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One of the complicated things about Freedom Through Technology was that it occasionally involved removing the general public's ability to use a potential technology. Cid had made the slogan a long time ago, wary of the word 'peace' given how often the Empire itself used it as a euphemism for subjugation.

The ruins of Dalamud were an excellent example of this. Only a handful of people knew that below the wastes of Carteneau and the massive shards of Dalamud's outer shell lay one of the most impressive achievements of Allaghan technology since the Crystal Tower. The creatures within lay at peace, the horrors of the self-perpetuating primal summoning finally put to rest, but the mechanisms which put it into place still existed. Even if they'd wanted to, destroying them utterly would take out a large chunk of Eorzea in the process. The better solution was to cordon them off from the public, lock down information tightly, and then, very very carefully, research them.

Carefully.

"Consider this your nameday present," said Cid, as they stood on the airship railing waiting for the sentries to finish reviewing their transport paperwork granting them official access to the Carteneau Flats. The faint haze of ozone scent still hung over the place, and the dry wind felt harsh over his skin. "And by the Twelve, don't just run off after the first shiny thing you see, all right?" He knew how Nero got around Allaghan technology, even tiny fragments of it.

eightlazylegs

For Eithyrs related threading.

specialguestvillains

Jigen's right arm ached, and that meant the weather was about to go sour.

Granted, it always ached, but it was aching in a very specific way right now, and also it was January in Paris so the weather was going to get fucked eventually. Everyone gave charitably around Christmas, but as soon as it flipped around to January 2 all that goodwill towards men dried up and the weather was even colder than before.

Jigen took up his usual position near the cafe and watched the patrons stroll by, eying them up to see who looked like a big spender. Men with dates sometimes liked to impress their girls, as did bachelorette parties. People on the way back from soccer matches were charitable, but only if their team won, and if they hadn't they had the risk of being mean drunks. Sometimes they'd be mean drunks anyway.

Okay, guy in a blue blazer, looked like a tourist from the back.

"Hey, buddy. Spare some change?" he mumbled, the phrase coming more naturally than most of his French. He said it enough these days for it to be nearly rote. The man turned and Jigen found himself unable to look the man in the face. Something about his pose said horror, maybe even disgust. He didn't have the energy to deal with that bullshit today.

"Don't worry about it," he said before the tourist could even speak, and turned around to trod off again. The battered hat he'd been using as a money bucket went back on his head. Behind him, he heard the man slowly back away. By the time Jigen looked at him again, the man in blue had run off into the crowd.

aceinthehood

Jack Napier wasn't enough of a household name around the hero community that most people would know him on sight. If they did it was because chalk white skin and a grin that ran so far back that it passed his ears made him a hard sight to miss. His Quirk, "Unhinged", was nothing of note - you couldn't make a hero career out of being able to open your jaw and swallow things whole like a snake, though it did make mealtimes efficient.

Jack did have a novel hobby, though, and that hobby was vigilantism. Studying vigilantism, that is. Not practicing illegal public Quirk use for social or ideological gain. Obviously. Jack researched and cataloged the phenomenon the way some people researched appearances of rare birds, from the nationalistic Freedom Ring to the well-loved Rogues of Central City. He was no academic, but in his own way he was still an expert.

Yamada had met him at a conference in New York a few years earlier. (Allegedly.) His pitch to Nezu was that their current enemies were allied around an ideology directly relating to heroism, not personal profit, and that meant security needed a new perspective. Plus, with Stain in the news the kids probably needed a little extra study on dealing with vigilantes, so they could claim him as a guest lecturer and get double the benefit out of him. Jack's Japanese was shaky but competent enough to address a class with, especially with Yamada providing support.

And Jack had neither the cash nor the inclination to turn down a free trip to Japan, no matter how busy his "hobby" was keeping him.

welcomequeenalice

(From here:)

She needs to get out of here, or she needs to get a costume. In Gotham she's got her costume and can go on an anti-monster rampage but she's got civilians here and also no backup. They likely don't even know she's gone. Which itself is terrifying.

Circling around the station brings them to a chain link fence surrounding what looks like a parking lot. There's a rusty lock on the gate, but she can see the door on the inside hanging slightly open.

