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luminoustico · 2 years

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Sherlolly #1 (Soulmates AU) please? Something with a happy ending?

1: soulmates au. Also for @juldooz who wanted the same au.

Mycroft knew his brother was up to something when he walked into his bedroom, because Sherlock shot up to his full height and glared. Mycroft sighed, leaning against the doorknob.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Sherlock said quickly, all hair and height, disappointingly stereotypical for a young teenager. The high of his cheeks went beetroot red.

“Mummy says that dinner’s ready.”

“Fine,” Sherlock said tightly, hurrying to the door and skirting past Mycroft. He yelped as Mycroft grabbed his arm.

“That hurt!”

“Be quiet,” Mycroft snapped, yanking his little brother to his side. He turned the inside of his brother’s arm upwards, towards the hall light. Marker pen was scrawled across his skin. Mycroft’s smile sagged as he realised what it said.

“Oh Sherlock…”

“I told you, it’s nothing,” his brother spat, wrenching his arm out of his grip. He tugged at his sleeve uselessly. “I was just experimenting.”

There was a horrible silence between them for a moment. As ever, Mycroft was the one who broke it. “It’s okay,” he said slowly. “I won’t tell our parents.”

“Don’t tease me,” Sherlock spat.

“I’m not—”

It was too late. Sherlock had disappeared into the bathroom, slamming the door hard enough to shake the door off its hinges. The sound of running water filtered through.

“Boys!” called up the voice of their mother. “Stop fighting and come downstairs!”

Mycroft squared his shoulders, clearing his throat. He hurried downstairs, greeting his mother with a kiss on the cheek. Their family had suffered enough; it wasn’t his place to create further upset to his brother. He just had to manage it, that was all.

—

SOME YEARS LATER

The rain was pouring down. The London traffic crawled by, sleek saloon cars alongside hatchbacks with dents in every panel. That was something to admire about traffic jams; they could be a wonderful social leveller. Sherlock flipped up his collar as he opened the door, preparing to step out into the rain.

“Sherlock,” said a soft voice behind him, and he quelled the temptation to roll his eyes. Turning instead on his heel, he faced Anthea. She had only the hint of a smile on her face, peeking out from underneath a large black umbrella.

“Don’t you get tired of being my brother’s gofer?”

Anthea, quite admirably, didn’t dignify his jab with a reply, and instead gestured to the car just pulling up alongside the pavement.

Sherlock eyed it, weighing his options. He could go through with his original plan; get a taxi, buy some takeaway and try to ignore it, as he had been doing for weeks now. On the other hand… the rain really was pouring down, and Mycroft’s drivers did always make sure the heating was ‘just so’.

With a half-hearted grumble, he climbed into the back of the car. Anthea slid in beside him, shaking off her umbrella and fetching her phone from her pocket.

The drive was shorter than he imagined, and didn’t, for once, take him to some dilapidated warehouse or empty office building. Instead, it took him somewhere worse. Far worse.

Molly Hooper’s flat had, in the past, been a place of refuge for him. She had taken him when no-one else had, when everyone else (even his brother) had lost their patience and thought he’d continue to slip down the drain; she’d let him sleep there, among familiarity, when the strangeness of being a dead man walking got a little too much.

Now, it loomed over him, the windows darker than he’d ever seen them, the door an intimidating shade of yellow.

The rain had petered off during the too-short drive, and Mycroft was stood on the pavement, leaning on his cane with his right hand, his left hand tucked into his pocket.

“Hello Sherlock.” In response, Sherlock tugged the collar of his coat up to line his chin. Mycroft stared hard at him. “Don’t hide.”

“I’m not… hiding.” As he spoke, the car door closed and its engine started, easily pulling away. Sherlock looked at the flat again, blowing out his cheeks slightly. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape to. Just as his brother wanted.

“I don’t know if you remember this, Sherlock, but when you were younger…”

“I know what you’re referring to.”

“What, then?”

“I was embarrassed about the fact that I hadn’t got my - mark - yet, so I tried to fool everyone by writing a name on my arm every morning. Until you got wind of it and told our parents.”

“I had to tell them Sherlock.” Mycroft sighed. “Mummy would’ve found out eventually anyway. She always did.”

“Not about everything.”

“That was a low blow. Which I shall ignore. If,” Mycroft added, and he pointed with the tip of his umbrella towards the windows, “you go up to that woman and stop denying reality.”

Our family is very good at denying reality, Sherlock thought bitterly. Against his worst instincts, he followed the line formed by Mycroft’s umbrella and stared up at the window. A lamp had been lit, lighting the curtains in a low sunset hue. A shape, small and obviously upset (going by the hunched shoulders), entered the frame.

“It’s very easy to get scared. You had your mark since you were a boy. Mine came the moment she got engaged. Is it any wonder I think I’m broken?”

“We’re all broken in this family,” Mycroft said softly, after a pause soundtracked by traffic. “The most radical thing we can do is find our piece of happiness and not let go of it. Everything I do is to protect my happiness, and help you find your own. I admit,” Mycroft continued when Sherlock opened his mouth with a retort, “I made bad decisions. Very bad decisions. But you have a chance to be better than me.”

Sherlock felt the temptation to squash his brother’s vulnerability with a cruel barb, but his eyes could only focus on that small silhouette.

He’d hurt her too many times to hurt her again.

Squaring his shoulders, Sherlock stepped forward and knocked on the door.

The silhouette withdrew from the frame. The yellow door swung open. It took some silence, but Molly Hooper carried forgiveness in her eyes as she smiled.

“Took you long enough.”

“Too long,” Sherlock said, glancing to his wrist. The name ‘Molly’ was etched like a delicate scar into his skin. He was still getting used to the itch that came when she came near, but right now, as he stepped forward and embraced her in a gentle kiss, the itch became a warm tingle, casting a fuzzy glow around his eyes. “Far, far too long.”

#mizjoely #answered #sherlolly #sherlock x molly #otp: we'll start with the riding crop #ch: sherlock holmes #ch: molly hooper #sherlock #i like the request for a happy ending #implies i might just be too invested in tragedy lately lmao #also hello hi again nice to meet you sherlolly!#i still love you #you still own my soul

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mysticalheartballoon · 2 years

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Custom-Built Wardrobes Adelaide

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Water based paints do not tend to bond easily to melamine surface and as such, the use of acrylic or domestic oil based paint is not recommended. Unpainted doors will be ready for delivery or collection in approx. Your choice of colours is virtually unlimited as you can choose from any of the major Australian paint brands such as Dulux, Taubmans, Wattyl etc to perfectly match your interiors. Simply visit your local paint or hardware store and advise us of the brand and colour or code. Alternatively, you can choose white, which is our only standard colour. For a more solid door, you may request 25mm thickness at additional cost.

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Whether you are renovating, remodelling, or simply seeking to enhance a space, Bentley’s Wardrobes & Kitchens can help. We specialise in bringing your storage dreams to life. Whether you need impressive cabinetry, practical storage in your laundry, or an inviting kitchen that will do justice to your home, Bentley’s is your solution in Blue Mountains, Penrith, Sydney. When getting a custom design wardrobe Camden, contact Meigh Joinery the wardrobe and joinery professionals. Our wardrobe and custom joinery design consultant will be able to provide you with suggestions or even come up with the design for you based on your needs.

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If you want to replace/ upgrade your existing wardrobe, call us today, and we will come to your place to look at your situation. We will provide ideas and options to fulfil your needs. Once you finalise the selection, we will start the installation work. Custom made wardrobe doors are generally either satin polyurethane paint, timber veneer, laminate or undercoated . Polyurethane or undercoated doors can be routed with simple or ornate patterns. We also do aluminium-framed glass doors where you can choose from a range of colours and frostings.

If necessary, they will suggest ways to improve the functionality of your space. Richard and his team recently built a bedroom at our home and did a fantastic job. Richard and his team are the type of builders you want on your build, I will definitively be using Richard for any future work I need done in the future. Thank you Richard for a fantastic job and for making a stressful time so easy. Our showroom is located in Miranda and we welcome you to make an appointment to come and visit us, to touch and feel the product you’re looking to buy. Alternatively, take a look through our online gallery, visual proof to you that we deliver what we promise.

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We therefore can service your needs quickly and efficiently with no long wait for your doors. This type of wardrobe presents many different possibilities. Not only can you be flexible with bespoke, contemporary looks, but you can also take advantage of added floor space. Even the largest and most imposing of systems will open up more of your room.

Impressive custom walk in wardrobe design not only double as a dressing room, offering you decent privacy but also boost the value of your home. Similar to selecting your en-suite, it is vital to choose the right walk in wardrobe design for your bedroom as it can offer you with many possibilities. With over 35 years of experience, Emporium Kitchens specialise in making big and small walk in wardrobe, custom walk in closet, as well as, luxury walk in robe and custom cabinetry in Sydney. At Oz Wardrobes, we only deliver the highest quality products and solutions for your wardrobe needs. That’s why we offer comprehensive onsite consultations, so we can ensure that we’ve got exactly the right dimensions and structure of your space and we can custom-build the perfect wardrobe to fit in it. Wardrobes make beautiful additions to any room, especially to a bedroom.

Your fitted wardrobe will be made exactly for your needs and your place. We can design your wardrobe to fit exactly in the space you want to, and position the shelving, hanging and drawer space to perfectly accommodate your needs and clothes. My office/computer room looks "amazing" I could not be happier with the choices suggested and delivered. Your service is one of Built In Wardrobes a kind and your after customer care is amazing. You and your team should be so proud of the work you carry out from the first initial contact phone call to the end result. Will definitely be recommending your team to everyone I know.

Making the most of your laundry requires imagination, good design and quality made products. Choice Wardrobes are specialists in designing and building storage solutions for laundries. King Wardrobe Built-In Wardrobes is a family owned and operated company located in South Western Sydney. We specialize in the design, manufacture, and install of quality built-in wardrobes and storage solutions. We have a combined experience of over 25 years in the business.

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coleman02hughes · 2 years

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One Hundred Eighty Loewe Puzzle Bag Ideas In 2021

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Just to be additional clear, I obtained the sleek leather tan possibility, the one that comes with silver hardware. Loewe also has a slightly hotter camel shade that they do in a grained leather with gold hardware (they don’t do the graceful tan with gold hardware, which could be very sad). You can see the warmer grained camel here – if you scroll to the picture with the deal with leather-based, you possibly can see the 2 colors contrasted. One of the major differences from the unique design, apart from the delicate leather, is the shoulder strap on this bag that seamlessly offers a large leather strap. wikipedia handbags Since the strap is fairly extensive, the bag sits properly on your shoulder with out feeling flimsy or falling off. It’s not long sufficient to wear crossbody, but it presents ample space to put on the bag over your shoulder even in case you have an outsized coat on. You’ll additionally find a D-ring to connect personalised charms on the exterior of the bag, which permits for further customization if you’d like. In the image with the fake vs real Loewe Puzzle baggage above, we now have pointed out how the fake Loewe bag has its “LOEWE” text badly font-weight. As you possibly can see from the fake vs real Loewe Puzzle bag image above, we've identified how the fake Loewe bag has its stitching badly done. In fact, the pretend brand is this thick as a result of it's fit too deep inside the leather-based, whereas the genuine bag has its brand fit less deep inside the bag, and so, it seems thinner. In the picture with the faux vs actual Loewe Puzzle bags above, we have pointed out how the faux jacket has its engravings on the mistaken thickness. loewe bag sale

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ncssian · 3 years

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A Favor: Part Thirteen

Nessian Modern AU

Masterlist

a/n: merry christmas

***

Nesta and Cassian agree to take separate cars to Velaris— not because they’re so afraid of being discovered together that they’ll risk global warming, but because Nesta has a preceding event and tells Cassian not to wait up for her.

After a rushed Secret Santa with the boys at Emerie’s apartment, Nesta drops by Gwyn’s place and leaves a small parcel at the doorstep. She doesn’t have time to knock and make conversation, but the gift is the least she can do after Gwyn surprised her the other day with a copy of a highly anticipated romance book weeks ahead of its official release.

“The library got early copies and I borrowed this one for you,” she said out of nowhere one afternoon, handing her the book. Nesta blinked in shock, not realizing that she and Gwyn were close enough for such acts of kindness. Even if their conversations felt like they’d been friends for much longer, they’d only known each other for a couple of weeks. It was then that she realized that’s just how Gwyn is. She does nice things because she can, not because social bonds or etiquette compels her to.

Guilt isn’t something Nesta feels often, but she was ravaged by it when she thought of not repaying Gwyn’s kindness. She couldn’t bear the idea of imbalances or debts being created in her relationships with her new friends, and spent the last two days searching everywhere for a decent gift to make up for it. She’ll have to text to make sure Gwyn got her present later tonight.

After a two hour drive (she might have taken detours to stall), Nesta is in the hallway leading to Feyre and Rhysand’s penthouse apartment. The door is cracked open enough that laughter and music float out to where she stands, and her fingers tighten on the bag carrying her sisters’ gifts. She checks her makeup in the hall mirror one final time, assuring that not a smidge of her perfect armor is out of place.

An in-and-out operation, she tells herself, flicking a lock of hair away from her face. She’s prepared for this.

Walking up to the half-open door, she’s struck down by the decision of whether to knock before going in or not. Luckily, the choice is taken away from her when the door swings open on its own, and Feyre is on the other side.

“Nesta,” her sister says in surprise, in a good or bad way Nesta doesn’t know.

Nesta blinks. “Did you know I was here?” She gestures to the door.

“Oh, no...” Feyre pokes her head past Nesta into the hallway. “Actually, I was checking to see if the pizza guy was here yet,” —she looks back at Nesta— “but this is even better!”

The slight strain in her voice makes Nesta think otherwise.

She doesn’t play along with the game. She doesn’t even comment on how they’re having pizza on Christmas Eve. Feyre adds after a moment, genuinely this time, “You look beautiful, by the way.”

Nesta glances down at her dress, a skintight ruched piece that shows more chest than usual, and then back up at Feyre’s designer jumpsuit. “So do you,” she says, her voice more flat than she’d prefer it. But she means it. “Can I come in?” she gestures inside, hoping to put an end to this conversation and her nerves.

“Right, duh,” Feyre laughs, grabbing Nesta’s gift bag and waving her inside. “Elain’s in the kitchen if you want to see her. Grab a drink and make yourself comfortable.”

Nesta steps past the door cautiously, eyeing the penthouse as if it’s her first time here. The winding iron-railed staircase is to the right, leading up to the second floor which holds all the bedrooms. The living area sprawls to her left, and through a wood-paneled threshold across from her is the dining room and kitchen. If anything is different from the last time she visited, it’s that the place is now considerably more lived in: pictures, hand-picked art, and other signs of life and love decorate every inch of the apartment, to the point where it makes Nesta feel like a home invader.

She’s so busy absorbing this place she doesn’t belong in that it takes her a moment to realize the room has fallen silent.

She turns to the living area, and her eyes land on Cassian first. He went so far as to put on a suit for tonight, and he’s watching her with a stunned quietness that makes her proud of her own outfit choice.

