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dast218 · 5 years ago

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Dark Side? Never - pt.2

Pt1 Next

If someone asked, Adrien would have said that it was a normal night out in the city, patrolling the skies, waiting for a robbery or akuma to rise and getting a chance to run without supervision but the key word being would. Something felt off. Whether it was dark magic or his senses going haywire, something was sparking a feeling of dread inside of him. After a few moments of searching, using patron time as an excuse, he figured that the next best course of action was talking to Plagg.

Finding a secluded alleyway the black cladded hero called of his transformation, right after informing Ladybug of his detour. He knew for a fact that the spotted heroine would worry too much if she couldn’t find him on the tracker even for a split second. He couldn’t blame her as he would have had the same response. Years of working together taught them to trust each other but sometimes worry got in the way of logic.

“Plagg did you sense that?”

The god of destruction looked up bored as always, extending his tiny arms for his desired prize.

With a huff Adrien searched his pockets for some camembert, passing it to his little devil of a karami. “Plagg! This is no time for your nonsense.”

“Yea, yea. You want to talk about that feeling of yours. So what's up, I don’t sense anything.”

Deflating, he released a breath he didn’t know that he was holding. “So you don’t feel anything.”

“Nope”

“Ok, that makes me feel a little better”

Sensing the worry of his kid, the karami encouraged Adrien to go to Ladybug. Even after living for an eternity he never mastered the art of comforting another being. Tikki and her bugs were usually the better ones at that.

---

On the top of the Eiffel tower the duo were leaning on each other, observing the bright stars above them. Adrien took this time to reflect on the past few years. So many things had changed. First and foremost Ladybug and Chat Noir had grown into an unstoppable team, they were no longer those inexperienced newbies who tripped on thin air. No now they were a team who took down akumas in record time. Chat had stopped pinning for Ladybug as his civilian side was dating someone else, Ladybug was more considerate of Chat’s feelings, they developed a full-prove routine and so on. They matured together.

Coming back to reality he was met with his partner’s flashing hands, “Earth to Chat!”

Shaking off his initial confusion he heard a laugh in the background. “Where have you gone to this time?”

Smirking he leaned in closer, “So bugaboo would want to know where her kitty travels I assume.” Crossing his arms he continued, “but what if I want to keep my adventures a secret from this fair maiden?”

Trying and failing to keep off the smile from her face, the heroine pushed him back and stood up. “Then leave this fair maiden for the rest of the night. She needs her beauty sleep.”

“Of course” With that he dramatically bowed and extended his staff departing onto a lower elevation.

Turning back with the intention of yelling out one last retort, the dark clad hero was met with a sight that will hunt even his darkest nightmares. A light pink butterfly, appearing to shine in the moonlight’s reflection was flying behind the descending figure of Ladybug. In a split second, before Adrien was even able to process what was going on, the insect absorbed itself into the heroine’s uniform.

His body went on autopilot as he found himself speeding to his partner’s side, who was currently clutching onto her stomach.

“Ladybug!”

But it was too late. Before his eyes the bug themed hero was surrounded by a bright light as her suit took on a new form. Her once inviting and colorful bodysuit now illustrated a darker vibe, dangerously similar to an assassin. Black dominated her suit as strips of red outlined her figure. Weapons, seemingly sharp were wrapped around her torso, with the handles tinned in bloody red. Her dark hair was pinned into a long ponytail while her black mask perfectly captured her now piercing green eyes.

Chat stepped back.

With a dangerous smile and deep voice, the once cheerful bug smoothly greeted her new enemy.

“Evening kitty.” Who knew that two words could send chills so easily. Oh how the holder of destruction cursed his bad luck this very second.

Tilting her head she placed her hand on her heart, mockingly. “So kitty doesn’t like the new bug?” Releasing a pound, she continued “But I feel like it totally reflects the true me though.”

Ladybug, ex-Ladybug, Darkbug or the akuma [come on give Chat a break he was still trying to process everything] started attacking.

How the heck did this happen?

Ladybug striked with her new staff. Dodging, the destruction teamed hero dipped down and cartwheeled out of the way.

She's akumatized?

Pushing forward, the darken figure fixed her stand and once again brought down a strike, this time hitting its intended spot. The suit deflated most of the blow’s impact and he continued fighting without a sign of strain.

How? We were just laughing moments ago. She didn’t even say yes!

Frustrated at Chat’s omitting she yelled, “Stop dodging and start fighting kitty cat! I don’t have all day”

“Well I do”

Gritting her teeth she rushed into another strike, landing a blow into his lower side. “Pass me the miraculous and no one will get hurt”

“Never! Ladybug this isn’t you! You fight against evil, not along side of it”

Laughter bubbled in her throat, “So it seems that the kitty needs to get his eyes checked. Are cats really colored blind cause I clearly see a shift in design. Newsflash Ladybug isn’t here, its Silentblow now.”

Seeing an opportunity, Silentblow maneuvered herself effortlessly going in with a high strike only to be met with a surprised grunt as she quickly switched tactics and hooked her legs around his ankles. She ended up on top of Chat, holding him with both of his hands above his head.

It was the perfect opportunity to take off the ring. Silentblow felt Hawkmoth's delightful glee echoed through her body but at the same time felt a sense of wrongness. Her green eyes were flashing with a tint of blue and her head started pounding in pain. As she lifted her hands to grab her forehead, Chat took the opportunity to throw Silentblow off of him. Using the momentum she backflipped and landed gracefully on her legs.

“Chat leave!”

“I am not leaving you to fight this by yourself”

Walking backwards she grunted in pain. “Get help”

‘“How? The Guardian disappeared”

“Call the league and make sure to get Batman,” green started filling Silentblow’s eyes once again and she gritted her teeth in pain. “Say that its Marianne al Ghul” she collapsed on the floor growling in frustration “he has to listen to his own daughter for once, after all the world is in danger.”

“Milady”

“Chat leave! I am losing control ”

With a “I'm sorry that I am not strong enough,” Marinette’s alter ego once again started chasing after Chat.

-----

Thank you guys for all the wonderful comments ❤️ I have a busy week planned so the next update might take a while

Tag List of lovely people: @ash-amg @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @angelic-anissa @cutechip @lozzybowe @schrodingers25

#maribat #daminette #siblings #fight scenes are harder than they seem

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lilhemmo · 5 years ago

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i..uh.. need a fix it fic for tros... if you're interested

a/n: of course i’m interested :) need i say spoilers ahead?? omitting what i don’t want from canon (what i know) and adding in whatever i feel :)

Isolation is the one thing Rey knows best, so it’s the only thing that makes sense to her when she falls back into reliance on her survival instincts.

She tries the desert planet of her mentor.

The sand is all too familiar between her toes and in her teeth. The biting wind turns her cheeks to raw skin. The heat warms her whole body to a pink color, the flush on her cheeks fabricated from a sunburn.

It isn’t long before Rey remembers...she hates the sand.

And she feels the green calling out to her, night after night, when the desert cold settles in, chilling her down to the marrow.

It takes a while, but finally, Rey answers.

It is a siren song, reminding her of Han Solo’s warm smile as she took in the sight of a new planet for the first time. She can hear his voice ringing in her ears as she drives the Falcon towards a planet that screams brightly at her through the Force. She can smell the foliage through her connection with the life force of the entire galaxy; it calls to her with a voice as soft as the petals of an Anagallis flower.

As her feet touch the ground and fresh blades of grass split between her toes, she feels a wave of nausea force her to her knees.

Find me. Please, find me.

Rey covers her ears with her hands and pushes herself back to her full height. She winces at the familiar voice, tears surfacing in her eyes immediately while his words resonate in her mind.

“You’re gone,” she spits, angry with herself for falling so quickly back into hope. Still, she searches frantically for even the muted blue glow of the Force somewhere in the distance.

She sleeps in the Falcon with her staff tucked underneath a pillow. The low hum of the kyber crystal lulls her to sleep at night, drowning the voice reverberating in her head.

Every morning she finds herself something for breakfast - either a fish from the nearby river or a little animal in the woods - and she cooks it just under the shield of the Falcon, sitting on a log and picking under her fingernails when she’s done.

She thinks of how he might critique her, how he would despise the way she’s living. He means well, of course. Or rather meant well, given he can’t mean anything anymore. Even still, Rey swears that she can feel his heart beating in the background of her soul, pushing her forward each day with it’s strong song.

He starts to come to her in her dreams.

She decides to leave the green planet and find another.

This time it is blue.

Blue like his saber. Blue like his soul. Blue like his light.

All she can remember of him is blue.

Rey swallows thickly as she steps down from the Falcon’s steps to traverse onto the new planet, trying to shed her old skin like a reptile, moving on into the next step of her life.

As soon as her feet touch solid ground, something buckles in the Force.

Her heart beats heavy in her chest and sweat beads on her forehead. Rey feels a throbbing at the back of her mind, pulsing like a heartbeat. She follows where the Force leads, beckoning her closer to the edge of the planet, closer to the blue sea.

Her toes dip in when she hears his voice echo in the wind, “Find me. I’m here.”

Tears fall down her cheeks just as they always do when she hears his voice calling out to her like a dream. She shakes her head and water falls from the sky. Rey falls to her knees, digging her hands in the sand, water up to her elbows.

“I can’t fool myself any longer,” she cries out to the ocean. Her eyes burn with saltwater, “No more tricks, no more lies. Please. I’m tired.”

And then it’s no longer blue, but black.

Hollow, cold blackness.

Rey has felt this before - on Ahch-To, when the deep called to her then. Master Luke admonished her for her flailing towards the sadness that ironically gave her hope. She should feel scared, frightened even, but all she can taste is the honeyed thought of home just against the tip of her tongue. It begs for her to swallow, to allow the warmth to seep into her bones.

Instead, she meets the chill of the ocean. The tide rises and steam billows from the difference in temperature. Her heart hammers in her chest, eyes fluttering behind thin lids. Rey stands back to her feet, trousers soaked to her knees.

She remembers how she is supposed to be afraid of the dark, to scamper from it. Her limbs should be shuddering and her heart should be a block of ice in her ribs but all she feels is temptation and heat.

Rey swallows drily, her mouth turned to sandpaper, and then she dives.

She isn’t sure how she can breathe under the water. Maybe that’s the Force too.

Either way, Rey pushes herself until she gets to the part of the water that numbs her body. It brings her closer to the pulsing until her mind cannot focus, cannot feel anything but the Force overwhelming her, begging her to dive deeper.

Rey is afraid that if she dives too far, she may never come up for air.

Was this what Master Luke warned her about?

She does not have time to think because her fingertips brush over the hilt of a saber in the murky sand below. Rey’s fingertips wrap around the base of the saber and it is one she knows all too well - the cross-guard is unmistakable.

As both hands touch the hilt of the lightsaber, Rey is thrown backward against a jagged rock somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. The base of her neck cracks against the rock and her body falls limp into the sand.

A few bubbles part from her lips and then everything goes black.

“Foolish Jedi,” a voice murmurs, warm and gentle. “I suppose you’re not really a Jedi though now, are you?”

Rey feels her hair brushed away from her face and she wants to force her eyes open because she’s afraid she may be in danger, but her body won’t listen.

The voice is deep, rough from disuse, “I’m not sure how you found me. I’ve been calling to you.”

The voice is one from her dreams.

“Ben?” her voice cracks.

Rey wills her eyelids to open and she swears he is a dream. Or a nightmare.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he speaks, and she realizes his hands are against her neck and waist, just like the day he died. Tears spring to her eyes and Rey lurches forward, ducking her head into his neck. She will not take for granted their time, even if he is a figment instead of reality.

His arms wrap around her and he feels solid, but she won’t be tricked. He has been an imaginary thing in her mind for far too long for her to start trusting herself now.

“I’m here,” his voice echoes as if he were reading her mind.

Which, if she were to think too hard about it, he probably is. He’s been in her mind since the day he removed his mask and bared his soul to her. She grits her teeth and forces herself to look him in the eyes.

