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insomniamamma · 6 months ago

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Needles & Pins: Tattoo Artist! Ezra x F!reader w/Cee

A/n: written for @secretelephanttattoo's Secret Springs challenge! Thank you, Mayor El, for planting this seed. I am currently mulling over a tattoo much like the one described here.

Warnings: Angst. Talk about failed marriage. Reader is an empty nester. Reader has grown children. Mentions of self harm scars. Blood. I have tattoos but it's been decades and I've done a bit of research to figure out the current state of it. Any inaccuracies are on me. And yes, Pedro's red devil Met Gala look was my inspiration for tattoo artist! Ez.

A bit of flirting. It is Ezra after all. But mostly gentle fluff.

A chain of bells on the door jingles as you push your way through, briefly glare-blind from the sudden dimness, green afterimages from the sizzling sidewalks, air-conditioned cold hits hard, and you stand, blinking and foolish as the girl behind the counter sizes you up, wild mullet of bleach-blonde hair, face set and disproving, black lacquered nails and ears spangled with golden studs and bars. “I’m sorry— I’m a bit early, I can come back—“ And she smiles, big and open and wide-- “Oh, heck! You’re the tardigrade lady! Ez did a bunch of sketches. Lemme go grab him-“ and she rattles her way through the beaded curtain behind the register and disappears “Ezra! Your three o’clock is here—“ A co-worker had recommended Needles & Pins when you’d admired her ink, a half-sleeve magpie with a skeleton key in its beak and constellations drawn behind it like an old map. It’s in Secret Springs. That’s kind of a haul. Yeah, but Ezra’s one of the best in the business. You’ve got plenty of PTO piled up. You’re just gonna lose it if you don’t use it. You could get out of here for a bit. Yeah, maybe. And Moira gives you a pitying look. You both know the chances of you using any of that PTO are slim. This last year and change has been a rollercoaster ride, your youngest graduating summa cum laude and fucking off halfway across the country, some job at an aerospace start up that you can’t even begin to understand, but she seems happy, and the vice-gripped, duct taped, cobbled together thing that your marriage had become finally shat out. I love you, he’d said, but not the way you need me to. And on that humid night, watching heat-lightning flicker through the clouds, you say nothing, just nod, because he’s not wrong, the two of you have been holding on for a long time, for the kids, for appearances, and it’s like unclenching a fist. Kept it civil, he let you keep the house rather than selling it and splitting the difference, moved back home with his brothers and his dad, still talk about once a week, mostly about Lilly and the boys. Married so young that you never learned to be alone. So you throw yourself into your job, because if there’s one thing you know how to do it’s press your shoulder to the wheel and shove.You and Moira laugh together, but when you get home you start researching Needles and Pins and Secret Springs, tiny state park with campsites and trails, bracketed with BNB’s and small shops, strange gerrymandered artifact, small strip of beach that hasn’t been subsumed by hotel chains and timeshares. You can’t remember the last time you’ve been on vacation, the last time you’ve done anything for you and no one else, and you’ve e-mailed Needles and Pins almost without thinking. Why not? Why the fuck not?

Appointments only. No walk ins. High end. Serious inquiries only. And part of you balked, new to this possibility, had your ears pierced at Claire’s when you were twelve or so, and you’d felt stupid when you sent the e-mail off with some images attached. Sorry to bother you. What a lovely idea. Water bears and fireweed together speak of resilience. The awakening of something new after a time of trial. There are species of pine that require the heat of wildfire to dry out their cones enough to spread their seeds. I would gladly meet with you to discuss this further. And that’s how you ended up here, in this air-conditioned cave, narrow space full of framed flash art and old maps and framed photos of Ezra and the girl behind the counter, C? Sea? You didn’t quite register her name, flustered by the cool dark in contrast to the blazing heat outside. “No need to yell, Birdie, I’m comin-“ Ezra rattles through the curtain. Broad is the first thing you notice, loud is the second. He is a confusion of color, heavily inked arms and a Hawaiian shirt bedecked with flamingos in sunglasses, spangled ears and a gold ring through his lip, bright shock of blonde hair amid his unruly curls. Smiling bright and wide, “Hi there,” he says, purred southern drawl, and offers his hand, “I’m Ezra.” “I figured,” you say and take his hand, warm fingers around yours and then he folds his other hand over yours, and you see that his right hand is an elaborate prosthetic, his whole arm up to his shoulder, gold on black, a fearsome dragon framed in blooming orchids. You barely have time to register this and Ezra is ushering you through the curtain. “I am guessing by your demeanor that this is your first tattoo,” and you smile, but can’t quite meet his eyes, his hand finds yours again and squeezes gently. “I’ve got several sketches based on our initial discussion, but i want you to know up front, if the art is not to your liking or if you change your mind about this entire venture I’ll not judge you for it. “But the deposit—“ “A formality. Tends to keep people who aren’t sure of themselves away. I will never ink someone who isn’t fully committed, if you decide this isn’t for you i will refund you. No harm no foul. No pressure, clear?” “Yeah. We’re clear.” Ezra smiles, dimples sinking into his scruffy cheeks, eyes crinkling into crescents. “Excellent,” he says, “Let me show you what me and Cee came up with.”

“That one.” A tardigrade drawn in the traditional style, brilliantly colored in blues and greens with bold outlines, with two crossed fireweed fronds in watercolor. “This is an approximation-“ says Ezra, “I will replicate the colors as best I can—“ “That one.” You say, “I like the hard and soft together.” “I do as well,” says Ezra, “I must admit that I was hoping you’d choose this design. Strength and softness are not mutually exclusive. I should warn you though. Watercolor tattoos tend to fade a bit faster than the more traditional styles-“ “Sunscreen and plenty of it” you say, and he smiles. “That’s right, and A&D ointment as you heal. There’s plenty of fancy tattoo healing ointments to be found but A&D has always got me through. Why fix what’s not broken? We’ll send you home with some instructions.” He takes the sketch you’ve picked out, “Hey, Cee! Can you finagle the scanner-“ Cee pops her head and arm through the beaded curtain. She grins, devilish and sharp like a crescent moon. “Old man, still can’t figure it out, huh?” Takes the sketch from his hand. “Oi! You are but a humble apprentice,” says Ezra, but he smiles, “An initiate! A novice even!” Cee smiles back. This seems like an exchange that happens at least three times a week, and you feel yourself smiling along with them. “Get her prepped. I’ll do the hard part.” “That girl,” he mutters, “You take a seat right there—“ He gestures towards a set up that looks uncomfortably like a dentist’s chair, “Cee has my station set up, I just need to glove up and we’ll talk placement.” “Left inner arm,” You frown. You’d said so over e-mail. Can’t help but watch the flex and bend of him as he pulls a shoulder length veterinary glove over his prosthetic, and then gloves his left hand, “It’s a bitch to take apart and sanitize. I can if needs be, but best to avoid all of that. I cannot exactly autoclave this thing. And I find the calving glove less unwieldy than Saran Wrap-“ “Wait a sec, Saran Wrap? Like on a plate of leftovers?” Ezra dimples at you. “Exactly like that. First time Cee witnessed it, she laughed so hard i thought she might drop dead right there on the spot. Next morning there was a case-pack of calving gloves on our front stoop like some sort of-“ “It’s Amazon, Ez, not witchcraft,” says Cee, popping back through the curtain with a sheaf of papers, shoots you a knowing can you believe this guy look, “You’d be lost without me. Just admit it.” Ezra takes the papers from her. “Go on now, don’t you have fanfic to read? What’s that Star Wars thing? Reylo?” Cee’s face scrunches in a cartoonish display of disgust. “Man, I never should’ve told you about AO3.” And with that she’s gone. “Your daughter’s really something.” “She ain’t mine,” says Ezra, leafing through the stack of prints Cee handed him, draws a pair of reading glasses from his front pocket and perches them on his nose, “I don’t have that honor. Her parents kicked her from the nest and she found her way here.” He holds two of the prints in front of his face. “Show me your arm.” And you offer him your left arm, hand turned palm up. He cradles your arm, runs his gloved fingers over the thin skin there, noting the network of silvered scars, like contrails in a hazy sky, because how can he not? Old enough to be flattened and flush with the rest of your skin, no one’s noticed in years, but you know he must and you tense, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t, just selects a printed sheet at holds it up to you arm. “This the orientation you want?” “Yeah, I want him standing on my hand. Um, Ezra, the scars-“ “won’t be a problem, darlin, they’re old and soft-“ “I’m not gonna screw up your handiwork,” you say, and he folds your hand in both of his, gentle pressure that grounds you and when you look up at him, his eyes are soft. “I know you won’t,” he says, “You wouldn’t be here otherwise. We can rewrite this part of your story. I trust you.”

Ezra preps your skin, alcohol wipes and mild soap and he shaves your inner arm with a disposable razor, rubs some gooey stuff on you that makes you think of putting on aloe after a burn. Gotta let this dry a beat, he says, we want the stencil to come out nice and clean, rests his hand over yours while the transfer solution dries, got to let it get tacky, he says. Not quite holding your hand but not letting go either. “I should warn you, the bit over your inner wrist will likely be the most painful,” swipes his hand over your skin, testing the resistance against his glove, “Skin’s thin there. Not a whole lot of meat between the skin and all the veins and little fiddly bits.” “Fiddly bits,” you echo, and feel yourself smile, “You mean the bones?” “And tendons,” says Ezra, clips out the stencil. “That looks like carbon paper,” you say, and Ezra grins, “It’s functionally the same, but Cee insists that the thermographic printer makes cleaner stencils than the old methods, so here we are.” He lays the sheet of paper over your arm, rubs at it with a balled up paper towel, “We want the transfer solution to soak into the paper. It’ll leave the stencil behind on your skin. There’s some tricks involving deodorant, but i find this method works the best-“ you can’t help but notice how pretty he is, face pinched in concentration, pout of his lips, those dark eyes focused on the strip of skin between your wrist and elbow like this bit of you is the only thing in the universe. “—hey! you still with me?” “Yeah, sorry. What did you say?” “You got a hotel room for tonight? It’s not by business, but i know you’re not local and getting tattooed blows a surprising amount of adrenaline-“ “I’ve got a room booked,” you say, “Up over Peli’s.” “Hope you brought earplugs,” says Ezra, “That place can get a bit rowdy on a Friday night.” “I’m counting on it,” you say, “It’s been forever since I’ve gone to a bar.” “Hmm,” he rubs at the transfer paper, “Do you feel your skin tightening a bit? We should be just about ready. I’m gonna click the gun on for a beat so you can hear it.” “I’m not scared.” “Didn’t say you were.” says Ezra, “I find this tends to go easier if people know what to expect. This buzz and my endless yap are going to be filling your ears for the next few hours-“ “It’s not bad. The tattoo machine, I mean.” And Ezra grins, slow curve that just hints at a dimple. “My Ma always said my tongue is hung in the middle and wags at both ends. If, at any point in this venture, you need me to shut the fuck up do not be shy in saying so,” his face falls, eyes flick away a little, “There’s one more thing before we peel this stencil and get on to our business. I will need to stretch your skin, to make sure the lines are nice and clean, and for that i must rely on this foolish thing.” Ezra catches you around your wrist with his prosthetic hand and squeezes slightly. “I do not have the sensitivity nor dexterity that i once had,” he says, “I have some haptic feedback, but it’s not the most reliable. If I grip or pinch too hard, you sing out and I will manually adjust the pressure.” So focused on your left inner wrist and the tracery of your skin that he startles, flinches when you reach for him and grip his upper arm, brief squeeze and then gone. “I trust you.” His eyes widen for a second, and flick away from yours. ‘I suppose you do. Else you wouldn’t be here. Let’s get a good look at these lines before we get to fencin’.” Ezra peels the transfer paper up and you feel the pull of it, dark purple lines printed on your inner arm. And that makes it feel real.

