#the menus are now very minimalistic and modern

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - Gummi Editor

[dreamer213]

Broken Machines: Between The Shadows

Chapter 10: City Lights Are for the Weak of Heart.

This was not how Whitley had planned on spend his Saturday night, dressed in formal wear in the limo with his father as they drove toward a high-end restaurant. None of this was out of the ordinary, he’d long since gotten used to being dragged places by his father without notice. What was odd was the fact they weren’t going there just to meet a business colleague, but rather a possible donator to Jaques’s campaign requested to meet for dinner and insisted Whitley be brought along. At the moment he truly had no idea why he’d be called out specifically as the man, Augustine Hexton, wasn’t much of an acquaintance to him or Jaques at all. All he knew was the man came from a long line of investors, was like a passive drug user, and had a teenage daughter around Whitley’s age with an ex-wife. Which ex-wife he didn’t know but that wasn’t important now. What was important was him being dragged to this dinner in the first place!

Racking his head for recollection of any and all correspondence Jacques could have with Hexton to lead to this, Whitley draws a blank. There was literally no explanation for him to be here that would necessitate his presence at this dinner. Whitley had been assigned no task, given no material to hold onto, or even business cards to hand out. Whitley wouldn’t and couldn’t ask his father, who currently had his head buried in his scroll, as that could easily lead to an argument, and he didn't need any of that right now. So, he chooses to sit in silence for the rest of the drive, hoping the answer will come when they arrive.

When the limo finally comes to a stop it’s parked in front of the most prestigious gastronomy restaurant Templar. Ran and owned by celebrity chef Don Impeccabile, an obvious pen name, the establishment prided itself on being the premier spot for experimental cuisine and fine dining. Emphasis on the experimental as the main feature of the restaurant was the artistic fare that populates the menu. 10-course meals costing tens of thousands of lien, made from the finest ingredients with flavor combinations beyond your wildest dreams.

Whitley had never been to this particular establishment yet and didn’t have the time, opportunity, or interest to go to. Experimental cuisine was not something Whitley found appealing in any way despite being a fan of the arts. Not out of a lack of appreciation for the craft or the creativity put into making the dishes he just didn’t like the idea of food, a necessity and one of the bases on which humanity built their cultures, being an art form.

Whitley: To take something and twist it until it’s unrecognized for purely aesthetic reasons is ridiculous. Especially if that twist ruins its fundamental purpose.

He critiques inwardly, unamused the notion of eating food prepared with looks and thought processes in mind instead of nutrition and flavor.

As they pull up in front of the restaurant Whitley notes the very modern exterior. The building was a parallelogram in shape with a slanted roof and sleek line pillars framing the clouded glass plating that covered at least two-thirds of it. The building itself was very monochromatic, everything was black, white, or gray aside from the same touches of greenery. It looked so expressionless and clean even with the hum of patrons entering and exiting, Whitley could feel his stomach shrivel at the dullness of it all.

However, he doesn’t get much time to lament his situation as the rear door opens Jacques quickly gets out of the limousine without a word, leaving his son to follow behind him. Walking in is met with the usual pointed and faux-polite smiles and stares from people they recognized from different functions or recognized them. Whitley keeps a straight face but as they enter the building, he can feel a grimace coming on as the inside is just as sterile and uncomfortable as the outside. The interior is minimalistic and monochromatic, the wait staff are dressed and styled so uniformly it’s hard to tell them apart. Even the smells that should be wafting in from the kitchen are halted by heavy metal doors cutting off the kitchen from the rest of the restaurant.

The only eye-catching feature he can see so far is the hostess staying at the podium with a digital reservation book. She was a tall woman of clear mixed heritage, her facial features being very much of Mistral origin, but her skin is a very dark brown to the point of being almost black and her hair and eyes were at very soft shade of baby blue. These features were highlighted by her dress, a simple cocktail dress with oil painting patterns on it, the colors highlighted by what looked to be dust. The colors pulsing through the fabric like a soft form of lightning serging through the fabric. Dust infused clothing was an uncommon style mainly used in custom pieces for huntsmen with specific semblances or in high fashion for couture as even when fitted properly this style was unavoidably uncomfortable for most due to the mechanics behind it. A fact Whitley only knew because of a certain designer who’d done business with the SDC for that exact reason.

Giving it a long glance it’s clear that was one of newer her pieces.

Whitley: Even surrounded by seriality her work still shines. Well done, Madam Da La Beau.

He muses internally as Jacques approaches the hostess’ stand. She recognized him immediately and wasted no time typing in the confirmation. Once confirmed she led them to their table on the second floor, an area being better furnished in comparison to the first floor. There was a koi pond running through the floor with lights illuminating the walking path around it. The tables were made of colorful glass and crystal and the wait staff were dressed in couture outfits themed around a variety of terrain and environments.

Whitley: So, this is the type of place to separate little fish from dolphins and whales. Explains the surface-level presentation.

He thought. Yes, even the city in the sky had its own class divide. In fact, it was far more stringent than anywhere else in the world. That was no clearer than in certain places of business, where VIP areas were common enough that whole areas had policies on who could and couldn’t enter without the proper vetting. Some did so based on prestige others on wealth but no matter where you went the red tape held its place.

And though the atmosphere change does ease Whitley’s mood a bit it plummets right back down when he sees their table. Sectioned off by the curve of the koi pond wrapped around like a moat with a small wooden bridge connecting the small island, the table itself was made from a large tree trunk with crystal embedded and shaped into the flattened surface to mimic the appearance of a tropical island landscape map.

But that’s not what bothering him.

No, it was the fact that Augustine Hexton was sitting at the table next to his daughter Seraphina. Seraphina, who mind you is only 16, was outfitted in a backless gold dress with a deep v-line that barely came halfway up her thigh, matching high heels, matching platform gold heels, eye-catching jewelry, and extremely heavy makeup. He makes eye contact with her, and she blows him a flirty kiss. Taking a breath to calm himself and deter the urge to vomit in his mouth, Whitley looks to Jacques for clarification, but the man just gives him a knowing nod, silently incentivizing him to move forward.

Thus, the real reason for the dinner became clear, Jacques wanted Hexton to back him, Hexton wanted something for his daughter Seraphina, and Seraphina wanted Whitley. So, he’d been brought there for a date with the desperate girl while the adults talk business.

Whitley: Don’t tell me…This bastard bartered my evening for a freakin campaign donation, didn’t he!

He cursed inwardly, fuming in his head while painting a courteous smile on his face. They walk over the bridge to the table where Hexton greets them.

Hexton: There are our homered guests!

Jacques: Augustine! So good to see you! Hope we didn’t keep you waiting long.

Hexton: Not at all, though my sweet Seraph was getting a little antsy. She’s been waiting for this dinner all week!

Whitley: A week? He had this planned for a full week and still chose to blind-sighted me!

He thinks bitterly, smile still painted on his face as the two businessmen converse.

Jacques: Oh, I understand what you mean, Whitley’s been just as eager. He’s been practically shaking with excitement.

Hexton: Really? That’s wonderful! Someone as regal and refined as your son showing such interest in my little angel.

Whitley: What interest?! The only reason I’m even here is because this son of a bitch agreed to pimp me out!

He mused while forcing himself not to glare dangers at his father. At this point, Whitley wanted to scream as their blabber was doing nothing more than furthering the misunderstanding. And unfortunately, it succeeds. Seraphina looked delighted by the notion of Whitley wanting to see her as her enamored almost lusty gaze on him intensified. This sends a cold shiver down his spine and his stomach into an aggressive backflip. Hexton eagerly urges them to sit down, motioning Jacques to a seat next to his at the end of the table leaving Whitley to occupy the only other chair. Which was placed at the opposite end of his father’s and directly beside Seraphina.

Seraphina: Hey there.

She greets Whitley as he sits down, her voice pitched down as if trying to sound seductive.

Whitley: Good evening. Pleasure to see you again, Seraphina.

Seraphina: Oh no, the pleasure’s all mine.

She states, underscored by a flirty giggle. Whitley keeps up his façade of calmness despite the uncomfortable chill up his spine.

Seraphina: You know, I’ve always dreamed of that day I get to spend some time one one-on-one time with you.

Whitley: Really now? My apologies if this hadn’t lived up to your fantasies.

Seraphina: Oh, don’t say that sweetie. Night’s still young, and we’ve got all of dinner to really get to know each other.

She stated with a flirtatious grin, reaching her hand over to touch his. The contact almost makes Whitley flinch, but he holds it together. Had this been a year ago Whitley would have just found this whole situation mildly annoying but bearable. However, that was before he knew what being loved and loving someone wholeheartedly was really like or how comfortable and soothing a date could be. Truly had this happened before Penny came into his life Whitley would have had no problem sitting through this forced date with little more than a mild headache. But it wasn’t and alongside the nausea induced by Seraphina’s flirting, Whitley also had to sit with a knot of guilt in his stomach.

He shouldn’t be here, dressed well in a nice restaurant about to have dinner with a girl he hardly knew. If anything, the only reason he’d ever want to be here was if Penny wanted to try this experimental cuisine! It would have been a great excuse to get her dressed up to the nines and watch her react to the scenery change as they come upstairs.

Whitley: She’d probably get distracted by the koi before we can get to our table.

He thought while politely engaging with Seraphina in small talk, the idea of his adorable girlfriend acting in her usual quirky way gave him some peace of mind. While Seraphina probes him for personal information and tries to inch closer to him Whitley puts up a mental wall. Every time she makes him feel uncomfortable, he imagines what a date there with Penny would be like. He doesn’t let his thoughts wander enough to lose track of the conversation but it’s still at the back of his mind. Like a counterbalance keeping his sanity together so he doesn’t go mad at the thought of being on a date with someone other than his beloved.

This continues until a waiter dressed in an island biome-themed attire approaches the table with menus in hand. He bows before them, the feathers of his tropical bird-themed headdress riffing with his movements as he begins the opening of their performative meal.

Rodrick: Good evening, everyone my name is Rodrick, and I will be your guide on tonight’s culinary adventure.

He declares, voice calm and theatrical with all the forced enthusiasm of a theatre major trying to seem cultured to boost up the tip he needs to cover rent this month.

Rodrick: Tonight's voyage will be an eight-course track with stops along the coastal plane.

He motions towards the table with a swiping wave of his hand.

Rodrick: We’ll start our journey here-

He points to the beach on the map.

Rodrick: -with the bounty of the sea salad.

He exclaims before handing out the course menus and retreating to the kitchen to fetch their first course. Upon return, the table is presented with a small salad made of sea vegetation. A palm full of multi-colored seaweed, various types of algae, kelp, and hijiki arranged beautifully, well-seasoned, and topped with balsamic vinegar. However, the presentation is slightly deceiving as the first bite Whitley takes is overwhelmed by the taste one would most likely expect from a salad constructed of such ingredients.

Whitley: So salty!

Yes, the dish was overpowered by its sea salt flavor, the seasoning, and vinegar doing very little to defuse the taste as it was thoroughly woven into each vegetable. This becomes a theme of the meal as each course looks appealing while its flavor draws heavily from the most natural forms of its ingredients. The next course, soup cooked in the shell of a large crab, utilizes all the edible pieces of the creature but the mixed and matched texture of the muscles to innards paired with the light broth makes it a hard-to-swallow. The next is bread buns with a nut butter sauce, the sauce is grainy with many layers of flavors drowning out the soft flavor of the bread. After is the prawn pasta with red sauce, the sauce being fruit based bringing an uncomfortably sweet taste to the little morsels.

By the time they’re halfway through the dinner, Whitley is mentally exhausted and starving. He hadn’t had much to eat the day and the portion of this dinner had been so small and tasted so unappealing that he’d barely managed to finish his plate out of courtesy. Making matters worse, Seraphina was still flirting with him at every opportunity as their fathers ignored them to talk over the donation. She had tried to chat with him, playfully poke him, feed him bits off her plate, and at the moment was making an attempt at footsie.

Feeling her feet try and caress his leg was his breaking point. Whitley stands up, shaking off his unwanted dinner companion’s advances, and turns his and her father’s attention to him.

Whitley: Excuse me, I need to go to the restroom.

He states, looking at his father for an approving glance of permission. Jacques sighs and rolls his eyes before motioning Whitley to go ahead. The young man wastes no time in leaving the table and striding off to find the lavatory. He doesn’t actually need to go but staying there any longer was going to drive him insane! Seraphina’d constant touching had made him disgusted and her trying to play footsie with him was the last straw!

Had he stayed seated he would have kicked her leg away and told her something about herself she most certainly didn’t want to hear. But he couldn’t. This dinner was important to his father and Whitley would have hell to pay if made a scene or ruined it in any way. So, he removed himself from the situation to get his head in order.

Whitley: Just take a few minutes to breathe then go back.

He tells himself as he finds the men’s bathroom. He opens the door to find a very clean and modern-looking bathroom. The stalls for the toilets are all their own small room, the sinks are well stocked with soaps and very clean, and the mirror above them spans across the entire back wall with lights around the border illuminating it. With the door up Whitley can see what’s behind him in the mirror and he catches sight of Seraphina approaching.

Whitley: Seriously!

He bemoans before rushing into the bathroom and closing the door behind him, pressing his back against it to keep it shut! This was bad, very very bad! That girl had already been a hassle to deal with in front of her father but now she was being so bold as to come after him like this! Whitley feels a pull on the handle but holds firm. Gods knows what Seraphina will do if she gets him alone but Whitley can only hold out for so long! The door would be opened again one way or another. Eventually, someone would either need to use the restroom or leave it, giving the ravenous girl an opening.

Whitley: There’s gotta be a way out of this! Think Whitley think!

He racks his brain for any scenario that might get him out of this unsaved as Seraphina continues to tug at the door handle. But the sound of a flushing toilet breaks his concentration.

Whitley: Crap!

He swears internally, time was running out fast and he probably had less than two minutes to figure a way out of this. But there is none, right now his only options were to face Seraphina and pray he could peacefully talk his way around her or tell her off then and there. The latter was very the most dangerous to him but Whitley couldn’t help but find it more desirable than Seraphina’s incessant flirting had driven him crazy. But the repercussions of that would be catastrophic for him.

Whitley: If I give her a piece of my mind Father will-

Whitley feels a stinging pain in both of his biceps, a burning flare of warning to what the choice will gain him. Still, he couldn't just let this girl have her way with him, if not for his own sake then for Penny’s! She’d be so upset if something were to happen to him and he couldn’t cause her that kind of grief.

Whitley: What the hell do I do?!