He is dark, but he is also light.

His clothes are all varying shades of black, and his eyes are deep, ebony to match his hair. However, the light in his irises, the hope in his voice - it all balances.

“I can’t take this,” her voice wobbles, but her hands find solid skin when she touches his torso. “This sick dream has turned into a nightmare and you haunt me. Can’t I be free of this pain?”

Rey’s words echo his from all those years ago - words he wailed to Han Solo before the flash of red and singed flesh filled the desolate air.

Ben looks over her frantically, as if trying to put together a puzzle she can’t quite see. He brushes the back of his palm over her cheek and she is reminded of the feel of his own skin under the pads of her fingers as he flashed her his final smile.

“Please, Ben,” her voice breaks. Rey sniffles and her shoulders shake.

He shakes his head, “I don’t know what to tell you, Rey. You found me. I thought you would be free of the pain that has clouded you since Exegol.”

“F-Found?” Rey echoes.

Her big, brown eyes look up at him like a confused animal and he has to fight back the desire to chuckle between his lips.

Instead, he nods, “Yes. I’ve been stuck in this, uh, this world between worlds of sorts. I can’t get out - at least not alone.”

Once she understands, it’s as if her whole world has turned back right-side up. Rey’s beaming smile returns and Ben feels his heart expand in his chest so much so that he fears his ribs may hurt, but he doesn’t care.

“I found you,” she repeats, her hands on his cheeks now.

All she can think about is his mouth, his touch. She wants to drown in it, like she did the ocean. Her hand flexes, remembering the lightsaber.

“Your saber.” Rey turns frantically, searching for the weapon. She swallows before turning back to him, “When I touched it, that is what brought me here.”

Ben blinks one time too many before focusing back on her face again. He shakes his head, “No matter. It’s a relic of a dead man, passed away when you healed me.”

As if seeing him for the first time, Rey draws the tip of her index finger down where his scar used to be - where Kylo used to be. The splitting of his soul in two.

“I didn’t even notice,” she murmurs, eyelids threatening to close with the nearness of him intoxicating her. She sighs and he chuckles just loud enough for her to hear him.

Ben is quiet for a moment, drinking her in slowly like she might disappear any second now. Rey does not break his eye contact, her soul unwilling to be apart from him again.

“I’m not sure how to get out,” he tells her, tone heady.

She watches as his lower lip trembles and she wonders what it would feel like against her own mouth. Rey looks around, breaking eye contact with him for a mere moment.

When her gaze returns to his, he’s instilled with a confidence he’s not sure he’s ever possessed.

“We’ll figure it out - together.”

It has been a long time since Ben Solo knew he could count on anyone other than Kylo Ren.

He’s not quite sure when this scavenger dug her own hole in his heart, but he knows better than to push her away. Instead, he tucks her further into his arms, heart beating wildly against the fabric of his shirt.

“I like the sound of that,” he mumbles, eyes flitting closed as his lips find hers for the first time in too long.

Rey loses herself in the taste of his lips, the feel of his body. His arms are around her like a cage, securing her so she won’t fall apart again.

She’s not quite sure when trusting him became second nature, but she knows better than to push him away. Instead, she grips him by the collar and the jaw and bruises his mouth with her own.

And for the third time, Ben Solo and Rey work together to fight a common enemy.

a/n: i actually really like this???? not real worried about how it works plot wise or lore wise, i’m just having a good time

#reylo #ben solo #rey #reylo fic #benrey #benrey fic #rey x kylo #rey x ben #rey x ben solo #ben solo x rey #kylo x rey #kylo ren x rey #my songs #star wars

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ty-talks-comics · 6 years ago

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Best of DC: Week of August 14th, 2019

Best of this Week: Justice League Odyssey #12 - Dan Abnett, Will Conrad, Rain Beredo and Andworld Design

Darkseid is.

The former ruler of Apokalips’ plans have finally come to fruition after the small team of heroes brings together the final few relics to complete Sepulkore, the planet that will release a wave of cosmic energy all over the Ghost Sector and make it immune to the destruction of the Multiverse. Narrated by Darkseid, this issue expands on how far back he’s had these ideas and plans in place, even anticipating the betrayal from Cyborg, Starfire and Azrael from the beginning. He hasn’t been lying to them at all, but rather, omitting a few things so that his plans would proceed as they naturally would.

In the last issue we see Darkseid take control of Cyborg, turning him into a dangerous, Motherbox like being with all of the knowledge of the universe and more at his disposal. Darkseid orders Cyborg to keep Azrael and Jessica Cruz distracted while he fights an enraged Starfire. He sees the spark in her eyes and flings her into the core of Sepulkore, where she was destined to be the flame that lit the fire pits of this new hell. As Sepulkore awakens, Darkseid becomes even more powerful. Azrael is left with no other choice than to call his warriors into the fight as well.Unfortunately for him, as soon as the Azraelites enter Darkseid’s presence, they are turned into a new fodder-force: Para-Angels. Azrael succumbs to Darkseid’s control soon after as well.

With all of the pieces falling into place, Darkseid smiles. His new Apokalips is lit and it connects with all of the other remaining relics in the Ghost Sector, becoming a reality unto itself. Darkseid monologues to himself that he has always known that the Source Wall would fall and the Multiverse would be destroyed eventually. Since his early years, Darkseid has been lying in wait, creating myths of heroes that would be Gods and those Gods would serve him. The Eternal One - Darkseid.

His new acolytes look upon him, chanting “Darkseid is,” as he returns to his full power. Jessica Cruz stands tall against him, however. I want to take a moment to say how much I love her journey as a character. She started out as this young girl that could barely leave her apartment and she could barely control her fears which allowed Power Ring from Earth 3 take control of her. Since then she has fought to get past her fears, anxieties and PTSD to become one of the most courageous Lanterns in all of the Green Lantern Corps.

With only about two percent power left in her ring, she tells Darkseid that she will not let him win. His plans will fail if she has anything to do about it and Darkseid is mildly impressed. Darkseid could crush her, without question. She’s barely a fly on his rader, but he’s super into her tenacity. He offers her a place at the table, he cold become as powerful as Cyborg, Starfire or Azrael, a New God of Indomitable Will as Darkseid puts it.

Jessica says “Screw You,” and plants Darkseid with a mean right cross, firmly planting her in the same club as Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan, the “Are You Absolutely Insane? You Really Thought It Was A Good Idea to Punch HIM?” Club

Summarily, he swats her away, crushes her ring hand and Omega Beams her to hell.

*HEAVY SPOILERS ARE HEAVY*

Summarily, he slaps her, crushes her ring hand and Omega Beams her to hell.

*HEAVY SPOILER HOURS ARE OVER*

Will Conrad does the art for this issue and every single page is a wonder to look at. Darkseid is made to look unreasonably imposing as his power increases over time. Cyborg with his advanced mech body looks like a thing of terror as he has a faceguard only over his mouth and his human eye is a milky white. I also appreciate how his metal parts are shaded to give them a sheen. Sepulkore itself is drawn with an immense sense of scale and the architecture of it complex and effective, looking like a huge dodecahedron. Darkseid himself even has a new design that mimics some of his Superman: TAS look with tights added.

Justice League Odyssey might be one of the best ongoing Justice League stories right now because of how different it is to the rest of them. With a team almost as strange as the mid-2000s R.E.B.E.L.S. team and it being centered around an even stranger area of space, everything is so cool. Though there have been a few artists, each have taken different approaches to make all of the different locations and character designs cool.

What should really be applauded is the work when it comes to Beredo’s colors. For the most part, this book is awash in an oppressive red hue as Darkseid become stronger as the book goes on. This color blends well with Starfire’s fiery starbolts and Azrael’s flaming sword. It also worked best with Jessics Cruz being the only contrasting color in the bunch as her green made her the hopeful hero. Beredo makes everything feel dire as hell and it really sells the mood of the book.

I can’t wait for the next issue of the series because Darkseid has effectively won. He has a new Apokalips that he can rule from away from the dangers of the Multiverse and Perpetua. With his new New Gods, the Dark Sector will be another oppressive entity that Darkseid can hatch his schemes from with he regained power. The best question of all, however… who will stop him?

---------------------------------------------------

Barry Allen is back and better than before.

Runner Up: The Flash #76 - Joshua Williamson, Rafael Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona, Tomeu Morey and Steve Wands

After re-living one of his first adventures as The Flash, Barry sees just how out of touch with things that he has been lately. He realizes that he hasn’t taken the time to slow down since Wally returned and he’s just been throwing himself into adventure after adventure without any regard for his friends and family and it has caused their lives to suffer because of it.

Iris has practically left him. Wallace West distanced himself from Barry as much as possible, even going so far as to briefly join a team with Deathstroke. Avery, the Flash of China, isn’t even that close to Barry, but he also left her and Wallace in the middle of an argument just before he went off on his Force Quest. In an effort to put a stop to the Rogues that have now branched out of Central City, he’s been going through the escapees left and right.

We begin with Kid Flash and Avery fighting with Girder and Tarpit in the middle of Central City. The two young Speedsters are quick, but not all is right as they have a hard time putting any serious damage on either. Just as Tarpit is about to burn them alive, Barry zips in and saves the teens.

Rafa Sandoval is absolutely one of my favorites of DC’s current crop of artists and my favorite Flash artist. His slick lines and shading combined with Morey’s coloring and Tarragona’s inks makes everything look smooth. Costumes look good, bright and vibrant. Flash’s deep red stands out and compliments Wally’s yellow and surprisingly Avery’s dark pink and purples. Shadows are appropriately dark and every blast of lightning and every blur is stunning to see.

Barry gives his young proteges some advice in dealing with Tarpit and Girder, allowing the young speedsters to defeat the villains. After the win, Wallace is less than enthused to see Barry again and begins to walk away before Barry asks them both to run with him, to see how he's trying to make up for his mistakes.

Begrudgingly they agree and we get another amazing shot of Barry running while flanked by Avery and Wallace. I really loved this because it reminded me of the old Flash Family days and because Barry is really trying his best.

He shows them the rebuilt Flash Museum and they're amazed that he managed to rebuild it all by himself. Barry reveals that there's something more and they use their vibration abilities to enter their new headquarters, which I don't have a pun for yet. They're greeted by Commander Cold(?) And Steadfast, the new avatar of the Still Force, and Barry explains what's been going on with their powers.

Wallace had been noticing small things, but he thought it was all in his head. Apparently with the release of all of these new forces, the Speed Force is collapsing under the weight of these new forces that aren't supposed to exist alongside it. This is further backed up as The Black Flash returns for a cliffhanger ending.

As all of this is going on, in another city altogether, Heatwave is causing havoc, seemingly with his own heat powers having returned. The cops show up to confront him, but are suddenly incapacitated by blasts of ice. Captain Cold, Leonard Snart, has begun to gather his Rogues. With updated Cold Gear, to mirror his own New 52 ice powers, he hands Heatwave a Heat Gun and he two OG Rogues reunite to gather the rest of the troops and finally take down The Flash.

With this first part being so affectionately referred to as "The Death of the Speed Force part 1" I can't imagine that any of this will end well. The Speed Force has been in existence for the better part of almost 30+ years now and there's a good chance that we've seen all that we possibly can from it. It's been used to trap people, reset universes and even bring back past Speedsters for big events.

With the Speed Force dying, now's a great opportunity for new stories to be told with the Flashes exploring new ways for their powers to work if the Speed Force does indeed get destroyed in the future. But what will this mean for other speedsters still trapped like Jai and Iris West II, and Jay Garrick? Will they be immediately freed or will Doomsday Clock somehow tie into things? Only time will tell! High recommend!

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pamitect · 4 years ago

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Tile, Countertops, and Interior Materials

Tile selections are never as easy as you think. For me the indecision was real... and knowing that I had to pick something that I would love for a long time AND is readily available was a challenge. Here's a preview of some of the things I selected.