Nesta knows there are other people in the room, but she really can’t bring herself to care. Her hands twitch at her sides, instinctively reaching for him—

“Look who finally decided to show up,” a smug voice drawls.

Nesta looks away from Cassian to find that just about everybody else is staring at her, too. The voice who spoke up is that tiny woman named Amren, and she’s watching Nesta now with a sharp glint in her gray eyes.

Slick discomfort coats Nesta’s insides at Amren’s tone, and she lets her hands fall behind her back so they can’t reveal her anxiety. “Merry Christmas, everyone,” are the first words out of her mouth.

“’Sup, Nesta,” Cassian is the only one that bothers to respond. His tone holds none of the closeness or intimacy it usually does— it’s been replaced with a removed, almost strained friendliness instead.

Remembering that seeking him out for comfort is not an option tonight, she tries to find somewhere else to look.

In the span of a second, she spies Mor’s curiosity, Rhysand’s vague distaste, and Varian’s hesitance, before finally settling on Azriel’s bland look of disinterest. His phone dangles lazily from his hand, and he looks about two seconds away from going back to it and ignoring her completely.

It’s his detachment that grounds Nesta enough to remember her words. “I’m going to…” she gestures vaguely toward the kitchen, “get some food.”

“I can help—” Feyre starts.

“No, thank you,” Nesta quips, then hightails it out of there. The conversation, along with Nesta’s heartbeat, restarts as soon as she’s out of the room.

Following the short hallway connecting the dining space to the huge kitchen, she freezes when she finds Elain standing before the dual range oven, staring intently down at her phone. She curses herself silently— how did she forget her other sister would be waiting here right after being told so?

Elain’s head snaps up at the sound of Nesta’s heels on the tile, looking flustered. She quickly tucks her phone into the pocket of her apron before she realizes who she’s looking at, and a wide smile overtakes her beautiful face. “Is that really you?” Elain marvels in her lilting southern accent.

The words hit Nesta bluntly for some inexplicable reason. She shakes it off with a blink and smiles back, far more subdued than Elain but still genuine. “Lain,” she greets kindly, like they’re two old friends picking up right where they left off.

It’s Nesta’s fault that things are like this, she knows. She hasn’t bothered holding a real conversation with her closest sister in months, and now she’s in the same room as her hoping she won’t have to face Elain’s disappointment for her distance.

“Oh, get over here, how’ve you been?” Elain crosses the sleek kitchen and waves her into a hug. Nesta awkwardly pats her back, and is held even tighter when she tries pulling away.

She only manages to detach from Elain when Elain’s apron pocket vibrates. Stepping back, she takes her phone out and silences it before tucking it away once more. “So,” she grins when her focus returns to Nesta, “how’s the lone wolf life treating you? Isn’t it great to be back at your old apartment?”

“It’s good. I’m doing good,” she nods along. Nesta hates small talk more than anything, but this is the least she owes Elain. And the least she owes herself, if she’s being honest. Even if she knows she will never truly be fit for a life of socialization.

She takes things a step further and nods to the oven, asking, “What are you cooking up?”

She knows she’s done something right when Elain’s dark eyes light up, and she starts rattling off the three-course menu she’s prepared for tonight. (“What about the pizza on the way?” Nesta asks. Elain’s face darkens. “Don’t get me started. Some of the people in that living room have the taste palate of five year olds.”)

Nesta takes a seat at the island and falls into the age-old rhythm of listening to her sister talk, her heart feeling bruised and soothed at the same time. How similar and different they are now from the people they were ten years ago. Nesta doesn’t know if this is a good thing or not.

***

“That’s the thirtieth time you’ve checked your phone since Mor started telling her dolphin story,” Cassian mutters to Azriel sitting next to him on the couch.

Az clicks his phone off and turns it facedown so Cassian can’t see the screen, his face remaining blank the entire time. “I can’t help it if I’ve heard the dolphin story a hundred times already.”

“You’ve been staring at that thing the entire night,” Cassian calls him out. “Anyone on there more interesting than us, dear brother?”

Az snorts, not bothering to look at him. “Like you’re one to talk.” He reaches for his glass of liquor on the side table.

Cassian frowns as the chatter drowns out his murmur. “What do you mean?”

Azriel takes a sip from his drink, not replying. “When do you plan on letting us back at your cabin?” he says instead.

Cassian snorts. “It’s not like I’ve been keeping you away from it.”

“You turned Rhys and me down every time we made plans about coming over.”

“Because Nesta was staying there.” He is very, very careful about the way he says her name. Even talking about her is walking a thin line.

“She moved out a while ago, though,” Azriel continues. He leans back into the couch. “Speaking of Nesta, I don’t remember her being that hot. Did you see her in that little dress tonight?”

Cassian tenses, dull anger sliding over his bones and under his skin. “We all fucking saw her,” he says tightly.

Az clicks his tongue. “Damn. A woman like that shouldn’t be wasted in a small town.” His eyes slide over to Cassian’s with a dark glint of amusement. “You mind sharing?”

In that moment, Cassian is presented with the option of punching Azriel in the face. Hard. It’s only due to a divine miracle that he doesn’t.

Even with his temper, Cassian knows when he’s being played with. “How did you know.” His voice is flat, cold.

“You have ‘Nesta’s bitch’ written all over your face.”

Goddammit. Cassian clenches his teeth, saying nothing. Can everyone see it, or only his closest brother? How long has he known?

“I had my suspicions,” Az says simply, “when you ran out of Thanksgiving dinner like your ass was on fire after she sent you that thirst trap.”

Cassian blinks. Of course; the bastard peeked at his phone the last time they were together. No reason other than that.

“It wasn’t a thirst trap,” he grits, on high defense now. “It was a perfectly appropriate photo that you never should have seen.”

Az’s lips twitch upward. “Could’ve fooled me with the way you reacted to it.”

This— this is exactly why he doesn’t want anybody to know about him and Nesta. Because even though a weight has been lifted off his chest with Azriel knowing, an even heavier weight has started to sink in his stomach.

For months, Nesta has been his alone. And the idea of opening their relationship up to others’ opinions and judgements...

“Cass?”

He breaks his death glare at Azriel to find Feyre standing over the couch. He blinks; when did she cross the room? “Yeah?”

“You okay?” She glances between him and Azriel, clear-cut concern in her eyes. “You’ve been a little out of it tonight.” These last several weeks, actually, he knows she’s thinking.

He pulls his best Nesta face, all emotion carefully hidden behind a wall so blank it’s almost dead. “I’m doing fine,” he says simply. “Don’t worry about me; worry about Rhys spending all of your money on cards tonight.”

When Feyre still looks hesitant, Cassian summons his signature smile, the one that puts everyone and their babies at ease. He knows he’s succeeded when Feyre’s shoulders sink and she smiles back, nudging him in the arm. “Alright,” she says begrudgingly. “Just don’t keep pulling that long face. It’s Christmas Eve.”

***

Nesta is still hiding out in the kitchen while Elain finishes up a roast chicken when Feyre wanders in, eager to play the doting host.

Nesta pauses in the middle of telling Elain what she got earlier today for Secret Santa, waiting for Feyre to interrupt or insert her opinion, but Feyre only leans against the kitchen entrance and waits for her to go on.

“... So I thought it was hideous, but she insisted I keep it,” Nesta finishes cautiously.

“Who insisted you keep what?” Feyre speaks up.

“My friend Emerie got me a Christmas sweater.” Nesta waves a hand. “It looks like it came out of the recycling bin of a thrift shop, but I think she legitimately expects me to wear it tomorrow.” She huffs a lighthearted laugh, remembering how she and Emerie had cackled over the tacky gift together.

She finds she doesn’t mind talking about Emerie to her sisters. Rather, it’s something that brings her pride, like how she imagines new parents talk about their babies.

“Ain’t that amazing?” Elain speaks from where she arranges the chicken onto a platter, her back turned to both sisters. “While we were worried this whole time about Nesta being holed up in her room, she’s been going out and making friends.” Her voice is tight with a forced cheerfulness that only their mother could have taught her. Nesta stiffens in her seat at the island.

“Oh,” Feyre says shortly, blinking. “I see.”

The easiness Nesta had from talking about her friends slips away, being replaced with her usual mask of steel and ice. “See what?”

“Nothing,” Feyre defends, moving to lean against the island across from her. “We barely ever speak anymore, Nesta. How are we supposed to know what goes on in your life these days?”

“Well, I’m telling you now,” Nesta says coldly.

“She’s also in therapy.” Elain still hasn’t turned around from the stove. “How exciting.”

Nesta whips her head toward Elain in disbelief at the information spilled. So she is angry at Nesta for avoiding her calls.

“Therapy?” Feyre looks taken aback. “For what?”

Elain swoops in before Nesta can choose between scoffing or rolling her eyes at Feyre’s question. “Who cares what it’s for?” She finally turns around, bracing her hands on the counter. “Does it even matter?”

Nesta tastes venom on her tongue, and it wants to be spit in her sisters’ direction. “If you have something you want to say, Elain, say it. The passive-aggressive act makes you look like a fake bitch.”

Elain flinches, and Feyre looks away to hide her tired disappointment. “We still can’t have a single conversation without you going from zero to a hundred, I see.”

You haven’t even seen a hundred yet. “Tell me,” Nesta demands. “What did I do to mortally wound you this time? Is it the fact that I have a life away from your incestuous circle, or am I missing something else?”

Feyre scoffs incredulously, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s the fact, Nesta, that you have it in yourself to be good to everyone except for your sisters! When it was just me you hated, I could accept it fine, but then you left Tennessee and shut Elain out, too. With no explanation.” Hurt dances across her face. “It’s been years and it’s only gotten worse. And after months of near silence you show up here like—like you would rather be part of any family except ours.”

She keeps saying we, like her and Elain’s feelings are one and the same. Like they’ve talked about this before.

Nesta crosses her arms. “So you are mad I have friends.”

“How is that your takeaway from this?” Feyre has to struggle to keep her voice down.

Nesta’s heated eyes cut to Elain, who’s been silent during this whole exchange. “And you agree with her? Or is there something else you’d like to add?”

Elain opens her mouth to respond, but Nesta doesn’t give her the chance. “If I haven’t changed, then neither have you two,” she seethes. “You still think this is the fucking Disney channel or something, where we’re all best friends who have sisterly sleepovers and text each other good night. Wake the fuck up,” she bares her teeth. “Stop expecting things from me and just be happy I’m alive and doing well— because that’s the bare minimum that I’ve always given you!”

But no matter what Nesta says or does, they will never understand her. She will never be enough for them. The realization sinks in with a rattling finality at the resigned look on Feyre and Elain’s faces: like they didn’t hear a word she said. Nesta wonders when they stopped listening.

A throat clears behind her, and she whirls to see Feyre’s boyfriend at the doorway. His pretty-boy face is drawn tight, barely hidden rage simmering in the violet of his eyes. “Pizza’s here,” he says curtly.

Elain blinks tears out of her eyes, spinning back to the counter to pick up the platter of chicken. “Of course,” she says quickly, “the rest of the food is ready too.”

Feyre leaves the kitchen first, then Elain, then Rhysand with a final deadly glare at Nesta.

Nesta doesn’t know how long she stands there in the same spot, unmoving. Only when her phone buzzes from the island countertop does she turn.

Gwyn: did u get me a vibrator for christmas???

***

Cassian hasn’t looked at her all night.

Nesta doesn’t know what she expected when she told him they couldn’t be together in public, but it wasn’t this: him, laughing and talking with everybody at the table save for her. Like she isn’t even sitting there.

Nothing has changed. Least of all her.

She swallows around a mouthful of dry meat, feeling herself slip back into that old, familiar role: the background character. Except tonight is different, because everyone saw Elain’s watery eyes and Rhysand’s furious stare when they left the kitchen, and now Nesta is being ignored on purpose.

The buzzing in her head is louder than any conversation going on at the table anyway. Whether her sisters would believe her or not, Nesta had made plans. Plans to call more often, to make amends for the years of radio silence, to reintroduce herself to Feyre and Elain as a better sister. Not now, but one day— when she finally learned how.

Plans that were all dashed in the span of one conversation. Her knuckles turn bone white around her fork. So much for getting better.

The longer the night goes on, the more hurt and rage swells in her chest, until she fears she can’t say a word without screaming. How long will it be like this between her and her sisters, between her and the world? As if Nesta owes them all one thing or another: her time, her energy, her best smile and her affections. Why does everything have to be an exchange, and why is she always the one giving something up?

Cassian is the one person who always let her be, adjusting to her whenever she couldn’t adjust to him. But she’s having trouble remembering that fact when he won’t even spare a glance her way. When he’s sitting there laughing with Mor in a way he never laughs with her.

“And what about you, girl?”

Amren’s voice drags Nesta out of her haze, and she realizes the woman is speaking to her.

Nesta doesn’t like the way Amren speaks— with barely hidden cruelty, like she takes joy in watching people squirm.

Nesta blinks. “What?”

A slow smile creeps up Amren’s red mouth. “I said,” she repeats, “are you finding the pay for your work at Night Court sufficient?”

“Amren,” Cassian starts, but Nesta is already on her feet. The table falls silent.

“I have to...” she mumbles unintelligibly. She can’t come up with an excuse. Shaking her head, she leaves the table without finishing her sentence. Leaves the dining room and the whole damn apartment.

***

The slam of the door shutting echoes through the penthouse. No one speaks for a long moment, and Cassian finds himself filling the silence: “Was that necessary, Amren?”

Amren sneers. “What did I do?”

Because he’s counting down the seconds until it’s acceptable to go after Nesta, Cassian indulges her. “Not everyone has it in them to play Mean Girls with you whenever you feel like it.”

“Yeah, but did she have to ruin dinner over it?” Mor snorts, reaching over and plucking a roasted Brussels sprout from Nesta’s nearly untouched plate.

Feyre stands up. “I’ll go after her—”

“Don’t bother,” Cassian says, earning a raised brow from Azriel. Elain looks inclined to agree with Cassian until he adds, “I’ll check on her. You don’t need to stress, Feyre.” With a reassuring smile, he pushes out of his seat and heads for the door.

Each casual step toward Nesta lasts a million years, but he finally reaches the hallway beyond the apartment, letting his facade drop in the same breath that the door shuts behind him. Relief wracks his body when he finds Nesta waiting for the elevator, still here.

“Nes,” he calls, hurrying after her.

She punches the elevator button repeatedly, as if that’ll get it to hurry up. He catches up to her and takes hold of her hand, turning her around—

She snatches her wrist out of his grip like she’s been burned, her fingers flexing with pent up emotion. “Not tonight, Cassian.”

“I’ll go home with you, you can tell me what’s wrong—”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?” he demands. She never shuts him out like this.

Nesta stares intently at the elevator doors. “Go back to forgetting I exist.” Her voice is flat.

He scoffs in disbelief. “You’re not serious—”

She whirls on him so quickly he almost stumbles back in surprise. “You didn’t look at me once the entire night.”

Cassian stills, stunned. Is that what this is about? “How could I have?” he laughs, shaking his head. “You’re the one who doesn’t want anyone knowing about us!”

