Facets of Fantasy: Sisters

Agnes rolled up her sleeve and stuck a bare, grease-spattered arm into the machinery. Fingers closed around the misplaced wrench – a critical moment. Yank too hard, the cogs would break. Move too slow, she'd lose a hand. One.

Two.

Three.

With a grating metallic noise, wrench and arm and girl pulled free of the machinery, and the cogs began their slow, halting grind. The clock was running again.

“That looked dangerous.”

She turned around, startled, dropping the wrench. A tall apparition appeared before her, a terrifying woman in a charred school uniform. The skirt was riddled with holes, the blouse stained with something yellow and vaguely fluorescent. The stockings sagged in tatters around legs that seemed to have been viciously seared, and the same went for the arms, wrapped in bandages.

“Sis. You scared me.”

“That's why I waited.”

The taller girl sat down, looking into the gears as the clock went back up to speed, automatically adjusting itself with the Storm Astrolabe. It would soon have made up for lost time.

“You won an award, Agnes. Top of the class in Storm Lore.”

“This year too? Huh.”

Agnes wiped her hands on a piece of rough sackcloth, leaving only the rest of her completely covered in grease, from her round glasses to her shoes. She was dressed more practically, in worker's coveralls, with her hair cropped. Skirts and long hair were for people who didn't have to worry about getting dragged into the clockwork's innards. Like her sister.

“I couldn't make it. Clock needed fixing.”

“Right away?”

“It runs almost everything in Eisenkrone, you know. Including the scheduling. Somehow.” She paused, looking Amanda over. “...what happened to you?”

“Alchemy accident. I won an award too, but I didn't want to go there like this.”

“Which one?”

“Top of the class in Storm Lore.”

“This year too?”

“Mm.”

 They sat at the door of the clocktower, gazing out over the school. They didn't sit too close together. They both knew how the chemicals would react with the grease.  

Facets of Fantasy: An Ugly City

The skyline of New York twinkled, each little light bursting like a supernova straight into his eyes. Distant cars roared and honked in his ears, the exhaust mingling with the smell of sex in his nostrils, drifting from the apartment right behind him – from his own skin. He closed his eyes. New York wouldn't go away. It never did.

Three apartments over, a man hit his wife. Six apartments over, someone dropped their cellphone in the toilet, and swore. Thirteen apartments over a woman was crying. In Brooklyn, a cop shot a kid.

She came up behind him, a hand on his back. A jolt went through him, as he made his blood course through his body again. He hadn't heard her. Too busy taking in New York.

Now she was there, and he turned towards her. Brown tangled hair around an asymmetrical face, with a mouth that seemed twisted into a perpetual sneer. Dry lips, goop in her eyes, remnants of mascara clinging to her lashes. He smelled her breath, and with it, her six last meals and the exact time she'd been sleeping. He smelled what had become of those meals. And, of course, he smelled her blood, just beneath her skin.

“Harper. Moping again?”

“I'm afraid so, Miss Lennox. New York is such an ugly city, full of ugly people.”

She read his mind. He turned away, but too late. She was hurt.

“Do I really look like that?”

“All humans do.”

They were silent. He was naked, aware of the cold winter wind playing over his body but seeing no reason to care. She was wrapped in a sheet, her feet bare and cold on the balcony.

“What the fuck's the point, then? Why sleep with a stinking bag of body fluids, when you could be banging the Queen?”

Harper laughed. “First of all, one doesn't 'bang' the Queen of Vampires. But you have a valid point.”

He turned around to face her. His pale chiseled face sank into an expression of utter melancholy, his deep eyes searching hers. Licking his dry lips with a dry tongue, dry, always dry except when he had fed, he began to speak:

“-in all my endless years, haunted, tormented by my undying state, I've walked the Earth, in search of true love, in search of-”

She burst out laughing. It exploded in his ears, shattering the sounds of New York and any illusion of a romantic, immortal vampire. Suddenly he was just a naked guy on a balcony, looking rather stupid in the chilly night. Harper Anderson smiled, not the cool, sexy smile of an undying predator – but the awkward smile of a man being laughed at by his girlfriend.

“And that's why. I'm, uh... going to put some trousers on. Fetch me a beer, would you? Anything but that American stuff. I swear it tastes exactly like piss.”

The Waking Dead

And then one day, I woke up.

That's how it felt. Mid-sentence, almost, the latter half of a sentence that had taken me – how long? Five years, ten maybe? I don't know. I woke up to this wasteland, a place where the clocks had stopped, the lights were dead, the cities blown-out carcasses. Nobody there to keep track, not that I know if anyone could. World's gone crazy.

