10
Crescendo
"If music be the food of love, play on." William Shakespeare
"Posture: good. Back: good. Hands and arms: good. Legs and feet: good. And you're all set. Begin."
The first finger pressed down on the first key, and the harmony of the piano reverberated and resonated across the room. A slow, steady hymn hummed from the heart of piano. An adagio of soft notes, one after the other, played smoothly and calmly, emerging from the fingers that danced on the black and white keys. Arced hands hovered over the keys, they hopped against gravity, glided toward other keys, and the arced hands landed back down with perfection and precision. The blank face turned into a smile—the pace hastened, cheerful notes bloomed from the instrument.
Her hands and arms began to bounce around while her head swayed slowly to the melody. She closed her eyes and played the piece in perfection—her body was one with the music, synchronized. She embodied the aria, commanding her face and her neck and shoulders and arms to dance the piece as it came from her mind to her hands to the keys.
A thunder rang from the piano.
Two.
Three.
Four...
…five roars shook the air, her head banging downward each time. Her eyebrows pulled inward and down, her brows of concentration transfixed on the power of the song. The blend of five notes played: the chord played in tangent, in harmony, in unison. The family of five continued on as the great opus began to settle. Her hands leapt into the air as she tightened her lips, the tip of her tongue escaping. Her sonata came to a gradual close.
Discipline. Posture, back, hands and arms, legs and feet default position. Hold for one, two, three seconds.
The pianist grinned and ecstatically bounced in her seat.
"And you named this piece…'Final Frontier.' You…uh…you've never done that before, by the way. The way you moved to your own music. Your hands and body and face matched perfectly what you were feeling. I could feel the raw emotion and power in this piece, it's quite tremendous. I feel like 'Final Frontier' was just itching to come out of you and it just burst out into this. It's magnificent to say the least, not only did your music speak, but your body spoke with it, too…And I take it you're going to choose to accept this eSports thing?"
The girl nodded with a smile frozen on her face.
"Then you're going to have to teach me what I need to know so I can cheer for you when you're winning, okay?"
The girl stuck her tongue out, rushed off the piano stool and embraced her mother.
"You'll still write and play music, right?"
She nodded.
"Good. Send me what you write so I can have a look at it, okay? And text me or email me or write if you want to talk about something. This is new for both of us, so open communication, right? Good. Okay, I have business to take care of, so I will probably be gone for the rest of the day. Let me know if anything comes up? Okay. Good practice session, by the way. I love you, Sonia."
She walked back to the piano, closed the key lid and picked up the copy of the sheet music she had written. She placed her phone back in her pocket, picked up her tablet, and made her way towards her computer. The original pages of the sheets music were sprawled across desk, around the mouse and keyboard.
She collected them into a pile, tapped it on the desk twice before setting it aside. She double clicked her journal and began typing:
Octooooooober 14, 2016
So I played "Final Frontier" for mum today and she seemed to really enjoy it and approve of it. Working on it for five days straight seems to have paid off. I'm not changing the title from "Final Frontier" that's there to stay now. :3
After having waited a week, and after having thought about Shelly's proposition (Lol, I still find it funny to call him Shelly (or Penny)), I'm going to say yes. In fact, I'll respond after writing this entry. :D
I still don't know how well I could do as a captain of a team. I'm not sure why Shellshock thinks it could work out well. I almost feel as if any failure at all will completely be only my responsibility. :C
Oops, forgot to turn on music. :p HER LIFE WAS SAVED BY ROCK N ROLL! :D
But I'm really having conflicting thoughts here. I think the only reason I can lead a team well over Solo Queue is because the main method of communication there are pings and text. Sure, Kitty and I can sort of "telepathically" communicate for anything we're doing in lane, but then I'd have trouble communicating with the rest of the team. At least I think so. ^^;
In a lot of interviews with current and past players, they seem to say there's a bunch of communication issues from time to time. I really don't know how I'd be able to improve in that area with my team. D:
If Shelly thinks there's some way around this, then I'd trust his call on it. With his experience and guidance we should be able to work things out, though. Toky and Rexy seem to trust him enough with anything related to ESports, so maybe I'm just not thinking about what other options and resources I'll have available once the team gets together in that gaming house Penny told us about in his second email. I hope things really work out well.
