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puttingfingerstokeys · 4 years ago

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a friend in need [reworked]

so here’s the OG if ye cared: The OG(tm)

I’ve added characters and koncepts. Shinnok IS in the amulet, Quan-Chi is around probably, uhh... some shit happened offscreen a la annihilation that I’m sure I can enumerate on later or whatever. Uh

Faraday Cage

Energy crackled and radiated outward, sparking off pavement, trees, vehicles, people—anything with which it came in contact. Fires had erupted all over and people were fighting them as best they could, but with little hope of relief. Destruction radiated outward in all directions from one point. At the center of that point was an angry god, grieved at great loss, enraged beyond his own ability to control.

Earthrealm could not be protected by a weak, fatherly deity; Raiden understood that now, and it scared him. His own weakness scared him. His foolishness scared him. The “justice” of the Elder Gods scared him. He would end this fight and all fights, because they, for some reason, had chosen the path of passive observation. He had to do this; there was no other way. Why did no one understand? He was singular in his purpose and not even the chosen of Earthrealm, Liu Kang, could stand in his way.

Raiden had taken his own advice, a frightful echo from a future as yet unknown, an Armageddon which killed them all, himself included. It had taken many trials and many more errors to realize his own, true meaning.

“He must win.”

Raiden had finally reached the conclusion that the “he” in question was not Liu Kang, Earthrealm’s chosen, but Shao Kahn, the bloodthirsty outworld dictator. Reality shivered under the threat of the merging, however, and still the Elder Gods did not step in. How far would this have to go? Did they know that Shao Kahn’s army was, even now, trampling the tenuous pact between the realms? Did they know it had been making rubble piles of Earthrealm cities for almost a decade? Did they care?

“Liu, over here!” It was Johnny Cage, long having grown from the self-absorbed jerk Liu Kang had once known. In fact, he was a father, and proud of his little girl, but right now, damn near shitting in his britches to see Raiden this way. He offered an arm and pulled Liu Kang to his feet. He and a few others were taking shelter behind a small building which shook with the march of outworld foot soldiers and presently began to flicker with a terrible energy.

Raiden had warned himself, somehow, that the merging of realms must begin, that this was the meaning of victory in his own prophetic words, for the Elder Gods to step in. Shao Kahn had begun his dark work, however, and still nothing moved, nothing in favor of the forces of light and justice, anyway. It seemed the Elder Gods had a different idea of what it meant to maintain balance.

Certainly, there had been debate at first. There was no guarantee the Elder Gods would step in to honor the ancient pact between the protector of Earthrealm and Outworld’s greedy dictator, Shao Kahn. The deal had been struck before the eyes of those gods, however, and between divinity and divine blood; it was unbreakable. What no one had anticipated was that Shao Kahn could, technically speaking, send his forces through into Earthrealm without entering himself, or even starting the merge.

The terms of his further challenge, after having lost to the warriors of Earthrealm had been untenable, however, and so, with little debate, all kombatants under the god of thunder agreed to fight for the safety and security of their realm as a veritable army, rather than allowing their fate to once more hinge on a single battle. It had not stopped Shao Khan from taking Lao from behind and nearly snapping his neck when the behatted monk was the only one he could reach. This should have killed him, but for Raiden’s quick, skilled intervention. Even then, he realized he had been afraid that the Elder Gods would see this as blatant interference, though he had never once regretted it.

The invasion was small, at first, relatively speaking, and confined to Shang Tsung’s island, the weakest place in the fabric of reality, a sort of nexus point which connected most other realms. The Earthrealm fighters were able to contain it there, using it as a funnel, but only for so long. After that, the secret invasion began. Fortunately, the marching armies of open conquest had only made themselves apparent in the last few years or so. As the fabric of reality between realms had become thin, more thin spots had appeared, making crossing realms much, much easier.

“Your tournament is canceled, puny god! I have rescinded my generous invitation!” Shao Kahn called, raising his great hammer to the sky as Outworld began finally to merge with Earthrealm, tearing down buildings and reconstructing them in hideous amalgams. People fled and were trampled; people stood and were gored. He would line the streets with bodies before the day was out and only Raiden stood before him. Raiden, who had fought his own, dear Liu Kang, who had defied him nearly to death.

Had he died? Was Liu Kang dead? Raiden could not see him. He could not see anything past the haze of fury clouding his vision and judgment. I have killed him, again, as it was said I always will, as I always must. The thought was errant, not his own, and he brushed it aside, focusing on Shao Kahn and the present. It was his only choice.

For Raiden, at that moment, there was only himself, the protector of Earthrealm, and Shao Kahn, the invader. The world around him had narrowed to a tunnel which saw only the vicious Kahn. His soldiers had massed around him, many of them clearly conscripts from Netherrealm. Quan-Chi had long been on the side of Shao Kahn. It had been his magic which resurrected Sindel, giving her Shang Tsung’s many souls and turning her into a maddened force of nature. She was gone now, but while she lived, she stole many an Earthrealm warrior from him and Raiden could see some of these, lined up near Shao Kahn, not least of all the revenant kryomancer, Sub-Zero.

Meanwhile, Earthrealm’s remaining defenders did their best to regroup. Their numbers had dwindled in recent years. They were hanging on by the skin of their teeth, but only just. Everyone was exhausted and no one could remember when last they slept a whole night in a real bed.

“He… Johnny—you should have seen his eyes,” Liu Kang gasped, slumping to his rear-end near the wall. Jacqui Briggs stooped to examine him, checking for external injuries, and wishing for a better facility in which to check for internal. She was no expert, but godly lightning probably left a nasty mark.

“I see ‘em from here, Liu, and it’s… this is fucked,” grunted the Hollywood star, handing the binoculars over to his daughter, Cassie. She shook her head.

“He said we had to let Shao Kahn win, or else the Elder Gods would never step in,” gasped Liu Kang between labored breaths. Something was definitely wrong and if it was not treated soon, it could become permanent. “They… aren’t stepping in—I knew they didn’t care about us. I…” He groaned in agony and Jacqui pushed him back down.

“Hold still, Chosen One, your guts’ve been rearranged by a pissed off god—maybe take it easy.”

“If I ‘take it easy’, we all die,” Liu Kang snapped, jaw tight. Jacqui gave him a look that suggested she would take no lip, no matter how damn chosen he was or who chose him, for that matter. She could see from the way he held himself, the way his muscles tensed and tightened, that he was going to get much worse before he got better, especially if he pushed. They might not have a choice, soon enough, but while they did, there was no point risking it.

He met her gaze—it was burning with rage and sadness—with his own. They were matched in this way, both earthrealm natives with everything and more to lose, both people who had fought, tooth and nail, against this very thing. Sitting by idly and wishing things were otherwise was not something to which either Liu Kang or Jacqui Briggs were accustomed.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, Kung Lao approached, supporting a figure between himself and Hanzo Hasashi, the Shirai-Ryu Grandmaster. Behind them trailed Takeda Takahashi, Scorpion’s pseudo son and likely successor, half-carrying Lao’s cousin, Jin. The figure between Scorpion and Kung Lao was dressed all in blue, with cracked, gray flesh. He seemed to exude chill and once they had placed him, only Grandmaster Hasashi seemed inclined, or able, to stay near him.

“Is this all that is left?” Lao’s voice was not incredulous, so much as despairing. He moved immediately toward Jacqui and Liu Kang, dropping to one knee. “Where is Princess Kitana and her force?”

Liu Kang shook his head. He explained that the last he had seen her, she was leading an auxiliary force of Shokan loyal to her and her claim to the throne, plus a few Osh-Tekk warriors, a gift from the rebellious general Ko’atal. The big man himself had been nowhere to be seen, but he was resourceful. Jade, too, had been missing, but Liu Kang assumed that if they were together, they were safe. She was much more than Kitana’s handmaiden. Their party had been split by the arrival of the irate god of thunder and Shao Kahn’s largest, most potent portal yet.

“Dad!” The three looked up suddenly at Cassie’s shout, pulled from their informal debrief. She was reaching out to an empty space where Johnny had just been standing. Before she could go after him, however, Jacqui was at her back, grasping her elbow, hard.

“No,” Jacqui hissed, “you’ll be fried—we don’t know if Raiden’s friendly anymore… if he ever was.” Cassie jerked her elbow away, but Jacqui held tight and shook her head. “I mean it, Cass. Your dad’s… gunna do what he’s gunna do, just like mine.”

With effort, she pulled Cassie back and away from the violent arcs of red lightning that were even now consuming trees and landscaping, cars, enemy soldiers, anything within the dome of the thunder god’s power—an area that was growing. Cassie hated that explanation, but not because it was foolish. Jacqui was spot on, in every way. Johnny Cage was a force of nature himself and always had been. Cassie wasn’t sure, however, that he would be enough to combat an elemental who had, in her mind, clearly gone out of his wits.

Raiden and Shao Kahn met somewhere in the middle, just beyond the portal the Outworld emperor had opened to begin the final invasion and merging of Earthrealm to his blasted home. Still, the Elder gods did not stir.

Shao Kahn’s hammer swung mightily and met a fist that moved with swift violence. A thunderclap resounded, flattening the area and then cratering it. Neither hand nor head of hammer shattered, but that was of no consequence to Shao Kahn, who reached out and hauled Raiden forward by his collar.

The thunder god looked into the emperor’s animal eyes and neither hated nor pitied him. Raiden’s rage was beyond petty ire toward the man who had caused his beloved Earthrealm so much grief over the centuries. He would simply destroy Shao Kahn. It had become singularly simple in his eyes. He had been a fool. He would end this once and for all, for everyone, forever.

Perhaps it was the look, the nearly directionless fury which met his eyes that made Shao Kahn drop Raiden. Johnny Cage, who had worked himself much closer than was probably safe, watched from still a ways off and could not quite pinpoint what it was that had Shao Kahn backing away from the thunder god.

“It is forbidden for you to fight,” Shao Kahn warned, with more authority and sureness in his voice than it seemed he felt. “You cannot engage in Mortal Kombat! You are not mortal!” Even his minions began to back away as Raiden’s arced, red lightning crashed violently into them, disintegrating here, vaporizing there, starting fires all over. Raiden’s chest heaved with the effort of either sustaining the onslaught, or holding it back, Johnny wasn’t sure.

On that heaving chest, Shinnok’s awful amulet pulsed with life and light, beckoning and promising strength. Raiden reached for it, but hesitated, seemingly doubting himself for the merest fraction of a second. It was in that span of time whence Shao Kahn regained his courage, approached, and swung again. This time, he would have caught the god of thunder on the chin, had it not been for the quick footwork of Johnny Cage.

This time, boots met hammer, though the clash was not so even. The force of the impact sent Johnny into the side of a building. His back hit concrete and he was certain he felt something snap, but if he gave up now, Raiden was absolutely going to do something stupid. Johnny didn’t understand Shinnok’s power, or even who and what Shinnok really was, or had been, as the case may be, but he knew an evil piece of jewelry when he saw it. Perhaps ironically, his experience in the film industry had clued him into its potency and danger, if the sickly green glow was not enough.

“Time for a scene change,” he grunted, pushing himself to his feet and spitting blood. The tang of adrenaline was on his tongue and coursing through his veins, making him hyper focus upon this detail or that, the world around him moving in slow motion. Johnny fancied he could hear Cassie screaming somewhere in the distance, but right now, his attention was on the battle before him.

“You are too weak to use that amulet on me, or anyone, thunder god,” Shao Kahn mocked, manufacturing enough bravado to satisfy his immense ego. Raiden grimaced, as if considering whether or not the man was right. He ground his teeth and once more moved to grasp Shinnok’s amulet. Shao Kahn struck again, this time with a boot.

Raiden was forced to block this with a cross before his chest and to step back. He balled one fist and surrounded it with lightning, shaking his head. “You do not know my power,” he growled, “but rest assured, Shao Kahn, you will.” Raiden discharged the lightning at Shao Kahn, who used his hammer as a ground and laughed.

“Pathetic, and weak.” Each descriptor was punctuated with a sharp wag of his finger toward Raiden’s chest and the deadly amulet which sat throbbing with energy thereupon.

“I am not weak—I am doing as I have always done. I am protecting Earthrealm.” His hand once more rose to the amulet. “Whatever that takes, I will do it.”

With his free hand, Raiden wound up a massive store of radiant, red energy and hurled it at Shao Kahn. The tyrant was thrown back mightily, taking out a score of his foot soldiers as he flew. Raiden continued forward, his pace slow, but deliberate. The troops of outworld were suddenly cowed by this display, as if their fellows being randomly vaporized had not been enough. Something had shifted, they sensed, and they began to back away.

“You are forbidden, Raiden!” This time, Shao Kahn’s voice was laced with fear; the confidence he had earlier displayed with his first remark of this kind had evidently deserted him in the face of what Raiden had become. The deity’s hand was now resting almost lovingly, protectively covering his father’s amulet. It was as if a very small part of him still fought for his own innocence, whatever might have been left of it.

Yes, a voice whispered, emanating from the amulet, but resounding in Raiden’s fevered mind, yes, grasp the power you have earned. With it, no one will threaten you again. Earthrealm will be safe, forever. The voice which came from the cursed object was familiar and comforting. His thoughts clung to it, to the truth of it. He had earned this power. Eons of bending to the will of the Elder Gods with no reward signaled the need for it, the deserving of its power. He only ever moved to protect Earthrealm.

Meanwhile, Johnny had begun to close the distance between himself and the wrathful deity. He could feel his hair standing on end with the force of the red lightning radiating outward from Raiden’s body. He was tense; the actor could see that from where he was, and… Are those tears? He shook off the thought as a stray bolt vaporized a fire hydrant less than a yard from him; it burst into a geyser of city water which soon began raining down upon everyone in the vicinity.

Johnny ducked behind a bike rack, realized that was probably a poor choice of cover, and scuttled along on the ground until he found a trash bin that looked as if it was made of plastic composite, rather than anything that might conduct those wicked red arcs of enraged power. His heart was hammering a thousand miles per hour and for a moment, he wondered if that was the first sign of an electricity-induced heart attack. Maybe he had been struck and did not realize it.Thinking about the ramifications of that hurt his head, so he stopped and decided to do what he did best.

“Now or never,” he told himself, taking a deep breath and fully expecting to be vaporized like the fire hydrant. It would be guts, however, not water spraying about, if he was lucky. Speaking of the water... too much of it, and Johnny would be zapped for sure; he was already soaked to the bone. Oh like it’s any different than what I’m about to do, he hissed internally, covering his face to keep his sunglasses dry. He needed to be able to see for this one. Johnny simply told himself that god lightning was different than the regular stuff and, in a burst of foolish energy, tossed himself around the trash bin and ran, full tilt, toward Raiden’s position.

A wayward bolt struck his glasses, tossing them from his face and exploding stars before his eyes. Johnny stumbled and, somewhere in the distance—she sounded thousands of miles away—he thought he could hear Cassie’s voice calling his name, screaming it in raw, brutal, throat-rending panic. He prayed someone was holding her back, because if this went south, as he was almost sure it would, she would be about to fight a hurricane, armed with only a pair of pistols.

Raiden was not going to be stopped, but Johnny felt that it was his duty to try. Liu’s shouldered too fuckin’ much already—my turn, he reasoned, forcing himself to keep going, running harder and faster than he had ever done in his life.

Raiden had stopped his inexorable stride and Shao Kahn looked on in bewilderment as the earthrealm action star closed the gap, running directly into that deadly lightning. Shao Kahn had been so sure Johnny’s miserable back had broken against that building. There was something to be said for the tenacity of a cornered, wounded animal. The Outworld dictator considered the benefits of having stock like that in the breeding pits. If Johnny Cage lived through this, his life in Outworld would be relatively comfortable, Shao Kahn decided.

The god turned his head, acknowledging Johnny with eyes as red as his lightning. Sure as shit, Johnny thought, noting that Raiden was, indeed, in tears, though they did not seem to be saline, as a human’s might be—they stood out, even upon his pale flesh, catching light and reflecting it like diamonds—or perhaps rubies, stained by the power of his rage. When they fell, they seemed to solidify midair. He supposed the sound they would make might be the minute clattering of diamonds or solidified quicksilver, though of course he could hear nothing through the rush of blood in his ears and the ambient roar of battle nearly-joined.

“Stop it, man!” Johnny called, reaching a hand out. Raiden still did not move, but neither did he cease his bombardment. Shao Kahn’s forces were at a standstill, watching, for once uncertain of the correct path. Some were even edging toward the portal, back to Outworld and relative safety. “Raiden—you listening to me? You don’t hafta—”

A bolt struck him square in the chest and he dropped to his knees, eyes wide, staring with pain and fear at the man—the god—who had struck him down. Raiden seemed to shift a little at that and then to turn. Johnny had caught his attention and would have held it but for Shao Kahn’s voice. “An earthrealm fraud has halted your march, Lord Raiden—what sort of god are you?!” He urged his forces forward, but no one stirred. Shao Kahn looked around and once more met Raiden’s eyes, which were again trained upon him. The grip on Shinnok’s amulet tightened and finally, it seemed Raiden would use it.

“No more.”

Cassie continued to scream. Johnny could hear her now. He was coming to, realizing that he was not, in fact, dead, nor even too terribly scorched. At the last moment, evidently, the magic of his strange heritage had leapt up to protect him, but he could feel in his bones that this would not happen again. He had one chance. For Cassie, he thought, all those kids—for Liu and Lao and Sonya, for Jax, even Scorpion and Sub-Zero, and Earthrealm. His heart thudded and he started forward, first at a trot, the once more at a leaping gallop. For Raiden.

Before the god could respond, Johnny Cage had tossed his arms around that broad, pillar-like torso. He had never realized just how big Raiden actually was, and thought perhaps he had allowed himself to retain a human size when dealing directly with them. He had to have been at least seven feet tall and change, but Johnny held tight all the same. He could feel a surge of anger and fathomless grief within his own body, as if it belonged to him, originated IN him—and it scared him. All this time, they had though Raiden was losing his mind to the desire for power, something much more understandable to a human mind. Johnny had never held tightly to the belief, having gotten to know Raiden over the years, but others, his late ex-wife included, had been downright certain.

“Christ,” he grunted, “is this what you’re feeling?”

It was then that the Outworld dictator chose to rush them. With him leading the charge, his hordes felt renewed confidence and vigor and lunged forth as one, howling their triumph over Earthrealm. Raiden was frozen in place, but only for a moment. He seemed suddenly to come back to himself, as if he had been far away, no longer in control of his limbs or actions—certainly not of his lightning.

He wrapped one powerful arm around Johnny, who still held him, and with the other, lashed a wide, sweeping arc of blue-white lightning across the crowd, releasing his hold on the wicked amulet to do so. Shao Kahn’s hammer protected him, but his troops were not so lucky. There was a smell of ozone and charred flesh left hanging in the air when Shao Kahn opened his eyes and straightened.

