#its slightly altered but they share color schemes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justalittletomato · 4 years

Text

Maul X Reader Drabble Part 2

A link to Part 1:

https://justalittlecloud.tumblr.com/post/628405603084206080/maul-x-reader-drabble

A continuation from the previous installment were sentiments were a clear miss. Here Savage attempts to help, if only Reader would give him a heads up.

As usual Reader can be seen as Y/N

Warnings: Maybe angst?

I put the rest under keep reading as to not clutter the dash!

She was distancing herself, instead of her usual place beside him Maul almost stood up to redirect her as she took a seat next to his brother, Savage. The other sith was also perplexed but did not bring further attention to the matter, mostly as he could already tell everyone present was painfully aware of the situation.

Y/N did not give it any of her attention; she only gave Savage a small smile and greeting before turning back to her work.

Similar instances would occur throughout the morning, Maul narrowed his eyes as Y/N again went to savage to discuss the new settlement, and instead sending him messages through her data pad rather than speaking directly.

His brother only tried to cast him a apologetic glance as Y/N followed him out to another co-occurring meeting, she still of course gave Maul his notes that she had written the night prior, “I just want to make sure this one goes well, I know Savage can hold his own and easily snap a few necks but it wouldn’t hurt for me to make sure no one slides anything in,” he watched her walk away beside his brother, she even dressed differently today.

Her usual black silk gowns were often a compliment of his own tunics, like a matched set of black and red.

Today she favored a slate grey leaning towards a gray-blue similar to Savages armor, the alteration bothered him as they walked off now Y/N matched Savage instead and followed him along leaving Maul to dwell on his irritation and sadly for the councils without Y/N to calm him.

The other meeting had ended earlier than expected, Y/N stirred her tea for once not enjoying the routine task. Likely as to avoid the person she shared the ritual task with as much as she could given her role as advisor. Savage had sat next to her, umber eyes looked over the young woman who had been stirring her tea cup for the past 5 minutes, lost in thought.

“Y/n, how long do you plan to avoid my brother?” It was an honest question he could still feel his brother glaring at them as Y/N walked behind him.

“Is it that obvious?” She put down her spoon for once not interested in drinking her tea, of right, it wasn’t even the kind she liked too much, this one was Maul's favorite.

Savage would have laughed if it not been for the continued dazed look on Y/N, as if she was barely present, “Glaringly so, we left him in a mood this morning.”

Savage looked around the room making sure no one else was there, his brow furrowed, “Y/N it may be best to let this feeling go. You’ll only torture yourself.”

Y/n tugged at her sleeve, maybe the color didn’t suit her at all, she kept pulling at the material trying to muffle what Savage was trying to explain, a truth she had already realized the other day.

Savage continued, “ you must understand, my brother's upbringing was void of affection, any kinship with others, any positive link that likely did not end with a command to destroy. It was only recently that he and I referred to another as brothers, however.” The yellow Zabrak put a hand on hers, “ With you it’s different, he actually lets you near, he likes your company and often seeks you out but he may not be able to recognize that he feels something for you.”

The sincerity of his voice made it all the worse , Y/N bowed her head letting her hair fall around her, “I know, why do you think I’ve been avoiding him?”

The silence that fell between the two was tangible, Y/N felt the need to just curl up and hide. “ I tried to have him tell me what capacity he wanted me for, “

“What was his response?” Savage tried. He gave her hand a comforting squeeze,

“ Well I was not outright on what I am feeling,” She recalled the touches and proximity she had with Maul, a hand on his shoulder and the habit of sitting close together as they worked. Each brush of their hands sending more and more warmth as they sat and worked together. “,But I felt my implications and mannerisms were clear,”

How many hours had they spent working together?

More than once has she fallen asleep at the desk with him and had woken up back in her own room.

Y/N re-evaluated the moments between them, maybe she had looked far too into the situation,

“Again as I have said my brother likely has no reference that you are trying to convey anything of a romantic nature, no matter how glaringly obvious.”

She looked up at him frowning, but Savage continued, he needed her to understand,

“I know he likes to be around you, he seems calmer with you, but he may not be able to recognize it not without a real push.You will have to face him soon, this arrangement will only make it worse.”

Y/n couldn’t help but laugh, it was bitter and sad, “ Of course, I’m the official advisor now.” She smiled up at Savage with dulled eyes not a touch of her usual spark, “I’ve been reaching for this for years and I finally have it. I suppose I should be happy right?”

The door to the room had opened, the familiar grumbling from Maul came through, but not slow enough as he saw his brother still holding Y/N hands. Savage slowly put down Y/N’s hands, “ Just giving her my congrats as your new advisor.”

Maul felt uneasy at the way the two were reacting, wait...why was he so bothered by this? It was good that the two were getting along. However that proximity was something he shared with Y/N, something meant between them and not the three.

Y/n was the first to get up ready to just leave the matter again,

“Well our meeting ended early, there’s still some tea left. I’ll be helping Savage again tomorrow.” She gathered her items taking her data pad with her, “I’ve already sent you my notes for your meetings tomorrow as well so you should be fine without me there.” she didn't meet his eyes, she just looked above him at the windows, the patterned glass was her focal point, she just had to keep it up.

Savage internally groaned, he could already see his brother getting angered by this, the crimson Zabrak had deepened his usual frown and narrowed his eyes,” You have your duties, Y/N.”

He wanted Y/N at his side, he wanted her to say her biting remarks at the council as she knew she would win. He missed her touch to his shoulder when she had found yet another scheme underway.

“I am well aware, but Lord Maul if you recall I am an advisor to you both, and if that is the case I should also help Lord Savage as well. It’s only fair.” She was technically right, but he couldn't give her that.

She walked past him, feeling his golden eyes looking back at her, “ I’m turning in early today, I’m afraid I won't be joining you tonight.” There would be no accidental touch, or falling asleep near the other just solitude once more.

She didn’t stay to hear him call her back, she just looked at the window and left into the halls.

The stained windows showed her Sundari, maybe she should linger back to the library.

She missed the books and silence, maybe the pages would fill her thoughts with something new, rather than linger on the crimson Zabrak that haunted her.

Maybe she should listen to Savage and let go of this feeling.

The library was always empty it’s only occupant was Y/N,she let her fingers run over the histories and tales of old. These were her constant companions, the ones who stayed when everyone had gotten what they needed from her. Maybe she should be blunt with Maul about what she felt, maybe this time someone would stay or maybe she would just still be here in the library chiding herself for being in love with such an impossible person.

She takes a book from the shelf uncaring of its contents and opened it up, “it is without saying that Mandalore will fight until the end....” ah one of the classic histories of the civil wars from 20 years ago, she curled up in her old nook the pillows soft as she laid back and drowned her thoughts with the old tales, no more golden eyes, or intricate tattoos, or glancing at a crown of horns.

“You seem troubled brother.” Savage watched as his brother had ripped apart one of the targets in the training room. Its contents strewn over the floor, the polymer fiber now littering the mats as Maul took out his frustrations.

“She’s hiding something. She has to be.” Maul hissed, “What did she tell you?” his tone was accusatory and slightly panicked.

Savage thought of what he was going to say, “She isn’t trying anything against you, it is complicated to say the least but it isn’t really my place to tell you.”

It was all he could come up with, and it didn’t help the situation. Maul was already going at another target with a wooden staff, the impact of a strike ripping through the cover.

“So you know.” Maul began, “Withholding information from me isn’t wise.” His voice has lowered, and the staff now pointed at Savage, “Best to tell me.”

What did savage know? What was it that Y/N would divulge to his brother rather than him?

Savage just stared at his brother, “Answer me this first, what did you feel when Y/N went with me this morning?”

Maul glared at his brother, “What does that have to do with the information I asked for? Did I not make it clear?”

Savage persisted, “ You didn’t like it, did you?”

“Y/N and I have worked well together of course I’d want her there.”

“ But she wore my colors today.” Savage added, Maul gripped tighter onto the staff

“ They don’t suit her at all, they dull her out. You’ve seen her in black and red,” He let himself linger at that thought, the silky material would sometimes graze against his side, the dresses suited her, she looked every bit regal and at his side, “She was ethereal.”

Savage mentally checked off the question and again commented, “So I’ve heard, even some of the council have mentioned similar comments.”

Maul clenched his jaw at that, “Which ones?”

“Y/N has already turned each one down, that also seemed to bother you. Y/n is young,she’s brilliant, it might not be too long before she does end up with someone.”

Splintered wood snapped onto the mat, “ Enough with this! ”, Maul snarled, “ What did she tell you?”

“Why do you want to know? What is it that brings you to grow so angry about the thought of Y/N.” Savage was truly playing with fire at his point, his brother’s eyes almost glowed.

Maul scoffed,“I need her there, with her with us we can quickly work this plan through.” Y/N taking notes late into the night, her face lit up by the candles she brought in refusing to use the lights as they would interfere with her ability to sleep.

“And then move on, Y/N will be set for life.”

No more of Y/N coming in late at night with a new idea or some of the tea he enjoyed. No more of the almost brush of lips to his cheek when she reminded him to sign the data pad on his desk.

“Why would she go?” Y/N turning away from him, her eyes no longer looking at him, but to some figure who took her hand.

The notion began to eat away at him, it was already happening.

Savage shook his head, “ What reason would she have to remain?”

Maul was at his wits end, “ I want her at my side! I want her there!” He wouldnt have that, Y/N couldn't just leave him..them..what was that thought just now?

Savage merely nodded,” It’s a start. If you must know, it appears that Y/N has tried to demonstrate her affections but the sentiment was not understood.”

“To who?!” the crimson Zabrak demanded already tugging on his tunic he had tossed aside earlier and moving towards the doors,

The yellow Zabrak internally sighed , “Go ask her, she’s probably at the library. “

This was up to the two now, he had helped to hopefully establish that his brother wanted Y/N with him and that she had tried to show him her own affections.

He just hoped the two could explain what they felt and meant no more of this implication and confused reactions.

* Preview for next time

Maul had never been too deep into the library, but it was the place Y/N would retreat to. Deep into the shelves of real paper and ink, Y/N had curled up in her nook.

Her hair cascading across the pillows she had there and fast asleep. She would look almost serene if it had not been for the tear streaks down her cheeks.

“It seems like her sentiment was not understood.”

The lingering touches and the way she listened to him and argued with him. His knee jerk reaction at the thought of her leaving his side, and the loss he felt when she left this morning.

“Y/N, what have you brought upon yourself?”

#darth maul x reader #maul x reader #maul x you #Again we have the two unable to regoznie how to tell the other anything #Savage tries to help #good on Savage #Maul that feeling is affection #a bit angry but affection and being starved for attention #WHAT do you mean she wont stay after #maul #darth maul #star wars #savage opress #cloudsdrabbles

93 notes · View notes

wewererogue · 4 years

Text

Elminster's Guide to the Realms: Nurneene's Marvelous Masks

[by Ed Greenwood, illustrated by David Day / Dragon #321, July 2004 - via]

For years, the most stylish and spectacular masks worn at revels in Waterdeep have been made and sold at Nurneene’s Marvelous Masks. Nurneene’s is a tiny, almost demurely hidden shop that stands on the east side of the Street of Bells in Waterdeep’s Castle Ward. Better known for its colorful proprietress and her wares than as a flashy landmark, Nurneene’s is also notorious for the mask in its display window - and increasingly for rumors of its connection to the god Mask, Master of All Thieves and Lord of Shadows.

What Meets the Eye

This shop rises four floors above street level and has a peaked roof (with a porthole window opening into an attic) that makes it seem even taller. It’s only about 10 feet wide, and it’s jammed between two other, larger shops set a foot or two back from the sweet with glittering facades of lamps, angled mirrors, and mannequins clad in stylish gowns. The front of Nurneene’s is sheathed in fieldstone, and its upper floors each have a single shuttered window. These windows are all closed and barred from within; only the uppermost is ever opened, and then only in the hottest summer weather. A tiny, round door is located in the pinnacle of the eaves, where the steep slope of the roof reaches its peak. Like many Waterdhavian shops that abut neighboring structures, the entire roof is sloped not just from side to side, but also canted so that its side-gutters are markedly higher at the street-front wall, draining away to downspouts in the rear.

The storefront of Nurneene’s is taken up by a door and a display window. Through the window, the same thing can always be seen: cream-hued muslin rising in a smooth drape from the counter it covers to a valance. Between the valance and this backdrop hang three lanterns. They illuminate a row of black wooden letters set individually on the cloth-covered counter to spell “Nurneene” and “Masks,” and a floating black cloth half-mask that hangs in the air beneath the lights, turning slightly as if an invisible wearer is scrutinizing passersby.

This effect is so eerie and pronounced - the mask moves rapidly forward to peer at some individuals - that many Waterdhavians refuse to pass by the shop. A street roustabout given to bouts of drinking and violence once loudly declared his intention to “get rid of that haunted mask shop,” and hurled a cobblestone through its window in the darkest hours of a winter night, intending to follow it with a burning brand. The tale of what befell next has spread all over Waterdeep, as one of the many whispered snippets of local lore: The mask lunged at the would-be arsonist, nearly smothered the man, and chased him through the streets until the man was wrestled to a halt by a Watch patrol.

The ground floor of the shop is the showroom and wrapping area, with a “buying corner” at the back. Showrooms (with closets of angled mirrors for a client to stand amid) and storage drawers for standard models of masks are on the second floor. Cutting rooms containing softwood heads with pins, shears, dyeing pans, and drying stretch frames fill the two topmost floors. The uppermost floor also has some beds for workers to sleep in and a hipbath. The attic above is used to store old furniture, shop records over a decade old, and the like. The cellars are used to store bolts of cloth (wrapped in linen covers and hanging from the rafters on angled end-hooks).

The Lurking Mask

In appearance, the black floating mask - dubbed “the Lurking Mask” by someone long ago - looks like this,

except that it’s unusually thick and large enough that only a titan or giant could actually wear it as a facial cover. The mask is a dark purple that appears black in most lighting conditions.

Some time ago, Nurneene worked as an apprentice in a mask-making shop somewhat larger (but less prestigious) than her own store. Clearly more skillful than any other apprentice (and some say even her master), Nurneene toiled in the back of the shop, creating mask after splendid mask, for which her master took full credit.

One day, after Nurneene had lived this life for several years, an ancient-looking man returned to the shop (having purchased one of Nurneene’s skillfully rendered masks for a ball) in search of the one who had created it. When Nurneene’s master took credit for the handiwork, the man scoffed and demanded the truth. Flustered, the mask-maker brought out Nurneene and presented her to the ancient man, who promised someday to reward her for her excellent craft.

Several years later, as Nurneene watched the dream of her own shop crumble down around her, the ancient-looking man called upon her and promised to bring in more customers than she alone could handle. He instructed her to make a large mask with the same attention to detail of her normal masks and clear out her front window. When he returned a few days later, he set the mask in the empty front window and cast a number of spells upon it. Before Nurneene’s eyes, the mask rose into the air and took the position it has maintained ever since.

The mask is a Small animated object permanently enchanted with animate objects and fly spells. It is programmed to hover in the window, to peer at passersby, and to guard the shop and itself if one or the other is attacked. The animated mask also obeys simple verbal commands from Nurneene. Only once has anyone ever successfully dispelled the permanent spells on the mask, but the mask regained its enchantments in a few days.

Nurneene and the Lord of Shadows

The proprietress of the most highbrow mask shop in Waterdeep is a skilled seamstress and crafter of masks, with a true genius for cutting, steaming, and binding materials to obtain a desired shape. Many of her masks soar like crowns or support shells or side-wings that alter the perceived shape of the wearer’s head. Scaled, plush, metallic, or satinlike, the surface finish of her creations is exquisite.

Nurneene is also patient, a diplomat used to handling arrogant and difficult clients, and a good teacher. Her small but loyal staff of six fitters and mask-crafters have, under her tutelage, acquired skills almost to match her own. The two men and four women who work for her can all serve in the shop and make masks; Nurneene simply divides their time so the most beautiful women do the most meeting of clients, and the less attractive plus their male counterparts do more of the backroom work.

Petite and graceful, Nurneene has white skin, russet hair, and large green eyes. Her voice is husky and inclined to rasp when raised, so she’s adopted a quiet, murmuring mode of speech. In recent years, she’s increasingly retired from public view, gliding regally out from a curtained alcove behind the buying-counter when patrons become difficult. If real trouble erupts, she summons her other staff with a handbell. Nurneene’s male staff are both rogues (LE male human Rog3) chosen for their strength and swiftness; they are customarily armed with-and skilled in the use of daggers, darts, saps, and slings.

Some years ago, Nurneene fell in with some thieves who hired her to make masks that would conceal lockpicks, flexible saw-knives, and poisoned darts. She was excited by their exploits but wise enough to know she’d never be more than adequate at actual thievery - and could make a better and safer living as a fence, coin-cleaner (Note from Elminster: Ye would say “money launderer.”), and procurer of supplies for thieves wanting to keep out of sight for a time. She became an avid fan of the city’s thieves, fascinated by their deeds and hungry for news of their unfolding plots and exploits. This knowledge in turn made her dangerous to them - but she saw a way to justify her curiosity about Waterdhavian thievery, stay alive, and even hold some power in Waterdeep’s shady underworld: becoming a cleric of Mask.