“So you pretend I’m not there at all?” Hurt flares beneath her angered words.

“I can’t do both.” He fights to keep his voice low, aware of the thin walls. “I can’t look at you and not have everyone see what I feel for you— you’re all over me.” Even Azriel sees it, for God’s sake.

“What’s the truth, then?” she hisses. “Are you a terrible actor or a great one? Because in that apartment I forgot we were even in a relationship.”

“You walked in looking like that,” he gestures wildly at the black sheer mesh hugging her body, “and I was supposed to, what? Act like we were friends?” He hasn’t spent all night nearly losing his mind trying to fulfill Nesta’s wishes, trying not to let his feelings show, to get dragged through the mud for it.

“Is that your best excuse?” Nesta sneers. “I used to be too boring to spare a glance, and now I’m too sexy?” She steps closer to him, bringing them chest to chest. “We were good distractions for each other in your lonely little cabin, but deep down you know we wouldn’t last a day in the real world. That’s why we haven’t told anybody, Cassian.”

Cassian knows a spiral when he sees one, and he’s fighting not to get dragged into Nesta’s. “I know this isn’t about me.” He closes his eyes, praying for calm. “It’s about whatever happened with Feyre and Elain tonight.”

Which is the wrong thing to say, from the way Nesta’s face reddens. “Don’t even fucking go there.”

He doesn’t realize that the elevator has dinged open until Nesta reaches out her arm to stop the doors from closing. “You know nothing about me,” she says heatedly. “You were sad and desperate for acknowledgement when we first met, and you’re the same way now. You haven’t. Learned. Anything.”

Cassian almost wishes she would scream senseless things at him like she used to do whenever she was upset— because this refined wrath of hers is so much more hurtful. And it makes him angry, too.

He leans in until his nose is brushing hers. “If this is one of those things where you try to push me away by being cruel, I’m not fucking buying it.”

Like a switch is flipped, the flame in Nesta’s eyes flares out. He sees that dead nothingness and knows he’s lost. “You don’t have to buy it,” she says simply. She steps onto the waiting elevator, and he doesn’t try stopping her. She doesn’t want to be stopped.

Nesta gives him a final look before the doors shut between them. “And I wore this dress for you, asshole.”

Cassian stands there long after she’s gone. Not knowing what to do next.

A muffled laugh breaks through to him from the other side of the walls, and he realizes that everyone has moved back into the living room. Turning around, he goes back inside to his friends.

***

;)

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#nesta archeron #nessian #cassian #ncssianwrites #a favor #nessian fic

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tetsustation · 3 years

Text

[false alarm]

:: sugawara koushi x gn!reader

:: fluff + 1.1k

:: thank you for rolling kuroo on mudae and giving him to me for free @misutv and i apologize in advance for this

leave it up to him to make a scene right?

promptly, you stepped out of the way—making room for the other passengers as they flooded from behind you. the temporary dam you built as an immune response to his position was consequently broken when the man behind you had cleared his throat, eager to step out the tunnel and onto the gate.

“what are you doing?” sugawara was about a yard in front of you, kneeling on a single knee.

the waves in his hair were apparent, listless from the weight of his workday. his lanyard and teacher identification was limp around his neck, but danged slightly as he chucked—clearly amused by the position he had put you in. still, you stared him down, attempting not to entertain him

to be frank, you couldn’t really discern what this was supposed to be—moments after you stepped off your flight. it was tempting to walk past him, act like you didn’t even know him—the only thing stopping you being the onlookers that turned their heads, questioning whether or not they were witnessing what they thought they were witnessing.

“i’m here to greet you, isn’t it obvious?” the smile he wore was eye creasing and pristine—most likely reflecting the natural sunlight that flooded in from the floor-to-ceiling window behind you.

his explanation was beyond insufficient and you felt the irritation brought on by jet lag settle in your stomach, twisting small quarter-sized knots. surely, you were not fit to deal with this fresh off a twelve hour flight, and yet—your boyfriend couldn’t seem to care less. the wingspan of his arms were stretched outwards, creating the illusion of a warm welcome. you glared at his feigned innocence.

“sugawara koushi, so help me god,” you looked around offering a few polite smiles to the miniscule, yet noticeable, crowd that formed around you, “if you don’t get up right now.”

“and what if i don’t?” he challenged, tilting his head downwards yet maintaining blood-boiling eye contact. you hoped his meter ran out of time, that he'd be fined for a parking violation, that he’d get a flat tire, and his pillow was inevitably warm when you laid down beside him tonight.

whatever he was doing was a clear betrayal of your shared plan. he’d be six feet under before he was to stand at an altar, if this was how he was proposing to you—when you were barely conscious and in public, of all places. strangulation among other things popped into your fried brain, and yet he was still kneeled in front of you with an award winning grin plastered on his face.

“please,” you laughed cruelly, “don’t tell me this is what i think it is.”

how would you even respond to such a thing, a proposal? in a sooty airport, with a child’s tablet providing an unfavorable ambience from the next row over? the flight attendant looked nervous, you noticed from the peripheral of your glance. the heat on your face was pounding your pores, and the cold sweat that erupted on the back of your neck was anything but pleasant.

then, he twisted his torso, arms pulling inward to extract something unidentifiable from his back pocket. instincts rolled into high gear, as you lunged forward to create a death grip on the cliff of his shoulders, squeezing the blades with purpose. anywhere—anywhere that wasn’t public, where a crowd could judge every twitch on your unsuspecting face.

sugawara koushi could propose to you anywhere but here.

and just when all hope was lost, he pulled out a sleek black rectangle instead, not velvet but a matte shell, that shielded the fragile parameters of his cell phone. the glint in his eyes was almost devilish as he watched your features deflate, from petrification to utter confusion—a journey of just a few seconds.

on the screen, you found a picture of a familiar front yard, with a paved path and an assortment of bushes in front. the paneling on the roof was slanted, ridges of sleek metal that roofed the walls as well as the arched overhang over the door—your dream home, if you will. the house that you and sugawara had been eyeing for about a month now.

“the other family pulled out, it’s ours if we make a decision by the end of the week.”

just like that, you were wide awake—any remnants of a restless flight fizzling away as you repressed the squeal climbing up your throat. only when you pounced into his arms did he make the effort to finally stand to his full height, nearly stumbling, but absorbing your contagious excitement, nonetheless.

standing back, you slapped his right arm, “why would you wait for me to get off my flight on one knee just to tell me that?”

it was his turn for a demeanor change, he snickered coltishly, “i just wanted to scare you a bit.”

the claim was somewhat believable, just short of guiltless as you rolled your eyes. the rather small crowd dissipated from around you, and you tabled his stunt in favor of moving forward—if things continued in this direction, you’d have to be ready to undergo a lot of change in the next few weeks.

and in order to preserve your own wellbeing, you smiled. just like always, he smiled back. no matter what emotion swirled in your busy mind, he was always there to match it, align with your fluctuating magnitude in a way no one else could. that was really all you could ask for of someone, and you were grateful to have found it so young.

for the first time today, you laughed—it was breathy and erupted from the depths of your stomach. clamping your hands over your mouth, you attempted to steady yourself. it all seemed so silly, and yet, you were content. maybe faking a proposal in the middle of a busy airport was just what you needed today.

only when the airport speaker chimed did you remember that life went on. “lets go, my stuff is at baggage claim,” you remind him.

grabbing the carry on you had since dropped at your side, he began to trail after you—swerving through the bustle as the quintessence of noon approached. there was a mischievous glint lingering behind in his eyes, that you couldn’t help but indulge in one more time, you asked him what was on his mind.

“your dad asked about me, didn’t he?” though shushing him did next to nothing as he continued, “me and him are best friends, you know.”

“just wait until he finds out about the house.”

✿ TETSUSTATION — 2021 ; do not repost, translate, share without permission, or recycle my writing & layouts. this blog does not hesitate to hardblock in that instance!

#writing.hq #fandom.hq #hq fluff #haikyu x reader #sugawara koushi #koushi sugawara #sugawara koushi x reader #koushi sugawara x reader #sugawara x reader #sugawara koushi x y/n #sugawara koushi x you

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l-sincline · 4 years

Text

Cybernetics - Cyberpunk!Sonic AU

Amy Rose has been working tirelessly at her broken down booth for as long as she can imagine. Ever since Tails left their work to join forces with the revered hero of Mobius, 'The Blue Blur', she's grown lonely and desperate to make her life exciting. A strange customer comes in one day asking her to fix his cyborg arm, what she didn't know was that he would be the catalyst for a brand new life.

AO3 Tags:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Amy Rose/Shadow the Hedgehog, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Amy Rose (Sonic the Hedgehog), Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik, Rouge the Bat, Whisper the Wolf, Cream the Rabbit, Knuckles the Echidna, Badnik (Sonic the Hedgehog), E-123 Omega, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, Slow Burn, Partners in Crime

AO3 Link

Amy reached up and wiped the sweat off her brow harshly with her hand that held the wrench. At the beginning of the day, she may have worried about getting grease or even Thuluhide on her forehead, but it was getting late, and she already had dozens of grease smudges all over her, and a few splotches of Thuluhide on her cargo pants and crop top. Grease, of course, came with the job description. She was a mechanic, fixing robot parts and hover cars and other things of the sort caused her to get pretty messy. Thuluhide, however, was something she hadn’t been aware she’d have to deal with until after her friend Tails had taught her to fix even more advanced things, like cyborg parts and androids.The world they lived in was teeming with them, it only made sense that she learned how to fix them to make more money, she already charged low for her services as it was, she didn’t exactly live in a rich town, it felt like a crime to try and sell her time for more than the people she serviced could afford, so the more she could do, the more money she could make.

Anyways, Thuluhide had proved itself hard to remove from clothing, as her pants had many other stains that had refused to come out other the years. Thuluhide was the blood of those advanced cybernetics, cyborgs had Thuluhide integrated into their own body along with their blood in order to properly control and maintain function in their robot parts, Androids were simply filled with Thuluhide. As she tightened the last screw on the oldish radio that sat in front of her, on her desk at the very front of her shop, she became aware of a presence standing just ahead of her, on the other side of her booth. Amy looked up, slightly startled that she hadn’t heard them. Even though the street filled with various booths and shops like hers she worked on was often bustling with noise, she usually hear someone at least a few moments before they arrived.

“You service cyborgs?” They asked- sounded male.

“Yes-“ she replied “is that what I can help you with today?”

He wore a cloak that covered most of his body, even the hood cast too much of a shadow on his face for her to see much else other than the fact that he had some pretty sizable fangs for a Mobian that didn’t seem to be some sort of lizard or lion. He responded by tossing an arm up onto her table- it was unlike one she had ever seen before, she usually saw cyborg parts that were steel or black, and if they weren’t their pain job was usually pretty shabby. This arm, however, was sleek white with two red stripes, one running down the outer of the the arm, the other down the inner. The joints were covered in well serviced black rubber- the entire thing was well serviced save for sizable dents made to the forearm.

“I couldn’t move it at the elbow anymore, fingers and wrist wasn’t working either.” He said, gently using his other hand to push aside the cloak ever so slightly, all she could really see was the matching port on his shoulder where the arm connected, even his other arm stayed hidden by the cloak.

“Well, I would’ve preferred if you’d let me remove it myself...” she started, picking up the arm to get a closer look at it. The stripes she observed earlier now seemed to just be lights that weren’t turned on. She frowned.

“You know, I’ve never seen any arm, any cyborg part at all for that matter, that looks like this.” She commented as she continued to turn it over in her hands.

“It was custom made.” He responded simply.

“Shouldn’t you bring it back to whoever made it then? They’d have less of a chance of messing up on it than I do.” Amy placed the arm back down on the table and looked up to where she thought she could see the smallest gleam of light off the mans eyes.

“Can’t. We’re not on speaking terms anymore.” He responded shortly, making it clear that would be all she was getting on that subject.

“Shame.” She responded simply, putting her hands up in defeat to reassure him she would press no further. “Well, I’ll see what I can do then. I estimate it’ll be done by-“

“Can I have it by tomorrow night?” He interrupted. Her disbelieving look must have made him realize he sounded like an asshole, because he quickly followed up with; “I’ll pay more for it to be done faster.” She let out the breath she had been holding and slumped tiredly.

“Yes, that will be forty units added on to the down payment then.”

“How much is the down payment?”

“Twenty units.”

It was his turn to look at her like she was crazy, or at least, it felt like he was looking at her like she was crazy. “That cheap?”

“Yeah, well, if I just have to tighten a screw then you’ll get money back instead, it’s just easier this way, I don’t know how much servicing this arm will cost until I actually do it. I could give you an estimate if you want, but you’ll have to stick around for another ten minutes.”

“I just thought it would cost more.” He defended his reaction.

“Closer to the middle of the city, sure. But out here people don’t have much, and I don’t want to take what little they have away from them.” She responded with a shrug, leaning back on her stool and crossing her arms over her chest. He seemed like he wanted to keep arguing, but kept his mouth shut as he dug around under his cloak a bit before his other arm snaked out and dropped her units on the table.

She tried her hardest to hide her surprise, but clearly it hadn’t worked well, because his arm shot back into the abyss of the cloak as soon as she had noticed his other arm was also robotic. It was pretty rare to find someone with more than five percent of their makeup being robotic. With one full arm he’d already slightly over come that, but with two full arms he had officially gone pretty wildly over.

“I’ll be back this time tomorrow.” He said suddenly before turning and walking quickly into the crowd. Amy tried to follow where he was going, but just as suddenly as he had appeared, he disappeared. She swiped the units into her hand and dumped them into a jar that sat below the table before picking up the arm again.

There was something about it that made her feel as if no one else should see it, as if it was specifically given to her to be in her hands only- maybe the mystery guy had known her mechanic partner had moved on to bigger things and she was the only one in the shop now- either way, she tucked the arm under her own pink arm, which was quite dusty this late in the day making her seem almost purple, and reached up to close the screen in front of her booth to signal she was closed to the market that was still teeming with mobians even after dark.

Soon she was left in the dim light of her lanterns that hung from either side of the buildings that surrounded the booth. The roof had been constructed out of old tarps and dingy blankets nailed to the walls (with permission from the building owners) and some burlap hung down over the back entrance that lead to the back alleyway to create sort of a tent like entry way. Wires zig zagged across the floor, all leading to different tools and one leading to a lamp on her work desk that all converged at one very over worked extension cord. Amy set the arm down on her work desk and dragged the stool from the front of her booth over to it so she could sit, turning on the lamp once she had.

She stared blankly at the arm in front of her- perhaps the thing that made it strangest was it’s resemblance to something most mobians lived in fear of; the evil robots sent from the mad doctor, Robotnik, who came from a planet they had strained relations with: Earth.

Earth and Mobius had only become known to each other in more recent years, after Earth ravaged the land in a war that the Mobians just barely managed to finish off. That was half a millennium ago, so perhaps not as recent as one may think, but still recent enough to keep sour tensions. Both planets leaders were constantly back and forth, looking to negotiate a peace treaty, but nothing had come yet. Constant changes of power on both planets lead to constant changing of peace treaties, it was a turbulent activity.