You’re going to walk out of here with something like a story in your skin forever. “The fireweed—“ “I know. The stencil lines are just there to keep me from going too loosey-goosey,” says Ezra, “That being said, how would you feel about some slight splatters? So the stems do not rise so harshly from the water bear’s back, perhaps a bit darker than the color of the fireweed. Something to really make this little fella pop.” “Dark. Like a dark purple fading up into the pinks.” “Yeah? What do you think?” “I like it,” you say, and you feel yourself grin wide, and Ezra’s smile mirrors your own, “This is gonna be so fucking cool.” “It will,” he says, those dark eyes bracketed in delighted crinkles, “I’ve got you, darlin. We’re gonna make some magic.”

It doesn’t hurt as much as you thought it would, and you tell Ezra so, and he smiles, bent over your arm. “Everyone’s pain threshold is a bit different,” he says, “You are squirming very little for your first ink.”’ “I was in labor with my oldest for twenty three hours. This doesn’t even register.” “The linework is usually worse in terms of sharp pain,” he says, “The color and shading tend to be more persistently annoying. Like a shirt collar rubbing on a sunburn.” He has a light on a swing arm like a dentist uses, framing him in a bright halo as he hunches over your arm, catches his curls in bright filaments, the scruff of his cheeks, slope of his neck, breadth of his shoulders. Sharper pain as he touches the crease between wrist and hand, bracelets of fortune, you think they’re called, draw your breath in a sharp hiss, little hooked curves of the tardigrade’s claws. “Breathe, sugar, you’re doing just fine. Worst part’s nearly done.” His eyes flick up to catch yours, warm soft and magnified by his glasses. “And I really must know. what’s your favorite dinosaur?” “Deinonychus,” you answer unthinking, “Dromeosaurs are pretty cool in general, but Deinonychus is my favorite.” And you smile. Knowing exactly what he’s doing and thankful for it. “The raptors in Jurassic Park were actually Deinonychuses. Modeled on them at least. Actual velociraptors are turkey-sized.” Ezra smiles up at you, perfect plump lower lip bisected by a gold ring, damn he’s pretty, and nothing hurts at all. “Huh,” he says, “And here I was thinkin you were a T-rex girl. S’pose that’s what i get for making assumptions.” “Well you know what they say about assuming—“ “Indeed I do. My mother was very fond of whipping out that particular turn of phrase.” He stretches your skin so he can get the tardigrade’s odd little mouthparts just so. “What’s your favorite?” “Favorite what?” The curved, segmented back takes shape. “Dinosaur. You can’t just ask someone that question and not answer it yourself.” Ezra stills for a beat, and then the needle starts up again, line sloping down to meet up with a hook-plated foot. “Ankylosaurus.” he says. “Really?” “Sure. Mother Nature took a cow, a snapping turtle and a panzer tank and stuck em in a blender and then tied a cinderblock to the end of it’s tail. What’s not to love? Hmmm,” he swabs at the beaded blood and oozing ink, “Hard part’s done. How about a little breather?” Ezra stands and stretches like a lazy cat, rolls his neck side to side, heads for the refrigerator, tucked in the corner and plastered in stickers, punk bands or microbreweries, you can’t really tell. “Stretch your legs,” he says, “This next phase will take some time.” You swing your legs over the side of the chair, stand up and then plop back down. “You okay, darlin?” “Stood up too fast.” “Apple or orange?” “Huh? Orange,” You feel your face going hot, “I followed your instructions—“ Ezra hands you a cold, sweating bottle of orange juice. “I know you did,” he says, “When you get tattooed, you are signing up for an injury. One that happens over the course of several hours, but an injury all the same. Everyone reacts a little different. Your sugar just dropped is all. You drink that juice and you’ll be right as rain in no time at all.” “I thought I’d be okay-“ “And you are,” says Ezra, “I’ve had three hundred pound bikers slither out of the chair at the first sight of blood. It happens sometimes. I’ve gotten woozy a time or two myself.”

He shoves up his shirtsleeve and shows you a dog in a space helmet, “That’s Laika,” you say. “Patron Saint of one way trips,” says Ezra, “You can see a bit of wobble in the curve of her helmet. It was far from my first ink and it still hurt like a sonofabitch. You didn’t do a thing wrong, okay?” He rests his hand on your shoulder briefly, warm weight of it grounds you, and he hunkers down so his eyes meet yours, no judgement there, just concern, and without thinking, you mirror him, rest a hand on his vibrantly inked bicep, Laika brave and doomed amid a swirl of watercolored nebulae, his skin warm beneath your palm and you feel the breath rush out of you, didn’t know how hard you were clenching your jaw, didn’t know you tight your chest was. “Thank you.” And for a beat those lovely, dark eyes hold yours, before they slide away, cheek curved up in a half-smile. “You are most welcome. Shall we proceed?”

The color inking goes much as he described, more annoying than painful, like a constant pressing of fingernails against your skin, different gun with more needles packed together, ink laid in, blood wiped away, back and forth over the same bits of skin, needles dipped and rinsed, tiny plastic cups of color that make you think of a child’s paint set, and the two of you settle into easy conversation, a flow back and forth like a gentle tide, mostly Ezra explaining all the hidden delights of Secret Springs, you simply must get breakfast at Cisco’s, it don’t look like much but they’ve got the best biscuits and gravy i’ve ever tasted, and Cee swears by their Hangover Helper, it’s like a layer dip of grease. Hash browns and corned beef hash and scrambled eggs with sausage gravy and cheese sprinkled over it. I keep tellin Frankie he should rename it the Heart Attack Platter, but he won’t hear it— Ezra’s voice and the buzz of the tattoo gun and the rhythm of him pressing into your skin and wiping away the blood and excess ink set you drifting, content to listen to him ramble, like the patter of falling rain. “So what got you here?” asks Ezra. “Moira. I saw her ink and asked—“ “No, darlin, what got you here?” And you find it hard to speak, to put into words, did everything right, married and had kids and a house and a good job and a husband who loved you until he didn’t, did everything right and still ended up with an empty house and no one to come home to except the cat. Lilly and Liam and Joey off on their own and settled and they all call you on Sunday like clockwork, as if you are an obligation and not someone who held them when they were small, talked them through the fears of monsters in the closet, talked them through the humiliation of first love, you know they love you, they tell you every time, at the end of every visit, hug you so tight and tell you they love you. Love you too, but you still come home to a dark house and an empty bed, you honestly can’t remember the last time you’ve been touched or kissed or held. Been so long since you did things for you without thinking of him and the kids that it feels wrong, shameful. “I wanted to do something just for me, I guess.” You frown. “I’m guessing you are not in the habit,” he says, “Of doing things just for the joy of it.” You laugh, a bright and brittle sound that pulls itself from your throat, even as your eyes burn, his eyes flick up from the brilliant pinks and oranges and purples, and you turn your head away. “I’ve prodded a raw nerve, I’m sorry. Cee rightly says I have no filter-“ “It’s okay. It’s just…you do everything right and you still end up all alone, you know? Lil and the boys are all doing fine. They call me every Sunday, and I know I should be happy, and I am happy. Happy for them-“ “But not for yourself,” says Ezra. And you think of how the intimacy slowly bled out of your marriage, held on so tight for so long, thought you could muscle through it like you do everything else in your life, but love wasn’t enough, determination wasn’t enough, gritted teeth and stubbornness weren’t enough. “No. Not for myself.” You frown. You haven’t put it in words before, too busy keeping it together, trying to gut through it like you do everything, keep your head down and push through, “You think your life is one thing and then it just isn’t anymore— this probably seems silly to you.” “Not at all. I often think of cicadas,” he says, and returns his attention to the fireweed blossoms. “Cicadas?” “Yes. They live the majority of their lives under the ground, feasting on roots content with living in the dark and then something calls them up above. They split themselves open, crawl out of their old skins and take flight.” “You’re saying I’m in the process of crawling out of my own skin,” you say. “I’m saying that your future doesn’t have to look like your past,” says Ezra.

“The past is another country,” you say, and you can’t remember where you’ve heard the phrase. “Just so,” says Ezra, “Just so. We’re redrawing the map right here. And it is a joy to redraw it with you.” “Are you—are you flirting with me?” Ezra scrunches his face in mock disdain, “I would never ever flirt with a client. That would be deeply unethical and Cee would undoubtedly yell at me. However, once I finish inking this last frond and we slather you in ointment and wrap you up you will no longer be my client-“ “And then?” He smiles at you, all dark eyes and dimples. “Well then we are just two folks enjoying the moonlight and wetting our toes in the surf. If you’d walk with me a spell. If you can further tolerate my rambling,” “I think I’d like to get my feet wet.”

#secretsprings #secret springs #tattoo artist!ezra x f!reader #tattoo artist!ezra x mature reader #ezra prospect x f!reader

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beachbabey · 2 years ago

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joel with an age regressor reader, like especially after the outbreak a good thirty years down the line. he’s experienced a lot of new shit since and nothing really phases him anymore and he knows its just a coping method you use to get through every thing you went through and he’s soft, kind and patient 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

picks up toys and magazines he sees when he’s out on patrols and fixes them up for you!!!!!

