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l-loneybun · 4 years

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♡ 2019 Art Summary + updates/plans for 2020

(25/01) sorry for the late update,, I meant to post this on the 1st,, but,, stuff happened;; u_u

TLDR: I’m going on hiatus. I’ll also be privating a lot of my posts here if they’re text posts, or art I just don’t like. I really want this blog to look like a proper portfolio for when I come back;; Probably won’t be back until May or even later,, might go fuq off to a new account just to see how well I can do on my own for a bit,, Ty for support + have a nice year~ _______________________________________________________________

*big sigh I have to rewrite a lot of this bc my computer died and I was to stupid to draft this before*

So basically, this year’s art summary is surprisingly better than last year’s. I didn’t really notice since I’ve actually been feelin p shit about my progress until I put this together. Definitely more variation in style compared to 2018 (can’t believe I said that “I got to experiment a lot” that year haha guess I was really grasping). The second half of this is pretty much just me going over my 2019 (not just art), so feel free to stop reading here!! Thanks for all the new support, I hope you all have a good 2020. _______________________________________________________________ This is just me really wanting to vent/express my thoughts somewhere, and I just find tumblr the most comfortable place to do that since it’s sort of more hidden and people don’t really read personal posts!! So here we gooooo

I can’t really remember most of January - April, just that I was really stressed about not finishing a portfolio for one of my classes hgjfkdls,, I also quit my job near the end of April since management changed for the worse;; Little did I know how it’s harder to get a job while unemployed,, (seriously what’s up with that?? I get that many people need to work 2+ jobs,, but I would like to live too;; qxq) So I gave up on looking for work, since I didn’t think anyone would want to hire me if I would be gone for over a month right in the middle of summer.

May - June consisted of trying to generate enough art pieces to meet my 1 piece per 5 days art schedule. I also started to fall out of the FE fandom while really getting in to Sonic again. I’m pretty sure I wanted to draw a lot of Pokemon and Zelda fanart as well,, but I was (and still am) at the point where I hate my human art, and being able to draw Sonic art — which I'm more comfortable with — was just much more appealing;; uxu I feel more familiar with these characters, and so many creative ideas just come to be (other than memes, like my FE stuff).

From August onward, though,, I just feel like things turned for the worse. I had (what I would assume was) my first panic attack during my exchange program. It’s feels so fucking pathetic that this would happen at 20 years old;; I thought I was so much better off compared to middle/high school when it came to keeping my anxiety in check, bu t guess not,, ahhahhahhahah,,,, and it wouldn’t be the only one this year;; :’)

I still wouldn’t have found a job after my return, but would still have enough money to pay off my first semester with some left over. Unfortunately, due to vet bills, I wouldn’t have enough to pay for a full course load for my second semester. This was also due to some poor planning on my part regarding commissions/adopts,, so oop;; I’m only taking one course this sem, so I’m looking for full-time work, but damn ! ! no job ! ! esp sucks since my mom is the only one paying for things atm;; soooo great

ugh;; I don’t want to talk about this anymore,, so I’ll just go onto plans/bucket list for 2020/2021, since I keep forgetting:: _______________________________________________________________

If you didn’t read the TLDR, basically I’m taking a break from all my art accounts and such. Even though I can see a lot of improval from 2018-2019, I’m still disappointed in my lack of anatomy/technical skills in my art, especially since I believe I told myself I would improve last year;; So I’m going to try avoid going online as much as possible since it’s really just too distracting,, I really want to dedicate all the time I have now to improving/adopting new skills, so my bucket list/new year’s resolutions for 2020 will be:

Improving human anatomy/developing a good artstyle for human art

Developing assets for RPG Maker XP games (???) (I actually forgot about the pkmn one I started in 2018 until I looked through my archive. I don’t think I’m actually going to make any playable games, just some nice things to look at.)

Learning how to use Blender + making many plant assets

Creating designs/inventory to sell at an anime convention for 2021

Saving up for a Canon EOS M50 Mirrorless Camera to document Artist Alley experience

Becoming ~ambidextrous~

That’s all I can remember for now, but I’m sure I’m forgetting some,,, um,, thanks if you read this for far?? I don’t really have much more to say;; ,,,,,, bye :x

#art summary #update

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akozuheiwa · 5 years

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Professors Tarron and Johnson

A post-canon not-yet-AU-technically by myself, @lizzylucky, and @brising. See the long post beneath the cut.

After grad school and everything, Seamus goes on to become a professor at the same college he and Krel and everyone went to. Krel drops into class on such a regular basis that the students pretty much regard them as co-professors. At some point, the deans or whatever realise this and sort of offer Krel a position because students seem to like him. Seamus thinks it’s a great idea and that’s how Krel gets coerced into being Professor Tarron.

Krel is the cool professor who doesn’t ever want to be called professor (because Aja made fun of him for it) and tries for a solid three semesters to get his students to exclusively call him DJ Kleb. Seamus is fine being called by first name, but he’ll introduce himself and Krel as “Professors Johnson and Tarron” at the beginning of the semester. Almost always, the two co-teach lecture and then split up lab, except the one not in charge of lab always shows up anyway.

