recklxssabandon

MULTI/CANON/OC/ROLEPLAY BLOG 25+ MUN LITERATE PARA STYLE WRITER NSFW AND WISH FULFILMENT MINORS PLEASE DNI CURRENT MAIN MUSES: KULANI/MINAMI GUIDE CURRENTLY BEING REWORKED.

[recklxssabandon]

// Well I finally went and did it, still under construction x

[recklxssabandon]

//hello friends, so I enabled two factor authentication on my O-ren account a while back and now tumblr is...not sending me a code so I can log in?

worst case scenario I shall reply from here but hopefully I can fix it x

@annalis-e--shadowofpanem

[ofcarnvge]

Um, help?

//Hello all, though this is predominantly addressed to my main rp partner x

So long story short - I misunderstood the criteria for my end of year assessment, and then my health went down the toilet (as it occasionally does) hence my month long hiatus.

The problem I’m having is I’ve sat down to write three times since hand in this week and I’m feeling this overwhelming anxiety and guilt about writing??

I adore this story and want to sink my teeth into it again but I’m just a bit mentally stuck, could someone wave at/throw a rock at me?

love rose x

[recklxssabandon]

Image of Tomorrow//Minami & Aja

@ajathings

Minami was dressed for murder, glamour and all the sin in between. When Aja stepped out of her rideshare, Minami had earned the stare Aja gave. “Well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you had someone to impress.”

It was a feeling that Aja was well accustomed to, stemming all the way back to college freshman years. But here, far from home, being led by the hand into the unknown, the feeling was turned on its side. At home, she knew the hidden gems of Manhattan, and she was the one who led the uninitiated by the hand to discovery.

And a gem it was. Nothing she had seen in all of her years of touring New York nightlife could have prepared her for the space inside. Dark with the sparing lights of a starry night, populated by a sparing few who were lucky to know the secret.

Aja was one of six to experience this. Minami had taken the curator and made her a rarity of Shinjuku nightlife’s patrons. The mystery poured into her eyes and ears and curiosity bubbled within her, thudding against her chest like and expectant heartbeat. She wore her smile with ease.

“Well, I am the uninitiated party here,” Aja replied, impressed with her surroundings. “So, surprise me.”

Aja began to count the drinks. One and counting.

Minami flagged down one of the wandering black clad staff and ordered an old fashioned. Something sweet to sip on, she decided tonight was not a night for drinking; it was for savouring.  

She took the glass and leaned close to Aja, smelling the scent on her neck whether she wanted to or not. A tremor went through her chest, blooming across her back, a shimmer of nerves. 

“We’re about to see Wave perform. She is really extraordinary, a musician primarily. But also the originator of a vast, fictional universe. She refers to herself as a war poet, her compositions are homages to epic battles of her own creation.”

Minami’s eyes gleamed in the low light and it was an effort not to place her cheek on Aja’s bare shoulder.

“She has never done an interview that I know of, and is almost impossible to locate outside of her work. Some say she is quite mad.” A one shouldered shrug. “But there is no one who plays quite like her.”

As if the cue had been given the sonourous thump echoed through the empty space. It was the sound of the end pin of a cello being set down forcibly in the middle of the shallow pool stage.

The person holding the neck of the instrument was a tall woman with short black hair and eyes. She was perhaps fifty years old, and what would first have passed for a pair of elbow length black opera gloves revealed themselves to be tattoos. The cellist’s arms had the appearance of being dipped in a dark maroon ink. 

She gestured out and around to the few gathered patrons with an open gesture, holding the cello bow in her other hand.

“What is it that scares you?” She uttered starkly into the gloom, and Minami leant close to Aja’s ear to translate the words;

“I used to be so very fearful. Until I found out how large this world truly is...”A wicked smile, the eyes glittering. “...And not just this world. There are many. But tonight I am here to tell you about only one, at only one time...”

The bow became part of the theatrical shrug. 

“We are but human, we must do one thing at a time. Tonight, we hear of the first great battle of the war. On one side is a slate grey city of fumes and machinery, and on the other side a swathe of red soil and rock. the tectonic movements of war machines is unstoppable. The air is thick with steel and missile. The ground a murmuration of blade on blade.”

Wave swung the bow horizontal to the string.

“Ladies and gentlement, The Battle of East Drey.”

And Wave began to play. The water stage in which her feet were submerged expressing every single vibration by an unseen mechanism.

It was incredible, but Minami’s gaze barely departed from the side of Aja’s face. 

When the composition came to an abrupt stop there was a long silence before the surrounding patrons broke out in a polite applause. Wave retreated from the stage and the house lights glowed a little brighter once again. 

