#i really have a thing for centered compositions i need to branch out more | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

misti2460 · 3 years

Text

Is Search Engine Submission Necessary?

Is Search Engine Submission Necessary? The essential answer is no – web list convenience isn't basic. The vast majority of web search apparatuses nowadays (most famously Google) creep and record pages by following associations. Using that reasoning, a singular inbound association from any inside and out recorded page will perceive your page to the engine. Subsequently, if that page associates with various pages inside your site, they will similarly be requested, and so on this is the explanation behind the Google PageRank figuring. You don't have to end up lost in the online blend.

Is Search Engine Submission Necessary? Web composition upgrades Company in Singapore

Thusly, inbound associating is essential. Getting back-associations may be the hugest of SEO. On a fundamental level, in any case, a site owner shouldn't have to 'scout' or 'pursue' for joins. In case the presented content is of interest, important, or conceivably huge, there is a trademark penchant among web customers to association with information. Underneath I will give you ten phases to help you map out your course about Is Search Engine Submission Necessary? Likewise, dismiss you from the right way. It isn't all that you need to know in any capacity whatsoever, anyway it will give you a fundamental foundation to develop.

With all due respect, introducing your webpage to the web crawlers can't do any damage. Also, it simply includes around 5 minutes of added work expecting you simply submit to the colossal people. Moreover, once is adequate… you don't need to introduce your site more than once. It doesn't help or get your site crawled any quicker or even more oftentimes. It should be seen that introducing your site to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and various others doesn't cost a charge. Various SEO associations express that you need to pay to be recorded. This isn't the circumstance and I would maintain a strategic distance from these associations. They are money hungry and aren't paying unique brain to your prosperity.

Would you really consider going on a move away the country over without bringing a guide? It is adequately difficult to find your way in specific spots with a guide. How hard would it be if you endeavored this experience without one? Nonetheless, this is really what people do every single day in the online world. They endeavored to collect their associations online without having a manual for progress. By then, after months or significant stretches of basically wandering around on the web, they give up in disappointment and quit. They leave saying that the Internet doesn't work for them. The clarification it didn't work is that they didn't get a guide and follow it!

1. Pick a zeroed in on market

Is Search Engine Submission Necessary? The best misunderstanding by far most make when starting a business is that they pick a thing and a while later endeavor to find people who need to get it. If that is the heading you are starting from on your trip, by then you are going the alternate path from your target. Keen associations work from a substitute thought. They pick a market first, and subsequently they pick a thing those people are searching for. With everything taken into account, instead of endeavoring to find prompts offer their thing to, they find zeroed in on leads and a while later ask them what they are expecting to buy.

Make an effort not to attempt to consider starting a business until you know accurately where you will get your leads from. Consider zeroed in on customers first. By then, you can think about a thing for those individuals. Would you rather have 1,000 hits each day at your site of a general group OR 10 hits each day of people who are tense and ready to finish on any expense to buy your things? If you are sagacious, you will pick people who are set up to buy!

2. Develop a Product | Is Search Engine Submission Necessary?

At that point, you need to develop a thing or organization for this market. Don't just jump aboard with the pattern of partner projects when you bring about these current conditions step. There are three huge techniques for selling a thing on the web:

a. You make your prohibitive thing.

This is the most obvious opportunity you have. If you develop your thing, you can pick it the worth, sell duplicate rights to others, set up an accomplice program, etc Try not to uncover to me you can't do this. A colossal number of creative financial specialists have used their information things to kick their callings off. You can also.

For the length of your life, I am sure that there is something you have found that you can participate in a How-To thing. Maybe you know someone else who has the right data for a How-To thing and you could offer to help them with making a thing if you both shared the rights to it. Don't just ricochet past this opportunity and say it is beyond the realm of imagination.

b. You buy the rights to a thing or you JV for a detached thing.

You can buy the rights to successful things for $500 – $20,000. In case someone else has caused a thing that you to understand your zeroed in on market is excited about, offer them an immense ahead of time charge for the rights to it. This way you can get your thing and never need to pay a penny in eminences. You can moreover glance through magazines your zeroed in on market examines and look for things people are selling. By then, consider them and solicitation the first class Internet rights to their thing for a particular level of the advantages or an ahead of time cost.

c. You join an auxiliary program.

If you are just start on the web, this can be a good choice. You do have to recollect anyway that it doesn't offer a staggering advantage potential that making your thing or getting rights to one has. While picking a branch program, guarantee that it is something you’re centered around market can't be without. They should have it. Also, give remarkable thought to the advantages you get from each arrangement.

If you are simply be paid 5% commissions on the arrangements of $10 books, you may be making 50 pennies for every customer. It would take 2,000 customers just to make $1,000 in advantages. You can't get money like this on the web! Quest for all the more exorbitant things and higher commissions… especially commissions in the 25% or higher reach.

3. Make a USP

Is Search Engine Submission Necessary? Make a Unique Selling Position for your thing or organization. A particularly number of associations are just endeavoring to be me-additionally associations on the web. You can't be a lot of equivalent to any other person and desire to make an advantage in an overall economy. Just going to coming up next individual's site to orchestrate is unreasonably straightforward for your customers.

You need to make Uniqueness for your thing or offer. What might you have the option to offer that no one else can? Would you have the option to offer better guarantees, better customer help, more specific assistance, speedier conveyance, or lower costs? Consider something that will isolate you from the aggregate of your online opponents and tell in complete detail what it is.

4. Pick a Domain Name and Hosting Service

The accompanying stage is to pick a space name that depicts your association, USP, and offer. Endeavor to keep them as short and connecting with about your business as could be considered typical. Do whatever it takes not to use runs or wrong spellings of your thing. Both of these things will make people leave out piece of your space if they type it in. Someone else will get free traffic that you tried to get.

For encouraging, I choose to use Virtualis since they have the Fastest customer help and concentrated assistance in the business. Test them out. They will respond to you inside the hour… at whatever point 24 hours consistently. No other association I have ever been with has even drawn nearer!

5. Develop a Customer Friendly Site

The ensuing stage in the process is to develop your site and put it up for the world to see. In case you are needing to guarantee a full-time Internet business, I endorse that you sort out some way to design the site yourself using one of the numerous undertakings that are instantly open at any item store. You will put aside such a ton of cash if you can achieve the work yourself on the changing alone as your site creates. If your principal business is separated and you are basically adding an assistant compensation, by then you may have to consider having a specialist do your site for you.

When arranging your site, recall the customer reliably. Give demand designs to online Mastercard orders. Make the sum of the associations direct. Endeavor to keep your site essential. Embrace the point of view of a customer, not the business person. Your customers are not almost as enthusiastic about your business as you are. Attempt to put the benefits of your site and your USP straightforwardly on top of the site. Most of the web surfers never drop down past the chief screen stacked with information. Thusly, you need to give them the information they need as quick as could be considered typical. The principles for a business are Benefits, Benefits, and more Benefits.

6. Offer a Freebie

Is Search Engine Submission Necessary? digital marketing agency in singapore has one of the huge keys to making traffic and arrangements at your site are to reliably offer some sort of blessing as a drawing factor. For example, I offer many free reports, environment projections, news, to say the very least. My most conspicuous drawing factor all through the past 8 months anyway has been the two free computerized books that we offer on our site to people who purchase in to this notice.

#Search Engine Submission #digital marketing

1 note · View note

theginger-patrick · 4 years

Text

ART 311 - May 6, 2020 Additional Posting

Tagging on to my first post, I have been gaming for over twenty five years and have been exposed to virtually every kind of storytelling that is present within the Video Game industry. Linear or branching structure, supported by a given or built narrative, and a multi-player or single-player experience. I have played games from any classification you can think of and found delivery methods which work and those that don’t. Compare these games: FreeSpace 2, Freelancer, No Man’s Sky, and Tachyon: The Fringe. They’re all spaceflight games.

FreeSpace 2 is a linear, spaceflight combat simulator. To me, this was and is still the single best linear story game that I have ever played (this opinion takes into account things outside of narrative though, like how I can’t play horror games because I jump to easily; if this weren’t the case, Thief II: The Metal Age may have been a contender for that spot). It had an extremely engaging story which was all translated expertly on a “need-to-know” basis via the mission briefings and de-briefings, and in-mission transmission between mission control, your wingmates/escortees, and yourself. The rest of the game was you being a bad-ass pilot and protecting some stuff while blowing the living hell out of other stuff. For its time, the graphics were phenomenal and the scenery (whether open space or a shrouded nebula) beautiful. The accompanying soundtrack took players on an emotional roller-coaster ride entirely appropriate for every scene you played through and was truly breathtaking. Honestly, the music of that games can still bring tears to my eyes in the right moment. The game, as a whole, succeeded at its storytelling because of all of these elements combined, and because it made you feel as though you were directly responsible for the success of missions through leadership (ability to command wings to secure/destroy/protect objectives) and skill, and your character was rewarded with commendations and promotions to reinforce that feeling.

SPOILERS AHEAD: I know the game is now twenty-one years old, but in case I have inspired anyone to try it out through GOG.com I wanted to warn of spoilers. Despite this being a linear style of narrative, this game still provided me with my first truly “influential” player choice in my video game experience which directly influenced how the final mission ended. In the final mission, the bad guys of the series are causing a sun to implode and cause a resulting supernova to destroy a system. Your mission is not to destroy the ships causing this to happen, but to escort the relief fleets evacuating all civilized life from that system from their entry into the system to the jump-point out of the system in a given time-frame. When you begin to near the end of the mission you’re presented with two options: you can either choose to burn hard to the exit saving who you can and escaping yourself or stay back and protect the stragglers, getting them through and failing to escape yourself. Either way, so long as you saved the primary escortees, you complete the mission and are presented with an ending cinematic. However, if you chose to remain behind and sacrifice yourself the cinematic that you are presented with is in a tone of subdued jubilation, the narrator mourning those who sacrificed themselves for their victory of escape. You won either way, but if you sacrificed your character this cinematic stirred a lot of real and deep emotions. END OF SPOILER.

Freelancer is a third-person, spaceflight RPG, with a core story line which was a semi-linear and semi-branching in nature. It was linear in that you had to complete various core missions to progress to the next phase of the game, but it it was branching in that what you did in between to advance to those transition missions was entirely up to you; you could become a mercantile behemoth, a pirate, a military officer, a smuggler, or a mercenary. There was expansive lore in the game outside of the core missions for you to discover, a variety of ships and weapon loadouts for you to choose from which affected the difficulty, and occasionally the lore, of the game universe. When comparing space games, this is easily my favourite RPG style space game that has a story to it (Star Citizen, EVE Online, and Elite: Dangerous don’t qualify because while they may have goals you can aim for, there isn’t really an overarching story in them). The story itself gets characters emotionally invested in the game’s universe, and uses pretty darn good foreshadowing in several instances.

Tachyon: The Fringe is a mechanically excellent game, but it falls far short of the excellence of FreeSpace 2. It is another primarily linear story line, though you are given the choice of choosing a faction to support, which just determines which of two linear paths you will follow. The writing of the story’s structure leaves much to be desired, though it must be credited with being fairly compelling despite this. It’s also presented in the lac-luster manner of job board postings. There are side missions that can be completed, however there’s little variety and zero bearing on the main story. The soundtrack is of middling quality and doesn’t inspire nearly the emotional response of FreeSpace 2′s masterpieces of composition. Not much more I can say about this game other than, “It was meh”.

No Man’s Sky is infamous within the gaming community, and for good reason. It was promised to be the most expansive sandbox game ever created, with diverse ecosystems on procedurally generated planets, whose fauna was also to be generated using this procedural process and as a result be unique, have a deep story that players uncover pieces of the story as they travel towards the center of the galaxy only to be thrown into a much more expansive story when you get there, and be actively multiplayer (but were told it’d be super unlikely you’d run across any other players)! Except it was nearly nothing like it was promised. The planets weren’t unique, the animals were all similar, and the story was dull as all hell, and when two players coordinated over stream to get to the same location on a planet, they couldn’t see each other (multiplayer wasn’t in the game). The story of this game relied on information dumps on the players at uncontrolled intervals, and there was nothing present within its content or delivery which gave players any reason to care about or engage with the “main story”. This was a branching narrative “sandbox” game which failed for a variety of reasons at launch, but story wise it failed because it didn’t catch the players’ interest.

If you made it through all of this, good on you!

#freespace2 #tachyon #freelancer #no mans sky #video games #storytelling

3 notes · View notes

emperorsfoot · 5 years

Link

We’re back on Beast Island with Entrapta and Micah!

Entrapta is beginning to wonder if maybe the reason Hordak hasn’t ordered her release from the Island yet is because of... other reasons, and not that he’s abandoned her like some of her other friends.

Meanwhile, Micah tries to make some new allies against the Horde.

...

“Fascinating…” Muttered Entrapta as she rose up on her hair to examine a thick green vine.

It was as wide as her wrist –ungloved wrist, her protective gloves added some girth- multiple shades of green in a regular and alternating patterns, more like stripes than tonal. She prodded the vine with a tendril of hair.

The vine sprang to life, the arrow shaped head of a snake uncoiling from one end and lashing out at the human that dared disturb it.

With a gasp, Entrapta slammed her welding mask down over her face only a mere heartbeat before the snake’s fangs could pierce her eye. The snake’s face smacked against the protective metal plating, breaking its fangs and abrating its nose. It hung from the tree, stunned and dazed.

Entrapta lifted her mask again. “The vine I was studying turned out to be a snake, excellent natural camouflage. Hostile response appears to be instinctive.” She announced. “Subject jumped to violence like a loaded spring before analyzing for a more effective strategy.”

“Are you okay up there?” Micah called from where he stood below her on the jungle floor.

That was right. He escaped with her. Entrapta almost forgot he was there. Wrapping a tendril of hair around the dazed but still alive snake’s neck, she pulled the creature out of the tree and held it away from herself for Micah to see. “Can you cook?” She called down to her fellow escapee. “If you can, then I caught breakfast! I only eat tiny food, though, so if you can cut it small, that’d be great!”

Tightening her hair, Entrapta snapped the snake’s neck to make sure it was dead before dropping it down to where Micah stood, looking up at her with mingled concern and exasperation. A common expression people seemed to have around her. Concern for her or concern for what she was doing, it didn’t matter, it all meant the same thing –their concern meant they doubted her, doubted her wisdom, or expertise, or if she knew what she was doing might be dangerous. Exasperation meant they had lost patience with her, she was bothering them, they were not actually friends. Just like Adora, Glimmer, and Bow. Just like Catra. Just like…

Hordak was the only one who never looked at her with concern or exasperation. Hordak never doubted her abilities, her intelligence, her talent, or her knowledge and skill in her chosen field. Hordak never seemed exasperated with her. Annoyed sometimes, sure. He was closed off and emotionally stinted while she was energetic and animated. All of Entrapta’s previous research informed her that two such personalities working in close quarters would annoy each other a little bit. She certainly found his pessimism and bursts of anger when an experiment failed to be annoying. But annoyance was not exasperation. Hordak was the only person who never looked at her with exasperation and concern.

When Hordak looked at her, it was with… surprise. She certainly had a habit of exceeding his expectations. From the first moment she fixed his power source, to when she started making progress on his portal, to when her response to the confessions of his… disability was to construct a new and better prosthetic aid for him. Hordak looked at her with pleasant surprise. Even admiration.