SEBBY MY LOVEEEE

Honestly?? Joel sort of envies you for having the ability to revert back to a child’s state of mind, he’s seen the absolute worst of humanity before and during the outbreak and your need to be soft and innocent for a little bit is a balm to him. He doesn’t fully understand it but he’d never let that stop him from helping you feel safe and sheltered. I can’t remember where I saw it but there’s that line that someone used to describe Joel; he was ripped from his fatherhood and you regressing is such a healing experience for him, albeit a little bittersweet at times.

It’s been so long since he’s had a chance to be in the care of someone without a giant looming threat over his head and I think he’s forgotten how to be a dad, and so he doesn’t really know how to play with you as such, he just watches and comments on what you’re doing, gently urging you to tell him about what game you’re playing. But he loves teaching you things, he loves telling you all about wildlife and teaching you how to tell the difference between berries, he teaches you all about animals and birds, and how to mimic their calls.

His favourite thing to bring back to you is all the pretty wildflowers he finds near the side of the roads, growing up old buildings and even peeking through the concrete, your room is covered in dried and pressed flowers that he helped you hang up on the walls and doorways

“Look honey, I got you a new one, this one’s called a fireweed, I’m not sure why it’s called that but isn’t it pretty??” His voice soft and even, knowing how sensitive and easily startled you are in this headspace

“Oh thank you papa!! it’s so pretty I love them! looks like a sunset!” You gasp, dropping your wooden cup and shuffling on your knees to reach up with both hands to hold the flowers as delicately as you could, subconsciously aware of how stiff his knees get, especially after doing a supply run and wanting to meet him in the middle

“Think m’gonna hang it near the window when it dries out papa”

#seb 🐰#cg!joel miller #joel miller x little!reader #joel miller x reader

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spyridonya · 7 months ago

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8 and 9 and 10 for the ask game and Kadee! 🥺💕

Knight Commander Ask Game

Some replies hidden for followers who haven't played the game due to spoilers!

8) What do they desire the most?

Kadira's sincere desire to free Mendev and Sakorsis from the Worldwound, allowing people to make choices that are best for the development of their nation rather than the best choices for survival.

If pressed, Kadira may admit that she wants to find a place to belong and say little else of the topic at hand.

9) Do they have hobbies beside the crusade? Any passions or skills they have?

Kadee finds herself distressed that most of her hobbies are only suited for the crusade, and those hobbies are merely something she's good at, rather than bringing true joys. She's good at war games, she's good at translation, she's good at visualizing attacks, and formulating counteracts.

But the thing she likes to do during the march on Drezen and while exploring the Worldwound is stop and draw the mutated flowers and other flora within the Worldwound and spend time in trying to discover how much they've changed in the last several decades. Few things make her as happy as discovering a flower might only look dangerous, but they're still fireweeds and bluebells at heart.

10) What would be the meal that give them a little ability bonus?

Kadira quite likes pastries and sweets, and she loves berries. So, her favorite dessert and likely her favorite thing to eat is blueberry pie and tarts. Both were rare and likely only during peak berry season if her family was able to get out of Kenabras to withstand the dangers of the Worldwound.

#character: knight commander kadira #answered ask

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heranubis · 10 months ago

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LAST HOUSE IN THE BAYOU: Infernal Alex Keller mini-series ◇ chapter III. FIREWEED ◇ img cred ◇

◇ CONTENT WARNINGS: alex bites out of aggression and wound is vaguely described being treated

- ◇ - ◇ - ◇ - ◇ - ◇ - ◇ - ◇ - ◇ - ◇ - ◇ -

The dreams and long, sleepless nights continue as time slowly crawls by. Weeks into months as you work on bringing life back into the old house. The demon torments anyone who tries to offer help - hiding tools, making screams far off in the bayou, even the shadows move like something evil and ugly. But you are not deterred - and simply take up the jobs yourself.

Many days are spent with you on your knees ripping up old carpets and humming along to your old radio as he stands in the doorway, his hooves clicking as he shifts his weight. You still don't have a name for him, nor does he have yours. He growls and hisses and speaks in a language that hurts whenever you try to call him anything other than 'demon'. You gave up shortly after the first nose bleed.

The next project is perhaps the most tedious and annoying. You decide to repaint the walls before installing new flooring - and every time you decide on a color, the nightmares start up again. Still you as a child, still those sharp claws digging into your shoulders. But the old woman doesn't save you again - you simply stand in the hallway with him behind you until morning arrives and the sun saves you from his touch. When you decide on a soft shade of blue, his grip doesn't seem as tight.

- ◇ -

You decide on carpet - picking a soft gray that pairs well with the blue on the walls; it also masks the sound of his hooves, gives your brain a moment to forget he's there and watching. He's not as hostile as he was in the beginning, and you think perhaps it's time mellowing out his temper - or maybe he finally realized you're not going anywhere.

And then... you have another dream. This one is different from the others, it feels like something you're not meant to see, but your eyes won't open.

It's a battlefield, and there's a gun in your hands - but this body is not your own. "Alex" you hear a voice call, and your head involuntarily turns to greet it. "Cmon, man - we can't save them. We have to go!" You don't know who they are, or who this Alex is, but you know the words hurt him. It feels like knives shoved between the ribs and twisted with an anger no man should possess. It hurts and it burns and you feel like you're dying.

Everything moves fast and slow, a blur and crystal clear. There's pain in your left leg and then suddenly... you don't feel anything. Your eyes open and you're looking directly at the demon as he leans over you on your bed. His clawed hands braced on either side of your head, his knees pressed tightly against your hips and his tail swaying angrily. His lips curl back in a snarl as he glares down at you.

"Stay out of my head. Or else" he growls - and then, in the blink of an eye, he's gone and you're alone in the bed.

- ◇ -

The demon doesn't disturb you for the rest of the month, but you see him in doorways and shadows. He never stays long enough for you to get a good look, but you know he's there. You almost... feel bad for him. Clearly he'd been through something traumatic as a human, and maybe it was that anger that kept him bound to this world. Privately, in the safety of your mind, you call him Alex. And you think the wallpaper matched his eyes almost perfectly.

- ◇ -

Making peace with the demon is far harder than you could even begin to imagine. The whiskey bottle you had hung in the soul tree for him constantly shatters, and yet you always find one to replace it. It's almost a daily ritual, changing out the bottles and silently hoping this one lasts longer than the others - but it never does.

You leave out sweets and desserts for him. Bottles of strawberry jam, a pile of honeysuckle blooms, even a spare bottle of moonshine you'd found tucked away in the cupboard. It seems this type of offering is accepted - as you find a ghost orchid resting on your pillow the next time you lay down for sleep. He doesn't stomp as often, nor does his tail lash so violently. He almost seems... demure, tamed.

- ◇ -

The first time you call him Alex is when things truly reach their peak - he bites you. Right on your shoulder, you feel his sharp teeth break skin and the smell of blood in the air and then he's gone. You're too busy tending to the wound to notice how he slinks into the bathroom behind you and places clawed hands on the sink, trapping you between his arms. "Don't call me that" he says - his voice soft and gruff; he hasn't truly spoken since that one time you'd told him to get out.

"It's your name, isn't it? Alex?" you mumble softly, tenderly wiping the blood from the bitemark, ignoring how his eyes burn into you. "Nobody's called me that for a long time" he whispers, his tail curling tightly around your leg, his head almost hesitantly nestling against the back of your head. "A thing like me doesn't deserve a name"

You pause at that, and make eye contact with him through the mirror. His eyes are the same blue as the walls that surround you - and he looks tired. But this is a tired no sleep can fix, this is the exhaustion of existance.

"I'm not human anymore. Don't call me that" he hisses again, his eyes now hard and pupils sharp - slitted like a crocodiles. "I don't want you here - why won't you just leave?! Like everyone else - just go! Get out!" he practically snarls, his voice inhuman and otherly as his words seem to claw down to your bones.

You look at him through the mirror - and you see the hurt, the fear. Turning around, you look down and finally notice why his hoofbeats sound off. Just below the knee, his left leg is metallic and skeletal - he notices your stare and shifts his body to remove it from your sight. His tail whips and he disappears, the smell of sulfur strong enough to make your eyes water.

- ◇ -

The next time you walk outside, the whiskey bottle in the soul tree is on the ground - perfectly intact, as if someone had cut it free. You kneel down and pick it up, glancing back at the other bottles, and you notice something. All of the other bottles have slips of paper in them - names written down with words of love and warmth scrawled across. Aged by the elements yet remaining - you know what to do now.

Brown glass shines dully in the sun, held up by a thick cord and deep in the belly of the bottle lays a paper with a name carefully inked.

Alex.

#heranubis #call of duty #alex keller #alex keller x reader #modern warfare 2

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human-still-developing · 2 years ago

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Gold and Brown: A Short Story

After so long of not posting my writing on here, I'm super excited to share this short story I've been working on for the last 3 months!!! It's a long one but settle back with a cuppa and watch the story slowly unfold!

Thank you so so so much to my beloved beta readers @oneofthewednesdays and @itsliterallysophie who gave such insightful comments and helped shape this story into what it is now <3 Also a huge thank you to my cheerleading team @peakogreen and @peggy-sue-reads-a-book who read this story first and hyped me to keep going!

Anyways that's all from me here, text only version beneath the cut <3

“If there’s one thing I promise you,” I remember my best friend telling me all those years ago, “It’s that someday we’ll make it out of here”

It is an early spring day, one of the last times that we can sit in the back of Kate’s ute to watch the sunset before the heat kicks in. Each day the blue of the sky seems more polluted by backburning smoke which striates across the horizon like ashes streaming in a running river. Even at night, when the colours are leached out of the world, its heaviness remains.

Roiling. Waiting.

It is hard to liken this field to the one we knew before the fires, when the endless rolling hills of green were marred only by the infrequent bursts of buttery-yellow fireweed. Before, when Kate and I would catch butterflies in our chubby palms while my brother Jake and his friends worked at the mines. Before, when we would climb out to the top of the hill and watch the endless field fold into its own corners at the horizon, golden in the dying sunlight. Before, when the wind would skid and yelp, tear through my dark hair like it once did through my mother’s and her mother before that and all the mothers who have ever existed in this landlocked, forgotten town.

Now, there is just silence.

