#one of the most tedious pieces ive made yet

[eighteenthofoctober]

When your Dad's boyfriend cheats on him with... Santa Claus!?

Merry Christmas Ace Attorney nation!!!!

[drifting-wreckers]

Kaisarion, Chapter 12: A Matter of Love

Papa Emeritus IV x OFC: romance, religious fanaticism, drama, NSFW, MDNI, fate/destiny

The months continued to pass and the spring and summer rains turned into crisp fall air. Rosalyn had decidedly not taken up Father Jim Defroque’s offer and had only seen him in the library once more since their meeting. She had managed to avoid interacting with him by holing away in her office for “very important” work until he finally left. Jessica had been there that day, fleetingly curious as to the librarian’s aversion towards the man but without the interest to investigate much further. Besides, Rosalyn had simply dismissed her concern and insisted that she was just busy.

Otherwise, the last few weeks had found Copia stuck at the Ministry preparing for the most important ritual of the year: The Great Rite. It happened only once every five years, as it was believed the sensual freedom and enthusiasm numerology aligned with the number provided the highest likelihood for clairvoyance as well as the greatest bounty of energy for the ministry. They were also taught that various gap years had been trialed over the centuries and five years was the most fruitful. Of course, preparations for it were tedious, and since it would be his first time performing the Rite, he was caught between reading everything he could about it and the meetings related to it, not to mention fielding the “friendly input” from Primo, Secondo and Terzo. There was one very important aspect of the Rite, however, that was causing the most strife: it was centered around sex magic, and he had yet to pick the Sister that would represent the Goddess. And such was how he found himself in yet another meeting with Sister Imperator, the other Papas, and various other members of the high clergy.

“So, as you can see, Papa, the incense is due to be delivered two days from now, and the ghouls have started their preparations…” Sister Imperator paused and eyed him with some concern before clearing her throat, her expression and words cautious. “Have you had time to look at the list of Sisters I recommended?”

Copia felt the eyes on him and sighed as he rubbed at his temples. He knew the expectation, but he also had been trying to figure out how to have the conversation with Rosalyn for weeks. Part of the reason for his extensive reading was to confirm what he had suspected: the Goddess representative did not have to be in the Ministry so long as she was a willing participant. Although the Rite was one of the most important rituals in the Ministry, it was impossible to ignore that his relationship with Rosalyn had grown to something significant-enough that if she refused and was uncomfortable, he had already made up his mind to ask Terzo to stand-in for him. She trusted him – enough that they had opted to forgo condoms and rely on her preferred form of birth control – and he feared breaking that trust…and he also knew he wouldn’t be able to hide the true nature of the Ministry for much longer, and the anxiety of wondering how she would react to that knowledge was nearly as crippling. He also, however, had no idea what it would mean amongst the Ministry and clergy if he declined to perform.

“No, I haven’t yet.”

Imperator sighed, concern slipping into her expression before it became more neutral once again. “That is the final piece to the puzzle, Papa…the sooner you decide, the sooner we can finalize everything. We only have three more weeks-…”

He sat forward and waved a dismissive hand. “Si, si, I know. I will take care of it.”

The room descended into silence again, and the first three Emeritus brothers exchanged glances with one-another. Imperator’s lips pressed into a line for a moment. “Alright, then…well, if there is nothing else, I think we can conclude this meeting.”

The clergy was more-than happy to adjourn and flee the room, though Copia noted the look Imperator gave him and stayed seated. The other Papas had hesitated, but the sharp look Imperator shot at them had them leaving the two to their privacy without a word. Once they were alone, the mask on the Sister’s expression dropped and she let the worry display more openly as she moved and sat down beside him.

“C…I know this is about Rosalyn, but I told you…you can’t let your relationship with her affect your duties and responsibilities.”

He sighed again, but only glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “I know…I just…I need to talk to her…I cannot just do this and break her trust.” His eyes grew distant. “It’s…I need to find the right way to explain.”

Imperator’s hand fell to his arm gently. She had not been the softest or most affectionate mother throughout his life - particularly in his earlier days as a rising member of the clergy – but she seemed to be warming as the years wore on. Or perhaps she simply felt reassured now that he was Papa; Copia couldn’t be sure.

“I know you’re worried. I suspected your feelings for her are…” she trailed off as she cautiously watched the nervous flicker of his eyes. “…deeper and more immense than you might be ready to admit to…but if she cares for you as much as you care for her – as I suspect she does…” She squeezed his arm reassuringly. “…she will understand. The Great Rite is too important to everyone here.”

Copia finally turned to meet her gaze, quiet for a moment before he patted her hand slightly. “I appreciate that…I will talk to her soon. I promise.”

She smiled lightly and nodded. “It will work out, C, I know it. I can’t shake the feeling that The Olde One put her in your path for a very important reason. Time will tell.” He inhaled a shaky breath at that, and Imperator’s smile became just slightly playful. “Of course, it would be nice if you would actually let us really meet and talk to her instead of spiriting her away anytime we get close.”

He chuckled as he rose from his seat. “Eh, I have to make sure she fully knows what she’s getting into first…it’s only fair!”   

+++   

A few evenings later, Rosalyn was in her kitchen making dinner accompanied by the low thrum of music from a portable speaker on her counter. Copia was due over soon, and she wanted to make sure he had nothing to do other than sit, eat, and maybe take a nap. Every conversation they had, every time they saw one-another, she swore he would fall asleep standing if he could. He had mentioned that they were preparing for an important ritual, but hadn’t explained what it was yet. She was intrigued, if only partly because this was the first ritual he had mentioned since they had been seeing one-another. Deep down, a part of her wondered if she could be there for it, but she didn’t feel it was appropriate to ask. She wasn’t a part of the Ministry - wasn’t a devotee - and it felt at best rude to even consider it. And besides, she knew Copia would invite her if it was even feasible.

She had just removed the fish from the oven when she heard a knock at the front door. She walked past Mally - the cat had been seated on the floor beside the kitchen island since she started cooking in hopes of obtaining some scraps – and took a brief glimpse through the peephole to see a familiar face before quickly opening the door. Copia did, indeed, look exhausted: he was devoid of his paints as he was more frequently when they were together, and donned in a rumpled pair of burgundy sweat pants, t-shirt, jacket and gloves. She smiled softly at the sight of him.

“Copia, you look like you’re gonna fall over, come here,” she mused as she stepped forward to take his hand and pull him into the house. He had started to speak, but it turned into a yawn, instead, that only had her laughing gently. “Are you even hungry? Or do you just want to take a nap?”

Tired though he was, Copia briefly planted his feet and used their clasped hands to yank her to his chest, his other arm coming to rest around her waist as he pressed a slow kiss to her lips. He would be lying if he said the sight of her didn’t reinvigorate him just a bit. “No, cara mia, I have barely eaten anything since breakfast, and I will not let a meal you cook go to waste.” His stomach growled in agreement and she breathed a sigh of resignation against his chest.

“Alright, fine. Come sit on the couch while I plate everything, then. We’ll just relax and eat there so if you fall asleep immediately afterward it’s not a problem.” She was partially joking, of course, but thought it might not be too far off as she led him into the living room and nudged him onto the couch to sit. Mally wasn’t far behind as the tabby had taken quite a shine to Copia (much to his delight) and promptly jumped onto the couch and settled onto his lap as if to emphasize that he shouldn’t move. He chuckled and tenderly stroked the cat’s head and chin before watching Rosalyn float back into the kitchen. He didn’t say much else, and instead let the music accompany his thoughts as they strayed back to the ritual. He knew he needed to tell her tonight; he had put it off for far-too long, and he couldn’t use his exhaustion as an excuse anymore. But as he peered into the kitchen and watched her, some part of him couldn’t help but imagine what it would have been like if he was not the Papa of the Satanic Ministry. What would their relationship have been like if he were nothing more than a man allowed to enjoy an evening with his girlfriend, tired from some normal job and not over-stressed and anxious about figuring out how to tell his girlfriend about Satanic sex magic?

Mally flopped to her side heavily in his lap, comfortable and purring loudly enough that he chuckled and mirrored her by sinking further back into the cushions. Imperator’s words echoed in his mind: …but if she cares for you as much as you care for her – as I suspect she does…she will understand.

He swallowed the sudden anxious lump in his throat.

The music cut off, and Rosalyn was soon back with two plates of fish and delightfully-seasoned steamed vegetables and roasted potatoes. Their time spent together had proven her to be quite the cook, and they ate their dinner in companionable silence while some old Mel Brooks movie played on the television before them. She took a little time to clean up before settling back on the couch with him, her legs tucked beneath her. After very little time, she felt his head settle against her shoulder and glanced down to find his eyes closed and lips slightly parted, already asleep. She giggled quietly and cautiously shifted them both so she could coax him to lay on the couch, her head settled against a couch pillow nestled against the arm, and – still half-asleep – he sighed heavily with his head in the crook of her neck. Her hands drifted to his hair, gently combing through the greying strands as she continued to watch the movie. She swore it took him mere seconds to lull into a deep sleep, glancing down at him as his breathing changed and a warm, adoring smile tugged at her lips. The butterflies in her stomach somersaulted, her chest weighted with affection at the sight. She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. She had been considering the depth of her feelings for him for several weeks, trying to define them and finding that she kept coming back to that one still-scary word she hadn’t been able to bring herself to say.

She sighed and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his head before settling back with her eyes on the television. Her own eyelids became heavy, and she decided it wouldn’t hurt to fall asleep at least for a little bit…

The dream started as many others: with Thea meeting Antoni at the entrance to the library on a warm summer evening. She had become more open in her affections towards him, not-so-discreetly pressing a kiss to his lips that ignited that familiar fire and desire only he seemed able to stoke. He chuckled as they exchanged greetings and kept a hold of one of her hands.

“I am sorry, Thea, but I do have to run and pick up a book from Scholar Loukas for Professor Hypatia before we can leave.”

She smiled brightly and shrugged. “It is okay! I have a few questions for the professor, anyway, so I will just wait for you here,” she declared brightly.

He chuckled at her excitement and brushed some hair behind her ear. “I better be cautious…if I did not know any better, I would think you were actually meeting me here for the professor and not for me.”

She rolled her eyes and pushed a playful kiss to his cheek. “Oh, hush. It is your fault for introducing us in the first place.” When she allowed some space between them, she bit her lip and met his eyes coyly. “And besides…there is one thing in particular that I only ever let you do that I certainly do not even think about with the professor.”

His cheeks flamed and she erupted into giggles as he muttered something under his breath. “Ah, on that note, I should get going. I will see you in a few moments.”

She agreed and bid him farewell before traipsing into the library. She greeted a few people on her way who guided her to a desk where Hypatia sat, taking notes from a hefty Latin text with a quill. Her long brown hair curled down her back in waves, complexion fair from the amount of time she spent out of the sun and holed up in the library. She looked up at the sound of footsteps coming towards her and smiled at the familiar sight.

“Ah, Thea. How are you this evening?”

“Good, Professor! Nice to see you again!”

She noticed a glimmer in the professor’s eyes before she chuckled. “I can see on your face that you have questions for me, Thea, and I am starting to think that you will be even more of a scholar than Antoni,” she teased. Thea blushed, an apology starting past her lips before Hypatia just giggled and waved a dismissive hand. “I only jest, Thea. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.”

She thanked her quietly, but before she could ask anything, there was a commotion from the library entrance. The two women exchanged confused glances, the unspoken questions being answered as the commotion turned to shouts. The world around her began to feel fuzzy, chaos and fear pervading into her very soul more than she had ever felt before. There was a blur of people and activity, and when next the scene sharpened into focus, she felt an ache in her elbows and shoulders as her arms were twisted behind her back and restrained by a man much larger than herself. Her heart thundered in her chest, throat tight as she watched Hypatia be grabbed by her hair and slammed against the desk she had been working at. There was yelling, and suddenly the world seemed to still as another man walked slowly and calmly into the scene, his presence foreboding as he lifted a hand and the shouting silenced.

Fear gripped her tighter as the familiar Father smirked down at Hypatia before his dark eyes drifted back to her. The lump in her throat constricted tighter, unable to speak as who Rosalyn knew as Jim Defroque met her gaze.

“Thea…” he clucked his tongue with a shake of his head. “This is what has been keeping you from me? From worship? From your place in my parish?” He stepped towards her, finger under her chin to tilt her head back and look into her eyes. There was a darkness in his own that swirled unsettlingly. His brow creased and a sneer curled his lip. “And here I thought it was just that pathetic boy you sin so freely with.” He sighed dramatically and pushed her face downward so all she could see were his felt shoes. “Do you remember what they say of sinners, Thea? Or has it been too long since you were last a part of mass?” Her mouth was too dry to form words, tongue tied in terror. She felt like she was trying to breathe underwater. “One way or another, they return to the fire.” His feet turned away from her. “Hector, secure her here. She will repent in the fire of this library.”

Rosalyn’s eyes flew up, her voice finally breaching past the fear as she screamed, kicked and flailed. The dream became hazy again, intense heat flashing against her face as Defroque’s eyes glowed red within the flames before her and a sinister sneer curled his lips. She swore she could hear Antoni yelling her name as tears streamed down her cheeks and smoke started to choke and suffocate her.

“Rosalyn!” She was thrashing, cheeks stained with tears and drenched in a cold sweat as she gasped for breath, heart racing in her chest. Her eyes were open, that icy blue having taken over her irises again as she flailed against a warm body. She had felt something cool against her cheeks that quickly changed to soft, warm skin. “Rosalyn, cara mia, amore, look at me. You are dreaming!” She gasped for air, suddenly focusing on familiar, concerned mismatched eyes and realizing where she was. Copia watched her irises change again back to that sapphire blue and she finally stopped moving. He was knelt in front of her on the couch, hands on either side of her face. A relieved sob heaved from her chest at the sight of him. He was startled as she threw herself at him. Unprepared, he fell back onto his rear at the momentum of her body weight. He wrapped his arms around her, stunned but relieved she seemed to have awoken from whatever nightmare had shaken her so though broken by the body-wrenching sobs.

They sat on the floor for some time and his hands roamed the expanse of her back, whispering sweet things to her in Italian as her trembling ceased and her tears slowed. It wasn’t until her cheeks dried and her breathing evened that he ventured to speak, but made sure his voice was soft when he did.

“Amore…are you okay? I have never seen you have such a nightmare…” his lips brushed the top of her head and she heaved a shaky sigh.

“I…I’ve never had a nightmare like that…” she murmured against his chest. “It was…it was so real…” Her throat started to tighten and she swallowed, mouth still dry from her crying.

He hummed low in his chest as a frown pulled the corners of his lips downward. His hands never ceased their soothing circles along her back. In all their time spent together, he had never seen such heart-wrenching emotion torn from her and it unsettled him greatly. He never wanted to see or hear that distress from her ever again. “Would you like to talk about it?” he ventured lightly. “…or let it be for now?”

She pondered the offer and shook her head. “It was…I just…I was talking to Hypatia in a library and…someone tied me up and left me there to burn to death…”

The lead weight that dropped into Copia’s gut made him tighten his grip on her, and an unsteady breath heaved into his lungs. He was quiet a moment, measuring his words despite the lead weight of dread in his gut and, most surprisingly, the tears that welled in his eyes. He blinked them away, startled by his own emotional response merely at the thought. “…there is no fire here, you are safe, cara mia…safe here with me.” She buried her face into his chest and inhaled that scent of sandalwood and incense that soothed her so. She nodded slowly.

“Yeah…yeah I am…” she finally agreed and, after another moment, forced a light laugh. “I do need something to drink, though.” She started to separate herself from him and he quite promptly guided her to the couch, instructed her to stay, and then returned with a cold glass of water. He took a seat beside her and waited quietly as she slouched back against the cushions. “I’m…I’m sorry for waking you…that was embarrassing to say the least.”

She felt herself blush at the warm smile on his lips. “You should never feel embarrassed by such things around me, cara mia…we all have nightmares. I’m glad I was here to help you.” She smiled at him and reached out to touch his cheek before kissing him sweetly.

“I think I am, too…” Those words were back on the tip of her tongue, and she promptly swallowed them. There was too much excitement roiling through her for that sort of thing right now. So, instead, she took a breath. “Enough about this shitty dream…what’s up with this ritual that has you so exhausted, anyway?” Her brows lifted as Copia’s expression fell and his eyes immediately dropped to the couch cushions. Nerves started to settle into her chest. She had never seen him avoid her eyes before. A nervous laugh bubbled up past her lips. “You’re not, like…sacrificing virgins or something, are you?”

At that, his eyes widened and he immediately met her gaze, hands up with an aggressive shake of his head. “No! No, no, nothing like that! I just…I have been meaning to talk to you about this ritual for a while but…if you are still upset, I don’t want to…” he trailed off and she sighed and placed a hand on his knee.

“Copia…we might as well just get it out of the way. I mean, it can’t possibly get any worse than that dream I had.” Her laugh was humorless, his gaze uncertain, but she encouraged him to continue. “I need something to take my mind off of it, anyway.” As much as he had rehearsed this conversation in his mind, he couldn’t remember a word of what he had planned to say the moment their eyes met again. He had explained the magic, the ghouls to new initiates but to explain this to her…

“The…the ritual is called The Great Rite. It happens every five years, and is a great source of energy for the Ministry. There is also a chance that a prophecy can be gifted to the Papa who performs it to aid in future endeavors…although it’s not something I have seen happen before.” He watched that curious light spark in her eyes and felt that lump in his throat again. “Rosalyn...this ritual…is…” he cleared his throat in an attempt to speak past it even as it had attempted to choke off his words. “…it is based…” A resigned sigh left his lips. “…it’s sex magic.”

A hush fell over them as Rosalyn processed his words. His eyes had fallen to the couch again, his fingers picking at a stray thread. She blinked, suddenly unsettled. “Sex magic,” she repeated, and he nodded though it wasn’t a question. “Meaning…you, as Papa…would have to…have sex with someone for it to work?”

He cleared his throat and forced his gaze to hers. “Si…typically the upper clergy choose a Sister to represent the Goddess, the reigning Papa her consort and they, eh…perform on the altar before members of the high clergy who will chant prayers, and the ghouls, who feed their elemental magic into both until…” He could see the flicker of hurt in her eyes and immediately took her hand and rushed to clarify. “I wanted to talk to you about this because I…I have not selected a Sister because I don’t think I can. I do not want to break our trust. Part of the reason I have been so tired is I have spent all my free time reading about the Rite to find other ways…and I have.” She didn’t speak, only watched him silently, and so he continued. “…you could do it with me.” His tone was almost a whisper, her brows lifting at his words. “It is up to you, of course…I promise you, Rosalyn, I would never want to pressure you into something you are uncomfortable with. But I read that there was a time where it was actually more common for the Goddess role to be taken by someone outside the Ministry and the magic was just as powerful.” He let the words settle between them a moment, let her process them as he slowly released her hand. “And…and if you are not comfortable with it, I have already decided that I will ask Terzo to do this for me.” He shrugged. “It is his favorite ritual, anyway…”

Rosalyn’s emotions felt raw, reeling with the amount of information he had given her and still over-exhausted and perhaps a bit numb from the intense emotional release her nightmare had brought on. She had obviously known he was no virgin, particularly given the nature of the ministry, but the thought of him so intimate on an altar with someone else in front of others felt…infuriating. “…have you done this…ritual before?”

He shook his head. “No, this would be my first.”

The irritation soothed some and she nodded slowly. She supposed she had been curious about the ritual, had wanted to see it. She was suddenly reminded of the old adage: be careful what you wish for. “I…have more questions.”

He watched her face closely as his heart started to race. Was she really considering it…? He cautiously reached out and took one of her hands in between both of his, this time. “Amore, you can ask me anything and I will answer it truthfully. I promise you this.”

She studied his face, wondering for a moment how he even considered that she would believe him about the magic of the ritual knowing full well she had no faith, no stake in his religion. But in the same breath, she also knew that she was only willing to even entertain the thought because it was him. Had anyone else – including Dean even three or four years into their relationship – brought this up to her, she would likely have cursed them out. But Copia had been open with her and every question she had asked until then, so she knew she would have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“You said something about ghouls and elemental magic…?”

He blanched slightly but nodded. Honestly, he figured this would be the best way to have her understand and see things firsthand, anyway. “Ah, si…once we attain the title of cardinal, we are able to summon our first ghouls, and then more as Papa. The ghouls are…” he faltered a moment for the words before continuing. “…they are summoned from Hell to work with us, serve us. They are each tied to an element and have some power related to that element: quintessence, fire, water, earth, air, multi.”

“Have I seen any of these ghouls?”

He nodded again. “Every being you saw wearing the silver mask is a ghoul.”

She blinked and slouched back into the couch in disbelief. “…all of them?” He nodded. “…Aether is a ghoul?” Another nod answered her incredulous question. “…with powers?”

“Si, he is a quintessence ghoul. He is also the first ghoul I summoned as a cardinal, so he and I also have the closest bond.”

She stared at him another moment before a hand came up to rub her forehead. “Copia…you have to know how hard this is for me to believe…”

He nodded his understanding, not releasing her hand. “I can summon Aether here, if it helps.”

