Avatar of Lemons

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6 mos ago
Current I've been on this stupid site for an entire decade now and it's been fantastic, thank you all so much
11 likes
2 yrs ago
Nine years seems a lot longer than it feels.
2 yrs ago
Ninety-nine bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles of bottles on the wall
4 likes
4 yrs ago
Biting Spider Writing
7 yrs ago
They will look for him from the white tower...but he will not return, from mountains or from sea...
2 likes

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Jackie blinked, and just like that, it seemed like time had briefly skipped for her. Not entirely atypical for her was the feeling of dissociation with time after a few days spent in an overcast world, and today was no exception. It had been happening steadily more often over the past few days, oftentimes progressing until she’d returned to her room, at which point she would shake off the lethargy and return to her cheerful self.

This time, though, it was prompted not by returning to her room, but by sudden, massive exposure to something similar to sunlight. She blinked rapidly and realized that the girl from before had emerged from the room, and somehow, she was glowing rather brightly. Jackie’s blank face jumped to an appreciative smile. While it wasn’t quite the sunlight and fire that she required to return to her full capacity, it was enough to snap her out of her malaise.

The girl seemed to know somehow that Jackie wasn’t all there. She didn’t know if there had been other exposures to other sun gods’ children, but as far as she knew, she was Sól’s only child. “Thanks,” she replied with as much feeling as she could muster, “should be enough to tide me over.” She belatedly realized that the world suddenly smelled like the outside. That might have even been better than the sunlight. The world had smelled uniformly like rain and grayness for the past week, and she’d almost forgotten the smell of trees. She inhaled deeply, and her smile grew more genuine, more natural.

She rammed her hand out with more energy than she knew she possessed, then decided to go for it and embraced the girl in a full-bodied surprise ambush hug. “Jacqueline Brake, but call me Jackie. Daughter of Sól. Nice to meet you!

@Hopeless Swan
@SaikaAnge I gotchu dawg. I'm just a bored internet-dweller.
Tori groaned loudly as she pulled herself, with great effort, up another set of hand-and footholds. The sound of voices was definitely coming from the top of the crag, she was sure of it. Her face was set in a deep snarl, and she paused, breathing so hard it was nearly hyperventilating.

Then, hands aching and quivering with stress, she continued her climb. If she had to guess, she'd say she'd come about sixty feet off of the ground, climbing hard. Her stomach ached, trying to digest itself, and her shoulders and biceps felt like they'd been dipped in hydrochloric acid. The pain was immense. Yet she pressed on, eyes glued to the edge of the plateau, maybe twenty, fifteen feet above and closing more every minute. With another groan that sounded more like a growl, she continued her ascent.

Ten feet.

Seven.

Five.

Each foot was an eternity, and when she finally tossed her arm over the edge and heaved herself up, she sprawled out, heedless of the rock that collided with her forehead. Her breaths were rapid and shallow, and if anything, the increased blood flow from the intense activity only made her wing hurt more. Her limbs felt like Jell-O, and she could barely keep her eyes open enough to notice that she'd been right; she wasn't alone.

She wasn't in a position to do anything about it, though. It would be minutes before she'd be able to do anything more than breathe, realizing that in the time it had taken for her to surmount the enormous stone, the sun had begun setting, painting the sky in a glorious array of fiery colors. She choked out a weak laugh at how appropriate that was.

Eventually, her breaths began to slow, and more oxygen began to flow through her, enabling her to turn her head. She did so, and locked eyes with a girl maybe her age, maybe a bit younger, with a long, unruly mane of red hair. Striving for something that suggested she wasn't basically about to die, Tori opened her mouth, letting lose with what was probably the least-fitting of all words, her wings—including the injured one—sprawling on the stone just like she was. The word was laced with deeply-buried pain that she tried desperately not to show:

"'Sup?"

