#once i figured out how to accurately cut the panels to the right size and shape

[pseudospectre]

So it turns out you can just buy old x-rays off ebay

#i had wire and a 3 dollar lamp from goodwill that had no shade #what else was i supposed to do? #handmade #arts and crafts #spooky #creepy #xray lampshade #bones #Halloween #once i figured out how to accurately cut the panels to the right size and shape #it went together pretty easy #and now my work office is that much cooler :)

[sunflowergyeomie]

can you handle it?

sypnosis: jeonghan is a real pain in the ass, we all know that. he always seems to get you to do things you never agreed on doing, you try not to fall for them though. what if one day you accidentally fall into his trap and give in, without knowing at all?

pairing: yoon jeonghan x gn!reader (vagina bearing)

genre: established relationship, fashion design student!au, architect!au, smut (18+ only)

word count: 2.9k

warnings: profanity, m!dom, degradation, lots of cum play, fingering, creampie, unprotected sex, pet names, size kink?? if you squint

a/n: bcos the irl girl version of jeonghan (aka my devil angel twin) @shuajeong told me "there aren't any fics of jeonghan lately", thus ✨this is written purely for you and your pain 😘 i have to say though, this isn't my best work :( i kept going back and forth and i rewrote and changed things at least three times so 😖😖 (i'm lowkey done with it so i'm sorry i tried, i really did) please forgive me.

Challenge?

Oh, it’s a challenge, alright.

Annoyed is what it is, lips pressed tightly together as you sink in the indescribable feeling. That’s what was currently happening seeing how there is a huge load of cum in your panties – an ignorant aftermath of your quickie with Jeonghan this morning before he drove you to class.

He even had the nerve to question how long you could stay like that for the entire day. You took that as him asking for a challenge and having been with you for a while now, Jeonghan knew you were never one to back down from them. Having basked in the afterglow of sex sure made you think anything was possible – or more accurately speaking his dick just made you dumb.

Now that it’s almost noon, you’re absolutely starting to regret the choice you’ve made, especially when you’re sitting halfway through your second lecture for the day, simply feeling that load threatening to spill out from the cotton panel, onto your inner thighs and slowly ooze down your legs.

Multiple calls of your name put a halt to your thoughts. A hand waves across your face while your eyes focus and refocus as the silhouettes come into sight. Your friends, Mingyu and Minghao are both staring at you, confusion etched across their faces, anticipating an answer from a question one of them probably asked. But in all honesty, you couldn’t recall the subject matter, nor did you give a shit about their issues because your main concern at this time is to get the hell out of there. “Oh, huh? Oh yes, sorry, yes, I’ll absolutely do that.”

A little laugh escapes from Mingyu’s lips while Minghao frowns. “I said.. What are you thinking about?” Mingyu asks, “You have a weird look on your face.”

“Are you not feeling well?” Minghao chimes in. “We can take n-“

“I’m fine, guys. Just a little tired,” You brush off, not wanting to go too deep into whatever you were currently feeling. It’s not that the guys weren’t close to you. In fact, they grew to be one of the closest ever since freshman year when all three of you showed up in the same pattern drafting class, wary looks on everybody’s faces in a new environment. Since the fashion department itself is small with only a few hundred students enrolled, it also meant that classes were taken with familiar faces, rarely is there a fashion student you haven’t seen before. Not to mention you were always being grouped in numerous projects and that’s how the three of you came to be. Both of them knew of your relationship with Jeonghan, of course, but there’s just some things that are better off left unsaid even if they are your best friends.

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see the both of them stealing glances at you every now and then. Even though they didn’t buy your excuse, Mingyu and Minghao knew better than not to bug you about it so throughout the whole three-hour lecture, you could just sense their concern emanating off their bodies. Adding on to your growing anxiety, making you more on edge, terrified that at any moment they would catch a glimpse of whatever dirty secret you were holding in – quite literally. Pulling out your phone, you quickly sent a text.

[12:03 PM]

you: I can’t take this anymore.

hannie: what’s wrong, princess?

You groaned, exasperation coating your breath. Was he playing dumb?

you: you know what I mean, han.

hannie: and what about it?

hannie: if I recall correctly, weren’t you the one who practically begged me to cum inside of you? Was just doing what you asked me to, princess :)

Scoffing in disbelief, you ignore his message, tossing the device straight into your bag, now furious at yourself for agreeing to it.

Stupid dick.

You weren’t even that horny this morning.

The cement walkways on campus greet the three of you as you step through the warm breeze. The sun shining through every leaf on the tall oak trees above you signal the firsts of many beautiful days now that summer is just around the corner. The bright weather is a big contrast to your dampening mood as your feet slowly drag along the blocks, leaving a gap between you and your friends while you try to keep up. You weren’t too keen on walking too fast right now. One wrong shift and you could be at risk of having Jeonghan’s gooey, semi-translucent, and not-so-warm release pooling down from underneath your mound. The two paid no attention to you though, they’re happily chatting about lunch options and the next possible location for studying afterwards. Not that you were going to join them anyways, not until you get the mess in between your legs situated.

“How about donkkaseu?” Mingyu turns around to ask, head whipping back mid-sentence to look at you, only to turn around and see that you’re already gone. His head turns left and right, trying to find you in the crowd of students, squinting his eyes for even a glimpse of your backpack but you’re nowhere to be seen.

“Where’d she go?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Minghao gives him a pointed look. “Jeonghan.” He says bluntly.

Jeonghan works downtown, a full hour away from your university. He was a busy man, well-equipped with knowledge and never failed to take pride in his work, no matter what it was. Your boyfriend was a well-wanted individual – not only with people who desperately wanted to be in his inner circle but also in his field of work with the numerous clients fighting for a slot in his schedule. Jeonghan has never-ending project proposals, spending most of his hours reviewing alterations and redevelopments on his building designs – a perfectionist, you often say or an obsession as others might call it. Knowing how serious his job was to him, you made sure not to meddle in with his profession, seeing how much it irritated him whenever he couldn’t concentrate, but this time was different – and you couldn’t hold yourself back from making the journey. You bow as you greet the secretary at the front desk. She takes one look up from her screen and already knows who you’re here for, immediately telling you of your boyfriend’s whereabouts while you nod back in thankfulness.

Pushing the heavy doors to Jeonghan’s office, the first thing you notice were his eyebrows deeply furrowed upon his face, a definite telltale to the attentiveness of the task in front of him. A few coworkers were surrounding him, each hovered over what seemed to be like another one of his drawing plans. At the click of the doorknob, Jeonghan’s head perked up when he saw you enter. A smile threatens to pull at his lips, but he bites them to prevent the joy from appearing. He’s been waiting for you all day. Having expected you to cave in earlier so he could have an excuse to take a long break. The current deal he was working on was getting to his head even though he’s gone over it a couple times already. He just needs a reset, a breather of some sort, … a release. Jeonghan fakes innocence however when he asks why you’re here. Simultaneously, his brain has already got his fingers wrapped around the string – pulling once, twice, three times, officially starting the internal mischievousness in him. A devious idea accelerating right before your very own eyes.

You furiously start making your way towards him, hair flying in all directions, nostrils flared in annoyance, your cheeks flamed red from built-up anger since the early morning you got to school, and the wrinkle between your eyebrows. You were a hot-tempered mess, you knew that but god, all he could think about was how beautiful you look. The way your eyes are rounded with the curvature of your nose bridge, adding on to the natural tint to your soft lips. Your lips that pout ever so slightly whenever you want something, your lips that taste like a mixture of yourself and that artificial strawberry-flavoured chapstick you apply every morning, your lips he so badly wants to feel against his own.

Your voice cuts through, interrupting his trance. “Excuse me, can I speak to you privately for one second?”

“Of course.” Jeonghan grins, dropping the pen as his hands start pushing his body up from the plush chair, quickly dismissing his staff with a wave of the hand. They take a hint as one by one, each of them starts leaving. He stands up, arms already going around your waist to pull you close, “Hi baby, how was your day?” He asks, head tilting as his hands are already reaching up to run his fingers through your hair.

You open your mouth to spew words, anger bubbling in letters as they boil up to the back of your throat but all of which dies down when the fire is turned off. Blocked off after the door is shut behind the last person when his demeanour takes a turn and switches a whole 180 degrees. His plan finally comes into action as his acting skills gear up. Licking his lips, his hands drop as he takes a step closer to you, hovering over your tiny figure. He’s finally got you where he wanted you in the first place. His eyes peer down from the lenses of his wired glasses, “Don’t you know better than not to interrupt me while I’m working?” He pauses. “What do you think my staff will think if you’re here for too long?” The back of his fingers gently trails down your face, almost feather-like as you try to press your face against his palm, leaning more into his touch.

“Guess you couldn’t keep it in, huh? I always knew you were a little slut.” Jeonghan tsked, “Was my cock not enough that you needed a second filling? It’s only been a few hours, darling.”

He starts walking back to his desk, hands going into his pockets as he leans against the edge. It shouldn’t have intimidated you, the way his eyes bore into yours but you gulped anyways, a feeling of excitement stirring in your lower abdomen as you clenched around nothing. You opened your mouth to retaliate, only for it to be shaped like what seems like a silent ‘o’. One of his eyebrows raise, a silent gesture for you to come.

Out of habit, your legs start moving obediently on their own until they reach the fronts of Jeonghan’s dress shoes. Tracing the outline of his long, toned legs hidden underneath the carob brown material of his trousers, you couldn’t help catching onto the small details of the garment. The modern leg-lines seamed in to elongate his legs, waistband wrapped around his torso showcasing his slim but strong build, the button with its holes as imaginary eyes and a crossed thread disguised as lips silently screaming ‘open me, open me!’.

He grabs your jaw, forcing you to tear your eyes away from his lower half to look at him. “I thought you came here to say something, but I can practically see the drool coming out of your pretty little mouth, staring at my cock.”

“I-“, He spins you around, positions changed now that you’re the one leaning against the desk. Jeonghan dives his head to capture your lips with his. You’re taken by surprise as a gasp escapes from your mouth while he takes that as a chance to deepen the kiss, his tongue slipping past your bottom lip; full of need and desire, desperate to let out his frustrations. All your effort is focused on keeping up, molding your mouths together. Your anger is now replaced with lust. His hands are moving down to grip your ass.

Your breath hitches when his lips start trailing down your jaw, gently nibbling the soft skin on your neck before travelling down the valley of your breasts. He doesn’t bother trying to take off your top, opting to unbutton the first few, just enough to expose your lacy bra. Slipping underneath one cup to carefully knead your honey soft skin before latching his mouth onto your nipple, sucking gently but firmly. You whine as he hoists you up and places you on the surface, his face never detaching from your soft and full chest as he quickly pulls your pants off, leaving you in just your soaked panties.

“Maybe it was a good idea to leave my cum in you,” Jeonghan’s fingers hook onto the waistband. He smirks before pulling them down completely, stopping mid-thigh. “Easier to prepare.”

A trail of your slick follows as his digits spread your pussy, using his middle finger to slowly drag up your wet slit. His other hand is gripping your thigh when he reaches down in between, scooping the leftover cum from the previous session and forcing it back into your pussy. You watch with wide eyes only to have them roll back completely when he finishes by stuffing them all the way into you, resulting in a loud moan.

“P-please”

Jeonghan chuckles, satisfied by your reaction. He had you beckoning at his every move yet you were sure the satisfaction still wasn’t enough for him, not just yet. He pulls his fingers out to strip himself of his own pants, popping his member out. The hand with the fingers that were just inside of you is now rubbing all over his cock, using the little beads of precum along with a bit of your slick to pump himself.

Jeonghan’s cock is pretty, like the boy himself. He’s not too big or too small but he knows his angles and he knows how to use them right. Every time the two of you get intimate, which is quite often, his thrusts are sharp, clean and reach to the most inner parts of you – something that leaves soreness inside of you for days. But that doesn’t seem to matter whenever the two of you are having hot and steamy sex five days out of the seven weekly.

“You better stay fucking quiet.”

One hand is gripping your waist for extra support while the other is slowly guiding his length into you. The growl in his voice sends another wave of arousal between your legs, the wetness starting to spill and gather down your thighs. His eyes diverted down to pay attention to the way his length was disappearing inside of you. Each stroke covering his manhood with even more of your juices.

“F-ffuck, baby.” He curses under his breath. “You’re still so tight.”

His voice was breathy, almost like a whine before he picks up his speed, splitting your folds with a sloppy rhythm, expecting to chase both your highs before his coworkers come barging back in. Although the thought of getting caught in such a compromising position arouses him, Jeonghan couldn’t risk letting anyone seeing you in your most vulnerable state. Not when you have all the right curves, exclusive only for his viewing.

At some point, his hands start pulling you into him to meet his every thrust, your tits bouncing as you start feeling the delicious new angle he’s ruining you from. The tip of his cock rubbing against your cervix with every stretch. The familiar feeling of tension starts to build as your eyes squeeze tighter, your orgasm is approaching faster and faster. You’ve never wanted to scream his name out loud so badly when he slams once, no, twice into you, releasing the coil sending intensifying waves of pleasure throughout your whole body. Your tight heat clenching and unclenching around him causing Jeonghan to groan, “Shit.”

“Cum in me.” You insisted weakly. He gives in as he presses himself balls deep, cock twitching as he unloads inside of you, cum shooting in spurts coating your walls in white. The groan emerging from the back of his throat muffled as he quickly smashes his lips onto yours to conceal it. Your muscles move on your own, hiding your own whimper as your lips move together in unison. His body slumps over yours while he rests his head against your shoulder, pressing a light kiss as a way to say thank you.

In the intimacy of the moment, your arms are thrown around his broad shoulders, subconsciously pulling him closer as the two of you try to catch your breaths. When he lifts his head up, his doll eyes are already staring into your glossy ones. A tender smile spreading across his face, pecking your lips one more time before he slowly pulls out. Straight away, the emptiness is evident as his warmth disappears, your hole gaping while he looks down to appreciate the work done on your ruined pussy.

You feel your panties being pulled back up, now snug on your hips as he lets go of the elastic waistband to hear it snap back on your skin.

“Guess you have two loads to keep in now.” A devilish look covering every inch of his handsome face.

“Jeonghan!” you lunged at him. He cackles maniacally, successfully dodging while you attempt to jump on his back. The blood in your veins starts boiling again, both hands reaching up to cover your face when you realize your mistake for the second time today.

Jeonghan’s dick really did make you dumb.

#seventeen fanfic #seventeen smut #seventeen x reader #yoon jeonghan x reader #jeonghan x reader #jeonghan smut #jeonghan imagine #jeonghan scenarios #jeonghan imagines #yoon jeonghan smut #yoon jeonghan #yoon jeonghan one shot #jeonghan one shots #svt jeonghan

[the-original-b]

Archangel--Chapter 1: the Silvio Stakeout

Format: Prose / Ficton, multi-entry

Part in Series: 2 of 9 (Previous chapter)

Word Count: c. 6,100

Summary: Specialist Krueger follows a lead on the traitor to an exclusive vacation club in Miami, where he finds that there’s more to the plot against the Branch than initially suspected.

Trigger Warning(s): blood, violence, enhanced interrogation

“Good evening, Krueger,” Khai said over her headset. “Again, Mr. Wells extends his thanks for your help with the delivery the other day, and he’s begun to look for the leaks in his circle of trust, per your advice. He’d like your help with some of them.”

“I’m listening.” Krueger held an old flip phone to his left ear as he muted the television and sat down in front of his dinner—a lean cut of chicken with steamed broccolini and brown rice.

“We’ll start by addressing the bug you found in his office phone. Of all his lieutenants he only trusted three of them enough to grant access to his conference room. He’d like you to get some information from them.”

“Who’s the first one?” He held the phone in place with his shoulder while he cut a piece off his chicken.

“C.J. Silvio: internet personality and son of the Southeast Region’s Managing Partner, Charles Silvio. A man of night life, excess, and debauchery, your usual popup celebrity.”

“Charming.” He put the piece in his mouth and started to work on the vegetables.

“Once a month he retreats to Miami to confer with other Branch managers in the Region. They’re set to meet in South Beach, where he’ll spend the week indulging in all the decadence there before and after the conference.”

Krueger swallowed. “So we act when his guard is down.”

“Precisely. He’ll book his usual stay at the Aurora Club in a week, so I’ll arrange for your stay there to coincide with his.”

“Transportation?”

“I’ll take care of that, too. Business class flight to Miami International and car rental reserved for Sebastian Weber.”

“Rules of engagement?” Krueger took another bite.

“Observation only,” Khai clarified. “Mr. Wells was clear on that. Remember, the rest of our Branch still has no idea you’re with us, so there’s no need for unnecessary violence. And the last thing we want is to have the son of Silvio killed.”

Krueger swallowed. “I’m still going to need tools.”

“I’m curating your selection as we speak. You’ll just have to finalize it.”

“I’ll be there in forty minutes.” Krueger folded his cell phone shut to end the call.

 ``````

“I thought this was an observation job, Miss Khai.” Krueger examined the hardware before him and shot Khai an incredulous look. He’d already selected a directional microphone and declined a pair of military-grade binoculars.

“It is,” Khai confirmed, “but Mr. Wells and I agree it’s better to be prepared for the worst. Due to the nature of this task, however, I’ve narrowed the usual selection down and eliminated the more, conspicuous, options.”

“That wasn’t a complaint.”

“Excellent.” Khai sorted through the firearms and handed him one. “FN Five-seven USG.” Krueger took up the weapon and inspected it. “Lightweight polymer frame and slide, twenty-round magazine. Low caliber, high-velocity, armor-piercing. They might not go down at first, but accurate follow-up shots won’t be an issue with this one.”

Krueger was familiar with the weapon, having trained with one in preparation for a protection job some years ago. He racked the slide back and held it out with both hands to acquire the sight picture. It was as easy as pointing his finger.

Khai smirked. “Do you like it?”

“Tempting,” Krueger said. “But the idea is to not be noticed.” He put the gun down and picked up one of its 5.7mm rounds—a tiny replica of a rifle cartridge. “And these are very loud.”

Khai nodded. “I figured you might want something quieter.” She handed him another candidate, a .45 ACP Colt Government.

“Old Faithful,” Krueger noted, taking the gun into his hands. He examined the threading at the end of the barrel.

Khai handed him another piece. “AAC TiRant 45 suppressor.”

Krueger affixed the tube to the end of the pistol and looked down the sights, acquiring an accurate picture before dry-firing to test the trigger weight. He nodded in approval at Khai and placed the .45 on the tabletop beside him. “I may need to be quieter than even this,” he said.

“Do you want the karambit again?”

“I was thinking something less… permanent.”

“Right,” Khai nodded. “Rohypnol, then.”

  ``````

Krueger stepped off the plane and reclaimed his bag from the conveyor before heading over to Enterprise to pick up his rental car—a nondescript barebones mid-size sedan that was good for little other than getting him from point A to B. He had another stop to make before getting settled in.

Khai had his tools sent to Miami in the days before he arrived. They waited for him in the trunk of an unattractive coupe at a municipal parking lot. Krueger used a valet key duct taped inside the wheel well to unlock the car and reclaim his goods, and then headed to his lodging.

The illustrious Aurora Club. A sleek hotel located in the middle of South Beach, and a destination popular among Spring Break travelers with fake IDs young enough to be Krueger’s children. He pushed the thought of his seventeen-year-old daughter spending time in a place like this out of his head and strode to the front desk.

“Hello, sir. Welcome,” the receptionist said from behind his desk. “Are you checking in?”

“I am.” Kruger said. “Name’s Sebastian Weber.” He made a point to pronounce the W to make the receptionist’s job easier.

“Weber… Weber…” the receptionist checked the reservations. “Ah, there you are! Your reservation was made by a Liz K... paid in full, seven nights’ stay. Ocean view..! She must like you, huh?”

Khai had only shared with him where he was staying and for how long. She was mute on the details of the trip she booked for him. “She spoils me, yeah.”

“I’ll say...” He retrieved a keycard from under the tabletop and handed it to Krueger. “Room 1946. Enjoy your stay at the Aurora Club, Mr. Weber.”

“I certainly intend to. Thanks.”

``````

Krueger tapped his keycard on the reader immediately left of the door when he arrived at his room. He turned the door handle downward and pushed it to reveal a neatly organized room with a desk and lamp, flat panel television, marble-top night table with matching bed linens, a cozy couch in the corner, and just enough auxiliary luxuries to justify the cost of staying here.

Mr. Wells could write it off as a business expense, or see it as an investment. It didn’t matter to Krueger, ultimately.

Krueger placed his bags on the floor and walked through the sliding glass doors overlooking the beach. He retrieved the burner phone included in his kit to dial the only number stored in it.

“This is Khai,” she said after it rang thrice. Her tone was all-business, one he’d only previously heard when she first reached out to him so long ago.

“It’s me,” he said. “I’ve arrived on the premises.”

“Hello, Krueger.” Her tone pulled a one-eighty back to the warm, friendly one she usually spoke to him in. “How are the amenities?”

“Stellar. You really didn’t have to go so far out of the way for me.”

“Mr. Wells said to keep you happy, no matter what.”

He could see her grin in his mind’s eye. “I’m a man of simple tastes, Miss Khai, it doesn’t take expensive gestures like this to please me.”

Khai chuckled on the other end. “You’ll have to enlighten me some time, then.” She took a breath, getting herself back on track for the job at hand. “Young Silvio’s flight gets in tonight,” she said. “He’ll most likely commemorate his arrival at a nightclub, followed by an after-party at his suite… feel like getting in touch with your wild side?”

“I think I’ll stay in. It’s a school night after all.”

“I’ll leave you to prepare, then,” she said, laughing under her breath. “Best of luck.”

``````

Krueger’s Sunday night was spent in his hotel room studying the information Khai put together for him. Young Silvio’s picture, height, weight, build, preferred beverage. When he wakes up, goes to bed, when and what he eats, how frequently he uses the bathroom, the kind of women he attracts. He put a composite profile together and designed his plan around it.

Monday morning came and Krueger ran three miles along the beach before returning to the hotel for a lean breakfast. He studied a hotel brochure over black coffee and made mental notes of the services and suites offered there, deducing where in this labyrinth his prey was likely roosting. He went back upstairs to change into his swimwear.