Hordak looked at Entrapta with admiration.

None of her other so called ‘friends’ looked at her like that.

Not even Micah, the latest in a long line of ‘single serving’ friends that would untimely discard her once she was no longer useful.

Using her hair, Entrapta lowered herself down to him. “Do you have a magic spell to make fire? Or should I do that for us too?”

“I can build a fire for us.” Micah assured her, sounding defensive, as if he felt she was calling him useless.

Entrapta shrugged. People often appeared insulted or frustrated with her when all she would do is ask a simple question or make a factual statement. She would never understand the finer nuances of interpersonal behavior. She studied it whenever she could. At Princess Prom, within the Alliance, even observing Horde soldiers in between hacking the planet and building the portal. Entrapta had logged countless hours of observation of interpersonal behaviors. None of her observations had helped her with her own interpersonal relationships.

The Alliance still abandoned her. Catra still betrayed her. Hordak never came to release her from prison. Now Micah was insulted for no perceivable reason. Entrapta lowered her welding mask back down over her face. She would never understand people.

Micah traced a sigil on the ground in front of him and a roaring fire sprang to life in the center of the circle.

Pushing her multiple failed experiments with friendship out of her mind, Entrapta bent down next to the circle. On all fours, face low to the ground. Were it not for her welding mask, her nose would be dangerously close to the flames. “Fascinating…” She muttered. “The characters inside this ring of the sigil are completely different from the characters in your static-freezing spell from earlier.” She reached into her overalls for her recorder, only to be reminded that it wasn’t there because she didn’t have it and didn’t know where it went. “The design in the center is different too.”

Micah, seeing that her face was so close to the flames she was almost crawling into the fire dropped the snake he’d just started skinning and rushed over to pick the Princess up off the ground. “Nope! Nope! Nope!” He chided as if he were disciplining baby Glimmer. “We do not sit that close to fire. Fire dangerous!”

Entrapta lifted her welding mask and glared up at him, now it was her turn to be insulted. “I know fire is dangerous.” She informed him. “Some of my earliest experiments were with combustibles. I understand thermodynamics, how fire behaves, and how radiating heat can still cause damage.” She snapped her welding mask back down over her face and held up her gloved hands. “That’s why a good scientist wears protection.”

Using a tendril of hair, she latched onto the first tree branch that was strong enough to hold her weight and hoisted herself up into the jungle canopy.

For all their many faults and failings, the Alliance never treated her like a child, Catra never implied that she was ignorant or didn’t know what she was doing, and Hordak… Hordak encouraged Entrapta’s innovations.

When he discovered that she theorized it was possible to ‘hack the planet’ he didn’t try and tell her it was impossible, or that she didn’t know what she was talking about, or that you couldn’t hack planets –they’re planets, not computers!- no. He just nodded and gave her the Black Garnet to get to work. When he discovered her in his Sanctum working on his power generators, yeah okay, he was mad at first, sure. Any scientist who’d just had their private lab violated would be. But the moment he saw what it was she actually did in his lab, he invited her back in. Showed her his researched, shared his equations and opened up a whole new realm of exploration and possibilities for her. Hordak showed Entrapta the stars!

Stars. Burning balls of gasses so hot their heat radiated out far enough to warm planets. Not Etheria. Etheria had no star. Their light and heat came from the Glow Moon. But other planets, out there in the other dimension, outside Despondos. Where Hordak came from. A place called ‘the Known Universe’.

Hordak never treated Entrapta like she was a child, or reckless, or ignorant. In many ways, Hordak was actually the perfect partner for her.

Lap partner. The perfect lab partner for her.

Perfect except for the fact that he left her here. On Beast Island. A Horde penal colony. He was leader of the Horde on Etheria. One word from him would have been all it took to get her freed and sent home. It wasn’t like it was hard. He gave orders every day. So, why had he… left her here…?

“Breakfast’s almost ready!” Micah called from the jungle floor below. “Snake meat is thin, so it cooks really fast.”

Entrapta’s hair lowered her back down. This time she did not get close to the magical fire, even if the fact that it was burning without need of fuel was fascinating. She sat down at what she imagined Micah would approve of as a ‘safe distance’ and lifted her welding mask to eat.

Micah turned around to give her her portion –which he had obediently cut into tiny pieces- but he paused when he saw her face. “Shoot! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“What?” Entrapta blinked at him. She reached a hand up to probe at the skin of her cheek. Her glove came away wet. She had been crying. “No. It- it wasn’t what you said. I just- I was just thinking about- my lab partner.”

“Oh.”

She was thinking about a loved one. Someone she was separated from by the Horde. Just like he was separated from his wife and daughter. Micah passed her the tiny cuts of snake meat and sat down next to her.

“I think about Angella and Glimmer a lot.” He informed her. “Glimmer was just learning to walk when I was captured. Just this tiny little thing, waddling around on chubby legs and leaving a trail of glitter everywhere.” He smiled fondly at the memory. “Gosh, she must be so tall by now! Angella was like a tree, ya know. My sister thought it’d eventually bother me –having a wife that was taller than me- but then Casta and Angie never really got along all that well to begin with. I hope they’ve been doing alright without me…” He looked up at the jungle canopy, wistful.

Entrapta looked down at her food. Her research told her than this was the part where she would be expected to share some of her relationship with the person she was separated from. Micah had volunteered some of his feelings, he would expect her to reciprocate.

“I understand it can be hard to talk about them sometimes.” Micah said gently. “Especially if the hurt is still fresh. Your lab partner, was she… also taken by the Horde?”

She looked back up from her food, considered how she should answer. Finally. “The Horde thought he was a failure.” She announced. “The Horde discarded him, and expected him to die.” There was no need for King Micah of Brightmoon, leader of the First Rebellion against the Etherian Horde to know exactly which ‘Horde’ she was talking about. “But he wasn’t a failure. He was brilliant. When he and I worked together… It felt like we could open up worlds!”

She smiled into a bite of her meat, smiling at how her words were both filled with dramatic imagery and also accurate. Entrapta never seemed to have the gift for poetic imagery before. This was something new. New since meeting a grumpy alien who came from a world beyond Despondos.

“He sounds like a very fine fellow.” Micah said gently. “Is he still out there? Do you want to get back to him like I want to get back to my wife? Or… did the Horde… kill him when you were captured?”

Inexplicably, for reasons Entrapta didn’t understand, she shot to her feet. “Killed!”

“Sorry.” Said Micah quickly. “I just assumed. Since you said the Horde wanted him to die before. I thought they would finish the job when they captured you.”

The thought of Hordak being dead hadn’t even occurred to Entrapta.

She thought he was just leaving her to rot on Beast Island because she changed her mind at the last minute and decided they couldn’t open the portal. She thought he was mad because she had basically decided that he couldn’t go home. The idea that he might not have released her was because he wasn’t around anymore to release her never even entered her mind.

But…

Did it make sense?

Could Hordak be dead?

She had no idea what happened after Catra shocked her. She was unconscious up until the moment she woke up in her cell. She still existed and the world was still here, so –clearly- the portal hadn’t been opened. Did that mean that the Princesses won? That they stopped Hordak and Catra. That they… killed Hordak? Was Hordak dead?

“He- he can’t be.” Entrapta slammed her welding mask down over her face as if the metal plating could shield her from her own feelings.

Hordak was also very frail. The exo-suit she made for him gave him the strength and mobility he was supposed to have as a healthy Horde clone. But it wasn’t perfect. Heck! It shorted out any time his heart rate got too high. It went into a mild tizzy just because he got worked up yelling at Adora. What would happen if it locked up in the middle of a fight?

He would get killed. That’s what!

Entrapta stifled a sob. It was starting to feel moist and muggy behind her welding mask and it had nothing to do with the jungle humidity.

“He’s not dead!” She shouted to the trees around them, voice high with defiance. “He can’t be…”

Micah stood, reaching an arm out to the Princess as if to hug her, but he paused, unsure if he should. Entrapta had been markedly cold to him to spite their escape together. For the most part, he kinda expected a level of frigidity from Queen Ensnarea’s daughter. But then, Entrapta seemed to have warm feelings for this young man –her lab partner- so, clearly, it was not all people she was cold to. Micah did not give the comfort he originally meant to.

She looked back at him, lifting her mask. Micah saw the fresh tears in her eyes. “Is that why he hasn’t gotten me out yet? He can’t get me off Beast Island because he’s- …not here anymore…”

This time, Micah did wrap his arms around her.

Entrapta sobbed into his chest. “He’s not here anymore.”

Then an entirely different idea occurred to her. He wasn’t here anymore! He wasn’t on Etheria! Maybe the reason he hadn’t ordered her release or come for her himself wasn’t because he was dead. Maybe he just went home! Out of Despondos. Back to Horde Prime. His ‘big brother’. She hoped he was happy. Happy, healthy, and alive.

She pushed away from Micah, feeling more optimistic. Hordak wasn’t dead. He just went home. That was his plan. He probably wasn’t even aware of what happened to her. It wasn’t because he didn’t care about her anymore or that he was mad because she changed her mind about the portal. It wasn’t because he was dead. It was because he just went home and didn’t know.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” She informed him. “Friends leave me all the time.”

Micah felt like he was suddenly experiencing whiplash. Just a second ago, she was crying into his chest. Seemingly reeling from a realization that her beloved lab partner was most likely dead. Now she was fine. Dry eyed, and smiling. Saying ‘friends left her all the time’, as if he hadn’t died, he just went away somewhere. Micah hadn’t seen a case of self-delusion so bad since he was still living in Mysticore.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked.

“Yup!” Entrapta wiped her eyes one more time to make sure they were dry. “If you’re done eating, we should get moving. There’s still so much of the island left to explore! We’re barely into the jungle. I do actually wanna see the Great Beast, and I’ve heard there are natives that are indigenous to this island before the Horde made a base here. I wanna meet them too! Maybe after that, we can go back to the compound. I’m still curious about the odd acoustics. Like I said, the building’s more like an amplifier than a building. It almost reminds me of-“

“What about escaping?” Micah cut her off.

She blinked at him, almost as if she didn’t understand the question. They were already out of prison. “Oh! You mean getting off the island!” Entrapta waved her hand dismissively. “You can go if you want to go. That’s fine.” She was used to her friends leaving her, and Micah wasn’t even really her friend.

Micah raised an eyebrow at her. “I can’t tell if you’re being flippant because you’re Queen Ensnarea’s daughter and she was always kinda…” he made a gesture with his hand that might have been rude if Entrapta had cared “…of if you’re being flippant because you just realized your lap partner friend most likely past away.”

“He’s not dead!” Entrapta snapped. “He just went home!”

“Okay.” Micah threw up his arms in surrender. If she wanted to delude herself into believing that her lab partner –that the Horde originally meant to die- wasn’t killed when they captured her, that was fine. Heck. He might even actually be alive. Micah wasn’t there when Princess Entrapta was captured. He didn’t see the raid. He didn’t know the story. For all either of them knew, the Princess’ gentleman lab partner was still alive and working on a plan to rescue her right now.

They might have said more. But at that exact moment, a herd of snorters came charging into their clearing.

Short, quadrupedal, pig-like creatures. Bluish-gray in color, with cloven hooves, white tusks, elongated snouts, and a razorback streak of fur that went from their head almost all the way down the length of their bodies to the tail. Entrapta had never seen one before, only heard about them. To spite the fact that their sudden appearance forced her and Micah to retreat up into the trees to avoid being gored, she thought they were cute. Baker made her a bite-sized cake that looked like a snorter once. She thought it was absolutely adorable!

The heard was five of the creatures. Two full-sized adults, and three smaller ones that had to be their offspring. One of the adults lead the stampede while the second adult brought up the rear, making sure none of the young fell behind. It prodded the little one’s in the tail to urge them to pick up the speed. That was the behavior of fleeing a predator.

“We need to get out of here too.” Micah whispered from where he was awkwardly positioned. Half-suspended by a hastily cast levitation spell, half-clinging desperately to the closest branch to him that might be able to support his bulk. Even being half starved for ten years, Micah was still larger than Entrapta, the trees did not support his weight the way they did hers.

No sooner had be said this, than the snorter’s predators melted out from the trees in pursuit of their prey.

Both Entrapta and Micah had been expecting another of Beast Island’s famous beasts. If not the Great Beast, then a flying tyrosour, or some other terrifying but little understood creature that called the island home. Instead, the party that melted out from the trees was just a group of humans.

Not Horde soldiers.

Natives by the looks of it. They wore fur loincloths around their waists to cover their most intimate parts, and hide boots to protect their feet. But apart from that, they were mostly naked. Amber-gold skin covered in tattoos, and dark hair plucked into sharp, rooster-comb mowhawks, the front tuft colored in different shades of red.

Excited, because she’d never encountered Beast Island natives before either, Entrapta jumped down from the trees –much to Micah’s frustrated horror.

“Entrapta! Entrapta, don’t-! Urgh!” He sounded very much like his daughter in that moment.

Entrapta ignored him. She landed right next to native’s hunting party, startling them. Before she even had time to think of what she was going to say, Entrapta found three stone spearheads pointed at her face.

“Uh, hi?” She ventured. She went cross-eyes, trying to get a better look at the spear almost a hair’s width from her nose. Chipped from stone, formed to be razor sharp on the edges, the taper ending in an almost needle point. It was fitted into a split in the wood of the spear and tied with sinew threads. A primitive design, certainly, but highly innovative given the materials they had to work with. Entrapta liked it. She wrapped her hair around the weapon and pulled it out of the shocked native’s grasp. “Ooh, wow! It’s so much lighter than I was expecting. What kind of stone is this? It’s gotta be dense and substantial enough to make a reliable blade and not break when it stabs something, but it’s so light it doesn’t throw off the balance of the shaft at all.” She smiled at the one she took the spear from. “Can I have this?”

The hunter’s expression shifted from shocked to irritated and mildly confused very quickly. Most people who were threatened with spears did not admire them and ask permission to take them. He grabbed hold of his weapon and tried to yank it back out of her hair. “No. It is mine!”

“Aw.” Entrapta was visibly disappointed.

Micah changed the symbol in the center of his levitation sigil and floated down to land gently next to the Princess. He looked at the natives, still holding their spears pointed at them. “You speak the common tongue.”

The three of them exchanged a look. As if silently agreeing between themselves that the newcomer was an idiot.

“We live on an island, not one of the moons.” Said the one Entrapta tried to take the spear from. Finally succeeding in pulling his spear away from the Princess’ hair, he thrust the point at Micah instead. “Now, you interrupted our hunt. We’ll take you back to the village instead.”

“Ooh! Are you cannibals?” It was wrong how excited Entrapta sounded when she asked that. “I’ve always been curious about prions found in the human brain and the effects eating them has on other people. That is, assuming you also eat the brain. Do you eat the brain, too?”

The three of them exchanged another look, as if silently agreeing that this woman was insane.

“No.” Said the first. “You are clearly Horde scouts. We’re taking you back to be questioned.”

“Horde scouts? We’re not Horde scouts!” Micah was more insulted by the idea that he looked anything like a member of the Horde than he was the prospect of being taken by the natives and interrogated and possibly tortured. “We hate the Horde! We just escaped their prison!”

