A nearly comprehensive guide (?) to molasses machines and summoning circles
This one goes out to @tamofthedragons and their awesome fanfiction "We are the Daylight"!
I love love love the way Herobrine is summoned in this one, with science instead of magic - and it inspired me to do some glowstone science myself.
Now let's assume you want to retrieve a superhuman Eldritch being from where he is stuck out of bounds of reality... Here's what you need to keep in mind:
Caution, you might blow up!
More close-ups:
I forego the circuits for the glowstone stroboscope. Handling a machine of this molassicity is dangerous and should not be attempted by untrained personnel!
Stay safe and do not try to summon Herobrine at home!
Please tell me more about "Wolf at the Door" and "Flock"?
I GOT YOU !!! (Wip ask game!!)
The first chapter of Wolf at the Door is posted here, although it's missing some content because of the word limit on that exchange (gaz content. The world mourns). I'll be adding it back when I FINALLY FUCKING FINISH THE SECOND CHAPTER—anyway. WatD is the "Ghost as a dog-shifter" AU where Soap discovers him on base, assumes he's a K-9 unit, THEN thinks he's a stray, then befriends the stray because he runs his big fat mouth, and ONLY THINKS the dog is incredibly weird when it follows them to the next base too. He does eventually find out that it's Ghost. First work has 3 chapters planned and as a series I'm thinking at least 2 works because I can't fit in everything i WANT to and have it be plot-relavant.
I am having a lot of fun with it so far though because I'm thinking of Soap (at least the way I'm writing him here) as 'Apprehensive' of canines so he's like "this huge fucking beast. Glowing eyes and sharp glinting teeth. It could kill me I could die it would shred me apart" and Gaz who's hearing most of this second hand is like "pubby :)"
Anyway here's a snippet from my document-of-upcoming-scenes-that-are-unattached-at-the-moment. Also he names ghost-as-a-dog Spoon. :)
(I also talk about "Flock" under the cut)
Probably chapter three: post 'reveal'
---
“How long have you known?”
Someone must be feeling especially merciful for Ghost to have broken the silence first. (Actually, Soap figures it’s the fact he’s accidentally gone and let himself into Ghost’s personal life, via the whole ‘I occasionally turn into a giant fuck-off dog’ thing, but he’ll take what he can get.)
“Och, I dinnae ken,” he sighs a little and leans against the door, looking out the window. “Not when you scared the daylights out of me at ass-o’clock, sometime after I started callin’ ya ‘Spoon’,” Johnny has it in himself to be a little embarrassed, and he scratches at his slowly warming cheek. “...s’pose sayin’ I knew was a bit of a stretch, but I’m not exactly surprised, y’know?” He hears creaking leather and risks a look at Ghost, who’s looking at the road.
“...Price didn’t tell you?” It comes out slow; low, and dangerous in the way that Johnny has learned means they’re in the territory of emotional landmines. He treads carefully, hides the vindication at his suspicions of Price confirmed, and focuses on his honesty.
“No. Went to go ask him about K-9 units too, the first time I saw you. Didn’t tell me shit, just seemed to think it was some kinda joke.” He watches Ghost’s hands relax on the wheel and feels a little tension leave his own shoulders. “...Sorry about all the nonsense, sir,” he mutters, referring to…well, to the whole bit; the patting, the baby-talk, the names, the collar. Steaming Jesus. It was one thing to not be surprised, but having it confirmed still leaves Soap confronting some of his own actions with Ghost-as-a-dog, it leaves him with an emotion somewhere between giddy delight and chagrin. Feeling like a bit of a kicked puppy himself.
Ghost shakes his head silently in response, but that doesn’t really mean anything to Soap. That gesture could be anywhere from ‘I don’t mind’ to ‘just drop it’ or even ‘you confound me with your whole fucking existance, MacTavish’, which—none of those options are life-endingly horrible, but he still needs to know which it is.
So he pushes, of course he does.
“I mean it. Not being sure it was you doesn’t excuse it if you didn’t like it, ‘n I can stop if it bothers you.” Silence from the driver’s side. Ghost doesn’t so much as twitch. “I can get the others to stop too, get ‘em to leave you alone so you can go back to whatever you were doin’ before—”
“No.” The interruption is abrupt, but not with any particular emotion that Soap can recognize. “It’s alright. I…” Ghost trails off, adjusts his grip on the steering wheel, clears his throat. “It’s nice.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well. That’s good then.”