She quirked a brow. “What do you mean summon him here? He’s all the way back at the Ministry, isn’t he?”

Copia shrugged. “He is, yes, but your home is just within range for him, in particular. Quintessence ghouls are quite gifted in this sense.”

She sighed and shrugged; her tone clearly unconvinced. “Fine, yeah, go ahead. Summon him here.”

Copia didn’t hesitate, simply spoke into the air as if it was a part of their ongoing conversation. “Aether Ghoul, if you would please come show Rosalyn.”

There was a pause before Rosalyn felt the air start to shift and glimmer, and then suddenly Aether was standing before them, no mask in sight but with his hands folded behind his back and his head bowed.

“Uh, hey, Miss Rosalyn…I guess he finally told you, huh?”

She gaped at him a moment, but felt her emotional well so run dry she couldn’t react much more than that. Perhaps it was a good thing they were having this conversation after that nightmare. It was also doing a lovely job of putting the fiery dream to the back of her mind. “But…if…he looks just…human I don’t…”

Copia cleared his throat again. “Also magic, a glamor. They are very much not.”

Aether’s weight shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other as Rosalyn’s eyes met his. “Can I…can I see what you really look like?”

Aether’s brows lifted before glancing to Copia who only nodded. “Just…remember I won’t hurt you, okay? I promise. It can…be a little startling.” Rosalyn quirked a brow at his statement and suddenly something shimmered in front of him and the only thing clearly human about him was that he stood on two legs: his skin turned grey, long tail with a spade tip flickered behind him and small horns sprouted from his head. His eyes were dark and seemingly endless, with sharp, jagged teeth lining his mouth as his hands and fingers tapered into claws. Again her jaw dropped and she simply stared.

“Holy fucking shit, you are a ghoul.”

His grin was sharp-mawed and sheepish. “Yeah, that about does it.” From somewhere to their left, Mally had rounded the couch to see what the commotion was about and immediately froze, tail and fur expanding as she hissed and scrabbled back to the safety of the bedroom. Aether cringed. “Oh, shit…uh…sorry little cat!” She was still staring, mind reeling, and Aether spun an awkward circle before glancing between them again as his tail flickered behind him. “So…am I…am I good to go now? Or…did you need anything else?”

Rosalyn blinked and flushed from the tips of her ears down to her chest. “Shit, um…sorry, Aether I’m just over here staring at you like an asshole, um…yeah, no…sorry, thank you.” He seemed surprised at her words, the glamor returning as his smile normalized with a little nod.

“All good, Miss Rosalyn…see ya.” That change in pressure happened again, the atmosphere wavered, and he was just…gone.

She turned to stare at Copia now, who still held her hand in-between both of his. Suddenly the magnitude of just who he was hit her: he was Papa Emeritus IV, leader of the Emeritus Satanic Ministry, summoner of ghouls and, apparently, responsible for truly powerful rituals. Her Copia. And that all meant that there was much more to their religion than she could even fathom in that moment. She took several slow, shaky breaths, calming her reeling thoughts and trying to focus, at least for the time being, on the main question he had for her.

“…okay, so…that’s the ghouls…” she reaffirmed and paused another moment to choose her next words. “How…or, I guess…what does this ritual entail other than the sex?” He blinked and she continued. “I…if I’m going to consider this, I need to know exactly what happens, what to expect.”

Copia’s heart skipped a few beats as her words settled over him. She was really considering this. “Cara mia…this has been a difficult evening, I do not need your answer right away, if you want to take time to think, to process, we can keep talking about this later.”

Her brow furrowed, and he was surprised to see a flash of irritation in her eyes. “Copia, no. I don’t know that I’ll have an answer for you tonight, but I want the information now. I can’t only sit with half of it. Not now.” His hands on hers were surprisingly grounding as he nodded slowly. “I’m not all that delicate.”

“…okie-dokie…” He took a steadying breath, himself. “There is lots of preparation, cleansing on the day of – the ghouls help with that - and the ceremony, itself, starts after sunset. You would be cloaked with a hood, since you are a representative of the Goddess, the goal is to appear anonymous.”

Her head tilted as she interjected. “I wouldn’t have to be uncloaked?”

He shook his head. “Your face would not be uncloaked at all, anything else would only be for, eh…practical purposes.” She nodded for him to continue. “You would be escorted and helped onto the altar, there is a lot of chanting, lit candles, incense, flowers, those types of things. I have to cut my palm and yours to draw blood. We would, eh…” She noted the blush on his cheeks and could have laughed out loud if her emotions hadn’t been so frayed. “…start. The magic feels…feels a bit like electricity on the skin. As things reach…” he cleared his throat again. “…eh, climax, that energy spreads through the Ministry, and it is not uncommon for things like orgies, especially where Secondo and Terzo are concerned. It is a night where Lust reigns, another reason why it is a…popular ritual.” He sighed. “It is also not uncommon for the Goddess to be approached and partake with others…but I will promise not to let anyone else touch you.” His hands turned hers over so his fingers could absently trace her palm. “There is no promising of you to the church, to The Olde One. The only thing is we cannot stop once we start.”

Rosalyn sat quietly with his explanation, an image of the cathedral so grand during the day turned dark at night and lit only by the dim flame of candles as she was led to the altar to Copia. The thought of remaining cloaked did help to reassure her somewhat. There was an odd sensation at the back of her mind, not dissimilar to a little electric tingle of both familiarity and desire. She was confused by it as her eyes searched his. There was no pressure in them, no judgement, just concerned empathy. There was no way she could consider this without hesitations and reservations and yet…

“I would feel the magic? Be affected by it?”

He nodded and chuckled quietly. “The magic does not discriminate, particularly when you would be a pivotal role in its summoning.”

She offered a half-hearted smile. “…and what about if I don’t agree to it?”

He took a deep breath and shrugged. “As I told you, I will ask Terzo to perform in my place.”

“And then…what happens to you? Is there, like a punishment? Judgement?”

He shrugged once more. “I don’t know, exactly…a Papa has never declined before that I know of.”

She watched him again, silently stunned that he was offering to sacrifice something so seemingly important for her comfort. She felt that emotion well in her chest again, those words still rolling on her tongue as he simply continued to watch her with unfettered affection. She somehow knew her answer in that moment: knew she wouldn’t need more time to think about it, knew she could inherently and unashamedly trust him in her moments of discomfort no matter the situation.

“Copia…I…I’ll do this…for you.”

He blinked, stunned, as his hands and fingertips froze in their patterned circles. He attempted to speak a few times, at first only a choked noise that made her laugh hesitantly before he finally found words. “Rosalyn, amore, I mean it: I don’t need your answer now, I truly do not want you to feel pressured to do this.”

She smiled tenderly and extended her free hand to cup his chin, forcing his eyes to meet hers even as the affectionate nickname made her heart flutter. “Thinking on it longer isn’t going to change my answer, I promise. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about it, but…I don’t think I can let you give up something so important to you and the Ministry in good conscience.”

For the briefest of moments, she thought she saw the glimmer of tears welling in his eyes before an array of affectionate, grateful words spilled from his lips in a rush and he pulled her into his chest, peppering kisses along the top of her head, forehead and cheeks. A shaky laugh parted her lips.

“I promise you, amore, I will do absolutely everything I can to keep you comfortable.”

Rosalyn inhaled deeply. She was pretty sure the weight of her decision wouldn’t hit her at least for another day or two. But somehow, that little voice in the back of her mind reassured her that this was the correct – and only – choice she could make.

~

AO3 Link

[mingot-studios]

Things currently polluting my mind (will be added to as i think of things)

 How bad the Star vs. Finale was, and weather i should even bother trying to watch the show again at this point

The fact that the next JoJolion chapter is coming out soon and I STILL haven’t read 107 with my mom even though I’ve already read it

Not being caught up on One Piece and having 0 IDEA of whats happening at this poin as well starting to flaws with the series (racism, transphobia, and homophobia) that i knew was there but chose to ignore and weather it should hinder my relationship with the series. Also wanting to murder Oda for demoting Franky to ‘Pervy Grandma’ (srsly wtf oda)

Upset Infinity Train was cancelled even though i never watched it, and wonder why the fans cry for it to come is suddenly not happening?

The fact i’m going to be returning to in person schooling which is my personal HELL

my brother leaving for college upstate (Me and my brother have never really been that close, we fight alot but I cant imagine life without him)

The fact that my procrastination has gotten so bad that I nearly had to retake PE, World History, and English

The Owl House coming back on the 12th but i had downloaded the first 2 episodes but haven’t watched them and debating if i should, also having a meltdown  over Disney screwing the show over and having its third be 3 or 4 (i cant remember) 44-minute specials

The fact that me and brother STILL haven’t finished our Yume 2kki Let’s Play

I haven’t been watching anime regularly with my mom

I haven’t posted anything to my DeviantArt or YouTube in months

I have so much energy right now but no outlets

I still haven’t tried out my drawing pad i got for my birthday last year

I have so many drawing ideas but my spiral sketchpad is filled up and I have yet to get a new one

Ive many intricit and detailed story ideas that i know im gonna forget if i dont write them down bu due my procrastination i haven’t done so im prolly gonna lose everything

The fact Thurston Waffles hasn’t posted anything since late April as well as the fact that he’s got Kidney problems

So many ideas for videos but I only have WindowsMovieMaker and the HumbleBundle my mom got me idk YEARS ago won’t install

I’m gonna be 17 at the end of September, which i only have until next June before I graduate High school, have to give up my Chromebook, start thinking about college and getting a job, possibly moving out and living on my own, the knowledge that my parents are in their late 50′s and early 60′s so hey might be gone sooner than most parents and I dont know how to function without my parents doing everything for me

These weird tingles ive been getting in my body for he pas couple days

The fact that im not gonna a kid soon and im gonna have to grow and stop doing whatever i want whenever i want and i’m gonna never accomplish my dream of creating a successful cartoon and will probably end up at a dead end job I HATE just to make ends meet and eventually dying alone because I dont wanna be in a relationship or have kids

Everything is too overwhelming. The light, the sound, my thoughts, its all too much. I wanna curl up into a tiny ball and disappear from this awful experience called life

Capitalism

i hate being so passionately when i’m upset, everyone else is calm but i have meltdowns and freaks outs over things i shouldn’t even care about or are miniscule (Comes with being autistic i guess)

I have 0 patience and i hate it

I’m starting to regress back to being a childish brat after all the progress i’ve made

i’m constantly surrounded by either criticism or praise that contradict each other so i dont know what to believe about myself

the fact that i have so many great story ideas but i cant write a cohernt thought with proper grammer or sytax or spelling o save my life, nor the art skill or the patience or the tech to draw comics

i haven seen my therapist in days and i need help but i know im not actually gonna change 

having gender panic

I have no in person friends and ive forgotten how to interact with people

ive become a noodle limbed nerd

Ive gotten super skinny

I want someone o break through my shell and help me change bu I know thats just a fantasy and im the only one who can do that but im too lazy to put effort into it

everything i used to enjoy suddenly feels tedious monotonous repetitive and uninteresting

I feel trapped and scraed 

The fact after being bulied so much the only way i can really assert myself is to get violent and angry because they would want me breakdown and cry

I have this image in my head of who i want to be; And badass that people including adults, are scared of and know not to fuck with me or they’ll get hurt (Basically Jotaro, bu I’ve had this image since before i even knew what jojo was) And the fact I KNOW that i’s a pointless endever and that i only dig my own grave when i get mad but its like ingrained Branded into my my psyche so im always going to larp that vision of myself but not get anywhere and only regress further

I want to address my problems and change but I never do and stay static and regress

I cant take crticisim even though i know its true

The reason im so scared of writing fanfiction is because i know its gonna be a mess despite what i think is a great story and people will end up mocking it and what little self confidence i have will shatter

Star Vs wasted potential

the fact that I dont know where to take the whole “Rubi dies at the  end of he first season but comes back o life except she’s not actually she’s just a walking meat sack containing an anchint eldritch god that will, sooner or later, burst out of her and destroy her body, and she’s fighting for control of her ow body due to Skarlotus trying to devor her soul and Data’s medience is only delaying the inevitable” storyline of my concept cartoon, The Crypto Club

I have an AMAZING idea for an Invader Zim storyline that has fascism, rascism, mass genocide, child soldiers, political intrigue, propaganda, baiscally space hitler and more (okay that came out sound REALLY bad, but NONE of it painted as good!) It also involves Zim and Dib coming together to stop an even bigger threat and there is a really ironic ending that brings my OC GA83′s story full circle

[cynic-spirit]

The word Series (5) Kairos – The perfect, delicate, crucial moment, that creates the perfect atmosphere

MAsterlist

…………………………………………………She………………………………………………………………….

At the party She mingled with a few people. Her aunt introduced her to both Jack and Alyssha. After grabbing her drink she goes around and admires the house. The wall full of photographs intrigued her and one of the photos got her attention and surprised her. It was that of Jack with the man she had met before. It was Jack with Sy. They were in uniform with what looked liked in a desert. She admired Sy, not much has changed, except the fact that now Sy has glasses. He still looks as good as before. It made sense to her now. Looking at him she had an idea he would be in some work where he would use his strength. It makes sense that he was in the army. She wouldnShe’t admit it out loud but this impressed her and made her slightly blush. In comparison, the Sy with glasses looked like a badass geek. She thought of all their meetings, Sy was intimidating but also kind of awkward. She thought about his life, he has seen so many deaths and destruction, probably. Maybe she passed a judgement on him too soon. She too has seen people assuming things about her. Often people thought of her as arrogant when she was just shy and anxious. She inferred that if Jack and Sy are close, then she would definitely meet him today at the party. She will try to be more pleasant with him this time.

………………………………………………….Sy……………………………………………………………………..

Sy is at the party trying to talk with people. He wants to mingle but somehow cannot. He takes a mug of beer and goes to the pool table to play with his brother in law. The party is a small affair. It is evening and there is light music playing in the background. He is calmer in comparison to the last two days. Sy decides that once the party is over he would talk to his sister about whatever happened and ask for an advice.

Sy looks around their house. It is wonderfully decorated. Flowers all over. It is almost unlike the style of her sister who is often loud in her taste of decoration. All her previous parties had weird lights and decorative pieces. Flowers have given their home a beautiful intimate feel. Sy doesn’t even know the names of half the flowers but they look beautiful and they smell heavenly. He is smelling one of the lilies when he hears the voice of Alyssha

Never thought you to be the one who liked flowers Sy

Sy turns around and smiles at her

Never thought you to be the one having them Aly

I take it you like the decoration?

Its more beautiful than the house! Where did you get all these flowers??

Remember Jack’s nanny?

Yeah? Don’t tell me that old woman grows all these! Sy chuckles

Actually, her niece, she grows all these, quite talented has a degree and everything. You gotta meet her. Maybe you’ll like her.

(I am in love with a nameless woman already sis, Sy thinks)

Is she here?

Yeah, she must be somewhere around, quite shy. Doesn’t talk much.

Alyssha looks around the house. Her eyes settle in one direction.

Oh there she is.

Sy looks in the direction and cannot believe his eyes. (Oh Fuck me!!! He thinks. Its his mystery woman. No, no, no, it wont be my sister telling me her name. I gotta ask her myself. He turns to his sister

Aly why don’t you attend your party, I’ll introduce myself.

All right cool

After she leaves, Sy composes himself. All right, no poop talk, no fleas, no toilet paper. Go over there Sy and greet. Ask her the name and probably let her talk first. Sy decides in his mind as he saunters in her direction. Onto the battlefield soldier! Sy mutters under his breath. As he walks to her he realized how beautiful she looked. Skirt, top, open hair, Yeah, she has totally floored him.

Sy goes to her. She sees him and his presence makes her gasp.

Hi, we meet again

Umm.. hi.. …

Okay before anything, please tell me your name I have to know your name first. Sy rambles quickly.

(wao Sy, great way to extort someone’s name, he says to himself)

You don’t know my name yet? (She sounded surprised)

No! you haven’t told me….. yet. Sy says with a smile, finally behaving a little human

Oh, I am so sorry about that. I didn’t realize.

That’s all right. It happens.

There is a small moment of silence between them and Sy says.

So…? Sy breaks the silence

Ivona……. Ivona Marianne Hill.

Ivona, Sy tests her name. (what a beautiful name Sy thought)

You have a beautiful name. You have no idea how great it feels to finally put a name to your face. I have been thinking about it since we met, but something or the other kept interrupting our conversation.

(Stop rambling you doofus, let her talk for once, Sy pauses)

…..I guess. (she shrugs and looks down)

Are you here alone Ivona?

No I came with my aunt, she used to babysit Jack.

Wao, small world. Jack is my brother in law.

Oh.. nice.

Wait, that means you supplied these flowers?

Yes.

They are beautiful. I have never seen some of them in these parts.

Thank you. ………………….I have a small farm, I grow orchids, lilies, roses and some other varieties there.

You didn’t bring Cerberus.

She smiled and looked down again and Sy felt his heartbeat rise.

No, I didn’t think it would be appropriate to bring him here. Its not necessary my aunt is here with me.

If you don’t mind me asking, why is he your service dog.

Its okay Sy, I have severe anxiety and sometimes in large crowds I get panic attacks. He helps me get by.

I am sorry to hear that. I hope the party is not overwhelming

No its not. Its actually nice to meet a few people here. Did you come alone here Sy?

Yes. Who would come with me. (Sy finally felt better to make conversation with her)

Your girlfriend?

My Girlfriend? (My girlfriend, who the fuck is my girlfriend, I want YOU to be my girlfriend Sy thinks)

The girl from the library?

She is not my girlfriend. She was just.. I don’t know what she was doing. But she is definitely not my girlfriend, Ivona.

Oh. I am sorry for assuming.

Its fine. Its fine. Everybody assumes. Not that I am saying that about you. I mean, its okay to make inferences based on certain observations which I did when I met you. It wasn’t anything bad, it was just observation. More like putting skills at work, I used to do that, when I was in the army, I am not now, I have been relieved honorably. Also sorry for the toilet paper and the fleas. I didn’t mean to talk about it. My dog is fine now. I bought everything I need from the store…

At that moment Sy saw her look at him with an open-mouthed expression and realized he had been babbling again and not making any sense. He immediately stopped talking and pinched the bridge of his nose.

I messed up again, didn’t I? Sy said.

Its okay Sy, We all get nervous sometimes. Although I don’t understand why you would be nervous around me.

Sy was finally able to breathe now. Could this woman be any more perfect than she already is? Between the two of them, he was the confident army guy and she was the one with anxieties and it was her calming him. Sy chuckled.

I think I am just rusty around people. Have been in the army most of my life.

What were you in the army?

I was in the sniper unit.

It sounds both amazing and tedious.

You are not wrong about that Ivona. (Sy just loved saying her name. Ivona, Ivona, he could chant it like a prayer. Ivy for short? Ivo? Iva? Iv? Honestly, at that moment, he was just so happy to think anything else)

It was unexpected to see you again here Sy. Nice to meet you. I have to go now. I have to attend to the plants.

Can I see ya again? Sy spoke immediately.

Oh? Why?

Just to talk maybe?

All right. But I cant commit a time or date. Lots of work in the garden with the new seeds and flowers.

I can come there. Will that be okay with you?

You want to visit my flower farm?

Judging by the flowers decorated here, I think it would be beautiful. (Sy managed another smile from her)

All right Sy, its nearby. Just ask anyone for Hill’s Heartland. It’s the name of my flower farm.

Ill see you.

Bye Sy.

Bye Ivona.

Sy watched her as she left. This party has been successful for him. Everything was just perfect now. He finished his beer, put down the mug. After talking to a few of the people in the party, he too left, but this ride was different. Sy was humming as he drove back. Ivona, he said aloud again. He opened the door and put the keys in he bowl. He fed his dogs again, Django, Kal, Aika, Major, and Tuff. After changing, he laid on his bed, thinking of her. She had a beautiful name and she made him comfortable. He realized one thing, he might have killed so many people In the army as a sniper, but he had never thought that talking to someone would be so difficult. Ivona had a condition, yet she managed to show both empathy and encouragement to hi. She talked to him without malice and judgement. Life certainly has its ways to surprise someone. Hill’s Heartland, what a beautiful name for a garden. He will definitely visit her the next day and take two of his dogs, Kal and Aika, the oldest ones. They know how to behave around ladies. With these thoughts, Sy fell asleep peacefully for the first time ever.

@oddsnendsfanfics @omgkatinka @kmuir1 @agniavateira @readermia

@awesomeidiot32 @rmtndew @mis-lil-red​

[prurientpuddlejumper]

A Lipless Face That I Want to Marry, Ch. 1

Chapter 2 ->

Summary: Surviving being bitten and burned alive by the Red Dragon was the easy part. Frederick Chilton has a long road ahead before things will ever be close to normal again. But your fiancé is a fighter, and you’ll be with him the whole way. 

Sequel to A Punchable Face That I Want to Kiss

CW: hospitals, surgery, major injury recovery. Sorry for the silly title, this will, in fact, be an angst-fest. 