I musta killed people. I mean, I must have. If nothing else, I must've turned them. Made them... like us. You know? I even woke up with meat in my stomach. Heh. Brains, maybe. You know, like in the old movies? But I don't know what they eat. What I... ate. I don't think they're picky. They don't seem to be. They just eat.

That's why, I guess, there aren't a lot of them. Most people never have time to get infected. Most people just die, ripped apart by the damn things. Like my friends were. Like I nearly was. But I, well, I was a coward. They shoulda put a bullet in by brain, but I never told them about that bite in my arm. It's healed, now – there's barely even a scar. I must have been under for a very long time. Last thing I remember, my head was swimming with a fever, and now- boom! Here I am. Mid-sentence. Somewhere. The city's called Fullerton, but the state, I've no idea. Indiana, maybe, judging by the plates on most of the cars. No idea how I got here – I must have migrated, with the rest, in search of more prey.

They're different, nowadays. No more mass migrations. No more mass anything. I suppose they must have run out of fresh meat, because the ones that's left, well... they're eating each other. You might have noticed. I'm surprised there are even any left.

But then there's me. I didn't get eaten. I got infected, just a bite, just a tiny little scratch – and then I died, and then I got better.

Nobody thought this was something you got better from. And what do I know? Maybe I'm the only one. But I'm alive.

I'll stay alive. Those idiot things don't seem to know about canned food, and the survivalists left behind plenty. Crazy as it seems, they ran out of bullets 'fore they ran out of beans. Poor suckers must have been swarmed from all sides by those things – by me. By us.

Well, that's how I got all this stuff. I found the shotgun, though it doesn't have no shells, and the shovel, and the chair, and the handcuffs. Thank God for the handcuffs. I don't know how I woulda gotten you in here without them. Risky enough, using myself as bait, and well... I don't want to have to kill you.

Please, fucking fuck you please, say something.

No?

I can't be the only one. You're in there, I know you are.

So wake.

The fuck.

Up.

Planet of Hats

We solved starvation. It was actually the last problem to go, despite how the technology had been around for ages - it was a matter of distribution, that was all. We'd worked out diseases, crime, climate change, et cetera, and now the final problem had been cracked; nobody needed to go hungry. We were done.

And, being done, we started questioning ourselves.

What would we do next? What else could our species possibly accomplish? We focused on entertainment, for a while - but it grew stale. We figured we'd work on technology, but without any real incentive to better ourselves, we invented nothing of consequence. We thought, perhaps, that we could focus on exploring the stars... but then it happened. We don't know who started it - someone, somewhere, just had an idea, and it spread like a wildfire.

Our civilization had gotten bored. It needed a hobby. It needed, desperately, some means of occupying itself, and so it invented one. It could have been anything, the Project, but this is what we chose. Who knows why?

It wasn't ubiquitous at first - not everyone joined the fad - but over time, over the course of generations, it began to change. It was the grandest project yet - the grandest project ever - a complete reinvention of ourselves. Every single member of our species, working together on an all-encompassing, planet-wide effort to change ourselves - not into something better, just into something different.

Centuries later, the travellers arrived. By then, we had forgotten. Only the Project remained. And so, when they arrived, we greeted them as we had always greeted, spoke as we had always spoke. As had always been our custom - as long as anyone could remember.

"Howdy, pardner. Welcome to the Wild West Planet - yee-haw!"

The Artful Narrowness of Taste

Recently I've been thinking about my old brain-spectre, Quality, again. Briefly put, I've been wondering - for a very long time - how the quality of art can be measured. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yet you can teach objective principles of painting, music, writing, et cetera - so obviously there is some objective mechanic at work. This is a conundrum.

Here is, I think, another piece of the puzzle: Narrowness. Let's illustrate with an example.

What is going on here? Simply put - the first picture is very well-made, requiring a great amount of skill - but it's not very narrow. It's an old woman and a dog. People have seen a great many pictures of old women and a great many pictures of dogs. Furthermore, humans have a strong sense of tribalism - and there's nothing tribal whatsoever about the first picture. It's (almost) universally human.

The second picture, on the other hand, pertains to a subculture. Not only does that make it a little more original, but it also speaks to a particular tribe. The picture says "I, the artist, have something in common with you, the viewer" - assuming the viewer, then, is a fan of rainow-fox-dog-things. Which we can presume a lot of those 145 people are.