That afternoon, when Silvio and his entourage were just starting their day at the pool area, Krueger lay on a bench drying off in his trunks and a sleeveless shirt, a small gym bag on the floor immediately to his right. He had his directional microphone tucked under the small of his back and pointed where he knew Silvio and his buddies would be while he listened in with a single wireless earbud. He would periodically turn pages in a copy of Michael Crichton’s Prey and peer over his aviator sunglasses at a passing woman every now and then to maintain the illusion.

Silvio returned to the pool area that evening, surrounded by young bikini-clad women he displayed like trophies to all the on-looking boys who didn’t know better. Krueger had the microphone tucked under his thigh toward the crowd as he stayed seated at the bar just far enough into Silvio’s peripheral vision that he blended into the background.

Krueger uploaded the recordings to a laptop supplied to him and studied the audio that night, finding no mention of Wells or the conference room. Between his public displays and audio logs, Krueger could safely hypothesize one or a combination of three things: C.J. Silvio was either clean, very smart, or very dumb. But tomorrow was a new day, he would solidify his theories then.

``````

Tuesday was mostly a repeat of Monday: Krueger went for his run in the morning and had his breakfast at the hotel and a swim afterward. He returned to the pool that afternoon for more surveillance on Silvio and his crew. He chose this time to not wear a shirt and display a lean athletic build that he maintained despite his age, left shoulder half-sleeve tattoo of dense tiger stripes, and stylized skull and crossbones tattoo on the right side of his chest to more casually fit in as he observed Silvio and his entourage from his pool bench.

He stopped when he noticed a more effective opportunity to gather information pass right in front of him. Krueger covertly shut off the microphone under him and slipped it back inside the bag just out of sight before standing up to follow this new lead, taking his equipment bag with him.

A young, supple woman with long, wavy dark hair in a canary yellow bikini and see-through sarong made her way to the bar and leaned against it. Krueger had seen her yesterday evening hovering around Silvio along with so many other impressionable women, but there was something different about her. And here she was again, associating with him although her body language practically screamed she’d rather not. She peered back over to Silvio again, the look in her eyes was almost contemptuous.

Krueger stood next to her and ordered a mojito. “Excuse me, miss?”

She turned to face him, taken aback at first by the lack of effort he put into successfully getting her attention.

He motioned Silvio. “I saw you hanging around that young man there,” he said sliding a few bills in her direction. “Let him know his next margarita is on me.”

The girl looked down at the money and back up at Krueger. “Uh, yeah. Sure, you bet.”

Krueger smiled and nodded. “Thank you.”

His play worked to perfection. Krueger watched peripherally as the girl in yellow and black handed Silvio a fresh margarita, and thumbed back in his direction. And before long Silvio stood up to swagger over to him, drink in hand.

“Hey man,” Silvio said, grinning behind a pair of single-lens sunglasses “I just wanted to say thanks for the drink!”

Krueger turned to look at Silvio from behind his aviators. “No problem. I saw how much fun you and your friends were having over there.”

Silvio laughed and bobbed a little. “I like this guy,” he said, apparently to an imaginary audience. “I’m Charlie!” He held out his fist.

“Sebastian.” Krueger met Silvio’s fist with his own.

“I’m hearing an accent, Sebastian. Where’re you from?”

“Germany.”

“Aah, Deutschland! Am I saying that right??” Silvio’s smile was earnest.

Krueger nodded in approval. “You’re very close.”

“Ha ha, nice!” Silvio gained his footing again. He was intoxicated even at this hour. “You here on business or pleasure?”

“I find, at times, they’re one and the same.”

Silvio laughed louder. “I love this guy!” he said. “You gotta come hang out with us!”

“Some other time, maybe. I have to get back to it, unfortunately.”

“No, no I’m serious,” Silvio said, patting Krueger’s shoulder and holding on to it. “You have to party with us tonight!”

Krueger tilted his head slightly, projecting the illusion of mulling it over. “Yeah, that might seem possible.”

“Yes!! We’re meeting back here at 9:30, be there!”

“Looking forward to it.” Krueger held his fist out for Silvio.

Silvio tapped it with his own. “My guy,” he called after Krueger as he left the area. “I love the tats, dude!”

``````

Krueger arrived at the pool area at 9:35, in a lightweight short sleeve blue shirt that buttoned up the middle and khaki swim trunks. Silvio warmly welcomed him among his entourage with a hug and a smile that he matched. He took a seat among the crowd—three other heavy-set men in t-shirts and shorts he had previously seen around Silvio, and about a dozen women in various assorted swimsuits who kept marveling at his eyes, telling him they’d never seen eyes like his before.

At about 11:20, Silvio broke away from the group, saying he didn’t feel great and citing how little he ate all day. He encouraged the rest of the group to keep partying in his absence, but by 11:40 all that remained was Krueger and the dark-haired girl from before, this time in a green bikini top and white capri pants. Even his buddies were nowhere to be found.

“I hope Silvio’s okay up there,” Krueger said.

“I don’t,” the girl said. “I hope he got food poisoning and it ruins his whole week.”

Krueger shot the girl a look. He could see she was deadly serious about what she said. “Why get close to him if you hate him so much?”

The girl recoiled a little. “My big sister, uh… got pregnant with his kid.” She shook her head. “That scuzzball dumped her as soon as she told him. I wanted to ruin him. Humiliate him somehow.”

Krueger knew that wouldn’t have ended well for her. For all his extroversion and charm, C.J. Silvio was still a man with connections to very dangerous people. “What did you say your name was?”

“Andrea,” she said.

“Andrea,” he echoed. “My daughter was almost an Andrea. She’s a few years younger than you.”

Andrea gave him a look. “No kidding. What’s her name?”

“Victoria. Her mother, my ex-wife, preferred it.”

“Victoria.” Andrea nodded, looking down briefly at Krueger’s left hand and confirming the absence of a ring on his finger. “It’s a good, strong name. My sister’s name… and you said you were Sebastian, right?”

“That’s right.” Krueger hated having to lie to Andrea, but he had a job to do. Fortunately, he thought of a way to both do that and help the girl out. “Andrea, do you want to get Charlie back for your sister?”

“Hell yeah..!”

“Meet me at the bar in fifteen minutes,” he said, getting up. “I’ll be back.”

``````

Krueger tapped the keycard at the reader just beside the door to Room 2000, the Conquistador Suite, where Young Silvio was staying. He’d known where to find him after recording him boast about booking the suite for the week, and lifted the key moments after it fell out of Silvio’s pocket earlier that night. He crossed the threshold to find the lights still on, empty liquor bottles and condom wrappers on the floor of the common area, and Silvio himself passed out on the couch across from his open suitcase. He figured Silvio staggered back to the front desk to get a replacement key when he realized he’d lost his first one and didn’t make it to his bed before succumbing to the Rohypnol Krueger slipped into his margaritas.

It was almost poetic, to do unto Silvio what he had no doubt done to others. Still, Krueger almost pitied the man, and he still had a job to do. He scanned the room quickly, spotting an open laptop in the kitchenette, and then moved silently across the floor to peer into each of the four bedrooms to find them all empty. Once he identified Silvio’s space, Krueger scooped him up under his arm pits and dragged him to bed.

Silvio murmured in his sleep as Krueger laid him on top of the mattress. “Don’t ever trust somebody you meet at bar, Mr. Silvio,” he said in response as he went for the door. “Especially not one who sends you a drink.” On the way out he flipped the lock in the doorknob and pulled the door shut behind him to lock it.

Then he went for the laptop. He tapped the mousepad twice to wake it up. The desktop icons and open windows greeted him.

“Kein passwort,” he said to himself. “Dieser idiot…”

He retrieved a USB flash drive and antenna from his pockets, plugging them in to Silvio’s laptop and running the scripts stored in them, designed effectively to run a copy-paste command of the entire computer—programs, files, keystrokes, everything—and transmit it downstairs to a receiver connected to Krueger’s laptop and write it to an external solid-state drive. It was over in ten minutes. Krueger recovered his devices and left the room the way it was.

Then he made his way back to the poolside bar, where he told Andrea to wait for him. He presented her Sivio’s room key. “Charlie’s in room 2000,” he said. “The Conquistador Suite.”

Andrea’s eyes widened. “No freaking way..!” She took the card. “How’d you get this from him?”

“He dropped it. His suitcase is open in the common area. Why don’t you throw his things over the balcony..?” he added with a smirk.

Andrea couldn’t help but laugh. She looked down away from Krueger to the key card in her hand and then back at him. “Why are you doing this for me? You don’t even know me.”

“Let’s just say I know a few people who would like to see Charlie Silvio calm down. And you seem like a nice girl who loves her sister and would do anything for her.”

Andrea gave Krueger a warm smile. “You know,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You’re probably the coolest, most genuine and honest person I’ve ever met at this place. And Victoria is lucky to have you as a father.”

Krueger blinked. “It means a lot that you’d say so. Thank you for that, Andrea.”

“No, Sebastian” she said, gesturing the key card in her hand. “Thank you for this..!” She smiled again and hesitated for a little before letting an excited squeal out and hugging Krueger, then backing away just as quickly. “That’s if I don’t see you again,” she said with a nervous laugh and shrug before trotting toward the elevator to Silvio’s suite.

``````

After Krueger’s run on Wednesday morning and breakfast on the hotel grounds, he took his laptop and the external drive to the Miami Beach Regional Library to study what he pulled from Silvio’s computer; when the library closed for the day he took it back to his room. Upon returning he turned on the local news to see the celebrity gossip reporter cover a story about C.J. Silvio scrambling to recover his clothes from the bushes surrounding a South Beach hotel before returning to his work. He sifted through the materials for hours—a collection of music, movies, pornographic images and video, Skype records, anything he could find—but finding nothing implicating him in the plot against Wells. He still had half the transcription to cover, he’d pick it up tomorrow morning.

Silvio left the hotel grounds Thursday afternoon with his three male companions to attend the conference with his father, the Southeast Region’s Managing Partner. Krueger didn’t need the directional microphone to know how that conversation would play out. The way he saw it, he and Andrea did Young Silvio a favor.

He returned to his room that night to continue his examination of the external drive. At 11:30pm he arrived at a string of Wrike instant messages sent between Silvio and another user, HeimdallrsEyez.

It was more a string of attempts at contacting Silvio. HeimdallrsEyez would initiate the conversation with a dollar amount. Silvio wouldn’t respond. A few days later HeimdallrsEyez would write back with a higher amount which Silvio would ignore. This happened three more times before Silvio finally responded with Fuck off already! I’m not doing it!

Krueger sat back in his chair to reflect on it. HeimdallrsEyez knew how close Silvio was to Wells, and was probing him for a price that would entice him to betray his boss. But when Silvio refused and the offers stopped coming, HeimdallrsEyez found someone else. This crystalized Krueger’s prior hypothesis.

He was taken from his thoughts by a knock at his door.

Quickly and quietly, Krueger hid the laptop and external drive in a dresser drawer and traded them for his Colt Government and suppressor. He fixed the extension to the end of the barrel and quietly approached the door, keeping the weapon trained on it as me moved.

He pressed the end of the suppressor can against the door and looked through the peephole at a young, attractive wide-eyed woman dressed in the hotel staff’s uniform. “Mr. Sebastian?” she called through the door to him. “I’m sorry if I woke you, but Mr. Silvio had me send this up to you.” She presented a bottle of champagne.

Krueger acknowledged the numerous red flags in this scenario, but holstered his weapon under his pale, loose button-up shirt and opened the door to accept the champagne. “Thank you, miss,” he said. He took another look at this woman; her name tag read Tessa. “That’s very generous of him.”

“Yeah,” another male voice to his left said. He recognized it belonged to one of Silvio’s boys. “It is.”

Krueger expected it. He turned his head to see down the barrel of a MAC-10, and the three of them lined up against the wall behind it. Krueger slowly put his hands up shoulder-high.

“Let’s go for a drive, Fixer,” the one holding the gun said.

``````

They escorted Krueger to an SUV in the rear parking lot of the hotel, got inside and all sat in silence as they took him south along Route A1A, turning left on 5th Street toward the MacArthur Causeway.

Krueger sat between two of the hit men in the back seat while the third one drove. He noted the MAC-10 in the lap of the man to his right and a semi-auto pistol in the hand of the one to his left. Krueger finally spoke when they made it to Watson Island. “When I checked on Silvio the other night,” he explained, “you three weren’t in the suite with him. Which tells me you’re not with C.J. Silvio, Wells, or even the Partners. You’re with the competition. And I’m guessing your room service girl Tessa is too.”

Their silence confirmed his theory.

“You were installed next to him to spy on him, report his daily activities to your superiors, and at some point in the future kill or kidnap him to lean on his father Charles Silvio.”

Right again. Their uncomfortable shifting confirmed it.

“The only question that remains,” he mused as he crossed his arms, “is what gave me away?”

Silence at first from the hit men, then the driver spoke up. “Well…”

“Mackie, shut it,” the man to Krueger’s left said.

“Gaz, come on, he’s gonna be fish food in five minutes. What difference does it make?”

Gaz shrugged. “Fair point, I guess.”

Mackie continued. “It was your eyes. One green, one blue.” Mackie steered the SUV onto an exit ramp as he continued. “There were rumors floating around the community of a fixer. A specialist with different-colored eyes and tattoos who offered his services to anybody willing to pay him enough.”

“Top dollar,” the man to Krueger’s right said.

“We suspected it was you when you sent Silvio’s kid the drink, but didn’t know for sure until that night, when we could see you without the sunglasses.” Mackie steered the vehicle off-road, finding a secluded place under an overpass in the northwest corner of Watson Island, away from prying eyes and ears. “We called the Company after baby Silvio went upstairs, then got the order to get rid of you.”

The Company: the ones responsible for the attacks on Wells’ shipments over the prior weeks and the Partners’ chief rivals. Of course it was them. “And you’ve chosen a fine place for it,” Krueger said. “Only problem is, you made a rookie mistake.”

“What’s that, dead man?” Mackie put the vehicle in park.

“You forgot to check me.”

Krueger grabbed hold of his handgun’s grip from over his shirt and sprang to face the man to his right, squeezing the trigger twice to shoot out the back of his own shirt and kill Gaz while he swatted the MAC-10 off the other man’s lap. Then he threw a hammer fist into his throat to stun him before Krueger pressed himself against Gaz’s body, drawing the gun from under his shirt, and shooting the other man once in the chest and head.

By the time Mackie realized what was going on behind him and he scrambled to recover his gun in the passenger seat, the muzzle of Krueger’s .45 was pressed against his head behind his ear.

“Mackie, right?” Krueger said.

His shock began to subside and was replaced with fear. “Y-yeah…”

“Let go of the gun and place your hands on the wheel, Mackie,” he ordered, his command void of emotion.

“Okay.” Mackie placed the gun back onto the passenger seat and did as commanded.

Krueger switched hands to keep his gun pressed against the back of Mackie’s head and reach over to the front seat and recover the gun—a .40 caliber AMT Hardballer. He switched hands again to open the rear driver side door and push Gaz’s corpse out through it before stepping out himself and keeping the gun trained on Mackie. “Step out of the car and keep your hands up,” he commanded.

Mackie did as instructed, leaving the still-running car and walking away from it, turning to face Krueger.

“Now take off your shirt.”

“What?”

Krueger fired, catching Mackie in the right kneecap. He let out a yelp as he fell to the ground and grabbed hold of his wound. “Your shirt,” Krueger ordered. “Take it off.” Between the blood and bullet holes in his, Krueger would need another one.

The Specialist’s lack of inflection and stern tone solidified Mackie’s terror. “Arrgh, alright! Alright, I’ll do it!” Mackie writhed out of his t-shirt and threw it aside.

Krueger kept his .45 trained on Mackie as he moved the shirt further away from him with his foot. He knew he only had the one magazine and had fired five times, so he would have to make his last two bullets count. “How many of you are at the hotel?”

“Wha—?”

Krueger shot Mackie in his left kneecap. “How many, Mackie?”

Mackie cried out in pain. “They’ll kill me if I tell you!” he shouted.

“I’ll kill you if you don’t. And then I’ll kill them.”

Mackie cursed under his breath as he winced in pain. “There’s ten of us. We were all watching Silvio.”

“And how many of them know about me?”

“Just us and the girl, I swear!”

Experience told Krueger that Mackie was telling the truth. He had no reason to lie after all. “Danke, Mackie,” he said. Then he raised the gun with both hands and put his last round between Mackie’s eyes. He looked off in the distance toward the mainland as he replayed the conversation over in his head. “Amateure,” he added.

Then he went to work. He fished in Mackie’s pockets for hotel keycards, finding one for Silvio’s suite and a second for Room 1014. He loaded Mackie’s body back into the SUV with the others, picked up the casings from his spent bullets, and tossed them into the car along with his own empty gun and underarm holster. He went back in for Mackie’s Hardballer to tuck it into his pants behind his back, and removed his ruined shirt to absorb as much of the blood on the ground as possible before throwing it into the car with everything else he was getting rid of. Then he walked over to the still-running car and put it into drive, letting it idle forward into the water. Finally he picked up Mackie’s t-shirt and slipped it on over his head before heading back up to return to civilization… by walking, he soon realized.

``````

Tessa rolled the room service cart to Room 1014, reading the note on the door to come right in, as it was propped open with the bar portion of the swing lock. She thought nothing of it as she crossed the doorway with the cart into the dimly lit room, kept a few lumens from pitch black by the tabletop lamps.

“Mackie?” she called out to him.

“I’m afraid not.”

Krueger’s voice took her by surprise. She stifled a terrified gasp as she sprang around to watch him walk out of the bathroom while he dried his hands off with a towel, wearing the same black t-shirt Mackie was wearing when they took him from his room. He turned to the room door to release the swing and shut it properly.

Then Krueger faced her and brandished Mackie’s Hardballer, thumbing back the hammer and pointing it one-handed at Tessa.

Tessa recognized the handgun. She began to tremble visibly as she shifted uncomfortably and reasoned what happened to Mackie and the others.

“I can see you’re new to the fold, so I’m going to give you a choice,” Krueger said. “You can call the others for help and die tonight—forgotten in a hotel room—or you can walk away and live.”

“I want to walk away,” she said immediately, her voice wobbling and lip quivering. “I want to walk away, please let me walk away..!”

Krueger returned the hammer to the resting position and lowered the gun. He stood aside and gestured the door with a head tilt. “Go,” he said.

Tessa bolted past him, stifling sobs as she wiped her cheeks and ran down the hall, leaving the cart behind.