Kitchen:

I know that the palate here pretty neutral, but since we have not selected our furniture or overall interior design scheme for the great room I didn't want to lock into anything too crazy that would be hard to match later. Ultimately I decided to keep the build-in elements neutral and then my furniture and artwork can provide the pops of color we need to keep this from looking bland. If I need more color later, I can always repaint the island cabinets... I'm thinking some shade of emerald green would look fabulous, but didn't want to go that bold off the bat.

The backsplash tile is a white glass tile that is 4"x12", and we are using the 2-tone arabesque mosaic tile above the cooktop for a fun accent.

Fireplace Surround:

For the Fireplace surround I wanted to play off the arabesque cooktop mosaic glass tile, but at the fireplace, this tile is actually marble. The hearth below the fireplace will also be marble that matches this tile, but in 24" square tiles for minimal grout. I wanted natural stone here so I can have my tile setter chamfer the edges so there will not be an abrupt change in elevation from the thickness of the floor to the thickness of the hearth.

Bathroom 1:

In this bathroom I loved the idea of dark blue cabinets, so I used that as my base idea. Then selected matte black plumbing fixtures and accessories. I fell in love with this grey floor tile that has blue veins to go with the cabinet color. Then I found a counter that looked like marble, but had darker veins to go with the dark cabinets and fixtures. The shower wall tile sample above really doesn't do that tile justice - the real tile will be 24" square tiles and it looks like marble. But instead of actually being marble (which is never a good idea for a shower) it's porcelain tile. Then when I saw the mosaic tile that brings all my colors together (not to mention plays well with my hexagonal tile floor) I knew it was meant to be! This tile is actually stained glass, so that's pretty cool!

Bathroom 2:

Funny enough this bathroom was the hardest room to select things for. It didn't help that someone kept vetoing my initial selections... omitting names to protect the guilty... But I actually love what we ended up with much better than anything that I was looking at initially so I'm happy that this painful process resulted in something we both like! In this bathroom the shower wall tile is mostly the white textured porcelain tile, with one vertical strip of the blue glass accent tile that goes through the niche.

The countertops are all quartz. Shout out to Kelsy Bergeson of Daltile for helping me select everything! From the 1/2 slabs of quartz for the bathrooms so I didn't have to pay for huge slabs I didn't need, to the multiple rounds of tile for bath 2, numerous samples shipped to my rental, and for overall getting me just about all my tile and counter materials for about 50% off!! Gotta use that Architect's Discount where I can right!!?!! Thanks Kelsy for all your help!

Speaking of discounts... I gotta give another shout out to Nicole Holloway of Mohawk flooring for getting me such an insanely good deal on our LVT flooring I probably need to name my first born child Nicole... Not to mention the multiple rounds of samples that she shipped to me, and the fact that she got me the commercial grade flooring that comes with a pad already applied to the back. Thank you is not enough to express my sincere gratitude!!

For those of you that didn't know this already, LVT is Luxury Vinyl Tile. A product that looks like real wood, but provides many more practical benefits such as; being waterproof, zero maintenance, easy to install, and practically indestructible! This flooring clicks together with joints at all 4 sides so there will never be any lifting of individual pieces or even any need for glue below the tiles. All that and it's only 1/4" thick!

Did I mention it was really hard to decide on all of these tiles... That Daltile showroom has so many beautiful options I don't know how anyone can decide! Check these out:

and

and still more

See anything you like for your house???

Honestly these are just a few of the walls and walls and racks and shelves and drawers... of tile samples they have at Daltile. I didn't even get any pictures of their massive counter slab warehouse in back! Everything was beautiful so it was so hard to pick. The comment from Brett that I got was, "I'm just here to make sure you don't pick anything pink, or gold, or hard to clean." HA, as if he cleans tile! Now I can't wait to see this stuff installed in my house!!!

#Daltile #mohawkflooring #sherwinwilliams #tile #countertops #materialsboard #interiordesign

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kzbrandt · 4 years ago

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On an eve of catastrophe, Darkness remains.

Be brave, the words started to fade on my palm, even though the ink rubbed off, my brain still burned, I couldn’t forget these two possibly insignificant conjugations of letters. I still couldn’t believe this was the world I was living in, this was the new reality.

Looking at the abandoned house, I imagined its life before. Who lived here, how did the floor look freshly swept, how did the paint smell with a fresh coat? Underneath the trash was a blue loveseat and a matching recliner, stained and used, they were comfortably worn in. Across a faded white mantlepiece were several dusty pictures of what looked like a happy family. The men were brawny and serious, while the women were thin and leggy, quite a striking lineage. Even the children looked flawless and calm. I envied their happiness, it was untouched and free of carnage.

It was 1935, my family was torn apart, dismembered and discarded. The worst part was we weren’t strangers and our own friends turned us out to the wolves. These wolves wore the faces of men but inside they were anything but human.

After Hitler rose to power in 1933, everything changed so fast. First they omitted us from public life, our faces were no longer desired, especially now that his Arian race had been perfected. Everyone else was being pushed out. My whole life I had been a German, until the day I wasn’t. My true identity was now reflected back and I was Amira Naghrela and my family had been wandering homeless for thousands of years. After the Spanish Expulsion just before the 1500’s, my ancestors were ousted, turned from their homes. Destitute and starving we were barely surviving. Finally in 1910, down to only my father as the sole heir to our legacy, he met my mother in Munich, Germany. On a cold winter’s eve in January, 1921, my father, son of Abram Naghrela would have a daughter.

There were no secrets kept from husband and wife, each knew the other wholly, in every way. For 23 years my name was Ella Lenssen, at the stroke of midnight, suddenly my brown hair turned light yellow and my eyes burned cerulean blue. I was hidden in a sea of likeness, no one would know I bore the mark of the falsely accused, the one who was hated. I still heard her words so clearly. November 9th. It never stopped playing in my head, it blazed too bright and too horrible. As moths flocked to my window, an omen of Darkness began to swell. Fumbling with the six pointed star of David, I grew more nervous by the second. How long until they found me? Those poor people… I couldn’t just sit back and watch when my people were being slaughtered, raped and cleaved apart. I had been silent for long enough.

All through history my people have been persecuted, and that didn’t change on the night of broken glass, we should’ve known the horror Kristallnacht would bring. The Nazi’s have always despised us, just as God loves, the Devil hates. So Lucataerius Diablos invited in a dark stallion to stomp out the chosen ones, and unleash Anti-Semitic propaganda that would flood the earth and her people by storm. Films, pamphlets, and brainwashing scum burrowed effortlessly. Hatred, racism, violence, all of it was a part of Covid-black, a fabricated virus that would disappear until it was time for her final attack, and the second time she refused to be defeated by mere mortals, the dirt under her fingernails.

I had to watch as they ripped off my mother's breasts and shoved them down my fathers throat. On my knees covered in my family's blood, I was convulsing overcome with violent tremors of fear. Locked in abhorrence, I suddenly was very thankful for the well orchestrated lie of my adoption, how my name was slightly skewed from reality. If it was any other way then I wouldn’t have survived this encounter. It was strange how they knew I was adopted, maybe it wasn’t random. Could we have been targeted? Unfortunately, even though I survived the barrel of their guns, I still wasn’t free from the tyranny of men.

Germany’s citizens were disappearing and replaced by perfected soldiers, humans with unnatural abilities. A once great and diverse country now wore the same face, no variation, almost clone-like. Light, yellow hair and sky-blue eyes, although I may look the same it was only a supernatural mask, a key to open the future and rearrange the files.

In 1938, I met the creatures who painted the stars and lived in their castles cloaked in white light hidden in the Andromedan nebula. Their leader came to me in the midst of the mass pillaging and capture of my Jewish kin, and showed me how this would all play out. I could still see all of their deaths, six million Jews and so many others who didn’t fit the bill, German sympathizer or not, no one was safe from the will of Darkness. If she got her way, the realms would be altered in a terrible and irreparable way.

The Andromedan queen was beautiful, she seemed to embody space and its spectacular wonders while retaining a strange physical form. Her wings are what stick to my mind the most. Shimmering in watermelon colors, pink and green were splattered across in intricate blotches. They moved so fast, faster than a hummingbird buzzing in a flock of wildflowers, all of the colors blurred, taking on a singular illusion.

As she spoke her lips moved in the same fashion as her insect like wings, “Amira Naghrela, my name is Pazit, Ascender from the Golden Realms, I’ve chosen you for a great purpose, our cousins the Mothmen see a great torrent that will come swiftly and become one of the deepest crimes that humankind will do unto themselves. You cannot stop what is going to happen, but in the future you may be able to avoid history repeating itself. Will you help us ascend your soul and gift you with my essence?”

I never spoke, but Pazit had my answer. How could I turn down this ethereal angel? The apparition filled me with an intangible contentment. I was going to be recycled, floating around the cosmos of the afterlife, until my vessel was reborn.

I was given the face of the enemy so I might affect the coming days. Now all I had to do was die, and speaking of death I could feel his hot unwelcome breath warming my neck. The time had come, Hitler’s secret group of assassins would be here by now, knowing what I had done and would strike me down for good this time. When I was flung from my body, only then would I be free. I guess all I could hope for was a quick death, but these men were not men of honor, they didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Sinking into a damp, mold infected corner, footsteps vibrated across the floor, echoing like a tribal drum beating my heart. Tears fell down my cheeks as I dreaded what would transpire. I wasn’t at all surprised at the smug grin that appeared above me.

“Well, well, well now I have found you… Amira.” He snared my name like it was a curse passing out of his lips. So they knew, the ruse was up, but after what I did, I knew this charade would cease. I knew my expiration date had come, now at least it wouldn’t be for nothing, I’ll have a second chance. Maybe in my next life I'll find more than enslavement and mass decimation.

“Ready to play our game some more?”

“No, just kill me, I have no desire for your sick fantasies!” Thwack. Hot, searing pain slapped my right cheek, forcing me to look away.

“You little bitch, did you think no one would see you? Mein master is very displeased with you, setting fire to her laboratories, good thing the original specimen is still intact…” Wrestling with my crouched body, he pulled me up and called out to his shadowy goddess, the one whom he served.

Darkness animated through the rotting wood floor, seeping upward like an impenetrable smog, smelling of thick demoniac (crux of demons). The mother of evil had arrived. Rising out of a cesspool of umbra, red irises tore into my temples, knocking me down onto my knees once more. So this was the true hand behind the madness, the one who haunted my dreams.

Vile, stinging talons reached out from the malevolent cloud and what I assumed to be her mouth opened unnaturally wide and she attempted to suck out my soul. During this unpleasant encounter, I saw brief flashes of her mind, and a shrouded veil from within was revealed to me.

Deep inside the chasm of Darkness, I could see two young girls, one was like sunshine and the other was cloaked in ravens and starlight. A multitude of memories were joined together making it nearly impossible to understand anything.

Taking a breath and trying to focus the images, I could see someone else among the children, a long slinky man, who’s flesh looked inhuman, stretched too tightly like a costume. As if I cut a nerve too closely, The Darkness threw me across the room as a banshee scream pierced the empty house shattering all the windows, and the soldier all at once. Blood and guts exploded everywhere coloring each surface in chunky crimson.

“It is not possible to resist me, what are you? Your gifts shall be mine, one way or another.”

Quickly looking down I glanced at a reflective dagger lying not two feet from me. Adrenaline dilating, I thought about two words that I now realized were anything but meaningless. BE BRAVE. Grasping the cool metal, I readied my mind, body and soul. Closing my eyes, my short life flitted by, seeing only the ones most precious to me.

Only 15 years old, too young to get the chance to fall in love or travel the seven seas. There were so many places I still hoped, I might see one day, whenever that might be. Without wasting a second more, I took the blade and ripped open my neck exposing my clavicle, and draining my life force. Most blood was a bright, cherry red, but my own poured out in a gleaming golden frenzy. I wasn’t the only one taken aback either.