Their students love them, even if tests can occasionally be murder. Class and lab are full of super awesome experiments. Krel shows up some days with something random he invented the night before with the help of either alcohol or caffeine. He’ll take over the class and throw the syllabus to the wind to get his students to help him figure out what, exactly, he invented and how, exactly, he invented it. Some love it. Some hate it because they did the reading which is now out the window. Usually Seamus is very frustrated at first because he “had a plan for today’s lesson, we only have six weeks left in the semester”, but then he just gets super into it too and makes sure it becomes a teaching moment and nothing blows up. Students learn quickly that if you like explosions, you take lab with Krel, and if you’d rather play it safe, you take lab with Seamus.

Sometimes students also bring in things like this, although they usually try not to mention exactly what substance they were on when they created it, except for one student who walks in and shamelessly declares that that weekend she was “super fuckin’ high” and she thinks she mad something awesome but has no idea what it is, and the class spends the entire period reverse-engineering whatever it is only to find out it’s actually just a really, really weird hair-dryer. She gets extra credit just because Krel and Seamus are nostalgic and have, obviously, done the same thing multiple times in school. Unfortunately, this triggers a wave of students trying to replicate it by sleep deprivation or drugs or alcohol, which turns out some really cool class projects, but is banned after one kid passes out in the middle of class. Krel and Seamus either take back all the extra credit or just give everyone equal extra credit.

Students always find out about the Akiridion sci-fi site where all the theories about Krel and Seamus ended up, and they use it both as a forum to keep up with each other and also to speculate about their professors. Graduated seniors and anyone in the know help to make sure there’s no way to prove their favourite professors are (both?) aliens, and Krel and Seamus go through to check as well.

They give all their graduating seniors gifts, whether they were in one of their classes this year or freshman year or never but got stuck with one of them as a major advisor. If the kids were good, trustworthy kids, which most of them are, they get sworn to secrecy and get to find out that, yes, Krel’s actually from space. It’s impossible to convince them Seamus isn’t, but it amuses the two professors enough that they let it go.

They do teach a special senior seminar course that focuses on Akiridion technology, but it’s permission only and you pretty much can only get in if you’re a dedicated student of the Tarron-Johnson duo. Not to mention that the course description is misleading enough that only those students want to take it. The first day of this class is largely introducing the students to the fact that extra-terrestrials are real and that their tech is way better than Earth’s. They usually take a vote to see which of them the students think is the Akiridion, and usually the winning vote is both of them. Krel doesn’t reveal himself until the end of class so they can get through the syllabus and everything, because otherwise the class would never calm down.

The Akiridion Tech class takes two annual fields trips. One is to Akiridion-5, of course, where they get a special tour and the chance to work in what was Krel’s lab when he lived there. Aja begins looking forward to these trips because, ironically, it's one of her easiest days as Akiridion-5 Ruler. The students are always excited to meet her and the citizens are respectful and peaceful on those days. The other trip is to a planet of their choosing, which is disguised as an assignment where the class as a whole is given a bunch of data and has to determine which planets are habitable and pick one to visit. They almost always go, even if it’s not particularly habitable, just because Krel and Seamus can usually rig up safety suits. They also have a day where they study transduction technology. It’s Krel’s least favourite lesson because the students get to experiment with it on the only Akiridion available, AKA him, and so he ends up looking all sorts of crazy. Yes. Pictures get taken.

One year, after the field trip, one kid doesn’t listen and ends up accidentally bringing a skelteg back to Earth, which of course goes nuts in class. Professor Tarron goes around blasting music until they all explode. When the students find out he made the music, they go nuts. Someone finds all of his demos and shares them in the class group chat. There’s a petition for Professor Tarron’s music to be broadcasted in the dining hall. Krel signed the petition, of course. A few students form a DJ/music club and ask him to be the faculty contact for it, and of course he's thrilled and gets super into it. Really, he and Seamus go to as many of their students’ events as possible.

Some of the more internet savvy students compare them to vines on YouTube and through brief discussion decide that these trips are very Magic School Bus esque. Someone makes the mistake of bringing this up in class and introducing Krel to Magic School Bus, which is something Seamus was very specifically avoiding. All of the classes start having a lot more fun field trips after that, much to Seamus’s frustration and secret amusement. The trips very much cater to and play on the Magic School Bus jokes. One student gets them a pet lizard. It becomes the class pet. Krel takes to it immediately. Seamus gives up.

Krel won’t always focus in lecture, and he has a habit of stopping mid-sentence and leaving the room, at which Seamus just sighs and picks up where Krel left off until the Akiridion comes back with some bizarre piece of tech. He’ll wait for Seamus to finish before explaining the jump in his thought process and how it relates to his tech. Seamus has done it once or twice himself, but he usually finishes talking before adding. They’ll also completely baffle the students by stopping mid-lesson to discuss how, “Wait, didn’t we disprove this once?” or “According to Akiridion science, isn’t this wrong?” or “Well, if we did this instead I bet we could prove this wrong.” No one ever understands what they’re talking about in those instances.

Professor Johnson is the only one to have office hours (and grade stuff, usually), but if you can’t make it, you can probably find Krel somewhere on campus and ask questions. He can always answer, even if it’s about a comment Seamus made on an essay Krel didn’t grade. Half the students are convinced they have some sort of telepathy device because they can pick up each other’s thoughts mid-sentence, sometimes even when they weren’t in the room. Sometimes one of them just moves to go sit down and starts researching something on the computer while the other takes up the rest of the lesson, knowing full well that they'd had the same idea at the same time.

