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noodyl-blasstal · 5 months

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Sticky Keys

It's @taznovembercelebration day 13 and today's card was "sticky"

Read below or on Ao3. Missed yesterday's? Find it here.

If he just jabs the space bar a few more times Kravitz is certain it’ll be fine. The first 78 times haven’t worked, but the next few prods will definitely do it.

“Is everything okay, my guy?” A tall man with long hair pokes his head around the door. “Taako heard keyboard warfare and came to join in if reinforcement was needed.” Something in his tone implies that he absolutely will go to war against the keyboard if Kravitz asks it. He’s tempted to if it means he gets to spend some more time with him.

“It’s the, er…” Kravitz pokes the space bar again. “You know.” He finishes lamely, gesturing at the still very depressed key.

Taako’s mouth quirks at the corner. “Ah yes. Welcome, we’re great at IT here, only the top of the line equipment for the institute’s teaching staff. What’s your handle, kemosabe? I’m assuming you’re new. Cha’boy would definitely remember you.” The last line is accompanied by a not-so-subtle once over.

Kravitz’s mouth dries up. It’s not that this doesn’t happen, he has a mirror, he knows he looks good, but this guy is handsome and engaging and this doesn’t happen to him. It’s strange guys in clubs approaching him in the toilets, not institute staff propositioning him with their eyes in the lecture theatre. Maybe this is his life now? Maybe higher education is precisely as horny as all the trashy horror novels he read in high school made out.

“Guh.” He says, intelligently. Making sure that Taako knew he was charming, witty, and engaging.

“An interesting name. Short, sweet. I'm intrigued.” Taako moves closer like he's stalking prey. He has to know the impact he's having on Kravitz's, has to be able to see the wave of heat clawing its way up his neck.

He can't give in. He can interact normally. “Kravitz.” Says Kravitz, and sticks his hand out to highlight that he actually managed to remember his own name this time.

“Taako.” Says Taako, as if he didn’t already say his, then proceeds to fist bump Kravitz’s palm.

It’s purely instinct, but Kravitz curls his palm around Taako’s fist and shakes it anyway. It’s a move that never ceases to make his nephew shriek. It looks like Taako wants to do the same and that helps honestly. He’s just people, it’s fine.

Kravitz smiles at him like what he’s just done is completely regular. “Pleased to meet you, Taako. I appreciate you coming to help in my time of need.”

“So, do you need cha’boy to do kung fu on the keyboard? They don’t call me flip wizard for nothing.” Taako chops convincingly at the air, then blows on his hand and tucks it back into his pocket.

“Why do they call you flip wizard?” Kravitz needs to know immediately.

“Because Taako has all the moves.” Taako says confident and incomprehensible.

“Every single move?” Kravitz asks, injecting disbelief into his tone.

Taako leans in, close, conspiratorial, “all of ‘em.”

“What about this one?” Kravitz spins in a circle and adds a little kick at the end.

“I can’t believe you stole that and didn't even do it right.” Taako performs the same move. “Ha cha! See, done properly.”

“I’m not convinced there was a difference.”

“Of course not, you’re just out here stealing moves you don’t even understand, that you don’t know the heart of. Where's the nuance, Kravitz? Do you even know what’s the soul of the wiggle circle flick? What the purpose of the kick is?...” Taako pauses to let Kravitz answer, then interrupts the silence. “Exactly, you don’t know.”

“Do you?”

“Of course!”

Kravitz raises an enquiring eyebrow.

“It’s all about synergistics.”

“Taako, if you make this work related I’m going to think about my damn powerpoint again.”

“Speaking of the powerpoint, how much do you love me?”

Kravitz pauses. The answer is more than nothing, which is probably what it should be. Also, he may hold the secrets to salvation.

“A lot?” Says Kravitz.

“Are you asking Taako, or telling him?”

“A whole lot!” Says Kravitz, now with confidence™

“Bit weird, you’ve only known me five minutes.” Taako’s smiling though, so Kravitz’s swoopy ill feeling doesn’t last long. It’s a joke, it’s going to be okay.

“Do you by any chance know how to fix the powerpoint? Or were you just looking for a declaration of love to spice up your Tuesday afternoon?”

“Could the answer be both?”

“I suppose I’ll allow it, this time.” Kravitz smiles, he doesn’t often get to play like this at work. Everyone’s too busy focusing on tenure and being dull.

“Stand back.” Taako orders.

Kravitz bows, elegantly he hopes, and gestures to the computer. “Your dodgy IT equipment, my lord.”

“Ooooh, Lord Taako, cha’boy could get used to it.” Taako muses as he passes. “It has a ring it.”

“Lord Taako: Flip Wizard.” Kravitz gives him his proper title.

Taako hunches over the computer, then reappears a second later looking pleased with himself. “Click it!” He says, holds out a tiny unicorn themed stick to Kravitz.

Kravitz stares at it, unsure of where to begin.

“The horns.” Says Taako, patiently, as if it was obvious, as if Kravitz was being ridiculous..

He presses a horn tentatively. His slide moves on. He clicks again, it moves again, and again, and again. Then back when he presses the other horn. Thank the lady! Kravitz could talk about music and folklore for hours, but the slides would definitely help the class actually stay awake. “Taako! You wonder, I could kiss you.” Fuck. It was a figure of speech, but he’d like to… it definitely wasn’t something you said to colleagues you just met though.

Taako considers him at length. Probably debating whether to report him to HR or super HR. Kravitz opens his mouth to apologise, but Taako replies before he gets the chance. “Go on then.”

I hope you enjoyed! Check out the next prompt here.

#taz november celebration #taz nc #Taakitz #Noodyl Writes #Taako #Kravitz

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fatehbaz · 1 year

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In the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and Northwest Mexico, many long-time residents claim that with the onset of the summer’s monsoonal rains, a feeling of elation and relief comes as fragrances fill the air in a way that makes it seem as though “the desert smells like rain.”

For decades, geologists, botanists, atmospheric scientists, and ecologists have debated the causes and triggers of this euphoric sensation. Some scientists have focused on fragrances emitted by cryptogamic or biological soil crusts during rains, while other have focused on the terpentine-like smell of the creosote bush known in Sonoran Spanish as hediondilla, ‘the little stinker.” But now two scientists from the University of Arizona [...] propose a novel, but more comprehensive answer:

The Sonoran Desert flora is one of the richest in the world in plants that emit fragrant volatile oils, and many of those fragrances confer stress-reducing health benefits to humans, wildlife, and the plants themselves. [...] [T]he biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) [...] evolved to protect plants from damaging solar radiation, heat waves, drought stress and herbivores [...].

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Initially, desert scientists focused their attention on an earthy fragrance called petrichor that is emitted from the biological soil crusts by a compound called geosmin. Geosmin underlies the earthy taste of beetroots, with notes like eucalyptus, cinnamon, and cloves and can be detected by the human nose at concentrations as low as 400 parts per trillion. It is secreted from dead microbes in the soil crusts of many different kinds of landscapes but is now known to be emitted only sporadically in Sonoran Desert soils after summer rains.

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Ecologists who studied the North American deserts then tried to explain this phenomenon through a “single cause” focus on one of the most common plants in the Mohave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan desert: Larrea tridentata, known in English as the creosote-bush. Curiously, it emits more than 35 distinct terpenes and other BVOCs, some of which (like trans-caryophyllene) are generated by an endophytic fungus growing “hidden” within the plant’s tissues. With the onset of monsoons, the high density of shrubs forming “creosote flats” emit terpentine-like fragrances (like isoprene) as potent as any botanical emissions into the atmosphere. Nevertheless, this dominant plant is by no means the only major emitter of BVOCs that give Sonoran Desert habitats their renowned fragrances.