2,368 words

He seemed fine that first day—as fine as anyone could be after surviving what he had. His skin was red and cracked from being set on fire, and both his lips had been violently torn off—but they had found him in time. He was in the hospital recovering. Talking. You were able to speak with him, and reassure him that you still wanted to marry him, however long his recovery would take. Lips or no lips. You loved him.

You thought that meant he was going to be fine. The Red Dragon didn’t kill him.

But it wasn’t that simple.

His kidney started failing. Dehydration. He needed a massive amount of IV fluids to replace what he had lost and save him, but that volume of fluid had consequences. It made his body swell up to the point that you couldn’t recognize him—to the point that his airway was swollen closed and he couldn’t breathe on his own. And his single, struggling kidney might fail anyway.

Just a day ago he was talking to you, laughing as you teased him, telling you that you didn’t have to stay with him, and crying when you said you would. You had yelled at him for being such an idiot.

When you walked in the next morning, he was gone.

Overnight, he was like a cadaver, lying unconscious with ventilator and feeding tubes stuffed down his throat. Why did you yell at him?

You were so helpless. There was nothing you could do to make any sort of difference, not even encourage him with tender words or a joke. He couldn’t hear you. He was gone. Every snarky, sassy, smug, self-important, dramatic, gossipy remark was gone—silenced—leaving you with a body and no idea when or if he would wake up. All you could do was watch as he swelled, and hope that the fluids did their job saving his life before they killed him. All you could do was be grateful for every breath, every stubborn heartbeat, and pray they didn’t stop.

A doctor told you his chances of waking up would be slim for a healthy person. With ninety percent of his skin destroyed, bacteria could easily enter his bloodstream, and he could rapidly die of sepsis. The complication of his previous organ damage—especially the kidney Abel Gideon removed—made his probability of recovering next to zero.

“You don’t know what he’s lived through,” you seethed. “He did not survive three different serial killers just to die now. So you are not going to treat him like a lost cause, or…” You tried to think of what he would say, “Or I will sue this hospital for malpractice! That is the renowned psychiatrist and bestselling author Dr. Frederick Chilton, and you will not give up on him.”

Blustering didn’t suit you. And haughty threats couldn’t bring his swelling down. The doctors were doing everything they could, but the internal pressure became too much for him to breathe, even with the assistance of a ventilator and oxygen tubes in his nose. They carted him away to the operating room to cut more holes in him.

All you could do was watch.

“It will cause additional scarring,” a very kind nurse with curly hair explained to you as you blinked vacantly in a waiting room, trying not to break down, “but it should allow his chest to expand and save his life.”

You nodded, arms wrapped around your chest. He wouldn’t even notice a few more in the highway map of scars that his body had become. So long as he survived. You were supposed to get married. You just wanted him to wake up.

  ***

Frederick Chilton awoke in a bare and lonely hospital room.

A nurse came in to check on him after a few minutes of blinking groggily and trying to get his bearings through the static fuzz clouding his mind. She explained what had happened, reviewed the medications he was on, showed him the button to press to call for help, and handed him a remote control. No visitors to announce. No one waiting in the lobby all night, haggard with worry, for him to regain consciousness. No flowers crowding the bedside table.

The small television attached to the far wall, which he could barely see or hear, was less than useless, and the morphine drip prevented him from being able to focus enough to read a book. So he lay in bed, alone, in silence save for the tedious beep of the heart monitor.

It was so dull, he was grateful for having been unconscious for the last thirty hours, which was how long it took for the surgeons to get all the organs back inside of him that Abel Gideon took out, determining which ones were viable to go back, and which would go septic and kill him. Like a jigsaw puzzle. Humpty Dumpty, and not all of the pieces could be put together again.

Days passed, and his only visitor was a police officer there on a formality to take his statement.

He would have thought being disemboweled would make a man more popular. Of course it didn’t. This spared him his pride, at the least—he couldn’t tolerate visitors seeing him pale and clammy-skinned, whimpering with pain in a miserable little hospital gown—and for that he was grateful of his churlish nature, which pushed everyone well past arm’s length.

And yet, he wished they would at least try. He wanted people clamoring at his recovery room door so that he could send them away.

He would never be subjected to the indignity of being seen so weak—and yet, what he wouldn’t give to walk in to his office on his first day back and have all of his employees treat him softly, like he was some fragile thing, and not the tyrant they despised. To have them ask if he was all right.

Why didn’t he have more visitors? More flowers? More cards?

He was not well-liked, but he was distinguished. That warranted somebody stopping by with condolences. It was just that there was so little in his bare hospital room to distract him from the pain.

As the anesthetic wore off, a throbbing soreness radiated out from his abdomen, growing sharper with time. It was agonizing. With every breath, the contracting of his diaphragm and the expanding of his lungs and ribs tormented the stitches in his skin and the abused organs inside. He was either pumped full of so much morphine he couldn’t stay awake, or was clear-headed and wishing they would pump him full of more drugs so he could not be.

His mother sent a card, and so did the staff of the Baltimore State Hospital For The Criminally Insane. Both had flowers on the front, watercolor roses, and flowing script font in gold, and both meant equally little.

Perfunctory.

The one from the hospital had been insisted upon by the administrator, who had forced the staff to sign it. Each message was generic and impersonal, like they’d been taken from a standardized get-well form letter—although a few were kind enough to make him close his eyes and pretend they were genuinely meant for him. “We miss you, and wish you a speedy recovery!” His heart turned to think one of his employees really missed him and looked forward to him returning. He found the name signed under the message. He had no idea who it was, but he was certain he had never spoken to them.

The one from his mother had most likely been picked out by a maid, presented to her to mark her signature, and then mailed by said maid. It served mainly as a reminder that she hadn’t bothered to visit in person.

Both stung more to receive than if he had no cards at all—written proof that the only way anyone cared for him was as a formality.

There was a third card, however. The only one sent by someone who wasn’t socially obligated to.

You.

Unlike the others, it was completely unexpected. Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, or Hannibal Lecter he would have understood, but you were last person he expected to hear from.

It wasn’t even a real card, but printed at home on plain, flimsy printer paper with a cartoon dog wearing a cone-collar that said “Sorry you’re feeling ruff” on the cover. The inside had a short, hand-written message: Glad you didn’t die.

Childish. Cheap. He should have been insulted. The whole thing was obviously intended to convey how little you cared. But he kept the damned thing long after he’d thrown the other two in the trash. He wished you would come visit so he could tell you how tacky you were to your face. Perhaps it was best that you didn’t—he would have wanted to buy himself flowers to fill the room with first, so it wouldn’t seem as if you were the only one who cared, or that your tasteless little gesture was anything of significance to him.

He was Dr. Frederick Chilton. It was important for you to know that he didn’t need you at all.

  ***

Frederick’s eyes moved behind closed lids. The swollen purple lids began to twitch, then slowly creep open. The room was hazy and bright with colors streaking at odd geometric angles away from the lights that produced them.

All he could make out were flowers. Dozens of them, hundreds, surrounding him in a resplendent cloud cloud of white and lavender. Either he fell asleep outside in the garden, or he had died and somehow gotten into heaven.

“No, you’re alive, Frederick,” you said from somewhere close. He must have been whispering to himself out loud. Your voice was wavering with powerful sobs that you shoved down to force it to sound soft and patient, but he could hear the laughter in it, too. “You’ve been out for awhile, but you’re doing really well. You just had a successful surgery. They finished debriding your burns and installing temporary grafts so you don’t go septic. Oh, and they were able to get a skin sample! It’s already in the lab so they can start growing you some of your own new skin.”

“Where…?” he blinked a few times, and tried to move before realizing he couldn’t. His body was heavier than lead and a dull ache like paper being torn pulsed beneath his skin at odd intervals. He went to lick his lips, but they weren’t there. His tongue hit empty air above his teeth, and then nothing until it encountered a gauze bandage and a plastic tube going into his nose.

That brought everything crashing back, and he groaned at reality, missing the previous few moments of anesthetic fog when the Red Dragon was just a dream.

You sat beside his hospital bed, on the side of his good eye, watching over him with a hopeful smile, rambling on about how happy you were that he was awake. There was a blue hospital blanket folded over the arm of the chair, and your hair was a mess—he wondered how long you’d been there. Every inch of surface space that wasn’t needed for medical purposes was covered in roses.

“You bought out Holland’s entire stock of flower exports.”

The way the words scraped sluggishly and humorlessly from his hoarse throat, his eyelids drooping lifelessly, made it sound like a reproach—but you laughed. You always laughed at his jokes. 

“They’re all fake,” you admitted. “Hospital rules—you’re an infection risk.”

He wanted to flash you a charming smile, but he couldn’t. He did not know if his face would ever be able to produce a smile again, or how many agonizing surgeries it would take before it could. You wanted to squeeze his hand and kiss him softly, over and over, but you couldn’t. It would be weeks before you could casually touch his skin without the risk of it ripping off. At least now that he was wrapped head to toe in thick gauze, you could reach out and gently rest your hand on top of his. It stung bitterly, but he didn’t show it—he didn’t want you to take your hand away. The pressure was comforting, and your engagement ring sparkled on your finger. 

“I am… glad to see you. These places can be so dull.” He met your gaze, hoping his one functional eye could shoulder the entire burden of body language in conveying his gratitude. He felt so defeated. Hollowed out. He stared up at the plain white ceiling. His words were often callous; it was physical passion which had brought you together in the first place, and without it, he feared he may begin to push you away like everyone else.

“Frederick,” you smiled, but your eyes looked like they might cry. “I’m glad to see you, too. Really glad. I don’t know who was there looking out for you the last few times you were in the hospital, but I wanted to make sure you know how loved you are this time. I’m going to be here every single day with books, and podcasts, fake flowers, and anything you want that I’m allowed to sneak in, until we can go home together.”

He didn’t want to say something trite like, “I couldn’t do this without you.”

He could.

He had before. But he didn’t want to. He never wanted to again. You had wormed so deeply into his heart and given his world color and meaning he had never known, even in his darkest moments. You made the biggest things seem unimportant, and the smallest things monumentally significant. He could never tell you how important you were to him, what it meant to not be alone.

The heart monitor betrayed the warm fluttering in his chest as the slow, steady beeping rapidly increased. You glanced up at the machine with concern, then back down to him, a sly grin spreading across your cheeks. Prideful embarrassment was written clearly all over his face, even with only part of his face left.

You wished more than ever that you could kiss him.

[klynn-stormz]

This is my other fanfiction I am working on. I watched Legally Blonde a little bit ago and couldn’t let go of this idea. I have two chapters up so far and try to post every sunday! I hope you enjoy!

“He is totally going to propose tonight!” Ana squealed. “He’s is taking you to The Grande Restaurant!” “We need to get you something to wear!” Rapunzel cried. Emma grinned at her two sorority sisters. It was their final year of college and her boyfriend Neal Johnathan Cassidy IV was taking her to the best restaurant in the city. He said he had something important to talk to her about. When she had gotten the text, she had run to the sorority house to tell everyone the news. Now while Emma looked the part of a sorority girl, after spending a bit of time with her you would never guess, nor understand why she chose to be a part of one. Emma Swan had grown up in foster care till she was 16 when she was adopted by the wealthy Ingrid Winter. She never expected to be adopted, let alone by someone like Ingrid, but it was the best thing that could have happened to her. Ingrid sent her to the same university she herself had gone too. And insisted that she could choose whatever major she wanted, as long as she joined a sorority. “You need to make friends Emma,” Ingrid had told her. “what better way to do that than a sorority?” Truthfully Emma had found it a bit tedious in the beginning. She had joined at her mom’s request, didn’t really put much effort into getting to know anyone, but the girls were determined. And with a lot of pushing and begging, she eventually joined in their activities and found that she actually liked it! She found there wasn’t anything wrong with liking nice clothes, and shoes, and most of the girls in the sorority were actually pretty smart. Her major was fashion merchandising because that’s what her mother had done and it seemed like it worked out pretty well for her. She finally found somewhere she mostly fit. When Neal came into the picture two years ago, she had fallen hard and fast. Everything was going perfectly with them; he was planning on becoming a lawyer like his father and his fathers’ father; so, she thought that a proposal was just around the corner with him leaving for Harvard the next year. “A summer wedding would be so perfect.” Ana commented on their way to shop. “Like he could go into college with a wife, and you would be Mrs. Neal Johnathan Cassidy IV! It’s perfect!” “He hasn’t proposed yet Ana.” Emma reminded her. “Oh please, what else is he going to do?” She responded. --- They went to three different stores before they found one that seemed a good place to start. She tried on every dress imaginable, in every possible color. “I’m thinking red is your color!” Rapunzel said. “That way you blow him away!” The store clerk, who had been eavesdropping looked at her co-worked and whispered “I love a dumb blonde with daddy’s money to spend.” She grabbed a dress from their clearance section, ripped the tag off and walked towards the women. “I have the perfect dress for you! This one just came in, it’s the newest on DeVile’s line.” Emma turned and raised an eyebrow. “Oh! It’s a new DeVile? And it has a button down back with a draped skirt?” The worker smiled. “It’s one of a kind.” “Yeah it must be.” Emma agreed before giving the worker a bored look. “DeVile hasn’t done a button down back since 2010, and her draped skirts are so much more elegant. This is clearly a Jameson and I saw it in Vouge two years ago. If you’re trying to sell it to me for full price, well, you’re wasting your time.” The girls laughed at the chagrin on the girls face and left the store to keep searching. Eventually they found the perfect dress! It was a pink backless dress; it had a deep neckline and thin straps over the shoulders. Emma loved it. --- Neal arrived five minutes late to the sorority house, which was pretty usual for him. He had on a light gray suit and dark shades, even though it was eight at night. He stood in the foyer grinning at the passing girls, checking out more than a few. When Emma descended the stairs, his eyes widened with lust. “Hi beautiful.” He purred. “Ready to go?” Emma smiled and agreed. She glanced back at her sisters, they gave her thumbs up and huge smiles. The drive to the restaurant was quiet, nerves danced in Emma’s belly but she pushed them down. She was ready for this. After arriving and being seated they began to talk about their days, mostly Neal’s day. His family was very overbearing sometimes with all their expectations of him. “So, honey, I wanted to bring you hear to talk about my future.” Neal began when their food came. “I am fully amenable to that.” Emma grinned. “This has been a bit of a whirlwind few years, and it’s been so fun. But now that I’m getting ready to go to Harvard, I need to get my act together. I need someone who is going to stand by me and be there for me.” “Of course.” “So… Sweetie, Emmy.” He leaned over and grasped her hand. Her heart raced. “I think we should break up.” “Yes!” Emma spoke at the same time, before everything came crashing down. “Wait what?” “Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about this and it just seems like the right thing to do. I need to be with someone who has their life together Ems, someone with the same goals as me.” She stared at him in shock. “I mean if I want to run for office someday, I need a Jackie, not a Marilyn.” “You’re breaking up with me because I’m to pretty?” She shouted; diners began to turn their way in concern. “No, it’s not just that Sweetie. I mean, my family name means something, you know? Could you imagine if I married you? You don’t really have any family and that just won’t go over well in my circles, you know that. I mean you are only in college because of Ingrid, and your major is in fashion merchandising. That doesn’t scream smart and prestige.” He seemed confused that she didn’t understand his reasons. Emma’s mind spun and she felt a little sick. “You’re…” Her voice trembled, now most of the diner’s eyes were on them, with a mix of horror, anger and fascination. “Let me get this straight, you are breaking up with me because I’m too pretty, not smart enough, and an orphan?! Is that right?” Tears began to stream down her face of their own accord. She wiped at them angrily. “Well have a good life Neal.” She turned on her heel and stormed out. The restaurant looked to Neal who looked more put out and embarrassed than he had a right to be. The glares and mutters from women made him decide to pay for the check and at least try and take Emma home. It was a fairly long walk after all and seemed the least he could do. Emma walked home as briskly as her four-inch Prada heels would let her. The entire conversation kept repeating in her head, and with every re-run, the tears came quicker and her breaths turned to hiccups. “Sweetie, get in the car.” Neal’s Audi convertible slowed down to a crawl next to her. “Please, it’s cold out and too far to walk.” She shook her head and kept going. “You’ll ruin your shoes.” He wheedled. She stopped, looked at him, and took off her shoes before continuing down the street barefoot. Neal gave up and drove off. --- A month later Ana and Rapunzel were whispering outside her door. “I can hear you both.” Emma called out crossly. They both shifted and walked in. The normally tidy room was a mess. Dirty clothes piled in the corner, junk food wrappers on the ground. Emma lay in her bed watching some depressing soap, occasionally chucking pieces of chocolate at it when a romantic scene came on. Her chihuahua Henry curled up by her side, trying to comfort her. “Oh honey, you are a mess.” Ana blurted out. Emma glared at her before turning her attention back to the screen. “You need to leave your room! You haven’t been out in weeks except for classes.” Added Rapunzel. “I know just what you need!” Ana claimed. “Put on something clean and put your hair up, the grease is really showing.” Emma rolled her eyes but finally obeys, they wouldn’t leave her alone till she did. As they walked out of the sorority Ana grabbed a few girls and ordered them to clean up Emma’s room, she needed something nice and clean to come back to. At the salon they got their hair done, Ana knew it was much needed seeing Emma’s greasy hair. They were in the middle of their manicures, talking to everyone about Emma while her nails dried. “She didn’t wash her hair for over a week! A week. It’s crazy!” Rapunzel said. “And her cuticles were just a mess. I think she even wore a sweater from Wal-Mart the other day! Can you imagine?” Emma listened with half an ear as her friends gossiped, she always found it amusing. The older lady next to her had the new Vouge magazine so she was stuck with DailyNews. As she flipped through it, she landed on a page that caught her eye. Harvard Law Graduate making waves with charity work. She read the article, it was about a young woman who had graduated from Harvard Law and was getting married to a wealthy man, she was smart, charitable and kind of pretty. “This is the kind of girl Neal wants.” Emma exclaimed to the woman next to her. “I could be this girl! If I go to Harvard then maybe I don’t need to have a family for him to love me!” Before anyone could answer she rushed out of the salon. When her friends found her later, she was in her room studying on her computer. “What are you doing?” Rapunzel asked, concerned. “Girls! I’m going to Harvard!” She announced proudly. “What like on a trip? Can we come? Road trip!” Ana squealed. “No, I’m going to Harvard Law, that’s the type of girl Neal wants! If he sees that I can do that then he will definitely fall for me.” She explained. “You shouldn’t have to change for a guy! Like he should love you no matter what.” Ana stated frowning. “I love him.” Was all Emma could respond with. The two girls looked at each other and shrugged. “Well if you’re going to do this you need this!” Rapunzel handed her a hair clip. “Your clip?” Emma asked touched. “My lucky clip! It helped me pass Spanish first year.” She winked. Ana raised an eyebrow. “You passed Spanish because sat in the front row with no bra for the whole semester.” Rapunzel scoffed. “Yeah, luckily.” “Alright girls, let’s find out what it takes to go to Harvard.” Emma grinned. This was the right path; she could feel it in her bones.

[possiblyimbiassed]

John’s wedding is a crime scene - Part IV

In Part III of this meta series I came up with a rather horrible hypothesis: What if Sherlock and John actually did get intimate on the stag night, but none of them wanted to admit this fact - perhaps not even to themselves - for different reasons? Which was what ultimately broke Sherlock’s heart and made him OD after the wedding? This is a rather speculative idea of course; it could definitely be very wrong, and I don’t actually wish it to be true. But this is still what I see, and it would explain certain things in the show, so I might as well try to provide evidence and explain what makes me jump on this train of thoughts.

In Part III I tried to point out the distinct, symbolic resemblance between the Mayfly Man’s ‘crime scene’ and 221B. This, together with John showing up in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen the following morning, makes me think John and Sherlock never actually left Baker Street after the stag night. And their leaving 221B is not confirmed by John’s blog. So if they never left 221B, what did actually happen?

Permit me a bit of more analysis and shameless speculation (if you’re already bored, you can just skip this part, because it’s long and maybe tedious :) ).

So if they never left 221B, what about this nurse who came between them? I think ‘Tessa’ is either incredibly naïve, or lying. As @raggedyblue said in the addition to Part III, ‘Tessa’ only dates a guy one night, and it’s only dinner out and exchange of numbers. If she doesn’t hear anything from him after that (and she didn’t seem to know him before) why would she go to his flat to investigate? In the show ‘Tessa’ says that she thought he’d at least call to say they were finished. But how can you finish something that never actually started?

We could also ask why John followed Sherlock home after the pub round, instead of going home to his soon-to-be wife? Well, alcohol might have had to do with it. But the alibi of a case sounds better, doesn’t it? ;) Actually, during the wedding planning scene in TSoT (and this is part of Sherlock re-telling some cases from John’s blog in his best man speech), Sherlock tells us “I once broke an alibi by demonstrating the exact severity of...” until he’s interrupted by ‘Mary’. And he says this directly after he claims to have solved another case “without leaving the flat”. Hmm... By the way, this is also the scene where Sherlock is showing off his skills with the serviettes:

The swan looks a tiny bit cocky, don’t you think? (Of course it does - swans are some of the cockiest birds I know ;))) ‘Mary’ made him choose the Opera House, though, whatever that might symbolise...

