Aug 012007
Title: Synæsthetics: The First and Second Series
Rating: T
Warnings: None, really.
Notes: These are (or were) all friends of mine. Yes, I will write more, and each will get its own entry. I cannot write these on command, unless I know the person pretty goddamn well. I also intend to do a Naruto minor characters series, just because I'm way too easily amused. (Note: Only one of those last ever happened —#19.)
- Black Silk, Blue Stars: Feb 14, 2001, For Hoshizora
smooth and elegant…a swath of black silk floating on the wind. a brief moment of confusion- panic?- and the room swirls with gleaming points of blue. a thousand blue stars in an otherwise empty night. sarcasm, like a twist of fresh-cut orange…fresh innocent scent of ripening golden apples, a sensuality just meeting its curve…the trancy feel of ringing brass, and a hundred vibrations tear down the reality stream…the sweet chill of wind while flying…a velvet bravado. the elegant smirking bishounen who holds the world in one hand and a cup of tea in the other…the edge of the wakizashi: beautifully shining, surreal, and deadly sharp… the smell of dogwood blossoms in spring. - The Grail Knight: Feb 14 2001, For 7Ghent
cinnamon and sandalwood…deep green and a cheshire grin. rich and sensual…like fried bananas in chocolate sauce…red roses dripping with dust and dew, deep velvety petals at a matador's feet. earthy and stolid…a clove-scented pillar of sensibility, tainted with late-night geek-green madness. daring and true…the vanilla scented ash of strained morality floating in the breeze. the one knight fit to behold the grail. - Terminal Oblique: Feb 14 2001, For Ume-kun
inSoc and childlike glee…long hours at the terminal…intentional obliqueness, like purple italics on a brick wall…a taste of overripe plums and bitter caffeine…taunting and tempting like feathers against bare skin, the brush of a lover's hand against one's nose while sleeping. improbable but so real it's in your lap; the propaganda of an age. mercilessly surreal and infinitely beautiful. chaotic and settling- the brownian motion that dissolves the sugar in a hot cup of jasmine tea. - The Fiendish Thingy: Feb 14 2001, For Lord Phaedrus
vicious profiteering; no morals, only keen, clean, aesthetic sensibility and the driving forces of biology…fur and wires…copper, pall malls, mountain dew, and the dusty flavour of passing millenia. an undeniable magnetism; conductive like gold filament, sturdy as iron filings. a satin wrapped steel rod in the hands of don juan- the lover as the conquerer. a musky smell, a mink in heat, but with all the control of a fighter pilot. at his behest, the reality wrench turns… - Iron Golem: Mon Apr 2 2001, For Ogre
sun-scarred leather studded with gleaming metal…black smears of existential thought slithering down the moonbeams to ripple the still surface of the reflecting pool…bitter black coffee and the smell of tobacco and anesthetics. the screaming scrape of metal on metal, the howling of a twisted frame cooling in the desert evening…scalding wind through a tower of i-beams, cold steel and hot leather…a hero cast in iron, with his story rusted off the base. - Gecko of Steel: Jun 11 2001, For Niall
lithe, light, little lizard…a steel edged desert wind. caffeine and ash— nuclear brain waste in the cool morning air. a taste of salt and blood. firm footed ferocity, and a nimble-kneed gliding grace… sheltered with a smile, the last traces of continuity bleeding out into the wastelands, the western lands, the land called sun-goes-down… cold and smooth…inconspicuous and sharp. subtle, yet fiery in bursts, like a slowly eroding volcano that won't give up the ghost…a ghost in shadows — done before you've asked. small and gleaming…a shiny silvery thing…a taste of hope in the desert.