I kick my legs against the red-rimmed tires as Kate pulls herself up to sit beside me. The thin, corded muscles of her arms ripple, the scrape of her sneakers against the mutilated road the only sound for miles. She used to be all soft curves and smooth skin but the relentless sun has brought out the hard corners and sharp edges of us all. We are at that delicate point in our lives where the balance of childhood and adulthood has just begun to tip irreversibly towards the latter. The edge of the cliff just before the fall to the bottom.

“Jake’s back from Vietnam.”

She raises her golden head and the contours of her face are cut out of the darkness by early starlight. When we were younger we used to play soldiers in these fields, pressing our rough summer tunics against the undergrowth as we raised our cardboard bayonets at each other. And one summer, Jake taught us how to shoot for real as well. He would ring steel every so often, cast bullets disappearing in the long grass as the sound rang on for miles and miles into the emptiness.

It is the face that Kate made then that she makes now. Eyes narrowed but unfocused. Lips twisted and slightly pursed.

“For good?” she whispers.

I hesitate.

Even when we were both children, Kate was always a better shot than me. Jake’s stolen revolver would dip and waver in my frightened grasp but in Kate’s confident grip it seemed like an extension of her. Steady hands, Jake would grudgingly remark as the swoop of her bullet sliced through the heavy, heated sky. Even now, the steadiness and grace in her movements is remarkable as she sits unflinching in the smoke.

We have always lived in this tiny town a day’s drive away from Broken Hill. Drive ten minutes in any direction from the city centre and our little patch of houses and stores disappears into the barren red-soil that threatens to consume us. Our land is too sandy for agriculture of any type and while the newspapers will coin us a mining town, most families make their meagre dollars through their husbands and sons fighting in the war.

My brother enlisted with his friends on his twentieth birthday. I remember ironing out his new uniform as the smell of Brasso wafted and hovered in the thick air. Back then he would only be drafted out to other cities for training, Bathurst and once all the way to Sydney, but that must have been a long time ago because for the last few years he had not written a single letter home. No sound from him until he showed up last week, battered by the sun in the five minute walk from the road to our front door.

“I think he’s here to stay,” I begin but Kate scoffs and climbs over to her rucksack.

She pulls out her heavy-duty torch, banging it against the side of the ute. It clicks and slowly shudders into a harsh white light that floods the field. Once, before the fires, Kate had found a brown coiled underneath her front tire and it has left her with a lifelong fear of snakes. Jake used to tease her about it and once after he hid a rubber snake in her school bag, she almost blacked out his eye. Even now, after the droughts and fires have pushed the snakes into deep country, she surveys the land around her car with the brilliant light.

She does not have to worry anymore. Nothing can survive in the ashened, twisted remains of the paddock.

Long ago, before Jake was deployed to Afghanistan and Kate’s mother abandoned her for the city, we had devised a great escape plan that involved us driving to Mildura overnight and hitch-hiking to Adelaide. We had almost carried it through; Jake’s beaten-up SUV packed with freeze-dried fruit from the corner store and winter jackets that had gone stiff from disuse. No-one knows exactly what went wrong in the plan but we never even made it out to the highway.

Kate claims that we didn’t have enough fuel to last us the five hours down south. Jake insists that the floods had put too many potholes in the road for us to drive down. The truth was that it was the first time that any of us had truly considered the idea of leaving and it frightened us. The idea of pulling out the bricks in the foundation that had held strong for so many years.

After we drove home, I stood there on that road that seemed to contain my entire existence and stared into the nothingness for a long, long time.

The idea of leaving is something that Kate and I talk about quite often, even though we are both careful to never mention the time we almost did. Everytime we drive out to this same paddock. Kate insists that she is leaving tonight but is quick to reconsider when I bring up the logistics. Sometimes we will contemplate where in the world Jake might be. Sometimes we will sit in silence and try to stare far enough into the horizon to see the ocean.

“We’re leaving tonight,” Kate says like clockwork, “I’ve got a full tank and enough cash to fill up on the way. If we leave now, we’ll hit town before daybreak.”

Over the last week, none of us have gotten much sleep.

It doesn’t help that on good nights Jake wakes up screaming and on bad ones sits on the porch with his rifle aimed out to the road. He doesn’t say much during the day either and spends most of his time sitting outside in silence. Only since yesterday, when they started the backburning for fire season, has he come inside during the daylight hours.

Mum thinks that a part of him is still on the battlefield in Afghanistan but once he spends enough time out here, he will go back to the way he was.

“Our land is harsh but it heals,” she said last night over dinner, “That’s how we have survived for so long.”

Kate hits my knee with the handle of her torch and I look up at her again.

“We’re leaving this time, Jane,” she puts her coat over her sunburnt shoulders and fumbles for her keys, “Or we’ll never end up going.”

“Just wait,” I turn away from her and accidently kick her back tire, “Just a minute.”

As she takes out her keys, a rare wind blows from the south. We turn away because if we do not our eyes will be pierced with bits of ash and dry grass that pepper the air like shrapnel. My exposed skin, galvanised from years of standing tall against the world, stings until the wind dies out into nothingness.

After the wind, the night air has turned warm and acrid. The white smear of the milky way stretches across the star riddled sky in between smoke patches. When I was sixteen, Jake taught me how to find due south following the constellations in the sky. It seemed pointless in a world where my entire life circled around these handful of criss-crossed streets but watching the southern cross rise above the plains brings back a familiar comfort.

Two years ago, I had cut through the roof in the yard to watch the stars shift above me. The rotten planks gave way easily to the dark blanket that had shrouded civilisations. Holding the old rifle Jake had left behind, I had pressed myself into the floor as if I were a figment of him.

Waiting.

I climb into the shotgun as Kate starts up the car again. It does not take long for the main road to appear, a dark expanse that sinks into the blackness of the country.

“Let’s drive out a bit,” she says to the emptiness.

Kate and Jake learnt to dance over one summer break. It was the Pasa Doble (the ‘Strictly Ballroom’ scene playing on loop on the television behind them) as they drew closer together and further apart. Sweaty from the late summer sun, I watched them sweep across the timber floors in cyclic motions like the wind-up dancers in mom’s music box. For a moment, there had been an energy between them. Something that made Jake’s fingers tighten around her waist.

A beaten truck drives past us and Kate flashes her blinkers at him. With no street lights this far out, every vehicle drives on full beam after sunset. A crash out here is almost certain to go unnoticed until the next morning, by which time most drivers are dead from blood loss.

When Jake had returned, Kate had bought him flowers. Real red roses, the tips at the verge of wilting from their long journey out here. She had given them to him out in that same field, where the bullets we shot in childhood lay like dormant seeds in the untouched soil.

He had been quiet then.

It was the next morning when we had woken up to find the roses smashed against the front steps. In Jake’s eyes there had been a mute haunting. As if all of us had cornered him until he was standing with his back to the front gate and the endless country behind him. But still he said nothing, although I could see the anger and anguish and hatred shifting like storm clouds behind his eyes.

“I’m going to take the highway,” Kate says, “Or I know you’re going to turn me back around again.”

Almost before she finishes her last jibe, I know she is sorry that she has pushed me too far. It is like when you attempt to rev up an old truck out of heat-cracked pothole, accelerating slowly and letting the engine groan and scream as it tips you forward to where hole meets sun-softened road knowing all too well the rough skid of the tire as you inevitably fall back to where you started.

But like Jake, I say nothing. Kate’s fingers barely touch the steering wheel.

“You know we could just leave this time,” she whispers with surprising gentleness, “And they’ll never know the difference until morning.”

On the highway, there is the eerie stillness of night. Signposts occasionally pepper the rear-view window, speed limits and once bright-coloured advertisements that have long gone grey. Was it this same road that we tried to escape down last? Where my broad-shouldered brother was at the wheel and Kate in my place and me in the back trying to make sense of it all?

The night is warm and still and silent for the country has not changed at all.

And then my mind is drawn with sick fascination to the differences between that time and this. The dregs of affection for my brother that remain seem to swell inside me as I fill out the hollow that Vietnam has left of him. The way he used to roll down the windows and laugh into the trees as if they were old friends he had almost forgotten. The sturdiness of his step when he found me shooting in the grassland long after he and Kate had shot the bullseyes clean out of the targets. His calloused hand on my shoulder contracting into a rough squeeze. Try again tomorrow.

As if a door is jerked open, Jake from the present blends into him from the past. His clothes are still dusty from his hitch-hike through the country and his fingers are white from being pressed against the doorframe of my mother’s kitchen. He lifts the bayonet higher, my mother’s cowering figure blended into some ghost from his past but I am transfixed as if the events in front of my eyes are just reflections in a puddle of water that I am unable to touch. It is Kate, roughened and emotionless, who pins him to the floor in some gross reincarnation of their dance here so long ago.

I think in some way I have begun to realise that I’m no longer standing on the cliff at the end of childhood but on the ravine on the other side. For, in some unreasonable part of my mind, I have always imagined Jake coming home to be the sunlight that brushes away the storm clouds from Kate’s face or the first yellowish rain after almost a year of drought or any kind of reason to stay back, to stay here, to stay at all.

But even as I am thinking this, I know inherently that nothing has changed at all. That the drought will come again this year and the year after that and every year this deep in the country. That I will grow older and my parents will grow old until one day all of us will grow no more and the land will stay the same, not forgiving, not remembering.

“Let’s go home.”

Kate hesitates.

She is a person of action, shooting bullet after bullet into the dryness with the ringing of steel moulding into an endless sound that one sees rather than hears, the momentum turning her eyes dark for a moment with a viciousness that is not uncommon out here. Of hitting the accelerator until the engine threatens to give out and the smell of fuel fills the ute as if we are in the middle of a fire rather than a banged up getaway on these old broken roads. She is a person of movement, of moving forward rather than stepping sideways, of defying rather than powering through.

She hesitates.

It is only then that I realise that we are standing still. The night is full and glossy as the last striations of smoke are cleared away. In the middle of it all, Kate sits like a ghost, ashened with tears streaking down her face like the rain that continues to evade our parched lands. The dust has already begun to settle on her cheeks.

I am almost sorry for stopping us when this is the furthest we have ever got from home. A part of me is still waiting for Kate to argue, to say something cruel she almost does not mean but wishes she did. But a larger part of me remembers her face that evening with Jake, that secret smile she tucked into his neck as they swayed back and forth to some old song on the radio.