Who knew I could be so alert during my own death, I could still feel everything around me. I figured when the lights went out it was only darkness, but it was so much more. As the sounds of everyday life faded I heard the faintest cry of infuriation, a howl mixed with pain and vengeance. I didn’t know how I felt about this enfant terrible, was it calamity that drove it, what was her story?

It would be 120 years before my body would be birthed once more. But time was so different in The Vale, there are no words in creation that can quite describe it. And just like that, risen from the ashes I became small and tumescent, breathing underwater. What was this strange sensation? I was light as a feather while bobbing along like a booey in the middle of the ocean. The walls started to shrink, contracting more and more.

Of course, it all made sense now. A big push forced me down the birthing canal and I felt squished and kind of claustrophobic. With each propulsion my destiny was schlepped closer. Just as I was about to breach the world, I could hear the doctor say excitedly,

“Oh look Persephone, your little Krista is just about here! Just one more push! Mrs. Star, what beautiful eyes she has, none like I’ve ever seen…

So it began.

#kz #brandt #fantasy #writing #the #gathering #darkness

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sylviathewanderer-blog · 7 years ago

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Sylvia’s Sci-Fi Series - A sneak Peak

So I've mentioned that I enjoy writing science fiction before. Well I was working on a sub story to go along with an episodic series I've been working on. The sub story is about the alien that crashes on earth and leave behind the wreckage that eventually gets reverse engineered and used to create humanity’s star ships. Each small section is told during the opening of every episode as a way to explain the history of the universe and important events that tie into the main story in some way

Currently, I haven’t posted any of this story anywhere else as I’m just not sure where I’d do that. I’ve also never had any of my writing published. This is just something i enjoy doing for fun, though I would love to let others read my writing eventually. So far the only people who have read my work have been close personal friends.

This community has been so nice to me and helped me so much while I tried to figure out just who I am that I figured I should try to give something back. If you like it let me know, especially if you know a good place for me to start posting the series as a whole so it has a place to live, grow, and be seen by the rest of the world.

When this story begins it is 1947 in the USA and the main character is the sole survivor of the Roswell UFO crash. He’s been picked up by the military and is now being held at a secret military base. (i’m not happy with that section yet and am still rewriting it, which is why it has been omitted from this sneak peak.)

* * * * *

A small large headed grey humanoid sits alone in a tall wooden chair, his stubby legs hanging off the ground as he shifts trying to get comfortable in the stiff, unpadded seat. He rests his long hairless arms on the top of a small square table placed directly in front of him. A single light hangs directly above his head barely illuminating the rest of the small barren room. He drums his fingers idly on the surface of the table while looking at a large mirror set in the wall in front of him.

“Yup, real intimidating guys. . .” he says rolling his large eyes.

He straightens up as he hears the door to his right side unlock. The door gives a slight groan that nevertheless echos loudly around the mostly empty room. Two humans, a man wearing a military dress uniform practically covered in metal bars carrying a second chair, and a woman wearing a soft pink A line dress with her dark curled hair mostly tucked up under a small pink hat holding a clipboard and a pen. The military man sets his chair across from the alien and sits in it folding his arms across the surface of the table and glaring deep into the alien's large grey eyes.

“Ah, so I guess that makes you the 'Bad Cop' then?” The alien asks holding back a chuckle.

The military man looks from the alien over to his female cohort raising an eyebrow at her.

“We have very good hearing. I was listening to you both going over your plan in the room behind the one way glass the whole time.” He leans around the man in front of him to give a wave to the mirror across the room “Hi, other guys back there still! Don't bother whispering, I can hear that too. . . Yeah, even that.” He slowly leans back to sit straight in his chair again giving the man across the table a satisfied grin.

“Then you know why we've come?” the man says with a snarl never dropping his piercing stare.

“Yup, you ‘mean to see a man about a ship’. Am I right?”

The small framed woman steps forward. “We don't wish to steal your ship from you. We mean to offer you a trade. A. . . er, an offer of purchase!”

“Yeah, I've been hearing all about that.” the alien says waving her off “Dunno who the 'Rooskies' are, but I'm sure they'll be shaking in their boots.”

“Are you interested in hearing our offer.” The man states rather than asking trying to maintain his own illusion of control over the situation.

“Yeah, and I'm not interested in any of your currency, land, nor any resources. I could use a beer, though!” The grey alien shifts his glance between the intimidating stare of the man and the look of shock on his assistant's face. “What? I'm an alcoholic, alright! There, you made me say it. What is that, Step 1 on the road to recovery?”

The woman lowers her clipboard and cants her head to one side feeling her grasp of reality slipping a bit. “You'll sell us your ship for a beer!?”

“Oh, not just a beer. I want all the beer I can drink.”

“That can be arranged.” The man in the uniform says flatly, letting a small smile drift across his lips for the first time since entering the room.

“And I want one of the ships you produce after reverse engineering the wreckage. That point is non-negotiable. Wipe out your Rooskies. Take up asteroid wrangling. I don't care what you all do after I leave. I just don't plan on spending the rest of my life stuck on this rock!”

“You'll help us then?” The woman asks approaching the table.

“As long as I get what I want out of it and you guys don't try to pull anything on me, absolutely. Keep in mind though, I hear everything!” The alien says leaning over the table and giving a glare of his own.

* * * * *

A small grey skinned man roars in frustration slinging a stack of papers off of a low table screaming in his own native tongue as he paces, stomping back and forth across a room filled with diagrams and wall sized computer terminals.

A woman with dark curly hair wearing pressed business attire walks into the cramped workspace. “I-is that cursing or some kind of drinking song from your home world?” she asks laughing a bit to herself.

“Swearing! Definitely swearing! What the Hel-” he stops as she raises a carefully trimmed eyebrow. “What am I supposed to do with this. . . garbage!?” he yells motioning to a large computer bank with a pair of tape reels spinning on the front of it. “Is this seriously the best computer your planet has!? Magnetic TAPE!? Your species seriously hasn't figured out nano-cellular processing yet!?”

“Sorry if my people aren't sufficiently advanced for your liking Mr. St-Straz-zt'dak-ou-”

The alien shakes his head at her “Don't hurt yourself trying to say my name. Just call me Grey like everyone else. It worries me every time you try to say it. Your eyes start rolling into the back of your head and you do that odd lip. . . pucker. . . thing.”

The woman stops suddenly feeling very aware of her own facial expression. “Oh. . . I er. I'm sorry, Mr. Grey.”

“I do like that thing you're doing right now where all the blood is rushing to your cheeks, though!” He says giving her a smirk.

She whips around trying to hide her blushing face. “Please. Just stop teasing me for a minute so i can try to help.”

“Look, the problem is that with computers like this, we'd need the ship to be larger than this entire base just to make fit one powerful enough into it.”

“Can't we copy the computer your old ship used?”

“Not without material from my home world. We're going to have to wait for you guys to learn to build more compact computers with what you have. The first step will be ditching the tubes and the tape.” He shoots another scornful look at the large spinning reels “I'd love to teach you how, but I'm not a computer engineer! I'll start working on propulsion in the meantime, but this is a huge setback!” Grey says pulling a few schematics out of a filing cabinet.

The woman bends down picking scattered sheets of paper off of the floor. Most of the drawings are clearly done by hand and the text is stretched, crooked, and a bit oblong. “You're handwriting is just terrible. You know that?”

“Yeah, sorry I wasn't raised writing in English. You only have, like, five good letters!”

“Oh?” she says as she straightens her stack of paper

“Yeah O, Q, C, G and D. . . U is almost tolerable, but the rest can fu- . . . I can do without.”

“Sorry, that was insensitive. I wasn't thinking about what your native texts look like when I said that.”

“Nah, don't worry about it. This whole thing has been culture shock for everyone. Am I clear to get some fresh air, yet?”

“Sorry, it's still light out.”

“I don't see the big deal about people seeing me. So I'm an alien? There's tons of us out there! I don't even look all that different from you all, just healthier in color, less hairy, and not as badly stretched out!” Grey says rolling his schematic out on the table and looking over it.

“They're afraid it would cause a panic. There's been all of those movies about aliens attacking folks and all.”

“And who's bright idea was it to start making those?”

“Well, the hope was that seeing aliens would slowly make people comfortable with the whole idea of your existence. Then Hollywood went and made you all the monster of the week, and. . .”

“Yeah, brilliant plan.” Grey stops working and looks up at her. “Why green of all colors though?”

“See, I was more confused by the antenna.”

“No that actually makes sense to me. I think they were trying to explain how I hear so well without visible ears.”

She laughs a bit, slowly rotating her pages and trying to sort them into the proper order before looking up at the small grey man carefully marking his schematic “Are you really us leaving as soon as we get your ship built?” she says after a moment.

“Why? You thinking about coming with me, or do you want me to stay here with you?” Grey says looking over at her.

She simply looks into his eyes feeling tears welling up in her own.

* * * * *

Grey slowly stretches his arms under twinkling stars enjoying the feeling of the cool night air on his thin arms. He tilts his head back stretching his neck and shoulders while staring out into the black.

“Hey, Carla, what are you waiting for? It's a nice night out here!” He calls out to the curly haired woman standing in a nearby doorway.

She slowly steps out looking both ways before crossing a dirt road marked with deep jeep tracks. “Sorry, it's just cold out.”

“That's just your small fingers. Put on some gloves and you should feel fine! Here, sit.” he says patting the surface of a nearby picnic table.

She walks over slowly backing onto the top of the table and pulls her purse off her shoulder.

Grey hops up beside her dangling his short legs over the edge. “So how long have we been doing this, now? Hiding like animals in the dark while we slowly building a super weapon for your government. . .”

“It's been a year, maybe two years, I'm not sure. Please don't call it that, though. We are building a space ship, one we can use to get humanity to the stars!” She says digging through to bottom of her bag looking for her pair of black Isotoners.

“Come on, let's not pretend to be naive. I know exactly what I'm doing for you all. For me it's my chance to get back home, for you all it will be the weapon to end all wars.”

“I thought that was what the nuke was for.” She says slipping on her gloves.

“Heh, supposedly. It's never as simple as all that, though. Having the biggest, baddest weapons changes nations from being on the defense to suddenly scrambling for any excuse they can find to go on the offense. I've already heard rumblings about preemption. That's how it starts and then next thing you know, you are the evil empire that's threatening everyone else.” Grey says pulling a short hand rolled cigarette from his pocket and placing the tip of it in his mouth.

“Where did you get that!? That stuff is illegal. It's dangerous!”

Grey rolls his large eyes at her and pulls out his lighter to light it. “Tch, you believe everything you hear on the radio? This stuff isn't gonna cause madness. It actually does the opposite. It's calming my nerves which wouldn't need calmed if I got a bit of sunlight every now and then.”

“Say what you want, but it's still illegal!”

“Yeah, and so am I. What are they gonna do? Arrest me?” he says as he takes a long drag being sure to carefully blow the smoke away from Carla.

“Oh, that stuff stinks! I wish you would smoke tobacco instead.” she says fanning the front of her face.

Grey simply smirks watching her put on a show. “Nope, that junk doesn't work. Funny hearing you protesting now. You used to partake with me. You go and get married on me, they gave you a fancy title, and now you're going all proper on me!”

“We all have to grow up sometime, Mr. Grey.”

“Back to Mr. are we? Tch, what's this world doing to us?” He says a bit sullenly as he pulls the rolled paper from his mouth. “You can't tell me you don't want to have a go for old time sake.”

She looks at the gentle curl of blue smoke rolling off the end of it for a moment before reluctantly taking it. “You are a terrible influence on me, you know it?” She says before placing it between her own lips and taking in a long, deep drag.

“I just can't stand seeing you not being true to yourself, is all. You're bigger than all of this pretense and prudishness, and you know it.”

She blows out a long stream of billowing blue smoke toward the sky feeling some of her worry and tenseness slowly escaping along with it.

“See that? There's still a rebel in there, somewhere deep down, just looking for a chance to escape and run free.”