But that was besides the point, the arm that sat in front of her resembled some of the most evil robots known to mobians, killing machines set upon them by a man who had made it his goal to take over their planet.

Trying not to dwell on its resemblance to the doctor’s robots too much, Amy finally chose a tool (a flat head screw driver) and dragged the arm closer to her. She gripped it tightly and popped off the outside panel of the forearm where the flurry of dents were. She held up the gleaming white panel in one hand, and in the light it appeared that the dents had come from kicks, very strong ones to be able to dent this kind of foreign metal. She placed it back down on the table- she’d push the dents up and repaint the panel later, for now she wanted to get an idea of what it looked like inside the arm.

Inside the arm looked somewhat similar to typical Mobian cyborg limbs, the Thuluhide sat dormant in the tube structures that resembled veins, and sure enough the red stripes she’d spotted earlier were lights, but it seemed that somehow they were activated by the Thuluhide. All the mechanisms on the inside were black, making it rather hard to tell anything apart. Even the wires were black instead of their usual mess of primaries, and she began to wish she still had Tails in the shop to lend a hand. Amy bit her lip as she leaned closer to the arm. She could call him, but he also seemed to be infinitely busier than normal these days. Tails was lucky, extremely lucky. She would probably envy him for the rest of her days.

With the appearance of the robots that this arm reminded her of many years ago now, had come a vigilante of sorts to save the people from untimely demise. Super fast thanks to his Cyborg legs, sickeningly badass, and supposedly pretty handsome, the Blue Blur had become a household name. He never asked for payment, he never left anyone behind, he just did what was right- absolutely admirable! Amy still remembered the feeling of shock when she had come to the booth one morning and Tails was jittering around excitedly with a smile that looked like it could’ve torn his face in half. Apparently the Blue Blur himself had come by early that morning for maintenance on his legs, and a few days later, had asked Tails to come on board as his official mechanic.

Amy was so happy for him when he’d told her, but the twinge of jealousy always sat not too far behind. She missed the life Tails brought to the shop, she missed his stories and his expertise, but she supposed it was his expertise that got him such a spectacular opportunity.

She stared blankly at the ProjScreen she had taken out of her pocket, finger hovering over the call button before finally giving in and tapping it, setting down the screen so the hologram could pop up.

It rang a few times, and then just as she was sure that Tails’ smiling face would pop up, it was instead the typical camera icon followed by the robotic woman’s voice telling her: “Miles Prower is not available at this moment, please leave a message at the sound of recording, thank you.” Amy managed a quick sigh before straightening back up when the beep sounded and slapping a strained smile on her face.

“Hi Tails... I was hoping you wouldn’t be busy but... I guess you do have a lot more going on these days.” She laughed nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. “I have something pretty interesting here that I thought you might want to take a stab at, but it’s due tomorrow night so I guess I’ll just try to figure it out on my own... have a good night- miss you!” She tried to end enthusiastically as she grabbed the ProjScreen to get it to stop recording. Amy threw the screen down on the table and grumbled as she leaned foreword and thumped her forehead down on the table.

“I guess I’m just gonna have to sleep on it.” She spoke aloud to herself, voice muffled by the dirty pink fur of her arms.

She would have to work on the arm all day tomorrow trying to figure it out, so that meant she’d have to keep the booth closed for the majority of the day, or at least only keep it open to simple fixes, but hopefully this client would pay good. After all, they’d been willing to spend extra money to get it custom originally and pay her extra to get it done fast- so they wouldn’t haggle... hopefully.

Amy stood from the desk and popped the front panel back on to the arm before placing it gently in her satchel and slinging the bag around her shoulder. After turning off all her lights, she slid through the burlap curtains and headed out into the back ally, ready to go home and take a cold shower.

#fanfiction #sonic the hedgehog #alternate universe #shadow the hedgehog #Amy Rose #Shadamy

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chiseler · 4 years

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Glad Rags: Fashion and the Great Depression

Some years ago, in a breathtaking lapse of taste, The New Yorker published a fashion spread that aped iconic photographs of Dust Bowl migrants. I was as appalled as the next right-thinking person by the pouting models in $400 distressed cardigans pretending to thumb rides along desert highways. But if the charge is infatuation with the aesthetics of the Great Depression, I am guilty, guilty, guilty. Throw me in the clink—just so long as it resembles the hoosegow that Barbara Stanwyck saunters around in Ladies They Talk About (1932).

Why was everything, from automats to automobiles, from nightclubs to radios, from skyscrapers to bus stations, from cocktail shakers to the battered hats on homeless men, so elegant in the thirties? Why did bums back then look better than bankers today? Why are the movies and music, the clothes and every aspect of design from typefaces to elevator panels, so intoxicatingly stylish?

The easy answer is that art deco glamour was a form of escapism, a consolation to the down-and-out, and an expression of irrational optimism. Cruise ships, trains, office towers, mechanized restaurants: art deco was all about speed and modernity, the thrill of zooming into the future. (Then why does deco still look modern and alluring, while the space-age design of the sixties just looks dated and silly?) If cynicism was society’s ballast during the Depression, style was the kite-string tugging upward, the flag that kept flying.

It’s not the swells in their glad rags that I admire most, or even the bootleggers in silk shirts, but the wardrobes of working girls. Take the plain, slinky black dress that Stanwyck, as an ambitious office worker in Baby Face, accessorizes with a series of different detachable white collars and cuffs. Those starched cuffs and collars—chic, yet as humble as table-napkins—are perfect, almost poignant symbols of Stanwyck’s determination to better herself with the small means at her disposal. In Golddiggers of 1933, out-of-work chorus girls draw lots for the privilege of wearing a gorgeous, borrowed outfit to an audition. The little hats that hug one side of the head, the soft dresses molded to the hips, the scarf collars and pleated hems, create a look that collapses the two meanings of “smart.” Neither frivolous nor utilitarian, it’s a neat, streamlined look that is still seductive; it signals quiet confidence and also wit, the sort of wisecracking verbal self-defense these girls mastered.

Movies like Baby Face tell their stories largely through their heroines’ clothes and belongings: they climb from cotton frocks to furs, from paper matchbooks to jeweled cigarette cases. (Clothing is no less crucial to the gangster’s rise; tailored shirts and luxurious overcoats are almost the point of his law-breaking.) Like Stanwyck in Baby Face, Joan Blondell in Blondie Johnson starts out in the drab, shapeless clothes of the down-trodden. Alight with anger after her mother dies, denied aid by a sanctimonious government official, she vows to get hold of dough, “and plenty of it.” Next we see her, she’s wearing a snazzy velvet suit that fits like a glove and conning suckers out of ten dollar bills by pretending to be a damsel in distress. She’s willing to bat her eyelashes and exploit her curves, but it’s really her brain she uses to get ahead, rising to become the head of a criminal “corporation,” and fiercely defending her virtue, even while clad in diaphanous pajamas. In Hold Your Man, Clark Gable calls attention to the warmth of the room, trying to talk Jean Harlow into doffing her coat. She complies, but when he suggests she remove her hat as well, she quips, “I’m pretty cool about the head.”

It’s this sense of wit and sass that’s often missing from latter-day reconstructions of the thirties, making people in period pieces appear overly formal. Current actors, looking embalmed in handsome clothes and make-up, fail to capture the way Cagney in his pin-striped suits was always poised on the balls of his feet, ready to crack into a tap dance; or the stunning bodily freedom with which women wore their thin, fluid, backless gowns, somehow never looking unduly exposed. Carole Lombard in shiny satin wide-legged lounging-pajamas and high heels furiously riding an exercise bicycle: there is the deco spirit in a nutshell. I sometimes wonder if it was the sheer delight of wearing such flattering clothes that gave women in thirties movies their unequaled zing.

Their sleek clothes don’t hide the female form the way dresses of the 1920’s did with their dropped waists and bosom-flattening bands. Neither do they exaggerate it with structured undergarments like those abandoned after the first world war and re-introduced after the second. It takes little insight to observe that the times when fashion has been most extreme in its devotion to the hourglass figure have been repressive eras for women, and periods when their clothes were more androgynous have been times when women made strides toward equality. In the early thirties, however, fashions were feminine without being cartoonishly so; they simply revealed the way women really look. The ideal of beauty was slender but not boyishly skinny, effortlessly athletic without gym-workout muscles.

Thirties dames look sexy on their own terms, not trussed up for male consumption like women of the fifties in their waist-cinching girdles, teetering stilettos and torpedo bras (often filled out with falsies on actresses of the fifties.) Many women in the early thirties wore very little under their clothes, as pre-Code movies prove with their obligatory lingerie shots. One almost feels sorry for pre-Code men faced with gals like Blondell, who in Blonde Crazy allows Cagney to inspect her flimsy underwear but repels his every advance with a slap that sends his head snapping back against his spine.

It is surely no coincidence that the interwar period was perhaps the only time when fashion was dominated, or at least heavily influenced, by women designers. Chanel borrowed from men’s tailoring to make women’s clothes simple, comfortable and sporty, without making them mannish. Madeleine Vionnet pioneered the bias cut, constructing garments so the grain of the fabric ran diagonally across the body, creating that smooth, clinging drape that defines feminine style of the thirties. Stanwyck’s lithe, bold stride wouldn’t be the same without the skirts that show off her beautiful hips and just enough of her killer gams. The jazzy, diagonally-striped ensemble that Claudette Colbert wears in It Happened One Night—something she has apparently purchased with the proceeds from pawning her wrist-watch—is the sartorial equivalent of her cocked eyebrow and throaty, sarcastic delivery.

These are Hollywood movies, of course, in which actresses often wore dresses so tight they couldn’t sit down between shots. But there’s plenty of documentary evidence that ordinary women, while they made have had less perfect figures, had just as much stylistic sass. Inept, small-time criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow might never have become folk heroes if police hadn’t found a roll of undeveloped film in their hideout in Joplin, Missouri in 1932, and if the pictures hadn’t shown Bonnie wearing a snug beret, a skirt and sweater as jazzy as Colbert’s, and standing with her high-heeled foot hiked saucily on the bumper of a Ford V-8.

Or consider the stout matron in Walker Evans’s 1935 photograph of a New Orleans barbershop, sporting a blouse with sizzling concentric stripes, a jaunty black tie and a black hat with a rakish white feather. Men were no slouches either. Evans’s 1936 pictures of street scenes in the “negro quarter” of Vicksburg, Mississippi feature men lounging idly in shirtsleeves, unbuttoned vests and felt hats, each one a fashion plate. Lined up in a row in the wood-frame buildings behind them are hand-painted signs for the Savoy Barber Shop, the New Deal Barber Shop, and the Brother In Law Barber Shop. These men may not have jobs, but at least they have well-trimmed hair.

One can always ask, was there really such an epidemic of elegance in the thirties, or did photographers just seek out images of dignity? In the same way, one can look at the photographs of Robert Frank or the documentary footage of Los Angeles in The Savage Eye (1960) and wonder if there was really an epidemic of ugliness and vulgarity in the late fifties and early sixties, or whether artists just emphasized it. But the question is moot: either way, the images reveal how Americans—or at least their professional observers—saw themselves. Struggling against deprivation and anxiety, they were proud, stoic and stripped to their lean, essential spirit. Prosperous and secure, they were hapless victims of an aesthetic crash. A movie like Murder by Contract (1958), about a hit man killing time in L.A., staying in suffocatingly tacky motel rooms, seems to be the portrait of a man sleepwalking through a society where taste has flatlined.

Fifties style was artlessly boastful; its ideals were plastic mannequins of happiness, innocence and surfeit. This is why when it failed it failed so hideously: the old, the poor, the ugly, the lonely look caught in a pitiless glare, all their shortcomings exposed. The beehive hair, bouffant skirts, school-girl necklines and cat’s-eye glasses made young women look stodgy and matronly, and older women look grotesquely girlish. In the thirties, haute couture expressed sublime hauteur, but it was based on aesthetic principles so sound that even when they trickled down to the cheapest knock-offs and most threadbare hand-me-downs, they still looked good. And so we come to the paradox of men in breadlines, women in migrant camps, whose je-ne-sais-quoi can inspire fashion spreads.

I am haunted by a bit of archival footage from the superb documentary Riding the Rails (1997), which shows a group of teenage hobos gathered on an open flat-car. Their elegance is unforgettable. It’s partly that their ragged clothes are so well-cut—in those days before baggy, one-size-fits-nobody garments—and partly that they’re worn with such an air. One boy wears an overcoat that’s too big for him and a handkerchief knotted on his head; he looks like a Napoleonic soldier retreating from Moscow. Men today who affect newsboy caps tend to wear them as though they were balancing a plate on their heads, but these boys wear their soft caps pulled down low over one eye, making them look at once tough and shy. They also seem, like everyone Dorothea Lange photographed, to stand and move with uncommon, easy grace: idle, but charged with contained energy. Their faces are wary, reticent and disillusioned. In another archival clip, boys sitting around a fire in a hobo jungle respond to a reporter who asks them why they are on the road. “Out here for my health,” one deadpans. “Just riding,” another tersely shrugs.

These are the real-life versions of the characters played by Frankie Darro and the Warners juveniles in Wild Boys of the Road (1933). Several things about that film are startling. One is how the kids dress and act like grown-ups (at a school dance, they wear evening clothes and circle the floor to “The Shadow Waltz”), as opposed to today, when grown-ups dress and act like kids. Another is how quickly and completely two middle-class boys turn into outcasts, panhandlers, embittered scavengers living in a garbage dump. But most startling of all is the way stoicism and dignity are taken for granted, the universal determination not be a burden or feel sorry for oneself. The elderly interviewees in Riding the Rails are candid, matter-of-fact, wry and compassionate. There is more to elegance than dressing well, than being tasteful or—that overused and inelegant word—“classy.” There is an intangible quality, a kind of mental and moral grace. Elegance has spine, but it’s not rigid; it bends but doesn’t break. It is understated; it is reserved. It knows the virtue of holding something back—some strength, some anger, some sense of irony—because there is more than one rainy day.

by Imogen Sara Smith

#The Chiseler #Imogen Sara Smith #Fashion #Great Depression

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ficticiousdelicious · 4 years

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In your one fic, Desire and Lust, what does Grimmjows Lamborghini look like? Just curious if you have an actual picture on hand

SPOILERS ABOUT DESIRE AND LUST AHEAD

Ooooooo! I was just ogling some Lambos! I’m about to go on a rant!!!

Sexy, in a word; his Lambo looks like a sleek, sexy sportscar. I put a TON of thought into his car specifically, buckle up! The first description I ever added was Grimmjow telling Ichigo its make, model and color: “‘A Lamborghini Murciélago. Sportscar, solid black paint, custom build but it still looks like a Lamborghini. It should have been parked out front if ya saw it.’” Ichigo soon goes outside and sees a car in the parking lot and we get the detail that it is ‘jet black’ too: “A sleek, jet black sportscar was parked in the farthest spot to the left of him.” Ichigo also finds out that there is a trunk and the engine is up front and that the car is modified and heavier than usual for its model. So the base image we have to imagine is a sportscar model like:

This is a stock Lamborghini Murciélago, which is actually one of my small model Lambos, this is the almost the same as Grimmjow’s HOWEVER, he did make significant modifications but most of them don’t show outright. He kept with a sleek and classy black theme, the interior is almost completely black suede, panther and silver accents as noted by his mentioned satin seat covers with panthers on them. (the panther on his key-chain was from his wrecked Jag) Most details of the mechanical modification process reside in the chapter called Flashback - Motor Head other details are scattered through multiple chapters but I’ll summarize anyway!