“Send your champion to face me, then!” Shao Kahn shouted, beating his chest, his hubris seemingly undiminished. His tone, however, was just this side of desperate, and his stance was far too eager, too frantic, to regain and retain control over this place. Johnny looked to Raiden, then back to Shao Kahn. He knew what this meant. He’d been at this long enough. The challenge had been issued years ago and Raiden had, with the blessing of Earthrealm’s defenders, refused it. Now, it would be taken up.

“So you’re declaring Mortal Kombat?” Johnny was going to be absolutely clear on this one, since… god contracts and all that—or something. He wasn’t wholly certain on this point, but it seemed to be the right thing to do. Shao Kahn seemed actually to consider this. His troops were slaughtered or retreating, Raiden was placated for the time being, but who knew how long that could last? His konquest had begun unlawfully, but for the loophole of his not quite finishing the merging of realms. That would be his next step—because if there existed no Earthrealm champions to defend her, then who would stop him?

“Yes, Earthrealm clown,” Shao Kahn rumbled, slapping the handle of his great hammer on one rough palm.

“Mime, actually,” came another voice from across a few lanes of what would have been traffic. Emerging from the alley where they were taking shelter, Liu Kang led their friends, injured and whole, into the open. He was supported by a grimacing Jacqui Briggs and a relieved but concerned Kung Lao, but it was clear from Liu’s expression that “no you have ruptured organs” was not an answer he would be hearing today. Raiden’s shoulders sagged a little in relief; he had not killed Liu Kang after all.

“Thank you, Liu—wait hang on…” Johnny narrowed his eyes at his friend. The Shaolin fighter did not respond and seemed, for a moment, not to be able to meet Johnny’s eyes. In fact, if Johnny wasn’t tripping completely, he could have sworn that the guy was blushing. Still got it, he thought, grinning.

Before he could continue, however, Cassie broke into a gait he very much recognized as one that signaled extreme displeasure. Her face held a look of grim determination as she stomped toward her father. Johnny knew he was in for it and backed away, hands up.

“Whoa, whoa, pumpkin, easy, huh?” He looked between Shao Kahn and his daughter and realized he would rather face the Outworld tyrant. “C’mon—easy, what was your old man s’posed to do?”

“Not get fried by a pissed off god and leave me a fucking ORPHAN? MAYBE?” Her voice held an edge of hysterical panic he did not like. “Oh. Shit…” she stammered, stopping just as her path crossed Raiden’s. “I’m—sorry… I didn’t mean—”

“You did,” said the god, inclining his head toward her, “but you are not incorrect.”

Cassie was sheepish and mumbled another apology. Raiden seemed to understand her position, however, and addressed it no more. Instead, he turned his attention upon the waiting tyrant.

“When will this foolishness subside so that I can begin the konquest of your filthy realm, Raiden?!” Shao Kahn was growing impatient. “The Earthrealmer has declared Mortal Kombat and I accept, on the terms that, when I win, the merge will begin and you, pitiful servant of the Elder Gods, will stand aside and bow to their will as you have always done!”

Johnny’s jaw tightened at this hateful commentary upon Raiden’s character, but for once in his life, he held his tongue. Now was not the time to bandy words with dictators and monsters; now was the time to make them eat those words with a garnish of ball-crushing whoop-ass.

“It is my destiny to fight Shao Kahn,” Liu Kang hissed, eyeing Johnny, his gaze flinty. The hardness in his voice and tone belied the real fear that they were thwarting destiny and tempting a fate no one was equipped to handle. His eyes snapped to Raiden, then, pleading. Raiden shook his head. Jacqui echoed the movement. Even now, protesting this, Liu leaned heavily upon both people holding him up, in no condition to fight.

“Guess it’s not, Liu—stand back and watch.” Johnny would hear no more, turning toward his opponent and shouting. “I accept your terms, Shao Kahn—winner take all.” I mean, I’m not gunna take over Outworld, but like… it sounds pretty good when I say it out loud, his fevered brain nattered.

He must win. Raiden’s own, incomprehensible words came back to him in a sickening echo he still wondered, even now, to whom his future self had been referring. He had been so sure it was Shao Kahn, but that sureness had nearly killed his chosen champion. He met Liu Kang’s furious gaze.

“By the rules of Mortal Kombat, the challenge must be taken up by the one who declared it. I am sorry, Liu Kang, but this fight indeed belongs to Johnny Cage.”

Johnny heard his name, but no more. He was focused, utterly and completely, upon Shao Kahn, who stood a few yards hence, leaning upon the head of his hammer and observing the company with such arrogance, it turned Johnny’s guts. He cracked his knuckles and rolled his head upon broad shoulders.

“Okay big guy, you heard the god. Let’s fuckin’ go.” He dropped into a deep stance and beckoned Shao Kahn. The tyrant chuckled, the sound a raspy, hollow thing, mirthless and full of contempt and triumph for a victory he had not yet won. Kung Lao winced at the sound and whispered to his companion,

“This is insane…”

Johnny made the first move, using his distance to gain speed and launch into a combination of forceful, heavy kicks which utilized his size and the length of his legs. Shao Kahn blocked these with little effort and jabbed in return, hoping to push Johnny off balance.

The years had made him wily and this was not the Johnny Cage that Shao Kahn remembered, so cocksure and arrogant, his insecurities showing upon his countenance like a glowing sign, pushed by his own self doubt to showboat and make light of his own skill. This Johnny was an old veteran of many ugly fights; he was vicious, clever, and quick. The fate of his world hung in the balance. He would pull no punches and playing fair wasn’t necessarily a given, either.

Using the tyrant’s momentum against him, Johnny ducked around him and launched into a hard kick to the back of Shao Kahn’s head. This, the tyrant bore with an enraged snarl, a stumble, and a wide, arcing swing of the hammer. That swing, too, Johnny dodged, spitting in his opponent’s direction. “Gunna hafta do better’n that, slugger!”

“So your arrogance has not been tempered,” Shao Kahn commented. “Good, good. That will make your defeat all the more satisfying.” He laughed viciously and swung the hammer down, shaking the ground around them. Johnny found himself out of sorts for a moment, but it was long enough for Shao Kahn to catch him up in one hand, tossing the hammer aside and plying both powerful limbs to their grim task. He lifted Johnny over his head and began to bend. “Do you see your champion, Thunder God?”

Raiden, formerly watching with a mask of impassive disinterest, was suddenly assaulted by visions of Johnny Cage, broken nearly in two, over the shoulders of this selfsame tyrant. He could hear Shao Kahn’s triumphant laugh, the horrified scream of Sonya Blade, the heartbroken, barely-audible moan of Liu Kang. As he blinked, the entire scene flashed behind his eyes and, without thinking, he stretched forth one hand and fired a bolt of pure, blue-white lightning.

With a single shot, Raiden, god of thunder and protector of Earthrealm, ended it all.

Shao Kahn was vapor, dust in the light breeze that had begun to pick up. Johnny hauled himself to his feet, heart hammering once more, and looked between the two. Shao Kahn had been mere moments from snapping him in half, powerful hands crushing him wherever they reached, his back beginning to feel the strain of the Outworld dictator’s prodigious strength when, all at once, it was over and he was on the ground.

Coughing, brushing off, and reorienting himself, Johnny’s only thought was for the thunder god and he rushed back to where Raiden stood, staring, shocked (there was a pun here someplace), at his own hand, as if he had never before seen it. The amulet, curiously, remained upon his chest, unused, bearing no mark of having been harnessed.

“I…” Raiden stammered as Johnny reached him. The others watched the pair, who had sunk to the ground together, Johnny’s rough hands finding either side of Raiden’s face. They were murmuring—mostly Johnny, in point of fact—and no one was sure if they should get close.

Liu Kang directed them away and gestured that they ought to start dealing with the portal, which was still open and continuing its inexorable work. He hoped, silently, that the Elder Gods actually did decide to step in, because he was no sorcerer, nor was he a god and could not see himself becoming either in the near future.

Across the expanse of what had become the field of kombat, Kung Lao and Jacqui spotted Kitana, Jade, and a limping Ko’atal. They were followed by a few singed Shokan and some Osh-Tekk, bruised and battered, but alive. Kitana raised a hand and Jacqui returned the salute, made a brief gesture to the murmuring pair, and then to Liu Kang, still suspended between herself and Kung Lao.

“Hey,” Johnny hissed, “it’s okay—it’s gunna be fine… You finished it. It’s—”

“It is not over, Johnny Cage,” responded the god, eyes downcast. “I have upset the balance; the Elder Gods will be furious. The consequences—”

“Seriously,” Johnny interrupted, “fuck the Elder Gods—what’ve they done for us, huh?” Raiden’s eyes opened wide at these words of blasphemy and he reached out to grasp the lapels of Johnny’s vest.

“You know not of what you speak, Johnny Cage,” warned Raiden. Johnny hated that fearful look on Raiden’s face. It was foreign and wrong and did not belong there under any circumstances. Johnny scowled deeply.

“I know a thing or three about shit parents… Listen, this whole… fatherhood thing, y’know, it blows sometimes—no offense Cass; I love ya pumpkin—and it’s… like a never-ending cavalcade of horseshit, nonsense, and doubt.” He shook his head. “I had ONE. I can’t imagine being the… like, dad of a whole-ass world…realm… thing.” Pursing his lips, Johnny searched for his next words, choosing them carefully. “We spend our whole damn lives worrying and wondering if we did all we could—if we fucked up somewhere along the way and if that… y’know, if it caused more pain than it should’ve, or… more than we knew at the time, or could ever know.” He sighed. “And yeah, it’s gunna do that—it will do that. You’re going to hurt your kids and sometimes meaning well isn’t the be-all, end-all… the ends don’t always justify the means and all that shit, except when they do… But the bottom line here is that a good parent does THAT, y’know, looks back and… worries… about the process. Getting there ain’t always half the fun, big guy—and frankly, whoever-the-fuck got you here, where you are right now? They’re not the good kinda parents. Just sayin’.”

Raiden looked as if he had never been told that the Elder Gods were poor parental figures. He looked as if he had never considered them parents at all, which Johnny supposed made sense, since they weren’t exactly physical beings or whatever, but sometimes, one had to wonder at the “my ways are higher than your ways” explanation.

He, still holding either side of Raiden’s face, pressed their foreheads together and closed his eyes. “We’re gunna be all right, man—I promise. I… we… no one’s gunna let anything happen to you—or Earthrealm, or whatever.” He had clearly run out of words, for the time being

“Thank you, Johnny Cage,” whispered Raiden solemnly. “Your faith and fair words mean more to me than you can know.”

“Ah, one more thing, though.” Evidently, Johnny was not completely out of words. “Just… Just Johnny, please? Whenever I hear the whole thing, I kinda assume I’m in deep shit—y’really don’t wanna go there with a god… ‘specially not the kind who can do… y’know, what you just did.”

Raiden regarded what he had just done very carefully, then regarded Johnny. This, he supposed, was a request he could grant, but it felt strange, not addressing him that way.

“If I am correct, then we are, all of us, in ‘deep shit’.”

“Lord Raiden,” Liu Kang called, hobbling toward them having escaped, temporarily, his captors. “Forgive me, but that portal isn’t closing itself and I…”

Raiden shook his head and stood, grasping Johnny’s hands and pulling the man with him. “I will make this right,” he promised, stepping away from the mortals and lifting into the air. Once more, energy crackled all around, but it bore the tranquil, blue-white glow that they were accustomed to seeing. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief at that.

Cassie approached her father slowly. He seemed dazed. She could have slapped him, but she wasn’t sure that wouldn't trigger some kind of heart attack. Johnny’s eyes were wide, fixed on the hovering thunder deity.

“You ah… okay, dad?”

“I don’t… I dunno, kid. I’m not sure. But he is… and right now, that’s kinda what we need.”

#mortal kombat #johnny cage #raiden #faraday cage #there are tons of other characters #so I'mma just leave it at that #kung lao and a few others make brief appearances

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thiswasinevitableid · 6 years ago

Note

I would love for you to do the sharing favours professionally from the rivalry/ friends to enemies to lovers for the prompt fill for indruck? (I'm on mobile so can't copy the whole prompt) 😁

“ we’ve been begrudgingly sharing favours back and forth to help each other out professionally but this time i need you to do something more personal and you know you wouldn’t have gotten that account without my help last month or that promotion so you owe me.”

Content note: There’s a brief description of Indrid’s ex being verbally shitty to him.

“No, nuh uh, aboslutely no fuckin way.” Duck maneuvers the last butterfly bush into its display row, stands up to find Indrid glaring at him.

“Why not?”

“Indrid, we see plenty of each other at work. I’m not gettin roped into some evenin shindig with you just because you asked.”

He heads inside, the skinny, pale-haired man on his heels.

“Duck, please, I help you out all the time.”

“Yeah, with work. And it’s only now and then.” He settles behind the counter, checking off the deliveries that have already happened. Indrid stays on the other side of it.

“Oh, really?” he arches a dark eyebrow (of course the guy dyes his hair), “what about the time I made sure city hall chose us for the five year landscaping contract even when you were the one who was supposed to be working on winning them over?”

“That how we’re playin?” Duck leans on his elbows, staring Indrid down, “because I seem to recall it was me who helped convince Mama that havin a little florists space so you could do your arrangements was a swell idea.”

Indrid opens his mouth to retort when the phone rings.

Duck grabs it, “Mama’s Nursery and Landscapin, Duck speakin. Oh, howdy Winthrop. Yep, expectin the last orders this week, then we’ll get started on that zen garden. Uh huh. I see. We’ll see what we can do. You have a nice day now.”

He clicks the phone off, “I hate the rich bastard, but he wants us to do the landscapin on their summer home, which’ll be a nice chunk of change.”

“See! There’s another one you owe me. You have such a hard time being in the room with him, the only reason we got the hospital garden job is because I turned on the charm.”

“Is that what you call it when you get that weird smile on your face?”

Indrid groans in frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose. When his hand drops away he looks...defeated.

He and Duck may bicker, may compete from time to time, but Indrid’s a good guy. Hell, Duck will even admit (begrudgingly) that he often enjoys how much the two of them work together.

Duck sighs, forces his brain to switch from arguing mode to problem solving mode, “Indrid, what’s all this about?”

“I told you, I have an art showing.”

“Right, but why do you need me to go. Why do you need anyone, ain’t your job at those to make small talk and hope people say nice things about your drawins?”

Indrid swallows, picks at the front of his work apron, “He’s going to be there.” He says meekly.

“He-oh fuck, you mean The Shithead?”

Indrid nods.

“He tryin to pull some stunt to make you take him back?”

Indrid laughs bitterly, “no, he’s been all over his social media bragging about how he’s going to turn up with a hot date to my show, “show me what I gave up” and all that. Dani saw it and warned me so he couldn’t take me by surprise. I have so few friends in town, and everyone but you has work or something else that night. I thought it would be nice to have someone I knew with me.”

Duck thinks about Indrid’s ex. The guy’d come into the shop plenty of times, often making a big show of putting a possessive arm around Indrid (who never seemed to enjoy the gesture). At least, that’s what he always did when Duck was around. Worse, whenever Indrid was describing a new landscaping design, or working on an arrangement, the ex would pick at it, say how it was bad or lacking, that it would never work and no one would like it. And Duck would watch the glimmer dim in Indrids’ eyes, watch him go quiet (find him more than once sniffling and wiping his eyes furiously in an outbuilding once the guy left).

He looks back at the other man, who is staring at his scuffed converse.

“Where am I meetin you and what time should I get there?”

--------------------------------------

Duck gives a tight smile to the group of hip twentysomethings crowding the door of the building as he squeezes through. It’s some art space/ coffee house/ bar that isn’t quite his scene, although he likes that it’s warm and lively as opposed to the fluorescent lights and weird silence he was expecting.

He doesn’t spot Indrid right away, and so takes a moment to look at the drawings on the wall. They’re Indrid’s alright, he can recognize the ways they overlap with the sketches he does for arrangements or the plans he draws up for gardens. And they’re incredible, black and white with pops of color, a few abstract or dreamlike but many seeming more like still lifes.

One in particular catches his eye and he stares at for a good two minutes, trying to figure out why it looks so familiar.

“Ahem.”

He turns, and has to forcibly stop his jaw from dropping.

Indrid is in dark slacks and some sort flowy black shall-jacket thing over a bright red shirt. His hair is tousled on purpose, rather than from getting it caught on plants.

Has he always looked this good?

“Thanks for coming.” He says awkwardly, extending one of the two glasses he’s holding to Duck.

“This all looks amazin.” Duck says, taking the drink with a smile. Indrid relaxes at that.

“Oh, I’m, uh, glad you like it.”

“What’s this one of?” Duck points to the drawing he’d been staring at.

“It’s of a really lovely, big cork oak up on one of the eastwoods trails. I like to go there on weekends and sketch.”

“Hold up, that the trail that ends at the little lake?”

“Yes.”

“No fuckin way! I hike that nearly every weekend. Amazed I’ve never seen you.”

“I’m usually off the trail a little ways.” He grins sheepishly when Duck looks aghast at this confession, “I know that’s not allowed but I’m able to get such different perspectives on the things I draw.”

“If, uh, if you wanted to, maybe we could go up together some time. Could leave you to do your drawin while I hiked and then, dunno, maybe get lunch of somethin?”

Indrid looks a little surprised at the suggestion, but recovers quickly, “That sounds quite nice, actually.”

Duck stays by Indrid as he makes the rounds, asking him about the different drawings and enjoying the way he animatedly describes the process and idea behind each.

The Shithead arrives about forty-five minutes in. Duck spots him first, complete with a date on his arm. The date is tall, slender, with pale hair, looking like Indrid if he were a model rather than just a regular guy. Or, Duck thinks as he watches the ex preen, as if someone took Indrid and erased all the things that made him so interesting to look at.

“Ex just got here.” He murmurs, and Indrid stiffens beside him. Duck, seized with a sudden need to protect him from that jerk, places an arm reassuringly on his lower back. Indrid glances at him, face unreadable, but relaxes into the touch. For the next fifteen minutes, whenever The Shithead makes a loud, derisive comment, Duck will squeeze Indrids hand or brush his fingers down his back and Indrid will shake off the words.

There are several people wanting to buy drawings and so Indrid excuses himself to go thank them.

“Knew you’d be the one to pick up the scraps.” Says a familiar, unpleasant voice.

Duck turns, levels The Shithead with his most disinterested gaze.

“Nice to see you too. And I ain’t got the slightest clue what you’re referrin to.”

“He was always talking about you. ‘Oh, Duck knows so much about native plants,’ ‘oh, Duck has such good ideas.’” He says it in a mocking, high pitched imitation of Indrids lilt and Duck wonders if he can get away with physically throwing him out of the building.

“Anyway, it doesn’t surprise me that when I traded up, he went crawling to you. Honestly, you can do much better.”

“Beg pardon?” Duck growls.