To do so, Nurneene sacrificed her wealth and herself to a cold and cruel priest of the Lord of Shadows named Hathrel. As her master, he commanded the building of a chapel to Mask in the deepest cellars beneath her shop (at Nurneene’s expense), and set her to the task of acquiring poisons that would slay paralyze, blind, deafen, or cause slumber. By ongoing sales of these substances, Hathrel hoped to become truly rich. Unfortunately, he didn’t consider Nurneene’s distaste for handling such substances, and he misjudged how her hatred of him had grown to outstrip her fascination and fear. In Skullport, he fell victim to the poisons he’d ordered her to procure, leaving the mask-maker to take control of the small flock of thieves who worshiped at the chapel.

Now grown in number to sixteen or so, these worshipers are almost all street thieves. They have come to love Nurneene, who gives them shelter, food, encouragement, hiding-places for themselves and their loot, and even clothing and bathing facilities - all in return for their “confessions.” So long as they tell her all, she makes them welcome, never demands offerings to Mask or coins for her services (although the devout who can afford it do leave temple offerings), and shares news and gossip she thinks will be of benefit to them.

For her part, Nurneene (NE female human Clr6/Mask1/Exp6/Rog1) has found a satisfying purpose in life (beyond creating ever-wilder masks for rich and frivolous fools). She’s come to truly believe in Mask, and now spends hours praying before his altar, seeking inspiration and guidance. Already she’s been rewarded with visions that directed her to where Hathrel had hidden a scroll, and she has been told in whispers by a hooded dream-figure to “weave schemes and plots to make thieves of Waterdeep’s wealthy and powerful.”

Elminster’s Notes

Know ye that Nurneene bids fair to become a real power in Waterdeep if no ill befalls her. She’s clever enough not to let greed rule her. If the thieves who obey her can manage to do the same, she might well guide them in a sophisticated and subtle series of intrigues and thefts that earns far more coin than even the most spectacularly bold “snatch job” … and do so unnoticed, mayhap for years.

As for her plots, I can reveal that she’s already begun spreading rumors among young noble wastrels - knowing very well that they’ll whisper them to their friends - of a secret society of Deep Lords they might be able to join if they contact the right folk in Skullport and successfully undertake the missions they’re given. Being a Deep Lord, the whispers say, will bring riches and in some few years real power, as the Deep Lords begin to subvert the Lords of Waterdeep and ultimately come to rule the city.

Now, only foolish nobles are likely to believe they could ever hold real power when dealing with illithids, drow, and worse from the Realms Below … but then again, Nurneene won’t be the first cunning person to profit from the naiveté of others.

She’s also busily trying to arrange a warehousing cartel and a corruption of the tax clerks of Castle Waterdeep. When she feels in need of a little entertainment, her own concealing creations allow her to attend revels in costume, posing as visiting nobility. Dalliances there often allow her to collect a few gems from young, impressionable noblemen without even going to the trouble of thievery. Not bad for a mask-maker, eh? (68)

#long post #Waterdeep #Forgotten Realms #Ed Greenwood #mask #fluff #how to rogue #d&d #patron deity #thieves' guild

8 notes · View notes

aph-oklahoma-46 · 6 years

Note

demigod/god au........ Choose any pantheon lmao

//Enjoy. Notes and othersuch things at the bottom.

Deity AU (Personal Bonds)

Emily sat in the tree andwatched the other two children chase each other up and down the riverbank. Shewas quiet and still, well aware she was not supposed to be seen. She simplywatched and smiled. The children were brothers and a bit older than she was.Well, they weren’t really older, but she looked younger than them. She wasimmortal and had been around much longer than the human boys, but she was stilljust a child compared to others of her kind. Carefully, so as not to disturbthe leaves, she shifted her position and watched the game of chase. She likedthis, seeing siblings simply enjoying each other’s company. Which made sense.She was the goddess of brotherly and sisterly love. Any bond between peoplethat resembled a sibling-like relationship, regardless if there was any sharedblood, was her domain. Those bonds were precious to her. She was only a child (bothphysically and by her people’s standards), but she was aware of how precious abond between siblings was, and how painful it was to lose that.

She stayed in her perchuntil the two boys were called home, allowing her to climb down unseen. Shewasn’t old enough to actually vanish, but she knew how to hide. When shereached the ground, she started towards home. It wasn’t too far away (herfather wanted her to stay close because he worried) but it was far enough thatshe could enjoy the journey. She kicked a rock along the path, humming quietlyto herself. Soon, she was lost in thought.

The sound of a twigsnapping dragged her out of her thoughts. Emily paused mid-step, listening. Nothingout of the ordinary disturbed the scenery of trees and bushes surrounding thepath, and as she listened for the sound to return, all she heard was the faint murmuringof the river. Shrugging, she decided she had imagined it and began walkingagain. She had only gone a few feet when she heard rustling, this time muchcloser than the broken twig. She stopped and spun around, looking for anythingthat moved. All around her was still. Just as she let out a breath to relax, ahand shot out from the side and grasped her arm, pulling her off the path andinto the vegetation.

Emily squirmed and grunted,attempting to kick whoever had grabbed her.

“Let me go!” She wrenchedherself around to face her captor and was met with a familiar face

“Emi! It’s me, calm down!”Miles was grinning broadly and covered in mud and leaves. A familiar gleam inhis eye suggested he had been up to his usual mischief. Emily sighed in relief,then frowned and stomped her foot.

“You scared me! Why’d youdo that?… And why are you all dirty?” She tilted her head, taking in herfriend’s entire outfit. He was wearing green and brown clothing and wasabsolutely covered in mud and twigs. Miles looked like some kind of livingpiece of foliage. Miles looked over himself and shrugged.

“Dirty is a relativeterm. But that’s not the point! I’m gonna make another go for the Library, andI need your help.” The Library Miles spoke of was his older brother’s libraryof magic. Alexander was the god of music and magic, and he kept books andwritings from all over the world, along with ingredients and items used invarious rituals and spells. Emily, Miles, and Miles’ little brother, Andrew,were fascinated by the collection of knowledge, mainly because it consisted of magicthat even most deities didn’t understand. Of particular interest to Miles wasAlex’s journal, where he compiled all of his notes and spells. Miles had beentrying to “borrow” the journal for years with the intention of teaching himselfsome of the magic within, but Alex had gone to great lengths to make sure hedidn’t get it. Alex assured Miles, as well as Emily and Andrew, that he would teachthem simple spells himself, but none of them were old enough or experiencedenough to use the magic in his journal. And he had taught them some things, butMiles was the god of childhood mischief; placing a book like the journal soclosely within reach and telling him to keep his hands off was like putting abig red button that said “DANGER” in front of him and telling him not to pushit. Emily and Andrew often aided in his attempts to snatch the book, but Milesalways lead the charge.

“Aren’t you still introuble for the last time?” Emily looked at him skeptically. Miles most recentattempt had ended in him being chased out of the library by a very annoyed andapparently sentient violin, then grounded for several weeks. Again, Milesshrugged.

“When am I not introuble? Now let’s go.” Emily rolled her eyes, but she followed him to hishome.

Alex was with Andrew at amarket somewhere, so the two didn’t have to worry about him coming home beforethey could get the book. Getting to the outer (and non-magical) library wasn’tmuch trouble; the children were allowed to go there unsupervised. The innerlibrary of magic, however, was locked to keep them out. They were only allowedin with Emily’s parents or brother, Angel, or Alex himself, but they stillcouldn’t access parts of it even with a chaperone. When they reached the doorto the inner library, they stopped.

“Watch this,” Miles said,ever-present grin growing. He knelt before the lock and began murmuring wordsin a language Emily didn’t know. Emily rolled her eyes, knowing full well thatthis particular spell didn’t require that, and that Miles was showing off.Still, the lock popped open, and, after checking for any other mechanismsmagical or otherwise, the two entered through.

The room was vast,towering far above the children, and was lit by floating lights of differentcolors. Being a library, one could hardly stretch out their hands with outhitting a bookshelf. There were multiple floors filled with shelves, and itwasn’t hard to believe that this was a collection thousands of years in themaking. Emily always loved coming here. The entire room was saturated with afeeling of wonder. She looked around her, reading titles in languages she knewand languages she didn’t, spying jars and bags and bowls of items she had noname for. If Miles wasn’t there to usher her along, she would probably havespent all day just wandering between shelves.

But Miles was there, andalthough one could never really fully get used to the sense of awe experiencedwhen entering the library, he had been around long this place enough to ignoreits other wonders in his mission for the journal. He took Emily’s hand so asnot to lose her on the way through the library (a very real possibility, giventhe vastness of the place, her unfamiliarity with all of its twists and turns,and the fact that not everything here was friendly), and began across the roomto the stairs. The journal was on the top floor, in a special case. Miles wasconvinced that Alex had put it so high in the hope that all that walking wouldhelp dissuade Miles.

Which it didn’t. The twomade it to the stairs rather quickly, though Miles did stop every now and thento grab an item out of a container. As they stood at the foot of the staircase, Emily groaned.

“Miles, there’s fourflights. Do you know how many stairs that is? A lot!” Miles rolled his eyes andlet go of her hand. He stepped over to a table in a little corner underneaththe staircase and dragged two of the chairs back over to Emily.

“I know it’s a lot ofstairs, but we’re not going to use them. We’re going to use these.” He gesturedto the chairs. He maneuvered them in front of the stairs and took out some ofthe items he had swiped from the shelves. He knelt and brought out somefeathers which seemed to be fluttering and flitting of their own accord,binding them to the legs of the chairs. Then he stood, rubbed some sort of dustonto the seats, and spoke quietly to the objects. Emily recognized parts of theincantation as a spell Alex had taught them. It was meant to make small objectsfloat, though it could be used for larger objects when slightly altered.Apparently, Miles had found the correct alterations, because the chairs slowlybegan to rise as he finished speaking. Emily gasped and clapped.

“Can you teach me how todo that? Please?” She looked to him hopefully. Miles placed a hand over both chairsto keep them from rising further without him or his friend.

“Mm, maybe, but you can’tdo it in front of Alex or you family, because I’m not supposed to know. Now,take a seat, and these things should just lift us right to the top floor.”

Emily climbed into onechair and, when he was satisfied she wouldn’t fall out, Miles climbed into theother. He pulled Emily’s chair close to his and took out some cord to wraparound the backs. This way, he could make sure the chairs didn’t drift apartand that, if they did end up tipping over, he at least had a chance of grabbingEmily before she fell. He wouldn’t forgive himself if his brother or friendwere hurt while helping him in any of his schemes, and stealing from this partof the library wasn’t exactly safe. And of course, keeping Emily and himselfout of danger also meant it was less likely that her father or brother would bealerted to what they were doing. Angel was the god of marriage and children.His and Emily’s father was the god of parenthood. Both had a knack for knowingwhen a child was in danger, especially on close to them. Despite Emily being centuriesold and Miles being centuries older, they were both still children; Emily,because she was simply a child in comparison to their kind, and Miles, because,despite most other deities his age being physically older than he, being thegod of childhood mischief meant heaged much more slowly than other deities. So, while he morally could never purposefullyput Emily in danger, he would admit there was a lesser, more practical reason.When he finished binding the chairs together, Emily tugged on his sleeve.

“Uh, Miles?” Emilypointed above them. Miles looked up and saw they were approaching the ceilingof the first floor. He had forgotten that the stair case spiraled around theroom, therefore opening on the upper floor in a different place from where itstarted on the lower one.

“Ok, no problem. Whatwe’re gonna do is walk ourselves to the spot where the stairs go through thefloor.” When the reached the ceiling, they did just that. Pushing with their hands,they carefully drug themselves across the ceiling. They paused once, when theybegan pushing at different speeds and almost tilted the chairs over. But withina few minutes, they had made it to the hole in the ceiling. Miles reached outand grabbed the edge of the floor, gently pushing and swinging the tetheredchairs out from under it, and they floated through. They did this for everyfloor, and by the time they reached the last opening, both could feel theirarms burning. Still, they pushed onward to the opening, encouraged by theproximity of their goal.

When they reached theopening, Miles once again reached out for the edge, pulling his side of themakeshift vehicle to the opening. Once he felt they were stable and properlypositioned, he pushed them out from under the edge. They rose quicker than theyhad been due to the push, and as Emily’s side cleared the edge, the corner ofher chair was briefly caught under the floor, causing the entire contraption totilt sideways and downward as they continued to rise. The chairs spun, plungingEmily downward and Miles upwards, eliciting shouts from both of them. Emilyslide sideways, toward the ground which was now many, many feet below them, butwas stopped by the tether. However, the spinning, as well as the previoussquirming in order to maneuver, had loosened the rope, and Emily began to slipthrough.

“Miles,” she cried andMiles, who was also slipping sideways, blanched. He shot his hands out, grabbingher and pulling close to him. The force of this spun the double chair around inthe opposite direction, flinging both children to the other side of it. Milesgrunted as he flopped against the tether, then quickly thrust himself and Emilyforward to the floor. Luckily, the current chaos and imbalance had kept thechairs from rising much, and the children hit the ground, forcing the device tofollow as they wrenched off the tether. The chair legs didn’t take this well,and a few snapped off, rising upward without the rest of their body, causingthe majority of the device to drop the last few inches to the floor. Miles,still clutching Emily close, watched the legs rise to the ceiling, knockingagainst the wooden frame. He felt a pull on his shirt and glanced down.

“Miles?” Emily waslooking up at him, pale and a little shaken.

“Yeah?”

“Next time let’s take thestairs.” They both chuckled at that. They stood and looked around the room,eyes finally landing on a table with a large, rather old book resting on astand. Miles grinned and made his way over, Emily close behind him. Both stoodbefore the book, looking upon it with awe.

Which quickly wore offfor Emily.

“This is it? It lookslike an ordinary journal.” To be honest, with all the trouble it took just toget here, she was expecting something with a little more grandeur. The journalwas a drab brown color, with very little detail on the front. In faded ink, thewords “Alexander’s Journal” were scrawled in familiar handwriting. The book wasindeed very old; Alex had started it when he was just a child, noting down the lessonsof his parents. The edged of the cover were frayed and the spine was crackedand broken. The whole thing rested on a humble stand, a simple thing made ofwood and carved with patterns of music notes and instruments. All in all, whilethe book wasn’t exactly unpleasant, it wasn’t very eye-catching, either. Milesrolled his eyes.

“So? It’s what’s on theinside that counts. Your mother looks completely normal from a distance, butI’m pretty sure she’s broken Antonio’s nose.” Emily’s mother was the goddess ofthe bond between warriors, and as such, she was one of the most renownedfighters among their people. Antonio was a god whom she had had several…disagreements with. Emily had never met him, and she was fairly certain herfamily intended to keep it that way.

Not sensing any spells orwards, Miles reached out for the book. When his hand was within a few inches ofthe cover, and spindly tendril of some kind struck out and swatted him away,before retreating back under the stand.

“Ouch!” Miles jerked hishand back from the book, staring at the stand. Emily giggled quietly frombehind him. Growling, he reached out again, this time faster. He received yetanother swat, this time on the rear. Yelping, Miles hopped away from the table,covering his backside and hiding his hands. Emily laughed louder. A voicesounded from the stand.

“Miles! What do you thinkyou’re doing? I’ve told you over and over that you are not allowed near thisbook! You’re not even supposed to be in the inner library on your own! AndEmily, you know you’re not supposed to be here either! Both of you stay rightwhere you are and—” Alex’s voice continued for a minute or so, scolding bothchildren. Judging by the fact the voice knew it was only Miles and Emily, amongother things, seemed to imply that they weren’t listening to a recording. Alexknew they were here, and in all likelihood, he was probably also in the libraryby now, heading to their location. Hopefully he hadn’t noticed the wreckage ofhis chairs in the background, assuming whatever spell he had to alert him tothis intrusion also allowed him to see into the room. Miles and Emily shared alook and sighed. They might as well try to hide the broken chairs and hopetheir punishment was light.

Alex arrived withinminutes, just after they had finished shoving their wrecked flying contraptionbeneath a table with a long cloth over it. He didn’t look happy. Andrew wasn’twith him, which made sense. Alex probably didn’t want to risk bringing thethird musketeer up where none of them were supposed to be anyway.

“Miles, we’ve been overthis so many times. You’re not supposed to be in the inner library without meor another adult. And you’re never allowed in the upper floors! You know thisis dangerous. What if Emily got hurt while you were up here? What if you gothurt? I sh- What is that tapping sound!?” Alex looked exasperated as heexclaimed the last part. All three looked upwards, and Emily and Miles realizedthey had forgotten about the floating legs. They were still tapping against theceiling, blocked from rising any further. Alex closed his eyes and folded hishands in front of his face, taking a deep breath. Miles cringed inwardly.

“Miles?”

“Yes, Alex?”