Most of his car from the outside looks the same as it would stock except that it is longer (length) by maybe six inches or less (don’t think I gave exact dimensions) which works to create a backseat since he seated the new v8 motor/engine for it in the front under the hood, meaning a v12 (stock) motor’s worth of space contributes to the space to make a two-person conjoined backseat and a small trunk because that’s a big-ass motor. The glass and metal on the back of that small model car are a hatch which would open to show the motor but instead in his Lambo shows a small upholstered trunk and the back-side of the backseat. There are still small windows on either side to see outside from the backseat with black-out tinting. The windshield is not tinted or not fully tinted. The windows on the passenger and driver doors also have black-out tinting. The headlights and taillights do not have tinting and are LED. The back hatch’s glass I have not mentioned but I would say it isn’t tinted or just barely. The glass is bulletproof and very resistant to breaking. Rear view mirror, side view mirrors (that lift with the doors), etc. stuff like that is all just stock. The gearshift might look different but I haven’t picked out a design though it is short. His Lambo can be started with a turn of a key or an ignition button with key inserted. The dash display is stock, I believe that’s mostly analog and features a tachometer, speedometer, secondary speedometer (digital - not stock), odometer, oil pressure and oil temperature gauges as well as all the other fun random lights that come up for different sensor thingies (like the ‘check engine’ light we all hate). It would be reasonable to assume there are a few extra lights for extra sensors in a heavily modified vehicle like this.

There was no need to change the flat hood of the car for the motor’s blower/supercharger (twin-screw) or the front features on the fender to consider ram air intake as this car already has this feature; the oncoming air is just rerouted inside to the front compartment instead of the rear. (some other Lambos you’ll see have hoods popping out on the rear panels for ram air to cool their huge motors) The modified v8 motor that Grimmjow installs is smaller and part of the total added length to the whole frame (six inches or less) is in the new engine compartment for easy of installation and maintenance on the motor. Grimmjow’s modifications to the transmission and drive train (front transaxel, all-wheel drive, semi-auto) are all under the car and don’t really show; there are skid-plates. His car has only two doors. The butterfly doors are stock-looking and lift up at a slight angle but inside them his custom locking assembly (with sliding bars like a vault door) is heavy so there is a large hydraulic cylinder needed to hold them up under the front edge of each door. Grimmjow (in very recent chapters) thinks he needs even bigger cylinders. Only the tinted driver and passenger windows can roll down and up. Most of the cosmetic and superficial features of Grimmjow’s Lamborghini we can assume are kept the same/stock black theme. We find out that the Lambo used to be blue, it is a shiny jet black now so it was repainted [by a shop Grimmjow took it to]. Grimmjow’s car didn’t have seatbelts until recently - to please Ichigo; assume they are black. The center console and upholstery/interior is black suede/leather (Lamborghini has a special name for this type I think) with maybe a few very small silver accents like handles or buttons. The seats are stock black suede too but covered with black satin with a panther on each (probably around the high back), front and backseats. The deck/stereo interface in the cockpit should be digital but I might’ve written it as analog so far. I never gave details about the rims but I would say they are painted matte black and somewhere between normal and true low-pro because I don’t think Grimmjow would want true low-pro ones. The tires I never describe much either but they’re black-walls probably just street/sport, all the same size and width in front and back - around 21 inches tall and are also wide (315s or 325s??? *shrug* lol). As you can tell I had plenty of thinkin’ to do about rearranging everything else so the tires and rims kinda went under my radar. Grimmjow seems like the kind of guy to have a nice border around his license plates (front and back) but I’ve never written that in, would probably be solid chrome with a panther or two.

Oh my god I have to stop myself. I go on and on about this fucking dream-car.

This is a really rough sketch (sadly only from the front) of Grimmjow’s Lamborghini:

At this time I don’t have any other sketches to share BUT that doesn’t mean one isn’t coming out in the future. *brows* One day I might actually draw something of a diagram or the Lamborghini from the outside - it would be a hell of a task either way.

Lamborghini Murciélago © Lamborghini

#Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez #Grimmjow Jeagerjaques #grimmichi #Bleach #Desire and Lust #fanfiction #writing #vehicle #car #Lamborghini #asks #spoilers #FD Art Things

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desktopdust · 4 years

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Phantom Network: Antiviral Renewal

So, quick show of hands: who here has been blasted through a wall before? One, two…nobody? Really? Just me? Okay. Well then, let me tell you, kiddos: it’s not fun.

I groaned loudly as I pulled myself out of the rubble, sounding off just to let the world know it hadn’t killed me quite yet. My fog coat was caked with dust and grime, but the gunmetal alchemar beneath, though not exactly giving off the same shine it gets after a good polishing, remained intact and undamaged. The debris shifted as I moved—a block fell on the end of my green silk scarf, pinning me for a moment until I pulled it loose—but eventually I got to my feet, shook the dust from my domino mask, and took stock of my surroundings. The space could be deemed “cramped” horizontally, but vertically, it went on for ages; it was hard to tell exactly how far, the service lights blinking along the walls didn’t entirely stave off the darkness, but I had enough to deduce I had been thrown into an elevator shaft. My point of entry was only three stories up, I realized, thankful it hadn’t been any higher.

Right, crazy situation, how’d I get here, et cetera. A couple days ago, a fellow Phantom Thief who goes by “Witch Doctor” approached me for help in a heist she was planning: our local megacorp MiliGrand had recently unveiled a new miracle drug effective in curing over 200 different diseases, and managing the symptoms of at least a thousand more. Problem was, they held exclusive rights and were selling it for millions of dollars a pop. Doc wanted to bust into their compound, steal the drug, and get it into the hands of people who need it but don’t have the money to buy a new yacht every quarter, and thought she should get some backup to make sure things went smoothly. Sounded like a good cause, so I agreed. It was only after that I found out who else she had recruited…

“Roche? Still breathing, darling?”

My eyes rolled upward. Leaning into the shaft was an athletic woman with medium brown skin and bright red, shoulder-length hair dangling around her smug face. Her alchemar was silver and looked very lightweight, the armor itself being very sleek but accentuated by a knee-length half-skirt and off-the-shoulder shawl, both made of smooth pink fabric. In answer, I let out a loud sigh.

“Excellent,” she said. “Say, while you’re down there, be a dear and get us into the bottom level, would you? No point in going the long way and wasting even more time.”

“Wonderful suggestion, Kari,” I said. “I’ll get right on that.”

Kari winked before ducking out into the hall. Resigning myself to my task, I faced the wall and activated my alchemar, beginning the delicate process of manipulating the force of gravity acting on it.

See, I’ve worked with Kari a handful of times prior to this, and every single one has ended in me getting screwed over in one way or another. When we sabotaged the test run of an elites-only bullet train, she used me as a distraction so she could rob the facility’s safe on the way out. When we were contracted to recover a list of museum exhibits, she swapped my list with a fake, made me look like a fool just to be sure she was the only one building goodwill with the client. Hell, she more or less left me to die the last time I saw her, yet here she was, spewing the same fake charm as ever like none of that had ever happened. She hasn’t changed, and I doubt she ever will.

Still. There were a lot of people who needed this drug. I couldn’t quite bring myself to leave them to it just for the sake of my own comfort.

I curled my fingers as I finished bending the gravitational fields. Taking a step back, I willed the centermost field I had created to head in the same direction; the wall shuddered, bulged slightly, and finally gave, a huge circular chunk of it floating out to reveal the hall on the other side. Carefully setting down the hunk of wall, I deactivated my alchemar and looked back up to where I had entered the shaft. Kari leaned against the side of the opening, polishing her gauntlet as she waited. Next to her stood Witch Doctor, a woman of similar age and skin tone who looked a touch more frail, face obscured by a surgical mask and massive glasses with blacked-out lenses.

“You sure you’re ready to be on your feet, Doc?” I asked. “You took some pretty bad hits in that scrap just now.”

She straightened the faded gray robe she wore, almost covering the scorch marks on the thin, pale blue alchemar beneath. “I’ll be fine, Roche, thank you. We can’t afford to waste any time.”

Doc shakily held one arm out. Just as I was about to say something, Kairi tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Allow me.”

Without waiting for a response, she scooped up Witch Doctor and jumped down to the bottom of the shaft. Doc panicked a little, and honestly, so did I; Kari seemed to be enjoying that fact. I said, “Yeesh, would you take it easy?”

Brushing right past me (and still carrying Doc), Kari said, “You heard her: we can’t afford to waste any time. Besides, weren’t you concerned about her health? This way she doesn’t have to strain herself.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled as I followed her into the hall, “and instead you give her a heart attack…”

“Oh, need you be so dramatic? You’re fine, aren’t you, Doctor?”

Doc didn’t respond. Craning my neck, I could see she was still staring up at Kari; hard to be sure of much else with her whole face covered, but if I had to guess she was having some difficulty processing what was going on.

Kari chuckled. “Adorable.”

“Hey, give her some space to breathe.”

Throwing a smirk over her shoulder, Kari asked, “My, is that jealousy I hear?”

“Hah! Maybe Doc can check your hearing once we get back. It’s this way, right?”

Somehow I was fortunate enough to have relative quiet the rest of the way to the lab. The first door didn’t look particularly fancy, just a sliding metal door with a scanner next to it. Once Kari finally set Witch Doctor down and let her regain her bearing, the Doc reached into her robe and pulled out an eyeball. I turned back to the door and--

...Wait.

No, yes, that was an eyeball she was holding. My shock was apparent, it seems, because she said, “Don’t worry, it’s synthetic. Pardon me.”

She held the very real-looking but apparently fake eyeball up to the scanner, and a few seconds later the door slid open. Putting the eye away, Doc peered into the next room, and I did the same: it was a pretty spacious square of a chamber, though probably not as big as it looked since it was entirely empty. On the far wall was a much bigger, more imposing, cooler-looking door than the one we were currently poking through, flanked by a series of panels that blinked and beeped sporadically.

“Alright,” Doc said. “The bulk of the floor here is made of pressure plates, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to obtain accurate data on the safe path through them.”

“Easy,” Kari said. “I’ll just zip right across.”

She took a step forward, but Witch Doctor shook her head furiously. “No, wait! If the plates recede for even a fraction of a second, an alarm will trigger!”

“Mmm...how small a fraction?”

“You want to burn your entire charge right here?” I asked. “This is what I’m here for. I’ll change you and Doc’s personal gravity and you jump over the plates.”

“Oh? So our fate will be in your hands?”

That’s real damn rich coming from her. “I’ll keep a close watch as you go and make alterations if needed. Hurry up and get ready.”

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Kari stepped just into the room along with Doc. I switched on my alchemar, using its power to loosen gravity’s hold on the two of them just a bit.

“Go.”

Kari put a bit too much into her jump—I had to act quickly to increase her gravity slightly and prevent her from smacking into the ceiling. (Which I mean, is something I’d like to see, but...time and a place for everything.) Doc, on the other hand, didn’t give quite as much of a push as I expected, so I had to reduce the pull on her even further at the same time. It wasn’t easy, but in the end I managed. Both of them landed right in front of the other door, and Doc immediately pressed her ear against it, alchemar lighting up.

She may not be much of a fighter, but Witch Doctor has a precision control over her alchemar the likes of which I’ve never seen. Metal is her preferred element, usually for creating scalpels out of thin air to be 100% sure they’re sterile, and she’s trained herself to manipulate all the moving parts of nearly any physical lock. From what she’s told me, though, it uses up a lot of the armor’s energy, and she was already wounded—I guess she expected something like this could happen, which is why she brought the fake eye for the first door. This one must’ve needed a password or something else she couldn’t circumvent. Whatever the case, it was open in no time flat.

I couldn’t see much of the lab from where I stood, but as soon as the door was open Kari slipped inside moving at inhuman speeds. Mere moments later she was back, holding in her hands a small tube containing roughly a dozen white pills. I winced, waiting to see if she had set off some other security measure with her impatience, but fortunately no such thing occurred.

“Anything else while we’re here?” Kari asked.

Doc took the tube in her hands, beaming through her mask. “Finally...we can do so much good with this!”

Now doesn’t that just warm your heart. Well, not for Kari, judging by the way she was looking back into the lab with an air of appraisal.

“Okay,” I said, “we got our mark, now let’s get the hell out of here. Ready?”

I got them back across the room and turned to leave. About three steps past the door, a piercing alarm went off. This sort of thing is so frustrating, really: this constant blaring noise throws off your focus, and there’s usually some flashing red light that distracts you too. Not to mention it means you’ve kinda failed and put your whole job (and potentially life) in jeopardy.

“What? How?!” Doc asked, clutching the tube tightly to her chest.

“Those guards we battled earlier must’ve regained consciousness,” Kari said. “Best we get moving, hm?”

I’d like to think this is her fault somehow. Regardless, moving was indeed the best idea at this juncture, so the three of us dashed back towards the elevator shaft only to be cut off by a wall of security guards who immediately opened fire. Doc and I deflected their bullets while Kari threw both hands forward and exerted her own power. Instantly, time froze for the guards, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to hold so many for long. And we still didn’t know what might be waiting for us past this point…

“Split up,” Kari said through clenched teeth. “I’ll draw them back towards the lab!”

That didn’t sit well with me. But, Doc was already moving, and I certainly didn’t want to still be standing here when these trigger-happy twits rejoined us in normal time, so I ran off down a side hallway and hoped for the best. Soon I could hear the gunshots resume. Up ahead I could see a large vent in the ceiling, so I reversed gravity to land next to it and climb inside; a bit of crawling later and I emerged in the same elevator shaft as earlier. I quickly hopped back up to the wall I had been blown right through and prepared to retrace my steps. That’s when I saw something that brought me to a screeching halt.

The three alchemar-equipped guards we had been fighting earlier? They were still out cold, strewn across the room at random. No way they were the ones who sounded the alarm, as Kari had suggested. Isn’t that suspicious.

“All units, co—"

A radio clipped to one of the downed guards was bursting with sound and static. Snatching it up, I adjusted the dial to get a clearer signal.

“Repeat: intruder has doubled back towards main elevator! Requesting backup!”

I ground my teeth in anticipation. Sure enough, it was only a matter of seconds before Kari came bounding out of the shaft, stopping short with wide eyes when she spotted me standing there.

“What’s up, Kari?” I asked. “Looks like it wasn’t these pricks who set off the alarm. Got any other ideas?”

Kari put on a smile as she casually walked off to the side. “Roche...didn’t expect you to head this way. Well, uh, who knows? Maybe someone spotted them, or…”

She trailed off as she realized I was increasing gravity on her. “Or. Maybe someone with a time-bending alchemar moved so quickly she was able to tap a pressure plate before her associates had a chance to notice.”