Ooh, also I've started reading The Art of War seeing as how I'm going to be all captainy and shit. Maybe I'll get a cool captain's hat or something. I'm getting quite a lot of good ideas and ways to formulate strategies from reading Sun-Tzu's stuff. And I'm also learning a bit of Chinese tradition and history in the process. One of the things I found interesting from the early notations was the concept of punishing the commander if his soldiers fuct up. Normally, at least how I think of it, punishment should happen to the person or persons who are acting out of line. But the philosophy of punishing the commander or the teacher or the parent for the faults and flaws and misbehavior of those they are leading or teaching or raising just makes so much more sense. I'm not sure I want to punish myself though. Hopefully no one else on the team has read Art of War. ¯_¯
I'm not sure what I want to be for Halloween yet. D: Maybe I'll just cosplay another champion this year.
Oh shit, I have to let my friends know I may have to move in order to play professionally. Gotta do that after I email Shelly.
AND A REUUUUL HERO, REAL HUMAN BEING! :D
I'm thinking I need a new anime to start watching. I've recently finished Sword Art Online and I really enjoyed it. There were some parts that were pretty meh, but overall it was really funny and really good. Maybe I can start looking around for just some new manga series. Or I could also look for some more online comics like that Nuzlocke one. That was a really, really, REALLY funny read. Those faces are just the most hilarious things ever.
OH! Maybe for Halloween I could go as a Pokemon. Maybe like Gardevoir. Or Blaziken would be pretty cool to make. Or maybe I could be the ice cream one. LOL, that'd look so dumb. Maybe something like Bellossom would be nice to craft, too. But then there's also like Zelda or Samus or Chun Li. I wish I could cosplay like Jessica Nigri. I WANNA BE THE JESSICA NIGRI!
Oh and on the topic of Zelda and Samus, I recently found out I suck at Smash Brothers. :c I don't know how they play Melee like that, it's just fucking insane. I can't believe there's still a lot of people who love Smash around. If only Nintendo liked the attention it was getting. Maybe FGC and ESports would have been better for Melee in its golden age. Also, Abigail recently sent me a link to The Smash Brothers documentary that was made a few years ago. I'm only a few episodes in, but it's really, really good so far. I'm liking the flow of the story and how it unfolds. I should probably finish watching it before heading out to the gaming house. Maybe I'll learn something more about competitive gaming that I hadn't thought of before.
I feel like playing some Minecraft again soon. I haven't played in a while and kind of want to just build something new.
SOME DAY THOSE TEARS ARE GONNA SPILL. SO BUILD THAT WALL AND BUILD IT STRONG CUZ WE'LL BE THERE BEFORE TOO LONG!
Bastion was such a good game! I cried at the end. T_T Twice. T_T Even though I knew what was going to happen for the other ending, I still cried. Supergiant such a good developer. And fucking Transistor. :X Too many feels. T_T
I wish I had a voice like Ashley Barrett's. So pretty and sexy as fuck. Just listening to her sing makes me want to cry out of an overdose of beauty. ;-; I would marry her just so I could hear her talk and sing all the time. :3 And Darren Korb. That voice and music too good. I'd also marry Wife! And Jessica Nigri! And Notch! I should make them all my waifu! THERE AREN'T ENOUGH PEOPLE IN THE WORLD TO FALL IN LOVE WITH AND MARRY!
Oh shit! OH SHIT! I just realized I could talk to Shuriken and Tempest and xNietzsche and ask them what communication is like on a team and how it's fixed. We could conspire to join up and make an all-female team. ¯u¯
I wonder what my teammates are like IRL. Everyone knows Rexy and Toky are tight bros. I wonder what they're like off stream and out of the game. What about Panda? He sounds like a pretty cool dude, too. I wonder if he has any pet pandas. That'd be so cool. :o If I ever had a pet, it'd probably be like a Poro. :3 :P :PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP Ugg. Such an overdose of cuteness and kawaii. :3 TuT Or maybe I'd get a Togepi as a pet! Or a Charmander! :D Eeeeeeee, or a Pichu. I should main Pichu in Melee.
Maybe I could be Misty for Halloween. Or Cynthia. Or Lyndis. But it'd be difficult as fuck to make my hair like hers. D:
Kitty always seems like a cool kid on stream. He's so young, too. 18 according to his FAQ on Twitch. Among one of the youngest players to compete professionally in the LCS. And he has like a million accounts in Challenger. How in the world does anyone do that? HOW!?
We were pretty successful with the smurf team thing that we did. Everyone knows so much about the game, timers, and concepts, and strategies. Maybe I won't have to work as hard as I originally thought to keep the team on the same page. But then again, we haven't really played against any professional teams. I wonder what kind of scrim partners we're going to have. If Shelly knows the ESports scene, I'm sure he's got a list of teams that'll be willing to play with a newly formed one. We'll see.
