#ersatz // dark side of the moon | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sasholotl · 2 years ago

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Shout out to the starving fans of the Monstrumologist out there who barely survive without their favourite asshole. It’s all for you :)

AO3

Red was a beautiful color.

As a child, before the fire that engulfed my house, before the monstrumologist and all the sleepless nights he brought with him, red was my favorite color. It was the color of the apple adorning my mother's pies. It was the color of my father's cheeks when he played with me.

It was, as I discovered when I began growing up, the color of passion and love and this tender burning in my stomach everytime Lily smiled at me, everytime Malachi's eyes met mine.

Even after becoming the monstrumologist's apprentice, I did not begin to hate on red, despite how often I encountered it in morbid situations. Blood, in its own way, was beautiful, delicate and soft and warm on my cold hands that never were held anymore.

It was wet, dripping from my fingers as I pressed my hand against the pulsing ache in my belly. It was crimson dark as I held my fingers under the flickering light of the candle by my bedside, light reflecting on it.

It was painful. Agonising, it brought tears to my eyes, and had I been alone, sobs would have made their way out of my throat, ripped and torn from the deepest part of me that was still a scared child wanting nothing more than to feel a mother's touch and a father's embrace.

I had neither.

My eyes roamed the room, falling on the sleeping form of the monstrumologist.

Not even an ersatz of a parent, I thought bitterly, curling tighter on myself, pressing harder on the wound, pretending the heart beating in my chest wasn't longing for his attention.

Out of pure spite, for the doctor had not noticed anything wrong with me, too preoccupied by something of a greater importance than his assistant's health, I did not warn him of my condition, and thought, as a child of twelve, cleverer to lay on my bed all night and die of blood loss instead of asking for his help.

So, I turned on my undamaged side, tears finally falling, burning and scorching on my already too hot skin. Sweat beads rolled on my back, making my shirt stick to my skin. It was itchy and uncomfortable, but everything in this situation was.

I simply laid there, with the moon watching over me, soon lulled to sleep – or unconsciousness – by the monstrumologist's snores.

[…]

Surprisingly, despite my injury, I did wake up to the sound of the doctor stumbling around in the room, muttering to himself, his hands jerking in the air as if trying to reach for something. When he turned towards me, I noticed the wild, almost manic, glint in his eyes.

The monstrumologist had found something worthy of his undivided attention.

''Finally, you're awake !'' He dropped to the ground, and for a moment, I thought he had just fainted here and there. But, quickly enough, he stood up, brandishing a piece of paper as if it was the Holy Grail. ''Come on Will Henry, snap to ! We need to be at Von Helrung's in one hour to tell him what I found on the remainings of the creature from last night ! Its bones are truly one of a kind, and it would be a great addition to the Society-''

As a true hint of his character, the doctor clearly omitted the importance of my role in his discovery. I had been the one to kill the strange creature which stumbled upon us, earning in the process the deep ache making my stomach churn.

At the thought of it, I glanced down, examining as discreetly as I could the scale of the injury adorning my belly. Luck was with me for the doctor didn't notice me, too absorbed in his own monologue to take a moment to remark the wince contorting my features when I brushed a gentle hand against my wound.

It came out dark with blood and, in my position, I could feel how wet the sheets were, and how dry blood crackled each time I stirred.

I couldn't possibly stand up without the doctor noticing.

Instead, I did what every child, or so I thought, would have done in my position.

I burrowed in my bed, tugging the covers against my chin, curling in a ball – and barely stifling a groan when my knees grazed my injured belly – and moaned, not too loud but not too light either, making sure my master would notice it.

Warthrop turned towards me again, a frown creasing his brows as he took in, what was undoubtly pitiful, my appearance.

''Are you ill, Will Henry ?''

I nodded, slow and deliberate, blinking slowly, as if my head was hurting. ''Yes sir,'' I said with the most hoarse voice I could muster, hoping he would buy my act and left me on my own to take care of my wound, ''my head ache and my throat-'', I coughed in my hand, clenching my teeth against the flare of pain in my belly, ''my throat hurts.''

The doctor watched me, his gaze intense, akin to the one he gave the individuals laying on the table in his cave. I offered him my best bleary eyes, helped by the real dizziness taking control of my body.

''Well,'' he frowned harder, almost seeming disappointed to see me in this state, ''I suppose you can rest here while I will go see Von Helrung. On my own.''

I almost rolled my eyes at his emphasis, his tone nothing more than sullen, like a child who didn't get the ice cream he wanted.

Or, in this case, the audience he wanted.

''I think this is for the best, sir.''

He threw me a dubious glance but nodded, his lips still turned downwards. Still, he did not move for another minute, rooten here with his gaze roaming over my face. I had no idea what he was searching for, but he did not seem to find it as he clicked his tongue, obviously annoyed, and left without another words.

The biggest part of me was relieved to see him go without any fuss. Indeed, it wasn't until I sagged against the matress that I noticed how tense I was. Another part though...

Another part would have given anything for him to stay by my bedside as I did for him, to brush the sweaty curls sticking to my forehead and to hold my hand, his thumb brushing soothingly against my feverish skin.

But he did not. For he was the monstrumologist.

And I was only his assistant.

A burden he could not shrug off, no matter how hard he wished to.

[…]

When I next opened my eyes, everything hit me at once. My throat, too dry to swallow, my body wet with a mix of sweat and blood, the numbness in my belly. Underneath the fog of pain, I finally understood why I had waken up.

The doctor was shoving and pulling my shoulders, babbling in my ears about something I couldn't decipher, my mind too weary to understand him and the note of concern in his voice was lost to my sick self - as an old man whose only possessions is his memories, I now recall quite clearly how panicked the doctor had sounded.

''Will Henry !''

