and there was no way I could get to the gun in time.

But I can still shout…

‘Chi—’

My voice was silenced by the gunshot that ricochetted across Shibuya. Chishiya’s body twisted, the force of the impact knocking him to the ground. Blood splattered across his chest, tainting the white of his hoodie.

#alice in borderland #aib #chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #Chishiya x reader #chishiya x oc #Imawa no Kuni no Arisu

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gazorninplat · 4 months

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I wish I was more excited for Death Stranding 2. I really do, but I was so unimpressed by the first one that it’s hard to believe something great is going to happen. I know this is a pretty unpopular opinion, but for me, DS was close to greatness, to truly be a shock to the industry, and it frustrated me that it wasn’t the case.

In my opinion, DS is an amazing core gameplay loop brought down by some of the most unnecessary and pretentious style choices Kojima has ever made. Walking around in the post-apocalyptic landscape of the U.S. carrying stuff to deliver was unexpectedly engrossing, and I wish I had spent more time doing just that without interruptions. Just putting music on and negotiating the terrain while keeping my cargo intact was immersive enough. I was annoyed every time the game took me away from that to listen to characters or watch a plot I couldn’t care less about.

Because, yeah, that’s the thing. The story of Death Stranding was trying so hard to be weird and quirky and mysterious and awe-inducing that it failed every single time it asked me to take it seriously, or pay attention. The surreal apocalypse of Death Stranding has potential, I think, but the imagery invoked to depict it’s so… tryhard. Very “this is a metaphor, man” that, granted, is the MO of Kojima, but here feels gratuitous and hollow.

I was never intrigued about what was going on. I just wanted to test this sweet golden exo-skeleton I just got and see if I can reach that damned Windmill without much trouble this time.

I didn’t like any single character besides Sam, either. And that’s because Norman Reedus just seems to be playing himself, and he’s as annoyed and uninterested in the going ons of New America or whatever as I was. I don’t understand it, Kojima is well known for creating absolutely ridiculous but memorable and charismatic characters that are deep enough to care about them. The Cobra Unit it’s still my Gold Standard of how to do “weird and poignant” characters. They are practically Lynchian in how the balance between silliness and seriousness can create very powerful storytelling moments.

Here you have a boring fuck named Die-Hardman, Guillermo del Toro for some reason, and a bunch of other losers I could not be bothered to remember. One of them was called Hot Mama or something. She looked like this:

All of them feel artificial and even a little condescending when talking to you. It’s all very “we are like family here”-type of corporate poise, pretending to give a shit about you while urging you to get on with your damn job. “You are our most important collaborator, Sam! Now go cross the Mountain Made of Knives to deliver this pizza. Don’t you fucking dare to tip it over. You will have a complimentary soda from Management if you survive :D”. They literally offer you likes in return.

HR at Kojima Productions must be a fucking nightmare.

Finally hitting the road after two hours of bullshit feels good, though. Preparing your cargo, finding the non-metaphorical balance between the boxes you need to deliver and the tools you need to survive the world is the absolute best kind of Video Game Choice you can offer. The post-apocalyptic U.S. is beautiful to look at, and incredibly inviting to walk in (seriously, the primary terrain consisting of black stone, deep green moss, and rainy weather is one of the best outdoor vibes I’ve seen in any game), and the idea of slowly building up some infrastructure to make each delivery easier, or at least quicker, was amazing.

Without a doubt, my favorite moment was taking a day or two to build a zipline through the mountains. I put down the final one and came back to the starting point in a couple of minutes. After hours of hard work and resource gathering, it felt amazing. I really wish that was the whole game.

Yes, the whole game. No combat. No bosses. Hell, even no plot. Just you, a pair of sturdy boots, and some ingenuity to open yourself a path.

That’s what I mean when I say that DS was close to greatness. What if Death Stranding was a AAA Video Game dedicated to blue-collar work? Can you imagine what *that* could have done to our current hellscape of over-bloated, over designed, live service, micro-transaction infested, big budget games? Can you imagine a game of this scope and resources literally being an Uber Eats Simulator? And being successful at it?

Because, let’s be frank. Kojima’s name by itself was a guarantee of copies sold, maybe even block-busting success. If anyone in the industry could have pulled that kind of game, it was him. And I’m pretty sure that was more or less the idea, but the final product is still full of, in my opinion, unnecessary enemies, combat, shootings, set-pieces and boss fights. You know, video-gamey stuff. All wrapped up in a plot that wants to be deep and philosophical so, so bad, and fails in every single metric.

I fought the final boss (or what I think was the final boss), got killed, and then realized that I didn’t gave a fuck about the conclusion of the story. I’d rather be delivering shoes or whatever. I’d rather be admiring the scenery for a bit before moving on and getting the job done. I’d rather be listening to music.

I never finished Death Stranding. It eventually left Game Pass without me noticing.

That was a shame, I was doing great progress with a highway, and had plans to expand my zipline network. But after avoiding the game for a month or so, I decided it wasn’t worth it. All the infrastructure you build decays quickly (thanks to a Rain that Makes you Old falling almost constantly all over the map), so I figured anything I built was surely gone by then, and I would need to start from scratch. Or even worse, maybe other players might have finished it without my input. In any case, I made my peace with it. Death Stranding was a good video game, like many others, even when it had the chance to be unique. If only Kojima had decided to not include the more gamey aspects, or had an editor telling him “no” when writing the story, or didn’t have the pathological need to flex his Hollywood connections.

Death Stranding 2 looks more of the same, sadly. But at least I know I’ll have some very rad moments of solitude between boring firefights when the thing gets released on Game Pass in 2028 or so. Meanwhile I’ll keep looking for the actual walking simulator I didn’t know I needed.

Maybe that is going to be my very own Death Stranding, I guess.

#death stranding #death stranding 2 #hideo kojima #kojima productions #video game rant

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curious-minx · 3 years

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Notable 2020 Video Game Soundtracks That Can Be Enjoyed As Standalone Experiences

Video Game Music is gaining recognition, with many soundtracks receiving vinyl pressings, orchestral concert reviews, and an increasing presence on music streaming platforms such as bandcamp and Spotify. We’re also witnessing the uprise of indie video game development teams where games are being made by the sort of passionate type of game designer that takes soundtracks seriously. Soundtracks by small teams of developers such as Celeste, Undertale, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, RuneScape, and Lisa: The Joyful are titles with soundtracks that easily stand up against the likes of bigger budget productions made by reliable sources of video game music like Square-Enix and Nintendo.

2020 is no exception in terms of having one of the biggest budget soundtracks around with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which builds upon a legacy of industry-standard-creating soundtrack work. Taken as a whole, Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s soundtrack is clocking in at over 8 and half hours of music. The soundtrack has three composers with the Beethoven of video game music, Nobuo Uematsu, most notably coming out of retirement to get the job done. Here are some other amazing 2020 video game soundtracks more conducive for standalone background listening:

TETRIS EFFECT by HYDELIC

Genres: EDM, Ambient Pop and straight up Ambient

Describing this album makes me feel like I’m some sort of burnt out fanciful raver, head permanently lodged in the clouds. The level of giddy technicolor enthusiasm rivals that of Icelandic Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi, but if he wanted to keep his post-rock firmly planted in the outdoor music festival on Mars territory. Despite the album’s notable two hours runtime, each and every song feels like its own uniquely crafted composition, no repetitive motifs or nostalgia-baiting.

There is unfortunately still a Tetris movie in some sort of shaggy state of development in Hollywood right now. The movie is being billed as a dull biopic about the creator of the Tetris game. Whereas listening to Tetris Effect you imagine a Tetris movie directed by someone more fitting like the Wakowskis. Tetris Effect’s opening song “Connected (Yours Forever)” is a bonafide vocal pop song, like a more sugary CVRCHES-style cooing of the lyrics:

“I’m Yours Forever

There is No End in Sights For Us,

Nothing Can Measure the Kind of Strength Inside Our Hearts,

It’s all connected we’re all together in this life, don’t you forget it

We’re all connected in this”

Try your best not to imagine a cast of Hollywood’s most beautiful plucky orphan mutant misfit youths using the power of Tetris to heal a broken and dying planet!

Notable Track: Next Chapter

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HADES by DARREN KORB

Genres: Progressive Metal, Folktronica, Folk Metal, Dimotika, Greek Folk Music

Darren Korb has become one of the most notable video game composers of the past decade. Korb, an integral member of the Supergiant family, continues to outdo himself with each and every soundtrack. Bastion and Transistor originally found Korb creating a niche for himself with downtempo folk-infused electronic soundscapes and even some vocal pop with collaborator Ashley Barrett. Hades is an altogether different beast for Korb, who much like the developers of Hades, have found themselves at the height of their powers.

Korb also contributes vocals on this album, and I can say without hesitation that these are some of the nicest vocals I’ve ever heard from a video game music designer, because video game musicians are bonafide musicians.The album clocks in at two and half hours and separate from its game is still an absolute thrill ride.

Notable Track: In The Blood

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DEFECTIVE HOLIDAY by MECHATOK

Genres: Ambient Trance, Balearic Beat, Progressive Electronic, Nature Recordings, Spoken Word, New Age

One glance at the album artwork is all it took for me to know that I must listen to this album. Defective Holiday is an indie walking simulator that is explicit about its intentions: a lightly interactive one hour experience. This soundtrack clocks in at only 31 minutes and it is purely the most conventional album in terms of length.

Last week in late November, Mechatok announced a collaboration with one of the leading zoomer Swedish cloud rap mavericks Bladee, the cofounder of the Drain Gang. Last month gives a pretty clear picture of what kind of circles Mechatok is floating in on. Highly online gonzo vaporwave maestro James Ferraro is another apparent influence on this soundtrack, especially regarding the way the sinister mundane dialogue is woven into the soundscape. There’s one particular track on the Defective Holiday OST, “Rescue Shot Buibo”, that is adorned with standard trap-style drum fills that give the album a shot of energy before wandering back off into the haze. This soundtrack and video game is all about the pure vibe and aesthetic nature that are currently trending in these extremely stressful times. In a time where all of our holidays were defective from the very start, I think the casual walking simulator will remain a genre high in demand. I have a feeling we’re going to hear a lot more from this empathetic young German.

Notable Track: Valley

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Last of Us II by Gustavo Santaolalla, Mac Quayle (and Ashley Johnson)

Genres: Ambient, Cinematic Classical, Dark Ambient, Spanish Folk Music

The Last Of Us is a horror game where the music itself is arguably playing a critical character role, which can only be expected billing two titans of audio visual soundtracks. Of course Academy Award winner Santaolalla knows his way around a soundtrack. Wielding a resume of astonishing versatility in various TV and film projects, he might have found his higher calling in not only video games but in the horror music canon. Last of Us is an extremely emotional series, and with the wrong soundtrack, the experience could become insufferably bleak. The occasional splashes of color and light are what make this soundtrack so unsettling and eerie. Not since Silent Hill 2’s Akira Yamaoka has there been such an effective standalone horror video game soundtrack experience. No wonder Gustavo Santaolalla is one of the only video game composers integral enough to the game to warrant a cameo banjo-playing character model based off of him.

As if having one major composer from prestigious TV and movies wasn’t enough, Mac Quayle, composer of the whole Mr. Robot series, contrasts against Santaolalla’s acoustic contributions. The soundtrack itself is sequenced in a way that switches between the two composers. “The Cycle of Violence” composed by Quayle, a track that more than lives up to its name, is immediately followed by Santaolalla’s somber “Reclaimed Memories.” This dance between violence and heart is what the Last of Us excels at as a franchise, and that is why this soundtrack is an effective stand-alone experience.

The only disappointing part of the soundtrack is that Ashley Johnson, voice actor of Ellie’ three songs, is not included in the game’s official tracklist. Ellie’s “Take On Me” a-ha and “Future Days” Pearl Jam covers have made a little history by being the most powerful songs sung by a video game character. When Ellie sings and plays on her guitar they aren’t some little Easter egg idling moments to provide levity for this heavy revenge horror story. These songs are used to make some of the strongest character development choices made by a video game character seen in recent years. Ellie is joining a small club of singing video game characters alongside Parapa the Rapper and maybe the cast of obscure Atlus title Rhapsody: Musical Adventure.

Notable Track: Unbroken

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Persona 5 Royal Straight Flush Edition by Shoji Meguro

Genre: Acid Jazz, Alternative Rock, Alternative Metal, Lounge, Jazz-Funk

This is one of those soundtracks that, much like Nobuo Uematsu’s work in Final Fantasy, is really the heart and soul of the entire Persona franchise (and his work in the adjacent Shin Megami Tensei universe is equally as noteworthy). Persona 5 Royal finds Meguro making his most complete, funky, and otherworldly opus that sounds like no one else in the biz.

You will find many people online scouring message boards, subreddits, bandcamp features, and Yahoo Answers looking for more music like Persona 5. Outside of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, how many other games are packed to the brim with truly foxy songs!? Persona 5 could not predict how badly the title “Throw Away Your Mask” would age, despite the game being more than ahead of its time with the majority of NPCs wearing PPE. Be a good Joker, put on your mask and keep chasing Meguro’s acid jazz-infused dragon through many more semesters to come.

Notable Track: I Imagine

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Streets of Rage 4 by Olivier Deriviere & Various

Genres: Electro House, Nu Jazz, Synth Funk, Acid House

Composer Olivier Deriviere is a living definition of a video game soundtrack journeyman. He has a career stretching back to the early 2000s working on notable big budget titles like the divisive 2008 Atari fifth Alone in the Dark installment and Remember Me, an unsung buried gem from the PS3/360 era Capcom title. Remember Me is where Deriviere’s electronic leanings started becoming especially prominent in his sound. On the Streets of Rage 4 soundtrack Deriviere has completely come into his own element, developing a whole new sense of campy playfulness.

Electronic French House music can be a divisive genre. For every Daft Punk commercial success there is a band that ruffles feathers like Justice. I sense a strong presence of late departed French House titan Philippe Zdar of Cassius as well. If you’d played this soundtrack for me out of context, I would have guessed an obscure voguing tape from the 80s or a really talented mysterious DJ set. Instead, this is a sequel to a classic beat em up franchise that left a portion of players disappointed by the game’s four hour playtime. The soundtrack is over an hour and fifty minutes long of high octane House music bliss. Much like the Tetris Effect soundtrack, it is truly impressive how much depth these tracks have when they could have easily been nostalgic recycled beats. Sometimes a game’s soundtrack can offer more post game enjoyment than an actual game.

Notable Track: Chill Or Don’t

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Hylics 2 by Chuck Salamone & Mason Lindroth

Genres: Experimental Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Hypagogic Pop, Stoner Rock, Jazz-Rock

A soundtrack that comes closest to capturing the experience of hearing the Earthbound or Katamari Damacy soundtracks for the first time. The Hylic indie RPG series is a wonderful and strange beast that is ready to frolic and show its playful side. Hylics is a part of a recent uprising of indie games being developed on the RPG Maker software. 2020 year has left us all with variations of the same stressed out adjectives: Weird. Messed Up. Surreal.

Why not listen to an album from a game that is the perfect embodiment of that surreal mantra? Step away from your computer, draw a bath, and put this album on. Thank me later!

Notable track: Xeno Arcadia

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Ultrakill: Infinite Hyperdeath (Act I Soundtrack) by Heaven Pierce Her aka game developer Arsi “Hakita” Patala

Genres: Drum and Bass, Industrial Metal, Ambient, Progressive Metal, Acidcore

Nothing says “modern indie game development” more than a game built completely from the ground up by one person. Ultrakill’s developer “Hakita” is one of those kindly folkloric DIY figures that make video games such an extensive art form. The game is a painstaking gloriously bloody ode to Dooms of yesteryear but with plenty of its own fine tuned style. The perfect soundtrack for when you’re painting your personal Hell a darker shade of gore, but also would really like to kick your ass into shape if you need an adrenaline boost to your Quarantine blues.