They tell new students the first day to “forget everything you’ve learned in any physics class not taught by one of us.” They, in fact, have a class (PHYS 351 with Lab) called “Physics is a Social Construct”. All their classes always start with a syllabus, but by the second week, Krel (and it’s always Krel) is like, “Alright, so due to unexpected circumstances, and by that I mean Seamus and I disproved three of these theories last night, we’re throwing away the syllabus!” There are days when the students are so stuffed up with questions and confusion as to what their Professors are doing that an entire class will be spent just answering their questions. Some of the students already understand some things thanks to Akiridion Science Fiction and just laugh at the younger students' questions, but then find themselves asking questions too. Questions range from “Why did Professor Tarron vanish for a week?” to “What the hell is that thing on the desk?” to “What about the syllabus?” and finally, the most common one, “But that’s not possible!” PHYS 351’s final project is to break one of the laws of physics. The Tarron-Johnson duo’s motto is that everything is possible.

Krel, surprisingly, is really bad at lab safety, in that he doesn’t do it at all. He’ll get sucked in and forget things. Seamus has to remind them all the time, things like, “Krel, please put your hair up, you’re going to catch it on fire again” or “Krel, please wear goggles, we don’t want a repeat of the junior year fiasco.” If Seamus shows up alone and starts class with, “Let’s go over lab safety”, then you know Krel did something stupid. Some days Krel will have to tell Seamus, “Do not tell them why I’m not there”, and Seamus tells them because it’s usually something really stupid, including the time he fell off a ladder.

Sometimes they bring guest speakers to class. Akiridion Tech gets the best guests, scientists from across the galaxy and usually the Queen of Akiridion-5 at least once, but even other classes get cool Earth scientists and occasionally extra-terrestrials in disguise. Apparently, Professor Tarron is good friends with a high-up military general that runs the mysterious Area 49b, so he usually visits too, and sometimes Akiridion Tech even gets a tour of the military base. Students who don’t get a tour beg for one, and Krel, certified disaster even as an adult, tells them that “it’s not that hard to break into there anyways” and that he knows someone who did it at least twice. Professor Johnson is not pleased to hear about this when he discovers students plotting to break in. General Costas is even less happy, and every semester he drags anywhere from two students to the entire class to Krel and Seamus’s house in the middle of the night after they tried to break into Area 49b. Yes, this fuels the debate about whether they’re married. No, no one is sure. Krel secretly gives them extra credit by claiming it tests their capacity to plan and also, it helps test the security of the base. Neither Costas nor Seamus like this answer.

Seamus pretty much stays in the physics and engineering departments, but Krel actually ends up branching out. He stays involved in theatre, of course, and ends up teaching a class about sci-fi theatre in which he only teaches one play from Earth, if that many, and at least two are from Akiridion-5. The others come from random planets with plays Krel likes.

Krel is also in the habit of just… walking into other classes whenever he feels like it to see what’s happening or if it’s interesting. Students not aware of Professors Tarron and Johnson assume he’s maybe an older student or a grad student or something. He almost always goes to classes that talk about space and sci-fi. The special creative writing class about writing sci-fi is something he has to see, and the professor actually thinks he’s a student who isn’t on the list because of add/drop/swap and Krel, while finding it hilarious, has to explain that, no, he’s from the physics department, he specialises in astroengineering and cool stuff like that.

They also get super into things like holidays and spirit week, and will always go all out for any costumes. They’ll set up holiday-themed projects for extra credit. Students are challenged to relate their Halloween costumes to class (so they get a lot of superheroes) and they usually reserve the unit on holograms for February to allow the students to make hologram Valentine’s cards. They try to be as inclusive as possible, and research different holidays and make sure they know what their students celebrate, especially come winter time when so many holidays come up.

TL;DR: Seamus and Krel are the best professors for so many reasons and nobody knows if they’re married or not. That’s up to you and what you ship.

#3below #toawizards #tales of arcadia #krel tarron #seamus johnson #professor kreamus #kreamus #platonic or romantic your choice #i personally like romantic but can't speak for everyone #listen #they're a mess #and we love them anyway #and this #like wizards fic #has taken over my life #i have doodles #post-canon

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chasholidays · 6 years

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Raven's POV- Bellarke's complex relationship progression from first meeting to engaged and disgustingly in love.

“Oh, hey, it’s the only person in the world who sucks more with technology than you do, Clarke.”

It’s one of those small, unassuming moments, the kind that wouldn’t be memorable at all if not for what came later. When she says it, all Raven is thinking is, oh, it’s this guy again, he deserves to be made fun of. And Clarke always deserves to be made fun of.

She doesn’t really think anything’s going to come of it.

Bellamy raises his eyebrows, looking between Raven and Clarke. “Do I have a reputation? Do you guys talk about me behind my back?”

“Yep, all the time. But Clarke doesn’t actually work here, so she’s not in on our complaining. What did you do this time?”

“What makes you think I did anything?” he grumbles.

“Sorry, did you come to IT because you didn’t break your computer again?”

He huffs. “It’s actually my phone.”

“Oh, yeah, my bad. What happened?”

Clarke only gets involved once, when Bellamy is saying he didn’t do anything weird, and she asks, “Do you think everything you do on your phone is weird?”

Bellamy looks surprised, like he’d forgotten she was there. “What?”

“Is there anything you do on your phone that you don’t think is weird? Or does technology just weird you out all the time?”

“I didn’t do anything different on the phone,” he corrects. “Just the usual weirdness.”

Clarke smiles down at her computer like she won something. “That’s what I thought.”

“The phone did it, not me.”

“Yeah, of course.”

He scowls. “Do you just hang out here waiting for something of yours to break?”