“Run away from her life and responsibilities with a crazy man from beyond the stars.” She says slowly before handing the roll back to Grey and pulls up her legs crossing her arms just under her knees. “Are we even getting close? Everyday that dream feels further and further away.”

Grey looks at the bruises on her wrists then down at the dirt and sand “It's slow. We have a lot of men working on it, but the technology just isn't there yet.”

She tucks herself further into her own legs resting her chin on top of her knees. “We're running out of time. Brass isn't happy with our progress. I'm starting to worry that they are going to shut the entire project down if we don't come up with something.”

“I doubt that. They spent all this time and money renovating this place and relocating everything so we could use the dried lake bed as a test site. Why go through all the trouble and resources just to shut us down a few years later?”

“Ha! Now who's being naive? You don't know the government the way I do! It's a bunch of old men with no real world experience, and even less patience, all jockeying for favor by making everyone who disagrees with them look foolish. They spent a ton of money on this project knowing that their enemies would accuse them of wasting tax dollars on us. They're demanding some kind of trinket they can throw back into their detractor's faces to prove that it isn't all a waste.” Carla says frowning as she looks down at her smoking partner.

“Science doesn't work that way.” Grey says trying to wave the comment away with a long hand.

“Yeah, but politics does, and for now politics is paying the bills.”

Grey huffs loudly looking back up at the sky. “Humans and your damned obsession with money. . . It's no wonder you all are so far behind.”

“You never cry.”

“Hmm?”

“I've seen you get sad. I've seen you sulk. I've seen you mope. I've never seen you cry.” Carla says staring down at him. “It's therapeutic, you know. You don't have to pretend to be tough for me.”

Grey laughs. “It's not that. I'm not pretending to be anything. My species can't cry.” he pulls at the bottom eyelid of his left eye. “See? No tear ducts. I couldn't cry if I wanted to, which I don't. It's just not an instinct my people have. Instead we use sarcasm.”

Carla laughs a bit “Wait, but if you don't cry then how do you clean dust from your eyes or keep them lubricated?”

“We didn't evolve from mammals like you. We came from amphibians.”

Carla tilts her head slightly still looking into Grey's large eyes.

He sighs a bit “We have a secondary eye lid that has a mucus coating for that. It's hard to show you because it closes at the same time as our primary eye lid, but here.” Grey grabs his top and bottom eyelids holding them open. They twitch painfully as he closes his other eye and slowly forces the slimy secondary lid to slide out from the side rolling away from the center of his noseless face. He lets go of his eye lids and blinks several times from the irritation. “Did you see it?”

“No I missed it. You'll have to do it again!” Carla laughs

* * * * *

A soft blue convertible speeds across a dried lake bed trailing a billowing cloud of dust and debris high into the bright blue sky. Behind it sirens and alarms ring out echoing across the desert. Carla holds onto a wide brimmed hat steering her car with one hand trying to maintain control while getting as much speed as she can out of the vehicle. In the passenger seat Grey sits on his knees watching chaos erupt from the military base behind them.

“We're doing this thing! We're actually doing it! We're going on the lamb like Boner and Clyde!” He yells over the sound of the engine roaring

“That's Bonnie and Clyde” Carla calls out looking over at him. “And I'd like this to go a lot better than that! Forgive me if I don't want to see you, me, and the car all filled with bullet holes!”

“Hey, I'm just glad to be out of the base and in the sunlight!” He turns around and stretches his arms. “It's been years since I felt the warmth of a star on my face. Where are we headed anyway?”

“Mexico. It's about the only place we can reach that won't expedite!” Carla says as she steers the car towards an unmarked dirt road. “This is stupid. This is idiotic. I had a future! I had a position. I had money! I had a comfortable life! I'm a married woman! What in the hell am I doing!?”

“I think this is called an affair, isn't it? Or do we have to sleep together for it to become an affair? Wait, what was eloping again?”

“It's treason! I'm going to be caught and killed. I'm going to get us both killed!”

“No, treason is when you betray your country.” Grey pauses for a moment “Ok, yeah this is treason. I mean for you. For me this is just a prison break. . . maybe oath breaking, too. Shit! I'm not helping am I?”

Carla bites her bottom lip shaking her head as the car bounces down the uneven road.

Grey slides over and puts one hand on her shoulder and uses the other to slowly stroke her back. “We're in this together now. You and me against the world just like its always been.”

“I don't see a way out of this. I don't know what to do. You're sure about that signal? There is a ship nearby and you can hail it?” She says fighting the urge to look into his eyes for comfort.

“Absolutely, it's not one of my people's but it's friends! I've got the radio from my ship all I need is something to rig it with to use as an amplifier and we'll have a pickup in seconds! Don't worry, I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you. We are going to see the stars, Carla. You and Me, out in space having a real adventure! No more stuffy military bases, no more shitty husbands, no more being yelled at for not being able to do the impossible! Real freedom!” He says gently patting her back.

“Alright, I'm calm. Please get back in your seat and buckle up. I can't do this without you.”

“Heh, yeah seat belts, like that crap ever helped anybody!”

The car swings a wild left screeching it's tires as it turns onto a paved road at full speed. Grey suddenly feels himself pulled away from Carla and flung over the passenger door. His long fingers barely reach the door in time, pulling his entire body down around the outside of the car. His eyes sink down to his feet as the road zips past, each bump and rock threatening to take off a foot as they scream past. Slowly he hoists himself back into the car.

“Alright, seat belts. Good call. Wouldn't want to get hurt.” He straps himself in still feeling his heart pounding away in his chest. “What's that sound?”

“They're scrambling choppers to track us. We need to find some cover to ditch this car and lose them.” Carla says feeling her own heart racing.

“Helicopters? Dammit! This is why you don't piss off the military. They have all the good toys!”

#writing #sci-fi & fantasy #scifi #science fiction

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reed0920 · 6 years ago

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Frozen in Time: Reflections on The Great Blacks in Wax Museum of North Baltimore

On a chilly Saturday afternoon in February a small tour bus from a local Baptist missionary church chugs along Baltimore’s north avenue coming to a slow halt in front of a white painted brick building that still retains its firehouse facade. Off of the bus pours the congregation made up mostly of teenagers with a few adults peppered in as chaperones, all black and all huddling close to the doors of the building for a bit of protection from the wind. Above the double glass doors in bold lettering reads “The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum”. Slowly the crowd is shepherded into the lobby and their tickets are paid for while an older black woman wearing a white beanie and thick glasses waits patiently to begin their tour.

Some introductions are made and then the patient docent begins to speak describing the wax figures of historical black icons that adorn the foyer. The adults in the group listen with rapt and respectful attention as she describes Hannibal’s journey across the Alps and to their credit so do many of the teens, but a larger majority of them either stare blankly about the room shuffling their feet or talk surreptitiously under their breath with friends darting furtive looks at their chaperones trying not to draw attention. The guide then finishing her initial speech calls for the crowd to follow her through the doors on the left and the real tour begins.

Through the thin, double swinging doors decorated with Coptic crosses and Egyptian symbols painted in the colors of the black power movement green, red and black and on to the main floor of the museum move the guests. On the left, they are immediately confronted with the starboard broadside of an old wooden slave ship and on the right and directly ahead several black figures in different states of torment with ragged burlap clothing and contorted faces harried by their pink-faced masters. Here the docent stops to begin describing the cruelties suffered by American slaves illustrated in their full graphic nature.

As she continues her lecture the tour group is quietly joined by a grey-haired white man, maybe around 50, the driver of the bus who politely stands at the back and looks on with interest. To describe the loss of identity faced by many Africans at this time the docent explains that the white masters would force them to adopt new names beating them if they did not respond properly to the new designation. Still, many of the teens seem only half interested giggling at the back or simply staring at the floor. To enliven her audience the guide attempts to demonstrate saying she will play the role of the master giving the crowd the new name “Toby” and instructing them to shout this new appellation when asked. In a shaky but clear voice she exclaims, “what’s your name?” but the crowd remains silent awkwardly staring back at her unsure of what to do. Again she shouts, “what’s your name?” and several people whisper “Toby” uncomfortably shifting from one foot to the other. Finally, one more time she rings out, “What’s your name?” and from the back of the crowd a clear “Toby!” is shouted by the older white bus driver eager to join in. The docent smiles and continues on with her talk, but several of the young black teens begin to glance at the bus driver talking behind their hands to each other and smirking to themselves.

For the past few months, I have been making regular visits to the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum of north Baltimore as part of an ethnographic field study exploring the way in which curation communicates a narrative through exhibits and how that narrative is received and understood by museum guests. Founded in 1983 by Dr. Elmer Martin, a professor at Morgan State, and his wife Dr. Joanne Martin The Great Blacks in Wax Museum is dedicated to the preservation and education of black history in the United States. Through a mixture of black empowerment and pan-Africanist symbolism, world-weary wax figurines, and a strong narrative this small yet plucky museum serves as a touchstone to black excellence. Upon my first visit in January I was instantly intrigued by the exhibits and the way in which they tell the story of black history. It seemed as if the main goal was to create a narrative that shown a light on the struggle and achievements of African Americans and the African diaspora throughout the world, however, in doing so I noticed a lack of nuance in the story being told. I wondered, whose version of black history is this? Who is the intended audience? Is this museum still a valid representation of black experience? I wanted to learn more about their curatorial process and understand the intent behind what had been included and what had been omitted. Here we will explore some of these questions and attempt to understand the culture that created this unique institution.

Walking through the museum one will notice that most passageways or blank walls tend to be decorated with “African” symbols like Coptic crosses, Ethiopian runes, or shapes of the continent. There is clear placemaking going on here, cues that let you know who created this place and who it is for. Something particularly unique about this institution is that it has been solely created by African Americans for African Americans, a rare thing in a country dominated by white hegemonic power structures. This is not to say that the museum is unwelcoming to those outside of the black community, however, it does mark it as a black space with a particular set of cultural values. What I found interesting in this aesthetic was its dated fashion, a call back to the black power movement of the 1960s and ’70s. What I later learned from an interview with Dr. Joanne Martin was that her husband was actively involved in these movements which partly led to the creation of the museum and a clear reflection of his beliefs and values in its design. This is where I began to think about audience, at its foundation maybe the decoration of the museum was more representative of the wider black community, but now I wonder if it seems dated and out of touch to a younger contemporary patronage? Through interviews I conducted at the site most seemed happy with the exhibits representing black history, but there was not much said on whether they felt that they were actually represented in the exhibits.

For a small family operated museum, they are telling a nebulous story that spans thousands of years of history and within the space they have they are able to pack in a good deal of it. With this huge timeline to work with, there are thousands of characters and stories to pull from so looking at the figures that were not presented offers an interesting interpretation of the story being told. For the most part, the museum features black politicians, business leaders, inventors, authors, statesmen, and social activists with only a few performing artists, but none later than the 1960s. Again, I think this reflects the vision of the museum's creators who wanted to spin a different perspective of black culture in America, staying away from more frivolous celebrity. There is a clear desire in its curation for this museum to avoid negative stereotyping, another feature that harkens back to the days of black power when any image that contradicted the narrative of black excellence was unacceptable. This museum does a great job building up the story of black people in America, but in doing so it seems to lose the nuance of some of these characters making them more one dimensional and ultimately less impactful.