“Why, pray tell, arethere chair legs floating on the ceiling?”

“Funny you should ask…”

Miles and Emily proceededto tell their tale, knowing that if they lied, Alex would find out anyway andthey would end up in more trouble. To their surprise, Alex actually seemedimpressed with Miles ingenuity. Not that that got him out of trouble in theslightest. Miles ended up banned from all things remotely magical for a month,and Emily was given a firm promise that her parents were going to know what shehad been up to. However, after scolding them a second time and reiterating thefact that they had almost died, Alex did promise that if none of the childrencaused anymore trouble in the library (or anywhere else) until theirpunishments ended, he would teach them some more advanced magic. He thenbrought both of them downstairs and into the rest of the house, where Angel wasalso waiting, and the group agreed to have lunch together before Angel andEmily left for home.

//Emily: Goddess ofsiblinghood

Angel: God of marriageand children

Comanche: Goddess of thebond between warriors

Cherokee: God ofparenthood

Alex: God of magic andmusic

Missouri/Miles: God ofchildhood mischief

Arkansas/Andrew: Wedidn’t come up with an area of influence for him, but I didn’t plan on usingmuch in this drabble, so no biggie.

Many thanks to the ever-so-wonderful @texass-shenanigans for helping me with world building (and coming up withnames for Arkansas and Missouri)

This ended up beingmostly about Emily and Miles, but whatever. Maybe I’ll make an angsty drabblewith other characters for this AU later, given that there’s so much potential. Also,I may do something with a Deity AU again, but with different areas ofinfluence. I don’t know. Anyway, this is long as fuck, but I hope y’all enjoyit.

#aph states #drabble #aph oklahoma #aph missouri #aph louisiana #Deity AU #//these three were the main characters so they get tagged #good god this is long #why did i do this #because i think its fun and apparently im a masochist #however thats spelled #shush KD

6 notes · View notes

hayleysstark · 6 years

Text

Title: Breathe

Words: 6164

Notes: this...is... Bad

Read it on Fanfiction or AO3

It’s not as if this is the first time P.T.’s ever insisted on doing something monumentally stupid for the sake of livening up the circus before – just the opposite, in fact – but it is probably the first time Phillip hasn’t gotten that familiar little twinge of unease in the pit of his stomach, that nagging sense in the back of his mind that tells him something is going to go wrong.

Things like this just don’t bother him the way they used to – he’s seen the ringmaster throw himself into gamble after reckless, death-defying gamble, whether it involves a bed of nails or a couple inexplicably enraged lions, and it always ends the same way, always: P.T. scrapes by unscathed, the usual spring in his step and showman’s smile on his face, and the new act is integrated into the circus the following week. Audiences eat it up, ticket sales see a sudden, drastic increase, and for the next few days, P.T. struts around looking decidedly too pleased with himself, saying it’s “all a bit of that showman magic”, or however he puts it.

It’s luck, is what it really is, just a whole lot of sheer, dumb luck, but there are times – like when that flaming-hoop trick went horribly wrong, and P.T. caught on fire in front of a crowd of thousands. Anyone else probably – no, definitely – would have panicked in that situation, but not P.T.; he took maybe three seconds to pat the fire out again, and even less than that to shoot the stunned, silent audience a winning smile and a jovial reminder to tell everyone how much fun they had at the circus before bowing elaborately, sleeve still smoking slightly. Of course, he spent the next three days bemoaning the microscopic burn on his favorite red jacket, and didn’t seem to care one way or the other that the same thing could have happened, on a much larger scale, to his very skin—but there’s just something about the way he looks in those moments, right after the danger has passed—all flushed and triumphant and grinning like crazy—there’s something about the way he looks then that makes him seem unarguably, utterly invincible.

And then—suddenly—he isn’t.

It starts out the way it always does, with P.T. bursting into their shared office, talking a mile a minute and gesticulating wildly with his hat in one hand—he keeps putting it on, and then taking it off again a second later, like he can’t decide what he really wants to do with his hands. He always gets like this when he’s just had an idea, face all lit up like a Christmas tree, and speaking so fast, he sounds almost feverish, and all the words start to run together, or they get all tangled up in each other, and he trips over some of them and skips some others entirely in his eagerness to say all of them at once. He always gets like this when he’s just had an idea, and Phillip finds he still can’t keep up.

“Slow down, P.T.,” he says, for what feels like the millionth time since he joined the circus – hell, it probably is.

“Escapology,” P.T. replies, like that explains anything at all.

And, actually, now that Phillip stops to think about it, he can see that it sort of does. “Like…like Harry Houdini?” He wrinkles his brow.

“Yes! Yes!” If possible, P.T.’s smile gets even wider, and he looks about two seconds away from jumping up and down like a kid. “Exactly like that!” He jabs a finger at his partner. “Except…not.”

“Well, that clears everything up,” Phillip scoffs; he takes a sip of coffee.

“No one ever really saw any of Houdini’s escapes,” P.T. crosses the cluttered room to his desk, and hoists himself up, one-handed, onto the scratched, battered surface. “These,” he leans forward conspiratorially, as if bestowing upon the other a life-altering secret, and doesn’t seem to care that he’s draped halfway across Phillip’s desk while never leaving his own, “would be very visible.”

Phillip leans back; the legs of his chair scrape harshly against the floor, until he’s balanced only on the back two. “Okay. Great. So we hire an escape artist. You have somebody in mind?” He cocks a brow.

P.T. grins. “Me?”

The front legs of the chair come down against the floor again with a sharp thud. “What?”

“I’ve been reading up on it,” P.T. leans back again, pressing the heels of his hands into the desktop to balance himself. “Can’t be that hard, right?”

Phillip almost laughs at the absurdity of the remark—it’s so unbelievable and outrageous and utterly P.T. – but he swallows it down. “You…you…” And then, incredibly, he realizes he’s not worried. He thinks about the bed of nails—the lions—the fire, and the smile, and the smoking sleeve—and he isn’t worried at all.

This is just another risk, and the odds, as he’s learned, are always in P.T.’s favor.

“You’ll need to practice,” he says, and even as he says it, he can hardly believe he’s saying it, but the idea makes sense in an odd sort of way, and he’s kind of coming around to it. “You’ll need to practice a lot.”

P.T. flashes a smile brighter than the sun, and vaults off the desk—he puts his hat back on again with one of those unnecessary flourishes he’s so fond of, says he “knew you’d come around, Phil”, and that is that.

Three days later, a coffin – an actual coffin, about six feet in length and completely airtight, made entirely of smooth, flawless oak almost three inches thick appears in the tent; P.T. runs his hands over it with a soft, approving whistle, touching the immaculate surface almost reverently.

Phillip tries to point out the morbidity of shutting oneself inside a coffin; out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lettie nodding. P.T. ignores the both of them.

The odds, when they finally do start practicing it, are in P.T.’s favor, the way they usually are, and when he finally flips open the coffin lid and clambers out, just under the two-minute mark, with a flushed face and beaming smile, Phillip isn’t even surprised. He isn’t surprised the second time, either—or the third—or the fourth, for that matter—and he isn’t surprised when, the night of their next show, P.T. takes him aside, tells him to waive the two-minute time limit—just give me an extra thirty seconds or so—it’ll be more exciting if we drag it out—for the audience, you know—got to make them think I’m really struggling—just thirty seconds—that’s all—

No, Phillip isn’t surprised, but – and this is the weird part – he isn’t worried, either. Still. He thinks about the bed of nails. The lions. The fire. About the odds.

“Can’t push it much further than that,” he says, instead of arguing; he finishes buttoning up his jacket, and reaches for his hat.

P.T. grins. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

When they step out into the ring, the world explodes in a wonderful, dizzying blur of flames and animals and bright lights and glitter and colors and music and his own body moving on instinct, falling easily into the familiar steps of the dance, and then it’s Charles charging in on horseback and Lettie’s voice rising above the rest, and the soft rustle of her favorite silk dress, and Anne fifty feet above them all, agile and beautiful, swinging deftly from hoop to hoop, and Mrs. Barnum in the back, beaming, with the girls jumping up and down on their seats beside her, and Phillip finds he’s gasping and breathless and smiling so hard it hurts, and for the thousandth time since that night in the bar, he’s so glad he went to the other side—

And then the song reaches its end, and the coffin is brought into the ring.

P.T. never misses a beat; the box has barely been on the floor a minute before he produces a set of shining silver manacles from seemingly nowhere, taking a moment to hold them up for the audience – and positively beaming when the sight draws gasps and whistles from at least a few dozen people.

Phillip rolls his eyes; he really doesn’t see the point of the chains, to tell the truth. He called them overkill, when P.T. first showed them off to him—for God’s sake, the man was already going to be locking himself in a damn coffin, what on earth did he need to wrap himself in chains for?—but P.T. pointed out that Harry Houdini used chains, so then Phillip asked if Harry Houdini was also an idiot, and—well, to make a long story short, it was an argument Phillip hadn’t won, so when P.T. tosses the heap of metal at him, he catches it without protest, and fastens on the fetters exactly as the older man told him to—round the wrists—looped back over the shoulders—tight against the chest—and steps back a minute, to inspect his handiwork—P.T. would go into conniptions if it didn’t look “inescapable” enough—and then he helps the other man into the coffin, still lying open in the center of the ring.

A sudden hush falls over the crowd, and the last of their cheers fade away into silence.

Mrs. Barnum, Phillip sees when he steals a glance at the stands, doesn’t look surprised at all.

Good. At least her husband gave her fair warning what he was getting into before he did it.

As P.T. eases himself back into the yawning blackness of the empty crate, he catches Phillip’s eye and mouths, “Thirty seconds.”

Phillip nods – he remembers – and closes the coffin.

It’s going to be a long two minutes.

From the looks of the audience, they feel the same; several people cast anxious, uneasy glances at the coffin, a few even leaning around their neighbors to keep it in their sights.

Phillip doesn’t take out his pocket watch – P.T. insisted on it, said it’d “ruin the excitement” or something like that – but he keeps silent, careful count in his head, and if he’s still on-track, it’s been about thirty seconds since he latched the coffin.

Lettie glances at the locked crate, and presses her lips together – she’s never been any more a fan of P.T.’s impetuous schemes than Phillip has. Not that anyone in the circus really likes watching their ringmaster go plunging headlong into his millionth risky, unpredictable venture since he brought them together—and then he has the nerve to laugh, and say they’re “impeding progress” whenever they try to raise a protest.

Sixty seconds.

Phillip knows, thanks to all their practice run-throughs, that P.T. can get out of the chains in that time, and have the coffin open in even less, but there’s no way the ringmaster will sacrifice the suspense and excitement of this moment for the sake of a hasty escape.

He sneaks another glance at Mrs. Barnum; she’s got a close eye on the coffin, and she doesn’t seem any happier about this than Lettie or himself, but the girls are still bouncing around in their seats, blind to, or perhaps just ignoring, the riskier side of this new act – they’ve probably seen their father get out of far worse scrapes than this one.

Time’s nearly up now, if he’s still tallying it up right, but he knows better than to think there’s even a chance in hell P.T. will unlatch the coffin before he absolutely has to; he’ll stay where he is for as long as possible, hype up the drama, put on a good show, do what he does best. Still, it shouldn’t be too much longer until—

The latch starts to rattle.

The sound is loud as a scream in the thick silence filling up the tent; several people start in their seats, a few gasp, and Mrs. Barnum relaxes visibly, pressing one gloved hand to her mouth. Her girls break out in cheers beside her.

But the coffin—

The coffin doesn’t open.

“Damn it, P.T.,” Phillip murmurs, half under his breath, before he can stop himself – he thinks of the bed of the nails, the lions, the fire, the sleeve, the smile, but something cold settles in his gut all the same. The other man knows what he’s doing – of that, Phillip has no doubt – but he’s really pushing it at this point; whatever he’s doing, whatever the hell he thinks he’s playing at, he really needs to just wrap things up—he’s already been in there too long—longer than in any of their practice sessions, for sure—

The latch rattles again—again—again—

P.T.’s still not opening the coffin.

What the hell is he doing in there?

Another rattle, and then—

And then a thump.

The girls stop cheering.

Something—something isn’t right.

Phillip hesitates a minute longer, but he starts toward the coffin anyway. Maybe P.T. really is okay—maybe he really is just hyping everything up for the sake of the audience—maybe there really is nothing to worry about—maybe he is just getting worked up over nothing—but—

But this has gone on long enough. Act or no act.

Phillip quickens his pace, and kneels down beside the box – another thump racks the dark, gleaming wood. He grabs at the latch, and—

The latch—

The latch is stuck.

Phillip freezes.

And then – “Goddamn it, P.T.!” – and then he comes back to himself, and makes another grab for the latch.

“Just—just hang on!” He has no idea if the other man can even hear him, with all that wood between them, but he keeps talking anyway – and he realizes, dimly, distantly, that while his hands are shaking, fingers clumsy with panic and throat thick with raw fear, his voice is steady. “Just hang on, P.T., we’ll have you out of there in a second—

But the metal won’t give, and his heart is pounding so hard, it hurts, and when he turns, what looks like the entire circus has crowded around him, staring at the coffin—

“We have to—we have to get—we have to get him out of there—there’s no air in there— he doesn’t have any air—!” He doesn’t know what he’s doing; he doesn’t know how to do this, how to break a latch, or pick a lock—that’s the sort of stuff P.T.’s good at—maybe O’Malley could help them only he’s pretty sure O’Malley’s still up front in the ticket booth—and he doesn’t know if P.T. can wait for someone to run and fetch O’Malley anyway because he’s in a damn coffin and he’s got no air, and—God, he doesn’t know what he’s doing—he does not know what he’s doing—

And then there’s a knife in his hand, and he doesn’t know where it came from or who put it there and he doesn’t even know if a knife will do the job—P.T. would know—but he turns it on the latch anyway, and his hands are shaking so badly it’ll be a miracle if he can even hit the latch at all, and then he does and it makes an odd sort of chinking sound, and he’s not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad sign or what, so he does it again, and the latch—the latch breaks, clean off the coffin, and down onto the floor of the ring, and Phillip rips open the lid and—

And—

And P.T. isn’t moving.

P.T. isn’t moving, he’s just—he’s just lying there, sprawled slackly at the bottom of the crate, eyes closed, lips slightly parted—God, his skin looks almost grey—Phillip reaches in, and drags him from the coffin, with all the strength he’s got left—and then Mrs. Barnum is there, on her knees in the middle of the ring, her long pale hair falling in thin, tangled wisps—and her girls are there, too, tears streaking down their small, scared faces, staring down at their father—and Charles is shouting—something—but there’s a weird kind of buzzing in Phillip’s ears, a relentless static filling him up until he can’t hear a thing—and the girls are still crying and P.T. still isn’t moving and people are getting up from their seats, and edging towards the ring, and craning their necks and peering around their neighbors—gawking—and a anger flares, fierce and fiery, in the pit of Phillip’s stomach—and he opens his mouth—for God’s sake, what’s wrong with them—why don’t they just leave—

But then Charles starts shouting again, and this time—this time—Phillip can hear him. “What the hell you think you’re lookin’ at?! Get outta here! Show’s over!”

But no one leaves—no one listens to him—they all just keep standing there—and staring—and—

“He said,” Lettie steps forward suddenly, and grabs Charles’ hand up in her own, lifting her chin, “show’s over.”

W.D. steps forward, then, too—and Anne—and Fedor, and Constantine, and Leeds, and then, suddenly, it’s all of them, every single one, dancers and flyers and lion tamers and fire eaters and everyone, a solid, silent barrier between P.T. and the rest of the world, and no one moves, and no one says anything, and Phillip just knows somebody’s about to hit somebody, and he knows he needs to get to his feet, try and deescalate the situation however he can, but—

But the people start stepping back. And then – incredibly – the people start to leave.

They go slowly, trickling out in groups of two and three, stealing backward glances the whole way out the door, but they go, and Phillip lets out a small, shaky breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.

“…Phillip?”

The word’s barely more than a small, drowsy mumble, so quiet it’s nearly lost amid the questions and complaints of the dissatisfied crowd still heading for the exits, but P.T.’s eyes are open, looking right at him, and he’s breathing, he’s breathing, and the relief flooding Phillip is so overwhelming, he feels almost faint with the force of it.

“What…” P.T. swallows, and a little crease forms between his brows. “What happen—?”

“Daddy!”

And then the girls are there, shrieking and shouting and clinging to P.T., with all the strength in their small hands, smiling wide through the tears still drying on their cheeks.

P.T. sits up and gathers the girls in his arms—smiles at them, calls them his little princesses, and kisses the tops of their blonde heads when they bury their faces in his shoulder, and his easy grin never once falters.

“The box,” Helen starts to say, but Caroline interrupts her, one young voice getting lost in the other.

“Daddy, the box—the box didn’t open, it didn’t—”

P.T. doesn’t let her finish, and even though he’s still smiling, it doesn’t reach his eyes, and the words come out heavy. “Yeah, we all played a pretty good trick tonight, wouldn’t you say?”