"Wait here." Genevieve tucks the rebar into her bag and starts scaling the fence, tiny feet tucking between the links. Her teeth are gritted against the way the metal scrapes against her fingers.

welcomequeenalice

Superheroing was great for the soul but didn't pay the bills. Genevieve subsidized her hobby and her rent payments through working the late shift at a coffee shop. Her coworkers were a relatively ordinary mix--some went out of their way to be kind and chatty, some had a chip on their shoulder, most regarded her with an apathy that was often a relief when she needed to be alone with her thoughts and the blender. The need to focus on each coffee-related task and complete it with practiced motions was soothing and kept her from wobbling in indecision. Some days were easier than others. Some days stress threatened to eat her alive.

The Queen helped with that, but you couldn't bring the Queen to work with you...and of course there was the problem of Jervis.

Genevieve heard the voice of a coffee order as she wiped down the spout of the latte machine. She turned and saw no one, and went back to work. Late night, must be hearing things. She was short, for any gender, and occasionally had to get up on a step stool to reach the spare beans and milk stored in the hidden cabinets behind the menu boards. Seeing particularly small people over the height of the counter was even more troublesome.

tasteoftruth

Some people went to college and found religion. Some found love, or a life's calling, or recreational drugs.

Byrne Faraday found the Resol'nare. It was attractive enough to someone already dissatisfied with his current society and interested in a tight-knit group with true meaning in their lives that didn't come from a broken set of codes and social mores. Also their armor was pretty sweet.

He went through his training at the same time as his generalized colloquium courses, wondering to his Mandaloran mentor if he could get double credit for having to balance schoolwork with getting punched a lot in the face. No dice, but history had never been his favorite subject anyway.

The implants did unnerve him a little. No being alone in his head, that seemed all right, he was extroverted even for a human. But if they dug in a bit further, stuck a wire in just the wrong place...well, the mando'ade's latest recruit might have a bit of a drooling problem.

braintease

Not a team player.

Spending too much time on conspiracy theories and pointless cold cases.

You're smart, but you're just not a good fit.

We've had to make budget cuts.

I'm sorry, Nygma.

Former Detective Edward E. Nygma, most recently Mr. Edward "Fuck Everyone In This Building" Nygma, grabbed a cardboard box of police files from his coworker's desk and upended it onto the floor.

"Hey! I needed those!"

"As if you were going to read them." He slammed the box down onto his own desk and began throwing the contents of the drawers into it. The Rubix cube he'd solve and unsolve to relieve stress, the handwritten letter from a mother whose child he'd rescued, a box of crackers he'd finished last week and kept procrastinating on throwing out.

"You're too good for this place, Eddie." His erstwhile partner sat on Eddie's desk, watching Eddie push his life's work into a battered cube labeled "IMPORTANT" in red marker.

"And you're still here, Flass. What does that make you?"

"Means I know how to play ball," Flass said, shrugging, putting on that jaded expression he used whenever Nygma's flailings were no match for the dirty cops with their dirtier commissioner. Yeah, Flass was corrupt too. But at least he had the decency to feel guilty about it, which put him one up on the rest of the force. Eddie crumpled up a commendation letter and threw it backwards over his shoulder.

"What are you going to do from here?"

"Either get drunk or step out in front of a car."

Eddie walked through the station to stares and mumbles, refusing to look any of them in the face. Bastards the lot of them, men and women, worse threats to justice than the muggers and the drug dealers. At least most of the muggers weren't in the Owl's pocket, and were more willing to admit that he existed in the first place. He exited the building, turned right, turned right again into the alley, walked down the narrow brick corridor, and dropped the entire box into the dumpster.

Drunk first, at least. It was less messy. And if he wasn't a cop anymore he might as well go where the booze was finest, even if the place itself wasn't. Twenty minutes later he was sitting in the Iceberg Lounge, staring down a whiskey glass as if it were his only friend in the world.

(Right now? It was.)

pridegoeth

Continued from here (Alternate Link)...

"...You know, I could probably adapt the smaller actuators for surgical work, or build a new set geared towards that..." Only one thing could distract Dr. Octavius from catching up on eating, and that's thoughts of a new science project. His new co-worker has brought inspiration, and even though they're in the cafeteria now, it's clear the Doctor's mind is still back in the lab.