He bemoans, his anxiety growing with the sound of rushing water trickling down. The man who emerged from the stall had just finished washing his hands and was about to dry them giving Whitley only a few seconds to act.

Whitley: Damn it!

Knowing he’s out of time, Whitley releases his hold on the door and backs up. But instead of looking defeated, his eyes are full of cold fury. The air of elegant calmness was gone and an atmosphere of pure annoyance and disregard took its place.

Whitley: Fine, if it’s going to be like this then I’ll just let her down easy. And if she won’t take no for an answer, I’ll just have to make her.

He thought, heart fully determined. Despite the punishment Whitley would face after he could not bring himself to knowingly allow this girl to take advantage of him nor betray Penny in the process! He waits for the inevitable, ready to face this head-on! The man at the sink finished drying his hands and walks past him to leave Whitley, opening the door. Behind it, Whitley finds Seraphina not standing in wait and ready to pounce on him but chatting with Octavia and Esther! Shocked but very much relieved Whitley rushes back into the bathroom before anyone catches sight of him. Given a second wind, he takes a moment to clear his head and dust himself off, specifically anywhere Seraphina had touched him. Once he’s cleaned up, washing his hands for effect, Whitley exits the bathroom and Esther is the first to spot him. She stealthily leaves the conversation while Octavia keeps her distracted. She rushes over with a huff and pulls Whitley over to a corner to talk.

Esther: What the hell are you doing here?!

She whispers yells at him, breaking completely from her usual shy self with her rough tone.

Whitley: I’m here for dinner with my father-

Esther: No! I meant with her!

Whitley: Our fathers are colleagues and thought it be good if we got to know each other.

He states, calm and sensible as his usual persona returns. Esther doesn’t seem to calm down at all, instead, her face begins to glow red with frustration.

Esther: I can’t believe you're doing to Penny; I thought you two had something.

She whispered under her breath, voice teaming with anger and disappointment. This catches Whitley completely off guard and his mask slips for a moment.

Whitley: Excuse me?

He asks her as if lightly daring her to repeat the statement.

Esther: I mean, everyone knows what type of girl Seraphina is so how could-

Esther paused and her face goes from red to pale as she finally noticed the eerie glint in Whitley’s eyes, the bitterness, and anger in them burning deep as he peered into her soul. It’s too much for a wallflower like Esther and she adverts her gaze. Whitley sighs and proceeds to clarify the situation.

Whitley: Ms. Hellebore, or rather Esther, I believe you’ve misunderstood something. I am here because my father brought me here for dinner, Seraphina is here because her father brought her, and they decided to have this meal together at the same table. Nothing more.

Esther listens intently, she calms down as reads through the lines and realizes Whitley is mostly likely here for the same reason Esther herself went to most social events, because one or both parents made her.

Esther: …oh.

Whitley nods in confirmation and looks over his shoulder to make sure Seraphina is still distracted and continues.

Whitley: As for my relationship with Ms. Polendina that’s a private matter.

Esther: I see.

Esther keeps her gaze down, convinced but saddened that her show of courage was for nothing. Sensing her vulnerability, Whitley takes it as an opportunity to turn his night around and give Penny a special surprise.

Whitley: I know you have some strong attachments given what she’s done for you.

Esther nods in the affirmative.

Whitley: It must have been for you to lose touch with such a kind companion so soon after meeting her. But…

Esther: But?

Whitley smirks, this was too easy.

Whitley: But maybe it doesn’t have to be that. I mean you do have a third-party contact that easily reconnect you with her. That is if you’re willing to help the middleman.

Esther looks up to meet his gaze with surprised interest and is met with Whitley’s trademark business smile.

Esther: What do you want?

The two converse quickly and quietly before reconvening with Octavia and Seraphina. Esther whispers the details to Octavia as Seraphina resumes fawning over Whitley. By the time Whitley and Seraphina make it back to the table, they are accompanied by two guests much to the bewilderment of their fathers. The two explain that they had run into Whitley and Seraphina on their way to their table.

Esther: My parents double-booked their evening and didn’t want to cancel the reservation so let me have it to take a friend out.

Esther explained before doing as Whitley had instructed and brought up her father’s interest in politics.

Esther: I think he was a bit frazzled from looking into council candidates when he booked the reservation and forgot about their other appointment.

This sparks Jacques's interest, and Octavia quickly echoes a similar sentiment for her parents and naïvely asks if any of the candidates are nice. From there the rest of the evening is spent on the meal while Jacques spouts his self-serving propaganda, overtaking the conversation so much that Seraphina goes quiet. Her vapid brain can’t stand the non-stop talk of political matters and tunes it out to protect itself.

By night’s end, Jaques has secured another donation and possible appeals to four prospective donors, and Whitley makes it out of the night unscathed!

As Jacques bids Hexton goodbye while confirming his bank details for the transaction, Whitley wraps things up with Octavia and Esther.

Octavia: Okay, we did our part now you have to hold up your end of the bargain!

Esther: Yeah, we sat through that thing so do what you promised!

They press, determined to get their just reward. Whitley smiles at their convection, proud to see that his beloved had found such jewels of friends in this morally bankrupt city.

Whitley: Yes, yes, I know, and don't worry. I’ll pass along the message in the morning and if she agrees you’ll be heading back from her soon. Good night.

He waves them off as strides back to the family limousine to go home. The night hasn’t gone anything like Whitley thought it would nor had he handled it in a way he’d ever imagined to before. It was strange but emboldening, finding a way around his father’s antics and conspiring with people who had truly good intentions for a change. It was risky and outrageous to a degree, yet he couldn’t stop himself from trying.

The why of it was simple, he was just too in love to be swayed or browbeaten into giving in. A strength he never knew he had but used on instinct when that love was challenged. Sure, he was tired, hungry, and beyond annoyed but none of that truly mattered. He had one principle to hold onto tonight and he’d upheld it despite everything.

Maybe this love had driven him mad or just gave him a good reason to be braver than before. Regardless Whitley held his head up high as Jacques finally returned to his seat in the limousine and they set off for home.

Though the ride may be quiet Whitley’s mind is racing, pride at his successful scheming, formulating strategies on how to avoid overly eager admirers, even bits of music swimming around in the chaos. But the most prominent in this sea of thought was how much he’d have to say on tomorrow morning's call.

Whitley: I can’t wait to see the look on her face.

[kafus]

ramble incoming about indie websites, neocities, and modern web design... putting below a read more because i wrote way more than i thought i would, oops.

whenever i see posts going around about how imaginative and creative old web design used to be, and how minimalist and same-y everything is now, while i do agree and wish that modern web design was more interesting and more dense with information... it's not as simple as "let's go back to how it used to be."

most old websites did not conform to modern accessibility standards, making the internet harder to use for many people, and on top of that we live in a smartphone era now where websites have to be designed in such a way that they work on both phones and computers... phones have a much smaller space to work with - kind of hard to decorate your website in pretty graphics and lay out the information in unique ways when you're designing for tiny screens in portrait resolutions!

i work pretty hard to make sure CPG displays on both mobile devices and computer monitors in at least decent fashion, and the website is absolutely less interesting looking on mobile. the sidebars are traded in for a toggle-able menu at the top of the screen (i'm considering changing it to a button that sticks to the bottom of the screen so you can open the menu without scrolling up, but i digress) and images that would float on the right or left side of articles in an aesthetically pleasing way have to be put into their own blocks between passages of text so that the text doesn't become impossible to read, squished on the sides. i'm not perfect at accessibility, nor am i perfect at optimizing the site for mobile, but i think i do an okay job with my relatively simple layout. i do this because i want my website to be viewable to people on any device, even people who aren't enthusiastic about the indie web, or desktop browsing. this would not be nearly as easy with some of the complex table layouts of the past.

it is interesting to me that a lot of people choose to simply not make their website usable on mobile and will put a notification that the site is either best viewed on desktop or doesn't work on mobile at all on the front page... there is nothing wrong with this, mind you, i'm not making a judgement of the person or their coding abilities, some people are just chilling and doing their hobbyist thing without fretting about that, or making their content for a specific audience that would mostly view from their computers, which is fine! how other people make and run their websites is none of my business. but i do think a lot could be gained from exploring mobile design and making the indie web space more accessible to mobile users, which take up a large percentage of the population. we'd probably have more eyes on us if our spaces were more accessible for people on phones. also, personally, i actually find making my site compatible for mobile with pure vanilla html/css/js a fun challenge.

at the very least, even if a website isn't built to be mobile-friendly, making sure everything is at least visible and clickable is a good thing. my website dynamically changes the size of elements based on the device viewing it, but there is also the option of making your entire website layout a set pixel width, so that it is the same on every device, people just might have to scroll horizontally or zoom in to see/click things... which is annoying but at the very least workable. i have seen some high quality neocities sites that do exactly this and i think it's a good alternative from dynamically sizing pages.

all this being said, i'm coming from the perspective of someone who actually wants their website to be seen and be used by as many people as possible because i'm providing niche game guides/tools/resources, so again, people who are just doing their hobbyist thing probably don't care as much about how many people see their site, especially outside of indie web spaces and especially neocities. it's a bit of an insular community where everyone on there is exploring their fellow users' desktop websites. also, just because a website is not workable on mobile doesn't mean people won't see it! plenty of people still use their computers to browse the web of course, it just cuts out some parts of the population. it's complicated and i'm not an expert on the subject but i don't know, i just felt like talking about it ww

TLDR; i think the ideal would be for a less corporate, more creative internet that still is accessible for disabled people and still allows the use of smartphone browsing. maybe one day when i'm more educated on code, i can make some cooler things in this regard...

[zerohour1974]

What Happened?

Why do I seem to have lost interest in everything computer related? I used to love playing with old machines but to be honest lately my heart has really fallen out of the industry.

I just don’t seem to enjoy playing with this stuff. I used to like messing around with emulators and playing with things like DOS but now I feel like I have played around and done most things I can do in that field.

I had an interest in Linux but to be honest it seems to have faded. Maybe because I have hit the limits of my hardware so I don’t have any areas to explore.

People have always said I have had an esoteric choice of machines I like. Although I admit my first machine was a 48k ZX Spectrum back in 1983 as common as you get. I have always been interested in the more obscure or failing machines.

I have always had an interest in machines such as the MSX machines, PC Engines & Sharp X68000. This is because they were not on every computer shop in town. They didn’t make huge impact at all in the UK where I am based.

Obviously a lot of the software is in Japanese and I have no ability to read Hiragana, which is what it normally is. So even if I get emulation running I have no idea what its about or what I am supposed to be doing if it’s beyond basic menus.

I also like machines like the NeXT, which was also not hugely available so when to get to see them I am really interested.

I then used OpenStep 3.3. via the emulator called Previous and really discovered how little software is actually available for this system. However using it really did show how much NeXTStep is still in Mac OS X even to this day.

Why do I prefer typing in old word processors like this one and Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS or LocoScript PC. Give me a copy of LibreOffice or Modern Word and I sit and stare at a blank page.

I also seem to type more if you give me a minimalist word processor like Writeroom or Focuswriter. So maybe it’s a psychological thing.

It seems the more obscure the item is the more my interest is.

I also have a vast interest in running things in emulators. I have no ability to write said emulators but have always had a fascination in seeing if I can do it on said machines.

It started when I got my first 486 SX25 . The first emulator I ran was JPP in DOS to emulate a ZX Spectrum. Then I found things like Z80 and Magic Engine I bought keys for both. The Magic Engine key I still have and still works but the Z80 one went AWOL a long time ago.

It was cool to subvert the machine make it doe something it was not designed by trade to do, It was exciting and when you got something working it was cool.

I then found things like Nesticle, (NES) Genecyst (Genesis/Mega Drive) and Callus (CPS1) from Blood software and I entered a rabbit hole of emulation. BSNES and ZSNES (both SNES ) and things like M72 (Irem M72 boards), RAINE (CPS1/2) and MAME.

Obviously I remember MAME when it started and would only run 5 games but it sharp managed to keep adding more and more games, making it very interesting at the time.

MAME of course is still going today and can do lots of things as it now includes many of the older projects being amalgamated into it. It now includes MESS, (Multi Emulation Super System), MFME (Multi Fruit Machine Emulator) and PINMAME (Pinball DMD roms).

All of these at one point had separate instances but now MAME coves them all including the ever growing arcade roms and architectures it supports.

As well as multi machine emulators like MAME. Several arcades had their own dedicated programs. I remember things like The New Zealand Story and the 4 player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had their own dedicated emulators written for them.

Obviously over the years many emulators have come and gone and the images of the roms have been upgraded or updated. I think I saw recently that if you wan t to emulate some of the newer systems on MAME such as Sega M1 or Naomi upwards you need to use CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) files and if you want a complete collection of such then you need over 10TB worth of hard drive space.

Which is ludicrous considering that half of them don’t work very well due to requiring a beefy CPU to run said games and lots of GPU memory to create the virtual graphics cards.

So machines without a eight-core processor or higher and anything less than a Nvidia 3000 series graphics card need not apply.

Over the years the emulators have continued covering all major platforms and even to this day as I said MAME continuers its quest. However even more recent platforms are not safe from the emulators.

They have emulation for Xbox 360, Playstation 2 & 3 and even a Switch emulator. In fact was just announced about RPCS4, Orbital, PS4EMX, PS4Emus they have got Playstation 4 emulation now in the functional stages.

Scary stuff. I love emulation even though I could not program one to save my life. I just like seeing a machine running something it was not intended to do.

This is also why I used to like playing with Hackintosh stuff because it was once again subverting what the machine is. The PC was not supposed to run Mac OS X but the fact that someone managed to get such things running was absolutely fascinating.

People have accused me of being quite brutal on machines because I tend to try and get these emulators to work or run software never designed for it. The fact that things such as emulators and the various VMs to run obscure stuff I am not the only one who wants to do this.

Thankfully they do exist because if you were waiting on me to write such it would never happen as I just don’t have that sort of skill or knowledge.

Of course the new Apple Silicon has pretty much made the Hackintosh redundant and also I really didn’t quite understand how to get OpenCore working it was far too complex for my limited brain.

Normal stuff like PC gaming or consoles don’t appeal to me very much until they become a challenge to run them. As I said I like the obscure I like the having to resort to unorthodox methods.

I would be the type if I did play PC games and got good I would have to beat Call of Duty 904 with a Steering wheel just be obnoxious. I’m not going to do that so don’t look to find it.

Obviously as I said new emulators require machines far beyond my reach at the moment but one day who knows I may get back up in the high end PC market again.

Until then I type this nonsense on a iBook G4 using Microsoft Word 2008 then probably upload it using my Dell i7 M6800 laptop to Tumblr.