Caroline abruptly pulls back, little face crinkling in disbelief; there’s a dark, damp stain on her father’s collar where her head just was. “Tr-trick?” She sniffles and rubs at her eyes. “It—it was a trick?”

And P.T. nods, and hitches the smile back on his face the second she looks at him, and Phillip thinks, if he hadn’t been the one at the latch, he might just believe it himself.

“You weren’t—you weren’t really trapped—?”

“Don’t be silly, Helen, it’d take more than that to keep your old man down. Doesn’t look as though this crowd liked it much, though,” P.T. adds ruefully, casting a glance at the last few stragglers still leaving the tent – trust him to think of the show, of all things, at a time like this.

Phillip watches as the girls relax against their father’s chest, Caroline slipping her arms back around P.T.’s neck to hug him properly, and Mrs. Barnum is silent the whole way through, gloved hands clasped in her lap and her eyes always on her husband, a strange mixture of affection and exasperation in her gaze.

“Daddy?” Helen pulls away first this time, voice quavering in a way Phillip never imagined it could – the little girl is far too bold for such timidity. “Don’t play that trick again, okay? Ever. I didn’t like it, either.”

The whole thing ends as quickly as it began. They start on the usual after-show clean-up, and the workers shed their circus costumes for street clothes and wash the powder and glitter from their faces with practiced ease. Phillip finds P.T. in an unused, unlit corner of the tent, red ringmaster jacket torn half-off, hanging limply from one shoulder like the broken wing of an injured bird, and one hand pressed to his temple, lips pulled back in a pained grimace. Phillip tries to ask if he’s okay, and P.T.’s head snaps up and he straightens and takes his hand off his head and says, in a sharper voice than normal, not to sneak up on people.

The coffin, broken latch still swinging, is put away in the back of the tent, under crates and boxes and trunks, and nothing more is said about any of it.

And that should be the end of it.

But it’s not, because when Phillip walks into the office the next morning, P.T.’s at his desk, bent over a thick sheaf of papers, dark curls tumbling down into his eyes, and he—

He doesn’t talk.

He doesn’t say a word—barely even looks up, come to that, just flicks the end of his pencil at his partner in silent greeting before resuming his task, and as the thin graphite tip scratches across the sheet, Phillip doesn’t know what to do. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go; P.T.’s supposed to jump out of his seat and start rambling on about some new act he thought up at three in the morning, or he’s supposed to be sifting through the desk drawers and grumbling under his breath about the disorder, even though it’s all his fault anyway because he refuses to clean the desk himself, and he won’t let anyone do it for him, either, because he has a “system”, and then Phillip’s supposed to ask if that system is never being able to find anything, ever, and P.T.’s supposed to try not to smile and fail, but none of that happens, none of it, and Phillip doesn’t know what to do.

He steals another glance at the dark-haired head before he forces his feet to move, to carry him to the chair behind his own, significantly better-organized, desk.

And even though P.T.’s not really acting all that different – still joking around, still smiling, still laughing with Lettie and clapping Leeds on the back and strutting around with that proud, cocksure grin spread wide across his face, there are times, and they never last long, but there are times when his smile slips, and the light behind his eyes burns out, and in those moments, when Phillip sees what isn’t shown, P.T. is suddenly very, very different.

And when a group of at least sixty people from their last show comes marching into the tent, demanding full refunds, there’s a moment, and it doesn’t last long, but P.T. stiffens—goes curiously silent, and eerily still—and he’s suddenly different—and then—and then he steps forward, and smiles his most charming smile, words sweet as honey pouring from his lips like rain.

And if he’s thought up any new acts in the past few days, he’s not talking about them, doesn’t even mention them, and when Phillip stops by the office later in the week to invite him out for drinks with the rest of the troupe he says—

“No.” He doesn’t even look up from the paper he’s reading. “No. Thank you, Phillip. Maybe next time.”

Considering the way P.T.’s been acting lately, Phillip more than expected the refusal, but it still makes something inside him turn cold; this confirms it, then, beyond a shadow of any doubt – something really is wrong with his partner, if the guy’s passing up an opportunity to drink, especially with the rest of the circus. If Phillip didn’t know him better, he’d almost be tempted to say P.T.’s acting like he feels…guilty.

“I hope you all have a good night,” P.T. adds, and flips the page over to read the back; he still won’t look up.

Phillip hears the dismissal in the words, loud and clear, and maybe he should listen to it; maybe he should just leave, just go meet up with the others outside the tent like he said he would, because knowing them, they’ll take off for the bar without him if he doesn’t show up in the next fifteen seconds, but—but—he firms his mouth, and sets his hat down on the edge of the other man’s desk. “P.T.,” he’s not really sure where to go from here. “Are you—I mean, is everything…” His mouth goes dry. This is Lettie’s territory. Mrs. Barnum’s territory. Not his. Not even close. “…Is everything okay?”

Well, that gets P.T.’s attention, at least. It even gets him to look up.

“Everything’s fine, Phillip.” He puts the paper down. “I understand all the refunds and a few of the more recent reports must seem concerning, but I assure you, the circus is well in hand. There’s nothing you need to worry about.” He smiles.

“…I—I wasn’t talking about the circus.” Phillip can’t even believe he has to explain that—well, okay, yeah, he actually can. “I was talking about you.”

P.T.’s smile slips, and his eyebrows rise.

“Is everything—is everything okay with you?”

“Fine. Fine.” P.T. turns back to the paper, smoothing it flat upon his desktop. “You should head out, Phil, before they decide to run off without you.” He glances up, the beginnings of a grin on his face – a real one this time. “You know how they are.”

“Yeah.” When Phillip looks a little closer, he sees dark shadows beneath the older man’s eyes, but he forces himself to smile and nod anyway; he’s learned, over the past several months since he joined the circus, that if P.T. doesn’t want to do something, doesn’t want to talk about something, then he just won’t, and that’s that, and it’s not like it’ll do any good to push him. He drags in a breath, and pushes off the desk.

“See you tomorrow, P.T.”

“He’s not coming.”

It’s not a question, not really, but Phillip shakes his head anyway. “No.”

“Can’t say we weren’t expecting that,” Charles mutters.

“Do you guys…” Phillip hesitates a minute before he takes the plunge. “Do you guys think he’s…okay?”

“Barnum?” Anne raises her eyebrows.

“He’s been—he’s been acting like—he’s been acting weird all week. He’s been acting weird ever since…” Phillip drops his voice to a whisper. “…Since our last show.”

“Yeah, imagine that,” Lettie says dryly. “He’s had a lot on his plate, Carlyle,” she adds, more gently. “We all have. You know how the people reacted to the…” She stops.

A second of slightly awkward silence, and then Charles murmurs something about getting to the bar before sunrise, and everyone starts grabbing hats and scarves and heading for the opening.

“Yeah,” Phillip says, and suddenly, the weight on his chest feels a little bit lighter; Lettie’s right, of course she’s right, she almost always is – P.T.’s just trying to clean up the mess of their last show, and hasn’t stopped to think about, or really notice, anything else. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. He reaches up to tug his hat down a little, but his fingers find only empty air, and—damn it.

“Left my hat in the office,” he explains, at Anne’s questioning look. “I’ll be right back—you guys go on ahead, I’ll catch up.” He jerks his chin at the tent opening and smiles at her, at all of them, before heading back the way he came; they probably won’t actually go off without him, and he quickens his pace at the thought. No use in making them wait.

The tent’s mostly dark by now, the last of the lanterns still burning down, but Phillip can find his way without a light – could probably find his way even if he shut his eyes and spun on the spot, he’s been through here so many times. He rounds a tall, tottering stack of chipped, battered crates, piled so precariously one atop the other that they look to always be on the verge of falling—the office is just around the corner, and he hastens forward—and—

—and—

Phillip stops.

P.T.’s tucked himself away in that unused, unlit corner of the tent from their last show, and he’s on the ground—on his knees—looking at something Phillip can’t see, so he steps forward—edges a little farther around the stack of crates—

The coffin.

Phillip draws back, a sharp gasp tumbling from his lips. What the hell—what the hell does P.T. want with the damned coffin? For God’s sake, it nearly became his coffin! Why would he—why would—

P.T. opens the coffin.

The latch is still broken, swinging unevenly back and forth, and the sound of the metal hitting the wood is enough to make Phillip physically sick. Looking away is never a thought in his head.

P.T. stands up—straightens out his coat—rolls up his sleeves—

—and steps, very deliberately, over the lip, and down into the coffin. There’s a sound, a strange sort of hitch to his breathing, that wasn’t there a minute ago.

Phillip should—he should—he should do something—he wants to do something, but it’s like he’s frozen, lips sewn shut like a little girl’s doll, feet fixed fast to the ground, and what the hell is going on?

P.T. lays down in the box, reaches up, and pulls down the lid.

And Phillip—

P.T. lying motionless in the bottom of the coffin, lips slightly parted and skin tinged grey while his wife goes pale and his daughters cry and—

—Phillip isn’t frozen anymore. His legs are shaking—he’s shaking all over, really, but he’s moving, rushing toward the coffin like his life depends on it, and he realizes, dimly, that the screams echoing in his ears—“P.T.!”—are entirely his own.

He reaches the coffin—tears up the lid—it isn’t latched, thank God it isn’t latched—of course it’s not latched—the latch is broken—and then P.T.’s staring up at him, and he’s okay, he’s all right, he’s completely fine—his mouth pulling down a little at the corners, like he’s irritated, but he’s breathing—

“What—what—?” Phillip’s mouth is dry, and his tongue won’t work, and he realizes, with a start, that the shaking has gotten worse. “—what the hell are you doing?”

P.T. sits up inside the coffin, and frowns at him. “I thought you were going out for drinks.”

“And I thought…” His voice cracks a little, right in the middle, and he has to start again. “I thought you weren’t an idiot!”

P.T.’s frown deepens. “Phil—

“No.” Suddenly, he can speak again, and all the words come pouring out of him like water from a cracked pitcher. “P.T., what the hell were you doing?”

“…Practicing,” P.T. says at last.

“Practice—practicing?” Phillip echoes warily, pulse picking up speed—dear God, please don’t let P.T. be saying what he thinks he’s saying…

“For the show.” P.T.’s tone is a little too casual now.

“For the—for the show?”

“Come on, Phillip,” P.T. even has the nerve to throw in a laugh, “you didn’t really think I’d scrap the whole act over one little hiccup, did you?”

“One little hiccup?” Phillip doesn’t even sound a thing like himself anymore, but he’s way too pissed off at this point to care. “Sorry, but I think I’d call getting locked in a box without air for five minutes more than one little hiccup!”

“Don’t give me that, Phillip, the incident was hardly worth—

“Oh, so it’s an incident now—?”

“Come on, Carlyle!” Lettie appears suddenly from behind the towering stack of crates, trailed by Charles and Anne. “It doesn’t take that long to grab a…” She sees P.T. then—Phillip sees her dark eyes flick over to him—sees the coffin lying open, sees him sitting upright inside it, and for maybe half an instant, a heavy hush falls across the group.

And then—

“Barnum.” Lettie’s voice is calm, remarkably so—calmer, by far, than Phillip’s. “What the hell are you doing.” Somehow, she makes every syllable count.

“Practicing.” P.T. doesn’t near so confident this time; he gets to his feet and steps out of the coffin.

“For the show?” Lettie catches on faster than Phillip, raising one eyebrow. “You already tried that once, Barnum. ’Case you don’t remember, it didn’t end well.”

“I know there were some…” P.T.’s quiet for a long second. “…kinks…to work out…”

“You got locked in a coffin, P.T., that’s a little more than a kink,” Phillip tries to point out, but P.T. just talks over him.

“But I can assure all of you, I see where I went wrong last time, and I won’t repeat those mistakes.”

“What do you mean?” Anne’s mouth twists down into a frown.

P.T. looks back at the coffin. “I won’t risk jeopardizing the circus again.”

For a minute, there’s silence—Phillip turns the words over and over in his mind, too stunned to speak. That’s what’s bothering him—that’s why he’s been acting so weird all week—of course that’s what it is—the idiot—

“The circus?” Lettie narrows her eyes. “That’s what you’re—that’s—you’re not gonna risk the circus?”

P.T. catches the exasperation in her tone, and wrinkles his brow. “I—I don’t see what the issue is—I’m taking steps to ensure the security of the show—I thought you’d all be glad to hear it, I—

Phillip can’t keep quiet any longer. “Oh, yeah, the show, that’s exactly what we’re worried about. Definitely not the fact you nearly died up on stage last week, and can’t wait to try it again! Jesus, P.T., I actually thought you were dead for a second when I opened that coffin!”

“We don’t want anything to happen to the circus, Barnum,” Lettie interjects – as usual, she puts it into words better than Phillip ever could. “But more than that, we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“You’ve kind of grown on us, Barnum,” Charles adds, a half-smile creeping up the corner of his mouth. “Don’t screw it up.”

For the first time since Phillip’s met him, and maybe the first time ever, P.T.’s speechless, or at least it looks that way; he’s staring, wide-eyed, around at them all like he’s never really seen them before—like he can’t believe what he’s hearing—and Phillip remembers, suddenly, the way he looked in the office earlier—his smile slipping and his eyebrows rising—the way he himself had to stop and explain—I wasn’t talking about the circus—as if that wasn’t obvious—and he’s caught between wanting to hug P.T., and wanting to hit him in the same moment, but he hasn’t even decided which one to act on when Lettie steps past Charles, and pulls the ringmaster into her arms.

“Oh, Barnum.” She doesn’t say it so much as she sighs it, like a mother, equal parts exasperated and loving.

P.T. goes still for a minute, his red-coated shoulders tensing—Phillip’s sure he’s going to shove her away—and then, all at once, all the fight goes out of him, and he lifts a hesitant hand to return the hug.

“Don’t do it.” Lettie’s voice is gentle, but there’s no missing the warning in her tone. “Don’t go back in that coffin, Barnum, don’t you dare be that stupid.”

P.T. laughs, a little unsteadily and when he pulls away a few seconds later, he smiles at her, a small and fleeting and grateful smile. “If you insist.”

“We’ll fix what happened at the last show.” Lettie leans in and squeezes his shoulder. “But we can fix it in a different way.”

“You’re—you’re right.” P.T. lets out a breath, reaching up to rub at his temple. “I—I’m really sorry I did this to you all.”

“Not like we expect much out of you, anyway.” In contrast to the harsh words, Charles reaches over to pat his knee.

P.T. huffs out a laugh. “’Course not.”

“And since you’re not tryin’ to kill yourself anymore—

“Charles!”

“—you feel like grabbin’ a drink?”

“Who’s paying?”

“Buy your own damn drink, Barnum.”

#the greatest showman #emrys' spellbook

24 notes · View notes

inkofamethyst · 2 years

Text

January 30, 2021

Aghhh I found this men’s shirt on Depop that I really love the look of entirely but it’s two sizes too big for me and I would have to alter it to fit but it’s already an $18 shirt (which like,,, in the grand scheme of things isn’t all that expensive, and it includes shipping,,, so like,,,,, a small price to pay for sustainability tbh) and I could probably find something that would actually fit if I just kept looking... but I did want to get more practice making alterations and I would actually like to have multiple white/cream shirts in my closet that all vary ever so slightly (and I would love to spend money right now bc I’m just itching to buy something (...somethings) entirely frivolous with my book money lol (also wanna get all my purchases out of the way before February comes around and I start tracking my spending again heh)). I suppose I could wear it as a cardigan until I fixed it up.

Reading that over... I think it’s clear that I didn’t come here to talk myself out of buying the shirt.. I came here to talk myself into affirming that it is a justified decision. It’s just that thrifting online can be such a headache, and I feel like my success rate hovers around 65% which isn’t great at all (just did the math: 55% great, 27% eh, 18% bad -- 65% was a pretty decent estimate! (also these numbers include items that I had to alter/mend, 2 of which are now some of my faves)). Honestly, thrifting irl is only a little bit easier. Sometimes I’ll get home, wash something I’ve found, and discover that the cute find is not so cute on me (it happens less so now that I carry a measuring tape, but fit can’t always account for style/color mismatches).

Results are in for the spring music selection: I don’t recognize ~any~ of the songs and we are ~not~ bringing back the song I had the solo in. Which is fine, and I mean hey I won’t have to go through the whole imposter syndrome thing this semester (not with that, anyway) which is dope. I... I can’t say that I’m not a little disappointed, if I’m being honest, though. Because it feels a little like something that’s just sort of hanging over me, unfinished. And I can’t do anything about it. And I think that’s valid, to feel a little disappointed. But, overall, I’m excited to start rehearsing again. I’m excited to be part of an ensemble again, to perform again. Finally, after a three-year hiatus (thx miss rona), to be in front of an audience again.