[recklxssabandon]

//Brain: You cant put that oc there, you have so many ocs already...

Me: **...typing**

[geryone]

Explodingly Yours, Chen Chen

[ofcarnvge]

//Now taking face claim suggestions for Bairre Vardan x

[recklxssabandon]

Signal Fire // A Playlist for Kulani Kerai, The S’ruthan War & ??

▶Ipswich//Georgie Kay ▶Masters of War//Connie Gordon ▶Schism//Tool ▶Ice Age//How To Destroy Angels ▶Dragonfly//Pumarosa ▶War//Brutus ▶Devil’s Spoke//Laura Marling ▶Young Men Dead//The Black Angels ▶Big God//Florence And The Machine ▶The Silence//Manchester Orchestra ▶Dinner and Diatribes//Hozier ▶River//Bishop Briggs ▶War Pigs//Brass Against (feat. Maya Azucena) ▶The Hounds of Love//Kate Bush ▶You//Keaton Henson

@theshadowsnetwork

[recklxssabandon]

Sfumato {to evaporate like smoke} // A Minami & Aja Playlist

▶The Louvre//Lorde ▶ I Want You//Marian Hill ▶ She’s My Baby//Mazzy Star ▶ She Calls Me Daddy//KiNG MALA ▶ If It Makes You Happy//Screaming Females ▶ Chandelier//Kawehi ▶ Pavlov’s Bell//Aimee Mann ▶ Portions For Foxes//Rilo Kiley ▶ Ship To Wreck//Florence And The Machine ▶ Slow Dancing In A Burning Room//Rosé ▶ Lord it’s A Feeling//London Grammar ▶ Casualities Of War//The Gossip ▶ She Belongs To Me//Ane Brun

@ajathings

[iambabydollrp]

//Ahem, everyone? This is your reminder to turn your attention to @theshadowsnetwork cause it’s making The Last of Us look dull right now.

And also - This is giving me the seed of an idea for something about Kulani…And Lord help me I will crack my own heart writing it if it shakes out that way. But I’ll still adore it. 

I feel like we’re truly in the era where we’re getting the humanity of the Shadows Verse, and we’re very much in themes of love, family, time, atonement…and sacrifice.

[recklxssabandon]

And I will go if you ask me to I will stay if you dare And if I go I'm goin' shameless I'll let my hunger take me there

[recklxssabandon]

A note on Reach

This post is mainly for my rp partner, but it might be of interest to anyone else who’s reading this stuff and keeps coming across the concept of Reach.

Reach is an extrasensory ability that can be applied to a lot of things including practical skills, but I personally found this a particularly good way of explaining the pure foresight application of Reach:

Imagine someone has just placed the entire A Song of Ice and Fire series in front of you – hard copy books stacked in a pile.

Technically, you now have access to all the information that exists about this world and the people in it, but because you are a single human with limited perceptive abilities, you must still search and input that information. You can’t just ‘know’ everything, even though the data is there.

Now imagine that it’s the entire history of a solar system, or the universe, much longer book.

Factor in also that different people have affinities with different types of information. Some people remember faces perfectly, others cant retain numbers, some can recall complex stories, others have better physical and spatial memories.

For that reason, when using Reach as a foresight skill, some people can detect an earthquake that will happen four years from now, others can perfectly know a conversation happening right before the earthquake occurred.

Theoretically, conscious beings with Reach applying it to foresight could see anything and everything. But because of how people are, and the sheer volume of information, it rarely shakes out that way.

It really is unique in each person, so there really isn’t a wrong way to write it.

The only limitations known (as yet) are twofold;

The Bright Horizon – the point in time billions of years ago at which it is theorised that Heartstone, or the planet holding it came into being. When encountered this is described as a barrier of intense light.

The Cataclysm – The space-time singularity event caused by the S’ruthan civil war resulting in the collapse of a section of the universe. Reaching beyond this point yields nothing but void.

@annalis-e--shadowofpanem

x

[recklxssabandon]

The hounds of love are hunting                   I've always been a coward                                    And I don't know what's good for me

//The forever anthem for Kulani x

[recklxssabandon]

{S’ruthan Liar 4449, the Red Palace, slightly less than three years before the onset of the civil war}

Kulani felt the velocity of the plane like a rider could feel the stride of a horse she was riding. Plunging through an evening sky. The image guttered out. Kay Warrat was standing with her in the great hall again. The repulsive men from the Dagal delegation standing behind him. One of them was a man who hadn’t been there. He had no face. But her mind knew him as ‘The Dagal King’. With a glass of wine in his hand he turned to look at her, despite his not having eyes.