The next instant, Kari was right in front of me pressing a gun into my forehead. “Fascinating theory. Supposing it’s true, what would you do next?”

“Oh, I don’t know, ask her to explain her evil plan probably.”

“Hehe, ‘evil’? That’s adorable. You’re expecting something far more elaborate than what your associate is going for, darling.” She tapped her skirt with her free hand. “I just pocketed half the pills I found. It’ll take the good doctor a bit to reverse-engineer them, and in the meantime, I’ll be able to turn a profit unloading my own inventory.”

I should’ve expected as much, really. Gritting my teeth, I said, “I dunno, still sounds pretty evil to me.”

Kari rolled her eyes. “Oh, lighten up, Roche. Look at it this way: a few people are going to have access to the drug a little sooner than planned, and at a lower price than MiliGrand is asking. Is it so wrong that I get a little bonus out of it?”

“You really don’t get it.”

Nearby yelling alerted us to the approaching guards. Kari pulled back with a smirk, and the two of us dashed back towards the entrance we had used, narrowly avoiding bullets all the way. Kari stayed more than a few steps ahead—doubt she would have heard me even if I had said anything. Eventually we made it to the meetup point, finding Doc already waiting there, exuding relief at the sight of us.

“I’m so glad you two are okay!” she said. “That was a close call, wasn’t it?”

“Nothing to worry about, darling,” Kari said. “Escaping a place like this easy for any proper Phantom Thief.”

“Yeah,” I said, “and you too, I guess.”

Twirling her gun in her hand, Kari said, “Goodness, Roche, no need to be so petty. Let’s go back to HQ and celebrate a job well done.”

I turned to Witch Doctor. “She pocketed some pills.”

Pain. Thankfully alchemars’ protective fields can be left on even when the main power isn’t active, keeping us alive when greedy assholes shoot us in the side of the head, but the bullet still hurts like hell.

“You just had to spoil the good mood, didn’t you?” Kari said.

Doc jumped and backed away. “K...Kari! What are you doing?!”

“I gave him fair warning, and it’s not like he’s dead. Look at what you’ve done, Roche: she’s distressed.”

It might not have been quite on par with getting blasted through a wall, but getting shot still proved enough to push me over my limit. “Kari, why the hell did you even join the Phantom Network?! If you’re only in this for the money, then you don’t understand what sets us apart from the elite bastards we’re stealing from!”

Kari seemed unimpressed by my display. “I’m sorry, have I hampered your noble cause in any way? It’s not as though I’ve taken all the pills for my own, or swapped them out with fakes or any such thing. I’m simply—"

“Securing more money for yourself, I know. You weren’t satisfied with what Doc had already promised you, so you didn’t see anything wrong with helping yourself to whatever else you wanted.”

“No, I don’t. As I just said, the numbers—"

“It’s not about the damn numbers! That’s my entire point! We may need to turn a profit to make ends meet, but the rest of us are doing this because we care about what the Phantom Network represents! We’re surviving this system to do our part to bring it down, but you’re trying to use it for your own benefit!”

She shot me again. I didn’t really care.

“You don’t even know what ‘honor among thieves’ means. You’re just a common criminal who doesn’t care about anyone but herself!”

Kari was taking aim for a third shot when Witch Doctor shouted, “Stop! That’s enough!”

We both went still.

“...Please. Let’s just head back. All that really matters is that we’ve got the drug. I don’t…”

She trailed off. My frustration had waned a bit by now, so I was actually feeling just a little bit guilty. Kari holstered her gun and said, “Excellent idea. Shall we, Roche?”

Tempting. Quite tempting. “Fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

And I did. Doc paid us and got right to work reverse-engineering the drug, and in less than a week she was taking it to contacts in medical facilities around the world. I’m sure Kari had sold out her inventory well before then. Much as she pisses me off, the fact is that what she does just isn’t any of my business, so I’m not gonna tattle on her to the Network Admin or anything. But there’s no way in hell I’m working with her again. Even a wonder drug wouldn’t be enough to get her to change.

#original #Phantom Network

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zimisnotdefective · 5 years

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FrankenPAK AU - CLOSED for destroyer-immortalizer

@destroyer-immortalizer

〘🔻〙: The day had been rather unproductive. Zim had gone to skool, had been chased through the field behind the school at lunch by the Dib, and had come home, a little scuffed but no worse for wear. It was a relatively usual day on this horrible hell-planet.

Friday was always the day when Zim set aside some time in the evening to send a transmission to the Tallest, to relay all of his newfound information and current mission status to his beloved leaders. This friday was no different. As he shrugged off his disguise and put it away for another day, he made his way down into his base’s main chamber. There, he stepped off the elevator, and approached the large screen that covered most of one of the room’s walls. A long console panel ran it’s bottom length, glimmering with buttons and small screens. With a few taps of gloved claws, the screen flickered to life, washing the alien in a soft pink glow.

“Computer!” he hailed his loyal base AI, as he stood back, holding his hands behind himself, “Establish a link with the Tallest. QUICKLY! I have much to tell them!”

With a groan, the computer complied, and the daunting screen began to sizzle with static. After a few moments, a connection was reached, and the tiny faux-Invader’s small stature was projected in front of his taller leaders. Zim rose his antennae in salute, a proud smile on his face as he addressed them,

“My dear Tallest, it is a pleasure to stand before you once again. Zim does take such pride in our weekly communications. I trust you have been well?”

Both royal IRKEN sat, bored expressions plastered on their long faces. Purple was slurping obnoxiously on a soda, while Red rested his cheek in his clawed hand.

“I’m sure you do, Zim. I’m suuure you do.” Red drawled, unimpressed by the drone’s formalities.

“Hey! What’s that weird sound?” Purple interjected, attention diverted momentarily from his drink.

“Eh? What sound?”

Zim’s antennae quirked, and he listened carefully to his surroundings. He visibly strained, damaged appendages wiggling slightly, as if grasping at the air for the very soundwaves. It was then that it hit him. His PAK had begun to make a familiar whirring sound; the telltale signs of mechanical stress, and a very good indicator that it may become overheated. Zim went white. How had he not realized?! He had been dealing with the issue for so long, the simple sound no longer registered with him. It was the heat that always alerted him, not the sound.

“Eh, nothing to worry about, my Tallest! Just my... newest INGENIOUS PLAN to take over the stupid Earth-monkies!” Zim lied with a forced smile, raising his antennae once more.

The Tallests did not seem convinced. Red leaned forwards slightly, and narrowed his crimson eyes. His own antennae raised, and he pointed a long claw at the screen.

“Your PAK is smoking.”

Zim could already feel it. The sickening heat had begun to radiate from the device drilled into his spine. He swallowed hard, sleek black stalks snapping down to lay flat against his head. This could not be happening. He had come so far, had so many calls without showing even a single sign of a PAK overheat, but now! Now that streak was ruined, and his Tallest could plainly see the defect in action.

“Oh! Er... is it? I hadn’t noticed...!” Zim forced a toothy smile, and a nervous laugh, “It uh... must just be... uh...”

“That looks a lot like a central cooling system malfunction.” Red spoke, his brow furrowed into a scowl, “You’ve never reported any PAK malfunctions to us. How long has this been happening, Zim?”

“I— My Tallest, my PAK has never—!” the defective grimaced as the metal began to sear against his skin. The expression did not go unnoticed.

Purple leaned over and, cupping a clawed hand around his mouth, whispered something to his counterpart. Red’s antenna twitched, picking up the other’s words as a smirk spread across his face. As the two sat back once more, Red began again,

“Remind me, Zim. The PAK you were given came from batch 90-sub6, did it not?”

“Y— Yes, my Tallest. The same— same batch as you.”

“Well, then. Why didn’t you say that earlier? That batch of PAKs actually had a massive planet-wide recal, due to faulty cooling systems.” the Tallest explained, thouth his expression didn’t match his words, “Isn’t that interesting?”

“It— It did?”

“It did!” Purple replied enthusiastically, before he was pushed back once more by his partner.

“Even your mighty Tallest had their PAKs upgraded to sub7. Everyone with a sub6 did, Zim. Though, I suppose you didn’t, did you?” he tried to hide his smile, “Luckily for you, we have a downloadable patch that should easily repair the horrendously overlooked malfunction for you.”

“Really?!” Zim could barely believe what he was hearing. All this time, he had been suffering, believing his PAK’s struggles to be due to defect. Now, it was all clear to him! It wasn’t his fault at all! It was the fault of some idiotic PAK-manufacturing drone, who had already no doubt been erased from the collective. No wonder Zim had never heard of this! “Oh, thank you, my Tallest! Where can I aquire this patch?”

By the instruction of the Tallest, Zim plugged his PAK into the main uplink port that would allow his leaders to send a digital upload straight into the device. This method was used mostly in dire situations, when an Invader needed to send all of their data back to the Massive in the case of PAK failure. Though, cases like this arose now and then, and the Tallest would even grant some highly productive Invaders free upgrades through the uplink. This was exactly what Zim assumed was happening.

How wrong he was.

The moment the data had finished downloading into the little life support device, the translucent pink plates that covered it’s sensitive inner workings exploded outwards in a shower of sparks, propelling the tiny alien forwards, and into the console. He fell back, the wind knocked out of him, as the device continued to sputter.

“My— My Tallest—!” Zim croaked, clutching his middle as he pulled himself to his knees, “S— Something is wrong—!” The two faces of his leaders towered over him as they broke into hysterical laughter.

“You really think— you really think we would let damaged PAKs be sent out to SMEETs, Zim?!” Red choked out through laughter.

“Our own PAKs, too! A Tallest with a defective PAK!” Purple wheezed, “You really are an idiot!”

“Ooh, watch this! It’s just getting to the good part!”

Zim lifted his head to look up at his leaders, magenta eyes full of fear and confusion. They had... planned this? This was a trick?

Before he could utter a single word, another burst of electric debris came spewing forth from the tiny device, along with cracking bolts of free energy. A strangled cry bubbled up and out of the small IRKEN’s throat, and he hunched. Small pink droplets fell onto the hard metal floor in front of him as he gasped. The same pink was beginning to stain the back of his uniform, green skin cut by shrapnel.

“I-I... I do not... understand...” Zim croaked, trying once more to look up at the screen.

The Tallests had stopped their laughter.

“You’re a joke, Zim.” Red spoke, his voice low, “You’ve always been a joke. A defective. You should have been erased years ago, during your Trial. But you didn’t. Not even sending you off on a fake mission into space was enough to kill you. You weren’t even supposed to find that stupid planet!”

“But... I...”

“Why couldn’t you have just died off then, Zim? Hmm? Do you like torturing us?”

“Well? Do ya? Huh?” Purple chimed in.

“N— No, I—“

“You must, seeing as you’re still not dead.”

Another spray of sparks, and Zim slipped onto the ground. He lay flat on his belly, gasping and spasming as his PAK self destructed.

“As much as I’d love to sit here and watch you die, I’ve got better things to do. Don’t call us again.”

With that, the screen went dark.

—-

A swirl of pink and purple appeared in the middle of a luxurious living area, a strange portal that seemed to pulse with life. It grew in size, creating a buzz of static as something fell through, out onto the floor. In an instant, it shrank back into nonexistence.

Zim wasn’t even sure if Simaris would be here or not. More likely than not, the Cephalon would be down in the middle of the Sanctuary, seated atop his heightened throne. He wasn’t even sure if we was on the right Relay, but he had no way of knowing. All he could do was lay there on the floor, his PAK sparking and sizzling with loose spikes of lightning. Pink oozed out onto the pristine flooring, covering it in a sticky mess that smelled odly of metal. The Cephalon would have to find him at some point.

Right?

#[this is SO LONG I'M SORRY ASDFGHJK]#[can you tell I am......... EXCITED.....]#〘🔻〙: ᴵ ᴮᴸᴱᵂ ᵁᴾ ᴹᴼᴿᴱ ᵀᴴᴬᴺ ᴬᴺʸ ᴼᵀᴴᴱᴿ ᴵᴺⱽᴬᴰᴱᴿ! ║〘 ZIM 〙#〘🔻〙: ᴴᴱʸ! ᴴᴱʸ! ᴹʸ ᵀᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴸᴸᴵᴵᴵˢᵀ! ║〘 TALLEST 〙#〘🔻〙: ᵂᴼᴿˢᴱ ᵀᴴᴬᴺ ᴬ ᴰᴱᶠᴱᶜᵀ ║〘 FRANKENPAK VERSE 〙#〘🔻〙: People:〘 destroyer-immortalizer 〙

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greatdrams · 5 years

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Girvan 25 Year Old Single Grain Scotch Whisky: a pack dissection

This article was originally published as my guest column on TheDrinksReport here.

Just how does a fifty year old mostly quiet distillery go about launching a new category in Scotch? Through creating thoughtful design, iconography and range tiering, that’s how.

The Girvan distillery dates back to 1963 and has a whole host of great storytelling opportunities surrounding it from Charles Gordon, William Grant’s great grandson, riding around the site on his bicycle barking orders to the already-working flat out workers or that the whole 380 acre site was constructed in just nine months. But the simple fact that it is the second largest grain whisky production site on the planet and I did not learn any of this from the pack itself.

These stories are not brought into the pack design at all for the now year-old launch products for its range.

The products themselves, four in total thus far, are borne of a true design to ‘add a new pillar’ to the Scotch market by premiumising single grain releases.

And it is fair to say that they have done a pretty good job.

When you look at the range you see bottle structures reminiscent of wine bottles or even Grey Goose at a push that exude quality, show the liquid and say to the world: “single grain has nothing to hide”.

Bearing in mind there are only a handful of grain distilleries in Scotland, none of whom had at the time managed to premiumise their product on the open market aside from the odd distillery release of independent bottlings, consumers had naturally assumed that grain whisky was blend fodder with little personality to it. The whisky geeks out there believing that it is produced in such a way that eliminates error, drives a consistent liquid and ultimately feels less characterful than traditional single malt releases.

Girvan had to do something really special visually when they went to the open market with their range, and they have.

They broke existing malt category codes.

They created new category codes for single grain.

They designed with modernity in mind.

They have thought about ranging and tiers early on.

They have created shelf standout.

They brought an ambitious positioning to life with clarity.

Consumers will notice that each tier from 4APPS to Proof Strength to Girvan 25 Year Old to 30 Year Old each adds additional premium cues to the secondary pack.

From classic cardboard to rigid cardboard to veneer with magnetic closures, the tiering is up there with the best of them, especially when lined up side by side.

When speaking with Global Brand Ambassador for Girvan Patent Still, Kevin Abrook recently I asked him about the secondary pack and he was at pains to tell me just how much they thought about the trade up story and how the bottle’s sleek design with lots of liquid on show would have been ruined had they not cut panels out of the rigid secondary pack to increase sightlines.

Iconography can often be used flippantly, poorly or even randomly, you will notice on the Girvan packaging the main brand icon is symbolic of the still and the key tasting notes present in this expectedly smooth liquid.