Notable Track: Panic Betrayer

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Risk of Rain 2 by Chris Christodoulou

Genres: Progressive Rock, Space Rock, Space Ambient, Post-Rock

Something about the country of Greece brings the best kind of futurism out of the country’s composers. Christodoulou’s Risk of Rain 2 soundtrack is no Bladerunner knock off. This soundtrack for the colorful sci-fi indie rougelike is punchier and less nocturnal than your typical synth-heavy sci-fi soundtrack. Risk of Rain is one of the more successful Kickstarter series around and has the best quality an indie game can have: it feels like a labor of love on all fronts. There’s no reason a rougelike like Rain of Ruin or Hades needs a soundtrack this good, but Christodoulou casts a spell with his electronic-driven prog rock that makes you want to keep respawning. A huge missed opportunity if Christodoulou does not get to soundtrack an earnest sci-fi action-adventure for even big screens. Oh! This soundtrack also features some spoken word segments from Werner Herzog; what more do you need to know?

Notable Track: The Rain Formerly Known As Purple

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Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus by Guillaume David

A big debut project from an up-and-coming composer Guillaume David. Prior to the making of this soundtrack, David was a video game voice actor who worked on a Resident Evil Devil May Cry crossover voicing the character of “Hunk.” Warhammer 40K might become a franchise that more people will care about solely based on the quality of this installment’s soundtrack. When you see the title Warhammer 40,000, what sort of sounds come to mind? If you guessed “Neo gothic cyber Gregorian chants that seamlessly melds the ancient and futuristic”, you would be correct. A turn-based action game could possibly fall into dull territory, but with a visual identity as strong as Warhammer 40K melded with a suitable musical atmosphere, the action and world becomes irresistible. This soundtrack is a brisk 56 minutes and the other soundtrack on this list with a more conventional runtime. Not a second is wasted on this dynamic and fantastical soundtrack. Prior to hearing this soundtrack I had no intention of ever looking into playing a game based off of something as convoluted as Warhammer 40K, but now I very much want to know what these robot priests are about. That’s the magic of a quality soundtrack.

Notable track: Millenial Rage

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Honorable Mentions:

Happy Listening!

#Video Games #Video Game Music #Soundtracks #Top 10 #Video Games 2020 #Final Fantasy 7 #Persona 5 #Streets of Rage #Hylic #Utrakill #Risk of Rain #indie games #Square Enix #Warhammer 40k #last of us #Last of us 2

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weeb-stomper · 4 years

Text

Motels

Mirio Togata x F!SexWorker Reader

Prompt: “I’m tired of being your secret.”

Word Count: 1,404

A/N: I thought, the prompt usually makes people think that there’s a half in the relationship begging for love and so I did a little subverting of that. Sorry, it’s pretty angsty. Also, I felt like this piece was a lot more about reader than it was about Mirio, so he’s not actually really in it outside of reader’s thoughts.

@reinawritesbnha Haha, I feel like this is maybe not your normal type of fic but I’m really kinda proud of how this turned out and wanted to share with you.

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You’ve always hated motels. The horrendous patterns of the carpets that never seem to change no matter where you go, the stale air that never freshens despite the open windows, the dirty sheets that smell like the hundreds of people who have abused them no matter how many times they’ve been washed. You hate the artificial swirls and patterns that cover the ceiling in every room and the judgemental eyes of the desk workers who have come to be familiar with your presence. You share a moment of awkward eye contact with the woman behind the counter tonight as you collect the small room key, not missing the pitying look in her eyes and the sad smile that takes her lips. Your finger traces the large number eighteen emblazoned on the plastic tag, and you huff out a mirthless laugh.

“Key to misery…” you mumble to her, turning on your heel to head towards your prison cell for the evening.

Your fingers trace along the sparsely decorated walls, occasionally catching against a raised edge of the peeling paint. The smell of the dingy hall was gag-inducing, memories of your history in any given one of these disgusting rooms flooding your mind despite your efforts to knock them back, and your forward progress halts. You can see it up ahead. The dirty white door set into the wall accompanied by the dimly shining bronze eighteen drilled to the wall beside it. Breathing isn’t so easy at the moment, knowing that as soon as you step into that room the waiting game begins. Your now-long hair tickles the small of your back, kickstarting your nerves once more, and your heart hurts.

Taking a shuddering breath, you teeter forward, falling into an uneven gait. The soreness in the soles of your feet radiates up your calves, the strappy black heels having long since blistered your feet through the thin black nylon tights that clung to your skin. Slipping the key into the lock, you take one last look at the nightmarish halls that surround you before slipping through the door and locking yourself into your nightly cage.

You forgo the lights, opting instead for one moment longer of semi-peace. One extra minute of not being able to see your reality, and you could indulge in the fantasy of being literally anywhere else. Crossing the small room to the far left corner, you drop your bag into the padded chair that resided there. It was a terrible muddy yellow color, musty from overuse and under-cleaning, and (for tonight) home to a large bag of gifts from your client. A grimace mars your face as you pull out an intricate black-lace teddy, laying it out on the bed before slipping off your thick black coat. The cool air of the room stings against your previously shielded skin as you continue undressing, removing your shirt and folding it carefully before placing it, along with your skirt and jacket, inside the cheap particle board dresser drilled into the wall below the cheap and old tv. There’s something calming about separating your personal belongings from the job you do. Like locking your personality inside an industrial safe and exchanging it for the illustrious mask you don for the sake of the people who seek you out in the darkest hours of the night,

You cast a side-long glance at the old digital alarm clock sat on the simple bedside table. 8:52 flashes back at you in angry red lettering. Eight minutes to prepare before the ever-so punctual hero arrives to inadvertently destroy what little sense of ease you’ve managed to scrape together in the days since your last meeting. You’ve seen others since you last met him, but he was always the worst. Maybe because he’s a hero. Maybe because you know how truly sadistic he is behind that golden smile. But most likely because he demanded things be so extraordinarily personal. He treated every meeting with you like a beautiful secret meeting between a count and his mistress, cloaked in darkness and complete with loving embraces and chaste kisses before a teary departure. Forcibly disconnecting from your internal monologue, you turn back to the lacy article resting gingerly on the bed below you.

The scratchy material of the lingerie gouges canyons in your skin as it slides up your legs to settle across your torso, and a chill of a different kind tears through your muscles. Wearing the gifts was never pleasant, the sheer material writhing you in a permanent sense of discomfort, but there was something especially terrifying about tonight. You knew him well enough now to know that he’d been gearing up to something bigger than normal, and your instincts were screaming that tonight was the night it would culminate into whatever he’d been planning. Those thoughts, however, were for later. Now is the time for preparation, for rebuilding the mental barriers that he insists on tearing down every. Single. Time. Time to guard the parts of you that you’d rather not share and the words that you’d rather keep to yourself.

The smell of oranges turns your stomach. He loves the smell of oranges and had bought you his favorite version of the scent to coat the room before he appears for his evening visits. A generous spray for each pillow and blanket, pull back the sheets to spray the mattress, mist the doorway as per request. You can hardly control the rising bile in your throat, but you manage to choke it down. In a way it makes sense for him to seek the scent of oranges. It’s like a child reaching for a security blanket, a man seeking solace in the scent of summer. Fitting for the someone who “shines like the sun”, as his friends tell the news reporters in interview after interview. Lazily strolling to the large bag, you almost laugh. Your hand snakes inside, gripping the leather bound handle of your least favorite gift. A long, eight tailed braided flogger. Your fingers trail along the name etched into the handle, the weight of it amplified by the memory of the heavy strikes it’s performed on your skin time and time again.

Laying the weighty toy across the foot of the bed you take one last look at yourself in the cloudy mirror on the wall. Hair frames your face in a way that you’ve come to hate, in a hairstyle that he’s picked out for you. A long braid down your back that swings just so when you walk. You don’t understand why he always insists on it, he’s only going to rip it to shreds 20 minutes from his arrival. Sitting gently on the bed, your shoulders slump forward, and you remember better times. Being small, running through parks and playgrounds with friends and family, your feeling the wind rush through your short hair. The feeling of that smile stretching and splitting the chapped skin of your lips. You’d grown out your hair when he’d asked you to. The pay was too good to refuse. You miss your short hair.

A hollow feeling slams against your weary bones as a knock sounds at the door. Your eyes shoot to the clock. 9 o’clock on the dot it screams at you, dread settling deeply in your bones. You rise from your spot on the bed and walk languidly to the door. You can almost watch the mask fall over your face as a sensual smile slides onto your lips, a foreign and bizarre sensation. The door clicks open and there he stands. Looming impossibly tall above you, golden blond hair swept back and away from his face. The piercing blue of his eyes rakes up and down your body in an appraising gaze, a certain softness to his face that you knew better than anyone to be as false as the love he claims for you. He offers you a hushed greeting as he steps inside the room, pressing a small bouquet into your hands that is identical to every other he’d ever brought, right down to the bright yellow ribbon tied around the stems. You watch him as he approaches the bed, pulling his shirt off before lifting the play thing from amongst the bunched sheets. You can already feel the merciless strikes against your skin as the door closes to seal you in for the evening.

You’ve always hated motels.

#mirio togata #my hero academia mirio #myheroacademia #my hero academia #mha #boco no hero academia #bnha #mha x reader #bnha x reader #mirio togata x reader #Self Insert #angst #tw sex work #female reader #fem reader

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icicleteeth · 4 years

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Aljsdfljds so Tamriel bread post got really popular, and I realized I never actually wrote a detailed breakdown of how/why each province’s bread was designed the way they were (Mostly because I hand wrote each description in the art so I had to keep them brief alsdfj), so I thought I’d write a more thorough post about it! More under the cut--though as with everything TES related I make, these are just my headcanons!

High Rock: Given High Rock’s prosperous kingdoms, most cities and the province in general flourishes with the comfort of being wealthy and powerful (Headcanoned this way since High Rock is one of the three main powers in the alliance war during ESO’s timeline, as well as being home to two large kingdoms, being Daggerfall and Wayrest, in TES2) This richness in the economy and resources allowed for the most experimentation and decadence with the province’s food, including its bread. A lot of these individual breads were based off french breads (baguette, buttery croissant, bread rolls, etc) Cinnamon swirl breads and sugary donuts (I call dough knots here/in my fic) exist, as High Rock’s geographic location in the Iliac Bay allows for a robust importing market where spices like cinnamon and sugar are brought in regularly from other provinces.

Hammerfell: Bread in Hammerfell isn’t nearly as decadent as High Rock, as food is treated with more utility and nutrition in mind, rather than flavor. Oats and seed breads are unassuming yet filling. Oats and rye are grown in the less arid eastern lands of the province, as very little is able grow in the western Alik’r deserts. That being said, livestock raised in the west are vital to providing milk, butter, and eggs, which are used in/eaten with the breads frequently. Smaller portions such as the bagels are compact and easy to pack for long journeys across the desert.

Wrothgar: Wrothgar’s climate (specifically the greener western parts of it) allow for them to grow their own grain (typically rye). Orcs’ tastes in bread also drastically differ the bretons in that they don’t go all out with making sickeningly sweet pastries (in fact, the only time they’ll sweeten their bread is with some snowberry jam). They do, however, love huge portion sizes, as many orcs live together in large tribes with just as large tribesmen and warriors, so they bake their breads in huge loaves.

Skyrim: Skyrim’s bread was the easiest to figure out design-wise as they’re directly based off the bread you find in-game, though some parts of it (namely the decision to have a Jazbay crostata here rather than the other fruits) were chosen to fit a general theme of sweetness. Sweetrolls are famous all across Tamriel for a good reason: nordic breads, given Skyrim’s significant honey industry, are generally very sweet (as honey is used generously, in more than just the mead markets) Jazbay is referenced to be very sweet, thus the Jazbay crostata. Braided bread is very buttery and large, like most foods from Skyrim. Like orcs, the nords love their generous portions!

Morrowind (this part’s really long, apologies in advance aljsdf): The bread of Morrowind was broken up into three categories based on very differing cultures within the province: Common (Found in the mainland and settled regions of Vvardenfell) Ashlander (found within Ashlander tribes) and Northern (found in northern villages and Solstheim, with nordic influence). The Common baguette is based on banh mi, which is just “bread” in Vietnam. Vietnam (yes I’m gonna kind of derail into history I’m sorry aljsf) used to be owned by the French, so a lot of our foods share some roots in french culture, which is why Vietnamese bread is similar to french baguettes (though are different, not just in look, but texture and taste, though it’s hard to explain in words) In TES3, the encroachment of Imperial/western conquest and control plays a big part in Vvardenfell’s politics and in (especially in it’s more southwestern region) architecture and culture. I found this mixing of the west with the east to mirror Vietnam’s history somewhat, thus Morrowind’s Common bread being directly based off banh mi.

Ashlander bread was designed in mind not only for nomadic people (thus they would be quite small and compact) but also with keeping in mind that Ashlanders would likely lack access to large ovens/utensils/space to bake anything substantial, so these were based on small pan-baked buns. The bowl they’re in is a hollowed-out green shalk shell!

Northern bread is directly inspired by nordic braided bread, though it’s baked much smaller than the nords’ usual preference for large portion sizes. The influence comes mostly from Solstheim, though it’s also found in north-western cities like Khuul.

Black Marsh: This one was a bit tough to figure out for a while, as one would expect you can’t grown much of anything in swamplands. I was however able to find a reference to the existence of marsh rice in one of the A Culinary Adventure volumes (they’re lorebooks from ESO I believe, in which an Imperial writes about authentic Argonian cuisine; it’s really wild and I highly recommend them!) Therefore these are loosely based on small slices of rice bread, wrapped in large banana leaves (yes this was also taken from Vietnamese cuisine. A girl likes to include bits of her own culture in her art sometimes, even if it’s really vague aljsdfjd)

Valenwood: Probably the most controversial choice that I should’ve explained better, as the existence of the Green Pact would have one assume bread is outlawed in the province due to the use of grains (plants) needed to make it. I still wanted to incorporate mostly meat into these breads, though the fact that bread is still used is based off a headcanon that the Green Pact only applies to plants grown within the forests, but doesn’t apply to grains grown in other provinces. One could infer that, especially at the time of the alliance war, travel and trade within the Aldmeri Dominion’s other provinces was very normal, thus bread could theoretically have made its way into bosmeri cuisine, first by bosmer living in other provinces, who brought the customs over to Valenwood.

Summerset: Altmeri bread prioritizes beauty, flavor, and presentation. Very unlike the nords, they aren’t inclined to large portion sizes (the smaller the better, as one should not indulge in gluttony) but what their bread lacks in proportion is exceeded in richness and taste--essentially the bread version of $200 tiny cuts of filet mignon with a bit of $300 truffle on the side (and maybe with a glass of $1000 wine for good measure) The food ought to look and taste as beautiful as Summerset’s city, right?

Elsweyr: Breads in Elsweyr are, like Morrowind, broken up into multiple sections due to Elsweyr’s drastically different northern and southern regions. Flatbreads like naan are found primarily in the north, and heartier breads that incorporate fruits are found in the south (as fruits are more easily able to grow in these tropical climates). Though it’s important to note that trade between the north and south is common, so these breads aren’t entirely restricted by region.

Moon sugar butter cookies are popular treats found all throughout Tamriel, though not entirely in the same innocent reasons that sweetrolls are popular. Since moon sugar is a narcotic that non-Khajiiti races react poorly to, potent moon sugar cookies are sometimes smuggled via the pretense of being less potent and non-harmful cookies (which use only a tiny bit of moon sugar along with regular sugar, which is the benevolent much loved treat anyone can enjoy). Think really, really strong weed brownies that some people have probably eaten by accident, which certainly would ruin the day of both the person who ate it and the smuggler it belonged to! Though of course, just like skooma, these more potent cookies are just as often willingly sought after.

Cyrodiil: Cyrodiilic bread is based on ancient breads (I tried to pinpoint it specifically from Rome, but “ancient” can mean a lot of different things to Google, haha.) The dry, basic, and unappealing nature of these breads aren’t actually meant as a dig at Cyrodiil (at least, not from my own personal standpoint). They were designed this way based on a line in The Red Kitchen Reader, which is a story about an Imperial speaking of his passion for food. The important bit is this excerpt:

As a child growing up in Cheydinhal, I did not care for food at all. I recognized the value of nutrition, for I was not a complete dullard, but I cannot say that mealtime brought me any pleasure at all. Partly, of course, this was the fault of my family's cook, who believed that spices were an invention of the Daedra, and that good Imperials should like their food boiled, textureless and flavorless. Though I think she was alone in assigning a religious significance to this, my sampling of traditional Cyrodilic cuisine suggests that the philosophy is regrettably common in my homeland.