---

The new research from the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill has found more than 60 species of 178 native plants in the ancient ironwood-giant cactus forests of the Sonoran Desert which emit fragrant biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) immediately before, during and after rainstorms. [...] From these desert species, more than 115 volatile oils have been identified, as high a number as is known from any biogeographic region in the world. In particular, the researchers Gary Nabhan, Eric Dougherty and Tammi Hartung identified more than 60 potent fragrances emitted from the foliage and flowers of desert plants during the monsoonal rainy season of the iconic “Sonoran Desert summer.”

The authors hypothesize that a “suite” of 15 particular BVOCs emitted from this diversity of desert plants during the monsoons may function synergistically to generate tangible health benefits. [...].Their accumulation in the atmosphere immediately above desert vegetation can reduce exposure to damaging solar radiation in ways that protect the desert plants themselves, the wildlife which use them as food and shelter, and the humans who dwell among them.

---

Text by: Gary Paul Nabhan. “Why Does the Desert Smell Like Rain? New UA Research Suggests the Diverse “Osmocosm” of the Sonoran Desert.” Published under the “News” section online at University of Arizona Press. 13 April 2022.

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jomiddlemarch · 2 months

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You’re responsible for your rose

“Beltane, sex magic, and a botanical aphrodisiac,” Hermione said.

Someone who knew her less well than Draco did would have thought she was incredulous.

Though, to be fair, a year ago, Draco himself would have thought she was incredulous.

She was analyzing. He’d been willing to wager the contents of Malfoy Manor’s East Wing that she was developing a runic arithmantic composite set of equations to determine the odds of success.

That was because he’d wisely chosen botanical aphrodisiac for the phrase Neville had used, quoting the blithely unconcerned Luna.

Sex pollen.

If he’d said sex pollen, all bets would be off.

And their chances of having a child would be nil.

Lower than nil. Like a Dementor had got a hold of nil and sucked all its joy in nil-ness of it and left a little nil-husk.

(He’d been up most of the night before trying to figure out the most effective verbal workaround for sex pollen and had still put in a full day at the British legal division of the International Confederation of Wizards trying to reconcile the Tasmanians to the valid claims of the trans-Aeolian merpeople. It had left him a bit punchy.)

“When you consider it, as I know you are, you’ll agree that it makes sense. Synergistically and intuitively. Neville said—”

“You talked to Neville?” she interrupted, her cheeks turning pink, her dark eyes lit up. Someone less familiar with her might imagine she was angry. Well, maybe she was a little angry.

“Of course I talked to Neville, sweetheart,” Draco said, striving for the calm tone that would engender an answering calm in her and not the one that tipped her over into a seething cauldron of piqued ire. “He’s our closest friend, he’s the most brilliant Herbologist in the British Isles, and no one understands the impact of one of Bellatrix’s curses better than he does.”

“That’s true,” she said.

“And he’s the only one who Luna reliably answers and we agreed she would have an invaluable perspective on our situation,” Draco said. Hermione dropped her shoulders, a sign that she was sufficiently convinced.

“I hate that we have to ask,” she said. It was rare for her to admit it. She had decided upon a nearly invariable, inviolable determined cheer as her approach, which served her well in the face of the advice tendered, generally unasked for, by various Weasleys (though never Bill or Fleur, who had permanently endeared themselves to Draco therein), both Patils, Minerva McGonagall, and the cadre of “fertility specialists” that St. Mungo’s purported to have, though their expertise had been based on outdated herbals, a faulty grasp of lunar charms, and a misguided belief in the addition of gigglewort to any Potion.

She had not reacted well to the gigglewort. And her insincere gales of laughter had not done much for his stamina. His climax had been due solely to hydraulics that time.

“I know,” he said. He’d learned not to offer any additional commentary that started with But. But our friends don’t mind helping. But it’s what we need to do. But if we don’t, there won’t be a brown-eyed baby with curly blond hair to be carried in one of those Muggle baby-rucksack contraptions.

“I thought when Riddle died and she was gone, it would be over,” Hermione said. “And it’s not.”

She was Bellatrix, his aunt, the witch who had cursed Hermione under the Malfoy chandelier, a moment which had been the inflection point for Draco, landing him squarely, irretrievably in Hermione’s court, Order of the Phoenix, falling in love with a woman he had never expected to do more than nod civilly at him and hold her tongue. Bellatrix had added something to the Crucio-carving combination she’d unleashed on Hermione, something purely Black, something Voldemort would not have recognized nor approved, a waste of her power on extinguishing an enemy. It had made it well-night impossible for Hermione to conceive with a Pureblood, let alone another member of the Black family.

Andromeda, when consulted, had shut her eyes for a long moment and muttered Toujours pur, before offering a pat on the shoulder and offer of a slice of apple tart. She’d also been the one to point out Hermione would have met the same fate had she married a Longbottom, Weasley, Prewett or Potter.

(It was worse marrying a Black. She might have carried a Squib to term with another Pureblood.)

(It had taken three miscarriages to convince Hermione it wasn’t simply bad luck. Draco had had his suspicions after the first, when she’d jerked away when he touched the arm still scarred with Mudblood in Bellatrix’s jagged script.)

(He hadn’t told her what he suspected. He wished to be colossally wrong. He had a decent track record in that regard.)

“It is and it isn’t. Like the tide on the shore,” Draco said. The visual soothed him and Hermione had a fondness for the ocean, memories of trips to the seaside as a child. It could possibly help.

She took a long breath and harrumphed it out in a way he found endlessly adorable. She also used it when she’d lost her latest match of Wizarding chess to Ron, whom Draco tolerated because what else could he do and at least the man, grown up (so far up, truly, were there Giants somewhere in the Prewett line because the man was a bloody tower), had learned to appreciate Hermione and smiled at Draco, a little secret smile, when she furrowed her brow squinting at the board, moving a piece that was going to put her into check in another two moves.

“Beltane isn’t a problem,” she said. “Unless, do we have to be naked in the woods?”

“No, indoors, you in lingerie works,” Draco said, grinning.

Luna had suggested they couple on a ley-line and not to discount the amplification of earth magic and bad puns. Draco planned to save that suggestion for another time.

“For the sex magic, Coniugalis? Procreo melior? Izorratu?” she said.

Draco reached over and picked up her left hand, the one with the ring he’d given her. He cast windlessly exclusively with his right hand and he let her feel the magic warm across his palm.

“Witch’s choice, I believe,” he said. “I’ve heard tell Izorratu is the most fun.”

“I suppose having fun isn’t a confounding variable,” she said.

“Might even help,” he said.

“Do we really have to use sex pollen, Draco?” she asked.

“I said botanical aphrodisiac,” he replied.

“Right, but I knew you meant sex pollen,” she said. “It’s so…campy.”

“Like, camping? Tents and fishing? Too much like your great Horcrux Hunt?” he said.

“No, like badly written media. Like Celestina Warbeck covering Elton John,” she said. “It’s not like I don’t already want you.”

“I assure you, that’s mutual,” he said. “I can check with Neville. He’d be the one harvesting the pollen for us.”

“I wonder, you said botanical aphrodisiac. Maybe we can just use chocolate?” Hermione said.

Draco considered. Hermione had previously demonstrated some delightfully unrestrained randiness after consuming a chocolate lava cake, a pudding whose name had made him turn up his nose while she insisted it was haute cuisine among Muggles. There had been so much heartbreak and misery in the past several months and if it didn’t work, they could take a break and wait for the next Beltane. Or she might want to try that in-vitro thing her parents had mentioned, even if it was going to require Confunding some Muggles in the NHS to accomplish.

“I don’t see why not,” he said, then paused while an idea occurred to him. “Truffles might split the difference.”

“What?”

“We could see whether Hannah can whip up some chocolate truffles with passionfruit filling and dust the top with the pollen,” Draco said. “Less campy, more romantic?”