“Gute nacht,” he called after her. Then he left the room himself, making a mental note to dispose of Mackie’s Hardballer in the morning.

``````

Khai was awakened at 2:50am by the vibration of her business phone on her night table. She reached out for it and held it up, squinting at first to see the screen and read the number on it. She sat up against her headboard when she recognized the area code, fumbling for her glasses before finding them behind the clock radio. She answered the call and held it up to her ear. “It’s Khai,” she said, filtering the sleepiness out of her response.

“There’s been a development,” Krueger said on the other end. “We weren’t the only ones watching Silvio.”

Khai moved to sit on the side of the bed and took a deep breath to pull herself together. “Give me a minute.”

She stood up and went to her walk-in closet, finding a bathrobe to throw over her satin nightgown before heading over to the bathroom and splashing cold water on her face. Then she headed for the spiral staircase down to the kitchen area, priming her laptop and switching to her headset.

“Alright,” she said. “I’m back,” she said. She turned on her coffee machine and placed her favorite mug under the spout, and then sat down to log into her computer. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

“The Company,” Krueger said. “Ten total on site, three of them close to Silvio.”

Khai cursed under her breath. “The Partners won’t like that.”

“They won’t be reporting back to their associates, I’ve seen to that. The ones closest to Silvio tried to kill me off-site. They failed.”

“But the damage may already be done,” she reasoned. “They could have been following him for years, who knows what they found out about the Partners from that, spoiled little shit..?” She took her glasses off and held them in her right hand while leaned back in her chair and tilted her head back, shutting her eyes tight and pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and first finger to compose herself again. “What about Silvio?”

“He’s clean,” Krueger said. “But I may have a lead on the mole in Wells’ organization.”

Khai sighed, opening her eyes again. “First bit of good news I’ve heard all week,” she said. “What did you find?”

“A message trail. I pulled it from his laptop with the tools you supplied.”

“I’m in front of my computer now,” she said, straightening up and putting her glasses back on. “Can you send me the messages?”

“Of course.”

Khai got up to respond to the gurgling of the coffee maker in the corner and reclaim her mug. Savoring its smell and warmth, she held it in both hands and took her first sip, shutting her eyes and letting out a quiet, satisfied sigh before returning to her workstation with her liquid bliss. “I see it,” she said. She read the usernames of the involved parties. “Heimdallr’s Eyes..? Interesting.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“In Norse mythology, Heimdallr is the watchman of the gods,” Khai explained, “supposedly all-seeing. If he’s calling himself the eyes of an all-seeing deity, it’s safe to assume he either has a vast information network at his disposal, or works for somebody who does.” She looked away from the monitor for a moment before looking back and taking another sip. “Can you get me Silvio’s laptop?”

“I can have the cloned device stored on the SSD arranged for pickup by the Partners here,” Krueger said. “If you’d like to see it sooner I can try sending its contents to you.”

“That’s perfect,” Khai said. “Log in to Mr. Wells’ VPN and send it over the intranet, and then arrange for the drive to be picked up.” Khai stood up and walked over to the sliding glass doors overlooking her patio and backyard with her coffee. “In the meantime I’ll relay what you’ve shared with me to the interested parties…”

“Could you include a message for Silvio?”

“What’s that?”

“Treat Victoria right,” Krueger said. “He’ll understand.”

Befuddled, Khai shrugged and said, “I’ll just have to trust you on that.”

“Do trust me on that… I had to get rid of the gun, unfortunately,” he confessed. “Take it out of my check.”

“That’s… hardly a problem, but if you insist I can arrange that…” She sipped from her mug again. “You should try to get some rest, Krueger.”

“I’ll sleep when you do, Miss Khai.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You were nearly killed on a reconnaissance assignment. You must be at least a little shaken up.”

“I’ve been nearly killed on almost every assignment I’ve taken for the last fifteen years. There is very little that can shake me up these days.”

Khai chuckled to herself. “Be that as it may, it’s past three in the morning. I’ll be awake with plenty to do on my end but your part of the job is done. You can relax now.”

“What does somebody like me do to relax, Miss Khai?”

“I’m certain somebody as creative and resourceful as you can figure out a productive way to spend the next two days.”

“I’ll send you a postcard from the gator farm, then.”

“Looking forward to it,” Khai said laughing to herself. “Good night, Krueger. And excellent work.” She ended the call and headed back up the stairs to her bedroom to make her bed and start her day properly.

(Next chapter | Masterlist)

#fiction #original work #original content #original fiction #prose #creative writing #drama #crime fiction

[annoyinglyjovialbird]

Voltron: Next Generation

Eventful Days: II

Word Count: 2840

With the announcement from Shiro's mouth, every teen began their version of a list of things they wanted from the space mall. Kova's list was more practical, Caleb's list was a bit more fashion-centered, only because he was done with the ladybug jokes, Allie didn't have a list of items, just things to do, and Liz and Cake had combined their lists because they were so similar already. Kenny would join Kova since most of the supplies on her list were things he would wind up using one way or the other. Even if they were days away, the teens were still excited to go somewhere.

Little did the crew of the Coeus, the mecha that was being used as target practice was being tracked. 

The dark gray and black battleship floated through space towards the Coeus. At the helm, Captain Scars-for-a-Face was smiling creepily. His crew had managed to return to base, delivered their cargo, and were supposed to collect another shipment. Before the ship left, however, the Emperor had personally sent for him. He ordered the Captain to collect the half-Galra aboard the Coeus alive with the promise of being in line for the Emperorship. The Captain was all over this and promised he would return with the girl. 

"Captain!" The young half-Altean from earlier approached the helm. "How was your meeting with the Emperor?"

"Darrar," the older man growled, turning to the half-Altean with a creepy smile. "This mission will put me on top of the world, exactly where I belong."

"Captain," Darrar visibly shrunk. "What is the mission, exactly?" Darrar was afraid their task involved the ship from weeks earlier.

"The mission, Darrar, shouldn't concern you."

"Yes, sir."

"Are we still tracking the robot?" The Captain turned to the front of the ship, crossing his arms behind his back and standing tall. 

"Yes, sir." 

"Good." The Captain stared forward, his smile never wavered.

On the Coeus, Kova was once again cross-legged on the floor of the bridge. Her hands were on her knees and her eyes were closed. She was sitting directly in front of the large windows with only the hum of the ship to fill the void. With deep breaths in and out, Kova relaxed her shoulders. Time passed with the slow movements the stars made as the Coeus moved forward. 

The other teens had gone with different routes to prepare for the trip. Liz and Kenny were checking supplies and even fuel, but the small clusters of Balmeran crystals were augmented enough to power a majority of the ship. Cake had taken over the kitchen, rewriting his and Liz's list of food-related items. Allie was in the infirmary, sorting through the medical supplies since most of them hadn't been secured when the Coeus had taken its hits from earlier. Caleb was doing something with Shiro, but neither would say what until an anxious Kova checked the cameras. Both of them were outside of the Coeus stargazing. That was when Kova decided she needed to relax.

The ability to relax completely, strangely enough, disappears when you grow up with siblings. 

Someone was coming down the stairs that led to the bridge floor. Their footsteps got closer to Kova, not stopping at any of the seats on the way down, but Kova still kept her eyes closed and took a deep breath in. The footsteps were about two feet behind her when she made her move. Turning around, she grabbed the person's right leg and pulled it towards her. With the person in an awkward stance, Kova hooked her right arm over the person's head and neck and pulled herself up to a crouch. The person tried to free themselves from Kova's grip but she ended up putting herself on the person's back, making them land on their hands and knees. 

"Kova, get off your brother," Shiro sighed. "Caleb, you know better than to trick your sister." The teens both looked up at Shiro, who was standing at the helm. Caleb was turning red from Kova's hold, and Kova was leaned over casually, as though Caleb was a railing. Obeying their dad, the teens gathered themselves. Kova was wearing all black with her lavender sweater. Caleb, on the other hand, was wearing only the bodysuit of his paladin armor. Both walked towards the staircases leading to the doorway when the large screen on the windows appeared. All three stared at the alert, showing a cluster of dots approaching the Coeus. At least, it's what it looked like. The Coeus was drifting dangerously close to a trash nebula. 

"Kova," Shiro said. Oh, right. There were other people in the room. "What is that?" 

"Debris." She looked from the map to stare at Shiro. "We can harvest it."

"That sounds bad," Caleb said, only a half-step below Allie's seat. 

"Of course it sounds bad."

"What do you think?" Both teens stared at Shiro, who stared at the map. On one hand, harvesting the debris could get rid of the potential risks for ships in the area. On the other hand, there was no guarantee they could get rid of the entire thing, and Kova still has the ransom on her head. However, Kova was the only one who could figure out what would be useful and what could be destroyed. 

"Alright, I'll allow it." Kova raised her arms in the air. Caleb sighed, rolling his eyes. 

"I'll suit up."

"I'll let everyone else know."

"Take Allie with you two." Shiro's last order froze the teens in their tracks. Neither moved, hoping Shiro would explain further. "The least experienced pilot should be trained under the Garrison's best." Unfortunately, that was very true. 

"Yes, sir." The teens managed to muster and left. Kova made a beeline to her room to suit up while Caleb went to the medical bay to grab Allie and get her to suit up. 

The Lions were in the air and heading towards the cluster of debris nearby. The ship didn't accurately read any of it. The levels differed between the entire cluster, but it was clear most of it was Garrison equipment. Besides the signature orange and gray lines on white plates of warped metal, several of the pieces read Garrison on the side. The trio found a space rock trapped in the debris and landed on it. It barely fit the Lions, but it managed. Exiting onto the surface, Kova looked around.

"Well?" Caleb asked, bayard already in his hands. He and Allie were on either side of Kova, looking to her for any sort of calm or order. There was none. 

"A lot of the pieces are going to have to be cut down to size." Kova rubbed the back of her neck. "Most of it is useful, but I mostly wondering if we can find the name of the ship on at least one of the pieces."

"What's your thought?" 

"This is huge." Kova brought her arm piece forward, releasing her neck and directed a comms line to the Coeus. "Hey, what's the size of our surplus material bin?"

"I don't have a measuring tape," Kenny snapped. Who broke his heart? "Why do you want to know?" Kova sent a picture of the mess to Kenny's computer in the engine room. "Oh, uh, thirty by twenty-four by sixteen and three-quarters."

"It couldn't be seventeen," Kova moaned. "Alright, team, here's the plan." 

Between the three of them, a majority of the larger panels were cut down to size. They didn't have to do much since Kova had sent them the size constraints. They were done in no time at all, and by that, I mean they were done in about four hours. Kova was the one who found the name of the ship. 

"Dad." Kova's voice came over Shiro's earpiece. She said it so urgently, it was hard to ignore. "Dad, it was them. This was their ship." Kova had sent another picture, letting it appear on the bridge screen. Shiro stared at the piece, hoping the words would morph and change. It didn't. 'ACHLYS' was still printed on the metal in Kova's hands. The Achlys, much like its namesake, brought only misery to Earth. 

"Caleb!" Kova shouted, eyes darting around the somewhat chaotic scene. Jumping forward with the dinner plate-sized metal, she looked for her brother. 

"Don't yell." Caleb was rubbing his helmet, trying in vain to comfort his ear. "What happened?"

"I need to show you something."

"Can it wait?" Caleb rested his hands on his hips. "We need to finish this."

"No it can't wa—" Kova's foot slipped, making her fall on her butt much too hard for it being in space. "OW!"

"You okay?" Caleb checked his map on his arm piece. "Stay there, I'll be there soon. Allie is closer to you."

"I'm fi-AUGH!" 

"Don't hurt yourself," Allie said, already making careful jumps towards Kova until she was on top of her. Quite literally. Allie was on the debris above Kova's head. Just a quick jump and with a little help of her jet pack, Allie was on the lip of the hole Kova had fallen into. Kova could only stare at the smiling twelve-year-old. How come she gets to smile at her? 

"Don't look at me like that," Allie said, crouching down to be closer to Kova. "I'm only here to help." Reaching a hand forward, Allie increased the gravity of her suit. Kova was halfway up the wall, so close to the edge of the wall. "What is that?" Allie had looked up and let go of Kova's hand in shock, sending Kova tumbling back to the bottom. 

"Allie!" Kova scolded. Allie pointed to something behind Kova's head. Turning around, Kova expected it to be something else. Anything else. On the other side of the hole, there was a dark gray cruiser. The window was fogged over and dusty, its paint chipped and scratched on the bottom from a rocky landing, but it was in almost perfect condition. It was a perfect replica of the pictures of the failed expedition ten years ago. The original mission to investigate the Fire.

"Caleb!" Kova stumbled to stand and run towards the cruiser. The urgency in her voice had Caleb running. Allie slid down to join her, curious as to what exactly was inside the cruiser. 

"Kova, what's wrong with you?" Caleb all but shouted, jumping into the hole. The trio approached the cruiser. Caleb and Kova were more cautious than Allie was. Wiping the dust from the windows, Kova could barely see inside the dark pilot's seat. 

The pilot sitting inside was slumped over in the seat, a helmet still on their head. If the pilot was conscious, they didn't show it. 

"Their face shield is still on," Kova reported, lifting her head from the screen. She brought out her bayard, and it extended in her hand to something similar to Liz's weapon, except for one blade at one end of the staff. "We need to pop the cover."

Digging the blade into the crack, Kova and Caleb grabbed onto opposite sides and pushed down on the staff. The hood didn't budge. 

"Allie, please." 

"What if they're dead?" 

"Then we can give their family the news they spent ten years waiting for." Kova turned around to stare at the girl. She sighed and grabbed on. "Ready? One, two, push!" With Allie's help, the hood completely popped off the edge. Allie and Caleb stumbled to the ground, but Kova stayed on her feet, rushing towards the pilot. Cupping the face of the pilot, Kova turned their limp head. Her gasp grabbed Caleb's attention.  

"Kova, who is it?"

"Is it a skeleton? I can bear it if it's a skeleton." 

"It's," Kova said, looking at the man. Through the helmet's face shield, the teen could see the long, pointed scar on the pilot's right cheek. "Keith?" 

Hours later on the Coeus, every teen onboard had flocked to an observation room. The room itself was similar to a hospital room, with stark white walls and tile floors. Between Allie and Liz, they had managed to remove the helmet from Keith's head, laid him on a bed, and had a ventilator quickly hooked up.

At least the medical equipment wasn't too far out-of-date. 

Kova, Caleb, and Cake couldn't move from the window as Liz and Allie worked. Even if he was brain-dead, he could still be returned to his family. Cake couldn't do anything but stare at the heart monitor, watching it spike over and over again. Allie had been scared of the noise at first, but it soon became a dull noise in the background. Caleb had been watching the girls work, tucking his hands into his pockets. Looking over at Kova, he couldn't tell where she was anymore. Oh sure, she was physically here and biting her thumb. Her attention, however, had been focused at a spot on the wall since they came in here. And her brain? Likely running through scenarios like crazy. If Keith is alive, then maybe the others are too? How would Kenny and Dad react? What if he's brain-dead and can't tell us his point of view of that day? What if he's not and forgot his memory? Caleb looked forward again, ignoring the scenarios. 

"It'll be fine," Caleb said. Kova blinked a few times and looked at Caleb, who was staring straight ahead. "We have to tell Kenny first. Then Dad."

"Tell Kenny what?" Speak of the devil. The teens had managed to make Kenny something a bit more casual for his stay. He had insisted on a green t-shirt, which he wore under his unbuttoned Garrison jacket and slacks. The young man looked at the window and his eyes widened in disbelief. 

"We found him in the cruiser during our scavenging." Kova lost the anxiety, lowering her hand from her mouth and widened her stance. "He was like that when we took him out." Kenny had been carefully approaching the window, pressing a hand against the glass. 

"It's been so long," He whispered. "I almost forgot what he looked like." 

"Allie and Liz are doing what they can." The girl approached from behind Kenny and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Standing behind them, Caleb noticed they were almost the same size, give or take a few inches. They stood there for a few solid minutes, staring ahead. 

"Where's the cruiser?" Kenny asked.

"We could only bring him in since we were so far from our Lions." 

"Could you, uh," Kenny brushed the girl's hand from his shoulder and cleared his throat. "Could you bring the navigation system?"

"You think we'll be able to track down the others?"

"If my mom was as smart as everyone claimed," Kenny looked at his dad again. "I have no doubt I'll find her." Kova turned to Caleb, who nodded his head. Now they had to get through to Shiro. 

Or not. 

The Red and Black Lions left the bay without a word to the other paladins. They returned to their spot on the rock from before and retraced their steps to the cruiser. Kova, unfortunately, found it the same way she had before. With her toolkit, she got to work on the inside of the cruiser. Caleb watched on, his bayard activated and in his hands. 

"Do you think he'll wake up?" 

"Who?"

"Keith." 

"Oh." Kova looked up from her work with furrowed brows. "There's no way to tell how long he'd been here, or how long he's been without proper oxygen levels." 

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, my dear brother," Kova returned to her work, relieved to be talking about something else. "Having a low oxygen level can cause a lot of problems, including confusion and organ failure."

"All I'm hearing is you want to harvest his organs."

"Don't be ridiculous." 

"What are you grabbing, exactly?"

"The navigational system. You were, like, two feet behind me."

"So? Doesn't mean I understood what you were saying." Kova groaned and rolled her eyes. 

"It might be possible to use the navigation to track the others." Caleb didn't say a word for a few minutes, letting the information properly sink in.

"WE'RE VOLTRON!" He had turned around and started yelling. "WE'RE SUPPOSED TO STOP THE FIRE! NOT SEARCH FOR THE CREW OF A LOST SPACESHIP!"

"And I understand your concerns," Kova replied as quietly as she could. "But this isn't for me."

"WHO ELSE COULD IT POSSIBLY BE FOR?"

"Well, Kenny and Cake to start with." Kova had propped an arm on her knee to stare at Caleb. "Then there's immediate family, extended family, friends of the lost, their—"

"Okay!" Caleb held his hands up in mock surrender. His bayard had returned to its original shape. "I get it!" 

Those hours were crucial to the Galra ship following the Coeus. They had been watching since the pair exited the Coeus, and they had a close eye on Caleb and his weapon. When it reverted back to its original shape, the soldiers were deployed.

#voltron: next generation #voltron: legendary defender #kovalia shirogane #caleb shirogane #liz griffin #allie smythe #cake garrett #takashi shirogane #shiro #vld keith #keith kogane #kenny holt #kenny kogane #red lion #black lion #blue lion #space mall #galra #galra attack #im hope im being obvious here #i almost forgot kosmos existed #i almost forgot he was a canon thing #whoops #igf coeus

[ibeati]

2008 Internet Real Estate Agent

Happy New Year! Here's to 08 being the year for taking your business and personal life in their highest level. The need for people to connect and exchange things and services has been one of civilization's ongoing themes. Currently, the need for people to get on the internet and search for real estate advice is going to increase exponentially. The big question is, not even how technology will advance the real estate industry, but rather how will you use it. 2008 poses many challenges for those real estate industry and its irrevocable relationship with the internet. Ways are you positioned to garner your share of particular real estate leads and marketing potential of the internet? Presently investing in old traditional training techniques of sending through post cards, fancy listing presentation displays and a creative tag line? You already know that marketing to your sphere regarding influence and past clients is essential. But what other enterprise systems have you implemented for seller or buyer brings? How are you spending your education dollars and instance? Now is the time to take action. Search engine optimization and online lead generation is a cut-throat game, and it is growing more competitive by the day. You've see the articles, watched it on the news and read the press releases. The biggest companies in real estate are investing any lion share of their resources to the internet. No more good old traditional training, old school marketing or ideas. Big corporations are dumping money into their internet business in order to contend in the networked society we live in. What are you going through now to further your education and online real estate leads business? That's your challenge in 2008 and outside of. As I've stated before, you can still create a highly successful online real estate lead-generation business. However , these days will be numbered. The Web is big, but it's a finite reference. Well, more accurately said, cyberspace is infinite, and yet people will only dig so deep. Real estate Web sites who capture the top spots in the search engines are garnering premium quality leads and massive lists of interested buyers along with sellers. But, as more and more big-brand companies compete and even figure out how to grab high ranking search engine positions, they will slowly but surely elbow out the little guy. It's the nature of an market place to be "open" to early adopters at the beginning and then gradually close to only those that can afford the great investment of time not to mention money needed to stay competitive. As more and more buyers and also sellers use the Internet for real estate research, the "evening plus weekend traditional real estate agent marketing model" is fast staying extinct. If you want to stay competitive in the period ahead, you will have to grab a piece of the Internet action, and now is the time to grow your foothold. You CAN still create a successful real estate over the internet lead-generating business. You CAN still get top spots from the search engines. It's not too late, but I guarantee any time you wait, it soon will be. More and more, I get enquiries from companies selling real estate leads. They notice Now i'm everywhere on the internet. My sites rank very high organically just for specific real estate search terms and cpc. I also personally own the right spots on other real estate portals that travel targeted traffic to my listings, my sites and sure..... generate high quality, exclusive leads. I just received a label from a company selling real estate leads. As published into my book, Internet Real Estate Agent: A Guide To Dominating Internet Realty Leads and Marketing, there are specific questions you must ask in avoiding wasting money and time. After going back and to fruition with the skilled sales rep., I was able to hone down the fundamentals of how the program works. Here's how their direct program works: 1 . A person is watching television, listening to the radio and / or sees a banner ad online. The add is expecting the person to call a phone number to learn about a real estate place a burden on advantage and commission rebate back to them if they obtain or sell real estate. 2 . Pay $60 a month for just a zip code. 3. Pay 19% referral fee within closing (this gets split between the "lead company" as well as customer at closing). 4. Here's the kicker.... the particular leads are given to 7 other agents as well. The real estate sales lead business model isn't new and many providers have a slight variation to it. Personally, I would never order leads from this business model. I prefer to create my own exclusive cause systems. Here's some of the pitfalls with the real estate lead business design you're being sold. 1 . Leads coming from TV, Print, r / c or the internet that rely on some form of incentive offer are likely to be very low quality leads. One of the incentive offers is a "commission rebate program". Need I say more? 2 . The reason pay a monthly fee so you can compete for the result? Why not get EXCLUSIVE leads that are not incentive qualified prospects. You can't do every lead program on earth, so find and chose how you spend your money and time. 3. I have a hard time paying a referral fee to a professional when I'm competing with other agents, given the minimum quality lead and there's no personal relationship. That's not the referral, it's a lead. No relationship, no history rarely are commitment from the potential customer to use me. I like paying reference fees to agents that have personal relationships with their authentic clients. When I get a referral call from another professional, they know the person being referred to me and When i get the client. That's a real referral and qualifies towards the big referral fee. 4. There are so many ways to produce leads. You should pick and chose the best ways to spend your time and money. After reading Internet Real Estate Agent, you won't come prey to poor Internet business models. You may make a mistake or perhaps two--I do from time to time when trying something new--but, all these mistakes are quickly remedied. You will understand exactly how to extend your real estate website, what to know before buying a properties website, advanced concepts for Google AdWords, how to current market your listings online for more leads, the shifting Broker/Agent model and much more. Discover how to set up your own internet realty lead generation machine. Don't be dependent on any one company for sales opportunities. Get educated and become independent! The book will draw you through a tremendous amount of information and facts, not hype, regarding Word wide web real estate lead generation and Internet marketing. It's the lowest cost real estate instruction and education you will ever spend. It's all about word wide web real estate lead and marketing. Keep this book with you and use it as a trusted reference guide. Start working with your Web site, and then move onto the other areas of online list size and Internet marketing. Once you have your online real estate lead-generation business put in place, it really will run 24 X 7, by positioning the right message in front of the right people, at the right occasion. Agents and Brokers already know they need to market to history clients and their sphere, but it only gets you will so far. They also know the urgent need to embrace the world wide web. The value of traditional farming techniques is diminishing. It's a fact, everyone is mailing something; everyone is doing longer open properties; and everyone is getting into the real estate business. But, rarely anyone is doing online advertising. Even fewer are doing it ideal. In fact , most agents and brokers attempting to do web based lead generation and property marketing are doing it totally erroneous. Don't waste money and time by buying leads originating from a company that sells false dreams of Internet riches. Take control of your business lead systems and start implementing your prepare today. Here's a short sample from the book: Marketing Your own Listings for Leads The majority of this book has been regarding creating a real business Web site, driving quality traffic with your Web site, and converting that traffic into leads. At this time let's focus on how to create more business by online marketing your listing online. You've worked long and very hard to get the listing, now let's leverage that listing to set-up more business. For most of the homes I've sold, typically the buyers began by viewing the pictures and information online and then contacted me about a private showing. Any time you market the property correctly, you will get leads. Using the list of selling resources below, I average over 2, 500 precise property views for each listing. I get highly capable internet buyer and seller leads when marketing a home online. Think about that for a second. Online, people are hunting for a specific home, in a specific area, in a specific college district, in a certain price range, etc .... and my entries are showing up. That's a ton of quality traffic the majority it was free. I just read the other day about a Home of Technology who serves on a major MLS panel who said the traditional business model of getting leads from sustaining open houses is almost dead. People are using the Internet for researching, and they are contacting an agent long before they enter the house. Dependant on my personal experience, I agree with this assessment. Having expended many Sunday's working at open houses, I think it's very rare for someone to walk through the door as well as say "I don't have an agent. " The following list of strategies will put you in a position to actually make more money from each one listing you have. If you don't have any listings or are having their first go real estate, I suggest approaching an agent in your office that has a list of and ask if you can do some Internet advertising for him or her. Be sure that you abide by any local MLS rules you have...

