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afeb · 3 years

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Chris Evans - Could

Having only met Chris a few hours ago, we oddly hit it off. We realised we had the same interests and opinions, ideas and jokes. We spent most of the day talking mindlessly in the garden as everyone mulled around us, a mix of his friends and family.

Now we were in the kitchen as he grabbed another beer and I hopped onto the counter. “Kids?”

I shook my head. “You?”

“No,” he popped the cap. “Want them though.”

“Me too.” I sighed dreamily.

“How many?”

“As many as I can get.” I chuckled, however Chris didn’t.

His eyes seemed to dance with a look I hadn’t seen yet. “Who would you have them with?”

I shrugged and fiddled with the hem of my dress. “I’m not fussy, I just want children.”

“You’re young, you’ve got plenty of time.” He reassured as he stepped a little closer. “Me? My clock is ticking - fast.”

“You’re thirty-nine, hardly dead.” I scoffed.

He shrugged and stepped closer still, abdomen brushing against my bare knees. “Still though, I need kids asap.”

“Who would you have them with?” I asked.

“A nice girl.” He hummed. “Smart, funny, pretty, articulate.”

“Big boots to fill.” I noted.

“You fill them.”

Silence flowed between us as I furrowed my brows, looking into his eyes. He didn’t say another word, simply tilted his head back and took a long sip of his beer.

“Me?” He nodded. “You’d have kids...with me?”

“Would you not have them with me?” I thought over his question for a moment.

“We met four hours ago.” I stated.

“And?”

“I could be a psycho-murderer who collects cocks I’ve cut off.” He choked a little on his beer. “I don’t, but you wouldn’t know.”

I jumped a little as he parted my thighs, cool beer brushing against my skin as he stepped between them. “We’ve talked for the past four hours with no breaks, no silences, just easy conversation. We’ve told each other about family, ex’s, dreams. I may not know every inch of you, but fuck I want to.”

“How would it even work, having children together?” I warily asked as his hands splayed over my knees.

He placed the bottle down. “Well, we would...you know...”

“Obviously.”

“Then I’d take you out whenever you wanted, go wherever you wanted to,” his hands inched up my thighs. “Touch wherever you asked. Then, you’d move in, or we’d find a new place, we’d decorate and prepare for the baby. We’d fall in love.”

My breath hitched as his palms eased under the skirt of my dress, my hands softly coming to run over his biceps. “How could you be so sure we’d fall in love?”

“Because I think I’ve already started.” My eyes widened. “Not yet, but I feel it blossoming.”

“Chris...” his head moved closer to mine, breath fanning over my lips.

“Everyone’s staying tonight,” he whispered. “You stay too.”

“Is that a question or a demand?” I asked.

“Whatever you want.” He chuckled. “Stay up until everyone is in bed.”

I nodded. “Are you sure?” I couldn’t believe what I was getting myself into.

His lips pressed to mine for a matter of seconds before pulling away. “Absolutely.”

The rest of the day we danced around each other, looking at each other from across the room and softly smiling. Chris’ eyes were transfixed on my stomach sometimes and I was positive he was invisioning me swollen with his baby. I caught my brain day dreaming too, imagining a baby in his arms as he softly cooed the little one to sleep.

One by one, everyone either left or went to their designated rooms. The group around the sofa thinned until it was Chris, me and his brother, Scott.

“I’m gonna hit the hay.” Scott sighed as he stood.

“We won’t be long after.” Chris lied from the sofa, peering at me as I sat on an armchair across from him.

“Night guys.”

“Night.” Chris and I said in unison before we were left alone. We both waited for the click of Scott’s door before Chris spoke.

“Alone at last.” He hummed, shuffling a little on the sofa and spreading his thighs. “Come here, baby.”

I stood with shaky legs and nervously folded my hands, standing in front of him. I squeaked as Chris gripped the backs of my knees and tugged me into his lap, my dress rising up exposing my thighs.

My hands rested on his chest. “Are you sure?”

“Are you?” He cocked a brow.

“Yes.” I whispered, leaning down a little. “Is this mad?”

“Completely.” Chris sighed, hands rounding to pinch my behind. “But fuck, I’ve never wanted someone more.”

His lips trailed over my cheek and jaw, sucking softly on the spot below my ear as I rocked my hips against his. “Maybe we should get to know each other better,” I gasped. “Things we haven’t said.”

“What’s your favourite book?” He asked as he harshly fisted the flesh on my behind, aiding my rocking.

“Little Women,” I gasped. “What’s your favourite song?”

“Every Breath You Take,” his voice was muffled in my neck. “Favourite piece of jewellery?”

“A ring my Mum got me when I was eighteen.” I whined as he nibbled in the skin of my neck. “Favourite position?”

“Any.” He pulled back and pressed his lips to mine, quickly tracing my lips with his tongue before pushing in to meet mine.

I moaned and threaded my fingers into his hair, softly pulling. Chris groaned deeply before pushing me onto the sofa and climbing on top of me.

“Please.” I whimpered.

“Fuck,” his eyes rolled to the back of his head. “I’m gonna fuck a baby into you.”

His hands hasilty went up my skirt and looped around the band of my underwear and tugged them down. He peered at the plain white knickers.

“I didn’t think I’d be doing this.” I bashfully said.

“Anything on you drives me wild.” He threw haphazardly across the room and focussed back on me. “Gonna be quick baby, okay? I’ll show you what I can do another time.”

I pawed at his chest and peered wide-eyed up at him. “Please.”

He easily pulled himself out and stroked a few times. His tip ran up and down me a few teasing times, testing to see if I’d stop him or recoil. When I simply peered up at him and softly pouted my lips, he eased into me slowly.

His head dropped to rest on mine, eyes boring into mine as he bottomed out. A steady breath ran past his lips and washed over my face.

“Okay?” He asked.

“Yes.” I breathed.

He quickly set to work. His pace was bruising, a man on a mission as he rutted his hips into mine. His hands firstly rested either side of my head as he peered down to where we were connected before he dropped onto his forearms and enclosed around me. His hands stroked over my hair as he closely watched me.

I muled and whined at him, hands skimming over his shoulders, his hair, his cheeks and his lips. His mouth parted as my thumb slipped in. Chris softly sucked the digit as he closed his eyes momentarily and moaned. His teeth skimmed over the skin before I retracted my finger and instead tugged the hair on his head.

His hips easily glided in and out, my legs wrapped around his waist aiding his movements and his thrusts grew more and more sloppy.

“Gonna put a baby in you,” he promised. “Fuck, all day I’ve been thinking of you swollen off my cum.”

“Please, I want your baby.” I whined back.

“Take it,” his groaned as his hips stilled and he emptied into me. “Fucking take it.”

My back arched in pleasure as I screwed my eyes shut and took what he gave me. Chris collapsed on top of me, weight resting on my chest as I looped my arms around his broad shoulders and hugged him right.

“Do you think we made something?” I whispered after a moments silence.

“I hope.” He sighed back, pressing a kiss to my lips. “I think I could love you.”

I smiled. “I think I could love you too.”

#chris #evans #chris evans #chris evans fluff #chris evans angst #chris evans smut #captain america #steve rogers #frank adler #marvel

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buckyswinterbaby · 3 years

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Always By My Side — Chapter 1

Click here to read the Prologue.

Synopsis: The fates have spent millenniums correcting the daily mishaps that interfere with soulmates ever meeting. Will they find a way to bring together Bucky and Zara, two people separated by time and circumstance, just as they’ve done a thousand times before?

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Black!OFC Ziarah Heartwell

Warnings (will change with each chapter): flashbacks, PTSD, mentions of past sexual assault, angst, bits of fluff

Word Count: 3,791

Acknowledgement: I’ve created this AU alongside my best friend Taylor in roleplays, along with many of the plots and scenes that will be featured. I’m posting this with his expressed permission as we both continue to work on the story in our chat. Credit for its creation goes to both of us.

Please like, comment, and reblog (I love that shit). The divider was created by me, please credit me if you use it. The gifs are not mine. Click here to fill out the form to be added to my tag list!

Note: Here’s chapter one of my new series “Always By My Side”. It takes place in a soulmate AU where a bond is triggered when one or both halves experience a life threatening level of distress. The bond allows them to see imaginary versions of their soulmates to help support them while they wait to meet their other half. Just a warning, up until we reach the current time in the story, there will be significant time skips for plot progression’s sake. The time changes will always be labeled.

Addition: I said I’d tag you when I posted my WOC OFC story so here’s chapter one, @bucky-the-thigh-slayer !

[Bucharest, Romania -- 2016]

The Romanian streets were bustling with early morning energy as Bucky took the final steps outside of the clearly worn apartment complex that he had been calling home for sometime. He seemed unfazed by the sixteen year old girl practically jogging to keep up in step with his longer strides. He had grown rather accustomed to her presence and her commentary since she first appeared to him in 2014. It had been during his final brainwashing session with Hydra before they fell. He couldn’t help but view her as a banshee of sorts, harkening the end of what remained of his mental stability. He couldn’t fathom another reason as to why he would hallucinate an opinionated teenage girl.

Even so, he found comfort in their conversations and how at ease she seemed around him. Almost as if she had always been with him, a piece of himself that still saw the good that was left. Never addressing him with fear or apprehension, never as the monster and killer he was forced to become.

Her features were young and innocent, seemingly unscarred by life despite the bruises that graced her skin--which he was never sure why they existed. At first, he feared that she had been one of his countless victims who had returned to haunt him in her afterlife, though the theory became less likely to him as more time passed.

The defined coils of her hair were pushed up into a messy bun, edges laid smoothly to her forehead in defined loops. When she first started showing up, Bucky had attempted to make sense of the witty phrases and references that so frequently adorned her clothes but he had long since given up on ever understanding them. He had to admit that the shirt she wore that day, a middle finger painted with pink, yellow, and blue, was quite the fashion choice. Not that he could particularly judge with his similar pieces of clothing that were practically identical besides in color.

The pair made their way down the familiar stretch of pavement on their way to the outdoor market that Bucky had made a habit of visiting. He had found that a reliable schedule throughout his week helped him better grasp the passing of time, a fact that his companion had been informing him of for weeks before it finally seemed to click.

The girl’s nose clinked as they neared the fresh fish stand, just as it did every week. Bucky couldn’t help but chuckle at her childish antics as they were so few and far between for someone who seemed quite mature despite her appearance.

“It smells like cat food,” she whined, making a clear act of breathing primarily through her mouth as she jogged to keep up. “How are you not gagging?”

“Not all of us have the luxury of being a figment of someone’s imagination, Zara. If I start gagging, I have a feeling a few people will start to notice.” The man gave her a knowing look. Drawing attention to himself was the exact opposite of what he wanted during his brief outings. “Besides, I can’t say I’ve smelt cat food or have any intention to. So I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

Zara rolled her eyes as the smell began to dissipate the further they moved past the stand, her trademark smile working its way onto her features. “Could’ve had me fooled, I thought that was your guilty pleasure. I can’t say I’ve ever intentionally gotten a whiff, but when I feed the outdoor cats at my house, it’s kinda unavoidable.” She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly as if it was the most natural thing in the world for an imaginary person to have their own home and animals.

Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed as he narrowed his eyes down to her smaller form beside him. “You don’t have a cat because you aren’t even real,” he retorted. Somehow the idea that she could be real made her presence in his life even harder. The idea that she was just some girl he had passed by in the street or on a mission and his brain decided she’d make the ideal emotional support apparition.

“Who are you to declare that?”

“The creepy hundred year old man who hallucinates a sixteen year old girl, occasionally in her pajamas, for one.” His voice raised a bit louder than he intended, drawing the attention of a few nearby pedestrians. Bucky offered them an awkward smile before ducking back down under the bill of his hat and picking up his pace a bit. She couldn’t argue with his logic so she focused on keeping up until they reached their destination, the produce stand that had the best plums in the city, or so Bucky described.

Zara watched as he spoke Romanian with the merchant, only catching a few words she had learnt over the past few months from their conversations. She couldn’t help but smile at how effortlessly Bucky seemed to interact with the man and how it contrasted so starkly to how he acted when he first arrived in the city. Decades of next to no positive human interaction left the soldier awkward and clunky in his exchanges, often stumbling through questions and requests, or simply forgetting them altogether. It had taken a great deal of patience and metaphorical hand holding to build up his confidence and ease his anxiety on the matter.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to blend in, in fact he was almost too good at it at times. Over their conversations, she had managed to show him that yes, blending in made him go through the motions of life, which was better than nothing. Yet, the beauty of his life now and the freedom that came with it was that he no longer had to settle for simply surviving and he could instead use it as a chance to learn to live again. It started small, like convincing him to get a pillow and blanket for the mattress on the floor, to which they compromised with a sleeping bag. Soon came two pillows for the couch and a lone floor lamp that he shoved in the corner near his bed for the late nights when night terrors had him scribbling away in his journals. They were minor improvements, in truth, but the progress spoke volumes as Bucky worked on building a place that felt a bit more permanent than his last few hideouts.

Zara had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t even registered that Bucky completed his purchase and had moved to stand at the edge of the sidewalk. She approached him curiously, watching the way he hesitantly analyzed the seemingly anxious newspaper peddler from across the street. It was very clear something was wrong from the way his demeanor had changed.

“Buchanan?” Her voice raised a bit at the end of his name, concern now replacing her curiosity as he began to make his way to the stand. He either didn’t hear her--which she found unlikely--or he simply opted to ignore her as he picked up the paper, ocean blue eyes scanning over the headline. The color seemed to drain from both of their faces as they took the accusation in, not having to speak to know what it meant.

Bucky would have to pick up his life, yet again, and run. Find a new country, new home, and start the process all over again. The ex-assassin hardly seemed surprised at the realization, as there is no rest for the wicked.

[Boston, Massachusetts -- 2016]

Zara made her way down the hallway to her bedroom, an imaginary version of Bucky trailing along behind her. She let her book bag drop to the floor once she entered the room, stepping out of her shoes before flopping down onto the soft, sunflower themed duvet of her bed. A look of weightlessness overtook her features as she let the events of the day settle in. Today she would graduate with a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from MIT, top of her class. It was the culmination of years of pouring herself over every textbook her parent’s provided, testing out and early graduations. At only sixteen, Zara would join the ranks of some of the youngest individuals to ever receive a doctoral degree. It truly seemed unreal to her.

Emerald eyes drifted to where Bucky sat at her desk, his arms crossed loosely in front of his chest.

“I wish you could be there tomorrow,” Zara commented, propping herself up on her elbows as her fingers pulled at the frayed threads on the yellow quilt folded at the end of her bed.

A smile teased the corner of Bucky’s lips as he leaned back against her swivel chair, long hair swaying as he tilted his head to the left to look at her. “I will be there, maybe not in person, but I’ll be there cheering right along with everyone else,’ he assured.

“It’s not the same and you know it, Buchanan.”

“I know. Just try to focus on the positives. Tomorrow is your day, you’ve more than earned it.”

Zara nodded, though her disappointment was still evident. On the average day, Bucky’s seemingly invisible presence to everyone else but her came in handy. As she was willing to bet her parents wouldn’t be too keen on the amount of time she spent alone with the grown man, let alone if they knew who he was. The public’s perception of James Buchanan Barnes, who she had quickly identified him as, was low to say the very least. Though it was days like this that she found herself wishing the most that he could truly exist in her life outside of her mind.

She could never quite pinpoint why she began hallucinating him two years prior. Though, the time before and after her fourteenth birthday had flown by in a post traumatic daze so it was even more difficult to analyze. The aftermath of four older boys assaulting her in her own bedroom left her wishing to repress that portion of her life altogether. Zara squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the ghost of their hands on her body. Grabbing, groping, pulling and tearing at clothes. She had hardly seen them since their attack but her mind was still trapped in the room with them.The feeling took her back to meeting Bucky that night, or more so the Winter Soldier, as he appeared at that time.

Upon entering her room, Zara failed to notice the masked man sitting silently in the corner of the room, illuminated only by the small lamp on her bedside stand. When she caught a glimpse of the figure, her body jumped to it’s fight response, just as it had an hour or so before. The young girl grabbed the closest thing she could find, a textbook on advanced chemistry, and held onto it tightly before turning to face the intruder.

“You need to leave,” she ordered, her voice wavering at the end of the demand. Her green eyes only met a pair of dark glasses securely strapped to his face. She couldn’t make out any facial features to identify him by, as all but his forehead and hair was covered.

It wasn’t just his silence that sent an unnerved shiver down her spine. It was his demeanor, cold and nearly unresponsive to her presence and defensive stance. Had his head not briefly turned her way when she started to speak, she’d question if he even heard her at all.

A large gun, likely a rifle from what she could tell, was resting across his lap. His hands weren’t actively gripping it, but something told her he could take aim in the time it took her to breathe her next breath. A variety of handguns and knives were also visible from the holsters adorning his thighs. If he had this many weapons visible, Zara could only imagine how many he had stashed under his tactical vest and heavy boots.

Her green eyes followed where she believed his gaze had drifted. He seemed laser focused on the strip of light just barely visible from under her door as a roar of laughter could be heard from just outside. His hand moved to rest just over the barrel of his gun. The young girl analyzed him for another moment before lowering the textbook, while still keeping it tightly in her hands.

“Will you at least tell me why you’re here?” There was a hint of desperation in her voice, one that vocalized all of the fear she had been trying to hide. She was met with more silence, which quickly became deafening to her. She was afraid to make a move to get his attention again, naturally unsure of how he would react. Yet, at the same time she couldn’t relax, not with him in her space.

After another few moments of no response, she allowed herself to consider the possibility that he wasn’t actually there. She had just been through something horribly traumatic and it was entirely possible that this was her brain's way of coping with the stress and fear. That it had conjured some masked figure to sit at her bedroom door and keep all the bad away.

She knew how best to test her theory, but she recognized the risk that came with it as she picked up a neon pink highlighter that she had been using earlier that night. She gripped it for a moment while weighing her options, throwing it across the room only seconds later. She didn’t put too much force behind it, hoping that if it gently came into contact, he’d be less likely to be angry. The consideration meant very little as the marker passed straight through the man and knocked against the wall before falling to the floor. She watched as it rolled across the floor and disappeared underneath her nearby dresser, a bittersweet feeling washing over her. On one hand, he wasn’t real and couldn’t hurt her. On the other, she was truly alone and definitely going crazy.