Thus the design of Cyrodiilic bread is underwhelming and unappetizing.

#the elder scrolls #tes #morrowind #skyrim #food #bread #foodposting

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satoshi-mochida · 3 years

Link

Falcom has released new information and screenshots for The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki introducing new characters Risette Twinnings and Quatre Salison, as well as the cities of Langport and Basel, the companies Marduk Total Security Company and Verne Industrial Company, and the Xipha system.

Get the details below.

■ Characters

Risette Twinings

Age: 20

Weapon: Pistol and Bladegear

“To serve my client is my duty and pride.”

A woman dressed in a maid outfit who works as a service concierge at Marduk Total Security Company.

While her pale green hair gives off a cold impression, she is actually very social and polite, and has a cute sense of humor.

Unlike her graceful appearance, she has superhuman strength, speed, and combat capabilities that at times surpass even seasoned bracers.

She maintains a “strictly business” relationship with Van, a Spriggan, by giving him weapons and exclusive Xipha apps free of charge, and in turn collects data from his usage as an external tester.

Quatre Salision

Age: 15

Weapon: Pulsegun and Orbal Drones

“Lets go FIO, XEROS—we have to protect the professor’s location.”

A young researcher attending a masters course at a science university at the age of 15.

His neatly trimmed silver hair and feminine face emit an atmosphere that makes him to approach.

His major is researching and developing “Orbal Drones” that use the new Xipha standard artificial intelligence, but he also helps out in the physical and bio engineering labs, and has a strong attachment to the observatory, which is the symbol of the university.

Due to certain circumstance as a child, he was adopted by Dr. Latoya Hamilton, “the mother of Orbal Revolution,” and as since cared for like his own grandmother and aspires to become a researcher himself.

■ Locations and Keywords

Langport, the Shining Capital

A massive port city facing the south sea, also called Naju, located in South Calvard.

Langport’s scale is larger than Crossbell, the city of trade, and Ordice, the ocean capital, and in recent years has been often referred to as being “the second heart of the Republic” that symbolizes diversity.

Other than its business and shopping districts that house modern skyscrapers, it also has the largest Easterner Quarter in the continent, and is known as the “Shining Capital” due to its beautiful, glimmering night skyline.

Basel, the Industrial City

A city southwest of Calvard focused on industry and academics.

Basel has long been known for its history in natural scientific research, and is home to Basel Science University, which boasts its own observatory. In the Middle Ages, there was a craftsmen’s guild that helped forge machinery and equipment for architecture, irrigation, industry, and academics.

After the Orbal Revolution, the craftsmen’s guild and university joined forces to form the Verne Industrial Company.

A joint city planning project is in place to make the city a high-tech industrial academic city, such as connecting districts on different levels with a ropeway, while maintaining its beautiful landscape.

Marduk Total Security Company

A total securities company headquartered in Ored, as well as a PMC (private military company).

Founded around 10 years ago, the company initially offered security services all around the continent, but in recent years has expanded its services.

It has also advanced into the field of military operations.

However, unlike jaegers, it often offers plans that just barely manages not violate the laws of its operating country, thus many large companies that do not want to takrisks of their own hire them for high prices.

Verne Industrial Company

A large technology manufacturer which headquartered in the engineering city Basel.

It is often compared to the Empire’s Reinford Group, but due to its industry-academic nature, its footwork is relatively low and it takes a multilateral and polished development approach through an academic lens.

During the Orbal Revolution 50 years ago, Latoya Hamilton, one of the three pupils of Professor Epstein—the inventor of Orbal Gear—brought back the technology and became the advisor of the company.

After succeeding in developing the first orbal car in the continent, Verne Industrial Company invested its research in developing advanced technologies such as orbal photos and orbal video to record footage from astronomical telescopes.

It was also a catalyst for the creation of other cultures unique to the Republic such as “Orbal Cinema,” which combines video technology and popular culture.

Xipha

The new sixth generation tactical orbment, Xipha, deploys pieces of ether known as “Shards” around its user and enables them to manipulate them to activate various functions.

The Xipha also has several new features that enhance the players abilities, including “Hollow Cores,” which change the overall performance of the Xipha; “Arts Drivers,” which install various orbal magic; and “Shard Skills,” which activate according to the amount of quartz.

■ Xipha

Hollow Cores: The AI-Equipped Core Quartz of the Xipha

The Hollow Cores mounted in the center of the Xipha have three vital roles that significantly affect its overall performance:

Basic Arts Attack Power – Basic stats that boost the power of your arts attacks.

Base EP – Basic stats that increase the maximum EP required to cast arts.

S Boost Properties – Special effects that can be activated during battle.

Your Hollow Core level increases through battle. Your Basic Arts Attack Power, Base EP, and S Boost Properties will grow along with it.

Voice Assist: Make Battles Even Smoother

The artificial intelligence-equipped Hollow Core is loaded with a navigator that supports Xipha users with voice-based guidance in various situations, such as in battle, on the field, and during quests.

In addition to the voice and speech style adjusting according to the type of Hollow Core, the Hollow Core shows a more human response to the user.

—Hollow Core Settings Screen

—Hollow Cores may also even join in on the conversation…

Arts Driver: Equipped with Multiple Arts

Several arts (orbal magic) are installed on the Arts Driver, which you can use by mounting it to your Xipha. Since the arts available to you depend on the level of your Hollow Core, the higher your Hollow Core level, the more powerful arts you can wield.

Arts Driver: Custom Slots

Separate from the pre-installed arts sets, the Arts Driver also has custom slots. By setting arts into these slots, you can make up for a lack of recovery or support arts, or install more powerful attack arts.

—Arts Driver Settings Screen

—Add arts to custom slots!

Shard Skills: Special Effects Activated by the Line’s Elemental Powers

Hollow Cores have four “lines” that you can slot quartz to: weapon, shield, drive, and EXTRA. Depending on the elemental powers of the quartz slotted to these lines, shards will deploy that activate various special effects in battle.

Weapon Line – The line connected to attack functions such as additional elemental damage or effects.

Shield Line – The line connected to defense functions such as damage reduction, elemental resistance effects, and counterattacks.

Drive Line – The line connected to arts strengthening functions such as increased casting speed and increased elemental power.

EXTRA Line – The line connected to unique functions that do not fall in the categories of Weapon, Shield, or Drive.

Advanced Shard Skills

The types and threshold of elemental power required to activate Shard Skills are determined by their performance. By setting your Xipha while keeping in mind the elemental power of each quartz you set, you can activate more advanced Shard Skills in battle.

—Shard Skills Settings Screen

–Elemental power changes according to the quartz setting.

The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki is due out in 2021 in Japan for unannounced platform(s). Read more about the game here and here.

View the screenshots at the gallery.

#The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki #Kuro no Kiseki #The Legend of Heroes #Falcom #Trails Series #Gematsu #long post

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fridge-reviews · 3 years

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The Best of 2020

Welcome to the my personal list of games I enjoyed this year. That’s right it’s my list, feel free to disagree with me but it won’t change anything. Anyway here are the rules;

1. These are games that I’ve played and reviewed this year. 2. There isn’t an order to this list, its not a top 10, these all feature because of how good they are. 3. The games don’t have to have been released this year.

With that all said, lets get into it.

Children of Morta

There aren't many games that give such an emphasis on familial bonds. This one gives you a heartfelt story while delivering challenging gameplay and excellent combat!

Jenny LeClue - Detectivu

Kickstarters can always be a gamble but with this one I spun the wheel and won. Challenging puzzles, an engaging story and a beautiful artstyle really make this game stand out.

Hollow Knight

Last year Axiom Verge gave me the Metroidvania bug, this year Hollow Knight makes sure that the infection is here to stay. Throw in an amazing soundtrack and a gorgeous artstyle and this game was always going to be a winner.

Wilmot's Warehouse

There's something strangely calming about just organising things... however Wilmot's Warehouse also makes you feel the sheer panic of trying keeping your place of work organised and well stocked while at the same time filling out orders.

Void Bastards

This game has such a dark sense of humour and I can't help but love it. I could never be too annoyed at the permadeath aspect of the game because it was always entertaining to see what daft quirks my next character was going to have.

Hades

Hades is going to be in a lot of peoples lists and with good reason, it's fantastic. Supergiant have once again created a game that is well worth your attention. Seriously play this game I can gaurentee a good time.

Control

The only triple A game that really caught my attention this year. The influence from the SCP Foundation is clear but rather than lazily copying from them Remedy crafted something of its own that is haunting and uncanny.

Not Tonight

Being from the UK this game really hit close to home for me. The gameplay is essentially that of Papers Please, checking documents and passing people through but its the subject matter that really stuck with me. Let's just say this is an over exagerated version of what I fear is happening to my homeland.

Yoku's Island Express

Who thought pinball mixed with a Metroidvania would work? Well clearly the dev's of this game and I'm so glad they did it. This was a joy to play.

Bad North

Real time strategy against an oncoming horde of mauraders. Each island is a diorama where you need to work out the choke points and features of the island before the horde appears. Hopefully after all that planning you'll be prepared.

———————————————————————————————————–

I think its safe to say that this year has been... difficult for everyone. Hell, that's an understatement and a half. Even ignoring the ever present viral threat on our doorsteps and focusing only on the games industry there has no shortage of disturbing news (Looking at you Ubisoft, CD Project Red, Rockstar and Activison).

Still, I do hope that this coming year is better than the one we're leaving. Just everyone, please stay safe.

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bimboficationblues · 3 years

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So I’ve been running through the FROM Software games over the past month, here’s thoughts:

Dark Souls (Remastered)

The original Dark Souls really agitated me at first because of the one-two punch of the third and fourth bosses on the standard route, but once I broke through that wall I got really into it. I love the interconnected world and the tactically oriented combat; it really captures a great feeling of both adventure and foreignness.

Thematically I think it’s pretty interesting, even if I’m not sure the narrative is communicated in the best way possible. The player-character is essentially a sacrificial lamb for the powers-that-be (often without even realizing it as the player), and the boss encounters and world-building reveal the ultimate hollowness that stand behind thrones and crowns. Also, the bosses are great! I’ve been keeping track of which ones I’ve enjoyed most throughout the series and the vast majority of my favorites are from DS1; there are some serious low points (most of them in the Demon Ruins), but the high points are incredibly high. It makes me sad that the Remaster didn’t include anything new, like DS2′s Bonfire Ascetics, to allow me to refight Quelaag, Ornstein and Smough, or Artorias the Abysswalker.

The main things that keep me from lavishing DS1 with praise are certain tedious design choices (kindling bonfires, the inability to warp to any bonfire after unlocking warping, the incentives towards turtling up, and the incentives for finding cheap and unexciting ways to defeat bosses) and the truly disappointing last third of the game. The Duke’s Archives is a great level and I have mixed-but-positive feelings on the Tomb of Giants, but the Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith are hideous and full of boring encounters and bad bosses, and the New Londo Ruins is a slogfest from beginning to end (died to the boss? have fun on your way back to it, which requires going down an elevator, up a staircase, across a bridge, past five dragon enemies, through swaths of quick-attacking humanoid enemies that wear black in low lighting, all because there’s no bonfire in the vicinity).

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin

Dark Souls II is not as bad as it’s made out to be and I disagree with the substance of most of the traditional complaints, but it is still pretty underwhelming. The enemy placements can be frustrating but are generally a good change for people already familiar with DS1′s approach to encounter design; the Shrine of Amana is singled out for this, but it’s really not that bad, especially if you summon for it.

The narrative--a falling into darkness, the cyclical decay and disappearance of states, the direct and observable involvement of Nashandra and the Emerald Herald in the plot--is arguably more interesting than DS1′s, though it takes longer to get off the ground. New quality-of-life changes, like the revised system for weapon durability, are also good. The introduction of new healing items was also helpful, although I disliked having to farm for them sometimes (the inevitable result of a very hard game tying healing items to currency, which is also an issue in Bloodborne).

“Dudes in armor” bosses are good, and DS2 does have some great dudes in armor (specifically the Fume Knight and the Looking Glass Knight), but the problem with DS2′s bosses (irrespective of whether they’re humanoid or monstrous) is that they are not well-served by the game’s camera direction, the arenas they’re in (which are consistently and observably just big empty circles), and their visual designs (which are generally drab). Ornstein and Smough felt like forces of nature, pale shadows of themselves who nonetheless tower over you and will wreck your shit through sheer inertia; their rough equivalents, the Throne Watcher and Throne Defender, feel like beefy standard enemies. Overall I think most of the bosses are “boring but practical,” which is not really what I wanted.

One thing I consider unforgivable in this game is the ruining of the parry system; not only are the timings very weird and hard to pin down, the changing of riposte attacks from a quick, desperate counterattack to a slow, arduous process of executing a prone enemy is really annoying. I would probably have made a parry-centric character as I did in DS1 and taken the time to learn the new attack timings, if it were not for how unrewarding it feels to riposte in DS2.

Dark Souls III

DS2 also makes changes that carry into DS3, namely the ability to warp at the start of the game between any accessed bonfire, the use of a hub world, and the need to regularly return to the hub for leveling up. These are all bad choices imo. Immediate access to warping is probably a good thing, but it instills a sense of relief at being done with a chore, as opposed to the unique atmosphere of curiosity and dread that DS1 instilled. In DS1 I was always excited and fearful to see what I’d run into next; in the sequels I was often hoping to barrel through to the next bonfire. The hub world also contributes to this lack of curiosity, and having to return to it to level up means you never really feel like an adventurer in a strange and terrifying land because you can--and must--just nip back home if things are getting too rough. DS3 is a little better about this with a slightly lower number of bonfires, but not by much. At the same time, DS3 abandons good ideas from its immediate predecessor such as the ability to refight bosses, lifegems, and the “power-stance” for dual-wielding weapons.

DS3 also introduces a god-awful mechanic; in DS1, there’s pretty much no real downside to being Hollow, while in DS2, remaining Hollow after repeated deaths will steadily decrease your max HP. DS3 instead puts a hard cap on your max health. (This is framed as losing a 30% HP “bonus” from being “Embered,” rather than a 30% cap, but they achieve the same basic effect, especially since being human is supposed to be the “base” state. If DS2 did this shit, people would be mad about it.) In general I dislike when these games punish players who are having a difficult time with a section or a boss by making the game even harder (which is also why I’m really not a fan of the PvP system).

DS3 also accelerates some of the frustrating things in encounter design from DS2; not only are there many areas with insane swarms of enemies, but those enemies are all often obscenely fast and hit like a truck. The new Silver Knights (who were some of my favorite foes in DS1) are the worst offenders so far; they were slow and methodical but punishing, but now they’re used as a gank-fight.

Finally, DS3′s narrative is mired in nostalgia-bait. While DS2 asked about Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, “who’s that?”, DS3 acts like Anor Londo was the most important kingdom to ever exist, undermining both previous games’ themes. It doesn’t really feel like it’s telling its own story. So even though DS3 is more technically polished than DS2, and I think definitely has a better selection of bosses and levels, I think it’s the inferior product overall.

Bloodborne

Bloodborne is definitely the most moment-to-moment fun alongside DS1 imo, but is less visually interesting so far compared to the hideous muck of Blighttown, the splendorous ocean of Heide’s Tower of Flame and grim industry of the Iron Keep, or the terrifying, frostbitten beauty of the Boreal Valley. But I also don’t own a PS4, so I only got a third of the way done playing on my friend’s. However, the new approach to warping, the streamlining of the weapons system, the emphasis on parrying, the rallying system, and the increased speed and flow of gameplay are all great developments and I’m excited to explore the game more in future when I’m able to.

Demon’s Souls and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Demon’s Souls is next if I can acquire a PS3 copy (or if one of my friends gets a PS5), and while Sekiro strikes me as very different in kind from the rest of these games, it’s still on my to-play list.

