Something I entered recently in a contest... sort of. Technically, I was commissioned to make this and encouraged to enter a contest with it... sort of. It's complicated. But I got third place. :)
I'm single again, as always seems to happen, and I recently got over a heavy wave of depression, but I'm all right now. I haven't been writing poetry as much as I used to, and hence haven't been on tumblr as much... I've been more working on stories, which are a little difficult to post here.
They saw me slipping
Falling downwards
But somehow you found me
Spacetime is ripping
I hear your words
And my fear starts to flee
You chase me down past
Deepest reaches
The sunlight turning gray
While worlds around us
Crumble to pieces
You always find a way
Alone in nightmares
Dark as chasms
No escape can I see
I say my prayers
Before my mind numbs
I feel you rescue me
Swift as an arrow
Your footstep shakes the sea
Stone, moon and shadow
I need you here with me
Our hearts are beating
But all is silent
The whispers of the dead
Worries are fleeting
Time is impotent
My arms around your head
Souls moving mountains
Lives intertwining
I close my eyes and breathe
Love like a fountain
Beneath stars shining
And "I" becomes a "we"
It never mattered
That we're different
More than others can see
My fears are shattered
And I'm content
When you are here with me
Swift as an arrow
Your footstep shakes the sea
Stone, moon and shadow
I need you here with me
I realize I haven't really put much of anything up the past few months, and I suppose you deserve an explanation.
Originally, I joined Tumblr to talk to someone - to give them support, as they looked like they were going through a rough time. After that I more or less abandoned my account for a few months, until I decided to link it to my other blog (which didn't go so well). Even so, someone liked one of my blog posts, and this fueled me enough to put up something else, and then something else. Finally I posted a piece of poetry, and found what was to become my place in the Tumblr community.
But the thing is, I find it difficult to write poetry constantly. My mood tends to swing back and forth between romantic and not, and in addition to that I can wind up burning myself out when I do more than I'm capable of. That's largely what happened a few months ago - I poured all my time into making people happy, and being there for those who needed it. For a while, I enjoyed it! I didn't care about popularity, and I was doing more than just writing poetry, but eventually I reached the point where I couldn't handle all I was doing, especially when my poetic muse ran out, so to speak. I became overwhelmed with everything - I didn't have time to do everything I wanted to do (or even that I had promised to do). I knew I was disappointing people, and it made me discouraged and depressed, until finally I withdrew from most things. When my laptop went out not too long afterwards, I didn't feel like fixing the problem, either.
Basically, that's why I disappeared. It's not that I didn't care, or that I was avoiding anyone because I didn't want to talk to them. I simply couldn't handle everything. When all you do is give, eventually you run out.
But this is an apology, too. I'm sorry I didn't at least make a post saying I needed time - to be honest, I didn't want to admit it. I still don't, really, but hey. Anyway, I hope you all can forgive me, and if not... well, I can't say I blame you, really. But at least I tried.
Well, just for fun... I decided to make a fortress in Dwarf Fortress - with everybody in this thread. Just like the original post described. ...At least, everybody I didn't accidentally miss. So... I took everyone in the thread and modeled dwarves after them, based on what they said they would be like, and what they could do in real life.
Normally, in dwarf fortress, you start with 7 dwarves. I started with 57, and a rule I made for myself was that I wasn't allowed to change anyone's skillsets. These things made it exponentially more difficult.
The theme of the thread is: What would happen if everyone in the Dwarf Fortress forums (aka the Bay 12 forums) was suddenly transported to the land of Dwarf Fortress? How would we fare among goblins, elves and dwarves?
Fifty-seven people mysteriously transported to dwarfworld via a bizarre copy of DFHack (I used dfusion - simple_embark)... all Bay12'ers:
On the dolomite wall of a deep, dark hallway, beautifully covered with swirling, artistic engravings of laptops, computers, iPhones and pixelated smiley faces, there exists a blank patch. On this blank patch is a long section of beautifully engraved handwriting - labeled at the top in large cursive letters engraved with great care into the living stone: "The journal of Talvieno Violencelashes, dictated by himself, and engraved by Fen Wheeldreamy." It looks as if it hasn't been touched for a long time, and curiously you brush your fingertips over the strange lettering, wondering how such odd fonts came to be in a land of dwarves and elves. Holding your lantern closer to the wall, you begin to read.