- Cartoon Cavalier: Jun 13 2001, For Boy
a sharp *crack*, and the bottom drops out…galloping off into the sunset on all eight legs, like a spider with a neurochemical disorder. the smell of cinnamon-scented burial shrouds…a mix of spices for the preservation of the flesh: cinnamon, clove, sandalwood, scotch broom…like a warm new orleans cemetary… just like wormwood, warming the flesh, the heart, and the soul — whirling visions in the corner of the eyes… jumpy and dark. one pair of peril sensitive sunglasses on a two headed alien. crumbling like limestone, but just around the eyes…warm dark eyes, like hot fresh pine tar, trapping in amber those who linger too long. warm sweet memory — calda e dolce memoria… like hot apple brandy on a long cold night. time passes like a hummingbird, drinking at the sweetness, and passing on far too swiftly. …just like flying with an unstable wing — dipping and pitching in the void… the pressure drops, and the bottom drops out. a cartoon cowboy and his animated steed…
- Ghost in the Machine: Dec 20, 2004, For ^davion^
glistening and pure… an innocence undaunted by the changing times. light wisps and wafts of smokelike presence… a caressing fog of war… a distance yet untravelled and as such, untrammelled. laughter like broken glass, drizzling down the wires. the malice and derision of two thousand years, compressed by the laughter from across the dyke, turned bright, shining, and liquid in the heat of mere moments. a toxic vapour that breathes like fresh flowers in chaucer's may, the season of love and light. a smile that could cut glass, never to be tested. a taint, nearly undetectable, but bitter like almonds… like winifred of denbighshire, we will come to you in peace, and lay our steel to rest on the hillsides, just to hear you breathe our air.
- Angel at the Gates: Dec 20, 2004, For Apatrix
a blade, swathed in flame, barring mortal man from the garden of peace and light… the usher of a new age, an age of war and unrest. a soft hand… a gentle touch to those in need — an iron fist to those who err, unapologetically. the wrath of god in competent hands. divine providence and justice driven by fury, and the stupidity of others. a machine built to run on love and wrath; a simplicity of form and function, occasionally derailed by the complexities of the human species. an honest artisan, skilled in the artistry of honesty. a master of the expletive. a blade to be pleased you've only seen the flat of. - Credible Perversion: Dec 20, 2004, For Constantine
a line of powder, addicting and addicted… clarities unnumbered on a whitewashed wall of code. black leather in midday snowfall, but not a snow given of nature, one stolen in chemical formats… drifting eaves of caffeine and ephedrine… a well-dressed bull in a china shop that already reeks of superglue. distance, subtlety — time outside of measure, fractal substance, unlimited surface… beyond 'z' is for zebra, there are hundreds of planes yet untouched, and a thousand more yet to be written… despite a sincerely mechanist outlook, this one bridges flesh and construct… the pages of machine language, yet indefinite, will be composed of blood and skin — composed in the moment between breath and death. syntax error: too many ellipses. mechanical format handles dead space poorly, but in math and soma, dead space breathes new life…
- Heavy Water: Dec 26, 2004, For Beren
a warm liquid with a mind of its own — a mind unknown to the creatures it interacts with… a fluid pool that lowers itself from the lips it tempts, like the stream beside tantalus. soft and silvery, translucent but distorting… half a sentence, never a promise, only an adjective… like monofilament so fine it slits passing throats, and blocks later the effects are seen… honesty backed by fear, fear built on memories of rejection. a clean terror, like a shard of glass, and the stream divides around it, only to meet and break for smaller and smaller fragments… a liquid truth that slits the drinker, water like mercury — clear but inductive of madness.
- Transi*: Dec 26, 2004, For IntravenousAnts
a metallic click. red ink spills from a twisted ribbon caught in the jammed keys. a serif font that leaks between its own headers and footers. courier with coffee stains, the caffiene bleeding into the off-white page waiting to slither up under the skin of the next unfortunate reader. blood and speed racing just under the skin. haunting eyes like pits, stark horrors climbing from their depths, giggling like twisted schoolgirls. promises based solely in the reality in which they were made. offer void in alternate planes of existence. sinuous tendrils of morning glory winding through the glow of the rising sun. twirling as the flesh slips away in some perverse danse macabre. a holy terror, unnerving all in the name of experience, living in fear, laughing under pressure, like a geyser forced up by the grinding of tectonic plates. a ghost is merely a memory — pete, repeat — the moss on a grave.
