The Amorous Armadillo Complaint Thread
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It feels odd being on the other side of the office. But it feels nice to once again have enough space to lay out a map. Still have a bit of stuff to decide where to put them
snippet drop, i think this is the final draft.
words without renders, it's almost a why bother :lol:
Year of our Realm 213 :: Calendar Day forgotten
A man twenty five years young knelt on one knee, a shiny dagger held in both hands with the pointy end touched to his torso. Winds swept the rocky outcropping, grappled with his long hair, would have brushed tears on his face had he been crying. He looked back over his shoulder at the small building atop the bluff, porch lights lit the doors of the shelter, it was closed up tight. No ships hovered in the sky. There was no one to see him. A fresh play of lighting lit up his dagger blade, he studied it as a beautiful thing to admire. He rocked back and sat on the muddy ground, his clothes soaked through and through. "So, here we are again," he spoke aloud, speaking to a memory, his voice choked on tears that would not come.
His memory focused on another rain filled night, another planet, the very same dagger in hand. He strayed down that memory like looking through a camera lens, down a long tunnel.
Sixteen years ago, he'd crouched on a beach at the edge of the tide, the blade of the dagger held flat against his forearm. No tears back then, either. In the waning moonlit dark he glanced at the scars on his upper arms. He made an effort to release his emotions in tears, but nothing came. Present self and past self, he turned his face skyward, the rain wet his face like rivulets of tears. All he had to do was the turn the dagger, to push the sharp edge into his wrist, and he'd be free from life and misery.
Playing the memory forward, he started using the dagger to carve his name in the smooth sand, 'Here stood Garren'. He'd chewed his lip and erased part of his name. The name his father had given him. He'd written 'Karen', refusing his given name as one final defiance.
In the present, Garren used the dagger to chisel at the mud, 'Here sat Karen'.
In the past, a gruff male voice had called out, "lad, come in now. It's not safe with fleet ships and dragons tearing up the sky." His past self had looked out to sea. The Emperor's ships were out to force a treaty with some faceless unknown, the sky fleet was too far away, mingled with the storm lights weren't discernable as ships or dragon fire.
"Come on in lad," the gruff voice had drawn nearer.
Younger Garren/Karen looked up to see a guard approaching. His hesitation had undone him, the guard would find help before he could bleed out from his wrists. He stood and shifted the dagger in his hand to brandish it.
"Woah lad? Calm down. Come on, now. Are you upset about something? It'll be alright. Come on in. We have hot food and chocolate and warm blankets inside. Everything will be fine, come on in now." The guard coaxed, his arm out to the boy. "Hey now." The guard flinched as the dagger pointed toward him.
Past and present Garren/Karen caught a reflection of his own emotionally ravaged face in the surface of the dagger blade as more lightning illuminated the night. He blinked rapidly under the onslaught of light on his retinas. In the past, he waved the blade again to drive the guard back.
The guard didn't move to defend. "Hold on there, lad, I'm going to get some help for you. Calm down, now." The guard turned as a two-man seacraft had parked at the beach jetty. The owners were huddled in their weather gear, making their way toward the guard station.
Garren sheathed his dagger and took the opportunity of distraction to run to the beach. He approached the seacraft, ducking low to the waves. The undertow dragged at his legs, but not enough to drag him under. He climbed into the craft from the rear, the dimly lit cabin had barely room for two full sized humans. He'd ridden in small craft before and the controls were basic, a start button and a double bar grip for a steering control. Alarm lights were glaring to show something about the craft was malfunctioning. Well, that would explain why the owners had made an emergency stop in the middle of nowhere. He hoped they wouldn't be able to come after him, the Emperor's sky battle had most of the planet under curfew that night. He poked the start button, pushed the throttle control, and steered towards the vast expanse of the sea. He didn't need to steer, the craft kept the direction he'd started it in. Orange lights fluttered, desperately trying to alert him to the seacraft's problems.
He petted the dagger in it's sheathe. He didn't need to be brave and use his dagger. The sea would take him, it didn't care if he were brave or terrified, good or evil, old or young, loved or unloved. Eventually, the rain cleared, or he'd passed the edges of the storm. The waves were rough, the seacraft tossed and he held tight to a cabinet handle. He'd left the rear ramp open and sea water splashed into the cabin. The stabilizers stopped the craft from rocking or sinking. Through the window, he could see the lights of sky ships. They had to be huger than any ship he'd ever seen to be visible from this distance.
