xris05

[xris05]

Writing thingy because I felt like it

The night was still. No leaves rustled, and no trees swayed. No bird chittered, or dared sing. The city too, though alive and bright with fluorescent gaudy light, pushing back at the umbra that enveloped the countryside that strode and encircled this pocket of civilization like a python slavering over its next meal, was equally utterly silent and still. 

A wind-that-was-not-there rustled the fine curtains, pulled them apart through the open mortar and brass of the window, and spilled inside, and once more the wind pretended to be a man. A tall, wire-thin, specimen. Hairy, with a full rough scratchy beard, tangled knots consuming his mane and thin, peering- yet almost gentle - eyes, the colour of the sea at night. Adorned in his fineries, a finely spun shirt, and crisp matte-grey trousers, held by a plain leather belt, but for the scratches along it, in the shape of talleys. Whilst the Wind was shifting and untameable, the conventions of word makes it easier for one to know this stranger as Callahan.

The man-that-was-wind took a moment to glance around the decor of this particularly lavish home, for one could not say that he wasn’t an appreciator of the finer aspects of living. This room was lavish and large. Fine dark wood floors provided the firmament on which he stood and the smell of ancient and dusty tomes forgotten for centuries, if not longer. Callahan inhales, smelling the parchment on the older texts, and the smell of confused fear on the butchered sheep whose skin became a method of preserving the Was fills his lungs.

Callahan smiles wistfully.

The sound of candle-light flickering, and hair-rising sensation of being watched, and the chill of the room through the now open window leads him deeper into the study, past this row of shelves, and onto the fine red carpet, which guides him deeper into the maze of history, geography, mathematics, the sciences, the real and the fictional.

The sound of a great clock ringing echoes in the air, nearly jolts the Wind, its deep ringing vibrato chimes bringing a sudden and stark life to these untrod halls. For all his years, long and tired, the sudden presence of noise where their rule of order was silence never failed to shock and startle him, a dreg of humanity in something that fundamentally was not.

Shock did not arrest his progress for longer than a moment, before his paradoxically silent yet heavy and sure footfalls stalked a path through the maze of paper and ink, oft pausing as he took minutes at a time to appreciate the fine covers which adorn some of the collection. He smiles, pearly white teeth gleaming in the light of lanterns, especially, at the classics, finding something terribly privately amusing about them all.

One of his pale fingers runs down the spine of a particularly ancient tome, before pulling it out of its coffin of hardwood and turning to look at the cover. Plain unadorned leather with simple faux-gold lettering at the front “Ἰλιάς” was the name of the book, and thick was its body, stuffed with loose papers and letters, scrawled in a tongue Callahan had mostly forgotten.

He pushed it back into its place, quietly as he could manage, and he continued on. 

Finally, they reached the back, or perhaps the heart, of this labyrinth and what else to find at its heart than the library's fierce and ruthless protector.

“Adair” Callahan’s melody of a voice cuts through the air, the din of the candle flickering under its unnatural reverberation- which echoed as if the man stood in a wide and snaking valley - “What a wonderful surprise to see you here!” there was something saccharine to his tone, that same private amusement still dominating the tone of the man.

The addressee of his comment snaps his book shut, the sound single, stark and sure. Morgan lets the book rest on the fine desk behind him- the cluttered valleys of free space snaking between plateau’s of books and the towering mountains of half-drunk cups of long since frigid tea. 

Adair was a man in stark contrast to Callahan. Shorter, a tension to his frame like a viper prepared to lash at the slightest provocation. Dark hair cut shortly and neatly into place, equally as well-groomed as the rest of the man who wore a fine suit, albeit unbuttoned and revealing the white shirt below . An almost aristocratic bearing brought a regalness to even the open hostility he felt towards the man opposite, his singular eye quickly scanning Callahan with a deriding disdain, gold and purple mixing into the curious almost ringed singular focus that the ocular organ possessed.

“Why have you come to vex me again, Callahan” was Adair’s curt response, his accent nearly implacable except for the slightest tinge of his Scottish origins.

“Why, I’m hurt” Callahan holds a pale hand to his heart, rolling his head back in mock anguish “Can a friend not visit a friend? Old acquaintances not make themselves reacquainted?” 