However to answer the question what happened. I think I have played with most of the obscure things and now I have nothing to do or see.

Going back to the run of the mill is boring and I honestly find most modern games and consoles lifeless. They may be photo realistic and have 4k graphics and more but have about as much excitement to me as a pebble.

However if I get a high end PC I will definitely try and emulate the consoles I don’t care about currently as it something the PC isn’t supposed to be doing. As I said it’s a psychological thing or basically I’m just weird.

[professor-rye]

PLEASE tell me about "hustlecat???"

Oh man. I am so excited about the Hustlecat AU So the shortest answer is that Hustlecat is a really cute little dating sim where you start working at a cat cafe, and you can date your coworkers. This AU is a Hustlecat x Mighty Nein crossover The long answer is that this is a Modern with secret magic slow burn Shadowgast Cat Cafe AU, where early campaign Caleb and Nott are homeless up until they get a job at this very strange and mysterious cat cafe owned by a handsome drow :D I'll be honest though, the premise may be sweet and soft, but I am apparently incapable of not writing angst, so there will also be elements of tragic backstories, mysteries, and magical danger! Ho boy... picking a snip for this one is proving difficult. There are lots of good options. I'm trying to write out the entire thing before posting it, but I've been posting snippets in the Aeor Is For Lovers Discord Server

~(‾▿‾)~ ~(‾▿‾)~ ~(‾▿‾)~ ~(‾▿‾)~ ~(‾▿‾)~ ~(‾▿‾)~ ~(‾▿‾)~ ~(‾▿‾)~

Caleb smirked and shook his head while Nott just shrugged. Then, they entered the cafe. The door opened with a jingle of a bell, and the black cat that had been sitting there darted off.

Inside was a veritable cat paradise in minimalistic but fashionable designs. Counters lined the edges of the room with plush stools tucked underneath, while several traditional cafe tables sat near the side windows. Walkways were built into the walls, one even spanning the front window, and a spiraling cat tree formed a pillar of support for a balcony style second floor. Paintings and photos of cats covered the walls and cat toys could be seen tucked into corners everywhere. A large, circular couch sat in the very center, with no less than three cats lounging on its cushions.

Everything was in shades of black, white or gray, save the occasional pop of bright orange wood or deep purple fabric. It looked modern, fancy, and clean, and Caleb suddenly felt very out of place.

“Oh wow,” Nott murmured as they looked around the massive room. Caleb was trying to find some word of agreement, when suddenly, someone called from up above.

“I’ll be right with you!” a warm southern drawl called, drawing their eyes to the second floor where a tall half-orc was standing up from where he had been sitting with a well dressed drow.

It was the strangest relief, seeing a half orc and drow, and Caleb couldn’t help but glance down at Nott to see if she felt the same. Her reusable cloth medical mask was still pulled up, and her ears tucked in, so her race wasn’t immediately obvious, but if there was a possibility that she would be accepted here…

“Hello there,” the half-orc said, now on the same floor as them. He was tall and lanky, with mottled skin and stark black hair swept back from his face. He was also very attractive.

“Welcome to The Cat’s Tower. Are you here for some of our delicious food, or would you like to learn about the cats?”

Caleb blinked. “Ah, is both an option?”

The half-orc smiled, a handsome and charming thing before he motioned them over to one of the tables. “Of course! We have our menu right here. I can place your order and then tell you about our shelter while you eat.”

[dottielovegood]

ASMR - chapter 3

Elriel fanfiction

About this fic:

Azriel can’t sleep Elain has an ASMR channel Match made in heaven (or you know, on youtube..)

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You can find chapter 1 here and chapter 2 here Read this fic on AO3

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Chapter 3

Luckily for Azriel, the next day was a Saturday, which meant that he didn’t have to go to work. The only plan he had that day was his gym appointment at 7.00 in the morning, just like every other day. Cassian and Rhys often gave him shit for going to the gym that early in the morning on weekends, but they had partners to enjoy the days with. Azriel did not, which meant that working out was a good way to pass time. Especially for someone like Azriel who didn’t sleep and seemed to have more hours to his days than most regular people did.

However, today he woke up to the sun shining in through his window. He picked up his phone to check the time and was surprised to see that it said 9.23. He never slept that late. And he never slept that well.

She made me miss my gym appointment, Azriel thought to himself and couldn’t help but smile. And then it hit him. It was 9.23. That meant that Flower Girl ASMR would call him in exactly 37 minutes, and he hadn’t even had coffee yet. Azriel quickly got out of bed and hurried to the kitchen. While the coffee was brewing he jumped into the shower. He didn’t know why, but it felt wrong to be on the phone with her without having a shower first. Just like it would feel wrong to show up to a date without showering.

This is not a date, he told himself as he tied the towel around his hips and walked back into his kitchen. Azriel lived in a studio apartment, which meant that his ‘kitchen’ was actually a corner of his living room/bedroom. It was quite big for a studio apartment and he could easily fit his bed, a big sectional, and a dining room table in the room. There were exposed bricks on one wall which gave it a rustic feeling, and the white sleek details everywhere else made it feel modern and minimalistic - just like Azriel preferred.

Azriel leaned against his counter and sipped his coffee. He glanced at the clock on the wall which told him that he had 15 minutes left before the phone call. His hands were sweating. Was it because the coffee was so warm? Azriel tried to tell himself that the coffee was the reason for his warm hands, but it was more difficult to find an explanation for the butterflies in his stomach.

He was nervous. Not because of what they were going to talk about - he could probably guide someone through this in his sleep. But because she made him nervous. It’s one thing to see someone in a video and talk via DMs and an entirely different thing to facetime that person. What if she thought that he was ugly?

As the thought entered his mind, he shook his head as if trying to shake the thought away. Why did he care? He was just helping her with a problem. It didn’t matter if she found him ugly because this was a one-time thing. He would never see her again.

The butterflies turned into a tight knot in his stomach.

Azriel let out a low groan and went to his wardrobe to get dressed. He put on a black T-shirt and black jeans - his standard uniform. He dried his hair hastily with the towel before throwing it in the hamper.

At 10.00 on the dot, Azriel’s phone started ringing on the kitchen island. Or vibrating actually, since he always kept the sound off.

Unknown number is calling

Azriel stared at his phone, suddenly feeling very shy and questioning everything he knew about computers. He checked his reflection in the microwave and let out a deep breath before answering.

“Hello, this is Azriel.” His voice was hoarse, sounding deeper than usual.

“Oh, hi!” A cheery voice said and he was a bit taken aback. In his stupid brain, he had imagined her answering in her whispering voice. “Is this… is this Shadowsinger?”

Azriel decided that her normal voice was just as wonderful as her whispering voice.

“Yeah, this is Shadowsinger. Or well, that’s not my name. I’m obviously not called that. That would be weird…” Azriel babbled, growing more and more self-conscious by the second. He took a deep breath. “I’m Azriel.”

“Hi, Azriel. I’m Elain.” He could hear the smile in her voice and it made him think of sunshine and flowers.

Elain. The name suited her. It was a welsh name that meant fawn. Or at least that’s what Feyre told him one night when she had spent three hours going over possible baby names with their entire friend group (After three hours, Azriel, Cassian, Mor and Nesta had been very drunk and started suggesting weird names from TV such as Khaleesi, Anakin and Buffy which led to Rhys kicking them out.) But Elain wasn’t a weird name. It was pretty. Just like the person that the name belonged to.

“Hello, Elain,” Azriel said quickly when he realized that he had been quiet for a short while.

“Azriel is… an interesting name.” He couldn’t tell from her tone if it was good interesting or bad interesting.

He chuckled. “Yeah, try growing up with the nickname ‘Ass’ in school. Not Az. Ass.”

He could hear Elain laugh and it warmed his heart. “Oh no,” she giggled.

There was a stretch of silence then, both of them unsure of how to begin this.

“So...” Elain started after a few moments. “How do I block words on Youtube, Azriel?”

As soon as the words traveled through the phone, he wanted to ask her to say his name again, but that would be weird. So instead he cleared his throat and got himself into work mode.

“Well, I didn’t know if you were a visual learner, but I created a Youtube account yesterday so I could show you what to do, and you could just follow along if you like?”

God, was he doing too much? Would she find this creepy? Maybe he should just tell her what to do without video.

But to his surprise, Elain did not sound creeped out. “Really? That would be so helpful! How...How can I see your screen though?”

Azriel huffed a laugh. It was kind of cute that she was so oblivious when it came to technology even though she had 250k followers on Youtube.”Well, we’ll change to FaceTime and I will be able to flip the screen and just show you what I’m doing. Is that okay with you?”

He was met with silence.

“Elain?”

“Oh, sorry. I was nodding,” she laughed. “Yes, that’s fine.”

Azriel clicked the icon for FaceTime on his screen and within seconds, her face filled his screen. Her brown hair was in a high ponytail and she wore a mint green hoodie. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and Azriel had to catch his breath. God, why did she have to be so beautiful? He realized that he was staring at her through the screen but his brain wouldn’t form words.

“Hi,” Elain smiled, her cheeks turning pink. “I kind of forgot that we would see each other and not just a screen. Sorry that I look like a mess. I’m going to the gym after this...” She gestured to her hair and Azriel had no idea what mess she was referring to.

“What? You look wonderful,” he said and as soon as the words registered in his brain he wished to be swallowed up by a hole in the ground. He winced. “I mean... I just–” he was making it worse. Lovely. “I just meant that you don’t look like a mess.”

She gave him the sweetest smile. “Well, You don’t look too bad yourself.” She was blushing even more now. Was he blushing too? He had never blushed in his life, so he didn’t even know what that would feel like, but he did feel a bit hot.

Azriel cleared his throat. “So,” he started. “I’m going to flip my screen and film my laptop now. Tell me if you can see what I’m doing.”

“Okay!”

Azriel logged into Youtube and held his phone in front of the screen. “Can you see?” He held the phone in front of his computer, and even though she couldn’t see him anymore, he could still see her.

“Just a second,” she said and held up a finger. She was moving and so was her camera. When she reappeared, Azriel was very happy that she couldn’t see him. She was wearing glasses and they made her, if possible, even more attractive. Her beautiful golden eyes looked even bigger. Like a fawn, Azriel thought to himself.

“Yes, I can see when you have the phone so close to the screen,” she answered.

“Okay, good. Are you near your own computer?”

“Yes! And I’m already logged into my Youtube account.”

Azriel nodded, even though she couldn’t see him. “Great. Then you should see your profile picture here in the corner.” He showed her where to look.

“Mhm, I see it.”

She was focusing so hard on the screen, she had probably forgotten that he could see her. She was leaning in close enough for Azriel to see her freckles.

I want to kiss every single freckle on her body.

The thought entered his brain before he could even react and he was very happy that she wasn’t a mind reader. He tried to ignore her face on his screen and focus on his task.

“You will click the photo, and that should display a menu,” he explained. “Like this. You are going to click ‘Youtube Studio’ here.”

Elain scrunched up her nose in concentration and Azriel thought that he might die from the cuteness.

“Done! What next?”

“Okay, then you click ‘Settings’ at the bottom here,” he showed her where to look. “And then you choose ‘Community’”

“Community?” She asked and bit her lip.

Azriel wanted to bite that lip too.

“Yeah,” he answered, happy that he didn’t have to come up with more advanced words.

“And then you scroll down to ‘blocked words’ here,” he instructed. “Are you there?”

“Yes, I found it,” she answered with a smile.

“Well, aren’t you a gold star student?” Azriel joked and Elain’s face went from smiling to blushing in a nano-second.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

There was a beat of silence again. Azriel wanted to kick himself.

“What now?” Elain asked in a low voice, still determined to get this over with.

“Well, now you just fill in the words you want to block. Make sure that you separate each word or phrase with a comma. And then you just press save and that’s it.”

“Oh, okay. That was easier than I imagined.”

Silence again.

“Can you manage from here?”

Elain bit her lip again. She was staring somewhere behind her phone; probably at her computer. “Ehm, I’m not sure what words to block.”

Azriel thought back to the awful comments he had seen and could think of a handful of words.

“Well, just block the words that these commenters often use, and maybe block bad words in general? You can review your comments later, so if nice comments are being filtered, you can choose to restore them while deleting the bad ones.”

Elain nodded and Azriel didn’t know if he should hang up or stay. So he stayed. His camera was still facing his computer, and Elain was still filming herself. She looked lost in thought.

“Are you okay, Elain?” Azriel asked cautiously, afraid to startle her.

“Hmm?” She looked straight at the camera now, eyes still glossy.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just… tired. I really like doing ASMR, but this sucks. I just want to make people happy and spread positivity, you know? And still, I have to deal with this.”

“Yeah, that must suck.”

Azriel had a question that he had been burning to ask, but he didn’t know if it was too personal. However, as he told himself before, they were never going to see each other again. He could always ask, and the worst thing he could get was a ‘no, I don’t want to talk about it’.

So he asked.

“Elain, can I ask you something?”

She nodded absentmindedly.

“Yesterday you wrote that you had blocked those trolls multiple times. Are you certain that they’re the same people?”

She nodded again. “Yes. In the beginning, they were a bit more creative with the usernames which threw me for a loop. But I realized that it was the same IP addresses every single time, so yeah. I know. I mean, I get hate from complete strangers too, but these people are a bit more persistent .” The last word was spoken through her teeth. She looked upset, but she also looked like she wanted to hide it. Azriel decided to switch his camera back to his face so she wouldn’t feel as vulnerable. And so he wouldn’t feel like a creep for staring at her.

Elain looked a bit startled. “Oh, hi again,” she smiled, but it wasn’t as genuine anymore.

“Do you know these people?” Azriel asked through gritted teeth. He didn’t know why, but he felt very protective all of a sudden.

“Yes, I do. At least the three people that commented yesterday…” she bit her lip again, probably contemplating if she should tell him more. “It’s my ex.”

Azriel tried his hardest to not look surprised and pissed off at the same time. “All three of them?”

With a surprised look on her face, she shook her head quickly. “Oh, god no. No. Just one. His name is Graysen.”

MortalGraysen. Azriel remembered the username because it had sounded so stupid.

“And the other two?”

She let out a long breath. “His stupid best friends, Amarantha and Hybern. Stupid names, right?”

Azriel could only agree. “Very. Why is he bothering you like this, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Elain took off her glasses and massaged her temple lightly. “I dumped him after he slept with Amarantha and then…” she chewed the inside of her cheek. “Then he told all of our friends that he only slept with her because I was so boring in…'' her cheeks flushed again and she didn’t finish that sentence. She didn’t have to. Azriel understood perfectly.