“Wow.” Said a second. “How dumb do you think we are? No one escapes the Horde prison.”

“Well, it did take me a couple of days.” Entrapta admitted, shrugging with her hair instead of her shoulders.

The three exchanged another look, not quite sure how to interpret this insane woman. She didn’t seem like a Horde scout. She was too bonkers. Maybe she really had escaped, and the man was sent out to retrieve her. That could make sense.

“Keep your hands where we could see them and start moving!” Ordered the native Entrapta tried to take the spear from.

They were lead through the jungle. Entrapta had to coil her hair tight to her body to avoid it getting caught on protruding branches or low hanging vines as the party delved deeper in the denser trees. Micah nearly tripped on a raised root more than once. Twice they were almost bitten by one of the same vine-camouflage snakes Entrapta had encountered earlier in the morning.

Everythign was so green and lush. The trees old, their branches dense. Beast Island was actually kinda pretty. Scenic. If it weren’t for all the dangerous beasts that roamed the island –and the Horde gulag- it might actually have been an attractive island getaway.

“Your village must be really far away.” Micah commented. “Why do you hunt so far away? Has the Horde damaged the environment to the point where game animals are scares?”

��More likely they’re taking us on a deliberately longer path to confuse our sense of direction.” Entrapta informed him. “This jungle is like a maze, not unlike my own Crypto Castle.”

“Quiet! Both of you!” Snapped the second native. He slid up close to the first. “J’Milla, are you sure it’s wise to take these outsiders back with us?”

The first native, the one Entrapta tried to take the spear from –J’Milla, apparently- made a face. “What woud you have me do, Korg? Leave them to wander the jungle? If they are Horde scouts, they would report back about us. If they are innocent as they claim, they die without aid.”

“We could kill them and not leave it up to chance.” The second, Korg, informed him.

J’Milla just shook his head. “I will not execute a stranger for no other reason than they are a stranger to me. That is what the Horde would do. We must be careful to make sure we do not become what it is we fight against.”

Korg only scoffed in reply.

“I’m King Micah.” Announced the sorcerer after hearing that the natives were ‘fighting against’ the Horde. He did not expect to find new allies for the Alliance while getting lost in the jungle. But if an opportunity presented itself, why waste it? The Alliance could always use new allies.

Similar to Entrapta, none of the natives reacted upon hearing his name. However, unlike Entrapta, their lack of reaction was not because they just didn’t care who he was. It was because they had never heard of ‘King Micah’ before and didn’t know who he was. They had never heard of the Sorcerer King from Brightmoon who fell ten years ago during the first Princess Alliance.

“We do not recognize the authority of kings.” Korg informed him.

“No, that’s not what I meant!” Micah had to quickly backpedal. “I mean, I was a leader of the Rebellion against the Horde before I was captured. If you’re fighting against the Horde we should be allies! Let us help you! I’m a sorcerer, and Princess Entrapta here is-“ he paused, unsure of what powers the Queens and Princesses of Dryl actually had apart from hair that could be used as extra limbs, she said she had a lab so… “-is very smart.”

“I’m beginning to form a hypothesis as to where Glimmer got her talent for rousing speeches.” Entrapta muttered.

“That’s enough out of you two!” Korg snapped.

Their winding journey through the jungle seemed to finally be coming to a conclusion as the unmistakable sounds of human habitation drifted through the trees. People singing while at work, children laughing, the scrape of tools on wood, the sounds of a thriving village. And it was a thriving village they came into when they stepped out from the shadow of the trees.

A wide clearing. Micah and Entrapta would be lying if they didn’t admit they were expecting grass huts. But there weren’t any. Instead, the village buildings were just that –actual buildings. Made from wood planks cut from the jungle trees. The roofs were thatched in grass, but only the roofs. Everything else was solid wood construction. Almost like a village of cabins. Slits were cut into the planks of the walls of many buildings –presumably for airflow to keep things cool in the jungle heat. Entrapta once again had to admire the ingenuity, with limited materials to work with and a lack of technology for interior climate control, they still found ways to keep their homes cool. She very quickly decided that she liked these people. Their tech wasn’t very advanced, but they were engineers. Like her.

They were lead through the village.

As they passed, people looked up to gawk at them. You’d think the hunting parties never brought back prisoners before. Children paused in their games to gawk at them. Young people and adults looked up from their work. Their weaving, or flax grinding being ignored in front of them while they gawked, wide eyed, at the prisoners that J’Milla and Korg had brought home with them.

Entrapta and Micah were practically shoved into a darkened building.

It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust. The day was so bright outside, but the only light in here was what streamed in through the slits in the wooden walls. When their eyes did adjust, Entrapta and Micah stood in a wide room with an open floorplan that looked like it must serve as some kind of meeting place. There were cushions and pillows lining three of the four walls, in an almost horse shoe, curling around with the entrance as the focal point. Clearly, seating for spectators to watch or listen to whatever was happening in the middle of the room.

Both Micah and Entrapta got their knees knock out from under them by the shafts of spears. They knelt in the middle of the room.

J’Milla and Korg sat in front of them. While the third member of their hunting party loomed behind, spear at the ready in case the prisoners decided to make a break for it.

“Now,” began J’Milla, “you’re going to tell us the tale of your daring escape from the Horde, and after its done we’ll decide whether or not we believe you, or if you’re Horde scouts.”

#entrapta #king micah #beast island #entrapdak #entrapta/hordak

17 notes · View notes

exyjunkies · 6 years

Note

48- andriel (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ thank u

fuck yes more of nathaniel and andrew

(let’s Make this A Thing, shall we?)

fic meme 1-100: andriel (andrew + nathaniel) + 48. “Boo.”

send me a pairing (preferably from aftg/trc, but you can send me anything) and a number and i’ll write you a drabble (1-50) (51-100)

Ouch. The freshbruise incurred from today’s practice was vying for Andrew’s attention as hetried to sit up. He realized, as he attempted at a better posture, that he hasnever wanted lying down to be a more permanent position for him than he does inthis moment.

Carefully, Andrew lifted his t-shirt and grimaced at thecolor the bruise was already forming. Large and violent, it covered almost theentire left half of his abdomen. It was as big as half his forearm.The reliefwas that there were no broken ribs, but that also meant Andrew can’t skippractice the next day. So much for being a goalkeeper. He was still at thecenter of the action, no matter what he did. Fucking Exy racquets.

“Knock knock,” a voice came from the doorway. Nathaniel,stupid number 3 on his cheek, peered at him from behind the door. An ice packand a half-full energy drink were clutched in his hand.

“You know how Ravens are,” Andrew muttered, heaving himselfback down and winced at the effort it took. “Always full of themselves. Likeyou are.”

“I won’t deny that.” Nathaniel invited himself into theirroom and shut the door gently. Tossing the ice pack onto the side of the bed,he replied, “Maybe if you hadn’t threatened to cut Riko’s balls off, you wouldn’tbe in this shitty state.”

Andrew rolled his eyes so hard, he felt them reach the backof his head. Somehow, he could hear Nathaniel’s disappointment in him, and hecouldn’t even bring himself to care. He put an arm behind his head and kept oneeye open to look at Nathaniel, who was changing out of his running clothes. Hehad opted to spend their afternoon break to run with number-4-on-cheek Jean Moreau. Typical.

“You know half thedamn team wants to cut Lord Almighty’s balls off,” Andrew shot back. “It’sonly a matter of being honest.”

He shut both his eyes again, a half-hearted attempt atanother nap. Having been a Raven for so long, Andrew constantly wonders if itgets easier, or if he just gets used to it. Godforbid it’s the second. He hopes to never completely be one of them, nomatter how hard they try.

“Well,” Nathaniel replied, sitting down on his own bed. “Isincerely hope you don’t get yourself killed in the coming weeks. We need adecent goalie to keep us up the rankings.”

They were going up against the teams in the north thismonth, with North Carolina’s Etherton Eagles first. The pressure has been upever since they received word from the south that Palmetto State has beenmoving above and beyond the public’s expectations. They were far from facingany south team, but still. It’s something Riko likes to assert daily in orderto push the team past their limits.

It’s not as if they were worried – Ravens are never worried, Tetsuji has grilled into their minds morethan once. Once any of you asshats worry,it’s over for all of us.

“You can shut your mouth about that damn game for once,Wesninski,” Andrew grunted. “We’re in the room. No crowds. No team. No racquetsand no scoreboard. Act normal for fuck’s sake.”

Even breathing seemed to be hard, so Andrew opted to limithis. He mentally reminded himself, briefly, that his teammates have gone througha lot worse than a racquet to the stomach. Roxanne, one of the striker subs, hadsuffered a paddle to the ass after saying that Kevin deserved the number 1 onthe cheek and not Riko. Timmy, a backliner, had gone to practice with severehunger after accidentally tripping Riko in the locker room and laughing at himafterwards. Gingerly, he placed the ice pack underneath his shirt and sighed atthe cool relief.

Their room was dark to begin with, but Nathaniel had put in arequest for special neon lights that everyone else thought was only red. At thepress of a button, it became either green, yellow, or light blue.

“Would you have said yes?” Nathaniel asked, as neon lightblue flooded the sides of the room.

“Yes to what.” Andrew didn’t admit it, but he liked the neonblue setting a lot more than the others. Red was too much of a Raven color toenjoy, and green and yellow were too obnoxious when they were neon.

“If it had been you that was asked to go to Palmetto Stateinstead of Kevin. Would you have gone?”

A few months back, Kevin had been asked by Tetsuji to goundercover and join the Palmetto State Foxes, as a means of scoping out Andrew’ssupposed twin, Aaron. The branch family had all collectively agreed that itwould be good for their image to have both Minyard twins on the team. Some sortof reunion would be good for press, and both Minyard twins being good at thesame sport would be a beneficial bonus. There were practically dollar signs inTetsuji’s eyes when he talked to Kevin about it.

Andrew had not visibly reacted when he first heard the news,but he had been aware of Aaron’s existence for some time now anyway. He wouldn’tbe who he was without any sort of connection from the outside. Naturally, Riko hadsent Kevin instead of Andrew because (he made this as obvious as possible) hewas going to use Andrew as some sort of bait if Aaron ever said no.

Andrew stared up at the ceiling. Engraved on the walls besidethe room’s main lights were sets of triple X’s. The Edgar Allan motto: Excellence exceeds expectations.

“Yes would imply I cared about my long-lost twin in theslightest,” Andrew replied, drawing a knee up on the bed. “I think he’d be finewithout me.”

Nathaniel hummed in response. “Maybe if you started actinglike you gave a shit about anything, you’d be living a better life.”

“And playing for such an esteemed Exy team means a good lifeto begin with?” Andrew drawled. Nathaniel chuckled at that. “You know you hateit here too.”

“Boo. Liking thisplace would mean hating myself.”

The wall clock chimed half past 6 in the evening. Dinner wasto be served in thirty minutes, which Andrew barely felt like he had theappetite for. He was neither hungry nor looking forward to having to pretend likehe liked any of his teammates. He was even less excited about Riko’s taunts tohim from across the table. If he was being honest to himself, he should’vepunched him in the nose a really long time ago.

“Your twin.”

Andrew twisted his head to meet Nathaniel’s eyes, blue andfull of curiosity. He raised an eyebrow in response.

“He’s probably a more bearable person than you are, yeah?”Nathaniel’s smirk was teasing, all-knowing.

Andrew went back to looking at the ceiling. If he knewanything about his twin, it was that they were identical, and that was it. Hehad kept himself from looking up anything about his brother, for the solereason that if he brought himself to care, he really wouldn’t know what to do.Being on a completely different part of the world, Andrew had wondered fromtime to time what it was like on his end. If he was being treated like dirttoo. Or if he actually had people who had his back.

It wasn’t jealousy that Andrew felt, no. It was merely wishingthere was nothing worse than what he was experiencing here in Evermore.

“Knowing my genetic composition, he’d probably hate you morethan I do,” Andrew replied, crossing his leg over his other leg.

“Oh,” Nathanielsat up and hugged his knees. Andrew hated that he could hear the playfulness inhis tone. “Thanks for admitting you like me a little bit, partner.”

“You’re going to sport a bruise like mine if you don’t shutup, number 3.”

“I’d bone you too, if it wasn’t going to create more of ahell for us in this shithole.”

“You’re a terrible flirt,” Andrew slanted a look atNathaniel, who wrinkled his nose meaningfully at him.

Nathaniel shrugged. “With an ass you’d wanna fuck, yeah.”

Being homosexual wasn’t taboo among the Edgar Allan Ravens –in fact, Tetsuji jokingly said he preferred it more if it meant birth controlfor the women Ravens. Getting pregnant for any of the women meant eitherabortion or benched for the next three seasons. It was just frowned upon tosleep with teammates, more so the teammate you’re partnered with. On occasion,two Ravens would be caught making out, and it would be reported immediately toeither Riko or Tetsuji, causing them to either be kicked out or to suffer Riko’swill.

Somehow, they both knew that they were partnered by Rikobecause Riko enjoyed their combined suffering more than the others. Plus, Rikojust has it out for Andrew, for reasons he couldn’t fathom.

Andrew sighed and shook his head. Nathaniel got up from hisbed and reached up to adjust the air conditioning. He had to tiptoe, making hisshirt ride up a bit. Andrew saw part of his back and part of his underwear.Obviously, the idiot was doing it on purpose.

“Like what you see, Minyard?” Nathaniel said, grinning as helooked Andrew in the eye.

He absolutely hatedbeing a Raven.