AHHHHH BUT SOMETHING THAT’S MAYBE EVEN MORE EXCITING THAN THAT IS THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINAAAAAA AHHHHHH I just watched the three episodes they’ve released and was basically smiling the whole time. I’ve been listening to these nerdy voice actors for... four years now (almost exactly, actually, as I started listening to CR C1 right around the time when my dnd-friend first invited me to play dnd with her and some of her old friends, and I feel like it was a birthday gift to her...) and there were so many parts of episode 3 especially (especially the end) that was just like,,, AHHHH eeehehehehehe and the first two episodes were so much fun on their own (and if they go for the chroma conclave plot in s2, they’ve literally already set that up omg) and I just,,, yes.

Wait but okay back to the whole orchestra thing though, in preparation for next fall’s music selection, I’ve recently started working on the Wrath of the White Witch main theme (not pieces of a broken heart, but the more fanfare-y one). It’s rough. I mapped out most of the melody in a night, and now I’m just taking it slow, bit by bit (saving the hardest parts for last (and, trust me, this piece has more than its fair share)), counting my upbeats and downbeats and all-around beats. I’m considering figuring out something different to work on for next fall though. Like, do a trial arrangement submission so I can learn from it, then try this piece in the Spring. Idk, I’ve got time to learn. And also like what am I if not in over my head at all times.

Ummm I will say that I was in rehearsal today and kept thinking, like, what if I had auditioned on flute? Now, don’t get me wrong, I am extremely proud of everything I accomplished personally last semester in terms of singing in a real choir for the first time. That was awesome. But I was just sitting there today and like,,, choir is only in half of the pieces. I feel like... like an ensemble member in a musical, but like, a freshman who’s only really in the background of four tiny scenes plus maybe one big number. But if I played flute I’d be ~in on the action~ and playing the whole time. And like, that’s making a ton of assumptions: that I’m a good enough flute player that I would’ve successfully auditioned, that I wouldn’t have felt overwhelmed by really difficult music (I haven’t actually looked at the flute music).

I don’t... regret choosing to audition vocally, exactly. I’m just... wondering whether I would have enjoyed myself more had I done flute. And maybe it’s just that I’m tired of the pieces that we’re playing because they were only meant to be played for a semester and now they’ve stretched into two. Maybe I just need fresh music, a new repertoire to challenge me again. Maybe that’s it. Maybe had I done flute, I would be feeling a similar sort of “I wonder how it would’ve been if I’d done choir” type beat. I don’t know. And I can’t know.

Speaking of fresh artsy stuff, a club on campus is putting on a production of a musical that I really enjoy. Auditions are Friday. And I won’t be auditioning. The show swears pretty heavily. And I do not. And it sucks because I would love to give it a go. To see if I had what it took to be one of those characters that I so enthusiastically hum along to. It’s got that quintessential modern musical sound that every girl in theatre tries to break into. But I’d be so uncomfortable the whole time, even in the ensemble. A shame, really.

This... overall this wasn’t a very happy entry :/ Every once in a while we just have those melancholy days, I guess. I mean it wasn’t a bad day by any means, I’m just.. I don’t know.

But, really, today I am thankful to be in a performance group.

0 notes

theimagelaurenittain · 4 years

Text

Week Three Reading

Designing and Living Instagram Photography: Themes, Feeds, Sequences, Branding, Faces, Bodies -Lev Manovich

This weeks reading by Lev Manovich discusses photography produced for the app Instagram. The reading is dedicated mostly towards identifying various types of photographs on Instagram. These are defined as “casual, professional and designed” The author touches briefly on the authenticity issues this app presents but does not really dive deep into them. Instagram is obsessed with the aesthetic (as mentioned by Manovich in the reading above). To be valued on Instagram ones feed must be thematic, cohesive, color schemed, engaging, the list goes on. What Instagram does not prioritize is the messiness that come with humanity. Life does not value perfection and aesthetic over lived experience.

This is super problematic as it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate lived reality from shared highlights online. When scrolling through Instagram its so easy to forget the fact that what you see is an extremely manipulated version of someones lived experience. Stephanie Lange does a great job of discussing this in her you tube videos “This is Why You’ll Never Look Like an Influancer” and “This is Why Your Body Will Never Look Like an Influencers (Hint: They Don’t Look Like This Either!) In her video she shows the difference that manipulating an image with posing, editing and lighting can have. The effect is astonishing. However the fact that this manipulation takes place, is not made apparent to the viewers of the image. Thus viewers normalize the manipulated appearance of the subject. The effect of this is that viewers on these images (which are often produced on a mass scale on Instagram by various users) is the comparison between the viewers life and that of those whom they are viewing. This often leads to feelings of discontent or not enoughness. Maybe we need a editing disclaimer on our photographs? “* The image you are seeing is not a true representation of Anna”.

Here is a visual example of the points I made above. These are the exact same photo but the bottom picture was edited in an app called face tune. I have smoothed my skin, changed my face shape, whitened my teeth and altered the colors slightly. You probably wouldn't be able to tell if they weren't side by side. Keep in mind I am a complete novice at this sort of thing to. Others would have a lot more practice. The app also has options to narrow your waist and increase your bum size.

Bibliography

Manovich, Lev. “Designing and Living Instagram Photography: Themes, Feeds, Sequences, Branding, Faces, Bodies,” n.d., 29.

THIS Is Why You’ll Never Look like an Influencer. Accessed August 14, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGnDmLFaaa8.

This Is Why Your BODY Will Never Look like an Influencers (Hint: They Don’t Look like This Either!). Accessed August 14, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ZfsjGLL1Y.

0 notes

newenglandcus · 4 years

Text

Room Additions Amherst Amazing DIY Small Bathroom Tel: +16032621715

This article following next relating to bath remodeling companies is really insightful. You should investigate for yourself.

youtube

Home Remodeling to Hold Strong Despite Coronavirus

According to survey by LightStream, despite the financial and economical hardships the coronavirus has caused, homeowners are still enthusiastic about improving their living spaces.

While it may seem counterintuitive, a recently completed survey by private loan company LightStream has shown that homeowners are still willing to renovate and remodel their homes during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. According to LightStream, nearly three out of four homeowners (73%) are planning renovations this year�down only slightly from�the company�s January 2020 Home improvement Trends Survey (77%).

In fact, homeowners are continuing or expanding projects (57%) at more than twice the rate of those who are cutting back or canceling altogether (23%).

As a result of the coronavirus, digital conferencing, family video calls and online happy hours have become an integral part of the new normal. In just four months, Zoom�s daily meeting participants jumped from 10 million to more than�300 million. With so many people opening their virtual doors to friends, family and coworkers, many are reevaluating their space.

LightStream recently conducted a home improvement pulse survey through Wakefield Research and found that two-thirds of American homeowners have a part of their house they just don�t like. Additionally, of those who have ever made a video call in their home, 64% have been embarrassed to show parts of their home, including the kitchen and bathroom (each at 20%) and the garage, basement and outdoors (each at 16%). No surprise to anyone who has been working from home with kids: 80% of parents are feeling this way versus 55% of non-parents.

After months of spending nearly all their time with roommates or loved ones, some homeowners indicated that they are ready for some intra-house social distancing. More than a third (36%) reported a lack of personal space in their home, with Millennials feeling the most cramped (62%) compared to Gen Xers (44%) and Baby Boomers (20%). And once again, parents are feeling the squeeze more than non-parents, with 57% reporting they are unable to get personal space compared to 25% of non-parents.

�As a result of COVID-19 shutdowns that closed offices, businesses, schools and more, self-isolation has forced Americans to take a much closer look at their homes,� says Todd Nelson, senior vice president of strategic partnerships at LightStream.

With summer approaching, nearly half of those planning home improvement projects plan to tackle outdoor projects (49%), followed by home repairs (35%), bathrooms (33%) and kitchens (32%).

https://www.cepro.com/news/home-remodeling-hold-strong-coronavirus-outbreak/

Just about everyone seems to have their own individual piece of advice in relation to remodelers near me.

Despite the Crisis, Homeowners Remodel to Ride Out Pandemic in Comfort

Shelley Beatty had been planning a major remodel of her home for more than a year, and she wasn�t going to let the deadly coronavirus pandemic get in the way. She was determined to create a roomier home in the Kansas City suburbs to accommodate her three children, their spouses, and her eight grandkids when they visit for extended holidays and vacations.

But when Beatty, 67, a part-time accountant, and her husband, an emergency room doctor, learned of the COVID-19 outbreaks earlier this year, she made some changes to her plans for a $300,000 renovation of their seven-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot home in Fairway, KS. Now, not only did she want the new kitchen and dining room to accommodate big, boisterous family gatherings, it also had to stand up to constant cleaning to combat the coronavirus.

So she opted for quartz instead of a granite countertop. Instead of stone or textured floor tile, she went with smooth ceramic.

Despite dire predictions from home improvement experts amid high unemployment, a struggling economy, and health concerns, people are still investing in upgrading their homes�and it's keeping the remodeling� industry surprisingly strong.

Homeowners are undertaking new projects or adding to ongoing ones�albeit with some alterations. These days, people want home offices for remote work, learning space for online classes, spacious kitchens for home dining, and more space in general in this new, socially distanced reality.

More than half of homeowners who were in the middle of renovations when a global pandemic was declared on March 11 went ahead with their projects, according to a survey from the website Houzz, polling nearly 1,000 U.S. homeowners. Only 1% of those in the middle of a project canceled work. Contractors say that wealthier clients are going ahead with their plans, while those with lower incomes are postponing or canceling their remodeling projects.

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/homeowners-remodel-to-ride-out-pandemic-in-comfort/

youtube

Whether the projects of which you're thinking are big or small, any home improvement can dramatically affect the look and feel of your home. It makes your home more attractive and habitable and also increases its resale value. Do not be wary of doing some improvements; you can increase the value of your home. The following article will give you some great tips on improving your home.

Painting a room is perhaps the cheapest home improvement you can carry out. A fresh coat of paint in a different shade or texture can completely transform a room for minimal cost. If your walls are not in the best condition and you don't have time to re-plaster them before painting, consider hanging wallpaper instead, to avoid drawing attention to the damage.

Self adhesive drywall patches are a must-have home improvement. These patches come in many forms ranging from mesh drywall tape to those made of a polymer material. Press them carefully into place using an iron. Be careful not to scorch the patch or the wall surface. Paint right over the patch and you'll never know it's there.

If you have a small, cramped kitchen make sure to choose light colored cabinetry. If you go with dark cabinetry, it will make your kitchen seem even smaller. Choosing a light color, can in fact enhance your sense of space and make your kitchen seem warmer.

To increase your kitchen's value without spending a lot of money, add a new backsplash. Backsplashes are highly desired by buyers, and can make your kitchen look more put together. To save money, use a material like tin tile or stainless steel in place of costly ceramic tile. Be sure to pick out something that compliments your kitchen's color scheme.

Store material that you're using for building between floor joists or ceiling rafters. Long pieces of molding and even larger materials like two by fours can be stored up and out of the way just with a little effort on your part. All you have to do is put some furring strips on floor joists or your rafters.

When you use these tips you can get rid of any hassles or extra expenses that might happen if you do not plan. Grab your tools and get out there!

Choosing Convenient Methods For bathroom remodels

youtube

As a keen person who reads on remodelers near me, I think sharing that portion was important. If you enjoyed our page please be sure to share it. I take joy in your readership.

Room Additions Amherst Amazing DIY Small Bathroom Tel: +16032621715 Kitchen Remodeling Merrimack bath remodel contractors near me deck contractors home remodel contractors near me best remodeling contractors near me

#Kitchen Remodeling #Bathroom Remodeling #New England Custom Remodeling

0 notes

ratboy · 7 years

Text

Gemsona Day 1: Everything Gold Can Stay

Homeworld-Your Diamond is pleased with your work ethic and competence, and has seen fit to reward you with your very own Pearl. Your Pearl is already outfitted to match you and is ready for instruction…

Words: ~2.3k

Summary: Citrine gets a surprise from their Diamond!

“Citrine 7OS, you are to report to the dock for export to Homeworld, immediately,” Holly Blue Agate’s voice crackled through the Zoo’s loudspeakers, cutting through the silence.

Citrine was sitting in their cubby when the announcement echoed through the room. Skinny Jasper and Carnelian whipped their heads up to their fellow Beta-mate in concern. Waves of fear flooded over Citrine. What was going on? Were they in trouble? Why did they have to go to Homeworld? Did Blue Diamond find out…?

Skinny’s voice cut through their worrying, realizing they were spiraling, “You better get going Citrine. Better not keep them waiting.”

They nodded absentmindedly, hopping down and exiting the resting room. The world around them was white noise as they made their way through the facility. The two Amethysts guarding the entrance/exit of the bay said something Citrine couldn’t quite make out before slapping them on the back in a “good luck, kid” manner and pushing them towards the awaiting ship.

The ship was sleek and minimalistic, reflecting the resource crisis afflicting Homeworld. Only basic necessities adorned it. Though, it did don the classic blue color scheme of Citrine’s Diamond, including an indigo diamond embroidering the side. Sharp, triangular wings spread out towards the rear, boosters on the edges. An Agate stood at the top of a miniature staircase underneath the doorway.

“Citrine, facet 3, cut 7OS, I presume?”

Citrine saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You may address me as Iris Agate.”

“Yes, Iris Agate.”

Iris Agate gave a small grin before she pivoted around and strutted into the hull. Citrine hurried after her, hearing the engines powering up and the door smoothly shut behind them. Iris was standing next to a bench jutting from the curvature of the ship once they made in on board.

“You may stay within the confines of this area. Here is a bench for you to sit on, if you so desire. You will not leave this area. Understood?”

“Yes, Iris Agate,” as soon as the words left Citrine’s mouth, Iris sharply turned towards another flight of stairs leading up to, presumably, the cockpit. The interior wasn’t much different than the outside. A few holo-screens were plastered to the wall perpendicular to Citrine, displaying various statistics of the ship that they couldn’t decipher. They plopped themselves down onto the designated bench, continuing to observe the hull.

Blue Diamond’s insignia was also visible on the inside, barely distinguishable in the dim lighting. Besides the aforementioned, the rest was bare. The crisis left no section of current Homeworld untouched, it seemed.

The engines hummed only somewhat noisily beneath Citrine as their transportation hurtled through space. It was astonishing to them that, during their time on Earth, the humans had not even come close to this level of space travel yet. Earth and Homeworld shared the same universe, but they still existed in their own universes, in a way. The planets were perfect foils for each other, like day and night, vastly different but perfectly complementary.

Citrine did not realize how long it had been before they saw Iris Agate again. The gem refused to speak to the Quartz and wordlessly entered a passcode that opened the hull door with a hiss.

“We will be waiting in this exact dock. Do not dilly-dally and wander about Homeworld. You are to report directly to Blue Diamond. Her Pearl is here to escort you,” she barked.

Citrine’s eyes widened in horror and surprise, but they nonetheless answered simply, “Yes, Iris Agate,” while saluting and exiting the ship.

Several other ships were docked in the same port as theirs. A glistening, white, convex roof towered over their head. A gigantic ship was entering presently, sluggishly making it towards an open dock. The entire area seemed open to empty space, but protected by a permeable barrier to prevent the vacuum effect that, had it not been there, effectively dragged Citrine out to the void.

“Ahem,” a rough voice cracked the silence, “if you are quite done sightseeing, we must keep moving,” a different Agate glared at Citrine.

“My apologies, ma’am,” Citrine, again, saluted to the superior and began to match the Agate’s speed.

A blue Pearl was escorted quietly by the Agate’s side, barely reaching the gem’s shoulder. Her pastel hair covered most of her face and neck, and a chiffon skirt covered most of her spindly legs. Citrine admired the graceful and gentle steps the Pearl took, each placement of the foot and rise of the heel was calculated and precise.

They halted at a column of transparent tubes leading up out of the port. Other gems were exiting and entering them chaotically. Those who stepped inside were instantaneously whisked away, their forms becoming bright flashes of colored light. Blue Pearl tapped a screen pasted onto the tube they stood in front of a few times. What she did suggested there hadn’t been a change to anything on the exterior, leaving Citrine wondering what she had altered as she strode into the chamber ahead of the Agate and themself. They followed the Agate inside, but as soon as they turned around to face the exit, they were thrusted upwards by an intense vacuum. They felt as if their body was stretching, bending to the shape of the tubes. Colors and lights flashed by, all of them indistinguishable.

Then, it was over. They fell to the ground, hands bracing their large body against falling completely on their front.

“Get up, you lousy Quartz. Have you never been to Homeworld before?”

Citrine scrambled to their feet, catching a glance of Blue Pearl strolling calmly forward onto a soft eggshell white pathway leading up to a wide flight of stairs.

“My deepest apologies, ma’am. I have never experienced that form of transportation,” apologized Citrine, holding a salute. The Agate scoffed in annoyance and stomped after the Pearl, Citrine following closely behind.

The group climbed the flight at a steady, but comfortable pace. Once they reached the landing, Blue Pearl nodded slightly to the Agate, signaling her to open one of the two giant doors for Blue Pearl and Citrine. The Agate did so and the Pearl muttered a demure “thank you” and waved her away. It slowly swung shut, enclosing the Pearl and Citrine in a glittering room. Down and to the middle of the foyer was a closed, alabaster door with silver decorating its frame. To the left was a yellow door with gold bordering the frame, and to the right was a blue door with indigo surrounding it. Citrine instinctively held their breath and became rigid as their footsteps, though usually quiet, echoed in waves through the narrow, but lofty room.