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garbagewhump · 4 years

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The challenge run by @yuckwhump

A preemptive warning about this series. It is by no means political nor a satirization. It is not meant to make any statement. The views and representation of any given character do not necessarily reflect the views of the author, nor do I condone the aggressive, vile behavior exhibited. Normally I wouldn’t bother saying this, but because of the terminology and victim selection used by the whumpers and the fact similar ideology exists — though less radical — I feel the need for clarification to avoid any miscommunication.

[first] [next]

Live Feed - Thirst

Warnings specific to this chapter: humiliation, brief description of gory mental image, blood.

Dale desperately wanted to brush his teeth.

His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth, glued there by slime. Even his teeth felt fuzzy and rancid. He kept reminding himself not to lick his split and oozing lips. The brief respite wasn’t worth the increased dehydration as the moisture evaporated. His entire throat felt coated in sandpaper, every hard fought swallow of saliva catching the whole way down

And, God, his head. During the summertime growing up he used to suck on frozen grapes, grateful for the chill in his mouth and the burst of tart liquid on his tongue. Right now, his head felt like a grape about to give way, like any minute it would split open and spill his brains out all over the floor.

His arms had been cuffed behind him since the start and every so often his back and shoulders would spasm, protesting the immobilization, but mostly they had gone numb. What a small mercy. He initially occasionally wondered perhaps if that was stress or the dehydration, but eventually decided it was both. Both accounted for the pain he was in.

He’d long since given up on begging for water. A couple days ago, maybe. Time meant nothing here, even if he had a way of marking the passage. The room was probably an unfinished basement of some sort, and lacking entirely in windows or a clock. And all begging did was set off his captor’s...

Dale very much did not want to call it a sense of humor. It was far too twisted for that, but his captor certainly amused himself.

Speak of the devil himself.

“You’re finally awake!” he chirped, as always far too cheery. Most unnervingly, he had one of his arms held behind his back. What was his game here? What was his plan?

A shiver traveled along his twitching back and nestled behind the ever worsening headache.

How in the world had this obviously physically fit 20-some-odd managed to get the drop on him, an out of shape middle aged man?

Oh. That’s how.

God, his head ached. Could heads explode? When the sadistic brat knelt down to his level, Dale fought an instinctual flinch.

He wasn’t machismo poisoned enough to deny he wasn’t afraid. But there was enough there that he balked at the very thought and forced a facade of nonchalance. Keeping his spine straight hurt more, but it was worth it for a shred of dignity.

“So, after a couple days to stew it over...” He idly manhandled Dale’s face with one hand, turning it this way and that. “Holy shit, you’re a dusty old fart. Look at you.”

If he still had saliva to spare, he’d spit right in his face.

“Anyway, I got some yummy water for sale for my thirsty little pet boomer.”

For sale? That was what this was about, money? “Don’t got my card,” he rasped. He’d been aiming for a threatening growl and ended up far left field of that. “I can pay you though, if you let me.”

The kid giggled at him. “Shit, you’re a riot. I accept Venmo here in the 21st century. So you don’t have to, like, fax over the bills or request a money order or whatever outdated shit you were planning.”

Dale screwed his eyes shut. They burned and ached but he found minuscule comfort there. His tormentor released his grip on his jaw and stepped back.

Something metal clattered to the ground. He jumped and winced as pain shot up his spine.

“Now that got your attention!” The man sneered and nudged an empty dog bowl toward him.

Not daring to breathe, Dale very carefully kept his gaze on the other man rather than the bowl or the tempting, dewy-sided bottle of water in his hand. The desire that ran through him was like deep throating a hot poker all the same.

“Admit that you fucked the environment,” he ordered.

Wait. What. “What?”

“Did I fucking stutter?”

Dale tried shifting positions, to alleviate the pressure on his ankles, rather than answer him.

The man continued anyway. “Your generation fucked housing, the economy, the environment, and you have the fucking gall to blame my generation for destroying industries.” He grabbed Dale’s face before he could jerk away. “Isn’t that just a little fucked up?”

He needed that water. Now that it was within reach, every breath burned and scratched up and down his throat, and if that’s all that water cost? “We messed up,” he grunted. Each word tore up his throat and stumbled over his sandpaper tongue.

Slowly, too damn slowly, the other man started to untwist the cap. “Well? Go on.”

“We’re bigoted, obstinate, ignorant.” Very carefully preserving his pride, he did not focus on the fact his voice kept cracking without any liquid to soothe his throat. “We are incumbent in lucrative positions and resist turnover and change.”

Another turn.

“Our college education cost a fraction of yours.”

Another.

“Our McMansions were bought low and sell high.”

“Gosh,” he gasped, “this old technology is so hard for me to understand! This might take a while. I can’t seem to find where to click.”

He grit his jaw before continuing, “We demand respect from everyone.”

Yet again. He wasn’t even gripping the cap at this point.

“We ignore the opinions of those younger due to inflated pride culminated over years.”

The younger man smirked, luxuriating in his degradation. “And what are you?” he asked.

“What?”

“Keep up, Dale! You are a boomer.”

He wasn’t. Not technically. He wasn’t about to correct him though. “I’m a boomer,” Dale agreed. At this point he would agree to nearly anything for that water, and he just hoped and prayed the other man hadn’t noticed his desperation.

“There!” His captor finally snapped the seal on the water. Dale had never heard a more beautiful sound. “Boomer can have little a water....”

His gaze locked on the water, he carefully watched every drop pour into that demeaning dog bowl. His whole body burned with the anticipation now that it was so close at hand.

“As a treat.”

All sixteen ounces of water in that bowl. If he had the hydration left in his body, he would probably have started to salivate by now. Relief was so close. All he needed was the binds on his wrists released and he could gulp down that sweet, sweet water.

The menace smiled at him and chef kissed like it was a decadent meal, not life giving liquid. He said, “Bone app the teeth.”

What the what? Forget it, he was too thirsty to care about dignity, let alone whatever nonsense this freak was spewing. Shoving his face into the bowl, he sucked up water, drenching his split lips in the moisture.

Cool, sweet relief flowed over that arid, stinking abscess that had replaced his mouth. Chill water settled in his hollow stomach, reminding him he hadn’t been fed either, but sweet, sweet relief was more pressing

The water level began to lower as he drank, but he just shoved his face deeper into the bowl. The cold metal was almost pleasant, chill along his brow.

“Let me help you there,” was all the warning he got.

The pain exploded in the back of his skull, neck, face. Blood tinged the water. Salt burned his lips and his nose felt like a tennis ball was crammed behind it. His eyes stung and watered.

Dale bucked and twisted and jerked and threw himself away from the other man, out from under his boot, wrists twinging painfully as he fell on them. Blood continued to ooze down his lips.

His captor’s deranged laughter echoed in his ears. “I’ll let you stew a little longer,” he said as he left.

When the door clicked shut and locked, when he heard the footsteps fade away and leave him in silence, he turned his head away and ignored the water dripping down his face. It was just water, anyway.

#whump #live feed series #tw humiliation #dehydration #tw blood #crying #young whumper #lf dale gibson #lf jaden pierce

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cerisewrites · 4 years

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𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄

This is a piece I wrote a year ago for my portrayal of villain Yaoyorozu.

TW: Mentions of Sexual Abuse, Violence, Gore

《 𝑪𝑶𝑳𝑶𝑹𝑺 》

𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒. 𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟. 𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠, 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒.

"So this is what it's like."

Yaoyorozu watched the man's eyes widen, brimming with an awe stricken radiance she'd never seen in him before. It was like seeing a child witness a simple card trick for the first time- confusion, then wonder, then belief. For a moment, it looked as though the impossible was a thing of the past. It seemed like everything was okay.

And then it wasn't.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Beautiful? What was so beautiful in a world such as theirs? The creator's eyes moved from left to right, taking in the different hues that surrounded them. Grey. Darker grey. Black. Nothing out of the ordinary, and much less, nothing beautiful. Perhaps this was another one of his games. Maybe he sought to compliment her. Yes, that was it. It was another one of his moments of charm. He was trying to confuse her, only to tell her that he was talking about her the entire time. It couldn't have been anything else.

"I've always read about color theory," he began, looking up to the sky, "I thought if I studied enough, if I memorized the different kinds of grey that there were, it could prepare me for this moment. I was mistaken. No amount of reading could amount to this. It's...ethereal, isn't it? What color do you think they call the sky?"

A soft spring breeze passed by, the rustle of leaves it produced cutting through the silence between the two. Yaoyorozu looked to the clouds, allowing a hollow smile to grace her features as she watched them inch across their silvery domain. A few stray sakura petals danced around the pair as the winds carried them away in a whimsical path: past her hair, a little ways from her eyes, and then beyond. It was like they were there only to mock her. What color was the sky? Did the petals of the fresh blossoms look the same?

"I agree," she opened her mouth as the plants around them came to a halt, and the wind left them a faint goodbye, only to sully the opportune tranquility that had been given to her with a lie, "It's much better than what I imagined."

—

Beneath the vast blanket of stars, the figure clad in black stood amongst the trees of the forest, well enough to be hidden, but still able to acquire the view they desired. The sight below the ledge was one that was rare in the advancing world. It had been long since they had seen so many trees all together in one area, and in the middle of it all, was the Roman Empire in its prime. It could not be admired for much longer, however. They were not there to bear witness to the emperor and his glory. They were there for the game: the conquering of the conqueror.

Heroes and villains existed only as euphemisms. There were only two sides, two things that brought both balance and chaos to this world. Born from red; the red of passion, and a red thicker than water. There was only love and death.

Death looked to the girl on the ledge. Undoubtedly, she was its most beloved follower. Though she had spent her entire life perfecting herself, fitting into the mold that had been set by everyone except for her, Death knew from the very beginning that she was meant for something else. A creature so chaotic in nature was not fit for the side of Love. No matter how hard the heiress tried, Love had turned her away, time and time again. Still, she continued in her pursuit, until at last, Love reared its ugly head and gave her what she was looking for.

There was a struggle, conflicting ideals clashing within the brilliant woman's mind. Of course, she was a hero. Her job was to keep the peace, and provide the people with a sense of security. But all her life, she'd been hung up on nothing but obligation. It was always about what she should be, what she should do, instead of what she wanted. This, right now, was not heroism. It was the execution of a personal desire, the worst of its kind. A desire built on wrath. Anger. Disdain. This wasn't right, and yet, that only left her wanting more.

Death let a lowly chuckle escape its mouth. From the moment it had seen her, it knew what she could do. It knew she would not fail. For the first time in decades, Death could feel a warmth building up in its chest, that pulled the edges of its lips into a smile. Over the ages, it had its champions. The kingdom of Assyria, Attila, Julius Caesar, and Elizabeth Bathory, to name a few. At long last, after years and years of lying in wait, simply watching as Love conquered the world, Death had found its champion once more.

—

"Where is Amelia?"

The emperor's booming voice echoed throughout the emptiness of his own hall. His subjects looked to each other comfortably, unsure of what to say. It seemed as though any answer they gave him would only fuel his anger. But keeping their silence would enrage him all the more.

"We last saw her in the kitchen, Sir," one of the maids finally spoke up, bowing her head as she spoke. Cowardice danced within her tone. Roman could sense it. He always had a knack for sensing the vulnerability in others, and how he could twist it to work in his favor. This was how he had survived for so long, along with his lies.

Roman. This was the name of a powerful business man, who had made it far in the hero industry despite having a quirk that wasn't considered efficient for combat or for business. Only his rather ordinary wit and will had pulled his agency to the top ranks, enough to bring him fame, followers, and some of the strongest heroes under his care. He had other subjects under his care as well. These subjects, in particular, he cared for in more ways than one.

He loved how he so cleverly dressed them up for himself. Pristine cloths of black and white, with not a crease in sight. Bonnets tied near the napes of their necks, black stockings that would go up just above their knees, a pair of classic Mary Janes to go with it all. He had cared for them in more ways than one, but they would never remember. All it took was skin contact, and he could pick and choose what parts of the day would remain suppressed in their brains. Indeed, his ordinary wit and will had served him well in his business, but his quirk served him even better in times of pleasure. Perhaps, it was sick. Perhaps it was abusive. Could anyone blame him, though? They were beautiful women, and with a capability to not ever get caught, why waste the opportunity?

The emperor was more than certain the maids would never find out about his...special treatments, and nobody would ever find out about the Praetorian Guard. His confidence was warranted, in that he'd never been suspected of anything of the likes before.

Yet we must never forget, it was hubris that became the downfall of Icarus.

The man turned his heel, promptly heading down the long corridor towards the kitchen where his favorite subject was said to be at duty. This came as no surprise to him, as she was the best cook of all the servants. But they'd talked about things like this before. When he wanted to see her, he wanted to see her. She was to come to him immediately, regardless of what she was doing, if she wanted to keep her job. "The things I'll do to this girl..." he muttered under his breath, clenching his fists as he walked. The gesture was one of combined greed, and anger.

"Amelia."

He announced her name to an empty room, as he swung the door open with his one hand. The man paced around the room thoughtfully. Strange, it wasn't like her to leave her station like this, with knives still on the counter and ingredients left unattended at the chopping board. The only thing that could be heard within the confines of the small room was Roman's footsteps, and the constant bubbling of water from a pot on the stove. A sweet, fragrant aroma filled the air, the likes of which Roman had never encountered before. It seemed as though his servant had outdone herself today, and for good reason. The emperor's family would return today from a long trip.

His interests piqued, Roman slowly approached the pot left on the stove. Upon carefully removing the lid, the emperor was met with a strange, orangey stew, that had a mix of rather ordinary ingredients. Potatoes, carrots, a mix of red and green papers.

What was in there that was creating such a wonderful smell?

He grabbed a wooden spoon, poking around and stirring at the mixture. Soon enough, something arose from the stew. The ruler turned it over a few times as he tried to make of what it was. The color was a beautiful sort of brown. The texture, however, was dense against the spoon, and its shape was most unusual. "Chicken feet..?" he muttered to himself, knowing full well that it was something he would never want to ingest. Then it dawned on him.

A hand.

—

The head maid of the manor hastily walked through one of the many corridors of the empire. There was something urgent she had to tell Roman, though she couldn't find where he was even after what seemed like an eternity of scouring the property. She scolded herself quietly, wondering how she hadn't thought of checking the kitchen earlier. Amelia was his favorite maid. It made sense that he would look for her. The head maid, Theodora, found this gravitation odd and inappropriately out of proportion. Yet who was she to question the work of a king?

"Sir," she called out as she saw him almost trip out of the room and into the hall. He seemed shaken, like he was going to fall over nothing. Eyes wide, and breathing ragged, Theodora couldn't help but notice the significant difference in how he was acting. "Are you alright?" she asked. He didn't answer, only staring at her with a look glazed with panic. Theodora cleared her throat, straightening the cloth of her skirt out of habit. "Miss Yaoyorozu approached me in the gardens, Sir. She says she has something for you in your office."

"That's not possible."

"Sir?"

"You lie."

"Sir, I wouldn't-"

"Liar! That's not possible...She shouldn't be alive. No...No. You're wrong."

She could only watch the emperor's outburst of disbelief. The next thing she knew, his hand had a tight grip on her wrist, and he was pulling her through the hall. "Stay with me," he said. The tone he used was proud and unwavering, but Theodora knew he was scared. The plan at the moment was to escape the property. Everything else was secondary.

So like the wind, the king and his servant made their way through the winding halls of their home, one that was soon to collapse. In the midst of their escape, Roman's mind was swimming in a frenzy of aimless ponder. His wife and daughter. Were they alright? Had she known about their return? What happened to the rest of Amelia? Why him? Why now? The events that transpired replayed in his mind as a blaze. The guard had caught onto a lead, one that would take them back to him as the mastermind behind it all. He was sure they would be displeased with his puppetry, and so he sent out a group of younger, stronger warriors to take care of them: to drown them in fire and erase them from the earth. The agency would label it all as a tragedy that came hand in hand with heroic duty.

What he failed to account for was no matter how powerful the warriors he sent were, none of them could compare to the sheer magnitude of Yaoyorozu's intelligence.

He had been outwitted and outplayed, just like all of her other foes. All of his sins had finally caught up to him.