“This is fine,” Zara tried to reassure herself with very little luck.

She was pulled back from her thoughts as Bucky called her name for the third time, snapping her back to reality. Their eyes connected for a moment as she attempted to ground herself again, focusing on the small changes between how he was now versus then.

He had since lost the mask and goggles, she remembered him removing them a month or so after he first appeared. His current casual attire contrasted starkly with the hard kevlar of the tactical vest she first met him in. His features were more at ease now, no longer reflecting the fear that she could only compare to an animal in captivity. While she wasn’t fond of the comparison, following what she had learned of the real James Barnes, it wasn’t entirely far off.

As if the world was reading her mind, she faintly heard the voice of the local news anchor from the living room directly below her bedroom. Her features scrunched as she focused in on hearing the report, only catching snippets here and there. The words explosion and Sokovia Accords were most of what she could make out along with what she could’ve sworn was the suspect’s name, James Buchanan Barnes.

Before Zara could even question it further, she found herself racing down the main staircase of their suburban home, sock clad feet skidding to a halt on the polished dark oak flooring. Her eyes widened as she took in the security camera footage that was believed to place Bucky near the scene of the crime. Despite having no real proof, something deep within her gut screamed that it wasn’t true. She knew him, maybe not the real version, but he’d never do that.

Imaginary Bucky followed her into the living room a minute later, his pace slow and relaxed in comparison as he shoved his hands into his pockets. Being held responsible for the most recent atrocity was honestly just beginning to feel like the average Tuesday to him. More than anything, it was Zara’s reaction that took him the most by surprise. Her unwavering faith and loyalty was unexpected and as he believed, undeserved.

He had committed unspeakable acts over the years and this was likely far from the worst he was accused of. Sure, they had grown close in the two years since he first appeared and he imagined that made it easier for her to block out the rest of the stories, since she knew at least some version of the person in question.

Zara was good, in every sense of the word. Of course she had flaws, but who didn’t, especially at sixteen. But he saw the way that she looked at the world with love and curiosity despite the violence and violations she had experienced. It was a strength of character that he truly wished he could grow to embody. Bucky couldn’t help but find it funny that he was left looking up to a teenager who hadn’t even passed her driver’s test yet; but she honestly had more morals and heart than most of the adults he had met in his life. All of those facts being true is what made her belief in his innocence all the more confusing.

His eyes fell to her father, Gabriel, as he sat on the couch to take in the evening news. The man’s head shook in what seemed to be disappointment, or maybe it was anger, Bucky honestly couldn’t be sure anymore. They had never spoken, as Bucky’s intangible form made communication with anyone other than Zara impossible, but he knew Gabriel was a black and white kind of person. He couldn’t help but accept that to anyone who didn’t know him, the evidence would be damning.

“They need to just put him down while they have the chance,” Gabriel scoffed, speaking to no one in particular while switching the flatscreen off before they could finish the broadcast.

“He’s not a wild animal to be euthanized.” Zara’s expression twisted in disgust at her father’s casual nature. “He’s a human being. If he's guilty, and that’s a really big if with how blurry that security footage is, he deserves a trial just like anyone else!”

Gabe turned to look over the back of the couch, clearly displeased that she would defend the man. “I’m in no mood to debate with you, Ziarah.” He rose from his seat and dropped the remote onto the foot stool before leaving towards his study.

Zara watched him leave, her eye practically twitching with each step he took. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, to make him see that there were likely more sides to the story than they were seeing but she knew that it was useless. Her father rarely took her opinions or beliefs to heart on things that actually mattered to him, a topic like this would truly be a lost cause.

She looked up at Bucky as he shook his head lightly, letting her tension fade away as she accepted that it was pointless. “It’s okay, Zar,” Bucky assured, his small smile wiping away any lingering doubts she had. “There are more important battles to pick with him. This isn’t a hill worth dying on.”

Zara would’ve liked to argue that defending her friend was more than a worthy cause but she nodded nonetheless.

“How about we go find your mom. I bet she’s already working on the cake for your graduation and knowing you, you can convince her to let you lick the spoon.” His tone was playful as he coaxed her into motion, the promise of sweets and a friendly face luring her into the kitchen behind him.

Hanna was busy mixing away the different batters she would need for the next tier, the sweet aroma of baked goods filling the air. She hummed lightly as she worked, creating her own personal mix of her favorite 80’s songs together in a unique medley. Her green eyes moved to the doorway as she heard Zara walk in, a bright smile overtook her features as she set down her mixing bowl.

“There’s my little scholar,” she praised, moving around the kitchen island to take her daughter into her arms. Her warm embrace was a welcomed escape as Zara melted.

“Momma,” Zara grumbled as her mother placed a series of kisses on her forehead. “I thought you stopped doing that since I was a baby.” While Zara whined, deep down she always loved her mother’s open displays of affection. Not that she was willing to admit it.

“That’s the beauty of you always being my baby. You’re never too old for me to embarrass you. Just be grateful that I’ve opted to do it now instead of at your party.” The woman grinned away as she moved back to her work.

Zara honestly couldn’t argue with the logic as she found a seat on one of the tall bar stools. She quickly lost herself in the pleasant conversion with her mother, happily opting to clean the excess batter and frosting off of the bowls and mixing spoons like the helpful child she was. Imaginary Bucky sat quietly at the kitchen table, watching the women as they fell into the usual banter and discussion. After they finished her conversation she quickly grabbed a snack and made her way towards the door.

“I believe you’re forgetting something,” Hanna reminded, sending Zara a knowing look.

She huffed lightly before turning on her heels to grab her blood testing and insulin kit, waving it at her mother knowingly. She quickly turned back around and left the kitchen, making her way back upstairs.

Bucky didn’t hesitate to follow after her, stopping only when he saw Zara staring in her old room, which now housed her older brother Daniel. He could practically see the wheels turning in her mind as she ran over the events that more often than not had her scurrying past said room without acknowledging it. It was easier to just pretend it didn’t exist.

A few more moments passed before Zara pulled herself back from the darker parts of her mind, focusing in on everything else in her life that was good and worth celebrating. She had known pain and a time in her life where she often considered if it would’ve been easier to just fade away, but she had made it through to the other side. She had a lot going for her now and that was enough to push her feet forward again.

Chapter 2

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itsbenedict · 3 years

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I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:

Raging Loop

Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch.

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.

That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.

Detective Grimoire

I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.

Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery

This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)

As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over.

All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.

There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.

(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)

Trails of Cold Steel IV

Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense.

Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.

It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.

did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win

One Step From Eden

OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.

Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.

(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)

The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???

A Short Hike

This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.

Pokémon Sword

Ehhhhh.

I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.

Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.

It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime.

(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though)

Hades

Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.

Petal Crash

It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.

Hollow Knight

Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.

(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)

Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”

(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)

#game rec #also some game non recs #long post

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turquoisemagpie · 4 years

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Do you know what’s worth fighting for,  When it’s not worth dying for?

I wear a chain around my neck. It’s not that obvious as I keep it tucked away when engaged in a mission; I don’t want it getting damaged or lost. ‘Saving the world’ can be exhausting at times, painful most of those times, and at the end of each mission I take I wonder why I carry on doing this to myself. The bullet answers that wonder all the time. Any given break I get, I take the time to take a look at it.

I got the bullet on the day I was taken away. I was 9 years old. A week before I was taken away my mother’s body was finally found after 2 months searching for her when she went missing. My father went to the crime scene with the police, and when he came back he quickly packed our things and we left the house, never to come back to it. At the time he never explained to me why we left, or why everywhere we went that he looked over his shoulder ever now and then, or why I was never to answer any phone calls we got to any of the apartments we moved too and fro from. 6 days into leaving the house I asked him what was going on. He pulled out a piece of paper and drew a symbol.

I recognised the symbol. From 5 years old, people in white coats started coming to our house; just a day after I had punched a bully in school and got him badly hurt somehow. On their first visit they asked me if I felt more ’special’ than the other kids. My mother interrupted before I could answer them, telling the people in the white coats to leave and never come back. They left, but they came back. Once every month. Every visit my mother and father were nervous around them, but whenever the white coats started talking to me or tried to get close to me, my parents would stop them. They were odd people, I thought. And on their coats they wore this symbol.

My father said that same symbol was carved into the flesh of my mother’s belly.

He told me to never trust them if they would ever approach me when I was alone. I asked him what they wanted with me. He didn’t answer.

On the 7 day, they came. My father heard their grey vans pull up on the street outside the apartment we were staying in. He grabbed me away from the window and grabbed our already packed bags. But it was too late; the main stairway and the fire exit stairway was already packed with armoured soldiers in grey. We were cornered inside the apartment, left only to wait for the shouting and heavy boot steps to get closer and closer. My father took this time to hug me close, apologise for everything 30 times over, and telling me he loved me 50 times over.

Something welled up inside me. I knew we were in big trouble; if we weren’t going to be killed, then we’d be hurt very badly, for reasons that had everything to do with me. I felt responsible for it all. I wasn’t going to cower from it. I parted from my father and stood in front of him as the soldiers burst through the doors.

10 bullets were fired. 5 of them entered my father’s torso, 3 of them ruptured the aorta of his heart, killing him within seconds. 4 of them went into the wall of the apartment. 1 of them, I caught with my hand. I reached out feebly as the bullets were fired, thinking that would stop us getting hit. I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t expect anything. Except death. Then I felt it hit the palm of my outstretched hand and I clasped as the sensation hit me. My eyes were closed and I was too scared to open them for fear of seeing a gruesome hole in my hand. But when the bullets finally stopped and the room went silent, I peeked.

My hand seemed fine, white and pulled at the skin from squeezing my fist so hard, but still in one piece. In the few strange seconds of nothing, when the soldiers lowered their guns and stared at me, when my father’s body slowly slumped over to the floor, I opened my hand to see what had happened to the bullet I caught. It was a copper colour, and very shiny, it would otherwise have been a very well polished bullet. But there, in my tiny 9 year old hand, it was crumpled and twisted, the outline of my tiny chubby fingers indented in the metal.

That’s when it hit me. That’s when all the questions I had been asking nearly all my life had suddenly been answered.

This brass nugget of metal, that was only a few seconds ago a bullet aimed to pierce through my flesh, was the reason these soldiers had shown up in the first place. It was why we had regular visits from the people in white coats, who kept asking me how my day at school was. It was why my mother had always pulled me close to her when people gave us mean looks as we walked down the street. It was why my father kept himself at a yard’s distance from me when I threw a tantrum. It was why I was fed medicine and antibiotics, instead of being given injections. It was why I didn’t feel much pain when the bullies threw rocks and brick pieces at me. And it was why the soldier fired straight at me in order to only kill my father.

I was a very special child, and the men in white coats wanted what I had.

I reached for my father. I don’t know whether it was the instant acknowledgement and fear of being taken away, or whether it was the absolute certainty that my father was definitely dead, either way I was screaming for him, crying my eyes out, grabbing at his shirt and pulling at for any sign that he was still alive. The soldiers had to pick me up, and I kicked and screamed the whole time they carried me out of the apartment. As soon as we were out they rushed me into one of their grey vans, where a white coat was waiting for me. They sat me down in a seat and strapped my arms and legs down in thin metal clamps, but I broke through them easily. They had to hold me down themselves, two men on each of my limbs. The white coat approached me by my head. She had a soft voice, she hushed at me, yelling me calmly and quietly that everything would be ok. Then she strapped the silicone mask to my mouth and nose. Everything went blurry after that.

I spent 11 years in the white coat’s facility. They did the usual stuff you’d expect a secret evil testing facility would do; severely beating subjects when they disobey, drugging subjects, keeping subjects confined in small quarters, no personal possessions, set meal times, lights out and wake up calls, setting up exercises and tasks for subjects to complete, success was awarded with very little and mistakes were punished severely. For me, their exercises and tasks involved pushing me to my fitness and physique’s limits. They were pleased with how quickly I learnt and how tolerable I was to pain; they enjoyed zapping me with electric probes when I least expected it, just to see what I’d do.

One day I had had a bad night’s sleep, the food was cold and very little, and the task observer had laughed a little too hard when I was zapped for the 5th time. I’d had enough. I left, as easy as that; they trained me up enough for it to be as easy as it was.

They chased me for a good 5 months, but I managed to stay ahead every time. I ran them in circles in every city we ran through and eventually, like threading a thread through a maze of wooden pegs, they got tangled and couldn’t move any further to catch up with me. They seemed to have accepted their loss and I haven’t seen them since.

Somehow, throughout everything, I still managed to keep the crushed bullet with me. The white coats never took it off me, I don’t even think they knew or cared that I had it. Which is good really, because the bullet means a lot to me. It’s bittersweet, the meaning behind it. The bullet symbolises the moment I knew I had a power that could change the world; it also symbolised the only bullet out of the many that I managed to stop before it hit my father. It symbolises how ineffective I was to save a life, I had unimaginable power and strength but I still couldn’t save the one life that mattered to me.

I don’t intend to ever let that happen again. I keep this bullet with me everywhere I go, looped around a chain on my neck.

Any given break I get, I take the time to take a look at it, and make sure the memories come flooding back to remind me why I’m doing this.

#magpie sketches #magpie writings #jacksepticeye #jackieboy man #septicart #test

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caltropspress · 3 years

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FEEDBACK LOOP #6: Cargo Cults’ “Rammellzee”

Since these symbols and all symbols are drawn, infinity’s separation from all symbols must be shown through drawing. The only proof of such a separation of the infinity would be the understanding by the majority of the planetary peers. There is no other way.

—from IONIC TREATISE GOTHIC FUTURISM ASSASSIN KNOWLEDGES OF THE REMANIPULATED SQUARE POINT’S ONE TO 720° TO 1440° THE RAMM-ΣLL-ZΣΣ (1979, 2003)

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

—from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

Riding among an exhausted busful of Negroes going on to graveyard shifts all over the city, she saw scratched on the back of a seat, shining for her in the brilliant smoky interior, the post horn with the legend DEATH. But unlike WASTE, somebody had troubled to write in, in pencil: DON’T EVER ANTAGONIZE THE HORN.

—from Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49

1. I walk down the street and people look at me and say, “Who the hell are you?”

Cargo Cults (Alaska and Zilla Rocca) begin their track “Rammellzee” with the voice of the some-16 billion-years-old being himself. The song is an ode, an invocation. The organ sample provides a bizarre ride: a carousel of colors. We immediately plummet—into a well, a subway tunnel, a cosmos of linguistics. Not a nonchalant That’s deep, but a depth of knowledge where “cipher” means code, means Supreme Mathematics, means gathering with your rapfolk outside the Nuyorican Poets Cafe or in Washington Square Park: a deep connection. Mimicking Rammellzee, Alaska presents the listener with “swirling pages / forming mazes of [his] formulations” and subsequently “break[s] them down into a form that’s shapeless.”

2. Hip-hop is ageist….In blues, you ain’t official until you fifty. (Ka, Red Bull Music Academy interview with Jeff Mao, 2016)

The phrase …of a certain age has, historically, been used euphemistically to describe someone (typically a woman) who has existed for a “shameful” tally of years. Society is still undoing the stigma, but rappers have made strides.

In Adult Rappers, a 2015 documentary directed by Paul Iannacchino (Hangar 18’s DJ paWL), Alaska is [accidentally?] presented twice in the closing credits—like a double, a separate persona—which calls to mind the multiple personalities of Rammellzee: Crux the Monk, Chaser the Eraser, Gash/Olear, et cetera. Age allows for maturation, for building, for bettering. In Rammellzee’s case—and I’d argue Alaska’s—it allows for complexity to emerge organically through wisdom. It allows for reinvention, for many versions of one’s self. Age and development is how an aerosol can with a fat cap can graduate to customized deodorant roll-ons and shoe polish canisters.

It begins with jerry-rigging a nozzle and ends in diagramming a “harpoonic whip launcher/pulsating extendor” to illustrate the deconstruction of letter-formations in the English alphabet. The spirit of experience pervades the Nihilist Millennial album. As anyone who has ever sat on the couch knows, communication can also improve with age.

Artists and rappers like Rammellzee and Alaska rely on wild-styles, a self-made world that warps quantum physics and disregards notions of dimensionality. It’s dream-vision. It’s liberation. It simultaneously celebrates and critiques communication: like the image of a muted horn.

“Communication is the key,” cried Nefastis. “The Demon passes his data on to the sensitive, and the sensitive must reply in kind. There are untold billions of molecules in that box. The Demon collects data on each and every one. At some deep psychic level he must get through…”

“Help,” said Oedipa, “you’re not reaching me.”

“Entropy is a figure of speech, then,” sighed Nefastis, “a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow. The Machine uses both. The Demon makes the metaphor not only verbally graceful, but also objectively true.”

[…]

Nefastis smiled; impenetrable, calm, a believer.

The wordplay seems just that: play—that is, until you find the thread. Alaska cobbles together words like rubbish, W.A.S.T.E. Words appear daisy-chained together—flowery, ornate, and strung together by their stems: “fatalism, Fela Kuti, razor thin” / “smash the superstitions with acid tabs and some Sufi visions” / “deep dive Sonny Liston” / “Walt Whitman.”

The track reads like a codex. Something crafted in a scriptorium. His words are warfare—double-tracked/double-barreled—and he slips into braggadocio to prove it. It’s an authoritative posture of experience. Having started atomically small—from Breaking Atoms bedroom listening, to Atoms Family—Alaska’s flow presents nuclear now: maximum damage.

There’s a refinement to what this duo is doing: “Me and Zilla well-established with a lavish vision. / Both hands crusty with Ikonklastic Panzerism.” The boasts rely on royal diction: Camelot, palace doors, Prince Paul. Each man a king, a God, and each one should teach one. Mentor texts for the masses.

Rammellzee is an equation, And simply stated it’s the way of life I’m chasing. That’s why I praise the future-Gothic future-prophet. Gotta rock it, don’t stop it, Gotta rock it, don’t stop.