This was, without a doubt, the entrance to the Great Diamond Authority’s quarters.

Blue Pearl slid her slender finger over the translucent screen to the side of her respective Diamond’s door. It accepted whatever code it required and the door slid open on cue, revealing a similarly colored room shrouded in sheer fabric, decorating pillars that held up the roof. A throne was placed towards the back, its back rounded and the armrests sloping into the seat. Behind it, a tinted window in the shape of a diamond. On the throne sat the matriarch herself, Blue Diamond.

Blue Pearl bowed while Citrine saluted.

“My Diamond, I present to you, Citrine, facet 3, cut 7OS, as you requested.”

“Thank you, Pearl. You may leave,” the Diamond spoke in her wistful tone.

Citrine gulped as quietly as they could as the door shut behind the Pearl.

“M-My radiant and luminous Diamond, I…I am humbled that you request to see me, a lowly Citrine, in person. But, if you will allow me to do so, I would like to inquire as to why you asked for me.”

“It is quite alright, Citrine. You are not in any trouble, there is no need to be so formal and nervous,” Blue Diamond smiled, “In fact, this is a celebration of your incredible diligence and perseverance. I wanted to personally thank you for returning one of my most trusted Sapphires to Homeworld, along with yourself, of course.”

Citrine let out an almost inaudible sigh of relief, relaxing their shoulder muscles from the tensed, anxious position they had been in since leaving the ship. “Thank you, my Diamond. I am honored that you would send for me all the way out in the Human Zoo.”

Blue’s eyes flashed with sadness for a brief moment, not caught by Citrine, but she resumed her usual calm persona.

“You are welcome, Citrine. I did not call for you just to hand you words. I would like to present you with your own Pearl,” she spoke as she curled her finger towards an unknown figure in the shadows of a corner. Out from the darkness stepped a Gold Pearl, her hair slicked back to mimic Citrine’s shaved head. Her head was bowed, and her hands were clasped. She wore a skin-tight leotard with the same sheer fabric as Blue Pearl's skirt, though it was placed atop her shoulders and legs, as stockings, instead of a skirt.

“It will be an honor and a pleasure to serve you, my Quartz.”

Citrine opened their mouth in shock. Their own Pearl? Just for returning a Sapphire? They decided it would be more polite (and safer) to not question their Diamond’s decision.

“Thank you very much, my Diamond.”

“I am glad you are satisfied. That will be all.”

Citrine bowed and saluted, then began to exit the room, their Pearl following close behind.

The ride back to the Zoo was still silent, even with a new sidekick. Iris Agate seemed shocked at the gift but didn’t say anything. Sometime in the middle of the trip, Citrine realized they hadn’t seen Blue Pearl after they left, just the same Agate that had scolded them for falling. They wondered where the Pearl had gone to, if not somewhere in the foyer they hadn’t seen. Citrine dwelled on the thought for a few more moments before shrugging it off.

“My Quartz, forgive me for my outburst, but could I ask where we are going?” Gold Pearl suddenly piped up timidly.

“Oh! That’s fine. We’re just going to the Human Zoo. Um…I don’t know if you know what that is,” Citrine politely answered, looking towards their new Pearl.

The Pearl looked confused at the answer, both by the information to her question and the actual kindness Citrine presented in their answer. “What is the ‘Human Zoo?’” she continued to ask.

“Well, it’s a private menagerie of these organic lifeforms from this planet Earth. The Earth was Pink Diamond’s before she–” Citrine stopped, looking away from Gold Pearl’s eyes to the ground, “–she was shattered.” Tears brimmed at their eyes, threatening to spill onto their cheeks. Pearl was overwhelmed, just staring at their owner in newfound confusion. “Ar-are you okay? My Quartz?”

Citrine snapped out of their grieving, wiping away their tears with the back of their forearm. “Yes, my Pearl. I’m fine.” The two gems didn’t talk the rest of the way to the Zoo.

They arrived at the Zoo without incident. Iris Agate bid Citrine goodbye politely before they fully stepped down from the stairs while the Amethysts at the entrance stared in amazement at the Pearl, making her look down and blush. The pair strolled through the Zoo into the cubby room, trying to draw minimal attention to the new gem. Unfortunately, they met Holly Blue just before getting into the room.

“Oh! Citrine, what’s this Pearl doing here? Is that…your Pearl?!” she squawked in astonishment.

“Um, yeah, Holly Blue. This is Gold Pearl. Blue Diamond gifted her to me.”

“Oh, my stars! Blue Diamond, our Diamond? My goodness, I can’t believe that’s what she called you to Homeworld for! I knew you saved a Sapphire, but your own Pearl?” Holly Blue continued to ramble and rave, not noticing that Citrine and Gold Pearl were sneaking away. Citrine snickered to themselves as they glanced back at Holly Blue, her arms animating wildly and her voice peaking occasionally.

They finally made it into the resting room, Citrine sighing in relief. The few Quartzes in there gasped at Citrine’s arrival and the Pearl.

“Citrine!” Skinny shouted, jumping down from her cubby and running to them, wrapping her arms around Citrine once they met.

“Hey there, you beanpole!” giggled Citrine, squeezing their friend in their arms.

Skinny pulled away, looking to the Pearl standing uncomfortably by Citrine’s side. “And who’s this?”

“Oh, this is Gold Pearl. She’s my Pearl now,” Citrine replied, glancing down at the shorter gem.

“Hope she doesn’t replace me as your best friend anytime soon. Haha!” the Jasper laughed.

Citrine smiled sentimentally at Skinny; their eyes meeting and both of them lost in each other’s gazes for a bit.

Skinny broke the gaze first, blushing a bit before walking back up to the cubbies and motioning for Citrine to follow. The trio climbed up to the higher cubbies, where Skinny and Citrine often hung out and rested. Gold Pearl yelped as she lost her grip. CItrine quickly stopped and reached down, grabbing ahold of her arm and gently pulling her up to their shoulders. “Grab on, Pearl,” they said quietly. The Pearl did so, burying her head into the large back of Citrine.

Skinny stopped at the cubby adjacent to hers, letting Citrine get by so that they could share Skinny’s “room.” Citrine picked up their Pearl and set her down in the cubby, sitting down next to her. Skinny climbed over and sat on Citrine’s lap, resting her head on their shoulder.

Citrine looked down at their Pearl. “Are you okay?”

Gold smiled a bit, “I’m fine, my Quartz.”

“You sure? You can go somewhere else if you want.”

The Pearl’s eyes widened. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Of course. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

The Pearl grinned wildly, never have given this amount of freedom before. She hugged Citrine’s left arm then climbed over one cubby to Citrine’s and extended her body, laying down and hanging her arm off the side.

“She’s a sweet one,” Skinny murmured drowsily.

Citrine sighed contentedly, “Yeah, I never thought I’d get a Pearl.”

#gemsona week #su #su fanfic #steven universe fanfic #su citrine #su skinny jasper #skinny jasper #my writing

10 notes · View notes

planar-echoes · 7 years

Text

The Brood of Lineages (Zendikar) By Doug Beyer (4/28/10)

The three legendary Eldrazi trapped on Zendikar—Emrakul, Ulamog, and Kozilek—have risen again. Each spawns a so-called brood lineage of minions around it, lesser Eldrazi creatures that aid the three astral abominations in carrying out their inscrutable purposes.

Each brood lineage has a characteristic look that follows the look of its progenitor, including visual cues, skin textures, and themes. Today we do the unthinkable: we peer deep into the details of each Eldrazi lineage and discover how their looks differ. After today, you'll be able to travel to Zendikar and identify the species of any Eldrazi monstrosity you see.

The Emrakul Lineage

The brood lineage spawned from Emrakul, the Aeons Torn has several hallmarks. The first and most recognizable is the spongy, fleshy latticework built into the anatomy of these creatures. These incomprehensible structures—sort of a cross between whale baleen and the cell wall structures of calcified plants—exist for no known purpose. Some merfolk scholars have speculated that the lattice somehow allows the Emrakul lineage to bend gravity more powerfully than the other lineages. You can see good shots of the strange latticework on several cards throughout Rise of the Eldrazi.

Eldrazi of the Emrakul lineage also bear otherworldly color schemes, merging deep blues with crusty ochres and shocking magentas. This odd coloration is common to most Eldrazi, as their once-astral forms are thought to reflect Zendikar's light in unnatural ways, but the effect is especially prominent in the Emrakul lineage. Check out the coloration on Emrakul itself in cards like Gravitational Shift and Consume the Meek.

Another visual cue of the Emrakul lineage is the thin, ropy, tentacular growths that end in fingerlike or clawlike projections. Emrakul-lineage creatures use these growths to snare or bind their prey before ingesting their living energies, but they may also give rise to less obvious powers or senses.

Each lineage has its own form of squirmy, underdeveloped, mana-infused pupa: the Eldrazi Spawn. Eldrazi spawn are small—mere infants compared to the Brobdingnagian monstrosities they serve—but they serve an important role to the brood lineage. By some unknown process, greater Eldrazi can store consumed energy in their spawned underlings and then hatch greater Eldrazi by consuming the spawn in turn. Just like other Eldrazi, the anatomy and body plan of the spawn creatures follow the look of the rest of the lineage.

The spawn of the Emrakul lineage walk on two stumpy little legs, and have some of the same bizarre coloration and spongy latticework built into its anatomy.

The Ulamog Lineage

The lineage of Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre has its own visual hallmarks. The most notable feature is the skull-like bony plates that enshroud (or make up) the head region. The texture of bone combined with the creepy faceless implacability make the intentions of the Ulamog lineage impossible to read, and therefore make them quite frightful. It is not known what sensory organs these Eldrazi possess, or whether they have senses that defy scholars' normal understanding of perception.

The Ulamog lineage is the most limb-crazy of the three lineages. Rather than true legs, many Ulamog-lineage creatures have masses of tentacles that support torsos that themselves branch into thick arms. Their long, sinewy arms are often bifurcated at the elbow. Some Ulamog-lineage creatures lean forward, low to the ground, and drag themselves along on their arms and tentacles, letting their featureless skull-plates lead the way.

Eldrazi creatures of all lineages alter the laws of nature just by their materialized presence on a plane. Note how the unnatural plant growth in the art of Growth Spasm resembles the writhing tentacles common to the Ulamog lineage.

The use of otherworldly color comes up again in this lineage. Ulamog-lineage creatures mix scabby reds with luminous purples and octopoid oranges. The tentacle growths of this lineage sometimes seem to deteriorate over time, leaving a corroded or rind-like texture to their outer tissue; it is not known whether this is a natural molting process or a reaction of the Eldrazi's confinement in material existence.

The spawn of the Ulamog lineage are like squirming, miniature versions of the other creatures of the lineage. See the skull-like bony plates over the head, the bifurcated arm structure, and the mass of colorful tentacles at its base.

The Kozilek Lineage

The third lineage, that spawned from Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, shares a set of frightening physical characteristics. The most salient is the knobs or bladelike plates of some glossy black material jutting from, or hovering near, their bodies. These sharp projections tear effortlessly through physical substances, including armor and living tissue; yet the Kozilek lineage creatures seem not to use them intentionally as weapons. The projections may be defensive growths, organs of communication, or simply decorative features of the species; the extreme danger of the Eldrazi leaves little time for meticulous study.

Another feature of the Kozilek lineage is their often multi-legged, animalistic, or insectoid body plans. Some Kozilek-lineage creatures have bifurcated arms like the Ulamog lineage, but Kozilek limbs tend to branch with stranger, more awkward angles. The forked elbow structure is curious; it could indicate an adaptation used for climbing through caves and subterranean ruin passages, although it appears on some greater Eldrazi that are many stories tall. Although creatures of the Kozilek lineage often have animalistic skeletal structures, they always have their own horrible divergences from those natural forms, leaving them completely alien.

Creatures of the Kozilek lineage often have eyes or eyelike protuberances in odd places, such as at limb joints or scattered seemingly randomly along the creatures' flanks. The appearance of such normal-seeming mammalian sensory organs on creatures such as the Eldrazi is jarring to say the least. Some have speculated that the eyes were grown as an attempt to mimic the life of Zendikar, the better to hunt such prey, but that the imitation failed or was halted, and only the eyes and vaguely bestial body shapes remain. The eyes do seem occasionally to aim and focus, but usually only at empty space—or perhaps they focus only on ineffable things that exist beyond the normal spectrum of visual light.

The spawn of the Kozilek lineage are squat, insectile, multi-eyed creatures that skitter on crablike limbs. These spawn exhibit swarming behaviors that mimic ant or termite colonies. Adventurers have discovered entire dungeons crawling with Kozilek spawn, which often precedes the emergence of new, even more horrible greater Eldrazi.

Portents and Possibilities

And there you have it. Since the Eldrazi are so enigmatic, little is known about their true natures, other than what can be seen or heard of them directly. Scholars may chart vague patterns in the migrations of the Eldrazi spawn-broods; explorers may uncover particularly fecund ruin sites where the Eldrazi lineages spawn more frequently; head-to-head battlemages may even discover magics that seem to work slightly better against them or locate unlikely weak spots in their otherworldly hides. But these discoveries tend not to hold for long, and the reports are anecdotal at best. The Eldrazi are not just forces of nature—they're forces beyond nature, seeming to obey an insane set of pseudo-rules that don't apply to the native denizens of Zendikar. So their natures are only guessed at, probed tentatively with prophetic bone-scattering rituals and glimpsed in the brain-trembling dream-stories of madmen.

#magic the gathering #vorthos #zendikar #eldrazi #emrakul #kozilek #ulamog

7 notes · View notes

topmixtrends · 6 years

Link

LAURA LIPPMAN’S Sunburn is a noir love story. An unlikely genre blend, but this is a noir that strays from type from the very first page; it’s a summertime noir, trench coats swapped out for sundresses, staging its crimes and misdemeanors not in the anonymous shadows of a big city’s indifference, but in the full glare of small-town nosiness, as though confirming one character’s assertion that “there’s no better way to be found than to try to hide.”

Belleville, Delaware, is the tourism equivalent of a flyover state; with fewer than 2,000 people, it is a town “put together from some other town’s leftovers” through which people pass on their way to more promising destinations. It is here, during the long hot summer of 1995, that Polly and Adam, two strangers with no baggage apart from the emotional kind, will meet and surrender to a passionate romance against their best interests and better judgment. Which all sounds like the beginning of a beautiful relationship, except that it’s clear from the start that Polly and Adam are keeping a number of dangerous secrets, and by the end of the summer, their affair will have a body count.

The novel is divided into two segments, “Smoke” and “Fire.” The story unfolds through the perspectives of several third-person narrators, most frequently Adam and Polly. Neither of them is particularly sympathetic at first, but as the story develops and histories are revealed, the reader’s sympathies will adjust, and while clumsy distinctions like “good” and “bad” remain muddled, the psychological cause and effect of events is wholly satisfying.

But in the beginning, it’s nothing but shadows and questionable behavior. As befits the femme fatale character, Polly has left many men in her past with cause for complaint or grudges, most recently her husband Gregg, whom she has just abandoned along with their three-year-old daughter Jani while vacationing on a Delaware beach in what was not an impulsive decision. Adam’s shade is more straightforward, predatory. A man who prefers his women “thin and a little skittish” like the deer he hunts, he is nonetheless targeting the slim-but-curvaceous Polly; initiating contact, keeping tabs on her movements for reasons as yet undisclosed. It’s clear he knows much more about her than he’s letting on.

They came to this nothing of a town with their own agendas, but both had intended it to be a temporary layover, sharing as little of themselves as possible while planning their next moves. They’re careful people, calculating, skilled in manipulation and self-protection; Polly is deliberate about the name she uses, Adam has a reliable methodology in place: “Tell as few lies as possible, that’s his rule.” And yet there’s something inexorably drawing them to each other; something more than just two restless strangers meeting by chance in a town with nothing to do, where the only entertainment or diversion is each other.

Even Cath the barmaid, who has her own amorous designs on Adam, remarks upon their oddly similar demeanors:

“…you’re like her.” “How so?”

“Mysterious. Not offering up much of anything. Not sure if you’re staying or passing through.”

In part because of this compatibility, and despite their best-laid plans, Polly and Adam decide to stay in Belleville, taking jobs at the same bar as Cath, putting their plans on hold and enjoying a passionate fling during a languid summer in a suspended-animation town. Theirs is a complicated entanglement — a standoff of a love affair between two people whose lives don’t need any additional complications. For them, lust is easy, trust is hard. Polly has been serially disappointed by men, while Adam is suspicious of Polly because he knows certain details of her past. Their liaison is a pause for them both, but it’s a tightly coiled pause, with the two braced for the inevitable breaking-off point of a relationship that can have no happy ending, indulging themselves in what is less a game of cat-and-mouse than a game of chicken, anxiously anticipating the moment when they will have to spring apart or risk mutual destruction.