@SaikaAnge
IC DETECTED

WRITING MODE ENGAGED
Sariya


The creaky, grungy hotel room's windows were covered. The curtains (which looked like they hadn't been cleaned since 2035) hung limply over the glass, blotting out any light or, more importantly, eyes from entering or leaving. It was on the third floor; high enough that it would be difficult to get to from the outside, low enough that it wouldn't be impossible to drop from. It was in what could charitably be called the "undercity" of Night City; a dim, labyrinthine network of alleys and narrow streets running haphazardly between the foundations of the skyscrapers. A city existing between the bones of another, out of any wealthy individual or corporation's lines of sight.

If one were to enter the door without being prepared, a wave of musty odors would assault them. Old food, cheap alcohol, and mold. The floorboards and stairs would creak as they ascended, and the door's hinges would squeal like pigs in pain. Then they would see a young woman, seated on a rickety desk, holding a small penlight in her mouth as she twisted at a wrench connecting to a scuffed-up black and silver cybernetic leg on the table. They might see one segment of her hip, where the thigh usually connected, covered in titanium, with a large data terminal post in the center. It was incongruous looking, robbed of its usual occupant. They may hear the strained grunts of the woman as she adjusted a particularly fiddly connection socket. They might see the expression on her face, an expression of concentration to the exclusion of all else, a tongue tip sticking comically out from between her pale lips.

None of this was visible to anybody, though, as Sariya had made very sure to keep her door locked exceedingly tightly, as she'd always been directed. Danger can come from anybody, anywhere. The seedy-looking doorman of the hotel might have been holding a gun underneath his unwashed uniform. One could never know. A small dossier labeled BIOTECHNICA lay on the desk before her. Even in this day and age, there was still sometimes—though rarely—information more sensitive than digitizing would allow. Any number of hackers and deckers could access something on a chip, no matter how well safeguarded. Occasionally, low-tech was the best tech.

The night wore on as she continued her maintenance. Soon, she would be called for whatever job her superiors had managed to land her at Biotechnica. Then, once that was over, she'd be able to go back home to Russia, at least for a few days.

She spared a glance at the window, almost wishing for a moment that the curtains were lifted and she could see outside. Then again, she thought, crushing that line of questioning and remembering what the street outside looked like, even with all of their natural resources, the Americans have still managed to ruin their cities.

Eventually, she finished the last of her leg's tuneup. Her face an impassive mask, she lifted the leg off of the table, positioning the hole in the top of the thigh against the jack on her pelvis. With a single deep breath, she "plugged" the cybernetic in. The breath came out fast and she tightened her teeth until she felt they might shatter like sugar glass. The electrical signals racing up and down her nerves shot off a million tiny pain signals, and she hugged the leg to her lightly-clothed chest, sweat streaks rapidly running down the tanktop as she gasped in breath after jagged breath for what seemed like hours.

When the pain finally abated, she let the newly-installed leg fall to the ground, staring at it in some form of detachment. Then, with a sigh still clinging to remnants of pain, she pivoted out of the chair and fell down into the ragged, poorly-made bed. Her foggy eyes shut, and she felt a slight sting behind them as the optic transmitter went quiet.

One more sighing breath, and she was asleep.



Sariya's awareness and paranoia were ratcheted all the way up.

Her eyes narrowed as she recalled the past hour of her life:



RRRRRRRRRRRING
RRRRRRRRRRRING
RRRRRRRRRRRING

Pale, foggy blue eyes snapped open in silence. With a quick, sharp movement, Sariya slid out of bed, contemplating the infernally loud telephone of her seedy hotel room for a few seconds with something that might have been irritation. She slid her hand left hand around the cool black object that might once have been glossy, lifting it up to her ear.

"Who is it," she asked tonelessly. She was answered with a garbled, staticky sound that barely resembled the voice it might have been. She wasn't sure if there was some sort of voice-altering software involved, or if the ancient, wired phone was just that bad.

"Arcturus?"

Her body suddenly tensed up and she began edging towards the window before the voice continued: "I thought so. You're probably just about to throw yourself out the window, aren't you? No, don't do that. I have some information that you might find...interesting. If you want to learn more, come to the large red building by the central dock within the next hour." The voice turned suddenly flippant, continuing on. "Or don't, it's really no skin off my back whether or not you come. It's all for your benefit, my dear. Bye now."