#andriel #andrew minyard #nathaniel wesninski #all for the game #aftg fic #myfic #answered #anonymous #ficmeme100

80 notes · View notes

lostsolsdestinyblog · 6 years

Text

Destiny, matchmaking, SBMM, CBMM and the perspectives and attitudes of the different sides of the community

July 27, 2018

I'd like to take some time to talk about Destiny, matchmaking, SBMM, CBMM and the perspectives and attitudes of the different sides of the community. This has been an issue for a long time now and it's hitting another crescendo with not just the move back to 6v6 Quickplay, but this announcement from DMG and Derek Carroll today regarding matchmaking in QP. I've posted on this issue in the past and I think it's time to take another realistic look at matchmaking within the game and how it's working and who it's really benefiting. As I wrote in that post from way back when, there is a lot that goes into matching players in Destiny. Anyone who has continuously fast traveled on Mars to try to find an EP group understands that the first criteria the game tries to match players on is region. This is also the case in PvP as players like CammyCakes would use this pre-private matches to set up scrims and Trials players will change hosts to try to find more favorable opponents in different regions. So understanding that, it then branches out to many other factors in a complex algorithm to try to put players together. This will vary a bit from PvE where if there are no favorable matchups, the game can place players in their own instance and then matchmake others in from there. PvP obviously gets more complex, but the game is still trying to match players as quickly as possible because no one wants to sit in queues all day. Now here is where things get all wonky at least on the community end. Two of the bigger factors after region are SBMM and CBMM. These have both existed within Destiny matchmaking from day one despite claims that SBMM was only added in later on. While both did exist, they have been weighted differently throughout the course of the game sometimes favoring one more than the other. However, even with that knowledge it's not that cut and dry. Fireteams. As I stated in the post I linked, you can sing the praises of CBMM or SBMM until the cows come home, but neither can account for team compositions when players are going in grouped in a fireteam. Connection based matchmaking cannot account for players who are spread out all across the country or world who are in one fireteam together, just like it also can't account for the varying skill levels of all the players within a team. Could the game try to approximate and go from a median skill level? Maybe, but the other wildcard in all of this is that other players of similar skill or good connection quality have to be sitting in orbit in queue at the same 30-45 second window as you and not still be in a match or not in queue yet. All this has been. All this is, and all this will be again. That is a universal truth. Another universal truth is that someone is going to hate whatever system is in place while someone else loves it and that puts Bungie in the unenviable position of trying to make everyone happy when it's an impossible task. That is why ultimately I still believe the D1 approach of trying to find the right balance in weighting between the two was the best approach. Unfortunately the SBMM rebellion happened and ultimately it played a huge role in the direction Bungie went with D2. I don't want to rehash completely why I still believe the SBMM revolt was fundamentally wrong and the falsehoods of many of the claims, but I will speak on the initial complaint that lit the fuse and that was players feeling they were always in "sweaty" matches. This started with prominent content creators and was picked up and echoed by viewers. I know there is a tendency to lay the blame for everything players don't like about D2 at the feet of streamers and YouTubers and while this is not the case, they are also not without fault on some things. The general sentiment was that elite players couldn't ever relax and have fun because they were constantly "forced'' to play nothing but other elite players. The flip side to that coin of course is that their relaxing and having fun was achieved by smearing lower skilled players. This wasn't fun for those players and in year one of Destiny led to a very big problem of players just quitting out of matches as soon as the score even looked like it might get tilted (leading to the increased importance of SBMM in year 2). Unfortunately when the great SBMM revolt occurred, there was a lot of weight behind the message from very high profile people in the community and the other side just didn't have the same voice to speak with; which brings me to Destiny 2 and the past couple of days in particular. People like to say in loud voices the things players never asked for like crucible going to all 4v4, weapon changes, etc. And while technically that may be correct in the literal sense, the truth of the matter is that all the changes that happened with D2 were the developers trying to give players what they felt we wanted the game to be through all of our feedback. We didn't ask for 4v4, but what the community did ask for were games with better connections, and smoother play and going back to matchmaking, fireteams and all the variables of trying to group 12 players, lowering the player count to 8 allowed for a greater chance at better matchups. This was also the reason for the move to playlists rather than static game modes to queue for. On paper it is easy to see the upsides to all of it when weighed against player complaints from D1. Life is full of variables though and another is player population and as that dipped, it threw all of it out the window. There were no longer the extra players in queue from having 4 less in each match and only 2 playlists. The devs made a decision and they took a chance and it didn't work how they wanted. That happens and I give them all the credit in the world for owning that and resolving to make the game better. But going back to the split playlists, Quickplay and Competitive, this is something that bothered me before release and will lead into where we're at today. There was very vocal call for a ranked playlist in Destiny 2 and at launch many complaints from prominent players that Comp didn't go far enough and wasn't a true ranking system to show off skill. The reason this bothered me then is that we went through the SBMM revolt because elite players didn't like having to get sweaty all the time, but then in almost the same breath they're asking for ranked play. It made no sense at the time and we've seen this throughout D2 but really brought front and center since the last update that the ''elite'' players don't want to play ranked play. I was watching a stream yesterday discussing the topic and one of the things brought up was a top level PvP player who very publicly ''quit'' D2 earlier this year now ''loving'' Destiny again because they can go into QP and put up 60 kills. And to the credit of some viewers, it was pointed out that Quickplay maybe isn't all that fun for the lower skill players on the receiving end of those beatings, but the on stream reply was that casuals should play in Competitive if they want to play players their own skill level. And THAT is why I’m tilted on the subject enough to write about this again. Beyond the hubris of that statement, let’s really break it down. Elite players wanted a ranked playlist to show their skill, but found out they still hate actually having to play equal competition on a regular basis and it's more fun for them and entertaining for people who watch their streams and YouTube videos to see them throwing down monster games against lesser opponents. So if new or less skilled players want to play even competition and not have to not just sweat, but get their heads beat in every single match, their recourse is to play the ranked comp list that was meant for the high skilled players. FUBAR and ass-backward for sure, but it also fails to take into account that ''casual'' players can't play Control or Clash in the comp playlist. So where does that leave the game? From today's announcement that currently neither CBMM nor SBMM are functioning correctly and Bungie's response that for the time being they are going to let things lie and see how they play out, it seems that player populations over the final weeks before Forsaken are going to shape the eventual outcome. But at this point I think that it's clear that Quickplay and Competitive do not function as intended and it may be time to do a deep rethink on things there. I hate having to come to that opinion because I know how much Kevin Yanes and his team put into building ranked play, but if QP becomes the de-facto stomping grounds for the high skill crowd then where does it leave Comp? And this is where I would throw questions to the community. Does the community truly feel that the game comes down to survival of the fittest and there isn't a place for players who don't live and breathe crucible (or have time to no life grinding in PvE)? Or can we accept that the game can try to find a middle ground and have something for both types of player? The calls for the complete removal of SBMM were very clearly option one there in D1 and are fortifying that position these past few days. To state that casual players need to find someplace else to play is not something I accept or endorse and it is my hope that most of the people in this community wouldn't as well. The game can always be better. Matchmaking can always be better, but I would like to see solutions that don't leave behind one group or the other and to that end maybe it's time to rethink matchmaking completely. Thank you.

#Lost Sols #sbmm #cbmm #destiny #destiny 2 #bungie #crucible

1 note · View note

ask-de-writer · 6 years

Text

NIGHTMARE NIGHT LESSON : MLP Fan Fiction : Tales to Read AFTER the Lights are OUT!

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

Return to Tales to Read AFTER the Lights are OUT!

NIGHTMARE NIGHT LESSON

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

2871 words

Writing begun 10/19/17

//////////////

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

The palomino waitress, Peanut Brittle, called, “Um, Boss!! They are back! They are roosting on all the stronger branches of our hedges and up on the roof, too!”

Caramel Treat called back from the kitchen of her restaurant, Caramel Treat's Sweets, “I know, Peanut! They are a little early, that's all! I set out some meat for them in the back dining area!

“Don't worry about the vultures! They are behaving, just like Roe promised that they would! He says that the bats will be right on time!”

Peanut Brittle looked up at the big vultures roosting all around the outdoor dining plaza of Caramel Treat's Sweets. They were looking right back at her, except for the ones that were staring at the customers. And licking their beaks in anticipation!

The customers were clearly enjoying the bizarre show! Caramel Treat's Sweets was known all over Equestria and the many lands beyond for being a place for superb food and for their unique Nightmare Night Celebrations! Those presently dining were happily accepting the big black carrion birds as a part of this year's celebration.

After all, Peanut had already dyed her fur green and was wearing her traditional witch costume as she took orders. Several goats disguised as small “Demons of the Underworld” lounged about, holding tridents or other instruments.

She glanced up at the big black birds and muttered to herself, “Only one more full day and it will be Nightmare Night!

“Caramel sure is keeping it close to her chest about who her secret Guest of Honor is!”

Caramel, whose extremely sharp werewolf's senses allowed her to hear the comment, replied, “That is because I have pulled off one of the best ones yet! I don't want anypony trying to pull her away from our celebration! I have special decorations ordered from Bleater's Hallow, too. Those should arrive later today in a closed van.”

Shrugging, Peanut went back to taking orders.

Shortly she was joined by Fangrin, Caramel's mate, in his pony form. He was gray all over. His mane and tail were the same gray but darker.

He confided, “Caramel has not told me, either. I do have a guess. I saw the drawings for the dining area decorations. More like a stage set, really. There will be a dark throne at the center of it all.”

Almost instantly, Romaine, roving reporter for the Ponyville Prancer, and usually having light green fur with a darker green mane and tail, was there. As part of the Caramel Treat's Sweets Nightmare Night staff, she was glamored to resemble a somewhat skeletal dark colored thestral.

She pointed out, “I have been with Caramel's Nightmare Night celebrations since the beginning. May I quote you about the dark throne? You know that I will not reveal anything without clearing it with Caramel first.”

Fangrin nodded thoughtfully. “You may quote me on that but you must keep this whole thing secret until Caramel releases it, OK?”

“I promise it,” Romaine replied. “Will there be a Dark Court to go with the Dark Throne?”

Fangrin snickered a bit as he said, “Yes, there will be!”

Further exchange was stopped by the arrival of a large delivery van pulled by six goats. Their leader, a plain tan color, unhitched and trotted over to Fangrin.

“Pardon, Sir. We have the decorations and set for the restaurant's Nightmare Night. What shall we do with it?”

Caramel was out from the kitchen at once! She was in her pony form too. She conferred with the goat's leader and one of the pulling crew. They were going over the set diagram.

“The tables will be reset like so. Keep the throne shrouded until our guest arrives. We need to work around our dining guests. Got it?”

The goat leader nodded, “Got it!” Turning to his crew, he called, “Put the van's loading ramp down! We are starting the set up now! Don't do anything to disturb the diners. We just have to work around them.”

Van doors were opened and a stout ramp secured. The industrious goats began to unload many pieces and fabric curtains. As the set began to take shape, it was clear that it was looking very like a large, dark, bare stonework, castle room.

Last, the goats wrestled out a large object shrouded in black cloth. They set it up with care on a stage-like dais at the back of the room. In front of the dais, they set up Caramel's traditional cracked cauldron, supported on chains from a stout tripod.

The vultures had waited on the roof until all was ready. They swooped about and found perches on ledges and rods provided for their use. The dark birds stared out to the various games and tables, suggestively licking their beaks!

All was in readiness for the big day and night tomorrow! The van was now stored behind Caramel's restaurant.

It was late, almost closing time when Caramel's secret guest of honor arrived.

The call came from above! “Make way! Royal Guard landing!”

A flight of six Royal Armored Pegassi in the livery of Princess Luna landed in the street in front of Caramel Treat's! They were in an open Vee formation, with the open side facing the now decorated restaurant! Princess Luna landed lightly in the center of their formation and paced forward, into Caramel's shop! Her Guard followed, breaking formation to enter through the tables across the front of the outdoor dining area and reforming as soon as they were clear of them.

It was a most impressive display of marching skill. Luna turned to them and smiled. “My good Guards, you are now released to recreation as you see fit. You have served me well on the night flight to this place.

“I know that you have deep and honest concerns about my safety. I am as well guarded here as I could be. This event is being watched over by two Werewolves, Grumpter Goat, and the Litch King himself.

“If I may be so bold as to recommend it, the food here at Caramel Treat's is some of the finest to be found in the whole kingdom. And whatever you get will be paid by Royal Largess. The Lovely Witch pony here, is waiting to take your orders.”

Caramel and Fangrin came out and managed good courtly bows, in spite of being in their wolf forms. They chorused, “Welcome to Caramel Treat's Nightmare, oh, Ruler of the Dream.”

The three disappeared into the restaurant proper.

Watching them go, one of the Guard spoke to Captain Lightning, “It still makes me nervous when the Princess just takes off like that with commoners.”

The Captain, relaxing at a table and examining the menu, replied, “It used to bother me too, Baron. The worst risks that she has ever faced mostly came from the nobility. Most of those were Counts or Dukes. When she is among the Rom or supernatural beings, I really worry less. They are VERY careful to protect both Princesses.”

“I understand that, Captain. I am worried about all of the common ponies that she will be around with this Nightmare Night thing.”

The Captain turned to Peanut and requested, “The Clover Steak with Sea Grass Puffs, please. The Honeyed Cider sounds perfect to go with it. Thank you.”

Returning his attention to the Baron, he pointed out, “Among those watching her, this visit is the Litch King. A being who can not be dodged or avoided. One who can stop any attack by simply saying Drop Dead! And make it stick!”

Sitting to the table, the worried Baron said, “I see. Sort of like last Nightmare Night, when we went to that realm of monsters that Princess Luna said was on the edge of Nightmare. She controls more than is apparent.”

“Precisely. I understand that the security arrangements for this event make Palace Security look like foals playing with rag dollies.”

The Baron looked about the place and commented, “Perhaps, but I see no sign of it.” He paused thoughtfully for a few moments before adding, “It could be that it is so good that we do not see it.”

Back in the kitchen, Luna was delightedly cooking up the dinner orders as they came in. “This is so much fun, Caramel! This short order cooking is so different from banquet or snack cooking! Let's see, this scramble will be fast, so I start it last . . .”

The two big Everfree Ridgeback Wolves watched tolerantly while Princess Luna took over their kitchen. Caramel confided to Fangrin, “This was her price. Uninterrupted cooking except when she is being part of our Nightmare Night Staff.”

Romaine quietly entered the kitchen and politely asked, “Your Highness, is it OK for me to get pictures of you cooking? They will be part of my annual Caramel Treat's Nightmare Night story for the Ponyville Prancer. I already got pictures of your arrival with the Guard.”

Princess Luna looked up from her cooking to exclaim, “Romaine! I haven't seen you since we made that book deal to clobber the so-called Celestian Church! Of course you can! That is a blanket permission for the whole event!”

Caramel grinned, “You have the scoop, Romaine! You know where the Magic Net mirror is! Call it in and send your pictures! We managed to keep this visit secret even from Luna's Protocol Ponies!”

With a final few pictures, Romaine nearly flew to the Magic Net mirror to call in her story and pictures!

The next morning, just after staff breakfast, the vultures all took to the air, forming a swirling cone of birds of ill omen, centered on Caramel Treat's!

Looking out through spy holes in the set, the staff saw a long line already formed! Out front, a news pony was hawking the Ponyville Prancer's morning edition!

“Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Princess Luna has come to Caramel Treat's Nightmare Night Celebration!”

Caramel turned to Princess Luna and suggested, “Let's not keep them waiting, your Highness!”

Taking that as a cue, two of the goats pulled the cover off the object on the dais, revealing The NIGHTMARE THRONE. Luna actually drew a breath of surprise.

“That is a very good copy of my Nightmare Throne in the Fortress of Nightmare!”

One of the goats smiled at her. “We had to work from our folklore! I am glad that we got it done so well!”

The glamored goats, appearing to be twisted creatures of Nightmare, stepped forward on the set and began to beat the start of a Processional on deeply resonant kettle drums. The doors of the set opened impressively. Caramel and Fangrin stepped out and went each to one side of the doors. In full view of every pony waiting, they transformed into their monster sized Wolf forms.

Luna's Guard stepped out by twos, glamored as thestrals. They formed up before the throne and split to two ranks, one flanking each side of the throne.

Trumpets blew a fanfare while the deep drums kept their part of the processional going. Princess Luna stepped forth, glamored to a Nightmare Alicorn. She was all jet black, fur, mane and tail, her eyes glowing red coals, stark yellowed fangs in her jaws and small curls of flame were arising from her nostrils!

She paced forward faced the crowd and blew out flare of fire. The Nightmare then ascended to the Throne of Nightmare.

She called, “Prepare the Cauldron of Fate!”

The Cauldron was brought forth by a skeletal Alicorn, a witch pony and a Goat skull with fangs, glowing eyes and a candle burning between its horns. The goat's body was invisible but clearly supporting his leg of the cauldron's tripod.

They set it up some meters in front of the throne. The witch touched it with her wand and mist began to arise and boil over the lip and some out through a prominent crack in the side of it.