“You are terribly clever, aren’t you?” she said.

“I’m clever enough to have married the Brightest Witch of Her Age,” he replied.

Later, Draco decided it was relocating to the charming, high-end inn on a ley-line that was responsible for the triplets and that if they’d stayed home and gobbled the truffles in their bedroom, Hermione wearing a pair of woolly socks and nothing else, Scorpius and Leo would not have been accompanied by Roseline. He didn’t mention this to anyone but Luna still caught his eye and winked when she saw him.

She didn’t have to lobby him to become his daughter’s godmother. They did, however, have a lengthy discussion about the risks of any Fae involvement, with Draco a hard no. Luna only said.

“We’ll see. And I mean, Roseline and me. And perhaps her mother. And Scorpius. Leo is most obviously 100% in agreement with you.”

Leo, at that moment, was fast asleep.

Draco did not argue.

Tagging @ficwip for the Hey Sweetheart 2024

#hey sweetheart #dramione #tw: miscarriage #tw: infertility #tw: trauma #other than that #humor #tropes #romance #happily married #epilogue what epilogue #hermione x draco #BFF Neville #luna lovegood #ron weasley #worldbuilding #angst and fluff #babyfic

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transingthoseformers · 7 months

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I imagine humans would be killing dark energon with fire. So much fire. Like we have seen zombie movies. We know how this will end... wouldn't it be cool if we were hardwared to recognize the threat of undeath because we evolved on motherfucking Unicron. Why we've had the dead coming to haunt the living and they came back wrong as some of our earliest monster tropes. The underworld is the realm of death and it is below our feet. Who else is down there? The Unmaker.

Maybe why human's retained our sapience and sentience is Optimus using the Matrix causing Primus' mass adoption of the Human species? Everyone survives intact and they know who is to thank and why. Megatron changed them and OP hacked the change so they would be more than sparkless slave drones. Because OP sacrificed himself (again. Don't worry it won't stick.) Humans and any the other sapient and sentient species have alt modes. Like cetacians, crows, octopodes, and elephants.

Oh man can you picture shape-shifting crows fucking with Deceptacons? They be an even worse menace than orcas.

Human's are dealing with the religious trauma of learning our creator diety sucks but his twin doesn't and he adoptedour squirrely asses. Well the Zoroastrians might be taking it better than most.

Tarantulas, Scorpanok, Shockwave heck even Starscream and Knockout would over the moon to study this.

Would our hair-do's become part of our helm structure, or would our hair become prehensil cables that formed a sensory array?

Spec evo questions because I too am a biologist at heart:

Would Homo sapiens-techni have sparks?

Would we have Mediports and cables?

Would we have our own cybertronian brand/mark or would we fall under the old symbols?

How would we be colored?

Would the human body be unarmored like protoform or would we gain armor plating?

Since cybertronians are intersex by human standards would earth creatures including human folow suite?

Would we have t-cogs or would the transformation be a synergistic part of our physical systems?

Would humans be naturally good at mass displacement? Cause otherwise our altmode choices would be very limited

Would we be natural triple changers? Like human mode, mech mode and beast mode, or would human mode be our root mode and we could choose to scan whatever?

Yepppp

I can also see them using regular energon to cancel it out, wasn't that a thing that an equal amount of energon and dark energon could cancel each other out (or at least they did in Raf??)

We areeee and it's odd

Oooo maybe yes yes maybe! Oppy will come back. Somehow.

So humanity is pissed, has every right to be pissed, and have the power of at least one god and nature on their side (as much as nature could be)

Sssddd yes. Crows would fuck with them so much so so so much, all the corvids would.

The scientists are equally having the time of their lives and so very confused, but I feel like Tara is taking it more smoothly than the others for rather visible reasons

Answers I might be able to provideeeee

On the topic of hair: hmmmn I have a feeling it's more likely to become helm ornamentation, but option two sounds like it would have interesting consequences considering our much more furry mammal counterparts

Honestly? I do not feel like HS-T would have sparks in the same way that cybertronians do, but there would definitely be an increase in the electrical aspect of our nervous systems and I can see a definite increase of complexity there as other parts of our body get a little melded together with metal. After all many cybertronians are their spark plus a body, but us? We're the complicated dance that all multicellular life is.

Would we have mediports and cables, hmm. Difficult question, but I'm gonna say yes because it's fun to think about.

I feel like we'd make up our own factions and symbols, unless directly aligned with a cybertronian faction.

On one hand, I'm getting a very clear image of gray/silver becoming a very common color on CyberEarth. But on the other I love the idea of the technoorganic life on CyberEarth taking on so many different varieties of colors, especially since using most camouflage might be out of the picture (for now????)

Ooo o o okay I feel like most CyberEarth life would be a mix of armor and protoform, because it'd be cool! And it makes sense some areas would be more squishy than others, connected into the next question of

Maybe??? I like that answer, but that's because I personally find the current valveplug anatomy setup of cybertronian sexual anatomy very much unrealistic gender goals and it's honestly sad I can never have anatomy like that. So I'm biased

hmmm ok I feel like on one hand, the T-cog is at heart an organ. Like, it's mentioned that it's a matter of biology, not technology, so I DO feel like we'd develop some equivalent to it?? Maybe??

I feel like it would take a while for most of the humans to get used to mass displacement, some might be better at it than others because pure chance

I'm almost tempted to say triplechangers pop up occasionally like they do in cybertronians!!

I do feel like the human mode is our root mode, and anything we scanney scan becomes our altmode then.

#maccadam #transformers #riot rambles #at some point it's word vomit #cyberforming au #kinda #tf worldbuilding?#speculative biology

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space-hamsters · 1 month

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Are There Brown People?

Final Fantasy XVI

IGN: In regards to diversity in the game, can we expect to see Black characters in Final Fantasy XVI, or people of color (non-white characters) in general? To clarify a bit more, there’s been discussion around the trailers to date featuring mostly white characters, and I wanted to get clarity on whether we can expect the final game to be more diverse.

Naoki Yoshida, Producer: This is a difficult question, but not one that was unexpected, seeing as diversity in entertainment media has become a much-discussed topic as of late. The answer I have, however, may end up being disappointing to some depending on individual expectations.

Our design concept from the earliest stages of development has always heavily featured medieval Europe, incorporating historical, cultural, political, and anthropological standards that were prevalent at the time. When deciding on a setting that was best suited to the story we wanted to tell — the story of a land beset by the Blight — we felt that rather than create something on a global scale, it was necessary to limit the scope to a single landmass — one geographically and culturally isolated from the rest of the world in an age without airplanes, television, or telephones.

Due to the underlying geographical, technological, and geopolitical constraints of this setting, Valisthea was never going to realistically be as diverse as say a modern-day Earth…or even Final Fantasy XIV that has an entire planet (and moon) worth of nations, races, and cultures at its disposal. The isolated nature of this realm, however, does end up playing a large part in the story and is one of the reasons Valisthea’s fate is tied to the rest of the world.

Ultimately, we felt that while incorporating ethnic diversity into Valisthea was important, an over-incorporation into this single corner of a much larger world could end up causing a violation of those narrative boundaries we originally set for ourselves. The story we are telling is fantasy, yes, but it is also rooted in reality.

Conversely, the Final Fantasy series of games have always inherently dealt with conflict and struggle, especially between the empowered and those used and/or exploited by those privileged few — a prominent trend in human history. In a game that, by design, allows players to experience that conflict and struggle first- hand through dynamic, realistic battles, it can be challenging to assign distinctive ethnicities to either antagonist or protagonist without triggering audience preconceptions, inviting unwarranted speculation, and ultimately stoking flames of controversy. The best part of pulling inspiration directly from history, however, is that it allows us to revisit and re-examine our own pasts, while also allowing us to create something new.