“Basically,” says Raven. “Here. You somehow reset the sensitivity on the touch screen. I don’t know how, you have a gift.”

“It probably could have happened to anyone,” he says, eyes flicking to Clarke, but her attention is very pointed on her book.

Raven just snorts. “Probably, but it keeps happening to you. See you next week.”

“You might not. But thanks.”

And she assumes that’s the end of that.

The next time it happens, Clarke is in because she is the first person Raven has ever witnessed who managed to get a virus on her iPad, and Raven actually had to call in Monty to help.

“There has to be a way for you to monetize this,” Monty is saying, when Bellamy comes in. “Like, it’s a mutant superpower. You could hire yourself out to people who want to destroy their enemies’ tech.”

“How does that pay?” Bellamy asks, and they all turn their attention to him. “I think I got a virus on my iPad. Does that happen?”

“Oh my god, there’s two of them,” says Monty, horrified.

“Fuck, it better be the same virus,” says Raven. “They don’t pay us enough to deal with two different iPad viruses.”

Clarke just pats the chair next to her. “Have a seat. I get the feeling it’s going to be a while.”

“You guys aren’t actually required to hang out,” Monty says, and then immediately rethinks it. “Or, wait, Bellamy, you should hang out long enough to tell us what you did so we can make sure no one ever does it again.”

“Yeah, tell my story.” He takes the seat next to Clarke and cocks his head at her. “I know Raven and Monty, but I didn’t get your name. Just that you’re also a regular.”

“Also Raven’s roommate.” She offers her hand. “Clarke.”

“Nice to meet you. So, what did you do?”

“Nothing weird,” she teases, and he rolls his eyes, smiling.

“Of course not. Just a couple of normal technological natives, that’s us.”

“That’s us,” she agrees, and Raven and Monty share an eye roll and get back to work.

“That Bellamy guy is in my queer studies seminar,” Clarke tells Raven, at the start of the next semester. “The one who breaks all his stuff.”

“Huh,” says Raven. “Is he queer?”

“He said he was probably bi. I figured it would be weird if I didn’t sit next to him, right?”

“Because you guys are so tight.”

“It’s weird either way,” Clarke admits. “When you sort of know someone. If you don’t sit with them, it feels like a statement.”

“You don’t have to justify yourself to me.” She lets the statement sit for a beat, but she can’t help teasing. “He’s cute.”

“He’s kind of a dick.”

Translated from the Clarke, that means he’s really cute, and Raven smiles. “Yeah, you definitely want to sit next to the dicks. That’s how I do it.”

Clarke glares. “Shut up.”

“Oh no, if you guys got another virus, you’re on your own,” Raven hears Monty say, and she looks up to see Clarke and Bellamy coming up to the IT help desk together, which either means one of them made a move or they’ve started working together to destroy all of their devices.

Or, most likely, Clarke’s still stubbornly pretending she doesn’t have a thing for Bellamy, and following him around because that’s total bullshit. Raven doesn’t know Bellamy well enough to know where he stands on having a thing for Clarke, let alone denying it.

But judging just from the way he’s glancing at Clarke occasionally as they walk, Raven would assume he has a thing.

“No viruses. We just can’t get this game to work.”

“Game?” Monty asks. “I don’t know if IT is actually supposed to help you with games.”

“It’s for our queer studies class,” says Clarke. “Completely school-related. But we can’t get it to run on either of our laptops.”

“Okay, that’s a valid use of IT resources.”

“Also Raven is my roommate and does these things for free if she has to.”

“Yeah, but I deserve to get paid,” Raven says, straightening up. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

It doesn’t take long to get the game running, but Monty wants to see what it is, so Clarke and Bellamy stick around, bickering over how to play, and Raven can see how their inevitable hookup won’t be that bad. They’re cute, at least.

“Do you think when they make out, it’ll destroy all the technology in the room?” Monty muses, once he and Raven are alone again.

Raven snorts. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Except that, suddenly, Bellamy disappears. Raven wouldn’t even know–she often goes weeks without seeing him–except that it’s the middle of the semester, and Clarke still has the class with him.

“At what point do I get to reach out to someone I don’t really–” Clarke stops herself, sighs, and flops on her bed. “Bellamy’s missed two classes in a row, and I’m worried. How do I ask about that without being too–”

“Having a crush on him?” Raven supplies.

She sighs. “Yeah.”

“Email, probably. You guys are talking and hanging out in class. He’d notice if you weren’t around too. Shoot him an email, see what’s up.”

“That’s probably the normal way to do it, yeah.”

“What were you going to do?”

“Go to his room and see if he was okay.”

Raven feels a smile tugging at her mouth. “Yeah, stick with email for now. Lowkey.”

“Lowkey,” Clarke agrees.

It’s another week before Bellamy gets back to her, and when he does, it’s to tell her that his mother passed away and he had to leave school to help out with his younger sister.

Raven takes Clarke out drinking, tells her there are other fish in the sea, and figures, once again, that that’s the end of it. For real, this time.

“It’s–Raven, right?”

Raven looks up from her coffee, finds herself looking at–

“Tech disaster.”

He snorts. “Jesus. I guess that’s less embarrassing than being wrong about recognizing you.”

“Bellamy,” she says, taking pity on him. It’s been five years, he’s probably feeling weird about the whole thing. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah.” He smiles with half his mouth. “Sorry, this is awkward, I just thought I should say hi.”

“No, have a seat if you want. You’d be helping me out.”