“Okay, so he really is an asshole then.”

“The biggest.”

“Well, I don’t think you can block IP addresses on Youtube, but you could always try to block their names. It might work for a while at least?” Azriel suggested. He needed to help her.

“That’s smart!” she exclaimed and sat her phone down to type. He was very happy that she had leaned it against something so he could still see her.

“What other words should I add?”

Azriel thought back to the comments he had seen. Boobs, nudes, cock, jerk off and tits were all words that she should block, but they were also words he didn’t feel like saying in front of her.

“Just check their old comments and block the words they have used.”

“I’ve deleted the comments, but I remember a few words.” She typed again and Azriel could tell that she was uncomfortable.

“Hey, just block all sexual words and maybe swear words? That should probably work for a while?”

“Okay.” She typed again while Azriel waited patiently. Honestly, he would probably wait forever if it meant that he could watch her on his screen like this.

He felt like a teenager with a crush on the coolest girl in school. He knew that she was out of his league, but his body had not gotten the memo…

“I think I’m done,” she announced and smiled at her phone. At him.

Azriel smiled back. “Which words did you write?” he asked out of curiosity.

Elain picked up her phone and switched the camera so he could see her computer. In the box for ‘blocked words’ she had indeed written a few words.

Blocked words Graysen, Hybern, Amarantha, Boring, Dumb, Stupid, Weird, Ugly, Penis, Vagina, Sex, Sexy, Breasts, Feet, Ejaculation, Nipple, Damn, Fuck, Darn it, Hell,

“Do you think that’s enough?” She asked him in a low voice as if she was ashamed of what she was showing him.

Azriel had to bite his lip in order to keep himself from grinning. It was kind of sweet that she had written down the more technical terms, and not any words that would actually be used on the internet.

“Well, I think it’s a good start,” Azriel answered. “But I think there are a few more words that you should add. And maybe some you can remove from the list.”

“Which ones can I remove?” She leaned closer to her computer, probably trying to find the redundant words.

“I don’t think that trolls will use Darn it, for example.”

Elain pressed the backspace key a few times.

“And which words should I add?” she asked the screen. Her glasses had slid down her nose a bit and Azriel had an urge to reach through the screen and push them back into place.

Azriel scratched his chin, thinking about the best way to phrase it. “Maybe a few synonyms for the words you have written down?”

“Such as?”

Azriel held his breath. “Well…” Azriel hesitated. Was she serious or was she just trying to get him to say dirty words? “I don’t think that internet trolls will use the word vagina.”

“Oh,” her ears turned a lovely pink color. “So I should just add synonyms for that word then?”

“Sure.”

Elain looked lost in thought for a moment before typing again, this time a bit more aggressively. “There are quite a lot,” she muttered.

“Really?” Azriel could only think of two; pussy and cunt.

“Yes. I googled it.”

Of course, she googled a list of synonyms for vagina. Azriel couldn’t hold back his grin this time. She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said, still grinning. “Can you read me this list of synonyms?” he teased, thinking that she would tell him to fuck off.

He was wrong.

“Well, there’s pussy, cunt, vajayjay, punani, ho-ha, flower…” she drifted off and Azriel could tell the exact moment it hit her that she was reading these words to a man she didn’t know. “Oh, god,” she groaned and hid her face in her hand. “Please ignore everything that just happened.”

Azriel chuckled. “I rather not. What’s the weirdest word on the list?”

He was invested now.

Elain looked at him through the screen again, but this time he could tell that she was suppressing a smile. “The weirdest one must be fish taco, or bald man in a boat. One just sounds disgusting, and the other one is just… weird? Like, I don’t get it.”

“I think that the ‘bald man’ is supposed to be the...uh,” Azriel could not finish that sentence. He knew that he was blushing now, too.

“Oh,” she said looking surprised, and then disgusted. “Oh, that just makes it worse.”

The laugh that followed was contagious.

As she laughed, Azriel thought back to the day before. To when he had watched her video to fall asleep. In her videos, she was so calm and collected - the complete opposite from this bubbly, laughing person on his screen. Both sides of her were equally fascinating to Azriel and he wished that he could get to know her better. She was so easy to talk to. Azriel never found anyone easy to talk to. At parties, you could find him in the corner with a drink and a good book. He was not a talkative man. But with Elain, he wanted to talk. And he wanted to listen. He wanted her to tell him about her day and her life, which was absurd. They had been talking for like 30 minutes. They didn’t know each other. They would never get to know each other.

“Thank you for helping me with this, Azriel,” Elain said when the laughter had died down. “I really appreciate it. I’m sorry for being a bit weird and reading you that list. I hope that I didn’t cross a line or…”

Azriel held up a hand to show her that he didn’t mind. “It’s no problem, honestly. I can’t remember the last time I laughed this much.”

Elain shifted in her seat and picked up her phone again, moving it closer to her face again. “Just like you couldn’t remember the last time you had slept well?”

For a second, Azriel was truly afraid that she was a mind reader because that meant that she had heard him think that he wanted to kiss all her freckles. And then, he remembered the comment he had left on her video a few days earlier.

“Yeah, just like that.”

She leaned her head to the side and regarded him through the phone. “Is that true? You can’t remember having a good night’s sleep?”

Azriel shook his head. “I have suffered from insomnia since I was a child. Sleep has never been a positive experience for me.”

He had never opened up like this to anyone. His former girlfriend never understood why he was awake and why he hated sleepovers. The insomnia had definitely destroyed a few relationships over the years. He could tell that Elain wanted to ask about it, but she didn’t. He really appreciated that.

“Well, I’m happy that I can help you with that anyway. It makes me feel less horrible for making you help me with this on a Saturday morning,” she said and gestured to her computer.

“You didn’t make me do anything. I offered. I was happy to help.”

She gave him the sweetest smile yet and Azriel was surprised when he didn’t melt into a puddle. “Well, thank you. Can I pay you for your trouble?”

Before she had even finished the sentence Azriel shook his head. “No, Elain. I really don’t want you to pay me.”

“Okay,” she bit one side of her lip again. Those damn lips. “Can I give you something else then?”

Did her tone sound flirty? Azriel didn’t know. He might just be hopeful because he started imagining all kinds of things she could give him.

“Like, maybe you could tell me your favorite trigger and I’ll make sure that my next video includes it?”

Azriel swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling very thick. “You don’t have to do that, I...”

“But I want to,” she interrupted. “What’s your favorite trigger?”

Azriel was trying to figure out a way to tell her that she was his favorite trigger without sounding like a serial killer. “Well, I don’t really know. I like when you whisper,” he tried, and when she smiled and nodded encouragingly, he continued. “Honestly Elain, I have tried to watch other ASMR videos but they don’t make me fall asleep. Your videos make me fall asleep within minutes. Whatever magic you put into your videos, that’s probably my trigger,” he half-joked.

“Hmm,” Elain regarded him. “I’ll figure something out.” She winked at him teasingly and Azriel hated that this was the first and last time he would ever get to talk to her.

“Well, I really have to go,” Elain declared. “I’m meeting a friend at the gym.”

“Yeah, I have to go too,” Azriel lied. He would have canceled any plan he ever had if he could continue this conversation.

“Well, thank you again for your help, Azriel.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She removed her glasses and looked straight into her camera. It felt as if she was staring into his soul.

“Goodbye, Shadowsinger.”

“Goodbye, Flower Girl.”

The call disconnected and he was left staring at his apps. Not a single one interested him.

With a heavy sigh, Azriel walked to his bed. He was planning to lay down and scream into a pillow when he received a text from a number he didn’t recognize.

New message I searched for a few more synonyms, and this one for penis is horrendous. Just listen to this: Meat banjo. Isn’t that just horrible? I’m definitely blocking that word.

Azriel couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from his chest. It really was a horrendous synonym and he could imagine her sitting in front of her computer, making disgusted faces at the various words on her screen.

New message Oh, this is Elain, by the way.

And that’s when it hit him.

She had texted him and he could see her number. That meant that he could save her number on his phone. It also meant…

Well, he honestly didn’t know what it meant, but he didn’t feel like screaming into his pillow anymore.

[carryonchile]

12 February - Valdivia

My stay in Valdivia was amazing, my expectations for the city were certainly exceeded. Unique airbnb, great people to hang out with (which I'd struggled with until now), stunning coast and rivers, superb beer, and beautiful swims. What more could I ask for? Oh, and (almost) perfect weather. I could easily have stayed for more than five nights but the place was booked out for the rest of the month and my next destination was waiting for me. It's somewhere I'd love to return to and explore more of the area.

The seven hour coach journey from Conce passed by quickly, helped by the lush forested land we passed through, and the distant views of volcanoes in the Lakes Region. Sadly, I also got to see areas of forest burning away, as forest fires continue to take hold across the parched land, with a drought in force across the country.

Other points of interest were the tall metal piers and spans of the Malleco rail viaduct, which I later read was the highest such bridge when it opened in 1890. A road safety sign also caught my attention stating that the word 'accident' should not be used for an incident caused by driver behaviour, which I found quite progressive here.

During the journey we stopped in Temuco, bringing back memories of the end of the Argentine/Chilean Lakes cycle tour I did with Lucy and Mat five years ago. Temuco is the centre of an area (Macrozona Sur) where a state of emergency is currently in place, where the army has been deployed (I understand) to protect residents from sporadic acts of violence, emanating from indigenous communities seeking the return of privately owned land to them.

Anyway, it was a stunning arrival into Valdivia, and I could soon see why it's called the Region of the Rivers. It's also well known for the generous number of wetlands. We pulled into an unusually modern coach station for Chile, and not a single taxi tout to deal with! After grabbing a map and some friendly advice from the tourist info desk, it was time to hit the Valdivian streets.

It turns out that the Rainbow House where I'd be staying is located in the original part of town, the Isla Teja (Roof Tiles Island), a small island. I was very thankful for this after seeing that the city centre resembled many other Chilean centres! With high hopes for Valdivia I was a bit taken aback on arriving. However, I soon made it to the river bridge crossing to the island. As I entered the street (of wooden houses) with my colourful home for five days, the charm of the place hit me.

I was warmly welcomed by the very bubbly and colourful (as to be expected in a rainbow house) owner Catalina, who lives in the house with her late teen daughter. After expecting to be sharing the house with the owner and maybe another guest, I was informed that 10 guests were currently staying! The (shoe free zone) house is amazing, full of colourful art, nik naks, rugs made from old clothes, light switches and sockets decorated with magazine cuttings, and basically the colours of the rainbow everywhere. Catalina had completely transformed the place after buying it, and locals still assume from the outside that it's a nursery! For those who know my flat, it's fair to say that it's not quite so minimalist haha.

Over breakfast I met a number of visitors from other cities in Chile, plenty of Santiago types but also folk from Concepción and La Serena. I continued to be the only non Chilean, which was all good except for trying to keep up with their group conversations! I continue to find the Chilean 'dialect' and speed a challenge! Catalina's daughter spoke amazing English so I enjoyed a break from Spanish with her.

The house was located just one minute from the cosy hipster restaurant/microbrewery La Bota (The Boot), where I was bizarrely to find the cheapest draft beer and food so far, with delicious Thai curry featuring on the menu. Needless to say there were a number of visits during my stay. Decent beers (and cheesecake) in southern Chile is very much thanks to the significant German population, originating from the encouragement of German immigration in the 19th Century. The prominence of German names everywhere does feel bizarre.

Highlights (other than sampling a variety of craft beers) of my valdiviano days included:

- A visit to Niebla (translation 'mist') to find plenty of mist for my chilly Pacific swim! It was the coldest I'd felt so far on this trip, so I appreciated a delicious hot seafood stew, and coffee and cake, before I braved the sea (and didn't last very long)

- A beautiful swim in the river at Playa Collico, where thankfully I didn't encounter the resident sea lions. The lifeguard Alexis enjoyed practicing his English with me

- A stunning forest (including the beautiful tall alerce, and the arrayan with it's smooth milk chocolate silky bark) walk around the headland of Curiñanco with it's stunning viewpoints over the Pacific, followed by a gorgeous swim in the calm village beach. The eccentric park ranger was a delight

- Snapping away at more street 'sights' including a rather rude street name (albeit the 'k' had been replaced with a 'q' on the street sign)

- Getting to know more of the city (and general lack of respect for cyclists) by bicycle

More disappointing moments (not to be taken too seriously) were:

- Checking out the closed 'rail museum' and old station from the street

- Being unable to secure tickets for the resident submarine (built in Glasgow in 1971) on the river. I turned up at 10.30am to try my luck for tickets that day, to learn the queue formed from 7am, ahead of the 10am ticket office opening!

- Finding the 1960 earthquake museum shut

- Having to wear my down jacket one chilly evening

[heartslogos]

mafia rewrite - The Nightwing

Richard Grayson walks out of the thick, steel, mirrored elevator doors straight past the shining, gleaming, modern, glass and chrome waiting area and straight into the heart of the cool, elegant Iceberg Lounge.

The Iceberg Lounge has been host to ambassadors, vandals, thieves, presidents, models, princes, billionaires, genius savants, call girls, bus boys, and every single person in between. The Iceberg Lounge has seen catastrophe, it’s seen ruin, it’s seen blood and murder, it’s seen parties that, from street level made the glass walled lounge look like a shining beacon of pure white. The Iceberg Lounge has had many names, many renovations, many changes of management, and withstood them all with a timeless grace.

The Iceberg Lounge, currently, plays host to a — compared to its normal volume — small and subdued crowd. Murmurs of death, blood, change, and escape carry over martini glasses, underneath swirling kinetic aluminum and steel light fixtures, slithering and insidious into the ears of every single moving body present. All of them, in their gossip, complicit.

Richard Grayson cuts the crowd and cuts a terrific — in the oldest sense of the word — figure. His suit is the black of Gotham, the black of its royal Wayne blood. The black of omens and death and the distant winter sky come to bear down on the trailing ends of summer as it runs in the opposite direction.

He’s always been known as the least violent Wayne. But least violent does not mean non-violent. Not when the comparisons are the rest of the Waynes.

A nurse shark is still a shark, even if you compare it to a megaladon. A butterfly knife is still a blade even, when compared to a zweihandler. Carbon monoxide is still a poison, even when compared to cyanide.

A bullet is a bullet no matter what kind of name you give it.

This one’s name is the Nightwing.

Even as a boy, he flittered and floated and glided through crowds like this. A strange figure in the gowns and tuxedos of Gotham’s socialites, and university night club crawlers, and the booming and bustling pub crawlers down narrow sidewalks with sports bars and dives.

