Legolover-361

Member name: Legolover-361 Answer category: 2 Entry question: I recently became OBZPC, and now I'm treated like a BZP celebrity. My inbox is flooded with PMs asking for my autograph. I've never heard of this sort of thing happening before. What do I do?

Member: Legolover-361 Theme: Unfortunate Event Word Count: 643 Story: Thoughts of Spring

Thoughts of Spring “Granma, I’m gonna live forever.” “Now isn’t that something?” said Granma, bouncing little Timothy on her knee so he smiled and the sunlight caught his teeth, all eighteen of them. Birds chirped from somewhere beyond the backyard fence. Granma caught Timothy’s head and turned it back to her so his attention wouldn’t wander. “Don’t you know that that’s never happened before? Living forever, I mean.” “But it will, and you’ll live forever, too, and my mom and dad and friends—” “Timothy, nothing in this world is forever.” “God?” “Well, God’s not of this world, Dearie, what are they teaching you in Sunday school?” The strident sound of the church bell shattered his thoughts. Timothy hadn’t been to Sunday school in years. Automatically, he straightened his back and glanced to his parents to make sure they hadn’t noticed his reverie. Their faces were still downturned in prayer, their lids shut and faintly glistening with moisture. Tears. Heat rose in his cheeks. He quickly looked back down, trying to focus on the priest’s baritone homily, trying to focus his prayers onto the wine-red carpet, but he couldn’t conjure the necessary reverence to make his actions feel earnest. His emotions were expended. He’d cried when he heard the news of Granma’s death. A twenty-one-year-old man could admit to crying without feeling ashamed about it. He had admitted it. That didn’t calm the shame simmering in the back of his mind. “—to many of us, she was a loyal friend, but her devotion to her duty was what I think we all remember—” “—remember the bird calls you showed me?” Sunlight, a warm breeze, the rustling of leaves. Timothy could count the particles hanging in the air above his head. He looked back down, and Granma stood a meter from him, hands crossed over her lap and eyes gazing toward the trees behind the backyard fence. “I think I can try, but it’ll be difficult. You know how Granma’s lungs feel nowadays.” “Mommy says the smoking did it.” “Well, your mommy’s a smart young cookie.” “She’s not a cookie. I can’t eat her, Granma.” Timothy laughed, and Granma laughed too, and the warbling tones of an avian faded into the voices of a congregation in song. No laughter, just prayer. Timothy blinked and tried to follow the words. He couldn’t. He only knew “Amazing Grace”, “Here I Am, Lord”, and traditional Christmas tunes. Even the clothing around him was unfamiliar: black suits and ties and black dresses both floral and more demurely designed. Timothy was used to a more variegated array at college, blue, green, and red, more like the stained glass windows that lined the cathedral than the people beneath them, lined neatly in pews. The song trailed off. Mom audibly sniffled. Dad pulled her in, let her drain her despair into him. The soloist demounted the stage, and the priest, with his rumbling voice, implored the congregation to join him in prayer. “We are gathered here today,” said Timothy’s grandmother, and Timothy shook his head. No. Try to think better thoughts. Happier thoughts. Like spring, and flowers, and Grandmom categorizing them as easily as if she were a botanist. Bees humming and butterflies dancing on a breeze. Granma’s smile, the way it crinkled the skin around her eyes that made her seem both old and kind. And then, as Timothy watched in mute horror, the skin, desiccated now and colored with makeup so her skin appeared plastic, pulled her face taut and blank, and she was lying in her coffin very still while the priest intoned verses that were meant to comfort but were only words in the end. But Granma didn’t look like she was sleeping. She looked like she was about to open her eyes and say to seven-year-old Timothy, “Nothing lasts forever.” He should’ve slept more last night.

Member name: Legolover-361 Answer category: 3 Question: This never happened before, but when I try to enter "Batman" in my Awesomeness Rating profile field, a dialog box pops up warning me to enter a value between "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" and "Black Six". Is this a bug?

Christmas Collection 2013 by Sleeping at Last. It's available for free on Noisetrade in case anyone wants some laid-back Christmas covers and has a small budget.

In honor of my eighteenth birthday, I watched Saw with a friend. I'm ambivalent toward the acting, but the plot is great.

Sorry about the double-post, but I've received four rankings from judges, and I'm ready to announce the results: In first place, according to our judges, we have a tie between Of Rahi and Toa and Jovan's Test! Runner-up is The Chronicle. As KanohiJournal is currently inactive, I don't know if an anthology will be published, but I hope that pride is enough for y'all in the meantime. Thank you for entering or supporting this contest!