Ghost puffs out a heavy sigh, “...Yeah.”
Johnny is trying to find something to say, but has kind of been blindsided by the fact that Ghost thinks it’s nice. He likes how he’s been treated as Spoon. In the same way that he wasn’t surprised to find out that Ghost was the dog in the first place, he’s also not surprised to find out that Ghost likes being scratched behind the ears—it’s just that now he knows. He can be fully aware that Ghost had every opportunity and reason to maul one of them for treating him like a common household animal and didn’t, but it’s another thing entirely for Ghost to tell him outright.
It’s a lot to think about, a lot to reconcile. He notices that Ghost is hunched defensively over the wheel at around the same time Soap notices he’s been staring at his poor lieutenant for an unknown number of seconds.
“Would you…” Soap actually takes a moment to think about what he’s about to say. “Would you like a scratch behind the ears, sir?”
---
Cliffhanger because I'm a kind and benevolent writer. How does Ghost react? Tune in for when I chew up and shred the second chapter, then post the third one like I'm tossing it out the car window <3
ANYWAY FLOCK!!! Flock is a wings au one-shot that's just. It's just fluff, a la Figure Study yk? There are probably specific amenities for Ppl w wings (who I am literally calling 'birds' in the fic. Probably not the PC term but I doubt two army dudes are gonna care much if they're just talking about eachother) in shower rooms/maybe separate rooms entirely (bc could you imagine showering and minding ur own business and then get swatted by a wing bc the guy next to you is tryna clean his wing. No bueno). That base concept down its post-mission, they're getting cleaned up, Soap fucked his shoulder so Ghost helps him preen, Soap isn't a chump and returns the favor but it's been 50 million years since Ghost was gently caressed by the human hand and after having at least One emotion about it this fucker passes out like an old man in front of the TV. Then Soap gets to go "OK grandpa lets get you to bed" and tuck him in. (I am the CEO of naptime. It is me.)
The fic is like—like I basically wrote it, it's practically written... had I not changed my mind twice back and forth about the setting. It's in desperate need of editing because right now they're just in some amorphous hotel room that MIGHT be vaguely pool-like or might not be pool-like at all or MAYBE they're not even in a hotel. Is it in Chicago post-hassan? Is it just Some Mission? What needs to happen is I need to make up my mind.
Anyway here's a snippet!
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Ghost climbs onto the seat and crosses his arms, almost folding in half when he leans down to rest his elbows against the counter. After a beat, his wings loosen some from their typical tight fold, and Soap's mouth actually waters a little bit at the thought of how they'll look spread to full span.
He can't be blamed, Ghost has gorgeous wings and hasn't stretched them once since removing the matte-black. Soap already knows they're massive; even folded up they promise an intimidating size, just like the rest of him, and—wow. Soap should stop this train of thought. He steps up, directly behind Ghost, who turns to glance over his shoulders. His eyes are sharp, calculating. Soap feels seen. So he says the first thing that comes to mind.
"I broke my left wing once. Have I ever told you that story?"
"...Only once?"
"Piss off," Soap mutters, no real heat behind it since he's a little busy trying to find a safe place to put his hands first. Right on the wing seems a little too bold. "It was during basic, actually, we were climbing—I'm gonna touch the back of your neck—we were climbing one of those giant rock-walls—" he places his palm on the warm skin of Ghost's neck, blathering all the while about this stupid story from years ago that he only tells when he needs to defuse a tense situation. When Ghost doesn't tense any further, Soap slowly slides his hand into the downy feathers between his scapulars.
That gets a reaction; Ghost's wings draw inward, tense like a bowstring ready to fire. Soap can feel follicles rising under his hand as feathers puff up—for a moment, he actually expects Ghost to try and physically shake him off. Soap waits, rubs small arcs with his thumb, keeps his mouth running for background noise. When Ghost doesn't pull away, he slowly, carefully, pets through the soft plumage, soothing the irritation with his fingers.
He's off on another tangent by the time it feels safe enough to bring his other hand into play. His fingers are quickly coated in oil from compulsively sliding over the hidden line of Ghost's spine—tense in a way that Soap desperately wants to smooth with a firmer touch, but that would be far, far too much. Smartly, he sticks with picking out grains of sand, dirt, or powder and tiny, loose feathers.
(Occasionally, he thinks he hears Ghost make a noise, something quiet and vulnerable, but he drowns it with the sound of his own voice to save the both of them from having to address it.)