She felt his gaze, his smile. It froze her solid.

In that way of dreams, everything seemed coherent, and yet not.

She was running, hard, terrified. But the plains yawned out in front of the Great Seer. And then…she could go no further. What blocked her path resembled a wall of illuminated frosted glass, a pearlescent barrier of glowing mist. It extended with terrifying verticality up into the sky…farther than she could see, and to her left and right for as far as the world seemed to go.

She knew what it was. The Bright Horizon. The beginning of the world.

Why am I here? She heard herself say.

All she could do was turn and look back. The Dagal King was not there. And neither was the desert. A white sand beach and brilliant blue ocean spread out before her. Above the azure churn of the waves was what might have been a streak of cirrus cloud, illuminated from below by the red sunset. But it moved, it undulated, and like the wall at her back it possessed something of that painfully bright quality. Kulani averted her eyes down to the sand.

He was sitting with his back to her on the beach, looking out over the waves. The breeze caught his hair. It was him, whoever he was. The one she’d seen before, but never his face. A sweat broke on her skin, her back pressed to the impenetrable wall behind her. The fear in her chest belied a truth she knew about herself. That warrat had known about her.

But she knew now how to wake herself up.

She called out. He began to turn.

Kulani Kerai nearly slipped out of her bed in a cold sweat.

The morning light poured through from the balcony window. The familiar sound of the miniature spring which broke from the solar wall and cut a neat stream through the room washing over her with soothing familiarity.

But Kerai was not calm. The Seer leapt out of bed in nothing but her underwear and grasped an urn from a shelf near the nightstand. Turning it over in her hands she emptied a hundred tiny, smooth pebbles with a clatter onto the stone floor and discarded the urn on the silk, dropping to her knees to sweep her hands through the stones.

A chime rang through the room and Orlagh, her handmaid and assistant stepped through with a tray laden with poached eggs, toast and clementines.

“Good morning your Grace, I thought…” She paused in the door, looking at the pale woman kneeling almost naked on the floor, sorting through stones, her white hair plastered to her sweaty face and back.

Orlagh raised her eyebrows. Her long, blonde hair was braided neatly down her back. Everything about Orlagh was neat.

“Perhaps you should eat some breakfast before you attempt any scrying?” She ventured, setting the tray down on the table and glancing dubiously at the woman on the floor.

Kulani said nothing – only raising on finger momentarily in a gesture of ‘hold on’. Her elegant fingers were not moving without purpose, the pebbles on the floor were forming a pattern. A shape.

After another minute or so passed Orlagh sat down with a sigh and helped herself to a clementine. Kulani didn’t once look up from the stones, not for another ten minutes.

“That’s it.” She said with a sigh, eventually, sitting back on her heels. Sweeping hair away from her face, she looked up at her handmaid, though she was much more than that; Orlagh was a gifted interpreter of the signals received through reach, even though she did not possess much direct skill with it herself. The skills of the most gifted cartographers were little use without good map readers.

“What do you think?” The Great Seer asked, sitting back against the bed to clasp her legs. Her knees were red from the stone. Orlagh got to her feet and cast a critical eye over the freshly made stone assemblage.

“You dreamed this?”

Kulani frowned. “Not exactly. I felt something…something near it.”

Orlagh crossed her arms. “I think it’s a star map, a solar system.”

“Yes!” Kerai nodded, “that’s what I thought. And this here…” Her finger alighted on one single pale blue pebble near the centre of the composition, as a whole it resembled something like a spiral with multiple branches.

“This, this is the place I saw. At least, for a moment. There’s another part of it though...”

Without thought, her finger drifted to a grey olive pebble directly beneath the blue one and with the delicacy of a grandmaster manipulating a go stone, slid it upward to sit directly next to it.

Orlagh’s gaze sharpened. “What was that? That movement? That means something.”

The Seer looked at the new configuration, lacing her fingers together beneath her chin.

“…Something I don’t know. At least not yet.”

She sighed and got to her feet. She realised how cold she was, but Orlagh was ahead of her, she draped a robe over Kulani’s shoulders and went back to finish the clementine. The Seer crossed the room to sit down to breakfast, realising at last that she was starving.

“So, what woke you?”

Kerai paused with the knife and fork in her hands.

“I don’t know.”

Orlagh looked at her sceptically. “You remembered an entire solar system but not why you woke up drenched?”

The Empress of S’ruthan Liar sawed through the toasted bread the poached egg was sitting on. Orlagh was altogether too insightful – even without being a seer. But it made her a good friend. The Empress shovelled the food hungrily into her mouth and chewed before responding, honestly this time.

“Someone I’ve seen before, but I’m unsure who they are yet, either.”