“Let me see, how to put this in terms you understand? Why waste your time on a weed when you could have a prizewinning rose?”

“Because,” Duck says through gritted teeth, “sometimes people call things weeds just cause they don’t behave exactly how they want ‘em too, or because they don’t see the value in ‘em.” He steps closer to the ex, not noticing that he’s stopped whispering, “You fucked up. You were shitty and Indrid had the good sense to dump you and now you’re doin some petty shit to try and hurt him. He’s amazin at what he does, he works hard, he’s funny, and he’s so handsome I wanna look at him every damn day. You didn’t see the value in him. That’s your loss. Now fuck. Off.”

The Shithead is about to say something when a hand grabs his shoulder. His date is behind him, looking pissed.

“Hold on, you asked me out to try and hurt your ex?”

“Uhhh, babe, no, I can explain.”

Duck smirks, turns to check on Indrid just in time to see him slip out a side door.

“Goddammit.” He mutters, quickly following him.

The door opens into an alley, and Indrid is standing with his back to him. When he turns, his hands are over his mouth and his eyes are wet. But he doesn’t look unhappy.

“You like me.” He whispers.

“Uh” Duck scrambles, “well, yeah, we’re, uh, friendly types, fuck.”

“You think I’m handsome.”

“Shit, you heard all of that?”

Indrid nods, Duck sighs.

“Fuck it. Yeah, I think you’re handsome. And all the other stuff. And lots of, uh, other stuff that I didn’t say but could’ve.

Indrid steps closer, “Is the part where you admit all our arguing has been the only safe outlet for your, um, passion for me?”

Duck snorts, “Hell no, sometimes you need a fella who’ll tell when an idea ain’t feasible. But…” He meets Indrids hopeful gaze and smiles, “I’d be lyin if I said I ain’t thought about what it’d be like to be a different kind of partner to you.”

Indrid reaches for him, and Duck goes willingly into his arms as the taller man blushes and says, “Yes, I’ve thought about that quite a lot as well.”

------------------------------------------

Dani’s glad Indrids’ show is open so late. It means she and Aubrey can go once Aubreys’ act is over. She even texted Jake and Hollis, asking if they wanted to check it out too (also, if Indrid’s ex was there, having someone who looked like, and basically was, the head of a motorcycle gang would come in really handy).

When the four of them reach the bar, she peeks in hoping to see Indrid, but can’t spot the taller man (or Duck) anywhere.

“Huh, maybe he left?”

“Or maybe he’s taking a little ‘break.’” Hollis makes airquotes before pointing up. They all look towards the balcony, which clearly isn’t in use for the party.

It is, however, in use for the two figures currently occupying it for a long and intense looking kiss. One is wearing red glasses, the other lets out a laugh that unmistakably belongs to Duck Newton.

“We should give them some privacy.” Aubrey says. The other three look at her, and then she grins.

“Just kidding! WOOOOOO GET IT DUCK!”

“ABOUT FUCKING TIME DUDES.”

“GET A ROOM!”

“I’M SORRY ABOUT THEM BUT GOOD FOR YOU!”

----------------------------------

The sound of his friends catcalling them breaks Ducks concentration for all of two seconds. Then he flips them the bird, and goes back to the very important business of making out with his boyfriend.

#Prompt Fills #indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #AUs #taz aus

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all-things-are-nothing-to-me · 6 years ago

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A Critique, Not a Program: For a Non-Primitivist Anti-Civilization Critique

So the anarchist individualist as I mean it has nothing to wait for [...] I already considered myself an anarchist and could not wait for the collective revolution to rebel myself or for communism to obtain my freedom. — Renzo Novatore

I conceive of anarchism from the side of destruction. This is what its aristocratic logic consists of. Destruction! here is the real beauty of anarchism. I want to destroy all the things that enslave me, enervate me, and repress my desires, I want to leave them all behind me as corpses. Remorse, scruples, conscience are things that my iconoclastic spirit destroyed [...] Yes, iconoclastic negation is most practical. — Armando Diluvi First of all, there is nothing inherently primitivist about a critique of civilization, particularly if that critique is anarchist and revolutionary. Such critiques have existed nearly as long as a self-aware anarchist movement has existed — and not always even connected to a critique of technology or progress (Dejacque felt that certain technological developments would allow human beings to more easily get beyond civilization; on the other hand, Enrico Arrigoni, alias Frank Brand, saw civilization and industrial technology as blocks hindering real human progress). The real question, in my opinion, is whether primitivism is any help at all to an anarchist and revolutionary critique of civilization. The word primitivism can mean two rather different things. First of all, it can simply mean making use of what we know about “primitive” societies[1] to critique civilization. This form of primitivism appears relatively harmless. But is it? Leaving aside the obvious criticism of the dependence on those experts called anthropologists for information about “primitive” societies, there is another problem here. The actual societies that we call “primitive” were and, where they still exist, are living relationships between real, living, breathing human beings, individuals developing their interactions with the world around them. The capacity to conceive of them as a model for comparison already involves a reification of these lived relationships, transforming them into an abstract thing — the “primitive” — an idealized image of “primitiveness”. Thus, the use of this method of critiquing civilization dehumanizes and deindividualizes the real people who live or have lived these relationships. In addition, this sort of critique offers us no real tool for figuring out how to battle against civilization here and now. At most, the reified, abstract conception of the “primitive” becomes a model, a program for a possible future society.This brings me to the second meaning of primitivism — the idea that “primitive” societies offer a model for future society. The adherents to this form of primitivism can themselves rightly be called primitivists, because, however much they may deny it, they are promoting a program and an ideology. In this form, I actually consider primitivism to be in conflict with anarchic thought and practice. The reason can be found in the Novatore quote above. Simply replace “communism” with “primitivism” and “collective revolution” with “industrial collapse” and everything should be pretty clear. As I see it, one of the most important differences between marxism and anarchism is that the latter is not essentially an eschatological vision of a future for which we wait, but a way of confronting the world here and now. Thus, revolution for the anarchist is also not something historical processes guarantees for the future, but something for us to live and create here and now. Primitivism is no more livable now than the marxist’s communism. It too is a program for the future, and one that depends on contingencies that are beyond our control to bring about. Thus, it has no more to do with anarchist practice than Marx’s eschatology.I have already pointed out how the very concept of the “primitive” reifies the real lives and relationships of those given this label. This manifests among primitivists who seek to practice their ideology now in the way this practice ends up being defined. In a way far too reminiscent of marxism, “primitive” life gets reduced to economic necessity, to a set of skills — making fire with a bow drill, hunting with an atlatl, learning wild edible and medicinal plants, making a bow, making simple shelters, etc., etc. — to be learned in order to survive. This might then be spiced up a bit with some concept of nature spirituality learned from a book or borrowed from new age bullshit perhaps referring to a return to a “natural oneness”. But the latter is not considered necessary. The totality of the life of the people labeled “primitive” is ignored, because it is largely unknown and completely inaccessible to those who were born and raised in the industrial capitalist civilization that now dominates the world — and that includes all of us who have been involved in the development of an anarchist critique of civilization. But even if we only consider mere survival skills, the fact is that even in the United States and Canada, where real, fairly extensive (though quite damaged) wilderness exists, very few people could sustain themselves in this way. So those who learn these skills with the idea of actually living as “primitives” in their own lifetime are not thinking of the destruction of civilization (except possibly as an inevitable future circumstance for which they believe they will be prepared), but of escape from it. I won’t begrudge them this, but it has nothing to do with anarchy or a critique of civilization. On a practical level, it is much more like a more advanced form of “playing Indian” as most of us here in the US did as children, and, in reality, it is taken about that seriously. Nearly all of the people I know who have taken up the development of “primitive” skills in the name of “anarcho-primitivism” show how ready they are for such a life by the amount of time they spend on computers setting up websites, taking part in internet discussion boards, building blogs, etc., etc. Frequently, they come across to me as hyper-civilized kids playing role games in the woods, rather than as anarchists in the process of decivilizing.An anarchist and revolutionary critique of civilization does not begin from any comparison to other societies or to any future ideal. It begins from my confrontation, from your confrontation, with the immediate reality of civilization in our lives here and now. It is the recognition that the totality of social relationships that we call civilization can only exist by stealing our lives from us and breaking them down into bits that the ruling order can use in its own reproduction. This is not a process accomplished once and for all in the distant past, but one that goes on perpetually in each moment. This is where the anarchist way of conceiving life comes in. In each moment, we need to try to determine how to grasp back the totality of our own life to use against the totality of civilization. Thus, as Armando Diluvi said, our anarchism is essentially destructive. As such it needs no models or programs including those of primitivism. As an old, dead, bearded classicist of anarchism said “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge”. And one that can be put into practice immediately. (Another dead anti-authoritarian revolutionary of a generation or two later called passionate destruction “a way to grasp joy immediately”).Having said this, I am not against playfully imagining possible decivilized worlds. But for such imaginings to be truly playful and to have experimental potential, they cannot be models worked out from abstracted conceptions of either past or future societies. In fact, in my opinion, it is best to leave the concept of “society” itself behind, and rather think in terms of perpetually changing, interweaving relationships between unique, desiring individuals. That said, we can only play and experiment now, where our desire for the apparently “impossible” meets the reality that surrounds us. If civilization were to be dismantled in our lifetime, we would not confront a world of lush forests and plains and healthy deserts teeming with an abundance of wildlife. We would instead confront a world full of the detritus of civilization — abandoned buildings, tools, scrap, etc., etc.[2] Imaginations that are not chained either to realism or to a primitivist moral ideology could find many ways to use, explore and play with all of this — the possibilities are nearly infinite. More significantly, this is an immediate possibility, and one that can be explicitly connected with a destructive attack against civilization. And this immediacy is utterly essential, because I am living now, you are living now, not several hundred years from now, when an enforced program aimed toward a primitivist ideal might be able to create a world in which this ideal could be realized globally — if primitivists have their revolution now and enforce their program. Fortunately, no primitivist seems willing to aim for such authoritarian revolutionary measures, preferring to rely on some sort of quasi-mystical transformation to bring about their dream (perhaps like the vision of the Native American ghost dance religion, where the landscape built by the European invaders was supposed to be peeled away leaving a pristine, wild landscape full of abundant life).For this reason, it might be a bit unfair to call the primitivist vision a program (though, since I have no use for bourgeois values, I don’t give a shit about being unfair...). Perhaps it is more like a longing. When I bring up some of these questions with primitivists I know, they often say that the primitivist vision reflects their “desires”. Well, I have a different concept of desire than they do. “Desires” based on abstract and reified images — in this case the image of the “primitive” — are those ghosts of desire[3] that drive commodity consumption. This manifests explicitly among some primitivists, not just in the consumption of books by the various theorists of primitivism, but in the money and/or labor-time spent to purchase so-called “primitive” skills at schools that specialize in this.[4] But this ghost of desire, this longing for an image that has no connection to reality, is not true desire, because the object of true desire is not an abstract image upon which one becomes focused — an image that one can purchase. It is discovered through activity and relationship within the world here and now. Desire, as I conceive it, is in fact the drive to act, to relate, to create. In this sense, its object only comes to exist in the fulfillment of desire, in its realization. This again points to the necessity of immediacy. And it is only in this sense that desire becomes the enemy of the civilization in which we live, the civilization whose existence is based on the attempt to reify all relationships and activities, to transform them into things that stand above us and define us, to identify, institutionalize and commodify them. Thus, desire, as a drive rather than a longing, acts immediately to attack all that prevents it from forcefully moving. It discovers its objects in the world around it, not as abstract thing, but as active relationships. This is why it has to attack the institutionalized relationships that freeze activity into routine, protocol, custom and habit — into things to be done to order. Consider this in terms of what such activities as squatting, expropriation, using one’s work-time for oneself, graffiti, etc., etc. could mean, and how they relate to more explicitly destructive activity.Ultimately, if we imagine dismantling civilization, actively and consciously destroying it, not in order to institute a program or realize a specific vision, but in order to open and endlessly expand the possibilities for realizing ourselves and exploring our capacities and desires, then we can begin to do it as the way we live here and now against the existing order. If, instead of hoping for a paradise, we grasp life, joy and wonder now, we will be living a truly anarchic critique of civilization that has nothing to do with any image of the “primitive”, but rather with our immediate need to no longer be domesticated, with our need to be unique, not tamed, controlled, defined identities. Then, we will find ways to grasp all that we can make our own and to destroy all that seeks to conquer us.

#Wolfi Landstreicher #anti civ #insurrectionary anarchism #primivitism #anarchism #extinction rebellion #anti politics #green anarchy #nihilism

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riding-alpacas · 5 years ago

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Best views ever

El Chalten is a funny little village. Imagine your favourite country-side town. Now imagine there is an event on the weekend, let's say a biker event and the whole place is full of bikers. Let's replace the bikers with hikers who are all wearing their walking boots, convertible Columbia pants & Patagucci jackets and you've got El Chalten!

Totally worth getting up at 4am

It's quite obvious that you come here to do three things only: Sleep, eat and most importantly hike! This place only has buildings where you can sleep in, buildings you can eat in and signs that indicate hiking trails. It's a well-oiled machine and for very good reasons. The hiking is world-class and I totally get why everybody's flocking here. But that also means you need to get a little creative if you are after some solitude.

First things first though. When I arrived here, I actually felt like shit. The cold that I'd been carrying around with me for quite some time turned out to be a bit nasty. So I spent the first three days in bed recovering. Because I was bored (and because the first season of Baby Yoda The Mandalorian was only eight episodes), I decided to visualise my tale of suffering. This is how a typical man flu looks like for me:

A typical man flu

Pretty straight forward. A little headache and a runny nose at the beginning, then gradually transitioning into coughing over a total period of 7 days (with medication I’m usually able to make it a week instead).

But the one I caught here was different:

The nasty Patagonian man flu

As you can see it started off very similar and I didn't think much about it. But then it started to step it up a notch and all of a sudden pretty much every body orifice was affected and it all went crazy and in all sorts of directions. Day 7 was when I left Ushuaia, and on day 8 I took the bus to El Chalten by the way - fun times! This thing clearly tried to imitate a typical Patagonian mountain range, so I decided to name it the "Patagonian man flu". Watch out for it and always wash your hands.

Before we get to the more pleasant sections, I also need to spend a few paragraphs with the place I decided to stay at. I don't know how they did it, but Rancho Grande is clearly one of the most overrated hostels I've ever seen on Hostelworld. It starts by not knowing what it wants to be. It's kind of a restaurant with a hostel attached to it. Or is it a hostel with a restaurant out front? And with everything that tries to be two things at once: It's not good at any of the two.

The dorms were underwhelming as they consisted only of a bed and a locker. The bunk beds were tiny and didn't have any rails, the reading lights were so bright they’d scare away Godzilla in the dark, there were no shelves, the kitchen was a joke and the toilets turned into a steam room in the afternoon due to poor ventilation. I definitely expected a lot more at this price point.

The restaurant unfortunately wasn't much better. The bread was dry and the quality of the dishes very average. The common area of the hostel was above the restaurant with a huge void in the middle. I usually go to the common area to hang out but imagine being in a place with a constant restaurant noise in the background. I couldn't stand this for very long, so I saw myself in my dorm most of the time when I wanted to chill. You check in between people munching their Schnitzel and when you brush your teeth before you go to bed you might stand next to a restaurant guest who had one beer too many because the bathrooms between the two audiences are shared. On top of that a disturbing trend continues: I'm not sure if I'm just unlucky but the majority of the people are just super unsocial. They rather hang out with their mobile phone than with actual people. My room mates were the worst at this place: They didn't even tell me their name when I introduced myself to them and they were all just dead silent all the time. What the actual fuck? Anyway, let's move on to the fun part: The hikes!

The first one I did was the Chorillo del Salto trek. It was a short and easy 4km hike to a cute little waterfall and turned out to be the perfect start after spending the previous three days in bed. I chilled out at the foot of the falls for an hour or so before heading back to town. One thing I will miss the most about Patagonia is the water. It's a nice change compared to Oz being able to just dip your water bottle into the closest body of water and drink from it straight away. I think the last time I drank such tasty water was in the North of Sweden a couple of years ago. Apparently this area has one of the world's largest reserves of fresh water and it makes me wonder why we can lay huge pipelines to transfer dirty oil from A to B but not beautiful drinking water.

I like a good waterfall

The next morning I still didn't feel too great but decided that it's time to give the finger to the cold and just move on. In order to avoid the crowds, I left my hostel at sunrise and tackled the first (easy) day hike: 18km return to Laguna Torre. The first 2km were a bit of an up and down and in between I was welcomed with the following views:

Mount Fitz Roy means "smoking mountain" in the native tongue

Once I got over these initial hills, it was basically just a long walk through a forrest until the Fitz Roy river appeared on the left. One more kilometre and I was standing in front of the lake with a great view of Cerro Torre. There were some little icebergs floating in the lagoon that fell off from the glacier behind it. My plan to avoid the crowds worked out perfectly as I had the whole place to myself for about an hour until the first people dropped in. The fresh air turned out to be perfect medication, too. I felt significantly better when I returned to El Chalten which meant that I felt ready for the next day hike.

Look at all these colours

Acceptable view

I wanted to gradually improve the difficulty of the treks, so the next morning I went off and did the 20km return hike to the foot of Mount Fitz Roy (I still wonder why they named it after a Melbourne suburb): Laguna de los Tres. There are a couple of options how you can do this one. I personally don't like in and out hikes very much and this one had an option to make it sort of a loop. You could take a taxi to a place called El Pilar, then hike to Fitz Roy from the north-east and on the way back take the south-east route to El Chalten. The disadvantage is that you can't really see the mountains on your way in and you'd always turn around on your way back because you missed all the views initially. So I decided to do something else instead. I actually started this hike in the dark. The whole town was still asleep when I left the hostel at 5am in the morning but fortunately there weren't many nocturnal animals to expect (other than the last hike I started at night in Australia where I almost shit myself with that much activity in the bush at that time). The idea was to be at a specific lookout 1.5h later in order to observe the sunrise and see Mount Fitz Roy brightened up in gorgeous shiny orange colours. And as you can see from the first photo above, it worked out and it left me speechless for a minute or two. It was quite a sight and an absolute highlight of my trip so far! I don't think anything will get close to this jaw-dropping moment anytime soon.

Continuing the hike it turned out to be a lot more diverse than the one I did the day before. Having the trails completely to myself, I passed glacial waterfalls, mystic foggy sections and heaps of small creeks with crystal clear waters before getting to a popular campsite very close to the final ascent.

Foggy

The people who slept at the campsite were already on their way down when I tackled the final kilometre of hell. IT. WAS. STEEP. It took me about an hour to get up the last 1000m and I hated every second of it but the reward at the end doesn't need any words:

Does this need a caption?

I ended up staying here for at least 3 hours just taking in the stunning scenery and going up and down and all around the lagoon over and over again. It was absolutely beautiful and I can totally understand why so many people come to this place. Fun fact: If you compare the ridge line with the logo from the Patagonia brand you might discover some similarities.