In the end, we simply want the focus to be less on the outward appearance of our characters and more on who they are as people — people who are complex and diverse in their natures, backgrounds, beliefs, personalities, and motivations. People whose stories we can resonate with. There is diversity in Valisthea. Diversity that, while not all-encompassing, is synergistic with the setting we’ve created and is true to the inspirations from which we are drawing.

- Exclusive: Final Fantasy 16’s Developers Open Up About Game of Thrones Comparisons, Sidequests, and Representation

#ATBP #gaming #video games #Final Fantasy XVI #Final Fantasy 16

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radical-revolution · 1 year

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~The Wisdom of Bucky Fuller~

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

You cannot change how someone thinks, but you can give them a tool to use which will lead them to think differently.

We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.

If I ran a school, I'd give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I'd give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they learned from them.

A problem adequately stated is a problem well on its way to being solved. We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.

Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person.

Nature is a totally efficient, self-regenerating system. IF we discover the laws that govern this system and live synergistically within them, sustainability will follow and humankind will be a success.

You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all you experience to highest advantage to others. Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.

It is not for me to change you. The question is, how can I be of service to you without diminishing your degrees of freedom?

The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it's really a different kind of life."

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breadknight-likes-things · 11 months

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, Isn't Crackdown 2.

Listen, I never really thought that Nintendo would blow the sequel to Breath of the Wild. How could they? When do they blow anything? Even games I actively like from that company tend to actually come out of the oven better than a wide swath of other options in the gaming scene. All that said, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't one part of Tears of the Kingdom that was worrying to me from the start: The Re-Use of the Hyrule map. That worry was unfounded, hell, how do I go further on that? Double unfounded? I bring this worry up, because I've experienced it before in my gaming lifetime, with Crackdown 2. Crackdown isn't a well known franchise anymore, but it was a huge deal for me in 2007. Lots of people only bought the thing because for whatever synergistic reason, it came bundled with Halo 3 beta access, but it was a hell of a game and well worth it's asking price on it's own merits. So naturally, a successful video game warrants a sequel, what interesting new things would the sequel do? What interesting new place would it be set? Nothing and nowhere, are those answers.

Crackdown 2 was set on the same map as the first game, a map with minor alterations, but functionally virtually no changes. To say Crackdown and Crackdown 2 are functionally the same video game being sold twice isn't all that exaggerative of a statement. So naturally because my brain is permanently stained by the late aughts, I was maybe one of five people who held this in my mind when Legend of Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom made mention that it was set in the same Hyrule map as the prior game. I didn't need to be worried. Rather than a re-hash of content, or minor alterations banking on you forgetting the geometry of the landscapes, Hyrule in this game is a wildly different place. Obviously there are the bigger examples, Sky Islands, and those caves that keep killing the hell out of me, but there are small things as well. Things that keep every nook and cranny of this re-used landmass fresh and exciting, when it could have been so much less in the hands of a lesser dev.

You'd think maybe a game with candy colored armor for it's guys would maybe have, idk, a splash of color anywhere else? Things as simple as new and imaginative Korok placement make exploring just as much of a joy as it always was. New towns in odd places, and odd changes to existing towns, keep things that could have easily been a re-hash fresh and new. Hell, to be frank, I've barely scratched the surface of what there is to find on the surface, let alone the caves and up in the sky. I was plainly wrong to worry that Nintendo might overdue it on the re-use of the existing landmass of Hyrule. This is one of the most beautifully handcrafted open worlds I've ever seen, regardless of whether you've seen it's same basic shape 6 years ago. Do yourself a favor and explore this world all over again, there's plenty more to find, and it's not Crackdown 2.

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niuttuc · 2 years

Note

Lorwyn

Lorwyn: Your favorite color of mana

All of them. Any of them. Be it mechanically or philosophically, in my case, variety is the spice of life.

White is my favorite color of all, the fairest of all, capable of answering anything and of being answered cleanly. The primary color of blinking for value, of tokens. The core of the lifegain synergies that are the introduction to many players to the concept of a synergistic deck, with pieces that come together to be greater than the sum of their parts. White is the color of helping one another, the color of egality and equity, the color of fortunate helping unfortunate, the color of knights and angel. People might each be inconsequential in the bigger picture, but together, they can reshape worlds. If there's no mercy, no justice, no meaning, people will bring them into existence, together.

Blue is my favorite color of all, the tricksiest of all. Among the many folds of this strategy game, you'll find no more intriguing strategies than in blue. Immensely strong... If you can line things up properly, otherwise crumbling under its own weight. The primary color of control and tempo, of counterspells and clones. The card-drawing color above all. The color of mill, the introduction to many players to the concept of an alternate win-condition that doesn't rely on attacking your opponent. The most polarizing color, love it or hate it. The overpowered glue that holds together older formats. Blue is the color of thinking ahead, of learning from your mistakes. The color of progress and turning a bunch of math and a bunch of rocks into a computer that can do anything. The color of being able to do anything you want if you work hard enough, the color of infinite potential. The color of wizards and illusions. Of the fluidity of water and of thoughts alike.

Black is my favorite color of all, the most calculating and capable of all. Black is the color of exchanging resources, your own or others. The primary color of discard and graveyard shenanigans aplenty. The color that'll pay life for cards, discard those cards, reanimate them, then will sacrifice them, furthering its plan at every single step of the way. No waste, no regrets. Everything is a nail, and everything is a hammer, you just have to be ready to get nailed or hammered along the way. Black is the color of seeing the world as it is, and making it what you want it to be. The color of individuality, of persistence and of self-determination. Of life and undeath. Of excess and sacrifices. If I'm in troubles, Black is the color I want most at my side, and least to face.

Red is my favorite color of all, the most streamlined of all. But not easy by any stretch. The color of time management, of racing and steering the fastest. The color of capitalizing on temporary effects and turning them in permanent advantages and furthering of its goals. The color of direct damage, of aggro and combo, the color in which the inches gained from sequencing feel like miles. Red decks win. Temporary mana, temporary card advantage, one-time damage. When to get them, which to use, and how, and which to let go? The color that most embraces the chaos and variance that makes the game fun and replayable, and uses it to its advantage. The color of passion and empathy. Of love and anger. Of fire, of balancing its warmth that preserves life and its deadly excess. Of embers rekindled like old feeling forgotten. Of proud dragons and impulsive goblins. Red is the color that live the life to its fullest, appreciating as much as possible every single fleeting moment of it.

Green is my favorite color of all, the simplest of all. The color of ramp and big creatures, with its potential unlocked through ramp and big creatures. Go big AND go home. If the battlefield is the most important zone, and using mana to cast spells is the most fundamental action, Green will simply dominate the board and use more mana to cast more or bigger spells. Green is the color that knows itself, that knows the world it lives in, accepts it, and plays by its rules. The color of nature and family, of knowing your past and your fate. The color of elves and beasts. Of stability, and the peace that comes with it. The serenity of seeing a world bigger than you, of which you're only an infinitesimal part. You're the world experiencing itself in one of uncalculable ways. Time will heal all wounds, and life will endure.

They're all true, at all times.

#planar asks #Lorwyn #mtg #color pie #I love All Colors

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rthko · 2 years

Note

Real talk tho what’s your favorite Rothko??

This will sound like a cop-out answer, but probably the Seagram Murals, because I know the story behind them and saw it dramatized in John Logan’s play Red. This was the biggest commission of his life, to paint a series of murals for the luxurious Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Hotel. For perspective, the Seagram Building, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is perhaps the single most famous example of “International Style” architecture. We may see it as a “generic office building” today, but that’s only a testament to this building’s influence. The architect once led the Bauhaus, known for its utopian politics, but reached a point in his career where his architecture represented power. Speculators even took on the mantra: “Mies means money.”