And LOL, Toky has a smurf named after Light. I wonder if he's only read the manga or watched the anime. Or maybe he's done both. We should talk about the stuff we've watched. If I had to guess who he was by his name, I would have thought he was Japanese. But he doesn't sound like it, nor does he look like it from what I've seen of his stream. He's soooooooooooooo super weeaboo. And then everyone knows Rexy has like a crush on Elfen Lied. There's so much to discuss. Not enough time to do it, though. D: And then there's like a million more things I could talk about with them and Panda and Kitty. ! What about Shelly?! What about his wife?! And they apparently have a daughter. I wonder how old she is. I could totally train her to be my Pikachu. :3 She'd follow me around everywhere with Pikachu ears and red cheeks. xD Now I that image will just stay stuck in my head forever.
WELCOME TO OUR WORLD, WHERE YOU ALWAYS GET THE GIRL, YOU MAY LOSE A FIGHT OR TWO BUT YOU'LL WIN IF YOU GET THROUGH! FACE UP AND CHALLENGE ALL YOU EVER KNEW SINCE YOU COULD CRAWL, ALWAYS LOOKING SOMEWHERE ELSE WHEN IT'S ALL INSIDE YOURSELF! I WANNA PLAY UNTIL I DIE, DON'T WANNA LOSE MY REASONS WHYYYYYY! I RACE TOWARDS THE SKY, IN A WORLD THAT NEVER ENDS!
I should get to work on some stuff. D: Until next time, Word Eater!
Sonia "Crescendo" Wintory
–
"And I-I like what Espada said there about Royale's style of play: 'They accelerate the game.' And that's what a lot of other teams don't do, if they're in the lead, they hold that lead but don't accelerate anything."
"And a lot of the best teams that we've seen in League of Legends history have been those teams that know how to play fast and just dominate with the smallest of advantages."
"Alright, everyone, now that we've heard from the teams, let's have a look at today's starting lineups. On the Blue side: it's Royale! Shuriken in the Top Lane, Dendra in the Jungle, Phyros at Mid, Covert playing Marksman, and Izbiri at Support."
"And on the Red side it's the underdogs in this one: Team Ampersand. We've got Toxiform in the Top Lane, Tempest in the Jungle, Espada, happy as always, in the Mid Lane, Aeaza on Marksman, and Militia on Support."
"And our featured match up for this Semifinal Series is the melee in the Mid Lane: Royale's Phyros versus Ampersand's Espada."
"Yeah now this one's gonna to be interesting to watch. Espada is generally a very explosive player who can find small advantages in lane and just run rampant the rest of the game if the enemy team doesn't have an answer for him."
"Right."
"Phyros, on the other hand is a very calculated player. He knows how much he can handle and how much he can deal. So he can arguably just play safe and farm early game without putting himself in harm's way until he knows he's got a trap for Espada."
"Alright, Masua, we'll see which champions they'll use this match, but first let's see who you think will win. I think I know who the fans voted for. And according to LoLESports dot com, eighty-two percent of you think Royale will be the team to join Collateral in the World Championship."
"And that is an expected number, you know, Royale has been quite strong throughout the season, and they usually win against Ampersand. But even the fans here are giving Ampersand a little bit of credit. Royale has only gone through this once before, and maybe they're still susceptible to the jitters every now and then playing in front of a crowd. But Ampersand is an organization that has stood the test of time for a while now, and they've also had to play on these stages before to qualify for prior World Championships. I'm not sure which of the two is more confident here."
"And we see now that we've entered the Pick and Ban phase that Ezreal was banned away from Aeaza, Sona from Militia, and Zac from Dendra. Royale are really focusing a lot of bans on that Bottom Lane and for a good reason. Aeaza is extremely good at surviving with little to no peel, and if Royale were to risk having her play Ezreal, things could be rather complicated in mid and late game."
"To further punish them, they also banned Sona from Militia because Royale likes to play the farm game early and they don't want to get poked down. They're a bit pacifist in that regard, like Covert and Izbiri are saying: 'Hi, we see you, please don't hit us, and we won't hit you.' Make no mistake, however, they can be extremely aggressive if they see an opening. At the same time, powerful ganking champions like Volibear or Maokai could easily slip into Ampersand's Jungle. Maybe Royale's plan to go for the Ashe-Zyra combo might backfire on them…the other bans are Zed from Phyros, Kassadin from Espada, and Evelynn from Dendra as well. It looks like Ampersand has banned away more champions from Royale's Jungle, and it's really a very smart decision. We've seen in the LCS that a lot of the power plays from Royale start off from very well-coordinated ganks by Dendra. By banning out Zac and Evelynn, they're really taking care of possibility of a surprise initiation either from fog of war or from a path that wasn't secured with True Vision since Evelynn is an invisible unit until she's just too close, which is too late at this level of play. We'll also be seeing Kassadin and Zed taken away from the Mid Lane completely. These are both champions that, with just a little bit of a lead and a few seconds of having reaching level six, can decide the pace of the rest of the game. It looks like both teams are in this for the long haul with very few assassins left to pick."