Despite everything, he felt hungry, another thing he would never have to feel again. He closed his eyes and deliberately let go of his grip on the handle. The next wave rushed into the cabin and Garren made his hands into fists, so that he wouldn't grab on to anything. The next influx of water knocked him off his feet and the sea carried him away. He gasped from the cold and violence of the heaving wave. The little seacraft traveled on alone, leaving him to die. He couldn't help it, he fought to keep afloat. All of a sudden, it was quiet. He was under. He tried to deliberately give away his last breath, but survival instincts kicked in and he fought to keep it. His lungs were hurting. That was when the glowing came.
A light that lit the sea swallowing him whole showed him something big coming toward him from above. Something very big had a hard limb under him and drew him up. He gasped, hurting, as his choking lungs filled with air. He put his arms up to hold on to the thing holding him. It was big and warm, the arm was longer than his body. Great big splashes missed him as they rose into the air. Lifting without aid of the dragon's wings, when they rose clear of the sea, the dragon then spread it's wings. Garren pressed his face into the chest of the blue dragon. He wasn't even upset at being rescued, the thrill of being carried by a dragon was a thrill like nothing he'd ever known. The only blue dragon he'd ever heard about was the Emperor. The Emperor had left his sky ships to come rescue him, it had to be true, because it was happening.
The Emperor's dragon wings were glowing like stained glass windows in sun rays. Garren was looking at the scar on his arm as the light of the Emperor Dragon's healing powers bathed him, the scar diminished.
He held tightly to the dragon as the dragon cradled him against it's chest. The only downer to the memory, he was being carried toward the same guard station he'd run away from earlier. He arched his back in the dragon's arms to let his head loll back and feel the wind pull his hair, to look at the world upside down. He loosed his hold on the dragon, letting his hands, feet, and limbs hang loosely, the only thing saving him from a plunge to his death was the dragon's good intentions.
The memory faded and present day Garren felt his face warm from that memory. Remembering the people at the guard station had called him Karen, until his father had showed up to claim him. The scar on one arm had completely healed, the other retained a faint scar line.
A voice in the present called out over the wind. "Garren, what, by the vale, are you doing out here on suicide bluff?" It was Barett. "Do you have your dagger out to write in the mud?" A pause. "You wrote ... 'Karen sat here'? Did you accidentally sit and squish a faerie here?" The voice was colored by a sardonic humor.
Garren opened his eyes, but didn't raise them. The sound of whooshing wings made him look up after all. A black dragon sat at the edge of the rocky outcropping, wings fully extended; as if guarding the precipice.
Garren turned to look at Barett, met dark blue eyes, wordless.
Barett's short dark hair plastered by the rain, eyelashes laden with rain beads, condescending expression softened perhaps by something on Garren's face. He knelt in front of Garren. "Pay attention and listen for once. They aren't going to send you back. They've agreed to let you finish your guard training here on Celeste Terra. With luck and some conniving, we may never have to return to our home planet."
In this moment, in this time, Garren couldn't hold back a sob. Barett put out a hand to grip Garren on the shoulder. The black dragon made a deep breath noise sounding like a whinny. If the black dragon's job was to stop people on suicide bluff, it didn't have a reputation for doing a good job of it.
Bird is Android fan? :)
Maybe bird was updating FB status :lol: Whoa the fog is slowly getting thicker so is like twilight here right now.
...I would think he was replying to a "tweet" he didn't like. ;-)
quote cut for brevity
Thanks, that explanation helped. The pagckage went to Indianapolis, IN before going to Dulles, VA.
too tired to type anything more. maybe I'll render women in skimpy outfits now. Bye
...and here last night I was rendering slender sinister women in leather trench coats and ushankas.
...yes.
...hmmm, sounds like the beginnings of a good pic.
...now where's Urban Sprawl2 and the Fog Tool?
...uh oh, they're circling him.
...fairies
...circles
...this could be good or bad.
...the little buggers are cute though.
...crikey site or feed slowing to a crawl again. I love sitting here looking a a tab for several minutes that just says "Connecting".
...there are no such things as "gratuitous tentacles". ;-)
Been designing more characters for the story (hence the comment earlier about slender women in leather trench coats). Currently working the lead antagonist, Ms Rita Kovec, who is head of the S.I.D. (State Intelligence Directorate) which basically runs the Serbian regime (which occupies both Croatia and Bosnia-Herzogovina) in the future. Maleficent has nothing on her when it comes to pure evilness and she's even make the likes of Stalin and her "mentor" Mr. Milošević wince.
...Friday...will really feel like "Friday" for me again in a couple weeks.