The indirect collaboration between Rothko and Mies van der Rohe is significant, not just because they were both titans of modernism, but also because it begs the question: Would Rothko sell out too? Rothko, a vocal socialist, only accepted the commission so he could “ruin the appetite of any son of a bitch who eats in that room.” But when he was invited to dinner there to get a sense of a space, he started to believe the patrons would not view his work as a confrontation but as just another piece of scenery. He abandoned the project, and now the murals he created are displayed at the Tate in London.

Rothko was particular about how he wanted his paintings to be displayed—in specific light settings, and surrounded by other paintings of his to create a synergistic effect. This gallery in the Tate and the Rothko Chapel in Texas are some of the only places where his work is displayed to his preferences. To be honest, I haven’t been to either of them. I always say the magnitude of his paintings doesn’t translate in pictures, so it’s a bit hypocritical to say the Seagram Murals are my favorite. So to give a specific favorite piece that I’ve seen in person, here’s “Red, Orange, Orange on Red” from 1962 at the Saint Louis Art Museum:

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tips-from-john · 9 months

Video

Kerassentials Reviews - Welcome to this Kerassentials Review for 2023

Read this comprehensive Kerassentials review for 2023 to learn about this potent supplement crafted from natural oils. Discover its ingredients, benefits, and answers to frequently asked questions to make an informed decision about incorporating Kerassentials into your daily routine.

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#youtube #kerassentials oil #kerassentialsoil #kerassentials reviews #kerassentialsreview #kerassentials

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askagamedev · 2 years

Note

Your answer on 10/11 got me thinking. How often does the math change on an ability or combat? Will some sort of adjustment be made every patch or is it accumulated into a major patch or expansion pack?

We won't change every aspect of the formula every update, but it's uncommon for us not to touch or tweak anything at all between updates. This is, in part, because we need to tune the new content for the update, which often has interactions with older content. Some new piece of gear with a cool new ability might have a synergistic interaction with an older piece of gear, so we may need to put in safeguards around that interaction to prevent players breaking the power curve. We won't always tell you about these kind of changes in the patch notes either - we usually want players to discover these new interactions, rather than get spoiled on them.

We usually save balance changes for regular content updates. That's usually once every month for mobile, or once every three months for console/PC. This way we have enough time to design, build, and test the changes before they reach the public. Stability is the most important thing to maintain near launch. If a feature or a particular change is deemed dangerous or unstable, it's not uncommon for production to pull those features or changes from the update and bump it to the next instead. This last-minute scope change is often what makes some content patches lighter and others heavier.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

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#continued development #content updates #balancing games #how things work #game production

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winguontheweb · 1 year

Note

If you were a tree, which SLARPG character would you want to be friends with the most? Alternately, if you weren't a tree, which SLARPG character would you want to be friends with the most? How about if you were a rock?

the framing of this question is very confusing to me. I will ignore that and just answer the base question you're asking.

GOD IT'S TOUGH I WANNA BE ALL THEIR FRIENDS. I wanna live in Reverie and meet em all and hug em all and get their autographs...

BUT! thinking about it more seriously, I feel like I have a LOT of similarities to Melody. Not only because she is ALSO a 22 year old trans animal woman... she's also got a lot of anxieties and trouble breaking out of her shell that I can really relate to. So naturally, I would want... to befriend Allison!

Okay I want to befriend Melody too, as previously stated, but imagining Allison as my friend, or having a friend just like Allison - I feel like she's basically Melody's cheerleader in a lot of ways. Allison has confidence in Mel and only wants the best for her. She's Mel's hype woman. And the two have a lot of heart-to-hearts that show that both of them have good emotional maturity when they need to. I guess maybe this is too pragmatic for something like friendship, almost like I'm wanting to *use* Allison, but... idk! It's nice to have friends that are so happy to see you succeed and be your best self. Plus, I can relate to Allison on the ADHD front, haha~

I guess, my point is that I feel like I could easily slot into Melody's position as Allison's friend and it would be very synergistic.

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promiseiwillwrite · 2 years

Text

Getting to know You Ask Game

Tagged by @a-witch-named-crow - thank you so much! I've never gotten tagged in one of these before!

Rules: Answer the questions and tag nine people you want to know better.

Favorite Color: Green. But not just Green... The color of moss after months of steady rain. The color of THRIVING Life.

Currently Reading: I am currently between books. I was Thinking about reading this anthropological deconstruction of the Northern European Bear Cult that pre-dated the Viking era, but I am not sure I have the bandwidth. Maybe I will read something silly next. I know there are multiple "Adventures of Ms. Pollifax" books, and if you've not read one, go Look her up. They are novels about an old widow who becomes a successful spy.

Last Song: Not sure. What I am sure is that there is a Non-zero chance that it was "Show Yourself" from the Frozen II soundtrack. Otherwise it was some random crappy country song that was on in the carpool I was riding with out to the place where we went hiking yesterday. Not sure that counts for these purposes.

Last Series: Locke and Key, Season Three. They rounded out the cosmology, tied up the loose ends, and threw away the key. At least it got an ending... Many Netflix Series aren't so lucky. (squints in Netflix's general direction with consternation for having failed to mention whether or not they will Bother with more Sandman) I have Also recently concluded watching "The Orville" and if Hulu doesn't make more of that I may go burn something down. Guilty Pleasure, and series still in progress, "Gargoyles". They never let me watch as a kid, and now no one can stop me. Some of it is AWFUL. (should have remained in the 90's) Some of it is surprisingly well done for a Kid's show of that era... (lots of crazy pagan magic stuff in there, no wonder I adored my sneak peeks as a kid)

Last Movie: Soul. Yes. Disney. I watch by myself in my basement where no one else is harmed by this destructive habit.

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: I Love Flavors. It is Impossible to innumerate them all. Much shorter list of things I hate: Steamed Artichoke Leaf, Sea Urchin Sushi, and Kababoli Relish. These foods, in my opinion, taste like wet cardboard, the layer of fish poop at the bottom of the rocks in a dirty fish tank, and vomit, respectively. I felt very seen when they talked about the combinations of flavors that created synergistic enhancement in Ratatouille.

Currently Working On: Therapy and the development of skills involving coping with anxiety and managing trauma while moving toward successful task management and task conflict tolerance in relationships and at work. This blog. Learning about Foraging. Getting my Master Sergeant Stripe. A Gardening Project 7 years in the making. I've honestly written a lot of things... But most of them have involved the voices in my head, and I'm pretty sure my therapist is dead set against this as maladaptive daydreaming, and does not consider it a legitimate coping skill. I am not so sure. At very least, I think abandoning it entirely feels like leaving a lot of creativity on the table. I will still likely eventually end up writing one of the ideas, if I can convince myself they are unique enough. The Tree and Door stories seemed pretty solid to me... maybe I will get those together one day. At least, if nothing else, I am pretty sure it would make a Rad D&D game.

Tagging: @solostinmysea @sickened-things

Sorry, I don't really know very many people here that might answer a silly thing like this. Most of the people I follow are kind of doing their own thing and don't interact with others personally...

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featherburnt · 2 years

Text

➥ The End of All Things

Type: One-Shot Pairing: m!OC x V Word Count: 5,74 Tags: Death, regret, angst, loss, failure, insects, blood, gore, nightmares, guilt, drama, V is not Vergil

Summary: A man's heart is only as strong as his memory, for if he forgets who he is and who he loves, what strength may he claim at the end of all things - what forgiveness may he beg for in a dream within a dream?

A belated birthday gift to you, @inkburnt, my dearest friend.

As always, minors do not interact.