[wicca-and-astrology]

2008 Internet Real Estate Agent

Happy New Year! Here's to 08 being the year for taking your business and personal life in their highest level. The need for people to connect and exchange things and services has been one of civilization's ongoing themes. Currently, the need for people to get on the internet and search for real estate advice is going to increase exponentially. The big question is, not even how technology will advance the real estate industry, but rather how will you use it. 2008 poses many challenges for those real estate industry and its irrevocable relationship with the internet. Ways are you positioned to garner your share of particular real estate leads and marketing potential of the internet? Presently investing in old traditional training techniques of sending through post cards, fancy listing presentation displays and a creative tag line? You already know that marketing to your sphere regarding influence and past clients is essential. But what other enterprise systems have you implemented for seller or buyer brings? How are you spending your education dollars and instance? Now is the time to take action. Search engine optimization and online lead generation is a cut-throat game, and it is growing more competitive by the day. You've see the articles, watched it on the news and read the press releases. The biggest companies in real estate are investing any lion share of their resources to the internet. No more good old traditional training, old school marketing or ideas. Big corporations are dumping money into their internet business in order to contend in the networked society we live in. What are you going through now to further your education and online real estate leads business? That's your challenge in 2008 and outside of. As I've stated before, you can still create a highly successful online real estate lead-generation business. However , these days will be numbered. The Web is big, but it's a finite reference. Well, more accurately said, cyberspace is infinite, and yet people will only dig so deep. Real estate Web sites who capture the top spots in the search engines are garnering premium quality leads and massive lists of interested buyers along with sellers. But, as more and more big-brand companies compete and even figure out how to grab high ranking search engine positions, they will slowly but surely elbow out the little guy. It's the nature of an market place to be "open" to early adopters at the beginning and then gradually close to only those that can afford the great investment of time not to mention money needed to stay competitive. As more and more buyers and also sellers use the Internet for real estate research, the "evening plus weekend traditional real estate agent marketing model" is fast staying extinct. If you want to stay competitive in the period ahead, you will have to grab a piece of the Internet action, and now is the time to grow your foothold. You CAN still create a successful real estate over the internet lead-generating business. You CAN still get top spots from the search engines. It's not too late, but I guarantee any time you wait, it soon will be. More and more, I get enquiries from companies selling real estate leads. They notice Now i'm everywhere on the internet. My sites rank very high organically just for specific real estate search terms and cpc. I also personally own the right spots on other real estate portals that travel targeted traffic to my listings, my sites and sure..... generate high quality, exclusive leads. I just received a label from a company selling real estate leads. As published into my book, Internet Real Estate Agent: A Guide To Dominating Internet Realty Leads and Marketing, there are specific questions you must ask in avoiding wasting money and time. After going back and to fruition with the skilled sales rep., I was able to hone down the fundamentals of how the program works. Here's how their direct program works: 1 . A person is watching television, listening to the radio and / or sees a banner ad online. The add is expecting the person to call a phone number to learn about a real estate place a burden on advantage and commission rebate back to them if they obtain or sell real estate. 2 . Pay $60 a month for just a zip code. 3. Pay 19% referral fee within closing (this gets split between the "lead company" as well as customer at closing). 4. Here's the kicker.... the particular leads are given to 7 other agents as well. The real estate sales lead business model isn't new and many providers have a slight variation to it. Personally, I would never order leads from this business model. I prefer to create my own exclusive cause systems. Here's some of the pitfalls with the real estate lead business design you're being sold. 1 . Leads coming from TV, Print, r / c or the internet that rely on some form of incentive offer are likely to be very low quality leads. One of the incentive offers is a "commission rebate program". Need I say more? 2 . The reason pay a monthly fee so you can compete for the result? Why not get EXCLUSIVE leads that are not incentive qualified prospects. You can't do every lead program on earth, so find and chose how you spend your money and time. 3. I have a hard time paying a referral fee to a professional when I'm competing with other agents, given the minimum quality lead and there's no personal relationship. That's not the referral, it's a lead. No relationship, no history rarely are commitment from the potential customer to use me. I like paying reference fees to agents that have personal relationships with their authentic clients. When I get a referral call from another professional, they know the person being referred to me and When i get the client. That's a real referral and qualifies towards the big referral fee. 4. There are so many ways to produce leads. You should pick and chose the best ways to spend your time and money. After reading Internet Real Estate Agent, you won't come prey to poor Internet business models. You may make a mistake or perhaps two--I do from time to time when trying something new--but, all these mistakes are quickly remedied. You will understand exactly how to extend your real estate website, what to know before buying a properties website, advanced concepts for Google AdWords, how to current market your listings online for more leads, the shifting Broker/Agent model and much more. Discover how to set up your own internet realty lead generation machine. Don't be dependent on any one company for sales opportunities. Get educated and become independent! The book will draw you through a tremendous amount of information and facts, not hype, regarding Word wide web real estate lead generation and Internet marketing. It's the lowest cost real estate instruction and education you will ever spend. It's all about word wide web real estate lead and marketing. Keep this book with you and use it as a trusted reference guide. Start working with your Web site, and then move onto the other areas of online list size and Internet marketing. Once you have your online real estate lead-generation business put in place, it really will run 24 X 7, by positioning the right message in front of the right people, at the right occasion. Agents and Brokers already know they need to market to history clients and their sphere, but it only gets you will so far. They also know the urgent need to embrace the world wide web. The value of traditional farming techniques is diminishing. It's a fact, everyone is mailing something; everyone is doing longer open properties; and everyone is getting into the real estate business. But, rarely anyone is doing online advertising. Even fewer are doing it ideal. In fact , most agents and brokers attempting to do web based lead generation and property marketing are doing it totally erroneous. Don't waste money and time by buying leads originating from a company that sells false dreams of Internet riches. Take control of your business lead systems and start implementing your prepare today. Here's a short sample from the book: Marketing Your own Listings for Leads The majority of this book has been regarding creating a real business Web site, driving quality traffic with your Web site, and converting that traffic into leads. At this time let's focus on how to create more business by online marketing your listing online. You've worked long and very hard to get the listing, now let's leverage that listing to set-up more business. For most of the homes I've sold, typically the buyers began by viewing the pictures and information online and then contacted me about a private showing. Any time you market the property correctly, you will get leads. Using the list of selling resources below, I average over 2, 500 precise property views for each listing. I get highly capable internet buyer and seller leads when marketing a home online. Think about that for a second. Online, people are hunting for a specific home, in a specific area, in a specific college district, in a certain price range, etc .... and my entries are showing up. That's a ton of quality traffic the majority it was free. I just read the other day about a Home of Technology who serves on a major MLS panel who said the traditional business model of getting leads from sustaining open houses is almost dead. People are using the Internet for researching, and they are contacting an agent long before they enter the house. Dependant on my personal experience, I agree with this assessment. Having expended many Sunday's working at open houses, I think it's very rare for someone to walk through the door as well as say "I don't have an agent. " The following list of strategies will put you in a position to actually make more money from each one listing you have. If you don't have any listings or are having their first go real estate, I suggest approaching an agent in your office that has a list of and ask if you can do some Internet advertising for him or her. Be sure that you abide by any local MLS rules you have...

[thirdorgan]

2008 Internet Real Estate Agent

Happy New Year! Here's to 08 being the year for taking your business and personal life in their highest level. The need for people to connect and exchange things and services has been one of civilization's ongoing themes. Currently, the need for people to get on the internet and search for real estate advice is going to increase exponentially. The big question is, not even how technology will advance the real estate industry, but rather how will you use it. 2008 poses many challenges for those real estate industry and its irrevocable relationship with the internet. Ways are you positioned to garner your share of particular real estate leads and marketing potential of the internet? Presently investing in old traditional training techniques of sending through post cards, fancy listing presentation displays and a creative tag line? You already know that marketing to your sphere regarding influence and past clients is essential. But what other enterprise systems have you implemented for seller or buyer brings? How are you spending your education dollars and instance? Now is the time to take action. Search engine optimization and online lead generation is a cut-throat game, and it is growing more competitive by the day. You've see the articles, watched it on the news and read the press releases. The biggest companies in real estate are investing any lion share of their resources to the internet. No more good old traditional training, old school marketing or ideas. Big corporations are dumping money into their internet business in order to contend in the networked society we live in. What are you going through now to further your education and online real estate leads business? That's your challenge in 2008 and outside of. As I've stated before, you can still create a highly successful online real estate lead-generation business. However , these days will be numbered. The Web is big, but it's a finite reference. Well, more accurately said, cyberspace is infinite, and yet people will only dig so deep. Real estate Web sites who capture the top spots in the search engines are garnering premium quality leads and massive lists of interested buyers along with sellers. But, as more and more big-brand companies compete and even figure out how to grab high ranking search engine positions, they will slowly but surely elbow out the little guy. It's the nature of an market place to be "open" to early adopters at the beginning and then gradually close to only those that can afford the great investment of time not to mention money needed to stay competitive. As more and more buyers and also sellers use the Internet for real estate research, the "evening plus weekend traditional real estate agent marketing model" is fast staying extinct. If you want to stay competitive in the period ahead, you will have to grab a piece of the Internet action, and now is the time to grow your foothold. You CAN still create a successful real estate over the internet lead-generating business. You CAN still get top spots from the search engines. It's not too late, but I guarantee any time you wait, it soon will be. More and more, I get enquiries from companies selling real estate leads. They notice Now i'm everywhere on the internet. My sites rank very high organically just for specific real estate search terms and cpc. I also personally own the right spots on other real estate portals that travel targeted traffic to my listings, my sites and sure..... generate high quality, exclusive leads. I just received a label from a company selling real estate leads. As published into my book, Internet Real Estate Agent: A Guide To Dominating Internet Realty Leads and Marketing, there are specific questions you must ask in avoiding wasting money and time. After going back and to fruition with the skilled sales rep., I was able to hone down the fundamentals of how the program works. Here's how their direct program works: 1 . A person is watching television, listening to the radio and / or sees a banner ad online. The add is expecting the person to call a phone number to learn about a real estate place a burden on advantage and commission rebate back to them if they obtain or sell real estate. 2 . Pay $60 a month for just a zip code. 3. Pay 19% referral fee within closing (this gets split between the "lead company" as well as customer at closing). 4. Here's the kicker.... the particular leads are given to 7 other agents as well. The real estate sales lead business model isn't new and many providers have a slight variation to it. Personally, I would never order leads from this business model. I prefer to create my own exclusive cause systems. Here's some of the pitfalls with the real estate lead business design you're being sold. 1 . Leads coming from TV, Print, r / c or the internet that rely on some form of incentive offer are likely to be very low quality leads. One of the incentive offers is a "commission rebate program". Need I say more? 2 . The reason pay a monthly fee so you can compete for the result? Why not get EXCLUSIVE leads that are not incentive qualified prospects. You can't do every lead program on earth, so find and chose how you spend your money and time. 3. I have a hard time paying a referral fee to a professional when I'm competing with other agents, given the minimum quality lead and there's no personal relationship. That's not the referral, it's a lead. No relationship, no history rarely are commitment from the potential customer to use me. I like paying reference fees to agents that have personal relationships with their authentic clients. When I get a referral call from another professional, they know the person being referred to me and When i get the client. That's a real referral and qualifies towards the big referral fee. 4. There are so many ways to produce leads. You should pick and chose the best ways to spend your time and money. After reading Internet Real Estate Agent, you won't come prey to poor Internet business models. You may make a mistake or perhaps two--I do from time to time when trying something new--but, all these mistakes are quickly remedied. You will understand exactly how to extend your real estate website, what to know before buying a properties website, advanced concepts for Google AdWords, how to current market your listings online for more leads, the shifting Broker/Agent model and much more. Discover how to set up your own internet realty lead generation machine. Don't be dependent on any one company for sales opportunities. Get educated and become independent! The book will draw you through a tremendous amount of information and facts, not hype, regarding Word wide web real estate lead generation and Internet marketing. It's the lowest cost real estate instruction and education you will ever spend. It's all about word wide web real estate lead and marketing. Keep this book with you and use it as a trusted reference guide. Start working with your Web site, and then move onto the other areas of online list size and Internet marketing. Once you have your online real estate lead-generation business put in place, it really will run 24 X 7, by positioning the right message in front of the right people, at the right occasion. Agents and Brokers already know they need to market to history clients and their sphere, but it only gets you will so far. They also know the urgent need to embrace the world wide web. The value of traditional farming techniques is diminishing. It's a fact, everyone is mailing something; everyone is doing longer open properties; and everyone is getting into the real estate business. But, rarely anyone is doing online advertising. Even fewer are doing it ideal. In fact , most agents and brokers attempting to do web based lead generation and property marketing are doing it totally erroneous. Don't waste money and time by buying leads originating from a company that sells false dreams of Internet riches. Take control of your business lead systems and start implementing your prepare today. Here's a short sample from the book: Marketing Your own Listings for Leads The majority of this book has been regarding creating a real business Web site, driving quality traffic with your Web site, and converting that traffic into leads. At this time let's focus on how to create more business by online marketing your listing online. You've worked long and very hard to get the listing, now let's leverage that listing to set-up more business. For most of the homes I've sold, typically the buyers began by viewing the pictures and information online and then contacted me about a private showing. Any time you market the property correctly, you will get leads. Using the list of selling resources below, I average over 2, 500 precise property views for each listing. I get highly capable internet buyer and seller leads when marketing a home online. Think about that for a second. Online, people are hunting for a specific home, in a specific area, in a specific college district, in a certain price range, etc .... and my entries are showing up. That's a ton of quality traffic the majority it was free. I just read the other day about a Home of Technology who serves on a major MLS panel who said the traditional business model of getting leads from sustaining open houses is almost dead. People are using the Internet for researching, and they are contacting an agent long before they enter the house. Dependant on my personal experience, I agree with this assessment. Having expended many Sunday's working at open houses, I think it's very rare for someone to walk through the door as well as say "I don't have an agent. " The following list of strategies will put you in a position to actually make more money from each one listing you have. If you don't have any listings or are having their first go real estate, I suggest approaching an agent in your office that has a list of and ask if you can do some Internet advertising for him or her. Be sure that you abide by any local MLS rules you have...

[jarienn972]

Curse of Undoings - Part 6

Time for a new chapter! We left off with Henry rescuing Killian from the torture chamber, but they're far from being free. Killian's hurt and Henry has few options to get help as nearly everyone he knows is either missing or cursed. Doesn't make for an easy escape...

No major warning apply to this chapter but there are descriptions of Killian’s wounds and plenty of angst to go around.

You can revisit earlier chapters here on Tumblr: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  or read from the beginning on AO3 or FF.net

Tagging @killian-whump @hookaroo and @castielamigos  Enjoy!

"Henry, how exactly is it that you know where this tunnel leads?" Killian asked with honest curiosity as he crouched, visibly uncomfortable, before what looked like a wooden panel covering up a large section of the far wall of the Town Hall's boiler room.

"I spent a lot of time by myself around here," Henry replied as he worked his fingers into the gap around the sides of the panel, prying it loose with a well-practiced ease. "Didn't exactly have a lot of friends so I'd go off exploring anywhere I could around town, almost always searching for any little clues to prove that the book my teacher gave me was real."

Killian nodded in acknowledgment of the lad's response. He'd heard too many stories of how lonely Henry had been before finding Emma and it reminded him all too vividly of that loneliness and pain he'd felt after Liam, and later, Milah, were gone. He tried to hold the flashlight steady as the boy slid the panel to his left to reveal an entrance to a very dark hole.

"So, where does that lead?" Killian queried once again for clarification, shining the beam of light into the inky void. He was certain that Henry had told him once or twice already but his memory was fading as quickly as his energy, blood loss slowly sapping his strength. In truth, he didn't really care where the passage led as long as it was away from this prison, to somewhere safe where his wounds could be treated and he could find warmer clothing. Blood from the numerous lacerations lashed across his back and his impaled shoulder was already soaking through the shirt borrowed from the unconscious guard causing the fabric to become uncomfortably plastered to the irritated skin. The guard's black uniform trousers weren't doing him any favors either. They were at least two sizes too big and even with the shirt tucked in and the belt cinched to the very last hole, they barely wanted to stay up over Killian's narrow hips, but they would have to make do for now. Far worse was the fact that the guard's boots were way too small so Killian wore only socks, which weren't doing much to keep away the chill of the cold cement beneath his feet.

"It connects the Town Hall to the mines," Henry reminded his stepfather as they scrambled through the opening in the concrete block wall. He carefully replaced the panel from inside the passageway that was lit only by the beam of his flashlight, reclaiming the light from Killian once the opening was sealed which allowed Killian to wrap his uninjured arm around the teenager's shoulders. "Like those cells, I've never found out why this tunnel was built," Henry explained as they set off in near-total darkness. "I don't know what they were designed to be used for, but I used to hide out down here from time to time and I don't think that either of my moms knows this tunnel exists so I highly doubt Fiona knows it's here. I just wish we had some idea of what she wanted…"

"I may have an idea," Killian replied with a grimace, his sock-covered feet not appreciating the unforgiving gravel and rocks strewn across the ground any more than the rest of his body had enjoyed his previous accommodations.

"What? How?" Henry wondered. Killian had been locked away and tortured in the dungeon. How would he have learned of the Black Fairy's plans?

"The Black Fairy paid me a visit during my captivity," Killian revealed. "She filled Emma's head with cursed memories of me murdering your grandparents."

"Okay, well, that explains a lot," Henry sighed. "I couldn't figure out why my mom thought they were dead and why she suddenly hated you so much."

"Hatred would be a kind word to use," Killian grumbled. "Full on rage and loathing would be far more accurate considering my current state. I'm afraid that Fiona is trying to goad your mother into killing me as she wants to sever our bond of True Love."