A man made to fly through the night.

Richard Grayson glides into the Iceberg Lounge. Orca, seal, predator. And through schools of silver and gold glimmering fish that part as though they had suddenly turned hydrophobic he is untouched. Unmoved.

He keeps walking.

He walks up the spiral staircase to the VIP lounges. He walks towards the edge of the platform that overlooks the rest of the lounge. He walks up to a table set for one and he sits across the other occupant.

As he sits a chair materializes for him before he could fall. As though the universe and gravity had joined hands and conspired. As if the world could not conceive of a place where Richard Grayson does not get a seat at the table. As if this dimension could not fathom the golden son of Gotham being disappointed.

Or, more realistically, as though a panicked attendant realized that blood could be spilled tonight if even one thing fell out of place and quickly kicked a chair into motion, into another attendant’s body and that other attendant, carrying the same fear as the first, hustled to have the chair in position and ready to slide it in as Richard Grayson’s body entered its sure and unbothered controlled fall.

Richard Grayson unbuttons his suit jacket as he sits in this seat provided by fear, long legs crossing as he looks around the lounge. And then he does a slow, quiet, dangerous scan of the person in front of him.

He gestures around them with a lazy twist of his wrist.

“Ten million.” His beatific smile spreads like a plume of blood in water. He waits. The best predators know how to do this.

Eric Shin closes his eyes and breathes what could possibly be one of his last breaths and opens them again. Richard Grayson is waiting for his response.

“What?” He croaks out instead.

“That’s how much it cost to buy you,” Richard Grayson says. “Ten million. For someone from your circuit of the market? Entry to the VIP are of the Iceberg is at least five million per quarter. Minimum. Trust me. I know how much it costs to get into these kind of places. And you haven’t earned VIP seating. The Lucky Hand is lucky to barely be alive right now. Remind me, by who’s grace?”

“Yours,” Eric whispers against his will. The word slides out like bubbles from a drowning man.

“Exactly right. And when was that?”

Eric closes his eyes, and prays for a swifter death than this one of small cuts. “Seven years ago.” He swallows, throat dry, eyes stinging. “When the Dubelz ran across the Whispers on their hunt for the man who killed their leader and the violence spilled over onto into a war along the entire Port Adams and started getting the Lucky Hand’s shipments sunk in harbor as collateral.”

“Right, right. Excellent memory, Eric. Excellent memory. So. Where was I? Ah. Five million per quarter, which the Hand hasn’t been pulling in for you of all people to be getting into the VIP Iceberg Lounge. So it’s not coming from that business. The car is new. Imported, based on the interior and the relatively new plates. That’s about seven hundred just to bring over. And I know that thing isn’t going to be meeting US standards of emissions so that’s — let’s lowball it, say two grand? Three grand? To get enough people to rubber stamp those forms. Now, I’m not too hot on the numbers. So let’s make this easy. I’m going to place your car, fees and bribes and all, somewhere in the range of three hundred grand.”

Grayson taps his middle and index finger on the white cloth covered table as he watches Eric with bright, terrible eyes.

“And if I’m right that’s about — well. Still a lot more than you’d be worth normally. But you’re being paid for silence. And you’re being paid for dying.” Richard Grayson’s mouth twitches up at the corners. “You sold your life for ten, Eric. So far you’ve got VIP entrance to the lounge — which, mind you, isn’t going to last and isn’t refundable. The Penguin’s got a nose for business and he knows that you having entry to his lounge is just going to be earning him a whole lot of grief —, you’ve got a nice imported car that ignores US regulations, and let’s see. Let’s have a look at you. That’s tailored. You’re not buying that off the rack and that takes out everything under five hundred. At a glance I’d say that’s eight thousand. And the watch? A Submariner? Can’t get that in store unless you’ve got a name like mine. You’re looking black market and if you’re smart you’re paying extra for paperwork and someone to scrub it. Base price alone for the green dial is twenty grand. You’ve been burning through that blood money.”

“What do you want?” Eric asks.

Grayson leans forward, leopard seal and killer whale, and descending fury.

“You’re a smart man. The Waynes interfered to spare the Hand because you made a very good case for why we should. And for the past seven years we’ve been good neighbors. We’ve never had a problem with you. Until today. One hell of a problem to choose to be, Eric. I want you to tell me who paid you ten million dollars to give up your life and keep your silence. Because we traced the guns used at the shootout. And those guns and those cars came through Port Adams. And we traced records of those cars and plates and found them cruising up the Old Highway. And if they’re going up Old Highway and if they’re being supplied through Port Adams there’s no way in hell that the Lucky Hand didn’t see that coming.”

Grayson’s blue eyes burn with awful fire.

The Nightwing circles. The Nightwing descends.

“And you didn’t say anything. Someone paid you off. And how damn cheap of a pay off it was. Ten million? If I were in your position and being asked to keep my silence about any kind of whisper of a hallucination about Tim Drake being hunted like a dog through the streets of Gotham in broad daylight I would be asking for the keys to the diamond vaults. I’d be asking for the moon and the stars. Ten million.” The man leans back in his seat, face incredulous as he takes Eric in. “That’s all you were worth. I mean. Sure. I wouldn’t have paid you ten million  to tell me this information before hand if I knew about it. But you’d still be alive, you know?”

Grayson flags a waiter over.

“You must have realized,” Grayson says as he peruses the liquor menu, “That regardless of whether Tim lived or died, someone would have found you.”

Eric doesn’t cry. He signed his death certificate weeks ago when he watched those first ships start to unload their guns into the storage facilities next to his own; when he took the money; when he failed to call any of the Waynes to say something, anything, over the past days when the plot came to its finalization.

“He’s alive, by the way. In case you were wondering.” Grayson raises his voice a little so it projects over the dead silence of the lounge. “My brother’s faced worse before. He’s alive. And you know that egghead remembers every single face that was present. License plates, too. Kid’s messed up, his priorities are all wrong. If it were me I’d be focused on wondering something more simple, you know? Like who I last talked to and if I said anything cool. Well. That’s why he’s head of W.E. and not me. I don’t have a head for business.”

He taps something on the liquor menu, handing it back to the waiter.

“Out of consideration for the past years of you being a good neighbor, I’ll let you have one last drink,” Grayson says. “My treat, seeing as how the Penguin is revoking all your access. Don’t worry. You’re not dead yet. I’ll be needing you later. You haven’t given me any names yet. And I promised Cobblepot I wouldn’t make a mess of his lounge. He just got this floor redone, you know? I missed the grand re-opening.”

Grayson looks around, smiling and nodding his divine approval.

“Personally, I think it’s a little too minimalist modern, but compared to before I like it. It’s quiet. Easy on the eye. Excellent balance and color coordination, though. Spot on. I’d ask Cobblepot who his designer was except I don’t have anything I want to tear down and rebuild. I’m more in the mood for the tearing down, frankly. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ve got a list of people to get to before someone else does.”

Grayson pauses. “And by someone else I mean another Wayne. The rest of the people in this family have no respect. Between Jason and Cassandra there isn’t enough to around, you know? They ruin everything they get their hands on. Usually so no one else can use it. Mostly so that I don’t get to use it, really. So I’m in something of a race against the clock to get everything I want done tonight. Lucky you, you were near the top of the list. Alright. I’ll leave you to that final drink. And when you’re done with that drink you’re going to get into the car I’ll have the Penguin pull around for you. Before I leave is there anything you want to say?”

Eric swallows roughly, slowly moving his eyes to met Grayson’s. A dead man has nothing to fear of asking a last second boon from his executioner.

“In punishing me will you spare the Hand?”

Grayson looks momentarily surprised.

Eric gestures around them. “They bought me. Not the Hand. My silence. My trespass. My wrong. Not a single cent of the money has gone to the Lucky Hand. You can check the accounts. It’s all with me, still. Tell me now. Give me this one certainty. Will you spare the Hand, or have I doomed us all?”

Grayson considers him. And then he leans forward, all blue eyes and terrific face.

“Tell me,” He says softly, “Tell me why you accepted the pay off.”

“Because no matter who won to rule Gotham — the Waynes or the plotting syndicates — it wouldn’t matter for us,” Eric confesses. “The syndicates have a backer. And under this backer the Hand would never have made it. Stay silent and earn the Wayne’s wrath is to perish. To speak to you of this plot and be turned on by the plotters who surround the Hand’s territory on all sides is immediate suicide. If the plotters won this battle but lost the war we would perish. If I was silent and you lost the plotters would still remove the Hand from the playing field for whatever excuse they could find. In every situation the Lucky Hand would have to fold.”

Grayson closes his eyes, bringing up a hand to press at his temples. It obscures his face for one moment of relief on Eric’s part.

“I will not act on the Lucky Hand for this,” he finally says, drawing up, buttoning his suit jacket once more. “That’s my personal statement on the matter. But as you can guess, the Wayne family’s many arms are rarely in agreement. Pull a repeat of seven years ago. Convince us. For what it’s worth — I think you have a shot at it.”

[youngwings-writes]

Infinitely Ordinary

Lee Felix x OC

Summary: "𝕀 𝕣𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕀 𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕕 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕠 𝕤𝕝𝕠𝕨 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟"

Busy. Busy worrying, working, just trying to survive. That was the daily life of Jordan Johnson. The world never seemed to slow down; not for her...not for anyone. Finally deciding to take matters into her own hands and get some much needed R&R, she jets off on a trip to South Korea. While there, she unexpectedly meets her soulmate. Will they be able to find happiness together, or will his status get in the way?

Genre: Fluff

Length: 1.5k

Chapter 3: Dream Boy

Buckle up kiddos, the story is gonna pick up in this chapter! We also may or may not be meeting a certain someone this chapter ;) Now, let's get into it!!

So maybe lying down on my bed after an insanely long flight wasn't my brightest idea. I was so sure the day I landed would also be spent exploring, but my body had other plans for me. After flopping uncerimoniously on the bed in my hotel room, the exhaustion caught up to me and lulled me to sleep. For 14 hours.

When I finally woke up from my unintentional hibernation, it was 6 AM.

Lovely.

With my body refusing to go back to sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and began getting ready for the day.

Knowing how early it was definitely put my mind at ease and let me take my time in the shower. I let the hot water cascade down my back as I hummed a little tune to myself. Most of my shower was spent taking in the warmth if I'm being entirely honest. Oh the perks of not having to pay a water bill.

When the water started to run lukewarm, I turned off the faucet and got out. I made my way to my bags that I had left near the door the day before. Grabbing one and heaving it up onto the bed, I ruffled through my clothes and chose an outfit: frayed black shorts, a cropped maroon and white striped shirt, and some Dr. Martens.

Returning to the bathroom, I got dressed, did my hair, and brushed my teeth. Giving myself a once-over, I gave myself a small smile and nod in satisfaction.

Sitting down on the bed, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. The screen read 7:45 AM along with a few notifications. I responded to the few texts I had received from close friends and family assuring them that I arrived safely. I then quickly checked the other random notification that were primarily from social media. Satisfied with the lack of notifications, I turned my phone off, unplugged it, grabbed my backpack, and made my way out the door.

While there were many places I wanted to visit in Seoul, my stomach decided that breakfast was a necessity before I visited any of them. Unlike my hometown, there were many cafes around, so finding one using navigation and calling a cab was unnecessary. Instead, I opted to just walk around for a bit until I found a cafe that seemed interesting to me.

It didn't take long for me to find a cafe that I wanted to go to. The moment I stepped into the cafe, I was greeted a hoard of dogs. There were so many different breeds scattered about the building.

Coffee, pasteries, and dogs. I was in heaven.

I quickly paid the server my entrance fee and was lead to a table in the far right corner.

Placing a menu on the table in front of me, my server smiled and bowed politely before making their way back up to the counter. I picked up the menu, scanning through the various snacks and beverages. While there were some decent cafes back home, I don't think I had ever seen one with such an extensive menu.

And the dogs; you can't forget the dogs.

Picking something to drink and something to snack on took me much longer than I had originally anticipated. It also may or may not have ended up being more than just one drink and one snack...only sorry to my bank account on that one.

Waiting for my order to come out, I took a good look around the cafe. Everything about it was so different from the cafes I went to back home. Most of the ones I had been to before had a very rustic or very modern design. This cafe was definitely modern and minimalistic, but it was also very homey. The entire vibe of it made me very relaxed.

Mindlessly petting one of the lovely pups next to me, I began fiddling with my phone. Social media was always a good distraction from my unbearable impatience regarding food. Plus, it gave me the time to message some friends and family to tell them I'm safe and out having a good time.

I was soon brought out of my trance by a gentle buzz emitting from the coaster coaster I was given; my order was finally ready. I made my way to the counter and swapped my buzzer for a tray with way more sugar than I needed on it. I could almost cry just looking at everything I bought.

Sitting back down in my corner, I gently placed the tray on the table. I first made sure to photograph everything I had ordered. Typically I wouldn't do this when I went out for food or drinks, but I wanted to make sure I had memories to look back on from this trip. After all of my items had been properly documented, I went straight for the Oreo roll cake and Cookies N Cream milkshake.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for sweets.

I was so engrossed in all the sugary snacks and beverages in front of me that I didn't hear the bell above the door ring. The presence of another customer vaguely registered when he began ordering. I was still very much focused on what was in front of me, the patron's deep Korean becoming background noise. It wasn't until the man took a seat at the adjacent table that I was actually aware there was another person in the cafe.

From what I could tell, the man wasn't terribly tall or short, was roughly the same age as me, and oddly familiar. I couldn't clearly see his face because he was bent over in his seat petting a Golden Retriever, but something about him screamed that I knew him.

Ignoring the itching in the back of my mind, I focused on my food again. I was once again completely enchanted by the copious amounts of sugar... or at least I was until the man's buzzer went off and he made his way past me to get his order. It was in that moment that I got a decent glance at his face.

Freckles. Lots of freckles.

Holy shit. It's Lee Felix.

My heart was racing, pounding so loud I'm sure others could hear it. My cheeks were definitely the color of strawberries, my pale skin never failing to show internal emotions. My right forearm burned.

Wait, why is my forearm burning?

Feeling beyond flustered at the fact that my ultimate bias is sitting less than 10 feet away from me, I tried to distract myself. First I acted like there was something really interesting on my phone; that didn't work for long. I turned my attention to my forearm instead, which had now turned from a burning to just being oddly warm.

My eyes widened.

There, on my previously empty skin, was a tattoo of a sun.

No. Fucking. Way.

It seemed I wasn't the only one experiencing this sensation, as when I looked up I locked eyes with the freckly boy.

I froze.