A brilliant cascade of abyssal stars crumbled and fell to the earth, tainted wholly by darkness and despair, and in their wake they left behind tragedy and ruin; Jungles of concrete and glass collapsed into their foundations as little more than rubble, and all that was once green and lively had turned cold and black and broken, wild dogs and all others encased in ash and stardust, forever frozen in place and doomed to die choking on the corrosive fumes billowing from the fallen stars around them. Even the soil is saturated with death and the snap of ushered fates, tamped flat by the sluggish feet of the damned, the lost, clumped together by the blood, sweat, and salted tears of the frightened and starving - the few who survived the calamity. And the sun would not rise for them, no matter how desperately they should pray, for it, too, had twisted and contorted into a blackened husk; And the moon would not pull the tide, no matter how long they should weep, for it, too, had been shattered.

The wonder and beauty of waking, breathing life was but a ghost, a memory, a dream.

Only death remains, the promise of hopelessness, famine, and terror lurking around every corner, snatching up those who linger with filthy, gnarled claws. The lost souls of yesterday are devoured by the evils of today, torn asunder, swallowed, digested, and lost once more, consumed by the dangers of shadow and circumstance. Hope is abandoned, happiness an empty pleasantry, calmness an omission of truth, truth an outright falsehood; There is no meaning to the pitiful lives lived under a starless sky, and they are restless, mindless, corrupted, tainted in all the same ways as the very stars that had forsaken them.

But there is always more to the stories of old, the disparate retellings of the event that claimed the world its victim, and the truth was more complicated and convoluted than any vague memory could ever hope to describe. Hidden in plain sight were the wide swaths of talon marks across pillars of rubble, tooth and claw buried into the ashen bones of the damned, and the vast pools of blood feeding the roots of charred, fleshy remnants of Hell. Devilish corpses slowly sank into the earth, drawn in by the idly lapping pull and draw of dark crimson, and skeletons now lie an unnerving call to the beginning of the end, stained by the impurity of what they’d wrought. The remains of their conquest dotted the horizon as foully as the day they first splintered their claws rising from the depths of hot-burning flame and brimstone, pouring from writhing pits of flesh and fire as the blood spilt flooded the world they plotted to greedily reave and madly destroy. It all pulsed to the tune of a dying heartbeat, yet contained no life within, rising and falling without purpose nor mind, in the end. There was only so much the armies of Hell could withstand, a victim of their invasion and overzealous sacking of the waking world, for it was they who pled to their gods and kings in a bid for power unrivaled - and they were blessed to have received an answer to their prayers, however foolish they were to turn away from the synergistic nature of Hell’s relationship with Heaven and the earth…

One by one, the stars melded with the expansive abyss, dying in its arms, and soon fell to the earth they coveted, mercilessly laying waste to all in their path, leaving families in scattered pieces, lovers as aimless wanderers with hearts in tatters, and mountains of rotting, festering bodies for the flies. Of all things that may be certain, it is the destruction of the world and the death it’d borne.

Of this, Garrett had no doubts, for he, too, had been cursed to shuffle and crawl through the muck of blood and mud combined, weighed down by the cold light of the dead stars, smoldering in their frigid heat - alone. Only the spectral memory of what he’d lost clung to the back of his mind, pale and ghostly images of the life he’d built in a city that no longer exists with people who no longer live lingering without substance nor promise; He knew they’d been lost, too, hollow husks of the humanity they once championed, strangled by noxious smoke and fume and left to wither and crumble to ash and dust beneath a blanket of hopelessness and despair, each of them to suffer their fates alone. The calamity came too quickly and cut too deep, like the silvery shine of a blade in the darkest back alley, and his family of hard-won misfitted devils and tortured humans was scattered and isolated, overwhelmed by the armies of his conquering kin and the desolation of the cosmos. But there was one he cherished above all, one he treasured and loved with all his blackened heart, and though he tirelessly sifted through ash and bone and fought every battle with feral enthusiasm in spite of what parts of him were missing and bleeding, he could not find his mate.

He feared the worst, of course, stumbling and fumbling through the ruins of their devastated world, swallowed whole by the unceasing tragedy of his loss, and it was in this fear and shambling erosion that he forgot himself. He’d forgotten what’d shaped and molded him into a man, what tethered him to humanity and split his connection to Hell and its machinations, what filled him with great joy and gave him a full sense of purpose; He’d forgotten who he was without his home, without the warm, soothing reminders that he’d belonged and was needed as he was, accepted and beloved; And he’d forgotten, in all his aimless roaming of the earth where his claws cracked and gnarled, the man he fought to become and the extraordinary love he insulated himself with, and the reciprocation in the peridot of his mate’s eyes, and the devilish younglings he took into his ashen paws to nurture and grow. He’d forgotten his greatest struggle, his greatest love, his greatest loss, his strengths and his weaknesses, and in the darkened twilight gloom, an age of hollow wandering came and only the prick of numbness and miserable uncertainty of all things remained.

He was no different than the others, left behind in the same manner as all those who escaped with their lives when the burning pustules of Hell burst and pocked the lands with the mangled corpses of the Heavens, cursed never to find an inkling of his mate’s whereabouts nor peace in the dilapidated grand cathedral of an empty world.

How unfortunate, that this should now be his cross to bear once more, but a mere hazy memory was all that remained of the first and he could no longer recall the events of yesteryears, only what he felt, and such was not so poetic a thing. Still, he yearned gravely for it, for the divine complexity and human simplicity where life had been regarded as precious and uniquely meaningful because of its brevity, where the beauty in it shone as bright as any star in the bonds and memories they built. Those were the ghosts he’d permitted to haunt him, the memories of that life however painful it may have been. But the days all became one and blended together, and those memories faded, and what else could he do but forget? Only his emotions lingered and soon they, too, will leave him and only frantic instinct and devil nature will remain.

Perhaps he was being punished for some great sin, but he couldn’t figure out exactly which one, let alone remember what qualified, though it could have been the results of his failure to protect those he held most dear, the fruits of desperate inadequacy.

Or, perhaps it was simply a circumstance none of them could control, where none of their efforts could stand to meaningfully deter the overwhelming and swift destruction of their home, where they were too few and all else was too many .

For a terribly long time, he laid there in the bloody muck and languished like the fool he thought himself to be, shallow breaths causing ripples and bubbling to slowly and steadily alter its muddy surface. It was warm and wreaked of rot and unceasing decay, a cradle of death. It seemed a trivial, pointless matter to stand and tentatively continue his steadily fading quest when the likelihood he’d ever find his mate and the others had long since dwindled - it’d been far, far too long. Still, it may be for the best that he moves on from this place, before his limbs begin to atrophy and the sores riddling his hide worsen. An infection would spell his end long before starvation ever could.

And, so, with tremendous effort, he climbed to his hellish paws so riddled with the slag of underworldly decease, and began his enduring quest anew with uncertainty and confusion fogging his mind, feeble and diminished to his core. What was once a statuesque and nobly terrifying representation of the bestial machinations of Hell had shrunken into himself, gaunt and withered and afflicted by infernal mange; There were none who possessed any life within them with which he could feed and absorb, but, though his journey may never reach an end, he would abide by what’d come as second nature, bear the still-burning embers a long gone until nothing at all was left of him.

Every muscle strapped to his bones quaked and tensed in relentless cycles, and despite drowning in steady waves of torturous agony, he took the first step.

And, then, more were soon to follow.