On the way back I took my time and similar to the day before a crazy amount of people made their way to the top now. I regularly stopped at the river sections, cooled down my feet and also took a little detour to another lagoon that again looked so inviting for a dip. But with water temperatures around 6 degrees it was relatively easy to resist.

Beautiful water everywhere

So clean

The last hike I attempted was the 20km Loma del Pliegue Tumbado. It was supposed to be the hardest hike, but I'd rather put it in the middle between the previous two hikes. Other than the other treks in this area, this one actually went up a hill and didn't lead through a valley. With 1000m of altitude it may sound steep but it was evenly distributed across the whole length, so it didn't feel that bad at all. It isn't a very popular hike and I decided to start it at a decent time in the morning (9am). I actually didn't meet too many other people on the way. It started amid rocky shrubland which reminded me a lot of Australia. If you'd put a wombat right here, it would feel like you're in the middle of Australian bush. After a while, the trail led into a forrest which then turned into this weird rocky landscape that felt like from another planet. Quite fun and entertaining.

I want to be there when this rock loses its balance

What planet is this again?

It ended with an impressive lookout from where you could see the whole mountain range, including Cerro Torre and Mount Fitz Roy. From here I had the option to walk up another very steep hill for another kilometre or so but I couldn't see how the view would change dramatically. Lots of effort, low reward - that math didn't make sense to me, so I decided to stay down, have a picnic and just admire the tranquil scenery for a while. Only to fall asleep and waking up from an asshole fly that made it way into my ear. Yes, similar to Australia the Argentinians use this land partly for cattle and with the cattle come the flies... I didn't expect that I'd have to bring my fly net to this trip!

All together now

I'm such an artist

All in all I had a fantastic time in El Chalten with some of the best hiking I ever did in my life. In terms of food I tried the famous Locro which was surprisingly minty but a perfect hearty dish after a long day out. I also found a place that served a great traditional Goulash and one place where I had Guanaco Goulash. After seeing my first cuddly Guanacos on my way here, I now simply had to taste them.

Locro

Tomorrow I will cross the border to Chile to go on an adventure that I was looking forward to for quite some time now: I will walk the O circuit in Torres del Paine and will completely disconnect for about 8 days.

Last Mount Fitz Roy picture, I promise

#argentina #el chalten #hiking

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spidersmiceandeverythingnice · 6 years ago

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Gonna write my scatterbrained Spicy Hot Takes on Agartha before the news is stale and I delete this annoying and boring chapter from my mental landscape, so bear with me:

I think Agartha’s main issue was just straight up poor writing. The Japanese direct translations being as downright offensive as they were is one thing - but overall, the chapter is just one plot contrivance after another. It tries so, so hard to go for a certain tone but can’t seem to stick to any one thing or idea. Disregarding themes about sexuality probably would have been the very best way to go about this chapter, since I think the most interesting part was the theme about storytelling and in-authenticity - we all know that That Line was annoying af in a game like FGO, but it CAN work in a series like Fate as a whole. I had a helluva long day at work so allow me to explain in the least scatter-brained way I can manage right now:

Here’s what I’m thinking: Scheherazade, whose name I guarantee I will spell wrong/differently every time I write it even though I’ve been able to pronounce it properly since I was thirteen (I was in a speaking competition and told some of the Thousand and One Nights using her framework as the opening monologue, long story short ANYWAY -) is traumatized by her ordeal with the king. This is a really good and interesting thing to explore! Fitting it in with the theme of storytelling - Scheherazade is deeply afraid of dying and will do whatever it takes to live, so she makes a fantasy world and fills it with legends, and feeds their energy to a Holy Grail. With this, and the power of a Demon God at her side, she plans to reveal magic to the human world in the most destructive fashion possible, allowing the fantastic to become ordinary, and destroying the Throne of Heroes itself in the process. Fate is a series were stories have power - but Scheherazade survived basically by telling the most fantastical, interesting tales she could and never finishing them. She always would pause in the middle, and say, “That’s all for tonight.” I think this is the kind of thing we can run with in terms of setting.

Dahut is the weirdest example because it’s the one story in the chapter that I know next to nothing about. At one point it’s mentioned that Dahut is impossible to summon as a Servant, and so Drake was “forced” into the role of the Pirate Princess. Ys is probably the weakest part of the chapter for that, but I did like the idea of her being “Drake Alter,” where Drake vibrantly pursues her goals and desires but takes nothing for granted; Dahut gives into her every whim and takes absolutely everything for granted. The conflict between “Drake” and “Dahut” should have been emphasized more instead of having the player/Da Vinci dismiss her as “Oh, it’s not Drake, except when she conveniently comes back to delivery us the MacGuffins Ex Machina in the eleventh hour.” Dahut has little connection to Drake - it’s not her story, but a role she was forced into because Scheherazade was building a very specific kind of world. Therefore it is inauthentic. Perhaps that’s all it needs to be in this context.

This can also work with the Amazons. Scheherazade never told stories of the Amazons, but she has access to basically all stories in the world through her Noble Phantasm - she learns that they are a society of warrior women who live without men, and so decides that they will be a society which oppresses men due to her fear/bitterness towards men after the ordeal she suffered through. The “oppressing men” plotline was honestly dumb all around but using the Amazons as a mechanism to explore Scheherazade's trauma would’ve been more interesting than just having them be the Big Bad before the Big Bad Columbus Reveal: Scheherazade doesn’t like fighting, but wishes that she had been strong enough to protect herself. Because she views herself as a coward and her ordeal with the king has complicated her view of sexuality - “I’m better suited to a bedchamber than a battlefield” - she uses the Amazons of Agartha as a mechanism to cope.

This brings us to Wu, whose design I’m still not happy about even though I think the in-story justification is somewhat fair. (Let Helena and Wu be gray-haired grannies together or so help me!) Wu was absolutely an authoritarian ruler who did, in fact, invade and conquer several nations and institute a terrifying network of secret police. In her later life, she was given to decadence - but her tenure on the throne showed her to be a highly competent administrator. Notably, she ruled over an era of religious tension and balanced matters quite well, and though she was accused of undoing meritocracy to put her supporters into power, many of the men she appointed held positions in government long after she’d died because they were actually good at their jobs. Wu has been heavily mythologized over the years - later Tang emperors and Neo-Confucian scholars wrote her off (Wu founded her own dynasty under her own name, so they kind of had to legitimize it somehow), she became associated the nine-tailed fox spirit thanks to a few popular novels and poems, etc., etc., etc. The crazy thing is that Wu actually left very few records of herself behind, apart from some poems. Even the inscription on her tomb is blank! People can say whatever they want about her - it’s extremely difficult to know the full truth of the matter without any objective observers in the field (and without Wu’s own words to give context/another story), especially if you don’t read any Chinese.

BTW - the first thing I learned history class is that when you’re dealing with primary sources, you must always remember that translators have agendas. Every word is a deliberate choice, and it changes the meaning from the original text. When dealing with historical documents, this is not always a good thing.

Scheherazade reads some, but not all of these stories, and integrates Wu into her world as the sadist empress with an iron grip on her decadent mythical city.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? It’s a lot, but I’m not done. Now we have to deal with Columbus - there’s “In Defense of Columbus” video is floating around in the Agartha tag, but I haven’t watched it in full and haven’t done like, any intensive research on Columbus in particular, so I’m going to apologize right now for any historical inaccuracies/misconceptions that I’m about to write. The point I want to make here mainly is that Columbus, like Wu, has been heavily, heavily mythologized for both good and evil at various points. The thing about Columbus that is also interesting is that the authenticity of his journals is or was apparently a subject of debate. The man who published most of them actually happened to be Bartolomew de las Casas - one of the founders/first vocal supporters of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The reason de la Casas supported this is because he believed that using African labor would be an improvement over enslaving the native populations of the New World. Soon after, he had a change of heart and devoted the rest of his life to fighting against slavery in all forms. De la Casas went on to be named a saint, and was possibly the first person in history to propose the idea of universal human rights - which is how I had heard of him until literally just this afternoon; I had no idea he’d ever supported the slave trade until I was looking up basic info about Columbus’s writings so I could write this long-ass post. History is full of complicated people.

But as I mentioned in Wu’s bit, it’s very important to note that in many ways, Columbus is literally just whatever people decide he is. Like, he never even set foot in any land that would become the United States, and yet he’s a huge symbol here! Along these lines, his amnesia would fit the theme of inauthentic storytelling, choosing what to read and what to believe in. Columbus regaining his memories was an understated moment, which is actually fucking fantastic because it could be used to really emphasize the choice that is being made here. He’s a Heroic Spirit who can choose to be whatever he wants. He can choose to be the simple hero-explorer that schoolchildren sing about, or he can choose to be the Big Bad, the first and perhaps most infamous conquistador. And he chooses to be the bad guy. That is so fuckin’ fantastic, y’all! I honest to God love that not only did FGO portray Columbus as a villain of history but that the bad reputation is something he chooses to maintain! I can write a list of Servants who were less than stellar people and got a makeover for Fate. Nero is probably one of the worst examples but like - Ozymandias absolutely owned slaves in his life as a pharaoh. Hercules and Medea murdered their own children. Asterios literally ate humans as the Minotaur. Gilles de Rais exists as a playable character. Jack the Ripper is your daughter. Hell, Nobunaga burned temples with the monks still inside - but she feels bad about it now! Enough digressing but I a hundred percent get why Japanese fans found Columbus “refreshing” at his introduction. He owns his cruelty, his desire to exploit others - he challenges the narrative that everyone is redeemable because he doesn’t even want to be redeemed, he just wants to get rich and famous, and he doesn’t give a shit who he steps over in the process! Like, Columbus said, “I’m just doing what comes naturally,” at one point when he still had amnesia, so when he got his memory back and turned on the player, I really would’ve liked for him to say is something like, “You’ve already decided that I’m the bad guy, right? You know my story, and I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”

These kinds of questions/debates could have been used to emphasize the themes of Agartha. Legends are what people decide they are. People make choices and history decides whether they were good or evil or important retroactively. Can you know what someone is like by reading a translation of their poetry? Can you judge a king’s reign by the words of their successors or their rivals? Does the context of a story matter? This all could have been super interesting to explore!

Like I said, the main theme of Agartha being “inauthentic storytelling” could have been hella, hella good considering that this is a world created by Scheherazade’s fears and trauma feeding into her escapist desires. But Minase’s incompetence as a writer made everything so hamfisted and awkward that everything just suffered under his desire to insert his fetishes at every moment. It was so obvious that he didn’t read any material for old Fate characters - like Astolfo you poor sweet thing, you deserved so much better! - and even the new characters that he clearly did research on, like Columbus, fell flat because he couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say beyond mildly-to-extra offensive sex jokes.

#i'm tired so i may not reply to any responses but i had to get this out of my system because it's been nagging at me #like... it could've been good #it could've been at least decent if minase just... knew how to deal with a theme and read up on some fate character materials #but he didn't do that and so now we have This Mess #fate grand order #agartha nonsense #also disclaimer i did the baaaare minimum of research for parts and didn't even dig up my Empress Wu Research Paper docs #but like now that i've got this off my chest i'm gonna be done wasting time thinking about agartha since it was just so....#not even like that it was especially bad it was just... lifeless and insipid #thank goodness holmes told us it wasn't even canon lmao

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anxiouslyfred · 7 years ago

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Enough ‘On site Investigations’ Logan!

for ghost hunting, I got the pairing of analogical, and can only giggle at how I think it would be. @spookylissawho @sanderssidesspook

Sometimes Virgil really wondered just why he ever married Logan. Usually it was fine, all the knowledge his husband amassed would help him calm down from panic attacks, or entrance him with myths constellations are named after, but then there were the conversations which began with the words he was hearing now.

“Lightning, have you heard that the manor a few miles out of town is apparently haunted by an executioner from the 17th Century?” There was already a history book in Logan’s hands as he wandered though. “Some of my students were discussing it earlier on. It’s complete nonsense, of course. The area wasn’t even settled in until well into the 18th Century, but where on earth would they get such a bizarre idea?”

He had to take a deep breath before replying, long since knowing what suggestion would be made at some point and hoping he could divert it. “Weren’t you studying the colonisation of America just a few weeks ago, with an essay on how early settlements would have been run due this week? One of them probably made it up to try and scare their friends since the building is rather old fashioned.”

“But not at all like the houses of the 17th Century. How could anybody even believe that?” Logan exclaimed. “I might believe it could be haunted by the native Americans which should rightfully still own this land, or even that an executioner or jailer from a later time period might haunt the house, but the facts just don’t line up.”

“And I’m certain none of them believe it now, after hearing all your historical evidence to disprove the tale.” Virgil had to keep trying to reason his frustration away, if only to avoid...

“No! They’re insistent. The only way to prove them wrong is to investigate on the site precisely.” Logan decided, only to look at Virgil in concern as he sunk back into his chair, hiding his face behind his arms with a groan. “But if you’re feeling unwell I am sure I can investigate this on my own.”

The glare as he snapped his hands away would have made anyone less stubborn back down in an instant, unfortunately in their friends group that only included Patton. “If you insist on such idiocy as breaking into ruins then someone has to keep you safe and as your husband, that’s my duty. You try and step out of the door without me, and I’m handcuffing you to your desk so all you can do is your grading.” He hissed out, stalking over to Logan and straight past him to start putting his shoes on. “Let’s just get this shit over with while there’s still some natural light out.”

As ever when he started hissing his words silence followed as they got ready to leave.

VLVLVL

“See, Virgil, the arch of the doors and set of the windows is all distinctly 1830′s in design” Their shared silence was broken as soon as Logan saw the house and could begin analysing the architecture.

“Yup, definitely no early executioners haunting here, probably was a doctor’s house I bet. They always made fairly good money, right?” Virgil agreed, still hoping that he could stop it from becoming an actual ghost hunting trip though it was proving to be futile.

Even as he spoke his husband had kicked the door open, breaking the long since rusted through lock and wandering into the ruins. “Hmm, do you think that could be the actual ghost that was seen then?”

“No, I don’t think any ghost was seen, just that your students were telling scary stories amongst themselves and someone told it a little too realistically.” Virgil insisted, eyes scanning over the floor for any weak points they could fall through and other possible dangers.

As ever Logan had gravitated towards the books left to the mildew on a table in the hall. “You were right about the village doctor living here. The last page used was recording an outbreak of some illness,though he hasn’t specified the name, just the people infected or killed by it.”

“Oh goody. Does that mean we can go and leave this all to rest as a mistaken identification of your students?” Virgil asked again. “What on earth else do you want to happen? An actual haunting so you can witness it?” The sarcasm in his questions was ignored as always as Logan carried on looking through the house, having wandered into what might have been a parlour once.

“That would be ideal, so I can say for certain who haunts here.” Logan agreed, turning at his husbands growl.

Virgil had followed him though, looking increasingly frustrated. “I’m sure meeting a ghost would be ideal, given ninety percent of reported hauntings are malicious in nature and we would all love to welcome death with open arms tonight, right?”

“Ah. Perhaps it might comfort you to know that should there be a ghost here, given that there are only few reports none containing violence it is doubtful to occur here.” Logan tried, clearly hoping to assuage his worries while continuing the investigation.

Before Virgil could respond however a thump came from the hallway, distracting his husband once again, as they both hurried through to it.

There was no sign of a ghost as they entered the hall again, but a landscape on the wall had fallen down, it’s frame splintering into pieces, making Virgil grasp his husbands wrist so he couldn’t get to close to it. “Stop that, can’t you see how sharp some of those splinters are?”

“Don’t you see the picture that was drawn on the wall beneath it?” Logan whispered back, though there was no reason for them to be quiet.

The picture had obviously been sketched by someone talented, and showed a solemn gentleman, frowning out from it. “Oh joy, someone drew a picture. Why don’t you take a photo to show your students and we can get out of here?” Virgil snapped, glancing around to see if there was anything else sharp on the floor he hadn’t seen before, settling on a pair of shoes. “In fact, do that quickly before Mr Cellophane over there gets too close.”

“It was a doctor from the 19th Century, this just proves it!” Logan could have almost been cheering as he took the photos on his phone, matching the form marching towards them to the picture, even as he was yanked out of the house.

“I’ve told you time and time again, Logan. I don’t care what stories your students are telling we have to stop your investigations of them all before you get us killed.” Virgil was ranting as he dragged his husband away as fast as he could, not even looking back to see if they were followed at all.

#Analogical #ghost hunting #logan sanders #virgil sanders

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foreignersgod-rp · 6 years ago

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Though the snow-capped crowns atop the mountain range were miles away, they seemed somehow to loom over the massive structure known as Fort Briggs like silent, foreboding guardians. Elio found it difficult to direct her attention to the four Fotian soldiers awaiting her instruction and not glue herself to the awe of the surrounding nature. They were grown, hard-faced men, perhaps the youngest less than a year older than Elio. All of them towered over her in height, but definitely not in confidence- or ego. It was now nearly two years after her sanctioning as Knight Commander, and she felt as though she was tending to children when giving orders.

That was a considerable improvement, considering at the start she viewed them as nothing more than the cattle she used to herd back at home in the northern alps.

"Pair Ceann, guard the vehicle and cargo," she demanded firmly in their native tongue. A small nod back at the black metal wall behind them, and she continued, "Pair Biert, you will enter with us ad are assigned to Earl Od Nua. A distance of three paces, at most. This is low risk, but do not let anything catch us flatfooted. Are we all clear?"

"At your mark," they all affirmed.

"Go."

They dispersed like flies being waved from cow shit, and Elio turned to Arcturus who observed quietly by the car, fiddling absent-mindedly with the hem of his gloves. A common tick, she learned, that he did when his nerves were getting the better of him. "The air is so crisp here," the woman commented as she slid to his side. "You should take some deep breathes. Just look at the mountains over there!"

But as she gestured to the scenic view, Arcturus merely shook his head and rubbed his nose, reddened by the biting wind. "There's reason I don't travel to Northern Fotia often. This weather doesn't agree with me."

Elio smirked crookedly but didn't fail to caught sight of the Earl's eyes fixate on the wall of the fort. Who could blame him? Such a terrifying, cold structure looked so tasteless among the simplistic, peaceful wilderness holding the border of Drachma and Amestris. That ominous letter received prior to this visit was undoubtably pushing his anxiety to its limits as well as the meeting with the Fuhrer approached ever closer. Elio wasn't so oblivious that she didn't know Arcturus was witholding information, and the entire trek across the sea and land to Amestris was a constant battle with her own desire for pettiness in retaliation.

"... Anything I should know before we move forward?" Her face was still holding its warm smile, but her tone was provoking. She watched him tense up, the muscles his jaw and neck tighten with the stress, his knuckles clench slightly. Surely, he overthinking what to say next and Elio tipped her head in anticipation. In the end, Arcturus could only gulp and shake his head.