"That must be why the book is fading!" Henry exclaimed. "As your True Love is being destroyed, the stories slowly disappear. If Fiona succeeds, the entire book and all of its stories might be gone forever!"

"Aye – I believe that is precisely what she intends. She wants to re-write her own stories," Killian stated. "We need to find a way to get through to Emma to stop all of this…" Killian's words cut off mid-sentence as he stumbled, his body shaking as trembling legs no longer wanted to support his weight. He nearly tumbled atop of Henry, but the boy surprised him as he mustered enough strength to keep Killian upright. "Sorry, lad, I…"

Henry stopped him there. "There's no need to apologize. We can rest for a couple of minutes…"

"No – it will be safer if we keep going…" Killian insisted.

"It's alright. You need the rest. I wish I knew if there was someone else in this town we could trust, but I have to assume that everyone else is cursed like my mom. That or they're missing like a Grandma, Grandpa and my other mom…"

"They're not missing," Killian said nearly breathlessly as he fought against the blackness seeking to overtake him. "They're trapped… Fiona, she trapped them all in an enchanted snow globe…"

"They're in a snow globe?" Henry asked incredulously.

"She showed it to me, bragging as though it were some great conquest…" Killian let out a deep sigh as he felt himself wavering, allowing even more of his weight to be shouldered by his stepson as he lost his tenuous grip on consciousness.

"Killian?" Henry asked as the pirate slumped against him, causing the teenager to lose his hold on the flashlight as he needed both hands free to catch a now unconscious Killian. The light rolled a few feet away as Henry carefully eased Killian's limp form to the ground, not even sure what the best position to place him in might be. He could feel the warm, sticky blood that had soaked through the guard's uniform shirt and was instantly reminded that Killian was losing far too much as it oozed from the lacerations torn into his back and trickled from his punctured shoulder.

Once Killian was safely resting on the tunnel floor, Henry crawled over to where the flashlight had landed, needing its light to be able to better assess all of Killian's wounds. He'd already felt the dampness but now that he could see the extent of the stains covering both the front and back of the once khaki shirt, he knew they were running short on time. He stripped off his jacket and draped it over Killian's upper body like a blanket, discovering that quite a bit of Killian's blood was already staining his coat too. Probably better that he was leaving the jacket here with Killian since that much blood would definitely draw too much attention and he was about to undertake another huge risk.

He was going to have to go back inside because he now believed he knew the key to breaking this curse and getting his family back. Now, he knew exactly what Fiona had smiled at when she'd exited the office earlier and it was his duty to his family to retrieve it.

Henry had to check the display on his phone twice but he was certain that the guard would still be asleep but he had absolutely no idea if Fiona would have returned by now. He remembered a little too late that the extra sleeping powder was several hundred yards back down in the tunnel inside the jacket he'd left for Killian so he'd have to be extra careful. If he encountered someone now, the consequences could be deadly, feeling quite relieved to find the half-naked guard right where they'd left him and no one else in sight.

He cautiously skirted around the snoring guard and swiftly tiptoed up the flight of stairs. Reaching the top step, he inched the door open, peeking into the basement to verify that it was empty before dashing for the next staircase. He had to be increasingly careful as he returned to the main floor, waiting for a woman he recognized as a secretary to pass before slipping into the corridor and making his way toward Fiona's office. The frosted glass on the window made it impossible to tell if anyone was inside but he didn't hear any noise coming from inside so he tested the door, fairly sure he'd remembered to push the button on the back of the door knob to lock it.

He breathed another brief sigh of relief finding the door locked – especially since he did have his copy of the key tucked inside his pant pocket. Now he had to make this fast – break in, grab the snow globe and get the hell out. It was a fairly good, flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants plan but without his coat or backpack, he'd have to carry the globe in his hand which was going to require an abundance of caution. He'd also have to exit the Town Hall on this level and somehow make his way across town to return to the tunnel via the mines. He didn't dare push his luck with the snoozing guard in the sub-basement. It would be dangerous enough once that man awoke to discover both his clothing and his prisoner missing.

Getting the actual snow globe proved easy but Henry knew the more difficult part would be getting back to Killian. He couldn't exactly run straight down Main Street without increasing his likelihood of being caught. No, he was going to have to flit through the back alleys and parking lots where fewer eyes might spot him. He ducked out of the rear exit from the Town Hall into the nearly vacant parking area and darted across the asphalt with the precious trinket clutched tightly in his left fist. He had to keep it safe, fearing that if he dropped it, he might doom his family to an eternity within its glass confines. All was nearly lost though when he rounded the corner near the church rectory and saw Fiona strolling towards him.

And even worse – she saw him.

He immediately slowed his pace, worried he'd draw unwanted attention if he continued to run or if he made an immediate u-turn. He threw his hands behind his back to tuck the snow globe beneath his belt. Try to look as normal as possible he kept telling himself as Fiona closed the distance between them.

"Henry?" Fiona called out to him using a faux concerned tone that sounded as phony as her position as Mayor. "What are you doing out this way?"

"I, uh… I was just looking for my mom. She wasn't at the station so I was wondering if maybe she'd come by here? Nobody was there either so I decided I'd just head back home."

"Well, your mother did come to see me earlier, but when she left, she said she was heading to lunch. I'm not sure where she went from there so you may want to just try calling her."

"I would, but I forgot to charge my phone last night."

"Would you like to use mine?" Fiona offered, but Henry didn't trust the gesture for a single moment.

"It's alright. I'll just call when I get home."

"Of course, but Henry, isn't your house the other way?"

Damn… she was suspicious of him already. Think, Henry, think… "Oh, I was going to stop by the library before going home. Figured I'd pick up a book or two to read tonight."

"Well then, please don't run. There's no need since the librarian won't be back until after two."

"Oh, I didn't realize that," Henry stammered, cursing that he hadn't remembered the lunchtime closure. "Guess I'll have to come back later."

"Perhaps you should forget the books, Henry. I hear that you read too much…" The disdain in her voice couldn't have been more obvious.

"You know me – I like to read," he replied curtly, echoing her tone. "Oh, well, if you see my mom, tell her I was looking for her."

"I will. Just please slow down, young man," she insisted with that same mocking air of concern for his welfare.

Henry begrudgingly smiled at her. "Of course, Madame Mayor." Now he'd have to go the long way around, but at least it would give him an excuse to swing by the park where he'd stashed his backpack before deciding to spy on Fiona. He hadn't exactly wanted to drag the pack or the storybook through the Town Hall air vents so he'd left it in his secret spot near the play castle before his reconnaissance mission turned into a rescue. He had a bottle of water and a few pouches of fruit snacks inside his pack too which he could offer to Killian, assuming he was conscious. Who knows how long it had been since Killian had any food or drink?

Henry waited awkwardly until Fiona was far enough away from him before daring to turn his back to her, removing the snow globe from his waistband before she might notice the hastily concealed object. It has been far too close a call and now all he could do was try not to fret too much and get himself back on track. Had his behavior been too suspect? Would Fiona call his mother? If she did, he and Killian would both likely be dead before the day was through and the fairytales he was trying desperately to salvage would be lost forever.

No way could he allow that to happen.

Fiona crossed the parking lot with brisk, purposeful steps, lamenting the aches and pains that these modern, fashionable shoes were afflicting on her feet. How on earth had these inane torture devices ever gained favor? Of course, her cramped toes weren't the only thing on her mind after that bizarre conversation with her great-grandson outside the church. She was by no means naïve enough to deny that the boy hated her. Every child she'd ever surrounded herself with harbored that same animosity, but there was something different about this one. Her curse hadn't taken hold on him, a result she'd feared even as the dark spell was cast so she'd had to build in a safeguard, implanting memories of a child who'd gone mad when his grandparents were murdered.

The fallacy she'd created had been convincing enough for Emma, but not for all. A few problems remained, including her miserable failure of a son who had also retained his real memories, perhaps as a side effect of being the Dark One. She probably should have dispatched him to the netherworld along with Regina and the Charmings but at least one fortunate favor to her was that he was more concerned with protecting his estranged wife and his pathetic son. As long as he remained suitably distracted by them, he wasn't worrying about what mummy had planned. Even after their conversation, Rumplestiltskin remained oblivious to the finality of her plot. She'd entertained a fleeting thought that perhaps she should feel at least a miniscule pang of guilt about wiping out her entire family, but she honestly didn't. She'd write a far more successful legacy in her new story.

But the fact still remained that Emma hadn't yet severed her True Love bond with the pirate and that left Fiona herself trapped in this miserable town for a while longer. She needed the Sheriff to snap and finally, if unwittingly, murder her own husband but there was still a possibility that the boy could still pose a challenge. Emma did retain an emotional bond with Henry, even if she was convinced the lad was insane. Should any harm come to her son, it could distract Emma from her more important tasks and that simply couldn't be tolerated. The boy knew the truth and was likely going to remain a thorn in Fiona's side until Emma's job was done. She needed a way to keep Henry off of the streets so he couldn't interfere.

She decided it was time for Emma to rein in her son so she needed to create a bit of a rift between mother and child. Pulling out her cell phone, she scrolled through her contact list until she located Emma's name and number. Oh what amazing devices these smart phones were! She tapped on Emma's name on the display to dial, then waited quite impatiently for the Sheriff to answer.

"Oh, Emma," Fiona gushed after Emma picked up. "So sorry to interrupt your lunch break but I was just wondering if Henry had gotten in touch with you?"

"Henry?" Emma replied through the speakerphone, her voice thick with confusion. "He's at home? Why would you be worried about him getting in touch with me?"

"Are you sure he's home? I just encountered him outside the rectory and he told me he'd been looking for you."

"Looking for me? That makes no sense. If he needed me, he'd just call."

"Well, he said his phone battery was dead, but I have to say that I did find his behavior quite odd."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"He mentioned something about going to the library, but he seemed rather dismayed when I reminded him that it wouldn't be open until later this afternoon, so he told me he was going to go home and come back later."

"Did you see which way he went?" Emma asked, irritation creeping into the timbre of her voice as she processed the disappointment of her son's disobedience. "Did he actually go home?"

"I can only speculate, but he was headed in that direction, but unfortunately, I've no way to be certain."

"Thanks for letting me know," Emma stated as she disconnected the call, leaving Fiona with a smug grin coiled onto her lips. She wasn't about to allow a petulant child to derail her plan, especially since she'd now sown her seeds of distrust against another of Emma's True Loves. It was merely a matter of time now until all fell in place.

Edited to correct the title that was missing an “s”

#ouat ff #ouat fanfic #killian jones ff #killian whump #curse of undoings

[optimusphillip]

OptimusPhillip Reviews 28: Transformers Generations Rewind (Titans Return)

Happy Pride Month to all my LGBTQ+ followers. While I myself am cishet, I firmly support the rights of people to love whoever they want or to identify however they feel most comfortable. And in honor of Pride Month, I have decided to do something of a double feature this weekend to cover my favorite gay couple in Transformers. Today, I will be reviewing Titans Return Rewind, and tomorrow it will be Titans Return Chromedome.

Tank Mode

Starting with the mode that appears on the front of the package, Rewind transforms into what I can only describe as a super space tank. And as far as Titans Return versions of the G1 cassettes go, he comes out as a pretty solid little tank. The main body is cast in black, as one would expect from a Rewind, with the turret molded in gray to set it apart. The treads are fully molded on both the sides and the bottom, and they even molded a slight taper into the front of the tank, to give the illusion that it could get over terrain, though this effect is kind of ruined by the ridge across the bottom. Also, the front end itself is hollowed out for transformation, which is understandable, but at the same time I feel like it could’ve been done better.

In terms of deco, the wheels in the treads are picked out in a nice bright silver, which also appears on the corners of the tank’s “hood”. There’s also a red paint app picking out what I assume is the tank’s hatch, and the same red appears on the rear side panels, rounding out the visible paint apps on this mode. It’s not a lot of paint, but with how small the figure is and how well the colors play together, I think it works.

In terms of function, the tank mode is rather limited. He rolls around on three small wheels, and the main cannon can pivot up and down, but the turret itself can’t rotate due to how the figure converts. Again, however, I can forgive some shortcomings due to the small size. And of course, being a Titans Return figure means he can interact with Titan Masters. He has two pairs of pegs on his turret, so you can mount at least two Titan Masters, and up to four if you stand them just right. It’s a nice feature, though plastic tolerances may prevent some figures from mounting securely. In my case, Firedrive has no friction holding him in place, so he’s only really held on by gravity.

Overall, for a Legends Class toy, the tank mode is pretty decent. Nothing to write home about, but it's fairly robust and it looks alright. That said, I don’t see this as the figure’s main mode, so let’s move on.

Spy Tablet Mode

Removing the main cannon, rotating the turret halves to the side and then unfolding them gives what I consider this toy’s main alternate mode, the spy tablet. While less than half the size of a typical smartphone, he manages to look the part surprisingly well. The tank mode hatch now becomes the home button, and there’s an additional red paint app on the top, but most of the detail comes from the tablet screen itself. The wallpaper is obviously based on his G1 microcassette mode, but with a bit more techy detail and of course some phone icons overlaid. Across the top, he has four bars of cell service and Wi-Fi connectivity, 50-75% battery power remaining, and a running microphone. And across the bottom, he has a text editor, file manager, instant messenger, and e-mail app installed. Also, strangely enough, he has three Autobot symbols: one on top of the tablet, and two on the screen itself.

While the detailing on the screen is nice, it’s all done as sticker detailing, which does come with its fair share of problems. In addition to the problem of lifting off the plastic, the stickers may not be cut and aligned correctly. In my case, the right-hand tape reel is not a perfect circle, and the tape window is a little wider. This also means that the bottom of the cassette doesn’t line up. Also, the printing on the stickers may fade overtime with wear and tear. So while I’m glad that there’s so much detail going on, the stickers could’ve been a lot better. 

It’s still a nice mode overall, however. There’s storage for his main cannon on the side, where you’ll also find a molded power button. You can even pretend that the gun is a stylus, though I doubt this is intentional. But my favorite feature in this mode is that, on the bottom left-hand side, there is a 3.5 mm hole which can accept an aux audio cable. So you can plug in a set of headphones and roleplay this as a real smart device, though it doesn’t connect as securely as the real thing. Mileage may vary on that front, however.

And of course, the big feature of this figure is that it can store in the chest of the Leader Class Blaster/Soundwave mold... which I do not own, so I cannot comment on the effectiveness of this feature. If I ever do obtain that figure, however, I will do a review of it where I follow up on this.

Conversion

Remember to remove the gun from the side of the tablet before turning into robot or tank modes! Otherwise you will bend or even break the barrel. With that little PSA out of the way, going to robot mode is more complex than going from tank to tablet, but that isn’t saying much. Simply unpeg the side panels and fold them back up like in tank mode. This will be very difficult out of the box, and comes with a real risk of breakage. This can be mitigated by filing down the corners, however. Next, split the front of the tank and unfold it to become the legs. Flip the rear wheels up to form the feet, then split the top of the tablet to form the shoulders. Rotate the biceps, then open the chest and flip out the head to complete the robot mode.

Robot Mode

Rewind’s robot mode is definitely based on his IDW appearance, with the red paint apps on his shoulders, and of course the head sculpt, complete with visor and camera unit. Some sacrifices are made for the sake of his alternate modes, but it’s very clear where the inspiration came from.

Very few new details are exposed here. The only new paint apps are the tampographs on his chest to give him his gold pecs as well as the Autobot symbol. Aside from the head sculpt, most of the new detail comes from the arms, which are actually molded somewhat asymmetrically. While his right arm looks normal, his left arm is hollowed out and has an additional piston molded in. While not a bad look once you get used to it, it’s definitely a bit weird, and seems to be purely due to plastic content restrictions, which is a bit unfortunate.

Articulation-wise, Rewind has full neck rotation, ball-jointed shoulders, bicep swivels and 90 degree elbows. No waist joint, but he does have ball-jointed hips and knees which give him a nice range of motion. Overall, the figure is very posable, though the bulky arms can clash in some poses.

For weapons, Rewind gets the main cannon from tank mode as his rifle. It has a standard 5mm handle, so he can hold it in either hand, or swap it for any other standard weapon, presumably even his G1 weapons. He also has a port on the side of his right arm. While this seems to just be an artifact of how he stores it in tablet mode, this does allow him to mount his rifle on his forearm, much like the G1 toy did. You can also partially unfold the arm and thread the gun through the same slot it stored in earlier, giving him something of an underslung cannon. Personally, however, I prefer the side mounted style.

Rewind stands about waist-high with Titans Return Deluxe Autobot cars. This does put him in comic accurate scale, which means that he will look nice alongside your other IDW figures, including, of course, Chromedome.

Final Thoughts

Titans Return Rewind is an alright figure. Nothing stellar, but very decent overall. His tank mode is surprisingly effective, his spy tablet mode is a lot of fun to just play around with, and weird arms aside, his robot mode looks and poses really well, If you can find him for around his original retail price of around US$10, I’d say you should pick him up, especially if you’re a fan of his IDW portrayal, and can also get your hands on the subject of tomorrow’s review.

#transformers #idw #rewind #pride #lgbt #chromedome x rewind

[youre-on-a-starship]

Prompt:  “Don’t let me die.” For @whatif-animagineblog‘s birthday challenge!

Word Count:  1,995

Author’s Note:  Happy birthday, darlin’! I hope you like it! I’m so sorry it was out a day late, it’s been in my drafts for like three days waiting for me to make a header.

Cryllic Key:  Боже - Bozhe - God, Да - Da - yes

“Pasha!”

You pressed your hands to either side of Pavel’s face, gently lifting his eyelids with the pads of your thumbs. His pupils constricted. The navigator groaned.

“Pasha! Come on, man, I know you’re in there.”

Moving your hands to his shoulders, you shook him.

“Y/N?” he moaned.

“Yeah, Pash, it’s me. Come on, wake up.”

“V… vhat…?” His eyelids fluttered open. “Vhat happened?”

“I don’t know,” you said, rubbing your hands up and down his arms as he came to.

He breathed deeply and crinkled his nose. The whole ship smelled like the inside of a locker. He looked around at the fallen bodies on the bridge.

“Vhat…”

“Something’s very wrong. I need your help, okay?”

“Vhat happened to everyone?” he sat up, looking across the helm at Hikaru who was draped over his station.

“I’ll explain on the way, alright? Please, come with me.”

He just nodded. Struggling to his feet, he leaned over to his friend and pressed two fingers to his throat.

“Everyone seems to be alive still,” you clarified, winding a hand under him and laying your palm flat across his chest to help him stay vertical. “I think there’s something airborne. I need you to help me find out where it’s coming from.”

“Vhy me, vhy not Mr. Scott?” Pavel asked as he let you lead him across the bridge past the reclined body of the Captain to the turbolift.

“I tried, he’s not responding to me,” you admitted. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I feel like I’ve been drinking for a veek,” he pressed his hand to his head. “But I sink I can manage.”

“Good,” you said, pressing the command for engineering. “I did what I was able to at the station on deck 6. The best I could elicit was that there was air quality controller malfunction.”

“Are ve ze only two awake?” Pavel asked, placing a hand on your shoulder for balance.

“Yeah.”

“How did you vake up?” he asked.

“I never fell asleep. I’ve been in my office all morning, and I only just realized something was wrong when I came out for lunch. The best reason I can think of is that Doctor McCoy gave some experimental bronchodilator this morning for that cough I picked up on shore leave. It must be doing enough for me to keep me conscious.”

“Not ewen Mr. Spock?”

“No. So much for that superior Vulcan physiology he’s always boasting about.”

The turbolift doors swished open on the engineering deck and Pavel took the lead.

“If zere is somesing wrong viss z’atmospheric controller, I should be able to find it. Fixing it, on ze ozer hand…”

“You’ve got me. I’ll get you what you need.”

Pavel made a noise and stopped short at a control panel. He typed in his authorization code and started poking around.

“Aye, z’atmospheric calibration system is completely offline.”

“How do we fix it?”

“I can reroute power from here, but zere is a bigger problem.”

He fell silent as he read the statistics on the screen.

“So?” you prompted, touching his arm.

“Zere is… I don’t ewen know vat to call it. Some kind of foreign compound in z’air supply itself.”

“Like a biological weapon?” A shock of fear went down your spine. “I’ve been actively breathing it for hours.”

“Aye, aye.” He glanced sideways at you with a quirk of his lips. “I am running a chemical analysis now.”

As the process bar progressed, Pavel reached out and took your hand.

“You’re going to be fine,” he assured you.

“If we get the atmospheric controller back online, will that clear the… whatever it is out?” you asked, trying to take your mind off of the substance of the particulate that had likely permeated every cell in your body by now. Being awake for the duration of this incident meant that you’d inspired more air than anyone else on the ship as they were all unconscious.

“As far as I know,” Pavel said, pulling his hand back as the screen flashed the results. “Okay. It is… spores? Ve should be able to -”

The computer cut him off with a bright red popup.

“What the-” you started.

“Oh Боже,” he cursed. “Ze source of the spores appears to be on ze ship. In ze main air dispersion compartment.”

“The source?” you asked, looking over his shoulder. The blocks of text all ran together.

“Aye, zere seems to be an organic… somesing in ze main dispersion compartment. And zese spores, according to zis, are highly toxic in large quantities.”

“Peachy,” you hissed.

“How can ve possibly get close enough to it to get it out?”

“Transporter?” you suggested.

“No, zat area is highly shielded against transportation technology,” Pavel countered.

“Alright,” you straightened up. Highly toxic. No transporter. Great. “Do we get the controller back online first and then get the thing out of here?”

“I vould not recommend it,” Pavel mused, tapping at the screen. “Considering vhere zis sing is, turning on ze controller might drag it into ze turbines.”

“Fabulous,” you snapped, throwing your hand up. “Alright, fine. I guess we’re just gonna have to go in and get it out ourselves.”

--

“Zis is going to vork,” Pavel muttered as you sealed the wrist closures on his enviro suit.

“It’s going to work,” you reiterated.

Pavel shook his head as you dropped his hand.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in?” you asked.

“No,” he blurted, snapping his eyes up. “No. I cannot… I could not live viss myself if anysing happened.”

You sighed.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” you promised. “This suit is impervious to literally anything when sealed. Just get the thing in the box and get back out. We’ll fire it out an airlock and then it’s all over.”

Pavel just nodded.

You touched your palm to the side of his face briefly before dipping to retrieve the suit’s helmet.

“Ze container…”

“Just as airtight as the suit. Just get the thing into it and bring it back out,” you reiterated the plan for the hundredth time.

You lowered the helmet over his head and activated the seal. You handed him the box and stood back.

“You can do this.”

Pavel nodded again, turning to Jefferies tube access port.

“I’ll monitor all your vitals from right here, I promise,” you said when he didn’t move.

He turned back to you and stepped up to you, placing a hand on your arm.

“Don’t let me die,” he said.

“You won’t.” You stood on your toes and kissed the side of his helmet. “I won’t let anything happen. Now get in there.”