As we drive back from the empty, expansive road, the wind cuts in from the plains with a renewed anger. It tears at you, threatens to crush you against the scorched gravel as pieces of the land rip into and harden every soft and delicate part of you. Unless you turn away or close your eyes, it is impossible to keep going forward for the air is thick and dry and weighted and turns to dust in your lungs. You cannot look past it, into endless acres that have bowed and yielded to the temper of the land since eternity.

You feel so much that you can hardly feel anything at all.

Almost.

For by holding your breath and squinting open your eyes, you can start to visualise. You will not have much but what you do have is now shrouded in the galaxies that have protected civilisations for millennia. As the wind dies, I turn to Kate who grips my fingers from when we were blown together. The land outside moves but for once we are not moving. Her calloused fingers have slotted into mine and now both our hands are white and indistinguishable from each other. The anger that I expected from her has mellowed into a brazen expression that I cannot understand.

Perhaps, like my mother once told me, it is the healing of the land. The way that the same land that produces fires and floods and droughts also creates butterflies and sunsets. We lean close enough to each other that a soft breeze tangles our hair together in a swirl of gold and brown, light and darkness. I think it will be a long, long time before we drive out onto this road again but there is a stillness that pushes us forward towards home. I think I will try to find Jake, that maybe this is a world he may understand.

#creative writing #words #literature #writblr #writers #my writing #writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #inspiration #australia #short stories #my short stories #writeblr

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catherine-white · 2 years ago

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Summer Shards #8

While cleaning up for my exhibit/sale this weekend, I moved some photo books around and found an old picture of my mom in Maine weeding her flower bed when it was new. I was struck by how I have let the daylilies and the fireweed fill all the space. She loved those flowers. When I arrive in Maine, I admire the bees feasting on the purple fireweed, cheering those tiny wings that have flown from the mainland to our little island. When we spread my mom’s ashes in the ocean in Maine my dad first asked everyone to pick every blooming daylily. We put them in buckets and after we sifted the ashes into the sea, we tossed the lilies and watched them float away. The following morning, I walked the high tide mark hoping to find a flower tangled in the seaweed to press into my journal. But none were to be found. That’s what death feels like, you go looking for evidence of life and it is missing. With a heavy heart I walked up the path to the cottage and there in the garden all the daylilies were blooming again.

I bow closer to the new face. I am always superimposing a face on flowers, I call the violet moon vinca the choir, and there are surely eyes in the birdeye speedwell, and mouths on the linearleaf snapdragon. It is what we do in order to care for things, make them ourselves, our elders, our beloveds, our unborn. But perhaps that is a lazy kind of love. Why can't I just love the flower for being a flower? How many flowers have I yanked to puppet as if it was easy for the world to make flowers? --Ada Limon, from In The Shadow, in The Hurting Kind, Milkweed Editions, 2022

#ada limón #summer shards #ceramics #pottery #bowl #art #design #woodfired ceramics

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leslie-allen-spillane · 1 year ago

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‘Reflections on a Radical Plot’, Charlotte Salter-Townshend in conversation with Clodagh Emoe

Imma magazine

Reflections on a Radical Plot offers insights into the journey and multifaceted engagements of Crocosmia × woven together with histories, folklore, and symbolism of Crocosmia and the various species of plants which have presented themselves in the plot on IMMA’s front lawn.

Clodagh Emoe creates works that explore how meaning is formed through our connection with each other and the natural world. Her collaborative project, The Plurality of Existence… (2015-2018) with individuals seeking asylum led organically to Crocosmia ×, a participatory project that was also developed and realised with individuals seeking asylum. Crocosmia × was commissioned by ‘…the lives we live” Grangegorman Public Art and supported by IMMA. The artwork Crocosmia × found a natural home in IMMA, as a plot of wildflowers on the lawn of this stately building.

Studies indicate the value of plants both wild and cultivated on human well-being. Increasingly, researchers acknowledge the importance of daily contact with nature. Even the ‘plucky plants’[i] that find their niche in urban environments have manifold positive effects. Growing on walls, in gutters, between cracks in the pavement, and along railway lines, these wild plants provide much needed refuge and food for animals including pollinators, but they also have a positive effect on human well-being.

Plants referenced in the collection of folklore are brought back to our attention in her organic, ghostlike prints of nettle, forget-me-not, primrose, herb Robert, ribwort plantain, nipplewort, prickly sow thistle, common thistle, opium poppy, wild violet, and western willow herb.

Nettles are nutritious and are an example of food as medicine: “Three doses of nettles in the month of April will prevent any disease for the rest of the year”.[9] Nettles are also vital for wildlife, the leaves providing food for the caterpillars of small tortoiseshell, comma, red admiral, and peacock butterfly. The stinging hairs protect the plant from grazers, allowing all sorts of insect life to thrive undisturbed. Nipplewort is a ‘weed’ of cereal crops. It has become less frequent with modern agricultural practices. The flower buds were thought to resemble nipples. Hence, it was believed to help heal sore nipples. This is an example of a theory known as the doctrine of signatures, popular in medieval times. Willowherb is also known as fireweed, because it grew where bombs had struck during the Blitz in London. It is a plant symbolic of upheaval and survival. Dandelions are considered the classic ‘weed’. Originating in Europe and Asia, it is estimated that dandelions have been in cultivation since the Roman times. They are used as remedies for illnesses including liver problems, gastrointestinal distress, fluid retention, and skin ailments. The plant is also a tasty and highly nutritious vegetable. During the seventeenth century, European colonists introduced dandelions to North America. Native American peoples also developed their own uses of the dandelion after it naturalised.

For the purposes of scientific record, botanists and collectors press and preserve plants as herbarium specimens. Bridging across science and art, botanic artists paint plants with great accuracy and detail. Clodagh develops this further, using unique ecological printing process that captures an image of the subject using the very essence of the plants. What appears as a mirror image reveals the trace of natural dye from the front and back of the plant left on each page, a duality presenting the plants’ dimension and depth, like the poetry of the asylum seekers who collaborated in The Plurality of Existence… and Crocosmia ×. This ecological printing process captures the complexity of these plants, revealing that being is a process in constant flux and in dialogue with the environment. At times, plants are potential, lying dormant in the soil. Later, they decay and return to the earth, showing us that death is just a part of the life cycle. “Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light” – Theodore Roethke.[10]

#clodagh emoe #botany #print #plants #printmaking

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gameguides · 2 years ago

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Item ID's Sons of the Forest & Spawning

In this game, players will once again find themselves stranded in a mysterious and dangerous forest, fighting for survival against various threats. One of the key elements of the game is crafting and item management, with players needing to scavenge for resources and build tools and weapons to defend themselves. In this article, we will explore the world of Sons of the Forest in more detail, focusing specifically on item IDs and spawning. We will provide a comprehensive guide to all the item IDs in the game, as well as how to spawn items using these IDs. Whether you're new to the game or a seasoned veteran, this guide will help you better understand the item system in Sons of the Forest and give you an edge in your fight for survival. So, join us as we delve into the world of Sons of the Forest and discover its secrets. You can also check out our Sons of the Forest wiki.

Item ID's in Sons of the Forest and Spawning

Warning 1: If you enter the codes incorrectly you may risk losing your save file so make a backup of your save file before you do anything and rewatch your change if you did it correctly or not before hitting the ENTER/SAVE button! Warning 2: When you are done playing Sons of the Forest, make sure to close the whole application. Go to the bottom right of your screen, click the > symbol, and shut down WeMod or close it by going to your taskbar. The reason why is that if you are going to play another game with a very good anti-cheat, you may get in trouble. Use this at your own risk. Information, FAQ, and is it Save: Make sure to check out this section for more information about WeMod, if it is safe, loads of information, trust information, and more: https://www.wemod.com/#how-it-works WeMod is used in thousands of single-player games. You can also use WeMod while playing with friends. How to Make it Work Safely? - Go to the website: https://www.wemod.com/cheats/sons-of-the-forest-trainers - Create an account and download WeMod. - Once the application has been downloaded, go to the Sons of the Forest section. - From here, toggle on ENABLE DEBUG CONSOLE - Now, you are good to go. Press F1 to open up the console. When opening the console by pressing F1 you will see loads of other information. Like spawning in Kelvin's etcetera. You will see it yourself.

Item ID's in Sons of the Forest Plants, Mixes and Seeds ID's - Snowberries: 448 - Twinberries: 446 - Aloe Vera: 451 - Aloe Vera Seed: 596 - Blackberries: 595 - Blackberry Seed: 598 - Arrowleaf: 454 - Arrowleaf Seed: 597 - Blueberries: 445 - Blueberry Seed: 599 - Chicory: 465 - Chicory Seed: 605 - Devil’s Club: 449 - Devil’s Club Seed: 600 - Energy Mix: 461 - Energy Mix Plus: 462 - Fireweed: 453 - Fireweed Seed: 601 - Guarana Berries: 594 - Guarana Seed: 602 - Health Mix: 455 - Health Mix Plus: 456 - Horsetail: 450 - Horsetail Seed: 603 - Salmonberries: 447 - Salmonberry Seed: 604 - Yarrow: 452 - Yarro Seed: 606 Sons of The Forest Console Commands As soon as you press F1 to bring up the console in Sons of the Forest, it will show you all the console commands available. Some of them are not really useful or we don’t know yet what they do. In order to activate them, though, you must type the command yourself. Sometimes, you’ll also have to type “on” or “off” after the command to activate or deactivate it in your game. Here are all console commands in Sons of the Forest. Always save your game before trying a new console command, this way you can simply load if it goes wrong. - addallitems = Gives all items to your character - addcharacter robby = Adds another Kelvin to the game - addcharacter virginia = Adds another Virginia to the game - additem X = Add a specific item to the game. Change “X” to the item you want to spawn. - aigodmode on = Enables God mode for Companions - aigodmode off = Disables God mode for Companions - aighostplayer on = You become invisible to enemies - aighostplayer off = Disables invisibility - aipause on = Pauses all AI - aipause off = Resumes all AI - buffstats = Noticeably increases your survival stats - cavelight = Turns your character into a source of light - cavelight off = Removes the effect of the previous command - createlight = Spawns a floating source of light close to you - creepyvillage = Spawns cave monsters - forcerainheavy = Makes it rain in the game - forcerainsunny = Changes weather to sunny - godmode on = Turns God mode on - godmode off = Disables God mode - instantbookbuild on = Creates anything placed from the book - killradius x = Replace “X” with the number you want and kill whatever you want - locktimeofday morning = The game will remain in the morning - locktimeofday night = The game will remain in the night - regenhealth = Heals you completely - removeallitems = Removes most added items - save = Saves your game - seasonautumn = Changes season to Autumn - seasonspring = Changes season to Spring - seasonsummer = Changes season to Summer - seasonwinter = Changes season to Winter - settimeofday = Changes the time of the day - setimeofday morning = Makes the game change to morning - setimeofday night = Makes the game change to night - showhud off = Removes HUD - showhud on = Enables HUD - spawnworldobject x = Spawns the item you specify - speedyrun on = Makes you run faster - speedyrun off = Disables fast run - superjump on = Allows you to do a super jump - superjump off = Disables the super jump Weapon, Ammo and Attachment ID's