Soon, the pair had found themselves once more in the great hall, where the last maid of the house was. Helen was sweeping the granite floors as usual. The air was quiet, eerily so. Only the chiming of the crystal chandelier that hung high overhead could be heard. For a moment, everything was calm. And then the emperor saw something dash above him, clad in black cloths that sprawled back behind them to form something that looked like a pair of wings.

"Helen!"

The chandelier came crashing down.

—

"I know you've been told that I've left you a parting gift in your office. Look at it."

Roman could only stare in horror at the mass of upright sticks only a few feet away from the door. The metal had been painted an iron crimson, adorned with bits of flesh and skeletal white peeking from the mutilated carcass. In an ultimate act of self sacrifice, or what he viewed as possible redemption, he let her go. He stayed, thinking that if Yaoyorozu had business with him, he would let no one else be the victim. Theodora made it out the doors successfully, but after taking a few more strides, metal blossomed from the ground and stopped her, quite literally, dead in her tracks.

In a panicked daze, the emperor made his way to his office. It was over. There was nothing else to lose. With how well calculated this scheme was he was sure his wife and daughter would not return. He would soon follow them, wherever they ended up.

He opened his door. A blue marble fell from the mahogany bookshelf. It rolled down a green chute, past a series of yellow tiles, triggering a white thread, and finding rest at a silver spoon as the components of the overly complex machine operated sequentially, like a dramatic, stretched out game of fucked off dominos. Until eventually, Roman's safe had opened itself, and from it poured a foul smelling pale gas.

For the first time in her life, Yaoyorozu could see colors.

#bnha #mha #writing #bnha rp #mha rp #yaoyorozu #yaoyorozu headcanons #yaoyorozumomo

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dippedanddripped · 4 years

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Between a global pandemic and important BLM protests, fashion isn’t likely to ever look the same. But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in the slightest: fashion is one big illusion. Its hubris and self-importance are chief amongst the greatest findings uncovered during the pandemic as luxury brands and retailers plot their next steps. But can business really continue as usual?

In the throes of the public health emergency, the death of George Floyd sparked demonstrations consisting of thousands across the globe. The industry responded sharply with pledges to learn, change, and grow, though the optics of change have long been more appealing to the industry than actionable change. However, whether the fashion industry will truly foster systemic change in the years to come will prove to be its biggest challenge, especially in the face of a generation of socially-aware customers.

Slowly but surely, the industry is reopening as if there was never a pandemic, as if the open letters and the promises for change were yesterday’s news. While the menswear and couture shows moved largely online, across the globe, physical fashion weeks are being announced in accordance with the country’s health guidelines. Individual brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Balmain, Etro and Burberry will host their own shows.

Meanwhile retailers, too, are opening their doors, and are continuing to slash the value of clothing as excess inventory piles up. For many, it is too late. Some department stores and retailers have already filed for bankruptcy while many others face bleak prospects, hovering between staying afloat and sinking under – no matter their skill or discernment. Will the glut of unsold products serve as a wake-up call for one of the world’s most polluting industries? Have consumers expectations changed in light of the pandemic?

Publishers are tasked with the predicament of advertisers drastically cutting their marketing budgets and mandated quarantines made producing physical issues more difficult. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, the American publishing industry faced a reckoning of its own, as it was tasked to confront racial inequity within an industry supported by outdated modes of luxury. The world of content, and those who shape it, is likely to change, though to what extent is an answer that lies ahead.

While fashion figures out the way forward, the virus continues to accelerate across the globe, with the World Health Organization warning that the worst could be yet to come. We asked industry pioneers across fashion design, journalism, buying and merchandising, public relations and communications, consultancy, and chief executives to forecast the future of fashion, and how much will actually change – here’s what they had to say.

Social Change

For a long time now, fashion’s priority when it comes to change is in the optics of change, rather than enacting policy. Conversations surrounding race, feminism, and sustainability have dominated fashion’s agenda in recent years, though it is evident that real progress is moving at a glacial pace. Across social media, during the protests for racial justice which attracted thousands of demonstrators around the globe, performative activism ran amok on Instagram feeds and Twitter streams, a hollow and empty act that drew ire from critics.

Less than a few weeks later, consortiums of creatives banded together to call for real change. Within the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), people like Kerby Jean-Raymond, Virgil Abloh, Public School’s Dao-Yi Chow, and womenswear designer Prabal Gurung created an actionable list of demands that the Council could be held accountable for. The Kelly Initiative, a growing list of Black professionals put together by Jason Campbell, Henrietta Gallina, and Kibwe Chase-Marshall, pressed the CFDA for “equitable inroads for Black fashion talent.” Aurora James, founder of footwear brand Brother Vellies, founded the 15 Percent Pledge which urges major retailers to dedicate at least 15% of their shelf space to Black-owned businesses.

Teen Vogue editor Lindsay Peoples Wagner and public relations specialist Sandrine Charles co-founded the Black in Fashion Council to represent and secure the advancement of Black individuals in the fashion and beauty industry and to build an equality index for companies across the industry in the coming years. The different groups and what they individually represent are fashion’s most concerted efforts to truly signal change.

Though as fashion’s problematic relationships with sustainability and feminism have proven in recent years – issues only exacerbated by the pandemic – social change is a waiting game, though the moment is poised with endless possibilities for a rewritten system.

Aurora James, founder of Brother Vellies and 15 Percent Pledge

“Right after the tragic killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, we saw a lot of brands and influencers from across industries posting messages of solidarity, but not actually changing anything about their business. They say they stand with the Black Lives Matter movement but don’t have diversity in their boardrooms or in the content they put out. I hope that as an industry, we continue to evaluate what business as usual looks like and start thinking more about how we can diversify internally, how we are actually treating the people we work with. I am optimistic about the industry’s future. [Although] I don’t think it will happen overnight.”

Nate Hinton, founder of The Hinton Group

“I think that the industry can change. I don’t know how rapidly it will change. If it doesn’t, if the establishment and the people in certain positions don’t change, then people like me will change it for ourselves. You can’t keep asking an oppressor — not that I’m calling anyone an oppressor — to change their ways because the person in that mindset doesn’t understand that they’re doing the thing that they’re doing most of the time. People are [now] calling out where they see an injustice or a lack of diversity. The people will change it for you if you don’t change it yourself.”

Robin Givhan, fashion critic at The Washington Post

“I don’t think the industry is going to look the same. I don’t think it should look the same. None of the issues people or activists are bringing up now are new. Some companies have chosen to acknowledge those deficiencies in the past and perhaps make some incremental changes.Then there are other companies that these issues have been raised with them in the past and they have chosen, essentially, to do nothing. I think that there are some companies that have engendered enough goodwill that their gestures might be taken as more sincere or, at least, with a wait-and-see attitude. [Then] I think there are other companies that have no goodwill and their gestures will be met with extreme scepticism and even disregard; they have a lot more ground to make up.”

Lindsay Peoples Wagner, Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue & Sandrine Charles, public relations specialist. Co-founders of Black in Fashion Council

“Us starting Black in Fashion Council really comes from the realization that a lot of brands can say things on social media, or post the right inspirational quote but only care about this moment to make themselves look good, without implementing systematic change. We’ve gathered industry leaders from all across the industry so that we can be more proactive about change, and have productive conversations and strategies around changes that need to be made so that the next generation has a better experience. I believe systematic changes are possible when we move the conversation from canceling people and into accountability.”

Saul Nash, dancer and designer

“It feels across all industries that we’re on the wave of a revolution. You would hope it would stick and we can go forward. Fashion is an institutional system set up over decades; in terms of racism, it’s a question of whether institutions are willing to readdress the structures in order to tackle issues that are happening. Lockdown has been a time of reflection. After all this reflecting, it’s a question of how we’re going to put the reflection into motion for the future.”

Heron Preston, designer

“I don’t think the internal messaging matches the external messaging for every single brand in terms of how diverse their staff is and the content they put out, but hopefully it will in the future. A lot of brands who are posting messages of solidarity are the same people who don’t actually care about the movement behind the scenes. We really need to check people for their actions and hold them accountable for the positions they claim to stand for. Once this all settles down, that is when the real work starts.”

Bhavisha Dave, co-founder of Capsul India

“Communication is the most critical thing when it comes to any business. Today’s young consumers are so used to having conversations about everything, sometimes even uncomfortable topics, [so] they will demand the same from brands. A brand or a platform needs to get comfortable to have those kinds of conversations.”

Robert Burke, consultant

“The consumer today has more discretion and higher standards than they have ever had, and rightfully so. The brands have been veiled by the press or lack of transparency, or were never really held accountable for diversity, workplace treatment, factory, sustainability. The smart brands are going to communicate with their customer and discuss these things in a very straightforward and direct way, whether that be with Black Lives Matter, MeToo, discrimination in the workplace — if they can communicate directly with their customer, they can gain their respect.”

Maxine Bédat, founder of New Standard Institute

“This moment is a reckoning across the board. Companies will need to address racial justice issues and make sure the company is representative both at the retail floor and the executive leadership. It’s up to the leadership of the company to make the right choices. But it’s also up to the individual citizens who continue to make change a priority, demanding these things of brands. It’s a two way street and that’s how change happens. This is a call to action to stay engaged, to stay on top of brands, and to stay on top of legislators to create laws that will address social and environmental inequities.”

Kibwe Chase-Marshall, designer, writer, advocate and co-founder of The Kelly Initiative

“Powerbrokers relied upon the cult of manufactured pedigree to maintain their strongholds on access to opportunity with glossy IG profiles eclipsing resumes and reference-checks. Then a global health-pandemic occurred, Americans initiated a world-wide #BlackLivesMatter call-to-action, and the entire fashion mechanism came tumbling down. Brands will each have unique relationships with internal culture evolution amid this complex moment; considering Anti-Blackness within boilerplate discussions of diversity-and-inclusion was a “no-no” just a couple of months ago. Many will launch smoke-and-mirrors, PR/marketing campaigns to obscure visibility of their disinterest in a redistribution of power and access, but hopefully, enough dynamic leaders of influence will commit to the hard work of atonement and, at times for some, painfully disruptive course-correction.”

Fashion Month

Fashion week is not dead. Despite COVID-19 limiting international travel and physical gatherings, fashion councils and federations around the globe mobilized. It began with Shanghai, Moscow, and continued to the recent digital versions of London, Paris, and soon Milan Fashion Week.

But France’s Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode and the Italian Camera Nazionale della Moda are committed to physical fashion weeks to take place in September, in line with the government’s health guidelines. New York and London are looking into similar ventures. Prior to that, in August, Copenhagen Fashion Week will embrace a hybrid physical-digital experience to enhance the virtual side of things for the international press unable to travel to the event. Dolce & Gabbana will host their first physical fashion show in July with a live audience while Dior will have a live-streamed event in Lecce, Italy, but with no audience. Burberry will present its Spring/Summer 2021 collection in the great British outdoors on September 17 to accommodate attendees. Chanel is committed to six shows per year, according to Chanel’s President of Fashion, Bruno Pavlovsky. Luxury conglomerates such as LVMH and Kering have been relatively tight-lipped about changing the schedule, echoing other megabrands’ stance.

Meanwhile, consortiums of industry insiders such as those formed by Dries van Noten, or The Business of Fashion, are calling for radical, systemic change to a format that is over-reliant on tradition and a cycle that is ultimately damaging to business. While COVID-19 offered a moment to share ideas and form collaborations, great things still happen through physical human connection and one thing is clear from the current discussions: fashion week is a crucial aspect to the system, however, it becomes clear its structure and format need rethinking.

Pascal Morand, Executive President of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode

“There was a wish for a physical fashion week — not from every brand, but some brands wanted it. In July, we decided to work on an alternative project. We will see how that plays out. But the nature of a sensory or emotional experience is not the same as a digital one. Digital cannot replace physical because physical expression is so important. With September, we’re doing the exact same as we did in February and March. We’re following the government health guidelines, that’s the same now. We’re hoping that a digital fashion week will provide us with more insight into the ways physical and digital can be combined.”

Cecilie Thorsmark, CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week

“It’s hard to replace the emotions experienced at a live show or the personal interactions with brands with digital solutions. However, we need to re-evaluate physical fashion weeks. Copenhagen Fashion Week is a biannual event, we merged men’s and women’s, but even that could be rethought. Should it only be once? I don’t have the answer. For certain, there is a need to add a digital layer to fashion week and for brands to show in different ways post-pandemic. There are so many forces asking for change at the moment but it must happen collectively and collaboratively. The word ‘system’ is key because only when the response is coordinated will systemic change happen.”

Nate Hinton, founder of The Hinton Group

“I think fashion week should change but whether it will — I can’t predict that. I think a lot of brands and designers were being forced to create on a schedule. The business stopped looking at fashion as an art form but as a commercial entity. It was treating designers as businesses — which they are, their brands are businesses — but they weren’t given the space to actually create quality products hence the rise of fast fashion, pre-collections, six fashion weeks per year, and the dilution of fashion. It watered down our industry. It took away from those collections and those runway experiences that made you gasp. I think people are just tired of it, frankly. The retailers, the organizations pushed for too much and now some artists and the designers are saying “we’ve had enough.”

Sara Maino, deputy editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia

“We can’t think about not having fashion shows. We definitely need a clean up because in the last couple of years there’s been too much of everything, everyone has something to say. The industry has become quantity over quality. There needs to be a slowdown, yes, but you can’t replace the fashion shows, the events, the presentations.”

Saul Nash, dancer and designer

“In terms of shows, for someone like myself, the physical space is quite important. I think that being able to touch clothes and see them up close is key. If it is a case where digital fashion week is what’s available, I think I could adapt performance to meet that. It would be an interesting challenge to try something.”

Gert Jonkers, editor-in-chief and publisher of Fantastic Man

“You always hear ‘fashion week and fashion shows are all about the storytelling behind the collection’ but what it is sometimes is just the collection and you just want to see clothes. The core thing of fashion brands is the clothes they make. When you see a series of presentations that are anything but the clothes it makes you realise the subject is missing.”

Reese Cooper, designer

“Being one of the newcomers, we always looked forward to being with the right people in the right place physically. Moving shows to the digital space, like Instagram. It’s harder for us to reach outside of the existing followers base. So the physical show and physical fashion week gave us the opportunity to meet and network with buyers, press, and potential new teammates. It really does help us move forward. Physical fashion week has its business value, but the cultural aspect is equally important to me. Having all of my friends and family together in place, it creates this energy that everyone looks forward to. Moving it to digital is just half of the fun.”

Loic Prigent, filmmaker and journalist

“Fashion is about change. I don’t think anyone has the new formula ready yet but designers seem generally excited about something new. The strongest point of view will win as always. I don’t like to take too much time to think about the what ifs but I don’t think councils or federations will have the agility to change things. After all, it took Helmut Lang to strike out on his own in 1998 to move the shows to New York.. It was Simon Porte Jacquemus who decided to show off-calendar in the lavender fields. He took action, he thought it was best for his label. This is the kind of decision-making we need.”

Andrew Keith, president of Lane Crawford and Joyce

“Shows have evolved over the past 25 years I’ve been in the business. They’ve morphed from showing a collection to press, and key wholesale and retail partners to a message to customers. Now with the speed of information, social media and influencers they’ve become they are less important to us from a retail perspective. [Yet] I’m not sure there won’t be shows. For some brands, it’s core to their DNA and necessary for their vision and storytelling. The contentious issue is the conglomerates don’t want to change and while the young guard are all pushing to change the dates to show and sell in June and July, they don’t want to wait until September, and they want to do women’s and men’s together.”

Ida Petersson, Womenswear and Menswear Buying Director of Browns Fashion

“We need to look at fashion weeks not with a nostalgic view but with a future lens. From a buying perspective, tech innovation definitely needs to be applied to a greater extent than I have witnessed to date. At this stage, online fashion week is a really tough space to be in for a buyer. The virtual buying tools are not developed enough for the experience to be efficient and most times we are still either buying by flicking through hundreds of little photos and sketches or being shown a collection through an iPhone, resulting in the selections taking up to three times as long as a pre-COVID-19 appointment.”