“How so?”

“Well, Clarke is meeting my boyfriend for the first time and I think they might kill each other, so I could use someone to deflect attention.”

The change in his expression is quick, but Raven doesn’t miss it. “Clarke? From college?”

“How many Clarkes do you think I know? Yeah, Clarke from college.”

For a second, he’s clearly fighting with himself, but then he huffs. “If you’re just being polite, tell me. I want a drink and there aren’t any free tables, but I can get it to go.”

“New in town?”

“Yeah.”

“So have a seat. Make some friends.”

He smiles. “Let me get the drink first.”

Raven really is planning to warn Clarke, but she’s still trying to figure out the right text when Clarke collapses into the seat across from her, shaking snow out of her scarf.

“I beat Roan here?”

“It’s not a competition, but yeah, you did.” She considers, but it’s too good to resist. “You didn’t beat Bellamy.”

Clarke freezes. “Bellamy? From college?”

“That’s exactly how he identified you. Yeah, Bellamy from college. He stopped by to say hi, I told him to come sit with us. He’s in line.”

Clarke glances over, frowns when she spots the back of his head. “Is he still hot? He still looks hot.”

“Definitely still hot.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll go get a drink. Say hi.”

“You owe me one.”

“I don’t owe you, I haven’t gotten anything. I’m just saying hi.”

“You might owe me.”

Bellamy turns back to them, spots Clarke and gives her a smile and a wave.

“I might owe you,” Clarke agrees, out of the corner of her mouth. Since most of her attention is dedicated to smiling back at Bellamy. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck,” says Raven, and smirks into her own mug once she’s alone.

Five years later, they’re still cute.

“I don’t need to be nervous, right?”

Raven looks up from her tablet. “It’s a first date, everyone’s nervous. But if he still likes you after five years, you probably don’t need to be thatnervous, yeah. You guys still get along, right?”

“Apparently. And he’s still hot.”

“Upgraded from cute?”

“He can be both.” She exhales. “I can’t believe I’m actually going on a date with Bellamy Blake.”

“Hey, it’s not like he ever turned you down in college. He dropped out to raise his sister. If he hadn’t, you definitely would have just gotten laid back then. So it’s not a huge surprise.”

“That’s easy for you to say. I was still wondering if he actually liked me liked me when he left.”

“Well, he asked you out, so I’m pretty sure he did. And you guys have a second chance. So you probably don’t have to be nervous. Just let me know if you’re not coming home tonight,” she adds, with a smirk, and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“Of course I’m coming home. It’s the first date, Raven.”

“And?”

“And I think this could be something. I don’t want to rush.”

“I’m just saying, if you want to fuck him, you should. It’s not going to ruin anything, and I won’t judge. Just don’t want to be worrying.”

“I know. I’ll let you know.”

Two hours later, she gets the text: You were right, I’m not coming home tonight.

It’s been a while since Clarke had a good relationship, and she deserves a win; Raven doesn’t even say I told you so.

“Okay, survey time,” says Clarke.

“You’re asking my opinion on something?” Roan says, dry. Raven doesn’t even bother worrying; after almost two years, she knows her boyfriend and her best friend like each other. They just show it through sniping and sarcasm. Like most of Raven’s friends do.

“You’re a guy, you can tell me if there’s some part of your lizard brain that would be upset if Raven proposed to you.”

“I assume you’re planning to propose to your boyfriend and this isn’t a complicated scheme to find out if I want Raven to propose to me,” he says, about half to Clarke and half to Raven.

Raven rolls her eyes. “I told you, I want to live in sin. Marriage isn’t my thing. No offense,” she adds, to Clarke.

“None taken. I don’t want to propose to you.”

“But you want to propose to Bellamy?”

She shrugs, smiling a little. “I want to marry him. So I might as well propose, right? We’ve talked about it in general terms, but–he’s made most of the first moves so far, I want to do this one. Assuming you guys don’t think there’s going to be some kneejerk gender role weirdness.”

“Do you have to surprise him with it?” Raven asks. “Can’t you just say, hey, you mind if I propose?”

“I want to be a little more romantic than that. I know he wants to get married, and I know–he’s Bellamy, I know he doesn’t care about this stuff. I’m just nervous.”

“As I understand it, you’re supposed to be nervous when you ask someone to marry you,” Roan says. “This might be normal.”

“So you guys think I should just go for it?”

“I think he’s going to say yes, so yeah, why not?” says Raven. “We should get in touch with Monty once you’re engaged. Tell him that you’re going to have the most technologically incompetent children of all time.”

Clarke laughs. “Yeah, we can do that. After he says yes.”

“You don’t have anything to worry about. You know that, right?”

“I know,” she says. “But still. We don’t have to jinx it.”

Clarke: Monty I don’t want to freak you out but I’m going to marry technological nightmare Bellamy BlakeRaven thought you’d want to knowPrepare for the luddite antichrist we’ll produce if/when we have kids

Monty: HOLY FUCKTHE END IS NEARI meanCongrats on your engagement!!How did that happen?

Clarke: Raven, actuallyI really owe her

Monty: I can’t believe you betrayed the tech, RavenI thought you were on my side

Me: Trust me, I’m as surprised as you are this actually worked outI did not see this one coming

Clarke: But in a good way, right?