He did not pause to care for himself, did not shake himself free of the excess blooded sludge soaking through his ashen fur, his thoughts singularly focused on his search, but all the while he thought to himself, grasping meekly at the remnants of a life now past. What exactly he was hoping to find was beyond him in truth, merely hints and suggestions of his mate’s physical attributes and the time they’d spent entwined on sleepless nights; His memories proved amorphous and deceptive, an ever changing glimmer in an ocean of despair. He prayed it would one day solidify and distill into something tangible and concrete, where his questions regarding his life before would meet their answers, but neither hope nor faith could substantiate his prayers. It was a strange ritual for a devil to partake as it was, perhaps he ought not trespass further against what few stars may still twinkle in the abyss…

He trotted along in the endless wastelands, breathing in the festering rot plaguing the air. His head bobbed with exhaustion, rolling back and forth between his shoulders, the haunting gloom leaving a lifeless glow to catch on the surface of mucky pools as shadows stretched beyond into inky blackness. The earth squelched between the pads of his gnarled paws, the faintest fizzle and pop of his heat kineticizing scarlet rivulets and puddles. He could not glean either for even a miniscule shred of rejuvenating energy, dragging his splintered claws through warm coagulations and dust. He continued forward, only briefly glancing toward the pools he passed, but no particular scents caught his attention nor beckoned for acknowledgement, and even fewer corpses and skeletons demanded inspection. They each lacked in intimate familiarity, gnawed and broken to pieces, and they’d have been wholly unrecognizable had it not been for the decaying flesh scattered in piles around them.

So much death…

He began to wonder if he’d been responsible for it himself, the day Hell clawed from its primordial depths and wrought upon the world its reckoning. He could not tuck his tails between his legs and hurry to escape it now, trapped beneath the suffocating weight of his mistakes, and, he swore, allowances could not be made to excuse his inadequacy. It did not matter that control and the strength with which to exercise it had been sapped from him, not before or after the end had come; Heavy chains restricted him, tightening and squeezing until his chest began to cave in under pressure, blood oozing out of him like an overripe fruit. Coughing caused it to splatter across ash and coagulated blood, dripping from dry, cracked lips, ever so slowly pooling around his massive paws. It hurts - it aches - and such agony was oft accompanied by sorrowful, pitiful whimpering and groaning, whining and moaning.

He stopped himself short, gazing into the dull red, glassy surface of a puddle as if it held the secrets, the truth in its miniscule vastness, a pinprick in the fabric of the world. He stared and stared, not a sound nor interrupting ripple tearing across its surface could distract him, remove him from this pitiable pause, his chest heaving with wanton loathing and unceasing exhaustion. Without warning, Garrett collapsed, his long and withered legs trembling unsteadily before buckling underneath him, and as his massive head collided with the ashen earth, his nose half-submerged in rotted blood, he found himself in the same position he’d allowed himself to suffer for untold lengths of time.

He stared and stared and stared some more, idly watching the puddle shift and writhe with every breath, his mouth hanging open so he might collect more air into his lungs. But blood weaseled into the empty crevices between his teeth, thick with the unmistakable flavor of soured iron and the taint of deathly corruption, and something fouler, still, accompanied it; Wriggling senselessly in the murk, toward that which was warm raggedly breathing, were the slick larval bodies of the relentless eaters of decay, rising and falling with the flow of painful breaths. Slowly, at first, and, then, all at once, breaking miniature waves with their tiny, round, starving heads as Garrett unflinchingly, mindlessly remained. He’d not the strength to climb to his paws, nor the will to try once more, and he could not fathom the potential rewards for such a feat; Had there been any at all, he was certain he did not deserve them.

Bloodshot blues steadily closed and the dilapidated, broken world caging him came to be framed in little more than encroaching blackness, a needless yet invasive mark of the ebb and flow of consciousness. Any attempts to keep himself conscious and somewhat alert were ushered away by the darkness, beaten back by the lifeless state of all things, and as he lie there in the dirt and bloody coagulants, he snake further and further into the abyss that’d fought harder than any to consume them all, and the mange riddling his fur soon became sustenance for the foulest devourers - the children of flies - for he, too, had been doomed. Cursed, as he’d thought, to wander aimlessly the endless wastes, and to breathe his final breath in the cradles of shallow pools, a meal for what precious little life still dared to defy its fate.

Maggots aplenty crawled along the length of his tongue, inching further along his mushy, bleeding gums to the abscesses in his throat in what felt to him a single-file line, diminutive jaws piercing infected flesh. They wriggled and writhed to the shores of their puddle, popping air bubbles with indelicate plips as they went, searching for his own decrepit body as it, too, afflicted with the pain of atrophy, famine, and the tragedy of the inevitable, slowly began to die, They made no sound, swift in their deliberation, and they gnawed and gnawed on the raw and exposed fringes of open wounds, greedily devouring his enfeebled hide without prejudice. He felt nothing, enshrined in hollow numbness, neither pain nor discomfort. Not even the tiny mouths that burrowed into his flesh. But he knew, well, the paths they took on their long, terrible march as they struggled further. He was raw and spread open, peeled apart by the natural cycles of life and death, teetering on the very edge of resignation, and he loathed to suffer such a fate undignified. He’d not the strength to rally against such forces yet remaining, and he knew he would not survive a battle of attrition, so there, in the bloody muck, he laid a wolf no longer but a hollow carcass without a place to call home, nor a mate to hold him in the consuming darkness, nor memories to ponder, nor memories to become.

Perhaps, once, he might’ve stuck his middle finger to the sky and screamed a slew of expletives, denied and defied what’d come, but the man he’d once been had been long dead already.

Was it fine for him - would he be forgiven? - to relinquish the last of his life to the larval flies feasting upon his flesh? Even though he was not strong enough, persistent enough, to viciously cling to his final breath and endure the grim loneliness of so broken world? To be a lasting yet quickly diminishing remnant of a time long past, alone and without hope or heart, had yet been a fate worse than even the death that beckoned him now. In the end, he could not save his truest love, nor could he bear to recover his skeletal remains, and he was sorry.

From the bottom of his shriveled, rotted, blackened heart, he was sorry.

He could not save their brothers, their friends, from fabled armageddon, from the inevitable destruction of all at the hands of sin, of the mass violent exodus of the devils and lords of Hell. He could not guide them down brighter paths, rescue them from the collapse of the night sky, to lengthen their life expectancy just a moment longer, and he was sorry.

He was sorry he’d failed them all, that he’d accepted now his fate, and no amount of apology would ever grant him the forgiveness he begged for in the fading moments of his life.

He was sorry.

Perhaps I will find you, in another life… at the beginning of all things.

Dirty lashes began to flutter as his eyes slunk backward in their sockets, his shallow breaths stuttering in tandem with the frantic beating of his heart. Weak muscles stiffened, contracting along softened bone, and his body arrested completely. One by one, his bodily functions began to fail, food for the foulest creatures now, and it was in these fleeting seconds he realized it was finally upon him - that death had come to bear its finality and take one last thing from him. And it came and went without a sound, as if granting him the dignity of a swift and painless end. And as he lied, darkness overcame him, and he breathed a long, broken sigh into the horrid, festering air, and death took him into its arms and carried him away into the deepest reaches of the abyss. Where pain and sorrow and loneliness and blame could not dampen his fur nor sully his heart; Where the sun would not grace his skin with the warmth of its rays, nor bask in the moonlight on evening walks among chiseled stone and honored dead; Where he could be free of the trappings of a meaningless life overburdened by misery and failure; Where he could not lose his strength or his will again; Where he could never find the gorgeous peridots that so adored him, cherished him, accepted him as the twisted being he’d always been.