“Not when said acquaintances parted on the terms we last did. I do strictly recall telling you that I would not hesitate to strike you down should we ever face one another again.” his gloved hand pulled a desk drawer opened and retrieved a single blade, long and slender, pointed with a blackened metal that even now brought flashes of half-lingering pain to the long gashes that marked the torso of Callahan, and for but a moment his placid peace gave way to an expression like the rolling storm, thunderous and furious, ready to call thunder and hellish licks of the skies own flame to burn this wretched place-

But just for a moment. “Oh, that’s all behind us now, isn’t it? It was such a very long time ago, and really holding a grudge for so long is just… sad, don’t you think?” he pauses delighting in the quiet fury on Adair’s face “Oh, and don’t play the vicious fool Adair. You wouldn’t dare risk your precious books by starting a brawl here.”

That, more than anything yet, disarmed the man, who lowered the blade with a muttered curse, placing it behind him on the desk, where it made no sound even as it clattered against the wood.

“Was that so hard?” Callahan cooed “Really, you always, always make this so difficult-” 

“Get out with it” Adair simply grunted back “You’re here for something, and quite frankly I would appreciate it if you didn’t waste more of our time on your theatrics.”

“All the worlds a stage, Adair, let me have some fun” a laugh, like chiming bells from the Wind “Also, you shouldn’t waste both of our time by pretending you’re not perfectly aware why I’m here. Why we’re all here.”

“I didn't do it. I told them all that quite clearly in my letters and writing” a hint of anger overrides the disdain as Adair leans back in his leather throne, eye now narrowed “I don’t know who did-”

“And isn’t that ironic?” Callahan interrupted, voice dripping with smug amusement, to which only a venomous look was answered in reply.

“- but I can assure you, and the others, that I am no more pleased by it than any of you.” he finished.

“Shocking really, you’ve never known mercy and sympathy for those who’ve wronged you before. Why start now?” his gaze fell solely onto his counterpart's empty socket.

“Because I understand when something is a bad idea.” another curt reply. Enough to leave a brief pocket of silence, before Adair began to speak again “I understand when a decision will leave me in a position, backed in a corner and without many options. It’s exceedingly obvious to me that I have been framed for this heinous violation of the Sacrosanct because someone wanted me out of the picture, wanted me to stop and give up, to cease my searching.”

“Oh here we go again” Callahn sighed, before Adair bulldozed onwards, speaking louder and over him.

“They are scared of me, Callahan! They are terrified of my work, of what I know! They want me silenced, and they are not afraid to do whatever it takes to make sure that my work remains incomplete and my duty unfulfilled! And whilst I do not know yet who it is, rest assured I will-”

“For the sake of all things good just stop talking  and let me-”

“I WILL FIND THEM!” Adair finally shouted, with enough fury, primal and ancient as the lights in the room flickered like a heart-beat, and the sound lingered, bouncing in the maze of books before finally silence came again. The moment seemed to stretch out beyond the seconds that encompassed it. Hundreds of words left unsaid and actions untaken. Callahan had backed away, shock plainly written on his face, as foreign to him as wroth was to his opposite.

“...and when they do, they’ll remember that what exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent” Adair finally finished.

“...quoting the Judge when you stand accused of murder doesn’t seem the wisest” Callahan quietly replied, the joke unamused and more for the sake of filling the poignant and acrid silence than anything truly comedic.

“Just go, Callahan. Tell them all that I just need more time.” Adair lifted his head from his hands, and saw nothing, but the rustle of curtains, and an open window.

The night was long, and it had only just begun

#creative writing #writing #long reads #probably boring #fiction #I <3 weird words #no one should read this nonsense #idk #vague

[xris05]

A lot of people overestimate where they'd end up in the Horror Spectrum of Survival, which is something I made up right now, and is a ham-fisted metaphorical way for me to segue into talking about The Mangus Archives!

Several friends of mine have been getting into it right now- and if you read this, and you're apart of that group, yer welcome - and they're getting super into it, to the point of making little 'sona's. Which is really cool! Because they're talented artists and creative folks.

I was considering hoping on the bandwagon, but realised with some terrible clarity, that none of the dread powers would be particularly interested in me. Let's run down the list.

The Buried: Sounds cosy if anything. I do pretty well in high pressure environments

The Corruption: I'm not afraid of being ill, and whilst I don't like bugs, I'm also not afraid to just squish 'em.

The Dark: I'm pretty cool with the dark, I'd be more afraid of falling over and dropping something in the dark.

The Desolation: Scary to lose stuff and suffer, sure, but sometimes it happens. I don't worry about it regularly, and I'm careful to make sure it doesn't happen.