The big black gryphon, her flight feathers outlined in stark red and her eyebrows picked out in it too, admitted the foals and their escorts in groups of five. Each “trial” game was set up for five to do at once.

She whispered to one foal who was looking worried, “The Nightmare does not expect you to be perfect. If you try at each game, that is enough.”

Soon the area was an orderly madhouse of foals trying their luck at the games before “Advancing” to the Cauldron of Fate! There, they chanted “Nightmare Night! What a fright! Give me something sweet to bite!”

Plunging eager hooves into the famous Foal Bowl cauldron, they brought out treats for their loot bags!

Besides taking photos of the unfolding event, Romaine had a sign up.

Your picture with the Nightmare!

Only ONE Silver, rolled in a tube

Only TWO Silver, framed!

All proceeds go to the Widows and Orphans Fund to feed and house the needy. All donations will be matched from Royal Largess.

In spite of the fairly steep price, there were many lined up to get their pictures made! As he brought out a new stack of frames, one of the glamored goats commented, “It is good thing that when we heard about the photo thing, we brought our frame shop along in the van with the set! You are keeping us hopping!”

It was approaching noon when a goat, glamored as a creature of the underworld, began pushing a cart down the line waiting to get in. He had small cheap snacks and an order book. For those who wanted more than the snacks, he took orders and gave out numbers.

Soon a second cart came down the line, delivering the ordered meals. And more snacks, of course!

Princess Luna was having a ball, hamming it up for the many photos of her and foals! A favorite pose was her possessively gripping a costumed foal and making a threatening blast of flame. Since the flame was a carefully designed glamor, it was totally harmless but delighted the foals!

As evening came on, big cressets on either side of the throne lit up with flaring flames of blue, yellow and green! Again, like her flaming breath, it was carefully designed glamors, totally harmless but a lot of fun!

Among the new evening glamors that Grumpy was managing for Caramel and Fangrin was causing the whole set and cast to glow in a spectral and ghastly pale blue.

Oohs and aahs of appreciation for the effect arose from the line. The bats made their scheduled appearance, fluttering all about the set! The glow and the cressets were drawing in tasty moths and the little guys were having a field day!

The well fed vultures were happily perched where they could look menacing and enjoying the whole show!

A pegasus in full Royal Court attire fluttered down, landing self importantly in the midst of the set! Without preamble, he demanded, “YOUR HIGHNESS!! It was most difficult to find you! Your presence is REQUIRED in Canterlot, immediately! You must stop this foolishness with these commoners at once and come with me!”

He was moving to block the next foal in line for a picture as he spoke.

Princess Luna's pale midnight magic, shot through with stars, reached out and slapped him from his feet! It gently picked up the filly in her Princess Celestia costume and brought her to the dais.

Ignoring the outcries of the outraged Count, she asked softly, “How would you like your picture to be made?”

The filly thought for only a second. “I'd like one of those vultures perching on my right wing and a couple of the bats on my left! Want to be sort of rearing like Celestia facing down the Nightmare! Can we do that?”

For answer, a smiling Nightmare brought a vulture from its perch and herded a pair of bats to the filly's wings. She helped them all to be rearing and looking menacing towards her. She reared in her own turn and held them all posed with her magic while Romaine got the picture!

While waiting to have it framed, the filly pointed to the fallen count and asked, “Isn't he awfully important?”

Luna gave her a hug as she replied, “He certainly seems to think so. The answer is that he is wrong. You, your dad and mom, and all of the other so called common folk of Equestria are who is really important.

“All of his wealth and position rests on the work of all of you. You are all the foundation upon which the house of the nobility rests. Without the foundation, the house would collapse.

“It works the other way too, dear. A foundation with no building is but useless stones. Together, they form a whole building. But never forget this. It rests on the solid foundation that is all of you.

“That is why I am here. I honor the solid foundation of all of Equestria.”

Admiring her framed picture, the filly replied, “Wow! I got a real treasure, this Nightmare Night! And it wasn't just this picture! Thank You, Your Highness!”

~THE END~

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

Return to Tales to Read AFTER the Lights are OUT!

#NIGHTMARE NIGHT LESSON #MLP Fan Fiction #Tales to Read AFTER the Lights Are Out!#written by De Writer

24 notes · View notes

alexbrockart · 7 years

Text

Gargoyle Process

This painting started from a sketch in 2015 that I didn't touch for a bout a year, then came back to after ruminating on it on and off over that lapse. It's loosely centered around this legend of the walled city of Agartha, and the guarding demons and djinn that would keep the unworthy from entering.

Here I sketched out the environment surrounding the figure and arranged the composition a bit. I wanted the environment to have a sort of Mediterranean feel to it, almost classical ancient Greek/Roman with a little hint of tropical. I ended up changing the perspective quite a bit because I wanted to paint in a lot of texture in the landscape of the background, and also wanted to drive home a feeling of the figure standing on a really high wall far above the ground below. So I raised the horizon line almost to the top of the canvas and redid a lot of the figure to fit in with a more top down perspective.

Here you can see the new perspective and wings, and my attempt at dumping colors all over the place that I felt gave off the feeling I wanted for the piece, which was a sort of bright and sunny warm day in the afternoon, soon approaching the golden hour.

Here's some images that I felt captured the mood and lighting I wanted to portray

Let the render fest begin! As I was painting the torso my power supply for my computer started crapping out and it was pretty terrifying to paint for fear of losing work. I had finished just about the entire torso and arms when it crashed when I tried to save it, and had to do it over, about 5 hours of work. The second version definitely came out better though. I threw in a crazy weird mandala-lever-table-mechanism I thought would be interesting but ended up chucking it for the sake of time and it threw off the composition a bit. It's inspired by this talk I listened to about the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and his therapy sessions with C. G. Jung. From what I remember, through deep trance or in a dream, Pauli saw this mandala that represented perfect rationality and other dimensions or concepts like increments of time integrated into each other. The idea was to sort of have the Gargoyle in control of one of the levers, hinting that your perception of reality may be manipulated or something along those lines. I mostly wanted an excuse to make a shiny 3D object and render it so that I could have perfect shiny reflection in the painting. I got my jollies in that regard with the mace that I replaced this mandala with.

Here's the talk and a picture of the mandala:

Here's some of the references for the skin and torso. In the old master painting with the man pointing toward the sky I really liked the way their skin looked really pale in some parts and very tan or oily/dirty in others and tried to replicate that effect on the figure with a sort of red-grayish green and a more yellow green. I imagine there being less callous spots that would be lighter and more "juicy" like when the skin is stretched it'll lighten up in those areas, kind of like when some plastic bends it gets lighter in those spots that are really stretched out. It's sort of an effect or look that produces a sensation that I wanted to portray and think looks cool and not much more.

Here's about where I had gotten before I lost my file to the dark lords of psd corruption. Lots of rendering and minute fiddling, pulling and pushing forms and moving around muscles underneath the skin. Reference is a lifesaver when it comes to anatomy, or anything really, but especially anatomy because of how complex it is and how easy it is for people (who all have bodies) to recognize when something is off. I remember this is where I really felt like I was going somewhere with the painting and it had some potential.

Got the rest of the human parts nailed down. I almost went fully Egyptian with his undergarments but decided against it. I found out the name for this type of clothing though, "shendyt" if you ever need to know that. Lots of challenging but enjoyable intricacies worked out here. If I could give a tip on picking color it would be to learn how to really feel it out. If you try to do this with only your intellect and calculate every aspect of surface color and lighting and reflection you mostly end up getting in your own way (not that this isn't important). If you can grab a color that feels ok and run with it you're better off than being indecisive and worrying that the color isn't perfectly accurate. Make a choice and observe the result. What happens when you lay that color next to the others, how does it feel deep down in your gut and heart. What does it need more of? It's like tasting pudding, when you put it on your tongue and smack it around in your mouth how does it taste? What would make it taste more like the most perfect pudding you can imagine? You also have to have good taste to make things that taste good.

Focused heavily on the wings and tree here. I took a big leap with the dappled lighting and just went for it. I knew it would be really hard to make it look realistic and it kind of became abstracted, but I learned a lot. After having finished it I've seen multiple images that would have been much better reference for the dappled lighting than what I used, but such is life. In place of accurate lighting effects I had fun making cool shapes and swirlies. I tried to create an effect similar to some sort of vectoring of light blobs where their outer edge sort of merges with the nearby blobs, similar to when you squint your eyes and look at lights out of focus. On the upper/outer edges of the wings I tried to pull of the effect of something being in shadow on a sunny day and heavily reflecting the blue of the sky. Since that surface isn't being blown out by sunlight you can really see other ambient light sources reflecting on it.

I darkened the shindyt loin cloth by plopping a multiply layer over it and touching it up a bit. I though the lightness of the previous color was attracting a little too much attention and contrast. But when I look at it now I almost like it better.

I also tried to get down some of the awesome patterning on eucalyptus trees that I see here around town. They're some of the coolest looking trees in my opinion and really wanted to capture that dramatic contrast of values and colors they have on them along with the smooth swirly lumps. This tree was extremely difficult and I redid it at least once. I still don't think I pulled off the look I was going for with it but I like it in it's own right.

Here's the bottom before and after the redo. I really wanted to pull off a section of surface that's lit evenly but has two different values/surface materials and have it look cohesive. This was a pain but I'm starting to come around to the idea of doing stuff over even if it's really close to what you want or it feels like too much work. It almost always comes out better.

I also had a friend help out and do a paintover to try and tie up the values which explains the darkened corner on the ground. Much more moody and dramatic. He also taught me this technique to strategically adjust the levels with brush strokes using a mask.

Create a levels adjustment layer. Depending on how you want to adjust the levels (lights, darks or midtones) move the sliders around to a spot you like, and this is the awesome part is it doesn't have to affect the whole image, so you can pick an area you want to change the levels of, adjust accordingly, and target that spot. To do this click on the blank white square (red X) and paint bucket it fully black, then go back to the levels adjustments (click on the layer name or graph square) and start painting or lassoing in white in the spot that you wanted changed. This helps a TON.

More progress! I started experiment with texture in the background by making some brushes and messing with them. I was really inspired by the way Craig Mullins can pull off seemingly intricate detail with abstract shapes and textures and wanted to try something similar. Maybe next time lol. I was also inspired by Dean Cornwell and looking at his work for the texture on the ground, trying to make nice big juicy blobs of paint that almost look like clumps of mud or stones. I also really had fun with trying to make a compelling pattern that was still in perspective. For the background I was looking at the Walter Everett painting above a lot, trying to get a beautiful harmony of really light values and colors, having forms be defined with only hue and not much value change at all. It's really hard to pull off.

I went nuts on the background. I replaced the original idea of a golden glittering canyon with a more earthy and gradient filled landscape. I also tweaked the values much brighter, which I think I darkened back down later. I was heavily inspired by Whit Brachna and had at least one of his paintings open the entire time I was working on the background.

These are some of my all time favorite paintings. Just look at them, gotdang.

3D mace! Mostly inspired by spiky black metal aesthetic. I made a very rough (but that's really all I needed) model of the mace in Cinema 4D. The most tedious part was obviously all the spikes. There's probably a way you could pull them out of the sphere in 2 seconds but I'm not versed enough to avoid tediously scooting each individual spike one at a time. I then took it into ZBrush and just scrubbed it over with a cool texture brush that gave it a bunch of amazing details that you can't even see in the painting. I tried to set up a scenario in C4D that was as close to the painting as I could muster to get the lighting right. I copied a bunch of disc tubes to try and replicate leaves and branches. Since the figures hand, and most of his upper body was cast in shadow I tried to strategically place some "leaves" over the top half of the mace.

I messed with a bunch of different surface materials and render settings and ended up going with the shiniest one, heh.

Here it is before and after being painted on, very minute adjustments.

I'd say the rest is pretty straightforward and can't really think of any extraordinary advice except maybe doing more quick studies of your weak spots. I'm realizing I could get a lot of benefit from doing a higher quantity of less elaborate stuff to really improve more.

I really hoped this helped and if there's anything you'd like me to elaborate on or that you felt was left out please don't hesitate to ask!

Here's some meaty juice for you. I made a 2000px tall resolution gif of all the process images which is included in the .zip, containing over 30 of the aforementioned 2000px res process pics, some full resolution (8000px) crops of the final image, and a few other random in progress shots. And finally here's the full resolution (8000px) final .jpg, the final .psd file (2000px), and my brush presets. Enjoy!

I'm not sure how to export your presets as new brushes and you may already need the .abr file for the presets to work, so if you have any tips on that let me know. Most of the brushes I use are straight from other sets or slightly tweaked and saved as a preset.

Anyway, I think this will conclude this massive post. I truly hope it's helpful, or at the very least mildly interesting. Thanks for reading!