I tried to stand up, but at my first move, I cried out, instinctively reaching out to my belly. Warthrop grabbed my hands, his grip firm around my wrists, almost too tight.

''Stop this at once, you're only going to hurt yourself even more.'' He snapped, and even in my dazzled state, I flinched at his harshness. The doctor sighed. ''Let me take off the covers, you stupid boy.''

I did, in fact, struggled to keep the covers on, still desperately trying one last shot at hiding my pitiful state to a man who knew by heart what could make a human die. Blood loss was definitely high on the list and yet, I did not wish for him to see me, to help me. He had said once I was old enough to take care of myself on my own.

Letting him help me would be letting him know I could not actually do it.

It would be letting him see how vulnerable I was when I was bent on showing him I could be strong enough to follow him everywhere.

He groaned against my attempts, throwing a few scandalized ''Will Henry !'' - especially when one of my hand accidentally hit him in the face – until I could not fight any longer, drained by blood loss and his stronger body.

His hands raised my shirt, ruthlessly tearing it out from where it stuck to my wounded flesh, earning a broken cry from me. His eyes, dark and narrowed by something I couldn't quite tell, snapped back to me, his lips curling in a snarl, and, as the child I was, I whined, low and scared.

In hindsight, with years offered to me to ruminate the memories I have of my master, I believe concern was what was shining in his eyes. Anger too, its furious flames reflecting in his black eyes as he fought for my life, tearing bandages, wetting my wound, all the while whispering fiercely to me to keep on living otherwise he would kill me with his bare hands.

The monstrumologist spent the night trying to save the one thing he did not ask to save.

Me.

[…]

I did not open my eyes the next time I awoke. I did not want to see him and face his wrath nor did I want to listen to an interminable lecture of his. Tiredness had seeped into my bones, making my whole body heavy, but Morpheus wouldn't tug me in his arms again, despite my wish to escape the doctor.

In the end, I did not have a choice.

''If you would kindly stop pretending to be asleep, it would be greatly appreciated.'' I screwed my eyes shut against unexpected tears. ''I am not devoid of cognitive functions unlike what you may think. I can tell how fast your breath pattern is, Will Henry.''

Silence reigned in the room, opressive. Warthrop sighed, and in my mind's eye, I pictured him running a hand through his unkempt hair in frustration.

''This has been going on for far too long.'' He said, his tone curt and dry, the remnants of a sleeping anger bubbling just under the surface. ''You may argue that you are not a fool, but today you proved me right. You are the most foolish boy I have ever known.''

My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails digging in my palms. I did not hide it, and it earned another sigh from the monstrumologist.

I tensed, ready for another cutting remark about how stupid it had been, but nothing came. Instead, a slender hand, cold and yet warm, came to rest above mine, gently, oh so gently, uncurling my clenched fist.

''Why did you think it a good idea to hide a wound like this, stupid boy ?''

I shrugged, forcing myself to lay still under the tender massage he was administrating to my hand.

''You have at your disposition an entire language with thousands and thousands of words. Use them.'' he said wryly, his fingers dancing on my skin, light as a breeze.

My eyes opened by themselves, welcomed by the sight of him sitting by my bedside. He looked worse than I thought, his hair flopping gracelessly around his face, his chin and jaw shadowed by a beard old of a few days. His eyes, surrounded by dark rings that were bigger than the last time I saw them, were watching me like an eagle would his prey.

''I don't know.'' I whispered, weary and desperate for him to see.

His fingers brushed my pulse point and his jaw clenched.

''What did I tell you about lying, Will Henry ? This is the worst of many behaviors of men. A buffoonery.'' He bent over, his body towering above mine. ''I will ask you again. Why did you choose to hide your wound from me ?''

My vision became blurry. I turned around, dislodging his grip on me so he wouldn't feel my pulse between his fingers. The moon was facing me, high and beautiful against the darkness surrounding her. Not for the first time, nor the last, I wished I could live up there, far away from monstrumology and men studying it.

''I didn't think it mattered.''

''You-'' It sounded like he was choking on his own words, his stupefaction making him speechless. ''You didn't think it mattered ?''

I shook my head, using the motion to discreetly wipe the tears drying on my cheeks.

''Have you finally lost your mind ? Or are you really this foolish ? Turn around and look at me.''

I did not, curling around myself, letting the pain wash all over me. Most of the time, the pain of my body was easier to deal with than the ache in my soul.

Pain was easier to deal with than him.

''Will Henry.''

His hand landed on my shoulders, pulling me towards him, letting him see my red eyes. His brows furrowed.

''I didn't thought you would care.'' The words escaped me by their own volition, and by now, I was far too tired of it all to try and bury them all in. ''And I couldn't be a burden to you.'' Not more than I already am. ''You needed to see Mr. Von Helrung, sir.''

In the three years I had lived with the doctor, I had never seen him once speechless. He was a man of words, despite his interest in science, and no situation had ever managed to steal his grandiloquent words from him.

Until now.

Warthrop stared at me, his mouth agape, watching as if I had suddenly sprouted another head.

I deflected my gaze, choosing to focus on the moon rays hitting the wall, showering it with a soft silver light.

''I didn't want to be a burden, sir.'' I admitted in the silence growing between us, feeling the burn of his stare on my face, and maybe, if I had been brave this night, I could have told him about the pain growing underneath my heart each time he was near enough to wrap one arm around me but didn't. Instead, I exhaled slowly, shakily, and added, ''I thought you would be better without me, for this once.''

His hand was on mine before I could say anything else. It was not soft, not even by Warthrop's low standards. His grip hurt, his fingers curling into the flesh of my palm, his nails biting into my skin and, when my eyes travelled back to his face, a fierce expression was contorting his features.