Weapon, Ammo and Attachment ID's Sons of the Forest - Night Vision Goggles: 354 - Air Gun: 357 - Rifle: 361 - Buckshot Ammo: 364 - Chainsaw: 394 - Climbing Axe: 478 - Combat Knife: 380 - Compact Pistol: 355 - Crafted Bow: 443 - Crafted Club: 477 - Crafted Arrow: 507 - Crafted Spear: 474 - Crossbow: 365 - Firefighter Axe: 431 - Golf Putter: 525 - Grenade: 381 - Grenade Ammo: 382 - Guitar: 340 - Katana: 367 - Molotov: 388 - Molotov Ammo: 389 - Modern Axe: 356 - Pistol Ammo: 362 - Repair Tool: 422 - Ropegun: 522 - Scope: 377 - Shovel: 485 - Silencer: 374 - Shotgun: 358 - Slingshot: 459 - Slug ammo: 363 - Stun Gun Ammo: 369 - Tactical Axe: 379 - Time Bomb: 417 - Airgun Scope: 470 - Zipline Rope: 523 - Carbon Fiber Arrow: 373 - Pistol Supressor: 374 - Flashlight Attachment: 378 - Crossbow Quiver: 384 - Laser sight: 375 - Pistol Rail: 376 - Shotgun Rail: 346 Clothing and Armor ID's

Clothing and Armor ID's Sons of the Forest - Blazer (Old Jacket): 491 - Blue T-shirt: 488 - Camouflage Suit: 558 - Hoodie: 490 - Wetsuit: 499 - Flippers: 463 - Leather Jacket: 493 - Silk Pajamas: 487 - Swim Suit: 619 - Puffy Jacket: 500 - Tactical Boots: 501 - Tactical Pants: 489 - Track Suit: 555 - Bone Armor: 494 - Creepy Armor: 593 - Deer Hide Armor: 519 - Golden Armor: 572 - Leaf Armor: 473 - Mutant Armor: 492 - Tech Armor: 554 Food and Drink ID's - Brain Bite: 569 - Canned Food: 434 - Cat Food: 464 - Emergency Pack: 483 - Fish: 436 - Energy Drink: 439 - Food Tray Filled: 512 - Food Tray: 497 - MRE: 438 - Ramen Noodles: 421 - Steak Bite: 570 - Steak and Bacon Bite: 571 Log ID's - Log: 78 - Log Plank: 395 - Log Plank Quarter 1x: 576 - Log Plank Quarter 2x: 577 - Log Plank Quarter 3x: 578 - Log Quarter 1x : 406 - Log Quarter 2x : 408 - Log Quarter 3x : 409 - Quarter Log: 406 - Quarter Log Plank: 576 Printed ID's - Printed Arrow: 618 - Printed Arrow Heads: 559 - Printed Flower Pot: 561 - Printed Grappling Hook: 560 - Plasma Lighter: 413 - Printed Flask: 426 - Printed Knife: 427 - Printed Sled: 428 - Printer Resin: 390 - Printed Scuba Mask: 429 Miscellaneous ID's - Air Canister: 469 - Batteries: 527 - Battery Charger: 458 - Battery Pack: 460 - Flashlight: 471 - Gold Mask: 435 - Golf Ball: 524 - Gps Locator: 529 - Gps Tracker: 412 - Can Opener: 432 - Binoculars: 341 - C4 Brick: 420 - Duct tape: 419 - Feather: 479 - Flare: 440 - Walkie-Talkie: 486 - Wire: 418 - Wrist Watch: 410 - Radio: 590 - Rebreather: 444 - Red Mask: 391 - Rock: 393 - Rope: 403 - Severed Arm: 480 - Severed Leg: 481 - Severed Head: 482 - Skin Pouch: 508 - Skull: 430 - Sleeping Bag: 573 - Small Rock: 476 - Circuit Board: 416 - Cloth: 415 - Bone: 405 - Coins: 502 - Cooking Pot: 517 - Stick: 392 - Tarp: 504 - Tech Mesh: 553 - Torch: 503 - Turtle Egg: 401 - Turtle Shell: 506 - Vodka Bottle: 414 - Loot Pouch: 508 - Medicine: 437 - Money: 496 - Paper Target: 518 - Leaf: 484 Key ID's - VIP Key: 568 - Maintenance Key: 566 - Guest Key: 567 Pamphlet, E-mail and Cover ID's - Holosprings Pamphlet: 509 - Album Cover: 467 - Cave Lighting Email: 521 Enemie ID's - Regular Cannibals - Golden-Masked Cannibals - Cave Cannibals - Propeller carrier - Dogs - Muddies - Fingers - Twins - Giant - Mutant Babies - Flinger - John 2.0 - Sluggy - Demon - Brute - Shark Other ID's - Random Cannibals - "addcharacter cannibal # on - GoldMask Cannibal - "addcharacter cannibal GoldMask # on" - Danny - "addcharacter cannibal Danny # on" - Anny - "addcharacter cannibal Anny # on" - Carl - "addcharacter cannibal Carl # on" - Billy - "addcharacter cannibal Billy # on" - Destiny - "addcharacter cannibal Destiny # on" - Crystal - "addcharacter cannibal Crystal # on" - Brandy - "addcharacter cannibal Brandy # on" - Mutants - Sluggy - "addcharacter sluggy # on" - MrPuffy - "addcharacter MrPuffy # on" - MissPuffy - "addcharacter MissPuffy # on" - Fingers - "addcharacter fingers # on" - Twins - "addcharacter Twins # on" - Baby - "addcharacter baby # on" - Demon - "addcharacter Demon # on" - John 2.0 - "addcharacter John2 # on" Read the full article

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fragileoracle · 1 year ago

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Ⅰ - Somebody For Everybody

August 1890 - Saint Denis

Fireweed. Pink petals that are spicy on the tongue, stirred into a thick nectar of deep gold in a jar labeled "butterfly food". Violet snowdrops with unfurling purple petals reaching into the cold dawn of spring. A sprig of wild oregano, its scent rich and floral as its released from dark green leaves. Crushed between two callused fingertips.

The smell of coffee; rich, dark, and inviting brewed before the mountain sun has risen. The caffeinated lifeblood of the honest worker. Fresh hay, earthy and dry for the horses rising with the morning dew, earnest hooves breaking soil in anticipation.

Memories of a life before this one filtered through Mercy's mind more vividly than any magic lantern show. With enough focus she knew she could trick her mind into retrieving those scents. A talent that on mornings like this one, was a balm to sore nerves.

If she knew one thing about the city, it was that the scent was inescapable. A heady mix of horse dung, piss, and the inescapable presence of ever-drunken low lives that clung to Saint Denis like flies to shit. A smell that would only worsen the higher the sun climbed. She was grateful that come noon she would be safe behind the glass doors of the Bastille, more than likely soaked from wrist to elbow in water and lye if luck was any indicator.

Yet in the moment, Mercy tried desperately to think pleasanter thoughts as the Saint Denis smell slowly crept in through the open window of her modest room. The bayou's looming presence was barely masked by the threadbare, faded blue curtain she'd hung all those months ago. It was still too dark to make out the faded details of the room she kept, yet even with her eyes closed she'd still be able to place every nook and cranny exactly.

Nearest the door was a wooden stool that rocked precariously if you sat in the very center of the seat, its old legs creaking in protest as if it had something better to do than the very job it was created to do. A nightstand sat closest to the bed that some time ago may have been respectable, but now was nothing more than a method to get an infection if reached for it too carelessly in the dark.

A simple candlestick sitting in an even simpler holder along with her father's silver pocket watch sat on the old table, along with a pack of cigarettes that Mercy had hidden in its only drawer a few weeks ago. The pack wrapped tightly in a spare piece of cotton she nicked from the saloon, along with a few sprigs of thyme to cover the smell. That aunt of hers had a nose like a bloodhound and would smoke through her meager savings if Mercy let her.

Then there was the simple chest of drawers at the foot of her bed. The finest piece of furniture in the room, and of course off limits to Mercy. Its body and drawers were made of sturdy, lacquered mahogany. Supposedly Myra had received it as a wedding gift from the family of her first husband, but couldn't bear to look at it or part with so it was left unused. Filled with the late Mr. Willis' belongings and a small cyanotype of the mustachioed man sitting on top.

Admittedly, Mercy had quietly rifled through the drawers once or twice, careful not to noticeably disturb the meticulously stored articles of clothing. In the top drawer were shirts that smelled of soap and dust, a comforting scent, especially on long summer nights. The second drawer with faded slacks, most with mended holes and the many stains of a working man. The last drawer was far more exciting, as in the very back of the drawer were a stack of Penny Dreadfuls, a collection of cigarette cards, and a box of jewelry all hidden beneath two folded jackets that had been pressed stiff with starch years ago. It was an odd presence, the chest of drawers, as if her aunt was still expecting Mr. Willis to return from the grave itself making the room feel more occupied than it truly was.

"Well, this is it." Myra had said when Mercy first arrived in Saint-Denis two years ago.

"Since no one else'll have you, this is where you'll be staying for the time being. Now you remember, I am welcoming you into my home outta the goodness of my heart. You're lucky your mother was my sister otherwise you'd be on your lonesome as I expect you are already aware."

There had been a cruel, greedy glint in her pale green eyes when she said those words. Almost as if she enjoyed belittling her niece by marriage, reminding her of the cruel hand she'd been dealt.

"There's you a clean bed and a chest underneath it you can use for your belongings, you only get one set of bedding and I expect you to launder it yourself. You're a full grown woman and I expect you to keep this room as tidy as you found it as well as help around the rest of the house you understand me? I won't board a layabout, no sir. If I so much as see you rummaging through a drawer I will have you on the street before you can so much as blink. I expect your monthly payments on time at the first of the month, every month. No exceptions."