You find diversions on the song, exits into familiar chambers. GZA quotations (“I was the thrilla in the Ali-Frazier Manila”) and allusions to Main Source. Large Professor rapped “Dead is my antonym,” and if that’s to be proven true, money needs to be removed from the equation. The refrain of “Gotta rock it” not only calls to mind “Beat Bop,” Herbie Hancock, and Grand Mixer DS.T (or his later incarnation, DXT), but rockets—Afrofuturist angles, future shocks (Bill Laswell [Material], friend to Rammellzee, had a hand in all this). It’s not so much a “future-prophet” as a “future profit.” “Freedom in the process” means creativity without expectation, without the constraints of market value.

Alaska gives it to us straight: “I don’t care if you don’t like it, and I don’t care if you don’t buy it / ’Cause I find freedom in the process.” Despite becoming increasingly complex in his visual approach—like a heap of garbage that loses the definition of its component parts over the ages—Rammellzee understood time equals clarity of vision. A wasted world becomes a meaningful one. Of course, we got to pay rent, so money connects, but ownership of one’s art is about empowerment. “Selling out” is the opposite—an evisceration of one’s self and spirit. “We lost control from the second we sold the art,” Alaska raps. “We sold our future….We should be seeking enlightenment.”

The moment arrives, epiphanically: “I find freedom in the process so I’m grateful, / And that’s my main source: it’s my friendly game of baseball.” For Alaska and Zilla Rocca, it’s not a job—it’s a passion, a pastime.

5. Nascent imagination deep inside a battle station.

Post-9/11 meant luxury apartments displaced Rammellzee’s Battle Station loft, his living museum. But the art has been excavated and exists posthumously. His Gothic Futurism and Ikonoklast Panzerism seem at home archived on the internet—a network that appears more like a chaos cloud. Rammellzee deconstructed and transcended language—junk monk scripts and calligraphic cut-ups of consumerism. His art is the empowerment a recycling arrow-triangle could only hope to be. Recycle is also rebirth. Rammellzee’s career path is circuitous, deep-tunneled (subway-esque), eternal.

Similarly, Alaska’s multisyllabic patterns are an endless barrage, like weaponized letters tilted sideways, like bottle rockets angled into a bottle’s neck: “Armament / Now my names are built like a BattleBot / Locked inside an ad hoc Camelot, I rather not / Tangle with a rabid lot, hop inside a rabbit hole.”

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”

Boredom can make trouble, but boredom can also breed creativity. Alaska rather not spar with trolls under ISP bridges—though he’s equipped to. Instead, he channels his energies into material.

6. Our culture is done. We lived it.

Near the end, Alaska paraphrases Rammellzee: “I’m not the first or the last to don the mask. / I see it as a title, I’m monastic with these raps.”

Living a life of art—making it regardless of accolade or monetary payment—is the highest form of creativity. Live the art and die by it, like Stan Brakhage, poisoning himself at a slow pace as he applied toxic dyes to celluloid film. Like Rammellzee executing graffiti pieces maskless, huffing the carcinogenic fumes.

MF DOOM (née Zev Love X)—a Rammellzee descendant—taught us how to revel in anonymity, the importance of not spotlighting yourself, but instead seeking out the shade, secret passageways, and the trapdoor in the stage floor. Not all of us heed the advice, but some do, and they feel the throb of real success, not the sort that shows up in bank statements and 401(k) plans.

Images:

“Beat Bop” test pressing, Rammellzee and K-Rob, art by Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983 (detail) | Rammellzee black-and-white portrait photograph (unknown) | Ikonoklast Panzerism diagram from IONIC TREATISE GOTHIC FUTURISM ASSASSIN KNOWLEDGES OF THE REMANIPULATED SQUARE POINT’S ONE TO 720° TO 1440° THE RAMM-ΣLL-ZΣΣ (1979, 2003) | Page 34 (muted post horn) in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Bantam Books edition (1966) | “A scribe at work,” from an illuminated manuscript from the Estoire del Saint Graal, France (Royal MS 14 E III c. 1315-1325 AD) | Herbie Hancock, Future Shock cassette cover (1983) | Grand Mixer D.ST comic book image (unknown) | Stan Brahage at chalkboard (unknown) | Stan Brakhage, Mothlight celluloid (1963) | “Beat Bop” test pressing, Rammellzee and K-Rob, art by Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983 (detail)

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punkandsnacks · 4 years

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Between Wolves & Doves, Chapter 16; Escape

Author: @punk-in-docs & @adamsnackdriver

Also on AO3-

Masterlist-

Trigger Warnings: No warnings in this chap

Synopsis: Vampire!Kylo x OC love story. Inspired by BBC’s Dracula. Also inspired by Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.

He’s been stalking this earth long since civilizations can possibly fathom. Before records even began. He sneers at the fact that this pitiful young world has only just begun to see his reign of it.

He’s dined with moguls, emperors, princes. He’s consorted with bloodthirsty ruthless Queens in their courts, and whispered into the ears of powerful King’s, whose names still echo through millennia.

In his myriad of centuries gifted to his immortal self he’s been many many things. He’s been a lowly pauper. A crusading knight. An assassin. A sell sword. A soldier. A wanderer. A simpering suitor and a voracious unyielding lover. Aimlessly lost in time- besieging this earth. Ripping it apart and drinking what’s left.

He was made in the hinterland between snow and dirt and pine trees. Crusted with ash and blood and gouged from battle. Born anew. Sired from the hell-mouth of war. He was made in 789 AD.

He’ll come undone, one bitter winter night, in England, in 1816.

~ ~ 🥀 ~ ~

t's not the shade we should be cast in It's the light and it's the obstacle that casts it It's the heat that drives the light It's the fire it ignites It's not the wakin', it's the risin' - Nina Cried Power, Hozier I don’t know why, but something about this song spoke to me writing this chapter 🖤❣️ Along with “Running Away” by Maverick Sabre. One of my favourite artists of all time - go and check him out, he’s simply awesome.

Waiting was her greatest nuisance. She was on tenterhooks all day.

As if expecting someone to burst in and proclaim the true circumstance of her guilt. She’s peeking around corners and dreading every moment of cursed silence. Every lapse in conversation is a dagger in her side. She keeps expecting to be caught out.

By the time the evening draws in, she’s nearly apoplectic. She’s sat in the parlour watching the sky darken. And with every second of it blackening her excitement grows in her chest. Gestating bigger and bigger with every second she hears tick by on the mantel clock.

She hardly spoke through dinner. Just listened to her sisters usual fussing and Mama disapproving of yet someone else of their acquaintance. Iris won’t miss that.

She nearly leaps out her skin when Meg bursts in the clattering dining room door without warning, with a note to hand her father. A missive from the farmhand.

Her heartbeat slows to its normal thud. She’s unaware that her father watches her from down the table with a casting silent eye and a look of concern. Mama and the girls were none the wiser.

Then they sit in the parlour as night is heavy and steely blue-black at the window like a velvet drape. Fire and candlelight cloaks them all as the girls embroider. Mama reads a novel, and father sits behind the spread wall of his paper.

Iris takes a moment to look around at them.

She catches her fathers eye as he turns the page over in his papers. He gives her a fleeting smile that passes the time of day. She watches the way the ochre of the flames in the half blade off the lense of his reading glasses. He returns to his pages.

She’ll miss his silent sympathy. His calm presence was a balm she doesn’t know how she can be without.

She looks across at her vain, silly simpering sisters. She’s astonished to find that she will miss them too.

She’ll miss their gossiping and - amazingly - the screeching matches that erupt over who gets to wear their new bonnet or who gets the silk slippers. Or Iris’s pretty pieces of jewellery. Apart from two very adored beloved pieces she’s taking, she’s leaving the rest for them to scrap over. She smiles thinking on it.

It’s odd to think she’ll be in Bavaria. Living in a castle as a Lady to Lord Ren. And she’ll think of home, and she’ll grin, wondering if her vapid sisters will be fighting tooth and claw - having a tug of war - over her earrings or her pearl clasp bracelet.

She’ll miss Flora’s fiery head. In both temper and colouring. How bravely she defends her poor choices in various men of the militia. Then loves a completely different one the next day. She’ll miss how she always puts a pouch of dried flowers on Iris’s pillow when she picks too many - she always picks too many.

And Posy. Posy and her dreadful sweet tooth. How she always gave Iris heaps of her favourite pudding even though mama insisted she didn’t want her eldest getting too plump. Posy scraped it all onto Iris’s plate when her head was turned. Even if it was her sisters favourite.

And even though the way she borrows her books and dog ears the pages makes iris grit her teeth - she’s going to miss that dreadfully. She’ll see some plain unspoiled page corner in a book and her heart will pang and ring, sobbing, and longing for home.

Such longing.

Yearning for her squabbling siblings. For the sight and scent of her father’s study. For her tribe, where she has belonged for all these three and twenty years of her life. She’s sad that she can’t seem to belong here anymore. That’s one thing that causes her grief her about this arrangement. She must be apart from the three people she loves most.

She isn’t sorry to be leaving. Running away and absconding like a thief in the night. She can’t deny that this is her golden chance to escape. Flee from the life that drowned her.

This is her chance to share in a soul shaking love. One that’s seared her devotion to Kylo right down into the marrow of her bones. Scored his name on her heart in bleeding letters. She’s forever devoted. In a way none of them can yet - or will ever - understand.

She hopes in time, they will forgive her. That their leniency will outweigh the scandal and betrayal of her actions.

She casts a glance across to her mother where she silently reads her novel. No affection springs to mind.

Perhaps if she’d loved her daughter more, Iris could hate her less. If she’d even been affectionate instead of plotting. As it stands selling her eldest like a broodmare to matrimony, didn’t encourage anything for Iris beyond resentment. She was in a loveless unhappy marriage and she has no qualms about seeing her eldest shoehorned into something exactly the same. That is unforgivable in Iris’s mind. To experience the trials of such a match for years - and to then glean no lessons from it. It’s cruel.

And all for her want of connection-

Iris refocuses on her embroidery hoop. Stabbing thread harshly through the muslin and looping it through. She works diligently until the fire starts to die down. Father retires to bed. Watching his eldest with sparkling green eyes as he quits the room. Iris is preoccupied looking into her lap at her sewing.

She too heads for bed. Feigning tiredness even though she’s never been more wired. Never been so wide awake. And she was trying not to do anything out of the ordinary as per her usual routine.

She walks past her mothers and her sisters with a lump in her throat. Committing the last few scraps of moments of them to memory. “Goodnight Flora, Posy. Goodnight Mama.” She says simply as she crosses the room.

They call affable words her way. Mother opts for a single word in passing. “Night.”

Iris wonders if she’ll realise one day that would be the last words she ever spoke to her.

She opens the parlour door and slips out. The fire in the foyer hearth crackles. She sees father is in his study. Judging by the slithering glow of candlelight under the door.

She so badly wants to rush in and sob her goodbyes into his chest. Cry that she doesn’t understand how he could’ve sat there and watches Mama push and shove and pummel her around. She’ll never understand - but all the same, that doesn’t stop her from loving him dearly.

She thinks better of it. Climbs the stairs for bed. Confines herself in her dark bedroom. And then comes the true test of her bravery. She has to wait.

And wait and wait. And listen. Hearing as the whole house slowly drifts to dark. To sleep. For everyone to take to their beds.

She can’t read a novel. She can barely stand sitting still. She sits by the fire. Watching the door. Her bag was packed hours ago. Her meagre clutch of possessions. Some loved items and a couple of her favourite dresses and chemises.

She had penned a note for her family explaining every detail of her reasons for leaving. She left a separate letter for a Hux. Though he’ll probably cast it in the fire when he hears the news.

She’ll be leaving the heirloom engagement ring sat on top of it. Leaving the two ruinous sheets of paper on the end of her bed. Waiting for tomorrow. When it’s discovered she is gone.

Her bag sits by her feet. Along with her coat. She sits in the dark like a lonely widow and lets the amber glow of the fire die.

She’s already laced into her new wool lined boots. She wore two sets of stockings and her heaviest chemise.

She’s in a thick ruby wool dress that will be adequate for travelling. It’s rather a plain gown but it’s warm - he had said to dress warm.

She puts her hair into a free loose bun at the nape of her neck. Tied back with a snip of gold muslin. Her skirts will wrinkle in the coach but she doesn’t care about such a thing. She probably looks dishevelled and not at all pretty. But she cares not-

Everything is ready. Now there is only noiselessness. And anticipation

She hears her sisters dainty thumping treads. And then mothers stern steps. And then Meg and Julia gabbing about something, a man most likely, as they extinguish the candles on the landing and all over the walls and hallways. Putting the whole house into thick dull silence and darkness. Putting the day to rest.

She listens to their footsteps creak and creep up the attic stairs. The door closing in their wake.

Iris crosses to her door and opens it a crack. Peering out she can see nothing but the dull moonlight striping from the far landing window, across the floorboards. Silver streaks chase up to her door in the fluttering moonlight swaying in drips off the tree being fussed in the wind outside. Snow is starting to flake down onto the windowpane.

She shuts the door again. It was nearly midnight and her hour is approaching. She prays her bravery rises to meet it.

Father hasn’t come up yet. He was still in his study most like - she can get out the house without disturbing him. She’s certain. He’s dozed off in his armchair or got his head in his business letters and ledgers for the farm.

She puts her coat and slips her gloves on, she has second thoughts about her scarf and shoves it in her bag.

It contained her life, this travel bag, yet it seemed laughably light. And it carried everything she cherished. There’s something a little tragic about that, she decides.

She seized her bag in one hand, and her modest bonnet in the other. To disguise her hair. Should anyone catch a glimpse of her, out unchaperoned, at this time of night. If they recognised her. She can’t be too careful.

She steps to her door, bonnet and bag in hand. Coat on her back, and she stands there, glancing around at what’s left. She spied the two innocent squares of paper sat on her neatly made bed.

Such small things. And yet the words inked within those pages will alter lives. It seems an odd sort of cruel madness.

She silently steps out into the hall. Shuts the door on her room for good. Shuts the door on all this kind of life had offered her. She edges slowly along the floorboards. Listening to the clock in the foyer tinkle the chimes of the half hour before approaching midnight.

She wished she could give her siblings proper goodbyes. She thinks this as she tiptoed past their door. Her shoe creaks the whining boards and she freezes. Heart thudding up to choke in her mouth.

She feels horrified and sick, until her ears strain for noise and all she can hear is night drawing on around the stone walls outside.

She relaxed and crept further along the landing. The tips of her new shoes avoiding the truly noisy spots. She makes it to the top of the stairs and edges down inch by hushed inch. Glove skimming along the banister in a scraping soft hiss as she goes. When she gets to the foyer she creeps toward the door to the kitchens.

A figure awaits her in the armchair. By a dwindling fire.

Iris gasps and almost drops her bag. Her fear bubbled up and made her lip tremble terribly. She’d been caught out. Oh god no. She opens her mouth to speak but no defence comes.

Her father turns his head from where he’s sat fireside in his dressing gown, in his slippers breeches and shirt. Persian house slippers on his feet. His glasses were folded in his hands and there is a pensive weight on his greying brow.

“Papa...” She squeaks in a horrified whisper.

He eyes the bag and her coat. He is not a senseless man. He’s already well assessed what this means.

He swallows and rises to his feet. Lumbering up to his full, tall height. Pushing himself up off the chair by the arms. Like an aged old oak standing proud.

When he turns into the path of the moonlight flooded window behind him, it’s then that she sees the tears in his eyes. And ones that already stained down his cheeks. Her mouth gapes.

“Forgive me. I didn’t intend you to see me in this state...” He glances at her with red rimmed eyes. Raw and stark against the hazel bottle green of his pupils.

Iris is saddened for him. Turns out she wasn’t the only being in this house to cry alone.

“You are... leaving. So I see.” He comments offhand.

“I can’t marry him. Papa.” She blurts out in a hush.

“I’m sorry. I know you’ll want to stop me. That I’m ruining the family with reckless abandon. To convince me to stay. But you can’t. I cannot do it. I can’t walk into a life I will be leading falsely...” She tries summoning and explanation.

Her father cuts through her speech. Coming closer and clasping her hand in his. “Iris. Iris my dear-“ He soothes. He draws both her hands into his.

“I know.” He answers.

“I have no intention of stopping you. I only wished to detain you for a moment, to give you my blessing.” He offers.

She could be taken down with a tiny waft of a feather.

“Don’t mistake me. Please do not think me blind to your happiness, like your mother is.” He begins.

She’s aghast.

“I have watched you for these past few weeks. Grinding your teeth and holding that tongue of yours back when that entitled boy makes a remark you don’t agree with. I have watched him belittle and ignore you. And pass you over. To treat you as no more than a fertile vessel or commodity to be won. I want more life for you, than his meagre offering.” He holds firm.

“He dulls you. My dear. And you are too sharp and curious and intelligent to marry such a mulish man, who would never appreciate what a strong, kind and capable wife he has.”

Iris cries.

“He already sets your jaw on edge, even now. I can see it. And I cannot, will not, suffer the pain of seeing you trapped unto a marriage where your partner can never love nor respect you.” He tells her. “I know the pain well. It is not palatable.” He sighs.

He drops his eyes in shame. “I have not been a decent father to you. I have let my influence and opinion be set aside in favour of your being governed and bullied by your mother.” He bites out. His eyes fill with more tears. Voice strained.

“I am a coward. Iris-“ He begins.

She shakes her head. But he’s resolute to continue.

“No. I am. I am. And I’ve been weak. And what’s worse still is that I was a silent coward. I didn’t even speak up for the joy of my own daughter. I will never live that... dishonour...down. So long as I breathe. And for that, I am so very sorry. And you have all of my penitence for such a crime.” He says to her. Wringing her hands in his desperately.

“Oh, papa.” She cries. Voice no more than a croak. She throws herself in his arms and he sobs as he clutches her. Sways her into a hug and buried his mouth in her hair. Holding her close. He sniffs and sobs. She feels his chest bob with his cries.

“There is nothing you need apologise for.” She assures him.

Mr Ashton smiles. She was the sweetest soul under this roof. And he’ll miss her with every passing minute.

He pulls back and cups her hands. He doesn’t hide his tears. He doesn’t hide any of it and Iris aches with love for him.