"So it looks like Royale is comfortable with a first pick Elise. This is a good pick because it doesn't give Ampersand any real information on whether she'll be played by Dendra in the Jungle or by Shuriken in the Top Lane."
"It looks like the ambiguous pick isn't going to faze Ampersand, they're locking in the Shen and Lee Sin instantly. And you know what, Remington? Royale's also going to just instantly lock in that Ashe-Zyra combo. I saw it coming and Ampersand saw it coming. Lee Sin and Shen are some pretty good champions to have once everyone on the map reaches level six. A well timed Stand United from Shen can easily turn around a skirmish or teamfight that an Ashe-Zyra lane starts. And for the rest of the game Shen will just splitpush whenever there's nothing going on anywhere else on the map."
"Yeah, these teams can read each other quite well. But since neither team hesitated to lock in those picks, maybe they actually have something else planned that might make the other team reconsider their team comp."
"So now Ampersand's just said: 'Aha! Hold on a minute.' They're taking a bit longer to pick this time…and it looks like they're going to hover over Fiddlesticks for a while. That may not be such a bad pick, a well-timed Shen ult with a taunt and a Fiddle ult is a very dangerous combination which they could easily do if they can negate vision from Royale. And Support Fiddle can throw out those crows to harass Ashe-Zyra with fairly decent damage. And then of course the fear is a very strong initiation with a Lee Sin Jungle to back you up. So it looks like they're going for Fiddle-Cait. Caitlyn's long range is a pretty good answer for Ashe-Zyra as well. Ampersand have autoattack range, Piltover Peacemaker, and Dark Wind to counter Royale's passive playstyle early game. But if there's a kill or two for either team, that lane might very well be over. These picks, however, do look like they're purely reactions to the Ashe-Zyra—other than the poke, Ampersand have a sort of dissonant Bot Lane. Fiddle can be something more of an initiator or a peeler, hardly both. Meanwhile, Caitlyn is a champion who sits in the back of the team chipping away at her enemy's health bars. But that's exactly the playstyle Aeaza is good at, so we'll see whether or not this lane meshes well."
"The last picks for Royale are going to be Fizz…and…Rumble. So it looks like Rumble is going to be heading to the Top Lane with Elise in the Jungle."
"So this opens up the chance for really strong ganks Bottom once everyone's level six. Either Jungle or Bot Lane can start off with crowd control, and there will be at least two more slows or snares or stuns. This Bottom Lane is going to be a really scary lane for this entire game. And if Dendra sees an opening in Mid Lane, he and Phyros can just burst down whoever Ampersand picks in response. The Rumble pick is more of a standard pick for Royale here. Shuriken has played Rumble extremely well all season, and the team seems to be thinking: 'Why would be change that?' Which is a really good mentality to have when the stakes are this high. So the AoE damage and teamfight of Royale is as strong as ever with the Enchanted Crystal Arrow, the Stranglethorns, and The Equalizer. I don't know how Ampersand plans to respond to this."
"Militia here, toying with the crowd, is hovering over Heimerdinger."
"No, he's not toying. Ampersand is totally going to send Fiddle Mid and use Heimer as Support, it seems like the kind of thing Ampersand would do just to mess with Royale a bit."
"And they're going for the Diana pick."
"Ooh, now Diana is a pretty good matchup against Fizz. This is going to be amazing since it's our featured matchup and both of these champions can easily burst down anyone. These aren't your typical assassin picks, but again most of the popular ones are off the board and these seem to be acceptable replacements. Diana is a very all-in type of champion which synergizes quite well with Lee Sin, Shen, and Fiddlesticks. So if Ampersand ever gets the drop on Royale they're going to lose objectives. What's good about Diana rather than, say Ahri, is that she's a bit of a better duelist and she's got that all-in, surprise attack, 'Oh look your health bar is gone' kind of play style. But while this is a good pick for Espada, I don't think Ampersand have a decent enough composition for teamfights. If they're going to want to win this one, they have to pick off one person in Royale's Jungle or they're just going to be racing against time. It's uncharacteristic of Royale to mess up on teamfights, so Ampersand have to play with…absolute precision."
The VoD continued playing while she reached for the notebook she had purchased earlier that day. Red, the color complimentary to her cyan hair. With a black marker she wrote the title on the cover: Dal Niente.
She flipped open to the first page and began writing: Final Frontier's Road to Victory. Ampersand's weaknesses…