Retail and the Consumer

As luxury shopping destinations reopen in the aftermath of a mandated lockdown, large department stores and smaller, independent boutiques, with controlled traffic, are tasked with navigating the new world order. For many businesses, the doors remained closed even when lockdown measures were lifted. Jeffrey, a Nordstrom-owned US retailer closed its doors. Others face uphill battles of regaining momentum — Neiman Marcus filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. Meanwhile, a lurking global recession is compounded with fears of a second wave of infection, stores are bracing themselves for reduced footfall and sales.

Another integral aspect to the conversation surrounding retail and the consumer is the intersection between morals and resource management: the world produces an unsustainable amount of clothing that is ultimately destined for landfills. According to McKinsey & Company, the value of excess inventory from Spring/Summer 2020 collections is estimated at $160 billion to $180 billion worldwide which is more than double the normal levels for the sector. Whether retail, the physical act of experiencing a store or online-shopping, and the market that drives it, can withstand the pandemic is yet to unfurl but, undoubtedly, business is tested with unprecedented challenges.

Maxine Bédat, founder of New Standard Institute

“Regardless of what happens we’re going to keep getting dressed. There’s a real opportunity to take stock from a company perspective — and companies are doing that, with a lot of fear — and this will mean a lot for what, and how much, they produce going forward. Even the largest players are thinking about these things. That has always been the elephant in the room in terms of the sustainability conversation: how do we make this one piece more sustainable versus thinking about what the right size for the whole industry is. This isn’t rocket science, it’s a matter of prioritizing these issues.”

Stefano Martinetto, CEO of Tomorrow London Ltd

“It’s obvious that luxury brands need to be protected in their brand equity. So why shouldn’t independent designers? Why should there be discounting on some brands in November and May but not on others? Is there a future for retail-wholesale-independent-designer relationship or if this generation of independent will be wiped out by the next financial crisis, will they come to market as direct-to-consumer? It’s a big risk since I’m a believer in retailers as curators. We need to rewrite the rules. We are playing with rules that are fifty years old and only work for two or three conglomerates and fast fashion.”

Robert Burke, consultant

“The last few years, everyone has said, ‘the system is broken’, but nobody has had the conviction to change it, but because of the pandemic it’s been a forced hard stop. Brands are going to take control because they are very shaken by what happened and realize how delicate the wholesale relationship is. You’ll see even small brands go after their direct-to-consumer business. They can control their own message, they can control their own sales and pricing and get products out there. They can have a relationship with the customer. The pandemic has shown us that if you have a good relationship with your customer, you’ll end up ahead.”

Ida Petersson, Womenswear and Menswear Buying Director of Browns Fashion

“The current model has been unsustainable for some time with too much product being produced and people’s mental and physical well-being from designers, through editors and buyers being tested beyond reason. We just didn’t have the headspace to sit down, take stock and explore change. It’s up to us now to ensure this progress is not just upheld but continues to be pushed forward.”

Heron Preston, designer

“It looks like the system is starting from scratch working with a whole new supply chain. It looks like [we’re] not plugging-in to what currently exists as we know it, but [we’re] plugging-in to how we would like the future to operate. We have to work within a whole new library of materials, factories, vendors, and people that are set up to work in the way that the world is asking us to. We can no longer retrofit failed systems; we have to start fresh and brand new.”

Andrew Keith, president of Lane Crawford and Joyce

“There is definitely a great deal of discussion about how we manage discounting and bring it under control so we don’t have such an extensive approach to it. We’re looking at how we can be more effective at selling the right product at the right price at the right time. Because of antitrust laws, we cannot set down or agree to a global approach to discounting. But things do look likely to change.. The cadence will change as brands look at how they will design products and deliver in accordance with the new schedule we are all working towards.”

Peter Baldaszti, CEO of Nanushka

“We fully support every initiative aiming at bringing our industry closer to normality, more reasonable operation. On the other hand, at least in the short term, I’m a bit sceptical with our outlook. In the current climate, customers have decreasing disposable income, they will need more accessible price points while brands have huge amounts of excess inventory and at the same time the industry is working on a shift towards less discounting and less products on sale. It’s contradictory, it’s going to be a bumpy ride but the concept is really good and something we all have to work towards.”

Bhavisha Dave, co-founder of Capsul India

“Streetwear isn’t something that’s organic to India in the global sense that it’s understood. Of course, there’s street fashion and youth labels but the way streetwear is understood is only a recent phenomenon. The good part about that is that being the only platform of streetwear in the country, we can create our own definition of streetwear in India and that’s something we are doing to the extent that our philosophy is to buy less, buy well by virtue of the fact that streetwear is expensive. People will need to feel good and wear good clothes.”

Peter Semple, Chief Marketing Officer of Depop

“We look at resale or secondhand as the future of fashion consumption. The journey we’re on with resale and secondhand is reframing what ‘desirability’ and ‘aspiration’ is and how to reshape those things that would usually be considered part of the traditional luxury market in order to be understood in the secondhand market too. We see sustainability and focus on environmental impact as becoming dominant themes for everyone in the future.”

Publishing

The publishing industry was in a precarious situation long before COVID-19 caught the world by surprise. Staff count was diminishing, subscriptions and the number of issues dwindled, and in some cases, magazines were on the brink of folding, some did. In a fashion industry largely shaped by fast-paced, timely digital transactions, the world of magazines struggled to keep up with the pace of the industry. In light of the pandemic, there were further salary cuts, furloughs and lay-offs at editorial titles. Some publications combined issues, others moved their focus online. Editorials were captured via Zoom. Others, like Vogue Italia, have been experimenting with new forms of covers from blank slates to children’s illustrations. Editorially, there will be a shift towards a more practical function.

This new frontier was compounded with the death of George Floyd. Throughout the demonstrations, the publishing world faced a reckoning as allegations of racism surfaced. Adam Rapoport was fired from Bon Appetit following the surfacing of images of the former editor-in-chief wearing makeup derogatory to Peurto Ricans. Anna Wintour was forced to apologize for Vogue’s lack of inclusivity during her 32 year tenure. Refinery29’s Christene Barberich stepped down after women of colour shared negative experiences of working at the company. Around the same time, Samira Nasr was appointed the first Black editor of Harper’s Bazaar US.

The power structure of publishing is set to change as much as its format. The ivory towers which formerly represented fashion and its appeal are no longer considered as luxury, rather problematic. The culture of exclusivity that defined fashion of yore is outdated in the current climate. In order for publishing to strike a chord with readers, the tone must align with today’s values which are at odds with the glistening mien of old world luxury.

Robin Givhan, fashion critic at The Washington Post

“From my point of view, as someone who writes for a newspaper, I honestly don’t feel the existential angst some people do if they were working specifically for a fashion magazine. I cover the news and shifts of the industry. In some ways, this is an incredibly interesting time because the industry is in a state of upheaval. There is a lot of potential to change, there is a great deal of uncertainty. Those are interesting stories that will ultimately have an impact on consumers and that’s always been my point of view in the industry. I think it’s a different situation if you are doing fashion shoots, if you are engaged with partnerships with design houses, or if the bulk of your advertising comes from the fashion industry.”

Sara Maino, deputy editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia

“As humans we adapt to situations. The pandemic brought us much closer, there was more exchange of ideas. There’s been an evolution of content and communication with things like Instagram, a very powerful tool in both positive and negative ways, but the magazine is at the core, it’s where everything starts. The magazine is like the house, to speak metaphorically, and you go out and choose different paths and see what’s there. We just have to think beyond digital because it can’t be the new normal.”

Gert Jonkers, editor-in-chief and publisher of Fantastic Man

“I feel there is still a need for magazines — more than ever, I would say. You need some sort of distraction from scrolling through Instagram. Good pieces and an edited focus on reality really works. Interestingly, we used to always think ‘magazines have to be in print, it’s important to have the physical object in your hand’ — and I still think that — but why not also read magazines online now because I can’t be bothered for two weeks for the paper version to arrive? I care for the content. Overall, I think you see a huge desire for truth and reality. The current state of the world has made people interested in these things.”

Nate Hinton, founder of The Hinton Group

“I’ve always taken a particular approach to the media. I think for a long time in the media, there were certain things that were considered the gold standard. If you were in this publication or had this kind of story or got your designer this profile, you ‘made it’ in a certain sense. But the democratization of fashion with social media and peoples’ access to what they like and for people to put out their own opinions — you see there’s successful apparel brands that are making more money than designers. You can talk about fashion but what is fashion without being able to sustain your business and so those designers picked up on this, ‘so what if I’m not in the most popular magazine in the world, my customers are buying my clothes.’ You have to balance that. Listen to what the brand ethos is, build a community around that and pay attention to the people who actually like what it is you do.”

Alexia Niedzielski & Elizabeth von Guttman, co-founders of System magazine

“At System, we’d argue that the function itself of a fashion magazine shouldn’t necessarily need to change. But the form, the means of sharing the material, and the values are all up for grabs. Which makes this period as exciting as it is unsettling. [Our] magazine’s editorial goal is to explore the people and dialogues at the heart of fashion, in any given six-month period. The industry we focus on finds itself at a crossroads – on one hand it is in a state of flux, shifting its processes and values, its people and its possibilities; and on the other hand it feels like fashion continues to resist some of those changes because they may render it a less financially buoyant sector.”

Robert Burke, consultant

“The customer today is so discriminating, they want a brand that represents their values. It’s extremely important. All of this has caught the brands, editors and magazines off guard. The exposure that’s happened, especially in the last few weeks, has been enormous. I think that’s a good thing and it’s very important. Today, you can’t separate fashion from society or politics.”

Andrew Keith, president of Lane Crawford and Joyce

“The role of an editor and curator will become even more important depending on how brands and fashion weeks approach the future. How do you distil a fashion season and have a more singular approach for customers?”

#retail #aurora james #nate hinton #robert burke #fashion month #andrew keith #lane crawford and joyce #fashion blog

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straykidsupdate · 5 years

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Stray Kids Is Your Next K-Pop Obsession — Here’s Why

Just a little over a year after exploding onto the K-pop scene, the young nine-member boy band Stay Kids stands onstage thousands of miles away from their home in Seoul. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center is packed with thousands of fans, called STAY. The majority female audience — strikingly diverse in ethnicity and age — is shouting the opening “na-na”s of “My Pace,” the band’s gritty breakout hit about trusting in your own path and not comparing yourself to others. It’s one thing to hear it on the track, but another entirely to hear it thundering from nearly 3,500 young people in a cavernous space. It’s an empowering, rollicking battle cry.

K-pop has often been likened to a “factory” by the media — a “machine” that pumps out bands on a conveyor belt and hands them hollow, algorithmic pop songs to lip-sync as they move in perfect synchronization. The new generation of South Korean pop groups proves that stereotype resoundingly false. And few subvert it more than Stray Kids — with members Bang Chan, Woojin, Seungmin, Hyunjin, Changbin, HAN, Lee Know, Felix, and I.N — whose inventive mix of EDM, rap, and rock rebel against the norm, and whose sincere, self-penned lyrics are inspiring the rising generation to speak up, because they have something to say.

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“We want to be remembered as a team that not only makes good music, but makes the kind of music that really influences and helps people,” fox-faced vocalist and youngest member I.N tells Refinery29 ahead of the second the band’s two sold out shows in Newark, the first stop on the on the U.S. leg of their “UNVEIL Tour 'I am…' world tour. “That's one of our biggest dreams.”

“I don't think it's fair for anyone to say K-pop is a machine. It’s a stereotype." BANG CHAN

Ingrained in Stray Kids’ DNA is their creative agency. Bang Chan, Changbin, and HAN — known as 3racha — have written and produced the majority of the group's discography, but all nine members have had writing credits on their work, which isn't often seen from young bands in the industry. This ownership has allowed them to experiment and play with their sound, and even their videos — many of their visuals are of them singing and goofing off, filmed on GoPros (as one does when not questioning your entire existence). It’s also allowed them to showcase each member’s versatility. While many K-pop group members usually have defined roles within a group, there’s a joke within the fandom that Stray Kids sometimes feels like it has nine rappers and nine vocalists — whether it’s vocalist Lee Know dishing a scorching opening rap in “District 9,” or rapper Hyunjin letting his gentle tenor shine in “불면증 (Insomnia).”

It’s also this personal, hands-on approach that not only allows them to tell their stories as authentically as possible, but has allowed them to speak even more directly to their fans. This line of communication to the generation they speak for is the most vital to their success thus far, so the perception that their work could be anything but personal is ill-conceived.

“I don't think it's fair for anyone to say K-pop is a machine. It’s a stereotype,” says Bang Chan, turning contemplative. “But I think the reason why people might think that is because the way K-pop is built is very well-organized, and performance-wise everything is precise and well-crafted. What some people probably don’t understand is that we think of it as a gateway that allows artists to reach out to their fans.”

Stray Kids discography weaves a narrative that begins with the fictional dystopia of District 9, in which they are prisoners of a suffocating system that tries to define them. They then explored their own identities throughout the group’s I Am… trilogy as they grappled with questions that plague both them and their fans, who are growing up along with them.

“The question that we always come back to, that everyone asks themselves, that I ask myself is, 'Who am I?'” says 21-year-old Australia-raised leader Bang Chan. “I think I've been thinking about that from a really young age. Honestly right now I haven't found out who I am, and I'm still trying to figure that out. Through our music we wanted to express that and reach out to those who feel the same way, so we can have a connection with one another.”

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In March, they released a new, more confident chapter of their story, Clé 1: Miroh, led by the massive, boisterous single “Miroh.” Pulsing with brassy beats and lion’s roars, the song, according to rapid-fire rapper Changbin is about “gaining the confidence to face new challenges.” The visual, set in a Hunger Games-esque world, finds the members organizing a rebellion and literally grabbing the mic from the elite class in charge.

If anything, this is the machine that Stray Kids actively fight against — societal expectations and unmanageable pressure put on young people today. And while songs on Clé 1: Miroh such as “Victory Song” and “Boxer” share the same dauntless spirit, the group still leave room for vulnerability. “19” is a haunting, echoing song written by HAN about his fears as he teeters on the cusp of adulthood.

“When I was 19 [Koreans calculate age differently], going into my twenties, I was excited to become an adult,” says HAN. “But as the time actually came closer, I had so many emotions and thoughts running through my head. I was scared, but I wanted to express my feelings to my fans who are going through the same thing through this song.”

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Before Stray Kids debuted as a group, they were on a self-titled musical competition TV series. Felix and Lee Know were cut from the group, to the devastation of the other members, but were later added again after proving themselves once more. This emotional rollercoaster that the members endured is partially to thank for their close bond, and why the group treat each other and their STAYs like family. That and the examples set by their own families growing up.

“When we were young, whenever we went through hard times, my mom would always try to cheer me and my sisters up,” says Australian-Korean Felix, whose deep bass tone is in striking contrast to his lithe stature. “This example of loving and supporting one another is something I carry with me constantly. She inspired me to want to help other people, make others feel better by surprising or comforting them.”

“I'm so thankful to my mom for giving me unconditional love,” adds honey-voiced eldest member Woojin. “I learned a lot from her — she takes so much care in how she interacts with other people and keeps good, healthy relationships with the people around her as well.”

This all helped build the foundation of what Stray Kids is today — a group of young people who, by acknowledging their fears and faults, want nothing more than to unite with those who understand them across language and geographic borders, using the tools at their disposal. And even with only a year under their belts, it looks as if their message is already resonating.

“Each and every one of you have your own special story, right?,” Bang Chan said as the Newark show neared its close, and after fans finished a vibrant “We love you!” chant to the nine young men on stage. “[...] So I feel like today is not just STAY and people being in this beautiful venue: it’s a thousand stories all inside this really big space. I’m just glad that through music — and through the music that we make — we can gather all these stories and relate to each other. I think that’s really fantastic.”

Article Source: here

#stray kids #190524 #era: clé 1 miroh #t: article #refinery29

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piquantpiper · 6 years

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A Reading of "The House That Jack Built" As A Scathing Condemnation of Misogynistic Directors and the Complacent History of Hollywood

This contains spoilers for every bit of the film.