Me: The record will show I’m happy for youBut I’m never letting your kid touch my phone

Clarke: We’re not THAT bad

Me: You areBut you guys are cuteBuy me a drink and all is forgiven

Clarke: TwoI definitely owe you a couple

#accio-idioto

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micahrodney · 3 years

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Thread; Chapter 1 - Lost Boy

The following was a commissioned piece for MatthewCaveatZealot. Awakening with a start, Neil managed to bash his head on the ceiling of his dorm room. He collapsed back into his loft bed, running his hands across his temple. He had always known this was a distinct possibility with his sleeping arrangement; there was barely three feet of clearance between his mattress and the unsettling popcorn-style stucco which always left flakes in his bedding. The only damage appeared to be a mild contusion, and a slightly hurt ego. The boy glanced at the alarm clock, which was inelegantly tucked into a corner of the frame, cord precariously taut.

8:35 AM

“Shit!” Neil cursed.

In his panic, he practically hurled himself over the rail of his loft. Fortunately, his faded blue bean bag chair – presently covered by a week's worth of dirty laundry – broke his fall. Fishing in the bureau just beneath his bed, he managed to dig out a clean pair of jeans and a grey tee.

As he reached for his bookbag, he noticed he'd left his computer on. The dull white of a Lotus document was burning into the monitor. Upon reading the salutation of “Dear Erica” the previous night's phone call came rushing back to him; three years discarded in two minutes. He had trouble saying what he needed to say in that call. Truthfully, the shock of it had rendered him phased out of reality. There was a hollowness that consumed him upon hearing those words, an emptiness that had to be embraced lest it consume him.

He couldn't even bring himself to cry. Tears would only validate the nightmare. That had to be it: a nightmare. One that he would wake up from in a day or two when she called him back and apologized. When she remembered how happy they had been together and realized what she was giving up. After a few hours, he had passed from denial to bargaining. Every possible scenario played through in his head simultaneously, from magnanimous acceptance of her apology to him banging at her door and pleading to take him back. That was when the rational approach of writing her a letter presented itself.

Without bothering to save the document, he flipped the switch. The dull fizzling sound was always a strange comfort. To Neil, it represented the end of a day. Maybe that's how he should view Erica: just another chapter in his life that he would move past. And maybe, like the document itself, there really was nothing worth saving there anyway.

---

Voxton was once a whistle-stop town just outside of the state capitol. It was the home of an active farm community, and the state's number one exporter of unemployed drunks looking for better opportunity in “the big city”. Then somebody decided to build a college there in the wake of the 1973 stock market crash, presumably with hopes of turning the state's fortune around.

McCain University – presumably named for its founder, though Neil had never bothered to find out – had grown to become something of a Mecca for the technically inclined. If you wanted to break into engineering or computer science, you went to McCain, assuming your parents weren't wealthy or connected enough to ship you off to MIT.

Thanks to a grant from the Governor, the school had an entire campus building dedicated to the most powerful machines on the market. Perhaps this was why Neil insisted upon using a personal computer from the 80s, despite the fact that his father had offered many times to buy him something newer.

The IBM 386 was more than a little dated, but the chunky machine could do the important things in his life. Sure his classes had him learning on top-of-the-line Power Macintosh hardware, but it had been the computer he grew up with. Its impressive 32 MB memory was stuffed with the text-adventure games of INFOCOM. While his first love would always be Zork, it was the murder-mystery Moonmist that made him want to become a writer.

These dual interests had conflicted before, and while Neil's father was supportive he was also wary. Writing, after all, was a hard market to break into. But computer technology was in high demand and only rising. When he had embarrassingly tried to connect with his son by saying maybe he could learn to make “some of those Nintendo games”, Neil had politely laughed and agreed to consider it. The boy's consideration didn't take long. As a lawyer, his dad always was the better negotiator. Perhaps it was overkill to mention that it is what his mother would have wanted.

Neil opened the door to his usual morning haunt, a student-run coffee shop called “The Junction”. The place was barely bigger than his dorm, but they also had the best muffins in Voxton. He stumbled up to the register and barely sputtered out his order before his bookbag slipped off of his shoulder, sending his notebooks scattering.

“Damn,” Neil cursed. “Sorry, Angie. A blueberry muffin and a coffee to go please!”

“Running late again, Neil?” The senior asked, tying her long ebony hair back with a scrunchy.

“I know, they're lucky to have me as a student,” Neil mumbled bitterly, shoving the papers haphazardly back into his bag.

“Four bucks. Your dad's Amex, I trust?” Angie replied, extending her hand.

“Cash today. I forgot to grab my wallet, but luckily there was a five in my jeans,” Neil chuckled benignly, handing her the bill.

“Moving up in the world.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Lemme grab your breakfast, champ,” Angie smirked.

Neil took his change and leaned back against the bar. The place wasn't really all that bad. Sure two people couldn't walk side-by-side behind the bar, but the little brick shack was alright. He had particularly liked the ironic name. Before the University reclaimed land for a parking lot the place had been a rail depot. The result were tracks that didn't lead anywhere just behind the restaurant and for few miles north and south respectively.

“And in offbeat news today,” droned a local news anchor on the 16 inch TV in the corner of the bar. “IBM supercomputer 'Deep Blue' went six games against chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov yesterday. Although Kasparov won the match with four games to Deep Blue's two, this is the first time a computer has ever defeated a world champion under tournament regulations. Truly this is a sign of things to come. Just how more advanced can these computers get?”

“Neil!” Angie called, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “Muffin, coffee, late for Computer Theory 221, remember?”

“Right, sorry!” Neil sputtered, grabbing his food and bolting out the door.