“There is a great deal I must be sorry for, My sweet. I will live out the guilt of it eventually. So long as I’m contented that you are safe and happy.” He says gently. “That can be my saving grace.”

“Lord Ren is a very decent man by all accounts. I’m sorry I can’t claim to know him better than I do.” He counsels.

“I love him.” Iris says freely.

The first time she’s admitted it aloud and it makes more tears come. Father gives her his kerchief and tells her to keep it for the journey awaiting ahead of her.

“Then he is the most worthy and decent man living. Because you are every good thing embodied. And he couldn’t be lacking of those virtues either, or he simply wouldn’t be deserving of you.” He comments truthfully.

He sighs a deep breath. “Get out of this cursed god-forsaken village Iris.” He squeezes her hands tighter. Shaking his head.

Be free.

“Get out of this rotten bloody place and go to him. Marry the man your heart wants. I never did wed for true love, and it’s haunted me, my entire life long.” He promises.

She was the only decent thing his marriage has ever brought to him.

She hugs him again. “I’ll miss you most sorely.” She pledges.

“And I, you.” He strokes her back. Shuts his eyes and savours his daughter before she’s lost to him for who knows how long.

She pulls away he strokes hair off her cheek. Blinking in the sight of her face in the moonlight. For the last few seconds of her in actuality. Committing her to memory. For that’s all he’ll have of her soon.

“With you gone, I sincerely doubt I shall hear anything sensible cross your relatives tongues for quite some time.” He japes.

“Remark upon me in my poor state, once in a while, won’t you. And pray for my dear fraying sanity.” He sweeps more tears away. She blots them onto the back of her gloves.

“I’ll pray daily.” She smiles weakly. Bag in hand. Aswell as her bonnet. If that didn’t educate on the silliness of her sisters - nothing would.

He pauses to retrieve something from the mantel. She sees he clasps a little curved silver item. No bigger than a matchbox. Swirled with ornate silver gilding. He takes it and pressed it into her palm. It strikes a sudden zing of cold at her palm. She knows this ornament. It is the music box. The small Fabergé one that sat on the shelf in his office. His grandfather had imported it from Paris on his travels for her grandmother.

“I would like you to have this. So you have a piece of Ashton heirloom in your pocket as you go away to a brave new world.” He insists.

Iris opens the lid and the little while nightingale pops up, springing free to sing it’s call. She clasps it gently.

“I couldn’t-” She sobs. She remembers her sisters admiring it too. It seemed unfair he should gift it to her.

“No tears. My dear. No tears, I beg you. It’s yours and I’m bestowing it to you. I want you to see it and remark on those here at home, who still and have always loved you. Even if we didn’t show it as we ought.” He insists. Taking his hands from her.

She looks across at him. She’d been mistaken to think herself unloved by her parents. He did love her. He could just never bring himself to say so. Iris is awfully glad he’s taken this moment before all is lost.

“Go now. Make haste. Don’t linger too long bidding me farewell.” He offers. Walking with her across to the hallway leading to the kitchen. She tucks the music box safely in her bag. It chimes and chirps as she nestled it into her clothes. She reaches for him once more.

Iris squeezes his hand. “You have all my love. I’ll write when I can. Not for her.” She shakes her head, biting the word crossly. “But for you-“ She pledges.

“Send it to Mr. Grayson at the farm. He’ll see it reaches me safe.” He urges. She smiles. Nodding. Tears sparkling down her face.

“I’m sorry to say I will have shrouded this house in shame and gossip come the morning.” She frets.

He shakes his head with a fond smile. “We are tougher than we look. Never more so than when we are tested.” He assures. Such confidence in his Apple green and red raw eyes. She instantly believes him.

She throws herself into a hug. Fists a hand in his dressing gown shoulder and takes a deep breath of him one last time. Old leather musk of books and the sting of peppermint. “I love you.” She gasps with sad finality.

He nods. Swallowing a lump of stony sadness down in his throat.

“I wish you all the luck in the world, my dear dear girl.” He smiles. Eyes wet again. He cups her face and admires her for a second.

She clasps his hand tight at her cheek. And then she lets go-

He doesn’t have the strength to watch her leave. It’s too sad. Too hard.

He looks away and doesn’t return his eyes until the latch on the kitchen door softly clicks back into place in its frame.

The air hums with the absence of her. He prays to any god listening to convey her safely into Lord Ren’s arms.

He’d accompany her himself if it wouldn’t be so ruinous to explain come the morning. Why he was out of bed and out of doors at such an hour should anyone wish to seek after him. And she’ll move quicker without his old legs slowing her down.

He turns his eyes up to the snowy swirled heavens. And wills for her to have a better life than the one he could offer her here. He hopes he can see her again one day. When all this has passed. The hope for her is his salvation.

She scarpers across the moonlit lawn. Grass cold and crunching with frost under her feet. Snow is beading gently out the sky.

The clear moon of earlier has been replaced by chowder thick clouds. The cold wraps around her in a harsh biting embrace. Stinging at her exposed skin and making her hurry along all the more.

She takes the back lane to the woods. She didn’t wish to risk walking out in full view of the front of the house, down the drive. The road is pale with ice and dusted with snow. Icing sugar powder of it spills over her shoes.

The woods are already thick with it. Black trunks loom thin and warped; born out the white blanket of the ground. The tips of the trees blaze with flakes caught between them. Flecking the leaves.

She crunches her way along the lane. Her stride was something between a skip and scurry. Breath ghosting up in the air and her heart rattling in her ears. Her lungs sting and burn dry with cold as her breath drags into her body.

She cuts through the woods. Afraid her interlude with her father has made her late, and now Kylo would be worried she’d snubbed him.

She runs quick through the trees. Snapping slushing and scuffing twigs, frost and snow underfoot. Cold sneaks up her skirts where she holds them up to run but she doesn’t care- doesn’t even notice.

The trees are so gathered, that the branches rip at her skin as she sprints through them. Tears at her hair and her clothes. Snags are her and her cheeks sting. She bats away the grabbing things. They were like hands trying to tug her back. Trying to keep her tamed. To root her to this place. She’s having none of it.

Her hair got tangled in the snatching trees too. Pulls and only when she feels loose strands lap at her neck does she realise that the muslin had been torn and ripped right out. She presses onwards.

Her face stings and her eyes stream with cold. She comes up the lane that leads her to the church. Gnarled and slanted stubby shapes of the mossy gravestones are fog grey against the snow and the dark. Broken teeth of them rearing like lumpy beasts up out the snow. She throws the church gate open. Doesn’t care that it creaks. She runs up the worn grass path shoes scuffing at the pristine falling snow.

She comes out into the code of woods the other side of the church. The thing emerged out the snow with shimmering silver stone and the slate of its roof is edged with white where flakes settle. Oozing between the cold stony cracks.

The stained glass windows look dead and dull. The colours murkier in the dark. Smoky black and bleeding crimson staining the glass. The whites of the painted saints eyes seem to be arcing and watching over her in derisory disappointment.

She doesn’t glance back. She makes for the woods where she knows he’ll be waiting. She holds her skirts and she laughs as she runs. Her lungs puffed dry and freezing. But she’s so giddy she feels like her sides will split. Her cheeks ache from smiling. Not far to tread now. The cyclops of the moon hiding behind murky clouds watches her too. Silently keeping her secret.

She clears the worst of the trees and her heart soars when she sees a stark black shape of a coach up ahead. With an equally as tall dark haired man. His back to her as he stands in the snow. Head bowed down in his hands. Hair ruffled and dotted with flecks of it.

She presses a hand to her tummy where she suspects she now has a stitch. Because it simply feels so stupid - the amount of love and bliss thats coursing through her blood.

Kylo is outside the coach, of course he is. He’s much the same as her. He can’t sit still.

The gigantic elegant thing that will convey them to the Highlands set by the edge of the snowy muddy road. He’s pacing on it. Horses stamping in the cold. A shivering driver bundled up in pelts and thick coats.

He’s on the painful knifes edge of fretting. She’s not here yet. And it’s well past midnight. He’s worn circles in the snowy road. His coat heavily lapping and catching at his calves. The cold doesn’t bother him. Doesn’t touch him. He’s wearing a white shirt with the collar left undressed and pulled open.

It spills down his marble carved chest. Revealing him to the dark bitter woods and the snow.

He keeps bringing his silver pocket watch to hand - she’s ten minutes delayed. He watches the eleventh minute tick over.

His mind runs with the possibilities. She could’ve fallen and broken something in her haste.

She might’ve been discovered sneaking out and her mother tied her down, locked her in her bedchamber and threw away the key for good measure. His brain bubbles with mania and panic at the possibilities that could keep her from him.

He turns another circle and scans the horizon again. Sharp eyes not missing a thing. A cold breeze shudders across him from up the road. He stops dead in his tracks. That scent.

That was her. She was here.

He whips around, hands falling by his sides. Just in time to see her emerge quickly from the misty white of the woods.

Clad in her blue coat and a red dress. Her bag in hand. Her hair loose, curling and spilling over her shoulders. Cheeks are red and icy cold. Stung by the wind.

She’s never looked more lovely. So wild and free. And all his.

Her smile grows so great. As does his. She slows to a stop. Panting for breath that she’ll never catch. Not now. Not with him stood there looking all dashing.

Iris hikes her skirts and coat up, and runs straight to him and she’s no shame about it either.

She drops her bag on her way to him, uncaring for its contents. He meets her halfway. Their bodies clash in such a tempest of love.

She throws herself into his chest and he hauls her up so her feet don’t touch the ground. His strength was always so vastly great and he shows it in the way he lifts her so easily. Cradles the precious small weight of her in his big arms.

They collapse into glad sighs and she strokes her hand over his hair. Smiling out in bliss as she holds the back of his head. He clutched her back and her hair and buried his face in the crook of her cold neck. It delights and thrills her and she can’t conceive she can deserve so much happiness-

He sighs into her neck. Smiling into her skin. He draws back and looks right at her beautiful cold-kissed complexion. “Ready for this adventure? Lady Ren...” He asks. Cupping her cheek and most of her jaw.

“Wholeheartedly.” She answers.

He plucks a soft lingering kiss at her cheek and sets her down. Scoops up her bag and her hand and leads her through the crunching snow into the coach.

He opens the door for her and she clambers in. Erland snorts and shifts and stamps at her even from up the front of the carriage. Determined to have his share - he was such a diva he could never be left out.

“She’s coming with us, you great big fool.” Kylo comments to his horse. Iris laughs at their exchange as she settles herself in the plush velvet lined carriage.

Scarlet draping over every inch of it. A watery patch of moonlight slanted and cast down from the windows in the doors. She scoots across the bench for Kylo to sit next to her. He then commands his driver to set off.

Pelts and blankets and garnet silk brocade bolster-cushions line the seat opposite. He’s stuffed it with comforts for her. There’s a basket hamper of food and bottles of drink and a stack of leather bound books. She requires rest and sustenance. He seldom does. Not more than a handful of hours per night. But he’ll enjoy slumbering next to her.

Kylo shuts the door after himself. A gust of snow blooms with the force of it. Puffing into the velvet space. They are quite alone. And the carriage lurches off into that snowy dark midnight. Their new life together begins.

He greets her properly. Makes sure she’s snug in pelts and blankets and tips her face up to his by the chin to kiss her again. Her face pulls into an expression of agonised bliss. Tugs her closer closer closer.

Wraps his fingers around the back of one hip. Slithered his fingers between her coat and her dress.

He nudges her jaw out his way with a cheeky smile and shoved his nose into her hair to push it aside, nips and nibbles sucking teasing kisses down her neck that makes her shiver. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long. You’ve no idea how long I’ve been dying to kiss your soft neck.” He grumbles.

He sucks an open mouthed kiss over her pulse and she moans and pants his name. Fingers trapping into the blankets as she says his name like she’s chiding him. They can both feel the desire marching over every vertebrae of her spine.

She shivers. God that felt good. Made her weak. Made her eyes roll back.

“Oh kylo.” She moans. Her toes curl with the sheer raw power of his seductive kisses.

He finds her left hand on her lap and strokes the empty space on her fourth finger.

“Now. I think I had better make this elopement of ours authentic. Had I not?” He smirks. Reaching for his coat pocket.

Then he’s drawing something small out the shadow coloured wool. Her lips part in a smile when he snaps open a small blue velvet box. She’s blinded by diamonds and sapphires.

A cluster of them all crowning a gold band which is set with more gems. Two sapphires surround a large round diamond. Rounded and sparkling gems.

He’s watching her carefully - with a smug expression taking over him as he plucks the ring out its silken nest and slips off her glove slowly, then slots it up onto her finger. It glides on and sits perfectly. He lets her admire for a second. Before lifting the back of her hand to his lips.

“It’s too beautiful.” She comments. Amazed at it. He reaches for the curtain at the window and draws it back. Let’s the moonlight shimmer off the cluster of stones. Fractured light drips everywhere.

“Now that looks a worthy decoration to sit on that pretty kind hand.” He smiles. Before he frowns and turns her head towards him. A curl of copper and iron drifts into his nose.

“Dove. You’re bleeding...” He remarks. When he turns her face there’s paper thin red scratches swiped across her cheeks. She raises her hand to her skin and brings away a dribble of blood.

“I ran through the trees. I must have hurt my cheeks and not realised.”

“How could you not realise?” He asks her as he brings her finger to his mouth and naughtily, suavely puts that fingertip on his tongue and sucks off the blood. Curls his tongue around her taste to savour the way most men would appreciate a fine burgundy wine.

It makes something throb between her legs when he gets his lips on her. His eyes look like they could cut her with a look.

Her blood coating his tongue is too sweet for words. Sweet sweet bouquet. An agonising temptation that he only wants more of.

“I was smiling too much to notice.” She admits in a blush. Chewing on the inside of her lower lip.

He kisses at that blushing sore cheek. Pressing his lips to the barely bleeding cut. It should help soothe and close it. “That makes me insatiably glad to hear.” He smiles.

She searches for his hand and holds it. “I’m sorry I was late to meet you. I ran into my father as I was leaving.” She explains as he leans in to kiss her jaw again.

He pulls back and his face turns rather serious and stern. “He didn’t try and stop you?” He seeks.

“He could not stand to see me wed to such a loveless man as Hux. He gave me his blessing to wed you. I didn’t think I’d be walking away with that.” She tells.

He suspected there was a reason to Mr. Ashton’s silence. And now he knew; it was guilt. He’s glad to see she is loved from her fathers quarter. It soothes him.

“I’m glad you were able to make your peace with him.” He confesses. Holding her dear sweet little hand in his own massive grasp.

She looks up at him. At that handsome earnest face that is watching her so intently. So full of love and desire.

“As am I. But for now. Can I be terribly audacious and ask you to kiss me again?” She seeks with a grin.

She squealed nearly as Kylo tugs her tight into his lap. Folds her thighs over his. One hand covering her ribs under her dress. Fingers teasing under the swell of her breast. His smirking lips kiss and nibble under her jaw and she gasps in bliss.

“Thought you’d never ask...” He smirks and growls into the scorching heat of her neck. It tumbled right through her and she knows more desire is to come.

”And if you hadn’t? I’d have had to taste those pretty lips without your permission.” He sighs cheekily.

He swoops up and takes her mouth and she truly things she might burst into flames.

His silky tongue falls like cream running along her lower lip. She shivers at the sheer erotic desire of it. And this is only the start-

He’ll need to be careful. Or he’ll have kissed her lips raw by the time they reach Scotland.

#between wolves & doves #vampire!kylo #kylo ren x oc #adam driver #Regency era #slow burn

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friendlyfacestabbing · 4 years

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Swords Jacket: Roman’s Sash

okay, remember how waaaay back in the planning stage I said I didn't have much of a clue for incorporating Roman's sash and braid into the jacket?

that's entirely true

I knew I couldn't use an actual sash because things sewn onto the outside of jackets made for routine stabbing do not last long, and actually make things more dangerous for me and anyone else (like, you go in for a grapple, the Last Thing you want is big loops hanging off to get tangled in)

but fabric paints exist. and embroidery is A Thing. personally I prefer embroidery (and it'll have to be machine embroidery as hand embroidery is not an option)

but here's the thing: I don't know if the sewing machine I'm using can do it. I don't have a design. I don't know how to embroider.

I go to a dedicated sewing shop to see if the folks there have any advice or pointers.

them: hang on a second *gets one of the displayed sewing pieces, a fabric journal cover with gorgeous intricate machine embroidery across it* me: oh! Yes! Like that! That's exactly what I want to do! :D them: this was sewn on a $3000 state-of-the-art machine by a seamstress with over thirty years experience in the industry as their final work for their textiles post-grad degree. me: ah.

time to break out the fabric paints right?

WRONG

what do we do when we're scared and procrastinating?

we Research. *cracks knuckles* let's get started.

first: make sure the sewing machine can do the embroidery. okay so all the sewing I've been doing to this point has been on my housemate's sewing machine, a nice new shiny modern thing. unfortunately, it's a bit limited in the amount of tweaking you can do to your stitch settings, but maybe it'll do for the embroidery thing?

hmm. nope. it'll only give me these three options^, and none of them will work.

maybe a different machine.... my machine; an ancient thing, gifted to me by a crone from lands I have not travelled in many seasons. it predates the internet. when it was built the Berlin Wall was still up. ancient I tell you. being older it's a bit more versatile with stitch options, so I can do this:

embroidery capable machine acquired!!! (also I've decided to use two threads on top, as that will make the stitches more visible)

second: find a design. so I spend May researching embroidery throughout history. there is a lot. and some of it is very old and crazy unbelievably stunning.

like look at this^ that's hundreds of years old and was done by hand using plant dyes and it still looks incredible!

Holy random botany detour Batman!!! at the same time I make the happy but seemingly unrelated discovery that the acanthus plant has been a feature of decorative motifs since ancient Greece. the Romans adapted this motif from there, aaaand then it keeps on showing up through history. it goes through evolutions in style (Baroque, Ancient, Gothic, …Romanesque) and is used on everything from embroidery to architecture to calligraphy to home decorating.

(acanthus thru the last 2000+ years^) and people still grow it today!