My name is Talvieno Violencelashes. As I suck at engraving (and pretty much all forms of art), I'm having Fen here engrave what might be my last words. I don't want this fortress to fall without leaving some record of what happened. Anyway... Six months ago we arrived here, out of the blue. Poof - we were all taken from our chairs to... here... wherever "here" is. We're definitely not in civilized territory anymore, I can tell you that. But there we were - without a clue of what to do. Looking around, we found ourselves on the side of a tall, steep mountain, beside a little river running through the thickest forest I've ever seen. After some headshaking, handshaking, and occasional tears at our plight, we elected Loud Whispers mayor almost unanimously - he was the best known. As a result... he got the most votes.
We needed to mine, obviously, and Eric Blank and I found ourselves with picks shoved unceremoniously into our hands by the venerable Loud Whispers. He didn't even have to tell us to mine - we got the idea - though I'll admit he looked somewhat off his game because of the fact that he couldn't change his appearance every few minutes. But this was life and death - that seemed trivial now. Eric and I would spend quite a while digging... in fact, for the next six months, it'd be more or less all we did - and we were always, always hard-pressed for stone. I'll admit my muscles ached like hell for a while there, but I pushed through. Eric didn't seem to be having quite as much trouble, at least. We were quickly disappointed to find out that "quantum stockpiles" are impossible in real life - stone had to be hauled out behind us as we mined. Fortunately, there was no shortage of people willing to haul them away, and no shortage of people willing to put our boulders to good use.
RAKninja tried to sneak off, saying he was a goblin. With fifty six of us, it wasn't hard to keep him from escaping (despite his military training), and once he'd decided he was going to stay, that was it. He took charge of the military situation, choosing the five best among us - and any who explicitly volunteered. Sabreur seemed like he felt like he'd been tricked into it, and he definitely looked worried, but to his credit, he went down to our hastily-constructed barracks and began training. The others followed him down to do the same - Mapleguy, Naryar, Urist Mc Uristson and Captain Crazy (these last two tried to convince us they were forgotten beasts and we should abandon the food and booze for a bit, and run for our lives). All the rest of us looked on with our hearts sinking at the thought of their possible deaths. I know I wasn't the only one who felt a twinge of guilt over not going down there with them.
In the game, Dwarf Fortress, normal embarks don't give you any extra food, no matter how many points you give yourself - and unfortunately, this was no exception. We were low on food right from day one. The first order of business, Loud Whispers figured, was to get the farms going - we had some people among us with green thumbs, and it didn't take too long for Loud Whispers to make the logical decision that they'd be best suited for farming. Meanwhile, we had two butchers (praise Armok) - Oliolli and Sus - Oliolli hated that he wouldn't get to do any forging for a while, but it was determined that our animals needed slaughtered, and they didn't really have much of a choice. Also (interestingly), when it came right down to it, being real life (or at least, so it seemed), most of us didn't want to kill the cats - some even giving the argument "there's not much meat on them" (which, frankly, I found funny). Only the yaks died, and even with them, some of us felt bad. But it had to be done. At least we had plenty of chefs. White_Darkness and DS took the job of preparing the yaks, and they're pretty good cooks. The vegetarians among us were fine with eating plump helmets - which are actually pretty good.
Having plenty of awesome masons - MuseOD, Eric Blank, EmperorJon, myself, RAKninja and a few others, we put up walls as fast as we could. KodKod led the masons, and told Eric and I to get back into the mines... which disappointed us - we'd missed being outside - but back we went. We understood how it was - without mining, there wouldn't be enough stones for the walls. Something awesome, though - we can see just as well in the "dark" as we can in the daylight... I'm not quite sure how to explain it. It's eerie at first, but you get used to it. By the time we'd gotten back out, a large section of land had been walled off - including part of the little stream running past the mountain. Our two fisherman also worked at gathering food (Mdqp, Alestrom), but it wasn't enough. We sent Cusi out to gather plants, which was a job Cusi seemed to be very happy with. A couple of us muttered "elf" with a little smile under our breaths, but it was only half a joke now... as if remnants of a distant age.