The End: I've made my peace with it.

The Eye: I'm a nerd, and I've got no secrets to hide. Come at me, oversized eyeball.

The Flesh: Meat is meat, and we're all meat, no worries here. No attachment either

The Hunt: I am 100% aware I would lose a chase, hunting or being hunted, no interest or pull either way here. I'd just lie down and die lol.

The Lonely: I've got friends in 5 time zones, I'm never alone

The Slaughter: I appreciate and recognize the terror of war and violence, but also can't truly know it, it's very distant to me after all.

The Spiral: I quite enjoy fantasy and losing myself in a false-world, actually. But I'm also pretty fond of the real world, and am not particularly warped of perception.

The Stranger: I know who I am, and the uncanny valley doesn't really get to me

The Vast: I loved space, I love being lost in the beautiful immensity of the world. I can also read a map, no fear here, but I'm also pretty fine not wandering and just sticking in my little box of walls and roofs.

The Web: I'm fairly content playing my part in schemes and such, and whilst I don't like spiders, I can tolerate / murder them.

In conclusion, I'm too damn boring to be an avatar.

#the magnus archives #the entities #tma sona #rambling #Look at me #I'm joe normal #ducking and weaving fear #gods fear me #fish fear me #I walk alone in this desolate earth

[xris05]

Random 5 am Achilles/Patroclus analysis I guess

Literally just me analyzing my favorite pair from the Iliad at 5 in the morning instead of doing my homework

Will note that I am coming from a very TSOA perspective so keep that in mind please :] (I have not had enough time to do a proper sit down and read through of The Iliad and will once I get some free time)

#patrochilles #the song of achilles #tsoa #greek mythology

[xris05]

Hi chat

I just made the battery acid spaghetti

[xris05]

Geography, sustainability, etc etc

Despite popular demand to the contrary, I have returned, with a goal to achieve only the most utter of victories. Conquering this damn assignment whilst being passive aggressive to ideas I find unfeasible at the same time.

On todays schedule we first have up to the chopping block for prompt examination, Hydrogen Fuel Cells. For once, an idea that I have both initially heard of, and did not have a strongly negative opinion of from the onset.

A bit more of a deep dive is always scholarly (and required for me to feel like I've done my due diligence). Unusually, this didn't leave me immediately thinking it was the worst and most uniquely foolish invention conceived by a human mind.

Let's keep to that positive streak by thinking about the positives of hydrogen fuel cells. For one, they're not fossil fuel, gas guzzling nightmare apocalypse machines. This may be literally rock bottom in terms of bars to clear, but it's still a step up compared to 85% of vehicles sold last year.

Secondly, they produce zero air pollutants! Which is honestly quite good, as personally I don't like breathing in an unknown and potentially toxic soup of chemicals and letting it marinate in my ole respiratory system.

Thirdly, hydrogen is pretty damn efficient as a fuel source, pulling roughly 70 MPGe (that's miles per gasoline gallon equivalent)

However, this is where I'm going to pivot away from being positive and cheery because such relentless optimism has no place on my record, and thus, let's dive into the issues.

The first issue is some that the keen-eyed amongst you may have been able to note already. These are Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Now, for those unaware, hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table, and is also absurdly flammable. Quite famously so, in fact.

(Pictured above, the Hindenburg descending in flames, picture captured by Sam Shere, 1937)

So, understandably, there is some safety concerns about putting hydrogen into our little boxes which we cram ourselves into, and then hurdle down roads at 40mph. Especially because people have a habit of crashing said metal boxes quite spectacularly.

In the interest of fairness though, I will note that cars tend to be pretty hilariously dangerous anyway as gasoline tends to also be very damn flammable and explosive at the best of times anyway.

The next issue, is the question of my most beloved of subjects, infrastructure. Much like gasoline, one needs infrastructure to fill up their little mobile deathmachines with enough juice to keep it moving, and this requires a place for one to fill up the tanks, and the places and equipment to refine the hydrogen, which might be on sight, but equally so could be offsite and if it's offsite you need to transport it onsite and so on and so forth. But incentives and funding from whatever your local monopoly on violence is likely the response to this particular issue, even if most these days focus on electric cars

Now, one thing that is also pretty important to note is that all of this is expensive. Building and refitting production lines to make hydrogen fuel cell cars, and the fuel cells themselves, and to build the infrastructure and all that lovely stuff. I find this the least compelling argument personally, as money is last on the list of things that matters in the face of the climate crisis.