---

“Mr. Brown. How nice of you to grace us with your presence.”

Professor Barker was generally a nice guy, but Neil had tried his patience one too many times. Tardiness was just one of Neil's offenses against the would-be silicon valley elite. In short, Barker didn't like his attitude. He didn't like that Neil would sit through his classes, mind clearly on other things. But what he hated worse was the fact that Neil continued to ace every assignment in spite of his lackluster classroom performance. It wasn't Neil's fault that he felt he got very little out of the lecture hall experience, preferring instead to study on his own time.

“Sorry, sir,” Neil apologized half-heartedly. “Rough night.”

“Wait until you become an adult, then you'll learn what a real rough night is,” Barker scolded.

The aging technician looked like a slightly sunkissed Steve Wozniak. He had the beard and the plaid collar shirts, but his face was a bit more rugged. Barker had learned computers while serving in the Army during the 70s. The synthesis was a computer nerd who looked like he used to beat kids up for their lunch money.

“Now that Mr. Brown has found his seat,” Barker sighed. “Let's resume. Where were we now? Ah, yes! The potential of virtual reality. Now, this ain't your 'Virtual Boy', we're talking about actual virtual reality.”

Barker was nothing if not fond of the sound of his own voice. The lecture was more or less him pontificating about the achievements that had been accomplished with the budding technology and his wild-eyed fantasies of future use. Of particular note, Barker's assertion that we could one day use virtual reality to explore the entire planet's history in first-person seemed especially romantic.

“Imagine, if you would, you put on a visor and are instantly transported to the wild west. With a few mouse clicks, you are in the Roman Empire, or watching the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

A loud digitized beep came from the clock just over the door. It was already 11 AM.

“Ah, well, I seem to have rambled on right to the end of class,” Barker chuckled. “Alright, that's a good stopping point anyway. I'll let you head out. Mr. Brown, a word.”

The students began to pack up and make their way towards the door, as Neil marched down the steps of the lecture hall, prepared for his weekly chew-out session. The beard of the middle-aged educator seemed to twitch in anticipation and annoyance.

“Neil, do you want to be in this class?” Barker asked bluntly.

“Yes sir,” Neil stoically replied.

“You know the class starts at 8:30 AM every Monday and Wednesday, right?”

“Yep.”

“The winter semester has only just started and in the six classes we've had together you have been on time to one of them.”

“That's correct, sir.”

Barker sighed and waved his hands about in front of him as if he was grasping for something to strike him with.

“I don't know what you expect from me,” Barker steadied his hands and pointed a finger in Neil's face. “But I know I expect from you. I can't have you barging in after the class starts. If I have to lock that door, I'll do it. Your work is good, but if you want to stay in my class I expect you to show up on time.”

“I understand sir.”

“Well, I hope so,” Barker grumbled. “I'm not kidding about that lock either.”

---

Monday was, by design, Neil's easiest day. He only had the one class, and he used the remainder of the day to run errands. So as soon as Barker let him out, his first stop was to the Store24 to pick up some groceries. Considering his food storage options in his dorm was a mini-fridge and the top shelf of his closet, he only wound up with two bags and a twelve-pack of the store-brand cola.

He dropped off the bare essentials of sustenance and took a brief moment to tidy his room. There wasn't much cause to impress anyone, but he felt compelled to use the time. It felt better to accomplish something – anything – rather than waiting around for the day to end.

The next two hours were spent overseeing a load of laundry in the dormitory laundromat. It was pretty depressing, featuring bare stone walls and illuminated by a single dirt-specked window. with a line of six washers and four driers on opposite sides of the room from each other. There was a table in the middle, slightly off-set from the window in a way that mildly infuriated Neil. There were technically chairs, but two metal folding chairs took a certain wear-and-tear over the decades and had never been replaced.

Neil found himself sitting on the edge of the table, staring out that window and reflecting on the bizarre dream that had woken him with such a start. The events of the day had driven out most of the fantastic experience from his mind, but bits and pieces still lingered. Those omnipresent voices, speaking in grand detail about him. An idyllic planet that was repeatedly destroyed. The beast from within the pit, as Neil was bound and helpless on a web of light.

He considered whether or not he wanted to try and duplicate the effects of his lucid dreaming again tonight. Was it a story worth picking up? Or did he want to find himself once again at the genuine mercy of some phantasm?

A low blare came from the drier, in what was more than once mistaken for a fire alarm.

Discarding the shards of his recollection, he set about folding his clothes for about five minutes, before hastily shoving the rest of his clothes into his basket and resolving to just “do it later”. This was perhaps his favorite lie.

So it was, at 3:00 PM, Neil found himself back in his room with nothing else on the docket. The young scholar now had to decide between drowning his mounting sorrows in video games, television, or – if he were feeling particularly adventurous – both at the same time.

Looking to a torn up photo of Erica on his desk, he considered what he would be doing if last night's conversation had not happened. The weekends were theirs and sometimes she would visit him Monday night as well, to hit up a movie when it wasn't crowded with people. She wasn't a terribly social girl, and Neil had always done his best to accommodate that.

They both used to joke about how she was a “cheap date”. She was the kind of person who genuinely enjoyed an experience-driven rendezvous. Erica would much rather walk through the Voxton arboretum or take in one of the free community light-shows at the planetarium rather than actually go out and spend money.

On their first date, Neil had nearly blown his chance with her by trying to flaunt his dad's wealth. He had been given $100 to “impress the girl” with. Erica, in that way she always did, knocked him flat on his ass.