24 notes · View notes

tak4hir0 · 4 years

Link

This article is based on a presentation I gave as part of AdevintaTalks in Barcelona on November 2019. I’m experimenting with this format: I went through the slides typing what I’d speak over them, edited the text, and added some of the most relevant slides inbetween paragraphs. Let me know how it works. Discussion in Hacker News – Today’s topic is about Technical Infrastructure, a term I found first in a great talk by Will Larson. He defines Technical Infrastructure as “the software and systems to create, evolve, and operate our businesses.” That includes Cloud services, build tools, compilers, editors, source control systems, data infrastructure (Kafka, Hadoop, Airflow…), routing and messaging systems (Envoy, gRPC, Thrift…), Chef, Consul, Puppet, Terraform, and so on. Companies that reach a certain size typically create one or more teams that take care of different subsets of those tools. They get named something like “infrastructure”, “platform”, “foundations”… I will use “Platform team” in this text. If you have been part of one, you will know that life for a Platform team is tough. I could find an actual picture that shows one of them on the field: Pieter Brueghel the Elder - "The Triumph of Death" (1562) A good deal of the job is ultimately about finding the right balances between standardization and autonomy. To make meaningful impact, Platform teams depend on having standards in their organization. Trying to too support every possible language ecosystem, framework, DB, messaging system, and whatnot spreads Platforms teams too thin to be effective. On the other hand, it is also wise to respect every other team’s autonomy to make their own technical decisions. Oppinionated Platform teams risk coming across as a patronizing, ivory-tower-dwelling jerks that impose capricious choices on other engineering teams. Standardization and autonomy are complex factors to juggle. What if you multiplied this problem by 20? What if you had 20 companies to support, each with their own cocktail of technologies, cultures, philias and phobias, genealogies of decisions… and their own Platform team! That’s my team’s job at Adevinta. Adevinta builds online marketplaces. Each of them are and need to be special in their own way. At the same time, they all share many other bits and pieces that don’t need to be different. That are, in fact, more cost-effective if they are built once and shared by all. Much of this falls in the category of Technical Infrastructure. My team works on that type of plumbing. Generating value as a Platform team You know who these people are? They are the way fiction represents a profit centre. Those are parts of a company that bring money in, they generate revenue. You know who these other people are? They don’t smell of money, right? Fiction represents them in this way because they belong to a cost centre. They pay AWS bills, buy computers. In other words, money exits the company through them. Profit centres tend to have a crisp value proposition that is easy to see and understand. It’s the opposite for cost centres. This doesn’t mean that they give no value to the company. On the contrary: that Kubernetes cluster is critical for the business. What is hard is explaining to the people in the first picture why the engineering team should spend cycles migrating from EC2 to Kubernetes instead of just shipping more money-generating features. In a way, cost centres are valuable to the extent that they power-up the profit centres. This is why Platform teams should be aware that they live under constant scrutiny, visible or not. The business will always wonder, why are we paying this team of expensive engineers? Can’t Amazon, or Google, or Microsoft, or Digital Ocean, or Heroku, or whoever else, provide whatever these people do? Can’t we make use of those many open source projects funded by dozens of commercial companies, and use the headcount elsewhere? In 2020, Technical Infrastructure is a hot market. While I gave this talk, Amazon was running Re:Invent in Las Vegas. The first day they announced Quantum computing as a service. They continued for an entire week running presentations that felt like.. So when a Platform team comes with their quarterly demo the perception is hopelessly.. small. And those internal demos are great, don’t get me wrong, a lot of effort and that. But when a Platform team is (intentionally or not) building systems that have 3rd party alternatives they are competing in an uneven playing field. A Platform team should really avoid competing against AWS, Google, or any commercial company. It doesn’t matter if their homegrown CI system is superior, today, to $commercial_ci_system. The market will catch up, faster than expected, and make that team redundant. Every Platform team should be asking themselves: what is our differentiator? What do we offer than makes it worthwhile for our company to invest in our team, rather than throwing those engineers at the product? To recap so far: because Platform teams are cost centers, they must really focus on formulating a clear and realistic value proposition that is relevant to the business. They must also ensure that their impact is intelligible to the business, and visible. Finally, they must ensure that those properties remain within a fast-moving industry. Our PaaS My team focuses on a PaaS that helps engineers across Adevinta build, deploy and operate software in the cloud. We focus mainly on stateless workloads (e.g. microservices.) Our pitch for product engineers is simple: “look, we know you’re fighting in a competitive market. Our mission is to help you win that competition. You prefer to do the plumbing yourself? It’s your call, we respect that. But if you prefer to focus your attention on your product we have a team of domain experts that do the heavy lifing for you. We take care of providing you with the technical infrastructure that you need so you can focus on winning races”. We define a Golden Path: a reduced set of sane, proven choices of tools that are effective to build, deploy, and operate microservices (the core systems we support are in the left-hand side slide below). Is each tool the best in their category? Probably not. But we know they get the job done, are well supported, maintained, and standardised in the industry. It’s not about local optimums, but global maximums. It also not about chosing a bunch of random pieces and give product teams an Ikea-like platform that they must assemble piece by piece. We bundle GitHub, Travis, Artifactory, Spinnaker, FIAAS, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Datadog, Sumologic, ELK. The main value we provide is in the joints, the articulation, the glue. In how we integrate together all these systems. Our PaaS favours composition of multiple modular components, trying to become a pierceable abstraction. The main benefits are: Avoid losing battles with commercial companies. Each of our components has at least one whole company behind it. It’s hardly realistic to expect that we can dedicate 5-7 of our engineers (1/4th of the team!) to build in-house alternatives to a CI system, a CD system, a metrics platform, etc. against businesses that have 20 or 50 times that capacity. Instead, we focus on what is specific for our company, tailoring off-the-shelf solutions to our needs. Commercial competitors are more likely to focus on what’s generic to larger portions of the industry. Well defined articulations become escape hatches for those teams that can’t or won’t use the entire bundle. This is a requirement to be able to support a highly heterogeneous population of companies and teams as we do. But it’s also good for us as it increases adoption, and creates low-friction “gateway drugs” to the full PaaS. We often see how teams that adopt one tool gradually adopt more organically as they gain trust and realize we can relieve them from doing a lot of undifferentiated heavy lifting. The same flexibility enables us to replace individual pieces when it makes sense, causing minimal impact for the users. One of our current initiatives is to ensure that upgrading or switching any of those pieces is completely transparent to users. Small impact, repeated many times One of the strategies we use is to spot where we can introduce tools that generate small impact to a wide surface. This worked quite well applied to reducing toil on the development process. Of most of the tasks involved in getting a new change merged to the main tree, there may be only two that really need involving human brains: writing the code, and reviewing it. We set out to automate lots of the other small chores in the dev process: assigning reviewers, analyzing coverage and static analysis reports, propagating dependency updates, keeping branches up to date with their base, merging approved PRs… Each of these actions may have a tiny impact. But multiplied by a population of hundreds of engineers, month after month, you get economies of scale. The image above is the profile for the service user that executes all these actions in our internal GitHub Enterprise instance. Assuming each action is worth 1 minute (many of them are actually more than that) it adds up to 62 engineer-days per year. That’s impact that can be very easily translated to money, to terms that the rest of the business can understand. At this point you should have a siren wailing in your heads. “Wait, you said before that we should avoid competing with commercial companies. GitHub released Actions earlier this year, and some of the automation you just mentioned seems very similar to what is available in the public GitHub. Does that mean your team has just become obsolete?” Remember the point about creating differentiators. The core functionality that makes the PaaS (things like “running builds” or “store these metrics and let me query them”, or “do $something when a PR is created”) will become commoditized sooner or later. But glue is a different story. Our differentiator here is simple: GitHub Actions can only react to GitHub events. Our automation can react to events in the entire Adevinta development ecosystem. All of it. Because we didn’t spend that much time building the core tools, we could focus on the glue. The slide above shows Devhose, a component that collects events from every tool in our dev ecosystem (GitHub, Travis, Spinnaker, Artifactory, JIRA, Slack, Kubernetes… and even several tools outside of the Golden Path), stores them in a log, and broadcasts them in an “engineering event bus”. We also built some tooling around it that gives us the ability to easily implement new functionalities that interact back with the ecosystem. For example, one bot we prototyped recently listens to events in Kubernetes, detects killed pods, collects troubleshooting information and ships it to a Slack channel so the team that owns the service is alerted. Thanks to having invested in glue, when GitHub Actions reaches the Enterprise version, it will bring value that we can leverage, rather than an existential threat. Virtuous feedback loops Having everything that happens in our dev ecosystem registered and broadcast in an event bus turned out to be valuable for multiple purposes. One of them was to build insights into the development process itself. We built a system called Ledger to help with this. It is an event consumer that reads from Devhose’s event bus and crunches all types of productivity metrics. Which ones? One of our references is Accelerate and their annual “State of Devops” reports (2018, 2019). Their main claim is that the performance of software delivery teams can and does provide a competitive advantage to companies. This is backed by extensive industry research that links specific practises to the most effective and efficient ways to develop and deliver technology. This is precisely our team’s mission. The authors identify four key metrics that capture the effectiveness of the dev & delivery process: Lead Time for Changes, Change Failure Rate, Deployment Frequency, and Time to Restore. These can be used as high level performance indicators that reliably gauge the ability of an organisation to achieve its goals. Because we provide the plumbing for most engineering processes, we are in the right place to measure them. Here is one of our dashboards about Continuous Delivery, including Deployment Frequency, one of the Accelerate indicators. Teams that use our PaaS get these out of the box. Along with a lot more metrics. Build durations, code coverage, static analysis issues, security issues, lead time for changes, stats about the code review process, etc. I have a certain liking to the Code tab, that shows the correlation between Pull Request size and time to merge in their team. Here is an example: You have surely noticed at least two interesting details: It’s obvious that small PRs get merged faster. In fact, differences of just a couple dozen lines double the time to merge from hours to days. Even though time to merge grows with PR size, it looks like very large PRs (the last bucket) take a lot less to merge. You can guess why. This example is a good way to show how Ledger helps us influence best practises without confrontation, enforcement, or alienating engineers. We bring no opinions to the table. We show over 2 years worth of data that is contextualized for a whole team, a whole company, but never exposes personally identifiable information. We care about how teams perform, not how many points of code coverage are accountable to $engineer. This is not a tool for managers to measure performance, but for teams to understand and make informed decisions about their processes. Again, does this have some overlap with tools like SonarQube? Definitely. But we have differentiators. We can analyze everything in the dev process, not just code quality. We can tailor to the deploy and release workflows most common to our teams. We can enrich data with organisational information specific to Adevinta’s org chart. We can correlate quality with other phases in the process (e.g. the space we want to move into next is answering questions like “Does high code coverage correlate to less incidents?”). We can reprocess over 2 years of raw data on demand and generate new stats as we develop them (or fix bugs :). The Accelerate report notes that these indicators can be used in two ways. Teams can inform improvements in their software delivery performance. Organisations can learn how to support engineering productivity with metrics that are intelligible to non-technical stakeholders. In other words, by providing these metrics, we facilitate a conversation between tech and business, between cost and profit centres. And precisely because we measure the productivity of teams, we can also measure in what degree our job delivers on our mission: support teams to deliver at their best. Investing in a component Sometimes we do invest in components of the Platform. In the talk I didn’t have time to go over Spinnaker, where we’ve been (and remain) active contributors for ~4 years along with Netflix, Google, Target and many others. Being part of the community made it easier for us to upstream features that made sense for us, such as Cloud Formation support or integrations with Travis, as well as dozens of bug fixes and other improvements. But the best example of in-house investments are the Kubernetes clusters we build and operate on EC2. The inevitable question is: why not use EKS, GKE, or other managed solutions? The “glue” strategy should already come to mind. Below is a simplified comparison of what a raw installation of Kubernetes provides, and what our clusters provide. A bare Kubernetes cluster works, you can schedule containers, but that’s pretty much it. GKE, EKS, etc. provide slightly more than the left picture: they may autoscale nodes and handle other basic ops burden. But they are still far from covering the typical needs of product teams that wish to run production workloads securely, with little to no operational burden. Some examples: Our clusters are multi-tenant, allowing several marketplaces to share infrastructure securely while optimizing costs through higher density. We deal with all the cons of multitenancy. We handle network isolation for each tenant. We provide sensible defaults, pod security policies, etc. We added a validating webhook to the NGINX ingress controller that we contributed upstream, to reduce the blast radius of ingresses that break the NGINX configuration. We maintain clusters in several geographical regions. This is instrumental for some of Adevinta’s central teams that build centralised functions like Messaging, Reputation systems, etc. that are meant to be used in several marketplaces that serve users in distant geographical locations (from Europe to Latin America). Our clusters offer a homogeneous, managed runtime environments, close to all Marketplaces, where central functions can be deployed. In every cluster we provide integrations that work out of the box. You get automatic certificates leveraging cert-manager and Let’s Encrypt. Users can use authentication tokens generated through our company’s SSO. They get metrics automatically scraped and sent to Datadog or our internal Prometheus, as they chose with a simple config option. The same feature is provided for logs. Users can avoid learning the full Kubernetes and use FIAAS, a commodity abstraction on top of Kubernetes. It was created in-house at one of our marketplaces ~7 years ago and was OSS’d in early 2019. In every cluster we run automated canary tests periodically that deploy canonical applications and test connectivity and most integrations, we try to detect problems earlier than our users. Our team provides dedicated, 24/7/365 on-call. We do full-stack aware upgrades. Because Google or AWS may upgrade your Kubernetes version, but will not care about the integrity of everything you’ve got running there. We upgrade at a slower pace than GKE/EKS, but when we do we ensure that the entire stack bundled in our cluster works, not just the core of Kubernetes. And we provide insights into your costs down to the pod level, informing users about potential savings if they are over-provisioning. Here is a PoC of a Grafana dashboard with this info: I made a point before about creating articulations that facilitate pivoting to commercial choices once they become commoditized. That’s our strategy with EKS. We keep a close eye on its roadmap and have given feedback about our needs to AWS. As soon as EKS is a suitable base Kubernetes installation for us, we are ready to lift-and-shift our integrations on top. Zero-friction onboarding All this is (possibly) quite cool, but if engineers need weeks or months to start using it, nobody will. That was one of our top challenges a year ago. The core components in the PaaS were mostly there, but each team would have to spend days or weeks configuring each of them by hand on their repositories. Throughout the last year we’ve invested heavily in streamlining the onboarding process. We turned what was an Ikea-like experience into an almost seamless process. Users get a web interface, enter their repository URL, click on a button, and our automation takes it from there. It takes ~10 minutes for their repository to be automatically configured with CI/CD pipelines, deploying to their team’s private namespace, and integrated with metrics and logging systems. If something fails or manual action is required from our Platform teams, the onboarding tool notifies, keeps track of the issue in JIRA, and resumes the process when we’ve unblocked it. There is a point about the importance of automation here, but I want to stress something else. If you buy the proposition that Platform teams have a significant degree of competing scope with commercial companies, UX spacialists are a must-have. A team big enough to serve hundreds of engineers must reserve headcount for a good UX designer. It will pay off. Not only will you stop inflicting backend-made-UIs to your engineers, but also because the Platform team will learn how to understand the needs of their users, test their assumptions (most of which will be wrong), the impact they make with their work, and deliver a more professional product. The team in charge of those automation and UIs has been using instrumentation data collected in the onboarding process to polish the experience, improve the failure rate and cover corner cases. Last quarter they moved on to solving other pain points in the platform. For example, troubleshooting a failed deploy. Right after Christmas we plan to release a team dashboard with all applications maintained by a given team. It summarizes status for each, and highlights when something fails in the build, deployment pipelines, or runtime, with relevant information collected from any system in the PaaS. Again, glue. Change hurts, we should feel it too Regardless of the effort we put in to improving the onboarding experience for our users, at the end of the day we’re moving engineers from a known territory, their on-prem infra, EC2, or wherever they run their services today, to an unknown one. At some point, every migration feels like this. Théodore Géricault - The Raft of the Medusa. (1819) When this happens, someone from our team should sail in that raft with them. Specially for mid/large sized migration projects, we allocate at least 1-2 of our engineers to support teams on-site. To give an example, we now have an ongoing migration project for ~200 microservices from all the Spanish sites. For several months we’ve had engineers from our team, as well as the local Platform team inside Adevinta Spain sitting together in a shared seating area. Both share OKRs, regular plannings, weekly syncs, etc. In our previous engagement with the Subito.it team, three of our engineers travelled to Italy for several weeks during the quarter. We are also creating different workshops that we reuse and adapt for newly onboarded teams, including Kubernetes basics, hands-on exercises, etc. There are two key outcomes to working closely to our users: Trust: engineers in the product teams stop perceiving those in the Platform teams as a Slack handle, but actual people with faces that they can confidently ask questions to. The local Platform teams in the marketplaces start seeing us as partners rather than an existential threat. Engineers in our Platform team learn the needs of product engineers, and gain experience on how it feels to use the tools we build. They also leverage the expertise of local Platform teams that have been working in this space for years in their respective marketplaces. While it’s hard to leave your team for weeks or months, the experience is an eye-opener and everyone brings invaluable insights back to our teams. Is it working? It’s a bumpy ride by nature, but yes. How do we measure it? As I mentioned above, metrics like those proposed by Accelerate seemed relevant as they measure precisely the properties we wish to improve. After getting some help from a Itamar Gilad, a professional product management consultant, we settled for Successful Deployments per week as our North Star. We believe it is a good proxy for productive habits that we want to incentivise: deployments are easy and automated, work reaches users early, and defects can be repaired quickly. For us, more frequent deployments have two positive implications: more services use our PaaS, and those that use it behave productively by deploying more often. We only count “Successful” deployments to ensure that our tools help and incentivise pushing healthy code out. Here is our North Star tracking dashboard for the past year (the dip at the right is just the last incomplete period.) This quarter we’ve spent time collecting a whole set of other metrics that influence the North Star (e.g. number of active repos, build durations, etc.) and are fundamental to defining good OKRs. Harder to quantify, but easier to appreciate, is feedback from our users. A couple of days before the talk we found this in Twitter from an engineer in one of the Spanish marketplaces that were onboarding the Platform in those days. Translation: "The transition to Kubernetes is going so well that I'm not feeling it. Basically everything works perfectly. Hat tip to everyone who made it." We have lots of rough edges and potential for improvement, but it feels we are in the right track. My +10 for that hat tip to all the excellent colleagues that have contributed to making this possible, from infrastructure to UX and everything inbetween.