So, here we are, the conclusion. Are Hydrogen Fuel Cells the future? Are they economical? Are they going to violently explode? The answer to all of these is probably not, but make your own opinions, don't just trust me, do your reading, look into it, come back and call me an idiot who knows nothing, I encourage it

See yah later folks, and remember, if you think you're about to solve the energy crisis, ask yourself if your new power source is as efficient, safe and cool as nuclear power.

#geography #human geography #academic assignments #longish post #tags my enemy #Screaming into the void #trains are always the answer #how do i use tumblr #where am i #who am i #what is this place

[xris05]

Wooo! Geography and sustainability and stuff and stuff

When, in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one student to take upon themselves the burden of writing a very long (not really all that) academic post on a website they barely know how to use because said website was recommended to them by their actual genuine university as a blog website for an assignment.

And then said student forgets to do the assignment, falls deliriously ill, and is now finally getting round to it hilariously late and because all of their other assignments seem so, so much more difficult and mentally strenuous to do on a day where they really do not want to have to deal with that.

So, here we are. A comically large wall of poorly grammatically structured text, talking about (drumroll please) geography! More specifically "Human" geography, or Urban Geography or whatever you want to call it. It's my chosen field of study (despite my best judgement) and I've been tasked by the powers that be, to create a blog to inform and educate the nebulously defined general public about ~exciting~ developments and "Gamechanging innovations" Now, to tell the truth, this was not a particularly easy thing for me to do, because quite frankly my chosen field of study isn't really one of those ones you'd associate with constant innovation and invention, at least in my mind, but thankfully the university provided a long list of various subjects we could look at and study and then report back unto you (the reader, stand in for the entire rest of the world) about.

Small issue there, was the vast vast majority of what we were offered as potential "Gamechanging innovations" either drove me to madness with boredom, or absolutely did not seem like they were exactly "Gamechanging" (could be worse, one of the ideas offered to another discipline was the hyperloop, which is quite frankly a stupid idea that is dead in the water and could have just been normal highspeed rail)

Take, for instance, "Autonomous vehicles". Yeah. Now, suffice to say there is issues with the concept of self driving vehicles, mostly about how the technology is not exactly safe right now, and well, that's just the start of the rabbit hole there. (and really, just build a train, tram or other preferred method of public transport)

There was another one, which look promising to my untrained eye, namely "The Internet of things" which I had no idea what it was, so doing what any self respecting academic in-training would do, I googled it. Apparently, the "Internet of Things" is the catch-all term for devices that exchange and communicate data over the internet.

I'm no expert, but at an initial reading, that did just seem to be most things these days, and was hardly groundbreaking or new, so I dug a bit deeper into the scholarly side of the ole internet for some answers. Thankfully, I found a very helpful little paper (linked here) which clarified, and I quote:

"The term Internet of Things generally refers to scenarios where network connectivity and computing capability extends to objects, sensors and everyday items not normally considered computers, allowing these devices to generate, exchange and consume data with minimal human intervention. There is, however, no single, universal definition."

So it's the smart fridges, the fancy new cars and all of that lovely stuff, which buzz all of their data and such onto other devices on the internet. Now, of course my immediate thought was that it means my everything is now spying on me, but I was quickly relieved to remember that that changes effectively nothing as I do in fact own a phone which already does that.

The main benefit that seems to be proposed by this is the fact that all of this data allows rather effective monitoring of things like emissions and water quality and power usage and potentially good ole agriculture and so on and so forth, which, yeah, I can see the uses, maybe, but I can also see the glaring potential privacy, legal and potential tech issues.

A lot of people may not like their cars telling some company about where they've been all the time, and how much gas they've used. That's fair and understandable. Not to mention, the data gathered could be wrong, or otherwise rendered useless, effectively poisoning the data-well if enough things go wrong, or are just falsely reported to the public.

(It's at this point that I realise, I don't exactly know if this is quite what the uni wanted me to write, but hey, at least it's honest)

Anyway, I've overstayed my welcome in rambling about all of these things, and will be back (later) to complain/ do my assignment more, have a lovely day and remember that if you ever think about revolutionizing public transport, ask yourself if a bus or train would do the same thing, better.

#geography #human geography #academic assignments #Lot of words that don't say much #what does game changing even mean anyway? #sustainability #how do you use tumblr #I can't believe my uni told me to use this website #longish post #grammar is not my strong suit #how many tags do you add anyway