“I'm not here to get to know your money, I'm here to get to know you,” she said, before insisting on having dinner at the cheapest restaurant in Voxton, where she paid for her own meal.

The wake-up call had worked, and he loosened up considerably; enough so that she was agreeable to a second date. In spite of the rough start, they had gotten along famously. But apparently not as well as he had thought.

A knock on his door disrupted Neil from his day-dreaming.

“Hey man, open up. You're decent, right?”

Neil chuckled as he opened up the door. His friend Damian could only be described as “dashing”. The heart-throb of choice for all the girls when they were in high school together, his looks had only improved with age.

“Did they finally let you in?” Neil teased.

“Dude, they let you in,” Damian retorted. “If I wanted in, I'd be in. But money is good in the sales game.”

“You work in retail.”

“Retail sales. If I sell ten computers, they give me $50 of store credit,” Damian replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Anyway, we doing dinner? My treat. Gotta cheer up my sad-sack friend, don't I?”

“Damian, you don't have to-”

“Nah, brother, I insist,” Damian smiled, patting Neil on the back. “Breakups hurt. I've been here, and you're gonna be fine. We will eat, drink, be merry and this weekend we will go out dancing and find a girl to make you forget all about her.”

It was this benevolent nature that led to the two becoming friends in the first place. In middle-school, they were both slightly awkward, but Damian had the further disadvantage of being an immigrant. His mother Tabitha had fled Egypt shortly after that assassination of Anwar Sadat, carrying along a four-year-old Damian with her.

The pubescent Damian was dealing with bullying and trying to adapt to both a new country and a stepfather who Neil had never met. The two had met while Damian was hiding out in the library during one fateful lunch and they managed to hit it off over Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. Neil had just started reading The Black Cauldron, but Damian was already on Taran Wanderer. A young boy's excitement to talk about his favorite fantasy series led to the longest-lasting friendship either of them had enjoyed.

“Damian, I'm not sure if I really want to 'forget' about her, you know?” Neil sighed. “But I don't really need to get into that now.”

“Why not now?” Damian asked. “Take the time, friend. Dinner can wait.”

“It just seems kinda,” Neil struggled to find the words. “Pointless. I mean she's made her decision. I have no idea why, but she made it clear she was done with me.”

“Your feelings aren't pointless,” Damian replied, tapping his chest for emphasis. “It's all we really have in this world. Of course, if you don't want to talk, I won't make you. But, uh, make a decision quick. I skipped lunch.”

Neil laughed and opted to continue keeping his thoughts concealed. At least for now.

“Alright. Dealer's choice,” Neil said.

“What a dangerous power you've given me,” Damian chuckled. “Thai food it is.”

---

This one is hard to position. The thread is destabilizing.

Neil was not dreaming. The voice was not in his head. It was just on the opposite side of his dormitory door. The room around him was shrouded in darkness, and only the door was illuminated. If he could just reach out and grab the handle...

A terrible weight was dragging him down, and his limbs felt as though they were made of concrete. A biting cold was gnawing at him, and there was a presence just behind him. Somewhere in that darkness, a great unseen thing wanted to devour him. Panic seized him as he flailed his useless forelimbs at the impossible contraption. A doorknob; he had seen thousands of these. But his brain could not process how to manipulate one.

With looming annihilation mere inches from him, he resorted to throwing all of his weight at the wooden barrier, hoping it would yield under the force of what, to Neil, felt like two tons of his own mass.

If the thread is lost, we lose the Binder. This is unacceptable.

“Nox?” Neil called out, vaguely remembering the kindly voice from the other night.

We are here, Binder. Patience. We will pull you into our realm. You will not be sundered.

At this pronouncement, a hideous shriek invaded Neil's mind. The darkness wrapped around the young man and began to flay him, leaving crimson marks on his arm. By the time the third sinewy tendril had lashed him across the face, he felt an uncomfortably familiar tug around his midsection as he was dragged out of the darkness and through the door, beyond which lay the sea of stars from his prior visit.

As the distant sparks sailed past him, the memory of that Eden weight heavily upon his mind. He wanted to see it again, and yet he could not bear to watch it be destroyed once more. The thought of having to relive the same disaster over and over again throughout eternity was unbearable. How many times would he have to suffer the same loss? How many people would abandon him to the darkness of his own mind?

Hey Neil, it's Dad. Hope you've had a good Monday. You're probably out with Erica, but I just wanted to get in touch with you about... well, your mother's remembrance. It won't be a big social gathering like last year's. Basically just gonna be your siblings and me, but we wanted to coordinate with you. Just give me a call back when you can. I love you.

His father didn't know yet. Of course, why would he? That was only last night?

Focus on the moment, Binder!

Rem's voice was as stern and monotone as ever, but with a renewed sense of urgency. There was a planet on the horizon, but it was no paradise. The world was molten rock and scattered space-dust, perhaps one in the process of still being formed. Or was this was had remained of the other world after the disaster?

See past the reality of your eyes, Binder. They are not a reliable path to truth, Nox urged.

He is weighed down by his emotional attachment to his own thread. We are losing him, Rem added.

The planet was quite hot, and Neil felt his flesh beginning to sear as he drew ever closer to it. He closed his eyes as he fell through the atmosphere of a dying world, the weight of his grief dragging him into oblivion.

#thread matthewcaveatzealot commission #scifi #short story #90s

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