Sunburn is Lippman’s homage to the legacy of James M. Cain, a fellow Baltimore native and a contemporary of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Cain’s three most celebrated works, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Mildred Pierce, were instrumental in expanding the literary purview of noir beyond the realm of the hardboiled detective and into the secret lives of everyday people, laying the groundwork for what would become “domestic noir.” In Sunburn, Cain’s novels make a cameo appearance, inspiring a character to make a life-altering decision, and Cain’s thematic influence is felt throughout in what have become the tropes of the genre: outsider characters who are charismatic but flawed and self-destructive, loveless marriages, the dark side of human nature, women deploying their sexuality against weak or brutish men, secret pasts, nosy investigators, disenchantment, insurance fraud, get-rich-quick schemes and other alternative paths to the American Dream, as well as the occasional trail of dead bodies. In short: Greed, lust, murder, money, all of which Sunburn delivers.

And oh, that noir patter:

He says, “How long you staying over?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Every man in town, I’m guessing […] I’m Adam Bosk,” he says. “Like the pear, only with a ‘k’ instead of a ‘c.’”

“I’m the Pink Lady,” she says. “Like the apple.”

“Think we can still be friends, me a pear, you an apple?”

“I thought it was apples and oranges that can’t be compared.”

That’s some vintage black-and-white dialogue in what is otherwise a full-color noir, opening as it does on a sunburned redhead in a pink-and-yellow sundress before blazing through a wide spectrum of literal and figurative colors: the green of money and envy; the red of blood, flames, and rage; and Polly’s determination to surround herself with pretty, colorful objects all lending Cain’s gloomy themes a defiant optimism.

Sunburn requires a reviewer to be as cautious as its central characters. There are a lot of secrets within, and they start unfolding early in the book; details slipping out as brief as a thought (“When you’ve been in jail even a short time, you don’t like being confined”), facts materializing before their significance can be grasped, clues gradually accumulating until all of a sudden you’re in the thick of it. This process is mirrored in the development of Polly and Adam’s relationship. Falling in love was never the plan for either of them, and what began as something closer to target practice than courtship, with each testing the other, establishing boundaries, going through the motions of a happy relationship while working their own angles, becomes an emotional investment before they realize it.

Or does it? After all, when it comes to noir, things are rarely as they appear; all those unseen mechanisms at work beneath the artificial surface. The reader here has the luxury of knowing more than the participants when it comes to feelings and intentions, but again — trust is hard. It’s tempting to consider this a noir spin on “The Gift of the Magi,” where both characters are making sacrifices out of love — secretly risking their own goals/plans/responsibilities in order to be with the other in Nowhere, U.S.A. But is their love the result of two cynics putting aside cynicism? Or the strategic moves of opponents pretending that they don’t know they’ve been made? Is this love or is it a hunt?

Lippman draws out the suspense on that matter in a wonderfully provocative way. She presents two characters whose every move is an exercise in calculated, fabricated spontaneity, both playing the long game with their own set of rules, both with an immense capacity for stillness, for waiting the other out. Adam has the patience of a bow-hunter who appreciates that waiting is time well spent: “Waiting can be beautiful, lush, full of possibility.” And Polly makes for unusual prey, a woman skilled in silence and immobility: “If there is one thing Polly knows how to do, it’s waiting. It’s her talent, her art.” It has all the makings of a deadlock, and there’s an undeniable appeal to the oppositional romance; resisting intimacy, refusing to cave, Polly’s withholding (“Don’t say too much and people will fill in the gaps, usually to your advantage”), Adam’s aloof scrutiny (“She’s ignoring him, he’s ignoring her ignoring him”). It’s all fun and games, and also some felonies.

Polly is the cherry-red bull’s-eye at the heart of the story; she’s the target and the prize and the thing around which everything else revolves and without her, there’s no game. The femme fatale is invariably the most interesting character, but Lippman has taken her to the next level while staying true to the genre conventions. Polly typifies the coquettish qualities expected of her role, but she’s not enthusiastic about being worshipped, and she’s earned her air of weary realism:

[I]t’s not the first time someone has gone out of the way to pay her tribute. Men have always done things for her. People. And she never asks. That is, she never seems to ask […] It’s a special art, asking people to do things, yet making it seem as if you never asked at all. There are talents she would prefer to this one, because favors often carry a heavy penalty when it’s time to return them, but it’s the skill she was given, the hand she has to play.

She is well aware of her own power, but she also knows how transitory a power it is, and how not to waste it while it’s hers:

Her looks are only slightly above average, her body didn’t come into its own until she had all those long empty days to exercise. Besides, she would never invest so heavily in a commodity that won’t last forever. It’s how she is on the inside that makes her different from other women. She fixes her gaze on the goal and never loses sight of it.

The goal is never a man. Never. Men are the stones she jumps to, one after another, toward the goal.

Polly is layered and adaptable, enigmatic, her motives shadowy, showing only what she wants seen. This chameleon quality allows her to become many things to many people, cast in lights positive and negative and roles often contradictory, but ultimately irrelevant. Appearance, reputation — these are other people’s values and qualities assigned to her, which say nothing about the real Polly nursing her secrets beneath the bait of window dressing and deflection. One character observes wryly that “[s]ome people are like rabbit holes and you can fall a long, long way down if you go too far,” and Polly is shrewd enough to allow the expectations and misinterpretations of others to construct her “rabbit holes” for her. These decoys protect her from exposure while she pursues her own schemes, unruffled by the labels of people who haven’t even begun to scratch her surface. She is called “unnatural” for leaving her daughter, but is she a monster? Or is she just playing a longer game than anyone else can perceive?

“[N]o one knows her whole story. She plans to keep it that way.” And to all but the reader, she achieves her goal.

Karen Brissette is a voracious reader and the most popular reviewer on Goodreads.

The post A Love Affair with a Body Count appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2oLnCM9

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

0 notes

lorrainecparker · 6 years

Text

Alexa 65 shows that large format TV makes a difference in “Altered Carbon”

I’m eight episodes in to Netflix’s Altered Carbon, and I’ve officially become a believer in large format TV cinematography. Here’s why.

It’s no secret that studios and theater chains have long sought new and interesting ways to plant butts in movie theater seats. Cinemascope, VistaVision, 65mm, Cinerama… all were invented to lure people away from televisions and into movie theaters. Sadly, they no longer work very well: TV seems to be where the best storytelling is right now, and competition between streaming channels is fierce. It was only a matter of time before they’d compete on image quality as well, especially as 4K HDR is officially available, if not yet in very high demand.

Plenty of shows are shooting in 4K on REDs and Sony F55s, and probably also Varicam 35s (although those aren’t on my radar in the same way), but I find it particularly interesting that several series are shooting on Alexa 65. Altered Carbon is the first of these that I’ve seen, and as I work my way through the series (I’m currently on episode 9 of 1o) I’ve got some thoughts on the look that I’d like to share.

The trailer is here:

There are three things at play here: color, resolution, and depth of field.

COLOR

There’s a reason that Alexa is the gold standard for color. It just looks freakin’ great. There are certainly a lot of good looking RED and F55/F65 series, and I can’t say I have a lot of visual complaints about them, but when a series is shot on Alexa—and it’s particularly colorful—wow, what a difference.

Cinematographers often talk of lighting direction and quality, but a key component of lighting that isn’t spoken of enough is color. Every light has a color, even if it’s neutral. Every light elicits a spectral response. Every color elicits an emotional response. And every camera has a way of reacting to color in the environment. Altered Carbon’s cinematographers do some very interesting things with color contrasts, and while these color schemes aren’t particularly unique to the series, they are simply stunning when combined with the Alexa 65’s reduced depth of field.

For example:

This yellow/cyan color scheme is wonderful. I saw an industrial version of this in Netflix’s Daredevil, where it played as opposing sodium vapor/mercury vapor lighting in urban environments. Putting contrasting colors together like this enhances the overall effect as it’s impossible for our eyes to become exhausted by a strong hue and then attempt to compensate for it. An overall warm scene may lose its warmth over time as our eyes fatigue, and the same is true for overall cool scenes. Color contrast not only prevents this from happening but it can create interest in situations where contrast and shadow alone aren’t enough.

Our eyes see color using a color opponent system, where red and green oppose each other, and blue and yellow do the same. You’ll never see a reddish green or a greenish red, nor a blueish yellow or yellowish blue. In the shot above, the warmth is yellow/red and the coolness is blue/green. This is the ultimate in color contrast, and it really works.

Another example of strong color contrast. The background is very slightly green, which opposes red nicely and makes it pop all the more.

RESOLUTION

Alexa 65 is normally 6.5K across, but this show was shot in a 5K mode that I didn’t know existed. This was apparently to keep the amount of data from being completely overwhelming instead of simply overwhelming (the Alexa 65 only outputs Arriraw, and while it is log encoded it is otherwise completely uncompressed) but also to take advantage of a slightly larger frame size than 4K.

The rule of thumb is that de-mosaicing results in a 20% loss of resolution, although I’m told by Arri that their engineers believe they have gotten this down to about 10%. Whatever that number may be, I can see the difference that oversampling makes, even on my 720p LCD TV at home. There’s a startling amount of visible detail.

I never noticed this on other series that I’ve seen shot in 4K on RED and F55/F65. A lot of RED series look pretty good these days. The F55/F65 does have a bit of crispness to it that can give them away, although mostly what I look for are their distinctive rendering of blues (slightly electric, a little green, but generally very pleasing). There’s something about the resolution from an Alexa 65 in 5K, though, that really catches my eye.

DEPTH OF FIELD

Even wide shots have soft backgrounds. It’s startling when a shot in this series shows a deep depth of field.

I really like this look. I don’t think it’s perfect for everything, but for a series where there’s so much going on visually it really helps direct my eye. This will be particularly important when a large proportion of the audience starts watching in 4K, as full 4K detail across a large frame may make it difficult for us to know where to look during a four second or less shot.

Many shots feel as if they are part of a dream. I love that I can see the funkiness of the lens. Based on what I’ve read elsewhere, Canon-CE primes were used for focal lengths shorter than 65mm, Cooke S5s for 65mm and 100mm focal lengths, and Cooke S4s for longer focal lengths. I’m guessing the shot above was on a Canon prime as it doesn’t show the characteristic octagonal bokeh seen in Cooke primes. Look at how the highlights in the background feel as if they are coming through the back of a glass bottle. The rippling curves on the right side of the frame are particularly interesting. One nice aspect of shooting at high resolutions and larger sensor sizes is that this brings out the “character” of lenses, which is often code for emphasizing their defects. Defects, though, are often the most interesting things about lenses. Seeing reality as it is can be boring. Seeing reality through a distorted lens can be fascinating.

I was surprised to read that Canon-CE lenses covered Alexa 65’s 5K mode. In this article I took a look at the effect of putting older S35 glass on large sensor cameras and found a number of creative looks that I’d like to explore further. Many older lenses can cover larger sensor sizes, often with slightly unpredictable effects. It seems that the DPs of Altered Carbon are doing exactly this.

There’s some of that beautiful Cooke octagonal bokeh.

I love the out of focus books and blinds in this shot. They smear together in a really interesting way. I love that what would be a simple medium shot in any other police procedural can be so beautiful here.

Even this long-lens wide shot has a painterly look due to reduced depth of field. In a fast paced and heavily-edited TV action/drama it helps to focus our attention on exactly what we need to see in the few seconds the shot is on screen.

UPSHOT

This series is beautifully photographed. Sadly, this is about the only reason I can find to watch it. The first two episodes were fascinating, and I felt that I was watching a series whose world building surpassed Blade Runner 2049. From the third episode on, though, it devolved in a very slick but poorly-written cop drama, full of cliches and scenes that I’ve seen repeated so many times in other series over the last few decades that I had to fast forward through several. Just last night I had to skip over a “Lead character has to pretend his love for another has been a farce, rejecting her in order to save her life” scene.

There are some great actors here, but the leads generally can’t carry their roles. There was one episode where, due to the fact that one lead mumbles and the other has a very strong accent, I had to turn on subtitles in order to keep track of what was going on. The violence and gore are gratuitous, as are the soft core-quality sex scenes. The story feels like it’s been artificially lengthened to hit the required number of episodes. And there are episodes that are just plain poorly written in every way. At this point I’m going to finish the series simply because I’ve fallen pray to the sunk cost fallacy: I’ve come this far, I might as well get through it.

The good news is that the visuals keep me interested. That’s generally not enough, and I worry that Netflix is doing what a lot of traditional movie studios do: as the budget increases, the chances they take decrease, until they’ve got a very glitzy, glamorous, expensive project filled with tropes and dialog that we’ve seen and heard a hundred times before. Between this and Netflix’s recent The Cloverfield Paradox, which was truly awful in every way but visually, I worry that they are mistaking great cinematography and flashy sets for quality. I’ve got nothing against great cinematography, but that alone is not enough to keep me interested in most movies and TV series.

Altered Carbon is showing me all the ways that large format cinematography can enhance television, and I hope we see more large format TV in the not-so-distant future (there are several other series and original streaming movies that have been shot on the Alexa 65, and I’m sure the Alexa LF will be filling in a few more gaps in the next year), but visuals alone do not a movie make. Some of the best shows on Netflix, Amazon and HBO are the ones that truly take chances and play to niche audiences, and what I’m finding is that quality becomes its own niche. A show’s subject matter may not initially excite me, but if I hear good things about it I’ll give it a shot. If the storytelling quality is high then I’m happy to watch just about anything.

I have worked as a paid consultant to Arri.

I’ll be teaching two Arri Academy classes in mid-March, 2018 in Brooklyn and Chicago. If you’d like to learn the ins-and-outs of Arri cameras, accessories, color processing, LUTs, recording formats, etc., this is worth checking out.

Art Adams Director of Photography

The post Alexa 65 shows that large format TV makes a difference in “Altered Carbon” appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

First Found At: Alexa 65 shows that large format TV makes a difference in “Altered Carbon”

#viddy find

0 notes

itsworn · 7 years

Text

Gassers, Dragsters, Altereds, and More Turn Out for the Awesome 15th Annual Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green

The official name is The Holley National Hot Rod Reunion presented by AAA Insurance at Beech Bend Raceway Park, produced by the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum. OK, that mouthful is the official name, but to real hot rodders everywhere it is simply and reverentially known as “The Hot Rod Reunion.” This vintage drag race/rod run remains at the top of our must-attend list.

The event is all about elapsed time, and that applies to every car and driver in attendance, because time is truly elapsing at an alarming rate of speed. Going to the Hot Rod Reunion is the perfect venue for serious bench racing with friends old and new. Every year, we manage to meet another legend of the sport and share great stories about the golden years of drag racing. While other racetracks incorporate the term park in their name, Beech Bend truly is a park-like setting, with a large campground and amusement park adjoining the dragstrip. Of course, for hot rodders the real source of amusement is a sticky stretch of asphalt running two lanes wide for a quarter of a mile.

The atmosphere is one of pure hot rodding. From the Circle of Legends to the nearly 1,500 show-and-shine cars, it’s the real deal. The racers aren’t here to win a big purse; they’re here for the love of vintage drag racing, and it shows.

But don’t think for one minute this is exhibition racing. The competition is hot and heavy, and the vintage racers are turning times that were unimaginable in the 1960s. For example, the top six Nostalgia Fuel Dragsters were all in the 5-second range, with speeds up to 260 mph. We love the Gassers, Super Stock, and ’09 groups, but the fuel cars (Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Fuel Altered) bring a different dimension to this weekend. Nothing compares to nitro cars, and we can honestly say when the fuel cars run, there isn’t a dry eye in the place. The racing was non-stop with practice and qualifying on Thursday and Friday, followed by eliminations on Saturday.

There is also a vintage swap meet filled with “all the right stuff,” ranging from a roller Funny Car to huffers to Model A bodies. Every year, while mining this area for parts, we seem to unearth large deposits of magnesium.

When the eliminations were complete (go to nhramuseum.org for all race results), it was time for the Cacklefest. If you have never seen a big Cacklefest, you have one more reason to attend the NHRA Museum Hot Rod Reunion. At Bowling Green, half of the cars are rolled into place and fired up with starter motors, while the other half are push-started and arrive rumbling and snorting fire. It is a sight and sound you won’t soon forget.

And then, one by one, the cackle cars shut down. And so, with tears streaming from my eyes, another NHRA Museum Hot Rod Reunion was in the books. We’ll be back again next year for the Sweet Sixteen celebration.

Fuelish Pleasure: Few things compare to a pair of short-wheelbase AA/FA cars making a side-by-side burnout. The Rat Trap is always a fan favorite and consistently runs in the low 6s at over 200 mph. In the far lane the name Havoc seems appropriate.

Murphy’s Law: Jim Murphy and the WWII team lined up against top qualifier James Young in the Young Guns car for the final round. Murphy pulled strong on the top end to go around Young with a 5.713/257.33 mph over the 5.920/253.56 of Young.