Pavel turned back and climbed into the Jefferies tube. You sealed the door behind him and stepped up to your terminal, watching the helmet cam feed. You set your comm on the top of the terminal.

“Can you hear me, Pash?”

“Да,” he groaned.

“Good,” you muttered as you tapped the terminal screen, pulling up the schematic of the tube system. At the upper end of his current tube was the access port for the air circulation system.

Pavel opened the access port and a plume of dusty, green haze puffed out. He tossed the box into the tube and climbed up after it, sealing the door behind himself.

“There’s no way to ventilate that Jefferies tube without powering on the whole system is there?” you asked.

“No,” Pavel said. “Ve’ll just have to deal viss zat later.”

“If you say so,” you muttered. “Okay, Pash, next access hatch is the one. If your readouts are accurate, the organism is ten feet from the door.”

Pavel stopped. His helmet cam was aimed directly at the access panel.

“Pash? What’s wrong?”

“Y/N,” he started, “if zis does not vork-”

“Pasha, don’t-”

“I love you.”

You pressed your lips together.

“I love you, too,” you said. “Nothing is going to happen, I promise.”

Pavel reached out and activated the panel.

The hatch slid aside and there, ten feet into the compartment, was a toaster-sized, teal mass. It pulsed periodically as though breathing, expelling a plume of thick green spores with each exhale.

“It looks like a tribble,” you mused.

“Now is not ze time,” Pavel grumbled, crawling into the compartment, pushing the box ahead of him. “Should I be able to smell this through the suit?”

“No,” you said, pulling up a schematic of his suit. If there was a leak, the spores could kill him. You scanned over every inch of the suit readouts on the screen. “Pash, I’m reading all clear over here, it might just be your imagination. Or the spores on the bridge permeated your uniform.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t panic,” you urged him. “Just get the thing in the box and get out of there.”

Pavel grumbled and pushed the box to within two feet of the mass. He crawled up next to the box and looked down at it.

“Ziss is disgusting,” he said.

“The box, Pasha.”

He opened the box and reached out to pick up the organism. It peeled off the floor with a wet slurping sound.

Pavel gagged and dropped the creature in the box, flipping the lid closed and sealing it.

“Vat about ze suit now? I’ve touched it.”

“I… hadn’t thought of that,” you said through grit teeth. “I’m on it. Just get out of the compartment and back into the Jefferies tube. I’ll get the air quality control system back online and then… we’ll figure it out.”

“Aye, aye,” Pavel said, pushing the box back the way he came and crawling after it.

Once he was back in the Jefferies tube with the hatch sealed, Pavel let out a breath.

“I am sealed. Ze actiwation control should be on screen. Just tap ze button.”

You pushed the suit schematic aside and hit the control that Pavel had left open on the screen when he set everything up.

There was a low thrumming noise and you felt a cool breeze on the back of your neck.

“I think it’s on,” you said, selecting the Jefferies tube on the screen. “Your air quality is improving.”

“Now vat about ze suit?” Pavel asked, settling into a crouch by the tube entrance.

“I’m open to ideas,” you replied, starting to search through your available options on the terminal screen. “I could try to run decon… is that even possible in that tube?”

“Not to z’extent ve need,” Pavel said, turning toward the box. “Vat are ve going to do vis zis thing? It looks alive…”

“I know. Maybe we can put it in quarantine in medbay?” you mused as you looked through your options. “Do you know your way to sickbay through the Jefferies system?”

“I could probably figure it out, vhy?”

“Get over there. There’s a decon station there that we can use. Doctor McCoy might even be awake by the time you arrive.”

“Vhat about you?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“But when I come out of ze tube -”

“I’ve got more than one enviro suit, Pash.”

---

Pavel stepped out of the decon unit and stretched.

McCoy stood with you outside the door waiting for him.

“You’re alright?” he asked.

“Right as rain,” you said with a sideways glance at the doctor.

“So vhat’s going to happen to zat sing?” Pavel asked the doctor.

“I’ll just keep in quarantine for the time being. Run some tests.”

“I imagine we’ll have a great time figuring out how it got in there,” you added.

McCoy hummed his agreement.

“You’re free to go, Chekov,” he said, turning on his heel and leaving. He had over nine hundred people to triage following this incident.

“So, nosing happened to me after all,” Pavel announced triumphantly.

“You say that like you expected something to happen.” You punched his arm. “You know I’d never let something bad happen to you.”

“I know,” he affirmed, circling his arm around your shoulders and walking with you out of the medbay.

#pavel x reader #chekov x reader #pavel chekov x reader #WhatIf-Birthday2K17

[tech-battery]

Nvidia RTX 3070 review: AMD’s stopwatch just started ticking a lot louder

Talking about the RTX 3070, Nvidia's latest $499 GPU launching Thursday, October 29, is tricky in terms of the timing of today's review embargo. As of right now, the RTX 3070 is the finest GPU in this price sector by a large margin. In 24 hours, that could change—perhaps drastically.

Ahead of AMD's big October 28 event, dedicated to its RDNA 2 GPU line, Nvidia gave us an RTX 3070 Founders Edition to test however we saw fit. This is the GPU Nvidia absolutely needed to reveal before AMD shows up in (expectedly) the same price and power range.

Inside of an Nvidia-only bubble, this new GPU is a sensation. Pretty much every major RTX 2000-series card overshot with proprietary promises instead of offering brute force worth its inflated costs. Yet without AMD nipping at its heels, Nvidia's annoying strategy seemed to be the right call: the company established the RTX series' exclusive bonus processing cores as a major industry option without opposition, then got to wait a full year before competing with significant power jumps and delectable price cuts.

Last month's RTX 3080 saw that strategy bear incredible fruit—even if ordering that $699 GPU is still seemingly impossible. But what happens when Nvidia scales down the Ampere 7nm promise to a $499 product that more people can afford? And how will that compare to whatever AMD likely has to offer in the same range?

Future-proofing around the 1440p threshold

We can only answer some of those questions today. (Until Nvidia proves otherwise, we assume that availability will continue to be a massive asterisk for this and all other RTX 3000-series cards.) In good news, at least, the RTX 3070 gets off to a roaring start by rendering its 2019 sibling, the RTX 2070 Super, moot. Both debuted at $499, but the newer option typically approaches, and occasionally bests, the RTX 2080 Ti (whose $1,199 MSRP in 2018 sure feels like a kick in the ray-traced teeth nowadays).

But RTX 3070's price-to-performance ratio comes with one significant caveat: a not-so-future-proofed VRAM capacity of 8GB, shipping in the not-as-blistering category of GDDR6. That matches the best RTX 2000-series cards but is surpassed by higher-speed GDDR6x VRAM in pricier RTX 3000-series GPUs.

The thing is, "future-proofed" for PC gaming is relative. What's going to matter in 3D processing in the near future, both for the games you love and the systems you run them on? If you're set on having the crispest native 4K rendering for the foreseeable future, the RTX doesn't leapfrog over the 2080 Ti, particularly with a VRAM allotment that could stress any games that ship with 4K-specific texture packs.

But if you're favoring a lower-resolution panel, perhaps 1440p or a widescreen 1440p variant—and Steam's worldwide stats make that a safe assumption—then your version of future-proofing revolves more around processing power and ray-tracing potential. In those respects, the RTX 3070 currently looks like the tippy-top option for a "top-of-the-line" 1440p system... with the bonus of Nvidia's Deep Learning Super-Sampling (DLSS) for surprisingly competitive fidelity in 4K resolutions, should gamers upgrade their monitor between now and the next GPU generation. (Until AMD shows us otherwise, Nvidia's proprietary DLSS 2.0 pipeline remains the industry's leading upscaling option, and game studios have started embracing it in droves.)

In other words, if you're more interested in high frame rates on resolutions less than 4K, and you want GPU overkill for such a CPU-bound gaming scenario, the RTX 3070 is this year's best breathing-room option for the price... at least, unless AMD announces an even more compelling proposition on October 28.

Strong, but not the 2080 Ti topper we expected

The above collection of game benchmarks mostly mirrors the ones I used for my RTX 3080 review, and once again, these tests err on the side of graphical overkill. You may have zero interest in using an RTX 3070 with 4K resolutions or maximum graphical slider values, and that's understandable. Instead, these tests are designed to stress the GPU as much as possible to present the clearest comparisons between the listed cards. Look less at the FPS values and more at the relative percentages of difference. (The exception comes from "DLSS" tests, which I'll get to.)

Even though this year's $499 RTX 3070 clearly exceeds the power of last year's $699 RTX 2080 Super, I tested it against last year's $499 RTX 2070 Super as well to show exactly what a difference a year makes in terms of price-to-power proposition. The percentage differential between the 70-suffix GPUs varies based on what kind of software you're testing, but the most massive surge in performance can be found when ray-tracing effects are toggled at pure 4K resolution. Wolfenstein Youngblood, in particular, sees the 3070 double the 2070 Super's frame rates in its ray-tracing benchmarks.

While Nvidia has made benchmarking claims that put the RTX 3070 ahead of the RTX 2080 Ti, that doesn't necessarily bear out in my testing—but this is because the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition shipped in 2018 with a remarkable capacity for safe overclocking. The 3070 FE, like its 2070 Super sibling, seriously lacks headroom for such safe overclocking for either its core or memory clocks, as managed by tests-at-every-step automation by programs such as EVGA X1. Testing was nearly identical on the 3070 with or without a scant EVGA X1 overclock applied, and as such, I've left its OC tests out of this roundup. Remember: as Nvidia's Founders Editions go, generally, so do other vendors' variants. So we're not sure other vendors will squeeze much more out of the same model.

Thus, the 2080 Ti still pulls ahead in most, but not all, of the above gaming benchmarks, whether ray tracing is or isn't enabled. When comparing both cards' specs, this difference checks out, since the newer 3070 cuts back on certain components for efficiency's sake (not to mention that dip in VRAM capacity). Categories like Tensor cores and RT cores are listed as "newer-generation" versions for the 3070, and the bigger 3000-series cards beat the 2080 Ti both in quantity and generation, so they get the clearer wins. The 3070 finally sees that efficiency trade fail to win out in certain testing scenarios—nothing tragic, mind you, but worth noting in case you'd hoped for across-the-board wins against the 2080 Ti. That's 184 "third-generation" Tensor cores in the 3070, versus 544 older Tensor cores in the 2080 Ti, and 46 "second-generation" RT cores in the 3070, versus 68 older RT cores in the 2080 Ti.

Size, ports, noise

The RTX 3070's efficiency figures into its size reduction, down to 9.5 inches in length (242mm) from the RTX 2070 Super's 10.5 inches (but not quite as small as the original RTX 2070's 9-inch length). Like other 3000-series FEs, the RTX 3070 utilizes what Nvidia calls a "flow-through" design that pulls cool air from below and pushes hot air out in two directions: through its "blower," out the same side as its DisplayPort and HDMI connections, and upward in the same direction as your motherboard's other components. Basically, the size reduction may help you cram an RTX 3070 into a smaller case, but you'll still want to guarantee considerable airflow.

Speaking of connections, they're identical to what you'll find on the RTX 3080: three for DisplayPort, one for HDMI 2.1. (If you missed it, Nvidia quietly dumped the VR-friendly USB Type-C "VirtualLink" port found in most RTX 2000-series cards from this year's GPU generation, perhaps owing to how few VR headset manufacturers bothered supporting it.) Additionally, the 3070 continues the RTX 3000-series trend of employing a smaller 12-pin connector for power, though it ships with an adapter for today's common 8-pin PSU standard. In the 3070's case, it only requires one 8-pin connection to a PSU, not two (or a mix of 8-pin and 6-pin), even though it maxes out at a 220W power draw. (The 2070 Super requires one 8-pin and one 6-pin connector with a power-draw maximum of 215W.)

And when Nvidia brags that the RTX 3070 runs quieter, the company means it. While I lack solid decibel-measuring equipment to tell you exactly how much quieter this card runs than its competition, it's safe to say that its full-load mix of fan noise and operational hum probably won't be the loudest component in your system. And with my ear directly up to it, its noticeable noise certainly wasn't louder than, say, a PlayStation 4 Pro. (Nvidia has described its noise level as "up to 16dBA quieter" than the original RTX 2070 Founders Edition.)

Thoughts on 1440p, ray tracing, and DLSS

The above benchmarks make clear that 4K/60fps performance in newer PC games, with all settings maxed out, isn't a given on the RTX 3070. But it's important to note that many of these tests include overkill settings for things like anti-aliasing, shadow resolution, and even "maximum" ray-tracing effects, all meant to guarantee maximum GPU impact for the sake of accurate comparisons between the GPUs. In the real world, you can safely drop most of these from "ultra," "extreme," or "insane" while still exceeding most console ports' settings and barely looking discernible from their over-the-top maximums, and the results often land darned close to 4K/60.

Scale down to a resolution like 1440p and you'll hope for frame rates that take advantage of monitors rated for 144fps and above. One good indicator of the RTX 3070's capabilities is Borderlands 3, a particularly demanding (and arguably inefficient) game that doesn't leverage Nvidia-specific GPU perks while packing its scenes with dynamic lighting, alpha particle effects, cel-shaded detail, and massive draw distances. When put through its benchmark wringer at 1440p on my testing rig (i7-8700K OC'ed to 4.7GHz, 32GB DDR-3000 RAM), BL3 averages 99.5fps at the "high" settings preset or 88.0fps at "ultra." Not 144fps, mind you, but I think of BL3 as a good "floor" for performance, easily outdone by older and more efficient 3D games.

Without ray tracing turned on in 3D games from the past few years, RTX 3070's frame rates have easily surpassed 80fps with tons of bells and whistles enabled at 1440p resolution, and they've easily gone higher with every drop in settings from there. But what happens on the RTX 3070 with ray tracing turned on?

As of press time, there's an interesting combined trend for just about everything I've tested with some version of DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR): the harmonious pairing of Nvidia's latest "DLSS 2.0" standard. Should you run GPU-pounders like last year's Control or this month's Watch Dogs Legion at near-max settings and 1440p resolution, plus ray tracing enabled, you can expect frame rates at roughly 50 to 55fps on the RTX 3070. But a funny thing has happened with DLSS 2.0: much improved support for DLSS upscaling from 906p to 1440p. Last year, I would've told you that you were crazy to upscale from anything lower than 1440p, in terms of pixel smudginess.

When testing at 1440p, Control has seen its DLSS 2.0 translation of tiny details, particularly text on posters, improve compared to native rendering plus temporal anti-aliasing (TAA). Meanwhile, WDL's benchmark is keen on adding rain to its mix, which is clever on Ubisoft's part; this is the exact kind of detail that DLSS has struggled to render in games like Death Stranding, yet in this newer game, rain materializes almost identically when its 906p signal is upscaled with DLSS' machine-learning wizardry.

With both of these games' DLSS modes toggled at this 906p upscale, frame rates jump to the 78-84fps range... and that's with ray tracing enabled ("high" RT settings in Control, "medium" RT settings in WDL).

A masterful game of GPU dominoes

Nvidia really couldn't have set these dominoes up any better. Its RTX line of GPUs has separate components to handle the above fancy features—dedicated ray-tracing cores and dedicated "tensor" cores to handle ML-assisted computation. The way its ray-tracing cores work lines up neatly with industrywide standards like DXR, which means it's a drop in the programming budget to implement those in ways that will work on competitors' GPUs and on brand-new gaming consoles. And the tensor cores' upscaling methods line up neatly with TAA, a particularly common anti-aliasing standard that Nvidia's DLSS effectively piggybacks off. As of DLSS 2.0, the model does not require game-specific coding to work (though developers still have to partner with Nvidia to implement it). For Nvidia gamers, then, the ray-tracing proposition going forward is clear: if you want to turn it on, you'll almost certainly have the simultaneous option of toggling the efficiency of Nvidia's dedicated RT cores and the efficiency of their DLSS implementation. In terms of pixel fidelity, DLSS 2.0 has pretty much proven to be a wash, with games generally enjoying a mix of sharper and blurrier elements depending on the scene (with neither being egregious, with the notable exception of Death Stranding's peskiest, super-detailed moments like cut-scene details and screen-filling rain). And that's a wash visually, not computationally; the proof is in the frame-rate pudding.

We still don't know if AMD can possibly compete when its future cards have their ray-tracing modes turned on. Maybe we're in for a $500-ish scenario where AMD can beat Nvidia's rendering performance in a game like Borderlands 3 at a better price-to-performance ratio, only to lose out on the same performance gains with ray tracing turned on. Having tested Watch Dogs Legion over the past week, I can safely say its RT perks—as slathered over a massive, open-world city full of reflective surfaces and other handsome light-bounce effects—are difficult to disable now that I have a midrange GPU that can reasonably handle said effects at "1440p."

Meaning, I could turn them off... but I no longer want to. It's hard to go back to plain ol' rasterization after seeing so many light sources realistically emerge no matter what time of day or scenario I'm in. As I pilot a drone past a shiny office building, or drive in a shiny, future-London car past a beautiful landmark, I see objects in WDL reflect or bounce light in ways that acknowledge objects or light sources that otherwise aren't on the screen. This is what ray tracing does: it accounts for every nearby light bounce, even if it's not on screen, to render the whole world whether you can see it directly or not.

Plus, if you have dreams of one day toggling ray-tracing power at 4K with this card, WDL on an RTX 3070 at "high" settings gets up to a 58fps average in 4K resolution with RT at "medium," so long as I use DLSS to upscale to 4K from... wait for it... 1440p native. Those upscaling results are convincingly crisp, as well.

Thus, as I said in the beginning, your definition of a "future-proofed" GPU will likely drive your interest in what the RTX 3070 has to offer for $499. We're about to see even more interesting ray tracing in games—including at least one we're not allowed to talk about yet. You'll have to take our word for it, in terms of how exciting it is to live inside of some games' ray-traced worlds.

If that's not your bag, due to visual preferences or budgetary reasons, I get it. But it remains to be seen whether a cheaper RTX card can deliver the same future-proofing in the 1080p range or whether AMD will arrive with a perfect amount of budget-minded power and ray tracing—or even a butt-kicker of a card that skips ray tracing altogether in favor of powerful, traditional 3D rendering for a damned good price. For now, in the 1440p range, Nvidia has the clear lead... for at least 24 hour

[postproductionsoftwarekenh9-blog]

How to Save Money on collaborative editing visual studio code

Once the project has been completely offline edited, the original media will be assembled in the online editing stage. When I looked at the post-production comapany, Films @ 59, based in Bristol, I found it very confusing that there are online and offline editors working there. I have no idea what they do in two different roles, however, I have researched the definition on online and offline editing through several websites such as Wikipedia and mediacollege.com. Online and offline editing is very common in TV and other media projects which they hardly mentioned in film because of the blurred boundaries. I noticed that all of the offline editors working for Films @ 59, are freelancers.

Manage, Ingest, Share, Edit, Distribute, Archive, Transcode your media

The Adobe MAX event where this new version of PPro launched also saw the launch of a free iPad video editing app from Adobe called Premiere Clip. But it gets even better (and more useful) because you can also load a sequence from an existing project in the source monitor and open that sequence from the same project in a Source Monitor timeline. That timeline is editable in that you can trim delete and add clips to a timeline that’s open in the source monitor. It took me awhile to figure out how to open the Source Monitor timeline for a sequence within the same project but if you just go to the settings wrench in the srouce monitor there’s a new option up top to Open Sequence in Timeline.

Can you buy Adobe Premiere Pro permanently?

The top three programs to use for YouTube video editing are iMovie, Adobe Premiere Pro CC, and Final Cut Pro X. The first is fantastic for beginner editors and is completely free. The other two are leading industry standards that have been developed for decades to become ever more flexible and powerful.

When you relaunch a project file, Premiere will automatically regenerate the necessary cache files for the media in that project. The only drawback to this is that if you re-open a particularly large project (i.e. hundreds or thousands of clips), this could take a few minutes.

Can I buy Adobe Premiere?

Open the Effects panel (Shift+7), enter change to color in the search field, and drag the Change to Color effect to the clip. Open the Effect Controls panel (Shift+5). In the Change to Color section, use the From eyedropper to sample the color you want to replace. The color changes to red by default.

My guess is Team Projects is Adobe's innovative way of satisfying both customer demand and company profitability. There's no doubt that if Adobe included Team Projects in Creative Cloud, they would be forced to raise the subscription cost. Fully integrated with Adobe Premiere Pro, Metus MAM provides the simplicity of reaching content in the central archive without exiting Premiere Pro and makes the editing process integrated. With the Metus MAM plug-in, editors can use Adobe Premiere Pro to reach the central archive, drag and drop the desired content to the Premiere Pro timeline and automatically import content before rendering. This new feature saves time and effort while making the editing and archiving process easier for editors.

Photo Asset Manager

Obviously, if you’re editing larger projects, those cache folders might get pretty large in size too, making some kind of management necessary and reasonable.

At a minimum, the DAM system should tell you if and when an asset was transferred to a Social Media location using any built-in capabilities.

It works differently running post production software on my intel i5 laptop from a lot of video editing apps, however, because it separates a video clip's audio track from its soundtrack.

If this is your first time addressing project management for creative teams, then buckle up.

Consolidate your digital media assets - organized, secure and available in the OpenText Cloud.

No matter how many times it’s repeated, this is a visually arresting gimmick.

Any project created in Adobe After Effects CC can be easily exported via the Daniel codec for use with a Cinegy Air PRO playlist. 2017 had the issue when first implemented and it was resolved with an update last year sometime. So why would Adobe release the new 2018 version with the same error causing issue?

How do I buy digital assets?

What Does a Digital Asset Manager Do? Digital Asset Managers, as you might imagine, are responsible for handling an organization's digital assets. This could include ensuring digital files are named and stored appropriately in a digital library. It also typically entails developing strategies for managing these assets.

Project Management would work but those clips would remain full length. Merely deleting the Media Cache isn't likely to boost performance unless your hard drive was dangerously close to full. However, you can optimize Premiere’s performance a bit by using the Browse command (in the Media Preferences) to change the Media Cache locations. This may also be an ideal setup in collaborative environments (assuming very fast network storage) to prevent cache files needing to be generated on every user’s system.

Media Asset Processing and Transcoding

For massive projects, spread media across multiple drives so that the file sharing load is spread reasonably evenly across all your storage devices. On my system, I have one folder that holds all my Premiere projects and separate folders that hold media. These systems are now outdated thanks to the instantaneous nature of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Offline editing is part of the post-production process of filmmaking and television production in which raw footage is copied and the copy only is then edited, thereby not affecting the camera original film stock or video tape.

I tried this new feature on sequences that hadn’t worked in the past including C300 and RED edits as well as some ProRes. The C300 worked like a charm transcoding very quickly with only the video media in the edit and 10 frame handles. I tried to transcode to both QuickTime ProRes and DNXHD 175X and the transcodes were very fast and accurate with the exception of one error where it didn’t work with a large ProRes file transcoding to XDCAM.

REAL-TIME 8K WORKFLOW WITH NVIDIA GPUS

This is commonly used to store a house format as the default media for an asset, while still giving editors the flexibility of opening 4K, or any other version of the media, from Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Also new for NAB 2017, editors can edit media in Adobe Premiere Pro CC as well as Vizrt’s pre-editing tools and Viz One will automatically retain the edits. This allows the user to visually track and navigate edit relations in Viz One and simplifies many tasks, such as managing media rights and locating source material.

How do I manage media in Premiere Pro?

First of all, Adobe Premiere Pro is not free software. However, there is an option to get it for free. Basically, you can get a fully-functional 7-day trial version of any Adobe app - even a whole Creative Cloud is an option.

Ingest, Extract & Embed Metadata