The use of lots of white space on pack, printed panels on the side of the outer pack and a booklet inside that is so minimalist yet communicative in its design that it really does personify the brand promise of ‘deliciously different’.

Will these become the new normal or even category codes within single grain? Time will tell.

Part of me wants to say it is too modern, too slick, too unexpected for the wide Scotch category, but it works.

It is definitely super premium, no questions there, and once you hold the 25 Year Old, for example, you feel every penny’s worth as you casually roll your fingers over the rigid outer pack structure or look longingly at the iconography piecing together the story of a product that has taken a quarter of a century to be ready for release and your consumption.

The packaging, for me, is a true personification and testament to the precision engineering used to create the impressive Girvan stills now fifty-two years ago.

What do you think of the Girvan Patent Still packaging? Do you think it disrupts in a good way or does it break too many category codes?

Written by Greg Dillon

Greg is a freelance brand strategist for hire specialising in creating compelling brand positioning / propositions, creative platforms and all things strategic for whisky and other luxury spirits, he also authors multi-award nominated GreatDrams.com, a site for whisky drinkers and learners alike and can be contacted on [email protected] or over at Facebook.com/GreatDrams.

The post Girvan 25 Year Old Single Grain Scotch Whisky: a pack dissection appeared first on GreatDrams.

from GreatDrams http://bit.ly/2tdJXU9 Greg

#whisky #GreatDrams

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evelynsdesignsurveyjournal · 2 years

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Week 8- Industrial Design

Industrial Design (ID) is the professional practice of designing products, devices, objects and services used by millions of people around the world every day. Based on photos I’ve taken- this is my personal interpretation of different kinds of industrial design.

1. Diffuser: This diffuser uses industrial design through glass and technology elements of plastic and metal that mechanize light, water, and vapor. It is light and portable, fragile, and sleek. It can give off different hues and brightness of light and its main purpose is to diffuse water and essential oils in the wide base shape to vaporize it through the top in a stream to create an aroma. I would imagine that the shape and materials it was designed out of are specifically for it’s effectiveness and proper mechanisms for function.

2. Globe: Globes are industrially designed to see the earth in an understandable way to interpret the world map as a whole. Even though it’s proven that on maps, measurements are stretched and inaccurate- globes like this offer a solution to that.

3. CD: CDs are designed to play music in a flat mechanism with a hole in the middle and they give off a sleek reflective appearance.

4. Traffic lights: are a really important use of industrial design for traffic, stripped down to it’s most basic functions made out of steel, technological and electrical elements, and colored lights. This design must take civil engineering into account.

5. Washing machine: Designed out of metal and other technology elements to wash clothes with detergent and water. It spins with different speeds and has to take cylindrical design elements into account.

6. Picture Frame: Simple design, backing, boarders, usually wooden, plastic, or metal with a glass panel to show artwork, photographs, and prints behind. Can be hung or stood up depending on particular design and use.

7. Exit Sign: practical purpose, made out of plastic and electrical elements, usually red light to stand out and draw attention to exit ways.

8. Computer: although changed and developed a lot overtime, this specific model of mac I believe is made out of some types of steel and metal, electrical elements, and a lot of technological elements within the computer, covered by a glass and led display.

9. Pool ball: Different colors, possibly made out of porcelain, painted and glazed, labeled with number and symbol. Perfect sphere design made to roll smoothly along the pool table.

10. Windshield: Glass in front of driver in car, made to be easily seen through and durable

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amerraka · 6 years

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Original Fiction Fest-- Day 7-- Free

Here is the first chapter of Legacy. The rest will be posted for the $1 payment level on Patreon. If you want to read further, I’d really like feedback! You get to be beta readers and have impact on the story and universe.

Chapter 1

My saber-toothed cat, Sabra, lay on the bed beside me. Her tail twitched as she stared out the floor-to-ceiling window, her fur gilded by the morning sunlight. A bird flew past in a blur and she leaped off of the bed and dashed toward the window, then lay flat on the floor, her tail quivering, her ears flattened against her head. Another bird flew past and she jumped at it, her giant paws sliding against the window in a vain attempt to catch her prey. Claws scraped along the window.

“Sabra! You know you can’t catch them, silly girl.”

One ear flicked back, indicating she’d heard me, but then she crept away, pacing, muscles rippling beneath her sleek golden coat.

It might be futile for Sabra to catch a bird from inside the Spire, but I hoped it would not be as futile for me to catch my quarry. It was going to come right to me, after all.

I sat up and leaned against the cushioned headboard, signaling that I was awake and ready for breakfast. I stretched, sparking my mind into alert mode. I had to be careful about this. If Dad discovered what I was up to, he would probably take my wings. Maybe permanently. Not that Dad had been noticing much lately…which was why this was a good time to do this. Although…the very reason Dad was out of commission was the reason I wanted to trap an M. Because of—my heart shuddered—Mom.

Tears threatened to well up in my eyes. I fought them, fought to distract myself—hard to do when the very reason I was doing this was for Mom.

If this worked, I might find the reason for her madness. And then—I hardly dared hope—they’d be able to find a cure.

But not if they caught me before my plan succeeded… Granted, it would be pretty risky even if Dad wasn’t paying attention. Ms had their own internal safeguards. If they found out what I had planned, they’d swarm over me like antibodies attacking a virus…though they would not hurt me, because I was Royalty. They’d report me to my sister, the de facto ruler of City Magnificent, and she’d punish me. She’d be more lenient than Dad….but whatever happened, she would keep me from modifying any more Ms, keep me from doing anything to help Mom. They didn’t think I had the ability as the youngest, a mere natural-born, who used tech to make pranks, who fooled around instead of getting his school work done. Maybe they were right that I was useless. But I had to try to help Mom. Everyone else had given up. It did not even occur to the others to break the law, even for Mom’s sake. Maybe Vy. But Vy was always offworld nowadays, almost as inaccessible as Dad.

It had just come to me…a spark of an idea. Unconventional, risky, against the law—but that didn’t matter. Nothing did, except Mom getting better. Even if I lost my wings… I shuddered. Yes, it was even worth losing my wings, if I got Mom back. Sometimes I thought it would be less cruel for her to have died, but then there would be no chance of a cure. It just hurt so much to see her that way—screaming, crying, thrashing about, in such pain that she felt it even in her dreams. As hard as it was to see her, I still went to her room, saw the pale figure wasted away on her bed, agony written on her face… fear crushing her so it was hard to believe she was the same person as the Iridescent Queen, so full of light and life….

No one else except Glory went to see her. Even Glory, some of her own light dimmed by having the world on her shoulders, had lost hope of a cure.

No. I would not lose hope. I would not give up on Mom. Not until I did everything I possibly could.

If I thought it would heal her, I’d give my life for her. Though I hoped it would not come to that.

If Dad woke up enough to take my wings, that would almost be like taking my life….

The door swished sideways. An M walked in, holding a covered golden tray. The strong smell of sausages wafted into the room. Sausages. My favorite.

“Good morning, sir,” said the M, as he strode up to my bed.

“Good morning, Peri,” I said. I’d given him the name “Periwinkle” when I was little, just because I’d liked the sound of it. Now I thought it rather silly, but I was used to it now, and his actual designation was 102389483. I wasn’t about to call him that. “What do you have for me today?”

He swept the cover off of the tray with a flourish, the motion ruffling his brown holographic hair. He leaned over the bed at an angle that most humans would find impossible, and held the tray in front of me. “Today we have Kalata’ian sausages from Mirage, masp root from Ice, and red mushrooms from Eclipse, all prepared with complementary spices.”

I patted the bed beside me, and he set the tray there.

“We also have juice from our very own fireberry.” He handed me a glass of juice, swirling with the colors of sunset. I took it and set it on the back of the headboard. I didn’t want it to get in the way of what I had to do.

“Thanks, Peri.”

Peri bowed deeply. He was a pleasant-looking M, with a long, middle-aged face, a kind expression—although, as with all Ms, there was something a bit disconcerting about them. No matter how perfect their imitation was, when you looked into their eyes, there was nothing there. Nothing but circuits and gears, hardware and software. Most people were fine with Ms but even the ones I’d grew up with made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want mechanical parts for a friend. I wanted real people. A bit hard to get nowadays…..

Still, I liked Peri more than most, since he’d been my personal servant for as long as I could remember, and I felt a twinge of guilt for what I was about to do.

“Is there anything else that you require, sir?” He backed toward the door, not having to look behind him because of his sensors. Since he wasn’t trying to blend in, he could do things that were not quite human…which did not bother most people. They thought it comforting, in fact, since Ms were created to protect us.

“Actually, there is.”

A faint expression of surprise crossed his face. I didn’t usually ask for much from him; usually I just wanted to be left to do my own thing without Ms watching my every move.

“What is it, my lord?”

“Come here.”

Peri obediently walked back toward me. I slid off the bed, careful not to jolt the food off of the tray.

“Hold out your hand,” I said.

Peri did so, palm up. I grasped Peri’s wrist. The joint was cold, metallic, beneath holographic skin, reminding me there was no humanity here, no matter how much it might mimic it. I didn’t have to feel one bit guilty—in fact, hesitation could mean failure.

I took a deep breath and pulled at the energy powering the M, letting it seep through my fingers with warm, pleasant sparks, which turned into a steady flow, draining the M of electric current. Its eyes widened in shock, and despite myself I felt sorry for ambushing him and using him… but this wouldn’t damage him permanently, anyway. He had no real feeling, after all—he was just a computer with a body.

He struggled weakly against my grip but by this time most of his energy had poured into me, and his holographic skin flickered, then vanished, revealing the silver metal beneath. He slipped from my hand and collapsed to the floor, a metal skull and skeleton, the jaw hanging open, the eye sockets blank red sensors.

I had to hurry. Any malfunction would be picked up and more Ms would come to take him away.

I grabbed the toolkit hidden beneath my bed and picked out a screwdriver. Then I pried open a panel on the top of the M’s skull and took another tool, which I inserted into the computer brain, and toggled around til I reached the malfunction alarm and switched it off.

Sabra jumped up onto the bed and snatched one of the sausages, then lay down to eat it. I grabbed the other sausage and ate with one hand while I worked with the other.

I had to flip off a few more safeguards, but it was easy to do now that the alarm was off and I had drained all of the electricity from the M. With a little bit of electricity, it might have still been able to alert someone. I was good at absorbing electricity, one of the only things, besides tech and flying, that I was good at. But no one saw it as an asset—Marches were supposed to be able to produce electric current, not leech it out of things. The only other person I knew who had been good at it was my grandfather, who had killed my other grandfather, the Sovereign of Mag City, and been thrown to the Abyss. He had done it by tweaking an M like I was doing, come to think of it…. But no. I couldn’t compare myself with him. He had modified the M so it could kill my Grandpapa. I was modifying the M so it could save my mother. I was not like Strike Vale at all. I hated to even think I was related to him, or that I was like him in any way. I was using this defective ability for good, not evil. There was something good that could come of it after all.

After the safeguards were off, I summoned lightning. A few paltry sparks danced across my fingertips. But I didn’t need to power the M much; I didn’t want him to turn all the way back on yet. I pressed my hand to the computer brain and it sputtered to life. Then I opened the M’s basic programming, and its hologram sprang into the air in front of me.

I opened its security programming and slid the safeguards past the danger level. An alarm pinged; I jabbed it off. Then I grabbed the plate and set it down beside me, and ate the springy branched mushrooms and the soft, tangy root, while I entered entirely new programs, fiddling with it when it resisted and tried to spring back to its original mission. Stubborn thing. I wrested it back to the way I wanted it.

I impressed into it its mission—find data from grayspace that could explain the reason for Mom’s madness—and added subprograms to deal with contingencies, stretching its rigid mind to the limit, and giving it as much adaptability to extreme environments as I could. It was too bad I couldn’t get a battle M, or better yet, a spy M, which had the best adaptability matrix of any of them, but it would be almost impossible to catch one of them off guard. I’d have to make do with this one—although, with its modifications, I might be able to use it catch another one. But I hoped my modifications to the servant M would be enough, perhaps making it the equivalent of a battle M at least. Though none had the exact programming I had given it; I was making a whole new breed of M.

I put in some finishing touches, then sat back and admired my handiwork—the new program, spinning bright inside the holographic schematics of the M’s mind. Hope surged inside of me. It was beautiful. A new thing, an idea that had sprung from my mind, now in visual form. A shiver of excitement ran through me, along with a quiver of fear. This was the easy part. Now I’d have to get the M to the Portal and gather enough data without anyone finding out.

I ate the last of the mushroom, which had gotten cold and rubbery, and slid my hand along Sabra’s smooth back. She blinked at me with half-closed eyes, and a purr rumbled in her throat. I kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be back,” I said, and scratched between her shoulder blades. She laid her head down on her paws, her long canines hanging over the edge of the bed.

I knelt back down beside Peri and slid his cranial plate back on with a snap. Then I pressed my palm on his chest over his main energy core and tried to summon lightning. I closed my eyes, concentrating, forcing myself to calm down—which wasn’t easy to do. My heart pounded hard, my body seized with adrenaline. Unlike the rest of my family, my lightning was unpredictable. I couldn’t even make it work consistently with strong emotion, like anger. The only thing that sometimes worked was shutting out all distractions and dragging it from deep inside me. The small amount that I had was always reluctant, and preferred to stay asleep inside of me rather than do any sort of work. Trying to force it didn’t work either. I had to just let it flow out of its own accord, if it wanted to…. While my siblings, especially Blade, had a hard time suppressing theirs.

Lightning flickered down my arms, dissipating as it flowed, then melted back into my skin.

“Come on!” I said. But getting frustrated would only make it worse.

I forced myself to breathe. Find the calm center of myself, the way Mom had taught me....

“I don’t have a calm center,” I told her once, sitting in her garden where she liked to meditate, holographic candles flickering around her in the dim light. She sat in front of me, cross-legged, her svelte form draped with a white nightgown, her eyes closed, her golden hair cascading over her shoulders. “It’s just—a hurricane, inside of me.”

She smiled. “Even hurricanes have a calm center.”

“But—what if I don’t? I mean—I’m just a mess of random genes. I’m not like the other Marches. I don’t have powerful lightning like you, I’m smaller, I—I think differently.”

She opened her eyes. “My Jet. You are different—and maybe that will make meditation harder. It may make a lot of things harder. You might not have been built from scratch like the rest of us. But you also have freedom—something the rest of us only have in part, because our role is written in our very DNA.”

“What do I choose, Mom?”

She kissed my forehead. “That, you will have to find out for yourself.”

Her words echoed in my mind. My heart ached, like it always did when I thought of Mom. I forced my mind to think of something else.

Flying. Soaring over City Magnificent, up toward the clear blue sky…. I could never totally clear my mind, and I doubted I could ever find a calm center. But flying was the closest I could get.

Lightning gathered, crackling over my arms. I forced myself to stay calm, though excitement threatened to douse my attempt before it started.