His eyes looked lit by fire. It took me a moment to understand it was the reflect of the candle on his pupils and not fury burning in his eyes.

No, the doctor was staring at me with something that could only be described as remorse.

''I have told you numerous times that your services were indispensable to me, Will Henry.'' His grip softened, as his face did. ''You know I am no man of lies.'' His eyes fell to my chest, covered in white bandages that held no stains of blood. Only then did I notice the blood dried on his fingertips. My blood. ''I truly cannot lie about this. Your health is a matter of utmost importance, Will Henry.''

I watched, felt, the tremors in his fingers, witnessed his eyes screwed shut, and for the first time since he took me in, I finally understood what he meant by services.

''This is why, you idiotic boy, should have told me about your injury.''

The doctor dropped my hand, and I tried to ignore the drop of my heart.

''Try to sleep, Will Henry,'' he sighed, settling back on the chair, ''Lord knows you need it to recover.''

''I will try, sir.'' I answered dutifully, burrowing in the sheets of my bed, somewhat soothed by the fact the monstrumologist did not seem intent on moving from my bedside.

The idea of him watching over my sleep was what lulled me to sleep, his eyes staring down at me the last thing I saw.

#the monstrumologist #pellinore warthrop #will henry #ash writes #i love them #want more of them #if anyone is down to talk about them i would be so happy

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thenakedgalaxy-blog · 7 years ago

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Sharks in the Night

It can be an odd feeling to sit alone on the surface of some moon. And by “odd” I don’t mean some sort of “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” type of odd. This isn’t about awe. Oh, I am sure that those explorers out in the inky depths of the perpetual night do come across this feeling when setting down on some pristine world never before seen by human eyes. I am not such a soul. I like to putter about the well-traveled or, at least, well surveyed space lanes. Sure, someday I would love to set down on such a world, but that desire is just one of many that can be found on my “red letter days” wishlist that includes such other flights of fancy as “getting out of debt,” “completing every quest in Space Vikings from Pluto,” and “freeing the galaxy from narcissism.” So, no, it was not awe.

It was loneliness.

This is something a lot of dirt pounders and station rats don’t understand. When you are surrounded by large populations on a planet, or even in one of the larger space stations, people are everywhere. You never feel alone. Oh sure, every now and then you might find yourself by your lonesome, such as when the third shift night cycle arrives station-side and the passageways and java joints empty out, but you know deep down that another human being is easily in reach. Not so when you touch down on a largely uninhabited moon. Then, it is just you. For hundreds if not thousands of miles.

This was a realization that occurred to me as I sat in the cockpit of my Asp Scout after touching down on the high metal moon, Suhte B1. I was there to do a quick hack job on a lightly guarded outpost in the middle of the Big Nowhere. I wasn’t really looking for such a job - I wanted to move on from Suhte and its bloody communal politics - but I agreed to take the quick data smash and grab as a favor to an agent who was good to me in the past. It wasn’t a big deal, just a swimming in the rain gig for easy money, so I was happy to help my arch-browed contact at Ballard Survey. Fast scratch is the best scratch for flyboy bindle punks like me.

Off I went. I arrived without incident, and inserted my craft into an orbital glide pattern with little effort. The outpost I was to hit took a bit of scanning to locate - even without an atmosphere to soup things up, the onboard survey gear, a fancy name for a collection of high resolution CCDs and SIGINT antennae, takes time to pinpoint a pinprick outpost on even a small moon like Suhte B1 - but I found eventually. I carefully, and I like to think surreptitiously, brought my ship down about a kilometer from the isolated base and quickly shut down most systems to minimize my EM profile as an extra precaution. And then I waited.

Waited for what? Well, that’s sort of the point. You never really knew. My smuggler uncle was fond of mumbling “haste is of the devil,” especially when I would get antsy after hours of camping out in some godforsaken asteroid field awaiting a contact. He would look at me, his unshaven face pale from years spent in the black and his breath stinking of cheap EconoStyle Gin that he often rebottled and resold as the good stuff to the slower marks across the galaxy, and say, “You can be fast or you can be smart. Not both.” Then he would take a swig of gin from his ever present zero-G flask, point a finger at me, one with swollen joints from years of gripping a flight stick and throttle, and deliver his favorite line: “Haste is of the devil, boy. Never forget that.” I haven’t.

So I sat there and passed the time by doing some quests in Space Vikings from Pluto while keeping an eye on the station, visible to me in the dim distance thanks to the lack of an atmosphere and my ship being on a slight hill that overlooked the plain on which the station sat. Let me tell you, sitting alone inside a ship on a almost unpopulated moon provides a whole new understanding of the word “quiet.” Suddenly the smallest of sounds have a very real presence of their own: the rumble of a pressure exchanger deep in the hull; assorted chirps and buzzes of various automated systems conversing with each other in some secret machine language; the creak and pop of a hull adjusting to the weight of gravity; and the ever present chill whisper of the environmental system that kept me flush in oxygen and nitrogen. And that is it. It is the type of silence that deafens before long.

At one point I needed to take some footfalls just to reassure myself that I hadn’t gone deaf. I stood from my command chair and made my way back to the small galley behind the command deck bulkhead. When the automated lighting flickered on with miniscule but audible clicks, I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. The galley was always a refuge of sorts to me. I found its small interior comforting, especially the built-in slate blue baguette seating to my left and the countertop, with its tiny population of assorted culinary equipment, along the bulkhead to my right. I particularly enjoyed how the countertop and its equipment was delicately lit from above via some hidden striplighting that lined the underside of the overhead cabinetry. As I filled a bulb of tea from the automated beverage dispenser, I realized the top-lit galley equipment made a type of ersatz city skyline; an uneven sawtooth profile of a moody city at dawn...or maybe dusk would be more accurate. Even the variously colored LEDs on the equipment furthered the illusion with their lit from within, window-like appearance. I began to wonder who might live there. Probably the same sort of people you found anywhere else. People who rushed to work, to home, to the local pub, but never anywhere important. People who did what they were told, sometimes did what they wanted, and but ultimately did nothing worth remembering. Did they ever glance at “the sky” and wonder about it? Wonder why the heavens were lit? Wonder at the...wonder of it all? Probably not. They just ate, slept, worked, got drunk and occasionally double-crossed each other. Just another bitter little town. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was a good probability that at this very moment some poor schlep was making his way home to his apartment, expecting to find his gal there, but finding something else. That discovery would change the city for him, make it unlivable, and force the sap to flee the unrelenting light and seek the solitary darkness of space….