And with that, two years had passed in the blink of an eye. Not once had young Miss Graves missed her rent, or incurred the wrath of the stern Mrs. Sutton or her mild-mannered husband. Since she'd moved from West Elizabeth, Mercy had grown to appreciate her circumstances somewhat. At least one hot meal a day, a dry bed to sleep in, and the comfort of the late Mr. Willis' cotton shirts. It wasn't all too bad for a woman with no prospects. Life in Saint-Denis was peaceful, unassuming, and routine.

Yet Mercy was restless, with each passing season she could feel something in her chest stirring. Memories of the mountains haunted her as often as she invoked them during the hot Lemoyne afternoons, an ebb and flow of both misery and nostalgia that kept her on edge. As much as she tried to dismiss the sense of longing that seemed to take root in her, it only acted as fuel to this unknown fire that unsettled her.

Mercy knew she should be grateful.

Grateful for her life. Grateful that she had been spared when her family had not. Grateful for the routine when it could have just as easily been a life of needless turmoil. Her's had become a simple life by the grace of what she felt could only be sheer luck. Surely there was no higher being smiling down on her, and for that, she was grateful as she seemed to slip by unnoticed. Unfavored and blessedly normal.

Still, in the moments before the sun warmed the sky Mercy was left to the disquiet of her mind. That gnawing ache had become a yearning so sharp that she could feel it pulling at invisible strings within her. A pull so strong that there were times as of late she seemed to move without noticing. Straying from routine. Rebelling against her good sense in small ways just to sate these unnameable desires within herself. It manifested imperceptibly; wandering down an alleyway she'd never noticed before, leaving the Bastille before her shift was over, giving into Remedy when he offered a shot of rum before she made her way home. The most minute of variations to the monotony her life had become. The pattern she had been all too eager to settle into was now the bane of her very existence.

Silvery rays of sunlight began to stretch across the dusty wooden floor of her room as she lay in her bed, mind traveling beyond the bayou back to Little Creek. The familiar sounds of a baying herd of cows dragged her back to the present as she sat up, fidgeting with the strings of her thin, white chemise. She couldn't remember the last time she had risen earlier than the damn cows. Yet another small rebellion of her wandering mind.

Pushing herself to her feet, Mercy turned to quietly pull out one of the two trunks that she kept neatly tucked under the bed. Even after two years in Saint-Denis, she still had very few personal effects aside from a couple blouses, skirts, undergarments, and a few other necessities she'd accumulated. As she rifled through her garments, her eyes wandered to the still-unworn pair of tan riding boots that had been gifted to her by a man she hadn't seen since.

According to the stranger, she'd left quite an impression on him. Though in hindsight, he had probably been expecting quite a bit more than she was willing to offer. Yet there they sat, the nicest thing she owned aside from her father's pocket watch, a trinket that she battled about on the regular with herself.

I'd be better off selling that old thing.

Mercy thought to herself bitterly, glancing at the boots again. Just looking at the boots evoked such an overwhelming lust in her, a feeling so intense she could almost smell the clean mountain air. The expanding ribcage of a fine horse breathing beneath her, the playful fingers of the wind against her skin, in her hair.

"Come on Graves, get moving." Mercy grumbled to herself, blindly pulling a few garments from the trunk before it was returned to its place under her bed astride those lonely, lovely boots of hers and the impossible visions they dazzled her with. Instead, she yanked her faded leather button-up shoes from the foot post of her bed as she set herself to stay to her routine today. Perhaps if she tried hard enough, those feelings would simply fade with time and enough distraction.

At the very least, Mercy had to believe they would as the alternative was a spiral of insanity or as her aunt often called it, "female hysterics".

Adequately dressed, Mercy watched as the sun rose over the Lanahechee and now bathed Saint-Denis in a rich gold that could blind if looked dead-on. In the summer, however, the sunlight could only glow from behind a dense veil of mist. The larger windows of the Sutton house looked into the backroad of Saint-Denis from the fringes. Glimpses of the bayou to the North flickered in parts through the sugarcane stalks and in between the other modest homes that dotted the perimeter of the city. At daybreak, the den and kitchen were swathed in a cool darkness with spare rays of sunlight, a characteristic that made for cold, wet winters.

Judging by the faint sounds of snoring, a trait of Mrs. Sutton's, Mercy knew her guardians were still sound asleep and would be for yet another hour at best. The makings of a peaceful morning made her dreaded routine far more palatable. With shoes in one hand, as to make her way through the house quietly, Mercy approached the kitchen washing bowl. The chipped porcelain basin filled with clean, cool water. A small, rusted mirror sat on the wooden counter near the bowl along with Mr. Sutton's pomade. Enough light filtered from the small window for Mercy to catch a glimpse of her reflection.

Two round brown eyes blinked at her framed by long, straight black lashes along with thick, well-shaped brows that arched over them with a resting, disdainful expression. Her father's nose, round and straight suited her facial features giving her a rather pleasant look considering the severity of her expression. Healthy, full cheeks and rosebud lips that seemed to pout in perpetuity gave Mercy a softness that always irritated her. In many ways, she felt as though her appearance made others underestimate her as simply "precious" or "darling". Nothing more than a pretty woman. Perhaps they were right in some sense. After all, if she could only keep her mouth shut and her expressiveness in check, she could more than likely get away with a hell of a lot more.

Oh to be a woman humbled.

Leaning over the wash basin, Mercy splashed the cool water against her pale face as she relished in the sharp, refreshing feeling of a washed face. The heat of the morning chased away as the air gelled the water on her neck, sending a chill down her spine. Returning her gaze back to the small mirror, she gently pinched her cheeks, rubbing the faintest bit of rosiness into them as she pondered what to do with her unruly mess of brown hair. Locks of cedar curled and krimped from having slept with it loose.

"A braid'll have to do," Mercy whispered, her fingers weaving her tresses into a semi-neat plait before tying it off with a leather cord. There was no use in fussing over her appearance so early in the day when Loretta would just undo it all in favor of something more "French" and "appealing" come evening. No, Mercy would leave her a clean canvas to work with.

"Good mornin' Miss Graves." A sleepy, thin voice whispered from the other side of the room, "You up early."

Turning to face Mr. Sutton, Mercy smiled plaintively at her aunt's husband. A clod of a man, his face tanned and lined by the sun with kind dark eyes and silvering black hair sticking up in all manner of directions. He was thin and wiry, with a faded tattoo of an anchor he received from his time in the Navy. Normally, she would have been spooked by the man's sudden presence during a quiet moment, but she had long learnt that between him and his wife, she much preferred Mr. Sutton. All he knew how to do was work and drink. Mercy wasn't entirely sure the man could even read but she knew him to be harmless.

"Good morning Mr. Sutton," Mercy whispered back "Should I put on some coffee?"

"Naw, you go 'head. Myra'll be waking soon." He urged her through a yawn, scratching the side of his chin before he padded across the floor to the kitchen cupboard. He reached in and grabbed one of two fresh peaches.

"Here, you should eat something." He whispered conspiratorially, placing the fruit in Mercy's hand.

Before she could protest, he meandered back into the room he shared with his wife, closing the door behind him. In that moment it struck her as odd, what a pairing her aunt and the man made. Where he was slow and meandering like an old bull, Myra was mean as a rattlesnake. She wondered what that engagement must've looked like.

Had it been Mr. Sutton's idea to wed? Perhaps with a none-too-subtle nudge from dear old Aunt Myra. As her mother used to say, there truly was somebody for everybody, and for a moment Mercy felt a twinge in her chest when remembering her mother's words even after a decade of being apart.

The full weight of the August heat washed over Mercy as she opened the door to Saint-Denis. The ever-present scent that she couldn't get used to no matter how hard she tried followed. It was an assault on the senses. Holding her breath, she made her way down the steps and onto the main road into town, she gave a friendly wave to a pair of boys on their way to their shift at the docks. Dressed in their overalls and caps with their ruddy faces and glassy eyes still waking from the land of nod.

"Mornin' Miss Graves, why I don't think I've ever seen you up this early!" The cheeky younger boy, called out to her while the older boy, gave her a stern nod. Still acting tough that one. The tallest of the lanky pair was Clyde Shannon, while his ginger younger brother was Ian Shannon. First time she met them they'd nearly ran her down after stealing a couple oranges from the market. Ever since then, they'd been sweet on her and if Mercy was honest, she found the two of them endearing.

"Good morning, boys." Mercy flashed that smile of hers that could melt even the coldest of steel, as much was clear from the blush that spread over Clyde's cheeks. "Don't forget to come by the Bastille tonight, I'll get you those scraps I promised your Pa."

"Yes ma'am. We better head on, the foreman'll have our hides if we're late again." Clyde tipped his hat to her before pushing Ian ahead of him, the duo ran on leaving Mercy once again to her thoughts and a short morning walk to work. Her thoughts haunted by the faces of her past as she watched the brothers tease each other.

The Shannons had always been kind to her. Their mother especially who had put in a good word to Mrs. Tremblay when she first arrived looking for work. Clyde was becoming a rather handsome young man, and Mercy knew the boy was enamored. Ian on the other hand was innocent as a lamb but braver than many a man Mercy had the displeasure of knowing. Since Mercy had started working at the Bastille she'd sent the boys home with scraps for their pigs and in return every so often Ian and Clyde would come by with enough pork to feed the Sutton household for a month. Something Mr. Sutton had grown especially accustomed to.

Mercy walked on after watching the brothers disappear in the morning fog.

Aside from the city stench, Saint-Denis was picturesque the closer you got to the city center. As the road turned from muck to cobbled stone, and the houses went from shanties to sprawling manors you were reminded of the hold of civilization. Though in a way the growth of the city didn't sit quite right with Mercy. Just a few weeks ago, some of the neighbors were uprooted from the only home they'd ever known. Apparently bought out by some well-to-do folk from up north who found ole Saint Denis charming enough to settle in, and in less than a week a new two-story beast sprung up like daisies after death. A kind old black woman and her son had relocated to Lagras deeper in the bayou according to the backstreet gossip.

A shameful thing, the price of so-called "civilized" living.

Pausing for a moment in her stride, Mercy glared at the new house in question. Full planters spilling over with fragrant gardenias swung idly in the breeze. Stained glass French windows obscured the view of passersby, and large white pillars held the upper balcony. Wrought iron fencing kept "them" separated from "the others" with hedges taller than her spilling out between the bars.