Anyway, What if John is lying in his blog post, and the interruption from this ‘nurse’ (whose name is not revealed in the blog post) was actually a phone call or a text message from ‘Mary’? Which they might have dismissed, John perhaps telling her they were on a case. While the real Tessa actually e-mailed Sherlock late at night, or something like that. Just speculating here... ;)

By the way, these blog descriptions are getting more suspicious the more I think of them. John’s next-to last blog post is called “The Hollow Client”, and it’s dated July 2nd:

This is about a month before the wedding, and John and Sherlock have been to a suit-fitting together. Sounds logical enough; friends could totally do that, even though John is living with Mary since at least a year back. But John describes it as if he were still living in 221B with Sherlock: it’s “when we got back” and “sitting in my chair” and “He’d emailed us”. And now there’s also an empty suit, exactly when John has been to the tailor to have his own suit fitted for the wedding. “Jack Griffin” has the same number of letters as “John Watson”, by the way, and the name starts and ends with the same letters. It’s almost as if John is indeed still living there, but he’s invisible - isn’t he? ;) Why is John gravitating back towards staying with Sherlock at 221B, shortly before his own wedding? Of course, in the show, the wedding planning seems to have mainly taken place at 221B, but wouldn’t ‘Mary’ then be at least mentioned here? But she isn’t visible when Sherlock recounts this case in his best man speech either.

Anyway, back to ‘Tessa’. 

For some reason, a visit to this flat made her believe she had dated a ghost (or an ‘empty suit’, perhaps? ;) ), rather than someone who just didn’t want to give her his correct address. And for this she hires a detective? Visits him late at night? In the other cases described, the Mayfly Man seems to have actually taken the women ‘home’ with him for one-night stands (well, ‘Gail’ in Sherlock’s MP court room at least says that “nothing happened”). But this wasn’t the case with ‘Tessa’. Up to this point the ‘Mayfly Man’ blogpost coincides with what we see in the show; Sherlock’s MP conversations with the ‘victims’ are actually taking place online. But it’s only in the show that the famous detective finds this ‘ghost’ case so important that he goes out late at night - in a heavily inebriated state - to check out this (supposed) address, which could just as well be fake. Why not do this in daylight? But no, he goes there at night, immediately as if it were an urgent murder case, ‘clueing for looks’. But the only clues he does find are reminiscent of 221B. To me, there’s something very fishy going on here.

John’s little white lies on the blog may be understandable, if he simply doesn’t want to reveal that they were both so drunk they got picked up by the police. But aren’t the gaps a bit too obvious? Why does he have to describe his stag night as a “a quiet, civilised evening in the pub”? John isn’t exactly someone who says no to a drink, so at least he could have revealed the less compromising parts of it. It was supposed to be a stag party after all. And why - after having been arrested, and with Mary probably waiting at home for him - does John return to 221B in the morning? Living with ‘Mary’ since last year, it’s not as if he’s leaving 221B now, is it?

Apart from this, there are two main things that bother me, I think, and perhaps most of all the combination of them: John’s silence on the blog after this event, and the sheer amount of sexual innuendos concentrating around John’s wedding.

As for the blog, John seems to be hanging over the comment section instead of focusing on his newly wed wife on their honeymoon, as Sherlock points out. John keeps commenting on it, apparently until Mary makes him stay away from it (“John. You are reading your blog again” appears on August 12, the day after Sherlock posted the wedding photos and talked about John’s “sex holiday”). And yet none of them even comments the 'attempted murder’ that Sherlock solved on their wedding, thereby saving the whole event from disaster - why? (And why is this the last time John ever posts anything on his blog?)

There are lots of erotic hints sprinkled all over the show (pointed out years ago, for example by brilliant Rebekkah in TJLC explained), but in TSoT the sexual innuendos get very blatant, and they’re raining down like a shower. I mean, apart from the ones I’ve mentioned in Part III, there are much more, for example these lines, that on a textual level all seem (more or less) farfetched: The Waters gang gets caught “in the act” by the police. Donovan: “We’ve got the tunnel entrance covered”. Janine: “I’m very pleased to meet you. But no sex, OK?” Sherlock: “...with a history of erectile disfunction”. Molly: “And we’re having quite a lot of sex”. Sherlock to Mycroft: “Why are you out of your breath? Either I’ve caught you in a compromising position or...” 

And then there’s the most blatant innuendo of them all: this absurd theory of what happened to Bainbridge, suggested by a Sherlock mirror (and look how the John mirror beside him is smirking :) ): 

Why would this idea occur to a random boyfriend of Molly’s? Unless it’s a metaphor - and a painfully obvious one. And to whom was this supposed to have happened? To Bainbridge - another Sherlock mirror.

Lestrade’s theory about the killer is that he’s a ‘dwarf’. 

(I mean, come on Sherlock Greg, give poor John a break!) In a recent post, @ebaeschnbliah discovered other suspicious innuendos about an ‘organ’ in TSoT (X), which only increases the impression that TSoT is this show’s El Dorado of innuendos.

And - continuing the pile of subtle pieces of evidence - then there’s S4, marked by John’s terrible sense of guilt over cheating on ‘Mary’:

But isn’t it a bit exaggerated to be this guilt-ridden over some basically innocent text messages to a totally random woman from the bus? While 'Mary’ is (supposedly) forgiven for having nearly killed John’s best friend? The same friend that John himself had recently nearly killed too? If this isn’t blown out of proportions, I really don’t know what is. But later in TLD we learn that this bus woman is actually Eurus in disguise - who I believe represents a side of Sherlock - ‘Sister Sentiment’. Wouldn’t this outburst of guilt be more logical if it had some real background?

Johns policy on the blog seems to be to pretend the stag do never happened. And if this was John’s reaction, Sherlock’s behaviour is probably an auto-defense mechanism aimed to repress and compartmentalise this emotionally devastating memory. Not because he didn’t like what happened, but because of the heartbreak of how everything turned out after that - because of John’s denial and decision to mary ‘Mary’ anyway. As I’ve tried to show in my meta series “What happened to Sherlock” (X) I believe that we’re in Sherlock’s mind from Day 1, that what we see in the show up until HLV is Sherlock living through his memories while reading up on John’s blog. And the rest of the show Sherlock is in coma after an OD, but still running hypothetical scenarios inside his Mind Theatre. If my idea about the stag night would turn out to be true, I actually think this would fit both with John killing Hope in ASiP, with Sherlock losing Faith in TLD and with Love being a constant suspect of Sherlock’s after TSoT. And it would definitely fit with the fact that Sherlock never gets a ‘confession’ out of Culverton Smith (= John mirror) in TLD.

But then in TFP Sherlock has this mental “purgatory” through which he drags himself; this experimental lab that is Sherrinford, ruled by Sister Sentiment, where he’s going through hell and facing his demons. And in TFP we have this conversation between Sherlock and Eurus (Thanks for the transcript, Ariane deVere. My bolding):

EURUS: Oh! Have you had sex? SHERLOCK (continuing to play the tune): Why do you ask? EURUS: The music. I’ve had sex. SHERLOCK: How? EURUS: One of the nurses got careless. I liked it. Messy, though. People are so breakable. SHERLOCK (still playing): I take it he didn’t consent. EURUS: He? SHERLOCK: She? EURUS: Afraid I didn’t notice in the heat of the moment and afterwards... well, you couldn’t really tell. Is that vibrato or is your hand shaking?

I never thought that this conversation made sense; why is Eurus’ sex life interesting at all? Why is she presented as some kind of sex predator, while being painted as gay at the same time? Is this meant to be some sort of horrible homophobic joke from the show makers?  

However, after realising that Sherlock and John might have never left the flat after the stag night in TSoT, this conversation with Eurus kind of offers a new reading that I honestly hadn’t thought about before. (And I think the trap that shouls be avoided here is reading it without emotional context; this context might actually have been provided long before this in the show). You don’t follow me? OK, let’s play Sherlock here. Let’s put up a Mind Theatre scenario and pick this conversation apart, line by line, reconstructing what possibly might have happened during the stag night. I’ll substitute Eurus’ name with MP!Sherlock to facilitate the understanding. Remember that in our little scenario, this is Sherlock talking to himself:

MP!Sherlock: Oh! Have you had sex? This could of course be about Victor Trevor or someone like him in Sherlock’s earlier past. Or it could be a taunt if Sherlock is still a virgin. But if Sherlock did at some point have sex with someone, he apparently has repressed this memory, so the question might be valid for the stag night scenario. And on a meta level, it’s also hard to see why Eurus’ words would allude to something that the audience is not familiar with, since it hasn’t been shown. So balance of probability makes me think stag night, because we might actually have seen it happen, albeit covered up with metaphors.

SHERLOCK (continuing to play the tune): Why do you ask? But now he gets suspicious - always the curious detective. :)

MP!Sherlock: The music. I’ve had sex. In TSoT we have these scenes out at the pubs, with sexual innuendo in the shape of chemistry measuring cylinders, and some rather suggestive pieces of music. 

So this talk of music might just trigger Sherlock’s memory that he did indeed have sex with John, albeit in such an inebriated state that he doesn’t even remember the details, just the fact and the emotional imprint it left on him. 

SHERLOCK: How? Please note that he doesn’t ask “when”, which would sound more logical, wouldn’t it? But at least Sherlock’s subconscious might be perfectly aware that something ‘forbidden’ did happen during the stag night. So the next immediate question would be: how did this event at the stag night actually come to happen? How was it even possible?

MP!Sherlock: One of the nurses got careless. I liked it. Messy, though. People are so breakable. You could say that the nurse ’Mary’ got careless, in the sense that she didn’t seem to keep track on her fiancee’s doings shortly before their wedding. And yes - Sherlock obviously liked ’it’. But since they were both drunk, it was quite messy, both in a physical and an emotional sense. And of course people are emotionally breakable, even if Sherlock tends to despise this fact. But all three of them are human beings who can break down. Which I believe is exactly what Sherlock did, only some time later, when the wedding was a fact (’delayed action stabbing’). And consequently he took a lot of drugs and OD:ed (as I have tried to suggest before X, X).

SHERLOCK (still playing): I take it he didn’t consent. MP!Sherlock: He? Who - John? Well he actually did, didn’t he?

SHERLOCK: She? But where was ’Mary’ in all this? Did she consent to John and Sherlock spending the night together?

MP!Sherlock: Afraid I didn’t notice in the heat of the moment and afterwards... well, you couldn’t really tell. Neither of them probably noticed the ’consent’ issue in the heat of the moment, since they were drunk. And when looking at how ’Mary’ acts about John and Sherlock, indeed it’s difficult to understand what she thinks. ‘Mary’ knows from start how much John has been grieving Sherlock; she must have noticed that there was probably something deeper than friendship going on between them. And she definitely noticed what Sherlock did to John at the Landmark restaurant. And still...

Isn’t ‘Mary’ just a little too tolerant to be a truly authentic fiancee/wife? During the wedding reception she told Sherlock that “neither of us was the first, you know”. And then in HLV we have her threatening to kill Sherlock if he “takes one more step”. Contradictory indeed; I think it’s no wonder Sherlock finds it hard to tell whether she ‘consents’ or not. 

MP!Sherlock: Is that vibrato or is your hand shaking? Vibrato?! No further comments… ;)

So if my horrible hypothesis happens to be true, this conversation with Eurus actually does seem to make some sort of sense. 

I do know this hypothesis is wild, but reconstructing important events backwards from observations of tiny details is actually the Sherlock Holmes character’s MO, so why shouldn’t we, the audience, have a try at it as well? We have Holmes and Watson themselves pointing it out for us in TAB: 

HOLMES: From a drop of water, a logician should be able to infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara. WATSON: Or a Reichenbach.

And, by the way, this show is not unique in using subtle double entendre that might mean something sexual has happened between these two guys. ACD canon is full of innuendos too, what with Holmes and Watson using the Turkish bath together (ILLU), sharing double-bedded hotel rooms (TWIS), etc, etc. And Watson has not been married a month before he abandons his job and wife for some new adventure together with Holmes (who is suddenly waxing lyric over a rose), which ends up with him sleeping in 221B (NAVA).

Tagging some people who might be interested:@sarahthecoat @tjlcisthenewsexy @ebaeschnbliah @fellshish @gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @raggedyblue @sherlockshadow @darlingtonsubstitution @devoursjohnlock @tendergingergirl @kateis-cakeis @csi-baker-street-babes @88thparallel @timilina @dieseldrakilis @sherlock-overflow-error @elldotsee

[arrianna21]

~Alchemy et Chaos~

Exploring caves, ruins, and abandoned forts is something you enjoy doing. Normally you do it by yourself, but that changes when your mage friend asks to join you on your latest expedition.

Game: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Note: Little bit of gore

Word Count: 4,123

You collect the Morning Glory pulp and put it away while you continue your search. Figuring that 15 pieces of the flower would suffice, you stand up and make your way to the fort’s entrance before stepping inside. This is the last place you needed to search thankfully. As much as you enjoyed looting and exploring various caves and forts, the constant searching for plants and ingredients was becoming a bit tedious.

Normally you would never do this for free, but if it was for your quirky mage friend you would gladly do it without any pay. Especially considering the fact that he had returned the favor multiple times by creating, and giving you, free potions.

The strong metal doors open to reveal the stone walls, free of any torches or light whatsoever. Crouching down, you sneak down the steps and peek through the already open door. A dog was walking back and forth further down the hall, occasionally sniffing the ground before moving on. You keep your knees bent, walking quietly toward the animal and set a piece of venison near it, stepping carefully down another hall where there is a closed gate. It was locked and you use a lock pick, fiddling with it until you hear a click.

Pushing the doors open, you go inside and find a chest with some gold which you happily take. Going back to the intersection, you find the dog eating the raw meat, tearing large chunks out of it and you pass by to the other locked gate. Unlocking that as well, you find another chest with gold.

Continuing on down the main hall, there are three paths each going a separate direction. You contemplate going left or right, but decide to just walk towards the gate in front where you can hear voices. The metal gate is unlocked and upon entering, you find yourself at a balcony overlooking the area. A group of bandits and marauders are below and two of them are arguing to each other.

From what you can hear, they seem to be talking about a deal gone wrong. No one has noticed you yet so you decide to explore the area first.

Going to the left, there’s a small bridge that leads to a locked chest. Opening it reveals more gold and you head to the right where another short bridge leads to a similar locked chest that is also filled with gold.

As you walk back across the bridge, someone yells from below before chaos erupts. Thinking your cover has been blown, you run back to the balcony and find the large group has divided into two separate ones where the bandits and marauders begin killing each other. This actually makes things easier for you and so you stand at the railing while you enjoy the show. You have to actually stifle a laugh when a bandit accidentally shoots her friend instead of the marauder.

When most of them are dead, except for two bandits, you head to the right first and activate a turn handle that opens a metal gate. Walking down the stairs, you see a chest with two potions of healing inside. Rummaging through the box alerts the bandit nearby.

He yells upon seeing you and you pull your short sword out while fighting him.“Is that the best you can do?” the bandit asks as he wields his hammer at you.

Your response is to merely swing your sword, saying nothing while you hit his armor. After a few more hits, the elf crumples into the water and you huff. That’s the second body you would have to loot in the lake, the first being another marauder who was floating face down.

“You’ll regret stepping foot in here!” the bandit archer yells and a green arrow whizzes by you.

Turning around, you see her shooting from across the fort as she stands on a ledge. Muttering under your breath you grab your arrows and begin firing in return. Each arrow that sinks into her shocks her with lightning and it doesn’t take much before she also dies.

After looting another chest and a female marauder, who didn’t have anything impressive, you swim through the middle of the water, searching the rest of the bodies until you reach the other side. There’s another chest near a dead bandit Hedge Wizard that has 745 gold pieces and some repair hammers.

Other than the plants outside the entrance, Fort Nikel didn’t have much for your mage friend so you decide to leave after coaxing the dog outside, making your way back to the city of Chorrol.

Despite the simple dungeon, you were glad it was your last for this adventure, wanting to go back to your home so you could wash up and sleep for a few hours. Upon returning to the city, you stop by the blacksmith so she can repair your armor. After having a range of monsters and people alike attacking you, it was better to fix it before it had the chance to break completely.

Walking past the Great Oak tree in the center of town, you see Dar-Ma and chat with her for a bit. While you and the reptile Argonian talk about some new items her mother brought to their store, there is an explosion from one of the houses. Looking around in confusion, you watch as a small plume of smoke exits a house in the circle. That house just so happened to be yours and you automatically figure out the cause.

Saying goodbye to your friend, you walk to your house as the townsfolk stare with concern though you smile reassuringly. Pushing your front door open, you walk through the living room and immediately head upstairs to the guest room where you find the mage desperately fanning the room.

“Experiment gone wrong?” you ask and your voice startles him as he whips around to face you.

“Y/N! Back so soon?” the man chuckles awkwardly, not having expected you home for at least a few days.

“I’ve been gone for two days, Joon.”

“Right! Ah, how was your journey?” he abandons his post at the window when you hold out your treasure findings.

“Eventful for the most part,” you admit, describing the encounters you faced at the two forts and one Ayleid ruin.

“Good eventful I hope,” he says, organizing the various flora extracts on his desk.

You nod your head somewhat in agreement. “Besides the usual monsters, each location did have something unique. I did find this iron dagger for you.” Grabbing the weapon, you hand it to the surprised mage.

“Are you sure you don’t need this?” he asks, carefully taking it in his hands.

“Don’t fret, Joon. I found it on some treasure hunt that someone must have left behind.” You tell him about the strange note on top of one of the forts that was next to a sword pointing off in the distance. Following the note and the sword’s direction, it didn’t take you long before you found a chest near a boulder where the dagger sat. “I can even enchant it for you later if you would like.”

“Ahh, you don’t have to do that. You’re already busy enough.” Joon replies, clearly flustered by your offer and you roll your eyes.

“You know I don’t mind. Anyway, what were you trying to make?” you ask, referring to the opened window and cluttered desk oozing with various potions and ingredients.

“That? I’m trying to make a new potion, but it’s not going too well.” Joon rubs the back of his head, sitting on his bed with a faint grimace.

Joon, while intelligent beyond compare, was still learning the ins and outs of alchemy. He could easily make small potions, but he also liked to try his hand with more complex and new mixtures that only some high class mages could perfect.

“Taking a rest from that paper?”

You knew his thesis, while tedious, was not very difficult for him, but he needed to make sure he had enough evidence gathered to prove his point. After you had foiled the plans for the Mythic Dawn cult who attempted to take over Tamriel by opening Oblivion gates, Joon noticed a rise in Conjurers going rogue. He believes that certain factions are attempting to summon more Daedra and use them to gain control of the Imperial City. Not as bad as trying to take over all the land like the former cult, but still a problem nonetheless. Unfortunately, he needed to write a substantial paper discussing and proving his hypothesis.

He sighs before nodding. “I’ve made great progress, it’s over halfway completed, I just need a few more things for research purposes.”

“Like what?”

“They’re not too complicated--we can talk about it some other time. Are you hungry? I’m sure you’re hungry I mean you just returned from a long journey.” The man stands up abruptly and heads downstairs while talking and you silently follow after him. “I went out to buy some cheese and bread while you were away. They had some watermelon too.”

You watch as he begins gathering food from the kitchen and also setting the table for you.

“Joon,” you call to which he responds by looking up at you, bread hovering above the plate.

“Yes?”

“What do I need to get for you?” you ask, helping him set the table with more food. It was very early for supper, only the afternoon, but because of your erratic schedule neither of you ate at a set time, meal times changing daily.

“Just some Daedra things,” he replies cryptically.

Digging through a cupboard for some brandy, you begin grabbing some bottles. “Well if it’s Daedric stuff you need I don’t mind going to my house in Cheydinhal for those.”

“I appreciate the offer, Y/N, but those won’t work. They need to be…fresh.”

You lift your head up and shut the door with your boot, bottles clutched in your hands. “Oh,” immediately understanding his dilemma. “I see. Which Ayleid ruin do I need to go to?”

Sitting down, your armor and weapons clang against the chairs loudly which results in you standing back up before running upstairs to change and put your things away. A few minutes later, you return with a simple shirt and pants, going back to your seat so you can resume your conversation.

“That’s the thing. I wanted to ask you something,” he tells you while you start eating with fervor. Taking large chunks out of your loaf of bread, you urge him to continue and he does. “I want you to take me with you.” The sentence rushing out of him in a large gust as the mage resorts to gulping down his drink.

Once you finish swallowing, the bread halfway gone, you take a swig of alcohol to wash down your food. “Okay. We leave at 6:00 in the morning tomorrow.”

Your casual response causes Joon to choke and he coughs on his drink. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said I’ll escort you,” you say, munching on a cheese wedge, the dairy flavor mixing with the wheat bread.

“You just got back from a quest. Wouldn’t it be best to wait a few days?” he asks in concern.

You shake your head. “Do we need to? If you have everything prepared, I’ll be ready as well. I don’t need much anyway.”