A distant buzzing brought me out of my flight of fancy. I hurried back to the command deck and discovered that my scanner had detected a ship a kilometer or so to the west. I looked in that direction and could see the reflected twinkle of the local dwarf star on its windscreen as it began to move. As I watched, it lifted off in a puff of dust and turned in my general direction. It didn’t take long for the ship, I believed it to be a Sidewinder, to pass overhead. It’s funny: even though the hard vacuum of space prevented it, I thought I could hear the pop-pop-pop of its reaction motors mocking the planet’s weak gravitational pull. Combined with the forward thrust provided by its main engines, the ship was soon a distant winking of running lights in the dark night of space. A moment or two later, the bright flash of frameshift acceleration heralded its faster than light departure for parts unknown.

And I was alone again.

It’s strange how you can get attached to someone you didn’t even know. I had no idea who the fella was. Heck, for all I know he might have shot me on sight if he had detected me. But none of that mattered. All I knew was that for a brief instant I was not isolated on this rock, and that meant something.

All I could do was shrug my shoulders and take another sip of tea. It was during that sip that I noticed it: two skimmer drones were now patrolling the southern edge of the installation. So that was it. That flyboy was probably an itinerant techie sent out here for maintenance on the installation’s security grid. While not guaranteed, this was a darn good sign that the place was largely automated, a not uncommon practice for corps that run multiple small setups, like listening posts and such. Once again, my uncle was right. Waiting paid off as I now knew I only had to worry about two skimmers, and probably not very good ones as they needed maintenance. I drained the last of my tea and entered the hold of my Asp. Ten minutes later I was in my surface reconnaissance vehicle and out on the surface of Suhte B1.

Even in the 34th Century, driving about on an alien moon never feels routine. To be enclosed in that clear plastic cabin that is little more than a portable bubble of air, and to hear the crunch of the alien surface beneath the balloon tires of the vehicle, well, that is something you never get used to. Ever. When you live on a planet that is well-lived, that is, well explored and well surveyed, that conveys a kind of safety that you feel even if you are alone in the middle of a desert. On an alien moon...not so much. Even ones that have major cities on their surfaces, such as Aquinas Landing on Summa 3, are not thoroughly explored in the fashion of the old worlds, such as Sol’s Earth or Alpha Centauri's 2042 L1. No one has the time or the resources to scour every planetoid even if they decide to build a settlement on it. And if they did commit to doing so, things have a way of changing out here. It’s a big galaxy, one griped by entropy. Unexpected surprises are quite common, and any comprehensive survey would have a short shelf life. Hence, the ever present sense of ancient awe that you might be seeing something no one has ever seen before.

The heebie jeebies are there as well. Even completely alone on a mid-sized ship like my Asp conveys a sense of safety with its reinforced hull, shield banks, and reassuring collection of rumbles, buzzes, and beeps. In a SRV, all you have is a spidery hull, an underpowered defense turret, the ghostly feedback of its limited range surface scanner, and the grating whine of its electric motor. Not much to hold back the terrors of the endless night. It did, however, have a decent heater, something of inestimable value when the outside temperature was 226 K in the sun. That’s -53 degrees F for you landlubbers. “Cold” doesn’t quite describe it. I cranked the heater up as I drove across the surface towards the installation. The heated air quickly filled the cabin and wrapped its warm arms around my shoulders. I relaxed a little.

I halted that SRV about half a mile from the installation and deployed my turret. Now came the tricky part, but not too tricky, I soon discovered. My SRV’s basic SIGINT gear scanned the drones and classified the manufacturer as Acme Tech. Bargain bin quality. I should be able to take them if I got my shots off first.

I engaged the SRV’s motor again and slowly crept forward until I found what I was looking for: a low rise that I could use to shield the bulk of my SRV. In the military, they call it a “hull down” position. Out here, we call it “being smart.” I slowly nudged my SRV into position, enjoying the crunch of the moon’s regolith beneath the tires. The bulk of the small rise soon covered the majority of my view from inside the cabin. Perfect. I locked the brake in place and extended the turret mount over the low rise. Then I reached up to remove the SRV’s set of virtual reality goggles from their cradle at the top of the canopy, carefully unfurling their trailing data cable that was plugged into the interface panel above. With one hand I held the goggles over my face while the other hand stretched the securing headgear over and around my head. Once snuggly in place, I hit the activation stud and my vision was quickly filled with what my turret could see. And there they were: two buzzing drones scanning every rock on their perimeter like a bunch of mindless worker bees. Taking a deep breath, I centered the turret’s targeting pip on the nearest drone and slowly squeezed the trigger.

My SRV vibrated with the discharge of the twin cannons, and I saw dual streams of fire lash out and strike one of the drones. Immediately it’s partner reacted to the onslaught and opened fire on me in return. My use of terrain worked as the incoming bolts did little more than raise puffs of dust from the small hill that shielded me. Using muscle memory, my right hand boosted the power to the cannon on the right console and then resumed squeezing the trigger. It only took a few more seconds for the cheap drone to suffer fatal damage and tumble into the regolith. One down.