Now when you load a timeline from the Media Browser it automatically opens a sequences tab called Name (Source Monitor) that is read only. Premiere has always had a Project Manager but what it was never able to do is transcode and what it wasn’t very good at was truncating clips to collect only what was used in the edit. I have had only partial success with the Project Manager over the years and with some formats it would never work properly with Premiere copying the entire clip instead of just the media used with handles specified.

[dynoguard]

NaNoWriMo: Return of the DinoKnights (Day 12)

Day 1 & 2 text is here.

Day 3 is here.

Day 4 is here.

Day 5 is here.

Day 6 is here.

Day 7 is here.

Day 8 is here.

Day 9 is here.

Day 10 is here.

Day 11 is here.

Today’s update is extra long, so I have included a read more break to not completely destroy everyone’s timelines. 

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Jason asked. The dark hallways of Science Tower One reminded him of his father’s video games; a maze of doors, winding hallways, vaulted ceilings made of the same bits, rearranged over and over again. 

“It’s not.” Linn replied. “Not if we’re trying to get back to control. But we’re not.”

“Are you going to eat me?”

Linn stopped. She spun around with a hop. To Jason, she moved like a small bird, deliberate and graceful with bursts of erratic speed. “Eat you? Did that translate right?”

“You say we’re going to find your friend but we’re just wandering in the dark.” Jason said. “And the teeth and claws and stuff.”

“You don’t like my claws?”

“It’s not-” Jason shook his head. “Just, if you’re going to eat me, give me a head start.”

Linn lowered her head but kept her snout forward, her neck curving gracefully, the feathers on her forearms fanning out as she clicked the large, curved, sickle-like claws on each foot against the floor.  “Why would I give you a head start when I could just GOBBLE YOU UP!”

She lunged forward, jaws snapping open, her sharp teeth bared. Jason leapt backward. The back of his left leg caught the edge of the cylindrical decorative planter behind him, sending him tumbling, gracelessly, over a squat fern of what was (until today) an extinct species.  

Jason started to struggle to his feet in a panic when he heard Linn laughing. Her laughter came in bursts, starting as musical giggles then rising to full guffaws before halting with an inhalation of breath that sounded a bit like a goose honking. 

“Are you-” Linn managed to say through her laughter. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Jason said. Linn extended a clawed hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, he took it. It was smooth and scaled and softer than he expected. He could feel her claws against his skin, but as she helped him to his feet he did not feel even a scratch. Even when his weight shifted unexpectedly as he untangled himself from the plant. 

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. And your face, the look on your face!” Linn laughed. 

Jason flushed with embarrassment, his brown skin turning a darker shade for a moment. He leaned against a smooth section of the hallway wall. “Okay, yeah, if I’d been watching it would have been funny. But if you didn’t lure me down here to eat me-”

“You can talk and you’re not cooked, why would I eat you?” Linn paused. “You do cook your not-talking food, right?” 

“Yeah, we cook our food, most of the time.” Jason replied. “And we don’t eat anything that talks... that we know of.”

“Score two for humanity.” Linn laughed. “If we go to control, the adults are just going to put us in a corner until they figure everything out. So I’m being helpful, we’re going to meet Kyle where he’s going.”

“Where is-” The lights flickered on suddenly. Jason snapped his eyes closed against the sudden burst of light. 

“HEY THERE!-”

Jason turned to see the face of another dinosaur with its jaws wide open. He once against screamed and leapt back. This time Linn was there to catch him.

“-CU-CU-CUSTOMER!” The dinosaur was behind the wall Jason had been leaning on, which he could now see was a panel of black glass. The Dinosovian in the mirror resembled a green Tyrannosaurus Rex, though proportioned more like a human being and wearing a shiny, tailored purple jacket over a bodysuit similar to the one Linn wore.. He seemed vaguely plastic, a bit too angular, and his head plumage was coiffed into a ridiculous crest. “You look like you could use a snack with b-b-b-b-bite!” 

“Hey Mister Bite!” Linn chirped as if the creature were a life-long friend.

“Cu-cu-customer Linn-in-in.” The pitchman seemed to twitch and relocate within the glass as he spoke, An assortment of packages materialized around him, “Good to see you again. What can I g-g-get you?”

“It’s a vending machine?”

“You haven’t heard of Mister B-b-b-bite?” The pitchman turned its attention to Jason. “You must have been living under a r-r-r-ock.”

“Is it broken?” Jason asked. “Why does it talk like that?”

“It’s called sh-sh-showmanship!” Mister Bite replied. 

“Yeah, that’s kinda Mister Bite’s deal.” Linn said, turning her own attention to the screen. “Two Chomp-Chomps, a Drom-sized Splort, and- Jason what do you eat?”

“What?”

“Mostly meat, mostly veg?”

“Mix of both?”

“Make that two Drom-sized Splorts, and a Cerowrap.” 

“Coming right up, Cu-cu-customer Linn!” A series of clanking noises and thumps came from behind the wall as a short, catchy tune filled the air. “C-c--communications are down, your account will be debited once connections are re--re-restored!”

A small door, previously indistinguishable from the rest of the wall, opened, and a tray extended from it. On the tray were a pair of red plastic pitchers with silver writing that the translator told Jason’s mind was Dinosovian for “Splort!” Next two it were what looked like a pair of candy bars in silver wrappers and what appeared to be a burrito made with an unfamiliar leaf in place of a tortilla.  

“Thank you, Mister Bite.” Linn shoved one of the pitchers and the leaf-wrap into Jason’s hands. 

“No Pr-pr-problem! Come back when you need more B-b-bite in your d-d-day!” The plastic pitchman then vanished, the screen going blank, once again becoming a pane of black glass. 

“All this talk of eating you made me hungry.” Linn tore the wrapper off the first ‘Chomp-Chomp’. Jason had expected a candy bar of some stripe, but the package contained a tube of cured meat covered in a breading that was mostly small seeds. She took a bite.

Jason sniffed his wrap. It smelled like lettuce with a hint of mint. Under that lay the smell of unfamiliar spices and a hint of something meaty. “So is Mr. Bite like, artificially intelligent or just prerecorded?”

“Low-end AI, programmed to sell food, make small talk and tell some jokes.” Linn replied. “How do your vending machines work?”

“We push buttons.”

“Just like the ones in Historic Tuskaroon!” Linn chirped. “We went there one year on vacation. I got to shoot a brigand with a crossbow, I was all-”

Linn mimed firing the crossbow, then hopped to where she had aimed it. 

“And he was all-” and acted as though the bolt had struck her in the chest, grabbing the impact with a claw and dramatically flopping to the ground. “Ugh!”

Jason took a wary bite of his wrap. The leaf crunched, and tasted much like it smelled, like minty lettuce. The fillings were warm, something that tasted like almonds but was soft like baked beans, a ground, lightly spiced meat that was vaguely pork-like in texture and flavor, and a savory sauce. “This isn’t bad. What kind of meat is this?”

“Dragonfly.” Linn replied. She took a drink from her pitcher, holding it up and gently pouring into her mouth. “But its totally super-processed.”

"Gross.” Jason said. He took another bite anyway. He took an awkward sip from his pitcher. It was carbonated, like a soda and it tasted like coffee and almond milk with a hint of tropical fruit. 

“Huh...” Linn paused. “I just realized we don’t know if you can eat this stuff.”

“It doesn’t taste poisonous.” Jason said. 

“But you could be allergic or something. Maybe you should just let me-”

Jason noticed that both of Linn’s ‘Chomp Chomp’ wrappers were empty. “We can go back if you’re still hungry.”

“Eh, maybe in a bit.” Linn stopped in her tracks.

“What is it?” 

Linn turned to the wall on their left. A heavy door large enough to drive a car through was stuck, half-open. Or, more accurately, half of the door and a section of the wall was missing, Beyond the empty gap was a large, dark room. 

“This is Project Zero.” 

“I don’t come from your time, please explain.” Jason replied. 

“All the Science Towers have cutting edge science projects, some are classified. One in five dinos here work on Project Zero but no one talks about it.” She stepped through the gap, her tail swishing behind her.

“Wait, you said it was top secret.”

She stuck her head out of the door. “Which means if we’re going to find out what it is, we need to do it now, when no one is around to catch us.”

--

“Monsters! You have monsters just wandering around and you didn’t think to tell us?” Sheriff Horne glared at the human Gloria Anning. She and Sagan were the only ones in the control room when she finally made it up stairs. 

“Describe the monster... was it furry with big claws, yay big?” Gloria indicated about five feet with her hand, then mimed a pair of antlers with her hands “Or was it four legged with big horns?” 

“No, not an animal, a monster.” Horne seemed even larger and more powerful in her shiny blue armor and her frustration was palpable. “A monster, capital M, emphasis on the ‘onster’, it was like a living shadow full of purple lightning,”

“We don’t... have anything like that.” Sagan said.

“No. We don’t.” Gloria said. “Tell me more, Sheriff.”

Sheriff Horne recounted her journey to the vehicle bay in detail, omitting exactly how much the chittervoles had startled her.  

“Is it possible this ‘specter’ could be something you picked up on your way to the present?” Gloria asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not-” Sheriff Horne sighed. “I’m not good with the science. I know how to operate stuff-”

She slapped her armored hand against her chest plate for emphasis. “-but Linn’s the smart egg in the family.”

“And she’s wandering around with my son right now.” 

“That’s not good.” Horne said. “I mean, no offense, but I don’t know you, or your species. For all I know he could eat her.”

“He is a teenager.” Gloria interjected. 

Both Horne and Sagan looked at her.

“I’m kidding,” Gloria said. “I’m pretty sure we have more in common than we don’t. Which is is why instead of returning here now that power is on, everyone has wandered off and left us to worry.”

“She’s right.” Sagan said. “So do we wait here for them to come back or go looking for them.”

“Kyle and Zara are scientists at the top of their fields.” Sheriff Horne replied. “And Brach’s just as smart and curious.”

“So we-” Gloria began.

-better find them before they accidentally teleport us into the sun or unleash killer robots on the world or turn air into fire or something.” Horne said as she stomped toward the door to Section 2. 

#dinoknights #return of the dinoknights #sheriff horne #gloria anning #jason james #linn horne #scalie #sci-fi #dinosaur #nanowrimo

[hellohackedtechposts]

11 Best Cars for 2020

Next year is set to be a great year for cars. Plenty of 2020 model year vehicles have already been released. Here's a roundup of all the reviews, road tests, and first drives we've done so far. 2020 Chevrolet C8 Mid-Engine Corvette The C8 isn’t quite there. It has neither the limit-handling grace of a 718 Cayman or the ESP-assisted Stealth-Fighter moves of a Ferrari 488 Pista. What it does have is the ability to show Rolls-Royce how to tune a chassis: the new Vette genuinely rides like full-size luxury car. No car with sporting intention this side of McLaren’s Super Series of cars with trick hydraulic suspension even comes close to the suppleness of the Corvette. Astonishing magnetorheological-damper ride quality aside, the C8’s driving experience is a radical departure from previous Vettes because its controls are delicate. The electrically assisted steering is light, the shift paddles don’t require much effort from your fingers, and the (brake-by-wire) left pedal won’t stress your thigh muscles. The experience is more Ferrari than C7, which was a big brute of a thing that had a heavy clutch, a shifter that could sprain a limp wrist, and enough driveline lash to remind you what the gritty side of Detroit still looks like. Read our entire C8 Corvette review right here. 1 of 11 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Engaging launch control in a Taycan Turbo S is simple. Call up Sport Plus mode, hold the brake with your left foot, floor the accelerator with your right. Release the brake and try to keep your neck steady. There's no pre-heating the battery, no fussing with traction control settings, nothing. And no histrionics. Just 750 hp and 774 lb-ft of torque turned into forward motion without a hint of wheelspin and minimal noise. There's a good chance the loudest thing in the car will be the passengers as you rip to 60 mph quicker than a 911 Turbo S. You probably know that this is Porsche's first electric car, built on a brand-new platform that'll soon underpin a high-riding wagon, the Taycan Cross Turismo, and a swoopy Audi sedan, the E-Tron GT. It's a big deal, breaking all sorts of new ground for Porsche. It's meant to reduce the automaker's fleet fuel consumption and C02 emissions; it's meant to compete with the Tesla Model S; it's meant to start Porsche's gradual transition away from internal-combustion. And at the end of the day, it has to live up to the Porsche name. Check out the rest of our Taycan review here. 2 of 11 2020 Audi RS 7 On the Autobahn, the RS 7's composure when pushed into triple-digit mph speeds is truly remarkable. The torque of the engine is addictive. You can roll on the throttle in a high gear and still expect to make great progress. This is a reverse-flow engine, with its two turbos residing in the valley of the "V," providing sharp throttle response. Audi's gearbox programming feels spot on too, and while the shifts don't have quite the same snap as those from a Porsche dual-clutch, they're more than quick enough. And when, inevitably, a truck driver pulls out in front of you, the brakes are excellent. The standard units are huge, but the cars we drove had the optional carbon-ceramics. When that box is ticked, you get 17.3-inch front rotors and 14.6-inch rear rotors with. Overkill? In a heavy luxury car capable of this sort of speed, possibly not. Check out the rest of our RS 7 review here. 3 of 11 2020 Dodge Charger Hellcat Widebody Going quickly in the Charger Hellcat Widebody is an exercise in patience. There’s so much power that opportunities to go flat-out don't present themselves often. But despite the car’s size, it gobbles up tighter sections of road with ease. There's surprisingly good feedback from the wheel and endless low-end torque. Grip from those Pirellis is unflappable, and on straighter, open sections of pavement, bravery and the law are the only things limiting your speed. And aerodynamics. Thanks to the drag from those wide fenders, top speed is down from 204 mph to 196. Read our full review of the Dodge Challenger Hellcat Widebody right here. 4 of 11 2020 Polestar 1 With wide (295-section rear, 275-mm at front) Pirelli P Zeros, the Polestar’s grip levels border on heroic—we’re talking about 5500 lbs when two passengers are on board—and so does its braking prowess. Six-piston front and four-piston rear Akebono calipers clam 15.7-inch and 15.4-inch rotors, respectively, which have both sufficient thermal mass and airflow to keep them cool even on the most insane mountain passes. The brake-pedal is by-wire, tuned well enough that the transition from regenerative to friction braking is impossible to discern. Yet the best part of the Polestar’s dynamics is its steering. Electrically assisted, of course, it has a perfect sense of straight-ahead, natural weighting (especially in its heaviest mode), and will send some information back to the driver about what the front tires are doing. Including, in the rare case, torque steer. This is the kind of steering we dream that BMW will one day, once again, produce. Read our full Polester 1 review right here. 5 of 11 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Those are crazy numbers, but the amazing thing is how the big-boy Shelby delivers it. This might be the most tractable 700-plus horsepower you'll ever saddle up to. Prod the accelerator in any gear, from any rpm, and you're met with a smooth, refined wave of thrust—no surges, no hiccups, no half-a-blink delay while the ECU figures out what to do with all that compressed air hammering against the intake valves. In every drive mode, the throttle response is as linear as a naturally-aspirated engine's. You just look around and realize that, oh, damn, you're on your way to tripling the speed limit. This is the dream of the supercharged engine: Grunt everywhere, served up the instant you brush your toe against the throttle, rushing you up to redline and never going breathless. It's a shame certain other automakers choose to double-underline their supercharged status, giving their pony cars hare-trigger throttle programming that makes it impossible to smoothly modulate power without barking the tires. Check out our entire GT500 first drive review here. 6 of 11 2020 Porsche 911 On turn-in, the 992’s steering rack tenses immediately. No slop, just hyper-accuracy. Porsche says the rack is 11 percent quicker than the 991’s. It’s not grainy and buzzing like the old stuff, but it stands out among modern electric racks. On throttle, the 4S’s wheel does go stiff, losing feel, but retaining accuracy. The numbness is likely a function of the powered front wheels, which receive 30 percent more torque than the last Carrera 4S. The car practically claws for grip mid-corner, muddying signals from the pavement to your palms. But the urgency with which a 992 4S exits a corner is batshit. It’s 911 GT3 RS fast. Maybe faster, thanks to that engine, that front end, and the ease of it all. Check out the entire first drive review of the 992 here. 7 of 11 2020 Jeep Gladiator On the roads of Sonoma county, the Gladiator was calm and composed. Jeep engineers squeezed almost all of the solid-axle weirdness out of the JL-generation Wrangler. In previous Jeeps, you'd get tossed side-to-side for a few agonizing seconds after clearing railroad tracks or big potholes. No more, and good riddance. The Gladiator takes the improvement even further, thanks to a wheelbase that's more than a foot and a half longer than the four-door Wrangler's—and more than three feet longer than that of the two-door. All that added wheelbase makes the Gladiator the smoothest-riding solid-axle Jeep you can buy. An Overland edition I drove up a winding coastal highway was whisper-quiet, with no wind noise from the split removable roof panels and no tire noise from the road-oriented 255/70R18 Bridgestone Dueler HT tires. The electric-assist hydraulic steering has a slightly quicker ratio in the pickup (to account for the added wheelbase), but its driving manner is still smooth, never twitchy, and the slight off-center dead spot I've noticed in every new Wrangler's steering was completely absent in the Gladiator. Read our entire Gladiator review right here. 8 of 11 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT R Pro There comes a moment on your way out of Hockenheim's fast left-hander when your speed in the AMG GT R Pro exceeds what a sane mind would recommend in the wet. The car then begins a four-wheel drift before the ESP goes tak-tak-tak-tak-tak and the intervention cuts the understeer, allowing for even more speed before you can test the ABS at the next corner. You don't know how much slower a standard GT R would be under the same conditions, but you do believe everything Mercedes says about the Pro's chassis enhancements, aero improvements, and the wet performance of Michelin's Pilot Sport Cup 2 ZPs. In a dark color without the vinyl stripes, the Pro will be a menacing toy. As a road car, it will be harder on your back than the standard R. On track, you might want to master the Pro before the inevitable Black Series drops the mic with, we assume, more than 600 horsepower. But talk about a good problem to have. Check out our entire first drive of the GT R Pro here. 9 of 11 2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 The Cayman’s steering is among today’s best electric-assist systems, buzzing and sharp. While the rack isn’t geared as short as what you find in some of the Cayman's sports car competitors (the hyper-direct steering in the Supra springs to mind), it’s accurate, fading into subconscious effort within a few corners. There’s zero slack at the wheel’s center. Effort is high, and it builds linearly as you lean the wheel toward full lock. Paired with front suspension borrowed from the 911 GT3, and a super-tight chassis, this steering makes the GT4 feel joyous. Read the full review for the new GT4 right here. 10 of 11 2020 Bentley Continental GT V8 With its twin-scroll turbos sitting inside the vee, throttle response is excellent, and Bentley-specific exhaust tuning gives this V-8 character that's missing in a Panamera Turbo. It's not loud, but bassy and growly, with an insistent thrum that encourages you to open the throttle just a little bit more. The engine pairs beautifully with the dual-clutch transmission. Thanks to what Bentley says was a lot of programming work, it nearly matches the refinement of a torque-converter auto, while offering crisper, quicker shifts. At Bentley's media drive event in the Napa Valley, all the available test cars were equipped with the optional active anti-roll-bar system. Their effect is like having the hand of god under the car, catching it almost instantly to cancel out any impending body roll. It's surreal—the car just doesn't roll, pitch or dive nearly as much as you expect from a car that weighs this much. Read the full article

#Automobile

[armory-rasa]

Leatherworking with gremble: the Anders brigandine

Alright, Anders fans -- let's talk brigandine.

PART I: SEWING

So most of the other Anders cosplays I've seen have done a quilted effect for his coat, which can also come out looking quite nice, but when I look at his outfit, I see brigandine. Brigandine is an armoring technique in the subset called "coat of plates" because it consists of small plates -- metal or heavy leather -- riveted to a garment of leather or heavy fabric. Since that's more in line with my skillset anyway, and considering that I've been hoarding scrap leather like some scrap-leather-hoarding dragon for just such an occasion, brigandine it was.

If Anders' coat is indeed meant to be brigandine, then it wasn't rendered right because it doesn't have enough rivets -- each rectangular plate needs 4 rivets (one in each corner) to attach it to the coat. 

It distresses me when I can't be screen-accurate, and distresses me even more when I can't be accurate because their costume doesn't actually make sense, but such is life.

**

So the first step is to make the coat that will form the backing onto which you rivet your plates. It's pretty basic; I took the pattern from a coat I'd done for an unfinished Thrall cosplay, which I believe had itself been adapted from an inquisitor coat. Original:

Pattern laid out:

Sorry I can't give you something printable, but it's just too big for that. =/ (Not to mention that you'll be adjusting it to fit you anyway.) You shouldn't have too much trouble drafting your own though, and it is a very forgiving pattern.

The piece in the foreground is the front, and the further-away piece is the back. The front looks considerably bigger, but only because I fold the center edges over like three times. Remember that the edges are not actually supposed to meet in the front -- he's got that line of O-rings over his chest, so you're going to be leaving like 3"~4" of space down the center. I think I might also have wound up dropping the neckline a bit, I'm not sure.

It's also worth noting that the hem on this pattern makes a pretty dramatic dip in the front -- rather than being the same length all around, it's shorter in the back and comes to a point in the front. This is not accurate to what Anders wears in-game, his coat is indeed all squared off, but guess what looks better? And guess what gremble cares about more?

Anyway, cut out your fabric:

I used a black microsuede, because I bought a metric fuckton of microsuede when Hancock was going out of business and it was cheaper than dirt, and now I have microsuede for days (weeks. years) and I use it for anything I can. However, you can use any material that is (A) sturdy and (B) fray-resistant. You're going to be putting rivets through it later, so tight, sturdy weaves are your friend.

And even if you can put the back pieces on a fold, cut 'em apart anyway, because we want to put a vent in the back:

Sew the seam down the center back, stopping about 12~14" from the bottom, and crossing over that point a couple times with like your buttonhole function to make the endpoint strong. Seriously, that point is going to have a lot of stress put on it later, you want it to hold.

Fold your seams over:

Stitch your seams down:

And yeah, there's where you can tell that I'm not actually all that good at sewing. Parallel, what is parallel?

Anyway, keep going and attach the front pieces to the back pieces along the sides. I can't remember if I did the same seam as above, or if I did flat felled seams for these. It doesn't really matter, either way:

But considering that I then felt the need to document how to make flat felled seams on the shoulders:

So now you get to try on the coat and make sure that it's not completely off base:

Is good to me.

Next I edged the neckline and the armholes with bias tape. Goddamn do I hate bias tape.

But it makes it pretty tidy:

Alright, now it's time to do the center-front edges. We are making them VERY THICK AND VERY STIFF. I have seen too many Anders costumes where the weight of the O-rings drags down the edges of the coat, it is not a good look, but it's pretty easy to avoid if you plan ahead. So when I was making my coat I (1) folded the edge over twice (2) ironed some interfacing into it and (3) sandwiched a strip of felt into it. And I'm still not sure it was enough -- if I had it to do over again, I'd probably work a strip of 5-6 oz veg-tan in there instead. Truly, I don't think it's possible to make this part TOO stiff, while on the flip side, it's not going to look sexy if your coat is sagging under the weight of the O-rings.

So here is my felt and interfacing, both of which were 1" wide:

Iron on the interfacing:

Fold the felt into the edge:

Pin it, check how much of a gap it leaves down your front:

(This coat, for the record, is not the slightest bit adjustable. You make it, and then you don't gain or lose weight, ever.)

If the sizing is all good, then sew it down.

Time for your O-rings -- three of them are attached to the coat, the fourth one is on the belt, but needs to be spaced proportionally to the other three. Here is the spacing that worked for me (a 5'10" dude):

Test, 1, 2, 3...

You can see how the O-rings are too heavy for the straps holding them up, with more of their weight on the bottom instead of being distributed evenly -- that is okay. For this test I just snipped off some lengths of the bias tape I'd used on the neck & arms, so it's very thin fabric, but for the final version I use Legit Actualfax Leather (tm) and it is sturdy enough to hold the rings correctly.

Okay, time to put the gold edging down the center.

Full disclosure: I HATE bias tape. Like, everyone who knows me has at some point accidentally let themselves get cornered into having to listen to me rant about bias tape, how I hate it, let me count the ways. I get why it's used in cosplay so much -- so many costumes for the small-screen, be it anime or panels in a comic book, where you don't have much space for detail, add visual interest to a costume by putting contrast edging on it -- which, irl, is achieved with bias tape. But look the fuck around you, how many people have bias tape on their clothes?? Fuckin none, is the answer. So when I see bias tape, it feels strikingly cartoonish. It looks like cosplay; it doesn't look like something that anyone would ever actually wear out and about.