Glass Gasser: As always, the Gassers at the Reunion were a huge hit with the fans. Smoky burnouts, big wheelstands, and speed-shifting are all part of driving Dustin Corn’s wild ’57 Corvette gasser. A de-stroked 310-inch small-block and four-speed make this a real gasser.

Things Ida Never Known: East Coast drag racer and hot rod builder extraordinaire Bob Ida was on hand with two of his 1960s drag cars. The Willys originally ran B/GS with a blown 409, and later a blown Hemi. When Bob realized a Willys has about the same drag coefficient as a sheet of plywood, he decided to transplant the Hemi into a low profile ’56 Austin-Healey, allowing him to remain in B/GS with the 331-inch Hemi. After a couple years of devouring the competition, the car was crumpled in a wild wheelstand landing and subsequently scrapped. Miraculously, the car was discovered 40 years later and restored to its former glory by Bob and Rob Ida, complete with the Roto-Faze-huffed Hemi hiding under a hood scoop formed from a sliced and diced wheelbarrow. Tales such as this bring us back to the Hot Rod Reunion year after year.

Earning His Stripes: The long-roof Chevrolets from 1955-1957 became drag race favorites in both Junior Stock and Modified Production classes of the 1960s. While we’re not sure who first striped the roof on these cars, today it is their signature paint scheme. The striped roof on this ’57 wagon with wheels high was a total time warp.

True Blue Custom: Billy Jack and Gayle Ethridge of Meridian, Mississippi, have captured the look of a mid-1950s custom perfectly with this ’39 Mercury. From the Carson top to the one-piece louvered hood and smoothed doors, this car is period perfect. Add a custom grille, white running boards, and a set of ’57 Caddy caps to complete the look.

The Prefect Cabbie: A big part of the fun at the Reunion is discovering obscure cars such as this former drag car dubbed the Tennessee Taxi. Based on an English Ford Prefect, this former race car was powered by a Ford inline-six that placed it in G/G. The offset hood scoop on the fiberglass tilt nose is an inline indicator.

All Wrinkled Up: While big burnouts get the fans fired up, when it comes time to race, the smoke is replaced by wrinkled rear tires, wide open butterflies and front wheels ever-so-slightly airborne. That is exactly how Randy Bradford launches his AA/FA.

Room at the Hilton: Members of the Hilton family were Honorees for 2017. While in recent years a lot of attention has been focused on a string of sinister Model A hot rods built by Hilton Hot Rods, there is also a long heritage of drag racing, including their current nostalgia NTF entry, with Tyler Hilton driving.

Staging for Father’s Day: Ed Beaumont’s Orange Peel is a gennie split-window Corvette with a colorful race history. The straight-axle, blown big-block, and four-speed combination makes for exciting passes. Since the Reunion is held on Father’s Day weekend, it seems fitting to see a younger crew member in the staging lanes.

Hot Rod from Woodstock: Well, OK, not the home of the famed rock festival. Long-time hot rodder Bob Knaack and his Model A coupe hail from Woodstock, Illinois. The dual-quad-fed Hemi is nestled between the Deuce rails, while a hard chop and lots-o-louvers continue the traditional theme.

Daily Supplement: Dave Schultz had his Super Stock Plymouth Savoy, Vitamin C, on hand for the weekend. This is the best way we can think of to take your vitamins, and Mopar lovers know the hot orange paint, dubbed Vitamin C, as one of the High Impact Colors. Hey, it was the 1960s.

Going for the Riddler: Holy Reunion Batman! Yeah, anything goes at the Hot Rod Reunion, including this version of the Batmobile. The details are a bit sketchy, but current owner Steve Anderson told us his car was on display in a casino for a while and went through a couple of owners before he purchased the car for his own Bat Cave. The car rides on a ’98 Corvette chassis with LS power. This makes “going after the Riddler” take on a whole new meaning. Yes, it was street-driven from Indiana.

The British are Coming: And they seem to be in a hurry. Owner/driver Nick Davies raced against the famed Rat Trap during a European tour. After the race, Ron Hope discovered Havoc really didn’t have anyone to race against in England. The natural solution was to bring the car and crew to the U.S. for a 2017 tour and share shop space with the Rat Trap. Running a 6.460 at 223.84 proves they are ready to take on the Yanks.

Trackside Again: The term “barn find” may be wearing thin, but this B/A Fiat qualifies. Originally built in the 1960s by Stan Radauskas, aka Stan Adams, the car sits on a Lakewood chassis. Stan raced it for several years with an injected small-block before selling the car to the Untouchables Car Club in 1969. The club promptly swapped in an injected L88. Stan bought the car back in the 1970s, but never realized his dream of restoring the car. It sat in Stan’s shop for 46 years until Curt Vogt purchased the car. Today the restored car is owned by the Shane Weckerly family. This is the first time the car has been to a dragstrip in 47 years.

Period Paint: Endless line, flake, pearl, freak spots, and lace: Pure 1960s trick paint, and you could find all of those effects on this ’56 Chevy gasser. Redline front tires and a fenderwell filled with white headers complete the appropriate appearance package.

Cackle Cammer: Larry Coleman’s Super Ford is a rare Torino Funny Car. Making the car even more interesting is the SOHC engine and automatic transmission. The car was built in 1968 and was a great addition to the Cacklefest.

Body in White: If you frequented any dragstrip in America in 1962, we guarantee there was a Sport Fury that looked just like this car in the staging lanes. Chances are it had a 413 Max Wedge under the hood, and it may have been street driven to the track.

Blue Oval: We often marvel at how simple it can be to build a really cool hot rod hauler. Shave a little trim, pick a cool color, and find the absolute perfect stance. Finish it all off with a great set of contrasting wheels and the job is done. The only thing missing for this weekend is a big board bolted to the front bumper, as this Blue Oval hauler would make a great push truck.

Channeling the Past: Steve and Anne Gamache motored in from Ray, Michigan, in this deeply channeled ’33 Ford pickup. A dual-quad-fed nailhead Buick provides equal parts good looks and power. The white firewall, interior, and tonneau cover combine with wide whites and steelies to nail the early 1960s look.

Flattie for the Record: In drag racing circles, the diminutive V8/60 was not a common sight. Harold and Jeanne Revis built this F/Dragster in their home garage in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. The rail was raced throughout the Southeast in the early 1960s, setting records at many tracks. The car was raced at the NHRA Nationals as late as 1968.

Da Mob: The show-and-shine side of the grassy fields was filled with street-going gassers. Joey Bridges drove down from Louisville with Sweet Pea, a 1961 Falcon gasser. The metalflake roof is the perfect touch for this nose-high lightweight. Look closely and you will see Joey runs with the Straight Axle Mafia car club, a street and strip club.

Scramblin’ Rambler: Let’s face it, you just don’t see many 1967 Rambler gassers. Michael Rados pilots this S/C-flavored Rambler aptly named American Scrambled in the Nostalgia Gasser ranks. Red, white, and blue paint with old-school velocity stacks complete the visual package.

Innovation: Great race cars are built by innovators. Jim Mize of Harriman, Tennessee, built this 1950 Anglia with a Hilborn-injected Red Ram 260-inch Hemi under the hood. A set of rare D-500 heads was ported and installed. Up front, the stock Anglia wheels are still in use, but out back a set of Olds Toronado wheels bolt to the ’58 Olds rear, providing the negative offset required to put the big slicks partially under the rear fenders. The car was last raced in 1974.

Quick-on-the-Draw: James Young and the Young Guns team began the weekend by capturing the number-one qualifier spot in NTF. But as we know, this is an intensely competitive class; while the team made it all the way to final round, in the end Jim Murphy snuck past them by 0.207 second. However, the Young Guns team effectively served notice, they are a force to be reckoned with.

Fryin’ the Hides: After winning the big March Meet, the High Speed team rolled into Beech Bend with the points lead. When all the smoke cleared, Mendy Fry and the High Speed team had slipped to second place after a close loss in the semi-finals. The 2017 NTF points race is going to be interesting.

International Cackle, Eh: The Alien II was born to cackle. John Chandler is semi-retired from his race car building business in Ontario, Canada. Over the years, John has built more than 30 rear-engine rails. Now that he has a bit more time, he decided to build a period-correct, front-engine T/F cackle car. This car is spot on, period-correct enough to fool most folks. The hot Canadian had the motor tuned and “firing” on all cylinders.

Festival of Fuel: As the sun goes down on Saturday afternoon, the Cacklefest begins. Dozens of nitromethane-gulping race cars line the track and fill the night air with fire, fumes, and noise. It is a fitting close to a fantastic weekend.

All Good Things: Alas, all good things must come to an end, and so it was time to jump in your channeled roadster and aim the old hot rod toward home.

The post Gassers, Dragsters, Altereds, and More Turn Out for the Awesome 15th Annual Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/gassers-dragsters-altereds-turn-awesome-15th-annual-hot-rod-reunion-bowling-green/ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hot Rod Network

0 notes

nancyedimick · 7 years

Text

D.C. Circuit concludes Recovery Act bars judicial review of suits against FHFA over treatment of Fannie and Freddie shareholders

Fannie Mae headquarters in Washington in 2011. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)

Tuesday, in Perry Capital LLC v. Mnuchin, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit concluded that suits by investors against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are precluded by the Recovery Act. Judge Patricia Ann Millett and Senior Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg co-wrote the majority opinion. Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented.

Millett and Ginsburg summarized the case and their 70-page opinion as follows:

In 2007–2008, the national economy went into a severe recession due in significant part to a dramatic decline in the housing market. That downturn pushed two central players in the United States’ housing mortgage market—the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae” or “Fannie”) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (“Freddie Mac” or “Freddie”) — to the brink of collapse. Congress concluded that resuscitating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was vital for the Nation’s economic health, and to that end passed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (“Recovery Act”), Pub. L. No. 110-289, 122 Stat. 2654 (codified, as relevant here, in various sections of 12 U.S.C.). Under the Recovery Act, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”) became the conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In an effort to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac afloat, FHFA promptly concluded on their behalf a stock purchase agreement with the Treasury Department, under which Treasury made billions of dollars in emergency capital available to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (collectively, “the Companies”) in exchange for preferred shares of their stock. In return, Fannie and Freddie agreed to pay Treasury a quarterly dividend in the amount of 10% of the total amount of funds drawn from Treasury. Fannie’s and Freddie’s frequent inability to make those dividend payments, however, meant that they often borrowed more cash from Treasury just to pay the dividends, which in turn increased the dividends that Fannie and Freddie were obligated to pay in future quarters. In 2012, FHFA and Treasury adopted the Third Amendment to their stock purchase agreement, which replaced the fixed 10% dividend with a formula by which Fannie and Freddie just paid to Treasury an amount (roughly) equal to their quarterly net worth, however much or little that may be.

A number of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stockholders filed suit alleging that FHFA’s and Treasury’s alteration of the dividend formula through the Third Amendment exceeded their statutory authority under the Recovery Act, and constituted arbitrary and capricious agency action in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). They also claimed that FHFA, Treasury, and the Companies committed various common-law torts and breaches of contract by restructuring the dividend formula.

We hold that the stockholders’ statutory claims are barred by the Recovery Act’s strict limitation on judicial review. See 12 U.S.C. § 4617(f). We also reject most of the stockholders’ common-law claims. Insofar as we have subject matter jurisdiction over the stockholders’ common-law claims against Treasury, and Congress has waived the agency’s immunity from suit, those claims, too, are barred by the Recovery Act’s limitation on judicial review. Id. As for the claims against FHFA and the Companies, some are barred because FHFA succeeded to all rights, powers, and privileges of the stockholders under the Recovery Act, id. § 4617(b)(2)(A); others fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The remaining claims, which are contract-based claims regarding liquidation preferences and dividend rights, are remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

Brown wrote a colorful 29-page dissent. Her opinion begins:

One critic has called it “wrecking-ball benevolence,” James Bovard, Editorial, Nothing Down: The Bush Administration’s Wrecking-Ball Benevolence, BARRON’S, Aug. 23, 2004, http://tinyurl.com/Barrons-Bovard; while another, dismissing the compassionate rhetoric, dubs it “crony capitalism,” Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., Commentary, Fannie/Freddie Bailout Baloney, CATO INST., http://tinyurl.com/Cato-O-Driscoll (last visited Feb. 13, 2017). But whether the road was paved with good intentions or greased by greed and indifference, affordable housing turned out to be the path to perdition for the U.S. mortgage market. And, because of the dominance of two so-called Government Sponsored Entities (“GSE”s) — the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae” or “Fannie”) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (“Freddie Mac” or “Freddie,” collectively with Fannie Mae, the “Companies”) — the trouble that began in the subprime mortgage market metastasized until it began to affect most debt markets, both domestic and international.

By 2008, the melt-down had become a crisis. A decade earlier, government policies and regulations encouraging greater home ownership pushed banks to underwrite mortgages to allow low-income borrowers with poor credit history to purchase homes they could not afford. Banks then used these risky mortgages to underwrite highly-profitable mortgage-backed securities — bundled mortgages — which hedge funds and other investors later bought and sold, further stoking demand for ever-riskier mortgages at ever-higher interest rates. Despite repeated warnings from regulators and economists, the GSEs’ eagerness to buy these loans meant lenders had a strong incentive to make risky loans and then pass the risk off to Fannie and Freddie. By 2007, Fannie and Freddie had acquired roughly a trillion dollars’ worth of subprime and nontraditional mortgages — approximately 40 percent of the value of all mortgages purchased. And since more risk meant more profit and the GSEs knew they could count on the federal government to cover their losses, their appetite for riskier mortgages was entirely rational.

The housing boom generated tremendous profit for Fannie and Freddie. But then the bubble burst. Individuals began to default on their loans, wrecking neighborhoods, wiping out the equity of prudent homeowners, and threatening the stability of banks and those who held or guaranteed mortgage-backed assets. In March 2008, Bear Sterns collapsed, requiring government funds to finance a takeover by J.P. Morgan Chase. In July, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”) seized IndyMac. But Bear Sterns and IndyMac—huge companies, to be sure—paled in comparison to Fannie and Freddie, which together backed $5 trillion in outstanding mortgages, or nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market. In late-July 2008, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, authorizing a new government agency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA” or the “Agency”), to serve as conservator or receiver for Fannie and Freddie if certain conditions were met; Fannie and Freddie were placed into FHFA conservatorship the following month. Only weeks thereafter, Lehman Brothers failed, the government bailed out A.I.G., Washington Mutual declared bankruptcy, and Wells Fargo obtained government assistance for its buy-out of Wachovia.

There is no question that FHFA was created to confront a serious problem for U.S. financial markets. The Court apparently concludes a crisis of this magnitude justifies extraordinary actions by Congress. Perhaps it might. But even in a time of exigency, a nation governed by the rule of law cannot transfer broad and unreviewable power to a government entity to do whatsoever it wishes with the assets of these Companies. Moreover, to remain within constitutional parameters, even a less-sweeping delegation of authority would require an explicit and comprehensive framework. See Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass’ns, Inc., 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001) (“Congress … does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions—it does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.”) Here, Congress did not endow FHFA with unlimited authority to pursue its own ends; rather, it seized upon the statutory text that had governed the FDIC for decades and adapted it ever so slightly to confront the new challenge posed by Fannie and Freddie.

Perhaps this was a bad idea. The perils of massive GSEs had been indisputably demonstrated. Congress could have faced up to the mess forthrightly. Had both Companies been placed into immediate receivership, the machinations that led to this litigation might have been avoided. See Thomas H. Stanton, The Failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Future of Government Support for the Housing Finance System, 14–15 (Brooklyn L. Sch., Conference Draft, Mar. 27, 2009), http://tinyurl.com/Stanton-Conference (arguing Fannie and Freddie could have been converted into wholly owned government corporations with limited lifespans in order to stabilize the mortgage market). But the question before the Court is not whether the good guys have stumbled upon a solution. There are no good guys. The question is whether the government has violated the legal limits imposed on its own authority.

Regardless of whether Congress had many options or very few, it chose a well-understood and clearly-defined statutory framework—one that drew upon the common law to clearly delineate the outer boundaries of the Agency’s conservator or, alternatively, receiver powers. FHFA pole vaulted over those boundaries, disregarding the plain text of its authorizing statute and engaging in ultra vires conduct. Even now, FHFA continues to insist its authority is entirely without limit and argues for a complete ouster of federal courts’ power to grant injunctive relief to redress any action it takes while purporting to serve in the conservator role. See FHFA Br. 21. While I agree with much of the Court’s reasoning, I cannot conclude the anti-injunction provision protects FHFA’s actions here or, more generally, endorses FHFA’s stunningly broad view of its own power. Plaintiffs— not all innocent and ill-informed investors, to be sure—are betting the rule of law will prevail. In this country, everyone is entitled to win that bet. Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the portion of the Court’s opinion rejecting the Institutional and Class Plaintiffs’ claims as barred by the antiinjunction provision and all resulting legal conclusions.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/02/21/d-c-circuit-concludes-recovery-act-bars-judicial-review-of-suits-against-fhfa-over-treatment-of-fannie-and-freddie-shareholders/

0 notes