Elio's hazel eyes thinned. 'What a terrible liar, for a politician,' she thought and found herself unsure whether to pity him or to strangle him right there in the open field. Resisting the urge to huff, she stated shortly, "At your mark then, m'lord".

There was a moment's hesitation, but after some mental preparation, Arcturus took a determined lead into the maw of Fort Briggs. Every step closer, and the darkness cast by the colossus building enveloped him bit by bit, and he was surprised to find it much colder in its shadow. Just as he realized the pain in his temple from grinding his teeth, he could hear Elio from his shoulder, so gentle and soft he could've mistaken her hiss for the wind. "You need to breathe, Arcturus..."

He then forced a deep inhale and a steady exhale, training his eyes to the Amestris soldiers now approaching. She was right. The air was very crisp.

***

As much as Anostraus respected that his presence was obligated for the arrival of the ambassador of Fotia, he couldn't help but try to make his presence as small as possible within the Fuhrer's office. Reading the ever tense atmosphere of the room, he had managed to perch himself onto whatever allowance the windowsill overlooking the landscapes surrounding Fort Briggs allotted, out of the way of the few uniforms busily striding about the room (and yet somehow accomplishing next to nothing). He could hear Mustang quietly sigh among the stressed murmurs and confused questioning about the Queen's disappearance. And though it pained Anostraus to keep his mouth shut on the matter, he just barely managed to do so.

The cold radiating from the window bit at his cheek when he leaned in closer, daring to press his head against the pane to get a better view further down the one main road below, barely visible from the snow. However much the world appeared to be the very picture of tranquility and peace outside, there was little to be found among the Amestrian military. Anxieties had even wormed their way into the idle gossip of the nurses under Anostraus's authority at the Briggs clinic. He had heard theories from some secret military execution, directed by a coupe within the ranks and that was hurriedly being covered up by Mustang, to the more entertaining idea that Queen Ixelia had elloped away to Creta with a nameless gentleman. Anostraus may have enjoyed laughing to himself about the insanely out-there stories the public was entertaining themselves with, but there was an undeniable ache felt by those close to Ixelia in her absence.

But instead of giving into temptation that was political turmoil, he drew a lazy, long drag from his cigarette, trying to keep his mind occupied by the arrival of his nephew- pardon, the ambassador. That scheduled meeting alone was enough to send him into cardiac arrest, as it had been so, so long his he had last seen the boy. But there was also the thought that little Arcturus was now carrying his father's title brought a small nostalgic smirk to his face. Arcturus was a quiet, well-mannered child, one that Anostraus found little complaint in- and that was saying a lot coming from an infant-despising man like Anostraus. He couldn't resist wondering, though, how Arcturus came into power as Earl of Nuada when he had enlisted with the King's Guard specifically to revoke his claim... He supposed he might be able to inquiry the lad himself, perhaps, depending on just how vexed he may still be over Anostraus's abrupt uprooting and migration to Amestris.

As he rose his pursed lips to the crack of the window and blew the smoke from his lungs, he overheard the Elric boy speak. “Have you been able to get ahold of Mr. Krol, Roy? I feel that he might have the answers we need out of anyone else we can ask. But if he doesn’t know what’s happened, then…” Without waiting for Mustang's response, Anostraus interjected flatly: "No. Nothing from him yet. But we're being cautious about where we lay our tracks, remember?" He peaked over his shoulder to Elric. Mustang, though it seemed painful to admit aloud, grunted in agreement. "We possibly won't hear from him for another couple days," he huff as his grip dug into the edges of the table.

'A few days' was being optimistic, he was regretful to acknowledge. Anostraus wished he could just simply ring up his old friend, just like any other day before this disaster, and ask how things were happening around there in Jozefat's little cabin in the middle of nowhere. But they all knew just how far Drachma would curl its fingers around Ixelia and her family. And they all knew that there was a very real chance that the Drachman government already had its nails right into Jozefat's throat. Turning his attention back to the scenic views, he could feel the weight of the matter settle uneasily on his shoulders yet again. Jozefat was more than capable of handling himself, and Airenne was just as much a hellcat as Ixelia, if not more so. He wanted to believe they were all resilient enough to endure, but they weren't going to be able to pry from Drachma's grasps by themselves.

'So many emotions to process, so little ability to process them to begin with', Anostraus thought with a tired sigh. There were a handful of difficult tasks ahead, so he'd focus his efforts on the easiest one...

There was an abrupt knock at the door. A guarded calm fell over the room as the door swung open. A single Amestrian soldier stepped forward and announced, "Fuhrer, may I present Earl Od Nua of Fotia." Mustang calmly rose to his feet and fastened the button of his uniform, and the rest of the soldiers in the room filed out in an orderly custom until it was just Roy, Elric, Anostraus, and their two foreign guests. From under his knitted brows, the Fuhrer's dark eyes took a some time to surveyed his new company. There was a tall, limber man with skin as pale as the snow just outside their window, as well as jet black hair braided and drawn tightly at the back of his head. For someone from Fotia, which was known for their overly intricate fashion at such formal occasions, he was dressed in a basic, all-black fashion, with a long tailored coat adorned with hanging sleeves that trailed behind him. Though he was perhaps in his early thirties, Roy could make out the creases of stress forming beneath his blue, down-turned eyes. No doubt he was the ambassador.

Arcturus stepped in the middle of the room, seemingly determined to keep his sights solely on the Fuhrer. Deeply he bowed his head. "Good morning, Fuhrer Mustang, and thank you for the invitation to visit your country. It is truly an honor," he said. His voice, though not necessarily loud, was notably full-bodied, compelling. And despite his prominent accent, his Amestrian was remarkably clear. Arcturus bowed slightly lower before rising again to his full height. With a gesture with a single gloved hand to the second guest, Roy's attention turned to a thin woman with sharp features, tanned skin kissed passionately by the sun with dark freckles, and short, messy ginger hair. She too wore a uniform somewhat similar to her master's, but somehow she appeared entirely out of place in it. Nevertheless, her chin was raised with an air of poise and her narrow eyes sharp and steady as she meticulously scanned every inch of the space.

"Please, allow me to introduce my Knight Commander, Elio Illuka, who hails from County Beira. She's been enjoying your weather here in the Briggs." Roy regarded the woman with a small simper. "Is that so? It's pretty harsh, out here." In turn, Elio tipped her head in acknowledgment of the Fehrur, but offered nothing more than her intense scrutiny.

Roy continued on, "Thank you for coming all of this way, Earl Od Nua. I hope your trip was a comfortable one?"

"Yes. I haven't visited the Briggs before, only Central of Amestris. This was... ," With a brief pause, Arcturus couldn't resist a quick glance to his uncle any longer. "An unexpected rendezvous point, I must admit." Anostraus, refusing to waver under the attention, offered a strained grin. The atmosphere of the room began to hang awkwardly over everyone in attendance as they stood about in a sea of many unspoken words. Anostraus unhurriedly directed his gaze to the king once more, this time he wore a more somber, focused cast. "Though I'm hardly bothered by idle chat, Fuhrer... May I know what you and my uncle would have of me?"

#*tosses this across desk* w/e take it lol

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carriecourogen · 6 years ago

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In Times of Chaos, Maggie Rogers Serves a Much-Needed Catharsis

Three-quarters of the way through Heard It In A Past Life, Maggie Rogers recalls words of wisdom implored decades before her: Standing, staring straight ahead, listening when Stevie says: Come out of the darkness.

Rogers isn’t the first millennial to look to the past — or Stevie Nicks, in particular — for inspiration. But on her full-length major label debut, she voyages to the lighthouse and returns to report on the revelations made in ways that feel not derivative or contrived, but fresh, invigorating, and necessary for our times.

We are living in an increasingly unstable world, and those of 24-year-old Rogers’ generation are bearing the brunt of it. We’re the first generation all but guaranteed not to be more financially successful than our parents, the ones navigating an imploding and underpaying job market, the ones facing the downright terrifying possibility that the world will encounter apocalyptic climate crisis before we’ve even reached retirement age. Can you really blame us for being the most anxious generation yet? After all, on top of trying to clean up the world’s messy shit, we’re still 20-somethings with personal crises of our own.

It makes sense, then, that the current musical landscape seems a little bleak — and not just in the resurgence of intimately emotional indie singer-songwriters. Pop music, once considered to be joyous, saccharine stuff, is getting sadder. A recent study found that pop songs’ mood has been trending downward considerably in the past few decades, with fewer songs conveying “happiness” or “brightness” and more ticking off the “sadness” box. In 2014, the Billboard Hot 100 chart was topped by Pharrell Williams’ infectious, sunshine-kissed bop “Happy” (I swear, you can’t make this stuff up). Five years later, the number one song is Halsey’s “Without Me,” a brooding breakup track released via a tweet that said “Here are my insides. Handle them with care.”

Maybe this is why Maggie Rogers feels like such a breath of fresh air. Rejoice, our times are terrible, indeed, but her music is a spot of brightness in a world that seems to be growing more grim every day. Her music is the stuff of joy, hard-won optimism in the face of challenge. It’s the kind of cathartic dance party you throw in spite of — and sometimes because of — darkness, not in ignorance of it.

Rogers’ story goes a little like this: The rural Maryland native enrolled at NYU to study at the esteemed Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Nicknamed “Banjo Girl,” she played the requisite Brooklyn and East Village venues with her folk band, but living in the city, as well as a semester in Paris, exposed Rogers to hip-hop, dance, and electronic music. Though revelatory, it led to confusion about what kind of artist she wanted to be. Rogers put music on hold for a few years and instead pursued a journalism career, interning for Elle and helping Lizzy Goodman with her oral history of New York’s music scene in the early-aughts, Meet Met In The Bathroom.

All that changed in 2016, when Pharrell appeared as a surprise guest at the then-senior’s masterclass to critique students’ work. Rogers played a demo she wrote in 15 minutes and finished just moments before the class started. A video of that exchange, in which the veteran producer’s reactions flash across his face in real time as he listens to “Alaska” — surprise, awe, amusement, moved — was uploaded to Reddit. “I’ve never heard anything that sounds like that,” he concludes, telling her he has absolutely no notes for her. Days after she graduated and moved home, the video went viral and, suddenly, Rogers was the subject of a major label bidding war.

The catapult to fame and a career — a rushed EP, a year-long world tour, and multiple TV appearances — left Rogers panicked and overwhelmed, feeling like her life was happening to her, completely out of control. Heard It In A Past Life is loosely a concept album that reckons with the aftermath of virality, one that declares agency in the face of such radical upheaval. Musical reflections on the trials and tribulations of fame can be hit or miss, more often ringing “woe is me” than not. But Rogers’ youth is her benefit; at the end of the day, it’s an album not so much about fame as it is about change.

A track like “Overnight” may explicitly be about the bizarre ways Rogers’ life, and the people in it, changed abruptly with fame. But it also shares a feeling of camaraderie for anyone in this quarter life stage beginning to grasp the breakneck pace of life when pausing briefly to look back, realizing that the people we were or the people we loved just a short time ago feel like strangers.

On “Fallingwater” Rogers speaks to the imposter syndrome that can cripple us in the face of success, the way we can feel confused or ungrateful for allowing terror to dominate our emotions even when things are objectively good. Go on and tell me just how I could allow, she sings, all this light to end up somehow where it’s getting darker.

She works through the complicated emotions more explicitly on “Light On,” sharing glimpses of scared tears shed in bathrooms, the strangers telling her she must be so happy with her newfound success. Rogers recognizes the give and take of the universe, that neither light nor dark can exist without the other. There’s a gratitude that her love of music — which radiates throughout the album — has gotten her this far. But she acknowledges that there may be more moments of uncertainty or doubt, hoping that she — and listeners — will remember to keep a light on to safely guide herself back home.

These contrasting shades of light and dark weave their way thematically through the album. They take up residence within her lyrics: the warmth of a sunlit lake after dark days, the slinky confidence that comes out in us when the sun goes down, the shadows of our minds, and the burning flames of happiness and love. But they also exist in the contradictory nature of her music itself. To define it strictly “pop” is a disservice to Rogers’ artistry and her knack for twisting a listener’s expectations, be it reaching back into her folk roots with deeply confessional, Laurel Canyon-reminiscent lyrics and soulful vocals that get paired up with pulsating synths and electronic beats, dipping into R&B slow jam territory, or combining organic, world music rhythms like spoons, jars, and hand claps with more traditional, infectious pop melodies. Because in the end, it’s not genre (nor even the at times imperfect production) that matters, but what each song evokes: an urgent, immediate need to move your body, a freedom that comes only with feeling lost enough within the music to shake off whatever it is that haunts you — even if just for a few minutes — and dance.

There’s a metaphor Jane Fonda uses when speaking about personal growth that I’ve been thinking about a lot when listening to Rogers’ album. You can, as Fonda recalls doing for many years, drift through the current of life like a leaf. Or, you can choose to put your oars in the water and try to “determine what direction you want to go in” and move with intention, refusing to settle “for what people tell you you’re supposed to be.”

On the album’s clincher, the standout anthemic battle cry that is “Back In My Body,” Rogers offers a powerful reclamation of her voice, her story, her life. Over thumping, militaristic drum beats that gradually build, she recounts a series of panic attacks experienced while on tour before determining that she won’t allow fear to coax her into easily giving up on what she loves and holds so dearly. This time, I know I’m fighting, she sings. The past is out of her hands now, but this time, she can control her present and her future.

With Past Life, the 24-year-old Rogers has her oars firmly placed in the water. She is the captain of her career from here on out. The water might be choppy and uneven, the ride never perfect, but it will be exciting to see where she steers to next.

#my writing #maggie rogers #heard it in a past life #music #pop music #fallingwater #light on #album review #music review #y'all i love this album so much #and i waited too long to pitch something to an actual outlet #so we're bringing blogging back in 2019!!!#jess hopper said bring zines back so this is my version of that thank you for coming to my ted talk

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centaurianthropology · 7 years ago

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The Magnus Archives ‘We All Ignore the Pit’ (S03E17) Analysis

Hoooo … for those of you who listen to these on public transit, fair warning: this one was, for me, the scariest episode in a long damn time. The statement is phenomenal, and got a real gut reaction out of me at one point. And there’s a character who … you know what? Just listen to it. Because this? This is the good stuff. Come on in to hear what I have to say about ‘We All Ignore the Pit.’

It’s nice to get a proper statement read from Sims after so many either shortened ones or ones that are directly related to the larger story. Sometimes it’s great to get something just a little more distant from the action, make everything feel less driven toward a single point. And acting as a departure from the primary action, I couldn’t have asked for better. It’s classic horror fare of a guy moving into a small town with a dark secret, but with a very TMA twist. Plus it ended up bulking out the feel of the horror landscape of America in this universe, which was a lot of fun.

Honestly, my only minor quibble with the episode was how obviously British the narrator was. Trying to write in another cultural dialect is seriously hard, and usually requires a dedicated editor to go through the script and make phrasing suggestions, so I get why that might not have been feasible. And honestly, as a native American, nothing was ever bad enough to drag me out of the flow of the story.

And what a story it was. The feel of Bucoda was perfect, and really managed to capture the sense of a small town when you’re from the outside. I also really appreciated how often the narrator mentioned that he might be blowing details out of proportion after the fact. It lends the whole story a nice sense of the concrete. This is a guy who had a weird thing happen to him, but he couldn’t say how much of it was weird and how much he invented to correlate with the weirdness.

I also liked how well this story set up, in a thousand subtle ways, that the horror landscape, the powers in control, and the feel of the terror in America is decidedly different to that in Britain in this universe. Having the Vast and the Below (which is what I’ll be calling it until I get a more official name) be the main focus of American horror works well, particularly given the sense that a lot of this horror plays out in the more rural portions of America (the majority of the North American landmass is rural), and calls to mind miners and clear and empty plains. If Britain of the TMA universe feels like Robert Chambers and MR James got together and had a horror baby, America is unapologetically the purview of Ambrose Bierce. And I really like the sense of contrast hinted at in these two horror landscapes.

I also have to say that, of all the entities, the Below is starting to scare me the most. Maybe it’s the creeping sort of scary it exudes. Maybe it’s because we know so little about it or what it does or what its motivations might be. It’s the most unknown of the major entities, at least to Sims and to the audience, and that makes it worrisome. It also helps that the Below has had consistently fantastic stories. Building on the strong foundations of ‘Dig’ and the absolute bedrock of this series that was ‘Lost Johns’ Cave’, this episode approaches the latter in terms of horror and narrative tightness. The story told here is a classic horror tale, yes, but no less strong because of it. Hell, the dream with the teeth and the tongue? I actually started grinning like an idiot because it was so perfectly creepy. I haven’t felt creeped out like this by one of TMA’s statements since some of the best episodes of season 1. I know I don’t often dig into the statements during these analyses, since I focus on meta, but I just had to take the time to sing this statement’s praises. Strong doesn’t begin to cover it. It cracked my top 5 statements from this show easily, and has lingered with me for days.

And really, topping what was an utterly glorious horror story off with the introduction of Nikola Orsinov (and even explaining why she has a male patronymic!), played to eerie, horrific perfection by Jessica Law? Oh, it was good. She’s an utterly delicious villain, and deeply frightening on a fundamental level. I’ve always found that cheery monsters were by far creepier than ones that seemed entirely serious. The decision to make her as alien as Michael, but far more threatening was brilliant, and her entire approach to coming after Jon was a breath of fresh air.

I love that, instead of killing one of his assistants or menacing him, she basically pops by to ask him if he wouldn’t be so kind as to find that skin for her. Sure, there are threats, but the line ‘that would be lovely!’ when he asked her if she expected him to just hand the skin over was fantastic. And I also love the notion that she needs the skin to wear. It’s so simple, but makes perfect sense for a plastic being that requires the skin of others to perform basic tasks.

And of course, we find out in this episode what exactly happened to Gregor Orsinov. Apparently, having created a monstrous daughter, she got bored one day and repurposed all his bits. Nikola not only accepts that she’s a monster, she embraces it. She has a fantastic sense of self-confidence and cheer which makes her horrific actions all the more powerful. I loved her instantly.

Another note that I think is relevant on a meta level is her use of darkness to hide herself from Jon. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was more than a little convinced that when Jon stepped into that darkness, he was no longer in Georgie’s place, but in the same strange stone cathedral described in ‘Growing Dark’, a location that only seems to exist when you can’t see it. Likewise, I think that this is yet more evidence that the darkness and the People’s Church are different extensions of the Stranger

Oh, and it wouldn’t be an episode of TMA in season 3 without Jon being a complete moron, apparently. Who was still at Georgie’s place despite insisting that he should leave before she was endangered? Jon. Whose home is now known to the Stranger, and has been invaded by Nikola? Georgie. I swear to god, if Jon gets Georgie’s skin stolen because he was too stupid to move back into his own place once he got his job back, I’m going to smack him one. And a flayed and undead Georgie, now fully claimed by the End, might well smack him too.