The second drone had closed the distance to my SRV and boosted itself in altitude so as to fire over the hill and down into me. Hmm, that was a smarter tactic than what I thought its rudimentary AI could handle. My thin SRV shielding began to sizzle and pop as it absorbed the incoming fire. I quickly swung the turret to the second drone and squeezed the trigger again. My bolts impacted on the drone and made it unstable, causing its return fire to miss. Displaying some learning behavior, it began to jink to mess up my aim but it was too little too late. It, too, quickly took the big sleep and tumbled onto the surface after suffering an internal explosion that spilled its electronic guts over the near terrain. Good salvage there.

I exhaled with relief. Remembering my uncle’s maxim, I centered the turret’s camera on the distant outpost and increased the magnification. I waited to see if the combat resulted in any reaction from the outpost. Seconds and then minutes ticked by but the base was quiescent. Just what I thought. Either the outpost was entirely automated, or there was perhaps one or maybe two techs inside who were now probably battening down the hatches and hiding under their desks, desperately hitting a panic button all the while.

I removed the VR goggles and returned them to their cradle. I unlocked the brake and hit the SRV’s thruster stud. A small burst emanated from the twin thrusters set at the middle back of the SRV that briefly lifted me off surface and up and over the hill. When my tires touched ground again I goosed the throttle and took off for the base at a dash.

Before long I was right in the middle of the outpost. The transmission tower with its red painted mast and attached generator could not be missed. While constantly scanning my surroundings looking for signs of trouble, I sidled the SRV up to it. I quickly donned my vacsuit’s helmet and gloves, and depressurized the cabin. Seconds later, I was standing on the sandy surface of Suhte B1 and fighting my vacsuit’s bulky gloves as I tried to attach the interface cord from my dataslate to the transmission tower’s maintenance slot. Using some cracking software I picked up at Vonaburg Collective, I was soon past the off-the-shelf security software and hacking into their comms database. I could hear myself panting inside my vacsuit as the adrenaline hit my bloodstream. Even if nobody was a threat in the base, that didn’t mean a threat wasn’t on the way from someplace else. And no matter how easy this job was, I still was, technically speaking, committing a crime. That sort of realization has a way of messing with your nerves.

The dataslate flashed green. Done! I had the information I needed to fulfil the contract. I quickly yanked the cord from the maintenance panel and loped in the quarter gravity back to my SRV. Barely taking the time to remove my helmet and gloves, I floored the SRV out of the crime scene and headed back to my Scout. Mission accomplished.

***

I made it back to my contact at Ballard Survey with no problems. The hot data was delivered, I wasn’t thrown in stir by the authorities, and I was a few thousands of credits richer. What more could a pilot want? Sadly, the answer to that question still eluded me as I stared into my rye on the rocks. The electro-punk music of the dive I was in did its best to drown out coherent thoughts, but I don’t believe that was the reason for my lack of an answer. Perhaps there was no answer. Perhaps CMDRs like me were like sharks: we needed to keep swimming for no other reason than to stop would be to drown. Keep moving and keep hustling. That was our simple-minded way. Eh, it was a good enough explanation for me. Lone wolves didn’t ever stop to ask why they were lone wolves, they just were.

I felt a tug at my shoulder. I glanced to my right and saw a square-jawed mug impassively looking down at me. He leaned over and said, “The boss has another gig for you.” He jerked his head towards the door, indicating it was time for me to finish my drink. I downed the last of my rye in a single gulp and followed the loogan out of the joint.

Like I said, keep swimming or die. What more reason did I need?

#elite dangerous #short story

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alexilulu · 8 years ago

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I can’t sleep so im posting about C/D routes for Nier: Automata

below a cut. massive spoilers and shit so watch your ass homeboy. if you’re on mobile scroll fast now and hum the overworld theme until everything is okay again

i don’t think I’ve ever seen a game treat a character the way the back half of the game treats 9S. he’s a depressive nerd whose only joy is finding out about the world and the strange things in it, and the woman he met by happenstance, and the world robs him of everything that gave him joy. the machines see through him, 2B is ripped away from him, and that’s his breaking point. the game starts out whittling away at his soft defenses with machines that can think and feel and hate and love and make him question his own existence, he has to watch the woman he loves kill him then watch her die only days later, on top of finding out that the cause he was built to fight for considered him disposable and the rallying cry of it was a distorted recording millenia old. he loses it all and it cuts away at him until he’s a brittle blade of hate and anger, with all the strength of an animal backed into a corner, furious and afraid of the world of shit he’s awoken to.

In any other game, his revenge story would be righteous and justified, none would stand in his way, and he would kill the enemy and sit there emptied of his hate, free at last. in this game, he’s murdering thinking beings, heedless of the warnings of caution and pleas for safety from onlookers, sharpening himself further against the world so he can plunge himself into it’s heart and break, killing them both and ending the nightmare he’s stuck in. He lashes out at anyone near him reflexively, can’t even understand why Popola and Devola would give themselves for him, because of how deep in his miasma of self-hatred at letting 2B die he’s buried himself in.

There’s a scene where 9S is ambushed by duplicates of 2B in the tower, and after a battle he’s blown off his feet and loses his arm. He wakes up next to an intact (and dead) 2B, and the camera rests on them both, laying across from one another. 9S lifts her hand onto his cheek and lets it rest there in the most macabre yet intensely intimate moment before ripping it off and jamming the stump onto his mangled arm. That’s Nier: Automata. The things that love you will hurt you, so hurt them back.