Before Sariya could respond, the line went dead. She stared at it for a moment before grasping the dossier that still lay on the desk and walking out of her room. The floorboards and stairs creaked under her considerable weight as she ghosted down two flights, sliding out of the lobby almost before she could be noticed. An impressive feat for a woman of six feet with nearly white hair made halfway of metal and carbon fiber.

With a thought, she lowered the visor of blue glass in front of her eyes. Central dock, she thought, and a dinging sound resonated through her inner ear. A blue line showed up, superimposed over her view of reality, and she began moving through the streets. She ran, taking to the tops of the low roofs when she could to avoid unwanted attention as her metal legs worked smoothly and powerfully, launching her into thirty-foot long jumps with ease.

After perhaps twenty minutes, she came to a large upward-slanting ramp. Nodding to herself, she peeled off of the roofs, making her way down into the sparse crowd. As she continued, this time at a more modulated pace, she heard a voice in her ear. It wasn't the voice of a superior, coming straight from her aural implants. No, this was an extension of her visor, a generic, emotionless female voice. "Uroven' modamerizol v'krovi neadekvaten. Nachinayetsya in'yektsiya." She continued without reacting. Now that she thought about it, it had been some time since she'd had an injection of modamerizol, the drug used by the Russians to combat cyberpsychosis. As she thought that, she felt a sting in her shoulder where her cybernetic arm joined tissue as a hypodermic needle unloaded its payload into her bloodstream.

By the time the sting faded, she had departed the undercity of Night City and had reached the relatively wealthy area. While it wasn't quite rich compared to the really affluent sections, it was certainly better than where she'd been staying. Perhaps if my superiors had seen fit to provide me with more money for this, I would've been able to stay here instead, she thought as close to acidly as she could come, passing an unremarkable, but pleasant enough, hotel.

A few minutes later, and she'd arrived at the dock. The waves slapped against the side of the concrete and steel structure, and the smell of salt was heavy in the air. Her nose twitched, and in the distance, she clearly made out a bright red warehouse, undoubtedly filled with shipping containers. Taking heavy breaths of the salty air, she began jogging towards it.



And that had brought her to where she was now; about to dart through the open door in the side of the building. She wasn't a fool; she knew that once inside, escaping something would be far more difficult. Yet...information was information, and she was confident in her abilities to evade anything that might pose a threat to her. Her eyes flicked to the corner of her visor, where an unobtrusive 4/4 was displayed next to a simplified depiction of a bullet. Nodding to herself, she entered the darkened warehouse, releasing a single phrase:

"I am Arcturus. What do you want with me?"




(For those interested, the Russian translates roughly to "blood levels of modamerizol inadequate. Injection beginning.)
<Snipped quote by Lemons>

I dislike it in general since I don't see the point of it most times. I always see dialogue being coloured when it's in a block of text, but if you just paragraphed stuff out like you're supposed to (new speaker=new paragraph etc.) then you wouldn't need to use colours.

But yeah, if you're going to use colour, please make sure it can be read without having to highlight the text.


I generally use it for thoughts and dialogue. It doesn't so much make it more legible as just make it a bit more presentable; makes it pop, you might say. I don't have a problem as long as you can actually read it.
Can I bitch about people using coloured text because 90% of the time that shit is completely unreadable.


Thank you. I hate it when people use dark colored text. Use the top row of the provided color pallete or something equivalent, or GTFO.
Hey guys! Just seeing if any of you guys are interested in coming back. Just waiting for a couple more people to bring this back to life. Hope you can join us again!
@Ayemdar, @PM, @ElfLordElphias, @LordofthePies, @Americore, @DeathXtheXTree, @jaybreezy, @User, @CloseEnough


PLZ BBEZ I RLY WANT THIS RP


(But I mean would it kill someone who's currently active to post as it would only draw more attention + I'm bored of waiting and a terribly impatient person)
@RedGentleman Down boy.
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