*"A depiction of a rotting cadaver in art (as opposed to a skeleton) is called a transi." Wikipedia ([link]). - (Challenge 2 has been lost.)
- The Lady Mountain: Oct 11, 2006, For Cryptosporodosi
A wind in the green leaves of Spring. Some sort of vernal spirit, lightfooted, but imposing — a ghost of two faces, but not two-faced. The Hebai spirit of the Western Lands. The Lady Mountain moves like jasmine tea poured in an irregular wind. One cannot predict an end point, but the stream dances merrily, scalding most of what it strikes. The smell of calm rises from the steam. The muddy rivulets of the aftermath retain the hints of their source and all of nature becomes infused with tea. Strange alchemies, her specialty. Settling the seething between all manner of beast, the mountain is still susceptible to wind, the wear of time, and the violent revels of the earth. Even dances with tea can take their toll. The mountain, though, like the sea, is eternal in mortal eyes. A cup of green assam solves all things in the end.
- Faery Dragon: Oct 11, 2006, For Swordborne
blue-green wings on a palm-sized dragon. wisdom of the ages, broken apart and mixed together, stabilised with the slag of too many nights on the drama farm. vivid as a drunkard, he speaks in rage and humour. she speaks in dissociated passivity of things much more immediate. to one eye, the dance of time is apparent. the drifting cycle that always returns to the same place, like a subway on a good night. to the other eye, the trauma of the moment is clear — the sharp demands of now. always underestimated and rarely desirous of fame or credit, the dragon slips away into the shadows to encourage the information to stay and the source to fade from memory. no man can patch a leak he cannot find. a lumbering hulk with a lightning mind or two or three or six. there is no need for speed in possession of stealth and the bulk of human memory.
- (Challenge 5 has been lost.)
- The Rainbow Sphinx: Oct 11, 2006, For Blackfly
amethyst starshine… a glimpse of blue and green and violet as the propaganda falls away from the walls. the ground rolls in the rhythm of joy called out from atop the minaret. nothing impossible, everything just a flick of the wrist away. higher and faster, the rushing sky spins away from the twisted metal beneath the window. the power to walk away, undamaged, from a distasteful destiny. a laugh like a lion's roar from a maiden's throat. the stars dance, the world turns, all in the palm of the horseman rushing through the streets of Constantinople. the world breathes and sings in colour. the night sweeps in on wings of blue and gold. the adhan echoes from the walls of reality.
- Porcelain Posies: Oct 12, 2006, For Whitenaga
a touch like falling into poppies. the rich scent of home, love and truth — sadly infrequent and far too often replaced with the chemical fragrance of powders and flowers previously unknown to man. an intellect that bites back, an unconscionably sharp tongue hidden in protests of simple humility. a distrust of all things. a mistrust of love. a disgust of flesh. the great transparent eyeball closed to further input, singing 'la, la, la' to the ears it does not have. the lady in spring, but swathed in thick wool and embarrassed to dance. a nightingale who sings no song, but cries tears of dread, waiting for the emperor to chase it away. ill-woven threads of memory, held in a vague and convoluted pattern by spit and duct tape. pure hollow despair with soft skin and a charming smile. a bone thin doll afraid of her own beauty.
- The Bamboo Oroborus: Aug 01, 2007
swift and fluid, but turns at the faintest hint of opposition, not to flee but to deflect, blades sliding off the curves … flexible and slick … razor sharp when split open, but able to heal its own wounds with time and patience… the lurking calm of the too-still pond that becomes a serene stillness as it bears the reflection of the moon… a complex coil that swallows its own roots as it grows, seeming to have risen from and returned to itself — a never-ending spiral of self-consumption — a need to swallow the memories down into the lake of static from the shores of which the improbable vegetation rises and falls, destined to repeat… deny, do again, learn nothing until the sun fades away… it is only in the moonlight that the bamboo oroborus releases its tail, vomiting up years of swallowed dreams and hidden secrets, and absorbing the essence, at last, no longer too full of itself to contain any more… it finally comes to understand and to truly know knowing and not knowing, just in time for the sun to rise again…