Sitting there doing nothing obviously wasn't going to do either of us any good. I think Felix realized I wasn'tt going to make the first move, so he slowly got up and made his way towards me. Gently, he grabbed my arm, examining the new ink. I glanced at the arm grasping mine.

There was a crescent moon.

Taking a deep breath, I looked up to meet his eyes once again. His gaze was warm yet firm, doing nothing to calm the butterflies running rampant in my stomach.

"Well shit," I breathed out before I could stop myself. I quickly slapped my hand over my mouth, cursing myself for being so stupid.

Apparently my thoughtlessness was enough to lighten the situation a bit, Felix letting out a little chuckle.

"I'm so sorry! My mind is running a mile a minute right now. I'm not sure what I was expecting to happen today, but this definitely wasn't it," I say, letting out a nervous laugh.

"Don't worry, you're totally fine! I can definitely say this isn't something I expected either," he smiled at me.

I finally found the courage to move, standing on wobbly legs. I hope I didn't look as unsteady as I felt. I swear if someone breathed on me I would collapse. Nonetheless, I powered through and leaned back on the table slightly for support.

"I'm Jordan," I mustered, sticking out my hand and offering a shy smile.

"Felix," he replied while reciprocating my actions.

Dropping hands, things grew slightly awkward once again.

"So... I guess we're soulmates?"

A/N:    AAANNNDDD that's where I'm gonna leave this chapter :) Our two main characters have finally met, so things should start picking up here soon! Thanks again for reading!! See you guys in the next chapter :) ~youngwings-writes

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[wpdeed]

10 BEST WORDPRESS THEMES FOR DROPSHIPPING BUSINESS TO MAKE PROFITABLE

Dropshipping has become the most positive business strategy by numerous venders. There is an increasingly dropshipping website made ordinary. Since all you have to begin a dropshipping business is a decent website for selling your things and an association with a decent maker, having an incredible dropshipping website has become a worry for some online dropshippers. Step by step instructions to have a delightful website that is both quick enough and powerful enough to persuade your clients are the most significant variables while making a dropshipping website and picking dropshipping WordPress themes for your website.

It's essential to pick the best WooCommerce themes for a dropshipping business to make it stick out. Anyway, how would you do it right? What are the best arrangements in the market? This is the thing that we will examine today.

How to Choose the Best WooCommerce Themes for a Drop-shipping Business to make profitable?

There are numerous elements that you have to remember to make your website all the more engaging and usable. Underneath you can discover five of the most basic factors that characterize the best WooCommerce themes for any dropshipping business.

Your eCommerce WordPress theme should be easy to install

Advanced customization opportunities

Fast loading pages

User experience also matters

Support and updates

10 Best WordPress Themes For Dropshipping Business To Make Profitable

Below are the 10 best WordPress themes for Dropshipping to make profitable your business:

Basel - Responsive eCommerce Theme

BASEL is a professional minimalist AJAX responsive theme built to create modern powerful e-commerce web-site. Using popular Drag & Drop page builder, a lot of theme settings and options, premium sliders and WooCommerce, you are able to create a heavy store that looks perfect on any screen resolution. The theme is suitable for any kind of shop like cloth, electronics, furniture, accessories, flowers or any other.

Basel is a WordPress Theme designed for profits and for creating dropshipping stores for Aliexpress. Therefore, along with the integration with Aliexpress, it employed a number of upselling and cross-sell techniques to increase the average order value. The theme is quite simple but functional.

More info / Download

Marketo - eCommerce & Multivendor Marketplace Woocommerce WordPress Theme

Marketo is one of the most impressive WooCommerce themes for drop-shipping businesses that can handle the multi-vendor website. Marketo is a clean, modern, user-friendly, responsive and highly customizable Woocommerce Powerd WordPress Theme, built for especially for your WooCommerce electronics and multivendor store. The theme is fantastic, many options for customization, the features are great and the customer support is fast and finds solutions for any requirements.

Marketo concept idea is to use as much space in very Shap and user-friendly way to show a lot of products in Different ways. You can find 11+ different HomePage styles with 15+ unique headers styles, Product details page with the product shop pages blog page so on.

Marketo Also Compatible with Dokan Multivendor Solution. Build your own Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Magento like the marketplace in just 30 minutes. Start your own multivendor marketplace and earn through commissions with products ranging from digital, physical to variable.

More info / Download

Urus - Multipurpose Responsive WooCommerce Theme

Urus is multipurpose WooCommerce theme you will need for any WooCommerce projects. Urus theme comes with ready to use layouts for different eCommerce industries such as fashion, accessories, furniture, digital, electronics, jewelry, food, retail and other.

Urus is a theme designed to work on any device, especially mobile devices. It brings great experience.

Urus supports a complete ajax shop, with intelligent filtering, delivering extremely fast speeds, eliminating the need to wait for page loads. And Urus, with its Instant Product Search system, instantly finds results instantly when you type without waiting for a moment.

More info / Download

XStore | Responsive Multi-Purpose WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Are you going to launch a wholesale store? Is that a drop-shipping business selling multiple product categories that entice you? Then consider working with the X-store WooCommerce theme for this purpose. XStore makes e-commerce easy. This elegant and intuitive eCommerce theme is carefully developed and includes that set of pages, tools and settings that will help you create a professional-looking and trustworthy online shop.

You can easily import via the most intuitive installer demo for electronics, fashion, furniture, niche store, clothing, glasses, watches, sport, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, marketplace, medical, food, auto parts, organic, landing page, music shop and other.

Also, XStore comes with several widgets that will help you improve the user’s perception of your shop. The Theme Options is user-friendly and requires no special knowledge, adding value to a beautifully responsive theme.

More info / Download

Flatsome | Multi-Purpose Responsive WooCommerce Theme

Flatsome is the perfect theme for your shop, company website or all your client’s websites as an agency or freelancer. What a great theme! It has all the tools needed to create super first responsive websites with amazing user experience. This theme is the gift that keeps on giving. Every single update adds new features, the shortcodes it provides are clean and work very well. Unlimited options with a revolutionary responsive page builder give you the ability to create everything without any coding. This theme was designed ridiculously well and it’s really awesome. It can be a stunning theme for your fabulous online store.

More info / Download

KartPul - Multipurpose WooCommerce Theme

KartPul is WordPress eCommerce theme based on the WooCommerce plugin. It is suitable for digital, electronics, mobile, food, vegetables, plant, garden tools, auto, fruits, kitchen, watches, accessories, furniture, art, ceramic, handicraft, decor, fashion, jewellery, lingerie, lighting and home accessories store. It is also multipurpose theme which can be used for any kind of online store. KartPul WooCommerce theme is looking good with it’s clean and fresh design. All sub pages are customized.

More info / Download

Jupiter - Elementor Multi-Purpose Theme

Jupiter X is your all-in-one platform to create pixel perfect websites, fast & easy. It comes with Elementor page builder, the world’s leading WordPress page builder. You can customize Jupiter X globally using WordPress customizer. The brand new shop customizer helps you customize every aspect of your online shop including checkout and cart page. Moreover, you can now build your own headers and footers easily with visual editors. Jupiter X also makes it possible to customize your blog and portfolio list and single pages. It doesn’t stop there though! You can now easily customize your custom posts archive and single pages which allows creating any listing/directory websites such as hotels, car rentals, real estate, library, recipe, job boards and much more.

More info / Download

WoodMart - Responsive WooCommerce WordPress Theme

WoodMart’ is a premium WordPress theme​ designed from the ground up for building supreme WooCommerce online stores​ of any kind. Focussed on user experience​ first WoodMart uses a powerful AJAX tech​ to give users a very fast and seamless online shopping interface​ without the need to constantly refresh pages.

Build any kind of online store ​you can imagine and start earning that passive revenue stream​ you have been thinking about with ‘WoodMart’ for WordPress​ and never look back.

More info / Download

Sober - WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Sober is a unique and modern WordPress e-commerce theme built with Bootstrap and powered by Visual Composer. It was built for your digital store, hi-tech store, watch store, men store, women store, clothing store, furniture store, bookstore, cosmetics shop, luxury jewelry, and accessories store…

Furthermore, this amazing theme is integrated with WooCommerce, many plugins with lots of features, mini cart, custom widgets, unlimited color schemes, Slider with smooth transition effects, Menu with multiple column styles and advanced widgets… You are free to control this theme in order to make your store more friendly and adorable for your customers…

Let’s experience this awesomeness and to explore more features in this theme. We are sure that you will fall in love with our Sober at first sight.

More info / Download

Savoy - Minimalist AJAX WooCommerce Theme

Savoy creates the basis for an amazing online store. Its modern minimalist design puts your products in focus, and our built-in AJAX functionality gives your customers a seamless user experience on both desktop and mobile devices.

More info / Download

Hopefully, this list of 10 most popular Dropshipping WordPress theme will be of useful value for your dropshipping business.

[instacoders8-blog]

Web Design Trends and Evolution of Responsive Web Design

He started worldwide web in 1989. Hence it became 30 in 2019. Over the past three decades, web trends have completely changed the world like no other technology. It has enabled the technical world and web design services to build new experiences.

The number of smart devices has grown exceptionally. That is why offering high quality and responsive web design (RWD) for desktop, mobile phone and tablet becomes important.

20 Biggest Trends in Web Design in 2020

1. Dark Mode

Dark design is one of the most important trends in 2020. Users can enable dark themes. Dark backgrounds ensure a higher contrast ratio and design elements stand out well. It also reduces eye strain and improves visual ergonomics.

They are easy to see with the ultra modern look. Darker modes are best for OLED screens because it extends the life of the screen and also saves energy. The black color of the background emphasizes the accent colors, improves visibility and results in a dynamic design. That is why web design services make many demands on the dark mode.

There are many advantages that the dark mode offers with the low light setting, for example, it extends the life of the battery and reduces the strain on the eyes.

2. Imperfections that Add Personality

In 2020 the hand drawn elements bring life and inject emotions into the websites. The heart and soul visitors crave such imperfect designs as it adds reality.

Hand drawn icons will be a big trend in the coming years. It is connected to the emotions of the users. It adds creativity and positive things that can brighten up the visitors day.

Hand drawn icons, unique designs and other elements contribute to your brand personality. Your brand can stand out from the competition with a human and lifelike appearance. In 2020, web design services will deliberately focus on messy looking elements in handmade illustrations or hand drawn icons.

3. Immersive 3D Elements:

3D technology in graphic web designs is attractive to users. The hyper realistic 3D provides an immersive experience. These 3D designs break the line between reality and digital space. Static, interactive and animated 3D web designs create a real sense of depth and realism. Designers make 3D models smooth shapes with enchanting colors and a realistic look. They give the feeling and appearance of modern, clean and balanced designs. The interactive 3D effect is another digital technology that allows visitors to stay on the site longer.

4. Soft Shadows, Layers & Floating Elements:

Use soft shadows and floating elements to create pseudo-3D effects designers. The layered designs make it more interesting. It gives your page more depth with the 3D Lite look.

5. Ultra Minimalist Navigation:

In 2020, people prefer simplistic, minimalist and mobile friendly web design to make faster navigation possible.

Designers try to make web designing easier so that users can navigate smoothly through the site.Minimalistic designs are suitable for smaller devices without any ease of use.

6. Collaboration of Photos and Illustrations:

Combining photos with handmade 2D illustrations is now becoming a trend. Designers replace different parts of images with hand drawn illustrations and this creates a nice mix of two different realities.

7. Pattern in Web Design:

Patterns are very popular in 2020. A diverse design that covers the background not only creates a refreshing look, but also a mobile friendly web design.

8. Retro Style:

The retro style of the 50s and 60s is widely used by designers. It is a source of inspiration because it reminds users of the past. In 2020, monochromatic or no color at all is a trend and old becomes new again. The use of duller colors, dust noise, black and white photos and other old design elements that remind us of the past. And other such effects with a touch of nostalgia.

9. Line Drawings:

Line art illustrations have found their way to web design companies with its sleek, creative and professional image. They are a total hit in the world of web designing.

10. Illustrations to Combine Art and Design:

Different styles of illustrations create amazing illustrations with pastel and watercolor. For creating modern and weird art, characters without features or other body parts, and more. Digital designers create three dimensional hand drawn flat illustrations with fairly versatile tools.

11. Chatbots:

This technology inevitably becomes part of websites to improve customer service. It can handle calls without a customer service representative. In 2020, it is a huge trend for a web design company to use Chatbot on the website.

12. Sketched Typography

Sketched typography is an emerging trend of 2020. It's about how designers can choose from a list of fonts to work with. 2020 more designers go through typographic experiments. Even the imperfections in the hand drawn illustrations can be used in web designs because it adds real personality.

13. Huge Font Size and Extra Large Elements

The use of the ever increasing font size on the images is another trend of 2020. This life size is even visible from the entire room. It is a trend to use brand names from great heights that can take up half the viewing window of the website's homepage.

Moreover, large photos and videos stand out and attract attention to your company. Useful design services use extra large elements such as full screen images, bold typography and large website menu icons to communicate your brand message immediately.

14. Geometric Shapes and Patterns

Liquid or organic forms, including square, circular, rectangular or any straight form, were trending in 2019. Although it is not surprising in 2020, the opposite is also trending. Geometric patterns, shapes and lines are now becoming popular.

15. User-Driven Animations

It's about combining user interaction with animations. These tasteful animations activate input from the website visitors.

16. Trendy Color Schemes:

Some of the trendy color combinations are the parts of our daily lives. In 2020 these color schemes can find their way to usability design services. For example, a trendy color combination of Instagram and Pinterest is dusty blush / light pink and primary blue. Other examples of trendy color combinations are earth tones (brown, wood texture, brown tones, green) and jewel tones (purple and green).

17. Solid Color Blocks:

Some websites split their site into different parts that form rectangular and square blocks, with a different color.

18. Vivid Colors:

Designers use bright colors for the background to enhance visual interest. Simple vivid colors of the layout can be memorable for users. Useful design services use such colors because it is one of the effective ways to keep visitors on your site.

19. Geometric Patterns:

The use of geometric patterns and shapes for digital products works well. PNGs and SVG images together with the background of geometric patterns can be scaled well.

20. Bold Typography:

Solid text is the best way to convey your brand message. With the help of screen dominating typography you can draw the attention of users to important messages. Bold fonts appear to be powerful for a functional purpose.

Source Url: https://customwebdevelopmentservices1.blogspot.com/2020/02/web-design-trends-and-evolution-of.html

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[aliesteem]

An Immensely Through Fine Dining Experience from the Brokest College Student Ever.