Pretty as a picture indeed, and from what she'd seen as a neighbor, empty half the year. What had her aunt called it? A vacation home? She imagined that come another year, there wouldn't be many regular homes left in Saint-Denis considering how the rich folk tended to speak about the working class and less fortunate.

Before long, would she be displaced too? Spit back out into the wild? Being rejected by those more "civil" couldn't be the worst way to go, Mercy figured to herself. For a brief moment, she hoped the house would catch fire and burn to ash, only then would the violence of displacement be paid in kind.

With a beleaguered sigh, she continued on her way at a leisurely pace, taking with it her thoughts of arson. Mercy passed the new manors and the old cemetery as the road became cobble and the pleasant scent of Tremblay's Laundry gave her reprieve from the smell of civilization.

Mrs. Tremblay herself stood in the open doors of her establishment as she held a basket of freshly cleaned linens. Two little ones bickered at her feet. The look on the older woman's lined, bronze face made it clear that she wasn't welcoming any idle conversation the woman rushed into the store after one of her children. Not long after a flurry of linens spilled onto the floor followed by very loud, very Creole shouting.

As quiet as the city had been just moments ago, it was now wide awake and bustling. The doors of Café Marchand and LeHavre Bakery revolved as folks went about their daily routines, many of which involved breaking fast with bread or coffee. For once Mercy was reminded of the small joys of her routine. The smells that came from the bakery were hard to ignore as her stomach growled angrily. She could have killed a man for just one of the LeHavre croissants to pair with her peach, but her coin purse wasn't exactly overflowing.

Fighting the hunger pangs for the richness of French delicacies, Mercy soldiered on as she rounded the corner. The conveniently located Bastille saloon came into sight. The usually grand building looked rather sullen in the morning light without the lanterns casting their welcoming glow on the windows. Though it seemed as though the Bastille wasn't the only sullen-looking thing this morning as a couple stood just outside the entrance in a full argument.

"I've done had enough of this foolishness, I quit! Yeah, I said it! I QUIT."

The careening screech of the woman's voice bounced between brick buildings, amplified by the alleyway. Mercy hesitated on the corner and seriously considered giving into that phantom tug that pulled her away from the scene unfolding.

Oh yes, Mama, there sure is somebody for everybody yet in this particular case, it seemed as though there was somebody not anybody could tolerate at all.

#chapter one #the fox and the stag #minor edit update

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kamreadsandrecs · 2 years ago

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Counterpath Press’s series of now thirteen computer-generated books, Using Electricity, offers a refreshing alternative to the fantasia of terror and wonder that we’ve all been subjected to since the public release of ChatGPT. The books in this series present us with wide-ranging explorations into the potential interplay between human language and code. Although code-based work can be dauntingly hermetic to the noncoder, all computationally generated or mediated writing is the result of two fundamental decisions that remain in the hands of the human author: defining the source text(s) (the data) and choosing the processes (the algorithms or procedures) that operate on them. A text generator like ChatGPT uses brute force on both sides—enormous amounts of text vacuumed from the internet are run through energy-intensive pattern-finding algorithms—to create coherent, normative sentences with an equivocal but authoritative tone. The works in Using Electricity harness data and code to push language into more playful and revealing imaginative territory.

Many of Using Electricity’s authors mobilize computational processes to supercharge formal constraints, producing texts that incessantly iterate through variations and permutations. In The Truelist, Nick Montfort, the series editor, runs a short Python script to generate pages of four-line stanzas comprising invented compound words. “Now they saw the lovelight, / the blurbird, / the bluewoman facing the horse, / the fireweed.” The poem is a relentless loop—repeating this same structure as it churns through as many word combinations as it can find. Rafael Pérez y Pérez’s Mexica uses a pared-down, culturally specific vocabulary and a complex algorithm to generate short fairy tale–like stories. One begins, “The princess woke up while the songs of the birds covered the sky.” The skeletal story structure swaps different characters and actions as the variations play out. It’s like watching a multiversal performance of the same puppet show.

I find that often I am not reading these works for meaning as much as for pattern, which is at the heart of how computation operates. Allison Parrish’s fantastic Articulations brings us frighteningly deep into the core of computational pattern searching. Drawing from a corpus of over two million lines of poetry from the Project Gutenberg database, she takes us on a random walk through “vector space.” Put simply, this is the mathematical space in which computers plot similarities between different aspects of language—the sound, the syntax, whatever the programmer chooses. The result is a dizzying megacollage/cluster-mash-up of English poetry in which obsessive and surprising strings constantly emerge—a vast linguistic hall of mirrors. “In little lights, nice little nut. In a little sight. In a little sight, in a little sight, a right little, tight little island. A light. A light. A light. A light. A light.”

Many of these works are indebted to the wider traditions of procedural, concrete, conceptual, and erasure poetry, while making use of code’s unique possibilities for play, chance, variation, and repetition. Stephanie Strickland’s Ringing the Changes draws its mathematical ordering process from a centuries-old practice of English bell ringing. In Experiment 116, Rena Mosteirin plays a game of translation telephone by running Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” through multiple languages in Google Translate and back into English.

The three most recent titles, released in April, comprise some of the series’s most varied and dynamic approaches to digital poetics. There is an updated edition of Image Generation by the pioneering literary artist John Cayley; as well as Qianxun Chen and Mariana Roa Oliva’s Seedlings, which uses the metaphor of seeds and trees, and “grows” word structures that evoke the dynamics and fragility of plant life. One of the most exciting titles thus far, especially from the perspective data source, is Arwa Michelle Mboya’s Wash Day, in which she threads together transcripts of YouTube videos of Black hair vloggers sharing their Wash Day rituals. The result is an immersive, polyvocal, multiauthored narrative that reveals the unique capacity of data and computation to give presence to specific communities. Wash Day provides an extraordinary contrast to the normalized, bulk-writing superstores of commercial text generators. That deep attention to language—its potential, its limits, its expressive capabilities, its necessity, and its fragility—is the central quality all these authors share. Hopefully works like theirs can help us imagine much more resonant and compelling digital futures.

#writing #internet #technology #artificial intelligence #ai

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kammartinez · 2 years ago

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#writing #internet #artificial intelligence #ai

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mxlovinovargas · 2 years ago

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TREMENDOUS DYNAMITE — PRUSSIA x READER

Synopsis: He's after you.

Tremendous Dynamite

CW: Stalking, Predator-Prey Scenario, Obsessive Thoughts, Obsessive Behavior, Creepy Behavior, Uncomfortable Scenario, Use of Country Names, Reader-Insert.

Word Count: .800

I am El Hombre Lobo.

But you?

You were something that made Prussia quack in his very wake, like a sick puppy staring into the mouth of a deadly disease that wanted to open its maw and swallow whole, like there was a blade chopping down and his head would roll. You were a force—something beautiful and something clean, dirtied only by the blood on your knuckles and the skin of your teeth that glistened with the sweat from a battle. Prussia always turned his head whenever you walked into the room.

Nothing short of a thrusting storm, of a hurricane carrying the ichor of the sea ready to sweep him off of his feet; like the day dips into the horizon, and Prussia was on the prowl for a restless night.

He dodged behind the crevice of two tightly pressed together business buildings, unimportant and his only source of shelter, as he staked you out like a cat hunts a mouse. You walked so boldly, so sure even in the dead of the night and Prussia felt the rhythm of his head pound away like parade drums in his head. The spin of color guard flags, the sound they make as fabric pulls taut and flaps, the way the wind blows through them. The trumpets on high, the tuba on low—of screeching flutes and humming trombones, Prussia hears the whole damn thing playing in his frustrated head and he grimaces thickly. This was a game Prussia was messing with that he knew could end in explosions galore that shatter through his very soul to send him running for the hills to never be seen again (messing with you was always like that), but he’s got a fuse that he can light. He flicks the flame of a match, shh chaaa, and red spindles flicker like seeding fireweed.

She’s tremendous, she’s dynamite—

Prussia steps out into the limelight, doused by pale yellow from dinky old street lamps that don't offer much but enough to cast deep shadows across his grim face. The shadows dance for a brief moment as he moves forward, following following following, as Prussia trails after your retreating form. You don't notice.

Or, at least, Prussia thinks you don't notice.

His first footfall makes an echoing clap that resounds off of the wall, reverberates like bubblegum and glue, and clings to the shell of his ear like a formidable gunshot. Then, you run. Prussia splutters like a dying lemon’s transmission before he sprints forward like his life depended on it. He grits his teeth so harshly that they make a terrible squeak in his mouth as he balls his fists and chops his arms to the pace of his running feet. He should have expected nothing less! The grit turns into a halfhearted smirk. Oil spills of maroon and violet eat up your form as Prussia stares, watches your every move and every turn. He twists his body to follow after you. You are one helluva little opponent—Prussia knew it wouldn't be this easy.

She could put up a hard-won fight.

You’re so clever. If Prussia didn’t know these streets like the back of his hand, he would have definitely lost you by now; fortunately, for the dastardly man chasing after you, he did and he was gaining on you fast. Your head might be screwed on real tight, but there's only some many bobs and weaves you can do until—

until you're at a dead end.

And this, this truly is your birthright.

Tremendous dynamite you may be, but every explosion has its smoke and mirrors before it evanescences and then disappears in the fade of char and misery.

I am El Hombre Lobo, Prussia thinks to himself as he stands so tall and so looming behind you, in front of you, before you. He traps off your escape and he can see your shoulders heaving. He stalks forward, leering with those schmears of red and purple looking so insanely pleased and victorious. Prussia takes in all you have to offer, basking in it so appraisingly and so willingly and so greedily and so needily. He can't help but feel giddy, can't help but feel the sparks of electricity in the tips of his fingers as he draws near. The way your shoulders pinch, the way your breath seems to hitch in fear at each of Prussia's footsteps. The heels of his boot click like a bomb by the second and he's so close that if he opened his mouth to breathe you in, he would taste you too.

On the prowl, Prussia comes, and then he sees you turn so demurely that it feels like slow music and he can hear the band in his head go into a slow rocky jazz that leaves a one-two riff strumming in his aching eardrums. It’s past midnight. You turn around fully. And Prussia’s dartin’ under the town’s searchlight as he closes in totally.

But it’s all worth it to take a bite.

You're tremendous, you’re dynamite.

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