Seriously, Jon, get the hell back to your own damn apartment, and keep your problems safely in your wheelhouse.

The final interesting tidbit that I found myself thinking about during this exchange was Nikola’s statement that she wanted to wear the skin when she ‘danced the world anew’. What I realized was how much creation and art seem to be a focus of the Stranger. Nikola wants to wear a taxidermy skin, the definition of turning death into art. She plans to dance, creating a story with her body and a world with her movements. Even Nikola herself is a deliberately crafted plastic being who creates other plastic beings like her.

I think that the Desolation might actually stand as opposed to the Stranger as the Beholding does. As the Desolation destroys all, consumes all, the Stranger creates. It remakes. Nothing, from the victims of the Anglerfish to the bits remaining of Gregor Orsinov, are wasted.

Everything can be reworked. The world won’t end with the Unknowing; it will be made. Hell, it might have already been made several times. For all Jon knows, the world he’s living in could be the result of previous Unknowings. With a soft apocalypse in which everything changes but very few die, how would you know hundreds of years after the fact that it had happened at all? The change has become reality. The vagueness of the concept of the Unknowing, the delicacy and the art of it, is fascinating. I love the notion that everything about the Unknowing is actually cloaked in creation.

The Stranger is beautiful, and active, and alive. And that makes Nikola all the more terrifying as a villain.

Conclusions

I’m thrilled that, after last week’s disappointment, this show is very much back on top in my eyes. This is a cracking statement and a hell of an introduction for Nikola, very nearly as chilling as the introduction to Michael last season. Nikola feels infinitely strange and infinitely threatening in the most genial way possible. Jessica Law completely nailed the delivery (I also love that TMA is quietly drawing on all the Mechanisms one by one). She’s uncanny and terrifying, but also has a beauty and a joy to her voice. Nikola, I think, believes herself to be the heroine to this story. She’s taking a boring world and creating something far more beautiful out of it. She’s wresting control of it from the staid hands of the Beholding, and she’s actually DOING something with it.

And I love her. I’m thrilled that season 3 (and possibly more) has a villain this rivetingly unhinged. Jon’s now stuck having to either acquiesce to her request, knowing he’s letting her get closer to the Unknowing, or to try and stop her. I’m interested, honestly, to see if Elias can see in her darkness (I would bet he can’t, and that keeping out his prying eye was a big reason why Nikola wouldn’t let Jon turn on the light). If he can, I want to know how he’ll react to all this. If he can’t, how insistent is he going to be that Jon fill him in?

I’m interested in Elias’ reaction mostly because we can basically be guaranteed that Jon is going to do whatever seems stupidest at the time. I love him, but the man is a complete and total disaster. I despair that he’ll do something sensible like get away from Georgie before her skin gets repurposed, or talk to his assistants about anything of substance. Could I at least suggest that he start small and try bringing them tea? Maybe give them all spa days or something. God knows they’ll deserve it after all this shit hits the fan.

#The Magnus Archives #analysis #I haven't been this creeped out by a statement in a while #it was lovely

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rainbowdoom32 · 8 years ago

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Nationalism Language and Internet Grammar

I’m slightly drunk and its finals and I’m reading a book on nationalism at 1 am instead of studying, but I have an idea. (Pre-apology for this if it is a jumbled mess) So basically the argument of the book so far (I’m like 50 pages in), is that nations are formed around common languages. That nationalism develops around this shared vernacular. This vernacular needs to be standardized in text meaning it has to have a regular written form. That getting a certain group to adopt one united writing system forms them into a nation. So, nationalism relies on uniting these nations of people who share a written language.

Now a lot of the book talks about the importance of books and printing, and like the Reformation, but consistently is this idea of shared language and standardized writing. So what comes next is a stress.

The internet has redefined the rules of written text. Now, I can only speak for English (I’m monolingual unfortunately) but it has done so in a way which would be incomprehensible to a lot of non-internet english readers. For example when we say shit like” wow.” and *shoving bread sticks into my purse* and okay.......that sounds fake........ but okay when we use emojis or add excessive punctuation when we capitalize words in the middle of sentences. When we purposely break the rules of grammar to convey tone and sarcasm or to make a joke we’re fundamentally changing the language. But we don’t do it randomly. it means something to keyboard smash. to add three exclamation marks and two question marks. THERE. ARE. RULES. They’re new nuanced clever rules, that are baffling to newcomers, but instinctual to natives. More than that these rules are standardized for all English. British Australian american Canadian, those speaking it as a second or third language. It knows no borders.

My point is this. WE. ARE. BUILDING. A. NATION.

Here on the world wide web we’re building a nation. One not defined by physical borders or imagined histories. We have a shared culture here of marvel movies and anime. Jokes about frogs and tea. We even in a way have a shared history not of wars and leaders, but of websites. Vague forgotten memories of MySpace and dead forums of webkinz and neopets and facebook and Vine. We have communities not of physical borders, but of coded ones. Of League and overwatch and reddit and 4chan and here on Tumblr. We also stride easily between these communities. I have a facebook and am active on reddit as well as Tumblr. We have subcommunties of individual fandoms or political views or genres. A nation is being built here. It is being built NOWHERE. The internet’s borders are imagined and limited, sure there’s the sites you can only access from certain countries and the Great Firewall, but you on the big sites you can hide your nationality easily.

If we’re building a nation, or perhaps nationS then what does that mean for those nations out there in the physical world? The ones with the lines on the map?

I don’t know. But what I do know is that the establishment, the bourgeoisie the elites, the ruling classes are terrified.

The Great Firewall exists for a reason we have to fight for net neutrality in the states for a reason. They blame the internet for populism, for a reason. The internet is empowering, the Arab Spring proved that. The UN has said access to the internet is a human right. There is power here, with all of human knowledge at your finger tips. With social media giving us a platform and a voice. The internet is power, and it is changing the landscape of the world. We know this. We know it is shaping language and culture and politics.

So why can’t it build a nation? It’s caused coups. Revolutions. This is the future. This is power and knowledge. THIS IS THE FUTURE.

We are building a nation.

#politics #political science #nationalisim #linguistics #sort of #world politics #national #sorry for the rant #internet #net neutrality

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graphicnerdity · 8 years ago

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Fan Theory: The Magic School Bus & Harry Potter Exist in the Same Universe

The Magic School Bus and Harry Potter are beloved stories that chronicle the adventures of school children being put in harm’s way by irresponsible adults. But with magic! The similarities go far beyond that, though. There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that both schools – Walkerville Elementary and Hogwarts – exist in the same universe.

Walkerville desperately fills a need for wizarding elementary school

Growing up magical isn’t easy. Kids have to learn a shit ton of spells before they can function in the wizarding world. If you enter the workforce and the only spell you’ve remembered is Alohomora, you’ll be stuck working the door at a hotel lobby the rest of your life. You’ll be a senior citizen’s dream, but practically useless when the Dark Lord shows up.

Hogwarts has no choice but to build a curriculum that focuses exclusively on magic. Because the wizarding world is averaging a civil war every 14 years and your life may very well depend on the degree to which you can perform a defensive spell or spot a potentially disastrous potion. And yes, that leaves little room for math and science in the curriculum, as so many people like to point out. But who gives a shit? Everything you need to know about math and science is pretty much covered by grade five anyway.

That is precisely why magical elementary school exists. That is how we ended up with schools like Walkerville Elementary. Here, prospective Ilvermorny students are given practical knowledge about the muggle world. They learn basic math, science, biology, astronomy, natural history, and for some reason, what the inside of Arnold’s asshole looks like. All of the things their wizarding school won’t have time for. Best of all, they’ll have a janitor nearby in case one of the students accidentally blows up a teacher or releases a python.

The idea behind elementary wizarding school to give students a basic understanding of how things work, before teaching them how things change.

Ms. Frizzle’s class is small because it reflects the magical population

Figuring out the population of a fictional universe is a difficult undertaking. Fortunately, the Harry Potter fandom is full of people who laugh in the face of adversity. Here is one such hero’s essay about the population of the wizarding world that delves into greater detail:

http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/commendatore/HMHATAEOTPOWB01.html

Pretty impressive, right? By her own admission, J.K. Rowling isn’t great at math. Nevertheless, when she claims that 1000 students are attending Hogwarts at any one time, we have to take that as the gospel truth. Based on that statement, and after some crafty math by user commendatore over at www.fictionalley.org, we can postulate that approximately 0.0194% of Great Britain’s population is magical. Applying the same ratio to North America, we can put the wizarding population at around 100,000.

Thus, we end up with schools like Walkerville Elementary, where there aren’t enough students to fill out a classroom but enough to warrant one. That’s why Ms. Frizzle’s entire 3rd grade class contains just 8 students and the parking lot usually looks like a ghost town. And not the fun kind where Headless Hunts take place.

Students are introduced to magic via practical lessons

At Walkerville Elementary, magic is used primarily as a teaching aid. Students aren’t thrown into the world of spell mastery just yet. Accidental magic, as we know, is common among underage wizards. So Ms. Frizzle surrounds her class with magic and slowly immerses them into this world that, at the age of 8, is still relatively new to them.

Ilvermorny students don’t receive a wand until their first day of school, which is why Walkerville students are introduced to various forms of wandless magic. This is a common occurrence in America, where Native American witches and wizards have been practicing wandless magic for centuries: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Native_Americans

We do see a few examples of students accidentally using magic to bewitch various items. In one episode, the students attempt to build a robot, despite having no knowledge of engineering whatsoever. Nevertheless, after stacking together some discarded items, Ralphie issues a verbal command (incantation is perhaps a better word for it) and the unplugged trash golem magically springs to life.

We see similar forms of magic in both worlds

In the wizarding world, time travel can be attained by using a Time Turner. You know, that handy bit of magical technology that allows students to learn two subjects at once while genocidal wizards roam free. Over at Walkerville Elementary, they’ve got a Time Turner too: The Bus. So what does Ms. Frizzle’s class do when they have the ability to go back in time? They go way the fuck back in time! Because obviously!

The students are Transfigured on a regular basis, taking the form of bats, salmon, and bees, just to name a few. In the wizarding world, we see that wizards can transfigure themselves into horrifying human/animal hybrids in a similar manner.

And speaking of transforming into animals, let’s not forget those Animagi. Hey Liz, those are very human gestures for something that is supposed to be just an average chameleon. No, that’s a woman who took the form of a chameleon then decided life was better when people just fed you all day and you didn’t have to speak with them. Or hey, maybe she’s a criminal who’s hiding out in a grade 3 classroom until things cool down a bit. Either way, great job on blowing your cover, Liz!

Another notable similarity between the two worlds is moving paintings of deceased witches and wizards. The ones in Walkerville don’t seem too keen to talk to kids. I don’t blame them.

We also see magically transforming fabrics. I’m not sure what spell this is, but Ms. Frizzle and Dumbledore use it purely to screw around with school children.

There is even a living skeleton in the classroom. I guess kids have to learn about necromancy at some point. You know, if the Inferi had top hats and polka dot bow ties, I don’t think they would’ve looked nearly as terrifying.

Enchanted vehicles are common in the wizarding world

The mechanical and the magical are often deeply intertwined in the wizarding world. The Hogwarts Express is able to traverse vast landscapes without being seen. Arthur Weasley’s invisible flying car and Sirius Black’s flying motorcycle serve to show, if nothing else, that wizards love enchanting the crap out of vehicles.

We even see the Potterverse’s version of the Magic School Bus: The Knight Bus. I could base my theory on this fact alone, and still feel pretty confident. It’s just a bigger, purpler version of the Friz’s ride that transports vagrants instead of students. The Knight Bus changes its appearance and dimensions in a way so similar to the Magic School Bus that it’s practically copyright infringement.

Come on, Ms. Frizzle is obviously a witch

Ms. Frizzle's primary talents involve commanding an enchanted bus and changing her clothing at will. If that was the extent of her magical ability, then the case could still be made that she is a decent witch. While the Bus is responsible for the majority of the show's magic, Ms. Fizzle is seen on numerous occasions performing obvious spellwork even when the Bus is absent. For example, here is Ms. Frizzle appearing out of nowhere in a way that looks very similar to the wizarding world's Apparating ability.

Here she is, gliding to safety after jumping out of a third-storey window to rescue a fallen student. She might not know what qualifies as child endangerment, but it looks like she knows how to conjure an Arresto Momentum spell.

Here’s The Frizz riding a tidal wave that she conjured out of nowhere using a powerful Aguamenti charm, because impressing a group of 8-year-olds is important to her. That water, in case you were wondering, disappeared immediately after her dramatic entrance was made.

You don’t have to look too hard to find connections between both magical worlds. I personally looked into it way too hard, but that’s so the rest of you can just sort of skim through and spot the similarities. Now that you’ve seen them it’s a pretty easy theory to subscribe to.

#Magic School Bus #hogwarts #Harry Potter #fan theory #ms frizzle #witch #ilvermorny #take chances #make mistakes #get messy #fantheories

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onestowatch · 6 years ago

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The 15 Best Albums of 2019 (So Far)

We are just over halfway through 2019, and the amount of amazing music that we have been blessed with thus far is nearly enough to help us forget about everything less than amazing going on in the world around us...nearly. So, with an ever-growing list of albums, mini-albums, projects, mixtapes, and the like filling up our Spotify queue, we wanted to take a moment to recognize some of the best projects that have graced our eardrums this year. In no particular order, these are 15 of the best albums of 2019 (so far).

Billie Eilish – WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

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Favorite track: “bury a friend”

2019 was undoubtedly Billie Eilish’s breakout year. From delivering a momentous Coachella debut to delivering one of the most anticipated albums of the decade, Eilish did not just leave her mark, she took a blazing hot iron rod and engraved her name. WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? arrived as a thrilling, hypnotic, and brilliantly ominous vision from one of pop’s new stars. Doing more than simply delivering on all the hype that had come to encompass the pop star in the matter of less than year, Eilish broke free of any expectations to present an album that took the world by storm.

Aries – Welcome Home

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Favorite track: “BAD NEWS”

Aries is arguably one of the most underrated figures in the music scene today. Originally rising to cult-like fame with a series of YouTube videos that spanned the range from production deconstruction videos to re-imagining Migos as a Mariachi band, the producer and artist’s debut mini album WELCOME HOME proved him to be so much more than just an enigmatic viral force. With an infectious blend of emo, hip-hop, and alternative rock aesthetics, Aries brought to a life a world brimming with soaring highs and crushing lows.

Lizzo – CUZ I LOVE YOU

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Favorite track: “Juice”

Self-love feels like Lizzo sounds. Combining her upbringing in Houston rap, gospel soul, and classical flute (yes, the queen kills it on the flute), Lizzo’s major label debut Cuz I Love You cemented her place in the modern hip-hop vernacular. Abounding with humor, charisma, and an overflowing wealth of sexual and body positivity, the 14-track offering is a deft illustration of the power of simply loving yourself and singing your praises delivered in a remarkable package of hip-hop and R&B.

Kevin Abstract – ARIZONA BABY

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Favorite track: “Peach” (feat. bearface, JOBA, Dominic Fike)

Few artists can maintain the level of visceral excitement that BROCKHAMPTON leader Kevin Abstract keeps up throughout ARIZONA BABY’s 11-track run. Produced by Jack Antonoff and featuring Ryan Beatty, Dominic Fike, and fellow BROCKHAMPTON members JOBA and bearface, the solo project cemented Abstract as an undeniable hip-hop auteur. With the way Abstract waxes poetry on his past demons, dreams of rap stardom in the context of first seeing Tyler, the Creator live, and the lived gay experience, ARIZONA BABY is essential listening for 2019 and beyond.

Tyler, the Creator – IGOR

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Favorite track: “EARFQUAKE” (feat. Playboi Carti, Charlie Wilson, Jessy Wilson)

Any “best albums of 2019” compilation list that does not feature Tyler, the Creator’s IGOR is sorely missing the mark. Tyler, the Creator has long existed as one of rap’s most polarizing figures, but, with the release of Flower Boy in 2017, he released what felt like a landmark album… and then came IGOR. With bold experimental production, a host of spectacular features, and a sound quite unlike anything else out there at the moment, this is Tyler, the Creator’s magnum opus. Well, at least until he drops his next album.

Lewis Capaldi – DIVINELY UNINSPIRED TO A HELLISH EXTENT

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Favorite track: “Grace”

In the span of less than two years, Lewis Capaldi has witnessed a meteoric rise to fame. The Scottish singer-songwriter went from amazing crowds in pubs in his native Whitburn to selling out arenas across the world, all thanks to the power of his voice and moving songwriting. It is an innate gift that Scottish singer channels in his long-awaited album DIVINELY UNINSPIRED TO A HELLISH EXTENT, which arrives as a heart-rending portrait of an artist on the rise to worldwide stardom. Plus, it doesn’t hurt he’s a hilarious guy with a stellar Tinder bio to boot.

slowthai – Nothing Great About Britain

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Favorite track: “Gorgeous”

Nothing Great About Britain is an obvious social commentary on a post-Brexit Britain, but it is more than just a reaction to a singular political event. The debut album from critically-acclaimed UK rapper slowthai, Nothing Great About Britain is an unflinching glimpse into everything from his upbringing in the council estates of North Hampton to a country increasingly mired in toxic nationality. Sonically, slowthai’s debut is as complex as the social and political issue the UK rapper deftly tackles.

Stella Donnelly – Beware of the Dogs

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Favorite track: “Old Man”

A proudly self-proclaimed shit-stirrer, it comes as no surprise that Stella Donnelly first introduced her debut album with a lead single that doubled as a biting single of a generation of men whose time is up. The aforementioned single “Old Man” is not the only moment on Beware of the Dogs that the Australian singer-songwriter leverages her knack for infusing cutting socio-political commentary into an infectious brand of jangly indie rock. From “Boys Will Be Boys” to the titular track “Beware of the Dogs,” Donnelly’s debut carries with it a salient message told through stirring song.

Maggie Rogers – Heard It In a Past Life

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Favorite track: “Give a Little”

Maggie Rogers’ musical résumé holds two impressive distinctions. She is one of the few musicians to make Pharrell Williams visibly shed tears, and she released an album earlier this year that you absolutely need to be listening to. Heard It In A Past Life, the lauded debut album from Rogers, combined folk, dance, pop and R&B to unprecedented effect and established her as different sort of star. With a musical vision that stays wholly true to herself, while still finding the space to explore newfound territory, this is an album you need in your life.

Carly Rae Jepsen – Dedicated

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Favorite track: “Too Much”

There are no two ways about it; Carly Rae Jepsen is a pop icon. More than just a one-hit wonder (with that being said, “Call Me Maybe” has most definitely stood the test of time), the long-awaited follow-up to Emotion arrived this year to widespread acclaim. Dedicated channels all the joy pop and disco has brought with them over the years to present a collection of songs that relishes in the emotional rush of being both lovesick and heartbroken. This is pop done right.