At first, I didn’t know how I felt about C and D. I unlocked D first, purely because I felt 9S had to succeed somehow. Yoko Taro has said with regards to his ‘dark’ endings that he likes to write stories where the people who are in them get exactly what they want; the unspoken sentiment here being that the things they want are not good for themselves or others. I had to see what the end for 9S looked like here, where his revenge fantasy would end. It ended in a pool of his and A2′s mingling blood, both gut-stabbed by the other and dying side by side. There’s a short light novel segment here, where we learn what the Tower was for; at first, it was a gun pointed at the ersatz Human base on the moon, but the machines broke, and have made it into a gun into space, to find the machines a world of their own, where they can grow free and alone. Adam, with Eve’s head in his lap, asks him if he wants to go with them. At the time, I couldn’t concieve of a 9S in that moment who would accept, so I refused. Maybe, androids don’t deserve to leave Earth, he says. His final moments are tainted with the cruelty that he hid under a saccharine cheer throughout the whole game, surfacing only for machines until the world fucked with him one too many times. It’s appropriate, and sad.

He got his happy ending. The machines left, and he killed the one who killed the woman he loved. What more could you ask for?

#6 #9 #4 #2 #spoilers #nier automata spoilers

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tmntpunx · 8 years ago

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The Courtless

Alternate Title: Welcome to my ongoing descent into Voltron Hell. Ship: Shallura Words: 3700 Rating: T

The labyrinth wasn’t real.

Though, Allura mused, pressing her bare feet to the simulated dirt, perhaps real was relative. She had not visited the holo chamber since her father’s consciousness had been corrupted and subsequently lost. It felt empty, without him. The insinuation of a warm summer breeze rolled through the room, making her silver hair dance gently around her shoulders. She took a deep breath of recycled air and could almost smell the blooming flowers on the wind. She could almost taste it. Almost. Or was it just the memory of this place that gently caressed her senses? The summer was Allura’s favorite time to visit the labyrinth, when the days were long and the lavandula was in bloom.

But the labyrinth had turned to ash ten thousand years ago, along with the rest of Altea.

Allura took another step, trying not to think about this place being engulfed in the flames of the Galra Empire. Instead, she took another deep breath and focused on the warm dirt beneath her feet, between her toes. It wasn’t real. But it felt real. And in the big, cold black of space, a little warmth went a long way.

The labyrinth had no walls. The ground was lined with stones, making a path to follow through the dirt that led to a small stone bench at its center. The ersatz azure sky stretched on as far as Allura’s eyes could see. This labyrinth was not a punishment, or a prison. This was a labyrinth for quieting the mind. It held no secrets at its center, other than the secrets the walker held within themselves.

While some Alteans had preferred a sojourn to the reflecting pools to focus on their meditation practice, Allura had always been drawn to the labyrinth. Located on the palace grounds, it had been close enough to provide refuge from the daily chaos of life in the Altean court. Even the simulation of this long lost place still gave her peace. Though the Castle of Lions was considerably quieter now than it had been millennia ago, it was just as dangerous. Allura exhaled. She needed this. Needed this moment away from the fray. Allura shook her head. Don’t think about what’s out there, she reminded herself. Be here, now. Even if here was just a simulacra, and now was just a moment away from total annihilation.

But they had made it this far.

They could make it one more day on little more than hope and a corrupted Galra crystal. One more day. One more step. She put one foot in front of the other, and kept walking. She had to keep going. She had to contemplate their strategy moving forward against the Galra empire, free from the distractions of training and battle. And a certain paladin.

She took another step, and something hard pressed into the flesh of her foot. A bolt of pain raced up her spine. It sent her mind careening down a path that her body could not follow to a schism between the past and the present. The moment she watched the world break from behind the castle windows in space. The instant Altea had died without a sound. She felt it in her spine like a needle, something so sharp it barely even stung, leaving her completely numb. Her homeworld collapsing in on itself was replaced by Zarkon on the comm screen, and it was all over again.

No. The word was a knife in her hands; sharp and relentless. As long as she held on, they could still fight. We can still fight! But her father had refused her plea to form Voltron the day Altea burned. He had saved her, instead.

“Allura.”

She was suddenly, painfully present in her body again.

“Father,” she whispered, stopping dead in her tracks. “Impossible.”

She spun on her heel and the dirt shifted beneath her feet. She scanned lavandula fields for King Alfor’s face, but he was not there. Someone else darkened the door.

Shiro gave a quick, shallow bow. “Princess.”

“Oh,” she said, trying not to sound too disappointed.

From the look on Shiro’s face as he rose, she had obviously failed. She paused, and saw her father’s eyes in Shiro’s, just for a moment. Shiro’s eyes were dark, and her father’s – her father’s were the color of the Altean summer sky. But the pang of regret in them was the same.

“Oh, Shiro,” she tucked an errant strand of silver hair behind her pointed ear. “I’m sorry. I thought – “ she tried to shake her father’s face from her thoughts. “I thought you were someone else. Please. Come in.”

The paladin of the black lion cut a sharp shadow at the edges of the holo chamber. He stood stiff and perpendicular to the door, arms behind his back, like a schoolboy who had been instructed to touch nothing. Like if he broke something, there would be consequences. Allura smiled and gestured for him to enter.

Shiro took a hesitant step forward, his eyes drifting upward to the cloud dotted horizon of the artificial blue sky. “This is nice,” he said, not removing his arms from behind his back and letting them fall to his sides. “Is it Altea?”

Allura nodded.

“Is everything alright?” Allura asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Shiro nodded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you, but I thought you should know some of the castle systems are still glitching. We’re experiencing some minor power failures. Couldn’t reach you on the comm system.”

Allura stiffened. “Has there been any change in the life support systems?”

“No, nothing like that. The art grav is out on levels eleven and fourteen, and the comm system is still going in and out. Just a glitch. Nothing Coran says he can’t fix,” Shiro shrugged. “Or Pidge. If the grav goes out on their level and it wakes them up I’m sure they’ll be all over it.”