We had plenty of brewers, too, and we picked a couple at random and got started with boozemaking. We had (all of us) developed an uncanny taste for alcoholic beverages, and to our delight found ourselves largely unaffected by it, no matter what quantity we drank. It appeared we'd gained a dwarven metabolism - which worried some of us about the effects and possibility of cavesickness. With this in mind, we also appointed Gizogin as Chief Medical Officer (we didn't look like dwarves, so why say "chief medical dwarf"?), who promptly chose ImBocaire and Amallar for his staff.
Wierd and Amallar became philosophical at one point, sitting by the wagon. We had too many mechanics, and there was nothing for either of them to do, so they pondered whether or not we would still exist in our old universe, and whether time still progressed there, and how we even got here. Wierd finally stood up and said, "Enough." With this, he left, taking quite a large quantity of the choicest stone and gems I'd mined out to the workshops and closing himself in. Later he emerged, pale, starving, and thirsty, but he held aloft a tiny mechanism:
It was a dolomite mechanism. All craftsmanship was of the highest quality. It was encrusted with round dolomite cabochons and rose cut lapis lazulis and was encircled with bands of cushion lapis lazuli cabochons. It menaced with spikes of dolomite. And somehow, somehow he'd managed to carve something he'd never even seen before onto such a small object... it was a dolomite image of "We See Scika Blackraked", the blue garnet-bound book. We asked him later how he even knew about it, but he would only answer in dwarf tongue - I'm not sure how he even knows dwarftongue. But we prized it above all else, deciding it had to have been a "strange mood", and marveling over how it had actually happened to one of us. Morale surged, and each of us wondered if we might be the next to craft an artifact. Some tried to induce them themselves, but had no such luck.
We had a ridiculous number of people who wanted to be mechanics, as I said - the chief among them being Wierd, Acetech, Urist Da Vinci, Naryar (who was coincidentally in the army, but he said he could do both), ThatAussieGuy, Ollioli (he dabbled around in various fields), Sus, Reudh and White_darkness. Obviously more than enough than could handle the four mechanics workshops we set up to keep them busy. We'd determined that we'd make stonefall traps and cage traps to protect ourselves - none of us wanted to risk anything. The idea of "Fun" isn't so appealing when you're in the middle of it all. The stonefall traps were easy - Eric and I were kicking out large quantities of worthless stone. When we started on the cage traps, though, we hit a snag...
We didn't have any woodcutters among us. At all. Not one.
Stil stepped up, fortunately, saying "I'll do it!" We praised him, patting him on the back and applauding his courage, and then shoved him outside the half-finished walls into the dark and gloomy forest. Meanwhile, our hunters Zaerosz and Nyotor Lizardhammers were killing stray wolverines - and Nyotor even took down a giant eagle for us to eat. We never ran out of food... but it unfortunately wasn't long before we ran out of booze. It would be a long, long time before we tasted it again... we had a dining room built, an underground well (designed and carved out by yours truly, and fed by the brook), a few bedrooms (without beds), and a hospital (on demand of Gizogin), but that was it. Most of us slept outside under the stars, and let me tell you - when there are no city lights anywhere, by the gods... it looks amazing at night...
Things progressed quietly for the next several months - most of everyone sitting around the wagon talking and chatting, and hauling rocks around when it was needed (they're not as heavy as you'd think). Usually Eric and I were in the mines, but occasionally we'd come back out to say hello to everyone, and of course we took breaks during the day, and our meals. Eventually we got enough dug out for us to have "dorms" we could sleep in - and everyone was happy to get in out of the rain. Our farmers kept busy enough to keep us fed, and our brewers would occasionally manage to produce a barrel of beer. It wasn't heaven... but it became home.
In a strange twist of fate, Karakzon got elected mayor in place of Loud Whispers - everyone seemed to like him for some reason. I wasn't around the wagon enough to know why, but it seemed he'd become a pretty good speaker (not that he wasn't already). He told pretty good jokes, too. I guess the mountain air brought this new talent out of him, I don't know.
