Vesperlf - Vesper

Matoro Mahri

“Perfection”

[ Version without text ]

The Grand Folia Hotel by keysmasht

Released: February 2023

63k words; 12 chapters

Noteworthy Tags:

Status: Complete

When an Affini outpost and the object of Phoebe's spy assignment for the Rebellion turns out to be an elaborate "floret-run" hotel, she begins to wonder if she's in over her head.

Grand Folia Hotel is a fic I feel downright unqualified to speak about, because it's just downright incredible. The setting is lush and richly realized, Celosia is a terrifying and enticing force of nature, and chapter 10 hits like a goddamn freight train. The fic feels downright platonic in a way. Like, if one were to wish for an ideal version of an HDG story, a kindly genie might produce something that looks an awful lot like Grand Folia Hotel. I lack the expertise on Wes Anderson to say if the name is more than simply a cute play on words, but it would not surprise me.

810NICLE DAY

It's bionicle day, so here's some of the toa I drew as part of a commisioned set sometime last year. Looking back at when I was making these, I had thought that it was when I was stll refining the biomechanical elements of my style, but I've also found things from that time that were further down the line in detail. I still need to get to Onua and Pohatu, but haven't quite had the time to just sit down and draw a bunch of pieces for a little while - plus I feel nervous about if whether I'd manage to capture them in a comparable amount of detail haha, don't want any of them to stand out in an unusual way

the problem i have with the whole "humans and nature as opposed and mutually exclusive forces" style of environmentalism is that it discourages people from a sustainable, mutualistic relationship with the ecosystems around them, because getting resources from an ecosystem is Bad. Therefore it requires you to think that parts of Earth that provide resources are not ecosystems.

this is where you get unbelievably stupid crap like the "half earth" project that proposes "protecting" half of Earth's land mass as nature preserves, never mind how we choose what half or what happens to the other half.

this type of environmentalism literally encourages people to think of their own presence as excluding or cancelling out "Nature."

And so people think of their lawns as Not Ecosystems, as Not Nature, so they cannot think "How do i live in right relationship with my ecosystem, as its caretaker?" This is death to ecological thinking.

The lawn was consciously created by intention and design, with heavy machinery that was manufactured, sold, and operated, it is not spontaneously created by fumes that the human body gives off.

You act upon the land, now time to learn what you are doing, and who you are doing it to.

TRY NOT TO CUM FIND YOUR DESTINY WHILE PLAYING THIS GAME!!!

SPIRIT OF FLAME, HEAR ME

Staggered in under the black stone, sick from the teleport. He’d barely made it. Could feel how close it had been, as the power ebbed. He fell to his knees, succumbing to the shivering exhaustion that spread through his core and into his limbs. 

Once, he had been strong. He remembered how the villagers of Ta-Koro had first looked at him from behind their thin spears: fear and hope mixed. They were frail, weakened by the darkness, but still they had raised open hands toward him.

“Mata Nui has answered,” they’d said in hushed tones. Then, beseeching: “O Spirit of Flame, hear us!”

The Armor had abandoned him. Angonce had warned...“Contingency against contingency” or something equally as cryptic. Not only that: The Armor had taken its power with it, emptied him of all the strange abilities it had granted. Teleportation was all he’d been able to manage. One last escape, and no more.

All that was left now was his own elemental power, but even that.... The Hunter’s black ceramic lances throbbed where they protruded from his back, draining his energies. Dark and smooth and alien. He couldn’t get them out. He’d have to try again....

Jaw clenched, he crawled forward a pace, felt cool air on his brow, and remembered that he was maskless. That’d have to be first. He reached out with his mind. It was hard, much too hard...but then he felt his old Hau respond. It came to him from however far away and covered his face with its familiar shape, filled him with its familiar energy.

Better. He breathed and pushed back against the pain in his body. Now he raised a hand in front of his face. Focused again. It was still hard, but not like before. Come on!

Radiance. A small tongue of fire sprang to life above his palm. It grew. Yes, it was alive. He was alive. For now.

“Listen to me!” he’d yelled, trying to make himself heard as the Hunter smashed blunt arms against his shield. He’d used the Armor to exert telekinetic control then, arresting his foe’s upper limbs. The great eye fixed on him with an expression of...Amusement? Insult?

“Your creators don’t want this!” he’d gasped, breathless from his wounds. “And neither do mine. We must stop. They don’t want this destruction.”

The Hunter had no real mouth, but words came from somewhere, a metallic clamor issuing from the gaps in its carapace.

“THEY DO.”

He’d felt it then. An unlatching, a withdrawal. The air shimmered as his telekinesis failed. The Armor twisted him, wrenched itself from his body and limbs and face, and flung him away. Teleportation saved him from the impact, but not much else, and then...

The tiny flame danced before his eyes. Alive.

They have answered you. They have shown you what they want.

Pain swelled in his body, and his hand began to shake. His arm sagged, and his breath came in gasps. He was weak, weakened by the darkness, and there was no one here to help.

He struggled to raise his hand a little higher, felt the warmth on his mask.

“Spirit of Flame...hear me,” he whispered.

Then he collapsed forward, and was still.

The flame wavered in the air. Trembled.

But it did not go out.

I have realized that the perfect form of media must have a delicate balance between absolutely heart wrenching pure emotional devastation and the most ridiculous nonsense you have ever seen in your whole life

i certainly wasn't happy before my attempt. the pain was all i could really think about at the time. suicide is a desperate attempt to escape when you don't see other options. in the long run, those other options will eventually lead to happiness.

it got better very slowly for me, but a lot faster once i found people like me making really good art that i could have a cathartic cry to.

i hope you start feeling better soon. i can't really know you as we're just internet strangers but i think you're a pretty cool fox with a good sense of humor.

i hear that many people are happy before they kill themselves because they realize their pain is ending soon. so im trying to convince myself that maybe i should die in hopes that it'll create some kind of happiness burst and i can maybe ride that and feel better. but so far it just makes me want to die instead

theyre in a polycule