Allura felt the knot in her stomach begin to untie itself. “Of course,” she smiled her most peaceable and regal smile. “We’re in good hands.”

Shiro smiled at her from across the field. It made her feel off balance, but in a good way. It was absurd, of course. After a lifetime of rigorous martial arts training, all this human had to do was smile at her to throw her off? She almost had to laugh.

She smiled instead. “What?”

“You’re up awful late,” Shiro commented.

“I could say the same to you,” she crossed her arms over her chest, adopting a playfully defensive position.

As she was considering changing the holo chamber scene to something that included a reflecting pool and a full moon in the purple night sky, the smile vanished from Shiro’s face. The ball was in his court but he wasn’t playing. The flirtatious glint in his eyes was gone. There was something else there, now. Something darker. He didn’t speak.

He didn’t need to.

Allura already knew what Shiro saw when he closed his eyes. She knew how he felt, every time he opened them again. That sinking feeling in his gut. Like the world was falling away all around him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing but be dragged down with it. And she knew what followed - the flash of panic that lingered until everything came back into focus. Until the memory faded, no longer eclipsing reality.

Shiro gingerly rubbed the back of his neck with his prosthetic arm. “I don’t sleep much these days.”

“I understand,” Allura said, quietly. “Walk with me?”

She watched Shiro shrink against the doorway. She could already feel the words forming on his lips. I should go. Like he’d said too much. Like he’d broken something.

“I don’t sleep much these days myself,” she confessed.

Read the rest on FF.net

#Shallura #Voltron: Legendary Defender #VLD #VLD fanfiction #fanfiction

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innovacancy · 7 years ago

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LOMA Great Scott, Allston, MA Sunday, May 6th, 2018 Setlist // More photos Keep reading for thoughts on the show, and Loma’s debut album

In truth, I only learned of Loma’s existence from the Shearwater mailing list. That band, the brainchild of Jonathan Meiburg, is known for defying easy classification – Meiburg and Co. are known in equal parts for writing somber pastorals (‘Rook’, ‘Home Life’), electronica-infused epics (‘Prime’), and even being standing in for the late David Bowie – they played the entirety of his Lodger for The AV Club in 2016. Naturally, I was curious as to where Meiburg would go next. As it happens, he was keen to write songs for the voice of another – that other, in this case, being Emily Cross of Cross Record, a husband-and-wife duo who had opened for Shearwater on a previous tour.

It’s Cross herself who takes the spotlight on the debut self-titled record from this collaborative project, Loma. She and partner Dan Duszynski formed a trio with Meiburg, all Texans, to record the album, and the band has added a bassist and keyboardist for their live show, expanding to a roster of five, all squeezed onto the notably tiny stage at Great Scott for their Sunday night show in Allston.

Much has been said elsewhere about the genesis of Loma – the album’s birth heralded the death of Cross and Duszynski’s marriage, after all. And while I won’t try to read into anyone’s stage presence, there definitely was a stoic atmosphere onstage for most of Loma’s show, in keeping with the album’s tone. Loma is an umbral, often somber affair, that in some places (‘Shadow Relief’, ‘I Don’t Want Children’) seems to look its origins straight on.

Emily Cross stood in the center of the stage, bordered on three sides by large stage lights laid flat, bathing her in light from underneath. Often leaning on a set of vocal controls attached to her mic stand, using her platform shoe to control a pedal on the floor, Cross sang the entire Loma album over the course of the night. Meiburg sat stage-left behind a music stand, brandishing a guitar – and while his distinctive baritone is nowhere to be found on the record, the man is gifted with an impressive vocal range, and vocals I attributed to multi-tracking of Cross on the album were revealed, by way of live performance, to actually be Meiburg singing in his upper register.

Duszynski was situated in the back, his drums giving life to an album which is animated more by its percussion than perhaps any other instrumentation. Having never heard Cross Record myself, I can’t say how much of this sensibility is inherited from that band, but this is certainly characteristic of a Shearwater project. Meiburg loves to have songs propelled by drumming, often with a world music influence, and Duszynski evoked a multitude of sounds from his kit throughout the night, switching between traditional drumsticks, a pronged brush, and, on one song, playing directly with his hands.

Cross brought her unique stage presence, alternating between a thousand-yard stare that seemed to reach well beyond the confines of the venue; dancing giddily during standout track ‘Relay Runner’, using a mallet as an ersatz baton in a mock exercise routine; and using the instrumental portions of songs to step to the front of the stage and draw a picture on an easel that had been placed there. Over the course of two or three songs this picture evolved into a house, obscured by a hedge, under a full moon.

In the end, I suppose Loma is example of how best to wring beauty from darkness. With the bright lights turned off for the final two songs of the night, that took on a more literal meaning - ‘Shadow Relief’ and the gorgeously-harmonized ‘Black Willow’, Cross’ gentle delivery cut through the room effortlessly. While the future may seem uncertain for Loma beyond this tour, the band has created a singular sound in the here-and-now.

#LOMA #sub pop #great scott #allston #boston #jonathan meiburg #shearwater #cross record #emily cross #dan duszynski

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96thdayofrage · 8 years ago

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Russians Actually Are ‘Laughing Up Their Sleeves’ at the United States

After decades of hectoring from Washington on issues such as unfair elections, a clampdown on the press, and widespread corruption, Moscow is happily watching chaos and scandal embroil the Trump administration. The more lawless Washington appears, the more Russians are howling with laughter. When Trump tweeted last week that Russians must be “laughing up their sleeves” at the United States, he wasn’t wrong, exactly — though the target of Russian laughter might not be quite what the U.S. president thinks.

Last week, while he was in Washington to meet with President Donald Trump and his American counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov decided to take a moment to crack wise.