We even got migrants of all things - I have no clue how they figured out we were here, but one day, up the mountain came eight little dwarves... and then they stopped, staring at us apprehensively. "You ain't dwarves..." their leader said, shifting his quiver uncomfortably on his shoulder. Karakzon stepped forwards. "We may not look like it, but we are. You see our fortress?" Karakzon said, gesturing around at the walls, which, admittedly, were only ten feet tall. "We built this with our own hands, and we've got a beautiful dining room down below - which classifies as legendary. If that's not enough, I bet we could drink booze with the best of you, and we'd love to, too." This brought a smile to the dwarves' faces and they laughed heartily, coming over and greeting us with claps on the shoulder like we were long-lost friends. "So where's the beer?" their leader asked, and this time we fell silent. "There isn't any," Garath said, and the smiles vanished from the dwarves faces just as quickly as they'd appeared. The dining room was of legendary quality, though, the dwarves had to admit - KodKod, SRD, MuseOD, Eric Blank (when he wasn't mining), and Fen (especially Fen - he was the head engraver) had smoothed it to perfection, carefully chiseling the walls with beautiful images. (The chisels we found in packs on the yaks, so that answers the question of how dwarves smooth walls "without any tools".)
Then one autumn day, just as the trees were starting to turn colors, a flock of giant keas swooped out of the sky. Most of us didn't know what they were, but someone did - "GIANT KEAS! THEY'RE FREAKING HUGE!" he screamed, and everyone panicked, rushing inside. Forumite didn't make it, and was knocked over and pecked to death by one of the monsters as he ran from the workshops. Captain Crazy met the same fate, though he managed to get a couple punches in.
RAKninja rushed out with his soldiers (including the newly-recruited migrants) and hacked the head off of one of them, yelling in anger, and another one fell to Zaerosz's arrows. We were all angry - all of us were miserable at what had happened to poor Forumite and Captain Crazy. Suddenly it didn't seem so peaceful - we didn't seem so safe. As we watched in horror, Naryar got attacked as he hacked one in the leg, and Gizogin got pecked on the head by a divebombing kea hard enough that he started gushing blood and fell to the ground. Eric and I rushed out, wielding our picks, determined to get Gizogin back inside. I tried to stab one through the mouth when it dove at us, but missed - Eric managed to cut its wing, and it flew away croaking in pain and flapping clumsily. After that, they left both of us alone, and together we carried Gizogin to the hospital (or infirmary, as we'd taking to calling it - something so low-tech didn't seem worth calling a hospital after being used to seeing fancy machines in the "old world"). Greatorder was also injured, but at least he was able to take himself to the hospital - he was only bleeding from his arm. ImBocaire suddenly became head doctor, as Gizogin was unconscious and had lost a lot of blood - but in spite of everything he refused to diagnose anyone's problems. Amallar quickly took over for him, describing what was wrong to ImBocaire and saying what needed to be done, and profusely apologizing to his patients for the lack of anesthesia.
By the time we got back up to the surface, we had even more bad news. The keas were gone, yeah, but RAKninja had his foot bitten off, and Naryar had lost his hand. King DZA seemed to realize his mortality suddenly and snapped - Eric and I were drafted immediately and sent with what was left of the "army" to take him down - he was trying to kill everyone. Our two dogs leaped at his throat, but he easily dispatched them, wielding nothing but a sock (those things are freaking heavy). It took the entire military to stop him. It was a mistake, I think, not to put him in the army... he would've made a powerful soldier, and it would've kept him from getting attached.
Most of us are miserable and depressed - everyone just sits around, some with tears in their eyes, some even with tears going down their faces. I'll admit I cried too - I'm not ashamed to say it. I've grown so close to everybody over the past six months...