I’ve recently broken into my old, student email and was reunited with the dozens and dozens of papers I’ve written about dining in Culinary school. These papers scored me A’s and made me realize I possibly do have a future in writing. I’m still proud nearly two years later so I thought I’d share. Enjoy!

Introduction

I am a college student and with that, it’s practically needless to say that I am also broke, very broke. I, however, through great resilence have maintained my champagne dreams enough to actually see a fine dining experience. This is NYC, there had to be one I could afford. In my heavy search the top, three included Tocqueville, Del Posto, and Le Bernardin. These three I took into consideration because of there more affordable price range, beautiful display, and interior design I’ve seen online and (or) its popularity online. It was  Tocqueville that caught my eye. Located 1 East 15th Street in Manhattan, NYC. Tocqueville was most affordable as if they were thinking of college students like me who dreamt of a mouthful of caviar. The others came with a hefty price tag, ones that honestly made very nervous. To me, a $10 burrito Chipotle sounds like a luxury so you can imagine my reaction in finding out Le Bernardin restaurant that costs over $87 for its pri-fixe menu. It doesn’t sound like a shocking expense to some but on this side of the fence, it is.  Del Posto was a little more affordable at $50 but it still wasn’t in my price range.  Luckily, Tocqueville provided the most inexpensive pri-fixe menu only costing $36 for a three-course menu. I felt relieved. I decided this restaurant is my final choice.

Tocqueville, named after the French political sociologist and theorist is owned by husband and wife Marco Moreira and Joann Makovitzky who also own new restaurants 15th East and The Fourth in the same city. With no trouble found I found that the Chef is Jason Lawless on StarChefs.com. He has managed the kitchen since August 2011. The restaurant itself has been opened since 2000 and in seventeen years it has built its reputation of being one of the most innovative French-American restaurants in New York City. You can see from how modern chic yet classic they truly are by their restaurant design. From the photographs provided on the official website, tocquevillerestaurant.com - the look of the restaurant is a cool but clean creamy white and black color scheme. I can tell it is a place that provides excellence a traditional fine dining restaurant would hold but pulls themselves away from being boring and ordinary. I adore the minimalistic and classic take. Their dishes and plating looked absolutely sparkling as well. The picture heading the page of their menu category was the Grilled Filet of Beef. A pearly white plate of succulent meat topped with small diced tomatoes, red onion and herbs were appetizing enough for me to set a reservation for a party of two with a close friend.  

`Making the reservation was fairly easy. Once I called a person who sounded to be a young woman answered sweetly. I asked to make a reservation and she was very quick and efficient. There wasn’t any of the run around that I had anticipated. The space I wanted was open. It didn’t take any more than say four minutes. I was surprised. I expected the restaurant to be packed with reservations especially on a Friday. We talked for a short while after about what will partake once I arrived. The phone call was my first experience with Tocqueville’s true hospitality. It made me all the more comfortable with coming in and dining.  

My expectations in visiting Tocqueville are sky-high. For one, it is a fine dining restaurant. I’ve never been to one. This is exciting, I want it to be fascinating. Above all, I am looking forward to the food. Since I’m a meat and a wine lover the Red Wine Braised Short Rib sounds appetizing. I cannot wait. There is a bit of nervousness about the way the employees will treat me, however. I am visibly very young and a person of color. I sometimes feel when I enter nice places that I’m not supposed to be there. I feel like the oddball. In past experiences the waiters did nothing to eliminate that feeling, making me more unsettled with long stares and awkward treatment. Other guests dining had body language that expressed that I was ruining the atmosphere for them.  I hope that doesn’t happen this time but as always I am remaining positive. From what I know now Tocqueville is a beautiful restaurant with a kind, warm friendliness. I’m counting down the days till the visit.  

The Visit

I woke up a Friday morning with a Ferris Buller-type charisma and energy. I was going to visit a beautiful fine dining restaurant in the city! I have never been to a French restaurant before much less one that was seemingly so elegant. I had the jitters. What should I wear? How should I do my hair? Which train should I take? Is my friend going to be on time? Did I give her the right directions? A million and one questions running through my head. I thought I ought to relax my nerves before I begin my day. I snugged my feet into my orange fluffy slippers and made my way to the kitchen. I picked a Lavender Jasmine mix tea from my collection to boil. Tea always soothes the soul. I brought my mug to the window and looked out for a moment. The day was chilly, sunny but very chilly. “How am I going to dress nicely and still be warm?” I asked myself then take a short sip. I was still nervous but pushed to let it go and know everything will go well.  

My reservation was at 12pm sharp for lunch. It was already about 8am and I know how slow I can be with getting ready in the morning so I start right away. I jump into the hot shower, brush my teeth and prep my skin with scrubs and cleansers for makeup. I hop out, dry off, put most of my day’s clothes on and begin to do my makeup. This takes the longest out of getting ready. I try to see if I can get it done within 30 minutes' time. Nope! It took me almost an hour because I kept messing up but luckily I started early so I was still in good time. I decide on a long, oversized, grey sweater that flows over my black leggings. I pair it jet black heels. Next, was my hair, I have natural, kinky curly hair that usually needs lots of attention but yesterday I braided it up. All l had to do now was unravel them so they can come out fluffy and defined. Once all my clothes were on, fully moisturized, fixed my hair and makeup done and feeling confident to step outside it is 10am. I get a text from my friend, who I invited to dine with me.  “I don’t know what to wear!” she texts. She thinks she’s going to be late. I knew it but I didn’t stress. I tell her don’t think too much in it, just wear something nice but no jeans or sneakers. She tells me she’ll figure it out. I just hope she makes it on time. I make sure everything around the apartment is tidy and in order before I head out the door. I text my mother that I am leaving to go to the restaurant since she’s already at work. She texts me “Good luck!” and I’m out the door.  

I live on a very popular, main street in Brooklyn. It’s loud and lively this time of day. People are heading to work and school in droves. Walking down the block to catch the A train I run into a family friend I haven’t spoken to in a long time. So long, in fact, I can’t even remember her name but her face is vivid in my memory. She asks how I am. I tell her about school and how much I love majoring in Hospitality Management since I’ve transferred from the old school. I keep in mind the time and explain to her I’m on my way to somewhere important and have to get going. She reminds me to say hello to my mother for her and I rush into the train station. Luckily the train arrives immediately. I’m not a train girl not in the least. I know it’s the New York way but I love traveling on an empty bus as oppose to a crowded train with performers yelling “It’s Showtime!” in my ear. It’s not my cup of tea. While I’m on the train I read a Pete Wells article I’ve pointed out. I need to know his review for a class. I’m really into it because I’m a fan of sushi. It’s one of my absolute favorites. The good read distracts me from the groups of people stuffing themselves into the cart along with the street entertainers swirling on poles above my head. I’m thankful.  

My stop is a Fulton Street which I switch over to a 4 or 5 train because it gets me to Union Square under ten minutes. Once I climb out of the train station I check my phone. There’s a text from my friend she says she needs more time but is about to get on the train now! It was 11:23am and we planned to meet at 11:30am. I guessed she lost track of time. I decided to find a way. I am kind of scared to walk in so I wait right outside the restaurant to wait for my friend meanwhile taking a few pictures of my own. It’s nearly 12pm but she is nowhere in sight. 

I go inside to introduce myself to a woman who I believe is the Maître d’ of the restaurant. I tell her my reservations and how I am a student doing a report. Her face suddenly gleams in a huge smile and asks if I talked to Roger. I express I don’t know who Roger is even though I feel I should know. She tells me to sit down which she gets him for me. In a few minutes, Roger is in front of me. A short, well-suited older man with blonde white hair. I don’t recognize him but he says he’s a professor at my school. He begins to ask me questions about wine. I was taken aback a little because I wasn’t expecting it. I tell him my Wine & Beverage professor that I’m taking now, Professor Aliah. I convey how much I’m enjoying her class and all the elements in detail there is to wine-making. It turns out Professor Roger is a Master Sommelier. I wished I said more about wine to him but I was so nervous I’m not used to settings like these.  My friend still wasn’t there after the talk with Roger. I told him I’d wait a bit longer she is supposed to come any second and he told me to take all the time I need. In the meantime, I took pictures and looked around the restaurants outside and the entryway. The name of the dining establishment is printed white on a black sight like a tent over the sidewalk.  The door where the guest enter is made up of all glass. It is chic, modern and simplistic. The Maitre D’s desk in the reception appeared tall, sleek, dark wood tabletop with a shiny, brown wooden, dimmed lamp. There are also award plaques and photos framed all along the wall. Their awards included the 2016 Forbes Magazine’s Restaurant with the highest rating. Best of Award of Excellence 2016 by Wine Spectacular and a 4.8 out of 5 from Zagat 2017. The restaurant is not just popular but highly respected and celebrated, making its way to more great success is that they’ve been recently recommended by the Michelin Guide in 2016.  

-

 I looked at the time on my phone and it said 12:30am. Since I was already checked in I figured I was safe from losing my reservation but I opted to seat in the dining room than to take up space in the front seating area any longer. To get to the dining room one needed to pass by the bar. The bar designed with a black and silver color scheme was the most modern section in the restaurant. On the bar top sat a huge marble vase filled with light blue, yellow and pastel green orchids that touched the ceiling. Soothing French jazz spilled gently out of the above speakers. The ambiance, graceful and contemporary. I was in awe. I actually hoped I could have my lunch there.   As soon as I sat down Roger offered me water and the front server – who name escapes me handed me a menu. I told him I wanted to wait for a friend. He was very kind and understood. Pouring the water I realize the glasses were short, open chalice glasses, still easy to hold by them small stem. It was fifteen minutes later when I heard my friend’s voice speaking to the Maitre D’ in the reception area. Seconds later she came walking in the dining area and sat down. She apologized for the lateness. I’ve been late to her events before so I could only be so upset. Seconds later the front server returned to hand us menus.

-

The menus were the longest menus I’ve seen. The outside a smooth olive green, the outside a yellow and cream menu with a folder style with all its printed dishes in bold and script. The front server in his black and white uniform finished with a sharp blue tie read over some of the meals that were listed. I appreciated his attentiveness. His body language was confident, alert to where I was impressed by his time and time again throughout the service. He was very efficient when scanning the room and our table. I took the opportunity to ask him the style of the napkin fold, neither did Professor Roger. “We simply make up the style,” he told me. The back server then came up to us from a side station behind the elongated gold curtains and offered bread. I was watching his Frenching style closely. He did it so quickly, it looked easy for him. When I attempt it in class I often lose the stability of the utensils in my hand. I chose the focaccia which was scrumptious. It was dense but not overbearing with flavor. The focaccia was filled with olives, spices, herbs and was beyond incredible with the home-made butter. I asked for another.  

-

My friend and I talked about our morning getting ready and caught up with each other’s lives since we haven’t talked in a month. In perfect timing, the front server came to take our orders. We picked two courses from the pri-fix menu. I ordered the Organic Potato and Baby Leeks Soup as an appetizer and a Red Wine Braised Short ribs entrée. As we waited for our meals and the back server pointed each of our tables I observed the dining area. The dining area was mildly lit from the light gold, sparkling crystal chandelier from above. The walls were a warm yellow with rich, gold curtains to match. The seats were made up of a comfortable cool silver, velvet. My attention was grabbed by the gigantic paintings on the wall that was created by an artist named Cheryl Roy Starer. The abstract art stood up on the walls so stunning with its blends of green, blue and white. It was a conversation piece definitely.  We were met with a unique hors d'oeuvres compliments of the Chef. It’s a fresh new take on the Southern-known treat. It’s a toasted golden brioche topped with the cooked yolk and whites of a quail eggs and finished with Alabama caviar.  The deviled eggs we centered on an all-white porcelain dish designed by Bernardaud Classic Silverware. This was my first time having caviar. The flavors delicate and salty reminded me of sardines in a way. The texture was cold creamy goodness. I wished I could have more. As we scrapped the crumbs from whatever was left of the exquisite deviled egg dish the back server approached us again to offer more bread. This reminded me of my Dining Room class where we service almost the same exact way, consistently offering our guest all the bread and quail eggs whites hard-boiled finished with Alabama caviar.  The deviled eggs centered on an all-white porcelain dish designed by Bernardaud Classic Silverware. This was my first time having caviar. The flavors delicate and salty, reminded me of sardines in a way. The texture was cold creamy goodness. I wished I could have more. As we scrapped the crumbs of whatever was left of the exquisite deviled egg dish the back server approached us again to offer more bread. I was waiting. 

-

This reminded me of my Dining Room class where we service almost the same exact way, consistently offering our guest all the bread they’d like. It was nice to be on the other side of the service. I chose the focaccia again. I could not get enough. This time however I was able to dip it into the Potato Leek soup which arrived moments later. When I first saw the bowl it was only filled with sautéed’ black mushroom and a miniature leek in the center of the bowl. I thought to myself there must be a mistake. Turns out the front server came prepared with a tiny creamer pitcher and poured the creamy soup into the bowl right in front of me. It was original and added a special touch. To be completely honest, I was expecting the soup to be bland. I’ve had potato soups so lackluster I pushed myself to finish a bowl. This wasn’t the case. The soup was luscious and silky, earthy with just enough seasoning. The soup was so harmonious with my pallet I was tempted to lick the bowl. I reminded myself I was in a very classy place but it was difficult not to, simply divine! When the entrée arrived I was the most enthusiastic. I am a huge meat lover. Anything meat I am a fan of. I’ll choose it over anything in the menu. I looked at the plate in front of me. The dish appeared kind of odd. My image of short-ribs wasn’t this. The dish came in a wide, circular plate. The meat of short rib formed in a rectangle, an island centered in the middle of potato puree. The short rib was glossed over with a deep brown red wine sauce that resembled chocolate. A lady sitting across from our table asked what dessert we ordered. We told her it was actually an entrée and she was surprised. On top of the short rib sat a roasted pearl onion and cylinder chunks of buttered carrots. The short rib melted on my fork as I cut through it. It was wonderfully tender, I didn’t need a knife. The flavor was robust, the sauce adding a vigorous taste of richness. Swirling a piece of the meat through the potato puree and putting it in my mouth it felt like I was eating butter. It has to be the most well-presented, heavenly dishes I’ve experienced in recent years.  Unfortunately, I was unable to order a dessert since I was on such a strict budget. Next time I’d make sure to experience the sweet parts of their cuisines. 