There is, among the cafeteria workers at the far end of the room, a subtle ripple of gossip from someone else who's just come in. Dr. Octavius is oblivious, lost in thoughts of designing new arms, but something's up. Nobody seems to see any reason to share that with the scientists, however, until the warning klaxon starts abruptly, loud enough to break through any train of thought.

tasteoftruth

( Read more... )

thebakerwedeserved

As usual, my day began with shooing my "fanclub" off my front porch. I don't even know why they keeping coming around; it's not like I haven't made my feelings about them perfectly clear.

"Get the hell off my porch!" I shout, poking my head out the window of my recharging room. One of them starts shouting something up at me, but I don't have time to listen. Somebody has to open the cake shop up for business, and today, that somebody is me. Which is why I cut the lecture short by dumping a bucket of water over my "admirer's" head.

"Stow it!" I shout down at him. "I'm sick of you guys coming around and telling me I'm wasting my potential! It's my potential to waste, not yours! Now get out of here before I call the damn cops!"

chasingtherabbit

She was at the club a week later, as promised. Platinum blonde, blue eyed, hot as hell in fishnets. She made a promise, and she kept it. Cypher didn't, and that stung a little -- but shit happened. Ozzie said it had nothing to do with her charms and everything to do with his dangerous work. Tensions were high, so she didn't ask. She just did her job, went to school.

Ozzie, on the other hand, reached out a kind hand; she asked about you, she's interested, it wouldn't hurt to have something in your life that isn't a fat old man, no don't say another word, take her out.

And between all this? Rumors are starting to fly of a woman with legs up to here and a rabbit motif appearing on the scene. A mad as a March Hare. But Genny and Waylon don't know a damned thing about this new interloper, and Ellis is intrigued but too busy enjoying his newfound domestic bliss with Jackie and playing at being CEO on the side. They'll figure out the newb later. See if they're trouble or worth recruiting.

adeckfullofcards

Running away to a circus just wasn't really an option any more. Cirque De Soliel and all those Vegas-style shows certainly weren't made for amateurs. However, there were other, less glamorous options.

Le’Rogue Revue was one of them.

It was fashioned after the old shows of vaudeville, with a kicker: it was mostly about burlesque. Attractive men, women, and well, just about whatever else there was in this big old world was welcome to display themselves and their talents to the world. Any act would do, so long as it kept with the overall theme: sensual entertainment.

That didn't mean, of course, one had to do anything off the wall. Bianca didn’t like a gaudy display, and since she was the owner, she called the shots. Really it was more about fun than anything else. The performers were happy people, a collection of outcasts and people who preferred to be strangers in strange lands (or counties, at least).

The set up was usually a small, dive sort of place, decorated to the nines once the group made its way in there, replacing any curtain their own sumptuous red velvet. They always brought a little bit of class to a place, even if it wasn't the classiest place (which is never was).

Currently there were a handful of performers, including: one woman who did a tantalizing strip tease while swinging from rope to silken rope, a wall of man who could flex and cause a crowd of women to swoon, and a rather petite (more than petite) a child-like woman who could sing and dance and tell a joke from here to hell.

At the moment, the three mentioned were getting ready back stage, three other acts had already gone on. Only last week they'd lost their mermaid, well, she'd considered herself a mermaid anyway, Andrea, who decided she wanted to stop traveling and get married. The show lost not only a show stopping act, but also a crew chief that had been working with them for years. The crew chief was easier to replace than a mermaid, who had also left behind a 5,000 gallon tank that traveled with them, but that no one else could use. Andrea's departure had left a hole in the group, but there had been rumors that Bianca had hired some unusual fare to replace Andrea.

“Do you think it’s another mermaid?” Paul, the strong man said, as he admired his well oiled physique.

“Maybe, I mean, who else is gonna use that thing? She’s gotta hire someone to use it. That or she’ll sell it and try to make up the difference in some new act.” Tina, the rope dancer shrugged as she finished applying her lipstick.

A brassy voice sounded from behind a lacy black privacy screen. “It was silly to spend all that money on that thing anyway, if you ask me. Could have gotten her a kiddie pool for cheaper and let her flip her tail around in that, least then we wouldn’t be stuck with the thing.” The other two gave a slight laugh and finished getting ready. Tina was the next act up and so she was out the door with a wave her costume, a mix of colored silk scarves, flowing behind her as she left leaving the dressing room to the last two.