When Soap deems that section complete, it's bright and glossy and only serves to highlight how much trouble Simon must have been having, trying to keep up with his wings on his own for however long. From a polite distance, with his wings folded in and without being familiar enough with him to know what they're supposed to look like, they seem fine; perhaps a little ragged, but rarely are army wings anything less. Soap doesn't know what Simon's wings are supposed to look like, but now he's starting to get an idea.
He says, "I never knew why he had it out for me so bad. I'd think it was the wings—that's what usually gets people—" as he slides both hands over Ghost's wing, one stopping on his elbow, the other coming to rest just above his wrist. He presses up on the elbow, down on the wrist, and has a split second to realize that may have not been the move.
Then Ghost full-body twitches in an aborted flap that sends his wing to John's face, which makes John grip harder, pressing into Ghost's shoulder, instinctually trying to hold him down to keep from getting his nose bruised. Ghost's other wing flares out, scattering water as he twists around to face Soap.
They both freeze. Ghost is breathing hard. His wide, brown eyes bore straight into Soap's skull. At the look on his face, John quickly drops one of his hands and moves the other to Ghost's back again, fingers sinking down into his feathers, trying to comfort.
"Sorry! Sorry," Soap says as soon as he's taken a breath again. "Was tryin' ta stretch yer wing out, just habit to do it myself—"
"It's fine." The rawness of Ghost's voice surprises them both. He clears his throat, and it sounds a little more convincing when he speaks again. "It's fine. Just—"
The wing John wasn't trying to get to ended up stretched out over the damp concrete of the bathing room, so there's a moment of awkward shifting while Ghost gets it back into the water and turns his back to John again. John is almost too mesmerized by the feeling of muscles shifting under his hand to notice the gesture. (Keyword: almost. Something in him still eases when Simon is willing to have him out of immediate line of sight.)
"Keep going. You don't know why he had it out for you...?" A clear prompt, and Ghost sounds almost normal, so John carefully lifts his other hand, trails them both through the down of Ghost's mantle.
"Uh... Yeah, no clue why he had it out for me, I thought it was the wings but he was sweet on the other bird we had—"
Trying to move someone's wing for them is a little bold, he'll admit. But it was a habit—most of his other partners are perfectly content to sit back and relax while he takes care of their feathers, and he was much the same. Ghost wasn't going to be the same; he'd known that, but clearly hadn't been paying enough attention if he made such a stupid mistake. Both of his wings are drawn tight again, and Soap's own twitch closer to mirror the posture.
Trying to be more conscious of what his hands are doing, he starts moving from the mantle and into the edge of Ghost's scapulars, taking his sweet time working his way out toward the rest of the wing.
Ghost takes easier to this approach; slowly, Soap feels muscles loosen, and while he's straightening Ghost's tertials, his wing unfurls a little further.
Soap gets down the rest of his wing that way, with it slowly stretching outward until Soap is combing through his primaries. He stopped talking some time ago, he's not sure when. He's not sure when Ghost dropped his face into his crossed arms either, but sure enough, he's half-laying on the concrete, hunched over the lip of the pool, and his mask is shoved into the crook of his elbow.
He's also not sure when Ghost started trembling, but he is. Soap can hardly tell except for when he's got his fingers pressed against the convulsing muscles and the tips of Ghost's primaries are shaking even when Soap isn't touching them. He stays where he is for a moment, drawing his fingers down over the same spot, carefully watching Ghost's head as if he might catch a peek of an expression.
It's a hopeless endeavor, and he doesn't stop shaking.
---
Get that man a fucking hug. Stat.
ANYWAY those are the things ✨️ I hope you enjoyed:>
I'll be joining the Dreamers on the We Are the Dreamers radio show Saturday night at 11pm GMT. We will be playing and talking about electronic music for listeners live, and chat about anything electronica. Listeners can also interact with us through the text channel, and share music they find interesting. To listen live, head to snareup.com, click the blue "Join #snareup" button on the top right, and follow the instructions for creating a Discord account. For more information about the show, head to snareup.com/about Saturday 6pm EST / 11pm GMT #Aphex #AphexTwin #AFX #WATD #WeAreTheDreamers #SelectedAmbientWorks #Rephlex #R&S #WarpRecords #Paul Nicholson #Number3 #3 #III
I did an independent project for school and made a movie poster for The Wrath And The Dawn :) it took me 2 months so please don’t be a prick and repost it