Flume – Hi This Is Flume (Mixtape)

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Favorite track: “How To Build A Relationship” (feat. JPEGMAFIA)

After what felt like an eon of radio silence, electronic auteur Flume returned in brilliant and unconventional fashion. Returning not with an album but a mixtape, Hi This Is Flume saw the Australian producer and artist shying away from the pop-minded inclinations of Skin to deliver a wildly experimental electronic spectacle. Enlisting some of music’s most avant-garde figures, from slowthai, SOPHIE, to JPEGMAFIA, Hi This Is Flume is a glimpse into an artist who forever changed the landscape of electronic music.

Wallows – Nothing Happens

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Favorite track: “Are You Bored Yet?” (feat. Clairo)

In many ways, Wallows’ debut album has been a decade in the making. Operating as a band since they were eleven, Braeden Lemasters, Dylan Minnette, and Cole Preston first whisked up a palpable fervor for their full-length project in 2017 with the release of their debut single “Pleaser.” Wallows channeled the excitement surrounding any hint of their highly-anticipated debut album into a collection of exhilarating, emotional-driven indie rock and anti pop perfection. Nothing Happens is a sonic embodiment of a shared childhood dream placed alongside the realities of growing up.

Steve Lacy – Apollo XXI

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Favorite Track: “Like me” (feat. DAISY)

Steve Lacy, who you may know as the bassist, guitarist, and producer for The Internet, invokes the mystical air of a decades-long R&B, funk, and soul tradition in his debut album Apollo XXI. There is a novel yet nostalgic quality to the whole affair, as if you were to suddenly awake in the ‘70s with the sun peeking through your blinds on a warm summer day. The timeless nature of Lacy’s debut makes it feel like that this is not only one of 2019’s best album, but perhaps one of this generation’s best.

Nilüfer Yanya – Miss Universe

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Favorite Track: “In Your Head”

Black Mirror and breathtaking indie rock build the crux for Nilüfer Yanya’s spellbinding debut album Miss Universe. The West London native’s portrait of reality blurs the lines between dystopic technological vision and haunting picture of reality itself through a collection of songs that nears the sacred, terrifying space of a fully-realized concept album. Whether you take it as a concept album or not, there is a resounding sense of urgency to be found in the exhilarating body of work Yanya has put together.

Ariana Grande – thank u, next

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Favorite Track: “thank u, next”

From Arichella to surprise dropping quite possibly the breakup track that will define a generation, 2019 belonged to Ariana Grande. thank u, next illustrated Grande’s consistently jaw-dropping range, her gift for transforming sweet nothings to lovelorn anthems, and most of all, the promise of a lasting pop star. The veritable pop star certainly has come a long way from her humble beginnings as a child star.

#billie eilish #Aries #lizzo #kevin abstract #tyler the creator #lewis capaldi #slowthai #stella donnelly #maggie rogers #carly rae jepsen #flume #wallows #steve lacy #nilufer yanya #ariana grande #best albums #pop #hip hop #soul

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calesleg · 8 years ago

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Detroit

Last week, I was lucky enough to visit Detroit. I road-tripped my way down to perform in the Detroit Improv Festival, so I knew I'd have an exhilarating time but I left with more than expected. Admittedly, upon arrival I was nervous. “You're staying in Detroit proper,” broached a friend who'd heard where I was housing. His words echoed our fear-peddling media, stirring reminders of our political temperatures and peaking my habitual flow as a caffeinated squirrel. Detroit didn't look like anything I've known. It'd been years since I'd visited our southern neighbours anywhere outside of NY and LA. I felt navigationally clueless. If Maslow had asked me to identify my level of fear, I'd've barfed on his whole hierarchy. Active buildings were sparse and nearly as downtrodden as the half-burnt buildings beside them, making it hard to distinguish any difference, like a desert of rotten teeth that could fool even the dentist on the hunt for the tooth worth the root canal. What little of the city that did offer a semblance of proclaimed ownership appeared not to be calculated into westernized value — an ideology I've become used to thanks to Toronto's high turnover of resto-stops an hustler-hubs — and the Ikea-smothered belly of my Airbnb aired as much of a disguise as would a pair of Groucho glasses on a ghost — ill fitted. The paucity of city bustle hit me with unease but digging deeper serves better than believing in valid first impressions. So I gave myself a second reason to be in the city: I'd ask as many locals as possible what they liked about Detroit. “Oh, you're asking the wrong guy for that,” said the uber driver so bona fide he compelled me to start thumbing quotes onto my iPhone in his back seat. Let's call him Tom. Tom suggested I see the murals in the market before quickly steering the conversation back toward his dislikes about his native city. “It's shit now. I loved it when the recession was on. There was no one in the city but artists and musicians and the weed growers, you know?” I asked Tom when he last remembered it being that way. “Oh, 2009, 2010. 'Round 2012, 2013's when it changed.” Bars were his mental markers for the city's downturn. “The first thing to come in is bars. Bars is the first thing to get a mother fucker downtown,” he said with a dryness that exposed one man's attempt at economic resurgence as another man's despondency to see local spirits replaced. The same resurrectional attempt was evident in the top three floors of my Airbnb, a sizeable house aside a driveway slabbed with broken concrete. Inside, the fresh coats of paint and the Huck Finn paperbacks died out before finding their way into the dark, dank basement, contrasting starkly the structure's old and its new. Tom zeroed in on the trend, alluding to the residential disturbance that has wedged over a million people out of the city since the 1950's. “Suburban cats with money would kick 'em out of their homes and rent [the houses] out.” Before he became an uber driver, he says, his dwellings were on the fourth floor of a decrepit building with no running water; “talk about Uncle Sam fuckin' bleedin' you dry.” Within our ten minute roll over to the after-party that would have me dancing with comedians 'til the morning's tiny hours, Tom made it clear that the recession hit his city from all angles. “[The government's] squeezin' 'em for healthcare. Even a tube of toothpaste is six bucks. I don't think that's capitalism. I'm all for some healthy capitalism. I just think that's price jacking.” It's extortion. “I'm part Mohawk,” he continues, adding first-hand recounts of the city's old and new. “[Government officials] can shoot ya here and nothin' will happen 'cause it's all federal property,” he utters with a sarcasm that sounds like it's bled through the same words enough to now ring dry. “It's funny how crystal meth still finds its way onto the reserve, you know — it's not us brining it there.” Every snippet he offers makes me more sure our ride's too short and even more sure I'd be left with more questions than answers. When I tell him where I'm from, Tom says he's always been envious of Canadians, adding, “but I really do believe that shit will come to a heed in America.” And I think he's well on his way to being right. From the gut griping landscape of a ruptured economy, to the vibrant museums that unify the chaotic bricolage of human experience, to the characters driving tales wrapped in aversion and pitted with hope, I was offered a glimpse of a resilient city — a place full of people who know things you don't, nodding you along your travels in a way that suggests each adventure leads back towards your own core; miles of spirits who'll open their doors, turn on the music, and dance with you 'til dawn. While it was all too brief, I left with a new piece of heart only someone who's visited Detroit proper could come to recognize, and I wouldn't have been able to had I not left my fear at the threshold. Clutching to fear invites assumption and always involves risk of missing out on beauty. It's dangerous to fear the unknown and it's funny how you find yourself on the other side. I'm lucky to have traveled those miles. I won't pretend my tired bod isn't thankful to be climbing back into the mountain of duvets atop my Canadian queen mattress, thumbing through my New York Times' Weekend Briefing, but I'm more thankful to know there will forever exist another chance to transcend this world of madness and stumble our way into the beauty of our cities' unknown, if we'd only allow ourselves to drive down those roads and peer up at those murals from artists who've come before.

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wittyy-name · 8 years ago

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Do you have any of your own creations already published :D or if you're working on a project w/o spoilers can we know what it's about? (Idk if im allowed to ask that but i love all your stuff you're great!!! ^_^)

Yes, you can ask!! I’ll gladly tell you about my projects!!

Sadly, as of right now, I don’t have any original content published (even tho I wanted to get that started by the age of 24 >.> ) I dO, however, have a couple of original projects in the works that I can tell you about!! The first is a novel I’ve written and am in the process of editing, and the second is an online illustrated novel I’m working on with @wolfpainters

THE FIRST is a novel (the first in a series) that I’ve written, read through and hand edited on a hard copy, and now need to go through and edit the digital copy. Once that’s done, I can look into publishing options. Unfortunately, it’s very long, and I’m struggling to make time for it among my other projects, but it’s coming along very slowly but surely ^^

I haven’t written up an official synopsis yet, but I can try to give you a quick and dirty of it rn... Oh jeez, okay, there’s a lot, so I struggle to try to tell everything concisely, lol. It’s about this world that exists very closely to our own, in it’s own universe. There are specific spots where the barriers between the worlds are thinnest. Therra has six races native to that world, and thousands of years ago, humans trickled in through the gap between worlds, spreading and creating kingdoms in their own right. Shit goes down, they decide to banish humans back to their own world, and they bind six royal humans to six royals from Therra (each of a different race), and the blood tie between takes physical form in the form of bloodstones.

Through a ritual and magic that I’m not going to go into detail here and is slowly revealed throughout the course of the books, the veil between worlds is closed, the royal families and nobles of humans on our side. There are still humans in Therra, but they don’t have any power or authority. The six races of Therra slowly spread out and fill in the gaps left by the human kingdoms, and they thrive under the blood pact that binds them all in a tremulous peace. Every so many years, the pact must be renewed. The only way to do so, however, is to get a descendant from each of the six human families who were bound by the bloodstones.

So the story starts off with six unsuspecting humans suddenly ripped away from their own lives and falling into the strange new world of Therra. They’re all confused, scared, and intrigued, each with nothing but the clothes on their backs, half a stone, and an ominous note written in blood. Each of them must figure out how to navigate through the world and complete the quest they never asked to be part of. They struggle with learning who to trust and what to believe, all the while figuring out what they themselves want. Tricky, when everyone seems to have a hidden agenda, for they who control the stoneholders controls the political power in Therra. Through each of their journeys, we get to explore Therra and the six races, and... yeah xD It’s p complicated, but a lot of it is revealed throughout the course of the story ^^ I’m v proud of the work I’ve put into it. I’ve been working on it for several years now.

THE SECOND is an online illustrated novel I’m planning and working on with my favorite artist, collab partner, and platonic othe rhalf @wolfpainters. It takes place in a land called Arthoria (which is what we’re tentatively calling this project bc we dont’ have an official title yet). Arthoria is a land where dragons live side by side with humans. Most people are given dragons around the age of puberty, and they bond with those dragons for life. Dragons are an essential part of life, from status symbols, to pets, to labor help. There’s a market for dragon breeders, and a black market for selling stolen eggs. There are five tiers of dragons, Tier 1 being the most powerful and reserved for royals and high nobles, all the way down to Tier 5, being magic-less, small dragons that serve more as family pets.

Arthoria is split into four clans, each with their own government, royal family, culture, dragon types, styles, landscapes (we’ve honestly put so much work into this stuff, I love it, each clan is so distinctly different). The clans have a tentative peace, but they’re highly intolerant of each other. They trade because they need to. Between the four clans, in the center of the continent, is a place known only as The Medium. The Medium is run rampant with wild foliage, wild dragons and animals, and ruins. It’s only recently become passable, previously being completely inhospitable from magic fallout from the Great War.

The Great War was the most impactful event in Arthoria’s history (I wrote up an entire timeline of arthoria’s history, all the way back to it’s settlement, I swear, there is so much detail in this world). Arthoria was founded with five clans, Celadian being the center and ruling clan. After centuries, the four other clans grew petulant and arrogant, convinced they didn’t need to be under the power of Celadian. The Great War came at a high cost: the Celadian High Priestess set off a chain reaction that caused a magical explosion that decimated the entire clan and all the land around it, even scorching some of the other clan’s outer territories. This land became The Medium, and was left alone to grow back wild and untamed for centuries. Even now it’s an eery place that people are wary to tread through, swearing they can hear the ghosts of the fallen in the ruins.

What the clans didn’t realize, or what they had forgotten in the millennia that passed since the clans founding (I have stories about the first clan leaders and how they founded each clan too), was that the Celadian priestesses they hated being ruled by served a very important function: they kept at bay the Shades, an ancient enemy that had originally driven their people to Arthoria’s shores from their homeland. Without the priestesses to keep the seal in order, the Shades have slowly been withering away at the ancient magic.

One thousand years after the Great War, the High Priestess’s disciple awakens from a dormant slumber that had been forced upon her by her mentor prior to the explosion that ended the war.

This is the setting, and the story is very much a character driven plot that follows our ten main characters as they each get dragged into the quest to reseal the Shades and save Arthoria, meanwhile figuring out themselves and fighting the prejudices that keep the clans apart.

We have so much world building complete for this, and there’s still a ways to go, but we have SO. MUCH. I love each and every one of our characters. They’re so wonderful and diverse and each serve an important function. Once we have everything prepared, we can start with the story. I’ll be writing it, and Sora will be illustrating it, much like our current fanfics. We were actually working on this all last summer prior to getting into voltron, and we’ve been using our fanfic collabs as testing ground for this original project.

More details will be posted when we actually start ^^

BUT!! Tomorrow (Saturday, April 8th) Sora and I will be hosting a stream where she will be drawing more concept art for our Arthoria project and we’ll be talking about it and answering any questions!! So drop by to learn more!! 8D

#this is long guys #but there's so much world building and shit in both projects #and I haven't figured out a way to keep it short yet lmao #I feel like I left out so much for each #but yeah #sora and I will be doing more on our original project soon!#feel free to ask us about shit #wittyy replies #wittyywrites #original projects #epicusernamerighthere

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bastardsunlight · 7 years ago

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A flash of light deposited the strange pair in the middle of what looked like a wasteland of dust, stone, and corrugated steel. Everything was rusty, dusty, and appeared to be held together by bolts that were older than the structures—if they could have been called that—themselves, ancient even when first employed. Chris could have sworn he spied something precariously perched atop a pole, adhered thereto by at least half a roll of duct tape.

He noted, too, the parts of the landscape that appeared somewhat newer. They were pipes, whole networks of them, stretched out across the vista, running right through what he had always imagined the old Hooverville pop-up homeless towns to resemble, but with a Quonset hut or two to offset the utter fragility of the place. There were tires embedded here and there, and between those were rudimentary crosses—clearly this was a graveyard—and what was not covered in dust had accumulated wide puddles of hissing, purple sludge.

“Welcome to Fyrestone,” rasped Chris’s tall, slender companion, tossing his arm out in a wide arc to indicate the place. The sign was hanging by a bolt or two, but the word “Fyrestone” was clearly emblazoned upon the piece of whatever-it-was that had once proclaimed the town’s name. Again, Chris found the idea of calling this place a “town” a bit dubious, but he supposed that, in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. Their purpose here was simple and twofold. The first object had been to test the portal’s integrity going the other direction. The spark of energy which had brought Mordecai to them might have backfired on them when sending the hunter and Chris back over to the side Wesker had conceded to call “Pandora”, on account of that being the name of the planet. A raucous howl resounded from somewhere down a nearby hill and Mordecai whistled sharply.

A beast crested the rise, coming up from the ditch and presumably its den. Its face opened to either side, revealing a ravenous, vertical mouth, lined with teeth and slobber. Two more followed closely behind, smaller than the first, but no less ferocious. Chris went for his weapon, but Mordecai’s hand on his shoulder stayed him. “Lunch,” he said, not without the ring of dark amusement in his voice.

Presently, and utterly without warning, a blur of feathers and violence divebombed out of the sky, landing squarely atop the first beast’s head. It did not stay long, however, as it had already brained the thing, ripping through its armored flesh and setting it ablaze. The thing howled, but the flying creature was not finished. It bombarded the second and third things—skags, Chris would soon learn was their name—and rained a similar method of destruction down upon them as well. Led by some invisible force, it continued its path back down into the ditch, toward the source of the skags, divebombing anything that moved and leaving it a smoldering heap of crisp wreckage.

“That’s the bird you were telling me about?”

Mordecai nodded and stuck his arm out. It was a twiggy thing, wrapped top to bottom in bandages and leather armor, a patchwork, much like the rest of the man, but the arm received the thing which was not quite a bird with ease. It shrieked in a tone Chris could not decipher as pleased or irritated at his presence. Mordecai clucked at the beast and it lowered its head until their foreheads were touching. The feathers ringing its face were a light gray, lined with black outside of that, making for a striking contrast with its pool-of-blood eyes. The bird clucked in return and then spread wide wings that, while partially feathered, were also leathery webbing, like those of a bat. It took off and alighted atop one of the skag corpses, beginning to feast as the two men watched.

“Talon,” said the hunter finally, crossing his skinny arms over his narrow chest and turning toward Chris. “These’re the borderlands, man…every little bit helps.”

Chris nodded. “I can see that.”

What a desolate waste this was. The industrialization had not done much to improve the view, Chris sensed. As if reading his mind, Mordecai gestured to the piping.

“New lawn decorations, gifts of the Hyperion corporation,” he said, the acid in his voice making Mordecai’s disdain for this company readily apparent. “Y’know,” he added after a moment, “They shot the components and workforce down from Helios to build these ugly-ass things…”

“Helios?”

“Big H-shaped space station,” responded Mordecai, gesturing toward the massive moon, hanging over the planet almost casually in the midday sun. “Used to float between us an’ Elpis, Pandora’s moon.”

Chris’s green eyes bugged. Space travel, when spoken of so casually, seemed wildly out of place in this land which seemed as if it could only support inbred hillbillies and skags. The fact that it did both of those things, in addition to house items such as digistruct rent-a-car kiosks and the ability to travel between planets (and now dimensions) was never going to cease amazing him. He resisted the urge to explore and focused himself upon the details of their return.

“So, how do we get back?”

Mordecai shook his head. “I dunno—I’m hopin’ your boss has a better idea than we do. I gave him all the information I had, swear on the—on… well I did, anyway.”

Chris nodded. He believed the hunter. He didn’t see any reason for the man to lie, in either case. Wesker was paying him plenty to assist Chris in his mission. For some reason for which none of the three could account, Pandora used the same currency as Chris and Wesker’s home dimension. Mordecai himself had never heard of Earth, claiming to be from a planet called Artemis, but the money was good, so he had eagerly accepted the job. He was an opportunist, Chris had gathered, some sort of mercenary, which would have been obvious from his garb, even without speaking to the man. When Mordecai had named himself a Vault Hunter, however, Chris had lost the track entirely.

He inquired after the Vault, or Vaults, as they walked. Mordecai followed the train of his own thoughts as easily as they followed those massive, purple-leaking pipes. The ground was poisoned with it. Chris could almost smell the decay, but it wasn’t a regular sort of organic rot; it was strange and stuck in his nose, prickling at it. This stuff, Mordecai told Chris, was the raw form of Eridium, the fancy rocks Wesker sought; much like the byproduct of its refinement, or Slag, this unrefined sludge had a potent effect and the hunter suggested they avoid contact with it.