So. a decorative motif stretching back to Ancient Greece and Rome. with a huge application during the Medieval period, an interpretation in almost every Western historical period since then, use in a really diverse range of creative endeavours, and a stylistic variation literally called “Romanesque”.

also, I really like plants. :D

this focusses my searching somewhat. I collect reference pics of acanthus motifs from all over the internet. everything from quilting patterns to photos of extant garments to calligraphy sketches to scans of 19th century sewing manuals. I end up with a folder of roughly 700 embroidery concepts. then I take my concepts and narrow down to a few of the best options:

a hand embroidery pattern

a medieval manuscript from 1304

some acanthus border sketches

probable designs found!!!

third: practise embroidery. only way I'll learn to do embroidery, is by, y'know, doing embroidery. I do a few of these practice runs on fabric scraps:

and then the Main Test. the full embroidery design. I'll use one of my op-shop denim jackets to try the design on, as it's a similar fabric weight, and manoeuvring a full garment is part of what will make the real thing hard so, may as well get used to that as soon as possible.

first design is a bust. too detailed and intricate. I get the scroll in the blue rectangle sewn down with much swearing and agony, and then give up. I love the design, but it's not worth it.

second? WORKS. (you may remember a brief post from last month in which I was yelling about a major breakthrough? this is That)

I now have an awesome embroidered denim jacket, and a working design for my swording jacket. :D

the design is inspired by the border of a page from a 1304 manuscript of German medieval poetry called the Codex Manesse. look at this page! that's gold leaf!!! and it's in such good nick for a manuscript of that age!!!

I've sketched out a version I can use, resized it, made a stencil of it, and traced it onto the paper I'll use to transfer it to the jacket. Next up, embroidering the real thing. I’ve got this. >:D

#ts sides #virgil sanders #janus sanders #I wrote a thing #swording jacket #roman sanders

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luxlightly · 5 years

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(2/2) Also, what kind of fabric should I use if I don't want to get heatstroke or something? I'll most likely be wearing it in autumn and not summer, but I'll be indoors so I'm still worried, especially with how much walking a con usually entails. And how much of that fabric do you think I'll need? (I'm about 6ft tall and weigh about 185-190lbs I think, I'd want the coat to go to about halfway down my lower leg.) Thanks so much in advance and sorry for bothering you!

(Tumblr deleted the first ask when I tried to save it as a draft. Luckily I predicted this and saved a pic of it)

Experienced sewer and cosplay? Oh anon, your flattery will get you everywhere.

Luckily for you, my grey faced friend, you’ve picked about the easiest costume in the world to sew. The only way it could be simpler if it didn’t have the sleeves, but, since the outfit is so loose, it shouldn’t really a problem if those don’t turn out perfect anyway. More beneath the cut:

You have a few ways you can do it, though, depending on how you want it to look.

Snukfin’s actual outfit has no visible seams, but that’s not something really possible in real life, so you’l have to determine where the seams will be. Easiest place is two seams along the sides. You could also do it with 4 main pieces to make it rounder looking but that seems like it would be a lot more work for not a lot of payoff, so let’s stick with two. You could also use some things to puff out the bottom of the robe so it has that very circular look, like using a sort of faux tu-tu made of tulle, but again, let’s keep it simple.

As for fabric you have a few options there depending on the look, stretch, and feel you want the garment to have.

First off is cotton twill

This fabric has almost no stretch to it whatsoever which can make sewing it easier, but again, it has no stretch, so it’s less forgiving about seam accuracy and is sometimes uncomfortable to wear. It may give the sort of rustic look that you’re going for though. However, you will need to hem all open seams or they WILL unravel on you. Hemming is when you basically turn some of the fabric of an open seam up on the inside of the fabric, then sew it down, stopping the woven thread of the fabric from coming undone and making it look cleaner. Like this:

Also, since many of these fabric are thin, you may need to make a lining, which is basically just the same garment in a silky fabric, connected to the out pieces at the seams. I would recommend not getting anything so thin you need to do that.

Second fabric option is a knit fabric:

Knit fabric has a good deal of stretch to it, which can make it easier to move in, but stretchy fabrics can be a little bit of a pain to sew, since the presser foot can have trouble keeping them from sliding around. Using a “walking foot” can help a lot, but I assume you probably don’t have one if you’ve never sewn before. If you pick this, just be sure to pin thoroughly. Due to the nature of the fabric, some knits can also be harder to press the seams of properly, making them bulkier on close fitting garments, but that’s not what you’re making so it’s all good. the big thing, though, is that knit fabrics often do not need to be hemmed. Sometimes it can look kind of shiny and synthetic, depending on the kind you get.

Third is fleece:

Fleece is a thicker fabric that is very fuzzy and has a good deal of stretch to it, at least one direction. It does not necessarily need to be hemmed, as the open seams will not unravel. It’s primarily used in things like stuffed animals, but can be used in some more whimsical looking garments. It may give you the puffy look to the outfit that Snufkin has. But, as it is thick, it can be very hard to sew multiple layers of without a proper walking foot and a thicker needle, depending of the thickness of the fleece and the number of layers.

It’s really up to you, depending on what you find that fits the look you want and your budget. Wander the aisles of a fabric store and maybe ask an employee for a recommendation. I would definitely avoid anything shiny, plastic, or very very stretchy as those are hard to sew and also will probably not look right for Snufkin. I probably recommend a more natural looking knit fabric. For both comfort and ease. Just be sure to pin that stuff and hold it very steady when sewing it because it WILL try to escape from under the presser foot.

First step after deciding on a kind of fabric (but NOT before buying the fabric!) is taking measurements. For this outfit, I’d take a measurement of the circumference your neck, from your collar to the length you want to the robe to go to on your leg, the width you want the bottom of the robe to be, the length from your collar to your shoulder, your bust, your waist, and around the thickest part of your arm. Since Snuf’s outfit is simple, some of these will just be to ensure you don’t accidentally make the angle of the side cut too steep and end up where it doesn’t fit you around the waist or chest.

The pattern for the main part of the robe will look a bit like this. For each cut, be sure to add half and inch to an inch to it for seam allowance (the amount you’ll lose when you sew two pieces together. The part that becomes the seam) along with an extra inch or two since you want this to be pretty loose and baggy:

You’ll need two of these. The basic sleeve will look like this:

You will need two of these. That’s ONE for each sleeve. That’s why the width is the whole measurement around your arm, not half.

That bump at the top is basically just to have it fit better over the shoulder. There’s measurements and calculations and rulers to get that curve perfect but honestly, in your case…..just kinda…put a bit of a bump there that right. Like “yeah that looks like something a shoulder curve might look like!” This method is something that has served me well in cosplay. Same for the neck hole and arm holes. If your head and arms fit comfortable through them and it looks right to you, it will look right to other people, for the most part. Closer fitting, more complicated pieces require more accurate and precise measurements. You are, for all intents and purposes, making a potato sack.

Drafting patterns and testing them on cheap fabric before buying your final fabric is time consuming, but will ultimately save you time and money remaking it later and having to buy more of the final, usually more expensive, fabric. So make a test out of some cheap muslin fabric or whatever you have around, adjusting measurements as you see fit. Once you do that, determine the amount of fabric you’ll need to get. It’s often not a bad idea to wash the fabric in cold water with a bit of fabric softener before starting. It will make it easier to work with, and shrink it if it’s going to shrink. Some fabrics are dry clean or hand wash only, though so be careful. So do these next things at least twice, at least once in test, then once with the real fabric.

Using the patterns/tests you made earlier, cut out each piece. Now the actual sewing. I’m assuming you’re using a machine but either way it’s the same idea.

1: Place the two main pieces on top of each other so the red marked sides line up and the “right side” of the fabric (the sides you want on the outside) are touching each other. Pin the fabric along the red seams. Sew the seams together, leaving a ¼ to ½ inch space between the seam and the edge of the fabric, so you will have enough seam allowance to press the seam. DO NOT sew the black marked edges of the arm holes or head holes. Leave these open!

2: Setting your iron to the setting appropriate for your fabric, press the seams “open”. Like this:

The two pieces of seam fabric should be folded back over the piece they’re from and flattened down. This will help the seam lie flat. This isn’t super important for your very loose costume but a good habit to get into and it will help the seam stay steady.

If you used a fabric that needs to be hemmed, curl the bottom edge of the fabric up about a half inch, then sew it down. You can do that with the neck too, but curve can be harder to hem, and Snufkin’s neck is always covered by a scarf so you can forgo it if you like, or just use a “liquid hem” product.

3: Pin and sew the yellow labeled edge of the sleeves to the other yellow labeled edge OF THE SAME SLEEVE. That means each sleeve will have only one seam, running along the bottom of the sleeve. That will give it a more rounded look (and also means fewer seams to sew and fewer pieces to cut). Remember that the “right sides” of the fabric should be touching so that the sleeve will be inside out when you sew the seam. Same as with the body piece.

4: Press those seams open as well. Then turn your sleeves inside out(technically right side out) so that the right side is facing outwards.

5: Pin and sew the blue marked edges of the sleeves to the blue marked edges of the main body. This step will be trickier and may require more than one try because you will need to be sewing in a loop. Sewing machines like to sew in straight lines and can only sew on flat surfaces, but you also don’t want to sew your sleeves closed.

What you need to do is pin all around the loop of the hole, lining up the sleeve seam with the bottom of the arm hole of the main body. The sleeve will be RIGHT SIDE out and inside of the main body which needs to still be INSIDE OUT. Again, right sides of the fabric need to always be the ones touching. This is counter intuitive and trips me up a lot because of it.

Then, sew all around that loop. This can be hard to conceptualize and that little shoulder bump will definitely try to cause you some trouble too. If the opening is big enough, it helps a lot to slip it over the sewing machine’s sewing platform like this:

Most machines will have a little shelf or part that can be removed to make this easier.

6: Since these seams are curved, you need to “clip” them so that they lie right. Take your sewing shears and clip the excess seam fabric up to but NOT THROUGH the seam all around the sleeve seam. Like so:

7: Press the seams so that both pieces of seam fabric are folded towards the sleeve, not the main body.

8: Turn the whole thing right-side out and check that there are no holes in any of the seams. Small holes can be patched with a hand needle and thread, bigger ones you may need to go back over them with the machine. Remember if anything really goes bad, you can always carefully remove the seam with a seam ripper and redo it.

9: BECOME THE BOY. That is to say, try it on and make sure everything fits ok.

10: You done it.

#oops I tutorialed #sewing #snufkin #tutorial #moomin #cosplay tutorial #cosplay #Anonymous #earning my seam allowance

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driftwork · 4 years

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dinner at 8 - a representation of pure corruption...

There was a slight break in the monotony of driving southwards along the motorway, only the high speed of the drive creating difference , until she drives round the long downward curve that gives meaning to the drive and transforms it into joy. It is hardly surprising that when she goes around a long curve she lets out a sigh of joy and accelerates still faster as they begin to travel along the upward curve, accelerating towards the unreachable heavens. She remembers being affronted by New York, wishing for water to rise and flood the city, annoyed by the rigid chess board of lines and squares without a single curve. The line she was driving was extravagant which reduced the prosaic moment so that she felt able to speak about her day, transforming the moment as they approached the airport and drive under the runway, a plane taxiing across the motorway, the drive like a dance in the growing dusk. Anti-photons falling, beginning to hide the countryside. She accelerated into the dusk crossing the flow of traffic into the outside lane only then the following cars melted away. The growling noise of the engine. She told him she was thinking of buying a car tomorrow afternoon. She slows down on a long curve to the right as the traffic from another motorway merges from the left. Drifting over a lane to slow down. They talk about how much money she has, she confesses that the long phone call she'd had during the afternoon with the bank, had left her much richer than she'd thought. Telling him she had thought they knew about the account but they obviously didn't. She explained it was in addition to the money they'd gifted her in exile. That she'd be moving some of it into local banks, they'll be sending bank officials, a director tomorrow with dna and finger print authorization and testing kits. She likes the way he doesn't care about the value or the amount of the money. She slows down as they drive onto the sliproad, keeping to the northbound carriageway and as the southbound carriageway bifurcates away to the right she accelerates onto the dark road to the north. He asks if its safe to keep the money. We can symbolically gift it if we ever need to negotiate with them. The pleasures of love are in its curves, its chaotic meandering, without which it would little more than instinctual drives, the movement of soft fleshy pistons, they were endlessly involved in the loops and strings of seduction, red threads of cotton tie them together. The dress fluttering in the evening breeze, a leather jacket lined with kelvar gracefully removed and hung on a chair. The gentle distractions of a bare shoulder, an eye looking at you from a tattoo, the deceptively soft muscles of her forearm. The long straight towards the city, main beams on, 110 miles an hour, transitory things, allowing his eyes to watch the light reflecting from the glass and the intense focus of her face as the roads streams by. As she slows down on the flyover drifting down towords the legal limit, she wonders if the people following them will find them [...]

Their destination is a double fronted three story white mansion, with brick walls around the garden and a carriage drive, she parks by the lawn, there are three other cars in the curved carriage drive. The house is 25 metres back from the road. The drive is lit by lamps set 3 metres apart along the top of the walls. There are manicured bushes, trees trained against the old brick walls, other shrubs and bushes set in the green lawn of the island. One of the brick walls is being maintained, some bricks are being replaced by matching antique soft red bricks. The rest of the wall is being repointed. There is movable scaffolding to enable the work to be done carefully and safely. A sign announcing who the company and workers are. They get out of the car, their feet crunching on the gravel of the drive. They are observed by cameras, images recorded and transmitted.

The front door opens before they press the doorbell. His boss invites them in and takes them into her office. She sits them down on the sofa, another man, a colleague of his comes in and sits in a chair next to her [...] She looked at the two of them, the woman in black dress, leggings and black ankle boots, a multicolored necklace in pastel shades from pink and yellow through to blues and purple. Her skin and tattoos glow in the soft golden light, he is sitting next to her. She realizes that what is bothering her about him is that he seems happy though recognizes he is stressed. She takes the photographs out of the brown envelope on the table and places them in a row in front of them. They are photos of Park holding a gun shooting at someone who is out of frame, he is behind her off to her left a bag hanging off him. His face clearly recognizable. She taps the photograph with her finger "what is this ?" She is about to speak but he leans forward and puts his hand on her arm. He asks in reply "What it is?" She explains they have video of you killing people. Wait she says her hand palm out towards them. Tell me why they don't want you back Sam and Park. He looks at the photo and then explains that he is very sorry but that things just got out of hand and... she looks at him, feeling slightly amused because of the way Park is looking at him. Park explains that she has been sent into exile. She asks for a reason why she shouldn't send her back. They are both looking pale and unwell. "Boss" She heard the hidden pleading in his voice. Park shuddered. If I return to Japan or the locality, they will kill me and under the terms of the sacrifice agreement they will kill him. She put her hand on him. She explains that she cannot have that. Why?. Because my being here is conditional, if I had stayed they would have killed him as a sacrifice, I can never go back. The police there know this, they will never ask for us because of the exile contract. Why happened? Politics, turned into a war internal to the council. One seat of which is the police. Two or three factions targeted me, he saved me. We ran, were chased, we escaped, people died. The cost was exile or sacrifice. Sacrifice was unbearable so we came into exile. That's it he said taking her hand, it's us. Fuck, the other man said. What do you think frank? He sighs, the noise almost echoing in the silent room. The sound of other people talking in the kitchen can just be heard. He picks up the photos and drops them back into the envelope. Terrible definition. I don't know who these people are, any facial recognition software would fail to to recognize them even after the upgrade. True, useless software. Your back at work on Monday. You be good. Whilst your here, nothing illegal Park and I mean nothing. She looked relieved. Thankyou... Jean, call me Jean. They have to call me boss. I think you and I can do better. Thankyou Jean. Can I ask how many died ? Best not he said, we are police and the Tokyo people are council. She nodded accepting his logic. Lets join my husband and Frank's wife for something to eat. Frank dropped the envelope with the photos and the and the video into the waste bin. You look like you need a drink Sam. I do. Frank smiled. This conversation never happened, there is no video and will be no photographs, however silence will cost you 2 nights off or perhaps 3 nights of babysitting. We'll do babysitting Park said with a smile. i like babysitting, i used to have a niece... They looked at her. You have a deal Park. So on Monday... Frank looked at them thinking that had gone well. You are working on a long term smuggling ring and a financial fraud, both of which have been running for months and they are not getting anywhere. Frank is taking over some murders. I am ?. Yes, one of which is a particularly unpleasant serial killer. Blame it on Park... My department just got much bigger and you guys need to sort out some of the detritus so I can make it work. Your both getting promoted. Park follows her into the kitchen whilst they begin to talk to her husband and his wife. Can I help ? She thanks her for looking after him for me. She looked at Park surprised but beginning to see why he was happy. He's my friend as well as working for me. I'm pleased you brought him back in one piece. Two pieces I'm guessing. Yes it's we... Her husband brought the tray of vegetables to the table. She could sense his amusement and recognized that the two of them were the cause. He handed the bottle of Chablis to frank who was looking conspiratorially at abigail. "Oh stop it." she said feeling irritated. They laughed. "I'lll brief you on the new roles and departmental changes... Ï'll show it to you tomorrow. There was a major restructuring going on whilst you were there. Incidentally Tokyo asked us to check some financial outflows. Really what sort of money ? Park asked. She liked the way she looked at him. Some 3 to 5 hundred million vanished and they are trying to trace it. Park looked amused, well we haven't got it... Abigail asked her about the dress. We went shopping yesterday and I bought this and some other clothes. Since we are staying here I thought I had better buy a wardrobe. It's a lovely dress. How could you afford it ? She looked embarrassed after asking. Park smiled at her, it's OK. I'm quite rich. Since I've moved here permanently I brought some money with me. I have to work out what to do with it. Park shifted in her seat slightly towards him. He dropped the glass, she caught it spilling a little white wine onto her dress. She hands the glass and what remains of its contents back to him. Not even aware of the surprise, perhaps even shock at the reaction they witnessed. We have the bank coming round in the morning. She says answering Jean and her husbands unspoken question. She turned back towards Abigail, conscious that they are all looking at her. Thinking this is a good time to confess that she is now becoming part of the reason, ideology of the bourgeois project. I also own part of a company, Kawabarti, through a holding company. Now that I'm here, will have to get involved in running it. Kawabarti, aren't they going IPO soon ? They were. I'll stop that until I know they have done nothing which is illegal, I don't want anyone to arrest me because I've been a silent investor, now that I live here. I suppose I shouldn't say that because I'm at a table with police. But its supposed to be absolutely legal and now that I live here with you, he was still looking pale, drink she said, her hand on his arm, its ok. I have to make sure it is... I thought I was going to faint with shock just then. I don't want to complicate the experiment better to get all the trivial problematics out in public. Fair, i think the amount of money is a bit of a shock he said. Experiment ? Jean asked, fascinated by the way they were being. He looked at Park. She nodded, Go ahead. We committed to a year to see if we could live together. We thought we could run it as an experiment, I am very hopeful, though this bit of chaos. I would have told you today anyway about this.