Isn't that the kid from LEGO instruction booklets?

4/5.

I understand your concerns about Kirhuu's justification for killing, but I won't address them because those concerns were meant to be raised. Because this letter was written from Kirhuu's point of view, it's biased; his teammates would probably have a different version of events. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have had Kirhuu slated for execution, just lifelong imprisonment, but that's a different matter. Maybe I'll return to this concept in a later, longer story; more room to write would provide me with the opportunity to show more justification for Kirhuu's actions and describe the cult in greater detail. I was afraid the letter would drag on for too long if I added the aforementioned descriptions.Thanks for the feedback.

Name: Legolover-361 Theme: Now Only Five Word Count: 500 Story: The Innocent, the Victim

The Innocent, the Victim They’ll see in time, I guess, but for now, this piece of paper is the only thing that listens to me without condescension in its eyes. I’ve always been predisposed to written rather than spoken language; fittingly, then, my final — and true — confession is contained within this letter. Four days ago, I killed someone. Today, I am going to be killed in recompense by the people for whom I drew my blade. “But aren’t you a Toa?” “What about the Toa Code?” “Whatever happened to honor?” Save your breath. I already know. The death row prison is open for the public to view. I’ve already been subjected to impromptu interrogations and how-can-you-live-with-yourself remarks. I even answered the questioners until I realized they didn’t want to hear anything contrary to their own beliefs. Forgive my digression, but there’s something about a cell that makes me want to write. I guess it’s like why the caged bird sings: What else has it to do? Let me backtrack. Yes, I am a Toa. My name is Kirhuu. I’ve always been the happy-go-lucky member of my Toa team, the jokester. They were shocked when they heard the news. The body of a Vortixx lies in a medical examination room somewhere, presumably torn open by a doctor with a high estimation of his own intelligence and an assumption that he already knows what happened. Yes. I killed that Vortixx; I do not deny it. But I killed him for the right reasons. It took a month for me to prove he was a threat to my city. I didn’t decide on the spur of the moment that I would murder him. My investigation was thorough, and it proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the Vortixx was a cult leader who regularly led his followers to the Mountain — the central landmark of Xia — and picked one to feed to the Mountain as a “worthy sacrifice”. I staked out one such event and relayed my findings back to my team. They agreed that something had to be done. So I did what had to be done. I confronted him that night, a cold one, the wind howling and my exhales morphing into mist. I knew where he was hiding: a small, boarded-up building with a large basement. It didn’t take long to find, and it took even less time for me to break down the door. He emerged. I shouted. Silver gleamed, and his knife dug into my side. I ran my sword through him, he whispered one last lie about his innocence, and that was the end of it. Is it so bad that he’s dead? Xia didn’t lose anyone significant. He was the murderer, and I the exacter of justice. Such is the occupation of Toa. It’s funny, isn’t it, that killing for my home means my home kills me? It will only have five Toa left to do what has to be done; I pray that my brothers and sisters will actually do it.

I've a few ranked lists already. I'm waiting on one more, but even if I don't get it, I'll release the judging results on or the day after Thanksgiving, November 28.

Gravity. I saw it with a friend today (and actually went to a theater for the first time in at least months), and it definitely met my expectations. I really enjoyed its plot, but its cinematography is beautiful.

I got the only two songs I was missing from Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie, those songs being "Lightness" and "Expo '86". I've also begun acquiring Sleeping at Last's Yearbook EPs, though the only complete one I have now is Yearbook: November.

There are good people, too. You just haven't found them yet -- or, rather, they haven't found you. I'll admit that I can't fully comprehend what you're going through, but hopefully this helps: Try not to be too bothered by people who say, implicitly or otherwise, that you're worthless, because such people don't deserve having their opinions on worth heeded.

At the moment, I would say that I am made of pure, unmitigated YES.

This Is War by 30 Seconds to Mars.Don't judge.

But but but how?

Since I couldn't get away with self-voting in this final poll, I voted for Entry 3. It's a brilliant piece of art that I think deserves more votes. I enjoyed all the entries, though. Oh, hey, that's my opinion, too. XD

For a while. There were plans to discontinue the KanohiJournal website a while back by not renewing its domain, but the ideas for progressing beyond it never solidified.

I self-voted, but Entry 2 made me feel guilty as blazes for it.