“I almost have everything. I wasn’t expecting such a quick answer to be honest,” he admits shyly.

Nodding, you continue eating and when your mouth isn’t full you respond. “Why? It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“I don’t wish to burden you,” he replies and you wave him away.

“Joon, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” You reassure him until he eventually acquiesces.

Once that is settled, the two of you talk about the rest of your journey and your encounters, laughing at the things you saw and witnessed. The next morning you both wake up early as you prepare for the hike to the Gold Road not too far south. Apparently there was rumor of a large Ayleid ruin by the name of Ceyatatar in that area where Conjurers were doing questionable things.

While you gather your weapons and him his potions, you are soon leaving the city gates as you begin walking. Staying on the main path to avoid any wild animals, the long walk is uneventful and you make small talk on the way.

Arriving later on that morning, you are immediately greeted by two Conjurers accompanied by

Xivilai. You battle the blue Daedra humanoids while Joon tosses some spells at the robed man and woman. One of the demons manages to summon a Clannfear while you slash at him with your sword. The spawned reptilian creature lashes out with its claws, but you ignore it, remaining focused on the Xivilai instead. Once it’s killed, the reptile also vanishes and you run to the other demon, sword meeting its giant Warhammer. It dies as well and when you turn to check on your friend he is throwing a bolt of lightning at the last Conjurer who screams before falling over.

“Here’s a potion of healing if you need it,” he tells you, giving the small vial to you and you put it away, deciding to save it for now while you cast a minor restoration spell on yourself.

“Thanks. I assume this is one of the things you need.” You say, looking down at the dead Daedra beside you. When he nods, you jerk your head to the other body. “Take care of that one and I’ll handle this one here,” you direct him while pulling out your dagger.

You pierce the Xiviliai’s flesh, cutting into it deeply, dark blood painting the grass around it as you separate the hard bones so you can pry the Daedra’s heart out. Standing up, you step over the body so you can check the Conjurers where you then steal a few healing and magika potions. Joon finishes with the corpse as well and after checking the surrounding area, you find no other enemies and head to the center of the crumbling ruin before walking down the spiral staircase.

“How many do you need?” you ask, opening the white door at the bottom and gesturing him inside.

“As many as possible,” is all he says and you shrug.

Entering the dark ruins, there are more stairs in front of you and a bridge with a small railing overlooking the main room below. You pull him down when you see the Conjurer walking around, urging him to remain silent. He follows behind you as you go down the stairs until you reach the archway. You stay crouched and make your way to the woman now standing in front of a wooden table, fiddling with some alchemy tools. Drawing your sword, you wait until you are directly behind her and then you swing hard. She grunts before falling over and you stand straight when the room is clear.

Joon comes forward to look around the room while you loot the body, but finding nothing in her robes. Examining the item on the table, you see the alchemy equipment on the wood along with some ingredients, one of which being another Daedra heart. A book was also hidden under the equipment and you inspect the cover with the title reading, “The Book of Daedra.” You show the book to Joon who takes it and flips through the pages while you continue looking around the candlelit workspace. The bookshelf nearby just has random objects, a human skull, plates, and crystal ball.

“I’m not surprised they have this,” the mage’s voice bounces around the cavern. “If they’re summoning Daedra, it would be expected that they would also have books about the demonic creatures.” He explains before putting the book into his bag.

Moving on, you see another staircase leading further down. Reaching the bottom, you see a Frost Atronach down the hall. Again, you sneak up to it and hit the ice giant hard where it easily falls over. You continue down more stairs while Joon collects the frost salts the giant elemental leaves behind upon killing it. There are more Conjurers and Frost Atronachs so you again sneak towards them in the hopes of taking them by surprise.

As you step closer on the cracked floor, there’s a harsh rumbling and you are abruptly yanked back as stones collapse in front of you. You hadn’t thought to look above you to see the rocks falling from the ceiling. The Conjurers turn around to investigate the noise only to find you and the mage struggling to get to your feet on the stairwell. One shouts and begins pelting you with magic while you try to grab your sword and run across, climbing over the fallen rubble.

You hit the ice giants first and there’s a spell flying behind you as Joon retaliates with an attack of his own, engaging with the dark mages. An Atronach almost crushes you with its cold hands but you jump back, whacking at it harshly. The creatures are harder to eliminate because they weren’t taken by surprise, but eventually you manage to kill them and Joon does the same.

Before you have a chance to investigate the area, a bolt of lightning shoots past you as a Storm Atronach bellows down the hall. Joon throws a frost spell at it and the rock monster collapses in a pile of rubble.

“Good shot,” you compliment to which he blushes, his dimples becoming more prominent as he smiles.

“Thank you,” he says and you laugh, finding his shyness endearing.

You search all the bodies while the man walks over to a table in the far corner and looks around. Collecting all the salts and potions, you find two coffers next to them that hold some gold. After gathering the treasure, you join your friend who has also found some more ingredients on another table, along with the same red book about the Daedra.

“It seems like all the Conjurers are reading this book,” you note.

“I believe so. They need to learn about the creatures if they’re going to summon them.” He explains and you both continue to the door that leads further into the ruin.

This next area is just a small cavern with enormous rocks protruding in various places and a

waterfall in the middle, guarded only by one Conjurer who is quickly dispatched. Crossing the bridge, you look at the slanted rock leading into the water and tell Joon you’ll be back while he collects the dead mage’s potions. When you dive in the pool, you swim around and check for any treasure. As you swim underneath, you find a tunnel that leads to a wooden door.

Going through, you rise to the surface for a short breath of air and see a body across the trench. It’s a dead treasure hunter, you realize as you examine the fur clothing. He only has a few pieces of gold and you check the coffer next to him that has some soul gems and a scroll. Joon would be interested in that, you think as you securely tuck it away in your bag so the water doesn’t destroy it. Swimming back to the other area, you show the mage your findings and move on to the next door.

You head down the stairwell and open the gate that leads to a big room with a Conjurer and more Daedra. Whispering to each other, you discuss your plan of action which is pretty much the same as it has been, he’ll handle the magic user while you take care of the demons. Even though you try to sneak up to the Xivilai, the Conjurer seems to sense your presence the moment you slip into the threshold.

Ducking behind a stone pillar, you dodge the flames as they fly into a wall before dissipating. Joon runs out and retaliates with his own spell, the ice crackling when it hits the dark mage. With the element of surprise gone, you swing at the blue demon with your sword, cutting into its torso. Blood spurts out from the wound and it growls, throwing a bolt of lightning, but it is absorbed by your armor. The other Xivilai also comes to its companion’s aid and at one point you are battling two demons simultaneously. It’s not long though as the first monster falls and you focus solely on the remaining one, hitting it repeatedly until it also dies.

Hearing a loud hiss, you see a Daedroth attacking Joon, the large crocodile monster swiping with its claws. Running to the other fight, you switch to your enchanted sword and hit the beast. Ice damages its scaly body and the Daedra turns its attention to you, allowing the mage to return to his battle with the Conjurer Adept.

The Daedroth tries to bite you, teeth nearly sinking into your face but you back away, stepping around until you are behind the creature where you can effectively swing at its back. The crocodile-like monster turns around and breathes fire to which you jump out of the way. A male’s yell rings in the cavern, your heart stopping in fear at the sound, but when the Daedroth fades away you sigh.

You see Joon cleaning his dagger on the Conjurer’s robes before taking the potions he had in his pockets and turning to collect some Welkynd stones sitting on the corner pedestals. Doing the same to the Xivilai, you extract their organs and explore the room. Some chests and coffers hold more gold, along with spell scrolls, soul gems, and another book.

“Joon, have you heard of this book?” you ask and the mage walks over to you.

He takes the gold book and inspects it carefully. “Summon Dremora Tome?” Joon turns the pages and skims through it quickly. “Oh, this is not good. This is a manual on how to summon all kinds of Daedra. Apparently, that includes a Dremora Lord.”

Your eyes widen as you look over his shoulder to see the ancient text. Cursing lowly, you turn to continue checking the area. “You better take that to the High Council with your paper.”

“I know. If the Conjurers learn the secrets to summoning such powerful beings, the Oblivion gates could open all over again. Only this time we have no King to fight for us.”

Your friend sighs harshly and while you look through the locked prison cells, you find an Orc’s body sprawled inside one. “It might be best to make note of this as well,” you advise to him.

Joon turns in your direction and stares at the dead captive. “I will add that to my list of notes as proof that these Conjurers are surely crossing boundaries.”

“Maybe we can send for the guards so this man can have a proper burial.” You tell him, going to another cell where a coffer sits inside. Opening the gates, you step inside and collect more gold.

Continuing your walk around the area, you see a blue stone block in the wall and upon pressing it, the moving cobble next to it reveals a hidden pathway as the stones drop down one by one.

Both of you crawl across and you see two more coffers next to a short ladder leading to a trap door. The small caskets hold over 500 pieces of gold along with some more scrolls and soul gems. You climb up the ladder first with Joon close behind and you find that you are outside in the Great Forest.

Beginning the walk back to Chorrol, you are both silent and contemplative, each lost in your thoughts.

“Y/N?” Joon calls your name after a minute.

You hum in response.

“Do you…think it would be possible for me to start coming with you on your explorations?”

“Why? Do you perhaps enjoy my presence that much?” you chuckle in amusement.

“N-no! I mean, yes, I enjoy your presence, er-company, but I also feel that it is necessary to see what all these Conjurers are doing in person.” The mage stumbles through his statement and you laugh aloud.

“I am only joking, Joon. Of course you are free to join me whenever you like.”

The man also laughs in return, walking beside you while offering an apple for a snack. You take the sweet fruit and bite into it. As you continue through the forest, you chat while pausing every now and then so the mage can collect some flower samples along the way while you carry on to prepare for your next quest.

A/N: It’s finally complete! I was really happy to write about this game because it is my all-time favorite and it has a special place in my heart. Oblivion is just…glorious and so much fun, it’s great, I love it so so much. Anyway this wraps up the last story in the VideoGame!BTS miniseries. If you enjoyed it, please send me some feedback, I would really like to know your thoughts. Thank you again for reading, I really appreciate you all sticking with me through this series!

[sidwellxcen384-blog]

Grand Theft Auto PC Download gtadownload.org: What No One Is Talking About

Grand Theft Auto V Review Game

For me, GTA V ’s extraordinary range is summed winning inside two favourite moments. Individual becomes from the mid-game mission where I rushed a flat in a different plane, attacked the folks, hijacked the thing, and then parachuted ready and inspected it crash in the ocean to escape death for the supply of pay military fighter aircraft. One more occasion, whilst travel around in the off-road buggy, I got distracted in something looks like a means up among the San Andreas mountains. Turns out it was a avenue, after that I finished 15 minutes respect on the meeting, wherever I nearly ran over the faction of hikers. “Typical!” one of them yelled by everyone, as though he practically gets run over by a rogue ATV together with a mountain every time he goes on the hike.

I could go on this way for ages. GTA V has an plenty of like moments, deep with tiny, that make San Andreas – the location of Los Santos and surrounding areas – feel like a living earth in which anything can take place. It both gives you tremendous freedom to investigate an amazingly well-realised world and orders a story that’s gripping, exciting, and darkly comic. It is a step advance into narrative style for the lines, with there’s no physical component of the gameplay that hasn’t been strengthened over Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s immediately obvious the insurance routine is far more dependable and the auto-aim less touchy. The cars feel less like their tires are made of butter with shove better to the road, although the exaggerated handling still leaves plenty of place for spectacular wipeouts. Also on long past, Rockstar has completely killed among their most persistent demons, mission checkpointing, making sure that you never have to do a long, tedious take six when you repeatedly fail a mission ever again.

GTA V is also an intellectual, wickedly comic, and bitingly relevant commentary about contemporary, post-economic crisis America. All about it drips satire: it flies into the Millennial generation, celebrities, the much exactly, the widely effect, the core school, the media... Nothing is safe from Rockstar’s sharp tongue, including modern video games. One prominent supporting character spends mainly of the moment wearing their bedroom shouting sexual threats in public on the headset whilst showing a first-person shooter called Righteous Slaughter (“Rated PG – pretty much the same as the last game.”) It is not precisely subtle – he practically has the word “Entitled” tattooed in the throat, plus the in-game radio and Television outright piss-takes don’t put much for the imagination – but it is often extremely weird, and a bit provocative with it. Grand Theft Auto’s San Andreas is a fantasy, but the issues this satirises – greed, corruption, hypocrisy, the hurt of right – become many very real. If GTA IV happened a targeted killing of the American dream, GTA V takes point in the new American reality. The attention to factor that assumes making the world feel lively with believable is also what makes the satire so biting.

Grand Theft Auto V ’s plot happily works in the boundaries of plausibility, sending people away to drive dirt bikes along the highest of schools, hijack military plane, and engage in absurd shootouts with tally of policemen, yet it is three main figures become what keep it relatable level at it is many severe. The well-written and worked interplay between them provides the biggest laughs and most affecting times, with the way to their associations with just one another polished with my opinion of them changed throughout the history produced the plot their right. They think that people – albeit extraordinarily f***ed-up people.

Michael is a retired con work into his 40s, block out across the heart like he drinks beside the band now his Vinewood mansion with a layabout son, air-headed daughter, serially unfaithful wife, and very expensive therapist – most of who hate him. Franklin is a son from downtown Los Santos who laments the gang-banger stereotype even as he’s reluctantly seduced by the prospect of an better score. And then there’s Trevor, a hazardous career criminal that days from the wilderness selling drugs and murdering rednecks; a psychopath whose bloodthirsty lunacy is fuelled with a arrangement of methamphetamine along with a genuinely messed-up childhood.

The objective flit among their own original tale then a good overarching plotline which means all three, and a glory to GTA V’s versatility and universal quality that each person cover his bit of standout vision. When the arcs developed I sense very differently on both ones by different ages – they’re not exclusively the archetypes that they are.

This three-character structure causes for excellent rate and extreme form in the storyline, it also allows Rockstar to compartmentalise different aspects of Grand Theft Auto’s personality. In doing this, it sidesteps some of the troubling disconnect that appeared when Niko Bellic abruptly changed between anti-violent philosophising and sociopathic killing sprees in GTA IV. Here, many of Michael’s missions revolve covering their ancestors with the past, Franklin is usually on demand vehicular disorder, with severe murderous charges are permit to Trevor. Each state a unique ability matched to help their talents – Franklin could to help slow time while taking, for example – that ends them a unique touch. Narratively, it’s powerful – even off-mission I found myself playing with nature, acting like a mid-life-crisis gentleman with frustration issues because Jordan, a thrill-seeker as Franklin, and a maniac as Trevor. The first thing I did as Franklin finally do some good cash was believe him a great amazing car, since I touch like that’s exactly what he’d want.

Trevor considers a like a tiny get-out-of-jail-free license for Rockstar, presenting an outlet for all the preposterous actions and deadly behavior which otherwise might not fit in with GTA V’s narrative ambitions. I found his violent insanity a minute overblown and boring at first. Because get-out clauses go, even though, their pretty successful, with Trevor’s over-the-top missions are most of GTA V’s action-packed highlights. It’s a successful way of fixing a quandary that’s prevalent in open-world games: the tension between report the writers want to request, then the tale you develop yourself in their structure and its world. Grand Theft Auto V accommodates both, masterfully, allowing not to challenge the other.

The actual pretense of moving between them also provides a window in personal days with problems, fleshing off their personalities in a way that feels usual and story. Collect a atmosphere and the video camera moves out in the San Andreas map, closing back happening upon where they happen to be. Michael can occur at home watching TV when you release here on him, or race beside the motorway blasting ‘80s attacks, or using a cigarette on the golf club; Franklin can live moving away from a strip club, munching a case of snacks at home, or arguing with his ex-girlfriend; there’s a good prospect to Trevor could be tossed out half naked on the beach surrounded with over groups or, one memorable occasion, down in a stolen police helicopter.

It could be nearly everything, because there is a bewildering variety of details to do in the original San Andreas – tennis, yoga, hiking, people on sea then about ground, flying planes, golfing, cycling, diving, hunting, and more. The vision are a great intelligent leader to both San Andreas’ locations and its activities, visit people about the map and whetting the appetite for free exploration of it all. How that we’re established to San Andreas never feels artificial – the plan is fully open in the opening, for example – which says to the notion to the a real place, where you can get to know. If GTA IV’s Liberty City feels like a living city, San Andreas feels like a living world. I get people going their pet alongside the sand in the country so I jet-skied past, arguing for the street outside a cinema with Los Santos, and camped – with covering then anything – overnight in Support Chiliad, before packing positive with lasting a backpack in the morning. The astounding.

The ambience changes dramatically counting in where you are, also. Trevor’s dusty trailer out in the middle of nowhere in Blaine County feels like another earth through downtown Los Santos or Vespucci Beach. It wasn’t until the first time I take off a jet from the capital with on the mountains I became cycling around a few hours or that the total range of it became obvious. It shoves the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 more than it has any fine near, and it looks incredible. The biggest spring in property as Grand Theft Auto IV is the character animation, but the world can be much more expansive, detailed, and crowded. The price we buy of which is rare framerate drops and texture pop-in, that i found became more prominent the longer I played, but certainly not significantly taken away through my personal feel. For like a colossal and variable world it is also remarkably bug-free – I met just three minor problems from the 35 hours I spent on the primary playthrough, none that affected everyone to go down a quest.

San Andreas’s extraordinary intelligence of house is heightened by the fact that so much of it isn’t on GTA Full Game the place. There’s so much taking which it is simple find things organically, rather than waste your own lifestyle following a mission marker. I when take a passenger jet from the airport for the hell of it, then parachuted onto the top of the tallest building in Los Santos. (I then accidentally jumped off the highest and reduction toward my death, forgetting to I’d currently employed the parachute, however I normally put that piece off.) Out driving in the country, I fell across a man to a phone rod with womens’ underwear. I tracked down criminals who randomly swipe purses on the lane, with went off across gunbattles between police and other miscreants, incident to give a feel that world isn’t completely uneventful if I wasn’t below to interrupt normalcy. I believed an exclusive mountain cycle with cycled around in the hills, enjoying the sight. These small moments can be got about your own telephone camera – which, brilliantly, can also use selfies. I have some shouts of Trevor completing his unhinged account of a laugh within his underpants on top of a hill.

The rumor to GTA V tells during their missions takes full advantage of all this kind beyond getting with killing (while the maneuver with direct is supremely enjoyable). It’s cause a lot of good times. This included us racing Michael’s lazy blob of a boy across Vespucci Beach in one of many misguided attempts on father-son bonding, utilizing a thermal scope to look for someone from a helicopter before chasing them along the city on the ground, torching a meth lab, towing cars for Franklin’s crack-addict uncle to thwart him through shed the profession, getting into a facility on the beach in a wetsuit and flippers, piloting a marine, impersonating a structure worker, doing yoga, escaping on plane skis, failing multiple generations to earth a jet burdened with drugs at a hangar shown from the wilderness… it goes by with by. The days of a repetitive collections of “get now, find this gentleman, shoot that guy” stay after us. Still missions that would usually be set are filled with novelty with excitement by the capability to compete them by a few different views – in a shootout, Trevor can be exciting RPGs from a rooftop what Jordan and Franklin flank the rival on the ground.

It is the heists – multi-stage, huge-scale experience that help as the story’s climactic peaks – which demonstrate Grand Theft Auto V at their most dedicated and obtained. Usually there’s a choice between a more involved, stealthier option that will (hopefully) attract less boil, along with a great all-out option that will be less tense yet more explosively chaotic – with what exactly crew to take along with you on the job. All of GTA V’s missions are replayable at any time, allowing you relive favourite seconds before look at out a different method. They also have optional objectives in the vein of Assassin’s Creed’s synchronisation challenges, but crucially, these are invisible once people play a quest, therefore they don’t distract a person from performing things your way.

Sometimes your way won’t are the means that this designers require you to do something, with although GTA 5 is usually very good at bending close to people as you do, here were a few situation wherever that wasn’t train for our personal name of chaos. Overtake a car you’re not meant to overtake and it may close in pad of travel as if with secret. Despite the opening of different stealth mechanics, enemies will miraculously make sure you when the mission dictates they should. Kill someone or you’re supposed to, and that’s sometimes Mission Failed. Most of the time the drafting is suitable to be invisible, but as it is not, you really discover this – if only because most of the time it’s so seamless.

As always, some of the wittiest record shows through to the in-game radio to shows behind all of the search and confusion. “There’s nothing other effective, more masculine, new American than a big lump of coins,” blasts one of the in-game ads. “We learn times are tough, but they don’t have to be tough for you. Still cause several liquidity in your home? Are you insane?” The tune selection is also typically excellent, leading to most of those serendipitous moments where you’re driving combined with the right music happens by. During a heist, when the radio isn’t blaring the background, a vibrant soundtrack seriously builds tension.