-

It took a while before the check came and I appreciate that. Usually, the front server passes the check to me as soon as the last fork bite leaves my mouth and I find it disrespectful. It hints that the server wants you to hurry up and leave completely killing the feeling of hospitality. My friend and I were fully ready to go when the bill came. It came up to $63.15 for both of us, not too pricey. We decided to tip 20% then we were on our way out but not before I could check out the bathrooms. There were three available bathrooms in the restaurant. One upstairs, one ground level and the other downstairs. I chose the downstairs bathroom. The staircase down was dark with small, glowing gold light to lead the way. The bathroom was covered in light and dark brown marble. The look gave a beach house theme added with the beige weaved baskets and dried plants spray painted gold. The vases were filled with white seashells. The walls were a sexy, dark gold against a shiny, wide mirror. The light was too dimmed, however. I couldn’t see myself as clearly as I would like. The bathroom was also extremely clean, immaculate even. I could tell the restaurant as a whole took tidiness and organization seriously.  I enjoyed myself thoroughly at this restaurant. The ambiance and décor gave me what I wanted, fully satisfying my eyes as well as mouth with every savory dish. I’m glad I decided to come here as opposed to other establishments. It was affordable yet delivered an essence of great fine dining. I plan on going with another friend for a celebration. I’ll try everything I had my eye on the second time around. The restaurant met all expectations and taught me an extra thing or two about quality service. It ensured a tranquil sense of hospitality and an intuitive and refreshing strategy in service. I’d recommend the restaurant to absolutely anyone.  

[xoagray]

Thoughts on WordGrinder

So recently I've been looking for something to write on that was a bit more minimalistic than things like Word or LibreOffice.  While those are great word processing apps, they're also a bit distracting. I was inspired by people like George R. R. Martin who uses a very old DOS word processing app called WordStar.

I actually thought about using that, but the issue I had there was that it's so old that it's difficult to get it running on anything modern.  Most of the people that use it either go to great lengths to get it working on a more modern computer, or like the a fore mentioned Mr. Martin use it on a computer that is literally an antique.  At one point in my life I did have hardware that old sitting around, but now a days I really don't.  (Well, to be totally fair, I do have that one nearly 20 year old Apple Powerbook G4, but I digress.)

So in my searching I found an app called WordGrinder.  It's very similar to old DOS programs like WordStar in that it's very simplistic, has minimal actual word processing features, and is aimed mostly at helping you get the things in your head written out with a minimum of distractions.  If you're old enough to remember working on machines that didn't use mice, you'll feel right at home here.  If not, it might take a little getting used to.

Everything you need to get the job done is here, and it's got a great menu system that will help you find the stuff you want to use.  But it's all accessed via the Escape key and keyboard.  Your mouse has no power here. ;)  If you spend a little time with it though, you'll be blasting through the options for the things you need in no time.  Everything is directly accessible via a control+letter combination too, so once you know what you need it's as simple as pressing the appropriate buttons to make it happen. This might sound a little confusing if you've done everything with a mouse so far, but once you get the hang of it, it makes moving around through the menus a lot faster than bothering with a mouse.

It uses it's own proprietary format to save files, but it's capable of exporting to ODT, Text, HTML, Markdown, LaTeX, and Troff.  And from there work can be transferred to just about any other format one might need.  It doesn't do much of anything for formatting so there's little to worry about in that regard, so the format you export (or import) doesn't really make that big a difference.

If you're someone that finds yourself routinely using a lot of functions in programs like LibreOffice or Word, it's not for you.  But if you just want something efficient to put down words so you can get ideas out of your head and into a form where you can use and share them. WordGrinder might just be your next favorite program.

[ranjeetacademy-blog]

Newest Trends for Designing a Website

When a website becomes your business identity, it’s important to make it perfect and the first clause of the perfect website is its perfect design. Your website represents your business’s visual outlook. An eye-soothing design is equally important like the responsive web design. Web world is ever changing. There is only one constant in the world of web design and development and that is transform. Changing is a trend which you have to follow to survive the race.

Here are some of the latest trends we have sorted out for you. We bet you’ll love this: 

Single page website The concept continuing itself from the previous year. But it’s been proved that the single page-long scrolling web format is here to stay in few more years. A possible explanation to it is that users are so accustomed to vertical scrolling that it’s actually become unreasonable to split the content in several parts on separate pages – users have to make extra effort to get the full content.

 Use photo background Another design which is in trend and you should try it for your own site, is the background photo. For quite some time centers around photography become quite popular. Pioneered by fashion brands and photographers, this design approach is now successfully used virtually in almost every industry. Photo backgrounds are great for branding and presentation purposes when your main objective is to make a strong visual statement. This is why it’s used so often by fashion brands, travel companies, and many others creative workers.

 Hidden menu Adopting design for smaller screens has also affected how menus are displayed and with space being at a premium, fly out, slide out and hidden menus are becoming more popular across the board. It’s all about bringing an app-like feel to an whole site.

 Flat design Flat design is one of our personal favorites. It is how it sounds, design by using objects that are uniform in color or appearance. It’s a minimalist approach to design. A few years back, textures were very popular. Now, with mobile devices and responsive design, it is harder to make these textures work well across multiple devices. Flat design gives the feel of layers and depth with flatter colors and minimalist design techniques. This way it’s much easier to make the design work on multiple devices.

 Brick like format The format is also related to flat design concept. This trend generally introduces a brick-like design, kind of grid featuring blocks of solid color coupled with blocks of photos or text. Users and designers stick with it because of its simplicity. The contrast between blocks of colors and images/text blocks create a strong visual interest which usually stimulates users to explore more.

 Parallax Parallax is a design and coding trend that is very popular nowadays. Parallax means two or more parallel objects moving at different speeds.” Parallax scrolling technique is used to break up the linear monotony of a website by having various objects scroll at different paces. Parallax will really become much more popular as more modern browsers support it, but even now there are already a lot of beautifully designed sites utilizing parallax scrolling. But this is the one thing you want to be very careful with. Sometimes the effect can be a little huge to your audience. But rather than that, it is visually compelling and can add motion to a site without using Flash or video. Parallax will give the appearance how the background is moving at a different rate than the foreground of a page.

 Ghost button Ghost buttons are those transparent empty buttons bordered with a very thin line and containing light. They are usually in sans-serif font. You have definitely seen them over the last year, and you can certainly expect to see more.

 Simplicity is best As far as possible make it simple. Eliminate unnecessary concept and pages. You should not overwhelm your viewers by giving multiple choices. Rely more on design rather content. It will drive more conversation. Use large visual heading for make it attractive.

 Typography Nowadays typography is in trend. Sometime back, designers had their limitation for using typefaces, as they had standard typefaces available in their computers. But those days are gone. Web font foundries such as Google fonts and Type kit allow you to use a virtually unlimited number of fonts for your web design. Designers have been taking advantage of this opportunity for some time now, and more and more sites are built with strong attention paid to typography.

Your website’s first and foremost criteria should be you audience. Website design shouldn’t be a matter of what one individual thinks is cool. Your design serves a purpose. Think about your audience’s needs. Use these techniques above to fulfil their demand. Design can be fun; it can be interesting or even ground breaking. But, always make sure it supports your goals.

If you are looking for the best Web Development and Digital Graphics Designing Company in Udaipur, then you should go with Ranjeet Computer Academy.

 Contact us:

Mobile No: +91-9460324253, +91-8239991144

Website: http://www.ranjeetcomputeracademy.com/

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The new expansion is not only about plants and flowers. In Garden Flipper, you're the one who decides how your garden looks like!ĭo you prefer widespread gardens of the Palace of Versailles or the minimalistic style of Zen gardens?ĭon't limit yourself! Let your garden shine for you and make your neighbors jealous of it! Make appraisers fight for it!Īnd if you like, put your feet up and relax in the sanctuary of silence and peace which will calm your senses and will give you the energy to implement new ideas in the next houses! Transform desolated gardens into beautiful masterworks - let them shine under your management.Īnd when you'll be ready to create your own garden… Of course, before you start experimenting with yourself, it's better to practice a little on other people's.

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Step by step, sink in the world of plants. House Flipper is a project that will teach you how to make repairs in your house. Download House Flipper trainer to capture the true house remodeling fantasy. With the Luxury Flipper game expansion, we are putting right into your hands dozens of types of new furniture: classic contemporary, antique and modern. It takes more than a paint job and moving things around to get a fixer-upper on the market. This best-selling title is within the reach of your hand, so don't wait any longer and get to renovating right away The. Unfortunately, the game lacks flexibility, which puts the player in a repetitive loop that kills the fun experience. House Flipper is a makeover game where all that matters is either flipping a property for fast cash or spending your hard-earned money on designing and creating your dream house, choosing from hundreds of design options. You’ll be cleaning most houses by picking up. Of course, it is up to the player to add a bit of visual flair to most of these properties, but a lick of paint can’t improve the visuals.

#House flipper game online coop professional

Mow the lawn, hew unwanted trees, tear out weeds and prepare your garden for a complete makeover! Map paths out, plant new trees and bushes and set flowerbeds.Įxplore completely new orders and discover innovative mechanics, which we've designed in association with professional gardeners! House Flipper is a killer simulation game. It feels like the game was slapped together with the bare minimum of assets, and the dull lack of personality was consistent with every house I visited.

#House flipper game online coop Pc

House Flipper freeload PC Game Repack. Give them a second life and promote them at a revenue What you’ve bought at your disposal is a set of instruments and components. Purchase, restore and transform devastated homes. Maybe it helps that large portions of the game, particularly the interfaces and menus, look very WIP, so the developers still have tons of work ahead of them, if they want to make this game more than a half-polished Alpha, and it shouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to give some core systems a complete overhaul Let's hope, then, that they are in this for the long haul.Have you ever thought of becoming a gardener? Thanks to Garden Flipper DLC it is now possible!īefore you'll start planting trees and plants you'll need to get rid of trash and rubble. House Flipper freeload (v1.2227) House Flipper is a singular likelihood to change into a one-man renovation crew. The process will go on and you are going to accept. Buy House Flipper - Garden DLC cheaper on Instant Gaming, the place to buy your games at the best price with immediate delivery + My account Support 24/7 Darkmode. As a gardener, you will have a chance to plant trees, flowers, and shape bushes after you are done with the routine tasks like cleaning and painting. From cleaning to designing, you are welcome to test and improve any skills in Garden Flipper 2019.

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But some of the necessary changes might require some pretty extensive changes to the code enabling moddability in a way that makes it easily accessible alone can be quite daunting. Your services are pretty vast, as you can see. Given enough time and effort, this may become one of the most zen games on the market and a classic - I mean, let's be honest, the game already kinda captures what is by and large the best thing about the Sims games (I mean besides dropping them in a pool with no ladder or walling in the pesky neighbor).

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gardening the ability to expand the house an actually working buyer AI mid- and long-term goals and a better sense of progression and, perhaps most importantly, moddability), yet is presented as a full release, I am scoring it based on what is there and what isn't, as any game the developers deem fit for a full release should. However, given that the game is lacking a lot of what I would deem essentials for this kind of game (a much greater selection of furniture, paint, tiles, etc. However, given that the game is lacking a lot of what I would deem essentials for this kind A good start - there is certainly potential here. A good start - there is certainly potential here.

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Webmap design sample

WEBMAP DESIGN SAMPLE SERIES

Jen Sincero has developed her own style for introducing herself. Now it is time to investigate the contemporary portfolio website. Thus, the decision to purchase there safe domestic products seems to be a lifetime choice. Scrolling to the bottom, you feel a more and more pleasant atmosphere and become imbued with respect to Earth. Speaking of design, we agree that this is the best solution for an environmentally friendly company. This is an e-commerce website, it allows online orders and payments. They propose using plant-based technologies for home and outdoor usage. The aim is to reduce the harmful impacts of ordinary cleaning products. They have chosen a friendly nice design, according to their business positioning. Droppsĭropp’s company website presents new ways to wash and clean the house. It contains a modest basic design with pastel calm colors. Modern networking website design is characterized by intuitive navigation options, different possibilities for registering an account (personal, company account). Search in one click by using the general search panel in the header. It is easy to find the required sections, using wide amounts of search options. Here businesspersons are allowed to list their companies, looking for investors, partners, colleagues. Crunch Base – modern website design exampleĬrunch Base as a website designed for networking. And bright illustrations make the user experience highly pleasurable. Quick navigation panels help to find the necessary information on the website in a single click. It attracts by brevity and simplicity along with open communication with a client. The company mostly works in the B2B segment, but the website is a perfect business card for their service and products. We are completely in love with their website. For now, they are a developed and well-known corporation working in technology areas of heat transfer, separation, and fluid handling. Alfa Laval – modern minimalist websiteĪlfa Laval was founded in 1883 in Sweden. The UX design is extremely user-friendly and quite trendy because of easy navigation in the header highlighting the main categories, clear and effective call to action, minimalistic, yet very creative design. This is a gift finder’s website, which is clear right from the first screen. giftscoach – trendy minimalist website example Also, notice the Soundcloud integration on the website, which is very useful for modern websites for musicians, record label studios, portfolios. Check whether this decision is suitable for your own business. It redirects you to a сoresponding domain if you click on a particular button. The webmaster decided to create sections of the website at subdomains. The feature of this website is in construction. It combines dark color palette with bright cartoon images, animated page icon, attracts attention to faces of the authors on About page. We believe the style reflects perfectly with the atmosphere inside the audio stories. Tell ‘em Steve-DaveĪ site devoted to audio podcasts of Kevin Smith. Because if you feel something about the advertisement, you probably notice and remember the product. This aggressive style tends to extract your emotions and exaggerate your feelings apart from the sneakers themselves. This example website can be taken only by two opposite views: you love it or you hate it. It used an ugly design, inspired by fashion at the dawn of website development.

WEBMAP DESIGN SAMPLE SERIES

Adidas Yung Series – modern website exampleĪdidas Yung Series website stands aside from the main trends. Cisco represents a great combination of products and informational resources. The home page of a website contains moving blocks with news from the blog, menu button which simplifies navigation and is overall pleasant for an eye. The website of this company represents an appeal for future development and interest in strong technologies. It is an experienced giant in the world of business. Сisco: modern website designĪmerican transnational company Cisco also deserves appearing in our top list. Nike website is a modern website combination of conciseness, conviction, and fashion. Yes, following the dinosaurs is a great way to learn and develop. Smaller companies trying to learn and adopt Nike’s business strategies and style in the desire to build something similar. For now, they are trendsetters not only in sportswear. Nike is a worldwide famous company, it passed a long time of developing itself. The first on our stage is a Nike website. Modern Website Design Examples Nike – a great example of the modern website Crunch Base – modern website design example.giftscoach – trendy minimalist website example.Adidas Yung Series – modern website example Nike – a great example of the modern website.