Lars von Trier's latest, "The House That Jack Built," features an architect-turned-serial killer named Jack traveling down the River Styx at the end of his life and telling anecdotes about the gruesome murders he has committed. He explains that he began taking post-mortem photos of his victims and dubbed his serial killer persona "Mr. Sophistication." His once-overwhelming OCD waned, and he became better at faking emotions, confidence, and charisma.

My reading of the film was that it was one huge takedown of directors who frequently employ cheap or gratuitous violence, especially against women. It highlights their resistance to criticisms and uses symbolism to call out the stagnation and complacency of the industry.

Jack drives a big obvious red van, leaves a trail, is clumsy, and is a terrible liar, yet he gets away with everything for over a decade because of everyone's willingness to look the other way, and also likely because it was “a different time” - the 1970s and 80s. The complacency of men and the law is underlined here. Cops in this film are ignorant as hell and never catch Jack even when he's daring them to or admitting his crimes to their faces. Al, the clerk at the end of the film, has known something has been fishy about this customer for years but he doesn't call the police until the very end, when Jack finally yells at him for once.

Jack stuffs dozens of women he's randomly killed into a walk-in freezer, literally "fridging" them and acting out a bad entertainment trope. The street sign here - Prospect - is broken off and only reads "Pros." It is featured every time he adds a body. The freezer is also filled with hundreds of cheese pizzas, representing the need for instant gratification and the homogeneity of the industry. "Fame" by David Bowie blares several times during the film until it nearly becomes a gag.

Like every insecure film school grad, Jack over-explains and over-justifies everything on his ride down the River Styx, going so far as to give little meta PowerPoint presentations about William Blake, the protocol of wild game hunters, how cool Albert Speer was, and how everyone who doesn't agree with him is a sheep who will never become a beautiful tiger embracing savagery as he does. He thinks he is explaining and justifying his choices, his influences, and his pursuit of artistic perfection. This is all utter bullshit and good ol' Virgil calls him out on it at every turn. When Jack says that we should look at the works of a person, not at their actions - an all-too-common comment on abusive but revered directors like Polanski, Kubrick, Allen, and von Trier himself - Virgil basically replies "you lost me when you started abusing children."

Uma Thurman plays the first victim. It seems significant that she would be involved in this project, given how vocal she has been this year about her experiences with Weinstein and Tarantino. In fact, her scene here seems like meta commentary on her own conflict with Tarantino during Kill Bill: They drove up and down a road a few times in preparation for a stunt. She felt unsafe and wanted a stunt driver. He kept pressuring her to do it herself. She did, and she was seriously injured. So when her character here insults Jack repeatedly and calls him a wimp, he snaps, killing her in his passenger seat after she's made him drive the same road three times. Both people in the car represent Thurman in real life. She "snaps" and finally does the stunt scene after being taunted, but she's the one who pays dearly.

Jacqueline Simple is the only character/victim we actually witness screaming for help, leaning out her window at night. Her name is a clue - she is a mirror to Jack, a representation of his fear of being unintelligent and his fear that he is merely screaming into the void with his art and will never be listened to. He cuts her phone line earlier that night while on a date at her apartment and enters into a feedback loop with her/himself, reassuring her and lulling her into a false state of security before he attacks. Jacqueline's scene could also represent the relationship between actress and director - her line to the outside world is severed and she now derives all validation from her abuser. He holds the keys to her freedom, literally.

Jack represents problematic creators, specifically directors, throughout the film. Chief among these parallels is his proclivity for post-mortem photography of his victims - posing their bodies to suit his whims. Jack finds the negatives of his photos more interesting than the originals - having an obsession with violence and drama. We see him shooting people often, either with a gun or a camera. He tries to rewrite the experiences of some of his victims by means of grim taxidermy, putting smiles on their faces before they freeze in storage.

If something is methodical and informed by theory and research, it HAS to be good, right? Boring directors probably think so. That's all the effort and thought that they care to put in. Jack explains the ethical pattern in which to shoot a family of deer: fawns first. If you miss the doe, she can survive without the fawns, whereas inverse is not true - and that would just be cruel! Jack even says he considers himself a gentleman for following this pattern as he shoots down a human mother and her two sons. (There's another layer of symbolism here, hinted at by the sign-off of von Trier's video that prefaced the screening of the film I saw in theaters: "Remember: Never another Trump." The clueless family had all donned red baseball caps at the start of this scene as visibility/safety gear at the shooting range, yet the caps make them into targets once Jack begins his spree. The caps represent MAGA caps, and the family's refusal to remove them even when in danger shows how reluctant Republicans are to admit that they were wrong. The apple pie at the picnic and the act of feeding it to the dead child further comments on von Trier's view of America.)

"Why are all the stories you've told about dumb women?" Virgil asks him. "I killed men, too." Jack answers. "But you're only telling me about the dumb women because you need to feel superior," notes Virgil.

When Jack starts killing men in the last fifteen minutes of the film, it's all intricately planned: he monologues, gives a bunch of backstory, brings up the military, and reminisces about hunting trips with his best friend, the elderly S.P. (Standards and Practices? ...Am I reaching now?) before shooting him to death. This stands in contrast with the earlier, fumbling murders of numerous unnamed women throughout the rest of the movie, which were sometimes even played for laughs. Jack finally gets caught, right after he murders his first man onscreen but before he can pull the trigger on another seven he had prepared.

There is no way in hell that we are supposed to sympathize with Jack or think he is a cool, slick killer. There is no way the director sympathizes with him. Jack is a massive joke who keeps getting away with things due to dumb luck and the utter complacency of the world around him, yet he gives more than one "you're all sheeple who can't understand my art!" lamentation. He even goes on a "men have it so hard, men are always assumed guilty" rant as he's skinning a woman alive. Hi, irony, nice to meet you.

Jack has absolutely no hope of redemption at the end. Virgil knows his narcissism will compel him to try to cross the broken bridge that no one has ever conquered, which results in him falling and burning in the very deepest pit of hell. Turning the screen to a negative exposure at the moment of the fall is the film's final taunt to Jack's character, as in "now let's see him try to find the beauty in that, in his own suffering."

We never see Jack at work at his day job as an architect/engineer. He buys a picturesque lakeside plot of land. The house that he demolishes and restarts multiple times at that location was supposed to be his real masterpiece, but instead he became fixated on his identity of "Mr. Sophistication” and the accompanying photography. He confuses this compulsion for his true calling, all while Bowie's "Fame" plays on loop. The house is never completed.

It is easier to destroy than to create, and it is easier to talk yourself into thinking destruction is some grotesquely beautiful esoteric art than to actually challenge yourself and endeavour to create anything original.

The character Virgil repeatedly reminds Jack that the greatest works of art have been borne of love. True art needs love, humanity, and feelings, which Jack will never understand because he is a stubborn psychopath.

This film is an overt callout of creators who think that stylized violence is a substitute for substance and that anything that is informed by theory is inherently good. Those who refuse to admit they're wrong or may have taken an unfulfilling life path, leaving a cheap and hollow legacy with no new message to impart. Those who think it is easier to paint someone's suffering as artistic than it is to unpack their own suffering and the root causes of it.

#The House That Jack Built #lars von trier

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trivialqueen · 5 years

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Chess

Here’s the next section of that original story. Still currently, and creatively called, Hospital Romance Drama. As always, I’m neither a doctor, nor British. I’m just a girl who fancies herself a writer and likes slow burns, smart women, and tall men.

“Did you sanction this?” Ms. Hale didn’t knock when she entered his office, but the click-click of her heels had announced her.

“Knocking is common curtesy when entering another’s abode, is it not Ms. Hale?” He capped his pen without thinking about it. His muscle memory could tell she wasn’t going to be leaving his office any time soon.

“If you wanted people to knock you shouldn’t have left your door off the latch.” It’s not a hill he’s willing to die on. He can see she’s spoiling for a fight; it sparks in her dark eyes. They’re not blazing hellfire at him, for once, but they’re quick and sharp all the same. A bee in her bonnet for sure, and while he has a board meeting later today, he knows it would be worse than futile to try and rush her out of his office before she was ready to go. So instead he inclines his head, acquiescing to her point and waiting for her to get back to her original point.

“I’m told you’re getting rid of the – -- machines.” He didn’t have to wait long.

The DOS’s office was on the 4th floor, amidst a maze of corridors that led to conference rooms, HR, and the records department. She’d visited it several times during Charlotte’s tenure as Director of Surgery. She’d not been back since Magnusson took over. The bones were the same. Same double doors framed by wave patterned glass blocks that provided both privacy and a vague sense of who was outside the door. Across from the door was a wall of windows with a beautiful view of the car park, along the ledge which ran under the windows he had kept with Charlotte’s tradition of keeping plants. His looked markedly more alive than hers ever did. It was perhaps a terrifying or a very fitting fact that despite being a talented surgeon and a devoted mother she couldn’t keep a plant – even a cactus – alive for longer than a month. The walls were the same warm shade of ecru and the floors the same industrial beige Berber. Beyond that the room was completely different, as distinct as the two people. Charlotte’s office had been an eclectic mash of overstuffed seating and bohemian rugs, ornate lighting and a big vintage desk. Magnusson’s office was in a, predictable, curated Scandinavian design. He sat behind a sleek, teak L shaped desk, filing cabinets and bookshelves anchored on the wall behind him. At the other end of the narrow, rectangular office there was a small meeting table, in matching sleek, teak design and a very square, grey sofa. Tossed over the back of the seats was the only source of color, a blue ikat blanket, which looked delightfully soft. Even the pictures on the wall were in black and white. If the – -- weren’t on the line she might be tempted to take a closer look at the objects d’art around his office. The sculptures on his shelves, the photo sitting on his desk – the only non-practical item on the tidy worktop. But the – -- machines were, apparently, at stake. Short notice as well. Probably hoping to avoid protest. She thought bitterly, Jokes on you!

Hale paced in front of his desk, hands slashing through the air as she spoke – making a passionate case for two old CT machines the hospital board had decided were surplus. Only used a handful of times a year, tops, the space could be better utilized. Without them the south Harvey bay would be entirely open for new, hopefully more lucrative, or at least ambitious projects. He’d been apathetic about the idea before but seeing her agitation he was willing reconsider his position. Ms. Hale had good instincts, even if she also had a distaste for rules and a self-righteous streak wider than a football pitch.

“If you have strong opinions about those machines.” He cut off the third verse of her rant about what a mistake they were making. She stopped pacing and stared at him. “I have a board meeting in an hour. Write up a proposal for me to give them.”

“What?”

“Write a proposal for the board regarding the machines and I’ll present it to the board in,” he checked his watch, “fifty-five minutes.”

“It’s not a done deal? There’s a guy here to take the machines away now! He might have already taken them if he’d not hurt himself.”

“He what!?” Visions of lawsuits danced in his head. What happened? Why hadn’t he been informed?

“Not important.” She waved the question away. “He’s fine. You won’t let him take the machines?”

“Let is a strong word, he has his orders. The board had decided already. I am offering you a second chance.” She studied him eyes pinning him like a bug under glass. The spark was still there, as was a wariness as if she was deciding if she trusted him. He stared right back. For a long moment they just stared at one another. Then, she seemed to realize what she was doing, and her gaze dropped. He could see her cheeks flush before he looked elsewhere himself.

“How many copies do you need?” She asked, picking up one of the pawns from his chess set. Chess was one of his few hobbies. Playing against a computer was convenient, and challenging, but it felt so hollow clicking around on a screen. Even when he was playing the computer, he wanted to be able to see and move the pieces in the real world. The set had been a gift from his mother, the pieces carved from wood, based on the Lewis chessmen. The set was one of his most cherished possessions.

“Hmm?”

“For the board, how many copies do I need to run you off for this proposal?”

“Seven.” She had forty-five minutes to pull this off. But at least she seemed to be willing to follow the procedures in this instance. He was almost tempted to ask if she was feeling well. He resisted. Just.

“well tempus volat, hora fugit.” She placed the piece back on the board.

“I’ll get you the proposal before you meet. Seven copies.”

“The meeting is in forty minutes.” She paused at the door, looking over her shoulder.

“I’ll see you in thirty-five then.” She smiled. “Thank you.” The door closed behind her with a soft click. It was the second time she’d smiled at him…

Felix, as a general rule, eschewed violence. However, in that moment he could happily throttle Sofia Grace. Things had been going so well. She’d gotten him her proposal five minutes before the meeting started, seven copies as he’d asked. There was only one type-o betraying the haste with which he’d written the document. Her prose had been clear, concise, and pitched toward her audience – emphasizing the PR/image those machines could generate since they were particularly effective in diagnosing issue with small, adorable children. Not that it mattered now.

Ms. Hale sat on the tailgate of the truck, as primly as if she was taking tea with the queen, except for the chains wrapped around her waist and the truck. Beside her, sitting as regally as if she was the queen was a striking older woman. Her hair the color of pure snow falling over her shoulders, wrapped in a lavender silk robe. She was, mercifully, not chained to the truck. Both were chatting amiably with Oliver Anderson, who for his part seemed to be trying and failing to coax the patient away from Ms. Hale.

“Come on, Colleen.” Anderson wheedled. “I really need you to come back to the ward with me.”

“And as your Doctor, I must insist.” She patted her knee, “Go with Dr. Anderson, darling. I’ve got it from here.”

“Do you? I know a thing or two about protests you know.” The woman preened. Across the parking she caught his eye.

“Oh, I know. And after you’re in recovery I’d like to hear all about it. But for now, please let Ollie take you to bed. My audience is here.” The woman was not subtle in how she looked at young Dr. Anderson.

“He’s got eyes like Fonda.” Ms. Hale’s gaze slid from his, slowly, turning to look at Anderson, her expression softening to a wry smile.

“Doesn’t he just.”

“Come on Vanessa Redgrave.” In the time that he had been at St. Sebastian’s Felix had been rather underwhelmed by the young foundation doctor’s medical skills, but he was exceedingly popular with the patients. And his eyes really were almost an unnatural shade of blue. The old patient turned from Anderson and took Hale’s hand.

“You call if you need me, dear.”

“I was about to put your proposal to the board when I was called down here.” Magnusson crossed the parking, one hand in his pocket. He ambled over to her; his tone conversational. He might have been chatting with her about the recent Bundesliga game. It was an impressive performance considering the grinding of his jaw and the flint in his eyes. He was so angry he was calm. When she was angry, she knew she burned hot. Could taste the blood in the back of her throat, felt her hands shake, her stomach swoop. It felt like rage crackled from her fingertips. His fury was not fire. It was all ice.

“Circumstances changed.”

“I’ll say. You’ve hardly furthered your cause with this stunt.” He crossed his arms over his chest. At a glance it seemed passively displeased but standing next to her she could see the way his fingers dug into his arms, the wrinkles in his suit jacket under his nails.

“Other options weren’t producing necessary results.”

“So, you chained yourself to the truck?!”

“It got attention, didn’t it?”

“Do you ever think ahead? Or even care about your reputation?” He looked down his straight nose with an imperious eye. God Almighty he could be condescending.

I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation! Joan Jett immediately got stuck in her head.

“Compared to what’s at stake, not really.”

“Perhaps you should, considering this is the definition of insubordination and gross misconduct. You could be fired.” There was a hardness in his eyes as he stared down at her.

Fired.

It was admittedly not an ideal situation. And yet it did not scare her like it might have. Not anymore. There were worse things in this world.

It was steely determination, rather than incandescent rage, that shown out of those coffee brown eyes. It was in contrast to her wry smile which twisted across her cayenne colored lips without any humor. She patted the tailgate next to her, and he felt compelled to take the seat.

“I died once; you know.” She said softly. He recalled that from her file. More than once if one counted both the episode in the ambulance, her flatlining on the table during surgery, and an incident with a shard of glass after her initial procedure. There was a sadness around the edges of her gaze, in the undercurrent of her voice. And despite sitting on the filthy tailgate of a truck in the loading bay of the hospital the moment felt intimate.

“After being good and quiet and rule following my entire life.” She continued. “And I died. I got better and since then all I can think is like, what’s the worst that can happen when you’ve already died once? What can you do to me? Fire me? By the grace of God and these hands, I’ve got savings, I’ve got skills, I’ve got a support system. I can find another job. I got second chance and I’m not going to waste it being ‘good’ when I can spend it saving lives. Go ahead, fire me over this. I don’t think I’m wrong though. These machines are worth saving.”