The satire is improved with integration of advanced life in the game world. Every individual turns around their smartphone – it’s used to trade stocks, call up friends to meet in place then launch emails. There’s a great Facebook spoof, Life Invader, on the in-game Interne, with the slogan “Where Your own Personal Data Becomes A Marketplace Page (Which We Can Go)”. You’ll hear adverts for preposterous parodic TV shows that you can actually watch with your TELEVISION at home, optionally whilst enjoying a toke. It might not be realistic, but it certainly feels authentic.

It’s significance mentioning that when this extends to sexual, drugs, with assault, GTA V pushes boundaries much more than at any time or. If the morality authorities were concerned with Hot Chocolate, there’s a lot here that will provoke moral hysteria. It’s deliciously subversive, and safely tongue in cheek... but after before twice, this shoves the borders of experience, too. There’s one instance scene, a personal world in which you have no alternative bar to help actively participate, i gotten so troubling that we took problems playing this; yet couched in obvious assessment in the US government’s choice to torture post 9/11, it’s a surprising moment that will attract justified controversy. It brings to mind Label of Function: Modern Warfare 2’s No Russian mission, except worse, and without the selection to omit over this. Another stuff, like the ever-present prostitution with extensive strip-club minigames, feels like it’s present even if this may be rather than as it gives anything to say.

There is nothing in San Andreas, though, that doesn’t serve Rockstar’s resolution with creating a exaggerated projection of The usa that’s suffused with crime, assault and sleaze. There are no nice gentlemen in GTA V. All you know is a sociopath, narcissist, criminal, lunatic, sadist, cheat, liar, layabout, or about combination of these. A good guy which gives good funds to help shoot Los Santos’ worst examples of corporate greed is playing the stock exchange to help the help whilst he does it. In the world like this, it’s not tough to escort why violence is often the first option. All the pieces fit.

Verdict

Grand Theft Auto V is not only a preposterously enjoyable video game, but also an intellectual and sharp-tongued satire of contemporary America. It signifies a elegance of the lot to GTA IV gotten to the record five years ago. It’s technically more accomplished in every conceivable system, yet it’s also tremendously committed into a right. No extra earth into record games comes near that now magnitude or scope, and there is strong brains behind the logic of humour and surprise for mayhem. This shows a compelling, unpredictable, and provocative story without actually letting this get in the way of your self-directed journey through San Andreas. It is one of the very best movie games yet produced. Write: That journal exclusively involves the single-player section of GTA 5 , since it launched without any multiplayer mode.

[sweetlifetownsville]

To End The Year, A Mini-Magpie With A Mini Mystery.

Has mega-fraudster Craig Gore skipped Australia? And if so, why hasnt this been reported in the media especially since he is supposed to have made a midnight flit the very day after a judge refused to allow him to leave? In other matters, one has to admit that the Townsville Bulletin is consistent it has ended the year as it started, continuing its weekly Olympic-standard shambles. And Mongrel the Barrister has left us lawyer Mark Donnelly, the man who inspired a much loved Magpie character has passed away. and our final visit to Trumpistan for 2018. But first Its hard to keep a good man down, and our fav toonist Bentley is nothing if not a good man. Even in the holiday season, he casts his jaundiced eye over the news, and brings us a different and rib-tickling perspective. This week, he was much taken as most of us were with the drone drama at Gatwick Airport in the UK. A professional drone was reported in the airports approach and departure air space, and thousands of travellers were stuck when the whole shebang was shut down for a couple of days while the wallopers tried to go hi-tech and trace the source of the bastardry. Its not fully sorted yet, but Bentley thinks the drone may have already met its fate.

Why Arent All The Gore-y Details Available?

Will ye no come back agin, laddie? Now to our mini-mystery. On December 19, this report appeared in the Courier Mail. Judge denies disgraced former rich-lister Craig Gore request to travel overseas Vanessa Marsh, The Courier-Mail December 20, 2018 2:21pm A DISGRACED former rich-lister accused of ripping off almost $800,000 from investors has broken down in court after a judge refused his request to leave the country to visit family. Lawyers for alleged fraudster Craig Gore today launched an application in the Queensland District Court, seeking for the former businessmans bail conditions to be altered to allow him to travel to Sweden to visit his wife and children. But Judge Paul Smith denied the request, saying Gore faced a long time in prison if convicted and there was a real risk he would not return to Australia to face trial. Gore is facing 12 charges of fraud over allegations he swindled about $800,000 from self-managed super fund investors in 2013-14. He also faces three charges of managing companies while disqualified. Now that seems pretty definitive and eminently sensible. But The Magpie was informed two days later, by a regular contact and mate who has always been on the money in the past, that Gore went back to court the next day on another application, and had his passport returned so he could be with his family in Sweden at Christmas. He was to return in three months to face trial and possibility of a lengthy striped suntan. The Pies contact says Gore was on a flight out of Brisbane that night at 11pm, accompanied by a lawyer (that was apparently part of the arrangement) who will return with certain paperwork. Gore will be expected to make his own way back to face his fate in March. Yeah, right. Now all that is as it may be, BUT THIS SPECTACULAR REVERSAL OF A JUDGES IMPLACABLE DECISION HAS BEEN NEITHER EXPLAINED OR APPEARED IN THE MEDIA. Well, not that The Magpie can find, after days of searching to verify. If it is true, there will be a hell of a lot of very pissed off people Gores victims and the tireless investigators who nailed him who know just how long are the odds that we will ever see this shyster again. Shades of Skase!! Perhaps we will never know how this came about if it did come about because there will be a lofty judicial silence of unaccountability if he is a no show but surely the second hearing was an open court? Hard to fathom why it wasnt reported. Mongrel The Barrister Is No More The Magpies good mate Mark Sludge Donnelly the man who partially inspired the popular Magpie character Mongrel the Barrister, died in his family home in Cairns last weekend. It is fair to say that Mark was my best mate in the halcyon days of Portraits Bar in the Exchange Hotel all through the Noughties, the years when I was reporting court matters for the Bulletin. We were part of a memorable and disparate group, the bar crowded with our marvellously mixed group every Thursday, Friday and sometimes Saturday nights. (The fondly remembered Portraits became Poseurs Bar in the newspaper column and then in this blog.) Mark was universally known as Sludge, which he happily answered to, but never fully explained, even to me, its origins apparently it had something to do with a memorable comment from a lecturer or senior teacher suggesting Marks behaviour at that time some comparable to something from the bottom of a pond. Sludge was one of the wittiest people Ive known, and his memory was nothing short of astounding, not just for quoting legal precedents but in all things, particularly pop music. He always commandeered the music machine at parties, and was a pretty good DJ. He also had an eye for a well turned ankle, and his way of getting ladies to talk about themselves endeared him to more than one. Like many a member of the Portraits push, Mark liked a drink, and some believed he was a bit too enthusiastic in this direction. But I would say that rather than having a battle with the bottle, he just had frequent skirmishes with it, as we all did and any excess rarely affected his work at the other more sedate bar, where he often shone. Mark left Townsville when his father died, to live with his mother in the family home in Cairns. He didnt practice in Cairns, and went into virtual retirement, which was plagued by ill health for some time. He returned to Townsville annually for his birthday, but I lost touch in the past few years, for which I feel a bit miserable now. Sludge is now undoubtedly arguing the finer points about the Laws of Entry with St Peter for that is certainly where this witty, soft-hearted old friend of mine now is because we all know God loves a larrikin. Mark was 62. They Really Dont Understand Language at The Astonisher, Do They? And they even get the wrong WORD for a headlines. Even when theyre trying to make a pun, which kinda depends on the right word, yes? But we got a headline quoting some bizoid saying Townsville is bracing for a great 2018. Bracing for? Ahem. Youve managed to say EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what you meant. Heres the dictionary definition of bracing. verb[withobject] prepare (someone or oneself) forsomethingdifficult or unpleasant:both stations arebracingthemselvesforjoblosses|policeare braced fora trafficnightmare. So although this paper goes through life like a bouncing Hari Krishna whos visited the medicine cabinet once too often, giving us totally unquestioning, unexamined glop about our economy (usually from someone with a vested interest), it seem to have inadvertently hit on the truth here. However, the most tedious aspect of the paper of late is the dreary attempts at humour in headlines, particularly about crime, a subject no one in Townsville with the exception of you folks in Flinders Street, finds the least bit funny. AND EVEN THEN, LANGUAGE FAILS YOU let alone a sharp sense of humour.Take this major front page fail on Thursday.

Swindler? My dear headline writer, stay with me on this and read slowly, feel free to move your lips as you must. Now lets see, a swindler is someone who fiddles some unsuspecting victim out of something. That person would be called a fiddler, and if hidden in a ceiling, could be described as ta da a Fiddler In The Roof. You see, this would then coincide with the hit musical of the same name oh, how we would have all fallen about, clutching our sides in mirth, and holding your superior wit in such esteem!!! But swindler? Now weve just got a headache from smacking our foreheads yet again. And this one in simply NOT TRUE. This online

The actual number of people who said (or may have said, who knows, its probably a fiddled fantasy anyway) was 55% of the 700 or so people who responded to a totally uncontrolled survey. If there area 220,000 potential readers (ha! you wish) in the circulation area, the percentage is not even .5 of one percent. But we all know that the on-line edition is sloppy, so the paper itself will temper the outlandish claims, wont it? Errr no.

This is simply lying, and treating people like morons. And still they wonder But barely have we swallowed our anger before we start scratching our heads over weird genuinely weird stories like this, which would suggest that English isnt TEL boss Patricia OCallaghans first language, or she was suffering mild sunstroke when she was penned the media release from which the story was transcribed.

This story is selective twaddle certainly straight off an unedited media release from the Dudley Do Nothings, meaningless twaddle in which Ms OCallaghan specialises. It has often been said of her that she has the gift of the gab, and aint that the truth, just about all of what she has to say, in The Pies experience, is just that meaningless gabble that sounds good until it is more thoughtfully examined. Like this: The Museum of Underwater Art, located within the heart of The Great Barrier Reef, is a proposal based on the works of international sculpture and underwater artist Jason deCaires Taylor. Whats that bit located in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef? Has there been a Krakatoa-like geographic shift we havent noticed? The Underwater Museum, one of several planned along the coast, will be, at last report, just of Maggy Island, the GBR is a at least an hour or more away by fast cat . But in it goes to the story, with a newbie cub reporter just churning out this PR bumf. But wait, theres more. We then get this prize piece of meaningless gabble from the top executive charged with attracting and promoting tourism to Townsville: Its a project that is going to enhance the Great Barrier Reef experience and also educate visitors on how we manage and live with the reef everyday Ms OCallaghan said. That is absolute poppycock that is totally meaningless. And We? Bloody WE? FFS, girl, get a bloody grip. Insulting, uppity tripe from Ms OCallaghan and lazy, presumably unsupervised reporting (read: select all, copy and paste) by a very uncurious junior reporter (read: stenographer). Really, a monkey using scrabble board wouldve made more sense. The clusterfuck continues no wonder were so deep in the shit. Other matters As if golf didnt already have enough hazards.

Words of Wisdom From Two Funny Men

Frankie Boyle The cleverest quote of the week comes from the Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle in the Guardian. But first, his preamble touched a chord for The Magpie, who can vouch for it when Mr Boyle writes: The plight of the satirist, such as it is, is a compulsion to look at the grimmest, most important thing they can think of, and then for reasons that probably wouldnt survive a really good therapist, try to make it funny. To try to address the iniquities of their society, the satirist must manufacture some hope that what theyre doing might make a difference, then type it all up and send it off somewhere before they remember that it never does. Looking back over the events of this year is a bit like holding a doll for a therapist and pointing to where the bad man hurt you. Mr Boyles point is a universal one, which can be shared by Townsvilleans looking back over the past shambolic year. But his prize quote is so subtle, that you may have to think about for a while The Pie roared after a few seconds. The murder ofJamal Khashoggiby Saudi Arabia is another very difficult subject to find the lighter side of, unless someone in the Ecuadorean embassy has clipped the story out and stuck it to the fridge. (Sigh) Dear Mystified of Mysterton, it means that the Ecuadoreans might be giving their Wikileaks guest Julian Assange a hint.

Dave Barry The other funnyman worth a quote is the inimitable Dave Barry , the American columnist who talks about Florida the way The Magpie talks about Townsville only he is far funnier, proof being that The Magpie pinches more of his lines (many) than he does of The Magpies (none). This was his challenge to a graduating class, but it can just as well apply to the year 2019. How are you, Class, going to respond when the Clock-Radio of Challenge emits the Irritating Buzz of Opportunity? Are you going to roll over and hit the Snooze Button of Complacency? Or are you going to wake up and, after performing the Bodily Functions of Preparedness, boldly grasp the Toothbrush of Tomorrow? And no matter what you do in the coming year, make sure youre always politically correct, so no snowflakes will melt before your harsh words.

And So To This Week In Trumpistan First, compare Trump as Commander In Chief of real US soldiers, on his surprise visit to Iraq

Guess whos wondering if she packed the shampoo? with this.

And now to our final gallery of the year about the man Frankie Boyle described as this troll-doll King Lear, who looks like something youd pick off a baking tray after cooking pizza above it.

And Finally How The Hell ? The Pie has been occasionally upbraided for the use of naughty words in this blog well, one word in particular. He is aware that it can be confronting, but it is the other F word Frustration that compels him to sometimes resort to other for emphasis. Anyway, so what, if its good enough for Sesame Street, its good enough for The Pie. .. So that was the year that was, and what a rip-snorter we have coming up. Turns out this edition wasnt so mini after all. Comments run throughout the holiday break 24/7, so you dont have to wait to have your say. And the New Year will look even rosier for the old bird if you think the Nest is worth a small donation to keep it neat and tidy. The how to donate button is below. HAPPY NEW YEAR, YALL. http://www.townsvillemagpie.com.au/to-end-the-year-a-mini-magpie-with-a-mini-mystery/

[dragon-moms]

Entry 130 - Baroness

Conquest continues.

“How about I come along tonight?” the Paladin, Flare, asked. He grinned as Nobody and I packed up for another evening of study of the supposed entrance.

“No,” Nobody said.

“But I’m just staying here, standing guard,” Flare complained. “It’s boring. I want to go do stuff.”

“No,” she said again.

“Ivana, come oooooonnnnnn.”

“Don’t call me that!” Nobody snapped. She turned to me. “Baroness, let’s go.”

“Come on, Barry, you want me to come, don’t you?” Flare asked, looking to me. “I can help!”

I was taken aback by the necessity of having to express an opinion in this matter. I looked back and forth between the two of them, unsure what to say. “I…”

“Ignore him. Let’s just go,” Nobody said.

Flare touched the metal thing on his head, considering something. “You’re both having trouble figuring out this entrance, right? I’m a fresh perspective. And the magic of the door, it’s something very weird, right? I use weird magic, kind of. So you should give me a chance here.” He took his claw off of the thing on his head, smiling. “Something like that anyway. What do you have to lose?”

“A whole night of eggsitting you,” Nobody said.

“I’ll just hold the torch or something so you can see easier. Please?” Flare said.

“We… are to the point of simply testing at random to find a lead,” I said softly. “Perhaps he is correct about perspective.”

Nobody looked to me. “You too? I thought you were more reasonable than this.”

“...I…” I thought of the pamphlet Flare had given me. “According to ‘A Dragon’s Introduction to Progress, Our Guide,’ the Paladin intervenes on behalf of…”

“What the fuck? Don’t tell me he converted you to his god shit?” Nobody said, interrupting.

“...there… there is inadequate evidence…” I started, pulling my shawl tighter around me. “I simply mean to suggest that… he believes he can help…”

“Belief doesn’t do shit,” Nobody said. “There’s no use in a perspective that doesn’t understand anything.”

“I understand stuff!” Flare said.

“You understand hitting things and your weird god,” Nobody said, rolling her eyes.

“Yep!” Flare agreed.

“You aren’t supposed to be proud of that,” she said.

“But I worked on both of them real hard!” he said.

Nobody let out a frustrated growl.

I was getting along with Nobody while we focused on work. From what I had seen, the presence of Flare was likely to disrupt her focus and therefore our efficiency in working on the problem.

However, Gloria had said that the Paladin was attempting to become friends with me. Furthermore, he had confided in me about a desire to help Nobody in some way.

I had come to have friends almost by accident. A family, similarly. But they were important to me.

Perhaps the time had come to actively attempt to fabricate these relationships myself.

“...I would like Flare to accompany us,” I said.

Nobody looked at me. “Why.” Her voice had force behind it.

“...he can help…” I said quietly.

“Yeah!” Flare said, tail flailing wildly, aura flaring in such a way that I was filled, momentarily, with pain. He seemed to have realized immediately, however, touching the symbol on his chest and grinning. “Let’s do this.”

Nobody took a big breath. “You’re in charge of him. I’m going to actually do the fucking important shit we’re supposed to be doing.” With that, she took off.

“Hey, thanks, Barry!” Flare said, grinning. “This is going to be great!”

“We will just be continuing our experimentation and research into the enchantment we have located,” I said.

“Isn’t that great, though?” he asked.

I considered it. “It is… something I am good at,” I said.

“So great, then! And I get to hang out with you and Iv… Nobody!” He took off into the air. “Come on!”

I gathered my books and followed.

“Finally, this is going to be a real quest, with neat stuff,” Flare said as we flew. “Like, it was neat at the beginning, when we were all standing up to the Queen, but now it’s kind of been boring? But this will be good.”

It sounded like his understanding of the situation was not in line with our actual goals. “We are doing basic testing…” I said. “Most I have worked with find them tedious…”

“Oh…” Flare said. “Well, you like them, right?”

“...yes…” He looked at me as if he was expecting more. “There is... a sense of repetition to them which I find... appealing.”

“Oh! Well, okay then!” He did a needless twist in the air as he flew.

“Will this… be of use in helping Nobody?” I asked. Without my advisor in these matters at claw, I was unsure if I was making the right decisions.

“Oh, maybe?” Flare said. “I don’t know. You just have to do what feels right, right?”

“I… perhaps…” I said.

We soon landed. Flare looked around. “It’s a farm!” he said.

“What did you expect?” Nobody said, already arranging your notes. “You said you were going to hold a torch, so hold a torch already.”

Flare pulled a prepared torch out of his bag and breathed heat onto it. “Ta-da!” he said, grinning.

“Great,” Nobody said, her voice having none of the signs of enthusiasm I have noted in past social interactions.

“Thanks!” Flare said.

Nobody made a noise, but said nothing more.

We started doing our tests. Normally I would prepare many of these ritual sets ahead of time, but due to limited access to parchment, we had decided it prudent to focus on drawing them on the spot. Nobody kept track of our progress while I tested and analyzed.

I glanced up at Flare between tests. From what I had been told about his demeanor as well as my own observations during our travel, I would have expected him to exhibit signs of displeasure at the slow, methodical work that involved him very little. However, that was not the case. His free front claw was on the magical artifact on his head, and he looked to be focusing very intently.

“What?” Nobody asked, noticing me staring at Flare.

“...I was just… he seems… focused…” I said.

Nobody looked over to him. “Huh. Flare!”

Flare snapped out of his train of thought and turned to Nobody with a smile. “Hi!”

“Are you following this?” she asked.

“Following what?” he said.

“The tests,” Nobody said through her teeth.

“Oh! No. Are they going well?” he asked.

Nobody turned to me. “See? Just ignore him unless you need something hit, trust me.”

I considered this. “I… I would prefer to know what he is working on…” I said.

“He’s not working on anything! He’s just standing there!” Nobody said.

“Working?” Flare asked. “Well, I mean, I’m thinking? That’s kind of like work I guess. This place is weird. So I’m trying to figure it out and stuff.”

“What does ‘weird’ mean in this context?” I asked.

Nobody let out an audible sigh.

“Oh! Well, the Voice of Progress is being odd. That’s this thing?” He tapped the metal thing on his head. “Usually it says all kinds of things and makes all kinds of sounds but since I landed it’s just sang the same song over and over. I’m trying to figure out why.”

“That piece of metal tells you to do things?” Nobody asked. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah! Well, sometimes. When it’s important. Other times it’s just, like… motivation,” Flare said. “But if Progress needs me to do something specific, I can normally just feel it? This is just… I don’t know what this is.” Flare frowned, a look that seemed odd upon his face. “You two were doing tests though… I didn’t want to interrupt. This is probably between Progress and me.”

“Can I hear this song?” I asked. “If it is linked in some way to the passage we are attempting to open, it may prove beneficial to our testing.”

“How?” Nobody said. “It’s a song.”

“I… cannot be sure until I hear it…” I said.

“Uh…” Flare considered it. “I think The Voice of Progress has, like, a similar aura and stuff, so it would probably hurt you… I guess I could try to sing it? I’m not a good singer or anything though… let’s see…”

Flare started to sing, and immediately, his aura burst in size. I fell backwards, in pain.

“Barry! Barry, I’m sorry, I didn’t… like, I didn’t do that on purpose…” Flare said, rushing over to me.

“STAY BACK!” I boomed, and he froze. “...I apologize… but you will hurt me more… or I will hurt you…”

“Fuck, that was loud,” Nobody said, taking her claws off her head. “What happened?”