The town was up in arms over Trump’s recent firing of FBI Director James Comey — there was talk of little else. But during a brief appearance before reporters with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Lavrov pretended to be in the dark about the sacking.

“Was he fired?” Lavrov deadpanned, in response to a question. “You’re kidding. You’re kidding,” he said, his lip slightly curled in a smirk.

It was an unscripted moment, both playful and cutting. But it also served to give Americans a brief window into how Russia views the unfolding chaos of the Trump presidency: Russians, it turns out, think this is all sort of hilarious.

U.S. democracy may be facing one of its toughest challenges in hundreds of years, but for Russia, this is a time for heaping servings of schadenfreude. After decades of hectoring from Washington on issues such as unfair elections, a clampdown on the press, and widespread corruption, Moscow is happily watching chaos and scandal embroil the Trump administration. The more lawless Washington appears, the more Russians are howling with laughter. When Trump tweeted last week that Russians must be “laughing up their sleeves” at the United States, he wasn’t wrong, exactly — though the target of Russian laughter might not be quite what the U.S. president thinks.

Some of the joking comes in the form of Saturday Night Live-style political comedy. The Russian comedian Dmitry Grachev, for instance — known for his chillingly accurate impression of President Vladimir Putin — regularly heaps scorn on Trump while in character. In a widely viewed clip mocking the leaders’ first telephone conversation, Putin is handed a mobile phone and told Washington is on the line. “The what house? I didn’t recognize you,” he tells the supposed leader of the free world. Various impersonations of Trump are also beginning to appear on Russian television, which typically depict the U.S. president as a buffoon who gets outfoxed by Moscow. In March, the popular Russian TV show Comedy Club, shown on the youth-focused channel TNT, featured an actor as Trump. The ersatz Trump thinks former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is a type of sushi. He then plays charades against Grachev as Putin. Trump is visibly scared of the Russian president, but proposes expanding NATO in Europe. Putin responds by acting out a missile landing across the ocean and Trump hastily retreats. “Are you threatening me?” Trump asks. “No,” Putin replies, maintaining the façade of playing charades. “It’s just a grasshopper jumping in a pile of flour.”

In Moscow, requests for Trump lookalikes at parties and private events have been flooding in, according to several impersonator-for-hire agencies contacted by Foreign Policy. “So many people have asked for Trump that it may be time to add him to the list,” said Maksim Chadkov, director of sales at Artist.ru, which has a database of more than 13,000 actors, lookalikes, and musicians, including doubles of Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, and a slew of Russian pop stars. “We’ll show him in a funny light, as a parody. No one wants to take him seriously.”

But it isn’t just comedy programs. A remarkable number of jokes at America’s expense are coming from official Russian sources.

Last week, in a subplot to the Comey firing, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency was allowed in the Oval Office to photograph the meeting among Trump, Lavrov, and Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak — while the U.S. press was excluded. After the meeting, the Russian Embassy in Washington used the social networking service Storify to create a tongue-in-cheek “caption contest” for one of the TASS photos: a large image of Trump shaking hands with Kislyak. Meanwhile, the White House fumed at the Russians’ public release of the photos, which Washington claimed were for official use only.

On Sunday, Russia’s state-run broadcasters’ evening news programs were dripping with sarcasm about the week that was in Washington. “The new action-drama series, tentatively titled ‘Secrets of Trump’s Oval Office,’ becomes more fascinating every day,” political commentator Evgeny Baranov said on the major broadcaster Channel One. “Russia’s footprint only enhances the intrigues of this bold plotline. … The latest episode with the unexpected resignation of Comey promises to be extremely gripping.”

Lavrov’s zinger in Washington came a few weeks after a particularly trolly April Fools’ prank on the part of the Russian Foreign Ministry. On its Facebook page, the ministry posted a fake voicemail recorded by a man who sounded a lot like Lavrov. “To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press one,” the recording began. For the services of Russian hackers, or aid with election interference, listeners could select options two or three.

Even Putin has gotten in on the fun, telling CBS News on the side of an ice rink that being asked about the impact of the Comey affair on U.S.-Russian relations was “a funny question.” He then told the reporter to go play hockey, before taking to the ice himself.

Of course, it’s not all fun and games in Moscow. There have been reports that Russians are unnerved by the apparent instability of the new White House occupant, while hopes for a détente in Russian-U.S. relations after years of strain under the Obama administration have all but vanished in recent weeks. The U.S. bombing of a Syrian air base may have been the final straw in a fraying attempt at a reset.

Still, the current spate of jokes draws, in part, on a long tradition of dark Russian political humor. Soviet citizens often armed themselves with playful wit against the regime. Jokes about the gulags, Kremlin leadership, and food shortages became part of daily life. (A recently declassified CIA document dump included Soviet-era jokes that American agents would translate and send home in order to gauge the public opinion and mood in the country. A particularly popular Soviet joke goes: A man walks into a shop and asks, “You don’t have any meat?” “No,” replies the saleslady. “We don’t have any fish. It’s the store across the street that doesn’t have any meat.”)

After the collapse of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago, the jokes petered out for a while after authorities lost their grip on power, said translator and Moscow Times columnist Michele Berdy. But dark humor is back — only this time, even as Russians take snide pokes at their leadership (“Putin shows up at passport control with Poland. ‘Nationality?’ he’s asked. ‘Russian,’ he says. ‘Occupation?’ Putin smiles. ‘Not this time — just a short business trip’”) they’ve turned their humor toward overseas targets. And this time, the Russian elite look as if they’re in on the joke — a celebration of their seeming moment of triumph, Berdy said. It’s “the kind of cocky joking of people who feel on top and don’t care if they offend,” she said. “Or are happy to offend.”

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