I let it flow down into the M’s metal chest. Pain snapped into my hands. I hoped the protective skin coating that Royalty had would protect me from the worst of it. Letting the lightning out, I lifted my hands away so they wouldn’t bear the full force of the feedback. Electricity cracked and surged against the M’s chest, then a sharp jolt hit me and I fell back, all thought wiped from my mind for a millisecond before pain seized my hands. I fumbled for a medpatch in the toolkit and pressed it to my shoulder. My palms throbbed violently. I sat back against the bed, gasping, as the medpatch began to work and send euphoria through me, dulling the pain.

Peri stirred and sat up, a blur of silver. I wiped the tears from my eyes, my hands still shaking, and when I could see more clearly, his holoskin flickered back on, concealing his metal skeleton.

His face turned toward me. “Master, are you all right?”

I nodded.

“What happened?” He blinked. An expression of confusion crossed his face. “What did you d-d-d—“ He shook his head, and his voice distorted. “Do.”

Maybe the new programming had been too much for his limited adaptability matrix. I crawled forward, still shaken despite the medpatch. Its sedative wasn’t helping much with coordination either.

I’d planned for this more than I normally did for anything, but I’d thought I could make up the rest as I went along. That had always worked for me before, more or less, but maybe it would be my downfall this time…

No. Don’t think like that.

I knelt in front of Peri. He was sitting, staring into space. His holoskin flickered, and I feared that the new programming was taking too much memory so he couldn’t even keep his appearance. I couldn’t very well go anywhere with a naked M….

“Are you all right, Peri?”

His head jerked toward me. “I—I—I—“

I did the only thing I could think of. I slammed my fist into his metal cheek.

He toppled over and hit the floor with a dull thud.

To be continued..... Legacy Chapter 2

@originalficfest

#writing #legacy #scifi #adventure #reading #in progress #it's actually finished so you know that you'll be able to read to the end #the editing is in progress #i will post a chapter every few days #probably #or every week?#feedback is helpfu #um'#originalficfest

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whiplash-story · 6 years

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CHAPTER VI

Pilar

* * *

Space is vast. It’s huge and seemingly empty, but enlarge the scale and you’ll find a dizzying complexity of intricacies, individuals that make wholes, wholes make more wholes, wholes, in the end, come back to individuals. There are trillions of stories that no one will ever tell, and trillions more told too many times. Space is vast, and it is vastly terrifying. It can drive a traveler mad.

Not, however, if you have a well-loved CD of Toto IV on hand. Pilar slid it into the CD player her brother, Joaquim, had given her for her 17th birthday. She stretched out in the back of her ship, Marisela’s creaks and groans accompanying the sweet, sweet marimba of Africa. The windows curved from maybe three feet off the floor into the rest of ship’s body, creating an orange slice of pure wonder.

That’s a weird analogy, Pilar thought. But we’re going with it.

Stars pricked brilliantly in the distance served as a constant reminder of how small everything really is. Very, very small.

Mouthing along to Toto, Pilar gazed out the window and let her mind drift.

Of course, it’s hard to let your mind drift when the blare of sirens drown out the calming synth and smooth harmonies that bless the rains down in Africa.

Pilar started. Leaping from the sofa, she bolted to the cockpit. “Who the hell are you?” she asked a ship that couldn’t hear her. “Oh, shit,” she answered to herself, “You’re the Gordonian police. I swear,” she muttered, “you make out with the queen one time, and suddenly everyone’s on your ass.”

Pilar felt a panic set into her gut. It burrowed deep and squirmed uncomfortably. She glanced out the window. The Gordonians had advanced quite a lot since she’d last… visited. Marisela had her stunning looks, but not much else. Her chances seemed dim and the dread balled up in her throat.

The ships were closing in. They were sleek, shiny, and a deep indigo, making them almost blend in with the inky void around them. However, the deafening sirens and flashing lights kind of undermined the stealth aspect of the ships. Pilar switched autopilot off but didn’t run just yet.

Marisela’s radio spat out a crackle. “Pilar Delarosa, you are under arrest for capital adultery. Anything you say or do will lead to immediate and painful death. Surrender and we might reduce your sentence to immediate but not painful death.” The radio cut off.

“Some reading of my rights,” Pilar grumbled. Something told her, however, that taking it up with the king wouldn’t be her very best idea.

She sized up the ships flanking her. They seemed to be waiting for her response. They wouldn’t wait for long, though. She couldn’t outrun them in a million light years. And her firepower left much to be desired. Pilar tuned back into the radio.

“Hey, guys,” she said, scrambling for anything that might buy her time. “So I’ve got a question about this plea deal of yours’—“

“You have thirty seconds to surrender.” A voice interrupted, rather rudely. But a bell went off in Pilar’s mind. She grinned.

“David? David Glaxley? Is that you?”

“What— I don’t— who—“

“Davey! Why didn’t you just say it was you!” Pilar chattered on about his kids, garden, hit list, and so on as she tried to calculate if she could make it to the nearest moon without being blown to bits. “And Mikey— how is he doing? Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know! Mikey! The man eating Dearon!” And before not-David could say ‘what’s a man eating Dearon,’ Pilar gunned it.

The combination of being caught off guard on two fronts should, with any luck, give her enough time to slip away from the officers in the Fantre asteroid belt. Probably.

Marisela was making decent headway until they started shooting. Pilar wrenched the steering wheel every which way, narrowly avoiding the blasts, but that slowed her down, and the cops were gaining fast. She needed a diversion, and one was approaching. The asteroid belt approached rapidly, and only a skilled pilot could maneuver their way through. Lucky for her, the best pilot in the galaxy was sitting in the front seat of this rig.

“Oh wait!” Pilar laughed to herself in mock surprise, laying a hand flat on her chest. “It’s me! I’m in the front seat!” Still dodging blasts, she readied herself for the field. The other ships were still gaining, but they’d never get close enough to—

Clunk.

Marisela swung wildly to the side. Cursing at the top of her lungs, Pilar was thrown from the seat, tumbling straight into the wall. She peeled herself off the control panel. A glance in the rear camera showed that one of the police ships had launched a cable that was now lodged in the side of Marisela. They didn’t have that when Pilar went to Gordonia.

“You’re paying for me to get that banged out!” She yelled into the radio.

But she hadn’t lost yet. If she could get to the asteroid field, she could wrench the hook out of her baby’s side. Having learned her lesson, Pilar strapped her seatbelt in. She grabbed the throttle and pushed with all her might. Marisela lurched forward. It was relatively slow going, but she was making definite progress until—

Cha-gunk.

The seat stopped moving. Pilar, on the other hand, did not. She nearly puked from the yank of the seatbelt on her gut.

“You guys almost made me lose my lunch!” She groaned indignantly into the comm. “Joke’s on you guys,” she continued, trying to grin through the nausea, “I didn’t have lunch.” Sick burn, Pilar, she congratulated herself. I’m sure they’ll be really sore about it while they kill you.

A minute passed as the police ships slowly reeled her in. All this high tech nonsense, you’d think they’d be able to do this a little faster, Pilar thought critically. This was the end of line. There was no way to dislodge the cables without compromising Marisela, and while she’d normally rather die by freezing in space than the… methods… the Gordonians have, she couldn’t do that to her ship. So she walked to the back of the ship, and listened as the last chords of Africa faded out.

Suddenly, neon light exploded out of the cockpits of both ships. The comm screeched with interference, and Pilar ran to her own cockpit to make it stop. The light vanished from the two ships behind her as quickly as it’d come. There was no sign of life in either. The comm, turned back on, crackled absently. The ships drifted. They rolled to one side, floating as if in water. As if in water, with no one controlling them.

The radio made some more fuzzy noises, but all of a sudden a voice emitted from the comm, clear as a bell.

“Pilar Delarosa,” it sounded amused. Pilar wasn’t so quick to trust this mystery voice.

“Uh,” she tried to sound as monotonous as possible, “Pilar isn’t here right now, please leave a message after the—“

“There’s no time for games,” the voice snapped. It was male, and gravelly. Not smoker-gravelly, but sexy movie actor-gravelly. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“And my alternative?” Pilar didn’t suppose this would be an offer she could refuse.

“Well,” the voice mused, “I could leave you here for the Gordonians to find you.”

“Sounds like a great deal,” Pilar said hastily, “I’ll take it.”

#WHIPLASH #whiplash story #pilar delarosa #chapter vi #chapter 6 #whiplash chapter 6 #part 6 #sci-fi #sci-fi story #sci-fi series #original story #original characters #pilar #space #sophie #update

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mikegranich87 · 3 years

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Surface Laptop Studio and Pro 8 hands-on: Fresh designs with 120Hz screens

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At its annual hardware event today, Microsoft unveiled a new family of Surface devices ahead of Windows 11’s launch on October 5th. Refreshes of the Surface Pro and Surface Go aren’t surprising, and the company did show off the latest in both of those series. But the Surface Laptop Studio is the most intriguing. It’s meant to replace the Surface Book, which was a detachable 2-in-1 laptop. The Laptop Studio, meanwhile, is more like Microsoft’s Surface Studio all-in-one desktop, in that it features a pull-forward screen that can lay flat on top of a table or be propped up at a slant. It also has a 120Hz display, as does the new Surface Pro 8, which got a sleek redesign.

I was able to check out the Laptop Studio, Surface Pro X and a slew of new Surface devices at a recent (COVID-safe) demo event in New York and I have to say, these Windows 11 PCs are looking very promising.

Surface Laptop Studio hands-on

Let’s start with the Laptop Studio, which a Microsoft rep told me at the event will replace the Surface Book line. Like I mentioned, its new easel-style design is similar not only to its namesake Surface Studio, but also to notebooks from Acer and HP. I was very impressed with how thin the Laptop Studio’s 14.4-inch screen is, and it popped out of its frame without much force. The hinge connecting the display to the keyboard is sturdy, and kept the screen up at a variety of angles in laptop mode.

When I flipped the screen to face outwards, though, I had trouble trying to push the lid away from me to get it to stand at a gentler angle as the panel popped out of the frame. But in every other configuration, such as a conventional laptop mode or laid down flat like a tablet (which Microsoft calls Studio mode), the Surface Laptop Studio behaved as expected.

When the screen is pulled forward and propped up in front of the keyboard in what the company calls Stage mode, it’s great for digital artists. It’s easier to draw on, and you can use the new Slim Pen 2 to create your masterpieces. The new stylus offers haptic feedback with an onboard motor and also mimics the resistance you’d get with pen on paper. I did feel a sort of drag across the Laptop Studio’s screen when I started doodling on it with the Slim Pen 2. It felt odd at first, as I’m accustomed to other styli like Samsung’s S Pen. But I got used to it quite quickly, and kind of liked feeling the mild vibrations that served as an indicator that something had been enabled.

The Laptop Studio has a magnetic strip under the keyboard that lets the Slim Pen 2 attach easily and remain flush with the rest of the machine. The magnets were strong enough that I only had to roughly place the stylus along the edge and it flipped into place. I don’t feel like I’d need to worry about losing the accessory with this setup, which is nice.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Microsoft also offers a 120Hz screen on the Laptop Studio, and a company representative told me at the demo that the touch sampling rate is 100Hz. This should make for a smooth drawing experience, but also make scrolling and animations look super buttery. There’s no adaptive refresh rate available in the system — you’ll just get the option to choose between 120Hz or 60Hz in settings.

For all the detailed specs on the Laptop Studio, like its new Full HD webcam, its screen resolution, dimensions, processor and memory configuration options, I encourage you to check out our news post. For this hands-on article, I’d like to focus on my initial impressions of the devices I got to try out. On that note, the last thing I’ll say about my experience with the Laptop Studio is that its keyboard and trackpad were spacious, and though its buttons were cushy and responsive, I prefer the keys on the Surface Laptop 4. For things like battery life, performance and other real-world observations, though, we’ll need to wait till we can test out a review unit.

Surface Pro 8 hands-on

Another device that got a visual overhaul this year is the Surface Pro 8. It’s not the only new Surface Pro unveiled today — there’s also the Surface Pro 7 Plus, which received a typical minor processor upgrade and looks very similar to older Microsoft tablets. The Pro 8, meanwhile, looks a lot like the ARM-based Pro X. But it uses 11th-gen Intel Core i5 or i7 chips and is therefore noticeably heavier. It also has a different ventilation design around its sides compared to the X, which was sealed.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Still, the Pro 8 is impressively thin, with a 0.37-inch profile, and its built-in kickstand is even sharper. Its 13-inch screen is surrounded by an attractively thin bezel as opposed to the approximately inch-wide border around the Pro 7 Plus. The Pro 8 also features the same 120Hz refresh rate as the Laptop Studio, running at a 2,880 x 1,920 resolution.

Out of the box, though, the Pro 8 runs at 60Hz, and you can go into settings to bump this up to the higher rate. Meanwhile, the Laptop Studio refreshes at 120Hz by default. This difference is because the Pro 8 is designed to be a more portable device, and Microsoft expects people to want more battery life on the go. If your priority is smooth scrolling and inking (Slim Pen 2 is also supported here), then by all means go faster. But if you’re trying to squeeze every last minute out of the Pro 8, you might prefer to stick to the lower rate.

When you’re out of juice, you can charge the Pro 8 back up with Microsoft’s own connector or through one of the pair of USB-C ports. These support USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4, and can stream out up to two 4K displays at once. We weren’t able to test this during the limited time at our preview, and I can only really tell you that in general the Surface Pro 8 felt very much like a heavier Pro X. They use the same Signature Type Cover with the same comfortable keys and responsive trackpad, as well as onboard slot that holds and charges the Slim Pen 2.

Of all the other Surfaces Microsoft announced today — the Go 3, the new Pro X, the Pro 7 Plus and the Duo 2, only the last one is different in a significant way. The rest of the systems basically got incremental updates while maintaining a similar look to their predecessors.

Surface Adaptive Kit

I did want to call out the new Surface Adaptive Kit, though. It’s a set of labels and stickers that are designed to make Surfaces easier for people with different needs to use. There are translucent keycap labels to make buttons identifiable by touch, bump labels that add visual and tactile cues to keys or ports, as well as colorful indicators with matching cable wraps to make it more obvious which wires go into which sockets.

The colors I saw at the demo area were neon peach hued and I’m not sure if they’ll be appreciated by people with certain visual impairments (a pattern might be better for those who can’t distinguish between colors). But at least the keycap labels I saw came in different shapes and overall I appreciate the effort here.

Microsoft led the way for accessibility tech in gaming with the Xbox Adaptive Controller years ago and though the Surface Adaptive Kit seems like a small product, it shows that the company is thinking in meaningful ways how to cater to people with different needs.

Though most of the new Surfaces that were unveiled today feel like incremental updates, the Laptop Studio, Duo 2 and Pro 8 at least bring a low-key level of excitement. Plus, these machines (Duo 2 aside) will all run Windows 11, which is already bringing new life to a stagnating PC industry. As always, we’ll need to test all these devices out for ourselves to see if they’re worth spending your money on, but you can already pre-order all of them today.

Follow all of the news from Microsoft's fall Surface event right here.

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-surface-laptop-studio-hands-on-surface-pro-8-pro-x-go-3-adaptive-kit-price-specs-160005455.html?src=rss

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