“I’d use a fast-travel station, but I don’t think you want your DNA mixed up in all this,” Mordecai said at one point. Chris recalled the hunter’s tales of the New-U stations and how they worked, assuming fast travel stations were similar, or part of that same network. “Besides,” Mordecai added, “there’s a refinery near here anyway. After we cracked the Vault and made calamari from the thing that popped out, the planet sorta exploded with the stuff.”

Chris was following but not following. It was not that he was slow, or that Mordecai was expounding too much. It was simply that the set of information that the hunter had to go on, as far as life experience went, was entirely outside the circle of Chris’s knowledge and experience. It was so vastly different, but just similar enough to pique his irritation—at himself, of course—for not being able to grasp it all at once. He desperately wanted to. There was something familiar about Mordecai, as if they’d met before. Perhaps it was his mannerisms, or the way he moved. Chris couldn’t place it, but despite the man’s somewhat shady occupation, he wanted to befriend him. It was an odd urge, and one Chris had not felt in a very long time. It made his heart squeeze a little.

“Exploded?” Chris was full of questions today, but was also oddly unbothered by it. He wanted to know more about this place. Wesker did, too. That was part of his mission here, to learn as much as he could about Pandora, its inhabitants, the native flora and fauna, and bring that back to him. Strangely enough, Wesker had not shared his motives in asking this of Chris, but Chris was not stupid. He knew how Wesker’s mind worked and while he figured it would not be for a terribly nefarious purpose, he could have almost guaranteed it had something to do with the viruses they were constantly creating, testing, and modifying.

“Yeah, man, you can see it from space, I guess… haven’t been up there to see it myself, but when Lilith an’—when Lilith visited Elpis, she said she could see the crack in the planet’s surface, all glowin’ an’ shit…”

Lilith and whom? Chris wondered peripherally. He didn’t ask, assuming the stoppage had been because whomever the other person may have been, they were no longer. It clearly pained Mordecai, much as his goggles and stony poker face attempted to hide the fact. The set of his narrow shoulders had changed and he seemed to collapse in on himself a little when not-mentioning that other person.

“Must be a helluva view,” said Chris as they neared a strange post, or pillar. It was clearly manufactured and the name upon the device was Hyperion, though Chris noted that the name had been besmirched with what he prayed was red paint. Mordecai accessed the terminal and suddenly, out of nowhere, a vehicle materialized—no, the word was digistruct; Chris recalled this from one of Mordecai’s stories.

The hunter climbed into the driver’s seat and jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate a rotating turret atop the vehicle. “Hop in.”

The ride was surprisingly smooth, given the gradation and unevenness of the terrain. Mordecai was not an awful driver, but more than one beast fell prey to the vehicle, crushed under and sometimes caught up in the wheels. They moved, Chris noticed, on separate shocks, which probably accounted for the smoothness. This engineering made operating the rocket-launcher much easier, something he never thought he’d say again in his lifetime. But Chris Redfield and rocket munitions were close friends. It seemed destiny, at this point.

Soon enough, they were on an uphill approach to a massive facility. The pipeline that had disfigured Fyrestone fed into it, along with many, many others from all different directions. The place appeared abandoned, but Mordecai warned of potential bandit squatters, or rakk infestations. Chris did not know what a rakk was, but got an idea that they came in swarms when Mordecai handed him a shotgun with a fairly wide spread and told him to keep his eyes on the sky. They left the vehicle behind at the entrance and headed in, the hunter in the lead, a revolver perched comfortably in one hand. The mess in here was similar to that outside, with shattered glass, and what looked like various picture frames pulled from walls and utterly splintered.

“It’s quiet,” Chris commented. Mordecai nodded.

“Didn’t used’a be,” said the hunter. Bloodstains marked the walls where unfortunate humans met their end, oil had soaked into the earth where robots—Loaders was the Hyperion designation—had been disassembled. It was quiet carnage, with not a body to show for the effort. Burn marks, gouges, and rubble lay strewn about, but there were no bodies. Chris shuddered, wondering if any of them were walking around. He did not see Mordecai shuddering similarly, for the same reason.

“I see,” Chris confirmed, nodding even though Mordecai was not looking at him. This must have been one of the sites of the battles Mordecai had described, the all-out war between the violent-yet-free people of Pandora and the Hyperion corporation, specifically Handsome Jack. That guy sounded like a megalomaniac in the worst style and Mordecai’s grudge with him was understandably personal. Losing two friends to the machinations of a charismatic madman was not a phenomenon with which Chris was unfamiliar. Except I reconciled with mine, he thought. Sounds like this madness wasn’t curable.

They reached the doors without incident. These were large, thick, and metallic, bearing the same color scheme as most of the rest of the building, garish yellow with black, white, and red splashed someplace upon it. The word Hyperion was stamped in white paint across the doors, but split due to their yawn and Chris thought it was a fitting metaphor.

“What happened to the station you mentioned?” Chris gestured up, indicating Elpis and the lack of a giant H in front of it. Mordecai made a whistling sound, like bombs in old cartoons and followed it up with his best impression of a massive explosion. Chris couldn’t help smiling at this as they passed the threshold. The emergency lights were on, but the place was eerie. It gave Chris the creeps and Mordecai wasn’t feeling exactly comfortable himself. He kept his revolver at the ready, sharp, goggled eyes scanning everything.

“Shipping an’ receiving’s further in,” Mordecai told him, “but I’m betting we find smaller chunk of the stuff in the R&D labs, below.”

R&D labs was not a phrase Chris liked much. It reminded him too much of how Leon had described the Hive. He was accustomed to Wesker’s new, spacious labs inside the mountains. Sure, they were covered in tons of rock, but there wasn’t a living, breathing city full of innocent people atop it as well. If something leaked, the safety protocols and disposal teams were trained to handle it. Without a million, human carriers, it would be much easier to contain. Sometimes, it still made Chris nervous, but he trusted Albert Wesker. He trusted the man had no more ill intentions of assuming a deity’s throne than he himself had.

“I hate this shit,” Mordecai growled, punching the button for a lift to take them down into the bowels of the facility. “You know Jack used the Slag to experiment on people?”

The way he said it suggested the hunter had personal experience with one such situation, maybe more. He did not mention his bird, Bloodwing, and the specificity suggested that some folks he’d known had fallen victim to Handsome Jack’s machinations. As the doors slid open, a portrait grinned out at them from the back of it.

“That him?” He gestured to the handsome man in the portrait, clearly a painting, but very photorealistic. He had a square jaw, mischievous brows, a troublemaker’s hairstyle, swooped and unruly, but somehow utterly under control. More than that, however, Chris marked the two colors of the man’s eyes, blue and green. That was a rare combination, indeed, and added an air of charisma and mystique to him. Chris felt his heart beating a little faster and sort of hated himself for it. This was a portrait and if it was, indeed, Handsome Jack, it was the portrait of a mass-murdering, cold-blooded, narcissistic maniac. All the same, he was handsome.

“Yeah,” hissed Mordecai. His free hand shot out, snagged the bottom of the portrait, and whipped it out the doors of the lift, into the hall with a frisbee motion. Before it hit the ground, he’d emptied six chambers into it. Chris saw with rapt fascination that not a single shot missed. The shattered portrait danced on its way down and this seemed to satisfy the hunter.

“Remind me not to get into a dual with you,” said Chris, doing his best to lighten the situation. Mordecai punched the “sub-basement” button and nodded, grunting his agreement.

“When I was seventeen,” he began, “I won an intergalactic sniping competition, the biggest one out there.” He didn’t bother naming it. Chris wouldn’t know and it damn well didn’t matter anymore. “I used a Tediore revolver.”

He spun the firearm in his hand and holstered it—which in this world mean allowing his hip-mounted storage deck to de-digistruct it as he released his grip upon the weapon. That he kept the same firearm from his younger years did not surprise Chris. Mordecai seemed like the romantic type, the sentimental, wrapping himself—literally and figuratively—in calloused uncaring and a sharp sense of humor to protect the soft warmth within. Chris answered the story with a low whistle.

“What was the prize?” The elevator began its descent.

“A kick in the cajones,” Mordecai responded. He did not look at Chris, instead focusing on the door and their slow progress downward. There was no need to relive that. Chris watched the hunter, observing his posture and the way he withdrew into himself. He was beginning to get the feeling that this tournament had been what might have started Mordecai down the path of the treasure hunter. If it wasn’t the single factor, it was a heavy contributor.

“I took the money an’ split, but they didn’t wanna give it to me,” the hunter continued, sensing Chris’s mouth opening to press. It was an easy story to tell if he left out the details. “Plen’ny of guys thought I was cheating, accused me of unsportsmanlike conduct. Man you ain’t seen a sportsman like me… Anyway I was a dumbshit kid an’ it ruffled my feathers. I never looked back.”

Chris could understand that. He was not a cool cucumber at seventeen. And now, he felt as if he owed the hunter a story in return.

“I ah… joined the military right out of high school. Airforce.” When Mordecai gave him a funny look, Chris was forced to recall that in this reality, or sector of space, or whatever it was, corporations openly controlled whole planets and it was they who had the standing militaries. “Ah, where I’m from, the government has a standing military to protect its interests and citizens.”

“Sounds plenty like Atlas an’ the Lance,” Mordecai decided. Chris nodded.

“In a lot of ways it is; they just pretend they aren’t… The guys in charge, anyway. People down below, they don’t know any better. People join the military to escape, ‘cause they don’t have any other prospects…. Because they’re desperate.”

Mordecai remembered Roland, what he’d said of Promethea, his home planet, and why he had joined the Crimson Lance. The word “desperation” had been part of Roland’s explanation too, and like Chris, it was simply that. It was no justification, no excuse. It was simply his story, the reason he had done it.

“You didn’t join ‘cause you thought it was a solid career path, I take it,” surmised Mordecai, his eyes still on the counter next to the elevator door. They were almost to the bottom, but he was curious. He wanted to know more, all of a sudden. Chris shook his head, grinning.

“And I had a problem with authority.” He recalled the orders he had refused, on the grounds of his own moral code, of course, but refusal was refusal. Mordecai guessed the military did not take kindly to disobedient cogs. Chris confirmed this by continuing. “They ah, discharged me…. But y’know, I still had all the skills, and I honestly don’t think I lost much. Wesker picked me up shortly after that, for a group called STARS… kind of an auxiliary law enforcement, for tough situations.”

Mordecai could understand that well enough. He was about to ask for more when the elevator made a pleasant dinging noise and a female voice welcomed them cordially to the sub-basement and listed off a series of sectors they could visit. Each was more horrifying than the last and Mordecai stepped out of the elevator so as not to absorb too much of it.

“I thought it was creepy upstairs,” Chris whispered, unsure why he was doing so. This space just seemed to beg for quietude, as if disturbing it would bring some kind of dark wrath down upon them. The auxiliary lights down here were not in good shape, flickering now and again to add to the drama. Mordecai signaled that quiet was the right idea. They didn’t know what was down here, except that it was making their hackles stand up. “So, how did you end up coming through to our… y’know, side?”

Mordecai shrugged. “Brick an’ I were checkin’ out the damage… near the Eridium scar, where the original vault was. We got separated an’ I found the site. The place was hummin’, man, a lot like it did when—y’know, when we opened it the first time.”

“I wonder if that’ll be our way back,” Chris mused. “Weird that it didn’t drop us there, though.”

The hunter nodded, conceding that point. He didn’t understand interdimensional travel, but guessed that if the portal on the other side had not been calibrated with that energy signature in mind—and how could it be, given that Wesker didn’t know it—they could have landed any old place. Thank god it was Fyrestone. “No complainin’,” he said after a moment, “since it coulda dropped us into some nasty shit.”

Chris agreed, of course, but was still intrigued as they made their way deeper into the facility.

They wandered for what seemed like hours, but according to Chris’s watch, which worked but made little difference with the planet’s 90+ hour cycles of day and night, it had been ten minutes. Down the hall—the dark hall, as the auxiliary lights had given out in this section—there was a dull, purple glow issuing from a door which had been left ajar. “There,” Mordecai said, pointing. “Grab whatcha need an’ let’s go.”

“You’re not coming?” Baffled, Chris turned his attention away from the violet glow, which he realized was also creating some kind of low, sub-aural hum. Mordecai shook his head.

“Ain’t gettin’ near that shit.”

“Why not? You said it wasn’t unsafe…”

“It’s safe,” Mordecai shot back, “jus’… not… for me.”

Now, Chris was suspicious. Why did it suddenly feel like something, some vital detail, had been kept from him. Wesker would not have sent him if he thought it was radioactive in such a way that would actually harm Chris. He had all the facts, didn’t he? Mordecai had told him everything… hadn’t he? Chris snagged the slender hunter by the top of his scarf-like collar—or maybe it was a scarf; the man was so wrapped up, it was hard to tell—and pinned him against the wall.

“Th’ fuck does that mean?” Chris’s face was inches from Mordecai’s. It infuriated him that he could not see the merc’s eyes, could not tell what he was thinking.

“It means I can’t touch that shit, okay? I can’t get near it—not in those quantities. It ain’t unsafe. You’ll be fine.”

“And you won’t?” Chris did not release Mordecai, green eyes narrow and staring up—he wasn’t used to looking up at anyone—into the hunter’s goggles. Mordecai started to shake his head and then stopped. He swallowed hard and sighed.

“I’ll live,” he relinquished. “Look, you keep this shit to yourself, man. I’m only sayin’ this ‘cause I know I won’t ever see your ass again.”

“Fine.” Chris released his hold and Mordecai reached up to adjust his collar. “Talk.”

Once more, the hunter sighed. Chris could not see in the dimness, but the man’s leathery cheeks had gone a deep red. His heart was pounding. This, too, Chris could not hear, but Mordecai was sure the entire facility could detect it. The blood pounded in his ears as he began unraveling the cloth bandages that covered his left arm. He pulled up one edge and realized, with heart-stopping horror, that even this close to what was almost certainly a massive pile of Eridium, his markings had begun to respond.

“It’s easier if I show you first,” said Mordecai, voice low. He continued to unravel and a fantastic array of dully illuminated patterns revealed themselves, all the way up his arm. The bandages went right to his shoulder. He tugged off the rest of the wrappings and held the entire pile in one hand. “Remember the Sirens I told you an’ the boss man about?”

“Wesker,” Chris filled in, “and yeah. Six of ‘em in the universe at a time.”

“And…?”

“Six and…” Chris paused, racking his brains for the strange information which did not want to stay put, because it was so foreign. “All female.”

“Yeah.”

The silence between them was palpable. Mordecai breathed deeply, stowed the bandages, and brushed past Chris, hoping that would be enough. If the guy wanted to see him walk in there so bad, he’d do it. Obviously, Mordecai knew that this was not the point of the argument, but he was feeling petty. He’d seen Lilith use the stuff to supercharge her power; maybe he could do the same, but he didn’t want to.

“Mordecai!” Chris jogged after the man. “I get it, you don’t have to go on… I—”

“No, man, you don’t. You don’t get it. All my life, I’ve been this way. Y’know other people can… y’know, be what they’re s’poseda be, but I got this shit.” He thrust his arm out, which was now glowing much more brightly. “This shit that will always remind me that I’m not… that I can’t.”

Mordecai stalked into the room. There was a sizable pile of the ingots on a table, in addition to smaller pieces littering the place and all over other desks and various examination stations. The quantity of it explained the magnitude of its glow in the hallway. Chris stopped cold at the threshold, amazed by the stuff. He’d never seen anything like it. Mordecai stood in the middle of the room, his tattoos glowing violently. He turned toward Chris then, tugging his goggles down so they dangled about his neck like some grisly hangman’s noose. The hunter’s eyes were glowing a vicious violet and in the light, Chris swore he saw tears.

“See what it does to me—to us… Sirens? It… Feels so good. It’s like I need more, like I’m addicted… But I’ve been down that road. I don’t want more. I wanna be… I just wanna… I’m a Vault Hunter.”

He hated the quavering of his own voice and the weakness in his heart. The room was becoming faceted like diamonds, and blurring. The view was spectacular and he began to feel a strange, forceful euphoria. This was what Lilith had described when she’d told them how it felt to absorb the power of refined Eridium. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, irritated by its presence.

“Just because you’re a Siren… doesn’t make you less of a Vault Hunter,” Chris observed, “or a man.”

“But—”

“No, I really think there’s no but,” Chris shot back, approaching the hunter with measured, but bold steps. “There’s just you and five other people in the universe who can do… whatever it is you all do. That they’re all women is kind of up for debate too, if you think about it.”

Mordecai had not considered it that way. Never in all his life had he been able to divorce his Siren status from his sex. It simply did or could not separate. Or perhaps he couldn’t. Perhaps it was within himself to do this and it had taken Chris’s sharp reminder to bring that to him. He was still a Vault Hunter, still the best marksman in the galaxy and probably beyond, but he was also a Siren. Lilith herself had brought up the advantages of it. In fact, she’d named his ability, once he’d consented to show her: Phasestep. She said it sounded cooler when you put the word phase in front of it. He’d laughed at that, and he was laughing now… a little at first, and then the laughter bubbled up to something cathartic and almost wild.

“Shit,” he gasped, “would ya lookit that…”

“Yeah,” Chris agreed, grabbing a piece of the Eridium and stowing it in one of his packs. “So let’s get out of here and then you can show me what your power can do.”

Mordecai nodded. He was not ready to overclock himself with Eridium, but he was, he supposed, ready to show Chris how Phasestep worked. “I can do you one better,” said the hunter, focusing his energy. He lifted his hand and with it, a tear seemed to form in the center of the room, rounding itself out to a hole about seven feet tall and four wide. On the other side, the familiar vista of Fyrestone shimmered and shifted. “I’ve never gone this far before,” he admitted, “so it must be the Eridium.”

Chris gave a low whistle. “Is it safe for both of us?”

“Sure,” said Mordecai, not without humor. “Man, hell if I know. I’ve only used it a couple of times… which I guess is pretty stupid, given what I do for a living.”

He stepped toward the image, but it wavered unsteadily, crackled and flashed once, before switching to another familiar scene.

“Is that… the lab?” Chris’s brows knitted together. On the other side of this tear in space-time, he could see the wavery form of Albert Wesker, standing near a console, punching numbers. He straightened suddenly, as if he’d felt eyes upon him, and turned. The surprise on his face was blurry, but Chris could see it, and it pleased him. “It is!”

“Go on,” said Mordcai, “I’ll follow.”

Chris was not sure he would—in fact, he was positive he would not see Mordecai again, but he had his sample and was more than pleased to see his lover. Mentally, he wished Mordecai luck and stepped through.

written for @tyrant-chris-redfield whomst I cannot tag because life is awful but I love them v much, bish u know who u r

#awwjeezbrick #ficlet #my writing #writing #i have no idea what my tagging system is #re crossover?#idk here u go

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