The most powerful thing about this museum, however, is its unapologetic and raw portrayal of the struggle that African Americans have faced in America. Clearly many hours of design and labor went into creating the replica slave ship at the beginning of the tour with the basement built to let guests see in great detail how Africans were shipped like cattle to the new world. There are many institutions that have told this story before, but what sets the Great Blacks museum apart is its theme of remembrance and empowerment that clearly reflects the culture of its founders. At the end of this exhibit sits a communion tray and guests may partake in a “west African ritual” called “libation” which involves a psalm of respect to the ancestors who died on the middle passage and the pouring out of a bit of sea water. I have never seen anything like this in a museum before and adds a different type of participation one that acknowledges the difficult nature of the narrative and allows guests the space for self-care. Juxtaposed to this somber and reflective portion one then descends into a second basement at the end of the tour into the lynching exhibit. The graphic content warning sign does not prepare one for the carnage that waits below, dozens of newspaper clippings along with gruesome, mutilated wax corpses and severed genitalia tell the horrific stories of the darkest part of American history. I was told by a staff member that I interviewed that “It used to be a whole lot more graphic than it is now” which is difficult to believe but must have been far too disturbing to force the change. Again I questioned what the curators had in mind, were guests meant to be disgusted? Sad? Angry? I would guess all of the above and as one exits this macabre scene there are words of comfort that talk of the resilience of the culture and the continuing fight against oppression. However, though you can easily be distracted by the grotesque images around you there is also an interesting editorial display tucked into the hallway in the corner. There above the glass pane reads a sign that says “Boulevard of Broken Dreams: now we lynch ourselves” the hall beyond done up to look like an alley with a dead body surrounded by needles and other scenes of violence clearly meant to depict drug abuse and crime plaguing the black community. These two exhibits and the way they construct their narrative again seem to reflect an older more austere telling of black history and seem to lack the sensitivity towards systematic racism and oppression that can lead to drug use and crime. This museum though distinctly black also has a strong influence of the baby boomer generation of its founders and may be alienating to younger viewers.

There are clear indications of a specific cultural perspective being represented by the Great Blacks in Wax Museum. The exhibits are powerful and convey a story of black excellence but in doing so they lack subtlety and nuance reflecting an older generation of black consciousness. One of the major challenges for this museum is funding and perhaps this is why much of the decor and displays seem a bit outdated, they simply have not been able to yet afford a remodel. Through my experience working with the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, I saw a dedicated community of professionals working to tell their version of black history here in the united states. They have clearly created a place that exemplifies their vision of black excellence directed at an ever-changing and evolving audience which seems to have outpaced their ability to adapt to changing times and values. As this museum moves forward I believe it will continue to be a fixture of the black community in Baltimore but may benefit from asking a question posed by Clifford Geertz when thinking about the narrative that they portray, “whose knowledge and for what purpose?”Representation is always tricky and even as cultural insiders to the black community they must still recognize that great shifts have occurred in the way that the stories they are telling are being understood and they must change with them or become irrelevant. Museums construct knowledge and perform history to interact with their audience creating a subjective view based on the perspectives and values of the curators. The Great Blacks in Wax museum is innovative, powerful, and important, but to remain relevant they must also learn to engage in new ways with a younger generation.

References

Garoian, Charles R. “Performing the Museum.” Studies in Art Education 42, no. 3 (2001): 234–48. https://doi.org/10.2307/1321039.

Korom, Frank J. “Empowerment through Representation and Collaboration in Museum Exhibitions.” Journal of Folklore Research 36, no. 2/3 (1999): 259–65.

“Reed_GBIW_InterviewTranscripts.” Google Docs. Accessed March 22, 2019. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Plf4ih99MS9vJzJig6LoUhBuLE5YcZyK2eBvsEJvpPk/edit?usp=drive_web&ouid=113266620950327120395&usp=embed_facebook.

Visit Baltimore. Baltimore’s National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. Accessed March 22, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=274&v=LTSbtZTu_eU.

#greatblacksinwax baltimore

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homedesignlog-blog · 6 years ago

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25 Relaxing Mid-Century Outdoor Spaces

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF the interior, we also wish to have an area open air had been we will rest and spend some time with nature round us. it will certainly be nice to have another space where you'll bond along with your circle of relatives or even entertain visitors. it will no doubt cause them to really feel extra relaxed and it is going to even be a nice position for them to de-stress. now we have collated photographs of varied out of doors areas already and we have some other record for you to check for extra inspiration. This time, we have an inventory of mid-century out of doors areas for you to get some ideas to your personal area. it is actually just a topic of good planning and the variability of furnishings layout that you'll be able to use in it. The Usage Of simple furniture is already sufficient after which see to it that you just do neatly with the association and alternatives of plants, stones and others. Don’t omit to add a fireplace pit or a fire position to carry heat to the gap. So, here are 25 Mid-Century out of doors spaces in your notion.

Coffman Studio This Is a phenomenal outside area with a green garden and urban walkways. I also like how the curtains had been brought on this area too.

Tara Bussema – Neat Organization and Design This area has grey outdoor furniture that looks great towards a wall painted in Benjamin Moore Amherst Grey siding with Night Horizon on the fascia, brick fireside and block wall.

Scott Basile Pictures Above the brick fireplace is an artistic taking a look design with caged stones. It does look great, proper?

Marc-Michaels Inner Design This outdoor space has wicker chairs for the eating and dwelling areas which appears to be like beautiful towards the white colors of the ground and ceiling to boot because the inexperienced garden.

Hobbs’ Ink A Great simple out of doors that appears very relaxing. The bronze colour match with the windows.

Koch Architects, Inc. Joanne Koch What I Love about this area is the floor that is arranged in a creative method. Isn’t this a romantic area with all of the plants and dramatic lights around it?

Native Son Design Studio Who said string lights are just for holiday decors? you'll also use it so as to add drama to your outdoor house similar to this.

Re: Layout You won’t imagine that this was the ugliest house within the block. After its transformation, it was once named Winner of Piedmont’s Absolute Best Up To Date Rework award.

Darren Patt Construction Except For the architecture of the home, I additionally like the glance of the out of doors area with easy furniture in it.

Ryan Workforce Architects If the former space has pops of pink, this one has inexperienced colors in it that may be used for its cushion.

Mythical Luxury Homes Iron dining set is added in this space with brick pavers. It does glance somewhat conventional but you get hints of mid-century enchantment because of the home.

Studio AR+D Architects I Really Like this! What a few bed room that may be opened to offer you a view of the pool house and surrounding panorama? it might indeed be superb!

The Price Of Architecture A mid-century brand new deck with furniture that is constituted of wood and metal. the mix seems to be nice in here and complements with the structure of the house.

Austin Outside Layout A Close up view of the patio that also has an out of doors kitchen and eating area. it is entire with floating grill and towel space for storing besides.

Rowland Broughton Structure & Urban Layout What introduced entice this area is the fire pit in it to boot as the limestone bricks too.

Jon Luce Builder From the open dwelling space, the outside area can straight away be accessed featuring white graceful furnishings and some bushes too that add extra natural beauty to the distance.

ModShop – L. A., OC, THE BIG APPLE, Palm Springs & Miami This outside area appears to be like very stunning and swish with the prolonged metal from the exterior of the home. The furnishings delivered in it are nice too in black and white colors.

Cornerstone Architects Except For an outside dining area, that is additionally a fair area to figure out. Subject Material selections for the home have been selected in accordance with sustainable criteria to make the world “green.”

Klopf Architecture Those rocking chairs bring a definite beauty to the area and it looks nice with the gray furnishings here too.

Coffman Studio Elevating the deck with rocking chairs and a fireplace pit is a good thought so as to add other levels to the outdoor house.

Lisa Parramore This area features a concrete wall in eggplant-coloured stucco with constructed-in seating that creates an outdoor room for entertaining.

H3K Design I Love the glance of this one with easy white colours and those lovely ornamental walls too.

Michael Tauber Structure This Is an access for a mid-century house and that curved bench totally nailed the glance!

Jennifer Weiss Architecture Eames plastic chairs were brought to this area with mossy brick pavers on the flooring.

Bella Vita Garden Design Those cacti look very nice! looking at this made me love cactus as a result of how pretty all of them glance in combination. Gorgeous, right? i'm certain you will love the above designs especially that almost all of them have a comfortable and stress-free feel. after all, it could be great to have an outside space to spend a while. it might even be very relaxing too to only take a seat with the warmth of the fireplace or the coolness of the waters. And in fact, being attentive to the leaves rustle and being caressed by way of the sweet breeze could give you an attractive feeling. want to have an area like the ones above? Read the full article

#landscape #landscapedesign #landscaping #Mid-Centuryoutdoor #Mid-CenturyOutdoorSpaces #outdoorspace

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westclay33-blog · 6 years ago

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The smart Trick of orange face mask That No One is Discussing

Elizabeth will be the founder and inventive director in the Nourished Existence. Her mission is that can help folks discover a far more well balanced (fewer demanding!) method of residing a contented, wholesome life. Go through more about Elizabeth listed here. Combine all ingredients together in a little bowl. Utilize a skinny layer in excess of your full face and neck. Rest for twenty minutes and rinse with warm water. Repeat the mask weekly or make use of the mixture being a day-to-day spot procedure by dabbing it on to discoloration. Final results will just take two-three months. To use, unfold the paste to the face that has a word of warning. Go away the paste as it is actually for twenty-half-hour until the mask thickens into a thick coat within the face. Enable it dry for this meantime and now clean it off. Get a listing of necessary oils that do the job for all skin forms. Not all critical oils get the job done for all skin styles. Some could melt away or damage sensitive skin, for instance. I also really like the graphics you put within your hub! I think with the Supply website link which you made them you. Excellent task! They're basically ideal graphics to employ for pinterest. :) Of which, I believe I'm likely to pin this to my beauty board on Pinterest to work with for future reference. So we scoured Pinterest for the most effective face mask recipes to revive your skin. They all include things like fantastic-for-you substances like avocado, honey, oatmeal and perhaps chocolate—all things that's probable previously sitting down in your kitchen area cupboards. Rich in healthier Extra fat and vitamin E, the nutritious avocado might help feed and lubricate withered pores and skin, offering it a supple feel and look. Green tea and honey get the job done anti-inflammatory magic on pores and skin redness and inflammation. This soothing combo is gentle ample for sensitive skin (do a patch examination in the event you’re worried). Each ingredients are powerful antioxidants to battle no cost radicals and mend pores and skin injury. This conical formed fruit is widely used in the beauty marketplace to produce skin attractiveness merchandise. Rather than working with Individuals chemical laden elegance products that even basically consist of only a small share of strawberry, use mashed strawberries applied topically to your skin for Obviously beautiful, tender supple pores and skin. Your not too long ago viewed products and highlighted recommendations › Look at or edit your searching background How it works: Strawberries not simply are rich in vitamin C but additionally incorporate alpha hydroxy acids, which exfoliate the pores and skin. The grainy texture in the bee-pollen granules helps to exfoliate, too, letting the honey, a powerful humectant, to raised penetrate the pores and skin’s surface. For mask recipes that call for honey, vegans can both substitute a little bit of pureed banana, or simply omit it. When itâs time to scrub the mask off, make sure to put a strainer as part of your sink or shower drain to catch significant particles: you donât would like to clog your drains. What you may need: two polished clamshells. (These located of their all-natural point out within the Seashore are also rough against the pores and skin. Come across easy clamshells at seashellco.com.) Honey is of course antibacterial, which allows your skin combat off acne. As well as it's an a tremendous antioxidant capability, and you desire antioxidants around to overcome the absolutely free radicals that hurt the pores and skin.