Karakzon told us this was all the more reason to band together and help defend each other, but I don't know... what can we do? We have hardly any experience in this - I have a worklist a mile long, and we only have two picks. KodKod wants a "throne room" (I'm hoping she's kidding), I have two orders for "lounges", six for "laboratories" and apparently the dorms Eric Blank and I carved out just aren't cutting it with everyone - everyone wants their own room. I'm doing the best I can. Honestly, I am... but I'm just one guy! I don't know what I can do... not against this. The arrival of the giant keas impressed it upon us all just how real this is. There are dragons out there somewhere, by the gods - real flesh-and-blood dragons. It all feels so real now. Before, some talked of possibly capturing dragons in cages. We laughed about killing elves with seas of magma. We plotted to build ceilings above the forest and drop them on invaders. But now... I just don't know.
No, you know what? I don't care. Sitting around won't accomplish anything, and we're far from gone. Fen, thank you - you've been a great help and done a masterful job, but I've got work to do.
the text ends here with the artful signature of Fen Wheeldreamy in dolomite and lapis lazuli.
Yesterday morning I woke up to this wonderful little message:
"Hi there, we've chosen your "lovers kill dragon" story for illustration!
Do we have your permission?
We will credit either your username or your real name (please tell me which).
I think we'll end up chucking you a PDF of the book when it's done - please pass me an email address :)"
It's referencing this Dwarf Fortress-generated/inspired poem/story that I wrote, here.
Basically, Tim Denee, the guy who did the story and art for the famous Bronzemurdered and Oilfurnace stories, is going to illustrate my story/poem. The illustrations are going to be included in the book drawnfortress.tumblr (TinyPirate on the forums and elsewhere) is writing.
My work is getting published. And illustrated. By professionals. I'll admit to feeling a little proud of myself at the moment. =P
A summary of the story, as posted on the forums:
The fortress of Naugaridge was built into the side of a mountain, and was built more specifically for design and beauty than anything else. Unfortunately, this attracted the attention of some elves, who vowed to claim the kingdom for their own (the civilizations were already at war). The elves soon laid siege to the fortress. Tholsak, the captain of the guard, led Naugaridge's army out against the invaders valiantly, and though many dwarves were slain, they broke full upon the ranks of the elves and slaughtered many in the defense of their home.
At the height of the battle, a dragon appeared on the opposite side of the fortress, and quickly flew to attack whomever it could find. It happened upon Thatthil, who was the fortress's weaponsmith and Tholsak's lover. It's unsure why she was outside the walls - possibly hoping to catch a glimpse of Tholsak - but she was quickly murdered by the dragon, Felgoth. The dragon then proceeded to dispatch the elves, setting their precious forests ablaze in the process, and then turned on the dwarves. It slaughtered many before finally being pierced by Tholsak's sword, though Tholsak himself was mortally wounded in the fight, and had lost one of his legs. Despite this, Tholsak dragged himself through the ranks of his dying comrades and stabbed the beast through the skull with the very sword that Thatthil had made for him, before dying there on the burning field.
Sadly awaiting first promise of morning
The songbirds attempting to break through your gloom
You shoo them away, as you long for another
The sunrise for you could never come too soon
I had something happen a few days ago, and I've been kind of down since then. I'm really sorry about the lack of posts - I just really haven't felt like writing anything or putting anything up. =( I'll see if I can get something posted soon.
Though born poetically challenged
You became quite adept
Your heart, it spoke, its thoughts unhinged
Your mind, it steels, its feelings kept
So closely to your soul
Forlorn the heart within you stays
Like rain on cloudy day
In part from broken heart's cruel bite
You find you feel alone at night
Let me help fill that hole
A hypothetical scenario: You accidentally betray the location of someone very close to you to a crime organization, not knowing who they are. Immediately afterwards, you discover that they're actually going to kill your friend - as fast as possible - and this leaves you with three choices. You can either:
Let your friend die, while you live.
Send a text to your friend, only having time and space to say you betrayed them and that they need to run. Unfortunately, you know your phone is bugged and you're being watched. The criminals will kill you. Your friend will know you died, and will know you betrayed them, but nothing else.
"Admit" (lie) to the criminals that it was just a setup, and the police are waiting there for them. They won't risk it, so your friend will be safe - but they'll kill you. Your friend will know you died, and will think that you were killed simply because he/she knew you.
Ignoring all our woes the world still turns
As if could never get bored by the day
While light flees from the color, the sky burns
As time sets fire to the blue and gray
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