Out there the enemy awaits them as they circle round during the sorties, perhaps they are paying a distant homage to earlier dogfights, the bend in the nights landscape, the engine growling in the black night, three digits on the speedometer, in the distance a storm flashes, forks heading down towards the ground. Not caught unawares they race towards the motorway junction that will take them north, lightening flashes. The junction lit by a flash of lightening on its far side like a flash from a giants camera. The lights are off at the junction. They follow the curve of the slip road, slower now as they run into a wall of rain. The road shimmers in the rain, water washing away the day. The better to make them feel, the the caress of his had stroking and holding her leg, a page turns as we read a book in the domestic space, is the caress erotic? She doesn't know. She lacks knowledge of such things she thinks, having spent too much time killing people to know. Later, in the not to distant future he will say to her that reactionaries cannot understand a thing like a caress because for them its always about power. But in the here and now as she accelerates up the hill onto the orbital she has no goal but the pleasure of the hand on her thigh and a successfully navigated bend, and here she smiles as we have avoided another violent ending. Nothing beyond the ��smile it brings to her lips, one that he thinks resembles happiness. If we could live our lives likes this, successfully negotiating curves we could be happy...

[ ...well that was interesting her husband said. Jean looked at him quizzically. He'll never cheat on her. Pouring vodka shots into crystal glasses. She'd probably kill him if he did. The four of them laughed. More seriously if we betrayed him after this, she'd kill us as well Frank said, i do like her [...] they talked about them sipping the vodka and drinking tea and espresso into the middle of the night [...] They sent a sealed file from her yesterday, it was sensibly passed to me unread, it's heavily redacted but enough to know who and what she is, it makes interesting reading. He probably doesn't know, nor even care based on this evening, Abigail interjected. They have asked us keep tabs on her and him. I think they are frightened in case she goes back. Thank you she said to her, I needed someone else's opinion. Her husband wondered how much money she'd brought with her. This was the only way I could think of to stop them running. I will destroy the file, thank them for it and tell them we will deal with it...]

#stories of exile #exile #corruption #everyday places #tokyo #city

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handmadecp · 5 years

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The ‘Slightly’ more advanced bag Project.

( Any one thinking this seems to have changed...no you’re not going mad, I have no idea why but tumblr was showing my post twice and when one was deleted it took them both out. Go figure, so here’s the Mk 2 version ).

All credit for Original idea, design and templates goes to ‘niteKore Leather’ and you can purchase the template from their website. Bag reproduced with Permission.

Welcome back to another project on Beginners Journey into Leather Craft here @HandMadeCP. This week I decided after three and a half years that I wanted to try doing something a bit more ‘Challenging’ and I was thinking that maybe some of you who have been following my humble little blog since I started might be thinking the same thing, so I had a look around and decided to give one of these a go. Hope you enjoy the build along as much as I enjoyed doing it. There is an instructional video out on Youtube by niteKore Leather for anyone wishing to use it.

Pic 1 : The latest Project a more advanced style of bag. If you are just starting out on your own Journey into leather craft, learn the basics first, one time I ‘jumped’ ahead and made a right pigs ear of the project I was doing then and wasted leather, dyes, stitch thread, rivets, you name it..I wasted it and it cost a fortune. So take your time to pick up the basics using cheaper cuts of leather or reclaimed leather or maybe even leather stripped from old Sofas and chairs...it’s cheaper whilst you learn. There are some very good vids on Youtube that cover everything you need to know, then practice doing smaller projects, feel free to have a look in my archive for ideas and tips from me as to where I went wrong and how I corrected any errors. My archive is full of different types of projects for different levels of skill, but this one is for my own ‘learning’ curve and for anyone whose followed me all this time who may want something more challenging. Moving on.

Pic 2 : I Purchased, printed, cut out and punched relevant holes into the templates Being very careful to put the right size holes in the right area as...you can see for yourself..there are a lot of pieces. I got turned around a few times but a deep breath and a quick ‘Coat of Looking at’ and it was fine.

Pic 3 : All templates were transferred onto a 5-6 oz Veg tan leather, cut out and dyed using an Eco Flo Water stain dye called ‘Canela Tan’ but you choose what suits you. I was ok with it being almost light orange as I know that each time I put a coat of something on it ..it will go a shade darker, by the time I’m finished I will have the tone I want. I use and would recommend..a test piece of scrap, I dyed it..dried it..buffed it...Resolene it..dry it, buff it..then used a good quality leather balm on it. All the edges were darkened prior to the Resolene coat by dampening them, then using a dark marker pen, then waxed it and burnished on my burnishing machine, but you can use a hand wooden burnisher , it just takes a while longer.

Pic 4 : the larger sections dyed and drying.

Pic 5 : Stitching the side pouches together, first you have to stitch the side sections to the front section, then stitch the full pouch to the gusset as seen here. It can be fiddly but take your time ..it’s worth it. If you get easily frustrated or angry whilst doing this....a change of hobby might be in order as these projects can test you sometimes as a beginner.

Pic 6 : Both completed pouches now stitched to the gusset by hand using a brown waxed thread and using the Saddle stitch. try to resist the urge to pull the stitches as tight as possible as it can cause a ‘kink’ in the leather, I’ve done that many times., yes you want it tight...but not ‘that’ tight. Note the Chicago screws that have been added to the pouches to hold the flaps down, the holes for these need a small ‘slit’ from the hole going downwards..just enough to allow the screw head to push through...be careful..you don’t want a long ‘slit’.

Pic 7 : Here you can see I have added the short straps that hold the side buckles and strap loops as shown. I chose to use brass plated rivets but you can go with anything that will hold it together.

Pic 8 : All the other pieces have now got the buckles straps and loops fitted and the front leather ‘plate’ has been added. Time to put it together.

Pic 9 : I stitched an inside ‘slot’ pouch inside first as can be seen in a later pic, here you can see the stitch line which adds to the design I think. Then I stitched the back panel to the gusset. Saddle stitch was used through out this project.

Pic 10 : Here you can see the inner divider with the end sections already stitched on both ends and also along the bottom.

Pic 11 : From a different angle you can now see the inside ‘slot’ pocket on the left. Note the dark edges, I saw a guy use this technique and personally I think it looks great so I used it here.

Pic 12 : Next I stitched the front panel on..much the same as the back...but a bit fiddly. then I stitched on the Main flap which was pretty straight forward. Now all the pieces are together you can fasten the bag if needs be.

Pic 13 : Side view.

Pic 14 : Rear view showing the holes on top where i will fix the Decorative strap.

Pic 15 : The main shoulder strap sections are very simple to put together, a couple of rivets and a small amount of stitching and it’s done, I think it looks great, nice style. Obviously some people would prefer longer straps, these are easy enough to do if you are advanced enough to put this together.

Pic 16 : Rear view.

Pic 17 : Top view..still needs the decorative straps over the middle area.

Pic 18 : Side view (Still minus the central strap at this point.)

Pic 19 : Extra view.

Pic 20 : Close up. The side straps can be adjusted quite a lot but you can put as many holes as you like.

Pic 21 : Extra View because I like it so much lol.

Pic 22 : Here you can see the finished Bag with the Central decorative strap fitted. On the original plans the bigger strap goes on the outside of the Leather ‘plate’ but I personally like it behind the plate so this is how I did it and adjusted the other strap and buckles etc to suit. The great thing about leather craft is that you can change things around to suit your own tastes, you can either follow the design exactly or swap things around if that’s what you like.

Pic 23 : rear/side view with central strap fitted.

Pic 24 : Done. Another great project, designed by niteKore Leather...built ..By ‘Me’. I am so pleased with this build, so much so that as you can see in the next pic...I started making another with a few changes for a friend.

Pic 25 :This design lends itself to many different variations. if you give it a go I’d love to hear about it. I Hope you have enjoyed this latest build along, more this time for the more advanced amongst us I know but as we’ve been doing this blog for so long now this has just naturally progressed and become a part of Beginners Journey into Leather Craft...and although some of us are no longer complete beginners, It is still very relevant as I am learning new things every week...even three and a half years since I made my first project. I will still be doing the smaller ‘Beginner’ type stuff as I find new things that I haven’t done before..because I enjoy everything about this Craft. There are many projects already in the Archive which I hope you will enjoy. You may even benefit from the record of my own mistakes and successes if you are just starting your own Journey with your first project. Thanks for following my own exploits, hope you get something from it, there will be many more to come as we go through the year so watch this space. Until then ‘Stay Crafty’.

#learning #beginners #hobby #crafts #leather craft #satchels #bags #create #handmade #student #shoulder bag #leather bags #university #ladies

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stumpyjoepete · 5 years

Text

It’s tests all the way down!

(Followup post on software testing to go along with previous reblog. I wanted to say in that post that strategy #1 doesn’t work well for that sort of code, except for trivial cases, and it’s not clear to me what sort of tests would make sense to write using strategy #2. Strategy #3 works, but it is too high a bar for every-day work. However, I needed to actually define those strategies, so here goes.)

Pretty much all software has bugs. I hope, if you program, that you have already accepted this to be true. So, given that, what can we do to find those bugs? A very standard answer to that question is: Write tests. Problem solved, right?

The astute reader will notice that “tests” are, in fact, also code, and there’s no particular reason to imagine that they would be exempt from the claim that “all software has bugs”. So, why should they help in any way at all? Contrary to the title, we very rarely write tests for our tests, and we certainly don’t write tests for our tests for our tests and so on, ad infinitum. So, is testing worthless? (Spoilers: No.) If not, why does it work? And can we use the answer to that to guide how we write our tests?

Testing strategies (and explanations of why they work) below the cut, because it turns out I have a lot to say about them.

Strategy #1 -- Simple and Obvious

Production code needs to work for all inputs, and this generality requires a certain amount of complexity, which in turn can lead to bugs. But a single test case can be much simpler and more concrete. In most cases, it will be limited to a single sequence of steps or a single input/output pair.

The efficacy of this approach comes from simplicity. The simpler and less abstract your code is, the easier it is to check for bugs with your own two eyes.

An implication of this is that your assertions need to actually be simple, in order for this to be effective.

If you have lots of looping and conditionals and whatnot in your tests, it’s just as likely as your prod code to have bugs.

Similarly, if you have a “simple” test that checks an input/output pair but the input and expected output are enormous and complex, then this isn’t actually simple.

Another implication is that your assertions must be obvious. Tests sometimes do have bugs. And when you’re intentionally changing behaviors of code, some of the resulting test failures will be the result of the test being wrong rather than the code (which is functionally the same as having a buggy test). So any time there’s a test failure, the reader (who often was not the writer of the test or the code) has to decide whether it’s a problem in the code or the test, and it’s important to make this easy.

If a test fails with a message like “testFooClassBarMethod failed: expected 3 got 4” and the test body is just “assertEqual(foo.bar(), 3)”, then yes, that’s simple, but it’s not obvious why 3 is the right answer (or if it even is). Naming test cases after higher-level behaviors rather than the piece of code they happen to touch makes it easier to decide if (a) that behavior is still desired and (b) if the test is successfully implementing an assertion about that behavior.

If you write golden-file tests, then god have mercy on your soul.

A downside of this approach is that you only get coverage for the actual concrete values you manually come up with. (People with a hard-on for theorem provers like to bring this up. But this kind of super basic unit testing has done more for real-life software quality than theorem-proving ever has. Take that Dijkstra!)

Strategy #2 -- Property-Based Testing

There are many ways to write a sorting algorithm. But they all better put the outputs in order. That is, correct outputs have a certain property (regardless of the particular input or implementation details of the prod code). This means you can randomly generate inputs, pump them through your prod code, and then check the properties you care about in the resulting outputs. (See also: QuickCheck)

The efficacy of this approach comes from asymmetries between solving the problem and checking the correctness of a solution. (Mumble mumble P vs NP)

I don’t think I’ve ever really seen people use this approach and then mess it up. It’s just not always easy to do, so it’s not very commonly used. I find that “mathy” code is much more amenable to this approach, where specifying desired properties of outputs is often easier than putting together a concrete input/output pair that is “obviously correct”. For “business logic” type code, requirements often map much more clearly into regular unit test cases.

If your code for asserting a property is complicated, you should test it with a regular unit test.

Fuzzing is actually a special case of property-based testing, except that the properties are generic things like “doesn’t crash”, “doesn’t access uninitialized memory”, and so forth. (Another option would be to just not use a language like C...) One thing that fuzzers bring to the table is coverage-driven explorations of the input space (rather than purely random input generation). I have no experience whatsoever with this, but it’s my understanding that hardware testing has been doing this a lot longer than software testing has.

The mechanics are obviously different, but theorem proving is very similar to property-based testing. In both cases, you need to specify very precisely what properties your system must have. I think this is actually the real challenge with formal methods. It’s not the static-vs-dynamic dichotomy--if you can successfully replace your quick-check test case with a formal proof of the same, then great--, rather it’s the difficulty of formally specifying desired properties in the first place.

Strategy #3 -- Independent Implementations

An uncommon, costly, but really quite effective strategy is to write a whole separate implementation of the original system and compare them against each other, looking for visible differences in behavior.

The efficacy of this approach comes from the independence of the implementations. They are unlikely to share the same bugs, so finding bugs is reduced to finding cases where the systems behave differently.

I hope this doesn’t need to be said, but this obviously doesn’t work if the systems being compared share the same implementation or you copied code over or whatever.

This approach can work with both the simple-input-output-style unit testing (e.g., a compliance test suite), as well as in the property-based testing approach (where the expectation is that the implementations give the same answer).

You can improve your chances of success by making one implementation much simpler than the other. For instance, an in-memory single-threaded implementation might not be acceptable in prod for performance or scale reasons, but it’s a lot easier to get right, and you can check your crazy distributed-systems version against the behavior of the simple one.

This approach makes a lot of sense for things like parsers, database engines, interpreters, and so forth where you’re trying to build yet-another-implementation of a common standard.

A variant on this approach is a diff test. Suppose you are refactoring a complex production system, or you are making an infra change that is in theory supposed to be a no-op. You can compare the current system against your refactored system, looking for differences (e.g., over logs; or you could even do a dark launch and compare them in prod, silently discarding the results of the new system).

#programming #hard problems

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matrices · 6 years

Photo

How to Appliqué Paw Pads

This is an updated version of my video tutorial on the same topic! I have learned a lot since 2012, when i made that video, and I am really excited to have had the opportunity to pass the knowledge on to you now. The video tutorial is still relevant and can be a supplement to this guide, this version is the most up-to-date of the two.

My tutorials are able to be updated due in part to the generous sponsors who chip in to my Patreon, even $1 is appreciated! With their financial support I can spend so much time carefully photographing tutorial steps in detail for the benefit of all. Thank you!

This tutorial utilizes a regular sewing machine to assemble and create the decoration.

Materials:

Your palm pattern cut from faux fur

Your paw pad fabric

Pencil or chalk

Scissors

Extendable snap-off razor knife

Clips and/or pins

Sewing Machine

Thread that matches your paw pad color

Comb

Seam Ripper

Optional

Stuffing

Hemostat

Tiny scissors for cleanup

Start with your cut palm pattern, do not cut out the fingers yet. if you need a pattern you can print one here.

Trace your paw pad design. Make sure it is something that is safe to mark on fabric with.

Tip: If you sew the same pattern shapes a lot, you can get template plastic from the fabric store, or even use thin cutting boards from a dollar store to make durable, lasting templates.

Cut out your paw pad fabric in a similar size as your paw pattern.

Note: As an update from the 2012 video, it is much easier to sew as one layer than many small squares, or small circles. Keeping this as one piece reduces slippage and is less fiddly to work with.

Check the fabric orientation, many fabrics have a “right” and a “wrong” side to them. Be sure your correct side is facing down.

Clip or pin your palm to the paw pad fabric. If you are using marine vinyl, like shown here, you will need to use clips so pin holes do not show. If using something softer, like minky or fleece, you can use clips or pins (since pins will not show)

Using thread that matches your paw pad color, sew along your trace lines through all the layers with a straight stitch. Use a 4mm stitch length.

Note: If you are wondering, the sewing machine shown is a Pfaff Quilt Ambition 2.0, its IDT system (moving part, in black) is extremely helpful because it works to move the top fabric layer at the same speed as the bottom layer.

Here is the finished basting step.

Using a razor knife with the extendable tip out just a little bit. cut your paw pad design out as if you are tracing it with a pencil.

Note: As an update from the 2012 video, it is much easier and faster to cut with a razor blade, especially on vinyl. However, you may still need to use small scissors to touch up the edges of fluffy fabrics like minky or fleece.

Use a very sharp blade, if you experience dragging or cuts not fully separating, replace the blade. If you are using vinyl, sometimes there are strings left behind from how the vinyl is manufactured, this is still normal even with a sharp blade, just make sure the piece fully separates.

Inspect your cuts, make sure they are even and have a crisp edge to them. Use small scissors to touch anything up that may be outside of the shape you desire.

Do not discard the excess paw pad fabric or vinyl. It is useful for testing machine settings, making claws, and other matching parts for your costume. It can also be used for a future template if you wish, if you like the shape.

The fur will be trapped in the seams, a 4mm (or longer) stitch length will help you get it out quicker and easier.

Use a comb (shown is a straight toothed “flea comb” but any comb will work) to gently pluck the fur from the seams, doing so in this step will be easier to deal with than if you decide to do it after the finishing zigzag.