Details, Fiction and honey face mask

Blend each of the components with each other, spread evenly in excess of pores and skin, and permit it to sit down for around ten minutes. Once you rinse it off, massage your face Carefully to exfoliate at the same time. Curly, frizzy or straight hair, each individual great hair style starts off from the shower. That’s why you’ll want to safeguard and take care of your hair with the ideal hair treatment products and solutions such as shampoos and conditioners. There are a variety of shampoo and conditioner formulas that can help you handle uninteresting or damaged hair. Whether it's shampoos, conditioners, hair oils, hair colors, styling instruments or therapy merchandise, you’ll obtain everything on Amazon India underneath a person roof on your convenience. Buy on the internet hair care and styling products, filter final results depending on brand, rate, purchaser reviews or Particular gives and discount rates. This is another Superb therapy for acne. This variation is likewise wholly created from all-natural and edible components. Preparing: Scoop out the seeds on the apple and run The remainder by way of a mixer to help make a good pulp. Then, add a few to four tablespoons of honey into the pulp. The level of honey will rely upon the dimensions with the apple and the quantity of masks you intend to make with it. Then wipe it off and rinse with cool h2o. Your face will really feel clean and sleek. Undecided which one of those masks will perform finest for your skin? This is often the top face mask for every pores and skin kind. Yogurt facial masks This provider permits you to sign up for or affiliate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you could make dollars from adverts in your article content. No facts is shared Unless of course you engage with this element. (Privacy Policy) Rich in nutritious Extra fat and vitamin E, the nutritious avocado can help feed and lubricate withered skin, giving it a supple appear and feel. Combine 3 tablespoons of finely floor coffee beans with a little glass of milk. The mixture ought to have a thick regularity. Somewhat cinnamon oil may be used While using the coconut oil, but I'd only make use of a drop or two in a small jar of coconut oil–over that can burn the pores and skin. This is a superb mask for men, as it could possibly soothe both razor burn off, and more than-weathered winter skin. The yogurt acts to be a moisturizer, while the cucumber lessens redness and gives humidity to dry, delicate pores and skin. . Any much more than that and also you’ll be dripping honey in all places! I had a dilemma with dripping at first, but the moment I Reduce back again on the quantity of honey I used, the trouble solved itself. Not forgetting that it’s a little bit more cost-effective this way, much too! Treatments and Masks accessible in the market at this time are of the best purchase and can Participate in A significant purpose in influencing your overall visual appeal. Amazon India delivers you some of the finest skin care products which can actively influence your grooming and assist you to obtain by far the most out of your respective physical appearance and skin tone. Store on the net at Amazon India to discover the best treatment plans and masks. Resource Generating your own personal homemade face masks and scrubs is pretty easy. Why purchase a keep-purchased face mask when You need to use basic ingredients identified across the household to create masks that Price pennies?

coffee face mask No Further a Mystery

This really is used to detect certain browsers or devices in the event the entry the company, which is utilized for protection factors. Vibrant, shiny and tangerine, the peel of the orange has antioxidants and applying it routinely in face packs will provide you with very clear and brighter pores and skin in no time. By logging into your account, you comply with our Conditions of Use and Privacy Plan, and to using cookies as described therein. Get it done your self: With a whisk, combine the spirulina powder and banana, then increase the lemon juice. Implement to your face and leave on for 10 to 20 minutes. Rinse with warm drinking water. In accordance with the regulation of 8th December 1992, you are able to accessibility the database made up of your personal information and modify this information and facts at any time by contacting Link to Media ([email protected]) Thanx. I am a black/african lady 0f forty one. I am mild in complection, but my face appears to be like so dull and grey. I have experimented with evri products but my pores and skin retaliates pores and skin treatment regimen. With this simple blemish-getting rid of face mask, you only want two other ingredients: honey and yogurt. These powerhouse ingredients are stuffed with nutrients that deliver nourishing Added benefits to pores and skin. Honey, in particular, can help in evening out discolorations and blemishes on skin. A different excellent study! This is One more terrific idea for honey: it works fantastic on pink eye and staph bacterial infections! I'd pink eye a few moments, about 4 years back when my oldest son was in daycare. Not one of the prescribed eye drops seemed to be encouraging, but black tea and honey did the trick! Also, I'd a staph an infection and Yet again, the antibiotics weren't carrying out Considerably to clear it up. Stepping into the deeper layers with the pores and skin, yeast fungi begin to actively metabolize Unwanted fat during the cells, take away toxins, and good influence on metabolism. Purely natural astringent. It absorbs excessive oils on pores and skin's surface and deep throughout the pores. Lemon juice has antibacterial Qualities that eliminate acne triggering germs. Furthermore, it fades acne scars and darkish places. To produce powdered orange peel, basically preserve up orange peels in the natural and organic oranges you eat, eliminate the white fribrous elements on the inside from the peel, and wash them in warm distilled water. Using thoroughly clean palms or a sanitized brush, gently apply the mixture throughout your face, keeping away from the attention region. Lie down and leave the mask on for 10 to quarter-hour. Clean it absent with warm drinking water, pat your face dry and abide by up with your preferred toner and moisturizer. This is an additional fantastic pack to eliminate tan and brighten the skin. Acquire 2 tbsp orange peel powder, incorporate in some drops of lime and also to this incorporate a tbsp Every of fullers earth and sandalwood powder to generate a sleek paste. Sure, you wish to be mindful when utilizing certain peel-off masks which means you don’t do much more hurt than fantastic, but pretty much these masks offer some really compelling Rewards. Face masks can:

The Fact About yeast face mask That No One Is Suggesting

Prior to deciding to set a mask on the face, firstclean pores and skin tonic, and better yet - make effortless peeling, for instance scrub. The skin right after this process will be very good to absorb nutrients from cooked mask you. Magnificent submit! i love a superb Do-it-yourself, would you be capable of go into depth as to why these things do the factors they are doing Clean oranges and peel off the very best most portion. Endeavor to steer clear of the white section as much as is possible. For this, ensure that you use a sharp knife. 2. Then, in a unique container, you increase one particular teaspoon of tomato puree and the identical amount of rice flour With this. Sure, you should be careful when using specified peel-off masks so you don’t do far more hurt than excellent, but practically all of these masks offer some quite powerful Advantages. Face masks can: A strawberry face mask is likely to make the pores and skin glow furthermore appear lovely, and really helps to heal acne and acne scars. This face mask is best for oily skin. Soak uncooked rice within the water. Upcoming, take the strawberries and soaked rice and blend them in a single blender to generate a clean paste. It is a little bit drying, but usual moisturizer remedy Later on would work (though I usually hold out somewhat just after masks, don't need to apply just about anything when pores are open up. Fruits are rich in AHAs along with other micronutrients that nourish and mend the skin. When costly pores and skin creams declare to include 'fruit compounds,' they sometimes only comprise a portion from the nutrients which have been located in the fruit alone. Help you save on your own The cash plus the chemical injury and make your very own home made skin products and solutions. Cold temperature can aggravate rosacea, leaving faces reddened and blotchy, and in some cases bumpy as well. The apple cider vinegar really helps to stabilize the pH of your skin, while the oatmeal lessens irritation and another components soothe and moisturize. I never rubbed the yeast on my pores and skin as a gommage or exfoliating action before washing my face so perhaps I could try this next time. I tried merely a mask per se. Implementing orange juice with your face is so valuable. So just think about how a lot more valuable it would be to use the peel, rich in skin-boosting nutrients, on your own face! The strength of the silicone skin patch lies inside the microclimate it results in involving your skin as well as the patch. This microclimate does a few critical points: Egg White Face Masks—Egg whites are noted for their capacity to tone significant pores and lower excess sebum, making them perfect for those with Obviously oily skin.

The Greatest Guide To yeast face mask

Blend all the above substances in a little bowl. Use a thick coat of your mixture onto your clean up face. Permit it sit for quarter-hour or right up until it dries out. Combine a tablespoon of finely ground coffee beans with two tablespoons of ground oat along with a tablespoon of honey. Unfold the mixture on the face. Leave it on for 20 minutes then rinse with lukewarm water. This coffee face mask is ideal for the sensitive skin. Oat assists in lessening pores and skin discomfort. In addition it assists in exfoliation. Honey moisturizes and nourishes the skin and cuts down blemishes. I even have acne concerns and have already been on clendamycin lotion and recently retin-a cream, so it's not like this 'cured' my acne on your own but I am nonetheless making use of it with the opposite matters. I take advantage of this Pretty much day-to-day, It truly is amazing the way it's Light plenty of yet dries acne spots and assists moisturize simultaneously. I appeared up why yeast will help and it was attributed to helping cell turnover so your spots mend a lot quicker and fade faster/even tone and will potentially also assist with wrinkles; exactly the same explanation men and women use Retin-A. Honey is naturally antibacterial, which will help the skin battle off acne. In addition it has an an amazing antioxidant capability, and you'd like antioxidants about to combat the no cost radicals that injury the skin. A strawberry face mask will make the skin glow plus glance beautiful, and helps you to treatment acne and acne scars. This face mask is ideal for oily skin. Like some other dwelling face masks, yeast face mask has many indications to be used, which must be known in advance of to undertake its preparation. Yeast face mask is recommended: increase yeast to your citrus, blend and implement on your face, keep the mask for twenty five minutes and afterwards rinse with great h2o. Pores and skin Care is vital to each of us and plays a very important part within our grooming process. Amazon India offers you a considerable number of items that are created to meet your skin treatment wants. You'll be able to look through by means of our choice to locate the solution of the choice by utilizing beneficial research parameters for instance models, seller, price tag, availability and common buyer opinions. Time to say goodbye to acne and pimples. Blend orange peel powder with oatmeal and baking soda to make the final word pimple annihilation face mask. Preparation: Scoop out the seeds of your apple and operate the rest through a mixer for making a wonderful pulp. Then, insert a few to 4 tablespoons of honey in to the pulp. The amount of honey will count on the size from the apple and what number of masks you intend to make with it. Now, unfold this paste gently and Similarly using a facial mask spatula or brush with your cleanse neck and face; maintain your eye location clear. Many people throw out orange peels once they’re completed eating or juicing an orange. But Are you aware that orange peels can be a powerhouse of nutrients and antioxidants? The orange peels actually have a better vitamin C information as opposed to fleshy inside! Thanks for his posting. My teenage son has struggled with acne and we are attempting a variety of different things today.

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the-jaydog8-blog · 7 years ago

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E-Portfolio

Casting Jon Benet (2017) & Paris is Burning (1990)

1. Personal Impact-

Casting Jon Benet

This film resonated with me for two reasons. The first is that I feel this film acts as a sort of mirror for the viewer, forcing us to acknowledge a tendency we have as humans, where we are often consumed by curiosity to the point that we look at tragic events (i.e. the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey) as a means of our own entertainment, dehumanizing those involved and affected by the event (I’ll get into this more in the Social & Political Context section). The second reason this film affected me so deeply is too personal to share in detail, but essentially the montage scene at the end of the film really hits home, as it reminds me of a similar experience I’ve had with my own family.

Paris is Burning

I was raised Christian. The church I grew up in is a Baptist Church in Los Gatos. The congregation is primarily white, wealthy, and very conservative. My oldest friend from church was named Jason (he also went by “Jay,” like me). Besides our names, and the fact that we both came from wealthy, conservative, white families, we didn’t have much in common, but we remained good friends throughout the years. We attended church together from preschool, through the end high school. As we got older, we didn’t hangout much, but whenever shit-hit-the-fan, we were always there for each other. During our senior year, Jay came out as gay. I was surprised when he told me, but I didn’t think much of it. I just said, “Awesome!!” and gave him a hug. I was really happy for him. We then both went on to attend SCU. Over the next 4 years, I got to see Jay transform. Slowly but surely, Jay became comfortable being himself. I realized that for the first 18 years of our lives, I didn’t really know Jay. But here at SCU, I got to know him. It seemed like he had finally found a community where he felt accepted; a community where he felt no pressure to be anything other than himself, and where he felt no guilt or judgement about who he was. He graduated in Spring of 2017. He killed himself 4 months later.

When I watch Paris is Burning, I think of Jay. I think of him strutting across campus, radiating confidence, with a hot pink boa around his neck and rainbow flags attached to his backpack. I think of how he thrived in a community where he felt a sense of belonging. But then I think of the battle he fought every day. I think of the torment he felt. And then my heart breaks because I think about how he must have felt lost after leaving SCU, the safe, welcoming community he had once belonged to. I think of how he ultimately lost hope, how he saw no end to the suffering, and how he was forced to take what he saw as the only way out. So, why is Paris is Burning so important? The answer is simple: this film offers hope to the hopeless. It has been 28 years since this film was released, but it is no less valuable today than it was then. There are still so many people today struggling to find a sense of belonging, struggling to find any reason to live; this film is for them. Paris is Burning offers hope to those who desperately need it.

2. Social & Political Context

Casting Jon Benet

Ok I know literally everyone and their mom has used this video in their presentations but hear me out... I believe Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video shares similarities with Casting Jon Benet in terms of their social/political commentary, as well as their method for delivering said commentary.