Well then.

“And I almost had, without any of this fanfare. If you’d just waited.” The proposal she had written had been a good one, and it was late enough in the meeting that most of the members cared about calling it a day. Twenty minutes and the machines would have been free and clear. It was almost as if she didn’t want the process to work.

“Circumstances changed.”

“What? What circumstances?” He looked around, the machines weren’t even on the truck yet and as far as he could tell the only people around were drawn by her protest. There was no maintenance men around, no laborers hauling away the machines yet. Nothing. She opened her mouth to speak.

“No.” He cut her off. “I was in the middle of presenting your proposal. The middle. If you waited ten minutes this would have been taken care of. What circumstances changed? I see no change. Those machines aren’t out here. No one is out here except the people this stunt has attracted. It’s like you don’t want this to work.”

“Of course I want this to work! I want to save those machines!” He hopped up from the gate. He wanted to throttle her. Rather than wrap his hands around her lovely throat he ran a hand through his hair.

“You. You want to save those machines. Be the martyr. Be the savior. And you won’t let anyone take that from you. Even if someone else can help. If someone else could have succeeded.” It was possible for someone to look more insulted than Sofia Grace did in that moment, but only just. The hot, spice of her anger rolled off of her in a wave. Her eyes blazed.

“How dare you!” She was incandescently angry. It was terrifying. Beautiful. And he found that he didn’t care.

“Why didn’t you trust me?” His voice was so low she almost didn’t hear him over the rush of blood in her ears. FLACHWICHSER! He stood over her, back ramrod straight, his jaw clenched, teeth visibly grinding.

“Why didn’t you trust me to take care of this. I told you I would. I was literally in the meeting doing this work when you stepped in with this self-righteous grandstanding.” He didn’t raise his voice. The accusation landed as heavy as a slap.

“Because to you these machines are just numbers on a balance sheet. Dead space clogging up one of the bays.”

“Really.” He crossed his arms, suit jacket wrinkling under his fingers, the white knuckles the only thing betraying his state of mind.

“But to me I see children with heart problems, a chance to make a difference in a family’s life.” Her throat felt raw; tears were threatening. Sofia Grace hated the fact that she was an easy crier. Any strong emotion could send her into tears – anger, pain, joy, sadness. It completely undermined her, and she could never stop it once it started.

“Do you have any evidence for this allegation?” He challenged. “Is it because you believe that you have a monopoly on compassion, or do you truly think that I can’t feel?”

Had she not been so far gone, in a berserker rage, she would have better noted his tone. Hurt. However, she was gone. So gone there was white around the edges of her vision.

“If you cared about these machines, you’d not have let it come to his in the first place!”

His nostrils flared and the grinding of his jaw became more pronounced.

“I am but one man on a seven-member board that is ruled by majority vote.”

“SG! SG!” Oliver Anderson’s voice was like a bucket of cold water on his anger. “It’s Colleen!” The junior doctor came skittering to a stop, nearly bowling him over.

“Sheiße!”

“Helvetes jävla fanskap!” Ms. Hale had chained herself to the truck and tossed the padlock key toward the dumpster. Maintenance might have bolt cutters, but it was a gamble on if finding the key (provided she hadn’t actually hit the dumpster) or finding the cutters would be the faster solution. “Fan out, we have to find that key!” All of his rage, his displeasure, the coil at the base of his spine disappeared and was replaced by clear purpose. “Do you ever think ahead?” He snapped. Alright, perhaps not all of his anger had dissipated. But really, what was she thinking? She was a CT consultant, on duty and just decided to not only chain herself to a truck in an act of pious protest, but also throw away the only key!

“Hang on, hang on.” She snapped back, scooting to the edge of the tailgate, her hands tugging at the chain around her slim waist.

“What are you doing?” It was strange and uncomfortable looking as she slithered inch by inch down from her seat. The chain moving up her body inch by inch, bringing her claret colored blouse further up her abdomen. He didn’t want to stare but he couldn’t look away as more and more of her smooth, pale stomach came into view. The scar was long, bisecting her down a center line, almost perfectly, save for the slight jog it took around her navel. It was nearly twenty years old, healed and faded from the once angry, jagged line it had been but still pinker than her natural skin tone and slightly puckered. It continued down below the waistband of her slacks and up into her chest (not that it was visible yet, the shirt was bunched under her breasts as she kept wiggling through the loop). The upper half of the open surgery scar was slightly more faded, almost impossible to discern from her cleavage if she wore a blouse that revealed any (not that he’d ever admit to looking).

“Just a second.” She grunted, flattening her own breasts until the chain slipped over them, which it did eventually. She raised her arms above her head and finished slipping through. She found herself free of her chains, on her hands and knees in the car park. She quickly popped up, straightening her blouse and dusting her hands, her cayenne colored smile cocky and broad.

“I am not as dumb as I look!” She said brightly before rushing toward the door.

“Ms. Hale, my office as soon as!” He called. She acknowledged him with a wave of her hand and disappeared into the hospital.

“What should we do with this?” At his elbow the junkman appeared, hobbling on crutches, answering that question more than Dr. Hale did.

“Hold off, plans have changed.” The board hadn’t formally voted, but enough members had told him they didn’t care what he did with the machines if it mattered so much.

Three decisive knocks took his attention from the file he was only half-heartedly reading. It was past the hour people generally headed home for the day, but he had never been most people. More than that, he and Ms. Hale had a conversation they needed to have and she only now had gotten out of surgery.

Word on the ward was that it had not gone well.

Ms. Hale did not sweep in has she had before, proud and pugnacious. She was tired, faded. She’d dressed after surgery, but not reapplied her lipstick. He could not think of a better metaphor for how she looked than that faded cayenne.

“She had been a long-term patient of yours I’m told.” And quite the character too by all accounts. Sofia Grace ran a hand through her curls.

“Yes.”

“Your proposal passed, with amendment. We will keep the equipment but move it out of the bay and downstairs with the less frequently used machines.”

“Thank you.” She gave him a small nod before turning her attention to his chessboard once again, slim fingers brushing over the pieces. “I was out of line today. I’m sorry.” The apology was so unexpected he wouldn’t even complain about the way her eyes failed to meet his. Or even look at him.

“Yes. You were.”

“I should have trusted your word when you said you were bringing the matter to the board. I certainly jumped the gun in the most dramatic way possible.” He couldn’t help the dark chuckle. That was putting it mildly. “More than that, I crossed a line. I should have never even remotely suggested that I have a monopoly on compassion or that you do not care for your patients or the wellbeing of the hospital more broadly. And for that I am sorry.”

He was not expecting that.

Apologies were not natural for him. He did not give them easily nor did he know how to accept them.

“Yes, well.” Awkwardly he cleared his throat. “If you are going to continue to work here, Ms. Hale, you’re going to have to learn to trust me. I am not the enemy.”

“I guess we shall see then.” She picked up a white knight from the board, turning the piece over and over in her fingers. It was not the response he expected.

“See what?”

“If I’m still working here for one.” She raised her eyes to his, slowly. “If I’ll trust you. If you’re not the enemy.”

“Everything I have done and everything I will do is for the good of this hospital.” Her dark eyes twinkled at him.

“You certainly believe that.”

“I do.” He replied firmly. “Have some faith in me, Ms. Hale, if only a little.”

“I will try.” She said firmly and then placed the knight back on the chessboard, not in its original place but out into the field. “It’s your move.”

#Hospital Romance Drama #cait writes #original fiction #I don't know Swedish but I do know Google translate #Sofia Grace is Chaotic Good chaffing under Lawful Good Rules #If stacked end to end this story is like 75 pages long and they still don't like each other #Well maybe they're more friendly than before than that's it #this is the slowest burn I've ever written

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cancer-man-speaks · 5 years

Text

Cancer Sucks But You Live

My punctuation sucks because I haven’t evolved thumbs.

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Sometimes I put things off so long that I feel ashamed and in turn try to bury it even deeper in the pile of things to do. As far as excuses go it’s not the greatest but most fall short of that. A great deal of that lost time is laziness but there is also a part of me that doesn’t want to look back, that doesn’t want to remember what it was like to be where you are at.

Always obsessed with outward appearance, I cracked a joke when the doctor told me that my PET scan lit up like a Christmas tree on crank. I cried in my sister’s arms when she ran to me across the snow dusted parking lot of the clinic. I smoked a pack of cigarettes on the car ride home, trying to keep my hands busy, to do something other than think about what this all meant. I calmed down before walking in, steeling myself to be as stoic and stone faced for my family as I could. In my head I thought that I couldn’t feel this for the sake of others around me. The moment I walked in the door, I saw the tear streaked faces of my mother and sisters. The dogs milled around their ankles not sure what to make of all their sorrow and their inability to help (or in our beagle’s case, his inability to get fed.) All my bluster, all my hubris fell away when I saw my loved ones, the things I had to lose all in one place. They embraced me one at a time then we came together as a group and I lost it. All motor control lost, my legs felt like jelly. They as a group, as a family supported my weight until I could stand on my own two feet again. The beagle, ever caring, bit me in the ankle for being too far into my mother’s person space.

When I got home from the biopsy, that confirmed the doctor’s suspicion of cool case of type b small cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, I took to sleeping on the floor. I told myself it was to keep my bad back comfortable but the truth was it felt good to have something solid underneath me as everything was changing. The days passed and the face in the mirror grew ever more foreign. The bone under my flab carved itself out in my cheeks and jaw. Hollow pockets formed around my eyes that gave me the look of an upstairs basement dwelling gnurdsferatu. The only thing that didn’t change were the patterns on the pitted hardwood of my floor. I’d take off my glasses, lay my head on the cool floor, and follow the whirls in the grain with my weary eyes until they lead out of blurry site. There was a comfort in knowing that just because I couldn’t see where the rich, brown lines ended it didn’t mean they were done travelling.

Either through pity or not being able to read the signs of chemotherapy I’d occasionally get compliments on my physique. Over a beer or two somebody would ask, “You look really good, man. What’s your secret? You been going to the gym or doing heroin?”

Nothing beats the satisfaction of the anti-joke that is responding with an off handed, casual, “I have cancer. It beats the hell out of doing palates.” After you explain the sitch to people a million times explaining it one more time is mundane and boring. They will stumble a second on their words; not sure if you are telling the truth or a joke in poor taste. It’s the ultimate, “Gotcha,” moment. When your diagnosis becomes blasé your spirits soar.

From a few days after I was diagnosed letters poured in by the boatload. Friends, family, friends of family, people that had passed me once at the mall and paid a compliment to my shoes all wanted me to know that there was hope and that I was not alone. I’d read them and be dumbfounded by the amount of care people could express for a stranger. I was even more dumbfounded by the amount of care the family could express. No matter how hard I tried to blend into the background, to continue my weird, self-isolation from my family they kept firing salvo after salvo of cards and gifts. They’d send me gum, stickers that said, “Fuck Cancer,” (Because as we know cancer is terrified of strong language.), and all manner of sweet, sweet candy treats. There was no way for me to stay off the radar of the people that loved me.

I held it together through my first few rounds of chemo. It really didn’t bother me until my hair fell out. Until my fourth round I was feeling like a million bucks. I was getting skinny, I lost a few stray hairs, and I had an actual license to smoke pot. What 24-year-old wouldn’t love that? I was driving to the store to grab a drink and I ran my hand through my hair and it came back in tufts between my fingers. Pulling off the road into an abandoned store’s parking lot I started neurotically, compulsively picking away at my scalp and beard. Handfuls of the stuff coated the front seat of my 03’ Accord but still I couldn’t stop. I watched in horror as my reflection warped in the rearview mirror. I just couldn’t stop. After a half hour of what scholars refer to as, “Going bananas real manic like,” I regained my composure. I drove myself over to a friend’s house and had her shear my head with the clippers her dad used to shave his back. From that day on I was bald. It wasn’t so bad when I got used to it. Every now and then I would get a weird phantom limb sensation, as though I still had a rugged mane of hair, when the breeze blew on my naked scalp.

I was in and out of the hospital all the time. My guts exploded one time when a tumor responded to the chemo and disappeared. It was what we wanted with the tumor, not so much what we wanted for my intestines. They cut out ten feet of my goop and stitched me back up. I was locked up in the cancer klink for two weeks after that. They had me on a tube and all of my food and fluids came from an IV, except when family or friends were around. They would sneak me a small cup of ice cubes, a rare sip of water, or even, once, a whole bottle of tangerine Bai over a whole night. Even when I was being a real grumpy cancer boy my friends, family, and everybody else would stick it out just to let me know I wasn’t alone. In that exact same stay, a friend of mine actually saved my life because he was able to understand my garbled speech through my nose/mouth tubes. I’d been trying to explain to my nurse that the bile vacuum they had in my guts was pumping my green-black bile back into me but she may have been one of god’s special people. When my friend confirmed that my gunk was being pumped back into me, he snagged somebody. Without that kind of support, I’d have either been dead or in the hooskow weeks longer. Not every situation is bubbling gut ooze but when it is remember to trust those people around you enough to say, “Hey, my bubbling gut ooze vacuum feels like its acting weird. Can you go look at the container the ooze is collecting in and tell me what it’s doing?”

You’d think that with all this gut busting and chemo I’d be taking it easy. Wrong. I’m a big idiot so instead of resting I kept smoking, went to the bars regularly, and tried my hand at in the DIY rock n’ roll venue game. My nights before chemo were full of putting anything and everything I could inflict on my body. Jumping through tables, mosh pits, and drinking beer bongs to Jean Claude Van Dame flicks were everyday occurrences. I’d been dumb before cancer. With the ability to live a bohemian, YOLO life I did just that. I’d burn the candle at both ends because I didn’t know if there was going to be a tomorrow. Tomorrow always came; usually with a Jimmy Buffet grade hangover. Dumb. I was dumb. I did seven rounds of chemo then stem cell and not once did I let off the gas petal of stupidity.

But you know what?

I survived. Against all odds, against odds that I was actively trying to stack against myself, I survived. Was it a miracle sent down from the heavens? Maybe. Was it aliens? I’d like to think so. Was it the constant support of my friends and loved ones coupled with cutting edge, state of the art technology in the hands of the most competent doctors and nurses in the industry even though I was hellbent on dying young and beautiful because I’m an idiot? That’s a run-on sentence. It’s also a pretty good idea of what kept me alive, what will keep you alive. I was full to the brim with cancer while dancing on the brink of self-immolation. If I did everything in my power to give myself the odds of a three-legged horse at the Kentucky Derby what do you think yours are? I bet you take care of yourself at least slightly better. I’d like to think that if I beat cancer there is an infinite amount of hope for you, who is not an idiot with a death wish, to go into remission.

There will be moments in the dead of night where you doubt your own survival. There will be bright days that you will sleep away. There will be moments where you lay on the floor in the fetal position bathed in hot tears and cold sweat. You will think of what a life without this hell would be like. You will feel like the cards are stacked against you. The, “What if’s,” will mix a cocktail of fatal fear in your skull eating away at your resolve. You will walk into your kitchen and forget for half an hour that you came in there for soup. You will throw that soup up and lay hunched and miserable over the porcelain for an hour. You will wonder who will carry your name? Who will see your babies walk across the stage at graduation?

The answer is you. This may be the worst moment of your life but it will not be the one that defines you. What defines you will be all that comes after this nightmare. With your two hands you will make great works. Gardens resplendent in their rainbow will call your master. You will see the white sands of far off beaches, will feel the artic chill of the frozen wastelands allegedly known as, “Canadia” far to the North. Mortal peril will be replaced with picking up the kids from karate and a gallon of milk. You will watch your children grow and cover this earth like that brand of paint I can’t mention for copyright reasons. As you watch them cross that stage or walk down the aisle you will have at your sides the same faces that did their best to make you smile from your bedside during your weakest moment. Trust in them as you would have them trust in you. They will be your guide when you cannot find yourself, we will be your guide.

#cancer #survivor #chemo #cancersurvivor #hope #advice #lymphoma #non hodgkins lymphoma #lifewithcancer #lifeaftercancer

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