After that the two women sat in quiet to eat their breakfast. On the floor on the chamber, a shiny blue and green pebble lay close to each other amongst the other stones. Neither of the women had taken notice of the tiny dull red stone laying flush, next to the green one.

-

@theshadowsnetwork

@raptyr

[recklxssabandon]

The desert beyond the Red House, Dwelling place of The Druids, 2452 {2000 years before the culmination of the S’ruthan Civil War}

Miriz awoke too early. Three hours before sunrise. The other side of the bed was empty, Danail would be at the observatory until the sun broke over the horizon. He was the lead astronomer for the mission, and the mission was more important than anything.

Still, Miriz missed him. She strolled barefoot through the sandstone villa which sat among the other houses which clustered into the druid city at the foot of Mount Ai. 

The roof was thatch, but wood was not a plentiful resource - stone and masons on the other hand, were. The house had one large central chamber which held the living area and kitchen, all arranged around the central sunken fire pit. The embers burned low. The flame of a lantern still illuminated the room. 

“Mama?” 

Miriz turned. Her son, Jakob was standing in the hall in his nightshirt. He was nine. 

“Can’t sleep?” She asked her son, sitting down at the table in the kitchen and peeling an orange. The boy shook his head and perched up next to his mother. She handed him a segment and he bit into it.

“When will papa be home again?”

She looked at him with an understanding pang of sadness and stroked his hair.

“He won’t be away much longer now. A few more days.” She bit into the orange. “You know he has an important job to do?”

Jakob nodded. “Yes. It worries me.”

For his age, Jakob was already altogether too concerned, too anxious about everything. He was like his father. Miriz put down the orange and scooped him up, setting him down on her lap.

“Don’t be worried sweet thing, your papa will set it right. He’s the best at what he does.”

Jakob looked thoughtful. 

“Where did Heartstone come from Mama?”

“The same place as the mountains and plants and rivers I suppose.”

Miriz’s son fixed her with a critical look. This was not a good enough answer. She sighed and wondered how to word it.

“You’re asking a scribe an astronomer’s question but I’ll do my best...The honest answer is we don’t know.”

“But can’t the seers see it?”

“That’s the problem, seers can see very far - some of the most skilled can see things millions of years forward in time and millions of years back.” Miriz had learned not to condescend to her son, he refused half answers.

“But many, many millions of years ago, the seers describe seeing something called the Bright Horizon. The Bright Horizon is a boundary that is so intense - so bright - that even the vision of reach is useless beyond it. The astronomers and the high druids think it might have been the formation of our galaxy. But they cannot explain it.”

Her son nodded, seeming to accept that. Miriz shrugged. “But I’m a scribe - what I’m good at is...communicating. I can see the movements and words of people, even very far away people, far better than things like galaxies.”

“Tell me about them.” Jakob prompted and Miriz smiled, resettling him more comfortably on her lap, resting her chin in his hair. She gazed into the embers of the fire for a long moment, and then began, with the tone of one unravelling a bedtime story;

“Well...thousands and thousands of years from now, when the stone your father is sending gets to where it’s going - I saw two women, outside a very big, strange house, in a place that was completely covered in bright green grass. Like the fields, but all over. One of them...well she’s a bit like your father, sometimes a bit too serious, but brilliantly clever. And the other, she’s a little like me.

They’re standing on the doorstep, and one is handing a piece of Heartstone to the other.

Inside the house, there’s a lady with freckles waking up after being asleep for days. Her daughter is there. And in the kitchen are other people, sort of like a family, cooking dinner.

They don’t quite know it yet, but they’ll be part of your father’s mission in their own way.”

Jakob leaned into his mother’s chest, almost asleep.

“What is she called? The lady who’s like you?” He murmured.

Miriz had to concentrate a moment, because until now she hadn’t formed a name to the face. She reached back into the vision. Less vivid now, but there it was. Miriz smiled.

“Molly. Her name is Molly.”

-

@annalis-e--shadowofpanem

@theshadowsnetwork

[recklxssabandon]

Image of Tomorrow//Minami & Aja

@ajathings

“A night venture, then.” Aja proudly wore curiosity on her face. “Be sure to make an impression. I’d hate to give up a good night’s sleep for nothing. I do have a flight tomorrow, you know.”

Aja turned the knob and stepped into the doorway before spinning on her heel  and greeting Minami with a smile. “See you in awhile. And congratulations again. It’s well deserved.” With that, she was gone. She wore her smile all the way to her rideshare, and to her hotel room.