Practice your settings on the scrap you saved. Getting the right balance for your chosen paw pad material is important. This setting on my machine is “Z-Zigzag” but be sure to play around with any settings that sound like they could work and look good, like zigzag, satin line, and other decorative stitches. I liked the middle width and stitch lengths, as it wasn’t too narrow or wide, and it wasn’t too tightly spaced. Just right for vinyl. Your settings may differ for your machine, that’s why testing is so important!

Tip: Write down your settings to remember them, in case you need to step away and come back another day, or wish to use it on future projects.

Now for the important finishing step! Top-stitch your paw pad with your finishing stitch. Go slowly at first, with practice you will gain speed. Let your machine pull the fabric through, you are just steering it, this will keep your stitches even.

Pay extra attention to how I have my machine’s foot arranged: Needle landing on one side, the paw pad fabric, and then on the other side, the fur. This covers up the raw edge left behind from when you cut it out. It will not allow the paw pad to be picked apart either.

If you are planning to stuff your paws, leave an opening in your zigzag on the bottom of your pad, so you can stuff your paws through that opening. Use a seam ripper to pick the basting stitch, then use a hemostat to fill it.

You want to zigzag most of your fingertip or palm flat, stuffing it, and then sewing the hole closed with the zigzag to finish. You will have a nicely finished stuffed pad, with no hand sewing required. Topstitch any crease details on at this step as well.

Some fabrics lend themselves to being stuffed more than others. If using vinyl, I only stuff the palms. If using minky or fleece, palms and digits can be stuffed generously. If you are using lycra, a very stretchy material, they can be overstuffed and made quite plump!

Feel free to test a practice paw pad on scraps as a prototype to see if you like the stuffed result. I was unable to get this metallic green stretch fabric to cooperate (stretched, it turned yellow and the finish seemed to want to come off), but it served its purpose as an excellent test I could see the results for!

There will always be a bit of corrective edits you can make to further clean up your project. These aren’t mistakes, just part of the process.

Use your seam ripper to loop any straight basted stitches and cut them away.

Matching thread helps of course, but sometimes you just don’t want the “process” showing in the finished product. (middle digit top edge)

Cut one visible end with your seam ripper, then cut the other. Lifting the thread in between gently loose from the project.

Your finished applique palms with pawpads can now be sewn to the rest of your pattern pieces! You can now separate the fingers and sew the back of the hand on with your favorite sewing technique.

Happy crafting, enjoy nicely finished applique paws on your projects!

#applique #sewing #fursuit #tutorial #fursuit tutorial #fursuit making #fursuit building #paw pads #Matrices.net

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rockmiyabideusexmachina · 6 years

Text

2018 Megaman Valentine’s Day Contest Results Thread!

Thank you all for your patience this year! I know this is a little later after the holiday than I would like, but one day is simply not enough to contain all this love! Once again, it’s always wonderful to have an assortment of both familiar faces participating, as well as many newcomers.

As always, this will be a rather massive thread, so bear with me. Most of it will be hidden after the break, so please do take a peek at all these wonderful entries!

Due to the size and sheer quantity of comic entries, there are plenty of images to view. For that reason, I’m sticking to thumbnails for now. Please click to view the entry in it’s full glory!

Also, my thanks to @jaybird-c for the help with judging this year. I’ll have some of his commentary with my own below.

The three raffle prize winners will be noted by their alias, as well.

For your reminder, there were two categories, broken down into Humor and Talent. There were 6 total Humor entries, and 14 Talent entries. So, to start off, we’ll begin with the category with the least entrants, and to fit with my tie-in promo art.

*EDIT* OK, now I think everything is good. So long thumbnails, to keep this shorter.

Once again, for an easy link to all the images in a single gallery, please go here: https://imgbox.com/g/uAbXkTDaot

Otherwise, I’ve tested it again on both mobile and desktop, and everything should link to a full image. It still does on my end.

*/EDIT*

For Humor, this year’s theme was “Beauty and the Beastman.EXE.” The goal was to illustrate a mismatched Megaman couple, one in a monsterous, beastly form, with another more beautiful character that falls for them. Any allusions to the popular tale of Beauty and the Beast were welcome, but not a requirement.

Here are your top 3, followed by the remaining entries in alphabetical order by alias:

1.) @prar-draws: (*Prar wins $100 USD or an item(s) up to that value.)

Jaybird wrote: Prar's comic has the absolute best execution of a joke, increasing the tension until the last panel when it masterfully throws the audience for a loop. Prar's style complements the story very well by making each individual moment easy to digest, and the last panel also just happens to be really funny to look at on its own. Just thinking about it makes me crack up.

Miyabi wrote: While this piece really contains more tension and drama until the final panel, I agree that the build is what helps bring the big laugh at the end. You can also see the temperature rising for Ciel, as her cheeks get redder and redder as the panels move along. I felt it tied in to the Beauty and the Beast storyline nicely, and your chosen characters fit well to pull off the connection. Very cute, and well constructed comic!

2.) @amiable-apparition: (*a-a wins $50 USD or an item(s) up to that value.)

Jaybird wrote: I don't remember this scene from the Star Force anime. Must've been cut from the final release. Clever use of trickery regarding who the real "monster" is; poor Damian appears to have misjudged the situation something fierce. Good idea and use of twist.

Miyabi wrote: I guess Sam was the one who was ‘Hungry Like the Wolf,’ after all! I too enjoyed the spin at the end, it was a funny deviation on how her character was portrayed in the anime. Subject choice was strong here too, connecting the theme with a couple characters who fit well with the concept. Nice work with the variety of panels you created to set things up.

3.) @frankenchio: (*frankenchio wins $25 USD or an item(s) up to that value.)

Jaybird wrote: Ah, the Princess and the Toad Man. Frankenchio's piece is a clever little reference to the classic fable, but most of the humor is in how Roll apparently didn't know what kind of prince was on the other end of that frog. Clever, pretty to look at.

Miyabi wrote: I like that you thought outside of the box with the theme, and used a totally different classic tale, but still connected it very well. Ice Man sure lucked out this time, after whoever cursed him into Toad form. While a simple few panels, your style is just adorable. Those jewels on the crown look really detailed!

Close, but not quite ~

Dark Dullahan:

Jaybird wrote: Dark Dullahan has the idea of recreating an actual Disney scene with Iris and (Zoanoroid?) Zero, which is very sweet. It took me a few repeat looks to digest what was going on here but it's amusing to see Zero protecting his wounds from the fierce and terrible Iris. Because she's obviously the worst thing that can happen to him. Cute, amusing scene.

Miyabi wrote: Sorry, I don’t know why this upload defaults to a side view, when I don’t even have it at that orientation. It automatically glitches that way, no matter how I upload it. :/ Anyhow, a clever spin using the EXE versions of Zero and Iris, living in a world where only reploids...no wait, they don’t exist here. This Beastly ZoanoZero will open up to her over time, I’m sure. But first, he needs to heal up. Again, good use of parodying the scene.

@drewblossom:

Jaybird wrote: The sheer concept of Rock-Belle made me wonder if they were going to throw in an FMA reference somewhere, but Drew's picture doesn't need it. They make good use of the Disney-classic-gone-wrong idea -- Oil Man and Time Man as Lumiere and Cogsworth are nearly inspired --though I think they didn't quite go far enough and should have rounded out the piece with a more feminine version of the suit; Rock-Belle changing into Mega *Man* raises questions about whether the main character's an actual girl or just a cross-dresser, which distracts from the joke.

Miyabi wrote: I guess Rock is both the beauty and the beast, for totally destroying those poor innocent talking inanimate object bots! While I had a good laugh at the quick-change blast, the character reactions, and the overall parody of the classic scene, sadly I did feel it just didn’t quite have the couple contrast/Valentine’s theme as well as others.

@erekisaiko: (*RAFFLE PRIZE WINNER* Captain N Height Chart)

Jaybird wrote: I feel like I'm missing a reference to something else. As amusing as the concept of JunkMan's and Meddy's unsanitary hospital sounds, the picture doesn't present us with enough information to make sense of what actually happened (i.e. why was JunkMan wearing a cardboard Falzer costume in the first place?), and [=ClockMan's=] joke lacks the punch it ought to have because the punchline has no set up. (Unless of course this is all just an incredibly obvious reference to something I've never been exposed to that would fill in all the missing context). Amusing concept in punchline, it's fun to think about how this situation could've arisen.

Miyabi wrote: Meddy’s not oblivious, she just has a big heart ready to heal any messy, junky slob! Cute and different idea having more of a ‘fake’ beast, although I think Junk still would count as a beastly character on his own, in some respects. Very well-drawn, and appreciate all the detail you put into your internet background.

For the talent category, the theme was “If You Like It, You Should Put a Ring Boomerang On It.” This category was all about proposal scenes. And I am shocked there was not a single Jewel Man! XD

Here are your top 3, followed by the remaining entries in alphabetical order by alias:

1.) @wintesm: (*wint wins $100 USD or an item(s) up to that value.)

Jaybird wrote: Jeez. Unrelenting Style. Your children's book painting is incredible as ever; your figures, your colors, your atmosphere, just about everything. I ran into a problem with your composition, though; the stark black page divider clashes with the predominantly horizontal-mirror structure and makes it hard to wrap your head around the story as its meant to be told. It was less of a problem once I trained myself to ignore it, and you use the divider very effectively in the second-to-last section, but it still made it harder to enjoy the work. Masterful technique, colors, perspective, expression.

Miyabi wrote: With your subjects, I felt this composition was a very clever way to tell the story, and kinda mirror their separate, but similar tales side-by side. As mentioned, you have such a fitting children’s storybook style, from colors to shapes, that shines once again! It’s a cute tale for such evil characters!

2.) @peach35: (*peach wins $50 USD or an item(s) up to that value.)

Jaybird wrote: Peach deserves a lot of credit for her mastery of figure-drawing and perspective. That's something a lot of people struggle with, and accomplishment in these matters should be recognized. Another good choice of simple background to highlight the main moment, and awesome use of colors and lighting to suggest 3D -- I'm far more fascinated by Gate's nose than I should be. Incredible faces, hands, colors, and general shading.

Miyabi wrote: The sense of confused shock on Alia’s face is a different reaction that most, as it’s apparent Gate is slipping that ring on in total surprise. Clean lines and soft lighting helped this piece stand out.

3.) @tianura: (*tianura wins $25 USD or an item(s) up to that value.)

Jaybird wrote: Tianura's style is difficult to read; the line quality can be inconsistent from panel to panel, some attempts to convey 3D positioning could use polish, and the panels never stray very far from simple torso and head shots. That said, the expressions are exceptionally clear (again, look to the eyes) and convey lots of emotion, and the page-by-page composition is very good. Very expressive faces, judicious use of colors for effect.

Miyabi wrote: I thought this was a creative parallel for life-long partners in using Netto and Enzan. You did a nice job keeping Netto’s goofy charm intact, with quite a few humorous lines. The ending was totally fitting for him, older or not. XD While I’m sure you would have liked to color the whole thing, I liked the differing use of screentone shading. And the watercolor look of the color pieces did give it some storybook charm as well.

Close, but not quite ~

@borockman:

Jaybird wrote: It's such a shame this isn't a humor category, because this deserves major points for funny (the Nana-Sigma romance anime that the fandom doesn't want, but nonetheless deserves). The linework itself is pretty good. Expressive, good use of background for mood. Also, Sigma, the ring goes on the ring finger.

Miyabi wrote: It’s a dream. It’s always a dream! Siggy puts the ring on her pinky because Nana’s his ‘lil pinky-poo... ;p With the tears running down her face, I really did like the emotional feel of the moment.

@digitallyfanged:

Jaybird wrote: In terms of sheer atmosphere, this is one of the best pieces. It looks like a still from some fairy tale picture-book. The forest scenery, the background, the flower-swing, the misting breath, the quality of the outfits and the details on the dress and sword all make this exquisite. Unfortunately the characters aren't quite as expressive as they ought to be -- this is very clearly a fairy-tale love scene of some kind, but what kind? Laika is clearly being emotional towards the princess, but what is he saying? "Who are you"? "You're beautiful"? "I love you"? "Be mine forever"? It's gorgeous, but it's a little too vague to tell whether it's on topic or not.

Miyabi wrote: Gorgeous scene that felt a bit like another Disney-ish tale, moreso of the Frozen variety. They may just be easy-to-use Clip Studio effects, but I really thought it was quite creative how you pulled off the swing design. The watercolor forest background is beautiful, as is Pride’s snow princess outfit. Pretty, pretty picture!

@drewblossom:

Jaybird wrote: I'm glad I saw Drew's title, because it took me a minute to figure out exactly what was going on -- for a moment I thought Geminiman was trying to propose to himself with that (fittingly) gaudy diamond. The linework is pretty good, and I like the lighting effects on Gemini's crystals and the translucence of his chest plate. I'll give them points for an ambitious concept, but the best mirror art looks at a scene from two different directions, and Gemini's reflection is simply a reverse of the main view. Good colors and lighting, elegantly simple background that does a good job of highlighting the main action.

Miyabi wrote: No better way to practice a proposal than to recite it in front of your self. Of course, if he is proposing to his clone, then I think with his nonchalant actions, he’s got this down already. XD Clever, and unique!

@hyperbole1729:

Jaybird wrote: This piece is another mix. It has some very nice things -- the colors are spot on, the composition is very nice (you take cues from the 18th century Romantic movement by having the whole world revolve around the subject), you clearly pay attention to character details, and your field of flowers is great.

Miyabi wrote: Another set of net-battling partners who seem like a great choice for being together forever. The background is a fitting place for Sal to do it, because I don’t quite see Miyu being the one to speak up and propose. That might be more of a frightening proposition. LOL Cute, traditional scene.

@iris-sempi:

Jaybird wrote: Iris-sempi's got style. The colors are interesting, the subject is clear, the linework pops out because it's -also- part of the colors, the cartoony elements fit in very nicely, and the presentation as a literature/manga cover is well-done. The technique is some of the best I've seen. That said, I have to ask, if you were going to go through all the trouble of creating such a cool cover, I think it's only fair to point out the title is blocked by the artwork, which defeats the purpose, especially on something's Volume 1.

Miyabi wrote: Just to clarify for everyone, the Japanese characters for this piece say "Let's Get Married" and "Sea Salt Honey." I thought it was a really clever mag cover format, where the characters really pop out against the pink background. With the waves, it really does feel like Splashy leapt out of the ocean to smack some salty sugar on Honey/Vesper Woman. Her vibrating antennae give some nice movement and comedic effect, too. Love it, but felt it just didn’t quite have the proposal feel as strongly as others.

@jb-artist: (*RAFFLE PRIZE WINNER* - Megaman 8 cel)

Jaybird wrote: JB's picture is very cute, and we don't have much actual oekaki here, so props. While you deserve even more props for how direct you are to get to the point, it's difficult to judge how we're supposed to interpret this -- is Alouette precociously misunderstanding the nature of a marriage proposal or is it an actual proposal to her older sister figure? The perspective rocks, the colors and lighting are good, and there are lots of little details that portray lots of love for the Zero series.

Miyabi wrote: Zero’s such the silent, brooding type, that he sends Alouette to do the proposal for him. I’m just not sure if that will help or hurt his rank in this stage! XD It is honestly really cute, especially when you see her doodles on the resistance base’s wall. I think that makes the piece more than anything, and was a clever callback to the game. I like how you set up the scene with the background, and those are some really nice mountains back there, too.

@lightlabs:

Jaybird wrote: Now this is pretty. Great composition to direct us through the piece (-nice touch- on giving the ring some bling) and rocking use of paint swatches for style. The art does a great job of directing us into the center, and the warm colors in the center do a lot to convey mood. Zero, you smug jerk, stop showing the rest of us poor schlubs up.

Miyabi wrote: Yes, this is happening. There is a reason for me to go on. What...what am I using this line foooorr? The warm colors and sparkles give it a unique glow, for what seems to be a night scene. The brush strokes give it a neat paint brush look, for your coloring, too. Nice work conveying their emotions with their expressions as well.

@pandapanic0:

Jaybird wrote: In terms of actual skill, the coloring is good and clear, the piece is composed well, the lighting effects are fairly elegant. If it were the actual humor category, the Ring Man's appropriately outlandish bid and Mega Man's exceptionally feminine reaction would gain the piece lots of laugh-out-loud points.

Miyabi wrote: Thank you for taking the title of this category literally and going for the humorous visual of a giant ring Ring Boomerang! Even if he says no, once he tries to get rid of that ring, it’ll just come right back. XD Rock’s blushing expression is cute. Nice crisp coloring and bold lines.

@shikai-the-storyteller: (*RAFFLE PRIZE WINNER* - Archie Worlds Unite Page)

Jaybird wrote: On a panel-by-panel basis, the art is very good: crisp lines; good color and lighting; good technique with hands and faces; great use of background and expression to convey mood -- you got more mileage out of your backgrounds than probably anyone else here.

Miyabi wrote: Another nice job of mixing humor into your piece, while still keeping it a tender, sweet moment. Nice way of showing that things don’t always go as planned for a proposal, but sometimes it’s the thought and effort that counts. As always, your lines, colors and penmanship are smooth and flawless.

Superbasket5:

Jaybird wrote: Aww. If I've got this right, it looks like X is so nervous about giving Alia a valentine that he doesn't realize Berkana is giving Alia encouragement as well. I think. I have to wonder what Marty is doing here -- research tells me she has a crush on X, which seems like it would get in the way, and if that's the case, this impending trainwreck will be something worth watching. That said, the piece is still in its rough stages, especially your setting and perspective; I can't really tell where the characters are (outside at a park?), and Alia's hip is in front of X's arm.

Miyabi wrote: Alia has her support group, but I don’t know if she’s going to be able to pop the question to X with a crowd around her, either. XD Cute expressions, showing her nerves, while X is probably not quite expecting what’s hiding behind her back. I kinda wish we would get that visual of what she’s hiding as a cutaway, much like how you gave X a thought bubble for what’s going on in his head.