#Galo Navarro

0 notes

thattreason · 7 years

Text

When Time Becomes a Loop

Title: When Time Becomes a Loop

Author: That Treason (That_Treason)

Fandom: The Magicians

Rating: General

Words: 3800

Written for the 2017 Welters Challenge (@thewelterschallenge), week 3 (”the unseen & what you want”)

This is my first fic in a while, so I’m a little nervous, but I couldn’t resist the theme. I’ve always wanted to know more about Jane Chatwin and her time loops. Here’s one take on how they might have worked. Hope you enjoy!

Note: Takes place in the time loop just before the one shown on the television show.

~~~

“Q, it’s Jane.” Julia whispers in Quentin’s ear.

“Jane who?” Quentin blinks for a moment, puzzled. Julia had insisted on meeting in the library at this too early time on a Sunday, and Quentin’s still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Or maybe this is another dream; it’s getting hard to tell. “Jane as in…” he says slowly, “…Jane Chatwin?”

“The Jane Chatwin,” she whispers again, “Fillory Jane Chatwin. “She’s controlling the time loops.”

“Jules…” he starts, brows furrowed, but his voice trails off. Usually Quentin is the one taking Fillory-related leaps of faith, and it throws him off a bit to be on the other side of the conversation.

She rolls her eyes and grabs his hand and drags him off through the entirety of the all-but-abandoned library, not stopping till they reach a dusty nook in the farthest corner, mainly used by couples avoiding roommates. She seats herself on one side of a solid wooden table.

“Look, I know this sounds crazy. I need you listen to me first and then you can tell me I’m crazy all you want, ok?” she asks, content to stare at him till he perches on the chair across the table from her.

“Listen, then crazy – check.”

“Here are the things we know:” Julia begins, with a smile, “We’re stuck in a time loop – we confirmed that yesterday with the spell, right? Time is going around in circles, centered on us and certain events. It doesn’t stretch back over our entire lives and it definitely doesn’t continue through to any natural end. Some event cuts us off and it’s likely that it’s a fight with the Beast.”

“More like the Beast murdering us horribly rather than a real fight,” Quentin mutters, “which is still entirely likely to happen any second now, and regardless of any time loop resetting us it’s still going to hurt.”

Julia holds her hands up, a gesture asking for patience. “We know it’s not a natural phenomenon and it’s not some magical accident. Someone – someone really good with time magic is controlling it.”

Quentin’s fingers trip his hair back behind his ear. “Just because someone is controlling it, that doesn’t necessarily conjure Jane Chatwin out of the books.”

Julia rolls her eyes. “You and I both know that Jane Chatwin is real and is screwing with us right now. I know you’ve had dreams about her, I have too.”

“Bu–”

“And then we also have another mysterious someone who calls herself Eliza–”

“You think Eliz–”

“Q, listen to me, for ten seconds,” Julia snaps. “Eliza is Jane. Jane is Eliza. They’re both prone to cryptic pronouncements that always seem to lead us into trouble. They pop up whenever they feel like it, mess with us, and then disappear.”

“That’s pretty thin, Julia,” he says, apologetic. “I mean, I know that I’m the first one of us to leap on anything that gets me closer to Fillory, but it’s a stretch even for me.”

“That’s why, I didn’t come to you earlier. I needed harder evidence to prove it to you. I had this really strong feeling, like I was trying to remember something that was wiped from my memory. I couldn’t get away from this feeling of dread. And the feeling gets stronger whenever I’m in the same room as Eliza, so…”

“So?” Quention asks.

“So, I followed Eliza around for a while. I wanted to see where she goes when she disappears all the time. I figured, she has to sleep sometime, right? So I tagged her with a Carmichael’s line.”

Quentin squints. “Carmichael’s? That’s for, like, wandering puppies and small children.”

“It worked for what I needed. Low power, doesn’t last long, but it’s not easily detected by anyone but the caster. You have to stay within a certain radius and apply it by touch, but otherwise it works really well for tailing someone, if you follow the tugs from the other end and never try to tug back. I followed her all over campus. For a while I was worried she was going to disappear out through the wards somewhere and I’d lose her–”

“I feel like I should pop some popcorn or something, this is great,” Quentin laughs.

Julia smacks at him across the library table, but her eyes are laughing with him and her mouth is quirked in a smile.

“I thought I was going to lose her,” she continues undeterred, “but then she went into this broom closet.”

“A broom closet, why didn’t I think of that.” He can’t help but sound incredulous.

“It wasn’t a broom closet on the inside, obviously,” she says. “Well, ok, yes, the first two feet or so were definitely a filthy broom closet, but if you pushed through the mops in the corner, you end up in this woodland-apartment-thing.”

“Uh….”

“It was outside,” Julia’s eyes look far away and her voice is wistful, “there were trees that formed a canopy overhead, but there was also furniture – a bed, tables, chairs, bookshelves. The carpet was moss, there were these charms hanging from the branches to mark off the space. It was beautiful.”

“Next to the bed I found this beat up old notebook, it’s her journal, or something. Her lab notebook, maybe. It was full of these extensive records for time loops, thirty-eight of them. These are notes about our time loops.”

“Ouch.”

“And it’s not just notes about what went wrong or who did what – she wrote down all her theories and thoughts – her emotional investment in each of the loops. It’s meticulous and terrifying.”

“So where’s the book, d-d-d-did you just leave it there or what, because we might never be able to–” He’s flustered and scrambling his hands through his hair.

“Of course, I didn’t leave it there.” She reaches down to her feet and into her bag. She pulls a slim black and white composition notebook out and flips it across the table at Quentin. “It’s spelled to contain more pages than it appears to have from the outside.”

He quirks his eyebrows up and motions to the book, asking ‘may I?’ with hands and face. Julia nods and looks away down the stacks.

“I think Jane was friends with us the first time.” Julia voice is just a whisper, barely audible even in the dead quiet of the library.

Quentin looks up from the book to stare at Julia.

“She writes about how we were all on this fantasy quest to kill the Beast and save Fillory and win ourselves these perfect little heroic lives. We thought it would be like in the books – chosen few, duel to the death with evil. The heroes never lose, how could we?”

“We had a plan,” she whispers. “And then right at the last minute, we convinced her to stay behind. Specifically, we – you and I. Apparently, I had these doubts about what we were really getting ourselves into. And the first time, in the first loop, the two of us were joined at the hip, so of course I convinced you. We took it to Jane: we needed a backup plan and she had to be it, with her time magic she could stay behind and reset things. Just in case things didn’t work out.”

Julia reaches across the table to pull the book, still unopened from Quentin’s fingers. She flips it open and searches the pages, eyes scanning along until she finds a certain passage.

“Listen to this: ‘I am resolved that subsequent attempts will be managed more systematically. I have recorded here every decision, every pitfall and snare. Everything that went wrong.’”

“It doesn’t sound like a terrible idea, Jules, in theory at least,” Quentin says. “It gives us a real chance against insane odds to defeat something way too powerful for us. And we’re not dead – I mean, dead-dead, obviously we were dead back then but we’re alive now, so–”

“Q, I know that. I thought that too, at first. Listen to the rest, ok?” She says it quietly, eyes never leaving the page. “‘Additionally, I have some thoughts on how to tweak the dynamics of our little troop – just a bit – for the sake of cohesion, to highlight strength and suppress weakness. I am confident in my ability to bring this situation to a satisfactory conclusion.’”

“What does she mean ‘tweak the dynamics’?”

Julia holds up a finger, requesting patience. She traces her fingers along the page and flips. “ Her writing for the first loop is really emotional, with only some high-level analysis of the fight. Then the second time loop finishes after another battle with the Beast. Jane watches us all die horribly again. I guess she felt she needed to record more detail about what happened and what went wrong. We died really hideous deaths and she wrote about it in excruciating detail. Like, right here,” Julia jumps a little and points to a section of the text. “the Beast ripped off your arm and then used it to beat Penny to death–”

“Jesus”

“–and she goes on and on about the sound it made. It’s grotesque.”

“That’s a word for it.”

“The whole book goes on just like that. We try, we die, she writes it all down and then resets time again. Makes us do it all again, over and over. By the fifth run – that’s the word she uses in the journal, ‘runs’ like this was some video game – by the fifth run, you can see her start to doubt herself. She talks about how, maybe there is no win scenario for us. Maybe she isn’t smart enough to orchestrate all the details required for a loop that leads to the death of the Beast. Maybe he’s just better than her. But that thinking doesn’t last long - by the sixth loop she’s figured out the real problem is us.”

“Us? What, you and me?”

“No, I mean, not just us,” Julia gestures across the table at him and then back to herself, “the big us, the whole group of us. And that’s when she really starts to meddle in our lives. She decides there’s something fundamentally wrong with all of us collectively and if she can fix it, she can change the whole scenario.”

“We’re not exactly the most capable group of magicians that’s ever existed.” His hair has fallen back into his face, and he tucks it back again. “Or the most responsible people, in general. I can’t blame her for wanting to improve us a bit.”

“Jane starts to reset things more frequently.” Julia shakes her head. “Sometimes we don’t even make it to the fight with the Beast. She just decides that the overall conditions aren’t right, things aren’t going to work out, and poof. We start over again. Like she’s canceling a baseball game because she’s worried about the rain.”

“Around the twelfth loop, she starts to wonder if there are cumulative effects of resetting us so many times. She notices your depression gets just a little worse each time. And Eliot spends just a little bit more time drunk or high. And Margot slowly gets more…Margot-y. She doesn’t stop resetting us, or try to help us – nope, just notes it down in her journal. We’re not even people to her anymore.”

“And then loop thirteen happens. Jane starts to write about how ‘this is war,’ and we’re ‘her weapons to wield.’ She drives us really hard – we learn this amazing battle magic, but life is miserable and eventually…

“Eventually?” Quentin asks.

“Eventually, we decided Jane isn’t much better than the Beast.”

“Oh.”

“’Oh’ is right. At the end of loop thirteen, we’re fighting against Jane, not the Beast. We were ready to die for real if it meant we’d be free of her control.”

“So what happened? Obviously we didn’t win.”

“Obviously. We thought we had a way to neutralize her, we even got the watch she uses to manage the loops away from her, but… things didn’t work out. She used everything she knew about us to turn us against each other.”

“Which means?”

“She got us to kill each other. And in that loop we knew really good battle magic, so the deaths were epic.”

Quentin snorts. “Hey, a little silver lining in all this, we got to be badass for once.”

“After that loop, Jane’s much more hands off with us. She gets the watch back and resets things again, just like always, but this time she has almost no contact with us. She just watches us to see how things go without any intervention from her. And things go horribly, just like every other loop. So she goes back to meddling, subtle at first, but now it’s all behind the curtain. She gets the Dean involved so she can exert that much more control over us without interacting with us directly. Over a couple more loops she starts to dial in how much she can personally intervene without causing us to go completely off the rails.”

“She messes with everything. Sometimes she keeps us happy, sometimes she thinks anger or sadness work better. She nudges us into all these different relationships – I think maybe she thought there was some configuration that would be optimal.”

“What like, dating?” he snorts. “She wanted us to date each other?”

“She wanted us to care deeply about each other,” she says quietly. She turns her eyes up to look at him. “In the beginning, you and I were together.”

“Together?” His hand snakes his errant hair behind his ear again. “Together-together?”

“Shocking I know,” she smiles at him. “And it lasts through three or four loops before she starts to think that any relationships at all are detrimental. At that point, she was still interacting with us, so she was able to just discourage us directly. After we rebel, she changes her mind, and tries to find a set of relationships that work for the cause instead of against it. She figures if we’re more willing to die for each other…”

“We might be prone to crazier heroics or whatever, yeah I get it, so–”

Julia laughs to herself; she knows what Quentin wants to hear. “There are a lot of combinations, she has charts in here to help her keep track. Most of them last only one loop, but some of them she tries multiple times. You and Eliot end up together a lot, you seem to stabilize each other. Alice is with Margot a few times. I end up with Penny or Kady or Penny and Kady. I could go on.”

“Can I see the ch–” Quentin starts to reach for the book, but Julia pulls it back, and slides it back into her bag.

“You know that’s not the point, Q. We don’t have time for this right now,” She folds her hands on the table, face gone grim. “I need you to focus and really understand this: no matter what Jane does, we die. We fight the Beast and we die. Over and over and over. And we’re going to keep dying.” Her hands fly into the air and then pound back down onto the table to emphasize her point. Quentin starts a little and looks up at her wild-eyed.

“Jane is pretty sure at this point that the Beast knows something about what’s happening, but she doesn’t know how much. She says he can’t do anything to stop the loops, but he’s aware that time is going around in circles. She says, he knows someone named ‘Quentin Coldwater’ is coming to try and kill him. And we know he’s been in Penny’s head since he was a kid or something. Jane doesn’t have that in the book – so either it’s a new thing, or she doesn’t know about it or she hasn’t written in down or something. I don’t even understand how he’s reaching Penny so far in the past, when Jane can’t reset the loop that far back. Whatever he’s doing, eventually the Beast is going to figure everything out, if he hasn’t already. He’ll kill Jane, get the watch, and then we will all die horribly again, but this time it’ll be permanent.”

“Jules–”

“Q, listen to me – this whole thing is insane. I know you love Jane – I know you love the idea of Jane. I know you love the attention, the mystical dreams, the cryptic clues, and as Eliza she seems to be helping you, helping both of us, but we can’t let her keep doing this.”

“B–”

“There’s no way we can ever beat the Beast. We’re students, we’re barely trained. Brakebills doesn’t exactly emphasize how to kill all-powerful god-like magicians in the first-year curriculum. We aren’t heroes! There is nothing special about us! I don’t know why she thinks we can ever win with the skills we learn here in the amount of time we have–”

“Julia–”

“Q, Jane’s a monster just as much as the Beast. He kills us, but she’s the one who sends us to die every time. We need to get that watch and get as far away from both of them as we can, or we’re going to do all of this forever.”

“You know, you’re perfectly correct, Julia.”

Julia takes a breath and moves to speak, but she can’t. She’s frozen, everything is frozen. She can see Quentin across from her, stuck with his eyes lifted up to gaze above and behind her. He’s staring at someone, and from the voice Julia knows it must be Jane, standing right behind her, out of sight.

Jane comes around into Julia’s field of view, dragging a chair behind her. There’s a booming squeal as it scrapes harshly against the floor that echoes through the hushed library, until it’s positioned at the short end of the table. Then silence returns, pressing at their ears.

Julia finds that she can move her eyes to focus on the woman as she sits between Quentin and herself, but the rest of her body is locked tight. She can’t breathe, but it doesn’t seem to matter – there’s none of the panic that comes from suffocation. Mixed blessings. Jane purses her lips and looks at each of them in turn. There’s nothing in her manner to suggest that frozen time is anything out of the ordinary. They might as well be having tea.

“We have such a terribly limited amount of time to train you all before we arrive back at the Beast’s door.�� There’s a note of sadness in Jane’s voice and then, an audible sigh. “Maybe the time has finally come to look further afield for how best to prepare you all for the inevitable.”

“It’s probably a bad idea to remove all of you from Brakebills at the same time,” Jane muses. “Perhaps an infusion of street magic is just what we need to shake things up a bit. I’m probably relying too much on Ivy education to do all the work, but maybe we add a bit of adversity into the mix…” She pauses for a moment, lost in thought, completely ignoring the panicked, pleading look in Quentin’s eyes. “You’re obviously the best candidate for a first try, Julia. I’m quite certain you’ll land on your feet. Quentin… Eliot… Penny – I don’t know that they’ll be able to truly blossom amongst the hedges, as you undoubtedly will. And if it doesn’t work, well, you’ll have laid the groundwork for others to join you the next time we try.”