There were many reasons to smile. Minami was good. Very good. Beginning with her and her work cast the curation in a good light. And also...there was just...her. Mischief clung to the very edge of her aura, waiting for just the right bad influence.

Aja volunteered.

A glass of wine followed a hot shower, waiting on the table nearby as Aja brought the last of her work to a close. There was only one last thing for her to do. Her watch read 8 PM.

As Aja took a breath, she dialed a number and reached for New York. It rang this time, rather than simply defaulting to the voice mail box...although she ended up there all the same.

Beep.

“Hey girlie!” Aja put on bright and sunny tone. “Just wanted to call and wish you good morning. I hope you’re doing well, and that the writing is going smoothly. I hope to hear what you have by the time I get back!”

For a moment, there was a pause that Aja couldn’t fill. Her smile dropped slightly. “And again...I’m sorry for...me. If you ever wanna talk about it just let me know, ok? Just don’t give up, ok? Not everyone’s a hot mess. Just do me a favor; keep your mind on what you love to do. Leave the bottle alone.”

The hypocrisy from Aja’s lips struck her ears like a bat, and her smile faded entirely. “And don’t forget: I’m only a phone call away, ok? Love you...”

The line went dead, and for a moment, Aja did nothing. She stared through the hotel window, counting her sins, measuring the worthlessness that was her friendship.

Perhaps if we just stayed friends, none of this would have happened.

Aja found solace at the bottom of the glass, and the buzz propelled her to get dressed. Gone was the pantsuit of the professional, traded for the maroon dress with silky sheen. She freed her curls from the hair tie and let them fall around her shoulders.

Aja was gone from the room by nine, looking for a distraction in the form of a neon sign.

“You have gone off the rails!” 

Ru laughed at Minami as she paced back and forth in her living room, recounting the entire interview with manic, frantic detail. The excitement of the whole thing sparking off of her. She bundled her hands into fists and she gave a yelp of joy.

“The Met Ru! The Met!” She slumped down on the sofa next to her friend making the whole thing jolt slightly.

Ru laughed and pulled a dorayaki out of its plastic packaging, shoving it playfully in Minami’s mouth before getting one for herself.

“Honestly? I never doubted your work, but...” Ru narrowed her eyes, and Minami could feel the familar sensation of her friend’s x-ray vision. She gave a sigh of exasperation.

“Oh, don’t!

Ru shrugged, “you get like this...I’ve seen it before.”

“Like what?” If someone could eat a pancake recalcitrantly, Minami was doing it.

“You get way too involved, way too quickly! This woman is going to be in a cab to the airport come tomorrow and I can already see it on your face’- She raised an admonishing finger “-dont you lie to me, what do you feel about that?”

A far away look which coiled into a smile of aboslute mischief went across Minami’s face.

“I think she could reverse that cab over me and I’d like it...”

Ru rolled her eyes. “You’re hopeless. Totally hopeless. Where are you taking her then?”

“Violet.”

Ru looked surprised. “Oh, fancy...Is Wave performing tonight?”

Minami nodded, springing to her feet. The excitement was like a field that sprung outward from her body.

“She is.” Minami glanced down at the red gown, twirling a little. “I think I’m going to need something a little more...fitting.”

-

Night rolled in over Shinjuku, and Minami strolled down a particlar side street next to some industrial looking buildings. She was early, so as not to leave her guest alone in this quiet, strange part of town. Violet was a deliberately obcure place; you’d only know it’s existence by the neon of the door - and even that only appeared after dark.

Her faux black fur coat was bundled over a dress which was considerably more sleek than her afternoon attire. When the Curator appeared she beamed at the other woman; a streak of maroon silk shimmering in the night light.

“Aja.” She uttered. “I know it doesnt look like much, but that’s the idea...”

She reached up and gave a particular coded knock on the illuminated door. It opened, and a young man dressed in black gave them both a nod and stepped aside to allow them entry to a long corridor bathed in purple light.

The entryway extended at least thirty metres before opening into a renovated warehouse space. The edges of the room were shrouded in gloom, the tiny pale lamps which illuminated the half dozen tables dotted the space like stars.

In the centre of them was a circular stage that at first glance might have appeared to be made of black marble, but was in fact a shallow pool of dark water. The four other guests glanced up momentarily as the two other women entered.

“I thought it best to show you something unique.” Minami’s voice dropped low, her dark eyes glittering in the low light. “Could I get you something to drink?” 

[themakeupbrush]

Rodarte S/S 2022

[recklxssabandon]

//If you’re ever wondering what Minami is wearing on any given day just type #rodarte into the search bar and you’ll probably find it.

It’s funny to me that I knew nothing about this fashion house a week ago but almost everything they make fits her so perfectly.