“My aura went all crazy when I started singing,” Flare said, frowning. “I really didn’t mean to hurt you… I’m a hero and stuff, you know? I don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it…”

I believe I deserved it. But I kept this observation to myself. “...perhaps we should repeat the test after I retreat to a safe distance…”

To my surprise, Nobody followed me as I gave Flare some space.

“Why are you humoring him?” she asked me.

“He… would like to be my friend,” I said.

“...uh huh. From what you’re saying, you can’t even be within a claw’s length of each other. What kind of friendship is that going to be?”

“...I do not know yet.”

“Why even try to have friends when you’re a skeleton made of death…” Nobody mumbled as she waved to Flare to say we were ready. Flare started singing again, and I could sense his aura expanding and flowing outward once more.

“I once thought that way, even before I died and became this… I have been shown to be mistaken,” I said. “It is…”

I was interrupted by a rumbling through the ground.

“No, no way,” Nobody said, and ran back over towards Flare.

I could not approach, so I watched from a distance as the ground itself lifted into the air, revealing a staircase deep into the earth, barely big enough for one dragon.

“Hey! I did it!” Flare said. But as soon as he stopped singing, the entrance began to rapidly close.

“No no no, you keep singing!” Nobody demanded, and he complied as Nobody looked at the entrance and the ritual lines dug into the stone.

“Holy fuck,” said a voice I did not recognize. “There really is an entrance.” I turned to see a Green and a Black, landing nearby.

“Uh, Julie?” said the Black in a scared tone. “Is that a… skeleton?” They were looking directly at me.

The Green turned to me. I saw his eyes change to those of fear.

“I… I am Baroness…” I started, attempting to hold my claws up in a non-threatening manner. “I will not hurt you as long as you do not make contact with me…”

The two dragons rushed backwards and then into the air to get away from me, making terrified noises.

“Fuck!” Nobody said. “Hold up, you two!” She took off after them.

I did not know what I should do.

“Barry! Go get my mommy, okay?” Flare called out to me. “And don’t worry! They’ll come around! I’m sorry they screamed at you!” He took off into the air as well, and the large slab of earth and crops floating above the staircase landed with a rumble.

“...yes… I can get Gloria,” I told myself. She and Merry and perhaps my apprentice could assist with this awkward social situation.

I flew back to camp and filled everyone in on the situation.

“I’ll go see what I can do…” Gloria said, her face looking grim. “Baroness, please stay here until things calm down or we have to go. Your presence will unfortunately make things worse.”

I nodded, understanding.

“And you and Myrmidon watch Philly for me, okay?” Merry said.

“You’re not going,” Gloria said.

“Yes, I am! I made friends with them in the first place!” Merry said. “I should be, like, useful in talking to them, you know?”

Gloria took a breath. “Yes, you’re probably right. Okay. But stay behind me until we know there’s no problems.”

“What problems could there be?” Merry asked. “We just need to explain…”

“They might have gone for help,” Gloria said. “We can’t stall, let’s go.”

Gloria and Merry flew off.

“Are you okay?” Philly asked. “That had to be unpleasant, having people scream at you…”

“I am… used to it…” I said.

“Well, still…” Philly said.

“I am sure that Gloria and Merry will be able to defuse the situation,” Myrmidon said. “Let us rest in the meantime, to be ready if they need us.”

Philly nodded. “That’s sensible.”

“...yes…” I said.

We rested together.

I have once again caused problems for those I care for.

The least I can do is rest and stay hidden as they ask.

[wandabherrera]

Animation in Computers

A movement is characterized as a visual change in a scene concerning time. The visual change in the scene isn't just connected with the adjustment of the situation of the article, yet additionally with its shape, shading, straightforwardness, energymedicineforanimals design and surface. A significant point about movement is that it for the most part means the hand drawn or falsely drawn arrangement of pictures, which differentiations to the films where entertainers' exhibitions with genuine scenes are recorded. In early occasions, activitys were made by hand by drawing each scene individually on paper and afterward painted.This strategy was clearly extremely inconvenient and tedious. These days, the utilization of PC innovation has made the liveliness interaction dynamically easier and all the more impressive. The way toward drawing pictures and playing them back at a rapid with the assistance of program to make a dream of development is alluded to as PC movement. The dream of development is made by showing a picture on the PC screen, then, at that point rapidly supplanting it by another picture, which is like the past picture, however moved marginally.

The field of PC movement is a subset of both PC illustrations and activity innovations. PC movement is by and large accomplished through a progression of mathematical changes scaling, interpretation, revolution or any numerical strategy to create a succession of scenes. Also, the movement can be created by fluctuating any of the accompanying:

· Camera boundaries: It includes the camera position as for the item, distance from the article, direction, and core interest.

· Lighting conditions: It includes heading and shade of light, number of lights, etc.

Nowadays PC liveliness is generally utilized in media outlets for delivering films, animation motion pictures, and computer games. What's more, it is being utilized in instruction and preparing, mechanical applications, augmented reality frameworks, publicizing, logical perception and many designing applications.

In the good 'ol days, an activity grouping was made by attracting various pictures various edges and afterward showing them at a rapid. Be that as it may, nowadays, livelinesss are made with the assistance of PCs. In PC activity, the casings needed for movement are created utilizing PCs, and are then shown on a yield gadget at a high velocity. An essential way to deal with plan a liveliness succession comprises of the four phases, specifically, storyboard design, object definitions, key casing particulars, and age of in the middle of edges.

I. Storyboard design: The storyboard is a diagram of the activity. This stage essentially characterizes the movement succession of the item as a bunch of fundamental occasions that are to happen. For instance, while making an activity succession of cricket play, the storyboard design would comprise of activity and movement of batting, bowling, handling, running, etc. Contingent upon the sort of movement to be made, the storyboard comprises of a bunch of unpleasant outlines, models, or even at times it very well may be verbal depiction or rundown of essential thoughts of the movement.

ii. Article definitions: Once the storyboard design has been ready, the following stage is to characterize every one of the items or members in the activity. The articles are for the most part portrayed as far as their measurements, shapes, (for example, polygons or spline surfaces), tones, developments, or whatever other extra data which can help in characterizing the items. For instance, while making movement for cricket play, the item definitions could be player's measurements, shades of their uniform, measurements of the ball, bat, stumps, and so forth

iii. Key edge determinations: The following stage during the time spent making activity is to indicate key casing detail. A key casing is a nitty gritty drawing of the scene at a specific time in the activity grouping. In each key edge, the position, shading, shapes, and so on, of the relative multitude of articles is situated by a specific mark of time for that edge. More the quantity of edges, smoother will be the movement. For complex movements, one need to determine more key casings when contrasted with straightforward, gradually differing movements. Some key edges are determined at outrageous positions, where others are separated with the end goal that the time span between them isn't excessively huge.

iv. Age of in the middle of edges: Once the key edges are indicated, the following stage is to create transitional edges. The complete number of in the middle of edges needed for an activity relies upon the showcase media that will be utilized. For instance, film requires 24 edges each second, and illustrations terminals require in excess of 60 edges each second. Regularly, time spans for the movement are set up with the end goal that there are three to five middle casings between any two key edges. What's more, some key edges can likewise be copied relying upon the speed indicated for the movement. For instance, briefly film grouping with no duplication, 1440 edges would be required, and assuming we put five halfway casings between any two key edges, 288 key edges would just be required.

There are twelve fundamental standards of activity which were presented by the Disney artists Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in 1981 in their book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. The fundamental point of the standards was to create a dream of characters holding fast to the essential laws of physical science. Be that as it may, these laws likewise managed more dynamic issues, for example, enthusiastic planning and character claim. The twelve essential standards of liveliness are portrayed as follows:

· Squash and stretch:It is the main guideline of movement. Its primary reason for existing is to give a feeling of weight and adaptability to the drawn items. Stretch and squash method is fundamentally utilized for mimicking speeding up impacts particularly for non-unbending items. This strategy can be applied to basic items like a bobbing elastic ball, just as to complex developments like musculature of a human face. For instance, when an elastic ball skips and hits the ground, it will in general get smooth on hitting the ground. This is squash standard. When the ball fires ricocheting up, it extends toward its development. This is stretch rule. Another model is the extending and crushing of a human face. At the point when the muscles of human face are extended or crushed to an overstated degree, it can give a diverting impact. The main part of this standard is the way that the extending and crushing of an article doesn't influence its volume. That is, regardless of how an article is disfigured, it should in any case seem to hold its volume.

· Timing: Timing is the most crucial component of a liveliness. It alludes to the dividing between movement frames.The more is the separating between the casings, the quicker the article will seem to move. The speed at which an item is moving gives a feeling of what the article is, the thing that can be the heaviness of an article and why it is moving. Timing in an activity is huge for building up the mind-set, feeling, and response of a character. For instance, the flickering of an eye can be quick or moderate. In the event that it is moderate, a character is by all accounts drained and dormant. In any case, in the event that it is quick, a character is by all accounts ready and conscious. Timing can likewise be utilized to convey significant parts of the character of a character.

· Anticipation: It is utilized to set up the crowd for the impending movement or activity and to make such activity all the more live and practical. For instance, an individual tossing a ball needs to initially swing their arm in reverse, or an artist bouncing off the floor should twist his or knees first. These are fundamental activities that are utilized to underline the article developments. Expectation can likewise be utilized for less actual activities, for example, a character looking off-screen to expect somebody's appearance, or consideration zeroing in on an article that a character is going to get.

· Follow through and covering activities: Follow through alludes to the activities that are performed toward the finish of the genuine movement. Finish activities underscore the way that characters keep the laws of material science, which express that different pieces of a body will keep on moving even after the character has played out the predetermined activity. As such, finish catches how parts of an item keep on moving even after different pieces of that article have quit moving. For instance, the arm of an individual keeps on moving even in the wake of tossing a ball. This is a finish activity. Covering activity is another significant guideline of liveliness. It is the propensity for parts of the body to move at various paces and various occasions. For instance, when a canine is running, all its body parts are moving at various rates. The circumstance of his legs is not the same as the circumstance of the development of his tail, or ears. By covering the activities of an article's body, hair, tail, attire, and so forth, you can make your movement more liquid, normal and sensible. It is to be noticed that while making an activity succession, an activity ought to never be brought to a stand-still prior to beginning another activity. Covering keeps a ceaseless stream between entire expressions of activities.

· Staging: It alludes to the introduction of a thought so that it is totally and unmistakably comprehended. A thought could be an activity, a character, an articulation or a state of mind. Its fundamental point is to draw the consideration of the crowd to the most important activity, character, articulation or a mind-set in a scene with the goal that it is effectively conspicuous. Arranging helps in remaining fixed on the thing is pertinent, and keeping away from superfluous subtleties. It very well may be acted in a few different ways, for example, putting a character in an edge, utilizing a light and shadow, and setting a proper point and position of the camera.

[rjhamster]

Overnight those tasks and routines can become the precious little places where joy is birthed. ~ Dawn Barton, Laughing Through the Ugly Cry 

You Get ToDawn Barton, Laughing Through the Ugly-Cry and Finding Unstoppable Joy  

Learning to Treasure What You Didn’t Want 

Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way. — 1 Corinthians 12:31

A deep breath and a huge, slow eye roll. That was my immediate reaction. A family member had just said to me, “You get to.” This was her attempt at reminding me of the holiest of postures — gratitude — so I’d do something I absolutely did not want to do: clean my child’s vomit off my dress and new suede shoes. I can assure you there was no feeling of gratitude in this moment as I stood covered in vomit at my cousin’s wedding. “Honey, you get to clean that vomit.” You get to. If you’re not familiar with this worldview, it’s an idea espoused by pretty much every pastor, women’s conference speaker, and all-knowing aunt I’ve ever encountered: to truly enjoy life the way God wants us to, we must be grateful 24-7. We should be grateful for the little things, the big things, the smelly things, the happy and the sad — in all things we should be grateful. The truth is this: that annoying family member was right. And I do believe it now. Finding joy in the messy, tedious tasks of our everyday lives is darn near impossible sometimes. Driving the kids to school, going to your job, helping with homework, keeping up with sports, meals, and exercise, feeling miserable about what you just ate, and wearing an underwire bra when all you want to do is let those puppies loose — every single day, life is hard, ladies. I know. The tasks seem never-ending, and it can be so difficult to find joy in the tedium. Until one day, when everything that makes your eyes roll is taken away. Overnight those tasks and routines can become the precious little places where joy is birthed. The struggle quickly becomes the gift. My youngest daughter, Ellason, was four years old when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Makenzie, my oldest, was married and out of the house, tending to her own family about an hour away. My husband, Craig, was in a dusty tent in the Middle East. It was just Ellason and me at home, with a lot of love and support from family and friends. During the biopsy on my right breast, something went wrong, and they burned the skin, leaving a half-inch, black, circular burn at the incision point. Believe it or not, that burn turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me. That burn became something visible and tangible I could use to explain cancer to a four-year-old little girl. We called it the “booby bug,” and it made sense to her sweet four-year-old mind. The booby bug made mommy sick. Getting rid of the booby bug was a lot harder than I imagined it would be. Chemotherapy was a wild beast, and it kicked my butt. The plan was six rounds of a chemo combination called “red devil” (because one of the drugs was red in color), and I would receive those treatments every two weeks. The next phase was a different type of drug that I would receive weekly for twelve weeks, totaling six months of chemotherapy treatments. My chemo weeks looked a little like this: Day 1: Chemo infusion. A nurse covered in protective gear — large plastic mask and all — inserted IVs into the port in my chest and changed them every hour until my body was filled with what I like to call “the poison drugs.” (Side note: Someone should give you a heads-up that your nurse is going to look like the hazmat dudes in ET when she walks in to give you chemotherapy drugs. That image sort of shakes you up. I mean, if the nurse is covered three ways to Sunday so she won’t touch the drugs, why is it a good idea to put them inside of my body? Food for thought.) The entire process lasted about four hours, and then someone would drive me home. Off to bed I would go, feeling tired but otherwise alive. Day 2: The poison drugs hit. Nausea meds and painkillers were a must, but this wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that I had to go back to the cancer center for a bone marrow stimulant injection that increased my white blood cell count so my body could fight infection. I hated it. Imagine feeling so nauseated, with pain seething through every inch of your body, and knowing you have to go back to get a shot that’ll make you feel substantially worse. From a mental perspective, Day 2 was always the hardest for me. Days 3–4: The crescendo of suffering. The poison drugs battled with my body. They were pure misery. I prayed, cried, and begged for God’s mercy through them. Day 5: A hint of hope. A small flicker of light appeared at the end of the tunnel, and I began to feel a bit of relief from the process. The first five days are followed by nine days of recovery and desperately reaching for normalcy until the cycle ends and I am shoved back to the starting line all over again for the next Day 1. The more rounds of chemo I had, the longer the miserable part of the process would take. The effects of Day 2 would stretch over two or three days. And the effects of Days 3 and 4 — my rock-bottom days — would sometimes last almost a week. The overwhelming pain, nausea, and discomfort were constant, and so were my pleading prayers. But I can’t write honestly about my chemo days without adding this: it was in the agony and sickness that I found God on the most beautiful and intimate level. Nothing has pried open my raw, aching heart like having my body and soul assailed by that disease and its horrific treatment. In the depths of my pain, I came to know Him best. I believe it is often at our most helpless, our most vulnerable, that we are most primed to hear and see Him. Anyway, back to the vomit at my cousin’s wedding. Yes, it all comes full circle. I’m sharing the not-so-pleasant details of my chemo routine to paint a picture of what life was like in that season, but also to give you some background on how I learned to embrace the “you get to” philosophy. While I was undergoing treatment, there was no driving Ella to school, no making her lunches or picking out her clothes. There was no playtime, no homework together, no running and tickling. I wanted to play an active role in my own life, and I couldn’t. Chemo was a prize-fighting boxer, and I was on the ground slamming my hands against the floor to tap out. I wanted to be done; I begged for it to be over. I wanted to be a mom, and I didn’t want to be sick a moment longer. Despite how hard I was fighting, I was still riddled with guilt over the kind of mother I was to Ella. I think women are the only creatures who can be gripping the ring of a toilet in sickness and still feeling guilty that they can’t drive their babies to school. We are crazy, beautiful creatures, aren’t we? As I fought through weeks of chemo, I found moments of joy and laughter with Ella. Not on a playground or in a car drive, but in the sweet, quiet moments lying in my bed with her snuggled next to me, close to my belly and wrapped in my arms. I am not sure if I comforted her more or if she comforted me, but Ellason was my saving grace at the end of each day. When I felt well enough, I would make up stories, starring her as the princess, me as the queen, and daddy as the king. (The queen was always very beautiful, of course.) The stories would change daily, and she loved it. After months of treatment, I remember the day I was finally able to pick up Ellason from school. I was elated that I’d been given a two-week break from chemo, and I finally felt well enough to drive. It was something so small, but it meant so much. When the normal, everyday pieces of life get taken away, you realize they make up a beautiful and wonderful existence. Before cancer, I had taken so much of this for granted; I even thought of some of those activities as the burdens. (What do you mean, you need lunch again? Didn’t we just do that yesterday?) In reality, these mundane activities were the sweet blessings of life. When cancer took away the mundane, I finally understood driving my daughter to school was a gift. Chemo was teaching me how to fight for moments of joy and hope. I was learning to look for them, and I was realizing all those things I resented were actually things I got to do. In fact, I eventually reached a rather revolutionary level of “you get to” mastery. Remember what Days 1 through 5 looked like during my chemo treatments? The beast of chemo was destroying me and my life; I hated the treatments and all that came with them. I hated walking into that cancer center and being poisoned each time. Chemo was the enemy — that is, until I learned my hardest “you get to” lesson. Every time I arrived to get chemo, nurses took my vitals and drew my blood to make sure I was “healthy enough” to be poisoned. My body was weaker each round, and my white blood cell count needed to be more than one thousand. When I walked in for my fourth round of red devil, I was fighting with all that I had — but this time I was also battling a fever. After a few minutes, the nurse walked over and with pity in her eyes said, “I’m so sorry. We can’t give you chemo. Your white count is too low.” My body wouldn’t be able to fight the infection. I actually couldn’t get the thing I hated getting most. This was the beginning of a big mind-shift for me. At first I was a little relieved. They gave me a shot of white blood cell booster, hoping to increase my white count overnight, and sent me home. The next day I arrived, and I was ready. My vitals were taken, blood was drawn, and soon I would be heading back for the red devil. But wait. “Dawn,” the nurse said, “your counts are too low again. I am so sorry. We will try again tomorrow.” The tears fell so fast and so hard and wouldn’t stop for hours. I needed this chemo to fight cancer; I had to have it. How could I want something I so intensely loathed? That’s when I realized: I needed to change the story in my head. Chemo was a gift. I get to get chemo. Chemo gave me the ability to fight cancer and live. It was a gift that generations before me did not have. Three days later I was able to receive my gift again. I would love to tell you that my view on making lunches and driving to school has remained in a place of gratitude, that I do it daily with a skip in my step and joy in my heart, but I would be lying. I am human. I complain. I get overwhelmed and annoyed. I grow tired of driving back and forth to school. I roll my eyes at a busy schedule. I loathe going to the grocery store. But I do have a gift that many don’t. When it all seems like too much, I have the gift of remembering what it felt like to have it all taken away. I remember what it felt like to desperately want to drive a little girl to school and go to a playground with her. I know that feeling, and I am grateful for it. I get to make those lunches. I get to clean her vomit off my shoes. Never in a million years would I have dreamed the diagnosis of cancer was a gift. But I can tell you unequivocally it was. A crazy, wild, precious gift. I got to battle cancer. In that battle I learned to love my family more, and I met God on a whole new level. So whether it’s a life-changing battle or one of those mildly irritating or gross parts of life, they don’t look so bad when that story in your head changes. When you realize that the gifts you’re being given are right there in that unattractive packaging. You get to open them, and you might find out that God designed them just for you — for your good and His glory. Excerpted from Laughing Through the Ugly-Cry and Finding Unstoppable Joy by Dawn Barton, copyright Dawn Barton. * * * Your Turn What do you get to do today? Do you get to work from home? Supervise kids' distance learning? Clean the house? Do the laundry? Deal with frustrating co-workers? Shop for an elderly neighbor? How are the get to’s changing your perspective? Come share with us on our blog. We want to hear from you about what you’re grateful for! ~ Laurie McClure, Faith.Full

[theconservativebrief]

Amy Winehouse is going on tour, as reported by Reuters last week.

A hologram of the artist, who died in July 2011, will tour North America next year. Her father Mitch Winehouse is the primary caretaker of her estate, and says he’s been working with Las Vegas-based company Base Entertainment’s nascent hologram studio to make sure that this digital Winehouse is an accurate recreation. And, as is always the case when a new hologram of a dead celebrity is announced, the reaction from fans has been mixed.

“Like she hasn’t been exploited enough??! Let her rest in peace and stop tarnishing her legacy,” one wrote on Twitter. Fair!

“People are mad about Amy Winehouse’s hologram tour. Can’t relate, I never got to see Amy perform live AND it’s raising money to help the Amy Winehouse Foundation which provides rehab facilities for young people who can’t afford them,” wrote another. Also fair!