Two forces are at work here. Firstly, the second picture is competing against a much smaller pool. There are fewer pictures pertaining to its subculture than there are pictures pertaining to old women. Second, and I think more importantly, the second picture sends a tribal message - it establishes a sense of connection via shared interests. Jokes are a good way to study this second phenomenon.

If I make a simple pun, it's instantly understandable to everyone who speaks English. It's extremely inclusive and, therefore, not very funny. On the other hand, if I crack a joke about that one time you and I did something, and compare it to a TV show we both love - why, I've established a strong sense of connection, and in the moment you're likely to find that hilarious. This is because it establishes a personal connection between you and I.

So! The comment "Deviantart Logic" seems to imply that someone has taken offence at this state of things. The explanation is simple: There's another subculture at work. This subculture might revolve around knowledge of advanced anatomy, drawing techniques, et cetera - an artists' subculture - or it might be based on a classical schooling, in which Michaelangelo and Leonardo are what Michaelangelo and Leonardo are to TMNT fans.

Both of these viewpoints are valid. In the former case, the person is saying "I appreciate the work that went into this picture, and feel a connection with the artist because of it". In the latter, the person is saying "I appreciate the resemblance to classical works of art, and I feel a connection with the artist because of it - as I imagine we both care deeply for the classical ideals". Whether or not this is true is, of course, irrelevant. I could (and have) write fanfiction for fandoms I do not care about in the least, and have people appreciate that work because of a perceived sense of belonging.

So - this is another little piece of the puzzle. I think it makes sense.

A Quote

“Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a personal hatred” - Wendell Berry

Fifteen - The Characters of Christmas Past

We have been:

The Raiders of the Lost Knark

Todd, the Bored Druid

Arthad, the Black Knight

Kråkmåns Höghatt, the Faithful Dwarf

Aust Galanodel, the Visionary

Vackeria, the Wild Woman

The Sleepless Fellowship

Beo, the Absurd Hero

Ling / Ree / Arepo, the God of Paradoxes

Naseef, the Man Who Should Be Dead

Freddy the Cat, the King of Tigers

Aust Skywalker, the Last of Ban Lam

The Wizards of Jalan City

Vincent Mario Giovanni Winthrop, the Entrepreneur

Luke, the Child of Misfortune

Pervoslav, the Russian Scientist

The French Thief

The Mathematician

The Vampires of Berlin

Athela, the Beautiful Beast

Dragomir Zhukov, the Rogue

Zetha, the Doll

Ulrich, the Patriot

Plus Eddie, Mr. Crane, and many others

The Rune Pilgrims

Vesper Kite, the Hero of the Empire

Wade, the Champion of Death

Sojiro Naraku, the Lovestruck Sorcerer

Ulf, the Northerner

The Fandango Four

The Ultimate Fighter

The Hybrid

The Littlest Vampire

The Fat Ninja

The Exalted of the East

Vincent Cale, the Bronze Falcon

Zaraki Kensei, the Sword Saint

Lily, the Drug Queen

Sharif, the Monster

The Guardians of Shinwa Taizen

Song Hui, the Mistress of the Mindscape

Hyun Wook, the Hopping Vampire

David Blaze, the American Samurai

The Scions of Japan

Shinichi Kurode, the Aquacop

Magnus Magnusson, Thorboy

...and Brian.

The Blood-Bearers of Quetzalcouatl

James Fleming, the Monkey Man of Mystery

Rederick von Steinberg XIII, the Faceless Rogue

Setsuna, the Ojou-sama, and Setsu, the Godchild

The Ragnarök Renegades

Simo Pohjonen, the Finnish Sniper

Yvain the Dangerous, alias Åke Björk, the Fake

The Iron Librarian

The Protectors of Ptolus

Gell, the Paladin

Lupi, the Honourable Psycho

Storm, the Wild Druid, and Logan, the Sun's Chosen

The Agents of PSI

Assistant Director Jack Hudson, the Werewolf

Special Agent Karen Lennox, the Mage

The Hope of House Tepet

Tepet Kalyna, the Princess of Creation

Tepet Taran, her Bodyguard

The Military History Club

Lloyd Wilder, the Prince of Britannia

Cecil Darashia, the Psychic Prodigy

The Kingslayers

Gabrian De Veers, the Cold Killer

Garrus, the Iron Man

The New Kardus

Gehenna, the God of Judgement

Gwendolen, the Human

…and many, many others.

May their stories live forever, and may there be still more heroes in our future.

Merry Christmas, everybody!