Many unspoken regrets and forgotten sorrows took the place of his spirit, a curse all his own a scar upon the ash and dust of so broken and dead and shattered a world, but it was in the soulless expanse of the abyss he found peace; He’d no choice in the matter anymore, and an eternity stretched longly into an ever expanding cosmos unchained by mortal life, to forge anew the beginning and end of another world, another time, another man, until all would converge and collapse in on itself once more. No such concepts as forgiveness, trespass, love, hate, chaos, order, happiness or sorrow mattered any longer, but they would, again, some day, when time could be treasured and spent on them proper. But an opportunity for the world to mourn the loss of its life and all those it’d created had come, and it would greedily and foolishly succumb to its grief, accepting no question nor judgment for its own displays of weakness or tiredness. It, too, had died, choking on its final gasps as the ribs of cathedral halls expanded and contracted, the intricacies of worn paintings adorned in gold trim and shifting and breathing with the world’s death knell; But it did not waste away nor shrivel into nothingness prophesied, promised. Instead, it seemed only to sleep a dreadful sleep, sung to rest by its own machinations, its own voice, yet bleeding by its own hand. It did not know, could not recall, how to be, how to think, how to shape and mold itself in the brilliant splendor of gold and crimson and sapphire it once claimed - not on its own. A long, dreamful sleep, aching with fresh and anxious imagery of stardust tears and a thousand burning suns, the whisper of wind through the shuttering trees and the pelting of rain upon rivers, lakes, oceans– A new world had been ceded within the hazardous dreamworld of the cosmos and borne in its stead, awesome in its majesty and promise of flourishing life where once all was dead and not once brought back into being, glorious and kind to all those beneath its canopy of twinkling lights and sheltering midnight. It blossomed as if a long-tended rose in the greenest garden, its petals wide and saturated in scarlet, and so, too, had it seen its fair share of death and despair, but it did not lose hope. It grew ever taller, ever stronger, dripping with the sweetest morning dew and thriving because of its pain; It appreciated and loved all who traipsed across its face of mountains, forests, deserts, and oceans, cradling them in its arms through all cycles of life. A rarity, to be sure, but a truth nonetheless, for all things must yet come to an end lest they never begin again. It did not rob them of peace, yet blessed them with the freedom to choose for their own what they were, what they were to become, and more dream worlds swirled and danced and burst into being, where only those with the eyes to see the shimmering rose in the garden could.

So it was to be, an unceasing cycle of death and rebirth propagated by the hearts and minds of cosmic forces whose only sins were to create and destroy themselves, as they created and destroyed all those within their dreams. This tragedy was never lost on them, and many chose to bathe their worlds in their grief, but many more chose to endure until they could no longer, and yet still there remained those who would persist; The budding rose in the garden, so well-tended and loved, clung to its existence without fear nor worry, for it knew, at the end of all things, that it would begin again.

And in the waning darkness now stained with faintly pulsing orange, yellow, and red, plain yet warm in the dim glow of the morning, this garden would shiver and sing with the sway of the breeze and delicate lilt of birdsong and life, marching to the soft and steady beat of its own earthly drum. It was delicious delirium, sublime in every respect, to be bathed in warmth and allowed to peacefully dream away the beginnings of a brand new day, listening to the birds twitter and chirp and steadily approaching footsteps scattering the gravel and dirt beneath them. Sharp ears knew well who they belonged to and, wittingly, he roused from his rest, his shapeshifting dreams and listless terrors, turning over in the soft swath of grass he’d taken to in the wee hours; Garrett had always been easy to wake, and perhaps the tentativeness of the other party had known all along, for long, tender hands came upon the sleeping devil. Knuckles dragged along the slope of his jaw as fingers wistfully caressed incomplete swirls and pointed ends of black ink.

Only deliberate and unconditional love could be felt in those slender hands, and he relished the sensation of cool and pallid skin against his own. How he loved it, cherished it, committed it to the most impressionable pieces of his innermost self, as if at any moment it would disappear into the vastness of the cosmos.

A hum of acknowledgment thrummed in his throat and he reached blindly to catch the hands so occupied with gently bringing him to stir. Chilly those hands were, but he’d brought them to his lips to kiss them all the same.

“My love, I’ve been hunting for you,” came the calm complexity of V’s muttering, a pleasant whisper above the singing world.

“Mmm,” Garrett groggily purred, slowly turning his head if only to feel yet more of his beau’s lingering touch. And, then, he stretched his body in full, thrusting his arms above his head and arching his spine as if a back alley cat readying himself to go on the prowl. Only, he wouldn't be chasing after any rats. “Just-” He yawned, stubbly maw stretching wide. “-keepin’ watch over the perimeter, babe.”

This earned him a half-hearted chuckle.

“A fine job you’re doing. When I woke to see you’d run off, I thought the worst. I’d never expected to find you napping on the lawn.”

Garrett opened his eyes and blinked away his sleep, reluctantly pushing himself up to his elbows and gazing upon the pale, angular face he’d loved so completely. Raven hair swept in idle waves a medium frame the curves and planes of V’s visage; High cheekbones, full lips, and a captivating, arresting gaze of verdant peridot - so unique a shade of green could only belong to this alabaster sculpture of a man, an angel in human flesh, and only Garrett could be the diligent and doting dog beneath his feet. He would serve him til the end of his days, as he promised in this life and the next, and he would without question nor protest. It’d become his duty, his sole purpose, to shield him with his heart and mind, his body and soul, and to love him, truly, without condition nor expectation of his own. How wonderful it was to love and be loved by V, how fulfilling - like they’d always been meant to share their time together, at the end and beginning of all things where the smears of a tangerine sunrise bled into the clouds, unburdened by the pains of ages long past and mistake long forgiven.

A crooked smile pulled at the corners of his lips and he grinned cheekily at V.

V did not smile in return, his expression withdrawn and grim and - frightened, lonely, tortured.

His grin dissipated just as quickly as it’d come, and Garrett found himself instinctively gathering the sorcerer into his arms, hands splayed across his spine. With utmost care and sincerity, he pressed his forehead to V’s, sensing unspoken upset and distress.

“What’s wrong, pretty boy?” he murmured, a deep baritone to flutter and mingle along shared breaths. “Somethin’ happen? Babe?”

V stammered briefly, but he was not some sputtering child without the vocabulary to see it through. Rather, it seemed he simply did not have the strength, thinking it better not to speak such thoughts into the world. Or, perhaps he was organizing them each, stuffing them away into all the right compartments, categorizing them as they ought to be in the grand library of his mind. He thought and he thought, pursing his lips and unfurling them all the same, repeatedly, and his grounding stare had drawn away, glancing every which way.

And V had felt a terrible weight begin to settle and grow in his chest, a painful knowledge taking root in his very soul where Garrett had so happily lived… He saw him in the ocean of blackness that succeeded the passage of life, and he watched him crumple and die over and over again in the vast wreckage of Hell’s furious bid for power and the unstoppable war that precluded it. He hadn’t minded so much that he’d died himself in his own effort to survive, but couldn’t bear to suffer the truth of his mate’s despair and the trembling gasps of his final breaths, couldn’t stand the thought of him blaming himself for the cause and effect of a vicious, violent power struggle between the powers that be and all those who were lost in its sway. It need not be true for it to be a horror beyond his comprehension, and he’d have liked to believe he would’ve done anything to ease Garrett’s suffering in any life, any context - but, here, he could not, in the unconscious vagaries of his wakeful nightmares and sinister machinations of of his rotten mind. He had died epochs and eras before Garrett had finally shed himself of his purpose, deluding himself into heartfully believing he’d failed in his quest to find him and all the other members of their family. He was too good, a foolish man not unlike a golden retriever at heart, and no matter who or where he was, he would force himself to persevere at every cost to himself.

How he loved the devil so. How it burned within him. So much so that it dragged him out of bed and inspired only the desperate hunt for his mate.

“V?” Garrett pressed, snapping the warlock out of his thoughts.

“It’s-It’s nothing,” he insisted, but the wolfish demon saw through him and pressed some more, his stare unwavering. He relented, sheepishly. “I…thought I’d lost you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You might think it silly–”

“No, never,” Garrett said encouragingly, brushing their noses together, but it was far from it. He could still hear the rasping ache in his wordless voice as he collapsed into murk and blood, flashes of a bitter, acrid memory poisoning the addled mind. “Tell me what’s wrong; Let me help you, swee’heart.”

“It’s just– Oh, darling, I had an awful nightmare of you... at the beginning and end of all things.”

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