What is not fair is that we are forced to consider, yet again, whether the dead celebrity hologram industry is just a niche technological novelty that will soon go out of fashion, or the future of entertainment.

It’s been six years since Tupac Shakur (then 12 years dead) appeared on stage at Coachella to perform alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.

This hologram, created by special effects company Digital Domain, was not a hologram. It was a trick of light founded on 150-year-old theater prop standard called “Pepper’s Ghost,” which uses glass and some knowledge of refraction to create an otherworldly-looking figure. It was invented by British scientists Henry Dircks and John Henry Pepper, and first used to add a “real ghost” to an 1862 production of Charles Dickens’ other creepy Christmas novella, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain.

In a May feature for Wired, Jimi Famurewa called it a “low-tech piece of razzmatazz” and pointed out that it is still in use in Disney World’s Haunted Mansion ride and in stage productions of the horrible musical adaptation of the 1990 film Ghost.

The technologies that enable detailed 3D modeling, capture super-intimate facial tics, and allow neural nets to mimic highly-specific manners of speaking have evolved plenty over the past couple of years. But the technology behind projecting those images to create the illusion of a three-dimensional body has evolved very little since its invention. The biggest change: In 1995, German inventor Uwe Maass patented a version of it that swapped glass for — basically — Saran wrap, and subbed in HD video.

It was this basic tech that was used to make Tupac, married with Digital Domain’s cutting-edge CGI capabilities. The company was, at the time, best known for fabricating Brad Pitt’s face in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and for being owned by James Cameron, though it had actually been purchased by dot-com millionaire (and Michael Bay’s college roommate) John Textor in 2006.

Textor’s company won a special award at Cannes Lions for the Tupac hologram that June, and filed for bankruptcy three months later after Textor was sued for $80 million by the state of Florida.

Tupac Shakur’s “hologram” at Coachella Christopher Polk/Getty Images

In 2015, Rolling Stone’s Andrew Leonard chronicled the bitter (and very spicy!) war between the two biggest hologram companies: Hologram USA and Pulse Evolution. Hologram USA is owned by Greek billionaire Alki David; it was responsible for the Whitney Houston hologram tour that was shot down by her family in 2016, and it was also responsible for the breach of contract lawsuit filed against Whitney Houston’s family in 2017.

It owns the exclusive rights to resurrect Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly, Billie Holiday, and Jackie Wilson, and it is managing Chicago rapper Chief Keef’s current tour, which he is not attending because only his hologram is attending, and because he is legally not allowed to go to London.

Pulse Evolution is made up of the leftover parts of Digital Domain and it owns the rights to the digitally-enabled ghosts of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Selena. Hologram USA sued the company for patent violation days before Pulse was set to debut its biggest accomplishment: Michael Jackson performing a previously-unreleased song at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards. In March 2016, Pulse settled with Hologram USA for an undisclosed sum.

Base Hologram, which is working on the Winehouse tour, is actually a relatively new and minor player in the world of dead celebrity holograms. The company, which is best known for producing Vegas staples such as Magic Mike Live, Phantom, and Criss Angel’s “Mindfreak” magic show, partnered with laser projection company Epson to launch its hologram division in January of this year. It has plans for nationwide tours, like with Winehouse, and for permanent theatrical residences.

The January press release announcing Base Hologram’s existence promised that the new company would represent “one of the most aggressive and unique approaches” to the field. Executive producer Marty Tudor told Vox in an email that his company’s tours use “cutting-edge proprietary techniques” to combine audio with “digital and laser imaging, CGI techniques, and spectacular showmanship.”

This claim was put to the test with the Roy Orbison production, which debuted in LA earlier this month, and was reviewed positively by the Los Angeles Times. Orbison’s son also told the paper that his father would have liked the show, having been tickled by the holographic Princess Leia in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.

Last year, in a longform consideration of the question of whether the government could commission a CGI Donald Trump to perform the president’s duties whenever he was busy with other concerns — such as golf, or television, or not feeling like it — New York Magazine’s Brian Feldman spoke to “digital facial expert” Mike Seymour, a special effects industry blogger and associate lecturer at the University of Sydney.

Seymour told him: “This technology is growing nearly daily and deep learning and neural nets are contributing not only to modeling and facial tracking, but soon to fine detail, high-frequency animation also. The actual computer rendering of the face has already become remarkably complex, producing digital skin that accurately represents the way light both reflects off skin and is partially absorbed and scattered.”

[embedded content]

There are also private research labs that can create 3D models of a human face using just one high-quality reference image, Seymour told Feldman, and it’s only a matter of time until that technology is commercially available.

But to make Winehouse’s hologram (or light creature, I guess), Tudor tells Vox that Base will just have to hire an actress who resembles her physically to don a motion-capture suit and create a bank of movements. Tudor didn’t mention if Winehouse ever had a 3D scan taken of her face, but it seems unlikely, so his company will also have to work through an elaborate process to make a digital recreation of that. Given that she was a very famous person who was photographed literally thousands of times, it may be tedious, but it won’t be difficult.

Famurewa’s Wired piece explains how the Tupac team “[Worked] around round the clock for two months in a room plastered with pictures of the rapper,” making “an entire bank of facial movements and expressions” to pull from when sequencing the entire pre-programmed Coachella performance. The VFX team basically just used the bank to piece together a video that bounced of some mirrors and translucent foils to make it look 3D; what seemed very high-tech and futuristic was actually just very labor intensive.

Making digital recreations of dead celebrities who can talk and ad lib during a show is also fairly easy now, thanks to chatbots modeled using artificial intelligence. All it requires really is that these companies can find and license a large enough sample of the person talking.

The big question is how to obtain all the materials you need to make a dead celebrity hologram. The legal issues around that rights and archives gathering are still pretty murky.

For example: One of the more notable legal battles in this space happened in 2012, when Marilyn Monroe’s estate threatened to sue obscure startup Digicon Media, which had patented “VM2 — The Virtual Marilyn, the first visual actress to live and work from Cyberspace.” Digicon claimed that Virtual Marilyn — who you can still visit on an incredibly retro, net art-heavy website — “did not in any way infringe upon the purported IP rights that were asserted by the Estate.” Digicon eventually gave up on its plans to have VM2 perform live, and seems to have stopped making new work.

In general, to create a hologram of a dead musician, any entertainment company first has to license the artist’s music and videos the same way it would to use those things in any other, more traditional show. It also has to license any images of the celebrity’s likeness necessary to create the visual recreation, which likely means dealing with the family or estate of the celebrity in question. From there, a contract has to be drawn up between all of the relevant parties to figure out how to dole out the profits.

VM2 — Virtual Marilyn! Digicon Media

But that’s not exactly the end of it! A celebrity’s likeness is subject to copyright and trademark, and something else that’s even slippier: “right to publicity.” This is similar to a normal person’s right to privacy, and means that while a person is living, they hold the primary right to make money off of their own existence and face and voice and even mannerisms. But after they die, what happens to that right depends entirely on the state they lived in.

There are 23 states in which a right to publicity lives on postmortem, and the time frames vary widely, from 10 years in Washington to 100 in Oklahoma. In California, the right to publicity is held by the person’s family or estate for 70 years. In New York, it doesn’t currently exist at all, with the right to publicity halting at the moment of death. Nearly every year, a bill is proposed that would extend the right to publicity in New York to 40 years after a person’s death — primarily to guarantee that a celebrity’s family or estate would be able to profit off of it.

As more of a legal scaffolding is built up around the still relatively niche industry, it will become more and more expensive for those looking to get in the business of buying up life rights and putting on new shows.

When Justin Timberlake hinted that he may perform with a hologram of Prince at last year’s Super Bowl, Prince fans furiously circulated gossipy tidbits about how much Prince hated Timberlake, and wouldn’t have wanted to share a stage with him, even from the grave. They also circulated a quote from a 1998 interview with Guitar World, in which Prince responded to a question about whether he would ever perform with a holographic version of say … Duke Ellington:

“That’s the most demonic thing imaginable. Everything is as it is, and it should be. If I was meant to jam with Duke Ellington, we would have lived in the same age. That whole virtual reality thing… it really is demonic. And I am not a demon.”

But holograms have been normalized, significantly, since 1998. Even before the Tupac performance — landmark primarily because of its shock value and the intimacy of the details programmed into its performance (like thanking the audience for applause, and interacting with the other performers) — Kate Moss walked as a hologram at an Alexander McQueen show in 2006, Will.i.am appeared as a very confused hologram on CNN in 2008, Frank Sinatra performed with Alicia Keys at the 2008 Grammys, Elvis Presley performed with Celine Dion on American Idol in 2009, and Mariah Carey showed up to a T-Mobile event in Poland in 2011.

Not all of these people were dead, obviously, but the “wow!” of making any famous person appear to be someplace they couldn’t actually physically be still dimmed a little more with each instance. When Feist — best known at the time as one of many indistinguishable members of Broken Social Scene — “performed” in three Canadian cities at the same time in 2013, the possibility of holographic concert tours that would be easy and weird and possibly profitable seemed fairly close. Yet, no real pop star has tried it.

Japanese virtual pop star Hatsune Miku went on her first wildly successful tour of North America in 2016; fans paid as much to see her as they did to see Taylor Swift the summer before. Not because they love the surprise of a hologram, but because they love her music and this is the form in which she exists. It hardly even seems odd.

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And then, last year, The Verge’s Lauren Goode reported on startup 8i, asking if holograms are “the future of how we capture memories.” The New Zealand and LA-based company has been working on setting up studios that resemble classic department store family photo studios, but use an arrangement of 41 cameras and proprietary software to render holographic video vignettes of whoever steps inside.

“Everybody wants holograms of their kids,” Nicole St. Jean, 8i’s vice president of content, told Goode. And chief executive Steve Raymond promised her, “People are going to want to put their loved ones into their phones for lots of reasons… [It] will become something you can just buy on Amazon and have it installed in your living room and make it at home.” The point of improving the technology isn’t to make anyone think the holograms are real, but to make them feel a more irresistible and automatic emotional connection. You don’t love a pricey computer-generated “vignette;” you love your toddler.

When Wired spoke to celebrity estate manager Jeff Jampol earlier this year, he said that the technology itself was basically worthless: “You can’t move around it, it can’t interact with you other than from a distance. It’s the equivalent of a used VHS tape.”

The novelty of a “hologram,” he argued, would wear off, and only our emotional ties to dead celebrities we’ve loved would remain to keep us interested in a dusty, hokey experiment. If the intensity of feeling that comes with the unexpected intimacy of these tricks of light wears off, this entire hotly debated industry will be little more than a couple-decade trend — as forgettable and inconsequential as the once-beloved VHS.

Original Source -> No industry is weirder than the dead celebrity hologram industry

via The Conservative Brief

[thepdvblog]

Dandelion - Chapter 3: Turning the Page

Dandelion Directory

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Summary: His objective is clear: make a name for himself and see if he can make a couple friends, especially in his dorm room.

Notes: A bit of a shorter chapter, mostly serving as a sooth transition from high school life to the first type of college courses featured in this story. I'll probably name this one by its actually most common name, hypokhâgne/khâgne, in the future, so I hope it won't bother people. I'm way too excited to show Florian's roommates. (sorry for the lack of trans-related matters in this chapter, I promise the focus will be back on these in the near future)

AO3 version available here.

Outing himself as a transgender man without saying the exact term was only the first step in a journey Florian knows is going to be long and tedious. He knows he will have to move out of Colombes sooner than he would like: there is no university in the town, and he does want to be better than his now-gone parents and have an actual diploma aside from his Baccalauréat. Moreover, he has graduated in Literature, as opposed to Roxanne and Juliette with their respective Sciences and Economics and Sociology majors, so he cannot really pretend this is going to make him go very far in life aside from maybe, just maybe and by sheer luck, work as a cashier or something alike.

He has had a number of these “let’s take an hour to find everyone’s dream career and paths!” classes in the past two years. Of course, his ears have always been at least half-opened, so he knows he wants to set his life in the great sea of literature… but how? College feels like it will be too expensive unless he goes to the other side of the country. Most of his classmates seem already set on Paris’s numerous universities, including the prestigious ones (to that he laughs a bit, considering some of these same classmates cannot spell properly), but him? He does not know what he wants exactly.

 His Literature teacher, the old and soon-retired Mrs Paris (a name that would have fitted would have she not been born and raised in Nanterre, the nearby prefecture), tells him he should think of preparatory class. Apparently, it will give him the ability to shoot for the stars and rise to the top of the intellectual society of the country if he ever goes to the end of it. Ambition is not something he has been known for, so this surprises him, but the description of this multi-course class to replace the unforgiving first two years of traditional college tempt him. Moreover, if he can find one with a dorm, he can pay less than if he had to have a flat and necessities to buy on top of it.

A student, from when I was a professor in Brest, once asked me why I allowed myself to be concerned about her finances because I was just paid so much. I came clean to her that I once was an almost-homeless disowned boy. Her face’s expression immediately softened.

 However, there are a lot of different literature preparatory classes he could attend, and as such he needs to pick his favourites. He discovers Henri IV and Fénelon in Paris are the most prestigious ones, but their reputation and proven efficiency make it so they are the hardest to get. Instead, and thinking of living costs beforehand, Florian finds a far more interesting offer in the Hauts-de-Seine themselves, reducing the costs of moving in case he does need to rent a flat for the holidays. He talks about it with Roxanne and Juliette who are moving to Paris for their studies, the logical course of action to take in these cases, but they wholesomely support his decision and wish him good luck.

Post-secondary orientation is one of the toughest trials a teenager has to go through. I myself hesitated over my future job, there and after, and I suppose attending Lakanal helped me stall by thinking of potential competitive exams and great schools I could attend later. Who could guess I ever thought about becoming a landscapist by looking at where I am now?

 In the end, and with the help of his main teachers, he fills a demand for two schools. He still caved in for Mrs Paris’s requests for him to request Henri IV, but his main objective is in his first wish, the school which seems to call for him: Lakanal, in the city of Sceaux. It is the closest school he could think of, and yet the few pictures he has seen of this campus-sized middle-high school hybrid resonate with his want for education. There are results in there too, with a few graduates from the prestigious ENS of Ulm Street amongst its former students. To be exact, he has two wishes, and his very first one is the one with the dorm.

He is about to go into his Latin exam, a supplementary oral exam he wishes he did not take back in freshman year when he had to decide if he wanted to continue with that language, when the results are announced with the classic boards he has grown to known for miscellaneous information. Despite the obvious questionable character of displaying everyone’s results publicly like that, he cannot help the grin forming on his face. He allows Roxanne, who discovers his results near him, to hug him despite the discomfort she may feel from his binder and the one he feels from his chest in general. For the span of a few minutes, everything seems all right, everything seems like it cannot go wrong anywhere down the line.

 The finals arrive quicker than everyone ever expects. On his side, his class still has not finished the philosophy program, his English classes are still a mess to decipher, and it seems like he may be running out of time for studying. As such, he allows himself to read his learning sheets in all the waiting rooms he ever is in (mostly Mrs Flamand’s, he has to admit), recites some parts of his lessons when he cooks or showers. Before he knows it, before the entire school knows it, the finals have rolled around and have finished almost as soon as they have come, leaving behind them only the bittersweet taste of predicted subjects and others who completely threw him off guard. He is still sore over the travesty that was the Literature exam.

The day the results are announced is a blessing. He is graduating and it feels so good to have managed to land the “Very Well” general mention on it once he gets to see his grades. Roxanne and Juliette share his joy, to their own extent and personal results, and the three of them realize the downsides to all these: they will not see each other again once this is over. They are parting ways, them to Paris, him to Sceaux, them to college, him to preparatory class. And yet, Roxanne keeps a smile on her face, tells them it is not over for their friendship as long as they can remain in contact. She gets her phone out, smiles as she points at it, reminds them of their email addresses they all have by this point. Juliette dries the beginning of tears in her eyes, agreeing with another smile. In the end, Florian is the last to get over it, but he does not cry, and instead he gives them his address from way back home on a piece of paper.

Needless to say, I did my best to remain in contact. I’ve eventually lost Juliette, due to her changing phones and having her email address unresponsive after a few years, but Roxanne and I are still best friends to this day.

 The summer holidays start on the note that they need to see each other as much as possible while working to spare money for college. As such, they try to have workplaces near each other, but Florian is left out by his much earlier preparations. Instead, he has opted for a place near Mrs Flamand’s office, just in case he needs to see her in a hurry. It is not the most fulfilling activity he has ever had, but it pays decently and he needs this money, so he shrugs off the boredom and soreness at the end of the day by thinking of the pay check and his future studies.

In fact, he gets great enjoyment from following the instruction he got sent early in the summer as a confirmation for his enrolment in Lakanal. He has bought most of the books required for the Literature and language classes, got far more lenient on Philosophy and especially on History. He has nothing against the latter –in fact, he was a great fan of his former teachers on this – but they are the most expensive books for what seems to be a limited use.

 He starts class back in early September, so when he tells Roxanne about it, she almost pleads him to let her drive him there. To be fair, Florian did not have the time or money to get his own driver’s license: he made sure to have his road code before it, but he cannot drive a car himself and it is otherwise very difficult to get from Colombes to Sceaux, so he accepts what she calls an “impromptu road trip!”. It is the best day he has spent in a while, laughs shared and remembering old stories from their previous years.

“To think I dated a boy!” Roxanne seems to tell herself aloud as she tries to keep her calm in the middle of a traffic jam. “Now that’s something I didn’t expect. To think you were still closeted a couple months ago… How has it been?”

“To be honest, it feels so much different. I get stares and some people still call me ‘miss’, but I suppose that’s to be expected. Tell me, does my voice sound bad?”

“No, you sound like… a normal dude? Well,” she seems to correct herself, “a guy whose voice is changing, but that makes sense considering it’s like a second puberty or something. Don’t worry, you’re doing great Flo!”

He blushes slightly at the compliment before replying “thank you”.

 There still are formalities to fill when they arrive to the school. Its grandeur is not reflected in most of the pictures he has seen of it: imposing buildings carved in stone, surrounded by the green of the grass shining in early September’s summer sun. This truly looks like a dream school, one with a rather expensive dorm and lifestyle, but he has the money for it. His summer job and his financial helps for being a student living on his own are all going to this and he hopes the part-time position as a cashier he has found not too far from Lakanal itself will help his finances.

When they arrive to the desk to fill in the last-minute details, such as exact option classes and installing in the dorms, he is the first surprised when the secretary calls him “Florian” without a shred of hesitation. She does hesitate when glancing up to them, hesitating between the short-haired Roxanne and the assigned-female-at-birth Florian, but she has otherwise no difficulty continuing the process.

 It is when they are en route for the dorm that Roxanne fully expresses her surprise about this. She has been used to administrations calling him by his obsolete name that she is perplexed now that he does not. To this, Florian replies with the proudest smile that his enrolment in Lakanal’s preparatory class is the first step of his “administrative transition”.

Even if Roxanne is his closest friend and the one who has seen him at his most vulnerable, he still tries to hide how soothing it was to hear the secretary call him anything but a female name. He has worked on changing his name legally ever since he turned eighteen and got disowned, steadily writing his actual first name on everything, from his bank account to his identity papers. He has stalled on his driver’s license so it could have this, the real way he refers to himself, with a photo of his actual face.

 Once at the dorm, he fills a bit more paperwork, mostly focused on medical information and who to call in case he feels ill. He writes down the number of Mrs Flamand, even if she lives in Colombes, because she is the closest he has to a parent nowadays. He gets the key to his room and another for the post-secondary-only door to the dorm, granting him access to where he is going to sleep. He makes sure to check if it really was remembered that he lives there on the weekends and holidays, to ensure any paper is sent to Roxanne’s home, list goes on. His parents do not need to know where he has actually gone.

When they arrive to his room, on the second floor’s boys building, he is the first to arrive to his room. He says hi to the boys and parents he comes across in the corridor, wondering if they will be in his class or if they are either second-years or in the other similar courses to his. In any case, most if not all of them refer to him as a young man, calling him “sir”, not even noticing how weird his changing voice sounds like. He can see Roxanne winking at him every time he gets called a boy.

 Classes start in the afternoon, so they quickly unpack everything. There are three beds, a small working space and a tiny bathroom with two sinks, clearly meant to just be a quick place to brush one’s teeth (and shave, in men’s case) because of the main bathrooms being collective showers and toilets. A classic, he thinks, considering this seems to be the overwhelming norm in every dorm in the country. He picks the bed closest to the desks, filling his dresser with clothes and some space in the bathroom with a few things here and there. Unpacking his razor reminds him of the seemingly silly joy he feels to finally be able to shave something other than his developing body hair.

Before they part for the afternoon introductory classes, Roxanne wants to go through the “moving list” she has prepared before they left with him. He has made sure to have found a new therapist in Sceaux, a nearby doctor, a supermarket to buy anything he could need… Keeping the note in his belongings, he hugs Roxanne one last time as she leaves the premises and he goes to attend his very first class. His objective is clear: make a name for himself and see if he can make a couple friends, especially in his dorm room.

[fleer19-blog]

Unturned Single Player Cheats

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