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There’s this movement on social media that I’ve seen becoming more and more popular among my generation over the last couple years, which I’ve dubbed the “Good Vibes Only’ movement. Essentially, its a collective emphasis on positivity and self-care with a main guiding principle that says, “focus solely on what makes you happy, and cut out everything else.” While I’m a big believer in self-care and positivity, I feel like this practice of ignoring anything that makes you uncomfortable or upset is unrealistic and unhealthy, and has led to an increase in apathy and desensitization that is hurting our society. “This is America” and Casting Jon Benet both highlight the existence of this problem by acting as a sort of “mirror” for the viewer, where the intended audience sees their own tendencies reflected back to them by the people and events on-screen.

Childish Gambino’s video highlights the way the privileged white majority in America likes to focus on and get enjoyment from the "fun” aspects of African-American culture (rap, hip-hop, dance, etc.), but does not like to acknowledge the problems and struggles African-Americans face daily (police brutality, poverty, discrimination, etc.). #positivevibesonly...

Casting Jon Benet is an example of how easily we, in America, can get so caught up in our own curiosity that we lose track of what is really at the core of what has us intrigued. In this case, a 6 year-old girl was brutally assaulted and murdered, yet in this documentary we see how, since the murder, most of us have been so obsessed with the mystery of it all that we forget about the heartbreaking tragedy at the center of it. Again, an example of how we push away the things that make us feel sad or uncomfortable so we can focus solely on the “fun” part of it and feel good.

Paris is Burning

When this film was being made, it was an especially brutal time to be a homosexual man in New York City. The AIDS epidemic was in full-swing, and everyone was terrified of contracting the disease. On top of the fact that AIDS was claiming the lives of many gay men, it also served to completely alienate the gay community, causing them to become outcasts of society. Essentially, in the 80s, gay men in New York City were treated like lepers; they were the “untouchables” of society. Many were even cast out by their own families, leaving them to fend for themselves. While Livingston did not intend for this film to spark a social-movement - (“Paris is Burning is not a social-movement film, nor does it presume to represent the totality of queer-of-color existence. In fact, the film is quite explicit that it is specific to a time and a place,” (Hildebrand, 138)) - I do believe it serves a greater purpose.

At a time when gay men were facing relentless persecution and being pushed to the margins of society, Paris is Burning depicts how black/hispanic gay men in New York City were able to create their own community in which they found safety, solace and hope. By choosing to portray the “ball scene” in NYC, Jennie Livingston created a film which offered hope to the gay community, who, at the time, did not have many media representations that they could connect with. “The film matters to many...particularly those who have been starved for images of lives with which can they identify and that validate their right to exist and inspire alternative ways of being in the world. Thus, the film’s importance is not just historical but also affective. The cultural work this documentary has done in the world transcends the film and its filmmaker by offering models of queer world-making,” (Hildebrand, 146). Today, this film is still just as important, as it continues to serve as a message of hope to those struggling to validate their own existence, showing them that, while it feels like they have nowhere to turn, it is possible to create a new life that is worth living.

3. Director’s Voice

Casting Jon Benet

Although still very much in the early stages of her film career, Kitty Green has already begun to establish a unique voice. Green has a very unique style of reenactment that is on display in Casting Jon Benet, as well as her first film, The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul (2015); she holds “auditions” for the roles in her reenactments, and then uses the performances from those auditions as the actual reenactments in her film. By doing this, Green is able to show different interpretations of the same event. Green then intercuts these reenactments with interviews from the auditions, and uses that combination as the narrative structure for the film.

Paris is Burning

“...this film operates in a liberal cinéma vérité tradition that refused voice-of-God narration in order to allow the participants and the footage to speak for themselves,” (Hildebrand, 138). Much of the criticism surrounding Paris is Burning is in regards to Jennie Livingston’s “director’s voice” (or, lack-thereof). The unique thing about Livingston’s voice in this film is that she doesn’t really have one; she completely omits any sort of didactic voice from this documentary, which causes it to have a sort of open-ended narrative, with no clear resolution or call-to-action. Some criticize Livingston for this, saying that it allowed for the privileged white audience to purely get entertainment from this film, rather than being forced to think about the social issues being raised. “...the lack of the filmmaker’s own didactic voice may, in part, suggest a kind of ambiguity and account for the divided readings of the film,” (Hildebrand, 138).

4. Evolution of Global Documentary

Casting Jon Benet

Seeing as it was just released a year ago, its hard to tell the impact Kitty Green’s documentary has had/will have on the world of documentary-filmmaking. However, based on the reactions it has received, I think it is safe to say that this film is definitely making waves in the world of documentary. Even those who have criticized it, still admit that it is an important part of documentary history; “...Casting Jon Benet, is in many ways a deeply unsatisfying, even infuriating film, but I wouldn’t want not to have seen it,” (Brody). In fact, its controversy only serves to further solidify its place in the history of documentary film. Many point to Errol Morris as the main inspiration for Kitty Green’s films. However, while inspired by Morris, Green has begun to create an original style of her own. In the next few years we will be able to get a better idea of how Green’s film has impacted the world of documentary filmmaking.

Paris is Burning

At a time when gay men faced intense discrimination and lacked any sort of role-models on-screen that they could relate to, Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning joined films like Tongues Untied (1989) by Marlon Riggs in jump-starting a movement that provided those in the LGBTQ+ community with films they could look to for inspiration, and representation. Although Livingston claims her film is not a social-movement film, I believe it falls in the same category as films like Tongues Untied as helping drive the movement for equality in the United States.

I believe Paris is Burning has a place in film history (and apparently so does the Library of Congress, as they selected it for preservation in 2016). As I explained in my first section, this film matters for many people, for many reasons. As long as there are people in need of hope, in need of knowing there is a possibility of a better life and a better future, this film will matter.

Works Cited

“Casting JonBenet”: A Documentary That Unintentionally Exploits Its Participants" (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. by Richard Brody, The New Yorker, April 2017.

"Film Review: Casting Jon Benet (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site." written by Peter DeBruge, Variety, April 2017.

"Is Paris Burning?", by bell hooks in Black Looks: Race & Representation; 2014.

"Love Hangover: Debates", pp 119-146 in Paris is Burning: A Queer Film Classic, by Lucas Hildebrand, 2013

http://thesantaclara.org/remembering-the-life-of-jason-jay-bassett/#.Wxi8sNXwa8o

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healthiernfit-blog · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://www.healthiernfit.com/how-to-do-makeup-step-by-step/

How to do makeup step by step

Performing makeup for many ladies causes many problems. In drugstores, we are attacked by advertisements and colorful promotions of numerous products. But what do they actually serve? How to use them? When? First, is it? These questions appear without interruption whether in cosmetic stores or in beauty salons. Many women also can not match the right products for their own beauty. They choose makeup elements that they liked in other people and learn how to do them at home. The effect can be different, but the most important thing is how we feel with ourselves.

Of course, when it comes to the choice of colors and the type of make-up, it is advisable to consult a specialist . During your next visit to our beautician, ask how you should paint, look beautiful, naturally and emphasize your values.

How to do makeup – step by step – that is what we start with and how we finish. How we use specific cosmetics.

Make -up removal – if you think that it is done only in the evening, when you want to wash everything and go to bed, you are wrong. Before making the make-up, the skin should be properly prepared and taken care of. We do a full make-up removal consisting of: washing the face with a gentle liquid chosen for the type of skin, toning (tonic should also correspond to the type of your skin, you can pour the right amount on the cosmetic pad and wipe the whole face or pour a little on your hands smearing on your face and then gently dry her handkerchief). At the end, we put the right day cream – the exam is perfect for moisturizing and matting.

Concealers – now is the time to cover up any imperfections. We take a set of correctors. Under the eyes, we put this one in yellow, and green on all redness, pimples or broken capillaries. Beige concealer will work with all kinds of stains and changes in skin color.

Base for undercoat / make – up base – the naming of this cosmetic is different. The packages are most often very similar to those from foundations. The most common ones are those in cream form. It should be applied to the whole face gently massaging or patting. We can opt out of the base if we make light, daily makeup in the summer. However, we must remember about it if our intention is to prepare evening make-up, which should be distinguished by high durability.

Underlay– this one should have the right color first and foremost. The foundation for daily makeup should be in the shade as close as possible to the color of our complexion. If, however, we are looking for the right cosmetics that will improve the look of the evening make-up, then we can choose a darker tone. At evening events, the most common is artificial light, in which classic makeup with even perfectly chosen undercoat can make us look pale. Ladies aged 35-40, in whom the effects of skin aging are visible, as well as heavy smokers should choose foundations with a delicate pink pigment. Their skin, because over the years, may lose its radiance and become slightly gray, not visible with a naked eye, a pink shade in the foundation will make us look younger. We apply the foundation with your hand, sponge or brush on the whole face, taking care to cover it as smoothly as possible. If you wear a blouse with a larger neckline, it is worth applying a small amount of this cosmetic also on the neck and cleavage to make the coloring in these parts even.

Powder – the next step is to “sweep” the whole face with loose powder. Here we recommend matting transparent powder. Let’s put it a bit more on the lower eyelids, because soon we will get into the eye makeup and if something gets showered easier, we will remove it.

Eyelids – it all depends on the effect we intend to achieve. We can apply eyeliner or crayon or just shadows. It can also be applied in any order, because then what is created is different from each other and we can look different each time. Most often the dark shade is applied from the outer corner of the eye, and the second is brighter than the inner corner, then we combine them with a soft, round, small brush – creating a delicate shading. If you have wide-set eyes try to change the colors and see if the effect will not surprise you with the optical zoom of your eyes.

Eyebrows – should be, above all, nicely adjusted, have a shape matched to our face. The color can also be done “permanently” for this purpose, we can regularly visit the beautician and for a small amount of henna or choose a much more permanent treatment – permanent makeup. Then, when doing facial makeup, we do not have to do anything with them. To show off nicely, we can gently comb them with a suitable scout. If we do not have henna and “tattoo” we can gently paint the eyebrows – with a pencil or a matte eye shadow. The most common are shades of brown, graphite or black. It depends on the beauty of the lady.

Eyelashes – before attempting to paint them, let’s try to gently “scatter” what was showered on the lower eyelids when painting eyelids. A wide, thin brush is great for this. We paint the eyelashes with the selected ink starting from the lower ones, then we go to the upper ones. We make zigzag motions heading upwards. We repeat several times until eyelashes are perfectly painted.

Lips – let the lipstick last longer, let’s put a little undercoat on the lips and spray the whole with loose powder. The next step is to apply the liner. We fill the prepared mouth with the chosen lipstick.

Cheeks – cheekbones marked with the chosen pink. We can also apply bronzer in powder and gently with its help to emphasize the shape of the face. Some ladies will feel great after applying brightening powder in the area of the temple and under the cheekbones.

Of course, with time, when we get to practice, notice that by doing ordinary daily makeup, for example to go to the store, our expectations as to its coverage and ideal look are much lower. We will omit some of the elements and adjust the makeup to our needs. The above list presents a step-by-step make-up diagram for the beautician. Ladies who work in drugstores usually also have a lot of experience and will certainly help you choose the right cosmetic and tell you who it is for.

! Remember to pay attention to the light that is in the store where you want to buy colored cosmetics . This is of great importance, eg when selecting the color of the undercoat. You can choose the wrong shade and not be happy with the purchase. It’s best to put two different colors on the palm of your hand, ask them not to hide them and go outside to the daylight with a mirror. In this way, you can be more sure that it suits you.

#beauty #how to do makeup #make-up #makeup

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healthiernfit-blog · 7 years ago

Photo

New Post has been published on https://www.healthiernfit.com/how-to-do-makeup-step-by-step/

How to do makeup step by step

How to do makeup – step by step – that is what we start with and how we finish. How we use specific cosmetics.

#beauty #how to do makeup #make-up #makeup

0 notes