@yugiohlesbian:

Jaybird wrote: Good job! I'd like to compliment you on how versatile your figures are and how you use that to make them very expressive; your use of perspective and individual panel compositions are both very versatile. While there isn't any color, the nighttime scenes do a good job with the lighting. Your style is pleasantly simple, but sometimes the panels seem to be oversimplified; more developed backgrounds would be welcome in several places.

Miyabi wrote: Totally different subject, but Zero, none of us understand taxes, either. I like how you illustrated the struggle of a reploid trying to understand human logic and traditions, and yet in the end, it still being something Zero didn’t truly need to grasp in that logical sense. While I know you wish you would have had more time to continue perfecting these panels, I agree that the night scenes stand out and give a good contrast between Zero’s computer research scenes.

Thanks once again to all who participated! I will be contacting the winners soon enough. Work will probably keep me from replying to everyone immediately, but if you don’t hear from me today, I will send a message about prizes hopefully within the next day.

For those awaiting the secret contest results...sorry, for another slight delay. Between finishing my promo art for this thread, and typing this, it took up too much time and I’ve gotta head to work. I will have those posted overnight, into Sunday morning, as it won’t be quite as intensive to write up. My apologies, but I hope you can all hang on for another 20 hours or less. ^^;

#Rockman #Megaman #Mega Man #Rock Miyabi's 2018 Megaman Valentine's Day Contest #Too many tags to list

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snailfloss · 6 years

Text

Love and longing unequal

Barry undoes the Stolen Century and gives his family the lives they’d wanted.

read on ao3 here

Barry found Lucretia in an open field outside Neverwinter. She was waiting for one of her metal spheres to take her up to her moonbase, still under construction. He still couldn't believe she had a moonbase. He'd smile if he had lips to pull back over his teeth.

He’d seen the spheres before, once—shattered against a mountain after an unsuccessful test, being picked apart by Lucretia’s people. He hadn’t adjusted to the fact that she had people now. Barry was proud of the woman she’d become under the pain she’d caused him.

She didn’t flinch when he rose up from the ground beneath her feet. She bubbled herself in a shield before he could speak, but he wasn’t there to hurt her. He could never.

“What do you want, Barry?” she said.

“I saw Taako, Lucretia,” Barry said. He waited. She swallowed and held his gaze with a steely expression. But Barry’d known her for too many decades to not recognize regret on her face, even now that it was more weathered and aged than he’d ever seen. “He doesn’t remember Lup, does he?”

“I’m sorry,” Lucretia said, knuckles white against her staff. “It was the only way.”

“It wasn’t,” Barry said. His lich form guttered and Lucretia drew back within her shield. “No, no—sorry, I’m not here to rehash that old argument.”

Lucretia shot him an unguarded expression for the first time in years. He wondered if she could read him as well as he could her, even stripped down to bone and arcane power.

“I’ve got something new for you. Something I’ve—been holding back.”

Barry stood with Lucretia and Davenport on the deck of the Starblaster. If Taako without Lup was the catalyst for this decision, Davenport was all the reaction energy Barry needed. He understood, now, why he hadn’t been able to find a sign of his captain in years. He was alive, unharmed, but more flayed than Barry at his core.

Very little flickered behind Davenport’s eyes. He walked freely through Barry’s spectral form, undisturbed by the necrotic energy. Barry wished like hell he could hug his captain.

He wanted to ask Lucretia how she could’ve done this to Davenport. But there were a great many things, now, that would go unsaid between them.

“Are you sure about this, Barry?” she asked.

“Positive,” he said. “I just—I never wanted to do this before, because it’s so drastic. Chancey.”

“I don’t want you to do this,” Lucretia said. “Not if the risk to yourself is so great.”

He drew up to her shoulders and draped himself around her. This time she held her staff loosely and didn’t flinch. The Bulwark Staff in her hands was still a powerful artifact, but she and Barry had already fed its fraction of the light into the bond engine.

Ahead of them, Davenport toddled on unsteady legs. The bond engine roared to life under his hands as surely as it ever had. Pure muscle memory. Lucretia had explained that he couldn’t fully perceive the ship. She claimed he had good days, when he wasn’t confronted with so much of what she’d stolen from him.

“I don’t think she’s out there, anymore,” Barry said. “I feel like she has to be—I haven’t given up hope. But, but—”

“It’s been too long,” Lucretia finished. “I’ve had people looking too. One of us should have found something by now.”

“Yes,” Barry said, letting the word drop from his lips and echo against the empty deck. The light of the bond engine played across the silvered planking and the struts of the hangar overhead.

“Barry,” Lucretia said, turning in his arms. Worry clouded her face under his transparent cloak. “If this doesn’t work—”

“It’ll work,” Barry said. “I’m sure of it. I’ll find you again.”

She squeezed her own shoulder through his fingers. “We’ll—we can tell everyone how sorry I am, together.”

“I’m sorry too, Luce. Don’t think for a second that all of this mess was solely your fault.” Barry glided through her and up to the open ring of the bond engine. Closer than he’d ever gone.

He turned to her one last time, let her see him silhouetted against the glow of the engine. She looked terrified for him. Davenport stumbled back to her side and she reached down to hold him steady.

There was so much that would go unsaid between them. Lucretia didn’t know the full scope of what this would do to Barry. If she’d known, he would’ve cracked under the weight of her concern. She never was able to let anyone else take her place on the pyre.

Barry threw himself into the bond engine and let it spool him out, threads of red and white vibrating beyond this system’s planes. He reached for the Light of Creation.

###

Barry catches the Light on the cusp of entering his planar system. It’s child’s play for him to trap it in his spectral hands—he’s held it dozens of times before, after all. He knows how to make it come apart.

He has the luxury of weeks to channel Lucretia’s shield. He still thinks of it as hers, even with all the modifications he’d made hanging behind his eyes. He only needs hours. The glittering white goes up like something out of a dream, smooth like butter spread over the firmament. He wonders if he’s the only one watching this.

Barry turns away from his work. He’s left the entire planar system enmeshed behind gauze, speckled with glowing dots like faint stars. The Light of Creation spun out like bonds, like his own soul had across time and space. Barry thinks about smiling; it looks like a veil, like something the twins would wear. The weave crisscrosses so finely, the Light stretched into millions of pieces instead of cleaved into seven. Bringing it back together should be just this side of impossible. He presses his spectral hand to the barrier and feels pressure. There’s no more warmth than that of a dying candle.

Barry plans to never do anything impossible again. He takes off for the Prime Material plane. When two suns finally resolve to form a horizon, he falls to meet them.

His career’s considerably delayed. He has to establish a new identity, after all. By the time Barry makes it back home Sildar Hallwinter has been dead for months. Dropped like a puppet with his strings cut once Barry’s soul pulled together at the edge of the planar system. Barry digs a finger out of his grave and decides to leave the rest of the corpse alone.

It’s so much easier to find the equipment he needs to clone himself a body on this plane. The scientists whose lab he breaks into would’ve met him already, had he not been rotting in the ground.

He’s in town apartment hunting. Before he meets with the realtor, he finds Lucretia. He knew she’d be the easiest. Once they’d all sat under a blue sky and reminisced about the cafes they’d never see again. Her list from home had been very short. She’d found a favorite and stuck to it.

There she is in the corner, pen scratching across paper. He’d know those hunched shoulders and masses of coiled white hair anywhere. She’s got an impressive sheaf at her elbow. Barry grins, happy to have lips to stretch across his teeth. Even on worlds with technology far beyond her own she’d never switched away from her awful looping scrawl. Maybe he’d go out and buy her a typewriter later.

He buys a coffee and loiters at the counter before taking the plunge. He’s died fighting eldritch armies a few times now. The anxiety he feels sitting down across from her is barely worse.

“Sorry,” he says when she startles. Her eyes are wide and uncertain. “Is it alright if I sit here? I wanted to ask what you’re working on.”

Once she settles and assents her eyes are the same as they ever were. Electrified with intelligence, piercing and alert. He hadn’t had time to get used to wrinkles on her face. Barry takes a sip of his coffee and stares at his reflection in the window to make sure he’s not crying.

“I can’t tell you what I’m working on,” she says abruptly, long after Barry’d forgotten he asked. “I mean, I’m sorry, but I write under—under pseudonyms, for various papers.”

Barry prays he can remember a few of her pseudonyms. Hopefully he’ll recognize her writing regardless. He makes a mental note to subscribe to a few papers.

“That’s okay,” he says. He avoids saying she’s young. He avoids commiserating with her on the things she’d told him in another life—on building up a name for yourself, on breaking out of ghostwriting, on how hard it is to be young and new and brilliant. He doesn’t want to comment on her age. He’s ten years and more than a full century older than her. The gulf between them is wide enough.

“You seem really dedicated,” he says instead. “I’ve never seen someone write so fast.”

She blushes. Blushes from shame, from the weight of his attention. She’ll never know that she has the strength to hold the weight of billions on her shoulders.

That wouldn’t be the last time Barry caught her over coffee. But eventually her career takes off. She moves away. He writes, and sometimes she even replies. She makes it onto TV before Taako and Barry laughs until he cries. Against his expectations, Lucretia becomes a consummate anchorwoman. Her reporting is groundbreaking—inspiringly dignified, galvanized by her wit and reverence for detail. Celebrity suits her.

It’s a long time before she publishes the novel Barry had read drafts of on quiet nights in the Starblaster’s lounge, besides campfires on deserted worlds. He brings a copy to her first public signing. She sees him and smiles.

“Still a fan?” she teases, and for a moment they talk like old friends.

Then the crowd pushes him along. He never finds a chance to speak with her again.

A year passes from when Barry held the Light of Creation in his hands a final time. There’s no Starblaster. Davenport gets a berth on a vessel running humanitarian missions, delivering medical supplies to villages in distant territories. Lieutenant Commander instead of Captain.

Barry finds few excuses to talk to him. Unlike Lucretia, Davenport is always surrounded by friends. Barry knows only some of their names. He realizes, over the years, that his captain had a lot of stories he’d never told. They share a few drinks together, Barry mountainous and awkward amidst a crowd of gnomes.

It’s a lot harder to keep track of IPRE missions than Lucretia’s public career. Barry does his best, but it’s a struggle to overlap his work with Davenport’s. When Davenport finally makes captain, Barry crashes the ceremony and shakes his hand.

Eventually Davenport retires from the IPRE to one of the communities he’d dedicated himself to. Barry suspects he got married. He sends a postcard and never gets a reply.

Barry’s wild partying days drag out a lot longer this time. If you call ‘sitting in dark corners of bars at odd hours’ wild partying, which he absolutely does. He makes a few friends, but he’s always looking past their eyes, waiting for someone else.

It takes almost a year to find them. They have enough of a reputation that they have to rotate bars constantly. Barry’s nursing a whiskey and proofreading a paper when they burst through the door. He can tell immediately that they’ve got glamours on, something that makes Taako’s freckles glitter like gold and Lup’s hair glow like fire. They’re magnificent.

He gets in line to let them take his shoes. He still does better than most everyone else against them, even though he hasn’t touched a cue stick for lifetimes—Taako’d shown him his favorite tricks once, on a world where high culture was smoke-stained chandeliers, gilt billiards tables, and fountains of bourbon.

Lup elbows him in the gut and he laughs with her. It’s so, so easy to flirt back. He catches her blushing and wonders if she thinks he’s smooth. Eventually the whiskey gets to him. He excuses himself to cry for a spell in the bathroom, and then takes a leaf out of their book and glamours the blotches off his face so he can slip back next to them at their table. They’re in each other’s clothes when he comes out. He only lets them string him along for a few minutes.

He drinks with the twins whenever he finds them. But they never quite let him in. It’s always Taako-and-Lup, Lup-and-Taako, and he feels more and more like an awkward hanger-on as the years pass. Frankly, he’s too old to party the way they do. He stops going out when he finds he can’t sleep past sunrise any more.

One day he runs into Lup on the quad. It’s a deliciously brisk autumn, the suns crowning the campus buildings in liquid gold. Her hair is dyed a shade of orange Barry’s never seen before. It looks perfect against the violet sky.

She gives him a hug before rushing off. Taako’s teaching a transmutation lecture and she’s off to give a presentation to a grant committee. It kind of sounds like she incinerated an expensive piece of measuring equipment. Barry makes a mental note to tease the story out of her.

Barry never has a private moment with her again.

Barry’s heralded as a genius. He squeezes a century’s worth of discoveries into the span of a human life. He’s called ground-breaking, revolutionary, transcendent. He tries so hard to pace himself. But even the dregs, even the faded memories of innovations from a hundred worlds, are still thousands of ideas and connections no one else could ever make.

Barry stands on the shoulders of giants his world will never know. Sometimes he takes his work up to the roof. Between pages he looks up at the stars and imagines the peoples and planes beyond the veil he created to entomb his universe. He keeps an ear to the ground, reads the work of the researchers best positioned to discover what’s left of the Light. Nothing comes of it.

Sometimes he wakes from nightmares of pouring tarry black, of suffocation, of cold steel sliding between his ribs. Of drowning with the ground firm beneath his feet.

He starts keeping a journal eventually. Lucretia had said, once, that it helped her cope with the stress of transient lives and interminable deaths. He’d taken over from Taako to help her restack the library in the Starblaster’s hull after Taako turned his mage hand to digging through the journals for old dirt. Shifting hundreds of pounds of paper hadn’t felt like work with Taako doing dramatic readings of the juicy bits.

Barry hides his journal away after he fills his dozenth page. He couldn’t pull anything out of his head except conversations with Davenport, musings on what his captain might say if he knew that Barry had cut them off from the multiverse. Barry doesn’t even know if Davenport still dreams of other planar systems. There is no one in existence who could absolve him of his actions, or even just understand.

Barry does his best to never write down anything Lup had come up with. She has her own career and he’d hate to undercut her. She’d put a paper out a few years back, but by the time he caught the twins in a lab he had no idea what they were working on anymore.

“Uh hey,” he says, when they snap their heads up to scrutinize him. “Our centrifuge is broken.”

Lup relaxes. “We’ve only got a shitty hand-crank one, if that’s okay. I think we stuffed it in the cabinet—not that one. The one on the left.”

“Don’t deflect, Lup,” Taako says, leaning into her side. She tries to shove him off and they scuffle for a moment. Lup’s stool tips backwards and she grabs the counter to right herself. “C’mon Barold, tell her.”

“Tell her what?” Barry asks. He has the centrifuge in hand and is desperate for any excuse to linger. He hasn’t been called Barold in almost thirty years.

“Tell her that Grimmaldis is too big of an asshole to deserve her.”

Barry chokes. “Grimmaldis?” The guy who stole your fifteen dollars?”

Taako laughs until he turns red. “Oh my shit, Barry,” Lup shouts over his howls. “Even you know that story?”

“Guy’s got a rep,” Taako wheezes. “He’s no good for you!”

“We’re doing fine, okay?” Lup says. Barry’s breath whistles in his nose. “Like yes, he’s an asshole, but I burnt that fifteen dollars right in his hand and it was great. He’s fun as hell. I like a little contention.”

Lup does not like a little contention. Lup had a fling with a catty heiress on a world of perfumed gardens and breezy meadows. They lasted seven months before Merle found Lup bawling on the deck of the Starblaster, charred amaryllis shedding ashes from her fists.

Barry knows Lup too well to imagine things with Grimmaldis could ever last. He congratulates her anyway and chuckles at Taako’s indignation.

Barry does his best to never write down anything Lup had come up with. But, towards the end, her blocky scrawl had joined his angular script in their shared journals. The lines blur together behind his eyes. He can picture the lipstick kisses and coffee rings she left smeared on the covers, but not the handwriting each equation or theorem was in. He can’t picture Lup’s handwriting at all any more.

He wishes he still had their notebooks to refer to. He doesn’t own anything that has ever touched her hands.

It’s a blisteringly hot day when he catches Magnus at the park. He sees Merle first, skulking in a bush and inhaling deeply from trumpet blossoms. Magnus has so many dogs at his heels that they can’t all be his—right?

Barry’d come out to doze in the sun. He gets cold so easily nowadays. He burns easily, too, his skin paper-thin and wrinkled. He has liver spots now as numerous as Lup’s freckles. His hair is even whiter than Lucretia’s, his moustache bushier than Davenport’s. They wouldn’t recognize him anymore.

Merle calls out to Barry and ambles over to his bench. Magnus and his eight thousand dogs trot after him. “I didn’t know you two knew each other!” he beams.

“All old men know each other,” Barry quips. Merle laughs and slaps his knee.

Magnus and Merle tell him that they met through Merle’s conservation outreach. He taught a class at the arboretum and Magnus attended to learn more about the trees whose wood he works with. Barry’d been thrilled when Magnus retired from security to apprentice at a carpentry shop. Everything in his apartment, from the cabinetry to the couch, was carved by Magnus’s hand.

Barry gets out a little appointment book and takes down as many of Merle’s upcoming lectures as the dwarf remembers. He knows he’ll have to double check all these dates later. Magnus sticks his hands into the sea of dogs and pets their heads as they bob around each other.

They make plans. Grand plans that they’ll never get around to, but it’s fun to talk. Merle wants to take a cruise and visit the world’s beaches. Some jet set hobbyist on TV had a thousand vials of sand in a rainbow of colors. Merle says he knows he’s too old to start a collection to rival theirs. He doesn’t know that he once had an even better one—mineral samples from alien planets, collected by a team of seven.

Magnus says he can’t travel. He’s everyone else’s dog sitter. This suits him just fine—he’s put down roots. Barry had never known how deeply content Magnus could be with decades of peace and quiet. He talks about building houses for charity, about volunteering at soup kitchens. In this life he had to learn to cook for himself. He says he’s quite good. Barry spends the rest of the conversation subtly wrangling an invite to dinner.

They part as friends. Barry finally gets to hug Magnus and it doesn’t feel anything like he remembered. Magnus’s arms are thinner, more wiry. Barry hopes he has enough months left to get used to them.

He tries not to think about what he’ll do when his body crumbles away and leaves him a lich once again. He wonders if he has enough left in him to hang on this time. Sometimes he wonders if he is still a lich. This life doesn’t feel real. He spent too many decades thinking about dying for his family.

He never imagined living without them.

###

#taz balance #barry bluejeans #lup and taako #stuff i made #my writing

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