“Besides,” she continues, “your relationship needs a little shaking up I think. You two are far too dependent on each other. ‘Joined at the hip’ indeed. Both of you need some space I think, some time to wander off the garden path a bit. Quentin in particular, you’re much too willing to run straight at your doom, ready to play the hero. Why don’t we see what you can do without Julia there to prop you up, mm?”

Jane stands and pulls at her blouse to straighten it. Brushes imaginary lint or dust from her thick grey pencil skirt. Neatly pushes her chair under the table. Moments seem to stretch to hours as they sit frozen. Julia looks at Quentin, memorizing his face, but his eyes never meet hers. He’s too busy staring at Jane, begging her with his eyes.

She reaches into the slim brown bag at her side and there it is: the watch.

Jane looks down at them, each in turn. “Don’t look so glum, you two. I have every faith in Julia’s ability to work things out. After all, you’ve been smart enough to figure out the time loops three times so far. And the Carmichael’s line was a genius little trick. I knew it was there, of course, almost as soon as you cast it – Carmichael’s leaks like a sieve if you know where to look, and with the way things are, I’m always looking. But still, excellent use of a spell outside it’s intended purpose. I only wish you’d put all that brain power to use getting ready for the real confrontation,” she sighs, and waves a hand through the air. “Doesn’t matter now, I suppose. I thought it best to allow you both some time to discuss, rather than just resetting things straight away. I confess, I was curious to see if you’d have any useful critiques of my techniques, but…” Her eyes fall away from them. “Anyway, enough chitchat, we’ve got a long road ahead of us, and Beasts to slay before we sleep.”

Jane hums quietly to herself as she fiddles with the watch, positioning the dials and gears just so, before setting the timepiece on the table. She takes a deep breath and begins to move through the complex fingering of the spell, hands fluttering like birds above the watch.

“There is one thing you got wrong, Julia. I never send any of you die. I want nothing more than for you all to emerge victorious,” Jane says, face broadening into a smile. First it’s just a quirk of the lips, but it grows into a bright flash of teeth. “The unfortunate truth is, all of you keep mucking everything up. Do try harder this time, won’t you?”

Quentin finally tears his eyes from Jane to meet Julia’s across the table. They watch each other as the world fades to grey.

#welterssubmissions #the welters challenge #the magicians #fic #not on AO3 yet #week three

26 notes · View notes

nofomoartworld · 7 years

Text

Hyperallergic: Beer with a Painter: Emily Cheng

Emily Cheng, “Stupa Axis” (2016), flashe on canvas, 84 x 78 inches (all images courtesy the artist)

I feel quieted in Emily Cheng’s studio — to the point where I wondered, afterwards, if I’d even posed questions. A fountain is gurgling, and she has set out beer and snacks. The paintings invite reflection more than commentary. I had visited her studio more than 10 years ago, and at the time felt that she was a painter whose work fell outside the buzz around contemporary art; looking back, I feel as if she has been gently challenging us for years.

The forms in her paintings are suggestive of the most primary elements: the landscape; the body; religious iconography. Large circular and floral forms are often positioned symmetrically on her canvases. These forms radiate outward into planetary orbs, tendrils, and vertebrae-like networks. However, many passages are stranger, more imaginary, and less regular than one might expect: dreamy, painterly occurrences that can be bodily and abstract.

The paintings have a lightness in tone and surface quality, but they are forceful in their suggestion of movement. They seem to chart energy channels, and push us into spaces that can’t quite be articulated or described.

Emily Cheng in the studio (2015) (photo credit by Wolf-Dieter Stoeffelmeier)

Cheng lives and works in New York City. She received her BFA in painting in 1975 from the Rhode Island School of Design and studied at the New York Studio School for three years. She has had solo exhibitions at The Bronx Museum, Winston Wachter Fine Art, and Bravin Post Lee Gallery, New York. She has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei; Hanart Gallery, Hong Kong; the Ayala Museum, Manila, Philippines; Zane Bennett Gallery, Santa Fe; Byron Cohen Gallery, Kansas City; and Schmidt Dean Gallery, Philadelphia.

* * *

Jennifer Samet: What was your introduction to art and painting? Did you start drawing or making art as a child?

Emily Cheng: I can remember that as a small child, I was happy if you parked my stroller in front of a wall with peeling paint. There are family photographs where everyone else is looking at the camera, and I am looking down at the snow. I was mesmerized by the different colors of the sparkles in the snow. These things still fascinate me — when I see special paint splotches on the sidewalk, I record them on my cellphone.

In the fifth grade, I started oil painting and looking at images of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Manet. I also saw abstract painting for the first time: de Kooning, early Guston and Pollock. My father loved Western painting, so art was always part of my everyday life. There was no question of what I was going to do.

Emily Cheng, “Into Pink” (2016), flashe on canvas, 84 x 78 inches

JS: You got your BFA from Rhode Island School of Design but also studied at the New York Studio School. I remember that Nicolas Carone was an important teacher for you. Can you tell me about him?

EC: Yes, Nick Carone was the teacher who had the most influence on me. He talked about the image. All of his students heard overlapping and different things from him. What I heard was that there is a potential for unseen things — an implied image — in painting. There is a possibility for that image to have power, which can resonate long after you’ve stopped looking at the painting.

I also remember Leland Bell, as a visiting artist at RISD, giving a lecture on a Chardin painting. Before his lecture, the Chardin was just a still life with a little dog. As Leland talked about it, it became a superhighway running in different directions, with all kinds of passages and ways to move through it. It opened up and became three-dimensional — dynamic.

I studied with Leland and Elaine de Kooning for a summer session in Paris. We spent a lot of time in museums and we would be trailed by museum-goers, picking up interested people along the way. Leland was a beautiful enthusiast of the joy of paintings. He spoke about artists who were not so popular, like Raoul Dufy.

Bell opened me up to structure in painting. When you go through a Chardin with Leland, he is not talking about composition, he’s talking about structure. Structure is bones, the spine; composition is where you place and arrange things.

If you want to think about structure in drawing you can think about Giacometti. Giacometti was all about making the unseen connections spatially connect. Things have many relational points. That also influenced how I thought about the body when I left school.

Emily Cheng, “CosmicHead3” (2017), flashe on canvas, 47 x 35 inches

JS: How does your work relate to ideas about the body?

EC: A lot of my work has to do with how we reside in our bodies, how our bodies relate to gravity, and how we can (or cannot) connect to the universe. It is about the subtle body.

A lot of what I’m painting doesn’t exist in the visible world. So, to capture its enormity and its suggestive power, you have to be able to go into your imagination, which is not always cooperative. You pull out what you can from it. I want to tap into some kind of energy that can’t be named, or that hasn’t been visualized. Silence is the moment when I see the next step, or an image waiting to materialize.

That is why I don’t listen to music when I’m painting. The way I explain it to my students is that when you have music playing in your studio, you have two artists in the room. But one artist is already articulating much more clearly than you are. It’s the same if you listen to books on tape or the radio. I understand that some people need to be out of their thinking minds. I get that. But I’m not thinking much when I’m quiet. I am listening to being.

JS: Your work can also have a map-like or diagrammatic aspect. It also often plays with symmetry — with geometric forms and symbols radiating out from the center. Can you talk about that?

EC: I’m very attracted to diagrams and maps because I like the correlation between going through something in your mind, and the physical activity of moving through that space. When you look at a map of a city you are running a system through your mind. Then you go into the city and you relive that template, that configuration.

The interest in symmetry goes back to the experience of being dyslexic, and it has to do with the standing body. Recently I was amazed to find that even in my paintings from the early 1980s, I was thinking about the body, symmetry, and Chakra-like points. I didn’t know anything about chakras back then. I was just creating a point system for the standing body. Then I took this whole other odyssey of working with planets, centers, and arabesques that were very non-symmetrical and gestural. Now I find myself back in symmetry.

I see the paintings as templates for the body, and if they were asymmetrical, they wouldn’t feel like the body. They are also about bodies in the world and universe. About ten years ago when I was working on a book, I was flying back and forth to China. There was something about flying halfway around the world, so many times per year, that I started thinking about what that meant and felt like — being above the world, detached from the planet for a short period of time. Every religious tradition discusses death as being above the world, or out of the world. It gives you a long vision of history, life, the planet.

JS: Recently, you have been exhibiting frequently in China. Can you talk about how your work is tied to your Chinese-American identity, and how that may have evolved over your career?

Emily Cheng, “Feeling at Home” (2016), flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

EC: Growing up in the suburbs as an American, with Chinese parents, I accepted everything for what it was. In the 1990s, people started talking about their roots. I thought it would be very interesting to go back into Chinese culture and examine it. I found some Buddhist cave paintings that were really outside of my own experience. This began my studies into Chinese art.

As far as identity goes, when I started traveling to China, and reading sociological studies of the differences between Americans and Chinese, I would observe certain characteristics, and think, “Actually, that part of me is very Chinese.”

I began reading Buddhist and Taoist texts. After I got over my aversion to Confucianism’s sexism, I thought Confucius had a lot to contribute as well. He is very interesting socially and politically, in context with Lao-Tzu.

I was looking at a lot of Buddhist art, Silk Route painting and court figure painting, which is very different from the tradition of ink painting. Lately I’ve been looking a lot at Chinese landscape painting. In the past, I never thought landscape painting had anything to do with my own work. It is so much about the lexicon of a particular style of brushwork. Now I feel really lucky to have that link to another tradition — one in which the vastness of landscape can be expressed through the gesture of the mark.

I found out six years ago that I am related to Lin Yutang, the 20th-century writer. He wrote annotated translations of Lao-Tzu and Confucius, as well as his own ideas of living. I love how Buddhism addresses the very mental aspects of the self-consciousness, perceptions of reality, community, and one’s role in the world. The Tao gets you to look and think about yourself as a physical body in flow with the greater universe. So, together, it is quite rich.

I try to separate the institution from the original texts or ideas. In working on my Charting Sacred Territories project, I wanted to trace all this rich imagery that we have inherited from the world’s greatest religions and to show the complex interconnectivity and genealogies of each religion — branches of sects, denominations, and groups. There, you can’t help bump into the whole structure of institutions. That’s what they are. And the institutions are often at the root of our problems today. But the devotional and philosophic aspects of religion, at its best, are beautiful.

It was the same thing that made me gravitate to certain Renaissance paintings when I first traveled to Europe. Some paintings are just above and beyond others. Some paintings of Madonna and Child are sublime, while others are run of the mill.

JS: So you tie the success or sublime quality in painting to the devotional interests of the artist? That is so interesting.

EC: I can’t prove it, but yes. In some cases, the painter tapped into ideas larger than the commission. Maybe they saw the universal qualities of the mother and child and were able to express it through form in an inspired, touching way. It is difficult to talk about, because art historians generally approach Renaissance painting in an iconographic way. That is how they are trained. This discussion includes concepts of auras, and things that can’t be seen, but only felt. Our rational minds resist that, but a fresh eye can see it.

I will say that when a painting clicks, it is something akin to that devotional feeling. It is something greater than the self. That is when it makes the ultimate connection. Not every painting does that. That’s why, for me, a painting that works is so beside the point. If it doesn’t have that click, that energy, that force, then to me, it is nothing. It’s just another painting that works.

I don’t start with a concept; I start with a feeling. If that feeling is prevalent enough, it will manifest into an image. These are things that are not easy to paint, and it’s not part of our daily experience to think about them.

I have never thought of my work, or any artwork for that matter, as a reflection of our society or our culture. To me, that’s just like adding more junk into the junk. I am probably making these paintings at a particular time and place for very particular reasons. I am always thinking about the timeline from 20,000 BCE to the present. I want to be in the dialogue of all time, and not just my time.

Emily Cheng, “Hinterglem II” (2016), flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

JS: You utilize a vocabulary of different kinds of painterly marks: lines, dots, arabesques and other gestural brushstrokes, even drips. How do these come together in your work, and how are they related to different painting traditions: Eastern and Western?

EC: I have recently returned, in my work, to joining the templates and the systems with gestural marks. For a decade, for me, gesture only existed in drapery and drips. I started working again with gesture through ink on paper. I was doing a residency in DaWang, China, and the artist who had the studio before me left a lot of cheap paper and black ink.

I had never really thought I had the right to work in that medium, because I am Chinese-American and don’t write calligraphy or even read the characters. But I was staying in a fairly remote place, in the mountains just above a little village. It gave me the freedom to pick up this ink and paper and experiment.

At first I started making drawings of statues — early, small Greek and Cypriot bronzes I had seen at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. I was trying to find a way into these mute figures, these strange little statues behind glass. I felt that they retained a lot to offer us in this contemporary time.

By painting them, I found a way into their being by loosening up the gesture. Ink led me to freeing up the mark and feeling that it could become part of my repertoire again. That was something I hadn’t done in decades, really.

Now I think of gesture and line as something that can work together, in and around each other. Drapery in Renaissance painting is so tactile. In Chinese figural paintings, the lines are about spirit. The figures walk with swirling drapery flowing behind. It is a way to animate and bring life to the figure portrayed. So it’s the difference between the eye moving through form and space tactilely and sensually, and the felt spirit moving through line.

With line, you can move through the painting at breakneck speed. The dots slow the eye down, like an ellipsis, a pause, so that you are not doing a “drive-by” on a painting. We are conditioned to size things up very quickly. When you can slow the eye down, it is always a good thing.

Emily Cheng, “After Shen Shicong 4” (2017), flashe on canvas, 35 x 47 inches

I’ve always loved drips in painting. Drips announce that it is a painting and bring the viewer into the experience of the moment it was made. That visceral connection is a joy ride.

I don’t feel like I am building on one tradition, because that would mean being an adherent. I have an allergy to that. I am finding my way in the dark. If I find a few little things to hold on to, along the way, I’m very happy for the experience. I’m open to many kinds of traditions and practices, which overlap. Finding the connections between them is what interests me. We don’t have to pick and choose one thing, or be monogamous in that sense. Life is too short.

The post Beer with a Painter: Emily Cheng appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2sBbD3J via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hyperallergic

1 note · View note