Complaints:
--Hate spamming the forum everyday like this as I am only online for a limited time.
--Had to wait for a place to plug in and get online. Usual table (one of the few with an outlet) was taken by someone texting on their iPhone and listening to tunes (that iPhone battery holds a far longer charge than my poor old notebook battery does and there were other places to sit).
--Threat of rain for Monday. Been hot and dry all month with little going on and now that I have an outdoor event I am to participating in (a holiday BBQ where I will be grilling up some of my special steakburgers) of course rain has to creep into the forecast, just for that one day. Tuesday into rest of the week and the next weekend it will be sunny and nice again. I feel cursed!
Non Complaints:
--Weather more normal for this time of year. Should be the last of the 90s we see until next summer.
--Been nice to wake up and only see a handful of emails in the inbox every morning again.
--Both backup QBs for Green Bay looked good last night, each tossing 2 touchdown passes in a 34 - 14 rout of Kansas City. Going to be tough to decide which one stays on the roster. Opener against Seattle next Thursday.
--and more Football, #14 Wisconsin at #13 LSU Tomorrow. This ought to be a heck of a game. Would be huge for the Badgers to beat a top SEC team and great way to start the season.
Morning. Whoa pea soup foggy and dead quiet broken only by a few plaintive crow calls from somewhere high above so far today :)
...I prefer my Pea Soup Fog with Bacon. Bacon makes everything better. ;-)
Parents bought a laptop computer: Intel i7 2.5 GHz with 12 GB of memory. I installed Daz Studio and Vue 11 Pioneer on it. Now my parents want me to restore the computer to the factory defaults because they messed up the system. I offered to only reinstall the system software but they want me to wipe everything including the 3D graphics programs and documents. Uhh... wiping the whole hard drive and personal settings is a bit extreme. :gulp:
Corrected personal documents to settings.
I hope my parents have a backup of their documents.
...definitely rant worthy. Bugger, that is almost as powerful as my workstation.
Backup all your documents and scenes first.
I am so sleepy I want to go to bed.
only downside about the laptop is that is has Intel 4600 graphics that is slower than my Nvidia Geforce 630. Ick. I didn't have a chance to copy 80 GB worth of Daz and Poser files to the laptop yet.
I am going to go look for my tooth brush. Good night. I will do my best to not get back on the computer after I brush my teeth.
...yeah, about 8:30 local time there. I tend to get a little sleepy myself around that time, sometimes earlier (especially after a big dinner).
Speaking of which need to go soon and make that "big dinner" (Cajun fish again, too good of a deal this week at the market).
Very interesting story so far!
Dana
...yeah the Intel integrated graphics are a pain. I remember the viewport on my old notebook becoming very sluggish and "skittish" (one small move would sometimes swing the camera completely around the scene). when even a "small" Stonemason set was loaded. Odd though that the old Intel chipset in my notebook supported more lights in the viewport (14) than I the nVidia GPU in my bigger system (only 8). Of course while it has no bearing on the finished rendered scene it is nice sometime to get an idea of how the lights will affect the scene before committing to (and waiting for) the render process.
Thought the Armadillo ought to get out for some excitement :lol:
that's amore-ayy :)
Hope the Armadillo story has a happy ending ! :)
Looks like she has a bird stuck to her head, too! Must be a Brit...they love their weird hats! :lol:
Dana
Is a (dead) swan I think http://www.daz3d.com/yolande-hair
Bigger sounds good, my studio has a north facing window wall overlooking our garden and keeping me happy, spent far too much time in boring sunless booths and cubes :lol:
whoa cliffhanger, literally Oscar Mike Golf ! Histories and tunnels seem to go real well together, like draggy's and people :)
...hmmm, sounds like the beginnings of a good pic.
...now where's Urban Sprawl2 and the Fog Tool?[/quote
Am really bad at big atmospheric shots, gots to get some practise in real bad so...maybe :)
Sun is boiling off this morning's fog right now with a bit of luck there will be sunbeams later :)
Extreme computing :lol:
eta temporary end of spammage :)
Very interesting story so far!
Dana
thanks :)
dad wants me to restore the laptop for a second time. why?? Windows 8 will have almost the exact same settings that it does now. Later I will need to reinstall Open Office, Firefox, Daz Studio and Vue Pioneer again. bad day. can't do any renders on my fast computers the rest of the day.
argg... wasted 3 hours for nothing! dad misunderstood the control panel. I tried to convince him that I didn't need to restore the PC twice. ok.. going to bed early because I have a headache from a cold.