...and then there's Anders with his fucking gold bias tape down the center of his fucking coat, and all over the edges of his cute lil bolero jacket.

Sir, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Anyway, I wound up doing gold piping on the jacket--

--because it looks so much less shit than bias tape, but there really was no choice but to do a very wide band of gold fabric for the edging of the coat. This is, strictly speaking, not bias tape since I didn't do it on the bias -- it was wide enough that I thought bias tape might pull weird, and straight enough that I could get away with doing it on the grain, so I did. Oh yeah, and I put interfacing on it to keep it smooth, so I guess the center edges actually have THREE layers of interfacing to keep them sturdy:

Ignore the plates -- I will explain how to do the plates later, but I am encouraging you to do as I say not as I do and put the gold edging on it now, not after you've already riveted the plates, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT PUT THIS STEP OFF UNTIL YOU'VE ALREADY PUT THE PLATES ON IT.

If you can incorporate the gold-edging step into the hemming-the-edges step you can probably make something tidier than what I came up with. I did a zigzag stitch along the edge to keep it from fraying and then tucked it under and stitched it down by hand, but it was not fast, and the underside is not pretty, so I am not exactly holding this up as the definitive way to do it.

And when it was done, I hated it. It looked like cheap shit, just like all things made of bias tape. So gross, why oh why did I try to make it look like the screencaps instead of doing something more realistic, o god I hate bias tape so much.

Luckily, it turns out that when you pile on the rest of the costume, the bias tape on the coat looks less awful. ‘ “It looks less awful now,” I said grudgingly’ is pretty much the story of this cosplay.

PART II: LEATHER

So now that you've got the garment that's going to be your backing, you need to figure out how the leather plates are supposed to fit. I sized mine based on the screencaps, assuming Anders was my height (5'10"), so the top 7 rows came out to 3.75" L x ~2.5" W and the bottom two rows are 4.5" L x ~2.5" W. (I can't tell what width they were supposed to be, but they come out to about two and five-eighths inches.) Since some of the pieces have to get trimmed to fit around curves, I started by making a bunch rectangles out of graph paper and pinning them where the plates are going to end up:

TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS STEP. You will need it later when you've got your plates all done and you're trying to remember how to arrange them.

I did the front half from beginning to end, and then went back and did the back half later, but it would probably be easier to do it all in one go. I just didn't have proof that it would work as intended, so I was holding off on doing the whole thing.

This is my box of scrap leather that I'd been saving for a rainy day, and since it was literally flooding in Sacramento during this project, I decided to take that for a sign. The coat uses 90 plates of leather, all told, and I managed to get 79 of them out of this box, yay.

This is veg-tan leather in the 8~10 oz range, and you can't really tell once it's all put together, but I was using the werrrrst shit for this project, we're talking the dregs and weird ends that got rejected for everything else. Lumpy leather will mess up your tooling and won't shape well, but guess what, we're not tooling or shaping here! :D

(I think it turned into a false economy, because it was pretty time-consuming to find & fit the scrap leather to the pattern pieces, whereas it's insanely quick to cut strips of rectangles out of a full hide, but hey.)

Tracing the pattern onto the plates. Don't do this, make your pattern out of cardstock, graph paper is too bendy. If you're using a pen/sharpie, trace it onto the BACK of the leather, because we're not beveling the edges down and you don't want pen lines along the edges of your plates.

Edge rounding tool, you can get 'em at Tandy and they will save you so much time and heartbreak:

Time to DYE. I like Angelus alcohol-based dyes, they are versatile and inexpensive and waterproof. Water based dyes will run if they get wet; oil based dyes will bleed and ooze oil onto everything they touch, forever. Alcohol based dyes are great, but Fiebings (the Tandy alcohol-based brand) is prohibited under California's chemical laws so I buy Angelus instead. (And they send me weird swag, it's great.) Dilute it like 1:3 or 1:5 with acetone for dip dyeing:

(Okay so the color I used for this project can't really be replicated, because I went nuts one day and bought a 3 oz bottle of every shade of brown Angelus had, like 15 different colors, made a bunch of test swatches, and went, "Huh, the only one I really like is the dark brown." So I dumped the rest of them all together in a tub and added about three quarts of acetone. Pro-tip: your tubs for dip dyeing HAVE TO be hermetically sealed, because alcohol really really likes to evaporate, it will escape through the crevices and leave you with sludge. Granted, I think I can reconstitute this sludge with more acetone.)

Also note how all my pieces are different colors -- that's the range that natural, undyed veg-tan leather can come in. And they WILL take the dye differently, so if you have a project (not necessarily this one) where the pieces need to match in color, you HAVE TO cut them from the same hide, and ideally dye them at the same time.

So here's them all freshly dyed:

Apparently I didn't take a picture after they'd dried, but they looked awwwwfulllll. Sure enough, the different leathers had wound up different colors, weird and blotchy. Some of them I gave another dunk in the dye bath to make them darker, but mostly I just crossed my fingers and forged ahead.

Good news, they will look much better after you put a clear topcoat on them:

50/50 mix of resolene (which you can buy at Tandy) and water. I've messed with other topcoats before, but this is your best bet. It dries quite water-resistant; one coat will leave you with a matte finish and if you want it shinier you can add more coats.

They will also look better after you add lines along the edges. I forget what this tool is called, but you want one, it is invaluable, lets you put lines parallel to the edges of your leather very quickly and very neatly. The lines I did were 3/8" from the edge:

And now you have also conveniently marked where to punch your rivet holes:

Lay 'em out (I was eyeballing this, not measuring it):

With a gel pen or something, mark where the holes are:

I debated whether I wanted to use small or medium rivet caps, went with medium. These are what's called double-cap rivets, because there is a cap on both ends so it looks clean and finished on both sides of the project, but rapid rivets (the ones where the post end does not have a cap) would work fine here. Tandy sells rivets in lengths XS, S, M, and L -- the post length you need for this is S, but you can mix and match the posts and the caps, so I paired small posts with medium caps, which I felt were better proportioned for this project.

Use a burnishing awl to poke holes in your fabric, wide enough that you can push a rivet through. You will break some threads doing this, which is why you want your base fabric to be fray-resistant:

Add plate:

Add rivet cap:

Grab your rivet setter, apply hammer:

Yessssssss:

That was the point when I said, awww yeah, son, this might actually work. I'd been kinda iffy about it til then.

Alright, doing the rest of it. Here's where the patterning for the plates gets weird, because the coat is not a tube, it's narrower at the chest than at the hem, so some of them are going get cut at angles along the side seam. You can see that I labeled the plates this time because the assembly was getting kind of crazy, but it wound up not mattering because the acetone in the dye bath stripped off my labels. ;_;

So I labeled them again when they came out of the dye:

And repeated the same process as above. Aww yeah:

By the way, I did not make boots for this costume; I bought those boots in Harajuku like ten years ago and they turned out to be one of the best investments I ever made, because I wear them all the time and they blend seamlessly into so many costumes -- including Anders.

Anyway, you're not done yet, time to put the O-rings on it. I cut some tabs out of 5 oz leather and cut stitching grooves about 1/8" from the edge. That is the same tool I used above for creasing the lines along the edges of the plates, you just swap out the head to carve a groove instead of leaving a crease. Also I should have cut the grooves before I dip-dyed them, because I wound up having to go back and put dye in the grooves:

Mark your stitching holes (rolling wheel is great) and punch your stitching holes:

Punch your rivet holes:

I clipped the corners on the underside of the tabs so they wouldn't be poking my chest.

Same MO as attaching rivets to the coat, use your burnishing awl to poke a hole through the front edge and attach your tabs. (Hearkening back to the picture waaaay above, where I measured where you want to attach your O-rings.) While I'm stitching, I hold it in place with a brad, not the actual rivet. Stitching:

This is waxed nylon cord, by the way -- you can buy it at Tandy, or you could probably substitute dental floss, it’s about the same weight.

So one side of tabs is stitched & riveted shut and holds the O-rings, the other side consists of snaps so that they can come on and off the O-rings easily.

I hate snaps almost as much as I hate bias tape, but sometimes they're unavoidable. At Tandy, you have the option of glove snaps, segma snaps, or line 20/line 24 snaps -- they are all terrible, but glove snaps are your best bet for this operation. Segma snaps and the line 20/24 snaps are too heavy-duty for putting in fabric, they will slide sideways when you try to set them and you will have to pull REALLY HARD on them to make them release, and you'll end up stretching your fabric out of shape. Glove snaps will also slide when you try to set them, because all snaps are assholes, but once you get them installed they will work well.

(Except for when it popped off the morning of PAX, and I was out of town so I didn't have access to my workshop, and we had to swing by Tandy with me in my Anders costume to buy a new bag of snaps and beg use of their tools to set it. It took like fifteen minutes of swearing, because snaps are assholes, but I did make some kid's morning ("IT'S A WIZARD!!!") so there's that.)

Snaps:

Bias tape, looking less awful once the O-rings are added:

Here is a picture that better demonstrates how the rings are attached:

You’ll need medium-length posts for the rivets holding the O-rings on.

There are also a couple tabs lower down that are purely decorative. Initially I was going to skip those, but the other story of this costume is me going, "Eh, good enough. .........NO, NOT GOOD ENOUGH, MUST BE PERFECT" so I added them later. I'm glad I did, because anything to break up that line of stupid bias tape is a plus:

And more random rings on the sides:

Technically those should be O-rings, not D-rings, but I have a gratuitous number of brass D-rings just kicking around, so I used them instead of buying more O-rings.

The rings you can buy from Tandy -- solid brass, they look and feel great. The top three are 1.5" interior diameter, the rings on the belt are 2".

**

And I think that's it. Happy Anders'ing!

(And the glamour shot)

#cosplay #anders #da2 #dragon age #tutorial #leatherworking #brigandine #instructional #gremble's face

[lesbianrewrites]

The Martian Chapter 9

*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page.

This is a Lesbian edit of The Martian by Andy Weir.

Chapters will be posted every day at 2pm EST.

Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!

CHAPTER IX

LOG ENTRY: SOL 79 It’s the evening of my 8th day on the road. “Sirius 4” has been a success so far. I’ve fallen into a routine. Every morning I wake up at dawn. First thing I do is check oxygen and CO2 levels. Then I eat a breakfast pack and drink a cup of water. After that, I brush my teeth, using as little water as possible, and shave with an electric razor. The rover has no toilet. We were expected to use our suits’ reclamation systems for that. But they aren’t designed to hold twenty days worth of output. My morning piss goes in a resealable plastic box. When I open it, the rover reeks like a truck-stop men’s room. I could take it outside and let it boil off. But I worked hard to make that water, and the last thing I’m going to do is waste it. I’ll feed it to the Water Reclaimer when I get back. Even more precious is my manure. It’s critical to the potato farm and I’m the only source on Mars. Fortunately, when you spend a lot of time in space, you learn how to shit in a bag. And if you think things are bad after opening the piss box, imagine the smell after I drop anchor. Then I go outside and collect the solar cells. Why didn’t I do it the previous night? Because trying to dismantle and stack solar cells in total fucking darkness isn’t fun. I learned that the hard way. After securing the cells, I come back in, turn on some shitty ‘70’s music, and start driving. I putter along at 25kph, the rover’s top speed. It’s comfortable inside. I wear hastily made cut-offs and a thin shirt while the RTG bakes the interior. When it gets too hot I detach the insulation duct-taped to the hull. When it gets too cold, I tape it back up. I can go almost 2 hours before the battery runs out. I do a quick EVA to swap cables, then I’m back at the wheel for the second half of the day’s drive. The terrain is very flat. The undercarriage of the rover is taller than any of the rocks around here, and the hills are gently-sloping affairs, smoothed by eons of sandstorms. When the other battery runs out, it’s time for another EVA. I pull the solar cells off the roof and lay them on the ground. For the first few sols, I lined them up in a row. Now I plop them wherever, trying to keep them close to the rover out of sheer laziness. Then comes the incredibly dull part of my day. I sit around for 12 hours with nothing to do. And I’m getting sick of this rover. The inside’s the size of a van. That may seem like plenty of room, but try being trapped in a van for 8 days. I look forward to tending my potato farm in the wide open space of the Hab. I’m nostalgic for the Hab. How fucked up is that? I have shitty ‘70’s TV to watch, and a bunch of Poirot novels. But mostly I spend my time thinking about getting to Ares 4. I’ll have to do it someday. How the hell am I going to survive a 3,200km trip in this thing? It’ll probably take 50 days. I’ll need the Water Reclaimer and the Oxygenator, maybe some of the Hab’s main batteries, then a bunch more solar cells to charge everything… where will I put it all? These thoughts pester me throughout the long boring days. Eventually, it gets dark and I get tired. I lay among the food packs, water tanks, extra O2 tank, piles of CO2 filters, box of pee, bags of shit, and personal items. I have a bunch of crew jumpsuits to serve as bedding, along with my blanket and pillow. Basically, I sleep in a pile of junk every night. Speaking of sleep… G’night.LOG ENTRY: SOL 80 By my reckoning, I’m about 100km from Pathfinder. Technically it’s “Carl Sagan Memorial Station.” But with all due respect to Carl, I can call it whatever the hell I want. I’m the Queen of Mars. As I mentioned, it’s been a long, boring drive. And I’m still on the outward leg. But hey, I’m an astronaut. Long-ass trips are my business. Navigation is tricky. The Hab’s nav beacon only reaches 40km, then it’s too faint. I knew that’d be an issue when I was planning this little road trip, so I came up with a brilliant plan that didn’t work. The computer has detailed maps, so I figured I could navigate by landmarks. I was wrong. Turns out you can’t navigate by landmarks if you can’t find any god damned landmarks. Our landing site is at the delta of a long-gone river. If there are any microscopic fossils to be had, it’s a good place to look. Also, the water would have dragged rock and soil samples from thousands of kilometers away. With some digging, we could get a broad geological history. That’s great for science, but it means the Hab’s in a featureless wasteland. I considered making a compass. The rover has plenty of electricity and the med kit has a needle. Only one problem: Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field. So I navigate by Phobos. It whips around Mars so fast it actually rises and sets twice a day, running west to east. It’s isn’t the most accurate system, but it works. Things got easier on Sol 75. I reached a valley with a rise to the west. It had flat ground for easy driving, and I just needed to follow the edge of the hills. I named it “Lewis Valley” after our fearless leader. She’d love it there, geology nerd that she is. Three sols later, Lewis Valley opened into a wide plain. So, again, I was left without references and relied on Phobos to guide me. There’s probably symbolism there. Phobos is the god of fear, and I’m letting it be my guide. Not a good sign. But today, my luck finally changed. After two sols wandering the desert, I found something to navigate by. It was a 5km crater, so small it didn’t even have a listed name. But to me, it was the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Once I had it in sight, I knew exactly where I was. I’m camped near it now, as a matter of fact. I’m finally through the blank areas of the map. Tomorrow, I’ll have the Lighthouse to navigate by, and Hamelin crater later on. I’m in good shape. Now, on to my next task: Sitting around with nothing to do for 12 hours. I better get started!LOG ENTRY: SOL 81 Almost made it to Pathfinder today, but I ran out of juice. Just another 22km to go! An unremarkable drive. Navigation wasn’t a problem. As Lighthouse receded into the distance, the rim of Hamelin Crater came into view. I left Acidalia Planitia behind a long time ago. I’m well into Ares Vallis now. The desert plains are giving way to bumpier terrain, strewn with ejecta that never got buried by sand. It makes driving a chore; I have to pay more attention. Up till now, I’ve been driving right over the rock-strewn landscape. But as I travel further south, the rocks are getting bigger and more plentiful. I have to go around some of them or risk damage to my suspension. The good news is I don’t have to do it for long. Once I get to Pathfinder, I can turn around and go the other way. The weather’s been very good. No discernible wind, no storms. I think I got lucky there. There’s a good chance my rover tracks from the past few sols are intact. I should be able to get back to Lewis Valley just by following them. After setting up the solar panels, I went for a little walk. I never left sight of the rover; the last thing I want to do is get lost on foot. But I couldn’t stomach crawling back into that cramped, smelly rat’s nest. Not right away. It’s a strange feeling. Everywhere I go, I’m the first. Step outside the rover? First person ever to be there! Climb a hill? First person to climb that hill! Kick a rock? That rock hadn’t moved in a million years! I’m the first person to drive long-distance on Mars. The first person to spend more than 31 sols on Mars. The first person to grow crops on Mars. First, first, first! I wasn’t expecting to be first at anything. I was the 5th crewman out of the MDV when we landed, making me the 17th person to set foot on Mars. The egress order had been determined years earlier. A month before launch, we all got tattoos of our “Mars Numbers.” Johanssen almost refused to get her “15” because she was afraid it would hurt. Here’s a woman who had survived the centrifuge, the vomit comet, hard landing drills and 10k runs. A woman who fixed a simulated MDV computer failure while being spun around upside-down. But she was afraid of a tattoo needle. Man, I miss those guys. I’m the first person to be alone on an entire planet. Ok, enough moping. Tomorrow, I’ll be the first person to recover a Mars probe.LOG ENTRY: SOL 82 Victory! I found it! I knew I was in the right area when I spotted Twin Peaks in the distance. The two small hills are under a kilometer from the landing site. Even better, they were on the far side of the site. All I had to do was aim for them until I found the Lander. And there it was! Right where it was supposed to be! Pathfinder’s final stage of descent was a balloon-covered tetrahedron. The balloons absorbed the impact of landing. Once it came to rest, they deflated and the tetrahedron unfolded to reveal the probe. It’s actually two separate components. The Lander itself, and the Sojourner rover. The Lander was immobile, while Sojourner wandered around and got a good look at the local rocks. I’m taking both back with me, but the important part is the Lander. That’s the part that can communicate with Earth. I excitedly stumbled out and rushed to the site. I can’t explain how happy I was. It was a lot of work to get here, and I’d succeeded. The Lander was half buried. With some quick and careful digging, I exposed the bulk of it, though the large tetrahedron and the deflated balloons still lurked below the surface. After a quick search, I found Sojourner. The little fella was only two meters from the Lander. I vaguely remember it was further away when they last saw it. It probably entered a contingency mode and started circling the Lander, trying to communicate. I quickly deposited Sojourner in my rover. It’s small, light, and easily fit in the airlock. The Lander was a different story. I had no hope of getting the whole thing back to the Hab. It was just too big. It was time for me to put on my mechanical engineer hat. The probe was attached to the central panel of the unfolded tetrahedron. The other three sides were each attached with a metal hinge. As anyone at JPL will tell you, probes are delicate things. Weight is a serious concern, so they’re not made to stand up to much punishment. When I took a crowbar to the hinges, they popped right off! Then things got difficult. When I tried to lift the central panel assembly, it didn’t budge. Just like the other three panels, the central panel had deflated balloons underneath it. Over the decades, the balloons had ripped and filled with sand. I could cut off the balloons, but I’d have to dig to get to them. It wouldn’t be hard, it’s just sand. But the other three panels were in the damn way. I quickly realized I didn’t give a crap about the condition of the other panels. I went back to my rover, cut some strips of Hab material, then braided them into a primitive but strong rope. I can’t take credit for it being strong. Thank NASA for that. I just made it rope-shaped. I tied one end to a panel, and the other to the rover. The rover was made for traversing extremely rugged terrain, often at steep angles. It may not be fast, but it has great torque. I towed the panel away like a redneck removing a tree stump. Now I had a place to dig. As I exposed each balloon, I cut it off. The whole task took an hour. Then I hoisted the central panel assembly up and carried it confidently to the rover! At least, that’s what I wanted to do. The damn thing is still heavy as hell. I’m guessing it’s 200kg. Even in Mars gravity that's a bit much. I could carry it around the Hab easily enough, but lifting it while wearing an awkward EVA suit? Out of the question. So I dragged it to the rover. Now for my next feat: Getting it on the roof. The roof was empty at the moment. Even with mostly-full batteries, I had set up the solar cells when I stopped. Why not? Free energy. I’d worked it out in advance. On the way here, two stacks of solar panels occupied the whole roof. On the way back, they would be a single stack. It’s a little more dangerous; they might fall over. The main thing it they’ll be a pain in the ass to stack that high. I can’t just throw a rope over the rover and hoist Pathfinder up the side. I don’t want to break it. I mean, it’s already broken, they lost contact in 1997. But I don’t want to break it more. I came up with a solution, but I’d done enough physical labor for one day, and I was almost out of daylight. Now I’m in the rover, looking at Sojourner. It seems all right. No physical damage on the outside. Doesn’t look like anything got too baked by the sunlight. The dense layer of Mars crap all over it protected it from long-term solar damage. You may think Sojourner isn’t much use to me. It can’t communicate with Earth. Why do I care about it? Because it has a lot of moving parts. If I establish a link with NASA, I can talk to them by holding a page of text up to the Lander’s camera. But how would they talk to me? The only moving parts on the Lander are the high gain antenna (which would have to stay pointed at Earth) and the camera boom. We’d have to come up with a system where NASA could talk by rotating the camera head. It would be painfully slow. But Sojourner has six independent wheels that rotate reasonably fast. It’ll be much easier to communicate with those. If nothing else, I could draw letters on the wheels, and hold a mirror up to its camera. NASA’d figure it out and start spelling things at me. That all assumes I can get the Lander’s radio working at all. Time to turn in. I’ve got a lot of backbreaking physical labor to do tomorrow. I’ll need my rest.LOG ENTRY: SOL 83 Oh god I’m sore. But it’s the only way I could think of to get the Lander safely onto the roof. I built a ramp out of rocks and sand. Just like the ancient Egyptians did. And if there’s one thing Ares Vallis has, it’s rocks! First, I experimented to find out how steep the grade could be. Piling up some rocks near the Lander, I dragged it up the pile, then down again. Then I made it steeper, etc. I figured out I could pull it up a 30 degree grade. Anything more was too risky. I might lose my grip and send the Lander tumbling down the ramp. The roof of the rover is over 2 meters from the ground. So I’d need a ramp almost 4 meters long. I got to work. The first few rocks were easy. Then they started feeling heavier and heavier. Hard physical labor in a spacesuit is murder. Everything’s more effort because you’re lugging 20kg of suit around with you, and your movement is limited. I was panting within 20 minutes. So I cheated. I upped my O2 mixture. It really helped a lot. Probably shouldn’t make that a habit. Also, I didn’t get hot. The suit leaks heat faster than my body could ever generate it. The heating system is what keeps the temperature bearable. My physical labor just meant the suit didn’t have to heat itself as much. After hours of grueling labor, I finally got the ramp made. Nothing more than a pile of rocks against the rover, but it reached the roof. I stomped up and down the ramp first, to make sure it was stable, then I dragged the Lander up. It worked like a charm! I was all smiles as I lashed the Lander in place. I made sure it was firmly secured, and even stacked the solar cells in a big single stack (why waste the ramp?). But then it hit me. The ramp would collapse as I drove away, and the rocks might damage the wheels or undercarriage. I’d have to take the ramp apart to keep that from happening. Ugh. Tearing the ramp down was easier than putting it up. I didn’t need to carefully put each rock in a stable place. I just dropped them wherever. It only took me an hour. And now I’m done! I’ll start heading home tomorrow, with my new 100kg broken radio.

#the martian #the martian andy weir #lgbt #lesbiansafe #lesbian rewrites